kind of tales, which nonsense I wish you would lay aside, and
notice only the concerns of your family and the important

charge committed to you.'
Apparently, however, my grandfather was not himself

inaccessible to the Tale-bearer, as the following indicates:
`In walking along with Mr. - , I explain to him that I

should be under the necessity of looking more closely into the
business here from his conduct at Buddonness, which had given

an instance of weakness in the Moral principle which had
staggered my opinion of him. His answer was, "That will be

with regard to the lass?" I told him I was to enter no
farther with him upon the subject.' `Mr. Miller appears to be

master and man. I am sorry about this foolish fellow. Had I
known his train, I should not, as I did, have rather forced

him into the service. Upon finding the windows in the state
they were, I turned upon Mr. Watt, and especially upon Mr.

Stewart. The latter did not appear for a length of time to
have visited the light-room. On asking the cause - did Mr.

Watt and him (SIC) disagree; he said no; but he had got very
bad usage from the assistant" target="_blank" title="n.助手；助理；助教">assistant, "who was a very obstreperous

man." I could not bring Mr. Watt to put in language his
objections to Miller; all I could get was that, he being your

friend, and saying he was unwell, he did not like to complain
or to push the man; that the man seemed to have no liking to

anything like work; that he was unruly; that, being an
educated man, he despised them. I was, however, determined to

have out of these UNWILLING witnesses the language alluded to.
I fixed upon Mr. Stewart as chief; he hedged. My curiosity

increased, and I urged. Then he said, "What would I think,
just exactly, of Mr. Watt being called an Old B-?" You may

judge of my surprise. There was not another word uttered.
This was quite enough, as coming from a person I should have

calculated upon quite different behaviour from. It spoke a
volume of the man's mind and want of principle.' `Object to

the keeper keeping a Bull-Terrier dog of ferocious appearance.
It is dangerous, as we land at all times of the night.' `Have

only to complain of the storehouse floor being spotted with
oil. Give orders for this being instantly rectified, so that

on my return to-morrow I may see things in good order.' `The
furniture of both houses wants much rubbing. Mrs. -'s carpets

are absurd beyond anything I have seen. I want her to turn
the fenders up with the bottom to the fireplace: the carpets,

when not likely to be in use, folded up and laid as a
hearthrug partly under the fender.'

My grandfather was king in the service to his finger-
tips. All should go in his way, from the principal

lightkeeper's coat to the assistant" target="_blank" title="n.助手；助理；助教">assistant's fender, from the gravel
in the garden-walks to the bad smell in the kitchen, or the

oil-spots on the store-room floor. It might be thought there
was nothing more calculated to awake men's resentment, and yet

his rule was not more thorough than it was beneficent. His
thought for the keepers was continual, and it did not end with

their lives. He tried to manage their successions; he thought
no pains too great to arrange between a widow and a son who

had succeeded his father; he was often harassed and perplexed
by tales of hardship; and I find him writing, almost in

despair, of their improvident habits and the destitution that
awaited their families upon a death. `The house being

completely furnished, they come into possession without
necessaries, and they go out NAKED. The insurance seems to

have failed, and what next is to be tried?' While they lived
he wrote behind their backs to arrange for the education of

their children, or to get them other situations if they seemed
unsuitable for the Northern Lights. When he was at a

lighthouse on a Sunday he held prayers and heard the children
read. When a keeper was sick, he lent him his horse and sent

him mutton and brandy from the ship. `The assistant" target="_blank" title="n.助手；助理；助教">assistant's wife
having been this morning confined, there was sent ashore a

bottle of sherry and a few rusks - a practice which I have
always observed in this service,' he writes. They dwelt, many

of them, in uninhabited isles or desert forelands, totally cut
off from shops. Many of them were, besides, fallen into a

rustic dishabitude of life, so that even when they visited a
city they could scarce be trusted with their own affairs, as

(for example) he who carried home to his children, thinking
they were oranges, a bag of lemons. And my grandfather seems

to have acted, at least in his early years, as a kind of
gratuitous agent for the service. Thus I find him writing to

a keeper in 1806, when his mind was already preoccupied with
arrangements for the Bell Rock: `I am much afraid I stand very

unfavourably with you as a man of promise, as I was to send
several things of which I believe I have more than once got

the memorandum. All I can say is that in this respect you are
not singular. This makes me no better; but really I have been

driven about beyond all example in my past experience, and
have been essentially obliged to neglect my own urgent

affairs.' No servant of the Northern Lights came to Edinburgh
but he was entertained at Baxter's Place to breakfast. There,

at his own table, my grandfather sat down delightedly with his
broad-spoken, homespun officers. His whole relation to the

service was, in fact, patriarchal; and I believe I may say
that throughout its ranks he was adored. I have spoken with

many who knew him; I was his grandson, and their words may
have very well been words of flattery; but there was one thing

that could not be affected, and that was the look and light
that came into their faces at the name of Robert Stevenson.

In the early part of the century the foremanbuilder was
a young man of the name of George Peebles, a native of

Anstruther. My grandfather had placed in him a very high
degree of confidence, and he was already designated to be

foreman at the Bell Rock, when, on Christmas-day 1806, on his
way home from Orkney, he was lost in the schooner TRAVELLER.

The tale of the loss of the TRAVELLER is almost a replica of
that of the ELIZABETH of Stromness; like the ELIZABETH she

came as far as Kinnaird Head, was then surprised by a storm,
driven back to Orkney, and bilged and sank on the island of

Flotta. It seems it was about the dusk of the day when the
ship struck, and many of the crew and passengers were drowned.

About the same hour, my grandfather was in his office at the
writing-table; and the room beginning to darken, he laid down

his pen and fell asleep. In a dream he saw the door open and
George Peebles come in, `reeling to and fro, and staggering

like a drunken man,' with water streaming from his head and
body to the floor. There it gathered into a wave which,

sweeping forward, submerged my grandfather. Well, no matter
how deep; versions vary; and at last he awoke, and behold it

was a dream! But it may be conceived how profoundly the
impression was written even on the mind of a man averse from

such ideas, when the news came of the wreck on Flotta and the
death of George.

George's vouchers and accounts had perished with himself;
and it appeared he was in debt to the Commissioners. But my

grandfather wrote to Orkney twice, collected evidence of his
disbursements, and proved him to be seventy pounds ahead.

With this sum, he applied to George's brothers, and had it
apportioned between their mother and themselves. He