At least, he was a man of education; and of the others
with whom I had any opportunity of speech, those that would not
have held a book upsidedown would have torn the pages out for pipe-
lights. For I must repeat again that our body of prisoners was
exceptional: there was in Edinburgh Castle none of that
educational busyness that distinguished some of the other prisons,
so that men entered them unable to read, and left them fit for high
employments. Chevenix was handsome, and surprisingly young to be a
major: six feet in his stockings, well set up, with regular
features and very clear grey eyes. It was impossible to pick a
fault in him, and yet the sum-total was displeasing. Perhaps he
was too clean; he seemed to bear about with him the smell of soap.
Cleanliness is good, but I cannot bear a man's nails to seem
japanned. And certainly he was too self-possessed and cold. There
was none of the fire of youth, none of the swiftness of the
soldier, in this young officer. His kindness was cold, and cruel
cold; his deliberation exasperating. And perhaps it was from this
character, which is very much the opposite of my own, that even in
these days, when he was of service to me, I approached him with
suspicion and reserve.
I looked over his exercise in the usual form, and marked six
faults.
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