The contrast was pleasant; repose after toil,--for stone-cutting in the
yard on shore was rest compared with the labour at the Rock. Steady,
regular, quiet progress; stone after stone added to the great pile,
tested and ready for shipment at the appointed time. The
commander-in-chief planning, experimenting, superintending. The men
busy as bees; and, last but not least, delightful evenings with friends,
and recountings of the incidents of the war. Such is the record of the
winter.
The spring of 1758 came; summer advanced. The builders assumed the
offensive, and sent out skirmishers to the Rock, where they found that
the enemy had taken little or no rest during the winter, and were as
hard at it as ever. Little damage, however, had been done.
The attacking party suffered some defeats at the outset. They found
that their buoy was lost, and the mooring chain of the _Buss_ had sunk
during the winter. It was fished up, however, but apparently might as
well have been let lie, for it could not hold the _Buss_, which broke
loose during a gale, and had to run for Plymouth Sound. Again, on 3rd
June; another buoy was lost, and bad weather continued till July. Then,
however, a general and vigorous assault was made, the result being
"great progress," so that, on the 8th of August, a noteworthy point was
reached.
On that day the fourteenth "course" was laid, and this completed the
"solid" part of the lighthouse. It rose 35 feet above the foundation.
From this point the true _house_ may be said to have commenced, for,
just above this course, the opening for the door was left, and the
little space in the centre for the spiral staircase which was to lead to
the first room.
As if to mark their disapproval of this event, the angry winds and
waves, during the same month, raised an unusually furious commotion
while one of the yawls went into the "Gut" or pool, which served as a
kind of harbour, to aid one of the stone boats.
"She won't get out o' that _this_ night," said John Bowden, alluding to
the yawl, as he stood on the top of the "solid" where his comrades were
busy working, "the wind's gettin' up from the east'ard."
"If she don't," replied one of the men, "we'll have to sleep where we
are."
"Slape!" exclaimed Maroon, looking up from the great stone whose joints
he had been carefully cementing, "it's little slape you'll do here,
boys. Av we're not washed off entirely we'll have to howld on by our
teeth and nails. It's a cowld look-out."
Teddy was right. The yawl being unable to get out of the Gut, the men
in it were obliged to "lie on their oars" all night, and those on the
top of the building, where there was scarcely shelter for a fly, felt
both the "look-out" and the look-in so "cowld" that they worked all
night as the only means of keeping themselves awake and comparatively
warm. It was a trying situation; a hard night, as it were "in the
trenches,"--but it was their first and last experience of the kind.
Thus foot by foot--often baffled, but never conquered--Smeaton and his
men rose steadily above the waves until they reached a height of
thirty-five feet from the foundation, and had got as far as the
store-room (the first apartment) of the building. This was on the 2nd
of October, on which day all the stones required for that season were
put into this store-room; but on the 7th of the same month the enemy
made a grand assault in force, and caused these energetic labourers to
beat a retreat. It was then resolved that they should again retire into
winter quarters. Everything on the Rock was therefore "made taut" and
secure against the foe, and the workers returned to the shore, whence
they beheld the waves beating against their tower with such fury that
the sprays rose high above it.
The season could not close, however, without an exhibition of the
peculiar aptitude of the _Buss_ for disastrous action! On the 8th that
inimitable vessel--styled by Teddy Maroon a "tub," and by the other men,
variously, a "bumboat," a "puncheon," and a "brute" began to tug with
tremendous violence at her cable.
"Ah then, darlin'," cried Maroon, apostrophising her, "av ye go on like
that much longer it's snappin' yer cable ye'll be after."
"It wouldn't be the first time," growled John Bowden, as he leaned
against the gale and watched with gravity of countenance a huge billow
whose crest was blown off in sheets of spray as it came rolling towards
them.
"Howld on!" cried Teddy Maroon, in anxiety.
If his order was meant for the _Buss_ it was flatly disobeyed, for that
charming example of naval architecture, presenting her bluff bows to the
billow, snapt the cable and went quietly off to leeward!
"All hands ahoy!" roared William Smart as he rushed to the foresail
halyards.
The summons was not needed. All the men were present, and each knew
exactly what to do in the circumstances. But what avails the strength
and capacity of man when his weapon is useless?
"She'll _never_ beat into Plymouth Sound wi' the wind in this
direction," observed one of the masons, when sail had been set.
"Beat!" exclaimed another contemptuously, "she can't beat with the wind
in _any_ direction."
"An' yit, boys," cried Maroon, "she may be said to be a first-rate
baiter, for she always baits _us_ complaitly."
"I never, no I never did see such a scow!" said John Bowden, with a
deepening growl of indignation, "she's more like an Irish pig than a--"
"Ah then, don't be hard upon the poor pigs of owld Ireland," interrupted
Maroon, pathetically.
"Bah!" continued Bowden, "I only wish we had the man that planned her on
board, that we might keel-haul him. I've sailed in a'most every kind of
craft that floats--from a Chinese junk to a British three-decker, and
between the two extremes there's a pretty extensive choice of
washin'-tubs, but the equal o' this here _Buss_ I never did see--no
never; take another haul on the foretops'l halyards, boys, and shut your
potato-traps for fear the wind blows your teeth overboard. Look alive!"
That the _Buss_ deserved the character so emphatically given to her was
proved by the fact that, after an unsuccessful attempt to reach the
Sound, she was finally run into Dartmouth Roads, and, shortly
afterwards, her ungainly tossings, for that season, came to a close.