At the Black Rocks Part 18

What a happy boy it was that tumbled into the bed where the keeper told him he could sleep that night! Dave added to his happiness by an acknowledgment made. "Bartie," he whispered.

"What, Davie?"

"I owe you a good deal for stopping me at the dinner at the Nub."

"Stopping you?"

"When I didn't think, and lifted that gla.s.s, you know."

"Oh, but you wouldn't have touched it."

"If you had not been there, Bart, I don't know what might have happened."

"Oh, I am sure you would have come out all right," shouted confidently this diminutive mentor. And yet as he was falling asleep that night, hushed by the sound of the waves musically breaking against the walls of the lighthouse, a thought came to him and steeped his soul in comfort, that as Dave might have yielded, he--just Little Mew--might have been of some use, and so not for nought had G.o.d sent into the world this puny little fellow.

VIII.

_VISITORS._

Into the kitchen of the old lighthouse they came trooping the next day--Annie Fletcher, with all her winning vivacity; Jimmy Davis and his sister Belle, Dab and John Richards, and May Tolman, with her black, l.u.s.trous eyes, in which diamonds seemed to be dissolving continually (so Dave thought). May Tolman was the light-keeper's granddaughter. Then there was Mr. James Tolman, who came as skipper of the sail-boat bringing the party. Dave and Bart joined them at the door of the fog-signal tower; and to what a scampering, laughing, singing, and shouting did the gray stone walls listen as this flock of young people hurried in! Behind all was the gray-haired keeper; but no heart was lighter than his that day. Un.o.bserved he went to a window through which blew the cool, sweet, strong air from the sea, and he silently thanked G.o.d for the gift of youth renewed that day in his own soul and lifting him on wings, so that he too wanted to sing and shout, to race up and down the iron stairs, to clap his hands jubilantly, as from the parapet around the lantern he saw the breakers foam below and the white sea-gulls soar up and then down on strong, steady wing.

"Yes, bless G.o.d, I am still young--and ever shall be," thought the old light-keeper. Ah, he had renewed his youth long ago at the fountains of spiritual life, in the drinking of whose waters the soul becomes perennial in a new sense.

"Now, what shall I do for all these young folks?" he said to himself.

"I will certainly do whatever I can."

He showed them the lighthouse from storeroom to lantern, and then he carried them into the engine-room of the fog-signal tower and explained all the machinery there.

"_If_--if--we could only hear one toot!" exclaimed Annie Fletcher.

"Maybe the fog will come," replied Toby Tolman.

"Oh, if it would!" said Annie; and--it didn't.

"Too bad," everybody said.

"What else can I do?" wondered the light-keeper. Dave reminded him of one thing.

"Oh yes," the keeper replied. "Well, get them all together in the kitchen."

There cl.u.s.tered, the keeper told them, if they would excuse it, he would by request read them something about lighthouses.

"Don't expect much, though," he warned them, as he lifted his spectacles and adjusted them to his sight. "I have written this off at different times, perhaps in the evening when I have been watching, or in a storm when I could catch a little rest from work, or when I felt a bit lonely and wanted something to occupy me. I won't read all I have got, only what I think will interest. I first speak of ancient lighthouses."

Hemming vigorously several times, blus.h.i.+ng modestly behind his spectacles in the consciousness that the world was summoning him forth to be a lecturer, he then began:--

"I suppose the first lighthouses were very simple--that is, they were not lighthouses at all, but men just built big fires and kept them burning at points along an ugly sh.o.r.e, or to show where a harbour was.

Not long ago I was looking at a picture of a lighthouse doing work in our day and generation in Eastern Asia. It looked like a structure of wood. It probably had on top a hearth of some kind of earth, for there a fire was burning away. Not far off was the water. That looked primitive.

"If one turns to Rollin's 'Ancient History,' he will find in the first volume an interesting account of an old lighthouse, and it was so wonderful they called it one of the seven wonders of the world. It was built by order of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and he laid out eight hundred talents on it. One estimate of the value of this sum would bring it pretty well up to 180,000. As it stood on an island called Pharos, near Alexandria, the tower had the name of the island. That has given a name to like towers. In French, I am told, the word _phare_ means 'lighthouse.' In Spanish, _faro_ means 'lighthouse.' In English, too, when we say a pharos, we know, or ought to know, what it means. I can see how useful this old lighthouse may have been. On its top a fire was kindled. Alexandria was in Egypt, and the city is standing to-day, as we all know. It had at that time a very extensive trade, and as the sea-coast there is a dangerous one, it was very important that the s.h.i.+ps should have some guide at night. I can seem to see the old craft of those days plodding along, the sailors wondering which way to go, when lo, on Pharos's lofty tower blazes a fire to tell them their course.

"The architect of this tower was Sostratus, and there was an inscription on the tower said to have read this way: 'Sostratus, the Cnidian, son of Dexiphanes, to the protecting deities, for the use of sea-faring people.' His master, Ptolemy Philadelphus, was thought to have been very generous because he allowed the putting of Sostratus's name in place of his own. But Sostratus's name seems to have been put there by a trick, and it was finally found out. Sostratus cut in the marble this inscription that had his name; but what did he do but cover it with plaster! In the lime he traced the name of the king. How pleased Ptolemy must have been to see his name there! The lime, though, crumbled finally, and the king's name crumbled with it, and the tricky architect's inscription came out into notice. This lighthouse was built about three hundred years before Christ.

"In later years the tower of Dover Castle was used as a lighthouse. It was called Caesar's Altar. Great fires of logs were kept burning on the top. This was before the time of the Conquest, so called in English history. Then at the end of the sixteenth century a famous lighthouse a hundred and ninety-seven feet high was built at the mouth of the Garonne in France.

"About fourteen miles off Plymouth are the Eddystone Rocks. They are very much exposed to south-western seas. One light-builder was Winstanley, and he was at his work four seasons, finis.h.i.+ng in 1698. The lighthouse was eighty feet high. Made stouter and carried higher afterward, it was almost a hundred and twenty feet high. It stood until November 20, 1703. A very fierce blow of wind occurred then, and the tower was wrecked by the storm. Two grave mistakes were made. Its shape was a polygon, and not circular. Waves like to have corners to b.u.t.t against, and these should therefore be avoided. It was highly ornamented for a lighthouse, and ornaments are what winds and waves are fond of. It gives them a chance to get a good grip on a building and bring it down.--In 1706 one Rudyerd thought he would try his hand, and he did much better. The tower was built princ.i.p.ally of oak; yet when finished it stood for forty-six years, fire bringing it down in 1755.

Its form commended it, for it was like the frustum of a cone, circular, and was without fancy work for the waves to take hold of.--In 1756 Smeaton began to build at Eddystone his famous tower. He was the first engineer who built a sea-tower of masonry and dovetailed the joints.

The stones averaged a ton in weight. He reduced the diameter of the tower at a small height above the rock. He reasoned about the resemblance of a tower exposed to the surf and an oak tree that faces the wind. That has been shown not to be good reasoning; and looking at the shape of his tower, I should say the idea would not stand fire--or in this case water; for if at a small distance above the rock you reduce the diameter of the tower very much, it gives the waves a good chance to crowd down on the sides of the tower. However, Smeaton's tower stood a good many years. Its very weight enabled it to offer great resistance to the waves, and weight is one thing we must secure hi a tower, avoiding ornament and all silly gingerbread work. In 1882 a new tower was built in place of Smeaton's."

The light-keeper then gave some details of our lighthouse service. His paper deeply interested his auditors.

Subsequently Annie Fletcher asked, "What is that ringing like the sound of a little church-bell?"

"Then your ears were quick enough to catch it?" replied the keeper.

"The window, too, is up, and so you could hear it. That is a bell-buoy at a bad ledge off in the sea."

"A bell-buoy?" asked Annie.

"Yes. It is a frame from whose top is suspended a bell. The bell is fixed, while the tongue, of course, is movable. The buoy floats on the water--fastened, you know, to the rocks beneath; and as the waves move the buoy the bell moves with it, and rings also--like a cradle rocking!"

"The buoy is the cradle, and the bell is the baby in it," suggested Dave.

"And waves are the mother's hand rocking the cradle," added May Tolman.

"Mother's hand--that is, the ocean--is pretty rough out there sometimes," said the light-keeper. "In a storm, when the wind brings the sound this way, the baby cries pretty loud."

"It squalls," declared Dave.

"I'd like to see that bell-buoy," said Johnny Richards.

"Should you?" replied the keeper. "Well, the sea is smooth, and we can all go easily in two boats.--James, you manage one, and I'll cap'n the other. It won't take more than twenty minutes to row there."

The two boats now commenced their journey.

The two boats from the lighthouse were quickly at the bell-buoy. It was a bell hung in a frame, which was swung by the waves. It was an object of deep interest to the visitors, and they lingered about it, and then rowed back to the lighthouse.

IX.

_THAT OPEN BOOK._

Toby Tolman, keeper of the light at Black Rocks, sat by the kitchen stove in this lighthouse on the frothing, stony rim of the sea. He liked the seclusion of this kitchen in the strong rock tower. He liked to hear the steady beating of the clock--"tick, tick, tick, tick." He liked the feeling, too, of the warm fire, and especially on this cool, windy day. True it was August, but then the wind was blowing from the north-west as if from an ice-floe up in Alaska, and the air was chilly.