Ere bed-time my wife had told me that while I was at the wreck she had
gone in search of some place in which we could build a house.
"And did you find one, my dear?" I said.
"Oh, yes," said she. "We can take you to a great tree that will serve
us well, if we can but get across the stream with our goods."
"But would you have us roost, like fowls, in a tree? How do you think
we could get up to our perch?"
"Was there not a large lime tree in our town in which they built a ball
room, with stairs up the trunk?"
"To be sure there was," said I; "and if we can not build in it, we can
at least make use of its shade, and dwell in a hut on the roots."
Ernest said that he took a string, and found that it was twelve yards
round. This led me to think that my wife's scheme was by no means a bad
one, and that I would have a look at the tree the next day.
When I had heard all they had to tell, we knelt down to pray, and then
sought a good night's rest, which the toils of the day made us much in
need of.
CHAPTER V.
WHEN I rose from my bed the next day, I said to my wife: "Does it not
seem, my dear, as if God had led us to this place, and that we should
do wrong to leave it?"
"What you say may be quite true, so far as it goes," she said; "but I
must tell you that the mid-day heat is more than we can bear, and that
if we stay here we may have to keep watch at night, for there are, no
doubt, wild beasts of some kind that will find us out; and we should
not trust too much to our dogs, who may lose their lives in a fight
with them.
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