strong men and fearless, for they who make their living on the face of
its waters surely inherit a share greater than is their due of toil and
danger; they, verily, more than others "see the works of the Lord, and
His wonders in the deep." From earliest times when men first sailed the
seas this coast has taken heavy toll of ships and of human lives, and in
the race that it has bred, necessarily there has been little room for
weaklings; their men are even to this day of the type of the old
Vikings--from whom perhaps they descend--fair-bearded and strong,
blue-eyed and open of countenance. And their women--well, there are many
who might worthily stand alongside their countrywoman, Grace Darling,
many who at a pinch would do what she did, and "blush to find it fame."

Yet one must admit that, as a whole, this community was not always keen
to save ship and crew from the breakers, nor prone to warn vessels off
from dangerous reef or sunken rock. In days long gone by, if all tales
are true, the people of these coasts had no good reputation among
sailors, and their habits and customs were wont to give rise to much
friction and ill-will betwixt England and Scotland. It is certain that
in 1472 they plundered the great foreign-going barge built by Bishop
Kennedy of St. Andrews--the greatest ship ever seen in those days--when
she drove ashore one stormy night off Bamborough. And of her passengers,
one, the Abbot of St. Colomb, was long held to ransom by James Carr, a
deed the consequences of which, in those days of an all-powerful Church,
might be dreadful to contemplate. Pitscottie says the "Bishop's Barge"
cost her owner something like £10,000 sterling. Perhaps the harvest
reaped by Bamborough when she came ashore may have encouraged
Northumbrians to adopt this line of business in earnest, for by 1559 we
read that "wreckers" were common down all that coast; and their prayer:
"Let us pray for a good harvest this winter," contained no allusion to
the fruits of the field.