Part 9

"What has happened to Lady Harriet?" some one questioned of Nancy, who was expected to know all her secrets.

"Alas--nothing interests her ladyship any more," she replied! Nancy knew perfectly well that, ever since their escapade, Harriet had thought of nothing but Lionel. For Nancy's part, she had not thought of much besides Plunkett; but she did not mean to reveal the situation to the court busybodies. Then while the huntresses were roaming about the inn, out came Plunkett! and Nancy, not perceiving at first who he was, went up to him and began to speak.

"Pray, my good man, can you tell--Good heaven!" she exclaimed, recognizing him; "Plunkett!"

"Yes, madame, Plunkett; and now Plunkett will see if you get the better of him a second time. We'll let the sheriff settle this matter, right on the spot."

"Man, you are mad. Do not breathe my name or each huntress here shall take aim and bring you down. Ho, there!" she cried distractedly to her friends; and she took aim at Plunkett, while all of the others closed round him. It was then Plunkett's turn to beg for mercy.

"They're upon me, they've undone me!" he cried. "This is serious," and so indeed it was. "But oh, dear me, there is a remarkable charm in these girls, even if they do threaten a man's life," and still looking back over his shoulder, away he ran, pursued by the girls. They had no sooner gone than Lionel came in. He was looking disconsolately at the flowers to which Martha sang the "Last Rose of Summer." He himself sang a few measures of the song and then looked about him.

"Ah," he sighed, thinking still of Martha:

[Music:

None so rare, None so fair, Yet enraptur'd mortal heart; Maiden dear. Past compare, Oh, 'twas death from thee to part! Ere I saw thy sweet face On my heart there was no trace Of that love from above, That in sorrow now I prove; but alas, thou art gone, And in grief I mourn alone; Life a shadow doth seem, And my joy a fleeting dream, A fleeting dream. None so rare, etc.]

And after he had sung thus touchingly of Martha, he threw himself down on the grass, and remained absorbed in his thoughts. But while he was resting there, Lady Harriet and Sir Tristram had also wandered thither. At first they did not see Lionel.

"I have come here away from the others, in order to be alone," Harriet declared impatiently.

"Alone with me?" Sir Tristram asked indiscreetly.

"Good heaven--it doesn't matter in the least whether you are here or elsewhere. I am quite unconscious of you, wherever you are," she replied, not very graciously. "Do go away and let me alone!" and, finding that he could not please her, Tristram wandered off, and left her meditating there. After a while she began to sing to herself, softly, and Lionel recognized the voice.

"It is she!--Martha!" he cried, starting up. Harriet recognized him, and at once found herself in a dreadful state of mind.

"What shall I do? It is Lionel! that farmer I hired out to!" Well! It was Lionel's opportunity, and he fell to making the most desperate love to her--which she liked very much, but which, being a high-born lady of Queen Anne's Court, she was bound to resent. She called him base-born and a good many unpleasant things, which did not seem to discourage him in the least, even though it made him feel rather badly; but while he was still protesting his love, Tristram returned, and at once believed Harriet to be in the toils of some dreadful fellow. So he called loudly for everybody in the hunt to come to the rescue--which was about the most foolish thing he could do. Then all set upon Lionel. Plunkett, hearing the row, rushed in.

"Stand by me!" Lionel cried.

Nancy appeared. "What does this mean?" she in turn demanded in a high-handed manner.

"Julia, too," Lionel shouted, recognizing her.

"Bind this madman in fetters," Tristram ordered.

"Don't touch him," Plunkett threatened.

"I shall die," Nancy declared.

"I engaged these girls in my service," Lionel shouted, "and now they wish to break the bargain!"

"What?" everybody screamed, staring at Nancy and Harriet. Tristram and the hunters laughed, Tristram trying to shield the girls and turn it into a joke.

"Have compassion on this madman"; Harriet pleaded wincing when she saw Lionel bound and helpless. Lionel then reproached her. She knew perfectly that she deserved it and felt her love for him growing greater. Everybody was in a most dreadful state of mind. Then a page rushed in and cried that Queen Anne was coming toward them, and immediately Lionel had an inspiration.

"Take this ring to her Majesty--quick," he cried, handing his ring to Plunkett.

A litter was then brought for Lady Harriet. She, heartbroken, stepped into it. Lionel was pinioned and was being dragged off. Plunkett held up the ring, to assure him that it should straightway be taken to the Queen.

ACT IV

After the row had quieted down and Nancy and Harriet got time to think matters over, Harriet reached the conclusion that she could not endure Lionel's misfortune. Hence she had got Nancy to accompany her to the farmer's house. When they arrived some new maid whom the farmers had got opened the door to them.

"Go, Nancy, and find Plunkett, Lionel's trusty friend, and tell him I am repentant and cannot endure Lionel's misfortunes. Tell him his friend is to have hope," and, obeying her beloved Lady Harriet, Nancy departed to find Plunkett and give the message. In a few minutes she returned with the farmer. He now knew who the ladies were and treated Harriet most respectfully.

"Have you told him?" Lady Harriet asked.

"Yes, but we cannot make Lionel understand anything. He sits vacantly gazing at nothing. He has had so much trouble, that probably his brain is turned."

"Let us see," said Harriet; and instantly she began to sing, "'Tis the Last Rose."

While she sang, Lionel entered slowly. He had heard. Harriet ran to him and would have thrown herself into his arms, but he held her off, fearing she was again deceiving him.

"No, no, I repent, and it was I who took thy ring to the Queen! I have learned that thy father was a nobleman--the great Earl of Derby; and the Queen sends the message to thee that she would undo the wrong done thee. Thou art the Earl of Derby--and I love thee--so take my hand if thou wilt have me."

Well, this was all very well, but Lionel was not inclined to be played fast and loose with in that fashion. When he was a plain farmer, she had nothing of this sort to say to him, however she may have felt.

"No," he declared, "I will have none of it! Leave me, all of you," and he rushed off, whereupon Harriet sank upon a bench, quite overcome. Then suddenly she started up.

"Ah--I have a thought!" and out she flew. While she was gone, the farmer and Nancy, who had really begun to care greatly for each other, confessed their love.

"Now that our affairs are no longer in confusion, let us go out and walk and talk it over," Plunkett urged, and, Nancy being quite willing, they went out. But when they got outside they found to their amazement that Plunkett's farmhands were rushing hither and thither, putting up tents and booths and flags, and turning the yard into a regular fair-ground, such as the scene appeared when Lionel and Harriet first met. Some of the girls on the farm were assuming the role of maids looking for service, and, in short, everything was as nearly like the original scene as they could possibly make it in a short time.

"What, what is all this?" Plunkett asked, amazed. Then he learned it was all done by Harriet's orders, and he and Nancy began to understand. Then Harriet came in, dressed as Martha. Nancy ran off and returned dressed as Julia, and then all was complete.

"There is Lionel coming toward us," Nancy cried. "What will happen now?" and there he came, led sadly by Plunkett. He looked about him, dazed, till Plunkett brought up Lady Harriet and presented her as a maid seeking work.

"Heaven! It is Martha----"

"Yes, is this not enough to prove to thee that I am ready to renounce my rank and station for thee? Here I am, seeking thy service," she pleaded.

"Well, good lassies, what can ye do?" Plunkett asked, entering into the spirit of the thing, and then Nancy gaily sang:

I for spinning finest linen, etc.

Lady Harriet gave Lionel some flowers and then began "'Tis the Last Rose." Then presently, Lionel, who had been recovering himself slowly while the play had been going on, joined in the last measures, and holding out his arms to Lady Harriet, the lovers were united. Nancy and Plunkett were having the gayest sort of a time, and everybody was singing at the top of his voice that from that time forth there should be nothing but gaiety and joy in the world; and probably that turned out to be true for everybody but old Sir Tristram, who hadn't had a stroke of good luck since the curtain rose on the first act!

HUMPERDINCK

This composer of charming music will furnish better biographical material fifty years hence. At present we must be satisfied to listen to his compositions, and leave the study of the man to future generations.

HAENSEL AND GRETEL

CHARACTERS OF THE OPERA

Peter, a broom-maker. Gertrude, his wife. Haensel } Gretel } their children. Witch, who eats little children. Sandman, who puts little children to sleep. Dewman, who wakes little children up. Children. Fourteen angels.

The story takes place in a German forest.

Composer: E. Humperdinck. Author: Adelheid Wette.

ACT I

Once upon a time, in a far-off forest of Germany, there lived two little children, Haensel and Gretel, with their father and mother. The father and mother made brooms for a living, and the children helped them by doing the finishing of the brooms.

The broom business had been very, very bad for a long time, and the poor father and mother were nearly discouraged. The father, however, was a happy-go-lucky man who usually accepted his misfortunes easily. It was fair-time in a village near the broom-makers' hut, and one morning the parents started off to see if their luck wouldn't change. They left the children at home, charging them to be industrious and orderly in behaviour till they returned, and Haensel in particular was to spend his time finishing off some brooms.

Now it is the hardest thing in the world for little children to stick to a long task, so that which might have been expected happened: Haensel and Gretel ceased after a little to work, and began to think how hungry they were. Haensel was seated in the doorway, working at the brooms; brooms were hanging up on the walls of the poor little cottage; and Gretel sat knitting a stocking near the fire. Being a gay little girl, she sang to pass the time:

[Music:

Susy little Susy, pray what is the news? The geese are running bare foot because they've no shoes! The cobbler has leather and plenty to spare, Why can't he make the poor goose a new pair?]

This sounded rather gay, and, before he knew it, Haensel had joined in:

Eia popeia, pray what's to be done? Who'll give me milk and sugar, for bread I have none? I'll go back to bed and I'll lie there all day, Where there's naught to eat, then there's nothing to pay.

"Speaking of something to eat--I'm as hungry as a wolf, Gretel. We haven't had anything but bread in weeks."

"Well, it does no good to complain, does it? Why don't you do as father does--laugh and make the best of it?" Gretel answered, letting her knitting fall in her lap. "If you will stop grumbling, Haensel, I'll tell you a secret--it's a fine one too." She got up and tiptoed over to the table. "Come here and look in this jug," she called, and Haensel in his turn tiptoed over, as if something very serious indeed would happen should any one hear him.

"Look in that jug--a neighbour gave us some milk to-day, and that is likely to mean rice blanc-mange."

"Oh, gracious goodness! I'll be found near when rice blanc-mange is going on; be sure of that. How thick is the cream?" the greedy fellow asked, dipping his finger into the jug.

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself! Take your fingers out of that jug, Haensel, and get back to your work. You'll get a good pounding if mother comes home and finds you cutting up tricks."

"No, I'm not going to work any more--I'm going to dance."

"Well, I admit dancing is good fun," Gretel answered him reluctantly. "We can dance a little, and sing to keep us in time, and then we can go back to work."

Brother, come and dance with me, Both my hands I offer thee, Right foot first, Left foot then, Round about and back again,

she sang, holding out her hands.

"I don't know how, or I would," Haensel declared, watching her as she spun about.

"Then I'll teach you. Just keep your eyes on me and I'll teach you just how to do it," she cried, and then she began to dance. Gretel told him precisely how to do it, and Haensel learned very well and very quickly. Then they danced together, and in half a minute had forgotten all about going back to their work. They twirled and laughed and sang and shouted in the wildest sort of glee, and at last, perfectly exhausted with so much fun, they tumbled over one another upon the floor, and were laughing too hard to get up. Just at this moment, when they had actually forgotten all about hunger and work, home came their mother. She opened the door and looked in.

"For mercy's sake! what goings on are these?" she cried.

"Why, it was Haensel, he----"

"Gretel wanted to----" they both began, scrambling to their feet.

"That will do. I want to hear nothing from you. You are the most ill-behaved children in the world. Here are your father and I slaving ourselves to death for you, and not a thing do you do but dance and sing from morning till night----"

"It would be awfully nice to eat, too," Haensel replied reflectively.

"What's that you say, you ungrateful child? Don't you eat whenever the rest of us do?" However harsh she seemed, the mother was only angry at the thought of there being nothing in the house to eat, and she felt so badly to think the children were hungry that she made a dive at Haensel to slap him, when--horrors! she knocked the milk off the table, broke the jug, and all the milk went streaming over the floor. This was indeed a misfortune. There they stood, all three looking at their lost supper.

"_Now_ see what you have done?" she screamed angrily at the children. "Get yourselves out of here. If you want any supper you'll have to work for it. Take that basket and go into the wood and fill it with strawberries, and don't either of you come home till it is full. Dear me, it does seem as if I had trouble enough without such actions as yours," the distracted mother cried; and quite unjustly she hustled the children and their basket outside the hut and off into the wood.

They had no sooner gone out than the poor, distracted woman, exhausted with the day's tramping and unsuccessful effort to sell her brooms, sat at the table weeping over the lost milk; and finally she fell asleep. After a while a merry song was heard in the wood, and the father presently appeared singing, at the very threshold. Really, for a hungry man with a hungry family and nothing for supper, he was in a remarkably merry mood.

"Ho, there, wife!" he called, and then entered with a great basket over his shoulder. He saw the mother asleep and stopped singing. Then he laughed and went over to her.

"Hey, wake up, old lady, hustle yourself and get us a supper. Where are the children?"

"What are you talking about," the mother asked, waking up and looking confused at the noise her husband was making. "I can't get any supper when there is nothing to get."

"Nothing to get?--well, that is nice talk, I'm sure. We'll see if there is nothing to get," he answered, roaring with laughter--and he began to take things out of his basket. First he took out a ham, then some butter. Flour and sausages followed, and then a dozen eggs; turnips, and onions, and finally some tea. Then at last the good fellow turned the basket upside down, and out rolled a lot of potatoes.

"Where in the world did all of these things come from?" she cried.

"I had good luck with my brooms, when all seemed lost, and here we are with a feast before us. Now call the children and let us begin."

"I was so angry because the milk got spilt that I sent them off to the woods for berries and told them not to come home till they had a basket full. I really thought that was all we should have for supper." At this the father looked frightened.

"What if they have gone to the Ilsenstein?" he cried, jumping up and taking a broom from the wall.

"Well, what harm?" the wife inquired, "and why do you take the broom?"

"What harm? Do you not know that it is the awful magic mountain where the old witch who eats little children dwells?--and do you not know that she rides on a broomstick. I may need one to follow her, in case she has got the children."

"Oh, heavens above! What a wicked woman I was to send the children out. What shall we do? Do you know anything more about that awful ogress?" she demanded of her husband, trembling fit to die.

An old witch within that wood doth dwell, And she's in league with the powers of hell. At midnight hour, When nobody knows, Away to the witches' dance she goes.

Up the chimney they fly, On a broomstick they hie, Over hill and dale, O'er ravine and vale, Through the midnight air They gallop full tear, On a broomstick, on a broomstick Hop, hop, hop, hop, the witches!

And by day, they say, She stalks around, With a crinching, crunching, munching sound. And children plump, and tender to eat, She lures with magic gingerbread sweet. On evil bent, With fell intent, She lures the children, poor little things, In the oven hot, She pops the lot. She shuts the door down, Until they're done brown--all those gingerbread children.

"Oh, my soul!" the poor woman shrieked. "Come! We must lose no time: Haensel and Gretel may be baked to cinders by this time," and out she ran, screaming, and followed by the father, to look for those poor children.

ACT II

After wandering all the afternoon in the great forest, and filling their basket with strawberries, Haensel and Gretel came to a beautiful mossy tree-trunk where they concluded to sit down and rest before going home. They had wandered so far that they really didn't know that they were lost, but as a matter of fact they had no notion of where they were. Without knowing it, they had gone as far as the Ilsenstein, and that magic place was just behind them, and sunset had already come. As usual, the gay little girl was singing while she twined a garland of wild flowers. Haensel was still looking for berries in the thicket near. Pretty soon they heard a cuckoo call, and they answered the call gaily. The cuckoo answered, and the calls between them became lively.

"There is the bird that eats up other birds' eggs," Gretel said, poking a strawberry into Haensel's mouth; and Haensel sucked the berry up as if it were an egg. Then in his turn, he poked a berry into Gretel's mouth. This was very good fun, especially as yet they had had nothing to eat. They began to feed each other with berries, till before they knew it the full basket was empty.

Foolish children, who by their carelessness got themselves into all sorts of scrapes! Now what was to be done? They surely couldn't go home and tell their mother they had eaten up all the berries!

"Haensel, you have eaten all the berries. Now this time it is no joke--this that you have done. What shall we do now?"

"Nonsense--you ate as many as I. We shall simply look for more."

"So late as this! We never can see them in the world. The sun is going down. Where can we have got to? We are surely lost."

"Well, if we are, there is nothing to be afraid of. Come, don't cry. We shall sleep here under the trees, and, when morning comes, find our way home," Haensel replied, no longer blaming her, but trying to be very brave, notwithstanding he was nearly scared to death with the shadows which were then gathering quickly.

"Oh, oh! do you hear that noise in the bushes? I shall die of fright."

"It--it--is nothing, sister," Haensel answered, his teeth chattering, while he peered all about him uneasily. "I'm a boy and not afraid of anything, and can take care of you wherever we are."

What's glimmering there in the darkness? That's only the birches in silver dress. But there, what's grinning so there at me? Th-that's only the stump of a willow tree.

Haensel tried to answer heroically. "I'll give a good call," he said, going a little way toward the Ilsenstein. Then putting his hands to his mouth, he called loudly:

"Who's there?"

"You there,--you there,--you there," the echoes came--but they seemed to come from the Ilsenstein.

"Is some one there?" Gretel timidly asked.

"There--where--there--" the echoes from the Ilsenstein again replied. "I'm frightened to death," Gretel said, beginning to cry.

"Little Gretelkin," said Haensel, "you stick close to me, and I'll let nothing hurt you;" and while they huddled together, a thick white mist slowly gathered and spread between the children and the Ilsenstein.

"Oh! there are some shadowy old women, coming to carry me away," Gretel sobbed, hiding her face, as the mist seemed to sway and assume strange forms. Then while her face was hidden, the mist slowly cleared away, and a little gray manikin with a little sack upon his back came out of the shadows. Haensel held his breath with fear and sheltered Gretel beside him as best he could.

"It is a shadowy queer little manikin, Gretel dear, with a little sack upon his back, but he looks very friendly." Then addressing the little manikin, "Do not hurt us, sir--and will you tell us who you are?"

I shut the children's peepers--sh! And guard the little sleepers--sh! For dearly I do love them--sh! And gladly watch above them--sh! And with my little bag of sand, By every child's bedside I stand; Then little tired eyelids close, And little limbs have sweet repose; And if they are good and quickly go to sleep, Then from the starry sphere above The angels come with peace and love, And send the children happy dreams, while watch they keep.

All the while the little sand-man was telling them who he was, the children got sleepier and sleepier and nodded upon each other's shoulders.