“Do you mean that there used to be real wreckers there?” asked Bee eagerly.
“Real as anything! There was a sort of family of them named—what was the name, Auntie?”
“Well, folks used to call them Verny,” replied Aunt Mercy, who had settled herself with her crochet, “but I believe the real name was Verginaud.”
“That was the name, Verny,” said Jack. “There were three of them, old man Verny and two sons. They used to carry a lantern along the shore of the island and the sailors would think it was a boat’s light and go plump into The Tombstones or on the beach. Then the Vernys would flock down and get the pickings. Sometimes they’d go over here on Toller’s Beach—Toller’s Sands it was called then—and decoy ships onto Toller’s Rock or The Clinker. That’s The Clinker, that little rock just off the point. So, you see, they got them coming and going.”
“Gee, that sounds like the real thing!” exclaimed Hal. “What did they do with the stuff they got from the ships?”
“I don’t know; sold it, maybe; kept it, more likely. I guess they didn’t get very big hauls for the ships were mostly coasting schooners or fishermen. They didn’t have to do any work, anyhow, although father said they planted corn and potatoes over here at the back of the island.”
“What became of them?” asked Bee.
“Well, about forty years ago things got so bad that the sheriff took a posse over there and cleaned them out; arrested old Verny and one son; shot him when he tried to get away so that he died afterwards; and burned their cabin down. That was the last of them around here.”
“And what about the buried treasure?” asked Bee eagerly.
Jack shrugged his shoulders. “Well, there’s always been a belief that Big Verny, as he was called, when he saw the posse coming buried a chest of money and other valuables. I don’t know how much truth there is in it. Father used to say it was so, though.”