The sea gave something back.
If not for the impossibility of it, one would have thought the young man had found the perfect bed of soft sand between the crowded, craggy rocks and laid down for a nap in the warm sun.
It was a minor miracle that he was even found. A fisherman had nets he was repairing whipped off a cliff by the wind and, deciding he'd rather brave the crags than lose time and money creating a new one, went after it. The sailor later reported that the net had landed near the young man's resting place with hardly a tangle
Mysteriously, he didn't even look drowned.
Young and tan, he was only slightly pale in the morning's bright light. His eyes were closed and he looked in a most peaceful sleep. The fisherman actually had to check to make sure he was not living. Having seen enough drowned men, he was amazed the ocean had left him whole.
A few fisherman kin came down the perilous slopes to help bring the body up the cliff. They lay him on a canvas sheet to carry and discovered he had the remains of handcuffs attached to his wrists. But they all agreed "criminal" did not seem plausible. Whoever he had been, the ocean had granted him grace and they respected the ocean.
There was nothing in his pockets nor any identifying labels on the homespun clothes. The minister was an old, sea-wizened man, the only one for miles who could read. He thought he'd seen a bit of news on a ship sinking, but his eyes were old and he mostly used the newspaper that came their way to kindle the fire. Anyway, the shipping channels were hundreds of miles off the coast of Cape Race, no body could have floated that far, not without divine intervention seeing it to a decent resting place.
Only the ocean would ever know.
The aged minister spoke more reverently and softer than usual when committing the young man's soul to the great beyond. The wind from the sea seemed to calm its gusting for a moment, ruffling his light hair and sighing through the grass and rocks with a sad kind of sound.
They wrapped him in the canvas and buried him in the tiny churchyard where the few not committed to the depths were laid to rest. A small boulder was used to mark the grave and carved J.D. - Jactura Deus - committing the lost to God.