It was thither she went now, opening
the door of the cowshed and leading him through it to a door at the
other end, and down a path to this cellar cut in the bank.
The cellar had apparently been very little used. The path to it was well
beaten, but Caius observed that it ran past the cellar down the chine to
a landing where Day now kept a flat-bottomed boat. They stood on this
path before the heavy door of the cellar. Rust had eaten into the iron
latch and the padlock that secured it, but the woman produced a key and
opened the ring of the lock and took him into a chamber about twelve
feet square, in which props of decaying beams held up the earth of the
walls and roof. The place was cold, smelling strongly of damp earth and
decaying roots; but, so far, there was nothing remarkable to be seen;
just such a cellar was used on his father's farm to keep stores of
potatoes and turnips in when the frost of winter made its way through
all the wooden barns. In three corners remains of such root stores were
lying; in the fourth, the corner behind the door, nearest the sea, some
boards were laid on the floor, and on them flower-pots containing stalks
of withered plants and bulbs that had never sprouted.
"They're mine," she said. "Day dursn't touch them;" and saying this, she
fell to work with eager feverishness, removing the pots and boards.
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