never allowed them.

You see, Captain Harry, having dodged in behind the cutter without being
spied, had a pretty start with the unloading. When day broke, Mr.
Wearne, finding no sean-boat or suspicious craft in sight, and allowing
that there was no fear of another attempt before nightfall, had stood
down again for Prussia Cove, meaning to send in a boat (for the cutter
drew too much water) and have it out with Captain Carter about the
rockets. You can fancy his face when he came abreast the entrance and
found the boys working like a hive of bees. As for resistance, the King
always swore he hadn't an idea of it till Mrs. Geen put it into his
head. The battery was never intended for more than show. "She's a
wonderful woman," he declared; but he had a monstrous respect for all
the Lemals. "Blood in every one of 'em," he said.

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