Ch. 8 - Memoirs of an Islet - Page 2

round bull's-eye of a
cabin port, the sea lying smooth along its shores like the waters
of a lake, the colourless clear light of the early morning making
plain its heathery and rocky hummocks. There stood upon it, in
these days, a single rude house of uncemented stones, approached by
a pier of wreckwood. It must have been very early, for it was then
summer, and in summer, in that latitude, day scarcely withdraws;
but even at that hour the house was making a sweet smoke of peats
which came to me over the bay, and the bare-legged daughters of the
cotter were wading by the pier. The same day we visited the shores
of the isle in the ship's boats; rowed deep into Fiddler's Hole,
sounding as we went; and having taken stock of all possible
accommodation, pitched on the northern inlet as the scene of
operations. For it was no accident that had brought the lighthouse
steamer to anchor in the Bay of Earraid. Fifteen miles away to
seaward, a certain black rock stood environed by the Atlantic
rollers, the outpost of the Torran reefs. Here was a tower to be
built, and a star lighted, for the conduct of seamen. But as the
rock was small, and hard of access, and far from land, the work
would be one of years; and my father was now looking for a shore
station, where the stones might be quarried and dressed, the men
live, and the tender, with some degree of safety, lie at anchor.

I saw Earraid next from the stern thwart of an Iona lugger, Sam
Bough and I sitting there cheek by jowl, with our feet upon our
baggage, in a beautiful, clear, northern summer eve. And behold!
there was now a pier of stone, there were rows of sheds, railways,
travelling-cranes, a street of cottages, an iron house for the
resident engineer, wooden bothies for the men, a stage where the
courses of the tower were put together experimentally, and behind
the settlement a great gash in the hillside where granite was
quarried. In the bay, the steamer lay at her moorings. All day
long there hung about the place the music of chinking tools; and
even in the dead of night, the watchman carried his lantern to and
fro in the dark settlement and could light the pipe of any midnight
muser. It was, above all, strange to see Earraid on the Sunday,
when the sound of the tools ceased and there fell a crystal quiet.
All about the green compound men would be sauntering in their
Sunday's best, walking with those lax joints of the reposing
toiler, thoughtfully smoking, talking small, as if in honour of the
stillness, or hearkening to the wailing of the gulls. And it was
strange to see our Sabbath services, held, as they were, in one of
the bothies, with Mr. Brebner reading at a table, and the
congregation perched about in the double tier of sleeping bunks;