“‘They may rail at this life; from the hour I began it
I’ve found it a life full of kindness and bliss;
And until they can show me some happier planet,
More social, more gay, I’ll content me with this.’”
He was contented with it—this life “full of kindness and bliss,” on his lonely sea-island, with its broken dikes and desolated fields, in his half-ruined old house, with its wooden walls vibrating, with more than one pane of glass gone, more than one floor whose planks were loosened so that they must walk carefully. At any rate, he trolled out his song as though he were: it was Christmas night, and every one should be merry.
There was one person who really was merry, and that was Master Jack, who sat on the lap of his Northern aunt, laughing and crowing, and demanding recognition of his important presence from each in turn, by the despotic power of his eye. In truth, it was this little child who held together the somewhat strangely assorted group, Miss Sabrina in an ancient white lace cape, with flowers in her hair; the old judge in a dress-coat and ruffled shirt, Cicely in a gay little gown of light-blue tint (taken probably, so Eve thought, from her second trousseau), and Eve herself in her heavy black crape; she alone had made no concessions to Christmas; her mourning attire was unlightened by any color, or even by white.
“‘Macgregor’s Gathering,’” called the judge.
Cicely sang it. After finishing the song, she began the lament a second time, changing the words:
“We’re niggerless, niggerless, niggerless, Gregorlach!
Niggerless, niggerless, nig-ig-ig-gerless!”
she sang. “For we’re not ‘landless’ at all; we’ve got miles and miles of land. It’s niggers that are lacking.”
The judge laughed, patting her little dark head as she sat on a stool beside him. “Let us go out to the quarters, grandpa; they will be dancing by now. And Jack must go too.”
The judge lifted his great-grandson to his shoulder. Eve had already noticed that Cicely never took the child from her with her own hands; she let some one else do it. When the door was opened, distant sounds of the thrumming of banjoes could be heard. Seeing a possible intention on Eve’s face, Cicely remarked, in her impersonal way, “Are you coming? They won’t enjoy it, they are afraid of you.”
“I don’t see why they should be,” said Eve, when she and Miss Sabrina were left alone.