"Look here, boys," said he, "as we are talking about the sea, and some of us intend to be sailors when we are old enough, I'd like to propose that Sandy Miller sing us a sea song. He knows a ripping good one, and I know he can sing it, for I heard him once at his house."
There was an immediate demand for the song, which was so loud and emphatic and unanimous that Sandy could not refuse.
"It's one that my great aunt, Miss Corbett, wrote," said he. "I can't remember it all, but I'll sing you a bit of it as well as I can. Ye'll just remember that I'm no Jenny Lind nor the choir of the Presbyterian church." Then he sang:
| "I've seen the waves as blue as air, I've seen them green as grass; But I never feared their heaving yet, From Grangemouth to the Bass. I've seen the sea as black as pitch, I've seen it white as snow; But I never feared its foaming yet, Though the waves blew high or low. When sails hang flapping on the masts, While through the waves we snore, When in a calm we're tempest-tossed, We'll go to sea no more— No more— We'll go to sea no more. "The sun is up, and round Inchkeith The breezes softly blaw; The gudeman has the lines on board— Awa'! my bairns, awa'! An' ye'll be back by gloamin' gray, An' bright the fire will low, An' in your tales and sangs we'll tell How weel the boat ye row. When life's last sun gaes feebly down, An' death comes to our door, When a' the world's a dream to us, We'll go to sea no more— No more— We'll go to sea no more." |
When the applause that greeted the song had subsided, little Steve Leonard asked: "I suppose that means they'll sail all their lives, doesn't it?"
"Yes, it means just about that," said Tom Kennedy.
Paying no attention to the touch of sarcasm in Tom's intonation, Steve added:
"Well, they might do that in a fishing boat, but they couldn't do it in the navy. My Uncle Walter is an officer in the navy, and he's got to get out of it next year, because he'll be sixty-two years old, though there isn't a gray hair in his head."
"The people in the song were fishermen," said Sandy.
At this moment there was a cry of alarm among the small boys in the stream. One of them had got beyond his depth and had disappeared beneath the surface.