The Lighthouse, R. M. Ballantyne [best mystery novels of all time .txt] 📗

with amazement, and holding on to the iron frame with its claws. Presently its claws lost hold, and it fell off into outer darkness.

"What think ye o' that for a beauty?" said Forsyth. Ruby's eyes, being set free from the fascination of the owl's stare, now made him aware of the fact that hundreds of birds of all kinds—crows, magpies, sparrows, tomtits, owls, larks, mavises, blackbirds, &c. &c.—were fluttering round the lantern outside, apparently bent on ascertaining the nature of the wonderful light within.

"Ah! poor things," said Forsyth, in answer to Ruby's look of wonder, "they often visit us in foggy weather. I suppose they get out to sea in the fog and can't find their way back to land, and then some of them chance to cross our light and take refuge on it."

"Now I'll go out and get to-morrow's dinner," said Dumsby. He went out accordingly, and, walking round the balcony that encircled the base of the lantern, was seen to put his hand up and quietly take down and wring the necks of such birds as he deemed suitable for his purpose. It seemed a cruel act to Ruby, but when he came to think of it he felt that, as they were to be stewed at any rate, the more quickly they were killed the better!

He observed that the birds kept fluttering about, alighting for a few moments and flying off again, all the time that Dumsby was at work, yet Dumsby never failed to seize his prey.

Presently the man came in with a small basket full of game.

"Now, Ruby," said he, "I'll bet a sixpence that you don't catch a bird within five minutes."

"I don't bet such large sums usually, but I'll try," said Ruby, going out.

He tried and failed. Just as the five minutes were expiring, however, the owl happened to alight before his nose, so he "nabbed" it, and carried it in triumphantly.

"That ain't a bird," said Dumsby.

"It's not a fish," retorted Ruby; "but how is it that you caught them so easily, and I found it so difficult?"

"Because, lad, you must do it at the right time. You watch w'en the focus of a revolvin' light is comin' full in a bird's face. The moment it does so 'e's dazzled, and you grab 'im. If you grab too soon or too late, 'e's away. That's 'ow it is, and they're capital heatin', as you'll find."

Thus much for Ruby's astonishment. Now for his being stunned.

Late that night the fog cleared away, and the bells were stopped. After a long chat with his friends, Ruby mounted to the library and went to bed. Later still the fog returned, and the bells were again set agoing. Both of them being within a few feet of Ruby's head, they awakened him with a bang that caused him to feel as if the room in which he lay were a bell and his own head the tongue thereof.

At first the sound was solemnizing, then it was saddening. After a time it became exasperating, and then maddening. He tried to sleep, but he only tossed. He tried to meditate, but he only wandered—not "in dreams", however. He tried to laugh, but the laugh degenerated into a growl. Then he sighed, and the sigh ended in a groan. Finally, he got up and walked up and down the floor till his legs were cold, when he turned into bed again, very tired, and fell asleep, but not to rest—to dream.

He dreamt that he was at the forge again, and that he and Dove were trying to smash their anvils with the sledge-hammers—bang and bang about But the anvil would not break. At last he grew desperate, hit the horn off, and then, with another terrific blow, smashed the whole affair to atoms!

This startled him a little, and he awoke sufficiently to become aware of the fog-bells.

Again he dreamed. Minnie was his theme now, but, strange to say, he felt little or no tenderness towards her. She was beset by a hundred ruffians in pea-jackets and sou'westers. Something stirred him to madness. He rushed at the foe, and began to hit out at them right and left. The hitting was slow, but sure—regular as clockwork. First the right, then the left, and at each blow a seaman's nose was driven into his head, and a seaman's body lay flat on the ground. At length they were all floored but one—the last and the biggest. Ruby threw all his remaining strength into one crashing blow, drove his fist right through his antagonist's body, and awoke with a start to find his knuckles bleeding.

"Hang these bells!" he exclaimed, starting up and gazing round him in despair. Then he fell back on his pillow in despair, and went to sleep in despair.

Once more he dreamed. He was going to church now, dressed in a suit of the finest broadcloth, with Minnie on his arm, clothed in pure white, emblematic, it struck him, of her pure gentle spirit. Friends were with him, all gaily attired, and very happy, but unaccountably silent. Perhaps it was the noise of the wedding-bells that rendered their voices inaudible. He was struck by the solemnity as well as the pertinacity of these wedding-bells as he entered the church. He was puzzled too, being a Presbyterian, why he was to be married in church, but being a man of liberal mind, he made no objection to it.

They all assembled in front of the pulpit, into which the clergyman, a very reverend but determined man, mounted with a prayer book in his hand. Ruby was puzzled again. He had not supposed that the pulpit was the proper place, but modestly attributed this to his ignorance.

"Stop those bells!" said the clergyman, with stern solemnity; but they went on.

"Stop them, I say!" he roared in a voice of thunder. The sexton, pulling the ropes in the middle of the church, paid no attention.

Exasperated beyond endurance, the clergyman hurled the prayer book at the sexton's head, and felled him! Still the bells went on of their own accord.

"Stop! sto-o-o-o-p! I say," he yelled fiercely, and, hitting the pulpit with his fist, he split it from top to bottom.

Minnie cried "Shame!" at this, and from that moment the bells ceased.

Whether it was that the fog-bells ceased at that time, or that Minnie's voice charmed Ruby's thoughts away, we cannot tell, but certain it is that the severely tried youth became entirely oblivious of everything. The marriage-party vanished with the bells; Minnie, alas! faded away also; finally, the roar of the sea round the Bell Rock, the rock itself, its lighthouse and its inmates, and all connected with it, faded from the sleeper's mind, and

"like the baseless fabric of a vision, Left not a wrack behind."

CHAPTER XXXIII CONCLUSION

Facts are facts; there is no denying that. They cannot be controverted; nothing can overturn them, or modify them, or set them aside. There they stand in naked simplicity: mildly contemptuous alike of sophists and theorists.

Immortal facts! Bacon founded on you; Newton found you out; Dugald Stewart and all his fraternity reasoned on you, and followed in your wake. What would this world be without facts? Rest assured, reader, that those who ignore facts and prefer fancies are fools. We say it respectfully. We have no intention of being personal, whoever you may be.

On the morning after Ruby was cast on the Bell Rock, our old friend Ned O'Connor (having been appointed one of the lighthouse-keepers, and having gone for his fortnight ashore in the order of his course) sat on the top of the signal-tower at Arbroath with a telescope at his eye directed towards the lighthouse, and became aware of a fact,—a fact which seemed to be contradicted by those who ought to have known better.

Ned soliloquized that morning. His soliloquy will explain the circumstances to which we refer; we therefore record it here. "What's that? Sure there's something wrong wid me eye intirely this mornin'. Howld on" (he wiped it here, and applying it again to the telescope, proceeded); "wan, tshoo, three, four! No mistake about it. Try agin. Wan, tshoo, three, FOUR! An' yet the ball's up there as cool as a cookumber, tellin' a big lie; ye know ye are," continued Ned, apostrophizing the ball, and readjusting the glass.

"There ye are, as bold as brass—av ye're not copper—tellin' me that everything goin' on as usual, whin I can see with me two eyes (wan after the other) that there's four men on the rock, whin there should be only three! Well, well," continued Ned, after a pause, and a careful examination of the Bell Rock, which being twelve miles out at sea could not be seen very distinctly in its lower parts, even through a good glass, "the day afther to-morrow 'll settle the question, Misther Ball, for then the Relief goes off, and faix, if I don't guv' ye the lie direct I'm not an Irishman."

With this consolatory remark, Ned O'Connor descended to the rooms below, and told his wife, who immediately told all the other wives and the neighbours, so that ere long the whole town of Arbroath became aware that there was a mysterious stranger, a fourth party, on the Bell Rock!

Thus it came to pass that, when the relieving boat went off, numbers of fishermen and sailors and others watched it depart in the morning, and increased numbers of people of all sorts, among whom were many of the old hands who had wrought at the building of the lighthouse, crowded the pier to watch its return in the afternoon.

As soon as the boat left the rock, those who had "glasses" announced that there was an "extra man in her".

Speculation remained on tiptoe for nearly three hours, at the end of which time the boat drew near.

"It's a man, anyhow," observed Captain Ogilvie, who was one of those near the outer end of the pier.

"I say," observed his friend the "leftenant", who was looking through a telescope, "if—that's—not—Ruby—Brand—I'll eat my hat without sauce!"

"You don't mean—let me see," cried the captain, snatching the glass out of his friend's hand, and applying it to his eye. "I do believe!—yes! it is Ruby, or his ghost!"

By this time the boat was near enough for many of his old friends to recognize him, and Ruby, seeing that some of the faces were familiar to him, rose in the stern of the boat, took off his hat and waved it.

This was the signal for a tremendous cheer from those who knew our hero; and those who did not know him, but knew that there was something peculiar and romantic in his case, and in the manner of his arrival, began to cheer from sheer sympathy; while the little boys, who were numerous, and who love to cheer for cheering's sake alone, yelled at the full pitch of their lungs, and waved their ragged caps as joyfully as if the King of England were about to land upon their shores!

The boat soon swept into the harbour, and Ruby's friends, headed by Captain Ogilvy, pressed forward to receive and greet him. The captain embraced him, the friends surrounded him, and almost pulled him to pieces; finally, they lifted him on their shoulders, and bore him in triumphal procession to his mother's cottage.

And where was Minnie all this time? She had indeed heard the rumour that something had occurred at the Bell Rock; but, satisfied from what she heard that it could be nothing very serious, she was content to remain at home and wait for the news. To say truth, she was too much taken up with her own sorrows and anxieties to care as much for public matters as she had been wont to do.

When the uproarious procession drew near, she was sitting at Widow
Brand's feet, "comforting her" in her usual way.

Before the procession turned the corner of the street leading to his mother's cottage, Ruby made a desperate effort to address the crowd, and succeeded in arresting their attention.

"Friends, friends!" he cried, "it's very good of you, very kind; but my mother is old and feeble; she might be hurt if we were to come on her in this fashion. We must go in quietly."

"True, true," said those who bore him, letting him down, "so, good day, lad; good day. A shake o' your flipper; give us your hand; glad you're