I must now venture to assert my privilege as chronicler, and dispose of certain important events in a somewhat summary manner. The wreckers were captured immediately, upon the scene of their crime, by the revenue cutter, which had come round on the information given by Bill Marston, who had launched the lighthouse boat, and with great difficulty made his way in it to the shore, when he was supposed to be lying safe and quiet with a bullet through his head. He had first taken the precaution to cut the painter with which the wreckers had secured the big galley that had brought them, and thus shut off from them the only means of escape. His first care on landing had been to make his way to a farmhouse on the cliffs, where he obtained the assistance that enabled him to light the beacon that warned the “Black Dragoon” of her danger just in time. It was all due to his indomitable pluck and energy that the machinations of these banditti of the sea had been defeated, and the emigrant ship saved from destruction. It was some time before Charlie recovered from the very severe struggle to which he had been subjected, but youth and a strong constitution gained the victory, and he was well enough to appear at the assizes, where the “Great Wrecking Case at Gunnerstone” excited an immense amount of attention. He gave his evidence with much modesty, and in a way that called forth the hearty commendation of the learned judge who presided. The two ringleaders of the wreckers perished on the scaffold, and the rest were sent to expiate their crime by various terms of penal servitude, and thus Seth Lawrence’s death was avenged. The owners of the “Black Dragoon” presented Bill Marston with a gold watch and £100, while Charlie was rewarded with a silver one and £30, whereat the two recipients were highly delighted. A turn of the pen, and behold another Christmas Eve has come round. Bill and Charlie are sitting in the room in the lighthouse, but a stranger is in their company, a jovial, genial fellow, but not Seth Lawrence. There was a big salt tear rolling down Bill Marston’s cheek, forced out by the tide of recollection that was flooding on him. “Aye, lad,” he murmured, in a strangely choky tone, “he was made of the right stuff, he was. Let’s hope to do our duty as he did.” And the lad’s sobbing voice said, “_Amen_.” OUR CHRISTMAS DINNER AT DR. LICKEMWELL’S. _By ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF, Author of “Oudendale,” “Horace Hazelwood,” “The Lycée Boys,” &c., &c._