The Strollers

“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!”