stood, Mr Long showed me the holes in which had been fixed the ends of the great beams of the beacon. The beacon was a point of considerable interest to me. If you had seen the rock as I saw it, reader, in a storm, with the water boiling all over and round it for more than a mile, like seething milk—and if you had reflected that the first beacon built there was carried away in a gale, you would have entertained very exalted ideas of the courage of the men who built the Bell Rock lighthouse.
While the tower was building, Mr Stevenson and his men were exposed for many days and nights in this beacon—this erection of timber-beams, with a mere pigeon-house on the top of it for a dwelling. Before the beacon was built, the men lived in the Pharos floating light; a vessel which was moored not far from the Rock. Every day—weather permitting—they rowed to the rock, landed, and worked for one, two, or three hours, when they were drowned out, so to speak, and obliged to return to their floating home. Sometimes the landing was easy. More frequently it was difficult. Occasionally it was impossible. When a landing was accomplished, they used to set to work without delay. There was no time to lose. Some bored holes in the rock for hold-fasts; others, with pick and chisel, cut out the foundation-pit. Then the courses began to be laid. On each occasion of landing the smith had to set up his bellows, light his fire, and work in hot haste; because his whole shop, except the anvil, had to be taken down, and carried away every tide! Frequently, in fine weather, this enterprising son of Vulcan might have been seen toiling with his head enveloped in volumes of smoke and sparks, and his feet in the water, which gradually rose to his ankles and knees until, with a sudden “hiss,” it extinguished his fire and ended his labours for the day. Then he was forced to pack up his bellows and tools, and decamp with the rest of the men.
Sometimes they wrought in calm, sometimes in storm; always, more or less, in water. Three hours was considered a fair day’s work. When they had the good fortune to work “double tides” in a day, they made five, or five-and-a-half, hours; but this was of rare occurrence.
“You see that mark there, sir, on Smith’s Ledge?” said Mr Long to me one day, “that was the place where the forge stood; and the ledge beyond, with the old bit of iron on it, is the ‘Last Hope,’ where Mr Stevenson and his men were so nearly lost.” Then he went on to tell me the following incident, as illustrating one of the many narrow escapes made by the builders.
One day, soon after the men had commenced work, it began to blow hard, and the crew of the boat belonging to the attending vessel, named the “Smeaton,” fearing that her moorings might be insufficient, went off to examine them. This was wrong. The workmen on the rock were sufficiently numerous to completely fill three boats. For one of these to leave the rock was to run a great risk, as the event proved. Almost as soon as they reached the “Smeaton,” her cables parted and she went adrift, carrying the boat with her away to leeward, and although sail was instantly made, they found it impossible to regain the rock against wind and tide. Mr Stevenson observed this with the deepest anxiety, but the men, (busy as bees about the rock), were not aware of it at first.
The situation was terrible. There were thirty-two men left on a rock which would in a short time be overflowed to a depth of twelve or fifteen feet by a stormy sea, and only two boats in which to remove them. These two boats, if loaded to the gunwales, could have held only a few more than the half of them.
While the sound of the numerous hammers and the ring of the anvil were heard, the situation did not appear so hopeless; but soon the men at the lowest part of the foundation were driven from work by the rising tide; then the forge-fire was extinguished, and the men generally began to make towards their respective boats for their jackets and dry socks. When it was discovered that one of the three boats was gone not a word was uttered, but the men looked at each other in evident perplexity. They seemed to realise their position at once.
In a few minutes some of that band must inevitably be left to perish, for the absent boat and vessel were seen drifting farther and farther away to leeward. Mr Stevenson knew that in such a case, where life and death were in the balance, a desperate struggle among the men for precedence would be certain. Indeed he afterwards learned that the pickmen had resolved to stick by their boat against all hazards. While they were thus gazing in silence at each other and at the distant vessel, their enterprising leader had been casting about in his mind as to the best method of at least attempting the deliverance of his men, and he finally turned round to propose, as a forlorn hope, that all hands should strip off their upper clothing, that every unnecessary article should be removed from the boats, that a specified number should get into each, and that the remainder should hang on by the gunwales, and thus be dragged through the water while they were rowed cautiously towards the “Smeaton”! But when he tried to speak his mouth was so parched that his tongue refused utterance! and then he discovered, (as he says himself), “that saliva is as necessary to speech as the tongue itself!” Turning to a pool, he moistened his lips with sea-water, and found immediate relief. He was again about to speak when some one shouted “a boat! a boat!” and, sure enough, a large boat was seen through the haze making towards the rock. This timely visitor was James Spink, the Bell Rock pilot, who had come off express from Arbroath with letters. His visit was altogether an unusual one, and his truly providential appearance unquestionably prevented loss of life on that critical occasion. This is one specimen—selected from innumerable instances of danger and risk—which may give one some idea of what is encountered by those who build such lighthouses as the Bell Rock.
Our rambles on the rock were necessarily of short duration. We used to stand in the doorway watching the retreating waves, and, the moment the rails were uncovered, we hurried down the ladder—all of us bent on getting as much exercise as possible on land! We marched in single file, up and down the narrow rails, until the rock was uncovered—then we rambled over the slippery ledges.
Sometimes we had one hour—sometimes two, or even three hours, according to the state of the tides. Then the returning waves drove us gradually from the rocks to the rails, from the rails to the ladder—and so back into the lighthouse.
Among other things that impressed me deeply was the grandeur of the waves at the Bell Rock.
One enjoys an opportunity there of studying the form and colour of ocean billows which cannot be obtained on any ordinary shore, because, the water being deep alongside the Rock, these waves come up to it in all their unbroken magnificence. I tried to paint them, but found it difficult, owing to the fact that, like refractory children, they would not stand still to be painted! It was not only in stormy weather that these waves arose. I have seen them during a dead calm, when the sea was like undulating glass. No doubt the cause of them was a gale in some distant part of the sea—inducing a heavy ground-swell; but, be the cause what it might, these majestic rollers often came in without a breath of air to help them, and with the sun glittering on their light-green crystal sides. Their advance seemed slow and solemn amid the deep silence, which made them all the more impressive. The rise of each wave was so gradual that you could not tell where it began in the distant sea. As it drew near, it took definite form and swelled upwards, and at last came on like a wall of glass—probably ten or twelve feet high—so high, at all events, that I felt as if looking up at it from my position on the low rock. When close at hand its green edge lipped over and became fringed with white—then it bent forward with a profound obeisance to the Bell Rock and broke the silence with a grand reverberating roar, as it fell in a ruin of foam and rushed up to my very feet!
When those waves began to paint the canvas with their own spray and change the oil into a water-colour, I was constrained to retire to the lighthouse, where Mr Long, (a deeply interested student), watched me as I continued my studies from the doorway.
Mr Long had an inquiring mind and closely observed all that went on around him. Among other things, he introduced me to a friend of his, a species of fish which he called a “Paddle.”
Stout called it a sucker, in virtue of an arrangement on its breast whereby it could fasten itself to a rock and hold on. This fish dwelt in Port Hamilton, near Sir Ralph the Rover’s ledge, and could
