



Produced by Al Haines










[Frontispiece: "So you're not dead after all, my hearty."  _Page 37_]




[Illustration: Title page]




THE WRECKERS

OF

SABLE ISLAND



BY

J. MACDONALD OXLEY


_Author of "Up Among the Ice-Floes," "Diamond Rock," &c._




T. NELSON AND SONS

_London, Edinburgh, and New York_

1897




CONTENTS.


    I.  THE SETTING FORTH
   II.  IN ROUGH WEATHER
  III.  THE WRECK
   IV.  ALONE AMONG STRANGERS
    V.  ERIC LOOKS ABOUT HIM
   VI.  BEN HARDEN
  VII.  A SABLE ISLAND WINTER
 VIII.  ANXIOUS TIMES
   IX.  FAREWELL TO SABLE ISLAND
    X.  RELEASE AND RETRIBUTION




THE WRECKERS OF SABLE ISLAND.


CHAPTER I.

THE SETTING FORTH.

A voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in the year 1799 was not the
every-day affair that it has come to be at the present time.  There
were no "ocean greyhounds" then.  The passage was a long and trying one
in the clumsy craft of those days, and people looked upon it as a more
serious affair than they now do on a tour round the world.

In the year 1799 few people thought of travelling for mere pleasure.
North, south, east, and west, the men went on missions of discovery, of
conquest, or of commerce; but the women and children abode at home,
save, of course, when they ventured out to seek new homes in that new
world which was drawing so many to its shores.

It