, and
all that good housewifery could do to make it comfortable was done. The
table was heaped with such dainties as could be concocted from the
homely products of the island; large red cranberries cooked in syrup
gave colour to the repast. Soon a broiled chicken was set before Caius,
and steaming coffee rich with cream.

To these old maids Caius was obliged to relate wherefore he had come and
whither he was bound. He told his story with a feeling of self-conscious
awkwardness, because, put it in as cursory a manner as he would, he felt
the heroism of his errand must appear; nor was he with this present
audience mistaken. The wrinkled maidens, with their warm Irish hearts,
were overcome with the thought that so much youth and beauty and
masculine charm, in the person of the young man before them, should be
sacrificed, and, as it seemed to them, foolishly.

The inhabitants of Cloud Island, said these ladies, were a worthless
set; and in proof of it they related to him how the girls of The Cloud
were not too nice in their notions to marry with the shipwrecked sailors
from foreign boats, a thing they assured him that was never done on
their own island. Italian, or German, or Norwegian, or whoever the man
might be, if he had good looks, a girl at The Cloud would take him!

And would not they themselves, Caius asked, in such a case, take pity on
a stranger who had need of a wife?

Whereat they assured him that it was safer to marry a native islander,
and that no self-respecting woman could marry with a man who was not
English, or Irish, or Scotch, or French. It was of these four latter
nationalities that the native population of the islands was composed.

But the ladies told him worse tales than these, for they said the devil
was a frequent visitor at Cloud Island, and at times he went out with
the fishers in their boats, choosing now one, now another, for a
companion; and whenever he went, there was a wonderful catch of fish;
but the devil must have his full share, which he ate raw and without
cleaning--a thing which no Christian could do. He lived in the round
valleys of the sand-dune that led to The Cloud. It was a convenient
hiding-place, because when you were in one valley you could not see into
the next, and the devil always leaped into the one that you were not in.
As to the pestilence, it was sent as a judgment because the people had
these impious dealings with the Evil One; but the devil could put an end
to it