"Is he alive?" I whispered. Sometimes small muscles on a corpse could twitch, which might explain the blinking.  Consequently, I still wasn't sure if the man lying there was alive or dead. I prayed to God he was the former.

Both aunts grinned and nodded.

Instead of being relieved, I was horrified. They should have gone for the doctor and not me. The poor young man clearly needed medical help. Even a child could have ascertained that. I felt angry with them for their foolishness, but the feeling passed when I saw the stranger was indeed breathing and also conscious.

Revived to know he was not a corpse after all, strength returned to my limbs and I found myself able to scramble over the rocks to Aunt Jaana's side. She, at least, had been wise enough to drape an old frayed quilt from the cottage over him to help keep the chilly May winds off of him while they had waited for me.

"Dear Lord," I whispered in surprise as I gazed down at the most striking face I had ever seen. He was so beautiful that he quite took my breath away.

The aunts laughed nervously.

"We need to get you off the rocks," I said to him. He looked from me to the aunts and back again.

"Do you speak English?" I asked with concern. He looked again to the aunts and then to me. It seemed he did not.

"I don't think so dear," Aunt Emmi said sounding a little worried.

"How badly is he injured?" I asked her.

Aunt jaana replied saying, "I think he has some broken ribs and something is wrong with his leg. He can't stand up on it for long. Dear Emmi and I had quite a time trying to drag him thus far." She looked back at the waves crashing on the rocks and gave a little shudder before whispering, "Had we spotted him even a little later than we did, the sea would have claimed him again."

I felt a twinge of guilt. A moment ago I thought them heartless and foolish, but now I understood that they had taken great care to save him from the sea. I took a fresh look at their faces and found that though they grinned with pleasure that he was alive, the two looked worn through.

My heart went out to them. It would have been a monumental task for the two elderly women to pull this tall strapping man over the rocks to safety. Neither of them was use to any sort of hard labour or heavy lifting any more. I had been their faithful servant for years with regards to any difficult chores such as cutting and stacking the winter wood, pumping the water to supply the cottage, gardening, and spring cleaning. Beyond sweeping, making meals, feeding the geese and keeping the cottage tidy, the aunts had very little tiresome work to do in the run of a day.

Realizing the difficulty they endured to get him this far, I suddenly felt proud of them. These two old souls had done well. But, how they had even seen him on the rocks was a mystery to me since neither of them made a habit of traversing this part of the shoreline since it was so monstrously difficult to navigate - not to mention generally dangerous.

But, how they came to find him was a question for a later time. Right now, I saw the very real need to get him off the rocks and to the warmth of the cottage.

"Aunts, you must run ahead to the house and stoke the fire. He'll need a warm place to rest. And," I paused while reaching for Emmi's hand, "Emmi, please hitch up the cart and go straight into town to find the doctor. Ask him to come immediately."

"Yes dear," she replied with a twinkle in her eye.

The two took one last look at the young man and then both rose to their feet with audible grunts before making their way carefully over the rocks to the beach. I didn't waste time watching them go. They had each other to help lean on as they made the climb up and over the difficult terrain.

Turning my attention back to the stranger, I saw that he had made a great effort to sit up. The act cost him dearly though for his head hung low, his eyes were shut tight and his face was contorted with pain, while he tried to catch his breath.

I took this moment to study him. He had sickly pale skin. His veins were highly visible and it added a strange blue and violet hue to his face and hands. His hair was as black as coal and so long that it was hard to tell where it ended and the seaweed he was fetched up on began. Why, I had never, in all my life, seen a man with such long hair. His long locks would put many women to shame.

He wore a fitted black coat the likes of which I had never seen before. Though battered by the sea, it was evident that it was tailored from something finer than wool and embroidered with gold thread no less. He was no fisherman or sailor washed up on shore. The more I examined his coat the more sure I was that I'd never seen anything so exquisite or so foreign in all my life.

On his wrists he wore thick and thin gold band that must have cost a fortune. Some were even embedded with fine gems. And, on his long, slender and smooth hands, which were as pale as his face and had the same queer blue tinge to them, he wore multiple gold rings. One or two looked like insignia rings - the type worn by royalty. Just who on earth had washed up on our shore, I wonder with amazement.

When the pain he was in passed, he opened his eyes and stared directly at me. His eyes were as black as his hair. In fact, they were so black that I could not tell his pupil from his iris. And the look in them was both gentle and fierce. The contradiction was hard to fathom. For a moment, all I could do was stare back.

Everything about him was exotic. He couldn't possibly be local. I doubted he even called England his home. He was surely from some far and away place. Perhaps a place I'd never even heard tell of before. But, I would never know the answer to these fascinating thoughts if I did not get him off the rocks before the tide came in and swept us both out to sea.

Shaking myself out of the little trance I was in, I spoke to him gently saying "Come, lets get you up."

I tugged the wet quilt from his lap and moved to put my arm around his back to assist him to his feet. He might not speak English but there was nothing wrong with his brain. He understood my intent and quickly put his arm over my shoulder. Together, with effort on both our parts, we got him to his feet. But, as the aunts had indicated earlier, there was something sorely wrong with his left leg. He didn't appear to be able to put any weight on it at all.

Propping him up against the rocks around us, I bent back down for the quilt, which I draped over his broad shoulders with some awkwardness given that he towered over me. It was damp and even soaked in places but it would still help to keep the winds from buffeting his wet and battered self. He did not object as I tied the frayed ends of the old patchwork around his neck so that it hung like a cloak from his shoulders.

I took a moment afterwards to spy the most convenient way through the maze of rocks and boulders that made up this part of the shoreline. The going would be difficult but we would be able to use some of the rocks to our advantage too. The taller ones the stranger could lean on for support from time to time as we slowly made our way to the beach.

Satisfied that I'd found the best route, I turned back to him. it appeared to me that he'd been observing me this whole time with those pitch black eyes of his. I'm sure I made a very poor impression. He was in every way remarkable and I was, to the same degree, in every way quite ordinary.

Setting that unhappy thought aside I smiled softly at him and said "Come, lets get you home."

He draped his left arm over my shoulder and gripped my arm tightly as we turned one hundred and eighty degrees to face the hill behind the rocks. Our first few steps were straight ahead but after that we moved in a strange zigzag pattern through the scattered puzzle of large and small boulders. I wished for the strength of ten men when I saw what little weight he could put on his left leg without gasping in pain. It was sheer strength of will on his part and my fear of the rising tide that, together, got us over the rocks.

Exhausted from the short trek, we both rested on the sandy beach once we were above the tide line. Not caring whether it was lady-like or not, I laid flat back on the sand and stared up at the cloudy sky. The wind was pushing the low clouds in a north-easternly direction at rapid speed. It likely meant we were in for a heavy rainstorm that night or the following day. I was just thankful it was not raining now.

When my breath was restored and my legs didn't feel quite so weak, I sat up and looked over at my companion. Upon hearing me rise he also began to struggle to sit up. I scrambled over to him and, like as before with me tucked up under his left side, we once again got him to his feet.

It was tough going though over the shifting sand but we eventually made it to the path that lead through the beach grass and up to my aunts' cottage. The ground along the path was very hard and easy to walk - even for someone with an injured leg. Still, the going was slow and difficult.

I felt my heart swell with joy and hope when soon I saw aunt Jaana waving to us from the dooryard. How glad I was to see her cheerful face. Taking in a deep breath, I tightened my grip on the quilt-covered foreigner and we made it ever so slowly to the cottage.

Jaana held the door open for us when we reached the threshold. She was beaming with delight. Of course, I felt she should be showing more concern than child-like glee at the moment, but the aunts really were strange creatures.

"Dear Emmi has hitched up the mule and gone for the doctor," Jaana informed us as we struggled through the door.

"Wonderful," is all I could get out as I huffed and puffed helping our new friend down the hall and into the very warm kitchen.

Jaana followed on our heals, clapping her hands excitedly and saying, "I've got the fire roaring, there's stew on the hook, and tea in the pot. I hope you both have an appetite."

I plopped the stranger down into Emmi's favourite wooden rocking chair, which was currently pulled up to the open hearth. The heat felt lovely and I was positive our new friend was going to warm up soon.

"Jaana," I called gently, "Would you get our guest some quilts to warp up in?"

I untied the frayed quilt from around his neck and slipped it off of him. It was too damp to be of any use now. And, despite the fact that he wasn't shivering and didn't appear cold, his face and hands were so blue I was sure he must be half frozen. I folded the wet patchwork over a nearby chair and then helped Jaana place the new quilts over the stranger's shoulders and lap. We had him wrapped up good and tight before long.

Feeling satisfied with our handiwork, Janna and I stepped back to admired the stranger. He was observing us with something like a wary expression. I couldn't help but wonder if we had gone overboard wrapping him up and he was simply too polite (or too well bred) to protest.

The urge to laugh hit me quite suddenly but I refrained. Though I was free to laugh out loud with my aunts at any time, I was wise enough to know that this gentleman before us might not be so liberal as my dear old aunts. And, I wouldn't want him to think, even for a moment, that I was laughing at him.

Instead, I chose to hide my amusement by kneeling down to remove his wet boots. They were also black, like the rest of his attire, made of what might once have been a beautiful brushed suede, and as elaborately embroidered as his coat. The workmanship was superior to anything I'd ever had the pleasure of seeing and I wondered what my father, a well traveled country gentlemen, would think of it - of him.

I clasped his right boot at the heal and it came off with one sharp tug. Turing back to tackle the left boot, I was careful to take hold of it gently. Seeing what I was about, the stranger bent over his lap and assisted me with the task. From time to time he would gently touch my hand with his fingers to still my own as his face contorted with pain and his breaths became shallow with discomfort. It took us nearly five minutes but we did manage to free his boot.

Jaana brought him tea as I set his boots by the open fire to dry. Then I rose unlatching the catch of my damp cloak and hung it on a chimney peg. When I turned back around Jaana was handing me a steaming cup as well.

I took the cup with a grateful smile and bent down to place a kiss of thanks on her soft cheek. The warm china cup felt like heaven in my cold fingers. I sighed with satisfaction and then took up sitting on a wooden kitchen chair that Jaana had drug near the fire just for me.

The room fell silent, except for the crackling of the fire, as we sat and sipped our tea. It was a pleasant silence. And, for several minutes, I thought about nothing but the comforting warmth of the fire and tea. Now, in the safety and comfort of the cottage, I had high hopes the gentleman with us would have a full recovery and looked forward to Emmi's return without the slightest unease.

That is, until I took a second look at the silent man in our midst, who looked suddenly like he was about to perish.