Once there was a goodly hammer cemented by the head fast upright
on a flat rock, and again the stand of a grindstone, and a trestle, high
and elaborately stayed. Cases, invariably and disappointingly empty, come
and go, planks of strange timber, blocks from some tall ship. A huge
black beacon waddled along, dragging a reluctant mass of iron at the end
of its chain cable, followed by a roughly-built "flatty" and a huge log
of silkwood. A jolly red buoy, weary of the formality of bowing to the
swell, broke loose from a sandbank's apron-strings, bounced off in the
ecstasies of liberty, romped in the surf, rolled on the beach, worked a
cosy bed in the soft warm sand, and has slumbered ever since to the
soothing hum of the wind, indifferent to the perplexities of mariners and
the fate of ships. The gilded masthead truck of a smart yacht, with one
of her cabin racks, bespoke of recent disaster, unknown and unaccounted,
and a brand new oar, finished and fitted with the nattiness of a
man-o'-war's man, told of some wave-swept deck.
That which at the time was the most eloquent message from the sea came
close to our door, cast up on the snowy-white coral drift of a little
cove, where it immediately attracted notice.
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