He was a skilful
pianist. He explained, as his fingers ran up and down the keys, that the
scene was in Ratcliffe Highway. A tavern: a hornpipe. Jack ashore.
Unseemly squabbles: here there were harsh discords and shrill screams.
Drunkenness: the music getting very helpless. Then the daylight
comes--the chirping of sparrows--Jack wanders out--the breath of the
morning stirs his memories--he thinks of other days. Then comes in
Jack's song, which neither Calabressa nor any one else present could say
was meant to be comic, or pathetic, or a demoniac mixture of both. The
accompaniment which the handsome young English fellow played was at once
rhythmical, and low and sad, like the wash of waves:
"Oh, the days were long,
And the summers were long,
When Jane and I went courtin';
The hills were blue beyond the sky;
The heather was soft where we did lie;
We kissed our fill, did Jane and I,
When Jane and I went courtin'.
"When Jane and I went courtin',
Oh, the days were long,
And the summers were long!
We walked by night beyond the quay;
Above, the stars; below, the sea;
And I kissed Jane, and Jane kissed me,
When Jane and I went courtin'.
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