And there was surely no better audience than they. They had the true theatric instinct—the right theatre spirit. They were in their seats as soon as the opened doors would let them enter. The tuning of the fiddles was exquisite music to their ears—an essential part of the drama. Every moment was precious to them. They would as lief have missed the rising of the great curtain, sweeping upwards with ecstatic jerk into the flies, as have gone out before the last act, or worn their hats to spoil the delight of others. For them the Theatre held something of a sacred pleasure—the dear pleasaunce of populous cities.
Ah, the golden age! the days of the wide unquestioning delight in all things that is the eternal theatre of the childhood of the world—for, thank God, Fancy fills the very gutters of the street-children with faery. There is a world of delight enwrapped about a rag doll—when the world is young.
They were glad to be alive.
And as they took their pleasures, so they took their serious moods, taking the best from all that came. They would dawdle into the churches, leaving early when the parson was dry—Protestant and Papist, High and Low. Particularly the Roman Catholic, drawn by the æsthetic beauty of the Service, and charmed by its exquisite symbolism—for they were children when all is said, questioning nothing that was established, accepting everything, believing in belief. And the lank awkward Netherby Gomme perhaps the simplest-hearted child of the three.
Alas! that there should loom ever at the end of all things the threat of change! And that the young feet, with restless skip, should go so eagerly to meet it!
The three went down to Burford Bridge one day—there having been much careful garnering of sixpences to that end.
They burst into the old inn—to be rebuffed.
The jolly old landlady was gone—their friend the ostler wholly vanished—no trace of him.
There was hint of sellings-up, and broken fortunes, and sad flitting from the old home.
Strange faces smiled these things down upon them indifferently, indulgently.