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Updated: June 11, 2025
Before the first lighthouse was built on Farne Island, in 1766, a coal fire was kindled every night on the top of the tower-like building used as a fort. This method of warning passing vessels had been used continuously since the days of Charles II. In great contrast to this is the modern lighthouse, with its acetylene gas lights and its automatic flash apparatus.
She was standing a little breathless by her own door when Number 8 opened and Louis Farne looked out. His hair was rumpled, his expression one of speechless annoyance. "W what the d devil are you up to?" he said, stammering a little. "Th-that's the s-second time." "Oh, it's you!" she said, speaking breathlessly. "A horrible man gave me whisky, and I was frightened." "Good Lord!"
Nothing can be more desolate than the appearance of the little Farne Islands; formed of rocks barely covered with a thin vegetation, surrounded by precipices, they seem accessible only to sea birds, who take refuge there in the tempests. The Island of Longstone is at the head of the group, and serves as a sort of vanguard, and is, perhaps, the most dangerous of all.
Jimmy, the thin girl, Ole Fred and Louis Farne followed them, passing on. Suddenly out of the darkness at the other end of the great anchor came a sound that was entangled with the wash of the waves against the bows of the ship. It was a sob, choked back quickly and bursting out again. She crept along the anchor softly. A huddled figure was there, looking out to the black sea.
Then he looked round in bewilderment and caught sight of her. The gramophone was playing "Rock of Ages." "Can you tell me what is going on in there? Is it St. Vitus' Dance?" Marcella looked at him and gave a little shout of laughter. "No, it's Mrs. Twist's birthday. Didn't you know?" "How could I? Never heard of her. I'm looking for Mrs. Farne. They lent me this animal at Klondyke.
I hope he was kind and affectionate to him all his days, to compensate for the loss of the poor old woman?" MR. BARRAUD. "I trust he was, but our historian saith no more." MR. WILTON. "There is a little cluster of islands between Alnwick and Berwick called the Farne islands, on one of which was situated the lighthouse where the heroine Grace Darling spent her dreary days.
And after he died a lighthouse was built on his rock to be a spark of hope for the sailors at sea. As for Saint Cuthbert's Peace, it still blesses the lonely rock of Farne. Flocks of sea-birds swarm about it, descendants of those who knew the Saint himself. They are tame and gentle and suspect no harm from any one, for have they not the promise of their Saint? Alas!
In a short time the vessel became quite unmanageable, and drifted with the direction of the tide, no one knew whither. Soon the terrible cry arose, "Breakers to leeward," and immediately after the Farne lights became visible.
The following narrative teaches a lesson of courage and devotion such as are seldom read. In one of the light-houses of the desolate Farne Isles, amid the ocean, with no prospect before it but the wide expanse of sea, and now and then a distant sail appearing, her cradle hymn the ceaseless sound of the everlasting deep, there lived a little child whose name was Grace Darling.
It was now four o'clock; the storm was raging with unabated violence, and it was still two hours to daybreak. About a mile from Longstone, the island on which the vessel struck, lies Brownsman, the outermost of the Farne Islands, on which stands the lighthouse. At this time the keeper of the lighthouse was a man of the name of William Darling.
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