"D'Aillebout them did command,
Which were but thievish rogues,
Else why did they consent to goe
With bloodye Indian dogges?
"And here I end my long ballad,
The which you just heard said;
And wish that it may stay on earth
Long after I be dead."
The old man bowed his palsied head over his fiddle, struck with his wrinkled thumb a string or two; and I saw tears falling from his almost sightless eyes.
Around him, under the giant trees, his homely audience stood silent and spellbound. Many of his hearers had seen with their own eyes horrors that compared with the infamous butchery at Schenectady almost a hundred years ago. Doubtless that was what fascinated us all.
But Boyd, on whom nothing doleful made anything except an irritable impression, drew us away, saying that it was tiresome enough to fight battles without being forced to listen to the account of 'em afterward; at which, it being true enough, I laughed. And Lois looked up winking away her tears with a quick smile. As for Lana, her face was tragic and colourless as death itself. Seeing which, Boyd said cheerfully:
"What is there in all the world to sigh about, Lanette? Death is far away and the woods are green."
"The woods are green," repeated Lana under her breath, "yet, there are many within call who shall not live to see one leaf fall."
"Why, what a very dirge you sing this sunny morning!" he protested, still laughing; and I, too, was surprised and disturbed, for never had I heard Lana Helmer speak in such a manner.
"'Twas that dreary old fiddler," he added with a shrug. "Now, God save us all, from croaking birds of every plumage, and give us to live for the golden moment."
"And for the future," said Lois.