And he took a pencil out of his pocket and scribbled down a note on the margin of his book.
It was some time before he left off saying learned things, and began to consider how his companion had come to a place so far from the river, where not even a stream ran through the trees. He listened to the tale she told him with astonishment, and at last he put aside his book and promised to help her to find the way to the mill. He was very sorry for her, though now and then he would forget her presence as he pulled out his pencil to write down the beginning of the poem he meant to make.
When night came the student and the Nix started off. He walked in front, and she went after him, like a dog following its master. In the morning they hid in an overgrown quarry, for she was much too frightened to go abroad in the daylight; and thus they travelled till, after midnight on the second day, they found themselves close to the highroad which ran towards the mill-pool. They sat down to rest. All was so still that you could hear sounds ever so far off, and they soon made out that someone was coming to meet them. Then a man passed on the road; they could not see him, but he was singing to himself. And what he sang was this:
“Out and home and out again,
As the tide rolls heavily;
With the ship to steer and the fog to fear,
By the grey banks near the sea,
In the caves across the sea.”
The Nix held her breath as the pedlar—for it was he—went by, and when he began the second verse the thought of everything that had happened went from her. All she could hear or remember was the beating of the grey sea, calling her with its compelling voice.
Without a word she got up and followed the pedlar and left the student sitting by himself in the dark. He sat open-mouthed.