Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, August, 1880
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While preparing for an ascent from Bethel, Vermont, in September, 1877, a squall hurled the balloon over upon its side, causing a rent which extended from the mouth upward for eighteen feet, and then along a transverse seam some six feet. Mr. Grimley thus describes the result: "This gaping hole caused a loss of several thousand feet of gas, but as still enough remained to take me up, I determined to ascend, hoping that when I was out of the disturbing influence of the wind the rent would not extend. In this, however, I was disappointed, for, reaching an altitude of twelve hundred feet, a counter-current struck the balloon, causing it to sway violently and jerking the torn portion to and fro until it ripped six feet farther around the seam. The balloon continued to rise until it had attained an elevation of thirty-five hundred feet, the gas meanwhile pouring in volumes from the hole. The weight of the torn portion hanging down caused the rent to enlarge every minute, until it extended nearly halfway round, the whole interior of the balloon being plainly visible. I kept as still as possible, as the slightest agitation of the car tended to hasten the ripping. The balloon had slowly descended nearly a thousand feet when suddenly, with a sharp crack, the rip extended upward about five feet more, until stopped by another seam. I now began to be alarmed, fearing the balloon would collapse entirely. I was over the roughest and most mountainous part of Vermont, with no place in sight suitable for a landing. The balloon was falling rapidly. I threw out everything in the car, anchor and ropes included, to check the descent, but to no purpose. I struck the rocky summit of Mount Tunbridge with a crash, instantly collapsing the balloon and throwing me out of the basket, inflicting injuries from which I did not recover for many months."
The press-excursions, originated, as hinted above, by Mr. King, and brought into such prominence by Donaldson in connection with Barnum's Hippodrome, produced a new and interesting class of aëronauts, peculiar, I believe, to this country and decade. The reporter is the true author, after all. If he have the courage and enthusiasm to plunge into the most untried and dangerous of life's paths, and the skill to transcribe his impressions in the freshest and most vivid colors, he possesses one form of the only valid plea for a man's asking the world of readers to listen to him—unhackneyed experience.
One of Mr. Holden's adventures has been described above. After Tissandier, he is doubtless the veteran journalistic aëronaut of the world. Beginning in 1861, he has made in all twenty-six voyages, some of them perilously eventful, including several night-flights of hundreds of miles. Most of his experience has been gained with Mr. King, though he accompanied Donaldson on several occasions. At the request of Professor Abby of the Signal Service, Mr. Holden took frequent barometrical and hygrometrical observations in his later excursions. He has made no ascensions for some years, his surplus time and enthusiasm being diverted to European travel. The following bit of description admirably illustrates his style: "It is a strange scene that bursts upon the vision of the balloon-passenger as he rises above the housetops and trees. There is a moment when he beholds the thousands of upturned faces, the throngs of people in the street, at the windows and on the housetops, teams moving lazily hither and thither, and amid all a confused fluttering of leaves, frightened birds, waving flags and handkerchiefs, and a general commotion quite indescribable. But in another moment the men become mere black spots on a field of green, the horses and carriages are reduced to toys and the houses to the dimensions of the blocks children use at play. While all detail is disappearing there is a seeming contraction of larger objects. Streets have drawn nearer to each other: it is but a few steps from one extremity of a town to the other, and remote places are brought within slight distances of the objects beneath his feet."
Mr. Frank H. Taylor, of Harpers Weekly, has an aëronautical record second only to that of Mr. Holden, having been basketed on several trips each with Wise, Donaldson and King. Mr. Alfred Ford, of The Graphic, who with Donaldson and Lunt started on the disastrous Transatlantic voyage in the Graphic balloon, and Rev. H.B. Jeffries, of the Pittsburg Leader, who officiated at the balloon-wedding over Cincinnati, are also entitled to rank as veterans. The European literature of ballooning, with its accurate and brilliant descriptions by Glaisher, Tissandier, De Fonvielle and Dupuis-Delcour, has nothing more graphic and absorbing than some of the accounts dashed off in the white heat of enthusiasm by these and other American journalists. The nervousness and chaffing before the start; the thrill and wonder of the upward rush; the strange exhilaration coming with relivening confidence; the unspeakable loveliness and grandeur of the prospect; the thousand varied incidents of the too-brief journey; the short, sharp excitement of the landing; the awe and curiosity of the impromptu crowd invariably on the ground before the balloon, and reluctantly leaving it only when the last whiff of gas is rolled out of it and the last rope thrown into the wagon; the moonlight ride to the station with the gas-bag for a pillow and the brain too busy with the strangeness of the day for much talk,—all this and more, in endless diversity of circumstance and treatment, these gentlemen have embalmed for the curious millions who cannot or will not go "up in a balloon."
Will O. Bates.ADAM AND EVE
CHAPTER XXII
The month of December was well advanced before Eve's letter had reached Reuben May. It came to him one morning when, notwithstanding the fog which reigned around, Reuben had arisen in more than usually good spirits, able to laugh at his neighbors for railing against weather which he declared was good weather and seasonable.
The moment the postman entered the shop his heart gave a great bound—for who but Eve would write to him?—and no sooner had his eyes fallen on the handwriting than his whole being rejoiced, for surely nothing but good news could be heralded by such glad feelings. With a resolute self-denial, of which on most occasions Reuben was somewhat proud, he refused himself the immediate gratification of his desires, and with a hasty glance laid the letter on one side while he entered into a needlessly long discussion with the postman, gossiped with a customer—for whose satisfaction he volunteered a minute inspection of a watch which might have very reasonably been put off until the morrow—and finally (there being nothing else by which the long-coveted pleasure could be further delayed) he took up the letter and carefully turned it first this side and then that before breaking the seal and unfolding the paper.
What would it say? That she was coming back—coming home? But when? how soon? In a month? in a week? now at once? In one flash of vision Reuben saw the furniture polished and comfortably arranged, the room smartened up and looking its best with a blazing fire and a singing kettle, and a cozy meal ready laid for two people; and then all they would have to say to one another—on his part much to hear and little to tell, for his life had jogged on at a very commonplace trot, his business neither better nor worse, but still, with the aid of the little sum his more than rigid economy had enabled him to save, they might make a fair start, free from all debt and able to pay their way.
These thoughts only occupied the time which Reuben took to undo the complicated folds by which, before the days of envelopes, correspondents endeavored to baffle the curiosity of those who sought to know more than was intended for them. But what is this? for Reuben's eyes had been so greedy to suck up the words that he had not given his mind time to grasp their meaning: "Not coming back! never—any more!"—"I like the place, the people, and, above all, my relations, so very much that I should never be happy now away from them."
He repeated the words over again and again before he seemed to have the least comprehension of what they meant: then, in a stupor of dull despondency, he read on to the end, and learnt that all his hopes were over, that his life was a blank, and that the thing he had dreaded so much as to cheat himself into the belief that it could never happen had come to pass. And yet he was still Reuben May, and lived and breathed, and hadn't much concern beyond the thought of how he should best send the things she had left to Polperro—the place she never intended to leave, the place she now could never be happy away from.
Later on, a hundred wild schemes and mad desires wrestled and fought, trying to combat with his judgment and put to flight his sense of resolution; but now, as in the first moment of death, with the vain hope of realizing his loss, the mourner sits gazing at the inanimate form before him, so Reuben, holding the letter in his hands, returned again and again to the words which had dealt death to his hopes and told him that the love he lived for no longer lived for him. For Eve had been very emphatic in enforcing this resolve, and had so strongly worded her decision that, try as he would, Reuben could find no chink by which a ray of hope might gain admittance: all was dark with the gloom of despair, and this notwithstanding that Adam had not been mentioned, and Reuben had no more certain knowledge of a rival to guide him than the jaundiced workings of a jealous heart. Many events had concurred to bring about this blamable reticence. In the first place, the letter which Eve had commenced as a mere fulfilment of her promise had grown through a host of changing moods; for as time went on many a sweet and bitter found its way to that stream whose course did never yet run smooth; and could the pages before him have presented one tithe of these varied emotions, Reuben's sober nature would have rejoiced in the certainty that such an excess of sensitiveness needed but time and opportunity to wear itself out.
It was nearly two months now since it had been known all through the place that Adam Pascal was keeping company with his cousin Eve, and the Polperro folk, one and all, agreed that no good could surely come of a courtship carried on after such a contrary fashion; for the two were never for twenty-four hours in the same mind, and the game of love seemed to resolve itself into a war of extremes wherein anger, devotion, suspicion and jealousy raged by turns and afforded equal occasions of scandal and surprise. To add to their original difficulties, the lovers had now to contend against the circumstances of time and place, for during the winter, from most of the men being on shore and without occupation, conviviality and merriment were rife among them, and from Bell-ringing Night, which ushered in Gun-powder Plot, until Valentine's Day was passed, revels, dances or amusements of any kind which brought people together were welcomed and well attended. With the not unnatural desire to get away from her own thoughts, and to avoid as much as was possible the opportunity of being a looker-on at happiness in which she had no personal share, Joan greedily availed herself of every invitation which was given or could be got at, and, as was to be expected, Eve, young, fresh and a novice, became to a certain degree infected with the anxiety to participate in most of these amusements. Adam made no objection, and, though he did not join them with much spirit and alacrity, he neither by word nor deed threw any obstacle in their way to lessen their anticipation or spoil their pleasure, while Jerrem, head, chief and master of ceremonies, found in these occasions ample opportunity for trying Adam's jealousy and tickling Eve's vanity.
Nettled by the indifference which, from her open cordiality, Jerrem soon saw Eve felt toward him, he taxed every art of pleasing to its utmost, with the determination of not being baffled in his attempts to supplant Adam, who in Jerrem's eyes was a man upon whom Fortune had lavished her choicest favors. Born in Polperro, Zebedee's son, heir to the Lottery, captain of her now in all but name, what had Adam to desire? while he, Jerrem, belonged to no one, could claim no one, had no name and could not say where he came from. Down in the depths of a heart in which nothing that was good or bad ever lingered long Jerrem let this fester rankle, until often, when he seemed most gay and reckless, some thoughtless word or idle joke would set it smarting. The one compensation he looked upon as given to him above Adam was the power of attraction, by which he could supplant him with others and rob him of their affection; so that, though he was no more charmed by Eve's rare beauty than he was won by her coy modesty, no sooner did he see that Adam's affection was turned toward her than he coveted her love and desired to boast of it as being his own. With this object in view, he began by enlisting Eve's sympathies with his forlorn position, inferring a certain similarity in their orphaned condition which might well lead her to bestow upon him her especial interest and regard; and so well was this part played that before long Eve found herself learning unconsciously to regard Adam as severe and unyielding toward Jerrem, whose misfortune it was to be too easily influenced. Seeing her strong in her own rectitude and no less convinced of the truth of Jerrem's well-intentioned resolutions, Adam felt it next to impossible to poison Eve's ears with tales and scandals of which her innocent life led her to have no suspicion: therefore, though the sight of their slightest intercourse rankled within him, he was forced to keep silent, knowing as he did that if he so much as pointed an arrow every head was wagged at him, and if he dared to let it fly home every tongue was ready to cry shame on his treachery.
So the winter wore away, and as each day lengthened Adam found it more difficult to master his suspicions, to contend with his surroundings and to control the love which had taken complete hold and mastery of all his senses. With untiring anxiety he continued to dodge every movement of Jerrem and Eve—all those about him noting it, laughing over it, and, while they thwarted and tricked him, making merry at his expense, until Jerrem, growing bolder under such auspicious countenance no longer hesitated to throw a very decided air of lovemaking into his hitherto innocent and friendly intercourse.
Shocked and pained by Jerrem's altered tone, Eve sought refuge in Joan's broader experience by begging that she would counsel her as to the best way of putting a stop to this ungenerous conduct.
"Awh, my dear," cried Joan, "unless you'm wantin' to see murder in the house you mustn't braithe no word of it. 'Tw'ud be worse than death to Jerrem if't should iver come to Adam's ears: why, he'd have his life if he swung gallows-high for takin' of it. So, like a good maid, keep it from un now, 'cos they'm all on the eve o' startin', and by the time they comes home agen Jerrem 'ull have forgot all about 'ee."
Eve hesitated: "I told him if ever he spoke like that to me again I'd tell Adam."
"Iss, but you won't do it, though," returned Joan, "'cos there ain't no manin' in what he says, you knaw. 'Tis only what he's told up to scores and hunderds o' other maidens afore, the rapskallion-rogued raskil! And that Adam knaws, and's had it in his mind from' fust along what game he was after. Us two knaws un for what he is, my dear—wan best loved where he's least trusted."
"It's so different to the men I've ever had to do with," said Eve.
"Iss, but you never knawed but wan afore you comed here, did 'ee?"
"I only knew one man well," returned Eve.
"Awh, then, you must bide a bit 'fore you can fathom their deepness," replied Joan; "and while you'm waitin' I wouldn't advise 'ee to take it for granted that the world's made up o' Reuben Mays—nor Adam Pascals neither;" and she ran to the door to welcome a cousin for whose approach she had been waiting, while Eve, worried and perplexed, let her thoughts revert to the old friend who seemed to have quite forgotten her; for Reuben had sent no answer to Eve's letter, and thus had afforded no opportunity for the further announcement she had intended making. His silence, interpreted by her into indifference, had hurt her more than she liked owning, even to herself; and the confession of their mutual promise, which she had intended making to Adam, was still withheld, because her vanity forbade her to speak of a man whose affection she had undoubtedly overrated.
Already there had been some talk of the furniture being sent for, and with this in view the next time she saw Sammy Tucker she asked him if he had been to Fowey lately, and if he had seen anything of Captain Triggs.
Sammy, as was his wont, blushed up to the eyes before he stammered out something about having met "un just for a minit comin' down by Place, 'cos he'd bin up there to fetch sommit he was goin' to car'y to London for Squire Trefry; but that was a brave bit agone, so, p'r'aps," added Sammy, "he's back by now, 'cos they wos a-startin' away that ebenin'."
Eve made no other remark, and Sammy turned away, not sorry to escape further interrogation, for it had so happened that the opportunity alluded to had been turned by Sammy to the best advantage, and he had contrived in the space of ten minutes to put Captain Triggs in possession of the whole facts of Adam and Eve's courtship, adding that "Folks said 'twas a burnin' shame o'he to marry she, and Joan Hocken fo'ced to stand by and look on; and her's" (indicating by his thumb it was his stepmother he meant) "ha' tooked on tar'ible bad, and bin as moody-hearted as could be ever since."
Captain Triggs nodded his head in sympathy, and then went on his way with the intuitive conviction that this bit of news, which he intended repeating to "thickee chap in London," would not be received with welcome. "However," he reflected, "'tis allays best to knaw the warst, so I shall tell un the fust time I meets un, which is safe to be afore long, 'cos o'the ole gentleman," meaning thereby an ancient silver watch through whose medium Captain Triggs and Reuben had struck up an intimacy. How Reuben blessed that watch and delighted in those ancient works which would not go, and so afforded him an opportunity for at least one visit!
Each time the Mary Jane came to London, Reuben was made acquainted with the fact, and the following evening found him in the little cabin poring over the intricacies of his antique friend, whose former capabilities, when in the possession of his father, Captain Triggs was never weary of recounting.
Standing behind Reuben, Triggs would nod and chuckle at each fresh difficulty that presented itself, delighting in the proud certainty that after all the London chap "'ud find the ole gentleman had proved wan too many for he;" and when Reuben, desirous of further information, would prepare his way for the next visit by declaring he must have another try at him, Triggs, radiant but magnanimous, would answer, "Iss, iss, lad, do 'ee come agen; for 'tis aisy to see with half a eye that 'tain't wan look, nor two neither, that 'ull circumnavigate the insides o' that ole chap if 'taint to his liken to be set agoin'."
CHAPTER XXIII
It was some weeks after the receipt of Eve's letter that Reuben, having paid several fruitless visits to Kay's Wharf, walked down one afternoon to find the Mary Jane in and Captain Triggs on board. The work of the short winter's day was all but over, and Reuben accepted an invitation to bide where he was and have a bit of a yarn.
"You've bin bad, haven't 'ee?" Captain Triggs said with friendly anxiety as, seated in the little cabin, their faces were brought on a level of near inspection.
"Me—bad?" replied Reuben. "No. Why, what made you think of that?"
"'Cos you'm lookin' so gashly about the gills."
"Oh, I was always a hatchet-faced fellow," said Reuben, wondering as he spoke whether his lack of personal appearance had in any way damaged his cause with Eve, for poor Reuben was in that state when thoughts, actions, words have but one centre round which they all seem unavoidably to revolve.
"But you'm wuss than ever now. I reckon," continued Captain Triggs, "'tis through addlin' your head over them clocks and watches too close, eh?"
"Well, perhaps so," said Reuben. "I often think that if I could I should like to be more in the open air."
"Come for a voyage with me, then," said Triggs heartily. "I'll take 'ee, and give'ee a shake-down free; and yer mate and drink for the aitin'. Come, you can't have fairer than that said, now, can 'ee?"
A wild thought rushed into Reuben's mind. Should he go with him, see Eve once more, and try whether it was possible to move her to some other decision? "You're very kind, I'm sure," he began, "and I feel very much obliged for such an offer; but—"
"There! 'tis nothin' to be obliged for," interrupted Triggs, thinking it was Reuben's modesty made him hesitate. "We'm a hand short, so anywise there's a berth empty; and as for the vittals, they allays cooks a sight more than us can get the rids of. So I'm only offerin' 'ee what us can't ate ourselves."
"I think you mean what you're saying," said Reuben—"at least," he added, smiling, "I hope you do, for 'pon my word I feel as if I should like very much to go."
"Iss, sure, Come along, then. Us sha'n't start afore next week, and you'll be to Bristol and back 'fore they've had time to miss 'ee here."
"Bristol?" ejaculated Reuben. "I thought you were going to Cornwall again?"
"Not to wance, I ain't, but wouldn't 'ee rather go to Bristol? 'Tis a brave place, you know. For my part, I'd so soon see Bristol as London: 'tis pretty much o' the same lookout here as there." But while Captain Triggs had been saying these words his thoughts had made a sudden leap toward the truth, and, finding Reuben not ready with a remark, he continued: "'Tain't on no account of the young female you comed aboard here with that's makin' 'ee think o' Cornwall, is it?"
"Yes, it is," said Reuben bluntly. "I want to see her. I've had a letter from her, and it needs a little talkin' over."
"Awh! then I 'spects there's no need for me to tell 'ee that her's took up with Adam Pascal. You knaws it already?"
Reuben felt as if a pike had been driven into his heart, but his self-command stood him in good stead, and he said quite steadily, "Do you happen to know him or anything about him?"
"Awh, iss: I knaws 'en fast enuf," said Triggs, who felt by intuition that Reuben's desire was to know no good of him, "and a precious stomachy chap he is. Lord! I pities the maid who'll be his missis: whether gentle or simple, her's got her work cut out afore her."
"In what way? How do ye mean?"
"Why, he's got the temper o' the old un to stand up agen, and wherever he shows his face he must be head and chief and must lay down the law, and you must hearken to act by it or else look out for squalls."
Reuben drew his breath more freely. "And what is he?" he asked.
"Wa-all, I reckon he's her cousin, you knaw," answered Triggs, misinterpreting the question, "'cos he's ole Zebedee's awnly son, and the ole chap's got houses and lands and I dunno what all. But, there! I wouldn't change with 'em; for you knaw what they be, all alike—a drunk-in', fightin', cussin' lot. Lor's! I cudn't stand it, I cudn't, to be drunk from mornin' to night and from night to mornin'."
"And is he one of this sort?" exclaimed Reuben in horror. "Why, are her relations like that?"
"They'm all tarred with the wan brush, I reckon," replied Triggs. "If not, they cudn't keep things goin' as they do: 'tis the drink car'ies 'em through with it. Why, I knaws by the little I've a done that ways myself how 'tis. Git a good skinful o' grog in 'ee, and wan man feels he's five, and, so long as it lasts, he's got the sperrit and 'ull do the work o' five too: then when 'tis beginnin' to drop a bit, in with more liquor, and so go on till the job's over."
"And how long do they keep it up?" said Reuben.
"Wa-all, that's more than I can answer for. Let me see," said Triggs, reflectively. "There was ole Zeke Spry: he was up eighty-seben, and he used to say he'd never, that he knowed by and could help, bin to bed not to say sober since he'd comed to years o' discretion. But in that ways he was only wan o' many; and after he was dead 't happened just as 't ole chap had said it wud, for he used to say, 'When I'm tooked folks 'ull get up a talk that ole Zeke Spry killed hisself with drink; but don't you listen to it,' he says, ''cos 'tain't nothin' o' the sort: he died for want o' breath—that's what killed he;' and I reckon he was about right, else there wudn't be nobody left to die in Polperro."