The Story of the Rock - Robert Michael Ballantyne (best novels to read for students TXT) 📗

the rocks, and gave a startling alarm. Without delay a boat was launched and pulled to the rescue. Meanwhile the vessel filled so fast that their boat floated on the deck before the crew could get into it, and the whole affair had occurred so suddenly that some of the men, when taken off, were only in their shirts. That night the rescued men were hospitably entertained in the _Buss_ by the builders of the new lighthouse, and, soon after, the ribs of the _Charming Sally_ were torn to pieces by the far-famed teeth of the Eddystone--another added to the countless thousands of wrecks which had been demonstrating the urgent need there was for a lighthouse there, since the earliest days of navigation.

Having enacted this pleasant little episode, the indefatigable builders set to work again to do battle with the winds and waves. That the battle was a fierce one is incidentally brought out by the fact that on the 8th of August the sea was said "for the first time" to have refrained from going over the works during a whole tide!

On the 11th of the same month the building was brought to a level with the highest point of the Rock. This was a noteworthy epoch, inasmuch as the first completely _circular_ course was laid down, and the men had more space to move about.

Mr Smeaton, indeed, seems to have moved about too much. Possibly the hilarious state of his mind unduly affected his usually sedate body. At all events, from whatever cause, he chanced to tumble off the edge of the building, and fell on the rocks below, at the very feet of the amazed Teddy Maroon, who happened to be at work there at the time.

"Och, is it kilt ye are, sur?" demanded the Irishman.

"Not quite," replied Smeaton, rising and carefully examining his thumb, which had been dislocated.

"Sure now it's a sargeon ye should have bin," said Teddy, as his commander jerked the thumb into its place as though it had been the disabled joint of a mathematical instrument, and quietly returned to his labours.

About this time also the great shears, by means of which the stones were raised to the top of the building, were overturned, and fell with a crash amongst the men; fortunately, however, no damage to life or limb resulted, though several narrow escapes were made. Being now on a good platform, they tried to work at night with the aid of links, but the enemy came down on them in the form of wind, and constantly blew the links out. The builders, determined not to be beaten, made a huge bonfire of their links. The enemy, growing furious, called up reinforcements of the waves, and not only drowned out the bonfire but drove the builders back to the shelter of their fortress, the _Buss_, and shut them up there for several days, while the waves, coming constantly up in great battalions, broke high over the re-erected shears, and did great damage to the machinery and works, but failed to move the sturdy root of the lighthouse which had now been fairly planted, though the attack was evidently made in force, this being the worst storm of the season. It lasted fifteen days.

On the 1st September the enemy retired for a little repose, and the builders, instantly sallying out, went to work again "with a will," and secured eighteen days of uninterrupted progress. Then the ocean, as if refreshed, renewed the attack, and kept it up with such unceasing vigour that the builders drew off and retired into winter quarters on the 3rd of October, purposing to continue the war in the following spring.

During this campaign of 1757 the column of the lighthouse had risen four feet six inches above the highest point of the Eddystone Rock. Thus ended the second season, and the wearied but dauntless men returned to the work-yard on shore to carve the needful stones, and otherwise to prepare ammunition for the coming struggle.

Sitting one night that winter at John Potter's fireside, smoking his pipe in company with John Bowden, Teddy Maroon expressed his belief that building lighthouses was about the hardest and the greatest work that man could undertake; that the men who did undertake such work ought not only to receive double pay while on duty, but also half pay for the remainder of their natural lives; that the thanks of the king, lords, and commons, inscribed on vellum, should be awarded to each man; and that gold medals should be struck commemorative of such great events,-- all of which he said with great emphasis, discharging a sharp little puff of smoke between every two or three words, and winding up with a declaration that "them was his sentiments."

To all this old John Potter gravely nodded assent, and old Martha--being quite deaf to sound as well as reason--shook her head so decidedly that her cap quivered again.

John Bowden ventured to differ. He--firing off little cloudlets of smoke between words, in emulation of his friend--gave it as his opinion that "war was wuss," an opinion which he founded on the authority of his departed father, who had fought all through the Peninsular campaign, and who had been in the habit of entertaining his friends and family with such graphic accounts of storming breaches, bombarding fortresses, lopping off heads, arms, and legs, screwing bayonets into men's gizzards and livers, and otherwise agonising human frames, and demolishing human handiwork, that the hair of his auditors' heads would certainly have stood on end if that capillary proceeding had been at all possible.

But Teddy Maroon did not admit the force of his friend's arguments. He allowed, indeed, that war was a great work, inasmuch as it was a great evil, whereas lighthouse-building was a great blessing; and he contended, that while the first was a cause of unmitigated misery, and productive of nothing better than widows, orphans, and national debts, the second was the source of immense happiness, and of salvation to life, limb, and property.

To this John Bowden objected, and Teddy Maroon retorted, whereupon a war of words began, which speedily waged so hot that the pipes of both combatants went out, and old John Potter found it necessary to assume the part of peace-maker, in which, being himself a keen debater, he failed, and there is no saying what might have been the result of it if old Martha had not brought the action to a summary close by telling her visitors in shrill tones to "hold their noise." This they did after laughing heartily at the old woman's fierce expression of countenance.

Before parting, however, they all agreed without deciding the question at issue--that lighthouse-building was truly a noble work.


CHAPTER TEN.


THE CAMPAIGN OF 1758.

The contrast was pleasant; repose after toil,--for stone-cutting in the yard on shore was rest compared with the labour at the Rock. Steady, regular, quiet progress; stone after stone added to the great pile, tested and ready for shipment at the appointed time. The commander-in-chief planning, experimenting, superintending. The men busy as bees; and, last but not least, delightful evenings with friends, and recountings of the incidents of the war. Such is the record of the winter.

The spring of 1758 came; summer advanced. The builders assumed the offensive, and sent out skirmishers to the Rock, where they found that the enemy had taken little or no rest during the winter, and were as hard at it as ever. Little damage, however, had been done.

The attacking party suffered some defeats at the outset. They found that their buoy was lost, and the mooring chain of the _Buss_ had sunk during the winter. It was fished up, however, but apparently might as well have been let lie, for it could not hold the _Buss_, which broke loose during a gale, and had to run for Plymouth Sound. Again, on 3rd June; another buoy was lost, and bad weather continued till July. Then, however, a general and vigorous assault was made, the result being "great progress," so that, on the 8th of August, a noteworthy point was reached.

On that day the fourteenth "course" was laid, and this completed the "solid" part of the lighthouse. It rose 35 feet above the foundation.

From this point the true _house_ may be said to have commenced, for, just above this course, the opening for the door was left, and the little space in the centre for the spiral staircase which was to lead to the first room.

As if to mark their disapproval of this event, the angry winds and waves, during the same month, raised an unusually furious commotion while one of the yawls went into the "Gut" or pool, which served as a kind of harbour, to aid one of the stone boats.

"She won't get out o' that _this_ night," said John Bowden, alluding to the yawl, as he stood on the top of the "solid" where his comrades were busy working, "the wind's gettin' up from the east'ard."

"If she don't," replied one of the men, "we'll have to sleep where we are."

"Slape!" exclaimed Maroon, looking up from the great stone whose joints he had been carefully cementing, "it's little slape you'll do here, boys. Av we're not washed off entirely we'll have to howld on by our teeth and nails. It's a cowld look-out."

Teddy was right. The yawl being unable to get out of the Gut, the men in it were obliged to "lie on their oars" all night, and those on the top of the building, where there was scarcely shelter for a fly, felt both the "look-out" and the look-in so "cowld" that they worked all night as the only means of keeping themselves awake and comparatively warm. It was a trying situation; a hard night, as it were "in the trenches,"--but it was their first and last experience of the kind.

Thus foot by foot--often baffled, but never conquered--Smeaton and his men rose steadily above the waves until they reached a height of thirty-five feet from the foundation, and had got as far as the store-room (the first apartment) of the building. This was on the 2nd of October, on which day all the stones required for that season were put into this store-room; but on the 7th of the same month the enemy made a grand assault in force, and caused these energetic labourers to beat a retreat. It was then resolved that they should again retire into winter quarters. Everything on the Rock was therefore "made taut" and secure against the foe, and the workers returned to the shore, whence they beheld the waves beating against their tower with such fury that the sprays rose high above it.

The season could not close, however, without an exhibition of the peculiar aptitude of the _Buss_ for disastrous action! On the 8th that inimitable vessel--styled by Teddy Maroon a "tub," and by the other men, variously, a "bumboat," a "puncheon," and a "brute" began to tug with tremendous violence at her cable.

"Ah then, darlin'," cried Maroon, apostrophising her, "av ye go on like that much longer it's snappin' yer cable ye'll be after."

"It wouldn't be the first time," growled John Bowden, as he leaned against the gale and watched with gravity of countenance a huge billow whose crest was blown off in sheets of spray as it came rolling towards them.

"Howld on!" cried Teddy Maroon, in anxiety.

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