"Thou may'st well be right, sister," said Tonie. "As our father has often told us, God has gifts for all, even the most simple among His creatures; and to one He gives wisdom of one sort, and to another of a different kind. But there, Blonda, I am ready now for my fishing; say, little sister, wilt thou come with me on the raft to the Isle of Ghosts, or stayest thou here?"
"I think I will stay, Tonie, for I want to finish this pair of socks for father, and I have not too much time. Come thou back to me here by dinner-time, and perhaps if thou return to the island afterwards, we can then go together."
So Tonie pushed off on his raft towards the centre of the lake, where, rising abruptly out of deep water, stood a rocky islet formed of the grey stone boulders which are to be found strewn everywhere on land and in the water over a great part of Finland. There were trees on the island and underwood in great tangles everywhere. Wild raspberry bushes and other brambly growths had struggled up between the rocks, clothing the rough crags almost down to the water's edge, while tiny ferns nestled under the shelter of the overhanging stones, a contrast, in their delicate beauty, to the massive grandeur of their surroundings.
Blonda was still watching Tonie as he dexterously propelled the raft across the water, when she was startled to hear a man's voice behind her saying in Russian, of which she knew enough to understand conversation and herself speak a little,—
"What then, my good friend, is the name of this island?"
"The name of the island, sir general, is the Isle of Ghosts," replied a voice, which Blonda recognised as that of the head wood-ranger, Philip Bexal, a sort of steward who looked after the forest land for his master, and paid Grubert Reuss and the rest of the woodcutters their wages.
"And pray, why the Isle of Ghosts?" asked the deep rich voice of the first speaker. "Does not everybody know that there are no ghosts, at least in these enlightened days?"
Blonda glanced through the cracks between the boulders, and saw a tall young officer in a general's undress uniform. He was standing, with the steward by his side, close to the right wall of the grotto, and facing the lake.
"This has always been the name, so far as I know, sir general," replied Philip Bexal. "The whole story is too long to tell; but since, noble sir, you are visiting our country—or this part of it—for the first time, and would know all you can about it, I will tell you what I may in a few words."
"Good; commence then, my friend," said the officer; "and I will sit on this stone and listen."