Sivut kuvina
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

T

LITCHFIELD MOSELEY.

HERE was to be a balloon ascent from the lawn, and Fanny had tormented her father into letting her ascend with the aeronaut. I instantly took my plans; bribed the aeronaut to plead illness at the moment when the machine should have risen; learned from him the management of the balloon, though I understood that pretty well before, and calmly awaited the result The day came. The weather was Everything was carried into the

fine. The balloon was inflated. Fanny was in the car. ready, when the aeronaut suddenly fainted. He was

house, and Sir George accompanied him. Fanny was in despair. "Am I to lose my air expedition?" she exclaimed, looking over the side of the car; "some one understands the management of this thing, surely? Nobody! Tom!" she called out to me, "you understand it, don't you?"

"Perfectly," I answered.

"Come along, then," she cried; "be quick, before papa comes back."

MAKING LOVE IN A BALLOON.

591

The company in general endeavored to dissuade her from her project, but of course in vain. After a decent show of hesitation, I climbed into The balloon was cast off, and rapidly sailed heavenward. There

the car.
was scarcely a breath of wind, and we rose
almost straight up. We rose above the
house, and she laughed and said, "How
jolly!"

We were higher than the highest trees, and she smiled, and said it was very kind of me to come with her. We were so high that the people below looked mere specks, and she hoped that I thoroughly understood the management of the balloon. Now was my time.

"I understand the going up part," I answered; "to come down is not so easy,' and I whistled.

"What do you mean," she cried.

[graphic]
[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

"Don't be foolish, Tom," she said, trying to appear quite calm and indifferent, but trembling uncommonly.

"Foolish!" I said; "oh dear, no, but whether I go along the ground or up in the air I like to go the pace, and so do you, Fanny, I know. Go it, you cripples!" and over went another sand-bag.

"Why, you're mad, surely," she whispered in utter terror, and tried to reach the bags, but I kept her back.

"Only with love, my dear," I answered, smiling pleasantly; "only with love for you. Oh, Fanny, I adore you! Say you will be my wife." "Never!" she answered; "I'll go to Ursa Major first, though I've got a big enough bear here, in all conscience."

She looked so pretty that I was almost inclined to let her off. (I was only trying to frighten her, of course I knew how high we could go safely, well enough, and how valuable the life of Jenkins was to his country,) but resolution is one of the strong points of my character, and when I've begun a thing I like to carry it through; so I threw over another sandbag, and whistled the Dead March in Saul.

[ocr errors]

Come, Mr. Jenkins," she said suddenly, "come, Tom, let us descend now, and I'll promise to say nothing whatever about all this."

592

MAKING LOVE IN A BALLOON.

I continued the execution of the Dead March.

"But if you do not begin the descent at once I'll tell papa the moment I set foot on the ground."

I laughed, seized another bag, and looking steadily at her said: "Will you promise to give me your hand?"

"I've answered you already," was the reply.

Over went the sand, and the solemn notes of the Dead March resounded through the car.

"I thought you were a gentleman," said Fanny rising up in a terrible rage from the bottom of the car, where she had been sitting, and looking perfectly beautiful in her wrath. "I thought you were a gentleman, but I find I was mistaken. Why, a chimney-sweeper would not treat a lady in such a way. Do you know that you are risking your own life as well as mine by your madness?"

I explained that I adored her so much that to die in her company would be perfect bliss, so that I begged she would not consider my feelings at all. She dashed off her beautiful hair from her face, and standing perfectly erect, looking like the Goddess of Anger or Boadicea-if you can imagine that personage in a balloon-she said, "I command you to begin the descent this instant !"

The Dead March, whistled in a manner essentially gay and lively, was the only response. After a few minutes' silence I took up another bag, and said:

"We are getting rather high; if you do not decide soon we shall have Mercury coming to tell us that we are trespassing-will you promise me your hand?"

She sat in sulky silence in the bottom of the car. I threw over the sand. Then she tried another plan. Throwing herself upon her knees, and bursting into tears, she said:

"Oh, forgive me for my slight the other day. It was very wrong, and I am very sorry. Take me home, and I will be a sister to you." "Not a wife?" said I.

"I can't! I can't!" she answered.

Over went the fourth bag, and I began to think she would beat me after all, for I did not like the idea of going much higher. I would not give in just yet, however. I whistled for a few moments, to give her time for reflection, and then said: "Fanny, they say that marriages are made in heaven-if you do not take care, ours will be solemnized there."

66

I took up the fifth bag. 'Come," I said, "my wife in life, or my companion in death. Which is it to be?" and I patted the sand-bag in

[blocks in formation]

a cheerful manner. She held her face in her hands, but did not answer. I nursed the bag in my arms, as if it had been a baby.

"Come, Fanny, give me your promise." I could hear her sobs. I'm the softest-hearted creature breathing, and would not pain any living. thing, and I confess she had beaten me. I was on the point of flinging the bag back into the car, and saying, "Dearest Fanny, forgive me for frightening you. Marry whomsoever you wish. Give your lovely hand to the lowest groom in your stables-endow with your priceless beauty the chief of the Panki-wanki Indians. Whatever happens, Jenkins is your slave— your dog-your footstool. His duty, henceforth, is to go whithersoever you shall order, to do whatever you shall command." I was just on the point of saying this, I repeat, when Fanny suddenly looked up, and said, with a queerish expression upon her face:

"You need not throw that last bag over. I promise to give you my hand."

"With all your heart?" I asked, quickly.

"With all my heart," said she, with the same strange look.

I tossed the bag into the bottom of the car, and opened the valve. The balloon descended. Gentlemen, will you believe it?-when we had reached the ground, and the balloon had been given over to its recovered master, when I had helped Fanny tenderly to the earth, and turned towards her to receive anew the promise of her hand-will you believe it?— she gave me a box on the ear that upset me against the car, and running to her father, who at that moment came up, she related to him and the assembled company what she called my disgraceful conduct in the balloon, and ended by informing me that all of her hand that I was likely to get had been already bestowed upon my ear, which she assured me had been given with all her heart.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

By the twanging,

And the clanging,

How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling

And the wrangling,

How the danger sinks and swells,

By the sinking or the swelling in the anger

of the bells

Of the bells

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells

In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!

Hear the tolling of the bells

Iron bells!

What a world of solemn thought their mon ody compels!

In the silence of the night,

How we shiver with affright,
At the melancholy menace of their tone'
For every sound that floats

From the rust within their throats

Is a groan.

And the people-ah, the people—
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,

And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone-
They are neither man nor woman-
They are neither brute nor human-
They are ghouls:

And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls, rolls,

A pæan from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells

With the pean of the bells!
And he dances and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the pean of the bells—
Of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the throbbing of the bells

Of the bells, bells, bells,

To the sobbing of the bells; Keeping time, time, time,

« EdellinenJatka »