ul-stirring melody, at once short and
sharp and long-drawn, at once soft as a mother's lullaby and savage as a
hungry tiger's roar. It was the song of the world, the Marseillaise, the
song that rises in every land when the oppressed rise against the
oppressor, the song that breathes of wrongs to be revenged and of liberty
to be won, of flying foes in front and a free people marching, and of
blood shed like water for the idea that makes all nations kin. The hand
of a master struck the keys and brought the notes out, clear and
rhythmic, full strong notes that made the blood boil and the senses swim.

As the glorious melody rose and fell, sinking to a murmur, swelling out
in heroic strains that rang like trumpet pealings, a great lump rose in
Ned's throat and a mist of unquenchable tears filled his eyes. Roget de
Lisle, dead and dust for generations, rose from the silent grave and
spoke to him, spoke as heart speaks to heart, spoke and called and lived
and breathed and was there, spoke of tortured lives and enslaved millions
and of the fetid streets of great towns and of the slower anguish of the
plundered country side, spoke of an Old Order based on the robbery of
those who labour and on their weakness and on their ignorant sloth, spoke
of virtue trampled down and little children weeping and Humanity bleeding
at every pore and womanhood shamed and motherhood made a curse, spoke of
all he hated and all he loved, pilloried the Wrong in front of him and
bade him--to arms, to arms. "To arms!" with the patriot army whose
trampling was the background of the music. "To arms!" with those whose
desperate hands feared nothing and at whose coming thrones melted and
kingdoms vanished and tyranny fled. To arms! To certain victory! To crash
forward like a flood and sweep before the armed people all those who had
worked it wrong!

Down Ned's cheeks the great tears rolled. He did not heed them. Why did
not some one beat this mighty music through the Sydney slums, through
those hateful back streets, through those long endless rows of mortgaged
cottages and crowded apartment-houses? Why was it not carried out to the
great West, hymned from shed to shed, told of in the huts and by the
waterholes, given to the diggers in the great claims, to the drovers
travelling stock, borne wherever a man was to be found who had a wrong to
right and a long account to square? Ah! How they would all leap to it!
How they would swell its victorious chanting a