第68章 THE ARRIVAL(9)

"Here's Charley at last! How late you be, Charley.""'Tis not Charley," said the Turkish Knight from within his visor."'Tis a cousin of Miss Vye's, come to take Charley's place from curiosity.He was obliged to go and look for the heath-croppers that have got into the meads, and I agreed to take his place, as he knew he couldn't come back here again tonight.I know the part as well as he."Her graceful gait, elegant figure, and dignified manner in general won the mummers to the opinion that they had gained by the exchange, if the newcomer were perfect in his part.

"It don't matter--if you be not too young," said Saint George.

Eustacia's voice had sounded somewhat more juvenile and fluty than Charley's.

"I know every word of it, I tell you," said Eustacia decisively.

Dash being all that was required to carry her triumphantly through, she adopted as much as was necessary."Go ahead, lads, with the try-over.I'll challenge any of you to find a mistake in me."The play was hastily rehearsed, whereupon the other mummers were delighted with the new knight.They extinguished the candles at half-past eight, and set out upon the heath in the direction of Mrs.Yeobright's house at Bloom's-End.

There was a slight hoarfrost that night, and the moon, though not more than half full, threw a spirited and enticing brightness upon the fantastic figures of the mumming band, whose plumes and ribbons rustled in their walk like autumn leaves.Their path was not over Rainbarrow now, but down a valley which left that ancient elevation a little to the east.The bottom of the vale was green to a width of ten yards or thereabouts, and the shining facets of frost upon the blades of grass seemed to move on with the shadows of those they surrounded.The masses of furze and heath to the right and left were dark as ever;a mere half-moon was powerless to silver such sable features as theirs.

Half-an-hour of walking and talking brought them to the spot in the valley where the grass riband widened and led down to the front of the house.At sight of the place Eustacia who had felt a few passing doubts during her walk with the youths, again was glad that the adventure had been undertaken.

She had come out to see a man who might possibly have the power to deliver her soul from a most deadly oppression.

What was Wildeve? Interesting, but inadequate.

Perhaps she would see a sufficient hero tonight.

As they drew nearer to the front of the house the mummers became aware that music and dancing were briskly flourishing within.

Every now and then a long low note from the serpent, which was the chief wind instrument played at these times, advanced further into the heath than the thin treble part, and reached their ears alone; and next a more than usual loud tread from a dancer would come the same way.

With nearer approach these fragmentary sounds became pieced together, and were found to be the salient points of the tune called "Nancy's Fancy."He was there, of course.Who was she that he danced with?

Perhaps some unknown woman, far beneath herself in culture, was by the most subtle of lures sealing his fate this very instant.To dance with a man is to concentrate a twelvemonth's regulation fire upon him in the fragment of an hour.To pass to courtship without acquaintance, to pass to marriage without courtship, is a skipping of terms reserved for those alone who tread this royal road.

She would see how his heart lay by keen observation of them all.

The enterprising lady followed the mumming company through the gate in the white paling, and stood before the open porch.

The house was encrusted with heavy thatchings, which dropped between the upper windows; the front, upon which the moonbeams directly played, had originally been white;but a huge pyracanth now darkened the greater portion.

It became at once evident that the dance was proceeding immediately within the surface of the door, no apartment intervening.

The brushing of skirts and elbows, sometimes the bumping of shoulders, could be heard against the very panels.

Eustacia, though living within two miles of the place, had never seen the interior of this quaint old habitation.

Between Captain Vye and the Yeobrights there had never existed much acquaintance, the former having come as a stranger and purchased the long-empty house at Mistover Knap not long before the death of Mrs.Yeobright's husband;and with that event and the departure of her son such friendship as had grown up became quite broken off.

"Is there no passage inside the door, then?" asked Eustacia as they stood within the porch.

"No," said the lad who played the Saracen."The door opens right upon the front sitting-room, where the spree's going on.""So that we cannot open the door without stopping the dance.""That's it.Here we must bide till they have done, for they always bolt the back door after dark.""They won't be much longer," said Father Christmas.

This assertion, however, was hardly borne out by the event.

Again the instruments ended the tune; again they recommenced with as much fire and pathos as if it were the first strain.The air was now that one without any particular beginning, middle, or end, which perhaps, among all the dances which throng an inspired fiddler's fancy, best conveys the idea of the interminable--the celebrated "Devil's Dream." The fury of personal movement that was kindled by the fury of the notes could be approximately imagined by these outsiders under the moon, from the occasional kicks of toes and heels against the door, whenever the whirl round had been of more than customary velocity.

The first five minutes of listening was interesting enough to the mummers.The five minutes extended to ten minutes, and these to a quarter of an hour; but no signs of ceasing were audible in the lively "Dream." The bumping against the door, the laughter, the stamping, were all as vigorous as ever, and the pleasure in being outside lessened considerably.