The Lighthouse Keeper's Vigil

On the night of September 7, 1838, a violent storm battered the Farne Islands off the Northumberland coast of England. Most sensible people had shuttered their windows and gone to bed. But twenty-two-year-old Grace Darling had not abandoned her post at the Longstone Lighthouse. Through sheets of rain and the howling dark, she pressed her face to the glass and kept watch.…