The Lighthouse Part 9

Ruby and his friend now entered upon a long and earnest conversation as to their peculiar duties at the Bell Rock, with which we will not trouble the reader.

After breakfast they went on deck, and here Ruby had sufficient to occupy his attention and to amuse him for some hours.

As the tide that day did not fall low enough to admit of landing on the rock till noon, the men were allowed to spend the time as they pleased.

Some therefore took to fishing, others to reading, while a few employed themselves in drying their clothes, which had got wet the previous day, and one or two entertained themselves and their comrades with the music of the violin and flute. All were busy with one thing or another, until the rock began to show its black crest above the smooth sea. Then a bell was rung to summon the artificers to land.

This being the signal for Ruby to commence work, he joined his friend Dove, and a.s.sisted him to lower the bellows of the forge into the boat.

The men were soon in their places, with their various tools, and the boats pushed off--Mr Stevenson, the engineer of the building, steering one boat, and the master of the _Pharos_, who was also appointed to the post of landing-master, steering the other.

They landed with ease on this occasion on the western side of the rock, and then each man addressed himself to his special duty with energy.

The time during which they could work being short, they had to make the most of it.

"Now, lad," said the smith, "bring along the bellows and follow me.

Mind yer footin', for it's slippery walkin' on them tangle-covered rocks. I've seen some ugly falls here already."

"Have any bones been broken yet?" enquired Ruby, as he shouldered the large pair of bellows, and followed the smith cautiously over the rocks.

"Not yet; but there's been an awful lot o' pipes smashed. If it goes on as it has been, we'll have to take to metal ones. Here we are, Ruby, this is the forge, and I'll be bound you never worked at such a queer one before. Hallo! Bremner!" he shouted to one of the men.

"That's me," answered Bremner.

"Bring your irons as soon as you like! I'm about ready for you."

"Ay, ay, here they are," said the man, advancing with an armful of picks, chisels, and other tools, which required sharpening.

He slipped and fell as he spoke, sending all the tools into the bottom of a pool of water; but, being used to such mishaps, he arose, joined in the laugh raised against him, and soon fished up the tools.

"What's wrong!" asked Ruby, pausing in the work of fixing the bellows, on observing that the smith's face grew pale, and his general expression became one of horror. "Not sea-sick, I hope?"

"Sea-sick," gasped the smith, slapping all his pockets hurriedly, "it's worse than that; I've forgot the matches!"

Ruby looked perplexed, but had no consolation to offer.

"That's like you," cried Bremner, who, being one of the princ.i.p.al masons, had to attend chiefly to the digging out of the foundation-pit of the building, and knew that his tools could not be sharpened unless the forge fire could be lighted.

"Suppose you hammer a nail red-hot," suggested one of the men, who was disposed to make game of the smith.

"I'll hammer your nose red-hot," replied Dove, with a most undovelike scowl, "I could swear that I put them matches in my pocket before I started."

"No, you didn't," said George Forsyth, one of the carpenters--a tall loose-jointed man, who was chiefly noted for his dislike to getting into and out of boats, and climbing up the sides of ships, because of his lengthy and unwieldy figure--"No, you didn't, you turtle-dove, you forgot to take them; but I remembered to do it for you; so there, get up your fire, and confess yourself indebted to me for life."

"I'm indebted to 'ee for fire," said the smith, grasping the matches eagerly. "Thank'ee, lad, you're a true Briton."

"A tall 'un, rather," suggested Bremner.

"Wot never, never, never will be a slave," sang another of the men.

"Come, laddies, git up the fire. Time an' tide waits for naebody," said John Watt, one of the quarriers. "We'll want thae tools before lang."

The men were proceeding with their work actively while those remarks were pa.s.sing, and ere long the smoke of the forge fire arose in the still air, and the clang of the anvil was added to the other noises with which the busy spot resounded.

The foundation of the Bell Rock Lighthouse had been carefully selected by Mr Stevenson; the exact spot being chosen not only with a view to elevation, but to the serrated ridges of rock, that might afford some protection to the building, by breaking the force of the easterly seas before they should reach it; but as the s.p.a.ce available for the purpose of building was scarcely fifty yards in diameter, there was not much choice in the matter.

The foundation-pit was forty-two feet in diameter, and sunk five feet into the solid rock. At the time when Ruby landed, it was being hewn out by a large party of the men. Others were boring holes in the rock near to it, for the purpose of fixing the great beams of a beacon, while others were cutting away the seaweed from the rock, and making preparations for the laying down of temporary rails to facilitate the conveying of the heavy stones from the boats to their ultimate destination. All were busy as bees. Each man appeared to work as if for a wager, or to find out how much he could do within a given s.p.a.ce of time.

To the men on the rock itself the aspect of the spot was sufficiently striking and peculiar, but to those who viewed it from a boat at a short distance off it was singularly interesting, for the whole scene of operations appeared like a small black spot, scarcely above the level of the waves, on which a crowd of living creatures were moving about with great and incessant activity, while all around and beyond lay the mighty sea, sleeping in the grand tranquillity of a calm summer day, with nothing to bound it but the blue sky, save to the northward, where the distant cliffs of Forfar rested like a faint cloud on the horizon.

The sounds, too, which on the rock itself were harsh and loud and varied, came over the water to the distant observer in a united tone, which sounded almost as sweet as soft music.

The smith's forge stood on a ledge of rock close to the foundation-pit, a little to the north of it. Here Vulcan Dove had fixed a strong iron framework, which formed the hearth. The four legs which supported it were let into holes bored from six to twelve inches into the rock, according to the inequalities of the site. These were wedged first with wood and then with iron, for as this part of the forge and the anvil was doomed to be drowned every tide, or twice every day, besides being exposed to the fury of all the storms that might chance to blow, it behoved them to fix things down with unusual firmness.

The block of timber for supporting the anvil was fixed in the same manner, but the anvil itself was left to depend on its own weight and the small stud fitted into the bottom of it.

The bellows, however, were too delicate to be left exposed to such forces as the stormy winds and waves, they were therefore shipped and unshipped every tide, and conveyed to and from the rock in the boats with the men.

Dove and Ruby wrought together like heroes. They were both so powerful that the heavy implements they wielded seemed to possess no weight when in their strong hands, and their bodies were so lithe and active as to give the impression of men rejoicing, revelling, in the enjoyment of their work.

"That's your sort; hit him hard, he's got no friends," said Dove, turning a ma.s.s of red-hot metal from side to side, while Ruby pounded it with a mighty hammer, as if it were a piece of putty.

"Fire and steel for ever," observed Ruby, as he made the sparks fly right and left. "Hallo! the tide's rising."

"Ho! so it is," cried the smith, finishing off the piece of work with a small hammer, while Ruby rested on the one he had used and wiped the perspiration from his brow. "It always serves me in this way, lad,"

continued the smith, without pausing for a moment in his work. "Blow away, Ruby, the sea is my greatest enemy. Every day, a'most, it washes me away from my work. In calm weather, it creeps up my legs, and the legs o' the forge too, till it gradually puts out the fire, and in rough weather it sends up a wave sometimes that sweeps the whole concern black out at one shot."

"It will _creep_ you out to-day, evidently," said Ruby, as the water began to come about his toes.

"Never mind, lad, we'll have time to finish them picks this tide, if we work fast."

Thus they toiled and moiled, with their heads and shoulders in smoke and fire, and their feet in water.

Gradually the tide rose.

"Pump away, Ruby! Keep the pot bilin', my boy," said the smith.

"The wind blowin', you mean. I say, Dove, do the other men like the work here?"

"Like it, ay, they like it well. At fist we were somewhat afraid o' the landin' in rough weather, but we've got used to that now. The only bad thing about it is in the rolling o' that horrible _Pharos_. She's so bad in a gale that I sometimes think she'll roll right over like a cask.

Most of us get sick then, but I don't think any of 'em are as bad as me. They seem to be gettin' used to that too. I wish I could. Another blow, Ruby."

"Time's up," shouted one of the men.

"Hold on just for a minute or two," pleaded the smith, who, with his a.s.sistant, was by this time standing nearly knee-deep in water.

The sea had filled the pit some time before, and driven the men out of it. These busied themselves in collecting the tools and seeing that nothing was left lying about, while the men who were engaged on those parts of the rocks that were a few inches higher, continued their labours until the water crept up to them. Then they collected their tools, and went to the boats, which lay awaiting them at the western landing-place.

"Now, Dove," cried the landing-master, "come along; the crabs will be attacking your toes if you don't."

"It's a shame to gi'e Ruby the chance o' a sair throat the very first day," cried John Watt.