But the sentence remained unfinished. The flap of the tent had lifted. The figure of the showman loomed up in the entry against the lights and the darkening sky. He was in excellent humour. He rattled the money in his pocket and breathed the smell of whisky into the tent, peering into it as if he were uncertain whether it was occupied or not.
“That’s right, then,” he began huskily, “that’s as it should be. Ten minutes, your ladyship! And maybe the young gentleman would give a hand with the drum outside, while you get through with the titivating.”
His shape was only vaguely discernible as he stood gently rocking there. It was Mr. Anon who answered him. For a little while the showman seemed to be too much astounded to reply. Then he lost control of himself. A torrent of imprecations spouted out of his mouth. He threatened to call in the police, the mob. He shook his brass-ringed whip in our faces. I had never seen a man of his kind really angry before. He looked like a beast, like the Apollyon straddling the path in my Pilgrim’s Progress. His roaring all but stunned me, swept over me, as if I were nothing—a leaf in the wind. I think I could have listened to him all but in mere curiosity—as to an equinoctial gale when one is safe in bed—if he had not been so near, and the tent so small and gloomy, and if Mr. Anon had not been standing in silence within reach of his hands. But his fury spent itself at last. Slowly his head turned on his heavy shoulders. He seemed suddenly to have forgotten his rage and became coaxing and conciliatory. He had a sounding, calf-like voice, and it rose up and down. An eavesdropper outside the tent would have supposed he was on the verge of tears.
He was sure the young lady had no intention of cheating him, of “doing the dirty.” Why he’d as lief send off there and then to the great house for the flunkey and the cage. What had I to complain of? Wasn’t it private enough? Should he make it a level bob-a-nob, and no thruppenies? There was nothing to be afraid of. “God bless you, sir, she wouldn’t cheat an honest man, not she.”
People were swarming into the Fair from miles around, and real gentry in their carriages amongst them, like as had never been seen before. Did we want to ruin him? What should we think now, if we had paid down good money to come and see the neatest little piece of female shape as ever God Almighty smuggled out of heaven; and in we went, and stuck up there was a gent.—“a nice-spoken, respectable gent,” he agreed, with a contemptuous heave of his massive shoulders, “but a gent no less, and him gowked up on the table, there, why, half as big again, and mouthing, mouthing like a … ?” The hideous words poured on.
His great body gently rocked above me; his thumbs hooked-in under his armpits, his whip dangling. Till that moment I had scarcely realized that the scene in which I sat was real, I had been so harassed and stupefied by his noise. But now he had begun to think of what he was saying. In those last words an unnameable insult lurked. He was looking at us, seeing us, approaching us as if in a dream.
A horror of the spirit came over me, and, as if rapt away from myself, I stared sheer up at him.
“Beware, my friend,” I cried up at him. “Have a care. I see a rope around your neck.”
It was the truth. In the gloom, actually with my own eyes, I saw a noose loosely dangling there over his round, heavy shoulders.
So to this day I see my showman. His circus, I believe, continues to roam the English countryside, and by the mercy of heaven he will die in his bed, or, better still, in the bracken. But I suppose, like most of us, he was a slave to his own superstitions, or perhaps it was my very littleness, combined with the memory of some old story he had heard as a boy, that intimidated him. His mouth opened; his whip shook; the grin of a wild beast swept over his face. But he said no more.
Yet his, none the less, was half the victory. Nothing on earth could now have dissuaded me from keeping my bargain. His words had bitterly frightened me. No one else should be “gowked” up there. I turned my back on him. He could go; I was ready.
But if I could be obstinate, so too could Mr. Anon. And when at last our argument was over, I in sheer weariness had agreed to a compromise. It was that I should show myself; and he take my place in the circus. The showman’s money was safe; that was all he cared about. If “Humpty” liked to petticoat himself up like a doxy and take my turn in the ring—why, it was a rank smelling robbery, but let him—let him. He bawled for the woman, flung a last curse at us, and withdrew.
We were alone—only the vacancy of the tent between us. Beyond the narrow slit I could see the merry jostling crowds, hoydens and hobbledehoys, with their penny squirts and pasteboard noses and tin trumpets. A strange luminousness bathed their faces and clothes, beautifying them with light and shadow, carpeting with its soft radiance the rough grey-green grass. The harvest moon was brightening. I went near to him and touched his sleeve. His lips contracted, his shoulder drew in from my touch.
“Listen,” I pleaded. “One hour—that is all. That evening in Wanderslore—do you remember? All my troubles over. Yes, I know. I have brought you to this. But then we can talk. Then you shall forgive me.”
He
