"Well, the coast itself is mean enough, for shoals and surf; and then there were the wreckers."
"Oh! I understand," said Ford. "Not the Government men."
"No, the old sort. It was a bad enough piece of luck to be driven in on that bar, or another like it; but the wreckers made it as much worse as they knew how to."
They were all listening now, even his sisters; and Dabney launched out into a somewhat highly-colored description of the terrors of the Long-Island "south shore," in old times and new, and of the character and deeds of the men who were formerly the first to find out if any thing or anybody had been driven ashore.
"What a prize to them that French steamer would have been!" said Annie; "the one you and Ford took Frank from."
"No, she wouldn't. Why, she wasn't wrecked at all. She only stuck her nose in the sand, and lay still till the tugs came and pulled her off. That isn't a wreck. A wreck is where the ship is knocked to pieces, and people are drowned, and all that sort of thing. The crew can't help themselves, after that. Then, you see, the wreckers have a notion that every thing that comes ashore belongs to them. Why, I've heard some of our old fishermen—best kind of men too—talk of how Government has robbed them of their rights."
"By the new system?" said Annie.
"Well, first by having wrecks prevented, and then by having all property kept for the owners."
"Isn't that strange! Did you say they were good men?"
"Some of 'em. Honest as the day is long about every thing else. But they weren't all so. There was old Peter, now, and he lives on the island yet. There's his cabin. You can just see it sticking out of the edge of that big sand-hill."