Sur la plus haute branche un rossignol chantait,
Chante, beau rossignol, si tu as le cœur gai,
Pour un bouton de rose mon ami s’est fâché,
Je voudrais que la rose fût encore au rosier,”
or words to that effect.
Besides these she taught us all the French singing games: “Savez-vous planter les choux?” “Sur le pont d’Avignon,” and “Qu’est qui passe ici si tard, Compagnons de la Marjolaine?” We used to sing and dance these up and down the passage outside the schoolroom after tea.
Round about Membland were several nests of relations. Six miles off was my mother’s old home Flete, where the Mildmays lived. Uncle Bingham Mildmay married my mother’s sister, Aunt Georgie, and bought Flete; the house, which was old, was said to be falling to pieces, so it was rebuilt, more or less on the old lines, with some of the old structure left intact.
At Pamflete, three miles off, lived my mother’s brother, Uncle Johnny Bulteel, with his wife, Aunt Effie, and thirteen children.
And in the village of Yealmpton, three miles off, also lived my great-aunt Jane who had a sister called Aunt Sister, who, whenever she heard carriage wheels in the drive, used to get under the bed, such was her disinclination to receive guests. I cannot remember Aunt Sister, but I remember Aunt Jane and Uncle Willie Harris, who was either her brother or her husband. He had been present at the battle of Waterloo as a drummer-boy at the age of fifteen. But Aunt Sister’s characteristics had descended to other members of the family, and my mother used to say that when she and her sister were girls my Aunt Georgie had offered her a pound if she would receive some guests instead of herself.
On Sundays we used to go to church at a little church in Noss Mayo until my father built a new church, which is there now.