CHAPTER VI.
FAIRY LAND.
It was a soft summer night, cool and fragrant after the heat of the long July day; and here, under an awning in the stern of the house-boat White Rose, were George Bethune, his granddaughter Maisrie, and Vincent Harris, looking out upon the magic scene that stretched away from them on each hand up and down the river. All the dusk was on fire with illuminations; the doors and windows of the house-boats sent forth a dull golden glow; there were coloured lamps, crimson, blue, and orange; there were strings of Chinese lanterns that scarcely moved in the faint stirring of wind; and now and again an electric launch would go by—stealthily and silently—with brilliant festoons of fierce white lights causing it to look like some gigantic and amazing insect irradiating the dark. The smooth surface of the stream quivered with reflections; here and there a rowing boat glided along, with a cool plash of oars; a gondola came into view and slowly vanished—the white-clad gondolier visionary as a ghost. Everywhere there was a scent of flowers; and on board this particular house-boat there was but the one prevailing perfume; for the sole decoration of the saloon consisted of deep crimson roses—a heavy splendour against the white and gold walls. From some neighbouring craft came the tinkle of a banjo; there was a distant hum of conversation; the unseen reeds and waterlilies could be imagined to be whispering in the silence. Among the further woods and meadows there was an occasional moving light; no doubt the campers-out were preparing to pitch their tents.
"Mr. Talkative of Prating-row is hardly wanted here to-night," old George Bethune was saying, unmindful of his own garrulous habits. "Music is better. What is that they are singing over there, Maisrie?"
"'The Canadian Boat Song,' grandfather."
"Oh, yes, of course: I thought it was familiar. And very pretty it sounds, coming across the water—though I do not know whether the air is modern or old. What I am certain of," he continued, raising his voice slightly as he usually did when he was about to discourse, "is that the finest national airs are ancient beyond the imagination of man to conceive. No matter when words may have been tacked on to them; the original melodies, warlike, or pathetic, or joyous, were the voice of millions of generations that passed away leaving us only these expressions of what they had felt. And if one could only re-translate them!—if one could put back into speech all the human suffering that found expression in such an air as 'The Last Rose of Summer,' wouldn't that electrify the world? I wonder how many millions of generations must have suffered and wept and remembered ere that piteous cry could have been uttered; and when I come to Tom Moore's wretched trivialities—"
"Grandfather," interposed Maisrie Bethune, quickly (for there were certain subjects that angered him beyond endurance) "you must not forget to show Mr. Harris that old play you found—with the Scotch airs, I mean—"
"Yes, that is curious," said the old man, yielding innocently. "Curious, is it not, that long before either Burns or Scott was born, a Scotchman named Mitchell should have collected over fifty of the best-known Scotch airs, and printed them, with words of his own; and that he should have chosen for the scene of his play the Borders of the Highlands, so as to contrast the manners and customs of the Highland chieftains and their fierce clansmen with those of the Lowland lairds and the soldiery sent to keep the peace between them. The Highland Fair was produced at Drury Lane about 1730, if I remember aright; but I cannot gather whether Ewen and Colin, and Alaster and Kenneth, impressed the Londoners much. To me the book is valuable because of the airs—though I could wish for the original songs instead of Mitchell's—"
Here Maisrie, seeing that her grandfather was started on a safer subject, quietly rose; and at the first pause she said—
"I see some of them are putting out their lights, and that is a hint for me to be off. I suppose we shall be wakened early enough to-morrow morning by the boats going by. Good-night, Mr. Harris! Good-night, grandfather!"