Five Weeks in a Balloon [1]
A member of the Society then inquired of the president whether Dr. Ferguson was not to be officially introduced.
"The doctor is at the disposition of the meeting," replied Sir Francis.
"Let him come in, then! Bring him in!" shouted the audience. "We’d like to see a man of such extraordinary daring, face to face!"
"Perhaps this incredible proposition of his is only intended to mystify us," growled an apoplectic old admiral.
"Suppose that there should turn out to be no such person as Dr. Ferguson?" exclaimed another voice, with a malicious twang.
"Why, then, we’d have to invent one!" replied a facetious member of this grave Society.
"Ask Dr. Ferguson to come in," was the quiet remark of Sir Francis M——.
And come in the doctor did, and stood there, quite unmoved by the thunders of applause that greeted his appearance.
He was a man of about forty years of age, of medium height and physique. His sanguine temperament was disclosed in the deep color of his cheeks. His countenance was coldly expressive, with regular features, and a large nose—one of those noses that resemble the prow of a ship, and stamp the faces of men predestined to accomplish great discoveries. His eyes, which were gentle and intelligent, rather than bold, lent a peculiar charm to his physiognomy. His arms were long, and his feet were planted with that solidity which indicates a great pedestrian.
A calm gravity seemed to surround the doctor’s entire person, and no one would dream that he could become the agent of any mystification, however harmless.
Hence, the applause that greeted him at the outset continued until he, with a friendly gesture, claimed silence on his own behalf. He stepped toward the seat that had been prepared for him on his presentation, and then, standing erect and motionless, he, with a determined glance, pointed his right forefinger upward, and pronounced aloud the single word—
"Excelsior!"
Never had one of Bright’s or Cobden’s sudden onslaughts, never had one of Palmerston’s abrupt demands for funds to plate the rocks of the English coast with iron, made such a sensation. Sir Francis M——'s address was completely overshadowed. The doctor had shown himself moderate, sublime, and self–contained, in one; he had uttered the word of the situation—
"Excelsior!"
The gouty old admiral who had been finding fault, was completely won over by the singular man before him, and immediately moved the insertion of Dr. Ferguson’s speech in "The Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of London."
Who, then, was this person, and what was the enterprise that he proposed?
Ferguson’s father, a brave and worthy captain in the English Navy, had associated his son with him, from the young man’s earliest years, in the perils and adventures of his profession. The fine little fellow, who seemed to have never known the meaning of fear, early revealed a keen and active mind, an investigating intelligence, and a remarkable turn for scientific study; moreover, he disclosed uncommon address in extricating himself from difficulty; he was never perplexed, not even in handling his fork for the first time—an exercise in which children generally have so little success.
His fancy kindled early at the recitals he read of daring enterprise and maritime adventure, and he followed with enthusiasm the discoveries that signalized the first part of the nineteenth century. He mused over the glory of the Mungo Parks, the Bruces, the Caillies, the Levaillants, and to some extent, I verily believe, of Selkirk (Robinson Crusoe), whom he considered in no wise inferior to the rest. How many a well–employed hour he passed with that hero on his isle of Juan Fernandez! Often he criticised the ideas of the shipwrecked sailor, and sometimes discussed his plans and projects. He would have done differently, in such and such a case, or quite as well at least—of that he felt assured. But of one thing he was