I'd soon be up an' over that, I'd soon be runnin' down.
Then sure the great ould sea itself is there beyont the bar,
An' all the windy wathers are between us, so they are.
Och anee!"
The rich, soft, young voice with its Irish brogue died away. The little audience paid the singer the tribute of silence. She herself was the first to speak.
"'Divided' is the name of it. A namesake of mine, Moira O'Neill, wrote it," she explained.
"It's a beautiful song, and I thank ye for singing it," Macdonald said simply. "It minds me of my own barefoot days by the Tay."
Later in the evening the two dinner guests walked back to the hotel together. The two subjects uppermost in the minds of both were not mentioned by either. They discussed casually the cost of living in the North, the raising of strawberries at Kusiak, and the best way to treat the mosquito nuisance, but neither of them referred to the Macdonald coal claims or to Sheba O'Neill.