A Sea Queen's Sailing

by Charles W. Whistler

Now the hermit had set aside his fear of the lady, if he had any beyond his rules, and welcomed her in Erse, which I had to translate. Also he told her that what shelter he and his brethren could give was hers, if she would be content with poor housing.

"Thank him, and tell him that any roof will be welcome after the ship's deck," she said, smiling at the hermit.

"Ask him to send men and help us get our stores ashore and out of the way of the fisher folk, who will be here as soon as they see the wreck," said Bertric. "No need to tell him that the stores are treasure for the most part."

"Tell him it is treasure, and it will be all the safer," Dalfin said. "These are holy monks, of a sort who care for poverty more than wealth. This man was well born, as you may guess from his speech."

I told the hermit what Bertric needed, and he laughed, saying that the whole brotherhood would come and help at once. And then he bade us follow him. We went across the moorland for about half a mile, to the foot of the hill or nearly, and then came on a little valley amid the rising ground, where trees grew, low and wind twisted, but green and pleasant; and there I saw a cluster of little stone huts for all the world like straw beehives, built of stones most cunningly, mortarless, but fitting into one another perfectly.

The huts were set in a rough circle, and each had its door toward the sun, and a little square window alongside that, and a smoke-blackened hole in the top of the roof. Doubtless it was from one of these that Bertric had seen the smoke from the sea, though there was none now. From the hill and down the valley across the space between the huts ran a little brook, crossed in two or three places by wandering paths, some with a stepping stone, and others with only a muddy jumping place. The stream was dammed into a deep, stone-walled pool in the midst of the space, and close to the brink of this stood a tall, black stone cross, which was carved most wonderfully with interlacing patterns, and had a circle round its arms.

We saw no men at first. Pigs there were, fat and contented, which rooted idly or wallowed along the stream, and fowls strolled among the huts. I saw one peer into an open door, raise one claw slowly as if she was going in, and then turn and fly, cackling wildly, as if some inmate had thrown something at her.

"That is brother Fergus," said our guide. "The more he throws things at the hens, the more they pester him. It is half a loaf this time. See."

The hen had gone back into the doorway in a hurry, and now retired behind the hut with the bread, to be joined there by hurrying friends.

"The pigs will come in a minute," our hermit said, chuckling and rubbing his hands together. "They know that Fergus hurls what comes first without heed of what it may be."