er
than the other; it had a wooden bolt instead of an iron lock to the
door, a stone hearth, a flagstaff, and a weather-cock 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 have
gone well had not Maie been possessed with a secret longing which never
let her rest; and this was, how she could manage to become the owner of
a cow.

'What would you do with a cow?' asked Matte. 'She could not swim so far,
and our boat is not large enough to bring her over here; and even if we
had her, we have nothing to feed her on.'

'We