tide was making flood, and the crawling surf spent
itself in long shelving reaches of foam. These so
packed the sand that the wheels of the gig hardly
made an impression upon it. Along this smooth
surface the mare trotted briskly, her nimble feet wet
with the farthest reaches of the incoming wash.

As he approached the old House of Refuge, black
in the moonlight and looking twice its size in the
stretch of the endless beach, he noticed for the hundredth
time how like a crouching woman it appeared,
with its hipped roof hunched up like a shoulder close
propped against the dune and its overhanging eaves
but a draped hood shading its thoughtful brow; an
illusion which vanished when its square form, with
its wide door and long platform pointing to the sea,
came into view.

More than once in its brief history the doctor had
seen the volunteer crew, aroused from their cabins
along the shore by the boom of a gun from some
stranded vessel, throw wide its door and with a wild
cheer whirl the life-boat housed beneath its roof into
the boiling surf, and many a time had he helped to
bring back to life the benumbed bodies drawn from
the merciless sea by their strong arms.

There were other houses like it up and down the
coast. Some had remained unused for years, desolate
and forlorn, no unhappy ship having foundered