The days slipped by. Betsy and Merry never had an idle hour. While Mme. Zermatt was mending clothes, Mrs. Wolston, who was a very clever needle-woman, was making dresses and petticoats out of the materials that had been treasured from the wreck of the Landlord.
The weather was superb, the heat still not excessive. In the forenoon the breeze blew off the land, in the afternoon off the sea. The nights remained fresh and restful. The last week of October, the April of the southern latitudes, was about to retire before November, the month of renewal, the month of spring in that hemisphere.
The two families paid frequent visits to the farms, sometimes on foot, sometimes in the cart drawn by its team of buffaloes. More often than not Ernest rode the young ass, Rash, and Jack bestrode the ostrich. Mr. Wolston got much benefit from these walks. He had fewer and lighter attacks of fever.
They used to go from Rock Castle to Falconhurst by the fine road planted ten years before, which was now completely shaded by chestnut, walnut, and cherry trees. Sometimes the stay at the aerial country-seat was prolonged for four and twenty hours; and it was delightful, when they had climbed the winding staircase inside, to step out onto the platform sheltered beneath the foliage of the magnificent mangrove. The dwelling-place seemed rather small now; but in Mr. Wolston's opinion there was no need to consider its enlargement. And one day M. Zermatt answered his argument thus:
"You are quite right, my dear Wolston. To live among the branches of a tree was all very well for the Robinsons, whose first care was to find a refuge from wild beasts, and that was our case at the beginning of our life on this island. But now we are colonists, real colonists."
"And besides," Mr. Wolston pointed out, "we have to get ready for the return of our children, and we have none too much time to put Rock Castle into a condition to receive them all."
"Yes," said Ernest, "if there are any enlargements to be made it is at Rock Castle. Where could we find a more secure home during the rainy season? I agree with Mr. Wolston; Falconhurst has become insufficient, and during the summer I think it would be better to move into Wood Grange or Sugar-cane Grove."
"I should prefer Prospect Hill," Mme. Zermatt remarked. "It would be quite easy with supplementary arrangements."
"An excellent idea, mamma!" Jack exclaimed. "The view from Prospect Hill is delightful, right over the sea to Deliverance Bay. That hill is simply marked out as the site for a villa."
"Or a fort," M. Zermatt replied; "a fort to command that point of the island."