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Updated: June 5, 2025
Byfield I observed, because I had heard of him before, and seen his advertisements, not at all because I was disposed to feel interest in the man. If I had known how I was to be connected with him in the immediate future, I might have taken more pains. In the hamlet of Cramond there is a hostelry of no very promising appearance, and here a room had been prepared for us, and we sat down to table.
"O, I say!" says Byfield, "this is too much of a good thing! Confound it, I'm a respectable man a public character, by George! I can't afford to get taken up by the police." "My own case exactly," said I. "Here, let's bilk them," said he. And we turned back and took our way down hill again.
"Confound it!" said Byfield, "the land can't be uninhabited!" It was, for aught we could see. Not a light showed anywhere; and to make things worse the moon had abandoned us. For one good hour we swept through chaos to the tuneless lamentations of Sheepshanks, who declared that his collar-bone was broken. Then Dalmahoy flung a hand upwards.
It was none too soon: voices and alarm bells sounded; watchmen here and there began to spring their rattles; it was plain the University of Cramond would soon be at blows with the police of Edinburgh! Byfield and I, running the semi-inanimate Rowley before us, made good despatch, and did not stop till we were several streets away, and the hubbub was already softened by distance.
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.
'Well, sir, said he, 'we are well out of that! Did ever any one see such a pack of young barbarians? 'We are properly punished, Mr. Byfield; we had no business there, I replied. 'No, indeed, sir, you may well say that! Outrageous! And my ascension announced for Friday, you know! cried the aeronaut. 'A pretty scandal! Byfield the aeronaut at the police-court! Tut- tut!
The sunlight through which we were falling had not touched it yet. It leaped on us, drenched in shadow, like some incalculable beast from its covert: a land shaggy with woods and coppices. Between the woods a desolate river glimmered. A colony of herons rose from the tree-tops beneath us and flew squawking for the farther shore. "This won't do," said Byfield, and shut the escape.
If Lunardi went up and came down, there was the matter settled. We prefer to grant the point. We do not want to see the experiment repeated ad nauseam by Byfield, and Brown, and Butler, and Brodie, and Bottomley. Ah! if they would go up and NOT come down again! But this is by the question.
I must drink `Auld lang syne, by Heavens." The master-at-arms again made his appearance. "Gentlemen, you must put the light out." "Stop one minute, Byfield. Let us see whether we can get any more rum." The excuse appeared reasonable to the jack in office, and he disappeared. "Boy, tell Billy Pitt I want him."
I heard a rending noise, and picked myself up in time to see the building collapse like a house of cards, and a pair of demented pigs emerge from the ruins and plunge across the garden-beds. And with that I was pitched off my feet again as the hook caught in an iron chevaux-de-frise, and held fast. "Hold tight!" shouted Byfield, as the car lurched and struggled, careering desperately.
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