“Sing, yourself!” some one replied. “You can out-bellow the whole raft.”
Without more ado, Mark opened his mouth and began chanting, in a ponderous voice,—
“On yonder mountain summit
My castle you will find,
Renown'd in ann-cient historee,—
My name it's Rinardine!”
Presently, from the upper edge of the wood, several feminine voices were heard, singing another part of the same song:—
“Beware of meeting Rinar,
All on the mountains high!”
Such a shout of fun ran over the field, that the frighted owl ceased his hooting in the thicket. The moon stood high, and turned the night-haze into diffused silver. Though the hollows were chill with gathering frost, the air was still mild and dry on the hills, and the young ladies, in their warm gowns of home-made flannel, enjoyed both the splendor of the night and the lively emulation of the scattered laborers.
“Turn to, and give us a lift, girls,” said Mark.
“Beware of meeting Rinar!” Sally laughed.
“Because you know what you promised him, Sally,” he retorted. “Come, a bargain's a bargain; there's the outside row standin'—not enough of us to stretch all the way acrost the field—so let's you and me take that and bring it down square with th' others. The rest may keep my row a-goin', if they can.”
Two or three of the other maidens had cut the supporting stalks of the next shock, and overturned it with much laughing. “I can't husk, Mark,” said Martha Deane, “but I'll promise to superintend these, if you will keep Sally to her word.”