"All I had found out about them was, that Sir Charles Hyde was the name of the East Indian, and how he was a Bengal judge newly come home; where they lived, nobody at the ball seemed to know. At home, of course, it was so absurd to think of getting acquainted with a rich Indian judge and his daughter, that I said no more of the matter; although I looked so foolish and care-about-nothing, I suppose, that my mother said to Jane she was sure I wanted to go to sea again, and even urged me to 'take a trip to the Downs, perhaps.' As for going to sea, however, I felt I could no more stir, _then_, from where I was, than with a best bower down, and all hands drunk but the captain. There was a favourite lazy spot of mine near the house, where I used to lie after dinner, and puff away amongst the grass, at the back of a high garden-wall with two doors in it, and a plank across a little brook running close under them. All round was a green paddock for cows; there was a tall tree at hand, which I climbed now and then half-mast high, to get a look down a long lane that ran level to the sky, and gave you a sharp gush of blue from the far end. Being a luxurious dog in those days, like the cloth in general when hung up ashore, I used to call it 'The Idler's Walk,' and 'The Lazy Watch,' where I did duty somewhat like the famous bo'sun that told his boy to call him every night and say the captain wanted him, when he turned over with a polite message, and no good to the old tyrant's eyes. "Well, one afternoon I was stretched on the softest bit of this retreat, feeling unhappy all over, and trying to think of nothing in particular, as I looked at the wall and smoked my cheroot. Excuse me if I think that, so far as I remember, there is nothing so consolatory, though it can't of course cure one, as a fine Manilla for the 'green sickness,' as our foremast fellows would say. My main idea was that nothing on earth could turn up to get me out of this scrape, but I should stick eternally, with my head sails shivering aback, or flapping in a sickening dead calm. It was a beautiful hot summer afternoon, as quiet as possible, and I was weary to death of seeing that shadow of the branch lying against the white wall, down to the keyhole of the nearest door. All of a sudden I heard the sweetest voice imaginable, coming down the garden as it were, singing a verse of a Hindostanee song I had heard the Bengal girls chant with their pitchers on their heads at the well, of an evening: La li ta la, ta perisi, La na comalay ah sahm-rè, Madna, ca--rahm Ram li ta, co-ca-la lir jhi! La li ta la, vanga-la ta perisi.