"It was all in the play, Tommy, and if 'ee didn't fight so hard and I didn't cut and slash as I did, perhaps we wouldn't 'ave the cake and good stuff that we are eating here now," said Ande, at which reply Tommy seemed some mollified.
The "curl-singers" had finished their anthems and were regaled in the same manner as the Christmas players, and there was a lull in the amusements, when the great knocker on the hall door sounded the presence of a new visitor.
CHAPTER XIII
THE CORNISH DROLL TELLER
"Seest thou not my harp?
Emblem of my peaceful calling."
—Harper Ballad.
A servant opened the hall door and ushered in an old man, slightly bent under the weight of a harp under its green covering. He was clad in the ordinary garments of the time, except that he still clung to the long stockings, knee breeches, and low silver buckled shoes that were now generally being discarded by the gentry. From the hue of his hair, that was of an iron-grey and thick and wavy like his beard, and the slight stoop to his shoulders, he must have been in the neighbourhood of fifty years of age. There was a trace of humour around the corners of his mouth, and much fun-light in the gleam of his twinkling eyes that seemed to belie the tragic nature of his heavy beetling brows.
"Uncle Billy! Uncle Billy!" shouted some of the younger ones, in glee.