The Battle and the Breeze

by R. M. Ballantyne

This device of improving the ivory handle turned out to be a happy hit, for it enabled Ben to keep the umbrella much longer by him than would otherwise have been possible, for the purpose of covering it with elaborate and really beautiful carving, the progress of which was watched by the turnkey with much interest from day to day.

Having gained their end the sailors wrought with indefatigable zeal, and resolutely overcame the difficulties that met them from time to time. Each day they dragged the bench under the window. Ben got upon it, and Bill climbed on his shoulders, by which means he could just reach the iron grating of the window, and there, for half-an-hour at a time, he cautiously used the file. They thought this enough of time to bestow on the work, because the bars could be easily filed through before the parachute was ready.

In the preparation of the umbrella, the first difficulty that met them was how they were to conceal their private work when the turnkey came in the evenings to take away their materials for sack-making. After some examination they discovered a plank in the floor, in the corner where they were wont to sleep, which was loose and easily forced up with one of Bill’s unfinished paper-knives, which he made very strong for this special purpose! Beneath there was sufficient room to stow away the cloth with which they fashioned the additional breadth to the umbrella. To have cabbaged at one time all the sail-cloth that was required would have risked discovery; they therefore appropriated small scraps each day, and sewed these neatly together until they had enough. Soon they had a ring of canvas formed, into the centre of which the umbrella fitted exactly, and this ring was so cut and sewn in gores that it formed a continuation of the umbrella, which was thus made to spread out and cover a space of about nine or ten feet in diameter. All round the extremity or margin of the ring, cords of twisted twine were fixed, at intervals of about six inches. There were about sixty of these cords or stays, all of which met and were fastened at the end of the handle. A stout line, made of four-ply twine, was fastened at the top of the umbrella, and passing through a small hole in it was tied round the whalebones inside, and twisted down the stick to the handle, to which it was firmly secured. By this means the whole machine was, as it were, bound together.

All these additionals and fixings had, however, to be so constructed that they could be removed, or affixed with some rapidity, for there was always before the sailors the chance that the turnkey might look in to observe how their work was progressing.

Indeed one afternoon they were almost discovered at work on the parachute. The turnkey was heard coming along the passage when Ben was in the act of fitting on the new appendages, and the key was actually in the door before the last shred of them was thrust into the hole in the floor, and the loose plank shut down! Ben immediately flung several of the sacks over the place, and then turning suddenly round on his comrade began to pommel him soundly by way of accounting for the flushed condition of his countenance.

Thus taken by surprise, Bill returned the blows with interest, and the combatants were separated by the turnkey when in a rather breathless condition!

“If you do so more agin, you sall go separate,” said the turnkey.

The mere thought of separation at such a moment struck like a chill to the hearts of the sailors, who forthwith shook hands, and vowed earnestly that they would “never do it again.” In order to conciliate the man, Ben took up the umbrella, and pointing to the beautifully carved handle said—

“You see it’s all but finished, and I’m very anxious to git it done, so if you’ll let me keep it by me all to-night, I’ll work as long as I can see, and be at it the first thing in the morning.”

The man, pleased at the unusual interest which Ben took in the worn-out piece of goods, agreed to let him keep it by him. After carrying away all the other materials, and looking round to see that all was right, he locked them up for the night.