The boy with the bow beside you;
Run aye in the way
Till the bird of day,
And the luckier lot, betide you.”
He signed, at the foot, “Noakes, Under the Greenwood Tree.” And he seemed to have written some of his clear laughter into it.
III
A COUNTRY LANE: A MEMORY
FROM ABROAD
I was looking at a vision of the world upside down, mirrored in the deep blue of a still sea. Where the inverted picture of my boat gleamed white, and the rope that moored her to a tree showed grey, I saw the dark fir trees growing upside down, the bank of emerald grass looking more brilliant because of the grey-green lichened rocks; a black rock, glistening, hung with brown seaweed, made the vision clear, and, over all, clouds chased each other in the sky, seemingly below me. They were those round fleecy clouds, like sheep, and they reminded me of something I could not quite arrest.
A fish swam—dash—across my mirror, another and another, rippling the sky, the trees, the bank, distorting everything. Then I looked up and saw a fishing-boat come sailing by with its great orange and tawny sails all set out to catch the land breeze; and bright blue nets hung out ready, floating and billowing in the slight wind. There was a creaking of ropes and a hum of Breton as the sailors talked. From my moorings by the island I watched her sail—Saint Nicholas she was called, and had a little figure of the Madonna on her stern. Out of the land-locked harbour she slipped, tacking to make the neck that led to the outer harbour, and there she was going to meet other gaily coloured ships and sail with them to the sardine grounds off the coast of Spain.
After she had passed, leaving her wide white wake in the still waters, I followed her in my mind, seeing the nets cast and the shimmering silver fish drawn up, and the long loaves of bread eaten, with wine and onions, until the waters round me were quiet again, and I could look once more into my mirror and wonder what it was the flocks of clouds said to my brain.