The Adventures of Harry Rochester: A Tale of the Days of Marlborough and EugeneStrang, Herbert
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The Adventures of Harry Rochester: A Tale of the Days of Marlborough and Eugene
Strang, Herbert
Blenheim, Battle of, Blindheim, Bavaria, Germany, 1704 -- Juvenile fiction
"Eh bien! but it was you who told me what to say. No, I leave it to you:
I have no head for affairs, especially for affairs so complicated. But
it is growing late, and Harry must be tired. We will let him have a
good night’s rest: then to-morrow, ma chérie, you can have a whole
morning together."
The morning turned out bright, and after breakfast Adèle proposed a walk
round the grounds. Harry was nothing loth, and when Madame did not
offer to accompany them, he concluded that, living in England, she had
decided to conform to English ways. In the course of that ramble Harry
heard a story that amazed him.
During the past year Adèle had made many friends among the villagers,
and one friend in particular, old Gaffer Minshull. She had been
specially gracious to him for the sake of Katrinka, who, however quick
she might be in learning how to cook Wiltshire bacon and to sing
Wiltshire songs, was certainly slow in learning Wiltshire English. The
Lady Squire, as he called her, had become a great favourite with the old
man, and, as she grew accustomed to his dialect, he talked to her freely
about the village, the late parson, and the late squire, of whom he was
no longer "afeard". Adèle, like everyone else, had always been puzzled
about Mr. Berkeley’s hatred of Harry, and she asked the old man whether
he knew of any reason for it beyond his being the son of the squire’s
sturdy opponent, Parson Rochester. Minshull confessed that he was as
much perplexed as she. The old squire’s man Jock had told him of the
incident witnessed at the park gate on the day of Harry’s departure for
London, when, seeing him walk by, Mr. Berkeley had looked as if he had
had a shock; and he remembered that Squire had left the Hall in a
post-chaise the next day, though whither they went Jock never would
tell.
This set Adèle thinking. She made further enquiries of the old man.
Had not the squire a brother? At the question Minshull looked hard at
her, and replied with some hesitation that such was the case; he had a
brother, or rather a step-brother. Adèle enquired what had become of
him; she knew, for Grootz had made no secret of his discovery; but she
asked in order to get more information. He died, said the old man, on
the Dover road; a fine young man, though he did hold to that false
Charles One and his light son Charles Two. Then insensibly the old man
was led on to talk at large; he seemed anxious to ease his mind of a
burden; and with the garrulity of old age, and being no longer "afeard"
of the squire, he at length poured out the whole pitiful story.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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