Their patriarchal life flowed on, deepening and widening, as it went, and so far without any break in its smooth-swelling current. The great gales, to which they had grown accustomed, piled up ever-increasing supplies for them. Within certain narrow bounds they knew no lack, nor would they though they lived there for a hundred years. On great occasions the wreckage even yielded them luxuries of the commonplace which in the former life they had looked upon as ordinary adjuncts to a meal and accepted perfunctorily, without a thought of special thankfulness. But here they were rarities, priceless delicacies to be held in esteem and made the most of. Apples for example. Once their western point was strewn thick with what seemed a whole ship-load of delicious red apples. They had probably been packed in frail barrels or cases which the waves made short work of, and the birds were fortunately away. They spent days carrying them up above tide-level and then transporting them home, and revelled in apples for weeks till their stock went bad. Another time it was potatoes, which they had not tasted for over three years. Wulf declared it was almost worth while to have been denied them so long, to find such new relish in them now. Avice regretted, for the children's sakes, that they could not have them all the time. And that set him to planting a quantity in some of the damp bottoms by the water-pools. They came up all right, but the rabbits cleared the green shoots as fast as they appeared. Upon that he fenced off a patch with some of his superfluous raft timber and planted more, and succeeded in raising a small crop, but they were a degenerate race, lacking the good soil which had gone to the making of their ancestors. Curiously enough, that fact started into expression trains of thought that had been latent in both their minds. He had come in exultantly with his first fruits of the potato-patch, Cubbie at his heels proudly bearing one in each hand, and Avice cooked them rejoicingly and pronounced them excellent. "It will be so delightful to have potatoes again," said she. But he was critical of his own production, as the author of a work--even though it be but a potato--may be allowed to be. "They have neither the texture nor the flavour of the original stock," he said. "I suppose they need better soil than our old sandbank can afford them,"--and his eyes happened to fall on Cubbie munching away at a potato, and hers lighted on the dark little head in her arm. The same thought pricked both their hearts and their eyes met with understanding.