The Adventures of Harry Richmond — Volume 8Meredith, George
General
The Adventures of Harry Richmond — Volume 8
Meredith, George
Adventure and adventurers -- Fiction
I thought to myself in despair, under what protest can I also escape from
England and my own intemperate mind? It seemed a miraculous answer:--
There lay at my chambers a note written by Count Kesensky; I went to the
embassy, and heard of an Austrian ship of war being at one of our ports
upon an expedition to the East, and was introduced to the captain, a
gentlemanly fellow, like most of the officers of his Government. Finding
in me a German scholar, and a joyful willingness, he engaged me to take
the post of secretary to the expedition in the place of an invalided
Freiherr von Redwitz. The bargain was struck immediately: I was to be
ready to report myself to the captain on board not later than the
following day. Count Kesensky led me aside: he regretted that he could
do nothing better for me: but I thought his friendliness extreme and
astonishing, and said so; whereupon the count assured me that his
intentions were good, though he had not been of great use hitherto--an
allusion to the borough of Chippenden he had only heard of von Redwitz's
illness that afternoon. I thanked him cordially, saying I was much in
his debt, and he bowed me out, letting me fancy, as my father had fancied
before me, and as though I had never observed and reflected in my life,
that the opportuneness of this intervention signified a special action of
Providence.
The flattery of the thought served for an elixir. But with whom would my
father abide during my absence? Captain Bulsted and Julia saved me from
a fit of remorse; they had come up to town on purpose to carry him home
with them, and had left a message on my table, and an invitation to
dinner at their hotel, where the name of Janet was the Marino Faliero of
our review of Riversley people and old times. The captain and his wife
were indignant at her conduct. Since, however, I chose to excuse it,
they said they would say nothing more about her, and she was turned face
to the wall. I told them how Janet had taken him for months. 'But I 'll
take him for years,' said Julia. 'The truth is, Harry, my old dear!
William and I are never so united--for I'm ashamed to quarrel with him--
as when your father's at Bulsted. He belongs to us, and other people
shall know you 're not obliged to depend on your family for help, and
your aunt Dorothy can come and see him whenever she likes.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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