The Story of the Rock Read online

  CHAPTER TWO.

  BEGINNING OF RUDYERD'S LIGHTHOUSE.

  The terrible gale which swept away the first lighthouse that was builton the Eddystone Rock, gave ample proof of the evils resulting from thewant of such a building. Just after the structure fell, a vessel, namedthe "Winchelsea," homeward bound, approached the dreaded rock.Trusting, doubtless, to the light which had been destroyed so recently,she held on her course, struck, split in two, and went down with everysoul on board.

  The necessity for building another tower was thus made; as it were,urgently obvious; nevertheless, nearly four years elapsed before any onewas found with sufficient courage and capacity to attempt the dangerousand difficult enterprise.

  During this period, our friend John Potter, being a steady, able man,found plenty of work at the docks of Plymouth; but he often cast awistful glance in the direction of "the Rock" and sighed to think of thetower that had perished, and the numerous wrecks that had occurred inconsequence; for, not only had some vessels struck on the Rock itself,but others, keeping too far off its dreaded locality, were wrecked onthe coast of France. John Potter's sigh, it must be confessed, was alsoprompted, in part, by the thought that his dreams of a retired andpeaceful life as a light-keeper were now destined never to be realised.

  Returning home one evening, somewhat wearied, he flung his huge frameinto a stout arm chair by the fireside, and exclaimed, "Heigho!"

  "Deary me, John, what ails you to-night?" asked the faithful Martha, whowas, as of yore, busy with the supper.

  "Nothin' partikler, Martha; only I've had a hard day of it, an I'm gladto sit down. Was Isaac Dorkin here to-day?"

  "No, 'e wasn't. I wonder you keep company with that man," replied MrsPotter, testily; "he's for ever quarrelling with 'ee, John."

  "No doubt he is, Martha; but we always make it up again; an' it don't dofor a man to give up his comrades just because they have sharp words nowand then. Why, old girl, you and I are always havin' a spurt o' thatsort off and on; yet I don't ever talk of leavin' ye on that account."

  To this Martha replied, "Fiddlesticks;" and said that she didn't believein the friendship of people who were always fighting and making it upagain; that for her part she would rather have no friends at all, shewouldn't; and that she had a settled conviction, she had, that IsaacDorkin would come to a bad end at last.

  "I hope not, Martha; but in the meantime he has bin the means of gettin'me some work to do that is quite to my liking."

  "What may that be, John?" asked Mrs Potter in surprise.

  "I'll tell you when we're at supper," said John with a smile; for heknew from experience that his better half was in a fitter state toswallow unpleasant news when engaged in swallowing her meals than at anyother time.

  "Where is Tommy?" he added, looking round at the quantity of chips whichlittered the floor.

  "Where is 'e?" repeated Mrs Potter, in a tone of indignation. "Wherewould you expect 'im to be but after mischief? 'E's at the mod'l, ofcourse; always at it; never at hanythingk else a'most."

  "No!" exclaimed John, in affected surprise. "Wasn't he at schoolto-day?"

  "O yes, of course 'e was at school."

  "An' did he git his lessons for to-morrow after comin' 'ome?"

  "I suppose 'e did."

  "Ah then, he does something else _sometimes_, eh?"

  Mrs Potter's reply was interrupted by Tommy himself emerging from acloset, which formed his workshop and in which he was at that time busywith a model of Winstanley's lighthouse, executed from the drawings anddescriptions by his father, improved by his own brilliant fancy.

  Four years make a marked difference on a boy in the early stage of life.He was now nearly ten, and well grown, both intellectually andphysically, for his age.

  "Well, Tommy, how d'ee git on wi' the light-'ouse?" asked his father.

  "Pretty well, faither: but it seems to me that Mr Winstanley had toomany stickin'-out poles, an' curlywurleys, an' things o' that sort aboutit."

  "Listen to that now," said Mrs Potter, with a look of contempt, as theyall sat down to supper: "what ever does the boy mean by curlywurleys?"

  "You've seed Isaac Dorkin's nose, mother?"

  "Of course I 'ave: what then?"

  "Well, it goes in at the top and out at the middle and curls up at theend: that's curlywurley," said Tommy, with a grin, as he helped himselfto a large potato.

  "The boy is right, Martha," said John, laughing, "for a lighthouseshould be as round an' as smooth as a ship's bow, with nothin' for windor water to lay hold on. But now I'll tell 'ee of this noo situation."

  Both mother and son looked inquiringly up, but did not speak, being toobusy and hungry.

  "Well, this is how it came about. I met Isaac Dorkin on my way to thedocks this mornin', an' he says to me, says he, `John, I met a gentlemanwho is makin' very partikler inquiries about the Eddystone Rock: hisname he says is Rudyerd, and he wants to hire a lot o' first-rate men tobegin a new--'"

  "A noo light'ouse!" exclaimed Mrs Potter, with sudden energy, bringingher fist down on the table with such force that the dishes rattledagain. "I know'd it: I did. I've 'ad a settled conviction that if everthey begun to put up another 'ouse on that there rock, you would 'aveyour finger in it! And now it'll be the old story over again: out inall weathers, gettin' yer limbs bruised, if yer neck ain't broke; comin''ome like a drownded rat, no regular hours or meals! Oh John, John!"

  Mrs Potter stopped at this point to recover breath and make up her mindwhether to storm or weep. Heaving a deep sigh she did neither, but wenton with her supper in sad silence.

  "Don't take on like that, duckey," said John, stretching his long armacross the table and patting his wife's shoulder. "It won't be so badas that comes to, and it will bring steady work, besides lots o' money."

  "Go on with the story, faither," said Tommy, through a potato, while hiseyes glittered with excitement.

  "It ain't a story, lad. However, to make it short I may come to thepint at once. Isaac got engaged himself and mentioned my name to MrRudyerd, who took the trouble to ferret me out in the docks and--and infact engaged me for the work, which is to begin next week."

  "Capital!" exclaimed Tommy. "Oh, how I wish I was old enough to gotoo!"

  "Time enough, lad: every dog shall have his day, as the proverb says."

  Mrs Potter said nothing, but sighed, and sought comfort in another cupof tea.

  Meanwhile John continued his talk in an easy, off hand sort of way,between bite.

  "This Mr Rudyerd, you must know (pass the loaf, Tommy: thank 'ee), is aCornish man--and fine, straightforward, go-ahead fellows them Cornishmen are, though I'm not one myself. Ah, you needn't turn up your prettynose, Mrs Potter; I would rather have bin born in Cornwall than anyother county in England, if I'd had my choice. Howsever, that ain'tpossible now. Well, it seems that Mr Rudyerd is a remarkable sort ofman. He came of poor an' dishonest parents, from whom he runned away inhis young days, an' got employed by a Plymouth gentleman, who became atrue father to him, and got him a good edication in readin', writin',an' mathematics. Ah, Tommy, my son, many a time have I had cause for toregret that nobody gave me a good edication!"

  "Fiddlesticks!" exclaimed Mrs Potter, rousing up at this. "You've gotedication enough for your station in life, and a deal more than most menin the same trade. You oughtn't for to undervally yourself, John. I'dback you against all your acquaintance in the matter of edication, Iwould, so don't talk any more nonsense like that."

  Mrs Potter concluded by emphatically stabbing a potato with her fork,and beginning to peel it.

  John smiled sadly and shook his head, but he was too wise a man tooppose his wife on such a point.

  "However, Tommy," he continued, "I'll not let _you_ have the sameregrets in after life, my son: God helping me, you shall have a good;edication. Well, as I was sayin', John Rudyerd the runaway boy becameMister Rudyerd the silk-mercer on Ludgate Hill, London, and now he'sgoin' to build a noo light'ouse on the Eddystun."
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  "He'd do better to mind his shop," said Mrs Potter.

  "He must be a strange man," observed Tommy, "to be both a silk-mercerand an engineer."

  Tommy was right: Mr Rudyerd was indeed a strange man, for thelighthouse which he ultimately erected on the Eddystone Rock provedthat, although not a professional engineer, and although he neverattempted any other great work of the kind, he nevertheless possessedengineering talent of the highest order: a fact which must of coursehave been known to Captain Lovet, the gentleman who selected him for thearduous undertaking.

  The corporation of the Trinity House, who managed the lighthouses on theEnglish coast, had let the right to build on the Eddystone, for a periodof 99 years, to this Captain Lovet, who appointed Mr Rudyerd to do thework.

  It was a clear calm morning in July 1706 when the boat put off for thefirst time to "the Rock," with the men and materials for commencing thelighthouse. Our friend John Potter sat at the helm. Opposite to himsat his testy friend, Isaac Dorkin, pulling the stroke oar. Mr Rudyerdand his two assistant engineers sat on either hand, conversing on thesubject that filled the thoughts of all. It was a long hard pull, evenon a calm day, but stout oars and strong arms soon carried them out tothe rock. Being low water at the time, a good deal of it was visible,besides several jagged peaks of the black forbidding ridge of which theEddystone forms a part.

  But calm though it was, the party could plainly see that the work beforethem would be both difficult and dangerous. A slight swell from theopen sea caused a long smooth glassy wave to roll solemnly forward everyminute or two, and launch itself in thunder on the weather side, sendingits spray right over the rock at times, so that a landing on that sidewould have been impossible. On the lee side, however, the boat found asort of temporary harbour. Here they landed, but not altogether withoutmishap. Isaac Dorkin, who had made himself conspicuous, during the rowout, for caustic remarks, and a tendency to contradict, slipped his footon a piece of seaweed and fell into the water, to the great glee of mostof his comrades.

  "Ah, then, sarves you right," cried Teddy Maroon, a little Irishman, oneof the joiners.

  The others laughed, and so did John Potter; but he also stretched out ahelping hand and pulled Dorkin out of the sea.

  This little incident tended to increase the spirits of the party as theycommenced preliminary operations.

  The form of the little mass of rock on which they had to build was veryunfavourable. Not only was it small--so small that the largest circlewhich it was possible to draw on it was only twenty-five feet six inchesin diameter, but its surface sloped so much as to afford a very insecurefoundation for any sort of building, even if the situation had been anunexposed one.

  The former builder, Winstanley, had overcome this difficulty byfastening a circle of strong iron posts into the solid rock, but theweight of his building, coupled with the force of the sea, had snappedthese, and thus left the structure literally to slide off itsfoundation. The ends of these iron posts, and a bit of chain firmlyimbedded in a cleft of the rock, were all that the new party of buildersfound remaining of the old lighthouse. Rudyerd determined to guardagainst a similar catastrophe, by cutting the rock into a succession offlat steps or terraces, so that the weight of his structure should restperpendicularly on its foundation.

  Stormy weather interrupted and delayed him, but he returned with his menagain and again to the work, and succeeded in advancing it veryconsiderably during the first year--that is to say, during the few weeksof the summer of that year, in which winds and waves permitted the workto go on.

  Many adventures, both ludicrous and thrilling, had these enterprisingmen while they toiled, by snatches as it were, sometimes almost underwater, and always under difficulties; but we are constrained to passthese by, in silence, in order to devote our space to the more importantand stirring incidents in the history of this the second lighthouse onthe Eddystone,--one of which incidents bade fair to check the progressof the building for an indefinite period of time, and well-nigh broughtthe career of our hero, John Potter, and his mates to an abrupt close.