She said something about my place; how I had arranged things in the hut. I had hung up skins of several sorts on the walls, and birds' wings; it looked like a shaggy den on the inside. She liked it. “Yes, a den,” she said.
I had nothing to offer my visitors that they would care about; I thought of it, and would have roasted a bird for them, just for amusement—let them eat it hunter's fashion, with their fingers. It might amuse them.
And I cooked the bird.
Edwarda told about the Englishman. An old man, an eccentric, who talked aloud to himself. He was a Roman Catholic, and always carried a little prayer-book, with red and black letters, about with him wherever he went.
“Was he an Irishman then?” asked the Doctor.
“An Irishman...?”
“Yes—since he was a Roman Catholic.”
Edwarda blushed, and stammered and looked away.
“Well, yes, perhaps he was an Irishman.”
After that she lost her liveliness. I felt sorry for her, and tried to put matters straight again. I said: