In the midst of all this turmoil the beacon stood securely, and after the weather moderated, permitting the workmen once more to land, it was found that no damage had been done by the tremendous breaches of the sea over the rock.

That the power of the waves had indeed been very great, was evident from the effects observed on the rock itself, and on materials left there.  Masses of rock upwards of a ton in weight had been cast up by the sea, and then, in their passage over the Bell Rock, had made deep and indelible ruts.  An anchor of a ton weight, which had been lost on one side of the rock, was found to have been washed up and over it to the other side.  Several large blocks of granite that had been landed and left on a ledge, were found to have been swept away like pebbles, and hurled into a hole at some distance; and the heavy hearth of the smith’s forge, with the ponderous anvil, had been washed from their places of supposed security.

From the time of the setting up of the beacon a new era in the work began.  Some of the men were now enabled to remain on the rock all day, working at the lighthouse when the tide was low, and betaking themselves to the beacon when it rose, and leaving it at night; for there was much to do before this beacon could be made the habitable abode which it finally became; but it required the strictest attention to the state of the weather, in case of their being overtaken with a gale, which might prevent the possibility of their being taken off the rock.

At last the beacon was so far advanced and secured that it was deemed capable of withstanding any gale that might blow.  As yet it was a great ungainly pile of logs, iron stanchions, and bracing-chains, without anything that could afford shelter to man from winds or waves, but with a platform laid from its cross-beams at a considerable height above high-water mark.

The works on the rock were in this state, when two memorable circumstances occurred in the Bell Rock annals, to which we shall devote a separate chapter.

CHAPTER XV

RUBY HAS A RISE IN LIFE, AND A FALL

James Dove, the blacksmith, had, for some time past, been watching the advancing of the beacon-works with some interest, and a good deal of impatience.  He was tired of working so constantly up to the knees in water, and aspired to a drier and more elevated workshop.

One morning he was told by the foreman that orders had been given for him to remove his forge to the beacon, and this removal, this “flitting”, as he called it, was the first of the memorable events referred to in the last chapter.

“Hallo!  Ruby, my boy,” cried the elated son of Vulcan, as he descended the companion ladder, “we’re goin’ to flit, lad.  We’re about to rise in the world, so get up your bellows.  It’s the last time we shall have to be bothered with them in the boat, I hope.”