e. I saw him just before he went off to the rock
to-night, an' I offered to engage, but he said he didn't want me."

"What?" exclaimed Mrs Potter, with sudden indignation: "didn't want
you--you who has served 'im, off an' on, at that light'ouse for the last
six year an' more while it wor a buildin'! Ah, that's gratitood, that
is; that's the way some folk shows wot their consciences is made of;
treats you like a pair of old shoes, they does, an' casts you off w'en
you're not wanted: hah!"

Mrs Potter entered her dwelling as she spoke, and banged the door
violently by way of giving emphasis to her remark.

"Don't be cross, old girl," said John, patting her shoulder: "I hope
_you_ won't cast me off like a pair of old shoes when you're tired of
me! But, after all, I have no reason to complain. You know I have laid
by a good lump of money while I was at work on the Eddystone; besides,
we can't expect men to engage us when they don't require us; and if I
had got employed, it would not have bin for long, being only a matter of
repairs. Mr Winstanley made a strange speech, by the way, as the boat
was shoving off with his men. I was standin' close by when a friend o'
his came up an' said he thowt the light'ouse was in a bad way an'
couldn't last long. Mr Winstanley, who is uncommon sure o' the
strength of his work, he replies, says he--`I only wish to be there in
the greatest storm that ever blew under the face of heaven, to see what
the effect will be.' Them's his very words, an'it did seem to me an
awful wish--all the more that the sky looked at the time very like as if
dirty weather was brewin' up somewhere."

"I 'ope he may 'ave 'is wish," said Mrs Potter firmly, "an' that the
waves may--"

"Martha!" said John, in a solemn voice, holding up his finger, "think
what you're sayin'."

"Well, I don't mean no ill; but, but--fetch the kettle, Tommy, d'ye
hear? an' let alone the cat's tail, you mischievous little--"

"That's a smart boy," exclaimed John rising and catching the kettle from
his son's and, just as he was on the point of tumbling over a stool:
"there, now let's all have a jolly supper, and then, Tommy, I'll show
you how the real foundation of the Eddystun was laid."

The building to which John Potter referred, and of which he gave a
graphic account and made a careful drawing that night, for the benefit
of his hopeful son, was the _first_ lighthouse that was built on the
wild and almost submerged reef of