And
before that was over, and his eyes well wiped, there stood the whole
school on its feet before him, and the room ringing with such a chorus
as was never heard in a Prince Edward Island school-room before. This
completed his bewilderment, and swallowed it up in delight. If Sandy
Bruce had an overmastering passion in his rugged nature, it was for
music. To the sound of the bag-pipes he had often said he would march to
death and "not know it for dyin'." The drum and the fife could draw him
as quickly now as when he was a boy, and the sweet singing of a woman's
voice was all the token he wanted of the certainty of heaven and the
existence of angels.
When Little Bel's clear, flute-like soprano notes rang out, carrying
along the fifty young voices she led, Sandy jumped up on his feet,
waving his hand, in a sudden heat of excitement, right and left; and
looking swiftly all about him on the platform, he said: "It's not
sittin' we'es take such welcome as this, my neebors!" Each man and woman
there, catching the quick contagion, rose; and it was a tumultuous crowd
of glowing faces that pressed forward around the piano as the singing
went on,--fathers, mothers, rustics, all; and the children, pleased and
astonished, sang better than ever, and when the chorus was ended it was
some minutes before all was quiet.
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