It cannot in reality have been a very wonderful Pantomime.Even at Drury Lane thirty years back there were many things that they did not know,and it is not likely that a touring company fitted into so inadequate an old building as our Assembly Rooms would have provided anything very fine.But Jeremy will never again discover so complete a realisation for his illusions.Whatever failures in the presentation there were,he himself made good.
As a finale to the first half of the entertainment there was given Dick's dream at the Cross-Roads.He lay on the hard ground,his head upon his bundle,the cat as large as he watching sympathetically beside him.In the distance were the lights of London,and then,out of the half dusk,fairies glittering with stars and silver danced up and down the dusky road whilst all the London bells rang out "Turn again,"Whittington,Lord Mayor of London."Had Jeremy been of the age and wisdom of Uncle Samuel he would have discovered that Dick was a stout lady and probably the mother of a growing family;that the fairies knew as much about dancing as the Glebeshire wives sitting on the bench behind;that the London bells were two hand instruments worked by a youth in shirt sleeves behind the scenes so energetically that the High Road and the painted London blew backwards and forwards in sympathy with his movements.
Jeremy,happily,was not so worldly wise as his uncle.This scene created for him then a tradition of imperishable beauty that would never fade again.The world after that night would be a more magical place than it had ever been before."Turn again,Whittington"continued the education that the Toy Village and Hamlet had already advanced.
When the gas rose once again,sizzling like crackling bacon,he was white with excitement.The only remark that he made was:"It's much better than the pictures outside Martin's,isn't it,Uncle Samuel?"to which Uncle Samuel,who had been railing for weeks at the deflowering of Polchester by those abominable posters,could truthfully reply,"Much better."Little by little he withdrew himself from the other world and realised his own.He could see that he and his uncle were certainly not amongst the Quality.Large ladies,their dresses tucked up over their knees,sucked oranges.
Country farmers with huge knobbly looking sticks were there,and even some sailors,on their way probably to Drymouth.He recognised the lady who kept charge of the small Orange Street post-office,and waved to her with delighted excitement.The atmosphere was thick with gas and oranges,and I'm afraid that Uncle Samuel must have suffered a great deal.I can only put it on record that he,the most selfish of human beings,never breathed a word of complaint.
They were all packed very closely together up there in the gallery,where seventy years before an orchestra straight from Jane Austen's novels had played to the dancing of the contemporaries of Elizabeth Bennett,Emma Woodhouse,and the dear lady of "Persuasion."Another thirty-two years and that same gallery would be listening to recruiting appeals and echoing the drums and fifes of a martial band.The best times are always the old times.The huge lady in the seat next to Jeremy almost swallowed him up,so that he peered out from under her thick arm,and heard every crunch and crackle of the peppermints that she was enjoying.He grew hotter and hotter,so that at last he seemed,as once he had read in some warning tract about a greedy boy that Aunt Amy had given him,"to swim in his own fat."But he did not mind.Discomfort only emphasised his happiness.
Then,peering forward beneath that stout black arm,he suddenly perceived,far below in the swimming distance,the back of his mother,the tops of the heads of Mary and Helen,the stiff white collar of his father,and the well-known coral necklace of Aunt Amy.For a moment dismay seized him,the morning's lie which he had entirely forgotten suddenly jumping up and facing him.But they had forgiven him.
"Shall I wave to them?"he asked excitedly of Uncle Samuel.
