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THE STORY OF THE ROCK, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.

CHAPTER ONE.

WRECK OF WINSTANLEY'S LIGHTHOUSE.

"At mischief again, of course: always at it."

Mrs Potter said this angrily, and with much emphasis, as she seized her
son by the arm and dragged him out of a pool of dirty water, into which
he had tumbled.

"Always at mischief of one sort or another, he is," continued Mrs
Potter, with increasing wrath, "morning, noon, and night--he is;
tumblin' about an' smashin' things for ever he does; he'll break my
heart at last--he will. There: take that!"

"That," which poor little Tommy was desired to take, was a sounding box
on the ear, accompanied by a violent shake of the arm which would have
drawn that limb out of its socket if the child's bones and muscles had
not been very tightly strung together.

Mrs Potter was a woman of large body and small brain. In respect of
reasoning power, she was little better than the wooden cuckoo which came
out periodically from the interior of the clock that stood over her own
fireplace and announced the hours. She entertained settled convictions
on a few subjects, in regard to which she resembled a musical box. If
you set her going on any of these, she would harp away until she had
played the tune out, and then begin over again; but she never varied.
Reasons, however good, or facts, however weighty, were utterly powerless
to penetrate her skull: her "settled convictions" were not to be
unsettled by any such means. Men might change their minds; philosophers
might see fit to alter their opinions; weaklings of both sexes and all
ages might trim their sails in accordance with the gales of advancing
knowledge, but Mrs Potter--no: never! _her_ colours were nailed to the
mast. Like most people who unite a strong will with an empty head, she
was "wiser in her own conceit than eleven men that can render a reason:"
in brief, she was obstinate.

One of her settled convictions was that her little son Tommy was "as
full of mischief as a hegg is full of meat." Another of these
convictions was that children of all ages are tough; that it does them
good to pull them about in a violent manner, at the risk even of
dislocating their joints. It mattered nothing to Mrs Potter that many
of her female friends and acquaintances held a different opinion. Some
of these friends suggested to her that the hearts of the poor little
things were tender, as well as their muscles and bones