The Story of the Rock | Page 2

supper. Come, Martha," he added, as he walked beside his wife to their dwelling near Plymouth Docks, "don't be so hard on the cheeld; it's not mischief that ails him. It's engineerin' that he's hankerin' after. Depend upon it, that if he is spared to grow up he'll be a credit to us."
Mrs Potter, being "of the same opinion still," felt inclined to say "Fiddlesticks!" but she was a good soul, although somewhat highly spiced in the temper, and respected her husband sufficiently to hold her tongue.
"John;" she said, after a short silence, "you're late to-night."
"Yes," answered John, with a sigh. "My work at the docks has come to an end, an' Mr Winstanley has got all the men he requires for the repair of the light'ouse. I saw him just before he went off to the rock to-night, an' I offered to engage, but he said he didn't want me."
"What?" exclaimed Mrs Potter, with sudden indignation: "didn't want you--you who has served 'im, off an' on, at that light'ouse for the last six year an' more while it wor a buildin'! Ah, that's gratitood, that is; that's the way some folk shows wot their consciences is made of; treats you like a pair of old shoes, they does, an' casts you off w'en you're not wanted: hah!"
Mrs Potter entered her dwelling as she spoke, and banged the door violently by way of giving emphasis to her remark.
"Don't be cross, old girl," said John, patting her shoulder: "I hope you won't cast me off like a pair of old shoes when you're tired of me! But, after all, I have no reason to complain. You know I have laid by a good lump of money while I was at work on the Eddystone; besides, we can't expect men to engage us when they don't require us; and if I had got employed, it would not have bin for long, being only a matter of repairs. Mr Winstanley made a strange speech, by the way, as the boat was shoving off with his men. I was standin' close by when a friend o' his came up an' said he thowt the light'ouse was in a bad way an' couldn't last long. Mr Winstanley, who is uncommon sure o' the strength of his work, he replies, says he--`I only wish to be there in the greatest storm that ever blew under the face of heaven, to see what the effect will be.' Them's his very words, an'it did seem to me an awful wish--all the more that the sky looked at the time very like as if dirty weather was brewin' up somewhere."
"I 'ope he may 'ave 'is wish," said Mrs Potter firmly, "an' that the waves may--"
"Martha!" said John, in a solemn voice, holding up his finger, "think what you're sayin'."
"Well, I don't mean no ill; but, but--fetch the kettle, Tommy, d'ye hear? an' let alone the cat's tail, you mischievous little--"
"That's a smart boy," exclaimed John rising and catching the kettle from his son's and, just as he was on the point of tumbling over a stool: "there, now let's all have a jolly supper, and then, Tommy, I'll show you how the real foundation of the Eddystun was laid."
The building to which John Potter referred, and of which he gave a graphic account and made a careful drawing that night, for the benefit of his hopeful son, was the first lighthouse that was built on the wild and almost submerged reef of rocks lying about fourteen miles to the south-west of Plymouth harbour. The highest part of this reef, named the Eddystone, is only a few feet above water at high tide, and as it lies in deep water exposed to the full swell of the ocean, the raging of the sea over it in stormy weather is terrible beyond conception.
Lying as it does in the track of vessels coasting up and down the English Channel, it was, as we may easily believe, a source of terror, as well as of danger, to mariners, until a lighthouse was built upon it.
But a lighthouse was talked of long before any attempt was made to erect one. Important though this object was to the navies of the world, the supposed impossibility of the feat, and the danger apprehended in the mere attempt, deterred any one from undertaking the task until the year 1696, when a country gentleman of Essex, named Henry Winstanley, came forward, and, having obtained the necessary legal powers, began the great work of building on the wave-lashed rock.
Winstanley was an eccentric as well as a bold man. He undoubtedly possessed an ingenious mechanical mind, which displayed itself very much in practical joking. It is said of him that he made a machine, the spring of which was attached