“Oh yes, decidedly.”
“We understand each other, then, and had better agree to meet here, prepared to start, at a quarter to six,” observed Norman.
A general assent was given, and the conspirators separated. Norman glanced at his victim; there was a determined look in the boy’s face, which gave assurance that he would go through with the task he had undertaken. Resolution was one of the few qualities Norman reverenced, and for the moment he repented the evil into which he was leading the child; but the two strongest passions of his nature, ambition and revenge, were linked with his scheme for that evening, and he could not relinquish it.
“Courage, little one,” he said, laying his hand on Hugh’s curly pate; “if you and I live, and, as something here”—and he touched his forehead as he spoke—“tells me will be the case, I achieve greatness, I will not forget this evening. Silence and courage!”
CHAPTER VIII.—NORMAN’S REVENGE.
When the devil suggests some pleasant but wrong scheme to frail humanity, his dupes generally find him a most amiable and efficient patron at the beginning of the enterprise, however he may leave them in the lurch when the fatal catastrophe approaches. To give that much-abused personage his due, on the occasion to which we are about to allude, he adhered to his word like the gentleman Shakspere has declared him to be, for, as at seven o’clock the very small curtain of the very “minor” theatre at Tickletown drew up, and the limited orchestra, with a hoarse, eccentric, and ad libitum bass, left off playing, four distinguished-looking young gentlemen entered the stage-box, and arranged the drapery in such manner that, themselves unseen, they might alike be able to witness the performance and criticise the house, which, in virtue of its being the fascinating-Courtenay Trevanion’s (alias Jack Sprattly’s) benefit, was crowded by all the rank and fashion of Tickletown.
Any person who had very closely observed this same box, might have perceived peeping from under the corner of the red curtain nearest the stage, a little, eager, restless, excited face, watching with the deepest and most engrossing interest every trifle that occurred, as though it presented some great and striking novelty. Had the looker-on been of a speculative turn of mind, he might have wondered why this little, bright face, which ought naturally to have expressed nothing but childish delight and surprise, should have had this expression marred by an anxious, scared look, which occasionally passed across the boy’s intelligent features. To the reader, however, this evidence that Hugh Colville was feeling slightly ill-at-ease, even in the midst of his enjoyment, need present no mystery. But as the play proceeded, and Polly made her appearance, looking like a single angel, and singing like a whole covey of them, interest and delight overpowered conscience; and when Jack. Sprattly came on in jet black boots and moustachios, and bright red coat and cheeks, and swaggering about the stage as Macheath, and looking so charmingly impudent, sang in a rich rollicking tenor, “How happy could I be with either,” toll-derolling at the end with a devil-may-care joviality, which produced him three several encores, Hugh Colville’s delight waxed to such a pitch that he mentally decided, if the Doctor had suddenly appeared, armed with his stoutest cane, and then and there varied the performance by flogging him before the faces of the assembled audience, the exquisite pleasure he enjoyed would have been cheaply purchased at even that frightful cost. Then followed a pantomime! Hugh’s first pantomime!
Juvenile reader whose first pantomime is yet to come, mark my words, the words of one who speaks from experience! You look forward eagerly, no doubt, to the wonderful time when you shall be a grown-up man, and do as you please, which you firmly believe will involve always sitting up till three o’clock in the morning; riding a prancing horse all day; eating unlimited plum-pudding without uncomfortable consequences; and having that very pretty little girl next door, with whom you danced—and, in your small, unassuming way, flirted also—at the children’s ball last Christmas, grown up into a beautiful wife for you, who will always do exactly what you wish with her, and never go near Howell and James’s at any price. You have heard poets and other licensed story-tellers rave about there being