This was what the Penwhinnock men were discussing as they stood around some of the largest fishing-boats, dragged up on the beach for safety, and watched the gathering storm. The wind was blowing "big guns" then, and the rain was pelting fiercely down upon the bare, rugged rocks, and the mean, small cottages which formed the dwellings of the fishermen, and lined each side of the long straggling village street. It would have appeared to most landsmen as if the weather could not be much worse; but to the experienced eyes of the fishermen the night promised worse things--worse things to many an ill-fated mariner--but in the judgment of those hardy, cruel men it might bring to them "a good catch." This meant a brave ship being wrecked, flung hopelessly and helplessly upon the dreadful rocks, decoyed there by false lights, and lured into the jaws of death; it meant, too, robbery, pillage, cruelty, and, not seldom, _murder_! "What do you think of the night?" inquired Bob Trevannion of Will Lowry. "Think! Why, many a good ship will go down before another year dawns. That's what I think. And parson thinks so, too, I guess, for see, here he is!" Turning their faces towards the place indicated by the speaker, the group saw Mr. Boyce coming through the rain quietly, on his stout, sure-footed pony. "Eh!" said Hugh Hoskyns, a brawny six-footer. "I guess we'll have to attend the cottage to-night." "So we shall, man," replied Will Lowry; "but we shall leave in time to do a good night's work, if all be well. The _Fleur-de-lis_ is due up about this part toward morning, and our mates will be ready about on the hills in good time. But we must needs go to parson's 'Watch-night,' or he'll be poking his nose into our fun, and spoiling it." "Seems to me you've laid your plans well but I shouldn't wonder if parson isn't as deep," slily retorted Bob Trevannion. "He's up to all of it most as much as the wreckers themselves." "Never mind if he is. He'll not know anything this time, for we've put up the women and children to it; and though he may ride about this afternoon, visiting one and another, he'll not get anything. We shall go to his meeting right enough, then we'll wish him 'good-bye,' and while he's trotting off home and out of the storm, we'll look after our own business. Never fear!"