"An ill-favored thing, sir, but mine own."
LONDONER'S, FROM STAR ISLAND.
As seen from Star Island, Londoner's shows two rugged knobs connected by a narrower strip of shingle. It has its cove, and a reasonably good landing. Half-way between it and Star are hidden rocks over which the sea breaks. It was not occupied by its owner when I was there.
It was a lovely morning when I rowed over to White Island. Once clear of the harbor, I found outside what sailors call "an old sea," the relics of the late north-easter. But these wherries will live in any sea that runs on the New England coast. I have heard of the Bank fishermen being out in them for days together when their vessel could not lie at anchor in the tremendous swell.
White Island is now the most picturesque of the group, a distinction once conceded to Star. It owes this preference to its light-house, standing on a cliff at the east head of the isle, that rises full fifty feet out of water; at least it seemed so high to me as I lay underneath it in my little boat at low tide. Against this cliff the waves continually swelled, rushing into crannies, where I could hear them gurgling and soughing as if some monster were choking to death in their depths.
This is not so forbidding as Boon Island, but it is enough. The light-house was of brick, as I could see where the weather had worn off last year's coat of whitewash. It was not yet time for the tender to come and brighten it up again. The long gallery conducting from the keeper's cottage up to the tower was once torn away from its fastenings, and hurled into the deep gorge of the rocks which it spans. I saw nothing to hinder if the Atlantic had a mind again to play at bowls with it.
The island owes its name to the blanched appearance of its crags, little different in this respect from its fellows. At high tides the westward end is isolated from the rest, making two islands of it in appearance, but inseparable as the Siamese twins. The light-house is much visited in summer, especially by those of a romantic turn, and by those to whom its winding stairs, huge tanks of oil, and powerful Fresnel, possess the charm of novelty. By its side is the section of an earlier building, a reminiscence of the former state of the Isles. For many years the keeper of the light was Thomas B. Laighton, afterward proprietor of Appledore. On account of some political disappointment, he removed from Portsmouth to the Isles, making, it is said, a vow never again to set foot on the main-land. Fortune followed the would-be recluse against his will. As keeper of a boarding-house on Appledore, he is reported to have expressed little pleasure at the coming of visitors, even while receiving them with due hospitality. He was glad of congenial spirits, but loved not overmuch the stranger within his gates. His sons succeeded to their father at the Appledore. His daughter[122] has told with charming naiveté the story of the light-house, whose lamps she often trimmed and lighted with her own hands.
"I lit the lamps in the light-house tower,
For the sun dropped down and the day was dead;
They shone like a glorious clustered flower,
Two golden and five red."