“‘For they be actions rather, and not words, Which paint out kings and truly in their colors. There be so many viewers of their facts That their disorders (do) permit no shade, Nor will abide excuses.’”
“Oh,” cried Carington, “that last is like Tennyson. ‘The fierce light that breaks upon a throne.’ Is there more?”
“Tell us,” said Rose, “the one about a treaty—she ‘mislikes,’ I think that is what she says. I liked that one.”
‘Touching an instrument you’d have me sign, I do assure you, though I play on some, And have been brought up to know musick well, Yet this discord would be of gross account, Such as for well-tuned musick were not fit. Go teach your new raw counsellors better manners Than to advise you such a paring off Of ample meanings.’”
“How pleasantly that takes one back to _Hamlet_ and the pipe!” said Lyndsay. “It ought to settle the question of authorship.”
“I begin to agree with you, Miss Anne,” said Ellett.
“Don’t forget to ask your medium about Queen Bess, aunty,” cried Rose.
“Have you any belief in that business of spiritual manifestations, Mr. Lyndsay?” asked Carington.
“None. Not I. It is one mass of self-deceit and fraud. I have seen too much of it.”
“I have a strong belief in the circulating medium,” cried Anne. “It seems rather essential as a means of inspiring the other mediums. But what are the rest of your situations, Archie?”
“Oh, there is one more Shaksperian situation.”
“Mr. Shakspere appears at midnight in Mr. Browning’s study and asks what the mischief he means by—”
“For shame, Pardy!” broke in Rose; “we won’t hear any more. They are horrid.”
“I guess we are out of it,” said Jack. “I’m audience.”
“Oh, there is one for you. The ghost of a murdered bear appears to Master Jack Lyndsay and wishes to know if he can spell ‘responsibility.’”
“Wait till I catch you to-morrow, Redhead.” But there was much laughter, and Jack felt that on the whole it was not undesirable for his bear to pass into the limbo of jokes.
“And now, boys, be off with you and dream over that last situation. Good night,” and they trooped away, merry, to their tent on the cliff.
“Jack is a very good actor,” said Lyndsay; “but children are apt to be fairly good actors and then to lose the gift. Ned is even better. The boys are fond of charades, and what we like best is to take the names of poets from Chaucer to Crabbe,—we have pretty well exhausted the list.”