the upper chambers. To the Longstone might with truth be
attributed the opening lines of Kipling's poem, "The Coastwise
Lights":--

"Our brows are bound with spindrift, and the weed is on our knees,
Our loins are battered 'neath us by the swinging, smoking seas;
From reef, and rock, and skerry, over headland, ness, and voe,
The coastwise lights of England watch the ships of England go."

There are about twenty of these little islets to be seen at low tide,
and very curious are some of their names--The Megstone, The Crumstone,
The Navestone, The Harcars, The Wedums, The Noxes (Knokys), and The
Wawmses. The largest, Farne Island, is the nearest to the coast, and is
the one to which St. Aidan retired, and on which St. Cuthbert made
himself a cell, and where he lived for some years, leaving Lindisfarne
(Holy Island) very often for months together, to dwell alone on this
almost bare rock and devote himself to holy meditation and prayer.

To this island came King Ecgfrith of Northumbria with Archbishop
Trumwine and other representatives of the Synod to beg the hermit to
accept the Bishopric of Hexham; and it was on this island that St.
Cuthbert died, the monks who had gone to look after him signalling the
news of his death to his brethren at Lindisfarne by means of torches.
The island is rocky and precipitous, with deep chasms between the high
cliffs; and when a north wind blows, the columns of foam and spray, from
the waters dashing into the chasms and over the tops of the cliffs, may
be seen from the mainland rising high into the air.

Before the first lighthouse was built on Farne Island, in 1766, a coal
fire was kindled every night on the top of the tower-like building used
as a fort. This method of warning passing vessels had been used
continuously since the days of Charles II. In great contrast to this is
the modern lighthouse, with its acetylene gas lights and its automatic
flash apparatus.

Close to Stapel Island are the three high basaltic pillars, of rock
called the Pinnacles. On all these islands sea-birds breed, but
especially on the Pinnacles, the Big and Little Harcar, and the islet
called the Brownsman.

Thousands and thousands of them perch and chatter on the rocks and fly
screaming in the air, amongst them being guillemots, kittiwakes, gulls,
terns, cormorants, puffins, and eider-ducks, for which latter St.
Cuthbert is said to have had great affection; certainly they are the
gentlest of these