‘That was gipsy for “Thank you kindly, Brother and Sister,"’ said Pharaoh Lee.
He was standing behind them, his fiddle under his arm.
‘Gracious, you startled me!’ said Una.
‘You startled old Priscilla Savile,’ Puck called from below them. ‘Come and sit by their fire. She ought to have put it out before they left.’
They dropped down the ferny side of the shaw. Una raked the ashes together, Dan found a dead wormy oak branch that burns without flame, and they watched the smoke while Pharaoh played a curious wavery air.
‘That’s what the girl was humming to the baby,’ said Una.
‘I know it,’ he nodded, and went on:
‘Ai Lumai, Lumai, Lumai! Luludia!
Ai Luludia!’
He passed from one odd tune to another, and quite forgot the children. At last Puck asked him to go on with his adventures in Philadelphia and among the Seneca Indians.
‘I’m telling it,’ he said, staring straight in front of him as he played. ‘Can’t you hear?’