like manner. The right turned, and repeated its first movement; but the left outran it this time, hopped over it, and flung it entirely off the track. It came in again, however, behind the left on its return, and passed it in the same style. They now became highly incensed at each other, and met furiously on the middle ground. Here a most awful conflict ensued for about the space of ten seconds, when the right whipped off all of a sudden, as I thought, fairly vanquished. But I was in the error against which Jack Randolph cautions us; "it had only fallen back to a stronger position." It mounted upon two black keys, and commenced the note of a rattlesnake. This had a wonderful effect upon the left, and placed the doctrine of "snake charming" beyond dispute. The left rushed furiously towards it repeatedly, but seemed invariably panic-struck when it came within six keys of it, and as invariably retired with a tremendous roaring down the bass keys. It continued its assaults, sometimes by the way of the naturals, sometimes by the way of the sharps, and sometimes by a zigzag through both; but all its attempts to dislodge the right from its stronghold proving ineffectual, it came close up to its adversary, and expired. Any one, or rather no one, can imagine what kind of noises the piano gave forth during the conflict. Certain it is, no one can describe them, and, therefore, I shall not attempt it. The battle ended, Miss Augusta moved as though she would have arisen, but this was protested against by a number of voices at once. "One song, my dear Aurelia," said Miss Small; "you must sing that sweet little French air you used to sing in Philadelphia, and which Madame Piggisqueaki was so fond of." Miss Augusta looked pitifully at her mamma, and her mamma looked "sing" at Miss Augusta; accordingly, she squared herself for a song. She brought her hands to the campus this time in fine style, and they seemed now to be perfectly reconciled to each other. They commenced a kind of colloquy; the right whispering treble very softly, and the left responding bass very loudly. The conference had been kept up until I began to desire a change of the subject, when my ear SOME VERY CURIOUS SOUNDS, WHICH APPEARED TO PROCEED FROM caught, indistinctly, some very curious sounds, which appeared to proceed from the lips of Miss Augusta; they seemed to be compounded of a dry cough, a grunt, a hiccough, and a whisper; and they were introduced, it appeared to me, as interpreters between the right and the left. Things progressed in this way for about the space of fifteen seconds, when I happened to direct my attention to Mr. Jenkins, from Philadelphia. His eyes were closed, his head rolled gracefully from side to side; a beam of heavenly complacency rested upon his countenance; and his whole man gave irresistible demonstration that Miss Crump's music made him feel good all over. I had just turned from the contemplation of Mr. Jenkins' transports, to see whether I could extract from the performance anything intelligible, when Miss Crump made a fly-catching grab at half-a-dozen keys in a row and at the same instant she fetched a long, dunghill-cock crow, at the conclusion of which she grabbed as many keys with her left. This came over Jenkins like a warm bath, and over me like a rake of bamboo briers. My nerves had not recovered from this shock before Miss Augusta repeated the movement. and accompanied it with a squall of a pinched cat. This threw me into an ague fit; but, from respect to the performer, I maintained my position. She now made a third grasp with the right, boxed the faces of six keys in a row with the left, and at the same time raised one of the most unearthly howls that ever issued from the throat of a human being. This seemed the signal for universal uproar and destruction. She now threw away all her reserve, and charged the piano with her whole force. She boxed it, she clawed it, she raked it, she scraped it. Her neck-vein swelled, her chin flew up, her face flushed, her eye glared, her bosom heaved; she screamed, she howled, she yelled, cackled, and was in the act of dwelling upon the note of a screech-owl, when I took the St. Vitus's dance, and rushed out of the room. "Good Lord," said a bystander, "if this be her singing, what must her crying be!" As I reached the door I heard a voice exclaim, "By heavens! she's the most enchanting performer I ever heard in my life!" I turned to see who was the author of this ill-timed compliment, and who should it be but Nick Truck, from Lincoln, who seven years before was dancing "Possum up the Gumtree" in the chimneycorner of his father's kitchen. Nick had entered the counting-room of a merchant in Charleston some five or six years before, had been sent out as supercargo of a vessel to Bordeaux, and while the vessel was delivering one cargo and taking in another, had contracted a wonderful relish for French music. As for myself, I went home in convulsions; took sixty drops of laudanum, and fell asleep. I dreamed that I was in a beautiful city, the streets of which intersected each other at right angles; that the birds of the air and the beasts of the forest had gathered there for battle, the former led on by a Frenchman, the latter by an Italian; that I was looking on their movements towards each other, when I heard the cry of "Hecate is coming!" I turned my eye to the north-east, and saw a female flying through the air toward the city, and distinctly recognised in her the features of Miss Crump. I took the alarm, and was making my escape, when she gave command for the beasts and birds to fall on me. They did so, and, with all the noises of the animal world, were in the act of tearing me to pieces, when I was waked by the stepping of Hall, my room-mate, into bed. "Oh, my dear sir," exclaimed I, you have waked me from a horrible dream. What o'clock is it?" "Ten minutes after twelve," said he. "And where have you been to this late hour?" "I have just returned from the party." "And what kept you so late?" "Why, I disliked to retire while Miss Crump was playing." |