THE WATER BABIES
for he was so dried up with running after poachers that you could no more get tears out of him than milk out of leather; and Grimes did not cry, for Sir John gave him ten pounds and he drank it all in a week. Sir John sent far and wide to find Tom's father and mother; but he might have looked till Doomsday for them, for one was dead, and the other was in Botany Bay. And the little girl would not play with her dolls for a whole week, and never forgot poor little Tom. And soon My Lady put a pretty tombstone over Tom's shell in the little churchyard in Vendale, where the old dalesmen all sleep side by side between the limestone crags. And the dame decked it with garlands every Sunday, till she grew so old that she could not stir abroad; then the little children decked it for her. And always she sung an old, old song, as she sat spinning what she called her wedding-dress. The children could not understand it, but they liked it none the less for that; for it was very sweet and very sad; and that was enough for them. And these are the words of it—
"When all the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green;
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen;
Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
And round the world away;
Young blood must have its course, lad,
And every dog his day.
