See a gay ploughboy.
Gay, yes, they were gay; the snow was falling, and the sun was shining, and they had blacked their faces and come to her doorstep, and one black face with an open pink mouth was looking up at her in the window.
Please can you spare a halfpenny
For an old ploughboy?
A bit of bread and cheese
Is better than nothing.
The song was over; one of the young carters came to the door and gave a knock which echoed through the house. Anne started, woken from her rapt contemplation of the horses and the men, and still repeating under her breath: “Beautiful, they are beautiful!” she ran downstairs to open the door. Mr. Dunnock, however, was there before her, and from the hall she could see nothing of the men with their black faces, nor of the plough, nor the horses with their satin coats, their manes flecked with snow, and their tails twisted up in plaits of straw; her father’s back blocked the doorway, and she could hear his voice in anger.
“That’s enough of this foolery. You should know better than to trample down the lawn and the flower-bed.”
Give us a shilling and we shall be glad,
Give us a penny and we shall go home,