actual expression of the saloon in general on receipt of the
steward's pronouncement: "That there was no more cheese."]

XXIX

On Easter Day the sun--it was an old proverb--will dance; and this time
he was in the mood. We lay in a basin like other tramps; beyond, there
clustered red roofs with blessed ungainly angles, a pleasing sight after
those southern flat ones of grey. Farther off, the church spire climbed
above the trees, and though many people in their Sunday dress were walking
that way, more were taking their rounds beside these docks.

It was as certainly good to be here as that spring was here. The chirrup
of sparrows, jubilate of larks, noises of poultry, bleating of lambs
from an enclosure of young fruit trees close at hand, and the play of
children, were all comely and reviving.

Alas! that the Easter gift of the ship's officers should have been so out
of tune. An old gentleman of the same outlook as Polonius, the broker,
brought a packet of letters aboard at breakfast, and among these were the
wrong kind of Easter tidings--statements of their reductions in wages.
They accepted this falling off without murmur, save for a few dry remarks.

A motor-boat came bringing the stores, and, to the disgust of the cook
and other watchers, a great stack of long loaves, altogether leathery
in external appearance. Most of these were returned. The ship's chandler
must have thought we were arriving in force. Our own boat was tied at the
foot of the gangway, and the apprentices told off as ferrymen for the time
being.

Next day the larks were aloft again, and their melody, marvellous after
long absence from it, came dropping from heaven as undiminished, one
would say, as raindrops falling. So clear it sounded there even when they
were in the clouds. Meanwhile the bosun and party were getting the winches
and derricks into trim, with less silver voices: "H-h-hup, H-h-hup: Let
go a little: Here, youse...."

It was not unwelcome when the evening came, and Mead, Bicker, and their
friend so soon to be returned to duty set out up the cobbled road to
Emden; most bitter was the east wind blowing down the long colonnades
of trees, and we hastened into the sheltering streets of the little town.
We found it a quiet and beautiful place of ornamentation, and gables
and high houses, with a canal in the midst. Masterly seemed its spire,
stretching up into the sky with unexpected height and charming ease. It
was Easter Monda