Page:Pontoppidan - Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896).djvu/184

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166
EMANUEL; OR

bright tints of her hair. The whole party sang the chorus, in which the girls came in as seconds. Nielsen the carpenter stood in the middle of the sandy place with legs astride, beating time with his arms, while he led the chorus in smiling enthusiasm, his teeth gleaming through his dark Viking beard.

" 'Twas long ere the sun was yet in the south,
In the early dawn,
That Sir Buré kissèd Dame Inger's mouth.
Heigh ho! but the morn is gay!

Sir Buré he saddled his ganger gray,
All dapple-gray;
Dame Inger gazed down from her window all day.
Heigh ho! but the Woods are green!

Then he hoisted his sail to the top of the mast,
His silken sail,
And Sir Buré was borne on the blue waves so fast.
Heigh ho! but 'tis heavy to part."

There were twenty odd verses in all; when the last was sung, the girls jumped off the boat and all the men clapped their hands.

"Perhaps you don't know that song, sir," said a young man with a fair beard and smiling face, who, together with a few other young men, sauntered up to Emanuel to open a conversation with him. "It's a sort of favourite with the young folks here, because it was written by our own High School director over in Sandinge.