Hildegarde considered for a few minutes, making meanwhile intimate acquaintance with the theme of song; then throwing back her head, she exclaimed with dramatic fervour:—
"I sing the pie!
The pie sing I!
And yet I do not sing it; why?
Because my mind
Is more inclined
To eat it than to glorify."
Anything will make people laugh at a picnic, especially on a day when the whole world is aglow with light and life and joy. One jest followed another, and the walls of the pie melted away to the sound of laughter, as did those of Jericho at the sound of the trumpet. Merlin, who had stayed behind to watch a woodchuck, came up just in time to consume the last fragments, which he did with right good will. Then, when they had eaten "a combination of Keats and sunset," as Mrs. Grahame called the peaches, the Colonel asked permission to light his cigar; and the soft fragrance of the Manilla mingled with odours of pine and fir, while delicate blue rings floated through the air, to the delight of Hugh and Merlin.
"This is the nose dinner," said the child. "It is almost better than the mouth dinner, isn't it?"
"Humph!" said the Colonel, puffing meditatively. "If you hadn't had the mouth dinner first, young man, I think we should hear from you shortly. Hest—a—Hildegarde, will you give us a song?"
So Hildegarde sang one song and another, the old songs that the Colonel loved: "Ben Bolt," and "The Arethusa," and "A-hunting we will go"; and then, for her own particular pleasure and her mother's, she sang an old ballad, to a strange, lovely old air that she had found in an Elizabethan song-book.
"When shaws been sheene, and shraddes full faire,
And leaves are large and long,
It is merry walking in the fair forest,
To hear the small birds' song.
"The woodwele sang, and would not cease,
Sitting upon the spray,
Soe loud, he wakened Robin Hood,
In the greenwood where he lay."
It was the ballad of Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne; and when she sang the second verse her mother's sweet alto chimed in; and when she sang the third verse, Jack began to whistle a soft, sweet accompaniment, the effect of which was almost magical; and when she sang the fourth verse,—wonder of wonders! here was the Colonel humming a bass, rather gruff, but in perfect tune.
When the ballad was over, there was a chorus of surprise and congratulation. "Colonel Ferrers! why didn't you tell us you sang?"
"I say, Uncle Tom, you've been regularly humbugging us. The idea of your turning out a basso profundo!"