“You are to light the lamps every evening at sun-setting, and keep them constantly burning, bright and clear, till sun-rising.”
This is the primary condition of a lighthouse-keeper’s duty: for this he lives, for this he toils, for this he watches—that the helpful flame which has been the salvation of so many lives may steadily glow and brightly burn from sunset until sunrise.
“Whatever else happens,” remarks a lively writer,[61] “he is to do this. He may be isolated through the long night-watches, twenty miles from land, fifty or a hundred feet above the level of the sea, with the winds and waves howling round him, and the sea-birds dashing themselves to death against the gleaming lantern, like giant moths against a candle; or it may be a calm, voluptuous, moonlight night, the soft air laden with the perfumes of the Highland heather or the Cornish gorse, tempting him to keep his watch outside the lantern, in the open gallery, instead of in the watch-room chair within; the Channel may be full of stately ships, each guided by his light; or the horizon may be bare of all signs of life, except, remote and far beneath him, the lantern of some fishing-boat at sea: but whatever may be going on outside, there is within for him the duty, simple and easy, by virtue of his moral method and orderly training, ‘to light the lamps every evening at sun-setting, and keep them constantly burning, bright and clear, till sun-rising.’”
That this great article of the lighthouse-keeper’s faith may be the more easily carried out, he is subjected, both when on probation and afterwards, to a strict discipline, and is required to gain a thorough acquaintance with all the materials he has to handle—lamps, oil, wicks, lighting apparatus, and revolving machinery. Before being admitted into the service, he is carefully examined as to his physical qualities by keen medical eyes; and as to his moral qualities, the best testimonials are necessary from persons in whose competency and honesty of judgment implicit confidence can be placed. He receives liberal wages, and, when past work, a fair pension; and a deduction from his pay is regularly applied to the discharge of a premium on his life insurance. He is enjoined to “the constant habit of cleanliness and good order in his own person, and to the invariable exercise of temperance and morality in his habits and proceedings; so that, by his example, he may enforce, as far as lies in his power, the observance of the same laudable conduct by his wife and family.” The utmost vigilance is expected of him when it is his turn to attend to the lantern. “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 sunrise, when he has extinguished the lamps, is to commence all necessary preparations for the exhibition of the light at the ensuing sunset.” No bed, sofa, or other article on which to recline, is permitted, either in the lantern or in the apartment under the lantern known as the watch-room.
From these requirements we may infer what kind of life is led by the lighthouse-keeper, and what are its leading requisites: temperance, cleanliness, honesty, conscientiousness, zeal, watchfulness. At different stations it varies considerably in its lighter occupations. In the rock lighthouse—such as the Eddystone—the keeper’s chief amusements are necessarily reading and fishing: the only capability of exercise is within the circle of the outer gallery, or on the belt of rock surrounding the lighthouse base; and the sole incidents which break up the uniformity of his daily life are the inspections of the committee, the visits of the district superintendent, or the monthly relief which takes the men back to shore. In the shore lighthouse—as at Harwich or the Forelands—there is a plot of ground to cultivate, frequent intercourse with visitors from the neighbouring watering-places, and the wider range of occupation and entertainment which necessarily can be enjoyed upon terra firma.
As a rule, the public take but little interest in the economy of our lighthouses; and yet there is something singularly romantic in the idea of the lone tower encircled by boiling waters, with its warning light flashing through the deep night shadows, and the heroic men who hour after hour watch with anxious care lest its radiance should be obscured or extinguished.
“And as the evening darkens, lo! how bright,
Through the deep purple of the twilight air,
Beams forth the sudden radiance of its light
With strange, unearthly splendour in its glare!
“Not one alone: from each projecting cape
And perilous reef along the ocean’s verge,
Starts into life a dim, gigantic shape,
Holding its lantern o’er the restless surge.
“Like the great giant Christopher it stands
Upon the brink of the tempestuous wave;
Wading far out among the rocks and sands,
The night-o’ertaken mariner to save.
“And the great ships sail outward and return,
Bending and bowing o’er the billowy swells;
And ever joyful, as they see it burn,
They wave their silent welcomes and farewells.