Act III

The Happy Home

The scene is the hall of their island home two years later. This
sturdy log-house is no mere extension of the hut we have seen in
process of erection, but has been built a mile or less to the west
of it, on higher ground and near a stream. When the master chose
this site, the others thought that all he expected from the stream
was a sufficiency of drinking water. They know better now every time
they go down to the mill or turn on the electric light.

This hall is the living-room of the house, and walls and roof are of
stout logs. Across the joists supporting the roof are laid many
home-made implements, such as spades, saws, fishing-rods, and from
hooks in the joists are suspended cured foods, of which hams are
specially in evidence. Deep recesses half way up the walls contain
various provender in barrels and sacks. There are some skins,
trophies of the chase, on the floor, which is otherwise bare. The
chairs and tables are in some cases hewn out of the solid wood, and
in others the result of rough but efficient carpentering. Various
pieces of wreckage from the yacht have been turned to novel uses:
thus the steering-wheel now hangs from the centre of the roof, with
electric lights attached to it encased in bladders. A lifebuoy has
become the back of a chair. Two barrels have been halved and turn
coyly from each other as a settee.

The farther end of the room is more strictly the kitchen, and is a
great recess, which can be shut off from the hall by folding doors.
There is a large open fire in it. The chimney is half of one of the
boats of the yacht. On the walls of the kitchen proper are many
plate-racks, containing shells; there are rows of these of one size
and shape, which mark them off as dinner plates or bowls; others are
as obviously tureens. They are arranged primly as in a well-
conducted kitchen; indeed, neatness and cleanliness are the note
struck everywhere, yet the effect of the whole is romantic and
barbaric.

The outer door into this hall is a little peculiar on an island. It
is covered with skins and is in four leaves, like the swing doors of
fashionable restaurants, which allow you to enter without allowing
the hot air to escape. During the winter season our castaways have
found the contrivance useful, but Crichton's brain was perhaps a
little lordly when he conceived it. Another door leads by a passage
to the sleeping-rooms of the house, which are all on the ground-
floor, and to Crichton's work-room, where he is at this moment, and
whither we should like to follow him, but in a play we may not, as
it is out of sight. There is a large window space without a window,
which, however, can be shuttered, and through this we have a view
of