IN THE LIBRARY

Northern Advocate, 15 August 1931, Page 7

IN THE LIBRARY

SONGS OF ACTION.

By A. Conan Doyle

The audience which Conan Doyle could command with unswerving reliability in the days Avken Uc‘ was producing the multitudinous Sherlock Holmes adventures and such fine works an “The White Company,” “The Refugees,” “Rodney Stone” and “Brigadier Gerard,’' was quite a different one to that which followed him in his later spiritual writings. They knew him then for a true follower of romance. He wrote when Hewlett an(l Weyman were in their first flush, with others as well, if less known, when thp old romance Wh? in the air, and it was easier, pnd seemed more natural to follow Sir Walter than to take the road of the realists who desired tp teach us to live as hqmdrujn a life ip oaf ho.urs pf ps ip pur daily toil.

Rarely do we now hear him quoted tor his ballads, and yet he might well be. He did not write many, only twp slim volumes of not much over a hundred pack, if memory does not plqy the traitor- But they have a spring o£. : thpir own. A little of his favourite Macaulay there may be, rather more than Aytoun, certainly a flavour of Scott, but more than all Conan Doyle himself. Everyone who has read the “White Company” must remember “The 'Bong of the Bow.” Simple in thought amt structure, qs a ballad should be, with a fine lilt, as was right in a song to be sung by marching men, it deserves to find a place in any ballad anthology for British men and boys. Far less known is what may be called its companion piece, those somewhat unusual yersep entitled “A Forgotten Tale.”

“Say, what saw you on the hill, Campesino Garcia 1’ ' ‘ l l saw my brindled heifer there, A trail of bowmen, spent and bare, And a little man on a sorrtl mare Riding slow before them.”

“Xay, but saw you nothing more, Gampesino Garcia?” “Yes, I saw them lyipg there, The little man and sorrel mare; And in their ranks the bowmen fair, With their staves before them.”

“And the hardy men of Spain, Campesino Garcia?” “Huali! but we are Spanish too; More I may not say to you!. May God’s benifaop, like dew, Gently settle o'er them,”

I grant you that sometimes he is A little Victorian, as in “Corporal Dick's Promotion” and “Pennarby Mine,” but then everyone is not so. averse to the XIX century as is rather the fashion now. It is true all but the best vense ages, like all but the best fiction, but one the lost in satisfaction of what remains.

In particular perhaps his '‘Cremona ” deserves to be known, for it has a dash and a ‘ ‘tingle ” about its lilt which is a stamp of worth. The French had been surprised in tlu> winter of 1702 by a, night attack, and 'Cremona was in the hands of the Austrians when the 'dawn" broke, but in the French army was a brigade of Irish. Half dressed they turned out and seized one of the city gates.

Prince Eugene of Austria i? in the market place; Prince Eqgene .pf Austria has smiles upon hie face; Says he, “Our work is done, For the Citadel is won, And the black and yellow 7 flag flies o ’er Cremona. ’ ’

Major Dan O’Mahoney is in the barrack square, And just six hundred Irish lads are waiting for him there; Says he, “Come in you shirt, And yop won’t take any hurt, For the morning air is pleasant ip Cremona.”

Major Dpa. O ’Mahoney has reached the river fort, And just six hundred Irish lads are joining in the sport; “Come, take a hand,” says he, “And if you will stand by me, Then it’s glory to the* man who takes Cremona!”

Just two hundred Irish lads are shouting on the wall; Four hundred more are lying who can hear no slogan call; But what’s the odds of that, For it’s all the same to Pat If he pays his debt .in Dublin or Cremona.

Says General de Yaudray, “You’ve done a soldier’s work! And every tongue in France shall talk of Dillon and of Burke! Ask what you will this day, And be it whpt it may, It is granted to the heroes of Cremona. ’ ’

“Why then,” says Dan O’Mahoney, “one favour we entreat, Wo were called a little early, and our toilet’s not complete. We’ve no quarrel with the shirt, But the breeches wouldn’t hurt, For the evehi.Bg air is chilly in Cremona.”

(3 y “THE BOOKMAN.”)

gown! Ho, the bully rover Jack, Waiting with his yard aback Out upon the Low:laud seal

His “Frontier Line,” and perhaps “ A Ballad of the Banks” remind one of Kipling j while thp “Rover Chanty” is reminiscent of another and later famous ballad writer.

A trader sailed from Stepney- town — Wake her up! Shake her upj Try her

with the mainsail! A trader sailed from Stepney town With a keg full, of gold ana a velvet

The trader he had a daughter Wake her up! Shake her up! Try her

with the foresail! The trader he had a daughter 1 fair, She had gold in her ears, and gold in her hairj All for the bully rover Jack, Waiting with his yard aback, Out upon the Lowland sea!

Where is the trader of Stepney Town? Wake her up! Shake her up! Every stick a-bending! . < Where is the trader of S|epney town? There's gold op the capstan, and blood

on the gown; Ho for the bully rover Jack, Waiting with his yard aback, Out upon the Lowland sea!

He loved a horse, top, did, Conan Doyle, and the riding to hojpifls, sevoral of his ballads deal and to the doings of horses apd men. There is “The Dying Whip,” ‘ ( iWqro Holes,” and perhaps the best known, the amusing “Groom’s Story.” 3te could be witty too, and I likp the" eight lines of “The Irish. Colonel.”

Said the king to the colonel, “The complaints are eternal, That you Irish give more trouble Than any other corps.”

Said the colonel to the king, “This complaint is no new thing, , For your foemen, sire, have mpde it A hundred times before.”