alighted on the tip of the
great flagstaff, and seemed to contribute thence his share to the songs
of all nations. He caught upon his white wing and tail-feathers, as he
flirted them, the clear radiance of the moon,--not a great orb, but
sending forth a light fair enough to be felt in all that sidereal
glitter of the cloudless sky, to show the faces of Odalie and Belinda
and others less comely, as the ladies sat in chairs under the line of
trees on one side of the parade with a group of officers near them, and
the soldiers and "single men" and children of the settlers filling the
benches of the post which were brought out for the occasion. So they all
sang, beginning with a great chorus of "Rule Britannia," into which they
threw more force and patriotism than melody. Then came certain solo
performances, some of which were curious enough. Odalie's French
chansonnettes acquired from her grand'maman, drifting out in a mellow
contralto voice, and a big booming proclamation concerning the
"Vaterland," by the drum-major, were the least queerly foreign. Mrs.
Halsing, after much pressing, sang an outlandish, repetitious melody
that was like an intricate wooden recitative, and the words were
suspected of being Icelandic,--though she averred they were High Dutch,
to the secret indignation of the drum-major, who, as O'Flynn afterward
remarked, when discussing the details of the evening, felt himself
qualified by descent to judge, his own father-in-law having been a
German. The men who had sung in the Christmas carols remembered old
English ditties,--

"How now, shepherd, what means that,
Why that willow in thy hat?"

and "Barbara Allen." Corporal O'Flynn, in the most incongruously
sentimental and melancholy of tenors, sang "Savourneen Deelish eileen
ogg." The sober Sandy gave a rollicking Scotch drinking-song that seemed
to show the very bead on the liquor, "Hey the browst, and hey the
quaigh!". The officers' cook, a quaint old African, seated cross-legged
on the ground, on the outskirts of the crowd, piped up at the
commandant's bidding, and half sang, half recited, in a wide, deep,
musical voice, and an unheard-of language that excited great interest
for a time; but interpreting certain manifestations of applause among
the soldiers as guying, he took himself and his ear-rings and a gay
kerchief, which he wore, to the intense delight of the garrison, as a
belt around the waistband of his knee-breeches, to his kitchen, re