About one minute after the falling of the pipe Ruby Brand fell asleep, and about two minutes after that Captain Ogilvy began to snore, both of which conditions were maintained respectively and uninterruptedly until the birds began to whistle and the sun began to shine.

CHAPTER XVII

A MEETING WITH OLD FRIENDS, AND AN EXCURSION

Next morning the captain and his nephew “bore down”, as the former expressed it, on the workyard, and Ruby was readily accepted, his good qualities having already been well tested at the Bell Rock.

“Now, boy, we’ll go and see about the little preventive craft,” said the captain on quitting the office.

“But first,” said Ruby, “let me go and tell my old comrade Dove that I am to be with him again.”

There was no need to enquire the way to the forge, the sound of the anvil being distinctly heard above all the other sounds of that busy spot.

The workyard at Arbroath, where the stones for the lighthouse were collected and hewn into shape before being sent off to the rock, was an enclosed piece of ground, extending to about three-quarters of an acre, conveniently situated on the northern side of the Lady Lane, or Street, leading from the western side of the harbour.

Here were built a row of barracks for the workmen, and several apartments connected with the engineer’s office, mould-makers’ department, stores, workshops for smiths and joiners, stables, &c., extending 150 feet along the north side of the yard.  All of these were fully occupied, there being upwards of forty men employed permanently.

Sheds of timber were also constructed to protect the workmen in wet weather; and a kiln was built for burning lime.  In the centre of the yard stood a circular platform of masonry on which the stones were placed when dressed, so that each stone was tested and marked, and each “course” or layer of the lighthouse fitted up and tried, before being shipped to the rock.

The platform measured 44 feet in diameter.  It was founded with large broad stones at a depth of about 2 feet 6 inches, and built to within 10 inches of the surface with rubble work, on which a course of neatly dressed and well-jointed masonry was laid, of the red sandstone from the quarries to the eastward of Arbroath, which brought the platform on a level with the surface of the ground.  Here the dressed part of the first entire course, or layer, of the lighthouse was lying, and the platform was so substantially built as to be capable of supporting any number of courses which it might be found convenient to lay upon it in the further progress of the work.

Passing this platform, the captain and Ruby threaded their way through a mass of workyard debris until they came to the building from which the sounds of the anvil proceeded.  For a few minutes they stood looking at our old friend Jamie Dove, who, with bared arms, was causing the sparks to fly, and the glowing metal to yield, as vigorously as of old.  Presently he ceased hammering, and turning to the fire thrust the metal into it.  Then he wiped his brow, and glanced towards the door.