shut out. This hope, vague as it
was, led me to store up such things as would bring a price, if we had
the chance to sell them; they might prove a source of wealth to us if a
ship came that way, or would at least help to pay the charge of a cruise
back to the land we came from.

It is but just to say that the boys did not share my hopes, nor did they
seem to wish that we should leave the place where they had been brought
up. It was their world, and the cave, to which we gave the name Rock
House, was more dear to them than any spot on the earth.

"Go back!" Fritz would say; "to leave our cave, that we dug with our own
hands; to part with our dear kind beasts and birds; to bid good-by to
our farms, and so much that is our own, and which no one in the world
wants. No, no! You can not wish us to leave such a spot."

My dear wife and I both felt that age would soon creep on us, and we
could not help some doubts as to the fate of our sons. Should we stay
and end our days here, some one of us would out-live the rest, and this
thought came oft to my mind, and brought with it a sense of dread I
could not get rid of. It made me pray to God that He would save us all
from so dire a fate as to die far from the sound of the voice of man,
with no one to hear our last words, or lay us in the earth when He
should call us to our rest.

My wife did not share this dread. "Why should we go back?" she would
say. "We have here all that we can wish for. The boys lead a life of
health, free from sin, and live with us, which might not be the case if
we went out in the world. Let us leave our fate in the hands of God."

CHAPTER XIV.

As Fritz and Ernest were now men, they were of course free to go where
they chose, and to come back when their will led them home. Thus, from
time to time they took long trips, and went far from Rock House. They
had fine boats and strong steeds, and of these they made such good use
that there was scarce a spot for leagues round that was not well known
to them.

At one time, Fritz had been so long from home that we had a dread lest
he should have lost his way, or fallen a prey to wild beasts. When he
came back he told us a long tale of what he had seen and where he had
been, and how he had brought with him birds, beasts, moths, and such
strange things as he thought Ernest would like to see. When he had done,
he drew me out into our grounds and said he had a strange thing to tell
me. It seems that he found