The remainder of the edifice, which rose to an elevation of 69 feet, on a base of 23 feet, was built of timber. The interior consisted of four rooms, one above the other; and above the topmost was the lantern—an octagon of 10 feet 6 inches in diameter, crowned by a ball of 2 feet 3 inches in diameter. The whole height of the lighthouse, from the lowest side of the rock to the top of the ball, was 92 feet. It was completely finished in 1709.
In connection with this ingenious structure an anecdote is always related, illustrative of the kindly feeling which Louis XIV. occasionally exhibited. There was war at the time between England and France, and a French privateer seized the opportunity of carrying off the workmen employed in building the lighthouse as prisoners. As soon as their capture was made known to the king, he ordered their immediate release, and that they should be sent back to their work, with some presents to compensate for their detention. “Though at war with England,” said the king, “I am not at war with mankind.” The Eddystone lighthouse is so situated as to be of equal service to all nations having occasion to navigate the Channel that separates France from England.
Yet another anecdote: Some visitors to the lighthouse, after inspecting its internal arrangements, observed to one of the keepers that he thought it quite possible to live very comfortably in its quiet seclusion. “That might be,” said the man, “if we had but the use of our tongues; but it is now fully a month since my partner and I have spoken to each other.”
Rudyerd’s lighthouse continued to brave “the elemental fury,” and warn the seamen from the fatal rocks, until the 2nd of December 1755, when it fell before a most unexpected enemy. Through some unknown cause the building caught fire. Three keepers at the time were within the lighthouse; and when one of them, whose turn it was to watch, entered the lantern, at about two o’clock in the morning, to snuff the candles, he discovered it to be filled with smoke,[26] and on his opening the door which led to the balcony, a flame instantly burst from the inside of the cupola. He hastened to alarm his companions, and they used every exertion to extinguish the fire; but, owing to the difficulty of raising a sufficient supply of water to the top of the building, and the dryness of the internal timber, they soon found their efforts vain, and as the fire increased in force, were compelled to retreat downwards from stage to stage.
Early in the morning the fire was descried by some fishermen, who carried the news ashore, and a well-manned boat was immediately dispatched to the relief of the poor keepers.
It reached the Eddystone at ten o’clock, when the fire had been burning eight hours. The light-keepers had been driven from the building to avoid the falling beams, and molten lead and red-hot iron; and were found, stupefied with terror, in a cave on the east side of the rock. With difficulty they were removed into the boat, and carried ashore. No sooner were they landed than one of them, strange to say, immediately made off, and was never afterwards heard of. So singular a circumstance naturally engendered a suspicion that he had originated the fire; but when we remember that a lighthouse affords no means of retreat for its inmates, and that the probability is they will perish with it, we can barely believe it to be the place which an incendiary would choose for his nefarious design. As Smeaton says, we would rather impute the man’s sudden flight to that kind of panic which sometimes, on important occasions, overpowers a weak mind; making it act without reason, and influencing it to commit unwittingly the most preposterous and injurious mistakes.
Of the other two light-keepers, one, named Henry Hall, met his death in an extraordinary manner. While engaged in throwing some buckets of water on the flaming roof of the cupola, he happened to look upwards, and a quantity of lead, melted by the heat, descended suddenly from the roof, and fell on his head, face, and shoulders, burning him severely. His mouth was open at the time, and he persisted in declaring that a portion of the lead had gone down his throat. The medical practitioner who attended him after his removal ashore not unnaturally regarded the story as incredible; but the man continued to grow worse, and on the twelfth day of his illness, after some violent spasms, expired. A post-mortem examination of his body was then made, and the poor man’s assertion found to be literally true, for in the stomach lay a flat oval piece of lead seven ounces and five drachms in weight.