It was fifteen miles to the nearest town, and fifteen more to the railway station. The earliest dawn saw William Leyden up and impatient to be away. In company with one of his old neighbors, he took his place in the rough wagon that was to figure so prominently in the "hauling home." About eight o'clock they reached their first stopping-place, where Leyden's friend had some little business to transact that would detain him a short time in the town.
Not caring to accompany him, too restless to sit still in the public room of the tavern, the impatient husband and father wandered into the spacious yard behind the house. A young girl stood washing and wringing out clothes near the kitchen door. Mechanically he took in every feature of the place; the long, low bench over which she leaned; her happy, careless face; her bare, red arms and wrinkled hands; the white flutter of garments from the loosened line; the green grass, where here and there others lay bleaching; the broken pump and disused trough; two or three calves munching the scattered herbage; in the distance a wide, illimitable stretch of prairie.
How well he remembered it all afterward!
As he stood watching her, the girl nodded smilingly and went on with her work. After a while she began to hum softly to herself. Leyden caught the sound, and listened. "What tune is that?" he asked eagerly. "Sing it loud."
"Shure I dunno," the girl answered. "I heard my grandmother sing it many's the time in the ould counthry, and I do be croonin' it over to mysel' sometimes here at my washin'."
"Have you the words of it a', colleen?" he inquired. "I'd give a dale to hear them again. 'Tis the song my own Mary likes best; and, thanks be to God! I'll hear her own sweet voice singin' it shortly. It's to meet her this mornin' I'm goin'—her and the childer, all the way from Ireland; but if ye have the words of it and will sing it for me, I'd like to hear it."
"Ayeh but you're the happy man, this day!" she replied. "I'm not much of a hand at singin', but I believe I have all the words, and I'm shure ye're welcome to hear them as well as I can give them."
With a preparatory cough and a modest little blush, the girl began in a timid voice the familiar melody. It was a sad, dirge-like air, as are so many of that sad, suffering land, "whose children weep in chains."
And yet it was not in itself a mournful song. Ever and anon the glad refrain broke forth exultingly and joyously from the monotone of the preceding notes.
Simple as were the words, they found a welcome in the heart of the listener; and unpretending as they seem written, they may find a like responsive echo in the heart of the Irish reader.