“No, I am a Protestant, so is my mother, but I don’t think it right to make game of other people’s religion, and insult them because it differs from ours, do you?”
“You are like John. He says it is very wicked, and that the carnival does more harm than good. He only goes to try and help to keep order, but I like it, it is such a pretty sight,” replied Fairy, eagerly.
In Lewes the preparations began early in the afternoon, when the shops were closed, and all the lower windows in the High-street, through which the procession was to pass, were boarded up—a very necessary precaution, for the reckless flinging of lighted torches, squibs, and crackers would otherwise have broken the windows, and perhaps set fire to the houses.
In the Market-place arrangements were made for the making of an enormous bonfire, in which the effigies of Guy Faux, the Pope, and any public person, whether of local or of wider fame, who happened just then to be in bad odour with the Lewes people, were to be burnt at midnight—the closing scene in the drama.
A little after seven o’clock the Leslies’ carriage drove up to the house in which they had hired the drawing-room balcony to view the proceedings. At present all that was to be seen were young men and boys with lighted torches in their hands, and most of them in fancy dress, rushing wildly about the streets, shouting and singing and throwing squibs and crackers in all directions.
Mr. Leslie hurried his party into the house as quickly as possible, and then sent the carriage home, for later on all traffic would be stopped, and the girls had come prepared to walk back.
On reaching the drawing-room they found Mr. de Courcy and Rex had just arrived; a large fire was blazing on the hearth, but there were no other lights in the room, interior darkness being the rule at the Lewes carnival, in order that the outside festivities may be all the more brilliant.
Mr. Leslie introduced Mr. de Courcy to his wife and daughters, and then to Fairy, who was looking so bewitchingly pretty with her red Indian shawl twisted round her head in some wonderful way which exactly suited her, that it was evident Mr. de Courcy was struck by her beauty, the flickering light of the fire and the shawl which hid her lovely golden hair, and partly veiled her slight figure, only piquing his curiosity. He began to talk to her at once in his broken English, and her charming manners fascinated him almost as much as they did his son, and when he found she spoke French fluently, and with the prettiest accent possible, Fairy’s triumph was complete. Mr. de Courcy, always a great admirer of girls, was quite captivated, and Rex whispered to Fairy she had succeeded already. The procession was to leave the Market-place at eight, and go round the town, but even now it was a weird scene, the masqueraders passing up and down the streets in their costumes, some of them excellently got up, others so grotesquely as to be quite as amusing as the elaborate fancy dresses prepared by costumiers, the torches carried by them throwing a weird, uncertain light on their wild, uncertain antics. From time to time a passage of arms occurred between some passing Cavaliers and Roundheads, but at present all was harmless fun, everyone being in a good temper at this early stage of the proceedings.
Fairy and Rex managed to get a corner of the balcony to themselves, from which she tried to explain the various costumes, oftener, as Rex told her, discovering the original people than the characters they were intended to represent. These two alone were not impatient for the procession to pass, being so much occupied with themselves as to pay but little attention to what was going on in the street. Occasionally a grand excitement was caused by the rolling past of a lighted tar-barrel, which illuminated the whole street, its attendant youths, many of whom were dressed like demons, looking in their black masks and asses’ ears more like fiends than men as they lashed their blazing barrels with their torches, sending the sparks far and wide.
“This is the Bournemer barrel, and that is Charlie with an axe, dressed as an executioner. I made his black mask for him. Look, Rex,” cried Fairy, as another and the last of the barrels rolled into the Market-place, to return presently with the procession.