The second floor is reached by a wooden staircase or ladder, leading up through a “manhole” in the ceiling.  Here is the lightroom store, which contains large tanks of polished metal for the oil consumed by the lights.  A whole year’s stock of oil, or about 1100 gallons, is stored in these tanks.  Here also is a small carpenter’s bench and tool-box, besides an endless variety of odds and ends,—­such as paint-pots, brushes, flags, waste for cleaning the reflectors, &c. &c.

Another stair, similar to the first, leads to the third floor, which is the kitchen of the building.  It stands about sixty-six feet above the foundation.  We shall have occasion to describe it and the rooms above presently.  Meanwhile, let it suffice to say, that the fourth floor contains the men’s sleeping berths, of which there are six, although three men is the usual complement on the rock.  The fifth floor is the library, and above that is the lantern; the whole building, from base to summit, being 115 feet high.

At the time when Ruby entered the door of the Bell Rock Lighthouse, as already described, there were three keepers in the building, one of whom was on his watch in the lantern, while the other two were in the kitchen.

These men were all old friends.  The man in the lantern was George Forsyth, who had been appointed one of the light-keepers in consideration of his good services and steadiness.  He was seated reading at a small desk.  Close above him was the blazing series of lights, which revolved slowly and steadily by means of machinery, moved by a heavy weight.  A small bell was struck slowly but regularly by the same machinery, in token that all was going on well.  If that bell had ceased to sound, Forsyth would at once have leaped up to ascertain what was wrong with the lights.  So long as it continued to ring he knew that all was well, and that he might continue his studies peacefully—­not quietly, however, for, besides the rush of wind against the thick plate glass of the lantern, there was the never-ceasing roar of the ventilator, in which the heated air from within and the cold air from without met and kept up a terrific war.  Keepers get used to that sound, however, and do not mind it.

Each keeper’s duty was to watch for three successive hours in the lantern.

Not less familiar were the faces of the occupants of the kitchen.  To this apartment Ruby ascended without anyone hearing him approach, for one of the windows was open, and the roar of the storm effectually drowned his light footfall.  On reaching the floor immediately below the kitchen he heard the tones of a violin, and when his head emerged through the manhole of the kitchen floor, he paused and listened with deep interest, for the air was familiar.

Peeping round the corner of the oaken partition that separated the manhole from the apartment, he beheld a sight which filled his heart with gladness, for there, seated on a camp stool, with his back leaning against the dresser, his face lighted up by the blaze of a splendid fire, which burned in a most comfortable-looking kitchen range, and his hands drawing forth most pathetic music from a violin, sat his old friend Joe Dumsby, while opposite to him on a similar camp stool, with his arm resting on a small table, and a familiar black pipe in his mouth, sat that worthy son of Vulcan, Jamie Dove.