Night and Morning
Edward Bulwer-Lytton



THE WORKS
OF
EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
(LORD LYTTON)


NIGHT AND MORNING




PREFACE

TO THE EDITION OF 1845.

Much has been written by critics, especially by those in Germany (the
native land of criticism), upon the important question, whether to please
or to instruct should be the end of Fiction--whether a moral purpose is
or is not in harmony with the undidactic spirit perceptible in the higher
works of the imagination. And the general result of the discussion has
been in favour of those who have contended that Moral Design, rigidly so
called, should be excluded from the aims of the Poet; that his Art should
regard only the Beautiful, and be contented with the indirect moral
tendencies, which can never fail the creation of the Beautiful.
Certainly, in fiction, to interest, to please, and sportively to
elevate--to take man from the low passions, and the miserable troubles of
life, into a higher region, to beguile weary and selfish pain, to excite
a genuine sorrow at vicissitudes not his own, to raise the passions into
sympathy with heroic struggles--and to admit the soul into that serener
atmosphere from which it rarely returns to ordinary existence, without
some memory or association which ought to enlarge the domain of thought
and exalt the motives of action;--such, without other moral result or
object, may satisfy the Poet,* and constitute the highest and most
universal morality he can effect. But subordinate to this, which is not
the duty, but the necessity, of all Fiction that outlasts the hour, the
writer of imagination may well permit to himself other purposes and
objects, taking care that they be not too sharply defined, and too
obviously meant to contract the Poet into the Lecturer--the Fiction into
the Homily. The delight in Shylock is not less vivid for the Humanity it
latently but profoundly inculcates; the healthful merriment of the
Tartufe is not less enjoyed for the exposure of the Hypocrisy it
denounces. We need not demand from Shakespeare or from Moliere other
morality than that which Genius unconsciously throws around it--the
natural light which it reflects; but if some great principle which guides
us practically in the daily intercourse with men becomes in the general
lustre more clear and more pronounced, we gain doubly, by the general
tendency and the particular result.

  *[I use the word Poet in its proper sense, as applicable to any
   writer, whether in verse or prose, who invents or creates.]

Long since, in searching for new regions in the Art to which I am a
servant, it seemed to me that they might be found lying far, and rarely
trodden, beyond that range of conventional morality in which Novelist
after Novelist had entrenched himself--amongst those subtle recesses in
the ethics of human life in which Truth and Falsehood dwell undisturbed
and unseparated. The vast and dark Poetry around us--the Poetry of Modern
Civilisation and Daily Existence, is shut out from us in much, by the
shadowy giants of Prejudice and Fear. He who would arrive at the Fairy
Land must face the Phantoms. Betimes, I set myself to the task of
investigating the motley world to which our progress in humanity--has
attained, caring little what misrepresentation I incurred, what hostility
I provoked, in searching through a devious labyrinth for the foot-tracks
of Truth.

In the pursuit of this object, I am, not vainly, conscious that I have
had my influence on my time--that I have contributed, though humbly and
indirectly, to the benefits which Public Opinion has extorted from
Governments and Laws. While (to content myself with a single example) the
ignorant or malicious were decrying the moral of Paul Clifford, I
consoled myself with perceiving that its truths had stricken deep--that
many, whom formal essays might not reach, were enlisted by the picture
and the popular force of Fiction into the service of that large and
Catholic Humanity which frankly examines into the causes of crime, which
ameliorates the ills of society by seeking to amend the circumstances by
which they are occasioned; and commences the great work of justice to
mankind by proportioning the punishment to the offence. That work, I
know, had its share in the wise and great relaxation of our Criminal
Code--it has had its share in results yet more valuable, because leading
to more comprehensive reforms-viz., in the courageous facing of the ills
which the mock decorum of timidity would shun to contemplate, but which,
till fairly fronted, in the spirit of practical Christianity, sap daily,
more and more, the walls in which blind Indolence would protect itself
from restless Misery and rampant Hunger. For it is not till Art has told
the unthinking that nothing (rightly treated) is too low for its breath
to vivify and its wings to raise, that the Herd awaken from their chronic
lethargy of contempt, and the Lawgiver is compelled to redress what the
Poet has lifted into esteem. In thus enlarging the boundaries of the
Novelist, from trite and conventional to untrodden ends, I have seen, not
with the jealousy of an author, but with the pride of an Originator, that
I have served as a guide to later and abler writers, both in England and
abroad. If at times, while imitating, they have mistaken me, I am not.
answerable for their errors; or if, more often, they have improved where
they borrowed, I am not envious of their laurels. They owe me at least
this, that I prepared the way for their reception, and that they would
have been less popular and more misrepresented, if the outcry which
bursts upon the first researches into new directions had not exhausted
its noisy vehemence upon me.

In this Novel of Night and Morning I have had various ends in
view--subordinate, I grant, to the higher and more durable morality which
belongs to the Ideal, and instructs us playfully while it interests, in
the passions, and through the heart. First--to deal fearlessly with that
universal unsoundness in social justice which makes distinctions so
marked and iniquitous between Vice and Crime--viz., between the
corrupting habits and the violent act--which scarce touches the former
with the lightest twig in the fasces--which lifts against the latter the
edge of the Lictor's axe. Let a child steal an apple in sport, let a
starveling steal a roll in despair, and Law conducts them to the Prison,
for evil commune to mellow them for the gibbet. But let a man spend one
apprenticeship from youth to old age in vice--let him devote a fortune,
perhaps colossal, to the wholesale demoralisation of his kind--and he may
be surrounded with the adulation of the so-called virtuous, and be served
upon its knee, by that Lackey--the Modern World! I say not that Law can,
or that Law should, reach the Vice as it does the Crime; but I say, that
Opinion may be more than the servile shadow of Law. I impress not here,
as in Paul Clifford, a material moral to work its effect on the Journals,
at the Hastings, through Constituents, and on Legislation;--I direct
myself to a channel less active, more tardy, but as sure--to the
Conscience--that reigns elder and superior to all Law, in men's hearts
and souls;--I utter boldly and loudly a truth, if not all untold,
murmured feebly and falteringly before, sooner or later it will find its
way into the judgment and the conduct, and shape out a tribunal which
requires not robe or ermine.

Secondly--In this work I have sought to lift the mask from the timid
selfishness which too often with us bears the name of Respectability.
Purposely avoiding all attraction that may savour of extravagance,
patiently subduing every tone and every hue to the aspect of those whom
we meet daily in our thoroughfares, I have shown in Robert Beaufort the
man of decorous phrase and bloodless action--the systematic
self-server--in whom the world forgive the lack of all that is generous,
warm, and noble, in order to respect the passive acquiescence in
methodical conventions and hollow forms. And how common such men are with
us in this century, and how inviting and how necessary their delineation,
may be seen in this,--that the popular and pre-eminent Observer of the
age in which we live has since placed their prototype in vigorous colours
upon imperishable canvas.--[Need I say that I allude to the Pecksniff of
Mr. Dickens?]

There is yet another object with which I have identified my tale. I trust
that I am not insensible to such advantages as arise from the diffusion
of education really sound, and knowledge really available;--for these, as
the right of my countrymen, I have contended always. But of late years
there has been danger that what ought to be an important truth may be
perverted into a pestilent fallacy. Whether for rich or for poor,
disappointment must ever await the endeavour to give knowledge without
labour, and experience without trial. Cheap literature and popular
treatises do not in themselves suffice to fit the nerves of man for the
strife below, and lift his aspirations, in healthful confidence above. He
who seeks to divorce toil from knowledge deprives knowledge of its most
valuable property.--the strengthening of the mind by exercise. We learn
what really braces and elevates us only in proportion to the effort it
costs us. Nor is it in Books alone, nor in Books chiefly, that we are
made conscious of our strength as Men; Life is the great Schoolmaster,
Experience the mighty Volume. He who has made one stern sacrifice of self
has acquired more than he will ever glean from the odds and ends of
popular philosophy. And the man the least scholastic may be more robust
in the power that is knowledge, and approach nearer to the Arch-Seraphim,
than Bacon himself, if he cling fast to two simple maxims--"Be honest in
temptation, and in Adversity believe in God." Such moral, attempted
before in Eugene Aram, I have enforced more directly here; and out of
such convictions I have created hero and heroine, placing them in their
primitive and natural characters, with aid more from life than
books,--from courage the one, from affection the other--amidst the feeble
Hermaphrodites of our sickly civilisation;--examples of resolute Manhood
and tender Womanhood.

The opinions I have here put forth are not in fashion at this day. But I
have never consulted the popular any more than the sectarian, Prejudice.
Alone and unaided I have hewn out my way, from first to last, by the
force of my own convictions. The corn springs up in the field centuries
after the first sower is forgotten. Works may perish with the workman;
but, if truthful, their results are in the works of others, imitating,
borrowing, enlarging, and improving, in the everlasting Cycle of Industry
and Thought.

Knebworth, 1845.
NOTE TO THE PRESENT EDITION, 1851.

I have nothing to add to the preceding pages, written six years ago, as
to the objects and aims of this work; except to say, and by no means as a
boast, that the work lays claims to one kind of interest which I
certainly never desired to effect for it--viz., in exemplifying the
glorious uncertainty of the Law. For, humbly aware of the blunders which
Novelists not belonging to the legal profession are apt to commit, when
they summon to the denouement of a plot the aid of a deity so mysterious
as Themis, I submitted to an eminent lawyer the whole case of "Beaufort
versus Beaufort," as it stands in this Novel. And the pages which refer
to that suit were not only written from the opinion annexed to the brief
I sent in, but submitted to the eye of my counsel, and revised by his
pen.--(N.B. He was feed.) Judge then my dismay when I heard long
afterwards that the late Mr. O'Connell disputed the soundness of the law
I had thus bought and paid for! "Who shall decide when doctors disagree?"
All I can say is, that I took the best opinion that love or money could
get me; and I should add, that my lawyer, unawed by the alleged ipse
dixit of the great Agitator (to be sure, he is dead), still stoutly
maintains his own views of the question.

   [I have, however, thought it prudent so far to meet the objection
   suggested by Mr. O'Connell, as to make a slight alteration in this
   edition, which will probably prevent the objection, if correct,
   being of any material practical effect on the disposition of that
   visionary El Dorado--the Beaufort Property.]

Let me hope that the right heir will live long enough to come under the
Statute of Limitations. Possession is nine points of the law, and Time
may give the tenth.

Knebworth.




NIGHT AND MORNING.

BOOK I.

          "Noch in meines Lebens Lenze
          War ich and ich wandert' aus,
          Und der Jugend frohe Tanze
          Liess ich in des Vaters Haus."

                 SCHILLER, Der Pilgrim.



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

        "Now rests our vicar. They who knew him best,
        Proclaim his life to have been entirely rest;
        Not one so old has left this world of sin,
        More like the being that he entered in."--CRABBE.

In one of the Welsh counties is a small village called A----. It is
somewhat removed from the high road, and is, therefore, but little known
to those luxurious amateurs of the picturesque, who view nature through
the windows of a carriage and four. Nor, indeed, is there anything,
whether of scenery or association, in the place itself, sufficient to
allure the more sturdy enthusiast from the beaten tracks which tourists
and guide-books prescribe to those who search the Sublime and Beautiful
amidst the mountain homes of the ancient Britons. Still, on the whole,
the village is not without its attractions. It is placed in a small
valley, through which winds and leaps down many a rocky fall, a clear,
babbling, noisy rivulet, that affords excellent sport to the brethren of
the angle. Thither, accordingly, in the summer season occasionally resort
the Waltons of the neighbourhood--young farmers, retired traders, with
now and then a stray artist, or a roving student from one of the
universities. Hence the solitary hostelry of A----, being somewhat more
frequented, is also more clean and comfortable than could reasonably be
anticipated from the insignificance and remoteness of the village.

At a time in which my narrative opens, the village boasted a sociable,
agreeable, careless, half-starved parson, who never failed to introduce
himself to any of the anglers who, during the summer months, passed a day
or two in the little valley. The Rev. Mr. Caleb Price had been educated
at the University of Cambridge, where he had contrived, in three years,
to run through a little fortune of L3500. It is true, that he acquired in
return the art of making milkpunch, the science of pugilism, and the
reputation of one of the best-natured, rattling, open-hearted companions
whom you could desire by your side in a tandem to Newmarket, or in a row
with the bargemen. By the help of these gifts and accomplishments, he had
not failed to find favour, while his money lasted, with the young
aristocracy of the "Gentle Mother." And, though the very reverse of an
ambitious or calculating man, he had certainly nourished the belief that
some one of the "hats" or "tinsel gowns"--i.e., young lords or
fellow-commoners, with whom he was on such excellent terms, and who
supped with him so often, would do something for him in the way of a
living. But it so happened that when Mr. Caleb Price had, with a little
difficulty, scrambled through his degree, and found himself a Bachelor of
Arts and at the end of his finances, his grand acquaintances parted from
him to their various posts in the State Militant of Life. And, with the
exception of one, joyous and reckless as himself, Mr. Caleb Price found
that when Money makes itself wings it flies away with our friends. As
poor Price had earned no academical distinction, so he could expect no
advancement from his college; no fellowship; no tutorship leading
hereafter to livings, stalls, and deaneries. Poverty began already to
stare him in the face, when the only friend who, having shared his
prosperity, remained true to his adverse fate,--a friend, fortunately for
him, of high connections and brilliant prospects--succeeded in obtaining
for him the humble living of A----. To this primitive spot the once
jovial roisterer cheerfully retired--contrived to live contented upon an
income somewhat less than he had formerly given to his groom--preached
very short sermons to a very scanty and ignorant congregation, some of
whom only understood Welsh--did good to the poor and sick in his own
careless, slovenly way--and, uncheered or unvexed by wife and children,
he rose in summer with the lark and in winter went to bed at nine
precisely, to save coals and candles. For the rest, he was the most
skilful angler in the whole county; and so willing to communicate the
results of his experience as to the most taking colour of the flies, and
the most favoured haunts of the trout--that he had given especial orders
at the inn, that whenever any strange gentleman came to fish, Mr. Caleb
Price should be immediately sent for. In this, to be sure, our worthy
pastor had his usual recompense. First, if the stranger were tolerably
liberal, Mr. Price was asked to dinner at the inn; and, secondly, if this
failed, from the poverty or the churlishness of the obliged party, Mr.
Price still had an opportunity to hear the last news--to talk about the
Great World--in a word, to exchange ideas, and perhaps to get an old
newspaper, or an odd number of a magazine.

Now, it so happened that one afternoon in October, when the periodical
excursions of the anglers, becoming gradually rarer and more rare, had
altogether ceased, Mr. Caleb Price was summoned from his parlour in which
he had been employed in the fabrication of a net for his cabbages, by a
little white-headed boy, who came to say there was a gentleman at the inn
who wished immediately to see him--a strange gentleman, who had never
been there before.

Mr. Price threw down his net, seized his hat, and, in less than five
minutes, he was in the best room of the little inn.

The person there awaiting him was a man who, though plainly clad in a
velveteen shooting-jacket, had an air and mien greatly above those common
to the pedestrian visitors of A----. He was tall, and of one of those
athletic forms in which vigour in youth is too often followed by
corpulence in age. At this period, however, in the full prime of
manhood--the ample chest and sinewy limbs, seen to full advantage in
their simple and manly dress--could not fail to excite that popular
admiration which is always given to strength in the one sex as to
delicacy in the other. The stranger was walking impatiently to and fro
the small apartment when Mr. Price entered; and then, turning to the
clergyman a countenance handsome and striking, but yet more prepossessing
from its expression of frankness than from the regularity of its
features,--he stopped short, held out his hand, and said, with a gay
laugh, as he glanced over the parson's threadbare and slovenly costume,
"My poor Caleb!--what a metamorphosis!--I should not have known you
again!"

"What! you! Is it possible, my dear fellow?--how glad I am to see you!
What on earth can bring you to such a place? No! not a soul would believe
me if I said I had seen you in this miserable hole."

"That is precisely the reason why I am here. Sit down, Caleb, and we'll
talk over matters as soon as our landlord has brought up the materials
for--"

"The milk-punch," interrupted Mr. Price, rubbing his hands.

"Ah, that will bring us back to old times, indeed!"

In a few minutes the punch was prepared, and after two or three
preparatory glasses, the stranger thus commenced: "My dear Caleb, I am in
want of your assistance, and above all of your secrecy."

"I promise you both beforehand. It will make me happy the rest of my life
to think I have served my patron--my benefactor--the only friend I
possess."

"Tush, man! don't talk of that: we shall do better for you one of these
days. But now to the point: I have come here to be married--married, old
boy! married!"

And the stranger threw himself back in his chair, and chuckled with the
glee of a schoolboy.

"Humph!" said the parson, gravely. "It is a serious thing to do, and a
very odd place to come to."

"I admit both propositions: this punch is superb. To proceed. You know
that my uncle's immense fortune is at his own disposal; if I disobliged
him, he would be capable of leaving all to my brother; I should disoblige
him irrevocably if he knew that I had married a tradesman's daughter; I
am going to marry a tradesman's daughter--a girl in a million! the
ceremony must be as secret as possible. And in this church, with you for
the priest, I do not see a chance of discovery."

"Do you marry by license?"

"No, my intended is not of age; and we keep the secret even from her
father. In this village you will mumble over the bans without one of your
congregation ever taking heed of the name. I shall stay here a month for
the purpose. She is in London, on a visit to a relation in the city. The
bans on her side will be published with equal privacy in a little church
near the Tower, where my name will be no less unknown than hers. Oh, I've
contrived it famously!"

"But, my dear fellow, consider what you risk."

"I have considered all, and I find every chance in my favour. The bride
will arrive here on the day of our wedding: my servant will be one
witness; some stupid old Welshman, as antediluvian as possible--I leave
it to you to select him--shall be the other. My servant I shall dispose
of, and the rest I can depend on."

"But--"

"I detest buts; if I had to make a language, I would not admit such a
word in it. And now, before I run on about Catherine, a subject quite
inexhaustible, tell me, my dear friend, something about yourself."

          .  .  .  .  .  .  .

Somewhat more than a month had elapsed since the arrival of the stranger
at the village inn. He had changed his quarters for the Parsonage--went
out but little, and then chiefly on foot excursions among the sequestered
hills in the neighbourhood. He was therefore but partially known by
sight, even in the village; and the visit of some old college friend to
the minister, though indeed it had never chanced before, was not, in
itself, so remarkable an event as to excite any particular observation.
The bans had been duly, and half audibly, hurried over, after the service
was concluded, and while the scanty congregation were dispersing down the
little aisle of the church,--when one morning a chaise and pair arrived
at the Parsonage. A servant out of livery leaped from the box. The
stranger opened the door of the chaise, and, uttering a joyous
exclamation, gave his arm to a lady, who, trembling and agitated, could
scarcely, even with that stalwart support, descend the steps. "Ah!" she
said, in a voice choked with tears, when they found themselves alone in
the little parlour,--"ah! if you knew how I have suffered!"

How is it that certain words, and those the homeliest, which the hand
writes and the eye reads as trite and commonplace expressions--when
spoken convey so much,--so many meanings complicated and refined? "Ah! if
you knew how I have suffered!"

When the lover heard these words, his gay countenance fell; he drew
back--his conscience smote him: in that complaint was the whole history
of a clandestine love, not for both the parties, but for the woman--the
painful secrecy--the remorseful deceit--the shame--the fear--the
sacrifice. She who uttered those words was scarcely sixteen. It is an
early age to leave Childhood behind for ever!

"My own love! you have suffered, indeed; but it is over now.

"Over! And what will they say of me--what will they think of me at home?
Over! Ah!"

"It is but for a short time; in the course of nature my uncle cannot live
long: all then will be explained. Our marriage once made public, all
connected with you will be proud to own you. You will have wealth,
station--a name among the first in the gentry of England. But, above all,
you will have the happiness to think that your forbearance for a time has
saved me, and, it may be, our children, sweet one!--from poverty and--"

"It is enough," interrupted the girl; and the expression of her
countenance became serene and elevated. "It is for you--for your sake. I
know what you hazard: how much I must owe you! Forgive me, this is the
last murmur you shall ever hear from these lips."

An hour after these words were spoken, the marriage ceremony was
concluded.

"Caleb," said the bridegroom, drawing the clergyman aside as they were
about to re-enter the house, "you will keep your promise, I know; and you
think I may depend implicitly upon the good faith of the witness you have
selected?"

"Upon his good faith?--no," said Caleb, smiling, "but upon his deafness,
his ignorance, and his age. My poor old clerk! He will have forgotten all
about it before this day three months. Now I have seen your lady, I no
longer wonder that you incur so great a risk. I never beheld so lovely a
countenance. You will be happy!" And the village priest sighed, and
thought of the coming winter and his own lonely hearth.

"My dear friend, you have only seen her beauty--it is her least charm.
Heaven knows how often I have made love; and this is the only woman I
have ever really loved. Caleb, there is an excellent living that adjoins
my uncle's house. The rector is old; when the house is mine, you will not
be long without the living. We shall be neighbours, Caleb, and then you
shall try and find a bride for yourself. Smith,"--and the bridegroom
turned to the servant who had accompanied his wife, and served as a
second witness to the marriage,--"tell the post-boy to put to the horses
immediately."

"Yes, Sir. May I speak a word with you?"

"Well, what?"

"Your uncle, sir, sent for me to come to him, the day before we left
town."

"Aha!--indeed!"

"And I could just pick up among his servants that he had some
suspicion--at least, that he had been making inquiries--and seemed very
cross, sir."

"You went to him?"

"No, Sir, I was afraid. He has such a way with him;--whenever his eye is
fixed on mine, I always feel as if it was impossible to tell a lie;
and--and--in short, I thought it was best not to go."

"You did right. Confound this fellow!" muttered the bridegroom, turning
away; "he is honest, and loves me: yet, if my uncle sees him, he is
clumsy enough to betray all. Well, I always meant to get him out of the
way--the sooner the better. Smith!"

"Yes, sir!"

"You have often said that you should like, if you had some capital, to
settle in Australia. Your father is an excellent farmer; you are above
the situation you hold with me; you are well educated, and have some
knowledge of agriculture; you can scarcely fail to make a fortune as a
settler; and if you are of the same mind still, why, look you, I have
just L1000. at my bankers: you shall have half, if you like to sail by
the first packet."

"Oh, sir, you are too generous."

"Nonsense--no thanks--I am more prudent than generous; for I agree with
you that it is all up with me if my uncle gets hold of you. I dread my
prying brother, too; in fact, the obligation is on my side; only stay
abroad till I am a rich man, and my marriage made public, and then you
may ask of me what you will. It's agreed, then; order the horses, we'll
go round by Liverpool, and learn about the vessels. By the way, my good
fellow, I hope you see nothing now of that good-for-nothing brother of
yours?"

"No, indeed, sir. It's a thousand pities he has turned out so ill; for he
was the cleverest of the family, and could always twist me round his
little finger."

"That's the very reason I mentioned him. If he learned our secret, he
would take it to an excellent market. Where is he?"

"Hiding, I suspect, sir."

"Well, we shall put the sea between you and him! So now all's safe."

Caleb stood by the porch of his house as the bride and bridegroom entered
their humble vehicle. Though then November, the day was exquisitely mild
and calm, the sky without a cloud, and even the leafless trees seemed to
smile beneath the cheerful sun. And the young bride wept no more; she was
with him she loved--she was his for ever. She forgot the rest. The
hope--the heart of sixteen--spoke brightly out through the blushes that
mantled over her fair cheeks. The bridegroom's frank and manly
countenance was radiant with joy. As he waved his hand to Caleb from the
window the post-boy cracked his whip, the servant settled himself on the
dickey, the horses started off in a brisk trot,--the clergyman was left
alone.

To be married is certainly an event in life; to marry other people is,
for a priest, a very ordinary occurrence; and yet, from that day, a great
change began to operate in the spirits and the habits of Caleb Price.
Have you ever, my gentle reader, buried yourself for some time quietly in
the lazy ease of a dull country-life? Have you ever become gradually
accustomed to its monotony, and inured to its solitude; and, just at the
time when you have half-forgotten the great world--that mare magnum that
frets and roars in the distance--have you ever received in your calm
retreat some visitor, full of the busy and excited life which you
imagined yourself contented to relinquish? If so, have you not perceived,
that, in proportion as his presence and communication either revived old
memories, or brought before you new pictures of "the bright tumult" of
that existence of which your guest made a part,--you began to compare him
curiously with yourself; you began to feel that what before was to rest
is now to rot; that your years are gliding from you unenjoyed and wasted;
that the contrast between the animal life of passionate civilisation and
the vegetable torpor of motionless seclusion is one that, if you are
still young, it tasks your philosophy to bear,--feeling all the while
that the torpor may be yours to your grave? And when your guest has left
you, when you are again alone, is the solitude the same as it was before?

Our poor Caleb had for years rooted his thoughts to his village. His
guest had been like the Bird in the Fairy Tale, settling upon the quiet
branches, and singing so loudly and so gladly of the enchanted skies
afar, that, when it flew away, the tree pined, nipped and withering in
the sober sun in which before it had basked contented. The guest was,
indeed, one of those men whose animal spirits exercise upon such as come
within their circle the influence and power usually ascribed only to
intellectual qualities. During the month he had sojourned with Caleb, he
had brought back to the poor parson all the gaiety of the brisk and noisy
novitiate that preceded the solemn vow and the dull retreat;--the social
parties, the merry suppers, the open-handed, open-hearted fellowship of
riotous, delightful, extravagant, thoughtless YOUTH. And Caleb was not a
bookman--not a scholar; he had no resources in himself, no occupation but
his indolent and ill-paid duties. The emotions, therefore, of the Active
Man were easily aroused within him. But if this comparison between his
past and present life rendered him restless and disturbed, how much more
deeply and lastingly was he affected by a contrast between his own future
and that of his friend! Not in those points where he could never hope
equality--wealth and station--the conventional distinctions to which,
after all, a man of ordinary sense must sooner or later reconcile
himself--but in that one respect wherein all, high and low, pretend to
the same rights--rights which a man of moderate warmth of feeling can
never willingly renounce--viz., a partner in a lot however obscure; a
kind face by a hearth, no matter how mean it be! And his happier friend,
like all men full of life, was full of himself--full of his love, of his
future, of the blessings of home, and wife, and children. Then, too, the
young bride seemed so fair, so confiding, and so tender; so formed to
grace the noblest or to cheer the humblest home! And both were so happy,
so all in all to each other, as they left that barren threshold! And the
priest felt all this, as, melancholy and envious, he turned from the door
in that November day, to find himself thoroughly alone. He now began
seriously to muse upon those fancied blessings which men wearied with
celibacy see springing, heavenward, behind the altar. A few weeks
afterwards a notable change was visible in the good man's exterior. He
became more careful of his dress, he shaved every morning, he purchased a
crop-eared Welsh cob; and it was soon known in the neighbourhood that the
only journey the cob was ever condemned to take was to the house of a
certain squire, who, amidst a family of all ages, boasted two very pretty
marriageable daughters. That was the second holy day-time of poor
Caleb--the love-romance of his life: it soon closed. On learning the
amount of the pastor's stipend the squire refused to receive his
addresses; and, shortly after, the girl to whom he had attached himself
made what the world calls a happy match: and perhaps it was one, for I
never heard that she regretted the forsaken lover. Probably Caleb was not
one of those whose place in a woman's heart is never to be supplied. The
lady married, the world went round as before, the brook danced as merrily
through the village, the poor worked on the week-days, and the urchins
gambolled round the gravestones on the Sabbath,--and the pastor's heart
was broken. He languished gradually and silently away. The villagers
observed that he had lost his old good-humoured smile; that he did not
stop every Saturday evening at the carrier's gate, to ask if there were
any news stirring in the town which the carrier weekly visited; that he
did not come to borrow the stray newspapers that now and then found their
way into the village; that, as he sauntered along the brookside, his
clothes hung loose on his limbs, and that he no longer "whistled as he
went;" alas, he was no longer "in want of thought!" By degrees, the walks
themselves were suspended; the parson was no longer visible: a stranger
performed his duties.

One day, it might be some three years and more after the fatal visit I
have commemorated--one very wild rough day in early March, the postman,
who made the round of the district, rang at the parson's bell. The single
female servant, her red hair loose on her neck, replied to the call.

"And how is the master?"

"Very bad;" and the girl wiped her eyes.

"He should leave you something handsome," remarked the postman, kindly,
as he pocketed the money for the letter.

The pastor was in bed--the boisterous wind rattled clown the chimney and
shook the ill-fitting casement in its rotting frame. The clothes he had
last worn were thrown carelessly about, unsmoothed, unbrushed; the scanty
articles of furniture were out of their proper places; slovenly
discomfort marked the death-chamber. And by the bedside stood a
neighbouring clergyman, a stout, rustic, homely, thoroughly Welsh priest,
who might have sat for the portrait of Parson Adams.

"Here's a letter for you," said the visitor.

"For me!" echoed Caleb, feebly. "Ah--well--is it not very dark, or are my
eyes failing?" The clergyman and the servant drew aside the curtains and
propped the sick man up: he read as follows, slowly, and with difficulty:

"DEAR, CALEB,--At last I can do something for you. A friend of mine has a
living in his gift just vacant, worth, I understand, from three to four
hundred a year: pleasant neighbourhood--small parish. And my friend keeps
the hounds!--just the thing for you. He is, however, a very particular
sort of person--wants a companion, and has a horror of anything
evangelical; wishes, therefore, to see you before he decides. If you can
meet me in London, some day next month, I'll present you to him, and I
have no doubt it will be settled. You must think it strange I never wrote
to you since we parted, but you know I never was a very good
correspondent; and as I had nothing to communicate advantageous to you I
thought it a sort of insult to enlarge on my own happiness, and so forth.
All I shall say on that score is, that I've sown my wild oats; and that
you may take my word for it, there's nothing that can make a man know how
large, the heart is, and how little the world, till he comes home
(perhaps after a hard day's hunting) and sees his own fireside, and hears
one dear welcome; and--oh, by the way, Caleb, if you could but see my
boy, the sturdiest little rogue! But enough of this. All that vexes me
is, that I've never yet been able to declare my marriage: my uncle,
however, suspects nothing: my wife bears up against all, like an angel as
she is; still, in case of any accident, it occurs to me, now I'm writing
to you, especially if you leave the place, that it may be as well to send
me an examined copy of the register. In those remote places registers are
often lost or mislaid; and it may be useful hereafter, when I proclaim
the marriage, to clear up all doubt as to the fact.

"Good-bye, old fellow,

"Yours most truly, &c., &c."


"It comes too late," sighed Caleb, heavily; and the letter fell from his
hands. There was a long pause. "Close the shutters," said the sick man,
at last; "I think I could sleep: and--and--pick up that letter."

With a trembling, but eager gripe, he seized the paper, as a miser would
seize the deeds of an estate on which he has a mortgage. He smoothed the
folds, looked complacently at the well-known hand, smiled--a ghastly
smile! and then placed the letter under his pillow, and sank down; they
left him alone. He did not wake for some hours, and that good clergyman,
poor as himself, was again at his post. The only friendships that are
really with us in the hour of need are those which are cemented by
equality of circumstance. In the depth of home, in the hour of
tribulation, by the bed of death, the rich and the poor are seldom found
side by side. Caleb was evidently much feebler; but his sense seemed
clearer than it had been, and the instincts of his native kindness were
the last that left him. "There is something he wants me do for him," he
muttered.

"Ah! I remember: Jones, will you send for the parish register? It is
somewhere in the vestry-room, I think--but nothing's kept properly.
Better go yourself--'tis important."

Mr. Jones nodded, and sallied forth. The register was not in the vestry;
the church-wardens knew nothing about it; the clerk--a new clerk, who was
also the sexton, and rather a wild fellow--had gone ten miles off to a
wedding: every place was searched; till, at last, the book was found,
amidst a heap of old magazines and dusty papers, in the parlour of Caleb
himself. By the time it was brought to him, the sufferer was fast
declining; with some difficulty his dim eye discovered the place where,
amidst the clumsy pothooks of the parishioners, the large clear hand of
the old friend, and the trembling characters of the bride, looked forth,
distinguished.

"Extract this for me, will you?" said Caleb. Mr. Jones obeyed.

"Now, just write above the extract:

"'Sir,--By Mr. Price's desire I send you the inclosed. He is too ill to
write himself. But he bids me say that he has never been quite the same
man since you left him; and that, if he should not get well again, still
your kind letter has made him easier in his mind."

Caleb stopped.

"Go on."

"That is all I have to say: sign your name, and put the address--here it
is. Ah, the letter," he muttered, "must not lie about! If anything
happens to me, it may get him into trouble."

And as Mr. Jones sealed his communication, Caleb feebly stretched his wan
hand, held the letter which had "come too late" over the flame of the
candle. As the blazing paper dropped on the carpetless floor, Mr. Jones
prudently set thereon the broad sole of his top-boot, and the maidservant
brushed the tinder into the grate.

"Ah, trample it out:--hurry it amongst the ashes. The last as the rest,"
said Caleb, hoarsely. "Friendship, fortune, hope, love, life--a little
flame, and then--and then--"

"Don't be uneasy--it's quite out!" said Mr. Jones. Caleb turned his face
to the wall. He lingered till the next day, when he passed insensibly
from sleep to death. As soon as the breath was out of his body, Mr. Jones
felt that his duty was discharged, that other duties called him home. He
promised to return to read the burial-service over the deceased, gave
some hasty orders about the plain funeral, and was turning from the room,
when he saw the letter he had written by Caleb's wish, still on the
table. "I pass the post-office--I'll put it in," said he to the weeping
servant; "and just give me that scrap of paper." So he wrote on the
scrap, "P. S. He died this morning at half-past twelve, without pain.--M.
J.;" and not taking the trouble to break the seal, thrust the final
bulletin into the folds of the letter, which he then carefully placed in
his vast pocket, and safely transferred to the post. And that was all
that the jovial and happy man, to whom the letter was addressed, ever
heard of the last days of his college friend.

The living, vacant by the death of Caleb Price, was not so valuable as to
plague the patron with many applications. It continued vacant nearly the
whole of the six months prescribed by law. And the desolate parsonage was
committed to the charge of one of the villagers, who had occasionally
assisted Caleb in the care of his little garden. The villager, his wife,
and half-a-dozen noisy, ragged children, took possession of the quiet
bachelor's abode. The furniture had been sold to pay the expenses of the
funeral, and a few trifling bills; and, save the kitchen and the two
attics, the empty house, uninhabited, was surrendered to the sportive
mischief of the idle urchins, who prowled about the silent chambers in
fear of the silence, and in ecstasy at the space. The bedroom in which
Caleb had died was, indeed, long held sacred by infantine superstition.
But one day the eldest boy having ventured across the threshold, two
cupboards, the doors standing ajar, attracted the child's curiosity. He
opened one, and his exclamation soon brought the rest of the children
round him. Have you ever, reader, when a boy, suddenly stumbled on that
El Dorado, called by the grown-up folks a lumber room? Lumber, indeed!
what Virtu double-locks in cabinets is the real lumber to the boy!
Lumber, reader! to thee it was a treasury! Now this cupboard had been the
lumber-room in Caleb's household. In an instant the whole troop had
thrown themselves on the motley contents. Stray joints of clumsy
fishing-rods; artificial baits; a pair of worn-out top-boots, in which
one of the urchins, whooping and shouting, buried himself up to the
middle; moth-eaten, stained, and ragged, the collegian's gown-relic of
the dead man's palmy time; a bag of carpenter's tools, chiefly broken; a
cricket-bat; an odd boxing-glove; a fencing-foil, snapped in the middle;
and, more than all, some half-finished attempts at rude toys: a boat, a
cart, a doll's house, in which the good-natured Caleb had busied himself
for the younger ones of that family in which he had found the fatal ideal
of his trite life. One by one were these lugged forth from their dusty
slumber-profane hands struggling for the first right of appropriation.
And now, revealed against the wall, glared upon the startled violators of
the sanctuary, with glassy eyes and horrent visage, a grim monster. They
huddled back one upon the other, pale and breathless, till the eldest,
seeing that the creature moved not, took heart, approached on
tip-toe-twice receded, and twice again advanced, and finally drew out,
daubed, painted, and tricked forth in the semblance of a griffin, a
gigantic kite.

The children, alas! were not old and wise enough to knew all the dormant
value of that imprisoned aeronaut, which had cost Caleb many a dull
evening's labour--the intended gift to the false one's favourite brother.
But they guessed that it was a thing or spirit appertaining of right to
them; and they resolved, after mature consultation, to impart the secret
of their discovery to an old wooden-legged villager, who had served in
the army, who was the idol of all the children of the place, and who,
they firmly believed, knew everything under the sun, except the mystical
arts of reading and writing. Accordingly, having seen that the coast was
clear--for they considered their parents (as the children of the
hard-working often do) the natural foes to amusement--they carried the
monster into an old outhouse, and ran to the veteran to beg him to come
up slyly and inspect its properties.

Three months after this memorable event, arrived the new pastor--a slim,
prim, orderly, and starch young man, framed by nature and trained by
practice to bear a great deal of solitude and starving. Two loving
couples had waited to be married till his Reverence should arrive. The
ceremony performed, where was the registry-book? The vestry was
searched-the church-wardens interrogated; the gay clerk, who, on the
demise of his deaf predecessor, had come into office a little before
Caleb's last illness, had a dim recollection of having taken the registry
up to Mr. Price at the time the vestry-room was whitewashed. The house
was searched-the cupboard, the mysterious cupboard, was explored. "Here
it is, sir!" cried the clerk; and he pounced upon a pale parchment
volume. The thin clergyman opened it, and recoiled in dismay--more than
three-fourths of the leaves had been torn out.

"It is the moths, sir," said the gardener's wife, who had not yet removed
from the house.

The clergyman looked round; one of the children was trembling. "What have
you done to this book, little one?"

"That book?--the--hi!--hi!--"

"Speak the truth, and you sha'n't be punished."

"I did not know it was any harm--hi!--hi!--"

"Well, and--"

"And old Ben helped us."

"Well?"

"And--and--and--hi!--hi!--The tail of the kite, sir!--"

"Where is the kite?"

Alas! the kite and its tail were long ago gone to that undiscovered limbo
where all things lost, broken, vanished, and destroyed; things that lose
themselves--for servants are too honest to steal; things that break
themselves--for servants are too careful to break; find an everlasting
and impenetrable refuge.

"It does not signify a pin's head," said the clerk; "the parish must find
a new 'un!"

"It is no fault of mine," said the Pastor. "Are my chops ready?"




CHAPTER II.

"And soothed with idle dreams the frowning fate."--CRABBE.

"Why does not my father come back? what a time he has been away!"

"My dear Philip, business detains him; but he will be here in a few
days--perhaps to-day!"

"I should like him to see how much I am improved."

"Improved in what, Philip?" said the mother, with a smile. "Not Latin, I
am sure; for I have not seen you open a book since you insisted on poor
Todd's dismissal."

"Todd! Oh, he was such a scrub, and spoke through his nose: what could he
know of Latin?"

"More than you ever will, I fear, unless--" and here there was a certain
hesitation in the mother's voice, "unless your father consents to your
going to school."

"Well, I should like to go to Eton! That's the only school for a
gentleman. I've heard my father say so."

"Philip, you are too proud."--"Proud! you often call me proud; but, then,
you kiss me when you do so. Kiss me now, mother."

The lady drew her son to her breast, put aside the clustering hair from
his forehead, and kissed him; but the kiss was sad, and the moment after
she pushed him away gently and muttered, unconscious that she was
overheard:

"If, after all, my devotion to the father should wrong the children!"

The boy started, and a cloud passed over his brow; but he said nothing. A
light step entered the room through the French casements that opened on
the lawn, and the mother turned to her youngest-born, and her eye
brightened.

"Mamma! mamma! here is a letter for you. I snatched it from John: it is
papa's handwriting."

The lady uttered a joyous exclamation, and seized the letter. The younger
child nestled himself on a stool at her feet, looking up while she read
it; the elder stood apart, leaning on his gun, and with something of
thought, even of gloom, upon his countenance.

There was a strong contrast in the two boys. The elder, who was about
fifteen, seemed older than he was, not only from his height, but from the
darkness of his complexion, and a certain proud, nay, imperious,
expression upon features that, without having the soft and fluent graces
of childhood, were yet regular and striking. His dark-green
shooting-dress, with the belt and pouch, the cap, with its gold tassel
set upon his luxuriant curls, which had the purple gloss of the raven's
plume, blended perhaps something prematurely manly in his own tastes,
with the love of the fantastic and the picturesque which bespeaks the
presiding genius of the proud mother. The younger son had scarcely told
his ninth year; and the soft, auburn ringlets, descending half-way down
the shoulders; the rich and delicate bloom that exhibits at once the
hardy health and the gentle fostering; the large deep-blue eyes; the
flexile and almost effeminate contour of the harmonious features;
altogether made such an ideal of childlike beauty as Lawrence had loved
to paint or Chantrey model. And the daintiest cares of a mother, who, as
yet, has her darling all to herself--her toy, her plaything--were visible
in the large falling collar of finest cambric, and the blue velvet dress
with its filigree buttons and embroidered sash.

Both the boys had about them the air of those whom Fate ushers blandly
into life; the air of wealth, and birth, and luxury, spoiled and pampered
as if earth had no thorn for their feet, and heaven not a wind to visit
their young cheeks too roughly. The mother had been extremely handsome;
and though the first bloom of youth was now gone, she had still the
beauty that might captivate new love--an easier task than to retain the
old. Both her sons, though differing from each other, resembled her; she
had the features of the younger; and probably any one who had seen her in
her own earlier youth would have recognized in that child's gay yet
gentle countenance the mirror of the mother when a girl. Now, however,
especially when silent or thoughtful, the expression of her face was
rather that of the elder boy;--the cheek, once so rosy was now pale,
though clear, with something which time had given, of pride and thought,
in the curved lip and the high forehead. One who could have looked on her
in her more lonely hours, might have seen that the pride had known shame,
and the thought was the shadow of the passions of fear and sorrow.

But now as she read those hasty, brief, but well-remembered
characters--read as one whose heart was in her eyes--joy and triumph
alone were visible in that eloquent countenance. Her eyes flashed, her
breast heaved; and at length, clasping the letter to her lips, she kissed
it again and again with passionate transport. Then, as her eyes met the
dark, inquiring, earnest gaze of her eldest born, she flung her arms
round him, and wept vehemently.

"What is the matter, mamma, dear mamma?" said the youngest, pushing
himself between Philip and his mother. "Your father is coming back, this
day--this very hour;--and you--you--child--you, Philip--" Here sobs broke
in upon her words, and left her speechless.

The letter that had produced this effect ran as follows:

TO MRS MORTON, Fernside Cottage.

"DEAREST KATE,--My last letter prepared you for the news I have now to
relate--my poor uncle is no more. Though I had seen little of him,
especially of late years, his death sensibly affected me; but I have at
least the consolation of thinking that there is nothing now to prevent my
doing justice to you. I am the sole heir to his fortune--I have it in my
power, dearest Kate, to offer you a tardy recompense for all you have put
up with for my sake;--a sacred testimony to your long forbearance, your
unreproachful love, your wrongs, and your devotion. Our children, too--my
noble Philip!--kiss them, Kate--kiss them for me a thousand times.

"I write in great haste--the burial is just over, and my letter will only
serve to announce my return. My darling Catherine, I shall be with you
almost as soon as these lines meet your eyes--those clear eyes, that, for
all the tears they have shed for my faults and follies, have never looked
the less kind. Yours, ever as ever,
"PHILIP BEAUFORT.

This letter has told its tale, and little remains to explain. Philip
Beaufort was one of those men of whom there are many in his peculiar
class of society--easy, thoughtless, good-humoured, generous, with
feelings infinitely better than his principles.

Inheriting himself but a moderate fortune, which was three parts in the
hands of the Jews before he was twenty-five, he had the most brilliant
expectations from his uncle; an old bachelor, who, from a courtier, had
turned a misanthrope--cold--shrewd--penetrating--worldly--sarcastic--and
imperious; and from this relation he received, meanwhile, a handsome and,
indeed, munificent allowance. About sixteen years before the date at
which this narrative opens, Philip Beaufort had "run off," as the saying
is, with Catherine Morton, then little more than a child,--a motherless
child--educated at a boarding-school to notions and desires far beyond
her station; for she was the daughter of a provincial tradesman. And
Philip Beaufort, in the prime of life, was possessed of most of the
qualities that dazzle the eyes and many of the arts that betray the
affections. It was suspected by some that they were privately married: if
so, the secret had been closely kept, and baffled all the inquiries of
the stern old uncle. Still there was much, not only in the manner, at
once modest and dignified, but in the character of Catherine, which was
proud and high-spirited, to give colour to the suspicion. Beaufort, a man
naturally careless of forms, paid her a marked and punctilious respect;
and his attachment was evidently one not only of passion, but of
confidence and esteem. Time developed in her mental qualities far
superior to those of Beaufort, and for these she had ample leisure of
cultivation. To the influence derived from her mind and person she added
that of a frank, affectionate, and winning disposition; their children
cemented the bond between them. Mr. Beaufort was passionately attached to
field sports. He lived the greater part of the year with Catherine, at
the beautiful cottage to which he had built hunting stables that were the
admiration of the county; and though the cottage was near London, the
pleasures of the metropolis seldom allured him for more than a few
days--generally but a few hours-at a time; and he--always hurried back
with renewed relish to what he considered his home.

Whatever the connection between Catherine and himself (and of the true
nature of that connection, the Introductory Chapter has made the reader
more enlightened than the world), her influence had, at least, weaned
from all excesses, and many follies, a man who, before he knew her, had
seemed likely, from the extreme joviality and carelessness of his nature,
and a very imperfect education, to contract whatever vices were most in
fashion as preservatives against ennui. And if their union had been
openly hallowed by the Church, Philip Beaufort had been universally
esteemed the model of a tender husband and a fond father. Ever, as he
became more and more acquainted with Catherine's natural good qualities,
and more and more attached to his home, had Mr. Beaufort, with the
generosity of true affection, desired to remove from her the pain of an
equivocal condition by a public marriage. But Mr. Beaufort, though
generous, was not free from the worldliness which had met him everywhere,
amidst the society in which his youth had been spent. His uncle, the head
of one of those families which yearly vanish from the commonalty into the
peerage, but which once formed a distinguished peculiarity in the
aristocracy of England--families of ancient birth, immense possessions,
at once noble and untitled--held his estates by no other tenure than his
own caprice. Though he professed to like Philip, yet he saw but little of
him. When the news of the illicit connection his nephew was reported to
have formed reached him, he at first resolved to break it off; but
observing that Philip no longer gambled, nor ran in debt, and had retired
from the turf to the safer and more economical pastimes of the field, he
contented himself with inquiries which satisfied him that Philip was not
married; and perhaps he thought it, on the whole, more prudent to wink at
an error that was not attended by the bills which had here-to-fore
characterised the human infirmities of his reckless nephew. He took care,
however, incidentally, and in reference to some scandal of the day, to
pronounce his opinion, not upon the fault, but upon the only mode of
repairing it.

"If ever," said he, and he looked grimly at Philip while he spoke, "a
gentleman were to disgrace his ancestry by introducing into his family
one whom his own sister could not receive at her house, why, he ought to
sink to her level, and wealth would but make his disgrace the more
notorious. If I had an only son, and that son were booby enough to do
anything so discreditable as to marry beneath him, I would rather have my
footman for my successor. You understand, Phil!"

Philip did understand, and looked round at the noble house and the
stately park, and his generosity was not equal to the trial.
Catherine--so great was her power over him--might, perhaps, have easily
triumphed over his more selfish calculations; but her love was too
delicate ever to breathe, of itself, the hope that lay deepest at her
heart. And her children!--ah! for them she pined, but for them she also
hoped. Before them was a long future, and she had all confidence in
Philip. Of late, there had been considerable doubts how far the elder
Beaufort would realise the expectations in which his nephew had been
reared. Philip's younger brother had been much with the old gentleman,
and appeared to be in high favour: this brother was a man in every
respect the opposite to Philip--sober, supple, decorous, ambitious, with
a face of smiles and a heart of ice.

But the old gentleman was taken dangerously ill, and Philip was summoned
to his bed of death. Robert, the younger brother, was there also, with
his wife (who he had married prudently) and his children (he had two, a
son and a daughter). Not a word did the uncle say as to the disposition
of his property till an hour before he died. And then, turning in his
bed, he looked first at one nephew, then at the other, and faltered out:

"Philip, you are a scapegrace, but a gentleman! Robert, you are a
careful, sober, plausible man; and it is a great pity you were not in
business; you would have made a fortune!--you won't inherit one, though
you think it: I have marked you, sir. Philip, beware of your brother. Now
let me see the parson."

The old man died; the will was read; and Philip succeeded to a rental of
L20,000. a-year; Robert, to a diamond ring, a gold repeater, L5,000. and
a curious collection of bottled snakes.




CHAPTER III.

   "Stay, delightful Dream;

   Let him within his pleasant garden walk;
   Give him her arm--of blessings let them talk."--CRABBE.


"There, Robert, there! now you can see the new stables. By Jove, they are
the completest thing in the three kingdoms!"

"Quite a pile! But is that the house? You lodge your horses more
magnificently than yourself."

"But is it not a beautiful cottage?--to be sure, it owes everything to
Catherine's taste. Dear Catherine!"

Mr. Robert Beaufort, for this colloquy took place between the brothers,
as their britska rapidly descended the hill, at the foot of which lay
Fernside Cottage and its miniature demesnes--Mr. Robert Beaufort pulled
his travelling cap over his brows, and his countenance fell, whether at
the name of Catherine, or the tone in which the name was uttered; and
there was a pause, broken by a third occupant of the britska, a youth of
about seventeen, who sat opposite the brothers.

"And who are those boys on the lawn, uncle?"

"Who are those boys?" It was a simple question, but it grated on the ear
of Mr. Robert Beaufort--it struck discord at his heart. "Who were those
boys?" as they ran across the sward, eager to welcome their father home;
the westering sun shining full on their joyous faces--their young forms
so lithe and so graceful--their merry laughter ringing in the still air.
"Those boys," thought Mr. Robert Beaufort, "the sons of shame, rob mine
of his inheritance." The elder brother turned round at his nephew's
question, and saw the expression on Robert's face. He bit his lip, and
answered, gravely:

"Arthur, they are my children."

"I did not know you were married," replied Arthur, bending forward to
take a better view of his cousins.

Mr. Robert Beaufort smiled bitterly, and Philip's brow grew crimson.

The carriage stopped at the little lodge. Philip opened the door, and
jumped to the ground; the brother and his son followed. A moment more,
and Philip was locked in Catherine's arms, her tears falling fast upon
his breast; his children plucking at his coat; and the younger one crying
in his shrill, impatient treble, "Papa! papa! you don't see Sidney,
papa!"

Mr. Robert Beaufort placed his hand on his son's shoulder, and arrested
his steps, as they contemplated the group before them.

"Arthur," said he, in a hollow whisper, "those children are our disgrace
and your supplanters; they are bastards! bastards! and they are to be his
heirs!"

Arthur made no answer, but the smile with which he had hitherto gazed on
his new relations vanished.

"Kate," said Mr. Beaufort, as he turned from Mrs. Morton, and lifted his
youngest-born in his arms, "this is my brother and his son: they are
welcome, are they not?"

Mr. Robert bowed low, and extended his hand, with stiff affability, to
Mrs. Morton, muttering something equally complimentary and inaudible.

The party proceeded towards the house. Philip and Arthur brought up the
rear.

"Do you shoot?" asked Arthur, observing the gun in his cousin's hand.

"Yes. I hope this season to bag as many head as my father: he is a famous
shot. But this is only a single barrel, and an old-fashioned sort of
detonator. My father must get me one of the new gulls. I can't afford it
myself."

"I should think not," said Arthur, smiling.

"Oh, as to that," resumed Philip, quickly, and with a heightened colour,
"I could have managed it very well if I had not given thirty guineas for
a brace of pointers the other day: they are the best dogs you ever saw."

"Thirty guineas!" echoed Arthur, looking with native surprise at the
speaker; "why, how old are you?"

"Just fifteen last birthday. Holla, John! John Green!" cried the young
gentleman in an imperious voice, to one of the gardeners, who was
crossing the lawn, "see that the nets are taken down to the lake
to-morrow, and that my tent is pitched properly, by the lime-trees, by
nine o'clock. I hope you will understand me this time: Heaven knows you
take a deal of telling before you understand anything!"

"Yes, Mr. Philip," said the man, bowing obsequiously; and then muttered,
as he went off, "Drat the nat'rel! He speaks to a poor man as if he
warn't flesh and blood."

"Does your father keep hunters?" asked Philip. No."

"Why?"

"Perhaps one reason may be, that he is not rich enough."

"Oh! that's a pity. Never mind, we'll mount you, whenever you like to pay
us a visit."

Young Arthur drew himself up, and his air, naturally frank and gentle,
became haughty and reserved. Philip gazed on him, and felt offended; he
scarce knew why, but from that moment he conceived a dislike to his
cousin.




CHAPTER IV.

   "For a man is helpless and vain, of a condition so exposed to
   calamity that a raisin is able to kill him; any trooper out of the
   Egyptian army--a fly can do it, when it goes on God's errand."
   --JEREMY TAYLOR On the Deceitfulness of the Heart.


The two brothers sat at their wine after dinner. Robert sipped claret,
the sturdy Philip quaffed his more generous port. Catherine and the boys
might be seen at a little distance, and by the light of a soft August
moon, among the shrubs and boseluets of the lawn.

Philip Beaufort was about five-and-forty, tall, robust, nay, of great
strength of frame and limb; with a countenance extremely winning, not
only from the comeliness of its features, but its frankness, manliness,
and good nature. His was the bronzed, rich complexion, the inclination
towards embonpoint, the athletic girth of chest, which denote redundant
health, and mirthful temper, and sanguine blood. Robert, who had lived
the life of cities, was a year younger than his brother; nearly as tall,
but pale, meagre, stooping, and with a careworn, anxious, hungry look,
which made the smile that hung upon his lips seem hollow and artificial.
His dress, though plain, was neat and studied; his manner, bland and
plausible; his voice, sweet and low: there was that about him which, if
it did not win liking, tended to excite respect--a certain decorum, a
nameless propriety of appearance and bearing, that approached a little to
formality: his every movement, slow and measured, was that of one who
paced in the circle that fences round the habits and usages of the world.

"Yes," said Philip, "I had always decided to take this step, whenever my
poor uncle's death should allow me to do so. You have seen Catherine, but
you do not know half her good qualities: she would grace any station;
and, besides, she nursed me so carefully last year, when I broke my
collar-bone in that cursed steeple-chase. Egad, I am getting too heavy
and growing too old for such schoolboy pranks."

"I have no doubt of Mrs. Morton's excellence, and I honour your motives;
still, when you talk of her gracing any station, you must not forget, my
dear brother, that she will be no more received as Mrs. Beaufort than she
is now as Mrs. Morton."

"But I tell you, Robert, that I am really married to her already; that
she would never have left her home but on that condition; that we were
married the very day we met after her flight."

Robert's thin lips broke into a slight sneer of incredulity. "My dear
brother, you do right to say this--any man in your situation would say
the same. But I know that my uncle took every pains to ascertain if the
report of a private marriage were true."

"And you helped him in the search. Eh, Bob?"

Bob slightly blushed. Philip went on.

"Ha, ha! to be sure you did; you knew that such a discovery would have
done for me in the old gentleman's good opinion. But I blinded you both,
ha, ha! The fact is, that we were married with the greatest privacy; that
even now, I own, it would be difficult for Catherine herself to establish
the fact, unless I wished it. I am ashamed to think that I have never
even told her where I keep the main proof of the marriage. I induced one
witness to leave the country, the other must be long since dead: my poor
friend, too, who officiated, is no more. Even the register, Bob, the
register itself, has been destroyed: and yet, notwithstanding, I will
prove the ceremony and clear up poor Catherine's fame; for I have the
attested copy of the register safe and sound. Catherine not married! why,
look at her, man!"

Mr. Robert Beaufort glanced at the window for a moment, but his
countenance was still that of one unconvinced. "Well, brother," said he,
dipping his fingers in the water-glass, "it is not for me to contradict
you. It is a very curious tale--parson dead--witnesses missing. But
still, as I said before, if you are resolved on a public marriage, you
are wise to insist that there has been a previous private one. Yet,
believe me, Philip," continued Robert, with solemn earnestness, "the
world--"

"Damn the world! What do I care for the world! We don't want to go to
routs and balls, and give dinners to fine people. I shall live much the
same as I have always done; only, I shall now keep the hounds--they are
very indifferently kept at present--and have a yacht; and engage the best
masters for the boys. Phil wants to go to Eton, but I know what Eton is:
poor fellow! his feelings might be hurt there, if others are as sceptical
as yourself. I suppose my old friends will not be less civil now I have
L20,000. a year. And as for the society of women, between you and me, I
don't care a rush for any woman but Catherine: poor Katty!"

"Well, you are the best judge of your own affairs: you don't misinterpret
my motives?"

"My dear Bob, no. I am quite sensible how kind it is in you--a man of
your starch habits and strict views, coming here to pay a mark of respect
to Kate (Mr. Robert turned uneasily in his chair)--even before you knew
of the private marriage, and I'm sure I don't blame you for never having
done it before. You did quite right to try your chance with my uncle."

Mr. Robert turned in his chair again, still more uneasily, and cleared
his voice as if to speak. But Philip tossed off his wine, and proceeded,
without heeding his brother,--

"And though the poor old man does not seem to have liked you the better
for consulting his scruples, yet we must make up for the partiality of
his will. Let me see--what with your wife's fortune, you muster L2000. a
year?"

"Only L1500., Philip, and Arthur's education is growing expensive. Next
year he goes to college. He is certainly very clever, and I have great
hopes--"

"That he will do Honour to us all--so have I. He is a noble young fellow:
and I think my Philip may find a great deal to learn from him,--Phil is a
sad idle dog; but with a devil of a spirit, and sharp as a needle. I wish
you could see him ride. Well, to return to Arthur. Don't trouble yourself
about his education--that shall be my care. He shall go to Christ
Church--a gentleman-commoner, of course--and when he is of age we'll get
him into parliament. Now for yourself, Bob. I shall sell the town-house
in Berkeley Square, and whatever it brings you shall have. Besides that,
I'll add L1500. a year to your L1000.--so that's said and done. Pshaw!
brothers should be brothers.--Let's come out and play with the boys!"

The two Beauforts stepped through the open casement into the lawn.

"You look pale, Bob--all you London fellows do. As for me, I feel as
strong as a horse: much better than when I was one of your gay dogs
straying loose about the town'. 'Gad, I have never had a moment's ill
health, except from a fall now and then. I feel as if I should live for
ever, and that's the reason why I could never make a will."

"Have you never, then, made your will?"

"Never as yet. Faith, till now, I had little enough to leave. But now
that all this great Beaufort property is at my own disposal, I must think
of Kate's jointure. By Jove! now I speak of it, I will ride
to----to-morrow, and consult the lawyer there both about the will and the
marriage. You will stay for the wedding?"

"Why, I must go into --shire to-morrow evening, to place Arthur with his
tutor. But I'll return for the wedding, if you particularly wish it: only
Mrs. Beaufort is a woman of very strict--"

"I--do particularly wish it," interrupted Philip, gravely; "for I desire,
for Catherine's sake, that you, my sole surviving relation, may not seem
to withhold your countenance from an act of justice to her. And as for
your wife, I fancy L1500. a year would reconcile her to my marrying out
of the Penitentiary."

Mr. Robert bowed his head, coughed huskily, and said, "I appreciate your
generous affection, Philip."

The next morning, while the elder parties were still over the
breakfast-table, the younger people were in the grounds it was a lovely
day, one of the last of the luxuriant August--and Arthur, as he looked
round, thought he had never seen a more beautiful place. It was, indeed,
just the spot to captivate a youthful and susceptible fancy. The village
of Fernside, though in one of the counties adjoining Middlesex, and as
near to London as the owner's passionate pursuits of the field would
permit, was yet as rural and sequestered as if a hundred miles distant
from the smoke of the huge city. Though the dwelling was called a
cottage, Philip had enlarged the original modest building into a villa of
some pretensions. On either side a graceful and well-proportioned portico
stretched verandahs, covered with roses and clematis; to the right
extended a range of costly conservatories, terminating in vistas of
trellis-work which formed those elegant alleys called rosaries, and
served to screen the more useful gardens from view. The lawn, smooth and
even, was studded with American plants and shrubs in flower, and bounded
on one side by a small lake, on the opposite bank of which limes and
cedars threw their shadows over the clear waves. On the other side a
light fence separated the grounds from a large paddock, in which three or
four hunters grazed in indolent enjoyment. It was one of those cottages
which bespeak the ease and luxury not often found in more ostentatious
mansions--an abode which, at sixteen, the visitor contemplates with vague
notions of poetry and love--which, at forty, he might think dull and
d---d expensive-which, at sixty, he would pronounce to be damp in winter,
and full of earwigs in the summer. Master Philip was leaning on his gun;
Master Sidney was chasing a peacock butterfly; Arthur was silently gazing
on the shining lake and the still foliage that drooped over its surface.
In the countenance of this young man there was something that excited a
certain interest. He was less handsome than Philip, but the expression of
his face was more prepossessing. There was something of pride in the
forehead; but of good nature, not unmixed with irresolution and weakness,
in the curves of the mouth. He was more delicate of frame than Philip;
and the colour of his complexion was not that of a robust constitution.
His movements were graceful and self-possessed, and he had his father's
sweetness of voice. "This is really beautiful!--I envy you, cousin
Philip."

"Has not your father got a country-house?"

"No: we live either in London or at some hot, crowded watering-place."

"Yes; this is very nice during the shooting and hunting season. But my
old nurse says we shall have a much finer place now. I liked this very
well till I saw Lord Belville's place. But it is very unpleasant not to
have the finest house in the county: aut Caesar aut nullus--that's my
motto. Ah! do you see that swallow? I'll bet you a guinea I hit it." "No,
poor thing! don't hurt it." But ere the remonstrance was uttered, the
bird lay quivering on the ground. "It is just September, and one must
keep one's hand in," said Philip, as he reloaded his gun.

To Arthur this action seemed a wanton cruelty; it was rather the wanton
recklessness which belongs to a wild boy accustomed to gratify the
impulse of the moment--the recklessness which is not cruelty in the boy,
but which prosperity may pamper into cruelty in the man. And scarce had
he reloaded his gun before the neigh of a young colt came from the
neighbouring paddock, and Philip bounded to the fence. "He calls me, poor
fellow; you shall see him feed from my hand. Run in for a piece of
bread--a large piece, Sidney." The boy and the animal seemed to
understand each other. "I see you don't like horses," he said to Arthur.
As for me, I love dogs, horses--every dumb creature."

"Except swallows." said Arthur, with a half smile, and a little surprised
at the inconsistency of the boast.

"Oh! that is short,--all fair: it is not to hurt the swallow--it is to
obtain skill," said Philip, colouring; and then, as if not quite easy
with his own definition, he turned away abruptly.

"This is dull work--suppose we fish. By Jove!" (he had caught his
father's expletive) "that blockhead has put the tent on the wrong side of
the lake, after all. Holla, you, sir!" and the unhappy gardener looked up
from his flower-beds; "what ails you? I have a great mind to tell my
father of you--you grow stupider every day. I told you to put the tent
under the lime-trees."

"We could not manage it, sir; the boughs were in the way."

"And why did you not cut the boughs, blockhead?"

"I did not dare do so, sir, without master's orders," said the man
doggedly.

"My orders are sufficient, I should think; so none of your impertinence,"
cried Philip, with a raised colour; and lifting his hand, in which he
held his ramrod, he shook it menacingly over the gardener's head,--"I've
a great mind to----"

"What's the matter, Philip?" cried the good-humoured voice of his father.
"Fie!"

"This fellow does not mind what I say, sir."

"I did not like to cut the boughs of the lime-trees without your orders,
sir," said the gardener.

"No, it would be a pity to cut them. You should consult me there, Master
Philip;" and the father shook him by the collar with a good-natured, and
affectionate, but rough sort of caress.

"Be quiet, father!" said the boy, petulantly and proudly; "or," he added,
in a lower voice, but one which showed emotion, "my cousin may think you
mean less kindly than you always do, sir."

The father was touched: "Go and cut the lime-boughs, John; and always do
as Mr. Philip tells you."

The mother was behind, and she sighed audibly. "Ah! dearest, I fear you
will spoil him."

"Is he not your son? and do we not owe him the more respect for having
hitherto allowed others to--"

He stopped, and the mother could say no more. And thus it was, that this
boy of powerful character and strong passions had, from motives the most
amiable, been pampered from the darling into the despot.

"And now, Kate, I will, as I told you last night, ride over to ---- and
fix the earliest day for our public marriage: I will ask the lawyer to
dine here, to talk about the proper steps for proving the private one."

"Will that be difficult" asked Catherine, with natural anxiety.

"No,--for if you remember, I had the precaution to get an examined copy
of the register; otherwise, I own to you, I should have been alarmed. I
don't know what has become of Smith. I heard some time since from his
father that he had left the colony; and (I never told you before--it
would have made you uneasy) once, a few years ago, when my uncle again
got it into his head that we might be married, I was afraid poor Caleb's
successor might, by chance, betray us. So I went over to A---- myself,
being near it when I was staying with Lord C----, in order to see how far
it might be necessary to secure the parson; and, only think! I found an
accident had happened to the register--so, as the clergyman could know
nothing, I kept my own counsel. How lucky I have the copy! No doubt the
lawyer will set all to rights; and, while I am making the settlements, I
may as well make my will. I have plenty for both boys, but the dark one
must be the heir. Does he not look born to be an eldest son?"

"Ah, Philip!"

"Pshaw! one don't die the sooner for making a will. Have I the air of a
man in a consumption?"--and the sturdy sportsman glanced complacently at
the strength and symmetry of his manly limbs. "Come, Phil, let's go to
the stables. Now, Robert, I will show you what is better worth seeing
than those miserable flower-beds." So saying, Mr. Beaufort led the way to
the courtyard at the back of the cottage. Catherine and Sidney remained
on the lawn; the rest followed the host. The grooms, of whom Beaufort was
the idol, hastened to show how well the horses had thriven in his
absence.

"Do see how Brown Bess has come on, sir! but, to be sure, Master Philip
keeps her in exercise. Ah, sir, he will be as good a rider as your
honour, one of these days."

"He ought to be a better, Tom; for I think he'll never have my weight to
carry. Well, saddle Brown Bess for Mr. Philip. What horse shall I take?
Ah! here's my old friend, Puppet!"

"I don't know what's come to Puppet, sir; he's off his feed, and turned
sulky. I tried him over the bar yesterday; but he was quite restive
like."

"The devil he was! So, so, old boy, you shall go over the six-barred gate
to-day, or we'll know why." And Mr. Beaufort patted the sleek neck of his
favourite hunter. "Put the saddle on him, Tom."

"Yes, your honour. I sometimes think he is hurt in the loins somehow--he
don't take to his leaps kindly, and he always tries to bite when we
bridles him. Be quiet, sir!"

"Only his airs," said Philip. "I did not know this, or I would have taken
him over the gate. Why did not you tell me, Tom?"

"Lord love you, sir! because you have such a spurret; and if anything had
come to you--"

"Quite right: you are not weight enough for Puppet, my boy; and he never
did like any one to back him but myself. What say you, brother, will you
ride with us?"

"No, I must go to ---- to-day with Arthur. I have engaged the post-horses
at two o'clock; but I shall be with you to-morrow or the day after. You
see his tutor expects him; and as he is backward in his mathematics, he
has no time to lose."

"Well, then, good-bye, nephew!" and Beaufort slipped a pocket-book into
the boy's hand. "Tush! whenever you want money, don't trouble your
father--write to me--we shall be always glad to see you; and you must
teach Philip to like his book a little better--eh, Phil?"

"No, father; I shall be rich enough to do without books," said Philip,
rather coarsely; but then observing the heightened colour of his cousin,
he went up to him, and with a generous impulse said, "Arthur, you admired
this gun; pray accept it. Nay, don't be shy--I can have as many as I like
for the asking: you're not so well off, you know."

The intention was kind, but the manner was so patronising that Arthur
felt offended. He put back the gun, and said, drily, "I shall have no
occasion for the gun, thank you."

If Arthur was offended by the offer, Philip was much more offended by the
refusal. "As you like; I hate pride," said he; and he gave the gun to the
groom as he vaulted into his saddle with the lightness of a young
Mercury. "Come, father!"

Mr. Beaufort had now mounted his favourite hunter--a large, powerful
horse well known for its prowess in the field. The rider trotted him once
or twice through the spacious yard.

"Nonsense, Tom: no more hurt in the loins than I am. Open that gate; we
will go across the paddock, and take the gate yonder--the old
six-bar--eh, Phil?"

"Capital!--to be sure!--"

The gate was opened--the grooms stood watchful to see the leap, and a
kindred curiosity arrested Robert Beaufort and his son.

How well they looked! those two horsemen; the ease, lightness, spirit of
the one, with the fine-limbed and fiery steed that literally "bounded
beneath him as a barb"--seemingly as gay, as ardent, and as haughty as
the boyrider. And the manly, and almost herculean form of the elder
Beaufort, which, from the buoyancy of its movements, and the supple grace
that belongs to the perfect mastership of any athletic art, possessed an
elegance and dignity, especially on horseback, which rarely accompanies
proportions equally sturdy and robust. There was indeed something
knightly and chivalrous in the bearing of the elder Beaufort--in his
handsome aquiline features, the erectness of his mien, the very wave of
his hand, as he spurred from the yard.

"What a fine-looking fellow my uncle is!" said Arthur, with involuntary
admiration.

"Ay, an excellent life--amazingly strong!" returned the pale father, with
a slight sigh.

"Philip," said Mr. Beaufort, as they cantered across the paddock, "I
think the gate is too much for you. I will just take Puppet over, and
then we will open it for you."

"Pooh, my dear father! you don't know how I'm improved!" And slackening
the rein, and touching the side of his horse, the young rider darted
forward and cleared the gate, which was of no common height, with an ease
that extorted a loud "bravo" from the proud father.

"Now, Puppet," said Mr. Beaufort, spurring his own horse. The animal
cantered towards the gate, and then suddenly turned round with an
impatient and angry snort. "For shame, Puppet!--for shame, old boy!" said
the sportsman, wheeling him again to the barrier. The horse shook his
head, as if in remonstrance; but the spur vigorously applied showed him
that his master would not listen to his mute reasonings. He bounded
forward--made at the gate--struck his hoofs against the top bar--fell
forward, and threw his rider head foremost on the road beyond. The horse
rose instantly--not so the master. The son dismounted, alarmed and
terrified. His father was speechless! and blood gushed from the mouth and
nostrils, as the head drooped heavily on the boy's breast. The bystanders
had witnessed the fall--they crowded to the spot--they took the fallen
man from the weak arms of the son--the head groom examined him with the
eye of one who had picked up science from his experience in such
casualties.

"Speak, brother!--where are you hurt?" exclaimed Robert Beaufort.

"He will never speak more!" said the groom, bursting into tears. "His
neck is broken!"

"Send for the nearest surgeon," cried Mr. Robert. "Good God! boy! don't
mount that devilish horse!"

But Arthur had already leaped on the unhappy steed, which had been the
cause of this appalling affliction. "Which way?"

"Straight on to ----, only two miles--every one knows Mr. Powis's house.
God bless you!" said the groom. Arthur vanished.

"Lift him carefully, and take him to the house," said Mr. Robert. "My
poor brother! my dear brother!"

He was interrupted by a cry, a single shrill, heartbreaking cry; and
Philip fell senseless to the ground.

No one heeded him at that hour--no one heeded the fatherless BASTARD.
"Gently, gently," said Mr. Robert, as he followed the servants and their
load. And he then muttered to himself, and his sallow cheek grew bright,
and his breath came short: "He has made no will--he never made a will."




CHAPTER V.

     "Constance. O boy, then where art thou?
        *  * * * What becomes of me"--King John.

It was three days after the death of Philip Beaufort--for the surgeon
arrived only to confirm the judgment of the groom: in the drawing-room of
the cottage, the windows closed, lay the body, in its coffin, the lid not
yet nailed down. There, prostrate on the floor, tearless, speechless, was
the miserable Catherine; poor Sidney, too young to comprehend all his
loss, sobbing at her side; while Philip apart, seated beside the coffin,
gazed abstractedly on that cold rigid face which had never known one
frown for his boyish follies.

In another room, that had been appropriated to the late owner, called his
study, sat Robert Beaufort. Everything in this room spoke of the
deceased. Partially separated from the rest of the house, it communicated
by a winding staircase with a chamber above, to which Philip had been
wont to betake himself whenever he returned late, and over-exhilarated,
from some rural feast crowning a hard day's hunt. Above a quaint,
old-fashioned bureau of Dutch workmanship (which Philip had picked up at
a sale in the earlier years of his marriage) was a portrait of Catherine
taken in the bloom of her youth. On a peg on the door that led to the
staircase, still hung his rough driving coat. The window commanded the
view of the paddock in which the worn-out hunter or the unbroken colt
grazed at will. Around the walls of the "study"--(a strange
misnomer!)--hung prints of celebrated fox-hunts and renowned
steeple-chases: guns, fishing-rods, and foxes' brushes, ranged with a
sportsman's neatness, supplied the place of books. On the mantelpiece lay
a cigar-case, a well-worn volume on the Veterinary Art, and the last
number of the Sporting Magazine. And in the room--thus witnessing of the
hardy, masculine, rural life, that had passed away--sallow, stooping,
town-worn, sat, I say, Robert Beaufort, the heir-at-law,--alone: for the
very day of the death he had remanded his son home with the letter that
announced to his wife the change in their fortunes, and directed her to
send his lawyer post-haste to the house of death. The bureau, and the
drawers, and the boxes which contained the papers of the deceased were
open; their contents had been ransacked; no certificate of the private
marriage, no hint of such an event; not a paper found to signify the last
wishes of the rich dead man.

He had died, and made no sign. Mr. Robert Beaufort's countenance was
still and composed.

A knock at the door was heard; the lawyer entered.

"Sir, the undertakers are here, and Mr. Greaves has ordered the bells to
be rung: at three o'clock he will read the service."

"I am obliged to you., Blackwell, for taking these melancholy offices on
yourself. My poor brother!--it is so sudden! But the funeral, you say,
ought to take place to-day?"

"The weather is so warm," said the lawyer, wiping his forehead. As he
spoke, the death-bell was heard.

There was a pause.

"It would have been a terrible shock to Mrs. Morton if she had been his
wife," observed Mr. Blackwell. "But I suppose persons of that kind have
very little feeling. I must say that it was fortunate for the family that
the event happened before Mr. Beaufort was wheedled into so improper a
marriage."

"It was fortunate, Blackwell. Have you ordered the post-horses? I shall
start immediately after the funeral."

"What is to be done with the cottage, sir?"

"You may advertise it for sale."

"And Mrs. Morton and the boys?" "Hum! we will consider. She was a
tradesman's daughter. I think I ought to provide for her suitably, eh?"

"It is more than the world could expect from you, sir; it is very
different from a wife."

"Oh, very!--very much so, indeed! Just ring for a lighted candle, we will
seal up these boxes. And--I think I could take a sandwich. Poor Philip!"

The funeral was over; the dead shovelled away. What a strange thing it
does seem, that that very form which we prized so charily, for which we
prayed the winds to be gentle, which we lapped from the cold in our arms,
from whose footstep we would have removed a stone, should be suddenly
thrust out of sight--an abomination that the earth must not look upon--a
despicable loathsomeness, to be concealed and to be forgotten! And this
same composition of bone and muscle that was yesterday so strong--which
men respected, and women loved, and children clung to--to-day so
lamentably powerless, unable to defend or protect those who lay nearest
to its heart; its riches wrested from it, its wishes spat upon, its
influence expiring with its last sigh! A breath from its lips making all
that mighty difference between what it was and what it is!

The post-horses were at the door as the funeral procession returned to
the house.

Mr. Robert Beaufort bowed slightly to Mrs. Morton, and said, with his
pocket-handkerchief still before his eyes:

"I will write to you in a few days, ma'am; you will find that I shall not
forget you. The cottage will be sold; but we sha'n't hurry you. Good-bye,
ma'am; good-bye, my boys;" and he patted his nephews on the head.

Philip winced aside, and scowled haughtily at his uncle, who muttered to
himself, "That boy will come to no good!" Little Sidney put his hand into
the rich man's, and looked up, pleadingly, into his face. "Can't you say
something pleasant to poor mamma, Uncle Robert?"

Mr. Beaufort hemmed huskily, and entered the britska--it had been his
brother's: the lawyer followed, and they drove away.

A week after the funeral, Philip stole from the house into the
conservatory, to gather some fruit for his mother; she had scarcely
touched food since Beaufort's death. She was worn to a shadow; her hair
had turned grey. Now she had at last found tears, and she wept
noiselessly but unceasingly.

The boy had plucked some grapes, and placed them carefully in his basket:
he was about to select a nectarine that seemed riper than the rest, when
his hand was roughly seized; and the gruff voice of John Green, the
gardener, exclaimed:

"What are you about, Master Philip? you must not touch them 'ere fruit!"

"How dare you, fellow!" cried the young gentleman, in a tone of equal
astonishment and, wrath.

"None of your airs, Master Philip! What I means is, that some great folks
are coming too look at the place tomorrow; and I won't have my show of
fruit spoiled by being pawed about by the like of you; so, that's plain,
Master Philip!"

The boy grew very pale, but remained silent. The gardener, delighted to
retaliate the insolence he had received, continued:

"You need not go for to look so spiteful, master; you are not the great
man you thought you were; you are nobody now, and so you will find ere
long. So, march out, if you please: I wants to lock up the glass."

As he spoke, he took the lad roughly by the arm; but Philip, the most
irascible of mortals, was strong for his years, and fearless as a young
lion. He caught up a watering-pot, which the gardener had deposited while
he expostulated with his late tyrant and struck the man across the face
with it so violently and so suddenly, that he fell back over the beds,
and the glass crackled and shivered under him. Philip did not wait for
the foe to recover his equilibrium; but, taking up his grapes, and
possessing himself quietly of the disputed nectarine, quitted the spot;
and the gardener did not think it prudent to pursue him. To boys, under
ordinary circumstances--boys who have buffeted their way through a
scolding nursery, a wrangling family, or a public school--there would
have been nothing in this squabble to dwell on the memory or vibrate on
the nerves, after the first burst of passion: but to Philip Beaufort it
was an era in life; it was the first insult he had ever received; it was
his initiation into that changed, rough, and terrible career, to which
the spoiled darling of vanity and love was henceforth condemned. His
pride and his self-esteem had incurred a fearful shock. He entered the
house, and a sickness came over him; his limbs trembled; he sat down in
the hall, and, placing the fruit beside him, covered his face with his
hands and wept. Those were not the tears of a boy, drawn from a shallow
source; they were the burning, agonising, reluctant tears, that men shed,
wrung from the heart as if it were its blood. He had never been sent to
school, lest he should meet with mortification. He had had various
tutors, trained to show, rather than to exact, respect; one succeeding
another, at his own whim and caprice. His natural quickness, and a very
strong, hard, inquisitive turn of mind, had enabled him, however, to pick
up more knowledge, though of a desultory and miscellaneous nature, than
boys of his age generally possess; and his roving, independent,
out-of-door existence had served to ripen his understanding. He had
certainly, in spite of every precaution, arrived at some, though not very
distinct, notion of his peculiar position; but none of its inconveniences
had visited him till that day. He began now to turn his eyes to the
future; and vague and dark forebodings--a consciousness of the shelter,
the protector, the station, he had lost in his father's death--crept
coldly, over him. While thus musing, a ring was heard at the bell; he
lifted his head; it was the postman with a letter. Philip hastily rose,
and, averting his face, on which the tears were not dried, took the
letter; and then, snatching up his little basket of fruit, repaired to
his mother's room.

The shutters were half closed on the bright day--oh, what a mockery is
there in the smile of the happy sun when it shines on the wretched! Mrs.
Morton sat, or rather crouched, in a distant corner; her streaming eyes
fixed on vacancy; listless, drooping; a very image of desolate woe; and
Sidney was weaving flower-chains at her feet.

"Mamma!--mother!" whispered Philip, as he threw his arms round her neck;
"look up! look up!-my heart breaks to see you. Do taste this fruit: you
will die too, if you go on thus; and what will become of us--of Sidney?"

Mrs. Morton did look up vaguely into his face, and strove to smile.

"See, too, I have brought you a letter; perhaps good news; shall I break
the seal?"

Mrs. Morton shook her head gently, and took the letter--alas! how
different from that one which Sidney had placed in her hands not two
short weeks since--it was Mr. Robert Beaufort's handwriting. She
shuddered, and laid it down. And then there suddenly, and for the first
time, flashed across her the sense of her strange position--the dread of
the future. What were her sons to be henceforth?

What herself? Whatever the sanctity of her marriage, the law might fail
her. At the disposition of Mr. Robert Beaufort the fate of three lives
might depend. She gasped for breath; again took up the letter; and
hurried over the contents: they ran thus:

"DEAR, MADAM,--Knowing that you must naturally be anxious as to the
future prospects of your children and yourself, left by my poor brother
destitute of all provision, I take the earliest opportunity which it
seems to me that propriety and decorum allow, to apprise you of my
intentions. I need not say that, properly speaking, you can have no kind
of claim upon the relations of my late brother; nor will I hurt your
feelings by those moral reflections which at this season of sorrow
cannot, I hope, fail involuntarily to force themselves upon you. Without
more than this mere allusion to your peculiar connection with my brother,
I may, however, be permitted to add that that connection tended very
materially to separate him from the legitimate branches of his family;
and in consulting with them as to a provision for you and your children,
I find that, besides scruples that are to be respected, some natural
degree of soreness exists upon their minds. Out of regard, however, to my
poor brother (though I saw very little of him of late years), I am
willing to waive those feelings which, as a father and a husband, you may
conceive that I share with the rest of my family. You will probably now
decide on living with some of your own relations; and that you may not be
entirely a burden to them, I beg to say that I shall allow you a hundred
a year; paid, if you prefer it, quarterly. You may also select such
articles of linen and plate as you require for your own use. With regard
to your sons, I have no objection to place them at a grammar-school, and,
at a proper age, to apprentice them to any trade suitable to their future
station, in the choice of which your own family can give you the best
advice. If they conduct themselves properly, they may always depend on my
protection. I do not wish to hurry your movements; but it will probably
be painful to you to remain longer than you can help in a place crowded
with unpleasant recollections; and as the cottage is to be sold--indeed,
my brother-in-law, Lord Lilburne, thinks it would suit him--you will be
liable to the interruption of strangers to see it; and your prolonged
residence at Fernside, you must be sensible, is rather an obstacle to the
sale. I beg to inclose you a draft for L100. to pay any present expenses;
and to request, when you are settled, to know where the first quarter
shall be paid.

"I shall write to Mr. Jackson (who, I think, is the bailiff) to detail my
instructions as to selling the crops, &c., and discharging the servants;
so that you may have no further trouble.
       "I am, Madam,
           "Your obedient Servant,
                "ROBERT BEAUFORT.
"Berkeley Square, September 12th, 18--."

The letter fell from Catherine's hands. Her grief was changed to
indignation and scorn.

"The insolent!" she exclaimed, with flashing eyes. "This to me!--to
me--the wife, the lawful wife of his brother! the wedded mother of his
brother's children!"

"Say that again, mother! again--again!" cried Philip, in a loud voice.
"His wife--wedded!"

"I swear it," said Catherine, solemnly. "I kept the secret for your
father's sake. Now for yours, the truth must be proclaimed."

"Thank God! thank God!" murmured Philip, in a quivering voice, throwing
his arms round his brother, "We have no brand on our names, Sidney."

At those accents, so full of suppressed joy and pride, the mother felt at
once all that her son had suspected and concealed. She felt that beneath
his haughty and wayward character there had lurked delicate and generous
forbearance for her; that from his equivocal position his very faults
might have arisen; and a pang of remorse for her long sacrifice of the
children to the father shot through her heart. It was followed by a fear,
an appalling fear, more painful than the remorse. The proofs that were to
clear herself and them! The words of her husband, that last awful
morning, rang in her ear. The minister dead; the witness absent; the
register lost! But the copy of that register!--the copy! might not that
suffice? She groaned, and closed her eyes as if to shut out the future:
then starting up, she hurried from the room, and went straight to
Beaufort's study. As she laid her hand on the latch of the door, she
trembled and drew back. But care for the living was stronger at that
moment than even anguish for the dead: she entered the apartment; she
passed with a firm step to the bureau. It was locked; Robert Beaufort's
seal upon the lock:--on every cupboard, every box, every drawer, the same
seal that spoke of rights more valued than her own. But Catherine was not
daunted: she turned and saw Philip by her side; she pointed to the bureau
in silence; the boy understood the appeal. He left the room, and returned
in a few moments with a chisel. The lock was broken: tremblingly and
eagerly Catherine ransacked the contents; opened paper after paper,
letter after letter, in vain: no certificate, no will, no memorial. Could
the brother have abstracted the fatal proof? A word sufficed to explain
to Philip what she sought for; and his search was more minute than hers.
Every possible receptacle for papers in that room, in the whole house,
was explored, and still the search was fruitless.

Three hours afterwards they were in the same room in which Philip had
brought Robert Beaufort's letter to his mother. Catherine was seated,
tearless, but deadly pale with heart-sickness and dismay.

"Mother," said Philip, "may I now read the letter?" Yes, boy; and decide
for us all. She paused, and examined his face as he read. He felt her eye
was upon him, and restrained his emotions as he proceeded. When he had
done, he lifted his dark gaze upon Catherine's watchful countenance.

"Mother, whether or not we obtain our rights, you will still refuse this
man's charity? I am young--a boy; but I am strong and active. I will work
for you day and night. I have it in me--I feel it; anything rather than
eating his bread."

"Philip! Philip! you are indeed my son; your father's son! And have you
no reproach for your mother, who so weakly, so criminally, concealed your
birthright, till, alas! discovery may be too late? Oh! reproach me,
reproach me! it will be kindness. No! do not kiss me! I cannot bear it.
Boy! boy! if as my heart tells me, we fail in proof, do you understand
what, in the world's eye, I am; what you are?"

"I do!" said Philip, firmly; and he fell on his knees at her feet."
Whatever others call you, you are a mother, and I your son. You are, in
the judgment of Heaven, my father's Wife, and I his Heir."

Catherine bowed her head, and with a gush of tears fell into his arms.
Sidney crept up to her, and forced his lips to her cold cheek. "Mamma!
what vexes you? Mamma, mamma!"

"Oh, Sidney! Sidney! How like his father! Look at him, Philip! Shall we
do right to refuse him even this pittance? Must he be a beggar too?"

"Never beggar," said Philip, with a pride that showed what hard lessons
he had yet to learn. "The lawful sons of a Beaufort were not born to beg
their bread!"




CHAPTER VI.

     "The storm above, and frozen world below.

     The olive bough
     Faded and cast upon the common wind,
     And earth a doveless ark."--LAMAN BLANCHARD.

Mr. Robert Beaufort was generally considered by the world a very worthy
man. He had never committed any excess--never gambled nor incurred
debt--nor fallen into the warm errors most common with his sex. He was a
good husband--a careful father--an agreeable neighbour--rather charitable
than otherwise, to the poor. He was honest and methodical in his
dealings, and had been known to behave handsomely in different relations
of life. Mr. Robert Beaufort, indeed, always meant to do what was
right--in the eyes of the world! He had no other rule of action but that
which the world supplied; his religion was decorum--his sense of honour
was regard to opinion. His heart was a dial to which the world was the
sun: when the great eye of the public fell on it, it answered every
purpose that a heart could answer; but when that eye was invisible, the
dial was mute--a piece of brass and nothing more.

It is just to Robert Beaufort to assure the reader that he wholly
disbelieved his brother's story of a private marriage. He considered that
tale, when heard for the first time, as the mere invention (and a shallow
one) of a man wishing to make the imprudent step he was about to take as
respectable as he could. The careless tone of his brother when speaking
upon the subject--his confession that of such a marriage there were no
distinct proofs, except a copy of a register (which copy Robert had not
found)--made his incredulity natural. He therefore deemed himself under
no obligation of delicacy or respect, to a woman through whose means he
had very nearly lost a noble succession--a woman who had not even borne
his brother's name--a woman whom nobody knew. Had Mrs. Morton been Mrs.
Beaufort, and the natural sons legitimate children, Robert Beaufort,
supposing their situation of relative power and dependence to have been
the same, would have behaved with careful and scrupulous generosity. The
world would have said, "Nothing can be handsomer than Mr. Robert
Beaufort's conduct!" Nay, if Mrs. Morton had been some divorced wife of
birth and connections, he would have made very different dispositions in
her favour: he would not have allowed the connections to call him shabby.
But here he felt that, all circumstances considered, the world, if it
spoke at all (which it would scarce think it worth while to do), would be
on his side. An artful woman--low-born, and, of course, low-bred--who
wanted to inveigle her rich and careless paramour into marriage; what
could be expected from the man she had sought to injure--the rightful
heir? Was it not very good in him to do anything for her, and, if he
provided for the children suitably to the original station of the mother,
did he not go to the very utmost of reasonable expectation? He certainly
thought in his conscience, such as it was, that he had acted well--not
extravagantly, not foolishly; but well. He was sure the world would say
so if it knew all: he was not bound to do anything. He was not,
therefore, prepared for Catherine's short, haughty, but temperate reply
to his letter: a reply which conveyed a decided refusal of his
offers--asserted positively her own marriage, and the claims of her
children--intimated legal proceedings--and was signed in the name of
Catherine Beaufort. Mr. Beaufort put the letter in his bureau, labelled,
"Impertinent answer from Mrs. Morton, Sept. 14," and was quite contented
to forget the existence of the writer, until his lawyer, Mr. Blackwell,
informed him that a suit had been instituted by Catherine.

Mr. Robert turned pale, but Blackwell composed him.

"Pooh, sir! you have nothing to fear. It is but an attempt to extort
money: the attorney is a low practitioner, accustomed to get up bad
cases: they can make nothing of it."

This was true: whatever the rights of the case, poor Catherine had no
proofs--no evidence--which could justify a respectable lawyer to advise
her proceeding to a suit. She named two witnesses of her marriage--one
dead, the other could not be heard of. She selected for the alleged place
in which the ceremony was performed a very remote village, in which it
appeared that the register had been destroyed. No attested copy thereof
was to be found, and Catherine was stunned on hearing that, even if
found, it was doubtful whether it could be received as evidence, unless
to corroborate actual personal testimony. It so happened that when
Philip, many years ago, had received a copy, he had not shown it to
Catherine, nor mentioned Mr. Jones's name as the copyist. In fact, then
only three years married to Catherine, his worldly caution had not yet
been conquered by confident experience of her generosity. As for the mere
moral evidence dependent on the publication of her bans in London, that
amounted to no proof whatever; nor, on inquiry at A----, did the Welsh
villagers remember anything further than that, some fifteen years ago, a
handsome gentleman had visited Mr. Price, and one or two rather thought
that Mr. Price had married him to a lady from London; evidence quite
inadmissible against the deadly, damning fact, that, for fifteen years,
Catherine had openly borne another name, and lived with Mr. Beaufort
ostensibly as his mistress. Her generosity in this destroyed her case.
Nevertheless, she found a low practitioner, who took her money and
neglected her cause; so her suit was heard and dismissed with contempt.
Henceforth, then, indeed, in the eyes of the law and the public,
Catherine was an impudent adventurer, and her sons were nameless
outcasts.

And now relieved from all fear, Mr. Robert Beaufort entered upon the full
enjoyment of his splendid fortune.

The house in Berkeley Square was furnished anew. Great dinners and gay
routs were given in the ensuing spring. Mr. and Mrs. Beaufort became
persons of considerable importance. The rich man had, even when poor,
been ambitious; his ambition now centred in his only son. Arthur had
always been considered a boy of talents and promise; to what might he not
now aspire? The term of his probation with the tutor was abridged, and
Arthur Beaufort was sent at once to Oxford.

Before he went to the university, during a short preparatory visit to his
father, Arthur spoke to him of the Mortons. "What has become of them,
sir? and what have you done for them?"

"Done for them!" said Mr. Beaufort, opening his eyes. "What should I do
for persons who have just been harassing me with the most unprincipled
litigation? My conduct to them has been too generous: that is, all things
considered. But when you are my age you will find there is very little
gratitude in the world, Arthur."

"Still, sir," said Arthur, with the good nature that belonged to him:
"still, my uncle was greatly attached to them; and the boys, at least,
are guiltless."

"Well, well!" replied Mr. Beaufort, a little impatiently; "I believe they
want for nothing: I fancy they are with the mother's relations. Whenever
they address me in a proper manner they shall not find me revengeful or
hardhearted; but, since we are on this topic," continued the father
smoothing his shirt-frill with a care that showed his decorum even in
trifles, "I hope you see the results of that kind of connection, and that
you will take warning by your poor uncle's example. And now let us change
the subject; it is not a very pleasant one, and, at your age, the less
your thoughts turn on such matters the better."

Arthur Beaufort, with the careless generosity of youth, that gauges other
men's conduct by its own sentiments, believed that his father, who had
never been niggardly to himself, had really acted as his words implied;
and, engrossed by the pursuits of the new and brilliant career opened,
whether to his pleasures or his studies, suffered the objects of his
inquiries to pass from his thoughts.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Morton, for by that name we must still call her, and her
children, were settled in a small lodging in a humble suburb; situated on
the high road between Fernside and the metropolis. She saved from her
hopeless law-suit, after the sale of her jewels and ornaments, a
sufficient sum to enable her, with economy, to live respectably for a
year or two at least, during which time she might arrange her plans for
the future. She reckoned, as a sure resource, upon the assistance of her
relations; but it was one to which she applied with natural shame and
reluctance. She had kept up a correspondence with her father during his
life. To him, she never revealed the secret of her marriage, though she
did not write like a person conscious of error. Perhaps, as she always
said to her son, she had made to her husband a solemn promise never to
divulge or even hint that secret until he himself should authorise its
disclosure. For neither he nor Catherine ever contemplated separation or
death. Alas! how all of us, when happy, sleep secure in the dark shadows,
which ought to warn us of the sorrows that are to come! Still Catherine's
father, a man of coarse mind and not rigid principles, did not take much
to heart that connection which he assumed to be illicit. She was provided
for, that was some comfort: doubtless Mr. Beaufort would act like a
gentleman, perhaps at last make her an honest woman and a lady.
Meanwhile, she had a fine house, and a fine carriage, and fine servants;
and so far from applying to him for money, was constantly sending him
little presents. But Catherine only saw, in his permission of her
correspondence, kind, forgiving, and trustful affection, and she loved
him tenderly: when he died, the link that bound her to her family was
broken. Her brother succeeded to the trade; a man of probity and honour,
but somewhat hard and unamiable. In the only letter she had received from
him--the one announcing her father's death--he told her plainly, and very
properly, that he could not countenance the life she led; that he had
children growing up--that all intercourse between them was at an end,
unless she left Mr. Beaufort; when, if she sincerely repented, he would
still prove her affectionate brother.

Though Catherine had at the time resented this letter as unfeeling--now,
humbled and sorrow-stricken, she recognised the propriety of principle
from which it emanated. Her brother was well off for his station--she
would explain to him her real situation--he would believe her story. She
would write to him, and beg him at least to give aid to her poor
children.

But this step she did not take till a considerable portion of her
pittance was consumed--till nearly three parts of a year since Beaufort's
death had expired--and till sundry warnings, not to be lightly heeded,
had made her forebode the probability of an early death for herself. From
the age of sixteen, when she had been placed by Mr. Beaufort at the head
of his household, she had been cradled, not in extravagance, but in an
easy luxury, which had not brought with it habits of economy and thrift.
She could grudge anything to herself, but to her children--his children,
whose every whim had been anticipated, she had not the heart to be
saving. She could have starved in a garret had she been alone; but she
could not see them wanting a comfort while she possessed a guinea.
Philip, to do him justice, evinced a consideration not to have been
expected from his early and arrogant recklessness. But Sidney, who could
expect consideration from such a child? What could he know of the change
of circumstances--of the value of money? Did he seem dejected, Catherine
would steal out and spend a week's income on the lapful of toys which she
brought home. Did he seem a shade more pale--did he complain of the
slightest ailment, a doctor must be sent for. Alas! her own ailments,
neglected and unheeded, were growing beyond the reach of medicine.
Anxious fearful--gnawed by regret for the past--the thought of famine in
the future--she daily fretted and wore herself away. She had cultivated
her mind during her secluded residence with Mr. Beaufort, but she had
learned none of the arts by which decayed gentlewomen keep the wolf from
the door; no little holiday accomplishments, which, in the day of need
turn to useful trade; no water-colour drawings, no paintings on velvet,
no fabrications of pretty gewgaws, no embroidery and fine needlework. She
was helpless--utterly helpless; if she had resigned herself to the
thought of service, she would not have had the physical strength for a
place of drudgery, and where could she have found the testimonials
necessary for a place of trust? A great change, at this time, was
apparent in Philip. Had he fallen, then, into kind hands, and under
guiding eyes, his passions and energies might have ripened into rare
qualities and great virtues. But perhaps as Goethe has somewhere said,
"Experience, after all, is the best teacher." He kept a constant guard on
his vehement temper--his wayward will; he would not have vexed his mother
for the world. But, strange to say (it was a great mystery in the woman's
heart), in proportion as he became more amiable, it seemed that his
mother loved him less. Perhaps she did not, in that change, recognise so
closely the darling of the old time; perhaps the very weaknesses and
importunities of Sidney, the hourly sacrifices the child entailed upon
her, endeared the younger son more to her from that natural sense of
dependence and protection which forms the great bond between mother and
child; perhaps too, as Philip had been one to inspire as much pride as
affection, so the pride faded away with the expectations that had fed it,
and carried off in its decay some of the affection that was intertwined
with it. However this be, Philip had formerly appeared the more spoiled
and favoured of the two: and now Sidney seemed all in all. Thus, beneath
the younger son's caressing gentleness, there grew up a certain regard
for self; it was latent, it took amiable colours; it had even a certain
charm and grace in so sweet a child, but selfishness it was not the less.
In this he differed from his brother. Philip was self-willed: Sidney
self-loving. A certain timidity of character, endearing perhaps to the
anxious heart of a mother, made this fault in the younger boy more likely
to take root. For, in bold natures, there is a lavish and uncalculating
recklessness which scorns self unconsciously and though there is a fear
which arises from a loving heart, and is but sympathy for others--the
fear which belongs to a timid character is but egotism--but, when
physical, the regard for one's own person: when moral, the anxiety for
one's own interests.

It was in a small room in a lodging-house in the suburb of H---- that
Mrs. Morton was seated by the window, nervously awaiting the knock of the
postman, who was expected to bring her brother's reply to her letter. It
was therefore between ten and eleven o'clock--a morning in the merry
month of June. It was hot and sultry, which is rare in an English June. A
flytrap, red, white, and yellow, suspended from the ceiling, swarmed with
flies; flies were on the ceiling, flies buzzed at the windows; the sofa
and chairs of horsehair seemed stuffed with flies. There was an air of
heated discomfort in the thick, solid moreen curtains, in the gaudy
paper, in the bright-staring carpet, in the very looking-glass over the
chimney-piece, where a strip of mirror lay imprisoned in an embrace of
frame covered with yellow muslin. We may talk of the dreariness of
winter; and winter, no doubt, is desolate: but what in the world is more
dreary to eyes inured to the verdure and bloom of Nature--,

     "The pomp of groves and garniture of fields,"

--than a close room in a suburban lodging-house; the sun piercing every
corner; nothing fresh, nothing cool, nothing fragrant to be seen, felt,
or inhaled; all dust, glare, noise, with a chandler's shop, perhaps, next
door? Sidney armed with a pair of scissors, was cutting the pictures out
of a story-book, which his mother had bought him the day before. Philip,
who, of late, had taken much to rambling about the streets--it may be, in
hopes of meeting one of those benevolent, eccentric, elderly gentlemen,
he had read of in old novels, who suddenly come to the relief of
distressed virtue; or, more probably, from the restlessness that belonged
to his adventurous temperament;--Philip had left the house since
breakfast.

"Oh! how hot this nasty room is!" exclaimed Sidney, abruptly, looking up
from his employment. "Sha'n't we ever go into the country, again, mamma?"

"Not at present, my love."

"I wish I could have my pony; why can't I have my pony, mamma?"

"Because,--because--the pony is sold, Sidney."

"Who sold it?"

"Your uncle."

"He is a very naughty man, my uncle: is he not? But can't I have another
pony? It would be so nice, this fine weather!"

"Ah! my dear, I wish I could afford it: but you shall have a ride this
week! Yes," continued the mother, as if reasoning with herself, in excuse
of the extravagance, "he does not look well: poor child! he must have
exercise."

"A ride!--oh! that is my own kind mamma!" exclaimed Sidney, clapping his
hands. "Not on a donkey, you know!--a pony. The man down the street,
there, lets ponies. I must have the white pony with the long tail. But, I
say, mamma, don't tell Philip, pray don't; he would be jealous."

"No, not jealous, my dear; why do you think so?"

"Because he is always angry when I ask you for anything. It is very
unkind in him, for I don't care if he has a pony, too,--only not the
white one."

Here the postman's knock, loud and sudden, started Mrs. Morton from her
seat.

She pressed her hands tightly to her heart, as if to still its beating,
and went tremulously to the door; thence to the stairs, to anticipate the
lumbering step of the slipshod maidservent.

"Give it me, Jane; give it me!"

"One shilling and eightpence--double charged--if you please, ma'am! Thank
you."

"Mamma, may I tell Jane to engage the pony?"

"Not now, my love; sit down; be quiet: I--I am not well."

Sidney, who was affectionate and obedient, crept back peaceably to the
window, and, after a short, impatient sigh, resumed the scissors and the
story-book. I do not apologise to the reader for the various letters I am
obliged to lay before him; for character often betrays itself more in
letters than in speech. Mr. Roger Morton's reply was couched in these
terms,--

"DEAR CATHERINE, I have received your letter of the 14th inst., and write
per return. I am very much grieved to hear of your afflictions; but,
whatever you say, I cannot think the late Mr. Beaufort acted like a
conscientious man, in forgetting to make his will, and leaving his little
ones destitute. It is all very well to talk of his intentions; but the
proof of the pudding is in the eating. And it is hard upon me, who have
a large family of my own, and get my livelihood by honest industry, to
have a rich gentleman's children to maintain. As for your story about
the private marriage, it may or not be. Perhaps you were taken in by
that worthless man, for a real marriage it could not be. And, as you
say, the law has decided that point; therefore, the less you say on the
matter the better. It all comes to the same thing. People are not bound
to believe what can't be proved. And even if what you say is true, you
are more to be blamed than pitied for holding your tongue so many years,
and discrediting an honest family, as ours has always been considered. I
am sure my wife would not have thought of such a thing for the finest
gentleman that ever wore shoe-leather. However, I don't want to hurt
your feelings; and I am sure I am ready to do whatever is right and
proper. You cannot expect that I should ask you to my house. My wife,
you know, is a very religious woman--what is called evangelical; but
that's neither here nor there: I deal with all people, churchmen and
dissenters--even Jews,--and don't trouble my head much about differences
in opinion. I dare say there are many ways to heaven; as I said, the
other day, to Mr. Thwaites, our member. But it is right to say my wife
will not hear of your coming here; and, indeed, it might do harm to my
business, for there are several elderly single gentlewomen, who buy
flannel for the poor at my shop, and they are very particular; as they
ought to be, indeed: for morals are very strict in this county, and
particularly in this town, where we certainly do pay very high
church-rates. Not that I grumble; for, though I am as liberal as any man,
I am
for an established church; as I ought to be, since the dean is my best
customer. With regard to yourself I inclose you L10., and you will let
me know when it is gone, and I will see what more I can do. You say you
are very poorly, which I am sorry to hear; but you must pluck up your
spirits, and take in plain work; and I really think you ought to apply to
Mr. Robert Beaufort. He bears a high character; and notwithstanding your
lawsuit, which I cannot approve of, I dare say he might allow you L40.
or L50. a-year, if you apply properly, which would be the right thing in
him. So much for you. As for the boys--poor, fatherless creatures!--it
is very hard that they should be so punished for no fault of their own;
and my wife, who, though strict, is a good-hearted woman, is ready and
willing to do what I wish about them. You say the eldest is near sixteen
and well come on in his studies. I can get him a very good thing in a
light genteel way. My wife's brother, Mr. Christopher Plaskwith, is a
bookseller and stationer with pretty practice, in R----. He is a clever
man, and has a newspaper, which he kindly sends me every week; and,
though it is not my county, it has some very sensible views and is often
noticed in the London papers, as 'our provincial contemporary.'--Mr.
Plaskwith owes me some money, which I advanced him when he set up the
paper; and he has several times most honestly offered to pay me, in
shares in the said paper. But, as the thing might break, and I don't
like concerns I don't understand, I have not taken advantage of his very
handsome proposals. Now, Plaskwith wrote me word, two days ago, that he
wanted a genteel, smart lad, as assistant and 'prentice, and offered to
take my eldest boy; but we can't spare him. I write to Christopher by
this post; and if your youth will run down on the top of the coach, and
inquire for Mr. Plaskwith--the fare is trifling--I have no doubt he will
be engaged at once. But you will say, 'There's the premium to consider!'
No such thing; Kit will set off the premium against his debt to me; so
you will have nothing to pay. 'Tis a very pretty business; and the lad's
education will get him on; so that's off your mind. As to the little
chap, I'll take him at once. You say he is a pretty boy; and a pretty
boy is always a help in a linendraper's shop. He shall share and share
with my own young folks; and Mrs. Morton will take care of his washing
and morals. I conclude--(this is Mrs. M's. suggestion)--that he has had
the measles, cowpock, and whooping-cough, which please let me know. If
he behave well, which, at his age, we can easily break him into, he is
settled for life. So now you have got rid of two mouths to feed, and
have nobody to think of but yourself, which must be a great comfort.
Don't forget to write to Mr. Beaufort; and if he don't do something for
you he's not the gentleman I take him for; but you are my own flesh and
blood, and sha'n't starve; for, though I don't think it right in a man in
business to encourage what's wrong, yet, when a person's down in the
world, I think an ounce of hell is better than a pound of preaching. My
wife thinks otherwise, and wants to send you some tracts; but every
body can't be as correct as some folks. However, as I said before,
that's neither here nor there. Let me know when your boy comes down, and
also about the measles, cowpock, and whooping-cough; also if all's right
with Mr. Plaskwith. So now I hope you will feel more comfortable; and
remain,
     "Dear Catherine,
          "Your forgiving and affectionate brother,
                "ROGER MORTON.
"High Street, N----, June 13."

"P.S.--Mrs. M. says that she will be a mother to your little boy, and
that you had better mend up all his linen before you send him."

As Catherine finished this epistle, she lifted her eyes and beheld
Philip. He had entered noiselessly, and he remained silent, leaning
against the wall, and watching the face of his mother, which crimsoned
with painful humiliation while she read. Philip was not now the trim and
dainty stripling first introduced to the reader. He had outgrown his
faded suit of funereal mourning; his long-neglected hair hung elf-like
and matted down his cheeks; there was a gloomy look in his bright dark
eyes. Poverty never betrays itself more than in the features and form of
Pride. It was evident that his spirit endured, rather than accommodated
itself to, his fallen state; and, notwithstanding his soiled and
threadbare garments, and a haggardness that ill becomes the years of
palmy youth, there was about his whole mien and person a wild and savage
grandeur more impressive than his former ruffling arrogance of manner.

"Well, mother," said he, with a strange mixture of sternness in his
countenance and pity in his voice; "well, mother, and what says your
brother?"

"You decided for us once before, decide again. But I need not ask you;
you would never--"

"I don't know," interrupted Philip, vaguely; "let me see what we are to
decide on."

Mrs. Morton was naturally a woman of high courage and spirit, but
sickness and grief had worn down both; and though Philip was but sixteen,
there is something in the very nature of woman--especially in
trouble--which makes her seek to lean on some other will than her own.
She gave Philip the letter, and went quietly to sit down by Sidney.

"Your brother means well," said Philip, when he had concluded the
epistle.

"Yes, but nothing is to be done; I cannot, cannot send poor Sidney
to--to--" and Mrs. Morton sobbed.

"No, my dear, dear mother, no; it would be terrible, indeed, to part you
and him. But this bookseller--Plaskwith--perhaps I shall be able to
support you both."

"Why, you do not think, Philip, of being an apprentice!--you, who have
been so brought up--you, who are so proud!"

"Mother, I would sweep the crossings for your sake I Mother, for your
sake I would go to my uncle Beaufort with my hat in my hand, for
halfpence. Mother, I am not proud--I would be honest, if I can--but when
I see you pining away, and so changed, the devil comes into me, and I
often shudder lest I should commit some crime--what, I don't know!"

"Come here, Philip--my own Philip--my son, my hope, my firstborn!"--and
the mother's heart gushed forth in all the fondness of early days. "Don't
speak so terribly, you frighten me!"

She threw her arms round his neck, and kissed him soothingly. He laid his
burning temples on her bosom, and nestled himself to her, as he had been
wont to do, after some stormy paroxysm of his passionate and wayward
infancy. So there they remained--their lips silent, their hearts speaking
to each other--each from each taking strange succour and holy
strength--till Philip rose, calm, and with a quiet smile, "Good-bye,
mother; I will go at once to Mr. Plaskwith."

"But you have no money for the coach-fare; here, Philip," and she placed
her purse in his hand, from which he reluctantly selected a few
shillings. "And mind, if the man is rude and you dislike him--mind, you
must not subject yourself to insolence and mortification."

"Oh, all will go well, don't fear," said Philip, cheerfully, and he left
the house.

Towards evening he had reached his destination. The shop was of goodly
exterior, with a private entrance; over the shop was written,
"Christopher Plaskwith, Bookseller and Stationer:" on the private door a
brass plate, inscribed with "R---- and ---- Mercury Office, Mr.
Plaskwith." Philip applied at the private entrance, and was shown by a
"neat-handed Phillis" into a small office-room. In a few minutes the door
opened, and the bookseller entered.

Mr. Christopher Plaskwith was a short, stout man, in drab-coloured
breeches, and gaiters to match; a black coat and waistcoat; he wore a
large watch-chain, with a prodigious bunch of seals, alternated by small
keys and old-fashioned mourning-rings. His complexion was pale and
sodden, and his hair short, dark, and sleek. The bookseller valued
himself on a likeness to Buonaparte; and affected a short, brusque,
peremptory manner, which he meant to be the indication of the vigorous
and decisive character of his prototype.

"So you are the young gentleman Mr. Roger Morton recommends?" Here Mr.
Plaskwith took out a huge pocketbook, slowly unclasped it, staring hard
at Philip, with what he designed for a piercing and penetrative survey.

"This is the letter--no! this is Sir Thomas Champerdown's order for fifty
copies of the last Mercury, containing his speech at the county meeting.
Your age, young man?--only sixteen?--look older;--that's not it--that's
not it--and this is it!--sit down. Yes, Mr. Roger Morton recommends you
--a relation--unfortunate circumstances--well educated--hum! Well, young
man, what have you to say for yourself?"

"Sir?"

"Can you cast accounts?--know bookkeeping?"

"I know something of algebra, sir."

"Algebra!--oh, what else?"

"French and Latin."

"Hum!--may be useful. Why do you wear your hair so long?--look at mine.
What's your name?"

"Philip Morton."

"Mr. Philip Morton, you have an intelligent countenance--I go a great
deal by countenances. You know the terms?--most favourable to you. No
premium--I settle that with Roger. I give board and bed--find your own
washing. Habits regular--'prenticeship only five years; when over, must
not set up in the same town. I will see to the indentures. When can you
come?"

"When you please, sir."

"Day after to-morrow, by six o'clock coach."

"But, sir," said Philip, "will there be no salary? something, ever so
small, that I could send to my another?"

"Salary, at sixteen?--board and bed-no premium! Salary, what for?
'Prentices have no salary!--you will have every comfort."

"Give me less comfort, that I may give my mother more;--a little money,
ever so little, and take it out of my board: I can do with one meal a
day, sir."

The bookseller was moved: he took a huge pinch of snuff out of his
waistcoat pocket, and mused a moment. He then said, as he re-examined
Philip:

"Well, young man, I'll tell you what we will do. You shall come here
first upon trial;--see if we like each other before we sign the
indentures; allow you, meanwhile, five shillings a week. If you show
talent, will see if I and Roger can settle about some little allowance.
That do, eh?"

"I thank you, sir, yes," said Philip, gratefully. "Agreed, then. Follow
me--present you to Mrs. P." Thus saying, Mr. Plaskwith returned the
letter to the pocket-book, and the pocket-book to the pocket; and,
putting his arms behind his coat tails, threw up his chin, and strode
through the passage into a small parlour, that locked upon a small
garden. Here, seated round the table, were a thin lady, with a squint
(Mrs. Plaskwith), two little girls, the Misses Plaskwith, also with
squints, and pinafores; a young man of three or four-and-twenty, in
nankeen trousers, a little the worse for washing, and a black velveteen
jacket and waistcoat. This young gentleman was very much freckled; wore
his hair, which was dark and wiry, up at one side, down at the other; had
a short thick nose; full lips; and, when close to him, smelt of cigars.
Such was Mr. Plimmins, Mr. Plaskwith's factotum, foreman in the shop,
assistant editor to the Mercury. Mr. Plaskwith formally went the round of
the introduction; Mrs. P. nodded her head; the Misses P. nudged each
other, and grinned; Mr. Plimmins passed his hand through his hair,
glanced at the glass, and bowed very politely.

"Now, Mrs. P., my second cup, and give Mr. Morton his dish of tea. Must
be tired, sir--hot day. Jemima, ring--no, go to the stairs and call out
'more buttered toast.' That's the shorter way--promptitude is my rule in
life, Mr. Morton. Pray-hum, hum--have you ever, by chance, studied the
biography of the great Napoleon Buonaparte?"

Mr. Plimmins gulped down his tea, and kicked Philip under the table.
Philip looked fiercely at the foreman, and replied, sullenly, "No, sir."

"That's a pity. Napoleon Buonaparte was a very great man,--very! You have
seen his cast?--there it is, on the dumb waiter! Look at it! see a
likeness, eh?"

"Likeness, sir? I never saw Napoleon Buonaparte."

"Never saw him! No, just look round the room. Who does that bust put you
in mind of? who does it resemble?"

Here Mr. Plaskwith rose, and placed himself in an attitude; his hand in
his waistcoat, and his face pensively inclined towards the tea-table.
"Now fancy me at St. Helena; this table is the ocean. Now, then, who is
that cast like, Mr. Philip Morton?"

"I suppose, sir, it is like you!"

"Ah, that it is! strikes every one! Does it not, Mrs. P., does it not?
And when you have known me longer, you will find a moral similitude--a
moral, sir! Straightforward--short--to the point--bold--determined!"

"Bless me, Mr. P.!" said Mrs. Plaskwith, very querulously, "do make haste
with your tea; the young gentleman, I suppose, wants to go home, and the
coach passes in a quarter of an hour."

"Have you seen Kean in Richard the Third, Mr. Morton?" asked Mr.
Plimmins.

"I have never seen a play."

"Never seen a play! How very odd!"

"Not at all odd, Mr. Plimmins," said the stationer. "Mr. Morton has known
troubles--so hand him the hot toast."

Silent and morose, but rather disdainful than sad, Philip listened to the
babble round him, and observed the ungenial characters with which he was
to associate. He cared not to please (that, alas! had never been
especially his study); it was enough for him if he could see, stretching
to his mind's eye beyond the walls of that dull room, the long vistas
into fairer fortune. At sixteen, what sorrow can freeze the Hope, or what
prophetic fear whisper, "Fool!" to the Ambition? He would bear back into
ease and prosperity, if not into affluence and station, the dear ones
left at home. From the eminence of five shillings a week, he looked over
the Promised Land.

At length, Mr. Plaskwith, pulling out his watch, said, "Just in time to
catch the coach; make your bow and be off-smart's the word!" Philip rose,
took up his hat, made a stiff bow that included the whole group, and
vanished with his host.

Mrs. Plaskwith breathed more easily when he was gone. "I never seed a
more odd, fierce, ill-bred-looking young man! I declare I am quite afraid
of him. What an eye he has!"

"Uncommonly dark; what I may say gipsy-like," said Mr. Plimmins.

"He! he! You always do say such good things, Plimmins. Gipsy-like, he!
he! So he is! I wonder if he can tell fortunes?"

"He'll be long before he has a fortune of his own to tell. Ha! ha!" said
Plimmins.

"He! he! how very good! you are so pleasant, Plimmins."

While these strictures on his appearance were still going on, Philip had
already ascended the roof of the coach; and, waving his hand, with the
condescension of old times, to his future master, was carried away by the
"Express" in a whirlwind of dust.

"A very warm evening, sir," said a passenger seated at his right;
puffing, while he spoke, from a short German pipe, a volume of smoke in
Philip's face.

"Very warm. Be so good as to smoke into the face of the gentleman on the
other side of you," returned Philip, petulantly.

"Ho, ho!" replied the passenger, with a loud, powerful laugh-the laugh of
a strong man. "You don't take to the pipe yet; you will by and by, when
you have known the cares and anxieties that I have gone through. A
pipe!--it is a great soother!--a pleasant comforter! Blue devils fly
before its honest breath! It ripens the brain--it opens the heart; and
the man who smokes thinks like a sage and acts like a Samaritan!"

Roused from his reverie by this quaint and unexpected declamation, Philip
turned his quick glance at his neighbour. He saw a man of great bulk and
immense physical power--broad-shouldered--deep-chested--not corpulent,
but taking the same girth from bone and muscle that a corpulent man does
from flesh. He wore a blue coat--frogged, braided, and buttoned to the
throat. A broad-brimmed straw hat, set on one side, gave a jaunty
appearance to a countenance which, notwithstanding its jovial complexion
and smiling mouth, had, in repose, a bold and decided character. It was a
face well suited to the frame, inasmuch as it betokened a mind capable of
wielding and mastering the brute physical force of body;--light eyes of
piercing intelligence; rough, but resolute and striking features, and a
jaw of iron. There was thought, there was power, there was passion in the
shaggy brow, the deep-ploughed lines, the dilated, nostril and the
restless play of the lips. Philip looked hard and grave, and the man
returned his look.

"What do you think of me, young gentleman?" asked the passenger, as he
replaced the pipe in his mouth. "I am a fine-looking man, am I not?"

"You seem a strange one."

"Strange!--Ay, I puzzle you, as I have done, and shall do, many. You
cannot read me as easily as I can read you. Come, shall I guess at your
character and circumstances? You are a gentleman, or something like it,
by birth;--that the tone of your voice tells me. You are poor, devilish
poor;--that the hole in your coat assures me. You are proud, fiery,
discontented, and unhappy;--all that I see in your face. It was because I
saw those signs that I spoke to you. I volunteer no acquaintance with the
happy."

"I dare say not; for if you know all the unhappy you must have a
sufficiently large acquaintance," returned Philip.

"Your wit is beyond your years! What is your calling, if the question
does not offend you?"

"I have none as yet," said Philip, with a slight sigh, and a deep blush.

"More's the pity!" grunted the smoker, with a long emphatic nasal
intonation. "I should have judged that you were a raw recruit in the camp
of the enemy."

"Enemy! I don't understand you."

"In other words, a plant growing out of a lawyer's desk. I will explain.
There is one class of spiders, industrious, hard-working octopedes, who,
out of the sweat of their brains (I take it, by the by, that a spider
must have a fine craniological development), make their own webs and
catch their flies. There is another class of spiders who have no stuff in
them wherewith to make webs; they, therefore, wander about, looking out
for food provided by the toil of their neighbours. Whenever they come to
the web of a smaller spider, whose larder seems well supplied, they rush
upon his domain--pursue him to his hole--eat him up if they can--reject
him if he is too tough for their maws, and quietly possess themselves of
all the legs and wings they find dangling in his meshes: these spiders I
call enemies--the world calls them lawyers!"

Philip laughed: "And who are the first class of spiders?"

"Honest creatures who openly confess that they live upon flies. Lawyers
fall foul upon them, under pretence of delivering flies from their
clutches. They are wonderful blood-suckers, these lawyers, in spite of
all their hypocrisy. Ha! ha! ho! ho!"

And with a loud, rough chuckle, more expressive of malignity than mirth,
the man turned himself round, applied vigorously to his pipe, and sank
into a silence which, as mile after mile glided past the wheels, he did
not seem disposed to break. Neither was Philip inclined to be
communicative. Considerations for his own state and prospects swallowed
up the curiosity he might otherwise have felt as to his singular
neighbour. He had not touched food since the early morning. Anxiety had
made him insensible to hunger, till he arrived at Mr. Plaskwith's; and
then, feverish, sore, and sick at heart, the sight of the luxuries
gracing the tea-table only revolted him. He did not now feel hunger, but
he was fatigued and faint. For several nights the sleep which youth can
so ill dispense with had been broken and disturbed; and now, the rapid
motion of the coach, and the free current of a fresher and more
exhausting air than he had been accustomed to for many months, began to
operate on his nerves like the intoxication of a narcotic. His eyes grew
heavy; indistinct mists, through which there seemed to glare the various
squints of the female Plaskwiths, succeeded the gliding road and the
dancing trees. His head fell on his bosom; and thence, instinctively
seeking the strongest support at hand, inclined towards the stout smoker,
and finally nestled itself composedly on that gentleman's shoulder. The
passenger, feeling this unwelcome and unsolicited weight, took the pipe,
which he had already thrice refilled, from his lips, and emitted an angry
and impatient snort; finding that this produced no effect, and that the
load grew heavier as the boy's sleep grew deeper, he cried, in a loud
voice, "Holla! I did not pay my fare to be your bolster, young man!" and
shook himself lustily. Philip started, and would have fallen sidelong
from the coach, if his neighbour had not griped him hard with a hand that
could have kept a young oak from falling.

"Rouse yourself!--you might have had an ugly tumble." Philip muttered
something inaudible, between sleeping and waking, and turned his dark
eyes towards the man; in that glance there was so much unconscious, but
sad and deep reproach, that the passenger felt touched and ashamed.
Before however, he could say anything in apology or conciliation, Philip
had again fallen asleep. But this time, as if he had felt and resented
the rebuff he had received, he inclined his head away from his neighbour,
against the edge of a box on the roof--a dangerous pillow, from which any
sudden jolt might transfer him to the road below.

"Poor lad!--he looks pale!" muttered the man, and he knocked the weed
from his pipe, which he placed gently in his pocket. "Perhaps the smoke
was too much for him--he seems ill and thin," and he took the boy's long
lean fingers in his own. "His cheek is hollow!--what do I know but it may
be with fasting? Pooh! I was a brute. Hush, coachee, hush! don't talk so
loud, and be d---d to you--he will certainly be off!" and the man softly
and creepingly encircled the boy's waist with his huge arm.

"Now, then, to shift his head; so-so,--that's right." Philip's sallow
cheek and long hair were now tenderly lapped on the soliloquist's bosom.
"Poor wretch! he smiles; perhaps he is thinking of home, and the
butterflies he ran after when he was an urchin--they never come back,
those days;--never--never--never! I think the wind veers to the east; he
may catch cold;"--and with that, the man, sliding the head for a moment,
and with the tenderness of a woman, from his breast to his shoulder,
unbuttoned his coat (as he replaced the weight, no longer unwelcomed, in
its former part), and drew the lappets closely round the slender frame of
the sleeper, exposing his own sturdy breast--for he wore no waistcoat--to
the sharpening air. Thus cradled on that stranger's bosom, wrapped from
the present and dreaming perhaps--while a heart scorched by fierce and
terrible struggles with life and sin made his pillow--of a fair and
unsullied future, slept the fatherless and friendless boy.




CHAPTER VII.

   "Constance. My life, my joy, my food, my all the world,
   My widow-comfort."--King John.

Amidst the glare of lamps--the rattle of carriages--the lumbering of
carts and waggons--the throng, the clamour, the reeking life and
dissonant roar of London, Philip woke from his happy sleep. He woke
uncertain and confused, and saw strange eyes bent on him kindly and
watchfully.

"You have slept well, my lad!" said the passenger, in the deep ringing
voice which made itself heard above all the noises around.

"And you have suffered me to incommode you thus!" said Philip, with more
gratitude in his voice and look than, perhaps, he had shown to any one
out of his own family since his birth.

"You have had but little kindness shown you, my poor boy, if you think so
much of this."

"No--all people were very kind to me once. I did not value it then." Here
the coach rolled heavily down the dark arch of the inn-yard.

"Take care of yourself, my boy! You look ill;" and in the dark the man
slipped a sovereign into Philip's hand.

"I don't want money. Though I thank you heartily all the same; it would
be a shame at my age to be a beggar. But can you think of an employment
where I can make something?--what they offer me is so trifling. I have a
mother and a brother--a mere child, sir--at home."

"Employment!" repeated the man; and as the coach now stopped at the
tavern door, the light of the lamp fell full on his marked face. "Ay, I
know of employment; but you should apply to some one else to obtain it
for you! As for me, it is not likely that we shall meet again!"

"I am sorry for that!--What and who are you?" asked Philip, with a rude
and blunt curiosity.

"Me!" returned the passenger, with his deep laugh. "Oh! I know some
people who call me an honest fellow. Take the employment offered you, no
matter how trifling the wages--keep out of harm's way. Good night to
you!"

So saying, he quickly descended from the roof, and, as he was directing
the coachman where to look for his carpetbag, Philip saw three or four
well-dressed men make up to him, shake him heartily by the hand, and
welcome him with great seeming cordiality.

Philip sighed. "He has friends," he muttered to himself; and, paying his
fare, he turned from the bustling yard, and took his solitary way home.

A week after his visit to R----, Philip was settled on his probation at
Mr. Plaskwith's, and Mrs. Morton's health was so decidedly worse, that
she resolved to know her fate, and consult a physician. The oracle was at
first ambiguous in its response. But when Mrs. Morton said firmly, "I
have duties to perform; upon your candid answer rest my Plans with
respect to my children--left, if I die suddenly, destitute in the
world,"--the doctor looked hard in her face, saw its calm resolution, and
replied frankly:

"Lose no time, then, in arranging your plans; life is uncertain with
all--with you, especially; you may live some time yet, but your
constitution is much shaken--I fear there is water on the chest. No,
ma'am-no fee. I will see you again."

The physician turned to Sidney, who played with his watch-chain, and
smiled up in his face.

"And that child, sir?" said the mother, wistfully, forgetting the dread
fiat pronounced against herself,--"he is so delicate!"

"Not at all, ma'am,--a very fine little fellow;" and the doctor patted
the boy's head, and abruptly vanished.

"Ah! mamma, I wish you would ride--I wish you would take the white pony!"

"Poor boy! poor boy!" muttered the mother; "I must not be selfish." She
covered her face with her hands, and began to think!

Could she, thus doomed, resolve on declining her brother's offer? Did it
not, at least, secure bread and shelter to her child? When she was dead,
might not a tie, between the uncle and nephew, be snapped asunder? Would
he be as kind to the boy as now when she could commend him with her own
lips to his care--when she could place that precious charge into his
hands? With these thoughts, she formed one of those resolutions which
have all the strength of self-sacrificing love. She would put the boy
from her, her last solace and comfort; she would die alone,--alone!




CHAPTER VIII.

   "Constance. When I shall meet him in the court of heaven, I shall
   not know him."--King John.

One evening, the shop closed and the business done, Mr. Roger Morton and
his family sat in that snug and comfortable retreat which generally backs
the warerooms of an English tradesman. Happy often, and indeed happy, is
that little sanctuary, near to, and yet remote from, the toil and care of
the busy mart from which its homely ease and peaceful security are drawn.
Glance down those rows of silenced shops in a town at night, and picture
the glad and quiet groups gathered within, over that nightly and social
meal which custom has banished from the more indolent tribes who neither
toil nor spin. Placed between the two extremes of life, the tradesman,
who ventures not beyond his means, and sees clear books and sure gains,
with enough of occupation to give healthful excitement, enough of fortune
to greet each new-born child without a sigh, might be envied alike by
those above and those below his state--if the restless heart of men ever
envied Content!

"And so the little boy is not to come?" said Mrs. Morton as she crossed
her knife and fork, and pushed away her plate, in token that she had done
supper.

"I don't know.--Children, go to bed; there--there--that will do. Good
night!--Catherine does not say either yes or no. She wants time to
consider."

"It was a very handsome offer on our part; some folks never know when
they are well off."

"That is very true, my dear, and you are a very sensible person. Kate
herself might have been an honest woman, and, what is more, a very rich
woman, by this time. She might have married Spencer, the young brewer--an
excellent man, and well to do!"

"Spencer! I don't remember him."

"No: after she went off, he retired from business, and left the place. I
don't know what's become of him. He was mightily taken with her, to be
sure. She was uncommonly handsome, my sister Catherine."

"Handsome is as handsome does, Mr. Morton," said the wife, who was very
much marked with the small-pox. "We all have our temptations and trials;
this is a vale of tears, and without grace we are whited sepulchers."

Mr. Morton mixed his brandy and water, and moved his chair into its
customary corner.

"You saw your brother's letter," said he, after a pause; "he gives young
Philip a very good character."

"The human heart is very deceitful," replied Mrs. Morton, who, by the
way, spoke through her nose. "Pray Heaven he may be what he seems; but
what's bred in the bone comes out in the flesh."

"We must hope the best," said Mr. Morton, mildly; "and--put another lump
into the grog, my dear."

"It is a mercy, I'm thinking, that we didn't have the other little boy. I
dare say he has never even been taught his catechism: them people don't
know what it is to be a mother. And, besides, it would have been very
awkward, Mr. M.; we could never have said who he was: and I've no doubt
Miss Pryinall would have been very curious."

"Miss Pryinall be ----!" Mr. Morton checked himself, took a large draught
of the brandy and water, and added, "Miss Pryinall wants to have a finger
in everybody's pie."

"But she buys a deal of flannel, and does great good to the town; it was
she who found out that Mrs. Giles was no better than she should be."

"Poor Mrs. Giles!--she came to the workhouse."

"Poor Mrs. Giles, indeed! I wonder, Mr. Morton, that you, a married man
with a family, should say, poor Mrs. Giles!"

"My dear, when people who have been well off come to the workhouse, they
may be called poor:--but that's neither here nor there; only, if the boy
does come to us, we must look sharp upon Miss Pryinall."

"I hope he won't come,--it will be very unpleasant. And when a man has a
wife and family, the less he meddles with other folks and their little
ones, the better. For as the Scripture says, 'A man shall cleave to his
wife and--'"

Here a sharp, shrill ring at the bell was heard, and Mrs. Morton broke
off into:

"Well! I declare! at this hour; who can that be? And all gone to bed! Do
go and see, Mr. Morton."

Somewhat reluctantly and slowly, Mr. Morton rose; and, proceeding to the
passage, unbarred the door. A brief and muttered conversation followed,
to the great irritability of Mrs. Morton, who stood in the passage--the
candle in her hand.

"What is the matter, Mr. M.?"

Mr. Morton turned back, looking agitated.

"Where's my hat? oh, here. My sister is come, at the inn."

"Gracious me! She does not go for to say she is your sister?"

"No, no: here's her note-calls herself a lady that's ill. I shall be back
soon."

"She can't come here--she sha'n't come here, Mr. M. I'm an honest
woman--she can't come here. You understand--"

Mr. Morton had naturally a stern countenance, stern to every one but his
wife. The shrill tone to which he was so long accustomed jarred then on
his heart as well as his ear. He frowned:

"Pshaw! woman, you have no feeling!" said he, and walked out of the
house, pulling his hat over his brows. That was the only rude speech Mr.
Morton had ever made to his better half. She treasured it up in her heart
and memory; it was associated with the sister and the child; and she was
not a woman who ever forgave.

Mr. Morton walked rapidly through the still, moon-lit streets, till he
reached the inn. A club was held that night in one of the rooms below;
and as he crossed the threshold, the sound of "hip-hip-hurrah!" mingled
with the stamping of feet and the jingling of glasses, saluted his
entrance. He was a stiff, sober, respectable man,--a man who, except at
elections--he was a great politician--mixed in none of the revels of his
more boisterous townsmen. The sounds, the spot, were ungenial to him. He
paused, and the colour of shame rose to his brow. He was ashamed to be
there--ashamed to meet the desolate and, as he believed, erring sister.

A pretty maidservant, heated and flushed with orders and compliments,
crossed his path with a tray full of glasses.

"There's a lady come by the Telegraph?"

"Yes, sir, upstairs, No. 2, Mr. Morton."

Mr. Morton! He shrank at the sound of his own name.

"My wife's right," he muttered. "After all, this is more unpleasant than
I thought for."

The slight stairs shook under his hasty tread. He opened the door of No.
2, and that Catherine, whom he had last seen at her age of gay sixteen,
radiant with bloom, and, but for her air of pride, the model for a
Hebe,--that Catherine, old ere youth was gone, pale, faded, the dark hair
silvered over, the cheeks hollow, and the eye dim,--that Catherine fell
upon his breast!

"God bless you, brother! How kind to come! How long since we have met!"

"Sit down, Catherine, my dear sister. You are faint--you are very much
changed--very. I should not have known you."

"Brother, I have brought my boy; it is painful to part from
him--very--very painful: but it is right, and God's will be done." She
turned, as she spoke, towards a little, deformed rickety dwarf of a sofa,
that seemed to hide itself in the darkest corner of the low, gloomy room;
and Morton followed her. With one hand she removed the shawl that she had
thrown over the child, and placing the forefinger of the other upon her
lips-lips that smiled then--she whispered,--"We will not wake him, he is
so tired. But I would not put him to bed till you had seen him."

And there slept poor Sidney, his fair cheek pillowed on his arm; the
soft, silky ringlets thrown from the delicate and unclouded brow; the
natural bloom increased by warmth and travel; the lovely face so innocent
and hushed; the breathing so gentle and regular, as if never broken by a
sigh.

Mr. Morton drew his hand across his eyes.

There was something very touching in the contrast between that wakeful,
anxious, forlorn woman, and the slumber of the unconscious boy. And in
that moment, what breast upon which the light of Christian pity--of
natural affection, had ever dawned, would, even supposing the world's
judgment were true, have recalled Catherine's reputed error? There is so
divine a holiness in the love of a mother, that no matter how the tie
that binds her to the child was formed, she becomes, as it were,
consecrated and sacred; and the past is forgotten, and the world and its
harsh verdicts swept away, when that love alone is visible; and the God,
who watches over the little one, sheds His smile over the human deputy,
in whose tenderness there breathes His own!

"You will be kind to him--will you not?" said Mrs. Morton; and the appeal
was made with that trustful, almost cheerful tone which implies, 'Who
would not be kind to a thing so fair and helpless?' "He is very sensitive
and very docile; you will never have occasion to say a hard word to
him--never! you have children of your own, brother."

"He is a beautiful boy-beautiful. I will be a father to him!"

As he spoke,--the recollection of his wife--sour, querulous,
austere--came over him, but he said to himself, "She must take to such a
child,--women always take to beauty." He bent down and gently pressed his
lips to Sidney's forehead: Mrs. Morton replaced the shawl, and drew her
brother to the other end of the room.

"And now," she said, colouring as she spoke, "I must see your wife,
brother: there is so much to say about a child that only a woman will
recollect. Is she very good-tempered and kind, your wife? You know I
never saw her; you married after--after I left."

"She is a very worthy woman," said Mr. Morton, clearing his throat, "and
brought me some money; she has a will of her own, as most women have; but
that's neither here nor there--she is a good wife as wives go; and
prudent and painstaking--I don't know what I should do without her."

"Brother, I have one favour to request--a great favour."

"Anything I can do in the way of money?"

"It has nothing to do with money. I can't live long--don't shake your
head--I can't live long. I have no fear for Philip, he has so much
spirit--such strength of character--but that child! I cannot bear to
leave him altogether; let me stay in this town--I can lodge anywhere; but
to see him sometimes--to know I shall be in reach if he is ill--let me
stay here--let me die here!"

"You must not talk so sadly--you are young yet--younger than I am--I
don't think of dying."

"Heaven forbid! but--"

"Well--well," interrupted Mr. Morton, who began to fear his feelings
would hurry him into some promise which his wife would not suffer him to
keep; "you shall talk to Margaret,--that is Mrs. Morton--I will get her
to see you--yes, I think I can contrive that; and if you can arrange with
her to stay,--but you see, as she brought the money, and is a very
particular woman--"

"I will see her; thank you--thank you; she cannot refuse me."

"And, brother," resumed Mrs. Morton, after a short pause, and speaking in
a firm voice--"and is it possible that you disbelieve my story?--that
you, like all the rest, consider my children the sons of shame?"

There was an honest earnestness in Catherine's voice, as she spoke, that
might have convinced many. But Mr. Morton was a man of facts, a practical
man--a man who believed that law was always right, and that the
improbable was never true.

He looked down as he answered, "I think you have been a very ill-used
woman, Catherine, and that is all I can say on the matter; let us drop
the subject."

"No! I was not ill-used; my husband--yes, my husband--was noble and
generous from first to last. It was for the sake of his children's
prospects--for the expectations they, through him, might derive from his
proud uncle--that he concealed our marriage. Do not blame Philip--do not
condemn the dead."

"I don't want to blame any one," said Mr. Morton, rather angrily; "I am a
plain man--a tradesman, and can only go by what in my class seems fair
and honest, which I can't think Mr. Beaufort's conduct was, put it how
you will; if he marries you as you think, he gets rid of a witness, he
destroys a certificate, and he dies without a will. How ever, all that's
neither here nor there. You do quite right not to take the name of
Beaufort, since it is an uncommon name, and would always make the story
public. Least said, soonest mended. You must always consider that your
children will be called natural children, and have their own way to make.
No harm in that! Warm day for your journey." Catherine sighed, and wiped
her eyes; she no longer reproached the world, since the son of her own
mother disbelieved her.

The relations talked together for some minutes on the past--the present;
but there was embarrassment and constraint on both sides--it was so
difficult to avoid one subject; and after sixteen years of absence, there
is little left in common, even between those who once played together
round their parent's knees. Mr. Morton was glad at last to find an excuse
in Catherine's fatigue to leave her. "Cheer up, and take a glass of
something warm before you go to bed. Good night!" these were his parting
words.

Long was the conference, and sleepless the couch, of Mr. and Mrs. Morton.
At first that estimable lady positively declared she would not and could
not visit Catherine (as to receiving her, that was out of the question).
But she secretly resolved to give up that point in order to insist with
greater strength upon another-viz., the impossibility of Catherine
remaining in the town; such concession for the purpose of resistance
being a very common and sagacious policy with married ladies.
Accordingly, when suddenly, and with a good grace, Mrs. Morton appeared
affected by her husband's eloquence, and said, "Well, poor thing! if she
is so ill, and you wish it so much, I will call to-morrow," Mr. Morton
felt his heart softened towards the many excellent reasons which his wife
urged against allowing Catherine to reside in the town. He was a
political character--he had many enemies; the story of his seduced
sister, now forgotten, would certainly be raked up; it would affect his
comfort, perhaps his trade, certainly his eldest daughter, who was now
thirteen; it would be impossible then to adopt the plan hitherto resolved
upon--of passing off Sidney as the legitimate orphan of a distant
relation; it would be made a great handle for gossip by Miss Pryinall.
Added to all these reasons, one not less strong occurred to Mr. Morton
himself--the uncommon and merciless rigidity of his wife would render all
the other women in the town very glad of any topic that would humble her
own sense of immaculate propriety. Moreover, he saw that if Catherine did
remain, it would be a perpetual source of irritation in his own home; he
was a man who liked an easy life, and avoided, as far as possible, all
food for domestic worry. And thus, when at length the wedded pair turned
back to back, and composed themselves to sleep, the conditions of peace
were settled, and the weaker party, as usual in diplomacy, sacrificed to
the interests of the united powers. After breakfast the next morning,
Mrs. Morton sallied out on her husband's arm. Mr. Morton was rather a
handsome man, with an air and look grave, composed, severe, that had
tended much to raise his character in the town.

Mrs. Morton was short, wiry, and bony. She had won her husband by making
desperate love to him, to say nothing of a dower that enabled him to
extend his business, new-front, as well as new-stock his shop, and rise
into the very first rank of tradesmen in his native town. He still
believed that she was excessively fond of him--a common delusion of
husbands, especially when henpecked. Mrs. Morton was, perhaps, fond of
him in her own way; for though her heart was not warm, there may be a
great deal of fondness with very little feeling. The worthy lady was now
clothed in her best. She had a proper pride in showing the rewards that
belong to female virtue. Flowers adorned her Leghorn bonnet, and her
green silk gown boasted four flounces,--such, then, was, I am told, the
fashion. She wore, also, a very handsome black shawl, extremely heavy,
though the day was oppressively hot, and with a deep border; a smart
sevigni brooch of yellow topazes glittered in her breast; a huge gilt
serpent glared from her waistband; her hair, or more properly speaking
her front, was tortured into very tight curls, and her feet into very
tight half-laced boots, from which the fragrance of new leather had not
yet departed. It was this last infliction, for il faut souffrir pour etre
belle, which somewhat yet more acerbated the ordinary acid of Mrs.
Morton's temper. The sweetest disposition is ruffled when the shoe
pinches; and it so happened that Mrs. Roger Morton was one of those
ladies who always have chilblains in the winter and corns in the summer.
"So you say your sister is a beauty?"

"Was a beauty, Mrs. M.,--was a beauty. People alter."

"A bad conscience, Mr. Morton, is--"

"My dear, can't you walk faster?"

"If you had my corns, Mr. Morton, you would not talk in that way!"

The happy pair sank into silence, only broken by sundry "How d'ye dos?"
and "Good mornings!" interchanged with their friends, till they arrived
at the inn.

"Let us go up quickly," said Mrs. Morton.

And quiet--quiet to gloom, did the inn, so noisy overnight, seem by
morning. The shutters partially closed to keep out the sun--the taproom
deserted--the passage smelling of stale smoke--an elderly dog, lazily
snapping at the flies, at the foot of the staircase--not a soul to be
seen at the bar. The husband and wife, glad to be unobserved, crept on
tiptoe up the stairs, and entered Catherine's apartment.

Catherine was seated on the sofa, and Sidney-dressed, like Mrs. Roger
Morton, to look his prettiest, nor yet aware of the change that awaited
his destiny, but pleased at the excitement of seeing new friends, as
handsome children sure of praise and petting usually are--stood by her
side.

"My wife--Catherine," said Mr. Morton. Catherine rose eagerly, and gazed
searchingly on her sister-in-law's hard face. She swallowed the
convulsive rising at her heart as she gazed, and stretched out both her
hands, not so much to welcome as to plead. Mrs. Roger Morton drew herself
up, and then dropped a courtesy--it was an involuntary piece of good
breeding--it was extorted by the noble countenance, the matronly mien of
Catherine, different from what she had anticipated--she dropped the
courtesy, and Catherine took her hand and pressed it.

"This is my son;" she turned away her head. Sidney advanced towards his
protectress who was to be, and Mrs. Roger muttered:

"Come here, my dear! A fine little boy!"

"As fine a child as ever I saw!" said Mr. Morton, heartily, as he took
Sidney on his lap, and stroked down his, golden hair.

This displeased Mrs. Roger Morton, but she sat herself down, and said it
was "very warm."

"Now go to that lady, my dear," said Mr. Morton. "Is she not a very nice
lady?--don't you think you shall like her very much?"

Sidney, the best-mannered child in the world, went boldly up to Mrs.
Morton, as he was bid. Mrs. Morton was embarrassed. Some folks are so
with other folk's children: a child either removes all constraint from a
party, or it increases the constraint tenfold. Mrs. Morton, however,
forced a smile, and said, "I have a little boy at home about your age."

"Have you?" exclaimed Catherine, eagerly; and as if that confession made
them friends at once, she drew a chair close to her sister-in-law's,--"My
brother has told you all?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"And I shall stay here--in the town somewhere--and see him sometimes?"

Mrs. Roger Morton glanced at her husband--her husband glanced at the
door--and Catherine's quick eye turned from one to the other.

"Mr. Morton will explain, ma' am," said the wife.

"E-hem!--Catherine, my dear, I am afraid that is out of the question,"
began Mr. Morton, who, when fairly put to it, could be business-like
enough. "You see bygones are bygones, and it is no use raking them up.
But many people in the town will recollect you."

"No one will see me--no one, but you and Sidney."

"It will be sure to creep out; won't it, Mrs. Morton?"

"Quite sure. Indeed, ma'am, it is impossible. Mr. Morton is so very
respectable, and his neighbours pay so much attention to all he does;
and then, if we have an election in the autumn, you see, ma'am, he has a
great stake in the place, and is a public character."

"That's neither here nor there," said Mr. Morton. "But I say, Catherine,
can your little boy go into the other room for a moment? Margaret,
suppose you take him and make friends."

Delighted to throw on her husband the burden of explanation, which she
had originally meant to have all the importance of giving herself in her
most proper and patronising manner, Mrs. Morton twisted her fingers into
the boy's hand, and, opening the door that communicated with the bedroom,
left the brother and sister alone. And then Mr. Morton, with more tact
and delicacy than might have been expected from him, began to soften to
Catherine the hard ship of the separation he urged. He dwelt principally
on what was best for the child. Boys were so brutal in their intercourse
with each other. He had even thought it better represent Philip to Mr.
Plaskwith as a more distant relation than he was; and he begged, by the
by, that Catherine would tell Philip to take the hint. But as for Sidney,
sooner or later, he would go to a day-school--have companions of his own
age--if his birth were known, he would be exposed to many
mortifications--so much better, and so very easy, to bring him up as the
lawful, that is the legal, offspring of some distant relation.

"And," cried poor Catherine, clasping her bands, "when I am dead, is he
never to know that I was his mother?" The anguish of that question
thrilled the heart of the listener. He was affected below all the surface
that worldly thoughts and habits had laid, stratum by stratum, over the
humanities within. He threw his arms round Catherine, and strained her to
his breast:

"No, my sister--my poor sister-he shall know it when he is old enough to
understand, and to keep his own secret. He shall know, too, how we all
loved and prized you once; how young you were, how flattered and tempted;
how you were deceived, for I know that--on my soul I do--I know it was
not your fault. He shall know, too, how fondly you loved your child, and
how you sacrificed, for his sake, the very comfort of being near him. He
shall know it all--all--"

"My brother--my brother, I resign him--I am content. God reward you. I
will go--go quickly. I know you will take care of him now."

"And you see," resumed Mr. Morton, re-settling himself, and wiping his
eyes, "it is best, between you and me, that Mrs. Morton should have her
own way in this. She is a very good woman--very; but it's prudent not to
vex her. You may come in now, Mrs. Morton."

Mrs. Morton and Sidney reappeared.

"We have settled it all," said the husband. "When can we have him?"

"Not to-day," said Mrs. Roger Morton; "you see, ma'am, we must get his
bed ready, and his sheets well aired: I am very particular."

"Certainly, certainly. Will he sleep alone?--pardon me."

"He shall have a room to himself," said Mr. Morton. "Eh, my dear? Next to
Martha's. Martha is our parlourmaid--very good-natured girl, and fond of
children."

Mrs. Morton looked grave, thought a moment, and said, "Yes, he can have
that room."

"Who can have that room?" asked Sidney, innocently. "You, my dear,"
replied Mr. Morton.

"And where will mamma sleep? I must sleep near mamma."

"Mamma is going away," said Catherine, in a firm voice, in which the
despair would only have been felt by the acute ear of sympathy,--"going
away for a little time: but this gentleman and lady will be very--very
kind to you."

"We will do our best, ma'am," said Mrs. Morton.

And as she spoke, a sudden light broke on the boy's mind--he uttered a
loud cry, broke from his aunt, rushed to his mother's breast, and hid his
face there, sobbing bitterly.

"I am afraid he has been very much spoiled," whispered Mrs. Roger Morton.
"I don't think we need stay longer--it will look suspicious. Good
morning, ma'am: we shall be ready to-morrow."

"Good-bye, Catherine," said Mr. Morton; and he added, as he kissed her,
"Be of good heart, I will come up by myself and spend the evening with
you."

It was the night after this interview. Sidney had gone to his new home;
they had been all kind to him--Mr. Morton, the children, Martha the
parlour-maid. Mrs. Roger herself had given him a large slice of bread and
jam, but had looked gloomy all the rest of the evening: because, like a
dog in a strange place, he refused to eat. His little heart was full, and
his eyes, swimming with tears, were turned at every moment to the door.
But he did not show the violent grief that might have been expected. His
very desolation, amidst the unfamiliar faces, awed and chilled him. But
when Martha took him to bed, and undressed him, and he knelt down to say
his prayers, and came to the words, "Pray God bless dear mamma, and make
me a good child," his heart could contain its load no longer, and he
sobbed with a passion that alarmed the good-natured servant. She had been
used, however, to children, and she soothed and caressed him, and told
him of all the nice things he would do, and the nice toys he would have;
and at last, silenced, if not convinced, his eyes closed, and, the tears
yet wet on their lashes, he fell asleep.

It had been arranged that Catherine should return home that night by a
late coach, which left the town at twelve. It was already past eleven.
Mrs. Morton had retired to bed; and her husband, who had, according to
his wont, lingered behind to smoke a cigar over his last glass of brandy
and water, had just thrown aside the stump, and was winding up his watch,
when he heard a low tap at his window. He stood mute and alarmed, for the
window opened on a back lane, dark and solitary at night, and, from the
heat of the weather, the iron-cased shutter was not yet closed; the sound
was repeated, and he heard a faint voice. He glanced at the poker, and
then cautiously moved to the window, and looked forth,--"Who's there?"

"It is I--it is Catherine! I cannot go without seeing my boy. I must see
him--I must, once more!"

"My dear sister, the place is shut up--it is impossible. God bless me, if
Mrs. Morton should hear you!"

"I have walked before this window for hours--I have waited till all is
hushed in your house, till no one, not even a menial, need see the mother
stealing to the bed of her child. Brother, by the memory of our own
mother, I command you to let me look, for the last time, upon my boy's
face!"

As Catherine said this, standing in that lonely street--darkness and
solitude below, God and the stars above--there was about her a majesty
which awed the listener. Though she was so near, her features were not
very clearly visible; but her attitude--her hand raised aloft--the
outline of her wasted but still commanding form, were more impressive
from the shadowy dimness of the air.

"Come round, Catherine," said Mr. Morton after a pause; "I will admit
you."

He shut the window, stole to the door, unbarred it gently, and admitted
his visitor. He bade her follow him; and, shading the light with his
hand, crept up the stairs. Catherine's step made no sound.

They passed, unmolested, and unheard, the room in which the wife was
drowsily reading, according to her custom before she tied her nightcap
and got into bed, a chapter in some pious book. They ascended to the
chamber where Sidney lay; Morton opened the door cautiously, and stood at
the threshold, so holding the candle that its light might not wake the
child, though it sufficed to guide Catherine to the bed. The room was
small, perhaps close, but scrupulously clean; for cleanliness was Mrs.
Roger Morton's capital virtue. The mother, with a tremulous hand, drew
aside the white curtains, and checked her sobs as she gazed on the young
quiet face that was turned towards her. She gazed some moments in
passionate silence; who shall say, beneath that silence, what thoughts,
what prayers moved and stirred!

Then bending down, with pale, convulsive lips she kissed the little hands
thrown so listlessly on the coverlet of the pillow on which the head lay.
After this she turned her face to her brother with a mute appeal in her
glance, took a ring from her finger--a ring that had never till then left
it--the ring which Philip Beaufort had placed there the day after that
child was born. "Let him wear this round his neck," said she, and
stopped, lest she should sob aloud, and disturb the boy. In that gift she
felt as if she invoked the father's spirit to watch over the friendless
orphan; and then, pressing together her own hands firmly, as we do in
some paroxysm of great pain, she turned from the room, descended the
stairs, gained the street, and muttered to her brother, "I am happy now;
peace be on these thresholds!" Before he could answer she was gone.




CHAPTER IX.

        "Thus things are strangely wrought,
        While joyful May doth last;
        Take May in Time--when May is gone
        The pleasant time is past."--RICHARD EDWARDS.
               From the Paradise of Dainty Devices.

It was that period of the year when, to those who look on the surface of
society, London wears its most radiant smile; when shops are gayest, and
trade most brisk; when down the thoroughfares roll and glitter the
countless streams of indolent and voluptuous life; when the upper class
spend, and the middle class make; when the ball-room is the Market of
Beauty, and the club-house the School for Scandal; when the hells yawn
for their prey, and opera-singers and fiddlers--creatures hatched from
gold, as the dung-flies from the dung-swarm, and buzz, and fatten, round
the hide of the gentle Public In the cant phase, it was "the London
season." And happy, take it altogether, happy above the rest of the year,
even for the hapless, is that period of ferment and fever. It is not the
season for duns, and the debtor glides about with a less anxious eye; and
the weather is warm, and the vagrant sleeps, unfrozen, under the starlit
portico; and the beggar thrives, and the thief rejoices--for the rankness
of the civilisation has superfluities clutched by all. And out of the
general corruption things sordid and things miserable crawl forth to bask
in the common sunshine--things that perish when the first autumn winds
whistle along the melancholy city. It is the gay time for the heir and
the beauty, and the statesman and the lawyer, and the mother with her
young daughters, and the artist with his fresh pictures, and the poet
with his new book. It is the gay time, too, for the starved journeyman,
and the ragged outcast that with long stride and patient eyes follows,
for pence, the equestrian, who bids him go and be d---d in vain. It is a
gay time for the painted harlot in a crimson pelisse; and a gay time for
the old hag that loiters about the thresholds of the gin-shop, to buy
back, in a draught, the dreams of departed youth. It is gay, in fine, as
the fulness of a vast city is ever gay--for Vice as for Innocence, for
Poverty as for Wealth. And the wheels of every single destiny wheel on
the merrier, no matter whether they are bound to Heaven or to Hell.

Arthur Beaufort, the young heir, was at his father's house. He was fresh
from Oxford, where he had already discovered that learning is not better
than house and land. Since the new prospects opened to him, Arthur
Beaufort was greatly changed. Naturally studious and prudent, had his
fortunes remained what they had been before his uncle's death, he would
probably have become a laborious and distinguished man. But though his
abilities were good, he had not those restless impulses which belong to
Genius--often not only its glory, but its curse. The Golden Rod cast his
energies asleep at once. Good-natured to a fault, and somewhat
vacillating in character, he adopted the manner and the code of the rich
young idlers who were his equals at College. He became, like them,
careless, extravagant, and fond of pleasure. This change, if it
deteriorated his mind, improved his exterior. It was a change that could
not but please women; and of all women his mother the most. Mrs. Beaufort
was a lady of high birth; and in marrying her, Robert had hoped much from
the interest of her connections; but a change in the ministry had thrown
her relations out of power; and, beyond her dowry, he obtained no worldly
advantage with the lady of his mercenary choice. Mrs. Beaufort was a
woman whom a word or two will describe. She was thoroughly
commonplace--neither bad nor good, neither clever nor silly. She was what
is called well-bred; that is, languid, silent, perfectly dressed, and
insipid. Of her two children, Arthur was almost the exclusive favourite,
especially after he became the heir to such brilliant fortunes. For she
was so much the mechanical creature of the world, that even her affection
was warm or cold in proportion as the world shone on it. Without being
absolutely in love with her husband, she liked him--they suited each
other; and (in spite of all the temptations that had beset her in their
earlier years, for she had been esteemed a beauty--and lived, as worldly
people must do, in circles where examples of unpunished gallantry are
numerous and contagious) her conduct had ever been scrupulously correct.
She had little or no feeling for misfortunes with which she had never
come into contact; for those with which she had--such as the distresses
of younger sons, or the errors of fashionable women, or the
disappointments of "a proper ambition"--she had more sympathy than might
have been supposed, and touched on them with all the tact of well-bred
charity and ladylike forbearance. Thus, though she was regarded as a
strict person in point of moral decorum, yet in society she was
popular-as women at once pretty and inoffensive generally are.

To do Mrs. Beaufort justice, she had not been privy to the letter her
husband wrote to Catherine, although not wholly innocent of it. The fact
is, that Robert had never mentioned to her the peculiar circumstances
that made Catherine an exception from ordinary rules--the generous
propositions of his brother to him the night before his death; and,
whatever his incredulity as to the alleged private marriage, the perfect
loyalty and faith that Catherine had borne to the deceased,--he had
merely observed, "I must do something, I suppose, for that woman; she
very nearly entrapped my poor brother into marrying her; and he would
then, for what I know, have cut Arthur out of the estates. Still, I must
do something for her--eh?"

"Yes, I think so. What was she?-very low?"

"A tradesman's daughter."

"The children should be provided for according to the rank of the mother;
that's the general rule in such cases: and the mother should have about
the same provision she might have looked for if she had married a
tradesman and been left a widow. I dare say she was a very artful kind of
person, and don't deserve anything; but it is always handsomer, in the
eyes of the world, to go by the general rules people lay down as to money
matters."

So spoke Mrs. Beaufort. She concluded her husband had settled the matter,
and never again recurred to it. Indeed, she had never liked the late Mr.
Beaufort, whom she considered mauvais ton.

In the breakfast-room at Mr. Beaufort's, the mother and son were seated;
the former at work, the latter lounging by the window: they were not
alone. In a large elbow-chair sat a middle-aged man, listening, or
appearing to listen, to the prattle of a beautiful little girl--Arthur
Beaufort's sister. This man was not handsome, but there was a certain
elegance in his air, and a certain intelligence in his countenance, which
made his appearance pleasing. He had that kind of eye which is often seen
with red hair--an eye of a reddish hazel, with very long lashes; the
eyebrows were dark, and clearly defined; and the short hair showed to
advantage the contour of a small well-shaped head. His features were
irregular; the complexion had been sanguine, but was now faded, and a
yellow tinge mingled with the red. His face was more wrinkled, especially
round the eyes--which, when he laughed, were scarcely visible--than is
usual even in men ten years older. But his teeth were still of a dazzling
whiteness; nor was there any trace of decayed health in his countenance.
He seemed one who had lived hard; but who had much yet left in the lamp
wherewith to feed the wick. At the first glance he appeared slight, as he
lolled listlessly in his chair--almost fragile. But, at a nearer
examination, you perceived that, in spite of the small extremities and
delicate bones, his frame was constitutionally strong. Without being
broad in the shoulders, he was exceedingly deep in the chest--deeper than
men who seemed giants by his side; and his gestures had the ease of one
accustomed to an active life. He had, indeed, been celebrated in his
youth for his skill in athletic exercises, but a wound, received in a
duel many years ago, had rendered him lame for life--a misfortune which
interfered with his former habits, and was said to have soured his
temper. This personage, whose position and character will be described
hereafter, was Lord Lilburne, the brother of Mrs. Beaufort.

"So, Camilla," said Lord Lilburne to his niece, as carelessly, not
fondly, he stroked down her glossy ringlets, "you don't like Berkeley
Square as you did Gloucester Place."

"Oh, no! not half so much! You see I never walk out in the fields,--[Now
the Regent's Park.]--nor make daisy-chains at Primrose Hill. I don't know
what mamma means," added the child, in a whisper, "in saying we are
better off here."

Lord Lilburne smiled, but the smile was a half sneer. "You will know
quite soon enough, Camilla; the understandings of young ladies grow up
very quickly on this side of Oxford Street. Well, Arthur, and what are
your plans to-day?"

"Why," said Arthur, suppressing a yawn, "I have promised to ride out with
a friend of mine, to see a horse that is for sale somewhere in the
suburbs."

As he spoke, Arthur rose, stretched himself, looked in the glass, and
then glanced impatiently at the window.

"He ought to be here by this time."

"He! who?" said Lord Lilburne, "the horse or the other animal--I mean the
friend?"

"The friend," answered Arthur, smiling, but colouring while he smiled,
for he half suspected the quiet sneer of his uncle.

"Who is your friend, Arthur?" asked Mrs. Beaufort, looking up from her
work.

"Watson, an Oxford man. By the by, I must introduce him to you."

"Watson! what Watson? what family of Watson? Some Watsons are good and
some are bad," said Mrs. Beaufort, musingly.

"Then they are very unlike the rest of mankind," observed Lord Lilburne,
drily.

"Oh! my Watson is a very gentlemanlike person, I assure you," said
Arthur, half-laughing, "and you need not be ashamed of him." Then, rather
desirous of turning the conversation, he continued, "So my father will be
back from Beaufort Court to-day?"

"Yes; he writes in excellent spirits. He says the rents will bear raising
at least ten per cent., and that the house will not require much repair."

Here Arthur threw open the window.

"Ah, Watson! how are you? How d'ye do, Marsden? Danvers, too! that's
capital! the more the merrier! I will be down in an instant. But would
you not rather come in?"

"An agreeable inundation," murmured Lord Lilburne. "Three at a time: he
takes your house for Trinity College."

A loud, clear voice, however, declined the invitation; the horses were
heard pawing without. Arthur seized his hat and whip, and glanced to his
mother and uncle, smilingly. "Good-bye! I shall be out till dinner. Kiss
me, my pretty Milly!" And as his sister, who had run to the window,
sickening for the fresh air and exercise he was about to enjoy, now
turned to him wistful and mournful eyes, the kind-hearted young man took
her in his arms, and whispered while he kissed her:

"Get up early to-morrow, and we'll have such a nice walk together."

Arthur was gone: his mother's gaze had followed his young and graceful
figure to the door.

"Own that he is handsome, Lilburne. May I not say more:--has he not the
proper air?"

"My dear sister, your son will be rich. As for his air, he has plenty of
airs, but wants graces."

"Then who could polish him like yourself?"

"Probably no one. But had I a son--which Heaven forbid!--he should not
have me for his Mentor. Place a young man--(go and shut the door,
Camilla!)--between two vices--women and gambling, if you want to polish
him into the fashionable smoothness. Entre nous, the varnish is a little
expensive!"

Mrs. Beaufort sighed. Lord Lilburne smiled. He had a strange pleasure in
hurting the feelings of others. Besides, he disliked youth: in his own
youth he had enjoyed so much that he grew sour when he saw the young.

Meanwhile Arthur Beaufort and his friends, careless of the warmth of the
day, were laughing merrily, and talking gaily, as they made for the
suburb of H----.

"It is an out-of-the-way place for a horse, too," said Sir Harry Danvers.

"But I assure you," insisted Mr. Watson, earnestly, "that my groom, who
is a capital judge, says it is the cleverest hack he ever mounted. It
has won several trotting matches. It belonged to a sporting tradesman,
now done up. The advertisement caught me."

"Well," said Arthur, gaily, "at all events the ride is delightful. What
weather! You must all dine with me at Richmond to-morrow--we will row
back."

"And a little chicken-hazard, at the M---, afterwards," said Mr. Marsden,
who was an elder, not a better, man than the rest--a handsome, saturnine
man--who had just left Oxford, and was already known on the turf.

"Anything you please," said Arthur, making his horse curvet.

Oh, Mr. Robert Beaufort! Mr. Robert Beaufort! could your prudent,
scheming, worldly heart but feel what devil's tricks your wealth was
playing with a son who if poor had been the pride of the Beauforts! On
one side of our pieces of old we see the saint trampling down the dragon.
False emblem! Reverse it on the coin! In the real use of the gold, it is
the dragon who tramples down the saint! But on--on! the day is bright and
your companions merry; make the best of your green years, Arthur
Beaufort!

The young men had just entered the suburb of H---, and were spurring on
four abreast at a canter. At that time an old man, feeling his way before
him with a stick,--for though not quite blind, he saw imperfectly,--was
crossing the road. Arthur and his friends, in loud converse, did not
observe the poor passenger. He stopped abruptly, for his ear caught the
sound of danger--it was too late: Mr. Marsden's horse, hard-mouthed, and
high-stepping, came full against him. Mr. Marsden looked down:

"Hang these old men! always in the way," said he, plaintively, and in the
tone of a much-injured person, and, with that, Mr. Marsden rode on. But
the others, who were younger--who were not gamblers--who were not yet
grinded down into stone by the world's wheels--the others halted. Arthur
Beaufort leaped from his horse, and the old man was already in his arms;
but he was severely hurt. The blood trickled from his forehead; he
complained of pains in his side and limbs.

"Lean on me, my poor fellow! Do you live far off? I will take you home."

"Not many yards. This would not have happened if I had had my dog. Never
mind, sir, go your way. It is only an old man--what of that? I wish I had
my dog."

"I will join you," said Arthur to his friends; "my groom has the
direction. I will just take the poor old man home, and send for a
surgeon. I shall not be long."

"So like you, Beaufort: the best fellow in the world!" said Mr. Watson,
with some emotion. "And there's Marsden positively, dismounted, and
looking at his horse's knees as if they could be hurt! Here's a sovereign
for you, my man."

"And here's another," said Sir Harry; "so that's settled. Well, you will
join us, Beaufort? You see the yard yonder. We'll wait twenty minutes for
you. Come on, Watson." The old man had not picked up the sovereigns
thrown at his feet, neither had he thanked the donors. And on his
countenance there was a sour, querulous, resentful expression.

"Must a man be a beggar because he is run over, or because he is half
blind?" said he, turning his dim, wandering eyes painfully towards
Arthur. "Well, I wish I had my dog!"

"I will supply his place," said Arthur, soothingly. "Come, lean on
me--heavier; that's right. You are not so bad,--eh?"

"Um!--the sovereigns!--it is wicked to leave them in the kennel!"

Arthur smiled. "Here they are, sir."

The old man slid the coins into his pocket, and Arthur continued to talk,
though he got but short answers, and those only in the way of direction,
till at last the old man stopped at the door of a small house near the
churchyard.

After twice ringing the bell, the door was opened by a middle-aged woman,
whose appearance was above that of a common menial; dressed, somewhat
gaily for her years, in a cap seated very far back on a black touroet,
and decorated with red ribands, an apron made out of an Indian silk
handkerchief, a puce-coloured sarcenet gown, black silk stockings, long
gilt earrings, and a watch at her girdle.

"Bless us and save us, sir! What has happened?" exclaimed this worthy
personage, holding up her hands.

"Pish! I am faint: let me in. I don't want your aid any more, sir. Thank
you. Good day!"

Not discouraged by this farewell, the churlish tone of which fell
harmless on the invincibly sweet temper of Arthur, the young man
continued to assist the sufferer along the narrow passage into a little
old-fashioned parlour; and no sooner was the owner deposited on his
worm-eaten leather chair than he fainted away. On reaching the house,
Arthur had sent his servant (who had followed him with the horses) for
the nearest surgeon; and while the woman was still employed, after taking
off the sufferer's cravat, in burning feathers under his nose, there was
heard a sharp rap and a shrill ring. Arthur opened the door, and admitted
a smart little man in nankeen breeches and gaiters. He bustled into the
room.

"What's this--bad accident--um--um! Sad thing, very sad. Open the window.
A glass of water--a towel."

"So--so: I see--I see--no fracture--contusion. Help him off with his
coat. Another chair, ma'am; put up his poor legs. What age is he,
ma'am?--Sixty-eight! Too old to bleed. Thank you. How is it, sir? Poorly,
to be sure will be comfortable presently--faintish still? Soon put all to
rights."

"Tray! Tray! Where's my dog, Mrs. Boxer?"

"Lord, sir, what do you want with your dog now? He is in the back-yard."

"And what business has my dog in the back-yard?" almost screamed the
sufferer, in accents that denoted no diminution of vigour. "I thought as
soon as my back was turned my dog would be ill-used! Why did I go without
my dog? Let in my dog directly, Mrs. Boxer!"

"All right, you see, sir," said the apothecary, turning to Beaufort--"no
cause for alarm--very comforting that little passion--does him good--sets
one's mind easy. How did it happen? Ah, I understand! knocked down--might
have been worse. Your groom (sharp fellow!) explained in a trice, sir.
Thought it was my old friend here by the description. Worthy man--settled
here a many year--very odd-eccentric (this in a whisper). Came off
instantly: just at dinner--cold lamb and salad. 'Mrs. Perkins,' says I,
'if any one calls for me, I shall be at No. 4, Prospect Place.' Your
servant observed the address, sir. Oh, very sharp fellow! See how the old
gentleman takes to his dog--fine little dog--what a stump of a tail! Deal
of practice--expect two accouchements every hour. Hot weather for
childbirth. So says I to Mrs. Perkins, 'If Mrs. Plummer is taken, or Mrs.
Everat, or if old Mr. Grub has another fit, send off at once to No. 4.
Medical men should be always in the way-that's my maxim. Now, sir, where
do you feel the pain?"

"In my ears, sir."

"Bless me, that looks bad. How long have you felt it?"

"Ever since you have been in the room."

"Oh! I take. Ha! ha!--very eccentric--very!" muttered the apothecary, a
little disconcerted. "Well, let him lie down, ma'am. I'll send him a
little quieting draught to be taken directly--pill at night, aperient in
the morning. If wanted, send for me--always to be found. Bless me, that's
my boy Bob's ring. Please to open the door, ma' am. Know his ring--very
peculiar knack of his own. Lay ten to one it is Mrs. Plummer, or perhaps.
Mrs. Everat--her ninth child in eight years--in the grocery line. A woman
in a thousand, sir!"

Here a thin boy, with very short coat-sleeves, and very large hands,
burst into the room with his mouth open. "Sir--Mr. Perkins--sir!"

"I know--I know-coming. Mrs. Plummer or Mrs. Everat?"

"No, sir; it be the poor lady at Mrs. Lacy's; she be taken desperate.
Mrs. Lacy's girl has just been over to the shop, and made me run here to
you, sir."

"Mrs. Lacy's! oh, I know. Poor Mrs. Morton! Bad case--very bad--must be
off. Keep him quiet, ma'am. Good day! Look in to-morrow-nine o'clock. Put
a little lint with the lotion on the head, ma'am. Mrs. Morton! Ah! bad
job that."

Here the apothecary had shuffled himself off to the street door, when
Arthur laid his hand on his arm.

"Mrs. Morton! Did you say Morton, sir? What kind of a person--is she very
ill?"

"Hopeless case, sir--general break-up. Nice woman--quite the lady--known
better days, I'm sure."

"Has she any children--sons?"

"Two--both away now--fine lads--quite wrapped up in them--youngest
especially."

"Good heavens! it must be she--ill, and dying, and destitute,
perhaps,"--exclaimed Arthur, with real and deep feeling; "I will go with
you, sir. I fancy that I know this lady--that," he added generously, "I
am related to her."

"Do you?--glad to hear it. Come along, then; she ought to have some one
near her besides servants: not but what Jenny, the maid, is uncommonly
kind. Dr. -----, who attends her sometimes, said to me, says he, 'It is
the mind, Mr. Perkins; I wish we could get back her boys."

"And where are they?"

"'Prenticed out, I fancy. Master Sidney--"

"Sidney!"

"Ah! that was his name--pretty name. D'ye know Sir Sidney
Smith?--extraordinary man, sir! Master Sidney was a beautiful
child--quite spoiled. She always fancied him ailing--always sending for
me. 'Mr. Perkins,' said she, 'there's something the matter with my child;
I'm sure there is, though he won't own it. He has lost his appetite--had
a headache last night.' 'Nothing the matter, ma'am,' says I; 'wish you'd
think more of yourself.'

"These mothers are silly, anxious, poor creatures. Nater, sir,
Nater--wonderful thing--Nater!--Here we are."

And the apothecary knocked at the private door of a milliner and hosier's
shop.




CHAPTER X.

"Thy child shall live, and I will see it nourished."--Titus Andronicus.

As might be expected, the excitement and fatigue of Catherine's journey
to N---- had considerably accelerated the progress of disease. And when
she reached home, and looked round the cheerless rooms all solitary, all
hushed--Sidney gone, gone from her for ever, she felt, indeed, as if the
last reed on which she had leaned was broken, and her business upon earth
was done. Catherine was not condemned to absolute poverty--the poverty
which grinds and gnaws, the poverty of rags and famine. She had still
left nearly half of such portion of the little capital, realised by the
sale of her trinkets, as had escaped the clutch of the law; and her
brother had forced into her hands a note for L20. with an assurance that
the same sum should be paid to her half-yearly. Alas! there was little
chance of her needing it again! She was not, then, in want of means to
procure the common comforts of life. But now a new passion had entered
into her breast--the passion of the miser; she wished to hoard every
sixpence as some little provision for her children. What was the use of
her feeding a lamp nearly extinguished, and which was fated to be soon
broken up and cast amidst the vast lumber-house of Death? She would
willingly have removed into a more homely lodging, but the servant of the
house had been so fond of Sidney--so kind to him. She clung to one
familiar face on which there seemed to live the reflection of her
child's. But she relinquished the first floor for the second; and there,
day by day, she felt her eyes grow heavier and heavier beneath the clouds
of the last sleep. Besides the aid of Mr. Perkins, a kind enough man in
his way, the good physician whom she had before consulted, still attended
her, and refused his fee. Shocked at perceiving that she rejected every
little alleviation of her condition, and wishing at least to procure for
her last hours the society of one of her sons, he had inquired the
address of the elder; and on the day preceding the one in which Arthur
discovered her abode, he despatched to Philip the following letter:

"SIR:--Being called in to attend your mother in a lingering illness, which
I fear may prove fatal, I think it my duty to request you to come to her
as soon as you receive this. Your presence cannot but be a great comfort
to her. The nature of her illness is such that it is impossible to
calculate exactly how long she may be spared to you; but I am sure her
fate might be prolonged, and her remaining days more happy, if she could
be induced to remove into a better air and a more quiet neighbourhood, to
take more generous sustenance, and, above all, if her mind could be set
more at ease as to your and your brother's prospects. You must pardon me
if I have seemed inquisitive; but I have sought to draw from your mother
some particulars as to her family and connections, with a wish to
represent to them her state of mind. She is, however, very reserved on
these points. If, however, you have relations well to do in the world, I
think some application to them should be made. I fear the state of her
affairs weighs much upon your poor mother's mind; and I must leave you to
judge how far it can be relieved by the good feeling of any persons upon
whom she may have legitimate claims. At all events, I repeat my wish
that you should come to her forthwith.
                  "I am, &c."

After the physician had despatched this letter, a sudden and marked
alteration for the worse took place in his patient's disorder; and in the
visit he had paid that morning, he saw cause to fear that her hours on
earth would be much fewer than he had before anticipated. He had left
her, however, comparatively better; but two hours after his departure,
the symptoms of her disease had become very alarming, and the
good-natured servant girl, her sole nurse, and who had, moreover, the
whole business of the other lodgers to attend to, had, as we have seen,
thought it necessary to summon the apothecary in the interval that must
elapse before she could reach the distant part of the metropolis in which
Dr. ---- resided.

On entering the chamber, Arthur felt all the remorse, which of right
belonged to his father, press heavily on his soul. What a contrast, that
mean and solitary chamber, and its comfortless appurtenances, to the
graceful and luxurious abode where, full of health and hope, he had last
beheld her, the mother of Philip Beaufort's children! He remained silent
till Mr. Perkins, after a few questions, retired to send his drugs. He
then approached the bed; Catherine, though very weak and suffering much
pain, was still sensible. She turned her dim eyes on the young man; but
she did not recognise his features.

"You do not remember me?" said he, in a voice struggling with tears: "I
am Arthur--Arthur Beaufort." Catherine made no answer.

"Good Heavens! Why do I see you here? I believed you with your
friends--your children provided for--as became my father to do. He
assured me that you were so." Still no answer.

And then the young man, overpowered with the feelings of a sympathising
and generous nature, forgetting for a while Catherine's weakness, poured
forth a torrent of inquiries, regrets, and self-upbraidings, which
Catherine at first little heeded. But the name of her children, repeated
again and again, struck upon that chord which, in a woman's heart, is the
last to break; and she raised herself in her bed, and looked at her
visitor wistfully.

"Your father," she said, then--"your father was unlike my Philip; but I
see things differently now. For me, all bounty is too late; but my
children--to-morrow they may have no mother. The law is with you, but not
justice! You will be rich and powerful;--will you befriend my children?"

"Through life, so help me Heaven!" exclaimed Arthur, falling on his knees
beside the bed.

What then passed between them it is needless to detail; for it was
little, save broken repetitions of the same prayer and the same response.
But there was so much truth and earnestness in Arthur's voice and
countenance, that Catherine felt as if an angel had come there to
administer comfort. And when late in the day the physician entered, he
found his patient leaning on the breast of her young visitor, and looking
on his face with a happy smile.

The physician gathered enough from the appearance of Arthur and the
gossip of Mr. Perkins, to conjecture that one of the rich relations he
had attributed to Catherine was arrived. Alas! for her it was now indeed
too late!




CHAPTER XI.

     "D'ye stand amazed?--Look o'er thy head, Maximinian!
     Look to the terror which overhangs thee."
              BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: The Prophetess.

Phillip had been five weeks in his new home: in another week, he was to
enter on his articles of apprenticeship. With a stern, unbending gloom of
manner, he had commenced the duties of his novitiate. He submitted to all
that was enjoined him. He seemed to have lost for ever the wild and
unruly waywardness that had stamped his boyhood; but he was never seen to
smile--he scarcely ever opened his lips. His very soul seemed to have
quitted him with its faults; and he performed all the functions of his
situation with the quiet listless regularity of a machine. Only when the
work was done and the shop closed, instead of joining the family circle
in the back parlour, he would stroll out in the dusk of the evening, away
from the town, and not return till the hour at which the family retired
to rest. Punctual in all he did, he never exceeded that hour. He had
heard once a week from his mother; and only on the mornings in which he
expected a letter, did he seem restless and agitated. Till the postman
entered the shop, he was as pale as death--his hands trembling--his lips
compressed. When he read the letter he became composed for Catherine
sedulously concealed from her son the state of her health: she wrote
cheerfully, besought him to content himself with the state into which he
had fallen, and expressed her joy that in his letters he intimated that
content; for the poor boy's letters were not less considerate than her
own. On her return from her brother, she had so far silenced or concealed
her misgivings as to express satisfaction at the home she had provided
for Sidney; and she even held out hopes of some future when, their
probation finished and their independence secured, she might reside with
her sons alternately. These hopes redoubled Philip's assiduity, and he
saved every shilling of his weekly stipend; and sighed as he thought that
in another week his term of apprenticeship would commence, and the
stipend cease.

Mr. Plaskwith could not but be pleased on the whole with the diligence of
his assistant, but he was chafed and irritated by the sullenness of his
manner. As for Mrs. Plaskwith, poor woman! she positively detested the
taciturn and moody boy, who never mingled in the jokes of the circle, nor
played with the children, nor complimented her, nor added, in short,
anything to the sociability of the house. Mr. Plimmins, who had at first
sought to condescend, next sought to bully; but the gaunt frame and
savage eye of Philip awed the smirk youth, in spite of himself; and he
confessed to Mrs. Plaskwith that he should not like to meet "the gipsy,"
alone, on a dark night; to which Mrs. Plaskwith replied, as usual, "that
Mr. Plimmins always did say the best things in the world!"

One morning, Philip was sent a few miles into the country, to assist in
cataloguing some books in the library of Sir Thomas Champerdown--that
gentleman, who was a scholar, having requested that some one acquainted
with the Greek character might be sent to him, and Philip being the only
one in the shop who possessed such knowledge.

It was evening before he returned. Mr. and Mrs. Plaskwith were both in
the shop as he entered--in fact, they had been employed in talking him
over.

"I can't abide him!" cried Mrs. Plaskwith. "If you choose to take him for
good, I sha'n't have an easy moment. I'm sure the 'prentice that cut his
master's throat at Chatham, last week, was just like him."

"Pshaw! Mrs. P.," said the bookseller, taking a huge pinch of snuff, as
usual, from his waistcoat pocket. "I myself was reserved when I was
young; all reflective people are. I may observe, by the by, that it was
the case with Napoleon Buonaparte: still, however, I must own he is a
disagreeable youth, though he attends to his business."

"And how fond of money he is!" remarked Mrs. Plaskwith, "he won't buy
himself a new pair of shoes!--quite disgraceful! And did you see what a
look he gave Plimmins, when he joked about his indifference to his sole?
Plimmins always does say such good things!"

"He is shabby, certainly," said the bookseller; "but the value of a book
does not always depend on the binding."

"I hope he is honest!" observed Mrs. Plaskwith;--and here Philip entered.

"Hum," said Mr. Plaskwith; "you have had a long day's work: but I suppose
it will take a week to finish?"

"I am to go again to-morrow morning, sir: two days more will conclude the
task."

"There's a letter for you," cried Mrs. Plaskwith; "you owes me for it."

"A letter!" It was not his mother's hand--it was a strange writing--he
gasped for breath as he broke the seal. It was the letter of the
physician.

His mother, then, was ill-dying-wanting, perhaps, the necessaries of
life. She would have concealed from him her illness and her poverty. His
quick alarm exaggerated the last into utter want;--he uttered a cry that
rang through the shop, and rushed to Mr. Plaskwith.

"Sir, sir! my mother is dying! She is poor, poor, perhaps
starving;--money, money!--lend me money!--ten pounds!--five!--I will work
for you all my life for nothing, but lend me the money!"

"Hoity-toity!" said Mrs. Plaskwith, nudging her husband--"I told you what
would come of it: it will be 'money or life' next time."

Philip did not heed or hear this address; but stood immediately before
the bookseller, his hands clasped--wild impatience in his eyes. Mr.
Plaskwith, somewhat stupefied, remained silent.

"Do you hear me?--are you human?" exclaimed Philip, his emotion revealing
at once all the fire of his character. "I tell you my mother is dying; I
must go to her! Shall I go empty-handed! Give me money!"

Mr. Plaskwith was not a bad-hearted man; but he was a formal man, and an
irritable one. The tone his shopboy (for so he considered Philip) assumed
to him, before his own wife too (examples are very dangerous), rather
exasperated than moved him.

"That's not the way to speak to your master:--you forget yourself, young
man!"

"Forget!--But, sir, if she has not necessaries-if she is starving?"

"Fudge!" said Plaskwith. "Mr. Morton writes me word that he has provided
for your mother! Does he not, Hannah?"

"More fool he, I'm sure, with such a fine family of his own! Don't look
at me in that way, young man; I won't take it--that I won't! I declare my
blood friz to see you!"

"Will you advance me money?--five pounds--only five pounds, Mr.
Plaskwith?"

"Not five shillings! Talk to me in this style!--not the man for it,
sir!--highly improper. Come, shut up the shop, and recollect yourself;
and, perhaps, when Sir Thomas's library is done, I may let you go to
town. You can't go to-morrow. All a sham, perhaps; eh, Hannah?"

"Very likely! Consult Plimmins. Better come away now, Mr. P. He looks
like a young tiger."

Mrs. Plaskwith quitted the shop for the parlour. Her husband, putting his
hands behind his back, and throwing back his chin, was about to follow
her. Philip, who had remained for the last moment mute and white as
stone, turned abruptly; and his grief taking rather the tone of rage than
supplication, he threw himself before his master, and, laying his hand on
his shoulder, said:

"I leave you--do not let it be with a curse. I conjure you, have mercy on
me!"

Mr. Plaskwith stopped; and had Philip then taken but a milder tone, all
had been well. But, accustomed from childhood to command--all his fierce
passions loose within him--despising the very man he thus implored--the
boy ruined his own cause. Indignant at the silence of Mr. Plaskwith, and
too blinded by his emotions to see that in that silence there was
relenting, he suddenly shook the little man with a vehemence that almost
overset him, and cried:

"You, who demand for five years my bones and blood--my body and soul--a
slave to your vile trade--do you deny me bread for a mother's lips?"

Trembling with anger, and perhaps fear, Mr. Plaskwith extricated himself
from the gripe of Philip, and, hurrying from the shop, said, as he banged
the door:

"Beg my pardon for this to-night, or out you go to-morrow, neck and crop!
Zounds! a pretty pass the world's come to! I don't believe a word about
your mother. Baugh!"

Left alone, Philip remained for some moments struggling with his wrath
and agony. He then seized his hat, which he had thrown off on
entering--pressed it over his brows--turned to quit the shop--when his
eye fell upon the till. Plaskwith had left it open, and the gleam of the
coin struck his gaze--that deadly smile of the arch tempter. Intellect,
reason, conscience--all, in that instant, were confusion and chaos. He
cast a hurried glance round the solitary and darkening room--plunged his
hand into the drawer, clutched he knew not what--silver or gold, as it
came uppermost--and burst into a loud and bitter laugh. The laugh itself
startled him--it did not sound like his own. His face fell, and his knees
knocked together--his hair bristled--he felt as if the very fiend had
uttered that yell of joy over a fallen soul.

"No--no--no!" he muttered; "no, my mother,--not even for thee!" And,
dashing the money to the ground, he fled, like a maniac, from the house.

At a later hour that same evening, Mr. Robert Beaufort returned from his
country mansion to Berkeley Square. He found his wife very uneasy and
nervous about the non-appearance of their only son. Arthur had sent home
his groom and horses about seven o'clock, with a hurried scroll, written
in pencil on a blank page torn from his pocket-book, and containing only
these words,--

"Don't wait dinner for me--I may not be home for some hours. I have met
with a melancholy adventure. You will approve what I have done when we
meet."

This note a little perplexed Mr. Beaufort; but, as he was very hungry, he
turned a deaf ear both to his wife's conjectures and his own surmises,
till he had refreshed himself; and then he sent for the groom, and
learned that, after the accident to the blind man, Mr. Arthur had been
left at a hosier's in H----. This seemed to him extremely mysterious;
and, as hour after hour passed away, and still Arthur came not, he began
to imbibe his wife's fears, which were now wound up almost to hysterics;
and just at midnight he ordered his carriage, and taking with him the
groom as a guide, set off to the suburban region. Mrs. Beaufort had
wished to accompany him; but the husband observing that young men would
be young men, and that there might possibly be a lady in the case, Mrs.
Beaufort, after a pause of thought, passively agreed that, all things
considered, she had better remain at home. No lady of proper decorum
likes to run the risk of finding herself in a false position. Mr.
Beaufort accordingly set out alone. Easy was the carriage--swift were the
steeds--and luxuriously the wealthy man was whirled along. Not a
suspicion of the true cause of Arthur's detention crossed him; but he
thought of the snares of London--or artful females in distress; "a
melancholy adventure" generally implies love for the adventure, and money
for the melancholy; and Arthur was young--generous--with a heart and a
pocket equally open to imposition. Such scrapes, however, do not terrify
a father when he is a man of the world, so much as they do an anxious
mother; and, with more curiosity than alarm, Mr. Beaufort, after a short
doze, found himself before the shop indicated.

Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, the door to the private
entrance was ajar,--a circumstance which seemed very suspicious to Mr.
Beaufort. He pushed it open with caution and timidity--a candle placed
upon a chair in the narrow passage threw a sickly light over the flight
of stairs, till swallowed up by the deep shadow from the sharp angle made
by the ascent. Robert Beaufort stood a moment in some doubt whether to
call, to knock, to recede, or to advance, when a step was heard upon the
stairs above--it came nearer and nearer--a figure emerged from the shadow
of the last landing-place, and Mr. Beaufort, to his great joy, recognised
his son.

Arthur did not, however, seem to perceive his father; and was about to
pass him, when Mr. Beaufort laid his hand on his arm.

"What means all this, Arthur? What place are you in? How you have alarmed
us!"

Arthur cast a look upon his father of sadness and reproach.

"Father," he said, in a tone that sounded stern--almost commanding--"I
will show you where I have been; follow me--nay, I say, follow."

He turned, without another word re-ascended the stairs; and Mr. Beaufort,
surprised and awed into mechanical obedience, did as his son desired. At
the landing-place of the second floor, another long-wicked, neglected,
ghastly candle emitted its cheerless ray. It gleamed through the open
door of a small bedroom to the left, through which Beaufort perceived the
forms of two women. One (it was the kindly maidservant) was seated on a
chair, and weeping bitterly; the other (it was a hireling nurse, in the
first and last day of her attendance) was unpinning her dingy shawl
before she lay down to take a nap. She turned her vacant, listless face
upon the two men, put on a doleful smile, and decently closed the door.

"Where are we, I say, Arthur?" repeated Mr. Beaufort. Arthur took his
father's hand-drew him into a room to the right--and taking up the
candle, placed it on a small table beside a bell, and said, "Here,
sir--in the presence of Death!"

Mr. Beaufort cast a hurried and fearful glance on the still, wan, serene
face beneath his eyes, and recognised in that glance the features of the
neglected and the once adored Catherine.

"Yes--she, whom your brother so loved--the mother of his children--died
in this squalid room, and far from her sons, in poverty, in sorrow! died
of a broken heart! Was that well, father? Have you in this nothing to
repent?"

Conscience-stricken and appalled, the worldly man sank down on a seat
beside the bed, and covered his face with his hands.

"Ay," continued Arthur, almost bitterly--"ay, we, his nearest of kin--we,
who have inherited his lands and gold--we have been thus heedless of the
great legacy your brother bequeathed to us:--the things dearest to
him--the woman he loved--the children his death cast, nameless and
branded, on the world. Ay, weep, father: and while you weep, think of the
future, of reparation. I have sworn to that clay to befriend her sons;
join you, who have all the power to fulfil the promise--join in that vow:
and may Heaven not visit on us both the woes of this bed of death!"

"I did not know--I--I--" faltered Mr. Beaufort.

"But we should have known," interrupted Arthur, mournfully. "Ah, my dear
father! do not harden your heart by false excuses. The dead still speaks
to you, and commends to your care her children. My task here is done: O
sir! yours is to come. I leave you alone with the dead."

So saying, the young man, whom the tragedy of the scene had worked into a
passion and a dignity above his usual character, unwilling to trust
himself farther to his emotions, turned abruptly from the room, fled
rapidly down the stairs and left the house. As the carriage and liveries
of his father met his eye, he groaned; for their evidences of comfort and
wealth seemed a mockery to the deceased: he averted his face and walked
on. Nor did he heed or even perceive a form that at that instant rushed
by him--pale, haggard, breathless--towards the house which he had
quitted, and the door of which he left open, as he had found it--open, as
the physician had left it when hurrying, ten minutes before the arrival
of Mr. Beaufort, from the spot where his skill was impotent. Wrapped in
gloomy thought, alone, and on foot-at that dreary hour, and in that
remote suburb--the heir of the Beauforts sought his splendid home.
Anxious, fearful, hoping, the outcast orphan flew on to the death-room of
his mother.

Mr. Beaufort, who had but imperfectly heard Arthur's parting accents,
lost and bewildered by the strangeness of his situation, did not at first
perceive that he was left alone. Surprised, and chilled by the sudden
silence of the chamber, he rose, withdrew his hands from his face, and
again he saw that countenance so mute and solemn. He cast his gaze round
the dismal room for Arthur; he called his name--no answer came; a
superstitious tremor seized upon him; his limbs shook; he sank once more
on his seat, and closed his eyes: muttering, for the first time, perhaps,
since his childhood, words of penitence and prayer. He was roused from
this bitter self-abstraction by a deep groan. It seemed to come from the
bed. Did his ears deceive him? Had the dead found a voice? He started up
in an agony of dread, and saw opposite to him the livid countenance of
Philip Morton: the Son of the Corpse had replaced the Son of the Living
Man! The dim and solitary light fell upon that countenance. There, all
the bloom and freshness natural to youth seemed blasted! There, on those
wasted features, played all the terrible power and glare of precocious
passions,--rage, woe, scorn, despair. Terrible is it to see upon the face
of a boy the storm and whirlwind that should visit only the strong heart
of man!

"She is dead!--dead! and in your presence!" shouted Philip, with his wild
eyes fixed upon the cowering uncle; "dead with--care, perhaps with
famine. And you have come to look upon your work!"

"Indeed," said Beaufort, deprecatingly, "I have but just arrived: I did
not know she had been ill, or in want, upon my honour. This is all
a--a--mistake: I--I--came in search of--of--another--"

"You did not, then, come to relieve her?" said Philip, very calmly. "You
had not learned her suffering and distress, and flown hither in the hope
that there was yet time to save her? You did not do this? Ha! ha!--why
did I think it?"

"Did any one call, gentlemen?" said a whining voice at the door; and the
nurse put in her head.

"Yes--yes--you may come in," said Beaufort, shaking with nameless and
cowardly apprehension; but Philip had flown to the door, and, gazing on
the nurse, said,

"She is a stranger! see, a stranger! The son now has assumed his post.
Begone, woman!" And he pushed her away, and drew the bolt across the
door.

And then there looked upon him, as there had looked upon his reluctant
companion, calm and holy, the face of the peaceful corpse. He burst into
tears, and fell on his knees so close to Beaufort that he touched him; he
took up the heavy hand, and covered it with burning kisses.

"Mother! mother! do not leave me! wake, smile once more on your son! I
would have brought you money, but I could not have asked for your
blessing, then; mother, I ask it now!"

"If I had but known--if you had but written to me, my dear young
gentleman--but my offers had been refused, and--"

"Offers of a hireling's pittance to her; to her for whom my father would
have coined his heart's blood into gold! My father's wife!--his
wife!--offers--"

He rose suddenly, folded his arms, and facing Beaufort, with a fierce
determined brow, said:

"Mark me, you hold the wealth that I was trained from my cradle to
consider my heritage. I have worked with these hands for bread, and never
complained, except to my own heart and soul. I never hated, and never
cursed you--robber as you were--yes, robber! For, even were there no
marriage save in the sight of God, neither my father, nor Nature, nor
Heaven, meant that you should seize all, and that there should be nothing
due to the claims of affection and blood. He was not the less my father,
even if the Church spoke not on my side. Despoiler of the orphan, and
derider of human love, you are not the less a robber though the law
fences you round, and men call you honest! But I did not hate you for
this. Now, in the presence of my dead mother--dead, far from both her
sons--now I abhor and curse you. You may think yourself safe when you
quit this room-safe, and from my hatred you may be so but do not deceive
yourself. The curse of the widow and the orphan shall pursue--it shall
cling to you and yours--it shall gnaw your heart in the midst of
splendour--it shall cleave to the heritage of your son! There shall be a
deathbed yet, beside which you shall see the spectre of her, now so calm,
rising for retribution from the grave! These words--no, you never shall
forget them--years hence they shall ring in your ears, and freeze the
marrow of your bones! And now begone, my father's brother--begone from my
mother's corpse to your luxurious home!"

He opened the door, and pointed to the stairs. Beaufort, without a word,
turned from the room and departed. He heard the door closed and locked as
he descended the stairs; but he did not hear the deep groans and vehement
sobs in which the desolate orphan gave vent to the anguish which
succeeded to the less sacred paroxysm of revenge and wrath.




BOOK II.




CHAPTER I.

        "Incubo. Look to the cavalier. What ails he?
           .   .   .   .   .
        Hostess. And in such good clothes, too!"
            BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: Love's Pilgrimage.

   "Theod. I have a brother--there my last hope!.
       Thus as you find me, without fear or wisdom,
       I now am only child of Hope and Danger."--Ibid.

The time employed by Mr. Beaufort in reaching his home was haunted by
gloomy and confused terrors. He felt inexplicably as if the denunciations
of Philip were to visit less himself than his son. He trembled at the
thought of Arthur meeting this strange, wild, exasperated
scatterling--perhaps on the morrow--in the very height of his passions.
And yet, after the scene between Arthur and himself, he saw cause to fear
that he might not be able to exercise a sufficient authority over his
son, however naturally facile and obedient, to prevent his return to the
house of death. In this dilemma he resolved, as is usual with cleverer
men, even when yoked to yet feebler helpmates, to hear if his wife had
anything comforting or sensible to say upon the subject. Accordingly, on
reaching Berkeley Square, he went straight to Mrs. Beaufort; and having
relieved her mind as to Arthur's safety, related the scene in which he
had been so unwilling an actor. With that more lively susceptibility
which belongs to most women, however comparatively unfeeling, Mrs.
Beaufort made greater allowance than her husband for the excitement
Philip had betrayed. Still Beaufort's description of the dark menaces,
the fierce countenance, the brigand-like form, of the bereaved son, gave
her very considerable apprehensions for Arthur, should the young men
meet; and she willingly coincided with her husband in the propriety of
using all means of parental persuasion or command to guard against such
an encounter. But, in the meanwhile, Arthur returned not, and new fears
seized the anxious parents. He had gone forth alone, in a remote suburb
of the metropolis, at a late hour, himself under strong excitement. He
might have returned to the house, or have lost his way amidst some dark
haunts of violence and crime; they knew not where to send, or what to
suggest. Day already began to dawn, and still he came not. A length,
towards five o'clock, a loud rap was heard at the door, and Mr. Beaufort,
hearing some bustle in the hall, descended. He saw his son borne into the
hall from a hackney-coach by two strangers, pale, bleeding, and
apparently insensible. His first thought was that he had been murdered by
Philip. He uttered a feeble cry, and sank down beside his son.

"Don't be darnted, sir," said one of the strangers, who seemed an
artisan; "I don't think he be much hurt. You sees he was crossing the
street, and the coach ran against him; but it did not go over his head;
it be only the stones that makes him bleed so: and that's a mercy."

"A providence, sir," said the other man; "but Providence watches over us
all, night and day, sleep or wake. Hem! We were passing at the time from
the meeting--the Odd Fellows, sir--and so we took him, and got him a
coach; for we found his card in his pocket. He could not speak just then;
but the rattling of the coach did him a deal of good, for he groaned--my
eyes! how he groaned! did he not, Burrows?"

"It did one's heart good to hear him."

"Run for Astley Cooper--you--go to Brodie. Good Heavens! he is dying. Be
quick--quick!" cried Mr. Beaufort to his servants, while Mrs. Beaufort,
who had now gained the spot, with greater presence of mind had Arthur
conveyed into a room.

"It is a judgment upon me," groaned Beaufort, rooted to the stone of his
hall, and left alone with the strangers. "No, sir, it is not a judgment,
it is a providence," said the more sanctimonious and better dressed of
the two men "for, put the question, if it had been a judgment, the wheel
would have gone over him--but it didn't; and, whether he dies or not, I
shall always say that if that's not a providence, I don't know what is.
We have come a long way, sir; and Burrows is a poor man, though I'm well
to do."

This hint for money restored Beaufort to his recollection; he put his
purse into the nearest hand outstretched to clutch it, and muttered forth
something like thanks.

"Sir, may the Lord bless you! and I hope the young gentleman will do
well. I am sure you have cause to be thankful that he was within an inch
of the wheel; was he not, Burrows? Well, it's enough to convert a
heathen. But the ways of Providence are mysterious, and that's the truth
of it. Good night, sir."

Certainly it did seem as if the curse of Philip was already at its work.
An accident almost similar to that which, in the adventure of the blind
man, had led Arthur to the clue of Catherine, within twenty-four hours
stretched Arthur himself upon his bed. The sorrow Mr. Beaufort had not
relieved was now at his own hearth. But there were parents and nurses,
and great physicians, and skilful surgeons, and all the army that combine
against Death, and there were ease, and luxury, and kind eyes, and
pitying looks, and all that can take the sting from pain. And thus, the
very night on which Catherine had died, broken down, and worn out, upon a
strange breast, with a feeless doctor, and by the ray of a single candle,
the heir to the fortunes once destined to her son wrestled also with the
grim Tyrant, who seemed, however, scared from his prey by the arts and
luxuries which the world of rich men raises up in defiance of the grave.

Arthur, was, indeed, very seriously injured; one of his ribs was broken,
and he had received two severe contusions on the head. To insensibility
succeeded fever, followed by delirium. He was in imminent danger for
several days. If anything could console his parents for such an
affliction, it was the thought that, at least, he was saved from the
chance of meeting Philip.

Mr. Beaufort, in the instinct of that capricious and fluctuating
conscience which belongs to weak minds, which remains still, and
drooping, and lifeless, as a flag on a masthead during the calm of
prosperity, but flutters, and flaps, and tosses when the wind blows and
the wave heaves, thought very acutely and remorsefully of the condition
of the Mortons, during the danger of his own son. So far, indeed, from
his anxiety for Arthur monopolising all his care, it only sharpened his
charity towards the orphans; for many a man becomes devout and good when
he fancies he has an Immediate interest in appeasing Providence. The
morning after Arthur's accident, he sent for Mr. Blackwell. He
commissioned him to see that Catherine's funeral rites were performed
with all due care and attention; he bade him obtain an interview with
Philip, and assure the youth of Mr. Beaufort's good and friendly
disposition towards him, and to offer to forward his views in any course
of education he might prefer, or any profession he might adopt; and he
earnestly counselled the lawyer to employ all his tact and delicacy in
conferring with one of so proud and fiery a temper. Mr. Blackwell,
however, had no tact or delicacy to employ: he went to the house of
mourning, forced his way to Philip, and the very exordium of his
harangue, which was devoted to praises of the extraordinary generosity
and benevolence of his employer, mingled with condescending admonitions
towards gratitude from Philip, so exasperated the boy, that Mr. Blackwell
was extremely glad to get out of the house with a whole skin. He,
however, did not neglect the more formal part of his mission; but
communicated immediately with a fashionable undertaker, and gave orders
for a very genteel funeral. He thought after the funeral that Philip
would be in a less excited state of mind, and more likely to hear reason;
he, therefore, deferred a second interview with the orphan till after
that event; and, in the meanwhile, despatched a letter to Mr. Beaufort,
stating that he had attended to his instructions; that the orders for the
funeral were given; but that at present Mr. Philip Morton's mind was a
little disordered, and that he could not calmly discuss the plans for the
future suggested by Mr. Beaufort. He did not doubt, however, that in
another interview all would be arranged according to the wishes his
client had so nobly conveyed to him. Mr. Beaufort's conscience on this
point was therefore set at rest. It was a dull, close, oppressive
morning, upon which the remains of Catherine Morton were consigned to the
grave. With the preparations for the funeral Philip did not interfere; he
did not inquire by whose orders all that solemnity of mutes, and coaches,
and black plumes, and crape bands, was appointed. If his vague and
undeveloped conjecture ascribed this last and vain attention to Robert
Beaufort, it neither lessened the sullen resentment he felt against his
uncle, nor, on the other hand, did he conceive that he had a right to
forbid respect to the dead, though he might reject service for the
survivor. Since Mr. Blackwell's visit, he had remained in a sort of
apathy or torpor, which seemed to the people of the house to partake
rather of indifference than woe.

The funeral was over, and Philip had returned to the apartments occupied
by the deceased; and now, for the first time, he set himself to examine
what papers, &c., she had left behind. In an old escritoire, he found,
first, various packets of letters in his father's handwriting, the
characters in many of them faded by time. He opened a few; they were the
earliest love-letters. He did not dare to read above a few lines; so much
did their living tenderness, and breathing, frank, hearty passion,
contrast with the fate of the adored one. In those letters, the very
heart of the writer seemed to beat! Now both hearts alike were stilled!
And GHOST called vainly unto GHOST!

He came, at length, to a letter in his mother's hand, addressed to
himself, and dated two days before her death. He went to the window and
gasped in the mists of the sultry air for breath. Below were heard the
noises of London; the shrill cries of itinerant vendors, the rolling
carts, the whoop of boys returned for a while from school. Amidst all
these rose one loud, merry peal of laughter, which drew his attention
mechanically to the spot whence it came; it was at the threshold of a
public-house, before which stood the hearse that had conveyed his
mother's coffin, and the gay undertakers, halting there to refresh
themselves. He closed the window with a groan, retired to the farthest
corner of the room, and read as follows:

"MY DEAREST PHILIP,--When you read this, I shall be no more. You and poor
Sidney will have neither father nor mother, nor fortune, nor name. Heaven
is more just than man, and in Heaven is my hope for you. You, Philip, are
already past childhood; your nature is one formed, I think, to wrestle
successfully with the world. Guard against your own passions, and you may
bid defiance to the obstacles that will beset your path in life. And
lately, in our reverses, Philip, you have so subdued those passions, so
schooled the pride and impetuosity of your childhood, that I have
contemplated your prospects with less fear than I used to do, even when
they seemed so brilliant. Forgive me, my dear child, if I have concealed
from you my state of health, and if my death be a sudden and unlooked-for
shock. Do not grieve for me too long. For myself, my release is indeed
escape from the prison-house and the chain--from bodily pain and mental
torture, which may, I fondly hope, prove some expiation for the errors of
a happier time. For I did err, when, even from the least selfish motives,
I suffered my union with your father to remain concealed, and thus ruined
the hopes of those who had rights upon me equal even to his. But, O
Philip! beware of the first false steps into deceit; beware, too, of the
passions, which do not betray their fruit till years and years after the
leaves that look so green and the blossoms that seem so fair.

"I repeat my solemn injunction--Do not grieve for me; but strengthen your
mind and heart to receive the charge that I now confide to you--my
Sidney, my child, your brother! He is so soft, so gentle, he has been so
dependent for very life upon me, and we are parted now for the first and
last time. He is with strangers; and--and--O Philip, Philip! watch over
him for the love you bear, not only to him, but to me! Be to him a father
as well as a brother. Put your stout heart against the world, so that you
may screen him, the weak child, from its malice. He has not your talents
nor strength of character; without you he is nothing. Live, toil, rise
for his sake not less than your own. If you knew how this heart beats as
I write to you, if you could conceive what comfort I take for him from my
confidence in you, you would feel a new spirit--my spirit--my
mother-spirit of love, and forethought, and vigilance, enter into you
while you read. See him when I am gone--comfort and soothe him. Happily
he is too young yet to know all his loss; and do not let him think
unkindly of me in the days to come, for he is a child now, and they may
poison his mind against me more easily than they can yours. Think, if he
is unhappy hereafter, he may forget how I loved him, he may curse those
who gave him birth. Forgive me all this, Philip, my son, and heed it
well.

"And now, where you find this letter, you will see a key; it opens a well
in the bureau in which I have hoarded my little savings. You will see
that I have not died in poverty. Take what there is; young as you are,
you may want it more now than hereafter. But hold it in trust for your
brother as well as yourself. If he is harshly treated (and you will go
and see him, and you will remember that he would writhe under what you
might scarcely feel), or if they overtask him (he is so young to work),
yet it may find him a home near you. God watch over and guard you both!
You are orphans now. But HE has told even the orphans to call him
'Father!'"

When he had read this letter, Philip Morton fell upon his knees, and
prayed.




CHAPTER II.

     "His curse! Dost comprehend what that word means?
     Shot from a father's angry breath."
     JAMES SHIRLEY: The Brothers.

     "This term is fatal, and affrights me."--Ibid.

     "Those fond philosophers that magnify
     Our human nature . . . . . .
     Conversed but little with the world-they knew not
     The fierce vexation of community!"--Ibid.

After he had recovered his self-possession, Philip opened the well of the
bureau, and was astonished and affected to find that Catherine had saved
more than L100. Alas! how much must she have pinched herself to have
hoarded this little treasure! After burning his father's love-letters,
and some other papers, which he deemed useless, he made up a little
bundle of those trifling effects belonging to the deceased, which he
valued as memorials and relies of her, quitted the apartment, and
descended to the parlour behind the shop. On the way he met with the kind
servant, and recalling the grief that she had manifested for his mother
since he had been in the house, he placed two sovereigns in her hand.
"And now," said he, as the servant wept while he spoke, "now I can bear
to ask you what I have not before done. How did my poor mother die? Did
she suffer much?--or--or--"

"She went off like a lamb, sir," said the girl, drying her eyes. "You see
the gentleman had been with her all the day, and she was much more easy
and comfortable in her mind after he came."

"The gentleman! Not the gentleman I found here?"

"Oh, dear no! Not the pale middle-aged gentleman nurse and I saw go down
as the clock struck two. But the young, soft-spoken gentleman who came in
the morning, and said as how he was a relation. He stayed with her till
she slept; and, when she woke, she smiled in his face--I shall never
forget that smile--for I was standing on the other side, as it might be
here, and the doctor was by the window, pouring out the doctor's stuff in
the glass; and so she looked on the young gentleman, and then looked
round at us all, and shook her head very gently, but did not speak. And
the gentleman asked her how she felt, and she took both his hands and
kissed them; and then he put his arms round and raised her up to take the
physic like, and she said then, 'You will never forget them?' and he
said, 'Never.' I don't know what that meant, sir!"

"Well, well--go on."

"And her head fell back on his buzzom, and she looked so happy; and, when
the doctor came to the bedside, she was quite gone."

"And the stranger had my post! No matter; God bless him--God bless him.
Who was he? what was his name?"

"I don't know, sir; he did not say. He stayed after the doctor went, and
cried very bitterly; he took on more than you did, sir."

"And the other gentleman came just as he was a-going, and they did not
seem to like each other; for I heard him through the wall, as nurse and I
were in the next room, speak as if he was scolding; but he did not stay
long."

"And has never been seen since?"

"No, sir. Perhaps missus can tell you more about him. But won't you take
something, sir? Do--you look so pale."

Philip, without speaking, pushed her gently aside, and went slowly down
the stairs. He entered the parlour, where two or three children were
seated, playing at dominoes; he despatched one for their mother, the
mistress of the shop, who came in, and dropped him a courtesy, with a
very grave, sad face, as was proper.

"I am going to leave your house, ma'am; and I wish to settle any little
arrears of rent, &c."

"O sir! don't mention it," said the landlady; and, as she spoke, she took
a piece of paper from her bosom, very neatly folded, and laid it on the
table. "And here, sir," she added, taking from the same depository a
card,--"here is the card left by the gentleman who saw to the funeral. He
called half an hour ago, and bade me say, with his compliments, that he
would wait on you to-morrow at eleven o'clock. So I hope you won't go
yet: for I think he means to settle everything for you; he said as much,
sir."

Philip glanced over the card, and read, "Mr. George Blackwell, Lincoln's
Inn." His brow grew dark--he let the card fall on the ground, put his
foot on it with a quiet scorn, and muttered to himself, "The lawyer shall
not bribe me out of my curse!" He turned to the total of the bill--not
heavy, for poor Catherine had regularly defrayed the expense of her
scanty maintenance and humble lodging--paid the money, and, as the
landlady wrote the receipt, he asked, "Who was the gentleman--the younger
gentleman--who called in the morning of the day my mother died?"

"Oh, sir! I am so sorry I did not get his name. Mr. Perkins said that he
was some relation. Very odd he has never been since. But he'll be sure to
call again, sir; you had much better stay here."

"No: it does not signify. All that he could do is done. But stay, give
him this note, if she should call."

Philip, taking the pen from the landlady's hand, hastily wrote (while
Mrs. Lacy went to bring him sealing-wax and a light) these words:

"I cannot guess who you are: they say that you call yourself a relation;
that must be some mistake. I knew not that my poor mother had relations
so kind. But, whoever you be, you soothed her last hours--she died in
your arms; and if ever--years, long years hence--we should chance to
meet, and I can do anything to aid another, my blood, and my life, and my
heart, and my soul, all are slaves to your will. If you be really of her
kindred, I commend to you my brother: he is at ----, with Mr. Morton. If
you can serve him, my mother's soul will watch over you as a guardian
angel. As for me, I ask no help from any one: I go into the world and
will carve out my own way. So much do I shrink from the thought of
charity from others, that I do not believe I could bless you as I do now
if your kindness to me did not close with the stone upon my mother's
grave. PHILIP."

He sealed this letter, and gave it to the woman.

"Oh, by the by," said she, "I had forgot; the Doctor said that if you
would send for him, he would be most happy to call on you, and give you
any advice."

"Very well."

"And what shall I say to Mr. Blackwell?"

"That he may tell his employer to remember our last interview."

With that Philip took up his bundle and strode from the house. He went
first to the churchyard, where his mother's remains had been that day
interred. It was near at hand, a quiet, almost a rural, spot. The gate
stood ajar, for there was a public path through the churchyard, and
Philip entered with a noiseless tread. It was then near evening; the sun
had broken out from the mists of the earlier day, and the wistering rays
shone bright and holy upon the solemn place.

"Mother! mother!" sobbed the orphan, as he fell prostrate before that
fresh green mound: "here--here I have come to repeat my oath, to swear
again that I will be faithful to the charge you have entrusted to your
wretched son! And at this hour I dare ask if there be on this earth one
more miserable and forlorn?"

As words to this effect struggled from his lips, a loud, shrill
voice--the cracked, painful voice of weak age wrestling with strong
passion, rose close at hand.

"Away, reprobate! thou art accursed!"

Philip started, and shuddered as if the words were addressed to himself,
and from the grave. But, as he rose on his knee, and tossing the wild
hair from his eyes, looked confusedly round, he saw, at a short distance,
and in the shadow of the wall, two forms; the one, an old man with grey
hair, who was seated on a crumbling wooden tomb, facing the setting sun;
the other, a man apparently yet in the vigour of life, who appeared bent
as in humble supplication. The old man's hands were outstretched over the
head of the younger, as if suiting terrible action to the terrible words,
and, after a moment's pause--a moment, but it seemed far longer to
Philip--there was heard a deep, wild, ghastly howl from a dog that
cowered at the old man's feet; a howl, perhaps of fear at the passion of
his master, which the animal might associate with danger.

"Father! father!" said the suppliant reproachfully, "your very dog
rebukes your curse."

"Be dumb! My dog! What hast thou left me on earth but him? Thou hast made
me loathe the sight of friends, for thou hast made me loathe mine own
name. Thou hast covered it with disgrace,--thou hast turned mine old age
into a by-word,--thy crimes leave me solitary in the midst of my shame!"

"It is many years since we met, father; we may never meet again--shall we
part thus?"

"Thus, aha!" said the old man in a tone of withering sarcasm! "I
comprehend,--you are come for money!"

At this taunt the son started as if stung by a serpent; raised his head
to its full height, folded his arms, and replied:

"Sir, you wrong me: for more than twenty years I have maintained
myself--no matter how, but without taxing you;--and now, I felt remorse
for having suffered you to discard me,--now, when you are old and
helpless, and, I heard, blind: and you might want aid, even from your
poor good-for-nothing son. But I have done. Forget,--not my sins, but
this interview. Repeal your curse, father; I have enough on my head
without yours; and so--let the son at least bless the father who curses
him. Farewell!"

The speaker turned as he thus said, with a voice that trembled at the
close, and brushed rapidly by Philip, whom he did not, however, appear to
perceive; but Philip, by the last red beam of the sun, saw again that
marked storm-beaten face which it was difficult, once seen, to forget,
and recognised the stranger on whose breast he had slept the night of his
fatal visit to R----.

The old man's imperfect vision did not detect the departure of his son,
but his face changed and softened as the latter strode silently through
the rank grass.

"William!" he said at last, gently; "William!" and the tears rolled down
his furrowed cheeks; "my son!" but that son was gone--the old man
listened for reply--none came. "He has left me--poor William!--we shall
never meet again;" and he sank once more on the old tombstone, dumb,
rigid, motionless--an image of Time himself in his own domain of Graves.
The dog crept closer to his master, and licked his hand. Philip stood for
a moment in thoughtful silence: his exclamation of despair had been
answered as by his better angel. There was a being more miserable than
himself; and the Accursed would have envied the Bereaved!

The twilight had closed in; the earliest star--the star of Memory and
Love, the Hesperus hymned by every poet since the world began--was fair
in the arch of heaven, as Philip quitted the spot, with a spirit more
reconciled to the future, more softened, chastened, attuned to gentle and
pious thoughts than perhaps ever yet had made his soul dominant over the
deep and dark tide of his gloomy passions. He went thence to a
neighbouring sculptor, and paid beforehand for a plain tablet to be
placed above the grave he had left. He had just quitted that shop, in the
same street, not many doors removed from the house in which his mother
had breathed her last. He was pausing by a crossing, irresolute whether
to repair at once to the home assigned to Sidney, or to seek some shelter
in town for that night, when three men who were on the opposite side of
the way suddenly caught sight of him.

"There he is--there he is! Stop, sir!--stop!"

Philip heard these words, looked up, and recognised the voice and the
person of Mr. Plaskwith; the bookseller was accompanied by Mr. Plimmins,
and a sturdy, ill-favoured stranger.

A nameless feeling of fear, rage, and disgust seized the unhappy boy, and
at the same moment a ragged vagabond whispered to him, "Stump it, my
cove; that's a Bow Street runner."

Then there shot through Philip's mind the recollection of the money he
had seized, though but to dash away; was he now--he, still to his own
conviction, the heir of an ancient and spotless name--to be hunted as a
thief; or, at the best, what right over his person and his liberty had he
given to his taskmaster? Ignorant of the law--the law only seemed to him,
as it ever does to the ignorant and the friendless--a Foe. Quicker than
lightning these thoughts, which it takes so many words to describe,
flashed through the storm and darkness of his breast; and at the very
instant that Mr. Plimmins had laid hands on his shoulder his resolution
was formed. The instinct of self beat loud at his heart. With a bound--a
spring that sent Mr. Plimmins sprawling in the kennel, he darted across
the road, and fled down an opposite lane.

"Stop him! stop!" cried the bookseller, and the officer rushed after him
with almost equal speed. Lane after lane, alley after alley, fled Philip;
dodging, winding, breathless, panting; and lane after lane, and alley
after alley, thickened at his heels the crowd that pursued. The idle and
the curious, and the officious,--ragged boys, ragged men, from stall and
from cellar, from corner and from crossing, joined in that delicious
chase, which runs down young Error till it sinks, too often, at the door
of the gaol or the foot of the gallows. But Philip slackened not his
pace; he began to distance his pursuers. He was now in a street which
they had not yet entered--a quiet street, with few, if any, shops. Before
the threshold of a better kind of public-house, or rather tavern, to
judge by its appearance, lounged two men; and while Philip flew on, the
cry of "Stop him!" had changed as the shout passed to new voices, into
"Stop the thief!"--that cry yet howled in the distance. One of the
loungers seized him: Philip, desperate and ferocious, struck at him with
all his force; but the blow was scarcely felt by that Herculean frame.

"Pish!" said the man, scornfully; "I am no spy; if you run from justice,
I would help you to a sign-post."

Struck by the voice, Philip looked hard at the speaker. It was the voice
of the Accursed Son.

"Save me! you remember me?" said the orphan, faintly. "Ah! I think I do;
poor lad! Follow me-this way!" The stranger turned within the tavern,
passed the hall through a sort of corridor that led into a back yard
which opened upon a nest of courts or passages.

"You are safe for the present; I will take you where you can tell me all
at your ease--See!" As he spoke they emerged into an open street, and the
guide pointed to a row of hackney coaches. "Be quick--get in. Coachman,
drive fast to ---"

Philip did not hear the rest of the direction.

Our story returns to Sidney.




CHAPTER III.

        "Nous vous mettrons a couvert,
        Repondit le pot de fer
        Si quelque matiere dure
        Vous menace d'aventure,
        Entre deux je passerai,
        Et du coup vous sauverai.
          . . . . . . . .
        Le pot de terre en souffre!"--LA FONTAINE.

   ["We, replied the Iron Pot, will shield you: should any hard
   substance menace you with danger, I'll intervene, and save you
   from the shock.
   . . . . . . . . . The Earthen Pot was the sufferer!]

"SIDNEY, come here, sir! What have you been at? you have torn your frill
into tatters! How did you do this? Come sir, no lies."

"Indeed, ma'am, it was not my fault. I just put my head out of the window
to see the coach go by, and a nail caught me here."

"Why, you little plague! you have scratched yourself--you are always in
mischief. What business had you to look after the coach?"

"I don't know," said Sidney, hanging his head ruefully. "La, mother!"
cried the youngest of the cousins, a square-built, ruddy, coarse-featured
urchin, about Sidney's age, "La, mother, he never see a coach in the
street when we are at play but he runs arter it."

"After, not arter," said Mr. Roger Morton, taking the pipe from his
mouth.

"Why do you go after the coaches, Sidney?" said Mrs. Morton; "it is very
naughty; you will be run over some day."

"Yes, ma'am," said Sidney, who during the whole colloquy had been
trembling from bead to foot.

"'Yes ma'am,' and 'no, ma'am:' you have no more manners than a cobbler's
boy."

"Don't tease the child, my dear; he is crying," said Mr. Morton, more
authoritatively than usual. "Come here, my man!" and the worthy uncle
took him in his lap and held his glass of brandy-and-water to his lips;
Sidney, too frightened to refuse, sipped hurriedly, keeping his large
eyes fixed on his aunt, as children do when they fear a cuff.

"You spoil the boy more than do your own flesh and blood," said Mrs.
Morton, greatly displeased.

Here Tom, the youngest-born before described, put his mouth to his
mother's ear, and whispered loud enough to be heard by all: "He runs
arter the coach 'cause he thinks his ma may be in it. Who's home-sick, I
should like to know? Ba! Baa!"

The boy pointed his finger over his mother's shoulder, and the other
children burst into a loud giggle.

"Leave the room, all of you,--leave the room!" said Mr. Morton, rising
angrily and stamping his foot.

The children, who were in great awe of their father, huddled and hustled
each other to the door; but Tom, who went last, bold in his mother's
favour, popped his head through the doorway, and cried, "Good-bye, little
home-sick!"

A sudden slap in the face from his father changed his chuckle into a very
different kind of music, and a loud indignant sob was heard without for
some moments after the door was closed.

"If that's the way you behave to your children, Mr. Morton, I vow you
sha'n't have any more if I can help it. Don't come near me--don't touch
me!" and Mrs. Morton assumed the resentful air of offended beauty.

"Pshaw!" growled the spouse, and he reseated himself and resumed his
pipe. There was a dead silence. Sidney crouched near his uncle, looking
very pale. Mrs. Morton, who was knitting, knitted away with the excited
energy of nervous irritation.

"Ring the bell, Sidney," said Mr. Morton. The boy obeyed-the parlour-maid
entered. "Take Master Sidney to his room; keep the boys away from him,
and give him a large slice of bread and jam, Martha."

"Jam, indeed!--treacle," said Mrs. Morton.

"Jam, Martha," repeated the uncle, authoritatively. "Treacle!" reiterated
the aunt.

"Jam, I say!"

"Treacle, you hear: and for that matter, Martha has no jam to give!"

The husband had nothing more to say.

"Good night, Sidney; there's a good boy, go and kiss your aunt and make
your bow; and I say, my lad, don't mind those plagues. I'll talk to them
to-morrow, that I will; no one shall be unkind to you in my house."

Sidney muttered something, and went timidly up to Mrs. Morton. His look
so gentle and subdued; his eyes full of tears; his pretty mouth which,
though silent, pleaded so eloquently; his willingness to forgive, and his
wish to be forgiven, might have melted many a heart harder, perhaps, than
Mrs. Morton's. But there reigned what are worse than hardness,--prejudice
and wounded vanity--maternal vanity. His contrast to her own rough,
coarse children grated on her, and set the teeth of her mind on edge.

"There, child, don't tread on my gown: you are so awkward: say your
prayers, and don't throw off the counterpane! I don't like slovenly
boys."

Sidney put his finger in his mouth, drooped, and vanished.

"Now, Mrs. M.," said Mr. Morton, abruptly, and knocking out the ashes of
his pipe; "now Mrs. M., one word for all: I have told you that I promised
poor Catherine to be a father to that child, and it goes to my heart to
see him so snubbed. Why you dislike him I can't guess for the life of me.
I never saw a sweeter-tempered child."

"Go on, sir, go on: make your personal reflections on your own lawful
wife. They don't hurt me--oh no, not at all! Sweet-tempered, indeed; I
suppose your own children are not sweet-tempered?"

"That's neither here nor there," said Mr. Morton: "my own children are
such as God made them, and I am very well satisfied."

"Indeed you may be proud of such a family; and to think of the pains I
have taken with them, and how I have saved you in nurses, and the bad
times I have had; and now, to find their noses put out of joint by that
little mischief-making interloper--it is too bad of you, Mr. Morton; you
will break my heart--that you will!"

Mrs. Morton put her handkerchief to her eyes and sobbed. The husband was
moved: he got up and attempted to take her hand. "Indeed, Margaret, I did
not mean to vex you."

"And I who have been such a fa--fai--faithful wi--wi--wife, and brought
you such a deal of mon--mon--money, and always stud--stud--studied your
interests; many's the time when you have been fast asleep that I have sat
up half the night--men--men--mending the house linen; and you have not
been the same man, Roger, since that boy came!"

"Well, well" said the good man, quite overcome, and fairly taking her
round the waist and kissing her; "no words between us; it makes life
quite unpleasant. If it pains you to have Sidney here, I will put him to
some school in the town, where they'll be kind to him. Only, if you
would, Margaret, for my sake--old girl! come, now! there's a
darling!--just be more tender with him. You see he frets so after his
mother. Think how little Tom would fret if he was away from you! Poor
little Tom!"

"La! Mr. Morton, you are such a man!--there's no resisting your ways! You
know how to come over me, don't you?"

And Mrs. Morton smiled benignly, as she escaped from his conjugal arms
and smoothed her cap.

Peace thus restored, Mr. Morton refilled his pipe, and the good lady,
after a pause, resumed, in a very mild, conciliatory tone:

"I'll tell you what it is, Roger, that vexes me with that there child. He
is so deceitful, and he does tell such fibs!"

"Fibs! that is a very bad fault," said Mr. Morton, gravely. "That must be
corrected."

"It was but the other day that I saw him break a pane of glass in the
shop; and when I taxed him with it, he denied it;--and with such a face!
I can't abide storytelling."

"Let me know the next story he tells; I'll cure him," said Mr. Morton,
sternly. "You now how I broke Tom of it. Spare the rod, and spoil the
child. And where I promised to be kind to the boy, of course I did not
mean that I was not to take care of his morals, and see that he grew up
an honest man. Tell truth and shame the devil--that's my motto."

"Spoke like yourself, Roger," said Mrs. Morton, with great animation.
"But you see he has not had the advantage of such a father as you. I
wonder your sister don't write to you. Some people make a great fuss
about their feelings; but out of sight out of mind."

"I hope she is not ill. Poor Catherine! she looked in a very bad way when
she was here," said Morton; and he turned uneasily to the fireplace and
sighed.

Here the servant entered with the supper-tray, and the conversation fell
upon other topics.

Mrs. Roger Morton's charge against Sidney was, alas! too true. He had
acquired, under that roof, a terrible habit of telling stories. He had
never incurred that vice with his mother, because then and there he had
nothing to fear; now, he had everything to fear;--the grim aunt--even the
quiet, kind, cold, austere uncle--the apprentices--the strange
servants--and, oh! more than all, those hardeyed, loud-laughing
tormentors, the boys of his own age! Naturally timid, severity made him
actually a coward; and when the nerves tremble, a lie sounds as surely
as, when I vibrate that wire, the bell at the end of it will ring. Beware
of the man who has been roughly treated as a child.

The day after the conference just narrated, Mr. Morton, who was subject
to erysipelas, had taken a little cooling medicine. He breakfasted,
therefore, later than usual--after the rest of the family; and at this
meal pour lui soulager he ordered the luxury of a muffin. Now it so
chanced that he had only finished half the muffin, and drunk one cup of
tea, when he was called into the shop by a customer of great
importance--a prosy old lady, who always gave her orders with remarkable
precision, and who valued herself on a character for affability, which
she maintained by never buying a penny riband without asking the shopman
how all his family were, and talking news about every other family in the
place. At the time Mr. Morton left the parlour, Sidney and Master Tom
were therein, seated on two stools, and casting up division sums on their
respective slates--a point of education to which Mr. Morton attended with
great care. As soon as his father's back was turned, Master Tom's eyes
wandered from the slate to the muffin, as it leered at him from the
slop-basin. Never did Pythian sibyl, seated above the bubbling spring,
utter more oracular eloquence to her priest, than did that muffin--at
least the parts of it yet extant--utter to the fascinated senses of
Master Tom. First he sighed; then he moved round on his stool; then he
got up; then he peered at the muffin from a respectful distance; then he
gradually approached, and walked round, and round, and round it--his eyes
getting bigger and bigger; then he peeped through the glass-door into the
shop, and saw his father busily engaged with the old lady; then he began
to calculate and philosophise, perhaps his father had done breakfast;
perhaps he would not come back at all; if he came back, he would not miss
one corner of the muffin; and if he did miss it, why should Tom be
supposed to have taken it? As he thus communed with himself, he drew
nearer into the fatal vortex, and at last with a desperate plunge, he
seized the triangular temptation,--

     "And ere a man had power to say 'Behold!'
     The jaws of Thomas had devoured it up."

Sidney, disturbed from his studies by the agitation of his companion,
witnessed this proceeding with great and conscientious alarm. "O Tom!"
said he, "what will your papa say?"

"Look at that!" said Tom, putting his fist under Sidney's reluctant nose.
"If father misses it, you'll say the cat took it. If you don't--my eye,
what a wapping I'll give you!"

Here Mr. Morton's voice was heard wishing the lady "Good morning!" and
Master Tom, thinking it better to leave the credit of the invention
solely to Sidney, whispered, "Say I'm gone up stairs for my
pocket-hanker," and hastily absconded.

Mr. Morton, already in a very bad humour, partly at the effects of the
cooling medicine, partly at the suspension of his breakfast, stalked into
the parlour. His tea-the second cup already poured out, was cold. He
turned towards the muffin, and missed the lost piece at a glance.

"Who has been at my muffin?" said he, in a voice that seemed to Sidney
like the voice he had always supposed an ogre to possess. "Have you,
Master Sidney?"

"N--n--no, sir; indeed, sir!"

"Then Tom has. Where is he?"

"Gone up stairs for his handkerchief, sir."

"Did he take my muffin? Speak the truth!"

"No, sir; it was the--it was the--the cat, sir!"

"O you wicked, wicked boy!" cried Mrs. Morton, who had followed her
husband into the parlour; "the cat kittened last night, and is locked up
in the coal-cellar!"

"Come here, Master Sidney! No! first go down, Margaret, and see if the
cat is in the cellar: it might have got out, Mrs. M.," said Mr. Morton,
just even in his wrath.

Mrs. Morton went, and there was a dead silence, except indeed in Sidney's
heart, which beat louder than a clock ticks. Mr. Morton, meanwhile, went
to a little cupboard;--while still there, Mrs. Morton returned: the cat
was in the cellar--the key turned on her--in no mood to eat muffins, poor
thing!--she would not even lap her milk! like her mistress, she had had a
very bad time!

"Now come here, sir," said Mr. Morton, withdrawing himself from the
cupboard, with a small horsewhip in his hand, "I will teach you how to
speak the truth in future! Confess that you have told a lie!"

"Yes, sir, it was a lie! Pray--pray forgive me: but Tom made me!"

"What! when poor Tom is up-stairs? worse and worse!" said Mrs. Morton,
lifting up her hands and eyes. "What a viper!"

"For shame, boy,--for shame! Take that--and that--and that--"

Writhing--shrinking, still more terrified than hurt, the poor child
cowered beneath the lash.

"Mamma! mamma!" he cried at last, "Oh, why--why did you leave me?"

At these words Mr. Morton stayed his hand, the whip fell to the ground.

"Yet it is all for the boy's good," he muttered. "There, child, I hope
this is the last time. There, you are not much hurt. Zounds, don't cry
so!"

"He will alarm the whole street," said Mrs. Morton; "I never see such a
child! Here, take this parcel to Mrs. Birnie's--you know the house--only
next street, and dry your eyes before you get there. Don't go through the
shop; this way out."

She pushed the child, still sobbing with a vehemence that she could not
comprehend, through the private passage into the street, and returned to
her husband.

"You are convinced now, Mr. M.?"

"Pshaw! ma'am; don't talk. But, to be sure, that's how I cured Tom of
fibbing.--The tea's as cold as a stone!"




CHAPTER IV.

   "Le bien nous le faisons: le mal c'est la Fortune.
   On a toujours raison, le Destin toujours tort."--LA FONTAINE.

   [The Good, we effect ourselves; the Evil is the handiwork of
   Fortune. Mortals are always in the right, Destiny always in the
   wrong.]

Upon the early morning of the day commemorated by the historical events
of our last chapter, two men were deposited by a branch coach at the inn
of a hamlet about ten miles distant from the town in which Mr. Roger
Morton resided. Though the hamlet was small, the inn was large, for it
was placed close by a huge finger-post that pointed to three great roads:
one led to the town before mentioned; another to the heart of a
manufacturing district; and a third to a populous seaport. The weather
was fine, and the two travellers ordered breakfast to be taken into an
arbour in the garden, as well as the basins and towels necessary for
ablution. The elder of the travellers appeared to be unequivocally
foreign; you would have guessed him at once for a German. He wore, what
was then very uncommon in this country, a loose, brown linen blouse,
buttoned to the chin, with a leathern belt, into which were stuck a
German meerschaum and a tobacco-pouch. He had very long flaxen hair,
false or real, that streamed half-way down his back, large light
mustaches, and a rough, sunburnt complexion, which made the fairness of
the hair more remarkable. He wore an enormous pair of green spectacles,
and complained much in broken English of the weakness of his eyes. All
about him, even to the smallest minutiae, indicated the German; not only
the large muscular frame, the broad feet, and vast though well-shaped
hands, but the brooch--evidently purchased of a Jew in some great
fair--stuck ostentatiously and superfluously into his stock; the quaint,
droll-looking carpet-bag, which he refused to trust to the boots; and the
great, massive, dingy ring which he wore on his forefinger. The other was
a slender, remarkably upright and sinewy youth, in a blue frock, over
which was thrown a large cloak, a travelling cap, with a shade that
concealed all of the upper part of his face, except a dark quick eye of
uncommon fire; and a shawl handkerchief, which was equally useful in
concealing the lower part of the countenance. On descending from the
coach, the German with some difficulty made the ostler understand that he
wanted a post-chaise in a quarter of an hour; and then, without entering
the house, he and his friend strolled to the arbour. While the
maid-servant was covering the table with bread, butter, tea, eggs, and a
huge round of beef, the German was busy in washing his hands, and talking
in his national tongue to the young man, who returned no answer. But as
soon as the servant had completed her operations the foreigner turned
round, and observing her eyes fixed on his brooch with much female
admiration, he made one stride to her.

"Der Teufel, my goot Madchen--but you are von var pretty--vat you call
it?" and he gave her, as he spoke, so hearty a smack that the girl was
more flustered than flattered by the courtesy.

"Keep yourself to yourself, sir!" said she, very tartly, for chambermaids
never like to be kissed by a middle-aged gentleman when a younger one is
by: whereupon the German replied by a pinch,--it is immaterial to state
the exact spot to which that delicate caress was directed. But this last
offence was so inexpiable, that the "Madchen" bounced off with a face of
scarlet, and a "Sir, you are no gentleman--that's what you arn't!" The
German thrust his head out of the arbour, and followed her with a loud
laugh; then drawing himself in again, he said in quite another accent,
and in excellent English, "There, Master Philip, we have got rid of the
girl for the rest of the morning, and that's exactly what I wanted to
do--women's wits are confoundedly sharp. Well, did I not tell you right,
we have baffled all the bloodhounds!"

"And here, then, Gawtrey, we are to part," said Philip, mournfully.

"I wish you would think better of it, my boy," returned Mr. Gawtrey,
breaking an egg; "how can you shift for yourself--no kith nor kin, not
even that important machine for giving advice called a friend--no, not a
friend, when I am gone? I foresee how it must end. [D--- it, salt butter,
by Jove!]"

"If I were alone in the world, as I have told you again and again,
perhaps I might pin my fate to yours. But my brother!"

"There it is, always wrong when we act from our feelings. My whole life,
which some day or other I will tell you, proves that. Your brother--bah!
is he not very well off with his own uncle and aunt?--plenty to eat and
drink, I dare say. Come, man, you must be as hungry as a hawk--a slice of
the beef? Let well alone, and shift for yourself. What good can you do
your brother?"

"I don't know, but I must see him; I have sworn it."

"Well, go and see him, and then strike across the country to me. I will
wait a day for you,--there now!"

"But tell me first," said Philip, very earnestly, and fixing his dark
eyes on his companion,--"tell me--yes, I must speak frankly--tell me, you
who would link my fortunes with your own,--tell me, what and who are
you?"

Gawtrey looked up.

"What do you suppose?" said he, dryly.

"I fear to suppose anything, lest I wrong you; but the strange place to
which you took me the evening on which you saved me from pursuit, the
persons I met there--"

"Well-dressed, and very civil to you?"

"True! but with a certain wild looseness in their talk that--But I have
no right to judge others by mere appearance. Nor is it this that has made
me anxious, and, if you will, suspicious."

"What then?"

"Your dress-your disguise."

"Disguised yourself!--ha! ha! Behold the world's charity! You fly from
some danger, some pursuit, disguised--you, who hold yourself guiltless--I
do the same, and you hold me criminal--a robber, perhaps-a murderer it
may be! I will tell you what I am: I am a son of Fortune, an adventurer;
I live by my wits--so do poets and lawyers, and all the charlatans of the
world; I am a charlatan--a chameleon. 'Each man in his time plays many
parts:' I play any part in which Money, the Arch-Manager, promises me a
livelihood. Are you satisfied?"

"Perhaps," answered the boy, sadly, "when I know more of the world, I
shall understand you better. Strange--strange, that you, out of all men,
should have been kind to me in distress!"

"Not at all strange. Ask the beggar whom he gets the most pence from--the
fine lady in her carriage--the beau smelling of eau de Cologne? Pish! the
people nearest to being beggars themselves keep the beggar alive. You
were friendless, and the man who has all earth for a foe befriends you.
It is the way of the world, sir,--the way of the world. Come, eat while
you can; this time next year you may have no beef to your bread."

Thus masticating and moralising at the same time, Mr. Gawtrey at last
finished a breakfast that would have astonished the whole Corporation of
London; and then taking out a large old watch, with an enamelled
back--doubtless more German than its master--he said, as he lifted up his
carpet-bag, "I must be off--tempos fugit, and I must arrive just in time
to nick the vessels. Shall get to Ostend, or Rotterdam, safe and snug;
thence to Paris. How my pretty Fan will have grown! Ah, you don't know
Fan--make you a nice little wife one of these days! Cheer up, man, we
shall meet again. Be sure of it; and hark ye, that strange place, as you
call it, where I took you,--you can find it again?"

"Not I."

"Here, then, is the address. Whenever you want me, go there, ask to see
Mr. Gregg--old fellow with one eye, you recollect--shake him by the hand
just so--you catch the trick--practise it again. No, the forefinger thus,
that's right. Say 'blater,' no more--'blater;'--stay, I will write it
down for you; and then ask for William Gawtrey's direction. He will give
it you at once, without questions--these signs understood; and if you
want money for your passage, he will give you that also, with advice into
the bargain. Always a warm welcome with me. And so take care of yourself,
and good-bye. I see my chaise is at the door."

As he spoke, Gawtrey shook the young man's hand with cordial vigour, and
strode off to his chaise, muttering, "Money well laid out--fee money; I
shall have him, and, Gad, I like him,--poor devil!"




CHAPTER V.

   "He is a cunning coachman that can turn well in a narrow room."
   Old Play: from Lamb's Specimens.

   "Here are two pilgrims,
   And neither knows one footstep of the way."
   HEYWOOD's Duchess of Suffolk, Ibid.

The chaise had scarce driven from the inn-door when a coach stopped to
change horses on its last stage to the town to which Philip was, bound.
The name of the destination, in gilt letters on the coach-door, caught
his eye, as he walked from the arbour towards the road, and in a few
moments he was seated as the fourth passenger in the "Nelson Slow and
Sure." From under the shade of his cap, he darted that quick, quiet
glance, which a man who hunts, or is hunted,--in other words, who
observes, or shuns,--soon acquires. At his left hand sat a young woman in
a cloak lined with yellow; she had taken off her bonnet and pinned it to
the roof of the coach, and looked fresh and pretty in a silk
handkerchief, which she had tied round her head, probably to serve as a
nightcap during the drowsy length of the journey. Opposite to her was a
middle-aged man of pale complexion, and a grave, pensive, studious
expression of face; and vis-a-vis to Philip sat an overdressed, showy,
very good-looking man of about two or three and forty. This gentleman
wore auburn whiskers, which met at the chin; a foraging cap, with a gold
tassel; a velvet waistcoat, across which, in various folds, hung a golden
chain, at the end of which dangled an eye-glass, that from time to time
he screwed, as it were, into his right eye; he wore, also, a blue silk
stock, with a frill much crumpled, dirty kid gloves, and over his lap lay
a cloak lined with red silk. As Philip glanced towards this personage,
the latter fixed his glass also at him, with a scrutinising stare, which
drew fire from Philip's dark eyes. The man dropped his glass, and said in
a half provincial, half haw-haw tone, like the stage exquisite of a minor
theatre, "Pawdon me, and split legs!" therewith stretching himself
between Philip's limbs in the approved fashion of inside passengers. A
young man in a white great-coat now came to the door with a glass of warm
sherry and water.

"You must take this--you must now; it will keep the cold out," (the day
was broiling,) said he to the young woman.

"Gracious me!" was the answer, "but I never drink wine of a morning,
James; it will get into my head."

"To oblige me!" said the young man, sentimentally; whereupon the young
lady took the glass, and looking very kindly at her Ganymede, said, "Your
health!" and sipped, and made a wry face--then she looked at the
passengers, tittered, and said, "I can't bear wine!" and so, very slowly
and daintily, sipped up the rest. A silent and expressive squeeze of the
hand, on returning the glass, rewarded the young man, and proved the
salutary effect of his prescription.

"All right!" cried the coachman: the ostler twitched the cloths from the
leaders, and away went the "Nelson Slow and Sure," with as much
pretension as if it had meant to do the ten miles in an hour. The pale
gentleman took from his waistcoat pocket a little box containing
gum-arabic, and having inserted a couple of morsels between his lips, he
next drew forth a little thin volume, which from the manner the lines
were printed was evidently devoted to poetry.

The smart gentleman, who since the episode of the sherry and water had
kept his glass fixed upon the young lady, now said, with a genteel smirk:

"That young gentleman seems very auttentive, miss!"

"He is a very good young man, sir, and takes great care of me."

"Not your brother, miss,--eh?"

"La, sir--why not?"

"No faumily likeness--noice-looking fellow enough! But your oiyes and
mouth--ah, miss!"

Miss turned away her head, and uttered with pert vivacity: "I never likes
compliments, sir! But the young man is not my brother."

"A sweetheart,--eh? Oh fie, miss! Haw! haw!" and the auburn-whiskered
Adonis poked Philip in the knee with one hand, and the pale gentleman in
the ribs with the other. The latter looked up, and reproachfully; the
former drew in his legs, and uttered an angry ejaculation.

"Well, sir, there is no harm in a sweetheart, is there?"

"None in the least, ma'am; I advoise you to double the dose. We often
hear of two strings to a bow. Daun't you think it would be noicer to
have two beaux to your string?" As he thus wittily expressed himself,
the gentleman took off his cap, and thrust his fingers through a very
curling and comely head of hair; the young lady looked at him with
evident coquetry, and said, "How you do run on, you gentlemen!"

"I may well run on, miss, as long as I run aufter you," was the gallant
reply.

Here the pale gentleman, evidently annoyed by being talked across, shut
his book up, and looked round. His eye rested on Philip, who, whether
from the heat of the day or from the forgetfulness of thought, had pushed
his cap from his brows; and the gentleman, after staring at him for a few
moments with great earnestness, sighed so heavily that it attracted the
notice of all the passengers.

"Are you unwell, sir?" asked the young lady, compassionately.

"A little pain in my side, nothing more!"

"Chaunge places with me, sir," cried the Lothario, officiously. "Now do!"
The pale gentleman, after a short hesitation, and a bashful excuse,
accepted the proposal. In a few moments the young lady and the beau were
in deep and whispered conversation, their heads turned towards the
window. The pale gentleman continued to gaze at Philip, till the latter,
perceiving the notice he excited, coloured, and replaced his cap over his
face.

"Are you going to N----? asked the gentleman, in a gentle, timid voice.

"Yes!"

"Is it the first time you have ever been there?"

"Sir!" returned Philip, in a voice that spoke surprise and distaste at
his neighbour's curiosity.

"Forgive me," said the gentleman, shrinking back; "but you remind me
of-of--a family I once knew in the town. Do you know--the--the Mortons?"

One in Philip's situation, with, as he supposed, the officers of justice
in his track (for Gawtrey, for reasons of his own, rather encouraged than
allayed his fears), might well be suspicious. He replied therefore
shortly, "I am quite a stranger to the town," and ensconced himself in
the corner, as if to take a nap. Alas! that answer was one of the many
obstacles he was doomed to build up between himself and a fairer fate.

The gentleman sighed again, and never spoke more to the end of the
journey. When the coach halted at the inn,--the same inn which had before
given its shelter to poor Catherine,--the young man in the white coat
opened the door, and offered his arm to the young lady.

"Do you make any stay here, sir?" said she to the beau, as she unpinned
her bonnet from the roof.

"Perhaps so; I am waiting for my phe-a-ton, which my faellow is to bring
down,--tauking a little tour."

"We shall be very happy to see you, sir!" said the young lady, on whom
the phe-a-ton completed the effect produced by the gentleman's previous
gallantries; and with that she dropped into his hand a very neat card, on
which was printed, "Wavers and Snow, Staymakers, High Street."

The beau put the card gracefully into his pocket-leaped from the
coach-nudged aside his rival of the white coat, and offered his arm to
the lady, who leaned on it affectionately as she descended.

"This gentleman has been so perlite to me, James," said she. James
touched his hat; the beau clapped him on the shoulder,--"Ah! you are not
a hauppy man,--are you? Oh no, not at all a hauppy man!--Good day to you!
Guard, that hat-box is mine!"

While Philip was paying the coachman, the beau passed, and whispered
him--

"Recollect old Gregg--anything on the lay here--don't spoil my sport if
we meet!" and bustled off into the inn, whistling "God save the king!"

Philip started, then tried to bring to mind the faces which he had seen
at the "strange place," and thought he recalled the features of his
fellow-traveller. However, he did not seek to renew the acquaintance, but
inquired the way to Mr. Morton's house, and thither he now proceeded.

He was directed, as a short cut, down one of those narrow passages at the
entrance of which posts are placed as an indication that they are
appropriated solely to foot-passengers. A dead white wall, which screened
the garden of the physician of the place, ran on one side; a high fence
to a nursery-ground was on the other; the passage was lonely, for it was
now the hour when few persons walk either for business or pleasure in a
provincial town, and no sound was heard save the fall of his own step on
the broad flagstones. At the end of the passage in the main street to
which it led, he saw already the large, smart, showy shop, with the hot
sum shining full on the gilt letters that conveyed to the eyes of the
customer the respectable name of "Morton,"--when suddenly the silence was
broken by choked and painful sobs. He turned, and beneath a compo
portico, jutting from the wall, which adorned the physician's door, he
saw a child seated on the stone steps weeping bitterly--a thrill shot
through Philip's heart! Did he recognise, disguised as it was by pain and
sorrow, that voice? He paused, and laid his hand on the child's shoulder:
"Oh, don't--don't--pray don't--I am going, I am indeed:" cried the child,
quailing, and still keeping his hands clasped before his face.

"Sidney!" said Philip. The boy started to his feet, uttered a cry of
rapturous joy, and fell upon his brother's breast.

"O Philip!--dear, dear Philip! you are come to take me away back to my
own--own mamma; I will be so good, I will never tease her again,--never,
never! I have been so wretched!"

"Sit down, and tell me what they have done to you," said Philip, checking
the rising heart that heaved at his mother's name.

So, there they sat, on the cold stone under the stranger's porch, these
two orphans: Philip's arms round his brother's waist, Sidney leaning on
his shoulder, and imparting to him--perhaps with pardonable exaggeration,
all the sufferings he had gone through; and, when he came to that
morning's chastisement, and showed the wale across the little hands which
he had vainly held up in supplication, Philip's passion shook him from
limb to limb. His impulse was to march straight into Mr. Morton's shop
and gripe him by the throat; and the indignation he betrayed encouraged
Sidney to colour yet more highly the tale of his wrongs and pain.

When he had done, and clinging tightly to his brother's broad chest,
said--

"But never mind, Philip; now we will go home to mamma."

Philip replied--

"Listen to me, my dear brother. We cannot go back to our mother. I will
tell you why, later. We are alone in the world-we two! If you will come
with me--God help you!--for you will have many hardships: we shall have
to work and drudge, and you may be cold and hungry, and tired, very
often, Sidney,--very, very often! But you know that, long ago, when I was
so passionate, I never was wilfully unkind to you; and I declare now,
that I would bite out my tongue rather than it should say a harsh word to
you. That is all I can promise. Think well. Will you never miss all the
comforts you have now?"

"Comforts!" repeated Sidney, ruefully, and looking at the wale over his
hands. "Oh! let--let--let me go with you, I shall die if I stay here. I
shall indeed--indeed!"

"Hush!" said Philip; for at that moment a step was heard, and the pale
gentleman walked slowly down the passage, and started, and turned his
head wistfully as he looked at the boys.

When he was gone. Philip rose.

"It is settled, then," said he, firmly. "Come with me at once. You shall
return to their roof no more. Come, quick: we shall have many miles to go
to-night."




CHAPTER VI.

     "He comes--
     Yet careless what he brings; his one concern
     Is to conduct it to the destined inn;
     And having dropp'd the expected bag, pass on--
     To him indifferent whether grief or joy."
             COWPER: Description of the Postman.

The pale gentleman entered Mr. Morton's shop; and, looking round him,
spied the worthy trader showing shawls to a young lady just married. He
seated himself on a stool, and said to the bowing foreman--

"I will wait till Mr. Morton is disengaged."

The young lady having closely examined seven shawls, and declared they
were beautiful, said, "she would think of it," and walked away. Mr.
Morton now approached the stranger.

"Mr. Morton," said the pale gentleman; "you are very little altered. You
do not recollect me?"

"Bless me, Mr. Spencer! is it really you? Well, what a time since we met!
I am very glad to see you. And what brings you to N----? Business?"

"Yes, business. Let us go within?"

Mr. Morton led the way to the parlour, where Master Tom, reperched on the
stool, was rapidly digesting the plundered muffin. Mr. Morton dismissed
him to play, and the pale gentleman took a chair.

"Mr. Morton," said he, glancing over his dress, "you see I am in
mourning. It is for your sister. I never got the better of that early
attachment--never."

"My sister! Good Heavens!" said Mr. Morton, turning very pale; "is she
dead? Poor Catherine!--and I not know of it! When did she die?"

"Not many days since; and--and--" said Mr. Spencer, greatly affected, "I
fear in want. I had been abroad for some months: on my return last week,
looking over the newspapers (for I always order them to be filed), I read
the short account of her lawsuit against Mr. Beaufort, some time back. I
resolved to find her out. I did so through the solicitor she employed: it
was too late; I arrived at her lodgings two days after her--her burial. I
then determined to visit poor Catherine's brother, and learn if anything
could be done for the children she had left behind."

"She left but two. Philip, the elder, is very comfortably placed at
R----; the younger has his home with me; and Mrs. Morton is a moth--that
is to say, she takes great pains with him. Ehem! And my poor--poor
sister!"

"Is he like his mother?"

"Very much, when she was young--poor dear Catherine!"

"What age is he?"

"About ten, perhaps; I don't know exactly; much younger than the other.
And so she's dead!"

"Mr. Morton, I am an old bachelor" (here a sickly smile crossed Mr.
Spencer's face); "a small portion of my fortune is settled, it is true,
on my relations; but the rest is mine, and I live within my income. The
elder of these boys is probably old enough to begin to take care of
himself. But, the younger--perhaps you have a family of your own, and can
spare him!"

Mr. Morton hesitated, and twitched up his trousers. "Why," said he, "this
is very kind in you. I don't know--we'll see. The boy is out now; come
and dine with us at two--pot-luck. Well, so she is no more! Heigho!
Meanwhile, I'll talk it over with Mrs. M."

"I will be with you," said Mr. Spencer, rising.

"Ah!" sighed Mr. Morton, "if Catherine had but married you she would have
been a happy woman."

"I would have tried to make her so," said Mr. Spencer, as he turned away
his face and took his departure.

Two o'clock came; but no Sidney. They had sent to the place whither he
had been despatched; he had never arrived there. Mr. Morton grew alarmed;
and, when Mr. Spencer came to dinner, his host was gone in search of the
truant. He did not return till three. Doomed that day to be belated both
at breakfast and dinner, this decided him to part with Sidney whenever he
should be found. Mrs. Morton was persuaded that the child only sulked,
and would come back fast enough when he was hungry. Mr. Spencer tried to
believe her, and ate his mutton, which was burnt to a cinder; but when
five, six, seven o'clock came, and the boy was still missing,--even Mrs.
Morton agreed that it was high time to institute a regular search. The
whole family set off different ways. It was ten o'clock before they were
reunited; and then all the news picked up was, that a boy, answering
Sidney's description, had been seen with a young man in three several
parts of the town; the last time at the outskirts, on the high road
towards the manufacturing districts. These tidings so far relieved Mr.
Morton's mind that he dismissed the chilling fear that had crept
there,--that Sidney might have drowned himself. Boys will drown
themselves sometimes! The description of the young man coincided so
remarkably with the fellow-passenger of Mr. Spencer, that he did not
doubt it was the same; the more so when he recollected having seen him
with a fair-haired child under the portico; and yet more, when he
recalled the likeness to Catherine that had struck him in the coach, and
caused the inquiry that had roused Philip's suspicion. The mystery was
thus made clear--Sidney had fled with his brother. Nothing more, however,
could be done that night. The next morning, active measures should be
devised; and when the morning came, the mail brought to Mr. Morton the
two following letters. The first was from Arthur Beaufort.

"SIR,--I have been prevented by severe illness from writing to you
before. I can now scarcely hold a pen; but the instant my health is
recovered I shall be with you at N ---, on her deathbed, the mother of
the boy under your charge, Sidney Morton, committed him solemnly to me.
I make his fortunes my care, and shall hasten to claim him at your kindly
hands. But the elder son,--this poor Philip, who has suffered so
unjustly,--for our lawyer has seen Mr. Plaskwith, and heard the whole
story--what has become of him? All our inquiries have failed to track
him. Alas, I was too ill to institute them myself while it was yet time.
Perhaps he may have sought shelter, with you, his uncle; if so, assure
him that he is in no danger from the pursuit of the law,--that his
innocence is fully recognised; and that my father and myself implore him
to accept our affection. I can write no more now; but in a few days I
shall hope to see you.
        "I am, sir, &c.,
            "ARTHUR BEAUFORT.
"Berkely Square."

The second letter was from Mr. Plaskwith, and ran thus:

"DEAR MORTON,--Something very awkward has happened,--not my fault, and
very unpleasant for me. Your relation, Philip, as I wrote you word, was
a painstaking lad, though odd and bad mannered,--for want, perhaps, poor
boy! of being taught better, and Mrs. P. is, you know, a very genteel
woman--women go too much by manners--so she never took much to him.
However, to the point, as the French emperor used to say: one evening he
asked me for money for his mother, who, he said, was ill, in a very
insolent way: I may say threatening. It was in my own shop, and before
Plimmins and Mrs. P.; I was forced to answer with dignified rebuke, and
left the shop. When I returned, he was gone, and some shillings-fourteen,
I think, and three sovereigns--evidently from the till,
scattered on the floor. Mrs. P. and Mr. Plimmins were very much
frightened; thought it was clear I was robbed, and that we were to be
murdered. Plimmins slept below that night, and we borrowed butcher
Johnson's dog. Nothing happened. I did not think I was robbed; because
the money, when we came to calculate, was all right. I know human
nature. He had thought to take it, but repented--quite clear. However,
I was naturally very angry, thought he'd comeback again--meant to reprove
him properly--waited several days--heard nothing of him--grew
uneasy--would not attend longer to Mrs. P.; for, as Napoleon Buonaparte
observed, 'women are well in their way, not in our ours.' Made Plimmins
go with me to town--hired a Bow Street runner to track him out--cost me
L1. 1s, and two glasses of brandy and water. Poor Mrs. Morton was just
buried--quite shocked! Suddenly saw the boy in the streets. Plimmins
rushed forward in the kindest way--was knocked down--hurt his arm--paid
2s. 6d. for lotion. Philip ran off, we ran after him--could not find him.
Forced to return home. Next day, a lawyer from a Mr. Beaufort--Mr. George
Blackwell, a gentlemanlike man called. Mr. Beaufort will do anything for
him in reason. Is there anything more I can do? I really am very uneasy
about the lad, and Mrs. P. and I have a tiff about it: but that's
nothing--thought I had best write to you for instructions.
      "Yours truly,
          "C. PLASHWITH.

"P. S.--Just open my letter to say, Bow Street officer just been
here--has found out that the boy has been seen with a very suspicious
character: they think he has left London. Bow Street officer wants to go
after him--very expensive: so now you can decide."

Mr. Spencer scarcely listened to Mr. Plaskwith's letter, but of Arthur's
he felt jealous. He would fain have been the only protector to
Catherine's children; but he was the last man fitted to head the search,
now so necessary to prosecute with equal tact and energy.

A soft-hearted, soft-headed man, a confirmed valtudinarian, a
day-dreamer, who had wasted away his life in dawdling and maundering over
Simple Poetry, and sighing over his unhappy attachment; no child, no
babe, was more thoroughly helpless than Mr. Spencer.

The task of investigation devolved, therefore, on Mr. Morton, and he went
about it in a regular, plain, straightforward way. Hand-bills were
circulated, constables employed, and a lawyer, accompanied by Mr.
Spencer, despatched to the manufacturing districts: towards which the
orphans had been seen to direct their path.




CHAPTER VII.

        "Give the gentle South
        Yet leave to court these sails."
        BEAUMONT AND FLLTCHER: Beggar's Bush.

        "Cut your cloth, sir,
        According to your calling."--Ibid.

Meanwhile the brothers were far away, and He who feeds the young ravens
made their paths pleasant to their feet. Philip had broken to Sidney the
sad news of their mother's death, and Sidney had wept with bitter
passion. But children,--what can they know of death? Their tears over
graves dry sooner than the dews. It is melancholy to compare the depth,
the endurance, the far-sighted, anxious, prayerful love of a parent, with
the inconsiderate, frail, and evanescent affection of the infant, whose
eyes the hues of the butterfly yet dazzle with delight. It was the night
of their flight, and in the open air, when Philip (his arms round
Sidney's waist) told his brother-orphan that they were motherless. And
the air was balmy, the skies filled with the effulgent presence of the
August moon; the cornfields stretched round them wide and far, and not a
leaf trembled on the beech-tree beneath which they had sought shelter. It
seemed as if Nature herself smiled pityingly on their young sorrow, and
said to them, "Grieve not for the dead: I, who live for ever, I will be
your mother!"

They crept, as the night deepened, into the warmer sleeping-place
afforded by stacks of hay, mown that summer and still fragrant. And the
next morning the birds woke them betimes, to feel that Liberty, at least,
was with them, and to wander with her at will.

Who in his boyhood has not felt the delight of freedom and adventure? to
have the world of woods and sward before him--to escape restriction--to
lean, for the first time, on his own resources--to rejoice in the wild
but manly luxury of independence--to act the Crusoe--and to fancy a
Friday in every footprint--an island of his own in every field? Yes, in
spite of their desolation, their loss, of the melancholy past, of the
friendless future, the orphans were happy--happy in their youth--their
freedom--their love--their wanderings in the delicious air of the
glorious August. Sometimes they came upon knots of reapers lingering in
the shade of the hedge-rows over their noonday meal; and, grown sociable
by travel, and bold by safety, they joined and partook of the rude fare
with the zest of fatigue and youth. Sometimes, too, at night, they saw,
gleam afar and red by the woodside, the fires of gipsy tents. But these,
with the superstition derived from old nursery-tales, they scrupulously
shunned, eying them with a mysterious awe! What heavenly twilights belong
to that golden month!--the air so lucidly serene, as the purple of the
clouds fades gradually away, and up soars, broad, round, intense, and
luminous, the full moon which belongs to the joyous season! The fields
then are greener than in the heats of July and June,--they have got back
the luxury of a second spring. And still, beside the paths of the
travellers, lingered on the hedges the clustering honeysuckle--the
convolvulus glittered in the tangles of the brake--the hardy heathflower
smiled on the green waste.

And ever, at evening, they came, field after field, upon those circles
which recall to children so many charmed legends, and are fresh and
frequent in that month--the Fairy Rings! They thought, poor boys! that it
was a good omen, and half fancied that the Fairies protected them, as in
the old time they had often protected the desolate and outcast.

They avoided the main roads, and all towns, with suspicious care. But
sometimes they paused, for food and rest, at the obscure hostel of some
scattered hamlet: though, more often, they loved to spread the simple
food they purchased by the way under some thick, tree, or beside a stream
through whose limpid waters they could watch the trout glide and play.
And they often preferred the chance shelter of a haystack, or a shed, to
the less romantic repose offered by the small inns they alone dared to
enter. They went in this much by the face and voice of the host or
hostess. Once only Philip had entered a town, on the second day of their
flight, and that solely for the purchase of ruder clothes, and a change
of linen for Sidney, with some articles and implements of use necessary
in their present course of shift and welcome hardship. A wise precaution;
for, thus clad, they escaped suspicion.

So journeying, they consumed several days; and, having taken a direction
quite opposite to that which led to the manufacturing districts, whither
pursuit had been directed, they were now in the centre of another
county--in the neighbourhood of one of the most considerable towns of
England; and here Philip began to think their wanderings ought to cease,
and it was time to settle on some definite course of life. He had
carefully hoarded about his person, and most thriftily managed, the
little fortune bequeathed by his mother. But Philip looked on this
capital as a deposit sacred to Sidney; it was not to be spent, but kept
and augmented--the nucleus for future wealth. Within the last few weeks
his character was greatly ripened, and his powers of thought enlarged. He
was no more a boy,--he was a man: he had another life to take care of. He
resolved, then, to enter the town they were approaching, and to seek for
some situation by which he might maintain both. Sidney was very loath to
abandon their present roving life; but he allowed that the warm weather
could not always last, and that in winter the fields would be less
pleasant. He, therefore, with a sigh, yielded to his brother's
reasonings.

They entered the fair and busy town of one day at noon; and, after
finding a small lodging, at which he deposited Sidney, who was fatigued
with their day's walk, Philip sallied forth alone.

After his long rambling, Philip was pleased and struck with the broad
bustling streets, the gay shops--the evidences of opulence and trade. He
thought it hard if he could not find there a market for the health and
heart of sixteen. He strolled slowly and alone along the streets, till
his attention was caught by a small corner shop, in the window of which
was placed a board, bearing this inscription:

"OFFICE FOR EMPLOYMENT.--RECIPROCAL ADVANTAGE.

"Mr. John Clump's bureau open every day, from ten till four. Clerks,
servants, labourers, &c., provided with suitable situations. Terms
moderate. N.B.--The oldest established office in the town.

"Wanted, a good cook. An under gardener."

What he sought was here! Philip entered, and saw a short fat man with
spectacles, seated before a desk, poring upon the well-filled leaves of a
long register.

"Sir," said Philip, "I wish for a situation. I don't care what."

"Half-a-crown for entry, if you please. That's right. Now for
particulars. Hum!--you don't look like a servant!"

"No; I wish for any place where my education can be of use. I can read
and write; I know Latin and French; I can draw; I know arithmetic and
summing."

"Very well; very genteel young man--prepossessing appearance (that's a
fudge!), highly educated; usher in a school, eh?"

"What you like."

"References?"

"I have none."

"Eh!--none?" and Mr. Clump fixed his spectacles full upon Philip.

Philip was prepared for the question, and had the sense to perceive that
a frank reply was his best policy. "The fact is," said he boldly, "I was
well brought up; my father died; I was to be bound apprentice to a trade
I disliked; I left it, and have now no friends."

"If I can help you, I will," said Mr. Clump, coldly. "Can't promise much.
If you were a labourer, character might not matter; but educated young
men must have a character. Hands always more useful than head. Education
no avail nowadays; common, quite common. Call again on Monday."

Somewhat disappointed and chilled, Philip turned from the bureau; but he
had a strong confidence in his own resources, and recovered his spirits
as he mingled with the throng. He passed, at length, by a livery-stable,
and paused, from old associations, as he saw a groom in the mews
attempting to manage a young, hot horse, evidently unbroken. The master
of the stables, in a green short jacket and top-boots, with a long whip
in his hand, was standing by, with one or two men who looked like
horsedealers.

"Come off, clumsy! you can't manage that I ere fine hanimal," cried the
liveryman. "Ah! he's a lamb, sir, if he were backed properly. But I has
not a man in the yard as can ride since Will died. Come off, I say,
lubber!"

But to come off, without being thrown off, was more easily said than
done. The horse was now plunging as if Juno had sent her gadfly to him;
and Philip, interested and excited, came nearer and nearer, till he stood
by the side of the horse-dealers. The other ostlers ran to the help of
their comrade, who at last, with white lips and shaking knees, found
himself on terra firma; while the horse, snorting hard, and rubbing his
head against the breast and arms of the ostler, who held him tightly by
the rein, seemed to ask, is his own way, "Are there any more of you?"

A suspicion that the horse was an old acquaintance crossed Philip's mind;
he went up to him, and a white spot over the left eye confirmed his
doubts. It had been a foal reserved and reared for his own riding! one
that, in his prosperous days, had ate bread from his hand, and followed
him round the paddock like a dog; one that he had mounted in sport,
without saddle, when his father's back was turned; a friend, in short, of
the happy Lang syne;--nay, the very friend to whom he had boasted his
affection, when, standing with Arthur Beaufort under the summer sky, the
whole world seemed to him full of friends. He put his hand on the horse's
neck, and whispered, "Soho! So, Billy!" and the horse turned sharp round
with a quick joyous neigh.

"If you please, sir," said Philip, appealing to the liveryman, "I will
undertake to ride this horse, and take him over yon leaping-bar. Just let
me try him."

"There's a fine-spirited lad for you!" said the liveryman, much pleased
at the offer. "Now, gentlemen, did I not tell you that 'ere hanimal had
no vice if he was properly managed?"

The horse-dealers shook their heads.

"May I give him some bread first?" asked Philip; and the ostler was
despatched to the house. Meanwhile the animal evinced various signs of
pleasure and recognition, as Philip stroked and talked to him; and,
finally, when he ate the bread from the young man's hand, the whole yard
seemed in as much delight and surprise as if they had witnessed one of
Monsieur Van Amburgh's exploits.

And now, Philip, still caressing the horse, slowly and cautiously
mounted; the animal made one bound half-across the yard--a bound which
sent all the horse-dealers into a corner-and then went through his paces,
one after the other, with as much ease and calm as if he had been broken
in at Mr. Fozard's to carry a young lady. And when he crowned all by
going thrice over the leaping-bar, and Philip, dismounting, threw the
reins to the ostler, and turned triumphantly to the horse-dealer, that
gentleman slapped him on the back, and said, emphatically, "Sir, you are
a man! and I am proud to see you here."

Meanwhile the horse-dealers gathered round the animal; looked at his
hoofs, felt his legs, examined his windpipe, and concluded the bargain,
which, but for Philip, would have been very abruptly broken off. When the
horse was led out of the yard, the liveryman, Mr. Stubmore, turned to
Philip, who, leaning against the wall, followed the poor animal with
mournful eyes.

"My good sir, you have sold that horse for me--that you have! Anything as
I can do for you? One good turn de serves another. Here's a brace of
shiners."

"Thank you, sir! I want no money, but I do want some employment. I can be
of use to you, perhaps, in your establishment. I have been brought up
among horses all my life."

"Saw it, sir! that's very clear. I say, that 'ere horse knows you!" and
the dealer put his finger to his nose.

"Quite right to be mum! He was bred by an old customer of mine--famous
rider!--Mr. Beaufort. Aha! that's where you knew him, I s'pose. Were you
in his stables?"

"Hem--I knew Mr. Beaufort well."

"Did you? You could not know a better man. Well, I shall be very glad to
engage you, though you seem by your hands to be a bit of a gentleman-elh?
Never mind; don't want you to groom!--but superintend things. D'ye know
accounts, eh?"

"Yes."

"Character?"

Philip repeated to Mr. Stubmore the story he had imparted to Mr. Clump.
Somehow or other, men who live much with horses are always more lax in
their notions than the rest of mankind. Mr. Stubmore did not seem to grow
more distant at Philip's narration.

"Understand you perfectly, my man. Brought up with them 'ere fine
creturs, how could you nail your nose to a desk? I'll take you without
more palaver. What's your name?"

"Philips."

"Come to-morrow, and we'll settle about wages. Sleep here?"

"No. I have a brother whom I must lodge with, and for whose sake I wish
to work. I should not like him to be at the stables--he is too young. But
I can come early every day, and go home late."

"Well, just as you like, my man. Good day."

And thus, not from any mental accomplishment--not from the result of his
intellectual education, but from the mere physical capacity and brute
habit of sticking fast on his saddle, did Philip Morton, in this great,
intelligent, gifted, civilised, enlightened community of Great Britain,
find the means of earning his bread without stealing it.




CHAPTER VIII.

     "Don Salluste (souriunt). Je paire
     Que 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 independent
   life.

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?




CHAPTER IX.

   "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. Stub more--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 leer 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.




CHAPTER X.

               "I'll carry thee
        In 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 voice
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."

       .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

We must return to Arthur Beaufort. He was naturally, though gentle, a
person of high spirit and not without pride. He rose from the ground with
bitter, resentful feelings and a blushing cheek, and went his way to the
hotel. Here he found Mr. Spencer just returned from his visit to Sidney.
Enchanted with the soft and endearing manners of his lost Catherine's
son, and deeply affected with the resemblance the child bore to the
mother as he had seen her last at the gay and rosy age of fair sixteen,
his description of the younger brother drew Beaufort's indignant thoughts
from the elder. He cordially concurred with Mr. Spencer in the wish to
save one so gentle from the domination of one so fierce; and this, after
all, was the child Catherine had most strongly commended to him. She had
said little of the elder; perhaps she had been aware of his ungracious
and untractable nature, and, as it seemed to Arthur Beaufort, his
predilections for a coarse and low career.

"Yes," said he, "this boy, then, shall console me for the perverse
brutality of the other. He shall indeed drink of my cup, and eat of my
bread, and be to me as a brother."

"What!" said Mr. Spencer, changing countenance, "you do not intend to
take Sidney to live with you. I meant him for my son--my adopted son."

"No; generous as you are," said Arthur, pressing his hand, "this charge
devolves on me--it is my right. I am the orphan's relation--his mother
consigned him to me. But he shall be taught to love you not the less."

Mr. Spencer was silent. He could not bear the thought of losing Sidney as
an inmate of his cheerless home, a tender relic of his early love. From
that moment he began to contemplate the possibility of securing Sidney to
himself, unknown to Beaufort.

The plans both of Arthur and Spencer were interrupted by the sudden
retreat of the brothers. They determined to depart different ways in
search of them. Spencer, as the more helpless of the two, obtained the
aid of Mr. Sharp; Beaufort departed with the lawyer.

Two travellers, in a hired barouche, were slowly dragged by a pair of
jaded posters along the commons I have just described.

"I think," said one, "that the storm is very much abated; heigho! what an
unpleasant night!"

"Unkimmon ugly, sir," answered the other; "and an awful long stage,
eighteen miles. These here remote places are quite behind the age,
sir--quite. However, I think we shall kitch them now."

"I am very much afraid of that eldest boy, Sharp. He seems a dreadful
vagabond."

"You see, sir, quite hand in glove with Dashing Jerry; met in the same
inn last night--preconcerted, you may be quite shure. It would be the
best day's job I have done this many a day to save that 'ere little
fellow from being corrupted. You sees he is just of a size to be useful
to these bad karakters. If they took to burglary, he would be a treasure
to them--slip him through a pane of glass like a ferret, sir."

"Don't talk of it, Sharp," said Mr. Spencer, with a groan; "and
recollect, if we get hold of him, that you are not to say a word to Mr.
Beaufort."

"I understand, sir; and I always goes with the gemman who behaves most
like a gemman."

Here a loud halloo was heard close by the horses' heads. "Good Heavens,
if that is a footpad!" said Mr. Spencer, shaking violently.

"Lord, sir, I have my barkers with me. Who's there?" The barouche
stopped--a man came to the window. "Excuse me, sir," said the stranger;
"but there is a poor boy here so tired and ill that I fear he will never
reach the next town, unless you will koindly give him a lift."

"A poor boy!" said Mr. Spencer, poking his head over the head of Mr.
Sharp. "Where?"

"If you would just drop him at the King's Awrms it would be a chaurity,"
said the man.

Sharp pinched Mr. Spencer in his shoulder. "That's Dashing Jerry; I'll
get out." So saying, he opened the door, jumped into the road, and
presently reappeared with the lost and welcome Sidney in his arms. "Ben't
this the boy?" he whispered to Mr. Spencer; and, taking the lamp from the
carriage, he raised it to the child's face.

"It is! it is! God be thanked!" exclaimed the worthy man.

"Will you leave him at the King's Awrms?--we shall be there in an hour or
two," cried the Captain.

"We! Who's we?" said Sharp, gruffly. "Why, myself and the choild's
brother."

"Oh!" said Sharp, raising the lantern to his own face; "you knows me, I
think, Master Jerry? Let me kitch you again, that's all. And give my
compliments to your 'sociate, and say, if he prosecutes this here hurchin
any more, we'll settle his bizness for him; and so take a hint and make
yourself scarce, old boy!"

With that Mr. Sharp jumped into the barouche, and bade the postboy drive
on as fast as he could.

Ten minutes after this abduction, Philip, followed by two labourers, with
a barrow, a lantern, and two blankets, returned from the hospitable farm
to which the light had conducted him. The spot where he had left Sidney,
and which he knew by a neighbouring milestone, was vacant; he shouted an
alarm, and the Captain answered from the distance of some threescore
yards. Philip came to him. "Where is my brother?"

"Gone away in a barouche and pair. Devil take me if I understand it." And
the Captain proceeded to give a confused account of what had passed.

"My brother! my brother! they have torn thee from me, then;" cried
Philip, and he fell to the earth insensible.




CHAPTER XI.

     "Vous me rendrez mon frere!"
        CASIMER DELAVIGNE: Les Enfans d'Edouard.

     ['You shall restore me my brother!]

One evening, a week after this event, a wild, tattered, haggard youth
knocked at the door of Mr. Robert Beaufort. The porter slowly presented
himself.

"Is your master at home? I must see him instantly."

"That's more than you can, my man; my master does not see the like of
you at this time of night," replied the porter, eying the ragged
apparition before him with great disdain.

"See me he must and shall," replied the young man; and as the porter
blocked up the entrance, he grasped his collar with a hand of iron, swung
him, huge as he was, aside, and strode into the spacious hall.

"Stop! stop!" cried the porter, recovering himself. "James! John! here's
a go!"

Mr. Robert Beaufort had been back in town several days. Mrs. Beaufort,
who was waiting his return from his club, was in the dining-room. Hearing
a noise in the hall, she opened the door, and saw the strange grim figure
I have described, advancing towards her. "Who are you?" said she; "and
what do you want?"

"I am Philip Morton. Who are you?"

"My husband," said Mrs. Beaufort, shrinking into the parlour, while
Morton followed her and closed the door, "my husband, Mr. Beaufort, is
not at home."

"You are Mrs. Beaufort, then! Well, you can understand me. I want my
brother. He has been basely reft from me. Tell me where he is, and I will
forgive all. Restore him to me, and I will bless you and yours." And
Philip fell on his knees and grasped the train of her gown. "I know
nothing of your brother, Mr. Morton," cried Mrs. Beaufort, surprised and
alarmed. "Arthur, whom we expect every day, writes us word that all
search for him has been in vain."

"Ha! you admit the search?" cried Morton, rising and clenching his hands.
"And who else but you or yours would have parted brother and brother?
Answer me where he is. No subterfuge, madam: I am desperate!"

Mrs. Beaufort, though a woman of that worldly coldness and indifference
which, on ordinary occasions, supply the place of courage, was extremely
terrified by the tone and mien of her rude guest. She laid her hand on
the bell; but Morton seized her arm, and, holding it sternly, said, while
his dark eyes shot fire through the glimmering room, "I will not stir
hence till you have told me. Will you reject my gratitude, my blessing?
Beware! Again, where have you hid my brother?"

At that instant the door opened, and Mr. Robert Beaufort entered. The
lady, with a shriek of joy, wrenched herself from Philip's grasp, and
flew to her husband.

"Save me from this ruffian!" she said, with an hysterical sob.

Mr. Beaufort, who had heard from Blackwell strange accounts of Philip's
obdurate perverseness, vile associates, and unredeemable character, was
roused from his usual timidity by the appeal of his wife.

"Insolent reprobate!" he said, advancing to Philip; "after all the absurd
goodness of my son and myself; after rejecting all our offers, and
persisting in your miserable and vicious conduct, how dare you presume to
force yourself into this house? Begone, or I will send for the constables
to remove YOU!

"Man, man," cried Philip, restraining the fury that shook him from head
to foot, "I care not for your threats--I scarcely hear your abuse--your
son, or yourself, has stolen away my brother: tell me only where he is;
let me see him once more. Do not drive me hence, without one word of
justice, of pity. I implore you--on my knees I implore you--yes, I,--I
implore you, Robert Beaufort, to have mercy on your brother's son. Where
is Sidney?" Like all mean and cowardly men, Robert Beaufort was rather
encouraged than softened by Philip's abrupt humility.

"I know nothing of your brother; and if this is not all some villainous
trick--which it may be--I am heartily rejoiced that he, poor child! is
rescued from the contamination of such a companion," answered Beaufort.

"I am at your feet still; again, for the last time, clinging to you a
suppliant: I pray you to tell me the truth."

Mr. Beaufort, more and more exasperated by Morton's forbearance, raised
his hand as if to strike; when, at that moment, one hitherto
unobserved--one who, terrified by the scene she had witnessed but could
not comprehend, had slunk into a dark corner of the room,--now came from
her retreat. And a child's soft voice was heard, saying:

"Do not strike him, papa!--let him have his brother!" Mr. Beaufort's arm
fell to his side: kneeling before him, and by the outcast's side, was his
own young daughter; she had crept into the room unobserved, when her
father entered. Through the dim shadows, relieved only by the red and
fitful gleam of the fire, he saw her fair meek face looking up wistfully
at his own, with tears of excitement, and perhaps of pity--for children
have a quick insight into the reality of grief in those not far removed
from their own years--glistening in her soft eyes. Philip looked round
bewildered, and he saw that face which seemed to him, at such a time,
like the face of an angel.

"Hear her!" he murmured: "Oh, hear her! For her sake, do not sever one
orphan from the other!"

"Take away that child, Mrs. Beaufort," cried Robert, angrily. "Will you
let her disgrace herself thus? And you, sir, begone from this roof; and
when you can approach me with due respect, I will give you, as I said I
would, the means to get an honest living."

Philip rose; Mrs. Beaufort had already led away her daughter, and she
took that opportunity of sending in the servants: their forms filled up
the doorway.

"Will you go?" continued Mr. Beaufort, more and more emboldened, as he
saw the menials at hand, "or shall they expel you?"

"It is enough, sir," said Philip, with a sudden calm and dignity that
surprised and almost awed his uncle. "My father, if the dead yet watch
over the living, has seen and heard you. There will come a day for
justice. Out of my path, hirelings!"

He waved his arm, and the menials shrank back at his tread, stalked
across the inhospitable hall, and vanished. When he had gained the
street, he turned and looked up at the house. His dark and hollow eyes,
gleaming through the long and raven hair that fell profusely over his
face, had in them an expression of menace almost preternatural, from its
settled calmness; the wild and untutored majesty which, though rags and
squalor, never deserted his form, as it never does the forms of men in
whom the will is strong and the sense of injustice deep; the outstretched
arm the haggard, but noble features; the bloomless and scathed youth, all
gave to his features and his stature an aspect awful in its sinister and
voiceless wrath. There he stood a moment, like one to whom woe and wrong
have given a Prophet's power, guiding the eye of the unforgetful Fate to
the roof of the Oppressor. Then slowly, and with a half smile, he turned
away, and strode through the streets till he arrived at one of the narrow
lanes that intersect the more equivocal quarters of the huge city. He
stopped at the private entrance of a small pawnbroker's shop; the door
was opened by a slipshod boy; he ascended the dingy stairs till he came
to the second floor; and there, in a small back room, he found Captain de
Burgh Smith, seated before a table with a couple of candles on it,
smoking a cigar, and playing at cards by himself.

"Well, what news of your brother, Bully Phil?"

"None: they will reveal nothing."

"Do you give him up?"

"Never! My hope now is in you."

"Well, I thought you would be driven to come to me, and I will do
something for you that I should not loike to do for myself. I told you
that I knew the Bow Street runner who was in the barouche. I will find
him out--Heaven knows that is easily done; and, if you can pay well, you
will get your news."

"You shall have all I possess, if you restore my brother. See what it is,
one hundred pounds--it was his fortune. It is useless to me without him.
There, take fifty now, and if--"

Philip stopped, for his voice trembled too much to allow him farther
speech. Captain Smith thrust the notes into his pocket, and said--

"We'll consider it settled."

Captain Smith fulfilled his promise. He saw the Bow Street officer. Mr.
Sharp had been bribed too high by the opposite party to tell tales, and
he willingly encouraged the suspicion that Sidney was under the care of
the Beauforts. He promised, however, for the sake of ten guineas, to
procure Philip a letter from Sidney himself. This was all he would
undertake.

Philip was satisfied. At the end of another week, Mr. Sharp transmitted
to the Captain a letter, which he, in his turn, gave to Philip. It ran
thus, in Sidney's own sprawling hand:

"DEAR BROTHER PHILIP,--I am told you wish to know how I am, and therfore
take up my pen, and assure you that I write all out of my own head. I am
very Comfortable and happy--much more so than I have been since poor deir
mama died; so I beg you won't vex yourself about me: and pray don't try
and Find me out, For I would not go with you again for the world. I am so
much better Off here. I wish you would be a good boy, and leave off your
Bad ways; for I am sure, as every one says, I don't know what would have
become of me if I had staid with you. Mr. [the Mr. half scratched out]
the gentleman I am with, says if you turn out Properly, he will be a
friend to you, Too; but he advises you to go, like a Good boy, to Arthur
Beaufort, and ask his pardon for the past, and then Arthur will be very
kind to you. I send you a great Big sum of L20., and the gentleman says
he would send more, only it might make you naughty, and set up. I go to
church now every Sunday, and read good books, and always pray that God
may open your eyes. I have such a Nice Pony, with such a long tale. So no
more at present from your affectionate brother, SIDNEY MORTON."

Oct. 8, 18--

"Pray, pray don't come after me Any more. You know I neerly died of it,
but for this deir good gentleman I am with."

So this, then, was the crowning reward of all his sufferings and all his
love! There was the letter, evidently undictated, with its errors of
orthography, and in the child's rough scrawl; the serpent's tooth pierced
to the heart, and left there its most lasting venom.

"I have done with him for ever," said Philip, brushing away the bitter
tears. "I will molest him no farther; I care no more to pierce this
mystery. Better for him as it is--he is happy! Well, well, and I--I will
never care for a human being again."

He bowed his head over his hands; and when he rose, his heart felt to him
like stone. It seemed as if Conscience herself had fled from his soul on
the wings of departed Love.




CHAPTER XII.

        "But you have found the mountain's top--there sit
        On the calm flourishing head of it;
        And whilst with wearied steps we upward go,
        See us and clouds below."--COWLEY.

It was true that Sidney was happy in his new home, and thither we must
now trace him.

On reaching the town where the travellers in the barouche had been
requested to leave Sidney, "The King's Arms" was precisely the inn
eschewed by Mr. Spencer. While the horses were being changed, he summoned
the surgeon of the town to examine the child, who had already much
recovered; and by stripping his clothes, wrapping him in warm blankets,
and administering cordials, he was permitted to reach another stage, so
as to baffle pursuit that night; and in three days Mr. Spencer had placed
his new charge with his maiden sisters, a hundred and fifty miles from
the spot where he had been found. He would not take him to his own home
yet. He feared the claims of Arthur Beaufort. He artfully wrote to that
gentleman, stating that he had abandoned the chase of Sidney in despair,
and desiring to know if he had discovered him; and a bribe of L300. to
Mr. Sharp with a candid exposition of his reasons for secreting
Sidney--reasons in which the worthy officer professed to
sympathise--secured the discretion of his ally. But he would not deny
himself the pleasure of being in the same house with Sidney, and was
therefore for some months the guest of his sisters. At length he heard
that young Beaufort had been ordered abroad for his health, and he then
deemed it safe to transfer his new idol to his Lares by the lakes. During
this interval the current of the younger Morton's life had indeed flowed
through flowers. At his age the cares of females were almost a want as
well as a luxury, and the sisters spoiled and petted him as much as any
elderly nymphs in Cytherea ever petted Cupid. They were good, excellent,
high-nosed, flat-bosomed spinsters, sentimentally fond of their brother,
whom they called "the poet," and dotingly attached to children. The
cleanness, the quiet, the good cheer of their neat abode, all tended to
revive and invigorate the spirits of their young guest, and every one
there seemed to vie which should love him the most. Still his especial
favourite was Mr. Spencer: for Spencer never went out without bringing
back cakes and toys; and Spencer gave him his pony; and Spencer rode a
little crop-eared nag by his side; and Spencer, in short, was associated
with his every comfort and caprice. He told them his little history; and
when he said how Philip had left him alone for long hours together, and
how Philip had forced him to his last and nearly fatal journey, the old
maids groaned, and the old bachelor sighed, and they all cried in a
breath, that "Philip was a very wicked boy." It was not only their
obvious policy to detach him from his brother, but it was their sincere
conviction that they did right to do so. Sidney began, it is true, by
taking Philip's part; but his mind was ductile, and he still looked back
with a shudder to the hardships he had gone through: and so by little and
little he learned to forget all the endearing and fostering love Philip
had evinced to him; to connect his name with dark and mysterious fears;
to repeat thanksgivings to Providence that he was saved from him; and to
hope that they might never meet again. In fact, when Mr. Spencer learned
from Sharp that it was through Captain Smith, the swindler, that
application had been made by Philip for news of his brother, and having
also learned before, from the same person, that Philip had been
implicated in the sale of a horse, swindled, if not stolen, he saw every
additional reason to widen the stream that flowed between the wolf and
the lamb. The older Sidney grew, the better he comprehended and
appreciated the motives of his protector--for he was brought up in a
formal school of propriety and ethics, and his mind naturally revolted
from all images of violence or fraud. Mr. Spencer changed both the
Christian and the surname of his protege, in order to elude the search
whether of Philip, the Mortons, or the Beauforts, and Sidney passed for
his nephew by a younger brother who had died in India.

So there, by the calm banks of the placid lake, amidst the fairest
landscapes of the Island Garden, the youngest born of Catherine passed
his tranquil days. The monotony of the retreat did not fatigue a spirit
which, as he grew up, found occupation in books, music, poetry, and the
elegances of the cultivated, if quiet, life within his reach. To the
rough past he looked back as to an evil dream, in which the image of
Philip stood dark and threatening. His brother's name as he grew older he
rarely mentioned; and if he did volunteer it to Mr. Spencer, the bloom on
his cheek grew paler. The sweetness of his manners, his fair face and
winning smile, still continued to secure him love, and to screen from the
common eye whatever of selfishness yet lurked in his nature. And, indeed,
that fault in so serene a career, and with friends so attached, was
seldom called into action. So thus was he severed from both the
protectors, Arthur and Philip, to whom poor Catherine had bequeathed him.

By a perverse and strange mystery, they, to whom the charge was most
intrusted were the very persons who were forbidden to redeem it. On our
death-beds when we think we have provided for those we leave
behind--should we lose the last smile that gilds the solemn agony, if we
could look one year into the Future?

Arthur Beaufort, after an ineffectual search for Sidney, heard, on
returning to his home, no unexaggerated narrative of Philip's visit, and
listened, with deep resentment, to his mother's distorted account of the
language addressed to her. It is not to be surprised that, with all his
romantic generosity, he felt sickened and revolted at violence that
seemed to him without excuse. Though not a revengeful character, he had
not that meekness which never resents. He looked upon Philip Morton as
upon one rendered incorrigible by bad passions and evil company. Still
Catherine's last request, and Philip's note to him, the Unknown
Comforter, often recurred to him, and he would have willingly yet aided
him had Philip been thrown in his way. But as it was, when he looked
around, and saw the examples of that charity that begins at home, in
which the world abounds, he felt as if he had done his duty; and
prosperity having, though it could not harden his heart, still sapped the
habits of perseverance, so by little and little the image of the dying
Catherine, and the thought of her sons, faded from his remembrance. And
for this there was the more excuse after the receipt of an anonymous
letter, which relieved all his apprehensions on behalf of Sidney. The
letter was short, and stated simply that Sidney Morton had found a friend
who would protect him throughout life; but who would not scruple to apply
to Beaufort if ever he needed his assistance. So one son, and that the
youngest and the best loved, was safe. And the other, had he not chosen
his own career? Alas, poor Catherine! when you fancied that Philip was
the one sure to force his way into fortune, and Sidney the one most
helpless, how ill did you judge of the human heart! It was that very
strength of Philip's nature which tempted the winds that scattered the
blossoms, and shook the stem to its roots; while the lighter and frailer
nature bent to the gale, and bore transplanting to a happier soil. If a
parent read these pages, let him pause and think well on the characters
of his children; let him at once fear and hope the most for the one whose
passions and whose temper lead to a struggle with the world. That same
world is a tough wrestler, and has a bear's gripe.

Meanwhile, Arthur Beaufort's own complaints, which grew serious and
menaced consumption, recalled his thoughts more and more every day to
himself. He was compelled to abandon his career at the University, and to
seek for health in the softer breezes of the South. His parents
accompanied him to Nice; and when, at the end of a few months, he was
restored to health, the desire of travel seized the mind and attracted
the fancy of the young heir. His father and mother, satisfied with his
recovery, and not unwilling that he should acquire the polish of
Continental intercourse, returned to England; and young Beaufort, with
gay companions and munificent income, already courted, spoiled, and
flattered, commenced his tour with the fair climes of Italy.

So, O dark mystery of the Moral World!--so, unlike the order of the
External Universe, glide together, side by side, the shadowy steeds of
NIGHT AND MORNING. Examine life in its own world; confound not that
world, the inner one, the practical one, with the more visible, yet
airier and less substantial system, doing homage to the sun, to whose
throne, afar in the infinite space, the human heart has no wings to flee.
In life, the mind and the circumstance give the true seasons, and
regulate the darkness and the light. Of two men standing on the same foot
of earth, the one revels in the joyous noon, the other shudders in the
solitude of night. For Hope and Fortune, the day-star is ever shining.
For Care and Penury, Night changes not with the ticking of the clock, nor
with the shadow on the dial. Morning for the heir, night for the
houseless, and God's eye over both.




BOOK III.




CHAPTER I.

        "The knight of arts and industry,
        And his achievements fair."
   THOMSON'S Castle of Indolence: Explanatory Verse to Canto II.

In a popular and respectable, but not very fashionable quartier in Paris,
and in the tolerably broad and effective locale of the Rue ----, there
might be seen, at the time I now treat of, a curious-looking building,
that jutted out semicircularly from the neighbouring shops, with plaster
pilasters and compo ornaments. The virtuosi of the quartier had
discovered that the building was constructed in imitation of an ancient
temple in Rome; this erection, then fresh and new, reached only to the
entresol. The pilasters were painted light green and gilded in the
cornices, while, surmounting the architrave, were three little
statues--one held a torch, another a bow, and a third a bag; they were
therefore rumoured, I know not with what justice, to be the artistical
representatives of Hymen, Cupid and Fortune.

On the door was neatly engraved, on a brass plate, the following
inscription:

         "MONSIEUR LOVE, ANGLAIS,
            A L'ENTRESOL."

And if you had crossed the threshold and mounted the stairs, and gained
that mysterious story inhabited by Monsieur Love, you would have seen,
upon another door to the right, another epigraph, informing those
interested in the inquiry that the bureau, of M. Love was open daily from
nine in the morning to four in the afternoon.

The office of M. Love--for office it was, and of a nature not
unfrequently designated in the "petites affiches" of Paris--had been
established about six months; and whether it was the popularity of the
profession, or the shape of the shop, or the manners of M. Love himself,
I cannot pretend to say, but certain it is that the Temple of Hymen--as
M. Love classically termed it--had become exceedingly in vogue in the
Faubourg St.--. It was rumoured that no less than nine marriages in the
immediate neighbourhood had been manufactured at this fortunate office,
and that they had all turned out happily except one, in which the bride
being sixty, and the bridegroom twenty-four, there had been rumours of
domestic dissension; but as the lady had been delivered,--I mean of her
husband, who had drowned himself in the Seine, about a month after the
ceremony, things had turned out in the long run better than might have
been expected, and the widow was so little discouraged; that she had been
seen to enter the office already--a circumstance that was greatly to the
credit of Mr. Love.

Perhaps the secret of Mr. Love's success, and of the marked superiority
of his establishment in rank and popularity over similar ones, consisted
in the spirit and liberality with which the business was conducted. He
seemed resolved to destroy all formality between parties who might desire
to draw closer to each other, and he hit upon the lucky device of a table
d'hote, very well managed, and held twice a-week, and often followed by a
soiree dansante; so that, if they pleased, the aspirants to matrimonial
happiness might become acquainted without gene. As he himself was a
jolly, convivial fellow of much savoir vivre, it is astonishing how well
he made these entertainments answer. Persons who had not seemed to take
to each other in the first distant interview grew extremely enamoured
when the corks of the champagne--an extra of course in the
abonnement--bounced against the wall. Added to this, Mr. Love took great
pains to know the tradesmen in his neighbourhood; and, what with his
jokes, his appearance of easy circumstances, and the fluency with which
he spoke the language, he became a universal favourite. Many persons who
were uncommonly starched in general, and who professed to ridicule the
bureau, saw nothing improper in dining at the table d'hote. To those who
wished for secrecy he was said to be wonderfully discreet; but there were
others who did not affect to conceal their discontent at the single
state: for the rest, the entertainments were so contrived as never to
shock the delicacy, while they always forwarded the suit.

It was about eight o'clock in the evening, and Mr. Love was still seated
at dinner, or rather at dessert, with a party of guests. His apartments,
though small, were somewhat gaudily painted and furnished, and his
dining-room was decorated a la Turque. The party consisted-first, of a
rich epicier, a widower, Monsieur Goupille by name, an eminent man in the
Faubourg; he was in his grand climacteric, but still belhomme; wore a
very well-made peruque of light auburn, with tight pantaloons, which
contained a pair of very respectable calves; and his white neckcloth and
his large gill were washed and got up with especial care. Next to
Monsieur Goupille sat a very demure and very spare young lady of about
two-and-thirty, who was said to have saved a fortune--Heaven knows
how--in the family of a rich English milord, where she had officiated as
governess; she called herself Mademoiselle Adele de Courval, and was very
particular about the de, and very melancholy about her ancestors.
Monsieur Goupille generally put his finger through his peruque, and fell
away a little on his left pantaloon when he spoke to Mademoiselle de
Courval, and Mademoiselle de Courval generally pecked at her bouquet when
she answered Monsieur Goupille. On the other side of this young lady sat
a fine-looking fair man--M. Sovolofski, a Pole, buttoned up to the chin,
and rather threadbare, though uncommonly neat. He was flanked by a little
fat lady, who had been very pretty, and who kept a boarding-house, or
pension, for the English, she herself being English, though long
established in Paris. Rumour said she had been gay in her youth, and
dropped in Paris by a Russian nobleman, with a very pretty settlement,
she and the settlement having equally expanded by time and season: she
was called Madame Beavor. On the other side of the table was a red-headed
Englishman, who spoke very little French; who had been told that French
ladies were passionately fond of light hair; and who, having L2000. of
his own, intended to quadruple that sum by a prudent marriage. Nobody
knew what his family was, but his name was Higgins. His neighbour was an
exceedingly tall, large-boned Frenchman, with a long nose and a red
riband, who was much seen at Frascati's, and had served under Napoleon.
Then came another lady, extremely pretty, very piquante, and very gay,
but past the premiere jeunesse, who ogled Mr. Love more than she did any
of his guests: she was called Rosalie Caumartin, and was at the head of a
large bon-bon establishment; married, but her husband had gone four years
ago to the Isle of France, and she was a little doubtful whether she
might not be justly entitled to the privileges of a widow. Next to Mr.
Love, in the place of honour, sat no less a person than the Vicomte de
Vaudemont, a French gentleman, really well-born, but whose various
excesses, added to his poverty, had not served to sustain that respect
for his birth which he considered due to it. He had already been twice
married; once to an Englishwoman, who had been decoyed by the title; by
this lady, who died in childbed, he had one son; a fact which he
sedulously concealed from the world of Paris by keeping the unhappy
boy--who was now some eighteen or nineteen years old--a perpetual exile
in England. Monsieur de Vaudemont did not wish to pass for more than
thirty, and he considered that to produce a son of eighteen would be to
make the lad a monster of ingratitude by giving the lie every hour to his
own father! In spite of this precaution the Vicomte found great
difficulty in getting a third wife--especially as he had no actual land
and visible income; was, not seamed, but ploughed up, with the small-pox;
small of stature, and was considered more than un peu bete. He was,
however, a prodigious dandy, and wore a lace frill and embroidered
waistcoat. Mr. Love's vis-a-vis was Mr. Birnie, an Englishman, a sort of
assistant in the establishment, with a hard, dry, parchment face, and a
remarkable talent for silence. The host himself was a splendid animal;
his vast chest seemed to occupy more space at the table than any four of
his guests, yet he was not corpulent or unwieldy; he was dressed in
black, wore a velvet stock very high, and four gold studs glittered in
his shirt-front; he was bald to the crown, which made his forehead appear
singularly lofty, and what hair he had left was a little greyish and
curled; his face was shaved smoothly, except a close-clipped mustache;
and his eyes, though small, were bright and piercing. Such was the party.

"These are the best bon-bons I ever ate," said Mr. Love, glancing at
Madame Caumartin. "My fair friends, have compassion on the table of a
poor bachelor."

"But you ought not to be a bachelor, Monsieur Lofe," replied the fair
Rosalie, with an arch look; "you who make others marry, should set the
example."

"All in good time," answered Mr. Love, nodding; "one serves one's
customers to so much happiness that one has none left for one's self."

Here a loud explosion was heard. Monsieur Goupille had pulled one of the
bon-bon crackers with Mademoiselle Adele.

"I've got the motto!--no--Monsieur has it: I'm always unlucky," said the
gentle Adele.

The epicier solemnly unrolled the little slip of paper; the print was
very small, and he longed to take out his spectacles, but he thought that
would make him look old. However, he spelled through the motto with some
difficulty:--

        "Comme elle fait soumettre un coeur,
        En refusant son doux hommage,
        On peut traiter la coquette en vainqueur;
        De la beauty modeste on cherit l'esclavage."

   [The coquette, who subjugates a heart, yet refuses its tender
   homage, one may treat as a conqueror: of modest beauty we cherish
   the slavery.]

"I present it to Mademoiselle," said he, laying the motto solemnly in
Adele's plate, upon a little mountain of chestnut-husks.

"It is very pretty," said she, looking down.

"It is very a propos," whispered the epicier, caressing the peruque a
little too roughly in his emotion. Mr. Love gave him a kick under the
table, and put his finger to his own bald head, and then to his nose,
significantly. The intelligent epicier smoothed back the irritated
peruque.

"Are you fond of bon-bons, Mademoiselle Adele? I have a very fine stock
at home," said Monsieur Goupille. Mademoiselle Adele de Courval sighed:
"Helas! they remind me of happier days, when I was a petite and my dear
grandmamma took me in her lap and told me how she escaped the guillotine:
she was an emigree, and you know her father was a marquis."

The epicier bowed and looked puzzled. He did not quite see the connection
between the bon-bons and the guillotine. "You are triste, Monsieur,"
observed Madame Beavor, in rather a piqued tone, to the Pole, who had not
said a word since the roti.

"Madame, an exile is always triste: I think of my pauvre pays."

"Bah!" cried Mr. Love. "Think that there is no exile by the side of a
belle dame."

The Pole smiled mournfully.

"Pull it," said Madame Beavor, holding a cracker to the patriot, and
turning away her face.

"Yes, madame; I wish it were a cannon in defence of La Pologne."

With this magniloquent aspiration, the gallant Sovolofski pulled lustily,
and then rubbed his fingers, with a little grimace, observing that
crackers were sometimes dangerous, and that the present combustible was
d'une force immense.

          "Helas! J'ai cru jusqu'a ce jour
          Pouvoir triompher de l'amour,"

   [Alas! I believed until to-day that I could triumph over love.]

said Madame Beavor, reading the motto. "What do you say to that?"

"Madame, there is no triumph for La Pologne!" Madame Beavor uttered a
little peevish exclamation, and glanced in despair at her red-headed
countryman. "Are you, too, a great politician, sir?" said she in English.

"No, mem!--I'm all for the ladies."

"What does he say?" asked Madame Caumartin.

"Monsieur Higgins est tout pour les dames."

"To be sure he is," cried Mr. Love; "all the English are, especially with
that coloured hair; a lady who likes a passionate adorer should always
marry a man with gold-coloured hair--always. What do you say,
Mademoiselle Adele?"

"Oh, I like fair hair," said Mademoiselle, looking bashfully askew at
Monsieur Goupille's peruque. "Grandmamma said her papa--the marquis--used
yellow powder: it must have been very pretty."

"Rather a la sucre d' orge," remarked the epicier, smiling on the right
side of his mouth, where his best teeth were. Mademoiselle de Courval
looked displeased. "I fear you are a republican, Monsieur Goupille."

"I, Mademoiselle. No; I'm for the Restoration;" and again the epicier
perplexed himself to discover the association of idea between
republicanism and sucre d'orge.

"Another glass of wine. Come, another," said Mr. Love, stretching across
the Vicomte to help Madame Canmartin.

"Sir," said the tall Frenchman with the riband, eying the epicier with
great disdain, "you say you are for the Restoration--I am for the
Empire--Moi!"

"No politics!" cried Mr. Love. "Let us adjourn to the salon."

The Vicomte, who had seemed supremely ennuye during this dialogue,
plucked Mr. Love by the sleeve as he rose, and whispered petulantly, "I
do not see any one here to suit me, Monsieur Love--none of my rank."

"Mon Dieu!" answered Mr. Love: "point d' argent point de Suisse. I could
introduce you to a duchess, but then the fee is high. There's
Mademoiselle de Courval--she dates from the Carlovingians."

"She is very like a boiled sole," answered the Vicomte, with a wry face.
"Still-what dower has she?"

"Forty thousand francs, and sickly," replied Mr. Love; "but she likes a
tall man, and Monsieur Goupille is--"

"Tall men are never well made," interrupted the Vicomte, angrily; and he
drew himself aside as Mr. Love, gallantly advancing, gave his arm to
Madame Beavor, because the Pole had, in rising, folded both his own arms
across his breast.

"Excuse me, ma'am," said Mr. Love to Madame Beavor, as they adjourned to
the salon, "I don't think you manage that brave man well."

"Ma foi, comme il est ennuyeux avec sa Pologne," replied Madame Beavor,
shrugging her shoulders.

"True; but he is a very fine-shaped man; and it is a comfort to think
that one will have no rival but his country. Trust me, and encourage him
a little more; I think he would suit you to a T."

Here the attendant engaged for the evening announced Monsieur and Madame
Giraud; whereupon there entered a little--little couple, very fair, very
plump, and very like each other. This was Mr. Love's show couple--his
decoy ducks--his last best example of match-making; they had been married
two months out of the bureau, and were the admiration of the
neighbourhood for their conjugal affection. As they were now united, they
had ceased to frequent the table d'hote; but Mr. Love often invited them
after the dessert, pour encourager les autres.

"My dear friends," cried Mr. Love, shaking each by the hand, "I am
ravished to see you. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Monsieur and
Madame Giraud, the happiest couple in Christendom;--if I had done nothing
else in my life but bring them together I should not have lived in vain!"

The company eyed the objects of this eulogium with great attention.

"Monsieur, my prayer is to deserve my bonheur," said Monsieur Giraud.

"Cher ange!" murmured Madame: and the happy pair seated themselves next
to each other.

Mr. Love, who was all for those innocent pastimes which do away with
conventional formality and reserve, now proposed a game at "Hunt the
Slipper," which was welcomed by the whole party, except the Pole and the
Vicomte; though Mademoiselle Adele looked prudish, and observed to the
epicier, "that Monsieur Lofe was so droll, but she should not have liked
her pauvre grandmaman to see her."

The Vicomte had stationed himself opposite to Mademoiselle de Courval,
and kept his eyes fixed on her very tenderly.

"Mademoiselle, I see, does not approve of such bourgeois diversions,"
said he.

"No, monsieur," said the gentle Adele. "But I think we must sacrifice our
own tastes to those of the company."

"It is a very amiable sentiment," said the epicier.

"It is one attributed to grandmamma's papa, the Marquis de Courval. It
has become quite a hackneyed remark since," said Adele.

"Come, ladies," said the joyous Rosalie; "I volunteer my slipper."

"Asseyez-vous donc," said Madame Beavor to the Pole. "Have you no games of
this sort in Poland?"

"Madame, La Pologne is no more," said the Pole. "But with the swords of
her brave--"

"No swords here, if you please," said Mr. Love, putting his vast hands on
the Pole's shoulder, and sinking him forcibly down into the circle now
formed.

The game proceeded with great vigour and much laughter from Rosalie, Mr.
Love, and Madame Beavor, especially whenever the last thumped the Pole
with the heel of the slipper. Monsieur Giraud was always sure that Madame
Giraud had the slipper about her, which persuasion on his part gave rise
to many little endearments, which are always so innocent among married
people. The Vicomte and the epicier were equally certain the slipper was
with Mademoiselle Adele, who defended herself with much more energy than
might have been supposed in one so gentle. The epicier, however, grew
jealous of the attentions of his noble rival, and told him that he gene'd
mademoiselle; whereupon the Vicomte called him an impertinent; and the
tall Frenchman, with the riband, sprang up and said:

"Can I be of any assistance, gentlemen?"

Therewith Mr. Love, the great peacemaker, interposed, and reconciling the
rivals, proposed to change the game to Colin Maillard-Anglice, "Blind
Man's Buff." Rosalie clapped her hands, and offered herself to be
blindfolded. The tables and chairs were cleared away; and Madame Beaver
pushed the Pole into Rosalie's arms, who, having felt him about the face
for some moments, guessed him to be the tall Frenchman. During this time
Monsieur and Madame Giraud hid themselves behind the window-curtain.

"Amuse yourself, men ami," said Madame Beaver, to the liberated Pole.

"Ah, madame," sighed Monsieur Sovolofski, "how can I be gay! All my
property confiscated by the Emperor of Russia! Has La Pologne no Brutus?"

"I think you are in love," said the host, clapping him on the back.

"Are you quite sure," whispered the Pole to the matchmaker, "that Madame
Beavor has vingt mille livres de rentes?"

"Not a sous less."

The Pole mused, and, glancing at Madame Beavor, said, "And yet, madame,
your charming gaiety consoles me amidst all my suffering;" upon which
Madame Beavor called him "flatterer," and rapped his knuckles with her
fan; the latter proceeding the brave Pole did not seem to like, for he
immediately buried his hands in his trousers' pockets.

The game was now at its meridian. Rosalie was uncommonly active, and flew
about here and there, much to the harassment of the Pole, who repeatedly
wiped his forehead, and observed that it was warm work, and put him in
mind of the last sad battle for La Pologne. Monsieur Goupille, who had
lately taken lessons in dancing, and was vain of his agility--mounted the
chairs and tables, as Rosalie approached--with great grace and gravity.
It so happened that, in these saltations, he ascended a stool near the
curtain behind which Monsieur and Madame Giraud were ensconced. Somewhat
agitated by a slight flutter behind the folds, which made him fancy, on
the sudden panic, that Rosalie was creeping that way, the epicier made an
abrupt pirouette, and the hook on which the curtains were suspended
caught his left coat-tail,

      "The fatal vesture left the unguarded side;"

just as he turned to extricate the garment from that dilemma, Rosalie
sprang upon him, and naturally lifting her hands to that height where she
fancied the human face divine, took another extremity of Monsieur
Goupille's graceful frame thus exposed, by surprise.

"I don't know who this is. Quelle drole de visage!" muttered Rosalie.

"Mais, madame," faltered Monsieur Goupille, looking greatly disconcerted.

The gentle Adele, who did not seem to relish this adventure, came to the
relief of her wooer, and pinched Rosalie very sharply in the arm.

"That's not fair. But I will know who this is," cried Rosalie, angrily;
"you sha'n't escape!"

A sudden and universal burst of laughter roused her suspicions--she drew
back--and exclaiming, "Mais quelle mauvaise plaisanterie; c'est trop
fort!" applied her fair hand to the place in dispute, with so hearty a
good-will, that Monsieur Goupille uttered a dolorous cry, and sprang from
the chair leaving the coat-tail (the cause of all his woe) suspended upon
the hook.

It was just at this moment, and in the midst of the excitement caused by
Monsieur Goupille's misfortune, that the door opened, and the attendant
reappeared, followed by a young man in a large cloak.

The new-comer paused at the threshold, and gazed around him in evident
surprise.

"Diable!" said Mr. Love, approaching, and gazing hard at the stranger.
"Is it possible?--You are come at last? Welcome!"

"But," said the stranger, apparently still bewildered, "there is some
mistake; you are not--"

"Yes, I am Mr. Love!--Love all the world over. How is our friend
Gregg?--told you to address yourself to Mr. Love,--eh?--Mum!--Ladies and
gentlemen, an acquisition to our party. Fine fellow, eh?--Five feet
eleven without his shoes,--and young enough to hope to be thrice married
before he dies. When did you arrive?"

"To-day."

And thus, Philip Morton and Mr. William Gawtrey met once more.




CHAPTER II.

"Happy the man who, void of care and strife,
In silken or in leathern purse retains
A splendid shilling !"--The Splendid Shilling.

"And wherefore should they take or care for thought, The unreasoning
vulgar willingly obey, And leaving toil and poverty behind. Run forth by
different ways, the blissful boon to find." WEST'S Education.

"Poor, boy! your story interests me. The events are romantic, but the
moral is practical, old, everlasting--life, boy, life. Poverty by itself
is no such great curse; that is, if it stops short of starving. And
passion by itself is a noble thing, sir; but poverty and passion
together--poverty and feeling--poverty and pride--the poverty one is not
born to,--but falls into;--and the man who ousts you out of your
easy-chair, kicking you with every turn he takes, as he settles himself
more comfortably--why there's no romance in that--hard every-day life,
sir! Well, well:--so after your brother's letter you resigned yourself to
that fellow Smith."

"No; I gave him my money, not my soul. I turned from his door, with a few
shillings that he himself thrust into my hand, and walked on--I cared not
whither--out of the town, into the fields--till night came; and then,
just as I suddenly entered on the high-road, many miles away, the moon
rose; and I saw, by the hedge-side, something that seemed like a corpse;
it was an old beggar, in the last state of raggedness, disease, and
famine. He had laid himself down to die. I shared with him what I had,
and helped him to a little inn. As he crossed the threshold, he turned
round and blessed me. Do you know, the moment I heard that blessing a
stone seemed rolled away from my heart? I said to myself, 'What then!
even I can be of use to some one; and I am better off than that old man,
for I have youth and health.' As these thoughts stirred in me, my limbs,
before heavy with fatigue, grew light; a strange kind of excitement
seized me. I ran on gaily beneath the moonlight that smiled over the
crisp, broad road. I felt as if no house, not even a palace, were large
enough for me that night. And when, at last, wearied out, I crept into a
wood, and laid myself down to sleep, I still murmured to myself, 'I have
youth and health.' But, in the morning, when I rose, I stretched out my
arms, and missed my brother! . . . In two or three days I found
employment with a farmer; but we quarrelled after a few weeks; for once
he wished to strike me; and somehow or other I could work, but not serve.
Winter had begun when we parted.--Oh, such a winter!--Then--then I knew
what it was to be houseless. How I lived for some months--if to live it
can be called--it would pain you to hear, and humble me to tell. At last,
I found myself again in London; and one evening, not many days since, I
resolved at last--for nothing else seemed left, and I had not touched
food for two days--to come to you."

"And why did that never occur to you before?"!

"Because," said Philip, with a deep blush,--"because I trembled at the
power over my actions and my future life that I was to give to one, whom
I was to bless as a benefactor, yet distrust as a guide."

"Well," said Love, or Gawtrey, with a singular mixture of irony and
compassion in his voice; "and it was hunger, then, that terrified you at
last even more than I?"

"Perhaps hunger--or perhaps rather the reasoning that comes from hunger.
I had not, I say, touched food for two days; and I was standing on that
bridge, from which on one side you see the palace of a head of the
Church, on the other the towers of the Abbey, within which the men I have
read of in history lie buried. It was a cold, frosty evening, and the
river below looked bright with the lamps and stars. I leaned, weak and
sickening, against the wall of the bridge; and in one of the arched
recesses beside me a cripple held out his hat for pence. I envied
him!--he had a livelihood; he was inured to it, perhaps bred to it; he
had no shame. By a sudden impulse, I, too, turned abruptly round--held
out my hand to the first passenger, and started at the shrillness of my
own voice, as it cried 'Charity.'"

Gawtrey threw another log on the fire, looked complacently round the
comfortable room, and rubbed his hands. The young man continued,--

"'You should be ashamed of yourself--I've a great mind to give you to the
police,' was the answer, in a pert and sharp tone. I looked up, and saw
the livery my father's menials had worn. I had been begging my bread from
Robert Beaufort's lackey! I said nothing; the man went on his business on
tiptoe, that the mud might not splash above the soles of his shoes. Then,
thoughts so black that they seemed to blot out every star from the
sky--thoughts I had often wrestled against, but to which I now gave
myself up with a sort of mad joy--seized me: and I remembered you. I had
still preserved the address you gave me; I went straight to the house.
Your friend, on naming you, received me kindly, and without question
placed food before me--pressed on me clothing and money--procured me a
passport--gave me your address--and now I am beneath your roof. Gawtrey,
I know nothing yet of the world but the dark side of it. I know not what
to deem you--but as you alone have been kind to me, so it is to your
kindness rather than your aid, that I now cling--your kind words and kind
looks-yet--" he stopped short, and breathed hard.

"Yet you would know more of me. Faith, my boy, I cannot tell you more at
this moment. I believe, to speak fairly, I don't live exactly within the
pale of the law. But I'm not a villain! I never plundered my friend and
called it play!--I never murdered my friend and called it honour!--I
never seduced my friend's wife and called it gallantry!" As Gawtrey said
this, he drew the words out, one by one, through his grinded teeth,
paused and resumed more gaily: "I struggle with Fortune; voila tout! I am
not what you seem to suppose--not exactly a swindler, certainly not a
robber! But, as I before told you, I am a charlatan, so is every man who
strives to be richer or greater than he is.

"I, too, want kindness as much as you do. My bread and my cup are at your
service. I will try and keep you unsullied, even by the clean dirt that
now and then sticks to me. On the other hand, youth, my young friend, has
no right to play the censor; and you must take me as you take the world,
without being over-scrupulous and dainty. My present vocation pays well;
in fact, I am beginning to lay by. My real name and past life are
thoroughly unknown, and as yet unsuspected, in this quartier; for though
I have seen much of Paris, my career hitherto has passed in other parts
of the city;--and for the rest, own that I am well disguised! What a
benevolent air this bald forehead gives me--eh? True," added Gawtrey,
somewhat more seriously, "if I saw how you could support yourself in a
broader path of life than that in which I pick out my own way, I might
say to you, as a gay man of fashion might say to some sober
stripling--nay, as many a dissolute father says (or ought to say) to his
son, 'It is no reason you should be a sinner, because I am not a saint.'
In a word, if you were well off in a respectable profession, you might
have safer acquaintances than myself. But, as it is, upon my word as a
plain man, I don't see what you can do better." Gawtrey made this speech
with so much frankness and ease, that it seemed greatly to relieve the
listener, and when he wound up with, "What say you? In fine, my life is
that of a great schoolboy, getting into scrapes for the fun of it, and
fighting his way out as he best can!--Will you see how you like it?"
Philip, with a confiding and grateful impulse, put his hand into
Gawtrey's. The host shook it cordially, and, without saying another word,
showed his guest into a little cabinet where there was a sofa-bed, and
they parted for the night. The new life upon which Philip Morton entered
was so odd, so grotesque, and so amusing, that at his age it was,
perhaps, natural that he should not be clear-sighted as to its danger.

William Gawtrey was one of those men who are born to exert a certain
influence and ascendency wherever they may be thrown; his vast strength,
his redundant health, had a power of themselves--a moral as well as
physical power. He naturally possessed high animal spirits, beneath the
surface of which, however, at times, there was visible a certain
undercurrent of malignity and scorn. He had evidently received a superior
education, and could command at will the manner of a man not unfamiliar
with a politer class of society. From the first hour that Philip had seen
him on the top of the coach on the R---- road, this man had attracted his
curiosity and interest; the conversation he had heard in the churchyard,
the obligations he owed to Gawtrey in his escape from the officers of
justice, the time afterwards passed in his society till they separated at
the little inn, the rough and hearty kindliness Gawtrey had shown him at
that period, and the hospitality extended to him now,--all contributed to
excite his fancy, and in much, indeed very much, entitled this singular
person to his gratitude. Morton, in a word, was fascinated; this man was
the only friend he had made. I have not thought it necessary to detail to
the reader the conversations that had taken place between them, during
that passage of Morton's life when he was before for some days Gawtrey's
companion; yet those conversations had sunk deep in his mind. He was
struck, and almost awed, by the profound gloom which lurked under
Gawtrey's broad humour--a gloom, not of temperament, but of knowledge.
His views of life, of human justice and human virtue, were (as, to be
sure, is commonly the case with men who have had reason to quarrel with
the world) dreary and despairing; and Morton's own experience had been so
sad, that these opinions were more influential than they could ever have
been with the happy. However in this, their second reunion, there was a
greater gaiety than in their first; and under his host's roof Morton
insensibly, but rapidly, recovered something of the early and natural
tone of his impetuous and ardent spirits. Gawtrey himself was generally a
boon companion; their society, if not select, was merry. When their
evenings were disengaged, Gawtrey was fond of haunting cafes and
theatres, and Morton was his companion; Birnie (Mr. Gawtrey's partner)
never accompanied them. Refreshed by this change of life, the very person
of this young man regained its bloom and vigour, as a plant, removed from
some choked atmosphere and unwholesome soil, where it had struggled for
light and air, expands on transplanting; the graceful leaves burst from
the long-drooping boughs, and the elastic crest springs upward to the sun
in the glory of its young prime. If there was still a certain fiery
sternness in his aspect, it had ceased, at least, to be haggard and
savage, it even suited the character of his dark and expressive features.
He might not have lost the something of the tiger in his fierce temper,
but in the sleek hues and the sinewy symmetry of the frame he began to
put forth also something of the tiger's beauty.

Mr. Birnie did not sleep in the house, he went home nightly to a lodging
at some little distance. We have said but little about this man, for, to
all appearance, there was little enough to say; he rarely opened his own
mouth except to Gawtrey, with whom Philip often observed him engaged in
whispered conferences, to which he was not admitted. His eye, however,
was less idle than his lips; it was not a bright eye: on the contrary, it
was dull, and, to the unobservant, lifeless, of a pale blue, with a dim
film over it--the eye of a vulture; but it had in it a calm, heavy,
stealthy watchfulness, which inspired Morton with great distrust and
aversion. Mr. Birnie not only spoke French like a native, but all his
habits, his gestures, his tricks of manner, were, French; not the French
of good society, but more idiomatic, as it were, and popular. He was not
exactly a vulgar person, he was too silent for that, but he was evidently
of low extraction and coarse breeding; his accomplishments were of a
mechanical nature; he was an extraordinary arithmetician, he was a very
skilful chemist, and kept a laboratory at his lodgings--he mended his own
clothes and linen with incomparable neatness. Philip suspected him of
blacking his own shoes, but that was prejudice. Once he found Morton
sketching horses' heads--pour se desennuyer; and he made some short
criticisms on the drawings, which showed him well acquainted with the
art. Philip, surprised, sought to draw him into conversation; but Birnie
eluded the attempt, and observed that he had once been an engraver.

Gawtrey himself did not seem to know much of the early life of this
person, or at least he did not seem to like much to talk of him. The
footstep of Mr. Birnie was gliding, noiseless, and catlike; he had no
sociality in him--enjoyed nothing--drank hard--but was never drunk.
Somehow or other, he had evidently over Gawtrey an influence little less
than that which Gawtrey had over Morton, but it was of a different
nature: Morton had conceived an extraordinary affection for his friend,
while Gawtrey seemed secretly to dislike Birnie, and to be glad whenever
he quitted his presence. It was, in truth, Gawtrey's custom when Birnie
retired for the night, to rub his hands, bring out the punchbowl, squeeze
the lemons, and while Philip, stretched on the sofa, listened to him,
between sleep and waking, to talk on for the hour together, often till
daybreak, with that bizarre mixture of knavery and feeling, drollery and
sentiment, which made the dangerous charm of his society.

One evening as they thus sat together, Morton, after listening for some
time to his companion's comments on men and things, said abruptly,--

"Gawtrey! there is so much in you that puzzles me, so much which I find
it difficult to reconcile with your present pursuits, that, if I ask no
indiscreet confidence, I should like greatly to hear some account of your
early life. It would please me to compare it with my own; when I am your
age, I will then look back and see what I owed to your example."

"My early life! well--you shall hear it. It will put you on your guard, I
hope, betimes against the two rocks of youth--love and friendship." Then,
while squeezing the lemon into his favourite beverage, which Morton
observed he made stronger than usual, Gawtrey thus commenced:

         THE HISTORY OF A GOOD-FOR-NOTHING.




CHAPTER III.

        "All his success must on himself depend,
        He had no money, counsel, guide, or friend;
        With spirit high John learned the world to brave,
        And in both senses was a ready knave."--CRABBE.

"My grandfather sold walking-sticks and umbrellas in the little passage
by Exeter 'Change; he was a man of genius and speculation. As soon as he
had scraped together a little money, he lent it to some poor devil with a
hard landlord, at twenty per cent., and made him take half the loan in
umbrellas or bamboos. By these means he got his foot into the ladder, and
climbed upward and upward, till, at the age of forty, he had amassed
L5,000. He then looked about for a wife. An honest trader in the Strand,
who dealt largely in cotton prints, possessed an only daughter; this
young lady had a legacy, from a great-aunt, of L3,220., with a small
street in St. Giles's, where the tenants paid weekly (all thieves or
rogues-all, so their rents were sure). Now my grandfather conceived a
great friendship for the father of this young lady; gave him a hint as to
a new pattern in spotted cottons; enticed him to take out a patent, and
lent him L700. for the speculation; applied for the money at the very
moment cottons were at their worst, and got the daughter instead of the
money,--by which exchange, you see, he won L2,520., to say nothing of the
young lady. My grandfather then entered into partnership with the worthy
trader, carried on the patent with spirit, and begat two sons. As he grew
older, ambition seized him; his sons should be gentlemen--one was sent to
College, the other put into a marching regiment. My grandfather meant to
die worth a plum; but a fever he caught in visiting his tenants in St.
Giles's prevented him, and he only left L20,000. equally divided between
the sons. My father, the College man" (here Gawtrey paused a moment, took
a large draught of the punch, and resumed with a visible effort)--"my
father, the College man, was a person of rigid principles--bore an
excellent character--had a great regard for the world. He married early
and respectably. I am the sole fruit of that union; he lived soberly, his
temper was harsh and morose, his home gloomy; he was a very severe
father, and my mother died before I was ten years old. When I was
fourteen, a little old Frenchman came to lodge with us; he had been
persecuted under the old regime for being a philosopher; he filled my
head with odd crotchets which, more or less, have stuck there ever since.
At eighteen I was sent to St. John's College, Cambridge. My father was
rich enough to have let me go up in the higher rank of a pensioner, but
he had lately grown avaricious; he thought that I was extravagant; he
made me a sizar, perhaps to spite me. Then, for the first time, those
inequalities in life which the Frenchman had dinned into my ears met me
practically. A sizar! another name for a dog! I had such strength,
health, and spirits, that I had more life in my little finger than half
the fellow-commoners--genteel, spindle-shanked striplings, who might have
passed for a collection of my grandfather's walking-canes--bad in their
whole bodies. And I often think," continued Gawtrey, "that health and
spirits have a great deal to answer for! When we are young we so far
resemble savages who are Nature's young people--that we attach prodigious
value to physical advantages. My feats of strength and activity--the
clods I thrashed--and the railings I leaped--and the boat-races I
won--are they not written in the chronicle of St. John's? These
achievements inspired me with an extravagant sense of my own superiority;
I could not but despise the rich fellows whom I could have blown down
with a sneeze. Nevertheless, there was an impassable barrier between me
and them--a sizar was not a proper associate for the favourites of
fortune! But there was one young man, a year younger myself, of high
birth, and the heir to considerable wealth, who did not regard me with
the same supercilious insolence as the rest; his very rank, perhaps, made
him indifferent to the little conventional formalities which influence
persons who cannot play at football with this round world; he was the
wildest youngster in the university--lamp-breaker--tandem-driver
--mob-fighter--a very devil in short--clever, but not in the reading line
--small and slight, but brave as a lion. Congenial habits made us intimate,
and I loved him like a brother--better than a brother--as a dog loves his
master. In all our rows I covered him with my body. He had but to say to
me, 'Leap into the water,' and I would not have stopped to pull off my
coat. In short, I loved him as a proud man loves one who stands betwixt
him and contempt,--as an affectionate man loves one who stands between
him and solitude. To cut short a long story: my friend, one dark night,
committed an outrage against discipline, of the most unpardonable
character. There was a sanctimonious, grave old fellow of the College,
crawling home from a tea-party; my friend and another of his set seized,
blindfolded, and handcuffed this poor wretch, carried him, vi et armis,
back to the house of an old maid whom he had been courting for the last
ten years, fastened his pigtail (he wore a long one) to the knocker, and
so left him. You may imagine the infernal hubbub which his attempts to
extricate himself caused in the whole street; the old maid's old
maidservant, after emptying on his head all the vessels of wrath she
could lay her hand to, screamed, 'Rape and murder!' The proctor and his
bull-dogs came up, released the prisoner, and gave chase to the
delinquents, who had incautiously remained near to enjoy the sport. The
night was dark and they reached the College in safety, but they had been
tracked to the gates. For this offence I was expelled."

"Why, you were not concerned in it?" said Philip.

"No; but I was suspected and accused. I could have got off by betraying
the true culprits, but my friend's father was in public life--a stern,
haughty old statesman; my friend was mortally afraid of him--the only
person he was afraid of. If I had too much insisted on my innocence, I
might have set inquiry on the right track. In fine, I was happy to prove
my friendship for him. He shook me most tenderly by the hand on parting,
and promised never to forget my generous devotion. I went home in
disgrace: I need not tell you what my father said to me: I do not think
he ever loved me from that hour. Shortly after this my uncle, George
Gawtrey, the captain, returned from abroad; he took a great fancy to me,
and I left my father's house (which had grown insufferable) to live with
him. He had been a very handsome man--a gay spendthrift; he had got
through his fortune, and now lived on his wits--he was a professed
gambler. His easy temper, his lively humour, fascinated me; he knew the
world well; and, like all gamblers, was generous when the dice were
lucky,--which, to tell you the truth, they generally were, with a man who
had no scruples. Though his practices were a little suspected, they had
never been discovered. We lived in an elegant apartment, mixed familiarly
with men of various ranks, and enjoyed life extremely. I brushed off my
college rust, and conceived a taste for expense: I knew not why it was,
but in my new existence every one was kind to me; and I had spirits that
made me welcome everywhere. I was a scamp--but a frolicsome scamp--and
that is always a popular character. As yet I was not dishonest, but saw
dishonesty round me, and it seemed a very pleasant, jolly mode of making
money; and now I again fell into contact with the young heir. My college
friend was as wild in London as he had been at Cambridge; but the
boy-ruffian, though not then twenty years of age, had grown into the
man-villain."

Here Gawtrey paused, and frowned darkly.

"He had great natural parts, this young man-much wit, readiness, and
cunning, and he became very intimate with my uncle. He learned of him how
to play the dice, and a pack the cards--he paid him L1,000. for the
knowledge!"

"How! a cheat? You said he was rich."

"His father was very rich, and he had a liberal allowance, but he was
very extravagant; and rich men love gain as well as poor men do! He had
no excuse but the grand excuse of all vice--SELFISHNESS. Young as he was
he became the fashion, and he fattened upon the plunder of his equals,
who desired the honour of his acquaintance. Now, I had seen my uncle
cheat, but I had never imitated his example; when the man of fashion
cheated, and made a jest of his earnings and my scruples--when I saw him
courted, flattered, honoured, and his acts unsuspected, because his
connections embraced half the peerage, the temptation grew strong, but I
still resisted it. However, my father always said I was born to be a
good-for-nothing, and I could not escape my destiny. And now I suddenly
fell in love--you don't know what that is yet--so much the better for
you. The girl was beautiful, and I thought she loved me--perhaps she
did--but I was too poor, so her friends said, for marriage. We courted,
as the saying is, in the meanwhile. It was my love for her, my wish to
deserve her, that made me iron against my friend's example. I was fool
enough to speak to him of Mary--to present him to her--this ended in her
seduction." (Again Gawtrey paused, and breathed hard.) "I discovered the
treachery--I called out the seducer-he sneered, and refused to fight the
low-born adventurer. I struck him to the earth--and then we fought. I was
satisfied by a ball through my side! but he," added Gawtrey, rubbing his
hands, and with a vindictive chuckle,--"He was a cripple for life! When I
recovered I found that my foe, whose sick-chamber was crowded with
friends and comforters, had taken advantage of my illness to ruin my
reputation. He, the swindler, accused me of his own crime: the equivocal
character of my uncle confirmed the charge. Him, his own high-born pupil
was enabled to unmask, and his disgrace was visited on me. I left my bed
to find my uncle (all disguise over) an avowed partner in a hell, and
myself blasted alike in name, love, past, and future. And then,
Philip--then I commenced that career which I have trodden since--the
prince of good-fellows and good-for-nothings, with ten thousand aliases,
and as many strings to my bow. Society cast me off when I was innocent.
Egad, I have had my revenge on society since!--Ho! ho! ho!"

The laugh of this man had in it a moral infection. There was a sort of
glorying in its deep tone; it was not the hollow hysteric of shame and
despair--it spoke a sanguine joyousness! William Gawtrey was a man whose
animal constitution had led him to take animal pleasure in all things: he
had enjoyed the poisons he had lived on.

"But your father--surely your father--"

"My father," interrupted Gawtrey, "refused me the money (but a small sum)
that, once struck with the strong impulse of a sincere penitence, I
begged of him, to enable me to get an honest living in a humble trade.
His refusal soured the penitence--it gave me an excuse for my career and
conscience grapples to an excuse as a drowning wretch to a straw. And yet
this hard father--this cautious, moral, money-loving man, three months
afterwards, suffered a rogue--almost a stranger--to decoy him into a
speculation that promised to bring him fifty per cent. He invested in the
traffic of usury what had sufficed to save a hundred such as I am from
perdition, and he lost it all. It was nearly his whole fortune; but he
lives and has his luxuries still: he cannot speculate, but he can save:
he cared not if I starved, for he finds an hourly happiness in starving
himself."

"And your friend," said Philip, after a pause in which his young
sympathies went dangerously with the excuses for his benefactor; "what
has become of him, and the poor girl?"

"My friend became a great man; he succeeded to his father's peerage--a
very ancient one--and to a splendid income. He is living still. Well, you
shall hear about the poor girl! We are told of victims of seduction dying
in a workhouse or on a dunghill, penitent, broken-hearted, and uncommonly
ragged and sentimental. It may be a frequent case, but it is not the
worst. It is worse, I think, when the fair, penitent, innocent, credulous
dupe becomes in her turn the deceiver--when she catches vice from the
breath upon which she has hung--when she ripens, and mellows, and rots
away into painted, blazing, staring, wholesale harlotry--when, in her
turn, she ruins warm youth with false smiles and long bills--and when
worse--worse than all--when she has children, daughters perhaps, brought
up to the same trade, cooped, plumper, for some hoary lecher, without a
heart in their bosoms, unless a balance for weighing money may be called
a heart. Mary became this; and I wish to Heaven she had rather died in an
hospital! Her lover polluted her soul as well as her beauty: he found her
another lover when he was tired of her. When she was at the age of
thirty-six I met her in Paris, with a daughter of sixteen. I was then
flush with money, frequenting salons, and playing the part of a fine
gentleman. She did not know me at first; and she sought my acquaintance.
For you must know, my young friend," said Gawtrey, abruptly breaking off
the thread of his narrative, "that I am not altogether the low dog you
might suppose in seeing me here. At Paris--ah! you don't know
Paris--there is a glorious ferment in society in which the dregs are
often uppermost! I came here at the Peace, and here have I resided the
greater part of each year ever since. The vast masses of energy and life,
broken up by the great thaw of the Imperial system, floating along the
tide, are terrible icebergs for the vessel of the state. Some think
Napoleonism over--its effects are only begun. Society is shattered from
one end to the other, and I laugh at the little rivets by which they
think to keep it together.

   [This passage was written at a period when the dynasty of Louis
   Philippe seemed the most assured, and Napoleonism was indeed
   considered extinct.]

"But to return. Paris, I say, is the atmosphere for adventurers--new
faces and new men are so common here that they excite no impertinent
inquiry, it is so usual to see fortunes made in a day and spent in a
month; except in certain circles, there is no walking round a man's
character to spy out where it wants piercing! Some lean Greek poet put
lead in his pockets to prevent being blown away;--put gold in your
pockets, and at Paris you may defy the sharpest wind in the world,--yea,
even the breath of that old AEolus--Scandal! Well, then, I had money--no
matter how I came by it--and health, and gaiety; and I was well received
in the coteries that exist in all capitals, but mostly in France, where
pleasure is the cement that joins many discordant atoms. Here, I say, I
met Mary and her daughter, by my old friend--the daughter, still
innocent, but, sacra! in what an element of vice! We knew each other's
secrets, Mary and I, and kept them: she thought me a greater knave than I
was, and she intrusted to me her intention of selling her child to a rich
English marquis. On the other hand, the poor girl confided to me her
horror of the scenes she witnessed and the snares that surrounded her.
What do you think preserved her pure from all danger? Bah! you will never
guess! It was partly because, if example corrupts, it as often deters,
but principally because she loved. A girl who loves one man purely has
about her an amulet which defies the advances of the profligate. There
was a handsome young Italian, an artist, who frequented the house--he was
the man. I had to choose, then, between mother and daughter: I chose the
last."

Philip seized hold of Gawtrey's hand, grasped it warmly, and the
good-for-nothing continued--

"Do you know, that I loved that girl as well as I had ever loved the
mother, though in another way; she was what I fancied the mother to be;
still more fair, more graceful, more winning, with a heart as full of
love as her mother's had been of vanity. I loved that child as if she had
been my own daughter. I induced her to leave her mother's house--I
secreted her--I saw her married to the man she loved--I gave her away,
and saw no more of her for several months."

"Why?"

"Because I spent them in prison! The young people could not live upon
air; I gave them what I had, and in order to do more I did something
which displeased the police; I narrowly escaped that time; but I am
popular--very popular, and with plenty of witnesses, not over-scrupulous,
I got off! When I was released, I would not go to see them, for my
clothes were ragged: the police still watched me, and I would not do them
harm in the world! Ay, poor wretches! they struggled so hard: he could
got very little by his art, though, I believe, he was a cleverish fellow
at it, and the money I had given them could not last for ever. They lived
near the Champs Elysees, and at night I used to steal out and look at
them through the window. They seemed so happy, and so handsome, and so
good; but he looked sickly, and I saw that, like all Italians, he
languished for his own warm climate. But man is born to act as well as to
contemplate," pursued Gawtrey, changing his tone into the allegro; "and I
was soon driven into my old ways, though in a lower line. I went to
London, just to give my reputation an airing, and when I returned, pretty
flush again, the poor Italian was dead, and Fanny was a widow, with one
boy, and enceinte with a second child. So then I sought her again, for
her mother had found her out, and was at her with her devilish kindness;
but Heaven was merciful, and took her away from both of us: she died in
giving birth to a girl, and her last words were uttered to me, imploring
me--the adventurer--the charlatan--the good-for-nothing--to keep her
child from the clutches of her own mother. Well, sir, I did what I could
for both the children; but the boy was consumptive, like his father, and
sleeps at Pere-la-Chaise. The girl is here--you shall see her some day.
Poor Fanny! if ever the devil will let me, I shall reform for her sake.
Meanwhile, for her sake I must get grist for the mill. My story is
concluded, for I need not tell you all of my pranks--of all the parts I
have played in life. I have never been a murderer, or a burglar, or a
highway robber, or what the law calls a thief. I can only say, as I said
before, I have lived upon my wits, and they have been a tolerable capital
on the whole. I have been an actor, a money-lender, a physician, a
professor of animal magnetism (that was lucrative till it went out of
fashion, perhaps it will come in again); I have been a lawyer, a
house-agent, a dealer in curiosities and china; I have kept a hotel; I
have set up a weekly newspaper; I have seen almost every city in Europe,
and made acquaintance with some of its gaols; but a man who has plenty of
brains generally falls on his legs."

"And your father?" said Philip; and here he spoke to Gawtrey of the
conversation he had overheard in the churchyard, but on which a scruple
of natural delicacy had hitherto kept him silent.

"Well, now," said his host, while a slight blush rose to his cheeks, "I
will tell you, that though to my father's sternness and avarice I
attribute many of my faults, I yet always had a sort of love for him; and
when in London I accidentally heard that he was growing blind, and living
with an artful old jade of a housekeeper, who might send him to rest with
a dose of magnesia the night after she had coaxed him to make a will in
her favour. I sought him out--and--but you say you heard what passed."

"Yes; and I heard him also call you by name, when it was too late, and I
saw the tears on his cheeks."

"Did you? Will you swear to that?" exclaimed Gawtrey, with vehemence:
then, shading his brow with his band, he fell into a reverie that lasted
some moments.

"If anything happen to me, Philip," he said, abruptly, "perhaps he may
yet be a father to poor Fanny; and if he takes to her, she will repay him
for whatever pain I may, perhaps, have cost him. Stop! now I think of it,
I will write down his address for you--never forget it--there! It is time
to go to bed."

Gawtrey's tale made a deep impression on Philip. He was too young, too
inexperienced, too much borne away by the passion of the narrator, to see
that Gawtrey had less cause to blame Fate than himself. True, he had been
unjustly implicated in the disgrace of an unworthy uncle, but he had
lived with that uncle, though he knew him to be a common cheat; true, he
had been betrayed by a friend, but he had before known that friend to be
a man without principle or honour. But what wonder that an ardent boy saw
nothing of this--saw only the good heart that had saved a poor girl from
vice, and sighed to relieve a harsh and avaricious parent? Even the hints
that Gawtrey unawares let fall of practices scarcely covered by the
jovial phrase of "a great schoolboy's scrapes," either escaped the notice
of Philip, or were charitably construed by him, in the compassion and the
ignorance of a young, hasty, and grateful heart.




CHAPTER IV.

     "And she's a stranger
     Women--beware women."--MIDDLETON.

     "As we love our youngest children best,
     So the last fruit of our affection,
     Wherever we bestow it, is most strong;
     Since 'tis indeed our latest harvest-home,
     Last merriment 'fore winter!"
     WEBSTER, Devil's Law Case.

     "I would fain know what kind of thing a man's heart is?
     I will report it to you; 'tis a thing framed
     With divers corners!"--ROWLEY.

I have said that Gawtrey's tale made a deep impression on Philip;--that
impression was increased by subsequent conversations, more frank even
than their talk had hitherto been. There was certainly about this man a
fatal charm which concealed his vices. It arose, perhaps, from the
perfect combinations of his physical frame--from a health which made his
spirits buoyant and hearty under all circumstances--and a blood so fresh,
so sanguine, that it could not fail to keep the pores of the heart open.
But he was not the less--for all his kindly impulses and generous
feelings, and despite the manner in which, naturally anxious to make the
least unfavourable portrait of himself to Philip, he softened and glossed
over the practices of his life--a thorough and complete rogue, a
dangerous, desperate, reckless daredevil. It was easy to see when
anything crossed him, by the cloud on his shaggy brow, by the swelling of
the veins on the forehead, by the dilation of the broad nostril, that he
was one to cut his way through every obstacle to an end,--choleric,
impetuous, fierce, determined. Such, indeed, were the qualities that made
him respected among his associates, as his more bland and humorous ones
made him beloved. He was, in fact, the incarnation of that great spirit
which the laws of the world raise up against the world, and by which the
world's injustice on a large scale is awfully chastised; on a small
scale, merely nibbled at and harassed, as the rat that gnaws the hoof of
the elephant:--the spirit which, on a vast theatre, rises up, gigantic
and sublime, in the heroes of war and revolution--in Mirabeaus, Marats,
Napoleons: on a minor stage, it shows itself in demagogues, fanatical
philosophers, and mob-writers; and on the forbidden boards, before whose
reeking lamps outcasts sit, at once audience and actors, it never
produced a knave more consummate in his part, or carrying it off with
more buskined dignity, than William Gawtrey. I call him by his aboriginal
name; as for his other appellations, Bacchus himself had not so many!

One day, a lady, richly dressed, was ushered by Mr. Birnie into the
bureau of Mr. Love, alias Gawtrey. Philip was seated by the window,
reading, for the first time, the Candide,--that work, next to Rasselas,
the most hopeless and gloomy of the sports of genius with mankind. The
lady seemed rather embarrassed when she perceived Mr. Love was not alone.
She drew back, and, drawing her veil still more closely round her, said,
in French:

"Pardon me, I would wish a private conversation." Philip rose to
withdraw, when the lady, observing him with eyes whose lustre shone
through the veil, said gently: "But perhaps the young gentleman is
discreet."

"He is not discreet, he is discretion!--my adopted son. You may confide
in him--upon my honour you may, madam!" and Mr. Love placed his hand on
his heart.

"He is very young," said the lady, in a tone of involuntary compassion,
as, with a very white hand, she unclasped the buckle of her cloak.

"He can the better understand the curse of celibacy," returned Mr. Love,
smiling.

The lady lifted part of her veil, and discovered a handsome mouth, and a
set of small, white teeth; for she, too, smiled, though gravely, as she
turned to Morton, and said--

"You seem, sir, more fitted to be a votary of the temple than one of its
officers. However, Monsieur Love, let there be no mistake between us; I
do not come here to form a marriage, but to prevent one. I understand
that Monsieur the Vicomte de Vaudemont has called into request your
services. I am one of the Vicomte's family; we are all anxious that he
should not contract an engagement of the strange and, pardon me,
unbecoming character, which must stamp a union formed at a public
office."

"I assure you, madam," said Mr. Love, with dignity, "that we have
contributed to the very first--"

"Mon Dieu!" interrupted the lady, with much impatience, "spare me a
eulogy on your establishment: I have no doubt it is very respectable; and
for grisettes and epiciers may do extremely well. But the Vicomte is a
man of birth and connections. In a word, what he contemplates is
preposterous. I know not what fee Monsieur Love expects; but if he
contrive to amuse Monsieur de Vaudemont, and to frustrate every
connection he proposes to form, that fee, whatever it may be, shall be
doubled. Do you understand me?"

"Perfectly, madam; yet it is not your offer that will bias me, but the
desire to oblige so charming a lady."

"It is agreed, then?" said the lady, carelessly; and as she spoke she
again glanced at Philip.

"If madame will call again, I will inform her of my plans," said Mr.
Love.

"Yes, I will call again. Good morning!" As she rose and passed Philip,
she wholly put aside her veil, and looked at him with a gaze entirely
free from coquetry, but curious, searching, and perhaps admiring--the
look that an artist may give to a picture that seines of more value than
the place where he finds it would seem to indicate. The countenance of
the lady herself was fair and noble, and Philip felt a strange thrill at
his heart as, with a slight inclination of her' head, she turned from the
room.

"Ah!" said Gawtrey, laughing, "this is not the first time I have been
paid by relations to break off the marriages I had formed. Egad! if one
could open a bureau to make married people single, one would soon be a
Croesus! Well, then, this decides me to complete the union between
Monsieur Goupille and Mademoiselle de Courval. I had balanced a little
hitherto between the epicier and the Vicomte. Now I will conclude
matters. Do you know, Phil, I think you have made a conquest?"

"Pooh!" said Philip, colouring.

In effect, that very evening Mr. Love saw both the epicier and Adele, and
fixed the marriage-day. As Monsieur Goupille was a person of great
distinction in the Faubourg, this wedding was one upon which Mr. Love
congratulated himself greatly; and he cheerfully accepted an invitation
for himself and his partners to honour the noces with their presence.

A night or two before the day fixed for the marriage of Monsieur Goupille
and the aristocratic Adele, when Mr. Birnie had retired, Gawtrey made his
usual preparations for enjoying himself. But this time the cigar and the
punch seemed to fail of their effect. Gawtrey remained moody and silent;
and Morton was thinking of the bright eyes of the lady who was so much
interested against the amours of the Vicomte de Vaudemont.

At last, Gawtrey broke silence:

"My young friend," said he, "I told you of my little protege; I have been
buying toys for her this morning; she is a beautiful creature; to-morrow
is her birthday--she will then be six years old. But--but--" here Gawtrey
sighed--"I fear she is not all right here," and he touched his forehead.

"I should like much to see her," said Philip, not noticing the latter
remark.

"And you shall--you shall come with me to-morrow. Heigho! I should not
like to die, for her sake!"

"Does her wretched relation attempt to regain her?"

"Her relation! No; she is no more--she died about two years since! Poor
Mary! I--well, this is folly. But Fanny is at present in a convent; they
are all kind to her, but then I pay well; if I were dead, and the pay
stopped,--again I ask, what would become of her, unless, as I before
said, my father--"

"But you are making a fortune now?"

"If this lasts--yes; but I live in fear--the police of this cursed city
are lynx-eyed; however, that is the bright side of the question."

"Why not have the child with you, since you love her so much? She would
be a great comfort to you."

"Is this a place for a child--a girl?" said Gawtrey, stamping his foot
impatiently. "I should go mad if I saw that villainous deadman's eye bent
upon her!"

"You speak of Birnie. How can you endure him?"

"When you are my age you will know why we endure what we dread--why we
make friends of those who else would be most horrible foes: no,
no--nothing can deliver me of this man but Death. And--and--" added
Gawtrey, turning pale, "I cannot murder a man who eats my bread. There
are stronger ties, my lad, than affection, that bind men, like
galley-slaves, together. He who can hang you puts the halter round your
neck and leads you by it like a dog."

A shudder came over the young listener. And what dark secrets, known only
to those two, had bound, to a man seemingly his subordinate and tool, the
strong will and resolute temper of William Gawtrey?

"But, begone, dull care!" exclaimed Gawtrey, rousing himself. "And, after
all, Birnie is a useful fellow, and dare no more turn against me than I
against him! Why don't you drink more?

   "Oh! have you e'er heard of the famed Captain Wattle?"

and Gawtrey broke out into a loud Bacchanalian hymn, in which Philip
could find no mirth, and from which the songster suddenly paused to
exclaim:--

"Mind you say nothing about Fanny to Birnie; my secrets with him are not
of that nature. He could not hurt her, poor lamb! it is true--at least,
as far as I can foresee. But one can never feel too sure of one's lamb,
if one once introduces it to the butcher!"

The next day being Sunday, the bureau was closed, and Philip and Gawtrey
repaired to the convent. It was a dismal-looking place as to the
exterior; but, within, there was a large garden, well kept, and,
notwithstanding the winter, it seemed fair and refreshing, compared with
the polluted streets. The window of the room into which they were shown
looked upon the green sward, with walls covered with ivy at the farther
end. And Philip's own childhood came back to him as he gazed on the quiet
of the lonely place.

The door opened--an infant voice was heard, a voice of glee-of rapture;
and a child, light and beautiful as a fairy, bounded to Gawtrey's breast.

Nestling there, she kissed his face, his hands, his clothes, with a
passion that did not seem to belong to her age, laughing and sobbing
almost at a breath.

On his part, Gawtrey appeared equally affected: he stroked down her hair
with his huge hand, calling her all manner of pet names, in a tremulous
voice that vainly struggled to be gay.

At length he took the toys he had brought with him from his capacious
pockets, and strewing them on the floor, fairly stretched his vast bulk
along; while the child tumbled over him, sometimes grasping at the toys,
and then again returning to his bosom, and laying her head there, looked
up quietly into his eyes, as if the joy were too much for her.

Morton, unheeded by both, stood by with folded arms. He thought of his
lost and ungrateful brother, and muttered to himself:

"Fool! when she is older, she will forsake him!"

Fanny betrayed in her face the Italian origin of her father. She had that
exceeding richness of complexion which, though not common even in Italy,
is only to be found in the daughters of that land, and which harmonised
well with the purple lustre of her hair, and the full, clear iris of the
dark eyes. Never were parted cherries brighter than her dewy lips; and
the colour of the open neck and the rounded arms was of a whiteness still
more dazzling, from the darkness of the hair and the carnation of the
glowing cheek.

Suddenly Fanny started from Gawtrey's arms, and running up to Morton,
gazed at him wistfully, and said, in French:

"Who are you? Do you come from the moon? I think you do." Then, stopping
abruptly, she broke into a verse of a nursery-song, which she chaunted
with a low, listless tone, as if she were not conscious of the sense. As
she thus sang, Morton, looking at her, felt a strange and painful doubt
seize him. The child's eyes, though soft, were so vacant in their gaze.

"And why do I come from the moon?" said he.

"Because you look sad and cross. I don't like you--I don't like the moon;
it gives me a pain here!" and she put her hand to her temples. "Have you
got anything for Fanny--poor, poor Fanny?" and, dwelling on the epithet,
she shook her head mournfully.

"You are rich, Fanny, with all those toys."

"Am I? Everybody calls me poor Fanny--everybody but papa;" and she ran
again to Gawtrey, and laid her head on his shoulder.

"She calls me papa!" said Gawtrey, kissing her; "you hear it? Bless her!"

"And you never kiss any one but Fanny--you have no other little girl?"
said the child, earnestly, and with a look less vacant than that which
had saddened Morton.

"No other--no--nothing under heaven, and perhaps above it, but you!" and
he clasped her in his arms. "But," he added, after a pause--"but mind me,
Fanny, you must like this gentleman. He will be always good to you: and
he had a little brother whom he was as fond of as I am of you."

"No, I won't like him--I won't like anybody but you and my sister!"

"Sister!--who is your sister?"

The child's face relapsed into an expression almost of idiotcy. "I don't
know--I never saw her. I hear her sometimes, but I don't understand what
she says.--Hush! come here!" and she stole to the window on tiptoe.
Gawtrey followed and looked out.

"Do you hear her, now?" said Fanny. "What does she say?"

As the girl spoke, some bird among the evergreens uttered a shrill,
plaintive cry, rather than song--a sound which the thrush occasionally
makes in the winter, and which seems to express something of fear, and
pain, and impatience. "What does she say?--can you tell me?" asked the
child.

"Pooh! that is a bird; why do you call it your sister?"

"I don't know!--because it is--because it--because--I don't know--is it
not in pain?--do something for it, papa!"

Gawtrey glanced at Morton, whose face betokened his deep pity, and
creeping up to him, whispered,--

"Do you think she is really touched here? No, no,--she will outgrow it--I
am sure she will!"

Morton sighed.

Fanny by this time had again seated herself in the middle of the floor,
and arranged her toys, but without seeming to take pleasure in them.

At last Gawtrey was obliged to depart. The lay sister, who had charge of
Fanny, was summoned into the parlour; and then the child's manner
entirely changed; her face grew purple--she sobbed with as much anger as
grief. "She would not leave papa--she would not go--that she would not!"

"It is always so," whispered Gawtrey to Morton, in an abashed and
apologetic voice. "It is so difficult to get away from her. Just go and
talk with her while I steal out."

Morton went to her, as she struggled with the patient good-natured
sister, and began to soothe and caress her, till she turned on him her
large humid eyes, and said, mournfully,

"Tu es mechant, tu. Poor Fanny!"

"But this pretty doll--" began the sister. The child looked at it
joylessly.

"And papa is going to die!"

"Whenever Monsieur goes," whispered the nun, "she always says that he is
dead, and cries herself quietly to sleep; when Monsieur returns, she says
he is come to life again. Some one, I suppose, once talked to her about
death; and she thinks when she loses sight of any one, that that is
death."

"Poor child!" said Morton, with a trembling voice.

The child looked up, smiled, stroked his cheek with her little hand, and
said:

"Thank you!--Yes! poor Fanny! Ah, he is going--see!--let me go too--tu es
mechant."

"But," said Morton, detaining her gently, "do you know that you give him
pain?--you make him cry by showing pain yourself. Don't make him so sad!"

The child seemed struck, hung down her head for a moment, as if in
thought, and then, jumping from Morton's lap, ran to Gawtrey, put up her
pouting lips, and said:

"One kiss more!"

Gawtrey kissed her, and turned away his head.

"Fanny is a good girl!" and Fanny, as she spoke, went back to Morton, and
put her little fingers into her eyes, as if either to shut out Gawtrey's
retreat from her sight, or to press back her tears.

"Give me the doll now, sister Marie."

Morton smiled and sighed, placed the child, who struggled no more, in the
nun's arms, and left the room; but as he closed the door he looked back,
and saw that Fanny had escaped from the sister, thrown herself on the
floor, and was crying, but not loud.

"Is she not a little darling?" said Gawtrey, as they gained the street.

"She is, indeed, a most beautiful child!"

"And you will love her if I leave her penniless," said Gawtrey, abruptly.
"It was your love for your mother and your brother that made me like you
from the first. Ay," continued Gawtrey, in a tone of great earnestness,
"ay, and whatever may happen to me, I will strive and keep you, my poor
lad, harmless; and what is better, innocent even of such matters as sit
light enough on my own well-seasoned conscience. In turn, if ever you
have the power, be good to her,--yes, be good to her! and I won't say a
harsh word to you if ever you like to turn king's evidence against
myself."

"Gawtrey!" said Morton, reproachfully, and almost fiercely.

"Bah!--such things are! But tell me honestly, do you think she is very
strange--very deficient?"

"I have not seen enough of her to judge," answered Morton, evasively.

"She is so changeful," persisted Gawtrey. "Sometimes you would say that
she was above her age, she comes out with such thoughtful, clever things;
then, the next moment, she throws me into despair. These nuns are very
skilful in education--at least they are said to be so. The doctors give
me hope, too. You see, her poor mother was very unhappy at the time of
her birth--delirious, indeed: that may account for it. I often fancy that
it is the constant excitement which her state occasions me that makes me
love her so much. You see she is one who can never shift for herself. I
must get money for her; I have left a little already with the superior,
and I would not touch it to save myself from famine! If she has money
people will be kind enough to her. And then," continued Gawtrey, "you
must perceive that she loves nothing in the world but me--me, whom nobody
else loves! Well--well, now to the shop again!"

On returning home the bonne informed them that a lady had called, and
asked both for Monsieur Love and the young gentleman, and seemed much
chagrined at missing both. By the description, Morton guessed she was the
fair incognita, and felt disappointed at having lost the interview.




CHAPTER V.

     "The cursed carle was at his wonted trade,
     Still tempting heedless men into his snare,
     In witching wise, as I before have said;
     But when he saw, in goodly gear array'd,
     The grave majestic knight approaching nigh,
     His countenance fell."--THOMSON, Castle of Indolence.

The morning rose that was to unite Monsieur Goupille with Mademoiselle
Adele de Courval. The ceremony was performed, and bride and bridegroom
went through that trying ordeal with becoming gravity. Only the elegant
Adele seemed more unaffectedly agitated than Mr. Love could well account
for; she was very nervous in church, and more often turned her eyes to
the door than to the altar. Perhaps she wanted to run away; but it was
either too late or too early for the proceeding. The rite performed, the
happy pair and their friends adjourned to the Cadran Bleu, that
restaurant so celebrated in the festivities of the good citizens of
Paris. Here Mr. Love had ordered, at the epicier's expense, a most
tasteful entertainment.

"Sacre! but you have not played the economist, Monsieur Lofe," said
Monsieur Goupille, rather querulously, as he glanced at the long room
adorned with artificial flowers, and the table a cingitante couverts.

"Bah!" replied Mr. Love, "you can retrench afterwards. Think of the
fortune she brought you."

"It is a pretty sum, certainly," said Monsieur Goupille, "and the notary
is perfectly satisfied."

"There is not a marriage in Paris that does me more credit," said Mr.
Love; and he marched off to receive the compliments and congratulations
that awaited him among such of the guests as were aware of his good
offices. The Vicomte de Vaudemont was of course not present. He had not
been near Mr. Love since Adele had accepted the epicier. But Madame
Beavor, in a white bonnet lined with lilac, was hanging, sentimentally,
on the arm of the Pole, who looked very grand with his white favour; and
Mr. Higgins had been introduced, by Mr. Love, to a little dark Creole,
who wore paste diamonds, and had very languishing eyes; so that Mr.
Love's heart might well swell with satisfaction at the prospect of the
various blisses to come, which might owe their origin to his benevolence.
In fact, that archpriest of the Temple of Hymen was never more great than
he was that day; never did his establishment seem more solid, his
reputation more popular, or his fortune more sure. He was the life of the
party.

The banquet over, the revellers prepared for a dance. Monsieur Goupille,
in tights, still tighter than he usually wore, and of a rich nankeen,
quite new, with striped silk stockings, opened the ball with the lady of
a rich patissier in the same Faubourg; Mr. Love took out the bride. The
evening advanced; and after several other dances of ceremony, Monsieur
Goupille conceived himself entitled to dedicate one to connubial
affection. A country-dance was called, and the epicier claimed the fair
hand of the gentle Adele. About this time, two persons not hitherto
perceived had quietly entered the room, and, standing near the doorway,
seemed examining the dancers, as if in search for some one. They bobbed
their heads up and down, to and fro stopped--now stood on tiptoe. The one
was a tall, large-whiskered, fair-haired man; the other, a little, thin,
neatly-dressed person, who kept his hand on the arm of his companion, and
whispered to him from time to time. The whiskered gentleman replied in a
guttural tone, which proclaimed his origin to be German. The busy dancers
did not perceive the strangers. The bystanders did, and a hum of
curiosity circled round; who could they be?--who had invited them?--they
were new faces in the Faubourg--perhaps relations to Adele?

In high delight the fair bride was skipping down the middle, while
Monsieur Goupille, wiping his forehead with care, admired her agility;
when, to and behold! the whiskered gentleman I have described abruptly
advanced from his companion, and cried:

"La voila!--sacre tonnerre!"

At that voice--at that apparition, the bride halted; so suddenly indeed,
that she had not time to put down both feet, but remained with one high
in the air, while the other sustained itself on the light fantastic toe.
The company naturally imagined this to be an operatic flourish, which
called for approbation. Monsieur Love, who was thundering down behind
her, cried, "Bravo!" and as the well-grown gentleman had to make a sweep
to avoid disturbing her equilibrium, he came full against the whiskered
stranger, and sent him off as a bat sends a ball.

"Mon Dieu!" cried Monsieur Goupille. "Ma douce amie--she has fainted
away!" And, indeed, Adele had no sooner recovered her, balance, than she
resigned it once more into the arms of the startled Pole, who was happily
at hand.

In the meantime, the German stranger, who had saved himself from falling
by coming with his full force upon the toes of Mr. Higgins, again
advanced to the spot, and, rudely seizing the fair bride by the arm,
exclaimed,--

"No sham if you please, madame--speak! What the devil have you done with
the money?"

"Really, sir," said Monsieur Goupille, drawing tip his cravat, "this is
very extraordinary conduct! What have you got to say to this lady's
money?--it is my money now, sir!"

"Oho! it is, is it? We'll soon see that. Approchez donc, Monsieur Favart,
faites votre devoir."

At these words the small companion of the stranger slowly sauntered to
the spot, while at the sound of his name and the tread of his step, the
throng gave way to the right and left. For Monsieur Favart was one of the
most renowned chiefs of the great Parisian police--a man worthy to be the
contemporary of the illustrious Vidocq.

"Calmez vous, messieurs; do not be alarmed, ladies," said this gentleman,
in the mildest of all human voices; and certainly no oil dropped on the
waters ever produced so tranquillising an effect as that small, feeble,
gentle tenor. The Pole, in especial, who was holding the fair bride with
both his arms, shook all over, and seemed about to let his burden
gradually slide to the floor, when Monsieur Favart, looking at him with a
benevolent smile, said--

"Aha, mon brave! c'est toi. Restez donc. Restez, tenant toujours la
dame!"

The Pole, thus condemned, in the French idiom, "always to hold the dame,"
mechanically raised the arms he had previously dejected, and the police
officer, with an approving nod of the head, said,--

"Bon! ne bougez point,--c'est ca!"

Monsieur Goupille, in equal surprise and indignation to see his better
half thus consigned, without any care to his own marital feelings, to the
arms of another, was about to snatch her from the Pole, when Monsieur
Favart, touching him on the breast with his little finger, said, in the
suavest manner,--

"Mon bourgeois, meddle not with what does not concern you!"

"With what does not concern me!" repeated Monsieur Goupille, drawing
himself up to so great a stretch that he seemed pulling off his tights
the wrong way. "Explain yourself, if you please! This lady is my wife!"

"Say that again,--that's all!" cried the whiskered stranger, in most
horrible French, and with a furious grimace, as he shook both his fists
just under the nose of the epicier.

"Say it again, sir," said Monsieur Goupille, by no means daunted; "and
why should not I say it again? That lady is my wife!"

"You lie!--she is mine!" cried the German; and bending down, he caught
the fair Adele from the Pole with as little ceremony as if she had never
had a great-grandfather a marquis, and giving her a shake that might have
roused the dead, thundered out,--

"Speak! Madame Bihl! Are you my wife or not?"

"Monstre!" murmured Adele, opening her eyes.

"There--you hear--she owns me!" said the German, appealing to the company
with a triumphant air.

"C'est vrai!" said the soft voice of the policeman. "And now, pray don't
let us disturb your amusements any longer. We have a fiacre at the door.
Remove your lady, Monsieur Bihl."

"Monsieur Lofe!--Monsieur Lofe!" cried, or rather screeched the epicier,
darting across the room, and seizing the chef by the tail of his coat,
just as he was half way through the door, "come back! Quelle mauvaise
plaisanterie me faites-vous ici? Did you not tell me that lady was
single? Am I married or not: Do I stand on my head or my heels?"

"Hush-hush! mon bon bourgeois!" whispered Mr. Love; "all shall be
explained to-morrow!"

"Who is this gentleman?" asked Monsieur Favart, approaching Mr. Love,
who, seeing himself in for it, suddenly jerked off the epicier, thrust
his hands down into his breeches' pockets, buried his chin in his cravat,
elevated his eyebrows, screwed in his eyes, and puffed out his cheeks, so
that the astonished Monsieur Goupille really thought himself bewitched,
and literally did not recognise the face of the match-maker.

"Who is this gentleman?" repeated the little officer, standing beside, or
rather below, Mr. Love, and looking so diminutive by the contras that you
might have fancied that the Priest of Hymen had only to breathe to blow
him away.

"Who should he be, monsieur?" cried, with great pertness, Madame Rosalie
Caumartin, coming to the relief, with the generosity of her sex.--"This
is Monsieur Lofe--Anglais celebre. What have you to say against him?"

"He has got five hundred francs of mine!" cried the epicier.

The policeman scanned Mr. Love, with great attention. "So you are in
Paris again?--Hein!--vous jouez toujours votre role!

"Ma foi!" said Mr. Love, boldly; "I don't understand what monsieur means;
my character is well known--go and inquire it in London--ask the
Secretary of Foreign Affairs what is said of me--inquire of my
Ambassador--demand of my--"

"Votre passeport, monsieur?"

"It is at home. A gentleman does not carry his passport in his pocket
when he goes to a ball!"

"I will call and see it--au revoir! Take my advice and leave Paris; I
think I have seen you somewhere!"

"Yet I have never had the honour to marry monsieur!" said Mr. Love, with
a polite bow.

In return for his joke, the policeman gave Mr. Love one look-it was a
quiet look, very quiet; but Mr. Love seemed uncommonly affected by it;
 he did not say another word, but found himself outside the house in a
twinkling. Monsieur Favart turned round and saw the Pole making himself
as small as possible behind the goodly proportions of Madame Beavor.

"What name does that gentleman go by?"

"So--vo--lofski, the heroic Pole," cried Madame Beavor, with sundry
misgivings at the unexpected cowardice of so great a patriot.

"Hein! take care of yourselves, ladies. I have nothing against that
person this time. But Monsieur Latour has served his apprenticeship at
the galleys, and is no more a Pole than I am a Jew."

"And this lady's fortune!" cried Monsieur Goupitle, pathetically; "the
settlements are all made--the notaries all paid. I am sure there must be
some mistake."

Monsieur Bihl, who had by this time restored his lost Helen to her
senses, stalked up to the epicier, dragging the lady along with him.

"Sir, there is no mistake! But, when I have got the money, if you like to
have the lady you are welcome to her."

"Monstre!" again muttered the fair Adele.

"The long and the short of it," said Monsieur Favart, "is that Monsieur
Bihl is a brave garcon, and has been half over the world as a courier."

"A courier!" exclaimed several voices.

"Madame was nursery-governess to an English milord. They married, and
quarrelled--no harm in that, mes amis; nothing more common. Monsieur Bihl
is a very faithful fellow; nursed his last master in an illness that
ended fatally, because he travelled with his doctor. Milord left him a
handsome legacy--he retired from service, and fell ill, perhaps from
idleness or beer. Is not that the story, Monsieur Bihl?"

"He was always drunk--the wretch!" sobbed Adele. "That was to drown my
domestic sorrows," said the German; "and when I was sick in my bed,
madame ran off with my money. Thanks to monsieur, I have found both, and
I wish you a very good night."

"Dansez-vous toujours, mes amis," said the officer, bowing. And following
Adele and her spouse, the little man left the room--where he had caused,
in chests so broad and limbs so doughty, much the same consternation as
that which some diminutive ferret occasions in a burrow of rabbits twice
his size.

Morton had outstayed Mr. Love. But he thought it unnecessary to linger
long after that gentleman's departure; and, in the general hubbub that
ensued, he crept out unperceived, and soon arrived at the bureau. He
found Mr. Love and Mr. Birnie already engaged in packing up their
effects.

"Why--when did you leave?" said Morton to Mr. Birnie.

"I saw the policeman enter."

"And why the deuce did not you tell us?" said Gawtrey.

"Every man for himself. Besides, Mr. Love was dancing," replied Mr.
Birnie, with a dull glance of disdain. "Philosophy," muttered Gawtrey,
thrusting his dresscoat into his trunk; then, suddenly changing his
voice, "Ha! ha! it was a very good joke after all--own I did it well.
Ecod! if he had not given me that look, I think I should have turned the
tables on him. But those d---d fellows learn of the mad doctors how to
tame us. Faith, my heart went down to my shoes--yet I'm no coward!"

"But, after all, he evidently did not know you," said Morton; "and what
has he to say against you? Your trade is a strange one, but not
dishonest. Why give up as if---"

"My young friend," interrupted Gawtrey, "whether the officer comes after
us or not, our trade is ruined; that infernal Adele, with her fabulous
grandmaman, has done for us. Goupille will blow the temple about our
ears. No help for it--eh, Birnie?"

"None."

"Go to bed, Philip: we'll call thee at daybreak, for we must make clear
work before our neighbours open their shutters."

Reclined, but half undressed, on his bed in the little cabinet, Morton
revolved the events of the evening. The thought that he should see no
more of that white hand and that lovely mouth, which still haunted his
recollection as appertaining to the incognita, greatly indisposed him
towards the abrupt flight intended by Gawtrey, while (so much had his
faith in that person depended upon respect for his confident daring, and
so thoroughly fearless was Morton's own nature) he felt himself greatly
shaken in his allegiance to the chief, by recollecting the effect
produced on his valour by a single glance from the instrument of law. He
had not yet lived long enough to be aware that men are sometimes the
Representatives of Things; that what the scytale was to the Spartan hero,
a sheriff's writ often is to a Waterloo medallist: that a Bow Street
runner will enter the foulest den where Murder sits with his fellows, and
pick out his prey with the beck of his forefinger. That, in short, the
thing called LAW, once made tangible and present, rarely fails to palsy
the fierce heart of the thing called CRIME. For Law is the symbol of all
mankind reared against One Foe--the Man of Crime. Not yet aware of this
truth, nor, indeed, in the least suspecting Gawtrey of worse offences
than those of a charlatanic and equivocal profession, the young man mused
over his protector's cowardice in disdain and wonder: till, wearied with
conjectures, distrust, and shame at his own strange position of
obligation to one whom he could not respect, he fell asleep.

When he woke, he saw the grey light of dawn that streamed cheerlessly
through his shutterless window, struggling with the faint ray of a candle
that Gawtrey, shading with his hand, held over the sleeper. He started
up, and, in the confusion of waking and the imperfect light by which he
beheld the strong features of Gawtrey, half imagined it was a foe who
stood before him.

"Take care, man," said Gawtrey, as Morton, in this belief, grasped his
arm. "You have a precious rough gripe of your own. Be quiet, will you? I
have a word to say to you." Here Gawtrey, placing the candle on a chair,
returned to the door and closed it.

"Look you," he said in a whisper, "I have nearly run through my circle of
invention, and my wit, fertile as it is, can present to me little
encouragement in the future. The eyes of this Favart once on me, every
disguise and every double will not long avail. I dare not return to
London: I am too well known in Brussels, Berlin, and Vienna--"

"But," interrupted Morton, raising himself on his arm, and fixing his
dark eyes upon his host,--"but you have told me again and again that you
have committed no crime; why then be so fearful of discovery?"

"Why," repeated Gawtrey, with a slight hesitation which he instantly
overcame, "why! have not you yourself learned that appearances have the
effect of crimes?--were you not chased as a thief when I rescued you from
your foe, the law?--are you not, though a boy in years, under an alias,
and an exile from your own land? And how can you put these austere
questions to me, who am growing grey in the endeavour to extract sunbeams
from cucumbers--subsistence from poverty? I repeat that there are reasons
why I must avoid, for the present, the great capitals. I must sink in
life, and take to the provinces. Birnie is sanguine as ever; but he is a
terrible sort of comforter! Enough of that. Now to yourself: our savings
are less than you might expect; to be sure, Birnie has been treasurer,
and I have laid by a little for Fanny, which I will rather starve than
touch. There remain, however, 150 napoleons, and our effects, sold at a
fourth their value, will fetch 150 more. Here is your share. I have
compassion on you. I told you I would bear you harmless and innocent.
Leave us while yet time."

It seemed, then, to Morton that Gawtrey had divined his thoughts of shame
and escape of the previous night; perhaps Gawtrey had: and such is the
human heart, that, instead of welcoming the very release he had half
contemplated, now that it was offered him, Philip shrank from it as a
base desertion.

"Poor Gawtrey!" said he, pushing back the canvas bag of gold held out to
him, "you shall not go over the world, and feel that the orphan you fed
and fostered left you to starve with your money in his pocket. When you
again assure me that you have committed no crime, you again remind me
that gratitude has no right to be severe upon the shifts and errors of
its benefactor. If you do not conform to society, what has society done
for me? No! I will not forsake you in a reverse. Fortune has given you a
fall. What, then, courage, and at her again!"

These last words were said so heartily and cheerfully as Morton sprang
from the bed, that they inspirited Gawtrey, who had really desponded of
his lot.

"Well," said he, "I cannot reject the only friend left me; and while I
live--. But I will make no professions. Quick, then, our luggage is
already gone, and I hear Birnie grunting the rogue's march of retreat."

Morton's toilet was soon completed, and the three associates bade adieu
to the bureau.

Birnie, who was taciturn and impenetrable as ever, walked a little before
as guide. They arrived, at length, at a serrurier's shop, placed in an
alley near the Porte St. Denis. The serrurier himself, a tall, begrimed,
blackbearded man, was taking the shutters from his shop as they
approached. He and Birnie exchanged silent nods; and the former, leaving
his work, conducted them up a very filthy flight of stairs to an attic,
where a bed, two stools, one table, and an old walnut-tree bureau formed
the sole articles of furniture. Gawtrey looked rather ruefully round the
black, low, damp walls, and said in a crestfallen tone:

"We were better off at the Temple of Hymen. But get us a bottle of wine,
some eggs, and a frying-pan. By Jove, I am a capital hand at an omelet!"

The serrurier nodded again, grinned, and withdrew.

"Rest here," said Birnie, in his calm, passionless voice, that seemed to
Morton, however, to assume an unwonted tone of command. "I will go and
make the best bargain I can for our furniture, buy fresh clothes, and
engage our places for Tours."

"For Tours?" repeated Morton.

"Yes, there are some English there; one can live wherever there are
English," said Gawtrey.

"Hum!" grunted Birnie, drily, and, buttoning up his coat, he walked
slowly away.

About noon he returned with a bundle of clothes, which Gawtrey, who
always regained his elasticity of spirit wherever there was fair play to
his talents, examined with great attention, and many exclamations of
"Bon!--c'est va."

"I have done well with the Jew," said Birnie, drawing from his coat
pocket two heavy bags. "One hundred and eighty napoleons. We shall
commence with a good capital."

"You are right, my friend," said Gawtrey.

The serrurier was then despatched to the best restaurant in the
neighbourhood, and the three adventurers made a less Socratic dinner than
might have been expected.




CHAPTER VI.

     "Then out again he flies to wing his marry round."
                THOMPSON'S Castle of Indolence.

     "Again he gazed, 'It is,' said he, 'the same;
     There sits he upright in his seat secure,
     As one whose conscience is correct and pure.'"--CRABBE.

The adventurers arrived at Tours, and established themselves there in a
lodging, without any incident worth narrating by the way.

At Tours Morton had nothing to do but take his pleasure and enjoy
himself. He passed for a young heir; Gawtrey for his tutor--a doctor in
divinity; Birnie for his valet. The task of maintenance fell on Gawtrey,
who hit off his character to a hair; larded his grave jokes with
university scraps of Latin; looked big and well-fed; wore knee-breeches
and a shovel hat; and played whist with the skill of a veteran vicar. By
his science in that game he made, at first, enough; at least, to defray
their weekly expenses. But, by degrees, the good people at Tours, who,
under pretence of health, were there for economy, grew shy of so
excellent a player; and though Gawtrey always swore solemnly that he
played with the most scrupulous honour (an asseveration which Morton, at
least, implicitly believed), and no proof to the contrary was ever
detected, yet a first-rate card-player is always a suspicious character,
unless the losing parties know exactly who he is. The market fell off,
and Gawtrey at length thought it prudent to extend their travels.

"Ah!" said Mr. Gawtrey, "the world nowadays has grown so ostentatious
that one cannot travel advantageously without a post-chariot and four
horses." At length they found themselves at Milan, which at that time was
one of the El Dorados for gamesters. Here, however, for want of
introductions, Mr. Gawtrey found it difficult to get into society. The
nobles, proud and rich, played high, but were circumspect in their
company; the bourgeoisie, industrious and energetic, preserved much of
the old Lombard shrewdness; there were no tables d'hote and public
reunions. Gawtrey saw his little capital daily diminishing, with the Alps
at the rear and Poverty in the van. At length, always on the qui vive, he
contrived to make acquaintance with a Scotch family of great
respectability. He effected this by picking up a snuff-box which the
Scotchman had dropped in taking out his handkerchief. This politeness
paved the way to a conversation in which Gawtrey made himself so
agreeable, and talked with such zest of the Modern Athens, and the tricks
practised upon travellers, that he was presented to Mrs. Macgregor; cards
were interchanged, and, as Mr. Gawtrey lived in tolerable style, the
Macgregors pronounced him "a vara genteel mon." Once in the house of a
respectable person, Gawtrey contrived to turn himself round and round,
till he burrowed a hole into the English circle then settled in Milan.
His whist-playing came into requisition, and once more Fortune smiled
upon Skill.

To this house the pupil one evening accompanied the tutor. When the whist
party, consisting of two tables, was formed, the young man found himself
left out with an old gentleman, who seemed loquacious and good-natured,
and who put many questions to Morton, which he found it difficult to
answer. One of the whist tables was now in a state of revolution, viz., a
lady had cut out and a gentleman cut in, when the door opened, and Lord
Lilburne was announced.

Mr. Macgregor, rising, advanced with great respect to this personage.

"I scarcely ventured to hope you would coom, Lord Lilburne, the night is
so cold."

"You did not allow sufficiently, then, for the dulness of my solitary inn
and the attractions of your circle. Aha! whist, I see."

"You play sometimes?"

"Very seldom, now; I have sown all my wild oats, and even the ace of
spades can scarcely dig them out again."

"Ha! ha! vara gude."

"I will look on;" and Lord Lilburne drew his chair to the table, exactly
opposite to Mr. Gawtrey.

The old gentleman turned to Philip.

"An extraordinary man, Lord Lilburne; you have heard of him, of course?"

"No, indeed; what of him?" asked the young man, rousing himself.

"What of him?" said the old gentleman, with a smile; "why the newspapers,
if you ever read them, will tell you enough of the elegant, the witty
Lord Lilburne; a man of eminent talent, though indolent. He was wild in
his youth, as clever men often are; but, on attaining his title and
fortune, and marrying into the family of the then premier, he became more
sedate. They say he might make a great figure in politics if he would. He
has a very high reputation--very. People do say that he is still fond of
pleasure; but that is a common failing amongst the aristocracy. Morality
is only found in the middle classes, young gentleman. It is a lucky
family, that of Lilburne; his sister, Mrs. Beaufort--"

"Beaufort!" exclaimed Morton, and then muttered to himself, "Ah,
true--true; I have heard the name of Lilburne before."

"Do you know the Beauforts? Well, you remember how luckily Robert,
Lilburne's brother-in-law, came into that fine property just as his
predecessor was about to marry a--"

Morton scowled at his garrulous acquaintance, and stalked abruptly to the
card table.

Ever since Lord Lilburne had seated himself opposite to Mr. Gawtrey, that
gentleman had evinced a perturbation of manner that became obvious to the
company. He grew deadly pale, his hands trembled, he moved uneasily in
his seat, he missed deal, he trumped his partner's best diamond; finally
he revoked, threw down his money, and said, with a forced smile, "that
the heat of the room overcame him." As he rose Lord Lilburne rose also,
and the eyes of both met. Those of Lilburne were calm, but penetrating
and inquisitive in their gaze; those of Gawtrey were like balls of fire.
He seemed gradually to dilate in his height, his broad chest expanded, he
breathed hard.

"Ah, Doctor," said Mr. Macgregor, "let me introduce you to Lord
Lilburne."

The peer bowed haughtily; Mr. Gawtrey did not return the salutation, but
with a sort of gulp, as if he were swallowing some burst of passion,
strode to the fire, and then, turning round, again fixed his gaze upon
the new guest.

Lilburne, however, who had never lost his self-composure at this strange
rudeness, was now quietly talking with their host.

"Your Doctor seems an eccentric man--a little absent--learned, I suppose.
Have you been to Como, yet?"

Mr. Gawtrey remained by the fire beating the devil's tattoo upon the
chimney-piece, and ever and anon turning his glance towards Lilburne, who
seemed to have forgotten his existence.

Both these guests stayed till the party broke up; Mr. Gawtrey apparently
wishing to outstay Lord Lilburne; for, when the last went down-stairs,
Mr. Gawtrey, nodding to his comrade and giving a hurried bow to the host,
descended also. As they passed the porter's lodge, they found Lilburne on
the step of his carriage; he turned his head abruptly, and again met Mr.
Gawtrey's eye; paused a moment, and whispered over his shoulder:

"So we remember each other, sir? Let us not meet again; and, on that
condition, bygones are bygones."

"Scoundrel!" muttered Gawtrey, clenching his fists; but the peer had
sprung into his carriage with a lightness scarcely to be expected from
his lameness, and the wheels whirled within an inch of the soi-disant
doctor's right pump.

Gawtrey walked on for some moments in great excitement; at length he
turned to his companion,--

"Do you guess who Lord Lilburne is? I will tell you my first foe and
Fanny's grandfather! Now, note the justice of Fate: here is this
man--mark well--this man who commenced life by putting his faults on my
own shoulders! From that little boss has fungused out a terrible hump.
This man who seduced my affianced bride, and then left her whole soul,
once fair and blooming--I swear it--with its leaves fresh from the dews
of heaven, one rank leprosy, this man who, rolling in riches, learned to
cheat and pilfer as a boy learns to dance and play the fiddle, and (to
damn me, whose happiness he had blasted) accused me to the world of his
own crime!--here is this man who has not left off one vice, but added to
those of his youth the bloodless craft of the veteran knave;--here is
this man, flattered, courted, great, marching through lanes of bowing
parasites to an illustrious epitaph and a marble tomb, and I, a rogue
too, if you will, but rogue for my bread, dating from him my errors and
my ruin! I--vagabond--outcast--skulking through tricks to avoid
crime--why the difference? Because one is born rich and the other
poor--because he has no excuse for crime, and therefore no one suspects
him!"

The wretched man (for at that moment he was wretched) paused breathless
from his passionate and rapid burst, and before him rose in its marble
majesty, with the moon full upon its shining spires--the wonder of Gothic
Italy--the Cathedral Church of Milan.

"Chafe not yourself at the universal fate," said the young man, with a
bitter smile on his lips and pointing to the cathedral; "I have not lived
long, but I have learned already enough to know this? he who could raise
a pile like that, dedicated to Heaven, would be honoured as a saint; he
who knelt to God by the roadside under a hedge would be sent to the house
of correction as a vagabond. The difference between man and man is money,
and will be, when you, the despised charlatan, and Lilburne, the honoured
cheat, have not left as much dust behind you as will fill a snuff-box.
Comfort yourself, you are in the majority."




CHAPTER VII.

                "A desert wild
     Before them stretched bare, comfortless, and vast,
     With gibbets, bones, and carcasses defiled."
             THOMPSON'S Castle of Indolenece.

Mr. Gawtrey did not wish to give his foe the triumph of thinking he had
driven him from Milan; he resolved to stay and brave it out; but when he
appeared in public, he found the acquaintances he had formed bow
politely, but cross to the other side of the way. No more invitations to
tea and cards showered in upon the jolly parson. He was puzzled, for
people, while they shunned him, did not appear uncivil. He found out at
last that a report was circulated that he was deranged; though he could
not trace this rumour to Lord Lilburne, he was at no loss to guess from
whom it had emanated. His own eccentricities, especially his recent
manner at Mr. Macgregor's, gave confirmation to the charge. Again the
funds began to sink low in the canvas bags, and at length, in despair,
Mr. Gawtrey was obliged to quit the field. They returned to France
through Switzerland--a country too poor for gamesters; and ever since the
interview with Lilburne, a great change had come over Gawtrey's gay
spirit: he grew moody and thoughtful, he took no pains to replenish the
common stock, he talked much and seriously to his young friend of poor
Fanny, and owned that he yearned to see her again. The desire to return
to Paris haunted him like a fatality; he saw the danger that awaited him
there, but it only allured him the more, as the candle does the moth
whose wings it has singed. Birnie, who, in all their vicissitudes and
wanderings, their ups and downs, retained the same tacit, immovable
demeanour, received with a sneer the orders at last to march back upon
the French capital. "You would never have left it, if you had taken my
advice," he said, and quitted the room.

Mr. Gawtrey gazed after him and muttered, "Is the die then cast?"

"What does he mean?" said Morton.

"You will know soon," replied Gawtrey, and he followed Birnie; and from
that time the whispered conferences with that person, which had seemed
suspended during their travels, were renewed.

      .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

One morning, three men were seen entering Paris on foot through the Porte
St. Denis. It was a fine day in spring, and the old city looked gay with
its loitering passengers and gaudy shops, and under that clear blue
exhilarating sky so peculiar to France.

Two of these men walked abreast, the other preceded them a few steps. The
one who went first--thin, pale, and threadbare--yet seemed to suffer the
least from fatigue; he walked with a long, swinging, noiseless stride,
looking to the right and left from the corners of his eyes. Of the two
who followed, one was handsome and finely formed, but of swarthy
complexion, young, yet with a look of care; the other, of sturdy frame,
leaned on a thick stick, and his eyes were gloomily cast down.

"Philip," said the last, "in coming back to Paris--I feel that I am
coming back to my grave!"

"Pooh--you were equally despondent in our excursions elsewhere."

"Because I was always thinking of poor Fanny, and
because--because--Birnie was ever at me with his horrible temptations!"

"Birnie! I loathe the man! Will you never get rid of him?"

"I cannot! Hush! he will hear us. How unlucky we have been! and now
without a son in our pockets--here the dunghill--there the gaol! We are
in his power at last!"

"His power! what mean you?"

"What ho! Birnie!" cried Gawtrey, unheeding Morton's question. "Let us
halt and breakfast: I am tired."

"You forget!--we have no money till we make it," returned Birnie,
coldly.--"Come to the serrurier's he will trust us."




CHAPTER VIII.

     "Gaunt Beggary and Scorn with many bell-hounds more."
     THOMSON'S Castle of Indolence.

     "The other was a fell, despiteful fiend."--Ibid.

     "Your happiness behold! then straight a wand
     He waved, an anti-magic power that hath
     Truth from illusive falsehood to command."--Ibid.

     "But what for us, the children of despair,
     Brought to the brink of hell--what hope remains?
     RESOLVE, RESOLVE!"--Ibid.

It may be observed that there are certain years in which in a civilised
country some particular crime comes into vogue. It flares its season, and
then burns out. Thus at one time we have Burking--at another,
Swingism--now, suicide is in vogue--now, poisoning tradespeople in
apple-dumplings--now, little boys stab each other with penknives--now,
common soldiers shoot at their sergeants. Almost every year there is one
crime peculiar to it; a sort of annual which overruns the country but
does not bloom again. Unquestionably the Press has a great deal to do
with these epidemics. Let a newspaper once give an account of some
out-of-the-way atrocity that has the charm of being novel, and certain
depraved minds fasten to it like leeches. They brood over and revolve
it--the idea grows up, a horrid phantasmalian monomania; and all of a
sudden, in a hundred different places, the one seed sown by the leaden
types springs up into foul flowering.

   [An old Spanish writer, treating of the Inquisition, has some very
   striking remarks on the kind of madness which, whenever some
   terrible notoriety is given to a particular offence, leads persons
   of distempered fancy to accuse themselves of it. He observes that
   when the cruelties of the Inquisition against the imaginary crime of
   sorcery were the most barbarous, this singular frenzy led numbers to
   accuse themselves of sorcery. The publication and celebrity of the
   crime begat the desire of the crime.]

But if the first reported aboriginal crime has been attended with
impunity, how much more does the imitative faculty cling to it.
Ill-judged mercy falls, not like dew, but like a great heap of manure, on
the rank deed.

Now it happened that at the time I write of, or rather a little before,
there had been detected and tried in Paris a most redoubted coiner. He
had carried on the business with a dexterity that won admiration even for
the offence; and, moreover, he had served previously with some
distinction at Austerlitz and Marengo. The consequence was that the
public went with instead of against him, and his sentence was transmuted
to three years' imprisonment by the government. For all governments in
free countries aspire rather to be popular than just.

No sooner was this case reported in the journals--and even the gravest
took notice, of it (which is not common with the scholastic journals of
France)--no sooner did it make a stir and a sensation, and cover the
criminal with celebrity, than the result became noticeable in a very
large issue of false money.

Coining in the year I now write of was the fashionable crime. The police
were roused into full vigour: it became known to them that there was one
gang in especial who cultivated this art with singular success. Their
coinage was, indeed, so good, so superior to all their rivals, that it
was often unconsciously preferred by the public to the real mintage. At
the same time they carried on their calling with such secrecy that they
utterly baffled discovery.

An immense reward was offered by the bureau to any one who would betray
his accomplices, and Monsieur Favart was placed at the head of a
commission of inquiry. This person had himself been a faux monnoyer, and
was an adept in the art, and it was he who had discovered the redoubted
coiner who had brought the crime into such notoriety. Monsieur Favart was
a man of the most vigilant acuteness, the most indefatigable research,
and of a courage which; perhaps, is more common than we suppose. It is a
popular error to suppose that courage means courage in everything. Put a
hero on board ship at a five-barred gate, and, if he is not used to
hunting, he will turn pale; put a fox-hunter on one of the Swiss chasms,
over which the mountaineer springs like a roe, and his knees will knock
under him. People are brave in the dangers to which they accustom
themselves, either in imagination or practice.

Monsieur Favart, then, was a man of the most daring bravery in facing
rogues and cut-throats. He awed them with his very eye; yet he had been
known to have been kicked down-stairs by his wife, and when he was drawn
into the grand army, he deserted the eve of his first battle. Such, as
moralists say, is the inconsistency of man!

But Monsieur Favart was sworn to trace the coiners, and he had never
failed yet in any enterprise he undertook. One day he presented himself
to his chief with a countenance so elated that that penetrating
functionary said to him at once--

"You have heard of our messieurs!"

"I have: I am to visit them to-night."

"Bravo! How many men will you take?"

"From twelve to twenty to leave without on guard. But I must enter alone.
Such is the condition: an accomplice who fears his own throat too much to
be openly a betrayer will introduce me to the house--nay, to the very
room. By his description it is necessary I should know the exact locale
in order to cut off retreat; so to-morrow night I shall surround the
beehive and take the honey."

"They are desperate fellows, these coiners, always; better be cautious."

"You forget I was one of them, and know the masonry." About the same time
this conversation was going on at the bureau of the police, in another
part of the town Morton and Gawtrey were seated alone. It is some weeks
since they entered Paris, and spring has mellowed into summer.

The house in which they lodged was in the lordly quartier of the Faubourg
St. Germain; the neighbouring streets were venerable with the ancient
edifices of a fallen noblesse; but their tenement was in a narrow, dingy
lane, and the building itself seemed beggarly and ruinous. The apartment
was in an attic on the sixth story, and the window, placed at the back of
the lane, looked upon another row of houses of a better description, that
communicated with one of the great streets of the quartier. The space
between their abode and their opposite neighbours was so narrow that the
sun could scarcely pierce between. In the height of summer might be found
there a perpetual shade.

The pair were seated by the window. Gawtrey, well-dressed, smooth-shaven,
as in his palmy time; Morton, in the same garments with which he had
entered Paris, weather-stained and ragged. Looking towards the casements
of the attic in the opposite house, Gawtrey said, mutteringly, "I wonder
where Birnie has been, and why he has not returned. I grow suspicious of
that man."

"Suspicious of what?" asked Morton. "Of his honesty? Would he rob you?"

"Rob me! Humph--perhaps! but you see I am in Paris, in spite of the hints
of the police; he may denounce me."

"Why, then, suffer him to lodge away from you?"

"Why? because, by having separate houses there are two channels of
escape. A dark night, and a ladder thrown across from window to window,
he is with us, or we with him."

"But wherefore such precautions? You blind--you deceive me; what have you
done?--what is your employment now? You are, mute. Hark you, Gawtrey. I
have pinned my fate to you--I am fallen from hope itself! At times it
almost makes me mad to look back--and yet you do not trust me. Since your
return to Paris you are absent whole nights--often days; you are moody
and thoughtful-yet, whatever your business, it seems to bring you ample
returns."

"You think that," said Gawtrey, mildly, and with a sort of pity in his
voice; "yet you refuse to take even the money to change those rags."

"Because I know not how the money was gained. Ah, Gawtrey, I am not too
proud for charity, but I am for--" He checked the word uppermost in his
thoughts, and resumed--

"Yes; your occupations seem lucrative. It was but yesterday Birnie gave
me fifty napoleons, for which he said you wished change in silver."

"Did he? The ras-- Well! and you got change for them?"

"I know not why, but I refused."

"That was right, Philip. Do nothing that man tells you."

"Will you, then, trust me? You are engaged in some horrible traffic! it
may be blood! I am no longer a boy--I have a will of my own--I will not
be silently and blindly entrapped to perdition. If I march thither, it
shall be with my own consent. Trust me, and this day, or we part
to-morrow."

"Be ruled. Some secrets it is better not to know."

"It matters not. I have come to my decision--I ask yours."

Gawtrey paused for some moments in deep thought. At last he lifted his
eyes to Philip, and replied:

"Well, then, if it must be. Sooner or later it must have been so; and I
want a confidant. You are bold, and will not shrink. You desire to know
my occupation--will you witness it to-night?"

"I am prepared: to-night!"

Here a step was heard on the stairs--a knock at the door--and Birnie
entered.

He drew aside Gawtrey, and whispered him, as usual, for some moments.

Gawtrey nodded his head, and then said aloud--

"To-morrow we shall talk without reserve before my young friend. To-night
he joins us."

"To-night!--very well," said Birnie, with his cold sneer. "He must take
the oath; and you, with your life, will be responsible for his honesty?"

"Ay! it is the rule."

"Good-bye, then, till we meet," said Birnie, and withdrew.

"I wonder," said Gawtrey, musingly, and between his grinded teeth,
"whether I shall ever have a good fair shot at that fellow? Ho! ho!" and
his laugh shook the walls.

Morton looked hard at Gawtrey, as the latter now sank down in his chair,
and gazed with a vacant stare, that seemed almost to partake of
imbecility, upon the opposite wall. The careless, reckless, jovial
expression, which usually characterised the features of the man, had for
some weeks given place to a restless, anxious, and at times ferocious
aspect, like the beast that first finds a sport while the hounds are yet
afar, and his limbs are yet strong, in the chase which marks him for his
victim, but grows desperate with rage and fear as the day nears its
close, and the death-dogs pant hard upon his track. But at that moment
the strong features, with their gnarled muscle and iron sinews, seemed to
have lost every sign both of passion and the will, and to be locked in a
stolid and dull repose. At last he looked up at Morton, and said, with a
smile like that of an old man in his dotage--

"I'm thinking that my life has been one mistake! I had talents--you would
not fancy it--but once I was neither a fool nor a villain! Odd, isn't it?
Just reach me the brandy."

But Morton, with a slight shudder, turned and left the room.

He walked on mechanically, and gained, at last, the superb Quai that
borders the Seine; there, the passengers became more frequent; gay
equipages rolled along; the white and lofty mansions looked fair and
stately in the clear blue sky of early summer; beside him flowed the
sparkling river, animated with the painted baths that floated on its
surface: earth was merry and heaven serene his heart was dark through
all: Night within--Morning beautiful without! At last he paused by that
bridge, stately with the statues of those whom the caprice of time
honours with a name; for though Zeus and his gods be overthrown, while
earth exists will live the worship of Dead Men;--the bridge by which you
pass from the royal Tuileries, or the luxurious streets beyond the Rue de
Rivoli, to the Senate of the emancipated People, and the gloomy and
desolate grandeur of the Faubourg St. Germain, in whose venerable haunts
the impoverished descendants of the old feudal tyrants, whom the birth of
the Senate overthrew, yet congregate;--the ghosts of departed powers
proud of the shadows of great names. As the English outcast paused midway
on the bridge, and for the first time lifting his head from his bosom,
gazed around, there broke at once on his remembrance that terrible and
fatal evening, when, hopeless, friendless, desperate, he had begged for
charity of his uncle's hireling, with all the feelings that then (so
imperfectly and lightly touched on in his brief narrative to Gawtrey) had
raged and blackened in his breast, urging to the resolution he had
adopted, casting him on the ominous friendship of the man whose guidance
he even then had suspected and distrusted. The spot in either city had a
certain similitude and correspondence each with each: at the first he had
consummated his despair of human destinies--he had dared to forget the
Providence of God--he had arrogated his fate to himself: by the first
bridge he had taken his resolve; by the last he stood in awe at the
result--stood no less poor--no less abject--equally in rags and squalor;
but was his crest as haughty and his eye as fearless, for was his
conscience as free and his honour as unstained? Those arches of
stone--those rivers that rolled between, seemed to him then to take a
more mystic and typical sense than belongs to the outer world--they were
the bridges to the Rivers of his Life. Plunged in thoughts so confused
and dim that he could scarcely distinguish, through the chaos, the one
streak of light which, perhaps, heralded the reconstruction or
regeneration of the elements of his soul;--two passengers halted, also by
his side.

"You will be late for the debate," said one of them to the other. "Why do
you stop?"

"My friend," said the other, "I never pass this spot without recalling
the time when I stood here without a son, or, as I thought, a chance of
one, and impiously meditated self-destruction."

"You!--now so rich--so fortunate in repute and station--is it possible?
How was it? A lucky chance?--a sudden legacy?"

"No: Time, Faith, and Energy--the three Friends God has given to the
Poor!"

The men moved on; but Morton, who had turned his face towards them,
fancied that the last speaker fixed on him his bright, cheerful eye, with
a meaning look; and when the man was gone, he repeated those words, and
hailed them in his heart of hearts as an augury from above.

Quickly, then, and as if by magic, the former confusion of his mind
seemed to settle into distinct shapes of courage and resolve. "Yes," he
muttered; "I will keep this night's appointment--I will learn the secret
of these men's life. In my inexperience and destitution, I have suffered
myself to be led hitherto into a partnership, if not with vice and crime,
at least with subterfuge and trick. I awake from my reckless boyhood--my
unworthy palterings with my better self. If Gawtrey be as I dread to find
him--if he be linked in some guilty and hateful traffic; with that
loathsome accomplice--I will--" He paused, for his heart whispered,
"Well, and even so,--the guilty man clothed and fed thee!" "I will,"
resumed his thought, in answer to his heart--"I will go on my knees to
him to fly while there is yet time, to work--beg--starve--perish
even--rather than lose the right to look man in the face without a blush,
and kneel to his God without remorse!"

And as he thus ended, he felt suddenly as if he himself were restored to
the perception and the joy of the Nature and the World around him; the
NIGHT had vanished from his soul--he inhaled the balm and freshness of
the air--he comprehended the delight which the liberal June was
scattering over the