第41章

ADDRESSES THE CLOUDS

On the morning following his resurrection Mr.Lavender set out very early for the celebrated flying ground without speaking of his intention to anyone.At the bottom of the hill he found to his annoyance that Blink had divined his purpose and was following.This, which compelled him to walk, greatly delayed his arrival.But chance now favoured him, for he found he was expected, and at once conducted to a machine which was about to rise.A taciturn young man, with a long jaw, and wings on his breast, was standing there gazing at it with an introspective eye.

"Ready, sir?" he said.

"Yes," replied Mr.Lavender, enveloped to the eyes in a garment of fur and leather."Will you kindly hold my dog?" he added, stroking Blink with the feeling that he was parting for ever with all that was most dear to him.

An attendant having taken hold of her by the collar, Mr.Lavender was heaved into the machine, where the young airman was already seated in front of him.

"Shall I feel sick?" asked Mr.Lavender.

"Probably," said the young airman.

"That will not deter me, for the less material I become the better it will be."The young airman turned his head, and Mr.Lavender caught the surprised yellow of his eye.

"Hold on," said the airman, "I'm going to touch her off."Mr.Lavender held on, and the machine moved but at this moment Blink, uttering a dismal howl, leapt forward, and, breaking from the attendant's grasp, landed in the machine against Mr.Lavender's chest.

"Stop! stop he cried!" my dog.

"Stuff her down," said the unmoved airman, "between your legs.She's not the first to go up and won't be the last to come down."Mr.Lavender stuffed her down as best he could."If we are to be killed," he thought, "it will be together.Blink!" The faithful creature, who bitterly regretted her position now that the motion had begun, looked up with a darkened eye at Mr.Lavender, who was stopping his ears against the horrible noises which had now begun.He ,too, had become aware of the pit of his stomach; but this sensation soon passed away in the excitement he felt at getting away from the earth, for they were already at the height of a house, and rising rapidly.

"It is not at all like a little bird," he thought, but rather resembles a slow train on the surface of the sea, or a horse on a switchback merry-go-round.I feel, however, that my spirit will soon be free, for the earth is becoming like a board whereon a game is played by an unseen hand, and I am leaving it." And craning his head out a little too far he felt his chin knock against his spine.Drawing it in with difficulty he concentrated his attention upon that purification of his spirit which was the object of his journey.

"I am now," he thought, "in the transcendent ether.It should give me an amazing power of expression such as only the greatest writers and orators attain; and, divorced as I am rapidly becoming from all sordid reality, truth will appear to me like one of those stars towards which I am undoubtedly flying though I cannot as yet see it.

Blink, who between his legs had hitherto been unconscious of their departure from the earth, now squirmed irresistibly up till her forepaws were on her master's chest, and gazed lugubriously at the fearful prospect.Mr.Lavender clasped her convulsively.They were by now rapidly nearing a flock of heavenly sheep, which as they approached became ever more gigantic till they were transformed into monstrous snow-fleeces intersected by wide drifts of blue.

"Can it be that we are to adventure above them?" thought Mr.Lavender.

"I hope not, for they seem to me fearful." His alarm was soon appeased, for the machine began to take a level course a thousand feet, perhaps, below the clouds, whence little wraiths wandering out now and again dimmed Mr.Lavender's vision and moistened his brow.

Blink having retired again between her master's legs, a sense of security and exaltation was succeeding to the natural trepidation of Mr.