Under the green shore that faces the port, and at a point that, as the
meeting-place of river and harbour, may be called indifferently by
either name, lay a slim-waisted barque at anchor, with a sand-barge
alongside. The time was a soft and sunny morning in early January--
a day that was Nature's breathing space after a week of sleet and
boisterous winds. The gulls were back again from their inland shelters.
Across the upland above the cliff a ploughman drove leisurably forth and
back, and always close behind his heels the earth was white with these
birds inspecting the fresh-turned furrow. The furze-bushes below him
were braided with cobwebs, and the stays, lifts, and braces of the
barque might have passed also for threads of gossamer spun from her
masts and yards, so delicately were the lines indicated against the
hillside. In the sand-barge, three men were chanting as they worked;
and their song, travelling across still sky and water, rose audibly
above the stir of traffic even in the narrow streets of the town.

The barque was taking in ballast; and the three men sang as they
shovelled,--for three reasons. It helped them to keep time; it kept
each from shirking his share of the work; and lastly, perhaps, the song
cheered them. They knew it as "The Long Hundred," and it ran--

"There goes one.
One there is gone.
Oh, the rare one!
And many more to come
For to make up the sum
Of the hundred so long."

"There goes two--"