Chapter 44

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,