ou learn it?

BETSY: I have always known it. It makes me sad to sing it, for it sets
me thinking--thinking of something that I have forgotten. (_She stands
at the window above the sea._) Some days I climb high on the cliffs
and I look upon the ocean. And I know that there is land beyond--where
children play--but I see nothing but a rim of water. And sometimes the
wind comes off the sea, and it brings me familiar far-off
voices--voices I once knew--voices I once knew--fragments from a life
I have forgotten. Why do you ask about my song?

JOE: Because I heard it once myself.

(_Betsy sits beside him at the table._)

BETSY: Where? Perhaps, if you will tell me, it will help me to
remember.

JOE: I heard the song once when I was a lad--when I was taken on a
visit.

BETSY: Were your parents pirates?

JOE: It was a long journey and all day we bumped upon the road,
seeking an outlet from the tangled hills. Night overtook our weary
horses and blew out the flaming candles in the west; and shadows were
a blanket on the sleeping world. Toward midnight I was roused. We had
come to the courtyard of a house--this house where I was taken on a
visit.

BETSY: Was it like this, Joe--a cabin on a cliff?

JOE: I remember how the moon peeped around the corner to see who came
so late knocking on the door. I remember--I remember--(_He stops
abruptly_). Do you remember when you first came to live with Nancy?

BETSY: I dreamed once--you will think me silly--Are there great stone
steps somewhere, wider than this room, with marble women standing
motionless? And walls with dizzy towers upon them?

JOE: Go on, Betsy.

BETSY: In Clovelly there are naught but cabins pitched upon a hill,
and ladders to a loft. And, at the foot of the town, a mole, where
boats put in. And I have listened to the songs of the fishermen as
they wind their nets. And through the window of the tavern I have
heard them singing at their rum. And sometimes I have been afraid. I
have stuffed my ears and ran. But the ugly songs have followed me and
scared me in the night. The shadows from the moon have reeled across
the floor, like a tipsy sailor from the Harbor Light. Joe, are you
really a man from the sea?

JOE: Why, Betsy?

BETSY: The sea is never gentle. It never sleeps. I have stood
listening at the window on breathless nights, but the ocean always
slaps against the rocks. Even in a calm it moves and frets. Is it not
said that the ghosts of evil men walk b