He worked hard all day, keeping a wary outlook for any stray fishermen.
First he culled a great heap of the thin wiry grass which seemed the
chief product of his rock, and spread it also to dry for a couch. There
was no bracken for bedding, no gorse for firing. The grass would supply
the place of the one, the broken boat the other.
Then he made good all the holes in his walls and roof, except one in the
latter for the escape of the smoke, and built a solid wall of the tufted
cushions round the seaward side of his doorway, as a screen against his
light being seen, and as a protection from the south-west wind if it
should blow up strong in the night.
He found it very strange to be toiling on these elemental matters, with
never a soul to speak to. He felt like a castaway on a desert island,
with the additional oddness of knowing himself to be within reach of his
kind, yet debarred from any communication with them on pain, possibly,
of death.
At times he felt like a condemned criminal, yet knew that he had done no
wrong, and that it was only the mistaken justice of a simple people
that wanted blood for blood, and was not over-heedful as to whose blood
so long as its own sense of justice was satisfied.
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