The Adventures of Harry Revel | Page 7

with one of her
few smiles; for her cheerfulness was always serious.
Best of all were the hours when she read to us extracts from her album.
"At least," she explained, "I call it an album. I ever longed to possess
one, adorned with remarks--moral or sprightly, as the case might be--by
the Choicest Spirits of our Age, and signed in their own illustrious
handwriting. But in my sphere of life these were hard--nay,
impossible--to come by; so in my dilemma I had recourse to subterfuge,
and having studied the career 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,