I, girl and boy,
Merrily arm in arm,
The lark above us,
And God to love us,
And keep our hearts from harm.

Sing ho!
So we go,
Over Downs that are surging green,
Under the sky and the seas that lie
Silvery-strewn between_.

One brilliant morning in early June, some two months after she had
brought the gypsy's mare back to Putnam's on the evening of the Polefax
Meeting, Boy rose early and stood humming the lines as she dressed, to a
simple little tune she had composed for them.

The words were in harmony with her mood and with the morning. In part
they inspired, in part they determined her. As she began the song Boy
was wondering whether she should begin to bathe. Her mind had resolved
itself without effort as she ended.

There had been a week of summer; the tide would be high, and only a day
or two back a coastguard at the Gap had told her that the water was
warming fast.

She went to the window and looked out over the vast green sweep of the
Paddock Close running away up the gorse-crowned hillside that rose like
a rampart at the back.

It was early. The sun had risen, but the mist lay white as yet in the
hollows and hung about the dripping trees. Earth and sky and sea called
her.

The girl slipped into her riding-boots, put her jersey on, and over it
her worn long-skirted coat, twisted her bathing gown and cap inside her
towel, and walked across the loft, the old boards shaking beneath her
swift feet.

At the top of the ladder she paused a moment and looked down.

The fan-tails strutted in the yard; Maudie licked herself on the ladder
just out of the reach of Billy Bluff, who, tossing on his chain, greeted
the girl with a volley of yelps, yaps, howls of triumph, petition,
expectation and joy.

Maudie, less pleased, rose coldly, and descended the ladder. She knew by
experience what to expect when that slight figure came tripping down the
ladder.

The Monster-without-Manners would be let loose upon Society. The
Monster-without-Manners was kept in his place all through the night by a
simple but admirable expedient which Maudie did not profess to
understand. As the sun peeped over the wall, Two-legs appeared at the
top of the ladder, and peace departed from the earth till the sun went
down again, when the Monster-without-Manners resumed his proper place
upo