“Indeed, Dorothy, I don’t know a single riddle and I never could guess one. Try Melvin, instead, please.”
The English boy flushed, as he always did at finding himself observed, but he remembered that he had heard strangers comment upon the obligingness of the Canadians and he must maintain the honor of his beloved Province. So, after a trifling hesitation, he answered:
“I can think of only one, Dorothy, and it’s rather long, I fancy. My mother made me learn it as a punishment, once, when I was a little tacker, don’t you know, and I never forgot it. The one by Lord Byron. I’ll render that, if you wish.”
“We do wish, we do!” cried Molly, while the Master nodded approvingly.
So without further prelude Melvin recited:
“’Twas whispered in Heaven, ’twas muttered in Hell,
And Echo caught softly the sound as it fell;
On the confines of Earth ’twas permitted to rest,
And the Depths of the ocean its presence confessed.
’Twill be found in the Sphere when ’tis riven asunder,
Be seen in the Lightning and heard in the Thunder.
’Twas allotted to man with his earliest Breath,
Attends at his Birth and awaits him in Death;
It presides o’er his Happiness, Honor, and Health,
Is the prop of his House and the end of his Wealth.
Without it the soldier and seaman may roam,
But woe to the Wretch who expels it from Home.
In the Whispers of conscience its voice will be found,
Nor e’en in the Whirlwind of passion be drowned.
’Twill not soften the Heart; and tho’ deaf to the ear
’Twill make it acutely and instantly Hear.
But in Shade, let it rest like a delicate flower—
Oh! Breathe on it softly—it dies in an Hour.”
Several had heard the riddle before and knew its significance; but those who had not found it as difficult to guess as Frazer’s “Old Shoe” had been. So Melvin had to explain that it was a play of words each containing the letter H; and this explanation was no sooner given than a diversion was made by Mabel Bruce’s irrelevant remark:
“I never picked grapes off a vine in my life, never!”
“Hi! Does that mean you want to do so now?” demanded Monty, alert. He, too, had grown tired of a game in which he did not excel, and eagerly followed the direction of her pointing, chubby finger. A finger on which sparkled a diamond ring, more fitting for a matron than a schoolgirl young as she.
Along that side of the barn, rising from the hay strewn floor to the loft above, ran a row of upright posts set a few inches apart and designed to guard a great space beyond. This space was to be filled with the winter’s stock of hay and its cemented bottom was several feet lower than the floor whereon the merry-makers sat. As yet but little hay had been stored there, and the posts which would give needful ventilation as well as keep the hay from falling inward, had been utilized now for decoration.