Off Island rose from the sea a sheer mass of granite, about a hundred and fifty feet in height, and all but inaccessible had it not been for a rock stair-way hewn out by the Brethren of the Trinity House.  The keepers had spied our boat, and a tall young man stood on one of the lower steps to welcome us:  not Reuben, but Reuben’s younger brother Sam.  Reuben met us at the top of the staircase, where the puffins built so thickly that a false step would almost certainly send the foot crashing through the roof of one of their oddly shaped houses.  He too was a tall youth; an inch or two taller, maybe, than his brother, whom we had left in charge of the boat.  It would have puzzled you to guess their ages.  Young they surely were, but much gazing in the face of the salt wind had creased the corners of their eyes, and their faces wore a beautiful gravity, as though they had been captured young and dedicated to some priestly service.

Reuben touched his cap, and, taking the book from Seth without a word, led us to the cottage, where his mother stood scouring a deal table:  a little woman with dark eyes like beads, and thin grey hair tucked within a grey muslin cap.  She had kilted her gown high and tucked up her sleeves, and looked to me, for all the world, like a doll on a penwiper.  But her hands were busy continually; the small room shone and gleamed with her tireless cleansing and polishing; and in the midst of it her eyes sparkled with expectation of news from the outer world.

Seth understood her, and rattled at once into a recital of all the happenings on the islands:  births, marriages, and deaths, sickness, courtship, and boat-building, the price of market-stuff, and the names of vessels newly arrived in the roads.  But after a minute she turned from him to my father.

“‘Tis all so narrow, sir—­Seth’s news.  I want to know what’s happenin’ in the world.”

Now, much was happening in those May weeks—­much all over Europe, but much indeed in France, where Paris was passing through the sharp agonies of the Commune.  The latest my father had to tell was almost a week old; but two days before we set sail for the islands the Versaillais troops had swept the boulevards, and every steamer had brought newspapers from the mainland.  Mrs. Hicks’ eyes grew bigger and rounder as she listened; but she had listened a very short while before she cried—­

“Father must hear this!  He’s up polishin’ the lantern, sir.  Begging your pardon, but he must hear you tell it; he must indeed.”  With immense pride she added, “He was over to France, one time.”

She marched us off to the lantern, up the winding stairway, up the ladder, and into the great glass cage, where stood an old man busily polishing the brass reflector.

“Father, here’s a gentleman come, with news from France!”

As the old man came forward with a fumbling step, my father drew a thick bundle from his coat pocket.  “I’ve brought you some newspapers,” said he; “they will tell you more than I can.”