The Adventures of Harry Revel | Page 7

of this or that eminent man, I chose a subject and composed what (as it seemed to me) he would most likely have written upon it, signing his name below--but in print, that the signatures may not pass hereafter for real ones, should the book fall into the hands of strangers. You must not think, therefore, that the lines on Statesmanship which I am about to read you, beginning 'But why Statesmans ship? Because, my lords and gentlemen, the State is indeed a ship, and demands a skilful helmsman'--you must not think that they were actually penned by the Right Honourable William Pitt. But I feel sure the sentiments are such as he would have approved, and perhaps might have uttered had the occasion arisen."
This puzzled us, and I am not sure that we took any trouble to discriminate Miss Plinlimmon's share in these compositions from that of their signatories. Indeed, the first time I set eyes on Lord Wellington (as he rode by us to inspect the breaches in Ciudad Rodrigo) my memory saluted him as the Honourable Arthur Wellesley, author of the passage, "Though educated at Eton, I have often caught myself envying the quaintly expressed motto of the more ancient seminary amid the Hampshire chalk-hills, i.e. Manners makyth man"; and to this day I associate General Paoli with an apostrophe "O Corsica! O my country, bleeding and inanimate!" etc., and with Miss Plinlimmon's foot-note: "N.B.--The author of these affecting lines, himself a blameless patriot, actually stood godfather to the babe who has since become the infamous Napoleon Bonaparte. Oh, irony! What had been the feelings of the good Paoli, could he have foreseen this eventuality, as he promised and vowed beside the font! (if they have such things in Corsica: a point on which I am uncertain)."
I dwell on these halcyon days with Miss Plinlimmon because, as they were the last I spent at the Genevan Hospital, so they soften all my recollections of it with their own gentle prismatic haze. In fact, a bare fortnight had gone by since my adventure on the spire when I was summoned to Mr. Scougall's parlour and there found Miss Plinlimmon in conversation with a tall and very stout man: and if her eyelids were pink, I paid more attention to the stout man's, which were rimmed with black--a more unusual sight. His neck, too, was black up to a well-defined line; the rest of it, and his cheeks, red with the red of prize beef.
"This is the boy--hem--Revel, of whom we were speaking." Miss Plinlimmon smiled at me and blushed faintly as she uttered the name. "Harry, shake hands with Mr. Trapp. He has come expressly to make your acquaintance."
Somehow I gathered that this politeness took Mr. Trapp aback; but he held out his hand. It was astonishingly black.
"Pray be seated, Mr. Trapp."
"The furniture, ma'am!"
"Ah, to be sure!" Mr. Scougall's freshly upholstered chairs had all been wrapped in holland coverings pending his return. "Mr. Trapp, Harry, is a--a chimney-sweep."
"Oh!" said I, somewhat ruefully.
"And if I can answer for your character (as I believe I can)," she went on with a wan, almost wistful smile, "he is ready to make you his apprentice."
"But I had rather be a soldier, Miss Plinlimmon!"
She still kept her smile, but I could read in it that my pleading was useless; that the decision really lay beyond her.
"Boys will be boys, Mr. Trapp." She turned to him with her air of gentility. "You will forgive Harry for preferring a red coat to--to your calling." (I thought this treacherous of Miss Plinlimmon. As if she did not prefer it herself!) "No doubt he will learn in time that all duty is alike noble, whether it bids a man mount the deadly breach or climb a--or do the sort of climbing required in your profession."
"I climbed up that spire in my sleep," said I, sullenly.
"That's just it," Mr. Trapp agreed. "That's what put me on the track of ye. 'Here's a tacker,' I said, 'can climb up to the top of Emmanuel's in his sleep, and I've been wasting money and temper on them that won't go up an ord'nary chimbley when they're wideawake, 'ithout I lights a furze-bush underneath to hurry them.'"
"I trust," put in Miss Plinlimmon, aghast, "you are jesting, Mr. Trapp?"
"Jesting, ma'am?"
"You do not really employ that barbarous method of acceleration?"
"Meaning furze-bushes? Why, no, ma'am; not often. Look ye here, young sir," he continued, dismissing (as of no account) this subject, so interesting to me; "you was wide awake, anyway, when you came down, and that you can't deny."
"Harry," persisted Miss Plinlimmon, "has not been used to harsh treatment. You will like his manners: he is a very gentlemanly boy."
Mr. Trapp stared at her, then at me, then slowly around the room. "Gentlemanly?" he