How Sir Jerrold Treyn Dealt with the Dutch in Caunston Cove

I.

My father, Sir Charles Treyn, stamped his foot. “Confound the ways of the Government” he said, walking up and down the room.

He had just received a letter from my uncle (on my mother’s side), who owned what is still called Ralby Common, seven miles inland from Rayle, on the South Coast, about twenty miles from Caunston.

“Hear this,” said my father, and read from my uncle’s letter:

“ ‘A Dutch frigate, Van Ruyter, landed a hundred men at Rayle yestermorn, so I have just heard. They have burned Starly Manor, and half the village, and were gone clean away before the soldiers were come from Bideford. They made their raid in their own devilish way, which is to sail in from the sea during the night, with never a light showing, and to land at daybreak. They use not the big guns, lest this bring the soldiers upon them quickly from the big towns. Likewise, their burnings are not seen so well afar in the daylight. They killed twenty-three men, of Rayle village, that opposed them, and two women, and harmed many more. They shot an herd lad in the Manor lane, where he lay dead all day; and this because he would have run off to warn old Sir James, who, by the blessing of Providence, heard that same shot, and roused his household, and escaped by the well passage.’

“He says,” added my father, “that we must build more and better ships to hunt the Dutch from the sea. Everyone knows that we build no ships as good as those we take from the Dutch; but, thank God, we fight ’em as they should be fought. But we need more ships and better ships, and we need coast ships.”

“We ought to have more guns, and heavier, on the Head,” I told my father. “James Corby’s schooner is in, and he’s two guns in the hold, long thirty-two-pounders, that he lifted out of the wreck of a French frigate. They will throw a shot near two miles, and at close range would go near through the two sides of a line-of-battleship.”

“I’ve done my duty to our cove,” said my father, pinching his forehead, as is his way when vexed. “Two hundred and thirty pounds I paid in good money for the guns and the mountings and the powder and shot, and the conveying of them to the Head, and building the platform to carry them. Let Sir Beant show his loyalty, and match them with three more guns on the Lanstock cliff, and we shall be very well prepared for any of these murdering Dutch who may think they will run in here and play the Old Harry with our property and our lives.”

I looked at John, my brother, and made a motion to him to keep silent. I knew that when my father had made up his mind, it was no use arguing with him, and I feared to explain the plans John and I had talked over, lest our father put a stop to all.

II.

“Come down to the cove,” I said later. “I believe we can buy one of those guns out of our allowance, if only Corby will not be so everlastingly greedy. Leave it to me to handle him.”

“Well, Corby,” I said, as we clambered aboard, “my father will not buy the guns. He has done more than his share for the cove. If anyone here is going to buy them, you’d better try Sir Beant. Or else take them up the coast as far as Mallington.”

“No use, sir,” said Corby, as I knew he would. “Sir Beant’s as stingy as my own mother, an’ that’s saying a heap. He’d never pay for mounting ’em, let alone the guns themselves. And I don’t want to bother takin’ them up the coast. Guns is mighty rum things to market.”

“I’d buy them off you myself,” I said, as carelessly as I could, “but I’d have to buy out of my allowance, and I don’t see why I should stint myself for the good of the cove, any more than anyone else.”

“I’d cut the price for you, sir, as close as my head,” he said.

And I knew, suddenly (as indeed I had half guessed) that he was mighty anxious to have them out of his vessel, so that I supposed he must have gone against the law in some way; but Corby never was a scrupulous man.

“I’ll give you five guineas apiece for each gun,” I said calmly, offering half of what I had meant before to offer, though my heart was beating fast, and Jack was actually pale with suppressed anxiety.

“Couldn’t do it possibly, sir,” said Corby. “I might, as it’s you, sir, take ten guineas apiece, money down.”

“I’ve made my offer.” I said. “I don’t pretend the guns are not worth more; but that’s all they are worth to me.” I stood up suddenly. “Come along, John,” I said. “I’m sorry, Corby, we could not deal in this matter; but I don’t blame you. I’ve no doubt you will do better up the coast.”

“Master Jerrold,” he said, as I reached the door of the cuddy, “they’re yours, cash down. I swear I wouldn’t ’a’ done it for no one else in the world.”

“Very well,” I said easily, and pinching John’s elbow to keep him from showing any excitement. “I’ll pay you as soon as the two guns are on the quay,”

I looked at Corby, half minded to ask him a question or two. It was very plain that there was something funny at the back of his eagerness to sell me two thirty-two-pounders for the sum of five guineas apiece. However, I kept quiet; for, after all, I thought, the less I knew, the less I’d have to worry about.

Two hours later the guns were on the quay and I had paid Corby, who spat ruefully, I thought, on the money; but tried to appear content, which he never could be.

III.

My father was called to London two days after we had bought the thirty-two-pounders, and my mother went with him.

I had told my father nothing about the guns, for I meant to have my will in the matter, and he was a little apt to forget that I was nineteen years grown, and somewhat irked to have him cross my intention more often maybe than was occasion for; though a better and more loving father no man ever had, and well I, and all of us, loved him for his solid goodness.

On the evening of the day that I had bought the guns, I had sent Mardy, one of our labourers, down to the quay with the timber-wain, and we had lifted the guns, one at a time, and taken them up into one of our fir-woods; for I thought that if Corby had come by them in some lawless manner, they should lie no longer on the quayside than might be.

Then, on the night after father was gone north to London Town, John and I went into the village, and had word with certain cronies of ours, that had been our playmates when we were boys, and were and are still our very good friends.

There were Tommy Larg, the young blacksmith; James and Henry Bowden, ’prentice wheelwrights and cart-makers, and near out of their time; and the three Cartwright brothers, young and smart fishermen, who already had their own boat. To these I explained our plans, and read to them that part of my uncle’s letter which told of the burning of Rayle village, which they had heard some rumours of, but nothing certain.

When I had said all, they were as eager as John and I to strengthen our defence further; and Tom Larg, the blacksmith, and the two Bowden brothers promised there and then to make the gun-carriage for the cannon, I to pay for the material, and them to charge nothing on their labour; but to be, as we say, for love.

But before all else, then, I needed their help that night; and a solemn promise to secrecy, which they gave readily and honourably kept, I had from them, that they should give their help to get the two guns to a certain place that I had planned for them, and this must be done in the darkness, for I wished no talk or knowledge of my planning to get about.

“I’m going to mount them in the High Cave in the Winston Cliff,” I told them, and smiled to myself to hear them answer on the instant that it could never be done, that the High Cave was three hundred feet above the water edge and seventy-one from the brow of the great Head, which hangs out prodigiously.

“There is no gear that us have that could lower the guns from the Head,” said the elder Bowden; “nor could us ever swing ’em in.”

“Wait!” I said, laughing a little. “That’s the secret you’ve got to keep, lads. John and I have found a secret way into the High Cave, from the back, where the shoulder of the Winston comes down on to the downs, among all the big rocks up there.”

There was a great exclaiming at this.

“Oft I ha’ heard my old Uncle Ebenezer say as there was another way into the High Cave,” said one of the Cartwrights, “but none on us ever found it, an’ never ha’ been in but once when I were a boy. It’s a long swing into the cave, by reason o’ the overhang above, and a dangerous place to come to that way.”

I took the six of them up to our stable-yard, and here I had Mardy harness our biggest timber-wain to our eight big plough horses. Then I told Mardy I should not want him—for I could not trust his tongue—and John and I and our army of six set off for the fir-wood, where the guns lay hid as I have told.

It took us near until the dawn before we had the two long guns up among the rocks on the downs where we had found the secret entrance into the cave. There was a place here where a great mass of rock and earth had splitten away from the slope of the Winston, where it met the downs; and left a big scar, like an old quarry, all bracken and bramble grown.

“See, lads!” I cried.

And John and I, with the crooks of our sticks, pulled to one side a huge mass of the brambles, and there, sure enough, was a split that ran into the hillside of the Winston, so big that you could have taken a cart and horse in through it. And indeed this was so, for when we had cleared away some of the underfoot stones, and lugged back all the brambles, we drove the horses clean through and along a great twisting gallery of rock, and so to the cave, lighting them all the way with a stable lantern which I had brought.

We took the second gun in likewise, and laid it by the first; then we draped all the bracken and bramble over the hole, and you could never have guessed the things they hid so clever and natural. And afterwards to our beds, very weary and well pleased with ourselves.

IV.

My brother John and I were wakened on this day (May 25th) at four in the morning, by Geels, our gardener.

“Whist, Master Jerry!” he was saying from the window. “Wake up, now, do ’ee! Wake up, Master Jerry. Wake up, do ’ee!”

John and I sat up, each in our own beds, and stared at the window.

“What’s wrong, Geels?” I asked.

“There’s two great frigates in the bay, Master Jerry,” said Geels, “an’ they’m landin’ men so fast as they can. I been down to watch ’em from Sir Beant’s oak-woods, an’ they’m riven open the Hall an’ makin’ free with all.”

I was out of my bed long before Geels had finished, and John with me. For now we might at last have chance to read these coast-ravaging Dutchmen a lesson, with God’s aid and our own plain wit and invention.

“When did you first know they were in the bay, Geels?” I asked, as I dressed with speed.

“Half-past three they coom to anchor, by Sam Hardy’s watch,” said Geels. “They coom in round the point, maybe a while earlier, an’ Sam Hardy, as is the coast ranger this week, waked me to watch ’em, while he went down to warn the village folk. I been that excited like, I went down to the oak-woods, so I could see ’em proper close; an’ then I minded what you’d told me, to call you, Master Jerry, if they coomed, so I coom away up to the house, an’ I clomb the ivy to the window, same’s I’m at now.”

“Then they’ve not been ashore long?” I asked, as I pulled on my coat.

“No more than to get up to th’ Hall, Master Jerry,” said the old man. “A good thing Sir Beant’s away to Lunnon. But I’m feard they’m been rough like with the servants. I heerd Jan Ellis, as is cook there, screetchin’ fit to wake the dead; right over to the oak-woods, I heerd ’er. An’ it fair made me so my blood be a-boilin’ this moment. I be main glad your mother an’ sister are to Lunnon Town with Sir Charles, your father. I could wish he were here now, for a fine head he have for fightin’ and the like; a better I never met, Master Jerrold, though he’ve a timber leg. Here we are, scarce two score men in the village, what wi’ pressgangin’ an’ the like; an’ your father away, an’ you but a lad as you are—not but you’ve the brains an’ pluck of us all!—an’ no offence, Master Jerrold, if so I be bound to say you’m youngish, when the like of a thing like this do happen upon us.”

“Geels,” I said, “get down and away to the village for Tommy Larg, the blacksmith, and James and Henry Bowden, and the three Cartwright brothers. Tell them I want them up here at once. Get back here as smartly as you can. John, come down to the armoury. Come on!”

V.

I felt the blood leap in me, for here I was, nineteen years, old, and my brother sixteen and the chance to prove ourselves and to turn our plans and dreams into reality.

At the armoury I took down two swords that had belonged to our father when he was no older than I; for, as I said to John, we should bring no shame on the good blades by our attempt, and we knew that our father would have pride that we should wear them on such errand as we had in mind, if we but carried ourselves with courage and honour; for our father was a man who would see us dead with gladness, if with honour, rather than alive and backward in any time that courage of heart might be heeded.

“Now the powder,” I said, for our father kept always a great stock for the three twelve-pounder cannons that he had mounted on Winston Head. He had made the villagers these two years practise with the guns, once on May Day and once on Michaelmas Day. Six men he had appointed to each gun, and a pile of twelve-pound shot to each, that he had from the Royal foundry with the guns. But the men were not very smart to hit a mark, for they fired but six shots on each day at a tub that was towed out and moored in the cove, and no man had ever hit it yet: though once James Bartlett splashed it with a round-shot, and my father was that pleased that he sent the crew down a barrel of beer to drink the health of Bartlett in.

John and I rolled out four barrels of the powder from the armoury and rolled them along the great passageway to the main hall, where we left them.

“I hope Geels will hurry,” I told John “We’ve a deal to do. This place must be made safe, and the shot from the cannon on the Head must be carried down into the cave, and the cannon spiked—”

“Spiked?” interrupted my brother. “What for? Are not the villagers going to fire them at the frigates?”

I laughed a little.

“Don’t be an ass, John,” I said. “If you think but half a minute, you’ll see that the Dutch would send fifty or sixty men up and just cut ’em to pieces in no time. Then they could turn the guns on to their houses. By this time, I expect, the village will be empty and everybody hiding. That’s why our idea to have the guns in the cave is so good—for the Dutch cannot easily get at us, and we shall be able, to do something to-day that will teach them a lesson, and make our father proud of us. That reminds me, run down to Mardy’s cottage and tell him and his father to come up at once, if they haven’t gone off into the woods to hide.”

While my brother was gone, I rummaged out some fuse that was kept in canisters in the armoury, and three dozen empty bombs that were made for a nine-pounder gun and bought cheap by my father, who thought to pick up a nine-pounder gun some day for a trifle from the wreckers.

These bombs I took for the two great thirty-two-pounders, having a notion how I might use them, for I had not a single shot for either of the big pieces, though we had mounted them complete more than a fortnight before.

Besides the empty nine-pounder bombshells, I found also some lengths of chain from our farmyard that were used for harrowing, also three bags of great tenpenny-nails, which pleased me a deal, and a big cake of beeswax, and all the blankets off the beds.

I got also from the armoury twelve muskets, with their flasks and bullet-bags, and a keg of ready-cast bullets.

We had already in the cave two big butts of water, with rammers and mops that the two Bowden lads had made; and Larg, the blacksmith, had fitted iron rings into the floor of the cave for the gun-tackles, which same had been fitted very cleverly by the Cartwrights.

All of this I thought over a dozen times as I ran backwards and forwards carrying things. Then I heard John at the entrance door, and Mardy and his father with him.

“Put Meg and Molly in the shafts and fetch round the firewood trolly,” I called to them.

And, when it was brought, I set them to loading all the gear into it, and made them lash it all secure. After which, I sent John up to the roof to see if he could discover any signs of Geels or the Dutch.

He came down, very excited, in a minute to tell me that Geels was running along the green walk towards the house with the six others, and a dozen Dutch sailors after them with their cutlasses drawn and carrying muskets.

“The muskets, John!” I said quietly, and had one up in my hand as I spoke. I snapped open a powder-flask, and, by all good mercies, there was powder in it. I caught a bunch of the weapons up in my left hand by the muzzles and snapped a charge into each. “The bullets, John!” I said very quick, but still quietly, so us not to fluster him. “Don’t wait to wad. Drop two into each!”

I whipped out a ramrod and plunged it into each barrel, as my brother dropped in the bullets. As I rammed home the last, I laid the whole lot down and began to prime them, one at a time, handing them out to John and Mardy and his father as I did so. I loaded six in all in less than one full minute, and no man can say I was slow.

“Now follow me,” I said, and ran through the great door and down into the shrubbery that bordered the green walk.

There was a thudding of running feet, and then the crash of a musket near by. Someone in the green walk cried out, and immediately I heard Larg, the blacksmith, shout out:

“Ey, the murderin’ swine! I’d gie my hand for a good musket!”

I peered through the bushes, and saw the Dutchmen to our right, kneeling, to steady their aim.

“Quick!” I said to the others. “Stick your guns out and shoot! Same as if you were at your poaching tricks, Mardy!”

The man grinned, licking his lips a little. He never bothered to set the musket to his shoulder, but fired with the butt on his thigh. By Jove, but he killed two Dutchmen with that one shot. And then John and I opened fire.

I killed one with my first, and John wounded one, who lay on his face and kicked, screaming like any woman. That stopped John, and Mardy’s father just snatched his other musket from him, and loosed it again from his thigh. I never saw the like of such shooting; I fired my second musket and wounded one Dutchman slightly; but already Mardy had killed seven outright, for his son had never even attempted to fire, but just handed his two weapons over to his father.

“Charge them!” I shouted. “Use the butts!” And I burst through the hedge into the green walk, with the three others after me. But the Dutchmen that remained alive ran, throwing away their muskets.

“Stop!” I said to my army.

As we all stopped, I noticed that Mardy’s father was laughing silently. A curious man. I had heard rumours of his gun shooting and his coolness, and I never saw the equal before or since.

Geels and the six others had stopped when they saw the Dutchmen begin to fall, and now they came running back round us, with Larg supporting Oliver Cartwright, the youngest of the fishing brothers, who had been shot in the thick of the lower leg, but nothing much of a wound, as it proved.

“A’m thankin’ God ye coomed, Master Jerry,” said Geels, panting for breath. “They was agoin’ to fire just as ye fired, an’ I do reckon they’d ’a’ had every one of us through the back.”

“Come on, all!” I said. “No, Larg, don’t cut that poor wounded devil’s throat! Leave him. I’ll give you killing enough presently. Pick up their muskets, and bring their ammunition. Hurry, all of you! We’re going to give these beggars a lesson that will make them shy of visiting Caunston Cove again in a hurry.”

They did as I bade them, and we hastened back to our house, which is named Caunston Tower, and has its own moat, forty feet broad; and glad was I then to think of the moat (though my mother always said it made the house damp), for I feared that the Dutchmen who escaped might return with others—but not many, if our plan carried out properly.

The moat was crossed by one oak-timbered bridge to the great entrance door, and there was still the chains attached and the windlass in the cellar by which the bridge might be hoisted up in front of the doorway as in past times, though we never used them except once each year to test the bridge, which idea was a whim of my father’s.

As we came back into the big hall there were four of the maids crowded there, pale and shivering with terror, and Alice, our cook (and a big woman she was), trying to get them back to their own part of the house.

“The Dutchmen!” screamed out the four servant-maids as we ran in through the big doorway.

“Dutchmen, ye idiots!” said Alice. “Drat ye! Saw ye ever Dutch loons like yon?”

“Be quiet, all of you, please,” I said. “There is not the least danger. Sam Hardy’s away nearly an hour ago for the soldiers, and they should be here within four or five hours. Alice, if there’s any shooting, keep all your lot in the cellars. Do try to get them out of our way now.”

“Ess, Master Jerry,” said Alice.

And without a word more she slipped an arm each round the waists of two of the maids, and half carried and half dragged them out to their own quarters, with the other two following quietly enough.

“Now, Geels,” I said, “we’re going to see what we can do with these Dutchmen. I’m leaving you in charge here, with Mardy and his father under you. As soon as we’re across the bridge hoist it clean up before the door, and then close all the heavy outer shutters. Load all the muskets, and for the rest trust to Heaven, or to the quick eye of Mardy here, who is worth any three men I ever saw with a musket. I’m leaving young Cartwright with you. He can fire a musket, but he’ll be no good for walking for a while yet, I fancy.”

Geels started some kind of remonstrance, as did the Cartwright boy at being left, but I just signed to my men to slip their Dutch bandoliers over their heads and follow me to the loaded trolly.

“Now,” I said, “lead off smart for the Winston before those Dutchmen get over on this side of the cove.”

I turned to Geels, who stood, still gesticulating, in the entrance.

“Get that bridge up, right away!” I shouted. “If you need help, ask Alice. Tell her I said she would give a hand. I’m trusting you, Geels, to do nothing to-day that would displeasure me or my father. God be with you!” I said, and began to run after the others, who were already gone forward a hundred yards or more.

VI.

We came up on to the downs among the Winston rocks at the back of the Winston in about half an hour, and in that time we saw not a single Dutchman; only, across the cove, from the direction of Sir Beant’s place, we could hear far-off cries and shouts coming through the still air.

In the shallow gully, where lay the landward entrance to the cave, we found everything undisturbed and the cave in order, with the two long, grim guns staring down silent out of the shadows of the cave into the cove.

I had the lads unload the stuff smartly, and dump it just within the cave; for I wished to have the guns above safely spiked and the round-shot in our possession. As soon as the trolly was empty we set off up over the landward shoulder of the Head until we came to where the gun platform lay, with the three guns on it and the mounds of shot stacked up snugly in piles on each side of the guns, the whole very nicely surrounded by sturdy oak palings, which my father had put up to keep the children from playing on the guns or rolling the shot down the hill.

“Now,” I said, as I unlocked the door in the palings with my father’s key, “smartly all of us, and get this shot into the trolly. I’m glad we brought the two mares, for it will weigh a deal. There’s some powder, too, in the locker here with the rammers that we’ll take down with us.”

“Can’t we fire the guns once, Jerry?” asked my brother. “Father would like to think they were used once against the frigates.”

I thought a moment, and made up my mind.

“Quick, then!” I said. “We’ll fire a shot each. Larg, give Jack and me a hand here with the guns. Go on loading the trolly, you others.”

In ten minutes the trolly and the guns were loaded.

“Start down with the trolly,” I said to the others. “Get the shot into the cave as quickly as you can. Then drive the trolly out on to the downs, and unharness the mares and let them run. Here, Larg, and you, Jack, give me a hand to get the three guns all bearing on the outside frigate. They won’t depress enough to touch the inside ship.”

As we finished training the guns my brother called out suddenly:

“Look! They’ve fired the Hall! The brutes! And see, down there, below the oak-woods, there’s about a hundred of them on the way to our place! Fire the guns, Jerry! Do something to stop them!”

As he spoke there came the far-away bang of a musket from the lower Head across the cove.

“They’ve sure a man there keepin’ a watch as sees us, Master Jerrold,” said Larg. “Fire off the guns, do ’ee, an’ let’s away down to the cave an’ start with the big guns.”

“Here!” I said, as a sudden idea came to me. “Slue this gun round. I’m going to send a shot among that lot going up to our place.”

“You’ll never hit—not a one of ’em,” said Larg.

But both he and my brother worked eagerly with me to get the gun round. I knocked out the wedge, and elevated the gun to about twenty-five degrees, for the shot was a long one for a small piece.

“Now, watch!” I said, and set the tow, which Larg had lit, to the touch-hole.

The powder flashed up into my hair, singeing it, and there was a great belch of fire from the muzzle and a stunning report. The three of us ran to the side to watch the effect of the shot. And truly, so great was the distance, we seemed to wait half a dozen seconds before a sudden burst of white splinters from a young oak-tree on the near side of the road showed where the ball had struck.

The tree was about opposite to the middle part of the long line of men marching along the road, and Larg cried out that two of them were down, struck with the splinters; but neither Jack nor I could be sure of this, only that there was certainly some confusion in the ranks, near where the shot had struck the tree.

“Look at ’em in the frigate!” said Larg.

I turned and stared down at the two powerful war vessels, and saw that a file of men were drawn up across the quarter-deck of the nearer one, with an officer, who was pointing up at us. Immediately afterwards there came a dozen little flashes and puffs of smoke, and an irregular volley of bullets went all round us, sounding like the drone of a swarm of hornets. A most uncomfortable sound! One bullet struck the muzzle of the middle gun, and flew off, with a strange pinging sound, but not one of us was hit.

“Quick, Larg!” I shouted. “Spike the fired one!”

And I jumped to the breeches of the two loaded guns, and clapped the burning tow to the touch-hole of each, one after the other. There were two large, bright bursts of flame, and two heavy bangs, and, under the smoke, as I stared down at the decks of the far frigate, I saw a curious thing. One of the upper-deck guns had jumped clean on end with its muzzle to the sky. And a shower of splinters was spraying out in a great fan from the mainmast.

“Good!” shouted Jack, slapping his thigh. “Oh, good! You’ve knocked the breech clean off one of the guns, and you’ve gouged a piece right out of one of their masts, and made a hole clean through the deck. Father will be pleasured.”

“Quick, Larg!” I called. “They’re sending a boatload of men. Look out! They’re going to shoot again!”

We dodged down, as the ripple of flashes came from the near frigate; then, as the bullets whoozed by, over us, we sprang up, and Larg spiked the two other guns, by driving a brittle piece of iron into the touch-holes, and breaking it off short.

“That’ll sure take a mint o’ drillin’ out, Master Jerrold,” he said. “Look at yon men on the other frigate! They’m like bees as you’ve prodded.”

VII.

When we reached the cave, we found that they had already done as I told them, and the bushes and creepers were dropped back again over the entrance, hiding it perfectly. One of the Bowden boys was inside, behind the growths, standing guard with his musket, and when we had entered, he rearranged the creepers, while we ran through to the guns.

“We must, get them going,” I said, “as quickly as possible, to bring them back from attacking the house. Open out the gear, quick, Larg; open one of the powder-barrels; roll it well back from the guns. James Bowden, give me a hand here with these bombs. Harry Cartwright, light Larg’s hand-forge. We left it up here when we finished mounting the guns. It’s in one of the recesses there, up to the left. There’s wood and small coals there, and the flint and steel’s on the top of the bellows.

“Jack, you and Tom Cartwright get the rammers down and wipe out the guns, and dip some water out of the tubs into the buckets, ready for sponging them out.”

Ten minutes later we were all furiously busy. In the heart of the forge fire there were two cylinders of solid iron, that Larg had forged out to fit the bores of the guns, and now we were heating them red-hot; for I meant to fire them down through the decks of the frigate. Larg was busy ramming down a charge of powder, and on the top of it a great wail of torn-up blanket. Then he passed in a length of the chain I had brought; first putting a knot in each end. Afterwards he rammed home a bucketful of broken flints, and then stepped back and primed the gun.

“It’s all ready for laying, Master Jerrold,” said Larg. “Shall us run her out a bit?”

“Yes,” I said; and we all went over to give him a hand with the tackles. “That’s right,” I said. “No, don’t wedge her up. It’s his rigging I want to cut up with the chain and stones. Get on with the other gun. Give her a full measure and a quarter of powder, then a wad, and three of the twelve-pounder shot, with earth round each one, rammed hard. Soften that beeswax over the forge-fire, Harry; and, John, go on filling those bombs with powder, then stuff in one of the cut lengths of fuse into each, and fill in the hole solidly with beeswax. Right, Larg, give me the tow and stand to the side.”

I spied along the big gun, aiming at the maintop of the nearer frigate. Then I touched the burning tow on the priming and jumped to the side as the great gun roared down at the frigate.

“By George, Master Jerry!” said the oldest of the Cartwrights, “you fair cut clean through all her riggin’ on the starboard side o’ the main! Her can never go to sea till her’s rigged up preventers, or her’d lose the whole stick.’’

The fisherman had said right, for the length of chain had hit the rigging on the starboard side, just below the bolsters, and smashed them as clean away as a great knife might have done. The chain itself had ripped a gouge in the mast, for the scar showed plainly. For the rest, there was a good matter of flying ends of the running gear both to starboard and larboard; for the broken flints had spread like shot from a fowling-gun.

My brother and the rest had run to the mouth of the cave to see the damage, and Jack pointed across the cove.

“Look!” he said. “They’ve set the whole village on fire. Look, there’s your house, Cartwright, near the jetty; they’ve just fired it, and Bowden’s house has got the thatch alight.”

Jack was right; the Dutch had fired the village, as was their way in these small wanton raids that the Government would never bother to take any notice of; and now the brutes, after having killed a number of harmless villagers, would retreat to their ships and get away. But I vowed aloud that they should never leave the cove unharmed; and Bowden and Cartwright swore in the simple, brutal fashion of their class, to split the two warships asunder, or sink them.

There was the crash of a volley, three hundred feet below us, and splinters of stone flew in all directions from the rock of the cave-mouth. I stepped forward a pace, and stared down. The file of men across the quarter-deck of the nearer frigate were reloading, and the officer was staring up at the cliff.

On the deck of the frigate farther out there were a number of men clustered round one of the long stem-chasers—a sixteen-pounder, I supposed it might be, by the look of it at that distance.

“They can never get the elevation,” I said. “All of you haul in the gun. That will do. Now, Jack, sponge her out. All of you get to work again. Larg, I will help you load.”

“There’s two boatloads of Dutchmen coming out to the ship,” said my brother, with the sponge-stick in his hand. “Hark to the musketry firing from above Sir Beant’s oak-woods. It’s our house, Jerry! They’ve not come back. They’re—  Look at the smoke over the trees!”

“We can do nothing,” I said; “only we can smash up their ships, and then they’ll have to recall all hands. Keep on with your work.”

“I got ’arf a doz’n of them bomb things filled, Master Jerrold,” said Bowden. “Will you take a look at ’em to see if they’re as you want ’em?”

I took a bomb to the light and found he had packed it solidly with powder, and inserted a fuse, and then rammed sand and melted beeswax in all round the fuse, hiding the powder completely.

“Perfect!” I said. “Let me have what you’ve done, and go ahead with the others.”

“She’s loaded,” said Larg, as he threw down the rammer. As he spoke, there came the thud of a heavy gun in the cove, and then a dull blow sounded somewhere below us.

“They’m shooted at us!” said Larg, “and they’m hit the cliff, near two hundred feet down. Do ’ee let ’em have this dree-shotted charge, an’ show ’em what for, Master Jerrold.”

“All of us on the tackles!” I called out; and we hauled out the gun that Larg had just loaded with three twelve-pound shot. “The handspike!” I said. “Heave her round. Right! Now depress!”

It took us maybe ten minutes to get the big gun laid, for we lacked practice, and a long thirty-two-pounder is a monstrous big gun to move.

“Now,” I said, “stand by the tackles to snub her.”

As I spoke, there came a second far-oft crash of musketry that made me set my teeth, for I knew they must be firing at our home. Then there came a heavy volley of small arms from both of the frigates, the musket-balls striking the cave-mouth in scores of places, and chipping off pieces of rock; but not one of us was touched.

As I took a final sight along the gun, I saw that many of her men had already come off from the shore, and the whole of the stern part of her was taken up with a swarm of men working at some contrivance to obtain a sufficient elevation for their stern guns to be able to bear on us.

There came again the rolling of heavy musketry firing from above the woods, and I clenched my teeth as I lifted the burning tow.

“Now!” I said, standing to the side and clapping it to the touch-hole.

The heavy gun literally jumped clean off her two front wheels, and reared up, almost on end, with the effect of the recoil; for Larg had exceeded my instructions, and put two measures of powder, and his packing of the round-shot had been done with savage vigour.

Even before the cloud of smoke that rolled and eddied over the cave mouth had cleared, I knew I had done some surprising damage, for there were shouts and a terrible screaming of injured men, and a strange, crashing sound, all of it rising up strangely blended.

“By George, Master Jerrold, you sure hit ’em hard that time!” said Larg.

And we all crowded nearer to the cave mouth to try to see through the smoke; even the younger Bowden running from his place (on guard behind the creepers over the land entrance) to ask what execution had been done. But I sent him back on the instant, with a sharp reprimand for leaving his post.

As the smoke finally cleared away, there was an amazing sight. The mizzenmast of the outside frigate had been hit—for my shots had gone nowhere near where I had thought to strike—one of the shots having struck it where the mast went through the deck, and ripped a surprising great hole, splitting the mast up near three fathoms. A second of the three shots had smashed the carriage of a gun on the larboard side, and the gun had been thrown among the men, crushing several, as I judged. But it was the third shot that had pleased me, for it had struck outside the stern of the vessel altogether, and made a great white scar of splintered wood in the trunnion of the rudder:

There were cheers from the lads about me, but I bid them save their wind, and hasten. Already the near frigate was shortening her cable, and the boats were passing between her and the shore. Then she fired two guns quickly together; and, after a pause, two more together; and then, after a pause, two more in the same fashion, so that I knew she was recalling the body of sailors who were firing up beyond the oak woods.

“Haul in the gun and get her sponged out. Give her two measures and a half of powder, then a wad of dry blanket. Then sponge out every grain of loose powder from the bore, and give her a wad of wet blanket on top of the dry. I’m going to try one of those red-hot shot, and see if I can set the frigate on fire. God help us if the gun bursts!”

Twice while I spoke the Dutch in the near ship had loosed off their muskets at the cave-mouth, to try to keep us from working the guns. It was plain they saw they could never come at us, and they were anxious only to have their men aboard and get away before we did them greater harm. But this was just what I did not mean to let be.

I helped Larg load the right-hand gun with six of the bombs that I cut the fuses off very short with my knife. I put no more than one measure of powder in this gun, and then a wad of our good blankets, and after that the six bombs, and a matter of a dozen pounds of broken flints on the top, and a final wad to hold all in.

Before we could run this gun out, the outside frigate gave us a bad surprise, and showed there were men of good resource in her; for Jack, who was ever on the stare, shouted out suddenly that they’d boats out astern of her, and were towing her round, broadside on.

“Try them with a musket-shot or two,” I bid my brother, which he did; but though he hit the boat twice, he did no harm, and got his ear clipped by a ball, through going too near the mouth of the cave.

They had the frigate round pretty smart, and no sooner was she part round than they loosed off at us six of their guns, each as it came to bear, and then twelve in a clump, for I counted the flashes, and a terrible noise they made; but not one of their round-shot hit us, though there went many a ton of good honest rock and stone tumbling down the cliff-face into the sea, where the broadside had struck.

“They weren’t twenty yards below us,” said Larg.

“Look!” said my brother. “She’s leaning over!”

And truly she was. Even as we watched her, she canted over more and more, until her gun-ports seemed to grin right up at us.

“That’s ugly,” I said. “Stand by to get into the sides of the cave if I tell you.”

“By George! Her’s shifted most of her guns over to larboard!” said Larg. “That’s how hers done it, an’ a mighty cute notion, too, if she don’t capsize.”

As the blacksmith said, it was a clever notion, and it put us in real danger; but if most of her guns were down on the larboard side, there would not be many starboard to train on the cave.

The big vessel was already a long way over, showing a full fathom of the bright copper on her bottom. And then suddenly I got an idea.

“Hurry now with the other gun!” I said. “All of you lend a hand!”

“The powder’s in, two and a half measures, and them two wads as you wanted in, one on ’em dry an’ one on ’em wet,” said Bowden.

“Jack,” I said, “keep an eye on the frigate, and shout the moment you see a gun hauled out. Larg, get your tongs, and I’ll help you with the shot. It’s red-hot.”

We lifted it out of the hand-forge with two big tongs that he had made at the smithy, and in a minute we had it into the gun and well-rammed down, and a ring wad on top of it.

“Out with her, before the shot burns through to the powder!” I shouted. “Hasten, all! Hasten, all!”

We hove the gun out with a will, and a burst of musket-balls came all over the mouth of the cave as the long muzzle showed.

We depressed the big gun until it bore direct on the bright copper.

“They’ve pushed out six guns on the main deck,” said my brother. “Look out!”

“Into the side of the cave, all of you!” I shouted.

As I spoke there came six flashes, and a great thud of sound as the six reports made one, and, blending with them, there was a horrible splintering and crashing of heavy shot on rock all about us, and the thud of masses of rock falling from the roof of the cave. And in the midst of the uproar I dashed down my burning tow on the touch-hole and leaped right away from the gun.

The bang was enormous, and the great gun flung herself right up on end, and came down on her side with a crunch, just missing crushing me to death as I jumped again.

The cave-mouth was full of smoke, and I could not see whether my shot had succeeded. I stared round.

“Is anyone hurt?” I asked.

I felt hoarse, and I realised my shoulder hurt badly. A falling lump of rock had struck it, but I had scarcely noticed it in that supreme moment.

“I’m all right,” said Jack.

But Larg was lying senseless. The three others had obeyed me and got away safely to the side.

I ran across to Larg and looked at him. He was not dead, for he breathed heavily, and I felt his head. There was a great lump on it, full as big as my fist, but no other hurt about him, so far as I could see.

“Get some water and bathe his face,” I told my brother. I stood up and ran to the mouth of the cave. “Dear Lord!” I shouted. “She’s sinking fast!”

At my cry they all left Larg and came crowding to the edge of the cave-mouth.

“Back!” I shouted.

As I spoke a musket volley came from the nearer frigate, and three of us were struck by that one volley; yet not a wound to count more than a bad cut or a graze, only it was a good lesson to us all to keep in shelter.

As for the outer frigate, my eyes never looked with fiercer gladness on any sight than that of the despoiler, sinking helpless away below us. For my last shot had struck her low down on her copper, as she lay over. She had rolled under the concussion of her own gun-fire, and this is what I had waited for when I fired; and my shot had ripped clean through her far under the water-line, just on the bend of the stern run. The blow had smashed clean through the outer skin and one of her great ribs, and a butt had started, so that a fathom of one of her planks had sprung off from the ribs, and the water was rushing into her in tons. As she rolled a little, the place where the shot had struck showed, and it was plain to us that she could not float many minutes.

Twenty minutes later she sank, rightly and going down on a level keel, until only her topsail-yards showed above water. We saw at least fifty of her men drown before our eyes; for the other frigate could not pick them up, most of her boats being ashore, wailing for the recalled sailors.

These were even then on the beach, and, so evil was their mood, we saw them deliberately shoot with their muskets four of the village men they had caught among the woods, one of them being an uncle by marriage of the Cartwrights, as they could tell even at that distance by the make of his smock,

“The other gun now!” I said. “We will pay them for that!”

We trained the gun down on their one vessel, which was busy receiving the boats of the sunk frigate, crowded with men. Then, as the shore boats arrived and clustered alongside, we slued the gun a little, in spite of a heavy musketry fire, and I touched her off. Two of the shore boats were blown literally to pieces by the bombs, and the broken flints must have spread over boats and ship like a hail of death; for I saw dozens of men fall about the decks of the frigate.

VIII.

With all her boats towing, she went out of the cove, and we fired one more charge of chain-shot at her rigging as she went. Three lengths of chain I fired, and there was scarce a sound piece of gear aloft in her after that last shot. And so she passed out into the Channel; and as she went, filled with her dead and her wounded, with her gear shot to pieces, we stood there in the mouth of our lofty cave (the Gun Cave they call it these days) and cheered the Dutch.

Much had we to sorrow for—poor Larg dying, as we found later, many killed, our village burned, and my father’s house sorely injured by the fire of a boat-gun that the Dutch had taken ashore with them, as we learned later.

But in all this sorrow we had no cause for shame, for only to remember that proud ship of war being towed out, laden with her dead and her dying, was a balm for all who had lost or suffered in that raid. And those three masts that stood up above the waters of our cove were a sight to ease the whole angry countryside for many a long day.

But one more thing there is to tell, and I had it from a man that saw it all. The good ship Henry Bolt, a small English frigate, met the Dutch frigate Van Ruyter outside in the Channel and gave her lather, and sank her in two hours, she having more than a hundred wounded men in her, and so much cut about in her top hamper that she could sail neither to fight nor run.

And this is the true history and telling of that day of adventure in our cove, and a thing I remember often, though now I am old.