ian name
was Matte. He lived by the shore of the big sea; where else could he
live? He had a wife called Maie; could you find a better name for her?
In winter they dwelt in a little cottage by the shore, but in spring
they flitted to a red rock out in the sea and stayed there the whole
summer until it was autumn. The cottage on the rock was even smaller
than the other; it had a wooden bolt instead of an iron lock to the
door, a stone hearth, a flagstaff, and a weathercock on the roof.

The rock was called Ahtola, and was not larger than the market-place of
a town. Between the crevices there grew a little rowan tree and four
alder bushes. Heaven only knows how they ever came there; perhaps they
were brought by the winter storms. Besides that, there flourished some
tufts of velvety grass, some scattered reeds, two plants of the yellow
herb called tansy, four of a red flower, and a pretty white one; but the
treasures of the rock consisted of three roots of garlic, which Maie had
put in a cleft. Rock walls sheltered them on the north side, and the sun
shone on them on the south. This does not seem much, but it sufficed
Maie for a herb plot.

All good things go in threes, so Matte and his wife fished for salmon in
spring, for herring in summer, and for cod in winter. When on Saturdays
the weather was fine and the wind favourable, they sailed to the
nearest town, sold their fish, and went to church on Sunday. But it
often happened that for weeks at a time they were quite alone on the
rock Ahtola, and had nothing to look at except their little yellow-brown
dog, which bore the grand name of Prince, their grass tufts, their
bushes and blooms, the sea bays and fish, a stormy sky and the blue,
white-crested waves. For the rock lay far away from the land, and there
were no green islets or human habitations for miles round, only here and
there appeared a rock of the same red stone as Ahtola, besprinkled day
and night with the ocean spray.

Matte and Maie were industrious, hard-working folk, happy and contented
in their poor hut, and they thought themselves rich when they were able
to salt as many casks of fish as they required for winter and yet have
some left over with which to buy tobacco for the old man, and a pound or
two of coffee for his wife, with plenty of burned corn and chicory in it
to give it a flavour. Besides that, they had bread, butter, fish, a beer
cask, and a buttermilk jar; what more did they require? All would