At the Black Rocks
VIII.
_VISITORS._
Into the kitchen of the old lighthouse they came trooping the nextday--Annie Fletcher, with all her winning vivacity; Jimmy Davis and hissister Belle, Dab and John Richards, and May Tolman, with her black,lustrous eyes, in which diamonds seemed to be dissolving continually (soDave thought). May Tolman was the light-keeper's granddaughter. Thenthere was Mr. James Tolman, who came as skipper of the sail-boatbringing the party. Dave and Bart joined them at the door of thefog-signal tower; and to what a scampering, laughing, singing, andshouting did the gray stone walls listen as this flock of young peoplehurried in! Behind all was the gray-haired keeper; but no heart waslighter than his that day. Unobserved he went to a window through whichblew the cool, sweet, strong air from the sea, and he silently thankedGod for the gift of youth renewed that day in his own soul and liftinghim on wings, so that he too wanted to sing and shout, to race up anddown the iron stairs, to clap his hands jubilantly, as from the parapetaround the lantern he saw the breakers foam below and the whitesea-gulls soar up and then down on strong, steady wing.
"Yes, bless God, I am still young--and ever shall be," thought the oldlight-keeper. Ah, he had renewed his youth long ago at the fountains ofspiritual life, in the drinking of whose waters the soul becomesperennial 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 hecarried them into the engine-room of the fog-signal tower and explainedall 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 ofone thing.
"Oh yes," the keeper replied. "Well, get them all together in thekitchen."
There clustered, the keeper told them, if they would excuse it, he wouldby request read them something about lighthouses.
"Don't expect much, though," he warned them, as he lifted his spectaclesand adjusted them to his sight. "I have written this off at differenttimes, perhaps in the evening when I have been watching, or in a stormwhen I could catch a little rest from work, or when I felt a bit lonelyand wanted something to occupy me. I won't read all I have got, onlywhat I think will interest. I first speak of ancient lighthouses."
Hemming vigorously several times, blushing modestly behind hisspectacles in the consciousness that the world was summoning him forthto be a lecturer, he then began:--
"I suppose the first lighthouses were very simple--that is, they werenot lighthouses at all, but men just built big fires and kept themburning at points along an ugly shore, or to show where a harbour was.Not long ago I was looking at a picture of a lighthouse doing work inour day and generation in Eastern Asia. It looked like a structure ofwood. It probably had on top a hearth of some kind of earth, for therea fire was burning away. Not far off was the water. That lookedprimitive.
"If one turns to Rollin's 'Ancient History,' he will find in the firstvolume an interesting account of an old lighthouse, and it was sowonderful they called it one of the seven wonders of the world. It wasbuilt by order of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and he laid out eight hundredtalents on it. One estimate of the value of this sum would bring itpretty well up to L180,000. As it stood on an island called Pharos,near Alexandria, the tower had the name of the island. That has given aname 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 cansee how useful this old lighthouse may have been. On its top a fire waskindled. Alexandria was in Egypt, and the city is standing to-day, aswe all know. It had at that time a very extensive trade, and as thesea-coast there is a dangerous one, it was very important that the shipsshould have some guide at night. I can seem to see the old craft ofthose days plodding along, the sailors wondering which way to go, whenlo, on Pharos's lofty tower blazes a fire to tell them their course.
"The architect of this tower was Sostratus, and there was an inscriptionon the tower said to have read this way: 'Sostratus, the Cnidian, son ofDexiphanes, to the protecting deities, for the use of sea-faringpeople.' His master, Ptolemy Philadelphus, was thought to have beenvery generous because he allowed the putting of Sostratus's name inplace of his own. But Sostratus's name seems to have been put there bya trick, and it was finally found out. Sostratus cut in the marble thisinscription that had his name; but what did he do but cover it withplaster! In the lime he traced the name of the king. How pleasedPtolemy must have been to see his name there! The lime, though, crumbledfinally, and the king's name crumbled with it, and the trickyarchitect's inscription came out into notice. This lighthouse was builtabout three hundred years before Christ.
"In later years the tower of Dover Castle was used as a lighthouse. Itwas called Caesar's Altar. Great fires of logs were kept burning on thetop. This was before the time of the Conquest, so called in Englishhistory. Then at the end of the sixteenth century a famous lighthouse ahundred and ninety-seven feet high was built at the mouth of the Garonnein France.
"About fourteen miles off Plymouth are the Eddystone Rocks. They arevery much exposed to south-western seas. One light-builder wasWinstanley, and he was at his work four seasons, finishing in 1698. Thelighthouse was eighty feet high. Made stouter and carried higherafterward, it was almost a hundred and twenty feet high. It stood untilNovember 20, 1703. A very fierce blow of wind occurred then, and thetower was wrecked by the storm. Two grave mistakes were made. Itsshape was a polygon, and not circular. Waves like to have corners tobutt against, and these should therefore be avoided. It was highlyornamented for a lighthouse, and ornaments are what winds and waves arefond of. It gives them a chance to get a good grip on a building andbring it down.--In 1706 one Rudyerd thought he would try his hand, andhe did much better. The tower was built principally of oak; yet whenfinished 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 1756Smeaton began to build at Eddystone his famous tower. He was the firstengineer who built a sea-tower of masonry and dovetailed the joints.The stones averaged a ton in weight. He reduced the diameter of thetower at a small height above the rock. He reasoned about theresemblance of a tower exposed to the surf and an oak tree that facesthe wind. That has been shown not to be good reasoning; and looking atthe shape of his tower, I should say the idea would not stand fire--orin this case water; for if at a small distance above the rock you reducethe diameter of the tower very much, it gives the waves a good chance tocrowd down on the sides of the tower. However, Smeaton's tower stood agood many years. Its very weight enabled it to offer great resistanceto the waves, and weight is one thing we must secure hi a tower,avoiding ornament and all silly gingerbread work. In 1882 a new towerwas built in place of Smeaton's."
The light-keeper then gave some details of our lighthouse service. Hispaper deeply interested his auditors.
Subsequently Annie Fletcher asked, "What is that ringing like the soundof 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-buoyat 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 isfixed, while the tongue, of course, is movable. The buoy floats on thewater--fastened, you know, to the rocks beneath; and as the waves movethe 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," suggestedDave.
"And waves
are the mother's hand rocking the cradle," added May Tolman.
"Mother's hand--that is, the ocean--is pretty rough out theresometimes," said the light-keeper. "In a storm, when the wind bringsthe 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 canall go easily in two boats.--James, you manage one, and I'll cap'n theother. 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 wasa bell hung in a frame, which was swung by the waves. It was an objectof deep interest to the visitors, and they lingered about it, and thenrowed back to the lighthouse.