I am gone, And yet Perhaps she will not put it on,” He said, “Nor go away.” In sleeping his wife wept; Then the Fisherman took his net And crept Into the chill air. The night drew on—the air was still, Homeward the fisher climbed the hill. All day he’d thought, “She will not go;” And now, “She has not,” pondered he. “She is not gone,” he said, “I know, There is a lamp in our window, Put ready on the sill p. 72To guide me home, and I shall see The dear light glimmering presently, Just as I round the hill.” But when he turn’d, there was no light To guide him homeward through the night. Then, “I am late,” he said, “And maybe she was weary Looking so long for me. She lays the little ones in bed Well content, In the inner room where I shall find her, And where she went, Forgetting to leave the light behind her.” p. 72 So he came to his cottage door, And threw it open wide; But stood a breathing space, before He dared to look inside. No fire was in the fireplace, nor A light on any side; But a little heap lay on the floor, And the voice of a baby cried. Rocking and moaning on the floor, That little heap Was the children, tired with crying, Trying to sleep, Moaning and rocking to and fro; But Baby Willie hindered the trying By wailing so. Then “Wife! wife!” said the Fisherman, “Come from the inner room.” There was no answer, and he ran Searching into the gloom. p. 73“Wife! wife! why don’t you come? The children want you, and I’ve come home.” “Mammy’s gone, Daddy,” said Harry— “Gone into the sea; She’ll never come back to carry Tired Baby Willie. It’s no use now, Daddy, looking about; I can tell you just how it all fell out. p. 73 “There was a seal-skin In the kitchen— A little crumpled thing; I can’t think how it came there; But this morning Mammy found it on a chair, And when she began To feel it, she dropped It on the floor— But snatch’d it up again and ran Straight out at the door, And never stopped Till she-reach’d the shore. “Then we three, Daddy, Ran after, crying, ‘Take us to the sea! Wait for us, Mammy, we are coming too! Here’s Alice, Willie can’t keep up with you! Mammy, stop—just for a minute or two!’ But Alice said, ‘Maybe She’s making us a boat Out of the seal-skin cleverly, And by-and-by she’ll float It on the water from the sands For us.’ Then Willie clapt his hands p. 74And shouted, ‘Run on, Mammy, to the sea,
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