The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 20

“To me, sir, on the contrary, aërostatics have long been an alluring study. I might even, Mr. – , I might even, I say, term it the passion of my life.” His mild eyes shone behind their glasses. “I remember Vincent Lunardi, sir. I was present in Heriot’s Gardens when he made an ascension there in October ’85. He came down at Cupar. The Society of Gentlemen Golfers at Cupar presented him with an address; and at Edinburgh he was admitted Knight Companion of the Beggar’s Benison, a social company, or (as I may say) crew, since defunct. A thin-faced man, sir. He wore a peculiar bonnet, if I may use the expression, very much cocked up behind. The shape became fashionable. He once pawned his watch with me, sir; that being my profession. I regret to say he redeemed it subsequently: otherwise I might have the pleasure of showing it to you. O yes, the theory of ballooning has long been a passion with me. But in deference to Mrs. Sheepshanks I have abstained from the actual practice – until to-day. To tell you the truth, my wife believes me to be brushing off the cobwebs in the Kyles of Bute.”

“Are there any cobwebs in the Kyles of Bute?” asked Dalmahoy, in a tone unnaturally calm.

“A figure of speech, sir – as one might say, holiday-keeping there. I paid Mr. Byfield five pounds in advance. I have his receipt. And the stipulation was that I should be concealed in the car and make the ascension with him alone.”

“Are we then to take it, sir, that our company offends you?” I demanded.

He made haste to disclaim. “Not at all: decidedly not in the least. But the chances were for less agreeable associates.” I bowed. “And a bargain’s a bargain,” he wound up.

“So it is,” said I. “Byfield, hand Mr. Sheepshanks back his five pounds.”

“O, come now!” the aëronaut objected. “And who may you be, to be ordering a man about?”

“I believe I have already answered that question twice in your hearing.”

“Mosha the Viscount Thingamy de Something-or-other? I dare say!”

“Have you any objection?”

“Not the smallest. For all I care, you are Robert Burns, or Napoleon Buonaparte, or anything, from the Mother of the Gracchi to Balaam’s Ass. But I knew you first as Mr. Ducie; and you may take it that I’m Mr. Don’t-see.” He reached up a hand towards the valve-string.

“What are you proposing to do?”

“To descend.”

“What? – back to the enclosure?”

“Scarcely that, seeing that we have struck a northerly current, and are travelling at the rate of thirty miles an hour, perhaps. That’s Broad Law to the south of us, as I make it out.”

“But why descend at all?”

“Because it sticks in my head that some one in the crowd called you by a name that wasn’t Ducie; and by a title, for that matter, which didn’t sound like ‘Viscount.’ I took it at the time for a constable’s trick; but I begin to have my strong doubts.”

The fellow was dangerous. I stooped nonchalantly on pretence of picking up a plaid; for the air had turned bitterly cold of a sudden.

“Mr. Byfield, a word in your private ear, if you will.”

“As you please,” said he, dropping the valve-string.

We leaned together over the breastwork of the car. “If I mistake not,” I said, speaking low, “the name was Champdivers.”

He nodded.

“The gentleman who raised that foolish but infernally risky cry was my own cousin, the Viscount de Saint-Yves. I give you my word of honour to that.” Observing that this staggered him, I added, mighty slily, “I suppose it doesn’t occur to you now that the whole affair was a game, for a friendly wager?”

“No,” he answered brutally, “it doesn’t. And what’s more, it won’t go down.”

“In that respect,” said I, with a sudden change of key, “it resembles your balloon. But I admire the obstinacy of your suspicions; since, as a matter of fact, I am Champdivers.”

“The mur – ”

“Certainly not. I killed the man in fair duel.”

“Ha!” he eyed me with sour distrust. “That is what you have to prove.”

“Man alive, you don’t expect me to demonstrate it up here, by the simple apparatus of ballooning?”

“There is no talk of ‘up here,’” said he, and reached for the valve-string.

“Say ‘down there,’ then. Down there it is no business of the accused to prove his innocence. By what I have heard of the law, English or Scotch, the boot is on the other leg. But I’ll tell you what I can prove. I can prove, sir, that I have been a deal in your company of late; that I supped with you and Mr. Dalmahoy no longer ago than Wednesday. You may put it that we three are here together again by accident; that you never suspected me; that my invasion of your machine was a complete surprise to you, and, so far as you were concerned, wholly fortuitous. But ask yourself what any intelligent jury is likely to make of that cock-and-bull story.” Mr. Byfield was visibly shaken. “Add to this,” I proceeded, “that you have to explain Sheepshanks; to confess that you gulled the public by advertising a lonely ascension, and haranguing a befooled multitude to the same intent, when, all the time, you had a companion concealed in the car. ‘A public character!’ you call yourself! My word, sir! there’ll be no mistake about it, this time.”

I paused, took breath, and shook a finger at him: —

“Now just you listen to me, Mr. Byfield. Pull that string, and a sadly discredited aëronaut descends upon the least charitable of worlds. Why, sir, in any case your game in Edinburgh is up. The public is dog-tired of you and your ascensions, as any observant child in to-day’s crowd could have told you. The truth was there staring you in the face; and next time even your purblind vanity must recognise it. Consider; I offered you two hundred guineas for the convenience of your balloon. I now double that offer on condition that I become its owner during this trip, and that you manipulate it as I wish. Here are the notes; and out of the total you will refund five pounds to Mr. Sheepshanks.”

Byfield’s complexion had grown streaky as his balloon; and with colours not so very dissimilar. I had stabbed upon his vital self-conceit, and the man was really hurt.

“You must give me time,” he stammered.

“By all means.” I knew he was beaten. But only the poorness of my case excused me, and I had no affection for the weapons used. I turned with relief to the others. Dalmahoy was seated on the floor of the car, and helping Mr. Sheepshanks to unpack a carpet bag.

“This will be whisky,” the little pawnbroker announced: “three bottles. My wife said, ‘Surely, Elshander, ye’ll find whisky where ye’re gaun.’ ‘No doubt I will,’ said I, ’but I’m not very confident of its quality; and it’s a far step.’ My itinerary, Mr. Dalmahoy, was planned from Greenock to the Kyles of Bute and back, and thence coastwise to Saltcoats and the land of Burns. I told her, if she had anything to communicate, to address her letter to the care of the postmaster, Ayr – ha, ha!” He broke off and gazed reproachfully into Dalmahoy’s impassive face. “Ayr – air,” he explained: “a little play upon words.”

“Skye would have been better,” suggested Dalmahoy, without moving an eyelid.

“Skye? Dear me – capital, capital! Only, you see,” he urged, “she wouldn’t expect me to be in Skye.”

A minute later he drew me aside. “Excellent company your friend is, sir: most gentlemanly manners; but at times, if I may so say, not very gleg.”

My hands by this time were numb with cold. We had been ascending steadily, and Byfield’s English thermometer stood at thirteen degrees. I borrowed from the heap a thicker overcoat, in the pocket of which I was lucky enough to find a pair of furred gloves; and leaned over for another look below, still with a corner of my eye for the aëronaut, who stood biting his nails, as far from me as the car allowed.

The sea-fog had vanished, and the south of Scotland lay spread beneath us from sea to sea, like a map in monotint. Nay, yonder was England, with the Solway cleaving the coast – a broad, bright spearhead, slightly bent at the tip – and the fells of Cumberland beyond, mere hummocks on the horizon; all else flat as a board or as the bottom of a saucer. White threads of high-road connected town to town: the intervening hills had fallen down, and the towns, as if in fright, had shrunk into themselves, contracting their suburbs as a snail his horns. The old poet was right who said that the Olympians had a delicate view. The lace-makers of Valenciennes might have had the tracing of those towns and high-roads; those knots of guipure and ligatures of finest réseau-work. And when I considered that what I looked down on – this, with its arteries and nodules of public traffic – was a nation; that each silent nodule held some thousands of men, each man moderately ready to die in defence of his shopboard and hen-roost; it came into my mind that my Emperor’s emblem was the bee, and this Britain the spider’s web, sure enough.

Byfield came across and stood at my elbow.

“Mr. Ducie, I have considered your offer, and accept it. It’s a curst position – ”

“For a public character,” I put in affably.

“Don’t, sir! I beg that you don’t. Your words just now made me suffer a good deal: the more, that I perceive a part of them to be true. An aëronaut, sir, has ambition – how can he help it? The public, the newspapers, feed it for a while; they fête, and flatter, and applaud him. But in its heart the public ranks him with the mountebank, and reserves the right to drop him when tired of his tricks. Is it wonderful that he forgets this sometimes? For in his own thoughts he is not a mountebank – no, by God, he is not!”

The man spoke with genuine passion. I held out my hand.

“Mr. Byfield, my words were brutal. I beg you will allow me to take them back.”

He shook his head. “They were true, sir; partly true, that is.”

“I am not so sure. A balloon, as you hint and I begin to discover, may alter the perspective of man’s ambitions. Here are the notes; and on the top of them I give you my word that you are not abetting a criminal. How long should the Lunardi be able to maintain itself in the air?”