BESIEGING THE LIGHT-HOUSE. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



BESIEGING THE LIGHT-HOUSE. 



" And that unknowing what he did, 



He leaped amid a murderous band, 



And saved from outrage worse than death 



The lady of the land." 



Coleridge. 



Theee are some positions in which one is thrown so 

 hopeless, and so complicated in the abundance of their 

 misfortunes, that the heart gives up resistance and lamen- 

 tation. Then, after a little, there arises a pride of supe- 

 riority, and the heart grows greater from its conscious 

 scaling of these disasters. They cease to afflict, and are 

 the sources of a pleasurable pride. 



So from her house of refuge by the sea Lou Jackson's 

 mind ran over her lonely life, her position of disaster so 

 singularly great, and her desolate feebleness against a 

 nation of foes. Her mind recovered its tone, she became 

 proud of herself, matching her feeble endurance against 

 war, fire, and the girdling waves. She did not flaunt 

 her new-found hardihood, but used the arm of the feeble, 

 and kept concealed in the bottom of the lantern, yet 

 proud of her own endurance and fortitude. She knew 

 that Indian eyes were on the tower, and that the bushes, 



