Читать книгу The Story of the Rock - Robert Michael Ballantyne - Страница 2

The terrible gale which swept away the first lighthouse that was built on the Eddystone Rock, gave ample proof of the evils resulting from the want of such a building. Just after the structure fell, a vessel, named the “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 every soul on board.

The necessity for building another tower was thus made; as it were, urgently obvious; nevertheless, nearly four years elapsed before any one was found with sufficient courage and capacity to attempt the dangerous and 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 a wistful glance in the direction of “the Rock” and sighed to think of the tower that had perished, and the numerous wrecks that had occurred in consequence; for, not only had some vessels struck on the Rock itself, but others, keeping too far off its dreaded locality, were wrecked on the coast of France. John Potter’s sigh, it must be confessed, was also prompted, in part, by the thought that his dreams of a retired and peaceful life as a light-keeper were now destined never to be realised.

Returning home one evening, somewhat wearied, he flung his huge frame into a stout arm chair by the fireside, and exclaimed, “Heigho!”

“Deary me, John, what ails you to-night?” asked the faithful Martha, who was, as of yore, busy with the supper.

“Nothin’ partikler, Martha; only I’ve had a hard day of it, an I’m glad to sit down. Was Isaac Dorkin here to-day?”

“No, ’e wasn’t. I wonder you keep company with that man,” replied Mrs Potter, 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 do for a man to give up his comrades just because they have sharp words now and then. Why, old girl, you and I are always havin’ a spurt o’ that sort 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 believe in the friendship of people who were always fighting and making it up again; that for her part she would rather have no friends at all, she wouldn’t; and that she had a settled conviction, she had, that Isaac Dorkin 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 he knew from experience that his better half was in a fitter state to swallow unpleasant news when engaged in swallowing her meals than at any other time.

“Where is Tommy?” he added, looking round at the quantity of chips which littered the floor.

“Where is ’e?” repeated Mrs Potter, in a tone of indignation. “Where would you expect ’im to be but after mischief? ’E’s at the mod’l, of course; always at it; never at hanythingk else a’most.”

“No!” exclaimed John, in affected surprise. “Wasn’t he at school to-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 a closet, which formed his workshop and in which he was at that time busy with a model of Winstanley’s lighthouse, executed from the drawings and descriptions 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 and physically, 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 too many stickin’-out poles, an’ curlywurleys, an’ things o’ that sort about it.”

“Listen to that now,” said Mrs Potter, with a look of contempt, as they all 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 the end: that’s curlywurley,” said Tommy, with a grin, as he helped himself to a large potato.

“The boy is right, Martha,” said John, laughing, “for a lighthouse should be as round an’ as smooth as a ship’s bow, with nothin’ for wind or 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 too busy and hungry.

“Well, this is how it came about. I met Isaac Dorkin on my way to the docks this mornin’, an’ he says to me, says he, ‘John, I met a gentleman who is makin’ very partikler inquiries about the Eddystone Rock: his name he says is Rudyerd, and he wants to hire a lot o’ first-rate men to begin a new—’”

“A noo light’ouse!” exclaimed Mrs Potter, with sudden energy, bringing her fist down on the table with such force that the dishes rattled again. “I know’d it: I did. I’ve ’ad a settled conviction that if ever they begun to put up another ’ouse on that there rock, you would ’ave your finger in it! And now it’ll be the old story over again: out in all 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 mind whether to storm or weep. Heaving a deep sigh she did neither, but went on with her supper in sad silence.

“Don’t take on like that, duckey,” said John, stretching his long arm across the table and patting his wife’s shoulder. “It won’t be so bad as 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 his eyes glittered with excitement.

“It ain’t a story, lad. However, to make it short I may come to the pint at once. Isaac got engaged himself and mentioned my name to Mr Rudyerd, who took the trouble to ferret me out in the docks and—and in fact engaged me for the work, which is to begin next week.”

“Capital!” exclaimed Tommy. “Oh, how I wish I was old enough to go too!”

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

Mrs Potter said nothing, but sighed, and sought comfort in another cup of 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 a Cornish man—and fine, straightforward, go-ahead fellows them Cornish men are, though I’m not one myself. Ah, you needn’t turn up your pretty nose, Mrs Potter; I would rather have bin born in Cornwall than any other county in England, if I’d had my choice. Howsever, that ain’t possible now. Well, it seems that Mr Rudyerd is a remarkable sort of man. He came of poor an’ dishonest parents, from whom he runned away in his young days, an’ got employed by a Plymouth gentleman, who became a true 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 to regret that nobody gave me a good edication!”

“Fiddlesticks!” exclaimed Mrs Potter, rousing up at this. “You’ve got edication enough for your station in life, and a deal more than most men in the same trade. You oughtn’t for to undervally yourself, John. I’d back you against all your acquaintance in the matter of edication, I would, 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 to oppose his wife on such a point.

“However, Tommy,” he continued, “I’ll not let you have the same regrets in after life, my son: God helping me, you shall have a good; edication. Well, as I was sayin’, John Rudyerd the runaway boy became Mister Rudyerd the silk-mercer on Ludgate Hill, London, and now he’s goin’ to build a noo light’ouse on the Eddystun.”

“He’d do better to mind his shop,” said Mrs Potter.

“He must be a strange man,” observed Tommy, “to be both a silk-mercer and an engineer.”

Tommy was right: Mr Rudyerd was indeed a strange man, for the lighthouse which he ultimately erected on the Eddystone Rock proved that, although not a professional engineer, and although he never attempted any other great work of the kind, he nevertheless possessed engineering talent of the highest order: a fact which must of course have been known to Captain Lovet, the gentleman who selected him for the arduous undertaking.

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

It was a clear calm morning in July 1706 when the boat put off for the first time to “the Rock,” with the men and materials for commencing the lighthouse. Our friend John Potter sat at the helm. Opposite to him sat his testy friend, Isaac Dorkin, pulling the stroke oar. Mr Rudyerd and his two assistant engineers sat on either hand, conversing on the subject that filled the thoughts of all. It was a long hard pull, even on a calm day, but stout oars and strong arms soon carried them out to the 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 the Eddystone forms a part.

But calm though it was, the party could plainly see that the work before them would be both difficult and dangerous. A slight swell from the open sea caused a long smooth glassy wave to roll solemnly forward every minute or two, and launch itself in thunder on the weather side, sending its spray right over the rock at times, so that a landing on that side would have been impossible. On the lee side, however, the boat found a sort of temporary harbour. Here they landed, but not altogether without mishap. Isaac Dorkin, who had made himself conspicuous, during the row out, for caustic remarks, and a tendency to contradict, slipped his foot on a piece of seaweed and fell into the water, to the great glee of most of his comrades.

“Ah, then, sarves you right,” cried Teddy Maroon, a little Irishman, one of the joiners.

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

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

The form of the little mass of rock on which they had to build was very unfavourable. Not only was it small—so small that the largest circle which it was possible to draw on it was only twenty-five feet six inches in diameter, but its surface sloped so much as to afford a very insecure foundation for any sort of building, even if the situation had been an unexposed one.

The former builder, Winstanley, had overcome this difficulty by fastening a circle of strong iron posts into the solid rock, but the weight of his building, coupled with the force of the sea, had snapped these, and thus left the structure literally to slide off its foundation. The ends of these iron posts, and a bit of chain firmly imbedded in a cleft of the rock, were all that the new party of builders found remaining of the old lighthouse. Rudyerd determined to guard against a similar catastrophe, by cutting the rock into a succession of flat steps or terraces, so that the weight of his structure should rest perpendicularly on its foundation.

Stormy weather interrupted and delayed him, but he returned with his men again and again to the work, and succeeded in advancing it very considerably during the first year—that is to say, during the few weeks of the summer of that year, in which winds and waves permitted the work to go on.

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