Part 41 (2/2)

”Now, boys, it's not fair to be spending all the night with you here, while my old comrade Forsyth sits up yonder all alone. I'll go up and see him for a little.”

”We'll go hup with 'ee, lad,” said Dumsby.

”No ye won't,” replied Ruby; ”I want him all to myself for a while; fair play and no favour, you know, used to be our watchword on the rock in old times. Besides, his watch will be out in a little, so ye can come up and fetch him down.”

”Well, go along with you,” said the smith. ”Hallo! that must have been a big 'un.”

This last remark had reference to a distinct tremor in the building, caused by the falling of a great wave upon it.

”Does it often get raps like that?” enquired Ruby, with a look of surprise.

”Not often,” said Dove, ”once or twice durin' a gale, mayhap, when a bigger one than usual chances to fall on us at the right angle. But the lighthouse shakes worst just the gales begin to take off and when the swell rolls in heavy from the east'ard.”

”Ay, that's the time,” quoth Joe. ”W'y, I've 'eard all the cups and saucers on the dresser rattle with the blows o' them heavy seas, but the gale is gittin' to be too strong to-night to shake us much.”

”Too strong!” exclaimed Ruby.

”Ay. You see w'en it blows very hard, the breakers have not time to come down on us with a 'eavy tellin' blow, they goes tumblin' and swas.h.i.+n' round us and over us, hammerin' away wildly everyhow, or nohow, or anyhow, just like a hexcited man fightin' in a hurry. The after-swell, _that's_ wot does it. _That's_ wot comes on slow, and big, and easy but powerful, like a great prize-fighter as knows what he can do, and means to do it.”

”A most uncomfortable sort of residence,” said Ruby, as he turned to quit the room.

”Not a bit, when ye git used to it,” said the smith. ”At first we was rather skeered, but we don't mind now. Come, Joe, give us `Rule, Britannia'--`pity she don't rule the waves straighter,' as somebody writes somewhere.”

So saying, Dove resumed his pipe, and Dumsby his fiddle, while Ruby proceeded to the staircase that led to the rooms above.

Just as he was about to ascend, a furious gust of wind swept past, accompanied by a wild roar of the sea; at the same moment a ma.s.s of spray dashed against the small window at his side. He knew that this window was at least sixty feet above the rock, and he was suddenly filled with a strong desire to have a nearer view of the waves that had force to mount so high. Instead, therefore, of ascending to the lantern, he descended to the doorway, which was open, for, as the storm blew from the eastward, the door was on the lee-side.

There were two doors--one of metal, with thick plate-gla.s.s panels at the inner end of the pa.s.sage; the other, at the outer end of it, was made of thick solid wood bound with metal, and hung so as to open outwards.

When the two leaves of this heavy door were shut they were flush with the tower, so that nothing was presented for the waves to act upon. But this door was never closed except in cases of storm from the southward.

The scene which presented itself to our hero when he stood in the entrance pa.s.sage was such as neither pen nor pencil can adequately depict. The tide was full, or nearly so, and had the night been calm the water would have stood about twelve or fourteen feet on the sides of the tower, leaving a s.p.a.ce of about the same height between its surface and the spot at the top of the copper ladder where Ruby stood; but such was the wild commotion of the sea that this s.p.a.ce was at one moment reduced to a few feet, as the waves sprang up towards the doorway, or nearly doubled, as they sank hissing down to the very rock.

Acres of white, leaping, seething foam covered the spot where the terrible Bell Rock lay. Never for a moment did that boiling cauldron get time to show one spot of dark-coloured water. Billow after billow came careering on from the open sea in quick succession, breaking with indescribable force and fury just a few yards to windward of the foundations of the lighthouse, where the outer ledges of the rock, although at the time deep down in the water, were sufficiently near the surface to break their first full force, and save the tower from destruction, though not from many a tremendous blow and overwhelming deluge of water.

When the waves. .h.i.t the rock they were so near that the lighthouse appeared to receive the shock. Rus.h.i.+ng round it on either side, the cleft billows met again to leeward, just opposite the door, where they burst upwards in a magnificent cloud of spray to a height of full thirty feet. At one time, while Ruby held on by the man-ropes at the door and looked over the edge, he could see a dark abyss with the foam s.h.i.+mmering pale far below; another instant, and the solid building perceptibly trembled, as a green sea hit it fair on the weather-side. A continuous roar and hiss followed as the billow swept round, filled up the dark abyss, and sent the white water gleaming up almost into the doorway. At the same moment the sprays flew by on either side of the column, so high that a few drops were thrown on the lantern. To Ruby's eye these sprays appeared to be clouds driving across the sky, so high were they above his head. A feeling of awe crept over him as his mind gradually began to realise the world of water which, as it were, overwhelmed him--water and foam roaring and flying everywhere--the heavy seas thundering on the column at his back--the sprays from behind arching almost over the lighthouse, and meeting those that burst up in front, while an eddy of wind sent a cloud swirling in at the doorway, and drenched him to the skin! It was an exhibition of the might of G.o.d in the storm such as he had never seen before, and a brief sudden exclamation of thanksgiving burst from the youth's lips, as he thought of how hopeless his case would have been had the French vessel pa.s.sed the lighthouse an hour later than it did.

The contrast between the scene outside and that inside the Bell Rock Lighthouse at that time was indeed striking. Outside there was madly raging conflict; inside there were peace, comfort, security: Ruby, with his arms folded, standing calmly in the doorway; Jamie Dove and Joe Dumsby smoking and fiddling in the snug kitchen; George Forsyth reading (the _Pilgrim's Progress_ mayhap, or _Robinson Crusoe_, for both works were in the Bell Rock library) by the bright blaze of the crimson and white lamps, high up in the crystal lantern.

If a magician had divided the tower in two from top to bottom while some s.h.i.+p was staggering past before the gale, he would have presented to the amazed mariners the most astonis.h.i.+ng picture of ”war without and peace within” that the world ever saw!

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.

MIDNIGHT CHAT IN A LANTERN.

”I'll have to borrow another s.h.i.+rt and pair of trousers from you, Dove,”

said Ruby with a laugh, as he returned to the kitchen.

<script>