"What a sell if we can't have a fire at all!" ejaculated Bobbo. "What's to be done?"
"Go down to the mill, of course, and get some matches from one of the men," dictated Winnie, in her bright, decided way.
"Well done, my Lady Winifreda! right as usual," exclaimed Murtagh. "Be off, you varlet!" he continued in a grandiloquent tone of voice, turning to Bobbo, "and—" he paused a moment to find proper words, but fine language running short, the end of his sentence collapsed miserably into, "look sharp back again."
"Bring a dictionary next time," laughed Bobbo, as he started off to fetch the matches.
Scrubbing, sweeping, and dusting went on vigorously, till Bobbo came back from the mill bringing with him not only a whole box of matches but also a can of buttermilk, which the good-natured miller's wife had given him.
How the children enjoyed that cleaning! How they rubbed, and scrubbed, and splashed the water about! They forgot all about being hungry. Any one might have supposed that they were the most orderly little mortals in existence.
Even Ellie had her share. With the skirt of her frock pinned back, and her little sleeves rolled up, she knelt upon the floor arranging laurel leaves, with the shiny sides uppermost, as though her very life depended on the completeness of the operation.
At last all began to look a little more clean and tidy, as Rose and Winnie observed with pride. The fire was lighted, the potatoes were boiling, the fish ready to cook, and now arose the great question, "How were the fish to be cooked?" The children had often seen Donnie cooking fish, but then it was always in a frying-pan, and they had none. Murtagh was equal to the occasion. He thought he had heard somewhere that down at Killarney trout used to be grilled over a wood fire on a kind of gridiron of arbutus twigs; and there was a splendid arbutus tree on the island.
"All right," said Winnie; "I daresay it's as good a plan as another; anyhow, let's try."
The boys went out to cut the twigs, and she prepared a little wall of stones on either side of the fire, so that the sticks might be laid across, and support the fish nicely over the red mass of glowing wood, without letting them get burned. Everything was ready except the trout. The children began to realize how hungry they were; and the boys coming quickly back with their bundles of rods, every one gathered round the fire, absorbed in the interest of watching the experiment.