“There was once a noted old wrecker, named Kinsman: he lived in my father’s time; and when no wreck was onward he would get his wages by raising stone in a quarry by the seashore. Well, he was to work one day over yonder, half-way down the Tower-cliff, when all at once he saw two old ravens flying round and round very near his head. They dropped down into the quarry two pieces of wreck-candle just at the old man’s feet.” (Very often wreckers pick up Neapolitan wax candles from vessels in the Mediterranean trade that have been lost in the Channel.) “So when Kinsman saw the candles, he thought in his mind, ‘There is surely wreck coming in upon the beach’; so he packed his tools together, and left them just where he stood, and went his way wrecking. He could find no jetsam, however, though he searched far and wide. Next day he went back to quarry to his work. And he used to say it was as true as a proverb—there the tools were all buried deep out of sight, for the crag had given way; and if he had tarried an hour longer he must have been crushed to death. So you see, sir, what knowledge those ravens must have had; how well they knew the old man, and how dearly fond he was of wreck; how crafty they were to hit upon the only plan that would ever have slocked him away.” Wrecks are terribly frequent on this coast. Not a winter passes without several. There are men living who can remember eighty. If wrecking is no longer practised, the wrecking spirit can hardly be said to be extinct, as the following facts will testify:— In 1845 a ship came ashore in Melhuach Bay, between Boscastle and Bude. The surge burst against the cliffs, and it was impossible to launch a lifeboat; but a rocket was fired over the vessel, and so successfully that the hawser was secured to the ship. Every life would, in all probability, have been saved, had not some wretches cut through the rope, more greedy for prey than careful to save life. Of all the crew the only person saved was the captain. He confirmed the opinion of the coast-guard, that, but for the cutting through of the hawser, every one on board would have been rescued. In 1864 a large ship was seen in distress off the coast. The Rev. A. Thynne, rector of Kilkhampton, at once drove to Morwenstow. The vessel was riding at anchor a mile off shore, west of Hartland Race. He found Mr. Hawker in the greatest excitement, pacing his room, and shouting for some things he wanted to put in his greatcoat-pockets, and irritably impatient because his carriage was not round. With him was the Rev. W. Valentine, rector of Whixley in Yorkshire, then resident at Chapel, in the parish of Morwenstow. “What are you going to do?” asked the rector of Kilkhampton: “I intend to drive at once to Bude for the lifeboat.”