by Anthology
Then the two women stood at the windows on the right-hand side of the vessel and watched Droop as he walked toward the pole. He raised the huge iron ring, snapping over it a special coupling hook fixed to the end of the rope.
Then he backed toward the vessel, unrolling the coil of rope as he moved away from the pole. Evidently they were within the forty-foot limit from the pole, for Droop had some rope to spare when he at length reached under the machine to attach the end to a ring which the sisters could not see.
He emerged from beneath the bulging side of the vessel swinging his arms and blowing a mighty volume of steam, which turned to snow as it left him. As he made directly for the entrance again, Phoebe ran to the kitchen.
"Poor man, he'll be perished!" she exclaimed.
As Droop entered the room, bringing with him a bitter atmosphere, Phoebe appeared with a large cup of hot tea.
"Here, Mr. Droop," she said, "drink this quick!"
Copernicus pulled off his cap and sat down to drink his tea without a word. When he had finished it, he pulled back his chair with a sigh.
"Whillikins! But 'twas cold!" he exclaimed. "Seems mos' like heaven to get into a nice warm room like this!"
"An' did ye get every thin' done right?" Rebecca asked.
"I guess I did," he said, emphatically. "I don't want to take no two bites out o' that kind o' cherry."
He rose and proceeded to remove his fur coverings.
"Goin' to start right now?" said Phoebe.
"Might's well, I guess."
He proceeded to the engine-room, followed by Phoebe, who watched his actions with the greatest interest.
"What you doin' with that handle?" she asked.
"That sets the airyplane on the uptilt. I'm only settin' it a mite--jest 'nough to keep the machine from sinkin' down when we get to movin'."
"How are you goin' to lift us up?"
"Just let out a mite o' gas below," said Droop. He suited the action to the word, and, with a tremendous hissing beneath it, the vessel rose slowly.
Droop pulled the starting lever and they moved forward with increasing speed. When they had gathered way, he shut off the gas escape and carefully readjusted the aeroplanes until the machine as a whole moved horizontally.
There was felt a slight jerk as they reached the end of the rope, and then they began to move in a circle from east to west.
Phoebe glanced at the clock.
"Just five minutes past eight," she said.
The sun was pouring its beams into the right-hand windows when they started, but the shafts of light now began to sweep circularly across the floor, and in a few moments, as they faced the sun, it ceased to shine in from the right. Immediately afterward it shone in at the left-hand windows and circled slowly around until again they were in shadow with the sun behind them.
Droop took out his watch and timed their revolutions by the sun's progress from window to window.
"'Bout one to the minute," he remarked. "Guess I'll speed her up a mite."
Carefully he regulated the speed, timing their revolutions accurately.
"There!" he said at length. "I guess that's pretty nigh two to the minute. D'ye feel any side weight?" he said, addressing his companions.
"No," said Rebecca.
Phoebe shook her head.
"You manage right well, Mr. Droop," she said. "You must have practised a good deal."
"Oh, not much," he replied, greatly pleased. "The future man showed me how to work it three--four times. It's simple 'nough when ye understand the principles."
These remarks brought a new idea to Rebecca's mind.
"Why, Mr. Droop," she exclaimed, "whatever's the use o' you goin' back to 1876! Why don't ye jest set up as the inventor o' this machine? I'm sure thet ought to make yer everlastin' fortune!"
"Oh, I thought o' that," he said. "But it's one thing to know how to work a thing an' it's a sight different to know how it's made an' all that. The future man tried to explain all the new scientific principles that was mixed into it--fer makin' power an' all--but I couldn't understand that part at all."
"An' besides," exclaimed Phoebe, "it's a heap more fun to be the only ones can use the thing, I think."
"Yes--seems like fun's all we're thinkin' of," said Rebecca, rising and moving toward the kitchen. "We're jest settin' round doin' nothin'. I'll finish with the breakfast things if you'll put to rights and dust, Phoebe. We can't make beds till night with the windows tight shut."
These suggestions were followed by the two women, while Droop, picking up the newspaper which Rebecca had brought, sat down to read.
After a long term of quiet reading, his attention was distracted by Rebecca's voice.
"I declare to goodness, Phoebe!" she was saying. "Seems's if every chance you get, you go to readin' those old letters."
"Well, the's one or two that's spelled so funny and written so badly that I haven't been able yet to read them," Phoebe replied.
Droop looked over his paper. Phoebe and her sister were seated near one of the windows on the opposite side.
"P'raps I could help ye, Cousin Phoebe," he said. "I've got mighty strong eyesight."
"Oh, 'tain't a question of eyesight," Phoebe replied, laughing.
"Oh, I see," said Droop, smiling slyly, "letters from some young feller, eh?"
He winked knowingly at Rebecca, who drew herself up indignantly and looked severely down at her knitting.
Phoebe blushed, but replied quite calmly:
"Yes--some of them from a young man, but they weren't any of them written to me."
"No?" said Droop. "Who was they to--'f I may ask?"
"They were all written to this lady."
Phoebe held something out for Droop's inspection, and he walked over to take it.
He recognized at once the miniature on ivory which he had seen once before in Peltonville.
"Well," he said, taking the portrait from her and eying it with his head on one side, "if ye hadn't said 'twasn't you, I'd certainly a-thought 'twas. I'd mos' sworn 'twas your photygraph, Cousin Phoebe. Who is it, anyway?"
"It isn't anybody," she replied, "but it was Mistress Mary Burton of Burton Hall. I'm one of her descendants, an' these are some letters she had with her in this funny old carved box when she disappeared with her lover. They fled to Holland and were married there, the story goes, an' one o' their children came over in the early days o' New England. He brought the letters an' the picture with him."
"Well, now! I want to know!" exclaimed Droop, in great admiration. "'Twouldn't be perlite, I s'pose, to ask to hear some o' them letters?"
"Would you like to hear some of them?" Phoebe asked.
"I would fer a fact," he replied.
"Well, bring your chair over here and I'll read you one," she said.
Droop seated himself near the two sisters and Phoebe unfolded a large and rather rough sheet of paper, yellow with age, on which Droop perceived a bold scrawl in a faded ink.
"This seems to have been from Mary Burton's father," Phoebe said. "I don't think he can have been a very nice man. This is what he says:
"'Dear Poll'--horrid nickname, isn't it?"
"Seems so to me," said Droop.
"'Dear Poll--I'm starting behind the grays for London, on my way, as you know ere this, to be knighted by her Majesty. I send this ahead by Gregory on Bess--she being fast enow for my purpose--which is to get thee straight out of the grip of that'----"
Phoebe hesitated.
"He uses a bad word there," she said, in a low tone. "I'll go on and leave that out."
"Yes, do," said Droop.
"'That ---- aunt of thine,'" she continued, reading. "'I know her tricks and I learn how she hath suffered that'----"
"There's another," said Phoebe.
"Skip it," said Droop, gravely.
"'That ---- milk-and-water popinjay to come courting my Poll. So see you follow Gregory, mistress, and without wait or parley come with him to the Peacock Inn, where I lie to-night. The
grays are in fine fettle and thy black mare grows too fat for want of exercise. Thy mother-in-law commands thy instant return with Gregory, having much business forward with preparing gowns and fallals against our presentation to her Majesty.'"
"It is signed 'Isaac Burton,'" said Phoebe, "and see, the paper was sealed with a steel gauntlet."
Droop examined the seal carefully and then returned it, saying:
"Looks to me like a bunch of 'sparagus tumbled over on one side."
Phoebe laughed.
"But what always interests me most in this letter is the postscript," she said. "It reads: 'Thy mother thinks thou wilt make better speed if I make thee to know that the players thou wottest of'----"
"What's a 'wottest'?" said Droop, in puzzled tones.
"Wottest means knowest--haven't you read Shakespeare?"
"No," said Droop.
"'The players thou wottest of are to stop at the Peacock, and will be giving some sport there.'
"Now, those players always interest me," Phoebe continued. "Somehow I can't help but believe that William Shakespeare----"
"Fiddle ends!" Rebecca interrupted. "I've heard that talk fifty-leven times an' I'm pinin' fer relief. Mr. Droop, would you mind tellin' us what the time o' year is now. Seems to me that sun has whirled in an' out o' that window 'nough times to bring us back to the days o' creation."
Droop consulted the date indicator and announced that it was now September 5, 1897.
"Not a year yet!" cried the two women together.
"Why, no," said Copernicus. "Ye see, we are takin' about three hours to lose a year."
"Fer the lands sakes!" cried Rebecca. "Can't we go a little faster?"
"My gracious, yes!" said Droop. "But I'm 'fraid o' the side weight fer ye."
"I'd rather hev side weight than wait forever," said Rebecca, with a grim smile.
"D'ye think ye could stand a little more speed, Cousin Phoebe?" said Droop.
"We might try," she replied.
"Well, let's try, then," he said, and turned promptly to the engine-room.
Very soon the difference in speed was felt, and as they found themselves travelling more rapidly in a circle, the centrifugal force now became distinctly perceptible.
The two women found themselves obliged to lean somewhat toward the central pole to counteract this tendency, and as Copernicus emerged from the engine-room he came toward the others at a decided angle to the floor.
"There! now ye feel the side weight," he exclaimed.
"My, ain't it funny!" exclaimed Rebecca. "Thet's the way I've felt afore now when the cars was goin' round a curve--kinder topplin' like."
"Why, that is the centrifugal force," Phoebe said, with dignity.
"It's the side weight--that's what I call it," Droop replied, obstinately, and for some time there was silence.
"How many years back are we makin' by the hour now, Mr. Droop?" Rebecca asked at length.
"Jest a little over two hours fer a year now," he replied.
"Well," said Rebecca, in a discontented tone, "I think the old Panchronicle is rayther a slow actin' concern, considerin' th' amount o' side weight it makes. I declare I'm mos' tired out leanin' over to one side, like old man Titus's paralytic cow."
Phoebe laughed and Droop replied:
"If ye can't stand it or set it, why lay, Cousin Rebecca. The's good settles all 'round."
With manifestly injured feelings Droop hunted up a book and sat down to read in silence. The Panchronicon was his pet and he did not relish its being thus contemned.
The remainder of the morning was spent in almost completely silent work or reading. Droop scarce took his eyes from his book. Phoebe spent part of the time deep in the Baconian work and part of the time contemplating the monotonous landscape. Rebecca was dreaming of her future past--or her past future, while her knitting grew steadily upon its needles.
The midday meal was duly prepared and disposed of, and, as the afternoon wore away, the three travellers began to examine the date indicator and to ask themselves surreptitiously whether or not they actually felt any younger. They took sly peeps at each other's faces to observe, if possible, any signs of returning youth.
By supper-time there was certainly a less aged air about each of the three and the elders inwardly congratulated themselves upon the unmistakable effects of another twelve hours.
Not long after the supper dishes had been washed, Rebecca took Phoebe aside and said:
"Phoebe, it seems to me you'd ought to be goin' to bed right soon, now. You're only 'bout eighteen years old at present, an' you'll certainly begin to grow smaller again very soon. It wouldn't hardly be respectable fer ye to do yer shrinkin' out here."
This view of the probabilities had not yet struck Phoebe.
"Why, no!" she exclaimed, rather startled. "I--I don't know's I thought about it. But I certainly don't want Mr. Droop to see me when my clothes begin to hang loose."
Then a new problem presented itself.
"Come to think of it, Rebecca," she said, dolefully, "what'll I do all the time between full-grown and baby size? I didn't bring anything but the littlest clothes, you know."
"Thet's so," said Rebecca, thoughtfully. Then, after a pause: "I don't see but ye'll hev to stay abed, Phoebe, till we get to th' end," she said, sympathetically.
"There it is," said Phoebe, crossly. "Gettin' sent to bed a'ready--even before I expected it."
"But 'tain't that, Phoebe," said Rebecca, with great concern. "I ain't sendin' ye to bed--but--but--whatever else can ye do with a man in the house!"
"Nothin'," Phoebe replied, with a toss of her chin.
She crossed the room and held out her hand to Droop.
"Good-night, Mr. Droop," she said.
Surprised at this sudden demonstration of friendship, he took her hand and tipped his head to one side as he looked into her face.
"Next time you see me, I don't suppose you'll know me, I'll be so little," she said, trying to laugh.
"I--I wish't you'd call me Cousin Copernicus," he said, coaxingly.
"Well, p'raps I will when I see ye again," she replied, freeing her hand with a slight effort.
Rebecca retired shortly after her sister and Copernicus was once more left alone. He rubbed his hands slowly, with a sense of satisfaction, and glanced at the date dial.
"July 2, 1892," he said to himself. "I'm only thirty-four years old. Don't feel any older than that, either."
He walked deliberately to the shutters, closed them and turned on the electric light. Surrounded thus by the wonted conditions of night, it was not long before he began to yawn. He removed his coat and shoes and lay back in an easy chair to meditate at ease. He faced toward the pole so that the "side weight" would tend to press him gently backward into his chair and therefore not annoy him by calling for constant opposing effort.
He soon dozed off and was whisked through a quick succession of fantastic dreams. Then he awoke suddenly, and as though someone had spoken to him. Listening intently, he only heard the low murmur of the machinery below and the ticking of the many clocks and indicators all about him.
He closed his eyes, intending to take up that last dream where he had been interrupted. He recollected that he had been on the very point of some delightful consummation, but just what it was he could not recall.
Sleep evaded him, however. His mind reverted to the all-important question of the recovered years. He began to plan again.
This time he should not make his former mistakes. No--he would not only make immense wealth promptly with the great inventions, he would give up liquor forever. It would be so easy in 1876, for he had never taken up the unfortunate habit until 1888.
Then--rich, young, sober, he would seek out a charming, rosy, good-natured girl--something of the type of Phoebe, for instance. They would be married and----
He got up at this and looked at the clock. It was after midnight. He looked at the date indicator. It said October 9, 1890.
"Well, come!" he t
hought. "The old Panchronicon is a steady vessel. She's keepin' right on."
He put on his shoes again, for something made him nervous and he wished to walk up and down.
The first thing he did after his shoes were donned was to gaze at himself in the mirror.
"Don't look any younger," he thought, "but I feel so." He walked across the room once or twice.
"Shucks!" he exclaimed. "Couldn't expect to look younger in these old duds, an' at this time o' night, too--tired like I am."
For some time he walked up and down, keeping his eyes resolutely from the date indicator. Finally he threw himself down in the chair again and closed his eyes, nervous and exhausted. He did not feel sleepy, but he must have dozed, for the next time he looked at the clock it was half-past one.
He put out the light and crossed to a settle. Here he lay at full length courting sleep. When he awoke, he thought, refreshed and alert, he would show his youth unmistakably.
But sleep would not return. He tried every position, every trick for propitiating Morpheus. All in vain.
At length he rose again and turned on the light. It was two-fifteen. This time he could not resist looking at the date indicator.
It said September 30, 1889.
Again he looked into the glass.
"My, but I'm nervous!" he thought as he turned away, disappointed. "I look older than ever!"
As he paced the floor there all alone, he began to doubt for the first time the success of his plan.
"It must work right!" he said aloud. "Didn't I go back five weeks with that future man? Didn't he----"
A fearful thought struck him. Had he perhaps made a mistake? Had they been cutting meridians the wrong way?
But no; the indicator could not be wrong, and that registered a constantly earlier date.
"Ah, I know!" he suddenly exclaimed. "I'll ask Cousin Phoebe."
He reflected a moment. Yes--the idea was a good one. She would be only fifteen years old by this time, and must certainly have changed to an extent of which he was at his age incapable. Besides, she had been asleep, and nervous insomnia could not be responsible for retarding the evidences of youth in her case. His agony of dread lest this great experiment fail made him bold.