[Illustration: Can't you sing a single decent song?]
"Well, if you don't like it,
I like it the more;
And, if you can do better,
Just put in your oar."
"Yes," said Florian: "we'll sing a good song if you'll join in."
"Oh, yes, I'll join in."
"What shall it be?" asked Peter.
"'Honest and true.'"
"'Is my wealth and my store'? no, I don't like that," said Constantine.
"Well, then, 'Ere the morning dew was wasted.'"
"Yes." Babbett sang lustily, and the others fell in:--
"Ere the morning dew was wasted,
Ere the night-blown grass was shrunk,
Ere another's eye had tasted,
On my love mine eyes were sunk.
"Shoot the fox and rabbit early,
Ere they travel in the wood;
Love the girls ere they grow surly,
Or forget how to be wooed.
"Till with vines the millstone teemeth,
And the mill-race runs with wine,
While life's current in us streameth,
Thou art mine and I am thine."
Ivo thanked Babbett warmly for the pretty song; but Constantine
immediately followed it up with
"I'm as poor as a mouse:
There's no door to my house,
There's no lock to my door,
And I've no sweetheart more.
"It's all up with me
Over land and sea:
When the Danube dries up
Our wedding shall be.
"And it will not dry up,
And is wet to this day;
To find another sweetheart
I must up and away."
"Now let's have 'A boy he would a walking go,'" said Babbett.
"Keep your boy at home," replied Constantine.
"Oh, you! If you'd been kept at home, they wouldn't have turned you out
like a dog in the wrong kennel."
"Strike up," said Florian; and they sang:--
"Blithe let me be,
If 'tis but well with thee,
Although my youth and freshness
Must wither hopelessly.
"No streamlet on the hill-side
But finds its course to run;
But not a hand to open
My pathway to the sun.
"The sun, the moon, the stars,
And all the firmament,
Shall hang in mourning for me
Till my long night be spent."
Ivo fidgeted in his chair: this song was the expression of his own
fate.
"Don't go," said Constantine, perceiving his uneasiness.
"Babbett, you don't do like the host at Cana: you give the good wine
first and the bad afterward. You've brought Lutheran and Catholic wine
together: that'll be a mixed marriage."
"'When the mice have had enough, the flour is bitter,'" answered the
hostess.
"'Tell you what," cried Constantine; "we'll drink hot wine now."
"You've had enough for to-day," said Barbara.
"What we can't drink we can pour into our shoes. Let's make a night of
it. Are you for it?--and you? and you?"