THE EDDYSTONE ROCK- 



PART VI 



chief defect, as we have already observed, consisted in 

 the material of which it was composed. It was com- 

 bustible, yet it could only be made useful as a lighthouse 

 by the constant employment of fire in some shape. 

 Though the heat of the candles used in the lantern may 

 not have been very great, still it was sufficient to produce 

 great dryness and inflammability in the timbers lining 

 the roof, and these being covered with a crust of soot, must 

 have proved a constant source of danger. The imme- 

 diate cause of the accident by which the lighthouse was 

 destroyed was never ascertained. All that became known 

 was, that about two o'clock in the morning of the 2nd De- 

 cember, 1755, the lightkeeper on duty, going into the 

 lantern to snuff the candles, found it full of smoke. 

 The lighthouse was on fire ! In a few minutes the 

 wooden fabric was in a blaze. Water could not be 

 brought up the tower by the men in sufficient quantities 

 to be thrown with any effect upon the flames raging 

 above their heads : the molten lead fell down upon the 



keepers. Rudyerd's house was at first 

 attended by only two men, as the 

 duty required no more. During the 

 night they kept watch by turns for 

 four hours alternately, snuffing and re- 

 newing the candles. It happened, how- 

 ever, that one of the keepers took ill 

 and died, and only one man remained 

 to do the work. He hoisted the flag 

 as a signal to those on land to come 

 off to his assistance ; but the sea was 

 running so wild at the time that no 

 boat could live in the vicinity of the 

 rock ; and the same rough weather 

 lasted for nearly a month. What 

 was the surviving man to do with the 

 dead body of his comrade ? The 

 thought struck him that if he threw 

 it into the sea, he might be charged 

 with murder. He determined, there- 

 fore, to keep the corpse in the light- 

 house until the boat could come off 

 from the shore. One may imagine 

 the horrors endured by the surviving 

 lightkeeper during that long, dismal 

 month. At last the boat came off, 

 but the weather was still so rough 

 that a landing was only effected with 



the greatest difficulty. By this time 

 the effluvia rising from the corpse 

 was most overpowering ; it com- 

 pletely filled the chambers of the 

 lighthouse, and it was all that the 

 men could do to get the body dis- 

 posed of by throwing it into the sea. 

 This circumstance induced the pro- 

 prietors for the future to employ a 

 third man to supply the place of a 

 disabled or dead keeper, though the 

 occupation proved exceedingly healthy 

 on the whole. There was always a 

 large number of candidates for any 

 vacant office, probably of the same 

 class to which pike-keepers belong. 

 They must have been naturally mo- 

 rose, and perhaps slightly misan- 

 thropic ; for Mr. Smeaton relates that, 

 some visitors having once landed at 

 the rock, one of them observed to 

 the lightkeeper how comfortably they 

 might live there in a state of retire- 

 ment : " Yes," replied the man, " very 

 comfortably, if we could have the use 

 of our tongues; but it is now a full 

 month since my partner and I have 

 spoken to each other !" 



