n usual chances to fall on us at the right angle. But the
lighthouse shakes worst just the gales begin to take off and when the
swell rolls in heavy from the east'ard."

"Ay, that's the time," quoth Joe. "W'y, I've 'eard all the cups and
saucers on the dresser rattle with the blows o' them heavy seas, but the
gale is gittin' to be too strong to-night to shake us much."

"Too strong!" exclaimed Ruby.

"Ay. You see w'en it blows very hard, the breakers have not time to
come down on us with a 'eavy tellin' blow, they goes tumblin' and
swashin' round us and over us, hammerin' away wildly everyhow, or nohow,
or anyhow, just like a hexcited man fightin' in a hurry. The
after-swell, _that's_ wot does it. _That's_ wot comes on slow, and big,
and easy but powerful, like a great prize-fighter as knows what he can
do, and means to do it."

"A most uncomfortable sort of residence," said Ruby, as he turned to
quit the room.

"Not a bit, when ye git used to it," said the smith. "At first we was
rather skeered, but we don't mind now. Come, Joe, give us `Rule,
Britannia'--`pity she don't rule the waves straighter,' as somebody
writes somewhere."

So saying, Dove resumed his pipe, and Dumsby his fiddle, while Ruby
proceeded to the staircase that led to the rooms above.

Just as he was about to ascend, a furious gust of wind swept past,
accompanied by a wild roar of the sea; at the same moment a mass of
spray dashed against the small window at his side. He knew that this
window was at least sixty feet above the rock, and he was suddenly
filled with a strong desire to have a nearer view of the waves that had
force to mount so high. Instead, therefore, of ascending to the
lantern, he descended to the doorway, which was open, for, as the storm
blew from the eastward, the door was on the lee-side.

There were two doors--one of metal, with thick plate-glass panels at the
inner end of the passage; the other, at the outer end of it, was made of
thick solid wood bound with metal, and hung so as to open outwards.
When the two leaves of this heavy door were shut they were flush with
the tower, so that nothing was presented for the waves to act upon. But
this door was never closed except in cases of storm from the southward.

The scene which presented itself to our hero when he stood in the
entrance passage was such as neither pen nor pencil can adequately
depict. The tide was full, or nearly so, and had the night been calm
th