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At that moment a bright star of the first magnitude rose on the horizon, right ahead of them. "Ha! dat is a star," said the Frenchman, after a few moments' observation of it. "Stars don't go out," replied Ruby, as the light in question disappeared. "It is de light'ouse den?" "I don't know," said Ruby, "but we shall soon see." Just then a thought flashed into Ruby's mind.
"Well now," said John Potter, gazing meditatively into the fireplace where Nora had evoked a tiny flame, "that is strange. This Eddystun Rock seems to have what I may call a pecooliar destiny. The builder of the first light'ouse was a country gentleman; of the second, a silk-mercer; and now, as you say, the third is to be put up by a maker o' mathymatical instruments.
"Oh, faither," exclaimed Tommy, pausing with a potato halfway to his mouth, as he listened partly in delight and partly in dread to the turmoil without: "I wish I was a man that I might go with 'ee to live in the light'ouse. Wot fun it would be to hear the gale roarin' out there, an' to see the big waves so close, an' to feel the house shake, and oh!"
"I've been out on the sea, mother, after mischief as usual," replied Tommy, whose bald head and wrinkled brow repudiated, while his open hearty smile appeared to justify, the juvenile name. "What! they 'aven't engaged you on the noo light'ouse, 'ave they?" said old Martha, in horror.
"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!"
Sand, gravel, and spray almost blinded them, but as daylight increased they caught glimpses of the foam above the rock. "God help us!" said John, solemnly, as he and his wife and child sought shelter under the lee of a wall: "the light'ouse is gone!" It was too true.
Nora put her pretty lips to her grandmother's ear and gave the desired information, whereupon the old lady looked solemnly at her spouse, and laying her hand on the dictionary, said, with strong though quivering emphasis: "now, John, mark my words, I 'ave a settled conviction that that light'ouse will come to a bad end. It's sure to be burnt or blow'd over."
"Ay, but I'd rather 'ave that uncertainty than see you run the risk of bein' drownded in a light'ouse," said Mrs Potter, glancing uneasily at the window, which rattled violently as the fury of the gale increased.
Well, as I was sayin', John Rudyerd the runaway boy became Mister Rudyerd the silk-mercer on Ludgate Hill, London, and now he's goin' to build a noo light'ouse on the Eddystun." "He'd do better to mind his shop," said Mrs Potter. "He must be a strange man," observed Tommy, "to be both a silk-mercer and an engineer."
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.
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