“This here,” Bill explained, “is Jolly Harbour; an’ the folk o’ Jolly Harbour isn’t got no reputations t’ speak of.”
This was hardly enlightening.
“What I means,” Skipper Bill went on, “is that the Jolly Harbour folk is called wreckers. They’s been a good deal o’ talk about wreckers on this coast; an’ they’s more lies than truth in it. But Jolly Harbour,” he added, “is Jolly Harbour; an’ the folk will sure come swarmin’ in punts and skiffs an’ rodneys when they hear they’s a vessel gone ashore.”
“Sure, they’ll give us help,” said Billy Topsail.
“Help!” Skipper Bill scornfully exclaimed. “’Tis little help they’ll give us. Why, b’y, when they’ve got her cargo, they’ll chop off her standing rigging and draw the nails from her deck planks.”
“’Tis a mean, sinful thing to do!” cried Billy.
“They live up to their lights, b’y,” the skipper said. “They’re an honest, good-hearted, God-fearin’ folk on this coast in the main; but they believe that what the sea casts up belongs to men who can get it, and neither judge nor preacher 270 can teach them any better. Here lies the Spot Cash, stranded, with a wonderful list t’ starboard. They’ll think it no sin to wreck her. I know them well. ’Twill be hard to keep them off once they see that she’s high and dry.”
Archie began to stamp the deck again.
When the dawn broke it disclosed the situation of the schooner. She was aground on a submerged rock, some distance offshore, in a wide harbour. It was a wild, isolated spot, with spruce-clad hills, which here and there showed their rocky ribs rising from the edge of the water. There was a cluster of cottages in a ravine at the head of the harbour; but there was no other sign of habitation.