se in France, called the Tour de
Cordouan, which rises light out o' the sea, an' I'm told it had some
fearful gales to try its metal when it was buildin'. So don't go an'
git narvous."

"Who's gittin' narvous?" exclaimed George Forsyth, at whom Bremner had
looked when he made the last remark.

"Sure ye misjudge him," cried O'Connor. "It's only another twist o' the
toothick. But it's all very well in you to spake lightly o' gales in
that fashion. Wasn't the Eddystone Lighthouse cleared away one stormy
night, with the engineer and all the men, an' was niver more heard on?"

"That's true," said Ruby. "Come, Bremner, I have heard you say that you
had read all about that business. Let's hear the story; it will help to
while away the time, for there's no chance of anyone gettin' to sleep
with such a row outside."

"I wish it may be no worse than a row outside," said Forsyth in a
doleful tone, as he shook his head and looked round on the party
anxiously.

"Wot! another fit o' the toothick?" enquired O'Connor ironically.

"Don't try to put us in the dismals," said Jamie Dove, knocking the
ashes out of his pipe, and refilling that solace of his leisure hours.
"Let us hear about the Eddystone, Bremner; it'll cheer up our spirits a
bit."

"Will it though?" said Bremner, with a look that John Watt described as
"awesome", "Well, we shall see."

"You must know, boys--"

"'Ere, light your pipe, my 'earty," said Dumsby.

"Hold yer tongue, an' don't interrupt him," cried one of the men,
flattening Dumsby's cap over his eyes.

"And don't drop yer _h_aitches," observed another, "'cause if ye do
they'll fall into the sea an' be drownded, an' then ye'll have none left
to put into their wrong places when ye wants 'em."

"Come, Bremner, go on."

"Well, then, boys," began Bremner, "you must know that it is more than a
hundred years since the Eddystone Lighthouse was begun--in the year
1696, if I remember rightly--that would be just a hundred and thirteen
years to this date. Up to that time these rocks were as great a terror
to sailors as the Bell Rock is now, or, rather, as it was last year, for
now that this here comfortable beacon has been put up, it's no longer a
terror to nobody--"

"Except Geordie Forsyth," interposed O'Connor.

"Silence," cried the men.

"Well," resumed Bremner, "as you all know, the Eddystone Rocks lie in
the British Channel, fourteen miles from Plymouth and ten from the Ram
Head, an' open t