New Romney, Peggotty can tot off a number
of wrecks, now to be seen at low water, which with others, the names
whereof he "can't just remember," bring the total past a score.

The first he sees on this side of the lighthouse is the _Mary_, a bit
of black hull that has been lying there for more than twenty years.
She was "bound somewheres in France," and running round the Ness,
looking for shelter in the bay, stuck fast in the sand, "and broke
up in less than no time." She was loaded with linseed and
millstones, which I suspect, from a slight tinge of sadness in
Peggotty's voice as he mentioned the circumstance, is not for people
living on the coast the best cargo which ships that _will_ go down in
the bay might be loaded with. Indeed, I may remark that though
Peggotty, struggling with the recollections of nearly fifty years,
frequently fails to remember the name of the ship whose wreck shows
up through the sand, the nature of her cargo comes back to him with
singular freshness.

Near the _Mary_ is another French ship, which had been brought to
anchor there in order that the captain might run ashore and visit
the ship's agent at Lydd. Whilst he was ashore a gale of wind came
on "easterdly"; ship drifted down on Ness Point, and knocked right
up on the shore, the crew scrambling out on to dry land as she went
to pieces. Another bit of wreck over there is all that is left of the
_Westbourne_, of Chichester, coal-laden. She was running for Ness Point
at night, and, getting too far in, struck where she lay, and all the
crew save one were drowned. Nearer is the _Branch_, also a coal-loaded
brig, a circumstance which suggests to Peggotty the parenthetical
remark that "at times there is a good deal of coal about the shingle."
A little more to the east is "the Rooshian wessel _Nicholas I._," in
which Peggotty has a special interest so strong that he forgets to
mention what her cargo was. It is forty-six years since _Nicholas I._
came to grief; and no other help being near, the whole of the crew
were saved through the instrumentality of Peggotty's dog. It was
broad daylight, with a sea running no boat could live in. The
"Rooshian" was rapidly breaking up, and the crew were shrieking in
an unknown tongue, the little group on shore well knowing that the
unfamiliar sound was a cry for help. Peggotty's Newfoundland dog was
there, barking with mad delight at the huge waves that came tumbling
on the shore, when it occurred to Peggotty