At the farther end of the veranda a door led into the lamp-lit parlor. It was open, and from it now burst the opening notes of a rousing chorus. In Elmbrook there were fashions in songs, just as there were in the sopranos' hats. The former varied, not with the season, but with the sentiments of the people. One winter the Methodists held revival meetings for two months in the schoolhouse, and for nearly a year after it was considered very worldly to sing anything but hymns. The other extreme was reached one fall when Hank Winters came home for a visit from the States, and set all the village singing "coon songs."
This spring, and during the past winter, the rousing, Salvation Army variety of hymn was greatly in vogue. The opening chorus for the concert was of this kind, a stirring sort of semi-religious song, called "The King's Highway." It was with this the chorus now burst forth into tumultuous harmony:
"Wherever you may be,
Whatever you may see,
That would lead you into evil,
Say you nay, say you nay,
Be sure you take no heed,
They're trying to mislead;
Just keep along the middle
Of the King's highway!"
The verse was no extraordinary feat, but in the chorus the bass singers had a part calling for marvelous dexterity and tremendous speed. For, while the ladies sang leisurely, "Just keep along the middle of the King's Highway," the gentlemen were expected to get over about four times the space in the same time. They had to repeat the self-same warning a half dozen times, with sundry advices and variations concerning the turning to the right of the King's Highway and the left of the King's Highway, so many, and so complicated, that they arrived at the end gasping for breath. Spectacle John warned the sopranos again and again to go slowly, so as to admit of their overworked followers getting in all their parts about the middle, left and right. But Ella Anne Long was the real leader, and would wait for no man. She hastened along the King's Highway at such a pace that it was beyond the powers of human breath to keep up with her. Pete McQuarry declared that it kept a fellow puffing just to stay anywheres on the King's Highway, without bothering about the middle; and Davy Munn did not even attempt the feat, but sang the air an octave lower.
They were scampering through the song for the third time when there was a stir at the door, and a group of four entered: Elsie Cameron and her brother Malcolm, with the minister's daughter and—actually—the busy doctor himself. It was the first time Elsie had attended one of the musical gatherings since her return, but she took her old place as simply and naturally as though she had never left it. Malcolm went over to the corner where the husky young Englishman stood, alone and unheard, and gave him some assistance with the tenor, while the doctor joined the other young men, and sang bass like a native.
They weathered through "The King's Highway" again, and sang a temperance anthem, and several other choruses, and then they all sat around the room, on the red and green plush chairs, and took a rest while Ella Anne and her mother passed around raspberry vinegar and layer-cake.
Spectacle John was just calling them all to order again for another chorus when the minister put his head in at the door. Marjorie was to get her hat, as they must be going in a moment, he announced, happily unconscious of the scorching glance from the region of the tenors, and would Elsie sing "Abide With Me" before he left?
The girl arose and went to the organ. Since her home-coming she had been regarded with some disapproval in Elmbrook social circles because of the promptness with which she answered an invitation to sing. It was considered much more genteel and modest to at first disclaim positively all musical ability, and to yield only after much importuning. Every one felt that, though Elsie had been away in the city, she ought to show a little backwardness.
"Abide with me! fast falls the eventide,
The darkness deepens. Lord, with me abide."
She sang, as she always did, with her heart as well as her voice. The song hushed the gay chatter in the room; it passed out to the group on the veranda, and their conversation ceased; it floated through the open windows and rang across the darkly luminous water of the pond. And there it reached the ear of a man with whom only despair and loss had been abiding, and who was fighting a losing battle with these dark companions. The sound of the old hymn, that had been his children's lullaby, arrested John McIntyre on the brink of self-destruction: