LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 669, 11 August 1876, Page 3

LITERATURE.

* A RINK CATASTROPHE, ‘ Wnv don’t you skate ? Ak, I know ; you either can’t or you haven’t the courage. ’ A pair of rosy—oleaginously rosy—lips uttered the taunting words. A mischievous smile, disclosing a set of prominent, white, seldom-concealed teeth, coupled with a coquettish flash from a pair of large brilliant eyes, whose abnormally black lashes curled stiffly round the ever-speaking black-rimmed orbs, dispersed the last lingering remnant of hesitation in the doughty Edgar’s breast. One half-reproachful look at chc sparkling petite creature before him ; another wholly admiring one, which embraced all the charming tout ensemble —from the crown of the killing rink-hat, covering the minutest golden curls in front and dimjnitive knocker at the back (Edgar seemed to have a wondering confused recollection, though, of the fascinating Madge’s hair when it was quite a different colour); the downy face so full of epieglerie ; the seal-skin and sable jacket, standing out behind at the angle affected by the fair sox, giving its wearer the appearance of a saucy London sparrow; even to the j tiny pointed-toed boots with heels (it really : seemed as though the lovely Madge were on stilts, so long and slender were those torture adjuncts)—with a muttered, ‘l’ll show you if I haven’t,’ Edgar turned away with a look of concentrated determination. Edgar Potts cherished a comfortable secret belief that an act of transmigration

I had taken place by which he had become possessed of all the qualities once belonging to the great Crichton; else how could he account for the concentration in himself of all those perfections of mind and body which rendered him, as he firmly believed, so irresistible in the eyes—the female eyes especially—of all Barnacle Bay, the town in which his parents resided, and to which he ran down very frequently, from the Saturday to the Monday, from London, where he held an appointment as clerk ? Here he had met the fashionable and bewildering Madge Heely, who was in the habit of staying at Barnacle Bay for the summer season, and who, with her mamma and sisters, was a regular attendant at all the public places Jof promenade and amusement. The rink epidemic, which was spreading with magical rapidity, had already reached Barnacle Bay, where, since Edgar’s last visit, a skating rink had been opened. The Barnacle Bayites succumbed at once to the alluring novelty. A feverish excitement replaced the usual out-of-the-season apethy ; a genial glow seemed to spread over the otherwise glacial surface of Barnacle Bay life. The now reckless hand of the haughty but tottering Mrs Jones, the solicitor’s wife, clutched frantically at the hitherto guardedly avoided garment of Miss Brown the butcher’s daughter : whilst Mrs Robertson, quite one of the elite, might be seen 'crawling carefully along the sides of the rink, humbly entreating those Snooks girls not to knock up against her. All this boulcversement of the normal state of things in the society of Barnacle Bay owed its origin to that levelling furore, that truly republican recreation—skating. Already there was great briskness amongst the local practitioners, who tried to look serious and hide their satisfaction, but in vain; as cases of contusions, sprains, even fractures, roused into activity their long dormant energies. The chemist at the corner, whose shop usurped the legitimate privilege of the barber’s establishment, was making quite a fortune owing to the enormous demand for arnica and the rapid sale of his culottes coussinces; and the crowd of impatient rinkers, old and young, congregated round the pay-box long before opening time, eager to commence or continue their day’s fascinating routine, was a sight to see. Some defiant modern Canute, from the height of his rink exaltation, having enclosed a part of the beach, had hereon erected his concrete structure, the approach to which, with its surroundings, being of the most primitive nature. A path of loose sea sand here, some insecure looking planks there, led the eager rinkers, through a perfect Slough of Despond, past the sewage stained cliff to their paradise. Consequently the sight that not unfrequently met the view of the rebellious and bitterly disappointed skaters, seeking morning admission after a blusterous night or high tide, was their beloved rink entirely submerged, with tons of the fallen cliff scattered over its never very even surface, and no sign of the approach left. The season was over, and still some of the visitors —among them the Ileeleys—prolonged their stay, owing entirely, so the gratified Barnacle Bayites asserted, to the attraction of the rink. It was now October, and Edgar Potts had, for the first time since his July holidays, run down for the Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Saturday night being the night of the week —when all Barnacle Bay rushed and tumbled, with more than their maddening persistence, to the strains of Gungl’ and Strauss blatantly murdered by the local band—Edgar, of course, lost no time in showing himself. Now Edgar had had an object in absenting himself for such an unusual length of time from Barnacle Bay. His ruling ambition was to be considered a man of fashion ; that being the case, it was necessary to master this new accomplishment, about which the world had suddenly gone crazed. Of course to a mau of his parts it would be a mere nothing. Having become au fait, he would then, and not before, run down to Barnacle Bay, and astonish, by the graceful curves and easy gyrations of his manly form, the Barnacle Bayites and—Madge Heely. He accordingly, with his quiet-going chum Phil Vernon, took his way one evening to the skating-rink affected by all the young bloods of his part of London, to make his first essay, holding forth, as he went along, airily upon the subject uppermost in everybody's mind just then ; impressing upon his companion that to a man like himself, possessing the elasticity and grace derived from muscle, skating could only be a bagatelle. Phil muttered something about the probability of hia friend finding it more difficult than he imagined ; but Edgar only planted his sturdy legs more firmly and ground his heavy heels more determedly on the pavement, affixing his eyeglass to his eye with an extra savage contortion. These actions, to one who did not understand the really harmless nature of the worthy Edgar, might have been taken as indications of ferocity : they were nothing of the sort; they simply meant an Englishman’s determination to achieve success in the forthcoming trial. (Edgar, who had never been out of England, and consequently gave his opinions freely upon the immense superiority of the Briton over all other peoples on the face of the earth, prided himself intensely on being a splendid virile specimen of this favored land.) Arrived at the rink, behold Edgar soon equipped. The grimy mau with the oilcan has risen from his knees, and now all is ready for the start. ‘ Shall I take you round, old man ? : inquires kindly Phil, who is a tolei’able skater himself. ‘No, thanks.’ As Edgar speaks, first one foot, then the other lurches away, and the {rink reverberates as the substantial Edgar involuntarily scats himself upon the asphalte. ‘ You havn’t hurt yourself, have you, old chap ? Come, let me help you up, 1 Very easily said, but not so easily effected. The suffering tyro exerts himself until the prespiration bedews his clouded brow. But to no purpose ; his feet slip away as fast as he draws them up. At last, with the aid of three or four other fellows, the perpendicular is regained ; and accepting the invitation of his companions to be led round to the refreshment counter, and have a drop of brandy, with much painful slipping, pitching, and straining, the goal is reached. Here, having gingerly deposited him on a chair, after a ‘liquor-up’ his friends leave him, writhing uneasily.

A comfortable-looking matron sitting beside him, and who, of course, is regarding him with attention—what female ever looked upon him but with admiring interest?— begins a sympathetic conversation, in the course of which she expatiates on the * many and many a case as she knows of people injuring their spinal column through falling on the rink;’ winding up by relating an applicable circumstance which occurred to a neighbour’s child, who, falling from the nurse ? s arms, came into contact with the ground in a sitting position. No immediate ill effects were perceptible: but after the lapse of a few days a projection of the end of the spine was observed, and the result was baby’s having a tail two or three inches long! In a state of anxiety not to be described, Edgar waited; but a week having elapsed, and his fears regarding the dorsal appendage having abated, he took heart of grace and returned to the rink charge, availing himself now, however, of the assistance of his friend Phil. If his progress was of the tortoise fashion, he at any rate learnt the rink jargon fast enough, and could talk of spread-eagle, Dutch roll, outside curves, &c, so fluently, that non-rinkers listened as to an oracle. By October he skated, not exactly like the winged Mercury, to which he fondly hoped he might once have been compared, but, with his eyeglass well fixed in his eye (the confounded thing, though, was apt to fall out suddenly, andjso distract from his pedal extremities; when this occurred, his feet invariably took advantage of the removal of his fierce vigilance and cautious care to run riot, thereby always painfully suggesting a caudal contingency), he flattered himself there was a vigour and breadth about his style which one could rarely, if ever, see equalled, go to what rink you might. 111-natured bystanders compared him, as he shuffled along, to a perambulating windmill. * Why don’t you skate ? Ah, I know; you either can’t or you haven’t the courage.’ Edgar—who had been, since his arrival at the Barncle Bay rink on the Saturday night referred to, standing looking savagely on at the object of his admiration darting along, flashing eyes and teeth upon some Ulstered fellow, who with crossed hands was guiding her wheeled feet (no words can express the profound contempt Edgar felt just then for all such long-tailed garments, or those who affected them) —after Madge Heeley’s playful challenge, no longer hesitated. A few moments after the above words were uttered, he carefully emerged from the skating-room, prepared to exhibit his prowess. The dissentient band, making some lugubrious noises very suggestive of sea-sickness, which finally resolved into a shadowy likeness of the Manola Waltz, blazed away; the keen nor’-easter blew bitingly; men with mops worked vigorously at the spray washed concrete; young and old scrambled and rushed round and round unceasingly. It was one boy’s work to dart about re-lighting the lamps as the wind blew them out; the Ulstered fellow was busy executing a pas de deux with another man in the centre of the rink, in which, | dos-a-dos, and bent at a very ungraceful angle, they wheeled about, gravely intent upon the ground upon which they rivetted their sombre gaze ; and the lively Madge, eyes and teeth gleaming in the distance, came skimming along, throwing out first one foot, then another, for all the world like some brilliant little duck. Edgar braced himself for the coming effort by screwing in his eyeglass. ‘Now he’s off! He lumbers heavily forward a little way. Heavens ! the wet ground is as slippery as ice ! He staggers ; his arms wave wildly in the endeavor to maintain his balance. He clatters and sways to and fro frantically, trying to save hie s :lf, and, as a drowning man catches at a straw, he grasps at the sparrow-like protruberance of the passing Madge, who is borne headlong by her struggling captor underneath a neighbouring bench. With considerable damage to the knees of his nether garments, Edgar crawls from under the seat. As Madge, minus her hat, is being extricated from her undignified position, what is Edgar’s horror at seeing tuft after tuft of tiny golden curls playfully whirled away, it shiveringly strikes him, the more than ever keen breeze. Merciful powers, if she should be scalped ! He has gathered himself together, and is still gazing abjectly at the shorn Madge, who, curl-less, and with her scant little knocker hanging down pigtail fashion, is led to the waiting-room. As Edgar, grazed and bleeding, is being assisted from his lowly posture, he again shudderingly notices the extreme keenness of the night air. It sudd e nly occurs to him th at —that he would like (his teeth chatter agueishly as he expresses his desire)—he would like to sit down on the nearest bench, to which he cautiously backs. Ten minutes after, the gallant Edgar is on his way home, protected from the biting blest by the very Ulster he had so. depreciated. In passing the shanty yclept by courtesy ‘ ladies’ cloak-room,’ a strange sight met his bewildered gaze. It was the dilapidated Madge having her dirt-begrimed face bathed by the damsel in attendance,—the golden curls gone, the sparkling eyes blurred with Indian inky tears, which in their progress mingled with the calcareous down and unctuous coral. Edgar Potts turned sadly away, reflecting upon the vanity and weakness of woman. He tells the story with great gusto of how, ‘ Qnce when doing the outside edge with an awfully jolly girl—no end of chic, you know, and awfully sweet in this quarter, my boy—petticoats or something got in the way — girl went down a tremendous cropper, &c; winding up with the description of his disillusionment. Edgar now rigidly eschews skating, and Barnacle Bay has not been gladdened by his presence since the eventful night of the rink catastrophe.