how to proceed. The
complaint preferred against me was "that
I had examined the Longships Lighthouse with the most minute
attention, and was no less particular in my inquiries at the
keepers of the
lighthouseregarding the sunk rocks lying off
the Land's End, with the sets of the currents and tides along
the coast: that I seemed particularly to regret the situation
of the rocks called the Seven Stones, and the loss of a beacon
which the Trinity Board had caused to be fixed on the Wolf
Rock; that I had taken notes of the bearings of several sunk
rocks, and a
drawing of the
lighthouse, and of Cape Cornwall.
Further, that I had refused the honour of Lord Edgecombe's
invitation to dinner,
offering as an
apology that I had some
particular business on hand." '
My
grandfather produced in answer his credentials and
letter of credit; but the justice, after perusing them, `very
gravely observed that they were "musty bits of paper," ' and
proposed to
maintain the
arrest. Some more enlightened
magistrates at Penzance relieved him of
suspicion and left him
at liberty to
pursue his journey, - `which I did with so much
eagerness,' he adds, `that I gave the two coal lights on the
Lizard only a very
transient look.'
Lighthouse operations in Scotland differed
essentially in
character from those in England. The English coast is in
comparison a habitable,
homely place, well supplied with
towns; the Scottish presents hundreds of miles of
savageislands and
desolate moors. The Parliamentary committee of
1834,
profoundlyignorant of this
distinction, insisted with
my
grandfather that the work at the various stations should be
let out on contract `in the neighbourhood,' where sheep and
deer, and gulls and cormorants, and a few
ragged gillies,
perhaps crouching in a bee-hive house, made up the only
neighbours. In such situations repairs and improvements could
only be overtaken by collecting (as my
grandfather expressed
it) a few `lads,' placing them under
charge of a
foreman, and
despatching them about the coast as occasion served. The
particular danger of these seas increased the difficulty. The
course of the
lighthouse tender lies amid iron-bound coasts,
among tide-races, the whirlpools of the Pentland Firth, flocks
of islands, flocks of reefs, many of them uncharted. The aid
of steam was not yet. At first in
random coasting sloop, and
afterwards in the
cutter belonging to the service, the
engineer must ply and run
amongst these multiplied dangers,
and sometimes late into the stormy autumn. For pages together
my
grandfather's diary preserves a record of these rude
experiences; of hard winds and rough seas; and of `the try-
sail and storm-jib, those old friends which I never like to
see.' They do not tempt to
quotation, but it was the man's
element, in which he lived, and
delighted to live, and some
specimen must be presented. On Friday, September 10th, 1830,
the REGENT lying in Lerwick Bay, we have this entry: `The gale
increases, with continued rain.' On the
morrow, Saturday,
11th, the weather appeared to
moderate, and they put to sea,
only to be
driven by evening into Levenswick. There they lay,
`rolling much,' with both
anchors ahead and the square yard on
deck, till the morning of Saturday, 18th. Saturday and Sunday
they were plying to the
southward with a `strong
breeze and a
heavy sea,' and on Sunday evening
anchored in Otterswick.
`Monday, 20th, it blows so fresh that we have no communication
with the shore. We see Mr. Rome on the beach, but we cannot
communicate with him. It blows "mere fire," as the sailors
express it.' And for three days more the diary goes on with
tales of davits unshipped, high seas, strong gales from the
southward, and the ship
driven to
refuge in Kirkwall or Deer
Sound. I have many a passage before me to transcribe, in
which my
grandfather draws himself as a man of minute and
anxious exactitude about details. It must not be forgotten
that these voyages in the tender were the particular pleasure
and
reward of his
existence; that he had in him a reserve of
romance which carried him
delightedly over these hardships and
perils; that to him it was `great gain' to be eight nights and
seven days in the
savage bay of Levenswick - to read a book in
the much agitated cabin - to go on deck and hear the gale
scream in his ears, and see the
landscape dark with rain and
the ship
plunge at her two
anchors - and to turn in at night
and wake again at morning, in his narrow berth, to the
glamorous and continued voices of the gale.
His perils and escapes were beyond counting. I shall
only refer to two: the first, because of the
impression made
upon himself; the second, from the
incidental picture it
presents of the north islanders. On the 9th October 1794 he
took passage from Orkney in the sloop ELIZABETH of Stromness.
She made a fair passage till within view of Kinnaird Head,
where, as she was becalmed some three miles in the offing, and
wind seemed to
threaten from the south-east, the captain
landed him, to continue his journey more expeditiously
ashore.
A gale immediately followed, and the ELIZABETH was
driven back
to Orkney and lost with all hands. The second escape I have
been in the habit of
hearingrelated by an eye-witness, my own
father, from the earliest days of
childhood. On a September
night, the REGENT lay in the Pentland Firth in a fog and a
violent and windless swell. It was still dark, when they were
alarmed by the sound of breakers, and an
anchor was
immediately let go. The peep of dawn discovered them swinging
in
desperate proximity to the Isle of Swona (1) and the surf
bursting close under their stern. There was in this place a
hamlet of the inhabitants,
fisher-folk and wreckers; their
huts stood close about the head of the beach. All slept; the
doors were closed, and there was no smoke, and the anxious
watchers on board ship seemed to
contemplate a village of the
dead. It was thought possible to
launch a boat and tow the
REGENT from her place of danger; and with this view a signal
of
distress was made and a gun fired with a red-hot poker from
the
galley. Its detonation awoke the sleepers. Door after
door was opened, and in the grey light of the morning
fisherafter
fisher was seen to come forth, yawning and stretching
himself, nightcap on head. Fisher after
fisher, I wrote, and
my pen tripped; for it should rather stand wrecker after
wrecker. There was no
emotion, no animation, it
scarce seemed
any interest; not a hand was raised; but all callously awaited
the
harvest of the sea, and their children stood by their side
and waited also. To the end of his life, my father remembered
that amphitheatre of
placid spectators on the beach; and with
a special and natural
animosity, the boys of his own age. But
presently a light air
sprang up, and filled the sails, and
fainted, and filled them again; and little by little the
REGENT fetched way against the swell, and clawed off shore
into the
turbulent firth.
(1) This is only a
probable hypothesis; I have tried to
identify my father's
anecdote in my
grandfather's diary, and
may very well have been deceived. - [R. L. S.]
The purpose of these voyages was to effect a
landing on
open beaches or among shelving rocks, not for persons only,
but for coals and food, and the
fragile furniture of light-
rooms. It was often impossible. In 1831 I find my
grandfather `hovering for a week' about the Pentland Skerries
for a chance to land; and it was almost always difficult.
Much knack and
enterprise were early developed among the
seamen of the service; their
management of boats is to this
day a matter of
admiration; and I find my
grandfather in his
diary depicting the nature of their
excellence in one happily
descriptive
phrase, when he remarks that Captain Soutar had
landed `the small stores and nine casks of oil WITH ALL THE
ACTIVITY OF A SMUGGLER.' And it was one thing to land,
another to get on board again. I have here a passage from the
diary, where it seems to have been touch-and-go. `I landed at
Tarbetness, on the eastern side of the point, in a MERE GALE
OR BLAST OF WIND from west-south-west, at 2 p.m. It blew so