There was no time to debate the matter; no time to make further changes; everybody was waiting; Miss Kennedy had to yield.
The first act was on this fashion. An old man in the blouse of a Normandy peasant sat smoking his pipe. Enter to him his daughter, a lovely peasant girl; Wych Hazel to wit. The father spoke in French; the daughter mingled French and English in her talk very prettily. There was some dumb show of serving him; and then the old man got up to go out, charging his daughter in the severest manner to admit no company in his absence. Scarcely is he gone, when enter on the other side a smart young man in the same peasant dress. Words here were not audible. In dumb show the young man made protestations of devotion, begged for his mistress's hand and kissed it with great fervour; and appeared to be carrying on a lively suit to the damsel. Now nothing could have been prettier than the picture and the pantomime. Stuart kept his face away from the audience; Wych Hazel was revealed, and in the coy, blushing maidenly dignity and confusion which suited the character and occasion, was a tableau worth looking at. Well looked at, and in deep silence of the company; till suddenly the growling old French father is heard coming back again. The peasant starts to his feet, the girl sits down in terror.
'What shall I do?' he cries, and she echoes,—'What shall he do? What shall he do?'
Then came confused answers from the spectators:—'Bolt, old fellow!'—'Escape!'—'Fly!'—'Run!'—and the last word being taken up and re-echoed, 'Run! run!'—he did run; ran out and then ran in and across the stage again; finally out of sight; and drop the curtain. The burst of applause was tremendous.
'You'll have to go on, you know, if that keeps up,' said
Stuart behind the scenes; 'and I don't wonder. Here, Mr.
Brandevin, go in and stop them!'
The next scene was also very well done. The old French gentleman was alone, and had it all to perform by himself. He began with calling his daughter, in various discordant keys, and with such a variety of impatient and exasperated intonation, that the whole room was full of laughter. His daughter not appearing nor answering, he next instituted a make-believe search for her, feigning to go into the kitchen, the buttery, her bedroom. Not finding her, and making a great deal of amusement for the spectators by the way, he at last comes back and asks in a deploring tone, 'Where is she?'
Cries of 'Off!'—'Gone!'—'Sloped!'—'Away!' were such a medley that nobody professed to be able yet to make out the word. The curtain fell again.
'You are very stupid,' said Mme. Lasalle. 'It is as plain as possible.'
'It will be, when we see the rest,' said somebody. 'No, I don't think it is, either.'
For as he spoke, the curtain rose upon an old clergyman, busy with his books at a table with a lamp. He had a wig, and looked very venerable indeed. Presently to him comes, after a knock, his servant woman.