IN the CLOUDS

IN THE CLOUDS.

They came to the boy one night when he was abed, and said they would take him with them in their fairy balloon.

Willie Fenton told his father and mother that he had seen the elfins, and what they had promised him, but they only laughed at him and told him he had been dreaming.

Our hero wasn’t to be convinced that it was only a dream. Hadn’t he seen them—three fairy creatures no higher than his top—enter his bedroom through the keyhole, and seat themselves on his pillow, and begin talking about the glorious sights to be seen in the clouds?

If Willie Fenton had been born up in a balloon his youthful fancy could not have been imbued with a greater passion for the sport. Indeed, since he was a child of four or five years old our youthful aeronaut had blown soap bubbles, and had watched them soar away in the sun, glistening with all the hues of the rainbow, and his dreams at night and aspirations by day had been to emulate those daring spirits who surpassed the mighty eagle in his flight into the bright blue sky above the clouds.

Willie’s home, situated on Mount Pleasant, was in the vicinity of many a romantic spot calculated to favour the elves in their adventure, and one fine morning, as the lad was returning from a neighbouring farm, he espied his three nocturnal visitors seated under a large gum-tree awaiting him. Willie recognised them in a moment, and doffing his cap said, “Good-morning, gentlemen.”

The fairies rose and saluted him, and answered that they were quite ready to fulfil their promises. Our hero thanked them for their kindness, and at the same time expressed himself quite ready to accompany them. Whereupon the three elves conducted him in silence along a narrow ravine which opened out on a still, quiet glen on the banks of the river. Fastened securely between two huge trees, Willie beheld a great, pear-shaped thing, swaying to and fro with the motion of the breeze, and at which the elves pointed and said, “Behold, our cloud car.”

“IT WAS A GRAND BALLOON.”

Yes, it was a grand balloon, already inflated and with a cage attached, bordered with wild roses and creepers, that reached from the apex of the monster down to the car beneath, which hung suspended, like a flower-pot in a balcony. How it surged and struggled desperately with the wind, as if it were endowed with life, and wished to escape from fastenings that held it, and soar upward! And how frail it appeared, as Willie approached and examined it! Was it made of cloth? No, too fine for cloth. Cotton? Nay, it was too soft for cotton, or silk either. Yet the whole fabric seemed no weightier than a gossamer. The fairies smiled at the boy’s curiosity, and invited him to enter the car. Our little hero had no sooner complied than the elfins seated themselves at his side. And one of them, who had a bright diadem glittering upon his breast, stood up and waved his hand as a signal, when instantly the balloon shot aloft with inconceivable velocity.

The young mortal closed his eyes and held his breath for one brief moment; but when he looked forth, the earth appeared to be miraculously vanishing from his sight. Although the ascent was fearfully rapid, the motion of the balloon was quite imperceptible. The morning was bright and sunny, the sky a deep, Prussian blue, and as the boy craned his neck over the cage and gazed below, what a glorious sight met his view. There stretched beneath him were the golden valleys of his birthplace, with hundreds of farms dotting the landscape, and no bigger than a child’s toy. From his elevated position the houses were as so many dots, and the people in the fields as tiny ants. The flowing Torrens, that had seemed so broad and deep, appeared as a silver thread, and the high cliffs and hills were on a level with the dull round earth. Willie Fenton felt not the least alarm; on the contrary, his courage rose with the balloon, as it sped upward to the sky. The elfin with the diadem threw out some pieces of paper, which seemed to drop like stones. This, however, was not so, but only the effect of the terrible rate at which they were travelling. Higher, higher, still higher. Now they disappeared from view, in a thick vapour forming the white clouds, which looked so light and fleecy from earth. The balloon did not remain long in these, but quickly rose into a clear atmosphere beyond. And here the scene changed to one splendid in the extreme. Above them nothing but the big round sun, and the deep azure of the heavens. Beneath no dingy earth, dim and gloomy, but a brilliant sea of sparkling cloud, rose tinted, dancing and flashing in the sun’s rays. The cloud completely hid everything below, and lay beneath like a huge, rolling billow, the top of which flashed back the sunlight till our hero almost fancied it was a wave of driven snow spangled with diamonds. How long Willie might have remained in his rapt trance of wonder it is hard to say, but he was aroused by a feeling of cold, and a difficulty in breathing.

“Our mortal friend will find it very chilly up here,” said Pippin, who wore the diadem, answering the boy’s unspoken words.

“It has grown very cold indeed, gentlemen,” rejoined Willie, his teeth chattering as he spoke.

“Ha, ha! Listen to him, Needle; hear him, Bobbin; he’s beginning to cry out already!” cried Pippin to his companions. “Cold, eh? Well, we have a cure for cold, and for frost and snow—whole mountains of it. Eh, Needle?” As Pippin spoke, he unrolled a parcel which had been lying unnoticed at the bottom of the car, and produced a cloak made of the same material as the balloon. Without more ado they enveloped Willie from head to heel in the garment, with just sufficient space left clear about his eyes so that he could see, the rest of him being completely covered. In a few moments he began to breathe more freely, and the rarity of the air made no impression upon him at all.

“You feel all right now, Willie Fenton?” questioned Bobbin. Willie mumbled, and nodded his head in the affirmative.

“Let us mount higher then, my brethren. Excelsior!” exclaimed Pippin of the diadem. “Bold indeed the mortal who first conceived and carried out the idea of making the unstable element water subservient to his genius, as witness the ships that come and go on the bosom of the ocean; but it is left to us, the elves of Australia, to curb the air and make it do our bidding. Higher and higher go we, to show this mortal the wonders of the upper world.”

Upward still, beyond the cloud which breaks for a moment and gives them a glimpse of the sea, and the coast-line away to the westward seeming no broader than a single thread. And now the cold became intense, but the fairies and their companion felt it not, for their gaze was fixed upon a sight that no emperor or king had ever seen—and perchance never would. If all the diamonds in that rich valley visited by Sinbad the Sailor, also all the gems which Aladdin’s lamp could have procured, and all that ever have been seen in the world had been pressed into the service—they would have failed utterly in producing one tithe of the strange sight Willie now saw. The whole dome of the balloon was covered as it were in a diamond mantle. A shower of glittering gems was falling in all directions, apparently coming from the blue void above, and sprinkling down, with a fluttering motion like that of butterflies, and then disappearing in the vast abyss below.

Lost in amazement at this marvellous vision, the boy frees one of his hands, and reaches to catch one of the heavenly gems; but he discovers the diamond shower is in reality only thin sheets of newly-formed ice.

The elves laugh at him and the look of wonder on his face. And Pippin explains in a grave tone, “Boy, we have entered a region where some watery vapour hath been, which the cold hath turned into ice, and now being heavier than the atmosphere falls fluttering to the earth. Towards the earth, I say, since I know well it will never reach it, because before it can do so it will encounter a warmer region, when the ice will again become water and the water vapour. Do you understand?”

“Oh yes. It’s the vapour which makes the clouds, isn’t it?” answered Willie.

“Just so,” replied the elfin. “And now having fulfilled our promise, we will descend again to old mother earth.”

Like a streak of light the fairy balloon shot downward through the glittering, diamond shower, through the mist and cloud, until the bright landscape appeared in view. The elfins, Pippin, Needle, and Bobbin, landed Willie safely by the river-bank, and the boy reached home just in time for dinner.

*   *   *

The three elves still haunt that dell by the Torrens, so if any of my readers are anxious for a trip in the fairy balloon, I have no doubt Messrs. Pippin & Co. will be only too glad to oblige them—that is, if they are at home.