"Don't try to put us in the dismals," said Jamie Dove, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, and refilling that solace of his leisure hours. "Let us hear about the Eddystone, Bremner; it'll cheer up our spirits a bit."
"Will it though?" said Bremner, with a look that John Watt described as "awesome". "Well, we shall see."
"You must know, boys——"
'"Ere, light your pipe, my 'earty," said Dumsby.
"Hold yer tongue, an' don't interrupt him," cried one of the men, flattening Dumsby's cap over his eyes.
"And don't drop yer Aaitches," observed another, "'cause if ye do they'll fall into the sea an' be drownded, an' then yell have none left to put into their wrong places when ye wants 'em."
"Come, Bremner, go on."
"Well, then, boys," began Bremner, "you must know that it is more than a hundred years since the Eddystone Lighthouse was begun—in the year 1696, if I remember rightly—that would be just a hundred and thirteen years to this date. Up to that time these rocks were as great a terror to sailors as the Bell Rock is now, or, rather, as it was last year, for now that this here comfortable beacon has been put up, it's no longer a terror to nobody——"
"Except Geordie Forsyth," interposed O'Connor.
"Silence," cried the men.