The Fortunes of Oliver Horn Part 13

Oliver rose to his feet and stood blushing like a girl, thanking those about him in halting sentences for the honor conferred upon him. Then he stammered something about his not deserving their praise, for he could really sing very few songs--only those he had sung at home to help out an occasional chorus, and that he would be delighted to join in another song if any one of the gentlemen present would start the tune.

These last suggestions being eminently distasteful to the group, were immediately drowned in a series of protests, the noise only ceasing when "Fog-horn" Cranch mounted a chair and in his best real estate voice commanded silence.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," thundered the auctioneer, "I have the honor to announce that the great barytone, Mr. Oliver Horn, known to the universe as the 'Musical Cornucopia,' late of the sunny South, and now a resident of this metropolis, will delight this company by singing one of those soul-moving plantation melodies which have made his name famous over two hemispheres. Mr. 'p.u.s.s.y Me-ow' Simmons, the distinguished fiddling pianist, late of the Bowery, very late, I may remark, and now on the waiting list at Wallack's Theatre--every other month, I am told--will accompany him."

"Hear! Hear!" "Horn! Horn!" "Don't let him get away, Fred." "Song!

Song!" was heard all over the room.

Oliver again tried to protest, but he was again shouted down by cries of--

"None of that!" "Can't fool us." "You know a barrel of 'em." "Song!

Song!"

Cranch broke in again--"Mr. Horn's modesty, gentlemen, greatly endears him to his fellow-members, and we love him the better for it, but all the same--" and he raised his hand with the same gesture he would have used had it held an auctioneer's hammer--"All in favor of his singing again say 'Aye!' Going! Going! Gone! The ayes have it." In the midst of the cheering Cranch jumped from the chair and taking Oliver by the hand as if he had been a young prima donna at her first appearance, led him to the piano with all the airs and graces common to such an occasion.

Our young hero hesitated a moment, looked about in a pleased but helpless way, and nerving himself tried to collect his thoughts sufficiently to recall some one of the songs that were so familiar to him at home. Then Sue's black eyes looked into his--there must always be a woman helping Oliver--and the strains of the last song he had sung with her the night before he left home floated through his brain.

(These same eyes were gazing into another's at the moment, but our young Oliver was unconscious of that lamentable fact.)

"Did you ever happen to hear 'The Old Kentucky Home'?" Oliver asked Simmons. "No? Well, it goes this way," and he struck the chords.

"You play it," said Simmons, rising from the stool.

"Oh, I can only play the chords, and not all of them right--" and he took Simmons's seat. "Perhaps I can get through--I'll try it," he added, simply, and squared himself before the instrument and began the melody.

The sun shines bright in the old Kentucky home, 'Tis summer, the darkies are gay. The corn-top's ripe and the meadow is in bloom, While the birds make music all the day.

Weep no more, my lady--oh, weep no more to-day! We'll sing one song for the old Kentucky home, For the old Kentucky home far away.

As the words rolled from his lips Oliver seemed to forget the scene before him. Somehow he could see the light in Sue's eyes, as she listened, and hear her last words. He could hear the voice of his mother, and feel her hand on his head; and then, as the soft vowels and cadences of the quaint melody breathed themselves out, he could catch again the expression of delight on the face of Malachi--who had taught him the song--as he listened, his black cheek in his wrinkled palm. It was a supreme moment with Oliver. The thrill of happiness that had quivered through him for days, intensified by this new heaven of Bohemia, vibrated in every note he uttered.

The effect was equally startling on those about him. Cranch craned his head, and for once lowered his voice to a whisper in speaking to the man next him. Bowdoin, the painter, and one of the guests, left his seat and tip-toed to the piano, his eyes riveted on Oliver's face, his whole being absorbed in the melody. Bianchi and Waller so far lost themselves that their pipes went out, while Simmons was so entranced that he forgot to applaud when Oliver finished.

The effect produced was not so much due to the quality in Oliver's voice--sweet and sympathetic as it was--nor to his manner of singing, nor to the sentiment of the song itself, but to the fact of its being, with its clear, sweet notes, a positive contrast to all of noise and clamor that had gone before. This fact, more than any other, made his listeners hold their breath in wonder and delight. It came like the song of a bird bursting out after a storm and charming everyone with the beauty of its melody, while the thunder of the tempest still reverberated through the air.

In the hush of the death-like stillness that followed, the steady tramp of feet was heard on the staircase, and the next instant the head of a young man, with a rosy face and side-chop coachman whiskers, close-cut black hair and shoe-b.u.t.ton eyes, glistening with fun, was craned around the jamb of the door.

It was the property of Mr. Cornelius McFudd!

He was in full evening dress, and as immaculate as if he had stepped out of a bandbox.

Whatever stimulants had permeated his system and fired his imagination had evidently escaped his legs, for they were as steady as those of a tripod. His entrance, in a measure, restored the a.s.semblage to its normal condition. Mr. McFudd raised his hand impressively, checking the customary outbreak that always greeted his appearance on occasions like this, struck a deprecatory att.i.tude and said, solemnly, in a rich, North-of-Ireland accent:

"Gentlemen, it is with the greatest surprise that I find ye contint to waste your time over such riotous proceedings as I know have taken place here to-night, when within a block of yez is a perfarmance that would delight yer souls. Think of a man throwing a hand-spring over--"

At this instant a wet sponge was fired point blank from an open bedroom door, missed McFudd's head by an inch and bounded down the staircase.

"Thank ye, Admiral Lord c.o.c.kburn, for yer civility," cried McFudd, bowing low to the open bedroom door, "and for yer good intintions, but ye missed it as yer did yer mither's blessing--and as ye do most of the things ye try to hit." This was said without raising his voice or changing a muscle of his face, his eyes fixed on the door inside of which stood c.o.c.kburn.

McFudd continued, "The perfarmance of this acrobat is one of the--"

Cries of "Don't you see you disturb the music?" "Go to bed!" "Somebody sit on McFudd!" etc., filled the room.

"Go on, gentlemen. Continue your insults; defame the name of an honest man who is attimpting to convey to yer dull comprehinsions some idea of the wonders of the acrobatic ring. I'll turn a hand-spring for yez meself that will ill.u.s.trate what I mane," and Mr. McFudd carefully removed his coat and began sliding up his shirt-cuffs.

At this juncture "My Lord" c.o.c.kburn, who had come from behind the door, winked significantly at Waller, and creeping on all fours behind McFudd, just as that gentleman was about lifting his legs aloft, swept him off his feet by a twist of his arm, and deposited him on the small of his back next to Oliver, his head resting against the wall. There Waller stood over him with a chair, which he threatened to turn over him upside down and sit on if the prostrate Irishman moved an inch.

McFudd waved his hand sadly as if in acquiescence to the inscrutable laws of fate, begged the gentlemen present to give no further thought to his existence, and after a moment of silence continued his remarks on the acrobatic ring to Oliver in the same monotonous tone of voice which he had addressed to the room before c.o.c.kburn's flank movement had made him bite the dust.

"It may seem to you, Mr.-- Mr.--, I haven't your name, sir," and he bent his head toward Oliver.

"Horn, sir," Oliver suggested. "Oliver Horn."

"Thanks, it may seem to you that I'm exaggerating, Mr. Oliver Horn, the wonder of this perfarmance, but-"

The rest of the sentence, despite the Hibernian's well-intentioned efforts, was not addressed to Oliver, but to the room at large, or rather to its furniture, or to be still more exact, to the legs of the piano, and such chairs and tables as the Irishman's prostrate body b.u.mped into on the way to his room. For at that instant Waller, to save Oliver, as he pretended, from further annoyance, had caught the distinguished Hibernian by both feet, and in that position dragged him along the floor, as if he had been a wheelbarrow, McFudd's voice never changing its tone as he continued his remarks on physical culture, and the benefits which would accrue to the human race if they would practice the acrobat's hand-spring.

When Fred and Oliver had closed their bedroom door for the night, the guests having departed and all the regular boarders being supposedly secure in their beds (Fred without much difficulty had persuaded Oliver to share his own bed over night), there came a knock at Fred's door, and the irrepressible Irishman stalked in.

He had removed his vest, high collar, and shoes, and had the air and look of an athlete. The marvellous skill of the acrobat still occupied his mind.

"Don't disturb yourself, my dear Stone, but me deloightful conversation with yer friend, Mr. Horn, was interrupted by that wild beast of a Waller, and I wanted to finish it. I am quite sure I can do it--the trick I was telling ye of. I've been practizing in me room. It's as easy as rolling off a jaunting car."

"No, Mac, old man. Go to bed again," pleaded Fred.

"Not till I show ye, me boy, one of the most beautiful feats of agility--"

"Come off, Mac, I say," cried Fred, catching the Irishman around the waist.

"I'll come nothing! Unhand me, gentlemen, or by the--" and tearing himself free McFudd threw a hand-spring with the ease of a professional, toppled, for a moment, his feet in the air, sc.r.a.ped along the whitewashed wall with his heels, and sweeping the basins and pitchers filled with water from the wash-stand measured his length on the floor. Then came the crash of broken china, a deluge of water, and Fred and Oliver began catching up sponges and towels to stay the flood.

A minute later a man in a long gray beard and longer night-robe--one of the regular boarders--bounded up the stairs two steps at a time and dashed through Fred's open door.

"By thunder, boys!" he cried, "I don't mind how much noise you make, rather like it; but what the devil are you trying to drown us out for?

Wife is soaking--it's puddling down on our bed."

By this time every door had been flung open, and the room was filled with half-dressed men.

"It's that lunatic, McFudd. He's been to the circus and thinks he's Martello," cried Fred, pointing to the prostrate Irishman with the sponge which he had been squeezing out in the coal-scuttle.

"Or the clown," remarked Waller, stooping over McFudd, who was now holding his sides and roaring with laughter.

Long after Fred had fallen asleep, Oliver lay awake thinking of the night's pleasure. He had been very, very happy--happier than he had been for many months. The shouts of approval on his election to membership, the rounds of applause that had followed his rendering of the simple negro melodies, resounded in his ears, and the joy of it all still tingled through his veins. This first triumph of his life had brought with it a certain confidence in himself--a new feeling of self-reliance--of being able to hold his own among men, something he had never experienced before. This made it all the more exhilarating.

And the company!

Real live painters who sold their pictures and who had studied in Munich, and who knew Paris and Dresden and all the wonderful cities of which Mr. Crocker had talked. And real musicians, too!--who played at theatres; and Englishmen from London, and Irishmen from Dublin, and all so jolly and unconventional and companionable. It was just as Mr.

Crocker had described it, and just what he had about despaired of ever finding. Surely his cup of happiness was full to the brim.

We can forgive him; we who still remember those glimpses behind the scenes--our first and never-to-be-forgotten! How real everything seemed, even the grease-paint, the wigs, and the clothes. And the walking gentleman and the leading old man and low comedian! What splendid fellows they were and how we sympathized with them in their enforced exiles from a beloved land. How they suffered from scheming brothers who had robbed them of their t.i.tles and estates, or flint-hearted fathers who had turned them out of doors because of their infatuation for their "art" or because of their love for some dame of n.o.ble birth or simple la.s.s, whose name--"Me boy, will be forever sacred!" How proud we were of knowing them, and how delighted they were at knowing us--and they so much older too! And how tired we got of it all--and of them--and of all their kind when our eyes became accustomed to the glare and we saw how cheap and commonplace it all was and how much of its glamour and charm had come from our own inexperience and enthusiasm--and youth.