After
several false starts, they decided on making the attempt on the 1st of
May.
In the twenty-four hours preceding, the reverend's excitable nerves had
been wound up to something above concert pitch. He seemed to hold the
real risk--discovery and the bullet of a sentinel--very cheap; but,
magnifying imaginary difficulties after his own peculiar fashion, he had
come to look upon the roof as a pass of peril, only to be accomplished
by preterhuman agility and steadiness of brain. His fellow-adventurer,
who from first to last bore himself with a gay recklessness good to
behold, laughed all such forebodings utterly to scorn. I tried the
gentler tone of grave argument, demonstrating that a _glissade_ on
shingles in dry weather was next to impossible, and that the ridge, once
gained, was nearly as safe traveling as an ordinary mountain-path. The
parson's armor of meek obstinacy was proof alike to reason and ridicule;
he waxed not wroth, and was thankful for any suggestion; but, when asked
to act accordingly, ever fell back on one plaintive formula--"I am no
gymnast,"--after the fashion of that exasperating child who met all the
Poet's questions and objections with the refrain of
Master, we are seven.
These visionary terrors would have been of little moment, if they had
not induced his reverence to persist in the use of certain machines,
which were more than likely to bring the whole adventure to grief.
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