mishaps, he arose, joined in
the laugh raised against him, and soon fished up the tools.

"What's wrong!" asked Ruby, pausing in the work of fixing the bellows,
on observing that the smith's face grew pale, and his general expression
became one of horror. "Not sea-sick, I hope?"

"Sea-sick," gasped the smith, slapping all his pockets hurriedly, "it's
worse than that; I've forgot the matches!"

Ruby looked perplexed, but had no consolation to offer.

"That's like you," cried Bremner, who, being one of the principal
masons, had to attend chiefly to the digging out of the foundation-pit
of the building, and knew that his tools could not be sharpened unless
the forge fire could be lighted.

"Suppose you hammer a nail red-hot," suggested one of the men, who was
disposed to make game of the smith.

"I'll hammer your nose red-hot," replied Dove, with a most undovelike
scowl, "I could swear that I put them matches in my pocket before I
started."

"No, you didn't," said George Forsyth, one of the carpenters--a tall
loose-jointed man, who was chiefly noted for his dislike to getting into
and out of boats, and climbing up the sides of ships, because of his
lengthy and unwieldy figure--"No, you didn't, you turtle-dove, you
forgot to take them; but I remembered to do it for you; so there, get up
your fire, and confess yourself indebted to me for life."

"I'm indebted to 'ee for fire," said the smith, grasping the matches
eagerly. "Thank'ee, lad, you're a true Briton."

"A tall 'un, rather," suggested Bremner.

"Wot never, never, never will be a slave," sang another of the men.

"Come, laddies, git up the fire. Time an' tide waits for naebody," said
John Watt, one of the quarriers. "We'll want thae tools before lang."

The men were proceeding with their work actively while those remarks
were passing, and ere long the smoke of the forge fire arose in the
still air, and the clang of the anvil was added to the other noises with
which the busy spot resounded.

The foundation of the Bell Rock Lighthouse had been carefully selected
by Mr Stevenson; the exact spot being chosen not only with a view to
elevation, but to the serrated ridges of rock, that might afford some
protection to the building, by breaking the force of the easterly seas
before they should reach it; but as the space available for the purpose
of building was scarcely fifty yards in diameter, there was not much
choice in the matter.

The foundation-pit