"Save a stranger from the sea,
And he'll turn your enemy."
In our time, at any rate, no shipwrecked sailor would meet with anything but kindness at the hands of Englishmen. The real race of wreckers has died out—that is to say, the cold-blooded wretches who would lure a ship ashore, and then murder the crew by way of precaution before proceeding to plunder the cargo. But the spirit of plunder at least is not dead. Coastguardsmen and agents of insurance companies know only too well how cleverly the Cornish fishermen even of to-day, though ready to lend willing hands in salving, and though fairly well paid for it too, contrive to appropriate stray things that take their fancy. It is not long since a large ship went ashore at the Lizard, and finally ground herself to pieces on the rocks. The closest watch was kept by the agents and preventive men, but next spring a perfect epidemic of musical instruments broke out in every village in the district, proving audibly enough that the light-fingered wreckers had been at their tricks all the time. How it is done the rambler in the West Country, who can use his eyes and ears, will soon discover; will agree too, with the remark made the other day in a Western village, that people who talked of wrecking as a thing of the past knew very little about it.
"You see, sir," said a weather-beaten fisherman, "a great deal drifts out of a wreck, and although there are salvage men always on the watch, there's many a cask and bale that's picked up by our boats. One man with a long pair of tongs and another with a water-telescope can make a good thing of it between them. There was an Italian steamer, now, that went ashore at Mullion. She was full of fruit and wine and all sorts of things—enough for everybody. There was great cases of champagne lying about, and the word went round among our men that it was 'real' pain, with no 'sham' to it, for when we did knock the tops of the bottles off, the wine all went out at one spurt, and we couldn't get a drop. But at last we got corkscrews, and then we was happy. Well, I had a cask of sherry wine out of her," he went on, "and I got it safe in by the back way, and you see I've a coastguardsman living on each side of me. But, law bless you, sir! they be just the same as we…. Oh, yes, sir, everything is supposed to be given up, but everything isn't, not by a good way. And when we risk our lives to save the cargo, who has a better right to a share of it than we?"
He was near the Mosel, he said, when she ran full speed upon the rocks, and the sound of it was like a thousand tons of cliff falling into the sea, and such shrieks as never were heard…. Might he have stopped her? Well, perhaps he might. But a mate of his who put out at the risk of his life, and warned a big liner that was too close in shore—she was backed off and saved—never got so much as a word of thanks, let alone any reward, for saving her. "Another man," he went on, "warned a steamer from his boat, and, as I'm a living man, they tried to swamp him for fear the captain should be blamed for his bad sailing. No, sir, we'll never do nothing to risk life, but if we can't get fair pay for saving a ship, we'll get fair share by helping ourselves." … Might anything be kept that was picked up? Oh yes, pieces of timber below a certain length. He was pressed further as to how the particular length was settled. "Well," he said slowly, "we do keep a saw in our boat."
