AS IN THE DAYS OF CHIVALRY
"W-what's it all mean, Hugh?" Billy was gasping, as he stood there with
quaking knees, and just stared and stared.
Indeed, for the moment Hugh could not have answered him, he was himself
so busily engaged in looking. There was good and sufficient reason for
the eyes of every one being glued on the remarkable sight taking place
before them, for surely such an amazing spectacle had never before
been witnessed in America, nor indeed for some hundreds of years even
in the old country.
The castle was no longer given over to the owls and bats and rats. It
now seemed to be fairly swarming with moving figures, and such figures!
Hugh blinked, and took a second look before he could actually believe
his eyes.
Why, there were horses clad in all the panoply of the fourteenth century,
on the backs of which sat knights in shining armor, with long lances,
and great two-handed swords for their weapons, and waving plumes dangling
from their helmets. Men with bare legs and all manner of weird apparel
were attacking the castle, using clubs, rocks, and queer arrangements
for casting missiles; some of them were climbing short scaling ladders
only to be rudely hurled down again by some of the valiant defenders
who manned the top of the walls.
The drawbridge had been raised, and the portcullis protected the door,
but the gallant assailants had apparently thrown a bridge hastily
constructed across the moat, and they were certainly as busy as a hive
of bees that had struck a mine of sugar.
It was a wonderful scene, and the five scouts could hardly be blamed
for thinking they must be dreaming, everything was so unreal, so like
a page torn from history in the times of the Crusaders.
Perhaps one or more of them began to believe that a host of spirits
belonging to ancient worthies, long since dead, while passing by had
recognized in the make-believe castle such a wonderful copy of something
they had known in life that they were tempted to stop and play their
parts again with all this gusto and confusion.
If this were the case, however, Hugh quickly disillusioned the rest of
the group. His quick eye had found an explanation for all this
remarkable happening.
"Well, I declare, who would ever have believed it?" they heard him
saying, for again the riot was beginning to die out, men were brushing
themselves off, while a few others, less fortunate than their companions,
were being pulled out of the moat surrounding the castle, which evidently
held some water, for they appeared to be dripping wet, though taking
it all in good part.
"What have you guessed, Hugh?" demanded Arthur, knowing from the
manner of the scout master that he had apparently solved the mystery.
Hugh was laughing now. The strained look had passed from his young
face. It seemed to him like a jump from the sublime to the ridiculous.
"If you fellows will look over to one side to where that man was turning
the handle of some sort of box just as if he might be an organ grinder,
you'll guess what it all means," Hugh told them, pointing as he spoke.
Cries of wonder and comprehension immediately arose from Alec and
Arthur, though even then Billy and Stallings did not seem to fully
grasp the facts.
"Motion-picture actors at work!" exclaimed Alec.
"Oh! did you ever hear of such a thing?" gurgled Billy, at the same
time beginning to lose the haunted look on his face.
"Sure thing!" added Arthur, grinning now. "That chap is the camera
man---what is it they call it, a cinematoscope or something that way.
He's been grinding like mad while all that battle on the walls was
taking place. And I can see him laughing from here, as if that last
scrap pleased him a whole lot."
"Well, if that don't beat everything!" said Monkey Stallings, in
mingled awe and delight. "To think of a company finding out about
that queer old imitation castle, and coming all the way up here so as
to stage one of their Shakespeare plays around it!"
"And look at all the actors they've gone and fetched along with them,
will you?" Billy went on to say. "Why, there must be scores of men
and women there, all dressed in fancy costumes. Gee! it must cost
_rafts_ of money to stage just one of those dramas."
"Oh!" said Hugh; "expense doesn't seem to enter into their calculations
when they think they've got something that will go. A thousand people
have been used in, one play, I've read, and as much as two hundred
thousand dollars spent on it!"
"Say, here's our same old luck come along again, fellows!" declared
Arthur, as though it gave him a tremendous amount of satisfaction
to realize it. "I've always had a sort of hankering after a chance
to learn just how these queer people managed when staging one of their
plays, and as sure as you live we're in a fair way to find out now."
"Was there ever anything so strange as our being up here just at the
time they came to play their game?" demanded Monkey Stallings. "Why,
it begins to look as if they must have engaged the old castle especially
to cast their play here, and make it seem the real stuff, don't you
think so, Hugh?"
"That's not so very remarkable, after all," ventured Hugh, as all
of them continued to stare at the many moving figures, apparently
resting for the next stage in the exciting drama that was being reeled
off. "I understand that all those big companies have spies out
everywhere about the country."
"Spies!" echoed Billy; "and what for, Hugh, when we're not at war with
anybody?"
"There's a tremendous amount of competition afloat between the numerous
companies," explained the other. "They are looking for all sorts of
queer settings for their plays. Houses have to be burned down,
bridges blown up, railroad trains ditched, and all manner of stunts
pulled off to satisfy the public greed for thrilling spectacles."
Alec gave a plain, unmistakable groan.
"That's it," he said disconsolately, "it's going to spell my finish.
I knew that I didn't have that heavy feeling for nothing. There was
something in the air that told me my fine dreams were going to be
wrecked, sooner or later. Chances are now this big company has gone
and stepped in to buy the old castle for a song, and in the course
of their reproduction of history they expect to blow the same up,
or at least set fire to that part made of wood. It's all off, boys!"
"But you've got your pictures to show for it, Alec," Hugh told him,
consolingly, "and your aunt wouldn't think of taking back your camera
after you've done so well with it. She can see that it isn't your
fault, no matter what happens to the old building now."
Alec gave a cry of triumph.
"Say, that's right, Hugh, and thank you for reminding me I'm carrying
that same camera at this very minute. What's to hinder me snapping off
a few pictures on my own account of what's going on over there? What
do you say to that, Hugh?"
"I should say you'd be foolish not to take the chance," returned the
scout leader.
It was surprising to see how Alec forgot his keen disappointment as
he commenced to focus his instrument upon the easily seen building,
with all those strange costumed figures about the walls.
"The sun is just right for a cracker-jack snap-shot from here," he
remarked, as he proceeded to press the bulb, and then carefully change
the exposure so that he might not inadvertently take two pictures
on the same portion of film; for Alec was exceedingly systematic in
most things he did, which was one secret for his wonderful success
at photography, a profession that allows no haphazard habits.
"There, I reckon they're staging another picture over yonder, boys!"
cried Arthur, as a new bustle was noticed amidst the group of players.
"Two of the men appear to have been knocked out in that attack, for
there's a chap who looks like he might be a doctor attending to them
under that tree. I wonder if they'd care to let me lend a hand at
that part of the game? I'm sure I can be of help."
Arthur was never happier than when plying his favorite vocation of
amateur surgeon. He had really done some fine work along those lines,
and received the approbation of those who were well up in medical
practice.
"Whee, if all that scrapping was half-way real!" burst out the admiring
Billy; "the only thing I wonder at is how any of those fellows manage
to come out of the fight with whole heads or limbs. Some of them were
sent crashing down when that short ladder was hurled back by the
defenders on the walls. It looked pretty real stuff from here."
"It is pretty near the genuine thing." said Hugh. "I've often wondered
whether they faked those wonderful affairs, but after, what I've seen
this day I'm going to believe they're as close to the original as can
be. There, you see how the fat man beside the operator is waving
his arms. He's got a megaphone, too, and as the scene goes along
he bawls through that to tell them to keep on, or change the way
they're doing things."
Alec got ready to take another snap-shot when the battle was well on.
He was as excited as Hugh had ever seen him, and the other took
occasion to warn the photographer to be careful.
"Get a grip on yourself, Alec," he said. "Hold yourself steady, or
else you'll be making some fearful blunder, and spoiling the best
chance you ever had to get a prize picture. Now they are starting
in again, you see!"
Every one of the five scouts was straining his eyesight to the extreme
limit in the, endeavor not to lose the slightest incident. Never
before had such a glorious opportunity come to any of their kind to
actually watch how those astonishing scenes of olden times were taken
by the motion-picture players; and they did not want to miss any part
of it.
Again did the great noise break forth as the valiant assailants commenced
their new attack upon the apparently impregnable walls of the ancient
castle, so gallantly defended by the occupants.
This small army of players had descended on the region like a flood
of seventeen-year locusts. An hour or two before and there had apparently
not been a living thing in the neighborhood of the mansion, and now
it was the centre of a swarming horde of earnest workers, each trying
to earn his salary as best he knew how, both by shouting, and also
fighting in yeoman style.
"Oh! why can't we get closer than this, Hugh?" begged Alec, after
he had taken another snap at the animated spectacle that would later
on thrill many a boyish heart in the way of a picture, and also cause
a feeling of envy to arise because a cruel fate had prevented them
from participating in the wonderful adventure.
"Nothing to hinder that I can see," he was told. "Fact is, I was going
to suggest that same thing myself. So let's get a move on, fellows."
Eagerly they kept pace with Hugh as he started to run toward the castle.
It would be a shame not to take full advantage of the golden opportunity
offered them to get in close touch with these motion-picture actors
who, unaware of the fact that they had a small and select audience
in the way of Boy Scouts, were each and every one working like troopers
to fulfill their difficult duties.
Alec kept close "tabs" on what was going on ahead presently, possibly
fearing that the excited, fat manager, who was dancing up and down,
mopping his forehead with a red bandanna with one hand, and waving
the megaphone with the other when not shouting through the same, might
call the scene off, the boy stopped short, focussed again on the amazing
picture, and got another snap-shot at closer range.
In this fashion the runners managed to come close up before there
was a sudden cessation to all the tumult of hideous war, and the actors,
laughing and evidently enjoying it to the utmost, began to crowd around
the stage director as if to learn whether the scene had met with his
approval.