Scene: A prettily-furnished room in a building that forms part and parcel of a lighthouse, on a small lonely island on the coast. The island is little else save a sea-girt rock, though on one green side of it some sheep are grazing. Effie and Leonard standing by the window, gazing silently and somewhat sadly over the sea.
Effie (speaks). “It is nearly a month, Leonard, since Captain Bland sailed away and left us here. I wonder if he will ever, ever come back.”
Leonard. “Oh! I am quite sure he will, unless—”
Effie. “Yes, unless his ship is wrecked, and he is drowned, and poor papa never, never knows where we are.”
Leonard (laughing). “Why, Eff, what a long face you pull! It is always ‘ever ever’ or ‘never never’ with you. Now I dreamt last night he would return in a week, and I’m sure he’ll come. No use looking out of the window any longer to-night, Eff. The sun is just going down, and the sea-birds are all going to roost in the cliffs beneath the window. And it is time for the great lamps to be lit. Come on, Eff; let us go up with old Grindlay.”
Effie checked a sigh, cut it in two, as it were, and turned it into a laugh, and next minute both were out on the grass among the sheep, and gazing up at the whitewashed tower, which seemed so very tall to them.
“Ahoy-oy-oy!” sang Leonard, with one hand to his mouth in true sailor fashion. “Are you up there, old shipmate?”
“Ay, lad, ay,” a cheery voice returned. “Come up and bring missie.”
They were pattering up the stone stairs next minute, and soon arrived panting and breathless at the lamp room.
Old Grindlay was there, and had already lit up, and by-and-bye, when darkness fell, the gleam from the great lamps would shine far over the sea, and be seen perhaps by many a ship homeward bound from distant lands. It was very still and quiet up here, only the wind sighing round the roof, the occasional shriek and mournful scream of some sea-bird, and the boom of the dark waters breaking lazily on the rocks beneath. Old Grindlay sat on a little stool waiting for his son to come and keep watch, the two men, with old Grindlay’s “old woman,” as he called his wife, being all that dwelt on the island, and no boats ever visited it except about once a month.