VI.FOG."Here are some letters for you," said the light-keeper, returning from Shipton one noon and handing Dave a package of letters."This is a funny-looking one," thought Dave. "It is not written, but printed. Somebody sent it that did not know how to write. Let me see what it says:--"'DEAR DAVIE I THOUGHT I WOULD WRITE YOU A LITTLE AND SAY I AM WELL AND HOPE YOU ARE GRANSIR IS BETTER BECAUSE I READ TO HIM HE SAYS I LIKE MY TEACHER SHE IS YOUR SISTER SHE SAYS SHE MAY TAKE ME TO THE LIGHTHOUSE AND I WOULD LIKE TO COME I SHALL PRAY FOR YOU WHEN THE STORMS COME AND EVERY DAY YOUR TRUE FRIEND"'BARTHOLOMEW TRAFTON.'"Dave was so much pleased with this communication that he read it to the light-keeper."Dave, I wish you would invite your sister and her friends to come down here. Ask those boys who were with you in the schooner.""That would be pleasant. Thank you.""I will try to make it interesting for them.""Oh, I wish you would do one thing.""What is that?""Tell us what you know about lighthouses.""Well, let me think. There is one thing I could do. I have in my drawer an account of lighthouses I have written off at spare moments, just to keep me busy, you know, and I could read that.""I think we would all like that very much.""All right; let us plan for a visit.""I think you have had some visitors since you have been here that you did not plan for.""Yes, indeed; and they may come any time, just as your party surprised me. Sometimes, though near me, they may not get to me. I was saying the first day you came here it was the tenth anniversary of a great storm. It was a foreign vessel, a Norwegian bark. The vessel struck on the bar--""Couldn't they see the light?""The fog was very thick, so that they couldn't have got much warning from the light. The first thing to do now in a fog, of course, is to start the signal. But we had none then--only an old bell I used to strike; but when the wind was to south'ard it carried away from the bar the sound of the bell. This was a southerly storm, and such storms are not likely to be long, but they may blow very hard while they do last. I heard the storm roaring through the night; and when I looked out in the morning, there was this vessel just on the bar! Oh, what a tumult she was in! Such a raging of the waves all around that vessel! I always go off to the help of people if I can reach them; but there was no reaching that vessel with a boat. Yes, I could see them and they could see me in the morning, when the fog lifted, but there was no getting from one to the other. I could see them clinging to the rigging, hanging there as long as the waves would let them. I would watch some immense sea--and they roll up big in a storm, I tell ye--come rushing at the vessel, rolling over it, completely burying the deck. After such seas some one would be missing. I never want to see that sight again. There they were dying, and I couldn't get anywhere near them! The vessel did not break up at once. She was there the next day, and I went to her, and others went, but we found nobody aboard. I think they saved part of her cargo; but the waves pounded her up fearfully, and carried off many things of her cargo. One by one they came ashore. It did touch me one day, when I was down on the rocks fishing, near the lighthouse at low tide, to see something floating on the water. 'Why, that is a box,' I said. We are all curious, you know, and I wondered what was in that box. I went to the lighthouse, got a long pole, and reached the box and brought it ashore. I'll show it to you if you would like to see it.""I would, very much.""I have always kept it here, for it seems to belong to the lighthouse rather than anywhere else. Here it is."He went to the closet in the kitchen, and reaching up to the highest shelf, took down a box of sandalwood. It was an elaborately carved piece of work, and had served among the articles for a lady's toilet. When the light-keeper opened it Dave saw two handkerchiefs, a hair-brush, a comb, and there was also a man's picture. Dave looked with interest at this relic washed up out of the buried secrets of the sea, and still keeping its own secret there in the light-keeper's kitchen."Did you ever get any clue to the ownership of this, Mr. Tolman?" asked Dave."Let me tell you of one strange thing that happened about a year ago. One night I was very sure I heard a cry out on the bar. The waves make so much noise that it is hard to hear anybody if they do shout; but sometimes when the sea is still you can hear a call. Said I to Waters, 'Timothy, I hear a hollering.' Said he, 'I think I hear it myself. Let us go to the door and listen.' We were both in the kitchen, you know. 'Twas the fore part of the evening, though dark. Sure enough, at the door we could hear somebody shout. 'Timothy,' said I, 'that is a plain case. Let's launch the boat.' So off we put. The person kept hollering and we kept rowing. There on the bar we found a man. Crazy he acted, and he couldn't tell much about himself--how he got there, or where his boat was. He was not sober. On our way to the light what should we run into but a boat. 'Here is the rest of him,' whispered Timothy. We took him and his boat to the light. How we got him up the ladder I don't know, but we tied a rope round him, and drew him, and shoved him, and somehow got him into the lighthouse. The next morning he was entirely sober. Of course he was very much ashamed, but he could not give any account of himself, only that he had been in a boat and had trouble. Well, for some reason I had that box down from the shelf that morning he left, and I had been looking at it. He saw it. He started as if the box had struck him. He stepped up to it softly, looked into it, and said, with an amazed look as I ever saw on a person, 'Where--where--did you get it?' 'It floated from a wreck off here.' 'Anybody ever claim it?' 'Never,' I said; 'but I am ready to give it up to any claimant.' 'Well,' said he, 'if anybody comes and claims it, you give it up; but if not, don't part with it till you hear from me.' I asked him what he meant; but he would make no explanation, only repeating his request. He was very grateful for what we had done, and I took the liberty to say in a proper way that he must take warning, or he would be wrecked on a bar where there would be no saving. He burst into tears, thanked me, said he knew he was a great fool, and left in his boat. We watched him, and saw him row to a vessel lying at anchor in the harbour. Then we guessed he had been ashore the day before in the ship's boat, and got into mischief. I told Timothy we would find out about the vessel; but a fog came up and kept us here. She slipped out to sea as much a stranger as ever. Fishermen afterwards told us it was a vessel that ran in for shelter."From that day to this I have never heard about the man. Sometimes I think it was a foreigner; again I fancy it is somebody at Shipton, but I could not say. I am there very little to know about people; and Timothy couldn't tell about it. He don't belong to Shipton. There is the box. Pretty, isn't it?"Dave nodded a yes."Mr. Tolman, could you tell the man if you should see him again?" asked Dave."Could I? yes, indeed.""How did he look? What was the colour of his hair, his eyes; and how was he dressed?""Now--you will think it strange--I can't tell any of his features or what clothes he wore, and yet if I should see him I don't believe I should miss him. I could tell him by the look of his eyes--a look that somehow appealed to me--a look without hope. Often when at night I see the froth on the bar in the moonlight, I seem to hear that man calling to me, and I take it as a sign that he is still in a worse fix than if on the bar. It is an awful curse, rum, and I am a sworn foe to it."Here the light-keeper placed the sandal-wood box again on its shelf, and Dave turned to look out of the window near the kitchen table."See here, Mr. Tolman; what's that?""Where?""Floating and curling over that point!""Can't you guess?""Looks like fog! Yes, I can see now plainly. Oh, can we start up the fog-signal?""Wait a while. When the fog is so thick that you can't see Breakers P'int, then we start the fog-signal. That is the sign in that direction. On the other side of the lighthouse it is Jones's Neck that must be hidden. I guess both the P'int and the Neck will be covered this time. I must start the fire in the engine and have everything ready, at any rate. Let us go into the fog-signal tower."Dave was delighted."I suppose, Mr. Tolman, people like to hear the signal?""Yes, if in a fog. They want to know which way to go. Even fishermen about here, who are supposed to know the way about the harbour, may be bothered by the fog; but people just off for pleasure may be bothered a good deal.""See here! Isn't the fog lifting round Jones's Neck, Mr. Tolman?"Dave was looking out of a window in the tower, and Mr. Tolman joined him."You are right; and Breakers P'int is clear too. We will hold on then, have everything ready, you know, for the fog may shut down suddenly."Dave continued to look out of the window."Coming again!" he cried to the light-keeper, who had kept up his fires in the engine-room, but had gone for a few minutes to the kitchen. "Fog is round Breakers Point and Jones's Neck!"Yes: like an immense gray sponge the mist had once more advanced, wiping out the vessels slowly sailing into harbour, the far outlying points of land, and now erased an islet called the Nub, mingling all in one confusing cloud."All right," said the light-keeper; "we will start the signal."There was the driving of a stout piston; there was the stirring of a big wheel; there was the movement of other machinery; and there was finally--"What a noise overhead!" thought the listening Dave. It seemed as if five thousand bees all buzzing at once, twenty-five thousand crickets all shrilly piping at once, and fifty thousand wood-sawyers all sawing at once, had combined their noises and were forcing all through the flaming fog-trumpet above. For ten seconds Dave held his fingers in his ears. Then there was a blessed stillness, save as the play of the machinery interrupted it."What do you think of that?" asked Mr. Tolman, grinning broadly. "Some lung power left in it yet.""Lung power! They can hear that down to the Cape of Good Hope. One is enough for both sides of the ocean.""Want another? Time is 'most up. Here she goes!"She went."Toot--buzz--boom--whiz--fizz-z-z--bim-m-m-m!"Among the breakers tumbling on the sandy shores, along the face of weather-beaten island-edges, down amid the waves and up in the clouds echoed the sharp, strong, fog-piercing, ear-cutting blast. And wherever it went it said, "Of fog I warn-n-n-n-n!" for ten seconds.In one of the intervals of rest Dave remarked, "Now that must be kept up as long as the fog lasts?""Of course.""Doesn't it get tiresome?""Well, that's how you take it. I was told of a lighthouse where the signal was going twenty-one days.""Day after day! Just think of it!""Well, there is this side of it: off on the water there is somebody bewildered by the mist, perplexed day after day, it may be, and they catch the sound of the signal. Oh, ain't that good news? That's what makes me contented at it. I have sometimes wished I was a musician, and could please others by my playing; but I tell you I have stood by this old engine dark, rainy, foggy nights, and oh, I have been so happy starting up and sending out this old whistle. There it is!""Toot--buzz--boom--whiz--bim-m-m-m!""Somebody heard that, you may believe, and somebody, too, more pleased than if I had been a whole band of music, and had sent out just the sweetest tune."The light-keeper stood by the tugging engine and wiped the perspiration from his brow, and his big, rosy face was as happy as that of a school-boy going off on a long vacation."Hark! what is that? Sounds like a bell," said Dave."It is the bell-buoy at Sunk Rock. We only hear that when the wind is blowing off the sea.""Didn't hear it before.""Wind hasn't been just right to hear it loud. I have caught it since you came; but then I am used to its sound, and can tell it easily.""I must see it.""Oh, we shall have a chance, I guess."The fog-signal had been shrieking away an hour, and Dave heard another sound."That isn't a bell I hear now," he said."Well, no; that's a hollering."Was it a cry from the lighthouse tower or a cry outside of it? a cry from what quarter? Dave looked out of a window near him. He could see only fog above and waves below."I will go down to the door and try to see who or what it is," said Dave, "for there is that cry again."He descended to the door of the tower and looked down through the hole in the platform. Then he saw a dory tossing in the water that now flowed all about the tower, swashing against its iron walls. There was a boy in the boat. He was not looking up, but clinging to a rope stretched for purposes of mooring from the tower to a sunken rock forty feet away. Steadying his boat by this rope, he was waiting for some response to his repeated calls."Hullo, there!" shouted Dave.The boy looked up, still grasping the rope."That you, Dave?""Yes. That you, Dick? Where did you come from?""Yes, Dick Pray, and nobody else.""Won't you come up?""Well, yes, I should like to, but the water is uneasy. Can't get out of my boat.""Hold on; I will come down and help you." He stepped within the tower and reported, "Mr. Tolman, this fog has brought somebody.""Don't wonder at it. Give him any help he needs.""I want a short rope.""There's one hanging on that nail."Dave took the rope, went to the door of the tower, and descended the ladder."Here, Dick! Take your painter and tie it to that mooring-rope, allowing enough slack to bring your boat almost to the tower and yet not touch it. There! if that length isn't right you can try it again. Now catch this rope and make fast to the stern there. So! That's it! Now I'll pull you in."Dave drew on his end of the rope, and pulled Dick's boat so near the ladder that Dick could spring to it, and yet the boat itself was left to swing in the waves while it could not strike the tower."I'll just make fast my end of the rope, Dick, and we will go up the ladder.""All right. Glad to get out of that old boat and go up with you.""Why, where under the sun and moon have you been?""Me? Been camping out on the Nub.""You haven't!""But I have.""That your tent over there?""Mine and Sam Whittles's.""Tolman and I noticed it to-day for the first time. How long have you been there?""Long enough to eat you or Toby Tolman--you may draw lots for the honour--if you don't give me some food.""Oh, we will soon give you that. Among other things I will give you some fish. Got some splendid cunners, and I will divide with you.""Good! I could eat 'em raw. Hungry as a shark. Sam is hungrier. I don't know as he will wait for me, but throw himself into the water and go after the fish himself.""O Dickie, we will make you feel like a new being. Come in and see Tolman. He is a splendid old fellow. Come in this way."The boys went up into the engine-room."An old acquaintance, Mr. Tolman," said Dave."I see, I see," replied the light-keeper, recognizing Dick as one of the schooner party."Whiz--bim--fizz--""It sounded splendid out at Shag Rocks," shouted Dick to the light-keeper."You been there?" inquired Mr. Tolman."Yes; and this old fog came up and confused me, and I didn't know where I was, and I heard the signal and I put for it," said Dick."Out there fishing?""Yes, sir; or--I wanted to fish, but didn't catch a fin.""Shag Rocks you went to?""Yes, sir; two ledges with a strip of sand between them.""Oh, those are 'Spectacle Rocks,' as the fishermen say. They look like a pair of spectacles. You wouldn't catch much there. Shag Rocks are to the nor'ard.""Well, I'm willing they should stay there.""Next time, you come here. Splendid chance off this very ledge; Black Rocks, as we call them.""That would be wise, I think.""Well, make yourself at home.--Dave, you give him something to eat.""I thought I would let him have some of those cunners to take with him.""So do, but give him something now.--And you don't want to go back in this fog?""Well, I'd rather have clear weather if I have got to find the Nub," said Dick.The fog, though, refused to clear up that day, and Dick remained all night."I pity Sam," he told Dave; "but he has got a teapot, and he must live on that till morning. I'll give him a surprise to-morrow, I tell you. I will throw my line into the water off these rocks here, and carry to camp a string of fish worth having. I'll open Sam's eyes for him."Dick, though, overslept his intended hour of rising. It was Dave who came rushing into the assistant-keeper's room, where Dick had been sleeping, and he cried, "Dick, Dick! there is a furious shouting for you. Two men and a young fellow are down in a boat at the foot of the tower, and want you.""I'll be there directly," said Dick, springing out of his bed. He dressed quickly, and rushed down to the door of the signal-tower. Looking below, he exclaimed, "That you, Sam Whittles?""Yes. Where have you been? Didn't sleep a wink last night. Thought you were drowned and everything else. Got these two fishermen who came along to pull me here in their boat. Come, boy, come home!""Fury!" said Dick in his thoughts. "Won't--won't you come up?" he asked aloud. "I was going to surprise you, take you some fish, and so on.""Fish!" said Sam contemptuously; "these men will sell it to me by the acre.""Squar mile, ef he wants it," said one of these piscatory individuals, looking up and grinning."Won't you all come up?" asked Dave Fletcher."Can't, thank you," said Sam. "Just throw that Jonah overboard, and we will go home.""Jonah" said it was "too bad," and stole down the ladder, feeling worse than on the day he returned in the runaway schooner.VII.THE CAMP AT THE NUB.Two days later the light-keeper gave Dave a holiday, that he might spend a day at the Nub. Dick Pray came after him, and as he rowed off from the lighthouse he called out to the keeper, who stood in the tower door, "Don't worry about your assistant. I will bring him home after dinner. Get here by four."The keeper nodded his head. He said to himself, "May be; but if I don't see a boat starting off from the Nub by a quarter of four, I shan't leave it to you to bring him, but go myself for him. You are great on what you are going to do; I like the kind that does."It was a pleasant boat-ride to the Nub."Welcome!" shouted several young men in chorus as Dick's dory neared the shore of the Nub. They stood on a broad, flat stone, for which the rock-weed had woven a brown mat, and on the crown of the ledge behind them rose a tent tipped with a dirty flag."Hurrah!" responded Dick."Hurrah!" shouted Dave."I thought, Dick," said Dave, "only Sam Whittles was here.""Oh, these fellers came down last night. Just to spend a couple of days, you know.""Who are they?""Oh, Jimmy Dawes, I believe, and there's Steve Pettigrew and a Keese Junkins."Dave's feelings of like and dislike were very quick in their operation, and he now said to himself, "Don't fancy those specimens!"They were showily rather than tastefully dressed, strutted about with a self-important air, and their talk was loud, coarse, and slangy."Who is that little fellow?" asked Dave, noticing a small boy in the rear of the tent."Oh, that is a kind of servant they brought down with them. He came down, and waits on them just for his board. He is a queer chap, and makes fun for us all. We call him Dovey. Don't know what his real name is. Splendid place here for camp!""Tolman doesn't like it; says you can't get on or off easy.""O Dave, Tolman is an old fogey. But here we are."The boat was bumping against the landing-rock, and Dick and Dave disembarked amid a chorus of "How are ye?" "Step ashore!" and other friendly salutations. So cordial were these that Dave's dislike was put to sleep, and he said to himself, "They are pleasant. Good-hearted, I daresay."The tent within was an assortment of bedding, camp-chests, old clothes, and provisions, all mixed up in great confusion. Dave thought the outside of the tent would be more agreeable than the inside, which was clouded with tobacco smoke. He took a seat without, and looked off upon the sea. It was a vivid summer day. All the colouring of nature was very bright and sharp. The sky was very blue; the clouds were very white; the water was very dark, and the foam of the breakers white as the flakes scattered by the storms of January. Dick and the others were discussing plans for dinner. As Dave sat alone, watching the white sails slowly drifting across the distant sea, a light hand was laid on his shoulder by some one who had stepped up behind him. It was not a big, coarse hand, but a gentle pressure such as a child might make."Oh, it is the boy Dick told about," thought Dave; "it's that Dovey." He looked up, and to his surprise there was Little Mew!"Why, Bartie, you down here?" exclaimed Dave, turning and looking with interest at the small, twisted features of Bartholomew Trafton."Yes; and I am glad to see you. Did you get my letter?"Bart had seated himself beside Dave, and rested his hand on Dave's knee as if he were a little boat gladly tying up to a friendly pier.[image]"Bart seated himself beside Dave and rested his hand on his knee."Page 97.]"Yes, I got your letter, and it was a very nice one. There is a party, too, coming down to the lighthouse, and I thought you might be in it. My sister will be one, I expect.""Teacher?""Yes; and Mr. James Tolman, my teacher when I was in the school, is going to bring them.""Oh, I wish I could go. I don't like it here."As he spoke he turned his head and looked about as if to make sure that no one heard him save Dave."Well, how did you come here?""Reese Junkins," said Bartie, again looking back. "He lives near us. He came to the house and told gran'sir and granny they wanted a boy to go with them and just wait in the tent, and he would look after me, and I might like it. But I don't like it."Here if his eyes had been straight, and Dave had followed their glance, he would have noticed that Bartie was looking at a basket of bottles near a rear corner of the tent."I don't like to be with such people; they make too much noise."He bravely concealed the fact that they made fun of him, though his soul was vexed and torn by their unkind jokes."Well, you know Dick.""Yes; but he has forgotten me. He only saw me that day."That day meant the time of the rescue from the water. Dave looked into the face turned trustingly toward his own."Don't you worry, Bartie; I will look after you."The boy looked up so gratefully, and the hand on Dave's knee pressed harder. The little boat rejoiced to have found such good moorings.————About half-past three Dave said to Dick, "I think I must be going, if you can row me across. You know I said I would be back by four, and I shall be needed at the light.""All right," replied Dick."Going?" called out Sam. "Don't hurry.""Thank you; but I think I must be starting," said Dave."Don't go!"This last was a timid, pitiful voice.Dave turned, and there was Little Mew."Oh, I must go, Bartie. You see I said I would go back this afternoon, and the keeper will look for me at the light.""Oh take me!" he begged aside."You really want to go--really, Bartie?""Oh yes; I'll ask them."Bart turned to Dick and Sam, and asked if he could go to the lighthouse."We have no objection," they said."Very well," said Dave, who saw the place was a prison for the little fellow.But what did it mean that Steve, Billy, and Reese leaned against the boat, and looked sullen as a fog-bank on the horizon?"You can't have this boat!" muttered Steve."But it's one I borrowed," shouted Dick angrily. "Hands off! This fellow is my company, and he shall be treated as he ought to be.""We will row him over ourselves in the morning, or--or--maybe--we will spill him out half-way across. Ha! ha!"Billy's tone was sarcastic and offensive."No, you won't!" said Dave, who, indignant beyond the power to quietly state his feeling, had remained silent. "Somebody's coming after me.""What?" said Reese in amazement, looking toward Black Rocks."Who's a-coming?"They all looked off and saw a dory advancing from the direction of the lighthouse."That's Tolman, the light-keeper!" explained Dick."Who cares for Tolman, the light-keeper?--Boy," said Billy Dawes, turning to Dave and shaking a dirty fist insultingly, "we don't want anything to do with you.""You may be glad to have my help," replied Dave."No help from babies. Remember that," said Billy.Dave's face was red with wrath. What would he do? He was in no danger, for close at hand was Toby Tolman, a champion of no mean size, and the rowdies stupidly gazed at him rowing his boat with all the ease of a strong, skilled oarsman."All ready!" exclaimed Dave, advancing to meet the light-keeper's boat. "Good-bye, Dick.""Oh--oh--take me!" sobbed Bart."What does that booby want?" asked Reese."He wants to go to the lighthouse," explained Sam."Well, let him go," replied Reese. "He has been a bother ever since he came."With what joy Bart's small legs wriggled over the side of the keeper's dory!"This little fellow, in whom I am interested, wants to go, if you will let him," said Dave to the light-keeper; "and he can go to Shipton with the party expecting to come down, you know, to visit us.""All right; and tumble in yourself, Dave.""Here I am!" replied Dave. "Let me push off!"Toby Tolman's boat was quickly rising and falling with the sea that rocked about the Nub, and the departure was watched in an amazed, ignoble silence by the three rowdies leaning against Dick's boat."I am so much obliged to you for coming," said Dave to the keeper, "though I did not mean to trouble you. Things were rather squally at the Nub, and you came just in time. I will tell you about it."When Dave had given his story, the light-keeper, resting on his oars, exclaimed, "There! I guessed as much. I didn't feel easy about you. That Dick is a well-meaning boy, I don't doubt; but when I found out that Sam Whittles was with him, I guessed what kind of a camp they would have at the Nub, and it seems my guess was about right.--And this little lamb?"Bart's eyes brightened at this pitying title; the appellatives bestowed upon him had generally been of a different nature.It was a happy party that went into the lighthouse after the trip from the Nub."Oh, isn't this nice!" cried Bart, as he entered the kitchen. The sense of peaceful, safe seclusion, the warm fire in the kitchen stove, above all, the protecting friends near him, made the place seem like--Bart whispered to himself what he thought it must be like--"heaven!"When he thought of the Nub he shuddered.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 glass, 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 God 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, lustrous 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. Unobserved he went to a window through which blew the cool, sweet, strong air from the sea, and he silently thanked God 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 God, 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 clustered, 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, blushing 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 shore, 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 wordpharemeans 'lighthouse.' In Spanish,faromeans '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 ships 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, finishing 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 butt 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 principally 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.
VI.
FOG.
"Here are some letters for you," said the light-keeper, returning from Shipton one noon and handing Dave a package of letters.
"This is a funny-looking one," thought Dave. "It is not written, but printed. Somebody sent it that did not know how to write. Let me see what it says:--
"'DEAR DAVIE I THOUGHT I WOULD WRITE YOU A LITTLE AND SAY I AM WELL AND HOPE YOU ARE GRANSIR IS BETTER BECAUSE I READ TO HIM HE SAYS I LIKE MY TEACHER SHE IS YOUR SISTER SHE SAYS SHE MAY TAKE ME TO THE LIGHTHOUSE AND I WOULD LIKE TO COME I SHALL PRAY FOR YOU WHEN THE STORMS COME AND EVERY DAY YOUR TRUE FRIEND
"'BARTHOLOMEW TRAFTON.'"
Dave was so much pleased with this communication that he read it to the light-keeper.
"Dave, I wish you would invite your sister and her friends to come down here. Ask those boys who were with you in the schooner."
"That would be pleasant. Thank you."
"I will try to make it interesting for them."
"Oh, I wish you would do one thing."
"What is that?"
"Tell us what you know about lighthouses."
"Well, let me think. There is one thing I could do. I have in my drawer an account of lighthouses I have written off at spare moments, just to keep me busy, you know, and I could read that."
"I think we would all like that very much."
"All right; let us plan for a visit."
"I think you have had some visitors since you have been here that you did not plan for."
"Yes, indeed; and they may come any time, just as your party surprised me. Sometimes, though near me, they may not get to me. I was saying the first day you came here it was the tenth anniversary of a great storm. It was a foreign vessel, a Norwegian bark. The vessel struck on the bar--"
"Couldn't they see the light?"
"The fog was very thick, so that they couldn't have got much warning from the light. The first thing to do now in a fog, of course, is to start the signal. But we had none then--only an old bell I used to strike; but when the wind was to south'ard it carried away from the bar the sound of the bell. This was a southerly storm, and such storms are not likely to be long, but they may blow very hard while they do last. I heard the storm roaring through the night; and when I looked out in the morning, there was this vessel just on the bar! Oh, what a tumult she was in! Such a raging of the waves all around that vessel! I always go off to the help of people if I can reach them; but there was no reaching that vessel with a boat. Yes, I could see them and they could see me in the morning, when the fog lifted, but there was no getting from one to the other. I could see them clinging to the rigging, hanging there as long as the waves would let them. I would watch some immense sea--and they roll up big in a storm, I tell ye--come rushing at the vessel, rolling over it, completely burying the deck. After such seas some one would be missing. I never want to see that sight again. There they were dying, and I couldn't get anywhere near them! The vessel did not break up at once. She was there the next day, and I went to her, and others went, but we found nobody aboard. I think they saved part of her cargo; but the waves pounded her up fearfully, and carried off many things of her cargo. One by one they came ashore. It did touch me one day, when I was down on the rocks fishing, near the lighthouse at low tide, to see something floating on the water. 'Why, that is a box,' I said. We are all curious, you know, and I wondered what was in that box. I went to the lighthouse, got a long pole, and reached the box and brought it ashore. I'll show it to you if you would like to see it."
"I would, very much."
"I have always kept it here, for it seems to belong to the lighthouse rather than anywhere else. Here it is."
He went to the closet in the kitchen, and reaching up to the highest shelf, took down a box of sandalwood. It was an elaborately carved piece of work, and had served among the articles for a lady's toilet. When the light-keeper opened it Dave saw two handkerchiefs, a hair-brush, a comb, and there was also a man's picture. Dave looked with interest at this relic washed up out of the buried secrets of the sea, and still keeping its own secret there in the light-keeper's kitchen.
"Did you ever get any clue to the ownership of this, Mr. Tolman?" asked Dave.
"Let me tell you of one strange thing that happened about a year ago. One night I was very sure I heard a cry out on the bar. The waves make so much noise that it is hard to hear anybody if they do shout; but sometimes when the sea is still you can hear a call. Said I to Waters, 'Timothy, I hear a hollering.' Said he, 'I think I hear it myself. Let us go to the door and listen.' We were both in the kitchen, you know. 'Twas the fore part of the evening, though dark. Sure enough, at the door we could hear somebody shout. 'Timothy,' said I, 'that is a plain case. Let's launch the boat.' So off we put. The person kept hollering and we kept rowing. There on the bar we found a man. Crazy he acted, and he couldn't tell much about himself--how he got there, or where his boat was. He was not sober. On our way to the light what should we run into but a boat. 'Here is the rest of him,' whispered Timothy. We took him and his boat to the light. How we got him up the ladder I don't know, but we tied a rope round him, and drew him, and shoved him, and somehow got him into the lighthouse. The next morning he was entirely sober. Of course he was very much ashamed, but he could not give any account of himself, only that he had been in a boat and had trouble. Well, for some reason I had that box down from the shelf that morning he left, and I had been looking at it. He saw it. He started as if the box had struck him. He stepped up to it softly, looked into it, and said, with an amazed look as I ever saw on a person, 'Where--where--did you get it?' 'It floated from a wreck off here.' 'Anybody ever claim it?' 'Never,' I said; 'but I am ready to give it up to any claimant.' 'Well,' said he, 'if anybody comes and claims it, you give it up; but if not, don't part with it till you hear from me.' I asked him what he meant; but he would make no explanation, only repeating his request. He was very grateful for what we had done, and I took the liberty to say in a proper way that he must take warning, or he would be wrecked on a bar where there would be no saving. He burst into tears, thanked me, said he knew he was a great fool, and left in his boat. We watched him, and saw him row to a vessel lying at anchor in the harbour. Then we guessed he had been ashore the day before in the ship's boat, and got into mischief. I told Timothy we would find out about the vessel; but a fog came up and kept us here. She slipped out to sea as much a stranger as ever. Fishermen afterwards told us it was a vessel that ran in for shelter.
"From that day to this I have never heard about the man. Sometimes I think it was a foreigner; again I fancy it is somebody at Shipton, but I could not say. I am there very little to know about people; and Timothy couldn't tell about it. He don't belong to Shipton. There is the box. Pretty, isn't it?"
Dave nodded a yes.
"Mr. Tolman, could you tell the man if you should see him again?" asked Dave.
"Could I? yes, indeed."
"How did he look? What was the colour of his hair, his eyes; and how was he dressed?"
"Now--you will think it strange--I can't tell any of his features or what clothes he wore, and yet if I should see him I don't believe I should miss him. I could tell him by the look of his eyes--a look that somehow appealed to me--a look without hope. Often when at night I see the froth on the bar in the moonlight, I seem to hear that man calling to me, and I take it as a sign that he is still in a worse fix than if on the bar. It is an awful curse, rum, and I am a sworn foe to it."
Here the light-keeper placed the sandal-wood box again on its shelf, and Dave turned to look out of the window near the kitchen table.
"See here, Mr. Tolman; what's that?"
"Where?"
"Floating and curling over that point!"
"Can't you guess?"
"Looks like fog! Yes, I can see now plainly. Oh, can we start up the fog-signal?"
"Wait a while. When the fog is so thick that you can't see Breakers P'int, then we start the fog-signal. That is the sign in that direction. On the other side of the lighthouse it is Jones's Neck that must be hidden. I guess both the P'int and the Neck will be covered this time. I must start the fire in the engine and have everything ready, at any rate. Let us go into the fog-signal tower."
Dave was delighted.
"I suppose, Mr. Tolman, people like to hear the signal?"
"Yes, if in a fog. They want to know which way to go. Even fishermen about here, who are supposed to know the way about the harbour, may be bothered by the fog; but people just off for pleasure may be bothered a good deal."
"See here! Isn't the fog lifting round Jones's Neck, Mr. Tolman?"
Dave was looking out of a window in the tower, and Mr. Tolman joined him.
"You are right; and Breakers P'int is clear too. We will hold on then, have everything ready, you know, for the fog may shut down suddenly."
Dave continued to look out of the window.
"Coming again!" he cried to the light-keeper, who had kept up his fires in the engine-room, but had gone for a few minutes to the kitchen. "Fog is round Breakers Point and Jones's Neck!"
Yes: like an immense gray sponge the mist had once more advanced, wiping out the vessels slowly sailing into harbour, the far outlying points of land, and now erased an islet called the Nub, mingling all in one confusing cloud.
"All right," said the light-keeper; "we will start the signal."
There was the driving of a stout piston; there was the stirring of a big wheel; there was the movement of other machinery; and there was finally--"What a noise overhead!" thought the listening Dave. It seemed as if five thousand bees all buzzing at once, twenty-five thousand crickets all shrilly piping at once, and fifty thousand wood-sawyers all sawing at once, had combined their noises and were forcing all through the flaming fog-trumpet above. For ten seconds Dave held his fingers in his ears. Then there was a blessed stillness, save as the play of the machinery interrupted it.
"What do you think of that?" asked Mr. Tolman, grinning broadly. "Some lung power left in it yet."
"Lung power! They can hear that down to the Cape of Good Hope. One is enough for both sides of the ocean."
"Want another? Time is 'most up. Here she goes!"
She went.
"Toot--buzz--boom--whiz--fizz-z-z--bim-m-m-m!"
Among the breakers tumbling on the sandy shores, along the face of weather-beaten island-edges, down amid the waves and up in the clouds echoed the sharp, strong, fog-piercing, ear-cutting blast. And wherever it went it said, "Of fog I warn-n-n-n-n!" for ten seconds.
In one of the intervals of rest Dave remarked, "Now that must be kept up as long as the fog lasts?"
"Of course."
"Doesn't it get tiresome?"
"Well, that's how you take it. I was told of a lighthouse where the signal was going twenty-one days."
"Day after day! Just think of it!"
"Well, there is this side of it: off on the water there is somebody bewildered by the mist, perplexed day after day, it may be, and they catch the sound of the signal. Oh, ain't that good news? That's what makes me contented at it. I have sometimes wished I was a musician, and could please others by my playing; but I tell you I have stood by this old engine dark, rainy, foggy nights, and oh, I have been so happy starting up and sending out this old whistle. There it is!"
"Toot--buzz--boom--whiz--bim-m-m-m!"
"Somebody heard that, you may believe, and somebody, too, more pleased than if I had been a whole band of music, and had sent out just the sweetest tune."
The light-keeper stood by the tugging engine and wiped the perspiration from his brow, and his big, rosy face was as happy as that of a school-boy going off on a long vacation.
"Hark! what is that? Sounds like a bell," said Dave.
"It is the bell-buoy at Sunk Rock. We only hear that when the wind is blowing off the sea."
"Didn't hear it before."
"Wind hasn't been just right to hear it loud. I have caught it since you came; but then I am used to its sound, and can tell it easily."
"I must see it."
"Oh, we shall have a chance, I guess."
The fog-signal had been shrieking away an hour, and Dave heard another sound.
"That isn't a bell I hear now," he said.
"Well, no; that's a hollering."
Was it a cry from the lighthouse tower or a cry outside of it? a cry from what quarter? Dave looked out of a window near him. He could see only fog above and waves below.
"I will go down to the door and try to see who or what it is," said Dave, "for there is that cry again."
He descended to the door of the tower and looked down through the hole in the platform. Then he saw a dory tossing in the water that now flowed all about the tower, swashing against its iron walls. There was a boy in the boat. He was not looking up, but clinging to a rope stretched for purposes of mooring from the tower to a sunken rock forty feet away. Steadying his boat by this rope, he was waiting for some response to his repeated calls.
"Hullo, there!" shouted Dave.
The boy looked up, still grasping the rope.
"That you, Dave?"
"Yes. That you, Dick? Where did you come from?"
"Yes, Dick Pray, and nobody else."
"Won't you come up?"
"Well, yes, I should like to, but the water is uneasy. Can't get out of my boat."
"Hold on; I will come down and help you." He stepped within the tower and reported, "Mr. Tolman, this fog has brought somebody."
"Don't wonder at it. Give him any help he needs."
"I want a short rope."
"There's one hanging on that nail."
Dave took the rope, went to the door of the tower, and descended the ladder.
"Here, Dick! Take your painter and tie it to that mooring-rope, allowing enough slack to bring your boat almost to the tower and yet not touch it. There! if that length isn't right you can try it again. Now catch this rope and make fast to the stern there. So! That's it! Now I'll pull you in."
Dave drew on his end of the rope, and pulled Dick's boat so near the ladder that Dick could spring to it, and yet the boat itself was left to swing in the waves while it could not strike the tower.
"I'll just make fast my end of the rope, Dick, and we will go up the ladder."
"All right. Glad to get out of that old boat and go up with you."
"Why, where under the sun and moon have you been?"
"Me? Been camping out on the Nub."
"You haven't!"
"But I have."
"That your tent over there?"
"Mine and Sam Whittles's."
"Tolman and I noticed it to-day for the first time. How long have you been there?"
"Long enough to eat you or Toby Tolman--you may draw lots for the honour--if you don't give me some food."
"Oh, we will soon give you that. Among other things I will give you some fish. Got some splendid cunners, and I will divide with you."
"Good! I could eat 'em raw. Hungry as a shark. Sam is hungrier. I don't know as he will wait for me, but throw himself into the water and go after the fish himself."
"O Dickie, we will make you feel like a new being. Come in and see Tolman. He is a splendid old fellow. Come in this way."
The boys went up into the engine-room.
"An old acquaintance, Mr. Tolman," said Dave.
"I see, I see," replied the light-keeper, recognizing Dick as one of the schooner party.
"Whiz--bim--fizz--"
"It sounded splendid out at Shag Rocks," shouted Dick to the light-keeper.
"You been there?" inquired Mr. Tolman.
"Yes; and this old fog came up and confused me, and I didn't know where I was, and I heard the signal and I put for it," said Dick.
"Out there fishing?"
"Yes, sir; or--I wanted to fish, but didn't catch a fin."
"Shag Rocks you went to?"
"Yes, sir; two ledges with a strip of sand between them."
"Oh, those are 'Spectacle Rocks,' as the fishermen say. They look like a pair of spectacles. You wouldn't catch much there. Shag Rocks are to the nor'ard."
"Well, I'm willing they should stay there."
"Next time, you come here. Splendid chance off this very ledge; Black Rocks, as we call them."
"That would be wise, I think."
"Well, make yourself at home.--Dave, you give him something to eat."
"I thought I would let him have some of those cunners to take with him."
"So do, but give him something now.--And you don't want to go back in this fog?"
"Well, I'd rather have clear weather if I have got to find the Nub," said Dick.
The fog, though, refused to clear up that day, and Dick remained all night.
"I pity Sam," he told Dave; "but he has got a teapot, and he must live on that till morning. I'll give him a surprise to-morrow, I tell you. I will throw my line into the water off these rocks here, and carry to camp a string of fish worth having. I'll open Sam's eyes for him."
Dick, though, overslept his intended hour of rising. It was Dave who came rushing into the assistant-keeper's room, where Dick had been sleeping, and he cried, "Dick, Dick! there is a furious shouting for you. Two men and a young fellow are down in a boat at the foot of the tower, and want you."
"I'll be there directly," said Dick, springing out of his bed. He dressed quickly, and rushed down to the door of the signal-tower. Looking below, he exclaimed, "That you, Sam Whittles?"
"Yes. Where have you been? Didn't sleep a wink last night. Thought you were drowned and everything else. Got these two fishermen who came along to pull me here in their boat. Come, boy, come home!"
"Fury!" said Dick in his thoughts. "Won't--won't you come up?" he asked aloud. "I was going to surprise you, take you some fish, and so on."
"Fish!" said Sam contemptuously; "these men will sell it to me by the acre."
"Squar mile, ef he wants it," said one of these piscatory individuals, looking up and grinning.
"Won't you all come up?" asked Dave Fletcher.
"Can't, thank you," said Sam. "Just throw that Jonah overboard, and we will go home."
"Jonah" said it was "too bad," and stole down the ladder, feeling worse than on the day he returned in the runaway schooner.
VII.
THE CAMP AT THE NUB.
Two days later the light-keeper gave Dave a holiday, that he might spend a day at the Nub. Dick Pray came after him, and as he rowed off from the lighthouse he called out to the keeper, who stood in the tower door, "Don't worry about your assistant. I will bring him home after dinner. Get here by four."
The keeper nodded his head. He said to himself, "May be; but if I don't see a boat starting off from the Nub by a quarter of four, I shan't leave it to you to bring him, but go myself for him. You are great on what you are going to do; I like the kind that does."
It was a pleasant boat-ride to the Nub.
"Welcome!" shouted several young men in chorus as Dick's dory neared the shore of the Nub. They stood on a broad, flat stone, for which the rock-weed had woven a brown mat, and on the crown of the ledge behind them rose a tent tipped with a dirty flag.
"Hurrah!" responded Dick.
"Hurrah!" shouted Dave.
"I thought, Dick," said Dave, "only Sam Whittles was here."
"Oh, these fellers came down last night. Just to spend a couple of days, you know."
"Who are they?"
"Oh, Jimmy Dawes, I believe, and there's Steve Pettigrew and a Keese Junkins."
Dave's feelings of like and dislike were very quick in their operation, and he now said to himself, "Don't fancy those specimens!"
They were showily rather than tastefully dressed, strutted about with a self-important air, and their talk was loud, coarse, and slangy.
"Who is that little fellow?" asked Dave, noticing a small boy in the rear of the tent.
"Oh, that is a kind of servant they brought down with them. He came down, and waits on them just for his board. He is a queer chap, and makes fun for us all. We call him Dovey. Don't know what his real name is. Splendid place here for camp!"
"Tolman doesn't like it; says you can't get on or off easy."
"O Dave, Tolman is an old fogey. But here we are."
The boat was bumping against the landing-rock, and Dick and Dave disembarked amid a chorus of "How are ye?" "Step ashore!" and other friendly salutations. So cordial were these that Dave's dislike was put to sleep, and he said to himself, "They are pleasant. Good-hearted, I daresay."
The tent within was an assortment of bedding, camp-chests, old clothes, and provisions, all mixed up in great confusion. Dave thought the outside of the tent would be more agreeable than the inside, which was clouded with tobacco smoke. He took a seat without, and looked off upon the sea. It was a vivid summer day. All the colouring of nature was very bright and sharp. The sky was very blue; the clouds were very white; the water was very dark, and the foam of the breakers white as the flakes scattered by the storms of January. Dick and the others were discussing plans for dinner. As Dave sat alone, watching the white sails slowly drifting across the distant sea, a light hand was laid on his shoulder by some one who had stepped up behind him. It was not a big, coarse hand, but a gentle pressure such as a child might make.
"Oh, it is the boy Dick told about," thought Dave; "it's that Dovey." He looked up, and to his surprise there was Little Mew!
"Why, Bartie, you down here?" exclaimed Dave, turning and looking with interest at the small, twisted features of Bartholomew Trafton.
"Yes; and I am glad to see you. Did you get my letter?"
Bart had seated himself beside Dave, and rested his hand on Dave's knee as if he were a little boat gladly tying up to a friendly pier.
[image]"Bart seated himself beside Dave and rested his hand on his knee."Page 97.]
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"Bart seated himself beside Dave and rested his hand on his knee."Page 97.]
"Yes, I got your letter, and it was a very nice one. There is a party, too, coming down to the lighthouse, and I thought you might be in it. My sister will be one, I expect."
"Teacher?"
"Yes; and Mr. James Tolman, my teacher when I was in the school, is going to bring them."
"Oh, I wish I could go. I don't like it here."
As he spoke he turned his head and looked about as if to make sure that no one heard him save Dave.
"Well, how did you come here?"
"Reese Junkins," said Bartie, again looking back. "He lives near us. He came to the house and told gran'sir and granny they wanted a boy to go with them and just wait in the tent, and he would look after me, and I might like it. But I don't like it."
Here if his eyes had been straight, and Dave had followed their glance, he would have noticed that Bartie was looking at a basket of bottles near a rear corner of the tent.
"I don't like to be with such people; they make too much noise."
He bravely concealed the fact that they made fun of him, though his soul was vexed and torn by their unkind jokes.
"Well, you know Dick."
"Yes; but he has forgotten me. He only saw me that day."
That day meant the time of the rescue from the water. Dave looked into the face turned trustingly toward his own.
"Don't you worry, Bartie; I will look after you."
The boy looked up so gratefully, and the hand on Dave's knee pressed harder. The little boat rejoiced to have found such good moorings.
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About half-past three Dave said to Dick, "I think I must be going, if you can row me across. You know I said I would be back by four, and I shall be needed at the light."
"All right," replied Dick.
"Going?" called out Sam. "Don't hurry."
"Thank you; but I think I must be starting," said Dave.
"Don't go!"
This last was a timid, pitiful voice.
Dave turned, and there was Little Mew.
"Oh, I must go, Bartie. You see I said I would go back this afternoon, and the keeper will look for me at the light."
"Oh take me!" he begged aside.
"You really want to go--really, Bartie?"
"Oh yes; I'll ask them."
Bart turned to Dick and Sam, and asked if he could go to the lighthouse.
"We have no objection," they said.
"Very well," said Dave, who saw the place was a prison for the little fellow.
But what did it mean that Steve, Billy, and Reese leaned against the boat, and looked sullen as a fog-bank on the horizon?
"You can't have this boat!" muttered Steve.
"But it's one I borrowed," shouted Dick angrily. "Hands off! This fellow is my company, and he shall be treated as he ought to be."
"We will row him over ourselves in the morning, or--or--maybe--we will spill him out half-way across. Ha! ha!"
Billy's tone was sarcastic and offensive.
"No, you won't!" said Dave, who, indignant beyond the power to quietly state his feeling, had remained silent. "Somebody's coming after me."
"What?" said Reese in amazement, looking toward Black Rocks.
"Who's a-coming?"
They all looked off and saw a dory advancing from the direction of the lighthouse.
"That's Tolman, the light-keeper!" explained Dick.
"Who cares for Tolman, the light-keeper?--Boy," said Billy Dawes, turning to Dave and shaking a dirty fist insultingly, "we don't want anything to do with you."
"You may be glad to have my help," replied Dave.
"No help from babies. Remember that," said Billy.
Dave's face was red with wrath. What would he do? He was in no danger, for close at hand was Toby Tolman, a champion of no mean size, and the rowdies stupidly gazed at him rowing his boat with all the ease of a strong, skilled oarsman.
"All ready!" exclaimed Dave, advancing to meet the light-keeper's boat. "Good-bye, Dick."
"Oh--oh--take me!" sobbed Bart.
"What does that booby want?" asked Reese.
"He wants to go to the lighthouse," explained Sam.
"Well, let him go," replied Reese. "He has been a bother ever since he came."
With what joy Bart's small legs wriggled over the side of the keeper's dory!
"This little fellow, in whom I am interested, wants to go, if you will let him," said Dave to the light-keeper; "and he can go to Shipton with the party expecting to come down, you know, to visit us."
"All right; and tumble in yourself, Dave."
"Here I am!" replied Dave. "Let me push off!"
Toby Tolman's boat was quickly rising and falling with the sea that rocked about the Nub, and the departure was watched in an amazed, ignoble silence by the three rowdies leaning against Dick's boat.
"I am so much obliged to you for coming," said Dave to the keeper, "though I did not mean to trouble you. Things were rather squally at the Nub, and you came just in time. I will tell you about it."
When Dave had given his story, the light-keeper, resting on his oars, exclaimed, "There! I guessed as much. I didn't feel easy about you. That Dick is a well-meaning boy, I don't doubt; but when I found out that Sam Whittles was with him, I guessed what kind of a camp they would have at the Nub, and it seems my guess was about right.--And this little lamb?"
Bart's eyes brightened at this pitying title; the appellatives bestowed upon him had generally been of a different nature.
It was a happy party that went into the lighthouse after the trip from the Nub.
"Oh, isn't this nice!" cried Bart, as he entered the kitchen. The sense of peaceful, safe seclusion, the warm fire in the kitchen stove, above all, the protecting friends near him, made the place seem like--Bart whispered to himself what he thought it must be like--"heaven!"
When he thought of the Nub he shuddered.
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 glass, 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 God 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, lustrous 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. Unobserved he went to a window through which blew the cool, sweet, strong air from the sea, and he silently thanked God 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 God, 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 clustered, 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, blushing 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 shore, 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 wordpharemeans 'lighthouse.' In Spanish,faromeans '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 ships 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, finishing 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 butt 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 principally 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.