At the Black Rocks Part 26

"There!" said the squire: "I don't know that I ever paid for a job with greater satisfaction."

He was handling a roll of bills as he said this, and handed one of these to Dave.

"It is too much, sir."

"Oh no. That was a peculiar pile of wood, and it took a peculiar kind of merit to get the better of it. For ordinary wood," said the squire, his eyes blinking, "I should only pay an ordinary price; but this wood was something more than ordinary, and of course the price goes up. When I can do you a favour, you let me know."

That day toward sunset a dory was gently tossing at the foot of the lighthouse on Black Rocks.

"Hollo!" shouted Dave, looking up from the boat and aiming his voice at the door above.

"Oh, that you?" asked the light-keeper, quickly appearing in the doorway and looking down. "My man will be here in a jiffy and go home in your boat, as we fixed it, you know."

Dave exchanged the boat for the lighthouse, and the retiring a.s.sistant quit the lighthouse for the boat, then rowing to his home. Dave heard that night the wind humming about the lantern, saw the friendly rays beckoning from other lighthouses, heard the wash of the waves around the gray tower of stone, and felt that he had reached a home.

XIV.

_GUESTS AT THE LIGHTHOUSE._

In a month Dave Fletcher was established at the light on Black Rocks as a.s.sistant-keeper--a position that would bring him a far handsomer salary than could any present clerkship at Shipton. This berth was not secured without a struggle by Dave's friends, as several candidates were willing to take the duties and profits of the place.

"You've got the place, though others wanted it," said the keeper, returning from town one day and wiping his round, red face with his handkerchief. "News came to-day. I don't know but you would have lost it, but they say a friend of yours interceded and told them up and down you must have it any way."

"Who was it?"

"Somebody that said he had seen you run a saw and knew you could run a lighthouse. That's what folks tell me he said."

"Oh, Squire Sylvester!"

"Yes. Queer feller; but he isn't all growl, though he does look like it, maybe."

Some time after this there were visitors at the light. One was expected, the other was not. The first was Bart Trafton, brought by the light-keeper one soft, sunny April day. Bart was very much interested in the lantern.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Bart was very much interested in the lantern of the lighthouse." _Page 159_]

"Can I go up with you and see the lantern?" he asked.

"Oh yes," said Dave, leading Bart up the iron stairway that mounted from room to room.

"There!" said Bart, looking round on the gla.s.s windows enclosing the lantern and the lamp in its centre: "I think this is a dreadful interestin' place."

"I think so too, Bart."

"And what I think is interestin' is that lamp in the centre. Why, granny uses a lamp that, it seems to me, is no bigger than that, but it can't throw anywhere near such a light as that. I saw your light last night."

"You did? where?"

"From the hill behind our house. I went up there and saw it."

"I did not know that. Then we could signal to one another."

"Signal?"

"Yes, this way. Supposing, now, I should hang a lantern out on the side of the lighthouse toward the land, toward your home, and you could see it: you might take it as a sign that I wanted--well--we will say--a doctor."

"I think I could see it with father's spy-gla.s.s; it is real powerful.

Say, will you try it to-morrow night? You hang it out, and I will take father's spy-gla.s.s and see if I can make out anything. Then I will send you word by the mail. You don't think it is too far from our house to the light?"

"Too far to see? oh no. Now, I said a man might want a doctor here. I have often thought if one of us was sick--and you know the keeper is getting old--and if the other couldn't get off to bring a doctor, it might be a very serious thing for the sick man."

"Well, if you are in trouble and will hang out a light, and I see it, I will tell the people, and they will get to you."

Dave thought no more of this, but silently said, "I wonder if I haven't something else interesting to show the boy! Yes, I have got it."

He went down from the lantern to the kitchen, and took from its shelf the strange box of sandal-wood, whose story Dave already knew.

The light-keeper now repeated to Bart the tale of the drifting relic.

He held it to his ear. Did the boy think it was a sh.e.l.l--that it would murmur a song of wave and cloud and the broad sunshine sweeping down on lonely surf-washed ledges?

"It won't talk," said the light-keeper, beaming on him.

Bart shook his head.

"I wish it would talk," thought the keeper. "It might tell about that man whom we picked up and brought into the light, and who seemed to know something about it. I wonder if he will ever call for it!"

He spoke of it to Dave afterward. The two were up on the lantern-deck at sunset looking off upon the sea. The water was still and gla.s.sy. It was heaving gently, as if with the dying day it too was dying, but feebly pulsating with life. One vast surface of shining gray, it gradually darkened till it was a ma.s.s of shadows across which were drawn the lines of white surf cresting the ledges.

"Several vessels in the harbour," said Dave.

"Yes: they have been coming down from Shipton this afternoon; but the wind has all died away, and they seem to have made up their mind to anchor there to-night. It is getting cool. Perhaps we had better go down," said the keeper, shrugging his shoulders. While within the lantern he glanced at the lamp, and then descended to the kitchen.

Without the twilight deepened. Out of the gloom towered the lighthouse, bearing aloft its guiding, warning rays. The keeper was in the kitchen, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g an old lantern which had done him much faithful service. That small visitor, Bart, had gone with Dave up into the lantern, anxious to see the working of the lamp.

The keeper lighted his lantern, and then started for the fog-signal tower. He was descending the stairs, when he heard a cry outside of the lighthouse.

"Somebody at the foot of the ladder, I guess, wants me," concluded the keeper, "and I will go to the door and see who it is."

He went to the door, lantern in hand, and looked down.

"Hollo, there!" sang out a man from the shadows below. "Shall I come up?"

"Ay, ay!" responded the keeper. "Low water down there, isn't it, so you can come up the ladder?"

"I guess so. I will make fast and try the ladder."