CHAPTER II

Meantime Ned was timorously skulking about in that strange, unkempt, haggard world known as "behind the scenes." He realized that it was to him a foreign world, and he bore himself with the alert suspiciousness of an alien. He kept an anxious lookout for the red jackets of the scene-shifters, and whenever he saw them bespangling the gray shadows of those dreary canvas vistas he dodged dexterously behind other "flats" and into deeper glooms.

"I've got to keep my eye peeled or some o' them fellers will ketch me sure!" he said to himself.

Once down one of these aisles a sudden veritable scene showed at the end of the perspective, through a wide door opening upon a room tinted in green, the color being very keen amidst the dun shadows without and the brilliant artificial illumination within. There, seemingly lounging or waiting, were groups of men and women, richly and quaintly attired, but with a prosaic every-day pose and gesture and expression of countenance, the effect curiously at variance with the suggestions of the antique garb they wore. This incongruity was not perceptible in a figure that he descried suddenly approaching, clad in a gown of soft shimmering white silk as in everlasting youth and beauty,--so radiant, so poetic, so unreal an apparition to the boy that Ned, stopping to stare, lost all sense of his identity. She, who was to be Ophelia, catching a glimpse of his pale, wistful, astonished little face in the glooms, with its big dark eyes and curling red hair, as he stood as if rooted to the spot, cast a half-amused smile on him as she passed. Her maid was following at a distance with a shawl, and Ned, suddenly realizing his peril, hastily darted behind one of the tombstones which even now were placed in readiness, awaiting the graveyard scene, and then once more dodged from flat to flat and from trestle to trestle.

He hardly knew in what direction he was tending, till all at once a flood of light broke upon him and he stood in the wings. The broad spread of the stage lay before him,--gorgeous with the presence of royalty and soldiery, of lords and ladies, of jesters and pages,--the "counterfeit presentment" of the palaces of old, and of the splendid past. It was rounded by the dazzling crescent of the foot-lights that clasped this charmed sphere as the new moon clasps the old. There was a ceaseless shimmer above them, and through it he could see heads, heads, heads. The house was crowded from parquet to gallery. Now and then the audience broke into enthusiastic applause.

As Ned stood staring it did not occur to him that he was in the direct way of any actor going on or coming off the stage, until a sudden step sounded close at hand behind the wing. It was only an accident that he did not electrify audience and players by rushing out upon the stage, for the powers behind the scenes had far more terrors for him than public opinion. As he shrank back toward the wall, looking eagerly about him for a refuge, he stumbled against the oddly fashioned chair in which Hamlet had sat during the second scene of the first act, and which now by accident or design had been thrust aside here. The devil sprang upon the rich crimson velvet cushions, and the Prince of Denmark was none the wiser.

No one else was the wiser. The high arms of the chair shielded Ned from observation as the step drew near and passed,--others still came and went in quick succession. He had a full view of the stage. He was in no danger of discovery unless a special search should be made for him. He had the choicest opportunity for enjoyment--but somehow the zest was gone. His conscience had roused itself and laid hold upon him. Instead of following the incidents of the play enacted before him he was vainly striving to justify himself to that implacable inward monitor. This was not stealing, he stoutly asseverated. It was only a lark,--and all for fun! But conscience--even a small boy's conscience--is the most potent of all moral forces, and he suffered a poignant pang for every mill of the half dollar which was the price of his appropriate seat among the gallery gods.

When at last he resolutely tore his mind from this subject he could not apply it to the pleasure of the moment. He began to wonder if Pete would really make good his threat,--if Pete would dare to charge him with stealing from the dressing-rooms, and burglary and what not.

"There would have to be something stole fust, an' then they would have ter trace it ter me," he said to reassure himself, for he was a sharp boy, and amply conversant with this world's ways.

Despite his reasoning, however, he glanced over his shoulder ever and anon, expecting to see a big man in a blue uniform with a police officer's badge on his breast.

When a tall man in dark garments appeared suddenly close at hand he thought for a moment that his worst forebodings were realized. At a second glance he saw that this man was clad in black, not blue, and wore a high silk hat set far back on his light brown hair. He had a light brown beard, a florid face, and eager, excited blue eyes. He continually twirled his eye-glasses in his hand with a gesture so nervous that it made the devil nervous too, and when compelled to desist from this occupation by the necessity of placing the glasses upon the bridge of his sharp hooked nose, he utilized the interval by thrusting his hands into his pockets, where, judging by the sound, he restlessly rattled his silver change or bunch of keys. An alert, impulsive man, eager, unreasonable, and irritable, Ned thought him, and afterward the devil had cause to strengthen this opinion. The boy was near enough to hear his words, although spoken in a low tone, for he stood far back and well out of sight of the audience.

"Well--insurance now--the premium comes pretty heavy," the manager was saying, for this was Mr. Gorham, the manager and owner of the theatre.

"Has to be kept up, though,--no use kicking," replied a wiry, extremely thin, pallid, and wrinkled elderly gentleman who had joined the other. Ned guessed that this was an intimate personal friend of the manager, since their talk was of his private affairs.

And because of this fact it seemed very odd to the boy that a certain subordinate player awaiting his cue in the wings should evidently be eager to hear.

"Eavesdropper!" thought Ned, indignantly.

It seemed less heinous that he himself should overhear this conversation, since it was accidental on his part, and, at this time at least, he thought it meant nothing to him.

Ned eyed the actor narrowly, and did not like the man's looks. His attitude was very singular. He was almost behind one of the wings, and quite out of sight of the two friends. His face was very red, even beneath the rouge. He looked coarse and awkward in his gaudy costume, and leaned so heavily against the great frame of the scene that it tottered with his weight. He had a piece of ice in a towel which he continually applied to the back of his neck and the top of his head. He did this with the dexterity of an expert, but almost mechanically, for his eyes were fixed first on one speaker's face, then on the other's.

"Of course the insurance wants to be kept up," said the manager, frantically jingling the coin in his pocket. "Though," he added with an afterthought, "I don't see why--I've insured this building and the properties for fifteen years, and never had a loss by fire." He stroked his beard reflectively. "Wish I had now all the premiums I've paid in my time," he said almost piteously.

"When did the policy in the Rising Phœnix expire?" demanded his friend.

"To-day at noon. I refused to renew. I'm done with that agent, at all events!" His eyes flashed, and he twirled his eye-glasses with a fierce gesture. "Whatever I do, I'll have no more dealings with _him_."

Mr. Gorham's expression changed suddenly to one of bland politeness as he bowed agreeably to a lady, who had been very dignified and stiffly splendid on the stage as the queen, and withal robustly youthful, but coming off she looked old and tired. She was so heavily whited and rouged that her facial expression was wholly lost, and her eyes seemed to be the only natural feature of her face, and to look out with a sort of forlorn reality above the simpering sham of her wreck of a countenance.

The elderly skeleton-like friend of the manager shook his bones together, so to speak, and then stepped forward with alacrity and offered his hand to the lady, greeting her as an old acquaintance. Somehow Ned resented his assured courtly manner, which might have graced a man of finer appearance and fresher youth. It seemed an assumption on his part. "Maybe he thinks very well of his bones," Ned speculated. "Does he suppose he is pretty?" Ugly though he was, the lady did not scorn him, but kindly told him about a new granddaughter she had, and showed him a telegram. She smiled, and nodded most benignly in receiving his polite congratulations, and then sailed on toward the green-room.

The subordinate actor at the wing suddenly dropped the towel and the lump of ice. He had caught his cue, and with a stiff, ungainly gait he strode upon the stage. The star had returned also, and with his reappearance the plaudits broke forth.

"There he is again!" exclaimed the manager enthusiastically. "He is playing in fine form to-night,--every inch the Prince of Denmark!"

Ned, too, was looking at the stage from his nook in the great man's chair behind the wing. The by-play behind the scenes had absorbed him hitherto, but he grew intensely interested when the star spoke to the actor who had lurked and listened in the wings. Hamlet seemed to be instructing him how to play a part, and in honest fact the subordinate had shown in a scene in the previous act that he stood in grievous need of such tuition.

"Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus; but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise; I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod. Pray you, avoid it."

All at once was presented a strange, unexpected attraction, not set down in the bills. The four or five players to whom this is addressed are wont to receive it with bows of acquiescence, intelligent glances at each other and at their instructor to express comprehension, concurrence of opinion, and willingness. The actor who had lurked and listened had the rôle of the "first player," and was the spokesman of the party. He led these demonstrations with sufficient discretion, but when his cue was given he responded with a hoarse drunken thickness ornamented with an unmistakable hiccup.

"I'se warrant yer (hic) honor!"

His potations before he made his first appearance this evening had not been so deep as to intoxicate him, but he had since reinforced them heavily. He had sought to sober himself by a cold application to the head and neck before again "going on;" the heated air, however, and the excitement were fast doing away with its good effects.

Hamlet, striving to maintain his composure and self-possession in the presence of the audience, addressed the second long exhortation chiefly to the others. He could not have devised a worse expedient. The "first player," eager to assert his precedence among his fellows, and to impress the star with the conviction that he was perfectly sober and reliable, gave such prominence to his acquiescent dumb show that it became extravagant and uncouth, and before the lines of the admonition were concluded he was bowing about the stage like a clown.

There was a vague, suppressed titter in the parquet. A sharp, sibilant hiss swept down from the gallery. The other mock players, forgetting their appropriate pantomime, stood as still as if stricken into stone. The equilibrium of the great star was fairly shaken. There was a quiver singularly like stage fright in those clear melodious tones, but he gallantly persisted to the end, and gave the "first player" his cue.

"Reformed!" exclaimed the "first player" automatically,--he had forgotten every word of his lines but this. "We've reformed," he reiterated, "an'--an'--we ain't never goin' ter do it no more," he declared, leering facetiously at the audience.

"Come off! Come off!" insisted the frenzied stage manager, in a sepulchral undertone from behind the scenes.

But the sodden idiot advanced to the foot-lights beyond the reach of the sheltering curtain which would fain have gathered him in.

The star bowed with dignity and retired, and the "first player" began his explanation to the audience amidst a storm of hisses.

"Gen'elmen an' lad'es,--I mean _lad'es_ an' gen'elmen," the gallant soul corrected himself,--"want ter make a little speege,--I forgot lines--(hic) prompter throws me the word,--but (hic) he's got no teeth, for I can't make him out,--go look at book,--boss is a-callin' me now,--make it all right,--(hic)--be back d'rec'ly."

The bell jangled eloquently for the curtain to fall.

"Let it down on him,--don't care if it kills him!" was heard in the frantic managerial tones from the wings.

The characteristically good-natured American audience burst into roars of laughter, and the curtain came down amidst a storm of sarcastic applause before, and not upon, the gravely bowing "first player."

The great star was with some difficulty beguiled into going on with the play. The uproarious audience was quieted--nay, melted--by the sight of the managerial distress and the terms of the heart-broken apology which was offered. The curtain was rung up; the performance recommenced at the entrance of Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern; and these preliminaries arranged, the stage manager, the manager of the theatre, his friend of the skeleton-like contour, the leader of the orchestra, a number of the minor members of the company, and a strong detachment of self-constituted "bosses" went in a different spirit to reckon with the author of all this woe.

Why nobody "nabbed" Ned was always a mystery to him afterward. Forgetting himself at the crisis he sprang boldly out of his chair and participated in the varied excitements ensuing behind the scenes as freely as if he owned the theatre. Perhaps he might not have been so eager to hear and see had he divined the influence that this incident would exert on his immediate future. He followed the "management" and the crowd of "supes," scene-shifters, call-boys, and "dead-heads" to the door of the dressing-room where the unlucky "first player" was to be called to account.

This personage had divested himself of his stage toggery and stood there in his every-day clothes, a coarse, slouching, red-faced man in a brownish suit and a checked shirt. Within the room another actor was hastily arraying himself in the gaudy attire which the "first player" had been accustomed to wear as the "Player King." The substitute was almost pathetic in his anxiety as he dressed himself, nervously repeating aloud the "lines" and giving not an instant's notice to the crowd of bystanders about the open door nor to the interview between the management and the "first player."

This was sufficiently stormy. The unfortunate "first player" got his walking-papers in no measured terms. Mr. Gorham took occasion to interject some very severe remarks, although the affair was really none of his business, the grievance lying between the manager of the company and the actor.

"It's none of _your_ funeral, anyhow," cried the goaded "first player" indignantly.

He snapped his fingers in Gorham's face, giving the high silk hat, which was always precariously perched on its owner's head, a fillip that sent it rolling on the floor among the crowd.

Gorham's arrogant and peremptory manners made him a very unpopular man. Nevertheless it might have been an accident--although it looked singularly like design--that the hat was in a moment trampled into a shapeless wreck by twoscore sturdy feet.

Even when under no provocation, he showed in every gesture how vehement and impulsive was his nature. Now, insulted in his own theatre, he shook off the slight restraints which he acknowledged. It suited his humor to consider the "first player's" demonstration as a blow. He looked positively tigerish as he sprung upon the actor. The energy of his wrath gave much "power to his elbow;" the blows that fell from his clenched fist had a wonderfully resonant compact sound,--it made Ned wince to think that a man's head and face received them. The "first player" could do little to defend himself. The crowd, that always turns to the successful side, lifted not a finger to aid or protect him.

And high above all the tumult the "Player King," putting on now his robes of state, and now his tinsel crown, daubing his grave anxious face with red and white, repeated his "lines" heedless of the commotion.

In less time than it can be told, the actor, fearfully beaten, was partly dragged and partly kicked to the back window, and there was thrust bodily forth. A heavy thud outside told of a heavy fall.

Manager Gorham turned from the window, wiping the blood from his hands upon his handkerchief, and looking about in sarcastic triumph at the crowd that had trampled upon his hat. Ned was astonished to observe that these men seemed to have forgotten their share in that little transaction, for several who had been most demonstrative in that expression of contempt spoke to Gorham now with earnest respectfulness, and in grave reprehension of the poor wretch whose sore bones lay out on the flagging in the alley. The manager gave a short, fierce, snort-like response, and as he turned abruptly he almost ran over Ned.

"Get out of my way, boy, or I'll kill you!" he exclaimed irritably.

Ned, roused to a realization of the situation, shrank back among the huge flats. It was only the general excitement which prevented his discovery. Gorham must have thought him one of the call-boys. Ned stole swiftly away from shadow to shadow, from flat to flat, till he reached his old retreat. He sprang into the chair and sat there panting, feeling much like a mouse regaining its hole after a perilous but successful tour of the pantry.

The stage was again before him, all glitter and splendor. The play of Hamlet--that subtlest delineation of the subtlest character ever conceived by the mind of man--was once more in its triumphal progress. The audience hung breathless on every word. Ned cared now for none of it. He was discouraged,--cast down. He was still young and ingenuous enough to be grieved by those contemptible phases of human nature exhibited in the manager, when he so brutally proved himself the master in his own house, in the truckling spirit of the crowd, in the degradation and coarse vice of the actor, the forlorn "first player." As to himself--he too was much to blame. He was pierced with a full realization of the wickedness of his presence here.

"My mother would call it _stealin'_, an' nothin' shorter," he said, remembering her homely, direct phrase.

Then he had a vivid mental picture of her. He knew that again and again she was going down the long steep flights of stairs to the street door to peer into the dark thoroughfare, wondering at his continued absence, and trembling to think of the many temptations that lead a boy to crime in a great city.

Whatever may be the beneficial educational effects of seeing the play of Hamlet from the gallery, they are certainly lacking in a view stolen from the wings, with fifty cents heavy on the conscience, nothing at all on the stomach, a great and growing dread of discovery, and a morbid presentiment that something terrible is about to happen.

Was it not far better, Ned thought, to be at home, singing with his mother their simple songs about the Good Shepherd, according to their wont in those evenings when he was at leisure from the office? The kettle used to join in with a will and make the duet a trio; the fire would roar it into a chorus; the monkey-stove would get red hot with sheer good will; his mother's face, usually so pale, would glow like a rosy girl's; the two-year-old sister would babble her admiration of the kerosene lamp. And he would feel that, being the only son of his mother and she a widow, he occupied a highly responsible and dignified position, and that it behooved him to be frugal and steady and sensible, and hard-working like a man, for his father, a Scotch emigrant, in dying had left his family quite alone in this western country. Thus Ned would infuse his importance into his quavering alto as he sang, until it seemed, to him and his mother at least, as sonorous and as grand as the biggest double bass. Ah,--surely, surely better these gentle innocent joys than any stolen pleasures.

He began to think of trying to escape by the window at which he had entered. Then a frantic terror seized him. Was the man still lying there where he had been thrown? Ned had heard the heavy thud on the flagging of the alley,--had any one heard the man walk away? He had been severely beaten, and that, too, while intoxicated. He had been hurled out of the window,--a serious fall! Had he risen?--would he ever rise again?

Ned began to shiver. He concluded to await the close of the performance and follow the employees out of the side door,--there must surely be some such exit if only he knew where to find it.

He could not have explained why he was afraid to seek to escape by the window, but he said to himself that if the man had been killed by the fall he would not be the first to discover it. His own wrong-doing here to-night had made him sensitive to suspicion, for wrong-doing always fosters cowardice. A brave heart implies a clear conscience.

He strove to pacify his impatience as he waited.

"I was mighty sharp-set to come!" he said sarcastically.

Once or twice he gave a sudden start and sat upright on the crimson cushions of the great luxurious chair.

Once or twice shadows wavered across the brilliantly lighted stage,--he rubbed his eyes. The words he heard meant nothing; the figures he saw became grotesque, mingled, ill-defined. They were suddenly gone,--an interval,--an utter blank--

* * * * *

All was dark about him. He thought he was in bed at home. He strove to turn over,--his bed was too short,--too narrow. In amazement he began to feel about him,--there were soft velvet cushions beneath him,--heavy wood carving on either side. His heart sprang into his mouth. He had fallen asleep in Hamlet's chair. Actors and audience were gone,--he wondered that the stir of the crowd had failed to wake him. The theatre was dark and deserted, the doors were locked, and beneath the walls lay perhaps the body of a dead man.

He started up trembling at the thought. The moon's pallid light fell through one of the lofty windows above the gallery and quivered in ghostly fashion upon the stage where erstwhile the filial Dane had hearkened to the hollow voice of the spectre of a murdered sire. The white glimmer gave wan and wavering glimpses of the scenery of this strange mimic world. Mountains loomed up in the clare-obscure. A painted galleon on a painted ocean was bravely sailing away, bound for nowhere.

Suddenly--was that a moving shadow among the motionless shadows? Ned stared hard at it. There was no mistake. The moonlight showed an indistinct figure advancing stealthily down the stage.

Far, far away a great clock struck one. The single tone, as it invaded the silence, had a weird abruptness. It sent a chill through Ned's heart. A superstitious terror had laid hold upon him. With starting eyes fixed upon the apparition, he shrank softly back into his hiding place.