ribs of the
ship itself stick up among the rocks, and he wondered to find the hull
so broken and ruinous.

His next care was that the poor bodies should have burial. So about
midday he took his boat from its shelter, and rowed across to the
land; and then, with a strange fear of the heart, he climbed the
cliff, and walked down slowly to the village, which he had thought in
his heart he would never have seen again.

The wind had now driven the clouds out of the sky, and the sun came
out with a strong white light, the light that shines from the sky when
the earth has been washed clean by rain. It sparkled brightly in the
little drops that hung like jewels in the grass and bushes. It was
with a great throb of the heart that David came out upon the end of
the down, and saw the village beneath him. It looked as though no
change had passed over it, but as though its life must have stood
still, since he left it; then there came tears into David's eyes at
the thought of the old hard life he had lived there, and how God had
since filled his cup so full of peace; so with many thoughts in his
heart he came slowly down the path to the town. He first met two
children whom he did not know; he spoke to them, but they looked for a
moment in terror at his face; his hair and beard were long, and he was
all tanned by the sun; but he spoke softly to them, and presently they
came to him and were persuaded to tell their names. They were the
children, David thought, of a young lad whom he had known as a boy;
and presently, as the manner of children is when they have laid aside
fear, they told him many small things, their ages and their doings,
and other little affairs which seem so big to a child; and then they
would take his hands and lead him to the village, while David smiled
to be so lovingly attended. He was surprised, when he entered the
street, to see how curiously he was regarded. Even men and women, that
he had known, would hardly speak with him, but did him reverence. The
children would lead him to their house first; and so he went thither,
not unwilling. When they were at the place, he found with a gentle
wonder that it was even the house where he had himself dwelt. He went
in, and found the mother of the children within, one whom he had known
as a girl. She greeted him with the same reverence as the rest; so
that he at last took courage, and asked her why it should not be as it
had been before. And then he learned from her talk,