“Nous n’avons qu’un temps à vivre,
Amis, passons le gaîment,
Que celui qui doit le suivre,
Ne nous cause aucun tourment.”
Roger did not immediately recognize the voice, but it thrilled him to his heart; and the next minute a short, boyish figure leaped over the chairs in the way, and began dancing an English jig like mad.
“Dicky! Dicky!” shouted Roger, joyfully, but his voice could not be heard over the sharp music of the violin, the gay clattering of Dicky’s heels, and the laughing and the singing of many voices, the rhythmic clapping of hands, and the merry stamping of feet. It was honest, noisy mirth, in which English, Scotch, and Irish bore their part.
Roger watched and listened with a quivering of joy and hope; he had almost forgotten that people could laugh and dance and sing. Dicky, at last, with three great thumps of his heels upon the floor, and throwing his hat in the air, ran toward the gentleman playing the fiddle, and choked him until the fiddle fell from his hand; and then Roger dashed through the door and down the long room, and catching Dicky in his arms, cried,—
“My lad, how glad I am to see thee, and see thee well and hearty!”
Dicky, half smothered, gripped Roger around the neck.
“Old boy, you cannot be as glad to see me as I am to see you; for, look you, these three years past, every day have I said to myself, ‘I wish I could see Roger this day!’”