“Now give us a song.”
“Let the gentleman take his breath,” the carpenter remonstrated.
“Never a breath,” persisted the bo’sun. “He must pay his footin’, I says. And I warrant you, too, he has as much pleasure in singing as we has in listenin’ to ’im.”
“Oh! shut up, old Barkshire,” said somebody.
“Barkshire be bothered,” cried the bo’sun. “I’m not ashamed to own my shire. You comes from the land o’ Tres and Pens; you’re west-country, you be. Have to fish for your breakfast every mornin’, else ye doesn’t get none: He! he!”
“Well, never mind,” said the good-natured carpenter, smiling. “We’re all nationalities here. Bill here is York; Tim is Irish; I’m just what Pipes calls me, Barkshire.”
“And I and my friend are Scotch,” said Kenneth.
“Hurrah! for a Scotch song, then.”
It wasn’t one, but several songs Kennie and Archie had to sing, but all Scotch, and what can beat them, reader mine?
“Sing ony o’ the auld Scotch sangs,
The blithesome or the sad;
They mak’ me laugh when I am wae,
And weep when I am glad.
Though eyes grow dim and hair grow grey,
Until the day I dee,
I’ll bless the Scottish tongue that sings
The auld Scotch sangs to me.”