Page:Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869) v1.djvu/152

124 weather-cocks,—nothing but masks, statues, foliage, volutes, reliefs, figures large and small, medallions with inscriptions. "Pax in bello," said the Eddystone lighthouse. (We may as well observe, by the way, that this declaration of peace did not always disarm the ocean. Winstanley repeated it on a lighthouse which he constructed at his own expense, on a wild spot near Plymouth. The tower being finished, he shut himself up in it to have it tried by the tempest. The storm came, and carried off the lighthouse and Winstanley in it.) Such excessive adornment afforded too great a hold to the hurricane; as generals too brilliantly equipped in battle, draw the enemy's fire. Besides whimsical designs in stone, they were loaded with whimsical designs in iron, copper, and wood. On the sides of the lighthouse there jutted out, clinging to the walls among the arabesques, engines of every description, useful and useless,—windlasses, tackles, pullies, counterpoises, ladders, cranes, grapnels. On the pinnacle around the light, delicately wrought iron-work held great iron chandeliers, in which were placed pieces of rope steeped in resin,—wicks which burned doggedly, and which no wind extinguished; and from top to bottom the tower was covered by a complication of sea standards, banderoles, banners, flags, and pennons, which rose from stage to stage, from story to story,—a medley of all hues, all shapes, all heraldic devices, all signals, all confusion, up to the light-chamber, making in the storm a gay riot of colour about the blaze. This insolent light on the brink of the abyss seemed to breathe defiance, and inspired shipwrecked men with a spirit of daring.

But the Caskets Light was not one of this kind. It was at that period a primitive sort of lighthouse. Henry I. built it after the loss of the "White Ship." It was an unpretending tower perched upon a rock and