The Revellers

He was a boy aglow with dim but fervent ideals; she, a girl who had evidently been allowed to grow up almost wild in the midst of fashionable life and flippant servants, all exigencies being fulfilled when she spoke nicely and cleverly and wore her clothes with the requisite chic. The two were as opposed in essentials as an honest English apple grown in a wholesome garden and a rare orchid, the product of some poisonous equatorial swamp.

He tried to interest her in the sights and sounds of country life. She met him more than halfway by putting embarrassing questions as to the habits of animals. More than once he told her plainly that there were some things little girls ought not to know, whereat she laughed scornfully, but switched the conversation to a topic on which she could vex him, as was nearly always the case in her references to Elsie Herbert or John Bolland’s Bible teaching.

Yet he was restless and irritable because he did not see her on the Sunday. Mrs. Saumarez, it is true, sped swiftly through the village about three o’clock, and again at half-past seven. On each occasion the particular chapel affected by the Bollands was resounding with a loud-voiced hymn or echoing the vibrant tones of a preacher powerful beyond question in the matter of lungs and dogmatism. The whir of the Mercedes shut off these sounds; but Martin heard the passing of the car and knew that Angèle was in it.

It was a novel experience for the Misses Walker to find that their lodgers recognized no difference between Sunday and the rest of the week. Mrs. Saumarez dined at 6:30 P.M., a concession of an hour and a half to rural habits, but she scouted the suggestion that a cold meal should be served to enable the “girls” to go to church. The old ladies dared not quarrel with one who paid so well. They remained at home and cooked and served the dinner.

As Françoise, to a large extent, waited on her mistress, this development might not have been noticed had not Angèle’s quick eyes seen Miss Emmy Walker carrying a chicken and a dish of French beans to a small table in the hall.

She told her mother, and Mrs. Saumarez was annoyed. She had informed Miss Martha that if the servants required a “night out,” the addition of another domestic to the household at her expense would give them a good deal more liberty, but this ridiculous “Sunday-evening” notion must stop forthwith.

“It gets on my nerves, this British Sabbath,” she exclaimed peevishly. “In London I entertain largely on a Sunday and have never had any trouble. Do you mean to say I cannot invite guests to dinner on Sunday merely to humor a cook or a housemaid? Absurd!”

Miss Martha promised reform.

“Let her have her way,” she said to Miss Emmy. “Another servant will have nothing to do, and all the girls will grow lazy; but we must keep Mrs. Saumarez as long as we can. Oh, if she would only remain a year, we’d be out of debt, with the house practically recarpeted throughout!”

Unfortunately, Mrs. Saumarez’s nerves were upset. She was snappy all the evening. Françoise tried many expedients to soothe her mistress’s ruffled feelings. She brought a bundle of illustrated papers, a parcel of books, the scores of a couple of operas, even a gorgeous assortment of patterns of the new autumn dress fabrics, but each and all failed to attract. For some reason the preternaturally acute Angèle avoided her mother. She seemed to be afraid of her when in this mood. The Misses Walker, seeing the anxiety of the maid and the unwonted retreat of the child to bed at an early hour, were miserable at the thought that such a trivial matter should have given their wealthy tenant cause for dire offense.

So Sunday passed irksomely, and everyone was glad when the next morning dawned in bright cheerfulness.

From an early hour there was evidence in plenty that the Elmsdale Feast would be an unqualified success, though shorn of many of its ancient glories.

Time was when the village used to indulge in a week’s saturnalia, but the march of progress had affected rural Yorkshire even so long ago as 1906. The younger people could visit Leeds, York, Scarborough, or Whitby by Saturday afternoon “trips” – special excursion trains run at cheap rates – while “week-ends” in London were not unknown luxuries, and these frequent opportunities for change of scene and recreation had lessened the scope of the annual revels. Still, the trading instinct kept alive the commercial side of the Feast; the splendid hospitality of the north country asserted itself; church and chapels seized the chance of reaching enlarged congregations, and a number of itinerant showmen regarded Elmsdale as a fixture in the yearly round.

So, on the Monday, every neighboring village and moorland hamlet poured in its quota. The people came on foot from the railway station, distant nearly two miles, on horseback, in every sort of conveyance. The roads were alive with cattle, sheep, and pigs. The programme mapped out bore a general resemblance on each of the four days. The morning was devoted to business, the afternoon and evening to religion or pleasure.

The proceedings opened with a horse fair. An agent of the German Government snapped up every Cleveland bay offered for sale. George Pickering, in sporting garb, and smoking a big cigar, was an early arrival. He bid vainly for a couple of mares which he needed to complete his stud. Germany wanted them more urgently.

A splendid mare, the property of John Bolland, was put up for auction. The auctioneer read her pedigree, and proved its authenticity by reference to the Stud Book.

“Is she in foal?” asked Pickering, and a laugh went around. Bolland scowled blackly. If a look could have slain the younger man he would assuredly have fallen dead.

The bidding commenced at £40 and rose rapidly to £60.

Then Pickering lost his temper. The agent for Germany was too pertinacious.

“Seventy,” he shouted, though the bids hitherto had mounted by single sovereigns.

“Seventy-one,” said the agent.

“Eighty!” roared Pickering.

“Eighty-one!” nodded the agent.

“The reserve is off,” interposed the auctioneer, and again the surrounding farmers guffawed, as the mare had already gone to twenty pounds beyond her value.

Pickering swallowed his rage with an effort. He turned to Bolland.

“That’s an offset for my hard words the other day,” he said.

But the farmer thrust aside the proffered olive branch.

“Once a fule, always a fule,” he growled. Pickering, though anything but a fool in business, took the ungracious remark pleasantly enough.

“He ought to sing a rare hymn this afternoon,” he cried. “I’ve put a score of extra sovereigns in his pocket, and he doesn’t even say ‘Thank you.’ Well, it’s the way of the world. Who’s dry?”

This invitation caused an adjournment to the “Black Lion.” The auctioneer knew his clients.

Pickering’s allusion to the hymn was not made without knowledge. At three o’clock, on a part of the green farthest removed from the thronged stalls and the blare of a steam-driven organ, Bolland and a few other earnest spirits surrounded the stentorian preacher and held an open-air service. They selected tunes which everybody knew and, as a result, soon attracted a crowd of older people, some of whom brought their children. Martin, of course, was in the gathering.

Meanwhile, along the line of booths, a couple of leather-lunged men were singing old-time ballads, dealing for the most part with sporting incidents. They soon became the centers of two packed audiences, mainly young men and boys, but containing more than a sprinkling of girls. The ditties were couched in “broad Yorkshire” – sometimes too broad for modern taste. Whenever a particularly crude stanza was bawled forth a chuckle would run through the audience, and coppers in plenty were forthcoming for printed copies of the song, which, however, usually fell short of the blunt phraseology of the original. The raucous ballad singers took risks feared by the printer.

Mrs. Saumarez, leading Angèle by the hand, thought she would like to hear one of these rustic melodies, and halted. Instantly the vendor changed his cue. The lady might be the wife of a magistrate. Once he got fourteen days as a rogue and a vagabond at the instance of just such another interested spectator, who put the police in action.

Quickly surfeited by the only half-understood humor of a song describing the sale of a dead horse, she wandered on, and soon came across the preacher and his lay helpers.

To her surprise she saw John Bolland standing bareheaded in the front rank, and with him Martin. She had never pictured the keen-eyed, crusty old farmer in this guise. It amused her. The minister began to offer up a prayer. The men hid their faces in their hats, the women bowed reverently, and fervent ejaculations punctuated each pause in the preacher’s appeal.

“I do believe!”

“Amen! Amen!”

“Spare us, O Lord!”

Mrs. Saumarez stared at the gathering with real wonderment.

“C’est incroyable!” she murmured.

“What are they doing, mamma?” cried Angèle, trying to guess why Martin had buried his eyes in his cap.

“They are praying, dearest. It reminds one of the Covenanters. It really is very touching.”

“Who were the Covenanters?”

“When you are older, ma belle, you will read of them in history.”

That was Mrs. Saumarez’s way. She treated her daughter’s education as a matter for governesses whom she did not employ and masters to whose control Angèle would probably never be entrusted.

The two entered the White House. There they found Mrs. Bolland, radiant in a black silk dress, a bonnet trimmed with huge roses, and a velvet dolman, the wings of which were thrown back over her portly shoulders to permit her the better to press all comers to partake of her hospitality.

Several women and one or two men were seated at the big table, while people were coming and going constantly.

It flustered and gratified Mrs. Bolland not a little to receive such a distinguished visitor.

“Eh, my leddy,” she cried, “I’m glad to see ye. Will ye tek a chair? And t’ young leddy, too? Will ye hev a glass o’ wine?”

This was the recognized formula. There was a decanter of port wine on the sideboard, but most of the visitors partook of tea or beer. One of the men drew himself a foaming tankard from a barrel in the corner.