THE STRANGE MINSTREL.
Time weaves the web of fate around us,
In iron wool and threads of gold,
The present, and the past that bound us,
Still some new mystery unfold.
There was, at the time of our story, a public house, or tavern, about
five minutes walk up the street from uncle Nathan's house. To this
tavern the young men betook themselves, while the girls were partaking
of aunt Hannah's hospitality; two or three of the upper rooms were
full of commotion created by the change which each deemed necessary to
his apparel, before he appeared in dancing trim before the ladies.
Flashy vests were taken from overcoat pockets. The dickies, snugly
curled under the lining of a fur cap or narrow-brimmed hat, came forth
to be arranged under neck-ties of gay hues and flowing dimensions.
Here and there, one more exquisite than his neighbor, exchanged his
mixed socks and cowhide boots for white yarn stockings and calf-skin
pumps; but this was a mark of gentility that few ventured on, and that
was assumed with a stealthy sort of an air in a dark corner, as if the
owners of so much refinement were not quite certain of the way in
which the democratic majority might receive it.
Never were two small mirrors brought into more general requisition
than those hanging upon the walls of the two chambers, appropriated to
uncle Nat's guests. It was like a panorama of human faces passing over
them. First a collar all awry was set right with a jerk; then the
plaits of a false bosom were smoothed down; next the tie of a flowing
silk cravat was settled; while, in other parts of the room, there was
a stealthy display of private rolls of pomatum, and a desperate
brushing of hair, sometimes refractory to anything but the fingers.
Then followed a deal of bustle and confusion, half a dozen young
fellows crowding at once to the mirror in hot haste to catch a last
glimpse. Red bandana handkerchiefs fluttered out of a dozen pockets
and back again, mysteriously leaving a corner visible. Then there was
a general movement toward the door, and the crowd descended, each
youth treading lighter by far than when he went up, and moving with
the air of a man expected to change his manners somewhat with his
garments.
While all this was going on above stairs, there sat in the bar-room
below a fair young man, travel-soiled and looking weary, like an
over-taxed child. He was very slender, and with a sort of a lily
paleness on his forehead, that fatigue or sorrow had lent to its
natural delicacy.
His garments were old and threadbare. Dust from the highway had
settled upon them, and the crown of his hat which lay on the floor
beside him, had taken a reddish tinge from the same source.
He sat in a remote corner of the room, on a buffalo skin that had been
flung over a wooden bench, where travellers sometimes cast themselves
down for temporary rest. His hands were clasped over the smaller end
of a violin-case that stood upright before him, and his forehead fell
wearily upon them.
"Look there!" said one of the young men, turning to his companions,
who were descending the stairs, "don't that look tremendously like a
fiddle?"
"A fiddle! a fiddle!" ran from lip to lip, till the sound ended in a
shout up stairs. "Let us see where it is. Where did it come from?"
This clamor aroused the young man, who lifted his forehead from the
violin-case and turned a pair of full blue eyes misty from fatigue or
some other cause, upon the group.
The young men paused and looked at each other. There was something
touchingly beautiful about that young face which impressed them with a
sentiment of awe.
Still the youth gazed upon them with an unmoved look, like one who
listened rather than saw with his eyes. Meanwhile, a smile stole over
his lips, so child-like and sweet, that it made the young men still
more reluctant to approach him; he seemed so far removed from their
nature with that smile, for the lamplight glimmering through the thick
waves of his golden brown hair shed a sort of glory around him.
"I wonder if he plays on it himself," said one of the young men in a
whisper.
"Did any one speak of me?" said the stranger, in a voice so rich and
sweet, that there seemed no need of other music to him.
"Well, yes," answered the foremost youth, advancing toward him. "We've
got a husking frolic on hand, and are all ready for dancing; but there
isn't a fiddle within ten miles, nor any one to play it if there was.
We might have got along with the girls singing well enough, I suppose,
but the sight of this fiddle-case has set us all agoing for a little
music."
"Oh," said the youth, with a smile, "it's my violin you wish to have;
but I am very tired; for I've travelled since noon, and your stages
are wearisome over the mountains."
"It's of no use asking you to play for us then, I suppose?" said the
young farmer, in a disappointed tone.
The youth shook his head, but very gently, as one who refuses against
his will; and this gave his petitioner a gleam of hope.
"Wouldn't a good supper, and a cup of cider that'll make your palate
tingle, set you up again?" he pleaded. "There's a hull hive of purty
gals over at uncle Nat's, that would jump right out of their skins at
the first sound of that fiddle. If you only could now."
"Give me a crust of bread and a cup of drink, and I will try and
please you. I think it is, perhaps, as much the want of food as
weariness that has taken away my strength."
The young men looked at each other. "Want of food," said one of them,
"why, didn't you find taverns on the way?"
"Yes," answered the stranger, sadly, "but I had no appetite; I came
here in hopes the mountain air would give me one, but, with fatigue
and fasting, I am faint."
The group of youngsters drew together, and a whispered conversation
commenced, which was followed by the clink of silver, as each one
dropped a two shilling piece into the hat of the young man who had
been most active in the negotiation.
"Here," said the youth, holding forth the money, "an even exchange is
no robbery. Set the old fiddle to work, and here is enough dimes to
last you a week."
The stranger blushed crimson, and the white lids drooped over his
eyes, as if something had been said to wound him.
"No," he said, with a quivering smile, "my poor music is not worth
selling. Besides, my journey must end not far from this, or I have
travelled slowly. Give me some clean water for my face and hands, that
is all I ask."
"Of course we will, with a famous supper, too, that would make a ghost
hungry. Come with us up to uncle Nat's. Water, why there is a trough
full at his back door, that you may bathe in all over if you like; and
as for cider, we'll just try that before you say anything about it."
The stranger arose and took up his violin; then lifting his large
eyes, misty with fatigue, he said almost mournfully--
"Will some one give me his arm? I am very weary."
The young men became at once silent and respectful with these words,
for there was something of reverence in their sympathy with a being at
once so feeble and so full of gentle dignity.
"Let me carry the violin," said one, while another stout, brave fellow
clasped the slender hand of the stranger, drew it over his own strong
arm and led him carefully forth, hushing even the cheery tones of his
voice as he spoke to the youth.
Thus subdued from hilarity to kindness, the group of young men
conducted their new friend to the Old Homestead and into the outer
room, where the table was newly spread, and where uncle Nat stood with
a huge brown cider pitcher in his hand from which he began to fill the
glasses as the crowd of guests rushed in.
Aunt Hannah, having performed her duty among her female guests, was
busy in the milk-room, cutting up pies, dividing pound-cake into
sections, and slicing cards of gingerbread, while uncle Nat presided
diligently at the cider-cask.
Thus it happened that the stranger was almost overlooked in the crowd,
for he sat down in a corner of the room, where his new friend brought
him in abundance of dainties from the table, for Mary was too busy
even for a glance that way.
"How do you feel now? Stronger, I know by your mouth; there's color in
the lips now," said the young man, who had taken a leading interest in
the stranger from the first.
"Oh! yes, I am much stronger," answered the youth, with one of the
sweetest smiles that ever beamed on a human face. "A little fresh
water now, and you shall see if I haven't music in the old violin."
"Come this way. The water-trough is out by the back porch."
The youth took up his violin, saying very gently that he never left
that behind him, and following the lead of his friend glided from the
room.
After bathing his hands and face, leaving them pure and white as those
of a girl, he went back to the porch, and seating himself in uncle
Nat's arm-chair, drew forth his violin and began to tune it.
Uncle Nat was just returning the spigot to his cider barrel, after
having filled the brown pitcher once more to the brim; but at the
first sound of the violin, an instrument he had not heard for years,
the spigot dropped to the floor, and out rushed the cider in a quick
amber stream, overflowing the pitcher, dashing down to the floor, and
rushing off in a tiny river the sloping edge of the porch. You could
hear it creeping in a rich current through the plaintain leaves, while
uncle Nat stood quite oblivious of the waste, listening like a great
school boy to the violin.
An exclamation from Salina, who had just left her friends in the
dressing-room, as she came forth and seized the pitcher, brought the
good old man to his senses. Clapping his fat hand over the aperture,
he drove the cider back in the cask, and looked right and left over
his shoulder for the spigot, avoiding the scornful eyes of that
exemplary female, who stood with the pitcher between her hands, over
which the surplus moisture went dripping, like an antiquated Hebe
defying an overgrown Ganymede.
"There!" exclaimed the strong-minded damsel, pointing toward the
spigot with her foot, "there's at least two gallons of the best cider
in the county gone to nothing. What do you think aunt Hannah will do
for apple sauce, if you go on this way, making regular mill-dams out
of her sweet cider?"
"Maybe we'd better say nothing about it," answered uncle Nat, making
futile efforts to restrain the cider with one hand and reach the
spigot with the other, "dear me, I can't reach it. Now, dear Miss
Salina, if you only would."
"Dear Miss Salina!" The strong-minded one turned at the words,
blushing till her face rivalled those fiery tresses. She sat down her
pitcher, shook the drops from her fingers, and seizing the important
bit of pine presented it to uncle Nathan.
All this time the young stranger had paused in tuning his violin, but
when uncle Nat drew a deep breath, after repairing the mischief
already done, out came a gush of music that made him start again, and
threw the strong-minded woman into a fit of excitement, quite
startling. She seized uncle Nat's moist hand and unconsciously--it
must have been unconsciously--pressed it in her wiry fingers.
"Music! Did you ever hear such music, uncle Nathan! It's enough to set
one off a-dancing."
"Well, why not?" answered uncle Nathan.
"Yes, why not?" replied the strong-minded one, "if the other young
people dance, why shouldn't we?"
"Of course," said uncle Nat, wiping his hands on the roller towel.
"Why not? I shouldn't wonder if we astonish these youngsters."
"And aunt Hannah, too," chimed in Salina.
"Oh! I'd forgot her," said uncle Nat, looking wistfully toward the
milk-room door, "I'm afraid it won't do, she'll think--but here they
come, like a flock of blackbirds!"
True enough, the first full notes of the violin had drawn the crowd of
girls from the chamber overhead, and down they came, laughing and
racing through the kitchen, perfectly wild with delight.
"Uncle Nat, dear, dear, uncle Nat, is it really a violin? Will aunt
Hannah let us dance to anything but singing?" cried a dozen voices;
and uncle Nathan was at once surrounded by a rainbow of streaming
ribbons and floating ringlets, while a host of merry eyes flashed
their delight upon him.
"I don't know--I can't take it on myself to say," cried uncle Nathan,
quite beside himself, "you must ask some one else. I haven't any
objection in life"--
"Nor I," said Salina, "and that's two agin one, if Miss Hannah _does_
stand out. Come, I'll go with you. We'll say that I, and all the other
young girls, have just made up our mouths to dance after a fiddle, and
we mean to, that's all."
"Stop, stop a minute!" exclaimed uncle Nathan, spreading his hands,
"maybe you'd better say nothing about it, but just go into the barn
and begin. If sister Hannah has got a conscience agin dancing to a
fiddle, you know, it ain't worth while to wake it up; but there's more
ways of getting into a lot than by taking down the bars. Jest climb
the fence, that's all."
How uncle Nathan ever came to give this worldly piece of advice is
still a mystery. Some insinuated that the cider had sent its sparkles
to his brain, and others thought the music had aroused some sleeping
mischief there. Perhaps it was both. Perhaps too the bright eyes and
ripe laughter around him had something to do with the matter.
At any rate the advice was too pleasant not to be taken. A telegraphic
signal brought the young men from the out-room, and off the company
fluttered in pairs toward the barn making the starlight melodious with
their laughter.