The Ordeal of Richard Feverel — CompleteMeredith, George
General
The Ordeal of Richard Feverel — Complete
Meredith, George
Domestic fiction; England -- Fiction; English fiction -- 19th century; Fathers and sons -- Fiction
The flow of their conversation was interrupted by the entrance of
passengers at a station. Richard examined their faces with pleasure.
All faces pleased him. Human nature sat tributary at the feet of him
and his Golden Bride. As he could not well talk his thoughts before
them, he looked out at the windows, and enjoyed the changing landscape,
projecting all sorts of delights for his old friend Ripton, and musing
hazily on the wondrous things he was to do in the world; of the great
service he was to be to his fellow-creatures. In the midst of his
reveries he was landed in London. Tom Bakewell stood at the carriage
door. A glance told Richard that his squire had something curious on
his mind; and he gave Tom the word to speak out. Tom edged his master
out of hearing, and began sputtering a laugh.
“Dash’d if I can help it, sir!” he said. “That young Tom! He’ve come to
town dressed that spicy! and he don’t know his way about no more than a
stag. He’s come to fetch somebody from another rail, and he don’t know
how to get there, and he ain’t sure about which rail ’tis. Look at him,
Mr. Richard! There he goes.”
Young Tom appeared to have the weight of all London on his beaver.
“Who has he come for?” Richard asked.
“Don’t you know, sir? You don’t like me to mention the name,” mumbled
Tom, bursting to be perfectly intelligible.
“Is it for her, Tom?”
“Miss Lucy, sir.”
Richard turned away, and was seized by Hippias, who begged him to get
out of the noise and pother, and caught hold of his slack arm to bear
him into a conveyance; but Richard, by wheeling half to the right, or
left, always got his face round to the point where young Tom was
manoeuvring to appear at his ease. Even when they were seated in the
conveyance, Hippias could not persuade him to drive off. He made the
excuse that he did not wish to start till there was a clear road. At
last young Tom cast anchor by a policeman, and, doubtless at the
official’s suggestion, bashfully took seat in a cab, and was shot into
the whirlpool of London. Richard then angrily asked his driver what he
was waiting for.
“Are you ill, my boy?” said Hippias. “Where’s your colour?”
He laughed oddly, and made a random answer that he hoped the fellow
would drive fast.
“I hate slow motion after being in the railway,” he said.
Hippias assured him there was something the matter with him.
“Nothing, uncle! nothing!” said Richard, looking fiercely candid.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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