At that instant, a huge hulking farm-boy rolled into the booth, roaring, dolefully, the end of a song, with a punctuation of his own invention—
‘He’ll maak me a lady. Zo . Vine to be zyure.
And, vaithfully; love me. Although; I; be-e; poor-r-r-r.’
Lancelot would have laughed heartily at him anywhere else; but the whole scene was past a jest; and a gleam of pathos and tenderness seemed to shine even from that doggerel,—a vista, as it were, of true genial nature, in the far distance. But as he looked round again, ‘What hope,’ he thought, ‘of its realisation? Arcadian dreams of pastoral innocence and graceful industry, I suppose, are to be henceforth monopolised by the stage or the boudoir? Never, so help me, God!’
The ursine howls of the new-comer seemed to have awakened the spirit of music in the party.
‘Coom, Blackburd, gi’ us zong, Blackburd, bo’!’ cried a dozen voices to an impish, dark-eyed gipsy boy, of some thirteen years old.
‘Put ’n on taable. Now, then, pipe up!’
‘What will ’ee ha’?’
‘Mary; gi’ us Mary.’
‘I shall make a’ girls cry,’ quoth Blackbird, with a grin.
‘Do’n good, too; they likes it: zing away.’