But a second cousin o' mine, a drovier, was a rare hand at remembering the Scotch tunes.
But by degrees the musician grew weary, and began to play odds and ends of old tunes, sacred and profane.
"Why, the Scotch tunes are just like a scolding, nagging woman," Bartle went on, without deigning to notice Mr. Craig's remark.
Now in the castle there was a band that played sweet tunes, and there were fair maids to dance with, and so the lad danced away.
"In peace, love tunes the shepherd's reed; In war, he mounts the warrior's steed; In halls, in gay attire is seen; In hamlets, dances on the green; Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And men below and saints above; For love is heaven, and heaven is love." --SCOTT.
Even the sound of someone in the street below whistling one of his old compositions, of which he had heartily sickened twelve months before, was pleasant to his ears, and this in spite of the fact that the unseen whistler only touched the key in odd spots and had a poor memory for tunes.
As the vocal aria was the result of the simple folk-song combined with the intense craving of song's master molders for individual expression, so instrumental music striving to walk alone, without support from words, gained vital elements through the discovery that various phases of mental disposition might be indicated by alternating dance tunes differing in rhythm and movement, according to Nature's own law of contrasts.