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CHAPTER VI

Encouraged by love, Little worked hard upon his new flying-machine. His labors were lightened by talking of the beloved one with her French maid Therese, whom he had discreetly bribed. Mademoiselle Therese was venal, like all her class, but in this instance I fear she was not bribed by British gold. Strange as it may seem to the British mind, it was British genius, British eloquence, British thought, that brought her to the feet of this young savan.

“I believe,” said Lady Caroline, one day, interrupting her maid in a glowing eulogium upon the skill of “M. Leetell,”—“I believe you are in love with this professor.” A quick flush crossed the olive cheek of Therese, which Lady Caroline afterward remembered.

The eventful day of trial came. The public were gathered, impatient and scornful as the pig-headed public are apt to be. In the open area a long cylindrical balloon, in shape like a Bologna sausage, swayed above the machine, from which, like some enormous bird caught in a net, it tried to free itself. A heavy rope held it fast to the ground.

Little was waiting for the ballast, when his eye caught Lady Caroline’s among the spectators. The glance was appealing. In a moment he was at her side.

“I should like so much to get into the machine,” said the arch-hypocrite demurely.

“Are you engaged to marry young Raby?” said Little bluntly.

“As you please,” she said with a curtsy; “do I take this as a refusal?”

Little was a gentleman. He lifted her and her lap-dog into the car.

“How nice! it won’t go off?”

“No, the rope is strong, and the ballast is not yet in.”

A report like a pistol, a cry from the spectators, a thousand hands stretched to grasp the parted rope, and the balloon darted upward.

Only one hand of that thousand caught the rope,—Little’s! But in the same instant the horror-stricken spectators saw him whirled from his feet and borne upward, still clinging to the rope, into space.

CHAPTER VII³

Lady Caroline fainted. The cold, watery nose of her dog on her cheek brought her to herself. She dared not look over the edge of the car; she dared not look up to the bellowing monster above her, bearing her to death. She threw herself on the bottom of the car, and embraced the only living thing spared her,—the poodle. Then she cried. Then a clear voice came apparently out of the circumambient air,—

“May I trouble you to look at the barometer?”

She put her head over the car. Little was hanging at the end of a long rope. She put her head back again.

In another moment he saw her perplexed, blushing face over the edge,—blissful sight.

“Oh, please don’t think of coming up! Stay there, do!”

Little stayed. Of course she could make nothing out of the barometer, and said so. Little smiled.

“Will you kindly send it down to me?”

But she had no string or cord. Finally she said, “Wait a moment.” Little waited. This time her face did not appear. The barometer came slowly down at the end of—a stay-lace.

The barometer showed a frightful elevation. Little looked up at the valve and said nothing. Presently he heard a sigh. Then a sob. Then, rather sharply,—

“Why don’t you do something?”

CHAPTER VIII

Little came up the rope hand over hand. Lady Caroline crouched in the farther side of the car. Fido, the poodle, whined.

“Poor thing,” said Lady Caroline, “it’s hungry.”

“Do you wish to save the dog?” said Little.

“Yes.”

“Give me your parasol.”

She handed Little a good-sized affair of lace and silk and whalebone. (None of your “sunshades.”) Little examined its ribs carefully.

“Give me the dog.”

Lady Caroline hurriedly slipped a note under the dog’s collar, and passed over her pet.

Little tied the dog to the handle of the parasol and launched them both into space. The next moment they were slowly, but tranquilly, sailing to the earth.

“A parasol and a parachute are distinct, but not different. Be not alarmed, he will get his dinner at some farmhouse.”

“Where are we now?”

“That opaque spot you see is London fog. Those twin clouds are North and South America. Jerusalem and Madagascar are those specks to the right.”

Lady Caroline moved nearer; she was becoming interested. Then she recalled herself, and said freezingly, “How are we going to descend?”

“By opening the valve.”

“Why don’t you open it then?”

“BECAUSE THE VALVE-STRING IS BROKEN!”

CHAPTER IX

Lady Caroline fainted. When she revived it was dark. They were apparently cleaving their way through a solid block of black marble. She moaned and shuddered.

“I wish we had a light.”

“I have no lucifers.” said Little. “I observe, however, that you wear a necklace of amber. Amber under certain conditions becomes highly electrical. Permit me.”

He took the amber necklace and rubbed it briskly. Then he asked her to present her knuckle to the gem. Abright spark was the result. This was repeated for some hours. The light was not brilliant, but it was enough for the purposes of propriety, and satisfied the delicately minded girl.

Suddenly there was a tearing, hissing noise and a smell of gas. Little looked up and turned pale. The balloon, at what I shall call the pointed end of the Bologna sausage, was evidently bursting from increased pressure. The gas was escaping, and already they were beginning to descend. Little was resigned but firm.

“If the silk gives way, then we are lost. Unfortunately I have no rope nor material for binding it.”

The woman’s instinct had arrived at the same conclusion sooner than the man’s reason. But she was hesitating over a detail.

“Will you go down the rope for a moment?” she said, with a sweet smile.

Little went down. Presently she called to him. She held something in her hand,—a wonderful invention of the seventeenth century, improved and perfected in this: a pyramid of sixteen circular hoops of light yet strong steel, attached to each other by cloth bands.

With a cry of joy Little seized them, climbed to the balloon, and fitted the elastic hoops over its conical end. Then he returned to the car.

“We are saved.” Lady Caroline, blushing, gathered her slim but antique drapery against the other end of the car.

CHAPTER X

They were slowly descending. Presently Lady Caroline distinguished the outlines of Raby Hall.

“I think I will get out here,” she said.

Little anchored the balloon, and prepared to follow her.

“Not so, my friend,” she said, with an arch smile. “We must not be seen together. People might talk. Farewell.”

Little sprang again into the balloon and sped away to America. He came down in California, oddly enough in front of Hardin’s door, at Dutch Flat. Hardin was just examining a specimen of ore.

“You are a scientist; can you tell me if that is worth anything?” he said, handing it to Little.

Little held it to the light. “It contains ninety per cent of silver.”

Hardin embraced him. “Can I do anything for you, and why are you here?”

Little told his story. Hardin asked to see the rope. Then he examined it carefully.

“Ah, this was cut, not broken!”

“With a knife?” asked Little.

“No. Observe both sides are equally indented. It was done with a scissors!”

“Just Heaven!” gasped Little. “Therese!”

CHAPTER XI

Little returned to London. Passing through London one day he met a dog-fancier.

“Buy a nice poodle, sir?”

Something in the animal attracted his attention.

“Fido!” he gasped.

The dog yelped.

Little bought him. On taking off his collar a piece of paper rustled to the floor. He knew the handwriting and kissed it. It ran:—

To THE HONORABLE AUGUSTUS RABY—I cannot marry you. If I marry any one [sly puss] it will be the man who has twice saved my life, Professor Little. CAROLINE COVENTRY.

And she did.

LOTHAW

OR

THE ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG GENTLEMAN IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION BY MR. BENJAMINS

CHAPTER I

“I remember him a little boy,” said the Duchess. “His mother was a dear friend of mine; you know she was one of my bridesmaids.”

“And you have never seen him since, mamma?” asked the oldest married daughter, who did not look a day older than her mother.

“Never; he was an orphan shortly after. I have often reproached myself, but it is so difficult to see boys.”

This simple yet first-class conversation existed in the morning-room of Plusham, where the mistress of the palatial mansion sat involved in the sacred privacy of a circle of her married daughters. One dexterously applied golden knitting-needles to the fabrication of a purse of floss silk of the rarest texture, which none who knew the almost fabulous wealth of the Duke would believe was ever destined to hold in its silken meshes a less sum than 1,000,000 pounds; another adorned a slipper exclusively with seed pearls; a third emblazoned a page with rare pigments and the finest quality of gold leaf. Beautiful forms leaned over frames glowing with embroidery, and beautiful frames leaned over forms inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Others, more remote, occasionally burst into melody as they tried the passages of a new and exclusive air given to them in MS. by some titled and devoted friend, for the private use of the aristocracy alone, and absolutely prohibited for publication.

The Duchess, herself the superlative of beauty, wealth, and position, was married to the highest noble in the Three Kingdoms. Those who talked about such matters said that their progeny were exactly like their parents,—a peculiarity of the aristocratic and wealthy. They all looked like brothers and sisters, except their parents, who, such was their purity of blood, the perfection of their manners, and the opulence of their condition, might have been taken for their own children’s elder son and daughter. The daughters, with one exception, were all married to the highest nobles in the land. That exception was the Lady Coriander, who, there being no vacancy above a marquis and a rental of 1,000,000 pounds, waited. Gathered around the refined and sacred circle of their breakfast-table, with their glittering coronets, which, in filial respect to their father’s Tory instincts and their mother’s Ritualistic tastes, they always wore on their regal brows, the effect was dazzling as it was refined. It was this peculiarity and their strong family resemblance which led their brother-in-law, the good-humored St. Addlegourd, to say that, “‘Pon my soul, you know, the whole precious mob looked like a ghastly pack of court cards, you know.” St. Addlegourd was a radical. Having a rent-roll of 15,000,000 pounds, and belonging to one of the oldest families in Britain, he could afford to be.

“Mamma, I’ve just dropped a pearl,” said the Lady Coriander, bending over the Persian hearth-rug.

“From your lips, sweet friend?” said Lothaw, who came of age and entered the room at the same moment.

“No, from my work. It was a very valuable pearl, mamma; papa gave Isaacs Sons 50,000 pounds for the two.”

“Ah, indeed,” said the Duchess, languidly rising; “let us go to luncheon.”

“But, your Grace,” interposed Lothaw, who was still quite young, and had dropped on all fours on the carpet in search of the missing gem, “consider the value”—

“Dear friend,” interposed the Duchess with infinite tact, gently lifting him by the tails of his dress coat, “I am waiting for your arm.”

CHAPTER II

Lothaw was immensely rich. The possessor of seventeen castles, fifteen villas, nine shooting-boxes, and seven town houses, he had other estates of which he had not even heard.

Everybody at Plusham played croquet, and none badly. Next to their purity of blood and great wealth, the family were famous for this accomplishment. Yet Lothaw soon tired of the game, and after seriously damaging his aristocratically large foot in an attempt to “tight croquet” the Lady Aniseed’s ball, he limped away to join the Duchess.

“I’m going to the hennery,” she said.

“Let me go with you; I dearly love fowls—broiled,” he added thoughtfully.

“The Duke gave Lady Montairy some large Cochins the other day,” continued the Duchess, changing the subject with delicate tact.

 
“Lady Montairy   Quite contrairy, How do your Cochins grow?”
 

sang Lothaw gayly.

The Duchess looked shocked. After a prolonged silence Lothaw abruptly and gravely said:—

“If you please, ma’am, when I come into my property I should like to build some improved dwellings for the poor, and marry Lady Coriander.”

“You amaze me, dear friend; and yet both your aspirations are noble and eminently proper,” said the Duchess.

“Coriander is but a child,—and yet,” she added, looking graciously upon her companion, “for the matter of that, so are you.”

CHAPTER III

Mr. Putney Giles’s was Lothaw’s first grand dinner-party. Yet, by carefully watching the others, he managed to acquit himself creditably, and avoided drinking out of the finger-bowl by first secretly testing its contents with a spoon. The conversation was peculiar and singularly interesting.

“Then you think that monogamy is simply a question of the thermometer?” said Mrs. Putney Giles to her companion.

“I certainly think that polygamy should be limited by isothermal lines,” replied Lothaw.

“I should say it was a matter of latitude,” observed a loud, talkative man opposite. He was an Oxford professor with a taste for satire, and had made himself very obnoxious to the company, during dinner, by speaking disparagingly of a former well-known chancellor of the exchequer,—a great statesman and brilliant novelist,—whom he feared and hated.

Suddenly there was a sensation in the room; among the females it absolutely amounted to a nervous thrill. His Eminence, the Cardinal, was announced. He entered with great suavity of manner, and after shaking hands with everybody, asking after their relatives, and chucking the more delicate females under the chin with a high-bred grace peculiar to his profession, he sat down, saying, “And how do we all find ourselves this evening, my dears?” in several different languages, which he spoke fluently.

Lothaw’s heart was touched. His deeply religious convictions were impressed. He instantly went up to this gifted being, confessed, and received absolution. “Tomorrow,” he said to himself, “I will partake of the communion, and endow the Church with my vast estates. For the present I’ll let the improved cottages go.”

CHAPTER IV

As Lothaw turned to leave the Cardinal, he was struck by a beautiful face. It was that of a matron, slim but shapely as an Ionic column. Her face was Grecian, with Corinthian temples; Hellenic eyes that looked from jutting eyebrows, like dormer-windows in an Attic forehead, completed her perfect Athenian outline. She wore a black frock-coat tightly buttoned over her bloomer trousers, and a standing collar.

“Your lordship is struck by that face?” said a social parasite.

“I am; who is she?”

“Her name is Mary Ann. She is married to an American, and has lately invented a new religion.”

“Ah!” said Lothaw eagerly, with difficulty restraining himself from rushing toward her.

“Yes; shall I introduce you?”

Lothaw thought of Lady Coriander’s High Church proclivities, of the Cardinal, and hesitated: “No, I thank you, not now.”

CHAPTER V

Lothaw was maturing. He had attended two womens’ rights conventions, three Fenian meetings, had dined at White’s, and had danced vis-a-vis to a prince of the blood, and eaten off gold plates at Crecy House.

His stables were near Oxford, and occupied more ground than the University. He was driving over there one day, when he perceived some rustics and menials endeavoring to stop a pair of runaway horses attached to a carriage in which a lady and gentleman were seated. Calmly awaiting the termination of the accident, with high-bred courtesy Lothaw forbore to interfere until the carriage was overturned, the occupants thrown out, and the runaways secured by the servants, when he advanced and offered the lady the exclusive use of his Oxford stables.

Turning upon him a face whose perfect Hellenic details he remembered, she slowly dragged a gentleman from under the wheels into the light, and presented him with ladylike dignity as her husband, Major-General Camperdown, an American.

“Ah,” said Lothaw carelessly, “I believe I have some land there. If I mistake not, my agent, Mr. Putney Giles, lately purchased the State of—Illinois—I think you call it.”

“Exactly. As a former resident of the city of Chicago, let me introduce myself as your tenant.”

Lothaw bowed graciously to the gentleman, who, except that he seemed better dressed than most Englishmen, showed no other signs of inferiority and plebeian extraction.

“We have met before,” said Lothaw to the lady as she leaned on his arm, while they visited his stables, the University, and other places of interest in Oxford, “Pray tell me, what is this new religion of yours?”

“It is Woman Suffrage, Free Love, Mutual Affinity, and Communism. Embrace it and me.”

Lothaw did not know exactly what to do. She, however, soothed and sustained his agitated frame, and sealed with an embrace his speechless form. The General approached and coughed slightly with gentlemanly tact.

“My husband will be too happy to talk with you further on this subject,” she said with quiet dignity, as she regained the General’s side. “Come with us to Oneida. Brook Farm is a thing of the past.”

CHAPTER VI

As Lothaw drove toward his country-seat, The Mural Inclosure, he observed a crowd, apparently of the working-class, gathered around a singular-looking man in the picturesque garb of an Ethiopian serenader. “What does he say?” inquired Lothaw of his driver.

The man touched his hat respectfully, and said, “My Mary Ann.”

“‘My Mary Ann!’” Lothaw’s heart beat rapidly. Who was this mysterious foreigner? He had heard from Lady Coriander of a certain Popish plot; but could he connect Mr. Camperdown with it?

The spectacle of two hundred men at arms, who advanced to meet him at the gates of The Mural Inclosure, drove all else from the still youthful and impressible mind of Lothaw. Immediately behind them, on the steps of the baronial halls, were ranged his retainers, led by the chief cook and bottle-washer and head crumb-remover. On either side were two companies of laundry-maids, preceded by the chief crimper and fluter, supporting a long Ancestral Line, on which depended the family linen, and under which the youthful lord of the manor passed into the halls of his fathers. Twenty-four scullions carried the massive gold and silver plate of the family on their shoulders, and deposited it at the feet of their master. The spoons were then solemnly counted by the steward, and the perfect ceremony ended.

Lothaw sighed. He sought out the gorgeously gilded “Taj,” or sacred mausoleum erected to his grandfather in the second-story front room, and wept over the man he did not know.

He wandered alone in his magnificent park, and then, throwing himself on a grassy bank, pondered on the Great First Cause and the necessity of religion. “I will send Mary Ann a handsome present,” said Lothaw thoughtfully.

CHAPTER VII

“Each of these pearls, my lord, is worth fifty thousand guineas,” said Mr. Amethyst, the fashionable jeweler, as he lightly lifted a large shovelful from a convenient bin behind his counter.

“Indeed,” said Lothaw carelessly, “I should prefer to see some expensive ones.”

“Some number sixes, I suppose,” said Mr. Amethyst, taking a couple from the apex of a small pyramid that lay piled on the shelf. “These are about the size of the Duchess of Billingsgate’s, but they are in finer condition. The fact is, her Grace permits her two children, the Marquis of Smithfield and the Duke of St. Giles,—two sweet pretty boys, my lord,—to use them as marbles in their games. Pearls require some attention, and I go down there regularly twice a week to clean them. Perhaps your lordship would like some ropes of pearls?”

“About half a cable’s length,” said Lothaw shortly, “and send them to my lodgings.”

Mr. Amethyst became thoughtful. “I am afraid I have not the exact number—that is—excuse me one moment. I will run over to the Tower and borrow a few from the crown jewels.” And before Lothaw could prevent him, he seized his hat and left Lothaw alone.

His position certainly was embarrassing. He could not move without stepping on costly gems which had rolled from the counter; the rarest diamonds lay scattered on the shelves; untold fortunes in priceless emeralds lay within his grasp. Although such was the aristocratic purity of his blood and the strength of his religious convictions that he probably would not have pocketed a single diamond, still he could not help thinking that he might be accused of taking some. “You can search me, if you like,” he said when Mr. Amethyst returned; “but I assure you, upon the honor of a gentleman, that I have taken nothing.”

“Enough, my lord,” said Mr. Amethyst, with a low bow; “we never search the aristocracy.”