21st —I have discovered all! The truth, which I was strangely slow to suspect yesterday, has forced itself on me today.
I went out this morning, as I had purposed, to discover whether my neighbours had really changed towards me, or not, since the interval of my three weeks’ seclusion. At the cottage-door nearest to mine, two young children were playing, whom I knew I had succeeded in attaching to me soon after my arrival. I walked up to speak to them; but, as I approached, their mother came out, and snatched them from me with a look of anger and alarm. Before I could question her, she had taken them inside the cottage, and had closed the door.
Almost at the same moment, as if by a preconcerted signal, three or four other women came out from their abodes at a little distance, warned me in loud, angry voices not to come near them, or their children; and disappeared, shutting their doors. Still not suspecting the truth, I turned back, and walked towards the beach. The lad whom I employ to serve me with provisions, was lounging there against the side of an old boat. At seeing me, he started up, and walked away a few steps—then stopped, and called out—
“I’m not to bring you anything more; father says he won’t sell to you again, whatever you pay him.”
I asked the boy why his father had said that; but he ran back towards the village without answering me.
“You had best leave us,” muttered a voice behind me. “If you don’t go of your own accord, our people will starve you out of the place.”
The man who said these words, had been one of the first to set the example of friendliness towards me, after my arrival; and to him I now turned for the explanation which no one else would give me.