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Oh, when we drink out of our noggins, my boys. We'll drink to the barleymow. We'll drink to the barleymow, my boys, We'll drink to the barleymow. So knock your pint on the settle's back; Fill again, in again, Hannah Brown, We'll drink to the barleymow, my boys, We'll drink now the barley's mown.

[Pg 64]

So they went on, increasing the measure in each stanza, from noggins to half-pints, pints, quarts, gallons, barrels, hogsheads, brooks, ponds, rivers, seas, and oceans. That song could be made to last a whole evening, or it could be dropped as soon as they got tired of it.

Another favourite for singing in chorus was 'King Arthur', which was also a favourite for outdoor singing and was often heard to the accompaniment of the jingling of harness and cracking of whips as the teams went afield. It was also sung by solitary wayfarers to keep up their spirits on dark nights. It ran:

When King Arthur first did reign, He ru-led like a king; He bought three sacks of barley meal To make a plum pud-ding. The pudding it was made And duly stuffed with plums, And lumps of suet put in it As big as my two thumbs. The king and queen sat down to it And all the lords beside: And what they couldn't eat that night The queen next morning fried.

Every time Laura heard this sung she saw the queen, a gold crown on her head, her train over her arm, and her sleeves rolled up, holding the frying-pan over the fire. Of course, a queen would have fried pudding for breakfast: ordinary common people seldom had any left over to fry.