The Lighthouse Part 18

RUBY HAS A RISE IN LIFE, AND A FALL.

James Dove, the blacksmith, had, for some time past, been watching the advancing of the beacon-works with some interest, and a good deal of impatience. He was tired of working so constantly up to the knees in water, and aspired to a drier and more elevated workshop.

One morning he was told by the foreman that orders had been given for him to remove his forge to the beacon, and this removal, this "flitting", as he called it, was the first of the memorable events referred to in the last chapter.

"Hallo! Ruby, my boy," cried the elated son of Vulcan, as he descended the companion ladder, "we're goin' to flit, lad. We're about to rise in the world, so get up your bellows. It's the last time we shall have to be bothered with them in the boat, I hope."

"That's well," said Ruby, shouldering the unwieldy bellows; "they have worn my shoulders threadbare, and tried my patience almost beyond endurance."

"Well, it's all over now, lad," rejoined the smith. "In future you shall have to blow up in the beacon yonder; so come along."

"Come, Ruby, that ought to comfort the c.o.c.kles o' yer heart," said O'Connor, who pa.s.sed up the ladder as he spoke; "the smith won't need to blow you up any more, av you're to blow yourself up in the beacon in futur'. Arrah! there's the bell again. Sorrow wan o' me iver gits to slape, but I'm turned up immadiately to go an' poke away at that rock-- faix, it's well named the Bell Rock, for it makes me like to _bell_ow me lungs out wid vexation."

"That pun is _bel_ow contempt," said Joe Dumsby, who came up at the moment.

"That's yer sort, laddies; ye're guid at ringing the changes on that head onyway," cried Watt.

"I say, we're gittin' a _bell_y-full of it," observed Forsyth, with a rueful look. "I hope n.o.body's goin' to give us another!"

"It'll create a re_bell_ion," said Bremner, "if ye go on like that."

"It'll bring my _bell_ows down on the head o' the next man that speaks!"

cried Ruby, with indignation.

"Don't you hear the bell, there?" cried the foreman down the hatchway.

There was a burst of laughter at this unconscious continuation of the joke, and the men sprang up the ladder,--down the side, and into the boats, which were soon racing towards the rock.

The day, though not sunny, was calm and agreeable, nevertheless the landing at the rock was not easily accomplished, owing to the swell caused by a recent gale. After one or two narrow escapes of a ducking, however, the crews landed, and the bellows, instead of being conveyed to their usual place at the forge, were laid at the foot of the beacon.

The carriage of these bellows to and fro almost daily had been a subject of great annoyance to the men, owing to their being so much in the way, and so unmanageably bulky, yet so essential to the progress of the works, that they did not dare to leave them on the rock, lest they should be washed away, and they had to handle them tenderly, lest they should get damaged.

"Now, boys, lend a hand with the forge," cried the smith, hurrying towards his anvil.

Those who were not busy eating dulse responded to the call, and in a short time the ponderous _materiel_ of the smithy was conveyed to the beacon, where, in process of time, it was hoisted by means of tackle to its place on the platform to which reference has already been made.

When it was safely set up and the bellows placed in position, Ruby went to the edge of the platform, and, looking down on his comrades below, took off his cap and shouted in the tone of a Stentor, "Now, lads, three cheers for the Dovecot!"

This was received with a roar of laughter and three tremendous cheers.

"Howld on, boys," cried O'Connor, stretching out his hand as if to command silence; "you'll scare the dove from his cot altogether av ye roar like that!"

"Surely they're sendin' us a fire to warm us," observed one of the men, pointing to a boat which had put off from the _Smeaton_, and was approaching the rock by way of _Macurich's Track_.

"What can'd be, I wonder?" said Watt; "I think I can smell somethin'."

"I halways thought you 'ad somethink of an old dog in you," said Dumsby.

"Ay, man!" said the Scot with a leer, "I ken o' war beasts than auld dowgs."

"Do you? come let's 'ear wat they are," said the Englishman.

"Young puppies," answered the other.

"Hurrah! dinner, as I'm a Dutchman," cried Forsyth.

This was indeed the case. Dinner had been cooked on board the _Smeaton_ and sent hot to the men; and this,--the first dinner ever eaten on the Bell Rock,--was the second of the memorable events before referred to.

The boat soon ran into the creek and landed the baskets containing the food on _Hope's Wharf_.

The men at once made a rush at the viands, and bore them off exultingly to the flattest part of the rock they could find.

"A regular picnic," cried Dumsby in high glee, for unusual events, of even a trifling kind, had the effect of elating those men more than one might have expected.

"Here's the murphies," cried O'Connor, staggering over the slippery weed with a large smoking tin dish.

"Mind you don't let 'em fall," cried one.

"Have a care," shouted the smith; "if you drop them I'll beat you red-hot, and hammer ye so flat that the biggest flatterer as ever walked won't be able to spread ye out another half-inch."

"Mutton! oh!" exclaimed Forsyth, who had been some time trying to wrench the cover off the basket containing a roast leg, and at last succeeded.

"Here, spread them all out on this rock. You han't forgot the grog, I hope, steward?"

"No fear of him: he's a good feller, is the steward, when he's asleep partiklerly. The grog's here all right."

"Dinna let Dumsby git haud o't, then," cried Watt. "What! hae ye begood a'ready? Patience, man, patience. Is there ony saut?"

"Lots of it, darlin', in the say. Sure this shape must have lost his tail somehow. Och, murther! if there isn't Bobby Selkirk gone an'

tumbled into Port Hamilton wid the cabbage, av it's not the carrots!"

"There now, don't talk so much, boys," cried Peter Logan. "Let's drink success to the Bell Rock Lighthouse."

It need scarcely be said that this toast was drunk with enthusiasm, and that it was followed up with "three times three."

"Now for a song. Come, Joe Dumsby, strike up," cried one of the men.

O'Connor, who was one of the most reckless of men in regard to duty and propriety, here shook his head gravely, and took upon himself to read his comrade a lesson.

"Ye shouldn't talk o' sitch things in workin' hours," said he. "Av we wos all foolish, waake-hidded cratures like _you_, how d'ye think we'd iver git the lighthouse sot up! Ate yer dinner, lad, and howld yer tongue."

"O Ned, I didn't think your jealousy would show out so strong," retorted his comrade. "Now, then, Dumsby, fire away, if it was only to aggravate him."

Thus pressed, Joe Dumsby took a deep draught of the small-beer with which the men were supplied, and began a song of his own composition.

When the song was finished the meal was also concluded, and the men returned to their labours on the rock; some to continue their work with the picks at the hard stone of the foundation-pit, others to perform miscellaneous jobs about the rock, such as mixing the mortar and removing _debris_, while James Dove and his fast friend Ruby Brand mounted to their airy "cot" on the beacon, from which in a short time began to proceed the volumes of smoke and the clanging sounds that had formerly arisen from "Smith's Ledge."

While they were all thus busily engaged, Ruby observed a boat advancing towards the rock from the floating light. He was blowing the bellows at the time, after a spell at the fore-hammer.