The first winter had interrupted all work upon the rock; but Taffy and
his men had used the calm days of the following spring and summer to
such purpose that before the end of July the foundations began to show
above high-water neaps, and in September he was able to report that
the building could go forward in any ordinary weather. The workmen were
carried to and from the mainland by a wire hawser and cradle, and the
rising breastwork of masonry protected them from the beat of the sea.
Progress was slow, for each separate stone had to be dovetailed above,
below, and on all sides with the blocks adjoining it, besides being
cemented; and care to be taken that no salt mingled with the fresh
water, or found its way into the joints of the building. Taffy studied
the barometer hour by hour, and kept a constant lookout to windward
against sudden gales.
On November 16th the men had finished their dinner and sat smoking
under the lee of the wall and were expecting the call of the whistle
when Taffy, with his pocket-aneroid in his hand, gave the order to snug
down and man the cradle for shore. They stared. The morning had been
a halcyon one; and the northerly breeze, which had sprung up with the
turn of the tide and was freshing, carried no cloud across the sky. Two
vessels, a brigantine and a three-masted schooner, were merrily reaching
down channel before it, the brigantine leading; at two miles' distance
they could see distinctly the white foam running from her bluff bows,
and her forward deck from bulwark to bulwark as she heeled to it.
One or two grumbled. Half a day's work meant half a day's pay to them.
It was all very well for the Cap'n, who drew his by the week.
"Come, look alive!" Taffy called sharply. He pinned his faith to the
barometer, and as he shut it in its case he glanced at the brigantine
and saw that her crew were busy with the braces, flattening the forward
canvas. "See there, boys. There'll be a gale from the west'ard before
night."
For a minute the brigantine seemed to have run into a calm. The
schooner, half a mile behind her, came reaching along steadily.
"That there two-master's got a fool for skipper," grumbled a voice. But
almost at the moment the wind took her right aback—or would have done so
had the crew not been preparing for it. Her stern swung slowly around
into view, and within two minutes she was fetching away from them on
the port tack, her sails hauled closer and closer as she went. Already
the schooner was preparing to follow suit.
"Snug down, boys! We must be out of this in half an hour."
And sure enough, by the time Taffy gained the cliff by the old
light-house the sky had darkened and a stiff breeze from the northwest,
crossing the tide, was beginning to work up a nasty sea around the rock
and top it from time to time over the masonry and the platforms where,
half an hour before, his men had been standing. The two vessels had
disappeared in the weather; and as Taffy stared in the direction a spit
of rain—the first—took him viciously in the face.
He turned his back to it and hurried homeward. As he passed the
light-house door old Pezzack called out to him:
"Hi! wait a bit! Would 'ee mind seein' Joey home? I dunna what his
mother sent him over here for, not I. He'll get hisself leakin'."
Joey came hobbling out and put his right hand in Taffy's with the fist
doubled.
"What's that in your hand?"