In half alarm.
“Ah, no!” he answered; “Stranger, no!
No other life than this I’ve known.
For forty years of sun and snow,
As seasons come, and seasons go,
I’ve been alone!”
“But hark you back, McQuade!” I said—
“The days, the happy days, old mate!
We plucked the gums for roseleaf beds,
And rung, we two, the Southern sheds