Was this, then, the capital of the small empire over which the
princess ruled? He saw before him but a long row of small huts or
hovels resembling bee-hives, which stood above the curve of a white
bay, and at one portion of the bay was a small creek, near which
a number of large boats, bottom upward, lay on the beach. What odd
little dwellings those were! The walls, a few feet high, were built
of rude blocks of stone or slices of turf, and from those low supports
rose a rounded roof of straw, which was thatched over by a further
layer of turf. There were few windows, and no chimneys at all--not
even a hole in the roof. And what was meant by the two men who,
standing on one of the turf walls, were busily engaged in digging into
the rich brown and black thatch and heaving it into a cart? Sheila had
to explain to him that while she was doing everything in her power to
get the people to suffer the introduction of windows, it was hopeless
to think of chimneys; for by carefully guarding against the egress of
the peat-smoke, it slowly saturated the thatch of the roof, which at
certain periods of the year was then taken off to dress the fields,
and a new roof of straw put on.

By this time they had run the Maighdean-mhara--the "Sea Maiden"--into
a creek, and were climbing up the steep beach of shingle that had been
worn smooth by the unquiet waters of the Atlantic.

"And will you want to speak to me, Ailasa?" said Sheila, turning to a
small girl who had approached her somewhat diffidently.

She was a pretty little thing, with a round fair face tanned by the
sun, brown hair and soft dark eyes. She was bare-headed, bare-footed
and bare-armed, but she was otherwise smartly dressed, and she held
in her hand an enormous flounder, apparently about half as heavy as