Kitabı oku: «Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Vol. 3 (of 3)», sayfa 18

When I recovered the power of speaking (which was not speedily), I desired Tennyson to follow me to another room: he took up his pistol-case, and expecting I was about to indulge him with a crack or two, seemed somewhat easier in mind and temper. I at once explained to him the curious mistake, and without the least hesitation the captain burst into a much stronger paroxysm of laughter than I had just escaped from. Never did any officer in the king’s service enjoy a victory more than Captain Edwards did this strange blunder. It was quite to his taste, and on our proposing to make the invalid as happy as exhaustion and fractures would admit of, a new scene, equally unexpected, but of more serious consequences, turned up.

A ruddy, active and handsome country girl came to the door, and sprang with rapidity from a pillion on which she had been riding behind a good-looking rustic lad. Our landlady greeted her new customer with her usual urbanity. “You’re welcome to these parts, miss,” said Mrs. Mahony: “you stop to-night – to be sure you do: – what do you choose, miss? – Clean out the settle-bed parlour: – the chickens and rashers, miss, are capital, so they are. – Gassoon, do run and howld the lady’s beast; go, avourneen, carry him in and wipe him well – do you hear? and throw a wisp of hay before the poor brute. You rode hard, miss, so you did!”

“Oh! where’s the cornet?” cried the impatient maiden, totally disregarding Mrs. Mahony: for it was Jenny – herself, who had come speedily from Philipstown to forestall the happy moments which my bewildered brother had, in his letter to his Alicia, so delightfully anticipated. Nothing could restrain her impatience; she burst into the little parlour full on the astounded invalid, who was still standing bolt upright, like a statue, in the very position wherein we had left him. His loving Jenny, however, unconscious that his collarbones had been disunited, rushed into his arms with furious affection. “Oh! my dearest Jack!” cried she, “we never part no more! no, never – never!” and tight, indeed, was the embrace wherewith the happy Jenny now encircled the astonished cornet; but, alas! down came one of the pillows! the arm, of course, closed; and one half of the left collar-bone being as ignorant as its owner of the cause of so obstreperous an embrace, and, wishing as it were to see what matter was going forward in the world, instantly divorced itself from the other half, and thrusting its ivory end through the flesh, skin, and integuments (which had obstructed its egress), quickly appeared peeping through the lover’s shirt.

The unfortunate inamorato could stand these accumulated shocks no longer, and sank upon the feather-bed in a state of equal astonishment and exhaustion, groaning pitiously.

Here I must again apply to the imagination of my reader for a true picture of the succeeding scene. Fielding alone could render a detail palatable; the surgeons were once more sent for to reset the collar: an energetic kiss, which his Jenny had imprinted on the cornet’s nose, again somewhat disturbed its new position, and conferred a pain so acute, as to excite exclamations, by no means gentle in their nature, from the unresisting sufferer.

Suffice it to say, Jenny was with much difficulty at length forced away from her Jack, if not in a dead faint, at least in something extremely like one. An éclaircissement took place so soon as she came round; and the compromise, before hinted at, was ultimately effected.

Edwards asked a hundred pardons of my poor brother, who, worn out, and in extreme pain, declared he would as soon die as live. In fine, it was nearly a month more ere the cornet could travel to Dublin, and another before he was well enough to throw himself at the feet of his dulcinea: which ceremony was in due season succeeded by the wedding⁴⁹ I have already given my account of, and which left me much more unaccountably smitten than my more fiery brother.

Captain Tennyson Edwards subsequently ran away with the kind-hearted Jenny, and in three or four years after, married one of the prettiest of my six sisters. He was one of the drollest fellows in the world on some occasions, and had once nearly ended his days similarly (though more vulgarly) to the traditional catastrophe of the Duke of Clarence in the Tower. He persuaded a very comely dairy-maid, at Old Court, that if she would not abscond with him, he should end his life in despair; and she would, in the eye of Heaven, be guilty of his murder: and to convince her of his fixed determination to commit suicide for love of her, he put his head into a very high churn of butter-milk, which was standing in the dairy – when, the floor being slippery, his feet gave way, and he pounced down, head-foremost and feet upward, clean into the churn; and had not the gardener been at hand on the instant, he would have expired by the most novel mode of extermination on record.

THE LAST OF THE GERALDINES

Principles of domestic government discussed – How to rule a husband – Elizabeth Fitzgerald, of Moret Castle – Brings her son to see his father hanged by the Cahills – Enjoins him to revenge the outrage – Peculiar methods of impressing the injunction on the boy’s memory – He grows to manhood – Mysterious disappearance of four of the Cahills – Mr. Jemmy Corcoran – Way of identifying a skeleton – Father Doran, and his spiritual theory – Squire Stephen Fitzgerald the son, and Squire Stephen Fitzgerald the grandson, of Elizabeth – Education, marriage, and personal description of the latter – The several members of his family described – Tom, the heir-apparent – A short life and a merry one – Jack, his successor – Moret Castle in its modern state – Miss Dolly Fitzgerald, and her sister Fanny – their respective merits – Matrimonial speculations – Curious family discussion as to the attractions of hung meat, &c.

In the early part of my life, the system of domestic government and family organization was totally different from that at present in vogue. The patriarchal authority was then frequently exercised with a rigour which, in days of degenerate relaxation, has been converted into a fruitful subject for even dramatic ridicule. In Ireland, the “rule of the patriarchs” has become nearly extinguished. New lights have shone upon the rising generation; the “rights of women” have become a statute law of society; and the old, wholesome word obedience (by which all wives and children were formerly influenced) has been reversed, by prefacing it with the monosyllable dis.

“Every body is acquainted,” said an intimate friend of mine to his wife, in my presence, “with the ruinous state of obstinacy and contradiction raging in modern times among the subordinate members of families throughout the United Kingdom; as if the word united were applied to the empire only to satirise the disunited habits, manners, politics, religion, and morality of its population. There are,” continued he, “certain functions that must be exercised every day (two or three times a day if possible) by persons of all descriptions, who do not wish to leave this world within a week at the very latest; but, unless on the absolute necessity of mastication for purposes of self-support, I am not aware of any other subject respecting which unanimity of opinion is even affected among the individuals of any family throughout the country.”

The wife nodded assent, but spake not: – first, because she hated all controversy; and second, because though, on the subject of domestic supremacy, she was always sure of getting the worst of the argument, she contented herself with having, beyond doubt, the best of the practice.⁵⁰

My friend’s observations were, I think, just. In my time the change has been excessive; and to enable my readers to form a better judgment of the matter, I will lay before them a few authentic anecdotes of rather antique dates.

In volume one I mentioned the illustrious exploits of my great-aunt, Elizabeth Fitzgerald, of Moret Castle, and the heroic firmness wherewith she bore the afflicting view of my great-uncle Stephen, her husband, “dancing upon nothing” (as the Irish phrase it) at the castle-gate, immediately under the battlements; and though it is possible there may exist some modern ladies who might have sufficient self-possession to look on a similar object without evincing those signs of inconsolability natural to be expected on such an occasion, yet, I will venture to say, few are to be found who, like my aunt Elizabeth, would risk their lives and property rather than accept of a second husband. Nor do I believe that, since the patriarchal government has been revolutionised by the unnatural rebellion of wives and children, there has existed one lady – young, old, or middle-aged, in the three kingdoms, who could be persuaded to imitate the virtuous gentoos, and voluntarily undergo conflagration with her departed lord and master.

My great-uncle had a son born unto him by his magnanimous spouse, who was very young, and in the castle at the time his father was corded (Hibernice). Elizabeth led him to the castle top, and showing him his dangling parent, cried, “See there! you were born a Geraldine; the blood of that noble race is in you, my boy! See – see the sufferings of your own father! Never did a true Geraldine forgive an enemy! I perceive your little face gets flushed: – you tremble; ay, ay, ’tis for revenge! Shall a Cahill live?”

“No, mother, no! when I’m able, I’ll kill them all! I’ll kill all the Cahills myself!” cried the lad, worked on by the fury of his respectable mother.

“That’s my dear boy!” said Elizabeth, kissing him fervently. “Shall one live?”

“No, mother, not one,” replied the youngster.

“Man, woman, or child?” pursued the heroine.

“Neither man, woman, nor child,” echoed her precocious son.

“You are a Geraldine,” repeated Elizabeth. “Call the priest,” added she, turning to a warder.

“He made a little too free, my lady mistress,” said the warder, “and is not very fitting for duty, saving your presence; – but he’ll soon sleep it off.”

“Bring him up, nevertheless,” cried Elizabeth: – “I command you to bring up his reverence.”

The priest was accordingly produced by Keeran Karry. “Father,” said the lady, “where’s your manual?”

“Where should it be,” answered the priest (rather sobered), “but where it always is, lady?” pulling, as he spake, a book out of a pocket in the waistband of his breeches, where (diminished and under the name of a fob) more modern clergymen carry their watches.⁵¹

“Now, your reverence,” said Elizabeth, “we’ll swear the young squire to revenge my poor Stephen, his father, on the Cahills, root and branch, so soon as he comes to manhood. Swear him! – swear him thrice!” exclaimed she.

The boy was duly sworn, and the manual reposited in the priest’s smallclothes.

“Now, take the boy down and duck him, head over heels, in the horse-pond!” cried his mother.⁵²

Young Fitzgerald roared lustily, but was nevertheless well soused, to make him remember his oath the better. This oath he repeated upon the same spot, while his mother lived, on every anniversary of his father’s murder; and it was said by the old tenants, that “young Stephen” (though flourishing in more civilised times) religiously kept the vow as far as he could; and that, so soon as he came into possession of Moret, four of the ablest of the Cahills (by way of a beginning) were missed from the neighbourhood of Timahoe in one night – nobody ever discovering what had become of them; indeed, the fewest words were considered far the safest.

The skeletons of four lusty fellows, however, were afterwards found in clearing out a pit in the Donane colliery, and many persons said they had belonged to the four Cahills from Timahoe; but, as the colliers very sapiently observed, there being no particular marks whereby to distinguish the bones of a Cahill from those of any other “boy,” no one could properly identify them.

A bystander, who had been inspecting the relics, protested, on hearing this remark made, that he could swear to one of the skulls at least (which appeared to have been fractured and trepanned); and he gave a very good reason for this assertion – namely, that it was himself who had “cracked the skull of Ned Cahill, at the fair of Dysart, with a walloper, and he knew the said skull ever after. It was between jest and earnest,” continued Jemmy Corcoran, “that I broke his head – all about a game-cock, and be d – d to it! and by the same token, I stood by in great grief at Maryborough, while Doctor Stapleton was twisting a round piece out of Ned Cahill’s skull, and laying a two-and-eight-penny-halfpenny⁵³ (beaten quite thin on the smith’s forge) over the hole, to cover his brains any way. The devil a brain in his sconce but I could see plainly; and the said two-and-eight-penny-halfpenny stayed fast under his wig for many a year, till Ned pulled it off (bad luck to it!) to pay for drink with myself at Timahoe! They said he was ever after a little cracked when in his liquor: and I’m right sorry for having act or part in that same fracture, for Ned was a good boy, so he was, and nobody would strike him a stroke on the head at any rate after the two-and-eight-penny-halfpenny was pledged off his skull.”

Though Mr. Jemmy Corcoran was so confident as to the skull he had fractured, his testimony was not sufficient legally to identify a Cahill, and the four sets of bones being quietly buried at Clapook, plenty of masses, &c. were said for an entire year by Father Cahill, of Stradbally, to get their souls clean out of purgatory; that is, if they were in it, which there was not a clergy in the place would take on to say he was “sartain sure of.”⁵⁴

This Stephen Fitzgerald, – who had killed the Cahills, sure enough, as became the true son and heir of the aforesaid Stephen, who was hanged, – lived, as report went, plentifully and regularly at Moret. No better gentleman existed, the old people said, in the quiet way, after once he had put the four Cahills into the coal-pit, as he promised his worthy mother Elizabeth, “the likes of whom Moret never saw before nor since, nor ever will while time is time, and longer too!”

Stephen had one son only, who is the principal subject of my present observations; and as he and his family (two lovely boys and two splendid girls) were not exactly the same sort of people commonly seen now-a-days, it may not be uninteresting to give my readers a picture of them.

Stephen, the son of Elizabeth, had been persuaded by Mr. John Lodge, an attorney of Bull Alley, in the city of Dublin, (who married a maid-servant of my grandfather’s at Cullenagh,) that the two-mile race-course of the Great Heath in Queen’s County, which King George pretended was his property because it had been formerly taken from a papist Geraldine, now reverted to my great-uncle’s family, in consequence of their being Protestants; and Mr. Lodge added, that if Squire Stephen would make his son a counsellor, no doubt he would more aptly trace pedigrees, rights, titles, and attainders, and, in fine, get possession of several miles of the Great Heath, or of the race-course at any rate.

The advice was adopted, and Stephen the son was sent to the Temple in London, to study law; and while there, was poisoned at a cook’s shop by the cook’s daughter because he would not marry her. This poisoning (though it was not fatal) he always said, stopped his growth like witchcraft.

The father died in his bed; and my uncle, Stephen the counsellor, became a double relative from marrying Catherine Byrne, daughter of Sir John Byrne, Bart., of Timahoe Castle, and sister to my grandmother, heretofore mentioned. After he had studied Bracton, Fleta, Littleton, the Year Books, the three Cokes, and in short the marrow of the English law, he used to say that he got on very well with the first book, not so well with the second, worse with the third; and at length found that the more he read, the more he was puzzled, knowing less when he left off than when he began – as all the law books contradicted each other like the lawyers themselves: thus, after two years’ hard work, he gave up all further attempts to expound, what he swore fore God was utterly inexplicable. He also relinquished his father’s squabble with King George as to the race-course on the Great Heath; and, concentrating his search after knowledge upon one learned book, the “Justice of Quorum’s pocket companion,” commenced magistrate. He was likewise a horse-racer, country gourmand, tippler, and farmer. His wife, my aunt, was as ordinary a gentlewoman “as may be seen of a summer’s day;” but then, she was worthy in proportion.

As to my uncle’s figure, nothing resembling it having ever been seen, at least by me, I cannot pretend to give any idea of it, save by an especial description. He was short, (which he said was the effect of the poison,) and as broad as long – appearing to grow the wrong way. He observed, touching this subject, that where there are materials for growth, if any thing does not advance in height, it spreads out like a fir-tree,⁵⁵ when the top shoot is broken off and it fills wide at the bottom. He was not actually fat, nor particularly bony: I think his bulk consisted of solid, substantial flesh. His face was neither extravagantly ugly, nor disproportioned to his body; but a double, or rather treble chin descended in layers very nearly to the pit of his stomach, whence his paunch abruptly stretched out, as if placed by Nature as a shelf for the chin to rest upon. His limbs each gained in thickness what it wanted in length; so that it would seem impossible for him to be thrown down, or if he were, he would roll about like a ball. His hands (as if Nature exhibited the contrast for amusement’s sake) were thin, white, and lady-like; so much so, indeed, that did he fall, they could not help him up again. “Each particular hair” was almost of the thickness of a goose-quill; his locks were queued behind, and combed about once or twice a month. His nostrils were always crammed with snuff, (now and then discharged, as from a mortar, by sneezing,) and his chins were so well dusted and caked with that material, that the whole visage at times appeared as if it were a magazine thereof.

My uncle’s dress exactly matched his style of person: he always wore a snuff-coloured coat and breeches, with a scarlet waistcoat that had been once bound with lace (the strings whereof remained, like ruins in a landscape); blue worsted stockings, and immense silver shoe and knee-buckles. His hat was very large, with a blunt cock in front. It had also once been fully laced; but, no button had been seen on it since the year succeeding his nuptials.

The fruits of my uncle’s marriage were, as I have said, two boys and two girls. The eldest of these Geraldines, Tom, took to what ignorant doctors call poison– but country gentlemen, potation. My uncle declared, he knew from his own experience that a “little learning was a dangerous thing;” and therefore thought it better that Tom should have none at all! Tom therefore studied nothing but “Carolan’s receipt for drinking!” The art of writing his own name came pretty readily; but his penmanship went no further. At twenty-six he quarrelled with a vicious horse, which was easily offended. The animal, on his master’s striking him with a whip, returned the blow with his hoof (a horse’s fist); and on Tom being taken to his chamber and examined, it was found that he had left the greater part of his brains in the stable.

Jack, his brother, was now heir-apparent. His figure was nearly as grotesque, but only half the size of his father’s; his eyes were of the most cautious description, one closely watching his nose, the other glancing quite outward, to see that no enemy approached. He loved liquor as well as Tom, but could not get down so much of it. Nevertheless, after a pretty long life, he was concluded by rather extravagant and too frequent doses of port and potsheen.

I have already given some account of the castle of Moret as it formerly appeared. When I last saw it, some dozen of years back, it presented nothing remarkable save its ivy covering. The dwelling-house, which as it stood in my uncle’s time would have been worth detailing (had not every country gentleman’s mansion been of a similar genus), had declined into an ordinary residence. In Squire Stephen’s day, it was low, long, dilapidated, dirty, old, and ugly – and had defied paint, plaster and whitewash for at least the better half of a century. The barn, court, dunghill, pigeon-house, horse-pond, piggery, and slaughter-house, formed, as usual, the chief prospects from the parlour-windows; and on hot days the effluvia was so exquisite (they accounted it very wholesome) that one might clearly distinguish each several perfume.

My uncle never could contrive to stick on horseback, and therefore considered riding as a dangerous exercise for any gentleman. He used to say (it was indeed one of his standing jokes) that jockeys and vulgar persons, being themselves beasts, might stick by virtue of mutual attraction upon their own species; but that ladies and gentlemen were, as a matter of course, always subject to tumble off. He bred and kept, notwithstanding, four or five race-horses, which he got regularly trained; and at every running upon the heath or curragh, he entered such of them as were qualified by weight, &c.: yet, singularly enough, though the animals were well bred and well trained, not one, during the whole of the five-and-twenty years that he kept them, ever won a plate, prize, or race of any description: for all that, he would never sell either for any price; and when they got too old to run any more, they were turned out to end their days unmolested in a marsh and the straw-yard. It was said by those competent to judge that some of these animals were excellent; but that Squire Fitzgerald’s old groom used to give trials, and to physic the horses; and that (through his people) they were bought off when there was a probability of their winning. However, my uncle, so that none of them were distanced, was just as well pleased, exhibiting not the least uneasiness at their failure. Indeed, he never attended any of the races personally, or betted a shilling upon the event of one – circumstances which remind me of a certain judge, who was always sufficiently gratified by a simple conviction and by passing sentence on a culprit, eventually saving more lives by pardon than any two of his colleagues.

I was very young when taken to my uncle’s, for a stay of some months, by my grandmother; but at an age when strong impressions are sometimes made upon the memory. I was a great favourite, and indulged in every thing, even by my uncle; and very frequently, afterward, while my aunt lived at Moret in her widowhood, I visited there, every visit reminding me of former times, and recalling persons and things that might otherwise have been lost to my juvenile recollection. This latter was the period when, having nobody of my own age in the house to chatter to, I took delight in hearing the old people about Moret tell their long traditionary stories, which, as I observed in my first sketch (Vol. i.) descended from generation to generation with hereditary exactness; and, to the present day, I retain a fondness for hearing old occurrences detailed.

My eldest female cousin, Miss Dolly Fitzgerald, was at least twelve years older than I when I was first taken to Moret by my grandmother; the second, Miss Fanny, ten. Never, sure, did two sisters present such a contrast. Dolly was as like her father as rather more height and an uncommonly fair skin would permit; her tongue was too large for the mouth, and consequently thickened her pronunciation; her hair was yellow; her feet were like brackets, and her hands resembled milk-white shoulders of mutton. Her features were good; but her nostrils and upper lip displayed considerable love of the favourite comforter of her father. She was very good-natured, but ignorance personified.

Her sister was as thin as the handle of a sweeping-brush, and had dark eyes twinkling like stars on a vapoury evening; with yellow skin, black hair, a mouth literally stretching across the face, (like a foss to protect her chin,) very red lips, and much more vivacity than comprehension. There were few sound teeth in the whole family, and none that a dentist would think worth the expense of dressing.

For these two amiable young ladies it was the principal object of my aunt to procure husbands, if possible, in the neighbourhood. But the squires were shy of matching into the family of so great an oddity as my uncle. They preferred getting wives among people who went on the jog-trot of the world like themselves.

On this point my uncle and aunt entirely differed; and during the discussions as to their differences, time ran on, nothing was done for the ladies, and Miss Dolly was in her six-and-twentieth year before she was fully emancipated from the discipline of the nursery and suffered to dine at papa’s table. When that important period arrived, it was considered as a great epocha at Moret Castle; all the neighbours were invited, and Dolly’s majority was formally announced. She was then given to understand she might thereafter dine at the great table, speak to any gentleman she pleased, and, in short, have full liberty to act entirely as she thought proper, provided she always previously consulted her father’s will, and obeyed it without “questions asked.” She was likewise enjoined to take especial care not to forget her pastry.⁵⁶

On these free and happy terms, Dolly was to have the chariot for a day, and to set the world on fire. The old carriage was accordingly cleared for action from the dust accumulated upon it; the horses’ tails were trimmed; and the young lady was to go to the church of Portarlington the ensuing Sunday – “Where,” said my uncle to his spouse, “fore gad, Kate, our Dolly will catch some young fellow after the service is over, either in the aisle or the churchyard. She’ll have some proposals; but, fore gad, it’s not every body I’d give her to.”

“Don’t be too sure, Stephen,” rejoined my aunt. “You keep your daughters as if they were haunches of venison. It’s not every body who has a taste for meat that has been hung a fortnight in the larder to give it a flavor. The men, I tell you, like fresh and fresh, Stephen; and be assured you have kept Dolly too long to suit every man’s palate. I have always been telling you so, but you are perpetually saying you’ll be the head of your own family; so now you’ll see the end of it!”

“Why, Kate, you were a good while in the larder yourself at Timahoe before you got a husband,” replied my uncle.

“I may thank the smallpox for that, Stephen,” retorted my aunt: “only for that enemy I should never have been mistress of Moret Castle, Counsellor Stephen being governor of it!”

“Well, you’ll see that I’m right,” said my uncle. “I tell you, men who look out for wives like a seasoned, obedient woman at the head of their families, and not your tittering, giddy young creatures, that have not had time to settle their brains or mature their understandings. No girl should be away from the eye of her natural guardian till she arrives at the full extent of her twenty-sixth year, like Dolly. You’ll see now she’ll do some mischief at the church or churchyard of Portarlington!”

“Stephen,” said my aunt, (who, by the bye, had her nose nearly stopped by the smallpox, which made her somewhat snuffle, and gave a peculiar emphasis to her vowels,) “’tis too late! Dolly knows nothing of the world. It would take a full year at the church and balls at Portarlington, the races of the Great Heath and green of Maryborough, the hurlings at the fort of Dunrally, and a month or two on a visit to our nephew, Jack Barrington, at Blandsfort, before she would learn enough to be able to converse with mankind on any subject – except darning your stockings, or turning off a kitchen-maid.“

My uncle started as much as his form would admit; cocked his eyebrows, and stared with all his might. “Fore gad, Kate, I believe you are out of your wits! Did you say Jack Barrington’s of Blandsfort? Jack Barrington’s! Why, you know very well, Kate, as every body knows, that there’s nothing going on at that house but hunting and feasting; dancing all night, and rattling about all day, like mad people; and coshering with raking pots of tea, hot cakes, syllabubs, pipers, and the devil knows what! No, no. If Dolly were to get one month among her cousins at Blandsfort, I should never see a day’s comfort after; topsy-turvy would go Moret! I’d never be master of my own house half an hour after Dolly had received a course of instruction at Jack Barrington’s. I don’t wish her to know too much of the world. No, no. ’Fore Gad, Kate, Dolly never puts her foot, while she is a spinster, into Jack Barrington’s house at Blandsfort.”

Folks generally become mulish as their years advance, and my uncle enjoyed that quality in its greatest perfection. – The Misses Dolly and Fanny Fitzgerald were commanded, under the pain of displeasure, by their patri-archal father, Stephen, to abjure and give up all thoughts of the festivities of Blandsfort.

“’Fore Gad, Kate!” said my uncle to their more conceding mother – “’Fore Gad, Kate, you had better send the girls a visiting to the antipodes than be turning them upside down at Blandsfort. No rational man would have any thing to do with them afterwards. – There it is, only pull-haul and tear, and the devil take the hindmost! – eh?”

“And for Heaven’s sake, Stephen,” replied my aunt, (who was no cosmographer,) “what family are these antipodes whom you would send our daughters to visit in preference to their nearest relations? – I never heard of them: they must be upstarts, Stephen. I thought I knew every family in the county.”

“’Fore Gad, Kate!” rejoined my uncle, laughing heartily, “your father, old Sir John, ought to be tied to the cart’s tail for so neglecting your education. Why, Kate, the antipodes are at this moment standing on their heads immediately under you – upside down, just as you see a fly on the ceiling, without the danger of falling down from it.”