JESSIE OGLETHORPE. THE STORY OF A DAUGHTER'S DEVOTION. BY W. H. DAVENPORT ADAMS. CHAPTER III. HAVE spoken of Branscombe Light- was of no great elevation; a boy could easily climb to its summit; but, owing to its position, it was almost entirely situated above high water-mark, and even in severe gales was, as I have said, rarely covered with the waves, which rolled on either side of it, seething and roaring, and besprinkling it with foamy spray. In genial weather it was the favourite resort of the village lads, who busied themselves in collecting the beautiful seaweeds that relieved its cold grey aspect, in gathering the limpets that clung to every stone, or, perched upon its rocky ridge, made their first essays in the fisher's art, with a hazel wand for a rod, and a crooked pin for a hook! At times a sketcher would seat himself in the shadow and shelter of the lighthouse, and transfer to his canvas so much of the marine 'effects' or the picturesque outlines of the cliffs as his skill permitted; but this was in the summer or early autumn months, and never of very frequent occurrence; the Branscombe villagers bearing no great love towards strangers, and giving them so cold a reception, that the most enthusiastic seldom paid a second visit. To tread the causeway on a summer day, or even on a clear moonlight night, was a matter of no difficulty to Branscombians born and bred; but when the winds raged from the sea, and the darkness was abroad on the face of the waters, the passage to the lighthouse would try the firmest nerve and surest foot. The old lighthouse-keeper had made it so often, night and morning, going and returning, that he cared but little whether the wind blew or the sun shone; but his daughters were not regular visitors, and though nimble and agile enough from long experience of hills, and dales, and rocks, the journey was one which might be considered formidable enough to warrant a great amount of triumph when accomplished without a mishap. And now it occurs to me that my readers may possibly figure in their mind's eye, when I speak of Branscombe Lighthouse, a lofty and graceful building of massive masonry, such as Smeaton's Eddystone, or Robert Stevenson's on the Bell Rock. I suppose every boy or girl who reads these pages has heard at least of those two famous structures; the former built in 1759, towering fully 90 feet above the sea; the latter, erected in 1810, 115 feet high, and built on a rock that lies 12 feet under water. I suppose they will know the history of each; how Mr. Winstanley, who built a wooden Pharos on the Eddystone in 1699, was so confident in the firmness and excellence of his work, that he expressed a wish to be within its walls during the fiercest tempest that ever blew. 'Ay! I were fain, long to remain, And tend my light in the stormiest night His wish was fulfilled on the night of November 27, 1703-a night of storm and horror, when many a good ship foundered out at sea, or was flung a wreck upon inhospitable shores. His wish was fulfilled, but at the cost of his life, and of the lives of his companions, the lighthouse being swept away by the raging waters. • And when the dawn, the dull, grey dawn, And men looked south to the harbour mouth, Down in the deep, where he doth sleep Who made it shine afar, And then in the night that drown'd its light, I suppose, too, they will know the legend connected with the Bell Rock; how that the abbots of the ancient monastery of Aberbrothock piously fixed thereon a loudresounding bell, and in such a manner that it rung at the bidding of the waves, which were thus made to give warning to the mariner of their own fury; and how that a wicked Dutch captain, in a fit of drunken excess, carried off the apparatus, and was afterwards lost upon the rock, he and all his crew. So Southey sings : ""Canst hear," said one, "the breakers roar? For yonder, methinks, should be the shore ; But I wish we could hear the Inchcape Bell!" They hear no sound, the swell is strong; Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair, And the vessel sinks beneath the tide.' No such histories as these attached, however, to the Witch's Rock, which derived its name from a wild tradition that it had at one time been the shelter of a woman gifted with the evil eye;' and which, probably, might have furnished an asylum, in the old dark days of ignorance, to some poor creature pursued by the superstitious malignity of her prejudiced neighbours. No such histories as these, I say, invested the Witch's Rock with undying interest, nor was it crowned by any such nobly |