To do this implies a perpetual watch. “He whose watch is about to end is to trim the lamps and leave them burning in perfect order before he quits the lantern and calls the succeeding watch, and he who has the watch at sun-rise, when he has extinguished the lamps, is to commence all necessary preparations for the exhibition of the light at the ensuing sunset;” and, moreover, “no bed, sofa, or other article on which to recline, can be permitted, either in the lantern, or in the apartment under the lantern, known as the watch-room.”
Thus far we have a common denominator to the life of every light-keeper; but in other respects it varies much. At such stations as the Forelands or Harwich, where there are gardens to cultivate and plenty of land room for the men to stretch their legs and renovate themselves after the night watches; where visitors from neighbouring watering-places are constantly coming and going, to talk, to praise, to listen, and, perhaps, to fee, it is all very well; but there are also places “remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,” where the walk is limited to the circle of the gallery-railing, or the diameter of the lighthouse column; where the only incidents are the inspections of the committee, the visits of the district superintendent, or the monthly relief which takes the men back to shore. At these stations, when the sea is making fun of them, it sweeps up clean over the roof, and makes the lantern-glasses ring again, and in calmer weather the men may creep carefully out upon the rock to solace themselves with a little fishing; or if of more nervous temperament, may do it, as Winstanley did, with greater security from the kitchen window.
Not but what some people like that sort of life. Smeaton tells a story of a shoemaker who went out as light-keeper to the Eddystone because he did not like confinement, having found himself in effect a greater prisoner at his lapstone than he would be at the rock; but then Smeaton confesses a few pages farther on that at times the keepers have been so short of provisions as to be compelled to eat the candles.
In the old days of private proprietorship, when every owner had his system of management, and when the desire to make a profit set the aims of efficiency and economy into antagonism, exceptional cases of very terrible tragic significance occasionally occurred. For instance, here is a letter from the heroic fiddle-maker himself, dated “Smalls, 1st February, 1777,” written in triplicate, put into a corked bottle, and that into a cask inscribed, “Open this, and you will find a letter:”—
“To Mr. Williams.
“Smalls, February 1st, 1777.
“Sir,—Being now in a most dangerous and distressed condition upon the Smalls, do hereby trust Providence will bring to your hand this, which prayeth for your immediate assistance to fetch us off the Smalls before the next spring, or we fear we shall perish; our water near all gone, our fire quite gone, and our house in a most melancholy manner. I doubt not but you will fetch us from here as fast as possible; we can be got off at some part of the tide almost any weather. I need say no more, but remain your distressed,
“Humble servant,
“Hy. Whiteside.
“We were distressed in a gale of wind upon the 13th of January, since which have not been able to keep any light; but we could not have kept any light above sixteen nights longer for want of oil and candles, which make us murmur and think we are forgotten.
“Ed. Edwardes.
“Geo. Adams.
“Jno. Price.