good deal of
impatience. He was tired of working so constantly up to the knees in
water, and aspired to a drier and more elevated workshop.

One morning he was told by the foreman that orders had been given for
him to remove his forge to the beacon, and this removal, this
"flitting", as he called it, was the first of the memorable events
referred to in the last chapter.

"Hallo! Ruby, my boy," cried the elated son of Vulcan, as he descended
the companion ladder, "we're goin' to flit, lad. We're about to rise in
the world, so get up your bellows. It's the last time we shall have to
be bothered with them in the boat, I hope."

"That's well," said Ruby, shouldering the unwieldy bellows; "they have
worn my shoulders threadbare, and tried my patience almost beyond
endurance."

"Well, it's all over now, lad," rejoined the smith. "In future you
shall have to blow up in the beacon yonder; so come along."

"Come, Ruby, that ought to comfort the cockles o' yer heart," said
O'Connor, who passed up the ladder as he spoke; "the smith won't need to
blow you up any more, av you're to blow yourself up in the beacon in
futur'. Arrah! there's the bell again. Sorrow wan o' me iver gits to
slape, but I'm turned up immadiately to go an' poke away at that rock--
faix, it's well named the Bell Rock, for it makes me like to _bell_ow me
lungs out wid vexation."

"That pun is _bel_ow contempt," said Joe Dumsby, who came up at the
moment.

"That's yer sort, laddies; ye're guid at ringing the changes on that
head onyway," cried Watt.

"I say, we're gittin' a _bell_y-full of it," observed Forsyth, with a
rueful look. "I hope nobody's goin' to give us another!"

"It'll create a re_bell_ion," said Bremner, "if ye go on like that."

"It'll bring my _bell_ows down on the head o' the next man that speaks!"
cried Ruby, with indignation.

"Don't you hear the bell, there?" cried the foreman down the hatchway.

There was a burst of laughter at this unconscious continuation of the
joke, and the men sprang up the ladder,--down the side, and into the
boats, which were soon racing towards the rock.

The day, though not sunny, was calm and agreeable, nevertheless the
landing at the rock was not easily accomplished, owing to the swell
caused by a recent gale. After one or two narrow escapes of a ducking,
however, the crews landed, and the bellows, instead of being conveyed to
their usual place at the forge, were laid at the foot of the b