II

It was Midsummer Eve, and a Saturday, when Hester knocked at the

Mayows' green door on the Town Quay. The Mayows' house hung over the

tideway, and the _Touch-me-not_ schooner, home that day from Florida

with a cargo of pines, and warped alongside the quay, had her foreyard

braced aslant to avoid knocking a hole in the Mayows' roof.

A Cheap Jack's caravan stood at the edge of the quay. The Cheap Jack

was feasting inside on fried ham rasher among his clocks and mirrors

and pewter ware; and though it wanted an hour of dusk, his assistant

was already lighting the naphtha-lamps when Hester passed.

Steam issued from the Mayows' doorway, which had a board across it

to keep the younger Mayows from straggling. A voice from the steam

invited her to come in. She climbed over the board, groped along the

dusky passage, pushed open a door and looked in on the kitchen, where,

amid clouds of vapour, Mrs. Mayow and her daughter Cherry were washing

the children. Each had a tub and a child in it; and three children,

already washed, skipped around the floor stark naked, one with a long

churchwarden pipe blowing bubbles which the other two pursued. In the

far corner, behind a deal table, sat Mr. Mayow, and patiently tuned a

fiddle--a quite hopeless task in that atmosphere.

"My gracious!" Mrs. Mayow exclaimed, rising from her knees; "if it

isn't Hester already! Amelia, get out and dry yourself while I make a

cup of tea."

Hester took a step forward, but paused at a sound of dismal bumping on

the staircase leading up from the passage.

"That's Elizabeth Ann," said Mrs. Mayow composedly, "or Heber, or

both. We shall know when they get to the bottom. My dear, you must be

perishing for a cup of tea. Oh, it's Elizabeth Ann! Cherry, go and

smack her, and tell her what I'll do if she falls downstairs again.

It's all Matthew Henry's fault." Here she turned on the naked urchin

with the churchwarden pipe. "If he'd only been home to his time--"

"I was listening to Zeke Penhaligon," said Matthew Henry (aged eight).

"He's home to-day in the _Touch-me-not_."

"He's no good to King nor country," said Mrs. Mayow.

"He was telling me about a man that got swallowed by a whale--"

"Go away with your Jonahses!" sneered one of his sisters.

"It wasn't Jonah. This man's name was Jones--_Captain_ Jones, from

Dundee. A whale swallowed him; but, as it happened, the whale had

swallowed a cask just before, and the cask stuck in its stomach. So

whatever the whale swallowed after that went into the cask, and did

the whale no good. But Captain Jones had plenty to eat till he cut his

way out with a clasp-knife--"

"How _could_ he?"

"That's all you know. Zeke _says_ he did. A whale always turns that way

up when he's dying. So Captain Jones cut his way into daylight, when,

what does he see but a sail, not a mile away! He fell on his knees--"

"How could he, you silly? He'd have slipped."

But at this point Cherry swept the family off to bed. Mrs. Mayow,

putting forth unexpected strength, carried the tubs out to the

back-yard, and poured the soapy water into the harbour. Hester, having

borrowed a touzer,[A] tucked up her sleeves and fell to tidying the

kitchen. Mr. Mayow went on tuning his fiddle. It was against his

principles to work on a Saturday night.

[Footnote A: _Tout-serve_, apron.]

"Your wife seems very strong," observed Hester, with a shade of

reproach in her voice.

"Strong as a horse," he assented cheerfully. "I call it wonnerful

after what she've a-gone through. 'Twouldn' surprise me, one o' these

days, to hear she'd taken up a tub with the cheeld in it, and heaved

cheeld and all over the quay-door. She's terrible absent in her mind."

Mrs. Mayow came panting back with a kettleful of water, which she set

to boil; and, Cherry now reappearing with the report that all the

children were safe abed, the three women sat around the fire awaiting

their supper, and listening to the voice of the Cheap Jack without.

"We'll step out and have a look at him by-and-by," said Cherry.

"For my part," Mrs. Mayow murmured, with her eyes on the fire, "I

never hear one of those fellers without wishing I had a million of

money. There's so many little shiny pots and pans you could go on

buying for ever and ever, just like Heaven!"

She sighed as she poured the boiling water into the teapot. On

Saturday nights, when the children were packed off, a deep peace

always fell upon Mrs. Mayow, and she sighed until bed-time, building

castles in the air.

Their supper finished, the two girls left her to her musings and

stepped out to see the fun. The naphtha-lamps flared in Hester's face,

and for a minute red wheels danced before her eyes, the din of a gong

battered on her ears, and vision and hearing were indistinguishably

blurred. A plank, like a diving-board, had been run out on trestles in

front of the caravan, and along this the assistant darted forwards and

backwards on a level with the shoulders of the good-humoured crowd,

his arms full of clocks, saucepans, china ornaments, mirrors, feather

brushes, teapots, sham jewellery. Sometimes he made pretence to slip,

recovered himself with a grin on the very point of scattering his

precious armfuls; and always when he did this the crowd laughed

uproariously. And all the while the Cheap Jack shouted or beat his

gong. Hester thought at first there were half-a-dozen Cheap Jacks at

least--he made such a noise, and the mirrors around his glittering

platform flashed forth so many reflections of him. Trade was always

brisk on Saturday night, and he might have kept the auction going

until eleven had he been minded. But he had come to stay for a

fortnight (much to the disgust of credit-giving tradesmen), and

cultivated eccentricity as a part of his charm. In the thickest of the

bidding he suddenly closed his sale.

"I've a weak chest," he roared. "Even to make your fortunes--which is

my constant joy and endeavour, as you know--I mustn't expose it too

much to the night air. Now I've a pianner here, but it's not for sale.

And I've an assistant here--a bit worn, but he's not for sale neither.

I got him for nothing, to start with--from the work'us" (comic protest

here from the assistant, and roars of laughter from the crowd)--"and I

taught him a lot o' things, and among 'em to play the pianner. So as

'tis Midsummer's Eve, and I see some very nice-lookin' young women a

tip-tapping their feet for it, and Mr. Mayow no further away than next

door, and able to play the fiddle to the life--what I say is, ladies

and gentlemen, let's light up a fire and see if, with all their

reading and writing, the young folks have forgot how to dance!"

In the hubbub that followed, Cherry caught Hester by the arm and

whispered---

"Why I clean forgot 'twas Midsummer Eve! We'll try our fortun's

afterwards. Aw, no need to look puzzled--I'll show 'ee. Here, feyther,

feyther!..." Cherry ran down the passage and returned, haling forth

Mr. Mayow with his fiddle.

And then--as it seemed to Hester, in less than a minute--empty

packing-cases came flying from half-a-dozen doors--from the cooper's,

the grocer's, the ship-chandler's, the china-shop, the fruit-shop, the

"ready-made outfitter's," and the Cheap Jack's caravan; were seized

upon, broken up, the splinters piled in a heap, anointed with naphtha

and ignited almost before Mr. Mayow had time to mount an empty barrel,

tune his "A" string by the piano, and dash into the opening bars of

the Furry Dance. And almost before she knew it, Hester's hands were

caught, and she found herself one of the ring swaying and leaping

round the blaze. Cherry held her left hand and an old waterman her

right. The swing of the crowd carried her off her feet, and she had

to leap with the best. By-and-by, as her feet fell into time with the

measure, she really began to enjoy it all--the music, the rush of the

cool night air against her temples, even the smell of naphtha and the

heat of the flames on her face as the dancers paused now and again,

dashed upon the fire as if to tread it out, and backed until

the strain on their arms grew tense again; and, just as it grew

unbearable, the circular leaping was renewed. Always in these pauses

the same face confronted her across the fire: the face of a young man

in a blue jersey and a peaked cap, a young man with crisp dark hair

and dark eyes, gay and challenging. In her daze it seemed to Hester

that, when they came face to face, he was always on the side of the

bonfire nearest the water; and the moon rose above the farther hill as

they danced, and swam over his shoulder, at each meeting higher and

higher.

It was all new to her and strange. The music ceased abruptly, the

dancers unclasped their hands and fell apart, laughing and panting.

And then, while yet she leaned against the Mayows' door-post, the

fiddle broke out again--broke into a polka tune; and there, in front

of her stood the young man in the blue jersey and peaked cap.

He was speaking. She scarcely knew what she answered; but, even while

she wondered, she had taken his arm submissively. And, next, his arm

was about her and she was dancing. She had never danced before; but,

after one or two broken paces, her will surrendered to his, her body

and its movements answered him docilely. She felt that his eyes were

fixed on her forehead, but dared not look up. She saw nothing of the

crowd. Other dancers passed and re-passed like phantoms, neither

jostling nor even touching--so well her partner steered. She grew

giddy; her breath came short and fast. She would have begged for a

rest, but the sense of his mastery weighed on her--held her dumb.

Suddenly he laughed close to her ear, and his breath ruffled her hair.

"You dance fine," he said. "Shall us cross the fire?"

She did not understand. In her giddiness they seemed to be moving in a

wide, empty space among many fires, nor had she an idea which was the

real one. His arm tightened about her.

"Now!" he whispered. With a leap they whirled high and across the

bonfire. Her feet had scarcely touched ground before they were off

again to the music--or would have been; but, to her immense surprise,

her partner had dropped on his knees before her and was clasping her

about the ankles. She heard a shout. The fire had caught the edge of

her skirt and her frock was burning.

It was over in a moment. His arms had stifled, extinguished the flame

before she knew of her danger. Still kneeling, holding her fast, he

looked up, and their eyes met. "Take me back," she murmured, swaying.

He rose, took her arm, and she found herself in the Mayows' doorway

with Cherry at her side. "Get away with you," said Cherry, "and leave

her to me!" And the young man went.

Cherry fell to examining the damaged skirt. "It's clean ruined," she

reported; "but I reckon that don't matter to a bride. John Penaluna'll

not be grudging the outfit. I must say, though--you quiet ones!"

"What have I done?"

"Done? Well, that's good. Only danced across the bonfire with young

Zeke Penhaligon. Why, mother can mind when that was every bit so good

as a marriage before parson and clerk!--and not so long ago neither."