To purchase his own boat, and make a | With children; first a daughter. In him woke, home wish For Annie and so prosper'd that at last With his first babe's first cry, the noble Then, on a golden autumn eventide, The younger people making holiday, With bag and sack and basket, great and small, Went nutting to the hazels. Philipstay'd | (His father lying sick and needing him) | An hour behind; but as he climb'd the hill, Just where the prone edge of the wood began To feather toward the hollow, saw the pair, Enoch and Annie, sitting hand-in-hand, His large gray eyes and weather-beaten face All-kindled by a still and sacred fire, That burn'd as on an altar. Philip look'd, And in their eyes and faces read his doom; Then, as their faces drew together, groan'd, And slipt aside, and like a wounded life Crept down into the hollows of the wood; There, while the rest were loud in merrymaking, Had his dark hour unseen, and rose and past Bearing a lifelong hunger in his heart. So these were wed, and merrily rang the bells, And merrily ran the years, seven happy years, Seven-happy years of health and competence, And mutual love and honorable toil; To save all earnings to the uttermost, When two years after came a boy to be Enoch's white horse, and Enoch's oceanspoil In ocean-smelling osier, and his face, Rough-redden'd with a thousand winter gales, Not only to the market-cross were known, But in the leafy lanes behind the down, Far as the portal-warding lion-whelp, And peacock-yewtree of the lonely Hall, Whose Friday fare was Enoch's ministering. In harbor, by mischance he slipt and fell: A limb was broken when they lifted him ; And while he lay recovering there, his wife Bore him another son, a sickly one : Another hand crept too across his trade Taking her bread and theirs and on him fell, Altho' a grave and staid God-fearing man, Yet lying thus inactive, doubt and gloom. He seem'd, as in a nightmare of the night, To see his children leading evermore Low miserable lives of hand-to-mouth, And her, he loved, a beggar: then he pray'd "Save them from this, whatever comes to me. And while he pray'd, the master of that ship Enoch had served in, hearing his mischance, Came, for he knew the man and valued him, Reporting of his vessel China bound, And wanting yet a boatswain. Would he go? There yet were many weeks before she | Yet not with brawling opposition she, sail'd, And Enoch all at once assented to it, So now that shadow of mischance ap- No graver than as when some little cloud When he was gone the children what to do? - Then Enoch lay long-pondering on his plans; To sell the boat — and yet he loved her well How many a rough sea had he weather'd in her ! He knew her, as a horseman knows his horse set Annie forth And yet to sell her then with what she So might she keep the house while he Should he not trade himself out yonder? go This voyage more than once? yea twice As oft as needed - last, returning rich, Thus Enoch in his heart determined all: Then moving homeward came on Annie pale, Nursing the sickly babe, her latest-born. Appraised his weight and fondled father- But had no heart to break his purposes Then first since Enoch's golden ring But manifold entreaties, many a tear, So grieving held his will, and bore it thro'. For Enoch parted with his old seafriend, Bought Annie goods and stores, and set To fit their little streetward sitting-room stores. |