n, who
was disposed to make game of the smith.

"I'll hammer your nose red-hot," replied Dove, with a most undovelike
scowl, "I could swear that I put them matches in my pocket before I
started."

"No, you didn't," said George Forsyth, one of the carpenters--a tall
loose-jointed man, who was chiefly noted for his dislike to getting
into and out of boats, and climbing up the sides of ships, because of
his lengthy and unwieldy figure--"No, you didn't, you turtle-dove,
you forgot to take them; but I remembered to do it for you; so there,
get up your fire, and confess yourself indebted to me for life."

"I'm indebted to 'ee for fire," said the smith, grasping the matches
eagerly. "Thank'ee, lad, you're a true Briton."

"A tall 'un, rather," suggested Bremner.

"Wot never, never, never will be a slave," sang another of the men.

"Come, laddies, git up the fire. Time an' tide waits for naebody,"
said John Watt, one of the quarriers. "We'll want thae tools before
lang."

The men were proceeding with their work actively while those remarks
were passing, and ere long the smoke of the forge fire arose in the
still air, and the clang of the anvil was added to the other noises
with which the busy spot resounded.

The foundation of the Bell Rock Lighthouse had been carefully
selected by Mr. Stevenson; the exact spot being chosen not only with
a view to elevation, but to the serrated ridges of rock, that might
afford some protection to the building, by breaking the force of the
easterly seas before they should reach it; but as the space available
for the purpose of building was scarcely fifty yards in diameter,
there was not much choice in the matter.

The foundation-pit was forty-two feet in diameter, and sunk five feet
into the solid rock. At the time when Ruby landed, it was being hewn
out by a large party of the men. Others were boring holes in the rock
near to it, for the purpose of fixing the great beams of a beacon,
while others were cutting away the seaweed from the rock, and making
preparations for the laying down of temporary rails to facilitate the
conveying of the heavy stones from the boats to their ultimate
destination. All were busy as bees. Each man appeared to work as if
for a wager, or to find out how much he could do within a given space
of time.

To the men on the rock itself the aspect of the spot was sufficiently
striking and peculiar, but to those who viewed it from a boat at a
short distance off