His eyes took my liking at once; eyes of a good grey-black--or, shall I
say, of a grey with fine glooms in it. They looked at you straight but
without staring; neither furtively nor with embarrassment, nor
curiously, nor again sleepily, but with that rare blend of candour and
reserve which allowed you to see that he was thinking his own thoughts,
and had no reason to be ashamed of them. Having taken stock of us, he
gazed thoughtfully out of window. His mother sighed from time to time,
and searched her basket to make sure that this, that, or the other
trifle had not been left behind. The drovers conversed apart; the
middle-aged man (who sat facing the engine) read away pertinaciously at
his newspaper, which he kept folded small by reason of the strong
southerly breeze playing in through the open window; and I divided my
attention between the landscape and the map at the beginning of
Stevenson's _Kidnapped_--then barely a week old, a delight to be
approached with trepidation.

So we were sitting when the train crawled over the metals beyond
Teignmouth Station, gathered speed, and swung into full view of the open
sea. As the first strong breath of it came rushing in at the window I
heard a shuffle of feet. The boy had risen, and with his eyes was
asking our leave to stand by the door. I drew in my knees to make way
for him, and so, after a moment, did the middle-aged man. He did not
thank us, but stepped past politely enough and stood with his hand on
the leathern window-strap. I stared out of the little side window,
wondering what had caught his attention.

And while I wondered, suddenly the child broke into song!

It was the queerest artless performance: it had no tune in it, no
intelligible words--it was just a chant rising and falling as the surf