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- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
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On that day the fourteenth “course” was laid, and this completed the “solid” part of the lighthouse. It rose 35 feet above the foundation.
From this point the true house may be said to have commenced, for, just above this course, the opening for the door was left, and the little space in the centre for the spiral staircase which was to lead to the first room.
As if to mark their disapproval of this event, the angry winds and waves, during the same month, raised an unusually furious commotion while one of the yawls went into the “Gut” or pool, which served as a kind of harbour, to aid one of the stone boats.
“She won’t get out o’ that this night,” said John Bowden, alluding to the yawl, as he stood on the top of the “solid” where his comrades were busy working, “the wind’s gettin’ up from the east’ard.”
“If she don’t,” replied one of the men, “we’ll have to sleep where we are.”
“Slape!” exclaimed Maroon, looking up from the great stone whose joints he had been carefully cementing, “it’s little slape you’ll do here, boys. Av we’re not washed off entirely we’ll have to howld on by our teeth and nails. It’s a cowld look-out.”
Teddy was right. The yawl being unable to get out of the Gut, the men in it were obliged to “lie on their oars” all night, and those on the top of the building, where there was scarcely shelter for a fly, felt both the “look-out” and the look-in so “cowld” that they worked all night as the only means of keeping themselves awake and comparatively warm. It was a trying situation; a hard night, as it were “in the trenches,”—but it was their first and last experience of the kind.
Thus foot by foot—often baffled, but never conquered—Smeaton and his men rose steadily above the waves until they reached a height of thirty-five feet from the foundation, and had got as far as the store-room (the first apartment) of the building. This was on the 2nd of October, on which day all the stones required for that season were put into this store-room; but on the 7th of the same month the enemy made a grand assault in force, and caused these energetic labourers to beat a retreat. It was then resolved that they should again retire into winter quarters. Everything on the Rock was therefore “made taut” and secure against the foe, and the workers returned to the shore, whence they beheld the waves beating against their tower with such fury that the sprays rose high above it.
The season could not close, however, without an exhibition of the peculiar aptitude of the Buss for disastrous action! On the 8th that inimitable vessel—styled by Teddy Maroon a “tub,” and by the other men, variously, a “bumboat,” a “puncheon,” and a “brute” began to tug with tremendous violence at her cable.
“Ah then, darlin’,” cried Maroon, apostrophising her, “av ye go on like that much longer it’s snappin’ yer cable ye’ll be after.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” growled John Bowden, as he leaned against the gale and watched with gravity of countenance a huge billow whose crest was blown off in sheets of spray as it came rolling towards them.
“Howld on!” cried Teddy Maroon, in anxiety.
If his order was meant for the Buss it was flatly disobeyed, for that charming example of naval architecture, presenting her bluff bows to the billow, snapt the cable and went quietly off to leeward!
“All hands ahoy!” roared William Smart as he rushed to the foresail halyards.
The summons was not needed. All the men were present, and each knew exactly what to do in the circumstances. But what avails the strength and capacity of man when his weapon is useless?
“She’ll never beat into Plymouth Sound wi’ the wind in this direction,” observed one of the masons, when sail had been set.
“Beat!” exclaimed another contemptuously, “she can’t beat with the wind in any direction.”
“An’ yit, boys,” cried Maroon, “she may be said to be a first-rate baiter, for she always baits us complaitly.”
“I never, no I never did see such a scow!” said John Bowden, with a deepening growl of indignation, “she’s more like an Irish pig than a—”
“Ah then, don’t be hard upon the poor pigs of owld Ireland,” interrupted Maroon, pathetically.
“Bah!” continued Bowden, “I only wish we had the man that planned her on board, that we might keel-haul him. I’ve sailed in a’most every kind of craft that floats—from a Chinese junk to a British three-decker, and between the two extremes there’s a pretty extensive choice of washin’-tubs, but the equal o’ this here Buss I never did see—no never; take another haul on the foretops’l halyards, boys, and shut your potato-traps for fear the wind blows your teeth overboard. Look alive!”
That the Buss deserved the character so emphatically given to her was proved by the fact that, after an unsuccessful attempt to reach the Sound, she was finally run into Dartmouth Roads, and, shortly afterwards, her ungainly tossings, for that season, came to a close.
The campaign of 1759 opened on the 3rd of July with an attack commanded by Smeaton in person in the old Buss.
Previous to this, on March 21st, the coast was visited by a gale of such severity that immense mischief was done on shore. Ships in the port, houses, etcetera, at Plymouth, were greatly damaged; nevertheless, the unfinished tower out upon the exposed Eddystone reef stood fast, having defied the utmost fury of winds and waves.
It was found, however, that some loss had been sustained, the buoy of the mooring chain, as usual, was gone; but worse than that, one of the stones left in the store-room, a mass which weighed four and a half hundredweight, was missing. It had been washed out of the store-room entry by the water!
This was a serious loss, as it obliged the men to retire to the Buss, where they were constrained to spin yarns and twirl their thumbs in idleness till the lost stone was replaced by another. Then they went to work according to custom “with a will,” and, on the 21st of July, completed the second floor; a whole room with a vaulted roof having been built in seven days.
At this point they proceeded to fit in the entry and store-room doors; and here another vexatious check appeared imminent. It was found that the block-tin with which the door-hooks were to be fastened had been forgotten!
Doubtless Mr Smeaton felt inclined to emulate the weather by “storming” on this occasion, but that would have been of no use. Neither was it of any avail that Teddy Maroon scratched his head and wrinkled his visage like that of a chimpanzee monkey. The tin was not; the hooks would not hold without it, and to send ashore for it would have involved great delay. Mr Smeaton proved equal to the occasion.
“Off with you, lads, to the Buss,” he cried, “and bring hither every pewter plate and dish on board.”
“Think o’ that now!” exclaimed Maroon his wrinkles expanding into a bland smile of admiration.
“Don’t think of it, but do it,” returned Smeaton, with a laugh.
The thing was done at once. The “plate” of the Buss was melted down and mixed with lead, the hooks were fixed into the jambs, and the doors were hung in triumph. Solid doors they were too; not slender things with wooden panels, but thick iron-plated affairs somewhat resembling the armour of a modern ship-of-war, and fitted to defy the ocean’s most powerful battering-rams.
Progress thereafter was steady and rapid. There were points here and there in the work which served as landmarks. On the 6th of August Smeaton witnessed a strange sight—a bright halo round the top of the building. It was no miracle, though it looked like one. Doubtless some scientific men could give a satisfactory explanation of it, and prove that it was no direct interposition of the hand of God. So could they give a satisfactory account of the rainbow, though the rainbow is a direct sign to man. Whatever the cause, there the glory circled like a sign of blessing on the work, and a fitting emblem of the life-giving, because death-warding, beams which were soon to be sent streaming from that tower by the hand of man.
Three days afterwards they began to lay the balcony floor; on the 17th the main column was completed, and on the 26th the masonry was finished. It only remained that the lantern should be set up. But this lantern was a mighty mass of metal and glass, made with great care, and of immense strength and weight. Of course it had to be taken off to the rock in pieces, and we may almost say of course the ocean offered opposition. Then, as if everything had conspired to test the endurance and perseverance of the builders, the first and second coppersmiths fell ill on the 4th September. Skilled labour such as theirs could not readily be replaced in the circumstances, and every hour of the now far advanced season had become precious. Smeaton had set his heart on “showing a light” that year. In this difficulty, being a skilled mechanic himself, he threw off his coat and set to work with the men.
The materials of the lantern were landed on the 16th and fitted together, and the cupola was hoisted to its place on the 17th. This latter operation was extremely hazardous, the cupola being upwards of half a ton in weight, and it had to be raised outside the building and kept carefully clear of it the while. It seemed as if the elements themselves favoured this critical operation, or rather, as though they stood aghast and breathlessly still, while this, the crowning evidence of their defeat, was being put on. It was accomplished in less than half an hour, and, strange to say, no sooner was the tackling loosed and the screws that held the cupola fixed, than up got wind and sea once more in an uproarious gale of consternation from the east!
On the 18th a huge gilt ball was screwed on the top by Smeaton’s own hand, and thus the building of the Eddystone lighthouse was finished.
There still remained, however, a good deal of copper and wood-work to be done in the interior, but there was now no doubt in Smeaton’s mind that the light would be exhibited that season. He therefore removed his bed and stores from the Buss to the lighthouse, and remained there, the better to superintend the completion of the work.
One evening he looked into the upper storeroom, where some bars were being heated over a charcoal fire. He became giddy with the fumes, staggered, and fell down insensible. Assuredly poor Smeaton’s labours would have terminated then and there if it had not been that one of the men had providentially followed him. A startled cry was heard—one of those cries full of meaning which cause men to leap half involuntarily to the rescue.
“Och! somebody’s kilt,” cried Maroon, flinging away his pipe and springing up the staircase, followed by others, “wather! wather! look alive there!”
Some bore Smeaton to the room below, and others ran down for sea-water, which they dashed over their master unmercifully. Whether or not it was the best treatment we cannot say, but it sufficed, for Smeaton soon
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