Tales from Many Sources. Vol. V

MR. JOSIAH SMITH'S BALLOON JOURNEY

It would be an injustice to Josiah to suppose that he limited his quest in the field of knowledge to that particular portion indicated by his honoured association with a distinguished society. He was proud in his modest way, if the paradox be permitted, when he produced his card, on which was engraved "Josiah Smith, F.R.S.A." Also it was known amongst his friends that casual references to his great work on "Underground England" were not displeasing to him. But, as he was wont to say, "The surest way of finding either mental or bodily recreation is to seek it in fresh fields of labour."

Thus it came to pass one evening in the spring of this year that Josiah, having shut himself in all day with the determination to make up for lost time, found he had, with the aid of cold tea and wet bandages, added as much as half a page to his great work. Feeling the need of a little change of thought and association, he had availed himself of an invitation kindly sent to him to join the meeting of an aëronautic society. Josiah had listened with profound attention to the various speeches made, and had thought, really, when he had a little more time he would devote it to the fascinating science of aëronautics.

Amongst the guests of the society, and indeed the hero of the evening, was Captain Mulberry, the famous guardsman who devoted much natural talent and a considerable portion of his life to the endeavour either to kill or hopelessly maim himself. Evil fortune had kept his sword stainless, as far as regular warfare went, but there was generally a little fighting going on somewhere, and, the captain's leave of absence coinciding, he from time to time managed to sniff the exhilarating smell of powder, and knew the music of bullet and shell. These things were surrounded with difficulties. It obviously would not do for a man bearing Her Majesty's commission to lend his sword to one or other belligerents in a conflict between nations at peace with England. In a country like Spain, for example, things naturally run a little irregularly and the captain being on the spot may have occasionally lapsed into battle.

But these were mere episodes. Having tried most things, he had taken to ballooning, as offering the largest amount of risk in the least possible space of time. He had been up in all kinds of balloons in all possible circumstances, and had come down in various ways. He had just now achieved a great feat, making a voyage from the Grampian Hills to the Orkney Islands. The society desiring to do him honour had invited him to this meeting, and Josiah had heard him describe his perilous voyage.

"A mere nothing," he said; "perhaps a little difficult going, but nothing at all coming back. The difficulty in going out was to drop on the Orkneys. The place is so small that when you are up in the air it looks as if you might as well try to drop on a pin's point. But after all, it was a nothing—a mere nothing, gentlemen, I assure you. Any one of you could have done the same."

Every one in the room was delighted, not less with the captain's gallantry than with his modesty. Many moving stories of his escapes were retailed. Josiah listened with enthralled attention to an adventure which, it seems, the captain had had in Spain, and which Josiah's companion (a bald-headed gentleman with spectacles) narrated with great effect. Mulberry in one of the marches of the Carlists, to whom he had attached himself, was surprised and taken prisoner by the enemy. They locked him in the kitchen of a farmhouse near, mentioning incidentally that in the morning they would shoot him. They took away his sword and pistols; and would have taken his umbrella, but the captain pleaded hard for its society, declaring that from early boyhood he had never been able to sleep without an umbrella under his pillow. The Spaniards had heard much of the eccentricity of Englishmen, and not being inclined to refuse the request of a doomed man, they left him the umbrella.

The next morning, when they came to take him out for shooting purposes, lo! the captain and the umbrella were both gone. There was a good deal of soot about the place, and regarding this and other signs of hasty flight the truth flashed upon the Spaniards. There had been a fire in the grate. The captain had opened the umbrella inside the chimney, waited till it had been inflated with the warm air, and then, hanging on the handle, had been drawn up clear to the top and descending in a neighbouring field, had shut up his umbrella and walked off.

"Dear me!" said Josiah; "how very interesting. I suppose the chimneys are wide in Spain?"

"Very wide indeed," said the bald-headed gentleman in spectacles.

Josiah regarded the captain with fresh interest after the recital of this remarkable ascent, and it was not diminished by further tales he heard. One related to his reception by an Illustrious Personage. After his journey to Orkney the I.P. had sent for him immediately on his return to town. The captain had put on his uniform and gone cheerfully. He had heard so much of his feat that he began to think there really was something creditable in it, and fancied the Illustrious Personage might be going to bestow upon him some recognition of the service he had done in blazoning abroad the pluck of the British soldier. On the contrary, he found the Illustrious Person almost speechless with wrath, and stuffed with oaths like plums in a Christmas pudding.

"What—what was the meaning of this flying by night, sir?" he cried turning a flaming visage upon the contrite captain. "You'll be going round with a circus next, riding five horses at a time, or walking round to show your muscle. I hope I shall hear no more of this sort of thing. Such goings-on bring disgrace upon the army and discredit upon its officers. Stop at home, sir, and get into what mischief you like. Go and idle your time at playing cards or worse; but don't be playing these pranks any more. Did you ever see me in a balloon, sir? Did you ever hear of me skimming around the world in search of adventure?"

The Illustrious Personage drew himself up to full height, and swelled visibly before the eyes of the captain, as he angrily put these questions, garnished with many ejaculations. He knew that our army swore terribly in Flanders, and was nothing if not a soldier.

"Your Royal Highness cannot blame us if we sometimes go out of our way to get into danger," said the captain, saluting. "Your Royal Highness has much to answer for by inflaming us with the memory of Inkermann. How can we sit still or lounge about in our peaceful homes, when we think of you on that day?"

"Tut, tut!" said the Illustrious Personage, spluttering down like a fire on which a bucket of water had been flung, "that was a different thing. But come and dine with me to-night: only, drive up in a hansom, don't arrive in a balloon."

And the Illustrious Personage, what with enjoyment of the joke, and what with muscular effort to suppress his laughter, nearly brought about a vacancy in the highest rank of the army.

All this was doubtless as true as the story about the exit from the Spanish farmhouse. But it pleased the company, and was only one of a dozen stories they told about the captain, who was chiefly longing to be out where he could smoke a cigar.

When the meeting came to an end, Josiah walked along Pall Mall meditating on things, and on the comparative obscurity of the work he had assigned to himself. Whilst others were soaring in high places, he was burrowing underground. Both were in search of knowledge. Both desired to benefit their fellow-men. But of the two Josiah felt that the aëronauts had the advantage of the undergrounders. It was too late for him to think of striking out a new path; but he thought that if he had to begin life again he would soar.

Whilst pondering on these matters, he was startled by a heavy hand laid upon his shoulder, and heard a cheery voice exclaim:

"Got a match in your pocket, old man?"

He looked up, and there, somewhere on a level with the lantern in the neighbouring lamp-post, was the genial face of Captain Mulberry.

"No," said Josiah, "I'm sorry I have not."

"Don't smoke, eh? You don't look the kind of old boy to have any pleasant vices. I saw you in the Balloon Society's rooms just now, and rather took a fancy to you."

"You are very kind," Josiah said, blushing up to where in earlier and happier days the roots of his hair had been. "I am sure I feel it a great honour."

"If you don't mind me saying so, I think you're the innocentest-looking old boy I have seen in a day's ride. I like innocence, particularly when combined with middle age. It is the rarest thing in the world. I hope you'll come and dine with me some night at my club."

"I shall like it very much indeed," said Josiah, "We are close at my rooms—just here in King Street I live—and if you would step in, you might light your cigar."

"Thanks, I will. You won't mind me making up to you in this way; but 'pon my honour, I took such a liking to your face, seeing it among that mass of humbug where we were just now, that I was going to speak to you then, only I could not get near you."

Josiah was in a tremor of delight, which presently subsided into a soft glow of contentment, as the captain, stretching himself out over as much of the couch as he could find in the little room, not only lit his cigar, but praised Josiah's claret and told him a good deal more of his balloon adventures than he had communicated to the eminent society in whose rooms they had met.

"By the way," he said, "I am going to make a balloon excursion to-morrow. I didn't mention it to the society because these fellows gab so. There'd be a great crowd round, and I'd only have been hampered. When you mean work, the less you say about it beforehand the better. That is what I have always found. Ever up in a balloon?"

"No," said Josiah, "but I should very much like to go."

He had drunk a whole tumbler of claret in honour of his distinguished company, and, being accustomed to more moderate measure, had begun to think going up in a balloon was after all a mere ordinary performance.

"What do you ride?" asked the captain, looking him up and down, as if either about to measure him for a suit of clothes, or considering where he could most advantageously plant a blow from his ox-hoof-like fist.

"A pony—at least, I used to ride a pony when I was at home: but that is a long time ago, and I have not ridden much since."

"I mean, what do you weigh," said the captain, laughing.

"A little over ten stone."

"Is it possible! why, I pull the scales at seventeen stun. I'd give something to be your weight. Think of the ballast you might take up with you!"

"Is that an important thing?" Josiah asked, his old instinct of gaining knowledge manifesting itself.

"It's simply everything. That's how I managed to get over to the Orkneys. These fellows that go up in balloons which they fit up like first-floor rooms, and take everything with them except a feather bed, don't know anything about it. They go fumbling around with a few pounds of ballast, and when they get into a wrong current there they stick. Now, between you and me, Mr. Smith, I don't mind telling you my secret of successful ballooning. Take as much ballast as you can carry, and when you get stuck in a calm or carried off by a wrong current, out goes your ballast, up you shoot, get into another current, and there you are. Ten stun!" he murmured, gazing wistfully upon the spare figure of his host. "There ought to be a good deal done with that. Tell you what, old chappie, you shall come with me to-morrow."

Josiah had been a few moments ago possessed with a burning desire to go up in a balloon, but at these words the fire went out and he felt a cold chill steal over his body. Still, he would like to go; but not to-morrow. If it were next month or next week it would be different. But to-morrow was so sudden.

"I rather fancy I have an engagement to-morrow," he said, producing his pocket diary and anxiously gazing on it in the month of December.

"Nonsense!" said the captain, laying his large hand on Josiah's shoulder, conveying to him an impression that if he pleased he could take him up, put him in his coat-tail pocket, walk off, and think no more about him till he landed him in a balloon. "You've no engagement, and if you had you couldn't find it by holding your book upside down. You come along with me. There's not the slightest danger, and it's not every man who has crossed the Channel in a balloon."

"The Channel!" cried Josiah feebly. He had thought of some little excursion. Perhaps in the fields ten or twenty miles off. "I don't think I would like to start with the Channel. Suppose we begin somewhere else, and try the Channel later on. It will be better—if anything happened, you know—to have the water warm."

"Nonsense," said the captain cheerily; "we shall never be nearer the water than 2,000 feet. We'll dine in Paris to-morrow night, and I'll take you to the Closerie after dinner. It will do them good to see you there. Now that's settled, and you'd better go to bed straight off. We'll have to be up early in the morning to catch the mail train for Dover. I've got my balloon there all ready, and we'll start about noon."

This was perfectly horrible. Josiah felt as if it was a hideous nightmare, and he had a dim hope that presently he would wake up. But there was the burly form of the captain before him, with his third cigar sticking in the side of his mouth, and a pleased smile upon his face in anticipation of this new adventure.

Those who have learned something of the character of Josiah by reading earlier chapters of his history, will not need to be told how this ended. If he had been in company of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, when they started on their progress through the fiery furnace, and if they had insisted upon his accompanying them, he would have smiled feebly, and gone—that is, if he could not by some means or other slink away out of sight. Now, if he could have gone out of the door on some pretence and run off, down King Street, he would have borne the subsequent shame and humiliation. But he knew that the captain would have been up with him in five strides. So he determined to make the best of it, drank another tumbler of claret, and became almost hysterically eager for the morning.

"I'll see you don't oversleep yourself," were the last words of the captain as he went off. "I'll look you up and take you down to Victoria in my hansom. You needn't bring any luggage, you know. A clean shirt and a tooth-brush will see you through."

Thus faded Josiah's last and secret hope, one he had cherished even whilst he drank his claret and talked boldly of aërial navigation. He might, he had thought, peradventure oversleep himself and miss the train, and all would be well. But the captain would call for him, and there was plainly no escape. However, he had made his will, and "Underground England" was in such an advanced stage that it might be published as "a fragment," and would be sufficient to carry his name down to remotest posterity. Whether it were sweeter thus to vex public desire, to give so much and no more, or to satiate the public with the full accomplishment, was a nice question. Josiah was inclined to think that, other things being equal, he would just as soon live to finish his work. But he had no choice, and after all, the voyage might end happily. Captain Mulberry was an experienced aëronaut. He had never failed, and why should failure be probable now?

Josiah made up his mind upon this point, that if they got safely across in the balloon he would come back by the ordinary boat express. Having once shown his possession of a daring spirit, he would be at liberty to declare his preference for a more prosaic mode of locomotion.

How he got down to Dover he did not know. It all seemed a dream. He had a dim recollection of the captain thundering at his door at six o'clock in the morning. He remembered lighting his Etna, making his cup of coffee, and thinking as he drank it it might be his last. Then they must have caught the train. In fact, he remembered the sound of the rushing carriage, the darkness of the tunnel, the glories of the dawning day, and felt around him the bright fresh sunlit air that made all nature glad.

They drove out to the balloon, which was down by the gas-works, and was now in process of inflation. Josiah looked upon the monster, swerving first to the right, then to the left, and threatening every moment to break its bonds and go off on its own account. If it only would, what a happy conclusion of this painful adventure! But he could see there was no such danger. The captain was as cheerful as a lark, and looked with kindling eye upon what Josiah regarded as his coffin.

Still, it was no use complaining. A man must die some time; and though there is much to be said against the process being hurried on by unnecessary attempts to cross the Channel in a balloon when there are well-appointed packet-boats, it was no use arguing the matter.

There settled upon Josiah a certain mood of quiet despair. What must be must, and it was better to avoid a scene and imitate as closely as possible the cheerful indifference of the captain.

"Now, old man, in you tumble," said the captain. "Sit down in the bottom of the car, and keep quiet till we get past this stack of chimneys. If we run into them it's all over; but I reckon I'll take you clear."

This was a cheerful thing to start with. Josiah had pictured all kinds of horrors, ending with the certainty of dropping into the sea. That they should begin with a stack of chimneys was an unexpected aggravation. Still, it might be better to get it over at once. At least, he would fall on land, and the fragments picked up would receive Christian burial.

He got in and sat in the bottom of the car. It was, he noticed, something like one of the coracles of which he had made mention in the preface to "Underground England." There was something good in that. The Romans made long journeys In the coracle. If the worst came to the worst, they might float.

Even in the anguish of his mind, he couldn't help wondering when Captain Mulberry would finish coming in. He had never before noticed how tall he was, till he found the necessity of getting out of the way of his legs as he crept between the ropes into the car.

"Let go all!" cried the captain, and Josiah felt his last hour had come. He held his breath and stuck to his hat, being under the impression that the whole affair would shoot up into the air like a rocket. He expected to be deafened by the noise of whizzing through the air, and to be half suffocated with the rush of wind. Looking over to get a last look at the nature of the soil on which he would presently fall, Josiah beheld a strange sight. As far as he knew, the balloon was motionless, while the earth was dropping rapidly from under them as if the laws of gravitation were irrevocably broken and the world was falling through space.