Chapter Ten.
The Campaign of 1758.
The contrast was pleasant; repose after toil,—for stone-cutting in the yard on shore was rest compared with the labour at the Rock. Steady, regular, quiet progress; stone after stone added to the great pile, tested and ready for shipment at the appointed time. The commander-in-chief planning, experimenting, superintending. The men busy as bees; and, last but not least, delightful evenings with friends, and recountings of the incidents of the war. Such is the record of the winter.
The spring of 1758 came; summer advanced. The builders assumed the offensive, and sent out skirmishers to the Rock, where they found that the enemy had taken little or no rest during the winter, and were as hard at it as ever. Little damage, however, had been done.
The attacking party suffered some defeats at the outset. They found that their buoy was lost, and the mooring chain of the Buss had sunk during the winter. It was fished up, however, but apparently might as well have been let lie, for it could not hold the Buss, which broke loose during a gale, and had to run for Plymouth Sound. Again, on 3rd June; another buoy was lost, and bad weather continued till July. Then, however, a general and vigorous assault was made, the result being “great progress,” so that, on the 8th of August, a noteworthy point was reached.
On that day the fourteenth “course” was laid, and this completed the “solid” part of the lighthouse. It rose 35 feet above the foundation.
From this point the true house may be said to have commenced, for, just above this course, the opening for the door was left, and the little space in the centre for the spiral staircase which was to lead to the first room.
As if to mark their disapproval of this event, the angry winds and waves, during the same month, raised an unusually furious commotion while one of the yawls went into the “Gut” or pool, which served as a kind of harbour, to aid one of the stone boats.