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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Sprache: Englisch
Ingersoll Lockwood's "Baron Trump's Marvellous Underground Journey" is a unique blend of adventure and fantasy that captures the imaginative spirit of late 19th-century children's literature. Written with an engaging and whimsical prose style, the narrative follows young Baron Trump, a boy endowed with a vivid imagination and a penchant for exploration, as he embarks on an extraordinary quest beneath the earth. Lockwood intricately weaves elements of surrealism and exploration, reflecting the era's fascination with the unknown and the burgeoning literary trend of fantastical journeys that challenge societal norms and celebrate curiosity. Ingersoll Lockwood, an American lawyer and writer, was undoubtedly influenced by his times, particularly the Victorian era's fascination with science and the supernatural. A notable figure in the literary landscape of his day, Lockwood's diverse background, including his experiences with utopian literature and politics, allowed him to create a richly layered story that not only entertains but also subtly critiques societal conventions. His works often explore themes of individuality and the triumph of the adventurous spirit, making him a distinctive voice in children's literature. This book is highly recommended for readers of all ages who are drawn to whimsical adventures and historical perspectives on childhood ideals. Lockwood's imaginative narrative not only provides a captivating escape into a fantastical world but also invites readers to ponder the value of exploration and creativity in their own lives. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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Baron Trump's Marvellous Underground Journey
Table of Contents
Introduction
A precocious young aristocrat descends into the earth to test whether curiosity can outpace caution and convention. Ingersoll Lockwood’s Baron Trump’s Marvellous Underground Journey, first published in 1893, is a late nineteenth-century blend of children’s fantasy, satirical travelogue, and speculative adventure. Written in the idiom of its era, it invites readers into a world where maps, riddles, and manners matter as much as daring. The book stands within a moment fascinated by unseen realms and scientific possibility, yet it keeps a playful, irreverent spirit. What results is an imaginative excursion that treats discovery as both a physical passage and a moral inquiry.
At its outset, the story introduces a self-assured young baron who, with his devoted dog as companion, discovers clues in an enigmatic manuscript pointing to a hidden entrance to vast regions beneath the surface. He prepares meticulously, then travels toward the far North to test the manuscript’s claims and find the portal it describes. This premise frames the book as a portal fantasy structured like a travel narrative, where each threshold crossed promises a new way of seeing. The initial setup emphasizes resourcefulness, the ethics of exploration, and the exhilaration of stepping from familiar rooms into the unknown.
Lockwood’s voice marries jaunty humor with a decorous, slightly arch narrator, giving the tale an air of polite mischief. The prose, characteristically ornate for its time, favors episodic encounters and elaborate descriptions that read like a child’s logbook annotated by a worldly adult. The mood oscillates between buoyant wonder and wry commentary, making the journey feel at once whimsical and observational. Readers will notice a travel-writer’s attention to customs, curiosities, and contraptions, rendered with the energy of a fireside yarn. The effect is to place the fantastic within the orderly frame of a tour, complete with detours, marginalia, and lessons learned.
Themes of curiosity and caution animate the narrative, as the young traveler weighs boldness against prudence while navigating unfamiliar societies. The book explores how one observes, catalogs, and interprets difference, questioning whether manners, measurements, and maps can truly capture a people or place. It considers loyalty and companionship—embodied by the steady presence of the dog—as anchors amid flux. At the same time, it reflects on knowledge itself: what counts as evidence, how tradition shapes belief, and when wonder should override skepticism. These concerns give the adventure intellectual texture without diminishing its playful, child-centered perspective.
The novel emerges from a cultural milieu enthralled by exploration, invention, and speculative geography. It belongs to a broader tradition of nineteenth-century journeys into extraordinary terrains, where travelers record marvels with mock-scholarly precision and a taste for the absurd. Readers may recognize familiar conventions—catalogs of curios, debates about scientific possibility, a fascination with hidden worlds—refracted through a distinctly American sense of satire. Lockwood’s approach treats the underground not as mere spectacle but as a stage for social observation, drawing on period habits of travel writing and ethnographic reportage while keeping the tone brisk, ironic, and accessible to younger audiences.
Contemporary readers may find the book compelling for how it captures the ambitions and anxieties of its time while still offering a lively escapade. It invites reflection on how stories construct “the other,” how authority is claimed by maps and manuscripts, and how youthful confidence can both illuminate and distort. The novel’s speculative spaces allow for creative thought experiments about custom, language, and law, encouraging readers to compare multiple ways of organizing life. Its enduring appeal lies in this double vision: adventure as entertainment, and adventure as an examination of perspective, power, and the limits of knowing.
As an experience, Baron Trump’s Marvellous Underground Journey offers richly imagined settings, playful puzzles, and an urbane narrative wink that rewards attentive reading. The pace is brisk but punctuated by reflective asides, giving time to savor oddities and ideas. Readers who enjoy classic children’s literature, portal fantasies, and satirical travel narratives will find a satisfying blend of motion and meditation. The book asks for patience with period style and repays it with inventive scenes and a steady undercurrent of wit. Without revealing its surprises, one can say it delivers a journey that feels both mischievously light-footed and thoughtfully composed.
Synopsis
Baron Trump’s Marvellous Underground Journey by Ingersoll Lockwood is a late nineteenth century adventure novel about a precocious young aristocrat who follows cryptic directions to a hidden world beneath the earth. Accompanied by his faithful dog, Bulger, Baron Trump seeks the portal described by the scholar Don Fum and commits to a voyage that will test his courage and wits. The story is presented as a sequential travel narrative, moving from preparation to exploration and return. It emphasizes unusual geographies, societies with distinctive customs, and a steady progression of challenges, while keeping the tone light and inventive throughout the boy’s episodic quest.
The book opens at Castle Trump, where the restless protagonist studies Don Fum’s manuscript, a set of enigmatic notes marking a path to the World within a World. After consulting learned advisers and assembling provisions, he sets out by ship and overland through northern regions. The journey to the proposed entrance requires careful timing, secrecy, and local guidance. Scenes of travel through cities and remote landscapes establish the contrast between the familiar surface world and the mysterious goal. When signs align with the manuscript’s clues, Baron Trump and Bulger commit to the descent, aware that return may be difficult and uncertain.
Their entry into the subterranean realm reveals a vast network of caverns, corridors, and natural wonders. Early trials prove the reliability of the manuscript and the importance of Bulger’s instincts. The first community they meet is peaceful and physically unusual, adapted to dim light and deep silence. Through observation and careful communication, Baron Trump learns their laws, etiquette, and the limits of hospitality afforded to strangers. A turning point arrives when a local rule and the constraints of the environment require him to move on, preserving goodwill while recognizing that his search must continue through deeper passages.
Following the manuscript’s bearings, Baron Trump travels to a region marked by precise order and unfamiliar customs. The inhabitants value strict logic and regulate speech and movement with exacting care. Ingenious devices illuminate their dwellings, and public life unfolds by fixed ceremonies. To remain safe, the traveler must navigate protocols and solve a practical problem that unlocks the next route. The episode highlights his adaptability and Bulger’s perceptiveness, demonstrating how social nuance can be as challenging as natural hazards. With courteous farewells, he departs, carrying a new clue and refined understanding of the underground world’s variety.
The journey then leads to a more contentious society where rules proliferate and everyday tasks require permissions and officials. The satire is gentle but clear as Baron Trump observes procedures that complicate simple actions. A misunderstanding places him at risk, and swift thinking helps avert penalties that could end the expedition. Bulger’s loyalty and quick responses again prove decisive. This encounter underscores the hazards posed not only by terrain but also by differing expectations and legal codes. With the aid of a mediator and Don Fum’s guidance, he secures safe passage, accepting that progress often depends on timely compromise.
Beyond human communities, natural dangers dominate. The travelers cross vast chambers riddled with magnetic anomalies, sudden drafts, and treacherous ledges. They must read subtle signs, conserve resources, and trust the manuscript’s cryptic distances and angles. A dramatic escape from an environmental trap becomes a central turning point, reinforcing the theme that patience and observation often outweigh force. The route bends through areas of unusual light and sound, creating disorientation that tests resolve. When a chance discovery reveals fresh air and scattered relics of prior visitors, Baron Trump confirms he is on a traversable line and resumes the search.
A later region explores the fragility of memory and identity. Its inhabitants protect harmony by regulating recollection, allowing only selected facts to be retained. This practice challenges the traveler’s sense of self and purpose, threatening to erase the very plan that has guided him. By reestablishing essential points from Don Fum’s notes and relying on Bulger as a living anchor, he manages a polite withdrawal. The episode underscores the importance of continuity and record keeping, reaffirming that careful preparation can restore direction when circumstances blur the mind. With renewed clarity, he navigates onward to the final stages.
Approaching the end of the manuscript’s instructions, Baron Trump confronts the most intricate section of the route. Landmarks are sparse, the air grows unstable, and choices multiply among similar passages. A coded hint from earlier encounters unlocks the last corridor, while a test of courage across a narrow span marks the threshold to ascent. Bulger identifies the true current leading upward, and the pair begin a measured climb, mindful that a misstep could undo the entire journey. The narrative maintains tension without disclosing exact mechanics, focusing on disciplined movement and the careful application of everything learned so far.
The book closes with the traveler’s emergence and measured reflections on what he has witnessed. Without dwelling on final details, the narrative affirms the value of curiosity, preparedness, and respect for difference. The episodic structure reveals a world of contrasting customs and natural marvels, presented in a consistent flow from departure to return. Baron Trump’s resourcefulness and Bulger’s steadfast aid highlight companionship as an essential tool of exploration. Overall, the novel offers a fanciful but orderly voyage that balances whimsy with observational clarity, inviting readers to consider how knowledge, patience, and civility enable safe passage through unfamiliar realms.
Historical Context
Set in the late nineteenth century, the narrative begins in a North German aristocratic milieu around a fanciful "Castle Trump," then follows the youthful baron eastward through czarist Russia toward the Arctic. The story’s itinerary—moving from a stratified European society under Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Alexander III toward the sparsely governed polar fringe—mirrors a world reoriented by steam, telegraph, and expanding rail networks. Russia’s far north and the White Sea formed recognized gateways to polar exploration, and the book’s “world within a world” frames its adventures against a contemporaneous geography where cartography thinned and speculation, science, and myth commingled at the edges of the map.
In 1890 the U.S. Census Bureau declared the American frontier closed, and in 1893 Frederick Jackson Turner delivered his famous frontier thesis at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Simultaneously, Alfred Thayer Mahan’s 1890 study on sea power fed expansionist debates that culminated in the Spanish–American War in 1898. The book’s subterranean realms echo this historical pivot: as terrestrial frontiers waned, imaginary geographies offered substitute arenas for inquiry and control. The baron’s encounters with isolated peoples often parody the era’s civilizing rhetoric, staging contact without conquest and testing claims that progress, expertise, and “order” could be exported to every periphery.
Rapid industrialization (1870–1900) transformed American and European societies: trusts consolidated power (Standard Oil, 1870), cities swelled, and factories intensified wage labor. Conflict followed—the Great Railroad Strike (1877), Haymarket (1886), Homestead (1892), and later Pullman (1894). Ingersoll Lockwood, a New York lawyer who had served as a U.S. diplomat in Hanover in the 1860s before Prussia annexed it in 1866, observed both European aristocratic culture and American capitalism’s new elites. The book’s procession of rigid underground polities, elaborate etiquette, and bureaucratic absurdities mirrors these stratifications. Its comic anthropology renders hierarchy strange, inviting readers to measure Gilded Age class structures against alternative, often illogical, social orders.
The Panic of 1893 began with railroad failures (notably the Philadelphia and Reading in February 1893), a collapse of credit, and unemployment that surged into the double digits, provoking Coxey’s Army (1894) and setting the stage for William Jennings Bryan’s 1896 “Cross of Gold” speech. The People’s Party (founded 1891–92) championed silver coinage, antimonopoly politics, and agrarian relief. Although the novel is an adventure tale, its fascination with resource rules, exotic currencies, and communities that hoard or redistribute scarcity resonates with contemporary monetary anxiety. Lockwood’s later dystopian tract, 1900; or, The Last President (1896), makes explicit the populist pressures implicit in the earlier book’s social experiments.
Public fascination with the Arctic surged in the late nineteenth century. Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld’s Vega expedition (1878–79) first traversed the Northeast Passage; Julius Payer and Karl Weyprecht charted Franz Josef Land in 1873; George W. De Long’s Jeannette expedition (1879–81) ended tragically in the Lena Delta; and the U.S. Army’s Greely expedition (1881–84) suffered catastrophic losses at Cape Sabine. Fridtjof Nansen crossed Greenland in 1888 and launched the Fram drift in 1893, the very year Lockwood published the novel. The book’s route through the Russian north toward a polar aperture echoes these headlines and the White Sea–Arkhangelsk staging grounds then used by European and Russian ventures, converting newsprint cartography into imaginative topography.
Equally influential was the long afterlife of the Hollow Earth hypothesis. In 1818 John Cleves Symmes Jr. proclaimed Earth porous at the poles and, in the 1820s, he and admirers petitioned Congress to sponsor a proving expedition. Jeremiah N. Reynolds popularized the idea in nationwide lectures, and speculative geographies flourished. By the 1880s, William F. Warren’s Paradise Found (1885) argued that humanity’s cradle lay at the North Pole, linking Edenic myth to polar science. Lockwood’s “world within a world,” accessible by a northern portal and cataloged by a learned guide (Don Fum), channels these currents—half lecture, half itinerary—transforming a contested scientific fringe into a narrative engine for discovery, classification, and doubt.
The late-Victorian occult and pseudoscientific milieu further shaped reception. The Theosophical Society (founded in New York, 1875, by Helena P. Blavatsky) circulated tales of subterranean realms like Agharta and Shambhala; Joseph Alexandre Saint‑Yves d’Alveydre’s 1886 writings elaborated hidden world-kingdoms. Meanwhile, Social Darwinism (Herbert Spencer) and early eugenic thinking (Francis Galton coined “eugenics” in 1883) encouraged hierarchical readings of human difference. Lockwood’s invented peoples—marked by peculiar customs, measurements, and bodily habits—both mimic and mock such classificatory zeal. By staging contact zones where “laws” of progress misfire, the novel probes the credulity and moral hazards embedded in fashionable evolutionary and occult schemas without embracing their grand claims.
As social or political critique, the book uses its underground laboratories to expose late‑nineteenth‑century conceits. Aristocratic privilege appears foppish and brittle; bureaucratic legalism proves cruel or absurd; and technocratic confidence falters when transplanted into unfamiliar ecologies. The baron’s observational stance, often corrected by local knowledge, quietly rebukes imperial certainty. Gilded Age class anxieties surface in parodies of status display and rigid etiquette, while monetary and resource regimes lampoon orthodoxies hardened by panic. By converting current events—frontier closure, polar exploration, pseudoscience—into an ironic ethnography of “others,” the narrative indicts the era’s appetite for domination and its faith that progress, hierarchy, and expertise were universally transferable.
Baron Trump's Marvellous Underground Journey
CHAPTER I
BULGER IS GREATLY ANNOYED BY THE FAMILIARITY OF THE VILLAGE DOGS AND THE PRESUMPTION OF THE HOUSE CATS.—HIS HEALTH SUFFERS THEREBY, AND HE IMPLORES ME TO SET OUT ON MY TRAVELS AGAIN. I READILY CONSENT, FOR I HAD BEEN READING OF THE WORLD WITHIN A WORLD IN A MUSTY OLD MS. WRITTEN BY THE LEARNED DON FUM[1].—PARTING INTERVIEWS WITH THE ELDER BARON AND THE GRACIOUS BARONESS MY MOTHER.—PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE.
Bulger was not himself at all, dear friends. There was a lack-lustre look in his eyes, and his tail responded with only a half-hearted wag when I spoke to him. I say half-hearted, for I always had a notion that the other end of Bulger’s tail was fastened to his heart. His appetite, too, had gone down with his spirits; and he rarely did anything more than sniff at the dainty food which I set before him, although I tried to tempt him with fried chickens’ livers and toasted cocks’ combs—two of his favorite dishes.
There was evidently something on his mind, and yet it never occurred to me what that something was; for to be honest about it, it was something which of all things I never should have dreamed of finding there.
Possibly I might have discovered at an earlier day what it was all about, had it not been that just at this time I was very busy, too busy, in fact, to pay much attention to any one, even to my dear four-footed foster brother. As you may remember, dear friends, my brain is a very active one; and when once I become interested in a subject, Castle Trump itself might take fire and burn until the legs of my chair had become charred before I would hear the noise and confusion, or even smell the smoke.
It so happened at the time of Bulger’s low spirits that the elder baron had, through the kindness of an old school friend, come into possession of a fifteenth-century manuscript from the pen of a no less celebrated thinker and philosopher than the learned Spaniard, Don Constantino Bartolomeo Strepholofidgeguaneriusfum, commonly known among scholars as Don Fum, entitled “A World within a World.” In this work Don Fum advanced the wonderful theory that there is every reason to believe that the interior of our world is inhabited; that, as is well known, this vast earth ball is not solid, on the contrary, being in many places quite hollow; that ages and ages ago terrible disturbances had taken place on its surface and had driven the inhabitants to seek refuge in these vast underground chambers, so vast, in fact, as well to merit the name of “World within a World.”
This book, with its crumpled, torn, and time-stained leaves exhaling the odors of vaulted crypt and worm-eaten chest, exercised a peculiar fascination upon me. All day long, and often far into the night, I sat poring over its musty and mildewed pages, quite forgetful of this surface world, and with the plummet of thought sounding these subterranean depths, and with the eye and ear of fancy visiting them, and gazing upon and listening to the dwellers therein.
While I would be thus engaged, Bulger’s favorite position was on a quaintly embroidered leather cushion brought from the Orient by me on one of my journeys, and now placed on the end of my work-table nearest the window. From this point of vantage Bulger commanded a full view of the park and the terrace and of the drive leading up to the porte-cochère. Nothing escaped his watchful eye. Here he sat hour by hour, amusing himself by noting the comings and goings of all sorts of folk, from the hawkers of gewgaws to the noblest people in the shire. One day my attention was attracted by his suddenly leaping down from his cushion and giving a low growl of displeasure. I paid little heed to it, but to my surprise the next day about the same hour it occurred again.
My curiosity was now thoroughly aroused; and laying down Don Fum’s musty manuscript, I hastened to the window to learn the cause of Bulger’s irritation.
Lo, the secret was out! There stood half a dozen mongrel curs belonging to the tenantry of the baronial lands, looking up to the window, and by their barking and antics endeavoring to entice Bulger out for a romp. Dear friends, need I assure you that such familiarity was extremely distasteful to Bulger? Their impudence was just a little more than he could stand. Ringing my bell, I directed my servant to hunt them away. Whereupon Bulger consented to resume his seat by the window.
The next morning, just as I had settled myself down for a good long read, I was almost startled by Bulger bounding into the room with eyes flashing fire and teeth laid bare in anger. Laying hold of the skirt of my dressing-gown, he gave it quite a savage tug, which meant, “Put thy book aside, little master, and follow me.”
I did so. He led me down-stairs across the hallway and into the dining-room, and then this new cause of discontent on his part became very apparent to me. There grouped around his silver breakfast plate sat an ancient tabby cat and four kittens, all calmly licking or lapping away at his breakfast. Looking up into my face, he uttered a sharp, complaining howl, as much as to say, “There, little master, look at that. Isn’t that enough to roil the patience of a saint? Canst thou wonder that I am not happy with all these disagreeable things happening to me? I tell thee, little master, it is too much for flesh and blood to put up with.”
And I thought so too, and did all in my power to comfort my unhappy little friend; but judge of my surprise upon reaching my room and directing him to take his place on his cushion, to see him refuse to obey.
It was something extraordinary, and set me to thinking. He noticed this and gave a joyful bark, then dashed into my sleeping apartment. He was gone for several moments, and then returned bearing in his mouth a pair of Oriental shoes which he laid at my feet. Again and again he disappeared, coming back each time with some article of clothing in his mouth. In a few moments he had laid a complete Oriental costume on the floor before my eyes; and would you believe me, dear friends, it was the identical suit which I had worn on my last travels in far-away lands, when he and I had been wrecked on the Island of Gogulah, the land of the Round Bodies. What did it all mean? Why, this, to be sure:—
“Little master, canst thou not understand thy dear Bulger? He is weary of this dull and spiritless existence. He is tired of this increasing familiarity on the part of these mongrel curs of the neighborhood and of the audacity of these kitchen tabbies and their families. He implores thee to break away from this life of revery and inaction, and for the honor of the Trumps to be up and away again.” Stooping down and winding my arms around my dear Bulger, I cried out,—
“Yes, I understand thee now, faithful companion; and I promise thee that before this moon has filled her horns we shall once more turn our backs on Castle Trump, up and away in search of the portals to Don Fum’s World within a World.” Upon hearing these words, Bulger broke out into the wildest, maddest barking, bounding hither and thither as if the very spirit of mischief had suddenly nestled in his heart. In the midst of these mad gambols a low rap on my chamber door caused me to call out,—
“Peace, peace, good Bulger, some one knocks. Peace, I say.”
It was the elder baron. With sombre mien and stately tread he advanced and took a seat beside me on the canopy.
“Welcome, honored father!” I exclaimed as I took his hand and raised it to my lips. “I was upon the very point of seeking thee out.”
He smiled and then said,—
“Well, little baron, what thinkest thou of Don Fum’s World within a World?”
“I think, my lord,” was my reply, “that Don Fum is right: that such a world must exist; and with thy consent it is my intention to set out in search of its portals with all safe haste and as soon as my dear mother, the gracious baroness, may be able to bring her heart to part with me.”
The elder baron was silent for a moment, and then added: “Little baron, much as thy mother and I shall dread to think of thy being again out from under the safe protection of this venerable roof, the moss-grown tiles of which have sheltered so many generations of the Trumps, yet must we not be selfish in this matter. Heaven forbid that such a thought should move our souls to stay thee! The honor of our family, thy fame as an explorer of strange lands in far-away corners of the globe, call unto us to be strong hearted. Therefore, my dear boy, make ready and go forth once more in search of new marvels. The learned Don Fum’s chart will stand thee by like a safe and trusty counsellor. Remember, little baron, the motto of the Trumps, Per Ardua ad Astra[1q]—the pathway to glory is strewn with pitfalls and dangers—but the comforting thought shall ever be mine, that when thy keen intelligence fails, Bulger’s unerring instinct will be there to guide thee.”
As I stooped to kiss the elder baron’s hand, the gracious baroness entered the room.
Bulger hastened to raise himself upon his hind legs and lick her hand in token of respectful greeting. The tears were pressing hard against her eyelids, but she kept them back, and encircling my neck with her loving arms, she pressed many and many a kiss upon my cheeks and brow.
“I know what it all means, my dear son,” she murmured with the saddest of smiles; “but it never shall be said that Gertrude Baroness von Trump stood in the way of her son adding new glories to the family ’scutcheon. Go, go, little baron, and Heaven bring thee safely back to our arms and to our hearts in its own good time.”
At these words Bulger, who had been listening to the conversation with pricked-up ears and glistening eyes, gave one long howl of joy, and then springing into my lap, covered my face with kisses. This done, he vented his happiness in a string of earsplitting barks and a series of the maddest gambols. It was one of the happiest and proudest days of his life, for he felt that he had exerted considerable influence in screwing to the sticking-point my resolution to set out on my travels once again.
And now the patter of hurrying feet and the loud murmur of anxious voices resounded through the castle corridors, while inside and out ever and anon I could hear the cry now whispered and now outspoken,—
“The little baron is making ready to leave home again.”
Bulger ran hither and thither, surveying everything, taking note of all the preparations, and I could hear his joyous bark ring out as some familiar article used by me on my former journeys was dragged from its hiding-place.
Twenty times a day my gentle mother came to my room to repeat some good counsel or reiterate some valuable caution. It seemed to me that I had never seen her so calm, so stately, so lovable.
She was very proud of my great name and so, in fact, were every man, woman, and child in the castle. Had I not gotten off as I did, I should have been literally killed with kindness and Bulger slain with sweet-cake.
CHAPTER II
DON FUM’S MYSTERIOUS DIRECTIONS.—BULGER AND I SET OUT FOR PETERSBURG, AND THENCE PROCEED TO ARCHANGEL.—THE STORY OF OUR JOURNEY AS FAR AS ILITCH ON THE ILITCH.—IVAN THE TEAMSTER.—HOW WE MADE OUR WAY NORTHWARD IN SEARCH OF THE PORTALS TO THE WORLD WITHIN A WORLD.—IVAN’S THREAT.—BULGER’S DISTRUST OF THE MAN AND OTHER THINGS.
According to the learned Don Fum’s manuscript, the portals to the World within a World were situated somewhere in Northern Russia, possibly, so he thought, from all indications, somewhere on the westerly slope of the upper Urals. But the great thinker could not locate them with any accuracy. “The people will tell thee[2q]” was the mysterious phrase that occurred again and again on the mildewed pages of this wonderful writing. “The people will tell thee.” Ah, but what people will be learned enough to tell me that? was the brain-racking question which I asked myself, sleeping and waking, at sunrise, at high noon, and at sunset; at the crowing of the cock, and in the silent hours of the night.
“The people will tell thee,” said learned Don Fum.
“Ah, but what people will tell me where to find the portals to the World within a World?”
Hitherto on my travels I had made choice of a semi-Oriental garb, both on account of its picturesqueness and its lightness and warmth, but now as I was about to pass quite across Russia for a number of months, I resolved to don the Russian national costume; for speaking Russian fluently, as I did a score or more of languages living and dead, I would thus be enabled to come and go without everlastingly displaying my passport, or having my trains of thought constantly disturbed by inquisitive travelling companions—a very important thing to me, for my mind possessed the extraordinary power of working out automatically any task assigned to it by me, provided it was not suddenly thrown off its track by some ridiculous interruption. For instance, I was upon the very point one day of discovering perpetual motion, when the gracious baroness suddenly opened the door and asked me whether I had pared the nails of my great toes lately, as she had observed that I had worn holes in several pairs of my best stockings.
It was about the middle of February when I set out from the Castle Trump, and I journeyed night and day in order to reach Petersburg by the first of March, for I knew that the government trains would leave that city for the White Sea during the first week of that month. Bulger and I were both in the best of health and spirits, and the fatigue of the journey didn’t tell upon us in the least. The moment I arrived at the Russian capital I applied to the emperor for permission to join one of the government trains, which was most graciously accorded. Our route lay almost directly to the northward for several days, at the end of which time we reached the shores of Lake Ladoga. This we crossed on the ice with our sledges, as a few days later we did Lake Onega. Thence by land again, we kept on our way until Onega Bay had been reached, crossing it, too, on the ice, and so reaching the station of the same name, where we halted for a day to give our horses a well-deserved rest. From this point we proceeded in a straight line over the snow fields to Archangel, an important trading-post on the White Sea.
As this was the destination of the government train, I parted with its commandant after a few days’ pleasant sojourn at the government house, and set out, attended only by my faithful Bulger and two servants, who had been assigned to me by the imperial commissioner.
DEPARTURE FROM CASTLE TRUMP.
My course now carried me up the River Dwina as far as Solvitchegodsk; thence I proceeded on my way over the frozen waters of the Witchegda River until we had reached the government post of Yarensk, and from here on we headed due East until our hardy little horses had dragged us into the picturesque village of Ilitch on the Ilitch. Here we were obliged to abandon our sledges, for the snows had disappeared like magic, uncovering long vistas of green fields, which in a few days the May sun dotted with flowers and sweet shrubs. At Ilitch I was obliged to relinquish from my service the two faithful government retainers who had accompanied me from Archangel, for they had now reached the most westerly point which they had been commissioned to visit. I had become very much attached to them, and so had Bulger, and after their departure we both felt as if we were now, for the first time, among strangers in a strange land; but I succeeded in engaging, as I thought, a trustworthy teamster, Ivan by name, who made a contract with me for a goodly wage to carry me a hundred miles farther north.
“But not another step farther, little baron!” said the fellow doggedly. I was now really at the foot hills of the Northern Urals, for the rocky crests and snow-clad peaks were in full sight.
I turned many a wistful look up toward the wild regions shut in by their sheer walls and parapets, shaggy and bristling with black pines, for a low, mysterious voice came a-whispering in my inward ear that somewhere, ah, somewhere in that awful wilderness, I should one day come upon the portals of the World within a World! In spite of all I could do Bulger took a violent dislike to Ivan and Ivan to him; and if the bargain had not been made and the money paid over, I should have looked about me for another teamster. And yet it would have been a foolish thing to do, for Ivan had two excellent horses, as I saw at a glance, and, what’s more, he took the best of care of them, at every post rubbing them until they were quite dry, and never thinking of his own supper until they had been watered and fed.
His tarantass[2], too, was quite new and solidly built and well furnished with soft blankets, all in all as comfortable as you can make a wagon which has no other springs than the two long wooden supports that reach from axle to axle. True, they were somewhat elastic; but I could notice that Bulger was not overfond of riding in this curious vehicle with its rattlety-bang gait up and down these mountain roads, and often asked permission to leap out and follow on foot.
At length Ivan reported everything in readiness for the start; and although I would have fain taken my departure from Ilitch on the Ilitch in as quiet a manner as possible, yet the whole village turned out to see us off—Ivan’s family, father, mother, sisters, and brothers, wife and children, uncles and aunts and cousins by dozens alone making up people enough to stock a small town. They cheered and waved their kerchiefs, Bulger barked, and I smiled and raised my cap with all the dignity of a Trump. And so we got away at last from Ilitch on the Ilitch, Ivan on the box, and Bulger and I at the back, sitting close together like two brothers that we were—two breasts with but a single heart-beat and two brains busy with the same thought—that come perils or come sudden attacks, come covert danger or bold and open-faced onslaught, we should stand together and fall together! Many and many a time as Ivan’s horses went crawling up the long stretches of mountain road and I lay stretched upon the broad-cushioned seat of the tarantass with a blanket rolled up for a pillow, I would find myself unconsciously repeating those mysterious words of Don Fum:—
“The people will tell thee! The people will tell thee!”
So steep were the roads that some days we would not make more than five miles, and on others a halt of several hours would have to be made to enable Ivan to tighten his horses’ shoes, grease the axles, or do some needful thing in or about his wagon. It was slow work, ay, it was very slow and tedious, but what matters it how many or great the difficulties, to a man who has made up his mind to accomplish a certain task? Do the storks or the wild geese stop to count the thousands of miles between them and their far-away homes when the time comes to turn their heads southward? Do the brown ants pause to count the hundreds of thousands of grains of sand which they must carry through their long corridors and winding passages before they have burrowed deep enough to escape the frost of midwinter?
There had been many Trumps, but never one that had thrown up his arms and cried, “I surrender!” and should I be the first to do it? “Never! Not even if it meant never to see dear old Castle Trump again!”
One morning as we went zigzagging up a particularly nasty bit of mountain road, Ivan suddenly wheeled about and without even taking off his hat, cried out,—
“Little baron, I cover the last mile of the hundred to-day. If thou wouldst go any farther north thou must hire thee another teamster; dost hear?”
“Silence!” said I sternly, for the fellow had broken in upon a very important train of thought.
Bulger, too, resented the man’s insolence, and growled and showed his teeth.
“But, little baron, listen to reason,” he continued in a more respectful tone, removing his cap: “my people will expect me back. I promised my father—I’m a dutiful son—I—”
“Nay, nay, Ivan,” I interrupted sharply, “curb that tongue of thine lest it harm thy soul. Know, then, that I spoke with thy father, and he promised me that thou shouldst go a second hundred miles with me if need were, but on condition that I give thee double pay. It shall be done, and on top of that a goodly present for your golubtchika (darling).”
“Little baron, thou art a hard master,” whimpered the man. “If the whim took thee thou wouldst bid me leap into the Giants’ Well just to see whether it has a bottom or not. St. Nicholas, save me!”
“Nay, Ivan,” said I kindly, “I know no such word as cruelty although I do confess that right seems harsh at times, but thou wert born to serve and I to command. Providence hath made thee poor and me rich. We need each other. Do thou thy duty, and thou wilt find me just and considerate. Disobey me, and thou wilt find that this short arm may be stretched from Ilitch to Petersburg.”
Ivan turned pale at this hidden threat of mine; but I deemed it necessary to make it, for I as well as Bulger had scented treachery and rebellion about this boorish fellow, whose good trait was his love of his horses, and it has always been my rule in life to open my eyes wide to the good that there is in a man, and close them to his faults. But, in spite of kind words and kind treatment, Ivan grew surlier and moodier the moment we had passed the hundredth milestone.
Bulger watched him with a gaze so steady and thoughtful that the man fairly quailed before it. Hour by hour he became more and more restive, and upon leaving a roadside tavern, for the very first time since we had left Ilitch on the Ilitch, I noticed that the fellow had been drinking too much kwass. He let loose his tongue, and raised his hand against his horses, which until that moment he had been wont to load down with caresses and pet names.
