I understand it, that the song be in quire, placed aloft, and accompanied with some broken music; and the
ditty fitted to the device.
Again, a young girl, more bold and saucy than was fitting, brushed the priest's black robe, singing in his face the sardonic
ditty, "niche, niche, the devil is caught." Sometimes a group of squalid old crones, squatting in a file under the shadow of the steps to a porch, scolded noisily as the archdeacon and the bellringer passed, and tossed them this encouraging welcome, with a curse: "Hum!
And so saying, he reached the harp, and entertained his guest with the following characteristic song, to a sort of derry-down chorus, appropriate to an old English
ditty.*
- From the molten-golden notes, And all in tune, What a liquid
ditty floats To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats On the moon!
"Methinks I have heard somewhat of it," said Robin; "but ne'ertheless strike up thy
ditty and let us hear it, for, as I do remember me, it is a gallant song; so out with it, good fellow."
They were a regular series of thumpings from the interior of the house, occasioned by the violent rocking of a cradle upon a stone floor, to which movement a feminine voice kept time by singing, in a vigorous gallopade, the favourite
ditty of "The Spotted Cow"--
It is one object of our task, however, to present scenes of the rough life of the wilderness, and we are tempted to fix these few memorials of a transient state of things fast passing into oblivion; for the feudal state of Fort William is at an end, its council chamber is silent and deserted; its banquet hall no longer echoes to the burst of loyalty, or the "auld world"
ditty; the lords of the lakes and forests have passed away; and the hospitable magnates of Montreal where are they?
And I thought it was a
ditty rather too dolefully appropriate for a company that had met such cruel losses in the morning.
Sing!" I was surprised into crooning this
ditty as I pushed her over the floor.
When Gryphus, therefore, came to see his prisoner in the morning, he no longer found him morose and lying in bed, but standing at the window, and singing a little
ditty.
Not knowing what might be the consequences of irritating her friend, and trembling with the fear of doing so, poor Nell sang him some little
ditty which she had learned in happier times, and which was so agreeable to his ear, that on its conclusion he in the same peremptory manner requested to be favoured with another, to which he was so obliging as to roar a chorus to no particular tune, and with no words at all, but which amply made up in its amazing energy for its deficiency in other respects.
But at the close of the
ditty, Rebecca quitted the piano, and giving her hand to Amelia, walked away into the front drawing-room twilight; and, at this moment, Mr.