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