Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/387

 380 soon offered. There 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 fine. The balloon was inflated. Fanny was in the car. Everything was ready, when the aeronaut suddenly fainted. He was carried into the house, and Sir George accompanied him to see that he was properly attended to. Fanny was in despair.

‘Am I to lose my air expedition?’ she exclaimed, looking over the side of the car, ‘Someone 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.’

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

‘Why, when you want to go up faster, you throw some sand overboard,’ I replied, suiting the action to the word.

‘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.’

‘I gave you an answer the other day,’ she replied; ‘one which I should have thought you would have remembered,’ she added, laughing a little, notwithstanding her terror.

‘I remember it perfectly,’ I answered, ‘but I intend to have a different reply to that. You see those five sand-bags, I shall ask you five times to become my wife. Every time you refuse I shall throw over a sand-bag—so, lady fair, as the cabmen would say, reconsider your decision, and consent to become Mrs. Jenkyns.’

‘I won’t!’ she said; ‘I never will! and, let me tell you, that you are acting in a very ungentlemanly way to press me thus.’

‘You acted in a very ladylike way the other day, did you not,’ I rejoined, ‘when you knocked me out of the boat?’ She laughed again, for she was a plucky girl, and no mistake—a very plucky girl. ‘However,’ I went on, ‘it’s no good arguing about it—will you promise to give me your hand?’

‘Never!’ she answered; ‘I’ll go to Ursa Major first, though I’ve got a big enough bear here, in all conscience. Stay! you’d prefer Aquarius, wouldn’t you?’

“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 Jenkyns 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 sand-bag, and whistled the Dead March in Saul.

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

“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 her beautiful hair from her face, and standing perfectly erect, looking like the Goddess of Anger or Boadicea—if you can fancy 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 what I did 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.