The Adventures of Harry Revel | Page 4

lean, strident man who, if he lectured us often,
whipped us on the whole with judgment and when we deserved it. So
we bore him no grudge. But neither did we love him nor take any lively
interest in him as a bridegroom, and I was startled to find these feelings
shared by Mr. George in the porter's box when I discussed the news
with him. "I'm to have a new suit of clothes," said Mr. George, "but
whoever gets Scougall, he's no catch." This sounded blasphemous,
while it gave me a sort of fearful joy. I reported it, under seal of secrecy,
to Miss Plinlimmon. "Naval men, my dear Harry," was her comment,
"are notoriously blunt and outspoken, even when retired upon a pension;
perhaps, indeed, if anything, more so. It is in consequence of this habit
that they have sometimes performed their grandest feats, as, for
instance, when Horatio Nelson put his spy-glass up to his blind eye. I
advise you to do the same and treat Mr. George as a chartered heart of
oak, without remembering his indiscretions to repeat them." She went
on to tell me that sailor-men were beloved in Plymouth and allowed to
do pretty well as they pleased; and how, quite recently, a Quaker lady
had been stopped in Bedford Street by a Jack Tar who said he had
sworn to kiss her. "Thee must be quick about it, then," said the Quaker
lady. And he was.
I suppose this anecdote encouraged me to be more familiar with Mr.
George. At any rate, I confided to him next day that I thought of being
a soldier.
"Do you know what we used to say in the Navy?" he answered. "We
used to say, 'A friend before a messmate, a messmate before a shipmate,

a shipmate before a dog, and a dog before a soldier.'"
"You think," said I, somewhat discouraged, "that the Navy would be a
better opening for me?"
"Ay," he answered again, eyeing me gloomily; "that is, if so be ye can't
contrive to get to jail." He cast a glance down upon his jury-leg and
patted the straps of it with his open palm. "The leg, now, that used to be
here--I left it in a French prison called Jivvy, and often I thinks to
myself, 'That there leg is having better luck than the rest of me.' And
here's another curious thing. What d'ye think they call it in France when
you remember a person in your will?"
I hadn't a notion, and said so.
"Why, 'legs,'" said he. "And they've got one of mine. If a man was
superstitious, you might almost call it a coincidence, hey?"
This was the longest conversation I ever had with Mr. George. I have
since found that sentiments very like his about the Navy have been
uttered by Dr. Samuel Johnson. But Mr. George spoke them out of his
own experience.
Mr. Scougall's bride was the widow of a Plymouth publican who had
sold his business and retired upon a small farm across the Hamoaze,
near the Cornish village of Anthony. On the wedding morning (which
fell early in July) she had, by agreement with her groom, prepared a
delightful surprise for us. We trooped after prayers into the dining-hall
to find, in place of the hateful porridge, a feast laid out--ham and eggs,
cold veal pies, gooseberry preserves, and--best of all--plate upon plate
of strawberries with bowl upon bowl of cool clotted cream. Not a child
of us had ever tasted strawberries or cream in his life, so you may guess
if we ate with prudence. At half-past ten Miss Plinlimmon (who had
not found the heart to restrain our appetites) marshalled and led us forth,
gorged and torpid, to the church where at eleven o'clock the ceremony
was to take place. Her eyes were red-rimmed as she cast them up
towards the window behind which Mr. Scougall, no doubt, was at that
moment arraying himself: but she commanded a firm step, and even a

firm voice to remark outside the wicket, as she looked up at the
chimney-pots, that Nature had put on her fairest garb.
The day, to be sure, was monstrously hot and stuffy. Not a breath of
wind ruffled the waters of the dock, around the head of which we
trudged to a recently erected church on the opposite shore. I remember
observing, on our way, the dazzling brilliance of its weathercock.
We found its interior spacious but warm, and the air heavy with the
scent--it comes back to me as I write--of a peculiar sweet oil used in the
lamps. Perhaps Mr. Scougall had calculated that a ceremony so
interesting to him would attract a throng of sightseers; at any rate, we
were packed into a gallery at