Part 22 (2/2)
People remained indoors, for the most part, and the only signs of life Barnes saw from the windows of the hotel were the landlord's Holderness breed of cattle, mournfully chewing their monotonous cuds, and some Leicester sheep, wofully wandering in the pasture, or huddled together like b.a.l.l.s of stained cotton beneath the indifferent protection of a tree amid field.
Exceptional inducements could not tempt the villagers to the theater.
Even an epilogue gained for them none of Mr. Gough's adherents. ”The Temperance Doctor” failed miserably; ”Drunkard's Warning” admonished pitiably few; while as for ”Drunkard's Doom,” no one cared what it might be and left him to it.
After such a disastrous engagement the manager not only found himself at the end of his resources, but hopelessly indebted, and, with much reluctance, laid the matter before the soldier who had already advanced Barnes a certain sum after their conversation on the night of the country dance and had also come to his a.s.sistance on an occasion when box-office receipts and expenses had failed to meet.
Moreover, he had been a free, even careless, giver, not looking after his business concerns with the prudent anxiety of a merchant whose ventures are s.h.i.+ps at the rude mercy of a troubled sea. To this third application, however, he did not answer immediately.
”Is it as bad as that?” he said at length, thoughtfully.
”Yes; it's hard to speak about it to you,” replied the manager, with some embarra.s.sment, ”but at New Orleans--”
The soldier encountered his troubled gaze. ”See if you can sell my horse,” he answered.
”You mean--” began the other surprised.
”Yes.”
”Hanged if I will!” exclaimed the manager. Then he put out his hand impulsively. ”I beg your pardon. If I had known--but if we're ever out of this mess, I may give a better account of my stewards.h.i.+p.”
Nevertheless, his plight now was comparable to that of the strollers of old, hunted by beadles from towns and villages, and cla.s.sed as gypsies, vagabonds and professed itinerants by the constables. He was no better served than the mummers, clowns, jugglers, and petty chapmen who, wandering abroad, were deemed rogues and st.u.r.dy beggars. Yet no king's censor could have found aught ”unchaste, seditious or unmete”
in Barnes' plays; no cause for frays or quarrels, arising from pieces given in the old inn-yards; no immoral matter, ”whatsoever any light and fantastical head listeth to invent or devise;” no riotous actors of rollicking interludes, to be named in common with fencers, bearwards and vagrants.
”Better give it up, Mr. Barnes,” said a remarkably sweet and sympathetic voice, as the manager was standing in the hotel office, turning the situation over and over in his mind.
Barnes, looking around quickly to see who had read his inmost thoughts, met the firm glance of his antagonist.
”Mr. Gough, it is an honor to meet one of your talents,” replied the manager, ”but”--with an attempt to hide his concern--”I shall not be sorry, if we do not meet again.”
”An inhospitable wis.h.!.+” answered the speaker, fixing his luminous eyes upon the manager. ”However, we shall probably see each other frequently.”
”The Fates forbid, sir!” said Barnes, earnestly. ”If you'll tell me your route, we'll--go the other way!”
”It won't do, Mr. Barnes! The devil and the flesh must be fairly fought. 'Where thou goest'--You know the scriptural saying?”
”You'll follow us!” exclaimed the manager with sudden consternation.
The other nodded.
”Why, this is tyranny! You are a Frankenstein; an Old-Man-of-the Sea!”
”Give it up,” said the orator, with a smile that singularly illumined his thin, but powerful features. ”As I gave it up! Into what dregs of vice, what a sink of iniquity was I plunged! The very cleansing of my soul was an Augean task. Knavery, profligacy, laxity of morals, looseness of principles--that was what the stage did for me; that was the labor of Hercules to be cleared away! Give it up, Mr. Barnes!” And with a last penetrating look, he strode out of the office.
In spite of Barnes' refusal, the soldier offered to sell his horse to the landlord, but the latter curtly declined, having horses enough to ”eat their heads off” during the winter, as he expressed it. His Jeremy Collier aversion to players was probably at the bottom of this point-blank rebuff, however. He was a stubborn man, czar in his own domains, a small princ.i.p.ality bounded by four inhospitable walls. His guests--having no other place to go--were his subjects, or prisoners, and distress could not find a more unfitting tribunal before which to lay its case. There was something so malevolent in his vigilance, so unfriendly in his scrutiny, that to the players he seemed an emissary of disaster, inseparable from their cruel plight.
Thus it was that the strollers perforce reached a desperate conclusion when making their way from the theater on the last evening. By remaining longer, they would become the more hopelessly involved; in going--without their host's permission--they would be taking the shortest route toward an honorable settlement in the near future; a paradoxical flight from the brunt of their troubles, to meet them squarely! This, to Barnes, ample reason for unceremonious departure was heartily approved by the company in council a.s.sembled around the town pump.
”Stay and become a county burden, indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. Adams, tragically.
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