nwittingly their forms should hide one ray of the blessed light from
those for whose good it was put there.

Caleb, meanwhile, sat with his host in the clock-room, smoking many a
meerschaum, and listening to the keeper's talk about his beautiful
charge,--a pet as well as a duty with him, obviously.

With the same fond pride with which a mother affects to complain of the
care she lavishes upon her darling child would the old man speak of the
time necessary to keep his six hundred lenses clear and spotless, each
one being rubbed daily with softest doeskin saturated with _rouge_, to
keep the windows of the lantern free from constantly accumulating saline
incrustations,--of the care with which the lamp, when burning, must be
watched, lest intrusive fly or miller should drown in the great
reservoir of oil and be drawn into the air-passages. This duty, and the
necessity of winding up the "clock" (which forces the oil up into the
wick) every half-hour, require a constant watch to be kept through the
night, which is divided between the chief and two assistant keepers.

The morning after their arrival, our travellers, strong with the vigor
of the young day, set forth to explore the cliffs, bidding adieu to
original Youth, who, standing ready to depart, beside his horse, was
carolling the following ditty in glorification of his native town:--

"Ga'ed Light is out o' sight,
Menemshee Crik is sandy,
Holmes's Hole's a pooty place,
An' Oldtown Pint's onhandy."

(Oldtown being synonymous with Edgartown, the rival seaport.)

Leaving this young patriot to his national anthem, a walk of a few
hundred feet through deep sword-edged grass brought our explorers to the
edge of a cliff, down which they gazed with awe-hushed breath. Below
them, at a depth of a hundred and fifty feet, the thunderous waves beat
upon the foot of the cliff over whose brink they peered, and which,
stern and impassive as it had stood for ages, frowned back with the mute
strength of endurance upon the furious, eager waves, which now and again
dashed themselves fiercely against its front, only to be flung back
shattered into a thousand glittering fragments.

The cliffs themselves are very curious and beautiful, being composed of
red and black ochre, the largest cliff showing the one color on its
northern and the other on its southern face. The forms are
various,--some showing a sheer descent, with no vestige of earth or
vegetation, their