The Strollers. Isham Frederic Stewart
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?”
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;” enough 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;”
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!”
CHAPTER V
A 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, were wrapped 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, turning the 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 this agricultural 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