[H]e went down the ship's side […] and, seating himself in the stern sheets of the jolly-boat, took the helm, pushed off, and four young lads rowed him ashore.

‘Your desultory twenties,’ my mother calls my lost time, trying to make it sound reasonable and fun, but it started before I was twenty and lasted much longer.

But we, the while winging, And thoughtfully hymning, All day o'er the meadows green, See kindred in kingdoms Of manifold wingdoms In myriads by man unseen.

He waited coweringly behind the door as the footsteps approached.