This was given point by Luke’s own unmarried state. He sang it as a comic song and his rendering certainly made it one. Perhaps, then, for a change, poor old Algy, the mystery man, would be asked for a song and he would sing in a cracked falsetto, which seemed to call for the tinkling notes of a piano as accompaniment:

Have you ever been on the Penin-su-lah?

If not, I advise you to stay where you haw,

For should you adore a

Sweet Spanish senor-ah,

She may prove what some might call sin-gu-lah.

Then there were snatches that any one might break out with at any time when no one else happened to be singing:

I wish, I wish, ‘twer all in vain,

I wish I were a maid again!

A maid again I ne’er shall be

Till oranges grow on an apple tree

or:

Now all you young chaps, take a warning by me,

And do not build your nest at the top of any tree,

For the green leaves they will wither and the flowers they will decay,

And the beauty of that fair maid will soon pass away.

One comparatively recent settler, who had only lived at the hamlet about a quarter of a century, had composed a snatch for himself, to sing when he felt homesick. It ran:

Where be Dedington boo-oys, where be they now?

They be at Dedington at the “Plough;”

If they be-ent, they be at home,

And this is the “Wagon and Horses.”

But, always, sooner or later, came the cry, “Let’s give the old ‘uns a turn. Here you, Master Price, what about ‘It was my father’s custom and always shall be mine’, or ‘Lord Lovell stood’, or summat of that sort’ as has stood the testing o’ time?” and Master Price would rise from his corner of the settle, using the stick he called his “third leg” to support his bent figure as he sang:

Lord Lovell stood at his castle gate,

Calming his milk-white steed,

When up came Lady Nancy Bell

To wish her lover God-speed.

‘And where are you going, Lord Lovell?’ she said.

‘And where are you going?’ said she.

‘Oh, I’m going away from my Nancy Bell,

Away to a far country-tre-tre;

Away to a far coun-tre.’

‘And when will you come back, Lord Lovell?’ she said.

‘When will you come back?’ said she.

‘Oh, I will come back in a year and a day,

Back to my Lady Nancy-ce-ce-ce.

Back to my Lady Nan-cee.’

But Lord Lovell was gone more than his year and a day, much longer, and when he did at last return, the church bells were tolling:

’And who is it dead?’ Lord Lovell, he said.

’And who is it dead,’ said he.

And some said, ‘Lady Nancy Bell,’

And some said, ‘Lady Nancy-ce-ce-ce,

And some said,’Lady Nan-cee.’

. . . . . . . . .

Lady Nancy died as it were today;

And Lord Lovell, he died tomorrow,