"Don't go--oh, _damn it all!_ don't go! Take me--take me home!"

And there at the back of the room a small boy stood up on his form,
and stretched out both hands to the painted ship, and shrieked and
panted.

There was a blank silence, and then the matron hurried up, took him
firmly in her arms, and carried him out.

"Don't go--oh, for the Lord A'mighty's sake, don't go!"

And as he was borne down the passages his cry sounded among the
audience like the wail of a little lost soul.

The matron carried Kit to the sick-room and put him to bed.
After quieting the child a bit she left him, taking away the candle.
Now the sick-room was on the ground floor, and Kit lay still a very
short while. Then he got out of bed, groped for his clothes, managed
to dress himself, and, opening the window, escaped on to the quiet
lawn. Then he turned his face south-west, towards home and the sea--
and ran.

How could he tell where they lay? God knows. Ask the swallow how
she can tell, when in autumn the warm south is a fire in her brain.
I believe that the sea's breath was in the face of this child of
seven, and its scent in his nostrils, and its voice in his ears,
calling, summoning all the way. I only know that he ran straight
towards his home, a hundred miles off, and that next morning they
found his canary waistcoat and snuff-coloured coat in a ditch, two