But late in the evening when he was about to lay fresh juniper on the hearth, he saw the goat-girl coming on the fen with the help of twigs and dry branches. “The enemy thinks to take us by storm,” he continued, “but there is a secret which I have long suspected. I shall make the whole Wander Isle sail to sea like a boat.” He pressed a pole against the outermost tussocks of the fen, and the floating island swam swaying further out on the water. Then he laid himself calmly to sleep by the crackling embers, but when after a while he suddenly opened his eyes, the goat-girl stood straight before him and peeped in under the low roof on which fox-skins lay spread inside out to dry. She asked him nothing about the high fireplace or the hangings or the slippery floor, but merely said, “A fresh breeze has blown up, so that the island has driven to land on the other shore. But why do you let the dry fox-skins lie on the roof instead of spreading them in here on the ground? And we ought to stick in juniper around the island so that people can’t see either us or the hut.” He thought she spoke sensibly and went ashore at once to collect the juniper. When it was already long after midnight, they still worked at the strengthening and beautifying of his island. They even made of birch-bark and pegs a door which they could set before the entrance, and when they finally shoved the island off from the land again, they anchored it out in the water with two piles. “Now the drawbridge is raised,” said Johannes, “and we must see to providing the new guests with entertainment such as is right.” “The cook-maids and scullery-maids are always so slow,” she said and turned the two fish upon the hearth. The heather droned and the lake splashed so that the island and the sedge and all the closed water-lilies swayed. As soon as mealtime had passed, Johannes lay down at full length nearest the hearth, but Lena, who did not yet feel that she possessed the right of ownership to Wander Isle, huddled together outside at the entrance with one hand as a pillow. She still heard the juniper sputter with heart’s delight, and as she fell asleep she counted the small sparks that sailed forth above the chink in the roof like stars through the night air. That was the fifth--that was the sixth--that was the seventh----. So she was put in mind of one of her songs: It was on the seventh morn of the week, When the prayer-bells rang, I ween, That the bitter tears ran a-down her cheek, Though her bride-wreath still was green.