ppery weed
with a large smoking tin dish.

"Mind you don't let 'em fall," cried one.

"Have a care," shouted the smith; "if you drop them I'll beat you
red-hot, and hammer ye so flat that the biggest flatterer as ever walked
won't be able to spread ye out another half-inch."

"Mutton! oh!" exclaimed Forsyth, who had been some time trying to wrench
the cover off the basket containing a roast leg, and at last succeeded.

"Here, spread them all out on this rock. You han't forgot the grog, I
hope, steward?"

"No fear of him: he's a good feller, is the steward, when he's asleep
partiklerly. The grog's here all right."

"Dinna let Dumsby git haud o't, then," cried Watt. "What! hae ye begood
a'ready? Patience, man, patience. Is there ony saut?"

"Lots of it, darlin', in the say. Sure this shape must have lost his
tail somehow. Och, murther! if there isn't Bobby Selkirk gone an'
tumbled into Port Hamilton wid the cabbage, av it's not the carrots!"

"There now, don't talk so much, boys," cried Peter Logan. "Let's drink
success to the Bell Rock Lighthouse."

It need scarcely be said that this toast was drunk with enthusiasm, and
that it was followed up with "three times three."

"Now for a song. Come, Joe Dumsby, strike up," cried one of the men.

O'Connor, who was one of the most reckless of men in regard to duty and
propriety, here shook his head gravely, and took upon himself to read
his comrade a lesson.

"Ye shouldn't talk o' sitch things in workin' hours," said he. "Av we
wos all foolish, waake-hidded cratures like _you_, how d'ye think we'd
iver git the lighthouse sot up! Ate yer dinner, lad, and howld yer
tongue."

"O Ned, I didn't think your jealousy would show out so strong," retorted
his comrade. "Now, then, Dumsby, fire away, if it was only to aggravate
him."

Thus pressed, Joe Dumsby took a deep draught of the small-beer with
which the men were supplied, and began a song of his own composition.

When the song was finished the meal was also concluded, and the men
returned to their labours on the rock; some to continue their work with
the picks at the hard stone of the foundation-pit, others to perform
miscellaneous jobs about the rock, such as mixing the mortar and
removing _debris_, while James Dove and his fast friend Ruby Brand
mounted to their airy "cot" on the beacon, from which in a short time
began to proceed the volumes of smoke and the clanging sounds that had
formerly arisen fr