to the ferry, they were very very merry,
For all our men were drinking.

The voices, as they mixed in their several parts, and ran through them,
untwisting and again entwining all the links of the merry old catch,
seemed to have a little touch of the bacchanalian spirit which they
celebrated, and showed plainly that the musicians were engaged in the
same joyous revel as the MENYIE of old Sir Thom o' Lyne. At length I
came within sight of them, three in number, where they sat cosily niched
into what you might call a BUNKER, a little sand-pit, dry and snug, and
surrounded by its banks, and a screen of whins in full bloom.

The only one of the trio whom I recognized as a personal acquaintance
was the notorious little Benjie, who, having just finished his stave,
was cramming a huge luncheon of pie-crust into his mouth with one hand,
while in the other he held a foaming tankard, his eyes dancing with all
the glee of a forbidden revel; and his features, which have at all times
a mischievous archness of expression, confessing the full sweetness of
stolen waters, and bread eaten in secret.

There was no mistaking the profession of the male and female, who were
partners with Benjie in these merry doings. The man's long loose-bodied
greatcoat (wrap-rascal as the vulgar term it), the fiddle-case, with its
straps, which lay beside him, and a small knapsack which might contain
his few necessaries; a clear grey eye; features which, in contending
with many a storm, had not lost a wild and, careless expression of glee,
animated at present, when he was exercising for his own pleasure the
arts which he usually practised for bread,--all announced one of those
peripatetic followers of Orpheus whom the vulgar call a strolling
fiddler. Gazing more attentively, I easily discovered that though the
poor musician's eyes were open, their sense was shut, and that the
ecstasy with which he turned them up to heaven only derived its apparent
expression from his own internal emotions, but received no assistance
from the visible objects around. Beside him sat his female companion, in
a man's hat, a blue coat, which seemed also to have been an article of
male apparel, and a red petticoat. She was cleaner, in person and in
clothes, than such itinerants generally are; and, having been in her day
a strapping BONA ROBA, she did not even yet neglect some attention to
her appearance; wore a large amber necklace, and silver ear-rings, and
had her laid f