some thought came across her, and she turned before she came to the
thorn, and went straight over the eyot (which was but a furlong over
at that place) and down to the southward-looking shore thereof.
There she let herself softly down into the water and thrust off
without more ado, and swam on and on till she had gone a long way.
Then she communed with herself, and found that she was thinking: If
I might only swim all the water and be free.

And still she swam on: and now a light wind had been drawn up from
the west, and was driving a little ripple athwart the lake, and she
swam the swiftlier for it awhile, but then turned over on her back
and floated southward still. Till on a sudden, as she lay looking up
toward the far-away blue sky, and she so little and low on the face
of the waters, and the lake so deep beneath her, and the wind coming
ever fresher from the west, and the ripple rising higher against her,
a terror fell upon her, and she longed for the green earth and its
well-wrought little blossoms and leaves and grass; then she turned
over again and swam straight for the eyot, which now was but a little
green heap far away before her.

Long she was ere she made land there, and the sun was high in the
heavens when she came, all spent and weary, to the shadow of the
hawthorn-tree; and she cast herself down there and fell asleep
straightway. Forsooth her swim was about as much as she had might
for.

When she awoke it lacked but an hour of noon-tide, and she felt the
life in her and was happy, but had no will to rise up for a while;
for it was ajoy to her to turn her head this way and that to the dear
and dainty flowers, that made the wide, grey, empty lake seem so far