But, of course, the fun wasn’t finished yet.  Soon after seven, and after the last of the cargo had been salved under their eyes, the preventive men drew off.  By a quarter past eight Wearne had worked the cutter in as close as he dared, and then opened fire with his guns.  The first shot struck the ’taty-patch in front of Carter’s house; the second plunked into the water not fifteen yards from the gun’s muzzle.  In the swell running she could make no practice at all, though she kept it up till midday.  The boys behind the battery ran out and cheered whenever one flew extra wide, and this made Wearne mad.  Will Richards, Tummels, and young Phoby Geen posted themselves in shelter behind the captain’s house, and whenever a shot buried itself in the soft cliff one of them would run with a tubbal and dig it out.  All this time Uncle Bill Leggo, having finished loading up the kegs, was carting water from the stream on the beach to the kitchen garden above the house, and his old sister Nan leading the horses (for it was a two-horse job).  Richards called to him to leave out, it was too dangerous.  “Now there,” said Uncle Bill, “I’ve been thinkin’ of Nan and the hosses this brave while!”

At noon Wearne ceased firing, and sent off a boat towards Penzance.  The Cove boys still held the battery; and the two parties had their dinners, lit their pipes and studied each other all the long after-noon.  But towards five o’clock a riding company arrived to help the law, and opened a musket fire on the rear of the battery from the hedge at the top of the hill.  The game was up now.  The boys scattered and took shelter in Bessie Bussow’s house, and Captain John, having hoisted a flag of truce, waited for Wearne and his boat with all the calmness in life.

“A pretty day’s work this!” was the collector’s first word as he stepped ashore.

“Amusin’ from first to last,” agreed Captain John in his cordial way.

Says the collector slowly, “Well, tastes differ.  You may be right, of course, but we’ll begin at the beginning, and see how it works out.  First, then, at nine forty-five last night you showed an unauthorised light for the purpose of cheating the revenue.  Cost of that caper, one hundred pounds.”

“Be you talkin’ of the rockets?”

“’Course I be.”

“Well then, I didn’t fire them, nor anyone belongin’ to the Cove.  I didn’t set anyone to fire them, and they waren’t fired to warn anybody.  Let alone I have proof they was sent up by a Methody preacher to relieve his feelin’s.  You’ve known me too long, Roger Wearne, to think me fool enough to waste a whole future joy[3] over so simple a business as warnin’ a boat.”

“What are you tellin’ me?”

“The truth, as I always do; and I advise you to believe it, or ’twon’t be the first time you’ve seen too far into a brick wall.”