The record-union., 1899-09-24
THE KEEPER OF THE BISHOP.

WaiStcoat and a black ribbon of a tie
fastened in a bow, and it gave him
great pleasure to be mistaken TOR q
commercial traveller 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 l never knew. But
now, at the age of 4S. he was entirely
occupied with a great horror OF the
sea and its hunger for the bodies OF
men; the frock coat which he wore
during his spells on shore was a pro-
test 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. ball
room floor, said he. 1t was a clear
still day, and we We're sitting among
the gorse on the top of the Garrison
looking down the sea toward the west
Five. miles from the Settles the thir
column of the Bishop showed like q
cord strung taut in the sky But oui
there all round the lighthouse there
are eddies twisting and twisting with
out any noise, and extraordinary quick,
and every other second, now here, now
there, you'll notice the sea dimple, and
you'll hear a sound like a 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 [ have done with
her. John Garstin nodded across
from st. Mary's to that gray finger
post of the Atlantic. "One more win
ter. Well, very likely during this one
more winter the Bishop will go-on
some night when a storm blows from
the west or west-nor' or'-west and the
Irish coast takes none of its strength
He was only uttering the current be-
lief of the islands. The first Bishop
fore it's 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 a tennis ball into
the sea. l asked Garstin whether he
had been stationed on the rock at the
time.
People talk of lightsllips plunging
and tugging at their cables he re-
turned. We'll, I've tried lightships,
and what I say is, ships are built to
plunge and tug at their cables That's
their business. But it isn't the bust
ness of one hundred and twenty up
right feet of granite to culver and
tremble like a steel spring. No, / WASH t
on the Bishop when the bell went But
/ was there when a 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 4 O'Clock in the morning. The day
was breaking very cold and wild, and
one could just see the waves below a
lashing tumble Of gray and white wat
er as far as the eye could stretch.
was in the lantern, reading It's Never
Too Late to Mend. I had come to
where the chaplain knocks down the
warder and I was thinking how Ia
like to have go at that warder my
self, 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 IA
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 below" and Garstin shiv-
cred, and rose to his feet. well, i
have only one more winter of it,
And then?" I asked
Then I get the North Foreland, and
the trippers come out from Margate,
and live on shore with my wife and
by the way, | wanted to speak to you
about my boy He's getting up in
years. What shall I make of him? A
linen draper, eh? In the Midlands,
what? Or something in a free library,
handing out Charles Reade's books
He's at home now. Come and see him
In Garstin's quarters, within the
coast guard inclosure, I was introduced
to his wife and the lad Leopold What
shall we call him?" Mrs. Garstin had
asked some fifteen years before. 81
don't know any seafaring man of the
name of Leopold Garstin had replied,
pold he was named.
Mrs. Garstin was a buxom unimagin-
ative woman, but she shared to the full
{ IlSi nuSGdlIu Oh the SGd 9HC
told me of nights when she lay alone
listening to the moan of the wind
overhead, and seeing the column of the
Bishop rock upon it's base, and of
mornings when she climbed from the
sheltered barracks up the gorse, with
her heart tugging in her breast, GER
! tain, certain that this morning, at last,
there would be no Bishop lighthouse
visible from the top of the Garrison.
1T seems sort of insult to the works
of Cod" said she in a hushed voice.
1T seems as if it stood uo there in
Gods face and cried, You can't hurt
mel'''
yes, most presumptious and provok-
ing" said Garstin. And so they fell
/ to talking of the boy, who, at all
events, should fulfil his destiny very
far inland from the sea- Mrs. Garstin
! leaned to the linen drapery; Garstin
inclined to the free library.
We'll, I will come down to the North
Foreland, said T., "and you shall tell
me which way it is''
Yes, if''-said Garstin, and stopped.
Yes, if"-repeated his wife, with a
nod of the head.
'Oh. it won't go this winter" said |.
And it didn't. But, on the other
hand, Garstin did not go to- the North
Foreland, nor for two years did hear