The surveyor started to sing again:
I have heard the mavis singing
Her love-song to the morn.
I have seen the dew-drop clinging
To the rose just newly born.
They smoked and listened in silence all through to the end. It was very still. The full moon was high. The long white slender branches of a box-tree stirred gently overhead; the she-oaks in the creek sighed as they are always sighing, and the southern peak seemed ever so far away.
That has made me thine for ever!
Bonny Mary of Argyle.
“Blarst my pipe!” exclaimed Mitchell, suddenly. “I beg your pardon, Peter. My pipe’s always getting stuffed up,” and he proceeded to shell out and clear his pipe.
The breeze had changed and strengthened. They heard the violin playing “Annie Laurie.”
“They must be having a Scotch night in that camp tonight,” said Mitchell. The voice came again:
Maxwelton Braes are bonny—
Where early fa’s the dew,
For ’twas there that Annie Laurie
Gie me her promise true—
Mitchell threw out his arm impatiently. “I wish they wouldn’t play and sing those old songs,” he said. “They make you think of damned old things. I beg your pardon, Peter.”
Peter sat leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands fingering his cold pipe nervously. His sad eyes had grown haggard and haunted. It is in the hearts of exiles in new lands that the old songs are felt.