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and the well-pleased audience were preparing to leave when Barnes, in a drab jacket and trunks, trimmed with green ribbon bows, came forward like the clown in the circus and addressed the “good people.”
“In the golden age,” said the father of Juliana, “great men treated actors like servants, and, if they offended, their ears were cut off. Are we, in brave America, returning to the days when they tossed an actor in a blanket or gave a poet a hiding? Shall we stifle an art which is the purest inspiration of Athenian genius? The law prohibits our performing and charging admission, but it does not debar us from taking a collection, if”––with a bow in which dignity and humility were admirably mingled––“you deem the laborer worthy of his hire?”
This novel epilogue was received with laughter and applause, but the audience, although good-natured, contained its proportion of timid souls who retreat before the passing plate. The rear guard began to show faint signs of demoralization, when Mauville sprang to his feet. Pan had disappeared behind his leafy covert; it was the careless, self-possessed man of the world who arose.
“I am not concerned about the ethics of art,” he said lightly, “but the ladies of the company may count me among their devout admirers. I am sure,” he added, bowing to the manager with ready grace, “if they were as charming in the old days, after the lords tossed the men, they made love to the women.”
“There were no actresses in those days, sir,” corrected66Barnes, resenting the flippancy of his aristocratic auditor.
“No actresses?” retorted the heir. “Then why did people go to the theater? However, without further argument, let me be the first contributor.”
“The prodigal!” said the doctor in an aside to the landlord. “He’s holding up a piece of gold. It’s the first time ever patroon was a spendthrift!”
But Mauville’s words, on the whole, furthered the manager’s project, and the audience remained in its integrity, while Balthazar, a property helmet in hand, descended from his palace and trod the aisles in his drab trunk-hose and purple cloak, a royal mendicant, in whose pot soon jingled the pieces of silver. No one shirked his admission fee and some even gave in excess; the helmet teemed with riches; once it had saved broken heads, now it repaired broken fortunes, its properties magical, like the armor of Pallas.
“How did you like the play, Mr. Saint-Prosper?” said Barnes, as he approached that person.
“Much; and as for the players”––a gleam of humor stealing over his dark features––“‘peerless’ was not too strong.”
“‘Your approbation likes me most, my lord,’” quoted the manager, and passed quickly on with his tin pot, in a futile effort to evade the outstretched hand of his whilom helper.
Thanking the audience for their generosity and complimenting them on their intelligence, the self-constituted lord of the treasury vanished once more behind67the curtain. The orchestra of two struck up a negro melody; the audience rose again, the women lingering to exchange their last innocent gossip about prayer-meeting, or about the minister who “knocked the theologic dust from the pulpit cushions in the good old orthodox way,” when some renegade exclaimed: “Clear the room for a dance!”
Jerusha’s shawl straightway fell from her shoulders; Hannah’s bonnet was whipped from her head; Nathaniel paused on his way to the stable yard to bring out the team and a score of willing hands obeyed the injunction amid laughing encouragement from the young women whose feet already were tapping the floor in anticipation of the Virginia Reel, Two Sisters, Hull’s Victory, or even the waltz, “lately imported from the Rhine.” A battered Cremona appeared like magic and
“In his shirt of check and tallowed hairThe fiddler sat in his bull-rush chair,”
while “’Twas Monnie Musk in busy feet and Monnie Musk by heart”––old-fashioned “Monnie Musk” with “first couple join right hands and swing,” “forward six” and “across the set”; an honest dance for country folk that only left regrets when it came to “Good Night for aye to Monnie Musk,” although followed by the singing of “Old Hundred” or “Come, ye Sinners, Poor and Needy,” on the homeward journey.
In the parlor the younger lads and lasses were playing “snap and catch ’em” and similar games. The portly Dutch clock gazed down benignly on the68scene, its face shining good-humoredly like the round visage of some comfortable burgher. “Green grow the rushes, O!” came from many merry-makers. “Kiss her quick and let her go” was followed by scampering of feet and laughter which implied a doubt whether the lad had obeyed the next injunction, “But don’t you muss her ruffle, O!” Forming a moving ring around a young girl, they sang: “There’s a rose in the garden for you, young man.” A rose, indeed, or a rose-bud, rather, with ruffles he was commanded not to “muss,” but which, nevertheless, suffered sadly!
Among these boys and girls, the patroon discovered Constance, no longer “to the life a duchess,” with gown in keeping with the “pride and pomp of exalted station,” but attired in the simple dress of lavender she usually wore, though the roses still adorned her hair. Shunning the entrancing waltz, the inspiring “Monnie Musk” and the cotillion, lively when set to Christy’s melodies, she had sought the more juvenile element, and, when seen by the land baron, was circling around with fluttering skirts. Joyous, merry, there was no hint now in her natural, girlish ways of the capacity that lay within for varied impersonations, from the lightness of coquetry to the thrill of tragedy.
He did not know how it happened, as he stood there watching her, but the next moment he was imprisoned by the group and voices were singing:
“There he stands, the booby; who will have him for his beauty?”
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Who? His eye swept the group; the merry, scornful glances fixed upon him; the joyous, half-inviting glances; the red lips parted as in kindly invitation; shy lips, willing lips!
Who? His look kindled; he had made his selection, and the next moment his arm was impetuously thrown around the actress’s waist.
“Kiss her quick and let her go!”
Amid the mad confusion he strove to obey the command, but a panting voice murmured “no, no!” a pair of dark eyes gazed into his for an instant, defiantly, and the pliant waist slipped from his impassioned grasp; his eager lips, instead of touching that glowing cheek, only grazed a curl that had become loosened, and, before he could repeat the attempt, she had passed from his arms, with laughing lips and eyes.
“Play fair!” shouted the lads. “He should ‘kiss her quick and let her go.’”
“Oh, he let her go first!” said the others.
“‘Kiss her quick,’” reiterated the boys.
“He can’t now,” answered the girls.
The voices took up the refrain: “Don’t you muss the ruffles, O!” and the game went on. The old clock gossiped gleefully, its tongue repeating as plainly as words:
“Let-her-go!––ho!––ho!––one––two––three!”
Three o’clock! Admonishingly rang out the hour, the jovial face of the clock looking sterner than was its wont. It glowered now like a preacher in his pulpit upon a sinful congregation. Enough of “snatch-and-catch’em;”70enough of Hull’s Victory or the Opera Reel; let the weary fiddler descend from his bull-rush chair, for soon the touch of dawn will be seen in the eastern sky! The merry-making began to wane and already the sound of wagon-wheels rattled over the log road away from the tavern. Yes, they were singing, and, as Hepsibeth leaned her head on Josiah’s shoulder, they uplifted their voices in the good old orthodox hymn, “Come, Ye Sinners,” for thus they courted and worshiped in olden times.
“Good-night, every one!” said a sweet voice, as Constance passed calmly on, with not a ruffle mussed.
“Good-night,” answered the patroon, a sparkle in his eyes. “I was truly a booby.”
“What can you mean?” she laughed.
“There’s many a slip ’twixt––lip and lip!” exclaimed Susan.
With heightened color the young girl turned, and as she did so her look rested on the soldier. His glance was cold, almost strange, and, meeting it, she half-started and then smiled, slowly mounting the stairs. He looked away, but the patroon never took his eyes from her until she had vanished. Afar, rising and falling on the clear air, sounded the voices of the singers:
“Praise God from whom all blessings flow;Praise Him all creatures here below;”
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and finally, softer and softer, until the melody melted into silence:
“Praise Him above, ye Heavenly H-o-s-t––”
“One good turn deserves another,” said Barnes to Saint-Prosper, when Susan and Kate had likewise retired. “Follow me, sir––to the kitchen! No questions; but come!”
72CHAPTER VA CONFERENCE IN THE KITCHEN
A keen observer might have noticed that the door of the inn kitchen had been kept swinging to and fro as certain ones in the audience had stolen cautiously, but repeatedly, in and out of the culinary apartment while the dancing and other festivities were in progress. The itinerant pedagogue was prominent in these mysterious movements which possibly accounted for his white choker’s being askew and his disposition to cut a dash, not by declining Greek verbs, but by inclining too amorously toward Miss Abigail, a maiden lady with a pronounced aversion for frivolity.
The cause of the schoolmaster’s frolicsome deportment was apparent to the soldier when he followed Barnes into the kitchen, where, in a secluded corner, near the hospitable oven, in the dim light of a tallow dip, stood a steaming punch bowl. A log smoldered in the fireplace, casting on the floor the long shadows of the andirons, while a swinging pot was reflected on the ceiling like a mighty eclipse. Numerous recesses, containing pans and plates that gleamed by day, were73wrapped in vague mystery. Three dark figures around the bowl suggested a scene of incantation, especially when one of them threw some bark from the walnut log on the coals and the flames sprang up as from a pine knot and the eclipse danced among the rafters overhead while the pot swung to and fro.
As the manager approached the bowl, the trio, moved by some vague impelling impulse, locked arms, walked toward the side door, crossed its threshold in some confusion, owing to a unanimous determination to pass out at one and the same time, and went forth into the tranquil night, leaving Barnes and Saint-Prosper the sole occupants of the kitchen. The manager now helped himself and his companion to the beverage, standing with his back to the tiny forks of flame from the shagbark. His face expanded with good-fellowship; joviality shone from his eyes beaming upon the soldier whom he unconsciously regarded as an auxiliary.
“Here’s to our better acquaintance,” he said, placing his hand with little ceremony on the other’s shoulder. “The Bill-Poster!” Raising his cup. “You gathered them in––”
“And you certainly gathered in the contents of their pockets!”
“A fair robbery!” laughed Barnes, “as Dick Turpin said when he robbed the minister who robbed the king who robbed the people! A happy thought that, turning74the helmet into a collection box! It tided us over; it tided us over!”
Saint-Prosper returned the manager’s glance in kind; Barnes’ candor and simplicity were apparent antidotes to the other’s taciturnity and constraint. During the country dance the soldier had remained a passive spectator, displaying little interest in the rustic merry-making or the open glances cast upon him by bonny lasses, burned in the sunlit fields, buxom serving maids, as clean as the pans in the kitchen, and hearty matrons, not averse to frisk and frolic in wholesome rural fashion.
But now, in the face of the manager’s buoyancy at the success of a mere expedient––a hopefulness ill-warranted by his short purse and the long future before him!––the young man’s manner changed from one of indifference to friendliness, if not sympathy, for the over-sanguine custodian of players. Would the helmet, like the wonderful pitcher, replenish itself as fast as it was emptied? Or was it but a make-shift? The manager’s next remark seemed a reply to these queries, denoting that Barnes himself, although temporarily elated, was not oblivious to the precarious character of “free performances,” with voluntary offerings.
“What we need,” continued the manager, “is a temperance drama. With what intemperate eagerness would the people flock to see it! But where is it to be found? Plays don’t grow on bushes, even in this75agricultural district. And I have yet to discover any dramatists hereabouts, unless”––jocularly––“you are a Tom Taylor or a Tom Robertson in disguise. Are you sure you have never courted the divine muse? Men of position have frequently been guilty of that folly, sir.”
“But once,” answered the other in the same tone. “At college; a political satire.”
“Was it successful?”
“Quite so––I was expelled for writing it!”
“Well,” retorted Barnes, irrelevantly, “you have at least mildly coquetted with the muse. Besides, I dare say, you have been behind the scenes a good deal. The green room is a fashionable rendezvous. Where are you going? And what––if I may ask––is your business?”
“I am on my way to New Orleans,” said the traveler, after a moment’s hesitation. “My business, fortune-getting. In sugar, tobacco, or indigo-culture!”
“New Orleans!” exclaimed the manager, poising the ladle in mid air. “That, too, is our destination. We have an engagement to play there. Why not join our band? Write or adapt a play for us. Make a temperance drama of your play!”
“You are a whimsical fellow,” said the stranger, smiling. “Why don’t you write the play yourself?”
“I? An unread, illiterate dotard! Why, I never had so much as a day’s schooling. As a lad I slept with the rats, held horses, swept crossings and lived like a mudlark! Me write a play! I might let fall a76suggestion here and there; how to set a flat, or where to drop a fly; to plan an entrance, or to arrange an exit! No, no; let the shoemaker stick to his last! It takes”––with deference––“a scholar to write a drama.”
“Thus you disqualify me,” laughed the other, drawing out a pipe which he filled; and lighted with a coal held in the iron grip of the antique tongs. “If it were only to help plant a battery or stand in a gap!” he said grimly, replacing the tongs against the old brick oven at one side of the grate. “But to beset King Bacchus in three acts! To storm his castle in the first; scale the walls in the second, and blow up all the king’s horses and all the king’s men in the last––that is, indeed, serious warfare!”
“True, it will be a roundabout way to New Orleans,” continued the manager, disregarding his companion’s response, “but there is no better way of seeing the New World––that is, if you do not disdain the company of strolling players. You gain in knowledge what you lose in time. If you are a philosopher, you can study human nature through the buffoon and the mummer. If you are a naturalist, here are grand forests to contemplate. If you are not a recluse, here is free, though humble, comradeship.”
His listener gazed thoughtfully into the fire. Was the prospect of sharing this gipsy-like life attractive to him? An adventurer himself, was he drawn toward these homeless strollers, for whom the illusions of dramatic art shone with enticing luster in the comparative solitude of the circuit on the wilderness?
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As he sat before the glow, the light of the burning shagbark, playing elfishly above the dying embers, outlined the stalwart, yet active figure and the impenetrable, musing features. But when, with an upward shower of sparks, the backlog fell asunder and the waning flame cast yet more gloomy shadows behind them, he leaned back in his heavy, hewn chair and again bent an attentive look upon the loquacious speaker.
“Or, if you desire,” resumed the manager after some hesitation, “it might become a business venture as well as a pleasure jaunt. Here is a sinking ship. Will the salvage warrant helping us into port; that is, New Orleans? There hope tells a flattering tale. The company is well equipped; has a varied repertoire, while Constance”––tenderly––“is a host in herself. If you knew her as I do; had watched her art grow”––his voice trembled––“and to think, sometimes I do not know where the next day’s sustenance may come from! That she”––
He broke off abruptly, gazing at his companion half-apologetically. “We players, sir,” he resumed, “present a jovial front, but”––tapping his breast––“few know what is going on here!”
“Therein,” said the younger man, emptying his pipe, “you have stated a universal truth.” He pushed a smoldering log with his foot toward the remnants of the embers. “Suppose I were so minded to venture”––and he mentioned a modest sum––“in this hazard and we patched up the play together?”
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“You don’t mean it?” cried the manager, eagerly. Then he regarded the other suspiciously: “Your proposal is not inspired through sympathy?”
“Why not through the golden prospects you have so eloquently depicted?” replied Saint-Prosper, coldly.
“Why not indeed!” exclaimed the reassured manager. “Success will come; it must come. You have seen Constance but once. She lives in every character to her heart’s core. How does she do it? Who can tell? It’s inborn. A heritage to her!”
His voice sank low with emotion. “Yes,” he murmured, shaking his head thoughtfully, as though another image arose in his mind; “a heritage! a divine heritage!” But soon he looked up. “She’s a brave girl!” he said. “When times were dark, she would always smile encouragingly, and, in the light of her clear eyes, I felt anew the Lord would temper the wind to the shorn lamb.”
“One––two––three––four,” rang the great clock through the silent hall, and, at its harsh clangor, Barnes started.
“Bless my soul, the maids’ll be up and doing and find us here!” he exclaimed. “One last cup! To the success of the temperance drama!”
In a few moments they had parted for their respective chambers and only the landlord was left down-stairs. Now as he came from behind the bar, where he had been apparently dozing and secretly listening through the half-opened door leading into the kitchen, he had much difficulty to restrain his laughter.
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“That’s a good one to tell Ezekiel,” he muttered, turning out the lights and sweeping the ashes on the hearth to the back of the grate. “To the temperance drama!”
80CHAPTER VITHE DEPARTURE OF THE CHARIOT
Down the hill, facing the tavern, the shadows of night were slowly withdrawn, ushering in the day of the players’ leaving. A single tree, at the very top, isolated from its sylvan neighbors, was bathed in the warm sunshine, receiving the earliest benediction of day. Down, down, came the dark shade, pursued by the light, until the entire slope of the hill was radiant and the sad colored foliage flaunted in new-born gaiety.
Returning from the stable, where he had been looking after his horse, the soldier stood for a moment before the inn, when a flower fell at his feet, and, glancing over his shoulder, he perceived Susan, who was leaning from her window. The venturesome rose, which had clambered as high as the second story, was gone; plucked, alas, by the wayward hand of a coquette. Saint-Prosper bowed, and stooped for the aspiring but now hapless flower which lay in the dust.
“You have joined the chariot, I hear?” said Susan.
“For the present,” he replied.
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“And what parts will you play?” she continued, with smiling inquisitiveness.
“None.”
“What a pity! You would make a handsome lover.” Then she blushed. “Lud! What am I saying? Besides”––maliciously––“I believe you have eyes for some one else. But remember,”––shaking her finger and with a coquettish turn of the head––“I am an actress and therefore vain. I must have the best part in the new piece. Don’t forget that, or I’ll not travel in the same chariot with you.” And Susan disappeared.
“Ah, Kate,” she said, a moment later, “what a fine-looking young man he is!”
“Who?” drawled her sister.
“Mr. Saint-Prosper, of course.”
“He is large enough,” retorted Kate, leisurely.
“Large enough! O, Kate, what a phlegmatic creature you are!”
“Fudge!” said the other as she left the chamber.
Entering the tavern, the soldier was met by the wiry old lady who bobbed into the breakfast room and explained the kind of part that fitted her like a glove, her prejudices being strong against modern plays.
“Give me dramas like ‘Oriana,’ ‘The Rival Queens’ or Webster’s pieces,” she exclaimed, quoting with much fire for her years:
“‘We are only like dead walls or vaulted graves!’”
“And do not forget the ‘heavy’ in your piece!” called82out Hawkes across the table. “Something you can dig your teeth in!”
“Nor the ‘juvenile lead,’” chimed in the Celtic Adonis.
“Adonis makes a great hit in a small part,” laughed Kate, appearing at the door. “‘My lord, the carriage is waiting!’”
“My lady, your tongue is too sharp!” exclaimed Adonis, nettled.
“And put in a love scene for Adonis and myself,” she continued, lazily floating into the room. “He is so fond of me, it would not be like acting!”
This bantering was at length interrupted by the appearance of the chariot and the property wagon at the front door, ready for the journey. The rumbling of the vehicles, the resounding hoofs and the resonant voice of the stable boy awakened the young lord of the manor in his chamber above. He stretched himself sleepily, swore and again composed himself for slumber, when the noise of a property trunk, thumping its way down the front stairs a step at a time, galvanized him into life and consciousness.
“Has the world come to an end?” he muttered. “No; I remember; it’s only the players taking their departure!”
But, although he spoke carelessly, the bumping of boxes and slamming and banging of portable goods annoyed him more than he would confess. With the “crazy-quilt”––a patch-work of heptagons of different hues and patterns––around his shoulders, clothing him83with all the colors of the rainbow, he sat up in bed, wincing at each concussion.
“I might as well get up!” he exclaimed. “I’ll see her once more––the perverse beauty!” And tossing the kaleidoscopic covering viciously from him, he began to dress.
Meanwhile, as the time for their going drew near, mine host down-stairs sped the parting guest with good cheer, having fared profitably by the patronage the players had brought to the inn; but his daughter, Arabella, looked sad and pensive. How weary, flat and stale appeared her existence now! With a lump in her throat and a pang in her heart, she recklessly wiped her eyes upon the best parlor curtains, when Barnes mounted to the box, as robust a stage-driver as ever extricated a coach from a quagmire. The team, playful through long confinement, tugged at the reins, and Sandy, who was at the bits, occasionally shot through space like an erratic meteor.
The manager was flourishing his whip impatiently when Constance and Susan appeared, the former in a traveling costume of blue silk; a paletot of dark cloth, and, after the fashion of the day, a bonnet of satin and velvet. Susan was attired in a jupe sweeping and immensely full––to be in style!––and jacquette with sleeves of the pagoda form. The party seemed in high spirits, as from his dormer window Mauville, adjusting his attire, peered through the lattice over the edge of the moss-grown roof and leaf-clogged gutters and surveyed their preparations for departure. How well84the rich color of her gown became the young girl! He had told himself white was her best adornment, but his opinion veered on the moment now, and he thought he had never seen her to better advantage, with the blue of her dress reappearing in the lighter shade, above the dark paletot, in the lining of the bonnet and the bow of ribbons beneath her chin.
“On my word, but she looks handsome!” muttered the patroon. “Might sit for a Gainsborough or a Reynolds! What dignity! What coldness! All except the eyes! How they can lighten! But there’s that adventurer with her,” as the figure of the soldier crossed the yard to the property wagon. “No getting rid of him until the last moment!” And he opened the shutters wider, listening and watching more closely.
“Are you going to ride in the property wagon?” he heard Saint-Prosper ask.
“Yes; when I have a part to study I sometimes retire to the stage throne,” she answered lightly. “I suppose you will ride your horse?”
Of his reply the listener caught only the words, “wind-break” and “lame.” He observed the soldier assist her to the throne, and then, to Mauville’s surprise, spring into the wagon himself.
“Why, the fellow is going with them!” exclaimed the land baron. “Or, at any rate, he is going with her. What can it mean?” And hurriedly quitting his post, his toilet now being complete, he hastened to the door and quickly made his way down-stairs.
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During the past week his own addresses had miscarried and his gallantry had been love’s labor lost. At first he had fancied he was making progress, but soon acknowledged to himself he had underestimated the enterprise. Play had succeeded play––he could not have told what part favored her most! Ophelia sighed and died; Susan danced on her grave between acts, according to the program, and turned tears into smiles; the farewell night had come and gone––and yet Constance had made no sign of compliance to reward the patient wooer. Now, at the sight of these preparations for departure, and the presence of the stalwart stranger in the property wagon, he experienced a sudden sensation of pique, almost akin to jealousy.
Stepping from the tavern, it was with an effort he suppressed his chagrin and vexation and assumed that air of nonchalance which became him well. Smilingly he bade Susan and the other occupants of the chariot farewell, shook Barnes by the hand, and turned to the property wagon.
“The noise of your departure awakened me,” he said to the young girl. “So I have come to claim my compensation––the pleasure of seeing you––”
“Depart!” she laughed quickly.
Momentarily disconcerted, he turned to the soldier. “You ride early.”
“As you see,” returned the other, immovably.
“A habit contracted in the army, no doubt!” retorted Mauville, recovering his easy self-possession. “Well, a bumping trunk is as efficacious as a bugle86call! Butau revoir, Miss Carew; for we may meet again. The world is broad––yet its highways are narrow! There is no need wishing you a pleasant journey.”
His glance rested on Saint-Prosper for a moment, but told nothing beyond the slight touch of irony in his words and then shifting to the young girl, it lingered upon each detail of costume and outline of feature. Before she could reply, Barnes cracked his whip, the horses sprang forward, and the stable boy, a confused tangle of legs and arms, was shot as from a catapult among the sweet-williams. The abrupt departure of the chariot was the cue for the property wagon, which followed with some labor and jolting, like a convoy struggling in the wake of a pretentious ship. From the door Mauville watched it until it reached a toll-gate, passed beneath the portcullis and disappeared into the broad province of the wilderness.
87CHAPTER VIISOJOURNING IN ARCADIA
Calm and still was the morning; the wandering air just stirred the pendulous branches of the elms and maples, and, in the clear atmosphere, the russet hills were sharply outlined. As they swung out into the road, with Hans, the musician, at the reins, the young girl removed her bonnet and leaned back in the chair of state, where kings had fretted and queens had lolled.
The throne, imposing on the stage, now appeared but a flimsy article of furniture, with frayed and torn upholstering, and carving which had long since lost its gilded magnificence. Seated amid the jumble of theatrical appliances and accoutrements––scenery, rolled up rug-fashion, property trunks, stage clock, lamps and draperies––she accepted the situation gracefully, even finding nothing strange in the presence of the soldier. New faces had come and gone in the company before, and, when Barnes had complacently informed her Saint-Prosper would journey with the players to New Orleans in a semi-business capacity,88the arrangement appeared conformable to precedent. The manager’s satisfaction augured well for the importance of the semi-business rôle assumed by the stranger, and Barnes’ friendliness was perhaps in some degree unconsciously reflected in her manner; an attitude the soldier’s own reserve, or taciturnity, had not tended to dispel. So, his being in the property wagon seemed no more singular than Hans’ occupancy of the front seat, or if Adonis, Hawkes, or Susan had been there with her. She was accustomed to free and easy comradeship; indeed, knew no other life, and it was only assiduous attentions, like those of the land baron’s, that startled and disquieted her.
As comfortably as might be, she settled back in the capacious, threadbare throne, a slender figure in its depths––more adapted to accommodate a corpulent Henry VIII!––and smiled gaily, as the wagon, in avoiding one rut, ran into another and lurched somewhat violently. Saint-Prosper, lodged on a neighboring trunk, quickly extended a steadying hand.
“You see how precarious thrones are!” he said.
“There isn’t room for it to more than totter,” she replied lightly, removing her bonnet and lazily swinging it from the arm of the chair.
“Then it’s safer than real thrones,” he answered, watching the swaying bonnet, or perhaps, contrasting the muscular, bronzed hand he had placed on the chair with the smooth, white one which held the blue ribbons;89a small, though firm, hand to grapple with the minotaur, Life!
She slowly wound the ribbons around her fingers.
“Oh, you mean France,” she said, and he looked away with sudden disquietude. “Poor monarchs! Their road is rougher than this one.”
“Rougher truly!”
“You love France?” she asked suddenly, after studying, with secret, sidelong glances his reserved, impenetrable face.
His gaze returned to her––to the bonnet now resting in her lap––to the hand beside it.
“It is my native land,” he replied.
“Then why did you leave it––in its trouble?” she asked impulsively.
“Why?” he repeated, regarding her keenly; but in a moment he added: “For several reasons. I returned from Africa, from serving under Bugeaud, to find the red flag waving in Paris; the king fled!”
“Oh,” she said, quickly, “a king should––”
“What?” he asked, as she paused.
“I was going to say it was better to die like a king than––”
“Than live an outcast!” he concluded for her, a shadow on his brow.
She nodded. “At any rate, that is the way they always do in the plays,” she added brightly. “But you were saying you found your real king fled?”
His heavy brows contracted, though he answered readily enough: “Yes, the king had fled. A kinsman90in whose house I had been reared then bade me head a movement for the restoration of the royal fugitive. For what object? The regency was doomed. The king, a May-fly!”
“And so you refused?”
“We quarreled; he swore like a Gascon. His little puppet should yet sit in the chair where Louis XIV had lorded it! I, who owed my commission to his noble name, was a republican, a deserter! The best way out of the difficulty was out of the country. First it was England, then it was here. To-morrow––where?” he added, in a lower tone, half to himself.
“Where?” she repeated, lightly. “That is our case, too.”
He looked at her with sudden interest. “Yours is an eventful life, Miss Carew.”
“I have never known any other,” she said, simply, adding after a pause: “My earliest recollections are associated with my mother and the stage. As a child I watched her from the wings. I remember a grand voice and majestic presence. When the audience broke into applause, my heart throbbed with pride.”
But as her thoughts reverted to times past, the touch of melancholy, invoked by the memory of her mother, was gradually dispelled, as fancy conjured other scenes, and a flickering smile hovered over the lips whose parting displaced that graver mood.
“Once or twice I played with her, too,” she added. “I thought it nice to be one of the little princes in91Richard III and wear white satin clothes. One night after the play an old gentleman took me on his knee and said: I had to come, my child, and see if the wicked old uncle hadn’t really smothered you!’ When he had gone, my mother told me he was Mr. Washington Irving. I thought him very kind, for he brought me a bag of bonbons from the coffee-room.”
“It’s the first time I ever heard of a great critic laden with sweetmeats!” said the soldier. “And were you not flattered by his honeyed regard?”
“Oh, yes; I devoured it and wanted more,” she laughed.
Hans’ flourishing whip put an end to further conversation. “Der stage goach!” he said, turning a lumpish countenance upon them and pointing down the road.
Approaching at a lively gait was one of the coaches of the regular line, a vehicle of ancient type, hung on bands of leather and curtained with painted canvas, not unlike the typical French diligence, except for its absence of springs. The stage was spattered with mud from roof to wheel-tire, but as the mire was not fresh and the road fair, the presumption followed that custom and practice precluded the cleaning of the coach. The passengers, among whom were several ladies, wearing coquettish bonnets with ribbons or beau-catchers attached, were too weary even to view with wonder the odd-looking theatrical caravan. Only the driver, a diminutive person with puckered face the color of dried apples, so venerable as to be known as92Old Hundred, seemed as spry and cheery as when he started.
“Morning,” he said, briskly, drawing in his horses. “Come back, have ye, with yer troupe? What’s the neuws from Alban-y?”
“Nothing, except Texas has been admitted as a State,” answered Barnes.
“Sho! We air coming on!” commented the Methuselah of the road.
“Coming on!” groaned a voice in the vehicle, and the florid face of an English traveler appeared at the door. “I say, do you call this ‘coming on!’ I’m nearly gone, don’t you know!”
“Hi!––ge’ long!––steady there!” And Old Hundred again whipped up his team, precipitating a lady into the lap of the gentleman who was “nearly gone,” and well-nigh completing his annihilation.
In less time than when a friendly sail is lost in the mist, Old Hundred’s bulky land-wherry passed from view, and the soldier again turned to his companion. But she was now intent on some part in a play which she was quietly studying and he contented himself with lighting that staple luxury of the early commonwealth, a Virginia stogie, observing her from time to time over the glowing end. With the book upon her knee, her head downcast and partly turned from him, he could, nevertheless, through the mazy convolutions and dreamy spirals of the Indian weed, detect the changing emotions which swept over her, as in fancy she assumed a rôle in the drama. Now the93faintest shadow of a smile, coming and going; again beneath the curve of her long lashes, a softer gleaming in the dark eyes, adding new charm to the pale, proud face. Around them nature seemed fraught with forgetfulness; the Libyan peace that knows not where or wherefore. Rocked in the cradle of ruts and furrows, Hans, portly as a carboy, half-dozed on the front seat.
Shortly before noon they approached an ancient hostelry, set well back from the road. To the manager’s dismay, however, the door was locked and boards were nailed across the windows. Even the water pail, hospitably placed for man or beast, had been removed from its customary proximity to the wooden pump. Abandoned to decay, the tenantless inn was but another evidence of traffic diverted from the old stage roads by the Erie Canal Company. Cold was the fireplace before which had once rested the sheep-skin slippers for the guests; empty was the larder where at this season was wont to be game in abundance, sweet corn, luscious melons––the trophies of the hunt, the fruits of the field; missing the neat, compact little keg whose spigot had run with consolation for the wanderer!
Confronted by the deserted house, where they had expected convivial cheer, there was no alternative but to proceed, and their journey was resumed with some discomfiture to the occupants of the coach which now labored like a portly Spanish galleon, struck by a squall. They had advanced in this manner for94some distance through furrow and groove, when the vehicle gave a sharper lurch down a deeper rut; a crash was followed by cries of affright and the chariot abruptly settled on one side. Barnes held the plunging horses in control, while the gentlemen scrambled to the ground and assisted the ladies to dismount.
“Any one hurt?” asked the manager from his box.
“No damage done––except to the coach,” said Hawkes.
By this time the horses had become quiet and Barnes, now that the passengers were rescued, like a good skipper, left the quarter deck.
“We couldn’t have chosen a better place for our lunch,” he remarked philosophically. “How fortunate we should have broken down where we did!”
“Very fortunate!” echoed the old lady ironically.
The accident had happened upon a slight plateau, of which they accordingly took possession, tethering the horses to graze. From the branches overhead the squirrels surveyed them as if asking what manner of people were these, and the busy woodpecker ceased his drumming, cocking his head inquisitively at the intruders; then shyly drew away, mounting spirally the trunk of the tree to the hole, chiseled by his strong beak for a nest. As Barnes gazed around upon the pleasing prospect, he straightway became the duke in the comedy of the forest.
“Ha, my brothers in exile,” he exclaimed, “are not these woods more free from peril than the envious court?”
95
“All it wants,” said the tragedian, hungrily, “is mutton, greens and a foaming pot.”
“I can’t promise the foaming pot,” answered the manager. “But, at least, we have a well-filled hamper.”
Soon the coffee was simmering and such viands as they had brought with them––for Barnes was a far-sighted and provident manager––were spread out in tempting profusion. Near them a swift-flowing stream chattered about the stones like one of nature’s busiest gossips; it whispered to the flowers, murmured to the rushes and was voluble to the overhanging branch that dragged upon the surface of the water. The flowers on its brim nodded, the rushes waved and the branch bent as if in assent to the mad gossip of the blithesome brook. And it seemed as though all this animated conversation was caused by the encampment of the band of players by the wayside.
The repast finished, they turned their attention to the injured chariot, but fortunately the damage was not beyond repair, and Barnes, actor, manager, bill-poster, license-procurer, added to his already extensive repertoire the part of joiner and wheelwright. The skilled artisans in coachmaking and coach-repairing might not have regarded the manager as a master-workman, but the fractured parts were finally set after a fashion. By that time, however, the sun had sunk to rest upon a pillow of clouds; the squirrels, law-abiding citizens, had sought their homes; the woodpecker had vanished in his snug chamber, and only96forest dwellers of nocturnal habits were now abroad, their name legion like the gad-abouts of a populous city.
“There!” exclaimed the manager, surveying his handiwork. “The ’bus is ready! But there is little use going on to-night. I am not sure of the road and here is a likely spot to pass the night.”
“Likely to be devoured by wild beasts,” said Kate, with a shudder.
“I am sure I see two glistening eyes!” exclaimed Susan.
“Fudge!” observed the elastic old lady. “That’s the first time you have been afraid of two-glistening eyes.”
“There’s a vast difference between wolves and men,” murmured Susan.
“I’m not so sure of that,” returned the aged cynic.
But as the light of day was withdrawn a great fire sprang up, illumining the immediate foreground. The flames were cheering, drawing the party more closely together. Even Hawkes partly discarded his tragedy face; the old lady threw a bundle of fifty odd years from her shoulders as easily as a wood-carrier would cast aside his miserable stack of fagots, while Barnes forgot his troubles in narrating the harrowing experience of a company which had penetrated the west at a period antedating the settlement of the Michigan and Ohio boundary dispute.
The soldier alone was silent, curiously watching the play of light and shade on the faces of the strollers,97his gaze resting longest, perhaps, on the features of the young girl. Leaning against an ancient oak, so old the heart of it was gone and it towered but a mighty shell, the slender figure of the actress was clearly outlined, but against that dark and roughly-furrowed background she seemed too slight and delicate to buffet with storms and hardships. That day’s experience was a forerunner of the unexpected in this wandering life, but another time the mishap might not be turned to diversion. The coach would not always traverse sunny byways; the dry leaf floating from the majestic arm of the oak, the sound of an acorn as it struck the earth presaged days less halcyon to come.
“How do you enjoy being a stroller?” asked a voice, interrupting the soldier’s reverie. “It has its bitters and its sweets, hasn’t it? Especially its sweets!” Susan added, glancing meaningly at the young girl. “But after all, it doesn’t much matter what happens to you if you are in good company.” The semi-gloom permitted her to gaze steadfastly into his eyes. He ignored the opportunity for a compliment, and Susan stifled a little yawn, real or imaginary.
“Positively one could die ofennuiin this wilderness,” she continued. “Do you know you are a welcome addition to our band? But you will have to make yourself very agreeable. I suppose”––archly––“youwerevery agreeable in the property wagon?”
“Miss Carew had a part to study,” he returned, coldly.
“A part to study!” In mock consternation. “How98I hate studying parts! They say what you wouldn’t, and don’t say what you would! But I’m off to bed,” rising impatiently. “I’m getting sleepy!”
“Sleepy!” echoed Barnes. “Take your choice! The Hotel du Omnibus”––indicating the chariot––“or the Villa Italienne?”––with a gesture toward a tent made of the drop curtain upon the walls of which was the picture of an Italian scene.
“The chariot for me,” answered Susan. “It is more high and dry and does not suggest spiders and other crawling things.”
“Good-night, then, and remember a good conscience makes a hard bed soft.”
“Then I shall sleep on down. I haven’t had a chance”––with a sigh––“to damage my conscience lately. But when I strike civilization again”––and Susan shook her head eloquently to conclude her sentence. “Oh, yes; if beds depend on conscience, boughs would be feathers for me to-night.” With which half-laughing, half-defiant conclusion, Susan tripped to the chariot, pausing a moment, however, to cast a reproachful glance over her shoulder at Saint-Prosper before vanishing in the cavernous depths of the vehicle of the muses.
Her departure was the signal for the dispersing of the party to their respective couches. Now the fire sank lower, the stars came out brighter and the moon arose and traveled majestically up the heavens, taking a brief but comprehensive survey of the habitations of mortals, and then, as if satisfied with her scrutiny, sailed back to the horizon and dropped out of sight.