Isham Frederic Stewart
The Strollers

“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 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 a suggestion 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?

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?”

“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.

“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!”

CHAPTER VI
THE 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.

“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!” called out 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 him with 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 well the 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.

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 bugle call! But au 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.