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Dickson sang a number of the old songs, including Ham's favorite, "Sweet Alice, Ben Bolt"; but her music lacked something of its usual soul-fervor.
And the chickens ran in and out of the cottages with the children, and the birds sang all the year round, and the sun had never been known to stop shining for a single minute. It was the jolliest country imaginable, for nobody interfered with anybody else, and the King never made any laws at all, and the only punishment that existed was for grumbling.
She could not see his strange smile; but she noticed that his voice was not as usual. "Listen," he urged, and he sang softly over her shoulder for quite a minute. She was amazed. "Sing again," she said. "I have wanted to sing to you like that for many years," he replied; and he sang a little more. "He cannot sing like that," he wheedled, and he stretched his arm around her shoulder.
And if she only sang it at the Mechanics' with half the feeling she put into it that night, the lecturer must have been hard to please if he did not admit that his expectations were more than fulfilled.
Mona sang all this in her easy, natural way, being perfectly free from any intention of wounding my feelings, but the more innocent I believed her the more incapable I saw she was of entering into my feelings. I began to realize how, in loving everybody, she missed a certain enjoyment derived from a more selfish order of love.
She recalled how a woman, once a great singer, now grown old in years as in sorrow, had sung this very song to her then, in the hour of her direst apprehension. She sang it now to her own dead child, and to Jigger. When she ceased, there was not a sound save of some woman gently sobbing. Others were vainly trying to choke back their tears.
They gave him as much of that stuff as he wanted, for they were drunk after the first bottle of wine, and, becoming themselves once more, and opening the door to their usual habits, they kissed the mustaches on the right and left of them, pinched their arms, uttered furious cries, drank out of every glass, and sang French couplets, and bits of German songs, which they had picked up in their daily intercourse with the enemy.
So the young minstrel played and sang several tunes to the group of children who gathered around him. Time passed rapidly, and the recess was over before the children anticipated it. "I am sorry to disturb your enjoyment," said the teacher; "but duty before pleasure, you know.
Like the Russian serfs, and the bondmen of all ages and lands, the songs they made and sang all had an undertone of touching plaintiveness, born of ages of dumb suffering. The themes were exceedingly simple, and the range of subjects limited.
It was the son who sang the "Death of Nelson" under such contrarious circumstances. He was by trade a shearer of ship plates; but he could touch the organ, and led two choirs, and played the flute and piccolo in a professional string band. His repertory of songs was, besides, inexhaustible, and ranged impartially from the very best to the very worst within his reach.
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