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The Adventures of Harry Richmond, Complete

Chapter 4 I HAVE A TASTE OF GRANDEUR

Word Count: 4045    |    Released on: 06/12/2017

n apparition and connection with my fortunes. I could not tire of hearing the pleasant music of the many feet at the trot, and tried to explain to my father that the men g

nd only true companion, besides his being my hero. The wicked men who had parted us were no longer able to

ain playing thin as whipcord, among ferns, in a rock-basin under a window that glowed with kings of England, copied from boys' history books. All the servants were drawn up in the hall to do homage to me. They seemed less real and living than

who was too busy. As we mounted the stairs I saw more kings of England painted on the back-windows. Mrs. Waddy said: 'It is considered to give a monarchical effect,'-she coughed modestly after the long word, and pursued: 'as it should.' I insisted upon going to t

, downstairs,' I said, sur

it their lamentable fate. 'And did the people look at you

ll and its inhabitants than of the sensation created everywhere by our equipage. I noticed that when her voice was not melancholy her face was. She showed me a beautiful little pink bed, having a crown ov

ke it, Mrs. W

my dear, to be sure I do. I only hope it w

d violently except myself, and my principal concern was lest any one should carry me away at a moment's notice. In the evening I was introduced to a company of gentlemen, who were drinking wine after d

ly. 'They are going, gentlemen, going there, like good wine, like old Port, which they

ut my father had fallen mour

ed my mornings. My father told the man who instructed me in the art of self-defence that our family had always patronized his profession. I wrestled ten minutes every day with this man's son, and was regularly thrown. On fine afternoons I was dressed in black velvet for a drive in the park, where my father uncovered his head to numbers of people, and was much looked at. 'It is our duty, my son, never to forget na

nd Mrs. Waddy, like a dragon in a piece of tapestry, would resume his old playfulness, and try to be the same that he had been in Mrs. Waddy's lodgings. Then we read the Arabian Nights together, or, rather, he read them to me, often acting out the incidents as we rode or drove abroad. An omission to perform a duty was the fatal forgetfulness to sprinkle pepper on the cream-tarts; if my father subjected me to an interrogation concerning my lessons, he was the dread African magician to whom must be surrendered my acquisition of the ring and the musty old lamp. We were quite in the habit of meeting fair Persians. He would frequently ejaculate that he resembled the Three Calendars in more respects than one. To divert me during my recovery from measles, he one day hired an actor in a theatre, and put a cloth ro

kind and beautiful Peribanou, whom I would not have minded his marrying. My favourite dream was to see him shooting an arrow in a match for a prize, and losing the prize because of not finding his arrow, and wondering where the arrow had flown to, and wandering after it till he passed out of green fields to

I lay in a gondola with a young lady. My father made friends fast on our travels: her parents were among the number, and she fell in love with me and enjoyed having the name of Peribanou, which I bestowed on her for her delicious talk of the blue and red-striped posts that would spout up fountains of pearls if they were plucked from their beds, and the palaces that had flown out of the farthest corners of the world, and the city that would some night or other vanish suddenly, leaving bare sea-ripple to say 'Where? where?' as they rolled over. I would have seen her marry my father happily. She was like rest and dreams to me, soft sea and pea

ch was done. He took me between his knees, and said impressively, 'Now, Richie, twelve dozen of the best that man can drink await you at the gates of manhood. Few fathers can say that to their sons, my boy! If we drink it together, blessings on the day! If I'm gone, Richie, shut up in the long box,' his voice shook, and he added, 'gone to Peribanou underneath, you know,

ble. We sealed the subject with some tears. He often talked of commissioning a poet to compose verses about that wonderful coming day at Dipwell. The thought of th

e we shall all be by

. She had got the habit of exclaiming at the end of her remarks, 'No matter; our clock strikes soon!' in a way that communicated to me an obscure idea of a door going to open unexpectedly in one of the walls, and conduct us, by subterranean passages, into

d postillions; we flashed through London. My father backed a horse to run in the races on Epsom Downs named Prince Royal, only for the reason that his name was Prince Royal, and the horse won, which was, he said, a proof to me that in our country it was common prudence to stick to Royalty; and he bade me note that if he went in a carriage and two, he was comparatively unnoticed, whereas when he was beheld in a carriage and four, with postillions, at a glance from him the country people tugged their forelocks, and would like, if he would let them, to kiss his hand. 'We will try the sc

I poured out a flood of complaints against Mrs. Waddy for vexing my father. When she heard of the scarlet livery, my aunt lifted her hands. 'The man is near the end of his wits and his money together,' said Mr. Bannerbridge; and she said to me, 'My darling Harry will come back to his own nice little room, and see his grandpapa soon, won't you, my pet? All is ready for him there as it used to be, except poor mam

'Yes,' though my heart sank as if I had lost my father with the word. She caught me in her arms tight, murmuring, 'And

being educated morally and virtuously as became the grandson of an English gentleman of a good old family, and of my father having spent my mother's estate, and of the danger of his doing so with mine, and of religious duty and the awfulness of the position Mrs. Waddy stood in. He certainly subdued me to very silent breathing, but did not affect me as my aunt Dorothy's picturing of Riversley had done; and when Mrs. Waddy, reduced to an apparent submissiveness, addresse

ar that insult and shame had been cast on him at Riversley for me to hate the name of the place. We cried and then laughed together, and I must have delivered myself with amazing eloquence, for my father held me at arms' length and said, 'Richie, the notion of training you for a General commandership of the British army is a good one, but if you have got the winning tongue, the woolsack will do as well for a whisper in the ear of the throne. That is our aim, my son. We say,-you will not acknowledge our birth, you shall acknowle

e baited remained bare-headed until we started afresh, and I, according to my father's example, bowed and lifted my cap gravely to persons saluting us along the roads. Nor did I seek to know the reason for this excess of respectfulness; I was beginning to take to it naturally. At the end of a dusty high-road, where it descends the hill into a town, we drew up close by a high red wall, behind which I heard boys shouting at play. We went among them, accompanied by their master. My father tipped the head boy for the benefit of the school, and following lunch with the master and his daughter, to whom I gave a kiss at her request, a half-holiday was granted to t

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1 Chapter 1 I AM A SUBJECT OF CONTENTION2 Chapter 2 AN ADVENTURE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT3 Chapter 3 DIPWELL FARM4 Chapter 4 I HAVE A TASTE OF GRANDEUR5 Chapter 5 I MAKE A DEAR FRIEND6 Chapter 6 A TALE OF A GOOSE7 Chapter 7 A FREE LIFE ON THE ROAD8 Chapter 8 JANET ILCHESTER9 Chapter 9 AN EVENING WITH CAPTAIN BULSTED10 Chapter 10 AN EXPEDITION11 Chapter 11 THE GREAT FOG AND THE FIRE AT MIDNIGHT12 Chapter 12 WE FIND OURSELVES BOUND ON A VOYAGE13 Chapter 13 WE CONDUCT SEVERAL LEARNED ARGUMENTS WITH THE CAPTAIN OF THE PRISCILLA14 Chapter 14 I MEET OLD FRIENDS15 Chapter 15 WE ARE ACCOSTED BY A BEAUTIFUL LITTLE LADY IN THE FOREST16 Chapter 16 THE STATUE ON THE PROMONTORY17 Chapter 17 MY FATHER BREATHES, MOVES, AND SPEAKS18 Chapter 18 WE PASS A DELIGHTFUL EVENING, AND I HAVE A MORNING VISION19 Chapter 19 OUR RETURN HOMEWARD20 Chapter 20 NEWS OF A FRESH CONQUEST OF MY FATHER'S21 Chapter 21 A PROMENADE IN BATH22 Chapter 22 CONCLUSION OF THE BATH EPISODE23 Chapter 23 MY TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY24 Chapter 24 I MEET THE PRINCESS25 Chapter 25 ON BOARD A YACHT26 Chapter 26 IN VIEW OF THE HOHENZOLLERN'S BIRTHPLACE27 Chapter 27 THE TIME OF ROSES28 Chapter 28 OTTILIA29 Chapter 29 AN EVENING WITH DR. JULIUS VON KARSTEG30 Chapter 30 A SUMMER STORM, AND LOVE31 Chapter 31 PRINCESS OTTILIA'S LETTER32 Chapter 32 AN INTERVIEW WITH PRINCE ERNEST AND A MEETING WITH PRINCE OTTO33 Chapter 33 WHAT CAME OF A SHILLING34 Chapter 34 I GAIN A PERCEPTION OF PRINCELY STATE35 Chapter 35 THE SCENE IN THE LAKE-PALACE LIBRARY36 Chapter 36 HOMEWARD AND HOME AGAIN37 Chapter 37 JANET RENOUNCES ME38 Chapter 38 MY BANKERS' BOOK39 Chapter 39 I SEE MY FATHER TAKING THE TIDE AND AM CARRIED ON IT MYSELF40 Chapter 40 MY FATHER'S MEETING WITH MY GRANDFATHER41 Chapter 41 COMMENCEMENT OF THE SPLENDOURS AND PERPLEXITIES OF MY FATHER'S GRAND42 Chapter 42 THE MARQUIS OF EDBURY AND HIS PUPPET43 Chapter 43 I BECOME ONE OF THE CHOSEN OF THE NATION44 Chapter 44 MY FATHER IS MIRACULOUSLY RELIEVED BY FORTUNE45 Chapter 45 WITHIN AN INCH OF MY LIFE46 Chapter 46 AMONG GIPSY WOMEN47 Chapter 47 MY FATHER ACTS THE CHARMER AGAIN48 Chapter 48 THE PRINCESS ENTRAPPED49 Chapter 49 WHICH FORESHADOWS A GENERAL GATHERING50 Chapter 50 WE ARE ALL IN MY FATHER'S NET51 Chapter 51 AN ENCOUNTER SHOWING MY FATHER'S GENIUS IN A STRONG LIGHT52 Chapter 52 STRANGE REVELATIONS, AND MY GRANDFATHER HAS HIS LAST OUTBURST53 Chapter 53 THE HEIRESS PROVES THAT SHE INHERITS THE FEUD AND I GO DRIFTING54 Chapter 54 MY RETURN TO ENGLAND55 Chapter 55 I MEET MY FIRST PLAYFELLOW AND TAKE MY PUNISHMENT56 Chapter 56 CONCLUSION