These so packed the sand that the wheels of the gig hardly made an impression upon it.

Along this smooth surface the mare trotted briskly, her nimble feet wet with the farthest reaches of the incoming wash.
As he approached the old House of Refuge, black in the moonlight and looking twice its size in the stretch of the endless beach, he noticed for the hundredth time how like a crouching woman it appeared, with its hipped roof hunched up like a shoulder close propped against the dune and its overhanging eaves but a draped hood shading its thoughtful brow; an illusion which vanished when its square form, with its wide door and long platform pointing to the sea, came into view.
More than once in its brief history the doctor had seen the volunteer crew, aroused from their cabins along the shore by the boom of a gun from some stranded vessel, throw wide its door and with a wild cheer whirl the life-boat housed beneath its roof into the boiling surf, and many a time had he helped to bring back to life the benumbed bodies drawn from the merciless sea by their strong arms.
There were other houses like it up and down the coast.

Some had remained unused for years, desolate and forlorn, no unhappy ship having foundered or struck the breakers within their reach; others had been in constant use.

The crews were gathered from the immediate neighborhood by the custodian, who was the only man to receive pay from the Government.

If he lived near by he kept the key; if not, the nearest fisherman held it.