Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar онлайн

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The red grouse is scattering

Dews from her golden wing,

Gemmed with the radiance that heralds the day,

Peace in our Highland vales,

Health in our mountain gales,

Who would not hie to the moorland away?

Come, then; the heather bloom

Woos with its wild perfume.

Fragrant and blithesome thy welcome shall be;

Gaily the fountain sheen

Leaps from the mountain stream,

Come to the home of the moorland and lea.

“That’s something like, Bricket. You’ve sung it better than ever, and it’s a rattling good ditty,” cried a voice. “Here’s your health, and long life to ’ee.”

A large amount of “brown October” had been consumed by this time, and some of the company were giving indications of being nearly “Three sheets in the wind.”

There had not been such a merry-making at the “Carved Lion” for many a day; this was attributable in the first place to the liberal supply of beer furnished by the farmer who had sold his wheat, and in the second by the presence of Peace, who fraternised with the rustics in a free and easy manner, which to them was quite charming.