Round the World in Seven Days | Page 4

furiously somewhere in the neighbourhood. A few steps brought him to the aeroplane, lying in a slanting position between the hayrick and a fence, over which it projected. Rodier had clung to his seat, and had suffered nothing worse than a jolting.
"This is a pretty mess," said Smith despairingly, "one end stuck fast in the hayrick, the other sticking over the fence: they'll have to pull it down before we can get her out. Get off, you brute!" he exclaimed, as a dog came yapping at his legs.
"Seize him, Pompey: seize him, good dog!" cried a rough voice.
"Call him off, or I'll break his head," cried Smith in exasperation.
"You will, will you?" roared the farmer. "I'll teach you to come breaking into my yard: I'll have the law of you."
"Don't be absurd, man," replied Smith, fending off the dog as well as he could. "Don't you see I've had an accident?"
"Accident be jiggered!" said the farmer. "You don't come breaking into my yard by accident. Better stand quiet or he'll tear you to bits."
"Oh, come now!" said Smith. "Look at this. Here's my aeroplane, fixed up here. You don't suppose I came down here on purpose? I lost my way in this confounded mist, and don't know where I am. Just be sensible, there's a decent chap, and get some of your men to help us out. I'll pay damages."
"I'll take care of that," said the farmer curtly. "What the country's coming to I don't know, what with motors killing us on the roads and now these here airyplanes making the very air above us poison to breathe. There ought to be a law to stop it, that's what I say. Down, Pompey! What's your name, mister?"
Smith explained, asking in his turn the name of the place where he had alighted. Farmer Barton was a good patriot, and the knowledge that the intruder was a navy-man sensibly moderated his truculence.
"Why, this be Firtop Farm, half-a-mile from Mottisfont station, if you know where that is," he said. "Daze me if you hain't been and cut into my hayrick!" He sniffed. "And what's this horrible smell? I do believe you've spoilt the whole lot with your stinking oil." He was getting angry again.
"Well, I've said I'll pay for it," said Smith impatiently. "Get your men, farmer, or I shan't be home to-night. I suppose I can get some petrol somewhere about here?"
"You might, or you might not, in the village; I can't say. My men are abed and asleep, long ago. You'll have to bide till morning."
"Oh well, if I must, I must. Roddy, just have a look at the machine and see that she's safe for the night. I'll run down to the station and send a wire home, and then get beds in the village."
"Better be sharp, then," said the farmer. "You can't send no wire after eight, and it's pretty near that now. I'll show you the way."
Smith hurried to the station and despatched his telegram; then, learning that there was a train due at 8.2 from Andover, he decided to wait a few minutes and get an evening paper. An aviation meeting had just been held at Tours, and he was anxious to see how the English competitors had fared. The train was only a few minutes late. Smith asked the guard whether he had brought any papers, and to his vexation learnt that, there being no bookstall at Mottisfont, there were none for that station. However, the guard himself had bought a paper before leaving Waterloo.
"Take it and welcome, sir," he said. "I've done with it. You're Lieutenant Smith, if I'm not mistaken. Seen your portrait in the papers,' sir."
"Thanks, guard," said Smith, pressing a coin into his reluctant hand.
"Englishmen doing well in France, sir. Hope to see you a prize-winner one of these days. Goodnight!"
The train rumbled off, and Smith scanned the columns by the light of a platform lamp. He read the report of the meeting in which he was interested: a Frenchman had made a new record in altitude; an Englishman had won a fine race, coming in first of ten competitors; a terrible accident had befallen a well-known airman at the moment of descending. The most interesting piece of news was that a Frenchman had maintained for three hours an average speed of a hundred and twenty miles.
"I'm only just in time," said Smith to himself. He was folding the paper when his eye was caught by a heading that recalled the days of his boyhood, when he had revelled in stories of savages, pirates, and the hundred and one themes that fascinate the ingenuous mind.
SHIPWRECKED AMONG CANNIBALS.
TERRIBLE SITUATION OF FAMOUS SCIENTIST.
(From Our Own Correspondent.)
BRISBANE, Thursday.
A barque put in here to-day with four men picked up from an open boat south of New