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Well, with all the country talking about John Carter and his doings, you may fancy that every boy in Ardevora wanted to grow up in a hurry and be off to Prussia Cove a-smuggling. He had been over to the Cove with his mother on a visit to Bessie Bussow, and there in the Kiddlywink the King had patted him on his big head and given him a shilling. After that the boy gave his mother no peace.

Wearne, the collector, understood this, and it was not by his fault either that the firing came about, but all through an interfering woman and a preacher who couldn't mind his own business. It began in this way. Bessie Bussow had a sister-in-law married and living over here in Ardevora Ann Geen was the name of her a daughter of Kitty Lemal. No?

Speculum Christiani. Here is a little story I found one day among the legends of the Cornish Saints, like a chip in porridge. If you love simplicity, I think it may amuse you. Lovey Bussow was wife of Daniel Bussow, a tin-streamer of Gwithian Parish.

Dan'l was John Carter's own sister's son, trained under his eye; and when the Carters retired he took over the business in partnership with young Phoby Geen, a nephew by marriage to Bessie Bussow that still kept the Kiddlywink at Porthleah, and had laid by a stockingful of money. I daresay she overstated the case, as women will.

"You haven't found any part for me in your little plans," put in Bessie Bussow. "Now, I'm thinkin' that when he finds himself on the high seas and wants to speak a foreign-bound ship, this here may come in handy." She pulled out a bag from her under-pocket and passed it over to Tummels. "Gold?" said he. "Gold an' notes? 'Tis you have a head on your shoulders, missus." "Thank 'ee," said she.

"Hullo, Tummels!" said Bessie Bussow, hearing his footstep on the pebbles, and popping her old head out of window, nightcap and all. "What fetches you abroad so early?" "Dress yourself, that's a dear woman! Dress yourself and come down!" Tummels waited in a sweat of impatience till the old woman opened her front door. "What's the matter with the man?" she asked.

Except for the faithful Tummels and Bessie Bussow at the Kiddlywink, the Cove was all deserted the Nonesuch and her crew being yet on the high seas.

You have heard tell, of course, of Captain John Carter, the famous smuggler of Prussia Cove, and his brothers Harry, Francis, and Charles, and Captain Will Richards, "Tummels," Carpenter Hosking, Uncle Billy, and the rest of the Cove boys; likewise of old Nan Leggo and Bessie Bussow that kept the Kiddlywink there?

This turned the tables on the smugglers, who sought shelter in Bessie Bussow's house." Nothing serious appears to have happened, however. Bessie Bussow, who kept the "Kiddleywink" inn, has passed to immortality in connection with Bessie's Cove, which Nature seems to have contrived especially for the doings of smugglers.

She was a well-plucked woman for seventy-five, was Bessie Bussow; and had a head on her shoulders too. While Tummels was harnessing, she fit and boiled a dish o' tea to fortify herself, and after drinking it nipped into the cart as spry as a two-year-old. Off they drove, and came within sight of Stack's Folly just about the time when Phoby Geen was bringing the Fly into St. Ives harbour.