And that set him to planting a quantity in some of the damp bottoms by the water-pools. They came up all right, but the rabbits cleared the green shoots as fast as they appeared. Upon that he fenced off a patch with some of his superfluous raft timber and planted more, and succeeded in raising a small crop, but they were a degenerate race, lacking the good soil which had gone to the making of their ancestors.
Curiously enough, that fact started into expression trains of thought that had been latent in both their minds.
He had come in exultantly with his first fruits of the potato-patch, Cubbie at his heels proudly bearing one in each hand, and Avice cooked them rejoicingly and pronounced them excellent.
"It will be so delightful to have potatoes again," said she.
But he was critical of his own production, as the author of a work—even though it be but a potato—may be allowed to be. "They have neither the texture nor the flavour of the original stock," he said. "I suppose they need better soil than our old sandbank can afford them,"—and his eyes happened to fall on Cubbie munching away at a potato, and hers lighted on the dark little head in her arm. The same thought pricked both their hearts and their eyes met with understanding.
As with potatoes—so with children. He and she, growths of the larger world, had found unlooked-for happiness through the accident of their transplantation to this outer isle. But they brought with them the strength of heart and mind that had come to them through contact with that other world. In many respects it was a vain and hollow world. The change had made entirely for their good and happiness.
But—these little ones! ... Were they to be condemned for ever to the sweet narrow groove of this island life, which to their father and mother, by reason of the wonder of their love, had been like Paradise?
To the children no such transformation, no such veritable transfiguration of life as had been theirs would be possible.
They could, indeed, teach them all they knew themselves—all the essentials at all events. They could train their hearts and brains to highest things. But in time the children would feel what the island life entailed and denied them—what their lives were missing. The higher their development the keener would be their regrets.
"Dear," he said, clasping her closer, as she lay in the hollow of his arm before the fire that night, "I know what you are thinking. It came on me, and it came to you, when I was criticising those degenerate potatoes."