“But that was a memorable day for the industrious.  My villagers were early astir.  Their muddy shore was strewed with fragments of the wreck; and when the tide went down, and the gale moderated, half imbedded in the Jibber Sand was found ‘goodly spoil.’  Packages of costly shawls, hampers of Dutch liqueurs, bales of linen, several kegs of brandy, and two small canvas-bags containing bullion, were a few of the ‘waifs and strays’ which keen eyes speedily detected, and stalwart arms as speedily appropriated.

“Later on in the afternoon a very bustling personage made his appearance, much blown and overheated, who announced himself as ’acting under authority from Lloyd’s,’ and ‘representing the under-writers.’  At his heels, uttering volleys of threats, and menacing every soul he met with hideous ‘penalties according to act of parliament,’ followed a very lady-like young gentleman, with a thin reedy voice, and light down upon his chin, ‘charged with protecting the public revenue.’  Well for him in a dark night if he could protect himself!

“Worthy souls!  They might as well have spared their well-fed nags, and have remained at home snugly housed in their chimney-corner. ’’Tis the early bird that gets the worm.’  They had missed it by hours.  The spoil was housed.  It was buried in cottage gardens, and cabbages planted over it.  It was secreted among the thatch, where even the best trained bird-nesting urchin would have missed it.  It was stored away under more than one hollow hearth-stone, on which a cheerful wood-fire was crackling and blazing.  When were the ‘womenkind’ in a wrecker’s village at a loss for expedients?

“But a discovery was made that afternoon, which, for the moment, made the boisterous gentleman from Lloyd’s falter in his denunciations, and hushed the menaces of the indignant and well-dressed personage who protected the revenue, and saddened the few hearts amongst us not entirely devoid of feeling.

“On a little knoll—­called in memory of an unfortunate suicide, ’The Mad Maiden’s Knoll,’—­was found the body of a lady, youthful and fair, and by her side that of a little infant, a few weeks old.  The babe, carefully swathed in countless warm wrappers, was lying in a rude cradle of wicker-work; this was firmly fastened to the lady’s waist, who, on her part, had been securely lashed to a spar.  ’Twas a piteous sight!  But one’s sympathies were called into still more painful exercise when it was found that the unfortunate lady’s corpse had been rifled by some unprincipled marauder; that both ears had been torn, and two of her fingers had been crushed and broken in the attempt to plunder them of the rings with which they had been laden.  Nor was this all.  Every part of her dress had been carefully examined.  Her stays had been ripped open, and a packet, assumed to be of value, had apparently been taken thence.  What strengthened this surmise was the fact that a fragment of a purple morocco note-case still adhered