And I began to hum the old song that children sang in the Islands:

The cuckoo is a pretty bird,
He sings as he flies:
He brings us good tidings.
He tells us no lies:
He sucks the sweet flow-ers
For to make his voice clear,
And when he says "Cuckoo!"
The summer is near.

Bathsheba's eyes were wet for the poor birds, but she took up the
song, crooning it soft-like, and persuading the child to sleep:

O, meeting is a pleasure,
But parting is grief,
An inconstant lover
Is worse than a thief;
For a thief at the worst
Will take all that I have;
But an inconstant lover
Sends me to my grave.

Her hand stole into mine as the boy's eyes closed, and clasped my
fingers, entreating me in silence to look and admire him. Our own
eyes met over him, and I saw by the lantern-light the happy blush
rise and spread over neck and chin and forehead. The flapping of the
birds overhead had almost died away, and we lay still, watching the
lighthouse flash, far down in the empty darkness.