Vesty of the Basins Part 25

I lifted my hat with a nameless reverence too deep for words, and left him, still smiling upward.

XIV

"TAR-A-TA!" OF THE TRUMPET

Fluke played, with the dense black hair tossing above his handsome eyes, but Gurdon with a calm brow, though he too loved the music and dancing.

"Go and have a turn with Vesty yourself," said Fluke; "we'll keep up fiddling, change about, with the organ."

For Notely, studying every heart-throb of the Basins, had had a little parlor organ brought in for the night and put up in place of his piano; at it sat Mrs. Judah Kobbe, cousin and guest of the Pharo Kobbes, playing with such lively spirit and abandon that the very lamps danced upon the organ-brackets in untripping time with the feet of the dancers on the floor.

I had already detected in the tone of society toward Mr. and Mrs. Judah Kobbe that they were awesome cosmopolites from some source. I now learned that they were from a crowded mart called Machias. Captain Pharo also told me mysteriously, in the pauses of his pipe, "'t they was l'arneder 'n any fish 't swims;" so I gazed at them with wonder from a distance, but did not much dream that it would be for me to speak with them.

All along the edges of the floor were strewn children and babies, comfortably wrapped and laid to sleep; the habit of the Basins, who had no servants at home wherewith to leave them.

Notely Garrison had led the dance with Vesty; now she sat rocking her baby, near Gurdon, who turned to them with a smile and swept a softer strain now and then, as when he played them to sleep at home.

"Introduce me to the 'mezzo-tint' study yonder, the mediaeval picture over there, rocking her infant, back of the fiddlers."

Notely slightly turned from his fellow-reveller, flus.h.i.+ng.

"There are pretty girls enough here for you to dance with, Sid; she would not like it. They are such simple people they would not understand. She is married, you see."

"You danced with her."

"Oh, I am an old friend."

"Tar-a-ta! tar-a-ta!" went Captain Judah's trumpet, and I looked up to see what new event its blast denoted. For, Captain Judah was a stage driver, and having brought his horn along as a signal compliment to the occasion, he was now conducting the first stages of the ball with those loud flourishes and elegant social convenances which only those sophisticated by extreme culture are supposed to understand.

"Tar-a-ta! tar-a-ta!"

I saw that Vesty and Gurdon had risen to dance together. Vesty wrapped and laid her sleeping baby among the others, and Gurdon stepped out to perform first that solitary jig or shuffle which is demanded of every householder among the Basins, before he can lead his partner to the dance.

Notely and the young man he had called "Sid" watched him shaking his long legs, his heavy, n.o.ble face perfectly sincere and unembarra.s.sed; for was it not the ancient, honorable custom of the Basins?

"Stolid cart-horse, by Jove!" sneered Sid, casting a glowing glance at Vesty, "for such a Venus!"

Notely did not like the tone. "There 's some stolid granite in my quarry," he snarled softly; "but it 's everlasting good granite, all the same, Sid."

"You've been knocked over, I see," said the irrepressible Sid, smiling intelligently at him. "Well, I'm off for the jig."

"Tar-a-ta! tar-a-ta!"

The trumpet punctually announced the appearance of so much colorless linen and broadcloth on the floor; but the Basins, who were fine, gazed at his severe costume with tender pity.

"Sid," appreciating this, dared not laugh: he endeavored to redeem this lack of beauty by a display of his white bediamonded hand on his watch-guard, as he entreated a partner for the dance, but he was not held for much; that was evident.

Now and then in the reel he touched Vesty's hand, or swung with her, and he stared at her consistently and immoderately throughout; but always for him the holy lids were low over her eyes.

My heart exulted something like the next blast of the trumpet; I turned to look. Vesty was safe.

"Tar-a-ta! tar-a-ta!"

But Captain Pharo needed no stirring strain to his consciousness as he walked, with scarcely perceptible limp, to the middle of the floor.

That flowered jacket, the arnica bloom glowing like sunrise on the back! Those new trousers, of "middling" sacks, "Brand No. 1" proudly distinct upon the right leg!

"Give me sea-room here, give me sea-room," said the hero; "and jest wait till I git my spavins warmed up a little!"

A wide, clear swath was cut from the billows that surrounded Captain Pharo.

"Now then," said he, pulling his pipe from his pocket, and drawing a match in the usual informal way; "Poo! poo! hohum!--

[Ill.u.s.tration: Music fragment: "'My days are as the gra.s.s, Or as--']

strike up somethin' lively over there, Gurd. Give us 'The Wracker's Darter,' by clam!"

Gurdon, who had returned to relieve Fluke at the violin, good-naturedly struck up "The Wrecker's Daughter."

"Can't ye put a little sperrit into 'er, Gurd? Is this 'ere a fun'al?

That 's it! Now then--'Touch and go is a good pilot.'"

With these words, Captain Pharo sprang with ox-like levity from the floor, and amid the giddy swiftness of the music I was occasionally conscious of hearing his mailed heels flow together with a clash that made the rafters ring. He descended at last ominously, but when the reverberations died away I looked, and saw that he was whole.

Notely came over and shook hands with him, laid an arm proudly on his proud shoulder, and led him away to the "mess" room, where his stewards were busy.

"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" cried a voice from the fondest of the Artichokes, seizing him with an exultant pride which he affected to hide under derogatory language; "was that you I seen in there jest now, stompin' the frescoes off'n the ceilin'?"

"Altogether most entertaining jig that has been danced this evening,"

said one of Notely's broadcloth guests, very superciliously.

"Oh, I hain't danced none yit," said Captain Pharo, too confident to show contempt; "only warmin' my spavins;" and he heartlessly turned the complete flower in view for the further annihilation of the gentleman in black.

"Ef I c'd 'a' got on my scuffs," said Captain Leezur, his sun-visage showing against the crimson back of an easy-chair, "I don't know but what I sh'd been 'most tempted ter jine the darnce myself. But no; I couldn't pervail with 'em--so long sence I've wrarstled with 'em--so I come right 'long in my felts."

"No, ye can't dance 'The Wracker's Darter,' that is, not as she orter be danced, in felts," said Captain Pharo; "she 's a tune 't wants the emphasis brought right down onto her; felts won't do it, nor scuffs neither."

"That off foot o' mine kind o' b'longs to the church, anyway," said Captain Leezur sweetly; "has for years; don't pain me much as I knows on, but she ain't seound: if t'other one starts off kind o' skittish she 's sartin to hold back----"

"Ye'd orter be thankful 't ye only has to contend with natch'al diserbilities," interposed Captain Pharo, "'n' don't have any o' these d--d ructions played on ye."

"Oh, by the way, what are 'ructions'?" inquired the guest of supercilious temperament.

"Le' me see," said Captain Pharo; "you're the one 't Note said was from Was.h.i.+n'ton, ain't ye? Was.h.i.+n'ton, D.C.?"

"Certainly."