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"Here you will find no guttling or gormandising, no turtle or nightingales' tongues," said the extravagant, whose name, by the way, was Dalmahoy. "The device, sir, of the University of Cramond is Plain Living and High Drinking."
"Cut the ropes!" "Stop him!" my cousin bawled. "Stop the balloon! It's Champdivers, the murderer!" "Cut the ropes!" vociferated Byfield; and to my infinite relief I saw that Dalmahoy was doing his best. A hand clutched at my heel.
Dalmahoy, I presume, returns to his sorrowing folk?" The extravagant cheerfully corrected me. "They will not sorrow: but I shall return to them. Of their grudged pension I have eighteenpence in my pocket. But I propose to travel with Sheepshanks, and raise the wind by showing his tricks.
"My name is Sheepshanks," said the little man stiffly. "But you'll excuse me " Mr. Dalmahoy interrupted with a playful cat-call. "Hear, hear! Silence! 'His name is Sheepshanks. On the Grampian Hills his father kept his flocks a thousand sheep, and, I make no doubt, shanks in proportion. Excuse you, Sheepshanks? My dear sir!
Dalmahoy concluded inconsequently with a vocal imitation of a post-horn; and, looking up, I saw the head and shoulders of Byfield projected over the rim of the car. He drew the natural inference from my dress and demeanour, and groaned aloud. "O, go away get out of it, Ducie! Isn't one natural born ass enough for me to deal with? You fellows are guying the whole show!" "Byfield!"
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."
I knotted the broken ends of the valve-string and slid back into the car: then tugged the valve open, while with my disengaged arm I wiped the sweat from my forehead. It froze upon the coat-cuff. In a minute or so the drumming in my ears grew less violent. Dalmahoy bent over the aëronaut, who was bleeding at the nose and now began to breathe stertorously.
Dalmahoy did not carry one. We searched the still prostrate Sheepshanks: his had stopped at ten minutes to four. Byfield replaced it and underlined his disgust with a kick. "A nice lot!" he ejaculated. "I owe you my thanks, Mr. Ducie, all the same. It was touch and go with us, and my head's none the better for it." "But I say," expostulated Dalmahoy. "France! This is getting past a joke."
This is like the Metamorphosis of Ovid, the bark binding in and hardening the living flesh. June 15. W. Clerk, Francis Scott, and Charles Sharpe dined with me, but my task had been concluded before dinner. June 16. Dined at Dalmahoy, with the young Earl and Countess of Morton. I like these young noble folks particularly well.
He wrote to Thomas Sully of Philadelphia, promising to send him his first number, to be presented to the Philadelphia Society "an institution which thought me unworthy to be a member," he writes. About this time he was a guest for a day or two of Earl Morton, at his estate Dalmahoy, near Edinburgh. He had expected to see an imposing personage in the great Chamberlain to the late queen Charlotte.
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