he knew I should like it, and he just wanted to slay a few more dandelions before breakfast now that the sun was out and the grass not too wet to lie down on it. Whereupon he fetched his poison and his pointed instrument and once more crawled upon the ground in a despicable attitude. Left with Pooley and Manders I was helpless and hopeless. They set to work to stick in ivy roots, which they inserted with great dexterity. I tried to follow their example, but I could not get any ivy roots to stick somehow, whether because I did not put them in deep enough, or because I selected spots that had no depth of soil, I cannot say. I only know that Pooley scowled at my failures, and Manders smiled (but he had to smile through nettle-rash, which was some comfort), and that on turning my head round once to use bad language without being heard I encountered the gaze of Snokes, who was watching me with absorbed attention, and seemed to think I was making a fool of myself for his morning amusement. I resolved on the spot that when I left I would not tip Snokes so much as a threepenny bit. The ladies came out just before breakfast and rallied us on our enthusiasm. I would have given much to confess all, but I had not the moral courage and could only reply with a wan smile as I passed them to go indoors. The expedition in search of stones was the main subject of conversation at breakfast, and Chalker spoke of it as if he were giving a splendid entertainment. "You mustn't overtire Mr. Tomkins, Frank, dear," said Mrs. Chalker, looking kindly at me; "remember you have all been up very early." "Oh! you needn't be afraid of that," broke in Manders, "Tomkins is as strong as a horse. Aren't you, old chap? answer I could not trust myself to Manders for fear of saying something that would have broken up the party, so I took a large bite of toast. "Perhaps Mr. Tomkins would prefer to go for a drive with us ladies," resumed my hostess. Here was my chance. "Thank you very much, I——” "Now, my dear," interposed Chalker, "don't you know that Mr. Tomkins is devoted to gardening, and what possible comparison is there is there between tamely driving in a cart and assisting in the glorious enterprise we have in view? He can't say no to you because of the laws of politeness, so I must say it for him." Dear kind opportune Chalker ! So the ladies went off for a delightful drive, and I stood and watched them at the gate till Chalker roared out from the stable yard to ask if I would like to wheel one of the barrows up the hill that led to the common. Three times did I toil up that hill and down again, sometimes on the return journey carrying as many stones as I could hold, and sometimes wheeling a barrowful of them. The fourth time was to be the last, and I breathed a sigh of intense relief as we reached the common, loaded ourselves, and started back again. I was not wheeling the barrow on that occasion, but carrying a great block of stone under which I almost staggered. I don't know how it was done. A rut in the road, a loose stone, something made my foot slip, and in a moment I had lost my balance and was down with the stone I was carrying on the top of me as if I were dead and had a monument erected over me already. Acute pains in the right knee and left ankle, bruised sensations all over-all these I instantly experienced. But at once and through all there came a sweet peaceful feeling of deep and heartfelt thankfulness, a sense of infinite relief, a consciousness of having reached a haven of repose. I could not be asked to do any more garden ing. When I tried to rise I could not stand much less walk, SO the stones were emptied out of the barrow, and I was wheeled home like Mr. Pickwick on a celebrated occasion, but in a more creditable condition. Chalker was deeply concerned about me. Manders looked as penitent as if he had done it himself, and even Pooley melted and was kind to me. And then when the doctor came and pronounced that I had sprained my ankle and dislocated my knee, besides being badly bruised, how jolly it was to see them all so sorry and so attentive to my wants. How I was carried out into the garden like a dear little baby. How the ladies ministered to me like angels. How Snokes sidled up and said well, he was sorry, he was, that he was. How the maid-servants peeped at me sympathetically whenever they had a chance. How the parish clergyman called and left a card with kind inquiries, having been positively informed in the village that I had fallen down a gravel pit and broken both legs and one arm. How contentedly I watched Chalker at his dandelions, and Pooley and Manders labouring in various ways that were not my ways, while Mrs. Chalker and Mrs. Manders talked to me in soothing and sisterly tones, and pitied me for not being able to work in the garden with the others. I tell you I never enjoyed a stay at a country house so much in all my life. SPRING IN APRIL. BY MRS. T. H. HUXLEY. SOFT airs of morn That waft sweet scents from wood and hedgerow bowers, Steeping my senses In witching incense, born Of this fair April, who in mottled hours Sunshine and rain dispenses, And wakes to life and light, the withered heaps by winter shorn. With gladness, so unplucked you shall remain in cafy fold. In dreams divine, where Time nor Death can set their mark. goer of more mature years are alike indignant that people dare to avow their preference for a Variety Entertainment over a three hours' spell of Shakespeare. Really it is difficult sometimes to refrain from hinting that those critics who refuse to see any merit in a music-hall performance are talking nonsense. Yet "it ain't exactly wot they say " I object to, "it's the nasty way they says it!" They seem to infer that music-hall artists are not, if the truth be told, quite worthy even of the ink they are kind enough to fling at them. Yet, somehow, such is the cussedness of human nature, in spite of the most elaborated criticism Variety Entertainments thrive and prosper, and the places of such entertainment year by year increase in number and popularity. More monstrous still, the very same folk who appreciate good acting at the Theatre, go to the music-hall and seem to appreciate the acting and singing there also. I don't ask for much, but surely the critics might admit, to take one or two instances at random, that Frank Celli has a capital baritone voice, that Auguste Van Biene is an admirable violoncellist, that Miss Minnie Cunningham has learned the art of attractive and graceful dancing. Yet these are Variety artists. It is only THE TIVOLI. A theatrical audience comes to see some especial class of play, and itself is more or less composed of one class. The actor soon gets to know the character of the audience he has to appeal to, its likes and dislikes. Each theatre has its body of habitués, its own public. But in a Variety Show you almost get an audience for each artist, every class of people is represented, and an artist must get in touch with the whole lot of them, or nearly the whole, or his performance won't go as it should go. I believe it would be a very fine thing to get a young actor starting in life to sing, if he can sing, at three music-halls a night for a time. The mere sudden change of hall, from a little hall, like the Tivoli, to the Pavilion or the huge Paragon, is an experience, in the management of voice alone, which is well worth the gaining. And then there is the sudden dip from one kind of audience into another. I have performed in as many as five or six different places in one evening. An actor's experience is nothing at all to this. But to return to our critics. Some time ago Miss Lottie Collins appeared in London and made an enormous success of the song-that tune which the suburban poet loves to hear pealed forth by the barrel-organ in front of his parlour window, Ta-Ra-RaBoom-De-Ay. She sang it first at the music-halls it was a popular success, but a critic's success, oh, no! About six months afterwards the Gaiety Theatre was on the look-out for something to put new life into the piece which was running there, and the manager engages Miss Lottie Collins to sing this national anthem of the street urchin. Her success was as pronounced in the theatre as in the music-hall, but not more so, and the performances were identical. But now at last the mouths of the critics are opened and their pens loosed, and for her work she receives half a column of gush in the Daily Telegraph. I don't say she did not deserve it; she cer VIEW FROM THE STAGE. in the music-halls, I consider, that it is I have had offers not a few, and several from the Continent, to go back to the Theatre. Some day I may do so; but I shall never regret the years I have spent at the music-hall, nor the training which those years have given me, if only by teaching one to get into touch and sympathy with audiences so widely different as one has to meet at, say, the Paragon in Mile End Road and then at the Tivoli or Pavilion. |