The Boyhood of Great Inventors

by A. Fraser Robertson

There were times when the workmen could work as long as six hours at a stretch, going on eagerly by torchlight if necessary. Again it would happen they could not work more than two hours out of the twenty-four. Time was precious, and time was grievously taken up in going to and from Plymouth, and so Smeaton arranged that a “buss”—a fishing-vessel with two masts and a cabin at either end—should ride at anchor near the scene of work, with provisions and other necessaries.

But here, again, it was hard to plan ahead. One day a mighty storm arose. The men could not work. Their yawl broke from its moorings. They could neither send to shore, nor could they get help. But they must eat. Days passed, and gradually their store of provisions grew less and less. By the time relief reached them they were at their last crust.

During the long months of winter when work was out of the question the time was spent in dressing the stones in the yard on shore. Smeaton himself saw them laid out in lines and numbered, after which they were put in order on board ready to be lifted off when the rock was reached, and easily put in their places. Dangers and difficulties often crowded thick on the work, enough to daunt a man less dauntless than Smeaton. One night on the homeward way a big storm arose.

The night was dark, and Smeaton was roused from sleep by the sound of much stamping and hurrying to and fro overhead. He rushed on deck in his nightshirt. The helmsman was holding frantically by a rope.

“For God’s sake,” he shouted when he saw Smeaton and others, “heave hard at that rope, if you mean to save your lives.”

So Smeaton as well as the others laid hold. In the pitchy darkness there fell on their horror-struck ears the sound of waves breaking on the rocks. The jibsail was blown to pieces. They hastily lowered the mainsail. The waves dashed over them. But gradually the ship obeyed the straining helm and rounded off. In anxious fear they lay out to sea. When morning broke land was nowhere to be seen, and they found themselves driving towards the Bay of Biscay. For four long days they were tossed and driven to and fro before they made Plymouth harbour.

One day Smeaton had an accident, which, however, might have been worse in its effects. He was taking a turn up and down the narrow strip of rock that was all that afforded a promenade when his foot slipped and he fell among the rocks. When he got up he thought himself unhurt till a stinging pain informed him that he had dislocated his thumb. He was hours from shore—far from a surgeon. Delay meant disablement. So he took hold of it with his other hand, pulled hard, and it snapped into place.

But in spite of danger and difficulty and hindrance the great work went on, though slowly still surely. By the end of the second year the building had risen thirty-five feet high—out of reach of the heavy dash and thud of the waves. Gradually one above another rose the rooms for the light-keepers—their walls twenty-six inches thick to stand against the fearful onslaught of the wind as it blew up the Channel from the Atlantic. For in a gale the place shook and the doors slammed and the windows rattled with such terrific force that the new and unaccustomed keepers earnestly wished themselves at Land’s End or anywhere else, so that it meant land.

To say that as it neared the finish it was much in the great builder’s thoughts is to draw but a faint picture of how day and night it lay upon his heart. How when on land the early morning found him out betimes on the Hoe, at Plymouth, telescope in hand, gazing out to sea. If a storm raged and the spray flew high for a moment it seemed to his sinking heart that it was Winstanley’s lighthouse over again and that there was no Eddystone!

Again his heart leaped in gratitude a moment afterwards when the upright column—strong, firm, immovable—pointing black and clear against the sky, came to view, and a deep “Thank God!” would burst from his lips.