The girls jumped up and listened, smiles chased the tears from their eyes, the young men were coming out from supper, and joy of joys, they heard the tones of a violin from the back stoop.
You should have seen that group of mountain girls, struck by the music, as each threw herself into some posture of natural grace and listened.
"It is, it is a fiddle—where did it come from? a fiddle, a fiddle, how delightful!" and they broke into an impromptu dance, graceful as it was wild.
CHAPTER XLII
THE STRANGE MINSTREL.
Time weaves the web of fate around us,
In iron wool and threads of gold,
The present, and the past that bound us,
Still some new mystery unfold.
There was, at the time of our story, a public house, or tavern, about five minutes walk up the street from uncle Nathan's house. To this tavern the young men betook themselves, while the girls were partaking of aunt Hannah's hospitality; two or three of the upper rooms were full of commotion created by the change which each deemed necessary to his apparel, before he appeared in dancing trim before the ladies. Flashy vests were taken from overcoat pockets. The dickies, snugly curled under the lining of a fur cap or narrow-brimmed hat, came forth to be arranged under neck-ties of gay hues and flowing dimensions.
Here and there, one more exquisite than his neighbor, exchanged his mixed socks and cowhide boots for white yarn stockings and calf-skin pumps; but this was a mark of gentility that few ventured on, and that was assumed with a stealthy sort of an air in a dark corner, as if the owners of so much refinement were not quite certain of the way in which the democratic majority might receive it.
Never were two small mirrors brought into more general requisition than those hanging upon the walls of the two chambers, appropriated to uncle Nat's guests. It was like a panorama of human faces passing over them. First a collar all awry was set right with a jerk; then the plaits of a false bosom were smoothed down; next the tie of a flowing silk cravat was settled; while, in other parts of the room, there was a stealthy display of private rolls of pomatum, and a desperate brushing of hair, sometimes refractory to anything but the fingers.
Then followed a deal of bustle and confusion, half a dozen young fellows crowding at once to the mirror in hot haste to catch a last glimpse. Red bandana handkerchiefs fluttered out of a dozen pockets and back again, mysteriously leaving a corner visible. Then there was a general movement toward the door, and the crowd descended, each youth treading lighter by far than when he went up, and moving with the air of a man expected to change his manners somewhat with his garments.