The Strollers. Isham Frederic Stewart

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      The light that burned within shone from her eyes, proud yet gay; it lurked in the corners of her mouth, where gravity followed merriment, as silence follows laughter when the brook sweeps from the purling stones to the deeper pools. Her art was unconscious of itself and scene succeeded scene with a natural charm, revealing unexpected resources, from pathos to sorrow; from vanity to humility; from scorn to love awakened. And, when the transition did come, every pose spoke of the quickening heart; her movements proclaimed the golden fetters; passion shone in her glances, defiant though willing, lofty though humble, joyous though shy.

      Was it the heat from the lamps?–but Mauville’s brow became flushed; his buoyancy seemed gross and brutal; desire lurked in his lively glances; Pan gleamed from the curls of Hyperion!

      The play jogged on its blithesome course to its wonted end; the duke delivered the excellent homily,

      “A gentle wife

      Is still the sterling comfort of a man’s life,”

      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,” corrected Barnes, 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 behind the 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 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 his shirt of check and tallowed hair

      The fiddler sat in his bull-rush chair,”

      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 the scene, 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?”

      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 СКАЧАТЬ