Chapter Two
Life in the Bell Rock Lighthouse

One of my most interesting experiences in hunting up materials for books was at the Bell Rock Lighthouse; interesting because of the novelty of the situation, the pleasant intercourse with the keepers, and the grandeur of the subjects brought under my observation.

The lighthouses of this kingdom present, in their construction, a remarkable evidence of the capacity of man to overcome almost insurmountable difficulties, and his marvellous power of adapting means to ends. They also stand forth as a grand army of sentinels, who, with unobtrusive regularity, open their brilliant eyes on the great deep, night after night—from year to year—from age to age, and gaze—Argus-like—all around our shores, to guard our shipping from the dangers of the sea, perhaps I should rather say from the dangers of the coast, for it must be well-known to most people that the sailor regards “blue water” as his safe and native home, and that it is only when he enters the green and shallow waters of the coast that a measure of anxiety overclouds his free-and-easy spirit.

It is when he draws near to port that the chief dangers of his career surround him, and it is then that the lighthouse is watched for anxiously, and hailed with satisfaction.

These observations scarce need confirmatory proof. Of all the vessels, great and small, that annually seek and leave our ports, a large proportion meet their doom, and, despite all our lighthouses, beacons, and buoys, lay their timbers and cargoes in fragments, on our shores. This is a significant fact, for if those lost ships be—as they are—a mere fraction of our commerce, how great must be the fleet, how vast the wealth, that our lighthouses guide safely into port every year? If all our coast-lights were to be extinguished for only a single night, the loss of property and life would be terrible beyond conception. But such an event can never happen, for our coast-lights arise each evening at sunset with the regularity of the sun himself. Like the stars, they burst out when darkness begins to brood upon land and sea like them, too, their action and aspect are varied. Some, at great heights, in exposed places, blaze bright and steady like stars of the first magnitude. Others, in the form of revolving lights, twinkle like the lesser stars—now veiling, now flashing forth their beams.

One set of lights shine ruby-red like Mars; another set are white, like Venus; while those on our pier-heads and at our harbour mouths are green; and, in one or two instances, if not more, they shine, (by means of reflecting prisms), with borrowed light like the moon; but all—whether revolving or fixed, large or small, red or white or green—beam forth, like good angels, offering welcome and guidance to the mariner approaching from beyond seas; with God-like impartiality shedding their radiance on friend and foe, and encircling—as with a chaplet of living diamonds, rubies, and emeralds—our highly favoured little islands of the sea.

Lighthouses may be divided into two classes, namely, those which stand on cliffs, and elsewhere, somewhat above the influence of the waves, and those built on outlying rocks which are barely visible at high tide, or invisible altogether except at low-water. The North and South Foreland lights in Kent, the Girdleness in Aberdeenshire, and Inchkeith in the Forth, are examples of the former. The Eddystone, Bell Rock, and Skerryvore, are well-known examples of the latter, also the Wolf Rock off the Land’s End.

In one of the latter—namely the Bell Rock—I obtained permission, a good many years ago, from the Commissioners of Northern Lights, to spend a fortnight for literary purposes—to be imprisoned, in fact, for that period.

This lighthouse combines within itself more or less of the elements of all lighthouses. The principles on which it was built are much the same with those of Skerryvore. It is founded on a tidal rock, is exposed to the full “fetch” and fury of an open sea, and it has stood for the greater part of a century exposed to inconceivable and constantly recurring violence of wind and wave—not, indeed, unshaken, but altogether undamaged.

The Bell Rock lies on the east of Scotland, off the mouths of the Forth and Tay, 12 miles from the Forfarshire coast, which is the nearest land. Its foundation is always under water except for an hour or two at low-tide. At high tides there are about 12 or 16 feet of water above the highest ledge of the Bell Rock, which consists of a series of sandstone ridges. These, at ordinary low-tides, are uncovered to the extent of between 100 and 200 yards. At neap tides the rock shows only a few black teeth with sea-weed gums above the surface.

There is a boat which attends upon this lighthouse. On the occasion of my visit I left Arbroath in it one morning before daybreak and reached the Rock about dawn. We cast anchor on arriving—not being able to land, for as yet there was no land! The lighthouse rose out of the sea like a bulrush out of a pond! No foundation rock was visible, and the water played about the tower in a fashion that would have knocked our boat to pieces had we ventured to approach the entrance-door.

In a short time the crest of the rock began to show above the foam. There was little or no wind, but the ordinary swell of the calm ocean rolled in upon these rocks, and burst upon them in such a way that the tower seemed to rise out of a caldron of boiling milk. At last we saw the three keepers moving amid the surges. They walked on an iron platform, which, being light and open, and only a few feet above the waves, was nearly invisible.

When the tide was near its lowest ebb, so that there was a piece of smooth water under the lee of the rock, we hoisted out our little “twin” boat. This was a curious contrivance, being simply a small boat cut across amidships, so as to form two parts which fitted into each other like saucers, and were thus rendered small enough to be easily carried in the larger boat. When about to be used, the twins are put into the water and their sterns brought together and screwed tight. Thus one little boat, sharp at each end, is formed.

Embarking in this we rowed between tangle-covered ridges up to the wrought-iron landing-place. The keepers looked surprised as we drew near. It was evident that visitors were not “common objects of the shore” out there!

There were three keepers. One, the chief, was very tall, dark, and thin; of grave temperament and sedate mien. Another was a florid, hearty young fellow, full of fire and energy. The third was a stout, short, thick-set man, with placidity and good-humour enthroned on his fat countenance. He was a first-rate man. I shall call him Stout; his comrade, Young. The chief may appropriately be named Long.

There was no time for more than a hurried introduction at first, for the fresh water-casks and fortnightly allowance of fresh provisions had to be hoisted into the tower, the empty casks got out, and the boat reloaded and despatched, before the tide—already rising—should transform the little harbour into a wild whirlpool. In little more than an hour the boat was gone, and I proceeded to make myself at home with my new friends.

Probably every one knows that the Bell Rock is the Inch Cape Rock, immortalised by Southey in his poem of “Sir Ralph the Rover,” in which he tells how that, in the olden time—

 
            “The Abbot of Aberbrothock
Had placed a bell on the Inch Cape Rock.
On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung
And over the waves its warning rung.”
 

A pirate named “Sir Ralph the Rover” came there one day and cut away the bell in a wicked frolic. Long years after, returning with a rich cargo of ill-gotten wealth, retributive justice overtook Sir Ralph, caused his vessel to strike on the Inch Cape Rock—for want of the warning bell which he had cut away—and sent him and his belongings to the bottom.

Whether this legend be true or not, there is no doubt that the Rock had been so dangerous to shipping, that seamen often avoided the firths of Forth and Tay in bad weather for fear of it, and many captains, in their anxiety to keep clear of it, ran their vessels in the neighbouring coasts and perished.

Another proof that numerous wrecks took place there lay in the fact that the fishermen were wont to visit the rock after every gale, for the purpose of gathering wreckage. It was resolved, therefore, about the beginning of this century, to erect a lighthouse on the Inchcape Rock, and to Mr Robert Stevenson, Engineer at that time to the Board of Northern Lights, was assigned the task of building it. He began the work in August 1807, and finished it in February 1811.

I began my sojourn in the Bell Rock Lighthouse with breakfast. On ascending to the kitchen I found Stout preparing it. Mr Long, the chief, offered, with delicate hospitality, to carry my meals up to the library, so that I might feast in dignified solitude, but I declined the honour, preferring to fraternise with the men in the kitchen. Breakfast over, they showed me through the tower—pointed out and explained everything—especially the lantern and the library—in which last I afterwards read Mr Stevenson’s interesting volume on the building of the Bell Rock; a book which has been most appropriately styled the Robinson Crusoe of Engineering literature.

On returning to the entrance-door, I found that there was now no land! The tide had risen. The lighthouse was a mere pillar in the sea. “Water, water everywhere”—nothing else visible save the distant coast of Forfarshire like a faint blue line on the horizon. But in the evening the tide again fell, and, the moment the rock was uncovered, we descended. Then Mr Long showed me the various points of interest about the rock, and Stout volunteered anecdotes connected with these, and Young corroborated and expounded everything with intense enthusiasm. Evidently Young rejoiced in the rare opportunity my visit afforded him of breaking the monotony of life on the Bell Rock. He was like a caged bird, and on one occasion expressed his sentiments very forcibly by saying to me, “Oh, sir, I sometimes wish I could jump up and never come doon!” As for Long and Stout, they had got used to lighthouses and monotony. The placid countenance of each was a sure index of the profound tranquillity within!

Small though it was, the rock was a very world in itself to the residents—crowded with “ports,” and “wharves” and “ledges,” which had reference to the building-time. There were “Sir Ralph the Rover’s ledge,” and “the Abbot’s ledge,” and “the Engineer’s ledge,” and “Cunningham’s ledge,” and “the Smith’s ledge,” etcetera. Then there were “Port Stevenson,” and “Port Boyle,” and “Port Hamilton,” and many others—each port being a mere hole capable of holding a boat or two. Besides which there were “tracks,” leading to these ports—such as “Wilson’s track,” and “Macurich’s track,” and “Gloag’s track.” And then there were “Hope’s Wharf,” and “Rae’s Wharf,” and “Watt’s Reach,” and “Scoresby Point,” while, among numerous outlying groups of rocklets, there were the “Royal Burghs,” the “Crown Lawyers,” and the “Maritime Sheriffs”—each and all teeming with interesting associations to those who know the Story of the Rock,—all comprehended within an area of a few hundred yards—the whole affair being wiped entirely and regularly off the face of nature by every rising tide.

Close beside Rae’s Wharf, on which we stood, Mr Long showed me the holes in which had been fixed the ends of the great beams of the beacon. The beacon was a point of considerable interest to me. If you had seen the rock as I saw it, reader, in a storm, with the water boiling all over and round it for more than a mile, like seething milk—and if you had reflected that the first beacon built there was carried away in a gale, you would have entertained very exalted ideas of the courage of the men who built the Bell Rock lighthouse.

While the tower was building, Mr Stevenson and his men were exposed for many days and nights in this beacon—this erection of timber-beams, with a mere pigeon-house on the top of it for a dwelling. Before the beacon was built, the men lived in the Pharos floating light; a vessel which was moored not far from the Rock. Every day—weather permitting—they rowed to the rock, landed, and worked for one, two, or three hours, when they were drowned out, so to speak, and obliged to return to their floating home. Sometimes the landing was easy. More frequently it was difficult. Occasionally it was impossible. When a landing was accomplished, they used to set to work without delay. There was no time to lose. Some bored holes in the rock for hold-fasts; others, with pick and chisel, cut out the foundation-pit. Then the courses began to be laid. On each occasion of landing the smith had to set up his bellows, light his fire, and work in hot haste; because his whole shop, except the anvil, had to be taken down, and carried away every tide! Frequently, in fine weather, this enterprising son of Vulcan might have been seen toiling with his head enveloped in volumes of smoke and sparks, and his feet in the water, which gradually rose to his ankles and knees until, with a sudden “hiss,” it extinguished his fire and ended his labours for the day. Then he was forced to pack up his bellows and tools, and decamp with the rest of the men.

Sometimes they wrought in calm, sometimes in storm; always, more or less, in water. Three hours was considered a fair day’s work. When they had the good fortune to work “double tides” in a day, they made five, or five-and-a-half, hours; but this was of rare occurrence.