“That’s the one,” applauded the Admiral, gaily. “I sang that chanty before now in a fo’cas’le on a trading ship bound for the Straits, when I wasn’t much older than Polly there.”
“Mother knows all the sailor songs and fisherman croons of the seven seas,” said Marbury, as he leaned towards his mother, turning pages when she needed help. “I’ve kept count to-night, and in the last half hour she has skipped from an Iceland lullaby to a Greek rowing chorus we boys used to sing when we were at shell practice on the bay. Then that rippling one was a gondolier song we heard at Venice, way out on one of the small canals around the islands. And just before this last, Mother, wasn’t that the little lullaby you heard at Iona?”
“This?” Mrs. Yates ran over the simple, soft melody, and Polly caught the words.
“Day has barred her windows close, and gaes wi’ quiet feet,
Night wrapped in a cloak of gray, comes saftly doon the street,
Mither’s heart’s a guiding star, tender, strong, and true,
Lullaby, and lulla-loo-oo—
Sleep, lammie, noo, sleep, lammie, noo.”
“Oh, that’s a darling,” cried Polly. “Please, please, sing some more.”
“We’re going out on deck, now,” said Mrs. Yates, rising, with one arm around Polly. “The moon is rising, and I want to hear the Polly Page Glee Club this last night we will be together.”