It Was Soon Traced To Me, And My
Unaccountable Transport Of Passion, Which They Could Only Attribute To
My Having Run A Muck.
The manager was judge and jury, and plaintiff
in the bargain, and in such cases justice is always speedily
administered.
He came out of the fight as sublime a wreck as the
Santissima Trinidada. His gallant plumes, which once towered aloft,
were drooping about his ears. His robe of state hung in ribbands from
his back, and but ill concealed the ravages he had suffered in the
rear. He had received kicks and cuffs from all sides, during the
tumult; for every one took the opportunity of slyly gratifying some
lurking grudge on his fat carcass. He was a discreet man, and did not
choose to declare war with all his company; so he swore all those kicks
and cuffs had been given by me, and I let him enjoy the opinion. Some
wounds he bore, however, which were the incontestible traces of a
woman's warfare. His sleek rosy cheek was scored by trickling furrows,
which were ascribed to the nails of my intrepid and devoted Columbine.
The ire of the monarch was not to be appeased. He had suffered in his
person, and he had suffered in his purse; his dignity too had been
insulted, and that went for something; for dignity is always more
irascible the more petty the potentate. He wreaked his wrath upon the
beginners of the affray, and Columbine and myself were discharged, at
once, from the company.
Figure me, then, to yourself, a stripling of little more than sixteen;
a gentleman by birth; a vagabond by trade; turned adrift upon the
world; making the best of my way through the crowd of West End fair; my
mountebank dress fluttering in rags about me; the weeping Columbine
hanging upon my arm, in splendid, but tattered finery; the tears
coursing one by one down her face; carrying off the red paint in
torrents, and literally "preying upon her damask cheek."
The crowd made way for us as we passed and hooted in our rear. I felt
the ridicule of my situation, but had too much gallantry to desert this
fair one, who had sacrificed everything for me. Having wandered through
the fair, we emerged, like another Adam and Eve, into unknown regions,
and "had the world before us where to choose." Never was a more
disconsolate pair seen in the soft valley of West End. The luckless
Columbine cast back many a lingering look at the fair, which seemed to
put on a more than usual splendor; its tents, and booths, and
parti-colored groups, all brightening in the sunshine, and gleaming
among the trees; and its gay flags and streamers playing and fluttering
in the light summer airs. With a heavy sigh she would lean on my arm
and proceed. I had no hope or consolation to give her; but she had
linked herself to my fortunes, and she was too much of a woman to
desert me.
Pensive and silent, then, we traversed the beautiful fields that lie
behind Hempstead, and wandered on, until the fiddle, and the hautboy,
and the shout, and the laugh, were swallowed up in the deep sound of
the big bass drum, and even that died away into a distant rumble. We
passed along the pleasant sequestered walk of Nightingale lane. For a
pair of lovers what scene could be more propitious? - But such a pair of
lovers! Not a nightingale sang to soothe us: the very gypsies who were
encamped there during the fair, made no offer to tell the fortunes of
such an ill-omened couple, whose fortunes, I suppose, they thought too
legibly written to need an interpreter; and the gypsey children crawled
into their cabins and peeped out fearfully at us as we went by. For a
moment I paused, and was almost tempted to turn gypsey, but the
poetical feeling for the present was fully satisfied, and I passed on.
Thus we travelled, and travelled, like a prince and princess in nursery
chronicle, until we had traversed a part of Hempstead Heath and arrived
in the vicinity of Jack Straw's castle.
Here, wearied and dispirited, we seated ourselves on the margin of the
hill, hard by the very mile-stone where Whittington of yore heard the
Bow bells ring out the presage of his future greatness. Alas! no bell
rung in invitation to us, as we looked disconsolately upon the distant
city. Old London seemed to wrap itself up unsociably in its mantle of
brown smoke, and to offer no encouragement to such a couple of
tatterdemalions.
For once, at least, the usual course of the pantomime was reversed.
Harlequin was jilted, and the lover had earned off Columbine in good
earnest. But what was I to do with her? I had never contemplated such a
dilemma; and I now felt that even a fortunate lover may be embarrassed
by his good fortune. I really knew not what was to become of me; for I
had still the boyish fear of returning home; standing in awe of the
stern temper of my father, and dreading the ready arm of the pedagogue.
And even if I were to venture home, what was I to do with Columbine? I
could not take her in my hand, and throw myself on my knees, and crave
his forgiveness and his blessing according to dramatic usage. The very
dogs would have chased such a draggle-tailed beauty from the grounds.
In the midst of my doleful dumps, some one tapped me on the shoulder,
and looking up I saw a couple of rough sturdy fellows standing behind
me. Not knowing what to expect I jumped on my legs, and was preparing
again to make battle; but I was tripped up and secured in a twinkling.
"Come, come, young master," said one of the fellows in a gruff, but
good-humored tone, "don't let's have any of your tantrums; one would
have thought that you had had swing enough for this bout.
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