"You should have told me that before," said the girl, in an aggrieved
tone.
"I don't see that _we_ are responsible for parental quarrels," responded
the other, warmly. "My mother married the wrong man, from Colonel
Currie's point of view, and they have sworn eternal enmity. But how
should that affect us? By Jove, we're cousins! To think that I have to
thank the friskiness of my balloon for getting to know you."
Another silence.
"I hope father won't come home while you're here," cried the girl,
suddenly. "He's never seen you, but you may be like the family, and it
is not a likeness one can easily mistake. Have you a peculiar little
dent in the middle of an otherwise straight nose?"
The query was advanced with an eagerness ludicrously at variance with
the difference of their respective situations. It seemed--as Charles
Lamb said of humorous letters to distant lands--as though eagerness must
grow so stale before it reached the summit of this big pear tree.
"Yes, I have," answered Hampton, laughing.
"Then your fate is sealed. Father may return at any moment, and you
really musn't come down into the garden."
"But I'm awfully hungry," said Mr. Hampton, plaintively.
"I'll send you up something to eat, as I suggested at first."
"I have no string, or rope, or anything I can let down."
This was scarcely accurate, but Reginald Hampton saw too many
capabilities in the situation, to let it go readily. Finally, he
overcame the girl's scruples, and she departed in quest of a ladder.
As his daughter disappeared at the rear of the house, Colonel Currie
came round the front. He was smoking a cheroot, the slowly curling smoke
from which, as also his whole gait and mien, was suggestive of peaceful
proprietorship. He paused to examine his bed of spring wallflowers,
stooped to uproot an impertinent dandelion which had taken root in his
otherwise irreproachable turf, gathered a fine auricula and placed it in
his button-hole. Then he took a contented survey of his fruit trees,
until his eyes finally rested upon the white-robed bower of the balloon.
A change came o'er the spirit of the Colonel's pastoral dream. His ruddy
gills assumed a purplish hue, his grizzled hair stood up in fighting
attitude. He advanced to the foot of the tree and peered upwards. His
inability to see the occupant of the balloon called to battle the last
drop of the plentiful supply of choler wherewith Indian heats had
endowed him.
"What the mischief are you doing in my pear tree?" thundered the
Colonel.
His voice was suggestive of heavy artillery at short range; but
masculine anger was not one of the things that ruffled the balloonist's
equanimity.
"I'm sitting tight until your gardener is kind enough to bring me a
ladder," he responded, imperturbably.
"Eh? What? Well, upon my soul, sir! Do you know that this is my very
finest pear-tree--jargonelles, sir, I tell you, jargonelles? You and
your impudent machine have ruined the crop. It's just the spirit of this
confounded age--anarchy, disruption, red riot--no man's house safe--his
garden a refuge for any air-climbing rascal who cares to take up his
quarters in it."
The Colonel, from this point onwards, seemed to imagine that he was
talking _at_ a coolie; coolie intercourse cultivates the faculty of
expression wonderfully, and Reginald Hampton's host entertained that
amused aeronaut for fully ten minutes with a wealth of epithet--very old
in bottle, and of a fine tawny flavour. Hampton took advantage of the
panting calm that followed the outburst to put in a plea for himself.
[Illustration: "'THERE IS A GENTLEMAN AT THE VERY TOP OF THE TREE DYING
FOR WANT OF FOOD.'"]
"I can only say, sir, that I regret this _contretemps_ as much as
yourself. The fact is, I had no choice in the matter; the wind got the
better of me, and took me just where it pleased."
"P--r--r--rh--Humph, humph!" sputtered the old gentleman. "Serves you
right for getting inside such a flimsy contrivance. Can't understand how
any man can be fool enough to want to career through the air when heaven
has blessed him with a pair of sound legs. Perhaps you have no legs,
though, for I'm hanged if I can see you," he concluded, irately,
returning to his pet grievance.
"Yes, I have legs--rather long ones," returned the aeronaut, genially.
"As to ballooning, it is a matter of personal taste, of course. We
needn't quarrel about that, need we, Colonel Currie?"
"Eh, eh? How do you come to know my name?"
Reginald Hampton, in the privacy of his retreat, smiled beautifully to
himself. He had watched the old gentleman's progress through the garden,
and had guessed that he was tremendously proud of his flowers, his
trees, his lawn; and an inspiration had come to this light-hearted
trifler with another man's pear blossom.
"I guessed it, sir," he responded, very suavely. "I knew I had dropped
somewhere in Kent, and a glance at that well-kept grass of yours, at the
rare profusion of early flowers, at the extreme
fulness--er--profligacy--of your fruit-blossom, told me in a moment that
the garden could belong to only one man in the county. Do you suppose I
have been a horticultural enthusiast all these years without knowing
Colonel Currie by name? Why, the--the dahlias you exhibit are alone
sufficient to make your name cling to one's memory. Sir, I am deeply
sorry that I have injured your crop of jargonelles, but I cannot regret
that I have been privileged to meet you."
Reginald Hampton had a cheery way of emerging with safety from any
embarrassment in which he happened to find himself. His haphazard
assumption of enthusiasm for the one subject on earth of which he knew
least might so easily have led him astray; yet in the very nick of time
that word _dahlia_ crept into his consciousness and won the day. It
chanced that dahlia-cultivation was the Colonel's most absorbing hobby.
The old gentleman's anger had already begun to cool, under the influence
of his enemy's persistent politeness, and this liberal application of
the flattery-trowel at once set up a counter-current of positive
cordiality.
"I apologise, sir, I apologise for the--ah--breadth of my language.
These little accidents will happen, of course--do happen, doubtless,
every day--and I had no idea that you were a grower of dahlias. Now,
what soil do you consider the most suitable for the Cactus varieties?"
Thus the Colonel, in tones of peace.
[Illustration: "WHY, WHATEVER IS THE MATTER?' SHE CRIED."]
There was stillness in the flowery region just above the Colonel's head.
A perplexed balloonist was at one and the same time suppressing an
outburst of hysterical laughter, and encouraging coy soil-theories to
evolve themselves from the blank chambers of his brain.
"It is difficult to say off-hand," he began. "Every grower, you see, has
his own views."
"So he has, so he has--and he likes to hear other people's views, if
only for the sake of abusing them. What is your own candid opinion on
the subject?"
"Well, as you ask me, I should say--use pretty much the same soil as you
would for the other varieties. Er--ah--a suspicion of loam, not too dry,
and fairly well matured, sprinkled over the surface, is not
inadvisable."
"You don't say so? For my part, I stick to the old-established methods,
but no doubt modern enterprise has done something in the way of
development. Loam, you say, sprinkled over the surface? I must try it."
"But be careful that it just hits the happy mean in the matter of
moisture. If you keep it too dry, the plant runs to leaf instead of
flower; if too wet, the colour is apt to--to run a little."
The balloonist, having fairly spread the wings of his imagination, was
by this time quite prepared to fly into fresh difficulties. He was
enjoying himself tremendously, and had even forgotten that his
prospective rescuer was rather late in coming to his aid.
"But," objected the Colonel, omitting to notice a slight horticultural
mistake of the aeronaut's, "but how do you manage about the watering?
The loam must be wet at some times and comparatively dry at others."
"My dear sir, you mistake; the latest method is to carefully remove the
surface loam before watering, and then to replace it, moistened to the
proper degree."
"This is all very interesting," quoth the Colonel. "How it does one good
to talk with a genuine enthusiast on these delightful subjects! You are
trying for the blue dahlia, of course?"
"I've got it, sir," responded the balloonist, with triumphant emphasis.
He was now prepared to go any lengths, trusting that Fate would see the
thing through satisfactorily.
The Colonel skipped about in the wildest excitement.
"_Got the blue dahlia?_ Why, I have only got half way to it, and I
thought I was farther than most men. You know, of course, that there is
a prize of a thousand pounds offered for that unique production? Have
you claimed it?"
"I didn't care to," said Hampton, carelessly. "Frankly, there are so
many poor men trying for the prize--praiseworthy toilers who finish a
hard day's work by an evening's tending of some cottage garden--that I
could not bear to step in and take the prize. I have quite enough money,
too; I should scarcely know what to do with more."
The airy invisibility of the stranger, the unwontedness of the scene,
must have played havoc with the Colonel's credulity. He absorbed
everything, as a dry sponge sucks up water. The aeronaut's car was
shaking visibly.
"But that is not all," said the latter recklessly. "I promptly set to
work on a new colour, and I produced----"
"Yes, yes--you produced----"
"_A pea-green dahlia, twelve inches in diameter._"
"My dear, my very dear sir," cried the Colonel, well-nigh hysterical
with wonder and delight, "I insist on your coming down _at once_ from
that tree and partaking of luncheon with me. I have some excellent '49
port, and we'll discuss the two subjects together. Really, it is very
remiss of me not to have suggested your coming down sooner; the
situation is not well adapted to conversation, and doubtless you are far
from comfortable."
"No apology necessary, I assure you. I took the liberty, some time ago,
of requesting your daugh--your gardener to bring me a ladder. He will
appear presently, I have no doubt--in fact, I see him coming at this
moment."
Now Miss Currie, though apparently she had forgotten the very existence
of Reginald Hampton, had in point of fact followed his fortunes with an
interest bordering on trepidation. Having run the gardener to earth, she
was informed by that functionary that there was not a ladder about the
place sufficiently long to reach to the top of the pear tree; the
Colonel's longest ladder had been broken a week ago, and of the others
not one was half the necessary size.
"But you _must_ find one somewhere," insisted the girl, with the pretty
imperiousness of feminine youth; "there is a gentleman at the very top
of the tree, and he is at this moment dying for want of food. What a
pity the pears are not ripe! Can't you think of someone who would lend
you a ladder?"
The gardener scratched his head and pondered. There _was_ one at
Langbridge Farm, a good mile away, but it was a powerful hot morning to
walk a mile with a heavy ladder on one's shoulder. Still, Missy seemed
anxious, and Missy had had a right to have her own way ever since she
was as high as one of his dwarf rose trees.
[Illustration: "THE COLONEL GREW PURPLE, THEN WHITE, AND BEAT UPON THE
TABLE WITH HIS FINGERS."]
So the gardener had departed to Langbridge Farm, and Miss Currie had
peeped round the corner of the house, to see how it was faring with the
balloonist. She found her worst fears confirmed; her father was standing
under the pear tree and abusing the poor man like a pickpocket. The
girl, realising how futile it would be for her to put in an appearance
and add to the already deafening hurly-burly, quietly secreted herself
in a lilac-bush, and listened to what was going on. She began to laugh
as the aeronaut unwound his imaginative threads; then she grew angry
with him for his recklessness; then she laughed again at the astounding
coolness of the man, and the skilful manner in which he avoided all
difficulties in his path. Finally, at the end of what seemed to her an
eternity and a half, the gardener appeared with his borrowed ladder, and
proceeded in the direction of the pear tree. Miss Currie watched the old
man place the ladder against the tree, under the combined directions of
her father and the unconcerned occupant of the balloon-car, and then she
thought the time was ripe for her to stroll up in a negligent manner.
"Why, whatever is the matter?" she cried, with innocent surprise.
"Nothing, my dear, nothing," responded the Colonel, beamingly. "A very
worthy gentleman and a magnificent florist has, by good fortune, become
my guest, and he is coming down in order to partake of luncheon."
"But where is he, and how did he come there?" she went on, deeming it
highly prudent to disown any previous knowledge of the matter.
The old gardener looked at her with an intelligent grin, inwardly
remarking that Missy was a deep one, she was. The aeronaut laughed with
incontinent heartiness. The Colonel explained to her how the accident
had occurred. After which Reginald Hampton climbed out of his nest,
reached _terra firma_, and found himself entirely satisfied with the
slim beauty of his rescuer.
The moment might have been an embarrassing one for the average man; it
was, however, precisely the kind of situation that Reginald Hampton most
enjoyed.
"Delighted to make your acquaintance at closer quarters," he remarked,
first raising his cap to the Colonel, and then extending his hand. "Your
daughter, I presume?" he added, turning to Violet Currie. "I am glad, by
the way, she did not happen to be occupying the hammock there, or my
abrupt descent might have startled her somewhat."
"So it might, so it might," responded his host, urbanely. "Now, let us
go indoors; you must be positively famishing, and that port of mine is
itching, I know, to see the light of day."
"What a time you are going to have!" whispered the girl, as they took
their places at table.
He and she managed to stave off the evil day until lunch was half over;
but procrastination was not nearly as wholesale a thief of time as they
wished him to be.
"Now, about those two unique dahlias of yours," began the Colonel; "you
really must allow me to come and see them."
"Delighted, sir. Any time that may be convenient to you. Come and spend
a week with me."
"You are very kind. I should say to-morrow if, literally, any time would
do," laughed the Colonel; "but I think even you cannot induce dahlias to
flower before July."
"Well, no. Of course, my 'anytime' presupposed these natural limits,"
said the aeronaut, aloud.
"I fancied they were spring flowers," said the aeronaut in a
stage-aside. "So I can go scot-free until July. I must marry her before
then."
Colonel Currie was on the point of launching well out into his favourite
waters--in which case the Providence of so fatuous a trifler as Reginald
Hampton must surely have deserted him--when a certain peculiarity in his
guest's face arrested his attention. He gazed fixedly at him for a few
moments, then frowned ominously.
"I beg your pardon, sir, but you have the family nose. I have never seen
that peculiar dent in the middle in any but a Currie nose. Is it
possible--"
"I also beg your pardon, Colonel," responded the balloonist, following a
sudden inspiration; "but before answering your question, may I ask if
you are really as devoted to flowers as you seem to be?"
"I am indeed. They are the passion of my life," said Colonel Currie,
still gazing perplexedly at his companion's nasal hallmark.
"For my part, I can never forgive a florist--a true florist--who can
find it in his heart to put other--other considerations first. If a man
told me that he possessed a blue dahlia, for instance, I would go and
see that man in the teeth of gatling guns."
"So would I. Grape-shot is a matter of no consequence by comparison."
"If the man had relations in the house whom it made my head ache to
meet, I would still go. Nothing in the world, sir, ought to stand in the
way of a blue dahlia."
"Nothing," responded the Colonel, forgetting everything else in a sudden
fervour of sympathetic enthusiasm.
"You are quite convinced of that?"
"Quite. How can you doubt me?"
The aeronaut paused, and then planted this shot squarely in the
Colonel's astonished person.
"Then, uncle, you won't mind my saying that I am Reginald Hampton, and
that it will be necessary for you to see the blue dahlia _and_ your
sister in conjunction."
The Colonel grew purple, then white; he stammered, and beat upon the
table with his fingers, and talked in strange languages. But he had the
good sense to see that he was cornered. Besides, what had his nephew
ever done to him, and how could he help being proud of so unique an
horticulturist?
Finally, the Colonel reached out his hand across the table.
"Confound you, boy, you've conquered me! I must see that dahlia!" he
cried.
"How to arrange matters floral when the merry month of July comes round,
I can't guess," mused Reginald Hampton, as he lit a Manilla. "But
sufficient for the day is the evil thereof, and my bounden duty is to
marry the little girl in June."
Which he did.