and we'll nip in round the tail of her. She can't follow into the Cove,
with her draught, even if she spies us; and by daybreak we'll have the
best part of the cargo landed." And so he did, muffling oars and
crossing over a mile to southward of the cutter, and after that way-all!
and pull for the Cove.

The preacher at John Carter's, and Mrs. Geen at Bessie Bussow's, both
woke early next morning. But Mrs. Geen was first by a good hour, and
what pulled the preacher out of bed was the sound of guns. He put his
head out of window, and could hardly believe it was the peaceful place
he'd come upon last evening. The beach swarmed with men like emmets.
Near up, by high-water mark, men were unloading a long-boat for dear
life--some passing kegs, others slinging them to horses, others running
the horses up the cliff under his window. At first he thought it must
be their trampling had woke him out of sleep, but the next moment
_bang!_ the room shook all about him, a cloud of smoke drifted up
towards him from the Enys Point, and through it, while 'twas clearing,
he saw John Carter and another man run to the battery and begin to load
again, with Mrs. Geen behind them waving a rammer, and dancing like a
paper-woman in a cyclone. Below the mouth of the Cove tossed a boatload
of men, pulling and backing with their heads ducked, their faces on a
level with their shoulders, and all turned back towards the battery,
while a big red-faced man stood up in the stern-sheets shaking his fist
and dancing almost as excitedly as Mrs. Geen. Still farther out, a fine
cutter lay rocking on the swell, her bosom swinging and sails shaking in
the flat calm.

The preacher dragged on his clothes somehow, tore out of the house and
down to the Point as fast as legs would carry him. "Wha--what's the
meanin' of this?" he screeched, rushing up to Captain John, who was
sighting one of his three little nine-pounders.

"Blest if _I_ know!" said the captain. "We was a peaceable lot enough
till you and Mrs. Geen came a-visiting; but you two would play Hamlet's
ghost with a Quaker meeting."

"It's my Phoby--they're after my Phoby!" screamed Mrs. Geen, and then
she turned on the fellow behind Captain John; it was Hosking, once a
man-of-war's man, and now supposed to be teaching her boy the carpentry
trade. "_This_ is what you bring en to, is it? You deceiver, you!
You bare-faced villain!" (The man had a beard as big as a furze bush.)
"Look at the po