Then came the pursuit--a most graphic and stirring scene, giving large opportunities to the supernumerary characters. Four bridemen on dashing hobbyhorses, jumping fences, leaping bars and ditches in hot excitement; four bride-maids, with handkerchiefs tied over their heads, running hither and thither in confusion; the old mother and father, limping in and straining their eyes for a sight of their refractory daughter; and last of all, poor Jack, the deserted bridegroom, on foot, with never a horse left to him, puffing and panting in his angry chase.
It was done! How people laughed till they cried, how they continued to laugh for five minutes afterward, I cannot begin to tell you. The performance had been the perfection of fun from first to last, and seemed all the more inspiring because it was original with the bright bevy of young folks who had enacted the poem. Uncle Harry had renewed his youth, and received the plaudits of the crowd with unconcealed pleasure. The hero and heroine, Lochinvar and fair Ellen, had so generously provided dramatic opportunities for the minor actors that all had enjoyed an equal chance in the favor of the audience. There was neither envy, jealousy, nor heartburning; each of the girls gloried in the achievements of the others, and confessed that the mechanical ingenuity of the boys had made the triumph possible.
At length the lights were all out, the finery bundled up, the many farewells said, and as the girls, escorted by their faithful young squires, trudged along the path through the orchard for the last time, sad thoughts would come, although the party was much too youthful and cheery to be gloomy.
“Depart, fun and frolic!” sighed Lilia, in mournful tones. “Depart, breakfasts at any hour and other delights of laziness! Enter, boarding-school, books, bells, and other banes of existence!”
“It is really too awful to think or to speak about,” sighed Jo. “Now I know how Eve must have felt when she had to pack up and leave the garden; only she went because she insisted upon eating of the tree of knowledge, while I must go and eat, whether I will or not.”
“Your appetite for that special fruit isn't so great that you'll ever be troubled with indigestion,” dryly rejoined Patty, the student of the “Jolly Six.”