'But you must remember it, my dear,' persisted her father; 'do try.'
'Oh yes! please do try! I should so like to hear it,' echoed Gwen curiously, her eyes full on the blush. Rose, conscious of it, felt herself a fool, and looked still more uncomfortable.
'Talking of Jacobite songs,' remarked an indifferent voice beside her, 'I wonder, Miss Tweedie, if you know a great favourite of mine, called "Lewie Gordon"--don't laugh, you boys, it's rude. If so, please sing it. I haven't heard it for years; people are always afraid of making me vain.'
She gave him a quick, grateful look, as, with a nod, she broke into the song.
'O send Lewie Gordon hame,
And the lad I daurna name,
Tho' his back be to the wa',
Here's to him that's far awa'.'
She sang with greater spirit than before, a sort of glad recognition of his kindly tact leading up to the decision of the climax:
'That's the lad that I'll gang wi'.'
Yet after all, amid the chorus of thanks, she heard him say in his worst manner, '"The lad I daurna name!" how like a woman!' And he added to the offence; for, when the little under-secretary remarked diffidently that he had always understood that the song referred to Charles Edward, though whether to the old or the young Pretender he could not say, Lewis, as he dawdled away to his nightly task of breaking up the tête-à-tête, murmured that at any rate it referred to a pretendu. But Rose had caught Gwen's appealing look from the sofa also, and rising, closed the piano with a bang and suggested a round game. If her intention was to punish the offender, who hated that form of amusement, she failed ignominiously; for he sat on the 'Stool of Repentance' with perfect nonchalance, and, when it came to her turn, paid her such double-edged, charmingly caustic little compliments, that she had to join in the laugh they raised. It was, in fact, past midnight ere the Colonel, with many allusions to the delight of such company, said they really must go to bed, and they trooped in a body out of the big tent to seek their several quarters.
'I'm glad not to make a casual of you to-night,' said Mrs. Boynton softly to George.
'Almost wish you were,' he replied, giving a rueful look towards the red brick prison on the farther side of the canal. 'This is home; that is exile.'