SHIFTING SCENES

IN

THEATRICAL LIFE.

CHAPTER I.

It was Christmas-eve, a good dozen years ago, and a dark, dank, dismal eve it was; the snow, which had fallen thickly and incessantly for many days, was piled up in the streets in dirty, frozen masses; and everybody looked pinched, hungry, and cold. The shop-doors were closed, not to shut out customers, be it observed, but to prevent the heavy sleet and the chill wind from entering and freezing the worthy shopkeepers of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

At the bottom of Pilgrim-street there was an oldfashioned house with projecting, or, more correctly speaking, overhanging windows: the building had once known better days, but it had come down in the world step by step, till at last a sign-board was hung over its doorway, intimating that Donald Maccurdy sold "Tea, sugar, candles, butter, tobacco, snuff, et cætera."

Now, Donald Maccurdy was a thrifty, canny body, and "fond o' the siller," so he let his spare apartments whenever he could; and, as his residence was not far removed from the theatre, his lodgers were generally members of the theatrical profession.

Into an apartment over the before-mentioned grocer's shop I am about to introduce the reader. It is a spacious, queerly-shaped room, with a big bay-window, low ceiling, and wide fireplace. In one corner of this room there is a fourpost bedstead, with dingy moth-eaten hangings; and in the window recess there is an ancient sofa, the covering of which is so patched, that it is difficult to say what was its

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original colour or material. A rickety round table stands in the centre of this apartment, on which are scattered a multiplicity of articles of a strange and miscellaneous description, which I will endeavour minutely to detail. Over a portion of the table a newspaper is spread in lieu of a table cloth, on which lie the remains of a loaf, a few crumbs of cheese, together with a jug of beer which has been brought from the neighbouring public-house. Near these fragments of food are scattered in careless confusion, a harlequin's mask and wand, a box of spangles, a lump of chalk, some pieces of soiled ribbon, a hare's foot daubed with vermilion, a fan, a bunch of false ringlets, a pack of cards, a child's doll, several sprays and wreaths of faded artificial flowers, some brass bracelets and coloured glass beads, a powder-box upset among loose combs and brushes, a square lookingglass minus most of the quicksilver and all the frame, a jar labelled "bears-grease," an odd glove, a pair of dingywhite shoes into which are thrust a stick of toffy, a cake of gingerbread, some play-bills, and a reel of cotton.

On the sofa there are numerous shoes of various shapes and colours, all very much the worse for wear; there is also the clown's dress, and there are clouds of soiled muslin, trimmed with tufts of pink paper, intended to represent roses, and looking dilapidated even now, in the murky light of a winter's day, but wait till they are behindthe footlights, and you'll not know them from real roses.

Poor

There is a rousing sea-coal fire, before which are hanging to dry two pairs of fleshings, which yon wan-looking woman has just washed and coloured. But there is no tub visible, you will say, how then has she performed this operation? Why, she has dabbled them through the wash-hand basin. thing! she couldn't leave her baby while she went down to the kitchen; so she did the best she could. She thinks it is a sad struggle to rear children in the midst of the poverty and hardships of a strolling player's life; but her husband tells her, that by-and-by the girls will be able to earn a little, and then matters will be somewhat better. God knows, there is much occasion for things to be a great deal better, for they scarcely ever have food enough; and summer or winter their clothing is the same-scanty and threadbare, indeed, are their garments at all times. She would

like to see her little ones clean and dressed neatly, they are such pretty creatures,-nobody has such pretty children as she has.

"Julius says that beauty is a fortune to an actress. Here the woman shakes her head, hushes the infant on her lap, murmurs some indistinct words, and begins to stitch spangles on a much-worn white satin shoe of tiny dimensions. How often she sighs over her task, and impatiently rocks her baby to and fro-for she is endeavouring to commit to memory, from a tattered book before her, the wretched words of a wretched heroine, in a wretched drama, entitled, "The Wrecked Heart, or the Maiden of the Cottage on the desolate Heath, and the One-handed Robber!"

"Oh dear!" meekly murmured the pale, weary woman. "Oh dear! I never shall get the words into my head by boxing-night; and if I don't, Julius will be so cross !"

And no wonder she could not study, for the din in the apartment was enough to confuse a deaf man.

Above all

the hubbub screeched the discordant tones of a violin.

"Is that the way to point your toe, Clotilda?" said the man with the violin, addressing a little girl who was holding on by the bedpost, while she performed sundry peculiar evolutions with her legs, which she called practising.

"No, pa," answered an elder girl, turning a pirouette, and balancing herself on the point of her toe; “but this is!"

"Brava ! brava ! Zarina; you'll be the dancer, I perceive." "And so will Clotilda be when she is as old as I am," replied Zarina, making a graceful bound.

"Now, again," said the man, rapping the bedpost with his bow; "one, two

Suddenly there was a scream, and Zarina fell headlong over a child who was crawling on the floor.

"Emma, Emma!" exclaimed the man, flinging his violin on the bed, and picking up Zarina; "how strange it is that you can't keep Alphonso out of the way."

"Oh, dear me, Julius, look here! I've the baby on my knee, my sewing in my hands, and my part before me; I am all engaged-hands, eyes, and thoughts!"

"Can't you let him sit on the floor by your side?" asked Julius.

"Yes, but he'll get away from me; he's such a fellow to crawl."

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Put your foot on his frock; he'll not crawl far," said Julius.

"It's very awkward having two children that can't walk,” observed Emma ruefully; "couldn't Claude take care of him for a little while?" suggested she.

"Don't you see he's busy practising his postures? What a thoughtless woman you are, to be sure !"

'Pa, pa! I've done it at last!" cried a boy of about six years of age, as he shouldered his leg, musket-fashion; "look, pa-there's for you! clean as a whistle, isn't it?"

'Boy, you'll rival Grimaldi some day!" said the man. "He'll dislocate his precious limbs some day," sighed Emma despondingly.

"Who is Grimaldi, pa?" asked Claude.

"He is nobody now," said Julius, rubbing his chin moodily.

"Is Taglioni nobody?" lisped Zarina. "I should like her to be nobody when I am a great dancer, and come out at the grand opera, as papa says I shall.”

"Practise, my angel children!" said Julius, resuming his violin, "practise! and you'll all be at the grand opera in London some day. Now, my fairy, for your pas de grâce. Commence-very good-very good, indeed! Arms a little more rounded-ah, so! brava ! excellent! Now smile, Zarina! smile, or you'll get no applause."

Emma sighed deeply as she glanced at her two daughters: the little figure which bounded to and fro, her pretty feet scarcely touching the ground, was Zarina, her first-born, her pet, who was so beautiful. And well might the fond mother deem her child beautiful; for Zarina, with her waving glossy hair, and clear blue eyes, was bright as a sunbeam.

"Poor dears!" exclaimed Emma, "they work so hard! I would rather work hard myself, I mean twice as hard as I do work, to save those precious girls. Zarina is eight years old, and ought to be at school like other children of her age; but Julius says the thing is impossible, and I suppose it is so. Oh, my heart aches when I think of what my darlings will have to go through!"

"Quicker! quicker!" cried Julius, stamping his foot vehe

mently-" and remember your smile, Zarina, or the people will imagine you are working instead of dancing. So, socapital, capital; that's the sort of thing to please!"

"Shall I get an encore, pa?" asked Zarina, when her dance was finished.

"Of course you will! I'll take care of that, Rina. I'll send Maccurdy into the pit to applaud."

Oh, but pa, that won't be real applause," said Zarina. "Real! what do you mean, golden-hair?" asked Julius, playfully pinching his daughter's check.

"Oh! don't you understand?”

"A bouquet would create an effect," said he musingly, "but flowers, at this time of the year, are not to be dreamed of, except by people at the grand opera."

"Pa, you didn't answer me," said Zarina. "I haven't time, my sylph," replied he.

"Now for the

pas de trois. Madame Cardonizzi, we wait for you."

"Good gracious, Julius! how can you call me by that name?" exclaimed Emma, putting her baby upon the bed and tucking up her dress.

"Don't be absurd, Emma! and do learn to be a little dignified," said he, in a fussy tone. "Let me impress upon your memory that we have risen in the world! that we are no longer strollers, acting in booths and barns-no, no! We are now engaged at a first-rate theatre; you for acting and dancing, I for harlequin and ballet-master."

"But I can't get accustomed to a new name all at once," observed Emma, in a quiet, tone.

"Pshaw! the task of forgetting your old name, and remembering your new one, is as easy to you as it is to me," said Julius, combing his hair with his fingers.

"No, it isn't," replied she, drawing on her dancing shoes and displaying a pair of pretty feet.

"How so?"

"In the first place, people are always asking me how I pronounce my name, and when I try to explain I stammer and spoil it."

"I don't spoil it," said Julius pompously. "Now, observe me. Car-don-it-see-there! the name is as easy to pronounce as Brown, Jones, or Robinson."

"Yes, I dare say it is easy enough to you who are so very