The Rose in the Ring

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"Don't call Peterson. He is a brute. Rouse him yourself, and tell him
to come inside the tent. Poor boy, he's half drowned. Come, dearie,"
to the girl, "go into the dressing-room. You must not see--"

"He is so white and ill-looking, mother," said the girl, in pitying
tones, her gaze fastened upon the face of the sleeper. The mother drew
the child aside, an arm about her shoulder. Together they watched the
clown's efforts to arouse the boy.

"He may be another Artful Dick, my child," ventured the mother. "Your
father says the pickpockets are uncommonly numerous this spring."

"I'm sure he isn't a thief--I'm sure of it," said the girl eagerly.

She was a pretty, brown-haired creature, whose large, serious eyes
seemed unnaturally dark and brilliant against the vivid coloring of
her cheeks and forehead. The blacks, whites and carmines of the make-
up box had beautified her for the ring but not for closer observation.
One who understood the secrets of the "make-up" could have told at a
glance that underneath the thick layer of powder and paint there was a
soft, white skin; even the rough, careless application of harmless
cosmetics could not, in any sense, deceive one as to the delicacy of
her features. The mouth, red with the carmine grease, was gentle, even
tremulous; her nose, though streaked with a thin, white line, was
straight and pure patrician in its modeling, with fine, quivering
nostrils, now gently distended by sharp exercise in the ring; her ears
were small, her throat round and slim; right proudly her head rode the
firm, white neck; the warm, brown hair swept down in caresses for the
bare shoulders.

A long, red Shaker cloak enveloped the slim, straight body. Dainty
golden slippers, protected by the ungainly ground shoes of the circus
performer, peeped from beneath the hem of the robe. A small, visorless
cap of red velvet fitted snugly over the crown of her head.

Now the lips were parted and the eyes narrowed by interest in the
stranger who slept against their walls.

The mother was still a young woman; a pretty one, despite the careworn
expression in her eyes and the tired lines in her face. She was
dressed in the ordinary garments of the street, in no way suggestive
of the circus. There was an unmistakable air of gentle breeding about
her, patient under the strain of adverse circumstances, but strong and
resolute in the power to meet them without flinching. This woman, you
could see at a glance, was not born to the circus and its hardships;
she came of another world. Tall and slender and proud she was, endowed
with the poise of a thorough gentlewoman. Hers was a fine, brilliant
face, crowned by dark hair that grew low and waved about her temples.
Deep, tender brown eyes met yours steadily and with unwavering candor.
There was strength and loyalty and purity in their depths. No
hardness, no callousness, no guile, no rancor there: only the clear,
sweet eyes of a woman whose soul is white. There was an infinite pity
in them now.

The clown had shaken the boy into partial wakefulness. He was sitting
up, leaning forward on his hands, his eyes blinking in the contest
between sleep and amazement.

"Get up," said Grinaldi, the clown, shaking him by the shoulder. "What
are you doing here, boy?"

The lad came quickly to his feet and would have rushed away into the
darkness behind him had it not been for the restraining grip on his
arm. He felt himself being dragged into the stuffy, mysterious
vestibule of the tent, into plain view of a half-dozen vividly attired
persons, almost under the feet of stolid, gayly caparisoned horses
wearing the great back-pads.

And this creature who led him there--this grotesque object with the
chalky face and coal-black eyebrows that ran up in tall triangles to
meet a still chalkier pate--this figure with the red and black
crescents on his cheeks and the baggy, spotted suit of red and white
and blue and the conical hat--who and what was he?

The clown!

He was not dreaming--he was in the dressing-tent of the circus,
enveloped by the dull, magic atmosphere that comes in the smoke of
burning oils,--an atmosphere that is never to be found outside the low
walls of a dressing-tent. He experienced a sudden feeling of
suffocation. The whole world seemed to have closed in upon him; a drab
sky almost touched his head; the horizon seemed to have rushed up to
within ten feet of where he stood.

His bewildered gaze took in the horses, the boxes, the trunks, the
ring paraphernalia, the "properties," the discarded uniforms of
attendants--cast in apparent confusion here, there and everywhere.
Somehow, as he stared, this conglomerate mass of unfamiliar things
seemed to creep away into the black shadows he had not perceived
before; the drab dome of the tent began to swirl above his head, like
a merry-go-round; the lights danced and then went out.

Grinaldi, the clown, caught him in his arms as he slipped forward in a
dead faint.

CHAPTER II

IN THE DRESSING-TENT

When he regained consciousness, he was lying on a thick, dusty
mattress, his head pillowed on a bundle of cloth that smelled of
cotton and dyestuffs. Faces emerged from the gloom around him. Some
one was holding a torch over his strange couch. That odd face in
bismuth and lampblack was bending over him.

"He's come 'round, Mrs. Braddock," he heard this creature say, in a
far-off voice. "Only a faint, nothing more. Poor lad, he looks ill and
hungry."

Then other figures, all gaudy and bright and glittering, crowded into
his vision. He tried to raise himself to his elbow, a fierce wave of
embarrassment rushing over him. Some one supported him from behind. As
he came to a sitting position, he turned his head to thank this
person. It was with difficulty that he repressed a cry of alarm. The
being who braced him with friendly arms was a glittering, shiny thing
of green, with a human face that leered upon him.

Observing the youth's bewilderment and uncertainty, Grinaldi laughed.

"He's not a boa-constrictor, lad. He's the boneless wonder. He's as
gentle as a spring lamb, and not hardly as tough. Signer Anaconda, the
Human Snake, that's what he's called on the bills. Ed Casey is his
real name."

"Aw, cheese it, Joey," growled the amiable Signer. "Say, young feller,
what's ailing you? Where'd you come from?"

The stranger in this curious world managed to turn his body so that
his legs hung over the side of the vaulter's mattress; he faced his
audience, a sudden wariness in his eyes. Before venturing a word of
explanation, he allowed his gaze to sweep the entire group. They
mistook his deliberateness for stupefaction.

He saw perhaps a dozen people in the group before him. The colors of
the rainbow were represented in the staring, curious company. There
were men in tights and women in tights--in pink and red and green and
blue--some of them still panting and breathless after their perilous
work in the ring. He took them all in at a glance, but his eyes rested
at last on the one figure that seemed out-of-place in this motley
crowd: the tall, graceful figure of the woman in street clothes. He
looked long at the sweet, gentle, unpainted face of this woman, and
drew his first deep breath of relief and hope when she smiled. She
moved quickly through the crowd of acrobats and riders, followed close
behind by the slim, wide-eyed girl in the long red cloak. An instant
later she was sitting beside him on the mattress, smiling with
friendly encouragement as she laid her hand upon his arm. The girl
stood at her knee. For the first time the fugitive noticed the face of
this slender girl--no, it was the eyes alone that he saw, for the face
was grossly covered with pigments.

"What has happened?" asked the tall woman gently. "Have you--have you
run away from home, my boy?"

"How long have I been here?" There was a suggestion of alarm in the
abrupt question.

His voice, querulous through excitement, was quite strong and musical.
The tone and his manner of addressing the questioner proved beyond
contradiction that he was no ordinary tramp, or show-follower, such as
they were in the habit of seeing in their travels. A dozen fine old
Virginia gentlemen, perhaps, one after another, had lived and died
before him; down that precious line of blood had come the strain that
makes for the finished thoroughbred--the real Virginia aristocrat. Six
words, spoken with the mild drawl of the cultured Southerner, were
sufficient to prove his title. No amount of mud or tatters or physical
distress could take away the inborn charm of blood. No haggardness or
pain could detract from the fine, clean movement of the lips, or sully
the deep intelligence of the eyes.

His audience at once found a new interest in him. He was not what they
had expected him to be; this boy was no scatter-brained country lout,
with the dream of the circus at the back of his folly.

He, of course, could not have known that during the ten minutes in
which he lay unconscious on the huge pad a score of these curious,
sympathetic strollers, partially or wholly dressed, had come out to
gaze upon him, each delivering a characteristic opinion as to his
purpose, but all of them roughly compassionate. Without exception,
they looked upon him as one of the show-sick youths who, in those
days, as now, succumb too readily to the lure of sawdust and spangles.
More than one scoffing jest was uttered over his unconscious head.

Now they realized that he was not what they had thought him to be. A
deeper tragedy than this seemed to be stamped in his wan face.

"You fainted ten minutes ago. Are you feeling better now? Give him
some brandy, one of you. We will put you on your feet again in a few
minutes, and then you may get on to the hotel. How wet you are! You
must have come far."

He watched her face all the time she was speaking. No sign of trust or
confidence came into his own as the result of her kindliness. Instead,
the wariness grew.

"Only across the mountain," he said succinctly. A half smile,
quizzical and almost grotesque by reason of the mud on his chin, came
to his lips. "I've been out in the rain, ma'am," he vouchsafed. "I
should say you had," said the contortionist. "You're soppin' wet. By
gum, I'll bet the green runs in these tights of mine, too." The wet
body had drenched them thoroughly.

Whereupon the newcomer undertook to support himself, not without a
word of thanks to the acrobat. Once more he surveyed the mystic circle
of figures. He had never been so close to men and women in tights
before. Somehow they were not so alluring as when viewed from the blue
seats of the circus tent. The fluffy, abbreviated tarletan skirts of
two women bareback riders who stood not more than two yards away
seemed tawdry and flimsy at close range; the pink fleshings of the
world's greatest somersault artist looked rumpled and fuzzy; the
zouave costume of the lady rope-walker lost its satiny sheen through
propinquity; the clown was dusty and greasy and stuffy. An illusion
was being shattered in the flash of an eye.

"I must be moving along," he said, in quick return to apprehension.
"Thank you for looking out for me. It was very kind of--" He swayed as
he tried to arise. The genial contortionist caught him.

"He's hungry!" cried one of the bareback queens. He made a heroic
effort to pull himself together. The innate modesty of a gentleman
reproved him even as things went hazy: he was conscious that he was
staring at the surprisingly large kneecaps of the speaker. He was
vaguely troubled because they were dirty.

A flask of brandy was pressed to his lips. He gasped, caught his
breath, and, as the tears came to his eyes, smiled apologetically.

"It's pretty strong," he choked out.

"Puts snap and ginger into you," said the clown, standing back to
watch the effect of his ministrations. "It strikes me you're not a
common tramp. Wot were you doing 'angin' round this tent, son? Don't
you know you might 'ave got clubbed to death by one of the canvasmen
out there? They're never 'appy unless they're kickin' some poor rube
over the guy-ropes. You wasn't trying to peep into the dressing-tent,
was you?"

A hot flush mounted to the boy's forehead. He arose unsteadily.

"No," he said quickly. "I was trying to find a dry spot. I was tired
out. Let me go now, please. I'm all right." He started toward a flap
in the tent wall.

"Better not go that-a-way," said the clown. "You'll go plump into the
ring. Wait a minute. Are you 'ungry?"

"No," said the boy, but they knew he was not speaking the truth. The
girl in the long red cloak, she of the wonderful eyes, stood before
him.

"Please wait, won't you?" she said, half timidly, half imperatively.
"I will get something for you to eat. It's--it's right over there in
my corner. The cook always brings my father's supper here after the
show begins. He won't mind if I give it to you. He can get more. My
father owns the show."

"No, no," he cried. "I can't take his supper. I am not hungry."

But she smiled and flew away, disappearing behind the flap at his
left: a fluttering red fairy she might have been. He never forgot that
first radiant, enveloping smile.

"It is all right, my boy," said the girl's mother, also smiling. "You
_are_ hungry. We know what it is to be hungry--sometimes."

"That we do," said the contortionist, rubbing his narrow abdomen and
drawing a lugubrious mouth.

"You must be quite frozen in those wet clothes," observed Mrs.
Braddock pityingly.

"I can't stay here, ma'am," he said abruptly. The hunted look came
back into his eyes.

"He's no regular bum," said the "strong man," in the background,
addressing the pink-limbed "lady juggler."

"He's got a 'istory, that boy 'as," said the lady addressed, deeply
interested. "Makes me think o' that boy Dickens wrote about. What was
his name?"

"How should I know?" demanded the strong man. "You Britishers are
always workin' off riddles about something somebody wrote."

"What is your name?" asked the gentle-voiced woman at the boy's side.
"Where do you come from?"

He hesitated, still uncertain of his standing among these strange,
apparently friendly people.

"I can't tell you my name," he said in a low voice. "I hoped you
wouldn't ask me. I have no home now--not since--Oh, a long time ago,
it seems. More than a week, I reckon, ma'am."

"You have been wandering about like this for a week?" she asked in
surprise. He gulped.

"Yes, ma'am. Since the eleventh of May." He wanted to tell her that he
had been hunted from county to county for over a week, but something
held his tongue. He felt that she would understand and sympathize, but
he was not so sure of the others.

Perhaps she suspected what was going on in that troubled brain, for
she laid her hand gently upon his arm and said: "Never mind, then.
When you are stronger, you may go. I am sure you are a good boy."

He thanked her with a look of mute gratitude. The girl with the long
red cloak came tripping back with a tray. She placed it on his knees;
then she whisked away the napkin which covered it. All he knew was
that he smiled up into her eyes through his tears, and that the smell
of warm food assailed his nostrils. As she straightened up, the
neglected cloak slipped from her shoulders. She caught it on her arm,
but did not attempt to replace it. He lowered his eyes, singularly
abashed. A trim, clean figure in red tights stood before him,
absolutely without fear or shame or in the least conscious of her
attire.

He was in her world, that was all. In his, outside that canvas
crucible and between performances, she would have died of
mortification if, by chance, there had been one-tenth of the exposure.
Here, she was as fully dressed and as modestly as she would be an hour
later, clothed from head to foot in the conventional garments of her
sex, rigidly observing the strictest laws of delicacy.

A trim, straight figure she was, just rounding into young womanhood;
turning fifteen, in truth. Lithe and graceful, with the sinuous
development of a perfectly healthy young girl who has gone through the
expanding process without pausing at the awkward stage, due no doubt
to her life and training. Firm, well-rounded hips; a small waist, full
chest and perfect shoulders, straight, exquisitely modeled limbs and
high, arched insteps: perfect in girlhood, with promise of the divine
at the height of full womanhood.

The mother arose at once. She remembered that he was in their world.

"Come," she said to her daughter. They withdrew to the women's half of
the dressing-tent, leaving him to devour his feast alone. Slowly the
others, taking their cue, edged away. When next the clown approached
him, fresh from a merry whirl in the ring, the tray was on the
mattress at his side, every particle of food gone. The boy's face was
in his hands, his elbows on his knees.

"Well, you _was_ 'ungry," said the kindly voice. The boy looked up, his
eyelids heavy.

"I reckon I was almost asleep," he said. "I haven't slept much of
late."

Suddenly it dawned on him that the clown was staring intently at his
face. With quick understanding he shrank back, but did not withdraw
his gaze from the eyes of the other.

"By jingo!" muttered the motley one. "You--you are the one they're
'unting for--all over the state. The reward bills! I remember now!"

The lad had risen. A look of abject misery and dread leaped in his
eyes.

"Let me go!" he said, almost in a whisper, fiercely intense. "I'll get
out. I haven't done any harm to you. Don't keep me here a minute--"

"Then you _are_ the Jenison boy!" in open-mouthed wonder. "Well, I'll
be jiggered! Here! Don't bolt like that!"

"Let go of me!" cried the boy, striking at the hand that clutched his
arm. "I won't let them catch me! Let me go!"

"Keep your shirt on, my son," said the clown coolly. "Nobody's going
to 'urt you 'ere. Just you remember that. I am not going to give you
up--leastwise, not just yet. So you murdered your grandfather, did
you? Well, I wouldn't 'ave took you to be that kind--"

"I didn't do it! I didn't do it!" There was piteous appeal in his wide
eyes. "I swear I didn't. They're trying to put it on me to save some
one else. Oh, please, don't keep me here. They--they are--they must be
here by this time, looking for me. Oh, if you knew how I've tried to
dodge them. They had bloodhounds last Saturday. Oh!" He covered his
face with his hands and shuddered as with a mighty chill.

Grinaldi eyed him speculatively.

"You say they're 'ere now? So close as that?" he demanded in a low
voice.

"I passed them on the mountain. I tried to make the railroad ahead of
them. There was a bridge down back there. There were two of them,
officers from the county seat. They won't have any mercy if they find
me. They'll take me back and I'll be hung. I can't prove anything--I
can't escape." He had dropped helplessly to the edge of the mattress,
and was staring hard at the sidewall beyond as if expecting his
pursuers to burst in upon him at any moment.

"And you didn't do it?" the clown asked, something like awe in his
voice.

"Before God, I did not. I--I loved my grandfather. I _couldn't_ have
done it. Why, he was the only father I had--the only mother. He was
everything to me. It was--" He caught himself up quickly in his wild
declaration. "I know the man who did it. I heard them talking it
over before it happened, but I didn't know what they were talking
about." His eyes grew almost glassy with the horror that surged up
from behind them.

"Then why don't you tell your story?" demanded the clown. "Let the
other chap clear 'imself."

"They've got the evidence against me. Oh, you don't know! You can't
know how it looked to the world. There's a man who says he saw me with
a gun at my grandfather's window. He did see me there and I had a gun,
but not to kill poor old granddaddy. No, no! I heard some one walking
on the gallery--a thief, I thought. I crawled out of my window with my
shotgun. I--but I oughtn't to tell you this. You must let me go. I'll
never tell on you, I swear--"

"Wait a minute," interrupted the clown, laying his arm over the boy's
shoulder. "We'll talk it over with Mrs. Braddock. She can tell by
lookin' in your eyes whether you're good or bad. As far as I'm
concerned, I don't believe you did it. Yes, yes, that's all right!
Don't hug me, sonny. Here she is. She's the wife of the man wot owns
the show."

Mrs. Braddock crossed over to them, smiling. It was not until she
opened her lips to speak of the compliment his appetite had paid to
the cook tent that she perceived the look in his eyes. Then she
glanced at the serious face of the clown.

"This 'ere chap, ma'am," said Grinaldi, in low, level tones, "is David
Jenison, the boy wanted for that murder near Richmond last week.
You've seen the reward bills. His grandfather, you remember--"

She drew back; her eyes dilated, her lips stiff. "You are the Jenison
boy?" she said slowly, even unbelievingly. "The one who killed his
grandfa--" "But I didn't do it!" he almost wailed. "You--_you_ must
believe me, ma'am. I didn't do it!" He stood before her, looking
straight into her eyes.

"No, Mrs. Braddock," said Grinaldi, "he didn't do it." "How do you
know, Grinaldi? How can you--" "Because he says another person did
it," said Grinaldi calmly.

The woman turned to the boy once more. She seemed to be searching his
soul with her intense gaze.

"No," she murmured, after a moment, breathing deeply, "I am sure you
did _not_ commit murder. You poor, poor boy!"

He would have dropped to his knees before her, had not the clown
checked him by means of a warning hiss.

"Brace up!" he said sharply. Then to Mrs. Bradock: "We've got to find
a way to 'ide 'im. The officers are right on his 'eels."

She hesitated for a moment. Swift glances passed between her and the
clown.

"You must keep very quiet and do what we tell you to do," she said to
the boy, who nodded his head eagerly. "You will be safe here. A circus
is the safest harbor in all the world for the thief and the
lawbreaker. Why should it not be so for one who is innocent?"

"Let me tell you all about it, madam," began David Jenison, the
hunted. She stopped him.

"Not now. There is no time for that. We will take you on faith and we
will help you. My boy, I knew in the beginning that you were of gentle
birth--I saw it in your face, in the way you held yourself. But that
you should be one of the Jenisons of Virginia--why, Grinaldi, the
Jenisons are the bluest--But, there, we'll talk of that another time,
too. Sam!" She called to a ring attendant who stood near the entrance.
The burly, rough-looking young man came up at once, respectful to a
degree.

"Go out in front and tell Mr. Braddock to hurry back here as soon as
he is through with the tickets!" The man slid out between the flapping
walls. "Now, Grinaldi, you must make it your business to tell every
one who this boy is, and what must be done for him. Don't be alarmed,
David Jenison," she said with a smile. He had opened his lips to
protest. "There isn't a soul in all this company, from feed-boy to
proprietor, who will betray you to the officers of the law. We stand
together--the innocent and the guilty. If you are vouched for by Joey
Grinaldi and--me, or by any other in our little universe, that is the
end of it. Even the basest ruffian in the canvas gang, even the vilest
of the hostlers, will stand by you through thick and thin. And there
are real murderers among them, too. You must have faith in us."

"I have faith in YOU" he said simply. Then, true Virginian that he
was, this tired, harassed boy bent low and lifted her hand to his
gallant lips. "I will give my life up for you any day, madam. It is
yours."

"Spoken like a gentleman," said the clown, his eyes twinkling.

A couple of horses came clattering into the tent from the ring. At the
entrance they were seized by waiting attendants; one of the mysteries
that had always puzzled the boy was solved. He had wondered where the
plunging steeds raced to after their whirlwind exit from the ring. A
moment later, a swarm of men came rushing in with hoops, balloons and
banners and hurdle-poles, followed by the "Greatest Living Bareback
Rider of the Globe, the One and Only Mellburg." After him came a tired
ringmaster, lanky and not half so proud as he looked to be in his
spike-tailed coat.

Some one in the big tent was making an announcement in stentorian
tones.

"It's time for me to go in," said the clown. "My song comes now. Just
you go along with Casey 'ere, into the dressing-room. He'll get you
something dry to wear out of my box. Don't forget one thing: we're all
as thick as thieves 'ere, whether we're honest men or not. You'll find
every man, woman and child wot appears in the ring to be absolutely
square and honest. They've got to be. The bad men are not the
performers. You'd find that out if you was with 'em a bit. I don't
mind tellin' of it to you, as a consolation, that there is two real
murderers among the canvasmen and a dozen or more pussons which are
wanted for desp'rit things. Nobody peaches on 'em, mind you, and
that's the way it goes. We've just _got_ to stand together. Hi! Hi!"

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