hosts on high.'
(_Buy my cherries, blackheart cherries, lads and lassies, buy_.)

For Exmoor--
Dear my dear, why did ye so? Evil days have I,
Mark no more the antler'd stag, hear the curlew cry.
Milking at my father's gate while he leans anigh.
(_Buy my cherries, whiteheart, blackheart, golden girls, O buy._)

_Mrs. T. (aside)._ I've known him play that Exmoor
song afore.
'Ah me! and I'm from Exmoor. I could wish
To hear 't no more.

_Mrs. S. (aside)._ Neighbours, 't is mighty hot.
Ay, now they throw the window up, that's well,
A body could not breathe.

[_The fiddler and his daughter go away._

_Mrs. Jillifer (aside)._ They'll hear no parson's preaching,
no not they!
But innocenter songs, I do allow,
They could not well have sung than these to-night.
That man knows just so well as if he saw
They were not welcome.

_The Vicar stands up, on the point of beginning to read, when the tuning
and twang of the fiddle is heard close outside the open window, and the
daughter sings in a clear cheerful voice. A little tittering is heard
in the room, and the Vicar pauses discomfited_.

I.

O my heart! what a coil is here!
Laurie, why will ye hold me dear?
Laurie, Laurie, lad, make not wail,
With a wiser lass ye'll sure prevail,
For ye sing like a woodland nightingale.
And there's no sense in it under the sun;
For of three that woo I can take but one,
So what's to be done--what's to be done?
And
There's no sense in it under the sun.

II.

Hal, brave Hal, from your foreign parts
Come home you'll choose among kinder hearts.
Forget, forget, you're too good to hold
A fancy 't were best should faint, grow cold,
And fade like an August marigold;
For of three that woo I can take but one,
And what's to be done--what's to be done?
There's no sense in it under the sun,
And
Of three that woo I can take but one.

III.

Geordie, Geordie, I count you true,
Though language sweet I have none for you.
Nay, but take me home to the churning mill
When cherry boughs white on yon mounting hill
Hang over the tufts o' the daffodil.
For what's to be done--what's to be done?
Of three that woo I must e'en take one,
Or there's no sense in it under the sun,
And
What's to be done--what's to be done?

_V_. (_aside_). What's to be done, indeed!

_Wife_ (_aside_). Done! nothing, love.
Either the thing has done itself, or _they_
Must undo.