Page:Cuthbert Bede--Verdant Green married and done for.djvu/68

60 The pic-nic party were stretched at their ease upon the grass, drinking wine, munching fruit, talking, laughing, and flirting, with the blue sea before them and the bluer sky above them, when said the squire in heroic strain, "Song alone is wanting to crown our feast! Charles Larkyns, you have not only the face of a singer, but, as we all know, you have the voice of one. I therefore call upon you to set our minstrels an example; and, as a propitiatory measure, I beg to propose your health, with eulogistic thanks for the song you are about to sing!" Which was unanimously seconded amid laughter and cheers; and the pop of the champagne bottles gave Charles Larkyns the key-note for his song. It was suited to the occasion (perhaps it was composed for it?), being a pæan for a pic-nic, and it stated (in chorus)—

A rule of pic-nics which, if properly worked out, could not fail to answer.

Other songs followed; and Mr. Poletiss, being a young gentleman of a meek appearance and still meeker voice, lyrically informed the company that "Oh! he was a pirate bold, The scourge of the wide, wide sea, With a murd'rous thirst for gold, And a life that was wild and free!" And when Mr. Poletiss arrived at this point, he repeated the last word two or three times over—just as if he had been King George the Third visiting Whitbread's Brewery—

So Mr. Poletiss sang, "And a life that was wild and free, free, free, And a life that was wild and free." To this charming lyric there was a chorus of, "Then hurrah for the pirate bold, And hurrah for the rover wild, And hurrah for the yellow gold, And hurrah for the ocean's child!" the mild enunciation of which highly moral and appropriate chant appeared to give Mr. Poletiss great satisfaction, as he turned his half-shut eyes to the sky, and fashioned his mouth into a smile. Mr. Bouncer's love for a chorus was conspicuously displayed on this occasion; and Miss Eleonora and Miss Letitia Jane Morkin added their feeble trebles