at I always imagine St. Andrews to be an ineffectual seat of learning,
and the sound of the east wind and the bursting surf to linger in its
drowsy class-rooms and confound the utterance of the professor, until
teacher and taught are alike drowned in oblivion, and only the sea-gull
beats on the windows and the draught of the sea-air rustles in the pages
of the open lecture. But upon all this, and the romance of St. Andrews
in general, the reader must consult the works of Mr. Andrew Lang; who
has written of it but the other day in his dainty prose and with his
incommunicable humour, and long ago, in one of his best poems, with
grace and local truth and a note of unaffected pathos. Mr. Lang knows
all about the romance, I say, and the educational advantages, but I
doubt if he had turned his attention to the harbour lights; and it may
be news even to him, that in the year 1863 their case was pitiable.
Hanging about with the east wind humming in my teeth, and my hands (I
make no doubt) in my pockets, I looked for the first time upon that
tragi-comedy of the visiting engineer which I have seen so often
re-enacted on a more important stage. Eighty years ago, I find my
grandfather writing: "It is the most painful thing that can occur to me
to have a correspondence of this kind with any of the keepers, and when
I come to the Light House, instead of having the satisfaction to meet
them with approbation and welcome their Family, it is distressing when
one is obliged to put on a most angry countenance and demeanour." This
painful obligation has been hereditary in my race. I have myself, on a
perfectly amateur and unauthorised inspection of Turnberry Point, bent
my brows upon the keeper on the question of storm-panes; and felt a keen
pang of self-reproach, when we went downstairs again and I found he was
making a coffin for his infant child; and then regained my equanimity
with the thought that I had done the man a service, and when the proper
inspector came, he would be readier with his panes. The human race is
perhaps credited with more duplicity than it deserves. The visitation of
a lighthouse at least is a business of the most transparent nature. As
soon as the boat grates on the shore, and the keepers step forward in
their uniformed coats, the very slouch of the fellows' shoulders tells
their story, and the engineer may begin at once to assume his "angry
countenance." Certainly the brass of the handrail will be clouded; and
if th