The child slumbered again on the oak settle in the inglenook. The firelight danced over his yellow hair and pretty dimpled hands. The candles burned low. Then Darby sang in flute-like voice a carol, that was, as he told them, "the rage in London," and, afterwards, just to please Deb, the old song that will never wear out its welcome at Christmas-tide, "When shepherds watched their flocks."
The girl would have joined him, but there came a tightness in her throat, and the hot stinging of tears to her eyes, and when the last note of it went into silence she said good night, lifted the sleeping child and carried him away.
"Deb grows more beautiful, Dad," said the young fellow, looking after her. "Egad! what a carriage she hath! She steps like a very princess of the blood. Hark! then," going to the latticed window and throwing it open. "Here come the waits, Dad, as motley a crowd as ever."
The innkeeper was trimming the lantern and seeing his neighbours to the door.
"Keep well hold of each other," called Darby after them. "I trow 'tis a timely proverb—'United we stand, divided we fall.'"
Saddler turned with a chuckle and shook his fist at the lad, but lurched dangerously in the operation.
"The apples were too highly spiced for such as thee," said Thornbury, laughing. "Thou had'st best stick to caudles an' small beer."
"Nay, then, neighbour," called back Sevenoakes, with much solemnity, "Christmas comes but once a year, when it comes it brings good cheer—'tis no time for caudles, or small beer!"
At this Darby went into such a peal of laughter—in which the waits who were discordantly tuning up joined him—that the sound of it must have awakened the very echoes in Stratford town.