The voices seemed those of a man and two boys; they were rough, but kept good time, and were managed with too much skill to belong to the ordinary country people.
Jack looked at the sun, and cried, Fire, fire, fire; Tom stabled his keffel in Birkendale mire; Jem started a calf, and halloo'd for a stag; Will mounted a gate-post instead of his nag: For all our men were very very merry, And all our men were drinking; There were two men of mine, Three men of thine, And three that belonged to old Sir Thom o' Lyne; As they went to the ferry, they were very very merry, For all our men were drinking.
The voices, as they mixed in their several parts, and ran through them, untwisting and again entwining all the links of the merry old catch, seemed to have a little touch of the bacchanalian spirit which they celebrated, and showed plainly that the musicians were engaged in the same joyous revel as the MENYIE of old Sir Thom o' Lyne.

At length I came within sight of them, three in number, where they sat cosily niched into what you might call a BUNKER, a little sand-pit, dry and snug, and surrounded by its banks, and a screen of whins in full bloom.
The only one of the trio whom I recognized as a personal acquaintance was the notorious little Benjie, who, having just finished his stave, was cramming a huge luncheon of pie-crust into his mouth with one hand, while in the other he held a foaming tankard, his eyes dancing with all the glee of a forbidden revel; and his features, which have at all times a mischievous archness of expression, confessing the full sweetness of stolen waters, and bread eaten in secret.
There was no mistaking the profession of the male and female, who were partners with Benjie in these merry doings.

The man's long loose-bodied greatcoat (wrap-rascal as the vulgar term it), the fiddle-case, with its straps, which lay beside him, and a small knapsack which might contain his few necessaries; a clear grey eye; features which, in contending with many a storm, had not lost a wild and, careless expression of glee, animated at present, when he was exercising for his own pleasure the arts which he usually practised for bread,--all announced one of those peripatetic followers of Orpheus whom the vulgar call a strolling fiddler.

Gazing more attentively, I easily discovered that though the poor musician's eyes were open, their sense was shut, and that the ecstasy with which he turned them up to heaven only derived its apparent expression from his own internal emotions, but received no assistance from the visible objects around.

Beside him sat his female companion, in a man's hat, a blue coat, which seemed also to have been an article of male apparel, and a red petticoat.