[Illustration: T]
"ALL HAIL, MACBETH!"
THE cheering here was tremendous, there being in the village three young
men with the names mentioned, each having high pretensions to literary
distinction. The Jonesites were vehement in their applause; but the
Tomkinsonians were not to be outdone; and the Smithians being thus
worked up to an enthusiastic pitch of excitement, it was some time
before Mr. Doublethrust could proceed with the address he was speaking.
The following were the concluding lines, which elicited the most
rapturous shrieks ever heard within an English barn, or indeed beneath a
British weathercock:—
[Illustration:
Drawing a House.
]
[Illustration:
A Moving Address.
]
"We pledge ourselves to do our very best,
And leave to fickle fortune all the rest.
Aided by you we boldly laugh at fate,—
And, by the way, half-price at half past eight,
'Tis here that human nature may be learned,—
_Vivat Regina!_—Money not returned!"
The play of "Macbeth," _from_ the text of Shakspeare, now proceeded, and
the manager's candour in using the disjunctive _from_ was speedily
visible. The ambitious thane wore a plaid shawl, commonly called a
horse-cloth, and a pair of stocking-drawers, with a breast-plate formed
of the brass ornaments used to cover the screws of tent bedsteads. The
scene with the witches was thrown into such confusion by the performers
not knowing their parts, that it was impossible to say which was witch,
and, by way of an overflow at half-price, the rain came on in such
torrents at about half-past eight, that in the fourth act Macbeth came
on under an umbrella, beneath the shelter of which he concluded the
performance. The damp thus thrown on the efforts of the new lessee
brought the season to a precipitate close, and Doublethrust abdicated
the managerial throne after a short rain, but by no means a merry one.