t was wrecked
below in the bay, and which my father bought for the price of old metal
when the ship was broken up and sold.

I used to think sometimes that he ought to have called the place the
battery, but he settled on the quarter-deck, and the quarter-deck it
remained.

Always once a year on his birthday he would load and fire all the
cannons, and it was quite a sight; for he used to call himself the crew
and load them and prime them, and then send me in for the poker, which
had all the time been getting red-hot in the kitchen.

Then he used to take the poker from me, and I used to stop my ears. But
as soon as I stopped my ears, he used to frown and say, "Take out the
tompions, you young swab!"

So I used to take out the tompions--I mean my fingers--and screw up my
face and look on while with quite a grand air my father, who was a fine
handsome man, with a fresh colour and curly grey hair, used to stand up
very erect, give the poker a flourish through the air, and bring the end
down upon a touch-hole.

Then _bang_! There would be a tremendous roar, and the rocks would echo
as the white smoke floated upwards.

A quarter of a minute more and _bang_ would go another gun, and so on
for the whole six, every one of them kicking hard and leaping back some
distance on to the shingle.

When all were fired, my father used to push them on their little
carriages all back into their places; then he used to "bend," as he
called it, the white ensign on to the halyards, and run it up to the
head of a rigged mast which stood at the corner, and close to the edge
of the cliff, and after this shake hands with himself, left hand with
right, and wish himself many happy returns of the day.

It was not his birthday that one on which I ran down the garden to join
him; but there he was by his guns, busy with his spy-glass sweeping, as
he called it, the Bristol Channel and talking to himself about the
different craft.

"Hallo, Sep, my boy!" he said; "here's a morning for a holiday
landsman--or boy. Well, I didn't see much of you yesterday."

"No, father," I said; "I was out all day with Doctor Chowne's boy and
young Uggleston."

"Rather a queer companion for you, my boy, eh? Uggleston is a sad
smuggler, they say; but let's see, his boy goes to your school?"

"Yes, father, and he's such a good fellow. We went to his house down in
the Gap, and had dinner, and Mr Uggleston was very civil to me, all
but--"

"Well, speak out,