THE SERENADES.
"Sleep you, or wake you, lady bright?"--LEWIS.
"And now tell me the reason of your giving us the slip on Tuesday night," said Charles Cavender to Frederick Merrill, as they came out of court together, and walked into the shade of the beautiful double row of linden trees that interlace their branches in front of the Philadelphia State House, perfuming the atmosphere of early summer with the fragrance of their delicate yellow blossoms.
"To tell you the truth," replied Merrill, "I never had much fancy for these regular serenading parties. And as, on Tuesday night, I had a presentiment that the course of ours was not going to run smoothly, and as I found it impossible to play with such a second as Dick Doubletongue, I resigned my flute to Walton, and went home for my guitar, being very much in the notion of taking a ramble on my own account, and giving a little unpretending music to several pretty girls of my own acquaintance."
"Ah! that guitar!" exclaimed Cavender: "Since you first heard Segura, no Spaniard can be more completely fascinated with the instrument. And, to do Segura justice, he has made an excellent guitar player of you, and cultivated your voice with great success."
"But how did you proceed after I left you?" asked Merrill.
"Oh! very well!" replied Cavender; "only that infernal piano, that Harry Fingerley insisted on being brought along with us, was pretty considerable of a bore."
"So I thought," responded Merrill; "to me there appeared something too absurd in conveying through the streets at night so cumbrous an instrument--carrying it on a hand-barrow, like porters."
"Well," observed Cavender, "there were, however, enough of us to relieve each other every square. By-the-bye, I suspect that your true reason for deserting was to avoid taking your turn in carrying the piano."
"You are not far wrong," replied Merrill, smiling.
"It was a ridiculous business," resumed Cavender. "As Fingerley cannot touch an instrument without his notes, and always chooses to show off in difficult pieces, a lantern was brought along, which one of us was obliged to hold for him whenever he played. Unluckily, a music stool had been forgotten, and poor Harry, who, you know, is one of the tallest striplings in town, was obliged to play kneeling: and he wore the knees of his pantaloons threadbare, in getting through a long concerto of Beethoven's, before Miss Flickwire's door."
"To what place did you go after I left you?" inquired Merrill.
"Oh! to serenade that saucy flirt, Miss Lawless, Frank Hazeldon's flame.
We ranged ourselves in front of the house, set down the piano and its elegant supporter, the hand-barrow, upon the pavement, and all struck up the Band March, with our eyes turned upwards, expecting that we should see the shutters gently open, and the pretty faces of Lucy Lawless and her two sisters slyly peeping down at us. But we looked in vain. No shutters opened, and no faces peeped."
"Perhaps," said Merrill, "the family were all out of town?"
"No, no," replied Cavender; "a bright light shone through the fan-glass over the door, which opened at last, just as we had concluded the Band March, and out came Bogle, followed by two or three other waiters of rather a more decided colour, who stood a little aloof. 'Gentlemen,'
said Bogle, 'Miss Lawless desires her respects and compliments to you all, and wishes me to inquire if there is one Mr. Hazeldon among you?'--'Yes; I am Mr. Hazeldon,' said Frank, stepping out.--'Then,'
resumed Bogle, with his usual flourish of hand, 'Miss Lawless presents her further respects and compliments, and requests me to make you acquainted that she has a party to-night, and as Frank Johnson was pre-engaged, and could not come, she desires you will play a few cotillions for the company to dance--and if there are any more gentlemen-fiddlers present, she will thank them to play too.'
"There was a general burst of mingled indignation and laughter. Some of the serenaders advanced to put Bogle into the gutter, but he very naturally resisted, justly declaring that he ought not to be punished for obeying the lady's orders, and delivering the message systematically, as he termed it.
"The windows of the front parlour were now thrown open, and Miss Lawless with her sisters appeared at them, dressed in lace and flowers. Both parlours were lighted up with chandeliers, and filled with company.
"'Mr. Hazeldon,' said Miss Lawless, 'you and your friends have come precisely at the right time. Nothing could be more apropos than your arrival. We were all engaged with the ice-creams and jellies while you were playing the Band March (which, to do you justice, you performed very respectably), or we should have sent Bogle out to you before. Pray, Mr. Hazeldon, give us "Love was once a little boy;"--it makes an excellent cotillion--and we shall then be able to decide between the merits of your band and that of Mr. Francis Johnson.'--'But we are all gentlemen, madam,' said the simple Bob Midgely, 'and this is a serenade.'--'The more convenient,' replied Miss Lawless, who is really a very handsome girl; 'a serenade may thus be made to answer a double purpose--killing two birds with one stone, in proverbial parlance.'
"Poor Frank Hazeldon was so much annoyed as to be incapable of reply, being also vexed and mortified at having no invitation to his lady-love's party.
"But I went forward, and said to Miss Lawless, that if she and her friends would come out, and perform their cotillions on the pavement, we would have much pleasure in playing for them. To this she replied, that she now perceived we had no tambourine with us, and that a dance without that enlivening instrument must always be a very spiritless affair.
Therefore she would excuse, for the present, the services of Mr.
Hazeldon and his musical friends.
"She then closed the window, and we bowed and moved off; resolved that for the future we would take care to avoid the awkward _contre-tems_ of serenading a lady when she is in the act of having a party. Frank Hazeldon loudly protested against the insolence of his dulcinea, 'who,'
said he, 'would not dare to say and do such things, only that she knows herself to be (as she certainly is), the most beautiful creature on the face of the earth.' However, he averred that he had done with Miss Lawless entirely, and would scrupulously avoid all further acquaintance with her, now that she had not only affronted himself, but his friends.
We advised him to consider it not so deeply."
"He seems to have taken your advice," observed Merrill; "for there he is, just turning the corner of Sixth street with her--she laughing at him as usual, and he, as usual, thankful to be laughed at by her. But where else did you go?"
"We went to two other places," replied Cavender; "where nothing particular happened, except that at one of them the ladies threw flowers down to us. Afterwards, Dick Doubletongue proposed our going into Market street to serenade two very pretty girls, the daughters of a wealthy tradesman, who, being an old-fashioned man, persevered in the convenience of living in the same house in which he kept his store.
Unluckily, it was the night before market-day. We began with 'Life let us cherish,' which Dick assured us was a special favourite with the young ladies--and our music soon aroused the market-people, some of whom were sleeping in their carts that stood in the street, others, wrapped in coverlets, were bivouacking on the stalls in the market-house, to be ready on the spot for early morning. They started up, jumped down, gathered around us, and exclaimed--'Well, did ever!'--'Now, that's what I call music!'--'There, Polly, there's the right sort of fiddling for you!'--'Well, this beats _me_!'--'Law, Suz!--how they do play it up!'--and other equally gratifying expressions. And one woman called out to her husband--'Here, daddy, take up the baby, and bring him out of the cart, and let him hear some music-playing, now he has a chance.' So the baby was brought, and daddy held him close up to the flute-players, and the baby cried, as all babies should do when they are taken up in the night to hear music.
"To crown all, the concert was joined by a dozen calves, who awoke from their uneasy slumbers in the carts, and began bleating in chorus; and by the crowing of various fowls, and the quacking of various ducks that were tied by the legs in pairs, and lying under the stalls. Every moment fresh market-carts came jolting and rattling over the stones, and we would have gone away at the conclusion of 'Life let us cherish,' only that Dick begged us to remain till we saw some indications of the ladies being awake and listening to us--a circumstance always gratifying to serenaders. While we were in full performance of 'The Goddess Diana,'
we saw a light in a room up stairs, a window was opened, and there appeared at it two young ladies, who had evidently taken the trouble to arrange their hair, and attire themselves very becomingly in pink gowns and white collars, for the purpose of doing honour to the musicians and themselves. After this, we could do no less than play another of their favourites. When it was finished, we bowed up to the window, and they curtsied down to us, and the market-women approved, saying--'Law, now, if that a'n't pretty!--all making their manners to one another!--well, if we a'n't in luck to-night!'"
"The combination of noises that accompanied your Market street serenade," observed Merrill, "reminds me of a ridiculous incident that occurred one night, when I and my flute were out with Tom Clearnote and Sam Startlem; Clearnote having his Kent bugle, and Startlem making his first public essay on the trombone, which he had taken a fancy to learn.
We went to a house in Chestnut street, where there were three charming girls, who we soon saw had all properly disposed themselves for listening at the windows. We commenced with the March in Masaniello.
Unfortunately, Sam Startlem, from having a cold, or some other cause, and being but a novice on the trombone, found it impossible to fill the instrument, or to produce any sound but a sort of hollow croak, that went exactly like 'Fire! fire!'--the cry which so often frights our town from its propriety.
"Just then the watchman was passing with a dog that always followed him, and that had a habit of howling whenever he heard the alarm of fire. On meeting the strange sounds, half guttural, half nasal, from Startlem's trombone, he very naturally mistook them for the announcement of a conflagration, and set up his customary yell.[83] In a few minutes, the boys issued from all quarters, according to their practice, by day and by night whenever there is anything to be seen or heard that promises a mob. The supposed cry of fire was reiterated through the street; and spread all round. Presently two or three engines came scampering along, bells ringing, trumpets braying, torches flaring, and men shouting--all running they knew not whither; for as yet the bell of the State House had not tolled out its unerring signal.
[Footnote 83: Fact.]
"In the general confusion, we thought it best to cease playing, and quietly decamp, being ashamed (for the honour of our musicians) to inform the firemen of the real cause of the mistake; so we gladly stole out of the crowd, and turned into a private street.--But excuse me for interrupting you.--Finish your narrative."
"There is little more to be said," resumed Cavender. "By the time we had afforded sufficient amusement to the market-people, the moon had long since set, and the stars begun to fade. So we all put up our instruments, and wearily sought our dwelling-places;--Harry Fingerley wisely hiring relays of black men to carry home the piano.
"But we have been talking long enough under these trees," continued Cavender; "let us walk up Chestnut street together, and tell me what befell yourself while serenading according to the fashion of Old Castile. Of course, you went first to Miss Osbrook?"
"I did," replied Merrill, smiling, and colouring a little; "and I played and sung for her, in my very best style, several of my very best songs.
And I was rewarded by obtaining a glimpse of a graceful white figure at the window, as she half unclosed it, and seeing a white hand (half hidden by a ruffle) resting gently on one of the bars of the Venetian shutter--and as the moon was then shining brightly down, I knew that my divine Emily also saw _me_.
"From thence I went to the residence of a blooming Quaker girl, who, I understood from a mutual friend, had expressed a great wish for a serenade. She came to the window, and was soon joined by an old nurse, who, I found by their conversation, had been kindly awakened by the considerate Rebecca, and invited by her to come to the front room and listen to the music; on which the half-dozing matron made no comment, but that 'sometimes the tune went away up, and sometimes it went right down.'
"Having commenced with 'The Soldier's Bride,' I was somewhat surprised at the martial propensities of the fair Quakeress, who in a loud whisper to her companion, first wished that Frederick Merrill (for she had at once recognised me) would play and sing 'The Soldier's Tear,' and then 'The Soldier's Gratitude.' When I had accomplished both these songs, I heard her tell the old woman, that she was sure 'The Battle of Prague'
would go well on the guitar. This performance, however, I did not think proper to undertake, and I thereupon prepared to withdraw, to the audible regret of the lovely Rebecca.
"As I directed my steps homeward, I happened to pass the house of a young lady whose family and mine have long been somewhat acquainted, and who has acquired (I will not say how deservedly) a most unfortunate _sobriquet_. At a fancy ball, last winter, she appeared in the character of Sterne's Maria, dressed in a white jacket and petticoat, with vine leaves in her hair, and a flageolet suspended by a green riband over one shoulder. Her mother, a very silly and illiterate woman, announced her as 'Strange Maria'--absurdly introducing her by that title, and saying repeatedly through the evening to gentlemen as well as to ladies--'Have you seen my daughter yet?--Have you seen Strange Maria?--There she is, sitting in that corner, leaning her head upon her hand--it is a part of her character to sit so--and when she is tired, she gets up and dances.
She appears to-night as Strange Maria, and it suits exactly, as her name is really Maria. Her aunt, Mrs. Fondlesheep, chose the character for her out of some book, and Madame Gaubert made the jacket.'
"From that night, the poor girl has gone unconsciously by this foolish nickname. And, unfortunately, she is almost as much of a simpleton as her mother, though she was educated at a great boarding-school, and said a great many long lessons.
"I took my seat on the marble carriage-step in front of the house, and the moon having declined, I played and sung 'Look out upon the stars, my love.' Soon after I commenced, I saw a window in the second story thrown open, and the literal Maria doing exactly as she was bid, in earnestly surveying the stars--turning her head about that she might take a view of them in every direction.
"I then began the beautiful serenading song of 'Lilla, come down to me,'
with no other motive than that of hearing myself sing it. At the conclusion of the air, the front door softly opened, and Strange Maria appeared at it, dressed in a black silk frock, with a bonnet and shawl, and carrying a bundle under her arm.
"She looked mysterious, and beckoned to me. I approached her, somewhat surprised. She put the bundle into my hands, and laying her finger on her lips, whispered--'All's safe--we can get off now--I have just had time to put up a change of clothes, and you must carry them for me.'
"'My dear Miss Maria,' said I, 'what is it you mean? Excuse me for saying that I do not exactly comprehend you.'
"'Now, don't pretend to be so stupid,' was the damsel's reply; 'did you not invite me in the song to come down and run away with you? You sung it so plain that I heard every word. There could not be a better opportunity, for ma's in the country, and there is never any danger of waking pa.'
"'Really, Miss Maria,' said I, 'allow me to say that you have totally misunderstood me.'