Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1870 — ROBBIE MALCOLM. [ARTICLE]

ROBBIE MALCOLM.

BY LULU GRAY NOBLE.

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Tim boon Out Robbie Rend in. of ell <mum in the world, wea e light house. There it stood on a narrow laUnd. which wee e mere keep of rock* end clay, that old Ocean beet at day end night es if he were bound to grind it to powder, end keen things all kla own way. For kis way wea e very fierce and destroying one; end Uw tall white tower of bricessnd iron which had keen built on the island, end lighted with gleet lamps every night to keen watch over hie doings, prevented a world of the raiachief he had been up to in the old days, when be toaeed the poor ships about in storm end darkneaa, so that, alas t many of them never saw harbor

However, thunder end rage as be might, he could not sweep away the staunch little island which, small as it roae above the water, had a firm foundation of rocks that aeemed to reach down to the very heart of the world, expressly to hold up that shining white tower, where every night Robbie's father lighted the lamps, and kept them banting till the great sun came up again out of the sea. A curious life Robbie lived compared to that of boys on shore: be could not go to nae other boy* at all; the lighthouse people could not make even a call without a voyage, so they dispensed with that ceremony of fhahionable life altogether. Robbie was not without companions, however. There were the sea gulls, that built their nests in holes in the clay bank, —Robbie often peeped over and dropped crumbs into the mouths of the little ones, but he was manly enough not to pull the helpless things out of their nests, and modest enough to know that he could be only a very humble assistant in their , bringing up,—that the chief charge must be left to their black-and-white feathered mammas, that certainly understood their basin css thoroughly, and hi a very short time had every callow fledgling of them darting over the waves, soaring and whirling on the wild ocean winds as if there were no such joy in life as being a sea-gull, and having a good hurricane to ride on. Then there wastbe stormy-petrel, which before a tempest might be seen dashing along the surface of the waves like lightning ; and the piping plover, that - ran so fast on the beach, stopping every now and then to makewaeh a sweet, sorrowful cry, that it seemed as if even a bird knew things were sometimes very sad In this strange world.

But the sea-bird that Robbie loved best was a jolly little fellow; I dare say Robbie knew bis name, but I know only that this favorite of his was a reckless little creature; he delighted in tilting on the very foam-crest of the waves; and when he saw a monster breaker coming in, be would just take to bis wings at the very last second before it would crash over him; then with a flirt and a tilt he would go over on the next wave, morsel as he was, secure in his quick wit and wings against all the Atlantic Ocean. 1 suspect that this tilting on the waves was not all for frolic, and that it had something to do with bugs for breakfast; for breakfast, whether of bugs or something else, is at the bottom of a great many showy exercises in this world. • At all events, breakfast couldn’t have been taken more graoefhlly. All these wild creatures of the air Joemed at last to regard the solitary Jittle lighthouse-boy as if he were one of them: they would sweep close to his early head, and then shoot with their bold cry far up into the clouds, sometimes darting quickly back again with a shrill, scolding note, as if he were a backward fledgling they were teaching to fly, and'whom they found too stupid to learn. Robbie would watch his feathered companions for hours together, or gaze at the great oeeanitstU Close to his feet, where, it broke on the island, you could never say what the waves would bring up next, —fragments of beautiful sea-plants, growing nobody knew how far away, or broken spars and bite of old iron. Robbie used to wonder what kind of ships these had belonged to, and whether she had gone to pieces because there was no lighthouse to warn her; then he would think that keeping a lighthouse was the most beautifiil Hung in the world. The hundreds of ships, too, that sometimes came in sight in a day, gleaming for a moment away off on the horison, or sailing so near that Robbie could count the men on the decks, —homeward-bound ships, laden deep in the water with rich cargoes from wonderful lands on the other side of the globe,—out ward-going vessels, steering for the same distant portsall these were a kind of society to Robbie, and told him strange things across the bright dashing water. Small as the island was, it was large enough to hold a few pets for Robbie; he hall rabbits that never ran away, because they had nowhere to run bat plmnp into the sea; and he had a dog that swam off famously for sticks in the water; and hens and chickens—bless me I such a time the latter had before they learned to walk against the wild ocean winds! their wings would be blown over their heads, and they would tumble about in the most ridiculous manner; but they soon adapted themselves to their breezy home, and, like Robbie himself, made the best of circumstances. Ho my little hero lived in the sea, and was happy-and contented there until the sorrows befell of which I am going to tell

you. I ought to have remarked, perhaps, that Robbie’s parents were not originally of the seafaring class that usually take such places; the lighthouse-keeper was a stranger from far away, who had suffered some great wroDg or misfortune that made him glad to fly from the haunts of men, and lire out in this wild ocean home alone with bis wife and little boy, amid the vast sights and sounds which seemed to breathe, with the large, calm spirit of eternity, over the troubles of time. There was a mystery about the lighthousekeeper's history which I do not fully know,—only that his wife so dung to him in his dark hours, and 60 sacrificed herself for his sake, that he thought her scarce a mortal woman.

One day when she felt weak and ill he sent to the mainland in great haste and fear the servant-boy, who lived at the lighthouse, to look up a good nurse, who would come and stay till she was better. Bat a few hours after this messenger bad gone aach a storm arose as made it utterly imjjpssible for any boat to come back to the island; and the poor wife, who had endeavored in her cheerful manner to make light of her illness, was soon seen, beyond ell disguise, to be very dangerously ill with a fever, which, alas! before midnight to affected her brain that she no longer knew what she said or did. While the fever raged within the storm raged without,—such a storm as had not been known before by land or sea for twenty yeas*. Two days and nights the terrible tempest shook the bed on which the poor sufferer lay, and tilled the air with such a thunder of waves ae you can have no power to imagine. Ail this while, as you may well believe the lighthouse keeper never closed bis eyes, but spent every moment, save ihose he was obliged to give to the cere of bis lamps, in watching by tbv sick-bed of tti

wife, with desperate efforts dhd prayers tov her reoovery. Now It really does sometime* mem in this world that the old proverb must be true, that disasters never come singly; certainly to this poor thsntly in the lighthouse came many troubles, one upon another.

It was the third night of the gale, and the lighthouse-keeper had just been up to the top of the tower, into the great lantern, to light the lamps for the night, When as he was coming down the winding iron staircase, being giddy with grief ana watching, and fust now oppressed with s fresh anxiety because of some extra work that must be done about tbs lamps, that would keep him away from his poor wife so loeg,—in his worry and haste his foot somehow slipped on the staircase, and he fell over the iron balusters, strlk ing heavily on the stone floor below.

The poor lighthouse-keeper lay white and motionless as if he were dead, with the dark blood trickling from a wound in his forehead, and away In the little room his unconscious sick wife on her pillow; and saddest of ail, poor Robbie yet ignorant of the half of his calamities: for (he tall tower of the lighthouse was distinct from the low brick building in which the (kmily lived ; and although a passage walled and ceiled over connected the two, the noise of the waves was so tremendous that a sound far louder thau that which the poor man made in foiling could never have been heard by his little son in bis mother’s room. '

Robbie, however, seeing bv the reflection outside, which made all the island bright, that the lamps were lighted, wondered and wondered why his father did not come. The sick mother had ceased that pitiful moaning which had made her seem so unlike Robbie’s own mamma, who never murmured at all when well; she had fallen into a deep sleep, and Robbie stole softly out just to tell his father the good newa Not finding him in the kitchen, he ran through the passage-way into the lower part of the lighthouse, where were the great oil vats from which the lamps were filled; there were windows in this room, too, through which the lights of the tower cast back their reflection, and there on the stone floor he saw all that had happened. It would not have been very strange if so youag a boy as Robbie had been too terrified to do anything but sit helplessly down and cry at knowing himself alone out there on the ocean, with no hnman being who could hear a cry or lift a hand to help either of his parents so terribly stricken down; but after a moment’s bewilderment and a choking sob or two Robbie stooped down to see if his father was yet alive, and finding that his pulse still beat, he began to think what he could do to save him.

Living where he did, this little boy had been used to sights of great daring and noble courage, and these memories nerved his young heart. He had seen shipwrecked people snatched from the boiling waves at the utter risk of the lives of those who had saved them, and brought in to the lighthouse to be labored over for hours by his own father and mother, who now lay helpless, with none but bis childish arm to aid; and the little lighthouse lad betook himself to his work with a presence of mind born, perhaps, of these

solemn experiences. It was a severe strain and struggle for the young child to draw his father’s helpless form along the passage-way into the kitchen, but it was a bitterly cold night, and he knew that he must be brought where there was a fire, or what little life was left in him would surely be extinguished. And by that great strength and courage which love and faith give even to young arms this was somehow accomplished, and Robbie soon had his poor father’s silent head supported on pillows before the kitchen fire, which was burning warm and bright. Then he stanched the blood flowing from the wound in his forehead, and brought spirits and other restoratives such as he had seen used for people who lay-thus insensible; but though after a time low moans escaped his lips, the injured man spoke no distinct word, nor even once opened his eyes. Thus through a long, strange hour, between these two the young watcher went, —the sick mother sleeping the sleep heavy with the exhaustion of fever, and the father equally helpless and unconscious. The awful maddened ocean thundered on without; the deluge of rain and blinding snow had ceased to foil, but the waves rose higher than ever with the long fury of the gale; through the little windows ;they could be seen rearing their monstrous white heads in the alternate bright light and black shadow that tho great lanterns made, like a crowd of horrible rushiDg phantoms who were bound jet to drag down the lighthouse and all it contained into their abyss. There came a fearful moment when Robbie thought this was verily to be; his young head swam, he could scarcely see, but surely, surely those bright streams and black shadows were not so distinctly marked over the foaming water; they grew fainter,—one long glistening beam vanished utterly. Robbie knew the real truth in a moment,—the Island was not sinking, but the lights, the great lights in the tower, were going out I Alas! it was the anticipation of this that made Mr. Malcolm’s fatal haste and hurry; there was some special work that must be done to keep the lamps burning that night.

—— — 0 I suppose with all our imagining we can scarcely imagine what this new fear was to the little lighthouse-boy. It was something that beat in his blood and breathed m his breath, that, whatsoever else happened, those lamps must never go out. “ Be faithful!” There are no words of all the words that are spoken that Robbie's mother had taught him more earnestly than these; that to be true to your trust, to be as sure and certain to your promise as the sun to the sky, was the one quality that above all others made a man; that human beings were necessarily so bound to each other by a thousand mutual wants and dependences that faithless and lying people were the very worst-he could encounter; because in the very best and smoothest times men must constantly confide in each other’s honor, and in life’s rough and dangerous ways, ah, what wou]d become of them if they failed then in their mutual trust?

What would become of them, the poor sailors who might still be driving before the gale, if their last hope, the lighthouse lamps, should go out in blackness ? " Robbie took one look at the pale sleeping face of his sick mother, and thought how, if she could have knowledge of what had happened, she would surely go up and tend the lamps, even if she went with her dying feet; and then he sprang away, resolved, if he was at lasi to lie down and die with his parents, to first do what he conld to fill their place. .

Now Robbie was a very observing boy; in the serious little life he had lived it had come to be a habit with him to note carefully whatever he saw done about him, and when he had climbed up the long, winding stairway into the great lan tern at the top of the lighthouse, he knew very well what the lamps needed There were sixteen or them in all, set with their powerful reflectors in two rows around the circle of the lantern, which wss wholly made of iron and glass, the bon-work painted white to reflect the light more strongly, and the glass very thick and solid, as it well needed to be. This was unharmed; aiuuvgh the floor of the giant lantern shook under Robbie’s feot, and tiM wfaftk WWW aeuibly rocked

with the gale, the architect who built tbe lighthouse had so thoroughly done his work, the elements might shake but could not destroy it The foithless person was the oil contractor, or the government agent who had employed him. Whichever was the guilty party, a preciously mean thing had they done. There were two kihds.of oil used at the lighthouse, called the summer-strained and the winter-strained oil, and the former congealed so readily, that it would not burn a* all In that exposed place when the cold reached a certain Intensity. Now, the contractor had placed some extra hogsheads of tbe cheap summerstrained oil in this year’s allowance, making the supply of the better kind so short that Mr. Malcolm had his wits’ end to make it last through the severe weather. And the last drop had been exhausted before this storm came on, since it was very late in the season. HUII, late as it was (the month of March had commenced), there hud been great showers of snow and rain, and now that these had ceased, the thermometer rapidly fell until the cold was as severe as that of any winter night, and the oil had congealed. Beven of the sixteen lamps were already out, and the others were burning very dimly, when Robbie climbed through the trap door into the lantern. But one thing could be done, and that was to heat some oil in a kettle over the fire, and then refill the lamps with it one by one; and all this in the bitter cold night, with so many weary stairs to go up and down between the top of the tower and the stove in the little kitchen, —the two helpless ones still to be tenderly cared for.

Those were terrible hours for that lonely little boy, but through them all bis brave young spirit watched and toiled with unceasing devotion. All night long, fed by one childish hand, some light still streamed over that raging ocean to tell where the tower yet stood ; and every extinguished lamp those numb little fingers set once again bright and burning in its place was like a prayer sent up to Heaven to save those in the lighthouse, even as they had tried to save those on the sea. No doubt something of that great calm and peace which comes from the consciousness of having done one’s best came, even in bis grief and trouble, to the little lighthouseboy. ——

The morning dawned at last over the wild ocean waste, and on the top of the tower that had so often and often shone to save the storm-tossed mariner poor Robbie hoisted his little flag of distress. I do not know exactly how many hours it was before help reached him, or how long a time passed ere that poor father and mother were strong and well again, but I know they both lived to learn the faith and courage of their little boy ; and I am very glad to say that the government so lar appreciated the conduct of this noble lad as to provide for his education until he should become of age. I sincerely hope no more summerstrained oil, that must be boiled at midnight to make it burn, has been sent to worry those who have lighthouse lamps to tend, whether they are grown-up men or brave little boys like Robbie Malcolm.— Our Young Folks.