“Thank you, Sir,” said the Doctor; “that’s a queer tune though. I don’t know that I ever heard one at all like it. But I shouldn’t say all that song was old now.”
“Well, I believe you’re right. But I can say, as you said of the Barkshire Tragedy, it’s all older than my time, for I remember my father singing it just as I’ve sung it to you as long as I can remember any thing.”
“And what did he say of it?”
“Well, he said that five out of the first six verses were very old indeed. He had heard them often when he was a child, and always the same words. The rest was all patch-work, he said, by different hands, and he hardly knew which were the old lines, and which new.”
“I say,” remarked the short scholar, “the Doctor don’t seem to be a bad hand at making the smoke-poison.”
The Doctor blew out a long white cloud, and was about to reply, when a brawny young carter, at a distant table, took his pipe from his lips, and, in answer to the urgings of his neighbours, trolled out the following little piece of sentiment:—
CUPID’S GARDEN.
As I wur in Cu-bit’s gardin
Not mwoar nor haf an hour,