shed; and with the rest of my descent I will not weary the
reader. It was interminably slow, and it was laborious; but, to
speak comparatively, it was safe. My boots lasted me to within
twenty feet of the parapet, and then, just as I had kicked my toes
bare, a steeplejack appeared at the little doorway with a ladder.
Planting it in a jiffy, he scrambled up, took me under his arm, bore
me down and laid me against the parapet, where at first I began to
cry and then emptied my small body with throe after throe of
sickness.

I recovered to find Mr. Scougall and another clergyman (the vicar)
standing by the little door and gazing up at my line of holes on the
face of the spire. Mr. Scougall was offering to pay.

"But no," said the vicar, "we will set the damage down against the
lad's preservation; that is, if I don't recover from the contractor,
who has undoubtedly swindled us over these slates."

CHAPTER III.

I AM BOUND APPRENTICE.

Although holidays were a thing unknown at the Genevan Hospital,
yet discipline grew sensibly lighter during Mr. Scougall's honeymoon,
being left to Miss Plinlimmon on the understanding that in emergency
she might call in the strong and secular arm of Mr. George.
But we all loved Miss Plinlimmon, and never drove her beyond
appealing to what she called our better instincts.

Her dearest aspiration (believe it if you can) was to make gentlemen
of us--of us, doomed to start in life as parish apprentices!
And to this her curriculum recurred whether it had been divagating
into history, geography, astronomy, English composition, or religious
knowledge. "The author of the book before me, a B.A.--otherwise a
Bachelor of Arts, but not on that account necessarily unmarried--
observes that to believe the sun goes round the earth is a vulgar
error. For my part I should hardly go so far: but it warns us how
severely those may be judged who obtrusively urge in society opinions
which the wise in their closets have condemned." "The refulgent
orb--another way, my dears, of saying the sun--is in the vicinity of
Persia an object of religious adoration. The Christian nations,
better instructed, content themselves with esteeming it warmly, and
as they follow its course in the heavens, draw from it the useful
lesson to look always on the bright side of things." Humble
beneficent soul! I never met another who had learned that lesson
so thoroughly. Once she pointed out to me at the end of her
d