170 



THE SEA. 



the lantern, but soon its brilliant light shines forth again, a warning and a guide to the 

 mariner. When a wave hurls itself upon the lighthouse, the report of the shock is like 

 a cannon, and a tremor passes through the building. At first the lighthouse-keepers were 

 afraid for their lives. The year after the completion of the tower, a terrible storm raged, 

 the sea dashing over the lighthouse so that those inside dare not open the lantern door, 

 nor any other, for even an instant. A man who visited the rock after some similar 

 storm wrote to Mr. Jessop, " The house did shake as if a man had been up in a great tree. 



PORTRAIT OF SMEATON. 



The old men were almost frightened out of their lives, wishing they had never seen the 

 place, and cursing those that first persuaded them to go there. The fear seized them 

 in the back, but rubbing them with oil of turpentine gave them relief/' The men, however,, 

 soon became used to the life ; and Smeaton mentions the case of one of them who was 

 even accustomed to give up to his companions his turn for going on shore. 



"Many a heart/' says Mr. Smiles, "has leapt with gladness at the cry of 'The Eddystorie 

 in sight ! ' sung out from the maintop. Homeward-bound ships, from far-off ports, no 

 longer avoid the dreaded rock, but eagerly run for its light as the harbinger of safety. It- 

 might even seem as if Providence had placed the reef so far out at sea as the foundation 

 for a beacon such as this, leaving it to man's skill and labour to finish His work. On 

 entering the English Channel from the west and the south^ the cautious navigator feels 



