After he had concluded his narrative, which was interrupted by frequent question and comment, and after he had refreshed himself with a cup of tea, he rose and said—­

“Now, boys, it’s not fair to be spending all the night with you here, while my old comrade Forsyth sits up yonder all alone.  I’ll go up and see him for a little.”

“We’ll go hup with ’ee, lad,” said Dumsby.

“No ye won’t,” replied Ruby; “I want him all to myself for a while; fair play and no favour, you know, used to be our watchword on the rock in old times.  Besides, his watch will be out in a little, so ye can come up and fetch him down.”

“Well, go along with you,” said the smith.  “Hallo! that must have been a big ’un.”

This last remark had reference to a distinct tremor in the building, caused by the falling of a great wave upon it.

“Does it often get raps like that?” enquired Ruby, with a look of surprise.

“Not often,” said Dove, “once or twice durin’ a gale, mayhap, when a bigger one than 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 every how, 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.