The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer — Volume 6 — Text and Context

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In Category - Historical Psychological Social Fiction

Authors: Lever, Charles, 1806-1872, Browne, Hablot Knight, 1815-1882 [Illustrator] Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2004 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Fiction Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 41,565

Reading time 181 min

Text sections 4

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Source: Project Gutenberg record #5239

In Volume 6 of Harry Lorrequer's confessions, Charles Lever shifts between picaresque adventure and financial anxiety, using a first-person narrator whose voice modulates from bluster to vulnerability. The excerpts reveal a pattern of hurried departures, dwindling funds, and marital strain, with Lever's prose alternating between comic detail and tense introspection.

Editorial Edition Score 4.7/5

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Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

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File: pg5239

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CHAPTER XLII. The Journey

CHAPTER XLIII. The Journey

CHAPTER XLIV. A Reminscence of the East

CHAPTER XLV. A Day in the Phoenix

CHAPTER XLVI. An Adventure in Canada

CHAPTER XLVII. The Courier's Passport

CHAPTER XLVIII. A Night in Strasbourg

CHAPTER XLIX. A Surprise

CHAPTER L. Jack Waller's Story

CHAPTER LII. Inn at Munich

CHAPTER LIII. The Ball

CHAPTER LIV. A Discovery

CHAPTER LV. Conclusion

Trevanion came at last. He had obtained my passport, and engaged a carriage to convey me about eight miles, where I should overtake the diligence--such a mode of travelling being judged more likely to favour my escape, by attracting less attention than posting. It was past ten when I left the Rue St. Honore, having shaken hands with Trevanion for the last time, and charged him with ten thousand soft messages for the "friends" I left behind me.

When I arrived at the village of St. Jacques, the diligence had not come up. To pass away the time, I ordered a little supper and a bottle of St. Julien. Scarcely had I seated myself to my "cotelette," when the rapid whirl of wheels was heard without, and a cab drew up suddenly at the door. So naturally does the fugitive suspect pursuit, that my immediate impression was, that I was followed. In this notion I was strengthened by the tones of a cracked, discordant voice, asking in very peculiar French if the "diligence had passed?" Being answered in the negative he walked into the room where I was, and speedily by his appearance, removed any apprehensions I had felt as to my safety. Nothing could less resemble the tall port and sturdy bearing of a gendarme, than the diminutive and dwarfish individual before me. His height could scarcely have reached five feet, of which the head formed fully a fourth part; and even this was rendered in appearance still greater by a mass of loosely floating black hair that fell upon his neck and shoulders, and gave him much the air of a "black lion" on a sign board. His black frock, fur-collared and braided--his ill-made boots, his meerschaum projecting from his breast-pocket, above all, his unwashed hands, and a heavy gold ring upon his thumb--all made up an ensemble of evidences that showed he could be nothing but a German. His manner was bustling, impatient, and had it not been ludicrous, would certainly be considered as insolent to every one about him, for he stared each person abruptly in the face, and mumbled some broken expressions of his opinion of them half-aloud in German. His comments ran on:--"Bon soir, Monsieur," to the host: "Ein boesewicht, ganz sicher"--"a scoundrel without doubt;" and then added, still lower, "Rob you here as soon as look at you." "Ah, postillion! comment va?"--"much more like a brigand after all--I know which I'd take you for." "Ver fluchte fraw"--"how ugly the woman is." This compliment was intended for the hostess, who curtsied down to the ground in her ignorance. At last approaching me, he stopped, and having steadily surveyed me, muttered, "Ein echter Englander"--"a thorough Englishman, always eating." I could not resist the temptation to assure him that I was perfectly aware of his flattering impression in my behalf, though I had speedily to regret my precipitancy, for, less mindful of the rebuke than pleased at finding some one who understood German, he drew his chair beside me and entered into conversation.

Every one has surely felt, some time or other in life, the insufferable annoyance of having his thoughts and reflections interfered with, and broken in upon by the vulgar impertinence and egotism of some "bore," who, mistaking your abstraction for attention and your despair for delight, inflicts upon you his whole life and adventures, when your own immediate destinies are perhaps vacillating in the scale.

Such a doom was now mine! Occupied as I was by the hope of the future, and my fears lest any impediment to my escape should blast my prospects for ever, I preferred appearing to pay attention to this confounded fellow's "personal narrative" lest his questions, turning on my own affairs, might excite suspicions as to the reasons of my journey.

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From the opening lines of Volume 6, Charles Lever establishes a narrator who is perpetually in motion—fleeing Paris by night, overtaking a diligence, and bracing for pursuit. The voice is confiding and slightly breathless, as Harry Lorrequer recounts his escape with a mix of bravado and self-mockery. Lever’s prose here is brisk, punctuated by sensory details: the “rapid whirl of wheels,” a bottle of St. Julien, the “cracked, discordant voice” of a stranger. Yet beneath the comic surface, a note of financial dread emerges. The narrator’s calculations—forty pounds per week, a limit of two hundred—ground the adventure in practical anxiety. This volume, the sixth in the series, continues Lorrequer’s confessions with a narrative voice that is by turns expansive and constrained, mirroring the character’s own precarious circumstances.

A Voice Between Bluster and Unease

Harry Lorrequer’s narrative voice in these excerpts is not uniformly confident. Early in Chapter XLII, he describes his escape with a jaunty tone: “I ordered a little supper and a bottle of St. Julien.” Yet the same paragraph reveals his immediate suspicion of pursuit. Lever captures this oscillation through sentence rhythm—short, declarative statements of action give way to longer, self-conscious reflections. When the stranger enters, Lorrequer’s relief is palpable: “Nothing could less resemble the tall port and sturdy bearing of a gendarme.” The description of the man’s “diminutive and dwarfish” stature, with a head “fully a fourth part” of his height, is rendered in precise, almost caricatured detail. This blend of comic observation and underlying tension defines the narrator’s voice. He is a man trying to maintain composure while his circumstances fray, and Lever lets the reader hear the strain beneath the wit.

The Weight of Money and Marriage

Financial anxiety becomes a structural element in the later excerpt. Lorrequer’s internal monologue reveals a meticulous accountant: “my calculation was this… at forty pounds per week, that makes exactly two hundred pounds.” The precision contrasts with the chaos of his flight. Lever uses money as a measure of the character’s dwindling control. When the colonel’s letter arrives—a curt refusal to receive the couple—the narrator’s reaction is split: Mary cries and then rallies, while Lorrequer mutters, “I wish he would his purse though.” This moment crystallizes the volume’s central tension: the gap between romantic resolution and material reality. Lever does not resolve this gap; instead, he lets it drive the narrative forward. The hundred pounds remaining and the aunt in Harley Street become fragile lifelines, and the narrator’s forced cheerfulness—“I never let Mary perceive that any thing had gone wrong”—adds a layer of dramatic irony.

Pace and the Pattern of Departure

Lever controls pace through a recurring pattern: departure, delay, encounter, and renewed movement. Chapter XLII opens with Trevanion’s arrival and the carriage ride; the narrative then pauses at St. Jacques for supper, only to be interrupted by the stranger. This rhythm of hurry and halt gives the prose a breathless quality. The later excerpt shifts to a slower, more reflective pace as Lorrequer recounts his wedding tour and the wait for the colonel’s reply. Lever marks time with precise durations—“five days,” “a month—say five weeks”—creating a sense of mounting pressure. The journey to London is described in a single sentence, compressing days into a line. These changes in tempo are not arbitrary; they mirror the narrator’s emotional state. When anxiety peaks, the prose accelerates; when hope falters, it lingers. Readers attentive to these shifts will find a narrative that is as much about the experience of waiting as about the events themselves.

Readers approaching Volume 6 should attend to the interplay between what Lorrequer says and what he withholds. His confessions are selective, and Lever’s art lies in the gaps—the unspoken fears, the hurried calculations, the moments when the comic mask slips. The excerpts offer a portrait of a man trying to narrate his way out of trouble, and the tension between the tale he tells and the one he cannot fully admit is where the volume’s interest lies.

I remember a long bus ride home, counting coins in my palm, the same dull dread that trails Lorrequer’s hurried exits. That anxiety turned quiet in The Town Traveller, where movement becomes a way of avoiding standing still. The Town Traveller — A Closer Reading had me pausing at every window, feeling that familiar ache of nowhere to belong. Both books feel like company for that restlessness.