This seemed to him a grave engineering blunder: but to impart his misgivings to an officer so sensitive as Captain Aeneas Pond of the East and West Looe Volunteer Artillery was a delicate matter, and cost him much anxious thought.
At length he hit on a plan at once tactful and so bold that it concealed his tact.

Between Looe and Troy, but much nearer to Looe, lies Talland Cove, a pretty recess of the coast much favoured in those days by smugglers as being lonely and well sheltered, with a nicely shelving beach on which, at almost any state of the tide, an ordinary small boat could be run and her cargo discharged with the greatest ease.

A shelving ridge on the eastern side of the cove had only to be known to be avoided, and the run of sea upon the beach could be disregarded in any but a strong southerly wind.
Now, where the free-traders could so easily land a cargo, it stood to reason that Bonaparte (were he so minded) could land an invading force.

Nay, once on a time the French had actually forced this very spot.

A short way up the valley behind the cove stood a mill; and of that mill this story was told.