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- CHAPTER XLIV.
REDBURN INTRODUCES MASTER HARRY BOLTON TO THE FAVORABLE CONSIDERATION
OF THE READER
It was the day following my Sunday stroll into the country, and when I
had been in England four weeks or more, that I made the acquaintance of
a handsome, accomplished, but unfortunate youth, young Harry Bolton. He
was one of those small, but perfectly formed beings, with curling hair,
and silken muscles, who seem to have been born in cocoons. His
complexion was a mantling brunette, feminine as a girl’s; his feet were
small; his hands were white; and his eyes were large, black, and
womanly; and, poetry aside, his voice was as the sound of a harp.
But where, among the tarry docks, and smoky sailor-lanes and by-ways of
a seaport, did I, a battered Yankee boy, encounter this courtly youth?
Several evenings I had noticed him in our street of boarding-houses,
standing in the doorways, and silently regarding the animated scenes
without. His beauty, dress, and manner struck me as so out of place in
such a street, that I could not possibly divine what had transplanted
this delicate exotic from the conservatories of some Regent-street to
the untidy potato-patches of Liverpool.
At last I suddenly encountered him at the sign of the Baltimore
Clipper. He was speaking to one of my shipmates concerning America; and
from something that dropped, I was led to imagine that he contemplated
a voyage to my country. Charmed with his appearance, and all eagerness
to enjoy the society of this incontrovertible son of a gentleman—a kind
of pleasure so long debarred me—I smoothed down the skirts of my
jacket, and at once accosted him; declaring who I was, and that nothing
would afford me greater delight than to be of the least service, in
imparting any information concerning America that he needed.
He glanced from my face to my jacket, and from my jacket to my face,
and at length, with a pleased but somewhat puzzled expression, begged
me to accompany him on a walk.
We rambled about St. George’s Pier until nearly midnight; but before we
parted, with uncommon frankness, he told me many strange things
respecting his history.
According to his own account, Harry Bolton was a native of Bury St.
Edmunds, a borough of Suffolk, not very far from London, where he was
early left an orphan, under the charge of an only aunt. Between his
aunt and himself, his mother had divided her fortune; and young Harry
thus fell heir to a portion of about five thousand pounds.
Being of a roving mind, as he approached his majority he grew restless
of the retirement of a country place; especially as he had no
profession or business of any kind to engage his attention.
In vain did Bury, with all its fine old monastic attractions, lure him
to abide on the beautiful banks of her Larke, and under the shadow of
her stately and storied old Saxon tower.
By all my rare old historic associations, breathed Bury; by my
Abbey-gate, that bears to this day the arms of Edward the Confessor; by
my carved roof of the old church of St. Mary’s, which escaped the low
rage of the bigoted Puritans; by the royal ashes of Mary Tudor, that
sleep in my midst; by my Norman ruins, and by all the old abbots of
Bury, do not, oh Harry! abandon me. Where will you find shadier walks
than under my lime-trees? where lovelier gardens than those within the
old walls of my monastery, approached through my lordly Gate? Or if, oh
Harry! indifferent to my historic mosses, and caring not for my annual
verdure, thou must needs be lured by other tassels, and wouldst fain,
like the Prodigal, squander thy patrimony, then, go not away from old
Bury to do it. For here, on Angel-Hill, are my coffee and card-rooms,
and billiard saloons, where you may lounge away your mornings, and
empty your glass and your purse as you list.
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