The Adventures of Harry Richmond, Complete

my room to lie down peacefully was the sign of death. My aunt Dorothy nursed me for a week: none but she and my dogs entered the room. I had only two faint wishes left in me: one tha

'No, my

r at the window, the fir-trees on the distant heath, and her hand clasping mine. My father had many faults, she said, but he had been cruelly used, or deceived, and he bore a grievous burden; and then she said, '

hought to myself, 'My father has faults, but he has been cruelly used,' and immediately I forgave the old man; his antipathy to my father seemed a craze, and to account for it I lay

ry; have I made a sl

read of a renewal of our conversation. I could see her ideas flutter like birds to escape me. And I penetrated the others who came i

ts, Master Harry, but there was a bit

she was in love, and it was useless for her to pretend the contrary, f

itches, Master Harry'; and others were sure '

ry power; so I begged favours of him, and laid hot-house flowers on his table in the name of my aunt, and had the gratification of seeing him blush. His approval of my Latin exercise was verbal, and weak praise in

oughts?' said Janet Ilchester, whose head was as open to me as a

nk you are flatt

oked n

yourself what you can

id, 'G

top

with being pu

nied

s!' said she

were thinking that you are a

it wasn't that, Harry, it wasn't real

ter, not

And as for my being a lady, of course I am, and so are you-I mean, a gentleman. I was thinking-now this is really what I was thinking-I wished your fathe

y smiles rising, when he applauded himself lustily for the original idea of matching us; but the idea was no longer distasteful to me. It appeared to me that if I must some day be married, a wife who would enjoy my narrative

aid she, and tol

rry Richmond, you're the cleverest fellow in the world, are you? There's Janet te

at 's that?' san

my father, sir,' I said

oked as though an apoplect

n,' he said, after a terrib

o depart. 'No, no, not you; that fellow,' he

de-the last who sh

ear him, eh?'

up when occasion summoned it, hushed the scene by passing th

ar,' said Charley; and he spoke the truth, a

They left next morning, for the squire

t do that for me without much damaging you;-perhaps a couple of hundred a year, just to reconcile me to a nose out of joint. For, upon my honour, the squire spoke of making me his heir-or words to that effect neatly conjugated-before you came back; and rather than be a curate like that Reverend Hart of yours, who hands raisins and almonds, and

squire dance in his seat with suppressed fury and jealousy at my way of talking of Venice, and other Continental cities, which he knew I must have visited in my father's society; and though he raged at me and pshawed the Continent to the deuce, he was ready, out of sheer rivalry, to grant anything I pleased to cove

and the suspicion it originated, that Temple might be acting the plain well-bred schoolboy he was, I soon preferred his pattern to my own. He confessed he had found me changed at first. His father, it appeared, was working him as hard at Latin as Mr. Hart worked me, and he sat down

flying British hussar, for Julia's valentine. It seemed to us so successful that we scattered half-a-dozen over the neighbourhood, and rode round it on the morning of St. Valentine's Day to see the effect of them, meeting the postman on the road. He gave me two for myself. One was transparently from Janet, a provoking counterstroke of mine to her; but when I opened the other my heart began bea

why can't I answer him? where is he? what address? Let's ride to London. Don't you understand,

now where he is, there's no good in your going off adventuring. If a

a boiling state of happiness, believing that my father would certainly appear as he had done at Dipwell farm, brilliant and cheerful, to bear me away to new scenes a

erbridge?'

resent. The squi

William Bulsted, frigate Polyphemus; C

ion, Temple asked him if

mate,' said

Gregory Bulsted of Bulsted, notorious for his atta

day of the month, just as lively as you youngsters for one. Saltwater keeps a man's youth in pickle.

with a bronzed skin and a rubicund lau

ack to me secretly. 'It mus

tine from any but a lady

ween the old school and the new, and, as I perceived, as far gone in love with my aunt as his brother was. Presentl

take a draught of our October, brewed here long befo

ll gladly. I wish to preserve my faculties; I don't wish to have it suppose

e an effort

e, trying to frown, but twinkling; my aun

s paid off, he 's not his own master, you are aware. If you think my behaviour calls for comment, reflect, I beseech you, on the nature of a sailor's life. A three-years' cruise i

ard enough,' the

ch of us, nothing underhand; above-board, on the quarter-deck, before all the company. I 'll say it of my brother, I can say it of myself. Greg's chances, I need not remark, are superior to mine; he is always in port. If he wins, then I tell him-"God bless you, my boy; you've won the finest woman, the handsomest, and the best, in or out of Christendom!" But my chance is my property, though it may be value only one farthing coin of the realm, and there is always pity for poor sinners in the female bosom. Miss Beltham, I trespass

g of pity for the poor captain: 'I am deeply honoured by

owing humbly, replied 'I am

quitted

nkard, Sewis,'

tankard turned up to the ceiling

m whether he found

igiously and said: 'It

ll you what: if stout stomachs gained the day in love-affairs, I suspect you'd run a good race against the male h

g to get d

tongue in the morning, I promise you, and pleasant dreams at night.' The captain thanked him

fering him Sewis and one of the footmen to lift him to bed. 'You are very good, squire,' said the captain; 'nothing b

aking him by the hand. Forty years ago a gentleman, a baro

ptain, nodding; 'no, no, I don't go into port pulled by t

s bothering love-busin

, sir, I ch

d us to jump into the chariot beside him. We were witnesses of the meeting between him and h

lliam?' said S

ge in the wind, Greg

e two carpet-shakers, with a repor

r young friends here mean to float with us to-night. It is now half-past eleven A.M. Your dinner-hour the same as usual, of course? Therefore at four P.M. the hour of execution. And come, Greg, you and I will visit the cellar. A dozen and half of light and half-

on of his character, for he persuaded me to send to Riversley for our evening-dress clothes, appearing in which at the dinner-table, we received the captain's compliments, as be

ou have a black tie round your neck in

e by accident,' sa

l residue of spars and timber and old iron? If a woman refuses me, is that an accident? There's a cause for every disaster: too much cargo, want of foresight, want of pluck. Pooh! when I'm hauled prisoner in

declension, not without prid

beyond the name of his wine. So we will abandon the declension of the article for a dash of champagne, which there's no declining, I hope. Wonderful men, those Romans! They fought their ships well, too. A qu

and no thinking, at dinner, Wi

drinking to you, sir, now,' Temple addressed the captain, wh

on board ship

ed him for t

t to know me for something better than I seem. You promise to respect me on my

y dear frien

ght stuff! Good! That 's a way of puttin

royal fellow!

er. The captain's eyes sc

s or mine, Greg,' I heard him

m as much fair play as one who holds a balance. Squire Gregory doubted it, and sipped and kept his nose at his wineglass, crabbedly repeating his doubts of it

ht of my life,' said Squire Gregory. '

lay siege to the citadel. I'd give a year of service for your cha

chaises,' Squir

by a bold strok

o! She's pas

-bottle, half-beauty, with y

e's got her mind on that fel

g. You are muddled. She has a fright about matrimony-a

f course. Where'

y to be there, I'd send him six

be meditating carelessly, and I had the hea

said, 'Are you sure th

uire Grego

oney from

to make it go.' Here th

s rich as the Belthams,'

nigh,

oman, the woman, penniless, naked, mean, destitute; nothing but the woman we wanted. And there was one apiece for us. Greg, old boy, when will the old county show such another cou

ntioned the Billings, the family of my maternal grandmother. The name was like a tongue of fire shooting up in a cloud of smoke: I saw at once that the man in the Bench must be my father, though what the Bench was exactly, and where it was, I had no

the combe?' I sang ac

d the tale of the goose at Rippenger's sch

to offer us a prospect of promotion. 'Spin round the decanters,' said he; 'now's the hour for them to go like a humming-top, and each man lend a hand: whip hard, my lads. It's once in three years, hurrah! and the cause is a cruel woman. Toast her; but no name. H

t be I,' s

the captain corr

erb "To be" governs the nominative

Rippenger, your schoolmaster? Mr. Rippenger, you've knocked some knowledge into this young gentleman.' Temple and I took couns

. Tempus-Julia! By all that's holy, she floats a sinking ship! Julia consoles m

d I tried to meet, but did not accomplish it till next morning at breakfast. A coup

my discovery of my father, and