a loud cry, and shouted, "hold
on! Ease off up there! Hold o-o-on! D'ye hear?"

"Arrah! howld yer noise, an' I'll hear better," cried Teddy Maroon,
looking over the top edge of the lighthouse.

"My thumb's caught i' the chain!" yelled Dorkin. "Ease it off."

"Och! poor thing," exclaimed Teddy, springing back and casting loose the
chain. "Are ye aisy now?" he cried, again looking down at his friend.

"All right: hoist away!" shouted Stobbs, another of the men, who could
scarce refrain from laughing at the rueful countenance of his comrade as
he surveyed his crushed thumb.

Up went the stone, and while it was ascending some of the men brought
forward another to follow it.

"There comes the boat," observed Mr Rudyerd to one of his assistant
engineers, as he shut up a pocket telescope with which he had been
surveying the distant shore. "I find it necessary to leave you to-day,
Mr Franks, rather earlier than usual; but that matters little, as
things are going smoothly here. See that you keep the men at work as
long as possible. If the swell that is beginning to rise should
increase, it may compel you to knock off before dark, but I hope it
won't."

"It would be well, sir, I think," said Franks, "to make John Potter
overseer in place of Williamson; he is a better and steadier man. If
you have no objection--"

"None in the least," replied Rudyerd. "I have thought of promoting
Potter for some time past. Make the change by all means."

"Please, sir," said Williamson, approaching at that moment, "I've just
been at the top of the building an' observed a French schooner bearing
down from the south-west."

"Well, what of that?" demanded Rudyerd.

"Why, sir," said Williamson with some hesitation in his manner, "p'raps
it's a man-of-war, sir."

"And if it be so, what then?" said Rudyerd with a smile; "you don't
suppose they'll fire a broadside at an unfinished lighthouse, do you? or
are you afraid they'll take the Eddystone Rock in tow, and carry you
into a French port?"

"I don't know, sir," replied Williamson with an offended look; "I only
thought that as we are at war with France just now, it was my duty to
report what I had seen."

"Quite right, quite right," replied Rudyerd, good-humouredly, "I'll
record the fact in our journal. Meanwhile see that the men don't have
their attention taken up with it."

By this time the small boat, which the chief engineer had ordered to
come off to take him on shor