rocks where the tide has rolled you.

Yet, when the signs of summer thicken,
And the ice breaks, and the birch-buds quicken,
Yearly you turn from our side, and sicken--

Sicken again for the shouts and the slaughters,--
And 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 upstream by the low branches.

That day they intended to discover the North Cape like 'Othere, the old
sea-captain', in the book of verses which Una had brought with her; but
on account of the heat they changed it to a voyage up the Amazon and
the sources of the Nile. Even on the shaded water the air was hot and
heavy with drowsy scents, while outside, through breaks in the trees,
the sunshine burned the pasture like fire. The kingfisher was asleep
on his watching-branch, and the blackbirds scarcely took the trouble to
dive into the next bush. Dragonflies wheeling and clashing were the
only things at work, except the moorhens and a big Red Admiral, who
flapped down out of the sunshine for a drink.

When they reached Otter Pool the Golden Hind grounded comfortably on a
shallow, and they lay beneath a roof of close green, watching the water
trickle over the flood-gates down the mossy brick chute from the
mill-stream to the brook. A big trout--the children knew him
well--rolled head and shoulders at some fly that sail