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Tears come in the fine eyes of the wife. Lockwin's back is turned. "Good! Good!" he is saying. "So Davy played! I'll warrant it was 'Back to Our Mountains!" "Yes," says the wife. "Good! Good! That's right. By-bye, Esther." And the man goes out to victory whistling the lament of the crooning witch, "Back to Our Mountains! Back to Our Mountains!"
Roxana sang again to him, a low, crooning song of the fragrant Nile, the lotus bells, the nodding palms, the perfumed breeze from the desert. Whilst he watched her through half-closed eyes, the visions of that day of battles left him. He sat wrapped in a dream world, far from stern realities of men and arms.
They wandered about almost aimlessly for nearly half-an-hour. Then Quest came to a sudden standstill. Lenora gripped his arm. They had both heard the same sound a queer, crooning little cry, half plaintive, half angry. Quest looked over his right shoulder along a narrow, overgrown path which seemed to end abruptly in an evergreen hedge. "What's that?" he exclaimed. Lenora still clung to his arm.
In the centre of this circle sat a young woman with dark hair and a kindly keen face. On her lap was a little boy of four years with a club foot. As she gently caressed the foot, from which the clumsy boot had been removed, she told in a crooning tone, mingled with endearing phrases, of the rapid improvement which had already begun and would soon be complete.
I only womba mad all yowee spirits in me tell me gubbah good I lib 'long a youee; bimeby I come back big feller wirreenun; wahl you frightened? I not hurt you. And after crooning an accompaniment to her steps off she went, a strange enough figure, dancing and crooning as she went towards her camp; and not until the spirits gave up possession of her did she come near the house again.
Closer by, the cow-boys' crooning would have sounded harsh and unmusical, but at this distance it shaped itself into a plaintive, minor melody that was very pleasing. For many moments they waited and enjoyed it in silence. Then suddenly a quick gust of wind and a low, muttering rumble of thunder made them turn quickly and look at the sky behind them.
Ten minutes afterwards, Aunt Synchy was busy compounding a black paste, from various preparations which she found among the vials on the shelf and under one corner of the heap of rags which she called her bed crooning all the while a dismal attempt at a tune which made even the not-over-sensitive lawyer shudder, and putting the mixture at last into his hands with a "Lor' bress you, honey!" which might have made any one shudder if he had understood the connection.
As she passed from one to another as lightly as a butterfly might have done, she began chanting in a happy undertone. Ever since she had learned to talk she had a quaint little way of singing to herself. All the names that pleased her fancy she strung together in a crooning melody of her own. There was no special tune. It sounded happy, although nearly always in a minor key.
Seated thus, with her little children about her there was no doubt at all that Charlotte Home had a pleasant face; the care vanished from her eyes as she looked into the innocent eyes of her babies, and as she nursed the seven-months-old infant she began crooning a sweet old song in a true, delicious voice, to which the other two listened with delight:
Next day, coming back from office half an hour earlier than usual, I was aware of a small figure in the dining-room a tiny, plump figure in a ridiculously inadequate shirt which came, perhaps, halfway down the tubby stomach. It wandered round the room, thumb in mouth, crooning to itself as it took stock of the pictures. Undoubtedly this was the 'little son.
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