“Don Salluste (souriunt). Je paireQue vous ne pensiez pas a moi?”—Ruy Blas.“Don Salluste. Cousin!Don Cesar. De vos bienfaits je n’aurai nulle envie,Tant que je trouverai vivant ma libre vie.”—Ibid.Don Sallust (smiling). I’ll lay a wager you won’t think of me?Don Sallust. Cousin!Don Caesar. I covet not your favours, so but I lead an independentlife.
Phillip’s situation was agreeable to his habits. His great courage and skill in horsemanship were not the only qualifications useful to Mr. Stubmore: his education answered a useful purpose in accounts, and his manners and appearance were highly to the credit of the yard. The customers and loungers soon grew to like Gentleman Philips, as he was styled in the establishment. Mr. Stubmore conceived a real affection for him. So passed several weeks; and Philip, in this humble capacity, might have worked out his destinies in peace and comfort, but for a new cause of vexation that arose in Sidney. This boy was all in all to his brother. For him he had resisted the hearty and joyous invitations of Gawtrey (whose gay manner and high spirits had, it must be owned, captivated his fancy, despite the equivocal mystery of the man’s avocations and condition); for him he now worked and toiled, cheerful and contented; and him he sought to save from all to which he subjected himself. He could not bear that that soft and delicate child should ever be exposed to the low and menial associations that now made up his own life—to the obscene slang of grooms and ostlers—to their coarse manners and rough contact. He kept him, therefore, apart and aloof in their little lodging, and hoped in time to lay by, so that Sidney might ultimately be restored, if not to his bright original sphere, at least to a higher grade than that to which Philip was himself condemned. But poor Sidney could not bear to be thus left alone—to lose sight of his brother from daybreak till bed-time—to have no one to amuse him; he fretted and pined away: all the little inconsiderate selfishness, uneradicated from his breast by his sufferings, broke out the more, the more he felt that he was the first object on earth to Philip. Philip, thinking he might be more cheerful at a day-school, tried the experiment of placing him at one where the boys were much of his own age. But Sidney, on the third day, came back with a black eye, and he would return no more. Philip several times thought of changing their lodging for one where there were young people. But Sidney had taken a fancy to the kind old widow who was their landlady, and cried at the thought of removal. Unfortunately, the old woman was deaf and rheumatic; and though she bore teasing ad libitum, she could not entertain the child long on a stretch. Too young to be reasonable, Sidney could not, or would not, comprehend why his brother was so long away from him; and once he said, peevishly,—
“If I had thought I was to be moped up so, I would not have left Mrs. Morton. Tom was a bad boy, but still it was somebody to play with. I wish I had not gone away with you!”
This speech cut Philip to the heart. What, then, he had taken from the child a respectable and safe shelter—the sure provision of a life—and the child now reproached him! When this was said to him, the tears gushed from his eyes. “God forgive me, Sidney,” said he, and turned away.
But then Sidney, who had the most endearing ways with him, seeing his brother so vexed, ran up and kissed him, and scolded himself for being naughty. Still the words were spoken, and their meaning rankled deep. Philip himself, too, was morbid in his excessive tenderness for this boy. There is a certain age, before the love for the sex commences, when the feeling of friendship is almost a passion. You see it constantly in girls and boys at school. It is the first vague craving of the heart after the master food of human life—Love. It has its jealousies, and humours, and caprices, like love itself. Philip was painfully acute to Sidney’s affection, was jealous of every particle of it. He dreaded lest his brother should ever be torn from him.
He would start from his sleep at night, and go to Sidney’s bed to see that he was there. He left him in the morning with forebodings—he returned in the dark with fear. Meanwhile the character of this young man, so sweet and tender to Sidney, was gradually becoming more hard and stern to others. He had now climbed to the post of command in that rude establishment; and premature command in any sphere tends to make men unsocial and imperious.
One day Mr. Stubmore called him into his own countinghouse, where stood a gentleman, with one hand in his coatpocket, the other tapping his whip against his boot.
“Philips, show this gentleman the brown mare. She is a beauty in harness, is she not? This gentleman wants a match for his pheaton.”
“She must step very hoigh,” said the gentleman, turning round: and Philip recognised the beau in the stage-coach. The recognition was simultaneous. The beau nodded, then whistled, and winked.
“Come, my man, I am at your service,” said he.
Philip, with many misgivings, followed him across the yard. The gentleman then beckoned him to approach.
“You, sir,—moind, I never peach—setting up here in the honest line? Dull work, honesty,—eh?”
“Sir, I really don’t know you.”
“Daun’t you recollect old Greggs, the evening you came there with jolly Bill Gawtrey? Recollect that, eh?” Philip was mute.
“I was among the gentlemen in the back parlour who shook you by the hand. Bill’s off to France, then. I am tauking the provinces. I want a good horse—the best in the yard, moind! Cutting such a swell here! My name is Captain de Burgh Smith—never moind yours, my fine faellow. Now, then, out with your rattlers, and keep your tongue in your mouth.”
Philip mechanically ordered out the brown mare, which Captain Smith did not seem much to approve of; and, after glancing round the stables with great disdain of the collection, he sauntered out of the yard without saying more to Philip, though he stopped and spoke a few sentences to Mr. Stubmore. Philip hoped he had no design of purchasing, and that he was rid, for the present, of so awkward a customer. Mr. Stubmore approached Philip.
“Drive over the greys to Sir John,” said he. “My lady wants a pair to job. A very pleasant man, that Captain Smith. I did not know you had been in a yard before—says you were the pet at Elmore’s in London. Served him many a day. Pleasant, gentlemanlike man!”
“Y-e-s!” said Philip, hardly knowing what he said, and hurrying back into the stables to order out the greys. The place to which he was bound was some miles distant, and it was sunset when he returned. As he drove into the main street, two men observed him closely.
“That is he! I am almost sure it is,” said one. “Oh! then it’s all smooth sailing,” replied the other.
“But, bless my eyes! you must be mistaken! See whom he’s talking to now!”
At that moment Captain de Burgh Smith, mounted on the brown mare, stopped Philip.
“Well, you see, I’ve bought her,—hope she’ll turn out well. What do you really think she’s worth? Not to buy, but to sell?”
“Sixty guineas.”
“Well, that’s a good day’s work; and I owe it to you. The old faellow would not have trusted me if you had not served me at Elmore’s—ha! ha! If he gets scent and looks shy at you, my lad, come to me. I’m at the Star Hotel for the next few days. I want a tight faellow like you, and you shall have a fair percentage. I’m none of your stingy ones. I say, I hope this devil is quiet? She cocks up her ears dawmnably!”
“Look you, sir!” said Philip, very gravely, and rising up in his break; “I know very little of you, and that little is not much to your credit. I give you fair warning that I shall caution my employer against you.”
“Will you, my fine faellow? then take care of yourself.”
“Stay, and if you dare utter a word against me,” said Philip, with that frown to which his swarthy complexion and flashing eyes gave an expression of fierce power beyond his years, “you will find that, as I am the last to care for a threat, so I am the first to resent an injury!”
Thus saying, he drove on. Captain Smith affected a cough, and put his brown mare into a canter. The two men followed Philip as he drove into the yard.
“What do you know against the person he spoke to?” said one of them.
“Merely that he is one of the cunningest swells on this side the Bay,” returned the other. “It looks bad for your young friend.”
The first speaker shook his head and made no reply.
On gaining the yard, Philip found that Mr. Stubmore had gone out, and was not expected home till the next day. He had some relations who were farmers, whom he often visited; to them he was probably gone.
Philip, therefore, deferring his intended caution against the gay captain till the morrow, and musing how the caution might be most discreetly given, walked homeward. He had just entered the lane that led to his lodgings, when he saw the two men I have spoken of on the other side of the street. The taller and better-dressed of the two left his comrade; and crossing over to Philip, bowed, and thus accosted him,—
“Fine evening, Mr. Philip Morton. I am rejoiced to see you at last. You remember me—Mr. Blackwell, Lincoln’s Inn.”
“What is your business?” said Philip, halting, and speaking short and fiercely.
“Now don’t be in a passion, my dear sir,—now don’t. I am here on behalf of my clients, Messrs. Beaufort, sen. and jun. I have had such work to find you! Dear, dear! but you are a sly one! Ha! ha! Well, you see we have settled that little affair of Plaskwith’s for you (might have been ugly), and now I hope you will—”
“To your business, sir! What do you want with me?”
“Why, now, don’t be so quick! ‘Tis not the way to do business. Suppose you step to my hotel. A glass of wine now, Mr. Philip! We shall soon understand each other.”
“Out of my path, or speak plainly!”
Thus put to it, the lawyer, casting a glance at his stout companion, who appeared to be contemplating the sunset on the other side of the way, came at once to the marrow of his subject.
“Well, then,—well, my say is soon said. Mr. Arthur Beaufort takes a most lively interest in you; it is he who has directed this inquiry. He bids me say that he shall be most happy—yes, most happy—to serve you in anything; and if you will but see him, he is in the town, I am sure you will be charmed with him—most amiable young man!”
“Look you, sir,” said Philip, drawing himself up “neither from father, nor from son, nor from one of that family, on whose heads rest the mother’s death and the orphans’ curse, will I ever accept boon or benefit—with them, voluntarily, I will hold no communion; if they force themselves in my path, let them beware! I am earning my bread in the way I desire—I am independent—I want them not. Begone!”
With that, Philip pushed aside the lawyer and strode on rapidly. Mr. Blackwell, abashed and perplexed, returned to his companion.
Philip regained his home, and found Sidney stationed at the window alone, and with wistful eyes noting the flight of the grey moths as they darted to and fro, across the dull shrubs that, variegated with lines for washing, adorned the plot of ground which the landlady called a garden. The elder brother had returned at an earlier hour than usual, and Sidney did not at first perceive him enter. When he did he clapped his hands, and ran to him.
“This is so good in you, Philip. I have been so dull; you will come and play now?”
“With all my heart—where shall we play?” said Philip, with a cheerful smile.
“Oh, in the garden!—it’s such a nice time for hide and seek.”
“But is it not chill and damp for you?” said Philip.
“There now; you are always making excuses. I see you don’t like it. I have no heart to play now.”
Sidney seated himself and pouted.
“Poor Sidney! you must be dull without me. Yes, let us play; but put on this handkerchief;” and Philip took off his own cravat and tied it round his brother’s neck, and kissed him.
Sidney, whose anger seldom lasted long, was reconciled; and they went into the garden to play. It was a little spot, screened by an old moss-grown paling, from the neighbouring garden on the one side and a lane on the other. They played with great glee till the night grew darker and the dews heavier.
“This must be the last time,” cried Philip. “It is my turn to hide.”
“Very well! Now, then.”
Philip secreted himself behind a poplar; and as Sidney searched for him, and Philip stole round and round the tree, the latter, happening to look across the paling, saw the dim outline of a man’s figure in the lane, who appeared watching them. A thrill shot across his breast. These Beauforts, associated in his thoughts with every evil omen and augury, had they set a spy upon his movements? He remained erect and gazing at the form, when Sidney discovered, and ran up to him, with his noisy laugh.
As the child clung to him, shouting with gladness, Philip, unheeding his playmate, called aloud and imperiously to the stranger—
“What are you gaping at? Why do you stand watching us?”
The man muttered something, moved on, and disappeared. “I hope there are no thieves here! I am so much afraid of thieves,” said Sidney, tremulously.
The fear grated on Philip’s heart. Had he not himself, perhaps, been judged and treated as a thief? He said nothing, but drew his brother within; and there, in their little room, by the one poor candle, it was touching and beautiful to see these boys—the tender patience of the elder lending itself to every whim of the younger—now building houses with cards—now telling stories of fairy and knight-errant—the sprightliest he could remember or invent. At length, as all was over, and Sidney was undressing for the night, Philip, standing apart, said to him, in a mournful voice:—
“Are you sad now, Sidney?”
“No! not when you are with me—but that is so seldom.”
“Do you read none of the story-books I bought for you?”
“Sometimes! but one can’t read all day.”
“Ah! Sidney, if ever we should part, perhaps you will love me no longer!”
“Don’t say so,” said Sidney. “But we sha’n’t part, Philip?”
Philip sighed, and turned away as his brother leaped into bed. Something whispered to him that danger was near; and as it was, could Sidney grow up, neglected and uneducated; was it thus that he was to fulfil his trust?
“But oh, what storm was in that mind!”—CRABBE. Ruth
While Philip mused, and his brother fell into the happy sleep of childhood, in a room in the principal hotel of the town sat three persons, Arthur Beaufort, Mr. Spencer, and Mr. Blackwell.
“And so,” said the first, “he rejected every overture from the Beauforts?”
“With a scorn I cannot convey to you!” replied the lawyer. “But the fact is, that he is evidently a lad of low habits; to think of his being a sort of helper to a horse dealer! I suppose, sir, he was always in the stables in his father’s time. Bad company depraves the taste very soon; but that is not the worst. Sharp declares that the man he was talking with, as I told you, is a common swindler. Depend on it, Mr. Arthur, he is incorrigible; all we can do is to save the brother.”
“It is too dreadful to contemplate!” said Arthur, who, still ill and languid, reclined on a sofa.
“It is, indeed,” said Mr. Spencer; “I am sure I should not know what to do with such a character; but the other poor child, it would be a mercy to get hold of him.”
“Where is Mr. Sharp?” asked Arthur.
“Why,” said the lawyer, “he has followed Philip at a distance to find out his lodgings, and learn if his brother is with him. Oh! here he is!” and Blackwell’s companion in the earlier part of the evening entered.
“I have found him out, sir,” said Mr. Sharp, wiping his forehead. “What a fierce ‘un he is! I thought he would have had a stone at my head; but we officers are used to it; we does our duty, and Providence makes our heads unkimmon hard!”
“Is the child with him?” asked Mr. Spencer.
“Yes, sir.”
“A little, quiet, subdued boy?” asked the melancholy inhabitant of the Lakes.
“Quiet! Lord love you! never heard a noisier little urchin! There they were, romping and romping in the garden, like a couple of gaol birds.”
“You see,” groaned Mr. Spencer, “he will make that poor child as bad as himself.”
“What shall us do, Mr. Blackwell?” asked Sharp, who longed for his brandy and water.
“Why, I was thinking you might go to the horse-dealer the first thing in the morning; find out whether Philip is really thick with the swindler; and, perhaps, Mr. Stubmore may have some influence with him, if, without saying who he is—”
“Yes,” interrupted Arthur, “do not expose his name.”
“You could still hint that he ought to be induced to listen to his friends and go with them. Mr. Stubmore may be a respectable man, and—-”
“I understand,” said Sharp; “I have no doubt as how I can settle it. We learns to know human natur in our profession;—‘cause why? we gets at its blind side. Good night, gentlemen!”
“You seem very pale, Mr. Arthur; you had better go to bed; you promised your father, you know.”
“Yes, I am not well; I will go to bed;” and Arthur rose, lighted his candle, and sought his room.
“I will see Philip to-morrow,” he said to himself; “he will listen to me.”
The conduct of Arthur Beaufort in executing the charge he had undertaken had brought into full light all the most amiable and generous part of his character. As soon as he was sufficiently recovered, he had expressed so much anxiety as to the fate of the orphans, that to quiet him his father was forced to send for Mr. Blackwell. The lawyer had ascertained, through Dr. ——, the name of Philip’s employer at R——. At Arthur’s request he went down to Mr. Plaskwith; and arriving there the day after the return of the bookseller, learned those particulars with which Mr. Plaskwith’s letter to Roger Morton has already made the reader acquainted. The lawyer then sent for Mr. Sharp, the officer before employed, and commissioned him to track the young man’s whereabout. That shrewd functionary soon reported that a youth every way answering to Philip’s description had been introduced the night of the escape by a man celebrated, not indeed for robberies, or larcenies, or crimes of the coarser kind, but for address in all that more large and complex character which comes under the denomination of living upon one’s wits, to a polite rendezvous frequented by persons of a similar profession. Since then, however, all clue of Philip was lost. But though Mr. Blackwell, in the way of his profession, was thus publicly benevolent towards the fugitive, he did not the less privately represent to his patrons, senior and junior, the very equivocal character that Philip must be allowed to bear. Like most lawyers, hard upon all who wander from the formal tracks, he unaffectedly regarded Philip’s flight and absence as proofs of a reprobate disposition; and this conduct was greatly aggravated in his eyes by Mr. Sharp’s report, by which it appeared that after his escape Philip had so suddenly, and, as it were, so naturally, taken to such equivocal companionship. Mr. Robert Beaufort, already prejudiced against Philip, viewed matters in the same light as the lawyer; and the story of his supposed predilections reached Arthur’s ears in so distorted a shape, that even he was staggered and revolted:—still Philip was so young—Arthur’s oath to the orphans’ mother so recent—and if thus early inclined to wrong courses, should not every effort be made to lure him back to the straight path? With these views and reasonings, as soon as he was able, Arthur himself visited Mrs. Lacy, and the note from Philip, which the good lady put into his hands, affected him deeply, and confirmed all his previous resolutions. Mrs. Lacy was very anxious to get at his name; but Arthur, having heard that Philip had refused all aid from his father and Mr. Blackwell, thought that the young man’s pride might work equally against himself, and therefore evaded the landlady’s curiosity. He wrote the next day the letter we have seen, to Mr. Roger Morton, whose address Catherine had given to him; and by return of post came a letter from the linendraper narrating the flight of Sidney, as it was supposed with his brother. This news so excited Arthur that he insisted on going down to N—— at once, and joining in the search. His father, alarmed for his health, positively refused; and the consequence was an increase of fever, a consultation with the doctors, and a declaration that Mr. Arthur was in that state that it would be dangerous not to let him have his own way, Mr. Beaufort was forced to yield, and with Blackwell and Mr. Sharp accompanied his son to N——. The inquiries, hitherto fruitless, then assumed a more regular and business-like character. By little and little they came, through the aid of Mr. Sharp, upon the right clue, up to a certain point. But here there was a double scent: two youths answering the description, had been seen at a small village; then there came those who asserted that they had seen the same youths at a seaport in one direction; others, who deposed to their having taken the road to an inland town in the other. This had induced Arthur and his father to part company. Mr. Beaufort, accompanied by Roger Morton, went to the seaport; and Arthur, with Mr. Spencer and Mr. Sharp, more fortunate, tracked the fugitives to their retreat. As for Mr. Beaufort, senior, now that his mind was more at ease about his son, he was thoroughly sick of the whole thing; greatly bored by the society of Mr. Morton; very much ashamed that he, so respectable and great a man, should be employed on such an errand; more afraid of, than pleased with, any chance of discovering the fierce Philip; and secretly resolved upon slinking back to London at the first reasonable excuse.
The next morning Mr. Sharp entered betimes Mr. Stubmore’s counting-house. In the yard he caught a glimpse of Philip, and managed to keep himself unseen by that young gentleman.
“Mr. Stubmore, I think?”
“At your service, sir.”
Mr. Sharp shut the glass door mysteriously, and lifting up the corner of a green curtain that covered the panes, beckoned to the startled Stubmore to approach.
“You see that ‘ere young man in the velveteen jacket? you employs him?”
“I do, sir; he’s my right hand.”
“Well, now, don’t be frightened, but his friends are arter him. He has got into bad ways, and we want you to give him a little good advice.”
“Pooh! I know he has run away, like a fine-spirited lad as he is; and as long as he likes to stay with me, they as comes after him may get a ducking in the horse-trough!”
“Be you a father? a father of a family, Mr. Stubmore?” said Sharp, thrusting his hands into his breeches pockets, swelling out his stomach, and pursing up his lips with great solemnity.
“Nonsense! no gammon with me! Take your chaff to the goslings. I tells you I can’t do without that ‘ere lad. Every man to himself.”
“Oho!” thought Sharp, “I must change the tack.”
“Mr. Stubmore,” said he, taking a stool, “you speaks like a sensible man. No one can reasonably go for to ask a gentleman to go for to inconvenience hisself. But what do you know of that ‘ere youngster. Had you a carakter with him?”
“What’s that to you?”
“Why, it’s more to yourself, Mr. Stubmore; he is but a lad, and if he goes back to his friends they may take care of him, but he got into a bad set afore he come here. Do you know a good-looking chap with whiskers, who talks of his pheaton, and was riding last night on a brown mare?”
“Y—e—s!” said Mr. Stubmore, growing rather pale, “and I knows the mare, too. Why, sir, I sold him that mare!”
“Did he pay you for her?”
“Why, to be sure, he gave me a cheque on Coutts.”
“And you took it! My eyes! what a flat!” Here Mr. Sharp closed the orbs he had invoked, and whistled with that self-hugging delight which men invariably feel when another man is taken in.
Mr. Stubmore became evidently nervous.
“Why, what now;—you don’t think I’m done? I did not let him have the mare till I went to the hotel,—found he was cutting a great dash there, a groom, a pheaton, and a fine horse, and as extravagant as the devil!”
“O Lord!—O Lord! what a world this is! What does he call his-self?”
“Why, here’s the cheque—George Frederick de—de Burgh Smith.”
“Put it in your pipe, my man,—put it in your pipe—not worth a d—-!”
“And who the deuce are you, sir?” bawled out Mr. Stubmore, in an equal rage both with himself and his guest.
“I, sir,” said the visitor, rising with great dignity,—“I, sir, am of the great Bow Street Office, and my name is John Sharp!”
Mr. Stubmore nearly fell off his stool, his eyes rolled in his head, and his teeth chattered. Mr. Sharp perceived the advantage he had gained, and continued,—
“Yes, sir; and I could have much to say against that chap, who is nothing more or less than Dashing Jerry, as has ruined more girls and more tradesmen than any lord in the land. And so I called to give you a bit of caution; for, says I to myself, ‘Mr. Stubmore is a respectable man.’”
“I hope I am, sir,” said the crestfallen horse-dealer; “that was always my character.”
“And the father of a family?”
“Three boys and a babe at the buzzom,” said Mr. Stubmore pathetically.
“And he sha’n’t be taken in if I can help it! That ‘ere young man as I am arter, you see, knows Captain Smith—ha! ha!—smell a rat now—eh?”
“Captain Smith said he knew him—the wiper—and that’s what made me so green.”
“Well, we must not be hard on the youngster: ‘cause why? he has friends as is gemmen. But you tell him to go back to his poor dear relations, and all shall be forgiven; and say as how you won’t keep him; and if he don’t go back, he’ll have to get his livelihood without a carakter; and use your influence with him like a man and a Christian, and what’s more, like the father of a family—Mr. Stubmore—with three boys and a babe at the buzzom. You won’t keep him now?”
“Keep him! I have had a precious escape. I’d better go and see after the mare.”
“I doubt if you’ll find her: the Captain caught a sight of me this morning. Why, he lodges at our hotel. He’s off by this time!”
“And why the devil did you let him go?”
“‘Cause I had no writ agin him!” said the Bow Street officer; and he walked straight out of the counting-office, satisfied that he had “done the job.”
To snatch his hat—to run to the hotel—to find that Captain Smith had indeed gone off in his phaeton, bag and baggage, the same as he came, except that he had now two horses to the phaeton instead of one—having left with the landlord the amount of his bill in another cheque upon Coutts—was the work of five minutes with Mr. Stubmore. He returned home, panting and purple with indignation and wounded feeling.
“To think that chap, whom I took into my yard like a son, should have connived at this! ‘Tain’t the money—‘tis the willany that ‘flicts me!” muttered Mr. Stubmore, as he re-entered the mews.
Here he came plump upon Philip, who said—
“Sir, I wished to see you, to say that you had better take care of Captain Smith.”
“Oh, you did, did you, now he’s gone? ‘sconded off to America, I dare say, by this time. Now look ye, young man; your friends are after you, I won’t say anything agin you; but you go back to them—I wash my hands of you. Quite too much for me. There’s your week, and never let me catch you in my yard agin, that’s all!”
Philip dropped the money which Stubmore had put into his hand. “My friends!—friends have been with you, have they? I thought so—I thank them. And so you part with me? Well, you have been very kind, very kind; let us part kindly;” and he held out his hand.
Mr. Stubmore was softened—he touched the hand held out to him, and looked doubtful a moment; but Captain de Burgh Smith’s cheque for eighty guineas suddenly rose before his eyes. He turned on his heel abruptly, and said, over his shoulder:
“Don’t go after Captain Smith (he’ll come to the gallows); mend your ways, and be ruled by your poor dear relatives, whose hearts you are breaking.”
“Captain Smith! Did my relations tell you?”
“Yes—yes—they told me all—that is, they sent to tell me; so you see I’m d—-d soft not to lay hold of you. But, perhaps, if they be gemmen, they’ll act as sich, and cash me this here cheque!”
But the last words were said to air. Philip had rushed from the yard.
With a heaving breast, and every nerve in his body quivering with wrath, the proud, unhappy boy strode through the gay streets. They had betrayed him then, these accursed Beauforts! they circled his steps with schemes to drive him like a deer into the snare of their loathsome charity! The roof was to be taken from his head—the bread from his lips—so that he might fawn at their knees for bounty. “But they shall not break my spirit, nor steal away my curse. No, my dead mother, never!”
As he thus muttered, he passed through a patch of waste land that led to the row of houses in which his lodging was placed. And here a voice called to him, and a hand was laid on his shoulder. He turned, and Arthur Beaufort, who had followed him from the street, stood behind him. Philip did not, at the first glance, recognise his cousin; illness had so altered him, and his dress was so different from that in which he had first and last beheld him. The contrast between the two young men was remarkable. Philip was clad in a rough garb suited to his late calling—a jacket of black velveteen, ill-fitting and ill-fashioned, loose fustian trousers, coarse shoes, his hat set deep over his pent eyebrows, his raven hair long and neglected. He was just at that age when one with strong features and robust frame is at the worst in point of appearance—the sinewy proportions not yet sufficiently fleshed, and seeming inharmonious and undeveloped; precisely in proportion, perhaps, to the symmetry towards which they insensibly mature: the contour of the face sharpened from the roundness of boyhood, and losing its bloom without yet acquiring that relief and shadow which make the expression and dignity of the masculine countenance. Thus accoutred, thus gaunt, and uncouth, stood Morton. Arthur Beaufort, always refined in his appearance, seemed yet more so from the almost feminine delicacy which ill-health threw over his pale complexion and graceful figure; that sort of unconscious elegance which belongs to the dress of the rich when they are young—seen most in minutiae—not observable, perhaps, by themselves-marked forcibly and painfully the distinction of rank between the two. That distinction Beaufort did not feel; but at a glance it was visible to Philip.
The past rushed back on him. The sunny lawn—the gun offered and rejected—the pride of old, much less haughty than the pride of to-day.
“Philip,” said Beaufort, feebly, “they tell me you will not accept any kindness from me or mine. Ah! if you knew how we have sought you!”
“Knew!” cried Philip, savagely, for that unlucky sentence recalled to him his late interview with his employer, and his present destitution. “Knew! And why have you dared to hunt me out, and halloo me down?—why must this insolent tyranny, that assumes the right over these limbs and this free will, betray and expose me and my wretchedness wherever I turn?”
“Your poor mother—” began Beaufort.
“Name her not with your lips—name her not!” cried Philip, growing livid with his emotions. “Talk not of the mercy—the forethought—a Beaufort could show to her and her offspring! I accept it not—I believe it not. Oh, yes! you follow me now with your false kindness; and why? Because your father—your vain, hollow, heartless father—”
“Hold!” said Beaufort, in a tone of such reproach, that it startled the wild heart on which it fell; “it is my father you speak of. Let the son respect the son.”
“No—no—no! I will respect none of your race. I tell you your father fears me. I tell you that my last words to him ring in his ears! My wrongs! Arthur Beaufort, when you are absent I seek to forget them; in your abhorred presence they revive—they—”
He stopped, almost choked with his passion; but continued instantly, with equal intensity of fervour:
“Were yon tree the gibbet, and to touch your hand could alone save me from it, I would scorn your aid. Aid! The very thought fires my blood and nerves my hand. Aid! Will a Beaufort give me back my birthright—restore my dead mother’s fair name? Minion!—sleek, dainty, luxurious minion!—out of my path! You have my fortune, my station, my rights; I have but poverty, and hate, and disdain. I swear, again and again, that you shall not purchase these from me.”
“But, Philip—Philip,” cried Beaufort, catching his arm; “hear one—hear one who stood by your—”
The sentence that would have saved the outcast from the demons that were darkening and swooping round his soul, died upon the young Protector’s lips. Blinded, maddened, excited, and exasperated, almost out of humanity itself, Philip fiercely—brutally—swung aside the enfeebled form that sought to cling to him, and Beaufort fell at his feet. Morton stopped—glared at him with clenched hands and a smiling lip, sprung over his prostrate form, and bounded to his home.
He slackened his pace as he neared the house, and looked behind; but Beaufort had not followed him. He entered the house, and found Sidney in the room, with a countenance so much more gay than that he had lately worn, that, absorbed as he was in thought and passion, it yet did not fail to strike him.
“What has pleased you, Sidney?” The child smiled.
“Ah! it is a secret—I was not to tell you. But I’m sure you are not the naughty boy he says you are.”
“He!—who?”
“Don’t look so angry, Philip: you frighten me!”
“And you torture me. Who could malign one brother to the other?”
“Oh! it was all meant very kindly—there’s been such a nice, dear, good gentleman here, and he cried when he saw me, and said he knew dear mamma. Well, and he has promised to take me home with him and give me a pretty pony—as pretty—as pretty—oh, as pretty as it can be got! And he is to call again and tell me more: I think he is a fairy, Philip.”
“Did he say that he was to take me, too, Sidney?” said Morton, seating himself, and looking very pale. At that question Sidney hung his head.
“No, brother—he says you won’t go, and that you are a bad boy—and that you associate with wicked people—and that you want to keep me shut up here and not let any one be good to me. But I told him I did not believe that—yes, indeed, I told him so.”
And Sidney endeavoured caressingly to withdraw the hands that his brother placed before his face.
Morton started up, and walked hastily to and fro the room. “This,” thought he, “is another emissary of the Beauforts’—perhaps the lawyer: they will take him from me—the last thing left to love and hope for. I will foil them.”
“Sidney,” he said aloud, “we must go hence today, this very hour—nay, instantly.”
“What! away from this nice, good gentleman?”
“Curse him! yes, away from him. Do not cry—it is of no use—you must go.”
This was said more harshly than Philip had ever yet spoken to Sidney; and when he had said it, he left the room to settle with the landlady, and to pack up their scanty effects. In another hour, the brothers had turned their backs on the town.
“I’ll carry theeIn sorrow’s arms to welcome Misery.”HEYWOOD’s Duchess of Sufolk.“Who’s here besides foul weather?”SHAKSPEARE Lear.
The sun was as bright and the sky as calm during the journey of the orphans as in the last. They avoided, as before, the main roads, and their way lay through landscapes that might have charmed a Gainsborough’s eye. Autumn scattered its last hues of gold over the various foliage, and the poppy glowed from the hedges, and the wild convolvuli, here and there, still gleamed on the wayside with a parting smile.
At times, over the sloping stubbles, broke the sound of the sportsman’s gun; and ever and anon, by stream and sedge, they startled the shy wild fowl, just come from the far lands, nor yet settled in the new haunts too soon to be invaded.
But there was no longer in the travellers the same hearts that had made light of hardship and fatigue. Sidney was no longer flying from a harsh master, and his step was not elastic with the energy of fear that looked behind, and of hope that smiled before. He was going a toilsome, weary journey, he knew not why nor whither; just, too, when he had made a friend, whose soothing words haunted his childish fancy. He was displeased with Philip, and in sullen and silent thoughtfulness slowly plodded behind him; and Morton himself was gloomy, and knew not where in the world to seek a future.
They arrived at dusk at a small inn, not so far distant from the town they had left as Morton could have wished; but the days were shorter than in their first flight.
They were shown into a small sanded parlour, which Sidney eyed with great disgust; nor did he seem more pleased with the hacked and jagged leg of cold mutton, which was all that the hostess set before them for supper. Philip in vain endeavoured to cheer him up, and ate to set him the example. He felt relieved when, under the auspices of a good-looking, good-natured chambermaid, Sidney retired to rest, and he was left in the parlour to his own meditations. Hitherto it had been a happy thing for Morton that he had had some one dependent on him; that feeling had given him perseverance, patience, fortitude, and hope. But now, dispirited and sad, he felt rather the horror of being responsible for a human life, without seeing the means to discharge the trust. It was clear, even to his experience, that he was not likely to find another employer as facile as Mr. Stubmore; and wherever he went, he felt as if his Destiny stalked at his back. He took out his little fortune and spread it on the table, counting it over and over; it had remained pretty stationary since his service with Mr. Stubmore, for Sidney had swallowed up the wages of his hire. While thus employed, the door opened, and the chambermaid, showing in a gentleman, said, “We have no other room, sir.”
“Very well, then,—I’m not particular; a tumbler of braundy and water, stiffish, cold without, the newspaper—and a cigar. You’ll excuse smoking, sir?”
Philip looked up from his hoard, and Captain de Burgh Smith stood before him.
“Ah!” said the latter, “well met!” And closing the door, he took off his great-coat, seated himself near Philip, and bent both his eyes with considerable wistfulness on the neat rows into which Philip’s bank-notes, sovereigns, and shillings were arrayed.
“Pretty little sum for pocket money; caush in hand goes a great way, properly invested. You must have been very lucky. Well, so I suppose you are surprised to see me here without my pheaton?”
“I wish I had never seen you at all,” replied Philip, uncourteously, and restoring his money to his pocket; “your fraud upon Mr. Stubmore, and your assurance that you knew me, have sent me adrift upon the world.”
“What’s one man’s meat is another man’s poison,” said the captain, philosophically; “no use fretting, care killed a cat. I am as badly off as you; for, hang me, if there was not a Bow Street runner in the town. I caught his eye fixed on me like a gimlet: so I bolted—went to N——, left my pheaton and groom there for the present, and have doubled back, to bauffle pursuit, and cut across the country. You recollect that noice girl we saw in the coach; ‘gad, I served her spouse that is to be a praetty trick! Borrowed his money under pretence of investing it in the New Grand Anti-Dry-Rot Company; cool hundred—it’s only just gone, sir.”
Here the chambermaid entered with the brandy and water, the newspaper, and cigar,—the captain lighted the last, took a deep sup from the beverage, and said, gaily:
“Well, now, let us join fortunes; we are both, as you say, ‘adrift.’ Best way to staund the breeze is to unite the caubles.”
Philip shook his head, and, displeased with his companion, sought his pillow. He took care to put his money under his head, and to lock his door.
The brothers started at daybreak; Sidney was even more discontented than on the previous day. The weather was hot and oppressive; they rested for some hours at noon, and in the cool of the evening renewed their way. Philip had made up his mind to steer for a town in the thick of a hunting district, where he hoped his equestrian capacities might again befriend him; and their path now lay through a chain of vast dreary commons, which gave them at least the advantage to skirt the road-side unobserved. But, somehow or other, either Philip had been misinformed as to an inn where he had proposed to pass the night, or he had missed it; for the clouds darkened, and the sun went down, and no vestige of human habitation was discernible.
Sidney, footsore and querulous, began to weep, and declare that he could stir no further; and while Philip, whose iron frame defied fatigue, compassionately paused to rest his brother, a low roll of thunder broke upon the gloomy air. “There will be a storm,” said he, anxiously. “Come on—pray, Sidney, come on.”
“It is so cruel in you, brother Philip,” replied Sidney, sobbing. “I wish I had never—never gone with you.”
A flash of lightning, that illuminated the whole heavens, lingered round Sidney’s pale face as he spoke; and Philip threw himself instinctively on the child, as if to protect him even from the wrath of the unshelterable flame. Sidney, hushed and terrified, clung to his brother’s breast; after a pause, he silently consented to resume their journey. But now the storm came nearer and nearer to the wanderers. The darkness grew rapidly more intense, save when the lightning lit up heaven and earth alike with intolerable lustre. And when at length the rain began to fall in merciless and drenching torrents, even Philip’s brave heart failed him. How could he ask Sidney to proceed, when they could scarcely see an inch before them?—all that could now be done was to gain the high-road, and hope for some passing conveyance. With fits and starts, and by the glare of the lightning, they obtained their object; and stood at last on the great broad thoroughfare, along which, since the day when the Roman carved it from the waste, Misery hath plodded, and Luxury rolled, their common way.
Philip had stripped handkerchief, coat, vest, all to shelter Sidney; and he felt a kind of strange pleasure through the dark, even to hear Sidney’s voice wail and moan. But that voice grew more languid and faint—it ceased—Sidney’s weight hung heavy—heavier on the fostering arm.
“For Heaven’s sake, speak!—speak, Sidney!—only one word—I will carry you in my arms!”
“I think I am dying,” replied Sidney, in a low murmur; “I am so tired and worn out I can go no further—I must lie here.” And he sank at once upon the reeking grass beside the road. At this time the rain gradually relaxed, the clouds broke away—a grey light succeeded to the darkness—the lightning was more distant; and the thunder rolled onward in its awful path. Kneeling on the ground, Philip supported his brother in his arms, and cast his pleading eyes upward to the softening terrors of the sky. A star, a solitary star—broke out for one moment, as if to smile comfort upon him, and then vanished. But lo! in the distance there suddenly gleamed a red, steady light, like that in some solitary window; it was no will-o’-the-wisp, it was too stationary—human shelter was then nearer than he had thought for. He pointed to the light, and whispered, “Rouse yourself, one struggle more—it cannot be far off.”
“It is impossible—I cannot stir,” answered Sidney: and a sudden flash of lightning showed his countenance, ghastly, as if with the damps of Death. What could the brother do?—stay there, and see the boy perish before his eyes? leave him on the road and fly to the friendly light? The last plan was the sole one left, yet he shrank from it in greater terror than the first. Was that a step that he heard across the road? He held his breath to listen—a form became dimly visible—it approached.
Philip shouted aloud.
“What now?” answered the voice, and it seemed familiar to Morton’s ear. He sprang forward; and putting his face close to the wayfarer, thought to recognise the features of Captain de Burgh Smith. The Captain, whose eyes were yet more accustomed to the dark, made the first overture.
“Why, my lad, is it you then? ‘Gad, you froightened me!”
Odious as this man had hitherto been to Philip, he was as welcome to him as daylight now; he grasped his hand,—“My brother—a child—is here, dying, I fear, with cold and fatigue; he cannot stir. Will you stay with him—support him—but for a few moments, while I make to yon light? See, I have money—plenty of money!”
“My good lad, it is very ugly work staying here at this hour: still—where’s the choild?”
“Here, here! make haste, raise him! that’s right! God bless you! I shall be back ere you think me gone.”
He sprang from the road, and plunged through the heath, the furze, the rank glistening pools, straight towards the light—as the swimmer towards the shore.
The captain, though a rogue, was human; and when life—an innocent life—is at stake, even a rogue’s heart rises up from its weedy bed. He muttered a few oaths, it is true, but he held the child in his arms; and, taking out a little tin case, poured some brandy down Sidney’s throat and then, by way of company, down his own. The cordial revived the boy; he opened his eyes, and said, “I think I can go on now, Philip.”