THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE

FEBRUARY, 1873.

STRANGER THAN FICTION.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE TALLANTS OF BARTON," "THE VALLEY OF POPPIES," &c.

CHAPTER XLV.

AN ACTOR'S HOLIDAY.

JACOB'S departure for London was accelerated, and his route thither somewhat changed, by a letter which he received at Neathville from Paul Ferris, better known to my readers as Spenzonian Whiffler. This letter had been re-directed from Dinsley by Mr. Windgate Williams, who had traced upon the back of it some wonderful flashes of wit and caligraphy for Jacob's edification.

Spen's letter was brief. It informed Jacob that the theatre being closed for a short season he had taken a holiday, and was to be heard of for three days only at the Blue Posts Hotel, Cartown, where we find Jacob on the evening of the second day following his blissful time with Lucy Thornton.

"You must be awfully tired," said Spen, emerging from the dingy coffee-room of the "Posts," and shaking his old friend warmly by both hands.

"I am, old boy. I have had a long journey, but the sight of your good, kind face is as good as a glass of champagne."

“Waiter, send in the supper I ordered as soon as you can," said Spen.

"All right, sir; the cook's attending to it."

"And now Jacob," said Spen, "sit down and tell us all about yourself. By Jove, I have experienced the strangest heap of sensations yesterday and to-day that ever afflicted mortal man. I've been in VOL. X., N.S. 1873.

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a perpetual whirl of excitement, anxiety, fear, happiness, depression, misery, and bliss."

"You have indeed been enjoying yourself," said Jacob, smiling. "How long has it taken to go through so much?”

"Two days, my dear boy; only two days. I seem to have lived half a century in that time. Apart from the immediate sensations of the present, my mind has been wandering in the past. I have been tumbling and somersault throwing, in imagination, down Spawling's garden; mixing Indian ink at the pump, thrashing that big fellow from the country with the greasy dinner-bag; dodging Dorothy upstairs and downstairs and in my lady's chamber; doing mock heroics among autumn leaves between here and a famous cottage at Cartown; wondering all sorts of things about you and Lucy; and, above all, falling desperately in love myself, and ready and willing at this moment to go through the last act with real properties. But it is like me. I ask you to tell me all about yourself, and proceed at once to give you my own history. When you know all, you will forgive my wretched egotism, and laugh at my miscellaneous sensations. But we are all strange creatures of impulse, and there does seem such a magic in this old town of our boyhood, that I must ́ be forgiven if I am not quite myself here."

Spen thrust his hands deep down into his pockets, then removed them, stood up, sat down, looked at the ceiling, warmed himself at an imaginary fire (which summer had covered up with paper shavings), patted Jacob on the back, and called him a "dear old boy," and exhibited many other signs of the excitement of which he had spoken.

Supper was brought in while the two young fellows conversed, but it did little to interrupt their animated intercourse. Whenever an opportunity occurred Jacob told Spen of his troubles and triumphs, and Spen threw in at every opportunity snatches of his own experiences, which in their way were strange and interesting, but neither so varied nor so romantic as Jacob's. Spen had been hard at theatrical work for years. His stories were of patient study at home, drudgery at rehearsals, and hard work before the footlights; leading gradually up to that brilliant success of which we have previously heard. told Jacob that there was much less of sentiment and romance in a theatrical career than the public understood. Success demanded very much more drudgery and labour than was generally imagined. Details of dress, of manner, studies of look, gesture, walk, pose, and a variety of apparently small things made up the grand whole of an actor's art. But Spen was not willing, evidently, to say much

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about his theatrical career. His talk was chiefly of the past, of their first meeting, and of the early days of Cartown school. But the more exciting portions of his talk were associated with a young lady whom he called a divine creature, a glorious girl, a superb woman, and other endearing and descriptive names-a young lady whom he had seen come out of the old school-house on the previous day with two little girls and a boy; the most gentle, gracious, fascinating little witch he had ever seen in all his career, professionally and non-professionally. He had followed her over a well-known path, and in fun had helped the children to gather wild flowers.

"Only in fun, my dear boy, so far as they were concerned, but in desperate earnest on my own part! What fools we are! Here was I, years ago, in a rural paradise, with real flowers and brooks and woods, real valleys, real autumn tints and summer breezes, sighing for gaslight and paint, canvas meadows, mock thunder, and a hollow fame. It seemed to me yesterday as if I would give the world to live out the remainder of my life among the old real scenes; but the desire, I must confess, was immensely promoted by the hope of a fairy partnership with Titania, my fairy queen of yesterday. You will say I have become a romantic fellow in my years of discretion. I suppose I have been so long mewed up among London bricks and mortar that the country takes my reason prisoner."

Jacob was more astonished now at the change which had taken place in Spen than he had been while conversing with his old friend in London. Although the merriman of the Cartown school had lost none of his animal spirits, yet the real fun and frolic of the old days were wanting. Nobody would certainly have taken him for the funny man of a theatrical company. His face, it is true, had that peculiar, sallow, closely-shaven look which characterises the profession generally; but there were strong lines in it which one would be more likely to associate with tragedy than comedy, except when the face was lighted up by some quaint conceit, and then there was something essentially humorous in its peculiar, dry expression.

"Now, Spen, let us talk seriously. Drop this fictitious kind of personal confession. Let us get out of romance, Have you really ever thought of marrying?

"Yes, indeed, I have," said Spen, with a grave twinkle of the eye. "I thought of it for the first time yesterday, and I have thought about nothing else until your arrival this evening."

"Ah! You will have your joke," said Jacob, laughing. "Earnest conjugal ambition is not so sudden as that."

"Honour bright," said Spen, "I am in real earnest, and you shall

see the lady of my choice in the morning. I could not endure the general notions of courtship and matrimony. If I take a fancy to anything I must have it at once. There is no hesitation about my character. You shall see, and I never yet made a mistake in reading the face of man or woman."

The night soon came to these long-severed friends, and early in the morning they were out among the old haunts, fraught to them with so many happy and peculiar associations. Passing through the churchyard Jacob noticed a simple granite column marking the spot where Spen had told him in the old days that the dead clown's ghost had rebuked him for his ingratitude. At the base the grass had grown up, making a pretty natural fringe of green beneath the simple word, "PETROSKI."

A bee dangling in the bell of a kingcup close by made a drowsy hum, which added to the softening influence and repose of the scene. "Ah! you have a noble heart," said Jacob, turning upon Spen affectionately. "How long has this monument been here ?"

"Well," said Spen, "two or three years, I suppose. Poor dear old Pet. I should have liked Hamlet's words about Yorick underneath the dear boy's name, but the churchwardens objected. They did not like quotations from Shakespeare on gravestones, they said; it was contrary to their rule. Perhaps it is better as it is. Poor

Petroski !"

Jacob's heart smote him bitterly when he remembered that there was one far dearer to him than Petroski was to Spen, who might at that moment be lying beneath the sod unrecorded on the stone above for aught he knew.

When first he left Middleton, cursing the place and his own wretched destiny, he thought he would come quietly back at intervals and lay a flower upon that grave which had closed over all the blood-relationship which seemed to exist for him in this world; but time wore on, and he was content to sit down now and then with his memories and to pay his tribute of flowers in imagination. But his heart rebuked him now at sight of the tall column pointing upwards from the grave of Petroski.

"You are sad, my boy," said Spen. "You remind me of that time in the autumn when I told you I would make a hit on the stage. Come, we must have no clouds in the sunshine of this day. See, yonder is the old school; the bell is already ringing, the boys are slinking through the dear old doorway with their long-eared books and their greasy dinner-bags. Ah! they are a different lot to those whom we knew. The boots at the "Posts" tells me that the boys get

different treatment to that which we received at the hands of Spawling, and those lads yonder seem to have had all the sprightliness of life whipped out of them."

They stood for some time gazing at the well-known school-house. Presently they went behind the building to reconnoitre. They hid themselves in the garden to watch the schoolmaster go forth to his duties. They had hardly sheltered themselves when a scantily clothed child knocked at the door, which was opened by an elderly woman with stiff grey curls hanging down each cheek and clustering about a pair of spectacles that were supported by a thin bony nose, slightly red at the extremity.

"Good heavens !" exclaimed Jacob, clutching Spen's arm.

"What is the matter?" asked Spen in a whisper.

"Matter?" exclaimed Jacob, "by all that's miserable, it is my Aunt Keziah."

"The devil!" said Spen.

"No, not exactly that, but certainly Mrs. Gompson."

"Mon dieu! The old griffin you used to tell me of. Well, keep quiet."

'Buy a few pegs or laces!" exclaimed Mrs. Gompson, surveying the half naked urchin from uncovered head to naked feet; "certainly not. Nothing of the kind."

"They're very cheap, mum."

"Cheap! Where do you live, child?"

"Down the lane, please mum."

"Down the lane, eh! Gipsy child-I thought so. Gipsy child, listen to me. Are you not ashamed to go about imposing on people in this way, endeavouring to injure the honest tradesman who pays rent and taxes by underselling him in the matter of pegs and laces and other merchandise ?"

“Please, mum, I didn't mean to do it," said the little child, looking up out of a pair of black, sympathetic eyes.

"Oh! you didn't mean to do it. We shall see. Why does not your mother dress you before she sends you out? I declare it's perfectly shocking!" said Mrs. Gompson, surveying the well-shapen, naked legs which stood firmly and with a natural grace upon the doorstep.

Please, mum, I haven't no mother."

“Oh! you haven't no mother! Why, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. How dare you go about the streets and lanes without any mother? And pray, have you no father?"

"No, mum."