It was necessary to assure Mrs. Joshua, holding on to the stout blue arm and shivering deliciously, that the whole thing was make-believe. That the Ruffian—unloading pocket after pocket of stolen jewelry and bags of guineas—bragging of his enormities, and quaffing draught after draught from an immense gilt goblet painted red inside—was a respectable gentleman “off.” That he had not just drunk a stranger’s blood with his thirsty dagger in mistake for the beauteous Ethelinda’s; and that Innocence and Virtue as personified by that fair creature—whose scorn had driven the Ruffian to raving madness—though doomed to suffer hideous things in the course of the evening (unless the playbill deceived people who had paid their money for places) would certainly triumph in the long-run.
How enchanting Ethelinda was, when the Castle Hall, having hurried on from both sides and fallen down in the middle—and a brace of retainers in black wigs having brought on a table and two chairs—she appeared in pale blue satin, spangles, curls, and feathers, leading the Baron’s children—Ethelinda being the Baron’s lady, it was even more possible to cry out upon the Ruffian—and telling the faithful Catherine and her dearest prattlers all about her latest escape from Giraldi’s unhallowed hands.
The Baron was sure that in spite of the valor of a husband’s arm, the Ruffian would have another shy at running off with the lady; and so he did, in the very next scene, dressing up in old Margaretta’s cloak and hiding in her cottage; and terrifying Ethelinda into vowing never to quit her Baron’s castle again, even though myriad summers decked the land with flowers and feathered songsters upon every tree tempted the ear with joyous songs of love—until the Ruffian should have yielded up his ghost upon the gallows.
Depend upon it, our forerunners of the forties were not half so ignorant and unsophisticated in matters dealing with Dramatic Art as we suppose them to have been. They knew, as well as we do, that Life, as represented on the stage in that era, was impossible, unreal, and absurd.... But just because it was so unlike Life they loved it. They preferred Action to Art—and got it.... They reveled in impossible, absurd sentiment, and high-flown hyperboles. Impromptu love-matches, extravagant, gaudy crimes, and greased-lightning repentances gave them the purest joy. When you went to the theater you left Reality behind you. You expected the combined smells of paint, glue, and varnish to be wafted over the footlights. The last thing you wanted was the odor of new-mown hay.
The Gothic Chamber in the Baronial Castle was another thrill—the evening was a succession of them—with more of the tremolo passages from the fiddles in the Orchestra, heralding the advent of the Mad Lady—whose daughter—you have of course forgotten—had been immolated by the Ruffian in mistake for Ethelinda. To see the poor thing trailing about looking ghastly in white draperies, staring glassily at nothing in particular, and blowing lamps out with deep sighs, drew pitying tears from Mrs. Joshua, and even caused Josh to sniff and gulp and surreptitiously wipe his eyes. Both were certain she would be seen more of presently; and so she was—coming on in the very nick of time—just as the Ruffian, armed with a drawn sword, had burst from behind the tapestry in Ethelinda’s bedchamber—to terrify him into rushing off, just in time to meet the Baron, with his drawn sword, in the Gothic Gallery.
Clish—clash! went the broadswords in the dark—stage darkness at that era being but a shade or two less obscure than a November afternoon.... Chains, repentance, vengeance for the Ruffian, union, joy, felicity for the Baron and Ethelinda. And the Drop came down upon a general picture, to rise again and sink once more, and rise—ere the tidy semicircle of legs of both sexes had quite disappeared from view—amidst round upon round of clapping; piercing whistles—-the pounding of approving sticks, enthusiastic umbrellas, and urgent boot-heels, and reiterated shouts of “Bravo!” and “’Core!”
The interlude of “The Lancers” followed, and then the great queen curtain fell amidst the strains of “God save the Queen,” and then the sensations of the evening were over. All save that last one at the very end.
It happened when the packed gallery-audience, howling like Siberian wolves from sheer high spirits and good temper—swept down the long steep flight of stone stairs and out into a muddy side-street, and filling this mean alley from wall to wall, crushed out at the upper end of it, to encounter the turbid flood of humanity roaring from the gullet of the Pit Entrance that gaped just beyond the gilded portals by which the gentlefolks who came in carriages and wore Evening Dress, and didn’t seem to enjoy themselves half as much as folks who sat in cheaper places—were admitted to the Grand Tier.
There was a good deal of joking, laughter, squeezing, and jostling, and some pocket-picking beyond a doubt.... The shiny chimney-pot hats, smug whiskered faces, and bright brass collar-numbers of policemen bobbed up and down amongst the crowd—there were several ugly rushes, accompanied by oaths and screaming; and Josh and Nelly, carried off their feet by one of these, were swept up some steps leading from the gilt-pillared portico previously referred to, as some well-dressed Circle and Box people were coming down them, headed by a tall and handsome young gentleman, who, with a gallant air of being in charge of something particularly precious and breakable, was bending down to whisper to the young lady who leaned upon his arm....