فانوس دریایی

CHAPTER TWO

The Lighthouse

When the engines stopped, the Forfarshire was about five kilometres east of St Abbs Head, in Scotland. The ship was travelling north, from Hull to Dundee, but the wind came from the north, so the Forfarshire, without her engines, began to go south again, back to England. It was dark, and the wind was very strong.

About thirty kilometres south-east of St Abbs Head is a group of small rocky islands not far from the mainland. These are the Fame Islands. On one of them, Longstons Island, there is a lighthouse. There were three people in the lighthouse that night - William Darling, his wife Thomasin, and their daughter Grace, Grace’s brothers were usually there too, but that night they were in Bamburgh, on the mainland.

At seven o’clock that night, William Darling went up the long stairs of the lighthouse to light the big oil lantern. Grace went with him. William Darling was a thin, strong man about fifty years old. He moved quickly and quietly, He had a candle in his hand. Sometimes he turned to talk to Grace, and the candlelight lit up the big brown eyes in his kind, old face.

Grace was a young woman about twenty-two years old. She was not very tall or strong. She had big brown eyes like her father, and soft brown hair. She carried an oil can in one hand, and held the side of her long skirts with the other hand. She smiled at her father while they talked.

At the top of the lighthouse Grace and her father came into a small room. This room had no walls - just big windows all around. The noise of the wind and rain was terrible here, and they had to shout to hear each other.

Grace put oil in the lug lantern in the middle of the room, and William lit it. When the lantern was burning, the big silver mirrors began to move slowly around it. William Darling and his daughter stood and watched them. The rain crashed against the windows, and the wind screamed like an animal in the night.

‘God help the poor sailors to see this light,’ shouted William. ‘It’s as dark as death out there. No moon, no stars - nothing but wind and rain and wild white water ‘Let us pray there are no ships near the rocks,’ shouted Grace. ‘The storm will wreck any ship that comes near them tonight.’

‘That’s true, lass,’ said William. ‘But we can do no more now. Let’s go down to supper.’

The father and daughter went slowly down the dark, narrow stairs to the kitchen. Grace’s mother, Thomasin, was putting the supper on the table. She was a white- haired woman of sixty-five.

‘Did you see anything?’ she asked.

‘No, my love, nothing,’ William answered. ‘Only the rain on the windows.’

‘Thank God, she said. ‘You couldn’t help anyone tonight, William. If there is a shipwreck, you can do nothing. The boys aren’t here.’

‘Bur, mother,’ Grace said, ‘Father has to try to save people. It’s his Job. He can’t leave them to die.’

‘Grace, no man could row a boat by himself in this wild sea,’ said Thomasin. ‘So let us thank God that there are no poor ships near us, on this terrible night.’

‘Yes, Grace, let us thank God for that, said William. And so the three people sat quietly around their table in the warm kitchen, and put their hands together to pray. In the black night outside, the wind screamed, and the big waves crashed against the rocks, again and again and again.