"Abide with me, fast falls the eventide,
The darkness deepens, Lord with me abide;
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!"
Down the dim lane that led to a farther pasture-field a boy was driving a slow-moving line of cows. Around them a frisky terrier darted here and there, barking encouragingly. The boy was whistling gaily. He, too, knew that to-morrow promised to be fair.
A little breeze stirred the reeds in their bronze setting, and brought up a tang of the sea. The man slowly turned, and, skirting the edge of the hay-field, walked toward the house. His pathway ran parallel to the public highway, and from it there arose the clatter of a wagon approaching through a clump of woodland. John McIntyre waited, smiling.
Down the road it came, bumping noisily. The driver was a young man, with a dashing air and a merry, kindly eye. He was sitting on the extreme edge of the wagon-box, his feet swinging in the dust, and his hat stuck rakishly on the side of his head, and was giving forth to the echoing landscape a long, tragic "Come-all-ye" in an uproariously joyful voice:
"Come all yez true-born shanty byes,
Whoever yous may be,
I'd have yez pay atten-ti-on,
To hear what I've got for to say,
Concerning six Can-a-jen byes,
Who manfully and brave,
Did break the jam on the Gar-ry Rocks,
And met a wat-e-ry grave!"
"Whoa! Hold up!" shouted John McIntyre, as the horses' heads appeared beyond the line of timber. "What do you mean by making such a row on the road at night and disturbing peaceable citizens?"
The driver pulled up, and the two eyed each other with that air of severity which men affect when they are afraid of displaying the fact that their love for each other is deep and tender.
"And what do you mean by holdin' up a peaceable citizen on the Queen's highway like this?" demanded the younger man, threateningly.
"You seem to be mighty gay about something. Another letter from Annie Laurie?"
"Aw, go an' choke yourself! No, siree. It'd be more like it if I was weepin' instead o' singin'. I bet you'd have been, if you'd heard the news I did to-day. Who d'ye suppose is to be your next-door neighbor?"