The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer — Volume 1Lever, Charles
General
The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer — Volume 1
Lever, Charles
Fiction
No sooner in Liverpool, than I hastened to take my place in the earliest
conveyance for London. At that time the Umpire Coach was the perfection
of fast travelling; and seated behind the box, enveloped in a sufficiency
of broad-cloth, I turned my face towards town with as much anxiety and as
ardent expectations as most of those about me. All went on in the
regular monotonous routine of such matters until we reached Northampton,
passing down the steep street of which town, the near wheel-horse
stumbled and fell; the coach, after a tremendous roll to one side,
toppled over on the other, and with a tremendous crash, and sudden shock,
sent all the outsides, myself among the number, flying through the air
like sea-gulls. As for me, after describing a very respectable parabola,
my angle of incidence landed me in a bonnet-maker's shop, having passed
through a large plate-glass window, and destroyed more leghorns and
dunstables than a year's pay would recompense. I have but light
recollection of the details of that occasion, until I found myself lying
in a very spacious bed at the George Inn, having been bled in both arms,
and discovering by the multitude of bandages in which I was enveloped,
that at least some of my bones were broken by the fall. That such fate
had befallen my collar-bone and three of my ribs I soon learned; and was
horror-struck at hearing from the surgeon who attended me, that four or
five weeks would be the very earliest period I could bear removal with
safety. Here then at once was a large deduction from my six months'
leave, not to think of the misery that awaited me for such a time,
confined to my bed in an inn, without books, friends, or acquaintances.
However even this could be remedied by patience, and summoning up all I
could command, I "bided my time," but not before I had completed a term
of two months' imprisonment, and had become, from actual starvation,
something very like a living transparency.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account