Portrait of a Man with Red Hair: A Romantic Macabre

by Hugh Walpole

V

And now the procession was arranged. Harkness looking back could see how it stretched, a winding serpent black in the shadows of the leaping bonfire, through the square. They were off again. The drum had started. Down the hill they went, all packed together, all swinging with the tune. A kind of divine frenzy united them all. Young and old, men and women, married and single, good and evil, vicious and virtuous, all were together bound in one chain. Harkness was with them. For the first time in all his life restraint was flung aside. He did not smell the beer nor did the sweat of the perspiring bodies offend his sensitive nostrils, nor the dung from the fields, nor the fishy odours of the sea. With Gideon on one side and a young man's girl on the other, he swung through the town.

Details for a time eluded him. He was singing the song at the top of his voice, but what words he was singing he could not have told you; he was dancing to the measure, but for the life of him he could not have afterwards repeated the rhythm.

They swung down into the heart of the town. The doors of all the houses were crowded with the very aged and the very young who stood laughing and crying out, pointing to their friends and acquaintances, laughing at this and cheering at that.

And always more were joining in, pushing their way, dancing the more energetically because they had missed the first five minutes. Now they were down on the fish-market all sprinkled with silver under the little moon and the cloth of stars. Here the wind from the sea came to meet them, and through the music and the singing and the laughter and the press-press of the dancing crowd could be heard the faint breath of the tide on the shore "seep-seep-sough-sough," wistful and powerful, remaining for ever when they all were gone. The sheds of the fish-market were gaunt and dark and deserted. For one moment all the naked place was filled with colour and movement. Then up the hill they all pressed.

It was difficult up the hill. There were breaths and pants and "Eh, sirs," and "Oh, the poor worm," and "But my heart's beating," and "I cannot! I cannot!" One woman fell, was picked up and planted by the side of the road, a young man staying with melancholy kindness beside her. The rest passed on.

Soon they were at the top of the hill before they turned to the left again back into the town. And this was Harkness's greatest moment. For an instant the dance paused, and just then it happened that Harkness was at the highest point of the climb.

Catching his breath, his hand to his heart, for he was out of training, and the going had been hard, he looked about him. Below him to the right and to the left and to the farthest horizon the sea, a grey silk shadow, hung, so soft, so gentle, that the stars that crackled above it seemed to be taunting it with its lethargy. On the other side of the hill was all the clustered town, and before him and behind him the dark multitudes of human beings. Pressed close to Gideon, who was drinking something out of a bottle, he was unconscious of any personality—only that time had found for him, it seemed, a solution to the whole problem of life. The sea-wind fanning his temples, the salt snap of the sea, the pounding of his own heart in union with that other heart of his companion who was with him—all these things together made of him who had been always afraid and timorous and edged with caution, a triumphant soul.

And it was good that it was so because of all that he would be called upon to do that night.

Gideon put his arm around him, pressing him close to him, and pushed the bottle up to his lips. "Drink, brother," he said. "Drink, then, my dear." And Harkness drank.

Now they were starting down the hill into the town once more, and the dance reached the height of its madness.

He threw his fork the nearest ditch
And caught the maiden tightly, which
Was what she wanted him to do—
And so the same would all of you
Tra-la-la-la-Tra-la.

They screamed, they shrieked, they tumbled on to one another, they held on where they could, they swung from side to side. The red beadle himself caught the frenzy, flinging his fat body now here, now there. The very houses and the cobbles of the streets seemed to swing and sway as the lights flashed and flared. All the bells of the town were pealing. In the market-place they were setting off the fireworks, and the rockets, green and red and gold, streaked the purple sky and fought for rivalry with the stars. All the sky now was scattered with sparks of gold. From the highest heaven to the lowest of man's ditches the world crackled and split and sang.

Now was the moment when all enemies were truly forgotten, when love was declared without fear, when lips sought lips and hands clasped hands, and heaven opened and all the human souls marched in.

Tra-la-la-la-Tra-la
Tra-la-la-la-Tra-la.

Back into the market-place they all tumbled, then, standing in a serried mass as the beadle and his followers mounted the Town Hall steps, they shouted:

"All together: One—two—three.
One—Two—Three.
One. Two. Three.
HURRAY! HURRAY! HURRAY!"

The dance of all the hearts was, for one more year, at an end.