"An ugly looking night this, Mr. ---- as I have seen for many a-day," remarked Harry Covering, one of the oldest of the group of sailors, and a crony of mine. "Sink the Customs! if yon ship weathers Torhead this night, may I never pull an oar again." "It is, indeed, a fearful-looking night, messmate, and no time ought to be lost in the present state of the tide in putting off to her--for if the wind holds in this part, it is great odds indeed, that she does not go upon the Needles." The breeze was freshening every moment; indeed the situation of the strange ship must soon become imminently dangerous. The crew seemed at last to have awakened from their lethargy, and were apparently making every effort to enable her to gain an offing and weather Torhead, before the combined force of wind and flood should render that impracticable. It was a moment of deep interest. I am not acquainted with any event, notwithstanding the frequency of its recurrence, that appeals more directly to our sympathies, than a shipwreck. The mighty power of the ocean is thus brought before us in its most striking sense, and the general scene of disaster it occasions is almost always varied with instances of individual sympathy for some of the wrecked. We were now joined by the resident officer of the coast-blockade, and a party of men were dispatched to pull off to the ship in distress, while the rest of us hurried towards the Torhead, accompanied in our rear, (for the news had reached the village) by a turn-out of most of its inhabitants, influenced both by the passion of curiosity and that of expected plunder. Many of the older class looked upon wrecking as legitimate a trade as fishing for herrings or pilchards; while perhaps nearly all from the force of habit and long-practised example, regarded a wreck as a booty sent them by the elements; the scattered contents of which it was no more crime to take than it would be to pick up any other thing cast by accident on the beach.