"No? They're supposed to be purely masculine, I know." She cocked the hat on one side and sang:
"If it be a girl she shall wear a golden ring,
And if it be a boy he shall fight for his king,
With his tarpaulin hat, and his coat of navy blue
He shall pace the quarter-deck as his daddy used to do."
Her rich contralto rang down the misty aisles beneath the dripping firs.
"Fine!" Angus applauded. "That's a great old song." She nodded and swung into the old, original refrain, her voice taking on the North Country burr:
"O-ho! it's hame, lads, hame, an' it's hame we yet wull be—
Back thegither scatheless in the North Countree;
Hame wi' wives an' bairns an' sweethearts in our ain countree—
Whaur the ash, an' the oak, an' the bonnie hazel tree,
They be all a-growin' green in our ain countree."
"I like those old songs," Angus approved.
"So do I. Modern songs seem to me cheap things, written just to sell. But the old ones—the real, old songs that were the songs of generations before us—weren't really written at all. Somehow, when I sing them I feel that I am almost touching the spirits of those who sang them many years ago." She stopped abruptly. "And now you'll think I'm silly!"
"Not a bit. Spirits! Old Murdoch McGillivray—"
"Who was he?"
"A friend of my father's. He had the gift."