Beneath the musket, on the "fire-board," lay a spindle-shaped, wooden object, black with age. "A dulcimer," Aunt Polly Ann explained. "My man made it, too, always-ago. Dulcimers used to be all the music there was in this country, but banjos is coming in now."
Miss Loring knew that the dulcimer was an ancient musical instrument very popular in England three centuries ago. She gazed upon the interesting survival with reverence, and expressed a wish to hear it played.
"Beldory she'll pick and sing for you gladly when she gets the dishes done," promised Aunt Polly Ann. "Picking and singing is her strong p'ints, and she knows any amount of song-ballads."
At last Beldora came out on the porch and seated herself on a low stool near the loom. Laying the dulcimer across her knees, she began striking the strings with two quills, using both shapely hands. The music was weird, but attractive; the tune she played, minor, long-drawn, and haunting. Miss Loring received the second shock of the day when she caught the opening words of the song:
All in the merry month of May,
When the green buds they were swelling,
Young Jemmy Grove on his death-bed lay,
For the love of Barbary Allen.
Often had she read and heard of the old English ballad "Barbara Allen"; never had she thought to encounter it in the flesh. As she listened to the old song, long since forgotten by the rest of the world, but here a warm household possession; as she gazed at Beldora, so young, so fair against the background of ancient loom and gray log wall, she felt as one may to whom the curtain of the past is for an instant lifted, and a vision of dead-and-gone generations vouchsafed.
Beldora went off to fetch the nag, and Aunt Polly Ann accompanied the guest to the horse-block, laying an anxious hand on her arm.
"You heared the song-ballad Beldory sung to you. She knows dozens, but that's always her first pick. It's her favorrite, and why? Because it's similar to her own manœuvers. Light and cruel and leading poor boys on to destruction is her joy and pastime, same as Barbary's. Did you mind her eyes when she sung them words about
As she were walking through the streets,
She heard them death-bells knelling,
And every stroke it seemed to say,
"Hard-hearted Barbary Allen!"