Skylark

“ I’ll have it out of Master Stubbes and canting Stratford town, or may I never thrive! My soul! it is the very thing. His eyes are like twin holidays, and he breathes the breath of spring. Nicholas, Nicholas Skylark,—Master Skylark,—why, it is a good name, in sooth, a very good name! I’ll do it—I will, upon my word, and on the remnant of mine honour!”
“Did ye speak to me, sir?” asked Nick, timidly.
“Nay, Nicholas; I was talking to the moon.”
“Why, sir, the moon has not come yet,” said Nick, staring into the western sky.
“To be sure,” replied Master Carew, with a queer laugh. ”

“ And while he was still lazily wondering, a great cheer broke out in the room below, and there was a stamping of feet like cattle galloping over a bridge; and then, all at once, the door opened into the hallway at the foot of the stair, and the sound burst out as fire bursts from the cock-loft window of a burning barn, and through the noise and over it Colley Warren’s voice calling him by name: “Skylark! Nick Skylark! Ho there, Nick! where art thou?”
He sprang to the door and kicked the rushes away. All the hall was full of voices, laughing, shouting, singing, and cheering. ”

“ It was apparent that the Skylark was to be raised; and it was equally evident that to the hypermen that raising presented an engineering problem of no small magnitude.
"She'll be right here when we get back, Peg, as far as those jaspers are concerned," Seaton informed his companion. "If they have to slip their clutches to lift the weight of just us two, they'll have one sweet job getting the old Skylark back up here. They haven't got the slightest idea of what they're tackling—they can't begin to pile enough of that kind of machinery in this whole part of the country to budge her." ”

“ Yet there is little in the poem which requires annotation—the lark's song itself admits of no explanation.
"For sweetness the 'Ode to a Skylark' is inferior only to Coleridge, in rapturous passion to no man. It is like the bird it sings,—enthusiastic, enchanting, profuse, continuous, and alone,—small, but filling the heavens."—Leigh Hunt.
"Has any one, since Shakespeare and Spenser, lighted on such tender and such grand ecstasies?"—Taine.
The skylark is very generally distributed over the northern portions of the Old World, but is not found in America. ”

“ Take it off your neck, Skylark, and put it over the neck of Alderman Simon Gold for an instant, for he is only just worthy to wear it. Look, there are two tears in his eyes, tears of pity, the first he has ever shed in his life, and tears of pity, little Skylark, are the keys that open the Golden Gates of Heaven.'
"I did as Lal bid me, and I shall never forget. Simon Gold's face became radiant.
"'I can see,' he gasped, 'can see! Oh, Lal, what a brute I have been! What have I been thinking about? Why am I so different? Why do I feel that I want to give something to all the world? ”

“ He had added a third screen-generator, so that now, in addition to the four-foot hull of arenak and the repellers, warding off any material projectile, the Skylark was also protected by an outer, an intermediate, and an inner ray-screen; each driven by the super-power of a four-hundred-pound bar and each covering the entire spectrum—capable of neutralizing any dangerous frequency known to those master-scientists, the Fenachrone.
As the Skylark approached the planet, Seaton swung number six visiplate upon it, and directed their flight toward a great army base. ”

“ How can you—you, who have lived truly for a little while, and seemed to have felt the love that lifts—sink into the fragrant meshes of romance, through the beautiful eyes of a stranger to your world and to your ways? And what of Skylark, the lovely, the winged?..." And the soul of the man riding at its moorings in the bright calm of wisdom's anchorage, made laughing answer: "This is the Skylark—ah, not that Wyndam is Linster,—but this is the veiled queen who has waited so long for the House of Charter to be ready. ”

“ It is a stubborn, froward dog; but Hold-fast is his name. Ay, sirs,” she said, and sat up very straight, looking into the faces of her court, “Brag is a good dog, but Hold-fast is better. A lad who loves his mother thus makes a man who loveth his native land—and it’s no bad streak in the blood. Master Skylark, thou shalt have thy wish; to London thou shalt go this very night.”
“I do na live in London,” Nick began.
“What matters the place?” said she. “Live wheresoever thine heart doth please. It is enough—so. Thou mayst kiss our hand.” ”

“ It flew back over the city of Kondalek, over the outlying country, and out over the ocean, still followed easily by the Skylark. As they neared the Mardonalian border, a fleet of warships rose to contest the entry of the monster. Seaton, not wishing to let the foe see the rejuvenated Skylark, jerked his captive high into the thin air. As soon as it was released, it headed for the ocean in an almost perpendicular dive, while Seaton focused an object-compass upon it. ”

“ Tiny one-man helicopters, little more than single chairs flying about; beautiful pleasure-planes, soaring and wheeling; immense multiplane liners and giant helicopter freighters—everything in the air found occasion to fly as near as possible to the Skylark in order to dip their flags in salute to Dunark, their Kofedix, and to Seaton, the wearer of the seven disks—their revered Overlord. ”

“ But the Skylark needs no panegyrists, so, with all due deference to those who have struck the lyre in its honour, I will endeavour to describe its habits and haunts in humble prose.
The Skylark is a generally-diffused bird, adapted by the conformation of its claws for perching on the ground, and by its length and power of wing for soaring high in the air. Accordingly, its food consists of small insects and seeds, which it collects among the herbage of stubble-fields, meadows and downs, or in newly-ploughed [Pg 120] fields. ”

“ But how are—"
"What are you two talking about?" demanded Dorothy. "We simply couldn't have come that far—why, the Skylark was stuck in the ground the whole time!"
"As a physicist, Red-Top, you're a fine little beauty-contest winner." Seaton grinned. "You forget that with the velocity she had, the Lark couldn't have been stopped within three months, either—yet she seemed to stop. How about that, Mart?" ”

“ CHAPTER IX The Welcome to Norlamin
The Skylark was now days upon her way toward the sixth planet, Seaton gave the visiplates and the instrument board his customary careful scrutiny and rejoined the others. [Pg 554]
"Still talking about the human fish, Dottie Dimple?" he asked, as he stoked his villainous pipe. "Peculiar tribe of porpoises, but I'm strong for 'em. They're the most like our own kind of folks, as far as ideas go, of anybody we've seen yet—in fact, they're more like us than a lot of human beings we all know." ”

“ He acts hard-boiled, so give him a real one—fifty milligrams!"
Sweeping on with awful speed the monster seized the largest and most gaily decorated plane in his hundred-foot tentacles just as the Skylark came within sighting distance. In four practically simultaneous movements Seaton sighted the attractor at the ugly beak, released all its power, pointed the main bar of the Skylark directly upward, and advanced his speed lever. ”

“ The Skylark landed easily beside the wrecked machine, and the wanderers saw that their vessel was completely surrounded by a crowd of people—men and women identical in form and feature with themselves. ”

“ We won't stand a chance in the Skylark. With a ship like theirs, however, we can run—or we can fight, if we have to. Any other ideas, fellows?"
As neither Crane nor Dunark had any other suggestions to offer, Seaton brought out the mechanical educator, watching the creature's eyes narrowly. As he placed one headset over that motionless head the captive sneered in pure contempt, but when the case was opened and the array of tubes and transformers was revealed, that expression disappeared ”

“ Standing at a window with their arms around each other they stared down with misty eyes at the very faint green star, which was rapidly decreasing in brilliance as the Skylark increased its already inconceivable velocity. Finally, as it disappeared altogether, Seaton turned to his wife and tenderly, lovingly, took her in his arms.
"Littlest Girl.... Sweetheart...." he whispered, and paused, overcome by the intensity of his feelings.
"I know, husband mine," she answered, while tears dimmed her glorious eyes. "It is too deep. With nothing but words, we can't say a single thing." ”

“ But as he stood there doubtfully, uncertain of the way, catching the wind in his nervous hands, and turning about in a little space like an animal in a cage, over the hedge through the apple-boughs a boy’s clear voice rose suddenly, singing a rollicking tune, with a snapping of fingers and tapping of feet in time to its merry lilt.
Then the man in the mist, when he heard that clear, high voice, turned swiftly to it, crying out, “The Skylark! Zooks! ”

“ The Skylark was soon surrounded by a majestic fleet of giant warships, who escorted her with impressive ceremony to the landing dock, while around them flitted great numbers of other aircraft. The tiny one-man helicopters darted hither and thither, apparently always in imminent danger of colliding with some of their larger neighbors, but always escaping as though by a miracle. Beautiful pleasure-planes soared and dipped and wheeled like giant gulls ”

“ As she spoke, the two men stepped out of the "testing shed"—the huge structure that housed their Osnomian-built space-cruiser, "Skylark II." Seaton waddled clumsily, wearing as he did a Crane vacuum-suit which, built of fur, canvas, metal and transparent silica, braced by steel netting and equipped with air-tanks and heaters, rendered its wearer independent of outside conditions of temperature and pressure. ”

“ Back at the starting point, the Skylark hopped over the structure and down to the surface of the small central lagoon previously noticed. Close to the water, it was seen that there was plenty of room for the vessel to move about beneath the roof of reflectors, and that the island was [Pg 550] one solid stand of tide-motors. At one end of the lagoon was an open metal structure, the only building visible, and Seaton brought the space-cruiser up to it and through the huge opening—for door there was none. ”

“ The skylark soars the freshening shower to hail,
And the meek daisy holds aloft her pail,
And Spring all radiant by the wayside pale,
Sets up her rock and reel.
See how she weaves her mantle fold on fold,
Hemming the woods and carpeting the wold.
Her warp is of the green, her woof the gold,
The spinning world her wheel. ”

“ Remember the one we met in the first Skylark? Well, we captured him and six others, and it's a very simple matter to dematerialize you so that you can join them. I'll bring them in, so that you can talk to them yourself."
The Intellectuals were brought into the control room, the stasis of time was released, and DuQuesne—via projection—had a long conversation with One.
"That's the life!" he exulted finally. "Better a million times over than any possible life in the flesh—the ideal existence! Think you can do it without killing me, Seaton?" ”

“ Why, Nick, of course thou’lt sing. Thou hast not heart to say thou wilt not sing—even for me whom thou hatest.”
Nick smiled in spite of himself, for Cicely was leaning on the arm of his chair, devouring him with her great dark eyes: “Dost truly, truly sing?” she asked.
Nick laughed and blushed, and Carew laughed. “What, doth he sing? Why, Nick, come, tune that skylark note of thine for little Golden-heart and me. ’Twill make her think she hears the birds in verity—and, Nick, the lass hath never seen a bird that sang, except within a cage. Nay, lad, this is no cage!” ”

“ Others, fewer these, take up their winter quarters in our plains, where snow is very rare and where thousands of little seeds lie exposed on the ground, even in the depth of winter. One of these is the Skylark, who gives his attention to the corn-fields and fallows; another is the Titlark, who prefers the lucern-fields and meadows.
The Skylark, so common in almost every part of France, does not nest in the Vaucluse plains, [227] where his place is taken by the Crested Lark, that frequenter of the broad highway, the roadmender’s friend. ”

“ Nor was it Reifferscheid's words to the contrary that prevented him. It is not in man to correlate plainness with a mystic attraction. She had never appeared to him as beautiful exactly, but fine, vivid, electric—a manifestation of eyes, lips, mind. All the poundage part of a human being was utterly vague in his concept of the Skylark.... Charter naturally lost his perspective and penetration in dealing with his own interlacing emotions. ”

“ We'll run as long as we have any water in our tanks, then go dive into the ocean to cool off. We'll try it a whirl, anyway."
Soon the Skylark was again dealing out death and destruction in the thick of the enemy vessels, who again turned from the devastation of the helpless city to destroy this troublesome antagonist. But in spite of the utmost efforts of light-waves, sound-waves, and high-tension electricity, the space-car continued to take its terrible toll. As Seaton had foretold, the armor of the Skylark began to grow hot, and he turned on the full power of the refrigerating system. ”