Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/276

540 commenced on the 18th of August, 1807; and such was the clink and bang of hammers, the hurrying of feet, and the din of human voices that now took possession of the solitude, that the affrighted seals, which had hitherto regarded the Bell Rock as their own exclusive property, went off in shoals in quest of new settlements. It is not our purpose to detail the daily, and almost hourly difficulties with which Mr. Stevenson had to contend in a task of seven years' duration, and the dangers to which he was exposed, while he had to battle with an almost impracticable foundation, and the continual war and shifting of elements that opposed every step of his progress. On one occasion, when the Smeaton was drifted out to sea, he was left with thirty-two workmen upon the rock, which, by the progress of the flood-tide, would soon be submerged at least twelve feet, while the two boats which they had at hand could have carried off little more than half of the company—after perhaps a life-and-death struggle with their less fortunate companions. At this critical moment he thus describes their situation, in the third person: "The writer had all along been considering various schemes, providing the men could be kept under command, which might be put in practice for the general safety, in hopes that the Smeaton might be able to pick up the boats to leeward when they were obliged to leave the rock. He was, accordingly, about to address the artificers on the perilous nature of their circumstances, and to propose that all hands should unstrip their upper clothing when the higher parts of the rock were laid under water; that the seamen should remove every unnecessary weight and incumbrance from the boats; that a specified number of men should go into each boat, and that the remainder should hang by the gunwales, while the boats were to be rowed gently towards the Smeaton, as the course to the Pharos or floating light lay rather to windward of the rock. But when he attempted to speak, his mouth was so parched that his tongue refused utterance, and he now learned by experience that the saliva is as necessary as the tongue itself for speech. He then turned to one of the pools on the rock, and lapped a little water, which produced an immediate relief. But what was his happiness, when, on rising from this unpleasant beverage, some one called out ’A boat! a boat!' and on looking around, at no great distance, a large boat was seen through the haze making towards the rock. This at once enlivened and rejoiced every heart. The timeous visitor proved to be James Spink, the Bell Rock pilot, who had come express from Arbroath with letters. Every one felt the most perfect happiness at leaving the Bell Rock this morning, though a very hard and even dangerous passage to the floating light still awaited us, as the wind by this time had increased to a pretty hard gale, accompanied with a considerable swell of sea. The boats left the rock about nine, but did not reach the vessel till twelve o'clock noon, after a most disagreeable and fatiguing passage of three hours. Every one was as completely drenched in water as if he had been dragged astern of the boats." During the two first seasons occupied on the Bell Rock, Mr. Stevenson's abode was the Pharos or floating light, as uncomfortable as well as perilous a home as the worst hulks which justice could have devised for the taming of a sturdy malefactor. Sometimes they had to ride out a gale, and endure all the horrors that precede a shipwreck, without the consolation of feeling that a voyage was in progress, or a port at hand into which they might run at the worst. On one occasion, indeed, after a storm, they found themselves making a voyage in sad earnest, with the prospect of being dashed against the Bell Rock by way of termination for the Pharos had