The Tower
In all the thoughts, words, and actions of Squire Headlong, there was
a remarkable alacrity of progression, which almost annihilated the
interval between conception and execution. He was utterly regardless
of obstacles, and seemed to have expunged their very name from his
vocabulary. His designs were never nipped in their infancy by the
contemplation of those trivial difficulties which often turn awry the
current of enterprise; and, though the rapidity of his movements was
sometimes arrested by a more formidable barrier, either naturally
existing in the pursuit he had undertaken, or created by his own
impetuosity, he seldom failed to succeed either in knocking it down or
cutting his way through it. He had little idea of gradation: he saw no
interval between the first step and the last, but pounced upon his
object with the impetus of a mountain cataract. This rapidity of
movement, indeed, subjected him to some disasters which cooler spirits
would have escaped. He was an excellent sportsman, and almost always
killed his game; but now and then he killed his dog.[8.1] Rocks,
streams, hedges, gates, and ditches, were objects of no account in his
estimation; though a dislocated shoulder, several severe bruises, and
two or three narrow escapes for his neck, might have been expected to
teach him a certain degree of caution in effecting his transitions. He
was so singularly alert in climbing precipices and traversing
torrents, that, when he went out on a shooting party, he was very soon
left to continue his sport alone, for he was sure to dash up or down
some nearly perpendicular path, where no one else had either ability
or inclination to follow. He had a pleasure boat on the lake, which he
steered with amazing dexterity; but as he always indulged himself in
the utmost possible latitude of sail, he was occasionally upset by a
sudden gust, and was indebted to his skill in the art of swimming for
the opportunity of tempering with a copious libation of wine the
unnatural frigidity introduced into his stomach by the extraordinary
intrusion of water, an element which he had religiously determined
should never pass his lips, but of which, on these occasions, he was
sometimes compelled to swallow no inconsiderable quantity. This
circumstance alone, of the various disasters that befell him,
occasioned him any permanent affliction, and he accordingly noted the
day in his pocket-book as a _dies nefastus_, with this simple
abstract, and brief chronicle of the calamity: _Mem. Swallowed two or
three pints of water_: without any notice whatever of the concomitant
circumstances. These days, of which there were several, were set apart
in Headlong Hall for the purpose of anniversary expiation; and, as
often as the day returned on which the squire had swallowed water, he
not only made a point of swallowing a treble allowance of wine
himself, but imposed a heavy mulct on every one of his servants who
should be detected in a state of sobriety after sunset: but their
conduct on these occasions was so uniformly exemplary, that no
instance of the infliction of the penalty appears on record.
The squire and Mr Milestone, as we have already said, had set out
immediately after breakfast to examine the capabilities of the
scenery. The object that most attracted Mr Milestone's admiration was
a ruined tower on a projecting point of rock, almost totally overgrown
with ivy. This ivy, Mr Milestone observed, required trimming and
clearing in various parts: a little pointing and polishing was also
necessary for the dilapidated walls: and the whole effect would be
materially increased by a plantation of spruce fir, interspersed with
cypress and juniper, the present rugged and broken ascent from the
land side being first converted into a beautiful slope, which might be
easily effected by blowing up a part of the rock with gunpowder,
laying on a quantity of fine mould, and covering the whole with an
elegant stratum of turf.
Squire Headlong caught with avidity at this suggestion; and, as he had
always a store of gunpowder in the house, for the accommodation of
himself and his shooting visitors, and for the supply of a small
battery of cannon, which he kept for his private amusement, he
insisted on commencing operations immediately. Accordingly, he bounded
back to the house, and very speedily returned, accompanied by the
little butler, and half a dozen servants and labourers, with pickaxes
and gunpowder, a hanging stove and a poker, together with a basket of
cold meat and two or three bottles of Madeira: for the Squire thought,
with many others, that a copious supply of provision is a very
necessary ingredient in all rural amusements.
Mr Milestone superintended the proceedings. The rock was excavated,
the powder introduced, the apertures strongly blockaded with fragments
of stone: a long train was laid to a spot which Mr Milestone fixed on
as sufficiently remote from the possibility of harm: the Squire seized
the poker, and, after flourishing it in the air with a degree of
dexterity which induced the rest of the party to leave him in solitary
possession of an extensive circumference, applied the end of it to the
train; and the rapidly communicated ignition ran hissing along the
surface of the soil.
At this critical moment, Mr Cranium and Mr Panscope appeared at the
top of the tower, which, unseeing and unseen, they had ascended on the
opposite side to that where the Squire and Mr Milestone were
conducting their operations. Their sudden appearance a little dismayed
the Squire, who, however, comforted himself with the reflection, that
the tower was perfectly safe, or at least was intended to be so, and
that his friends were in no probable danger but of a knock on the head
from a flying fragment of stone.
The succession of these thoughts in the mind of the Squire was
commensurate in rapidity to the progress of the ignition, which having
reached its extremity, the explosion took place, and the shattered
rock was hurled into the air in the midst of fire and smoke.
Mr Milestone had properly calculated the force of the explosion; for
the tower remained untouched: but the Squire, in his consolatory
reflections, had omitted the consideration of the influence of sudden
fear, which had so violent an effect on Mr Cranium, who was just
commencing a speech concerning the very fine prospect from the top of
the tower, that, cutting short the thread of his observations, he
bounded, under the elastic influence of terror, several feet into the
air. His ascent being unluckily a little out of the perpendicular, he
descended with a proportionate curve from the apex of his projection,
and alighted not on the wall of the tower, but in an ivy-bush by its
side, which, giving way beneath him, transferred him to a tuft of
hazel at its base, which, after upholding him an instant, consigned
him to the boughs of an ash that had rooted itself in a fissure about
half way down the rock, which finally transmitted him to the waters
below.
Squire Headlong anxiously watched the tower as the smoke which at
first enveloped it rolled away; but when this shadowy curtain was
withdrawn, and Mr Panscope was discovered, _solus_, in a tragical
attitude, his apprehensions became boundless, and he concluded that
the unlucky collision of a flying fragment of rock had indeed
emancipated the spirit of the craniologist from its terrestrial
bondage.
Mr Escot had considerably outstripped his companions, and arrived at
the scene of the disaster just as Mr Cranium, being utterly destitute
of natatorial skill, was in imminent danger of final submersion. The
deteriorationist, who had cultivated this valuable art with great
success, immediately plunged in to his assistance, and brought him
alive and in safety to a shelving part of the shore. Their landing was
hailed with a view-holla from the delighted Squire, who, shaking them
both heartily by the hand, and making ten thousand lame apologies to
Mr Cranium, concluded by asking, in a pathetic tone, _How much water
he had swallowed?_ and without waiting for his answer, filled a large
tumbler with Madeira, and insisted on his tossing it off, which was no
sooner said than done. Mr Jenkison and Mr Foster now made their
appearance. Mr Panscope descended the tower, which he vowed never
again to approach within a quarter of a mile. The tumbler of Madeira
was replenished, and handed round to recruit the spirits of the party,
which now began to move towards Headlong Hall, the Squire capering for
joy in the van, and the little fat butler waddling in the rear.
The Squire took care that Mr Cranium should be seated next to him at
dinner, and plied him so hard with Madeira to prevent him, as he said,
from taking cold, that long before the ladies sent in their summons to
coffee, every organ in his brain was in a complete state of
revolution, and the Squire was under the necessity of ringing for
three or four servants to carry him to bed, observing, with a smile of
great satisfaction, that he was in a very excellent way for escaping
any ill consequences that might have resulted from his accident.
The beautiful Cephalis, being thus freed from his _surveillance_, was
enabled, during the course of the evening, to develop to his preserver
the full extent of her gratitude.