The Delectable Duchy Part 14

For four hours he slept without movement. But just above his head there hung a baize-covered board containing a list or two of the parish ratepayers and the usual notice of the spring training of the Royal Cornwall Eangers Militia. This last placard had broken from two of its fastenings, and towards midnight flapped loudly in an eddy of the light wind. The sleeper stirred, and pa.s.sed a languid hand over his face. A spider within the porch had been busy while he slept, and his hand encountered gossamer.

His eyes opened. He sat upright, and lowered his bare feet upon the flags. Outside, the blue firmament was full of stars sparkling unevenly, as though the wind were trying in sport to puff them out.

In the eaves of the porch he could hear the martins rustling in the crevices--they had returned but a few days back to their old quarters.

But what drew the man to step out under the sky was the cottage-window over the wall.

The lattice was pushed back and the room inside was brightly lit. But between him and the lamp a white sheet had been stretched right across the window; and on this sheet two quick hands were weaving all kinds of clever shadows, shaping them, moving them, or reshaping them with the speed of summer lightning.

It was certainly a remarkable performance. The shadows took the forms of rabbits, swans, foxes, elephants, fairies, sailors with wooden legs, old women who smoked pipes, ballet-girls who pirouetted, anglers who bobbed for fish, twirling harlequins, and the profiles of eminent statesmen--all made with two hands and, at the most, the help of a tiny stick or piece of string. They danced and capered, grew large and then small, with such profusion of odd turns and changes that the flageolet-player began to giggle as he wondered. He remarked that the hands, whenever they were disentwined for a moment, appeared to be very small and plump.

In about ten minutes the display ceased, and the shadow of a woman's head and neck crossed the sheet, which was presently drawn back at one corner.

"Is that any better?" asked a woman's voice, low but distinct.

The flageolet-player started and bent his eyes lower, across the graves and into the shadow beneath the window. For the first time he was aware of a figure standing there, a little way out from the wall.

As well as he could see, it was a young boy.

"Much better, mother. You can't think how you've improved at it this week."

"Any mistakes?"

"The harlequin and columbine seemed a little jerky. But your hands were tired, I know."

"Never mind that: they mustn't be tired and it's got to be perfect.

We'll try them again."

She was about to drop the corner of the sheet when the listener sprang out towards the window, leaping with bare feet over the graves and waving his flageolet wildly.

"Ah, no--no, madame!" he cried. "Wait one moment, the littlest, and I shall inspire you."

"Whoever is that?" cried the woman's voice at the window.

The youth below faced round on the intruder. He was white in the face and had wanted to run, but mastered his voice and enquired gruffly--

"Who the devil are you?"

"I? I am an artist, and as such I salute madame and monsieur her son.

She is greater artist than I, but I shall help her. They shall dance better this time, her harlequin and columbine. Why? Because they shall dance to my music--the music that I shall make here, on this spot, under the stars. _Tiens!_ I shall play as if possessed. I feel that. I bet you. It is because I have found an artist--an artist in Gantick.

O-my-good-lor! It makes me expand!"

He had pulled off his greasy hat, and stood bowing and smiling, showing his white teeth and holding up his flageolet, that the woman might see and be convinced.

"That's all very well," said the boy; "but my mother doesn't want it known that she practises at these shadows."

"Ha? It is perhaps forbidden by law?"

"Since you have found us out, sir," said the woman, "I will tell you why we are behaving like this, and trust you to tell n.o.body. I have been left a widow, in great poverty, and with this one son, who must be educated as well as his father was. Richard is a promising boy, and cannot be satisfied to stand lower in the world than his father stood.

His father was an auctioneer. But we are left very poor--poor as mice: and how was I to get him better teaching than the Board Schools here?

Well, six months ago, when sadly perplexed, I found out by chance that this small gift of mine might earn me a good income in London, at--at a music-hall--"

"Mother!" interjected the youth reprovingly.

"Pursue, madame," said the flageolet-player.

"Of course, sir, Richard doesn't like or approve of me performing at such places, but he agrees with me that it is necessary. So we are hiding it from everybody in the village, because we have always been respected here. We never guessed that anybody would see us from the churchyard, of all places, at this time of night. As soon as I have practised enough, we mean to travel up to London. Of course I shall change my name to something French or Italian, and hope n.o.body will discover--"

But the flageolet-player sat suddenly down upon a damp grave, and broke into hysterical laughter.

"Oh-oh-oh! Quick, madame! dance your pretty figures while yet I laugh and before I curse. O stars and planets, look down on this mad world, and help me play! And, O monsieur, your pardon if I laugh; for that either you or I are mad is a c.o.c.k-sure. Dance, madame!"

He put the flageolet to his lips and blew. In a moment or two harlequin and columbine appeared on the screen, and began to caper nimbly, naturally, with the airiest graces. The tune was a jigging reel, and soon began to inspire the performer above. Her small dancers in a twinkling turned into a gambolling elephant, then to a pair of swallows. A moment after they were flower and b.u.t.terfly, then a jigging donkey, then harlequin and columbine again. With each fantastic change the tune quickened and the dance grew wilder. At length, tired out, the woman spread her hands out wide against the sheet, as if imploring mercy.

The player tossed his flageolet over a headstone, and rolled back on the grave in a paroxysm of laughter. Above him the rooks had poured out of their nests, and were cawing in fl.u.s.tered circles.

"Monsieur," he gasped out, sitting up and wiping his eyes, "was it good this time?"

"Yes, it was."

"Then could you spare from the house one little crust of bread? For I am famished."

The youth went round the churchyard wall, and came back in a couple of minutes with some bread and cold bacon.

"Of course," said he, "if you should meet either of us in the village to-morrow, you will not recognise us."

The little man bowed. "I agree," said he, "with your mother, monsieur, that you must be educated at all costs."

THE DRAWN BLIND.

Silver trumpets sounded a flourish, and the javelin-men came pacing down Tregarrick Fore Street, with the sheriff's coach swinging behind them, its panels splendid with fresh blue paint and florid blazonry.

Its wheels were picked out with yellow, and this scheme of colour extended to the coachman and the two lackeys, who held on at the back by leathern straps. Each wore a coat and breeches of electric blue, with a canary waistcoat, and was toned off with powder and flesh-coloured stockings at the extremities. Within the coach, and facing the horses, sat the two judges of the Crown Court and _Nisi Prius_, both in scarlet, with full wigs and little round patches of black plaister, like ventilators, on top; facing their lordships sat Sir Felix Felix-Williams, the sheriff, in a tightish uniform of the yeomanry with a great shako nodding on his knees, and a chaplain bolt upright by his side. Behind trooped a rabble of loafers and small boys, who shouted, "Who bleeds bran?" till the lackeys' calves itched with indignation.

I was standing in the archway of the Packhorse Inn, among the maids and stable-boys gathered to see the pageant pa.s.s on its way to hear the a.s.size sermon. And standing there, I was witness of a little incident that seemed to escape the rest.

At the moment when the trumpets rang out, a very old woman, in a blue camlet cloak, came hobbling out of a grocer's shop some twenty yards up the pavement, and tottered down ahead of the procession as fast as her decrepit legs would move. There was no occasion for hurrying to avoid the crowd; for the javelin-men had barely rounded the corner of the long street, and were taking the goosestep very seriously and deliberately. But she went by the Packhorse doorway as if swift hors.e.m.e.n were after her, clutching the camlet cloak across her bosom, glancing over her shoulder, and working her lips inaudibly. I could not help remarking the position of her right arm. She held it bent exactly as though she held an infant to her old breast, and shielded it while she ran.

A few paces beyond the inn-door she halted on the edge of the kerb, flung another look up the street, and darted across the roadway. There stood a little shop--a watchmaker's--just opposite, and next to the shop a small ope with one dingy window over it. She vanished up the pa.s.sage, at the entrance of which I was still staring idly, when, half a minute later, a skinny trembling hand appeared at the window and drew down the blind.

I looked round at the men and maids; but their eyes were all for the pageant, now not a stone's-throw away.

"Who is that old woman?" I asked, touching Caleb, the head ostler, on the shoulder.

Caleb--a small bandy-legged man, with a chin full of furrows, and the furrows full of grey stubble--withdrew his gaze grudgingly from the sheriff's coach.

"What woman?"