"So 'tis, lad; so 'tis," said Bremner, who at that moment had placed a superb pot of codlings on the fire; "though why ye should say it so positively when nobody's denyin' it, is more nor I can tell."
Ruby laughed, and retired to the mortar-gallery to work at the forge and ponder. He always found that he pondered best while employed in hammering, especially if his feelings were ruffled.
Seizing a mass of metal, he laid it on the anvil, and gave it five or six heavy blows to straighten it a little, before thrusting it into the fire.
Strange to say, these few blows of the hammer were the means, in all probability, of saving the sloop Smeaton from being wrecked on the Bell Rock!
That vessel had been away with Mr. Stevenson at Leith, and was returning, when she was overtaken by the calm and the fog. At the moment that Ruby began to hammer, the Smeaton was within a stone's cast of the beacon, running gently before a light air which had sprung up.
No one on board had the least idea that the tide had swept them so near the rock, and the ringing of the anvil was the first warning they got of their danger.
The lookout on board instantly sang out, "Starboard har-r-r-d! beacon ahead!" and Ruby looked up in surprise, just as the Smeaton emerged like a phantom-ship out of the fog. Her sails fluttered as she came up to the wind, and the crew were seen hurrying to and fro in much alarm.
Mr. Stevenson himself stood on the quarter-deck of the little vessel, and waved his hand to assure those on the beacon that they had sheered off in time, and were safe.
This incident tended to strengthen the engineer in his opinion that the two large bells which were being cast for the lighthouse, to be rung by the machinery of the revolving light, would be of great utility in foggy weather.
While the Smeaton was turning away, as if with a graceful bow to the men on the rock, Ruby shouted: