It was not her son's entreaty so much as something in the soft drawl
of the Southern girl that made Mrs. Boyle yield. Something in that tone
touched the pride in the old lady's Highland blood. When Barney reached
the end of the refrain his mother took up the verse with the violin
accompanying.

Her voice lacked fulness and power. It was worn and thin, but she had
the exquisite lilting note of the Highland maids at their milking or of
the fisher folk at the mending of their nets. Clear and sweet and with
a penetrating pathos indescribable, the voice rose and fell in all the
quaint turns and quavers and cadences that a tune takes on with age. As
she sang her song in the soft Gaelic tongue, with hands lying idly in
her lap, with eyes glowing in their gloomy depths, the spell of mountain
and glen and loch fell upon her sons and upon the girl seated at her
feet, while Iola's great lustrous eyes, fastened upon the stranger's
face, softened to tears.

"Oh, that is too lovely!" cried Iola, when the song was done, clapping
her hands. "No, not lovely. That is not the word. Sad, sad." She hid her
face in her hands one impulsive moment, then said softly, "I could never
do that. Never! Never! What is it you put into the song? What is it?"
she cried, turning to Barney.

"It's the moan of the sea," said Barney gravely.

"It gives a feller a kind of holler pain inside," said Ben Fallows.
"There hain't no words fer it."

"Sing again," entreated Iola, all the lazy indifference gone from her
voice. "Sing just one more."

"This one, mother," said Barney, playing the tune, "your mother used to
sing, you know, 'Fhir a Bhata'."

"How often haunting the highest hilltop,
I scan the ocean thy sail to see;
Wilt come to-night, Love? wilt come to-morrow?
Wilt ever come, love, to comfort me?
Fhir a bhata, na horo eile,
Fhir a bhata, na horo eile,
Fhir a bhata, na horo eile,
O fare ye well, love, where'er ye be."

For some moments they sat quiet with the spell of the dreamy, sad music
upon them.

"One more, mother," entreated Dick.

"No, laddie. The night is falling. There's work to-morrow for you. Aye,
and for Margaret here."

Iola rose and came timidly to Mrs. Boyle. "Thank you," she said, lifting
up her great, dark eyes to the old woman's face, "you have given me
great pleasure to-night."

"Indeed, and you're welcome, lassie," said Mrs. Boyle