Mark no more the antler'd stag, hear the curlew cry.
Milking at my father's gate while he leans anigh.
(_Buy my cherries, whiteheart, blackheart, golden girls, O buy._)


_Mrs. T. (aside)._ I've known him play that Exmoor
song afore.
'Ah me! and I'm from Exmoor. I could wish
To hear 't no more.

_Mrs. S. (aside)._ Neighbours, 't is mighty hot.
Ay, now they throw the window up, that's well,
A body could not breathe.

[_The fiddler and his daughter go away._

_Mrs. Jillifer (aside)._ They'll hear no parson's preaching,
no not they!
But innocenter songs, I do allow,
They could not well have sung than these to-night.
That man knows just so well as if he saw
They were not welcome.

_The Vicar stands up, on the point of beginning to read, when the tuning
and twang of the fiddle is heard close outside the open window, and the
daughter sings in a clear cheerful voice. A little tittering is heard
in the room, and the Vicar pauses discomfited_.


I.