第23章

"Sing!" cried Dick. "You ought to hear her. Now, mother, for the honor of the heather! Give us 'Can Ye Sew Cushions?' That's a 'baby song,' too."

"No," said Barney quietly, "Sing 'The Mac'Intosh,' mother." And he began to play that exquisite Highland lament.

It was not her son's entreaty so much as something in the soft drawl of the Southern girl that made Mrs. Boyle yield. Something in that tone touched the pride in the old lady's Highland blood.

When Barney reached the end of the refrain his mother took up the verse with the violin accompanying.

Her voice lacked fulness and power. It was worn and thin, but she had the exquisite lilting note of the Highland maids at their milking or of the fisher folk at the mending of their nets. Clear and sweet and with a penetrating pathos indescribable, the voice rose and fell in all the quaint turns and quavers and cadences that a tune takes on with age. As she sang her song in the soft Gaelic tongue, with hands lying idly in her lap, with eyes glowing in their gloomy depths, the spell of mountain and glen and loch fell upon her sons and upon the girl seated at her feet, while Iola's great lustrous eyes, fastened upon the stranger's face, softened to tears.

"Oh, that is too lovely!" cried Iola, when the song was done, clapping her hands. "No, not lovely. That is not the word. Sad, sad." She hid her face in her hands one impulsive moment, then said softly, "I could never do that. Never! Never! What is it you put into the song? What is it?" she cried, turning to Barney.

"It's the moan of the sea," said Barney gravely.

"It gives a feller a kind of holler pain inside," said Ben Fallows.

"There hain't no words fer it."

"Sing again," entreated Iola, all the lazy indifference gone from her voice. "Sing just one more."

"This one, mother," said Barney, playing the tune, "your mother used to sing, you know, 'Fhir a Bhata'."

"How often haunting the highest hilltop, I scan the ocean thy sail to see;

Wilt come to-night, Love? wilt come to-morrow?

Wilt ever come, love, to comfort me?

Fhir a bhata, na horo eile, Fhir a bhata, na horo eile, Fhir a bhata, na horo eile, O fare ye well, love, where'er ye be."

For some moments they sat quiet with the spell of the dreamy, sad music upon them.

"One more, mother," entreated Dick.

"No, laddie. The night is falling. There's work to-morrow for you. Aye, and for Margaret here."

Iola rose and came timidly to Mrs. Boyle. "Thank you," she said, lifting up her great, dark eyes to the old woman's face, "you have given me great pleasure to-night."

"Indeed, and you're welcome, lassie," said Mrs. Boyle, smitten with a sudden pity for the motherless girl. "And we will be glad to see ye when ye come back again."

For this, too, it was that Iola as well as Margaret could never forget that afternoon.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen," cried Dick, striking an attitude, "though the 'good cheer' department may seem to have accomplished the purpose for which it was organised, it cannot be said to have outlived its usefulness, in that it appears to have created for itself a sphere of operations from which it cannot be withdrawn without injury to all its members. I, therefore, respectfully suggest that the department be organised upon a permanent basis with headquarters at the Mill and my humble self at its head. All who agree will say 'Aye'."

"Aye," said Barney with prompt heartiness.

"Me, too," cried Iola, holding up both hands.

"Mother, what do you say?"

"Aye, laddie. There's much need for good cheer in the world."

"And you?" turning to Margaret, who stood with Mrs. Boyle's arm thrown about her, "how do you vote?"

"This member needs it too much"--with a somewhat uncertain smile--"to say anything but 'Aye'."

"Then," said Dick solemnly, "the 'good cheer' department is hereby and henceforth organised as a permanent institution in the community here represented, and we earnestly hope that its members will continue in their faithful adherence thereto, believing, as we do, that loyalty to this institution will be its highest reward."

But none of them knew what potencies of joy and of pain lay wrapped up for them all in that same department of "good cheer."