James Dove, the blacksmith, had, for some time past, been watching the advancing of the beacon-works with some interest, and a good deal of impatience. He was tired of working so constantly up to the knees in water, and aspired to a drier and more elevated workshop.

 

One morning he was told by the foreman that orders had been given for him to remove his forge to the beacon, and this removal, this “flitting”, as he called it, was the first of the memorable events referred to in the last chapter.

 

“Hallo! Ruby, my boy,” cried the elated son of Vulcan, as he descended the companion ladder, “we’re goin’ to flit, lad. We’re about to rise in the world, so get up your bellows. It’s the last time we shall have to be bothered with them in the boat, I hope.”

 

“That’s well,” said Ruby, shouldering the unwieldy bellows; “they have worn my shoulders threadbare, and tried my patience almost beyond endurance.”

 

“Well, it’s all over now, lad,” rejoined the smith. “In future you shall have to blow up in the beacon yonder; so come along.”

 

“Come, Ruby, that ought to comfort the cockles o’ yer heart,” said O’Connor, who passed up the ladder as he spoke; “the smith won’t need to blow you up any more, av you’re to blow yourself up in the beacon in futur’. Arrah! there’s the bell again. Sorrow wan o’ me iver gits to slape, but I’m turned up immadiately to go an’ poke away at that rock—faix, it’s well named the Bell Rock, for it makes me like to bellow me lungs out wid vexation.”

 

“That pun is below contempt,” said Joe Dumsby, who came up at the moment.

 

“That’s yer sort, laddies; ye’re guid at ringing the changes on that head onyway,” cried Watt.

 

“I say, we’re gittin’ a belly-full of it,” observed Forsyth, with a rueful look. “I hope nobody’s goin’ to give us another!”

 

“It’ll create a rebellion,” said Bremner, “if ye go on like that.”

 

“It’ll bring my bellows down on the head o’ the next man that speaks!” cried Ruby, with indignation.

 

“Don’t you hear the bell, there?” cried the foreman down the hatchway.

 

There was a burst of laughter at this unconscious continuation of the joke, and the men sprang up the ladder,—down the side, and into the boats, which were soon racing towards the rock.

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