E-text prepared by Lionel Sear
THE ADVENTURES OF HARRY REVEL.
by
ARTHUR THOMAS QUILLER-COUCH.
1903
This e-text prepared from a reprint of a version published in 1903
PREFACE
When I started to set down these early adventures of Harry Revel,
I meant to dedicate them to my friend Mr. W. F. Collier of Woodtown,
Horrabridge: but he died while the story was writing, and now cannot
twit me with the pranks I have played among his stories of bygone
Plymouth, nor send me his forgiveness--as he would have done.
Peace be to him for a lover of Dartmoor and true gentleman of Devon!
So now I have only to beg, by way of preface, that no one will bother
himself by inquiring too curiously into the geography, topography,
etc. of this tale, or of any that I have written or may write.
If these tales have any sense of locality, they certainly will not
square with the ordnance maps; and even the magnetic pole works loose
and goes astray at times--a phenomenon often observed by sailors off
the sea-coast of Bohemia.
It may be permissible to add that the story which follows by no means
exhausts the adventures, civil and military, of Harry Revel. But the
recital of his further campaigning in company with Mr. Benjamin Jope,
and of the verses in which Miss Plinlimmon commemorated it, will
depend upon public favour.
A.T. QUILLER-COUCH.
THE HAVEN, FOWEY,
March 28th, 1903.
CONTENTS.
Chapter
I. I FIND MYSELF A FOUNDLING.
II. I START IN LIFE AS AN EMINENT PERSON.
III. I AM BOUND APPRENTICE.
IV. MISS PLINLIMMON.
V. THE SHADOW OF ARCHIBOLD.
VI. I STUMBLE INTO HORRORS.
VII. I ESCAPE FROM THE JEW'S HOUSE.
VIII. POOR TOM BOWLING.
IX. SALTASH FERRY.
X. I GO ON A HONEYMOON.
XI. FLIGHT.
XII. I FALL AMONG SMUGGLERS.
XIII. THE MAN IN THE VERANDAH.
XIV. THE MOCK-ORANGE BUSH.
XV. MINDEN COTTAGE.
XVI. MR. JACK ROGERS AS A MAN OF AFFAIRS.
XVII. LYDIA BELCHER INTERVENES.
XVIII. THE OWL'S CRY.
XIX. CHECKMATE.
XX. ISABEL'S REVENGE.
XXI. I GO CAMPAIGNING WITH LORD WELLINGTON.
XXII. ON THE GREATER TESSON.
XXIII. IN CIUDAD RODRIGO.
XXIV. I EXCHANGE THE LAUREL FOR THE OLIVE.
CHAPTER I.
I FIND MYSELF A FOUNDLING.
My earliest recollections are of a square courtyard surrounded by
high walls and paved with blue and white pebbles in geometrical
patterns--circles, parallelograms, and lozenges. Two of these walls
were blank, and had been coped with broken bottles; a third,
similarly coped, had heavy folding doors of timber, leaden-grey in
colour and studded with black bolt-heads. Beside them stood a
leaden-grey sentry-box, and in this sat a red-faced man with a wooden
leg and a pigtail, whose business was to attend to the wicket and
keep an eye on us small boys as we played. He owned two books which
he read constantly: one was Foxe's _Martyrs_, and the other (which
had no title on the binding) I opened one day and found to be
_The Devil on Two Sticks_.
The arch over these gates bore two gilt legends. That facing the
roadway ran: "_Train up a Child in the Way he should Go,_" which
prepared the visitor to read on the inner side: "_When he is Old he
will not Depart from it._" But we twenty-five small foundlings, who
seldom evaded the wicket, and so passed our days with the second half
of the quotation, found in it a particular and dreadful meaning.
The fourth and last wall was the front of the hospital, a
two-storeyed building of grey limestone, with a clock and a small
cupola of copper, weather-greened, and a steeply pitched roof of
slate pierced with dormer windows, behind one of which (because of a
tendency to walk in my sleep) I slept in the charge of Miss
Plinlimmon, the matron. Below the eaves ran a line of eight tall
windows, the three on the extreme right belonging to the chapel; and
below these again a low-browed colonnade, in the shelter of which we
played on rainy days, but never in fine weather--though its smooth
limestone slabs made an excellent pitch for marbles, whereas on
the pebbles in the yard expertness could only be attained by
heart-breaking practice. Yet we preferred them. If it did nothing
else, the Genevan Hospital, by Plymouth Dock, taught us to suit
ourselves to the world as we found it.
I do not remember that we were unhappy or nursed any sense of injury,
except over the porridge for breakfast. The Rev. Mr. Scougall, our
pastor, had founded the hospital some twenty years before with the
money subscribed by certain Calvinistic ladies among whom he
ministered, and under the patronage of a Port Admiral of like belief,
then occupying Admiralty House. His purpose (to which we had not the
smallest objection) was to rescue us small jetsam and save us from
many dreadful Christian heresies, more especially those of Rome.
But he came from the north of Britain and argued (I suppose) that
what porridge had done for him in childhood it might well do for us--
a conclusion against which our poor little southern stomachs
rebelled. It oppressed me worse than any, for since the discovery of
my sleep-walking habit my supper (of plain bread and water) had been
docked, so that I came ravenous to breakfast and yet could not eat.
Nevertheless, I do not think we were unhappy. Perhaps we were too
young, and at any rate we had nothing with which to contrast our lot.
Across the roadway outside lay blue water, and of this and of roving
ships and boats and free passers-by glimpses came to us through the
wicket when Mr. George, the porter (we always addressed him as "Mr."
and supposed him to resemble the King in features), admitted a
visitor, or the laundress, or the butcher's boy. And sometimes we
broke off a game to watch the topmasts of a vessel gliding by
silently, above the wall's coping. But if at any time the world
called to us, we took second thoughts, remembering our clothes.
We wore, I dare say, the most infernal costume ever devised by man--a
tightish snuff-coloured jacket with diminutive tails, an orange
waistcoat, snuff-coloured breeches, grey-blue worsted stockings, and
square-toed shoes with iron toe-plates. Add a flat-topped cap with
an immense leathern brim; add Genevan neck-bands; add, last of all, a
leathern badge with "G.F.H." (Genevan Foundling Hospital) depending
from the left breast-button; and you may imagine with what diffidence
we took our rare walks abroad. The dock-boys, of course, greeted us
with cries of "Yellow Hammer!" The butcher-boy had once even dared
to fling that taunt at us within our own yard; and we left him in no
doubt about the hammering, gallant fellow though he was and wore a
spur on his left heel. But no bodily deformity could have corroded
us as did those thrice-accursed garments with terror of the world
without and of its laughter.
Of a world yet more distant we were taught the gloomiest views.
Twice a week regularly, and incidentally whenever he found occasion,
Mr. Scougall painted the flames of hell for us in the liveliest
colours. We never doubted his word that our chances of escaping them
were small indeed; but somehow, as life did not allure, so eternity
did not greatly frighten us. Meanwhile we played at our marbles.
We knew, in spite of the legend over the gateway, that at the age of
ten or so our elder companions disappeared. They went, as a fact,
into various trades and callings, like ordinary parish apprentices.
Perhaps we guessed this; if so, it must have been vaguely, and I
incline to believe that we confused their disappearance with death in
our childish musings on the common lot. They never came back to see
us; and I remember that we were curiously shy of speaking about them,
once gone.
From Miss Plinlimmon's window above the eaves I could look over the
front wall on to an edge of roadway, a straight dock like a canal--
crowded with shipping--and a fort which fired a gun in the early
morning and again at sunset. And every morning, too, the drums would
sound from the hill at our back; and be answered by a soldier, who
came steadily down the roadway beside the dock, halted in front of
our gates, and blew a call on his bugle. Other bugle-calls sounded
all around us throughout the day and far into our sleep-time: but
this was the only performer I ever saw. He wore a red coat, a high
japanned hat, and clean white pantaloons with black gaiters: and I
took it for granted that he was always the same soldier. Yet I had
plenty of opportunities for observing him, for Miss Plinlimmon made
it a rule that I should stand at the window and continue to gaze out
of it while she dressed.
One day she paused in the act of plaiting her hair. "Harry," said
she, "I shall always think of you and that tune together. It is
called the Revelly, which is a French word."
"But the soldier is English?" said I.
"Oh, I truly trust so--a heart of oak, I should hope! England cannot
have too many of them in these days, when a weak woman can scarce lay
herself down in her bed at night with the certainty of getting up in
the same position in the morning."
(They were days when, as I afterwards learnt, Napoleon's troops and
flat-bottomed boats were gathered at Boulogne and waiting their
opportunity to invade us. But of this scarcely an echo penetrated to
our courtyard, although the streets outside were filled daily with
the tramping of troops and rolling of store-wagons. We knew that our
country--whatever that might mean--was at war with France, and we
played in our yard a game called "French and English." That was all:
and Miss Plinlimmon, good soul, if at times she awoke in the night
and shuddered and listened for the yells of Frenchmen in the town,
heroically kept her fears to herself. This was as near as she ever
came to imparting them.)
"I have often thought of you, Harry," she went on, "as embracing a
military career. Mr. Scougall very kindly allows me to choose
surnames for you boys when you--when you leave us. He says (but I
fear in flattery) that I have more invention than he." And here,
though bound on my word of honour not to look, I felt sure she was
smiling to herself in the glass. "What would you say if I christened
you Revelly?"
"Oh, please, no!" I entreated. "Let mine be an English name.
Why--why couldn't I be called Plinlimmon? I would rather have that
than any name in the world."
"You are a darling!" exclaimed she, much to my surprise; and, the
next moment, I felt a little pecking kiss on the back of my neck.
She usually kissed me at night, after my prayers were said: but
somehow this was different, and it fetched tears to my eyes--greatly
to my surprise, for we were not given to tears at the Genevan
Hospital. "Plinlimmon is a mountain in Wales, and that, I dare say,
is what makes me so romantic. Now, you are not romantic in the
least: and, besides, it wouldn't do. No, indeed. But you shall be
called by an English name, if you wish, though to my mind there's a
_je ne sais quoi_ about the French. I once knew a Frenchman, a
writing and dancing master, called Duvelleroy, which always seemed
the beautifullest name."
"Was he beautiful himself?" I asked.
"He used to play a kit--which is a kind of small fiddle--holding it
across his waist. It made him look as if he were cutting himself in
half; which did not contribute to that result. But suppose, now, we
call you Revel--Harry Revel? That's English enough, and will remind
me just the same--if Mr. Scougall will not think it too
Anacherontic."
I saw no reason to fear this: but then I had no idea what she
meant by it, or by calling herself romantic. She was certainly
soft-hearted. She possessed many books, as well as an album in her
own handwriting, and encouraged me to read aloud to her on summer
mornings when the sun was up and ahead of us. And once, in the story
of _Maximilian, or Quite the Gentleman: Founded on Fact and Designed
to excite the Love of Virtue in the Rising Generation_, at a point
where the hero's small brother Felix is carried away by an eagle, she
dissolved in tears. "In my native Wales," she explained afterwards,
"the wild sheep leap from rock to rock so much as a matter of course
that you would, in time, be surprised if they didn't. And that
naturally gives me a sympathy with all that is sublime on the one
hand or affecting on the other."
Yet later--but I cannot separate these things accurately in time--I
awoke in my cot one night and heard Miss Plinlimmon sobbing.
The sound was dreadful to me and I longed to creep across the room to
her dark bedside and comfort her; though I could tell she was trying
to suppress it for fear of disturbing me. In the end her sobs ceased
and, still wondering, I dropped off to sleep, nor next day did I dare
to question her.
But it could not have been long after this that we boys got wind of
Mr. Scougall's approaching marriage with a wealthy lady of the town.
I must speak of this ceremony, because, as the fates ordained, it
gave me my first start in life.