distinctly he marches through a haze, drawn onward by incommunicable
yearnings. But as, unseen by him, I glanced up at his blown hair and
eager parted lips, the chant seemed to grow articulate--

"O Sea, I am coming! O fate, waiting and waited for, I salute you!
Friend or adversary, we meet to try each other: for your wonders I have
eyes, for your trials a heart. Use me, for I am ready!"

As we turned inland and ran beside the shore of the Exe, his song died
down and ceased. For a while he stood conning the river, the boats, the
red cliffs and whitewashed towns on the farther bank; and so, as we came
in sight of the cathedral towers, stepped back and dropped into his
seat.

"Well now," said his mother, "you _be_ a funny boy!"

For a moment he did not seem to hear; then started and came out of his
day-dream with a furious blush. I looked away.


II.


The second boy wore a well-cut Eton suit, and sat in the smoking
compartment of a padded corridor carriage, with a silk-lined overcoat
beside him and a silver-mounted suit-case in the rack above. He was not
smoking, nor was he reading; but he sat on a great pile of papers and
magazines, and stared straight in front of him--that is to say, straight
at me.