look, and then by the light--a bluish colour 'twas--he saw all the
coast clear away to Manacle Point, and off the Manacles, in the thick
of the weather, a sloop-of-war with top-gallants housed, driving
stern foremost towards the reef. It was she, of course, that was
burning the flare. My father could see the white streak and the
ports of her quite plain as she rose to it, a little outside the
breakers, and he guessed easy enough that her captain had just
managed to wear ship, and was trying to force her nose to the sea
with the help of her small bower anchor and the scrap or two of
canvas that hadn't yet been blown out of her. But while he looked,
she fell off, giving her broadside to it foot by foot, and drifting
back on the breakers around Carn du and the Varses. The rocks lie so
thick thereabouts, that 'twas a toss up which she struck first; at
any rate, my father couldn't tell at the time, for just then the
flare died down and went out.

"Well, sir, he turned then in the dark and started back for Coverack
to cry the dismal tidings--though well knowing ship and crew to be
past any hope; and as he turned, the wind lifted him and tossed him
forward 'like a ball,' as he'd been saying, and homeward along the
foreshore. As you know, 'tis ugly work, even by daylight, picking
your way among the stones there, and my father was prettily knocked
about at first in the dark. But by this 'twas nearer seven than six
o'clock, and the day spreading. By the time he reached North Corner,
a man could see to read print; hows'ever, he looked neither out to
sea nor towards Coverack, but headed straight for the first cottage--
the same that stands above North Corner to-day. A man named Billy
Ede lived there then, and when my father burst into the kitchen
bawling, 'Wreck! wreck!' he saw Billy Ede's wife, Ann, standing there
in her clogs, with a shawl over her head, and her clothes wringing