The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-10-31
KEEPER or THE BISHOP LIGHT,
How Life Was Offered for a Life

How a Life Was Offered for Life
Which Life Had Already Paid For
For fortnight out of every six weeks
the little white-faced man walked the
garrison on St. Mary's Island in a
broadcloth frock coat, low waistcoat
and black ribbon Of tie fastened in
a bow; and 1t gave him great pleasure
to be mistaken for commercial travel
er. But during the other four weeks he
was head keeper of the lighthouse on
the Bishops rock, with thirty years Of
exemplary service to his credit. BY
what circumstances he had been
brought to enlist under the Trinity flag
! never knew. But now, at the age of
forty-eight. he was entirely occupied
with great horror of the sea and it's
munger for the bodies of men; the frock
coat which he Wore during his spells on
shore was protest against the sea- and
he hated not only the sea but all things
that were in the sea, especially rock
lighthouses, and of all rock lighthouses
especially the Bishop.
THE Atlantic's as smooth as a bali
room floor" said he. 1t was clear,
still day. and we were sitting among the
gorse on the top of the garrison, look
ing down the sea toward the west.
Five miles from the Settles the thin
column of the Bishop showed like cord
strung taut in the sky. But out there
'all round the lighthouse there are eddi
twisting and twisting without any
noise, and extraordinary quick, and
every other second, now here now
there, you'll notice the sea dimple. and
you'll hear sound like man hic-
coughing, and all at once, there's a
wicked black whirlpool The tide runs
seven miles an hour past the Bishop.
But In another year 1 have done with
: her" John Garstin nodded across
from st. Mary's to that gray finger post
of the Atlantic. "One more winter
Well, very likely during this one more
winter the Bishop will go-on some
night when a storm blows from west or
west7nor' west and the Irish coast takes
none Of it's strength"
He was only uttering the current be-
lief OF the islands. The first Bishop
lighthouse had been swept away before
its building was finished, and though
the second stood, a fog bell, weighing no
less than ton, and fixed ninety feet
above the water, had been lifted from
it's fittings by single wave and tossed
like tennis ball into the sea. I asked
Garstin whether he had been stationed
on the rock at the time.
People talk of lightshps plunging
and tugging at their cables" he re-
turned. well, I've tried lightships,
and what l say is, ships are built to
plunge and tug at their cables. That's
their business But 1t isn't the business
of one hundred and twenty upright feet
of granite to CULVER and tremble like a
steel spring. No, wasn't on the Bish-
OPP when the bell went. But was there
when wave climbed up from the base
Of the rock and smashed In the glass
wall of the lantern and put the light
out. That was last spring, at four
o'clock In the morning. The day was
breaking very cold and wild, and one
could just see the waves below, lash
ing tumble of gray and white water as
far as the eye could stretch, I was in
the lantern, reading It's Never Too
Late to Mend 7 had come to where
chaplain knocks down the warder, and
I was thinking how I'd like to have
go at that warden myself when all the
guns in the world went off together in
my ears. And there was | dripping wet
and fairly sliced with splinters of glass
and the wind blowing salt in my face,
and the lamp out. and a bitter gray
light of morning. as though there never,
never had been any sun, and all the
dead men In the sea shouting out for
me one hundred feet blow, and Cars
tin shivered and rose to his feet. well, |
I have only one more winter of it,
And then" / asked.
'Then l get the North t'oreland, and
the trippers come out from Margate, |
and live on shore with my wife and
by the way I wanted to speak to you
about my boy. He's getting up in |
years. What shall I make Of him? A |
linen draper, eb? In the Midlands. |
what? Or something in a free library. |
handling out Charles Reade's books? |
He's at home now. Come and see him.
In Garstin's quarters, within the |
coast guard Enclosure, I was introduced |
% his wife and the lad, Leopold What |
snail we call him." Mrs. Garstin had |
asked some fifteen years before. Il