THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. 
157 
summer oil, but he had been provident enough to re¬ 
serve a little winter oil against emergencies, he was 
waked up with anxiety, and found that his oil was con¬ 
gealed, and his lights almost extinguished; and when, 
after many hours’ exertion, he had succeeded in replen¬ 
ishing his reservoirs with winter oil at the wick end, and 
with difficulty had made them burn, he looked out and 
found that the other lights in the neighborhood, which 
were usually visible to him, had gone out, and he heard 
afterward that the Pamet Piver and Billingsgate Lights 
also had been extinguished. 
Our host said that the frost, too, on the windows 
caused him much trouble, and in sultry summer nights 
the moths covered them and dimmed his lights; some¬ 
times even small birds flew against the thick plate glass, 
and were found on the ground beneath in the morning 
with their necks broken. In the spring of 1855 he 
found nineteen small yellowbirds, perhaps goldfinches 
or myrtle-birds, thus lying dead around the light-house ; 
and sometimes in the fall he had seen where a golden 
plover had struck the glass in the night, and left the 
down and the fatty part of its breast on it. 
Thus he struggled, by every method, to keep his light 
shining before men. Surely the light-house keeper has 
a responsible, if an easy, office. When his lamp goes 
out, he goes out; or, at most, only one such accident is 
pardoned. 
I thought it a pity that some poor student did not live 
there, to profit by all that light, since he would not rob 
the mariner. Well,” he said, “ I do sometimes come 
up here and read the newspaper when they are noisy 
down below.” Think of fifteen argand lamps to read 
the newspaper by! Government oil! — light, enough, 
