but strange and fascinating as was the voice of the great she, pat could not be quite happy till his father and his mother had got back safe to the rock again. he could not imagine how they could find their way in all the thick wreaths of darkness which shut the lone rock in; but jim told him that very likely it was quite clear a little way off, and that the noise of the horn, which sounded every three minutes, would guide his father safely to the right place. the sea was quite smooth and still; he could approach without any trouble. jim knew that nat would not be easy away from his post, more especially now that this fog had come on, which would entail extra care and extra work. there was a mechanical apparatus worked by steam, which could keep the horn blowing at intervals for a certain number of hours; but that required attention too, and for the present, jim preferred to work it by the bellows, remaining up aloft, and bidding pat keep watch for the boat below, if he liked, but to be very careful not to lose his footing on the rocks, as there would be nobody to come to his help.
pat was not afraid of that now. he always ran about barefoot, and was as sure of foot as a goat by this time.
he stationed himself upon the great square rock overlooking the little creek where the boat usually lay moored, and watched the thick wreaths of vapour as they drifted and circled round him. sometimes, for a few moments, they would clear away for a while, and he would be able to look out over the grey waters for some little distance. then they would close over again, and shut out even the sight of the waves not ten feet below him, and pat would feel as though he were quite, quite alone in a world of fog, with only the great horn overhead for company. but it was company, and kept him in mind that jim was not far away, and so he was not frightened, although very much surprised and perplexed by this strange new experience.
it might have been an hour that he had been watching, when he heard the plash of oars, sounding a long way off, though in reality they were quite close, and almost immediately afterwards he saw the outline of the boat looming large against the background of fog, and uttered a joyful shout.
"father! dear daddy! mother, is that you? i was so afraid you would never find your way home; but jim said you would. did you hear her blow the horn? doesn't she do it well? isn't it nice that she can wake up when she's wanted? she woke up and blew directly jim told her there was a fog. isn't it queer to be all thick like this? it isn't dark, but we can't hardly see anything. daddy, did you ever see anything quite so funny before? mother, did you?"
"i've seen plenty of sea-fogs in my time, my little son," answered nat, as he brought in the boat, and moored it safely in its niche; "and i am always glad to see them go, for they do more ill to ships, i take it, than storms and tempests. i'm glad to find myself here; for it's ill being at sea in such thickness as this. however, i think it will lighten a bit soon. the bank isn't a deep one, so far as i can see, and it must have pretty nigh drifted over us by now—not but what it may come back again a dozen times before the day is over. there is no telling what a fog will do. it's more capricious than a woman—eh, wifie?"
eileen smiled as she stepped ashore. her face was rather pale.
"i know more of women than of fogs, nat. i don't know if they be much alike. pat, darling, it's glad i am to see you safe and sound again. i'll not have to go ashore for a long while now. i've brought everything we shall want for many a month to come."
almost as she spoke the fog began to lift, and in a few moments, to the astonishment of pat, the sun was shining again quite brightly. a breeze sprang up and drove the floating vapours away, dispersing them hither and thither, and making the waves dance and foam round the rocks. the great horn ceased to make its doleful cry, and jim came down from above to help to unload the boat.
"have you got my parcel, mother?" asked pat, edging up to her, and speaking in a whisper, as thing after thing was brought in by the two busy men. the mother smiled and nodded, and presently she opened a big square package, and drew forth a small parcel tied up in brown paper, at sight of which pat's face kindled all over.
"is it a nice one, mother? and did you spend my bright half-crown?" and on being satisfied upon these points, pat vanished with his treasure into an inner room, and proceeded to untie the string and carefully open the mysterious parcel.
when he had removed the two wrappings of paper, his eyes brightened and glowed with delight. he saw a beautiful book, with red-gold edges, in a soft black morocco cover, and he turned the leaves with reverent, loving fingers, and placed the book-mark in the place where he had been planning to read next to jim—the place where the story of jesus began that they had been talking over this very day.
"it's a prettier bible than mine," thought the child; "but mother gave me mine, so, of course, i like it best, and i shall always keep it as long as i live. but jim will like this, i know; and he hasn't got any bible, though he says he can read, and used to like to read once. i'm sure he'll like it. i'll go up to-night and give it him when he has his watch. he can read it up there in the tower when he's not attending to her. there's plenty of light, and in the winter he says the nights do seem long. it'll be nice for him to read about jesus, and all the stories that are in the bible."
so as soon as supper was over, whilst his father and mother were still busy putting away the ample stores of provisions and clothing that they had brought from the mainland, pat stole upstairs with his treasure in his hands, and came and took his favourite seat by jim's side, still keeping the book safely hidden beneath his jacket.
"jim, don't you never read of a night up here alone?" he asked.
"i don't often now. i did use to read the paper a bit, whenever i get a few sent over from shore; but one gets out of the habit of it, and sometimes there's nothing to read for days and weeks together."
"i like reading," said pat; "and i thought you'd perhaps like it too if you had something interesting to read. i've brought you a book. mother got it for me to-day. it's yours now, for i've written your name inside, so that nobody can't ever take it away from you; and i think it would be nice if you would read it sometimes in the night. i'm almost sure you'll like it, if once you begin." and with a red but happy face, pat pulled out his treasure, and presented it shyly to jim.
the man took it and looked at it, and then at the child, as though he didn't know what to make of so strange a thing as a present. perhaps it was a dozen years since he had received a gift of any kind.
"be it for me, little master?" he asked in a puzzled voice.
"yes, to be sure it is," answered pat, beaming. "i got mother to choose it for you, because she always chooses so well. it's a bible, jim. it's got all the stories in that we like to talk about, and all the story of jesus—what we talked about to-day, and you liked. i've put the mark in one of the places where it begins about him. you can read it yourself, if you like, whilst you're watching her."
it was so long since jim had ever received such a thing as a present that he scarcely knew how to thank the child, but kept turning the book over and over in his hands with a sheepish look on his face. however, pat was easily satisfied, and he knew that jim was more pleased than he showed; so he slipped down the stairs again in a happy frame of mind, and found his father examining the weather-glass below—a mysterious object in the child's eyes, which he always regarded with awe.
"a good thing we went ashore to-day, wife," pat heard his father say. "for if i don't mistake me, we'll have a spell of rough weather on us soon. the glass is going down steady and fast. by to-morrow morning, i take it, it'll be blowing half a gale of wind."
pat looked wonderingly at the glass, and could not see that it had moved from its niche. he never could understand why his father would say that it was higher some days than it was on others; but it was one of those things that he never asked about—one of those mysteries that he pondered over in secret with a sense of wonder and rather fascinating awe.
next morning he was not awakened, as he had been of late, by a bar of sunshine slanting across his bed and touching his face. he awoke later than his wont to a sound of moaning and splashing which he had not heard before; and when he jumped up and ran to the window he saw that there were heavy banks of cloud scudding across the sky, whilst the sea had turned from blue to grey, and was dashing itself against the rocks with greater vehemence than he had ever seen before. there was a moaning sound all around the walls of his home, rising sometimes to a mournful shriek. the little boy was glad to get on his clothes, and find a glowing fire burning in the living room. there had come a chilliness into the air, and it seemed as if summer had suddenly taken flight. his mother looked up at him as he came, and greeted him with a smile.
"well, pat; so father is right after all, and here are the gales come upon us all sudden-like at the last. we shall have to make up our minds to a deal of moaning and tossing and tumbling if we are to live all the winter in a lighthouse! you'll be a brave boy, my little son, and not mind the wind and the rain and the dashing of the waves? it'll not frighten you to hear it day after day and week after week, will it, honey?"
"frighten me?" asked pat, almost indignantly. "why, mother, no! i'm almost a man now, and men aren't frightened by noises. i shall help father and jim to take care of the lighthouse, and i'll help you down here when i'm not too busy upstairs with her. jim says there's a deal more to do in winter than in summer, and sometimes they'll be very glad of a third man to help. i shall be the third man here. i shall have lots to do and think about!" and pat looked for all the world like an important little turkey-cock, and went running up the stairs to see what was going on there, whilst his mother looked after him with a smile, and breathed a thankful prayer to god for giving back her child such full measure of health and strength.
the next weeks were very interesting and exciting ones to pat. the wind blew strongly and steadily, and the sea ran higher and higher. he used to go out daily into the balcony round the lamp-house, and stand "to le'ward," as jim used to call it, whilst he watched the great crested waves come racing along, and breaking into sheets of spray at the foot of the reef—spray which sometimes rose almost as high as he was standing, and would often make the mackintosh coat in which he was always wrapped fairly run down with water.
jim would stand beside him sometimes, and tell him how in winter storms the spray would dash not only as far as the gallery, but right over the top of the lighthouse. pat found it hard to believe this at first, but as he came to learn more and more of the marvellous power of the sea, he disbelieved nothing; and used sometimes to say with awe to jim, when he had finished one of his stories of shipwreck and peril—
"it do seem wonderful that the sea obeyed jesus when he was here, and went down and got still just when he told it to. mother says god holds the sea in the hollow of his hand. jim, i think god's hand must be very wonderful; don't you?"
perhaps nothing so helped those two to understand the mighty power of god as their lonely life in the lighthouse during those stormy autumn days. if any story in the bible reading seemed too marvellous for belief, it only needed pat to point over the sea with his little hand, and remark reflectively, "but you see, jim, he made all that!" to convince them both that nothing was too hard for the lord. the story of peter's attempt to walk on the sea was one of their favourite readings, when once they had come across it. jim was wonderfully taken by the tale, and would have the mark kept in the place for a long time.
"i read it every night up here alone," he said once to pat, "and i can't help wondering if i could ever walk on the sea if i asked him to help me."
"perhaps he would if you were going to him," said pat reflectively. "i don't know if he would for anything else. you see, he'd said 'come' to peter, and so he could do it, until he got frightened and forgot the lord had called him. mother says that was why he began to sink—because he'd begun to think about himself, instead of trusting it all to jesus. if he were to say 'come' to you, jim, and you were to go out to meet him, i expect it would be all right. but he don't seem to call folks in that sort of way now."
new experiences were becoming common enough in pat's life now, but he never forgot one curious sight which he was once called up from his bed to see in the middle of the night. he had gone to bed amid an unusual tumult of sound—moaning wind and dashing spray, and sometimes such a bang as a great wave struck the wall of the tower—that for some time he could scarcely get off to sleep, seasoned though he was to such sounds.
then, in the middle of the night, he was awakened by jim coming to fetch him, and when he was once fairly awake, he was delighted to hurry into his warm suit of weather-proof clothes, and follow jim upstairs, for he thought that the time had surely come when the services of the third man were required, and very grand and important he felt to occupy that proud position.
but it was not quite what he thought, after all; for though his father was on watch as well as jim whilst the storm raged round the lighthouse, there was nothing very much to be done, save to see that the light burned brightly, and pat wondered for a moment why he had been summoned.
"jim said you'd like to see the birds, sonny," said his father, taking him in his strong arms, and holding him up near to the glass: "so i said he could fetch you. look! do you see them flying against the glass? it's the light as brings them these stormy nights. they know they'll get perching-room somewhere round, if they get nothing else. see their white wings flitting to and fro, pat? jim says in the morning we shall pick up a score or so of dead birds in the gallery, as have dashed their lives out flying straight against the glass."
pat looked and began to see, for at first his eyes were dazzled. it was just as his father had said: outside the glass house were multitudes of wild sea birds, flitting to and fro like ghosts in the black darkness, and every now and then dashing themselves against the strong dome of glass with a noise which told of the violence of the effort. there seemed to the child to be an endless myriad of white and grey birds circling round his sea-girt home, and he looked at them in wonder and awe, for he had never before seen so strange a sight.
"do they want to get in, father?" he asked softly. "oh, let us open the door and take them in. they are frightened at the storm. why should we not let them come in and warm themselves here?"
"they would only be worse scared than they are, pat," answered his father, "and would fly into the lamp and hurt themselves and it. poor foolish things! they don't know what they come for themselves; it's just the light attracts them. we'll get feathers enough to stuff a pillow for your mother to-morrow, if jim is right about what we shall find outside."
but pat was quite unhappy about the poor foolish wild birds driven seawards by the gale, and coming to the lighthouse, as it were, for shelter.
"let me go outside and see them there," he said; and jim wrapped him up warmly and carried him out for a few minutes.
it was a still stranger sight out there to see the strange antics of the bewildered birds, and to hear their cries and screams, which made pat shiver in spite of himself, remembering the stories his mother sometimes told him on winter evenings of the "banshee" and its wailing cry. he was dreadfully sorry for the birds, but they would not let him come near them, and he saw that nothing could be done for them.
"i suppose god knows about them," he said at last, with a great sigh. "if he cares for sparrows, i suppose he cares for sea-gulls, too. if he knows, i suppose we need not mind very much. but i should have liked to take them in and feed them, and make them warm and comfortable. they sound so very sad; but perhaps god will comfort them best."
and then jim carried the child down to his warm bed again, and he fell asleep, thinking of the birds and their strange noises and ways.
he awoke with the same strange noise in his ears. he was sure it was a voice like that of a sea-bird. he started up and looked about him, and then the sound came again. it was broad daylight now, and the noise seemed to proceed from the adjoining living room. pat jumped up, and ran in without troubling to put on his clothes till his curiosity was satisfied.
"mother, what is it? what is that queer noise?" he asked; and then he saw a basket standing in a corner of the room, and the noise seemed to proceed out of that.
"go and get dressed, dear," answered his mother, "and then jim, may be, will be down again. it's a wild bird that has hurt itself that he's got there. he thought you might like to have it to take care of till it got well, but it's so wild and fierce, and bites so, that i daren't open the basket till he comes. jim says they fly at folks' eyes sometimes; but he seems to know how to manage it. get you dressed, honey, and then he'll show it you."
pat was not long dressing that morning, and as soon as jim could be got down from the tower, the basket was opened, and the treasure inside displayed to the child's admiring eyes. it was a young gull, whose wing was badly broken—so badly, that jim declared it would never fly again, and was of opinion that the most merciful thing to do would be to pinion it—since it was the end of the wing that was broken—and bring it up to be a tame bird upon the rock, living there and catching fish in the pool, but kept from swimming away altogether by a light fetter round its foot. he had kept birds on the rock before now that had hurt themselves against the glass, though when they had grown quite strong and well they had usually taken themselves off. still, he had sometimes kept pets for some considerable time; and pat was all on fire to tame this gull, and make a playmate of it. it was not a very promising playmate at first, for it was wild and fierce, almost past management, and pat thought it would have died under jim's hands when he performed with skill and rapidity the operation which was soon seen to be a wonderful relief to the suffering bird. it refused food for two days, and the child feared it would certainly die; but his patience and care were unwearied, and at last, on the third day, it began to feed from his hand, being too weak to fear him; and after a few mouthfuls of fish greedily swallowed, it rewarded its friend by a vigorous peck on the hand, which nearly drew blood. pat, however, was not at all discouraged, but looked upon it as a sign of returning health; and by slow degrees, as the days and weeks wore away, a certain confidence and friendship grew up between the wild bird and the little boy who tended him so faithfully and regularly.
jim contrived a little aviary for the bird—if so grand a word could be applied to the wire erection down among the rocks, where the bird could get salt-baths at high water, and fish in the pools left by the retiring tide—by the side of which pat spent hours every day teaching the gull to come and take food from his hands, and gradually establishing a freemasonry between them, which developed at last into a real friendship, so that the little boy could go fearlessly into the cage at the wider and taller end against the house, and call the gull to perch upon his knee, and take bits of fish even from between his lips, and take any liberties he chose with his captive without fear of a rebuff.
this new pastime was a source of immense pleasure to the little boy through the long dreary days of winter. he never felt dull in his strange home; and with jim to talk to, the lamp to watch, and his bird to teach and tame, the days flew by all too fast, and he could scarcely believe when christmas was actually upon them.
it was a queer christmas, spent amongst the sounds and sights of the lone rock, with the wild waves lashing the walls of his home, and the moaning of the wind for the only music. but pat was growing used to the life, and did not call it queer now. it seemed far stranger to think of going back to the crowded court, where they never saw or heard the sea, and where even the sky and the air seemed quite different.
but it was interesting to explain to jim about christmas day being jesus's birthday; and the child discovered to his great satisfaction and surprise that it was jim's own birthday, too. he had been born on christmas day, just as pat had been born on patrick's day, to the great satisfaction of his irish mother; and so the festival of christmas was kept as brightly as it was possible, and neither nat nor his wife could fail to remark how changed in many ways jim was from what he had been in the spring, when first they had come to the rock.
"i believe it's the love of the lord coming into his heart that's doing it," said nat, as he sat over the fire with his bible, when pat had gone to bed, and jim was up aloft. "he took first to the child, and the child has led him to the lord. it's often the way with us poor frail human creatures. we seem as though we must have some human hand to lead us, though the lord is holding out his wounded hand all the while, and bidding us take that. it's wonderful true those words of his about the babes and sucklings. it seems to me that the heart of a little child is coming in place of the hard heart jim seemed to have before. may be the lord has a work for him to do yet. it may be we were sent here partly for him. one never knows where the work will meet one in the vineyard; but we must try to be ready for it when it comes."
