“Rattle her guts,” said a third. “We ain’t heard the like of a fiddle since we came to this town of preachers.”
Adam looked quietly about him. He knew most of the fellows about in the rude circle for rough English rovers who would love him if he played, or knock him and his belongings playfully into the street if he refused. He was not accustomed to churlishness; moreover, he felt particularly in the mood for playing. The ruddy sunset, the warm breath of the passing day, the very taste of American air, seemed lusty and joyous, despite the rigid Puritanical spirit of the mirth-denying people of the colony. He took up the bow, twanged the strings, tightened two that had become laggard, and jumped into the middle of a rollicking composition that seemed to bubble up out of the body of the violin and tumble off into the crowd in a species of mad delight.
Had the instrument been a spirit of wine, richly dark red as old port, and rendered alive by the frolicking bow, it could not have thrown off more merry snatches of melody’s mirth. It chuckled, it caught its breath, like a fat old monk at his laughing, it broke out in guffaws of hilarity, till not a soul in the audience could keep his feet seemly beneath him.
The sailors danced, boldly, though clumsily. Their faces beamed with innocent drunkenness, for drunk they were, with what seemed like the fumes and taste of this wine of sound. They had been denied it so long that it went to their heads at the first draught.
Across the street, issuing quietly and, he hoped, unobserved, from a door that led into the tavern, a Puritan father now appeared, wiping his mouth as a man has no occasion for doing unless he had recently dipped his upper lip into a mug. He suddenly halted, at the sound of music from over the way. He frowned at the now somewhat dense assemblage of boys and citizens surrounding Adam Rust, and worked up a mask of severity on his face from which it had been temporarily absent. He opened his mouth, as if to speak, and then, realizing that he might not be heard at this distance from them, moved a rod toward his fellow-beings and took a stand in the street.
At this moment an ominous snap resounded above both the playing and its accompaniment of scuffling feet and gruff explosions of enjoyment and hearty appreciation. Instantly Adam ceased playing. He had felt a string writhe beneath his fingers. The man in the roadway grasped at the moment instantly, to raise his voice.
“Begone, disperse, you vagabonds!” he said. “What is the meaning of this ungodly performance? Disperse, I say, you are bedeviled by this shameless disciple of Satan!”
Adam, intent on his violin, which he found had not broken but had merely slipped a string, heard this tirade, naturally, as did all the others. A few boys sneaked immediately about the cluster of men and sped away, as if from some terrible wrath to come.
“Who is yon sufferer for melancholy?” said Adam, looking carelessly at the would-be interrupter. Then suddenly a gleam came into his eye, as he recognized in the man one of the harsh hypocrites who had been among the few zealots who had imprisoned him, years before. “Halberd,” he added, “fetch the gentleman forward. Methinks he fain would dance and make merry among us.”
His opening question had been hailed with snorts of amusement; his proposal ignited all the roguishness in the crowd. Halberd, nothing loth to add his quota to the general fun, strode forward at once, way being made by the admiring throng, and he bowed profoundly before the bridling admonisher in the street. Then without warning, he scampered nimbly to the rear of the man of severity, took him by the collar and the slack of his knickerbockers and hustled him precipitately into the gathering.