99CHAPTER VIIIFLIPPING THE SHILLING
Shortly after the departure of the strolling players from the tavern, Mauville summoned his servant and ordered his equipage. While waiting he strode impatiently to and fro in the dining-room, which, dismantled of the stage, by very contrast to the temporary temple of art, turned his thoughts to the players. The barrenness of the room smote him acutely with the memory of those performances, and he laughed ironically to himself that he should thus revert to them. But as he scoffed inwardly, his eyes gleamed with vivacity, and the sensations with which he had viewed the young girl night after night were reawakened. What was one woman lost to him, his egotism whispered; he had parted from many, as a gourmand leaves one meal for another. Yes; but she had not been his, insinuated vanity; another had whipped her off before his eyes.
“Why the devil didn’t you tell me he was going with them?” he demanded of the landlord while settling his account.
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“He––who?” asked the surprised inn-keeper.
“That adventurer you have been harboring here. How far’s he going with them?”
“I don’t know. The night after the performance I heard the manager ask him to join the company; to write a temperance play.”
“Temperance play!” sneered Mauville. “The fool’s gone with them on account of a woman.”
“I did think he was mighty attentive to one of the actresses,” said the landlord, reflectively. “The one with them melting eyes. Purty good-looking! Quiet and lady-like, too! So he’s gallivanting after her? Well, well, I guess actresses be all alike.”
“I guess they are,” added the heir savagely. “And this one took me in,” he thought to himself. “Holding me off and playing with him, the jade!” Then he continued aloud: “Where are they going?”
“Didn’t hear ’em say,” answered the other, “and I didn’t like to appear too curious.”
“You didn’t?” returned Mauville, ironically. “You must have changed lately.”
“I don’t know as I understand you quite,” replied the landlord with sudden dignity. “But here’s your carriage and your things are all on. I guess your tenants will be glad to see you,” he continued, not resisting a parting shot.
“Curse the tenants!” muttered the guest in ill-humor, as he strode from the tavern without more ado.
He was soon on his way, partly forgetting his vexation in new anticipations, and traveling with spirit to101his destination, which he reached late that afternoon. The residence of the old patroons, a lordly manor where once lavish hospitality had been displayed, was approached through great gates of hammered iron in which the family arms were interwoven, leading into a fine avenue of trees. The branches of the more majestic met overhead, forming a sylvan arch that almost obscured the blue sky by day and the stars by night. Gazing through this vista, a stately portico appeared, with Corinthian columns, affording an inviting termination of the view. The grounds bore evidence of neglect in the grass growing knee-high and rank with weeds; the flower beds almost obliterated; a corn-crib sunk to one side like a quadruped gone weak-kneed; and the stream that struggled vainly through the leaves and rubbish barring its passage across the estate. The fence resembled the “company front” of an awkward squad, each picket being more or less independent of its neighbor, with here and there a break or gap in the ranks.
Passing through the leafy archway over a noiseless road and drawing near the manor, the heir could see that the broad windows, with their quaint squares of glass, were unwashed, the portico unswept and the brass finishings of the front door unpolished. At the right of the steps leading to the portico, moss-covered and almost concealed by a rose-bush, stood a huge block of granite upon which rested the “lifting-stone,” as it was called, of one of the early masters. This not inconsiderable weight the new retainers had been required102to lift in days of old, or failing, the patroon would have none of their services, for he wanted only lusty, broad-backed varlets for farmers or––when need were––soldiers.
In answer to repeated summons from the ponderous knocker, shuffling footsteps were finally heard within, the door was opened a few inches and the gleaming teeth of a great, gaunt dog were thrust into the opening, followed by an ominous growling. Mauville sprang back a step; the snarling resolved itself into a yelp, as some one unceremoniously dragged the canine back; the door was opened wider and a brawny figure, smoking a long-stemmed pipe, barred the way. The dog, but partly appeased, peered from behind the man’s sturdy legs, awaiting hostilities. The latter, an imperturbable Dutchman, eyed the intruder askance, smoking as impassively in his face as one of his ancestors before William the Testy. From his point of vantage on the threshold the care-taker looked down upon the master so indifferently, while the dog glared so viciously that the land baron cried angrily:
“Why the devil don’t you get out of the way and call off that beast?”
The man pondered. “No one but the heir would give orders like that,” he said, so accustomed to speaking his thoughts in the solitude of the great rooms, that he gave way to the habit now. “This must be the heir.”
Slowly the care-taker moved aside, the hound shifting his position accordingly, and Mauville entered,103gazing around with some interest, for the interior of the manor realized the pretensions of its outward aspect. The floor of the hall was of satinwood and rosewood, and the mahogany wainscoting, extending almost to the ceiling, was black with age. With its rich carvings, the stairway suggested woody rioting in balustrades lifting up to the support of the heavy beams in the ceiling. The furnishings were in keeping, but dust obscured the mirror-like surface of the mahogany tables, the heavy draperies were in need of renovation, while a housewife would have viewed with despair the condition of brass and ebony inlaid cabinets, ancient tapestries, and pictures, well-nigh defaced, but worthy, even in their faded aspect, of the brush of Sir Godfrey Kneller, Benjamin West and the elder Peale.
Having casually surveyed his new home, the heir was reminded of the need for refreshment after his long journey, and, turning to the care-taker, asked him what there was in the house? The servant smoked silently as though deeply considering this momentous question, while the rear guard maintained unabated hostility between the man’s firmly-planted feet. Then abruptly, without removing his pipe, the guardian of the manor ejaculated:
“Short-cakes and oly-koeks.”
The other laughed, struck his knee with his light cane and demanded to be shown to the library, where he would have these outlandish dishes served.
“And bring with them, Mynheer Oly-koeks, a bottle104of wine,” he continued. “At the same time, chain up the dog. He eyes me with such hungry hostility that, gad! I believe he’s an anti-renter!”
Mauville was ushered into a large room, where great leather-bound volumes filled the oak shelves to the ceiling. The care-taker turned, and, with echoing footsteps, slowly departed, followed by his faithful four-footed retainer. It is true the latter paused, swung half-around and regarded the land-owner with the look of a sulky and rebellious tenant, but, summoned by a stern “Oloffe!” from his master, the dog reluctantly pattered across the hard-wood floor.
In surveying his surroundings, the land baron’s attention was attracted by a coat-of-arms deeply carved in the massive wood of the book-case––on a saltire sable, a fleur-de-lys or. This head of heraldic flowers appeared to interest Mauville, who smiled grimly. “From what I know of my worthy ancestors,” he muttered, “and their propensities to prey on their fellow-men, I should say a more fitting device would be that of Lovett of Astwell: Gules, three wolves passant sable, in pale.”
Pleased with his own humor, he threw himself upon a couch near the window, stretching himself luxuriously. Soon the man reappeared with the refreshments and a bottle of old-fashioned, substantial girth, which he uncorked with marked solicitude.
“Where are the oly-koeks?” exclaimed the heir.
The watchman pointed to a great dish of dark blue willow-ware pattern.
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“Oh, doughnuts!” said Mauville. “You know where the family lawyer lives? Have my man drive you to his house and bring him here at once.”
As the care-taker again disappeared the heir bent over the curiously shaped bottle in delight, for when the cork was drawn a fragrance filled the musty apartment as from a bouquet.
“Blessings on the ancestor who laid down this wine!” he muttered. “May his ghost wander in to sniff it! These oly-koeks are not bad. I suppose this man, Ten Breecheses, or whatever he is called, is at once cook and housekeeper. Although I don’t think much of his housekeeping,” ruminated Mauville, as he observed a herculean spider weaving a web from an old volume of Giraldus Cambrensis, antiquary, to the classical works of one Joseph of Exeter. There is a strong sympathy between wine and cobwebs, and Mauville watched with increasing interest the uses to which these ponderous tomes had sunk––but serving the bloodthirsty purpose of the nimble architect, evolving its delicate engineering problem in mid air.
A great blundering fly had just bobbed into the net and the spider, with hideous, carnivorous zest, was scrambling for it, when the guardian of the manor returned with the family solicitor, a little man who bore in his arms a bundle of papers which, after the customary greetings, he spread upon the table. He helped himself to a glass of burgundy and proceeded forthwith to enter into the history of his trust.
Mynheer, the patroon, Mauville’s predecessor, a106lonely, arrogant man, had held tenaciously to the immense tracts of land acquired in the colonial days by nominal purchase. He had never married, his desire for an heir being discounted by his aversion for the other sex, until as the days dragged on, he found himself bed-ridden and childless in his old age. Unfortunately the miser can not take his acres into Paradise, and the patroon, with many an inward groan, cast about him for some remote relative to whom he would reluctantly transfer his earthly hereditaments. These were two: one a man of piety, who prayed with the tenants when they complained of their lot; the other, Mauville, upon whom he had never set eyes.
When the earliest patroons had made known to the West India Company their intention of planting colonies in New Netherland, they had issued attractive maps to promote their colonization projects. Among those who had been lured to America by these enticing advertisements was an ancestor of Edward Mauville. Incurring the displeasure of the governor for his godless views, this Frenchman was sent to the pillory, or whipping post, and his neighbors were about to cast out the devil of irreverence in good old-fashioned manner, when one of Mynheer’s daughters interceded, carried off the handsome miscreant, and––such was her imperious way!––married him! He was heard in after years to aver that the whipping would have been the milder punishment, but, be that as it may, a child was born unto them who inherited the father’s adventuresome107and graceless character, deserted his home, joined hands with some ocean-rovers and sailed for that pasture-ground of buccaneers, the Caribbean sea. Of his subsequent history various stories may be found in the chronicles of New Orleans and Louisiana.
The only other person who might have any pretensions to the estate was a reverend gentleman who had been a missionary among the Indians, preaching from a stump, and called “Little Thunder” by the red men because of his powerful voice; a lineal descendant of the Rev. Doctor Johannes Vanderklonk, the first dominie of the patroons, who served for one thousand guilders, payable in meat or drink, twenty-two bushels of wheat and two firkins of butter. He saved the souls of the savages, while the white men cheated their bodies. Now and then, in those early days, the children of the forest protested against this evangelizing process and carried off the good dominie to the torture stake, where they plucked out his finger nails; but he returned with as much zest to his task of landing these simple souls in Paradise as those who employed him displayed in making an earthly Paradise out of the lands the red men left behind them.
When by this shrewd system the savages were gradually saved, and incidentally exterminated, Little Thunder’s occupation was gone and he became a pensioner of Mynheer the Patroon, earning his bread by an occasional sermon to the tenants, exhorting them to thrift and industry, to be faithful and multiply, and108to pay their rents promptly. As Mynheer’s time drew near he sent for his attorney and commanded him to look up the life, deeds and character of Edward Mauville.
“This I did,” said the lawyer, “and here it is.” Waving a roll of papers before his interested listener.
“A nauseating mess, no doubt,” carelessly remarked the land baron.
“Oh, sir!” deprecated the lawyer, opening the roll. “‘Item: Religion; pupil of the brilliant Jesuit, Abbé Moneau. Item: Morals; Exhibit A, the affair with Countess ––– in Paris, where he was sent to be educated after the fashion of French families in New Orleans; Exhibit B––’”
“Spare me,” exclaimed Mauville. “Life is wearisome enough, but a biography––” He shrugged his shoulders. “Come to your point.”
“Of course, sir, I was only trying to carry out his instructions. The same, sir, as I would carry out yours!” With an ingratiating smile. Whereupon the attorney told how he had furnished the patroon this roll and fastened it to his bed, so that he might wind and unwind it, perusing it at his pleasure. This the dying man did, sternly noting the damaging facts; thinking doubtlessly how traits will endure for generations––aye, for ages, in spite of the pillory!––the while Little Thunder was roaring petitions to divinity by his bedside, as though to bluster and bully the Almighty into granting his supplications. The patroon glanced from his pensioner to the roll; from the kneeling man to109that prodigious list of peccadillos, and then he called for a shilling, a coin still somewhat in use in America. This he flipped thrice.
“Rouéor sham,” he said the first time.
“Rake or hypocrite,” he exclaimed the second time.
“Devil or Pharisee,” he cried the third time.
He peered over the coin and sent for his attorney. His soul passed away, mourned by Little Thunder until the will was read, when his lamentations ceased; he soundly berated Mynheer, the Patroon, in his coffin and refused to go to his burying. Then he became an ardent anti-renter, a leader of “bolters,” a thunderer of the people’s cause, the devoted enemy of land barons in general, and one patroon in particular, the foreign heir of the manor.
“But let him thunder away, sir,” said Scroggs, soothingly. “The estate’s yours now, for the old patroon can’t come back to change his mind. He’s buried sure enough in the grove, a dark and sombrous spot as befitted his disposition, but restful withal. Aye, and the marble slab’s above him, which reminds me that only a month before he took to his bed he was smoking his pipe on the porch, when his glance fell upon the lifting-stone. Suddenly he strode towards it, bent his back and raised it a full two inches. ‘So much for age!’ said he, scoffing-like. But age heard him and now he lies with a stone on him he can not lift, while you, sir”––to his listener, deferentially––“are sole heir to the estate and to the feud.”
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“A feud goes with the property?” remarked Mauville carelessly.
“The tenants object to paying rent,” replied Scroggs, sadly. “They’re a sorry lot!”
“Evade their debts, do they?” said the land baron languidly. “What presumption to imitate their betters! That won’t do; I need the money.”
“They claim the rights of the landlord originated in fraud––”
“No doubt!” Yawning. “My ancestors were rogues!”
“Oh, sir”––deprecatorily.
“If the tenants don’t pay, turn them out,” interrupted Mauville, listlessly, “if you have to depopulate the country.”
Having come to an understanding with his client, the lawyer arose to take his departure.
“By the way,” he said, obsequiously, selecting a yellow, well-worn bit of paper from his bundle of documents, “it may interest you to keep this yourself. It is the original deed for all these lands from the squaw Pewasch. You can see they were acquired for a few shillings’ worth of ‘wet and dry goods’ and seventeen and a half ells of duffels.”
“The old patroons could strike a rare bargain,” muttered the heir, as he casually surveyed the ancient deed, and then, folding it, placed it in his breast pocket. “For a mere song was acquired––”
“A vast principality,” added the solicitor, waving his hand toward the fields and meadows far in the distance.
111CHAPTER IXSAMPLING THE VINTAGES
Having started the wheels of justice fairly moving, with Scroggs at the throttle, the new land baron soon discovered that he was not in consonance with the great commoner who said he was savage enough to prefer the woods and wilds of Monticello to all the pleasures of Paris. In other words, those rural delights of his forefathers, the pleasures of a closer intimacy with nature, awoke no responsive chord in Mauville’s breast, and he began to tire before long of a patriarchal existence and crullers and oly-koeks and playing the fine lord in solitary grandeur.
The very extent of the deserted manor carried an overwhelming sense of loneliness, especially at this season when nature was dying and triumphal tints of decay were replacing the vernal freshness of the forests, flaunting gaudy vestments that could not, however, conceal the sadness of the transition. The days were growing shorter and the leaden-colored vapors, driven by the whip of that taskmaster, the wind, replaced the snow-white clouds becalmed in the tender112depths of ether. Soon would the hoar frost crystallize on grass and fence, or the autumn rains descend, dripping mournfully from the water spouts and bubbling over the tubs. Already the character of the dawn was changed to an almost sullen awakening of the day, denoting a seeming uneasiness of the hidden forces, while an angry passing of the glowing orb replaced the Paphian sunset.
In nook and cranny, through the balustrades and woody screens of the ancient house, penetrated the wandering currents of air. The draperies waved mysteriously, as by a hidden hand, and, at nightfall, the floor of satin and rosewood creaked ominously as if beneath the restless footsteps of former inmates, moving from the somber hangings of the windows to the pearl-inlaid harpsichord whose melody was gone, and thence up the broad staircase, pausing naturally at the landing, beneath which had assembled gay gatherings in the colonial days. And such a heedless phantom group––fine gentlemen in embroidered coats, bright breeches, silk stockings and peruke, and, peeping through ethereal lace wristbands, a white hand fit for no sterner toil than to flourish with airy grace a gold-headed cane; ladies with gleaming bare shoulders, dressed in “cumbrous silk that with its rustling made proud the flesh that bore it!” The imaginative listener could almost distinguish these footfalls, as the blind will recognize the tread of an unseen person.
To further add to the land baron’s dissatisfaction over his heritage, “rent-day”––that all-important day in113the olden times; when my lord’s door had been besieged by the willing lease-holders, cheerful in rendering unto Caesar what was due Caesar!––seemed to have been dropped from the modern calendar, as many an ancient holiday has gradually been lost in the whirligig of time. No long procession now awaited the patroon’s pleasure, when it should suit him to receive the tribute of guilders, corn or meal; the day might have been as obsolete as an Hellenic festival day to Zeus, for all the observance it was accorded.
“Your notices, Scroggs, were wasted on the desert air,” said the patroon, grimly, to that disappointed worthy. “What’s the use of tenants who don’t pay? Playing at feudal lord in modern times is a farce, Scroggs. I wish we had lived about four hundred years ago.”
“Yes, if four hundred years ago were now,” assented the parasite, “I’d begin with Dick, the tollman! He’s a regular Goliath and,”––his face becoming purple––“when I threatened him with the law, threw me out of the barn on an obnoxious heap of refuse.”
“You weren’t exactly a David, then?” laughed the patroon, in spite of his bad humor.
“I’ll throw the stone yet,” said the little man, viciously showing his yellow teeth. “The law’s the sling.”
That evening, when the broad meadows were inundated by the shadow of the forest that crept over it like an incoming tide, the land baron ordered lights for every room. The manor shone in isolated grandeur amid the gloomy fields, with the forest-wall114around it; radiant as of old, when strains of music had been heard within and many figures passed the windows. But now there was light, and not life, and a solitary anti-renter on the lonely road regarded with surprise the unusual illumination.
“What does it mean?” asked Little Thunder––for it was he––waiting and watching, as without the gates of Paradise.
Well might he ask, for the late Mynheer, the Patroon, had been a veritable bat for darkness; a few candles answered his purpose in the spacious rooms; he played the prowler, not the grand lord; a recluse who hovered over his wine butts in the cellar and gloated over them, while he touched them not; a hermit who lived half his time in the kitchen, bending over the smoky fireplace, and not a lavender-scented gentleman who aired himself in the drawing-room, a fine fop with nothing but the mirrors to pay him homage. Little Thunder, standing with folded arms in the dark road, gloomy as Lucifer, almost expected to see the brilliant fabric vanish like one of those palaces of joy built by the poets.
Hour after hour passed, midnight had come and gone, and still the lights glowed. Seated in the library, with the curtains drawn, were the land baron and Scroggs, a surveyor’s map between them and a dozen bottles around them. Before Mauville stood several glasses, containing wines of various vintages which the land baron compared and sipped, held to the light and inhaled after the manner of a connoisseur sampling115a cellar. He was unduly dignified and stately, but the attorney appeared decidedly groggy. The latter’s ideas clashed against one another like pebbles in a child’s rattle, and, if the round table may be supposed to represent the earth, as the ancient geographers imagined it, Scrogg’s face was surely the glowing moon shining upon it.
Readily had the attorney lent himself to the new order of procedure. With him it was: “The king is dead! Long live the king!” He, who had found but poor pickings under the former master––dry crust fees for pleadings, demurrers or rejoinders––now anticipated generous booty and spoil. Alert for such crumbs as might fall from a bountiful table; keen of scent for scraps and bits, but capable of a mighty mouthful, he paid a courtier’s price for it all; wheedling, pandering, ready for any service, ripe for any revelry. With an adulator’s tact, he still strove strenuously to hold the thread of his companion’s conversation, as Mauville said:
“Too old, Scroggs; too old!” Setting down a glass of burgundy in which fine particles floated through the magenta-hued liquid. “It has lost its luster, like a woman’s eyes when she has passed the meridian. Good wine, like a woman, has its life. First, sweetly innocent, delicately palatable, its blush like a maiden of sixteen; then glowing with a riper development, more passionate in hue, a siren vintage; finally, thin, waning and watery, with only memories of the deeper, rosy-hued days. Now here, my good, but muddled friend, is your youthful maiden!” Holding toward the lamp a glass, clear as crystal, with luster like a gem. “Dancing eyes; a figure upright as a reed; the bearing of a nymph; the soul of a water lily before it has opened its leaves to the wooing moonlight!”
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“Lord! How you go on!” exclaimed Scroggs. “What with a sampling this and sampling that, my head’s going round like a top. If there’s anything in the cellar the old patroons put down we haven’t tried, sir, I beg to defer the sampling. I am of the sage’s mind––‘Of all men who take wine, the moderate only enjoy it,’ says Master Bacon, or some one else.”
“Pass the bottle!” answered the other. “Gently, man! Don’t disturb its repose, and remember it disdains the perpendicular.”
“So will I soon,” muttered Scroggs. “I hope you’ll excuse me, sir, but that last drop of Veuve Cliquot was the whip-cord that started the top going, and, on my word”––raising his hands to his head––“I feel like holding it on to keep it from spinning off.”
“Spinning or not, you shall try this vintage”––the young man’s eyes gleamed with such fire as shone in the glass––“and drink to Constance Carew!”
“Constance Carew!” stammered the other, desperately swallowing the toast.
Mauville slowly emptied the glass. “A balsamic taste, slightly piquant but agreeable,” he observed. “A dangerous wine, Scroggs! It carries no warning; your older kind is like a world-worn coquette whose glances at once place you on the defensive. This117maiden vintage, just springing into glorious womanhood, comes over you like a springtime dream.”
“Who––who is she?” muttered Scroggs.
“She is not in the scroll you prepared for my lamented kinsman, eh? They are, for the most part, deep red, dark scarlet––that list of fair dames! She doesn’t belong to them––yet! No title, man; not even a society lady. A stroller, which is next door to a vagrant.”
“Well, sir, she’s a woman and that’s enough,” replied the lawyer. “And my opinion is, it’s better to have nothing to do with ’em.”
This sententious remark seemed to arouse Scroggs to momentary vivacity.
“Now there was my Lord Hamerton, whose picture is upstairs,” he went on quickly, like a man who is bent on grasping certain ideas before they escape him. “He brought a beautiful woman here––carried her off, they say from England––and installed her as mistress of the manor. I have heard my father say that his great-grandfather, who was my lord’s solicitor, said that before his death my lord desired to make her his wife, having been brought to a sense of the sinful life he had led by a Puritan preacher. But at that, this woman straightened herself up, surveyed him with scorn, and, laughing like a witch, answered: ‘They say marriages are made in heaven, my lord––and you are the devil!’ So my lord died without having atoned, and, as for my lady who refused to become an118honest woman, I am sure she was damned!” concluded Scroggs triumphantly.
“No doubt! So this wicked lord abducted her, Scroggs?” he added thoughtfully. “A man of spirit, until the Puritans got after him and showed him the burning pit and frightened him to that virtue which was foreign to his inclinations. My lady was right in refusing to honor such a paltry scoundrel with her hand. But it takes courage, Scroggs, to face everlasting damnation.”
“They say, too, there was a spice of revenge about her unwillingness to give her hand to my lord,” resumed the narrator, unmindful of the interruption. “This Puritan father said nothing but marriage with her would save Hamerton from the sulphurous flames and so my lady refused to sanctify their relations and rescue her lord from perdition!”
“A pleasant revenge!” laughed the land baron. “He made life a hell for her and she gave him an eternity of it. But take a little of this white wine, man. We’ve drunk to the roses of desire, and now should drink to the sanctified lilies. Her neck, Scroggs, is like a lily, and her hand and her brow! Beneath that whiteness, her eyes shine with a tenderness inviting rays of passion to kindle them. Drink!”
But the other gave a sudden lurch forward. “My lady––refused––perdition!” he muttered, and his head dropped to the board.
“Wake up, man, and drink!” commanded the master.
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“Jush same––they ought to have been married,” said his companion drowsily. “They lived together so––so ill!” And then to place himself beyond reach of further temptation from the bottle, he quietly and naturally slid under the table.
The patroon arose, strode to the window, which he lifted, and the night air entered, fanning his hot brow. The leaves, on high, rustled like falling rain. The elms tossed their branches, striking one another in blind confusion. The long grass whispered as the breeze stirred it like the surface of an inland lake. Withering flowers gave up their last perfume, while a storm-cloud fled wildly across the heavens. Some of the restlessness of the external world disturbed that silent dark figure at the window; within him, conflicting passions jarred like the boughs of the trees and his fancies surged like the eddying leaves.
“The roses of desire––the sanctified lilies!” he muttered.
As he stood there the stars grew pale; the sky trembled and quivered before the advent of morn. A heavy footstep fell behind him, and, turning, he beheld the care-taker.
“Not in bed yet, Oly-koeks?” cheerfully said the land baron.
“I am just up.”
“In that case, it is time for me to retire,” returned the master, with a yawn. “This is a dull place, Oly-koeks; no life; no variety. Nothing going on!”
The servant glanced at the formidable array of bottles.120“And he calls this a quiet life!” thought the care-taker, losing his impassiveness and viewing the table with round-eyed wonder.
“Nothing going on?” he said aloud. “Mynheer, the Patroon, complained of too much life here, with people taking farms all around. But, if you are dull, a farmer told me last night there was a company of strolling players in Vanderdonkville––”
“Strollers!” exclaimed Mauville, wheeling around. “What are they called?”
“Lord; I don’t know, sir. They’re show-folks, and that’s all––”
“Do many strolling players come this way?”
“Not for weeks and months, sometimes! The old patroon ordered theschoutto arrest them if they entered thewyck.”
“Is Vanderdonkville in thewyck?” asked the land baron quickly.
“No. It was separated from thewyckwhen Rickert Jacobus married––”
“Never mind the family genealogy! Have the coach ready at nine––”
“To-night?”
“This morning,” replied Mauville, lightly. “And, meanwhile, put this to bed,” indicating Scroggs, who was now snoring like a bag-pipe with one arm lovingly wound around a leg of the library table.
The care-taker hoisted the attorney on his broad shoulders, his burden still piping as they crossed the hall and mounted the stairway. Having deposited121his load within the amazing depths of a Dutch feather mattress, where he lay well-nigh lost to sight, but not unheard, thewacht-meesterof thesteynleft him to well-earned slumber and descended to the kitchen.
At the appointed hour, the land baron, freshly shaven, not a jaded line in his face, and elastic in step, appeared on the front porch before which his carriage was waiting.
“When shall I expect you back?” asked Oly-koeks, who had reappeared at the sound of his master’s footsteps.
“Any time or never!” laughed the patroon, springing into the vehicle.
But as he drove through a bit of wood, wrapped in pleasing reflections, he received startling proof that the warfare between landlord and tenants had indeed begun in earnest, for a great stone suddenly crashed through the window of the vehicle, without, however, injuring the occupant. Springing from his carriage, Mauville dashed through the fringe of wood, discharging his revolver at what he fancied was a fleeing figure. But a fluttering in the trees from the startled birds was the only result.
Little Thunder was too spry to be caught by even a pursuing bullet.
122CHAPTER XSEALING THE COMPACT
“The show troupe has come to town,” said the tall, lank postmaster to every one who called, and the words passed from mouth to mouth, so that those who did not witness the arrival were soon aware of it. Punchinello and his companions never attracted more attention from the old country peasants than did the chariot and its occupants, as on the day after their night in the woods they passed through the main thoroughfare of the village where they were soon to appear.
Children in woolen dresses of red retinet, or in calico vandykes and aprons, ran after the ponderous vehicle with cries of delight; the staid, mature contingent of the population shook their heads disapprovingly, while viewing with wonder the great lumbering coach, its passengers inside and out, and, behind, the large wagon with its load of miscellaneous trappings. Now on the stage throne lolled the bass viol player, even as Jacques assumed the raiment of the Duke of Aranza, reclining the while in his chair of state. Contentment was written upon his face, and123he was as much a duke or a king, as Jacques when he swelled like a shirt bleaching in a high wind and looked burly as a Sunday beadle.
The principal avenue of the village boasted but few prosperous-looking business establishments. In the general “mixed store,” farmers’ implements, groceries, West India goods and even drugs were dispensed. But the apothecary’s trade then had its limitations, homeopathy being unknown, while calomel, castor oil and rhubarb were mainly in demand, as well as senna, manna and other bitter concoctions with which both young and old were freely dosed. The grocer, haberdasher, and druggist, all rolled into one substantial personage, so blocked the doorway of his own establishment, while gazing at the strollers, it would have puzzled a customer, though but a “sketch and outline” of a man, to have slipped in or out. Dashing as in review before the rank and file of the village, the coach, with an extra flourish, rattled up to the hotel, a low but generous-sized edifice, with a wide, comfortable veranda, upon the railing of which was an array of boots, and behind them a number of disconsolate-looking teamsters.
“You want to register, do you?” said the landlord in answer to Barnes’ inquiry, as the latter entered the office, the walls of which were covered with advertisements of elections, auctions, sales of stock, lands and quack medicines.
“We don’t keep no register,” continued the landlord, “but I guess we can accommodate you, although the124house is rather full with the fellers from the ark. Or,” he added, by way of explanation in answer to the manager’s look of surprise, “Philadelphia freight wagons, I suppose you would call them. But we speak of them as arks, because they take in all creation. Them’s the occupants, making a Mount Ararat of the porch. They’re down-hearted, because they used to liquor up here and now they can’t, for the town’s temperance.”
“I trust, nevertheless, you are prepared for a season of legitimate drama,” suggested Barnes.
The other shook his head dubiously. “The town’s for lectures clear through,” he answered. “They’ve been making a big fuss about show folks.”
The manager’s countenance did not fall, however, upon hearing this announcement; on the contrary, it shed forth inscrutable satisfaction.
No sooner were they settled in far from commodious quarters than preparations for the future were seriously begun; and now the drama proceeded apace, with Barnes, the moving spirit. Despite his assertion that he was no scholar, the manager’s mind was the storehouse of a hundred plays, and in that depository were many bags of gold and many bags of chaff. From this accumulation he drew freely, frankly, in the light-fingered fashion of master playwrights and lesser theatrical thimble-riggers.
Before the manager was a table––the stage!––upon which were scattered miscellaneous articles, symbols of life and character. A stately salt-cellar represented the leading lady; a pepper box, the irascible125father; a rotund mustard pot, the old woman; a long, slim cruet, theingenue; and a pewter spoon, the lover.
Barnes gravely demonstrated the action of the scene to Saint-Prosper, and the soldier became collaborator, “abandoning, as it were,” wrote the manager in his autobiographical date-book and diary, “the sword for the pen, and the glow of the Champ de Mars for the glimmer of a kerosene lamp.” And yet not with the inclination of Burgoyne, or other military gentlemen who have courted the buskin and sock! On the contrary, so foreign was the occupation to his leaning, that often a whimsical light in his eye betrayed his disinclination and modest disbelief in his own fitness for the task. “He said the way I laid out an act reminded him of planning a campaign, with the outriders and skirmishers before; the cavalry arrayed for swift service, and the infantry marching steadily on, carrying with them the main plot, or strength of the movement.”
No sooner were the Salt Cellar and Pepper Box reunited, and the Pewter Spoon clasped in the arms of the loving Cruet, with the curtain descending, than Barnes, who like the immortal Alcibiades Triplet could turn his hand to almost anything, became furiously engaged in painting scenery. A market-place, with a huge wagon, containing porkers and poultry, was dashed off with a celerity that would have made a royal academician turn green with envy. The Tiddly Wink Inn was so faithfully reproduced that the painted bottles were a real temptation, while on the pastoral126green of a rural landscape grazed sheep so life-like that, as Hawkes observed, it actually seemed “they would eat the scenery all up.” But finally sets and play were alike finished, and results demonstrated that the manager was correct in his estimate of such a drama, which became a forerunner of other pieces of this kind, “The Bottle,” “Fruits of the Wine Cup,” “Aunt Dinah’s Pledge,” and “Ten Nights in a Bar Room.”
In due time the drama was given in the town hall, after the rehearsals had been witnessed by a committee from the temperance league, who reported that the play “could not but exercise a good influence and was entertaining withal ... We recommend the license to be issued and commend the drama to all Good Templars.” Therefore, the production was not only well attended, but play and players were warmly received. The town hall boasted a fairly commodious platform which now served the purpose of a stage, and––noteworthy circumstance!––there were gas jets for footlights, the illuminating fluid having at that early date been introduced in several of the more progressive villages. Between the acts, these yellow lights were turned low, and––running with the current of popular desire––the orchestra, enlarged to four, played, by special request, “The Old Oaken Bucket.”
The song had just sprung into popularity, and, in a moment, men, women and children had added their voices to the instruments. It was not the thrill of temperance fanaticism that stirred their hearts, but it was127the memories of the old pioneer home in the wilderness; the rail-splitting, road-building days; the ancient rites of “raisings” and other neighborly ceremonies; when the farmer cut rye with a cradle, and threshed it out with his flail; when “butter and eggs were pin money” and wheat paid the store-keeper.
“How solemnly they take their amusements in the North, Mr. Barnes!” exclaimed a voice in one of the entrances. “What a contrast to the South––the wicked South!”
The manager turned sharply.
“We are mere servants of the public, Mr. Mauville.”
“And the public is master, Mr. Barnes! How the dramatic muse is whipped around! In Greece, she was a goddess; in Rome, a hussy; in England, a sprightly dame; now, a straight-laced Priscilla. But you have a recruit, I see?”
“You mean Saint-Prosper?”
“Yes, and I can hardly blame him––under the circumstances!” murmured the land baron, at the same time glancing around as though seeking some one.
“Circumstances! What circumstances?” demanded the manager.
“Why, the pleasant company he finds himself in, of course,” said the visitor, easily. “Ah, I see Miss Carew,” he added, his eye immediately lightening, “and must congratulate her on her performance. Cursed dusty hole, isn’t it?” Brushing himself with his handkerchief as he moved away.
“What business has he behind the scenes anyway?”128grumbled the manager. “Dusty hole, indeed! Confound his impudence!” But his attention being drawn to the pressing exigencies of a first night, Barnes soon forgot his irritation over this unwarranted intrusion in lowering a drop, hoisting a fly or readjusting a flat to his liking.
The land baron meanwhile crossed to the semi-darkness at the rear of the stage behind the boxed scene, where he had observed the young girl waiting for the curtain to rise on the last act. A single light on each side served partly to relieve the gloom; to indicate the frame-work of the set scene and throw in shadow various articles designed for use in the play. As she approached Mauville, who stood motionless in an unlighted spot, the pale glow played upon her a moment, white on her neck, in sheen on the folds of her gown, and then she stepped into the shadow, where she was met by a tall figure, with hand eagerly outstretched.
“Mr. Mauville!” she exclaimed, drawing back at the suddenness of the encounter.
His restless eyes held hers, but his greeting was conventional.
“Did I not say the world was small and that we might meet again?”
“Of course, we are always meeting people and parting from them,” she replied unconcernedly.
He laughed. “With what delightful indifference you say that! You did not think to see me again?”