Читать книгу Wheels of Fortune - Coutts Brisbane - Страница 4

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"THERE'S nothing in the bay. It's safe enough, even if your popper could throw a mile," said Jim Vivian as he swung off his pony and took a powder flask from the saddle-bag. "How far d'you think it could carry?"

Gilbert, his elder brother, who carried a long-barrelled rifle, alighted and tethered the ponies before replying.

"I don't know, so far, but if it shoots straight at three hundred yards I'll be quite satisfied. I'll try the first shot out to sea, to settle the point."

The rifle was a new weapon which Gilbert had had made by Manton, the famous London gun-maker, to throw bullets of his own design. These were not round, but oval, and rather larger than the bore of the rifle. Gilbert hoped that by filling the grooves of the rifling, the bullets would fly farther and straighter than those shot in the ordinary way.

The pair crossed the road, which here ran for miles along the shore only a few feet above the narrow beach. Not a breath of wind stirred the placid sea. Gilbert raised the rifle and fired. Nearly five hundred yards out to sea a fountain of spray told where the bullet had fallen.

"First class!" yelled Jim. "Topping! If our soldiers only had weapons like this, a company could lick a regiment of any others on earth."

"I daresay—if they could only shoot fast enough!" chuckled Gilbert. "But the drawback is the time it takes to load." He poured a charge of powder from the flask down the barrel, rammed home a wad of felt with the steel ramrod, then, putting in the oddly shaped bullet, hammered it down the bore with the ramrod and a small but heavy mallet.

"This is the drawback," Gilbert went on. "A well-trained soldier can load and fire an ordinary musket three times in two minutes, while I need at least two minutes to get ready for one shot."

"But one bullet that reaches its mark is worth any number that don't," Jim said. "What'll you shoot at now?"

"That rock along by the turn of the road there. The piece like a nose striking out on the right. I'll call myself Robin Hood if I hit that, for it's all of two hundred and fifty yards."

Again Gilbert took aim, deliberately this time. Crack! Splinters flew from the rock, the bullet glanced off, whining across the road into the covert, and a man who came careering around the bend at that very moment, mounted on a queer contraption of three wheels, uttered a howl of dismay and crashed into a clump of bushes. The ricocheting bullet had passed within an inch or two of his head!

"Hey, mister, cease fire!" the man bawled as he dismounted. "You near crimped my hair for me! Look before you shoot, next time!"

Tugging and shoving he got his queer-looking machine out of the brush, and mounting it, came pedalling towards the brothers. They saw that he sat on a saddle above the largest of three wheels, his feet working the pedals that turned it.

"A miss is as good as a mile, Gil. But what's his mount?" asked Jim. "Like a white mouse on a treadmill, isn't he? In a way it's like that dandy-horse we saw in the park in London."

"Only this is worked by pedals and cranks," Gilbert pointed out. "That fellow on the dandy shoved along with his feet only. It was a clumsy thing at best. This is better. Did you make this yourself, my man?" he asked as the machine creaked up and stopped.

"Not your man, young sir, but my own master. And my name's Dick Trevallion, maybe at your service. I made this Rattling Willie myself, and could wish I had better roads to ride it on. I'm near shaken to bits coming from Penzance, so I reckon to be in small pieces before I get to London. But I couldn't afford to take coach, and a horse would eat up the money I need for myself. So I threw my leg over Willie—and here we are with many a long mile covered and still Richard is himself, and Willie sound in wind and wheels!"

And at that the big black-haired man with floating beard and shaggy eyebrows burst into a jolly laugh, so hearty that Gilbert and Jim had to join in.

"I'm glad you take being shot over so lightly, Trevallion," said Gilbert. "I should have been more careful, but few use this road by day and none by night except—"

"The Free Traders—the smuggling lads, eh?" Again Trevallion's jolly laughter rang out: "Were you practising to shoot some of 'em?"

"They can come and go as they like," said Gilbert indifferently. "I was trying a new rifle bullet in this rifle. I find that, as I had hoped, it's much more accurate than the ordinary bullet. If I could but hit on a way to speed up loading, weapons like it would make our fellows invincible in war."

"Let me see a bullet," said Trevallion, and examined the missile Gilbert gave him closely. Jim, watching them, thought how oddly alike their expressions were, almost as though they were brothers. Though Gilbert Vivian was a squire and owner of broad acres of rich farm land while Dick Trevallion was little more than a blacksmith, the one thing they had in common, a love of mechanics, united them. That bridged the difference in rank and made them almost akin, so that they really looked somewhat alike.

"Maybe I might think of some way, master, but it'd need a lot of studying out," said Trevallion at last. "And when all's said and done it is but a thing to help folks kill each other easier and quicker. Now, my particular notion is something that would help to bring people nearer together, and make travel easier and cheaper for all."

"Rattling Willie, I suppose?" asked Gilbert with a smile. "Roads would be livelier."

"Something better than Willie, sir, though he may be mightily improved in time. Something that will run on the roads—though it's to be hoped they're better than this—and all by the power of fire and water. Steam, sir, steam! The power of the future that will beat horseflesh, ay, and the winds, too, for driving ships. And I have my model there in that bag. I'll show it to you working if you'll bring me to some charcoal and a smooth stretch of floor or paving. Look, sir!"

And almost panting in his eagerness, Trevallion unstrapped the big carpet bag fastened to the rear frame of Rattling Willie, and hauled out something carefully wrapped in a clean linen shirt.

"My sister, who keeps house for me, would give me a flea in the ear if she knew I'd used my best shirt for packing!" chuckled Trevallion. "But my little beauty's worth it. Look 'ee now!"

Kneeling by a smooth patch of roadway, he set down the thing and whipped away the covering shirt. The Vivian brothers stooped to stare at a strange piece of machinery such as they had never seen before. It was a model, about eighteen inches long, of a queer road car, or coach, of a kind then undreamed of, except by a very few men like Dick Trevallion, and they were mostly laughed at as cranks.

But there was nothing very fantastic about the model. On a stout brass frame was set a copper boiler with furnace and chimney, and a pair of cylinders from which sprouted piston rods. These were connected with beams that worked cranks on the big driving wheels at the rear. The pair of front wheels were arranged on a swivel and pinion so that a bar turned them to right or left and steered the whole car. The model had been finished with loving care. Trevallion patted it proudly.

"Years of thought and many an hour's work went to the making of it," he said. "It was built in my spare time when I wasn't tending the pumps at Caffyn's Wheal, which is a tin mine. And I'm taking it to London in the hope o' finding someone who'll lend me the money to make it full size, big enough to carry two or three men besides the one that steers it. There's no-one in Cornwall has the pluck to take the risk, that I can find."

"Yonder is my house," said Gilbert, pointing to the chimneys of the old house of Coombe Wester which showed above the elms half a mile inland at the head of the little valley. "Come along there and run your machine along the terrace, or indoors, as you like. Maybe you won't have to go to London."

"In a trice I'll be with you!" cried Trevallion, and began to repack his treasure hastily.

"Aren't you going to shoot any more, Gil?" asked Jim.

"Oh, we can do that at any time, but it isn't every day one can see something really new like this machine," replied Gilbert. "But take the rifle and go on shooting, if you like."

Jim hesitated. Then, as Trevallion stowed the model and wheeled Rattling Willie into the roadway, he slung the rifle over his shoulder and mounted his pony. Though he pretended to be indifferent, he was just as eager as his brother to see wheels go round—by steam!

Old Capper, the fat old butler who had served the Vivian family all his days, came waddling into the big kitchen after answering the bell, spluttering with mingled amusement and annoyance.

"He's up to more cantrips!" he growled. "Here he's been and brought home a fella from Cornwall that rides on an outlandish contraption that he works with his feet. And our Gil wants spirits o' wine and a kettle o' boiling water! Stir up that fire and give me the bottle o' spirits you use for the tea-urn blazer."

"Is Master Gil after trying a new brew of punch on this Cornisher?" asked Mrs. Capper, the butler's wife and cook, as she poked up the fire to a blaze and the kettle began to sing cheerily.

"Nothing so human-like!" snorted Capper. "He's after playing with some sort o' toy coach the fella has took out of a bag. It looks to have windmills and whirligigs on it. More machinery!"

"I'm sure I don't know what his father would say if he was alive!" said Mrs. Capper mournfully. "It's not decent for him that's a gentleman born and bred to go messing around with blacksmith's work and taking up with Tom, Dick, and Harry instead of going out with the hounds as a gentleman should. And Master Jim's going the same way."

"Arrh! He's goin' into the army when he's old enough. That'll knock the nonsense out of him," grunted Capper. "Gimme that kettle. It's boiling. Playing with toys! A little wagon like a baby's!"

Snorting, he hastened back to the hall and watched curiously while Trevallion poured hot water into the little boiler, and spirits of wine into the cistern of the spirit-lamp furnace.

"Does it blow up, sir, like one of them grenades?" Capper couldn't help asking as he backed towards the door.

"No. It's not a weapon but a steam wagon," Gilbert explained. "Steam instead of horses, Capper. What d'you think of that?"

"Begging your pardon, sir, I don't think nothing of it because it just ain't possible."

"There's pressure enough," said Trevallion, and turned a little tap. "There she goes."

At the words the little locomotive began to move, jetting steam from the exhaust. Around the hall it ran in a circle, almost noiselessly. Gilbert and Jim stared at it silently. Trevallion laughed very softly. It was old Capper who spoke first.

"Like a thing o' life," he muttered. "I reckon I was wrong, sir. If it was big enough now, it would carry folks. But wouldn't it scare horses it met on the road?"

"I daresay, Capper, but they'd get used to it in time," replied Gilbert. "And I think the day may come when steam coaches and steam wagons will take the place of horses altogether on the roads."

Capper blinked as though this thought dazzled him.

"If they does, then what would become of all the folks round about here and up to Exmoor that makes a living breeding horses?" he said, as he reached the door. "They'd be ruinated, sir. Don't 'ee go for to help do it with this here steam thing."

"Our people are so mighty slow to take up any new thing, Capper, that no one will ever be ruined that way," Gilbert said, and laughed. "But you needn't talk about what you've seen. Wait till the full-sized coach rolls out with you aboard it. You shall be the guard, Capper, and carry a blunderbuss and blow the horn."

"Me on a steam kettle! No, sir! I'll die in one piece when my time comes," gasped Capper, and waddled out.

Trevallion stopped the model as it circled round to him once more.

"I take it you don't think my notion's folly, like most people did down at home?" he asked Gilbert.

"I think it's a wonderful invention,", Gilbert answered. "And if you care to stay here, there's a workshop down by the old mill where you could get power from the wheel if you need it. You can fit up a turning-lathe and a forge—all you want, with money enough to build your coach. You can lodge with the miller. Will you stay?"

"Will I? To be sure! Why should I take the road for London when I can have all I need here? Sir, I thank you. You'll always bless this day, for my little wagon will bring us both fame and fortune."