That day it fell calm, and the sun shone brightly.  “We’ll have fog to-night,” observed Dumsby to Brand, pausing in the operation of polishing a reflector, in which his fat face was mirrored with the most indescribable and dreadful distortions.

“D’ye think so?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“You’re right,” remarked Forsyth, looking from his elevated position to the seaward horizon.  “I can see it coming now.”

“I say, what smell is that?” exclaimed Ruby, sniffing.

“Somethink burnin’,” said Dumsby, also sniffing.

“Why, what can it be?” murmured Forsyth, looking round and likewise sniffing.  “Hallo!  Joe, look out; you’re on fire!”

Joe started, clapped his hand behind him, and grasped his inexpressibles, which were smouldering warmly.  Ruby assisted, and the fire was soon put out, amidst much laughter.

“’Ang them reflectors!” said Joe, seating himself, and breathing hard after his alarm and exertions; “it’s the third time they’ve set me ablaze.”

“The reflectors, Joe?” said Ruby.

“Ay, don’t ye see?  They’ve nat’rally got a focus, an’ w’en I ’appen to be standin’ on a sunny day in front of ’em, contemplatin’ the face o’ natur’, as it wor, through the lantern panes, if I gits into the focus by haccident, d’ye see, it just acts like a burnin’-glass.”

Ruby could scarcely believe this, but after testing the truth of the statement by actual experiment he could no longer doubt it.

Presently a light breeze sprang up, rolling the fog before it, and then dying away, leaving the lighthouse enshrouded.

During fog there is more danger to shipping than at any other time.  In the daytime, in ordinary weather, rocks and lighthouses can be seen.  At nights lights can be seen, but during fog nothing can be seen until danger may be too near to be avoided.  The two great fog-bells of the lighthouse were therefore set agoing, and they rang out their slow deep-toned peal all that day and all that night, as the bell of the Abbot of Aberbrothoc is said to have done in days of yore.

That night Ruby was astonished, and then he was stunned!

First, as to his astonishment.  While he was seated by the kitchen fire chatting with his friend the smith, sometime between nine o’clock and midnight, Dumsby summoned him to the lantern to “help in catching to-morrow’s dinner!”

Dove laughed at the summons, and they all went up.

The first thing that caught Ruby’s eye at one of the window panes was the round visage of an owl, staring in with its two large eyes as if it had gone mad with amazement, and holding on to the iron frame with its claws.  Presently its claws lost hold, and it fell off into outer darkness.

“What think ye o’ that for a beauty?” said Forsyth.  Ruby’s eyes, being set free from the fascination of the owl’s stare, now made him aware of the fact that hundreds of birds of all kinds—­crows, magpies, sparrows, tomtits, owls, larks, mavises, blackbirds, &c. &c.—­were fluttering round the lantern outside, apparently bent on ascertaining the nature of the wonderful light within.