“I’ll go with ’ee, John,” said his wife, touching him on the shoulder.
“You couldn’t face it, Martha,” said John. “I thowt ye had bin asleep.”
“No: I’ve bin thinkin’ of our dear boy. I can face it well enough.”
“Come, then: but wrap well up. Let Tommy come too: I see he’s gettin’ ready.”
Presently the three went out. The door almost burst off its hinges when it was opened, and it required John’s utmost strength to reclose it.
Numbers of people, chiefly men, were already hurrying to the beach. Clouds of foam and salt spray were whirled madly in the air, and, carried far inland, and slates and cans were dashing on the pavements. Men tried to say to each other that they had never seen such a storm, but the gale caught their voices away, and seemed to mingle them all up in one prolonged roar. On gaining the beach they could see nothing at first but the heavings of the maddened sea, whose billows mingled their thunders with the wind. Sand, gravel, and spray almost blinded them, but as daylight increased they caught glimpses of the foam above the rock.
“God help us!” said John, solemnly, as he and his wife and child sought shelter under the lee of a wall: “the light’ouse is gone!”
It was too true. The Eddystone lighthouse had been swept completely away, with the unfortunate Winstanley and all his men: not a vestige, save a fragment of chain-cable, remained on the fatal rock to tell that such a building had ever been.