and there are three big ledges across it. A ship that has lost her
bearings a little, or is driving in through thick weather, easily
comes to grief. But there is not often a loss of life, only the
ship goes to pieces. And we save the pieces."

It was true. There was a terrace west of the house, with a balustrade
made of the taffrail of a wrecked brigantine. The gateway to the
garden was the door of an old wheel-house. There was a pergola
constructed from the timbers of a four-masted schooner that had
broken up on the third ledge. The bow of the sloop _Christabel,_
with the name still painted on it, was just outside the garden-gate.
Everywhere you saw old anchor-bits, and rudder-posts, and knees,
all silver-greyed by the weather, and fitted in to the _decor_
of the place.

The prettiest thing of all was a crow's-nest from a wrecked
brigantine, perched on the highest point of the hill, and looking
out over the marvellous panorama of sea and shore, island and
mountain. Here we sat, after a hearty luncheon with Alice and her
three boys and half-a-dozen others who were with them in a kind
of summer camp-school; and while we smoked our pipes, Will Hermann
told this story.

"You see, Alice and I have a mania for things that have been
salvaged. We don't like the idea of the wrecks, of course. But they
would happen any way, whether we were here or not. And since that
is so, we like to live here on the point and help save what we
can. Sometimes we get a chance to do something for the crews of
the little ships that come ashore--hot supper and dry clothes and
so forth. But the most interesting salvage case that we ever had