The Adventures of Harry Richmond. Volume 7

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George Meredith. The Adventures of Harry Richmond. Volume 7

CHAPTER XLV. WITHIN AN INCH OF MY LIFE

CHAPTER XLVI. AMONG GIPSY WOMEN

CHAPTER XLVII. MY FATHER ACTS THE CHARMER AGAIN

CHAPTER XLVIII. THE PRINCESS ENTRAPPED

CHAPTER XLIX. WHICH FORESHADOWS A GENERAL GATHERING

CHAPTER L. WE ARE ALL IN MY FATHER'S NET

CHAPTER LI. AN ENCOUNTER SHOWING MY FATHER'S GENIUS IN A STRONG LIGHT

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I cannot say how long it was after my senses had gone when I began to grope for them on the warmest of heaving soft pillows, and lost the slight hold I had on them with the effort. Then came a series of climbings and fallings, risings to the surface and sinkings fathoms below. Any attempt to speculate pitched me back into darkness. Gifted with a pair of enormous eyes, which threw surrounding objects to a distance of a mile away, I could not induce the diminutive things to approach; and shutting eyes led to such a rolling of mountains in my brain, that, terrified by the gigantic revolution, I lay determinedly staring; clothed, it seemed positive, in a tight-fitting suit of sheet- lead; but why? I wondered why, and immediately received an extinguishing blow. My pillow was heavenly; I was constantly being cooled on it, and grew used to hear a croon no more musical than the unstopped reed above my head; a sound as of a breeze about a cavern's mouth, more soothing than a melody. Conjecture of my state, after hovering timidly in dread of relapses, settled and assured me I was lying baked, half-buried in an old river-bed; moss at my cheek, my body inextricable; water now and then feebly striving to float me out, with horrid pain, with infinite refreshingness. A shady light, like the light through leafage, I could see; the water I felt. Why did it keep trying to move me? I questioned and sank to the depths again.

The excruciated patient was having his wet bandages folded across his bruises, and could not bear a motion of the mind.

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My despot Kiomi fired invectives at her mother. The old mother retorted; the girl joined in. All three were scowling, flashing, showing teeth, driving the wordy javelin upon one another, indiscriminately, or two to one, without a pause; all to a sound like the slack silver string of the fiddle.

I sang out truce to them; they racked me with laughter; and such laughter!—the shaking of husks in a half-empty sack.

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