Off the coast of Northumberland, and outside, so to speak, of the Farne Islands, lies the Longstone—a rock about four feet above high water-mark, and swept by every gale with fierce drifts of spray and foam. Here, about six miles from the shore, is planted a lighthouse, which has been found of great use to the coasting vessels navigating these dangerous waters. Two-and-thirty years ago its keeper was named Darling. He had a daughter, Grace—a quiet, modest, well-behaved girl, whose name, through one noble action, will for ever be honoured among women. On a dark night in September 1838 the _Forfarshire_, a Hull steamer, struck on a hidden reef called the Harcars, in the vicinity of the lighthouse. She had on board sixty-three persons, including passengers and crew. Their signals of distress were observed from the lighthouse. It was impossible for Darling, the keeper, to pull off in his boat alone; no single arm could have impelled it through the raging sea that then prevailed. With admirable courage, Grace Darling resolved to assist him on his noble errand. She sprang into the skiff, and over the bounding billows father and daughter gallantly made their way. Their lives hung upon a thread; but the weak girl never bated a jot of heart or hope, and rowed with all the vigour which a noble enthusiasm is apt to inspire. They reached the ship, and took off nine persons, with whom they contrived to regain the lighthouse. Nine more escaped in one of the steamer’s boats: all the rest perished. Grace Darling did not live many years after the event which made her famous. She was interred in the old chapel on Holy Island, and an epitaph to her memory composed by the poet Wordsworth:— “The maiden gentle, yet at duty’s call Firm and unflinching, as the lighthouse reared On the island-rock, her lonely dwelling-place; Or like the invisible rock itself, that braves, Age after age, the hostile elements, As when it guarded holy Cuthbert’s cell.” Smeaton speaks of a shoemaker who entered the Eddystone Lighthouse because he longed for a solitary life: he found himself less a prisoner on his wave-beaten rock than in his close and confined workshop. When some of his friends expressed their astonishment at his choice—“Each to his taste,” said he; “I have always been partial to independence.”