"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 pa.s.sed, 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 "G.o.d 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 pa.s.sages at the entrance of which posts are placed as an indication that they are appropriated solely to foot-pa.s.sengers. 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sage 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 chastis.e.m.e.nt, and showed the wale across the little hands which he had vainly held up in supplication, Philip"s pa.s.sion 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--G.o.d 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 pa.s.sionate, 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 pa.s.sage, 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, pa.s.s 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 m.u.f.fin. 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.