The Panchronicon Part 31

"Now, G.o.d mend your manners, uncle!" she exclaimed. "What! Bedew my cheeks with the froth of good ale on your beard while my throat lacks the good body o't! Why, I'm burned up wi' thirst!"

"Good lack!" cried the goldsmith, turning briskly to the table. "Had ye no drink when ye first returned, then?"

He poured a smaller cupful of foaming ale from the great silver jug and brought it to Phoebe.

Rebecca clutched the stair-rail for support, and, with eyes ready to start from her head, she leaned forward, incredulous, as Phoebe took the cup from the merchant's hand.

Then she could keep silence no longer.

"Phoebe Wise!" she screamed, "be you goin' to drink ALE!"

No words can do justice to the awful emphasis which she laid upon that last dread word.

Phoebe turned and looked up roguishly at her sister, who was still half-way up the stairs. The young girl's left hand leaned on her uncle's arm, while with her right she extended the cup in salutation.

"Here's thy good health, nurse--and to our better acquaintance," she laughed.

Rebecca uttered one short scream and fled up to their bed-room. She had seen the impossible. Her sister Phoebe with her face buried in a mug of ale!

CHAPTER VIII

HOW FRANCIS BACON CHEATED THE BAILIFFS

It was at about this time that Copernicus Droop finally awakened. He lay perfectly still for a minute or two, wondering where he was and what had happened. Then he began to mutter to himself.

"Machinery's stopped, so we're on dry land," he said. Then, starting up on one elbow, he listened intently.

Within the air-ship all was perfect silence, but from without there came in faintly occasional symptoms of life--the bark of a dog, a loud laugh, the cry of a child.

Droop slowly came to his feet and gazed about. A faint gleam of daylight found its way past the closed shutters. He raised the blinds and blinked as he gazed out into a perfect thicket of trees and shrubbery, beyond which here and there he thought he could distinguish a high brick wall.

"Well, we're in the country, anyhow!" he muttered.

He turned and consulted the date indicator in the ceiling.

"May 1, 1598," he said. "Great Jonah! but we hev whirled back fer keeps! I s'pose we jest whirled till she broke loose."

He gazed about him and observed that the two state-room doors were open.

He walked over and looked in.

"I wonder where them women went," he said. "Seems like they were in a tremendous hurry 'bout gettin' way. Lucky 'tain't a city we're in, 'cause they might'v got lost in the city."

After an attempt to improve his somewhat rumpled exterior, he made his way down the stairs and out into the garden. Once here, he quickly discovered the building which had arrested the attention of the two women, but it being now broad daylight, he was able thoroughly to satisfy himself that chance had brought the Panchronicon into the deserted garden of a deserted mansion.

"Wal, we'll be private an' cosy here till the Panchronicon hez time to store up more force," he said out loud.

Strolling forward, he skirted the high wall, and ere long discovered the very opening through which the sisters had pa.s.sed at sunrise.

Stepping through the breach, he found himself, as they had done, near the main London highway in Newington village. The hurly-burly of sunrise had abated by this time, for wellnigh all the villagers were absent celebrating the day around their respective May-poles or at bear or bull-baiting.

With his hands behind him, he walked soberly up and down for a few minutes, carefully surveying the pretty wooden houses, the church in the distance, and the stones of the churchyard on the green hill-slope beyond. The architecture was not entirely unfamiliar. He had seen such in books, he felt sure, but he could not positively identify it. Was it Russian, j.a.panese, or Italian?

Suddenly a distant cry came to his ears.

"Hi--Lizzie--Lizzie, wench! Come, drive the pig out o' the cabbages!"

He stopped short and slapped his thigh.

"English!" he exclaimed. "'Tain't America, that's dead sure. Then it's England. England in 1598," he continued, scratching his head. "Let's see. Who in Sam Hill was runnin' things in 1598? Richard Coor de Lion--Henry Eight--no--or was it Joan of Arc? Be darned ef I know!"

He looked about him again and selected a neighboring house which he thought promised information.

He went to the front door and knocked. There was no reply, despite many attempts to arouse the inmates.

"Might ha' known," he muttered, and started around the house, where he found a side door half hidden beneath the projection of an upper story.

Here his efforts were rewarded at last by the appearance of a very old woman in a peaked hat and coif, apparently on the point of going out.

"Looks like a witch in the story-books," he thought, but his spoken comment was more polite.

"Good-mornin', ma'am," he said. "Would you be so kind as to tell me the name of this town?"

"This be Newington," she replied, in a high, cracked voice.

"Newington," he replied, with a nod and a smile intended to express complete enlightenment. "Ah, yes--Newington. Quite a town!"

"Is that all you'd be askin', young man?" said the old woman, a little suspiciously, eying his strange garb.

"Why, yes--no--that is, can you tell me how far it is to London?" This was the only English city of which he had any knowledge, so he naturally sought to identify his locality by reference to it.

"Lunnun," said the woman. "Oh, it'll be a matter of a mile or better!"

Droop was startled, but highly pleased. Here was luck indeed.

"Thank you, ma'am," he said. "Good-mornin'," and with a cheerful nod, he made off.

The fact is that this information opened up a new field of enterprise and hope. At once there leaped into his mind an improved revival of his original plan. If he could have made a fortune with his great inventions in 1876, what might he not accomplish by the same means in 1598! He pictured to himself the delight of the ancient worthies when they heard the rag-time airs and minstrel jokes produced by his phonograph.

"By hockey!" he exclaimed, in irrepressible delight, "I'll make their gol darned eyes pop out!"

As he marched up and down in the deserted garden, hidden by the friendly brick wall, he bitterly regretted that he had limited himself to so few modern inventions.

"Ef I'd only known I was comin' this fur back!" he exclaimed, as he talked to himself that he might feel less lonely. "Ef I'd only known, I could hev brought a heap of other things jest's well as not. Might hev taught 'em 'bout telegraphin' an' telephones. Could ha' given 'em steam-engines an' parlor matches. By ginger!" he exclaimed, "I b'lieve I've got some parlor matches. Great Jehosaphat! Won't I get rich!"

But at this a new difficulty presented itself to his mind. He foresaw no trouble in procuring patents for his inventions, but how about the capital for their exploitation? Presumably this was quite as necessary here in England as it would have been in America in 1876. Unfortunately, his original plan was impossible of fulfilment. Rebecca had failed him as a capitalist. Besides, she and Phoebe had both completely disappeared.