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The boats now ran practically on an even keel, which would give them the greatest bearing on the water and enable them to travel over the shallowest water possible. "En roulant?" said Moise, looking at Alex inquiringly. Alex nodded, and the boys being now in their proper places in the boats, he himself stepped in and gave a light push from the beach with his paddle.
As often as he found his body swinging to the song, so often did he sternly check himself and resolutely set another air going in his head, only to find himself in a short space swinging along again to the old song to which he and his brother had so often made their canoe slip in those great days that now seemed so far away. "En roulant ma boule," sang his paddle in spite of all he could do.
Then he broke into song: "En roulant ma boule roulant, En roulant me boule." "This, I suppose, is one of your beloved shantymen," said the lieutenant, turning to Kate, who was walking with Harry behind. "Isn't he lovely!" exclaimed Kate. "Oh," cried Maimie, in terror, "let us get into a shop!"
Be more polite, or I'll stand here and sing you the whole of it." The window slammed shut. Ned Trent took up his walk again toward some designated sleeping-place of his own, his song dying into the distance. "Visa le noir, tua le blanc, En roulant ma boule, O fils du roi, tu es mechant! Rouli roulant, ma boule roulant." "And he can sing!" cried the girl bitterly to herself. "At such a time!
Be more polite, or I'll stand here and sing you the whole of it." The window slammed shut. Ned Trent took up his walk again toward some designated sleeping-place of his own, his song dying into the distance. "Visa le noir, tua le blanc, En roulant ma boule, O fils du roi, tu es mêchant! Rouli roulant, ma boule roulant." "And he can sing!" cried the girl bitterly to herself. "At such a time!
"En roulant, ma boule, roulant!" began Moise, as he shoved out his boat the words of the old Canadian voyageurs' boat song, known for generations on all the waterways of the North. "Better wait until we get into the lake," smiled Alex. "I don't think we can 'roll the ball, as you call it, very much in among these bushes."
"My snow-white drake, my love, my King, The crimson life-blood stains his wing. "His golden bill sinks on his breast, His plumes go floating east and west "En roulant ma boule: Rouli, roulant, ma boule roulant, En roulant ma boule roulant, En roulant ma boule!" As she finished the song we rounded an angle in the Whi-Whi.
Now, I retain in my memory, from reading the Memoirs of Vidocq thirty years ago, one or two phrases of this French thieves' slang, and I at once replied that I knew a few words of it myself, adding "Tu sais jaspiner en bigorne?" you can talk argot? "Oui, monsieur." "Et tu vas roulant de vergne en vergne?" and you go about from town to town?
Achille Picard raised a high tenor voice, fixing the air, "En roulant ma boule roulante, En roulant ma boule" And the voyageurs swung into the quaint ballad of the fairy ducks and the naughty prince with his magic gun. "Derrier' ches-nous y-a-t-un 'elang, En roulant ma boule." The girl sank back, dabbing uncertainly at her eyes. "I shall never see them again," she explained, wistfully.
The men quickened their stroke and shot diagonally across the current of an eddy. "Ni-shi-shin," said Me-en-gan. They fell back to the old stroke, rolling out their full-throated measure. "Toutes les plumes s'en vont au vent, En roulant ma boule, Trois dames s'en vont les ramassant, Rouli roulant, ma boule roulant." The canoe was now in the smooth rush of the first stretch of swifter water.
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