Amongst the guests of the society, and indeed the hero of the evening, was Captain Mulberry, the famous guardsman who devoted much natural talent and a considerable portion of his life to the endeavour either to kill or hopelessly maim himself. Evil fortune had kept his sword stainless, as far as regular warfare went, but there was generally a little fighting going on somewhere, and, the captain's leave of absence coinciding, he from time to time managed to sniff the exhilarating smell of powder, and knew the music of bullet and shell. These things were surrounded with difficulties. It obviously would not do for a man bearing Her Majesty's commission to lend his sword to one or other belligerents in a conflict between nations at peace with England. In a country like Spain, for example, things naturally run a little irregularly and the captain being on the spot may have occasionally lapsed into battle.
But these were mere episodes. Having tried most things, he had taken to ballooning, as offering the largest amount of risk in the least possible space of time. He had been up in all kinds of balloons in all possible circumstances, and had come down in various ways. He had just now achieved a great feat, making a voyage from the Grampian Hills to the Orkney Islands. The society desiring to do him honour had invited him to this meeting, and Josiah had heard him describe his perilous voyage.
"A mere nothing," he said; "perhaps a little difficult going, but nothing at all coming back. The difficulty in going out was to drop on the Orkneys. The place is so small that when you are up in the air it looks as if you might as well try to drop on a pin's point. But after all, it was a nothing—a mere nothing, gentlemen, I assure you. Any one of you could have done the same."
Every one in the room was delighted, not less with the captain's gallantry than with his modesty. Many moving stories of his escapes were retailed. Josiah listened with enthralled attention to an adventure which, it seems, the captain had had in Spain, and which Josiah's companion (a bald-headed gentleman with spectacles) narrated with great effect. Mulberry in one of the marches of the Carlists, to whom he had attached himself, was surprised and taken prisoner by the enemy. They locked him in the kitchen of a farmhouse near, mentioning incidentally that in the morning they would shoot him. They took away his sword and pistols; and would have taken his umbrella, but the captain pleaded hard for its society, declaring that from early boyhood he had never been able to sleep without an umbrella under his pillow. The Spaniards had heard much of the eccentricity of Englishmen, and not being inclined to refuse the request of a doomed man, they left him the umbrella.
The next morning, when they came to take him out for shooting purposes, lo! the captain and the umbrella were both gone. There was a good deal of soot about the place, and regarding this and other signs of hasty flight the truth flashed upon the Spaniards. There had been a fire in the grate. The captain had opened the umbrella inside the chimney, waited till it had been inflated with the warm air, and then, hanging on the handle, had been drawn up clear to the top and descending in a neighbouring field, had shut up his umbrella and walked off.
"Dear me!" said Josiah; "how very interesting. I suppose the chimneys are wide in Spain?"
"Very wide indeed," said the bald-headed gentleman in spectacles.
Josiah regarded the captain with fresh interest after the recital of this remarkable ascent, and it was not diminished by further tales he heard. One related to his reception by an Illustrious Personage. After his journey to Orkney the I.P. had sent for him immediately on his return to town. The captain had put on his uniform and gone cheerfully. He had heard so much of his feat that he began to think there really was something creditable in it, and fancied the Illustrious Personage might be going to bestow upon him some recognition of the service he had done in blazoning abroad the pluck of the British soldier. On the contrary, he found the Illustrious Person almost speechless with wrath, and stuffed with oaths like plums in a Christmas pudding.
"What—what was the meaning of this flying by night, sir?" he cried turning a flaming visage upon the contrite captain. "You'll be going round with a circus next, riding five horses at a time, or walking round to show your muscle. I hope I shall hear no more of this sort of thing. Such goings-on bring disgrace upon the army and discredit upon its officers. Stop at home, sir, and get into what mischief you like. Go and idle your time at playing cards or worse; but don't be playing these pranks any more. Did you ever see me in a balloon, sir? Did you ever hear of me skimming around the world in search of adventure?"
The Illustrious Personage drew himself up to full height, and swelled visibly before the eyes of the captain, as he angrily put these questions, garnished with many ejaculations. He knew that our army swore terribly in Flanders, and was nothing if not a soldier.