. . . and a pole, with flags on it . . . and ships passing . . . and
from the houses a path went down to the sea. I remember quite well what
it was like down there . . . with waves coming in, but not reaching to
us, and sand where I played, and rocks, and pools full of shells and
brown flowers. There were shells, too, on the rocks, with live things
inside--though they never moved. I don't think I knew their name; but I
know it now. They were called 'scammels.'"

"I've ate limpets," said Tilda; "limpets an' whelks. But I never 'eard
o' scammels. An' you don't remember the name o' this place?"

"It must have been the Island," said the boy slowly.

"Wot Island? Island's a sort o' place, but no place in partic'lar."

"I don't know . . . It must have been the Island, though."

"Now listen. Did you ever 'appen to 'ear tell of 'Olmness?"

She asked it eagerly, watching his face. But it gave no answer to her
hopes. His eyes were dreamy. The word, if it struck at all on his
hearing, struck dully.

"I don't see that the name matters," he said after a long pause,
"so long as it's the Island. We 're going there, and we shall find out
all about it when we get to Stratford."

"Shall we?" asked Tilda, considerably astonished. "But _why,_ in the
world?"

"Because . . . Didn't you hear Mr. Mortimer say that Shakespeare was
born there?"

"I did," said Tilda. "'Ow's that goin' to 'elp us?"

"I don't know," the boy confessed, dragging a book from his pocket.
It was a ragged copy of the "Globe" Shakespeare, lacking its covers and
smeared with dirt and blacking. "But he knows all about the Island."

"So _that,_" said Tilda, "is what 'urt me in the night! It made my ribs
all sore. I fergot the book, an' thought you must be sufferin' from
some kind o' growth; but didn't like to arsk till I knew yer better--
deformed folks bein' mostly touchy about it. When you stripped jus'
now, an' nothin' the matter, it puzzled me more'n ever. 'Ere--show me
where 'e tells about it," she demanded, taking the volume and opening it
on her lap.

"It's all at the beginning, and he calls it _The Tempest_ . . . But it
will take you ever so long to find out. There was a ship wrecked, with
a wicked duke on board, and he thought his son was drowned, but really
it was all brought about by magic . . . In the book it's mostly names
and speeches, and you only pick up here and there what the Island was
like."

"But what makes you sur