he rock, to take as much exercise as they could on its
limited surface, during the brief period of low water that still
remained to them.

It may easily be imagined that this ramble was an interesting one, and
was prolonged until the tide drove them into their tower of refuge.
Every rock, every hollow, called up endless reminiscences of the busy
building seasons. Ruby went over it all step by step with somewhat of
the feelings that influence a man when he revisits the scene of his
childhood.

There was the spot where the forge had stood.

"D'ye mind it, lad?" said Dove. "There are the holes where the hearth
was fixed, and there's the rock where you vaulted over the bellows when
ye took that splendid dive after the fair-haired lassie into the pool
yonder."

"Mind it? Ay, I should think so!"

Then there were the holes where the great beams of the beacon had been
fixed, and the iron bats, most of which latter were still left in the
rock, and some of which may be seen there at the present day. There was
also the pool into which poor Selkirk had tumbled with the vegetables on
the day of the first dinner on the rock, and that other pool into which
Forsyth had plunged after the mermaids; and, not least interesting among
the spots of note, there was the ledge, now named the "Last Hope", on
which Mr Stevenson and his men had stood on the day when the boat had
been carried away, and they had expected, but were mercifully preserved
from, a terrible tragedy.

After they had talked much on all these things, and long before they
were tired of it, the sea drove them to the rails; gradually, as it rose
higher, it drove them into the lighthouse, and then each man went to his
work--Jamie Dove to his kitchen, in order to clean up and prepare
dinner, and the other two to the lantern, to scour and polish the
reflectors, refill and trim the lamps, and, generally, to put everything
in order for the coming night.

Ruby divided his time between the kitchen and lantern, lending a hand in
each, but, we fear, interrupting the work more than he advanced it.

That day it fell calm, and the sun shone brightly.

"We'll have fog to-night," observed Dumsby to Brand, pausing in the
operation of polishing a reflector, in which his fat face was mirrored
with the most indescribable and dreadful distortions.

"D'ye think so?"

"I'm sure of it."

"You're right," remarked Forsyth, looking from his elevated position to
the seaward horizon, "