noon
And sometimes towards the close of the sitting , if he knew his company very well , he would reward them with his favourite and only song , `` The Golden Vanitee '' : A ship I have got in the North Countree , And I had her christened the Golden Vanitee ; O , I fear she 's been taken by a Spanish Gal-a-lee , As she sailed by the Lowlands low ! In some hazy way he had persuaded himself that the Spanish galleon of the ballad was the very ship whose timbers over-arched him and his audience ; and for the moment , being himself inverted -LRB- so to speak -RRB- by the potency of his own singing , he blew out his chest and straddled out his thick calves and screwed up his eyes , quite as if his roof-tree were right-side-up once more in blue water , and he on deck beside the weather-rail . But the mood began to pass as soon as he bolted the front door behind his guests , and Ann the cook poured him out his last cup of mulled ale and withdrew with the saucepan . And another noon would find him seated under his leaning house-front , his eyes half-closed , his attention divided between the whisper of the tide and the murmur in the pigeon-cotes overhead , his body at ease and his soul content . His was a happy life -- or had been , but for two crumpled rose-leaves . To begin with , there were those confounded pot-boys . It puzzled Master Simon almost as much as it annoyed him ; he paid fair wages and passed for a good employer ; but he could not keep a pot-boy for twelve months .