Edmund trotted back to the house. No one had missed him. Miss Esperance had not yet returned, and the square, white envelope still lay on the hall table unopened.
That day at dinner the little boys learned from their aunt that the Colonel of the cavalry regiment just come to Jock's Lodge was an old friend of hers, and was coming out to tea with them on the following day. They talked and thought of nothing else till bedtime. Next morning Edmund, still at a loose end, got tired of play in the garden by himself and invaded his aunt in her parlour, where she was busy mending Montagu's stockings.
He fidgeted round about Miss Esperance, dropping balls of wool and pricking his fingers with darning needles, finally upsetting a large box of pins: which his aunt commanded him to pick up and replace. This he did, and lightened his labours by suddenly bursting into song:
O there's not a king is so gay as me—
With my glass in my hand and my wench on my knee,
When I gets back to the old countrie
And the regiment's home again.
Edmund had a clear, loud voice, and could sing any tune on earth after he had heard it once.
Miss Esperance dropped the stocking she was darning, and exclaimed in horrified tones: "Edmund! My dear boy! Where in the world did you learn that song? Never let me hear it again!"
"The soldier gentleman what brought the Colonel's letter was singing it that morning he came, and nobody answered the door to him. He waited ever so long. What's wrong with it, Aunt Esperance? D'you not like it?"
"Like it!" Miss Esperance repeated. "It's a shocking, low song, and quite unsuitable for the lips of a little boy."
"What's unshootable?" demanded the volatile Edmund, quite unabashed.
Miss Esperance was busy re-threading the darning-needle Edmund's surprising ditty had caused her to drop, and she did not reply at once.