The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 21 — John Shaqi
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 21Stevenson, Robert Louis
General
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 21
Stevenson, Robert Louis
English literature -- 19th century
"I'll tell you what you are, sir," pursued the Squire. "You're a
Benthamite. I disown you. Your mother would have died for shame;
there was no modern cant about your mother; she thought--she said to me,
sir--I'm glad she's in her grave, Dick Naseby. Misinformed! Misinformed,
sir? Have you no loyalty, no spring, no natural affections? Are you
clockwork, hey? Away! This is no place for you. Away!" (Waving his hands
in the air.) "Go away! Leave me!"
At this moment Dick beat a retreat in a disarray of nerves, a whistling
and clamour of his own arteries, and in short in such a final bodily
disorder as made him alike incapable of speech or hearing. And in the
midst of all this turmoil, a sense of unpardonable injustice remained
graven in his memory.
CHAPTER III
IN THE ADMIRAL'S NAME
There was no return to the subject. Dick and his father were henceforth
on terms of coldness. The upright old gentleman grew more upright when
he met his son, buckrammed with immortal anger; he asked after Dick's
health, and discussed the weather and the crops with an appalling
courtesy; his pronunciation was _point-de-vice_, his voice was distant,
distinct, and sometimes almost trembling with suppressed indignation.
As for Dick, it seemed to him as if his life had come abruptly to an
end. He came out of his theories and clevernesses; his premature
man-of-the-worldness, on which he had prided himself on his travels,
"shrank like a thing ashamed" before this real sorrow. Pride, wounded
honour, pity and respect tussled together daily in his heart; and now he
was within an ace of throwing himself upon his father's mercy, and now
of slipping forth at night and coming back no more to Naseby House. He
suffered from the sight of his father, nay, even from the neighbourhood
of this familiar valley, where every corner had its legend, and he was
besieged with memories of childhood. If he fled into a new land, and
among none but strangers, he might escape his destiny, who knew? and
begin again light-heartedly. From that chief peak of the hills, that now
and then, like an uplifted finger, shone in an arrow of sunlight through
the broken clouds, the shepherd in clear weather might perceive the
shining of the sea. There, he thought, was hope. But his heart failed
him when he saw the Squire; and he remained. His fate was not that of
the voyager by sea and land; he was to travel in the spirit, and begin
his journey sooner than he supposed.
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