“YOCK, NACK, BALLO.”
THAT evening, in his study, William was disturbed by faint and far-away sounds of merriment from the kitchen. It is a house of thick walls and strong doors, but in the silence of his room the merry vibration reached him. He went into the hall and listened, and heard, at the end of the passage which leads to the kitchen, such a hurly-burly of hilarity as he could not have conceived it possible for only three people to make.
The old housekeeper was screaming peal after peal of laughter, such as he did not think mortal could utter, and retain any breath at all. A wonderful grunting or snoring sound, uttered with a sort of rhythm, accompanied one of the oddest songs he had ever heard, the melody of which resembled a piece of church-music, with a wild comic refrain attached to it at every verse. It was sung by a very sweet voice — a demi-contralto, rich and powerful, which somehow he had no difficulty in allotting to the stranger.
Now what could the row be, he wondered: some fun, of course, that delightful girl has set going.
Well, certainly, she was the mistress of these revels, and very funny the fun was to witness, “if hot to describe.
They had been drinking their tea together — Mrs. Gillyflower, the guest, and Mall. Tea ended, the girl had resumed her work, and old Martha and the stranger began to talk. A very voluble companion, in truth, was this guest, and kept the old woman, who loved a talk and a story, very agreeably employed.
Now she was telling her a long story — the sort of thing that old housekeepers like to gossip over. It was about her mother’s last illness, and her death.
There were touching incidents at the close, and the young girl told them with a true simple eloquence, that moved good Martha Gillyflower, albeit she despised the melting mood, to tears.
That strange girl did not weep, although she drew tears from the proud energetic old woman.
“Come — come, ma’am, you must cry no more; I’ll bite your little finger if you do.”
The old woman looked at her, not knowing what to make of her threat; for she seemed very serious, and showed the tiny edge of her white teeth.
“Na — na, lass! ye’ll no bite my finger,” said Mrs. Gillyflower, drying her eyes quickly, with a little severity.
“Don’t you tempt me, Mrs. Gillyflower.”
“Don’t ye talk nonsense, child.”
“Well ye’ve stopped crying, and that’s all I wanted. Mall’s done her work; we’re going to dance a dance for ye. Give her leave to come — do, please; pray do. — Mall! Mrs. Gillyflower says ye may come.”
Well, Mrs. Gillyflower did agree, with just reluctance and conditions enough to reserve her’ importance, and in a moment the tiled floor was cleared.
“Where’s the bellows? that’s right — and here’s a stick. Now, Mrs. Gillyflower — mind, I’m the bear-leader, and a fiddler beside; and the bear is sick, and I’m lamenting with him over his sickness, and we try a dance now and then, but it won’t do; and Mall is the bear. I’ll have her ready in a minute; and may I throw this wood on the fire to make a good blaze, that you may see us well? Come in, Mall — bring your candle — come into the room, till I dress you for the bear.”
Grinning from ear to ear, in marched Mall, with lengthy strides, and in two or three minutes emerged with a vizard on, made of brown-paper stitched over with tufts of black wool, a clever imitation of a bear’s head; her arms and legs encased in long black stockings, the feet of which were stuffed out so as to resemble two long paws. The gait of the bear had been carefully rehearsed. The bear was muzzled, and a cord from its nose tied round the fiddler’s arm: and with bent knees, lifting its feet high at every step, and paws raised after the manner of a begging dog — her dark dress so disposed and tied about her as to harmonize with the other dispositions, and make a very good rough imitation of the brute — in came the interesting invalid, hanging his head, now on this side, now on that, and emitting dolorous grunts; while the woe-begone fiddler, with his bellows to his chin, the stick, by way of bow, across it, and the cord about his arm — turning up his eyes in agony, or rolling them on the bear with rueful affection — gave a final charge to his associate performer:
“Now, mind all I said. Remember when ye sit down, and when ye stand up; and every time I call ye ‘Sir Bruin, the Bear,’ ye make a low bow, mind; and when I sing ‘My son! my son!’ ye hug me with your arms; and when I sing quick, ‘Oh, poor fallow — Yock, nack, ballo!’ (In a foreign language, which the stranger understood, these words mean “Eyes, nose, hair and were introduced in the refrain describing the ubiquity of the offerings of Sir Bruin, every part being affected) then ye dance round, first on one leg and then on the other; and when I say ‘Chatters, mooie, cherro — (In the same language, and similarly introduced, these words mean, “Teeth, mouth, head.”) We’ll drive him in the barrow,’ you sit down fainting-like. And now look, Mrs. Gillyflower, please; we’re just beginning.”
It needed no such exhortation, for that good woman, with a recluse’s appetite for fun, was staring and listening, all eye and ear, with a preparatory grin on.
So the dramatic dance and song commenced: and to those who have ever witnessed it performed with the gravity of genuine humor, the mutual and somewhat ceremonious respect of the bear and the fiddler, the suffering and the sympathy, ‘ the tender affection and condolings, and the momentary gleams of hope and hilarity — it will be no wonder that, before it had proceeded far, old Martha was in such screams of laughter that it was a marvel she did not roll off her chair, or die in the struggle to catch her breath.
The beautiful creature who played the fiddler could not, do what she would, divest herself of her grace and her prettiness, and her clever acting was made but the more irresistible by these pleasant incongruities.
Old Martha shook — she shrieked — she rolled; down her cheeks streamed tears of merriment; she inarticulately waved her hands imploringly, to arrest the fun that was convulsing her. But it proceeded to the end, and caused the uproar that disturbed William, who, I am afraid, was beginning to grow more idle than was right.
He would have liked to pay his visit to Mrs. Gillyflower then, but he feared he might interrupt the fun. He stood, and listened to the strange hurly-burly, highly amused, and also interested. Sometimes he lost patience with honest Martha, whose roars of laughter almost drowned the song, which he thought wonderfully quaint and pretty, and the voice quite beautiful. I think he was fast falling in love with his mysterious guest.
“Well,” said old Martha, breaking in on his solitude, “that’s the lithesomest lass that ever I sid. If you’d a’ sin how connily she did it!”
“I heard you laughing, and I thought I heard singing.”
“So you did,” cried Martha, hilariously, and she described the whole performance with boisterous merriment “I tell you what, I never laughed so in my life before; an’ I saw a play in the York theatre, an’ singin’ an’ dancin’ there, but nothin’ like this to make a body laugh. Hoot, man! where war ye that ye didn’t come and see it? — ye’d a’ never forget it while ye lived. I wish she may be as skilled in graver things, tho’, but I don’t know what to make of her.”
“What is it, then? tell me what you mean,” said he, struck by the sudden gravity of her looks.
“Well, I’ll tell ye. I took down the Bible this evening, when we had done our tea, and I read a chapter; and she listened quite quiet, and when I shut it she asked me, ‘What book is that?’ I looked at her, thinkin’ she was funnin’ me. But twasn’t nothin’ o’ the kind. Then I consayted she meant, ‘What book o’ the Old Testament is it?’ So I said, ‘Genesis.’
‘And who wrote Genesis?’ says she.
‘The Bible,’ says I, ‘is the Word of God.’
‘Ay, but you said this is Genesis,’ says she. ‘An’ don’t you know,’ says I, ‘that Genesis is a part o’ the Bible?’
‘I might a’ known it,’ says she, ‘if I liked.’ Well, that puzzled me a bit, and I looked at her in a sort o’ jummlement, for I didn’t know what to make o’ her; and seein’ me look so earnest, she laughed hearty, you’d think she’d a’ died a’most. Well, I considered, an’ remembrin’ what ye said, I thought, if she be a nun she must be a Catholic, an’ Catholics, as I’ve heard say, never reads their Bibles; so just to try, says I, ‘To-morrow’s Sunda, ye’ll be cornin’ to church, I suppose?’
‘The Squire goes to church?’ says she. ‘Yes, an’ reads his Bible, too,’ says I. ‘I don’t mind if I do,’ says she; ‘but my bonnet blew off on the moss the evening I came, and can ye lend me anything to put on my head? — and’ I’ve no good clothes, nothin’ with me.’ So Mall is stayin’ at home, and she’ll lend her Sunda bonnet, an’ she’s cornin’ to church; so she can’t be a Catholic, ye see.”
“That does not follow — it is no proof at all. I’ve seen Roman Catholics in church. They have no objection — at least no difficulty. They can say their own prayers to themselves while ours are being read, and so don’t hear one word of them. Have you ever seen her tell her beads, though, or tap her breast with her closed hand at her prayers?”
“I don’t go into her room for her candle till she’s in bed, so I can’t say what her prayers may be.”
“Have you ever seen her ‘cross herself like this, before or after meals, when we say grace?”
“No, sir.”
“They do it very quietly, to avoid singularity; but watch her to-morrow, and we’ll see how church will please her. Her not being well up in her Bible looks very like it. I rely very much on first impressions. I think she is a foreigner, and I think she is a Roman Catholic. We shall see.”
“Well,” said Martha, “I’m jealous of that myself.”
“And now I’ll take my pipe to the kitchen; she won’t mind, and it would be a pity to break an old custom,” said the Squire.