We were likely
to be warm enough in it; but the cells were clean and dry, each
with a bed of heather and a stone table and stool, and some little
store of rough crockery and the like household things. There were
blankets, too, and rugs for hanging across the doors, which seemed
in some abundance. Afterwards, I found that they were washed ashore
from wrecks at different times.
Then we went back to the shore in all haste. I had doubts as to
whether Gerda would care to be left alone in this strange place,
but she laughed, and said that there was naught to fear. The two
old brothers had gone their way to their own cells, and would not
come forth again till vesper time, as Phelim told us. She had the
little village, if one may call it so, to herself, therefore, till
we returned. But Phelim set his crook against the hut wall as he
went.
"The pigs need a stick at times," he said; "it may be handy."
The tide had ebbed far when we reached the place of the wreck
again, and had bared a long, black reef, which, with never an
opening in it, reached as far as we could see along the shore. It
was only the chance of the high spring tide, driven yet higher than
its wont by the wind on the shore, which had suffered us to clear
it. It was that which we touched slightly as we came in among the
first breakers.
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