The Adventures of Harry Richmond, v5

our to Janet's eulogy an

would you find a Radical

n it touch

ting that I was never to change it, and this he requested me to swear to,

asking them to vote for the opposite crew; that's reasonable, eh? And I can't promise you plumpers for the county neither. You can date your Address from Riversley. You'll have your house in town. T

ot quite destitute of consolation in the prospect I presented to him. He was a curious study to me, of the Tory mind, in its attachment to solidity, fixity, certainty, its unmatched generosity within a limit, its devotion to the family, an

ur family messing the business. You'll have to account for him to your wife as you best can. I 've nothing

ppose the man he hated to be a stranger to the princess. Not feeling sure whether it might be common prudence to delude him even passively, I thought of asking Janet for her opinion, but refrained. A stout deceiver has his merits, but a feeble hypocrite ap

n we thought ourselves floating on canal waters. A canal barge (an image to me of the most perfect attainable peace), suddenly, on its passage through our long fir-woods, with their scented reeds and flowing rus

ing fact that the Christian religion appeared to be more divided than, Peterborough regretted to say, the forms of idolatry established by the Buddha, Mahomet, and other impostors. He c

, who had too strong a turn for showing her ke

ed her. We ran him and his schoolboy, the finite refractory, up and down, until Peterborough was glad to abandon him, and Janet said, 'Did you preach to t

s wish?' Janet

upon me in that capacity, and acting thereon I proffered my occasional services. Lutheranism and Anglicanism are not, doubtless you are aware, divided on the broader bases. We are common Protestants. The Papacy, I can assure

d my aunt Dorothy said, 'You and H

grand as they could

an assent, designed to

due bounds,

etto notes of a puzzle solved in the mind. 'It was

ugh, but her quickly-altered features caused him to dr

a round side-eye on

y with a grim under- jaw, 'His private chaplain!' and for this once would not hear her, 'Grandada, I shall drive you over to see papa this afternoon.' She talked as if nothing had gone w

in!' the squire

on,' Janet said to Peterborough. '

ter, I must look to it; I h

e might escape, but th

inutes before you're o

oke on S

nd cordially, as to signify that they were of one

ther day. There,' the squire dispersed Peterborough's unnecessary air of abstruse recollection, 'don't look

oice to soften this rough treatment of him with the

e garlanded victim lowing as I

ow. But will he fib? I don't think he's capable of it, and I'm sure he ca

g the squire's promise that Peterborough should h

t!-and, worse, to be unable to conscientiously defend himself! The pain to him was in the conscience,-which is, like the spleen, a function whose uses are only to be understood in its derangement. He had eased his conscience to every question right out, and he rejoiced to me at the immense relief it gave him. Conscientiously, he could not deny that he knew the squire's objection to my being in my father's society; and he had connived at it 'for

his rancour and keep my fortunes trembling in the balance. Under these circumstances it was impossible for me to despatch a letter to Ottilia, though I found that I could write one now, and I sat in my room writing all day,-most eloquent stuff it was. The shadow of misfortune restored the sense of my heroical situation, which my father had extinguished, and this unlocked the powers of speech. I wrote so admirably that my wretchedness could enjoy the fine m

hat side-cast cock's eye of his on me, and

ather might have it in his custody; for he had a cheque-book of his own, and regulate

my seeing that boo

hatever

honour to write for the book t

me to break the cover, insisting, 'You're su

me perfectly unimportant. I did not see a glimpse

word I know nothing

look at the book if he pleased, but with prudence sufficiently awak

Janet had her teeth on her lower lip, watching the old man's face. I did not condescend to be curious; but when I

e I go into this!' he exclaimed, and s

nded him that Prayer

her motion to ring the bell for the servants, and addre

e jog-trot at a touch of the whip. 'A-yes; that is-oh,

xceptions; there we

uire cut him short; 'I don't want

l after it. 'A slight cold,' he murmured and resumed the note, and threw himself maniacally into it. The unexpected figure of Capt

, William?' the

outly toward Peterborough, who had waited to see him take his seat, and must now, in his hurry to perform his duty, sweep the peccant littl

tered of requiring none of his clerical legerdemain with books of business. Tears were in Peterborough's eyes.

the musical voice of inquiry: ' Pr

t, 'I'd not have had this happen, sir, for money in lumps. I've always known I should hang the day when my house wasn't blessed in the morning by prayer. So did my father, and his before him. Fiddle! sir, you can't

claimed his innocence, and it was unlikely

his wife, whom he had not found a

squire, 'you don't mean to tel

said the captain, '

ia simply and manfully, as became a gallant seaman, cordially excusing his wife for not having been at home to welcome him, with the singular plea, based on his knowledge of the sex, that the nearer she knew him to be the less able wa

gs were getting bette

a heathen Radical. It's Scripture says we're going from better to worse, and that's Tory doc

eltham, 'I have, thanks to you, never known happ

she said. 'You'll oblige me by not attending to any matter of

ye mean,

k done on a Su

I'll lock u

d for that, gran

ed, taking Peter

now, William, out with your

rned to the door my aunt D

er the old

nfernally sorry for you now, that I am! B

say she's not an angel, I flatten him dead as his lie. By the wa

William, and a trim s

ff, sir;

Bulsted, I should hold any man but you accounta

hand,' he cri

omised my girl. We'll go into it to-morrow, he and I, early. The fellow has shot away thousands and thousands-been gallivanting among his foreign duchesses and coun

d struck a terrific encomium on my shoulder

if he was going to

quire's promise to him of a sermon that would pickle his temper for a whole week's wear and tear. He regretted extreme

n Bulsted said, 'deputed by some of you to fetch her over to Riversley. My servants mentioned his name. I thought it adviseable not to trouble the ladies wi

ompany him at once t

doubted her fidelity. My girl

the impudent invitation without scruple, had allowed herself to be driven away without stating the place of her destination. She and Heriot were in the Higginsons' pew at church. Hearing from Janet of her hu

e a bit of sympathy for us?' Julia began. 'We 're like on a pitchfork. There's William's duty to his country, and there 's his affection for me, and they won't go together, because Government, which is that horrid Adm

happy enough for twenty whole one

e moderately coarse traps for the voluble frank creature, which she evaded with surprising neatness, showing herself more awake than one would have imagined her. Janet and I fancied she must have come with the intention to act

e to him until I, driven at bay by questions and insults, and perceiving that concealment could not long be practised, made a virtue of the situation by telling him (what he in fact must have seen) that my father possessed a cheque-book as well as I, and likewise drew upon the account. We had required the money; it was mine, and I had sold out Bank Stock and Consols,-which gave very poor interest, I remarked cursorily-and had kept the money at my bankers', to draw upon according to our necessities. I pitied the old man while speaking. His face was

a fool, yo

ch thought in

p to lay hold of her money, and then grips him fast and pecks him, fleeces him! . . . You 're beggared-d 'ye know that? He's had the two years of you, and sucked you dry. What were you about? What were you doing? Did you

nd her family with being a pack of greedy adventurers, conspirators with 'that fellow' to plunder me; and for a proof of it, he quoted my words, that my father's time had been spent in superintending the opening of a coal-mine on Prince Ernest's estate. 'That fellow pretending to manage a coal-min

!' sai

The squire t

. If Harry has offended you, speak like one gentleman to another

a scoundrel and

d: 'I don't permit you to change

mperately, he began the whole history of my bankers' book

with me, dear H

ought the squire to a climax. 'You won't go out and walk with her? You shall go down on your knees to her and beg her to give you her arm for a walk. By God! you shall,

ted me t

r have my arm.' Janet's eyes

e shall whine like a beggar out in t

sks me first

lways be friends,' roused the loudest of his denunciations upon me, as though there never had been question of the princess, so inveterate was his mind's grasp of its original designs. Friends! Would our being friends give him heirs by law to his estate and name? And so forth. My aunt Dorothy came to moderate his invectives. In her room the heavily- burdened little book of figures was produced, and the items

quire, amazed at the small amazement he created 'you think these two fellows

as had his lesson. And surely it is better now than later? But you are,

e; and she allowed him to have the not

rawn since he came home

the captain and the squire were left alone together. Some time afterward the captain sent out word that he begged his wife's permission to stay to dinner at the Grange, and requested

se feminine graces-a plump figure, swinging skirts, dewy dark eyelids, laughing red lips-could indeed be absolute love. And if it was not love of the immortal kind, what was I? I looked back on the thought like the ship on its furrow through the waters, and saw every mortal perplexity, and death under. My love of Ottilia delusion? Then life was delusion! I contemplated Julia in alarm, somewhat in the light fair witches were looked on when the faggots were piled for them. The sense of her unholy attractions abased and mortified me: and it set me thinking on the strangeness of my disregard of Mdlle. Jenny Chassediane when in Germany, who was far sprightlier, if not prettier, and, as I remembered, had done me the favour to make discr

to him; "gentlemen don't meet in barns; none but mice and traps make appointments there." To shorten my story, my lad, I have arranged for the squire and your excellent progenitor to meet at Bulsted: we may end by bringing them over a bottle of old Greg's best. "See the boy's father," I kept on insisting. The point is, that this confounded book must be off your shoulders, my lad. A dirty dog may wash in a duck-pond. You see, Harry, the dear old s

ibulous husbands, and the captain looked uncomfortably checked; but when he seemed to be coll

, my swe

e flashing your sword after

her, and sent a tremend

fect a

f making money spin, fly, and vanish, like sparks from a fire- engine, awakened a serious disposition in me to bring our monetary partnership to some definite settlement. He was living in splendour, next door but one to the grand establishment he had driven me to from Dipwell in the old days,

Mabel Sweetwinter. 'Your papa never does things by halves, Mr. Harry!' Soon after she was whimpering, 'Oh, will it last?' I was shown into the room called 'The princess's room,' a miracle of furniture, not likely to be occupied by her, I thought, the very magnificence of the apartment striking

ITOR'S B

insin

th her eyelids i

; but oh! be sure

defend my

war are w

operly so called,

alled law

e ironical lau

exaggerated f

re divine. They m