The crowd passes on, with thundering drums and defiant shouts; and our party, from Apple Orchard, having affixed their horses to the wall, near at hand, gaze on the masquerade from Mr. Rushton's office.
We have given but a few words to the strange pageant which swept on through the main street of the old border town; and this because any accurate description is almost wholly impossible. Let the reader endeavor to imagine Pandemonium broke loose, with all its burly inmates, and thundering voices, and outré forms, and, perhaps, the general idea in his mind may convey to him some impression of the rout which swept by with its shouts and mad defiances.
Some were clad in coat and pantaloons only; others had forgotten the coat, and exposed brawny and hirsute torsos to the October sun, and swelling muscles worthy of Athletes.
Others, again, were almost sans-culottes, only a remnant being left, which made the deficiency more tantalizingly painful to the eye.
Let the reader, then, imagine this spectacle of torn garments, tattered hats, and brandished clubs—not forgetting the tatterdemalion negro children, who ran after the crowd in the last state of dilapidation, and he will have some slight idea of the masquerade, over which rode, in supreme majesty, the trunk-nosed Mr. O'Brallaghan.
We need not repeat the observations of the ladies; or detail their exclamations, fears, and general behavior. Like all members of the fair sex, they made a virtue of necessity, and assumed the most winning expressions of timidity and reliance on their cavaliers; and even Miss Lavinia reposed upon a settee, and exclaimed that it was dreadful—very dreadful and terrifying.
Thereat, Mr. Roundjacket rose into the hero, and alluded to the crowd with dignified amusement; and when Miss Lavinia said, in a low voice, that other lives were precious to her besides her own—evidently referring to Mr. Roundjacket—that gentleman brandished his ruler, and declared that life was far less valuable than her smiles.
In another part of the room Ralph and Fanny laughed and jested—opposite them. Mr. Rushton indignantly shook his fist in the direction of the crowd, and vituperated the Hibernian nation, in a manner shocking to hear.
Verty was leaning on the mantel-piece, as quietly as if there was nothing to attract his attention. He had pushed Cloud through the mass with the unimpressed carriage of the Indian hunter; and his dreamy eyes were far away—he listened to other sounds than shouts, perhaps to a maiden singing.
The little singer—we refer to Miss Redbud—had been much terrified by the crowd, and felt weak, owing to the recent sickness. She looked round for a seat, and saw none.