The old woman was trembling violently, and Polly stared at her.
“Singing?” she repeated.
“Ay, can’t you remember? Can’t you remember even that? I’d like you to remember that! But maybe they’d carried you out of hearing. I couldn’t stand it any more, I had to see what they were doing to my boy. So I crept along under the floor till I found a chink in the logs I could peep out of. They had him marching round and round a stake, with the fire licking at him already; and this was the song he sang”—Granny’s face was lifted, with eyes closed, like some old sibyl’s, and she raised a quavering voice to the tune of “Wearing of the Green”—
“Oh, you who are in hiding,
Lie low just where you be,
And don’t you stir or whisper
No matter what befalls.”
“He was warning me, you see,” she whispered. “Still taking care of his mammy; and him with the flames licking his body, and them he loved lying dead at his feet⸺”
Her voice died away, and Polly reached up a hand to stroke her cheek, her breast.
“My father,” she murmured proudly, “that was my father! But”—quickly—“Gray Eagle was not there, he was not chief then. He never tortures—only kills,” she added quickly.