CHAPTER XLII 



THE LONGSTONE RELIEF 



A GREY December morning. All through the night 

 a gale from the south-east has been blowing, with 

 ■ thick driving rain, but an hour or so before daybreak 

 the wind shifted to south-west, and now the sea is moderating 

 under the influence of the land breeze. 



A three-mile walk along the exposed Northumberland 

 coast brings the writer to the little village of Seahouses, from 

 where an attemypt is to be made to carry out the relief at the 

 Longstone Lighthouse — a lonely light built on the most out- 

 lying of the Fame Islands. A heavy surf, the result of the 

 night's gale, thunders on the long smooth sands which lie 

 between Bamburgh Castle — that restored ruin where the 

 Kings of Northumbria had their home — ^and Seahouses, and 

 on the Inner Fames the swell can be seen breaking heavily. 



It is just ten o'clock when the powerfully-built motor- 

 boat swings out through the narrow entrance to the harbour 

 and heads for the Longstone, between four and five miles 

 distant, and bearing about east-north-east. 



On board are the mails for the rock station, and a certain 

 quantity of provisions. We also carry the lighthouse-keeper, 

 who, his shore leave completed, is returning to the Longstone, 

 where he will spend his Christmas. 



Just clear of the breakers a company of eiders, ducks and 

 drakes together, are diving energetically for food, and near 

 to us a cormorant emerges with a good-sized eel held firmly 

 in his bill. Instantly a watching herring gull flies at top 

 speed towards him, but the cormorant dives quickly, carry- 

 ing down his prize with him, and the gull circles round, 

 bafiled. Soon, up again comes the cormorant, and again the 



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