... the winter sun fell below the clouds and cast a red fire on the distant sea. The sands and the surf took on a purple tinge. Dark objects stood in the great level stretch before them. A wooden ship had been wrecked there years before, and only its ribs remained in a pool. It had been there ever since Mary could remember; the Wildernesse children called it the Dutchman's Wreck. Seaweed hung on the timbers, and gave them fantastic forms, which shook in the wind, like shapeless gestures of elemental wood-spirits. Mary touched one; she felt sorry for the timbers of Dutchman's Wreck.