Sicken again for the shouts and the slaughters,--
You steal away to the lapping waters,
And look at your ship in her winter quarters.

You forget our mirth, and talk at the tables,
The kine in the shed and the horse in the stables--
To pitch her sides and go over her cables!

Then you drive out where the storm-clouds swallow:
And the sound of your oar-blades falling hollow
Is all we have left through the months to follow.

Ah, what is a Woman that you forsake her,
And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,
To go with the old grey Widow-maker?



It was too hot to run about in the open, so Dan asked their friend, old
Hobden, to take their own dinghy from the pond and put her on the brook
at the bottom of the garden. Her painted name was the _Daisy_, but for
exploring expeditions she was the _Golden Hind_ or the _Long Serpent_,
or some such suitable name. Dan hiked and howked with a boat-hook (the
brook was too narrow for sculls), and Una punted with a piece of
hop-pole. When they came to a very shallow place (the _Golden Hind_ drew
quite three inches of water) they disembarked and scuffled her over the
gravel by her tow-rope, and when they reached the overgrown banks beyond
the garden they pulled themselves up stream by the low branches.