"Waal, that's what riles me," another of his own sort asseverated. "I can't see the p'int o' that show."
The "stunt" encountered even more than a dull lack of appreciation and disapproval: in one instance Lloyd, looking about with a manager's keen eyes to discriminate effect, detected ridicule, absolute and hearty—a covert ridicule which was to his mind more disparaging to the value of the turn than bluff open laughter. A rural wight, whose intent interest he had earlier noted, was still in his seat, holding his head down till his chin was sunk in the frayed and dirty lapels of his old grey coat. He wore his hat in the tent, the habit of most of the country contingent, and the broad flapping white wool brim almost hid his face, but his bent shoulders shook with convulsive merriment, and again and again he muttered to himself, "What a fool he hev made of her—what a fool—what a fool!" More than once he drew out a great bandana handkerchief to wipe the moisture from his eyes. It was a genuine demonstration of enjoyment of the fiasco as Lloyd, nettled and troubled, could but perceive, for on each of these occasions of the requisition of the red handkerchief the spectator seemed to glance about anxiously over its folds at the surrounding crowd, as if solicitous that his sentiment should not be observed.
The more experienced townspeople had not more receptivity for the subtler elements of the presentation. As the crowd pressed out of the tent, for the special performance had been given a place to itself, Lloyd overheard the comments of one of the village youths, tinged with the contempt always felt by the urban denizens for the dwellers in the mountains and coves.
"I must apologise, Miss Minnie," he was saying to the young lady whose parasol he carried, "for bringing you in here, for imposing on your patience—I thought from the advertisements that this was really going to be something extra."
"She was right pretty," said the young lady politely, trying to seem not to have been so ill-entertained by the performance.
"Pretty?—perhaps—if she were properly dressed—and had had her hair combed—and had sung something new, with snap and ginger in it, instead of the fag end of a drawling old song, as old as Noah."
More than one of the town ladies of mature years murmured in pettish reprobation over her fan to another, "She was real shabby and untidy, wasn't she?" "Perhaps she is poor?" Lloyd heard this excuse suggested, yet once again.
The reply to it stayed in his mind: "She isn't poor—old Shadrach Pinnott has the best of all good reasons for not being poor, they say."
The echo of the general rural criticism from persons of local station and presumable propriety and refinement, albeit Lloyd felt their animadversions ill-taken and out of keeping with any artistic perceptions, made him unwilling to retain the position of arbiter in the matter.
It seemed to Lloyd that with his trials, many and various as they were, he hardly needed the added discipline of self-reproach and the fear of having inflicted a disparagement upon an innocent and unoffending soul. He had begun to be so doubtful of himself and the value of his own persuasions that he fairly feared to lay the matter before the old mountaineer and his eldest son. But he had discerned a conservative quality in the serious, steady Daniel Pinnott, and he esteemed himself fortunate in finding the two men together. They were at the camping place they had selected near the town, and although the oxen of the team had been turned out to graze, the waggon stood still laden as he had seen it when in the streets. A fire burned briskly on a rocky space sloping to the river-bank, though amongst the ledges the grass was rank and green. Several great trees, oak, elm, beech, and ash, cast broad shadows from their full-foliaged boughs. The sky, all red and gold in the west, was mottled here and there with purple flecks, and across the blue zenith were two long cirrus clouds dazzlingly white with a suggestion of wings, drooping, folded, not in ill accord with the thoughts attendant on the down-dropping of the vermilion sphere of the sun behind the dark, massive western mountains, and the illuminated, almost translucent aspect of the amethystine ranges to the east. The reflection of the white clouds gave the surface of the river a vivid glint here and there among the rocks that fretted its current. Close to the shore it was smooth, and here the bank was low and shelving. Cows, homeward bound from the range of the woodlands, loitered knee deep in the ripples, now bending a horned head to drink of the crystal-clear water, now in the serene bovine content gazing meditatively, motionlessly, at the illusive apotheosis of the eastern mountains, as ethereal, as unearthly of aspect as a dream of the hills of heaven. There was no glimpse of the town from this point; a slight elevation cut off the view as completely as if this exponent of civilisation were miles distant. Except for the serpentine curves of the road the spot was as isolated as any such sylvan nook on their own mountain. Three sticks and a crane supported a pot over the fire and old Mrs. Pinnott, with a crutch stick, a discerning, excited eye, and a long spoon, bent over to stir the steaming contents. As she caught up her skirts to avoid the flames and circled hirpling about to compass this devoir Lloyd was ashamed to entertain a reminder of Macbeth's witches, whom he knew only in their stage aspect. She did not hail him as "thane of Cawdor" as he passed, but her greeting was hardly less flattering. Mrs. Pinnott had been deeply impressed by the splendours of the Street Fair. There was a pulse within her which beat responsive to worldly glories, and high social preferments, and Lloyd's station in her estimation had appreciated in due proportion. She waved the long spoon at him in the fervour of her congratulation.