PAT

THE LIGHTHOUSE BOY

"Where will you go, Jim, when they do take you ashore?"—[Page 199.]

Pat

The Lighthouse Boy.

BY

E. EVERETT-GREEN,

AUTHOR OF
"EUSTACE MARCHMONT;" "WINNING THE VICTORY;"
"TEMPLE'S TRIAL;" ETC. ETC.

NEW YORK:
WARD & DRUMMOND.

CONTENTS

[LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS]

[PAT]

THE LIGHTHOUSE BOY

[CHAPTER I]

LONE ROCK LIGHTHOUSE

"O mother, mother, mother!" cried Pat, drawing a long breath of awe and wonder, "it seems like as if we had gone straight to heaven!"

"Nay, my son, not quite to heaven, for sure the blessed book tells us that there will be no more sea there;" and the woman looked out over the heaving expanse of grey-blue water with a strange soft wistfulness in her big grey eyes. One would have said to look at her then that she had known what it meant to lose those near and dear to her through the hungry cruel sea, as indeed in her young life she had done; for she was an Irish woman, and had lived all her young life beside the wild coast of Galway, and many of those who bore her name had found a last resting-place beneath the heaving tossing waves. Therefore it was small wonder if she had come to look forward to that bright land beyond the moaning waves, of which it has been expressly said that "there shall be no more sea."

But Patrick could scarcely enter at this moment into his mother's feelings on this score. He was wild with excitement and delight, as indeed he well might be, seeing that he had only just come from a close crowded alley in a smelling fishing and trading town to this lighthouse home, which seemed to lie alone in the very heart of the sea, with nothing above or around but sea and sky, the wild sea-birds for visitors, and the plash of the waves for one long "hush-a-by." No wonder if in these first moments of returning consciousness to outward things, little Pat felt as though some strange thing, almost like death, had befallen him, and that he had awakened to find himself either in heaven itself, or else in some beautiful and wonderful place very like to it indeed.

For Pat had been very ill. He had been a frail little fellow all his short life, and had never been able to run about and shout and play as the other children did who lived in his court. He had spent most of his time indoors with his mother, growing more and more wan and white with each succeeding summer as it came and went. Although the sea lay only a mile away from his home, he had scarcely ever walked as far as its margin, for there was nothing to attract him when he did so. It was not beautiful open sea such as what he was now looking upon, but a piece of ugly tidal water, with quays and wharfs lining the brink, and evil smells everywhere.

His father had a boat, and would have taken his boy out with him in it sometimes; but Pat was afraid of the rough looks of the other men, and his mother knew that the frail child would be weary to death long before he could be put ashore. So that Pat had grown up seeing little more than the sights of his own court, hearing little besides the shouts and cries and foul words so freely bandied about there. He had not been much better off in that respect than if he had come from a London slum, and this sudden awakening in the Lone Rock Lighthouse was like an awakening in a new world.

It was on Pat's account that his parents had come to this strange new home. When the hot May sunshine had come streaming into the alley in which the child had been reared, he had suddenly failed and fallen ill of a low fever, which had almost sapped his little life away; and so near had he come to the gates of death, that the doctor had shaken his head and said, "There is only one thing that can save him, and that is lots of fresh air and sunshine and pure salt breezes—not the breezes you get in here, reeking with all that is foul and impure. If you keep him here, he will die. The only chance for him is to take him right away; and I am afraid that, situated as you are, you will find it impossible to do so."

Perhaps it would have been impossible at another time; but just at this very juncture it chanced that Lone Rock Lighthouse was vacant, and indeed the post of caretaker had actually been offered to Nathaniel Carey, because he was known to be a steady respectable man, who could be relied upon to do his duty there. Lone Rock Lighthouse was always changing its keeper, for the life there was so solitary that men could not long stand the strain of it; and by the end of a year, or a couple of years, almost always resigned the post, in spite of the regular pay and comfortable home.

It was not a post that Nat would have cared to accept under ordinary circumstances, for he was a sociable man, and liked to have other men about him; but when the life of his only child was at stake, and his wife, with wan drawn face and piteous eyes, pointed to the little figure on the bed and told him what the doctor had said, the only thing to be done was to go and accept the post without any more hesitation; and the next business was to get the sick child removed there upon the first calm and suitable day.

For Lone Rock was not to be approached at all times and seasons, even in summer weather, and often was cut off from communication with the shore in winter for many weeks together. It was built upon a very dangerous sunken reef, round which the sea boiled and surged and raged from year's end to year's end. And herein lay the chief peril and the chief drawback of the keeper's life. If anything were to go wrong with him or with his home—if he were to be ill, or in want of some necessary of life, or if the structure of the lighthouse needed attention, it might be long weary days, or even weeks, before he could receive the help he had signalled for. It is true that every precaution was taken to ensure his safety. The structure was carefully examined by competent persons at short intervals. A large store of dried and salted provisions was always kept under the roof of the building, so that the keeper and his assistant might never be put to actual shifts for food, and stores of oil, for the great lamp, were likewise kept—stores which could scarcely run out, however long a spell of bad weather might last. Every care and precaution was taken; but for all that the life there was one of singular isolation, and men had been known to go mad during the long dreary winter months; and once a terrible crime had been committed there through this very cause—a crime of which men whispered still sometimes with 'bated breath, though Pat's mother always resolved that the child should never hear the gruesome tale.

Eileen Carey was the first woman who had had the courage to make a home upon the Lone Rock. Other keepers had either been unmarried men, or had left their wives behind for the time that they lived there. But Nat Carey came with his wife and his child; and those in authority were glad that it was so, for they argued that a man who had a real home about him would not suffer from the loneliness of the life as others had done; and they had done several things to brighten up the little home before the new-comers arrived there. Eileen's clever hands had done more so soon as they were fairly landed, for little Pat required very little nursing, as he lay day after day in a trance of weakness and exhaustion. But his mother was satisfied that each day he grew slightly stronger, and was quite content to wait until he should awaken to a knowledge of his new surroundings, which she meantime strove to make as bright and as homelike as possible; for she meant that her husband and her little boy should not lack any of the comforts which her hands could provide during their whole stay on the Lone Rock.

And now the mother was to have her reward. For several days Pat had begun to look about him, to follow her movements with his eyes, to answer when she spoke to him, and to smile when she looked his way. He was a long time in taking notice of anything except his mother and father. It seemed to them as though he had no eyes for any of the other strange things about him. He must have known that this new room, with its whitewashed walls, so spotless and clean, its queer shape, its fresh furniture and bright curtains to the sunny window, was not the room in which he had lived for all the previous years of his small life. Yet he did not take any open notice of these things for many days, and his mother would not let him be spoken to about them, for, as she truly said, if he hadn't strength to take them in with his eyes, he had far better be let alone till the strength began to come back to him of itself.

And now that time had come. Pat had for some days been noticing everything—noticing with an ever-increasing curiosity and pleasure. He had begun by asking what was "that funny noise that never stopped;" and when his mother had told him it was the sound of the waves, he had asked "how they got there, for they didn't use to be so near." And so little by little Eileen had told him all the tale—how father had been offered the care of Lone Rock Lighthouse, and how the doctor had said that little Pat might thrive and grow strong if he were to be taken right away from the court in which he had always lived. And Pat lay and smiled at the tale, and got his mother to tell it him again and again, and grew so fond of the song of the sea before ever he had been able to get up and look at it, that he often told her "it was making him well as fast as it could;" and she would smile with tears in her eyes and believe him.

Every day had seen some improvement in little Pat's condition; but it seemed long to the mother before he had expressed the wish to get up and look out at the window. She knew that would be the first thing he was likely to ask for, because he lay and watched the sunny square hour after hour, with a smile of contentment on his face. But it was only to-day that he had said he wanted to get up and look; and now she was sitting with him wrapped in a blanket, he standing with his little bare feet upon the window-seat, and gazing with wide-open wondering eyes over the vast expanse of sparkling water that was as little like "the sea," as he had been accustomed to think of it, as was the noise of the waves like the ceaseless bawling and brawling that his ears had grown used to in the court whence he had come.

Pat was greatly moved and excited by all he saw, and from that day forward was most eager and anxious to regain his strength, that he might be able to explore the wonders of the lighthouse, and see what manner of place his new home was. So he ate everything that his mother brought to him "to make him strong;" he slept from sunset till morning like a young bird. He began to chatter and laugh to his father whenever he appeared; and long before he could attempt to mount the giddy spiral staircase, which led to the big circular room where the great lamp lived, he got his father to tell him all about it, and at night he would get out of bed if he chanced to wake up to see the circle of flashing light which it cast around upon the dark heaving mass of waters. The child was fascinated by the thought of the great lamp's lonely vigil over the wide empty sea long before he was able to understand what it was that it was doing.

The first step in the child's convalescence which seemed to mark the era of "getting better," was when he was able to be dressed and to go into the other room for his meals. The base of the lighthouse was divided into several queer-shaped rooms. There was the sleeping-room, in which the child had hitherto spent all his time; and opening from that was the kitchen or living room, in which he was used to hear his mother bustling about as he lay in bed. There were also, as he presently found out, other smaller and darker chambers. One of these was appropriated to the use of the keeper's assistant, whilst others contained the stores for the lamp and its caretakers, of which mention has been made before. It was quite a surprise to Pat to learn that he and his parents were not the only occupants of the lighthouse. He had never heard any strange voice from the inner room all the time he had been lying in bed, and so he was very much astonished the first day he sat up to supper, to see a heavy-looking dark-browed man come slouching in, and taking his seat without a word of explanation or apology. The child looked wonderingly at his mother.

"That is Jim," she said; "Jim helps daddy with the lamp. They take it in turns to watch. Jim, this is our little boy, Pat—him as has been so ill, you know. I have told you about him often."

Pat looked across the table and nodded, but Jim said nothing, and scarcely appeared to hear himself addressed. He took his food in perfect silence, and as soon as he had finished he got up and went out, and they heard him going heavily up the winding staircase towards the lantern house.

"Can't he talk?" asked Pat wonderingly. "Is he dumb, do you think?" Eileen smiled, and shook her head at the question.

"Nay, he can speak. He has a tongue, but he is wonderful loth to use it. I suppose it is the life here as has made him so quiet. Surly Jim is what folks call him. He has been with several keepers, but none has had a good word for him, save that he does his work well and can be trusted with the lamp. He won't be keeper, though they did offer him the place. But he stays on year after year when nobody else will. He does all his work well, and is very clean and neat; but he scarce opens his lips, save in the way of business, from one year's end to the other."

This seemed so very strange to Pat that he sat for some time turning it over in his mind. He thought when he had time he would try and get Surly Jim to talk to him; but at present there were many other things to think of, and the child's head was crowded with new ideas and questions.

What a fascinating place the lighthouse was! As he grew stronger, he began to explore it from end to end, and found new wonders every hour of the day.

There was the little door leading out to the rocks on which the place was built, and the flight of slippery steps which led down to the tiny creek where the boat lay moored. There were chains for hauling up the boat in rough weather on to a ledge, where it would not be likely to be swept away, save perhaps in the very worst weather; and at low tide there was a wonderful mass of rock uncovered by the sea, where he could wander about and pick up untold treasures, such as he had never seen or dreamed of before. And his mother was not afraid to let him wander about here. She had grown up herself on the wild coast, and had no fear of the slippery rocks and the plashing waves. Pat was only instructed to take off shoes and stockings before trying to scramble about them, and very soon he grew so sure-footed and fearless that neither parent was afraid for him. Moreover, he was growing brown and healthy-looking, and stronger than he had ever been in his life before; and though he might not be very robust for some time to come, he was gaining every day, and they were glad and thankful to see it.

Oh, that wide, wild, beautiful sea! How Pat came to love it! It was at once a friend and playmate and a deep unspeakable mystery. He was never tired of watching its wild play over the rocks, or of sitting listening to its deep strange voice, as it laughed or shouted in its wild wonderful strength. He would sit with his face towards the west as the sun was going down, and watch whilst the great blazing ball dipped lower and lower, till it sank, sank, sank, right into the sea itself. And then as the sea opened its mouth and swallowed it up, it seemed all dyed crimson and gold, as though it had caught some of the colour from the prisoner it had taken.

The child would watch with awe this daily mystery, and when he found that every morning the sun came up again out of the sea, but in quite a different place, he was awed and perplexed past the power of speech. It never occurred to him to ask questions even of his mother about this daily wonder; but he watched it with unfailing interest, and seemed to drink in new thoughts every time it happened. He was more and more sure that his new home was very like heaven—not so beautiful as the real heaven, because Jesus would be there to make the light of it: but like it in some things—in its peace and beauty and wonderful calm. Pat had been so near to the gates of death that his mind naturally turned to thoughts like this. He was still not strong enough to play more than a few hours every day, and the rest of his time would be spent sitting on the rocks or at the window watching the sea, and thinking about it, until his face took a new expression, as though some of the sunshine and the clearness of the blue sea had got into them and had taken up an abode there.

Very often he would carry out his little Testament to his favourite nooks in the rocks, and find some of the places where he loved to read. He was particularly fond of the chapter about the "sea of glass mingled with fire," because he was so sure it must be just like his own sea at sunset time; and there were other places he was fond of too, because they always set him thinking and dreaming, and chimed in with all his new ideas. He did not talk much about his thoughts; when he went in to his mother he would chatter to her of his play and of the live things he had seen in the pools. To his father he would ask questions about the lamp, and how it kept awake all the night through—whether it never went to sleep by accident; for to him that lamp was like a living creature. He had only seen it once, because the climb up the spiral stairs turned him queer and giddy, and his parents had bidden him wait till he was stronger before he tried again. But that one visit had been enough to excite him strangely, and he always thought with awe of the great revolving light going round and round the whole night through. He was never tired of hearing about it and asking questions; but of his own strange thoughts, when he was all alone with the sea and the sunshine, he said nothing. That was his own secret—perhaps because he lacked words in which to express himself. And the new, strange, beautiful life began for little Pat upon the isolated reef which supported Lone Rock Lighthouse.

[CHAPTER II]

"SURLY JIM"

One night, contrary to his usual habit, Pat could not sleep. He had been to sleep for some hours during the early part of the night, but now he was wide awake, and he did not feel like going to sleep any more. He sat up in bed, and looked round him in the moonlight. There were his father and mother, both sleeping calmly and quietly. If father was in bed, Jim must be up in the lighthouse, watching to see the big lamp did not "go to sleep by accident," as the child phrased it in his own mind. He was suddenly taken with a vivid curiosity to go to that lighted chamber himself. He had only been there by day as yet. He wondered what it would look like at night; and almost before he knew what he was doing, he had slipped out of bed, and was putting on his clothes. He did not want to disturb his father, who would by-and-by have to get up and take his own watch in the tower, as the child called it in his thoughts, so he moved softly about, and presently found himself creeping up the dim staircase that was lighted at intervals by small lamps placed in niches in the wall.

It made him rather breathless to mount so many stairs, but curiosity and a love of adventure led him on, and presently he found himself within the wonderful chamber he had visited before, only that now the great bright lamp with its myriad wicks and wonderful reflectors was alight, and slowly moving round and round, so that at one time it showed a red eye to those out at sea in great ships, at another a green, and again a pure white light, as white as crystal.

The child stood gazing at the wonderful mechanism without speaking a word. He was trying to see how it moved, and by what power the great reflectors moved round and round. Of course he could not understand, and he quickly came to the conclusion that the thing was some great living monster, and that it had to be watched all the night through lest it went to sleep, or refused to do its part properly. He wondered, with a thrill of nervous terror, whether it would resent his intrusion into its special domain. Standing as he did in the full glare of the light, he could not hope to escape observation, and he looked about him as if for a hiding-place in case of attack.

And then his eye fell upon the figure of the solitary watcher—a bent bowed figure, in a slouching and indifferent attitude, now quite familiar to the child, although he and the individual who owned that rough exterior had never as yet exchanged a single word.

Pat was not a shy child as a rule, but he had always stood in awe of "Surly Jim." He could eat better and chatter more freely when the man was not present at table. He shrank a little into himself always when Jim entered the living room. It was not often that he did this, save when called to meals, for when not on duty, he was either sleeping in his own room, or sitting in the boat smoking a short black pipe, and Pat had never attempted to approach him at these times. Now he was nearer to him than he had ever been, except at table, and yet the man appeared to take no manner of notice of his approach. He sat with his elbows on his knees, and his head in his hands, and did not seem to look up at the child's cautious approach. Pat felt certain he had been seen, but this indifference seemed a little uncanny. He drew near step by step, and at last laid one small cold hand on the knee of the assistant.

"Is it alive?" he asked softly, divided in his awe of the wonderful mechanism and its grim watcher. The man slowly lifted his head, and stared at the child without attempting to speak. Pat hesitated a moment, and then climbed upon the bench upon which Jim was seated, and slipped his small thin hand within the horny palm of the man. He felt that he must have hold of something human up here in this strange place of light and movement. He was trembling, and yet he was not exactly afraid.

His hand was suffered to remain where he had placed it. Jim glanced furtively down at the small fingers in his hard hand, and perhaps something of an unwonted nature stole into his heart, for, to the astonishment of the child, he suddenly spoke.

"What did you want to know, little master?"

Now Pat thought it was very grand to be addressed as "little master," and his opinion of Jim began quickly to change. He could not be as cross as he tried to make out. The child took courage, and went on with his questions, in the order in which they came into his mind.

"Is it alive?" he asked, with his eyes upon the slowly moving reflectors, as they solemnly revolved round and round the centre light.

"Seems like as if she was," answered the man; "her takes a deal of food, and a deal of cleaning, and a deal of watching. Her be as full of moods as wimmim folk mostly be. She can't get along without a deal of notice, no more than they can!"

Pat fixed his wondering eyes on the speaker's face. He was almost as much fascinated in Jim's slow and deliberate speech as in the subject in hand. It was almost as though the mouth of the dumb had been unstopped, as though it was only in this strange place, and in the witching hour of night, that the man's tongue was unloosed. He spoke very slowly, as though it was not easy for him to find words in which to clothe his thoughts.

"It's a she then, is it?" asked Pat, all alive in a moment. "That's very interesting. I always thought she must be alive, but mother and father laugh at me. Perhaps they don't know so well as you—you've been here so much longer, haven't you?"

"I've been a-keeping of her this five years or more," said Jim, after a long pause, in which Pat began to wonder whether he would ever speak again or not; "afore that I was in prison. They let me come out to look after her. It was so hard to get anybody to stop."

Pat felt a thrill of awe run through him. He had heard of people going to prison of course, and had known many lads and men who had passed through the ordeal of going there for a time; but that seemed different from Jim's case. He wondered whether this strange gruff man had ever been a murderer, or had done some very dreadful deed. If so, was it safe to be sitting up here with him in the night, all alone? Might he not perhaps think it would be a good opportunity for throwing him down the staircase, or out over the gallery into the sea? For a moment the child felt a queer sensation of fear come over him, and then it all passed away as fast as it came, for Jim still held him by the hand, and his clasp upon his fingers felt kind and friendly. He looked up into the sullen, weather-beaten face above him with his confiding smile, and asked—

"What had they put you in prison for? Had you done anything bad?"

"No," answered Jim, after the inevitable pause, "I hadn't. It were another man; but they wouldn't believe it. He gave evidence against me, and they took his word, not mine. Folks said it were proved against I, and so I was sent to prison. But I hadn't done it—I don't care what they say."

"No, and I don't care, either!" cried Pat, with hot partisanship; "I know you didn't do it! It was they who were wicked and bad to send you to prison! But they had to let you out again, you see!"

He spoke the last words with an air as of triumph, edging up towards Jim in a confidential way as he did so. The man was knitting his heavy brows, and looking as though he was not sure whether all this were not a strange dream.

"They let me out to come here. I had three more years to run. They said if I would stop and do my duty it should count as though I had served my time. So I came, and here I be. It's the only home I've known since that thing happened, and I don't want no other. I've got fond of her"—nodding towards the big lamp; "she looks kind at me now, and she's the only friend I've got. I'll bide here as long as I live. It's sore work going back to find all one's mates dead or changed to you."

"Yes; don't go back," said Pat; "stay here with us. I'll be your friend, too. I should like a friend of my own. Father and mother don't count like that, because they are just father and mother. I should like to have a friend as well. Let us be friends, Jim; and perhaps then she'll let me be her friend too."

Pat spoke in the simplest good faith, whilst Jim passed his hand across his eyes, and then looked down at the small figure beside him, rather as though he were not sure that it was not all a dream after all. Pat was not altogether sure of this either. It was certainly very queer to be up in the middle of the night just under the great lamp, sitting hand in hand with Jim and talking about being friends. He looked up into the rough face above him and smiled as he said—

"Jim, do you think we are both dreaming?"

"Jim opened a door close by."—[Page 35.]

"It seems almost like it, little master," answered the man; "but we'll go out into the gallery, and get a breath of fresh air. That's the best thing to wake one up if one is getting be-fogged."

Pat was delighted at this notion. He knew that there was an outside gallery running all round the glass house where the lamp lived. He had seen it from the boat when his father had rowed him out a little way in the evenings; but he had never been out on it before, and to go there at night for the first time seemed a very wonderful thing to do. He would see how the sea looked from up there in the moonlight; and perhaps Jim would be able to tell him how the sun managed to swim round from one side to the other before morning, and why it always came up in just the same place every day, and went down in the same place every night. Jim must know a lot of things, living so much up there, he thought.

So Jim got up and opened a door close by, and a breath of cold wind came rushing into the warm room under the big lamp. Pat looked wonderingly out into the black darkness, and shivered a little, holding Jim's hand fast in his small tenacious clasp. And then Jim, all in a moment, shuffled somehow out of his warm rough pilot coat, and wrapped it round the child's thin frame, and lifting him bodily in his strong arms, carried him out into the still calm night, shutting the door behind him as he went, that the draught might not make the lamp flicker or flare.

For a moment it came into the child's head to wonder whether Jim was going to throw him over the gallery rail and into the sea, and he shut his eyes tight, and breathed a little prayer. But something in the strong clasp in which he was held stilled this fear almost before it had taken shape, and the next minute the child wonderingly opened his eyes and gazed with awe at the scene before him.

It did not seem dark now, for the silver moon rode high in the sky, and though the sea beneath looked black in places, there was a great track of silver light right across it where the moonlight lay, and sometimes a white sea-bird would fly athwart the silver track, and for that moment its beautiful white wings seemed to shine like silver too. The little plashing waves below were tipped and crested with phosphorescent light, and broke against the reef in a thousand ripples of molten silver. The whole world seemed as if it had been turned into ebony and silver, and the child looked and looked, drinking in the wonderful beauty, which was beyond his powers of comprehension.

He forgot all the questions he had meant to ask; he forgot the puzzle about the sun and its setting and rising; he could think of nothing but the strange majestic beauty of the summer night, and looking up into Jim's dark face, he wondered if it looked the same to him.

He was beautifully snug and warm wrapped up, and held close and safely. There was nothing to mar his happiness and wonder. He gazed, and gazed, and gazed again, till at last his confused thoughts found vent in words.

"I can't think how He thought of it!"

"Who thought of what, little master?" asked Jim, who had now found his tongue, and did not seem indisposed to use it more freely.

"Why, God to be sure," answered the child reverently. "You know that God made everything; and before He made it He'd have to think of it, and know what it would look like; and I can't think how He did!"

"I don't seem to know much about that," said the man, as Pat looked up at him as if for a suggestion. "It's a many years since I heard the name of God spoke—except to swear by," he added as an afterthought.

Now Pat knew very well what swearing sounded like, for he had heard a great deal too much of it in his small life. But his mother had always taught him to shun those people who used bad words, and he had never heard an oath pass his father's lips. He had been brought up to read his Bible, and to learn as much of the meaning of it as his mother was able to teach him. Neither his father nor his mother were able to do much more than read and write. They had not much education, and were ignorant of a great deal that they would have liked to know. But they were devout and simple-minded Christian folks, and had carefully trained their little boy in all they knew themselves. If Nat had something of the stern Puritan element in his creed, Eileen on her part had the vivid imagination and burning devotion of her warm-hearted race, and Pat had inherited much of her temperament, though not without some of his father's hard-headed shrewdness. Pat had begun to feel as though this lighthouse must be wonderfully near to God—much nearer than the crowded court where he had lived before. It seemed to him often as though God must be looking straight down out of heaven at the Lone Rock, and that there was nothing to come between Him and it, to hinder Him from seeing everything. So the child had got into the habit of thinking a great deal more than before of God; and it seemed very natural to think of Him to-night, with the great dome of star-spangled sky above, and the limitless black sea below, with the shining pathway across it that might be leading straight to heaven.

But Jim's words troubled him rather. He didn't like to think that Jim did not think about God too. He didn't see how he could help it in his long lonely night-watches. Pat knew very well that he should be frightened of the loneliness and the darkness if he wasn't quite sure that God would take care of him somehow, though how He did it the child was not at all certain. He went off on this train of thought now; and instead of answering Jim's remark, or asking him why he had not heard or thought about God for many years, he looked up into his face in a meditative fashion, and said, slowly and reflectively—

"I think He must send the angels to fly about the lighthouses at night and keep them safe. Mother says perhaps the stars are the angels' eyes looking down at us; and don't you think it feels like as if there were angels flying all about here? I think perhaps they like to dip their big beautiful white wings in the moonlight, like the sea-gulls. I almost think I can feel them flying round; it seems like as if there was a sound of wings in the air!"

"May be, little master, may be," answered Jim, without much interest in his face and tone. "If there be anything of that sort about the place, I make no doubt you would be the one to hear and see it."

Pat did not quite know what these muttered words might mean, nor could he get Jim to talk to him or sustain his share in the conversation. In point of fact, the talk grew very broken and disjointed, for the night air blowing on his face made the child very sleepy, and Jim was never one to speak by himself. How that night's adventure ended Pat never knew. He seemed soon to be flying all round the lighthouse on a pair of beautiful white wings, and trying to coax Jim, who stood on the gallery watching, to come and fly with him too. But Jim, though he had wings too, did not seem to have any wish to use them, and only stood still watching his companion, and refusing to trust himself to the flight to which Pat urged him, and the child was just trying to make him believe that it would all be right if he would only believe, when he felt a hand upon his head, and a voice said in his ear—

"Little son, little son, it is time you were waking, honey. The day has begun hours ago, and I can't find your clothes anywhere. Where did you put them when you took them off, Pat?"

Pat opened his eyes to find that he had no beautiful wings after all, and that he was just in his own bed, covered up very snug and warm, but when he threw off the bed clothes, there he found himself all dressed in those very clothes for which his mother had been hunting everywhere.

"Why, whatever does it mean?" cried Eileen, "the child has been walking in his sleep. Saints preserve us! but if he takes to that in this place it's never a wink of quiet sleep I will get!"

"Oh, mother, it was not in my sleep!" cried Pat, remembering all the adventure now. "I was wide awake. I wanted to see the big lamp alight, and I went up, and Jim let me sit with him, and he wrapped me up in his coat by-and-by, and took me out on to the gallery. And I suppose I must have gone to sleep there, and he must have brought me back to bed and wrapped me up like that. Mother, Jim is a very kind man. He isn't a bit like what I thought; I'm going to have him for a friend. I think by-and-by he will like me perhaps. I like him very much. He was very kind last night."

"Well, if anybody can come at his heart, it will be the child," thought Eileen, whose own advances had been steadily rejected and ignored. She was sorry for the lonely man with the sad history, and was a little afraid of him too; but when she whispered a word of her fear to her husband, Nat stoutly declared it was "all right." Pat could do as he liked, and make what advances he chose. The worst that could happen would be that Jim would turn a deaf ear to him. He would never harm the child. He was not that sort. There were stories against him, it was true; but nothing they need fear as regards their own child. Nat was not troubled with a vivid imagination, and Eileen had long learnt to subdue her fears when her husband told her she was frightening herself about nothing. She would be glad enough to lighten the dreary lot of "Surly Jim," and watched with some curiosity the advances of Pat towards him.

At first little progress seemed made. At table the two hardly looked at each other, and Jim never spoke unless actually obliged; but now and again she would see them sitting together in the boat, which had always been Jim's summer sitting-room, and gradually it seemed as though there was more talk between them. She could see that Pat began to chatter away freely enough, and sometimes she fancied that Jim took a share in the conversation. His pipe would go out, and be laid aside. He would lean towards the child, and seem to be listening with some intentness. Eileen was not a little curious to know what all this talk was about, but Pat was singularly reticent, and seldom spoke of Jim, though he would chatter to his mother about anything and everything else. Once she did venture to ask what they had been talking about, and got an answer that surprised her not a little.

"We talk about a lot of things; Jim knows such a lot when you once get him to talk," said Pat, with a certain quiet reserve of manner. "But I think he likes it best when we talk about God. You see he'd almost forgotten about Him. He's remembering now, and it's very interesting. We've begun at the beginning of the Bible, and we skip a good deal, so we shall soon get to the part about Jesus, and I think that'll be the most interesting of all!"

[CHAPTER III]

AN ODD PAIR

"It be queer to see them together. They be as thick as thieves," said Nat to his wife with a broad smile, as he sat down to table for the dish of tea he always looked for before he went up to see that all was in order with the lamp before the dusk fell. "As for me, I can't get a word out of him no how; but the little chap, he makes him talk as I never knew he could. I can't hear what they say. Bless you! if I so much as look that way, Jim shuts up his mouth like as if no power on earth would open it, and Pat he goes as red as a rose, as if he was half ashamed to be caught chattering; but so soon as my back's turned they're at it again. And glad I be that the poor chap has found somebody to love and to care for him; for he's had a hard life of it, if all we hear of him be true."

"That's just what I think, Nat," answered Eileen. "I'm glad the boy has found the way to his heart. Sure it's a bad thing for any creature to be shut up against his fellow-men as he was. May be it's the blessed saints as have sent the child to him to show him a better way."

Eileen still spoke sometimes about the "blessed saints," as she had been used to do in her childhood, when she lived amongst those who used even to pray to them; but her husband would smile and shake his head when he heard the words, and to-day he answered slowly and thoughtfully—

"Nay, my lass; it's no doing of the saints above—not that I'm one to say they are not blessed, nor that they may not look down upon us poor creatures here below and think of us as their brethren; but it's the Lord as rules the world for us, and gives each one of us a work to do for Him somehow; and if our boy has been sent as a messenger to this poor chap—as like enough he has—it's the Lord's own doing, that's what it is; and we won't say a word to discourage him, not though it may seem as though he'd got a tough job before him if he's got to win back Jim."

The ready tears started to Eileen's eyes. She came over and put her hand on Nat's broad shoulder, bending to kiss him, though he was not a man who as a rule cared to receive caresses from even his own wife or child.

"It does me good to hear you talk like that. Sure and it's the children who are often the Lord's best messengers. I heard a holy man say once as the beautiful angels were God's messengers, and it does seem sometimes as though He used the children too—may be because they are most like the angels themselves—bless their innocent little hearts!"

But Pat never thought about being an angel. He only felt like a very happy little boy, whose life had suddenly become exceedingly interesting, and who had so much to do every day that the days never seemed quite long enough for all he wanted to put into them. There was so much to learn about the reef and the lighthouse, about the big lamp and its bigger reflectors, about the wonderful fog-horn which he had as yet never heard at work, and about the apparatus which kept all these wonders moving, that his head fairly swam sometimes in the effort to take in all that he saw. He had one of those inquiring minds which is not content just to see what is done, but must know the why and the wherefore of it all. Nat was content to know that certain results would follow certain actions on his part, and he followed his instructions, with intelligence and diligence, but without fully comprehending the mechanism of which he was the overseer. Jim was the man who more fully understood this. He could put to rights any small matter which had got out of gear, without any appeal to the mainland. He had been so long on the Lone Rock that he was familiar with every detail of the lighthouse apparatus, and Pat would watch him with awe as he climbed about the great lamp, and cleaned the wheels and the levers with the air of one who knew exactly what was the work of each. And then he and the child knew the secret about the creatures being alive, when everybody else thought it merely a machine. Jim always spoke of it as "her," and Pat learned to do the same, and to wonder sometimes why she never awoke by day, but was always so quiet and still when the sun was shining, though when the dusk fell upon the land she would wake up and shine, and go round and round with that strange monotonous noise he had learned to heed as little as the ceaseless plash of the waves. That secret knowledge shared by both made another link between the man and the child. And then, if Jim could only find words, he could answer Pat's questions about the working of the creature far better than the child's father could do. Pat grew greatly impressed by the depth and profundity of his knowledge, and came secretly to the conclusion that Jim was a marvel of learning and skill. He was greatly flattered that he was allowed to be on terms of such intimacy with him, and grew to think his gruff speech and silent habits a grace, and a sign of learning and wisdom.

It was with great satisfaction one day that Pat heard that he and Jim were to be left in charge of the lighthouse for a whole day, whilst his father and mother went ashore to lay in stores against the coming autumn and winter. The summer was waning now. Before very long the fierce equinoctial gales might be any time expected, and Nat was anxious to get ashore before this present calm broke up, and thoroughly victual the rock against the winter. Eileen, too, had many things to think of, both for herself and the child, before the winter should set in. They had been in rather low water, owing to Pat's long illness, just before they came here, and had not any supply of warm clothing with them. Now that Nat had been drawing his pay all these months, there was plenty of money to purchase what was needed. Only she felt she must go ashore herself for the purpose; but she thought the expedition would be too fatiguing for the boy, and Pat was more than content to be left behind with Jim, to take care of the home and the lighthouse in his father's short absence.

It was a beautiful hot September morning when the boat put off from the rock, and Pat stood holding Jim's hand and waving his little cap to his parents, as Nat hoisted the sail to the light breeze, and the boat began to cut its way through the sparkling water in the direction of the shore.

"The top of the morning to ye!" shouted the child, who loved to air his little bits of Irish phrases when he was in high spirits. "Sure it's a lovely day for a sail. Come back again safe and sound, and we'll be waiting for you here. Good-bye, mother dear. Take care of yourself, mavourneen. It's meself as will be thinking of you every hour of the day till the boat brings you back safe again!"

The mother waved her hand, and Pat stood looking till his eyes were too dazzled to see clearly any longer, and then he drew Jim back towards the house. His small face was full of importance and gravity. He plainly felt himself his father's deputy for the day, and the sense of his position and the burden of his responsibilities weighed upon him rather heavily.

"We shall have to watch her very carefully all day, Jim," he remarked. "Because you see she may know that father has gone, and try to take advantage. We had a dog who used to do that once. Mother always said he took advantage when father had gone off for the day. It wouldn't do for things to go wrong before he came back. You and I will have to be very careful. Shall we go up and look how she seems now?—and whether she is all asleep and quiet?"

Jim grinned in his queer way, but assented at once.

"All right, little master, we'll go. I've got to clean her up. But I think she'll be quiet like all day. She's a wonderful one for sleeping so long as the sun shines—that she is!"

"Yes, rather like a bat, isn't it, Jim? I read a tale once in a book about a big bat with a funny name. I think it was called a vampire. I know it was very big indeed, and rather fierce. Perhaps she's a kind of vampire; only you've made her tame, and she doesn't hurt people now. Did she ever hurt you, Jim? You don't seem afraid of her a bit."

"Nay, she's never hurt I," answered Jim. "She don't hurt them as know how to humour her. She did break the arm of one man once; but he was a rare fool and deserved what he got. You've got to be a bit careful of her when she's going; but if you mind her well she won't hurt nobody."

They were mounting the stairs now, and Pat seated himself to watch Jim at his mysterious duties about the great She, as he had come to call her in his own mind. He had seen everything done a dozen times before; but the interest and fascination was always new. To-day he was permitted to help Jim a little by holding his leathers and rubbers from time to time; and he felt that he should soon be able to climb about and clean himself, so familiar did he grow with all his companion's evolutions.

It took the best part of the morning to do all that was needed to make things ship-shape for night, and Pat presently went downstairs to get ready the simple mid-day meal his mother had prepared for them. He thought that it would be pleasant to eat it down on the rocks, for the tide was out, and as it was a spring tide there was more rock than usual uncovered. He carried everything carefully down, and presently Jim joined him, and they sat down together. Pat thought it was quite the nicest dinner he had ever tasted, down in the cool shadow of the rocks, with the waves washing up and down only a few feet away. He got Jim to light his pipe by-and-by, and to tell him some of his sailor stories (Jim, he noticed, always talked better when he was smoking), and after an hour had passed like that, Jim suggested to him that it was his turn to tell a tale.

Now Pat was very willing to take his turn, but he had not any big store of stories, and such as his mother had told him had all been related to Jim before—all but the Bible stories, of which, to be sure, there were plenty left to tell. Pat sat nursing his knees and thinking. At last he looked up into his companion's face and asked reflectively—

"I don't think I've ever told you about Jesus, have I? We've not got to Him yet in reading out of the Book. But there's lots and lots of stories about Him—real pretty ones, too. I could tell you some of them, if you liked. I don't think you know about Jesus yet; do you, Jim?"

The man had slowly taken his pipe from his lips whilst the child was speaking, and now sat staring out over the sea with a look on his face that somehow seemed new to Pat, and which made him all of a sudden look different; the little boy could not have said how or why.

"I used to hear tell of Him when I was little," came the reply, very slowly spoken. "My mother used to tell me of Him when I was a little chap no bigger than you. But I went off to sea when I couldn't have been much bigger, and since then there's been nobody to tell me of Him 'cept the gentleman in the prison; and I didn't take friendly to what he said, though I dare say he meant it all kind enough."

"Well, I'll tell you as well as I can," said Pat, settling himself to his task with some relish. "Perhaps you'll remember some of the things I forget, and mother could tell us it all afterwards, if we like. But I can remember a good lot—all the things that matter most. So I'll begin."

And Pat did begin, in rather a roundabout fashion, it is true, and with a good many repetitions and harkings back to things he had forgotten, but still with a zest and good-will that atoned for many defects in style, and with the perfect faith in the truth of what he was saying, that gave a reality to the narrative which nothing else could have done. When it came to the story of the Crucifixion and the Garden of Gethsemane, Pat found, rather to his surprise, that the tears came into his eyes, and that once or twice he could hardly get on with the tale. He remembered that his mother had sometimes cried in telling it to him; but he had never quite understood why. He began to feel as though he did understand now. When he was telling it himself to somebody who was listening, like Jim, it all seemed so much more real. He wanted Jim to understand it all—just as his mother wanted him to understand; and that made him enter into the meaning of the story as perhaps he had hardly ever done before. He was glad when it came to the joyful part, about how the Lord rose again, and showed Himself to His doubting and mourning followers. Jim never spoke the whole time, but sat with his face turned out towards the sea, never moving, and looking sometimes as though he scarcely heard what the child said; yet Pat was convinced that he was listening to every word. It was only when the story had been finished for several minutes that he slowly turned his head round, and Pat saw with surprise that there was a moisture in his eyes that looked exactly as though it were tears.

"That's the story as my mother used to tell it me," he said, in a husky voice. "Do you think as it's all true, little master?"

"Why, of course it's true!" answered Pat, with perfect confidence. "Almost everybody in the world believes it—everybody except the heathen!" (And Pat quite believed this was so.) "Some folks forget, as you did, Jim, and some don't care as they should. But it's every word true. He did die."

"Yes, but why? Why did He die if He needn't have done? Why did He let them nail Him on the cross like that, if He could have had as many angels as He liked to come and take Him away out of their hands?"

"Oh, because, you know, He came to die for us," answered Pat, wrinkling up his forehead, and trying to remember how his mother had answered his questions on this very point. "He was the Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world—your sins, Jim, and mine, and everybody's. God could not have forgiven everything if it hadn't been for Jesus, because He is so just as well as so kind. Somebody had to be punished—somebody had to die for us. We couldn't have died for ourselves—not like that, you know, because we are all wicked. It had to be somebody good—like the lamb in the Passover, without blemish—and that could only be Jesus. I don't know if I can explain it right; but it's something like that. There was nobody else, and God loved us so, He sent His own Son. Oh, Jim, it was good of Him! I don't think we love Him, or Jesus, half enough!"

Jim passed his horny hand over his eyes. He didn't speak for some time.

"It doesn't hardly seem as though He could have done it for us—for you and me," continued the child, filled with his own thought. "But He did, I know He did; mother says so, and it's all in the Bible, for she can find the places.

"I mean to try and think about it oftener, for it doesn't seem as though we ought ever to forget it. Mother says it ought to make us try and do things for Him; but I don't know what I can do, except to love Him, and try to be good. Perhaps till I'm bigger He'll let that count."

"And when you're bigger what will you do, little master?" asked Jim.

Pat sat and pondered the question a good while with his chin in his hand.

"I don't quite know," he answered slowly. "I mightn't ever have the chance; but I think I know what I should like to do if I could."

"And what is that?" asked Jim, with sudden and very evident interest.

"I think," answered the child, slowly and reverently, "that I should like best to lay down my life for somebody else—like as He laid it down for us. Some people have done that, you know—brave men who have died doing their duty—to try and save other people from death. I think God must love them for it. I think Jesus must smile at them, for He did just the same for us; and if He knows that they do it because they want to be like Him and do something for Him, I think He would be pleased. People don't always die because they are willing to; sometimes they are saved too. But Jesus would know that they were willing to die for Him. I think, when I grow to be a man, if I might choose, I should like best to serve Him like that."

Whilst Pat was speaking, Jim's eyes had been fixed earnestly upon his face. Now they roved back again over the sea, and suddenly the man gave a great start. He rose to his feet, and stood looking over the sea, shading his eyes with his hand.

"What is it?" asked Pat, coming and standing beside him, and imitating his gesture. "Can you see anything, Jim? I can't seem to see nothing."

"That's just it," answered the man. "We can't see half as far as we did an hour ago. Seems like as if there was a thick sea-fog coming on. I was thinking only this morning what a time we had been without one. That's a fog-bank and no mistake, and drifting right down upon us, too. I must go and see to the horn. We must start that if it comes over us; else your father might never find his way back—to say nothing of the ships running aground here. You'll hear her voice, and no mistake, little master, before another hour is over; and a mighty queer voice it is, I can tell you. You'll not forget it easy, once you've heard it!"

Pat was immensely interested. He followed Jim up into the upper room, and went out upon the gallery to watch the great fog-bank creep slowly down upon them. The sun was so bright and clear that it seemed impossible that that slowly moving white mass should ever obscure it; but soon a few little light vapour wreaths drifted up against the rocks, and very quickly the sun looked dull and red, and little by little the sky and the sea seemed all to be blotted out, and Pat could not tell which way he was looking, nor where the land lay. He seemed to be up alone in some high place, floating in mid-air, in a world of vapour. He would have been frightened if he had not heard Jim moving about close at hand.

And then, all in a moment, a most fearful and extraordinary noise just above his head made Pat clap his hands to his ears, as though his head would come off with the vibration if he did not. He knew what it was. She had been awakened from sleep, and was lifting up that great voice of hers, as he had heard she could do when it was wanted; and in great amazement, Pat ran indoors to see how she did it. He felt that such a wonderful creature as this had surely never lived before!

[CHAPTER IV]

LONE ROCK IN FOG AND STORM

But strange and fascinating as was the voice of the great She, Pat could not be quite happy till his father and his mother had got back safe to the rock again. He could not imagine how they could find their way in all the thick wreaths of darkness which shut the Lone Rock in; but Jim told him that very likely it was quite clear a little way off, and that the noise of the horn, which sounded every three minutes, would guide his father safely to the right place. The sea was quite smooth and still; he could approach without any trouble. Jim knew that Nat would not be easy away from his post, more especially now that this fog had come on, which would entail extra care and extra work. There was a mechanical apparatus worked by steam, which could keep the horn blowing at intervals for a certain number of hours; but that required attention too, and for the present, Jim preferred to work it by the bellows, remaining up aloft, and bidding Pat keep watch for the boat below, if he liked, but to be very careful not to lose his footing on the rocks, as there would be nobody to come to his help.

Pat was not afraid of that now. He always ran about barefoot, and was as sure of foot as a goat by this time.

He stationed himself upon the great square rock overlooking the little creek where the boat usually lay moored, and watched the thick wreaths of vapour as they drifted and circled round him. Sometimes, for a few moments, they would clear away for a while, and he would be able to look out over the grey waters for some little distance. Then they would close over again, and shut out even the sight of the waves not ten feet below him, and Pat would feel as though he were quite, quite alone in a world of fog, with only the great horn overhead for company. But it was company, and kept him in mind that Jim was not far away, and so he was not frightened, although very much surprised and perplexed by this strange new experience.

It might have been an hour that he had been watching, when he heard the plash of oars, sounding a long way off, though in reality they were quite close, and almost immediately afterwards he saw the outline of the boat looming large against the background of fog, and uttered a joyful shout.

"Father! dear daddy! Mother, is that you? I was so afraid you would never find your way home; but Jim said you would. Did you hear her blow the horn? Doesn't she do it well? Isn't it nice that she can wake up when she's wanted? She woke up and blew directly Jim told her there was a fog. Isn't it queer to be all thick like this? It isn't dark, but we can't hardly see anything. Daddy, did you ever see anything quite so funny before? Mother, did you?"

"I've seen plenty of sea-fogs in my time, my little son," answered Nat, as he brought in the boat, and moored it safely in its niche; "and I am always glad to see them go, for they do more ill to ships, I take it, than storms and tempests. I'm glad to find myself here; for it's ill being at sea in such thickness as this. However, I think it will lighten a bit soon. The bank isn't a deep one, so far as I can see, and it must have pretty nigh drifted over us by now—not but what it may come back again a dozen times before the day is over. There is no telling what a fog will do. It's more capricious than a woman—eh, wifie?"

Eileen smiled as she stepped ashore. Her face was rather pale.

"I know more of women than of fogs, Nat. I don't know if they be much alike. Pat, darling, it's glad I am to see you safe and sound again. I'll not have to go ashore for a long while now. I've brought everything we shall want for many a month to come."

Almost as she spoke the fog began to lift, and in a few moments, to the astonishment of Pat, the sun was shining again quite brightly. A breeze sprang up and drove the floating vapours away, dispersing them hither and thither, and making the waves dance and foam round the rocks. The great horn ceased to make its doleful cry, and Jim came down from above to help to unload the boat.

"Have you got my parcel, mother?" asked Pat, edging up to her, and speaking in a whisper, as thing after thing was brought in by the two busy men. The mother smiled and nodded, and presently she opened a big square package, and drew forth a small parcel tied up in brown paper, at sight of which Pat's face kindled all over.

"Is it a nice one, mother? And did you spend my bright half-crown?" And on being satisfied upon these points, Pat vanished with his treasure into an inner room, and proceeded to untie the string and carefully open the mysterious parcel.

When he had removed the two wrappings of paper, his eyes brightened and glowed with delight. He saw a beautiful book, with red-gold edges, in a soft black morocco cover, and he turned the leaves with reverent, loving fingers, and placed the book-mark in the place where he had been planning to read next to Jim—the place where the story of Jesus began that they had been talking over this very day.

"It's a prettier Bible than mine," thought the child; "but mother gave me mine, so, of course, I like it best, and I shall always keep it as long as I live. But Jim will like this, I know; and he hasn't got any Bible, though he says he can read, and used to like to read once. I'm sure he'll like it. I'll go up to-night and give it him when he has his watch. He can read it up there in the tower when he's not attending to her. There's plenty of light, and in the winter he says the nights do seem long. It'll be nice for him to read about Jesus, and all the stories that are in the Bible."

So as soon as supper was over, whilst his father and mother were still busy putting away the ample stores of provisions and clothing that they had brought from the mainland, Pat stole upstairs with his treasure in his hands, and came and took his favourite seat by Jim's side, still keeping the book safely hidden beneath his jacket.

"Jim, don't you never read of a night up here alone?" he asked.

"I don't often now. I did use to read the paper a bit, whenever I get a few sent over from shore; but one gets out of the habit of it, and sometimes there's nothing to read for days and weeks together."

"I like reading," said Pat; "and I thought you'd perhaps like it too if you had something interesting to read. I've brought you a book. Mother got it for me to-day. It's yours now, for I've written your name inside, so that nobody can't ever take it away from you; and I think it would be nice if you would read it sometimes in the night. I'm almost sure you'll like it, if once you begin." And with a red but happy face, Pat pulled out his treasure, and presented it shyly to Jim.

The man took it and looked at it, and then at the child, as though he didn't know what to make of so strange a thing as a present. Perhaps it was a dozen years since he had received a gift of any kind.

"Be it for me, little master?" he asked in a puzzled voice.

"Yes, to be sure it is," answered Pat, beaming. "I got mother to choose it for you, because she always chooses so well. It's a Bible, Jim. It's got all the stories in that we like to talk about, and all the story of Jesus—what we talked about to-day, and you liked. I've put the mark in one of the places where it begins about Him. You can read it yourself, if you like, whilst you're watching her."

It was so long since Jim had ever received such a thing as a present that he scarcely knew how to thank the child, but kept turning the book over and over in his hands with a sheepish look on his face. However, Pat was easily satisfied, and he knew that Jim was more pleased than he showed; so he slipped down the stairs again in a happy frame of mind, and found his father examining the weather-glass below—a mysterious object in the child's eyes, which he always regarded with awe.

"A good thing we went ashore to-day, wife," Pat heard his father say. "For if I don't mistake me, we'll have a spell of rough weather on us soon. The glass is going down steady and fast. By to-morrow morning, I take it, it'll be blowing half a gale of wind."

Pat looked wonderingly at the glass, and could not see that it had moved from its niche. He never could understand why his father would say that it was higher some days than it was on others; but it was one of those things that he never asked about—one of those mysteries that he pondered over in secret with a sense of wonder and rather fascinating awe.

Next morning he was not awakened, as he had been of late, by a bar of sunshine slanting across his bed and touching his face. He awoke later than his wont to a sound of moaning and splashing which he had not heard before; and when he jumped up and ran to the window he saw that there were heavy banks of cloud scudding across the sky, whilst the sea had turned from blue to grey, and was dashing itself against the rocks with greater vehemence than he had ever seen before. There was a moaning sound all around the walls of his home, rising sometimes to a mournful shriek. The little boy was glad to get on his clothes, and find a glowing fire burning in the living room. There had come a chilliness into the air, and it seemed as if summer had suddenly taken flight. His mother looked up at him as he came, and greeted him with a smile.

"Well, Pat; so father is right after all, and here are the gales come upon us all sudden-like at the last. We shall have to make up our minds to a deal of moaning and tossing and tumbling if we are to live all the winter in a lighthouse! You'll be a brave boy, my little son, and not mind the wind and the rain and the dashing of the waves? It'll not frighten you to hear it day after day and week after week, will it, honey?"

"Frighten me?" asked Pat, almost indignantly. "Why, mother, no! I'm almost a man now, and men aren't frightened by noises. I shall help father and Jim to take care of the lighthouse, and I'll help you down here when I'm not too busy upstairs with her. Jim says there's a deal more to do in winter than in summer, and sometimes they'll be very glad of a third man to help. I shall be the third man here. I shall have lots to do and think about!" And Pat looked for all the world like an important little turkey-cock, and went running up the stairs to see what was going on there, whilst his mother looked after him with a smile, and breathed a thankful prayer to God for giving back her child such full measure of health and strength.

The next weeks were very interesting and exciting ones to Pat. The wind blew strongly and steadily, and the sea ran higher and higher. He used to go out daily into the balcony round the lamp-house, and stand "to le'ward," as Jim used to call it, whilst he watched the great crested waves come racing along, and breaking into sheets of spray at the foot of the reef—spray which sometimes rose almost as high as he was standing, and would often make the mackintosh coat in which he was always wrapped fairly run down with water.

Jim would stand beside him sometimes, and tell him how in winter storms the spray would dash not only as far as the gallery, but right over the top of the lighthouse. Pat found it hard to believe this at first, but as he came to learn more and more of the marvellous power of the sea, he disbelieved nothing; and used sometimes to say with awe to Jim, when he had finished one of his stories of shipwreck and peril—

"It do seem wonderful that the sea obeyed Jesus when He was here, and went down and got still just when He told it to. Mother says God holds the sea in the hollow of His hand. Jim, I think God's hand must be very wonderful; don't you?"

Perhaps nothing so helped those two to understand the mighty power of God as their lonely life in the lighthouse during those stormy autumn days. If any story in the Bible reading seemed too marvellous for belief, it only needed Pat to point over the sea with his little hand, and remark reflectively, "But you see, Jim, He made all that!" to convince them both that nothing was too hard for the Lord. The story of Peter's attempt to walk on the sea was one of their favourite readings, when once they had come across it. Jim was wonderfully taken by the tale, and would have the mark kept in the place for a long time.

"I read it every night up here alone," he said once to Pat, "and I can't help wondering if I could ever walk on the sea if I asked Him to help me."

"Perhaps He would if you were going to Him," said Pat reflectively. "I don't know if He would for anything else. You see, He'd said 'Come' to Peter, and so he could do it, until he got frightened and forgot the Lord had called him. Mother says that was why he began to sink—because he'd begun to think about himself, instead of trusting it all to Jesus. If he were to say 'Come' to you, Jim, and you were to go out to meet Him, I expect it would be all right. But He don't seem to call folks in that sort of way now."

New experiences were becoming common enough in Pat's life now, but he never forgot one curious sight which he was once called up from his bed to see in the middle of the night. He had gone to bed amid an unusual tumult of sound—moaning wind and dashing spray, and sometimes such a bang as a great wave struck the wall of the tower—that for some time he could scarcely get off to sleep, seasoned though he was to such sounds.

Then, in the middle of the night, he was awakened by Jim coming to fetch him, and when he was once fairly awake, he was delighted to hurry into his warm suit of weather-proof clothes, and follow Jim upstairs, for he thought that the time had surely come when the services of the third man were required, and very grand and important he felt to occupy that proud position.

But it was not quite what he thought, after all; for though his father was on watch as well as Jim whilst the storm raged round the lighthouse, there was nothing very much to be done, save to see that the light burned brightly, and Pat wondered for a moment why he had been summoned.

"Jim said you'd like to see the birds, sonny," said his father, taking him in his strong arms, and holding him up near to the glass: "so I said he could fetch you. Look! do you see them flying against the glass? It's the light as brings them these stormy nights. They know they'll get perching-room somewhere round, if they get nothing else. See their white wings flitting to and fro, Pat? Jim says in the morning we shall pick up a score or so of dead birds in the gallery, as have dashed their lives out flying straight against the glass."

Pat looked and began to see, for at first his eyes were dazzled. It was just as his father had said: outside the glass house were multitudes of wild sea birds, flitting to and fro like ghosts in the black darkness, and every now and then dashing themselves against the strong dome of glass with a noise which told of the violence of the effort. There seemed to the child to be an endless myriad of white and grey birds circling round his sea-girt home, and he looked at them in wonder and awe, for he had never before seen so strange a sight.

"Do they want to get in, father?" he asked softly. "Oh, let us open the door and take them in. They are frightened at the storm. Why should we not let them come in and warm themselves here?"

"They would only be worse scared than they are, Pat," answered his father, "and would fly into the lamp and hurt themselves and it. Poor foolish things! they don't know what they come for themselves; it's just the light attracts them. We'll get feathers enough to stuff a pillow for your mother to-morrow, if Jim is right about what we shall find outside."

But Pat was quite unhappy about the poor foolish wild birds driven seawards by the gale, and coming to the lighthouse, as it were, for shelter.

"Let me go outside and see them there," he said; and Jim wrapped him up warmly and carried him out for a few minutes.

It was a still stranger sight out there to see the strange antics of the bewildered birds, and to hear their cries and screams, which made Pat shiver in spite of himself, remembering the stories his mother sometimes told him on winter evenings of the "banshee" and its wailing cry. He was dreadfully sorry for the birds, but they would not let him come near them, and he saw that nothing could be done for them.

"I suppose God knows about them," he said at last, with a great sigh. "If He cares for sparrows, I suppose He cares for sea-gulls, too. If He knows, I suppose we need not mind very much. But I should have liked to take them in and feed them, and make them warm and comfortable. They sound so very sad; but perhaps God will comfort them best."

And then Jim carried the child down to his warm bed again, and he fell asleep, thinking of the birds and their strange noises and ways.

He awoke with the same strange noise in his ears. He was sure it was a voice like that of a sea-bird. He started up and looked about him, and then the sound came again. It was broad daylight now, and the noise seemed to proceed from the adjoining living room. Pat jumped up, and ran in without troubling to put on his clothes till his curiosity was satisfied.

"Mother, what is it? What is that queer noise?" he asked; and then he saw a basket standing in a corner of the room, and the noise seemed to proceed out of that.

"Go and get dressed, dear," answered his mother, "and then Jim, may be, will be down again. It's a wild bird that has hurt itself that he's got there. He thought you might like to have it to take care of till it got well, but it's so wild and fierce, and bites so, that I daren't open the basket till he comes. Jim says they fly at folks' eyes sometimes; but he seems to know how to manage it. Get you dressed, honey, and then he'll show it you."

Pat was not long dressing that morning, and as soon as Jim could be got down from the tower, the basket was opened, and the treasure inside displayed to the child's admiring eyes. It was a young gull, whose wing was badly broken—so badly, that Jim declared it would never fly again, and was of opinion that the most merciful thing to do would be to pinion it—since it was the end of the wing that was broken—and bring it up to be a tame bird upon the rock, living there and catching fish in the pool, but kept from swimming away altogether by a light fetter round its foot. He had kept birds on the rock before now that had hurt themselves against the glass, though when they had grown quite strong and well they had usually taken themselves off. Still, he had sometimes kept pets for some considerable time; and Pat was all on fire to tame this gull, and make a playmate of it. It was not a very promising playmate at first, for it was wild and fierce, almost past management, and Pat thought it would have died under Jim's hands when he performed with skill and rapidity the operation which was soon seen to be a wonderful relief to the suffering bird. It refused food for two days, and the child feared it would certainly die; but his patience and care were unwearied, and at last, on the third day, it began to feed from his hand, being too weak to fear him; and after a few mouthfuls of fish greedily swallowed, it rewarded its friend by a vigorous peck on the hand, which nearly drew blood. Pat, however, was not at all discouraged, but looked upon it as a sign of returning health; and by slow degrees, as the days and weeks wore away, a certain confidence and friendship grew up between the wild bird and the little boy who tended him so faithfully and regularly.

Jim contrived a little aviary for the bird—if so grand a word could be applied to the wire erection down among the rocks, where the bird could get salt-baths at high water, and fish in the pools left by the retiring tide—by the side of which Pat spent hours every day teaching the gull to come and take food from his hands, and gradually establishing a freemasonry between them, which developed at last into a real friendship, so that the little boy could go fearlessly into the cage at the wider and taller end against the house, and call the gull to perch upon his knee, and take bits of fish even from between his lips, and take any liberties he chose with his captive without fear of a rebuff.

This new pastime was a source of immense pleasure to the little boy through the long dreary days of winter. He never felt dull in his strange home; and with Jim to talk to, the lamp to watch, and his bird to teach and tame, the days flew by all too fast, and he could scarcely believe when Christmas was actually upon them.

It was a queer Christmas, spent amongst the sounds and sights of the Lone Rock, with the wild waves lashing the walls of his home, and the moaning of the wind for the only music. But Pat was growing used to the life, and did not call it queer now. It seemed far stranger to think of going back to the crowded court, where they never saw or heard the sea, and where even the sky and the air seemed quite different.

"At last, on the third day, it began to feed from his hand."—[Page 79.]

But it was interesting to explain to Jim about Christmas Day being Jesus's birthday; and the child discovered to his great satisfaction and surprise that it was Jim's own birthday, too. He had been born on Christmas Day, just as Pat had been born on Patrick's Day, to the great satisfaction of his Irish mother; and so the festival of Christmas was kept as brightly as it was possible, and neither Nat nor his wife could fail to remark how changed in many ways Jim was from what he had been in the spring, when first they had come to the rock.

"I believe it's the love of the Lord coming into his heart that's doing it," said Nat, as he sat over the fire with his Bible, when Pat had gone to bed, and Jim was up aloft. "He took first to the child, and the child has led him to the Lord. It's often the way with us poor frail human creatures. We seem as though we must have some human hand to lead us, though the Lord is holding out His wounded hand all the while, and bidding us take that. It's wonderful true those words of His about the babes and sucklings. It seems to me that the heart of a little child is coming in place of the hard heart Jim seemed to have before. May be the Lord has a work for him to do yet. It may be we were sent here partly for him. One never knows where the work will meet one in the vineyard; but we must try to be ready for it when it comes."

[CHAPTER V]

A TERRIBLE NIGHT

Although there had been plenty of wind, and a heavy sea running for the greater part of the winter, Pat had not seen what Jim called a "real storm" until Christmas had been several weeks old, and January had nearly run its course. The child called any rough bout of windy weather a storm, and did not quite believe that Jim could be right in declaring that it was "only a capful of wind," or that it was "only half a gale, after all." But there came one night late on in January when he began to understand very well what Jim had meant, and to realise that he had not really understood before what a real winter storm could be like.

All day there had been a strange new sound in the moaning and the shrieking of the wind. His father had looked often at the glass, and had remarked almost every time he did so that "they were going to get it this time, and no mistake." Jim had been so busy up aloft that Pat had hardly seen him since breakfast-time; and even the sea-gull seemed to partake in the general uneasiness, for he flapped his wings, and screamed and cried in a way that was quite unusual for him; and when Jim came downstairs about dinner-time, he walked out to the side of the cage where the child stood watching his favourite, and said—

"I'd bring him indoors to-night, Pat. I'd not answer for it but that the water will be over here before morning. Anyway, there's be sheets of spray flying about enough to drown the bird, if he's left where he is."

Pat looked up wonderingly, for though one end of the great caged-in place ran down towards the lower rocks, the upper end was against the lighthouse itself, and it seemed impossible to the child that the waves should ever reach as high as that. He had lived seven or eight months in his new home by this time, and had never seen the sea as high as that yet. But of course Jim must know best.

"I'll bring him in," he answered readily. "Mother won't mind if you tell me to, and he does come in sometimes. He hardly ever pecks at anybody now. See how tame he is when I go to take him!"

Pat was rather proud of the conquest he had made of the bird, and certainly the wild creature made no resistance to being lifted by his little master and carried within doors. Eileen looked up as Pat brought the captive in with him.

"Poor thing! so he wants shelter to-night, does he! Put him there in that bit of a cupboard, Pat dear, with a wire netting in front of him to keep him from cluttering up my clean kitchen. There, he can see you now, and you can see him. What a pretty bird he's growing! I'm sure he's welcome to a place within doors. God help all those poor souls who will be out at sea to-night!"

The woman spoke with so much earnestness and feeling, that Pat looked up in her face with wide-open, questioning eyes.

"What makes you say that, mother? Is it going to be what Jim would call a real big storm? I rather wanted to see one. Is it naughty to feel so? I won't, if it is; but I thought a lighthouse boy ought to know what a real storm was like. Are we going to have one to-night, mother?"

"I fear we are, my child. And terrible it will be for those who are afloat, exposed to the mercy of the wind and the waves. We must pray to God for them, my little son; for in times like these only God can help them, and perhaps there are some in peril to-night, who will never pray for themselves—though in the hour of danger it is wonderful how the human heart turns to the God of heaven, however hard at any other time."

Pat's eyes were open wide, and a new look had crept into them.

"Mother, shall we pray now?—you and I together?" he asked; and Eileen took his little hand in hers, and knelt down then and there on the kitchen floor, praying aloud in very simple words for those in peril on the deep that night, that God would be with them in every danger, and bring them safe at last to the haven whither they would be. And Pat shut his eyes tight, and clasped his hands, and said "Amen" softly, several times, adding, as his mother ceased, "And if there are any little boys like me, please keep them quite safe, dear Lord Jesus, and bring them safe back to their mothers again."

And then, when the child opened his eyes, and rose from his knees, he saw that Jim had crept in, all unknown to them, and that he was kneeling, too, his head down-bent, and a tear slowly trickling down his weather-beaten face. Pat had never seen him on his knees before. He had never been able to get Jim to tell him whether he ever said his prayers at all. But he was sure now that he did, and he ran across to him before he had had time to rise to his feet, and throwing his arms about his neck, he cried out—

"Now we have all prayed to God together, so I'm sure He'll hear us. He likes there to be two or three gathered together—it says so, somewhere in the Bible. I shan't be so unhappy about the poor people in the ships now, because we've asked God to take care of them, and He always hears what we say—doesn't He, mother?"

"Yes, dear, He always hears," answered Eileen, with a smile and a sigh. "But He does not always answer us quite in the way we would have."

"But, then, He knows best," said Pat, with sudden thoughtfulness. "So if He does it differently from what we meant, we needn't mind, need we? You don't always do just what I want, mother dear; but afterwards I always know you decided best. It's like that with God and us, I suppose."

Eileen stooped with a tear in her eye to kiss the child, and Jim went out to help Nat to haul up the boat, and place it in the greatest security the rock offered, to leeward of the wind, well braced at both ends to keep it steady. Pat watched these operations with great interest.

"But why do you take it out of the water?" he asked. "I should have thought you'd want it there in case any ship in distress should go by. You might want to send a boat out to them, and if it was up here you wouldn't be able to get it out at all quickly."

"No boat could live in such a sea as we'll have to-night, sonny," answered the father gravely. "Nothing but a life-boat, anyhow, and then it could not be launched here amongst these rocks. Look at those waves, now. Do you think there would be any putting out to sea amongst such rollers as those? No, my little son. Please God we'll keep our light burning brightly—which is the duty given us to do—and that will help the big ships to keep clear of this cruel reef, where the best of them would be dashed to pieces. But more than that we cannot do, and may God grant that no vessel comes nigh these rocks to-night. None will, unless she be disabled; but, if she did, we could do almost nothing to help her. God alone could direct her course that she should not be dashed in pieces on this treacherous coast."

So Pat went indoors, looking very grave, and feeling sobered by the shadow of peril resting upon some lives; and already the dark lowering clouds seemed to be driving faster and faster along the sky, and the shrieking of the wind grew ever angrier and angrier as the daylight waned.

Bang! bang! bang! It was only the waves flinging themselves in wild fury against the rocks upon which the lighthouse was built, but Pat felt the tower shudder beneath the shock, and looked into his mother's face as though to ask if they themselves were in any danger. Her face was grave and a little pale, but there was no personal fear in her steady eyes as she met the child's look, and answered it by a thoughtful smile.

"The walls of our home have stood through many a winter's storm, Pat. It's not ourselves we need fear for to-night, but for those at sea, in disabled vessels; and I fear me there will be many such upon a night like this. Hark at the wind! It is rising every moment!"

It was indeed, and Pat soon became too excited to do anything but wander up and down the stairs, watching the wild strife of the wind and waves, first from one place and then from another, not knowing whence the best view was obtained. He might not open the door upon the gallery to go out there, as he would have liked. Jim told him he would not be able to stand there in such a night; and that the air rushing and sweeping in would be bad for the lamp; and to-night, above all nights, she must be studied and thought of. Many, many lives might depend upon her light, and she was the object of the most scrupulous care on the part of both the men in charge of her.

"It seems as if she was trying to shine as bright as possible," said the child, with fond pride, as he looked up into the great ball of white flame above him. "Do you think she knows that there is a storm to-night, Jim, and is trying to throw the light as far as ever it will go?"

"I shouldn't wonder," answered Jim. "Her knows a power of things by this time, her does;" but he spoke absently, as though his thoughts were far away, and he kept moving across to one of the small windows which looked out over the wild tossing sea, as though to make sure that there was no indication of the presence of any vessel in distress on the horizon. Pat grew nervous at the silence of the man, and the furious noises of the raging storm without, and crept downstairs to his mother again.

By this time it was getting very dark. The tide was rising—a high spring tide—and the waves seemed to come thundering against the very walls of the lighthouse itself, making them shake to their foundations. Pat often looked anxiously into his father's face to know what he thought about it; but he knew the tower was safe, and was only thinking of the perils of others, like his wife.

"It is going to be a fearful night," he said, as he rose from the tea-table. "There will be no sleep for either of us to-night, wife. We must both watch whilst the gale blows like this. I'll send Jim down now to get a bite and sup, and then he can join me up aloft. You and the child can go to bed when you will. Only leave us a good fire here, and something hot to take if we get chilled and wet."

"I shall not go to bed, Nat," answered Eileen. "I could not sleep, and I shall keep my vigil for those poor souls who are in deadly peril to-night. There be times when it seems heartless to lie down and sleep. If we were in fearful danger ourselves, we should like to know that there were those ashore praying for us, even though they knew not our names."

Nat kissed his wife and child, and his weather-beaten face looked tender.

"Well, well, my lass, please yourself, please yourself. It will make the fireside brighter for a man to come to if you are there to-night."

"Mother," said Pat, coming up and laying a small hand on her knee, "may I stay with you? May I keep a vigil, too? I know I could not sleep in my bed with all this noise of wind and waves. Please let me stop up too."

"Very well, my child; until you grow sleepy you may. We will watch together, and be ready to help the men, if help is needed. In such a storm as this one never knows what will befall. We will be ready whatever betide."

Jim came down to his tea next, and Pat eagerly asked him whether he had ever known such a storm before. He was surprised that Jim was not more filled with wonder at it than he was; but supposed that he had grown used to such tempests, as indeed was the case, for no winter ever went by without some such storm as the present one.

When mother and child were together again, Pat occupied himself for a while in feeding and playing with his bird, who was a good deal disturbed by his new surroundings, but was content to be coaxed and quieted by his little master's hand and voice. By-and-by he retired to the back of the cupboard where it was dark, and seemed to settle himself down for sleep. By this time the tea-things had been washed up, and the room made bright and tidy. There was little more to do that night, save to see that there was food and something hot for the watchers at intervals, when they should be able to come down for it; and at Pat's suggestion his mother got out her needlework, whilst Pat brought out the big Bible from which his father generally read a chapter aloud every day, and laying it on the table, drew his high chair up to it, and began turning over the leaves to find all the places where it told of the sea, and especially of any storms; which passages he then read aloud to his mother, and they discussed them afterwards together to the sound of the stormy voices from without, which made a fitting accompaniment.

As the night wore on the gale seemed rather to rise than fall. There were times when the child's voice could not be heard for the wild shrieking of the wind without. Now and again Pat would creep up the stairs to the lamp house, and report to his mother, with an awed face, that the spray was dashing right over the top of the tower. Sometimes one or other of the men would come down to sit awhile by the fire, and refresh himself with the good cheer Eileen had ready. Now and again Pat would doze off into a little light sleep, leaning against his mother's knee. But he would not hear of going to bed, and, indeed, there was no chance of continuous sleep, even for those used to the sounds of the winds and waters; for it was one continual battle without of raging strife, and Pat never slept long without waking up with a start at some crash of water against the wall, or some wilder shriek of the furious gale sweeping round the tower.

But, hitherto, there had been no sight or sound of human peril or distress. Each time that a watcher had come down, Eileen had anxiously asked if he had seen any vessel in peril, or had heard any signals of distress, and each time the answer had been that nothing of the kind had been seen or heard. Eileen breathed a sigh of thankfulness each time the report was made, and as the night wore away, and the storm did not seem to be increasing, she began to try and coax Pat to be put to bed, for he was growing very sleepy at last, and had kept his vigil very bravely and well.

Her persuasion seemed just about to triumph over the child's reluctance to own himself sleepy, when a new sound suddenly smote upon their ears, causing Eileen's hand suddenly to fall to her side, whilst her face put on a look of white dismay and terror. For a moment she stood as rigidly as though she had been turned into stone, and Pat woke up wide in his surprise, for he had not understood the sound he had heard, and could not account for the change which had come over his mother. And then he heard again the faint new sound—only a distant report—the sound as of a gun.

"What is it, mother?" he asked in his perplexity.

"God help them—that is the signal gun. That is a ship in distress! There it is again! Oh, dear Lord Jesus, be with those poor souls in their hour of peril, 'for vain is the help of man!'"

Pat was wide awake now. His heart was beating fast and hard. Something of his mother's awe had communicated itself to him; but inaction was not possible in this time of excitement. He must be doing something, and without another word or question he darted up the stairs to go and find his father and Jim, and ask them what they knew about this ship in distress.

They were both at a look-out hole. His father had the telescope, and Jim was shading his eyes with his hand, and gazing out into the night too intently to be aware of the presence of the child. The moon was full, and in spite of the wrack of clouds in the sky, the night was not wholly dark, and from time to time a shaft of light would stream out upon one portion of the sea or another, showing to the watchers something of the dismasted vessel beating helplessly in the trough of the raging sea.

"The Lord help her, for she cannot help herself!" exclaimed Nat, as he handed the glass to Jim. "She's a fine vessel—a steamer; but her fires are out—may be her screw is broken—and the mast is snapped clean in half. It may be they will reach the lee of yon promontory before they are beaten to pieces. That is what they are making for plainly, and the vessel is well handled. But what can any helmsman do with such a crippled log? There is another gun! Would God we could help them, poor souls. But there is nothing we can do, and she is a good mile from the rocks, thank Heaven! If she can but weather it out for another half-hour, and keep the course she is making, she may get in safely yet. Or the life-boat may see her, and take her passengers ashore. But 'tis a fearful thing to see her labouring like that in such a sea. Every wave seems as though it would swallow her up!"

"Daddy, let me see," pleaded Pat, and Jim adjusted the telescope so that the child could see the great disabled vessel lying rolling helplessly in the trough of the angry water, driven along almost at the mercy of the winds and waves, yet gallantly striving to keep such a course as should give her her only chance of safety. Pat was not seaman enough to estimate her chances of escape, and cried out every moment that she must sink.

Jim was afraid rather she would be driven in and dashed upon the rocks; but that she was under able management both men saw; and when Nat carried the child down to his mother, and saw Eileen's white face and straining eyes, he was able to kiss her, and place the boy in her arms, saying, "Please God, they will weather it yet; but 'tis a fearful thing to see. They have escaped being driven on this reef; and if they can get round the next point, they may find shelter from the gale. Pray for them, my lass, for it is all we may do. We will watch while you pray, and may be they will be safe yet!"

[CHAPTER VI]

JIM'S EXPLOIT

"It's a little boy! It's a little boy! Daddy! Oh, mother, look! look! I see him quite plain! It's a little boy. Oh, save him! save him!"

Pat's shrill little voice, sharpened by fear and pity, rang high through the noise of wind and waves. The cold dawn was breaking over the Lone Rock, and its four inmates were standing together at the base of the lighthouse with their eyes eagerly fixed upon the vast sheet of heaving and tossing water. The wind had abated its fury somewhat during the past hours, but the sea was still raging like a wild thing round the sunken reef. The tide, however, had fallen, and there was safe foothold for the little group anxiously gathered together. For some minutes they had all been gazing in the same direction—had been looking towards an object floating in the water, drifting nearer and nearer to them; and now the child's shrill cry broke the silence, and spoke the words the men had not dared to do, though for some moments they, too, had known what it was, lashed to a floating spar, that was being drifted down upon the Lone Rock.