Violet Jacob > Stories told by the miller

THE STORY OF THE WATER-NIX 21
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.”