However, the winter season coming on apace, the two soon had plenty to do in preparing for its advent. This served to distract their attention from becoming morbid and dwelling on their loneliness, which was all the more dismal now from the fact of their being debarred from their hunting-ground on the plateau—Fritz having got strong and well again after the wreck, and being now able to start on a second expedition in pursuit of “Kaiser Billy,” did he so wish, if the access to the tableland above the cliffs by way of the gully were only still open to them.
Goat-shooting, therefore, being denied them, the brothers busied themselves about other matters, as soon as the increasing coldness of the air and an occasional snow-storm warned them that winter would soon visit the shores of the island.
“I tell you what,” said Fritz, when the first few flakes of snow came fluttering down one afternoon as they were standing outside the hut, the sun having set early and darkness coming on. “We’re going to have some of the old weather we were accustomed to at Lubeck.”
“Ah; but, we can have no skating or slides here!” replied Eric, thinking of the canals and frozen surface of the sea near his northern home, when the frost asserted its sway, ruling with a sceptre of ice everywhere.
“No, and we don’t want them either,” rejoined the practical Fritz. “I am pondering over a much more serious matter; and that is, how we shall keep ourselves warm? My coat, unfortunately, is getting pretty nearly worn-out!”
“And so is mine,” cried Eric, exhibiting the elbows of his reefing jacket, in which a couple of large holes showed themselves. The rest of the garment, also, was so patched up with pieces of different coloured cloth that it more resembled an old-clothes-man’s sack than anything else!
“Well, what do you think of our paying our tailor a visit?” said Fritz all at once, after cogitating a while in a brown study.
Eric burst out into a loud fit of laughing; so hearty that he nearly doubled himself up in the paroxysms of his mirth.
“Ha, ha, ha, what a funny fellow you are, Fritz!” he exclaimed. “I wonder where we are going to find a tailor here?”
“Oh, I know one,” said his brother coolly, in such a matter-of-fact way that the lad was quite staggered with surprise.