For a time all went seemingly well. It held four rooms, one above the other. The lantern was lit by candles. Years went on, and still it stood defying the winds and storms for half a century. There were two light-keepers, who snuffed the candles overnight, sitting up for four hours at a time. One of these men fell ill and died. A storm was raging at the time. No help could come to his companion, and so through a long month he kept the body, afraid to throw it into the sea, in case he should be thought a murderer.
At last help came from shore, but the loneliness and horror had told so terribly upon the remaining man that ever afterwards three men were employed to keep the light burning, in case of one falling ill or dying.
But in spite of its long standing there was a hidden flaw in the lighthouse. It was inflammable--capable of catching fire. One day--no one could quite tell how it happened, it might be the flame had dried and scorched the timber. At any rate, a man going in to snuff the candles found that fire had broken out. It wanted but a few minutes till the place was in flames. The men rushed below, while a perfect rain of beams and burning lead fell in showers about their heads. Seeing the blaze from the shore a boat put off with all speed. When it reached the rock it found the men, not on the rock, but crouching beneath a ledge, dripping and half dead, and with just enough life in them to enable them to catch the rope thrown to them, for it was too rough for the boat to reach the rock. And so they were towed on board.
And now the third attempt at the lighthouse was to be made by John Smeaton.
"Thou art the man to do it," were the words of the letter asking him to undertake the work. And so Smeaton was launched on that which was to make his name famous.
The first step he took was to get and study the plans of the former men. To succeed he had first to find out where the others had failed.
The first building had failed in weight. The second had not been fire-proof. And so he decided to make his lighthouse of stone. People when they heard of it called out that it was a wild project. It could not be done. "Nothing but wood could possibly stand on the Eddystone." But Smeaton was in no way moved or cast down. What he made he wanted to stand, and not to last for a few years merely; and so of stone he determined it should be.