University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VII.

When Jones returned to his comrades, accompanied
by Horsey in character, the scene had undergone
a change. The cards had disappeared—fires
were lighted anew—a rude plank table, with rude
block seats, had risen in the midst, garnished with
sundry black bottles of strong waters, and every
thing looked fair for a promising carouse. The
men, too, had undergone some little change. The
exhortations of Jones had not been lost upon them,
and, taking it for granted that their account lay, as
it had always done before, in securing the desires of
their leaders, they were prepared to yield themselves,
heart and hand, to the game that was before them.
A warm cheer, thrice renewed, received the actor,
who stalked before them in all the mournful and philosophical
dignity of the youthful Dane. A buz—a
murmur of approbation, followed this outbreak, and,
whether sincere or affected, the result was every
thing that might be desired. For the first time in
his life, Horsey found himself in the presence of actors
who were not rivals—candidates for popular
favour, who had no jealousy of their neighbours—
and professors of an art that lives on popular applause,

who were yet no less prompt in bestowing it.
Our traveller was the last man in the world to mortify
himself with any unnecessary doubts of that
sincerity which spoke in the language of encomium.
And yet, to do his understanding all justice, it must
be added that Jones took infinite pains to avoid
arousing his suspicions. His own applauses were
all well timed, judiciously expressed, and had the
appearance of being urged with great hesitation
and forbearance. A respectful deference distinguished
even his solicitude; and his chief argument
to Horsey, and one which he insisted on in frequent
whispers, was the necessity of a good model for his
wretched creatures.

“These fellows have never played before, my dear
Mr. Horsey. They have been picked up from all
parts of the country. Some of them have never
even looked upon a play, and none of them
have any just idea of what a performance should be.
I know the trouble it will give you to tutor them,
but it is so important that we should make a good
figure at first, and if, as I believe, you regard the
drama as so important to the civilization of the people—to
the improvement of popular taste, and—
and—”

All this kind of stuff was very convincing to our
stage-struck hero. His eye brightened while he
looked around him, and surveyed the mute watchfulness
and vague curiosity of stare that met his
glance on every side.

“Something can be made of them, Jones,” he said
paternally, in a confidential whisper, “and, considering
the great importance of the thing, I am not unwilling
to undertake their tuition. You are right in
regarding it as all important that they should know
something before they begin; though, really, it is
surprising—very surprising—that they should have

ever thought of the stage. It seems to me that any
other vocation—”

The comment was answered by a conclusive
whisper.

“Beggars, you know, Mr. Horsey, cannot be
choosers. We must make the most of them till a
better bargain offers, and then I'm clear that we get
rid of them. On this head we must confer together
hereafter. We must take the management into our
own hands, since Tilton's off, and there's no knowing
where to set hands on Peters. It is a happy chance
that sent you in our neighbourhood. I was beginning
to think matters desperate, and had almost
given up in despair, and gone off. Now, there's no
danger. You will set us on our feet again. But
there's time enough to talk of this hereafter. Now,
the lads are waiting. Gentlemen, Mr. Horsey is
ready—pray give your attention.”

“Ay, ay,” exclaimed the surly fellow, Bull, “and
so are we. We've been ready this half-hour to hear
him; but, Jones, s'pose, if it's not disagreeable to
Mr. Horsey, let's take a swig all round to better acquaintance.
It sort-a makes a body easy to listen
when the liquor's afloat; and sort-a softens the ear
and opens the understanding. I always feels a great
deal easier to judge, when I'm in sperrits.”

“Vulgar fellow!” muttered Horsey to himself,
annoyed at an interruption at the very moment
when, throwing himself into posture, he was about
to begin. He concealed his chagrin as well as he
could, while the vigilant Jones, calling to order, endeavoured
to keep down the moral scum which
promised to rise up with quite as much pertinacity
as ever, with the very next agitation of the atmosphere.

“A good idea of Bull's, that, Mr. Horsey,” said
the politician. “A glass to better acquaintance is

not amiss; though I'm not so sure it makes one
judge the better in intellectual matters and things of
art. What have you there, gentlemen?”

“Monongahela, fresh from Beattie's Bluff,” was
the reply of Bull. “There's a piggin of peach in
the bushes, the last of the barrel—prehaps the gentleman
will take his pull from that?”

“Prehaps!—Take his pull!” Horsey could scarce
suppress his astonishment, and forbear repeating the
offensive vulgarities aloud.

“Our Jack Pudding!—our fellow for broad grin
and buffoonery!” whispered Jones in the ear of the
amateur. “A very comical fellow when he's in the
humour, Mr. Horsey—never saw so comical a dog
as he can make himself. All this is put on—it's in
character only. He is only disposed to let you see
that there are other actors beside yourself.”

“Indeed! Is that it? but he looks very serious for
a funny fellow.”

“That's the beauty of it, sir—that's the wonder—
that's what makes him inimitable in his way. You'll
hear him speak the dialect of the most ignorant backwoodsman,
as if he was born to it, and look for all
the world as if he never could have spoken any
other. But, I can tell you, so far from that being
the case, he's well educated—speaks Greek like a
native, and is profound in mathematics, besides
having an excellent taste in poetry.”

“Is it possible?”

“True as Holy Writ; but he has humours, sir
—and one of them is to disparage himself. He will
even lie, sir—lie like a Trojan—in order to make
himself little. Ask him now about Greek, and if
he happens to be in the humour for running his
cross rigs upon you, he'll swear he knows nothing
of what you say, and will probably answer you in
the coarsest lingo of Catahoula and the swamp.”

“A strange perversity, indeed.”

“It's the way with all geniuses, I believe; but—
here he comes. Don't mind his extravagancies.
You'll see the fun of them, now that you know
something of the fellow.”

By this time Bull returned, bearing in his hands
the piggin of peach-brandy, for which he had gone
to the bushes where it had been concealed. His
salutation as he placed the vessel on the table, was
calculated to justify in some sort the description
which had been just given of his eccentricities.

“Here, you bitches,” he cried aloud—“here's
stuff enough, and sorts enough, if your stomach's
not too swingy proud for an honest liquor. This
peach is a beauty, and the whisky's as lovely as a
sinner alongside of it. If you don't like one, take
the other, and if you don't like neither, mix 'em and
swig both, and see which end'll come uppermost.
Blast my buttons—what do you wait for, you—”

We omit the more decided expressions of blackguardism.

“You see,” whispered Jones to the actor, “he's as
full of Aristophanes as an egg's full of meat. Fond
of all the old comic writers, and don't stand at calling
things by plain names. You'll know more of
him directly.”

Horsey drew a long breath as he replied—

“'Gad! he is the strangest fellow—”

His speech and wonder were briefly cut short by
the uproarious challenge of the eccentric Bull, who,
having filled a tin mug of more than usual dimensions
with one of the two potent beverages so highly
eulogized, extended his gracious permission, after a
fashion of his own, to all others who might be disposed
to follow his example.

“I'm a man that has a notion that all sperrits
loses that stands too long open to the air. You must

pour it down or cork it up, one or t'other, and so,
fellows, I drinks to you, and my sentiments is—
here's to the tongue that never sticks in the way of
the swallow—meaning no harm to them that stands
off talking, when they might be doing a better business.”

And with these words, and a scornful leer at the
actor and his companion, Jones, the Grecian humourist
turned the bottom of the can to the north
star, while the mouth of it clung for an instant to his
own with a sympathetic tenacity.

“Well said! Well hit!” exclaimed the ready
Jones, with a wink, to Horsey. “We certainly deserve
the censure of all good spirits, when we leave
such good spirits untasted. Horsey, my dear fellow,
shall I pour you out from the jug or the piggin? I
can answer for this peach—it's as good as any of
Crumbaugh's.”

“The peach, I thank you,” was the answer of
Horsey, in somewhat subdued accents. The fact is,
his genius was confounded in the presence of that of
Mr. Aristophanes Bull, of whom, as yet, he could
not exactly succeed in reconciling what he saw with
what he heard. A little time after, and he grew more
flexible; but let us not anticipate. His glass was
filled, and with the kindest condescension in the
world, he bowed to the company ere he drank, and
uttered some common-place compliment, which
was lost, like many better wishes, in the unheeding
air.

“And now, gentlemen, give attention—now for
the part of Hamlet by Mr. Horsey, of whom you
all have heard, and by whose counsel and example,
I trust we shall all improve. Mr. Horsey, perhaps
that part about actors and acting—I mean the advice
to the players—might be the best to begin with; unless,

indeed, you should prefer to give us some more
tragic parts. I know that your forte lies in tragedy.”

Such was the conciliatory preludium of the adroit
Jones, and its effect promised to be exceedingly happy
upon the person to whom it was addressed. A
smile rose upon his lips, his eyes sparkled, as he felt
the convincing deference of the speaker, and a ray
of self-complaisance, such as the sun sheds over the
western heavens, after he has done a good day's
work of illumination, gave to our actor's face an
inexpressible benignity of beam, which was most
unhappily overcast, in another instant, by the intrusive
comments of the eccentric genius, Bull.

“Tragedy be d—d,” said he, striking his hand
down upon the table, to which, in the next moment,
he elevated his foot; “tragedy be d—d—that's all
in my eye and Betty Martin. There's no fun in
that, no more than in thunder and hoxy-doxy. Who
wants to see a fellow get up and blow out his cheeks,
and roll up his eyes, and growl and roar and choke,
and shake all over as if he had an agy? None of
your tragedy for me. There's no sense in it. 'Taint
raal. I was once down in Mobile, when I saw them
making tragedies, and, darken my peepers, but the
bloody bitches made me mad enough to swallow
'em, they were so cussed rediculous.”

“But, my dear Bull,” was the beginning, thrice
begun, of our friend Jones, in the endeavour to stop
the torrent of the humourist. In vain—Bull kept his
ground, and shook off the intruder with as much
ease as a three year old colt would shake off a Connecticut
cavalry officer.

“Oh, be d—d,” said he, “don't I know? There
was a tragedian that came in looking after his enemy.
He had his sword out, and he made a show as if
he was mighty angry, but, between you and me, he
didn't want to find him, no how. The other fellow

was hiding behind a tree, and this chap looked for
him every where but there. So, as I wanted to see
how they'd fight, I up and told him where to look
for him—says I, bung up my peepers, if you don't
find him agin that rock, squat, jist hiding behind that
tree. It was a scrub oak, or something like it—I
never seed sich a tree before. Well, instead of
thanking me, he dropped his jaws and his sword,
looked at me as if he'd seed a ghost, mumbled
something in his throat, nobody could tell what, and
then there was a spree among the people, and some
of the larks below cried out as if they were gwine
to lick me. `Lick and be d—d,' says I, `lick if you
can. Where's the first man?—let me look at him.'
So up I stands, and devil the bit of a nigger among
'em to say another word. Well, that was all bloody
foolish. If the chap was in 'arnest, it was the easiest
thing to find the other. He had only to say I'm
ready, clap his hip, and crow like a chicken, and if
they was ser'ous, what more? But tragedies aint
ser'ous things. It's all make-b'lieve. They know
there's nobody to be hurt,—nobody's in 'arnest; for
they'll stand and talk for a long quarter, though the
enemy's at the door, with bullet and bowie-knife;
and they pretending to be mighty scared all the
time. Then they hide where it's so easy to find
'em. Grim! only let a nigger hide from me in
Loosa-Chitta as them fellows hide from one another
in tragedies, and how soon I'd ride through their
rig'lets. I'd be into 'em, and on 'em; over 'em, and
through 'em; round 'em, and about 'em; front 'em,
and a-back 'em; in the twinkle of a musquito—race-lightning
never could go quicker. No! no! None
of your tragedies for me.”

“But, Bull, my dear fellow!” expostulated Jones,
with something more of anxiety in his accents and
manner, as he saw the almost pallid expression of

discomfiture in the blank visage of Horsey—“why
should you go on so? Though you don't like tragedy,
that's no reason why other people should not,
and we who labour for the public, or propose to do
so, must do that which will best please the public.
Now, there's no doubt that most people prefer tragedy—”

“The more fools they!” stoutly replied the obdurate
Bull. “They're not of my kidney, then, by
hocus; and I reckon there's none of the boys here
that wouldn't prefer a sup of whisky at any time,
and a frolic at mother Surgick's, to all the tragedy
stuff.”

“But, Bull, my dear fellow—” Jones resumed his
expostulations, but in vain. Bull had been supping
whisky for a good hour before Horsey had reached
the camp, and had grown too inflexible to engage
with readiness in any scheme so intricate as the one
proposed.

“Butt Bull,” he retorted, using the language of
Jones, with a grin, as if a good joke lay at the bottom—“Butt
Bull, and get the worst of it. See who's
head's the hardest, you b—h, and be off with your
mug broken. It's a bad chance to butt any of my
breed. No, blast my buttons! hide and horns, head
and tail, are all too much for such as you, Jones;
so no rearing, unless you want to come down on
your haunches.”

“A wit, you see,” said Jones, in a whisper to the
waiting Hamlet—“a fellow of infinite humour;—
and as he's a little drunk he begins to show it. The
true nature always comes uppermost with a man in
liquor. A fellow of contradictions,—we must bear
with him a while longer.”

There was little or no consolation in all this for
the actor. He began to suspect that the organization
of such an unruly gang would task the best

manager in the worst fashion. He saw treason, uproar,
and utter discomfiture in all the proceedings of
the green-room. But he said nothing in reply to
Jones, and before the latter could say more, the sarcastic
Bull had resumed the subject of which he
seemed as tenacious as the grave.

“Now,” said he, “if you're for acting at all, give
me them funny things, where they make all sorts of
faces, and play tricks, and tumble one another about,
and jump on shoulders and ride like monkeys, and
run up the chimney, and hide behind the door. Give
me the comedies and farces, and them sort of things
that make a fellow laugh to split. I'm for the frolicking
plays, and I reckon we're all for them. Aint
you, Baker?”

“Ay, deuce take me, if I don't vote with Bull,”
was the response of Mr. Baker.

“And I too,” said another.

“And I,” said a third.

And the majority sent up an assenting voice which
put a stop for an instant to all the expostulations of
the indefatigable Jones. Bull looked round him with
an air of triumph and complacency, as much as to
say,—there, you have our decision, so let your tragedy
be comedy—your fate, fun! He filled up his
can, as the difficult question was thus determined to
his own satisfaction; and, as if to reconcile the minority
to a decision which is always disagreeable to
a minority, he proposed a bumper all round.

“Come Jones, come Doughty,” so he named Horsey,
“my dogs, we'll begin the fun by a full swallow.
I'm always for a frolic when there's good stuff to go
upon; and a comedy, says I, because a comedy's
always ser'ous earnest, and it's all my eye when
they makes tragedies. Tragedies is mighty foolish
and ridiculous things. They aint ser'ous. The killing
aint ser'ous. I don't reckon a man was ever yet

killed in a tragedy. Now, I'm for killing in 'arnest
when I set about it. I don't leave off when I begin,
and if I once put knife into a fellow's ribs to make
small meat of him, wouldn't I be a blasted fool to go
off, before I made sure that the thing was done in
right 'arnest? I'd git on him astraddle and feel at
his kidneys; and if there was only the littlest shaking
of the flesh, d—me but I'd give him another dig or
two to make sure and put him out of his misery. I
would, d—me.”

There was something exceedingly literal in the
latter part of Bull's speech, which our friend Horsey
found it very difficult to account for. It seemed to
him that the witty fellow was confounding real
events with theatrical illusion; and the idea of his
bestraddling his slain opponent, and giving him a
thrust extra seemed rather Choctaw-like and savage.
Besides, he could not understand how such a proceeding
should ever be tolerated by an audience.
On this head he thought it important to express his
doubts. This he did, however, with less than his
usual fecund flow of language, and with a hesitancy
of manner which showed how greatly the eccentric
genius of Bull had cowed himself, no less than the
rest of his companions.

“I am afraid, Mr. Bull, the spectators would not
permit such an unnecessary proceeding. The moment
the man lies, apparently dead, the end of the
performance is obtained. There is surely no sort
of necessity to repeat the blow; and I am afraid that
the dignity of tragedy would be utterly overthrown
by bestraddling the slain man. I am also disposed
to think—”

“Look you, Doughty, my boy,” cried Bull, with
an air of most paternal superiority, clapping his open
hand as he spoke over the mouth of the tragedian—
“you're but a young hand at the hatchet, I see. Do

you think,” with an air of great seeming circumspection,
as he bent his mouth to the ear of the
hearer, and spoke in a half whisper—“you talk of
spectators, but do you think I'd be such a blasted
b—h of a fool as to let any body see me at the business?”

“How! how!—the audience not see you?”

The actor was bewildered. Jones, with some
consternation interposed. The game at cross-purposes,
which he had so cunningly introduced, was
on the verge of a sudden termination.

“Ha, ha! A good joke—an excellent joke!” he
exclaimed aloud, laughing immoderately as he spoke
—“Bull, you're a born devil of a joker. He's trying
to quiz you, Mr. Horsey—I warned you how
'twould be—a very Momus, sir,—all fun, all mirth,
all deviltry.”

“Quiz me!” exclaimed the actor, with a genuine
expression of tragedy—a sublime indignation—in his
countenance as he spoke, which, in an instant after,
changed to one of haughty defiance, as his eyes
turned from Jones to the person of him to whom
had been ascribed the impertinent effort which promised
to be so offensive.

“Nay, take no offence, Mr. Horsey—don't you
see the man's drunk,” said Jones, in a whisper.
“But I'll mend his manners—I'll lead him off for a
while, and cool him. I'll say that which will bring
him to his senses.”

“Tell him you'll discharge him!” said Horsey,
with all the terrors of a managerial countenance, as
he whispered this severe counsel in the ears of the
other. “By the body of Polonius, it would be impossible
to keep such a fellow in order—all his merits,
were they twice what they are, could never
reconcile me to tolerate such presumption.”

“You are right, perfectly right, sir, and I'll make

him hear to reason,” said Jones—“meanwhile, sir,
when I take him off, do you occupy the rest. They
are very anxious to hear you—very good fellows,
sir—a little tainted with Bull only. They will keep
order.”

While this brief dialogue proceeded between the
two in whispers, the eccentric Bull had glided, by a
very natural transition, from the proscenium into the
orchestra, and was leading off, in a dithyrambic, famous
among the beagles of the borders, to the air
of the “Raccoon skinned”—a melody which only
needs the lyrical genius of General Morris, who
quelled the rioters of New York in 1834, to marry
to universal song, and embalm, with other “refrains,”
in the cedar oil of immortality. We shall copy it
out, when more at leisure, for the special benefit of
that gentleman; at present, a single verse must suffice,
as well for him, as for our amateur.

“Bull, a word with you,” said Jones, abruptly, as
the uproarious ditty was ended.

“Well, out with it, and be d—d to you. If it's
only one, the pain's soon over.”

“Come with me.”

“Why can't you out with it here? D—n my
sixes! There's no use to get up while one's able,
and there's any stuff left. See here.”

“Let it rest! It'll wait till you come back.”

“I don't know that,” retorted the humourist—
“and though it might, these d—d fellows won't—
they swallow like a sandhill after a long drought in

August. I'm almost afraid to leave it. If I go
now, it's like parting with a friend for ever.”

“Pshaw, Bull—what nonsense. There's business,
I tell you.” These words, coupled with a particular
and significant movement of the hands which
escaped Horsey's observation, at once had an effect
upon the person addressed. He rose, grumbling all
the while, and followed his companion, leaving the
field to our actor, who, like long pent up torrents,
glad of the moment of liberation, soon burst with
all his thunders upon the remaining assembly, and
strove to make up for lost time by redoubled efforts.
He was beginning to forget his previous annoyances
in the evident attention of his audience, when Jones
and the refractory Bull reappeared. The latter was
somewhat sullen, but he remained silent for awhile,
contenting himself with refilling his glass, and resuming
his seat as before. He stuck his legs boldly
upon the table, crossed his arms as if in contemplation,
and, not deigning a glance at our actor, fixed
his eyes upon the heavens, tracing Boötes, Orontes,
and the rest, with a face of particular and philosophical
speculation, and, possibly, discoursing in
fancy with that venerable old gentlemen of nursery
authority, the ancient and ever to be remembered,
man in the moon—his dog and his bush. Thus he
sat for some time in dogged silence, while our actor,
who needed but little encouragement to rouse every
echo known to the tragic muse, having already gone
through several passages, proceeded to Macbeth.
The soliloquy in the dagger-scene, being one upon
which every witling labours to expend himself, was
that which tasked all his powers; and whether he did
well or ill, or whether it was because of some
affinities in the passage which came home to the
bosom and the business of Bull, it is certain that
our actor's declamation in this part was honoured
with a greater share of his attention than he had

condescended to bestow previously. This did not
escape the notice of Horsey, and he was beginning
to congratulate himself that the eccentricities of the
genius were about to pass away, leaving his lights
their accustomed brilliance, when the grateful anticipation
was suddenly defeated by the latter's
starting to his feet, and thrusting his mug, well filled
with the generous potation, full in the face of the
actor, exclaiming, while he did so, and cutting off
entirely the closing lines of the part—

“Oh, d—n it, Thompson, take a drink and shut
up. This tragedy stuff is too dry and dull—let's have
no more of it. Here, drink, and let your tongue
have a bit of a holiday.”

The indignant actor could no longer restrain himself.
His hand, which had been extended to grasp
the imaginary dagger, was swept round in the
twinkling of an eye, and the next moment the vessel
was seen flying in the air, liberally bestowing its
contents, in its flight, upon the face and bosom of
the circle, among which the portion of Mr. Bull
was in no manner stinted. This proceeding was
the signal for an uproar, and Bull's hand was already
laid upon the collar of Macbeth, whose blood
was still rising, when the sudden appearance of another
personage upon the scene, produced an instantaneous
change in its circumstances.