Faces and Places.

by Henry William Lucy.

CHAPTER I.

"FRED" BURNABY

I made the acquaintance of Colonel Fred Burnaby in a balloon. In such strange quarters, at an alt.i.tude of over a thousand feet, commenced a friendship that for years was one of the pleasantest parts of my life, and remains one of its most cherished memories.

It was on the 14th of September, 1874. A few weeks earlier two French aeronauts, a Monsieur and Madame Duruof, making an ascent from Calais, had been carried out to sea, and dropping into the Channel, had pa.s.sed through enough perils to make them a nine days' wonder. Arrangements had been completed for them to make a fresh ascent from the grounds of the Crystal Palace, and half London seemed to have gone down to Sydenham to see them off. I was young and eager then, and having but lately joined the staff of the _Daily News_ as special correspondent, was burning for an opportunity to distinguish myself. So I went off to the Crystal Palace resolved to go up in the balloon.

"No," said Mr. c.o.xwell, when I asked him if there were a seat to spare in the car. "No; I am sorry to say that you are too late. I have had at least thirty applications for seats, and as the car will hold only six persons, and as practically there are but two seats for outsiders, you will see that it is impossible."

This was disappointing, the more so as I had brought with me a large military cloak and a pair of seal-skin gloves, under a general but well-defined impression that the thing to do up in a balloon was to keep yourself warm. Mr. c.o.xwell's account of the position of affairs so completely shut out the prospect of a pa.s.sage in the car that I reluctantly resigned the charge of the military cloak and gloves, and strolled down to the enclosure where the process of inflating the balloon was going on. Here was congregated a vast crowd, which increased in density as four o'clock rang out, and the great ma.s.s of brown silk into which the gas was being a.s.siduously pumped began to a.s.sume a pear-like shape, and sway to and fro in the light air of the autumn afternoon.

About this time the heroes of the hour, Monsieur and Madame Duruof walked into the enclosure, accompanied by Mr. c.o.xwell and Mr. Glaisher.

A little work was being extensively sold in the Palace bearing on the t.i.tle-page, over the name "M. Duruof," a murderous-looking face, the letter-press purporting to be a record of the life and adventures of the French aeronauts. Happily M. Duruof bore but the slightest resemblance to this portrait, being a young man of pleasing appearance, with a good, firm, frank-looking face.

By a quarter to five o'clock the monster balloon was almost fully charged, and was swaying to and fro in a wild, fitful manner, that could not have been beheld without trepidation by any of the thirty gentlemen who had so judiciously booked seats in advance. The wickerwork car now secured to the balloon was half filled with ballast and crowded with men, whilst others hung on to the ropes and to each other in the effort to steady it.

But they could not do much more than keep it from mounting into mid-air.

Hither and thither it swung, parting in swift haste the curious throng that encompa.s.sed it, and dragging the men about as if they were ounce weights. The wind seemed to be rising and the faces of the experienced aeronauts grew graver and graver, answers to the constantly repeated question, "Where is it likely to come down?" becoming increasingly vague. At last Mr. Glaisher, looking up at the sky and round at the neighbouring trees bending under the growing blast, put his veto upon Madame Duruof's forming one of the party of voyagers.

"We are not in France," he said. "The people will not insist upon a woman going up when there is any danger. The descent is sure to be rough, will possibly be perilous, so Madame Duruof had better stay where she is."

Madame Duruof was ready to go, but was at least equally willing to stay behind, and so it was settled that she should not leave the palace grounds by the balloon. I cast a lingering thought on the military cloak and the seal-skin gloves, in safe keeping in a remote part of the building. If Madame was not going there might be room for a subst.i.tute.

But again Mr. c.o.xwell would not listen to the proposal. There were at least thirty prior applicants; some had even paid their money, and they must have the preference.

At five o'clock all was ready for the start. M. Wilfrid de Fonvielle, a French aeronaut and journalist, took off his hat, and in full gaze of a sympathising and deeply interested crowd deliberately attired himself in a Glengarry cap, a thick overcoat, and a m.u.f.fler. M Duruof put on his overcoat, and Mr. Barker, Mr. c.o.xwell's a.s.sistant, seated on the ring above the car, began to take in light cargo in the shape of aneroids, barometers, bottles of brandy and water, and other useful articles. M. Duruof scrambled into the car, one of the men who had been weighing it down getting out to make room for him. Then M. de Fonvielle, amid murmurs of admiration from the crowd, nimbly boarded the little ship, and immediately began taking observations. There was a pause, and Mr. c.o.xwell, who stood by the car, prepared for the rush of the Thirty.

But n.o.body volunteered. Names were called aloud; only the wind, sighing amongst the trees made answer.

"Il faut partir," said M. Duruof, somewhat impatiently. Then a middle-aged gentleman, who, I afterwards learned, had come all the way from Cambridge to make the journey, and who had only just arrived breathless on the ground, was half-lifted, half-tumbled in, amid agonised entreaties from Barker to "mind them bottles." The Thirty had unquestionably had a fair chance, and Mr. c.o.xwell made no objection as I pa.s.sed him and got into the car, followed by one other gentleman, who brought the number up to the stipulated half-dozen. We were all ready to start, but it was thought desirable that Madame Duruof should show herself in the car. So she was lifted in, and the balloon allowed to mount some twenty feet, frantically held by ropes by the crowd below. It descended again, Madame Duruof got out, and in her place came tumbling in a splendid fellow, some six feet four high, broad-chested to boot, who instantly made supererogatory the presence of half a dozen of the bags of ballast that lay in the bottom of the car.

It was an anxious moment, with the excited mult.i.tude spread round far as the eye could reach, the car leaping under the swaying balloon, and the anxious, hurried men straining at the ropes. But I remember quite well sitting at the bottom of the car and wondering when the new-comer would finish getting in. I dare say he was nimble enough, but his full arrival seemed like the paying out of a ship's cable.

This was Fred Burnaby, only Captain then, unknown to fame, with Khiva unapproached, and the wilds of Asia Minor untrodden by his horse's hoofs. His presence on the grounds was accidental, and his undertaking of the journey characteristic. He had invited some friends to dine with him that night at his rooms, then in St. James's Street. Hearing of the proposed balloon ascent, he felt drawn to see the voyagers off, purposing to be home in time to dress for dinner. The defection of the Thirty appearing to leave an opening for an extra pa.s.senger, Burnaby could not resist the temptation. So with a hasty _Au revoir!_ to his companion, the Turkish Minister, he pushed his way through the crowd and dropped into the car.

I always forgot to ask him how his guests fared. As it turned out, he had no chance of communicating with his servant before the dinner hour.

The arrival of Burnaby exceeded by one the stipulated number of pa.s.sengers, and c.o.xwell was anxious for us to start before any more got in. For a minute or two we still cling to the earth, the centre of an excited throng that shout, and tug at ropes, and run to and fro, and laugh, and cry, and scream "Good-bye" in a manner that makes our proposed journey seem dreadful in prospect. The circle of faces look fixedly into ours; we hear the voices of the crowd, see the women laughing and crying by turns, and then, with a motion that is absolutely imperceptible, they all pa.s.s away, and we are in mid-air where the echo of a cheer alone breaks the solemn calm.

I had an idea that we should go up with a rush, and be instantly in the cold current of air in view of which the preparation of extra raiment, the nature of which has been already indicated, had been made. But here we were a thousand feet above the level of the Palace gardens, sailing calmly along in bright warm sunlight, and no more motion perceptible than if we were sitting on chairs in the gardens, and had been so sitting whilst the balloon mounted. It was a quarter past five when we left the earth, and in less than five minutes the Crystal Palace grounds, with its sea of upturned faces, had faded from our sight.

Contrary to prognostication, there was only the slightest breeze, and this setting north-east, carried us towards the river in the direction of Greenwich. We seemed to skirt the eastern fringe of London, St.

Paul's standing out in bold relief through the light wreath of mist that enveloped the city. The balloon slowly rose till the aneroid marked a height of fifteen hundred feet. Here it found a current which drove it slightly to the south, till it hovered for some moments directly over Greenwich Hospital, the training ship beneath looking like a c.o.c.kle boat with walking sticks for masts and yards. Driving eastward for some moments, we slowly turned by Woolwich and crossed the river thereafter steadily pursuing a north-easterly direction.

Looking back from the Ess.e.x side of the river the sight presented to view was a magnificent one. London had vanished, even to the dome of St. Paul's, but we knew where the great city lay by the mist that shrouded it and shone white in the rays of the sun. Save for this patch of mist, that seemed to drift after us far away below the car, there was nothing to obscure the range of vision. I am afraid to say how many miles it was computed lay within the framework of the glowing panorama.

But I know that we could follow the windings of the river that curled like a dragon among the green fields, its shining scales all aglow in the sunlight, and could see where it finally broadened out and trended northward. And there, as M. Duruof observed with a significant smile, was "the open sea."

There was no feeling of dizziness in looking down from the immense height at which we now floated--two thousand feet was the record as we cleared the river. By an unfortunate oversight we had no map of the country, and were, except in respect of such landmarks as Greenwich, unable with certainty to distinguish the places over which we pa.s.sed.

"That," said Burnaby from his perch up in the netting over the car, where he had clambered as being the most dangerous place immediately accessible, "is one of the great drawbacks to the use of balloons in warfare. Unless a man has natural apt.i.tude, and is specially trained for the work, his observations from a balloon are of no use, a bird's-eye view of a country giving impressions so different from the actual position of places."

This dictum was ill.u.s.trated by the scene spread out beneath us. Seen from a balloon the streets of a rambling town resolve themselves into beautifully defined curves, straight lines, and various other highly respectable geometrical shapes.

We could not at any time make out forms of people. The white highways that ran like threads among the fields, and the tiny openings in the towns and villages which we guessed were streets, seemed to belong to a dead world, for nowhere was there trace of a living person. The strange stillness that brooded over the earth was made more uncanny still by cries that occasionally seemed to float in the air around us, behind, before, to the right, to the left, but never exactly beneath the car. We could hear people calling, and had a vague idea they were running after us and cheering; but we could distinguish no moving thing. Yes; once the gentleman from Cambridge exclaimed that there were some pheasants running across a field below; but upon close investigation they turned out to be a troop of horses capering about in wild dismay. A flock of sheep in another field, huddled close together, looked like a heap of limestone chippings. As for the fields stretched out in wide expanse, far as the eye could reach, they seemed to form a gigantic carpet, with patterns chiefly diamond shape, in colour shaded from bright emerald to russet brown.

At six o'clock the sun began to drop behind a broad belt of black cloud that had settled over London. The mist following us ever since we crossed the river had overtaken us, even pa.s.sed us, and was strewed out over the earth, the sky above our heads being yet a beautiful pale blue. We were pa.s.sing with increased rapidity over the rich level land that stretches from the river bank to Chelmsford, and there was time to look round at each other. Burnaby had come down from the netting and disposed his vast person amongst us and the bags of ballast. He was driven down by the smell of gas, which threatened to suffocate us all when we started. M. Wilfrid de Fonvielle, kneeling down by the side of the car, was perpetually "taking observations,"

and persistently asking for "the readings," which the gentleman from Cambridge occasionally protested his inability to supply, owing either to Burnaby having his foot upon the aneroid, or to the Captain so jamming him up against the side of the car that the accurate reading of a scientific instrument was not only inconvenient but impossible.

When we began to chat and exchange confidences, the fascination which balloon voyaging has for some people was testified to in a striking manner. The gentleman from Cambridge had a mildness of manner about him that made it difficult to conceive him engaged in any perilous enterprise. Yet he had been in half a dozen balloon ascents, and had posted up from his native town on hearing that a balloon was going up from the Crystal Palace. As for Burnaby, it was borne in upon me, even at this casual meeting, that it did not matter to him what enterprise he embarked upon, so that it were spiced with danger and promised adventure. He had some slight preference for ballooning, this being his sixteenth ascent, including the time when the balloon burst, and the occupants of the car came rattling down from a height of three thousand feet, and were saved only by the fortuitous draping of the half emptied balloon, which prevented all the gas from escaping.

At half-past six we were still pa.s.sing over the Turkey carpet, apparently of the same interminable pattern. Some miles ahead the level stretch was broken by clumps of trees, which presently developed into woods of considerable extent. It was growing dusk, and no town or railway station was near. Burnaby, a.s.sured of being too late for his dinner party, wanted to prolong the journey. But the farther the balloon went the longer would be the distance over which it would have to be brought back and Mr. c.o.xwell's a.s.sistant was commendably careful of his employer's purse. On approaching Highwood the balloon pa.s.sed over a dense wood, in which there was some idea of descending. But finally the open ground was preferred, and, the wood being left behind, a ploughed field was selected as the place to drop, and the gas was allowed to escape by wholesale. The balloon swooped downward at a somewhat alarming pace, and if Barker had had all his wits about him he would have thrown out half a bag of ballast and lightened the fall. But after giving instructions for all to stoop down in the bottom of the car and hold onto the ropes, he himself promptly ill.u.s.trated the action, and down we went like a hawk towards the ground.

As it will appear even to those who have never been in a balloon, no advice could have been worse than that of stooping down in the bottom of the car, which was presently to come with a great shock to the earth, and would inevitably have seriously injured any who shared its contact.

Fortunately Burnaby, who was as cool as if he were riding in his brougham, shouted out to all to lift their feet from contact with the bottom of the car, and to hang on to the ropes. This was done, and when the car struck the earth it merely shook us, and no one had even a bruise.

Before we began to descend at full speed the grappling iron had been pitched over, and, fortunately, got a firm hold in a ridge of the ploughed land. Thus, when the balloon, after striking the ground, leapt up again into the air and showed a disposition to wander off and tear itself to pieces against the hedges and trees, it was checked by the anchor rope and came down again with another b.u.mp on the ground. This time the shock was not serious, and after a few more flutterings it finally stood at ease.

The highest alt.i.tude reached by the balloon was three thousand feet, and this was registered about a couple of miles before we struck Highwood.

For some distance before completing this descent we had been skimming along at about a thousand feet above the level of the fields, and the intention to drop being evident, a great crowd of rustics gallantly kept pace with the balloon for the last half-mile. By the time we were fairly settled down, half a hundred men, women, and children had converged upon the field from all directions, and were swarming in through the hedge.

Actually the first in at the death was an old lady attired chiefly in a brilliant orange-coloured shawl, who came along over the ridges with a splendid stride. But she did not fully enjoy the privilege she had so gallantly earned. She was making straight for the balloon, when Burnaby mischievously warned her to look out, for it might "go off." Thereupon the old lady, without uttering a word in reply, turned round and, with strides slightly increased in length, made for the hedge, through which she disappeared, and the orange-coloured shawl was seen no more.

All the rustics appeared to be in a state more or less dazed. What with having been running some distance, and what with surprise at discovering seven gentlemen dropped out of the sky into the middle of a ploughed field, they could find relief only in standing at a safe distance with their mouths wide open. In vain Barker talked to them in good broad English, and begged them to come and hold the car whilst we got out.

No one answered a word, and none stirred a step, except when the balloon gave a lurch, and then they got ready for a start towards the protecting hedges. At last Burnaby volunteered to drop out. This he did, deftly holding on to the car, and by degrees the intelligent bystanders approached and cautiously lent a hand. Finding that the balloon neither bit nor burned them, they swung on with hearty goodwill, and so we all got out, and Barker commenced the operation of packing up, in which task the natives, incited by the promise of a "good drink," lent hearty a.s.sistance.

We had not the remotest idea where we were, and night was fast closing in. Where was the nearest railway station? Perhaps if we had arrived in the neighbourhood in a brake or an omnibus, we might have succeeded in getting an answer to this question. As it was, we could get none. One intelligent party said, after profound cogitation, that it was "over theere," but as "over theere" presented nothing but a vista of fields--some ploughed and all divided by high hedges--this was scarcely satisfactory. In despair we asked where the high-road was, and this being indicated, but still vaguely and after a considerable amount of thought, Burnaby and I made for it, and presently succeeded in striking it.

The next thing was to get to a railway station, wherever it might be, and as the last train for town might leave early, the quicker we arrived the better. Looking down the road, Burnaby espied a tumble-down cart standing close into the hedge, and strode down to requisition it. The cart was full of hampers and boxes, and sitting upon the shaft was an elderly gentleman in corduroys intently gazing over the hedge at the rapidly collapsing balloon, which still fitfully swayed about like a drunken man awaking out of sleep.

"Will you drive us to the nearest railway station, old gentleman?" said Burnaby cheerily.

The old gentleman withdrew his gaze from the balloon and surveyed us, a feeble, indecisive smile playing about his wooden features; but he made no other answer.

"Will you drive us to the nearest railway station?" repeated Burnaby.

"We'll pay you well."

Still no answer came from the old gentleman, who smiled more feebly than ever, now including me in his intelligent purview. After other and diverse attempts to draw him into conversation, including the pulling of the horse and cart into the middle of the road, and the making of a feint to start it off at full gallop, it became painfully clear that the old gentleman had, at sight of the balloon, gone clean out of such senses as he had ever possessed, and as there was a prospect of losing the train if we waited till he came round again, nothing remained but to help ourselves to the conveyance. So Burnaby got up and disposed of as much of himself as was possible in a hamper on the top of the cart. I sat on the shaft, and taking the reins out of the old gentleman's resistless hand, drove off down the road at quite a respectable pace.

After we had gone about a mile the old gentleman, who had been employing his unwonted leisure in staring at us all over, broke into a chuckle.

We gently encouraged him by laughing in chorus, and after a brief s.p.a.ce he said,--

_"I seed ye coming."_

As I had a good deal to do to keep the pony up and going, Burnaby undertook to follow up this glimmering of returning sense on the part of the old gentleman, and with much patience and tact he succeeded in getting him so far round that we ascertained we were driving in the direction of "Blackmore." Further than this we could not get, any pressure in the direction of learning whether there was a railway station at the town or village, or whatever it might be, being followed by alarming symptoms of relapse on the part of the old gentleman.

However, to get to Blackmore was something, and after half an hour's dexterous driving we arrived at the village, of which the inn standing back under the shade of three immemorial oak trees appeared to be a fair moiety.

We paid the old gentleman and parted company with him, though not without a saddening fear that the shock of the balloon coming down under his horse's nose, as it were, had permanently affected his brain.

At Blackmore we found a well-horsed trap, and through woods and long country lanes drove to Ingatestone, and as fast as the train could travel got back to civilisation.