The Strollers

The conversation at this point was interrupted by the appearance of the juvenile man.

“Mr. Barnes, the ladies desire your company immediately.”

The manager hurriedly left the room and the newcomer regarded his retiring figure with a twinkle in his eye. Then he took a turn around the room in stilted fashion–like one who “carried about with him his pits, boxes and galleries”–and observed:

“Faith, Mr. Barnes’ couch is not a bed of roses. It is better to have the fair ones dangling after you, than to be running at their every beck and call.”

Here he twisted his mustache upward.

“A woman is a strange creature,” he resumed. “If she calls and you come once, your legs will be busy for the rest of your natural days.”

He seemed about to continue his observations along this philosophical line, when the manager appeared in much perturbation, approaching the landlord, who, at the same time, had entered the room from the kitchen.

“The ladies insist that their sheets are damp,” began the manager in his most plausible manner.

A dangerous light appeared in the other’s eyes.

“It’s the weather, you understand. Not your fault; bless you, no!”

The landlord’s face became a shade less acrimonious.

“Now, if there was a fire in the room–it is such a comfortable, cheery room–”

“Sandy!” interrupted the host, calling to the long-armed, red-handed stable boy, who thrust a shock of hair through the kitchen door. “Build a fire upstairs.”

Mr. Barnes heaved a sigh of relief and drawing a chair to the blaze prepared once more to enjoy a well-earned rest.

By this time the shadows had begun to lengthen in the room as the first traces of early twilight filled the valley. The gurgling still continued down the water pipe; the old sign before the front door moaned monotonously. An occasional gust of wind, which mysteriously penetrated the mist without sweeping it aside, rattled the windows and waved wildly in mid-air a venturesome rose which had clambered to the second story of the old inn. The barn-yard appeared even more dismal because of the coming darkness and the hens presented a pathetic picture of discomfort as they tucked their heads under their wet feathers for the night, while his lordship, the rooster, was but a sorry figure upon his high perch, with the moisture regularly and unceasingly dripping through the roof of the hen-house upon his unprotected back.

An aroma from the kitchen which penetrated the room seemed especially grateful to the manager who smiled with satisfaction as he conjured up visions of the forthcoming repast. By his Falstaffian girth, he appeared a man not averse to good living, nor one to deny himself plentiful libations of American home-brewed ale.

“Next to actual dining,” observed this past-master in the art, “are the anticipations of the table. The pleasure consists in speculation regarding this or that aroma, in classifying the viands and separating this combination of culinary odors into courses of which you will in due time partake. Alas for the poor stroller when the tavern ceases to be! Already it is almost extinct on account of the Erie Canal. Only a short time ago this room would have been crowded with teamsters of the broad-tired Pennsylvania wagons, drawn by six or eight horses.”

Again the appetizing aroma from the kitchen turned the current of his reflections into its original channel, for he concluded with: “An excellent dinner is in progress, if my diagnosis of these penetrating fragrances be correct.”

And it was soon demonstrated that the manager’s discernment was not in error. There was not only abundance but quality, and the landlord’s daughter waited on the guests, thereby subjecting herself to the very open advances of the Celtic Adonis. The large table was laden with heavy crockery, old-fashioned and quaint; an enormous rotary castor occupied the center of the table, while the forks and spoons were–an unusual circumstance!–of silver.

When the company had seated themselves around the board the waitress brought in a sucking pig, done to a turn, well stuffed, and with an apple in its mouth. The manager heaved a sigh.

“The lovely little monster,” said Kate, admiringly.

“Monster!” cried Susan. “Say cherub!”

“So young and tender for such a fate!” exclaimed Hawkes, the melancholy individual, with knife and fork held in mid-air.

“But worthy of the bearer of the dish!” remarked Adonis, so pointedly that the landlord’s daughter, overwhelmed with confusion, nearly dropped the platter, miniature porker and all. Whereupon Kate cast an angry glance at the offender whom “she could not abide,” yet regarded in a certain proprietary way, and Adonis henceforth became less open in his advances.

Those other aromas which the manager had mentally classified took form and substance and were arranged in tempting variety around the appetizing and well-browned suckling. There were boiled and baked hams, speckled with cloves, plates of doughnuts and pound cake, beet root and apple sauce. Before each of the guests stood a foaming mug of home-brewed ale that carried with it a palpable taste of the hops.

“There is nothing of the stage repast about this,” commented the manager.

To which Kate, having often partaken of the conventional banquet of the theater, waved her hand in a serio-comic manner toward the pièce de résistance and observed:

“Suppose, now, by some necromancy our young and tender friend here on the platter should be changed to a cleverly fashioned block of wood, painted in imitation of a roasted porker, with a wooden apple in his mouth?”

The manager, poising the carving knife, replied:

“Your suggestion is startling. We will obviate the possibility of any such transformation.”

And he cut the “ambrosian fat and lean” with a firm hand, eying the suckling steadfastly the while as if to preclude any exhibition of Hindoo mysticism, while the buxom lass, the daughter of the boniface, with round arms bared, bore sundry other dishes from place to place until the plates were heaped with an assortment of viands.

“Well, my dear, how are you getting on?” said the manager to the young actress, Constance, as he helped himself to the crackle. “Have you everything you want?”

She nodded brightly, and the stranger who was seated some distance from her glanced up; his gaze rested on her for a moment and then returned in cold contemplation to the fare set before him.

Yet was she worthy of more than passing scrutiny. The gleam of the lamp fell upon her well-turned figure and the glistening of her eyes could be seen in the shadow that rested on her brow beneath the crown of hair. She wore a dark lavender dress, striped with silk, a small “jacquette,” after the style of the day, the sleeves being finished with lace and the skirt full and flowing. Her heavy brown tresses were arranged in a coiffure in the fashion then prevailing, a portion of the hair falling in curls on the neck, the remainder brought forward in plaits and fastened at the top of the forehead with a simple pearl ornament.

If the young girl felt any interest in the presence of the taciturn guest she concealed it, scarcely looking at him and joining but rarely in the conversation. Susan, on the other hand, resorted to sundry coquetries.

“I fear, sir, that you find our poor company intrusive, since we have forced you to become one of us?” she said, toying with her fork, and thereby displaying a white and shapely hand.

His impassive blue eyes met her sparkling ones.

“I am honored in being admitted to your fellowship,” he returned perfunctorily.

“Only poor players, sir!” exclaimed Hawkes deprecatingly, with the regal gesture a stage monarch might use in setting forth the perplexities of royal pre-eminence.

“The landlord does not seem to share your opinion?” continued Susan, looking once more at the stranger.

“As a host he believes in brave deeds, not fair words,” said Kate, indicating the remains of the repast.

“Peace to his bones!” exclaimed the manager, extending a hand over the remnants of the suckling.

Here the dark-haired girl arose, the dinner being concluded. There was none of his usual brusqueness of manner, as the manager, leaning back in his chair and taking her hand, said:

“You are going to retire, my dear? That is right. We have had a hard day’s traveling.”

She bent her head, and her lips pressed softly the old man’s cheek, after which she turned from the rest of the company with a grave bow. But as she passed through the doorway her flowing gown caught upon a nail in the wall. Pre-occupied though he seemed, her low exclamation did not escape the ear of the stranger, and, quitting his place, he knelt at her feet, and she, with half turned head and figure gracefully poised, looked down upon him.

With awkward fingers, he released the dress, and she bowed her acknowledgment, which he returned with formal deference. Then she passed on and he raised his head, his glance following her through the bleak-looking hall, up the broad, ill-lighted staircase, into the mysterious shadows which prevailed above.

Shortly afterward the tired company dispersed, and the soldier also sought his room. There he found the landlord’s daughter before him with the warming-pan. She had spread open the sheets of his bed and was applying the old-fashioned contrivance for the prevention of rheumatism, but it was evident her mind was not on this commendable housewifely task, for she sighed softly and then observed:

“It must be lovely to be an actress!”

Dreamily she patted the pillows, until they were round and smooth, and absently adjusted the bed, until there was not a wrinkle in the snow-white counterpane, after which, like a good private in domestic service, she shouldered the warming pan with its long handle, murmured “good-night” and departed, not to dream of milking, churning or cheese-making, but of a balcony and of taking poison in a tomb.

Absently the stranger gazed at the books on the table: “Nutting’s Grammar,” “Adams’ Arithmetic,” “David’s Tears” and the “New England Primer and Catechism”–all useful books undoubtedly, but not calculated long to engross the attention of the traveler. Turning from these prosaic volumes, the occupant of the chamber drew aside the curtain of the window and looked out.

Now the mists were swept away; the stars were shining and the gurgling had grown fainter in the pipes that descended from the roof to the ground. Not far was the dark fringe which marked the forest and the liquid note of a whippoorwill arose out of the solitary depths, a melancholy tone in the stillness of the night. The little owl, too, was heard, his note now sounding like the filing of a saw and again changing in character to the tinkling of a bell. A dog howled for a moment in the barn-yard, and then, apparently satisfied with having given this evidence of watchfulness, re-entered his house of one room and curled himself upon the straw in his parlor, after which nothing more was heard from him.

Drawing the curtains of his own couch, a large, four-posted affair, sleep soon overpowered the stranger; but sleep, broken and fitful! Nor did he dream only of France and of kings running away, of American land barons and of “bolters.” More intrusive than these, the faces of the strollers crept in and disturbed his slumbers, not least among which were the features of the dark-eyed girl whose gown had caught as she passed through the doorway.

CHAPTER II

A NEW ARRIVAL

The crowing of the cock awakened the French traveler, and, going to the window, he saw that daylight had thrown its first shafts upon the unromantic barn-yard scene, while in the east above the hill-tops spread the early flush of morning. The watch-dog had left his one-roomed cottage and was promenading before it in stately fashion with all the pomp of a satisfied land-holder, his great undershot jaw and the extraordinary outward curve of his legs proclaiming an untarnished pedigree. The hens were happily engaged in scratching the earth for their breakfast; the rooster, no longer crestfallen, was strutting in the sunshine, while next to the barn several grunting, squealing pigs struggled for supremacy in the trough. From the cow-shed came an occasional low and soon a slip-shod maid, yawning mightily, appeared, pail in hand, and moved across the yard to her early morning task.

Descending the stairs and making his way to the barn, the soldier called to Sandy, the stable boy, who was performing his ablutions by passing wet fingers through a shock of red hair, to saddle his horse. The sleepy lad led forth a large but shapely animal, and soon the stranger was galloping across the country, away from the village, now down a gentle declivity, with the virgin forest on either side, then through a tract of land where was apparent the husbandry of the people.

After a brisk pace for some miles, he reined in his horse, and, leisurely riding in a circuit, returned on the road that crossed the farming country back of the tavern. Around him lay fields of rye and buckwheat sweet with the odor of the bee-hive; Indian corn, whose silken tassels waved as high as those of Frederick’s grenadiers’, and yellow pumpkins nestling to the ground like gluttons that had partaken too abundantly of mother earth’s nourishment. Intermingling with these great oblong and ovoid gourds, squashes, shaped like turbans and many-cornered hats, appeared in fantastic profusion.

The rider was rapidly approaching the inn, when a sudden turn in the highway, as the road swept around a wind-break of willows, brought him upon a young woman who was walking slowly in the same direction. So fast was the pace of his horse, and so unexpected the meeting, she was almost under the trampling feet before he saw her. Taken by surprise, she stood as if transfixed, when, with a quick, decisive effort, the rider swerved his animal, and, of necessity, rode full tilt at the fence and willows. She felt the rush of air; saw the powerful animal lift itself, clear the rail-fence and crash through the bulwark of branches. She gazed at the wind-break; a little to the right, or the left, where the heavy boughs were thickly interlaced, and the rider’s expedient had proved serious for himself, but chance–he had no time for choice–had directed him to a vulnerable point of leaves and twigs. Before she had fairly recovered herself he reappeared at an opening on the other side of the willow-screen, and, after removing a number of rails, led his horse back to the road.

With quivering nostrils, the animal appeared possessed of unquenchable spirit, but his master’s bearing was less assured as he approached, with an expression of mingled anxiety and concern on his face, the young girl whom the manager had addressed as Constance.

“I beg your pardon for having alarmed you!” he said. “It was careless, inexcusable!”

“It was a little startling,” she admitted, with a faint smile.

“Only a little!” he broke in gravely. “If I had not seen you just when I did–”

“You would not have turned your horse–at such a risk to yourself!” she added.

“Risk to myself! From what?” A whimsical light encroached on the set look in his blue eyes. “Jumping a rail fence? But you have not yet said you have pardoned me?”

The smile brightened. “Oh, I think you deserve that.”

“I am not so sure,” he returned, glancing down at her.

Slanting between the lower branches of the trees the sunshine touched the young girl’s hair in flickering spots and crept down her dress like caressing hands of light, until her figure, passing into a solid shadow, left these glimmerings prone upon the dusty road behind her. The “brides,” or strings of her little muslin cap, flaunted in the breeze and a shawl of China crape fluttered from her shoulders. So much of her dusky hair as defied concealment contrasted strongly with the calm translucent pallor of her face. The eyes, alone, belittled the tranquillity of countenance; against the rare repose of features, they were the more eloquent, shining beneath brows, delicately defined but strongly marked, and shaded by long upturned lashes, deep in tone as a sloe.

“You are an early riser,” he resumed.

“Not always,” she replied. “But after yesterday it seemed so bright outdoors and the country so lovely!”

His gaze, following hers, traversed one of the hollows. Below yet rested deep shadows, but upon the hillside a glory celestial enlivened and animated the surrounding scene. Scattered houses, constituting the little hamlet, lay in the partial shade of the swelling land, the smoke, with its odor of burning pine, rising lazily on the languid air. In the neighboring field a farm hand was breaking up the ground with an old-fashioned, pug-nosed “dirt-rooter;” soil as rich as that of Egypt, or the land, Gerar, where Isaac reaped an hundred fold and every Israelite sat under the shadow of his own vine.

Pausing, the husbandman leaned on the handle of his plow and deliberately surveyed the couple on the road. Having at the same time satisfied his curiosity and rested his arms, he grasped the handles once more and the horses pulled and tugged at the primitive implement.

While the soldier and the young girl were thus occupied in surveying the valley and the adjacent mounds and hummocks, the horse, considering doubtlessly that there had been enough inaction, tapped the ground with rebellious energy and tossed his head in mutiny against such procrastination.

“Your horse wants to go on,” she said, observing this equine by-play.

“He usually does,” replied the rider. “Perhaps, though, I am interrupting you? I see you have a play in your hand.”

“I was looking over a part–but I know it very well,” she added, moving slowly from the border of willows. Leading his horse, he followed.

His features, stern and obdurate in repose, relaxed in severity, while the deep-set blue eyes grew less searching and guarded. This alleviation became him well, a tide of youth softening his expression as a wave smoothes the sands.

“What is the part?”

“Juliana, in ‘The Honeymoon’! It is one of our stock pieces.”

“And you like it?”

“Oh, yes.” Lingering where a bit of sward was set with field flowers.

“And who plays the duke?” he continued.

“Mr. O’Flariaty,” she answered, a suggestion of amusement in her glance. Beneath the shading of straight, black brows, her eyes were deceptively dark, until scrutinized closely, they resolved themselves into a clear gray.

“Ah,” he said, recalling Adonis, O’Flariaty’s, appearance, and, as he spoke, a smile of singular sweetness lightened his face. “A Spanish grandee with a touch of the brogue! But I must not decry your noble lord!” he added.

“No lord of mine!” she replied gaily. “My lord must have a velvet robe, not frayed, and a sword not tin, and its most sanguinary purpose must not be to get between his legs and trip him up! Of course, when we act in barns–”

“In barns!”

“Oh, yes, when we can find them to act in!”

She glanced at him half-mockingly.

“I suppose you think of a barn as only a place for a horse.”

The sound of carriage wheels interrupted his reply, and, looking in the direction from whence it came, they observed a coach doubling the curve before the willows and approaching at a rapid pace. It was a handsome and imposing equipage, with dark crimson body and wheels, preserving much of the grace of ancient outline with the utility of modern springs.

As they drew aside to permit it to pass the features of its occupant were seen, who, perceiving the young girl on the road–the shawl, half-fallen from her shoulder revealing the plastic grace of an erect figure–gazed at her with surprise, then thrust his head from the window and bowed with smiling, if somewhat exaggerated, politeness. The next moment carriage and traveler vanished down the road in a cloud of dust, but an alert observer might have noticed an eye at the rear port-hole, as though the person within was supplementing his brief observation from the side with a longer, if diminishing, view from behind.

The countenance of the young girl’s companion retrograded from its new-found favor to a more inexorable cast.

“A friend of yours?” he said, briefly.

“I never saw him before,” she answered with flashing eyes. “Perhaps he is the lord of the manor and thought I was one of his subjects.”

“There are lords in this country, then?”

“Lords or patroons, they are called,” she replied, her face still flushed.

At this moment, across the meadows, beyond the fence of stumps–poor remains of primeval monarchs!–a woman appeared at the back door of the inn with a tin horn upon which she blew vigorously, the harsh blasts echoing over hill and valley. The startled swallows and martins arose from the eaves and fluttered above the roof. The farm hand at the plow released the handle, and the slip-shod maid appeared in the door of the cow-shed, spry and nimble enough at meal time.

From the window of her room Susan saw them returning and looked surprised as well as a bit annoyed. Truth to tell, Mistress Susan, with her capacity for admiring and being admired, had conceived a momentary interest in the stranger, a fancy as light as it was ephemeral. That touch of melancholy when his face was in repose inspired a transitory desire for investigation in this past-mistress of emotional analysis. But the arrival of the coach which had passed the couple soon diverted Susan’s thoughts to a new channel.

The equipage drew up, and a young man, dressed in a style novel in that locality, sprang out. He wore a silk hat with scarcely any brim, trousers extremely wide at the ankle, a waistcoat of the dimensions of 1745, and large watch ribbons, sustaining ponderous bunches of seals.

The gallant fop touched the narrow brim of his hat to Kate, who was peeping from one window, and waved a kiss to Susan, who was surreptitiously glancing from another, whereupon both being detected, drew back hastily. Overwhelmed by the appearance of a guest of such manifest distinction, the landlord bowed obsequiously as the other entered the tavern with a supercilious nod.

To Mistress Susan this incident was exciting while it lasted, but when the dandy had disappeared her attention was again attracted to Constance and Saint-Prosper, who slowly approached. He paused with his horse before the front door and she stood a moment near the little porch, on either side of which grew sweet-williams, four-o’clocks and larkspur. But the few conventional words were scanty crumbs for the fair eavesdropper above, the young girl soon entering the house and the soldier leading his horse in the direction of the stable. As the latter disappeared around the corner of the tavern, Susan left the window and turned to the mirror.

“La!” she said, holding a mass of blond hair in one hand and deftly coiling it upon her little head, “I believe she got up early to meet him.” But Kate only yawned lazily.

Retracing his steps from the barn, the soldier crossed the back-yard, where already on the clothes’ line evidences of early matutinal industry, a pair of blue over-alls, with sundry white and red stockings, were dancing in the breeze. First the over-alls performed wildly, then the white stockings responded with vim, while the red ones outdid themselves by their shocking abandonment, vaunting skyward as though impelled by the phantom limbs of some Parisian danseuse.

Making his way by this dizzy saturnalia and avoiding the pranks of animated hosiery and the more ponderous frolics of over-alls, sheets and tablecloths, Saint-Prosper entered the kitchen. Here the farm hand and maid of all work were eating, and the landlord’s rotund and energetic wife was bustling before the fireplace. An old iron crane, with various sized pothooks and links of chain, swung from the jambs at the will of the housewife. Boneset, wormwood and catnip had their places on the wall, together with ears of corn and strings of dried apples.

Bustling and active, with arms bared to the elbow and white with flour, the spouse of mine host realized the scriptural injunction: “She looketh well to the ways of her household.” Deftly she spread the dough in the baking pan; smoothly leveled it with her palm; with nice mathematical precision distributed bits of apple on top in parallel rows; lightly sprinkled it with sugar, and, lo and behold, was fashioned an honest, wholesome, Dutch apple cake, ready for the baking!

In the tap-room the soldier encountered the newcomer, seated not far from the fire as though his blood flowed sluggishly after his long ride in the chill morning air. Upon the table lay his hat, and he was playing with the seals on his watch ribbon, his legs indolently stretched out straight before him. Occasionally he coughed when the smoke, exuding from the damp wood, was not entirely expelled up the chimney, but curled around the top of the fireplace and diffused itself into the atmosphere. Well-built, although somewhat slender of figure, this latest arrival had a complexion of tawny brown, a living russet, as warm and glowing as the most vivid of Vandyke pigments.