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+Project Gutenberg’s Night and Morning, Complete, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost
+no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use
+it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Night and Morning, Complete
+
+Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton
+
+Release Date: March 17, 2009 [EBook #9755]
+Last Updated: August 28, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NIGHT AND MORNING, COMPLETE
+***
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+NIGHT AND MORNING
+
+
+By Edward Bulwer Lytton
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1845.
+
+
+
+NIGHT AND MORNING.
+
+
+
+BOOK I.
+
+INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+BOOK IV.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+BOOK V.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+CHAPTER THE LAST.
+
+
+
+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 Hustings, 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.
+
+Knelworth, 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.
+
+Kenbworth.
+
+
+
+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 down 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 vest 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 bosquets 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 roseries, 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 help 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! 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 hardship 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 he 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 head 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 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, in 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--eh? 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. Stubmore--with three boys and a babe at
+the buzzom. You won’t keep him now?”
+
+“Keep him! I have had a precious escape. I’d better go and see after the
+mare.”
+
+“I doubt if you’ll find her: the Captain caught a sight of me this
+morning. Why, he lodges at our hotel. He’s off by this time!”
+
+“And why the devil did you let him go?”
+
+“‘Cause I had no writ agin him!” said the Bow Street officer; and he
+walked straight out of the counting-office, satisfied that he had “done
+the job.”
+
+To snatch his hat--to run to the hotel--to find that Captain Smith had
+indeed gone off in his phaeton, bag and baggage, the same as he came,
+except that he had now two horses to the phaeton instead of one--having
+left with the landlord the amount of his bill in another cheque upon
+Coutts--was the work of five minutes with Mr. Stubmore. He returned
+home, panting and purple with indignation and wounded feeling.
+
+“To think that chap, whom I took into my yard like a son, should have
+connived at this! ‘Tain’t the money--‘tis the willany that ‘flicts me!”
+ muttered Mr. Stubmore, as he re-entered the mews.
+
+Here he came plump upon Philip, who said--
+
+“Sir, I wished to see you, to say that you had better take care of
+Captain Smith.”
+
+“Oh, you did, did you, now he’s gone? ‘sconded off to America, I dare
+say, by this time. Now look ye, young man; your friends are after you, I
+won’t say anything agin you; but you go back to them--I wash my hands
+of you. Quite too much for me. There’s your week, and never let me catch
+you in my yard agin, that’s all!”
+
+Philip dropped the money which Stubmore had put into his hand. “My
+friends!--friends have been with you, have they? I thought so--I thank
+them. And so you part with me? Well, you have been very kind, very kind;
+let us part kindly;” and he held out his hand.
+
+Mr. Stubmore was softened--he touched the hand held out to him, and
+looked doubtful a moment; but Captain de Burgh Smith’s cheque for eighty
+guineas suddenly rose before his eyes. He turned on his heel abruptly,
+and said, over his shoulder:
+
+“Don’t go after Captain Smith (he’ll come to the gallows); mend your
+ways, and be ruled by your poor dear relatives, whose hearts you are
+breaking.”
+
+“Captain Smith! Did my relations tell you?”
+
+“Yes--yes--they told me all--that is, they sent to tell me; so you see
+I’m d---d soft not to lay hold of you. But, perhaps, if they be gemmen,
+they’ll act as sich, and cash me this here cheque!”
+
+But the last words were said to air. Philip had rushed from the yard.
+
+With a heaving breast, and every nerve in his body quivering with wrath,
+the proud, unhappy boy strode through the gay streets. They had betrayed
+him then, these accursed Beauforts! they circled his steps with schemes
+to drive him like a deer into the snare of their loathsome charity! The
+roof was to be taken from his head--the bread from his lips--so that
+he might fawn at their knees for bounty. “But they shall not break my
+spirit, nor steal away my curse. No, my dead mother, never!”
+
+As he thus muttered, he passed through a patch of waste land that led
+to the row of houses in which his lodging was placed. And here a voice
+called to him, and a hand was laid on his shoulder. He turned, and
+Arthur Beaufort, who had followed him from the street, stood behind him.
+Philip did not, at the first glance, recognise his cousin; illness had
+so altered him, and his dress was so different from that in which he had
+first and last beheld him. The contrast between the two young men
+was remarkable. Philip was clad in a rough garb suited to his late
+calling--a jacket of black velveteen, ill-fitting and ill-fashioned,
+loose fustian trousers, coarse shoes, his hat set deep over his pent
+eyebrows, his raven hair long and neglected. He was just at that age
+when one with strong features and robust frame is at the worst in point
+of appearance--the sinewy proportions not yet sufficiently fleshed, and
+seeming inharmonious and undeveloped; precisely in proportion, perhaps,
+to the symmetry towards which they insensibly mature: the contour of
+the face sharpened from the roundness of boyhood, and losing its bloom
+without yet acquiring that relief and shadow which make the expression
+and dignity of the masculine countenance. Thus accoutred, thus gaunt,
+and uncouth, stood Morton. Arthur Beaufort, always refined in his
+appearance, seemed yet more so from the almost feminine delicacy which
+ill-health threw over his pale complexion and graceful figure; that sort
+of unconscious elegance which belongs to the dress of the rich when
+they are young--seen most in minutiae--not observable, perhaps, by
+themselves-marked forcibly and painfully the distinction of rank between
+the two. That distinction Beaufort did not feel; but at a glance it was
+visible to Philip.
+
+The past rushed back on him. The sunny lawn--the gun offered and
+rejected--the pride of old, much less haughty than the pride of to-day.
+
+“Philip,” said Beaufort, feebly, “they tell me you will not accept any
+kindness from me or mine. Ah! if you knew how we have sought you!”
+
+“Knew!” cried Philip, savagely, for that unlucky sentence recalled to
+him his late interview with his employer, and his present destitution.
+“Knew! And why have you dared to hunt me out, and halloo me down?--why
+must this insolent tyranny, that assumes the right over these limbs
+and this free will, betray and expose me and my wretchedness wherever I
+turn?”
+
+“Your poor mother--” began Beaufort.
+
+“Name her not with your lips--name her not!” cried Philip, growing livid
+with his emotions. “Talk not of the mercy--the forethought--a Beaufort
+could show to her and her offspring! I accept it not--I believe it not.
+Oh, yes! you follow me now with your false kindness; and why? Because
+your father--your vain, hollow, heartless father--”
+
+“Hold!” said Beaufort, in a tone of such reproach, that it startled the
+wild heart on which it fell; “it is my father you speak of. Let the son
+respect the son.”
+
+“No--no--no! I will respect none of your race. I tell you your father
+fears me. I tell you that my last words to him ring in his ears! My
+wrongs! Arthur Beaufort, when you are absent I seek to forget them; in
+your abhorred presence they revive--they--”
+
+He stopped, almost choked with his passion; but continued instantly,
+with equal intensity of fervour:
+
+“Were yon tree the gibbet, and to touch your hand could alone save me
+from it, I would scorn your aid. Aid! The very thought fires my
+blood and nerves my hand. Aid! Will a Beaufort give me back my
+birthright--restore my dead mother’s fair name? Minion!--sleek, dainty,
+luxurious minion!--out of my path! You have my fortune, my station, my
+rights; I have but poverty, and hate, and disdain. I swear, again and
+again, that you shall not purchase these from me.”
+
+“But, Philip--Philip,” cried Beaufort, catching his arm; “hear one--hear
+one who stood by your--”
+
+The sentence that would have saved the outcast from the demons that were
+darkening and swooping round his soul, died upon the young Protector’s
+lips. Blinded, maddened, excited, and exasperated, almost out of
+humanity itself, Philip fiercely--brutally--swung aside the enfeebled
+form that sought to cling to him, and Beaufort fell at his feet. Morton
+stopped--glared at him with clenched hands and a smiling lip, sprung
+over his prostrate form, and bounded to his home.
+
+He slackened his pace as he neared the house, and looked behind; but
+Beaufort had not followed him. He entered the house, and found Sidney
+in the room, with a countenance so much more gay than that he had lately
+worn, that, absorbed as he was in thought and passion, it yet did not
+fail to strike him.
+
+“What has pleased you, Sidney?” The child smiled.
+
+“Ah! it is a secret--I was not to tell you. But I’m sure you are not the
+naughty boy he says you are.”
+
+“He!--who?”
+
+“Don’t look so angry, Philip: you frighten me!”
+
+“And you torture me. Who could malign one brother to the other?”
+
+“Oh! it was all meant very kindly--there’s been such a nice, dear,
+good gentleman here, and he cried when he saw me, and said he knew dear
+mamma. Well, and he has promised to take me home with him and give me a
+pretty pony--as pretty--as pretty--oh, as pretty as it can be got! And
+he is to call again and tell me more: I think he is a fairy, Philip.”
+
+“Did he say that he was to take me, too, Sidney?” said Morton, seating
+himself, and looking very pale. At that question Sidney hung his head.
+
+“No, brother--he says you won’t go, and that you are a bad boy--and that
+you associate with wicked people--and that you want to keep me shut up
+here and not let any one be good to me. But I told him I did not believe
+that--yes, indeed, I told him so.”
+
+And Sidney endeavoured caressingly to withdraw the hands that his
+brother placed before his face.
+
+Morton started up, and walked hastily to and fro the room. “This,”
+ thought he, “is another emissary of the Beauforts’--perhaps the lawyer:
+they will take him from me--the last thing left to love and hope for. I
+will foil them.”
+
+“Sidney,” he said aloud, “we must go hence today, this very hour--nay,
+instantly.”
+
+“What! away from this nice, good gentleman?”
+
+“Curse him! yes, away from him. Do not cry--it is of no use--you must
+go.”
+
+This was said more harshly than Philip had ever yet spoken to Sidney;
+and when he had said it, he left the room to settle with the landlady,
+and to pack up their scanty effects. In another hour, the brothers had
+turned their backs on the town.
+
+
+
+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 noice
+girl we saw in the coach; ‘gad, I served her spouse that is to be a
+praetty trick! Borrowed his money under pretence of investing it in the
+New Grand Anti-Dry-Rot Company; cool hundred--it’s only just gone, sir.”
+
+Here the chambermaid entered with the brandy and water, the newspaper,
+and cigar,--the captain lighted the last, took a deep sup from the
+beverage, and said, gaily:
+
+“Well, now, let us join fortunes; we are both, as you say, ‘adrift.’
+Best way to staund the breeze is to unite the caubles.”
+
+Philip shook his head, and, displeased with his companion, sought his
+pillow. He took care to put his money under his head, and to lock his
+door.
+
+The brothers started at daybreak; Sidney was even more discontented than
+on the previous day. The weather was hot and oppressive; they rested for
+some hours at noon, and in the cool of the evening renewed their way.
+Philip had made up his mind to steer for a town in the thick of a
+hunting district, where he hoped his equestrian capacities might again
+befriend him; and their path now lay through a chain of vast dreary
+commons, which gave them at least the advantage to skirt the road-side
+unobserved. But, somehow or other, either Philip had been misinformed as
+to an inn where he had proposed to pass the night, or he had missed it;
+for the clouds darkened, and the sun went down, and no vestige of human
+habitation was discernible.
+
+Sidney, footsore and querulous, began to weep, and declare that he could
+stir no further; and while Philip, whose iron frame defied fatigue,
+compassionately paused to rest his brother, a low roll of thunder broke
+upon the gloomy air. “There will be a storm,” said he, anxiously. “Come
+on--pray, Sidney, come on.”
+
+“It is so cruel in you, brother Philip,” replied Sidney, sobbing. “I
+wish I had never--never gone with you.”
+
+A flash of lightning, that illuminated the whole heavens, lingered round
+Sidney’s pale face as he spoke; and Philip threw himself instinctively
+on the child, as if to protect him even from the wrath of the
+unshelterable flame. Sidney, hushed and terrified, clung to his
+brother’s breast; after a pause, he silently consented to resume their
+journey. But now the storm came nearer and nearer to the wanderers.
+The darkness grew rapidly more intense, save when the lightning lit up
+heaven and earth alike with intolerable lustre. And when at length the
+rain began to fall in merciless and drenching torrents, even Philip’s
+brave heart failed him. How could he ask Sidney to proceed, when they
+could scarcely see an inch before them?--all that could now be done was
+to gain the high-road, and hope for some passing conveyance. With fits
+and starts, and by the glare of the lightning, they obtained their
+object; and stood at last on the great broad thoroughfare, along which,
+since the day when the Roman carved it from the waste, Misery hath
+plodded, and Luxury rolled, their common way.
+
+Philip had stripped handkerchief, coat, vest, all to shelter Sidney;
+and he felt a kind of strange pleasure through the dark, even to hear
+Sidney’s voice wail and moan. But that voice grew more languid and
+faint--it ceased--Sidney’s weight hung heavy--heavier on the fostering
+arm.
+
+“For Heaven’s sake, speak!--speak, Sidney!--only one word--I will carry
+you in my arms!”
+
+“I think I am dying,” replied Sidney, in a low murmur; “I am so tired
+and worn out I can go no further--I must lie here.” And he sank at once
+upon the reeking grass beside the road. At this time the rain
+gradually relaxed, the clouds broke away--a grey light succeeded to the
+darkness--the lightning was more distant; and the thunder rolled onward
+in its awful path. Kneeling on the ground, Philip supported his brother
+in his arms, and cast his pleading eyes upward to the softening terrors
+of the sky. A star, a solitary star--broke out for one moment, as if to
+smile comfort upon him, and then vanished. But lo! in the distance there
+suddenly gleamed a red, steady light, like that in some solitary window;
+it was no will-o’-the-wisp, it was too stationary--human shelter was
+then nearer than he had thought for. He pointed to the light, and
+whispered, “Rouse yourself, one struggle more--it cannot be far off.”
+
+“It is impossible--I cannot stir,” answered Sidney: and a sudden flash
+of lightning showed his countenance, ghastly, as if with the damps of
+Death. What could the brother do?--stay there, and see the boy perish
+before his eyes? leave him on the road and fly to the friendly light?
+The last plan was the sole one left, yet he shrank from it in greater
+terror than the first. Was that a step that he heard across the road? He
+held his breath to listen--a form became dimly visible--it approached.
+
+Philip shouted aloud.
+
+“What now?” answered the voice, and it seemed familiar to Morton’s ear.
+He sprang forward; and putting his face close to the wayfarer, thought
+to recognise the features of Captain de Burgh Smith. The Captain, whose
+eyes were yet more accustomed to the dark, made the first overture.
+
+“Why, my lad, is it you then? ‘Gad, you froightened me!”
+
+Odious as this man had hitherto been to Philip, he was as welcome to him
+as daylight now; he grasped his hand,--“My brother--a child--is here,
+dying, I fear, with cold and fatigue; he cannot stir. Will you stay with
+him--support him--but for a few moments, while I make to yon light? See,
+I have money--plenty of money!”
+
+“My good lad, it is very ugly work staying here at this hour:
+still--where’s the choild?”
+
+“Here, here! make haste, raise him! that’s right! God bless you! I shall
+be back ere you think me gone.”
+
+He sprang from the road, and plunged through the heath, the furze,
+the rank glistening pools, straight towards the light--as the swimmer
+towards the shore.
+
+The captain, though a rogue, was human; and when life--an innocent
+life--is at stake, even a rogue’s heart rises up from its weedy bed.
+He muttered a few oaths, it is true, but he held the child in his arms;
+and, taking out a little tin case, poured some brandy down Sidney’s
+throat and then, by way of company, down his own. The cordial revived
+the boy; he opened his eyes, and said, “I think I can go on now,
+Philip.”
+
+
+     ........
+
+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 frill 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, _mon 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 seems 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 contrast
+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 Groupille, 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 sou 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 earth--he looked above, and his eyes were suffused
+with pleasure, at the smile of the soft blue skies. The MORNING became,
+as it were, a part of his own being; and he felt that as the world in
+spite of the storms is fair, so in spite of evil God is good. He walked
+on--he passed the bridge, but his step was no more the same,--he forgot
+his rags. Why should he be ashamed? And thus, in the very flush of this
+new and strange elation and elasticity of spirit, he came unawares upon
+a group of young men, lounging before the porch of one of the chief
+hotels in that splendid Rue de Rivoli, wherein Wealth and the English
+have made their homes. A groom, mounted, was leading another horse
+up and down the road, and the young men were making their comments of
+approbation upon both the horses, especially the one led, which was,
+indeed, of uncommon beauty and great value. Even Morton, in whom the
+boyish passion of his earlier life yet existed, paused to turn his
+experienced and admiring eye upon the stately shape and pace of the
+noble animal, and as he did so, a name too well remembered came upon his
+ear.
+
+“Certainly, Arthur Beaufort is the most enviable fellow in Europe.”
+
+“Why, yes,” said another of the young men; “he has plenty of money--is
+good-looking, devilish good-natured, clever, and spends like a prince.”
+
+“Has the best horses!”
+
+“The best luck at roulette!”
+
+“The prettiest girls in love with him!”
+
+“And no one enjoys life more. Ah! here he is!”
+
+The group parted as a light, graceful figure came out of a jeweller’s
+shop that adjoined the hotel, and halted gaily amongst the loungers.
+Morton’s first impulse was to hurry from the spot; his second impulse
+arrested his step, and, a little apart, and half-hid beneath one of the
+arches of the colonnade which adorns the street, the Outcast gazed upon
+the Heir. There was no comparison in the natural personal advantages of
+the two young men; for Philip Morton, despite all the hardships of his
+rough career, had now grown up and ripened into a rare perfection
+of form and feature. His broad chest, his erect air, his lithe and
+symmetrical length of limb, united, happily, the attributes of activity
+and strength; and though there was no delicacy of youthful bloom upon
+his dark cheek, and though lines which should have come later marred
+its smoothness with the signs of care and thought, yet an expression of
+intelligence and daring, equally beyond his years, and the evidence of
+hardy, abstemious, vigorous health, served to show to the full advantage
+the outline of features which, noble and regular, though stern and
+masculine, the artist might have borrowed for his ideal of a young
+Spartan arming for his first battle. Arthur, slight to feebleness, and
+with the paleness, partly of constitution, partly of gay excess, on
+his fair and clear complexion, had features far less symmetrical and
+impressive than his cousin: but what then? All that are bestowed by
+elegance of dress, the refinements of luxurious habit, the nameless
+grace that comes from a mind and a manner polished, the one by literary
+culture, the other by social intercourse, invested the person of the
+heir with a fascination that rude Nature alone ever fails to give. And
+about him there was a gaiety, an airiness of spirit, an atmosphere of
+enjoyment which bespoke one who is in love with life.
+
+“Why, this is lucky! I’m so glad to see you all!” said Arthur Beaufort,
+with that silver-ringing tone and charming smile which are to the happy
+spring of man what its music and its sunshine are to the spring of
+earth. “You must dine with me at Verey’s. I want something to rouse me
+to-day; for I did not get home from the Salon* till four this morning.”
+
+
+   *[The most celebrated gaming-house in Paris in the day before
+   gaming-houses were suppressed by the well-directed energy of the
+   government.]
+
+“But you won?”
+
+“Yes, Marsden. Hang it! I always win: I who could so well afford to
+lose: I’m quite ashamed of my luck!”
+
+“It is easy to spend what one wins,” observed Mr. Marsden,
+sententiously; “and I see you have been at the jeweller’s! A present for
+Cecile? Well, don’t blush, my dear fellow. What is life without women?”
+
+“And wine?” said a second. “And play?” said a third. “And wealth?” said
+a fourth.
+
+“And you enjoy them all! Happy fellow!” said a fifth. The Outcast pulled
+his hat over his brows, and walked away.
+
+“This dear Paris,” said Beaufort, as his eye carelessly and
+unconsciously followed the dark form retreating through the
+arches;--“this dear Paris! I must make the most of it while I stay! I
+have only been here a few weeks, and next week I must go.”
+
+“Pooh--your health is better: you don’t look like the same man.”
+
+“You think so really? Still I don’t know: the doctors say that I must
+either go to the German waters--the season is begun--or--”
+
+“Or what?”
+
+“Live less with such pleasant companions, my dear fellow! But as you
+say, what is life without--”
+
+“Women!”
+
+“Wine!”
+
+“Play!”
+
+“Wealth!”
+
+“Ha! ha. ‘Throw physic to the dogs: I’ll none of it!’”
+
+And Arthur leaped lightly on his saddle, and as he rode gaily on,
+humming the favourite air of the last opera, the hoofs of his horse
+splashed the mud over a foot-passenger halting at the crossing. Morton
+checked the fiery exclamation rising to his lips; and gazing after
+the brilliant form that hurried on towards the Champs Elysees, his eye
+caught the statues on the bridge, and a voice, as of a cheering angel,
+whispered again to his heart, “TIME, FAITH, ENERGY!”
+
+The expression of his countenance grew calm at once, and as he continued
+his rambles it was with a mind that, casting off the burdens of the
+past, looked serenely and steadily on the obstacles and hardships of
+the future. We have seen that a scruple of conscience or of pride, not
+without its nobleness, had made him refuse the importunities of Gawtrey
+for less sordid raiment; the same feeling made it his custom to avoid
+sharing the luxurious and dainty food with which Gawtrey was wont
+to regale himself. For that strange man, whose wonderful felicity of
+temperament and constitution rendered him, in all circumstances, keenly
+alive to the hearty and animal enjoyments of life, would still emerge,
+as the day declined, from their wretched apartment, and, trusting to his
+disguises, in which indeed he possessed a masterly art, repair to one of
+the better description of restaurants, and feast away his cares for the
+moment. William Gawtrey would not have cared three straws for the
+curse of Damocles. The sword over his head would never have spoiled his
+appetite! He had lately, too, taken to drinking much more deeply than he
+had been used to do--the fine intellect of the man was growing thickened
+and dulled; and this was a spectacle that Morton could not bear to
+contemplate. Yet so great was Gawtrey’s vigour of health, that, after
+draining wine and spirits enough to have despatched a company of
+fox-hunters, and after betraying, sometimes in uproarious glee,
+sometimes in maudlin self-bewailings, that he himself was not quite
+invulnerable to the thyrsus of the god, he would--on any call on his
+energies, or especially before departing on those mysterious expeditions
+which kept him from home half, and sometimes all, the night--plunge his
+head into cold water--drink as much of the lymph as a groom would have
+shuddered to bestow on a horse--close his eyes in a doze for half an
+hour, and wake, cool, sober, and collected, as if he had lived according
+to the precepts of Socrates or Cornaro!
+
+But to return to Morton. It was his habit to avoid as much as possible
+sharing the good cheer of his companion; and now, as he entered the
+Champs Elysees, he saw a little family, consisting of a young mechanic,
+his wife, and two children, who, with that love of harmless recreation
+which yet characterises the French, had taken advantage of a holiday in
+the craft, and were enjoying their simple meal under the shadow of the
+trees. Whether in hunger or in envy, Morton paused and contemplated the
+happy group. Along the road rolled the equipages and trampled the steeds
+of those to whom all life is a holiday. There, was Pleasure--under those
+trees was Happiness. One of the children, a little boy of about six
+years old, observing the attitude and gaze of the pausing wayfarer, ran
+to him, and holding up a fragment of a coarse kind of cake, said to him,
+willingly, “Take it--I have had enough!” The child reminded Morton of
+his brother--his heart melted within him--he lifted the young Samaritan
+in his arms, and as he kissed him, wept.
+
+The mother observed and rose also. She laid her hand on his own: “Poor
+boy! why do you weep?--can we relieve you?”
+
+Now that bright gleam of human nature, suddenly darting across the
+sombre recollections and associations of his past life, seemed to Morton
+as if it came from Heaven, in approval and in blessing of this attempt
+at reconciliation to his fate.
+
+“I thank you,” said he, placing the child on the ground, and passing his
+hand over his eyes,--“I thank you--yes! Let me sit down amongst you.”
+ And he sat down, the child by his side, and partook of their fare, and
+was merry with them,--the proud Philip!--had he not begun to discover
+the “precious jewel” in the “ugly and venomous” Adversity?
+
+The mechanic, though a gay fellow on the whole, was not without some of
+that discontent of his station which is common with his class; he vented
+it, however, not in murmurs, but in jests. He was satirical on the
+carriages and the horsemen that passed; and, lolling on the grass,
+ridiculed his betters at his ease.
+
+“Hush!” said his wife, suddenly; “here comes Madame de Merville;” and
+rising as she spoke, she made a respectful inclination of her head
+towards an open carriage that was passing very slowly towards the town.
+
+“Madame de Merville!” repeated the husband, rising also, and lifting his
+cap from his head. “Ah! I have nothing to say against her!”
+
+Morton looked instinctively towards the carriage, and saw a fair
+countenance turned graciously to answer the silent salutations of the
+mechanic and his wife--a countenance that had long haunted his
+dreams, though of late it had faded away beneath harsher thoughts--the
+countenance of the stranger whom he had seen at the bureau of Gawtrey,
+when that worthy personage had borne a more mellifluous name. He started
+and changed colour: the lady herself now seemed suddenly to recognise
+him; for their eyes met, and she bent forward eagerly. She pulled the
+check-string--the carriage halted--she beckoned to the mechanic’s wife,
+who went up to the roadside.
+
+“I worked once for that lady,” said the man with a tone of feeling; “and
+when my wife fell ill last winter she paid the doctors. Ah, she is an
+angel of charity and kindness!”
+
+Morton scarcely heard this eulogium, for he observed, by something eager
+and inquisitive in the face of Madame de Merville, and by the sudden
+manner in which the mechanic’s helpmate turned her head to the spot in
+which he stood, that he was the object of their conversation. Once
+more he became suddenly aware of his ragged dress, and with a natural
+shame--a fear that charity might be extended to him from her--he
+muttered an abrupt farewell to the operative, and without another glance
+at the carriage, walked away.
+
+Before he had got many paces, the wife however came up to him,
+breathless. “Madame de Merville would speak to you, sir!” she said, with
+more respect than she had hitherto thrown into her manner. Philip paused
+an instant, and again strode on--
+
+“It must be some mistake,” he said, hurriedly: “I have no right to
+expect such an honour.”
+
+He struck across the road, gained the opposite side, and had vanished
+from Madame de Merville’s eyes, before the woman regained the carriage.
+But still that calm, pale, and somewhat melancholy face, presented
+itself before him; and as he walked again through the town, sweet and
+gentle fancies crowded confusedly on his heart. On that soft summer day,
+memorable for so many silent but mighty events in that inner life which
+prepares the catastrophes of the outer one; as in the region, of which
+Virgil has sung, the images of men to be born hereafter repose or
+glide--on that soft summer day, he felt he had reached the age when
+Youth begins to clothe in some human shape its first vague ideal of
+desire and love.
+
+In such thoughts, and still wandering, the day wore away, till he found
+himself in one of the lanes that surround that glittering Microcosm of
+the vices, the frivolities, the hollow show, and the real beggary of the
+gay City--the gardens and the galleries of the Palais Royal. Surprised
+at the lateness of the hour, it was then on the stroke of seven, he
+was about to return homewards, when the loud voice of Gawtrey sounded
+behind, and that personage, tapping him on the back, said,--
+
+“Hollo, my young friend, well met! This will be a night of trial to you.
+Empty stomachs produce weak nerves. Come along! you must dine with me.
+A good dinner and a bottle of old wine--come! nonsense, I say you shall
+come! Vive la joie!”
+
+While speaking, he had linked his arm in Morton’s, and hurried him on
+several paces in spite of his struggles; but just as the words Vive la
+joie left his lips, he stood still and mute, as if a thunderbolt had
+fallen at his feet; and Morton felt that heavy arm shiver and tremble
+like a leaf. He looked up, and just at the entrance of that part of the
+Palais Royal in which are situated the restaurants of Verey and Vefour,
+he saw two men standing but a few paces before them, and gazing full on
+Gawtrey and himself.
+
+“It is my evil genius,” muttered Gawtrey, grinding his teeth.
+
+“And mine!” said Morton.
+
+The younger of the two men thus apostrophised made a step towards
+Philip, when his companion drew him back and whispered,--“What are you
+about--do you know that young man?”
+
+“He is my cousin; Philip Beaufort’s natural son!”
+
+“Is he? then discard him for ever. He is with the most dangerous knave
+in Europe!”
+
+As Lord Lilburne--for it was he--thus whispered his nephew, Gawtrey
+strode up to him; and, glaring full in his face, said in a deep and
+hollow tone,--“There is a hell, my lord,--I go to drink to our meeting!”
+ Thus saying, he took off his hat with a ceremonious mockery, and
+disappeared within the adjoining restaurant, kept by Vefour.
+
+“A hell!” said Lilburne, with his frigid smile; “the rogue’s head runs
+upon gambling-houses!”
+
+“And I have suffered Philip again to escape me,” said Arthur, in
+self-reproach: for while Gawtrey had addressed Lord Lilburne, Morton had
+plunged back amidst the labyrinth of alleys. “How have I kept my oath?”
+
+“Come! your guests must have arrived by this time. As for that wretched
+young man, depend upon it that he is corrupted body and soul.”
+
+“But he is my own cousin.”
+
+“Pooh! there is no relationship in natural children: besides, he will
+find you out fast enough. Ragged claimants are not long too proud to
+beg.”
+
+“You speak in earnest?” said Arthur, irresolutely. “Ay! trust my
+experience of the world--Allons!”
+
+And in a cabinet of the very restaurant, adjoining that in which the
+solitary Gawtrey gorged his conscience, Lilburne, Arthur, and their gay
+friends, soon forgetful of all but the roses of the moment, bathed their
+airy spirits in the dews of the mirthful wine. Oh, extremes of life! Oh,
+Night! Oh, Morning!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+“Meantime a moving scene was open laid, That lazar house.”--THOMSON’S
+Castle of Indolence.
+
+It was near midnight. At the mouth of the lane in which Gawtrey resided
+there stood four men. Not far distant, in the broad street at angles
+with the lane, were heard the wheels of carriages and the sound of
+music. A lady, fair in form, tender of heart, stainless in repute, was
+receiving her friends!
+
+“Monsieur Favart,” said one of the men to the smallest of the four; “you
+understand the conditions--20,000 francs and a free pardon?”
+
+“Nothing more reasonable--it is understood. Still I confess that I
+should like to have my men close at hand. I am not given to fear; but
+this is a dangerous experiment.”
+
+“You knew the danger beforehand and subscribed to it: you must enter
+alone with me, or not at all. Mark you, the men are sworn to murder him
+who betrays them. Not for twenty times 20,000 francs would I have them
+know me as the informer. My life were not worth a day’s purchase. Now,
+if you feel secure in your disguise, all is safe. You will have seen
+them at their work--you will recognise their persons--you can depose
+against them at the trial--I shall have time to quit France.”
+
+“Well, well! as you please.”
+
+“Mind, you must wait in the vault with them till they separate. We have
+so planted your men that whatever street each of the gang takes in going
+home, he can be seized quietly and at once. The bravest and craftiest of
+all, who, though he has but just joined, is already their captain;--him,
+the man I told you of, who lives in the house, you must take after his
+return, in his bed. It is the sixth story to the right, remember: here
+is the key to his door. He is a giant in strength; and will never be
+taken alive if up and armed.”
+
+“Ah, I comprehend!--Gilbert” (and Favart turned to one of his companions
+who had not yet spoken) “take three men besides yourself, according to
+the directions I gave you,--the porter will admit you, that’s arranged.
+Make no noise. If I don’t return by four o’clock, don’t wait for me,
+but proceed at once. Look well to your primings. Take him alive, if
+possible--at the worst, dead. And now--mon ami--lead on!”
+
+The traitor nodded, and walked slowly down the street. Favart, pausing,
+whispered hastily to the man whom he had called Gilbert,--
+
+“Follow me close--get to the door of the cellar-place eight men within
+hearing of my whistle--recollect the picklocks, the axes. If you hear
+the whistle, break in; if not, I’m safe, and the first orders to seize
+the captain in his room stand good.”
+
+So saying, Favart strode after his guide. The door of a large, but
+ill-favoured-looking house stood ajar--they entered-passed unmolested
+through a court-yard--descended some stairs; the guide unlocked the door
+of a cellar, and took a dark lantern from under his cloak. As he drew
+up the slide, the dim light gleamed on barrels and wine-casks, which
+appeared to fill up the space. Rolling aside one of these, the guide
+lifted a trap-door, and lowered his lantern. “Enter,” said he; and the
+two men disappeared.
+
+
+      ........
+
+The coiners were at their work. A man, seated on a stool before a desk,
+was entering accounts in a large book. That man was William Gawtrey.
+While, with the rapid precision of honest mechanics, the machinery of
+the Dark Trade went on in its several departments. Apart--alone--at
+the foot of a long table, sat Philip Morton. The truth had exceeded his
+darkest suspicions. He had consented to take the oath not to divulge
+what was to be given to his survey; and when, led into that vault, the
+bandage was taken from his eyes, it was some minutes before he could
+fully comprehend the desperate and criminal occupations of the wild
+forms amidst which towered the burly stature of his benefactor. As the
+truth slowly grew upon him, he shrank from the side of Gawtrey; but,
+deep compassion for his friend’s degradation swallowing up the horror of
+the trade, he flung himself on one of the rude seats, and felt that the
+bond between them was indeed broken, and that the next morning he should
+be again alone in the world. Still, as the obscene jests, the fearful
+oaths, that from time to time rang through the vault, came on his ear,
+he cast his haughty eye in such disdain over the groups, that Gawtrey,
+observing him, trembled for his safety; and nothing but Philip’s sense
+of his own impotence, and the brave, not timorous, desire not to perish
+by such hands, kept silent the fiery denunciations of a nature still
+proud and honest, that quivered on his lips. All present were armed with
+pistols and cutlasses except Morton, who suffered the weapons presented
+to him to lie unheeded on the table.
+
+“Courage, mes amis!” said Gawtrey, closing his book,--“Courage!--a few
+months more, and we shall have made enough to retire upon, and enjoy
+ourselves for the rest of the days. Where is Birnie?”
+
+“Did he not tell you?” said one of the artisans, looking up. “He has
+found out the cleverest hand in France, the very fellow who helped
+Bouchard in all his five-franc pieces. He has promised to bring him
+to-night.”
+
+“Ay, I remember,” returned Gawtrey, “he told me this morning,--he is a
+famous decoy!”
+
+“I think so, indeed!” quoth a coiner; “for he caught you, the best
+head to our hands that ever les industriels were blessed with--sacre
+fichtre!”
+
+“Flatterer!” said Gawtrey, coming from the desk to the table, and
+pouring out wine from one of the bottles into a huge flagon--“To your
+healths!”
+
+Here the door slided back, and Birnie glided in.
+
+“Where is your booty, mon brave?” said Gawtrey. “We only coin money; you
+coin men, stamp with your own seal, and send them current to the devil!”
+
+The coiners, who liked Birnie’s ability (for the ci-devant engraver was
+of admirable skill in their craft), but who hated his joyless manners,
+laughed at this taunt, which Birnie did not seem to heed, except by a
+malignant gleam of his dead eye.
+
+“If you mean the celebrated coiner, Jacques Giraumont, he waits without.
+You know our rules. I cannot admit him without leave.”
+
+“Bon! we give it,--eh, messieurs?” said Gawtrey. “Ay-ay,” cried several
+voices. “He knows the oath, and will hear the penalty.”
+
+“Yes, he knows the oath,” replied Birnie, and glided back.
+
+In a moment more he returned with a small man in a mechanic’s blouse.
+The new comer wore the republican beard and moustache--of a sandy
+grey--his hair was the same colour; and a black patch over one eye
+increased the ill-favoured appearance of his features.
+
+“Diable! Monsieur Giraumont! but you are more like Vulcan than Adonis!”
+ said Gawtrey.
+
+“I don’t know anything about Vulcan, but I know how to make five-franc
+pieces,” said Monsieur Giraumont, doggedly.
+
+“Are you poor?”
+
+“As a church mouse! The only thing belonging to a church, since the
+Bourbons came back, that is poor!”
+
+At this sally, the coiners, who had gathered round the table, uttered
+the shout with which, in all circumstances, Frenchmen receive a bon mot.
+
+“Humph!” said Gawtrey. “Who responds with his own life for your
+fidelity?”
+
+“I,” said Birnie.
+
+“Administer the oath to him.”
+
+Suddenly four men advanced, seized the visitor, and bore him from the
+vault into another one within. After a few moments they returned.
+
+“He has taken the oath and heard the penalty.”
+
+“Death to yourself, your wife, your son, and your grandson, if you
+betray us!”
+
+“I have neither son nor grandson; as for my wife, Monsieur le Capitaine,
+you offer a bribe instead of a threat when you talk of her death.”
+
+“Sacre! but you will be an addition to our circle, mon brave!” said
+Gawtrey, laughing; while again the grim circle shouted applause.
+
+“But I suppose you care for your own life.”
+
+“Otherwise I should have preferred starving to coming here,” answered
+the laconic neophyte.
+
+“I have done with you. Your health!”
+
+On this the coiners gathered round Monsieur Giraumont, shook him by the
+hand, and commenced many questions with a view to ascertain his skill.
+
+“Show me your coinage first; I see you use both the die and the
+furnace. Hem! this piece is not bad--you have struck it from an iron
+die?--right--it makes the impression sharper than plaster of Paris. But
+you take the poorest and the most dangerous part of the trade in taking
+the home market. I can put you in a way to make ten times as much--and
+with safety. Look at this!”--and Monsieur Giraumont took a forged
+Spanish dollar from his pocket, so skilfully manufactured that the
+connoisseurs were lost in admiration--“you may pass thousands of these
+all over Europe, except France, and who is ever to detect you? But it
+will require better machinery than you have here.”
+
+Thus conversing, Monsieur Giraumont did not perceive that Mr. Gawtrey
+had been examining him very curiously and minutely. But Birnie had noted
+their chief’s attention, and once attempted to join his new ally, when
+Gawtrey laid his hand on his shoulder, and stopped him.
+
+“Do not speak to your friend till I bid you, or--” he stopped short, and
+touched his pistols.
+
+Birnie grew a shade more pale, but replied with his usual sneer:
+
+“Suspicious!--well, so much the better!” and seating himself carelessly
+at the table, lighted his pipe.
+
+“And now, Monsieur Giraumont,” said Gawtrey, as he took the head of
+the table, “come to my right hand. A half-holiday in your honour. Clear
+these infernal instruments; and more wine, mes amis!”
+
+The party arranged themselves at the table. Among the desperate there
+is almost invariably a tendency to mirth. A solitary ruffian, indeed, is
+moody, but a gang of ruffians are jovial. The coiners talked and laughed
+loud. Mr. Birnie, from his dogged silence, seemed apart from the rest,
+though in the centre. For in a noisy circle a silent tongue builds a
+wall round its owner. But that respectable personage kept his furtive
+watch upon Giraumont and Gawtrey, who appeared talking together, very
+amicably. The younger novice of that night, equally silent, seated
+towards the bottom of the table, was not less watchful than Birnie. An
+uneasy, undefinable foreboding had come over him since the entrance
+of Monsieur Giraumont; this had been increased by the manner of Mr.
+Gawtrey. His faculty of observation, which was very acute, had detected
+something false in the chief’s blandness to their guest--something
+dangerous in the glittering eye that Gawtrey ever, as he spoke to
+Giraumont, bent on that person’s lips as he listened to his reply. For,
+whenever William Gawtrey suspected a man, he watched not his eyes, but
+his lips.
+
+Waked from his scornful reverie, a strange spell chained Morton’s
+attention to the chief and the guest, and he bent forward, with parted
+mouth and straining ear, to catch their conversation.
+
+“It seems to me a little strange,” said Mr. Gawtrey, raising his voice
+so as to be heard by the party, “that a coiner so dexterous as Monsieur
+Giraumont should not be known to any of us except our friend Birnie.”
+
+“Not at all,” replied Giraumont; “I worked only with Bouchard and
+two others since sent to the galleys. We were but a small
+fraternity--everything has its commencement.”
+
+“C’est juste: buvez, donc, cher ami!”
+
+The wine circulated. Gawtrey began again:
+
+“You have had a bad accident, seemingly, Monsieur Giraumont. How did you
+lose your eye?”
+
+“In a scuffle with the gens d’ armes the night Bouchard was taken and I
+escaped. Such misfortunes are on the cards.”
+
+“C’est juste: buvez, donc, Monsieur Giraumont!”
+
+Again there was a pause, and again Gawtrey’s deep voice was heard.
+
+“You wear a wig, I think, Monsieur Giraumont? To judge by your eyelashes
+your own hair has been a handsomer colour.”
+
+“We seek disguise, not beauty, my host; and the police have sharp eyes.”
+
+“C’est juste: buvez, donc-vieux Renard! When did we two meet last?”
+
+“Never, that I know of.”
+
+“Ce n’est pas vrai! buvez, donc, MONSIEUR FAVART!”
+
+At the sound of that name the company started in dismay and confusion,
+and the police officer, forgetting himself for the moment, sprang from
+his seat, and put his right hand into his blouse.
+
+“Ho, there!--treason!” cried Gawtrey, in a voice of thunder; and he
+caught the unhappy man by the throat. It was the work of a moment.
+Morton, where he sat, beheld a struggle--he heard a death-cry. He
+saw the huge form of the master-coiner rising above all the rest, as
+cutlasses gleamed and eyes sparkled round. He saw the quivering and
+powerless frame of the unhappy guest raised aloft in those mighty arms,
+and presently it was hurled along the table-bottles crashing--the board
+shaking beneath its weight--and lay before the very eyes of Morton, a
+distorted and lifeless mass. At the same instant Gawtrey sprang upon the
+table, his black frown singling out from the group the ashen, cadaverous
+face of the shrinking traitor. Birnie had darted from the table--he was
+half-way towards the sliding door--his face, turned over his shoulder,
+met the eyes of the chief.
+
+“Devil!” shouted Gawtrey, in his terrible voice, which the echoes of the
+vault gave back from side to side. “Did I not give thee up my soul that
+thou mightest not compass my death? Hark ye! thus die my slavery and
+all our secrets!” The explosion of his pistol half swallowed up the last
+word, and with a single groan the traitor fell on the floor, pierced
+through the brain--then there was a dead and grim hush as the smoke
+rolled slowly along the roof of the dreary vault.
+
+Morton sank back on his seat, and covered his face with his hands. The
+last seal on the fate of THE MAN OF CRIME was set; the last wave in the
+terrible and mysterious tide of his destiny had dashed on his soul
+to the shore whence there is no return. Vain, now and henceforth, the
+humour, the sentiment, the kindly impulse, the social instincts which
+had invested that stalwart shape with dangerous fascination, which had
+implied the hope of ultimate repentance, of redemption even in this
+world. The HOUR and the CIRCUMSTANCE had seized their prey; and the
+self-defence, which a lawless career rendered a necessity, left the
+eternal die of blood upon his doom!
+
+“Friends, I have saved you,” said Gawtrey, slowly gazing on the corpse
+of his second victim, while he turned the pistol to his belt. “I have
+not quailed before this man’s eye” (and he spurned the clay of the
+officer as he spoke with a revengeful scorn) “without treasuring up
+its aspect in my heart of hearts. I knew him when he entered--knew him
+through his disguise--yet, faith, it was a clever one! Turn up his face
+and gaze on him now; he will never terrify us again, unless there be
+truth in ghosts!”
+
+Murmuring and tremulous the coiners scrambled on the table and examined
+the dead man. From this task Gawtrey interrupted them, for his quick eye
+detected, with the pistols under the policeman’s blouse, a whistle of
+metal of curious construction, and he conjectured at once that danger
+was at hand.
+
+“I have saved you, I say, but only for the hour. This deed cannot sleep.
+See, he had help within call! The police knew where to look for their
+comrade--we are dispersed. Each for himself. Quick, divide the spoils!
+Sauve qui peat!”
+
+Then Morton heard where he sat, his hands still clasped before his face,
+a confused hubbub of voices, the jingle of money, the scrambling of
+feet, the creaking of doors. All was silent!
+
+A strong grasp drew his hands from his eyes.
+
+“Your first scene of life against life,” said Gawtrey’s voice, which
+seemed fearfully changed to the ear that heard it. “Bah! what would you
+think of a battle? Come to our eyrie: the carcasses are gone.”
+
+Morton looked fearfully round the vault. He and Gawtrey were alone. His
+eyes sought the places where the dead had lain--they were removed--no
+vestige of the deeds, not even a drop of blood.
+
+“Come, take up your cutlass, come!” repeated the voice of the chief, as
+with his dim lantern--now the sole light of the vault--he stood in the
+shadow of the doorway.
+
+Morton rose, took up the weapon mechanically, and followed that terrible
+guide, mute and unconscious, as a Soul follows a Dream through the House
+of Sleep!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+        “Sleep no more!”--Macbeth
+
+After winding through gloomy and labyrinthine passages, which conducted
+to a different range of cellars from those entered by the unfortunate
+Favart, Gawtrey emerged at the foot of a flight of stairs, which, dark,
+narrow, and in many places broken, had been probably appropriated to
+servants of the house in its days of palmier glory. By these steps the
+pair regained their attic. Gawtrey placed the lantern on the table and
+seated himself in silence. Morton, who had recovered his self-possession
+and formed his resolution, gazed on him for some moments, equally
+taciturn. At length he spoke:
+
+“Gawtrey!”
+
+“I bade you not call me by that name,” said the coiner; for we need
+scarcely say that in his new trade he had assumed a new appellation.
+
+“It is the least guilty one by which I have known you,” returned Morton,
+firmly. “It is for the last time I call you by it! I demanded to see by
+what means one to whom I had entrusted my fate supported himself. I have
+seen,” continued the young man, still firmly, but with a livid cheek and
+lip, “and the tie between us is rent for ever. Interrupt me not! it is
+not for me to blame you. I have eaten of your bread and drunk of your
+cup. Confiding in you too blindly, and believing that you were at
+least free from those dark and terrible crimes for which there is no
+expiation--at least in this life--my conscience seared by distress, my
+very soul made dormant by despair, I surrendered myself to one leading a
+career equivocal, suspicious, dishonourable perhaps, but still not, as
+I believed, of atrocity and bloodshed. I wake at the brink of the
+abyss--my mother’s hand beckons to me from the grave; I think I hear her
+voice while I address you--I recede while it is yet time--we part, and
+for ever!”
+
+Gawtrey, whose stormy passion was still deep upon his soul, had listened
+hitherto in sullen and dogged silence, with a gloomy frown on his
+knitted brow; he now rose with an oath--
+
+“Part! that I may let loose on the world a new traitor! Part! when you
+have seen me fresh from an act that, once whispered, gives me to the
+guillotine! Part--never! at least alive!”
+
+“I have said it,” said Morton, folding his arms calmly; “I say it to
+your face, though I might part from you in secret. Frown not on me, man
+of blood! I am fearless as yourself! In another minute I am gone.”
+
+“Ah! is it so?” said Gawtrey; and glancing round the room, which
+contained two doors, the one concealed by the draperies of a bed,
+communicating with the stairs by which they had entered, the other with
+the landing of the principal and common flight: he turned to the former,
+within his reach, which he locked, and put the key into his pocket, and
+then, throwing across the latter a heavy swing bar, which fell into
+its socket with a harsh noise,--before the threshold he placed his vast
+bulk, and burst into his loud, fierce laugh: “Ho! ho! Slave and fool,
+once mine, you were mine body and soul for ever!”
+
+“Tempter, I defy you! stand back!” And, firm and dauntless, Morton laid
+his hand on the giant’s vest.
+
+Gawtrey seemed more astonished than enraged. He looked hard at his
+daring associate, on whose lip the down was yet scarcely dark.
+
+“Boy,” said he, “off! do not rouse the devil in me again! I could crush
+you with a hug.”
+
+“My soul supports my body, and I am armed,” said Morton, laying hand on
+his cutlass. “But you dare not harm me, nor I you; bloodstained as you
+are, you gave me shelter and bread; but accuse me not that I will save
+my soul while it is yet time!--Shall my mother have blessed me in vain
+upon her death-bed?”
+
+Gawtrey drew back, and Morton, by a sudden impulse, grasped his hand.
+
+“Oh! hear me--hear me!” he cried, with great emotion. “Abandon this
+horrible career; you have been decoyed and betrayed to it by one who can
+deceive or terrify you no more! Abandon it, and I will never desert you.
+For her sake--for your Fanny’s sake--pause, like me, before the gulf
+swallow us. Let us fly!--far to the New World--to any land where our
+thews and sinews, our stout hands and hearts, can find an honest mart.
+Men, desperate as we are, have yet risen by honest means. Take her, your
+orphan, with us. We will work for her, both of us. Gawtrey! hear me. It
+is not my voice that speaks to you--it is your good angel’s!”
+
+Gawtrey fell back against the wall, and his chest heaved.
+
+“Morton,” he said, with choked and tremulous accent, “go now; leave me
+to my fate! I have sinned against you--shamefully sinned. It seemed to
+me so sweet to have a friend; in your youth and character of mind there
+was so much about which the tough strings of my heart wound themselves,
+that I could not bear to lose you--to suffer you to know me for what I
+was. I blinded--I deceived you as to my past deeds; that was base in me:
+but I swore to my own heart to keep you unexposed to every danger, and
+free from every vice that darkened my own path. I kept that oath till
+this night, when, seeing that you began to recoil from me, and dreading
+that you should desert me, I thought to bind you to me for ever by
+implicating you in this fellowship of crime. I am punished, and justly.
+Go, I repeat--leave me to the fate that strides nearer and nearer to me
+day by day. You are a boy still--I am no longer young. Habit is a second
+nature. Still--still I could repent--I could begin life again. But
+repose!--to look back--to remember--to be haunted night and day with
+deeds that shall meet me bodily and face to face on the last day--”
+
+“Add not to the spectres! Come--fly this night--this hour!”
+
+Gawtrey paused, irresolute and wavering, when at that moment he heard
+steps on the stairs below. He started--as starts the boar caught in his
+lair--and listened, pale and breathless.
+
+“Hush!--they are on us!--they come!” as he whispered, the key from
+without turned in the wards--the door shook. “Soft! the bar preserves us
+both--this way.” And the coiner crept to the door of the private stairs.
+He unlocked and opened it cautiously. A man sprang through the aperture:
+
+“Yield!--you are my prisoner!”
+
+“Never!” cried Gawtrey, hurling back the intruder, and clapping to the
+door, though other and stout men were pressing against it with all their
+power.
+
+“Ho! ho! Who shall open the tiger’s cage?”
+
+At both doors now were heard the sound of voices. “Open in the king’s
+name, or expect no mercy!”
+
+“Hist!” said Gawtrey. “One way yet--the window--the rope.”
+
+Morton opened the casement--Gawtrey uncoiled the rope. The dawn was
+breaking; it was light in the streets, but all seemed quiet without.
+The doors reeled and shook beneath the pressure of the pursuers. Gawtrey
+flung the rope across the street to the opposite parapet; after two or
+three efforts, the grappling-hook caught firm hold--the perilous path
+was made.
+
+“On!--quick!--loiter not!” whispered Gawtrey; “you are active--it seems
+more dangerous than it is--cling with both hands--shut your eyes.
+When on the other side--you see the window of Birnie’s room,--enter
+it--descend the stairs--let yourself out, and you are safe.”
+
+“Go first,” said Morton, in the same tone: “I will not leave you now:
+you will be longer getting across than I shall. I will keep guard till
+you are over.”
+
+“Hark! hark!--are you mad? You keep guard! what is your strength to
+mine? Twenty men shall not move that door, while my weight is against
+it. Quick, or you destroy us both! Besides, you will hold the rope for
+me, it may not be strong enough for my bulk in itself. Stay!--stay one
+moment. If you escape, and I fall--Fanny--my father, he will take care
+of her,--you remember--thanks! Forgive me all! Go; that’s right!”
+
+With a firm impulse, Morton threw himself on the dreadful bridge; it
+swung and crackled at his weight. Shifting his grasp rapidly--holding
+his breath--with set teeth-with closed eyes--he moved on--he gained the
+parapet--he stood safe on the opposite side. And now, straining his eyes
+across, he saw through the open casement into the chamber he had just
+quitted. Gawtrey was still standing against the door to the principal
+staircase, for that of the two was the weaker and the more assailed.
+Presently the explosion of a fire-arm was heard; they had shot through
+the panel. Gawtrey seemed wounded, for he staggered forward, and uttered
+a fierce cry; a moment more, and he gained the window--he seized the
+rope--he hung over the tremendous depth! Morton knelt by the parapet,
+holding the grappling-hook in its place, with convulsive grasp, and
+fixing his eyes, bloodshot with fear and suspense, on the huge bulk that
+clung for life to that slender cord!
+
+“Le voiles! Le voiles!” cried a voice from the opposite side. Morton
+raised his gaze from Gawtrey; the casement was darkened by the forms of
+his pursuers--they had burst into the room--an officer sprang upon the
+parapet, and Gawtrey, now aware of his danger, opened his eyes, and as
+he moved on, glared upon the foe. The policeman deliberately raised his
+pistol--Gawtrey arrested himself--from a wound in his side the blood
+trickled slowly and darkly down, drop by drop, upon the stones
+below; even the officers of law shuddered as they eyed him--his hair
+bristling--his cheek white--his lips drawn convulsively from his teeth,
+and his eyes glaring from beneath the frown of agony and menace in which
+yet spoke the indomitable power and fierceness of the man. His look, so
+fixed--so intense--so stern, awed the policeman; his hand trembled as
+he fired, and the ball struck the parapet an inch below the spot where
+Morton knelt. An indistinct, wild, gurgling sound-half-laugh, half-yell
+of scorn and glee, broke from Gawtrey’s lips. He swung himself
+on--near--near--nearer--a yard from the parapet.
+
+“You are saved!” cried Morton; when at the moment a volley burst from
+the fatal casement--the smoke rolled over both the fugitives--a groan,
+or rather howl, of rage, and despair, and agony, appalled even the
+hardest on whose ear it came. Morton sprang to his feet and looked
+below. He saw on the rugged stones far down, a dark, formless,
+motionless mass--the strong man of passion and levity--the giant who had
+played with life and soul, as an infant with the baubles that it prizes
+and breaks--was what the Caesar and the leper alike are, when the clay
+is without God’s breath--what glory, genius, power, and beauty, would be
+for ever and for ever, if there were no God!
+
+“There is another!” cried the voice of one of the pursuers. “Fire!”
+
+“Poor Gawtrey!” muttered Philip. “I will fulfil your last wish;” and
+scarcely conscious of the bullet that whistled by him, he disappeared
+behind the parapet.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+             “Gently moved
+     By the soft wind of whispering silks.”--DECKER.
+
+The reader may remember that while Monsieur Favart and Mr. Birnie were
+holding commune in the lane, the sounds of festivity were heard from a
+house in the adjoining street. To that house we are now summoned.
+
+At Paris, the gaieties of balls, or soirees, are, I believe, very rare
+in that period of the year in which they are most frequent in London.
+The entertainment now given was in honour of a christening; the lady who
+gave it, a relation of the new-born.
+
+Madame de Merville was a young widow; even before her marriage she had
+been distinguished in literature; she had written poems of more than
+common excellence; and being handsome, of good family, and large
+fortune, her talents made her an object of more interest than they might
+otherwise have done. Her poetry showed great sensibility and tenderness.
+If poetry be any index to the heart, you would have thought her one
+to love truly and deeply. Nevertheless, since she married--as girls in
+France do--not to please herself, but her parents, she made a mariage de
+convenance. Monsieur de Merville was a sober, sensible man, past middle
+age. Not being fond of poetry, and by no means coveting a professional
+author for his wife, he had during their union, which lasted four years,
+discouraged his wife’s liaison with Apollo. But her mind, active and
+ardent, did not the less prey upon itself. At the age of four-and-twenty
+she became a widow, with an income large even in England for a single
+woman, and at Paris constituting no ordinary fortune. Madame de
+Merville, however, though a person of elegant taste, was neither
+ostentatious nor selfish; she had no children, and she lived quietly in
+apartments, handsome, indeed, but not more than adequate to the small
+establishment which--where, as on the Continent, the costly convenience
+of an entire house is not usually incurred--sufficed for her retinue.
+She devoted at least half her income, which was entirely at her own
+disposal, partly to the aid of her own relations, who were not rich, and
+partly to the encouragement of the literature she cultivated. Although
+she shrank from the ordeal of publication, her poems and sketches of
+romance were read to her own friends, and possessed an eloquence seldom
+accompanied with so much modesty. Thus, her reputation, though not blown
+about the winds, was high in her own circle, and her position in fashion
+and in fortune made her looked up to by her relations as the head of her
+family; they regarded her as femme superieure, and her advice with them
+was equivalent to a command. Eugenie de Merville was a strange mixture
+of qualities at once feminine and masculine. On the one hand, she had
+a strong will, independent views, some contempt for the world, and
+followed her own inclinations without servility to the opinion of
+others; on the other hand, she was susceptible, romantic, of a
+sweet, affectionate, kind disposition. Her visit to M. Love, however
+indiscreet, was not less in accordance with her character than her
+charity to the mechanic’s wife; masculine and careless where an
+eccentric thing was to be done--curiosity satisfied, or some object in
+female diplomacy achieved--womanly, delicate, and gentle, the instant
+her benevolence was appealed to or her heart touched. She had now been
+three years a widow, and was consequently at the age of twenty-seven.
+Despite the tenderness of her poetry and her character, her reputation
+was unblemished. She had never been in love. People who are much
+occupied do not fall in love easily; besides, Madame de Merville
+was refining, exacting, and wished to find heroes where she only met
+handsome dandies or ugly authors. Moreover, Eugenie was both a vain and
+a proud person--vain of her celebrity and proud of her birth. She was
+one whose goodness of heart made her always active in promoting the
+happiness of others. She was not only generous and charitable, but
+willing to serve people by good offices as well as money. Everybody
+loved her. The new-born infant, to whose addition to the Christian
+community the fete of this night was dedicated, was the pledge of a
+union which Madame de Merville had managed to effect between two young
+persons, first cousins to each other, and related to herself. There had
+been scruples of parents to remove--money matters to adjust--Eugenie had
+smoothed all. The husband and wife, still lovers, looked up to her as
+the author, under Heaven, of their happiness.
+
+The gala of that night had been, therefore, of a nature more than
+usually pleasurable, and the mirth did not sound hollow, but wrung from
+the heart. Yet, as Eugenie from time to time contemplated the young
+people, whose eyes ever sought each other--so fair, so tender, and so
+joyous as they seemed--a melancholy shadow darkened her brow, and she
+sighed involuntarily. Once the young wife, Madame d’Anville, approaching
+her timidly, said:
+
+“Ah! my sweet cousin, when shall we see you as happy as ourselves? There
+is such happiness,” she added, innocently, and with a blush, “in being
+a mother!--that little life all one’s own--it is something to think of
+every hour!”
+
+“Perhaps,” said Eugenie, smiling, and seeking to turn the conversation
+from a subject that touched too nearly upon feelings and thoughts her
+pride did not wish to reveal--“perhaps it is you, then, who have made
+our cousin, poor Monsieur de Vaudemont, so determined to marry? Pray,
+be more cautious with him. How difficult I have found it to prevent his
+bringing into our family some one to make us all ridiculous!”
+
+“True,” said Madame d’Anville, laughing. “But then, the Vicomte is so
+poor, and in debt. He would fall in love, not with the demoiselle, but
+the dower. A propos of that, how cleverly you took advantage of his
+boastful confession to break off his liaisons with that bureau de
+mariage.”
+
+“Yes; I congratulate myself on that manoeuvre. Unpleasant as it was to
+go to such a place (for, of course, I could not send for Monsieur Love
+here), it would have been still more unpleasant to have received such
+a Madame de Vaudemont as our cousin would have presented to us. Only
+think--he was the rival of an epicier! I heard that there was some
+curious denouement to the farce of that establishment; but I could never
+get from Vaudemont the particulars. He was ashamed of them, I fancy.”
+
+“What droll professions there are in Paris!” said Madame d’Anville. “As
+if people could not marry without going to an office for a spouse as we
+go for a servant! And so the establishment is broken up? And you never
+again saw that dark, wild-looking boy who so struck your fancy that you
+have taken him as the original for the Murillo sketch of the youth in
+that charming tale you read to us the other evening? Ah! cousin, I
+think you were a little taken with him. The bureau de mariage had its
+allurements for you as well as for our poor cousin!” The young mother
+said this laughingly and carelessly.
+
+“Pooh!” returned Madame de Merville, laughing also; but a slight blush
+broke over her natural paleness. “But a propos of the Vicomte. You
+know how cruelly he has behaved to that poor boy of his by his English
+wife--never seen him since he was an infant--kept him at some school in
+England; and all because his vanity does not like the world to know that
+he has a son of nineteen! Well, I have induced him to recall this poor
+youth.”
+
+“Indeed! and how?”
+
+“Why,” said Eugenie, with a smile, “he wanted a loan, poor man, and I
+could therefore impose conditions by way of interest. But I also managed
+to conciliate him to the proposition, by representing that, if the young
+man were good-looking, he might, himself, with our connections, &c.,
+form an advantageous marriage; and that in such a case, if the father
+treated him now justly and kindly, he would naturally partake with the
+father whatever benefits the marriage might confer.”
+
+“Ah! you are an excellent diplomatist, Eugenie; and you turn people’s
+heads by always acting from your heart. Hush! here comes the Vicomte!”
+
+“A delightful ball,” said Monsieur de Vaudemont, approaching the
+hostess. “Pray, has that young lady yonder, in the pink dress, any
+fortune? She is pretty--eh? You observe she is looking at me--I mean at
+us!”
+
+“My dear cousin, what a compliment you pay to marriage! You have had two
+wives, and you are ever on the qui vive for a third!”
+
+“What would you have me do?--we cannot resist the overtures of your
+bewitching sex. Hum--what fortune has she?”
+
+“Not a sou; besides, she is engaged.”
+
+“Oh! now I look at her, she is not pretty--not at all. I made a mistake.
+I did not mean her; I meant the young lady in blue.”
+
+“Worse and worse--she is married already. Shall I present you?”
+
+“Ah, Monsieur de Vaudemont,” said Madame d’Anville; “have you found out
+a new bureau de mariage?”
+
+The Vicomte pretended not to hear that question. But, turning to
+Eugenie, took her aside, and said, with an air in which he endeavoured
+to throw a great deal of sorrow, “You know, my dear cousin, that, to
+oblige you, I consented to send for my son, though, as I always said,
+it is very unpleasant for a man like me, in the prime of life, to hawk
+about a great boy of nineteen or twenty. People soon say, ‘Old Vaudemont
+and younq Vaudemont.’ However, a father’s feelings are never appealed to
+in vain.” (Here the Vicomte put his handkerchief to his eyes, and after
+a pause, continued,)--“I sent for him--I even went to your old bonne,
+Madame Dufour, to make a bargain for her lodgings, and this day--guess
+my grief--I received a letter sealed with black. My son is dead!--a
+sudden fever--it is shocking!”
+
+“Horrible! dead!--your own son, whom you hardly ever saw--never since he
+was an Infant!”
+
+“Yes, that softens the blow very much. And now you see I must marry. If
+the boy had been good-looking, and like me, and so forth, why, as you
+observed, he might have made a good match, and allowed me a certain sum,
+or we could have all lived together.”
+
+“And your son is dead, and you come to a ball!”
+
+“Je suis philosophe,” said the Vicomte, shrugging his shoulders. “And,
+as you say, I never saw him. It saves me seven hundred francs a-year.
+Don’t say a word to any one--I sha’n’t give out that he is dead, poor
+fellow! Pray be discreet: you see there are some ill-natured people who
+might think it odd I do not shut myself up. I can wait till Paris is
+quite empty. It would be a pity to lose any opportunity at present, for
+now, you see, I must marry!” And the philosophe sauntered away.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+          GUIOMAR.
+     “Those devotions I am to pay
+     Are written in my heart, not in this book.”
+
+         Enter RUTILIO.
+     “I am pursued--all the ports are stopped too,
+     Not any hope to escape--behind, before me,
+     On either side, I am beset.”
+      BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, The Custom of the Country
+
+The party were just gone--it was already the peep of day--the wheels of
+the last carriage had died in the distance.
+
+Madame de Merville had dismissed her woman, and was seated in her own
+room, leaning her head musingly on her hand.
+
+Beside her was the table that held her MSS. and a few books, amidst
+which were scattered vases of flowers. On a pedestal beneath the window
+was placed a marble bust of Dante. Through the open door were seen in
+perspective two rooms just deserted by her guests; the lights still
+burned in the chandeliers and girandoles, contending with the daylight
+that came through the half-closed curtains. The person of the inmate was
+in harmony with the apartment. It was characterised by a certain grace
+which, for want of a better epithet, writers are prone to call classical
+or antique. Her complexion, seeming paler than usual by that light, was
+yet soft and delicate--the features well cut, but small and womanly.
+About the face there was that rarest of all charms, the combination of
+intellect with sweetness; the eyes, of a dark blue, were thoughtful,
+perhaps melancholy, in their expression; but the long dark lashes, and
+the shape of the eyes, themselves more long than full, gave to their
+intelligence a softness approaching to languor, increased, perhaps, by
+that slight shadow round and below the orbs which is common with those
+who have tasked too much either the mind or the heart. The contour of
+the face, without being sharp or angular, had yet lost a little of
+the roundness of earlier youth; and the hand on which she leaned was,
+perhaps, even too white, too delicate, for the beauty which belongs to
+health; but the throat and bust were of exquisite symmetry.
+
+“I am not happy,” murmured Eugenie to herself; “yet I scarce know why.
+Is it really, as we women of romance have said till the saying is worn
+threadbare, that the destiny of women is not fame but love. Strange,
+then, that while I have so often pictured what love should be, I have
+never felt it. And now,--and now,” she continued, half rising, and
+with a natural pang--“now I am no longer in my first youth. If I loved,
+should I be loved again? How happy the young pair seemed--they are never
+alone!”
+
+At this moment, at a distance, was heard the report of fire-arms--again!
+Eugenie started, and called to her servant, who, with one of the
+waiters hired for the night, was engaged in removing, and nibbling as
+he removed, the remains of the feast. “What is that, at this hour?--open
+the window and look out!”
+
+“I can see nothing, madame.”
+
+“Again--that is the third time. Go into the street and look--some one
+must be in danger.”
+
+The servant and the waiter, both curious, and not willing to part
+company, ran down the stairs, and thence into the street.
+
+Meanwhile, Morton, after vainly attempting Birnie’s window, which the
+traitor had previously locked and barred against the escape of his
+intended victim, crept rapidly along the roof, screened by the parapet
+not only from the shot but the sight of the foe. But just as he gained
+the point at which the lane made an angle with the broad street it
+adjoined, he cast his eyes over the parapet, and perceived that one
+of the officers had ventured himself to the fearful bridge; he was
+pursued--detection and capture seemed inevitable. He paused, and
+breathed hard. He, once the heir to such fortunes, the darling of such
+affections!--he, the hunted accomplice of a gang of miscreants! That was
+the thought that paralysed--the disgrace, not the danger. But he was in
+advance of the pursuer--he hastened on--he turned the angle--he heard a
+shout behind from the opposite side--the officer had passed the bridge:
+“it is but one man as yet,” thought he, and his nostrils dilated and his
+hands clenched as he glided on, glancing at each casement as he passed.
+
+Now as youth and vigour thus struggled against Law for life, near at
+hand Death was busy with toil and disease. In a miserable grabat,
+or garret, a mechanic, yet young, and stricken by a lingering malady
+contracted by the labour of his occupation, was slowly passing from that
+world which had frowned on his cradle, and relaxed not the gloom of its
+aspect to comfort his bed of Death. Now this man had married for love,
+and his wife had loved him; and it was the cares of that early marriage
+which had consumed him to the bone. But extreme want, if long continued,
+eats up love when it has nothing else to eat. And when people are very
+long dying, the people they fret and trouble begin to think of that too
+often hypocritical prettiness of phrase called “a happy release.” So the
+worn-out and half-famished wife did not care three straws for the dying
+husband, whom a year or two ago she had vowed to love and cherish in
+sickness and in health. But still she seemed to care, for she moaned,
+and pined, and wept, as the man’s breath grew fainter and fainter.
+
+“Ah, Jean!” said she, sobbing, “what will become of me, a poor lone
+widow, with nobody to work for my bread?” And with that thought she took
+on worse than before.
+
+“I am stifling,” said the dying man, rolling round his ghastly
+eyes. “How hot it is! Open the window; I should like to see the
+light--daylight once again.”
+
+“Mon Dieu! what whims he has, poor man!” muttered the woman, without
+stirring.
+
+The poor wretch put out his skeleton hand and clutched his wife’s arm.
+
+“I sha’n’t trouble you long, Marie! Air--air!”
+
+“Jean, you will make yourself worse--besides, I shall catch my death of
+cold. I have scarce a rag on, but I will just open the door.”
+
+“Pardon me,” groaned the sufferer; “leave me, then.” Poor fellow!
+perhaps at that moment the thought of unkindness was sharper than the
+sharp cough which brought blood at every paroxysm. He did not like her
+so near him, but he did not blame her. Again, I say,--poor fellow! The
+woman opened the door, went to the other side of the room, and sat down
+on an old box and began darning an old neck-handkerchief. The silence
+was soon broken by the moans of the fast-dying man, and again he
+muttered, as he tossed to and fro, with baked white lips:
+
+“Je m’etoufee!--Air!”
+
+There was no resisting that prayer, it seemed so like the last. The wife
+laid down the needle, put the handkerchief round her throat, and opened
+the window.
+
+“Do you feel easier now?”
+
+“Bless you, Marie--yes; that’s good--good. It puts me in mind of old
+days, that breath of air, before we came to Paris. I wish I could work
+for you now, Marie.”
+
+“Jean! my poor Jean!” said the woman, and the words and the voice took
+back her hardening heart to the fresh fields and tender thoughts of the
+past time. And she walked up to the bed, and he leaned his temples, damp
+with livid dews, upon her breast.
+
+“I have been a sad burden to you, Marie; we should not have married so
+soon; but I thought I was stronger. Don’t cry; we have no little ones,
+thank God. It will be much better for you when I am gone.”
+
+And so, word after word gasped out--he stopped suddenly, and seemed to
+fall asleep.
+
+The wife then attempted gently to lay him once more on his pillow--the
+head fell back heavily--the jaw had dropped--the teeth were set--the
+eyes were open and like the stone--the truth broke on her!
+
+“Jean--Jean! My God, he is dead! and I was unkind to him at the last!”
+ With these words she fell upon the corpse, happily herself insensible.
+
+Just at that moment a human face peered in at the window. Through that
+aperture, after a moment’s pause, a young man leaped lightly into the
+room. He looked round with a hurried glance, but scarcely noticed the
+forms stretched on the pallet. It was enough for him that they seemed
+to sleep, and saw him not. He stole across the room, the door of which
+Marie had left open, and descended the stairs. He had almost gained
+the courtyard into which the stairs had conducted, when he heard voices
+below by the porter’s lodge.
+
+“The police have discovered a gang of coiners!”
+
+“Coiners!”
+
+“Yes, one has been shot dead! I have seen his body in the kennel;
+another has fled along the roofs--a desperate fellow! We were to watch
+for him. Let us go up-stairs and get on the roof and look out.”
+
+By the hum of approval that followed this proposition, Morton judged
+rightly that it had been addressed to several persons whom curiosity
+and the explosion of the pistols had drawn from their beds, and who were
+grouped round the porter’s lodge. What was to be done?--to advance was
+impossible: and was there yet time to retreat?--it was at least the only
+course left him; he sprang back up the stairs; he had just gained the
+first flight when he heard steps descending; then, suddenly, it flashed
+across him that he had left open the window above--that, doubtless, by
+that imprudent oversight the officer in pursuit had detected a clue
+to the path he had taken. What was to be done?--die as Gawtrey had
+done!--death rather than the galleys. As he thus resolved, he saw to the
+right the open door of an apartment in which lights still glimmered
+in their sockets. It seemed deserted--he entered boldly and at once,
+closing the door after him. Wines and viands still left on the table;
+gilded mirrors, reflecting the stern face of the solitary intruder;
+here and there an artificial flower, a knot of riband on the floor, all
+betokening the gaieties and graces of luxurious life--the dance, the
+revel, the feast--all this in one apartment!--above, in the same house,
+the pallet--the corpse--the widow--famine and woe! Such is a great city!
+such, above all, is Paris! where, under the same roof, are gathered such
+antagonist varieties of the social state! Nothing strange in this; it
+is strange and sad that so little do people thus neighbours know of each
+other, that the owner of those rooms had a heart soft to every distress,
+but she did not know the distress so close at hand. The music that had
+charmed her guests had mounted gaily to the vexed ears of agony and
+hunger. Morton passed the first room--a second--he came to a third,
+and Eugenie de Merville, looking up at that instant, saw before her
+an apparition that might well have alarmed the boldest. His head was
+uncovered--his dark hair shadowed in wild and disorderly profusion the
+pale face and features, beautiful indeed, but at that moment of the
+beauty which an artist would impart to a young gladiator--stamped
+with defiance, menace, and despair. The disordered garb--the fierce
+aspect--the dark eyes, that literally shone through the shadows of the
+room--all conspired to increase the terror of so abrupt a presence.
+
+“What are you?--What do you seek here?” said she, falteringly, placing
+her hand on the bell as she spoke. Upon that soft hand Morton laid his
+own.
+
+“I seek my life! I am pursued! I am at your mercy! I am innocent! Can
+you save me?”
+
+As he spoke, the door of the outer room beyond was heard to open, and
+steps and voices were at hand.
+
+“Ah!” he exclaimed, recoiling as he recognised her face. “And is it to
+you that I have fled?”
+
+Eugenie also recognised the stranger; and there was something in their
+relative positions--the suppliant, the protectress--that excited both
+her imagination and her pity. A slight colour mantled to her cheeks--her
+look was gentle and compassionate.
+
+“Poor boy! so young!” she said. “Hush!”
+
+She withdrew her hand from his, retired a few steps, lifted a curtain
+drawn across a recess--and pointing to an alcove that contained one of
+those sofa-beds common in French houses, added in a whisper,--
+
+“Enter--you are saved.”
+
+Morton obeyed, and Eugenie replaced the curtain.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+             GUIOMAR.
+     “Speak! What are you?”
+
+            RUTILIO.
+     “Gracious woman, hear me. I am a stranger:
+     And in that I answer all your demands.”
+       Custom of the Country.
+
+Eugenie replaced the curtain. And scarcely had she done so ere the steps
+in the outer room entered the chamber where she stood. Her servant was
+accompanied by two officers of the police.
+
+“Pardon, madame,” said one of the latter; “but we are in pursuit of
+a criminal. We think he must have entered this house through a window
+above while your servant was in the street. Permit us to search?”
+
+“Without doubt,” answered Eugenie, seating herself. “If he has entered,
+look in the other apartments. I have not quitted this room.”
+
+“You are right. Accept our apologies.”
+
+And the officers turned back to examine every corner where the fugitive
+was not. For in that, the scouts of Justice resembled their mistress:
+when does man’s justice look to the right place?
+
+The servant lingered to repeat the tale he had heard--the sight he had
+seen. When, at that instant, he saw the curtain of the alcove slightly
+stirred. He uttered an exclamation--sprung to the bed--his hand touched
+the curtain--Eugenie seized his arm. She did not speak; but as he turned
+his eyes to her, astonished, he saw that she trembled, and that her
+cheek was as white as marble.
+
+“Madame,” he said, hesitating, “there is some one hid in the recess.”
+
+“There is! Be silent!”
+
+A suspicion flashed across the servant’s mind. The pure, the proud, the
+immaculate Eugenie!
+
+“There is!--and in madame’s chamber!” he faltered unconsciously.
+
+Eugenie’s quick apprehensions seized the foul thought. Her eyes
+flashed--her cheek crimsoned. But her lofty and generous nature
+conquered even the indignant and scornful burst that rushed to her lips.
+The truth!--could she trust the man? A doubt--and the charge of the
+human life rendered to her might be betrayed. Her colour fell--tears
+gushed to her eyes.
+
+“I have been kind to you, Francois. Not a word.”
+
+“Madame confides in me--it is enough,” said the Frenchman, bowing, with
+a slight smile on his lips; and he drew back respectfully.
+
+One of the police officers re-entered.
+
+“We have done, madame; he is not here. Aha! that curtain!”
+
+“It is madame’s bed,” said Francois. “But I have looked behind.”
+
+“I am most sorry to have disarranged you,” said the policeman, satisfied
+with the answer; “but we shall have him yet.” And he retired.
+
+The last footsteps died away, the last door of the apartments closed
+behind the officers, and Eugenie and her servant stood alone gazing on
+each other.
+
+“You may retire,” said she at last; and taking her purse from the table,
+she placed it in his hands.
+
+The man took it, with a significant look. “Madame may depend on my
+discretion.”
+
+Eugenie was alone again. Those words rang in her ear,--Eugenie de
+Merville dependent on the discretion of her lackey! She sunk into her
+chair, and, her excitement succeeded by exhaustion, leaned her face on
+her hands, and burst into tears. She was aroused by a low voice; she
+looked up, and the young man was kneeling at her feet.
+
+“Go--go!” she said: “I have done for you all I can.”
+
+“You heard--you heard--my own hireling, too! At the hazard of my own
+good name you are saved. Go!”
+
+“Of your good name!”--for Eugenie forgot that it was looks, not words,
+that had so wrung her pride--“Your good name,” he repeated: and
+glancing round the room--the toilette, the curtain, the recess he had
+quitted--all that bespoke that chastest sanctuary of a chaste woman,
+which for a stranger to enter is, as it were, to profane--her meaning
+broke on him. “Your good name--your hireling! No, madame,--no!” And
+as he spoke, he rose to his feet. “Not for me, that sacrifice! Your
+humanity shall not cost you so dear. Ho, there! I am the man you seek.”
+ And he strode to the door.
+
+Eugenie was penetrated with the answer. She sprung to him--she grasped
+his garments.
+
+“Hush! hush!--for mercy’s sake! What would you do? Think you I could
+ever be happy again, if the confidence you placed in me were betrayed?
+Be calm--be still. I knew not what I said. It will be easy to undeceive
+the man--later--when you are saved. And you are innocent,--are you not?”
+
+“Oh, madame,” said Morton, “from my soul I say it, I am innocent--not of
+poverty--wretchedness--error--shame; I am innocent of crime. May Heaven
+bless you!”
+
+And as he reverently kissed the hand laid on his arm, there was
+something in his voice so touching, in his manner something so above his
+fortunes, that Eugenie was lost in her feelings of compassion, surprise,
+and something, it might be, of admiration in her wonder.
+
+“And, oh!” he said, passionately, gazing on her with his dark, brilliant
+eyes, liquid with emotion, “you have made my life sweet in saving it.
+You--you--of whom, ever since the first time, almost the sole time,
+I beheld you--I have so often mused and dreamed. Henceforth, whatever
+befall me, there will be some recollections that will--that--”
+
+He stopped short, for his heart was too full for words; and the silence
+said more to Eugenie than if all the eloquence of Rousseau had glowed
+upon his tongue.
+
+“And who, and what are you?” she asked, after a pause.
+
+“An exile--an orphan--an outcast! I have no name! Farewell!”
+
+“No--stay yet--the danger is not past. Wait till my servant is gone to
+rest; I hear him yet. Sit down--sit down. And whither would you go?”
+
+“I know not.”
+
+“Have you no friends?”
+
+“Gone.”
+
+“No home?”
+
+“None.”
+
+“And the police of Paris so vigilant!” cried Eugenie, wringing her
+hands. “What is to be done? I shall have saved you in vain--you will be
+discovered! Of what do they charge you? Not robbery--not--”
+
+And she, too, stopped short, for she did not dare to breathe the black
+word, “Murder!”
+
+“I know not,” said Morton, putting his hand to his forehead, “except of
+being friends with the only man who befriended me--and they have killed
+him!”
+
+“Another time you shall tell me all.”
+
+“Another time!” he exclaimed, eagerly--“shall I see you again?”
+
+Eugenie blushed beneath the gaze and the voice of joy. “Yes,” she said;
+“yes. But I must reflect. Be calm be silent. Ah!--a happy thought!”
+
+She sat down, wrote a hasty line, sealed, and gave it to Morton.
+
+“Take this note, as addressed, to Madame Dufour; it will provide you
+with a safe lodging. She is a person I can depend on--an old servant who
+lived with my mother, and to whom I have given a small pension. She
+has a lodging--it is lately vacant--I promised to procure her a
+tenant--go--say nothing of what has passed. I will see her, and arrange
+all. Wait!--hark!--all is still. I will go first, and see that no one
+watches you. Stop,” (and she threw open the window, and looked into the
+court.) “The porter’s door is open--that is fortunate! Hurry on, and God
+be with you!”
+
+In a few minutes Morton was in the streets. It was still early--the
+thoroughfares deserted-none of the shops yet open. The address on the
+note was to a street at some distance, on the other side of the Seine.
+He passed along the same Quai which he had trodden but a few hours
+since--he passed the same splendid bridge on which he had stood
+despairing, to quit it revived--he gained the Rue Faubourg St. Honore. A
+young man in a cabriolet, on whose fair cheek burned the hectic of
+late vigils and lavish dissipation, was rolling leisurely home from
+the gaming-house, at which he had been more than usually fortunate--his
+pockets were laden with notes and gold. He bent forwards as Morton
+passed him. Philip, absorbed in his reverie, perceived him not, and
+continued his way. The gentleman turned down one of the streets to the
+left, stopped, and called to the servant dozing behind his cabriolet.
+
+“Follow that passenger! quietly--see where he lodges; be sure to find
+out and let me know. I shall go home without you.” With that he drove
+on.
+
+Philip, unconscious of the espionage, arrived at a small house in a
+quiet but respectable street, and rang the bell several times before at
+last he was admitted by Madame Dufour herself, in her nightcap. The old
+woman looked askant and alarmed at the unexpected apparition. But the
+note seemed at once to satisfy her. She conducted him to an apartment
+on the first floor, small, but neatly and even elegantly furnished,
+consisting of a sitting-room and a bedchamber, and said, quietly,--
+
+“Will they suit monsieur?”
+
+To monsieur they seemed a palace. Morton nodded assent.
+
+“And will monsieur sleep for a short time?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“The bed is well aired. The rooms have only been vacant three days
+since. Can I get you anything till your luggage arrives?”
+
+“No.”
+
+The woman left him. He threw off his clothes--flung himself on the
+bed--and did not wake till noon.
+
+When his eyes unclosed--when they rested on that calm chamber, with its
+air of health, and cleanliness, and comfort, it was long before he could
+convince himself that he was yet awake. He missed the loud, deep
+voice of Gawtrey--the smoke of the dead man’s meerschaum--the gloomy
+garret--the distained walls--the stealthy whisper of the loathed Birnie;
+slowly the life led and the life gone within the last twelve hours grew
+upon his struggling memory. He groaned, and turned uneasily round, when
+the door slightly opened, and he sprung up fiercely,--
+
+“Who is there?”
+
+“It is only I, sir,” answered Madame Dufour. “I have been in three times
+to see if you were stirring. There is a letter I believe for you, sir;
+though there is no name to it,” and she laid the letter on the chair
+beside him. Did it come from her--the saving angel? He seized it. The
+cover was blank; it was sealed with a small device, as of a ring seal.
+He tore it open, and found four billets de banque for 1,000 francs
+each,--a sum equivalent in our money to about L160.
+
+“Who sent this, the--the lady from whom I brought the note?”
+
+“Madame de Merville? certainly not, sir,” said Madame Dufour, who, with
+the privilege of age, was now unscrupulously filling the water-jugs and
+settling the toilette-table. “A young man called about two hours after
+you had gone to bed; and, describing you, inquired if you lodged here,
+and what your name was. I said you had just arrived, and that I did
+not yet know your name. So he went away, and came again half an hour
+afterwards with this letter, which he charged me to deliver to you
+safely.”
+
+“A young man--a gentleman?”
+
+“No, sir; he seemed a smart but common sort of lad.” For the
+unsophisticated Madame Dufour did not discover in the plain black frock
+and drab gaiters of the bearer of that letter the simple livery of an
+English gentleman’s groom.
+
+Whom could it come from, if not from Madame de Merville? Perhaps one of
+Gawtrey’s late friends. A suspicion of Arthur Beaufort crossed him, but
+he indignantly dismissed it. Men are seldom credulous of what they are
+unwilling to believe. What kindness had the Beauforts hitherto shown
+him?--Left his mother to perish broken-hearted--stolen from him his
+brother, and steeled, in that brother, the only heart wherein he had a
+right to look for gratitude and love! No, it must be Madame de Merville.
+He dismissed Madame Dufour for pen and paper--rose--wrote a letter to
+Eugenie--grateful, but proud, and inclosed the notes. He then summoned
+Madame Dufour, and sent her with his despatch.
+
+“Ah, madame,” said the ci-devant bonne, when she found herself in
+Eugenie’s presence. “The poor lad! how handsome he is, and how shameful
+in the Vicomte to let him wear such clothes!”
+
+“The Vicomte!”
+
+“Oh, my dear mistress, you must not deny it. You told me, in your note,
+to ask him no questions, but I guessed at once. The Vicomte told me
+himself that he should have the young gentleman over in a few days. You
+need not be ashamed of him. You will see what a difference clothes will
+make in his appearance; and I have taken it on myself to order a tailor
+to go to him. The Vicomte--must pay me.”
+
+“Not a word to the Vicomte as yet. We will surprise him,” said Eugenie,
+laughing.
+
+Madame de Merville had been all that morning trying to invent some story
+to account for her interest in the lodger, and now how Fortune favoured
+her!
+
+“But is that a letter for me?”
+
+“And I had almost forgot it,” said Madame Dufour, as she extended the
+letter.
+
+Whatever there had hitherto been in the circumstances connected with
+Morton, that had roused the interest and excited the romance of Eugenie
+de Merville, her fancy was yet more attracted by the tone of the letter
+she now read. For though Morton, more accustomed to speak than to write
+French, expressed himself with less precision, and a less euphuistic
+selection of phrase, than the authors and elegans who formed her usual
+correspondents; there was an innate and rough nobleness--a strong
+and profound feeling in every line of his letter, which increased her
+surprise and admiration.
+
+“All that surrounds him--all that belongs to him, is strangeness and
+mystery!” murmured she; and she sat down to reply.
+
+When Madame Dufour departed with that letter, Eugenie remained silent
+and thoughtful for more than an hour, Morton’s letter before her; and
+sweet, in their indistinctness, were the recollections and the images
+that crowded on her mind.
+
+Morton, satisfied by the earnest and solemn assurances of Eugenie that
+she was not the unknown donor of the sum she reinclosed, after puzzling
+himself in vain to form any new conjectures as to the quarter whence it
+came, felt that under his present circumstances it would be an absurd
+Quixotism to refuse to apply what the very Providence to whom he had
+anew consigned himself seemed to have sent to his aid. And it placed
+him, too, beyond the offer of all pecuniary assistance from one from
+whom he could least have brooked to receive it. He consented, therefore,
+to all that the loquacious tailor proposed to him. And it would have
+been difficult to have recognised the wild and frenzied fugitive in the
+stately form, with its young beauty and air of well-born pride, which
+the next day sat by the side of Eugenie. And that day he told his sad
+and troubled story, and Eugenie wept: and from that day he came daily;
+and two weeks--happy, dreamlike, intoxicating to both--passed by; and as
+their last sun set, he was kneeling at her feet, and breathing to one to
+whom the homage of wit, and genius, and complacent wealth had hitherto
+been vainly proffered, the impetuous, agitated, delicious secrets of
+the First Love. He spoke, and rose to depart for ever--when the look and
+sigh detained him.
+
+The next day, after a sleepless night, Eugenie de Merville sent for the
+Vicomte de Vaudemont.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+        “A silver river small
+        In sweet accents
+        Its music vents;
+        The warbling virginal
+        To which the merry birds do sing,
+        Timed with stops of gold the silver string.”
+         Sir Richard Fanshawe.
+
+One evening, several weeks after the events just commemorated, a
+stranger, leading in his hand, a young child, entered the churchyard
+of H----. The sun had not long set, and the short twilight of deepening
+summer reigned in the tranquil skies; you might still hear from the
+trees above the graves the chirp of some joyous bird;--what cared he,
+the denizen of the skies, for the dead that slept below?--what did
+he value save the greenness and repose of the spot,--to him alike
+the garden or the grave! As the man and the child passed, the robin,
+scarcely scared by their tread from the long grass beside one of the
+mounds, looked at them with its bright, blithe eye. It was a famous plot
+for the robin--the old churchyard! That domestic bird--“the friend of
+man,” as it has been called by the poets--found a jolly supper among the
+worms!
+
+The stranger, on reaching the middle of the sacred ground, paused and
+looked round him wistfully. He then approached, slowly and hesitatingly,
+an oblong tablet, on which were graven, in letters yet fresh and new,
+these words:--
+
+
+                 TO THE
+         MEMORY OF ONE CALUMNIATED AND WRONGED
+           THIS BURIAL-STONE IS DEDICATED
+               BY HER SON.
+
+Such, with the addition of the dates of birth and death, was the tablet
+which Philip Morton had directed to be placed over his mother’s bones;
+and around it was set a simple palisade, which defended it from the
+tread of the children, who sometimes, in defiance of the beadle, played
+over the dust of the former race.
+
+“Thy son!” muttered the stranger, while the child stood quietly by
+his side, pleased by the trees, the grass, the song of the birds, and
+reeking not of grief or death,--“thy son!--but not thy favoured son--thy
+darling--thy youngest born; on what spot of earth do thine eyes look
+down on him? Surely in heaven thy love has preserved the one whom on
+earth thou didst most cherish, from the sufferings and the trials that
+have visited the less-favoured outcast. Oh, mother--mother!--it was not
+his crime--not Philip’s--that he did not fulfil to the last the trust
+bequeathed to him! Happier, perhaps, as it is! And, oh, if thy memory be
+graven as deeply in my brother’s heart as my own, how often will it warn
+and save him! That memory!--it has been to me the angel of my life!
+To thee--to thee, even in death, I owe it, if, though erring, I am not
+criminal,--if I have lived with the lepers, and am still undefiled!” His
+lips then were silent--not his heart!
+
+After a few minutes thus consumed he turned to the child, and said,
+gently and in a tremulous voice, “Fanny, you have been taught to
+pray--you will live near this spot,--will you come sometimes here and
+pray that you may grow up good and innocent, and become a blessing to
+those who love you?”
+
+“Will papa ever come to hear me pray?”
+
+That sad and unconscious question went to the heart of Morton. The child
+could not comprehend death. He had sought to explain it, but she had
+been accustomed to consider her protector dead when he was absent from
+her, and she still insisted that he must come again to life. And that
+man of turbulence and crime, who had passed unrepentant, unabsolved,
+from sin to judgment: it was an awful question, “If he should hear her
+pray?”
+
+“Yes!” said he, after a pause,--“yes, Fanny, there is a Father who will
+hear you pray; and pray to Him to be merciful to those who have been
+kind to you. Fanny, you and I may never meet again!”
+
+“Are you going to die too? Mechant, every one dies to Fanny!” and,
+clinging to him endearingly, she put up her lips to kiss him. He took
+her in his arms: and, as a tear fell upon her rosy cheek, she said,
+“Don’t cry, brother, for I love you.”
+
+“Do you, dear Fanny? Then, for my sake, when you come to this place, if
+any one will give you a few flowers, scatter them on that stone. And now
+we will go to one whom you must love also, and to whom, as I have told
+you, he sends you; he who--Come!”
+
+As he thus spoke, and placed Fanny again on the ground, he was startled
+to see: precisely on the spot where he had seen before the like
+apparition--on the same spot where the father had cursed the son, the
+motionless form of an old man. Morton recognised, as if by an instinct
+rather than by an effort of the memory, the person to whom he was bound.
+
+He walked slowly towards him; but Fanny abruptly left his side, lured by
+a moth that flitted duskily over the graves.
+
+“Your name, sir, I think, is Simon Gawtrey?” said Morton. “I have came
+to England in quest of you.”
+
+“Of me?” said the old man, half rising, and his eyes, now completely
+blind, rolled vacantly over Morton’s person--“Of me?--for what?--Who are
+you?--I don’t know your voice!”
+
+“I come to you from your son!”
+
+“My son!” exclaimed the old man, with great vehemence,--“the
+reprobate!--the dishonoured!--the infamous!--the accursed--”
+
+“Hush! you revile the dead!”
+
+“Dead!” muttered the wretched father, tottering back to the seat he had
+quitted,--“dead!” and the sound of his voice was so full of anguish,
+that the dog at his feet, which Morton had not hitherto perceived,
+echoed it with a dismal cry, that recalled to Philip the awful day in
+which he had seen the son quit the father for the last time on earth.
+
+The sound brought Fanny to the spot; and, with a laugh of delight, which
+made to it a strange contrast, she threw herself on the grass beside the
+dog and sought to entice it to play. So there, in that place of death,
+were knit together the four links in the Great Chain;--lusty and
+blooming life--desolate and doting age--infancy, yet scarce conscious of
+a soul--and the dumb brute, that has no warrant of a Hereafter!
+
+“Dead!--dead!” repeated the old man, covering his sightless balls with
+his withered hands. “Poor William!”
+
+“He remembered you to the last. He bade me seek you out--he bade me
+replace the guilty son with a thing pure and innocent, as he had been
+had he died in his cradle--a child to comfort your old age! Kneel,
+Fanny, I have found you a father who will cherish you--(oh! you will,
+sir, will you not?)--as he whom you may see no more!”
+
+There was something in Morton’s voice so solemn, that it awed and
+touched both the old man and the infant; and Fanny, creeping to the
+protector thus assigned to her, and putting her little hands confidingly
+on his knees, said--
+
+“Fanny will love you if papa wished it. Kiss Fanny.”
+
+“Is it his child--his?” said the blind man, sobbing. “Come to my heart;
+here--here! O God, forgive me!” Morton did not think it right at that
+moment to undeceive him with regard to the poor child’s true connexion
+with the deceased: and he waited in silence till Simon, after a burst of
+passionate grief and tenderness, rose, and still clasping the child to
+his breast, said--
+
+“Sir, forgive me!--I am a very weak old man--I have many thanks to
+give--I have much, too, to learn. My poor son! he did not die in
+want,--did he?”
+
+The particulars of Gawtrey’s fate, with his real name and the various
+aliases he had assumed, had appeared in the French journals, had been
+partially copied into the English; and Morton had expected to have
+been saved the painful narrative of that fearful death; but the utter
+seclusion of the old man, his infirmity, and his estranged habits, had
+shut him out from the intelligence that it now devolved on Philip to
+communicate. Morton hesitated a little before he answered:
+
+“It is late now; you are not yet prepared to receive this poor infant at
+your home, nor to hear the details I have to state. I arrived in England
+but to-day. I shall lodge in the neighbourhood, for it is dear to me.
+If I may feel sure, then, that you will receive and treasure this sacred
+and last deposit bequeathed to you by your unhappy son, I will bring my
+charge to you to-morrow, and we will then, more calmly than we can now,
+talk over the past.”
+
+“You do not answer my question,” said Simon, passionately; “answer that,
+and I will wait for the rest. They call me a miser! Did I send out my
+only child to starve? Answer that!”
+
+“Be comforted. He did not die in want; and he has even left some little
+fortune for Fanny, which I was to place in your hands.”
+
+“And he thought to bribe the old miser to be human! Well--well--well--I
+will go home.”
+
+“Lean on me!”
+
+The dog leapt playfully on his master as the latter rose, and Fanny slid
+from Simon’s arms to caress and talk to the animal in her own way. As
+they slowly passed through the churchyard Simon muttered incoherently to
+himself for several paces, and Morton would not disturb, since he could
+not comfort, him.
+
+At last he said abruptly, “Did my son repent?”
+
+“I hoped,” answered Morton, evasively, “that, had his life been spared,
+he would have amended!”
+
+“Tush, sir!--I am past seventy; we repent!--we never amend!” And Simon
+again sunk into his own dim and disconnected reveries.
+
+At length they arrived at the blind man’s house. The door was opened to
+them by an old woman of disagreeable and sinister aspect, dressed out
+much too gaily for the station of a servant, though such was her reputed
+capacity; but the miser’s affliction saved her from the chance of his
+comment on her extravagance. As she stood in the doorway with a candle
+in her hand, she scanned curiously, and with no welcoming eye, her
+master’s companions.
+
+“Mrs. Boxer, my son is dead!” said Simon, in a hollow voice.
+
+“And a good thing it is, then, sir!”
+
+“For shame, woman!” said Morton, indignantly.
+
+“Hey-dey! sir! whom have we got here?”
+
+“One,” said Simon, sternly, “whom you will treat with respect. He brings
+me a blessing to lighten my loss. One harsh word to this child, and you
+quit my house!”
+
+The woman looked perfectly thunderstruck; but, recovering herself, she
+said, whiningly--
+
+“I! a harsh word to anything my dear, kind master cares for. And, Lord,
+what a sweet pretty creature it is! Come here, my dear!”
+
+But Fanny shrunk back, and would not let go Philip’s hand.
+
+“To-morrow, then,” said Morton; and he was turning away, when a sudden
+thought seemed to cross the old man,--
+
+“Stay, sir--stay! I--I--did my son say I was rich? I am very, very
+poor--nothing in the house, or I should have been robbed long ago!”
+
+“Your son told me to bring money, not to ask for it!”
+
+“Ask for it! No; but,” added the old man, and a gleam of cunning
+intelligence shot over his face,--“but he had got into a bad set.
+Ask!--No!--Put up the door-chain, Mrs. Boxer!”
+
+It was with doubt and misgivings that Morton, the next day, consigned
+the child, who had already nestled herself into the warmest core of
+his heart, to the care of Simon. Nothing short of that superstitious
+respect, which all men owe to the wishes of the dead, would have made
+him select for her that asylum; for Fate had now, in brightening his
+own prospects, given him an alternative in the benevolence of Madame de
+Merville. But Gawtrey had been so earnest on the subject, that he felt
+as if he had no right to hesitate. And was it not a sort of atonement to
+any faults the son might have committed against the parent, to place by
+the old man’s hearth so sweet a charge?
+
+The strange and peculiar mind and character of Fanny made him, however,
+yet more anxious than otherwise he might have been. She certainly
+deserved not the harsh name of imbecile or idiot, but she was different
+from all other children; she felt more acutely than most of her age, but
+she could not be taught to reason. There was something either oblique
+or deficient in her intellect, which justified the most melancholy
+apprehensions; yet often, when some disordered, incoherent, inexplicable
+train of ideas most saddened the listener, it would be followed by
+fancies so exquisite in their strangeness, or feelings so endearing in
+their tenderness, that suddenly she seemed as much above, as before she
+seemed below, the ordinary measure of infant comprehension. She was like
+a creature to which Nature, in some cruel but bright caprice, has given
+all that belongs to poetry, but denied all that belongs to the common
+understanding necessary to mankind; or, as a fairy changeling, not,
+indeed, according to the vulgar superstition, malignant and deformed,
+but lovelier than the children of men, and haunted by dim and struggling
+associations of a gentler and fairer being, yet wholly incapable to
+learn the dry and hard elements which make up the knowledge of actual
+life.
+
+Morton, as well as he could, sought to explain to Simon the
+peculiarities in Fanny’s mental constitution. He urged on him the
+necessity of providing for her careful instruction, and Simon promised
+to send her to the best school the neighbourhood could afford; but, as
+the old man spoke, he dwelt so much on the supposed fact that Fanny was
+William’s daughter, and with his remorse, or affection, there ran so
+interwoven a thread of selfishness and avarice, that Morton thought it
+would be dangerous to his interest in the child to undeceive his error.
+He, therefore,--perhaps excusably enough--remained silent on that
+subject.
+
+Gawtrey had placed with the superior of the convent, together with an
+order to give up the child to any one who should demand her in his true
+name, which he confided to the superior, a sum of nearly L300., which he
+solemnly swore had been honestly obtained, and which, in all his shifts
+and adversities, he had never allowed himself to touch. This sum, with
+the trifling deduction made for arrears due to the convent, Morton now
+placed in Simon’s hands. The old man clutched the money, which was
+for the most in French gold, with a convulsive gripe: and then, as if
+ashamed of the impulse, said--
+
+“But you, sir--will any sum--that is, any reasonable sum--be of use to
+you?”
+
+“No! and if it were, it is neither yours nor mine--it is hers. Save it
+for her, and add to it what you can.”
+
+While this conversation took place, Fanny had been consigned to the care
+of Mrs. Boxer, and Philip now rose to see and bid her farewell before he
+departed.
+
+“I may come again to visit you, Mr. Gawtrey; and I pray Heaven to
+find that you and Fanny have been a mutual blessing to each other. Oh,
+remember how your son loved her!”
+
+“He had a good heart, in spite of all his sins. Poor William!” said
+Simon.
+
+Philip Morton heard, and his lip curled with a sad and a just disdain.
+
+If when, at the age of nineteen, William Gawtrey had quitted his
+father’s roof, the father had then remembered that the son’s heart was
+good,--the son had been alive still, an honest and a happy man. Do ye
+not laugh, O ye all-listening Fiends! when men praise those dead whose
+virtues they discovered not when alive? It takes much marble to build
+the sepulchre--how little of lath and plaster would have repaired the
+garret!
+
+On turning into a small room adjoining the parlour in which Gawtrey
+sat, Morton found Fanny standing gloomily by a dull, soot-grimed window,
+which looked out on the dead walls of a small yard. Mrs. Boxer, seated
+by a table, was employed in trimming a cap, and putting questions to
+Fanny in that falsetto voice of endearment in which people not used to
+children are apt to address them.
+
+“And so, my dear, they’ve never taught you to read or write? You’ve been
+sadly neglected, poor thing!”
+
+“We must do our best to supply the deficiency,” said Morton, as he
+entered.
+
+“Bless me, sir, is that you?” and the gouvernante bustled up and dropped
+a low courtesy; for Morton, dressed then in the garb of a gentleman, was
+of a mien and person calculated to strike the gaze of the vulgar.
+
+“Ah, brother!” cried Fanny, for by that name he had taught her to call
+him; and she flew to his side. “Come away--it’s ugly there--it makes me
+cold.”
+
+“My child, I told you you must stay; but I shall hope to see you again
+some day. Will you not be kind to this poor creature, ma’am? Forgive me,
+if I offended you last night, and favour me by accepting this, to show
+that we are friends.” As he spoke, he slid his purse into the woman’s
+hand. “I shall feel ever grateful for whatever you can do for Fanny.”
+
+“Fanny wants nothing from any one else; Fanny wants her brother.”
+
+“Sweet child! I fear she don’t take to me. Will you like me, Miss
+Fanny?”
+
+“No! get along!”
+
+“Fie, Fanny--you remember you did not take to me at first. But she is so
+affectionate, ma’am; she never forgets a kindness.”
+
+“I will do all I can to please her, sir. And so she is really master’s
+grandchild?” The woman fixed her eyes, as she spoke, so intently on
+Morton, that he felt embarrassed, and busied himself, without answering,
+in caressing and soothing Fanny, who now seemed to awake to the
+affliction about to visit her; for though she did not weep--she very
+rarely wept--her slight frame trembled--her eyes closed--her cheeks,
+even her lips, were white--and her delicate hands were clasped tightly
+round the neck of the one about to abandon her to strange breasts.
+
+Morton was greatly moved. “One kiss, Fanny! and do not forget me when we
+meet again.”
+
+The child pressed her lips to his cheek, but the lips were cold. He put
+her down gently; she stood mute and passive.
+
+“Remember that he wished me to leave you here,” whispered Morton, using
+an argument that never failed. “We must obey him; and so--God bless you,
+Fanny!”
+
+He rose and retreated to the door; the child unclosed her eyes, and
+gazed at him with a strained, painful, imploring gaze; her lips moved,
+but she did not speak. Morton could not bear that silent woe. He sought
+to smile on her consolingly; but the smile would not come. He closed the
+door, and hurried from the house.
+
+From that day Fanny settled into a kind of dreary, inanimate stupor,
+which resembled that of the somnambulist whom the magnetiser forgets
+to waken. Hitherto, with all the eccentricities or deficiencies of her
+mind, had mingled a wild and airy gaiety. That was vanished. She spoke
+little--she never played--no toys could lure her--even the poor dog
+failed to win her notice. If she was told to do anything she stared
+vacantly and stirred not. She evinced, however, a kind of dumb regard to
+the old blind man; she would creep to his knees and sit there for
+hours, seldom answering when he addressed her, but uneasy, anxious, and
+restless, if he left her.
+
+“Will you die too?” she asked once; the old man understood her not, and
+she did not try to explain. Early one morning, some days after Morton
+was gone, they missed her: she was not in the house, nor the dull yard
+where she was sometimes dismissed and told to play--told in vain. In
+great alarm the old man accused Mrs. Boxer of having spirited her away,
+and threatened and stormed so loudly that the woman, against her will,
+went forth to the search. At last she found the child in the churchyard,
+standing wistfully beside a tomb.
+
+“What do you here, you little plague?” said Mrs. Boxer, rudely seizing
+her by the arm.
+
+“This is the way they will both come back some day! I dreamt so!”
+
+“If ever I catch you here again!” said the housekeeper, and, wiping her
+brow with one hand, she struck the child with the other. Fanny had never
+been struck before. She recoiled in terror and amazement, and, for the
+first time since her arrival, burst into tears.
+
+“Come--come, no crying! and if you tell master I’ll beat you within
+an inch of your life!” So saying, she caught Fanny in her arms, and,
+walking about, scolding and menacing, till she had frightened back the
+child’s tears, she returned triumphantly to the house, and bursting into
+the parlour, exclaimed, “Here’s the little darling, sir!”
+
+When old Simon learned where the child had been found he was glad; for
+it was his constant habit, whenever the evening was fine, to glide out
+to that churchyard--his dog his guide--and sit on his one favourite
+spot opposite the setting sun. This, not so much for the sanctity of
+the place, or the meditations it might inspire, as because it was the
+nearest, the safest, and the loneliest spot in the neighbourhood of his
+home, where the blind man could inhale the air and bask in the light of
+heaven. Hitherto, thinking it sad for the child, he had never taken
+her with him; indeed, at the hour of his monotonous excursion she had
+generally been banished to bed. Now she was permitted to accompany him;
+and the old man and the infant would sit there side by side, as Age and
+Infancy rested side by side in the graves below. The first symptom of
+childlike interest and curiosity that Fanny betrayed was awakened by the
+affliction of her protector. One evening, as they thus sat, she made him
+explain what the desolation of blindness is. She seemed to
+comprehend him, though he did not seek to adapt his complaints to her
+understanding.
+
+“Fanny knows,” said she, touchingly; “for she, too, is blind here;” and
+she pressed her hands to her temples. Notwithstanding her silence and
+strange ways, and although he could not see the exquisite loveliness
+which Nature, as in remorseful pity, had lavished on her outward form,
+Simon soon learned to love her better than he had ever loved yet: for
+they most cold to the child are often dotards to the grandchild. For
+her even his avarice slept. Dainties, never before known at his sparing
+board, were ordered to tempt her appetite, toy-shops ransacked to amuse
+her indolence. He was long, however, before he could prevail on himself
+to fulfil his promise to Morton, and rob himself of her presence.
+At length, however, wearied with Mrs. Boxer’s lamentations at her
+ignorance, and alarmed himself at some evidences of helplessness, which
+made him dread to think what her future might be when left alone in
+life, he placed her at a day-school in the suburb. Here Fanny, for a
+considerable time, justified the harshest assertions of her stupidity.
+She could not even keep her eyes two minutes together on the page from
+which she was to learn the mysteries of reading; months passed before
+she mastered the alphabet, and, a month after, she had again forgot it,
+and the labour was renewed. The only thing in which she showed ability,
+if so it might be called, was in the use of the needle. The sisters of
+the convent had already taught her many pretty devices in this art;
+and when she found that at the school they were admired--that she was
+praised instead of blamed--her vanity was pleased, and she learned
+so readily all that they could teach in this not unprofitable
+accomplishment, that Mrs. Boxer slyly and secretly turned her tasks
+to account and made a weekly perquisite of the poor pupil’s industry.
+Another faculty she possessed, in common with persons usually deficient,
+and with the lower species--viz., a most accurate and faithful
+recollection of places. At first Mrs. Boxer had been duly sent, morning,
+noon, and evening, to take her to, or bring her from, the school; but
+this was so great a grievance to Simon’s solitary superintendent, and
+Fanny coaxed the old man so endearingly to allow her to go and return
+alone, that the attendance, unwelcome to both, was waived. Fanny exulted
+in this liberty; and she never, in going or in returning, missed passing
+through the burial-ground, and gazing wistfully at the tomb from which
+she yet believed Morton would one day reappear. With his memory she
+cherished also that of her earlier and more guilty protector; but they
+were separate feelings, which she distinguished in her own way.
+
+“Papa had given her up. She knew that he would not have sent her away,
+far--far over the great water, if he had meant to see Fanny again; but
+her brother was forced to leave her--he would come to life one day, and
+then they should live together!”
+
+One day, towards the end of autumn, as her schoolmistress, a good woman
+on the whole, but who had not yet had the wit to discover by what chords
+to tune the instrument, over which so wearily she drew her unskilful
+hand--one day, we say, the schoolmistress happened to be dressed for
+a christening party to which she was invited in the suburb; and,
+accordingly, after the morning lessons, the pupils were to be dismissed
+to a holiday. As Fanny now came last, with the hopeless spelling-book,
+she stopped suddenly short, and her eyes rested with avidity upon a
+large bouquet of exotic flowers, with which the good lady had enlivened
+the centre of the parted kerchief, whose yellow gauze modestly veiled
+that tender section of female beauty which poets have likened to hills
+of snow--a chilling simile! It was then autumn; and field, and even
+garden flowers were growing rare.
+
+“Will you give me one of those flowers?” said Fanny, dropping her book.
+
+“One of these flowers, child! why?”
+
+Fanny did not answer; but one of the elder and cleverer girls said--
+
+“Oh! she comes from France, you know, ma’am, and the Roman Catholics put
+flowers, and ribands, and things, over the graves; you recollect, ma’am,
+we were reading yesterday about Pere-la-Chaise?”
+
+“Well! what then?”
+
+“And Miss Fanny will do any kind of work for us if we will give her
+flowers.”
+
+“My brother told me where to put them;--but these pretty flowers, I
+never had any like them; they may bring him back again! I’ll be so good
+if you’ll give me one, only one!”
+
+“Will you learn your lesson if I do, Fanny?”
+
+“Oh! yes! Wait a moment!”
+
+And Fanny stole back to her desk, put the hateful book resolutely before
+her, pressed both hands tightly on her temples,--Eureka! the chord was
+touched; and Fanny marched in triumph through half a column of hostile
+double syllables!
+
+From that day the schoolmistress knew how to stimulate her, and Fanny
+learned to read: her path to knowledge thus literally strewn with
+flowers! Catherine, thy children were far off, and thy grave looked gay!
+
+It naturally happened that those short and simple rhymes, often sacred,
+which are repeated in schools as helps to memory, made a part of her
+studies; and no sooner had the sound of verse struck upon her fancy than
+it seemed to confuse and agitate anew all her senses. It was like the
+music of some breeze, to which dance and tremble all the young leaves
+of a wild plant. Even when at the convent she had been fond of repeating
+the infant rhymes with which they had sought to lull or to amuse her,
+but now the taste was more strongly developed. She confounded, however,
+in meaningless and motley disorder, the various snatches of song
+that came to her ear, weaving them together in some form which she
+understood, but which was jargon to all others; and often, as she went
+alone through the green lanes or the bustling streets, the passenger
+would turn in pity and fear to hear her half chant--half murmur--ditties
+that seemed to suit only a wandering and unsettled imagination. And as
+Mrs. Boxer, in her visits to the various shops in the suburb, took
+care to bemoan her hard fate in attending to a creature so evidently
+moon-stricken, it was no wonder that the manner and habits of the child,
+coupled with that strange predilection to haunt the burial-ground, which
+is not uncommon with persons of weak and disordered intellect; confirmed
+the character thus given to her.
+
+So, as she tripped gaily and lightly along the thoroughfares, the
+children would draw aside from her path, and whisper with superstitious
+fear mingled with contempt, “It’s the idiot girl!”--Idiot--how much more
+of heaven’s light was there in that cloud than in the rushlights
+that, flickering in sordid chambers, shed on dull things the dull
+ray--esteeming themselves as stars!
+
+Months--years passed--Fanny was thirteen, when there dawned a new era to
+her existence. Mrs. Boxer had never got over her first grudge to Fanny.
+Her treatment of the poor girl was always harsh, and sometimes cruel.
+But Fanny did not complain, and as Mrs. Boxer’s manner to her before
+Simon was invariably cringing and caressing, the old man never guessed
+the hardships his supposed grandchild underwent. There had been scandal
+some years back in the suburb about the relative connexion of the master
+and the housekeeper; and the flaunting dress of the latter, something
+bold in her regard, and certain whispers that her youth had not been
+vowed to Vesta, confirmed the suspicion. The only reason why we do not
+feel sure that the rumour was false is this,--Simon Gawtrey had been
+so hard on the early follies of his son! Certainly, at all events, the
+woman had exercised great influence over the miser before the arrival
+of Fanny, and she had done much to steel his selfishness against the
+ill-fated William. And, as certainly, she had fully calculated on
+succeeding to the savings, whatever they might be, of the miser,
+whenever Providence should be pleased to terminate his days. She knew
+that Simon had, many years back, made his will in her favour; she knew
+that he had not altered that will: she believed, therefore, that in
+spite of all his love for Fanny, he loved his gold so much more, that he
+could not accustom himself to the thought of bequeathing it to hands too
+helpless to guard the treasure. This had in some measure reconciled
+the housekeeper to the intruder; whom, nevertheless, she hated as a dog
+hates another dog, not only for taking his bone, but for looking at it.
+
+But suddenly Simon fell ill. His age made it probable he would die. He
+took to his bed--his breathing grew fainter and fainter--he seemed dead.
+Fanny, all unconscious, sat by his bedside as usual, holding her breath
+not to waken him. Mrs. Boxer flew to the bureau--she unlocked it--she
+could not find the will; but she found three bags of bright gold
+guineas: the sight charmed her. She tumbled them forth on the distained
+green cloth of the bureau--she began to count them; and at that moment,
+the old man, as if there were a secret magnetism between himself and
+the guineas, woke from his trance. His blindness saved him the pain
+that might have been fatal, of seeing the unhallowed profanation; but he
+heard the chink of the metal. The very sound restored his strength.
+But the infirm are always cunning--he breathed not a suspicion. “Mrs.
+Boxer,” said he, faintly, “I think I could take some broth.” Mrs. Boxer
+rose in great dismay, gently re-closed the bureau, and ran down-stairs
+for the broth. Simon took the occasion to question Fanny; and no sooner
+had he learnt the operation of the heir-expectant, than he bade the girl
+first lock the bureau and bring him the key, and next run to a lawyer
+(whose address he gave her), and fetch him instantly.
+
+With a malignant smile the old man took the broth from his
+handmaid,--“Poor Boxer, you are a disinterested creature,” said he,
+feebly; “I think you will grieve when I go.”
+
+Mrs. Boxer sobbed, and before she had recovered, the lawyer entered.
+That day a new will was made; and the lawyer politely informed Mrs.
+Boxer that her services would be dispensed with the next morning, when
+he should bring a nurse to the house. Mrs. Boxer heard, and took her
+resolution. As soon as Simon again fell asleep, she crept into
+the room--led away Fanny--locked her up in her own
+chamber--returned--searched for the key of the bureau, which she found
+at last under Simon’s pillow--possessed herself of all she could lay her
+hands on--and the next morning she had disappeared forever! Simon’s loss
+was greater than might have been supposed; for, except a trifling sum in
+the savings bank, he, like many other misers, kept all he had, in notes
+or specie, under his own lock and key. His whole fortune, indeed, was
+far less than was supposed: for money does not make money unless it is
+put out to interest,--and the miser cheated himself. Such portion as was
+in bank-notes Mrs. Boxer probably had the prudence to destroy; for those
+numbers which Simon could remember were never traced; the gold, who
+could swear to? Except the pittance in the savings bank, and whatever
+might be the paltry worth of the house he rented, the father who had
+enriched the menial to exile the son was a beggar in his dotage. This
+news, however, was carefully concealed from him by the advice of the
+doctor, whom, on his own responsibility, the lawyer introduced, till
+he had recovered sufficiently to bear the shock without danger; and the
+delay naturally favoured Mrs. Boxer’s escape.
+
+Simon remained for some moments perfectly stunned and speechless when
+the news was broken to him. Fanny, in alarm at his increasing paleness,
+sprang to his breast. He pushed her away,--“Go--go--go, child,” he said;
+“I can’t feed you now. Leave me to starve.”
+
+“To starve!” said Fanny, wonderingly; and she stole away, and sat
+herself down as if in deep thought. She then crept up to the lawyer
+as he was about to leave the room, after exhausting his stock of
+commonplace consolation; and putting her hand in his, whispered, “I want
+to talk to you--this way:”--She led him through the passage into the
+open air. “Tell me,” she said, “when poor people try not to starve,
+don’t they work?”
+
+“My dear, yes.”
+
+“For rich people buy poor people’s work?”
+
+“Certainly, my dear; to be sure.”
+
+“Very well. Mrs. Boxer used to sell my work. Fanny will feed grandpapa!
+Go and tell him never to say ‘starve’ again.”
+
+The good-natured lawyer was moved. “Can you work, indeed, my poor girl?
+Well, put on your bonnet, and come and talk to my wife.”
+
+And that was the new era in Fanny’s existence! Her schooling was
+stopped. But now life schooled her. Necessity ripened her intellect. And
+many a hard eye moistened,--as, seeing her glide with her little basket
+of fancy work along the streets, still murmuring her happy and bird-like
+snatches of unconnected song--men and children alike said with respect,
+in which there was now no contempt, “It’s the idiot girl who supports
+her blind grandfather!” They called her idiot still!
+
+
+
+BOOK IV.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+     “O that sweet gleam of sunshine on the lake!”
+      WILSON’S City of the Plague
+
+If, reader, you have ever looked through a solar microscope at the
+monsters in a drop of water, perhaps you have wondered to yourself how
+things so terrible have been hitherto unknown to you--you have felt a
+loathing at the limpid element you hitherto deemed so pure--you have
+half fancied that you would cease to be a water-drinker; yet, the next
+day you have forgotten the grim life that started before you, with its
+countless shapes, in that teeming globule; and, if so tempted by your
+thirst, you have not shrunk from the lying crystal, although myriads of
+the horrible Unseen are mangling, devouring, gorging each other in the
+liquid you so tranquilly imbibe; so is it with that ancestral and master
+element called Life. Lapped in your sleek comforts, and lolling on the
+sofa of your patent conscience--when, perhaps for the first time, you
+look through the glass of science upon one ghastly globule in the waters
+that heave around, that fill up, with their succulence, the pores of
+earth, that moisten every atom subject to your eyes or handled by your
+touch--you are startled and dismayed; you say, mentally, “Can such
+things be? I never dreamed of this before! I thought what was
+invisible to me was non-existent in itself--I will remember this dread
+experiment.” The next day the experiment is forgotten.--The Chemist may
+purify the Globule--can Science make pure the World?
+
+Turn we now to the pleasant surface, seen in the whole, broad and fair
+to the common eye. Who would judge well of God’s great designs, if he
+could look on no drop pendent from the rose-tree, or sparkling in the
+sun, without the help of his solar microscope?
+
+It is ten years after the night on which William Gawtrey perished:--I
+transport you, reader, to the fairest scenes in England,--scenes
+consecrated by the only true pastoral poetry we have known to
+Contemplation and Repose.
+
+Autumn had begun to tinge the foliage on the banks of Winandermere. It
+had been a summer of unusual warmth and beauty; and if that year you
+had visited the English lakes, you might, from time to time, amidst the
+groups of happy idlers you encountered, have singled out two persons
+for interest, or, perhaps, for envy. Two who might have seemed to you in
+peculiar harmony with those serene and soft retreats, both young--both
+beautiful. Lovers you would have guessed them to be; but such lovers
+as Fletcher might have placed under the care of his “Holy
+Shepherdess”--forms that might have reclined by
+
+
+     “The virtuous well, about whose flowery banks
+     The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds
+     By the pale moonshine.”
+
+For in the love of those persons there seemed a purity and innocence
+that suited well their youth and the character of their beauty. Perhaps,
+indeed, on the girl’s side, love sprung rather from those affections
+which the spring of life throws upward to the surface, as the spring of
+earth does its flowers, than from that concentrated and deep absorption
+of self in self, which alone promises endurance and devotion, and of
+which first love, or rather the first fancy, is often less susceptible
+than that which grows out of the more thoughtful fondness of maturer
+years. Yet he, the lover, was of so rare and singular a beauty, that he
+might well seem calculated to awake, to the utmost, the love which wins
+the heart through the eyes.
+
+But to begin at the beginning. A lady of fashion had, in the autumn
+previous to the year in which our narrative re-opens, taken, with her
+daughter, a girl then of about eighteen, the tour of the English lakes.
+Charmed by the beauty of Winandermere, and finding one of the most
+commodious villas on its banks to be let, they had remained there all
+the winter. In the early spring a severe illness had seized the elder
+lady, and finding herself, as she slowly recovered, unfit for the
+gaieties of a London season, nor unwilling, perhaps,--for she had been
+a beauty in her day--to postpone for another year the debut of her
+daughter, she had continued her sojourn, with short intervals of
+absence, for a whole year. Her husband, a busy man of the world, with
+occupation in London, and fine estates in the country, joined them
+only occasionally, glad to escape the still beauty of landscapes which
+brought him no rental, and therefore afforded no charm to his eye.
+
+In the first month of their arrival at Winandermere, the mother and
+daughter had made an eventful acquaintance in the following manner.
+
+One evening, as they were walking on their lawn, which sloped to the
+lake, they heard the sound of a flute, played with a skill so exquisite
+as to draw them, surprised and spellbound, to the banks. The musician
+was a young man, in a boat, which he had moored beneath the trees of
+their demesne. He was alone, or, rather, he had one companion, in a
+large Newfoundland dog, that sat watchful at the helm of the boat,
+and appeared to enjoy the music as much as his master. As the ladies
+approached the spot, the dog growled, and the young man ceased, though
+without seeing the fair causes of his companion’s displeasure. The sun,
+then setting, shone full on his countenance as he looked round; and that
+countenance was one that might have haunted the nymphs of Delos; the
+face of Apollo, not as the hero, but the shepherd--not of the bow,
+but of the lute--not the Python-slayer, but the young dreamer by shady
+places--he whom the sculptor has portrayed leaning idly against the
+tree--the boy-god whose home is yet on earth, and to whom the Oracle and
+the Spheres are still unknown.
+
+At that moment the dog leaped from the boat, and the elder lady uttered
+a faint cry of alarm, which, directing the attention of the musician,
+brought him also ashore. He called off his dog, and apologised, with a
+not ungraceful mixture of diffidence and ease, for his intrusion. He was
+not aware the place was inhabited--it was a favourite haunt of his--he
+lived near. The elder lady was pleased with his address, and struck with
+his appearance. There was, indeed, in his manner that indefinable charm,
+which is more attractive than mere personal appearance, and which
+can never be imitated or acquired. They parted, however, without
+establishing any formal acquaintance. A few days after, they met at
+dinner at a neighbouring house, and were introduced by name. That of the
+young man seemed strange to the ladies; not so theirs to him. He turned
+pale when he heard it, and remained silent and aloof the rest of the
+evening. They met again and often; and for some weeks--nay, even for
+months--he appeared to avoid, as much as possible, the acquaintance so
+auspiciously begun; but, by little and little, the beauty of the younger
+lady seemed to gain ground on his diffidence or repugnance. Excursions
+among the neighbouring mountains threw them together, and at last he
+fairly surrendered himself to the charm he had at first determined to
+resist.
+
+This young man lived on the opposite side of the lake, in a quiet
+household, of which he was the idol. His life had been one of almost
+monastic purity and repose; his tastes were accomplished, his character
+seemed soft and gentle; but beneath that calm exterior, flashes of
+passion--the nature of the poet, ardent and sensitive--would break forth
+at times. He had scarcely ever, since his earliest childhood, quitted
+those retreats; he knew nothing of the world, except in books--books
+of poetry and romance. Those with whom he lived--his relations, an old
+bachelor, and the cold bachelor’s sisters, old maids--seemed equally
+innocent and inexperienced. It was a family whom the rich respected and
+the poor loved--inoffensive, charitable, and well off. To whatever their
+easy fortune might be, he appeared the heir. The name of this young
+man was Charles Spencer; the ladies were Mrs. Beaufort, and Camilla her
+daughter.
+
+Mrs. Beaufort, though a shrewd woman, did not at first perceive any
+danger in the growing intimacy between Camilla and the younger Spencer.
+Her daughter was not her favourite--not the object of her one thought or
+ambition. Her whole heart and soul were wrapped in her son Arthur, who
+lived principally abroad. Clever enough to be considered capable, when
+he pleased, of achieving distinction, good-looking enough to be thought
+handsome by all who were on the qui vive for an advantageous match,
+good-natured enough to be popular with the society in which he lived,
+scattering to and fro money without limit,--Arthur Beaufort, at the
+age of thirty, had established one of those brilliant and evanescent
+reputations, which, for a few years, reward the ambition of the fine
+gentleman. It was precisely the reputation that the mother could
+appreciate, and which even the more saving father secretly admired,
+while, ever respectable in phrase, Mr. Robert Beaufort seemed openly to
+regret it. This son was, I say, everything to them; they cared little,
+in comparison, for their daughter. How could a daughter keep up the
+proud name of Beaufort? However well she might marry, it was another
+house, not theirs, which her graces and beauty would adorn. Moreover,
+the better she might marry the greater her dowry would naturally
+be,--the dowry, to go out of the family! And Arthur, poor fellow! was
+so extravagant, that really he would want every sixpence. Such was the
+reasoning of the father. The mother reasoned less upon the matter. Mrs.
+Beaufort, faded and meagre, in blonde and cashmere, was jealous of
+the charms of her daughter; and she herself, growing sentimental
+and lachrymose as she advanced in life, as silly women often do, had
+convinced herself that Camilla was a girl of no feeling.
+
+Miss Beaufort was, indeed, of a character singularly calm and placid; it
+was the character that charms men in proportion, perhaps, to their own
+strength and passion. She had been rigidly brought up--her affections
+had been very early chilled and subdued; they moved, therefore, now,
+with ease, in the serene path of her duties. She held her parents,
+especially her father, in reverential fear, and never dreamed of the
+possibility of resisting one of their wishes, much less their commands.
+Pious, kind, gentle, of a fine and never-ruffled temper, Camilla, an
+admirable daughter, was likely to make no less admirable a wife; you
+might depend on her principles, if ever you could doubt her affection.
+Few girls were more calculated to inspire love. You would scarcely
+wonder at any folly, any madness, which even a wise man might commit
+for her sake. This did not depend on her beauty alone, though she was
+extremely lovely rather than handsome, and of that style of loveliness
+which is universally fascinating: the figure, especially as to the arms,
+throat, and bust, was exquisite; the mouth dimpled; the teeth dazzling;
+the eyes of that velvet softness which to look on is to love. But her
+charm was in a certain prettiness of manner, an exceeding innocence,
+mixed with the most captivating, because unconscious, coquetry. With all
+this, there was a freshness, a joy, a virgin and bewitching candour in
+her voice, her laugh--you might almost say in her very movements. Such
+was Camilla Beaufort at that age. Such she seemed to others. To her
+parents she was only a great girl rather in the way. To Mrs. Beaufort a
+rival, to Mr. Beaufort an encumbrance on the property.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+     * * * “The moon
+     Saddening the solemn night, yet with that sadness
+     Mingling the breath of undisturbed Peace.”
+                 WILSON: City of the Plague
+
+     * * * “Tell me his fate.
+     Say that he lives, or say that he is dead
+     But tell me--tell me!
+     * * * * * *
+     I see him not--some cloud envelopes him.”--Ibid.
+
+One day (nearly a year after their first introduction) as with a party
+of friends Camilla and Charles Spencer were riding through those wild
+and romantic scenes which lie between the sunny Winandermere and the
+dark and sullen Wastwater, their conversation fell on topics more
+personal than it had hitherto done, for as yet, if they felt love, they
+had never spoken of it.
+
+The narrowness of the path allowed only two to ride abreast, and the two
+to whom I confine my description were the last of the little band.
+
+“How I wish Arthur were here!” said Camilla; “I am sure you would like
+him.”
+
+“Are you? He lives much in the world--the world of which I know nothing.
+Are we then characters to suit each other?”
+
+“He is the kindest--the best of human beings!” said Camilla, rather
+evasively, but with more warmth than usually dwelt in her soft and low
+voice.
+
+“Is he so kind?” returned Spencer, musingly. “Well, it may be so. And
+who would not be kind to you? Ah! it is a beautiful connexion that of
+brother and sister--I never had a sister!”
+
+“Have you then a brother?” asked Camilla, in some surprise, and turning
+her ingenuous eyes full on her companion.
+
+Spencer’s colour rose--rose to his temples: his voice trembled as he
+answered, “No;--no brother!” then, speaking in a rapid and hurried
+tone, he continued, “My life has been a strange and lonely one. I am an
+orphan. I have mixed with few of my own age: my boyhood and youth have
+been spent in these scenes; my education such as Nature and books could
+bestow, with scarcely any guide or tutor save my guardian--the dear old
+man! Thus the world, the stir of cities, ambition, enterprise,--all
+seem to me as things belonging to a distant land to which I shall never
+wander. Yet I have had my dreams, Miss Beaufort; dreams of which these
+solitudes still form a part--but solitudes not unshared. And lately I
+have thought that those dreams might be prophetic. And you--do you love
+the world?”
+
+“I, like you, have scarcely tried it,” said Camilla, with a sweet laugh.
+“but I love the country better,--oh! far better than what little I have
+seen of towns. But for you,” she continued with a charming hesitation,
+“a man is so different from us,--for you to shrink from the world--you,
+so young and with talents too--nay, it is true!--it seems to me
+strange.”
+
+“It may be so, but I cannot tell you what feelings of dread--what vague
+forebodings of terror seize me if I carry my thoughts beyond these
+retreats. Perhaps my good guardian--”
+
+“Your uncle?” interrupted Camilla.
+
+“Ay, my uncle--may have contributed to engender feelings, as you say,
+strange at my age; but still--”
+
+“Still what!”
+
+“My earlier childhood,” continued Spencer, breathing hard and turning
+pale, “was not spent in the happy home I have now; it was passed in a
+premature ordeal of suffering and pain. Its recollections have left a
+dark shadow on my mind, and under that shadow lies every thought that
+points towards the troublous and labouring career of other men. But,”
+ he resumed after a pause, and in a deep, earnest, almost solemn
+voice,--“but after all, is this cowardice or wisdom? I find no
+monotony--no tedium in this quiet life. Is there not a certain
+morality--a certain religion in the spirit of a secluded and country
+existence? In it we do not know the evil passions which ambition and
+strife are said to arouse. I never feel jealous or envious of other men;
+I never know what it is to hate; my boat, my horse, our garden, music,
+books, and, if I may dare to say so, the solemn gladness that comes from
+the hopes of another life,--these fill up every hour with thoughts
+and pursuits, peaceful, happy, and without a cloud, till of late,
+when--when--”
+
+“When what?” said Camilla, innocently.
+
+“When I have longed, but did not dare to ask another, if to share such a
+lot would content her!”
+
+He bent, as he spoke, his soft blue eyes full upon the blushing face of
+her whom he addressed, and Camilla half smiled and half sighed:
+
+“Our companions are far before us,” said she, turning away her face,
+“and see, the road is now smooth.” She quickened her horse’s pace as
+she said this; and Spencer, too new to women to interpret favourably
+her evasion of his words and looks, fell into a profound silence which
+lasted during the rest of their excursion.
+
+As towards the decline of day he bent his solitary way home, emotions
+and passions to which his life had hitherto been a stranger, and which,
+alas! he had vainly imagined a life so tranquil would everlastingly
+restrain, swelled his heart.
+
+“She does not love me,” he muttered, half aloud; “she will leave me, and
+what then will all the beauty of the landscape seem in my eyes? And how
+dare I look up to her? Even if her cold, vain mother--her father, the
+man, they say, of forms and scruples, were to consent, would they not
+question closely of my true birth and origin? And if the one blot were
+overlooked, is there no other? His early habits and vices, his?--a
+brother’s--his unknown career terminating at any day, perhaps, in shame,
+in crime, in exposure, in the gibbet,--will they overlook this?” As he
+spoke, he groaned aloud, and, as if impatient to escape himself, spurred
+on his horse and rested not till he reached the belt of trim and sober
+evergreens that surrounded his hitherto happy home.
+
+Leaving his horse to find its way to the stables, the young man passed
+through rooms, which he found deserted, to the lawn on the other side,
+which sloped to the smooth waters of the lake.
+
+Here, seated under the one large tree that formed the pride of the lawn,
+over which it cast its shadow broad and far, he perceived his guardian
+poring idly over an oft-read book, one of those books of which literary
+dreamers are apt to grow fanatically fond--books by the old English
+writers, full of phrases and conceits half quaint and half sublime,
+interspersed with praises of the country, imbued with a poetical rather
+than orthodox religion, and adorned with a strange mixture of monastic
+learning and aphorisms collected from the weary experience of actual
+life.
+
+To the left, by a greenhouse, built between the house and the lake,
+might be seen the white dress and lean form of the eldest spinster
+sister, to whom the care of the flowers--for she had been early crossed
+in love--was consigned; at a little distance from her, the other two
+were seated at work, and conversing in whispers, not to disturb their
+studious brother, no doubt upon the nephew, who was their all in all. It
+was the calmest hour of eve, and the quiet of the several forms,
+their simple and harmless occupations--if occupations they might be
+called--the breathless foliage rich in the depth of summer; behind, the
+old-fashioned house, unpretending, not mean, its open doors and windows
+giving glimpses of the comfortable repose within; before, the lake,
+without a ripple and catching the gleam of the sunset clouds,--all made
+a picture of that complete tranquillity and stillness, which sometimes
+soothes and sometimes saddens us, according as we are in the temper to
+woo CONTENT.
+
+The young man glided to his guardian and touched his shoulder,--“Sir,
+may I speak to you?--Hush! they need not see us now! it is only you I
+would speak with.”
+
+The elder Spencer rose; and, with his book still in his hand, moved side
+by side with his nephew under the shadow of the tree and towards a walk
+to the right, which led for a short distance along the margin of the
+lake, backed by the interlaced boughs of a thick copse.
+
+“Sir!” said the young man, speaking first, and with a visible effort,
+“your cautions have been in vain! I love this girl--this daughter of the
+haughty Beauforts! I love her--better than life I love her!”
+
+“My poor boy,” said the uncle tenderly, and with a simple fondness
+passing his arm over the speaker’s shoulder, “do not think I can chide
+you--I know what it is to love in vain!”
+
+“In vain!--but why in vain?” exclaimed the younger Spencer, with a
+vehemence that had in it something of both agony and fierceness. “She
+may love me--she shall love me!” and almost for the first time in his
+life, the proud consciousness of his rare gifts of person spoke in his
+kindled eye and dilated stature. “Do they not say that Nature has been
+favourable to me?--What rival have I here?--Is she not young?--And
+(sinking his voice till it almost breathed like music) is not love
+contagious?”
+
+“I do not doubt that she may love you--who would not?--but--but--the
+parents, will they ever consent?”
+
+“Nay!” answered the lover, as with that inconsistency common to passion,
+he now argued stubbornly against those fears in another to which he had
+just before yielded in himself,--“Nay!--after all, am I not of their own
+blood?--Do I not come from the elder branch?--Was I not reared in equal
+luxury and with higher hopes?--And my mother--my poor mother--did
+she not to the last maintain our birthright--her own honour?--Has not
+accident or law unjustly stripped us of our true station?--Is it not for
+us to forgive spoliation?--Am I not, in fact, the person who descends,
+who forgets the wrongs of the dead--the heritage of the living?”
+
+The young man had never yet assumed this tone--had never yet shown that
+he looked back to the history connected with his birth with the feelings
+of resentment and the remembrance of wrong. It was a tone contrary
+to his habitual calm and contentment--it struck forcibly on his
+listener--and the elder Spencer was silent for some moments before he
+replied, “If you feel thus (and it is natural), you have yet stronger
+reason to struggle against this unhappy affection.”
+
+“I have been conscious of that, sir,” replied the young man, mournfully.
+“I have struggled!--and I say again it is in vain! I turn, then, to face
+the obstacles! My birth--let us suppose that the Beauforts overlook it.
+Did you not tell me that Mr. Beaufort wrote to inform you of the abrupt
+and intemperate visit of my brother--of his determination never to
+forgive it? I think I remember something of this years ago.”
+
+“It is true!” said the guardian; “and the conduct of that brother is,
+in fact, the true cause why you never ought to reassume your proper
+name!--never to divulge it, even to the family with whom you connect
+yourself by marriage; but, above all, to the Beauforts, who for that
+cause, if that cause alone, would reject your suit.”
+
+The young man groaned--placed one hand before his eyes, and with the
+other grasped his guardian’s arm convulsively, as if to check him from
+proceeding farther; but the good man, not divining his meaning, and
+absorbed in his subject, went on, irritating the wound he had touched.
+
+“Reflect!--your brother in boyhood--in the dying hours of his mother,
+scarcely saved from the crime of a thief, flying from a friendly pursuit
+with a notorious reprobate; afterwards implicated in some discreditable
+transaction about a horse, rejecting all--every hand that could save
+him, clinging by choice to the lowest companions and the meanest-habits,
+disappearing from the country, and last seen, ten years ago--the beard
+not yet on his chin--with that same reprobate of whom I have spoken, in
+Paris; a day or so only before his companion, a coiner--a murderer--fell
+by the hands of the police! You remember that when, in your seventeenth
+year, you evinced some desire to retake your name--nay, even to re-find
+that guilty brother--I placed before you, as a sad and terrible duty,
+the newspaper that contained the particulars of the death and the
+former adventures of that wretched accomplice, the notorious Gawtrey.
+And,--telling you that Mr. Beaufort had long since written to inform me
+that his own son and Lord Lilburne had seen your brother in company with
+the miscreant just before his fate--nay, was, in all probability, the
+very youth described in the account as found in his chamber and
+escaping the pursuit--I asked you if you would now venture to leave that
+disguise--that shelter under which you would for ever be safe from the
+opprobrium of the world--from the shame that, sooner or later, your
+brother must bring upon your name!”
+
+“It is true--it is true!” said the pretended nephew, in a tone of great
+anguish, and with trembling lips which the blood had forsaken. “Horrible
+to look either to his past or his future! But--but--we have heard of
+him no more--no one ever has learned his fate. Perhaps--perhaps” (and he
+seemed to breathe more freely)--“my brother is no more!”
+
+And poor Catherine--and poor Philip---had it come to this? Did the
+one brother feel a sentiment of release, of joy, in conjecturing the
+death--perhaps the death of violence and shame--of his fellow-orphan?
+Mr. Spencer shook his head doubtingly, but made no reply. The young
+man sighed heavily, and strode on for several paces in advance of his
+protector, then, turning back, he laid his hand on his shoulder.
+
+“Sir,” he said in a low voice and with downcast eyes, “you are right:
+this disguise--this false name--must be for ever borne! Why need
+the Beauforts, then, ever know who and what I am? Why not as your
+nephew--nephew to one so respected and exemplary--proffer my claims and
+plead my cause?”
+
+“They are proud--so it is said--and worldly;--you know my family was in
+trade--still--but--” and here Mr. Spencer broke off from a tone of doubt
+into that of despondency, “but, recollect, though Mrs. Beaufort may
+not remember the circumstance, both her husband and her son have seen
+me--have known my name. Will they not suspect, when once introduced to
+you, the stratagem that has been adopted?--Nay, has it not been from
+that very fear that you have wished me to shun the acquaintance of the
+family? Both Mr. Beaufort and Arthur saw you in childhood, and their
+suspicion once aroused, they may recognise you at once; your features
+are developed, but not altogether changed. Come, come!--my adopted, my
+dear son, shake off this fantasy betimes: let us change the scene: I
+will travel with you--read with you--go where--”
+
+“Sir--sir!” exclaimed the lover, smiting his breast, “you are ever
+kind, compassionate, generous; but do not--do not rob me of hope. I have
+never--thanks to you--felt, save in a momentary dejection, the curse of
+my birth. Now how heavily it falls! Where shall I look for comfort?”
+
+As he spoke, the sound of a bell broke over the translucent air and the
+slumbering lake: it was the bell that every eve and morn summoned that
+innocent and pious family to prayer. The old man’s face changed as he
+heard it--changed from its customary indolent, absent, listless aspect,
+into an expression of dignity, even of animation.
+
+“Hark!” he said, pointing upwards; “Hark! it chides you. Who shall say,
+‘Where shall I look for comfort’ while God is in the heavens?”
+
+The young man, habituated to the faith and observance of religion, till
+they had pervaded his whole nature, bowed his head in rebuke; a few
+tears stole from his eyes.
+
+“You are right, father--,” he said tenderly, giving emphasis to the
+deserved and endearing name. “I am comforted already!”
+
+So, side by side, silently and noiselessly, the young and the old man
+glided back to the house. When they gained the quiet room in which the
+family usually assembled, the sisters and servants were already gathered
+round the table. They knelt as the loiterers entered. It was the wonted
+duty of the younger Spencer to read the prayers; and, as he now did so,
+his graceful countenance more hushed, his sweet voice more earnest than
+usual, in its accents: who that heard could have deemed the heart within
+convulsed by such stormy passions? Or was it not in that hour--that
+solemn commune--soothed from its woe? O beneficent Creator! thou who
+inspirest all the tribes of earth with the desire to pray, hast Thou
+not, in that divinest instinct, bestowed on us the happiest of Thy
+gifts?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+   “Bertram. I mean the business is not ended, as fearing to hear of
+   it hereafter.
+
+   “1st Soldier. Do you know this Captain Dumain?”
+                     All’s Well that Ends Well.
+
+One evening, some weeks after the date of the last chapter, Mr. Robert
+Beaufort sat alone in his house in Berkeley Square. He had arrived that
+morning from Beaufort Court, on his way to Winandermere, to which he
+was summoned by a letter from his wife. That year was an agitated and
+eventful epoch in England; and Mr. Beaufort had recently gone through
+the bustle of an election--not, indeed, contested; for his popularity
+and his property defied all rivalry in his own county.
+
+The rich man had just dined, and was seated in lazy enjoyment by the
+side of the fire, which he had had lighted, less for the warmth--though
+it was then September--than for the companionship;--engaged in finishing
+his madeira, and, with half-closed eyes, munching his devilled biscuits.
+“I am sure,” he soliloquised while thus employed, “I don’t know
+exactly what to do,--my wife ought to decide matters where the girl is
+concerned; a son is another affair--that’s the use of a wife. Humph!”
+
+“Sir,” said a fat servant, opening the door, “a gentleman wishes to see
+you upon very particular business.”
+
+“Business at this hour! Tell him to go to Mr. Blackwell.”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Stay! perhaps he is a constituent, Simmons. Ask him if he belongs to
+the county.”
+
+“Yes, Sir.”
+
+“A great estate is a great plague,” muttered Mr. Beaufort; “so is a
+great constituency. It is pleasanter, after all, to be in the House of
+Lords. I suppose I could if I wished; but then one must rat--that’s a
+bore. I will consult Lilburne. Humph!”
+
+The servant re-appeared. “Sir, he says he does belong to the county.”
+
+“Show him in!--What sort of a person?”
+
+“A sort of gentleman, sir; that is,” continued the butler, mindful of
+five shillings just slipped within his palm by the stranger, “quite the
+gentleman.”
+
+“More wine, then--stir up the fire.”
+
+In a few moments the visitor was ushered into the apartment. He was
+a man between fifty and sixty, but still aiming at the appearance of
+youth. His dress evinced military pretensions; consisting of a blue
+coat, buttoned up to the chin, a black stock, loose trousers of the
+fashion called Cossacks, and brass spurs. He wore a wig, of great
+luxuriance in curl and rich auburn in hue; with large whiskers of the
+same colour slightly tinged with grey at the roots. By the imperfect
+light of the room it was not perceptible that the clothes were somewhat
+threadbare, and that the boots, cracked at the side, admitted glimpses
+of no very white hosiery within. Mr. Beaufort, reluctantly rising from
+his repose and gladly sinking back to it, motioned to a chair, and put
+on a doleful and doubtful semi-smile of welcome. The servant placed the
+wine and glasses before the stranger;--the host and visitor were alone.
+
+“So, sir,” said Mr. Beaufort, languidly, “you are from ------shire; I
+suppose about the canal,--may I offer you a glass of wine?”
+
+“Most hauppy, sir--your health!” and the stranger, with evident
+satisfaction, tossed off a bumper to so complimentary a toast.
+
+“About the canal?” repeated Mr. Beaufort.
+
+“No, sir, no! You parliament gentlemen must hauve a vaust deal of
+trouble on your haunds--very foine property I understaund yours is, sir.
+Sir, allow me to drink the health of your good lady!”
+
+“I thank you, Mr.--, Mr.--, what did you say your name was?--I beg you a
+thousand pardons.”
+
+“No offaunce in the least, sir; no ceremony with me--this is perticler
+good madeira!”
+
+“May I ask how I can serve you?” said Mr. Beaufort, struggling between
+the sense of annoyance and the fear to be uncivil. “And pray, had I the
+honour of your vote in the last election!”
+
+“No, sir, no! It’s mauny years since I have been in your part of the
+world, though I was born there.”
+
+“Then I don’t exactly see--” began Mr. Beaufort, and stopped with
+dignity.
+
+“Why I call on you,” put in the stranger, tapping his boots with his
+cane; and then recognising the rents, he thrust both feet under the
+table.
+
+“I don’t say that; but at this hour I am seldom at leisure--not but what
+I am always at the service of a constituent, that is, a voter! Mr.--, I
+beg your pardon, I did not catch your name.”
+
+“Sir,” said the stranger, helping himself to a third glass of wine;
+“here’s a health to your young folk! And now to business.” Here the
+visitor, drawing his chair nearer to his host, assuming a more grave
+aspect, and dropping something of his stilted pronunciation, continued,
+“You had a brother?”
+
+“Well, sir,” said Mr. Beaufort, with a very changed countenance.
+
+“And that brother had a wife!”
+
+Had a cannon gone off in the ear of Mr. Robert Beaufort, it could not
+have shocked or stunned him more than that simple word with which his
+companion closed his sentence. He fell back in his chair--his lips
+apart, his eyes fixed on the stranger. He sought to speak, but his
+tongue clove to his mouth.
+
+“That wife had two sons, born in wedlock!”
+
+“It is false!” cried Mr. Beaufort, finding a voice at length, and
+springing to his feet. “And who are you, sir? and what do you mean by--”
+
+“Hush!” said the stranger, perfectly unconcerned, and regaining the
+dignity of his haw-haw enunciation, “better not let the servants hear
+aunything. For my pawt, I think servants hauve the longest pair of ears
+of auny persons, not excepting jauckasses; their ears stretch from the
+pauntry to the parlour. Hush, sir!--perticler good madeira, this!”
+
+“Sir!” said Mr. Beaufort, struggling to preserve, or rather recover, his
+temper, “your conduct is exceedingly strange; but allow me to say that
+you are wholly misinformed. My brother never did marry; and if you have
+anything to say on behalf of those young men--his natural sons--I refer
+you to my solicitor, Mr. Blackwell, of Lincoln’s Inn. I wish you a good
+evening.”
+
+“Sir!--the same to you--I won’t trouble you auny farther; it was only
+out of koindness I called--I am not used to be treated so--sir, I am
+in his maujesty’s service--sir, you will foind that the witness of the
+marriage is forthcoming; you will think of me then, and, perhaps,
+be sorry. But I’ve done, ‘Your most obedient humble, sir!’” And the
+stranger, with a flourish of his hand, turned to the door. At the sight
+of this determination on the part of his strange guest, a cold, uneasy,
+vague presentiment seized Mr. Beaufort. There, not flashed, but rather
+froze, across him the recollection of his brother’s emphatic but
+disbelieved assurances--of Catherine’s obstinate assertion of her son’s
+alleged rights--rights which her lawsuit, undertaken on her own behalf,
+had not compromised;--a fresh lawsuit might be instituted by the son,
+and the evidence which had been wanting in the former suit might be
+found at last. With this remembrance and these reflections came a
+horrible train of shadowy fears,--witnesses, verdict, surrender,
+spoliation--arrears--ruin!
+
+The man, who had gained the door, turned back and looked at him with a
+complacent, half-triumphant leer upon his impudent, reckless face.
+
+“Sir,” then said Mr. Beaufort, mildly, “I repeat that you had better see
+Mr. Blackwell.”
+
+The tempter saw his triumph. “I have a secret to communicate which it is
+best for you to keep snug. How mauny people do you wish me to see about
+it? Come, sir, there is no need of a lawyer; or, if you think so, tell
+him yourself. Now or never, Mr. Beaufort.”
+
+“I can have no objection to hear anything you have to say, sir,” said
+the rich man, yet more mildly than before; and then added, with a forced
+smile, “though my rights are already too confirmed to admit of a doubt.”
+
+Without heeding the last assertion, the stranger coolly walked back,
+resumed his seat, and, placing both arms on the table and looking Mr.
+Beaufort full in the face, thus proceeded,--
+
+“Sir, of the marriage between Philip Beaufort and Catherine Morton there
+were two witnesses: the one is dead, the other went abroad--the last is
+alive still!”
+
+“If so,” said Mr. Beaufort, who, not naturally deficient in cunning and
+sense, felt every faculty now prodigiously sharpened, and was resolved
+to know the precise grounds for alarm,--“if so, why did not the man--it
+was a servant, sir, a man-servant, whom Mrs. Morton pretended to rely
+on--appear on the trial?”
+
+“Because, I say, he was abroad and could not be found; or, the search
+after him miscaurried, from clumsy management and a lack of the rhino.”
+
+“Hum!” said Mr. Beaufort--“one witness--one witness, observe, there is
+only one!--does not alarm me much. It is not what a man deposes, it is
+what a jury believe, sir! Moreover, what has become of the young men?
+They have never been heard of for years. They are probably dead; if so,
+I am heir-at-law!”
+
+“I know where one of them is to be found at all events.”
+
+“The elder?--Philip?” asked Mr. Beaufort anxiously, and with a fearful
+remembrance of the energetic and vehement character prematurely
+exhibited by his nephew.
+
+“Pawdon me! I need not aunswer that question.”
+
+“Sir! a lawsuit of this nature, against one in possession, is very
+doubtful, and,” added the rich man, drawing himself up--“and, perhaps
+very expensive!”
+
+“The young man I speak of does not want friends, who will not grudge the
+money.”
+
+“Sir!” said Mr. Beaufort, rising and placing his back to the fire--“sir!
+what is your object in this communication? Do you come, on the part of
+the young man, to propose a compromise? If so, be plain!”
+
+“I come on my own pawt. It rests with you to say if the young men shall
+never know it!”
+
+“And what do you want?”
+
+“Five hundred a year as long as the secret is kept.”
+
+“And how can you prove that there is a secret, after all?”
+
+“By producing the witness if you wish.”
+
+“Will he go halves in the L500. a year?” asked Mr. Beaufort artfully.
+
+“That is moy affair, sir,” replied the stranger.
+
+“What you say,” resumed Mr. Beaufort, “is so extraordinary--so
+unexpected, and still, to me, seems so improbable, that I must have time
+to consider. If you will call on me in a week, and produce your facts, I
+will give you my answer. I am not the man, sir, to wish to keep any
+one out of his true rights, but I will not yield, on the other hand, to
+imposture.”
+
+“If you don’t want to keep them out of their rights, I’d best go and
+tell my young gentlemen,” said the stranger, with cool impudence.
+
+“I tell you I must have time,” repeated Beaufort, disconcerted.
+“Besides, I have not myself alone to look to, sir,” he added, with
+dignified emphasis--“I am a father!”
+
+“This day week I will call on you again. Good evening, Mr. Beaufort!”
+
+And the man stretched out his hand with an air of amicable
+condescension. The respectable Mr. Beaufort changed colour, hesitated,
+and finally suffered two fingers to be enticed into the grasp of the
+visitor, whom he ardently wished at that bourne whence no visitor
+returns.
+
+The stranger smiled, stalked to the door, laid his finger on his lip,
+winked knowingly, and vanished, leaving Mr. Beaufort a prey to such
+feelings of uneasiness, dread, and terror, as may be experienced by a
+man whom, on some inch or two of slippery rock, the tides have suddenly
+surrounded.
+
+He remained perfectly still for some moments, and then glancing round
+the dim and spacious room, his eyes took in all the evidences of luxury
+and wealth which it betrayed. Above the huge sideboard, that on festive
+days groaned beneath the hoarded weight of the silver heirlooms of the
+Beauforts, hung, in its gilded frame, a large picture of the family
+seat, with the stately porticoes--the noble park--the groups of
+deer; and around the wall, interspersed here and there with ancestral
+portraits of knight and dame, long since gathered to their rest, were
+placed masterpieces of the Italian and Flemish art, which generation
+after generation had slowly accumulated, till the Beaufort Collection
+had become the theme of connoisseurs and the study of young genius.
+
+The still room, the dumb pictures--even the heavy sideboard seemed to
+gain voice, and speak to him audibly. He thrust his hand into the folds
+of his waistcoat, and griped his own flesh convulsively; then, striding
+to and fro the apartment, he endeavoured to re-collect his thoughts.
+
+“I dare not consult Mrs. Beaufort,” he muttered; “no--no,--she is a
+fool! Besides, she’s not in the way. No time to lose--I will go to
+Lilburne.”
+
+Scarce had that thought crossed him than he hastened to put it into
+execution. He rang for his hat and gloves and sallied out on foot
+to Lord Lilburne’s house in Park Lane,--the distance was short, and
+impatience has long strides.
+
+He knew Lord Lilburne was in town, for that personage loved London for
+its own sake; and even in September he would have said with the old Duke
+of Queensberry, when some one observed that London was very empty--“Yes;
+but it is fuller than the country.”
+
+Mr. Beaufort found Lord Lilburne reclined on a sofa, by the open
+window of his drawing-room, beyond which the early stars shone upon the
+glimmering trees and silver turf of the deserted park. Unlike the simple
+dessert of his respectable brother-in-law, the costliest fruits, the
+richest wines of France, graced the small table placed beside his sofa;
+and as the starch man of forms and method entered the room at one door,
+a rustling silk, that vanished through the aperture of another, seemed
+to betray tokens of a tete-a-tete, probably more agreeable to Lilburne
+than the one with which only our narrative is concerned.
+
+It would have been a curious study for such men as love to gaze upon the
+dark and wily features of human character, to have watched the
+contrast between the reciter and the listener, as Beaufort, with much
+circumlocution, much affected disdain and real anxiety, narrated the
+singular and ominous conversation between himself and his visitor.
+
+The servant, in introducing Mr. Beaufort, had added to the light of the
+room; and the candles shone full on the face and form of Mr. Beaufort.
+All about that gentleman was so completely in unison with the world’s
+forms and seemings, that there was something moral in the very sight
+of him! Since his accession of fortune he had grown less pale and less
+thin; the angles in his figure were filled up. On his brow there was
+no trace of younger passion. No able vice had ever sharpened the
+expression--no exhausting vice ever deepened the lines. He was the
+beau-ideal of a county member,--so sleek, so staid, so business-like;
+yet so clean, so neat, so much the gentleman. And now there was a kind
+of pathos in his grey hairs, his nervous smile, his agitated hands, his
+quick and uneasy transition of posture, the tremble of his voice. He
+would have appeared to those who saw, but heard not, The Good Man in
+trouble. Cold, motionless, speechless, seemingly apathetic, but in truth
+observant, still reclined on the sofa, his head thrown back, but one
+eye fixed on his companion, his hands clasped before him, Lord Lilburne
+listened; and in that repose, about his face, even about his person,
+might be read the history of how different a life and character! What
+native acuteness in the stealthy eye! What hardened resolve in the full
+nostril and firm lips! What sardonic contempt for all things in the
+intricate lines about the mouth. What animal enjoyment of all things so
+despised in that delicate nervous system, which, combined with original
+vigour of constitution, yet betrayed itself in the veins on the hands
+and temples, the occasional quiver of the upper lip! His was the frame
+above all others the most alive to pleasure--deep-chested, compact,
+sinewy, but thin to leanness--delicate in its texture and extremities,
+almost to effeminacy. The indifference of the posture, the very habit
+of the dress--not slovenly, indeed, but easy, loose, careless--seemed to
+speak of the man’s manner of thought and life--his profound disdain of
+externals.
+
+Not till Beaufort had concluded did Lord Lilburne change his position or
+open his lips; and then, turning to his brother-in-law his calm face, he
+said drily,--
+
+“I always thought your brother had married that woman; he was the sort
+of man to do it. Besides, why should she have gone to law without a
+vestige of proof, unless she was convinced of her rights? Imposture
+never proceeds without some evidence. Innocence, like a fool as it is,
+fancies it has only to speak to be believed. But there is no cause for
+alarm.”
+
+“No cause!--And yet you think there was a marriage.”
+
+“It is quite clear,” continued Lilburne, without heeding this
+interruption; “that the man, whatever his evidence, has not got
+sufficient proofs. If he had, he would go to the young men rather than
+you: it is evident that they would promise infinitely larger rewards
+than he could expect from yourself. Men are always more generous with
+what they expect than with what they have. All rogues know this. ‘Tis
+the way Jews and usurers thrive upon heirs rather than possessors; ‘tis
+the philosophy of post-obits. I dare say the man has found out the real
+witness of the marriage, but ascertained, also, that the testimony
+of that witness would not suffice to dispossess you. He might be
+discredited--rich men have a way sometimes of discrediting
+poor witnesses. Mind, he says nothing of the lost copy of the
+register--whatever may be the value of that document, which I am
+not lawyer enough to say--of any letters of your brother avowing the
+marriage. Consider, the register itself is destroyed--the clergyman
+dead. Pooh! make yourself easy.”
+
+“True,” said Mr. Beaufort, much comforted; “what a memory you have!”
+
+“Naturally. Your wife is my sister--I hate poor relations--and I was
+therefore much interested in your accession and your lawsuit. No--you
+may feel--at rest on this matter, so far as a successful lawsuit is
+concerned. The next question is, Will you have a lawsuit at all? and
+is it worth while buying this fellow? That I can’t say unless I see him
+myself.”
+
+“I wish to Heaven you would!”
+
+“Very willingly: ‘tis a sort of thing I like--I’m fond of dealing with
+rogues--it amuses me. This day week? I’ll be at your house--your proxy;
+I shall do better than Blackwell. And since you say you are wanted at
+the Lakes, go down, and leave all to me.”
+
+“A thousand thanks. I can’t say how grateful I am. You certainly are the
+kindest and cleverest person in the world.”
+
+“You can’t think worse of the world’s cleverness and kindness than I
+do,” was Lilburne’s rather ambiguous answer to the compliment. “But why
+does my sister want to see you?”
+
+“Oh, I forgot!--here is her letter. I was going to ask your advice in
+this too.”
+
+Lord Lilburne took the letter, and glanced over it with the rapid eye of
+a man accustomed to seize in everything the main gist and pith.
+
+“An offer to my pretty niece--Mr. Spencer--requires no fortune--his
+uncle will settle all his own--(poor silly old man!) All! Why that’s
+only L1000. a year. You don’t think much of this, eh? How my sister can
+even ask you about it puzzles me.”
+
+“Why, you see, Lilburne,” said Mr. Beaufort, rather embarrassed, “there
+is no question of fortune--nothing to go out of the family; and, really,
+Arthur is so expensive, and, if she were to marry well, I could not give
+her less than fifteen or twenty thousand pounds.”
+
+“Aha!--I see--every man to his taste: here a daughter--there a dowry.
+You are devilish fond of money, Beaufort. Any pleasure in avarice,--eh?”
+
+Mr. Beaufort coloured very much at the remark and the question, and,
+forcing a smile, said,--
+
+“You are severe. But you don’t know what it is to be father to a young
+man.”
+
+“Then a great many young women have told me sad fibs! But you are right
+in your sense of the phrase. No, I never had an heir apparent, thank
+Heaven! No children imposed upon me by law--natural enemies, to count
+the years between the bells that ring for their majority, and those that
+will toll for my decease. It is enough for me that I have a brother and
+a sister--that my brother’s son will inherit my estates--and that, in
+the meantime, he grudges me every tick in that clock. What then? If he
+had been my uncle, I had done the same. Meanwhile, I see as little of
+him as good breeding will permit. On the face of a rich man’s heir is
+written the rich man’s memento mori! But revenons a nos moutons. Yes, if
+you give your daughter no fortune, your death will be so much the more
+profitable to Arthur!”
+
+“Really, you take such a very odd view of the matter,” said Mr.
+Beaufort, exceedingly shocked. “But I see you don’t like the marriage;
+perhaps you are right.”
+
+“Indeed, I have no choice in the matter; I never interfere between
+father and children. If I had children myself, I will, however, tell
+you, for your comfort, that they might marry exactly as they pleased--I
+would never thwart them. I should be too happy to get them out of my
+way. If they married well, one would have all the credit; if ill, one
+would have an excuse to disown them. As I said before, I dislike poor
+relations. Though if Camilla lives at the Lakes when she is married, it
+is but a letter now and then; and that’s your wife’s trouble, not yours.
+But, Spencer--what Spencer!--what family? Was there not a Mr. Spencer
+who lived at Winandermere--who----”
+
+“Who went with us in search of these boys, to be sure. Very likely the
+same--nay, he must be so. I thought so at the first.”
+
+“Go down to the Lakes to-morrow. You may hear something about your
+nephews;” at that word Mr. Beaufort winced.
+
+“‘Tis well to be forearmed.”
+
+“Many thanks for all your counsel,” said Beaufort, rising, and glad to
+escape; for though both he and his wife held the advice of Lord Lilburne
+in the highest reverence, they always smarted beneath the quiet and
+careless stings which accompanied the honey. Lord Lilburne was singular
+in this,--he would give to any one who asked it, but especially a
+relation, the best advice in his power; and none gave better, that is,
+more worldly advice. Thus, without the least benevolence, he was often
+of the greatest service; but he could not help mixing up the draught
+with as much aloes and bitter-apple as possible. His intellect delighted
+in exhibiting itself even gratuitously. His heart equally delighted
+in that only cruelty which polished life leaves to its tyrants towards
+their equals,--thrusting pins into the feelings and breaking self-love
+upon the wheel. But just as Mr. Beaufort had drawn on his gloves and
+gained the doorway, a thought seemed to strike Lord Lilburne:
+
+“By the by,” he said, “you understand that when I promised I would try
+and settle the matter for you, I only meant that I would learn the exact
+causes you have for alarm on the one hand, or for a compromise with
+this fellow on the other. If the last be advisable you are aware that I
+cannot interfere. I might get into a scrape; and Beaufort Court is not
+my property.”
+
+“I don’t quite understand you.”
+
+“I am plain enough, too. If there is money to be given it is given in
+order to defeat what is called justice--to keep these nephews of yours
+out of their inheritance. Now, should this ever come to light, it would
+have an ugly appearance. They who risk the blame must be the persons who
+possess the estate.”
+
+“If you think it dishonourable or dishonest--” said Beaufort,
+irresolutely.
+
+“I! I never can advise as to the feelings; I can only advise as to the
+policy. If you don’t think there ever was a marriage, it may, still, be
+honest in you to prevent the bore of a lawsuit.”
+
+“But if he can prove to me that they were married?”
+
+“Pooh!” said Lilburne, raising his eyebrows with a slight expression of
+contemptuous impatience; “it rests on yourself whether or not he prove
+it to YOUR satisfaction! For my part, as a third person, I am persuaded
+the marriage did take place. But if I had Beaufort Court, my convictions
+would be all the other way. You understand. I am too happy to serve you.
+But no man can be expected to jeopardise his character, or coquet with
+the law, unless it be for his own individual interest. Then, of
+course, he must judge for himself. Adieu! I expect some friends
+foreigners--Carlists--to whist. You won’t join them?”
+
+“I never play, you know. You will write to me at Winandermere: and, at
+all events, you will keep off the man till I return?”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+Beaufort, whom the latter part of the conversation had comforted far
+less than the former, hesitated, and turned the door-handle three or
+four times; but, glancing towards his brother-in-law, he saw in that
+cold face so little sympathy in the struggle between interest and
+conscience, that he judged it best to withdraw at once.
+
+As soon as he was gone, Lilburne summoned his valet, who had lived
+with him many years, and who was his confidant in all the adventurous
+gallantries with which he still enlivened the autumn of his life.
+
+“Dykeman,” said he, “you have let out that lady?”
+
+“Yes, my lord.”
+
+“I am not at home if she calls again. She is stupid; she cannot get
+the girl to come to her again. I shall trust you with an adventure,
+Dykeman--an adventure that will remind you of our young days, man. This
+charming creature--I tell you she is irresistible--her very oddities
+bewitch me. You must--well, you look uneasy. What would you say?”
+
+“My lord, I have found out more about her--and--and----”
+
+“Well, well.”
+
+The valet drew near and whispered something in his master’s ear.
+
+“They are idiots who say it, then,” answered Lilburne. “And,” faltered
+the man, with the shame of humanity on his face, “she is not worthy your
+lordship’s notice--a poor--”
+
+“Yes, I know she is poor; and, for that reason, there can be no
+difficulty, if the thing is properly managed. You never, perhaps, heard
+of a certain Philip, king of Macedon; but I will tell you what he once
+said, as well as I can remember it: ‘Lead an ass with a pannier of gold;
+send the ass through the gates of a city, and all the sentinels will
+run away.’ Poor!--where there is love, there is charity also, Dykeman.
+Besides--”
+
+Here Lilburne’s countenance assumed a sudden aspect of dark and angry
+passion,--he broke off abruptly, rose, and paced the room, muttering
+to himself. Suddenly he stopped, and put his hand to his hip, as an
+expression of pain again altered the character of his face.
+
+“The limb pains me still! Dykeman--I was scarce twenty-one--when I
+became a cripple for life.” He paused, drew a long breath, smiled,
+rubbed his hands gently, and added: “Never fear--you shall be the ass;
+and thus Philip of Macedon begins to fill the pannier.” And he tossed
+his purse into the hands of the valet, whose face seemed to lose its
+anxious embarrassment at the touch of the gold. Lilburne glanced at him
+with a quiet sneer: “Go!--I will give you my orders when I undress.”
+
+“Yes!” he repeated to himself, “the limb pains me still. But he
+died!--shot as a man would shoot a jay or a polecat!
+
+“I have the newspaper still in that drawer. He died an outcast--a
+felon--a murderer! And I blasted his name--and I seduced his
+mistress--and I--am John Lord Lilburne!”
+
+About ten o’clock, some half-a-dozen of those gay lovers of London,
+who, like Lilburne, remain faithful to its charms when more vulgar
+worshippers desert its sunburnt streets--mostly single men--mostly men
+of middle age--dropped in. And soon after came three or four high-born
+foreigners, who had followed into England the exile of the unfortunate
+Charles X. Their looks, at once proud and sad--their moustaches curled
+downward--their beards permitted to grow--made at first a strong
+contrast with the smooth gay Englishmen. But Lilburne, who was fond
+of French society, and who, when he pleased, could be courteous and
+agreeable, soon placed the exiles at their ease; and, in the excitement
+of high play, all differences of mood and humour speedily vanished.
+Morning was in the skies before they sat down to supper.
+
+“You have been very fortunate to-night, milord,” said one of the
+Frenchmen, with an envious tone of congratulation.
+
+“But, indeed,” said another, who, having been several times his host’s
+partner, had won largely, “you are the finest player, milord, I ever
+encountered.”
+
+“Always excepting Monsieur Deschapelles and--,” replied Lilburne,
+indifferently. And, turning the conversation, he asked one of the
+guests why he had not introduced him to a French officer of merit and
+distinction; “With whom,” said Lord Lilburne, “I understand that you are
+intimate, and of whom I hear your countrymen very often speak.”
+
+“You mean De Vaudemont. Poor fellow!” said a middle-aged Frenchman, of a
+graver appearance than the rest.
+
+“But why ‘poor fellow!’ Monsieur de Liancourt?”
+
+“He was rising so high before the revolution. There was not a braver
+officer in the army. But he is but a soldier of fortune, and his career
+is closed.”
+
+“Till the Bourbons return,” said another Carlist, playing with his
+moustache.
+
+“You will really honour me much by introducing me to him,” said Lord
+Lilburne. “De Vaudemont--it is a good name,--perhaps, too, he plays at
+whist.”
+
+“But,” observed one of the Frenchmen, “I am by no means sure that he has
+the best right in the world to the name. ‘Tis a strange story.”
+
+“May I hear it?” asked the host.
+
+“Certainly. It is briefly this: There was an old Vicomte de Vaudemont
+about Paris; of good birth, but extremely poor--a mauvais sujet. He had
+already had two wives, and run through their fortunes. Being old and
+ugly, and men who survive two wives having a bad reputation among
+marriageable ladies at Paris, he found it difficult to get a third.
+Despairing of the noblesse he went among the bourgeoisie with that hope.
+His family were kept in perpetual fear of a ridiculous mesalliance.
+Among these relations was Madame de Merville, whom you may have heard
+of.”
+
+“Madame de Merville! Ah, yes! Handsome, was she not?”
+
+“It is true. Madame de Merville, whose failing was pride, was known more
+than once to have bought off the matrimonial inclinations of the amorous
+vicomte. Suddenly there appeared in her circles a very handsome young
+man. He was presented formally to her friends as the son of the Vicomte
+de Vaudemont by his second marriage with an English lady, brought up in
+England, and now for the first time publicly acknowledged. Some scandal
+was circulated--”
+
+“Sir,” interrupted Monsieur de Liancourt, very gravely, “the scandal was
+such as all honourable men must stigmatise and despise--it was only to
+be traced to some lying lackey--a scandal that the young man was already
+the lover of a woman of stainless reputation the very first day that he
+entered Paris! I answer for the falsity of that report. But that report
+I own was one that decided not only Madame de Merville, who was a
+sensitive--too sensitive a person, but my friend young Vaudemont, to
+a marriage, from the pecuniary advantages of which he was too
+high-spirited not to shrink.”
+
+“Well,” said Lord Lilburne, “then this young De Vaudemont married Madame
+de Merville?”
+
+“No,” said Liancourt somewhat sadly, “it was not so decreed; for
+Vaudemont, with a feeling which belongs to a gentleman, and which I
+honour, while deeply and gratefully attached to Madame de Merville,
+desired that he might first win for himself some honourable distinction
+before he claimed a hand to which men of fortunes so much higher had
+aspired in vain. I am not ashamed,” he added, after a slight pause, “to
+say that I had been one of the rejected suitors, and that I still revere
+the memory of Eugenie de Merville. The young man, therefore, was to have
+entered my regiment. Before, however, he had joined it, and while yet
+in the full flush of a young man’s love for a woman formed to excite the
+strongest attachment, she--she---” The Frenchman’s voice trembled, and
+he resumed with affected composure: “Madame de Merville, who had the
+best and kindest heart that ever beat in a human breast, learned one day
+that there was a poor widow in the garret of the hotel she inhabited who
+was dangerously ill--without medicine and without food--having lost
+her only friend and supporter in her husband some time before. In
+the impulse of the moment, Madame de Merville herself attended this
+widow--caught the fever that preyed upon her--was confined to her bed
+ten days--and died as she had lived, in serving others and forgetting
+self.--And so much, sir, for the scandal you spoke of!”
+
+“A warning,” observed Lord Lilburne, “against trifling with one’s health
+by that vanity of parading a kind heart, which is called charity. If
+charity, mon cher, begins at home, it is in the drawing-room, not the
+garret!”
+
+The Frenchman looked at his host in some disdain, bit his lip, and was
+silent.
+
+“But still,” resumed Lord Lilburne, “still it is so probable that your
+old vicomte had a son; and I can so perfectly understand why he did not
+wish to be embarrassed with him as long as he could help it, that I
+do not understand why there should be any doubt of the younger De
+Vaudemont’s parentage.”
+
+“Because,” said the Frenchman who had first commenced the
+narrative,--“because the young man refused to take the legal steps
+to proclaim his birth and naturalise himself a Frenchman; because, no
+sooner was Madame de Merville dead than he forsook the father he had so
+newly discovered--forsook France, and entered with some other officers,
+under the brave, &m------ in the service of one of the native princes of
+India.”
+
+“But perhaps he was poor,” observed Lord Lilburne. “A father is a very
+good thing, and a country is a very good thing, but still a man must
+have money; and if your father does not do much for you, somehow or
+other, your country generally follows his example.”
+
+“My lord,” said Liancourt, “my friend here has forgotten to say that
+Madame de Merville had by deed of gift; (though unknown to her lover),
+before her death, made over to young Vaudemont the bulk of her fortune;
+and that, when he was informed of this donation after her decease, and
+sufficiently recovered from the stupor of his grief, he summoned her
+relations round him, declared that her memory was too dear to him for
+wealth to console him for her loss, and reserving to himself but a
+modest and bare sufficiency for the common necessaries of a gentleman,
+he divided the rest amongst them, and repaired to the East; not only to
+conquer his sorrow by the novelty and stir of an exciting life, but to
+carve out with his own hand the reputation of an honourable and brave
+man. My friend remembered the scandal long buried--he forgot the
+generous action.”
+
+“Your friend, you see, my dear Monsieur de Liancourt,” remarked
+Lilburne, “is more a man of the world than you are!”
+
+“And I was just going to observe,” said the friend thus referred to,
+“that that very action seemed to confirm the rumour that there had been
+some little manoeuvring as to this unexpected addition to the name of De
+Vaudemont; for, if himself related to Madame de Merville, why have such
+scruples to receive her gift?”
+
+“A very shrewd remark,” said Lord Lilburne, looking with some respect at
+the speaker; “and I own that it is a very unaccountable proceeding, and
+one of which I don’t think you or I would ever have been guilty. Well,
+and the old Vicomte?”
+
+“Did not live long!” said the Frenchman, evidently gratified by his
+host’s compliment, while Liancourt threw himself back in his chair in
+grave displeasure. “The young man remained some years in India, and when
+he returned to Paris, our friend here, Monsieur de Liancourt (then in
+favour with Charles X.), and Madame de Merville’s relations took him
+up. He had already acquired a reputation in this foreign service, and he
+obtained a place at the court, and a commission in the king’s guards.
+I allow that he would certainly have made a career, had it not been for
+the Three Days. As it is, you see him in London, like the rest of us, an
+exile!”
+
+“And I suppose, without a sous.”
+
+“No, I believe that he had still saved, and even augmented, in India,
+the portion he allotted to himself from Madame de Merville’s bequest.”
+
+“And if he don’t play whist, he ought to play it,” said Lilburne. “You
+have roused my curiosity; I hope you will let me make his acquaintance,
+Monsieur de Liancourt. I am no politician, but allow me to propose this
+toast, ‘Success to those who have the wit to plan, and the strength to
+execute.’ In other words, ‘the Right Divine!’”
+
+Soon afterwards the guests retired.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+“Ros. Happily, he’s the second time come to them.”--Hamlet.
+
+It was the evening after that in which the conversations recorded in
+our last chapter were held;--evening in the quiet suburb of H------. The
+desertion and silence of the metropolis in September had extended to
+its neighbouring hamlets;--a village in the heart of the country could
+scarcely have seemed more still; the lamps were lighted, many of the
+shops already closed, a few of the sober couples and retired spinsters
+of the place might, here and there, be seen slowly wandering
+homeward after their evening walk: two or three dogs, in spite of the
+prohibitions of the magistrates placarded on the walls,--(manifestoes
+which threatened with death the dogs, and predicted more than ordinary
+madness to the public,)--were playing in the main road, disturbed from
+time to time as the slow coach, plying between the city and the suburb,
+crawled along the thoroughfare, or as the brisk mails whirled rapidly
+by, announced by the cloudy dust and the guard’s lively horn. Gradually
+even these evidences of life ceased--the saunterers disappeared, the
+mails had passed, the dogs gave place to the later and more stealthy
+perambulations of their feline successors “who love the moon.” At
+unfrequent intervals, the more important shops--the linen-drapers’, the
+chemists’, and the gin-palace--still poured out across the shadowy
+road their streams of light from windows yet unclosed: but with these
+exceptions, the business of the place stood still.
+
+At this time there emerged from a milliner’s house (shop, to outward
+appearance, it was not, evincing its gentility and its degree above the
+Capelocracy, to use a certain classical neologism, by a brass plate on
+an oak door, whereon was graven, “Miss Semper, Milliner and Dressmaker,
+from Madame Devy,”)--at this time, I say, and from this house there
+emerged the light and graceful form of a young female. She held in her
+left hand a little basket, of the contents of which (for it was empty)
+she had apparently just disposed; and, as she stepped across the
+road, the lamplight fell on a face in the first bloom of youth, and
+characterised by an expression of childlike innocence and candour. It
+was a face regularly and exquisitely lovely, yet something there was
+in the aspect that saddened you; you knew not why, for it was not sad
+itself; on the contrary, the lips smiled and the eyes sparkled. As she
+now glided along the shadowy street with a light, quick step, a man,
+who had hitherto been concealed by the portico of an attorney’s house,
+advanced stealthily, and followed her at a little distance. Unconscious
+that she was dogged, and seemingly fearless of all danger, the girl went
+lightly on, swinging her basket playfully to and fro, and chaunting, in
+a low but musical tone, some verses that seemed rather to belong to the
+nursery than to that age which the fair singer had attained.
+
+As she came to an angle which the main street formed with a lane, narrow
+and partially lighted, a policeman, stationed there, looked hard at her,
+and then touched his hat with an air of respect, in which there seemed
+also a little of compassion.
+
+“Good night to you,” said the girl, passing him, and with a frank, gay
+tone.
+
+“Shall I attend you home, Miss?” said the man.
+
+“What for? I am very well!” answered the young woman, with an accent and
+look of innocent surprise.
+
+Just at this time the man, who had hitherto followed her, gained the
+spot, and turned down the lane.
+
+“Yes,” replied the policeman; “but it is getting dark, Miss.”
+
+“So it is every night when I walk home, unless there’s a
+moon.--Good-bye.--The moon,” she repeated to herself, as she walked on,
+“I used to be afraid of the moon when I was a little child;” and then,
+after a pause, she murmured, in a low chaunt:
+
+
+        “‘The moon she is a wandering ghost,
+        That walks in penance nightly;
+        How sad she is, that wandering moon,
+        For all she shines so brightly!
+
+        “‘I watched her eyes when I was young,
+        Until they turned my brain,
+        And now I often weep to think
+        ‘Twill ne’er be right again.’”
+
+As the murmur of these words died at a distance down the lane in which
+the girl had disappeared, the policeman, who had paused to listen, shook
+his head mournfully, and said, while he moved on,--
+
+“Poor thing! they should not let her always go about by herself; and
+yet, who would harm her?”
+
+Meanwhile the girl proceeded along the lane, which was skirted by small,
+but not mean houses, till it terminated in a cross-stile that admitted
+into a church yard. Here hung the last lamp in the path, and a few
+dim stars broke palely over the long grass, and scattered gravestones,
+without piercing the deep shadow which the church threw over a large
+portion of the sacred ground. Just as she passed the stile, the man,
+whom we have before noticed, and who had been leaning, as if waiting for
+some one, against the pales, approached, and said gently,--
+
+“Ah, Miss! it is a lone place for one so beautiful as you are to be
+alone. You ought never to be on foot.”
+
+The girl stopped, and looked full, but without any alarm in her eyes,
+into the man’s face.
+
+“Go away!” she said, with a half-peevish, half-kindly tone of command.
+“I don’t know you.”
+
+“But I have been sent to speak to you by one who does know you,
+Miss--one who loves you to distraction--he has seen you before at Mrs.
+West’s. He is so grieved to think you should walk--you ought, he says,
+to have every luxury--that he has sent his carriage for you. It is on
+the other side of the yard. Do come now;” and he laid his hand, though
+very lightly, on her arm.
+
+“At Mrs. West’s!” she said; and, for the first time, her voice and look
+showed fear. “Go away directly! How dare you touch me!”
+
+“But, my dear Miss, you have no idea how my employer loves you, and how
+rich he is. See, he has sent you all this money; it is gold--real gold.
+You may have what you like, if you will but come. Now, don’t be silly,
+Miss.” The girl made no answer, but, with a sudden spring, passed
+the man, and ran lightly and rapidly along the path, in an opposite
+direction from that to which the tempter had pointed, when inviting her
+to the carriage. The man, surprised, but not baffled, reached her in an
+instant, and caught hold of her dress.
+
+“Stay! you must come--you must!” he said, threateningly; and, loosening
+his grasp on her shawl, he threw his arm round her waist.
+
+“Don’t!” cried the girl, pleadingly, and apparently subdued, turning
+her fair, soft face upon her pursuer, and clasping her hands. “Be quiet!
+Fanny is silly! No one is ever rude to poor Fanny!”
+
+“And no one will be rude to you, Miss,” said the man, apparently
+touched; “but I dare not go without you. You don’t know what you refuse.
+Come;” and he attempted gently to draw her back.
+
+“No, no!” said the girl, changing from supplication to anger, and
+raising her voice into a loud shriek, “No! I will--”
+
+“Nay, then,” interrupted the man, looking round anxiously, and, with
+a quick and dexterous movement he threw a large handkerchief over her
+face, and, as he held it fast to her lips with one hand, he lifted
+her from the ground. Still violently struggling, the girl contrived to
+remove the handkerchief, and once more her shriek of terror rang through
+the violated sanctuary.
+
+At that instant a loud deep voice was heard, “Who calls?” And a tall
+figure seemed to rise, as from the grave itself, and emerge from the
+shadow of the church. A moment more, and a strong gripe was laid on the
+shoulder of the ravisher. “What is this? On God’s ground, too! Release
+her, wretch!”
+
+The man, trembling, half with superstitious, half with bodily fear, let
+go his captive, who fell at once at the knees of her deliverer. “Don’t
+you hurt me too,” she said, as the tears rolled down her eyes. “I am a
+good girl--and my grandfather’s blind.”
+
+The stranger bent down and raised her; then looking round for the
+assailant with an eye whose dark fire shone through the gloom, he
+perceived the coward stealing off. He disdained to pursue.
+
+“My poor child,” said he, with that voice which the strong assume to the
+weak--the man to some wounded infant--the voice of tender superiority
+and compassion, “there is no cause for fear now. Be soothed. Do you live
+near? Shall I see you home?”
+
+“Thank you! That’s kind. Pray do!” And, with an infantine confidence
+she took his hand, as a child does that of a grown-up person;--so they
+walked on together.
+
+“And,” said the stranger, “do you know that man? Has he insulted you
+before?”
+
+“No--don’t talk of him: ce me fait mal!” And she put her hand to her
+forehead.
+
+The French was spoken with so French an accent, that, in some curiosity,
+the stranger cast his eye over her plain dress.
+
+“You speak French well.”
+
+“Do I? I wish I knew more words--I only recollect a few. When I am very
+happy or very sad they come into my head. But I am happy now. I like
+your voice--I like you--Oh! I have dropped my basket!”
+
+“Shall I go back for it, or shall I buy you another?”
+
+“Another!--Oh, no! come back for it. How kind you are!--Ah! I see it!”
+ and she broke away and ran forward to pick it up.
+
+When she had recovered it, she laughed--she spoke to it--she kissed it.
+
+Her companion smiled as he said: “Some sweetheart has given you that
+basket--it seems but a common basket too.”
+
+“I have had it--oh, ever since--since--I don’t know how long! It came
+with me from France--it was full of little toys. They are gone--I am so
+sorry!”
+
+“How old are you?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“My pretty one,” said the stranger, with deep pity in his rich voice,
+“your mother should not let you go out alone at this hour.”
+
+“Mother!--mother!” repeated the girl, in a tone of surprise.
+
+“Have you no mother?”
+
+“No! I had a father once. But he died, they say. I did not see him die.
+I sometimes cry when I think that I shall never, never see him again!
+But,” she said, changing her accent from melancholy almost to joy, “he
+is to have a grave here like the other girl’s fathers--a fine stone upon
+it--and all to be done with my money!”
+
+“Your money, my child?”
+
+“Yes; the money I make. I sell my work and take the money to my
+grandfather; but I lay by a little every week for a gravestone for my
+father.”
+
+“Will the gravestone be placed in that churchyard?” They were now in
+another lane; and, as he spoke, the stranger checked her, and bending
+down to look into her face, he murmured to himself, “Is it possible?--it
+must be--it must!”
+
+“Yes! I love that churchyard--my brother told me to put flowers there;
+and grandfather and I sit there in the summer, without speaking. But I
+don’t talk much, I like singing better:--
+
+
+        “‘All things that good and harmless are
+        Are taught, they say, to sing
+        The maiden resting at her work,
+        The bird upon the wing;
+        The little ones at church, in prayer;
+        The angels in the sky
+        The angels less when babes are born
+        Than when the aged die.’”
+
+And unconscious of the latent moral, dark or cheering, according as we
+estimate the value of this life, couched in the concluding rhyme, Fanny
+turned round to the stranger, and said, “Why should the angels be glad
+when the aged die?”
+
+“That they are released from a false, unjust, and miserable world, in
+which the first man was a rebel, and the second a murderer!” muttered
+the stranger between his teeth, which he gnashed as he spoke.
+
+The girl did not understand him: she shook her head gently, and made no
+reply. A few moments, and she paused before a small house.
+
+“This is my home.”
+
+“It is so,” said her companion, examining the exterior of the house with
+an earnest gaze; “and your name is Fanny.”
+
+“Yes--every one knows Fanny. Come in;” and the girl opened the door with
+a latch-key.
+
+The stranger bowed his stately height as he crossed the low threshold
+and followed his guide into a little parlour. Before a table on which
+burned dimly, and with unheeded wick, a single candle, sat a man of
+advanced age; and as he turned his face to the door, the stranger saw
+that he was blind.
+
+The girl bounded to his chair, passed her arms round the old man’s neck,
+and kissed his forehead; then nestling herself at his feet, and leaning
+her clasped hands caressingly on his knee, she said,--
+
+“Grandpapa, I have brought you somebody you must love. He has been so
+kind to Fanny.”
+
+“And neither of you can remember me!” said the guest.
+
+The old man, whose dull face seemed to indicate dotage, half raised
+himself at the sound of the stranger’s voice. “Who is that?” said he,
+with a feeble and querulous voice. “Who wants me?”
+
+“I am the friend of your lost son. I am he who, ten years go, brought
+Fanny to your roof, and gave her to your care--your son’s last charge.
+And you blessed your son, and forgave him, and vowed to be a father to
+his Fanny.” The old man, who had now slowly risen to his feet, trembled
+violently, and stretched out his hands.
+
+“Come near--near--let me put my hands on your head. I cannot see you;
+but Fanny talks of you, and prays for you; and Fanny--she has been an
+angel to me!”
+
+The stranger approached and half knelt as the old man spread his hands
+over his head, muttering inaudibly. Meanwhile Fanny, pale as death--her
+lips apart--an eager, painful expression on her face--looked inquiringly
+on the dark, marked countenance of the visitor, and creeping towards him
+inch by inch, fearfully touched his dress--his arms--his countenance.
+
+“Brother,” she said at last, doubtingly and timidly, “Brother, I thought
+I could never forget you! But you are not like my brother; you are
+older;--you are--you are!--no! no! you are not my brother!”
+
+“I am much changed, Fanny; and you too!”
+
+He smiled as he spoke; and the smile--sweet and pitying--thoroughly
+changed the character of his face, which was ordinarily stern, grave,
+and proud.
+
+“I know you now!” exclaimed Fanny, in a tone of wild joy. “And you come
+back from that grave! My flowers have brought you back at last! I knew
+they would! Brother! Brother!”
+
+And she threw herself on his breast and burst into passionate tears.
+Then, suddenly drawing herself back, she laid her finger on his arm, and
+looked up at him beseechingly.
+
+“Pray, now, is he really dead? He, my father!--he, too, was lost like
+you. Can’t he come back again as you have done?”
+
+“Do you grieve for him still, then? Poor girl!” said the stranger,
+evasively, and seating himself. Fanny continued to listen for an answer
+to her touching question; but finding that none was given, she stole
+away to a corner of the room, and leaned her face on her hands, and
+seemed to think--till at last, as she so sat, the tears began to flow
+down her cheeks, and she wept, but silently and unnoticed.
+
+“But, sir,” said the guest, after a short pause, “how is this? Fanny
+tells me she supports you by her work. Are you so poor, then? Yet I left
+you your son’s bequest; and you, too, I understood, though not rich,
+were not in want!”
+
+“There was a curse on my gold,” said the old man, sternly. “It was
+stolen from us.”
+
+There was another pause. Simon broke it.
+
+“And you, young man--how has it fared with you? You have prospered, I
+hope.”
+
+“I am as I have been for years--alone in the world, without kindred and
+without friends. But, thanks to Heaven, I am not a beggar!”
+
+“No kindred and no friends!” repeated the old man. “No father--no
+brother--no wife--no sister!”
+
+“None! No one to care whether I live or die,” answered the stranger,
+with a mixture of pride and sadness in his voice. “But, as the song has
+it--
+
+
+          “‘I care for nobody--no, not I,
+          For nobody cares for me!’”
+
+There was a certain pathos in the mockery with which he repeated
+the homely lines, although, as he did, he gathered himself up, as if
+conscious of a certain consolation and reliance on the resources not
+dependent on others which he had found in his own strong limbs and his
+own stout heart.
+
+At that moment he felt a soft touch upon his hand, and he saw Fanny
+looking at him through the tears that still flowed.
+
+“You have no one to care for you? Don’t say so! Come and live with us,
+brother; we’ll care for you. I have never forgotten the flowers--never!
+Do come! Fanny shall love you. Fanny can work for three!”
+
+“And they call her an idiot!” mumbled the old man, with a vacant smile
+on his lips.
+
+“My sister! You shall be my sister! Forlorn one--whom even Nature has
+fooled and betrayed! Sister!--we, both orphans! Sister!” exclaimed that
+dark, stern man, passionately, and with a broken voice; and he opened
+his arms, and Fanny, without a blush or a thought of shame, threw
+herself on his breast. He kissed her forehead with a kiss that was,
+indeed, pure and holy as a brother’s: and Fanny felt that he had left
+upon her cheek a tear that was not her own.
+
+“Well,” he said, with an altered voice, and taking the old man’s hand,
+“what say you? Shall I take up my lodging with you? I have a little
+money; I can protect and aid you both. I shall be often away--in London
+or else where--and will not intrude too much on you. But you blind, and
+she--(here he broke off the sentence abruptly and went on)--you should
+not be left alone. And this neighbourhood, that burial-place, are dear
+to me. I, too, Fanny, have lost a parent; and that grave--”
+
+He paused, and then added, in a trembling voice, “And you have placed
+flowers over that grave?”
+
+“Stay with us,” said the blind man; “not for our sake, but your own. The
+world is a bad place. I have been long sick of the world. Yes! come and
+live near the burial-ground--the nearer you are to the grave, the safer
+you are;--and you have a little money, you say!”
+
+“I will come to-morrow, then. I must return now. Tomorrow, Fanny, we
+shall meet again.”
+
+“Must you go?” said Fanny, tenderly. “But you will come again; you know
+I used to think every one died when he left me. I am wiser now. Yet
+still, when you do leave me, it is true that you die for Fanny!”
+
+At this moment, as the three persons were grouped, each had assumed
+a posture of form, an expression of face, which a painter of fitting
+sentiment and skill would have loved to study. The visitor had gained
+the door; and as he stood there, his noble height--the magnificent
+strength and health of his manhood in its full prime--contrasted alike
+the almost spectral debility of extreme age and the graceful delicacy
+of Fanny--half girl, half child. There was something foreign in his
+air--and the half military habit, relieved by the red riband of the
+Bourbon knighthood. His complexion was dark as that of a Moor, and
+his raven hair curled close to the stately head. The
+soldier-moustache--thick, but glossy as silk-shaded the firm lip; and
+the pointed beard, assumed by the exiled Carlists, heightened the effect
+of the strong and haughty features and the expression of the martial
+countenance.
+
+But as Fanny’s voice died on his ear, he half averted that proud face;
+and the dark eyes--almost Oriental in their brilliancy and depth of
+shade--seemed soft and humid. And there stood Fanny, in a posture
+of such unconscious sadness--such childlike innocence; her arms
+drooping--her face wistfully turned to his--and a half smile upon the
+lips, that made still more touching the tears not yet dried upon her
+cheeks. While thin, frail, shadowy, with white hair and furrowed cheeks,
+the old man fixed his sightless orbs on space; and his face, usually
+only animated from the lethargy of advancing dotage by a certain
+querulous cynicism, now grew suddenly earnest, and even thoughtful, as
+Fanny spoke of Death!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+        “Ulyss. Time hath a wallet at his back
+        Wherein he puts alms for oblivion.
+        * * Perseverance, dear my lord,
+        Keeps honour bright.”--Troilus and Cressida.
+
+I have not sought--as would have been easy, by a little ingenuity in the
+earlier portion of this narrative--whatever source of vulgar interest
+might be derived from the mystery of names and persons. As in Charles
+Spencer the reader is allowed at a glance to detect Sidney Morton, so in
+Philip de Vaudemont (the stranger who rescued Fanny) the reader at once
+recognises the hero of my tale; but since neither of these young men has
+a better right to the name resigned than to the name adopted, it will be
+simpler and more convenient to designate them by those appellations by
+which they are now known to the world. In truth, Philip de Vaudemont was
+scarcely the same being as Philip Morton. In the short visit he had
+paid to the elder Gawtrey, when he consigned Fanny to his charge, he had
+given no name; and the one he now took (when, towards the evening of the
+next day he returned to Simon’s house) the old man heard for the first
+time. Once more sunk into his usual apathy, Simon did not express any
+surprise that a Frenchman should be so well acquainted with English--he
+scarcely observed that the name was French. Simon’s age seemed daily to
+bring him more and more to that state when life is mere mechanism, and
+the soul, preparing for its departure, no longer heeds the tenement that
+crumbles silently and neglected into its lonely dust. Vaudemont came
+with but little luggage (for he had an apartment also in London), and
+no attendant,--a single horse was consigned to the stables of an inn at
+hand, and he seemed, as soldiers are, more careful for the comforts of
+the animal than his own. There was but one woman servant in the humble
+household, who did all the ruder work, for Fanny’s industry could afford
+it. The solitary servant and the homely fare sufficed for the simple and
+hardy adventurer.
+
+Fanny, with a countenance radiant with joy, took his hand and led him to
+his room. Poor child! with that instinct of woman which never deserted
+her, she had busied herself the whole day in striving to deck the
+chamber according to her own notions of comfort. She had stolen from
+her little hoard wherewithal to make some small purchases, on which the
+Dowbiggin of the suburb had been consulted. And what with flowers on the
+table, and a fire at the hearth, the room looked cheerful.
+
+She watched him as he glanced around, and felt disappointed that he
+did not utter the admiration she expected. Angry at last with the
+indifference which, in fact, as to external accommodation, was habitual
+to him, she plucked his sleeve, and said,--
+
+“Why don’t you speak? Is it not nice?--Fanny did her best.”
+
+“And a thousand thanks to Fanny! It is all I could wish.”
+
+“There is another room, bigger than this, but the wicked woman who
+robbed us slept there; and besides, you said you liked the churchyard.
+See!” and she opened the window and pointed to the church-tower rising
+dark against the evening sky.
+
+“This is better than all!” said Vaudemont; and he looked out from the
+window in a silent reverie, which Fanny did not disturb.
+
+And now he was settled! From a career so wild, agitated, and various,
+the adventurer paused in that humble resting-nook. But quiet is not
+repose--obscurity is not content. Often as, morn and eve, he looked
+forth upon the spot, where his mother’s heart, unconscious of love and
+woe, mouldered away, the indignant and bitter feelings of the wronged
+outcast and the son who could not clear the mother’s name swept away the
+subdued and gentle melancholy into which time usually softens regret for
+the dead, and with which most of us think of the distant past, and the
+once joyous childhood!
+
+In this man’s breast lay, concealed by his external calm, those memories
+and aspirations which are as strong as passions. In his earlier years,
+when he had been put to hard shifts for existence, he had found no
+leisure for close and brooding reflection upon that spoliation of just
+rights--that calumny upon his mother’s name, which had first brought
+the Night into his Morning. His resentment towards the Beauforts, it is
+true, had ever been an intense but a fitful and irregular passion. It
+was exactly in proportion as, by those rare and romantic incidents which
+Fiction cannot invent, and which Narrative takes with diffidence from
+the great Store-house of Real Life, his steps had ascended in the social
+ladder--that all which his childhood had lost--all which the robbers
+of his heritage had gained, the grandeur and the power of WEALTH--above
+all, the hourly and the tranquil happiness of a stainless name, became
+palpable and distinct. He had loved Eugenie as a boy loves for the first
+time an accomplished woman. He regarded her, so refined--so gentle--so
+gifted, with the feelings due to a superior being, with an eternal
+recollection of the ministering angel that had shone upon him when
+he stood on the dark abyss. She was the first that had redeemed his
+fate--the first that had guided aright his path--the first that had
+tamed the savage at his breast:--it was the young lion charmed by the
+eyes of Una. The outline of his story had been truly given at Lord
+Lilburne’s. Despite his pride, which revolted from such obligations to
+another, and a woman--which disliked and struggled against a disguise
+which at once and alone saved him from the detection of the past and the
+terrors of the future--he had yielded to her, the wise and the gentle,
+as one whose judgment he could not doubt; and, indeed, the slanderous
+falsehoods circulated by the lackey, to whose discretion, the night of
+Gawtrey’s death, Eugenie had preferred to confide her own honour, rather
+than another’s life, had (as Liancourt rightly stated) left Philip no
+option but that which Madame de Merville deemed the best, whether for
+her happiness or her good name. Then had followed a brief season--the
+holiday of his life--the season of young hope and passion, of brilliancy
+and joy, closing by that abrupt death which again left him lonely in the
+world.
+
+When, from the grief that succeeded to the death of Eugenie, he woke to
+find himself amidst the strange faces and exciting scenes of an Oriental
+court, he turned with hard and disgustful contempt from Pleasure, as an
+infidelity to the dead. Ambition crept over him--his mind hardened
+as his cheek bronzed under those burning suns--his hardy frame,
+his energies prematurely awakened, his constitutional disregard to
+danger,--made him a brave and skilful soldier. He acquired reputation
+and rank. But, as time went on, the ambition took a higher flight--he
+felt his sphere circumscribed; the Eastern indolence that filled up the
+long intervals between Eastern action chafed a temper never at rest:
+he returned to France: his reputation, Liancourt’s friendship, and the
+relations of Eugenie--grateful, as has before been implied, for
+the generosity with which he surrendered the principal part of her
+donation--opened for him a new career, but one painful and galling. In
+the Indian court there was no question of his birth--one adventurer was
+equal with the rest. But in Paris, a man attempting to rise provoked all
+the sarcasm of wit, all the cavils of party; and in polished and civil
+life, what valour has weapons against a jest? Thus, in civilisation,
+all the passions that spring from humiliated self-love and baffled
+aspiration again preyed upon his breast. He saw, then, that the more he
+struggled from obscurity, the more acute would become research into his
+true origin; and his writhing pride almost stung to death his ambition.
+To succeed in life by regular means was indeed difficult for this man;
+always recoiling from the name he bore--always strong in the hope yet
+to regain that to which he conceived himself entitled--cherishing that
+pride of country which never deserts the native of a Free State,
+however harsh a parent she may have proved; and, above all, whatever
+his ambition and his passions, taking, from the very misfortunes he had
+known, an indomitable belief in the ultimate justice of Heaven;--he had
+refused to sever the last ties that connected him with his lost heritage
+and his forsaken land--he refused to be naturalised--to make the name
+he bore legally undisputed--he was contented to be an alien. Neither was
+Vaudemont fitted exactly for that crisis in the social world when the
+men of journals and talk bustle aside the men of action. He had not
+cultivated literature, he had no book-knowledge--the world had been his
+school, and stern life his teacher. Still, eminently skilled in those
+physical accomplishments which men admire and soldiers covet, calm and
+self-possessed in manner, of great personal advantages, of much ready
+talent and of practised observation in character, he continued to breast
+the obstacles around him, and to establish himself in the favour of
+those in power. It was natural to a person so reared and circumstanced
+to have no sympathy with what is called the popular cause. He was no
+citizen in the state--he was a stranger in the land. He had suffered
+and still suffered too much from mankind to have that philanthropy,
+sometimes visionary but always noble, which, in fact, generally springs
+from the studies we cultivate, not in the forum, but the closet. Men,
+alas! too often lose the Democratic Enthusiasm in proportion as they
+find reason to suspect or despise their kind. And if there were not
+hopes for the Future, which this hard, practical daily life does not
+suffice to teach us, the vision and the glory that belong to the Great
+Popular Creed, dimmed beneath the injustice, the follies, and the vices
+of the world as it is, would fade into the lukewarm sectarianism of
+temporary Party. Moreover, Vaudemont’s habits of thought and reasoning
+were those of the camp, confirmed by the systems familiar to him in the
+East: he regarded the populace as a soldier enamoured of discipline and
+order usually does. His theories, therefore, or rather his ignorance of
+what is sound in theory, went with Charles the Tenth in his excesses,
+but not with the timidity which terminated those excesses by
+dethronement and disgrace. Chafed to the heart, gnawed with proud grief,
+he obeyed the royal mandates, and followed the exiled monarch: his hopes
+overthrown, his career in France annihilated forever. But on entering
+England, his temper, confident and ready of resource, fastened itself
+on new food. In the land where he had no name he might yet rebuild his
+fortunes. It was an arduous effort--an improbable hope; but the words
+heard by the bridge of Paris--words that had often cheered him in his
+exile through hardships and through dangers which it is unnecessary to
+our narrative to detail--yet rung again in his ear, as he leaped on his
+native land,--“Time, Faith, Energy.”
+
+While such his character in the larger and more distant relations
+of life, in the closer circles of companionship many rare and
+noble qualities were visible. It is true that he was stern, perhaps
+imperious--of a temper that always struggled for command; but he was
+deeply susceptible of kindness, and, if feared by those who opposed,
+loved by those who served him. About his character was that mixture of
+tenderness and fierceness which belonged, of old, to the descriptions of
+the warrior. Though so little unlettered, Life had taught him a certain
+poetry of sentiment and idea--More poetry, perhaps, in the silent
+thoughts that, in his happier moments, filled his solitude, than in half
+the pages that his brother had read and written by the dreaming lake. A
+certain largeness of idea and nobility of impulse often made him act
+the sentiments of which bookmen write. With all his passions, he held
+licentiousness in disdain; with all his ambition for the power of
+wealth, he despised its luxury. Simple, masculine, severe, abstemious,
+he was of that mould in which, in earlier times, the successful men of
+action have been cast. But to successful action, circumstance is more
+necessary than to triumphant study.
+
+It was to be expected that, in proportion as he had been familiar with
+a purer and nobler life, he should look with great and deep
+self-humiliation at his early association with Gawtrey. He was in this
+respect more severe on himself than any other mind ordinarily just and
+candid would have been,--when fairly surveying the circumstances of
+penury, hunger, and despair, which had driven him to Gawtrey’s roof, the
+imperfect nature of his early education, the boyish trust and affection
+he had felt for his protector, and his own ignorance of, and exemption
+from, all the worst practices of that unhappy criminal. But still, when,
+with the knowledge he had now acquired, the man looked calmly back, his
+cheek burned with remorseful shame at his unreflecting companionship in
+a life of subterfuge and equivocation, the true nature of which, the
+boy (so circumstanced as we have shown him) might be forgiven for not
+at that time comprehending. Two advantages resulted, however, from the
+error and the remorse: first, the humiliation it brought curbed, in some
+measure, a pride that might otherwise have been arrogant and unamiable,
+and, secondly, as I have before intimated, his profound gratitude to
+Heaven for his deliverance from the snares that had beset his youth gave
+his future the guide of an earnest and heartfelt faith. He acknowledged
+in life no such thing as accident. Whatever his struggles, whatever his
+melancholy, whatever his sense of worldly wrong, he never despaired; for
+nothing now could shake his belief in one directing Providence.
+
+The ways and habits of Vaudemont were not at discord with those of the
+quiet household in which he was now a guest. Like most men of strong
+frames, and accustomed to active, not studious pursuits, he rose
+early;--and usually rode to London, to come back late at noon to their
+frugal meal. And if again, perhaps after the hour when Fanny and Simon
+retired, he would often return to London, his own pass-key re-admitted
+him, at whatever time he came back, without disturbing the sleep of
+the household. Sometimes, when the sun began to decline, if the air was
+warm, the old man would crawl out, leaning on that strong arm, through
+the neighbouring lanes, ever returning through the lonely burial-ground;
+or when the blind host clung to his fireside, and composed himself to
+sleep, Philip would saunter forth along with Fanny; and on the days when
+she went to sell her work, or select her purchases, he always made a
+point of attending her. And her cheek wore a flush of pride when she saw
+him carrying her little basket, or waiting without, in musing patience,
+while she performed her commissions in the shops. Though in reality
+Fanny’s intellect was ripening within, yet still the surface often
+misled the eye as to the depths. It was rather that something yet held
+back the faculties from their growth than that the faculties themselves
+were wanting. Her weakness was more of the nature of the infant’s than
+of one afflicted with incurable imbecility. For instance, she managed
+the little household with skill and prudence; she could calculate in her
+head, as rapidly as Vaudemont himself, the arithmetic necessary to her
+simple duties; she knew the value of money, which is more than some
+of us wise folk do. Her skill, even in her infancy so remarkable,
+in various branches of female handiwork, was carried, not only by
+perseverance, but by invention and peculiar talent, to a marvellous and
+exquisite perfection. Her embroidery, especially in what was then more
+rare than at present, viz., flowers on silk, was much in request among
+the great modistes of London, to whom it found its way through the
+agency of Miss Semper. So that all this had enabled her, for years,
+to provide every necessary comfort of life for herself and her blind
+protector. And her care for the old man was beautiful in its minuteness,
+its vigilance. Wherever her heart was interested, there never seemed
+a deficiency of mind. Vaudemont was touched to see how much of
+affectionate and pitying respect she appeared to enjoy in the
+neighbourhood, especially among the humbler classes--even the beggar who
+swept the crossings did not beg of her, but bade God bless her as she
+passed; and the rude, discontented artisan would draw himself from the
+wall and answer, with a softened brow, the smile with which the harmless
+one charmed his courtesy. In fact, whatever attraction she took from
+her youth, her beauty, her misfortune, and her affecting industry, was
+heightened, in the eyes of the poorer neighbours, by many little traits
+of charity and kindness; many a sick child had she tended, and many a
+breadless board had stolen something from the stock set aside for her
+father’s grave.
+
+“Don’t you think,” she once whispered to Vaudemont, “that God attends to
+us more if we are good to those who are sick and hungry?”
+
+“Certainly we are taught to think so.”
+
+“Well, I’ll tell you a secret--don’t tell again. Grandpapa once said
+that my father had done bad things; now, if Fanny is good to those she
+can help, I think that God will hear her more kindly when she prays him
+to forgive what her father did. Do you think so too? Do say--you are so
+wise!”
+
+“Fanny, you are wiser than all of us; and I feel myself better and
+happier when I hear you speak.”
+
+There were, indeed, many moments when Vaudemont thought that her
+deficiencies of intellect might have been repaired, long since, by
+skilful culture and habitual companionship with those of her own age;
+from which companionship, however, Fanny, even when at school, had
+shrunk aloof. At other moments there was something so absent and
+distracted about her, or so fantastic and incoherent, that Vaudemont,
+with the man’s hard, worldly eye, read in it nothing but melancholy
+confusion. Nevertheless, if the skein of ideas was entangled, each
+thread in itself was a thread of gold.
+
+Fanny’s great object--her great ambition--her one hope--was a tomb for
+her supposed father. Whether from some of that early religion attached
+to the grave, which is most felt in Catholic countries, and which she
+had imbibed at the convent; or from her residence so near the burial
+ground, and the affection with which she regarded the spot;--whatever
+the cause, she had cherished for some years, as young maidens usually
+cherish the desire of the Altar--the dream of the Gravestone. But
+the hoard was amassed so slowly;--now old Gawtrey was attacked by
+illness;--now there was some little difficulty in the rent; now some
+fluctuation in the price of work; and now, and more often than all, some
+demand on her charity, which interfered with, and drew from, the pious
+savings. This was a sentiment in which her new friend sympathised
+deeply; for he, too, remembered that his first gold had bought that
+humble stone which still preserved upon the earth the memory of his
+mother.
+
+Meanwhile, days crept on, and no new violence was offered to Fanny.
+Vaudemont learned, then, by little and little--and Fanny’s account was
+very confused--the nature of the danger she had run.
+
+It seemed that one day, tempted by the fineness of the weather up
+the road that led from the suburb farther into the country, Fanny was
+stopped by a gentleman in a carriage, who accosted her, as she said,
+very kindly: and after several questions, which she answered with her
+usual unsuspecting innocence, learned her trade, insisted on purchasing
+some articles of work which she had at the moment in her basket, and
+promised to procure her a constant purchaser, upon much better terms
+than she had hitherto obtained, if she would call at the house of a Mrs.
+West, about a mile from the suburb towards London. This she promised
+to do, and this she did, according to the address he gave her. She was
+admitted to a lady more gaily dressed than Fanny had ever seen a lady
+before,--the gentleman was also present,--they both loaded her with
+compliments, and bought her work at a price which seemed about to
+realise all the hopes of the poor girl as to the gravestone for William
+Gawtrey,--as if his evil fate pursued that wild man beyond the grave,
+and his very tomb was to be purchased by the gold of the polluter! The
+lady then appointed her to call again; but, meanwhile, she met Fanny
+in the streets, and while she was accosting her, it fortunately chanced
+that Miss Semper the milliner passed that way--turned round, looked hard
+at the lady, used very angry language to her, seized Fanny’s hand, led
+her away while the lady slunk off; and told her that the said lady was a
+very bad woman, and that Fanny must never speak to her again. Fanny
+most cheerfully promised this. And, in fact, the lady, probably afraid,
+whether of the mob or the magistrates, never again came near her.
+
+“And,” said Fanny, “I gave the money they had both given to me to Miss
+Semper, who said she would send it back.”
+
+“You did right, Fanny; and as you made one promise to Miss Semper, so
+you must make me one--never to stir from home again without me or some
+other person. No, no other person--only me. I will give up everything
+else to go with you.”
+
+“Will you? Oh, yes. I promise! I used to like going alone, but that was
+before you came, brother.”
+
+And as Fanny kept her promise, it would have been a bold gallant indeed
+who would have ventured to molest her by the side of that stately and
+strong protector.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+     “Timon. Each thing’s a thief
+     The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough power
+     Have unchecked theft.
+
+     The sweet degrees that this brief world affords,
+     To such as may the passive drugs of it
+     Freely command.”--Timon of Athens.
+
+On the day and at the hour fixed for the interview with the stranger who
+had visited Mr. Beaufort, Lord Lilburne was seated in the library of
+his brother-in-law; and before the elbow-chair, on which he lolled
+carelessly, stood our old friend Mr. Sharp, of Bow Street notability.
+
+“Mr. Sharp,” said the peer, “I have sent for you to do me a little
+favour. I expect a man here who professes to give Mr. Beaufort, my
+brother-in-law, some information about a lawsuit. It is necessary
+to know the exact value of his evidence. I wish you to ascertain all
+particulars about him. Be so good as to seat yourself in the porter’s
+chair in the hall; note him when he enters, unobserved yourself--but as
+he is probably a stranger to you, note him still more when he leaves
+the house; follow him at a distance; find out where he lives, whom he
+associates with, where he visits, their names and directions, what his
+character and calling are;--in a word, everything you can, and report
+to me each evening. Dog him well, never lose sight of him--you will be
+handsomely paid. You understand?”
+
+“Ah!” said Mr. Sharp, “leave me alone, my lord. Been employed before by
+your lordship’s brother-in-law. We knows what’s what.”
+
+“I don’t doubt it. To your post--I expect him every moment.”
+
+And, in fact, Mr. Sharp had only just ensconced himself in the porter’s
+chair when the stranger knocked at the door--in another moment he was
+shown in to Lord Lilburne.
+
+“Sir,” said his lordship, without rising, “be so good as to take a
+chair. Mr. Beaufort is obliged to leave town--he has asked me to see
+you--I am one of his family--his wife is my sister--you may be as frank
+with me as with him,--more so, perhaps.”
+
+“I beg the fauvour of your name, sir,” said the stranger, adjusting his
+collar.
+
+“Yours first--business is business.”
+
+“Well, then, Captain Smith.”
+
+“Of what regiment?”
+
+“Half-pay.”
+
+“I am Lord Lilburne. Your name is Smith--humph!” added the peer, looking
+over some notes before him. “I see it is also the name of the witness
+appealed to by Mrs. Morton--humph!”
+
+At this remark, and still more at the look which accompanied it, the
+countenance, before impudent and complacent, of Captain Smith fell into
+visible embarrassment; he cleared his throat and said, with a little
+hesitation,--
+
+“My lord, that witness is living!”
+
+“No doubt of it--witnesses never die where property is concerned and
+imposture intended.”
+
+At this moment the servant entered, and placed a little note, quaintly
+folded, before Lord Lilburne. He glanced at it in surprise--opened, and
+read as follows, in pencil,--
+
+“My LORD,--I knows the man; take caer of him; he is as big a roge as
+ever stept; he was transported some three year back, and unless his time
+has been shortened by the Home, he’s absent without leve. We used
+to call him Dashing Jerry. That ere youngster we went arter, by Mr.
+Bofort’s wish, was a pall of his. Scuze the liberty I take.
+
+“J. SHARP.”
+
+While Lord Lilburne held this effusion to the candle, and spelled his
+way through it, Captain Smith, recovering his self-composure, thus
+proceeded:
+
+“Imposture, my lord! imposture! I really don’t understand. Your lordship
+really seems so suspicious, that it is quite uncomfortable. I am sure it
+is all the same to me; and if Mr. Beaufort does not think proper to see
+me himself, why I’d best make my bow.”
+
+And Captain Smith rose.
+
+“Stay a moment, sir. What Mr. Beaufort may yet do, I cannot say; but
+I know this, you stand charged of a very grave offence, and if your
+witness or witnesses--you may have fifty, for what I care--are equally
+guilty, so much the worse for them.”
+
+“My lord, I really don’t comprehend.”
+
+“Then I will be more plain. I accuse you of devising an infamous
+falsehood for the purpose of extorting money. Let your witnesses appear
+in court, and I promise that you, they, and the young man, Mr. Morton,
+whose claim they set up, shall be indicted for conspiracy--conspiracy,
+if accompanied (as in the case of your witnesses) with perjury, of the
+blackest die. Mr. Smith, I know you; and, before ten o’clock to-morrow,
+I shall know also if you had his majesty’s leave to quit the colonies!
+Ah! I am plain enough now, I see.”
+
+And Lord Lilburne threw himself back in his chair, and coldly
+contemplated the white face and dismayed expression of the crestfallen
+captain. That most worthy person, after a pause of confusion, amaze,
+and fear, made an involuntary stride, with a menacing gesture, towards
+Lilburne; the peer quietly placed his hand on the bell.
+
+“One moment more,” said the latter; “if I ring this bell, it is to place
+you in custody. Let Mr. Beaufort but see you here once again--nay, let
+him but hear another word of this pretended lawsuit--and you return to
+the colonies. Pshaw! Frown not at me, sir! A Bow Street officer is in
+the hall. Begone!--no, stop one moment, and take a lesson in life. Never
+again attempt to threaten people of property and station. Around every
+rich man is a wall--better not run your head against it.”
+
+“But I swear solemnly,” cried the knave, with an emphasis so startling
+that it carried with it the appearance of truth, “that the marriage did
+take place.”
+
+“And I say, no less solemnly, that any one who swears it in a court of
+law shall be prosecuted for perjury! Bah! you are a sorry rogue, after
+all!”
+
+And with an air of supreme and half-compassionate contempt, Lord
+Lilburne turned away and stirred the fire. Captain Smith muttered
+and fumbled a moment with his gloves, then shrugged his shoulders and
+sneaked out.
+
+That night Lord Lilburne again received his friends, and amongst
+his guests came Vaudemont. Lilburne was one who liked the study of
+character, especially the character of men wrestling against the world.
+Wholly free from every species of ambition, he seemed to reconcile
+himself to his apathy by examining into the disquietude, the
+mortification, the heart’s wear and tear, which are the lot of the
+ambitious. Like the spider in his hole, he watched with hungry pleasure
+the flies struggling in the web; through whose slimy labyrinth he walked
+with an easy safety. Perhaps one reason why he loved gaming was less
+from the joy of winning than the philosophical complacency with which he
+feasted on the emotions of those who lost; always serene, and, except
+in debauch, always passionless,--Majendie, tracing the experiments of
+science in the agonies of some tortured dog, could not be more rapt
+in the science, and more indifferent to the dog, than Lord Lilburne,
+ruining a victim, in the analysis of human passions,--stoical in the
+writhings of the wretch whom he tranquilly dissected. He wished to win
+money of Vaudemont--to ruin this man, who presumed to be more generous
+than other people--to see a bold adventurer submitted to the wheel
+of the Fortune which reigns in a pack of cards;--and all, of course,
+without the least hate to the man whom he then saw for the first time.
+On the contrary, he felt a respect for Vaudemont. Like most worldly men,
+Lord Lilburne was prepossessed in favour of those who seek to rise in
+life: and like men who have excelled in manly and athletic exercises,
+he was also prepossessed in favour of those who appeared fitted for the
+same success.
+
+Liancourt took aside his friend, as Lord Lilburne was talking with his
+other guests:--
+
+“I need not caution you, who never play, not to commit yourself to Lord
+Lilburne’s tender mercies; remember, he is an admirable player.”
+
+“Nay,” answered Vaudemont, “I want to know this man: I have reasons,
+which alone induce me to enter his house. I can afford to venture
+something, because I wish to see if I can gain something for one dear to
+me. And for the rest (he muttered)--I know him too well not to be on
+my guard.” With that he joined Lord Lilburne’s group, and accepted the
+invitation to the card-table. At supper, Vaudemont conversed more than
+was habitual to him; he especially addressed himself to his host, and
+listened, with great attention, to Lilburne’s caustic comments upon
+every topic successively started. And whether it was the art of De
+Vaudemont, or from an interest that Lord Lilburne took in studying
+what was to him a new character,--or whether that, both men excelling
+peculiarly in all masculine accomplishments, their conversation was of
+a nature that was more attractive to themselves than to others; it so
+happened that they were still talking while the daylight already peered
+through the window-curtains.
+
+“And I have outstayed all your guests,” said De Vaudemont, glancing
+round the emptied room.
+
+“It is the best compliment you could pay me. Another night we can
+enliven our tete-a-tete with ecarte; though at your age, and with your
+appearance, I am surprised, Monsieur de Vaudemont, that you are fond of
+play: I should have thought that it was not in a pack of cards that
+you looked for hearts. But perhaps you are _blase _betimes of the _beau
+sexe_.”
+
+“Yet your lordship’s devotion to it is, perhaps, as great now as ever?”
+
+“Mine?--no, not as ever. To different ages different degrees. At your
+age I wooed; at mine I purchase--the better plan of the two: it does not
+take up half so much time.”
+
+“Your marriage, I think, Lord Lilburne, was not blessed with children.
+Perhaps sometimes you feel the want of them?”
+
+“If I did, I could have them by the dozen. Other ladies have been more
+generous in that department than the late Lady Lilburne, Heaven rest
+her!”
+
+“And,” said Vaudemont, fixing his eyes with some earnestness on his
+host, “if you were really persuaded that you had a child, or perhaps a
+grandchild--the mother one whom you loved in your first youth--a
+child affectionate, beautiful, and especially needing your care and
+protection, would you not suffer that child, though illegitimate, to
+supply to you the want of filial affection?”
+
+“Filial affection, mon cher!” repeated Lord Lilburne, “needing my care
+and protection! Pshaw! In other words, would I give board and lodging
+to some young vagabond who was good enough to say he was son to Lord
+Lilburne?”
+
+“But if you were convinced that the claimant were your son, or
+perhaps your daughter--a tenderer name of the two, and a more helpless
+claimant?”
+
+“My dear Monsieur de Vaudemont, you are doubtless a man of gallantry and
+of the world. If the children whom the law forces on one are, nine times
+out of ten, such damnable plagues, judge if one would father those whom
+the law permits us to disown! Natural children are the pariahs of the
+world, and I--am one of the Brahmans.”
+
+“But,” persisted Vaudemont, “forgive me if I press the question farther.
+Perhaps I seek from your wisdom a guide to my own conduct;--suppose,
+then, a man had loved, had wronged, the mother;--suppose that in the
+child he saw one who, without his aid, might be exposed to every curse
+with which the pariahs (true, the pariahs!) of the world are too
+often visited, and who with his aid might become, as age advanced, his
+companion, his nurse, his comforter--”
+
+“Tush!” interrupted Lilburne, with some impatience; “I know not how our
+conversation fell on such a topic--but if you really ask my opinion in
+reference to any case in practical life, you shall have it. Look you,
+then Monsieur de Vaudemont, no man has studied the art of happiness more
+than I have; and I will tell you the great secret--have as few ties as
+possible. Nurse!--pooh! you or I could hire one by the week a thousand
+times more useful and careful than a bore of a child. Comforter!--a man
+of mind never wants comfort. And there is no such thing as sorrow while
+we have health and money, and don’t care a straw for anybody in the
+world. If you choose to love people, their health and circumstances, if
+either go wrong, can fret you: that opens many avenues to pain. Never
+live alone, but always feel alone. You think this unamiable: possibly.
+I am no hypocrite, and, for my part, I never affect to be anything but
+what I am--John Lilburne.”
+
+As the peer thus spoke, Vaudemont, leaning against the door,
+contemplated him with a strange mixture of interest and disgust. “And
+John Lilburne is thought a great man, and William Gawtrey was a great
+rogue. You don’t conceal your heart?--no, I understand. Wealth and power
+have no need of hypocrisy: you are the man of vice--Gawtrey, the man of
+crime. You never sin against the law--he was a felon by his trade. And
+the felon saved from vice the child, and from want the grandchild (Your
+flesh and blood) whom you disown: which will Heaven consider the worse
+man? No, poor Fanny, I see I am wrong. If he would own you, I would not
+give you up to the ice of such a soul:--better the blind man than the
+dead heart!”
+
+“Well, Lord Lilburne,” said De Vaudemont aloud, shaking off his reverie,
+“I must own that your philosophy seems to me the wisest for yourself.
+For a poor man it might be different--the poor need affection.”
+
+“Ay, the poor, certainly,” said Lord Lilburne, with an air of
+patronising candour.
+
+“And I will own farther,” continued De Vaudemont, “that I have willingly
+lost my money in return for the instruction I have received in hearing
+you converse.”
+
+“You are kind: come and take your revenge next Thursday. Adieu.”
+
+As Lord Lilburne undressed, and his valet attended him, he said to that
+worthy functionary,--
+
+“So you have not been able to make out the name of the stranger--the new
+lodger you tell me of?”
+
+“No, my lord. They only say he is a very fine-looking man.”
+
+“You have not seen him?”
+
+“No, my lord. What do you wish me now to do?”
+
+“Humph! Nothing at this moment! You manage things so badly, you might
+get me into a scrape. I never do anything which the law or the police,
+or even the news papers, can get hold of. I must think of some other
+way--humph! I never give up what I once commence, and I never fail
+in what I undertake! If life had been worth what fools trouble it
+with--business and ambition--I suppose I should have been a great man
+with a very bad liver--ha ha! I alone, of all the world, ever found out
+what the world was good for! Draw the curtains, Dykeman.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+     “Org. Welcome, thou ice that sitt’st about his heart
+     No heat can ever thaw thee!”--FORD: Broken Heart.
+
+     “Nearch. Honourable infamy!”--Ibid.
+
+     “Amye. Her tenderness hath yet deserved no rigour,
+     So to be crossed by fate!”
+
+     “Arm. You misapply, sir,
+     With favour let me speak it, what Apollo
+     Hath clouded in dim sense!”--Ibid.
+
+If Vaudemont had fancied that, considering the age and poverty of Simon,
+it was his duty to see whether Fanny’s not more legal, but more natural
+protector were, indeed, the unredeemed and unmalleable egotist which
+Gawtrey had painted him, the conversation of one night was sufficient to
+make him abandon for ever the notion of advancing her claims upon Lord
+Lilburne. But Philip had another motive in continuing his acquaintance
+with that personage. The sight of his mother’s grave had recalled to
+him the image of that lost brother over whom he had vowed to watch. And,
+despite the deep sense of wronged affection with which he yet remembered
+the cruel letter that had contained the last tidings of Sidney, Philip’s
+heart clung with undying fondness to that fair shape associated with all
+the happy recollections of childhood; and his conscience as well as his
+love asked him, each time that he passed the churchyard, “Will you
+make no effort to obey that last prayer of the mother who consigned her
+darling to your charge?” Perhaps, had Philip been in want, or had the
+name he now bore been sullied by his conduct, he might have shrunk from
+seeking one whom he might injure, but could not serve. But though not
+rich, he had more than enough for tastes as hardy and simple as any to
+which soldier of fortune ever limited his desires. And he thought, with
+a sentiment of just and noble pride, that the name which Eugenie had
+forced upon him had been borne spotless as the ermine through the trials
+and vicissitudes he had passed since he had assumed it. Sidney could
+give him nothing, and therefore it was his duty to seek Sidney out. Now,
+he had always believed in his heart that the Beauforts were acquainted
+with a secret which he more and more pined to penetrate. He would, for
+Sidney’s sake, smother his hate to the Beauforts; he would not reject
+their acquaintance if thrown in his way; nay, secure in his change of
+name and his altered features, from all suspicion on their part, he
+would seek that acquaintance in order to find his brother and fulfil
+Catherine’s last commands. His intercourse with Lilburne would
+necessarily bring him easily into contact with Lilburne’s family. And in
+this thought he did not reject the invitations pressed on him. He felt,
+too, a dark and absorbing interest in examining a man who was in
+himself the incarnation of the World--the World of Art--the World as
+the Preacher paints it--the hollow, sensual, sharp-witted, self-wrapped
+WORLD--the World that is all for this life, and thinks of no Future and
+no God!
+
+Lord Lilburne was, indeed, a study for deep contemplation. A study to
+perplex the ordinary thinker, and task to the utmost the analysis
+of more profound reflection. William Gawtrey had possessed no common
+talents; he had discovered that his life had been one mistake; Lord
+Lilburne’s intellect was far keener than Gawtrey’s, and he had never
+made, and if he had lived to the age of Old Parr, never would have made
+a similar discovery. He never wrestled against a law, though he slipped
+through all laws! And he knew no remorse, for he knew no fear. Lord
+Lilburne had married early, and long survived, a lady of fortune, the
+daughter of the then Premier--the best match, in fact, of his day. And
+for one very brief period of his life he had suffered himself to enter
+into the field of politics the only ambition common with men of
+equal rank. He showed talents that might have raised one so gifted by
+circumstance to any height, and then retired at once into his old habits
+and old system of pleasure. “I wished to try,” said he once, “if fame
+was worth one headache, and I have convinced myself that the man who can
+sacrifice the bone in his mouth to the shadow of the bone in the water
+is a fool.” From that time he never attended the House of Lords,
+and declared himself of no political opinions one way or the other.
+Nevertheless, the world had a general belief in his powers, and
+Vaudemont reluctantly subscribed to the world’s verdict. Yet he had
+done nothing, he had read but little, he laughed at the world to its
+face,--and that last was, after all, the main secret of his ascendancy
+over those who were drawn into his circle. That contempt of the world
+placed the world at his feet. His sardonic and polished indifference,
+his professed code that there was no life worth caring for but his own
+life, his exemption from all cant, prejudice, and disguise, the frigid
+lubricity with which he glided out of the grasp of the Conventional,
+whenever it so pleased him, without shocking the Decorums whose sense is
+in their ear, and who are not roused by the deed but by the noise,--all
+this had in it the marrow and essence of a system triumphant with the
+vulgar; for little minds give importance to the man who gives importance
+to nothing. Lord Lilburne’s authority, not in matters of taste alone,
+but in those which the world calls judgment and common sense, was
+regarded as an oracle. He cared not a straw for the ordinary baubles
+that attract his order; he had refused both an earldom and the garter,
+and this was often quoted in his honour. But you only try a man’s virtue
+when you offer him something that he covets. The earldom and the garter
+were to Lord Lilburne no more tempting inducements than a doll or a
+skipping-rope; had you offered him an infallible cure for the gout, or
+an antidote against old age, you might have hired him as your lackey
+on your own terms. Lord Lilburne’s next heir was the son of his only
+brother, a person entirely dependent on his uncle. Lord Lilburne allowed
+him L1000. a year and kept him always abroad in a diplomatic situation.
+He looked upon his successor as a man who wanted power, but not
+inclination, to become his assassin.
+
+Though he lived sumptuously and grudged himself nothing, Lord Lilburne
+was far from an extravagant man; he might, indeed, be considered close;
+for he knew how much of comfort and consideration he owed to his money,
+and valued it accordingly; he knew the best speculations and the best
+investments. If he took shares in an American canal, you might be
+sure that the shares would soon be double in value; if he purchased an
+estate, you might be certain it was a bargain. This pecuniary tact and
+success necessarily augmented his fame for wisdom.
+
+He had been in early life a successful gambler, and some suspicions of
+his fair play had been noised abroad; but, as has been recently seen in
+the instance of a man of rank equal to Lilburne’s, though, perhaps, of
+less acute if more cultivated intellect, it is long before the pigeon
+will turn round upon a falcon of breed and mettle. The rumours, indeed,
+were so vague as to carry with them no weight. During the middle of his
+career, when in the full flush of health and fortune, he had renounced
+the gaming-table. Of late years, as advancing age made time more heavy,
+he had resumed the resource, and with all his former good luck. The
+money-market, the table, the sex, constituted the other occupations and
+amusements with which Lord Lilburne filled up his rosy leisure.
+
+Another way by which this man had acquired reputation for ability was
+this,--he never pretended to any branch of knowledge of which he was
+ignorant, any more than to any virtue in which he was deficient. Honesty
+itself was never more free from quackery or deception than was this
+embodied and walking Vice. If the world chose to esteem him, he did not
+buy its opinion by imposture. No man ever saw Lord Lilburne’s name in a
+public subscription, whether for a new church, or a Bible Society, or
+a distressed family, no man ever heard of his doing one generous,
+benevolent, or kindly action,--no man was ever startled by one
+philanthropic, pious, or amiable sentiment from those mocking lips. Yet,
+in spite of all this, John Lord Lilburne was not only esteemed but liked
+by the world, and set up in the chair of its Rhadamanthuses. In a word,
+he seemed to Vaudemont, and he was so in reality, a brilliant example of
+the might of Circumstance--an instance of what may be done in the way
+of reputation and influence by a rich, well-born man to whom the will
+a kingdom is. A little of genius, and Lord Lilburne would have made his
+vices notorious and his deficiencies glaring; a little of heart, and
+his habits would have led him into countless follies and discreditable
+scrapes. It was the lead and the stone that he carried about him that
+preserved his equilibrium, no matter which way the breeze blew. But
+all his qualities, positive or negative, would have availed him nothing
+without that position which enabled him to take his ease in that inn,
+the world--which presented, to every detection of his want of intrinsic
+nobleness, the irreproachable respectability of a high name, a splendid
+mansion, and a rent-roll without a flaw. Vaudemont drew comparisons
+between Lilburne and Gawtrey, and he comprehended at last, why one was a
+low rascal and the other a great man.
+
+Although it was but a few days after their first introduction to
+each other, Vaudemont had been twice to Lord Lilburne’s, and their
+acquaintance was already on an easy footing--when one afternoon as the
+former was riding through the streets towards H----, he met the peer
+mounted on a stout cob, which, from its symmetrical strength, pure
+English breed, and exquisite grooming, showed something of those
+sporting tastes for which, in earlier life, Lord Lilburne had been
+noted.
+
+“Why, Monsieur de Vaudemont, what brings you to this part of the
+town?--curiosity and the desire to explore?”
+
+“That might be natural enough in me; but you, who know London so well;
+rather what brings you here?”
+
+“Why I am returned from a long ride. I have had symptoms of a fit of
+the gout, and been trying to keep it off by exercise. I have been to
+a cottage that belongs to me, some miles from the town--a pretty place
+enough, by the way--you must come and see me there next month. I shall
+fill the house for a battue! I have some tolerable covers--you are a
+good shot, I suppose?”
+
+“I have not practised, except with a rifle, for some years.”
+
+“That’s a pity; for as I think a week’s shooting once a year quite
+enough, I fear that your visit to me at Fernside may not be sufficiently
+long to put your hand in.”
+
+“Fernside!”
+
+“Yes; is the name familiar to you?”
+
+“I think I have heard it before. Did your lordship purchase or inherit
+it?”
+
+“I bought it of my brother-in-law. It belonged to his brother--a gay,
+wild sort of fellow, who broke his neck over a six-barred gate; through
+that gate my friend Robert walked the same day into a very fine estate!”
+
+“I have heard so. The late Mr. Beaufort, then, left no children?”
+
+“Yes; two. But they came into the world in the primitive way in which
+Mr. Owen wishes us all to come--too naturally for the present state of
+society, and Mr. Owen’s parallelogram was not ready for them. By
+the way, one of them disappeared at Paris--you never met with him, I
+suppose?”
+
+“Under what name?”
+
+“Morton.”
+
+“Morton! hem! What Christian name?”
+
+“Philip.”
+
+“Philip! no. But did Mr. Beaufort do nothing for the young men? I think
+I have heard somewhere that he took compassion on one of them.”
+
+“Have you? Ah, my brother-in-law is precisely one of those excellent men
+of whom the world always speaks well. No; he would very willingly have
+served either or both the boys, but the mother refused all his overtures
+and went to law, I fancy. The elder of these bastards turned out a sad
+fellow, and the younger,--I don’t know exactly where he is, but no doubt
+with one of his mother’s relations. You seem to interest yourself in
+natural children, my dear Vaudemont?”
+
+“Perhaps you have heard that people have doubted if I were a natural
+son?”
+
+“Ah! I understand now. But are you going?--I was in hopes you would have
+turned back my way, and--”
+
+“You are very good; but I have a particular appointment, and I am now
+too late. Good morning, Lord Lilburne.” Sidney with one of his mother’s
+relations! Returned, perhaps, to the Mortons! How had he never before
+chanced on a conjecture so probable? He would go at once!--that very
+night he would go to the house from which he had taken his brother. At
+least, and at the worst, they might give him some clue.
+
+Buoyed with this hope and this resolve, he rode hastily to H-----, to
+announce to Simon and Fanny that he should not return to them, perhaps,
+for two or three days. As he entered the suburb, he drew up by the
+statuary of whom he had purchased his mother’s gravestone.
+
+The artist of the melancholy trade was at work in his yard.
+
+“Ho! there!” said Vaudemont, looking over the low railing; “is the tomb
+I have ordered nearly finished?”
+
+“Why, sir, as you were so anxious for despatch, and as it would take a
+long time to get a new one ready, I thought of giving you this, which is
+finished all but the inscription. It was meant for Miss Deborah Primme;
+but her nephew and heir called on me yesterday to say, that as the
+poor lady died worth less by L5,000. than he had expected, he thought
+a handsome wooden tomb would do as well, if I could get rid of this for
+him. It is a beauty, sir. It will look so cheerful--”
+
+“Well, that will do: and you can place it now where I told you.”
+
+“In three days, sir.”
+
+“So be it.” And he rode on, muttering, “Fanny, your pious wish will be
+fulfilled. But flowers,--will they suit that stone?”
+
+He put up his horse, and walked through the lane to Simon’s.
+
+As he approached the house, he saw Fanny’s bright eyes at the window.
+She was watching his return. She hastened to open the door to him, and
+the world’s wanderer felt what music there is in the footstep, what
+summer there is in the smile, of Welcome!
+
+“My dear Fanny,” he said, affected by her joyous greeting, “it makes my
+heart warm to see you. I have brought you a present from town. When
+I was a boy, I remember that my poor mother was fond of singing some
+simple songs, which often, somehow or other, come back to me, when I see
+and hear you. I fancied you would understand and like them as well at
+least as I do--for Heaven knows (he added to himself) my ear is dull
+enough generally to the jingle of rhyme.” And he placed in her hands a
+little volume of those exquisite songs, in which Burns has set Nature to
+music.
+
+“Oh! you are so kind, brother,” said Fanny, with tears swimming in her
+eyes, and she kissed the book.
+
+After their simple meal, Vaudemont broke to Fanny and Simon the
+intelligence of his intended departure for a few days. Simon heard it
+with the silent apathy into which, except on rare occasions, his life
+had settled. But Fanny turned away her face and wept.
+
+“It is but for a day or two, Fanny.”
+
+“An hour is very--very long sometimes,” said the girl, shaking her head
+mournfully.
+
+“Come, I have a little time yet left, and the air is mild, you have not
+been out to-day, shall we walk--”
+
+“Hem!” interrupted Simon, clearing his throat, and seeming to start
+into sudden animation; “had not you better settle the board and lodging
+before you go?”
+
+“Oh, grandfather!” cried Fanny, springing to her feet, with such a blush
+upon her face.
+
+“Nay, child,” said Vaudemont, laughingly; “your grandfather only
+anticipates me. But do not talk of board and lodging; Fanny is as a
+sister to me, and our purse is in common.”
+
+“I should like to feel a sovereign--just to feel it,” muttered Simon,
+in a sort of apologetic tone, that was really pathetic; and as Vaudemont
+scattered some coins on the table, the old man clawed them up, chuckling
+and talking to himself; and, rising with great alacrity, hobbled out of
+the room like a raven carrying some cunning theft to its hiding-place.
+
+This was so amusing to Vaudemont that he burst out fairly into an
+uncontrollable laughter. Fanny looked at him, humbled and wondering for
+some moments; and then, creeping to him, put her hand gently on his arm
+and said--
+
+“Don’t laugh--it pains me. It was not nice in grand papa; but--but, it
+does not mean anything. It--it--don’t laugh--Fanny feels so sad!”
+
+“Well, you are right. Come, put on your bonnet, we will go out.”
+
+Fanny obeyed; but with less ready delight than usual. And they took
+their way through lanes over which hung, still in the cool air, the
+leaves of the yellow autumn.
+
+Fanny was the first to break silence.
+
+“Do you know,” she said, timidly, “that people here think me very
+silly?--do you think so too?”
+
+Vaudemont was startled by the simplicity of the question, and hesitated.
+Fanny looked up in his dark face anxiously and inquiringly.
+
+“Well,” she said, “you don’t answer?”
+
+“My dear Fanny, there are some things in which I could wish you less
+childlike and, perhaps, less charming. Those strange snatches of song,
+for instance!”
+
+“What! do you not like me to sing? It is my way of talking.”
+
+“Yes; sing, pretty one! But sing something that we can understand,--sing
+the songs I have given you, if you will. And now, may I ask why you put
+to me that question?”
+
+“I have forgotten,” said Fanny, absently, and looking down.
+
+Now, at that instant, as Philip Vaudemont bent over the exceeding
+sweetness of that young face, a sudden thrill shot through his heart,
+and he, too, became silent, and lost in thought. Was it possible that
+there could creep into his breast a wilder affection for this creature
+than that of tenderness and pity? He was startled as the idea crossed
+him. He shrank from it as a profanation--as a crime--as a frenzy. He
+with his fate so uncertain and chequered--he to link himself with one
+so helpless--he to debase the very poetry that clung to the mental
+temperament of this pure being, with the feelings which every fair face
+may awaken to every coarse heart--to love Fanny! No, it was impossible!
+For what could he love in her but beauty, which the very spirit had
+forgotten to guard? And she--could she even know what love was? He
+despised himself for even admitting such a thought; and with that iron
+and hardy vigour which belonged to his mind, resolved to watch closely
+against every fancy that would pass the fairy boundary which separated
+Fanny from the world of women.
+
+He was roused from this self-commune by an abrupt exclamation from his
+companion.
+
+“Oh! I recollect now why I asked you that question. There is one thing
+that always puzzles me--I want you to explain it. Why does everything in
+life depend upon money? You see even my poor grandfather forgot how
+good you are to us both, when--when Ah! I don’t understand--it pains--it
+puzzles me!”
+
+“Fanny, look there--no, to the left--you see that old woman, in rags,
+crawling wearily along; turn now to the right--you see that fine house
+glancing through the trees, with a carriage and four at the gates? The
+difference between that old woman and the owner of that house is--Money;
+and who shall blame your grandfather for liking Money?”
+
+Fanny understood; and while the wise man thus moralised, the girl, whom
+his very compassion so haughtily contemned, moved away to the old woman
+to do her little best to smooth down those disparities from which wisdom
+and moralising never deduct a grain! Vaudemont felt this as he saw her
+glide towards the beggar; but when she came bounding back to him, she
+had forgotten his dislike to her songs, and was chaunting, in the glee
+of the heart that a kind act had made glad, one of her own impromptu
+melodies.
+
+Vaudemont turned away. Poor Fanny had unconsciously decided his
+self-conquest; she guessed not what passed within him, but she suddenly
+recollected--what he had said to her about her songs, and fancied him
+displeased.
+
+“Ah I will never do it again. Brother, don’t turn away!”
+
+“But we must go home. Hark! the clock strikes seven--I have no time to
+lose. And you will promise me never to stir out till I return?”
+
+“I shall have no heart to stir out,” said Fanny, sadly; and then in a
+more cheerful voice, she added, “And I shall sing the songs you like
+before you come back again!”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+     “Well did they know that service all by rote;
+
+     Some singing loud as if they had complained,
+     Some with their notes another manner feigned.”
+      CHAUCER: Pie Cuckoo and the Nightingale,
+     modernised by WORDSWORTH.--HORNE’s Edition.
+
+And once more, sweet Winandermere, we are on the banks of thy happy
+lake! The softest ray of the soft clear sun of early autumn trembled
+on the fresh waters, and glanced through the leaves of the limes and
+willows that were reflected--distinct as a home for the Naiads--beneath
+the limpid surface. You might hear in the bushes the young blackbirds
+trilling their first untutored notes. And the graceful dragon-fly, his
+wings glittering in the translucent sunshine, darted to and fro--the
+reeds gathered here and there in the mimic bays that broke the shelving
+marge of the grassy shore.
+
+And by that grassy shore, and beneath those shadowy limes, sat the young
+lovers. It was the very place where Spencer had first beheld Camilla.
+And now they were met to say, “Farewell!”
+
+“Oh, Camilla!” said he, with great emotion, and eyes that swam in tears,
+“be firm--be true. You know how my whole life is wrapped up in your
+love. You go amidst scenes where all will tempt you to forget me. I
+linger behind in those which are consecrated by your remembrance, which
+will speak to me every hour of you. Camilla, since you do love me--you
+do--do you not?--since you have confessed it--since your parents have
+consented to our marriage, provided only that your love last (for of
+mine there can be no doubt) for one year--one terrible year--shall I not
+trust you as truth itself? And yet how darkly I despair at times!”
+
+Camilla innocently took the hands that, clasped together, were raised to
+her, as if in supplication, and pressed them kindly between her own.
+
+“Do not doubt me--never doubt my affection. Has not my father consented?
+Reflect, it is but a year’s delay!”
+
+“A year!--can you speak thus of a year--a whole year? Not to see--not to
+hear you for a whole year, except in my dreams! And, if at the end your
+parents waver? Your father--I distrust him still. If this delay is
+but meant to wean you from me,--if, at the end, there are new excuses
+found,--if they then, for some cause or other not now foreseen, still
+refuse their assent? You--may I not still look to you?”
+
+Camilla sighed heavily; and turning her meek face on her lover, said,
+timidly, “Never think that so short a time can make me unfaithful, and
+do not suspect that my father will break his promise.”
+
+“But, if he does, you will still be mine.”
+
+“Ah, Charles, how could you esteem me as a wife if I were to tell you I
+could forget I am a daughter?”
+
+This was said so touchingly, and with so perfect a freedom from all
+affectation, that her lover could only reply by covering her hand
+with his kisses. And it was not till after a pause that he continued
+passionately,--
+
+“You do but show me how much deeper is my love than yours. You can never
+dream how I love you. But I do not ask you to love me as well--it would
+be impossible. My life from my earliest childhood has been passed in
+these solitudes;--a happy life, though tranquil and monotonous, till
+you suddenly broke upon it. You seemed to me the living form of the very
+poetry I had worshipped--so bright--so heavenly--I loved you from the
+very first moment that we met. I am not like other men of my age. I have
+no pursuit--no occupation--nothing to abstract me from your thought. And
+I love you so purely--so devotedly, Camilla. I have never known even a
+passing fancy for another. You are the first--the only woman--it
+ever seemed to me possible to love. You are my Eve--your presence my
+paradise! Think how sad I shall be when you are gone--how I shall visit
+every spot your footstep has hallowed--how I shall count every moment
+till the year is past!”
+
+While he thus spoke, he had risen in that restless agitation which
+belongs to great emotion; and Camilla now rose also, and said
+soothingly, as she laid her hand on his shoulder with tender but modest
+frankness:
+
+“And shall I not also think of you? I am sad to feel that you will be so
+much alone--no sister--no brother!”
+
+“Do not grieve for that. The memory of you will be dearer to me than
+comfort from all else. And you will be true!”
+
+Camilla made no answer by words, but her eyes and her colour spoke. And
+in that moment, while plighting eternal truth, they forgot that they
+were about to part!
+
+Meanwhile, in a room in the house which, screened by the foliage, was
+only partially visible where the lovers stood, sat Mr. Robert Beaufort
+and Mr. Spencer.
+
+“I assure you, sir,” said the former, “that I am not insensible to the
+merits of your nephew and to the very handsome proposals you make, still
+I cannot consent to abridge the time I have named. They are both very
+young. What is a year?”
+
+“It is a long time when it is a year of suspense,” said the recluse,
+shaking his head.
+
+“It is a longer time when it is a year of domestic dissension and
+repentance. And it is a very true proverb, ‘Marry in haste and repent at
+leisure.’ No! If at the end of the year the young people continue of the
+same mind, and no unforeseen circumstances occur--”
+
+“No unforeseen circumstances, Mr. Beaufort!--that is a new condition--it
+is a very vague phrase.”
+
+“My dear sir, it is hard to please you. Unforeseen circumstances,” said
+the wary father, with a wise look, “mean circumstances that we don’t
+foresee at present. I assure you that I have no intention to trifle with
+you, and I shall be sincerely happy in so respectable a connexion.”
+
+“The young people may write to each other?”
+
+“Why, I’ll consult Mrs. Beaufort. At all events, it must not be very
+often, and Camilla is well brought up, and will show all the letters to
+her mother. I don’t much like a correspondence of that nature. It often
+leads to unpleasant results; if, for instance--”
+
+“If what?”
+
+“Why, if the parties change their minds, and my girl were to marry
+another. It is not prudent in matters of business, my dear sir, to put
+down anything on paper that can be avoided.”
+
+Mr. Spencer opened his eyes. “Matters of business, Mr. Beaufort!”
+
+“Well, is not marriage a matter of business, and a very grave matter
+too? More lawsuits about marriage and settlements, &c., than I like to
+think of. But to change the subject. You have never heard anything more
+of those young men, you say?”
+
+“No,” said Mr. Spencer, rather inaudibly, and looking down.
+
+“And it is your firm impression that the elder one, Philip, is dead?”
+
+“I don’t doubt it.”
+
+“That was a very vexatious and improper lawsuit their mother brought
+against me. Do you know that some wretched impostor, who, it appears, is
+a convict broke loose before his time, has threatened me with another,
+on the part of one of those young men? You never heard anything of
+it--eh?”
+
+“Never, upon my honour.”
+
+“And, of course, you would not countenance so villanous an attempt?”
+
+“Certainly not.”
+
+“Because that would break off our contract at once. But you are too much
+a gentleman and a man of honour. Forgive me so improper a question. As
+for the younger Mr. Morton, I have no ill-feeling against him. But the
+elder! Oh, a thorough reprobate! a very alarming character! I could have
+nothing to do with any member of the family while the elder lived; it
+would only expose me to every species of insult and imposition. And now
+I think we have left our young friends alone long enough.
+
+“But stay, to prevent future misunderstanding, I may as well read over
+again the heads of the arrangement you honour me by proposing. You agree
+to settle your fortune after your decease, amounting to L23,000. and
+your house, with twenty-five acres one rood and two poles, more or less,
+upon your nephew and my daughter, jointly--remainder to their children.
+Certainly, without offence, in a worldly point of view, Camilla might do
+better; still, you are so very respectable, and you speak so handsomely,
+that I cannot touch upon that point; and I own, that though there is a
+large nominal rent-roll attached to Beaufort Court (indeed, there is not
+a finer property in the county), yet there are many incumbrances, and
+ready money would not be convenient to me. Arthur--poor fellow, a very
+fine young man, sir,--is, as I have told you in perfect confidence, a
+little imprudent and lavish; in short, your offer to dispense with any
+dowry is extremely liberal, and proves your nephew is actuated by no
+mercenary feelings: such conduct prepossesses me highly in your favour
+and his too.”
+
+Mr. Spencer bowed, and the great man rising, with a stiff affectation of
+kindly affability, put his arm into the uncle’s, and strolled with him
+across the lawn towards the lovers. And such is life--love on the lawn
+and settlements in the parlour.
+
+The lover was the first to perceive the approach of the elder parties.
+And a change came over his face as he saw the dry aspect and marked
+the stealthy stride of his future father-in-law; for then there flashed
+across him a dreary reminiscence of early childhood; the happy evening
+when, with his joyous father, that grave and ominous aspect was first
+beheld; and then the dismal burial, the funereal sables, the carriage at
+the door, and he himself clinging to the cold uncle to ask him to say a
+word of comfort to the mother, who now slept far away. “Well, my young
+friend,” said Mr. Beaufort, patronisingly, “your good uncle and myself
+are quite agreed--a little time for reflection, that’s all. Oh! I don’t
+think the worse of you for wishing to abridge it. But papas must be
+papas.”
+
+There was so little jocular about that sedate man, that this attempt
+at jovial good humour seemed harsh and grating--the hinges of that wily
+mouth wanted oil for a hearty smile.
+
+“Come, don’t be faint-hearted, Mr. Charles. ‘Faint heart,’--you know the
+proverb. You must stay and dine with us. We return to-morrow to town.
+I should tell you, that I received this morning a letter from my son
+Arthur, announcing his return from Baden, so we must give him the
+meeting--a very joyful one you may guess. We have not seen him these
+three years. Poor fellow! he says he has been very ill and the waters
+have ceased to do him any good. But a little quiet and country air at
+Beaufort Court will set him up, I hope.”
+
+Thus running on about his son, then about his shooting--about Beaufort
+Court and its splendours--about parliament and its fatigues--about
+the last French Revolution, and the last English election--about
+Mrs. Beaufort and her good qualities and bad health--about, in short,
+everything relating to himself, some things relating to the public,
+and nothing that related to the persons to whom his conversation was
+directed, Mr. Robert Beaufort wore away half an hour, when the Spencer’s
+took their leave, promising to return to dinner.
+
+“Charles,” said Mr. Spencer, as the boat, which the young man rowed,
+bounded over the water towards their quiet home; “Charles, I dislike
+these Beauforts!”
+
+“Not the daughter?”
+
+“No, she is beautiful, and seems good; not so handsome as your poor
+mother, but who ever was?”--here Mr. Spencer sighed, and repeated some
+lines from Shenstone.
+
+“Do you think Mr. Beaufort suspects in the least who I am?”
+
+“Why, that puzzles me; I rather think he does.”
+
+“And that is the cause of the delay? I knew it.”
+
+“No, on the contrary, I incline to think he has some kindly feeling to
+you, though not to your brother, and that it is such a feeling that made
+him consent to your marriage. He sifted me very closely as to what I
+knew of the young Mortons--observed that you were very handsome, and
+that he had fancied at first that he had seen you before.”
+
+“Indeed!”
+
+“Yes: and looked hard at me while he spoke; and said more than once,
+significantly, ‘So his name is Charles?’ He talked about some attempt
+at imposture and litigation, but that was, evidently, merely invented
+to sound me about your brother--whom, of course, he spoke ill
+of--impressing on me three or four times that he would never have
+anything to say to any of the family while Philip lived.”
+
+“And you told him,” said the young man, hesitatingly, and with a deep
+blush of shame over his face, “that you were persuaded--that is, that
+you believed Philip was--was--”
+
+“Was dead! Yes--and without confusion. For the more I reflect, the more
+I think he must be dead. At all events, you may be sure that he is dead
+to us, that we shall never hear more of him.”
+
+“Poor Philip!”
+
+“Your feelings are natural; they are worthy of your excellent heart; but
+remember, what would have become of you if you had stayed with him!”
+
+“True!” said the brother, with a slight shudder--“a career of
+suffering--crime--perhaps the gibbet! Ah! what do I owe you?”
+
+The dinner-party at Mr. Beaufort’s that day was constrained and
+formal, though the host, in unusual good humour, sought to make himself
+agreeable. Mrs. Beaufort, languid and afflicted with headache, said
+little. The two Spencers were yet more silent. But the younger sat next
+to her he loved; and both hearts were full: and in the evening they
+contrived to creep apart into a corner by the window, through which the
+starry heavens looked kindly on them. They conversed in whispers, with
+long pauses between each: and at times Camilla’s tears flowed silently
+down her cheeks, and were followed by the false smiles intended to cheer
+her lover.
+
+Time did not fly, but crept on breathlessly and heavily. And then came
+the last parting--formal, cold--before witnesses. But the lover could
+not restrain his emotion, and the hard father heard his suppressed sob
+as he closed the door.
+
+It will now be well to explain the cause of Mr. Beaufort’s heightened
+spirits, and the motives of his conduct with respect to his daughter’s
+suitor.
+
+This, perhaps, can be best done by laying before the reader the
+following letters that passed between Mr. Beaufort and Lord Lilburne.
+
+From LORD LILBURNE to ROBERT BEAUFORT, ESQ., M.P.
+
+“DEAR BEAUFORT,--I think I have settled, pretty satisfactorily, your
+affair with your unwelcome visitor. The first thing it seemed to me
+necessary to do, was to learn exactly what and who he was, and with what
+parties that could annoy you he held intercourse. I sent for Sharp, the
+Bow Street officer, and placed him in the hall to mark, and afterwards
+to dog and keep watch on your new friend. The moment the latter entered
+I saw at once, from his dress and his address, that he was a ‘scamp;’
+and thought it highly inexpedient to place you in his power by any money
+transactions. While talking with him, Sharp sent in a billet containing
+his recognition of our gentleman as a transported convict.
+
+“I acted accordingly; soon saw, from the fellow’s manner, that he had
+returned before his time; and sent him away with a promise, which you
+may be sure he believes will be kept, that if he molest you farther,
+he shall return to the colonies, and that if his lawsuit proceed, his
+witness or witnesses shall be indicted for conspiracy and perjury. Make
+your mind easy so far. For the rest, I own to you that I think what he
+says probable enough: but my object in setting Sharp to watch him is
+to learn what other parties he sees. And if there be really anything
+formidable in his proofs or witnesses, it is with those other parties I
+advise you to deal. Never transact business with the go between, if you
+can with the principal. Remember, the two young men are the persons to
+arrange with after all. They must be poor, and therefore easily dealt
+with. For, if poor, they will think a bird in the hand worth two in the
+bush of a lawsuit.
+
+“If, through Mr. Spencer, you can learn anything of either of the young
+men, do so; and try and open some channel, through which you can always
+establish a communication with them, if necessary. Perhaps, by learning
+their early history, you may learn something to put them into your
+power.
+
+“I have had a twinge of the gout this morning, and am likely, I fear, to
+be laid up for some weeks.
+
+“Yours truly,
+
+“LILBURNE.
+
+“P.S.--Sharp has just been here. He followed the man who calls himself
+‘Captain Smith’ to a house in Lambeth, where he lodges, and from which
+he did not stir till midnight, when Sharp ceased his watch. On renewing
+it this morning, he found that the captain had gone off, to what place
+Sharp has not yet discovered.
+
+“Burn this immediately.”
+
+From ROBERT BEAUFORT, ESQ., M.P., to the LORD LILBURNE.
+
+“DEAR, LILBURNE,--Accept my warmest thanks for your kindness; you
+have done admirably, and I do not see that I have anything further to
+apprehend. I suspect that it was an entire fabrication on that man’s
+part, and your firmness has foiled his wicked designs. Only think,
+I have discovered--I am sure of it--one of the Mortons; and he, too,
+though the younger, yet, in all probability, the sole pretender the
+fellow could set up. You remember that the child Sidney had disappeared
+mysteriously,--you remember also, how much that Mr. Spencer had
+interested himself in finding out the same Sidney. Well,--this gentleman
+at the Lakes is, as we suspected, the identical Mr. Spencer, and his
+soi-disant nephew, Camilla’s suitor, is assuredly no other than the lost
+Sidney. The moment I saw the young man I recognised him, for he is very
+little altered, and has a great look of his mother into the bargain.
+Concealing my more than suspicions, I, however, took care to sound Mr.
+Spencer (a very poor soul), and his manner was so embarrassed as to
+leave no doubt of the matter; but in asking him what he had heard of
+the brothers, I had the satisfaction of learning that, in all human
+probability, the elder is dead: of this Mr. Spencer seems convinced.
+I also assured myself that neither Spencer nor the young man had the
+remotest connection with our Captain Smith, nor any idea of litigation.
+This is very satisfactory, you will allow. And now, I hope you will
+approve of what I have done. I find that young Morton, or Spencer, as
+he is called, is desperately enamoured of Camilla; he seems a meek,
+well-conditioned, amiable young man; writes poetry;--in short, rather
+weak than otherwise. I have demanded a year’s delay, to allow mutual
+trial and reflection. This gives us the channel for constant information
+which you advise me to establish, and I shall have the opportunity to
+learn if the impostor makes any communication to them, or if there be
+any news of the brother. If by any trick or chicanery (for I will never
+believe that there was a marriage) a lawsuit that might be critical
+or hazardous can be cooked up, I can, I am sure, make such terms with
+Sidney, through his love for my daughter, as would effectively and
+permanently secure me from all further trouble and machinations in
+regard to my property. And if, during the year, we convince ourselves
+that, after all, there is not a leg of law for any claimant to stand on,
+I may be guided by other circumstances how far I shall finally accept
+or reject the suit. That must depend on any other views we may then form
+for Camilla; and I shall not allow a hint of such an engagement to get
+abroad. At the worst, as Mr. Spencer’s heir, it is not so very bad a
+match, seeing that they dispense with all marriage portion, &c.--a proof
+how easily they can be managed. I have not let Mr. Spencer see that
+I have discovered his secret--I can do that or not, according to
+circumstances hereafter; neither have I said anything of my discovery
+to Mrs. B., or Camilla. At present, ‘Least said soonest mended.’ I
+heard from Arthur to-day. He is on his road home, and we hasten to town,
+sooner than we expected, to meet him. He complains still of his health.
+We shall all go down to Beaufort Court. I write this at night, the
+pretended uncle and sham nephew having just gone. But though we start
+to-morrow, you will get this a day or two before we arrive, as Mrs.
+Beaufort’s health renders short stages necessary. I really do hope that
+Arthur, also, will not be an invalid, poor fellow! one in a family is
+quite enough; and I find Mrs. Beaufort’s delicacy very inconvenient,
+especially in moving about and in keeping up one’s county connexions. A
+young man’s health, however, is soon restored. I am very sorry to hear
+of your gout, except that it carries off all other complaints. I am
+very well, thank Heaven; indeed, my health has been much better of late
+years: Beaufort Court agrees with me so well! The more I reflect, the
+more I am astonished at the monstrous and wicked impudence of that
+fellow--to defraud a man out of his own property! You are quite
+right,--certainly a conspiracy.
+
+“Yours truly, “R. B.”
+
+“P. S.--I shall keep a constant eye on the Spencers.
+
+“Burn this immediately.”
+
+After he had written and sealed this letter, Mr. Beaufort went to bed
+and slept soundly.
+
+And the next day that place was desolate, and the board on the lawn
+announced that it was again to be let. But thither daily, in rain or
+sunshine, came the solitary lover, as a bird that seeks its young in the
+deserted nest:--Again and again he haunted the spot where he had strayed
+with the lost one,--and again and again murmured his passionate vows
+beneath the fast-fading limes. Are those vows destined to be ratified or
+annulled? Will the absent forget, or the lingerer be consoled? Had the
+characters of that young romance been lightly stamped on the fancy where
+once obliterated they are erased for ever,--or were they graven deep in
+those tablets where the writing, even when invisible, exists still, and
+revives, sweet letter by letter, when the light and the warmth borrowed
+from the One Bright Presence are applied to the faithful record? There
+is but one Wizard to disclose that secret, as all others,--the old
+Grave-digger, whose Churchyard is the Earth,--whose trade is to find
+burial-places for Passions that seemed immortal,--disinterring the
+ashes of some long-crumbling Memory--to hollow out the dark bed of
+some new-perished Hope:--He who determines all things, and prophesies
+none,--for his oracles are uncomprehended till the doom is sealed--He
+who in the bloom of the fairest affection detects the hectic that
+consumes it, and while the hymn rings at the altar, marks with his
+joyless eye the grave for the bridal vow.--Wherever is the sepulchre,
+there is thy temple, O melancholy Time!
+
+
+
+BOOK V.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+     “Per ambages et ministeria deorum.”--PETRONTUS.
+
+     [Through the mysteries and ministerings of the gods.]
+
+Mr. Roger Morton was behind his counter one drizzling, melancholy day.
+Mr. Roger Morton, alderman, and twice mayor of his native town, was a
+thriving man. He had grown portly and corpulent. The nightly potations
+of brandy and water, continued year after year with mechanical
+perseverance, had deepened the roses on his cheek. Mr. Roger Morton was
+never intoxicated--he “only made himself comfortable.” His constitution
+was strong; but, somehow or other, his digestion was not as good as it
+might be. He was certain that something or other disagreed with him.
+He left off the joint one day--the pudding another. Now he avoided
+vegetables as poison--and now he submitted with a sigh to the doctor’s
+interdict of his cigar. Mr. Roger Morton never thought of leaving
+off the brandy and water: and he would have resented as the height of
+impertinent insinuation any hint upon that score to a man of so sober
+and respectable a character.
+
+Mr. Roger Morton was seated--for the last four years, ever since his
+second mayoralty, he had arrogated to himself the dignity of a chair. He
+received rather than served his customers. The latter task was left to
+two of his sons. For Tom, after much cogitation, the profession of
+an apothecary had been selected. Mrs. Morton observed, that it was a
+genteel business, and Tom had always been a likely lad. And Mr. Roger
+considered that it would be a great comfort and a great saving to have
+his medical adviser in his own son.
+
+The other two sons and the various attendants of the shop were plying
+the profitable trade, as customer after customer, with umbrellas and in
+pattens, dropped into the tempting shelter--when a man, meanly dressed,
+and who was somewhat past middle age, with a careworn, hungry face,
+entered timidly. He waited in patience by the crowded counter, elbowed
+by sharp-boned and eager spinsters--and how sharp the elbows of
+spinsters are, no man can tell who has not forced his unwelcome way
+through the agitated groups in a linendraper’s shop!--the man, I say,
+waited patiently and sadly, till the smallest of the shopboys turned
+from a lady, who, after much sorting and shading, had finally decided on
+two yards of lilac-coloured penny riband, and asked, in an insinuating
+professional tone,--
+
+“What shall I show you, sir?”
+
+“I wish to speak to Mr. Morton. Which is he?”
+
+“Mr. Morton is engaged, sir. I can give you what you want.”
+
+“No--it is a matter of business--important business.” The boy eyed the
+napless and dripping hat, the gloveless hands, and the rusty neckcloth
+of the speaker; and said, as he passed his fingers through a profusion
+of light curls “Mr. Morton don’t attend much to business himself now;
+but that’s he. Any cravats, sir?”
+
+The man made no answer, but moved where, near the window, and chatting
+with the banker of the town (as the banker tried on a pair of beaver
+gloves), sat still--after due apology for sitting--Mr. Roger Morton.
+
+The alderman lowered his spectacles as he glanced grimly at the lean
+apparition that shaded the spruce banker, and said,--
+
+“Do you want me, friend?”
+
+“Yes, sir, if you please;” and the man took off his shabby hat, and
+bowed low.
+
+“Well, speak out. No begging petition, I hope?”
+
+“No, sir! Your nephews--”
+
+The banker turned round, and in his turn eyed the newcomer. The
+linendraper started back.
+
+“Nephews!” he repeated, with a bewildered look. “What does the man mean?
+Wait a bit.”
+
+“Oh, I’ve done!” said the banker, smiling. “I am glad to find we agree
+so well upon this question: I knew we should. Our member will never suit
+us if he goes on in this way. Trade must take care of itself. Good day
+to You!”
+
+“Nephews!” repeated Mr. Morton, rising, and beckoning to the man to
+follow him into the back parlour, where Mrs. Morton sat casting up the
+washing bills.
+
+“Now,” said the husband, closing the door, “what do you mean, my good
+fellow?”
+
+“Sir, what I wish to ask you is--if you can tell me what has become
+of--of the young Beau--, that is, of your sister’s sons. I understand
+there were two--and I am told that--that they are both dead. Is it so?”
+
+“What is that to you, friend?”
+
+“An please you, sir, it is a great deal to them!”
+
+“Yes--ha! ha! it is a great deal to everybody whether they are alive or
+dead!” Mr. Morton, since he had been mayor, now and then had his joke.
+“But really--”
+
+“Roger!” said Mrs. Morton, under her breath--“Roger!”
+
+“Yes, my dear.”
+
+“Come this way--I want to speak to you about this bill.” The husband
+approached, and bent over his wife. “Who’s this man?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“Depend on it, he has some claim to make--some bills or something. Don’t
+commit yourself--the boys are dead for what we know!”
+
+Mr. Morton hemmed and returned to his visitor.
+
+“To tell you the truth, I am not aware of what has become of the young
+men.”
+
+“Then they are not dead--I thought not!” exclaimed the man, joyously.
+
+“That’s more than I can say. It’s many years since I lost sight of the
+only one I ever saw; and they may be both dead for what I know.”
+
+“Indeed!” said the man. “Then you can give me no kind of--of--hint like,
+to find them out?”
+
+“No. Do they owe you anything?”
+
+“It does not signify talking now, sir. I beg your pardon.”
+
+“Stay--who are you?”
+
+“I am a very poor man, sir.”
+
+Mr. Morton recoiled.
+
+“Poor! Oh, very well--very well. You have done with me now. Good
+day--good day. I’m busy.”
+
+The stranger pecked for a moment at his hat--turned the handle of the
+door--peered under his grey eyebrows at the portly trader, who, with
+both hands buried in his pockets, his mouth pursed up, like a man about
+to say “No” fidgeted uneasily behind Mrs. Morton’s chair. He sighed,
+shook his head, and vanished.
+
+Mrs. Morton rang the bell--the maid-servant entered. “Wipe the carpet,
+Jenny;--dirty feet! Mr. Morton, it’s a Brussels!”
+
+“It was not my fault, my dear. I could not talk about family matters
+before the whole shop. Do you know, I’d quite forgot those poor boys.
+This unsettles me. Poor Catherine! she was so fond of them. A pretty boy
+that Sidney, too. What can have become of them? My heart rebukes me. I
+wish I had asked the man more.”
+
+“More!--why he was just going to beg.”
+
+“Beg--yes--very true!” said Mr. Morton, pausing irresolutely; and then,
+with a hearty tone, he cried out, “And, damme, if he had begged, I could
+afford him a shilling! I’ll go after him.” So saying, he hastened back
+through the shop, but the man was gone--the rain was falling, Mr. Morton
+had his thin shoes on--he blew his nose, and went back to the counter.
+But, there, still rose to his memory the pale face of his dead sister;
+and a voice murmured in his ear, “Brother, where is my child?”
+
+“Pshaw! it is not my fault if he ran away. Bob, go and get me the county
+paper.”
+
+Mr. Morton had again settled himself, and was deep in a trial for
+murder, when another stranger strode haughtily into the shop. The
+new-comer, wrapped in a pelisse of furs, with a thick moustache, and
+an eye that took in the whole shop, from master to boy, from ceiling to
+floor, in a glance, had the air at once of a foreigner and a soldier.
+Every look fastened on him, as he paused an instant, and then walking up
+to the alderman, said,--
+
+“Sir, you are doubtless Mr. Morton?”
+
+“At your commands, sir,” said Roger, rising involuntarily.
+
+“A word with you, then, on business.”
+
+“Business!” echoed Mr. Morton, turning rather pale, for he began to
+think himself haunted; “anything in my line, sir? I should be--”
+
+The stranger bent down his tall stature, and hissed into Mr. Morton’s
+foreboding ear:
+
+“Your nephews!”
+
+Mr. Morton was literally dumb-stricken. Yes, he certainly was haunted!
+He stared at this second questioner, and fancied that there was
+something very supernatural and unearthly about him. He was so tall, and
+so dark, and so stern, and so strange. Was it the Unspeakable himself
+come for the linendraper? Nephews again! The uncle of the babes in the
+wood could hardly have been more startled by the demand!
+
+“Sir,” said Mr. Morton at last, recovering his dignity and somewhat
+peevishly,--“sir, I don’t know why people should meddle with my family
+affairs. I don’t ask other folks about their nephews. I have no nephew
+that I know of.”
+
+“Permit me to speak to you, alone, for one instant.” Mr. Morton sighed,
+hitched up his trousers, and led the way to the parlour, where Mrs.
+Morton, having finished the washing bills, was now engaged in tying
+certain pieces of bladder round certain pots of preserves. The eldest
+Miss Morton, a young woman of five or six-and-twenty, who was about to
+be very advantageously married to a young gentleman who dealt in coals
+and played the violin (for N----- was a very musical town), had
+just joined her for the purpose of extorting “The Swiss Boy, with
+variations,” out of a sleepy little piano, that emitted a very painful
+cry under the awakening fingers of Miss Margaret Morton.
+
+Mr. Morton threw open the door with a grunt, and the stranger pausing
+at the threshold, the full flood of sound (key C) upon which “the Swiss
+Boy” was swimming along, “kine” and all, for life and death, came splash
+upon him.
+
+“Silence! can’t you?” cried the father, putting one hand to his ear,
+while with the other he pointed to a chair; and as Mrs. Morton looked
+up from the preserves with that air of indignant suffering with which
+female meekness upbraids a husband’s wanton outrage, Mr. Roger added,
+shrugging his shoulders,--
+
+“My nephews again, Mrs. K!”
+
+Miss Margaret turned round, and dropped a courtesy. Mrs. Morton gently
+let fall a napkin over the preserves, and muttered a sort of salutation,
+as the stranger, taking off his hat, turned to mother and daughter one
+of those noble faces in which Nature has written her grant and warranty
+of the lordship of creation.
+
+“Pardon me,” he said, “if I disturb you. But my business will be short.
+I have come to ask you, sir, frankly, and as one who has a right to ask
+it, what tidings you can give me of Sidney Morton?”
+
+“Sir, I know nothing whatever about him. He was taken from my house,
+about twelve years since, by his brother. Myself, and the two Mr.
+Beauforts, and another friend of the family, went in search of them
+both. My search failed.”
+
+“And theirs?”
+
+“I understood from Mr. Beaufort that they had not been more successful.
+I have had no communication with those gentlemen since. But that’s
+neither here nor there. In all probability, the elder of the boys--who,
+I fear, was a sad character--corrupted and ruined his brother; and, by
+this time, Heaven knows what and where they are.”
+
+“And no one has inquired of you since--no one has asked the brother of
+Catherine Morton, nay, rather of Catherine Beaufort--where is the child
+intrusted to your care?”
+
+This question, so exactly similar to that which his superstition
+had rung on his own ears, perfectly appalled the worthy alderman. He
+staggered back-stared at the marked and stern face that lowered upon
+him--and at last cried,--
+
+“For pity’s sake, sir, be just! What could I do for one who left me of
+his own accord?--”
+
+“The day you had beaten him like a dog. You see, Mr. Morton, I know
+all.”
+
+“And what are you?” said Mr. Morton, recovering his English courage, and
+feeling himself strangely browbeaten in his own house;--“What and
+who are you, that you thus take the liberty to catechise a man of my
+character and respectability?”
+
+“Twice mayor--” began Mrs. Morton.
+
+“Hush, mother!” whispered Miss Margaret,--“don’t work him up.”
+
+“I repeat, sir, what are you?”
+
+“What am I?--your nephew! Who am I? Before men, I bear a name that I
+have assumed, and not dishonoured--before Heaven I am Philip Beaufort!”
+
+Mrs. Morton dropped down upon her stool. Margaret murmured “My cousin!”
+ in a tone that the ear of the musical coal-merchant might not have
+greatly relished. And Mr. Morton, after a long pause, came up with a
+frank and manly expression of joy, and said:--
+
+“Then, sir, I thank Heaven, from my heart, that one of my sister’s
+children stands alive before me!”
+
+“And now, again, I--I whom you accuse of having corrupted and ruined
+him--him for whom I toiled and worked--him, who was to me, then, as a
+last surviving son to some anxious father--I, from whom he was reft and
+robbed--I ask you again for Sidney--for my brother!”
+
+“And again, I say, that I have no information to give you--that--Stay
+a moment--stay. You must pardon what I have said of you before you
+made yourself known. I went but by the accounts I had received from Mr.
+Beaufort. Let me speak plainly; that gentleman thought, right or wrong,
+that it would be a great thing to separate your brother from you. He may
+have found him--it must be so--and kept his name and condition concealed
+from us all, lest you should detect it. Mrs. M., don’t you think so?”
+
+“I’m sure I’m so terrified I don’t know what to think,” said Mrs.
+Morton, putting her hand to her forehead, and see-sawing herself to and
+fro upon her stool.
+
+“But since they wronged you--since you--you seem so very--very--”
+
+“Very much the gentleman,” suggested Miss Margaret. “Yes, so much the
+gentleman;--well off, too, I should hope, sir,”--and the experienced
+eye of Mr. Morton glanced at the costly sables that lined the
+pelisse,--“there can be no difficulty in your learning from Mr. Beaufort
+all that you wish to know. And pray, sir, may I ask, did you send any
+one here to-day to make the very inquiry you have made?”
+
+“I?--No. What do you mean?”
+
+“Well, well--sit down--there may be something in all this that you may
+make out better than I can.”
+
+And as Philip obeyed, Mr. Morton, who was really and honestly rejoiced
+to see his sister’s son alive and apparently thriving, proceeded to
+relate pretty exactly the conversation he had held with the previous
+visitor. Philip listened earnestly and with attention. Who could this
+questioner be? Some one who knew his birth--some one who sought him
+out?--some one, who--Good Heavens! could it be the long-lost witness of
+the marriage?
+
+As soon as that idea struck him, he started from his seat and entreated
+Morton to accompany him in search of the stranger. “You know not,” he
+said, in a tone impressed with that energy of will in which lay the
+talent of his mind,--“you know not of what importance this may be to
+my prospects--to your sister’s fair name. If it should be the witness
+returned at last! Who else, of the rank you describe, would be
+interested in such inquiries? Come!”
+
+“What witness?” said Mrs. Morton, fretfully. “You don’t mean to come
+over us with the old story of the marriage?”
+
+“Shall your wife slander your own sister, sir? A marriage there was--God
+yet will proclaim the right--and the name of Beaufort shall be yet
+placed on my mother’s gravestone. Come!”
+
+“Here are your shoes and umbrella, pa,” cried Miss Margaret, inspired by
+Philip’s earnestness.
+
+“My fair cousin, I guess,” and as the soldier took her hand, he kissed
+the unreluctant cheek--turned to the door--Mr. Morton placed his arm in
+his, and the next moment they were in the street.
+
+When Catherine, in her meek tones, had said, “Philip Beaufort was my
+husband,” Roger Morton had disbelieved her. And now one word from the
+son, who could, in comparison, know so little of the matter, had
+almost sufficed to convert and to convince the sceptic. Why was this?
+Because--Man believes the Strong!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+        “--Quid Virtus et quid Sapientia possit
+        Utile proposuit nobis exemplar Ulssem.” HOR.
+
+     [“He has proposed to us Ulysses as a useful example of how
+     much may be accomplished by Virtue and Wisdom.”]
+
+Meanwhile the object of their search, on quitting Mr. Morton’s shop, had
+walked slowly and sadly on, through the plashing streets, till he came
+to a public house in the outskirts and on the high road to London. Here
+he took shelter for a short time, drying himself by the kitchen fire,
+with the license purchased by fourpenny-worth of gin; and having learned
+that the next coach to London would not pass for some hours, he finally
+settled himself in the Ingle, till the guard’s horn should arouse him.
+By the same coach that the night before had conveyed Philip to N----,
+had the very man he sought been also a passenger!
+
+The poor fellow was sickly and wearied out: he had settled into a doze,
+when he was suddenly wakened by the wheels of a coach and the trampling
+of horses. Not knowing how long he had slept, and imagining that the
+vehicle he had awaited was at the door, he ran out. It was a coach
+coming from London, and the driver was joking with a pretty barmaid who,
+in rather short petticoats, was fielding up to him the customary glass.
+The man, after satisfying himself that his time was not yet come, was
+turning back to the fire, when a head popped itself out of the window,
+and a voice cried, “Stars and garters! Will--so that’s you!” At the
+sound of the voice the man halted abruptly, turned very pale, and his
+limbs trembled. The inside passenger opened the door, jumped out with
+a little carpet-bag in his hand, took forth a long leathern purse
+from which he ostentatiously selected the coins that paid his fare and
+satisfied the coachman, and then, passing his arm through that of the
+acquaintance he had discovered, led him back into the house.
+
+“Will--Will,” he whispered, “you have been to the Mortons. Never
+moind--let’s hear all. Jenny or Dolly, or whatever your sweet praetty
+name is--a private room and a pint of brandy, my dear. Hot water and
+lots of the grocery. That’s right.”
+
+And as soon as the pair found themselves, with the brandy before them,
+in a small parlour with a good fire, the last comer went to the door,
+shut it cautiously, flung his bag under the table, took off his gloves,
+spread himself wider and wider before the fire, until he had entirely
+excluded every ray from his friend, and then suddenly turning so that
+the back might enjoy what the front had gained, he exclaimed.
+
+“Damme, Will, you’re a praetty sort of a broather to give me the slip in
+that way. But in this world every man for his-self!”
+
+“I tell you,” said William, with something like decision in his voice,
+“that I will not do any wrong to these young men if they live.”
+
+“Who asks you to do a wrong to them?--booby! Perhaps I may be the
+best friend they may have yet--ay, or you too, though you’re the
+ungratefulest whimsicallist sort of a son of a gun that ever I came
+across. Come, help yourself, and don’t roll up your eyes in that way,
+like a Muggletonian asoide of a Fye-Fye!”
+
+Here the speaker paused a moment, and with a graver and more natural
+tone of voice proceeded:
+
+“So you did not believe me when I told you that these brothers were
+dead, and you have been to the Mortons to learn more?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Well, and what have you learned?”
+
+“Nothing. Morton declares that he does not know that they are alive, but
+he says also that he does not know that they are dead.”
+
+“Indeed,” said the other, listening with great attention; “and you
+really think that he does not know anything about them?”
+
+“I do, indeed.”
+
+“Hum! Is he a sort of man who would post down the rhino to help the
+search?”
+
+“He looked as if he had the yellow fever when I said I was poor,”
+ returned William, turning round, and trying to catch a glimpse at the
+fire, as he gulped his brandy and water.
+
+“Then I’ll be d---d if I run the risk of calling. I have done some
+things in this town by way of business before now; and though it’s
+a long time ago, yet folks don’t forget a haundsome man in a
+hurry--especially if he has done ‘em! Now, then, listen to me. You see,
+I have given this matter all the ‘tention in my power. ‘If the lads be
+dead,’ said I to you, ‘it is no use burning one’s fingers by holding
+a candle to bones in a coffin. But Mr. Beaufort need not know they are
+dead, and we’ll see what we can get out of him; and if I succeeds, as
+I think I shall, you and I may hold up our heads for the rest of our
+life.’ Accordingly, as I told you, I went to Mr. Beaufort, and--‘Gad,
+I thought we had it all our own way. But since I saw you last, there’s
+been the devil and all. When I called again, Will, I was shown in to an
+old lord, sharp as a gimblet. Hang me, William, if he did not frighten
+me out of my seven senses!”
+
+Here Captain Smith (the reader has, no doubt, already discovered that
+the speaker was no less a personage) took three or four nervous strides
+across the room, returned to the table, threw himself in a chair, placed
+one foot on one hob, and one on the other, laid his finger on his nose,
+and, with a significant wink, said in a whisper, “Will, he knew I
+had been lagged! He not only refused to hear all I had to say, but
+threatened to prosecute--persecute, hang, draw, and quarter us both, if
+we ever dared to come out with the truth.”
+
+“But what’s the good of the truth if the boys are dead?” said William,
+timidly.
+
+The captain, without heeding this question, continued, as he stirred the
+sugar in his glass, “Well, out I sneaked, and as soon as I had got to
+my own door I turned round and saw Sharp the runner on the other side of
+the way--I felt deuced queer. However, I went in, sat down, and began
+to think. I saw that it was up with us, so far as the old uns were
+concerned; and it might be worth while to find out if the young uns
+really were dead.”
+
+“Then you did not know that after all! I thought so. Oh, Jerry!”
+
+“Why, look you, man, it was not our interest to take their side if we
+could make our bargain out of the other. ‘Cause why? You are only one
+witness--you are a good fellow, but poor, and with very shaky nerves,
+Will. You does not know what them big wigs are when a man’s caged in a
+witness-box--they flank one up, and they flank one down, and they bully
+and bother, till one’s like a horse at Astley’s dancing on hot iron.
+If your testimony broke down, why it would be all up with the case,
+and what then would become of us? Besides,” added the captain, with
+dignified candour, “I have been lagged, it’s no use denying it; I am
+back before my time. Inquiries about your respectability would soon
+bring the bulkies about me. And you would not have poor Jerry sent back
+to that d---d low place on t’other side of the herring-pond, would you?”
+
+“Ah, Jerry!” said William, kindly placing his hand in his brother’s,
+“you know I helped you to escape; I left all to come over with you.”
+
+“So you did, and you’re a good fellow; though as to leaving all, why you
+had got rid of all first. And when you told me about the marriage, did
+not I say that I saw our way to a snug thing for life? But to return
+to my story. There is a danger in going with the youngsters. But since,
+Will,--since nothing but hard words is to be got on the other side,
+we’ll do our duty, and I’ll find them out, and do the best I can for
+us--that is, if they be yet above ground. And now I’ll own to you that I
+think I knows that the younger one is alive.”
+
+“You do?”
+
+“Yes! But as he won’t come in for anything unless his brother is dead,
+we must have a hunt for the heir. Now I told you that, many years ago,
+there was a lad with me, who, putting all things together--seeing how
+the Beauforts came after him, and recollecting different things he let
+out at the time--I feel pretty sure is your old master’s Hopeful. I know
+that poor Will Gawtrey gave this lad the address of Old Gregg, a friend
+of mine. So after watching Sharp off the sly, I went that very night, or
+rather at two in the morning, to Gregg’s house, and, after brushing
+up his memory, I found that the lad had been to him, and gone over
+afterwards to Paris in search of Gawtrey, who was then keeping a
+matrimony shop. As I was not rich enough to go off to Paris in a
+pleasant, gentlemanlike way, I allowed Gregg to put me up to a noice
+quiet little bit of business. Don’t shake your head--all safe--a rural
+affair! That took some days. You see it has helped to new rig me,” and
+the captain glanced complacently over a very smart suit of clothes.
+“Well, on my return I went to call on you, but you had flown. I half
+suspected you might have gone to the mother’s relations here; and I
+thought, at all events, that I could not do better than go myself and
+see what they knew of the matter. From what you say I feel I had better
+now let that alone, and go over to Paris at once; leave me alone to
+find out. And faith, what with Sharp and the old lord, the sooner I quit
+England the better.”
+
+“And you really think you shall get hold of them after all? Oh, never
+fear my nerves if I’m once in the right; it’s living with you, and
+seeing you do wrong, and hearing you talk wickedly, that makes me
+tremble.”
+
+“Bother!” said the captain, “you need not crow over me. Stand up, Will;
+there now, look at us two in the glass! Why, I look ten years younger
+than you do, in spite of all my troubles. I dress like a gentleman, as
+I am; I have money in my pocket; I put money in yours; without me you’d
+starve. Look you, you carried over a little fortune to Australia--you
+married--you farmed--you lived honestly, and yet that d---d
+shilly-shally disposition of yours, ‘ticed into one speculation to-day,
+and scared out of another to-morrow, ruined you!”
+
+“Jerry! Jerry!” cried William, writhing; “don’t--don’t.”
+
+“But it’s all true, and I wants to cure you of preaching. And then,
+when you were nearly run out, instead of putting a bold face on it, and
+setting your shoulder to the wheel, you gives it up--you sells what you
+have--you bolts over, wife and all, to Boston, because some one tells
+you you can do better in America--you are out of the way when a search
+is made for you--years ago when you could have benefited yourself and
+your master’s family without any danger to you or me--nobody can find
+you; ‘cause why, you could not bear that your old friends in England, or
+in the colony either, should know that you were turned a slave-driver in
+Kentucky. You kick up a mutiny among the niggers by moaning over them,
+instead of keeping ‘em to it--you get kicked out yourself--your wife
+begs you to go back to Australia, where her relations will do something
+for you--you work your passage out, looking as ragged as a colt
+from grass--wife’s uncle don’t like ragged nephews-in-law--wife dies
+broken-hearted--and you might be breaking stones on the roads with the
+convicts, if I, myself a convict, had not taken compassion on you. Don’t
+cry, Will, it is all for your own good--I hates cant! Whereas I, my own
+master from eighteen, never stooped to serve any other--have dressed
+like a gentleman--kissed the pretty girls--drove my pheaton--been in all
+the papers as ‘the celebrated Dashing Jerry’--never wanted a guinea in
+my pocket, and even when lagged at last, had a pretty little sum in
+the colonial bank to lighten my misfortunes. I escape,--I bring you
+over--and here I am, supporting you, and in all probability, the one on
+whom depends the fate of one of the first families in the country. And
+you preaches at me, do you? Look you, Will;--in this world, honesty’s
+nothing without force of character! And so your health!”
+
+Here the captain emptied the rest of the brandy into his glass, drained
+it at a draught, and, while poor William was wiping his eyes with a
+ragged blue pocket-handkerchief, rang the bell, and asked what coaches
+would pass that way to -----, a seaport town at some distance. On
+hearing that there was one at six o’clock, the captain ordered the best
+dinner the larder would afford to be got ready as soon as possible; and,
+when they were again alone, thus accosted his brother:--
+
+“Now you go back to town--here are four shiners for you. Keep
+quiet--don’t speak to a soul--don’t put your foot in it, that’s all I
+beg, and I’ll find out whatever there is to be found. It is damnably out
+of my way embarking at -----, but I had best keep clear of Lunnon. And I
+tell you what, if these youngsters have hopped the twig, there’s another
+bird on the bough that may prove a goldfinch after all--Young Arthur
+Beaufort: I hear he is a wild, expensive chap, and one who can’t live
+without lots of money. Now, it’s easy to frighten a man of that sort,
+and I sha’n’t have the old lord at his elbow.”
+
+“But I tell you, that I only care for my poor master’s children.”
+
+“Yes; but if they are dead, and by saying they are alive, one can make
+old age comfortable, there’s no harm in it--eh?”
+
+“I don’t know,” said William, irresolutely. “But certainly it is a hard
+thing to be so poor at my time of life; and so honest a man as I’ve
+been, too!”
+
+Captain Smith went a little too far when he said that “honesty’s nothing
+without force of character.” Still, Honesty has no business to be
+helpless and draggle-tailed;--she must be active and brisk, and make use
+of her wits; or, though she keep clear or the prison, ‘tis no very great
+wonder if she fall on the parish.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+     “Mitis.--This Macilente, signior, begins to be more sociable on
+     a sudden.” Every Man out of his Humour.
+
+     “Punt. Signior, you are sufficiently instructed.
+
+     “Fast. Who, I, sir?”--Ibid.
+
+After spending the greater part of the day in vain inquiries and a vain
+search, Philip and Mr. Morton returned to the house of the latter.
+
+“And now,” said Philip, “all that remains to be done is this: first
+give to the police of the town a detailed description of the man; and
+secondly, let us put an advertisement both in the county journal and in
+some of the London papers, to the effect, that if the person who called
+on you will take the trouble to apply again, either personally or by
+letter, he may obtain the information sought for. In case he does,
+I will trouble you to direct him to--yes--to Monsieur de Vaudemont,
+according to this address.”
+
+“Not to you, then?”
+
+“It is the same thing,” replied Philip, drily. “You have confirmed my
+suspicions, that the Beauforts know some thing of my brother. What did
+you say of some other friend of the family who assisted in the search?”
+
+“Oh,--a Mr. Spencer! an old acquaintance of your mother’s.” Here Mr.
+Morton smiled, but not being encouraged in a joke, went on, “However,
+that’s neither here nor there; he certainly never found out your
+brother. For I have had several letters from him at different times,
+asking if any news had been heard of either of you.”
+
+And, indeed, Spencer had taken peculiar pains to deceive the Mortons,
+whose interposition he feared little less than that of the Beauforts.
+
+“Then it can be of no use to apply to him,” said Philip, carelessly, not
+having any recollection of the name of Spencer, and therefore attaching
+little importance to the mention of him.
+
+“Certainly, I should think not. Depend on it, Mr. Beaufort must know.”
+
+“True,” said Philip. “And I have only to thank you for your kindness,
+and return to town.”
+
+“But stay with us this day--do--let me feel that we are friends. I
+assure you poor Sidney’s fate has been a load on my mind ever since he
+left. You shall have the bed he slept in, and over which your mother
+bent when she left him and me for the last time.”
+
+These words were said with so much feeling, that the adventurer wrung
+his uncle’s hand, and said, “Forgive me, I wronged you--I will be your
+guest.”
+
+Mrs. Morton, strange to say, evinced no symptoms of ill-humour at the
+news of the proffered hospitality. In fact, Miss Margaret had been
+so eloquent in Philip’s praise during his absence, that she suffered
+herself to be favourably impressed. Her daughter, indeed, had obtained a
+sort of ascendency over Mrs. M. and the whole house, ever since she
+had received so excellent an offer. And, moreover, some people are like
+dogs--they snarl at the ragged and fawn on the well-dressed. Mrs. Morton
+did not object to a nephew de facto, she only objected to a nephew in
+forma pauperis. The evening, therefore, passed more cheerfully than
+might have been anticipated, though Philip found some difficulty in
+parrying the many questions put to him on the past. He contented himself
+with saying, as briefly as possible, that he had served in a foreign
+service, and acquired what sufficed him for an independence; and then,
+with the ease which a man picks up in the great world, turned the
+conversation to the prospects of the family whose guest he was. Having
+listened with due attention to Mrs. Morton’s eulogies on Tom, who had
+been sent for, and who drank the praises on his own gentility into a
+very large pair of blushing ears,--also, to her self-felicitations on
+Miss Margaret’s marriage,--item, on the service rendered to the town by
+Mr. Roger, who had repaired the town-hall in his first mayoralty at his
+own expense,--item, to a long chronicle of her own genealogy, how she
+had one cousin a clergyman, and how her great-grandfather had been
+knighted,--item, to the domestic virtues of all her children,--item, to
+a confused explanation of the chastisement inflicted on Sidney, which
+Philip cut short in the middle; he asked, with a smile, what had become
+of the Plaskwiths. “Oh!” said Mrs. Morton, “my brother Kit has retired
+from business. His son-in-law, Mr. Plimmins, has succeeded.”
+
+“Oh, then, Plimmins married one of the young ladies?”
+
+“Yes, Jane--she had a sad squint!--Tom, there is nothing to laugh
+at,--we are all as God made us,--‘Handsome is as handsome does,’--she
+has had three little uns!”
+
+“Do they squint too?” asked Philip; and Miss Margaret giggled, and Tom
+roared, and the other young men roared too. Philip had certainly said
+something very witty.
+
+This time Mrs. Morton administered no reproof; but replied pensively
+
+“Natur is very mysterious--they all squint!”
+
+Mr. Morton conducted Philip to his chamber. There it was, fresh, clean,
+unaltered--the same white curtains, the same honeysuckle paper as when
+Catherine had crept across the threshold.
+
+“Did Sidney ever tell you that his mother placed a ring round his neck
+that night?” asked Mr. Morton.
+
+“Yes; and the dear boy wept when he said that he had slept too soundly
+to know that she was by his side that last, last time. The ring--oh,
+how well I remember it! she never put it off till then; and often in the
+fields--for we were wild wanderers together in that day--often when his
+head lay on my shoulder, I felt that ring still resting on his heart,
+and fancied it was a talisman--a blessing. Well, well-good night to
+you!” And he shut the door on his uncle, and was alone.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+        “The Man of Law,.......
+        And a great suit is like to be between them.”
+         BEN JONSON: Staple of News.
+
+On arriving in London, Philip went first to the lodging he still
+kept there, and to which his letters were directed; and, among some
+communications from Paris, full of the politics and the hopes of the
+Carlists, he found the following note from Lord Lilburne:--
+
+“DEAR SIR,--When I met you the other day I told you I had been
+threatened with the gout. The enemy has now taken possession of the
+field. I am sentenced to regimen and the sofa. But as it is my rule in
+life to make afflictions as light as possible, so I have asked a few
+friends to take compassion on me, and help me ‘to shuffle off this
+mortal coil’ by dealing me, if they can, four by honours. Any time
+between nine and twelve to-night, or to-morrow night, you will find me
+at home; and if you are not better engaged, suppose you dine with me
+to-day--or rather dine opposite to me--and excuse my Spartan broth. You
+will meet (besides any two or three friends whom an impromptu invitation
+may find disengaged) my sister, with Beaufort and their daughter: they
+only arrived in town this morning, and are kind enough ‘to nurse me,’ as
+they call it,--that is to say, their cook is taken ill!
+
+
+                   “Yours,
+
+                      “LILBURNE
+“Park Lane, Sept. --”
+
+“The Beauforts. Fate favors me--I will go. The date is for to-day.”
+
+He sent off a hasty line to accept the invitation, and finding he had a
+few hours yet to spare, he resolved to employ them in consultation with
+some lawyer as to the chances of ultimately regaining his inheritance--a
+hope which, however wild, he had, since his return to his native shore,
+and especially since he had heard of the strange visit made to Roger
+Morton, permitted himself to indulge. With this idea he sallied out,
+meaning to consult Liancourt, who, having a large acquaintance among
+the English, seemed the best person to advise him as to the choice of
+a lawyer at once active and honest,--when he suddenly chanced upon that
+gentleman himself.
+
+“This is lucky, my dear Liancourt. I was just going to your lodgings.”
+
+“And I was coming to yours to know if you dine with Lord Lilburne. He
+told me he had asked you. I have just left him. And, by the sofa of
+Mephistopheles, there was the prettiest Margaret you ever beheld.”
+
+“Indeed!--Who?”
+
+“He called her his niece; but I should doubt if he had any relation on
+this side the Styx so human as a niece.”
+
+“You seem to have no great predilection for our host.”
+
+“My dear Vaudemont, between our blunt, soldierly natures, and those
+wily, icy, sneering intellects, there is the antipathy of the dog to the
+cat.”
+
+“Perhaps so on our side, not on his--or why does he invite us?”
+
+“London is empty; there is no one else to ask. We are new faces, new
+minds to him. We amuse him more than the hackneyed comrades he has worn
+out. Besides, he plays--and you, too. Fie on you!”
+
+“Liancourt, I had two objects in knowing that man, and I pay to the toll
+for the bridge. When I cease to want the passage, I shall cease to pay
+the toll.”
+
+“But the bridge may be a draw-bridge, and the moat is devilish deep
+below. Without metaphor, that man may ruin you before you know where you
+are.”
+
+“Bah! I have my eyes open. I know how much to spend on the rogue whose
+service I hire as a lackey’s; and I know also where to stop. Liancourt,”
+ he added, after a short pause, and in a tone deep with suppressed
+passion, “when I first saw that man, I thought of appealing to his heart
+for one who has a claim on it. That was a vain hope. And then there came
+upon me a sterner and deadlier thought--the scheme of the Avenger! This
+Lilburne--this rogue whom the world sets up to worship--ruined, body
+and soul ruined--one whose name the world gibbets with scorn! Well, I
+thought to avenge that man. In his own house--amidst you all--I thought
+to detect the sharper, and brand the cheat!”
+
+“You startle me!--It has been whispered, indeed, that Lord Lilburne
+is dangerous,--but skill is dangerous. To cheat!--an Englishman!--a
+nobleman!--impossible!”
+
+“Whether he do or not,” returned Vaudemont, in a calmer tone, “I have
+foregone the vengeance, because he is--”
+
+“Is what?”
+
+“No matter,” said Vaudemont aloud, but he added to himself,--“Because he
+is the grandfather of Fanny!”
+
+“You are very enigmatical to-day.”
+
+“Patience, Liancourt; I may solve all the riddles that make up my
+life, yet. Bear with me a little longer. And now can you help me to a
+lawyer?--a man experienced, indeed, and of repute, but young, active,
+not overladen with business;--I want his zeal and his time, for a hazard
+that your monopolists of clients may not deem worth their devotion.”
+
+“I can recommend you, then, the very man you require. I had a suit
+some years ago at Paris, for which English witnesses were necessary.
+My avocat employed a solicitor here whose activity in collecting my
+evidence gained my cause. I will answer for his diligence and his
+honesty.”
+
+“His address?”
+
+“Mr. Barlow--somewhere by the Strand--let me see--Essex-yes, Essex
+Street.”
+
+“Then good-bye to you for the present.--You dine at Lord Lilburne’s
+too?”
+
+“Yes. Adieu till then.”
+
+Vaudemont was not long before he arrived at Mr. Barlow’s; a brass-plate
+announced to him the house. He was shown at once into a parlour,
+where he saw a man whom lawyers would call young, and spinsters
+middle-aged--viz., about two-and-forty; with a bold, resolute,
+intelligent countenance, and that steady, calm, sagacious eye, which
+inspires at once confidence and esteem.
+
+Vaudemont scanned him with the look of one who has been accustomed
+to judge mankind--as a scholar does books--with rapidity because with
+practice. He had at first resolved to submit to him the heads of
+his case without mentioning names, and, in fact, he so commenced his
+narrative; but by degrees, as he perceived how much his own earnestness
+arrested and engrossed the interest of his listener, he warmed into
+fuller confidence, and ended by a full disclosure, and a caution as to
+the profoundest secrecy in case, if there were no hope to recover his
+rightful name, he might yet wish to retain, unannoyed by curiosity or
+suspicion, that by which he was not discreditably known.
+
+“Sir,” said Mr. Barlow, after assuring him of the most scrupulous
+discretion,--“sir, I have some recollection of the trial instituted by
+your mother, Mrs. Beaufort”--and the slight emphasis he laid on that
+name was the most grateful compliment he could have paid to the truth
+of Philip’s recital. “My impression is, that it was managed in a very
+slovenly manner by her lawyer; and some of his oversights we may repair
+in a suit instituted by yourself. But it would be absurd to conceal from
+you the great difficulties that beset us--your mother’s suit, designed
+to establish her own rights, was far easier than that which you must
+commence--viz., an action for ejectment against a man who has been some
+years in undisturbed possession. Of course, until the missing witness is
+found out, it would be madness to commence litigation. And the question,
+then, will be, how far that witness will suffice? It is true, that one
+witness of a marriage, if the others are dead, is held sufficient by
+law. But I need not add, that that witness must be thoroughly credible.
+In suits for real property, very little documentary or secondary
+evidence is admitted. I doubt even whether the certificate of the
+marriage on which--in the loss or destruction of the register--you lay
+so much stress, would be available in itself. But if an examined copy,
+it becomes of the last importance, for it will then inform us of the
+name of the person who extracted and examined it. Heaven grant it may
+not have been the clergyman himself who performed the ceremony, and who,
+you say, is dead; if some one else, we should then have a second, no
+doubt credible and most valuable witness. The document would thus become
+available as proof, and, I think, that we should not fail to establish
+our case.”
+
+“But this certificate, how is it ever to be found? I told you we had
+searched everywhere in vain.”
+
+“True; but you say that your mother always declared that the late Mr.
+Beaufort had so solemnly assured her, even just prior to his decease,
+that it was in existence, that I have no doubt as to the fact. It may be
+possible, but it is a terrible insinuation to make, that if Mr. Robert
+Beaufort, in examining the papers of the deceased, chanced upon a
+document so important to him, he abstracted or destroyed it. If this
+should not have been the case (and Mr. Robert Beaufort’s moral character
+is unspotted--and we have no right to suppose it), the probability is,
+either that it was intrusted to some third person, or placed in
+some hidden drawer or deposit, the secret of which your father never
+disclosed. Who has purchased the house you lived in?”
+
+“Fernside? Lord Lilburne. Mrs. Robert Beaufort’s brother.”
+
+“Humph--probably, then, he took the furniture and all. Sir, this is a
+matter that requires some time for close consideration. With your leave,
+I will not only insert in the London papers an advertisement to the
+effect that you suggested to Mr. Roger Morton (in case you should have
+made a right conjecture as to the object of the man who applied to him),
+but I will also advertise for the witness himself. William Smith, you
+say, his name is. Did the lawyer employed by Mrs. Beaufort send to
+inquire for him in the colony?”
+
+“No; I fear there could not have been time for that. My mother was so
+anxious and eager, and so convinced of the justice of her case--”
+
+“That’s a pity; her lawyer must have been a sad driveller.”
+
+“Besides, now I remember, inquiry was made of his relations in England.
+His father, a farmer, was then alive; the answer was that he had
+certainly left Australia. His last letter, written two years before that
+date, containing a request for money, which the father, himself made a
+bankrupt by reverses, could not give, had stated that he was about to
+seek his fortune elsewhere--since then they had heard nothing of him.”
+
+“Ahem! Well, you will perhaps let me know where any relations of his
+are yet to be found, and I will look up the former suit, and go into
+the whole case without delay. In the meantime, you do right, sir--if you
+will allow me to say it--not to disclose either your own identity or a
+hint of your intentions. It is no use putting suspicion on its guard.
+And my search for this certificate must be managed with the greatest
+address. But, by the way--speaking of identity--there can be no
+difficulty, I hope, in proving yours.”
+
+Philip was startled. “Why, I am greatly altered.”
+
+“But probably your beard and moustache may contribute to that change;
+and doubtless, in the village where you lived, there would be many with
+whom you were in sufficient intercourse, and on whose recollection,
+by recalling little anecdotes and circumstances with which no one but
+yourself could be acquainted, your features would force themselves along
+with the moral conviction that the man who spoke to them could be no
+other but Philip Morton--or rather Beaufort.”
+
+“You are right; there must be many such. There was not a cottage in the
+place where I and my dogs were not familiar and half domesticated.”
+
+“All’s right, so far, then. But I repeat, we must not be too sanguine.
+Law is not justice--”
+
+“But God is,” said Philip; and he left the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+     “Volpone. A little in a mist, but not dejected;
+     Never--but still myself.”
+                BEN JONSON: Volpone.
+
+     “Peregrine. Am I enough disguised?
+     Mer. Ay. I warrant you.
+     Per. Save you, fair lady.”--Ibid.
+
+It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. The ill wind that had blown
+gout to Lord Lilburne had blown Lord Lilburne away from the injury he
+had meditated against what he called “the object of his attachment.” How
+completely and entirely, indeed, the state of Lord Lilburne’s feelings
+depended on the state of his health, may be seen in the answer he gave
+to his valet, when, the morning after the first attack of the gout,
+that worthy person, by way of cheering his master, proposed to ascertain
+something as to the movements of one with whom Lord Lilburne professed
+to be so violently in love,--“Confound you, Dykeman!” exclaimed the
+invalid,--“why do you trouble me about women when I’m in this condition?
+I don’t care if they were all at the bottom of the sea! Reach me the
+colchicum! I must keep my mind calm.”
+
+Whenever tolerably well, Lord Lilburne was careless of his health; the
+moment he was ill, Lord Lilburne paid himself the greatest possible
+attention. Though a man of firm nerves, in youth of remarkable daring,
+and still, though no longer rash, of sufficient personal courage, he was
+by no means fond of the thought of death--that is, of his own death.
+Not that he was tormented by any religious apprehensions of the Dread
+Unknown, but simply because the only life of which he had any experience
+seemed to him a peculiarly pleasant thing. He had a sort of instinctive
+persuasion that John Lord Lilburne would not be better off anywhere
+else. Always disliking solitude, he disliked it more than ever when
+he was ill, and he therefore welcomed the visit of his sister and the
+gentle hand of his pretty niece. As for Beaufort, he bored the sufferer;
+and when that gentleman, on his arrival, shutting out his wife and
+daughter, whispered to Lilburne, “Any more news of that impostor?”
+ Lilburne answered peevishly, “I never talk about business when I have
+the gout! I have set Sharp to keep a lookout for him, but he has learned
+nothing as yet. And now go to your club. You are a worthy creature,
+but too solemn for my spirits just at this moment. I have a few people
+coming to dine with me, your wife will do the honors, and--you can
+come in the evening.” Though Mr. Robert Beaufort’s sense of importance
+swelled and chafed at this very unceremonious conge, he forced a smile,
+and said:--
+
+“Well, it is no wonder you are a little fretful with the gout. I have
+plenty to do in town, and Mrs. Beaufort and Camilla can come back
+without waiting for me.”
+
+“Why, as your cook is ill, and they can’t dine at a club, you may as
+well leave them here till I am a little better; not that I care, for I
+can hire a better nurse than either of them.”
+
+“My dear Lilburne, don’t talk of hiring nurses; certainly, I am too
+happy if they can be of comfort to you.”
+
+“No! on second thoughts, you may take back your wife, she’s always
+talking of her own complaints, and leave me Camilla: you can’t want her
+for a few days.”
+
+“Just as you like. And you really think I have managed as well as I
+could about this young man,--eh?”
+
+“Yes--yes! And so you go to Beaufort Court in a few days?”
+
+“I propose doing so. I wish you were well enough to come.”
+
+“Um! Chambers says that it would be a very good air for me--better
+than Fernside; and as to my castle in the north, I would as soon go to
+Siberia. Well, if I get better, I will pay you a visit, only you always
+have such a stupid set of respectable people about you. I shock them,
+and they oppress me.”
+
+“Why, as I hope soon to see Arthur, I shall make it as agreeable to him
+as I can, and I shall be very much obliged to you if you would invite a
+few of your own friends.”
+
+“Well, you are a good fellow, Beaufort, and I will take you at your
+word; and, since one good turn deserves another, I have now no scruples
+in telling you that I feel quite sure that you will have no further
+annoyance from this troublesome witness-monger.”
+
+“In that case,” said Beaufort, “I may pick up a better match for
+Camilla! Good-bye, my dear Lilburne.”
+
+“Form and Ceremony of the world!” snarled the peer, as the door closed
+on his brother-in-law, “ye make little men very moral, and not a bit the
+better for being so.”
+
+It so happened that Vaudemont arrived before any of the other guests
+that day, and during the half hour which Dr. Chambers assigned to his
+illustrious patient, so that, when he entered, there were only Mrs.
+Beaufort and Camilla in the drawing-room.
+
+Vaudemont drew back involuntarily as he recognized in the faded
+countenance of the elder lady, features associated with one of the dark
+passages in his earlier life; but Mrs. Beaufort’s gracious smile,
+and urbane, though languid welcome, sufficed to assure him that the
+recognition was not mutual. He advanced, and again stopped short, as his
+eye fell upon that fair and still childlike form, which had once knelt
+by his side and pleaded, with the orphan, for his brother. While he
+spoke to her, many recollections, some dark and stern--but those, at
+least, connected with Camilla, soft and gentle--thrilled through his
+heart. Occupied as her own thoughts and feelings necessarily were with
+Sidney, there was something in Vaudemont’s appearance--his manner, his
+voice--which forced upon Camilla a strange and undefined interest; and
+even Mrs. Beaufort was roused from her customary apathy, as she glanced
+at that dark and commanding face with something between admiration and
+fear. Vaudemont had scarcely, however, spoken ten words, when some other
+guests were announced, and Lord Lilburne was wheeled in upon his
+sofa shortly afterwards. Vaudemont continued, however, seated next to
+Camilla, and the embarrassment he had at first felt disappeared. He
+possessed, when he pleased, that kind of eloquence which belongs to
+men who have seen much and felt deeply, and whose talk has not been
+frittered down to the commonplace jargon of the world. His very
+phraseology was distinct and peculiar, and he had that rarest of all
+charms in polished life, originality both of thought and of manner.
+Camilla blushed, when she found at dinner that he placed himself by her
+side. That evening De Vaudemont excused himself from playing, but the
+table was easily made without him, and still he continued to converse
+with the daughter of the man whom he held as his worst foe. By degrees,
+he turned the conversation into a channel that might lead him to the
+knowledge he sought.
+
+“It was my fate,” said he, “once to become acquainted with an intimate
+friend of the late Mr. Beaufort. Will you pardon me if I venture to
+fulfil a promise I made to him, and ask you to inform me what has become
+of a--a--that is, of Sidney Morton?”
+
+“Sidney Morton! I don’t even remember the name. Oh, yes! I have heard
+it,” added Camilla, innocently, and with a candour that showed how
+little she knew of the secrets of the family; “he was one of two poor
+boys in whom my brother felt a deep interest--some relations to my
+uncle. Yes--yes! I remember now. I never knew Sidney, but I once did see
+his brother.”
+
+“Indeed! and you remember--”
+
+“Yes! I was very young then. I scarcely recollect what passed, it was
+all so confused and strange; but, I know that I made papa very angry,
+and I was told never to mention the name of Morton again. I believe they
+behaved very ill to papa.”
+
+“And you never learned--never!--the fate of either--of Sidney?”
+
+“Never!”
+
+“But your father must know?”
+
+“I think not; but tell me,”--said Camilla, with girlish and unaffected
+innocence, “I have always felt anxious to know,--what and who were those
+poor boys?”
+
+What and who were they? So deep, then, was the stain upon their name,
+that the modest mother and the decorous father had never even said to
+that young girl, “They are your cousins--the children of the man in
+whose gold we revel!”
+
+Philip bit his lip, and the spell of Camilla’s presence seemed vanished.
+He muttered some inaudible answer, turned away to the card-table, and
+Liancourt took the chair he had left vacant.
+
+“And how does Miss Beaufort like my friend Vaudemont? I assure you that
+I have seldom seen him so alive to the fascination of female beauty!”
+
+“Oh!” said Camilla, with her silver laugh, “your nation spoils us
+for our own countrymen. You forget how little we are accustomed to
+flattery.”
+
+“Flattery! what truth could flatter on the lips of an exile? But you
+don’t answer my question--what think you of Vaudemont? Few are more
+admired. He is handsome!”
+
+“Is he?” said Camilla, and she glanced at Vaudemont, as he stood at a
+little distance, thoughtful and abstracted. Every girl forms to herself
+some untold dream of that which she considers fairest. And Vaudemont had
+not the delicate and faultless beauty of Sidney. There was nothing that
+corresponded to her ideal in his marked features and lordly shape! But
+she owned, reluctantly to herself, that she had seldom seen, among the
+trim gallants of everyday life, a form so striking and impressive. The
+air, indeed, was professional--the most careless glance could detect the
+soldier. But it seemed the soldier of an elder age or a wilder clime. He
+recalled to her those heads which she had seen in the Beaufort Gallery
+and other Collections yet more celebrated--portraits by Titian of those
+warrior statesman who lived in the old Republics of Italy in a perpetual
+struggle with their kind--images of dark, resolute, earnest men.
+Even whatever was intellectual in his countenance spoke, as in those
+portraits, of a mind sharpened rather in active than in studious
+life;--intellectual, not from the pale hues, the worn exhaustion, and
+the sunken cheek of the bookman and dreamer, but from its collected and
+stern repose, the calm depth that lay beneath the fire of the eyes, and
+the strong will that spoke in the close full lips, and the high but not
+cloudless forehead.
+
+And, as she gazed, Vaudemont turned round--her eyes fell beneath his,
+and she felt angry with herself that she blushed. Vaudemont saw the
+downcast eye, he saw the blush, and the attraction of Camilla’s presence
+was restored. He would have approached her, but at that moment Mr.
+Beaufort himself entered, and his thoughts went again into a darker
+channel.
+
+“Yes,” said Liancourt, “you must allow Vaudemont looks what he is--a
+noble fellow and a gallant soldier. Did you never hear of his battle
+with the tigress? It made a noise in India. I must tell it you as I have
+heard it.”
+
+And while Laincourt was narrating the adventure, whatever it was, to
+which he referred, the card-table was broken up, and Lord Lilburne,
+still reclining on his sofa, lazily introduced his brother-in-law to
+such of the guests as were strangers to him--Vaudemont among the rest.
+Mr. Beaufort had never seen Philip Morton more than three times; once
+at Fernside, and the other times by an imperfect light, and when his
+features were convulsed by passion, and his form disfigured by his
+dress. Certainly, therefore, had Robert Beaufort even possessed that
+faculty of memory which is supposed to belong peculiarly to kings and
+princes, and which recalls every face once seen, it might have tasked
+the gift to the utmost to have detected, in the bronzed and decorated
+foreigner to whom he was now presented, the features of the wild and
+long-lost boy. But still some dim and uneasy presentiment, or some
+struggling and painful effort of recollection, was in his mind, as he
+spoke to Vaudemont, and listened to the cold calm tone of his reply.
+
+“Who do you say that Frenchman is?” he whispered to his brother-in-law,
+as Vaudemont turned away.
+
+“Oh! a cleverish sort of adventurer--a gentleman; he plays.--He has
+seen a good deal of the world--he rather amuses me--different from other
+people. I think of asking him to join our circle at Beaufort Court.”
+
+Mr. Beaufort coughed huskily, but not seeing any reasonable objection
+to the proposal, and afraid of rousing the sleeping hyaena of Lord
+Lilburne’s sarcasm, he merely said:--
+
+“Any one you like to invite:” and looking round for some one on whom to
+vent his displeasure, perceived Camilla still listening to Liancourt.
+He stalked up to her, and as Liancourt, seeing her rise, rose also and
+moved away, he said peevishly, “You will never learn to conduct yourself
+properly; you are to be left here to nurse and comfort your uncle, and
+not to listen to the gibberish of every French adventurer. Well, Heaven
+be praised, I have a son--girls are a great plague!”
+
+“So they are, Mr. Beaufort,” sighed his wife, who had just joined
+him, and who was jealous of the preference Lilburne had given to her
+daughter.
+
+“And so selfish,” added Mrs. Beaufort; “they only care for their own
+amusements, and never mind how uncomfortable their parents are for want
+of them.”
+
+“Oh! dear mamma, don’t say so--let me go home with you--I’ll speak to my
+uncle!”
+
+“Nonsense, child! Come along, Mr. Beaufort;” and the affectionate
+parents went out arm in arm. They did not perceive that Vaudemont had
+been standing close behind them; but Camilla, now looking up with tears
+in her eyes, again caught his gaze: he had heard all.
+
+“And they ill-treat her,” he muttered: “that divides her from them!--she
+will be left here--I shall see her again.” As he turned to depart,
+Lilburne beckoned to him.
+
+“You do not mean to desert our table?”
+
+“No: but I am not very well to-night--to-morrow, if you will allow me.”
+
+“Ay, to-morrow; and if you can spare an hour in the morning it will be a
+charity. You see,” he added in a whisper, “I have a nurse, though I have
+no children. D’ye think that’s love? Bah! sir--a legacy! Good night.”
+
+“No--no--no!” said Vaudemont to himself, as he walked through the
+moonlit streets. “No! though my heart burns,--poor murdered felon!--to
+avenge thy wrongs and thy crimes, revenge cannot come from me--he is
+Fanny’s grandfather and--Camilla’s uncle!”
+
+And Camilla, when that uncle had dismissed her for the night, sat down
+thoughtfully in her own room. The dark eyes of Vaudemont seemed still
+to shine on her; his voice yet rung in her ear; the wild tales of daring
+and danger with which Liancourt had associated his name yet haunted her
+bewildered fancy--she started, frightened at her own thoughts. She took
+from her bosom some lines that Sidney had addressed to her, and, as she
+read and re-read, her spirit became calmed to its wonted and faithful
+melancholy. Vaudemont was forgotten, and the name of Sidney yet murmured
+on her lips, when sleep came to renew the image of the absent one, and
+paint in dreams the fairy land of a happy Future!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+     “Ring on, ye bells--most pleasant is your chime!”
+       WILSON. Isle of Palms.
+
+     “O fairy child! What can I wish for thee?”--Ibid.
+
+Vaudemont remained six days in London without going to H----, and on
+each of those days he paid a visit to Lord Lilburne. On the seventh day,
+the invalid being much better, though still unable to leave his room,
+Camilla returned to Berkeley Square. On the same day, Vaudemont went
+once more to see Simon and poor Fanny.
+
+As he approached the door, he heard from the window, partially opened,
+for the day was clear and fine, Fanny’s sweet voice. She was chaunting
+one of the simple songs she had promised to learn by heart; and
+Vaudemont, though but a poor judge of the art, was struck and affected
+by the music of the voice and the earnest depth of the feeling. He
+paused opposite the window and called her by her name. Fanny looked
+forth joyously, and ran, as usual, to open the door to him.
+
+“Oh! you have been so long away; but I already know many of the songs:
+they say so much that I always wanted to say!”
+
+Vaudemont smiled, but languidly.
+
+“How strange it is,” said Fanny, musingly, “that there should be so much
+in a piece of paper! for, after all,” pointing to the open page of her
+book, “this is but a piece of paper--only there is life in it!”
+
+“Ay,” said Vaudemont, gloomily, and far from seizing the subtle
+delicacy of Fanny’s thought--her mind dwelling upon Poetry, and his upon
+Law,--“ay, and do you know that upon a mere scrap of paper, if I could
+but find it, may depend my whole fortune, my whole happiness, all that I
+care for in life?”
+
+“Upon a scrap of paper? Oh! how I wish I could find it! Ah! you look as
+if you thought I should never be wise enough for that!”
+
+Vaudemont, not listening to her, uttered a deep sigh. Fanny approached
+him timidly.
+
+“Do not sigh, brother,--I can’t bear to hear you sigh. You are changed.
+Have you, too, not been happy?”
+
+“Happy, Fanny! yes, lately very happy--too happy!”
+
+“Happy, have you? and I--” the girl stopped short--her tone had been
+that of sadness and reproach, and she stopped--why, she knew not, but
+she felt her heart sink within her. Fanny suffered him to pass her, and
+he went straight to his room. Her eyes followed him wistfully: it was
+not his habit to leave her thus abruptly. The family meal of the day
+was over; and it was an hour before Vaudemont descended to the parlour.
+Fanny had put aside the songs; she had no heart to recommence those
+gentle studies that had been so sweet,--they had drawn no pleasure, no
+praise from him. She was seated idly and listlessly beside the silent
+old man, who every day grew more and more silent still. She turned
+her head as Vaudemont entered, and her pretty lip pouted as that of
+a neglected child. But he did not heed it, and the pout vanished, and
+tears rushed to her eyes.
+
+Vaudemont was changed. His countenance was thoughtful and overcast. His
+manner abstracted. He addressed a few words to Simon, and then, seating
+himself by the window, leant his cheek on his hand, and was soon lost in
+reverie. Fanny, finding that he did not speak, and after stealing many a
+long and earnest glance at his motionless attitude and gloomy brow, rose
+gently, and gliding to him with her light step, said, in a trembling
+voice,--
+
+“Are you in pain, brother?”
+
+“No, pretty one!”
+
+“Then why won’t you speak to Fanny? Will you not walk with her? Perhaps
+my grandfather will come too.”
+
+“Not this evening. I shall go out; but it will be alone.”
+
+“Where? Has not Fanny been good? I have not been out since you left us.
+And the grave--brother!--I sent Sarah with the flowers--but--”
+
+Vaudemont rose abruptly. The mention of the grave brought back his
+thoughts from the dreaming channel into which they had flowed. Fanny,
+whose very childishness had once so soothed him, now disturbed; he felt
+the want of that complete solitude which makes the atmosphere of growing
+passion: he muttered some scarcely audible excuse, and quitted the
+house. Fanny saw him no more that evening. He did not return till
+midnight. But Fanny did not sleep till she heard his step on the stairs,
+and his chamber door close: and when she did sleep, her dreams were
+disturbed and painful. The next morning, when they met at breakfast (for
+Vaudemont did not return to London), her eyes were red and heavy,
+and her cheek pale. And, still buried in meditation, Vaudemont’s eye,
+usually so kind and watchful, did not detect those signs of a grief that
+Fanny could not have explained. After breakfast, however, he asked
+her to walk out; and her face brightened as she hastened to put on her
+bonnet, and take her little basket full of fresh flowers which she had
+already sent Sarah forth to purchase.
+
+“Fanny,” said Vaudemont, as leaving the house, he saw the basket on
+her arm, “to-day you may place some of those flowers on another
+tombstone!--Poor child, what natural goodness there is in that
+heart!--what pity that--”
+
+He paused. Fanny looked delightedly in his face. “You were praising
+me--you! And what is a pity, brother?”
+
+While she spoke, the sound of the joy-bells was heard near at hand.
+
+“Hark!” said Vaudemont, forgetting her question--and almost
+gaily--“Hark!--I accept the omen. It is a marriage peal!”
+
+He quickened his steps, and they reached the churchyard.
+
+There was a crowd already assembled, and Vaudemont and Fanny paused;
+and, leaning over the little gate, looked on.
+
+“Why are these people here, and why does the bell ring so merrily?”
+
+“There is to be a wedding, Fanny.”
+
+“I have heard of a wedding very often,” said Fanny, with a pretty look
+of puzzlement and doubt, “but I don’t know exactly what it means. Will
+you tell me?--and the bells, too!”
+
+“Yes, Fanny, those bells toll but three times for man! The first time,
+when he comes into the world; the last time, when he leaves it; the time
+between when he takes to his side a partner in all the sorrows--in
+all the joys that yet remain to him; and who, even when the last bell
+announces his death to this earth, may yet, for ever and ever, be
+his partner in that world to come--that heaven, where they who are as
+innocent as you, Fanny, may hope to live and to love each other in a
+land in which there are no graves!”
+
+“And this bell?”
+
+“Tolls for that partnership--for the wedding!”
+
+“I think I understand you;--and they who are to be wed are happy?”
+
+“Happy, Fanny, if they love, and their love continue. Oh! conceive the
+happiness to know some one person dearer to you than your own self--some
+one breast into which you can pour every thought, every grief, every
+joy! One person, who, if all the rest of the world were to calumniate
+or forsake you, would never wrong you by a harsh thought or an unjust
+word,--who would cling to you the closer in sickness, in poverty, in
+care,--who would sacrifice all things to you, and for whom you would
+sacrifice all--from whom, except by death, night or day, you must be
+never divided--whose smile is ever at your hearth--who has no tears
+while you are well and happy, and your love the same. Fanny, such is
+marriage, if they who marry have hearts and souls to feel that there
+is no bond on earth so tender and so sublime. There is an opposite
+picture;--I will not draw that! And as it is, Fanny, you cannot
+understand me!”
+
+He turned away:--and Fanny’s tears were falling like rain upon the grass
+below;--he did not see them! He entered the churchyard; for the bell now
+ceased. The ceremony was to begin. He followed the bridal party into
+the church, and Fanny, lowering her veil, crept after him, awed and
+trembling.
+
+They stood, unobserved, at a little distance, and heard the service.
+
+The betrothed were of the middle class of life, young, both comely; and
+their behaviour was such as suited the reverence and sanctity of the
+rite. Vaudemont stood looking on intently, with his arms folded on his
+breast. Fanny leant behind him, and apart from all, against one of the
+pews. And still in her hand, while the priest was solemnising
+Marriage, she held the flowers intended for the Grave. Even to that
+MORNING--hushed, calm, earliest, with her mysterious and unconjectured
+heart--her shape brought a thought of NIGHT!
+
+When the ceremony was over--when the bride fell on her mother’s breast
+and wept; and then, when turning thence, her eyes met the bridegroom’s,
+and the tears were all smiled away--when, in that one rapid interchange
+of looks, spoke all that holy love can speak to love, and with timid
+frankness she placed her hand in his to whom she had just vowed her
+life,--a thrill went through the hearts of those present. Vaudemont
+sighed heavily. He heard his sigh echoed; but by one that had in its
+sound no breath of pain; he turned; Fanny had raised her veil; her eyes
+met his, moistened, but bright, soft, and her cheeks were rosy-red.
+Vaudemont recoiled before that gaze, and turned from the church. The
+persons interested retired to the vestry to sign their names in the
+registry; the crowd dispersed, and Vaudemont and Fanny stood alone in
+the burial-ground.
+
+“Look, Fanny,” said the former, pointing to a tomb that stood far
+from his mother’s (for those ashes were too hallowed for such a
+neighbourhood). “Look yonder; it is a new tomb. Fanny, let us approach
+it. Can you read what is there inscribed?”
+
+The inscription was simply this:
+
+
+                TO W--
+ G--
+              MAN SEES THE DEED
+            GOD THE CIRCUMSTANCE.
+               JUDGE NOT,
+             THAT YE BE NOT JUDGED.
+
+“Fanny, this tomb fulfils your pious wish: it is to the memory of
+him whom you called your father. Whatever was his life here--whatever
+sentence it hath received, Heaven, at least, will not condemn your
+piety, if you honour one who was good to you, and place flowers, however
+idle, even over that grave.”
+
+“It is his--my father’s--and you have thought of this for me!” said
+Fanny, taking his hand, and sobbing. “And I have been thinking that you
+were not so kind to me as you were!”
+
+“Have I not been so kind to you? Nay, forgive me, I am not happy.”
+
+“Not?--you said yesterday you had been too happy.”
+
+“To remember happiness is not to be happy, Fanny.”
+
+“That’s true--and--”
+
+Fanny stopped; and, as she bent over the tomb, musing, Vaudemont,
+willing to leave her undisturbed, and feeling bitterly how little his
+conscience could vindicate, though it might find palliation for, the
+dark man who slept not there--retired a few paces.
+
+At this time the new-married pair, with their witnesses, the clergyman,
+&c., came from the vestry, and crossed the path. Fanny, as she turned
+from the tomb, saw them, and stood still, looking earnestly at the
+bride.
+
+“What a lovely face!” said the mother. “Is it--yes it is--the poor idiot
+girl.”
+
+“Ah!” said the bridegroom, tenderly, “and she, Mary, beautiful as she
+is, she can never make another as happy as you have made me.”
+
+Vaudemont heard, and his heart felt sad. “Poor Fanny!--And yet, but for
+that affliction--I might have loved her, ere I met the fatal face of the
+daughter of my foe!” And with a deep compassion, an inexpressible and
+holy fondness, he moved to Fanny.
+
+“Come, my child; now let us go home.”
+
+“Stay,” said Fanny--“you forget.” And she went to strew the flowers
+still left over Catherine’s grave.
+
+“Will my mother,” thought Vaudemont, “forgive me, if I have other
+thoughts than hate and vengeance for that house which builds its
+greatness over her slandered name?” He groaned:--and that grave had lost
+its melancholy charm.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+        “Of all men, I say,
+        That dare, for ‘tis a desperate adventure,
+        Wear on their free necks the yoke of women,
+        Give me a soldier.”--Knight of Malta.
+
+        “So lightly doth this little boat
+        Upon the scarce-touch’d billows float;
+        So careless doth she seem to be,
+        Thus left by herself on the homeless sea,
+        To lie there with her cheerful sail,
+        Till Heaven shall send some gracious gale.”
+         WILSON: Isle of Palms.
+
+Vaudemont returned that evening to London, and found at his lodgings
+a note from Lord Lilburne, stating that as his gout was now somewhat
+mitigated, his physician had recommended him to try change of air--that
+Beaufort Court was in one of the western counties, in a genial
+climate--that he was therefore going thither the next day for a short
+time--that he had asked some of Monsieur de Vaudemont’s countrymen, and
+a few other friends, to enliven the circle of a dull country-house--that
+Mr. and Mrs. Beaufort would be delighted to see Monsieur de Vaudemont
+also--and that his compliance with their invitation would be a charity
+to Monsieur de Vaudemont’s faithful and obliged, LILBURNE.
+
+The first sensation of Vaudemont on reading this effusion was delight.
+“I shall see her,” he cried; “I shall be under the same roof!” But the
+glow faded at once from his cheek;--the roof!--what roof? Be the guest
+where he held himself the lord!--be the guest of Robert Beaufort!--Was
+that all? Did he not meditate the deadliest war which civilised life
+admits of--the War of Law--war for name, property, that very hearth,
+with all its household gods, against this man--could he receive his
+hospitality? “And what then!” he exclaimed, as he paced to and fro the
+room,--“because her father wronged me, and because I would claim mine
+own--must I therefore exclude from my thoughts, from my sight, an image
+so fair and gentle;--the one who knelt by my side, an infant, to that
+hard man?--Is hate so noble a passion that it is not to admit one
+glimpse of Love?--Love! what word is that? Let me beware in time!” He
+paused in fierce self-contest, and, throwing open the window, gasped for
+air. The street in which he lodged was situated in the neighbourhood of
+St. James’s; and, at that very moment, as if to defeat all opposition,
+and to close the struggle, Mrs. Beaufort’s barouche drove by, Camilla
+at her side. Mrs. Beaufort, glancing up; languidly bowed; and Camilla
+herself perceived him, and he saw her change colour as she inclined
+her head. He gazed after them almost breathless, till the carriage
+disappeared; and then reclosing the window, he sat down to collect his
+thoughts, and again to reason with himself. But still, as he reasoned,
+he saw ever before him that blush and that smile. At last he sprang
+up, and a noble and bright expression elevated the character of his
+face,--“Yes, if I enter that house, if I eat that man’s bread, and drink
+of his cup, I must forego, not justice--not what is due to my mother’s
+name--but whatever belongs to hate and vengeance. If I enter that
+house--and if Providence permit me the means whereby to regain my
+rights, why she--the innocent one--she may be the means of saving her
+father from ruin, and stand like an angel by that boundary where justice
+runs into revenge!--Besides, is it not my duty to discover Sidney? Here
+is the only clue I shall obtain.” With these thoughts he hesitated no
+more--he decided he would not reject this hospitality, since it might
+be in his power to pay it back ten thousandfold. “And who knows,” he
+murmured again, “if Heaven, in throwing this sweet being in my way,
+might not have designed to subdue and chasten in me the angry passions I
+have so long fed on? I have seen her,--can I now hate her father?”
+
+He sent off his note accepting the invitation. When he had done so, was
+he satisfied? He had taken as noble and as large a view of the duties
+thereby imposed on him as he well could take: but something whispered
+at his heart, “There is weakness in thy generosity--Darest thou love the
+daughter of Robert Beaufort?” And his heart had no answer to this voice.
+
+The rapidity with which love is ripened depends less upon the actual
+number of years that have passed over the soil in which the seed is
+cast, than upon the freshness of the soil itself. A young man who lives
+the ordinary life of the world, and who fritters away, rather than
+exhausts, his feelings upon a variety of quick succeeding subjects--the
+Cynthias of the minute--is not apt to form a real passion at the first
+sight. Youth is inflammable only when the heart is young!
+
+There are certain times of life when, in either sex, the affections
+are prepared, as it were, to be impressed with the first fair face that
+attracts the fancy and delights the eye. Such times are when the heart
+has been long solitary, and when some interval of idleness and rest
+succeeds to periods of harsher and more turbulent excitement. It was
+precisely such a period in the life of Vaudemont. Although his ambition
+had been for many years his dream, and his sword his mistress, yet
+naturally affectionate, and susceptible of strong emotion, he had often
+repined at his lonely lot. By degrees the boy’s fantasy and reverence
+which had wound themselves round the image of Eugenie subsided into that
+gentle and tender melancholy which, perhaps by weakening the strength
+of the sterner thoughts, leaves us inclined rather to receive, than to
+resist, a new attachment;--and on the verge of the sweet Memory trembles
+the sweet Hope. The suspension of his profession, his schemes, his
+struggles, his career, left his passions unemployed. Vaudemont was thus
+unconsciously prepared to love. As we have seen, his first and earliest
+feelings directed themselves to Fanny. But he had so immediately
+detected the clanger, and so immediately recoiled from nursing those
+thoughts and fancies, without which love dies for want of food, for a
+person to whom he ascribed the affliction of an imbecility which would
+give to such a sentiment all the attributes either of the weakest
+rashness or of dishonour approaching to sacrilege--that the wings of the
+deity were scared away the instant their very shadow fell upon his mind.
+And thus, when Camilla rose upon him his heart was free to receive her
+image. Her graces, her accomplishments, a certain nameless charm that
+invested her, pleased him even more than her beauty; the recollections
+connected with that first time in which he had ever beheld her, were
+also grateful and endearing; the harshness with which her parents spoke
+to her moved his compassion, and addressed itself to a temper peculiarly
+alive to the generosity that leans towards the weak and the wronged;
+the engaging mixture of mildness and gaiety with which she tended
+her peevish and sneering uncle, convinced him of her better and more
+enduring qualities of disposition and womanly heart. And even--so
+strange and contradictory are our feelings--the very remembrance that
+she was connected with a family so hateful to him made her own image the
+more bright from the darkness that surrounded it. For was it not with
+the daughter of his foe that the lover of Verona fell in love at first
+sight? And is not that a common type of us all--as if Passion delighted
+in contradictions? As the Diver, in Schiller’s exquisite ballad,
+fastened upon the rock of coral in the midst of the gloomy sea, so we
+cling the more gratefully to whatever of fair thought and gentle shelter
+smiles out to us in the depths of Hate and Strife.
+
+But, perhaps, Vaudemont would not so suddenly and so utterly have
+rendered himself to a passion that began, already, completely to master
+his strong spirit, if he had not, from Camilla’s embarrassment, her
+timidity, her blushes, intoxicated himself with the belief that his
+feelings were not unshared. And who knows not that such a belief, once
+cherished, ripens our own love to a development in which hours are as
+years?
+
+It was, then, with such emotions as made him almost insensible to every
+thought but the luxury of breathing the same air as his cousin, which
+swept from his mind the Past, the Future--leaving nothing but a joyous,
+a breathless PRESENT on the Face of Time, that he repaired to Beaufort
+Court. He did not return to H---- before he went, but he wrote to Fanny
+a short and hurried line to explain that he might be absent for some
+days at least, and promised to write again, if he should be detained
+longer than he anticipated.
+
+In the meanwhile, one of those successive revolutions which had marked
+the eras in Fanny’s moral existence took its date from that last time
+they had walked and conversed together.
+
+The very evening of that day, some hours after Philip was gone, and
+after Simon had retired to rest, Fanny was sitting before the dying fire
+in the little parlour in an attitude of deep and pensive reverie. The
+old woman-servant, Sarah, who, very different from Mrs. Boxer, loved
+Fanny with her whole heart, came into the room as was her wont before
+going to bed, to see that the fire was duly out, and all safe: and as
+she approached the hearth, she started to see Fanny still up.
+
+“Dear heart alive!” she said; “why, Miss Fanny, you will catch your
+death of cold,--what are you thinking about?”
+
+“Sit down, Sarah; I want to speak to you.” Now, though Fanny was
+exceedingly kind, and attached to Sarah, she was seldom communicative
+to her, or indeed to any one. It was usually in its own silence and
+darkness that that lovely mind worked out its own doubts.
+
+“Do you, my sweet young lady? I’m sure anything I can do--” and Sarah
+seated herself in her master’s great chair, and drew it close to Fanny.
+There was no light in the room but the expiring fire, and it threw
+upward a pale glimmer on the two faces bending over it,--the one so
+strangely beautiful, so smooth, so blooming, so exquisite in its youth
+and innocence,--the other withered, wrinkled, meagre, and astute. It was
+like the Fairy and the Witch together.
+
+“Well, miss,” said the crone, observing that, after a considerable
+pause, Fanny was still silent,--“Well--”
+
+“Sarah, I have seen a wedding!”
+
+“Have you?” and the old woman laughed. “Oh! I heard it was to be
+to-day!--young Waldron’s wedding! Yes, they have been long sweethearts.”
+
+“Were you ever married, Sarah?”
+
+“Lord bless you,--yes! and a very good husband I had, poor man! But he’s
+dead these many years; and if you had not taken me, I must have gone to
+the workhus.”
+
+“He is dead! Wasn’t it very hard to live after that, Sarah?”
+
+“The Lord strengthens the hearts of widders!” observed Sarah,
+sanctimoniously.
+
+“Did you marry your brother, Sarah?” said Fanny, playing with the corner
+of her apron.
+
+“My brother!” exclaimed the old woman, aghast. “La! miss, you must not
+talk in that way,--it’s quite wicked and heathenish! One must not marry
+one’s brother!”
+
+“No!” said Fanny, tremblingly, and turning very pale, even by that
+light. “No!--are you sure of that?”
+
+“It is the wickedest thing even to talk about, my dear young
+mistress;--but you’re like a babby unborn!”
+
+Fanny was silent for some moments. At length she said, unconscious that
+she was speaking aloud, “But he is not my brother, after all!”
+
+“Oh, miss, fie! Are you letting your pretty head run on the handsome
+gentleman. You, too,--dear, dear! I see we’re all alike, we poor femel
+creturs! You! who’d have thought it? Oh, Miss Fanny!--you’ll break your
+heart if you goes for to fancy any such thing.”
+
+“Any what thing?”
+
+“Why, that that gentleman will marry you!--I’m sure, tho’ he’s so simple
+like, he’s some great gentleman! They say his hoss is worth a hundred
+pounds! Dear, dear! why didn’t I ever think of this before? He must be a
+very wicked man. I see, now, why he comes here. I’ll speak to him, that
+I will!--a very wicked man!”
+
+Sarah was startled from her indignation by Fanny’s rising suddenly,
+and standing before her in the flickering twilight, almost like a shape
+transformed,--so tall did she seem, so stately, so dignified.
+
+“Is it of him that you are speaking?” said she, in a voice of calm but
+deep resentment--“of him! If so, Sarah, we two can live no more in the
+same house.”
+
+And these words were said with a propriety and collectedness that even,
+through all her terrors, showed at once to Sarah how much they now
+wronged Fanny who had suffered their lips to repeat the parrot-cry of
+the “idiot girl!”
+
+“O! gracious me!--miss--ma’am--I am so sorry--I’d rather bite out my
+tongue than say a word to offend you; it was only my love for you, dear
+innocent creature that you are!” and the honest woman sobbed with real
+passion as she clasped Fanny’s hand. “There have been so many young
+persons, good and harmless, yes, even as you are, ruined. But you don’t
+understand me. Miss Fanny! hear me; I must try and say what I would say.
+That man, that gentleman--so proud, so well-dressed, so grand-like, will
+never marry you, never--never. And if ever he says he does love you, and
+you say you love him, and you two don’t marry, you will be ruined and
+wicked, and die--die of a broken heart!”
+
+The earnestness of Sarah’s manner subdued and almost awed Fanny. She
+sank down again in her chair, and suffered the old woman to caress and
+weep over her hand for some moments in a silence that concealed the
+darkest and most agitated feelings Fanny’s life had hitherto known. At
+length she said:--
+
+“Why may he not marry me if he loves me?--he is not my brother,--indeed
+he is not! I’ll never call him so again.”
+
+“He cannot marry you,” said Sarah, resolved, with a sort of rude
+nobleness, to persevere in what she felt to be a duty; “I don’t say
+anything about money, because that does not always signify. But he
+cannot marry you, because--because people who are hedicated one way
+never marry those who are hedicated and brought up in another. A
+gentleman of that kind requires a wife to know--oh--to know ever so
+much; and you--”
+
+“Sarah,” interrupted Fanny, rising again, but this time with a smile
+on her face, “don’t say anything more about it; I forgive you, if you
+promise never to speak unkindly of him again--never--never--never,
+Sarah!”
+
+“But may I just tell him that--that--”
+
+“That what?”
+
+“That you are so young and innocent, and has no pertector like; and that
+if you were to love him it would be a shame in him--that it would!”
+
+And then (oh, no, Fanny, there was nothing clouded now in your
+reason!)--and then the woman’s alarm, the modesty, the instinct, the
+terror came upon her:--
+
+“Never! never! I will not love him, I do not love him, indeed, Sarah.
+If you speak to him, I will never look you in the face again. It is all
+past--all, dear Sarah!”
+
+She kissed the old woman; and Sarah, fancying that her sagacity
+and counsel had prevailed, promised all she was asked; so they went
+up-stairs together--friends.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+        “As the wind
+        Sobs, an uncertain sweetness comes from out
+        The orange-trees.
+
+        Rise up, Olympia.--She sleeps soundly. Ho!
+        Stirring at last.” BARRY CORNWALL.
+
+The next day, Fanny was seen by Sarah counting the little hoard that she
+had so long and so painfully saved for her benefactor’s tomb. The money
+was no longer wanted for that object. Fanny had found another; she said
+nothing to Sarah or to Simon. But there was a strange complacent smile
+upon her lip as she busied herself in her work, that puzzled the old
+woman. Late at noon came the postman’s unwonted knock at the door. A
+letter!--a letter for Miss Fanny. A letter!--the first she had ever
+received in her life! And it was from him!--and it began with “Dear
+Fanny.” Vaudemont had called her “dear Fanny” a hundred times, and the
+expression had become a matter of course. But “Dear Fanny” seemed
+so very different when it was written. The letter could not well be
+shorter, nor, all things considered, colder. But the girl found no fault
+with it. It began with “Dear Fanny,” and it ended with “yours truly.”
+ “--Yours truly--mine truly--and how kind to write at all!” Now it so
+happened that Vaudemont, having never merged the art of the penman
+into that rapid scrawl into which people, who are compelled to
+write hurriedly and constantly, degenerate, wrote a remarkably good
+hand,--bold, clear, symmetrical--almost too good a hand for one who was
+not to make money by caligraphy. And after Fanny had got the words by
+heart, she stole gently to a cupboard and took forth some specimens of
+her own hand, in the shape of house and work memoranda, and extracts
+which, the better to help her memory, she had made from the poem-book
+Vaudemont had given her. She gravely laid his letter by the side of
+these specimens, and blushed at the contrast; yet, after all, her own
+writing, though trembling and irresolute, was far from a bad or vulgar
+hand. But emulation was now fairly roused within her. Vaudemont,
+pre-occupied by more engrossing thoughts, and indeed, forgetting a
+danger which had seemed so thoroughly to have passed away, did not in
+his letter caution Fanny against going out alone. She remarked this; and
+having completely recovered her own alarm at the attempt that had been
+made on her liberty, she thought she was now released from her promise
+to guard against a past and imaginary peril. So after dinner she slipped
+out alone, and went to the mistress of the school where she had received
+her elementary education. She had ever since continued her acquaintance
+with that lady, who, kindhearted, and touched by her situation, often
+employed her industry, and was far from blind to the improvement that
+had for some time been silently working in the mind of her old pupil.
+
+Fanny had a long conversation with this lady, and she brought back a
+bundle of books. The light might have been seen that night, and many
+nights after, burning long and late from her little window. And having
+recovered her old freedom of habits, which Simon, poor man, did not
+notice, and which Sarah, thinking that anything was better than moping
+at home, did not remonstrate against, Fanny went out regularly for two
+hours, or sometimes for even a longer period, every evening after
+old Simon had composed himself to the nap that filled up the interval
+between dinner and tea.
+
+In a very short time--a time that with ordinary stimulants would have
+seemed marvellously short--Fanny’s handwriting was not the same thing;
+her manner of talking became different; she no longer called herself
+“Fanny” when she spoke; the music of her voice was more quiet and
+settled; her sweet expression of face was more thoughtful; the eyes
+seemed to have deepened in their very colour; she was no longer heard
+chaunting to herself as she tripped along. The books that she nightly
+fed on had passed into her mind; the poetry that had ever unconsciously
+sported round her young years began now to create poetry in herself.
+Nay, it might almost have seemed as if that restless disorder of the
+intellect, which the dullards had called Idiotcy, had been the wild
+efforts, not of Folly, but of GENIUS seeking to find its path and outlet
+from the cold and dreary solitude to which the circumstances of her
+early life had compelled it.
+
+Days, even weeks, passed--she never spoke of Vaudemont. And once, when
+Sarah, astonished and bewildered by the change in her young mistress,
+asked:
+
+“When does the gentleman come back?”
+
+Fanny answered, with a mysterious smile, “Not yet, I hope,--not quite
+yet!”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+        “Thierry. I do begin
+        To feel an alteration in my nature,
+        And in his full-sailed confidence a shower
+        Of gentle rain, that falling on the fire
+        Hath quenched it.
+
+        How is my heart divided
+        Between the duty of a son and love!”
+           BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: Thierry and Theodorat.
+
+Vaudemont had now been a month at Beaufort Court. The scene of a
+country-house, with the sports that enliven it, and the accomplishments
+it calls forth, was one in which he was well fitted to shine. He
+had been an excellent shot as a boy; and though long unused to the
+fowling-piece, had, in India, acquired a deadly precision with the
+rifle; so that a very few days of practice in the stubbles and covers of
+Beaufort Court made his skill the theme of the guests and the admiration
+of the keepers. Hunting began, and--this pursuit, always so strong a
+passion in the active man, and which, to the turbulence and agitation of
+his half-tamed breast, now excited by a kind of frenzy of hope and fear,
+gave a vent and release--was a sport in which he was yet more fitted to
+excel. His horsemanship, his daring, the stone walls he leaped and the
+floods through which he dashed, furnished his companions with wondering
+tale and comment on their return home. Mr. Marsden, who, with some other
+of Arthur’s early friends, had been invited to Beaufort Court, in order
+to welcome its expected heir, and who retained all the prudence which
+had distinguished him of yore, when having ridden over old Simon he
+dismounted to examine the knees of his horse;--Mr. Marsden, a skilful
+huntsman, who rode the most experienced horses in the world, and who
+generally contrived to be in at the death without having leaped over
+anything higher than a hurdle, suffering the bolder quadruped (in case
+what is called the “knowledge of the country”--that is, the knowledge of
+gaps and gates--failed him) to perform the more dangerous feats alone,
+as he quietly scrambled over or scrambled through upon foot, and
+remounted the well-taught animal when it halted after the exploit,
+safe and sound;--Mr. Marsden declared that he never saw a rider with
+so little judgment as Monsieur de Vaudemont, and that the devil was
+certainly in him.
+
+This sort of reputation, commonplace and merely physical as it was in
+itself, had a certain effect upon Camilla; it might be an effect
+of fear. I do not say, for I do not know, what her feelings towards
+Vaudemont exactly were. As the calmest natures are often those the
+most hurried away by their contraries, so, perhaps, he awed and dazzled
+rather than pleased her;--at least, he certainly forced himself on her
+interest. Still she would have started in terror if any one had said to
+her, “Do you love your betrothed less than when you met by that happy
+lake?”--and her heart would have indignantly rebuked the questioner. The
+letters of her lover were still long and frequent; hers were briefer and
+more subdued. But then there was constraint in the correspondence--it
+was submitted to her mother. Whatever might be Vaudemont’s manner to
+Camilla whenever occasion threw them alone together, he certainly did
+not make his attentions glaring enough to be remarked. His eye watched
+her rather than his lip addressed; he kept as much aloof as possible
+from the rest of her family, and his customary bearing was silent even
+to gloom. But there were moments when he indulged in a fitful exuberance
+of spirits, which had something strained and unnatural. He had outlived
+Lord Lilburne’s short liking; for since he had resolved no longer to
+keep watch on that noble gamester’s method of play, he played but
+little himself; and Lord Lilburne saw that he had no chance of ruining
+him--there was, therefore, no longer any reason to like him. But this
+was not all; when Vaudemont had been at the house somewhat more than two
+weeks, Lilburne, petulant and impatient, whether at his refusals to
+join the card-table, or at the moderation with which, when he did, he
+confined his ill-luck to petty losses, one day limped up to him, as he
+stood at the embrasure of the window, gazing on the wide lands beyond,
+and said:--
+
+“Vaudemont, you are bolder in hunting, they tell me, than you are at
+whist.”
+
+“Honours don’t tell against one--over a hedge!”
+
+“What do you mean?” said Lilburne, rather haughtily.
+
+Vaudemont was, at that moment, in one of those bitter moods when the
+sense of his situation, the sight of the usurper in his home, often
+swept away the gentler thoughts inspired by his fatal passion. And the
+tone of Lord Lilburne, and his loathing to the man, were too much for
+his temper.
+
+“Lord Lilburne,” he said, and his lip curled, “if you had been born
+poor, you would have made a great fortune--you play luckily.”
+
+“How am I to take this, sir?”
+
+“As you please,” answered Vaudemont, calmly, but with an eye of fire.
+And he turned away.
+
+Lilburne remained on the spot very thoughtful: “Hum! he suspects me.
+I cannot quarrel on such ground--the suspicion itself dishonours me--I
+must seek another.”
+
+The next day, Lilburne, who was familiar with Mr. Harsden (though the
+latter gentleman never played at the same table), asked that prudent
+person after breakfast if he happened to have his pistols with him.
+
+“Yes; I always take them into the country--one may as well practise when
+one has the opportunity. Besides, sportsmen are often quarrelsome; and
+if it is known that one shoots well,--it keeps one out of quarrels!”
+
+“Very true,” said Lilburne, rather admiringly. “I have made the same
+remark myself when I was younger. I have not shot with a pistol for
+some years. I am well enough now to walk out with the help of a stick.
+Suppose we practise for half-an-hour or so.”
+
+“With all my heart,” said Mr. Marsden.
+
+The pistols were brought, and they strolled forth;--Lord Lilburne found
+his hand out.
+
+“As I never hunt now,” said the peer, and he gnashed his teeth, and
+glanced at his maimed limb; “for though lameness would not prevent my
+keeping my seat, violent exercise hurts my leg; and Brodie says any
+fresh accident might bring on tic douloureux;--and as my gout does
+not permit me to join the shooting parties at present, it would be a
+kindness in you to lend me your pistols--it would while away an hour or
+so; though, thank Heaven, my duelling days are over!”
+
+“Certainly,” said Mr. Marsden; and the pistols were consigned to Lord
+Lilburne.
+
+Four days from the date, as Mr. Marsden, Vaudemont, and some other
+gentlemen were making for the covers, they came upon Lord Lilburne,
+who, in a part of the park not within sight or sound of the house, was
+amusing himself with Mr. Marsden’s pistols, which Dykeman was at hand to
+load for him.
+
+He turned round, not at all disconcerted by the interruption.
+
+“You have no idea how I’ve improved, Marsden:--just see!” and he pointed
+to a glove nailed to a tree. “I’ve hit that mark twice in five times;
+and every time I have gone straight enough along the line to have killed
+my man.”
+
+“Ay, the mark itself does not so much signify,” said Mr. Marsden, “at
+least, not in actual duelling--the great thing is to be in the line.”
+
+While he spoke, Lord Lilburne’s ball went a third time through the
+glove. His cold bright eye turned on Vaudemont, as he said, with a
+smile,--
+
+“They tell me you shoot well with a fowling-piece, my dear
+Vaudemont--are you equally adroit with a pistol?”
+
+“You may see, if you like; but you take aim, Lord Lilburne; that would
+be of no use in English duelling. Permit me.”
+
+He walked to the glove, and tore from it one of the fingers, which he
+fastened separately to the tree, took the pistol from Dykeman as he
+walked past him, gained the spot whence to fire, turned at once round,
+without apparent aim, and the finger fell to the ground.
+
+Lilburne stood aghast.
+
+“That’s wonderful!” said Marsden; “quite wonderful. Where the devil did
+you get such a knack?--for it is only knack after all!”
+
+“I lived for many years in a country where the practice was
+constant, where all that belongs to rifle-shooting was a necessary
+accomplishment--a country in which man had often to contend against the
+wild beast. In civilised states, man himself supplies the place of the
+wild beast--but we don’t hunt him!--Lord Lilburne” (and this was added
+with a smiling and disdainful whisper), “you must practise a little
+more.”
+
+But, disregardful of the advice, from that day Lord Lilburne’s morning
+occupation was gone. He thought no longer of a duel with Vaudemont. As
+soon as the sportsman had left him, he bade Dykeman take up the pistols,
+and walked straight home into the library, where Robert Beaufort, who
+was no sportsman, generally spent his mornings.
+
+He flung himself into an arm-chair, and said, as he stirred the fire
+with unusual vehemence,--
+
+“Beaufort, I’m very sorry I asked you to invite Vaudemont. He’s a
+very ill-bred, disagreeable fellow!” Beaufort threw down his steward’s
+account-book, on which he was employed, and replied,--
+
+“Lilburne, I have never had an easy moment since that man has been in
+the house. As he was your guest, I did not like to speak before, but
+don’t you observe--you must observe--how like he is to the old family
+portraits? The more I have examined him, the more another resemblance
+grows upon me. In a word,” said Robert, pausing and breathing hard, “if
+his name were not Vaudemont--if his history were not, apparently, so
+well known, I should say--I should swear, that it is Philip Morton who
+sleeps under this roof!”
+
+“Ha!” said Lilburne, with an earnestness that surprised Beaufort, who
+expected to have heard his brother-in-law’s sneering sarcasm at his
+fears; “the likeness you speak of to the old portraits did strike me;
+it struck Marsden, too, the other day, as we were passing through the
+picture-gallery; and Marsden remarked it aloud to Vaudemont. I remember
+now that he changed countenance and made no answer. Hush! hush! hold
+your tongue, let me think--let me think. This Philip--yes--yes--I and
+Arthur saw him with--with Gawtrey--in Paris--”
+
+“Gawtrey! was that the name of the rogue he was said to--”
+
+“Yes--yes--yes. Ah! now I guess the meaning of those looks--those
+words,” muttered Lilburne between his teeth. “This pretension to the
+name of Vaudemont was always apocryphal--the story always but half
+believed--the invention of a woman in love with him--the claim on your
+property is made at the very time he appears in England. Ha! Have you a
+newspaper there? Give it me. No! ‘tis not in this paper. Ring the bell
+for the file!”
+
+“What’s the matter? you terrify me!” gasped out Mr. Beaufort, as he rang
+the bell.
+
+“Why! have you not seen an advertisement repeated several times within
+the last month?”
+
+“I never read advertisements; except in the county paper, if land is to
+be sold.”
+
+“Nor I often; but this caught my eye. John” (here the servant entered),
+“bring the file of the newspapers. The name of the witness whom Mrs.
+Morton appealed to was Smith, the same name as the captain; what was the
+Christian name?”
+
+“I don’t remember.”
+
+“Here are the papers--shut the door--and here is the advertisement: ‘If
+Mr. William Smith, son of Jeremiah Smith, who formerly rented the farm
+of Shipdale-Bury, under the late Right Hon. Charles Leopold Beaufort
+(that’s your uncle), and who emigrated in the year 18-- to Australia,
+will apply to Mr. Barlow, Solicitor, Essex Street, Strand, he will hear
+of something to his advantage.’”
+
+“Good Heavens! why did not you mention this to me before?”
+
+“Because I did not think it of any importance. In the first place, there
+might be some legacy left to the man, quite distinct from your business.
+Indeed, that was the probable supposition;--or even if connected with
+the claim, such an advertisement might be but a despicable attempt to
+frighten you. Never mind--don’t look so pale--after all, this is a proof
+that the witness is not found--that Captain Smith is neither the Smith,
+nor has discovered where the Smith is!”
+
+“True!” observed Mr. Beaufort: “true--very true!”
+
+“Humph!” said Lord Lilburne, who was still rapidly glancing over the
+file--“Here is another advertisement which I never saw before: this
+looks suspicious: ‘If the person who called on the -- of September,
+on Mr. Morton, linendraper, &c., of N----, will renew his application
+personally or by letter, he may now obtain the information he sought
+for.’”
+
+“Morton!--the woman’s brother! their uncle! it is too clear!”
+
+“But what brings this man, if he be really Philip Morton, what brings
+him here!--to spy or to threaten?”
+
+“I will get him out of the house this day.”
+
+“No--no; turn the watch upon himself. I see now; he is attracted by
+your daughter; sound her quietly; don’t tell her to discourage his
+confidences; find out if he ever speaks of these Mortons. Ha! I
+recollect--he has spoken to me of the Mortons, but vaguely--I
+forget what. Humph! this is a man of spirit and daring--watch him, I
+say,--watch him! When does Arthur came back?”
+
+“He has been travelling so slowly, for he still complains of his health,
+and has had relapses; but he ought to be in Paris this week, perhaps he
+is there now. Good Heavens! he must not meet this man!”
+
+“Do what I tell you! get out all from your daughter. Never fear: he can
+do nothing against you except by law. But if he really like Camilla--”
+
+“He!--Philip Morton--the adventurer--the--”
+
+“He is the eldest son: remember you thought even of accepting the
+second. He--nay find the witness--he may win his suit; if he likes
+Camilla, there may be a compromise.”
+
+Mr. Beaufort felt as if turned to ice.
+
+“You think him likely to win this infamous suit, then?” he faltered.
+
+“Did not you guard against the possibility by securing the brother? More
+worth while to do it with this man. Hark ye! the politics of private are
+like those of public life,--when the state can’t crush a demagogue, it
+should entice him over. If you can ruin this dog” (and Lilburne stamped
+his foot fiercely, forgetful of the gout), “ruin him! hang him! If you
+can’t” (and here with a wry face he caressed the injured foot), “if you
+can’t [‘sdeath, what a twinge!), and he can ruin you,--bring him into
+the family, and make his secret ours! I must go and lie down--I have
+overexcited myself.”
+
+In great perplexity Beaufort repaired at once to Camilla. His nervous
+agitation betrayed itself, though he smiled a ghastly smile, and
+intended to be exceeding cool and collected. His questions, which
+confused and alarmed her, soon drew out the fact that the very first
+time Vaudemont had been introduced to her he had spoken of the Mortons;
+and that he had often afterwards alluded to the subject, and seemed at
+first strongly impressed with the notion that the younger brother was
+under Beaufort’s protection; though at last he appeared reluctantly
+convinced of the contrary. Robert, however agitated, preserved at least
+enough of his natural slyness not to let out that he suspected Vaudemont
+to be Philip Morton himself, for he feared lest his daughter should
+betray that suspicion to its object.
+
+“But,” he said, with a look meant to win confidence, “I dare say he
+knows these young men. I should like myself to know more about them.
+Learn all you can, and tell me, and, I say--I say, Camilla,--he! he!
+he!--you have made a conquest, you little flirt, you! Did he, this
+Vaudemont, ever say how much he admired you?”
+
+“He!--never!” said Camilla, blushing, and then turning pale.
+
+“But he looks it. Ah! you say nothing, then. Well, well, don’t
+discourage him; that is to say,--yes, don’t discourage him. Talk to him
+as much as you can,--ask him about his own early life. I’ve a particular
+wish to know--‘tis of great importance to me.”
+
+“But, my dear father,” said Camilla, trembling and thoroughly
+bewildered, “I fear this man,--I fear--I fear--”
+
+Was she going to add, “I fear myself?” I know not; but she stopped
+short, and burst into tears.
+
+“Hang these girls!” muttered Mr. Beaufort, “always crying when they
+ought to be of use to one. Go down, dry your eyes, do as I tell
+you,--get all you can from him. Fear him!--yes, I dare say she does!”
+ muttered the poor man, as he closed the door.
+
+From that time what wonder that Camilla’s manner to Vaudemont was yet
+more embarrassed than ever: what wonder that he put his own heart’s
+interpretation on that confusion. Beaufort took care to thrust her more
+often than before in his way; he suddenly affected a creeping, fawning
+civility to Vaudemont; he was sure he was fond of music; what did he
+think of that new air Camilla was so fond of? He must be a judge of
+scenery, he who had seen so much: there were beautiful landscapes in
+the neighbourhood, and, if he would forego his sports, Camilla drew
+prettily, had an eye for that sort of thing, and was so fond of riding.
+
+Vaudemont was astonished at this change, but his delight was greater
+than the astonishment. He began to perceive that his identity was
+suspected; perhaps Beaufort, more generous than he had deemed him, meant
+to repay every early wrong or harshness by one inestimable blessing.
+The generous interpret motives in extremes--ever too enthusiastic or
+too severe. Vaudemont felt as if he had wronged the wronger; he began to
+conquer even his dislike to Robert Beaufort. For some days he was thus
+thrown much with Camilla; the questions her father forced her to put
+to him, uttered tremulously and fearfully, seemed to him proof of
+her interest in his fate. His feelings to Camilla, so sudden in
+their growth--so ripened and so favoured by the Sub-Ruler of the
+world--CIRCUMSTANCE--might not, perhaps, have the depth and the
+calm completeness of that, One True Love, of which there are many
+counterfeits,--and which in Man, at least, possibly requires the touch
+and mellowness, if not of time, at least of many memories--of perfect
+and tried conviction of the faith, the worth, the value and the beauty
+of the heart to which it clings;--but those feelings were, nevertheless,
+strong, ardent, and intense. He believed himself beloved--he was in
+Elysium. But he did not yet declare the passion that beamed in his eyes.
+No! he would not yet claim the hand of Camilla Beaufort, for he imagined
+the time would soon come when he could claim it, not as the inferior or
+the suppliant, but as the lord of her father’s fate.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+   “Here’s something got amongst us!”--Knight of Malta.
+
+Two or three nights after his memorable conversation with Robert
+Beaufort, as Lord Lilburne was undressing, he said to his valet:
+
+“Dykeman, I am getting well.”
+
+“Indeed, my lord, I never saw your lordship look better.”
+
+“There you lie. I looked better last year--I looked better the year
+before--and I looked better and better every year back to the age of
+twenty-one! But I’m not talking of looks, no man with money wants looks.
+I am talking of feelings. I feel better. The gout is almost gone. I have
+been quiet now for a month--that’s a long time--time wasted when, at
+my age, I have so little time to waste. Besides, as you know, I am very
+much in love!”
+
+“In love, my lord? I thought that you told me never to speak of--”
+
+“Blockhead! what the deuce was the good of speaking about it when I was
+wrapped in flannels! I am never in love when I am ill--who is? I am well
+now, or nearly so; and I’ve had things to vex me--things to make this
+place very disagreeable; I shall go to town, and before this day week,
+perhaps, that charming face may enliven the solitude of Fernside. I
+shall look to it myself now. I see you’re going to say something. Spare
+yourself the trouble! nothing ever goes wrong if I myself take it in
+hand.”
+
+The next day Lord Lilburne, who, in truth, felt himself uncomfortable
+and _gene_ in the presence of Vaudemont; who had won as much as the
+guests at Beaufort Court seemed inclined to lose; and who made it
+the rule of his life to consult his own pleasure and amusement before
+anything else, sent for his post-horses, and informed his brother-in-law
+of his departure.
+
+“And you leave me alone with this man just when I am convinced that he
+is the person we suspected! My dear Lilburne, do stay till he goes.”
+
+“Impossible! I am between fifty and sixty--every moment is precious at
+that time of life. Besides, I’ve said all I can say; rest quiet--act on
+the defensive--entangle this cursed Vaudemont, or Morton, or whoever he
+be, in the mesh of your daughter’s charms, and then get rid of him, not
+before. This can do no harm, let the matter turn out how it will.
+Read the papers; and send for Blackwell if you want advice on any new
+advertisements. I don’t see that anything more is to be done at present.
+You can write to me; I shall be at Park Lane or Fernside. Take care of
+yourself. You’re a lucky fellow--you never have the gout! Good-bye.”
+
+And in half an hour Lord Lilburne was on the road to London.
+
+The departure of Lilburne was a signal to many others, especially and
+naturally to those he himself had invited. He had not announced to such
+visitors his intention of going till his carriage was at the door. This
+might be delicacy or carelessness, just as people chose to take it: and
+how they did take it, Lord Lilburne, much too selfish to be well-bred,
+did not care a rush. The next day half at least of the guests were
+gone; and even Mr. Marsden, who had been specially invited on Arthur’s
+account, announced that he should go after dinner! he always travelled
+by night--he slept well on the road--a day was not lost by it.
+
+“And it is so long since you saw Arthur,” said Mr. Beaufort, in
+remonstrance, “and I expect him every day.”
+
+“Very sorry--best fellow in the world--but the fact is, that I am
+not very well myself. I want a little sea air; I shall go to Dover
+or Brighton. But I suppose you will have the house full again about
+Christmas; in that case I shall be delighted to repeat my visit.”
+
+The fact was, that Mr. Marsden, without Lilburne’s intellect on the one
+hand, or vices on the other, was, like that noble sensualist, one of
+the broken pieces of the great looking-glass “SELF.” He was noticed in
+society as always haunting the places where Lilburne played at cards,
+carefully choosing some other table, and as carefully betting upon
+Lilburne’s side. The card-tables were now broken up; Vaudemont’s
+superiority in shooting, and the manner in which he engrossed the talk
+of the sportsmen, displeased him. He was bored--he wanted to be off--and
+off he went. Vaudemont felt that the time was come for him to depart,
+too; Robert Beaufort--who felt in his society the painful fascination
+of the bird with the boa, who hated to see him there, and dreaded to
+see him depart, who had not yet extracted all the confirmation of his
+persuasions that he required, for Vaudemont easily enough parried
+the artless questions of Camilla--pressed him to stay with so eager a
+hospitality, and made Camilla herself falter out, against her will,
+and even against her remonstrances--(she never before had dared to
+remonstrate with either father or mother),--“Could not you stay a few
+days longer?”--that Vaudemont was too contented to yield to his own
+inclinations; and so for some little time longer he continued to
+move before the eyes of Mr. Beaufort--stern, sinister, silent,
+mysterious--like one of the family pictures stepped down from its frame.
+Vaudemont wrote, however, to Fanny, to excuse his delay; and anxious
+to hear from her as to her own and Simon’s health, bade her direct her
+letter to his lodging in London (of which he gave her the address),
+whence, if he still continued to defer his departure, it would be
+forwarded to him. He did not do this, however, till he had been at
+Beaufort Court several days after Lilburne’s departure, and till, in
+fact, two days before the eventful one which closed his visit.
+
+The party, now greatly diminished; were at breakfast, when the servant
+entered, as usual, with the letter-bag. Mr. Beaufort, who was always
+important and pompous in the small ceremonials of life, unlocked the
+precious deposit with slow dignity, drew forth the newspapers, which he
+threw on the table, and which the gentlemen of the party eagerly seized;
+then, diving out one by one, jerked first a letter to Camilla, next a
+letter to Vaudemont, and, thirdly, seized a letter for himself.
+
+“I beg that there may be no ceremony, Monsieur de Vaudemont: pray excuse
+me and follow my example: I see this letter is from my son;” and he
+broke the seal.
+
+The letter ran thus:
+
+“MY DEAR FATHER,--Almost as soon as you receive this, I shall be with
+you. Ill as I am, I can have no peace till I see and consult you. The
+most startling--the most painful intelligence has just been conveyed to
+me. It is of a nature not to bear any but personal communication.
+
+
+          “Your affectionate son,
+                     “ARTHUR BEAUFORT.
+“Boulogne.
+
+“P.S.--This will go by the same packet-boat that I shall take myself,
+and can only reach you a few hours before I arrive.”
+
+Mr. Beaufort’s trembling hand dropped the letter--he grasped the elbow
+of the chair to save himself from falling. It was clear!--the same
+visitor who had persecuted himself had now sought his son! He grew
+sick, his son might have heard the witness--might be convinced. His son
+himself now appeared to him as a foe--for the father dreaded the son’s
+honour! He glanced furtively round the table, till his eye rested on
+Vaudemont, and his terror was redoubled, for Vaudemont’s face, usually
+so calm, was animated to an extraordinary degree, as he now lifted it
+from the letter he had just read. Their eyes met. Robert Beaufort looked
+on him as a prisoner at the bar looks on the accusing counsel, when he
+first commences his harangue.
+
+“Mr. Beaufort,” said the guest, “the letter you have given me summons me
+to London on important business, and immediately. Suffer me to send for
+horses at your earliest convenience.”
+
+“What’s the matter?” said the feeble and seldom heard voice of Mrs.
+Beaufort. “What’s the matter, Robert?--is Arthur coming?”
+
+“He comes to-day,” said the father, with a deep sigh; and Vaudemont,
+at that moment rising from his half-finished breakfast, with a bow that
+included the group, and with a glance that lingered on Camilla, as she
+bent over her own unopened letter (a letter from Winandermere, the seal
+of which she dared not yet to break), quitted the room. He hastened to
+his own chamber, and strode to and fro with a stately step--the step
+of the Master--then, taking forth the letter, he again hurried over its
+contents. They ran thus:
+
+DEAR, Sir,--At last the missing witness has applied to me. He proves
+to be, as you conjectured, the same person who had called on Mr. Roger
+Morton; but as there are some circumstances on which I wish to take your
+instructions without a moment’s delay, I shall leave London by the mail,
+and wait you at D---- (at the principal inn), which is, I understand,
+twenty miles on the high road from Beaufort Court.
+
+
+            “I have the honor to be, sir,
+                  “Yours, &c.,
+                      “JOHN BARLOW.
+
+Vaudemont was yet lost in the emotions that this letter aroused, when
+they came to announce that his chaise was arrived. As he went down the
+stairs he met Camilla, who was on the way to her own room.
+
+“Miss Beaufort,” said he, in a low and tremulous voice, “in wishing you
+farewell I may not now say more. I leave you, and, strange to say, I
+do not regret it, for I go upon an errand that may entitle me to return
+again, and speak those thoughts which are uppermost in my soul even at
+this moment.”
+
+He raised her hand to his lips as he spoke, and at that moment Mr.
+Beaufort looked from the door of his own room, and cried, “Camilla.”
+ She was too glad to escape. Philip gazed after her light form for an
+instant, and then hurried down the stairs.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+     “Longueville.--What! are you married, Beaufort?
+     Beaufort.--Ay, as fast
+     As words, and hands, and hearts, and priest,
+     Could make us.”--BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: Noble Gentleman.
+
+In the parlour of the inn at D------ sat Mr. John Barlow. He had just
+finished his breakfast, and was writing letters and looking over papers
+connected with his various business--when the door was thrown open, and
+a gentleman entered abruptly.
+
+“Mr. Beaufort,” said the lawyer rising, “Mr. Philip Beaufort--for such I
+now feel you are by right--though,” he added, with his usual formal and
+quiet smile, “not yet by law; and much--very much, remains to be done
+to make the law and the right the same;--I congratulate you on having
+something at last to work on. I had begun to despair of finding
+our witness, after a month’s advertising; and had commenced other
+investigations, of which I will speak to you presently, when yesterday,
+on my return to town from an errand on your business, I had the pleasure
+of a visit from William Smith himself.--My dear sir, do not yet be too
+sanguine.--It seems that this poor fellow, having known misfortune, was
+in America when the first fruitless inquiries were made. Long after this
+he returned to the colony, and there met with a brother, who, as I drew
+from him, was a convict. He helped the brother to escape. They both came
+to England. William learned from a distant relation, who lent him
+some little money, of the inquiry that had been set on foot for him;
+consulted his brother, who desired him to leave all to his management.
+The brother afterwards assured him that you and Mr. Sidney were both
+dead; and it seems (for the witness is simple enough to allow me to
+extract all) this same brother then went to Mr. Beaufort to hold out
+the threat of a lawsuit, and to offer the sale of the evidence yet
+existing--”
+
+“And Mr. Beaufort?”
+
+“I am happy to say, seems to have spurned the offer. Meanwhile William,
+incredulous of his brother’s report, proceeded to N----, learned nothing
+from Mr. Morton, met his brother again--and the brother (confessing that
+he had deceived him in the assertion that you and Mr. Sidney were dead)
+told him that he had known you in earlier life, and set out to Paris to
+seek you--”
+
+“Known me?--To Paris?”
+
+“More of this presently. William returned to town, living hardly and
+penuriously on the little his brother bestowed on him, too melancholy
+and too poor for the luxury of a newspaper, and never saw our
+advertisement, till, as luck would have it, his money was out; he had
+heard nothing further of his brother, and he went for new assistance
+to the same relation who had before aided him. This relation, to his
+surprise, received the poor man very kindly, lent him what he wanted,
+and then asked him if he had not seen our advertisement. The newspaper
+shown him contained both the advertisements--that relating to Mr.
+Morton’s visitor, that containing his own name. He coupled them both
+together--called on me at once. I was from town on your business. He
+returned to his own home; the next morning (yesterday morning) came a
+letter from his brother, which I obtained from him at last, and with
+promises that no harm should happen to the writer on account of it.”
+
+Vaudemont took the letter and read as follows:
+
+“DEAR WILLIAM,--No go about the youngster I went after: all researches
+in vane. Paris develish expensive. Never mind, I have sene the
+other--the young B--; different sort of fellow from his father--very
+ill--frightened out of his wits--will go off to the governor, take me
+with him as far as Bullone. I think we shall settel it now. Mind as
+I saide before, don’t put your foot in it. I send you a Nap in the
+Seele--all I can spare.
+
+
+             “Yours,
+                  “JEREMIAH SMITH.
+
+“Direct to me, Monsieur Smith--always a safe name--Ship Inn, Bullone.”
+
+“Jeremiah--Smith--Jeremiah!”
+
+“Do you know the name then?” said Mr. Barlow. “Well; the poor man owns
+that he was frightened at his brother--that he wished to do what is
+right--that he feared his brother would not let him--that your father
+was very kind to him--and so he came off at once to me; and I was very
+luckily at home to assure him that the heir was alive, and prepared to
+assert his rights. Now then, Mr. Beaufort, we have the witness, but will
+that suffice us? I fear not. Will the jury believe him with no other
+testimony at his back? Consider!--When he was gone I put myself in
+communication with some officers at Bow Street about this brother of
+his--a most notorious character, commonly called in the police slang
+Dashing Jerry--”
+
+“Ah! Well, proceed!”
+
+“Your one witness, then, is a very poor, penniless man, his brother a
+rogue, a convict: this witness, too, is the most timid, fluctuating,
+irresolute fellow I ever saw; I should tremble for his testimony against
+a sharp, bullying lawyer. And that, sir, is all at present we have to
+look to.”
+
+“I see--I see. It is dangerous--it is hazardous. But truth is truth;
+justice--justice! I will run the risk.”
+
+“Pardon me, if I ask, did you ever know this brother?--were you ever
+absolutely acquainted with him--in the same house?”
+
+“Many years since--years of early hardship and trial--I was acquainted
+with him--what then?”
+
+“I am sorry to hear it,” and the lawyer looked grave. “Do you not see
+that if this witness is browbeat--is disbelieved, and if it be shown
+that you, the claimant, was--forgive my saying it--intimate with a
+brother of such a character, why the whole thing might be made to look
+like perjury and conspiracy. If we stop here it is an ugly business!”
+
+“And is this all you have to say to me? The witness is found--the only
+surviving witness--the only proof I ever shall or ever can obtain,
+and you seek to terrify me--me too--from using the means for redress
+Providence itself vouchsafes me--Sir, I will not hear you!”
+
+“Mr. Beaufort, you are impatient--it is natural. But if we go to
+law--that is, should I have anything to do with it, wait--wait till your
+case is good. And hear me yet. This is not the only proof--this is not
+the only witness; you forget that there was an examined copy of the
+register; we may yet find that copy, and the person who copied it may
+yet be alive to attest it. Occupied with this thought, and weary of
+waiting the result of our advertisement, I resolved to go into the
+neighbourhood of Fernside; luckily, there was a gentleman’s seat to
+be sold in the village. I made the survey of this place my apparent
+business. After going over the house, I appeared anxious to see how far
+some alterations could be made--alterations to render it more like Lord
+Lilburne’s villa. This led me to request a sight of that villa--a crown
+to the housekeeper got me admittance. The housekeeper had lived with
+your father, and been retained by his lordship. I soon, therefore, knew
+which were the rooms the late Mr. Beaufort had principally occupied;
+shown into his study, where it was probable he would keep his papers, I
+inquired if it were the same furniture (which seemed likely enough from
+its age and fashion) as in your father’s time: it was so; Lord Lilburne
+had bought the house just as it stood, and, save a few additions in the
+drawing-room, the general equipment of the villa remained unaltered.
+You look impatient!--I’m coming to the point. My eye fell upon an
+old-fashioned bureau--”
+
+“But we searched every drawer in that bureau!”
+
+“Any secret drawers?”
+
+“Secret drawers! No! there were no secret drawers that I ever heard of!”
+
+Mr. Barlow rubbed his hands and mused a moment.
+
+“I was struck with that bureau; for any father had had one like it. It
+is not English--it is of Dutch manufacture.”
+
+“Yes, I have heard that my father bought it at a sale, three or four
+years after his marriage.”
+
+“I learned this from the housekeeper, who was flattered by my admiring
+it. I could not find out from her at what sale it had been purchased,
+but it was in the neighbourhood she was sure. I had now a date to go
+upon; I learned, by careless inquiries, what sales near Fernside had
+taken place in a certain year. A gentleman had died at that date whose
+furniture was sold by auction. With great difficulty, I found that his
+widow was still alive, living far up the country: I paid her a visit;
+and, not to fatigue you with too long an account, I have only to say
+that she not only assured me that she perfectly remembered the bureau,
+but that it had secret drawers and wells, very curiously contrived;
+nay, she showed me the very catalogue in which the said receptacles are
+noticed in capitals, to arrest the eye of the bidder, and increase the
+price of the bidding. That your father should never have revealed where
+he stowed this document is natural enough, during the life of his uncle;
+his own life was not spared long enough to give him much opportunity
+to explain afterwards, but I feel perfectly persuaded in my mind--that
+unless Mr. Robert Beaufort discovered that paper amongst the others
+he examined--in one of those drawers will be found all we want to
+substantiate your claims. This is the more likely from your father never
+mentioning, even to your mother apparently, the secret receptacles in
+the bureau. Why else such mystery? The probability is that he received
+the document either just before or at the time he purchased the bureau,
+or that he bought it for that very purpose: and, having once deposited
+the paper in a place he deemed secure from curiosity--accident,
+carelessness, policy, perhaps, rather shame itself (pardon me) for the
+doubt of your mother’s discretion, that his secrecy seemed to imply,
+kept him from ever alluding to the circumstance, even when the intimacy
+of after years made him more assured of your mother’s self-sacrificing
+devotion to his interests. At his uncle’s death he thought to repair
+all!”
+
+“And how, if that be true--if that Heaven which has delivered me
+hitherto from so many dangers, has, in the very secrecy of my poor
+father, saved my birthright front the gripe of the usurper--how, I say,
+is---”
+
+“The bureau to pass into our possession? That is the difficulty. But we
+must contrive it somehow, if all else fail us; meanwhile, as I now feel
+sure that there has been a copy of that register made, I wish to know
+whether I should not immediately cross the country into Wales, and see
+if I can find any person in the neighbourhood of A----- who did examine
+the copy taken: for, mark you, the said copy is only of importance as
+leading to the testimony of the actual witness who took it.”
+
+“Sir,” said Vaudemont, heartily shaking Mr. Barlow by the hand, “forgive
+my first petulance. I see in you the very man I desired and wanted--your
+acuteness surprises and encourages me. Go to Wales, and God speed you!”
+
+“Very well!--in five minutes I shall be off. Meanwhile, see the witness
+yourself; the sight of his benefactor’s son will do more to keep him
+steady than anything else. There’s his address, and take care not to
+give him money. And now I will order my chaise--the matter begins to
+look worth expense. Oh! I forgot to say that Monsieur Liancourt called
+on you yesterday about his own affairs. He wishes much to consult you.
+I told him you would probably be this evening in town, and he said he
+would wait you at your lodging.”
+
+“Yes--I will lose not a moment in going to London, and visiting our
+witness. And he saw my mother at the altar! My poor mother--Ah, how
+could my father have doubted her!” and as he spoke, he blushed for the
+first time with shame at that father’s memory. He could not yet conceive
+that one so frank, one usually so bold and open, could for years have
+preserved from the woman who had sacrificed all to him, a secret to her
+so important! That was, in fact, the only blot on his father’s honour--a
+foul and grave blot it was. Heavily had the punishment fallen on those
+whom the father loved best! Alas, Philip had not yet learned what
+terrible corrupters are the Hope and the Fear of immense Wealthy,
+even to men reputed the most honourable, if they have been reared and
+pampered in the belief that wealth is the Arch blessing of life. Rightly
+considered, in Philip Beaufort’s solitary meanness lay the vast moral of
+this world’s darkest truth!
+
+Mr. Barlow was gone. Philip was about to enter his own chaise, when a
+dormeuse-and-four drove up to the inn-door to change horses. A young man
+was reclining, at his length, in the carriage, wrapped in cloaks, and
+with a ghastly paleness--the paleness of long and deep disease upon his
+cheeks. He turned his dim eye with, perhaps, a glance of the sick man’s
+envy on that strong and athletic, form, majestic with health and vigour,
+as it stood beside the more humble vehicle. Philip did not, however,
+notice the new arrival; he sprang into the chaise, it rattled on, and
+thus, unconsciously, Arthur Beaufort and his cousin had again met. To
+which was now the Night--to which the Morning?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+     “Bakam. Let my men guard the walls.
+     Syana. And mine the temple.”--The Island Princess.
+
+While thus eventfully the days and the weeks had passed for Philip, no
+less eventfully, so far as the inner life is concerned, had they glided
+away for Fanny. She had feasted in quiet and delighted thought on the
+consciousness that she was improving--that she was growing worthier
+of him--that he would perceive it on his return. Her manner was more
+thoughtful, more collected--less childish, in short, than it had been.
+And yet, with all the stir and flutter of the aroused intellect, the
+charm of her strange innocence was not scared away. She rejoiced in the
+ancient liberty she had regained of going out and coming back when she
+pleased; and as the weather was too cold ever to tempt Simon from his
+fireside, except, perhaps, for half-an-hour in the forenoon, so the
+hours of dusk, when he least missed her, were those which she chiefly
+appropriated for stealing away to the good school-mistress, and growing
+wiser and wiser every day in the ways of God and the learning of His
+creatures. The schoolmistress was not a brilliant woman. Nor was it
+accomplishments of which Fanny stood in need, so much as the opening
+of her thoughts and mind by profitable books and rational conversation.
+Beautiful as were all her natural feelings, the schoolmistress had now
+little difficulty in educating feelings up to the dignity of principles.
+
+At last, hitherto patient under the absence of one never absent from her
+heart, Fanny received from him the letter he had addressed to her
+two days before he quitted Beaufort Court;--another letter--a second
+letter--a letter to excuse himself for not coming before--a letter
+that gave her an address that asked for a reply. It was a morning of
+unequalled delight approaching to transport. And then the excitement of
+answering the letter--the pride of showing how she was improved, what an
+excellent hand she now wrote! She shut herself up in her room: she
+did not go out that day. She placed the paper before her, and, to her
+astonishment, all that she had to say vanished from her mind at once.
+How was she even to begin? She had always hitherto called him “Brother.”
+ Ever since her conversation with Sarah she felt that she could not call
+him that name again for the world--no, never! But what should she call
+him--what could she call him? He signed himself “Philip.” She knew that
+was his name. She thought it a musical name to utter, but to write it!
+No! some instinct she could not account for seemed to whisper that
+it was improper--presumptuous, to call him “Dear Philip.” Had Burns’s
+songs--the songs that unthinkingly he had put into her hand, and told
+her to read--songs that comprise the most beautiful love-poems in the
+world--had they helped to teach her some of the secrets of her own
+heart? And had timidity come with knowledge? Who shall say--who guess
+what passed within her? Nor did Fanny herself, perhaps, know her own
+feelings: but write the words “Dear Philip” she could not. And the whole
+of that day, though she thought of nothing else, she could not even get
+through the first line to her satisfaction. The next morning she sat
+down again. It would be so unkind if she did not answer immediately: she
+must answer. She placed his letter before her--she resolutely began.
+But copy after copy was made and torn. And Simon wanted her--and Sarah
+wanted her--and there were bills to be paid; and dinner was over before
+her task was really begun. But after dinner she began in good earnest.
+
+“How kind in you to write to me” (the difficulty of any name was
+dispensed with by adopting none), “and to wish to know about my dear
+grandfather! He is much the same, but hardly ever walks out now, and I
+have had a good deal of time to myself. I think something will surprise
+you, and make you smile, as you used to do at first, when you come
+back. You must not be angry with me that I have gone out by myself very
+often--every day, indeed. I have been so safe. Nobody has ever offered
+to be rude again to Fanny” (the word “Fanny” was carefully scratched out
+with a penknife, and me substituted). “But you shall know all when you
+come. And are you sure you are well--quite--quite well? Do you never
+have the headaches you complained of sometimes? Do say this! Do you walk
+out-every day? Is there any pretty churchyard near you now? Whom do you
+walk with?
+
+“I have been so happy in putting the flowers on the two graves. But I
+still give yours the prettiest, though the other is so dear to me. I
+feel sad when I come to the last, but not when I look at the one I have
+looked at so long. Oh, how good you were! But you don’t like me to thank
+you.”
+
+“This is very stupid!” cried Fanny, suddenly throwing down her pen; “and
+I don’t think I am improved at it;” and she half cried with vexation.
+Suddenly a bright idea crossed her. In the little parlour where the
+schoolmistress privately received her, she had seen among the books,
+and thought at the time how useful it might be to her if ever she had to
+write to Philip, a little volume entitled, The Complete Letter
+Writer. She knew by the title-page that it contained models for every
+description of letter--no doubt it would contain the precise thing that
+would suit the present occasion. She started up at the notion. She would
+go--she could be back to finish the letter before post-time. She put on
+her bonnet--left the letter, in her haste, open on the table--and just
+looking into the parlour in her way to the street door, to convince
+herself that Simon was asleep, and the wire-guard was on the fire, she
+hurried to the kind schoolmistress.
+
+One of the fogs that in autumn gather sullenly over London and its
+suburbs covered the declining day with premature dimness. It grew darker
+and darker as she proceeded, but she reached the house in safety. She
+spent a quarter of an hour in timidly consulting her friend about all
+kinds of letters except the identical one that she intended to write,
+and having had it strongly impressed on her mind that if the letter was
+to a gentleman at all genteel, she ought to begin “Dear Sir,” and end
+with “I have the honour to remain;” and that he would be everlastingly
+offended if she did not in the address affix “Esquire” to his name
+(that, was a great discovery),--she carried off the precious volume, and
+quitted the house. There was a wall that, bounding the demesnes of the
+school, ran for some short distance into the main street. The increasing
+fog, here, faintly struggled against the glimmer of a single lamp at
+some little distance. Just in this spot, her eye was caught by a dark
+object in the road, which she could scarcely perceive to be a carriage,
+when her hand was seized, and a voice said in her ear:--
+
+“Ah! you will not be so cruel to me, I hope, as you were to my
+messenger! I have come myself for you.”
+
+She turned in great alarm, but the darkness prevented her recognising
+the face of him who thus accosted her. “Let me go!” she cried,--“let me
+go!”
+
+“Hush! hush! No--no. Come with me. You shall have a
+house--carriage--servants! You shall wear silk gowns and jewels! You
+shall be a great lady!”
+
+As these various temptations succeeded in rapid course each new struggle
+of Fanny, a voice from the coach-box said in a low tone,--
+
+“Take care, my lord, I see somebody coming--perhaps a policeman!”
+
+Fanny heard the caution, and screamed for rescue.
+
+“Is it so?” muttered the molester. And suddenly Fanny felt her voice
+checked--her head mantled--her light form lifted from the ground. She
+clung--she struggled it was in vain. It was the affair of a moment: she
+felt herself borne into the carriage--the door closed--the stranger was
+by her side, and his voice said:--
+
+“Drive on, Dykeman. Fast! fast!”
+
+Two or three minutes, which seemed to her terror as ages, elapsed, when
+the gag and the mantle were gently removed, and the same voice (she
+still could not see her companion) said in a very mild tone:--
+
+“Do not alarm yourself; there is no cause,--indeed there is not. I would
+not have adopted this plan had there been any other--any gentler one.
+But I could not call at your own house--I knew no other where to meet
+you.
+
+“This was the only course left to me--indeed it was. I made myself
+acquainted with your movements. Do not blame me, then, for prying into
+your footsteps. I watched for you all last night--you did not come out.
+I was in despair. At last I find you. Do not be so terrified: I will not
+even touch your hand if you do not wish it.”
+
+As he spoke, however, he attempted to touch it, and was repulsed with
+an energy that rather disconcerted him. The poor girl recoiled from him
+into the farthest corner of that prison in speechless horror--in the
+darkest confusion of ideas. She did not weep--she did not sob--but
+her trembling seemed to shake the very carriage. The man continued to
+address, to expostulate, to pray, to soothe.
+
+His manner was respectful. His protestations that he would not harm her
+for the world were endless.
+
+“Only just see the home I can give you; for two days--for one day. Only
+just hear how rich I can make you and your grandfather, and then if you
+wish to leave me, you shall.”
+
+More, much more, to this effect, did he continue to pour forth, without
+extracting any sound from Fanny but gasps as for breath, and now and
+then a low murmur:
+
+“Let me go, let me go! My grandfather, my blind grandfather!”
+
+And finally tears came to her relief, and she sobbed with a passion that
+alarmed, and perhaps even touched her companion, cynical and icy as
+he was. Meanwhile the carriage seemed to fly. Fast as two horses,
+thorough-bred, and almost at full speed, could go, they were whirled
+along, till about an hour, or even less, from the time in which she had
+been thus captured, the carriage stopped.
+
+“Are we here already?” said the man, putting his head out of the window.
+“Do then as I told you. Not to the front door; to my study.”
+
+In two minutes more the carriage halted again, before a building which
+looked white and ghostlike through the mist. The driver dismounted,
+opened with a latch-key a window-door, entered for a moment to light
+the candles in a solitary room from a fire that blazed on the hearth,
+reappeared, and opened the carriage-door. It was with a difficulty for
+which they were scarcely prepared that they were enabled to get Fanny
+from the carriage. No soft words, no whispered prayers could draw her
+forth; and it was with no trifling address, for her companion sought
+to be as gentle as the force necessary to employ would allow, that he
+disengaged her hands from the window-frame, the lining, the cushions, to
+which they clung; and at last bore her into the house. The driver closed
+the window again as he retreated, and they were alone. Fanny then cast
+a wild, scarce conscious glance over the apartment. It was small and
+simply furnished. Opposite to her was an old-fashioned bureau, one of
+those quaint, elaborate monuments of Dutch ingenuity, which, during
+the present century, the audacious spirit of curiosity-vendors has
+transplanted from their native receptacles, to contrast, with grotesque
+strangeness, the neat handiwork of Gillow and Seddon. It had a
+physiognomy and character of its own--this fantastic foreigner! Inlaid
+with mosaics, depicting landscapes and animals; graceless in form
+and fashion, but still picturesque, and winning admiration, when more
+closely observed, from the patient defiance of all rules of taste
+which had formed its cumbrous parts into one profusely ornamented and
+eccentric whole. It was the more noticeable from its total want of
+harmony with the other appurtenances of the room, which bespoke
+the tastes of the plain English squire. Prints of horses and hunts,
+fishing-rods and fowling-pieces, carefully suspended, decorated the
+walls. Not, however, on this notable stranger from the sluggish land
+rested the eye of Fanny. That, in her hurried survey, was arrested only
+by a portrait placed over the bureau--the portrait of a female in the
+bloom of life; a face so fair, a brow so candid, and eyes so pure, a
+lip so rich in youth and joy--that as her look lingered on the features
+Fanny felt comforted, felt as if some living protectress were there. The
+fire burned bright and merrily; a table, spread as for dinner, was drawn
+near it. To any other eye but Fanny’s the place would have seemed a
+picture of English comfort. At last her looks rested on her companion.
+He had thrown himself, with a long sigh, partly of fatigue, partly of
+satisfaction, on one of the chairs, and was contemplating her as she
+thus stood and gazed, with an expression of mingled curiosity and
+admiration; she recognised at once her first, her only persecutor. She
+recoiled, and covered her face with her hands. The man approached her:--
+
+“Do not hate me, Fanny,--do not turn away. Believe me, though I have
+acted thus violently, here all violence will cease. I love you, but I
+will not be satisfied till you love me in return. I am not young, and
+I am not handsome, but I am rich and great, and I can make those whom I
+love happy,--so happy, Fanny!”
+
+But Fanny had turned away, and was now busily employed in trying to
+re-open the door at which she had entered. Failing in this, she suddenly
+darted away, opened the inner door, and rushed into the passage with a
+loud cry. Her persecutor stifled an oath, and sprung after and arrested
+her. He now spoke sternly, and with a smile and a frown at once:--
+
+“This is folly;--come back, or you will repent it! I have promised you,
+as a gentleman--as a nobleman, if you know what that is--to respect you.
+But neither will I myself be trifled with nor insulted. There must be no
+screams!”
+
+His look and his voice awed Fanny in spite of her bewilderment and her
+loathing, and she suffered herself passively to be drawn into the room.
+He closed and bolted the door. She threw herself on the ground in one
+corner, and moaned low but piteously. He looked at her musingly for some
+moments, as he stood by the fire, and at last went to the door, opened
+it, and called “Harriet” in a low voice. Presently a young woman, of
+about thirty, appeared, neatly but plainly dressed, and of a countenance
+that, if not very winning, might certainly be called very handsome.
+He drew her aside for a few moments, and a whispered conference was
+exchanged. He then walked gravely up to Fanny “My young friend,” said
+he, “I see my presence is too much for you this evening. This young
+woman will attend you--will get you all you want. She can tell you, too,
+that I am not the terrible sort of person you seem to suppose. I shall
+see you to-morrow.” So saying, he turned on his heel and walked out.
+
+Fanny felt something like liberty, something like joy, again. She rose,
+and looked so pleadingly, so earnestly, so intently into the woman’s
+face, that Harriet turned away her bold eyes abashed; and at this moment
+Dykeman himself looked into the room.
+
+“You are to bring us in dinner here yourself, uncle; and then go to my
+lord in the drawing-room.”
+
+Dykeman looked pleased, and vanished. Then Harriet came up and took
+Fanny’s hand, and said, kindly,--
+
+“Don’t be frightened. I assure you, half the girls in London would give
+I don’t know what to be in your place. My lord never will force you to
+do anything you don’t like--it’s not his way; and he’s the kindest and
+best man,--and so rich; he does not know what to do with his money!”
+
+To all this Fanny made but one answer,--she threw herself suddenly upon
+the woman’s breast, and sobbed out: “My grandfather is blind, he cannot
+do without me--he will die--die. Have you nobody you love, too? Let me
+go--let me out! What can they want with me?--I never did harm to any
+one.”
+
+“And no one will harm you;--I swear it!” said Harriet, earnestly. “I see
+you don’t know my lord. But here’s the dinner; come, and take a bit of
+something, and a glass of wine.”
+
+Fanny could not touch anything except a glass of water, and that nearly
+choked her. But at last, as she recovered her senses, the absence of
+her tormentor--the presence of a woman--the solemn assurances of Harriet
+that, if she did not like to stay there, after a day or two, she should
+go back, tranquillised her in some measure. She did not heed the artful
+and lengthened eulogiums that the she-tempter then proceeded to pour
+forth upon the virtues, and the love, and the generosity, and, above
+all, the money of my lord. She only kept repeating to herself, “I shall
+go back in a day or two.” At length, Harriet, having eaten and drunk as
+much as she could by her single self, and growing wearied with efforts
+from which so little resulted, proposed to Fanny to retire to rest.
+She opened a door to the right of the fireplace, and lighted her up a
+winding staircase to a pretty and comfortable chamber, where she offered
+to help her to undress. Fanny’s complete innocence, and her utter
+ignorance of the precise nature of the danger that awaited her, though
+she fancied it must be very great and very awful, prevented her quite
+comprehending all that Harriet meant to convey by her solemn assurances
+that she should not be disturbed. But she understood, at least, that
+she was not to see her hateful gaoler till the next morning; and when
+Harriet, wishing her “good night,” showed her a bolt to her door, she
+was less terrified at the thought of being alone in that strange place.
+She listened till Harriet’s footsteps had died away, and then, with a
+beating heart, tried to open the door; it was locked from without. She
+sighed heavily. The window?--alas! when she had removed the shutter,
+there was another one barred from without, which precluded all hope
+there; she had no help for it but to bolt her door, stand forlorn and
+amazed at her own condition, and, at last, falling on her knees, to
+pray, in her own simple fashion, which since her recent visits to the
+schoolmistress had become more intelligent and earnest, to Him from whom
+no bolts and no bars can exclude the voice of the human heart.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+     “In te omnis domus inclinata recumbit.”--VIRGIL.
+
+      [On thee the whole house rests confidingly.]
+
+Lord Lilburne, seated before a tray in the drawing-room, was finishing
+his own solitary dinner, and Dykeman was standing close behind him,
+nervous and agitated. The confidence of many years between the master
+and the servant--the peculiar mind of Lilburne, which excluded him from
+all friendship with his own equals--had established between the two
+the kind of intimacy so common with the noble and the valet of the old
+French regime, and indeed, in much Lilburne more resembled the men of
+that day and land, than he did the nobler and statelier being which
+belongs to our own. But to the end of time, whatever is at once vicious,
+polished, and intellectual, will have a common likeness.
+
+“But, my lord,” said Dykeman, “just reflect. This girl is so well known
+in the place; she will be sure to be missed; and if any violence is
+done to her, it’s a capital crime, my lord--a capital crime. I know they
+can’t hang a great lord like you, but all concerned in it may----”
+
+Lord Lilburne interrupted the speaker by, “Give me some wine and hold
+your tongue!” Then, when he had emptied his glass, he drew himself
+nearer to the fire, warmed his hands, mused a moment, and turned round
+to his confidant:--
+
+“Dykeman,” said he, “though you’re an ass and a coward, and you don’t
+deserve that I should be so condescending, I will relieve your fears
+at once. I know the law better than you can, for my whole life has been
+spent in doing exactly as I please, without ever putting myself in the
+power of LAW, which interferes with the pleasures of other men. You are
+right in saying violence would be a capital crime. Now the difference
+between vice and crime is this: Vice is what parsons write sermons
+against, Crime is what we make laws against. I never committed a crime
+in all my life,--at an age between fifty and sixty--I am not going to
+begin. Vices are safe things; I may have my vices like other men: but
+crimes are dangerous things--illegal things--things to be carefully
+avoided. Look you” (and here the speaker, fixing his puzzled listener
+with his eye, broke into a grin of sublime mockery), “let me suppose you
+to be the World--that cringing valet of valets, the WORLD! I should say
+to you this, ‘My dear World, you and I understand each other well,--we
+are made for each other,--I never come in your way, nor you in mine. If
+I get drunk every day in my own room, that’s vice, you can’t touch me;
+if I take an extra glass for the first time in my life, and knock
+down the watchman, that’s a crime which, if I am rich, costs me one
+pound--perhaps five pounds; if I am poor, sends me to the treadmill. If
+I break the hearts of five hundred old fathers, by buying with gold
+or flattery the embraces of five hundred young daughters, that’s
+vice,--your servant, Mr. World! If one termagant wench scratches my
+face, makes a noise, and goes brazen-faced to the Old Bailey to swear to
+her shame, why that’s crime, and my friend, Mr. World, pulls a hemp-rope
+out of his pocket.’ Now, do you understand? Yes, I repeat,” he added,
+with a change of voice, “I never committed a crime in my life,--I have
+never even been accused of one,--never had an action of crim. con.--of
+seduction against me. I know how to manage such matters better. I was
+forced to carry off this girl, because I had no other means of courting
+her. To court her is all I mean to do now. I am perfectly aware that
+an action for violence, as you call it, would be the more disagreeable,
+because of the very weakness of intellect which the girl is said to
+possess, and of which report I don’t believe a word. I shall most
+certainly avoid even the remotest appearance that could be so construed.
+It is for that reason that no one in the house shall attend the girl
+except yourself and your niece. Your niece I can depend on, I know; I
+have been kind to her; I have got her a good husband; I shall get her
+husband a good place;--I shall be godfather to her first child. To be
+sure, the other servants will know there’s a lady in the house, but to
+that they are accustomed; I don’t set up for a Joseph. They need know
+no more, unless you choose to blab it out. Well, then, supposing that at
+the end of a few days, more or less, without any rudeness on my part, a
+young woman, after seeing a few jewels, and fine dresses, and a pretty
+house, and being made very comfortable, and being convinced that her
+grandfather shall be taken care of without her slaving herself to death,
+chooses of her own accord to live with me, where’s the crime, and who
+can interfere with it?”
+
+“Certainly, my lord, that alters the case,” said Dykeman, considerably
+relieved. “But still,” he added, anxiously, “if the inquiry is made,--if
+before all this is settled, it is found out where she is?”
+
+“Why then no harm will be done--no violence will be committed. Her
+grandfather,--drivelling and a miser, you say--can be appeased by a
+little money, and it will be nobody’s business, and no case can be made
+of it. Tush! man! I always look before I leap! People in this world are
+not so charitable as you suppose. What more natural than that a poor and
+pretty girl--not as wise as Queen Elizabeth--should be tempted to pay a
+visit to a rich lover!
+
+“All they can say of the lover is, that he is a very gay man or a very
+bad man, and that’s saying nothing new of me. But don’t think it will
+be found out. Just get me that stool; this has been a very troublesome
+piece of business--rather tried me. I am not so young as I was. Yes,
+Dykeman, something which that Frenchman Vaudemont, or Vautrien, or
+whatever his name is, said to me once, has a certain degree of truth. I
+felt it in the last fit of the gout, when my pretty niece was smoothing
+my pillows. A nurse, as we grow older, may be of use to one. I wish to
+make this girl like me, or be grateful to me. I am meditating a longer
+and more serious attachment than usual,--a companion!”
+
+“A companion, my lord, in that poor creature!--so ignorant--so
+uneducated!”
+
+“So much the better. This world palls upon me,” said Lilburne, almost
+gloomily. “I grow sick of the miserable quackeries--of the piteous
+conceits that men, women, and children call ‘knowledge,’ I wish to catch
+a glimpse of nature before I die. This creature interests me, and that
+is something in this life. Clear those things away, and leave me.”
+
+“Ay!” muttered Lilburne, as he bent over the fire alone, “when I first
+heard that that girl was the granddaughter of Simon Gawtrey, and,
+therefore, the child of the man whom I am to thank that I am a cripple,
+I felt as if love to her were a part of that hate which I owe to him; a
+segment in the circle of my vengeance. But now, poor child!
+
+“I forget all this. I feel for her, not passion, but what I never felt
+before, affection. I feel that if I had such a child, I could understand
+what men mean when they talk of the tenderness of a father. I have not
+one impure thought for that girl--not one. But I would give thousands
+if she could love me. Strange! strange! in all this I do not recognise
+myself!”
+
+Lord Lilburne retired to rest betimes that night; he slept sound; rose
+refreshed at an earlier hour than usual; and what he considered a fit of
+vapours of the previous night was passed away. He looked with eagerness
+to an interview with Fanny. Proud of his intellect, pleased in any of
+those sinister exercises of it which the code and habits of his life so
+long permitted to him, he regarded the conquest of his fair adversary
+with the interest of a scientific game. Harriet went to Fanny’s room to
+prepare her to receive her host; and Lord Lilburne now resolved to make
+his own visit the less unwelcome by reserving for his especial gift
+some showy, if not valuable, trinkets, which for similar purposes never
+failed the depositories of the villa he had purchased for his pleasures.
+He, recollected that these gewgaws were placed in the bureau in the
+study; in which, as having a lock of foreign and intricate workmanship,
+he usually kept whatever might tempt cupidity in those frequent absences
+when the house was left guarded but by two women servants. Finding that
+Fanny had not yet quitted her own chamber, while Harriet went up to
+attend and reason with her, he himself limped into the study below,
+unlocked the bureau, and was searching in the drawers, when he heard the
+voice of Fanny above, raised a little as if in remonstrance or entreaty;
+and he paused to listen. He could not, however, distinguish what was
+said; and in the meanwhile, without attending much to what he was about,
+his hands were still employed in opening and shutting the drawers,
+passing through the pigeon-holes, and feeling for a topaz brooch, which
+he thought could not fail of pleasing the unsophisticated eyes of Fanny.
+One of the recesses was deeper than the rest; he fancied the brooch
+was there; he stretched his hand into the recess; and, as the room was
+partially darkened by the lower shutters from without, which were still
+unclosed to prevent any attempted escape of his captive, he had only
+the sense of touch to depend on; not finding the brooch, he stretched on
+till he came to the extremity of the recess, and was suddenly sensible
+of a sharp pain; the flesh seemed caught as in a trap; he drew back
+his finger with sudden force and a half-suppressed exclamation, and he
+perceived the bottom or floor of the pigeon-hole recede, as if sliding
+back. His curiosity was aroused; he again felt warily and cautiously,
+and discovered a very slight inequality and roughness at the extremity
+of the recess. He was aware instantly that there was some secret spring;
+he pressed with some force on the spot, and he felt the board give way;
+he pushed it back towards him, and it slid suddenly with a whirring
+noise, and left a cavity below exposed to his sight. He peered in, and
+drew forth a paper; he opened it at first carelessly, for he was still
+trying to listen to Fanny. His eye ran rapidly over a few preliminary
+lines till it rested on what follows:
+
+“Marriage. The year 18--
+
+“No. 83, page 21.
+
+“Philip Beaufort, of this parish of A-----, and Catherine Morton, of the
+parish of St. Botolph, Aldgate, London, were married in this church by
+banns, this 12th day of November, in the year one thousand eight hundred
+and ----’ by me,
+
+
+                   “CALEB PRICE, Vicar.
+
+“This marriage was solemnised between us,
+
+
+                   “PHILIP BEAUFORT.
+                   “CATHERINE MORTON.
+
+
+“In the presence of                   “DAVID APREECE.
+                   “WILLIAM SMITH.
+
+“The above is a true copy taken from the registry of marriages, in
+A-----parish, this 19th day of March, 18--, by me,
+
+
+                “MORGAN JONES, Curate of C-------.”
+
+   [This is according to the form customary at the date at which the
+   copy was made. There has since been an alteration.]
+
+Lord Lilburne again cast his eye over the lines prefixed to this
+startling document, which, being those written at Caleb’s desire, by Mr.
+Jones to Philip Beaufort, we need not here transcribe to the reader. At
+that instant Harriet descended the stairs, and came into the room; she
+crept up on tiptoe to Lilburne, and whispered,--
+
+“She is coming down, I think; she does not know you are here.”
+
+“Very well--go!” said Lord Lilburne. And scarce had Harriet left the
+room, when a carriage drove furiously to the door, and Robert Beaufort
+rushed into the study.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+   “Gone, and none know it.
+
+   How now?--What news, what hopes and steps discovered!”
+    BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: The Pilgrim.
+
+When Philip arrived at his lodgings in town it was very late, but he
+still found Liancourt waiting the chance of his arrival. The Frenchman
+was full of his own schemes and projects. He was a man of high repute
+and connections; negotiations for his recall to Paris had been entered
+into; he was divided between a Quixotic loyalty and a rational prudence;
+he brought his doubts to Vaudemont. Occupied as he was with thoughts of
+so important and personal a nature, Philip could yet listen patiently
+to his friend, and weigh with him the pros and cons. And after having
+mutually agreed that loyalty and prudence would both be best consulted
+by waiting a little, to see if the nation, as the Carlists yet fondly
+trusted, would soon, after its first fever, offer once more the throne
+and the purple to the descendant of St. Louis, Liancourt, as he lighted
+his cigar to walk home, said, “A thousand thanks to you, my dear friend:
+and how have you enjoyed yourself in your visit? I am not surprised or
+jealous that Lilburne did not invite me, as I do not play at cards, and
+as I have said some sharp things to him!”
+
+“I fancy I shall have the same disqualifications for another
+invitation,” said Vaudemont, with a severe smile. “I may have much to
+disclose to you in a few days. At present my news is still unripe. And
+have you seen anything of Lilburne? He left us some days since. Is he in
+London?”
+
+“Yes; I was riding with our friend Henri, who wished to try a new
+horse off the stones, a little way into the country yesterday. We went
+through------and H----. Pretty places, those. Do you know them?”
+
+“Yes; I know H----.”
+
+“And just at dusk, as we were spurring back to town, whom should I see
+walking on the path of the high-road but Lord Lilburne himself! I could
+hardly believe my eyes. I stopped, and, after asking him about you,
+I could not help expressing my surprise to see him on foot at such a
+place. You know the man’s sneer. ‘A Frenchman so gallant as Monsieur de
+Liancourt,’ said he, ‘need not be surprised at much greater miracles;
+the iron moves to the magnet: I have a little adventure here. Pardon me
+if I ask you to ride on.’ Of course I wished him good day; and a little
+farther up the road I saw a dark plain chariot, no coronet, no arms, no
+footman only the man on the box, but the beauty of the horses assured me
+it must belong to Lilburne. Can you conceive such absurdity in a man of
+that age--and a very clever fellow too? Yet, how is it that one does not
+ridicule it in Lilburne, as one would in another man between fifty and
+sixty?”
+
+“Because one does not ridicule,--one loathes-him.”
+
+“No; that’s not it. The fact is that one can’t fancy Lilburne old. His
+manner is young--his eye is young. I never saw any one with so much
+vitality. ‘The bad heart and the good digestion’--the twin secrets for
+wearing well, eh!”
+
+“Where did you meet him--not near H----?”
+
+“Yes; close by. Why? Have you any adventure there too? Nay, forgive me;
+it was but a jest. Good night!”
+
+Vaudemont fell into an uneasy reverie: he could not divine exactly
+why he should be alarmed; but he was alarmed at Lilburne being in the
+neighbourhood of H----. It was the foot of the profane violating the
+sanctuary. An undefined thrill shot through him, as his mind coupled
+together the associations of Lilburne and Fanny; but there was no ground
+for forebodings. Fanny did not stir out alone. An adventure, too--pooh!
+Lord Lilburne must be awaiting a willing and voluntary appointment, most
+probably from some one of the fair but decorous frailties of London.
+Lord Lilburne’s more recent conquests were said to be among those of his
+own rank; suburbs are useful for such assignations. Any other thought
+was too horrible to be contemplated. He glanced to the clock; it was
+three in the morning. He would go to H---- early, even before he sought
+out Mr. William Smith. With that resolution, and even his hardy frame
+worn out by the excitement of the day, he threw himself on his bed and
+fell asleep.
+
+He did not wake till near nine, and had just dressed, and hurried over
+his abstemious breakfast, when the servant of the house came to tell him
+that an old woman, apparently in great agitation, wished to see him.
+His head was still full of witnesses and lawsuits; and he was vaguely
+expecting some visitor connected with his primary objects, when Sarah
+broke into the room. She cast a hurried, suspicious look round her, and
+then throwing herself on her knees to him, “Oh!” she cried, “if you have
+taken that poor young thing away, God forgive you. Let her come back
+again. It shall be all hushed up. Don’t ruin her! don’t, that’s a dear
+good gentleman!”
+
+“Speak plainly, woman--what do you mean?” cried Philip, turning pale.
+
+A very few words sufficed for an explanation: Fanny’s disappearance the
+previous night; the alarm of Sarah at her non-return; the apathy of old
+Simon, who did not comprehend what had happened, and quietly went to
+bed; the search Sarah had made during half the night; the intelligence
+she had picked up, that the policeman, going his rounds, had heard a
+female shriek near the school; but that all he could perceive through
+the mist was a carriage driving rapidly past him; Sarah’s suspicions
+of Vaudemont confirmed in the morning, when, entering Fanny’s room, she
+perceived the poor girl’s unfinished letter with his own, the clue to
+his address that the letter gave her; all this, ere she well understood
+what she herself was talking about,--Vaudemont’s alarm seized, and the
+reflection of a moment construed: the carriage; Lilburne seen lurking in
+the neighbourhood the previous day; the former attempt;--all flashed on
+him with an intolerable glare. While Sarah was yet speaking, he rushed
+from the house, he flew to Lord Lilburne’s in Park Lane; he composed his
+manner, he inquired calmly. His lordship had slept from home; he was,
+they believed, at Fernside: Fernside! H---- was on the direct way to
+that villa. Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed since he heard the story
+ere he was on the road, with such speed as the promise of a guinea a
+mile could extract from the spurs of a young post-boy applied to the
+flanks of London post-horses.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+          “Ex humili magna ad fastigia rerum
+          Extollit.”--JUVENAL.
+
+        [Fortune raises men from low estate to the very
+        summit of prosperity.]
+
+When Harriet had quitted Fanny, the waiting-woman, craftily wishing to
+lure her into Lilburne’s presence, had told her that the room below
+was empty; and the captive’s mind naturally and instantly seized on the
+thought of escape. After a brief breathing pause, she crept noiselessly
+down the stairs, and gently opened the door; and at the very instant she
+did so, Robert Beaufort entered from the other door; she drew back in
+terror, when, what was her astonishment in hearing a name uttered that
+spell-bound her--the last name she could have expected to hear; for
+Lilburne, the instant he saw Beaufort, pale, haggard, agitated, rush
+into the room, and bang the door after him, could only suppose that
+something of extraordinary moment had occurred with regard to the
+dreaded guest, and cried:
+
+“You come about Vaudemont! Something has happened about Vaudemont! about
+Philip! What is it? Calm yourself.”
+
+Fanny, as the name was thus abruptly uttered, actually thrust her
+face through the door; but she again drew back, and, all her senses
+preternaturally quickened at that name, while she held the door almost
+closed, listened with her whole soul in her ears.
+
+The faces of both the men were turned from her, and her partial entry
+had not been perceived.
+
+“Yes,” said Robert Beaufort, leaning his weight, as if ready to sink to
+the ground, upon Lilburne’s shoulder, “Yes; Vaudemont, or Philip, for
+they are one,--yes, it is about that man I have come to consult you.
+Arthur has arrived.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“And Arthur has seen the wretch who visited us, and the rascal’s manner
+has so imposed on him, so convinced him that Philip is the heir to all
+our property, that he has come over-ill, ill--I fear” (added Beaufort,
+in a hollow voice), “dying, to--to--”
+
+“To guard against their machinations?”
+
+“No, no, no--to say that if such be the case, neither honour nor
+conscience will allow us to resist his rights. He is so obstinate in
+this matter; his nerves so ill bear reasoning and contradiction, that I
+know not what to do--”
+
+“Take breath--go on.”
+
+“Well, it seems that this man found out Arthur almost as soon as my son
+arrived at Paris--that he has persuaded Arthur that he has it in his
+power to prove the marriage--that he pretended to be very impatient
+for a decision--that Arthur, in order to gain time to see me, affected
+irresolution--took him to Boulogne, for the rascal does not dare to
+return to England--left him there; and now comes back, my own son, as
+my worst enemy, to conspire against me for my property! I could not
+have kept my temper if I had stayed. But that’s not all--that’s not the
+worst: Vaudemont left me suddenly in the morning on the receipt of a
+letter. In taking leave of Camilla he let fall hints which fill me with
+fear. Well, I inquired his movements as I came along; he had stopped
+at D----, had been closeted for above an hour with a man whose name the
+landlord of the inn knew, for it was on his carpet-bag--the name was
+Barlow. You remember the advertisements! Good Heavens! what is to be
+done? I would not do anything unhandsome or dishonest. But there never
+was a marriage. I never will believe there was a marriage--never!”
+
+“There was a marriage, Robert Beaufort,” said Lord Lilburne, almost
+enjoying the torture he was about to inflict; “and I hold here a paper
+that Philip Vaudemont--for so we will yet call him--would give his right
+hand to clutch for a moment. I have but just found it in a secret cavity
+in that bureau. Robert, on this paper may depend the fate, the fortune,
+the prosperity, the greatness of Philip Vaudemont;--or his poverty, his
+exile, his ruin. See!”
+
+Robert Beaufort glanced over the paper held out to him--dropped it
+on the floor--and staggered to a seat. Lilburne coolly replaced the
+document in the bureau, and, limping to his brother-in-law, said with a
+smile,--
+
+“But the paper is in my possession--I will not destroy it. No; I have no
+right to destroy it. Besides, it would be a crime; but if I give it to
+you, you can do with it as you please.”
+
+“O Lilburne, spare me--spare me. I meant to be an honest man. I--I--”
+ And Robert Beaufort sobbed. Lilburne looked at him in scornful surprise.
+
+“Do not fear that I shall ever think worse of you; and who else will
+know it? Do not fear me. No;--I, too, have reasons to hate and to
+fear this Philip Vaudemont; for Vaudemont shall be his name, and not
+Beaufort, in spite of fifty such scraps of paper! He has known a man--my
+worst foe--he has secrets of mine--of my past--perhaps of my present:
+but I laugh at his knowledge while he is a wandering adventurer;--I
+should tremble at that knowledge if he could thunder it out to the world
+as Philip Beaufort of Beaufort Court! There, I am candid with you. Now
+hear my plan. Prove to Arthur that his visitor is a convicted felon, by
+sending the officers of justice after him instantly--off with him again
+to the Settlements. Defy a single witness--entrap Vaudemont back to
+France and prove him (I think I will prove him such--I think so--with
+a little money and a little pains)--prove him the accomplice of William
+Gawtrey, a coiner and a murderer! Pshaw! take yon paper. Do with it as
+you will--keep it--give it to Arthur--let Philip Vaudemont have it, and
+Philip Vaudemont will be rich and great, the happiest man between earth
+and paradise! On the other hand, come and tell me that you have lost
+it, or that I never gave you such a paper, or that no such paper ever
+existed; and Philip Vaudemont may live a pauper, and die, perhaps, a
+slave at the galleys! Lose it, I say,--lose it,--and advise with me upon
+the rest.”
+
+Horror-struck, bewildered, the weak man gazed upon the calm face of the
+Master-villain, as the scholar of the old fables might have gazed on
+the fiend who put before him worldly prosperity here and the loss of
+his soul hereafter. He had never hitherto regarded Lilburne in his true
+light. He was appalled by the black heart that lay bare before him.
+
+“I can’t destroy it--I can’t,” he faltered out; “and if I did, out of
+love for Arthur,--don’t talk of galleys,--of vengeance--I--I--”
+
+“The arrears of the rents you have enjoyed will send you to gaol for
+your life. No, no; don’t destroy the paper.”
+
+Beaufort rose with a desperate effort; he moved to the bureau. Fanny’s
+heart was on her lips;--of this long conference she had understood only
+the one broad point on which Lilburne had insisted with an emphasis that
+could have enlightened an infant; and he looked on Beaufort as an infant
+then--On that paper rested Philip Vaudemont’s fate--happiness if saved,
+ruin if destroyed; Philip--her Philip! And Philip himself had said to
+her once--when had she ever forgotten his words? and now how those words
+flashed across her--Philip himself had said to her once, “Upon a scrap
+of paper, if I could but find it, may depend my whole fortune, my whole
+happiness, all that I care for in life.”--Robert Beaufort moved to the
+bureau--he seized the document--he looked over it again, hurriedly, and
+ere Lilburne, who by no means wished to have it destroyed in his own
+presence, was aware of his intention--he hastened with tottering steps
+to the hearth-averted his eyes, and cast it on the fire. At that instant
+something white--he scarce knew what, it seemed to him as a spirit, as a
+ghost--darted by him, and snatched the paper, as yet uninjured, from
+the embers! There was a pause for the hundredth part of a moment:--a
+gurgling sound of astonishment and horror from Beaufort--an exclamation
+from Lilburne--a laugh from Fanny, as, her eyes flashing light, with a
+proud dilation of stature, with the paper clasped tightly to her bosom,
+she turned her looks of triumph from one to the other. The two men
+were both too amazed, at the instant, for rapid measures. But Lilburne,
+recovering himself first, hastened to her; she eluded his grasp--she
+made towards the door to the passage; when Lilburne, seriously alarmed,
+seized her arm;--
+
+“Foolish child!--give me that paper!”
+
+“Never but with my life!” And Fanny’s cry for help rang through the
+house.
+
+“Then--” the speech died on his lips, for at that instant a rapid stride
+was heard without--a momentary scuffle--voices in altercation;--the
+door gave way as if a battering ram had forced it;--not so much thrown
+forward as actually hurled into the room, the body of Dykeman fell
+heavily, like a dead man’s, at the very feet of Lord Lilburne--and
+Philip Vaudemont stood in the doorway!
+
+The grasp of Lilburne on Fanny’s arm relaxed, and the girl, with
+one bound, sprung to Philip’s breast. “Here, here!” she cried, “take
+it--take it!” and she thrust the paper into his hand. “Don’t let them
+have it--read it--see it--never mind me!” But Philip, though his hand
+unconsciously closed on the precious document, did mind Fanny; and in
+that moment her cause was the only one in the world to him.
+
+“Foul villain!” he said, as he strode to Lilburne, while Fanny still
+clung to his breast: “Speak!--speak!--is--she--is she?--man--man,
+speak!--you know what I would say!--She is the child of your own
+daughter--the grandchild of that Mary whom you dishonoured--the child
+of the woman whom William Gawtrey saved from pollution! Before he died,
+Gawtrey commended her to my care!--O God of Heaven!--speak!--I am not
+too late!”
+
+The manner, the words, the face of Philip left Lilburne terror-stricken
+with conviction. But the man’s crafty ability, debased as it was,
+triumphed even over remorse for the dread guilt meditated,--over
+gratitude for the dread guilt spared. He glanced at Beaufort--at
+Dykeman, who now, slowly recovering, gazed at him with eyes that
+seemed starting from their sockets; and lastly fixed his look on Philip
+himself. There were three witnesses--presence of mind was his great
+attribute.
+
+“And if, Monsieur de Vaudemont, I knew, or, at least, had the firmest
+persuasion that Fanny was my grandchild, what then? Why else should she
+be here?--Pooh, sir! I am an old man.”
+
+Philip recoiled a step in wonder; his plain sense was baffled by the
+calm lie. He looked down at Fanny, who, comprehending nothing of what
+was spoken, for all her faculties, even her very sense of sight and
+hearing, were absorbed in her impatient anxiety for him, cried out:
+
+“No harm has come to Fanny--none: only frightened. Read!--Read!--Save
+that paper!--You know what you once said about a mere scrap of paper!
+Come away! Come!”
+
+He did now cast his eyes on the paper he held. That was an awful moment
+for Robert Beaufort--even for Lilburne! To snatch the fatal document
+from that gripe! They would as soon have snatched it from a tiger! He
+lifted his eyes--they rested on his mother’s picture! Her lips smiled on
+him! He turned to Beaufort in a state of emotion too exulting, too blest
+for vulgar vengeance--for vulgar triumph--almost for words.
+
+“Look yonder, Robert Beaufort--look!” and he pointed to the picture.
+“Her name is spotless! I stand again beneath a roof that was my
+father’s,--the Heir of Beaufort! We shall meet before the justice of our
+country. For you, Lord Lilburne, I will believe you: it is too horrible
+to doubt even your intentions. If wrong had chanced to her, I would have
+rent you where you stand, limb from limb. And thank her”,--(for Lilburne
+recovered at this language the daring of his youth, before calculation,
+indolence, and excess had dulled the edge of his nerves; and, unawed by
+the height, and manhood, and strength of his menacer, stalked haughtily
+up to him)--“and thank your relationship to her,” said Philip, sinking
+his voice into a whisper, “that I do not brand you as a pilferer and a
+cheat! Hush, knave!--hush, pupil of George Gawtrey!--there are no duels
+for me but with men of honour!”
+
+Lilburne now turned white, and the big word stuck in his throat. In
+another instant Fanny and her guardian had quitted the house.
+
+“Dykeman,” said Lord Lilburne after a long silence, “I shall ask you
+another time how you came to admit that impertinent person. At present,
+go and order breakfast for Mr. Beaufort.”
+
+As soon as Dykeman, more astounded, perhaps, by his lord’s coolness than
+even by the preceding circumstances, had left the study, Lilburne came
+up to Beaufort,--who seemed absolutely stricken as if by palsy,--and
+touching him impatiently and rudely, said,--
+
+“‘Sdeath, man!--rouse yourself! There is not a moment to be lost! I have
+already decided on what you are to do. This paper is not worth a rush,
+unless the curate who examined it will depose to that fact. He is a
+curate--a Welsh curate;--you are yet Mr. Beaufort, a rich and a great
+man. The curate, properly managed, may depose to the contrary; and then
+we will indict them all for forgery and conspiracy. At the worst, you
+can, no doubt, get the parson to forget all about it--to stay away. His
+address was on the certificate:
+
+“--C-----. Go yourself into Wales without an instant’s delay-- Then,
+having arranged with Mr. Jones, hurry back, cross to Boulogne, and buy
+this convict and his witnesses, buy them! That, now, is the only thing.
+Quick! quick!--quick! Zounds, man! if it were my affair, my estate, I
+would not care a pin for that fragment of paper; I should rather rejoice
+at it. I see how it could be turned against them! Go!”
+
+“No, no; I am not equal to it! Will you manage it? will you? Half my
+estate!--all! Take it: but save--”
+
+“Tut!” interrupted Lord Lilburne, in great disdain. “I am as rich as I
+want to be. Money does not bribe me. I manage this! I! Lord Lilburne. I!
+Why, if found out, it is subornation of witnesses. It is exposure--it is
+dishonour--it is ruin. What then? You should take the risk--for you must
+meet ruin if you do not. I cannot. I have nothing to gain!”
+
+“I dare not!--I dare not!” murmured Beaufort, quite spirit-broken.
+“Subornation, dishonour, exposure!--and I, so respectable--my
+character!--and my son against me, too!--my son, in whom I lived again!
+No, no; let them take all! Let them take it! Ha! ha! let them take it!
+Good-day to you.”
+
+“Where are you going?”
+
+“I shall consult Mr. Blackwell, and I’ll let you know.” And Beaufort
+walked tremulously back to his carriage. “Go to his lawyer!” growled
+Lilburne. “Yes, if his lawyer can help him to defraud men lawfully,
+he’ll defraud them fast enough. That will be the respectable way of
+doing it! Um!--This may be an ugly business for me--the paper found
+here--if the girl can depose to what she heard, and she must have heard
+something.--No, I think the laws of real property will hardly allow her
+evidence; and if they do--Um!--My granddaughter--is it possible!--And
+Gawtrey rescued her mother, my child, from her own mother’s vices! I
+thought my liking to that girl different from any other I have ever
+felt: it was pure--it was!--it was pity--affection. And I must never see
+her again--must forget the whole thing! And I am growing old--and I
+am childless--and alone!” He paused, almost with a groan: and then
+the expression of his face changing to rage, he cried out, “The man
+threatened me, and I was a coward! What to do?--Nothing! The defensive
+is my line. I shall play no more.--I attack no one. Who will accuse Lord
+Lilburne? Still, Robert is a fool. I must not leave him to himself. Ho!
+there! Dykeman!--the carriage! I shall go to London.”
+
+Fortunate, no doubt, it was for Philip that Mr. Beaufort was not
+Lord Lilburne. For all history teaches us--public and private
+history--conquerors--statesmen--sharp hypocrites and brave
+designers--yes, they all teach us how mighty one man of great intellect
+and no scruple is against the justice of millions! The One Man
+moves--the Mass is inert. Justice sits on a throne. Roguery never
+rests,--Activity is the lever of Archimedes.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+     “Quam inulta injusta ac prava fiunt moribus.”--TULL.
+
+     [How many unjust and vicious actions are perpetrated
+     under the name of morals.]
+
+             “Volat ambiguis
+             Mobilis alis Hera.”--SENECA.
+
+         [The hour flies moving with doubtful wings.]
+
+Mr. Robert Beaufort sought Mr. Blackwell, and long, rambling, and
+disjointed was his narrative. Mr. Blackwell, after some consideration,
+proposed to set about doing the very things that Lilburne had proposed
+at once to do. But the lawyer expressed himself legally and covertly, so
+that it did not seem to the sober sense of Mr. Beaufort at all the
+same plan. He was not the least alarmed at what Mr. Blackwell proposed,
+though so shocked at what Lilburne dictated. Blackwell would go the next
+day into Wales--he would find out Mr. Jones--he would sound him! Nothing
+was more common with people of the nicest honour, than just to get a
+witness out of the way! Done in election petitions, for instance, every
+day.
+
+“True,” said Mr. Beaufort, much relieved.
+
+Then, after having done that, Mr. Blackwell would return to town, and
+cross over to Boulogne to see this very impudent person whom Arthur
+(young men were so apt to be taken in!) had actually believed. He had
+no doubt he could settle it all. Robert Beaufort returned to Berkeley
+Square actually in spirits. There he found Lilburne, who, on reflection,
+seeing that Blackwell was at all events more up to the business than his
+brother, assented to the propriety of the arrangement.
+
+Mr. Blackwell accordingly did set off the next day. That next day,
+perhaps, made all the difference. Within two hours from his gaining the
+document so important, Philip, without any subtler exertion of intellect
+than the decision of a plain, bold sense, had already forestalled both
+the peer and the lawyer. He had sent down Mr. Barlow’s head clerk to his
+master in Wales with the document, and a short account of the manner
+in which it had been discovered. And fortunate, indeed, was it that the
+copy had been found; for all the inquiries of Mr. Barlow at A----
+had failed, and probably would have failed, without such a clue, in
+fastening upon any one probable person to have officiated as Caleb
+Price’s amanuensis. The sixteen hours’ start Mr. Barlow gained over
+Blackwell enabled the former to see Mr. Jones--to show him his own
+handwriting--to get a written and witnessed attestation from which the
+curate, however poor, and however tempted, could never well have
+escaped (even had he been dishonest, which he was not), of his perfect
+recollection of the fact of making an extract from the registry at
+Caleb’s desire, though he owned he had quite forgotten the names he
+extracted till they were again placed before him. Barlow took care to
+arouse Mr. Jones’s interest in the case--quitted Wales--hastened over to
+Boulogne--saw Captain Smith, and without bribes, without threats, but
+by plainly proving to that worthy person that he could not return to
+England nor see his brother without being immediately arrested; that his
+brother’s evidence was already pledged on the side of truth; and that by
+the acquisition of new testimony there could be no doubt that the
+suit would be successful--he diverted the captain from all disposition
+towards perfidy, convinced him on which side his interest lay, and saw
+him return to Paris, where very shortly afterwards he disappeared for
+ever from this world, being forced into a duel, much against his will
+(with a Frenchman whom he had attempted to defraud), and shot through
+the lungs. Thus verifying a favourite maxim of Lord Lilburne’s, viz.
+that it does not do, in the long run, for little men to play the Great
+Game!
+
+On the same day that Blackwell returned, frustrated in his half-and-half
+attempts to corrupt Mr. Jones, and not having been able even to discover
+Mr. Smith, Mr. Robert Beaufort received a notice of an Action for
+Ejectment to be brought by Philip Beaufort at the next Assizes. And,
+to add to his afflictions, Arthur, whom he had hitherto endeavoured to
+amuse by a sort of ambiguous shilly-shally correspondence, became so
+alarmingly worse, that his mother brought him up to town for advice.
+Lord Lilburne was, of course, sent for; and on learning all, his counsel
+was prompt.
+
+“I told you before that this man loves your daughter. See if you can
+effect a compromise. The lawsuit will be ugly, and probably ruinous. He
+has a right to claim six years’ arrears--that is above L100,000. Make
+yourself his father-in-law, and me his uncle-in-law; and, since we can’t
+kill the wasp, we may at least soften the venom of his sting.”
+
+Beaufort, still perplexed, irresolute, sought his son; and, for the
+first time, spoke to him frankly--that is, frankly for Robert Beaufort!
+He owned that the copy of the register had been found by Lilburne in a
+secret drawer. He made the best of the story Lilburne himself furnished
+him with (adhering, of course, to the assertion uttered or insinuated
+to Philip) in regard to Fanny’s abduction and interposition; he said
+nothing of his attempt to destroy the paper. Why should he? By admitting
+the copy in court--if so advised--he could get rid of Fanny’s evidence
+altogether; even without such concession, her evidence might possibly
+be objected to or eluded. He confessed that he feared the witness who
+copied the register and the witness to the marriage were alive. And then
+he talked pathetically of his desire to do what was right, his dread of
+slander and misinterpretation. He said nothing of Sidney, and his belief
+that Sidney and Charles Spencer were the same; because, if his daughter
+were to be the instrument for effecting a compromise, it was clear that
+her engagement with Spencer must be cancelled and concealed. And luckily
+Arthur’s illness and Camilla’s timidity, joined now to her father’s
+injunctions not to excite Arthur in his present state with any
+additional causes of anxiety, prevented the confidence that might
+otherwise have ensued between the brother and sister. And Camilla,
+indeed, had no heart for such a conference. How, when she looked on
+Arthur’s glassy eye, and listened to his hectic cough, could she talk
+to him of love and marriage? As to the automaton, Mrs. Beaufort, Robert
+made sure of her discretion.
+
+Arthur listened attentively to his father’s communication; and the
+result of that interview was the following letter from Arthur to his
+cousin:
+
+“I write to you without fear of misconstruction; for I write to you
+unknown to all my family, and I am the only one of them who can have no
+personal interest in the struggle about to take place between my father
+and yourself. Before the law can decide between you, I shall be in my
+grave. I write this from the Bed of Death. Philip, I write this--I, who
+stood beside a deathbed more sacred to you than mine--I, who received
+your mother’s last sigh. And with that sigh there was a smile that
+lasted when the sigh was gone: for I promised to befriend her children.
+Heaven knows how anxiously I sought to fulfil that solemn vow! Feeble
+and sick myself, I followed you and your brother with no aim, no prayer,
+but this,--to embrace you and say, ‘Accept a new brother in me.’ I spare
+you the humiliation, for it is yours, not mine, of recalling what passed
+between us when at last we met. Yet, I still sought to save, at least,
+Sidney,--more especially confided to my care by his dying mother. He
+mysteriously eluded our search; but we had reason, by a letter received
+from some unknown hand, to believe him saved and provided for. Again I
+met you at Paris. I saw you were poor. Judging from your associate, I
+might with justice think you depraved. Mindful of your declaration
+never to accept bounty from a Beaufort, and remembering with natural
+resentment the outrage I had before received from you, I judged it vain
+to seek and remonstrate with you, but I did not judge it vain to aid. I
+sent you, anonymously, what at least would suffice, if absolute poverty
+had subjected you to evil courses, to rescue you from them it your
+heart were so disposed. Perhaps that sum, trifling as it was, may have
+smoothed your path and assisted your career. And why tell you all this
+now? To dissuade from asserting rights you conceive to be just?--Heaven
+forbid! If justice is with you, so also is the duty due to your mother’s
+name. But simply for this: that in asserting such rights, you content
+yourself with justice, not revenge--that in righting yourself, you do
+not wrong others. If the law should decide for you, the arrears you
+could demand would leave my father and sister beggars. This may be
+law--it would not be justice; for my father solemnly believed himself,
+and had every apparent probability in his favour, the true heir of
+the wealth that devolved upon him. This is not all. There may be
+circumstances connected with the discovery of a certain document that,
+if authentic, and I do not presume to question it, may decide the
+contest so far as it rests on truth; circumstances which might seem
+to bear hard upon my father’s good name and faith. I do not know
+sufficiently of law to say how far these could be publicly urged, or, if
+urged, exaggerated and tortured by an advocate’s calumnious ingenuity.
+But again, I say justice, and not revenge! And with this I conclude,
+inclosing to you these lines, written in your own hand, and leaving you
+the arbiter of their value.
+
+
+             “ARTHUR BEAUFORT.”
+
+The lines inclosed were these, a second time placed before the reader
+
+
+   “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.”
+
+This letter was sent to the only address of Monsieur de Vaudemont which
+the Beauforts knew, viz., his apartments in town, and he did not receive
+it the day it was sent.
+
+Meanwhile Arthur Beaufort’s malady continued to gain ground rapidly.
+His father, absorbed in his own more selfish fears (though, at the first
+sight of Arthur, overcome by the alteration of his appearance), had
+ceased to consider his illness fatal. In fact, his affection for Arthur
+was rather one of pride than love: long absence had weakened the ties
+of early custom. He prized him as an heir rather than treasured him as
+a son. It almost seemed that as the Heritage was in danger, so the Heir
+became less dear: this was only because he was less thought of. Poor
+Mrs. Beaufort, yet but partially acquainted with the terrors of her
+husband, still clung to hope for Arthur. Her affection for him brought
+out from the depths of her cold and insignificant character qualities
+that had never before been apparent. She watched--she nursed--she tended
+him. The fine lady was gone; nothing but the mother was left behind.
+
+With a delicate constitution, and with an easy temper, which yielded to
+the influence of companions inferior to himself, except in bodily vigour
+and more sturdy will, Arthur Beaufort had been ruined by prosperity.
+His talents and acquirements, if not first-rate, at least far above
+mediocrity, had only served to refine his tastes, not to strengthen his
+mind. His amiable impulses, his charming disposition and sweet temper,
+had only served to make him the dupe of the parasites that feasted on
+the lavish heir. His heart, frittered away in the usual round of light
+intrigues and hollow pleasures, had become too sated and exhausted for
+the redeeming blessings of a deep and a noble love. He had so lived for
+Pleasure that he had never known Happiness. His frame broke by excesses
+in which his better nature never took delight, he came home--to hear of
+ruin and to die!
+
+It was evening in the sick-room. Arthur had risen from the bed to which,
+for some days, he had voluntarily taken, and was stretched on the sofa
+before the fire. Camilla was leaning over him, keeping in the shade,
+that he might not see the tears which she could not suppress. His mother
+had been endeavouring to amuse him, as she would have amused herself, by
+reading aloud one of the light novels of the hour; novels that paint the
+life of the higher classes as one gorgeous holyday.
+
+“My dear mother,” said the patient querulously, “I have no interest
+in these false descriptions of the life I have led. I know that life’s
+worth. Ah! had I been trained to some employment, some profession! had
+I--well--it is weak to repine. Mother, tell me, you have seen Mons. de
+Vaudemont: is he strong and healthy?”
+
+“Yes; too much so. He has not your elegance, dear Arthur.”
+
+“And do you admire him, Camilla? Has no other caught your heart or your
+fancy?”
+
+“My dear Arthur,” interrupted Mrs. Beaufort, “you forget that Camilla
+is scarcely out; and of course a young girl’s affections, if she’s well
+brought up, are regulated by the experience of her parents. It is time
+to take the medicine: it certainly agrees with you; you have more colour
+to-day, my dear, dear son.”
+
+While Mrs. Beaufort was pouring out the medicine, the door gently
+opened, and Mr. Robert Beaufort appeared; behind him there rose a taller
+and a statelier form, but one which seemed more bent, more humbled,
+more agitated. Beaufort advanced. Camilla looked up and turned pale. The
+visitor escaped from Mr. Beaufort’s grasp on his arm; he came forward,
+trembling, he fell on his knees beside Arthur, and seizing his hand,
+bent over, it in silence. But silence so stormy! silence more impressive
+than all words his breast heaved, his whole frame shook. Arthur guessed
+at once whom he saw, and bent down gently as if to raise his visitor.
+
+“Oh! Arthur! Arthur!” then cried Philip; “forgive me! My mother’s
+comforter--my cousin--my brother! Oh! brother, forgive me!”
+
+And as he half rose, Arthur stretched out his arms, and Philip clasped
+him to his breast.
+
+It is in vain to describe the different feelings that agitated those who
+beheld; the selfish congratulations of Robert, mingled with a better and
+purer feeling; the stupor of the mother; the emotions that she herself
+could not unravel, which rooted Camilla to the spot.
+
+“You own me, then,--you own me!” cried Philip. “You accept the
+brotherhood that my mad passions once rejected! And you, too--you,
+Camilla--you who once knelt by my side, under this very roof--do you
+remember me now? Oh, Arthur! that letter--that letter!--yes, indeed,
+that aid which I ascribed to any one--rather than to you--made the date
+of a fairer fortune. I may have owed to that aid the very fate that has
+preserved me till now; the very name which I have not discredited. No,
+no; do not think you can ask me a favour; you can but claim your due.
+Brother! my dear brother!”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+   “Warwick.--Exceeding well! his cares are now all over.”
+    --Henry IV.
+
+The excitement of this interview soon overpowering Arthur, Philip,
+in quitting the room with Mr. Beaufort, asked a conference with that
+gentleman; and they went into the very parlour from which the rich man
+had once threatened to expel the haggard suppliant. Philip glanced round
+the room, and the whole scene came again before him. After a pause, he
+thus began,--
+
+“Mr. Beaufort, let the Past be forgotten. We may have need of mutual
+forgiveness, and I, who have so wronged your noble son, am willing
+to suppose that I misjudged you. I cannot, it is true, forego this
+lawsuit.”
+
+Mr. Beaufort’s face fell.
+
+“I have no right to do so. I am the trustee of my father’s honour and my
+mother’s name: I must vindicate both: I cannot forego this lawsuit. But
+when I once bowed myself to enter your house--then only with a hope,
+where now I have the certainty of obtaining my heritage--it was with the
+resolve to bury in oblivion every sentiment that would transgress the
+most temperate justice. Now, I will do more. If the law decide against
+me, we are as we were; if with me--listen: I will leave you the lands
+of Beaufort, for your life and your son’s. I ask but for me and for mine
+such a deduction from your wealth as will enable me, should my brother
+be yet living, to provide for him; and (if you approve the choice, which
+out of all earth I would desire to make) to give whatever belongs to
+more refined or graceful existence than I myself care for,--to her whom
+I would call my wife. Robert Beaufort, in this room I once asked you
+to restore to me the only being I then loved: I am now again your
+suppliant; and this time you have it in your power to grant my prayer.
+Let Arthur be, in truth, my brother: give me, if I prove myself, as I
+feel assured, entitled to hold the name my father bore, give me your
+daughter as my wife; give me Camilla, and I will not envy you the lands
+I am willing for myself to resign; and if they pass to any children,
+those children will be your daughter’s!”
+
+The first impulse of Mr. Beaufort was to grasp the hand held out to
+him; to pour forth an incoherent torrent of praise and protestation,
+of assurances that he could not hear of such generosity, that what was
+right was right, that he should be proud of such a son-in-law, and much
+more in the same key. And in the midst of this, it suddenly occurred to
+Mr. Beaufort, that if Philip’s case were really as good as he said it
+was, he could not talk so coolly of resigning the property it would
+secure him for the term of a life (Mr. Beaufort thought of his own) so
+uncommonly good, to say nothing of Arthur’s. At this notion, he thought
+it best not to commit himself too far; drew in as artfully as he could,
+until he could consult Lord Lilburne and his lawyer; and recollecting
+also that he had a great deal to manage with respect to Camilla and her
+prior attachment, he began to talk of his distress for Arthur, of the
+necessity of waiting a little before Camilla was spoken to, while so
+agitated about her brother, of the exceedingly strong case which his
+lawyer advised him he possessed--not but what he would rather rest the
+matter on justice than law--and that if the law should be with him,
+he would not the less (provided he did not force his daughter’s
+inclinations, of which, indeed, he had no fear) be most happy to bestow
+her hand on his brother’s nephew, with such a portion as would be most
+handsome to all parties.
+
+It often happens to us in this world, that when we come with our heart
+in our hands to some person or other,--when we pour out some generous
+burst of feeling so enthusiastic and self-sacrificing, that a bystander
+would call us fool and Quixote;--it often, I say, happens to us, to find
+our warm self suddenly thrown back upon our cold self; to discover that
+we are utterly uncomprehended, and that the swine who would have munched
+up the acorn does not know what to make of the pearl. That sudden ice
+which then freezes over us, that supreme disgust and despair almost
+of the whole world, which for the moment we confound with the one
+worldling--they who have felt, may reasonably ascribe to Philip. He
+listened to Mr. Beaufort in utter and contemptuous silence, and then
+replied only,--
+
+“Sir, at all events this is a question for law to decide. If it decide
+as you think, it is for you to act; if as I think, it is for me. Till
+then I will speak to you no more of your daughter, or my intentions.
+Meanwhile, all I ask is the liberty to visit your son. I would not be
+banished from his sick-room!”
+
+“My dear nephew!” cried Mr. Beaufort, again alarmed, “consider this
+house as your home.”
+
+Philip bowed and retreated to the door, followed obsequiously by his
+uncle.
+
+It chanced that both Lord Lilburne and Mr. Blackwell were of the same
+mind as to the course advisable for Mr. Beaufort now to pursue. Lord
+Lilburne was not only anxious to exchange a hostile litigation for
+an amicable lawsuit, but he was really eager to put the seal of
+relationship upon any secret with regard to himself that a man who might
+inherit L20,000. a year--a dead shot, and a bold tongue--might think
+fit to disclose. This made him more earnest than he otherwise might have
+been in advice as to other people’s affairs. He spoke to Beaufort as a
+man of the world--to Blackwell as a lawyer.
+
+“Pin the man down to his generosity,” said Lilburne, “before he gets
+the property. Possession makes a great change in a man’s value of money.
+After all, you can’t enjoy the property when you’re dead: he gives it
+next to Arthur, who is not married; and if anything happen to Arthur,
+poor fellow, why, in devolving on your daughter’s husband and children,
+it goes in the right line. Pin him down at once: get credit with the
+world for the most noble and disinterested conduct, by letting your
+counsel state that the instant you discovered the lost document you
+wished to throw no obstacle in the way of proving the marriage, and that
+the only thing to consider is, if the marriage be proved; if so, you
+will be the first to rejoice, &c. &c. You know all that sort of humbug
+as well as any man!”
+
+Mr. Blackwell suggested the same advice, though in different
+words--after taking the opinions of three eminent members of the bar;
+those opinions, indeed, were not all alike--one was adverse to Mr.
+Robert Beaufort’s chance of success, one was doubtful of it, the
+third maintained that he had nothing to fear from the action--except,
+possibly, the ill-natured construction of the world. Mr. Robert Beaufort
+disliked the idea of the world’s ill-nature, almost as much as he
+did that of losing his property. And when even this last and more
+encouraging authority, learning privately from Mr. Blackwell that
+Arthur’s illness was of a nature to terminate fatally, observed, “that a
+compromise with a claimant, who was at all events Mr. Beaufort’s nephew,
+by which Mr. Beaufort could secure the enjoyment of the estates to
+himself for life, and to his son for life also, should not (whatever
+his probabilities of legal success) be hastily rejected--unless he had
+a peculiar affection for a very distant relation--who, failing Mr.
+Beaufort’s male issue and Philip’s claim, would be heir-at-law, but
+whose rights would cease if Arthur liked to cut off the entail.”
+
+Mr. Beaufort at once decided. He had a personal dislike to that distant
+heir-at-law; he had a strong desire to retain the esteem of the world;
+he had an innate conviction of the justice of Philip’s claim; he had a
+remorseful recollection of his brother’s generous kindness to himself;
+he preferred to have for his heir, in case of Arthur’s decease, a nephew
+who would marry his daughter, than a remote kinsman. And should, after
+all, the lawsuit fail to prove Philip’s right, he was not sorry to have
+the estate in his own power by Arthur’s act in cutting off the entail.
+Brief; all these reasons decided him. He saw Philip--he spoke to
+Arthur--and all the preliminaries, as suggested above, were arranged
+between the parties. The entail was cut off, and Arthur secretly
+prevailed upon his father, to whom, for the present, the fee-simple thus
+belonged, to make a will, by which he bequeathed the estates to Philip,
+without reference to the question of his legitimacy. Mr. Beaufort felt
+his conscience greatly eased after this action--which, too, he could
+always retract if he pleased; and henceforth the lawsuit became but a
+matter of form, so far as the property it involved was concerned.
+
+While these negotiations went on, Arthur continued gradually to decline.
+Philip was with him always. The sufferer took a strange liking to this
+long-dreaded relation, this man of iron frame and thews. In Philip
+there was so much of life, that Arthur almost felt as if in his presence
+itself there was an antagonism to death. And Camilla saw thus her
+cousin, day by day, hour by hour, in that sick chamber, lending himself,
+with the gentle tenderness of a woman, to soften the pang, to arouse the
+weariness, to cheer the dejection. Philip never spoke to her of love:
+in such a scene that had been impossible. She overcame in their mutual
+cares the embarrassment she had before felt in his presence; whatever
+her other feelings, she could not, at least, but be grateful to one so
+tender to her brother. Three letters of Charles Spencer’s had been, in
+the afflictions of the house, only answered by a brief line. She now
+took the occasion of a momentary and delusive amelioration in Arthur’s
+disease to write to him more at length. She was carrying, as usual, the
+letter to her mother, when Mr. Beaufort met her, and took the letter
+from her hand. He looked embarrassed for a moment, and bade her follow
+him into his study. It was then that Camilla learned, for the first
+time, distinctly, the claims and rights of her cousin; then she learned
+also at what price those rights were to be enforced with the least
+possible injury to her father. Mr. Beaufort naturally put the case
+before her in the strongest point of the dilemma. He was to be
+ruined--utterly ruined; a pauper, a beggar, if Camilla did not save
+him. The master of his fate demanded his daughter’s hand. Habitually
+subservient to even a whim of her parents, this intelligence, the
+entreaty, the command with which it was accompanied, overwhelmed her.
+She answered but by tears; and Mr. Beaufort, assured of her submission,
+left her, to consider of the tone of the letter he himself should write
+to Mr. Spencer. He had sat down to this very task when he was summoned
+to Arthur’s room. His son was suddenly taken worse: spasms that
+threatened immediate danger convulsed and exhausted him, and when these
+were allayed, he continued for three days so feeble that Mr. Beaufort,
+his eyes now thoroughly opened to the loss that awaited him, had no
+thoughts even for worldly interests.
+
+On the night of the third day, Philip, Robert Beaufort, his wife, his
+daughter, were grouped round the death-bed of Arthur. The sufferer had
+just wakened from sleep, and he motioned to Philip to raise him. Mr.
+Beaufort started, as by the dim light he saw his son in the arms of
+Catherine’s! and another Chamber of Death seemed, shadow-like, to
+replace the one before him. Words, long since uttered, knelled in his
+ear: “There shall be a death-bed yet beside which you shall see the
+spectre of her, now so calm, rising for retribution from the grave!” His
+blood froze, his hair stood erect; he cast a hurried, shrinking glance
+round the twilight of the darkened room: and with a feeble cry covered
+his white face with his trembling hands! But on Arthur’s lips there was
+a serene smile; he turned his eyes from Philip to Camilla, and murmured,
+“She will repay you!” A pause, and the mother’s shriek rang through the
+room! Robert Beaufort raised his face from his hands. His son was dead!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+        “Jul. And what reward do you propose?
+
+        It must be my love.”--The Double Marriage.
+
+While these events, dark, hurried, and stormy, had befallen the family
+of his betrothed, Sidney Beaufort continued his calm life by the banks
+of the lovely lake. After a few weeks, his confidence in Camilla’s
+fidelity overbore all his apprehensions and forebodings. Her letters,
+though constrained by the inspection to which they were submitted, gave
+him inexpressible consolation and delight. He began, however, early to
+fancy that there was a change in their tone. The letters seemed to shun
+the one subject to which all others were as nought; they turned rather
+upon the guests assembled at Beaufort Court; and why I know not,--for
+there was nothing in them to authorise jealousy--the brief words devoted
+to Monsieur de Vaudemont filled him with uneasy and terrible suspicion.
+He gave vent to these feelings, as fully as he dared do, under the
+knowledge that his letter would be seen; and Camilla never again even
+mentioned the name of Vaudemont. Then there was a long pause; then her
+brother’s arrival and illness were announced; then, at intervals, but a
+few hurried lines; then a complete, long, dreadful silence, and lastly,
+with a deep black border and a solemn black seal, came the following
+letter from Mr. Beaufort:
+
+“MY DEAR SIR,--I have the unutterable grief to announce to you and your
+worthy uncle the irreparable loss I have sustained in the death of my
+only son. It is a month to day since he departed this life. He died,
+sir, as a Christian should die--humbly, penitently--exaggerating the few
+faults of his short life, but--(and here the writer’s hypocrisy,
+though so natural to him--was it, that he knew not that he was
+hypocritical?--fairly gave way before the real and human anguish, for
+which there is no dictionary!) but I cannot pursue this theme!
+
+“Slowly now awakening to the duties yet left me to discharge, I cannot
+but be sensible of the material difference in the prospects of my
+remaining child. Miss Beaufort is now the heiress to an ancient name and
+a large fortune. She subscribes with me to the necessity of consulting
+those new considerations which so melancholy an event forces upon her
+mind. The little fancy--or liking--(the acquaintance was too short for
+more) that might naturally spring up between two amiable young persons
+thrown together in the country, must be banished from our thoughts. As a
+friend, I shall be always happy to hear of your welfare; and should you
+ever think of a profession in which I can serve you, you may command my
+utmost interest and exertions. I know, my young friend, what you will
+feel at first, and how disposed you will be to call me mercenary and
+selfish. Heaven knows if that be really my character! But at your age,
+impressions are easily effaced; and any experienced friend of the world
+will assure you that, in the altered circumstances of the case, I have
+no option. All intercourse and correspondence, of course, cease with
+this letter,--until, at least, we may all meet, with no sentiments but
+those of friendship and esteem. I desire my compliments to your worthy
+uncle, in which Mrs. and Miss Beaufort join; and I am sure you will
+be happy to hear that my wife and daughter, though still in great
+affliction, have suffered less in health than I could have ventured to
+anticipate.
+
+“Believe me, dear Sir,
+
+“Yours sincerely,
+
+“ROBERT BEAUFORT.
+
+“To C. SPENCER, Esq., Jun.”
+
+When Sidney received this letter, he was with Mr. Spencer, and the
+latter read it over the young man’s shoulder, on which he leant
+affectionately. When they came to the concluding words, Sidney turned
+round with a vacant look and a hollow smile. “You see, sir,” he said,
+“you see---”
+
+“My boy--my son--you bear this as you ought. Contempt will soon
+efface--”
+
+Sidney started to his feet, and his whole countenance was changed.
+
+“Contempt--yes, for him! But for her--she knows it not--she is no party
+to this--I cannot believe it--I will not! I--I----” and he rushed out
+of the room. He was absent till nightfall, and when he returned, he
+endeavoured to appear calm--but it was in vain.
+
+The next day brought him a letter from Camilla, written unknown to
+her parents,--short, it is true (confirming the sentence of separation
+contained in her father’s), and imploring him not to reply to it,--but
+still so full of gentle and of sorrowful feeling, so evidently worded
+in the wish to soften the anguish she inflicted, that it did more than
+soothe--it even administered hope.
+
+Now when Mr. Robert Beaufort had recovered the ordinary tone of his mind
+sufficiently to indite the letter Sidney had just read, he had become
+fully sensible of the necessity of concluding the marriage between
+Philip and Camilla before the publicity of the lawsuit. The action for
+the ejectment could not take place before the ensuing March or April. He
+would waive the ordinary etiquette of time and mourning to arrange all
+before. Indeed, he lived in hourly fear lest Philip should discover
+that he had a rival in his brother, and break off the marriage, with
+its contingent advantages. The first announcement of such a suit in the
+newspapers might reach the Spencers; and if the young man were, as he
+doubted not, Sidney Beaufort, would necessarily bring him forward, and
+ensure the dreaded explanation. Thus apprehensive and ever scheming,
+Robert Beaufort spoke to Philip so much, and with such apparent feeling,
+of his wish to gratify, at the earliest possible period, the last wish
+of his son, in the union now arranged--he spoke, with such seeming
+consideration and good sense, of the avoidance of all scandal and
+misinterpretation in the suit itself, which suit a previous marriage
+between the claimant and his daughter would show at once to be of so
+amicable a nature,--that Philip, ardently in love as he was, could not
+but assent to any hastening of his expected happiness compatible with
+decorum. As to any previous publicity by way of newspaper comment, he
+agreed with Mr. Beaufort in deprecating it. But then came the question,
+What name was he to bear in the interval?
+
+“As to that,” said Philip, somewhat proudly, “when, after my mother’s
+suit in her own behalf, I persuaded her not to bear the name of
+Beaufort, though her due--and for my own part, I prized her own modest
+name, which under such dark appearances was in reality spotless--as much
+as the loftier one which you bear and my father bore;--so I shall not
+resume the name the law denies me till the law restores it to me. Law
+alone can efface the wrong which law has done me.”
+
+Mr. Beaufort was pleased with this reasoning (erroneous though it was),
+and he now hoped that all would be safely arranged.
+
+That a girl so situated as Camilla, and of a character not energetic
+or profound, but submissive, dutiful, and timid, should yield to the
+arguments of her father, the desire of her dying brother--that she
+should not dare to refuse to become the instrument of peace to a divided
+family, the saving sacrifice to her father’s endangered fortunes--that,
+in fine, when, nearly a month after Arthur’s death, her father, leading
+her into the room, where Philip waited her footstep with a beating
+heart, placed her hand in his--and Philip falling on his knees said,
+“May I hope to retain this hand for life?”--she should falter out such
+words as he might construe into not reluctant acquiescence; that all
+this should happen is so natural that the reader is already prepared
+for it. But still she thought with bitter and remorseful feelings of him
+thus deliberately and faithlessly renounced. She felt how deeply he had
+loved her--she knew how fearful would be his grief. She looked sad and
+thoughtful; but her brother’s death was sufficient in Philip’s eyes to
+account for that. The praises and gratitude of her father, to whom she
+suddenly seemed to become an object of even greater pride and affection
+than ever Arthur had been--the comfort of a generous heart, that takes
+pleasure in the very sacrifice it makes--the acquittal of her conscience
+as to the motives of her conduct--began, however, to produce their
+effect. Nor, as she had lately seen more of Philip, could she be
+insensible of his attachment--of his many noble qualities--of the pride
+which most women might have felt in his addresses, when his rank was
+once made clear; and as she had ever been of a character more regulated
+by duty than passion, so one who could have seen what was passing in
+her mind would have had little fear for Philip’s future happiness in her
+keeping--little fear but that, when once married to him, her affections
+would have gone along with her duties; and that if the first love
+were yet recalled, it would be with a sigh due rather to some romantic
+recollection than some continued regret. Few of either sex are ever
+united to their first love; yet married people jog on, and call each
+other “my dear” and “my darling” all the same. It might be, it is true,
+that Philip would be scarcely loved with the intenseness with which he
+loved; but if Camilla’s feelings were capable of corresponding to the
+ardent and impassioned ones of that strong and vehement nature--such
+feelings were not yet developed in her. The heart of the woman might
+still be half concealed in the vale of the virgin innocence. Philip
+himself was satisfied--he believed that he was beloved: for it is the
+property of love, in a large and noble heart, to reflect itself, and to
+see its own image in the eyes on which it looks. As the Poet gives ideal
+beauty and excellence to some ordinary child of Eve, worshipping less
+the being that is than the being he imagines and conceives--so Love,
+which makes us all poets for a while, throws its own divine light over
+a heart perhaps really cold; and becomes dazzled into the joy of a false
+belief by the very lustre with which it surrounds its object.
+
+The more, however, Camilla saw of Philip, the more (gradually
+overcoming her former mysterious and superstitious awe of him) she grew
+familiarised to his peculiar cast of character and thought, so the more
+she began to distrust her father’s assertion, that he had insisted on
+her hand as a price--a bargain--an equivalent for the sacrifice of a
+dire revenge. And with this thought came another. Was she worthy of this
+man?--was she not deceiving him? Ought she not to say, at least, that
+she had known a previous attachment, however determined she might be
+to subdue it? Often the desire for this just and honourable confession
+trembled on her lips, and as often was it checked by some chance
+circumstance or some maiden fear. Despite their connection, there was
+not yet between them that delicious intimacy which ought to accompany
+the affiance of two hearts and souls. The gloom of the house; the
+restraint on the very language of love imposed by a death so recent
+and so deplored, accounted in much for this reserve. And for the
+rest, Robert Beaufort prudently left them very few and very brief
+opportunities to be alone.
+
+In the meantime, Philip (now persuaded that the Beauforts were ignorant
+of his brother’s fate) had set Mr. Barlow’s activity in search
+of Sidney; and his painful anxiety to discover one so dear and so
+mysteriously lost was the only cause of uneasiness apparent in the
+brightening Future. While these researches, hitherto fruitless, were
+being made, it so happened, as London began now to refill, and gossip
+began now to revive, that a report got abroad, no one knew how (probably
+from the servants) that Monsieur de Vaudemont, a distinguished French
+officer, was shortly to lead the daughter and sole heiress of Robert
+Beaufort, Esq., M.P., to the hymeneal altar; and that report very
+quickly found its way into the London papers: from the London papers
+it spread to the provincial--it reached the eyes of Sidney in his now
+gloomy and despairing solitude. The day that he read it he disappeared.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+     “Jul.... Good lady, love him!
+     You have a noble and an honest gentleman.
+     I ever found him so.
+     Love him no less than I have done, and serve him,
+     And Heaven shall bless you--you shall bless my ashes.”
+      BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: The Double Marriage.
+
+We have been too long absent from Fanny; it is time to return to her.
+The delight she experienced when Philip made her understand all the
+benefits, the blessings, that her courage, nay, her intellect, had
+bestowed upon him, the blushing ecstasy with which she heard (as they
+returned to H----, the eventful morning of her deliverance, side by
+side, her hand clasped in his, and often pressed to his grateful lips)
+his praises, his thanks, his fear for her safety, his joy at regaining
+her--all this amounted to a bliss, which, till then, she could not have
+conceived that life was capable of bestowing. And when he left her at
+H----, to hurry to his lawyer’s with the recovered document, it was but
+for an hour. He returned, and did not quit her for several days. And in
+that time he became sensible of her astonishing, and, to him, it seemed
+miraculous, improvement in all that renders Mind the equal to Mind;
+miraculous, for he guessed not the Influence that makes miracles its
+commonplace. And now he listened attentively to her when she conversed;
+he read with her (though reading was never much in his vocation), his
+unfastidious ear was charmed with her voice, when it sang those simple
+songs; and his manner (impressed alike by gratitude for the signal
+service rendered to him, and by the discovery that Fanny was no longer
+a child, whether in mind or years), though not less gentle than before,
+was less familiar, less superior, more respectful, and more earnest.
+It was a change which raised her in her own self-esteem. Ah, those were
+rosy days for Fanny!
+
+A less sagacious judge of character than Lilburne would have formed
+doubts perhaps of the nature of Philip’s interest in Fanny. But he
+comprehended at once the fraternal interest which a man like Philip
+might well take in a creature like Fanny, if commended to his care by a
+protector whose doom was so awful as that which had ingulfed the life
+of William Gawtrey. Lilburne had some thoughts at first of claiming
+her, but as he had no power to compel her residence with him, he did not
+wish, on consideration, to come again in contact with Philip upon ground
+so full of humbling recollections as that still overshadowed by the
+images of Gawtrey and Mary. He contented himself with writing an artful
+letter to Simon, stating that from Fanny’s residence with Mr. Gawtrey,
+and from her likeness to her mother, whom he had only seen as a child,
+he had conjectured the relationship she bore to himself; and having
+obtained other evidence of that fact (he did not say what or where), he
+had not scrupled to remove her to his roof, meaning to explain all to
+Mr. Simon Gawtrey the next day. This letter was accompanied by one from
+a lawyer, informing Simon Gawtrey that Lord Lilburne would pay L200. a
+year, in quarterly payments, to his order; and that he was requested to
+add, that when the young lady he had so benevolently reared came of age,
+or married, an adequate provision would be made for her. Simon’s mind
+blazed up at this last intelligence, when read to him, though he neither
+comprehended nor sought to know why Lord Lilburne should be so generous,
+or what that noble person’s letter to himself was intended to convey.
+For two days, he seemed restored to vigorous sense; but when he had
+once clutched the first payment made in advance, the touch of the money
+seemed to numb him back to his lethargy: the excitement of desire died
+in the dull sense of possession.
+
+And just at that time Fanny’s happiness came to a close. Philip received
+Arthur Beaufort’s letter; and now ensued long and frequent absences; and
+on his return, for about an hour or so at a time, he spoke of sorrow and
+death; and the books were closed and the songs silenced. All fear for
+Fanny’s safety was, of course, over; all necessity for her work; their
+little establishment was increased. She never stirred out without Sarah;
+yet she would rather that there had been some danger on her account for
+him to guard against, or some trial that his smile might soothe.
+His prolonged absences began to prey upon her--the books ceased to
+interest--no study filled up the dreary gap--her step grew listless--her
+cheek pale--she was sensible at last that his presence had become
+necessary to her very life. One day, he came to the house earlier than
+usual, and with a much happier and serener expression of countenance
+than he had worn of late.
+
+Simon was dozing in his chair, with his old dog, now scarce vigorous
+enough to bark, curled up at his feet. Neither man nor dog was more as
+a witness to what was spoken than the leathern chair, or the hearth-rug,
+on which they severally reposed.
+
+There was something which, in actual life, greatly contributed to the
+interest of Fanny’s strange lot, but which, in narration, I feel
+I cannot make sufficiently clear to the reader. And this was her
+connection and residence with that old man. Her character forming, as
+his was completely gone; here, the blank becoming filled--there, the
+page fading to a blank. It was the utter, total Deathliness-in-Life of
+Simon, that, while so impressive to see, renders it impossible to bring
+him before the reader in his full force of contrast to the young Psyche.
+He seldom spoke--often, not from morning till night; he now seldom
+stirred. It is in vain to describe the indescribable: let the reader
+draw the picture for himself. And whenever (as I sometimes think he
+will, after he has closed this book) he conjures up the idea he attaches
+to the name of its heroine, let him see before her, as she glides
+through the humble room--as she listens to the voice of him she
+loves--as she sits musing by the window, with the church spire just
+visible--as day by day the soul brightens and expands within her--still
+let the reader see within the same walls, greyhaired, blind, dull to all
+feeling, frozen to all life, that stony image of Time and Death! Perhaps
+then he may understand why they who beheld the real and living Fanny
+blooming under that chill and mass of shadow, felt that her grace, her
+simplicity, her charming beauty, were raised by the contrast, till
+they grew associated with thoughts and images, mysterious and profound,
+belonging not more to the lovely than to the sublime.
+
+So there sat the old man; and Philip, though aware of his presence,
+speaking as if he were alone with Fanny, after touching on more casual
+topics, thus addressed her:
+
+“My true and my dear friend, it is to you that I shall owe, not only my
+rights and fortune, but the vindication of my mother’s memory. You have
+not only placed flowers upon that gravestone, but it is owing to you,
+under Providence, that it will be inscribed at last with the Name which
+refutes all calumny. Young and innocent as you now are, my gentle and
+beloved benefactress, you cannot as yet know what a blessing it will be
+to me to engrave that Name upon that simple stone. Hereafter, when you
+yourself are a wife, a mother, you will comprehend the service you have
+rendered to the living and the dead!”
+
+He stopped--struggling with the rush of emotions that overflowed his
+heart. Alas, THE DEAD! what service can we render to them?--what availed
+it now, either to the dust below, or to the immortality above, that the
+fools and knaves of this world should mention the Catherine whose life
+was gone, whose ears were deaf, with more or less respect? There is
+in calumny that poison that, even when the character throws off the
+slander, the heart remains diseased beneath the effect. They say that
+truth comes sooner or later; but it seldom comes before the soul,
+passing from agony to contempt, has grown callous to men’s judgments.
+Calumniate a human being in youth--adulate that being in age;--what has
+been the interval? Will the adulation atone either for the torture, or
+the hardness which the torture leaves at last? And if, as in Catherine’s
+case (a case, how common!), the truth come too late--if the tomb is
+closed--if the heart you have wrung can be wrung no more--why the truth
+is as valueless as the epitaph on a forgotten Name! Some such conviction
+of the hollowness of his own words, when he spoke of service to the
+dead, smote upon Philip’s heart, and stopped the flow of his words.
+
+Fanny, conscious only of his praise, his thanks, and the tender
+affection of his voice, stood still silent--her eyes downcast, her
+breast heaving.
+
+Philip resumed:
+
+“And now, Fanny, my honoured sister, I would thank you for more, were it
+possible, even than this. I shall owe to you not only name and fortune,
+but happiness. It is from the rights to which you have assisted me, and
+which will shortly be made clear, that I am able to demand a hand I have
+so long coveted--the hand of one as dear to me as you are. In a word,
+the time has, this day, been fixed, when I shall have a home to offer
+to you and to this old man--when I can present to you a sister who will
+prize you as I do: for I love you so dearly--I owe you so much--that
+even that home would lose half its smiles if you were not there. Do you
+understand me, Fanny? The sister I speak of will be my wife!”
+
+The poor girl who heard this speech of most cruel tenderness did not
+fall, or faint, or evince any outward emotion, except in a deadly
+paleness. She seemed like one turned to stone. Her very breath forsook
+her for some moments, and then came back with a long deep sigh. She laid
+her hand lightly on his arm, and said calmly:
+
+“Yes--I understand. We once saw a wedding. You are to be married--I
+shall see yours!”
+
+“You shall; and, later, perhaps, I may see your own.”
+
+“I have a brother. Ah! if I could but find him--younger than I
+am--beautiful almost as you!”
+
+“You will be happy,” said Fanny, still calmly.
+
+“I have long placed my hopes of happiness in such a union! Stay, where
+are you going?”
+
+“To pray for you,” said Fanny, with a smile, in which there was
+something of the old vacancy, as she walked gently from the room. Philip
+followed her with moistened eyes. Her manner might have deceived one
+more vain. He soon after quitted the house, and returned to town.
+
+Three hours after, Sarah found Fanny stretched on the floor of her own
+room--so still--so white--that, for some moments, the old woman thought
+life was gone. She recovered, however, by degrees; and, after putting
+her hands to her eyes, and muttering some moments, seemed much as usual,
+except that she was more silent, and that her lips remained colourless,
+and her hands cold like stone.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+   “Vec. Ye see what follows.
+   Duke. O gentle sir! this shape again!”--The Chances.
+
+That evening Sidney Beaufort arrived in London. It is the nature of
+solitude to make passions calm on the surface--agitated in the deeps.
+Sidney had placed his whole existence in one object. When the letter
+arrived that told him to hope no more, he was at first rather sensible
+of the terrible and dismal blank--the “void abyss”--to which all his
+future was suddenly changed, than roused to vehement and turbulent
+emotion. But Camilla’s letter had, as we have seen, raised his courage
+and animated his heart. To the idea of her faith he still clung with
+the instinct of hope in the midst of despair. The tidings that she
+was absolutely betrothed to another, and in so short a time since her
+rejection of him, let loose from all restraint his darker and more
+tempestuous passions. In a state of mind bordering upon frenzy, he
+hurried to London--to seek her--to see her; with what intent--what hope,
+if hope there were--he himself could scarcely tell. But what man who has
+loved with fervour and trust will be contented to receive the sentence
+of eternal separation except from the very lips of the one thus
+worshipped and thus foresworn?
+
+The day had been intensely cold. Towards evening the snow fell fast and
+heavily. Sidney had not, since a child, been before in London; and the
+immense City, covered with a wintry and icy mist, through which the
+hurrying passengers and the slow-moving vehicles passed, spectre-like,
+along the dismal and slippery streets--opened to the stranger no
+hospitable arms. He knew not a step of the way--he was pushed to and
+fro--his scarce intelligible questions impatiently answered--the snow
+covered him--the frost pierced to his veins. At length a man, more
+kindly than the rest, seeing that he was a stranger to London, procured
+him a hackney-coach, and directed the driver to the distant quarter
+of Berkeley Square. The snow balled under the hoofs of the horses--the
+groaning vehicle proceeded at the pace of a hearse. At length, and
+after a period of such suspense, and such emotion, as Sidney never
+in after-life could recall without a shudder, the coach stopped--the
+benumbed driver heavily descended--the sound of the knocker knelled loud
+through the muffled air--and the light from Mr. Beaufort’s hall glared
+full upon the dizzy eyes of the visitor. He pushed aside the porter, and
+sprang into the hall. Luckily, one of the footmen who had attended Mrs.
+Beaufort to the Lakes recognised him; and, in answer to his breathless
+inquiry, said,--
+
+“Why, indeed, Mr. Spencer, Miss Beaufort is at home--up-stairs in the
+drawing-room, with master and mistress, and Monsieur de Vaudemont;
+but--”
+
+Sidney waited no more. He bounded up the stairs--he opened the
+first door that presented itself to him, and burst, unannounced and
+unlooked-for, upon the eyes of the group seated within. He saw not the
+terrified start of Mr. Robert Beaufort--he heeded not the faint, nervous
+exclamation of the mother--he caught not the dark and wondering glace of
+the stranger seated beside Camilla--he saw but Camilla herself, and in a
+moment he was at her feet.
+
+“Camilla, I am here!--I, who love you so--I, who have nothing in the
+world but you! I am here--to learn from you, and you alone, if I am
+indeed abandoned--if you are indeed to be another’s!”
+
+He had dashed his hat from his brow as he sprang forward; his long fair
+hair, damp with the snows, fell disordered over his forehead; his eyes
+were fixed, as for life and death, upon the pale face and trembling
+lips of Camilla. Robert Beaufort, in great alarm, and well aware of the
+fierce temper of Philip, anticipative of some rash and violent impulse,
+turned his glance upon his destined son-in-law. But there was no angry
+pride in the countenance he there beheld. Philip had risen, but his
+frame was bent--his knees knocked together--his lips were parted--his
+eyes were staring full upon the face of the kneeling man.
+
+Suddenly Camilla, sharing her father’s fear, herself half rose, and
+with an unconscious pathos, stretched one hand, as if to shelter, over
+Sidney’s head, and looked to Philip. Sidney’s eyes followed hers. He
+sprang to his feet.
+
+“What, then, it is true! And this is the man for whom I am abandoned!
+But unless you--you, with your own lips, tell me that you love me no
+more--that you love another--I will not yield you but with life.”
+
+He stalked sternly and impetuously up to Philip, who recoiled as his
+rival advanced. The characters of the two men seemed suddenly changed.
+The timid dreamer seemed dilated into the fearless soldier. The soldier
+seemed shrinking--quailing--into nameless terror. Sidney grasped that
+strong arm, as Philip still retreated, with his slight and delicate
+fingers, grasped it with violence and menace; and frowning into the face
+from which the swarthy blood was scared away, said, in a hollow whisper:
+
+“Do you hear me? Do you comprehend me? I say that she shall not be
+forced into a marriage at which I yet believe her heart rebels. My claim
+is holier than yours. Renounce her, or win her but with my blood.”
+
+Philip did not apparently hear the words thus addressed to him. His
+whole senses seemed absorbed in the one sense of sight. He continued to
+gaze upon the speaker, till his eye dropped on the hand that yet griped
+his arm. And as he thus looked, he uttered an inarticulate cry. He
+caught the hand in his own, and pointed to a ring on the finger, but
+remained speechless. Mr. Beaufort approached, and began some stammered
+words of soothing to Sidney, but Philip motioned him to be silent, and,
+at last, as if by a violent effort, gasped forth, not to Sidney, but to
+Beaufort,--
+
+“His name?--his name?”
+
+“It is Mr. Spencer--Mr. Charles Spencer,” cried Beaufort. “Listen to me,
+I will explain all--I--”
+
+“Hush, hush! cried Philip; and turning to Sidney, he put his hand on his
+shoulder, and looking him full in the face, said,--
+
+“Have you not known another name? Are you not--yes, it is so--it is--it
+is! Follow me--follow!”
+
+And still retaining his grasp, and leading Sidney, who was now subdued,
+awed, and a prey to new and wild suspicions, he moved on gently, stride
+by stride--his eyes fixed on that fair face--his lips muttering--till
+the closing door shut both forms from the eyes of the three there left.
+
+It was the adjoining room into which Philip led his rival. It was lit
+but by a small reading-lamp, and the bright, steady blaze of the fire;
+and by this light they both continued to gaze on each other, as if
+spellbound, in complete silence. At last Philip, by an irresistible
+impulse, fell upon Sidney’s bosom, and, clasping him with convulsive
+energy, gasped out:
+
+“Sidney!--Sidney!--my mother’s son!”
+
+“What!” exclaimed Sidney, struggling from the embrace, and at last
+freeing himself; “it is you, then!--you, my own brother! You, who have
+been hitherto the thorn in my path, the cloud in my fate! You, who are
+now come to make me a wretch for life! I love that woman, and you tear
+her from me! You, who subjected my infancy to hardship, and, but for
+Providence, might have degraded my youth, by your example, into shame
+and guilt!”
+
+“Forbear!--forbear!” cried Philip, with a voice so shrill in its agony,
+that it smote the hearts of those in the adjoining chamber like the
+shriek of some despairing soul. They looked at each other, but not one
+had the courage to break upon the interview.
+
+Sidney himself was appalled by the sound. He threw himself on a seat,
+and, overcome by passions so new to him, by excitement so strange, hid
+his face, and sobbed as a child.
+
+Philip walked rapidly to and fro the room for some moments; at length he
+paused opposite to Sidney, and said, with the deep calmness of a wronged
+and goaded spirit:
+
+“Sidney Beaufort, hear me! When my mother died she confided you to
+my care, my love, and my protection. In the last lines that her hand
+traced, she bade me think less of myself than of you; to be to you as a
+father as well as brother. The hour that I read that letter I fell on
+my knees, and vowed that I would fulfil that injunction--that I would
+sacrifice my very self, if I could give fortune or happiness to you. And
+this not for your sake alone, Sidney; no! but as my mother--our wronged,
+our belied, our broken-hearted mother!--O Sidney, Sidney! have you no
+tears for her, too?” He passed his hand over his own eyes for a moment,
+and resumed: “But as our mother, in that last letter, said to me, ‘let
+my love pass into your breast for him,’ so, Sidney, so, in all that I
+could do for you, I fancied that my mother’s smile looked down upon
+me, and that in serving you it was my mother whom I obeyed. Perhaps,
+hereafter, Sidney, when we talk over that period of my earlier life when
+I worked for you, when the degradation you speak of (there was no crime
+in it!)--was borne cheerfully for your sake, and yours the holiday
+though mine the task--perhaps, hereafter, you will do me more justice.
+You left me, or were reft from me, and I gave all the little fortune
+that my mother had bequeathed us, to get some tidings from you. I
+received your letter--that bitter letter--and I cared not then that I
+was a beggar, since I was alone. You talk of what I have cost you--you
+talk! and you now ask me to--to--Merciful Heaven! let me
+understand you--do you love Camilla? Does she love you?
+Speak--speak--explain--what, new agony awaits me?”
+
+It was then that Sidney, affected and humbled, amidst all his more
+selfish sorrows, by his brother’s language and manner, related, as
+succinctly as he could, the history of his affection for Camilla, the
+circumstances of their engagement, and ended by placing before him the
+letter he had received from Mr. Beaufort.
+
+In spite of all his efforts for self-control, Philip’s anguish was so
+great, so visible, that Sidney, after looking at his working features,
+his trembling hands, for a moment, felt all the earlier parts of his
+nature melt in a flow of generous sympathy and remorse. He flung himself
+on the breast from which he had shrunk before, and cried,--
+
+“Brother, brother! forgive me; I see how I have wronged you. If she has
+forgotten me, if she love you, take her and be happy!”
+
+Philip returned his embrace, but without warmth, and then moved away;
+and, again, in great disorder, paced the room. His brother only heard
+disjointed exclamations that seemed to escape him unawares: “They said
+she loved me! Heaven give me strength! Mother--mother! let me fulfil my
+vow! Oh, that I had died ere this!” He stopped at last, and the large
+dews rolled down his forehead. “Sidney!” said he, “there is a mystery
+here that I comprehend not. But my mind now is very confused. If she
+loves you--if!--is it possible for a woman to love two? Well, well, I go
+to solve the riddle: wait here!”
+
+He vanished into the next room, and for nearly half an hour Sidney was
+alone. He heard through the partition murmured voices; he caught more
+clearly the sound of Camilla’s sobs. The particulars of that interview
+between Philip and Camilla, alone at first (afterwards Mr. Robert
+Beaufort was re-admitted), Philip never disclosed, nor could Sidney
+himself ever obtain a clear account from Camilla, who could not recall
+it, even years after, without great emotion. But at last the door was
+opened, and Philip entered, leading Camilla by the hand. His face was
+calm, and there was a smile on his lips; a greater dignity than even
+that habitual to him was diffused over his whole person. Camilla was
+holding her handkerchief to her eyes and weeping passionately. Mr.
+Beaufort followed them with a mortified and slinking air.
+
+“Sidney,” said Philip, “it is past. All is arranged. I yield to your
+earlier, and therefore better, claim. Mr. Beaufort consents to your
+union. He will tell you, at some fitter time, that our birthright is
+at last made clear, and that there is no blot on the name we shall
+hereafter bear. Sidney, embrace your bride!”
+
+Amazed, delighted, and still half incredulous, Sidney seized and kissed
+the hand of Camilla; and as he then drew her to his breast, she said, as
+she pointed to Philip:--
+
+“Oh! if you do love me as you say, see in him the generous, the noble--”
+ Fresh sobs broke off her speech; but as Sidney sought again to take her
+hand, she whispered, with a touching and womanly sentiment, “Ah! respect
+him: see!--” and Sidney, looking then at his brother, saw, that though
+he still attempted to smile, his lip writhed, and his features were
+drawn together, as one whose frame is wrung by torture, but who
+struggles not to groan.
+
+He flew to Philip, who, grasping his hand, held him back, and said,--
+
+“I have fulfilled my vow! I have given you up the only blessing my
+life has known. Enough, you are happy, and I shall be so too, when God
+pleases to soften this blow. And now you must not wonder or blame
+me, if, though so lately found, I leave you for a while. Do me one
+kindness,--you, Sidney--you, Mr. Beaufort. Let the marriage take place
+at H----, in the village church by which my mother sleeps; let it be
+delayed till the suit is terminated: by that time I shall hope to meet
+you all--to meet you, Camilla, as I ought to meet my brother’s wife;
+till then, my presence will not sadden your happiness. Do not seek to
+see me; do not expect to hear from me. Hist! be silent, all of you; my
+heart is yet bruised and sore. O THOU,” and here, deepening his voice,
+he raised his arms, “Thou who hast preserved my youth from such snares
+and such peril, who hast guided my steps from the abyss to which they
+wandered, and beneath whose hand I now bow, grateful if chastened,
+receive this offering, and bless that union! Fare ye well.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+     “Heaven’s airs amid the harpstrings dwell;
+     And we wish they ne’er may fade;
+     They cease; and the soul is a silent cell,
+     Where music never played.
+     Dream follows dream through the long night-hours.”
+      WILSON: The Past, a poem.
+
+The self-command which Philip had obtained for a while deserted him when
+he was without the house. His mind felt broken up into chaos; he hurried
+on, mechanically, on foot; he passed street upon street, now solitary
+and deserted, as the lamps gleamed upon the thick snow. The city was
+left behind him. He paused not, till, breathless, and exhausted in
+spirit if not in frame, he reached the churchyard where Catherine’s dust
+reposed. The snow had ceased to fall, but it lay deep over the graves;
+the yew-trees, clad in their white shrouds, gleamed ghost-like through
+the dimness. Upon the rail that fenced the tomb yet hung a wreath that
+Fanny’s hand had placed there. But the flowers were hid; it was a wreath
+of snow! Through the intervals of the huge and still clouds, there
+gleamed a few melancholy stars. The very calm of the holy spot seemed
+unutterably sad. The Death of the year overhung the Death of man. And as
+Philip bent over the tomb, within and without all was ICE and NIGHT!
+
+For hours he remained on that spot, alone with his grief and absorbed in
+his prayer. Long past midnight Fanny heard his step on the stairs, and
+the door of his chamber close with unwonted violence. She heard, too,
+for some time, his heavy tread on the floor, till suddenly all was
+silent. The next morning, when, at the usual hour, Sarah entered to
+unclose the shutters and light the fire, she was startled by wild
+exclamations and wilder laughter. The fever had mounted to the brain--he
+was delirious.
+
+For several weeks Philip Beaufort was in imminent danger; for a
+considerable part of that time he was unconscious; and when the peril
+was past, his recovery was slow and gradual. It was the only illness
+to which his vigorous frame had ever been subjected: and the fever
+had perhaps exhausted him more than it might have done one in whose
+constitution the disease had encountered less resistance. His brother;
+imagining he had gone abroad, was unacquainted with his danger. None
+tended his sick-bed save the hireling nurse, the feed physician, and the
+unpurchasable heart of the only being to whom the wealth and rank of the
+Heir of Beaufort Court were as nothing. Here was reserved for him Fate’s
+crowning lesson, in the vanity of those human wishes which anchor in
+gold and power. For how many years had the exile and the outcast pined
+indignantly for his birthright?--Lo! it was won: and with it came the
+crushed heart and the smitten frame. As he slowly recovered sense and
+reasoning, these thoughts struck him forcibly. He felt as if he were
+rightly punished in having disdained, during his earlier youth,
+the enjoyments within his reach. Was there nothing in the glorious
+health--the unconquerable hope--the heart, if wrung, and chafed, and
+sorely tried, free at least from the direst anguish of the passions,
+disappointed and jealous love? Though now certain, if spared to the
+future, to be rich, powerful, righted in name and honour, might he not
+from that sick-bed envy his earlier past? even when with his brother
+orphan he wandered through the solitary fields, and felt with what
+energies we are gifted when we have something to protect; or when,
+loving and beloved, he saw life smile out to him in the eyes of Eugenie;
+or when, after that melancholy loss, he wrestled boldly, and breast to
+breast with Fortune, in a far land, for honour and independence? There
+is something in severe illness, especially if it be in violent contrast
+to the usual strength of the body, which has often the most salutary
+effect upon the mind; which often, by the affliction of the frame,
+roughly wins us from the too morbid pains of the heart! which makes us
+feel that, in mere LIFE, enjoyed as the robust enjoy it, God’s Great
+Principle of Good breathes and moves. We rise thus from the sick-bed
+softened and humbled, and more disposed to look around us for such
+blessings as we may yet command.
+
+The return of Philip, his danger, the necessity of exertion, of tending
+him, had roused Fanny from a state which might otherwise have been
+permanently dangerous to the intellect so lately ripened within her.
+With what patience, with what fortitude, with what unutterable thought
+and devotion, she fulfilled that best and holiest woman’s duty--let the
+man whose struggle with life and death has been blessed with the vigil
+that wakes and saves, imagine to himself. And in all her anxiety and
+terror, she had glimpses of a happiness which it seemed to her almost
+criminal to acknowledge. For, even in his delirium, her voice seemed to
+have some soothing influence over him, and he was calmer while she was
+by. And when at last he was conscious, her face was the first he saw,
+and her name the first which his lips uttered. As then he grew gradually
+stronger, and the bed was deserted for the sofa, he took more than the
+old pleasure in hearing her read to him; which she did with a feeling
+that lecturers cannot teach. And once, in a pause from this occupation,
+he spoke to her frankly,--he sketched his past history--his last
+sacrifice. And Fanny, as she wept, learned that he was no more
+another’s!
+
+It has been said that this man, naturally of an active and impatient
+temperament, had been little accustomed to seek those resources which
+are found in books. But somehow in that sick chamber--it was Fanny’s
+voice--the voice of her over whose mind he had once so haughtily
+lamented, that taught him how much of aid and solace the Herd of Men
+derive from the Everlasting Genius of the Few.
+
+Gradually, and interval by interval, moment by moment, thus drawn
+together, all thought beyond shut out (for, however crushing for the
+time the blow that had stricken Philip from health and reason, he
+was not that slave to a guilty fancy, that he could voluntarily
+indulge--that he would not earnestly seek to shun--all sentiments
+that yet turned with unholy yearning towards the betrothed of his
+brother);--gradually, I say, and slowly, came those progressive and
+delicious epochs which mark a revolution in the affections:--unspeakable
+gratitude, brotherly tenderness, the united strength of compassion
+and respect that he had felt for Fanny seemed, as he gained health, to
+mellow into feelings yet more exquisite and deep. He could no longer
+delude himself with a vain and imperious belief that it was a defective
+mind that his heart protected; he began again to be sensible to the rare
+beauty of that tender face--more lovely, perhaps, for the paleness that
+had replaced its bloom. The fancy that he had so imperiously checked
+before--before he saw Camilla, returned to him, and neither pride nor
+honour had now the right to chase the soft wings away. One evening,
+fancying himself alone, he fell into a profound reverie; he awoke with
+a start, and the exclamation, “was it true love that I ever felt for
+Camilla, or a passion, a frenzy, a delusion?”
+
+His exclamation was answered by a sound that seemed both of joy and
+grief. He looked up, and saw Fanny before him; the light of the moon,
+just risen, fell full on her form, but her hands were clasped before her
+face; he heard her sob.
+
+“Fanny, dear Fanny!” he cried, and sought to throw himself from the sofa
+to her feet. But she drew herself away, and fled from the chamber silent
+as a dream.
+
+Philip rose, and, for the first time since his illness, walked, but with
+feeble steps, to and fro the room. With what different emotions from
+those in which last, in fierce and intolerable agony, he had paced that
+narrow boundary! Returning health crept through his veins--a serene,
+a kindly, a celestial joy circumfused his heart. Had the time yet come
+when the old Florimel had melted into snow; when the new and the true
+one, with its warm life, its tender beauty, its maiden wealth of love,
+had risen before his hopes? He paused before the window; the spot within
+seemed so confined, the night without so calm and lovely, that he forgot
+his still-clinging malady, and unclosed the casement: the air came soft
+and fresh upon his temples, and the church-tower and spire, for the
+first time, did not seem to him to rise in gloom against the heavens.
+Even the gravestone of Catherine, half in moonlight, half in shadow,
+appeared to him to wear a smile. His mother’s memory was become linked
+with the living Fanny.
+
+“Thou art vindicated--thy Sidney is happy,” he murmured: “to her the
+thanks!”
+
+Fair hopes, and soft thoughts busy within him, he remained at the
+casement till the increasing chill warned him of the danger he incurred.
+
+The next day, when the physician visited him, he found the fever had
+returned. For many days, Philip was again in danger--dull, unconscious
+even of the step and voice of Fanny.
+
+He woke at last as from a long and profound sleep; woke so refreshed,
+so revived, that he felt at once that some great crisis had been passed,
+and that at length he had struggled back to the sunny shores of Life.
+
+By his bedside sat Liancourt, who, long alarmed at his disappearance,
+had at last contrived, with the help of Mr. Barlow, to trace him to
+Gawtrey’s house, and had for several days taken share in the vigils of
+poor Fanny.
+
+While he was yet explaining all this to Philip, and congratulating
+him on his evident recovery, the physician entered to confirm the
+congratulation. In a few days the invalid was able to quit his room, and
+nothing but change of air seemed necessary for his convalescence. It was
+then that Liancourt, who had for two days seemed impatient to unburden
+himself of some communication, thus addressed him:--
+
+“My--My dear friend, I have learned now your story from Barlow, who
+called several times during your relapse; and who is the more anxious
+about you, as the time for the decision of your case now draws near. The
+sooner you quit this house the better.”
+
+“Quit this house! and why? Is there not one in this house to whom I owe
+my fortune and my life?”
+
+“Yes; and for that reason I say, ‘Go hence:’ it is the only return you
+can make her.”
+
+“Pshaw!--speak intelligibly.”
+
+“I will,” said Liancourt, gravely. “I have been a watcher with her
+by your sick-bed, and I know what you must feel already:--nay, I must
+confess that even the old servant has ventured to speak to me. You have
+inspired that poor girl with feelings dangerous to her peace.”
+
+“Ha!” cried Philip, with such joy that Liancourt frowned, and said,
+“Hitherto I have believed you too honourable to--”
+
+“So you think she loves me?” interrupted Philip. “Yes; what then? You,
+the heir of Beaufort Court, of a rental of L20,000. a year,--of an
+historical name,--you cannot marry this poor girl?”
+
+“Well!--I will consider what you say, and, at all events, I will leave
+the house to attend the result of the trial. Let us talk no more on the
+subject now.”
+
+Philip had the penetration to perceive that Liancourt, who was greatly
+moved by the beauty, the innocence, and the unprotected position of
+Fanny, had not confined caution to himself; that with his characteristic
+well-meaning bluntness, and with the license of a man somewhat advanced
+in years, he had spoken to Fanny herself: for Fanny now seemed to shun
+Philip,--her eyes were heavy, her manner was embarrassed. He saw the
+change, but it did not grieve him; he hailed the omens which he drew
+from it.
+
+And at last he and Liancourt went. He was absent three weeks, during
+which time the formality of the friendly lawsuit was decided in the
+plaintiff’s favour; and the public were in ecstasies at the noble
+and sublime conduct of Mr. Robert Beaufort: who, the moment he had
+discovered a document which he might so easily have buried for ever in
+oblivion, voluntarily agreed to dispossess himself of estates he had so
+long enjoyed, preferring conscience to lucre. Some persons observed that
+it was reported that Mr. Philip Beaufort had also been generous--that he
+had agreed to give up the estates for his uncle’s life, and was only
+in the meanwhile to receive a fourth of the revenues. But the universal
+comment was, “He could not have done less!” Mr. Robert Beaufort was, as
+Lord Lilburne had once observed, a man who was born, made, and reared
+to be spoken well of by the world; and it was a comfort to him now,
+poor man, to feel that his character was so highly estimated. If
+Philip should live to the age of one hundred, he will never become so
+respectable and popular a man with the crowd as his worthy uncle. But
+does it much matter? Philip returned to H---- the eve before the day
+fixed for the marriage of his brother and Camilla.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+     From Night, Sunshine and Day arose--HES
+
+The sun of early May shone cheerfully over the quiet suburb of H----. In
+the thoroughfares life was astir. It was the hour of noon--the hour at
+which commerce is busy, and streets are full. The old retired trader,
+eying wistfully the rolling coach or the oft-pausing omnibus, was
+breathing the fresh and scented air in the broadest and most crowded
+road, from which, afar in the distance, rose the spires of the
+metropolis. The boy let loose from the day-school was hurrying home
+to dinner, his satchel on his back: the ballad-singer was sending her
+cracked whine through the obscurer alleys, where the baker’s boy, with
+puddings on his tray, and the smart maid-servant, despatched for porter,
+paused to listen. And round the shops where cheap shawls and cottons
+tempted the female eye, many a loitering girl detained her impatient
+mother, and eyed the tickets and calculated her hard-gained savings for
+the Sunday gear. And in the corners of the streets steamed the itinerant
+kitchens of the piemen, and rose the sharp cry, “All hot! all hot!” in
+the ear of infant and ragged hunger. And amidst them all rolled on some
+lazy coach of ancient merchant or withered maiden, unconscious of any
+life but that creeping through their own languid veins. And before the
+house in which Catherine died, there loitered many stragglers, gossips,
+of the hamlet, subscribers to the news-room hard by, to guess, and
+speculate, and wonder why, from the church behind, there rose the merry
+peal of the marriage-bell!
+
+At length along the broad road leading from the great city, there were
+seen rapidly advancing three carriages of a very different fashion from
+those familiar to the suburb. On they came; swiftly they whirled round
+the angle that conducted to the church; the hoofs of the gay steeds
+ringing cheerily on the ground; the white favours of the servants
+gleaming in the sun. Happy is the bride the sun shines on! And when the
+carriages had thus vanished, the scattered groups melted into one crowd,
+and took their way to the church. They stood idling without in the
+burial-ground; many of them round the fence that guarded from
+their footsteps Catherine’s lonely grave. All in nature was glad,
+exhilarating, and yet serene; a genial freshness breathed through the
+soft air; not a cloud was to be seen in the smiling azure; even the old
+dark yews seemed happy in their everlasting verdure. The bell ceased,
+and then even the crowd grew silent; and not a sound was heard in that
+solemn spot to whose demesnes are consecrated alike the Birth, the
+Marriage, and the Death.
+
+At length there came forth from the church door the goodly form of a
+rosy beadle. Approaching the groups, he whispered the better-dressed
+and commanded the ragged, remonstrated with the old and lifted his cane
+against the young; and the result of all was, that the churchyard, not
+without many a murmur and expostulation, was cleared, and the crowd fell
+back in the space behind the gates of the principal entrance, where they
+swayed and gaped and chattered round the carriages, which were to bear
+away the bridal party.
+
+Within the church, as the ceremony was now concluded, Philip Beaufort
+conducted, hand-in-hand, silently along the aisle, his brother’s wife.
+
+Leaning on his stick, his cold sneer upon his thin lip, Lord Lilburne
+limped, step by step, with the pair, though a little apart from them,
+glancing from moment to moment at the face of Philip Beaufort, where he
+had hoped to read a grief that he could not detect. Lord Lilburne had
+carefully refrained from an interview with Philip till that day, and
+he now only came to the wedding as a surgeon goes to an hospital, to
+examine a disease he had been told would be great and sore: he was
+disappointed. Close behind followed Sidney, radiant with joy, and bloom,
+and beauty; and his kind guardian, the tears rolling down his eyes,
+murmured blessings as he looked upon him. Mrs. Beaufort had declined
+attending the ceremony--her nerves were too weak--but, behind, at a
+longer interval, came Robert Beaufort, sober, staid, collected as ever
+to outward seeming; but a close observer might have seen that his eye
+had lost its habitual complacent cunning, that his step was more
+heavy, his stoop more joyless. About his air there was a some thing
+crestfallen. The consciousness of acres had passed away from his portly
+presence. He was no longer a possessor, but a pensioner. The rich man,
+who had decided as he pleased on the happiness of others, was a cipher;
+he had ceased to have any interest in anything. What to him the marriage
+of his daughter now? Her children would not be the heirs of Beaufort.
+As Camilla kindly turned round, and through happy tears waited for his
+approach, to clasp his hand, he forced a smile, but it was sickly and
+piteous. He longed to creep away, and be alone.
+
+“My father!” said Camilla, in her sweet low voice; and she extricated
+herself from Philip, and threw herself on his breast.
+
+“She is a good child,” said Robert Beaufort vacantly, and, turning
+his dry eyes to the group, he caught instinctively at his customary
+commonplaces;--“and a good child, Mr. Sidney, makes a good wife!”
+
+The clergyman bowed as if the compliment were addressed to himself: he
+was the only man there whom Robert Beaufort could now deceive.
+
+“My sister,” said Philip Beaufort, as once more leaning on his arm, they
+paused before the church door, “may Sidney love and prize you as--as
+I would have done; and believe me, both of you, I have no regret, no
+memory, that wounds me now.”
+
+He dropped the hand, and motioned to her father to load her to the
+carriage. Then winding his arm into Sidney’s, he said,--
+
+“Wait till they are gone: I have one word yet with you. Go on,
+gentlemen.”
+
+The clergyman bowed, and walked through the churchyard. But Lilburne,
+pausing and surveying Philip Beaufort, said to him, whisperingly,--
+
+“And so much for feeling--the folly! So much for generosity--the
+delusion! Happy man!”
+
+“I am thoroughly happy, Lord Lilburne.”
+
+“Are you?--Then, it was neither feeling nor generosity; and we were
+taken in! Good day.” With that he limped slowly to the gate.
+
+Philip answered not the sarcasm even by a look. For at that moment a
+loud shout was set up by the mob without--they had caught a glimpse of
+the bride.
+
+“Come, Sidney, this way.” he said; “I must not detain you long.”
+
+Arm in arm they passed out of the church, and turned to the spot hard
+by, where the flowers smiled up to them from the stone on their mother’s
+grave.
+
+The old inscription had been effaced, and the name of CATHERINE BEAUFORT
+was placed upon the stone. “Brother,” said Philip, “do not forget this
+grave: years hence, when children play around your own hearth. Observe,
+the name of Catherine Beaufort is fresher on the stone than the dates
+of birth and death--the name was only inscribed there to-day--your
+wedding-day. Brother, by this grave we are now indeed united.”
+
+“Oh, Philip!” cried Sidney, in deep emotion, clasping the hand stretched
+out to him; “I feel, I feel how noble, how great you are--that you have
+sacrificed more than I dreamed of--”
+
+“Hush!” said Philip, with a smile. “No talk of this. I am happier than
+you deem me. Go back now--she waits you.”
+
+“And you?--leave you!--alone!”
+
+“Not alone,” said Philip, pointing to the grave.
+
+Scarce had he spoken when, from the gate, came the shrill, clear voice
+of Lord Lilburne,--
+
+“We wait for Mr. Sidney Beaufort.”
+
+Sidney passed his hand over his eyes, wrung the hand of his brother once
+more, and in a moment was by Camilla’s side.
+
+Another shout--the whirl of the wheels--the trampling of feet--the
+distant hum and murmur--and all was still. The clerk returned to lock up
+the church--he did not observe where Philip stood in the shadow of the
+wall--and went home to talk of the gay wedding, and inquire at what
+hour the funeral of the young woman; his next-door neighbour, would take
+place the next day.
+
+It might be a quarter of an hour after Philip was thus left--nor had he
+moved from the spot--when he felt his sleeve pulled gently. He turned
+round and saw before him the wistful face of Fanny!
+
+“So you would not come to the wedding?” said he.
+
+“No. But I fancied you might be here alone--and sad.”
+
+“And you will not even wear the dress I gave you?”
+
+“Another time. Tell me, are you unhappy?”
+
+“Unhappy, Fanny! No; look around. The very burial-ground has a smile.
+See the laburnums clustering over the wall, listen to the birds on the
+dark yews above, and yonder see even the butterfly has settled upon her
+grave!
+
+“I am not unhappy.” As he thus spoke he looked at her earnestly,
+and taking both her hands in his, drew her gently towards him, and
+continued: “Fanny, do you remember, that, leaning over that gate, I once
+spoke to you of the happiness of marriage where two hearts are united?
+Nay, Fanny, nay, I must go on. It was here in this spot,--it was here
+that I first saw you on my return to England. I came to seek the dead,
+and I have thought since, it was my mother’s guardian spirit that drew
+me hither to find you--the living! And often afterwards, Fanny, you
+would come with me here, when, blinded and dull as I was, I came to
+brood and to repine, insensible of the treasures even then perhaps
+within my reach. But, best as it was: the ordeal through which I have
+passed has made me more grateful for the prize I now dare to hope for.
+On this grave your hand daily renewed the flowers. By this grave, the
+link between the Time and the Eternity, whose lessons we have read
+together, will you consent to record our vows? Fanny, dearest, fairest,
+tenderest, best, I love you, and at last as alone you should be
+loved!--I woo you as my wife! Mine, not for a season, but for ever--for
+ever, even when these graves are open, and the World shrivels like a
+scroll. Do you understand me?--do you heed me?--or have I dreamed that
+that--”
+
+He stopped short--a dismay seized him at her silence. Had he been
+mistaken in his divine belief!--the fear was momentary: for Fanny, who
+had recoiled as he spoke, now placing her hands to her temples, gazing
+on him, breathlessly and with lips apart, as if, indeed, with great
+effort and struggle her modest spirit conceived the possibility of the
+happiness that broke upon it, advanced timidly, her face suffused in
+blushes; and, looking into his eyes, as if she would read into his very
+soul, said, with an accent, the intenseness of which showed that her
+whole fate hung on his answer,--
+
+“But this is pity?--they have told you that I--in short, you are
+generous--you--you--Oh, deceive me not! Do you love her still?--Can
+you--do you love the humble, foolish Fanny?”
+
+“As God shall judge me, sweet one, I am sincere! I have survived a
+passion--never so deep, so tender, so entire as that I now feel for you!
+And, oh, Fanny, hear this true confession. It was you--you to whom my
+heart turned before I saw Camilla!--against that impulse I struggled in
+the blindness of a haughty error!”
+
+Fanny uttered a low and suppressed cry of delight and rapture. Philip
+passionately continued,--
+
+“Fanny, make blessed the life you have saved. Fate destined us for
+each other. Fate for me has ripened your sweet mind. Fate for you has
+softened this rugged heart. We may have yet much to bear and much to
+learn. We will console and teach each other!”
+
+He drew her to his breast as he spoke--drew her trembling, blushing,
+confused, but no more reluctant; and there, by the GRAVE that had been
+so memorable a scene in their common history, were murmured those
+vows in which all this world knows of human happiness is treasured and
+recorded--love that takes the sting from grief, and faith that gives
+eternity to love. All silent, yet all serene around them! Above, the
+heaven,--at their feet, the grave:--For the love, the grave!--for the
+faith, the heaven!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE LAST.
+
+
+        “A labore reclinat otium.”--HORAT.
+
+        [Leisure unbends itself from labour.]
+
+I feel that there is some justice in the affection the general reader
+entertains for the old-fashioned and now somewhat obsolete custom, of
+giving to him, at the close of a work, the latest news of those who
+sought his acquaintance through its progress.
+
+The weak but well-meaning Smith, no more oppressed by the evil
+influence of his brother, has continued to pass his days in comfort and
+respectability on the income settled on him by Philip Beaufort. Mr. and
+Mrs. Roger Morton still live, and have just resigned their business to
+their eldest son; retiring themselves to a small villa adjoining the
+town in which they had made their fortune. Mrs. Morton is very apt, when
+she goes out to tea, to talk of her dear deceased sister-in-law, the
+late Mrs. Beaufort, and of her own remarkable kindness to her nephew
+when a little boy. She observes that, in fact, the young men owe
+everything to Mr. Roger and herself; and, indeed, though Sidney was
+never of a grateful disposition, and has not been near her since, yet
+the elder brother, the Mr. Beaufort, always evinces his respect to them
+by the yearly present of a fat buck. She then comments on the ups and
+downs of life; and observes that it is a pity her son Tom preferred the
+medical profession to the church. Their cousin, Mr. Beaufort, has two
+livings. To all this Mr. Roger says nothing, except an occasional “Thank
+Heaven, I want no man’s help! I am as well to do as my neighbours. But
+that’s neither here nor there.”
+
+There are some readers--they who do not thoroughly consider the truths
+of this life--who will yet ask, “But how is Lord Lilburne punished?”
+ Punished?--ay, and indeed, how? The world, and not the poet, must answer
+that question. Crime is punished from without. If Vice is punished, it
+must be from within. The Lilburnes of this hollow world are not to be
+pelted with the soft roses of poetical justice. They who ask why he is
+not punished may be the first to doff the hat to the equipage in which
+my lord lolls through the streets! The only offence he habitually
+committed of a nature to bring the penalties of detection, he renounced
+the moment he perceived there was clanger of discovery! he gambled no
+more after Philip’s hint. He was one of those, some years after, most
+bitter upon a certain nobleman charged with unfair play--one of those
+who took the accusation as proved; and whose authority settled all
+disputes thereon.
+
+But, if no thunderbolt falls on Lord Lilburne’s head--if he is fated
+still to eat, and drink, and to die on his bed, he may yet taste the
+ashes of the Dead Sea fruit which his hands have culled. He is
+grown old. His infirmities increase upon him; his sole resources of
+pleasure--the senses--are dried up. For him there is no longer savour
+in the viands, or sparkle in the wine,--man delights him not, nor woman
+neither. He is alone with Old Age, and in the sight of Death.
+
+With the exception of Simon, who died in his chair not many days after
+Sidney’s marriage, Robert Beaufort is the only one among the more
+important agents left at the last scene of this history who has passed
+from our mortal stage.
+
+After the marriage of his daughter he for some time moped and drooped.
+But Philip learned from Mr. Blackwell of the will that Robert had made
+previously to the lawsuit; and by which, had the lawsuit failed,
+his rights would yet have been preserved to him. Deeply moved by a
+generosity he could not have expected from his uncle, and not pausing
+to inquire too closely how far it was to be traced to the influence of
+Arthur, Philip so warmly expressed his gratitude, and so surrounded
+Mr. Beaufort with affectionate attentions, that the poor man began to
+recover his self-respect,--began even to regard the nephew he had so
+long dreaded, as a son,--to forgive him for not marrying Camilla. And,
+perhaps, to his astonishment, an act in his life for which the customs
+of the world (that never favour natural ties not previously sanctioned
+by the legal) would have rather censured than praised, became his
+consolation; and the memory he was most proud to recall. He gradually
+recovered his spirits; he was very fond of looking over that will: he
+carefully preserved it: he even flattered himself that it was necessary
+to preserve Philip from all possible litigation hereafter; for if the
+estates were not legally Philip’s, why, then, they were his to dispose
+of as he pleased. He was never more happy than when his successor was by
+his side; and was certainly a more cheerful and, I doubt not, a better
+man--during the few years in which he survived the law-suit--than ever
+he had been before. He died--still member for the county, and still
+quoted as a pattern to county members--in Philip’s arms; and on his lips
+there was a smile that even Lilburne would have called sincere.
+
+Mrs. Beaufort, after her husband’s death, established herself in
+London; and could never be persuaded to visit Beaufort Court. She took a
+companion, who more than replaced, in her eyes, the absence of Camilla.
+
+And Camilla-Spencer-Sidney. They live still by the gentle Lake, happy in
+their own serene joys and graceful leisure; shunning alike ambition and
+its trials, action and its sharp vicissitudes; envying no one, covetous
+of nothing; making around them, in the working world, something of the
+old pastoral and golden holiday. If Camilla had at one time wavered in
+her allegiance to Sidney, her good and simple heart has long since been
+entirely regained by his devotion; and, as might be expected from her
+disposition, she loved him better after marriage than before.
+
+Philip had gone through severer trials than Sidney. But, had their
+earlier fates been reversed, and that spirit, in youth so haughty and
+self-willed, been lapped in ease and luxury, would Philip now be a
+better or a happier man? Perhaps, too, for a less tranquil existence
+than his brother, Philip yet may be reserved; but, in proportion to the
+uses of our destiny, do we repose or toil: he who never knows pain knows
+but the half of pleasure. The lot of whatever is most noble on the earth
+below falls not amidst the rosy Gardels of the Epicurean. We may envy
+the man who enjoys and rests; but the smile of Heaven settles rather on
+the front of him who labours and aspires.
+
+And did Philip ever regret the circumstances that had given him Fanny
+for the partner of his life? To some who take their notions of the
+Ideal from the conventional rules of romance, rather than from their
+own perceptions of what is true, this narrative would have been more
+pleasing had Philip never loved but Fanny. But all that had led to that
+love had only served to render it more enduring and concentred. Man’s
+strongest and worthiest affection is his last--is the one that unites
+and embodies all his past dreams of what is excellent--the one from
+which Hope springs out the brighter from former disappointments--the one
+in which the MEMORIES are the most tender and the most abundant--the one
+which, replacing all others, nothing hereafter can replace.
+
+
+         ......
+
+And now ere the scene closes, and the audience, whom perhaps the actors
+may have interested for a while, disperse, to forget amidst the pursuits
+of actual life the Shadows that have amused an hour, or beguiled a care,
+let the curtain fall on one happy picture:--
+
+It is some years after the marriage of Philip and Fanny. It is a summer
+morning. In a small old-fashioned room at Beaufort Court, with its
+casements open to the gardens, stood Philip, having just entered; and
+near the window sat Fanny, his boy by her side. She was at the mother’s
+hardest task--the first lessons to the first-born child; and as the boy
+looked up at her sweet earnest face with a smile of intelligence on
+his own, you might have seen at a glance how well understood were the
+teacher and the pupil. Yes: whatever might have been wanting in the
+Virgin to the full development of mind, the cares of the mother had
+supplied. When a being was born to lean on her alone--dependent on
+her providence for life--then hour after hour, step after step, in the
+progress of infant destinies, had the reason of the mother grown in the
+child’s growth, adapting itself to each want that it must foresee, and
+taking its perfectness and completion from the breath of the New Love!
+
+The child caught sight of Philip and rushed to embrace him.
+
+“See!” whispered Fanny, as she also hung upon him, and strange
+recollections of her own mysterious childhood crowded upon her,--“See,”
+ whispered she, with a blush half of shame and half of pride, “the poor
+idiot girl is the teacher of your child!”
+
+“And,” answered Philip, “whether for child or mother, what teacher is
+like Love?”
+
+Thus saying, he took the boy into his arms; and, as he bent over those
+rosy cheeks, Fanny saw, from the movement of his lips and the moisture
+in his eyes, that he blessed God. He looked upon the mother’s face, he
+glanced round on the flowers and foliage of the luxurious summer, and
+again he blessed God: And without and within, it was Light and MORNING!
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Night and Morning, Complete, by
+Edward Bulwer-Lytton
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diff --git a/9755-0.zip b/9755-0.zip
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+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Night and Morning, by Edward Bulwer Lytton
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd7; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    pre     { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
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+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+Project Gutenberg's Night and Morning, Complete, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Night and Morning, Complete
+
+Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton
+
+Release Date: March 17, 2009 [EBook #9755]
+Last Updated: August 28, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NIGHT AND MORNING, COMPLETE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      NIGHT AND MORNING
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By Edward Bulwer Lytton
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1845. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> <b>NIGHT AND MORNING.</b> </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> <br /><b>BOOK</b> I. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER II. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER III. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER IV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER V. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER VI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER IX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER X. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER XI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> <br /><b>BOOK</b> II. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER I. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER II. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER III. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER IV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER V. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER VI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER VII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER VIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER IX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER X. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> <br /><b>BOOK</b> III. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER I. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER II. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER III. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER IV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER V. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER VI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER VII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER VIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0031"> CHAPTER IX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0032"> CHAPTER X. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0033"> CHAPTER XI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0034"> CHAPTER XII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0035"> CHAPTER XIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0036"> CHAPTER XIV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0043"> <br /><b>BOOK</b> IV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0037"> CHAPTER I. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0038"> CHAPTER II. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0039"> CHAPTER III. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0040"> CHAPTER IV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0041"> CHAPTER V. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0042"> CHAPTER VI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0043"> CHAPTER VII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0044"> CHAPTER VIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0052"> <br /><b>BOOK</b> V. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0045"> CHAPTER I. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0046"> CHAPTER II. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0047"> CHAPTER III. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0048"> CHAPTER IV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0049"> CHAPTER V. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0050"> CHAPTER VI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0051"> CHAPTER VII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0052"> CHAPTER VIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0053"> CHAPTER IX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0054"> CHAPTER X. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0055"> CHAPTER XI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0056"> CHAPTER XII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0057"> CHAPTER XIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0058"> CHAPTER XIV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0059"> CHAPTER XV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0060"> CHAPTER XVI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0061"> CHAPTER XVII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0062"> CHAPTER XVIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0063"> CHAPTER XIX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0064"> CHAPTER XX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0065"> CHAPTER XXI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0066"> CHAPTER XII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0067"> CHAPTER THE LAST. </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1845.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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;&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  *[I use the word Poet in its proper sense, as applicable to any
+   writer, whether in verse or prose, who invents or creates.]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the pursuit of this object, I am, not vainly, conscious that I have had
+      my influence on my time&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;it
+      has had its share in results yet more valuable, because leading to more
+      comprehensive reforms&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this Novel of Night and Morning I have had various ends in view&mdash;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&mdash;to deal fearlessly with that universal
+      unsoundness in social justice which makes distinctions so marked and
+      iniquitous between Vice and Crime&mdash;viz., between the corrupting
+      habits and the violent act&mdash;which scarce touches the former with the
+      lightest twig in the fasces&mdash;which lifts against the latter the edge
+      of the Lictor&rsquo;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&mdash;let him devote a
+      fortune, perhaps colossal, to the wholesale demoralisation of his kind&mdash;and
+      he may be surrounded with the adulation of the so-called virtuous, and be
+      served upon its knee, by that Lackey&mdash;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 Hustings, through Constituents, and on Legislation;&mdash;I
+      direct myself to a channel less active, more tardy, but as sure&mdash;to
+      the Conscience&mdash;that reigns elder and superior to all Law, in men&rsquo;s
+      hearts and souls;&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Secondly&mdash;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&mdash;the systematic self-server&mdash;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,&mdash;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.&mdash;[Need
+      I say that I allude to the Pecksniff of Mr. Dickens?]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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;&mdash;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.&mdash;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&mdash;&ldquo;Be honest
+      in temptation, and in Adversity believe in God.&rdquo; 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,&mdash;from
+      courage the one, from affection the other&mdash;amidst the feeble
+      Hermaphrodites of our sickly civilisation;&mdash;examples of resolute
+      Manhood and tender Womanhood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Knelworth, 1845. NOTE TO THE PRESENT EDITION, 1851.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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 &ldquo;Beaufort versus
+      Beaufort,&rdquo; 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.&mdash;(N.B.
+      He was feed.) Judge then my dismay when I heard long afterwards that the
+      late Mr. O&rsquo;Connell disputed the soundness of the law I had thus bought and
+      paid for! &ldquo;Who shall decide when doctors disagree?&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   [I have, however, thought it prudent so far to meet the objection
+   suggested by Mr. O&rsquo;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&mdash;the Beaufort Property.]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kenbworth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      NIGHT AND MORNING.
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BOOK I.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+          &ldquo;Noch in meines Lebens Lenze
+          War ich and ich wandert&rsquo; aus,
+          Und der Jugend frohe Tanze
+          Liess ich in des Vaters Haus.&rdquo;
+ 
+                 SCHILLER, Der Pilgrim.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        &ldquo;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.&rdquo;&mdash;CRABBE.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In one of the Welsh counties is a small village called A&mdash;&mdash;. 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&mdash;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&mdash;&mdash;,
+      being somewhat more frequented, is also more clean and comfortable than
+      could reasonably be anticipated from the insignificance and remoteness of
+      the village.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Gentle Mother.&rdquo; And, though the very reverse of an
+      ambitious or calculating man, he had certainly nourished the belief that
+      some one of the &ldquo;hats&rdquo; or &ldquo;tinsel gowns&rdquo;&mdash;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,&mdash;a friend, fortunately for him, of high connections
+      and brilliant prospects&mdash;succeeded in obtaining for him the humble
+      living of A&mdash;&mdash;. To this primitive spot the once jovial
+      roisterer cheerfully retired&mdash;contrived to live contented upon an
+      income somewhat less than he had formerly given to his groom&mdash;preached
+      very short sermons to a very scanty and ignorant congregation, some of
+      whom only understood Welsh&mdash;did good to the poor and sick in his own
+      careless, slovenly way&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;to
+      talk about the Great World&mdash;in a word, to exchange ideas, and perhaps
+      to get an old newspaper, or an odd number of a magazine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;a strange gentleman, who had never
+      been there before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;&mdash;. 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&mdash;the
+      ample chest and sinewy limbs, seen to full advantage in their simple and
+      manly dress&mdash;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,&mdash;he stopped
+      short, held out his hand, and said, with a gay laugh, as he glanced over
+      the parson&rsquo;s threadbare and slovenly costume, &ldquo;My poor Caleb!&mdash;what a
+      metamorphosis!&mdash;I should not have known you again!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What! you! Is it possible, my dear fellow?&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is precisely the reason why I am here. Sit down, Caleb, and we&rsquo;ll
+      talk over matters as soon as our landlord has brought up the materials for&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The milk-punch,&rdquo; interrupted Mr. Price, rubbing his hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, that will bring us back to old times, indeed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In a few minutes the punch was prepared, and after two or three
+      preparatory glasses, the stranger thus commenced: &ldquo;My dear Caleb, I am in
+      want of your assistance, and above all of your secrecy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I promise you both beforehand. It will make me happy the rest of my life
+      to think I have served my patron&mdash;my benefactor&mdash;the only friend
+      I possess.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tush, man! don&rsquo;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&mdash;married,
+      old boy! married!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the stranger threw himself back in his chair, and chuckled with the
+      glee of a schoolboy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph!&rdquo; said the parson, gravely. &ldquo;It is a serious thing to do, and a
+      very odd place to come to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I admit both propositions: this punch is superb. To proceed. You know
+      that my uncle&rsquo;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&rsquo;s daughter; I am
+      going to marry a tradesman&rsquo;s daughter&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you marry by license?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;ve
+      contrived it famously!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my dear fellow, consider what you risk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;I
+      leave it to you to select him&mdash;shall be the other. My servant I shall
+      dispose of, and the rest I can depend on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        .......
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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,&mdash;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. &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; she
+      said, in a voice choked with tears, when they found themselves alone in
+      the little parlour,&mdash;&ldquo;ah! if you knew how I have suffered!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      How is it that certain words, and those the homeliest, which the hand
+      writes and the eye reads as trite and commonplace expressions&mdash;when
+      spoken convey so much,&mdash;so many meanings complicated and refined?
+      &ldquo;Ah! if you knew how I have suffered!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When the lover heard these words, his gay countenance fell; he drew back&mdash;his
+      conscience smote him: in that complaint was the whole history of a
+      clandestine love, not for both the parties, but for the woman&mdash;the
+      painful secrecy&mdash;the remorseful deceit&mdash;the shame&mdash;the fear&mdash;the
+      sacrifice. She who uttered those words was scarcely sixteen. It is an
+      early age to leave Childhood behind for ever!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My own love! you have suffered, indeed; but it is over now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Over! And what will they say of me&mdash;what will they think of me at
+      home? Over! Ah!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;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!&mdash;from poverty and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is enough,&rdquo; interrupted the girl; and the expression of her
+      countenance became serene and elevated. &ldquo;It is for you&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour after these words were spoken, the marriage ceremony was
+      concluded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Caleb,&rdquo; said the bridegroom, drawing the clergyman aside as they were
+      about to re-enter the house, &ldquo;you will keep your promise, I know; and you
+      think I may depend implicitly upon the good faith of the witness you have
+      selected?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Upon his good faith?&mdash;no,&rdquo; said Caleb, smiling, &ldquo;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!&rdquo; And the village priest sighed,
+      and thought of the coming winter and his own lonely hearth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear friend, you have only seen her beauty&mdash;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&rsquo;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,&rdquo;&mdash;and the bridegroom
+      turned to the servant who had accompanied his wife, and served as a second
+      witness to the marriage,&mdash;&ldquo;tell the post-boy to put to the horses
+      immediately.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Sir. May I speak a word with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your uncle, sir, sent for me to come to him, the day before we left
+      town.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aha!&mdash;indeed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I could just pick up among his servants that he had some suspicion&mdash;at
+      least, that he had been making inquiries&mdash;and seemed very cross,
+      sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You went to him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Sir, I was afraid. He has such a way with him;&mdash;whenever his eye
+      is fixed on mine, I always feel as if it was impossible to tell a lie; and&mdash;and&mdash;in
+      short, I thought it was best not to go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did right. Confound this fellow!&rdquo; muttered the bridegroom, turning
+      away; &ldquo;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&mdash;the
+      sooner the better. Smith!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, sir, you are too generous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense&mdash;no thanks&mdash;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&rsquo;s agreed, then; order the horses,
+      we&rsquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, indeed, sir. It&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the very reason I mentioned him. If he learned our secret, he
+      would take it to an excellent market. Where is he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hiding, I suspect, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, we shall put the sea between you and him! So now all&rsquo;s safe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;she was his for ever. She forgot the rest. The
+      hope&mdash;the heart of sixteen&mdash;spoke brightly out through the
+      blushes that mantled over her fair cheeks. The bridegroom&rsquo;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,&mdash;the clergyman
+      was left alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;that mare magnum
+      that frets and roars in the distance&mdash;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 &ldquo;the bright tumult&rdquo; of
+      that existence of which your guest made a part,&mdash;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,&mdash;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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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;&mdash;the social
+      parties, the merry suppers, the open-handed, open-hearted fellowship of
+      riotous, delightful, extravagant, thoughtless YOUTH. And Caleb was not a
+      bookman&mdash;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&mdash;wealth and station&mdash;the conventional distinctions
+      to which, after all, a man of ordinary sense must sooner or later
+      reconcile himself&mdash;but in that one respect wherein all, high and low,
+      pretend to the same rights&mdash;rights which a man of moderate warmth of
+      feeling can never willingly renounce&mdash;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&mdash;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&rsquo;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&mdash;the love-romance of his life: it soon closed.
+      On learning the amount of the pastor&rsquo;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&rsquo;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,&mdash;and
+      the pastor&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+      &ldquo;whistled as he went;&rdquo; alas, he was no longer &ldquo;in want of thought!&rdquo; By
+      degrees, the walks themselves were suspended; the parson was no longer
+      visible: a stranger performed his duties.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day, it might be some three years and more after the fatal visit I
+      have commemorated&mdash;one very wild rough day in early March, the
+      postman, who made the round of the district, rang at the parson&rsquo;s bell.
+      The single female servant, her red hair loose on her neck, replied to the
+      call.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how is the master?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very bad;&rdquo; and the girl wiped her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He should leave you something handsome,&rdquo; remarked the postman, kindly, as
+      he pocketed the money for the letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pastor was in bed&mdash;the boisterous wind rattled down 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s a letter for you,&rdquo; said the visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For me!&rdquo; echoed Caleb, feebly. &ldquo;Ah&mdash;well&mdash;is it not very dark,
+      or are my eyes failing?&rdquo; The clergyman and the servant drew aside the
+      curtains and propped the sick man up: he read as follows, slowly, and with
+      difficulty:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;DEAR, CALEB,&mdash;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&mdash;small parish. And my
+      friend keeps the hounds!&mdash;just the thing for you. He is, however, a
+      very particular sort of person&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve sown my wild oats; and that
+      you may take my word for it, there&rsquo;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&rsquo;s hunting) and sees his own fireside, and hears one dear
+      welcome; and&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, old fellow,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yours most truly, &amp;c., &amp;c.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It comes too late,&rdquo; sighed Caleb, heavily; and the letter fell from his
+      hands. There was a long pause. &ldquo;Close the shutters,&rdquo; said the sick man, at
+      last; &ldquo;I think I could sleep: and&mdash;and&mdash;pick up that letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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. &ldquo;There is something he wants me do for him,&rdquo; he
+      muttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! I remember: Jones, will you send for the parish register? It is
+      somewhere in the vestry-room, I think&mdash;but nothing&rsquo;s kept properly.
+      Better go yourself&mdash;&lsquo;tis important.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Jones nodded, and sallied forth. The register was not in the vestry;
+      the church-wardens knew nothing about it; the clerk&mdash;a new clerk, who
+      was also the sexton, and rather a wild fellow&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Extract this for me, will you?&rdquo; said Caleb. Mr. Jones obeyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, just write above the extract:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Sir,&mdash;By Mr. Price&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Caleb stopped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is all I have to say: sign your name, and put the address&mdash;here
+      it is. Ah, the letter,&rdquo; he muttered, &ldquo;must not lie about! If anything
+      happens to me, it may get him into trouble.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And as Mr. Jones sealed his communication, Caleb feebly stretched his wan
+      hand, held the letter which had &ldquo;come too late&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, trample it out:&mdash;hurry it amongst the ashes. The last as the
+      rest,&rdquo; said Caleb, hoarsely. &ldquo;Friendship, fortune, hope, love, life&mdash;a
+      little flame, and then&mdash;and then&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be uneasy&mdash;it&rsquo;s quite out!&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s wish, still on the table. &ldquo;I
+      pass the post-office&mdash;I&rsquo;ll put it in,&rdquo; said he to the weeping
+      servant; &ldquo;and just give me that scrap of paper.&rdquo; So he wrote on the scrap,
+      &ldquo;P. S. He died this morning at half-past twelve, without pain.&mdash;M.
+      J.;&rdquo; 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 vest 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s gown&mdash;relic of the
+      dead man&rsquo;s palmy time; a bag of carpenter&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s labour&mdash;the intended gift to the false one&rsquo;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&mdash;for they considered their parents (as the children of the
+      hard-working often do) the natural foes to amusement&mdash;they carried
+      the monster into an old outhouse, and ran to the veteran to beg him to
+      come up slyly and inspect its properties.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three months after this memorable event, arrived the new pastor&mdash;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&mdash;the
+      church-wardens interrogated; the gay clerk, who, on the demise of his deaf
+      predecessor, had come into office a little before Caleb&rsquo;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&mdash;the
+      cupboard, the mysterious cupboard, was explored. &ldquo;Here it is, sir!&rdquo; cried
+      the clerk; and he pounced upon a pale parchment volume. The thin clergyman
+      opened it, and recoiled in dismay&mdash;more than three-fourths of the
+      leaves had been torn out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the moths, sir,&rdquo; said the gardener&rsquo;s wife, who had not yet removed
+      from the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The clergyman looked round; one of the children was trembling. &ldquo;What have
+      you done to this book, little one?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That book?&mdash;the&mdash;hi!&mdash;hi!&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Speak the truth, and you sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t be punished.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not know it was any harm&mdash;hi!&mdash;hi!&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And old Ben helped us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;hi!&mdash;hi!&mdash;The tail of the kite,
+      sir!&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is the kite?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;for servants are too honest to steal; things that break
+      themselves&mdash;for servants are too careful to break; find an
+      everlasting and impenetrable refuge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It does not signify a pin&rsquo;s head,&rdquo; said the clerk; &ldquo;the parish must find
+      a new &lsquo;un!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is no fault of mine,&rdquo; said the Pastor. &ldquo;Are my chops ready?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      &ldquo;And soothed with idle dreams the frowning fate.&rdquo;&mdash;CRABBE.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why does not my father come back? what a time he has been away!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Philip, business detains him; but he will be here in a few days&mdash;perhaps
+      to-day!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like him to see how much I am improved.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Improved in what, Philip?&rdquo; said the mother, with a smile. &ldquo;Not Latin, I
+      am sure; for I have not seen you open a book since you insisted on poor
+      Todd&rsquo;s dismissal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Todd! Oh, he was such a scrub, and spoke through his nose: what could he
+      know of Latin?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;More than you ever will, I fear, unless&mdash;&rdquo; and here there was a
+      certain hesitation in the mother&rsquo;s voice, &ldquo;unless your father consents to
+      your going to school.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I should like to go to Eton! That&rsquo;s the only school for a
+      gentleman. I&rsquo;ve heard my father say so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Philip, you are too proud.&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Proud! you often call me proud; but,
+      then, you kiss me when you do so. Kiss me now, mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If, after all, my devotion to the father should wrong the children!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mamma! mamma! here is a letter for you. I snatched it from John: it is
+      papa&rsquo;s handwriting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&mdash;her toy, her plaything&mdash;were visible in the
+      large falling collar of finest cambric, and the blue velvet dress with its
+      filigree buttons and embroidered sash.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&rsquo;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;&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now as she read those hasty, brief, but well-remembered characters&mdash;read
+      as one whose heart was in her eyes&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the matter, mamma, dear mamma?&rdquo; said the youngest, pushing
+      himself between Philip and his mother. &ldquo;Your father is coming back, this
+      day&mdash;this very hour;&mdash;and you&mdash;you&mdash;child&mdash;you,
+      Philip&mdash;&rdquo; Here sobs broke in upon her words, and left her speechless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letter that had produced this effect ran as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TO MRS MORTON, Fernside Cottage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;DEAREST KATE,&mdash;My last letter prepared you for the news I have now
+      to relate&mdash;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&mdash;I have it in
+      my power, dearest Kate, to offer you a tardy recompense for all you have
+      put up with for my sake;&mdash;a sacred testimony to your long
+      forbearance, your unreproachful love, your wrongs, and your devotion. Our
+      children, too&mdash;my noble Philip!&mdash;kiss them, Kate&mdash;kiss them
+      for me a thousand times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I write in great haste&mdash;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&mdash;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, &ldquo;PHILIP BEAUFORT.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;easy, thoughtless, good-humoured, generous, with feelings
+      infinitely better than his principles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;cold&mdash;shrewd&mdash;penetrating&mdash;worldly&mdash;sarcastic&mdash;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 &ldquo;run off,&rdquo; as the saying is,
+      with Catherine Morton, then little more than a child,&mdash;a motherless
+      child&mdash;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&mdash;generally but
+      a few hours&mdash;at a time; and he&mdash;always hurried back with renewed
+      relish to what he considered his home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&mdash;families
+      of ancient birth, immense possessions, at once noble and untitled&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If ever,&rdquo; said he, and he looked grimly at Philip while he spoke, &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip did understand, and looked round at the noble house and the stately
+      park, and his generosity was not equal to the trial. Catherine&mdash;so
+      great was her power over him&mdash;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!&mdash;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&rsquo;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&mdash;sober, supple, decorous, ambitious, with a face of smiles and
+      a heart of ice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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!&mdash;you won&rsquo;t inherit one, though you think
+      it: I have marked you, sir. Philip, beware of your brother. Now let me see
+      the parson.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;Stay, delightful Dream;
+
+   Let him within his pleasant garden walk;
+   Give him her arm&mdash;of blessings let them talk.&rdquo;&mdash;CRABBE.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, Robert, there! now you can see the new stables. By Jove, they are
+      the completest thing in the three kingdoms!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite a pile! But is that the house? You lodge your horses more
+      magnificently than yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But is it not a beautiful cottage?&mdash;to be sure, it owes everything
+      to Catherine&rsquo;s taste. Dear Catherine!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And who are those boys on the lawn, uncle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are those boys?&rdquo; It was a simple question, but it grated on the ear
+      of Mr. Robert Beaufort&mdash;it struck discord at his heart. &ldquo;Who were
+      those boys?&rdquo; as they ran across the sward, eager to welcome their father
+      home; the westering sun shining full on their joyous faces&mdash;their
+      young forms so lithe and so graceful&mdash;their merry laughter ringing in
+      the still air. &ldquo;Those boys,&rdquo; thought Mr. Robert Beaufort, &ldquo;the sons of
+      shame, rob mine of his inheritance.&rdquo; The elder brother turned round at his
+      nephew&rsquo;s question, and saw the expression on Robert&rsquo;s face. He bit his
+      lip, and answered, gravely:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Arthur, they are my children.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not know you were married,&rdquo; replied Arthur, bending forward to take
+      a better view of his cousins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Robert Beaufort smiled bitterly, and Philip&rsquo;s brow grew crimson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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, &ldquo;Papa! papa! you don&rsquo;t see Sidney, papa!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Robert Beaufort placed his hand on his son&rsquo;s shoulder, and arrested
+      his steps, as they contemplated the group before them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Arthur,&rdquo; said he, in a hollow whisper, &ldquo;those children are our disgrace
+      and your supplanters; they are bastards! bastards! and they are to be his
+      heirs!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Arthur made no answer, but the smile with which he had hitherto gazed on
+      his new relations vanished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kate,&rdquo; said Mr. Beaufort, as he turned from Mrs. Morton, and lifted his
+      youngest-born in his arms, &ldquo;this is my brother and his son: they are
+      welcome, are they not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Robert bowed low, and extended his hand, with stiff affability, to
+      Mrs. Morton, muttering something equally complimentary and inaudible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The party proceeded towards the house. Philip and Arthur brought up the
+      rear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you shoot?&rdquo; asked Arthur, observing the gun in his cousin&rsquo;s hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;t afford it
+      myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should think not,&rdquo; said Arthur, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, as to that,&rdquo; resumed Philip, quickly, and with a heightened colour,
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thirty guineas!&rdquo; echoed Arthur, looking with native surprise at the
+      speaker; &ldquo;why, how old are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just fifteen last birthday. Holla, John! John Green!&rdquo; cried the young
+      gentleman in an imperious voice, to one of the gardeners, who was crossing
+      the lawn, &ldquo;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&rsquo;clock. I
+      hope you will understand me this time: Heaven knows you take a deal of
+      telling before you understand anything!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Mr. Philip,&rdquo; said the man, bowing obsequiously; and then muttered,
+      as he went off, &ldquo;Drat the nat&rsquo;rel! He speaks to a poor man as if he warn&rsquo;t
+      flesh and blood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does your father keep hunters?&rdquo; asked Philip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps one reason may be, that he is not rich enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! that&rsquo;s a pity. Never mind, we&rsquo;ll mount you, whenever you like to pay
+      us a visit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;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&mdash;a fly can do it, when it goes on God&rsquo;s errand.&rdquo;
+    &mdash;JEREMY TAYLOR On the Deceitfulness of the Heart.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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 bosquets of the lawn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Philip, &ldquo;I had always decided to take this step, whenever my
+      poor uncle&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no doubt of Mrs. Morton&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert&rsquo;s thin lips broke into a slight sneer of incredulity. &ldquo;My dear
+      brother, you do right to say this&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you helped him in the search. Eh, Bob?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bob slightly blushed. Philip went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha, ha! to be sure you did; you knew that such a discovery would have
+      done for me in the old gentleman&rsquo;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&rsquo;s fame; for I have the
+      attested copy of the register safe and sound. Catherine not married! why,
+      look at her, man!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Robert Beaufort glanced at the window for a moment, but his
+      countenance was still that of one unconvinced. &ldquo;Well, brother,&rdquo; said he,
+      dipping his fingers in the water-glass, &ldquo;it is not for me to contradict
+      you. It is a very curious tale&mdash;parson dead&mdash;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,&rdquo; continued Robert, with solemn earnestness, &ldquo;the world&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn the world! What do I care for the world! We don&rsquo;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&mdash;they
+      are very indifferently kept at present&mdash;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&rsquo;t care a rush for any woman but Catherine: poor Katty!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you are the best judge of your own affairs: you don&rsquo;t misinterpret
+      my motives?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Bob, no. I am quite sensible how kind it is in you&mdash;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)&mdash;even before you
+      knew of the private marriage, and I&rsquo;m sure I don&rsquo;t blame you for never
+      having done it before. You did quite right to try your chance with my
+      uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;what with your wife&rsquo;s fortune, you muster L2000. a
+      year?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only L1500., Philip, and Arthur&rsquo;s education is growing expensive. Next
+      year he goes to college. He is certainly very clever, and I have great
+      hopes&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That he will do Honour to us all&mdash;so have I. He is a noble young
+      fellow: and I think my Philip may find a great deal to learn from him,&mdash;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&rsquo;t trouble
+      yourself about his education&mdash;that shall be my care. He shall go to
+      Christ Church&mdash;a gentleman-commoner, of course&mdash;and when he is
+      of age we&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll add L1500. a year to your L1000.&mdash;so that&rsquo;s said
+      and done. Pshaw! brothers should be brothers.&mdash;Let&rsquo;s come out and
+      play with the boys!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The two Beauforts stepped through the open casement into the lawn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You look pale, Bob&mdash;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. &lsquo;Gad, I have never had a moment&rsquo;s ill
+      health, except from a fall now and then. I feel as if I should live for
+      ever, and that&rsquo;s the reason why I could never make a will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you never, then, made your will?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;s jointure. By Jove! now I speak of it, I will ride to&mdash;&mdash;to-morrow,
+      and consult the lawyer there both about the will and the marriage. You
+      will stay for the wedding?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I must go into &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;shire to-morrow evening, to
+      place Arthur with his tutor. But I&rsquo;ll return for the wedding, if you
+      particularly wish it: only Mrs. Beaufort is a woman of very strict&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;do particularly wish it,&rdquo; interrupted Philip, gravely; &ldquo;for I
+      desire, for Catherine&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Robert bowed his head, coughed huskily, and said, &ldquo;I appreciate your
+      generous affection, Philip.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&rsquo;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 roseries, 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&mdash;an
+      abode which, at sixteen, the visitor contemplates with vague notions of
+      poetry and love&mdash;which, at forty, he might think dull and d&mdash;-d
+      expensive&mdash;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&rsquo;s
+      sweetness of voice. &ldquo;This is really beautiful!&mdash;I envy you, cousin
+      Philip.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has not your father got a country-house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No: we live either in London or at some hot, crowded watering-place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;s place. But it is very unpleasant not to have
+      the finest house in the county: <i>aut Caesar aut nullus</i>&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+      my motto. Ah! do you see that swallow? I&rsquo;ll bet you a guinea I hit it.&rdquo;
+       &ldquo;No, poor thing! don&rsquo;t hurt it.&rdquo; But ere the remonstrance was uttered, the
+      bird lay quivering on the ground. &ldquo;It is just September, and one must keep
+      one&rsquo;s hand in,&rdquo; said Philip, as he reloaded his gun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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. &ldquo;He calls me, poor
+      fellow; you shall see him feed from my hand. Run in for a piece of bread&mdash;a
+      large piece, Sidney.&rdquo; The boy and the animal seemed to understand each
+      other. &ldquo;I see you don&rsquo;t like horses,&rdquo; he said to Arthur. &ldquo;As for me, I
+      love dogs, horses&mdash;every dumb creature.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Except swallows.&rdquo; said Arthur, with a half smile, and a little surprised
+      at the inconsistency of the boast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! that is short,&mdash;all fair: it is not to hurt the swallow&mdash;it
+      is to obtain skill,&rdquo; said Philip, colouring; and then, as if not quite
+      easy with his own definition, he turned away abruptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is dull work&mdash;suppose we fish. By Jove!&rdquo; (he had caught his
+      father&rsquo;s expletive) &ldquo;that blockhead has put the tent on the wrong side of
+      the lake, after all. Holla, you, sir!&rdquo; and the unhappy gardener looked up
+      from his flower-beds; &ldquo;what ails you? I have a great mind to tell my
+      father of you&mdash;you grow stupider every day. I told you to put the
+      tent under the lime-trees.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We could not manage it, sir; the boughs were in the way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And why did you not cut the boughs, blockhead?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not dare do so, sir, without master&rsquo;s orders,&rdquo; said the man
+      doggedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My orders are sufficient, I should think; so none of your impertinence,&rdquo;
+       cried Philip, with a raised colour; and lifting his hand, in which he held
+      his ramrod, he shook it menacingly over the gardener&rsquo;s head,&mdash;&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve a
+      great mind to&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s the matter, Philip?&rdquo; cried the good-humoured voice of his father.
+      &ldquo;Fie!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This fellow does not mind what I say, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not like to cut the boughs of the lime-trees without your orders,
+      sir,&rdquo; said the gardener.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it would be a pity to cut them. You should consult me there, Master
+      Philip;&rdquo; and the father shook him by the collar with a good-natured, and
+      affectionate, but rough sort of caress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be quiet, father!&rdquo; said the boy, petulantly and proudly; &ldquo;or,&rdquo; he added,
+      in a lower voice, but one which showed emotion, &ldquo;my cousin may think you
+      mean less kindly than you always do, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The father was touched: &ldquo;Go and cut the lime-boughs, John; and always do
+      as Mr. Philip tells you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The mother was behind, and she sighed audibly. &ldquo;Ah! dearest, I fear you
+      will spoil him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he not your son? and do we not owe him the more respect for having
+      hitherto allowed others to&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now, Kate, I will, as I told you last night, ride over to &mdash;&mdash;
+      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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will that be difficult&rdquo; asked Catherine, with natural anxiety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&mdash;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&rsquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;s
+      successor might, by chance, betray us. So I went over to A&mdash;&mdash;
+      myself, being near it when I was staying with Lord C&mdash;&mdash;, 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&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, Philip!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pshaw! one don&rsquo;t die the sooner for making a will. Have I the air of a
+      man in a consumption?&rdquo;&mdash;and the sturdy sportsman glanced complacently
+      at the strength and symmetry of his manly limbs. &ldquo;Come, Phil, let&rsquo;s go to
+      the stables. Now, Robert, I will show you what is better worth seeing than
+      those miserable flower-beds.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He ought to be a better, Tom; for I think he&rsquo;ll never have my weight to
+      carry. Well, saddle Brown Bess for Mr. Philip. What horse shall I take?
+      Ah! here&rsquo;s my old friend, Puppet!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what&rsquo;s come to Puppet, sir; he&rsquo;s off his feed, and turned
+      sulky. I tried him over the bar yesterday; but he was quite restive like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The devil he was! So, so, old boy, you shall go over the six-barred gate
+      to-day, or we&rsquo;ll know why.&rdquo; And Mr. Beaufort patted the sleek neck of his
+      favourite hunter. &ldquo;Put the saddle on him, Tom.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, your honour. I sometimes think he is hurt in the loins somehow&mdash;he
+      don&rsquo;t take to his leaps kindly, and he always tries to bite when we
+      bridles him. Be quiet, sir!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only his airs,&rdquo; said Philip. &ldquo;I did not know this, or I would have taken
+      him over the gate. Why did not you tell me, Tom?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord love you, sir! because you have such a spurret; and if anything had
+      come to you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I must go to &mdash;&mdash; to-day with Arthur. I have engaged the
+      post-horses at two o&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, good-bye, nephew!&rdquo; and Beaufort slipped a pocket-book into
+      the boy&rsquo;s hand. &ldquo;Tush! whenever you want money, don&rsquo;t trouble your father&mdash;write
+      to me&mdash;we shall be always glad to see you; and you must teach Philip
+      to like his book a little better&mdash;eh, Phil?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, father; I shall be rich enough to do without books,&rdquo; said Philip,
+      rather coarsely; but then observing the heightened colour of his cousin,
+      he went up to him, and with a generous impulse said, &ldquo;Arthur, you admired
+      this gun; pray accept it. Nay, don&rsquo;t be shy&mdash;I can have as many as I
+      like for the asking: you&rsquo;re not so well off, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The intention was kind, but the manner was so patronising that Arthur felt
+      offended. He put back the gun, and said, drily, &ldquo;I shall have no occasion
+      for the gun, thank you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      If Arthur was offended by the offer, Philip was much more offended by the
+      refusal. &ldquo;As you like; I hate pride,&rdquo; said he; and he gave the gun to the
+      groom as he vaulted into his saddle with the lightness of a young Mercury.
+      &ldquo;Come, father!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Beaufort had now mounted his favourite hunter&mdash;a large, powerful
+      horse well known for its prowess in the field. The rider trotted him once
+      or twice through the spacious yard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;the old six-bar&mdash;eh,
+      Phil?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Capital!&mdash;to be sure!&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The gate was opened&mdash;the grooms stood watchful to see the leap, and a
+      kindred curiosity arrested Robert Beaufort and his son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How well they looked! those two horsemen; the ease, lightness, spirit of
+      the one, with the fine-limbed and fiery steed that literally &ldquo;bounded
+      beneath him as a barb&rdquo;&mdash;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&mdash;in his handsome
+      aquiline features, the erectness of his mien, the very wave of his hand,
+      as he spurred from the yard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a fine-looking fellow my uncle is!&rdquo; said Arthur, with involuntary
+      admiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, an excellent life&mdash;amazingly strong!&rdquo; returned the pale father,
+      with a slight sigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Philip,&rdquo; said Mr. Beaufort, as they cantered across the paddock, &ldquo;I think
+      the gate is too much for you. I will just take Puppet over, and then we
+      will open it for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh, my dear father! you don&rsquo;t know how I&rsquo;m improved!&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;bravo&rdquo; from the proud father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Puppet,&rdquo; said Mr. Beaufort, spurring his own horse. The animal
+      cantered towards the gate, and then suddenly turned round with an
+      impatient and angry snort. &ldquo;For shame, Puppet!&mdash;for shame, old boy!&rdquo;
+       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&mdash;made at the gate&mdash;struck his hoofs against the top bar&mdash;fell
+      forward, and threw his rider head foremost on the road beyond. The horse
+      rose instantly&mdash;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&rsquo;s breast. The bystanders
+      had witnessed the fall&mdash;they crowded to the spot&mdash;they took the
+      fallen man from the weak arms of the son&mdash;the head groom examined him
+      with the eye of one who had picked up science from his experience in such
+      casualties.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Speak, brother!&mdash;where are you hurt?&rdquo; exclaimed Robert Beaufort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will never speak more!&rdquo; said the groom, bursting into tears. &ldquo;His neck
+      is broken!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Send for the nearest surgeon,&rdquo; cried Mr. Robert. &ldquo;Good God! boy! don&rsquo;t
+      mount that devilish horse!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Arthur had already leaped on the unhappy steed, which had been the
+      cause of this appalling affliction. &ldquo;Which way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Straight on to &mdash;&mdash;, only two miles&mdash;every one knows Mr.
+      Powis&rsquo;s house. God bless you!&rdquo; said the groom. Arthur vanished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lift him carefully, and take him to the house,&rdquo; said Mr. Robert. &ldquo;My poor
+      brother! my dear brother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was interrupted by a cry, a single shrill, heartbreaking cry; and
+      Philip fell senseless to the ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No one heeded him at that hour&mdash;no one heeded the fatherless BASTARD.
+      &ldquo;Gently, gently,&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;He has made no will&mdash;he never made a
+      will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Constance. O boy, then where art thou?
+        *  * * * What becomes of me&rdquo;&mdash;King John.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It was three days after the death of Philip Beaufort&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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 &ldquo;study&rdquo;&mdash;(a strange misnomer!)&mdash;hung prints of
+      celebrated fox-hunts and renowned steeple-chases: guns, fishing-rods, and
+      foxes&rsquo; brushes, ranged with a sportsman&rsquo;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&mdash;thus witnessing of the hardy, masculine, rural life, that had
+      passed away&mdash;sallow, stooping, town-worn, sat, I say, Robert
+      Beaufort, the heir-at-law,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had died, and made no sign. Mr. Robert Beaufort&rsquo;s countenance was still
+      and composed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A knock at the door was heard; the lawyer entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir, the undertakers are here, and Mr. Greaves has ordered the bells to
+      be rung: at three o&rsquo;clock he will read the service.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am obliged to you., Blackwell, for taking these melancholy offices on
+      yourself. My poor brother!&mdash;it is so sudden! But the funeral, you
+      say, ought to take place to-day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The weather is so warm,&rdquo; said the lawyer, wiping his forehead. As he
+      spoke, the death-bell was heard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would have been a terrible shock to Mrs. Morton if she had been his
+      wife,&rdquo; observed Mr. Blackwell. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was fortunate, Blackwell. Have you ordered the post-horses? I shall
+      start immediately after the funeral.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is to be done with the cottage, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may advertise it for sale.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And Mrs. Morton and the boys?&rdquo; &ldquo;Hum! we will consider. She was a
+      tradesman&rsquo;s daughter. I think I ought to provide for her suitably, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is more than the world could expect from you, sir; it is very
+      different from a wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, very!&mdash;very much so, indeed! Just ring for a lighted candle, we
+      will seal up these boxes. And&mdash;I think I could take a sandwich. Poor
+      Philip!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;an abomination that the earth must not look upon&mdash;a
+      despicable loathsomeness, to be concealed and to be forgotten! And this
+      same composition of bone and muscle that was yesterday so strong&mdash;which
+      men respected, and women loved, and children clung to&mdash;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The post-horses were at the door as the funeral procession returned to the
+      house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Robert Beaufort bowed slightly to Mrs. Morton, and said, with his
+      pocket-handkerchief still before his eyes:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will write to you in a few days, ma&rsquo;am; you will find that I shall not
+      forget you. The cottage will be sold; but we sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t hurry you. Good-bye,
+      ma&rsquo;am; good-bye, my boys;&rdquo; and he patted his nephews on the head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip winced aside, and scowled haughtily at his uncle, who muttered to
+      himself, &ldquo;That boy will come to no good!&rdquo; Little Sidney put his hand into
+      the rich man&rsquo;s, and looked up, pleadingly, into his face. &ldquo;Can&rsquo;t you say
+      something pleasant to poor mamma, Uncle Robert?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Beaufort hemmed huskily, and entered the britska&mdash;it had been his
+      brother&rsquo;s: the lawyer followed, and they drove away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you about, Master Philip? you must not touch them &lsquo;ere fruit!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How dare you, fellow!&rdquo; cried the young gentleman, in a tone of equal
+      astonishment and, wrath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;t have my show of
+      fruit spoiled by being pawed about by the like of you; so, that&rsquo;s plain,
+      Master Philip!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy grew very pale, but remained silent. The gardener, delighted to
+      retaliate the insolence he had received, continued:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;boys who have buffeted their way through a scolding
+      nursery, a wrangling family, or a public school&mdash;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&mdash;a consciousness of the shelter, the
+      protector, the station, he had lost in his father&rsquo;s death&mdash;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&rsquo;s room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The shutters were half closed on the bright day&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mamma!&mdash;mother!&rdquo; whispered Philip, as he threw his arms round her
+      neck; &ldquo;look up! look up!&mdash;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&mdash;of
+      Sidney?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Morton did look up vaguely into his face, and strove to smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See, too, I have brought you a letter; perhaps good news; shall I break
+      the seal?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Morton shook her head gently, and took the letter&mdash;alas! how
+      different from that one which Sidney had placed in her hands not two short
+      weeks since&mdash;it was Mr. Robert Beaufort&rsquo;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&mdash;the dread of the
+      future. What were her sons to be henceforth?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;DEAR MADAM,&mdash;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&mdash;indeed, my brother-in-law, Lord Lilburne,
+      thinks it would suit him&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall write to Mr. Jackson (who, I think, is the bailiff) to detail my
+      instructions as to selling the crops, &amp;c., and discharging the
+      servants; so that you may have no further trouble.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+       &ldquo;I am, Madam,
+           &ldquo;Your obedient Servant,
+                &ldquo;ROBERT BEAUFORT.
+  &ldquo;Berkeley Square, September 12th, 18&mdash;.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      The letter fell from Catherine&rsquo;s hands. Her grief was changed to
+      indignation and scorn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The insolent!&rdquo; she exclaimed, with flashing eyes. &ldquo;This to me!&mdash;to
+      me&mdash;the wife, the lawful wife of his brother! the wedded mother of
+      his brother&rsquo;s children!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say that again, mother! again&mdash;again!&rdquo; cried Philip, in a loud
+      voice. &ldquo;His wife&mdash;wedded!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I swear it,&rdquo; said Catherine, solemnly. &ldquo;I kept the secret for your
+      father&rsquo;s sake. Now for yours, the truth must be proclaimed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank God! thank God!&rdquo; murmured Philip, in a quivering voice, throwing
+      his arms round his brother, &ldquo;We have no brand on our names, Sidney.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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!&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s seal upon the lock:&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three hours afterwards they were in the same room in which Philip had
+      brought Robert Beaufort&rsquo;s letter to his mother. Catherine was seated,
+      tearless, but deadly pale with heart-sickness and dismay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother,&rdquo; said Philip, &ldquo;may I now read the letter?&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s watchful countenance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother, whether or not we obtain our rights, you will still refuse this
+      man&rsquo;s charity? I am young&mdash;a boy; but I am strong and active. I will
+      work for you day and night. I have it in me&mdash;I feel it; anything
+      rather than eating his bread.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Philip! Philip! you are indeed my son; your father&rsquo;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&rsquo;s eye, I am; what you are?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do!&rdquo; said Philip, firmly; and he fell on his knees at her feet.&rdquo;
+       Whatever others call you, you are a mother, and I your son. You are, in
+      the judgment of Heaven, my father&rsquo;s Wife, and I his Heir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Mamma!
+      what vexes you? Mamma, mamma!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never beggar,&rdquo; said Philip, with a pride that showed what hard lessons he
+      had yet to learn. &ldquo;The lawful sons of a Beaufort were not born to beg
+      their bread!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;The storm above, and frozen world below.
+
+     The olive bough
+     Faded and cast upon the common wind,
+     And earth a doveless ark.&rdquo;&mdash;LAMAN BLANCHARD.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Robert Beaufort was generally considered by the world a very worthy
+      man. He had never committed any excess&mdash;never gambled nor incurred
+      debt&mdash;nor fallen into the warm errors most common with his sex. He
+      was a good husband&mdash;a careful father&mdash;an agreeable neighbour&mdash;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&mdash;in the eyes of the world! He had no other rule of action
+      but that which the world supplied; his religion was decorum&mdash;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&mdash;a piece of brass and nothing more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is just to Robert Beaufort to assure the reader that he wholly
+      disbelieved his brother&rsquo;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&mdash;his confession that of such a marriage there were
+      no distinct proofs, except a copy of a register (which copy Robert had not
+      found)&mdash;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&mdash;a woman who had not even
+      borne his brother&rsquo;s name&mdash;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, &ldquo;Nothing can be handsomer than Mr.
+      Robert Beaufort&rsquo;s conduct!&rdquo; 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&mdash;low-born, and, of course,
+      low-bred&mdash;who wanted to inveigle her rich and careless paramour into
+      marriage; what could be expected from the man she had sought to injure&mdash;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&mdash;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&rsquo;s short, haughty, but temperate
+      reply to his letter: a reply which conveyed a decided refusal of his
+      offers&mdash;asserted positively her own marriage, and the claims of her
+      children&mdash;intimated legal proceedings&mdash;and was signed in the
+      name of Catherine Beaufort. Mr. Beaufort put the letter in his bureau,
+      labelled, &ldquo;Impertinent answer from Mrs. Morton, Sept. 14,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Robert turned pale, but Blackwell composed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was true: whatever the rights of the case, poor Catherine had no
+      proofs&mdash;no evidence&mdash;which could justify a respectable lawyer to
+      advise her proceeding to a suit. She named two witnesses of her marriage&mdash;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&rsquo;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&mdash;&mdash;, 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now relieved from all fear, Mr. Robert Beaufort entered upon the full
+      enjoyment of his splendid fortune.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before he went to the university, during a short preparatory visit to his
+      father, Arthur spoke to him of the Mortons. &ldquo;What has become of them, sir?
+      and what have you done for them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Done for them!&rdquo; said Mr. Beaufort, opening his eyes. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Still, sir,&rdquo; said Arthur, with the good nature that belonged to him:
+      &ldquo;still, my uncle was greatly attached to them; and the boys, at least, are
+      guiltless.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well!&rdquo; replied Mr. Beaufort, a little impatiently; &ldquo;I believe they
+      want for nothing: I fancy they are with the mother&rsquo;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,&rdquo; continued the father
+      smoothing his shirt-frill with a care that showed his decorum even in
+      trifles, &ldquo;I hope you see the results of that kind of connection, and that
+      you will take warning by your poor uncle&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Arthur Beaufort, with the careless generosity of youth, that gauges other
+      men&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&mdash;the one
+      announcing her father&rsquo;s death&mdash;he told her plainly, and very
+      properly, that he could not countenance the life she led; that he had
+      children growing up&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though Catherine had at the time resented this letter as unfeeling&mdash;now,
+      humbled and sorrow-stricken, she recognised the propriety of principle
+      from which it emanated. Her brother was well off for his station&mdash;she
+      would explain to him her real situation&mdash;he would believe her story.
+      She would write to him, and beg him at least to give aid to her poor
+      children.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this step she did not take till a considerable portion of her pittance
+      was consumed&mdash;till nearly three parts of a year since Beaufort&rsquo;s
+      death had expired&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;of the value of money? Did he seem dejected, Catherine
+      would steal out and spend a week&rsquo;s income on the lapful of toys which she
+      brought home. Did he seem a shade more pale&mdash;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&mdash;
+      fearful&mdash;gnawed by regret for the past&mdash;the thought of famine in
+      the future&mdash;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&mdash;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,
+      &ldquo;Experience, after all, is the best teacher.&rdquo; He kept a constant guard on
+      his vehement temper&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;the
+      fear which belongs to a timid character is but egotism&mdash;but, when
+      physical, the regard for one&rsquo;s own person: when moral, the anxiety for
+      one&rsquo;s own interests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in a small room in a lodging-house in the suburb of H&mdash;&mdash;
+      that Mrs. Morton was seated by the window, nervously awaiting the knock of
+      the postman, who was expected to bring her brother&rsquo;s reply to her letter.
+      It was therefore between ten and eleven o&rsquo;clock&mdash;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&mdash;,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">"The pomp of groves and garniture of fields,"</pre>
+    <p>
+      &mdash;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&rsquo;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&mdash;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;&mdash;Philip had left the house
+      since breakfast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! how hot this nasty room is!&rdquo; exclaimed Sidney, abruptly, looking up
+      from his employment. &ldquo;Sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t we ever go into the country, again, mamma?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at present, my love.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish I could have my pony; why can&rsquo;t I have my pony, mamma?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because,&mdash;because&mdash;the pony is sold, Sidney.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who sold it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is a very naughty man, my uncle: is he not? But can&rsquo;t I have another
+      pony? It would be so nice, this fine weather!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! my dear, I wish I could afford it: but you shall have a ride this
+      week! Yes,&rdquo; continued the mother, as if reasoning with herself, in excuse
+      of the extravagance, &ldquo;he does not look well: poor child! he must have
+      exercise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A ride!&mdash;oh! that is my own kind mamma!&rdquo; exclaimed Sidney, clapping
+      his hands. &ldquo;Not on a donkey, you know!&mdash;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&rsquo;t tell Philip, pray don&rsquo;t; he would be jealous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, not jealous, my dear; why do you think so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because he is always angry when I ask you for anything. It is very unkind
+      in him, for I don&rsquo;t care if he has a pony, too,&mdash;only not the white
+      one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the postman&rsquo;s knock, loud and sudden, started Mrs. Morton from her
+      seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give it me, Jane; give it me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One shilling and eightpence&mdash;double charged&mdash;if you please,
+      ma&rsquo;am! Thank you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mamma, may I tell Jane to engage the pony?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not now, my love; sit down; be quiet: I&mdash;I am not well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s reply was couched in these
+      terms,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;what
+      is called evangelical; but that&rsquo;s neither here nor there: I deal with all
+      people, churchmen and dissenters&mdash;even Jews,&mdash;and don&rsquo;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&mdash;poor, fatherless creatures!&mdash;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&rsquo;s brother, Mr. Christopher Plaskwith, is a
+      bookseller and stationer with pretty practice, in R&mdash;&mdash;. 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 &lsquo;our provincial contemporary.&rsquo;&mdash;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&rsquo;t like
+      concerns I don&rsquo;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 &lsquo;prentice, and offered to
+      take my eldest boy; but we can&rsquo;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&mdash;the fare is trifling&mdash;I have no doubt he will
+      be engaged at once. But you will say, &lsquo;There&rsquo;s the premium to consider!&rsquo; 
+      No such thing; Kit will set off the premium against his debt to me; so you
+      will have nothing to pay. &lsquo;Tis a very pretty business; and the lad&rsquo;s
+      education will get him on; so that&rsquo;s off your mind. As to the little chap,
+      I&rsquo;ll take him at once. You say he is a pretty boy; and a pretty boy is
+      always a help in a linendraper&rsquo;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&mdash;(this is Mrs. M&rsquo;s. suggestion)&mdash;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&rsquo;t
+      forget to write to Mr. Beaufort; and if he don&rsquo;t do something for you he&rsquo;s
+      not the gentleman I take him for; but you are my own flesh and blood, and
+      sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t starve; for, though I don&rsquo;t think it right in a man in business to
+      encourage what&rsquo;s wrong, yet, when a person&rsquo;s down in the world, I think an
+      ounce of help is better than a pound of preaching. My wife thinks
+      otherwise, and wants to send you some tracts; but every body can&rsquo;t be as
+      correct as some folks. However, as I said before, that&rsquo;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&rsquo;s right with Mr. Plaskwith. So
+      now I hope you will feel more comfortable; and remain,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Dear Catherine,
+          &ldquo;Your forgiving and affectionate brother,
+                &ldquo;ROGER MORTON.
+  &ldquo;High Street, N&mdash;&mdash;, June 13.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;P.S.&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, mother,&rdquo; said he, with a strange mixture of sternness in his
+      countenance and pity in his voice; &ldquo;well, mother, and what says your
+      brother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You decided for us once before, decide again. But I need not ask you; you
+      would never&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; interrupted Philip, vaguely; &ldquo;let me see what we are to
+      decide on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;especially in trouble&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your brother means well,&rdquo; said Philip, when he had concluded the epistle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but nothing is to be done; I cannot, cannot send poor Sidney to&mdash;to&mdash;&rdquo;
+       and Mrs. Morton sobbed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, my dear, dear mother, no; it would be terrible, indeed, to part you
+      and him. But this bookseller&mdash;Plaskwith&mdash;perhaps I shall be able
+      to support you both.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, you do not think, Philip, of being an apprentice!&mdash;you, who
+      have been so brought up&mdash;you, who are so proud!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother, I would sweep the crossings for your sake! Mother, for your sake
+      I would go to my uncle Beaufort with my hat in my hand, for halfpence.
+      Mother, I am not proud&mdash;I would be honest, if I can&mdash;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&mdash;what, I don&rsquo;t know!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come here, Philip&mdash;my own Philip&mdash;my son, my hope, my
+      firstborn!&rdquo;&mdash;and the mother&rsquo;s heart gushed forth in all the fondness
+      of early days. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t speak so terribly, you frighten me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;their lips silent, their hearts
+      speaking to each other&mdash;each from each taking strange succour and
+      holy strength&mdash;till Philip rose, calm, and with a quiet smile,
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, mother; I will go at once to Mr. Plaskwith.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you have no money for the coach-fare; here, Philip,&rdquo; and she placed
+      her purse in his hand, from which he reluctantly selected a few shillings.
+      &ldquo;And mind, if the man is rude and you dislike him&mdash;mind, you must not
+      subject yourself to insolence and mortification.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, all will go well, don&rsquo;t fear,&rdquo; said Philip, cheerfully, and he left
+      the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards evening he had reached his destination. The shop was of goodly
+      exterior, with a private entrance; over the shop was written, &ldquo;Christopher
+      Plaskwith, Bookseller and Stationer:&rdquo; on the private door a brass plate,
+      inscribed with &ldquo;R&mdash;&mdash; and &mdash;&mdash; Mercury Office, Mr.
+      Plaskwith.&rdquo; Philip applied at the private entrance, and was shown by a
+      &ldquo;neat-handed Phillis&rdquo; into a small office-room. In a few minutes the door
+      opened, and the bookseller entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you are the young gentleman Mr. Roger Morton recommends?&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is the letter&mdash;no! this is Sir Thomas Champerdown&rsquo;s order for
+      fifty copies of the last Mercury, containing his speech at the county
+      meeting. Your age, young man?&mdash;only sixteen?&mdash;look older;&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+      not it&mdash;that&rsquo;s not it&mdash;and this is it!&mdash;sit down. Yes, Mr.
+      Roger Morton recommends you&mdash;a relation&mdash;unfortunate
+      circumstances&mdash;well educated&mdash;hum! Well, young man, what have
+      you to say for yourself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you cast accounts?&mdash;know bookkeeping?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know something of algebra, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Algebra!&mdash;oh, what else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;French and Latin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hum!&mdash;may be useful. Why do you wear your hair so long?&mdash;look
+      at mine. What&rsquo;s your name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Philip Morton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Philip Morton, you have an intelligent countenance&mdash;I go a great
+      deal by countenances. You know the terms?&mdash;most favourable to you. No
+      premium&mdash;I settle that with Roger. I give board and bed&mdash;find
+      your own washing. Habits regular&mdash;&lsquo;prenticeship only five years; when
+      over, must not set up in the same town. I will see to the indentures. When
+      can you come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you please, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Day after to-morrow, by six o&rsquo;clock coach.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, sir,&rdquo; said Philip, &ldquo;will there be no salary? something, ever so
+      small, that I could send to my another?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Salary, at sixteen?&mdash;board and bed&mdash;no premium! Salary, what
+      for? &lsquo;Prentices have no salary!&mdash;you will have every comfort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me less comfort, that I may give my mother more;&mdash;a little
+      money, ever so little, and take it out of my board: I can do with one meal
+      a day, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, young man, I&rsquo;ll tell you what we will do. You shall come here first
+      upon trial;&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank you, sir, yes,&rdquo; said Philip, gratefully. &ldquo;Agreed, then. Follow me&mdash;present
+      you to Mrs. P.&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Mrs. P., my second cup, and give Mr. Morton his dish of tea. Must be
+      tired, sir&mdash;hot day. Jemima, ring&mdash;no, go to the stairs and call
+      out &lsquo;more buttered toast.&rsquo; That&rsquo;s the shorter way&mdash;promptitude is my
+      rule in life, Mr. Morton. Pray-hum, hum&mdash;have you ever, by chance,
+      studied the biography of the great Napoleon Buonaparte?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Plimmins gulped down his tea, and kicked Philip under the table.
+      Philip looked fiercely at the foreman, and replied, sullenly, &ldquo;No, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a pity. Napoleon Buonaparte was a very great man,&mdash;very! You
+      have seen his cast?&mdash;there it is, on the dumb waiter! Look at it! see
+      a likeness, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Likeness, sir? I never saw Napoleon Buonaparte.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never saw him! No, just look round the room. Who does that bust put you
+      in mind of? who does it resemble?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Mr. Plaskwith rose, and placed himself in an attitude; his hand in
+      his waistcoat, and his face pensively inclined towards the tea-table. &ldquo;Now
+      fancy me at St. Helena; this table is the ocean. Now, then, who is that
+      cast like, Mr. Philip Morton?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose, sir, it is like you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;a
+      moral, sir! Straightforward&mdash;short&mdash;to the point&mdash;bold&mdash;determined!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bless me, Mr. P.!&rdquo; said Mrs. Plaskwith, very querulously, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you seen Kean in Richard the Third, Mr. Morton?&rdquo; asked Mr. Plimmins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have never seen a play.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never seen a play! How very odd!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all odd, Mr. Plimmins,&rdquo; said the stationer. &ldquo;Mr. Morton has known
+      troubles&mdash;so hand him the hot toast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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, &ldquo;Fool!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length, Mr. Plaskwith, pulling out his watch, said, &ldquo;Just in time to
+      catch the coach; make your bow and be off&mdash;smart&rsquo;s the word!&rdquo; Philip
+      rose, took up his hat, made a stiff bow that included the whole group, and
+      vanished with his host.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Plaskwith breathed more easily when he was gone. &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncommonly dark; what I may say gipsy-like,&rdquo; said Mr. Plimmins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He! he! You always do say such good things, Plimmins. Gipsy-like, he! he!
+      So he is! I wonder if he can tell fortunes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll be long before he has a fortune of his own to tell. Ha! ha!&rdquo; said
+      Plimmins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He! he! how very good! you are so pleasant, Plimmins.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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
+      &ldquo;Express&rdquo; in a whirlwind of dust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A very warm evening, sir,&rdquo; said a passenger seated at his right; puffing,
+      while he spoke, from a short German pipe, a volume of smoke in Philip&rsquo;s
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very warm. Be so good as to smoke into the face of the gentleman on the
+      other side of you,&rdquo; returned Philip, petulantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ho, ho!&rdquo; replied the passenger, with a loud, powerful laugh&mdash;the
+      laugh of a strong man. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;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!&mdash;it is a great soother!&mdash;a pleasant comforter! Blue
+      devils fly before its honest breath! It ripens the brain&mdash;it opens
+      the heart; and the man who smokes thinks like a sage and acts like a
+      Samaritan!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;broad-shouldered&mdash;deep-chested&mdash;not
+      corpulent, but taking the same girth from bone and muscle that a corpulent
+      man does from flesh. He wore a blue coat&mdash;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;&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you think of me, young gentleman?&rdquo; asked the passenger, as he
+      replaced the pipe in his mouth. &ldquo;I am a fine-looking man, am I not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem a strange one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Strange!&mdash;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;&mdash;that the tone of your voice tells me. You are poor, devilish
+      poor;&mdash;that the hole in your coat assures me. You are proud, fiery,
+      discontented, and unhappy;&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dare say not; for if you know all the unhappy you must have a
+      sufficiently large acquaintance,&rdquo; returned Philip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your wit is beyond your years! What is your calling, if the question does
+      not offend you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have none as yet,&rdquo; said Philip, with a slight sigh, and a deep blush.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;More&rsquo;s the pity!&rdquo; grunted the smoker, with a long emphatic nasal
+      intonation. &ldquo;I should have judged that you were a raw recruit in the camp
+      of the enemy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Enemy! I don&rsquo;t understand you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In other words, a plant growing out of a lawyer&rsquo;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&mdash;pursue him to his hole&mdash;eat him up if they can&mdash;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&mdash;the world calls them lawyers!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip laughed: &ldquo;And who are the first class of spiders?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s sleep grew deeper, he cried, in a loud voice, &ldquo;Holla! I did not
+      pay my fare to be your bolster, young man!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rouse yourself!&mdash;you might have had an ugly tumble.&rdquo; 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&mdash;a dangerous pillow, from which
+      any sudden jolt might transfer him to the road below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor lad!&mdash;he looks pale!&rdquo; muttered the man, and he knocked the weed
+      from his pipe, which he placed gently in his pocket. &ldquo;Perhaps the smoke
+      was too much for him&mdash;he seems ill and thin,&rdquo; and he took the boy&rsquo;s
+      long lean fingers in his own. &ldquo;His cheek is hollow!&mdash;what do I know
+      but it may be with fasting? Pooh! I was a brute. Hush, coachee, hush!
+      don&rsquo;t talk so loud, and be d&mdash;-d to you&mdash;he will certainly be
+      off!&rdquo; and the man softly and creepingly encircled the boy&rsquo;s waist with his
+      huge arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, then, to shift his head; so-so,&mdash;that&rsquo;s right.&rdquo; Philip&rsquo;s sallow
+      cheek and long hair were now tenderly lapped on the soliloquist&rsquo;s bosom.
+      &ldquo;Poor wretch! he smiles; perhaps he is thinking of home, and the
+      butterflies he ran after when he was an urchin&mdash;they never come back,
+      those days;&mdash;never&mdash;never&mdash;never! I think the wind veers to
+      the east; he may catch cold;&rdquo;&mdash;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&mdash;for he
+      wore no waistcoat&mdash;to the sharpening air. Thus cradled on that
+      stranger&rsquo;s bosom, wrapped from the present and dreaming perhaps&mdash;while
+      a heart scorched by fierce and terrible struggles with life and sin made
+      his pillow&mdash;of a fair and unsullied future, slept the fatherless and
+      friendless boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;Constance. My life, my joy, my food, my all the world,
+   My widow-comfort.&rdquo;&mdash;King John.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Amidst the glare of lamps&mdash;the rattle of carriages&mdash;the
+      lumbering of carts and waggons&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have slept well, my lad!&rdquo; said the passenger, in the deep ringing
+      voice which made itself heard above all the noises around.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you have suffered me to incommode you thus!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have had but little kindness shown you, my poor boy, if you think so
+      much of this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;all people were very kind to me once. I did not value it then.&rdquo;
+       Here the coach rolled heavily down the dark arch of the inn-yard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take care of yourself, my boy! You look ill;&rdquo; and in the dark the man
+      slipped a sovereign into Philip&rsquo;s hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;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?&mdash;what they offer me is so trifling. I have a
+      mother and a brother&mdash;a mere child, sir&mdash;at home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Employment!&rdquo; repeated the man; and as the coach now stopped at the tavern
+      door, the light of the lamp fell full on his marked face. &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sorry for that!&mdash;What and who are you?&rdquo; asked Philip, with a
+      rude and blunt curiosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me!&rdquo; returned the passenger, with his deep laugh. &ldquo;Oh! I know some people
+      who call me an honest fellow. Take the employment offered you, no matter
+      how trifling the wages&mdash;keep out of harm&rsquo;s way. Good night to you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip sighed. &ldquo;He has friends,&rdquo; he muttered to himself; and, paying his
+      fare, he turned from the bustling yard, and took his solitary way home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A week after his visit to R&mdash;&mdash;, Philip was settled on his
+      probation at Mr. Plaskwith&rsquo;s, and Mrs. Morton&rsquo;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, &ldquo;I have duties to perform; upon your candid answer rest my Plans
+      with respect to my children&mdash;left, if I die suddenly, destitute in
+      the world,&rdquo;&mdash;the doctor looked hard in her face, saw its calm
+      resolution, and replied frankly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lose no time, then, in arranging your plans; life is uncertain with all&mdash;with
+      you, especially; you may live some time yet, but your constitution is much
+      shaken&mdash;I fear there is water on the chest. No, ma&rsquo;am&mdash;no fee. I
+      will see you again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The physician turned to Sidney, who played with his watch-chain, and
+      smiled up in his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that child, sir?&rdquo; said the mother, wistfully, forgetting the dread
+      fiat pronounced against herself,&mdash;&ldquo;he is so delicate!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all, ma&rsquo;am,&mdash;a very fine little fellow;&rdquo; and the doctor
+      patted the boy&rsquo;s head, and abruptly vanished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! mamma, I wish you would ride&mdash;I wish you would take the white
+      pony!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor boy! poor boy!&rdquo; muttered the mother; &ldquo;I must not be selfish.&rdquo; She
+      covered her face with her hands, and began to think!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Could she, thus doomed, resolve on declining her brother&rsquo;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&mdash;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,&mdash;alone!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;Constance. When I shall meet him in the court of heaven, I shall
+   not know him.&rdquo;&mdash;King John.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;if the restless heart of men ever
+      envied Content!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so the little boy is not to come?&rdquo; said Mrs. Morton as she crossed
+      her knife and fork, and pushed away her plate, in token that she had done
+      supper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know.&mdash;Children, go to bed; there&mdash;there&mdash;that
+      will do. Good night!&mdash;Catherine does not say either yes or no. She
+      wants time to consider.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was a very handsome offer on our part; some folks never know when they
+      are well off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;an
+      excellent man, and well to do!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Spencer! I don&rsquo;t remember him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No: after she went off, he retired from business, and left the place. I
+      don&rsquo;t know what&rsquo;s become of him. He was mightily taken with her, to be
+      sure. She was uncommonly handsome, my sister Catherine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Handsome is as handsome does, Mr. Morton,&rdquo; said the wife, who was very
+      much marked with the small-pox. &ldquo;We all have our temptations and trials;
+      this is a vale of tears, and without grace we are whited sepulchers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Morton mixed his brandy and water, and moved his chair into its
+      customary corner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You saw your brother&rsquo;s letter,&rdquo; said he, after a pause; &ldquo;he gives young
+      Philip a very good character.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The human heart is very deceitful,&rdquo; replied Mrs. Morton, who, by the way,
+      spoke through her nose. &ldquo;Pray Heaven he may be what he seems; but what&rsquo;s
+      bred in the bone comes out in the flesh.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We must hope the best,&rdquo; said Mr. Morton, mildly; &ldquo;and&mdash;put another
+      lump into the grog, my dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a mercy, I&rsquo;m thinking, that we didn&rsquo;t have the other little boy. I
+      dare say he has never even been taught his catechism: them people don&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve no doubt
+      Miss Pryinall would have been very curious.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Pryinall be &mdash;&mdash;!&rdquo; Mr. Morton checked himself, took a
+      large draught of the brandy and water, and added, &ldquo;Miss Pryinall wants to
+      have a finger in everybody&rsquo;s pie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor Mrs. Giles!&mdash;she came to the workhouse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor Mrs. Giles, indeed! I wonder, Mr. Morton, that you, a married man
+      with a family, should say, poor Mrs. Giles!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear, when people who have been well off come to the workhouse, they
+      may be called poor:&mdash;but that&rsquo;s neither here nor there; only, if the
+      boy does come to us, we must look sharp upon Miss Pryinall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope he won&rsquo;t come,&mdash;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, &lsquo;A man shall cleave to
+      his wife and&mdash;&lsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here a sharp, shrill ring at the bell was heard, and Mrs. Morton broke off
+      into:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well! I declare! at this hour; who can that be? And all gone to bed! Do
+      go and see, Mr. Morton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;the
+      candle in her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the matter, Mr. M.?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Morton turned back, looking agitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where&rsquo;s my hat? oh, here. My sister is come, at the inn.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gracious me! She does not go for to say she is your sister?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no: here&rsquo;s her note&mdash;calls herself a lady that&rsquo;s ill. I shall be
+      back soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She can&rsquo;t come here&mdash;she sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t come here, Mr. M. I&rsquo;m an honest
+      woman&mdash;she can&rsquo;t come here. You understand&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pshaw! woman, you have no feeling!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;hip-hip-hurrah!&rdquo; mingled with
+      the stamping of feet and the jingling of glasses, saluted his entrance. He
+      was a stiff, sober, respectable man,&mdash;a man who, except at elections&mdash;he
+      was a great politician&mdash;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&mdash;ashamed to meet the desolate and, as he believed, erring
+      sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A pretty maidservant, heated and flushed with orders and compliments,
+      crossed his path with a tray full of glasses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a lady come by the Telegraph?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir, upstairs, No. 2, Mr. Morton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Morton! He shrank at the sound of his own name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My wife&rsquo;s right,&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;After all, this is more unpleasant than I
+      thought for.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;that
+      Catherine, old ere youth was gone, pale, faded, the dark hair silvered
+      over, the cheeks hollow, and the eye dim,&mdash;that Catherine fell upon
+      his breast!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God bless you, brother! How kind to come! How long since we have met!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sit down, Catherine, my dear sister. You are faint&mdash;you are very
+      much changed&mdash;very. I should not have known you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brother, I have brought my boy; it is painful to part from him&mdash;very&mdash;very
+      painful: but it is right, and God&rsquo;s will be done.&rdquo; 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&mdash;lips
+      that smiled then&mdash;she whispered,&mdash;&ldquo;We will not wake him, he is
+      so tired. But I would not put him to bed till you had seen him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Morton drew his hand across his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;of
+      natural affection, had ever dawned, would, even supposing the world&rsquo;s
+      judgment were true, have recalled Catherine&rsquo;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will be kind to him&mdash;will you not?&rdquo; said Mrs. Morton; and the
+      appeal was made with that trustful, almost cheerful tone which implies,
+      &lsquo;Who would not be kind to a thing so fair and helpless?&rsquo; &ldquo;He is very
+      sensitive and very docile; you will never have occasion to say a hard word
+      to him&mdash;never! you have children of your own, brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is a beautiful boy&mdash;beautiful. I will be a father to him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke,&mdash;the recollection of his wife&mdash;sour, querulous,
+      austere&mdash;came over him, but he said to himself, &ldquo;She must take to
+      such a child,&mdash;women always take to beauty.&rdquo; He bent down and gently
+      pressed his lips to Sidney&rsquo;s forehead: Mrs. Morton replaced the shawl, and
+      drew her brother to the other end of the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now,&rdquo; she said, colouring as she spoke, &ldquo;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&mdash;after I left.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is a very worthy woman,&rdquo; said Mr. Morton, clearing his throat, &ldquo;and
+      brought me some money; she has a will of her own, as most women have; but
+      that&rsquo;s neither here nor there&mdash;she is a good wife as wives go; and
+      prudent and painstaking&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know what I should do without her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brother, I have one favour to request&mdash;a great favour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anything I can do in the way of money?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It has nothing to do with money. I can&rsquo;t live long&mdash;don&rsquo;t shake your
+      head&mdash;I can&rsquo;t live long. I have no fear for Philip, he has so much
+      spirit&mdash;such strength of character&mdash;but that child! I cannot
+      bear to leave him altogether; let me stay in this town&mdash;I can lodge
+      anywhere; but to see him sometimes&mdash;to know I shall be in reach if he
+      is ill&mdash;let me stay here&mdash;let me die here!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must not talk so sadly&mdash;you are young yet&mdash;younger than I
+      am&mdash;I don&rsquo;t think of dying.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heaven forbid! but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well&mdash;well,&rdquo; interrupted Mr. Morton, who began to fear his feelings
+      would hurry him into some promise which his wife would not suffer him to
+      keep; &ldquo;you shall talk to Margaret,&mdash;that is Mrs. Morton&mdash;I will
+      get her to see you&mdash;yes, I think I can contrive that; and if you can
+      arrange with her to stay,&mdash;but you see, as she brought the money, and
+      is a very particular woman&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will see her; thank you&mdash;thank you; she cannot refuse me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And, brother,&rdquo; resumed Mrs. Morton, after a short pause, and speaking in
+      a firm voice&mdash;&ldquo;and is it possible that you disbelieve my story?&mdash;that
+      you, like all the rest, consider my children the sons of shame?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an honest earnestness in Catherine&rsquo;s voice, as she spoke, that
+      might have convinced many. But Mr. Morton was a man of facts, a practical
+      man&mdash;a man who believed that law was always right, and that the
+      improbable was never true.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked down as he answered, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No! I was not ill-used; my husband&mdash;yes, my husband&mdash;was noble
+      and generous from first to last. It was for the sake of his children&rsquo;s
+      prospects&mdash;for the expectations they, through him, might derive from
+      his proud uncle&mdash;that he concealed our marriage. Do not blame Philip&mdash;do
+      not condemn the dead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to blame any one,&rdquo; said Mr. Morton, rather angrily; &ldquo;I am a
+      plain man&mdash;a tradesman, and can only go by what in my class seems
+      fair and honest, which I can&rsquo;t think Mr. Beaufort&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo; Catherine sighed, and wiped
+      her eyes; she no longer reproached the world, since the son of her own
+      mother disbelieved her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The relations talked together for some minutes on the past&mdash;the
+      present; but there was embarrassment and constraint on both sides&mdash;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&rsquo;s knees. Mr. Morton was glad at last to find
+      an excuse in Catherine&rsquo;s fatigue to leave her. &ldquo;Cheer up, and take a glass
+      of something warm before you go to bed. Good night!&rdquo; these were his
+      parting words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&rsquo;s eloquence, and said, &ldquo;Well, poor thing! if she is so ill, and
+      you wish it so much, I will call to-morrow,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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,&mdash;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 <i>il faut souffrir pour etre belle</i>, which somewhat
+      yet more acerbated the ordinary acid of Mrs. Morton&rsquo;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. &ldquo;So you say your sister is a beauty?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was a beauty, Mrs. M.,&mdash;was a beauty. People alter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A bad conscience, Mr. Morton, is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear, can&rsquo;t you walk faster?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you had my corns, Mr. Morton, you would not talk in that way!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The happy pair sank into silence, only broken by sundry &ldquo;How d&rsquo;ye dos?&rdquo;
+       and &ldquo;Good mornings!&rdquo; interchanged with their friends, till they arrived at
+      the inn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us go up quickly,&rdquo; said Mrs. Morton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And quiet&mdash;quiet to gloom, did the inn, so noisy overnight, seem by
+      morning. The shutters partially closed to keep out the sun&mdash;the
+      taproom deserted&mdash;the passage smelling of stale smoke&mdash;an
+      elderly dog, lazily snapping at the flies, at the foot of the staircase&mdash;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&rsquo;s apartment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;stood by
+      her side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My wife&mdash;Catherine,&rdquo; said Mr. Morton. Catherine rose eagerly, and
+      gazed searchingly on her sister-in-law&rsquo;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&mdash;it was an involuntary piece of good
+      breeding&mdash;it was extorted by the noble countenance, the matronly mien
+      of Catherine, different from what she had anticipated&mdash;she dropped
+      the courtesy, and Catherine took her hand and pressed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is my son;&rdquo; she turned away her head. Sidney advanced towards his
+      protectress who was to be, and Mrs. Roger muttered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come here, my dear! A fine little boy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As fine a child as ever I saw!&rdquo; said Mr. Morton, heartily, as he took
+      Sidney on his lap, and stroked down his golden hair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This displeased Mrs. Roger Morton, but she sat herself down, and said it
+      was &ldquo;very warm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now go to that lady, my dear,&rdquo; said Mr. Morton. &ldquo;Is she not a very nice
+      lady?&mdash;don&rsquo;t you think you shall like her very much?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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, &ldquo;I have a little boy at home about your age.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you?&rdquo; exclaimed Catherine, eagerly; and as if that confession made
+      them friends at once, she drew a chair close to her sister-in-law&rsquo;s,&mdash;&ldquo;My
+      brother has told you all?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, ma&rsquo;am.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I shall stay here&mdash;in the town somewhere&mdash;and see him
+      sometimes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Roger Morton glanced at her husband&mdash;her husband glanced at the
+      door&mdash;and Catherine&rsquo;s quick eye turned from one to the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Morton will explain, ma&rsquo; am,&rdquo; said the wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;E-hem!&mdash;Catherine, my dear, I am afraid that is out of the
+      question,&rdquo; began Mr. Morton, who, when fairly put to it, could be
+      business-like enough. &ldquo;You see bygones are bygones, and it is no use
+      raking them up. But many people in the town will recollect you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one will see me&mdash;no one, but you and Sidney.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be sure to creep out; won&rsquo;t it, Mrs. Morton?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite sure. Indeed, ma&rsquo;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&rsquo;am, he has a great
+      stake in the place, and is a public character.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s neither here nor there,&rdquo; said Mr. Morton. &ldquo;But I say, Catherine,
+      can your little boy go into the other room for a moment? Margaret, suppose
+      you take him and make friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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 hardship 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&mdash;have companions of his
+      own age&mdash;if his birth were known, he would be exposed to many
+      mortifications&mdash;so much better, and so very easy, to bring him up as
+      the lawful, that is the legal, offspring of some distant relation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And,&rdquo; cried poor Catherine, clasping her bands, &ldquo;when I am dead, is he
+      never to know that I was his mother?&rdquo; 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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, my sister&mdash;my poor sister&mdash;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&mdash;on my soul I do&mdash;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&mdash;all&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My brother&mdash;my brother, I resign him&mdash;I am content. God reward
+      you. I will go&mdash;go quickly. I know you will take care of him now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you see,&rdquo; resumed Mr. Morton, re-settling himself, and wiping his
+      eyes, &ldquo;it is best, between you and me, that Mrs. Morton should have her
+      own way in this. She is a very good woman&mdash;very; but it&rsquo;s prudent not
+      to vex her. You may come in now, Mrs. Morton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Morton and Sidney reappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have settled it all,&rdquo; said the husband. &ldquo;When can we have him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to-day,&rdquo; said Mrs. Roger Morton; &ldquo;you see, ma&rsquo;am, we must get his bed
+      ready, and his sheets well aired: I am very particular.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, certainly. Will he sleep alone?&mdash;pardon me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He shall have a room to himself,&rdquo; said Mr. Morton. &ldquo;Eh, my dear? Next to
+      Martha&rsquo;s. Martha is our parlourmaid&mdash;very good-natured girl, and fond
+      of children.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Morton looked grave, thought a moment, and said, &ldquo;Yes, he can have
+      that room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who can have that room?&rdquo; asked Sidney, innocently. &ldquo;You, my dear,&rdquo;
+       replied Mr. Morton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And where will mamma sleep? I must sleep near mamma.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mamma is going away,&rdquo; said Catherine, in a firm voice, in which the
+      despair would only have been felt by the acute ear of sympathy,&mdash;&ldquo;going
+      away for a little time: but this gentleman and lady will be very&mdash;very
+      kind to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will do our best, ma&rsquo;am,&rdquo; said Mrs. Morton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And as she spoke, a sudden light broke on the boy&rsquo;s mind&mdash;he uttered
+      a loud cry, broke from his aunt, rushed to his mother&rsquo;s breast, and hid
+      his face there, sobbing bitterly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid he has been very much spoiled,&rdquo; whispered Mrs. Roger Morton.
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think we need stay longer&mdash;it will look suspicious. Good
+      morning, ma&rsquo;am: we shall be ready to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, Catherine,&rdquo; said Mr. Morton; and he added, as he kissed her,
+      &ldquo;Be of good heart, I will come up by myself and spend the evening with
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the night after this interview. Sidney had gone to his new home;
+      they had been all kind to him&mdash;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, &ldquo;Pray God bless dear mamma, and make
+      me a good child,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;&ldquo;Who&rsquo;s
+      there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is I&mdash;it is Catherine! I cannot go without seeing my boy. I must
+      see him&mdash;I must, once more!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear sister, the place is shut up&mdash;it is impossible. God bless
+      me, if Mrs. Morton should hear you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have walked before this window for hours&mdash;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&rsquo;s
+      face!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As Catherine said this, standing in that lonely street&mdash;darkness and
+      solitude below, God and the stars above&mdash;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&mdash;her hand raised aloft&mdash;the
+      outline of her wasted but still commanding form, were more impressive from
+      the shadowy dimness of the air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come round, Catherine,&rdquo; said Mr. Morton after a pause; &ldquo;I will admit
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s step made no sound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;a ring that had never till then
+      left it&mdash;the ring which Philip Beaufort had placed there the day
+      after that child was born. &ldquo;Let him wear this round his neck,&rdquo; said she,
+      and stopped, lest she should sob aloud, and disturb the boy. In that gift
+      she felt as if she invoked the father&rsquo;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, &ldquo;I am happy now;
+      peace be on these thresholds!&rdquo; Before he could answer she was gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        &ldquo;Thus things are strangely wrought,
+        While joyful May doth last;
+        Take May in Time&mdash;when May is gone
+        The pleasant time is past.&rdquo;&mdash;RICHARD EDWARDS.
+               From the Paradise of Dainty Devices.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;creatures hatched from
+      gold, as the dung-flies from the dung&mdash;swarm, and buzz, and fatten,
+      round the hide of the gentle Public. In the cant phase, it was &ldquo;the London
+      season.&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;-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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Arthur Beaufort, the young heir, was at his father&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;such as the distresses of younger sons,
+      or the errors of fashionable women, or the disappointments of &ldquo;a proper
+      ambition&rdquo;&mdash;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&mdash;as women at once
+      pretty and inoffensive generally are.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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,&mdash;he had
+      merely observed, &ldquo;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&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I think so. What was she?&mdash;very low?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A tradesman&rsquo;s daughter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The children should be provided for according to the rank of the mother;
+      that&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the breakfast-room at Mr. Beaufort&rsquo;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&mdash;Arthur
+      Beaufort&rsquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;which, when he laughed, were scarcely visible&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So, Camilla,&rdquo; said Lord Lilburne to his niece, as carelessly, not fondly,
+      he stroked down her glossy ringlets, &ldquo;you don&rsquo;t like Berkeley Square as
+      you did Gloucester Place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no! not half so much! You see I never walk out in the fields,&mdash;[Now
+      the Regent&rsquo;s Park.]&mdash;nor make daisy-chains at Primrose Hill. I don&rsquo;t
+      know what mamma means,&rdquo; added the child, in a whisper, &ldquo;in saying we are
+      better off here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Lilburne smiled, but the smile was a half sneer. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; said Arthur, suppressing a yawn, &ldquo;I have promised to ride out with
+      a friend of mine, to see a horse that is for sale somewhere in the
+      suburbs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke, Arthur rose, stretched himself, looked in the glass, and then
+      glanced impatiently at the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He ought to be here by this time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He! who?&rdquo; said Lord Lilburne, &ldquo;the horse or the other animal&mdash;I mean
+      the friend?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The friend,&rdquo; answered Arthur, smiling, but colouring while he smiled, for
+      he half suspected the quiet sneer of his uncle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is your friend, Arthur?&rdquo; asked Mrs. Beaufort, looking up from her
+      work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Watson, an Oxford man. By the by, I must introduce him to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Watson! what Watson? what family of Watson? Some Watsons are good and
+      some are bad,&rdquo; said Mrs. Beaufort, musingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then they are very unlike the rest of mankind,&rdquo; observed Lord Lilburne,
+      drily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! my Watson is a very gentlemanlike person, I assure you,&rdquo; said Arthur,
+      half-laughing, &ldquo;and you need not be ashamed of him.&rdquo; Then, rather desirous
+      of turning the conversation, he continued, &ldquo;So my father will be back from
+      Beaufort Court to-day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Arthur threw open the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, Watson! how are you? How d&rsquo;ye do, Marsden? Danvers, too! that&rsquo;s
+      capital! the more the merrier! I will be down in an instant. But would you
+      not rather come in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An agreeable inundation,&rdquo; murmured Lord Lilburne. &ldquo;Three at a time: he
+      takes your house for Trinity College.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Good-bye! I shall be out till dinner. Kiss
+      me, my pretty Milly!&rdquo; 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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get up early to-morrow, and we&rsquo;ll have such a nice walk together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Arthur was gone: his mother&rsquo;s gaze had followed his young and graceful
+      figure to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Own that he is handsome, Lilburne. May I not say more:&mdash;has he not
+      the proper air?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear sister, your son will be rich. As for his air, he has plenty of
+      airs, but wants graces.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then who could polish him like yourself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Probably no one. But had I a son&mdash;which Heaven forbid!&mdash;he
+      should not have me for his Mentor. Place a young man&mdash;(go and shut
+      the door, Camilla!)&mdash;between two vices&mdash;women and gambling, if
+      you want to polish him into the fashionable smoothness. Entre nous, the
+      varnish is a little expensive!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;&mdash;.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is an out-of-the-way place for a horse, too,&rdquo; said Sir Harry Danvers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I assure you,&rdquo; insisted Mr. Watson, earnestly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Arthur, gaily, &ldquo;at all events the ride is delightful. What
+      weather! You must all dine with me at Richmond to-morrow&mdash;we will row
+      back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And a little chicken-hazard, at the M&mdash;-, afterwards,&rdquo; said Mr.
+      Marsden, who was an elder, not a better, man than the rest&mdash;a
+      handsome, saturnine man&mdash;who had just left Oxford, and was already
+      known on the turf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anything you please,&rdquo; said Arthur, making his horse curvet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh, Mr. Robert Beaufort! Mr. Robert Beaufort! could your prudent,
+      scheming, worldly heart but feel what devil&rsquo;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&mdash;on! the day is bright
+      and your companions merry; make the best of your green years, Arthur
+      Beaufort!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young men had just entered the suburb of H&mdash;-, and were spurring
+      on four abreast at a canter. At that time an old man, feeling his way
+      before him with a stick,&mdash;for though not quite blind, he saw
+      imperfectly,&mdash;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&mdash;it was too late: Mr. Marsden&rsquo;s horse,
+      hard-mouthed, and high-stepping, came full against him. Mr. Marsden looked
+      down:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hang these old men! always in the way,&rdquo; 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&mdash;who were not gamblers&mdash;who were
+      not yet grinded down into stone by the world&rsquo;s wheels&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lean on me, my poor fellow! Do you live far off? I will take you home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;what of that? I wish I
+      had my dog.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will join you,&rdquo; said Arthur to his friends; &ldquo;my groom has the
+      direction. I will just take the poor old man home, and send for a surgeon.
+      I shall not be long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So like you, Beaufort: the best fellow in the world!&rdquo; said Mr. Watson,
+      with some emotion. &ldquo;And there&rsquo;s Marsden positively, dismounted, and
+      looking at his horse&rsquo;s knees as if they could be hurt! Here&rsquo;s a sovereign
+      for you, my man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And here&rsquo;s another,&rdquo; said Sir Harry; &ldquo;so that&rsquo;s settled. Well, you will
+      join us, Beaufort? You see the yard yonder. We&rsquo;ll wait twenty minutes for
+      you. Come on, Watson.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Must a man be a beggar because he is run over, or because he is half
+      blind?&rdquo; said he, turning his dim, wandering eyes painfully towards Arthur.
+      &ldquo;Well, I wish I had my dog!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will supply his place,&rdquo; said Arthur, soothingly. &ldquo;Come, lean on me&mdash;heavier;
+      that&rsquo;s right. You are not so bad,&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Um!&mdash;the sovereigns!&mdash;it is wicked to leave them in the
+      kennel!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Arthur smiled. &ldquo;Here they are, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bless us and save us, sir! What has happened?&rdquo; exclaimed this worthy
+      personage, holding up her hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pish! I am faint: let me in. I don&rsquo;t want your aid any more, sir. Thank
+      you. Good day!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s this&mdash;bad accident&mdash;um&mdash;um! Sad thing, very sad.
+      Open the window. A glass of water&mdash;a towel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So&mdash;so: I see&mdash;I see&mdash;no fracture&mdash;contusion. Help
+      him off with his coat. Another chair, ma&rsquo;am; put up his poor legs. What
+      age is he, ma&rsquo;am?&mdash;Sixty-eight! Too old to bleed. Thank you. How is
+      it, sir? Poorly, to be sure: will be comfortable presently&mdash;faintish
+      still? Soon put all to rights.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tray! Tray! Where&rsquo;s my dog, Mrs. Boxer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord, sir, what do you want with your dog now? He is in the back-yard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what business has my dog in the back-yard?&rdquo; almost screamed the
+      sufferer, in accents that denoted no diminution of vigour. &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, you see, sir,&rdquo; said the apothecary, turning to Beaufort&mdash;&ldquo;no
+      cause for alarm&mdash;very comforting that little passion&mdash;does him
+      good&mdash;sets one&rsquo;s mind easy. How did it happen? Ah, I understand!
+      knocked down&mdash;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&mdash;settled here a many year&mdash;very odd&mdash;eccentric
+      (this in a whisper). Came off instantly: just at dinner&mdash;cold lamb
+      and salad. &lsquo;Mrs. Perkins,&rsquo; says I, &lsquo;if any one calls for me, I shall be at
+      No. 4, Prospect Place.&rsquo; Your servant observed the address, sir. Oh, very
+      sharp fellow! See how the old gentleman takes to his dog&mdash;fine little
+      dog&mdash;what a stump of a tail! Deal of practice&mdash;expect two
+      accouchements every hour. Hot weather for childbirth. So says I to Mrs.
+      Perkins, &lsquo;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&mdash;that&rsquo;s my maxim. Now, sir, where do you feel the pain?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In my ears, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bless me, that looks bad. How long have you felt it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ever since you have been in the room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! I take. Ha! ha!&mdash;very eccentric&mdash;very!&rdquo; muttered the
+      apothecary, a little disconcerted. &ldquo;Well, let him lie down, ma&rsquo;am. I&rsquo;ll
+      send him a little quieting draught to be taken directly&mdash;pill at
+      night, aperient in the morning. If wanted, send for me&mdash;always to be
+      found. Bless me, that&rsquo;s my boy Bob&rsquo;s ring. Please to open the door, ma&rsquo; 
+      am. Know his ring&mdash;very peculiar knack of his own. Lay ten to one it
+      is Mrs. Plummer, or perhaps, Mrs. Everat&mdash;her ninth child in eight
+      years&mdash;in the grocery line. A woman in a thousand, sir!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here a thin boy, with very short coat-sleeves, and very large hands, burst
+      into the room with his mouth open. &ldquo;Sir&mdash;Mr. Perkins&mdash;sir!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know&mdash;I know&mdash;coming. Mrs. Plummer or Mrs. Everat?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir; it be the poor lady at Mrs. Lacy&rsquo;s; she be taken desperate. Mrs.
+      Lacy&rsquo;s girl has just been over to the shop, and made me run here to you,
+      sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mrs. Lacy&rsquo;s! oh, I know. Poor Mrs. Morton! Bad case&mdash;very bad&mdash;must
+      be off. Keep him quiet, ma&rsquo;am. Good day! Look in to-morrow&mdash;nine
+      o&rsquo;clock. Put a little lint with the lotion on the head, ma&rsquo;am. Mrs.
+      Morton! Ah! bad job that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the apothecary had shuffled himself off to the street door, when
+      Arthur laid his hand on his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mrs. Morton! Did you say Morton, sir? What kind of a person&mdash;is she
+      very ill?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hopeless case, sir&mdash;general break-up. Nice woman&mdash;quite the
+      lady&mdash;known better days, I&rsquo;m sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has she any children&mdash;sons?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two&mdash;both away now&mdash;fine lads&mdash;quite wrapped up in them&mdash;youngest
+      especially.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good heavens! it must be she&mdash;ill, and dying, and destitute,
+      perhaps,&rdquo;&mdash;exclaimed Arthur, with real and deep feeling; &ldquo;I will go
+      with you, sir. I fancy that I know this lady&mdash;that,&rdquo; he added
+      generously, &ldquo;I am related to her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you?&mdash;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. &mdash;&mdash;-, who attends her sometimes, said to me, says he,
+      &lsquo;It is the mind, Mr. Perkins; I wish we could get back her boys.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And where are they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Prenticed out, I fancy. Master Sidney&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sidney!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! that was his name&mdash;pretty name. D&rsquo;ye know Sir Sidney Smith?&mdash;extraordinary
+      man, sir! Master Sidney was a beautiful child&mdash;quite spoiled. She
+      always fancied him ailing&mdash;always sending for me. &lsquo;Mr. Perkins,&rsquo; said
+      she, &lsquo;there&rsquo;s something the matter with my child; I&rsquo;m sure there is,
+      though he won&rsquo;t own it. He has lost his appetite&mdash;had a headache last
+      night.&rsquo; &lsquo;Nothing the matter, ma&rsquo;am,&rsquo; says I; &lsquo;wish you&rsquo;d think more of
+      yourself.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These mothers are silly, anxious, poor creatures. Nater, sir, Nater&mdash;wonderful
+      thing&mdash;Nater!&mdash;Here we are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the apothecary knocked at the private door of a milliner and hosier&rsquo;s
+      shop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      &ldquo;Thy child shall live, and I will see it nourished.&rdquo;&mdash;Titus
+      Andronicus.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      As might be expected, the excitement and fatigue of Catherine&rsquo;s journey to
+      N&mdash;&mdash; had considerably accelerated the progress of disease. And
+      when she reached home, and looked round the cheerless rooms all solitary,
+      all hushed&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;so kind to him. She clung to one
+      familiar face on which there seemed to live the reflection of her child&rsquo;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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;SIR:&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                  &ldquo;I am, &amp;c.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      After the physician had despatched this letter, a sudden and marked
+      alteration for the worse took place in his patient&rsquo;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. &mdash;&mdash;
+      resided.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do not remember me?&rdquo; said he, in a voice struggling with tears: &ldquo;I am
+      Arthur&mdash;Arthur Beaufort.&rdquo; Catherine made no answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good Heavens! Why do I see you here? I believed you with your friends&mdash;your
+      children provided for&mdash;as became my father to do. He assured me that
+      you were so.&rdquo; Still no answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then the young man, overpowered with the feelings of a sympathising
+      and generous nature, forgetting for a while Catherine&rsquo;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&rsquo;s heart, is the
+      last to break; and she raised herself in her bed, and looked at her
+      visitor wistfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your father,&rdquo; she said, then&mdash;&ldquo;your father was unlike my Philip; but
+      I see things differently now. For me, all bounty is too late; but my
+      children&mdash;to-morrow they may have no mother. The law is with you, but
+      not justice! You will be rich and powerful;&mdash;will you befriend my
+      children?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Through life, so help me Heaven!&rdquo; exclaimed Arthur, falling on his knees
+      beside the bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;D&rsquo;ye stand amazed?&mdash;Look o&rsquo;er thy head, Maximinian!
+     Look to the terror which overhangs thee.&rdquo;
+               BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: The Prophetess.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;his hands trembling&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;the gipsy,&rdquo; alone, on a
+      dark night; to which Mrs. Plaskwith replied, as usual, &ldquo;that Mr. Plimmins
+      always did say the best things in the world!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One morning, Philip was sent a few miles into the country, to assist in
+      cataloguing some books in the library of Sir Thomas Champerdown&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was evening before he returned. Mr. and Mrs. Plaskwith were both in the
+      shop as he entered&mdash;in fact, they had been employed in talking him
+      over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t abide him!&rdquo; cried Mrs. Plaskwith. &ldquo;If you choose to take him for
+      good, I sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t have an easy moment. I&rsquo;m sure the &lsquo;prentice that cut his
+      master&rsquo;s throat at Chatham, last week, was just like him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pshaw! Mrs. P.,&rdquo; said the bookseller, taking a huge pinch of snuff, as
+      usual, from his waistcoat pocket. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how fond of money he is!&rdquo; remarked Mrs. Plaskwith, &ldquo;he won&rsquo;t buy
+      himself a new pair of shoes!&mdash;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is shabby, certainly,&rdquo; said the bookseller; &ldquo;but the value of a book
+      does not always depend on the binding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope he is honest!&rdquo; observed Mrs. Plaskwith;&mdash;and here Philip
+      entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hum,&rdquo; said Mr. Plaskwith; &ldquo;you have had a long day&rsquo;s work: but I suppose
+      it will take a week to finish?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am to go again to-morrow morning, sir: two days more will conclude the
+      task.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a letter for you,&rdquo; cried Mrs. Plaskwith; &ldquo;you owes me for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A letter!&rdquo; It was not his mother&rsquo;s hand&mdash;it was a strange writing&mdash;he
+      gasped for breath as he broke the seal. It was the letter of the
+      physician.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His mother, then, was ill&mdash;dying&mdash;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;&mdash;he
+      uttered a cry that rang through the shop, and rushed to Mr. Plaskwith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir, sir! my mother is dying! She is poor, poor, perhaps starving;&mdash;money,
+      money!&mdash;lend me money!&mdash;ten pounds!&mdash;five!&mdash;I will
+      work for you all my life for nothing, but lend me the money!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hoity-toity!&rdquo; said Mrs. Plaskwith, nudging her husband&mdash;&ldquo;I told you
+      what would come of it: it will be &lsquo;money or life&rsquo; next time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip did not heed or hear this address; but stood immediately before the
+      bookseller, his hands clasped&mdash;wild impatience in his eyes. Mr.
+      Plaskwith, somewhat stupefied, remained silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you hear me?&mdash;are you human?&rdquo; exclaimed Philip, his emotion
+      revealing at once all the fire of his character. &ldquo;I tell you my mother is
+      dying; I must go to her! Shall I go empty-handed? Give me money!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not the way to speak to your master:&mdash;you forget yourself,
+      young man!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forget!&mdash;But, sir, if she has not necessaries&mdash;if she is
+      starving?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fudge!&rdquo; said Plaskwith. &ldquo;Mr. Morton writes me word that he has provided
+      for your mother! Does he not, Hannah?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;More fool he, I&rsquo;m sure, with such a fine family of his own! Don&rsquo;t look at
+      me in that way, young man; I won&rsquo;t take it&mdash;that I won&rsquo;t! I declare
+      my blood friz to see you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you advance me money?&mdash;five pounds&mdash;only five pounds, Mr.
+      Plaskwith?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not five shillings! Talk to me in this style!&mdash;not the man for it,
+      sir!&mdash;highly improper. Come, shut up the shop, and recollect
+      yourself; and, perhaps, when Sir Thomas&rsquo;s library is done, I may let you
+      go to town. You can&rsquo;t go to-morrow. All a sham, perhaps; eh, Hannah?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very likely! Consult Plimmins. Better come away now, Mr. P. He looks like
+      a young tiger.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I leave you&mdash;do not let it be with a curse. I conjure you, have
+      mercy on me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Plaskwith stopped; and had Philip then taken but a milder tone, all
+      had been well. But, accustomed from childhood to command&mdash;all his
+      fierce passions loose within him&mdash;despising the very man he thus
+      implored&mdash;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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You, who demand for five years my bones and blood&mdash;my body and soul&mdash;a
+      slave to your vile trade&mdash;do you deny me bread for a mother&rsquo;s lips?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beg my pardon for this to-night, or out you go to-morrow, neck and crop!
+      Zounds! a pretty pass the world&rsquo;s come to! I don&rsquo;t believe a word about
+      your mother. Baugh!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;pressed
+      it over his brows&mdash;turned to quit the shop&mdash;when his eye fell
+      upon the till. Plaskwith had left it open, and the gleam of the coin
+      struck his gaze&mdash;that deadly smile of the arch tempter. Intellect,
+      reason, conscience&mdash;all, in that instant, were confusion and chaos.
+      He cast a hurried glance round the solitary and darkening room&mdash;plunged
+      his hand into the drawer, clutched he knew not what&mdash;silver or gold,
+      as it came uppermost&mdash;and burst into a loud and bitter laugh. The
+      laugh itself startled him&mdash;it did not sound like his own. His face
+      fell, and his knees knocked together&mdash;his hair bristled&mdash;he felt
+      as if the very fiend had uttered that yell of joy over a fallen soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;no&mdash;no!&rdquo; he muttered; &ldquo;no, my mother,&mdash;not even for
+      thee!&rdquo; And, dashing the money to the ground, he fled, like a maniac, from
+      the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;clock, with a hurried scroll, written
+      in pencil on a blank page torn from his pocket-book, and containing only
+      these words,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t wait dinner for me&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This note a little perplexed Mr. Beaufort; but, as he was very hungry, he
+      turned a deaf ear both to his wife&rsquo;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&rsquo;s in H&mdash;&mdash;. This seemed to him extremely mysterious; and,
+      as hour after hour passed away, and still Arthur came not, he began to
+      imbibe his wife&rsquo;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&mdash;swift were the steeds&mdash;and
+      luxuriously the wealthy man was whirled along. Not a suspicion of the true
+      cause of Arthur&rsquo;s detention crossed him; but he thought of the snares of
+      London&mdash;or artful females in distress; &ldquo;a melancholy adventure&rdquo;
+       generally implies love for the adventure, and money for the melancholy;
+      and Arthur was young&mdash;generous&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, the door to the private entrance
+      was ajar,&mdash;a circumstance which seemed very suspicious to Mr.
+      Beaufort. He pushed it open with caution and timidity&mdash;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&mdash;it came nearer and nearer&mdash;a figure
+      emerged from the shadow of the last landing-place, and Mr. Beaufort, to
+      his great joy, recognised his son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Arthur did not, however, seem to perceive his father; and was about to
+      pass him, when Mr. Beaufort laid his hand on his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What means all this, Arthur? What place are you in? How you have alarmed
+      us!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Arthur cast a look upon his father of sadness and reproach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father,&rdquo; he said, in a tone that sounded stern&mdash;almost commanding&mdash;&ldquo;I
+      will show you where I have been; follow me&mdash;nay, I say, follow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are we, I say, Arthur?&rdquo; repeated Mr. Beaufort. Arthur took his
+      father&rsquo;s hand-drew him into a room to the right&mdash;and taking up the
+      candle, placed it on a small table beside a bell, and said, &ldquo;Here, sir&mdash;in
+      the presence of Death!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;she, whom your brother so loved&mdash;the mother of his
+      children&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Conscience-stricken and appalled, the worldly man sank down on a seat
+      beside the bed, and covered his face with his hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; continued Arthur, almost bitterly&mdash;&ldquo;ay, we, his nearest of kin&mdash;we,
+      who have inherited his lands and gold&mdash;we have been thus heedless of
+      the great legacy your brother bequeathed to us:&mdash;the things dearest
+      to him&mdash;the woman he loved&mdash;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&mdash;join
+      in that vow: and may Heaven not visit on us both the woes of this bed of
+      death!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not know&mdash;I&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo; faltered Mr. Beaufort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But we should have known,&rdquo; interrupted Arthur, mournfully. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;pale, haggard, breathless&mdash;towards the house which he had
+      quitted, and the door of which he left open, as he had found it&mdash;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&mdash;at that dreary hour, and in that
+      remote suburb&mdash;the heir of the Beauforts sought his splendid home.
+      Anxious, fearful, hoping, the outcast orphan flew on to the death-room of
+      his mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Beaufort, who had but imperfectly heard Arthur&rsquo;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&mdash;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,&mdash;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is dead!&mdash;dead! and in your presence!&rdquo; shouted Philip, with his
+      wild eyes fixed upon the cowering uncle; &ldquo;dead with&mdash;care, perhaps
+      with famine. And you have come to look upon your work!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed,&rdquo; said Beaufort, deprecatingly, &ldquo;I have but just arrived: I did
+      not know she had been ill, or in want, upon my honour. This is all a&mdash;a&mdash;mistake:
+      I&mdash;I&mdash;came in search of&mdash;of&mdash;another&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did not, then, come to relieve her?&rdquo; said Philip, very calmly. &ldquo;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!&mdash;why
+      did I think it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did any one call, gentlemen?&rdquo; said a whining voice at the door; and the
+      nurse put in her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;yes&mdash;you may come in,&rdquo; said Beaufort, shaking with
+      nameless and cowardly apprehension; but Philip had flown to the door, and,
+      gazing on the nurse, said,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is a stranger! see, a stranger! The son now has assumed his post.
+      Begone, woman!&rdquo; And he pushed her away, and drew the bolt across the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I had but known&mdash;if you had but written to me, my dear young
+      gentleman&mdash;but my offers had been refused, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Offers of a hireling&rsquo;s pittance to her; to her for whom my father would
+      have coined his heart&rsquo;s blood into gold! My father&rsquo;s wife!&mdash;his wife!&mdash;offers&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He rose suddenly, folded his arms, and facing Beaufort, with a fierce
+      determined brow, said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;robber as you were&mdash;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&mdash;dead, far from both her
+      sons&mdash;now I abhor and curse you. You may think yourself safe when you
+      quit this room&mdash;safe, and from my hatred you may be so but do not
+      deceive yourself. The curse of the widow and the orphan shall pursue&mdash;it
+      shall cling to you and yours&mdash;it shall gnaw your heart in the midst
+      of splendour&mdash;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&mdash;no,
+      you never shall forget them&mdash;years hence they shall ring in your
+      ears, and freeze the marrow of your bones! And now begone, my father&rsquo;s
+      brother&mdash;begone from my mother&rsquo;s corpse to your luxurious home!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BOOK II.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        &ldquo;Incubo. Look to the cavalier. What ails he?
+         . . . . .
+        Hostess. And in such good clothes, too!&rdquo;
+             BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: Love&rsquo;s Pilgrimage.
+
+   &ldquo;Theod. I have a brother&mdash;there my last hope!.
+       Thus as you find me, without fear or wisdom,
+       I now am only child of Hope and Danger.&rdquo;&mdash;Ibid.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;perhaps
+      on the morrow&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be darnted, sir,&rdquo; said one of the strangers, who seemed an artisan;
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;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&rsquo;s a mercy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A providence, sir,&rdquo; said the other man; &ldquo;but Providence watches over us
+      all, night and day, sleep or wake. Hem! We were passing at the time from
+      the meeting&mdash;the Odd Fellows, sir&mdash;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&mdash;my
+      eyes! how he groaned! did he not, Burrows?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It did one&rsquo;s heart good to hear him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Run for Astley Cooper&mdash;you&mdash;go to Brodie. Good Heavens! he is
+      dying. Be quick&mdash;quick!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a judgment upon me,&rdquo; groaned Beaufort, rooted to the stone of his
+      hall, and left alone with the strangers. &ldquo;No, sir, it is not a judgment,
+      it is a providence,&rdquo; said the more sanctimonious and better dressed of the
+      two men &ldquo;for, put the question, if it had been a judgment, the wheel would
+      have gone over him&mdash;but it didn&rsquo;t; and, whether he dies or not, I
+      shall always say that if that&rsquo;s not a providence, I don&rsquo;t know what is. We
+      have come a long way, sir; and Burrows is a poor man, though I&rsquo;m well to
+      do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;s enough to convert a heathen. But
+      the ways of Providence are mysterious, and that&rsquo;s the truth of it. Good
+      night, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s
+      accident, he sent for Mr. Blackwell. He commissioned him to see that
+      Catherine&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &amp;c., she had left behind. In an old escritoire, he found,
+      first, various packets of letters in his father&rsquo;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He came, at length, to a letter in his mother&rsquo;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&rsquo;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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;MY DEAREST PHILIP,&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I repeat my solemn injunction&mdash;Do not grieve for me; but strengthen
+      your mind and heart to receive the charge that I now confide to you&mdash;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&mdash;and&mdash;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&mdash;my spirit&mdash;my
+      mother-spirit of love, and forethought, and vigilance, enter into you
+      while you read. See him when I am gone&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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 &lsquo;Father!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had read this letter, Philip Morton fell upon his knees, and
+      prayed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;His curse! Dost comprehend what that word means?
+     Shot from a father&rsquo;s angry breath.&rdquo;
+      JAMES SHIRLEY: The Brothers.
+
+     &ldquo;This term is fatal, and affrights me.&rdquo;&mdash;Ibid.
+
+     &ldquo;Those fond philosophers that magnify
+     Our human nature......
+     Conversed but little with the world-they knew not
+     The fierce vexation of community!&rdquo;&mdash;Ibid.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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. &ldquo;And now,&rdquo; said
+      he, as the servant wept while he spoke, &ldquo;now I can bear to ask you what I
+      have not before done. How did my poor mother die? Did she suffer much?&mdash;or&mdash;or&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She went off like a lamb, sir,&rdquo; said the girl, drying her eyes. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The gentleman! Not the gentleman I found here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;I shall never
+      forget that smile&mdash;for I was standing on the other side, as it might
+      be here, and the doctor was by the window, pouring out the doctor&rsquo;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, &lsquo;You will never forget them?&rsquo; and he said,
+      &lsquo;Never.&rsquo; I don&rsquo;t know what that meant, sir!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well&mdash;go on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the stranger had my post! No matter; God bless him&mdash;God bless
+      him. Who was he? what was his name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And has never been seen since?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir. Perhaps missus can tell you more about him. But won&rsquo;t you take
+      something, sir? Do&mdash;you look so pale.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to leave your house, ma&rsquo;am; and I wish to settle any little
+      arrears of rent, &amp;c.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O sir! don&rsquo;t mention it,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;And here, sir,&rdquo; she added, taking from the same depository a card,&mdash;&ldquo;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&rsquo;clock. So I hope you won&rsquo;t go yet: for I think
+      he means to settle everything for you; he said as much, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip glanced over the card, and read, &ldquo;Mr. George Blackwell, Lincoln&rsquo;s
+      Inn.&rdquo; His brow grew dark&mdash;he let the card fall on the ground, put his
+      foot on it with a quiet scorn, and muttered to himself, &ldquo;The lawyer shall
+      not bribe me out of my curse!&rdquo; He turned to the total of the bill&mdash;not
+      heavy, for poor Catherine had regularly defrayed the expense of her scanty
+      maintenance and humble lodging&mdash;paid the money, and, as the landlady
+      wrote the receipt, he asked, &ldquo;Who was the gentleman&mdash;the younger
+      gentleman&mdash;who called in the morning of the day my mother died?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;ll be sure to
+      call again, sir; you had much better stay here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No: it does not signify. All that he could do is done. But stay, give him
+      this note, if he should call.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip, taking the pen from the landlady&rsquo;s hand, hastily wrote (while Mrs.
+      Lacy went to bring him sealing-wax and a light) these words:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;she died in
+      your arms; and if ever&mdash;years, long years hence&mdash;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 &mdash;&mdash;,
+      with Mr. Morton. If you can serve him, my mother&rsquo;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&rsquo;s grave. PHILIP.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He sealed this letter, and gave it to the woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, by the by,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what shall I say to Mr. Blackwell?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That he may tell his employer to remember our last interview.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With that Philip took up his bundle and strode from the house. He went
+      first to the churchyard, where his mother&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother! mother!&rdquo; sobbed the orphan, as he fell prostrate before that
+      fresh green mound: &ldquo;here&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As words to this effect struggled from his lips, a loud, shrill voice&mdash;the
+      cracked, painful voice of weak age wrestling with strong passion, rose
+      close at hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Away, reprobate! thou art accursed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s hands were outstretched over the head
+      of the younger, as if suiting terrible action to the terrible words, and,
+      after a moment&rsquo;s pause&mdash;a moment, but it seemed far longer to Philip&mdash;there
+      was heard a deep, wild, ghastly howl from a dog that cowered at the old
+      man&rsquo;s feet; a howl, perhaps of fear at the passion of his master, which
+      the animal might associate with danger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father! father!&rdquo; said the suppliant reproachfully, &ldquo;your very dog rebukes
+      your curse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&mdash;thou hast turned mine old
+      age into a by-word,&mdash;thy crimes leave me solitary in the midst of my
+      shame!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is many years since we met, father; we may never meet again&mdash;shall
+      we part thus?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thus, aha!&rdquo; said the old man in a tone of withering sarcasm! &ldquo;I
+      comprehend,&mdash;you are come for money!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this taunt the son started as if stung by a serpent; raised his head to
+      its full height, folded his arms, and replied:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir, you wrong me: for more than twenty years I have maintained myself&mdash;no
+      matter how, but without taxing you;&mdash;and now, I felt remorse for
+      having suffered you to discard me,&mdash;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,&mdash;not my sins, but this
+      interview. Repeal your curse, father; I have enough on my head without
+      yours; and so&mdash;let the son at least bless the father who curses him.
+      Farewell!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;&mdash;.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;William!&rdquo; he said at last, gently; &ldquo;William!&rdquo; and the tears rolled down
+      his furrowed cheeks; &ldquo;my son!&rdquo; but that son was gone&mdash;the old man
+      listened for reply&mdash;none came. &ldquo;He has left me&mdash;poor William!&mdash;we
+      shall never meet again;&rdquo; and he sank once more on the old tombstone, dumb,
+      rigid, motionless&mdash;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The twilight had closed in; the earliest star&mdash;the star of Memory and
+      Love, the Hesperus hymned by every poet since the world began&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There he is&mdash;there he is! Stop, sir!&mdash;stop!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A nameless feeling of fear, rage, and disgust seized the unhappy boy, and
+      at the same moment a ragged vagabond whispered to him, &ldquo;Stump it, my cove;
+      that&rsquo;s a Bow Street runner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then there shot through Philip&rsquo;s mind the recollection of the money he had
+      seized, though but to dash away; was he now&mdash;he, still to his own
+      conviction, the heir of an ancient and spotless name&mdash;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&mdash;the law only seemed
+      to him, as it ever does to the ignorant and the friendless&mdash;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&mdash;a spring that sent Mr. Plimmins sprawling in the kennel, he
+      darted across the road, and fled down an opposite lane.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop him! stop!&rdquo; 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,&mdash;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&mdash;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
+      &ldquo;Stop him!&rdquo; had changed as the shout passed to new voices, into &ldquo;Stop the
+      thief!&rdquo;&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pish!&rdquo; said the man, scornfully; &ldquo;I am no spy; if you run from justice, I
+      would help you to a sign-post.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Struck by the voice, Philip looked hard at the speaker. It was the voice
+      of the Accursed Son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Save me! you remember me?&rdquo; said the orphan, faintly. &ldquo;Ah! I think I do;
+      poor lad! Follow me&mdash;this way!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are safe for the present; I will take you where you can tell me all
+      at your ease&mdash;See!&rdquo; As he spoke they emerged into an open street, and
+      the guide pointed to a row of hackney coaches. &ldquo;Be quick&mdash;get in.
+      Coachman, drive fast to &mdash;-&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip did not hear the rest of the direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our story returns to Sidney.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        &ldquo;Nous vous mettrons a couvert,
+        Repondit le pot de fer
+        Si quelque matiere dure
+        Vous menace d&rsquo;aventure,
+        Entre deux je passerai,
+        Et du coup vous sauverai.
+        ........
+        Le pot de terre en souffre!&rdquo;&mdash;LA FONTAINE.
+
+   [&ldquo;We, replied the Iron Pot, will shield you: should any hard
+   substance menace you with danger, I&rsquo;ll intervene, and save you
+   from the shock.
+ ......... The Earthen Pot was the sufferer!]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, ma&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, you little plague! you have scratched yourself&mdash;you are always
+      in mischief. What business had you to look after the coach?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; said Sidney, hanging his head ruefully. &ldquo;La, mother!&rdquo;
+       cried the youngest of the cousins, a square-built, ruddy, coarse-featured
+      urchin, about Sidney&rsquo;s age, &ldquo;La, mother, he never see a coach in the
+      street when we are at play but he runs arter it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After, not arter,&rdquo; said Mr. Roger Morton, taking the pipe from his mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you go after the coaches, Sidney?&rdquo; said Mrs. Morton; &ldquo;it is very
+      naughty; you will be run over some day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, ma&rsquo;am,&rdquo; said Sidney, who during the whole colloquy had been
+      trembling from head to foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Yes ma&rsquo;am,&rsquo; and &lsquo;no, ma&rsquo;am:&rsquo; you have no more manners than a cobbler&rsquo;s
+      boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t tease the child, my dear; he is crying,&rdquo; said Mr. Morton, more
+      authoritatively than usual. &ldquo;Come here, my man!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You spoil the boy more than do your own flesh and blood,&rdquo; said Mrs.
+      Morton, greatly displeased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Tom, the youngest-born before described, put his mouth to his
+      mother&rsquo;s ear, and whispered loud enough to be heard by all: &ldquo;He runs arter
+      the coach &lsquo;cause he thinks his ma may be in it. Who&rsquo;s home-sick, I should
+      like to know? Ba! Baa!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy pointed his finger over his mother&rsquo;s shoulder, and the other
+      children burst into a loud giggle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave the room, all of you,&mdash;leave the room!&rdquo; said Mr. Morton,
+      rising angrily and stamping his foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s
+      favour, popped his head through the doorway, and cried, &ldquo;Good-bye, little
+      home-sick!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If that&rsquo;s the way you behave to your children, Mr. Morton, I vow you
+      sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t have any more if I can help it. Don&rsquo;t come near me&mdash;don&rsquo;t
+      touch me!&rdquo; and Mrs. Morton assumed the resentful air of offended beauty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pshaw!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ring the bell, Sidney,&rdquo; said Mr. Morton. The boy obeyed&mdash;the
+      parlour-maid entered. &ldquo;Take Master Sidney to his room; keep the boys away
+      from him, and give him a large slice of bread and jam, Martha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jam, indeed!&mdash;treacle,&rdquo; said Mrs. Morton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jam, Martha,&rdquo; repeated the uncle, authoritatively. &ldquo;Treacle!&rdquo; reiterated
+      the aunt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jam, I say!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Treacle, you hear: and for that matter, Martha has no jam to give!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The husband had nothing more to say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good night, Sidney; there&rsquo;s a good boy, go and kiss your aunt and make
+      your bow; and I say, my lad, don&rsquo;t mind those plagues. I&rsquo;ll talk to them
+      to-morrow, that I will; no one shall be unkind to you in my house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s. But there reigned what are worse than hardness,&mdash;prejudice
+      and wounded vanity&mdash;maternal vanity. His contrast to her own rough,
+      coarse children grated on her, and set the teeth of her mind on edge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, child, don&rsquo;t tread on my gown: you are so awkward: say your
+      prayers, and don&rsquo;t throw off the counterpane! I don&rsquo;t like slovenly boys.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney put his finger in his mouth, drooped, and vanished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Mrs. M.,&rdquo; said Mr. Morton, abruptly, and knocking out the ashes of
+      his pipe; &ldquo;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&rsquo;t guess for the life of me.
+      I never saw a sweeter-tempered child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go on, sir, go on: make your personal reflections on your own lawful
+      wife. They don&rsquo;t hurt me&mdash;oh no, not at all! Sweet-tempered, indeed;
+      I suppose your own children are not sweet-tempered?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s neither here nor there,&rdquo; said Mr. Morton: &ldquo;my own children are
+      such as God made them, and I am very well satisfied.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;it is too bad of you, Mr. Morton;
+      you will break my heart&mdash;that you will!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Morton put her handkerchief to her eyes and sobbed. The husband was
+      moved: he got up and attempted to take her hand. &ldquo;Indeed, Margaret, I did
+      not mean to vex you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I who have been such a fa&mdash;fai&mdash;faithful wi&mdash;wi&mdash;wife,
+      and brought you such a deal of mon&mdash;mon&mdash;money, and always stud&mdash;stud&mdash;studied
+      your interests; many&rsquo;s the time when you have been fast asleep that I have
+      sat up half the night&mdash;men&mdash;men&mdash;mending the house linen;
+      and you have not been the same man, Roger, since that boy came!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well&rdquo; said the good man, quite overcome, and fairly taking her
+      round the waist and kissing her; &ldquo;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&rsquo;ll be kind to him. Only, if you would,
+      Margaret, for my sake&mdash;old girl! come, now! there&rsquo;s a darling!&mdash;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;La! Mr. Morton, you are such a man!&mdash;there&rsquo;s no resisting your ways!
+      You know how to come over me, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Mrs. Morton smiled benignly, as she escaped from his conjugal arms and
+      smoothed her cap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peace thus restored, Mr. Morton refilled his pipe, and the good lady,
+      after a pause, resumed, in a very mild, conciliatory tone:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you what it is, Roger, that vexes me with that there child. He
+      is so deceitful, and he does tell such fibs!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fibs! that is a very bad fault,&rdquo; said Mr. Morton, gravely. &ldquo;That must be
+      corrected.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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;&mdash;and with such a
+      face! I can&rsquo;t abide storytelling.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me know the next story he tells; I&rsquo;ll cure him,&rdquo; said Mr. Morton,
+      sternly. &ldquo;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&mdash;that&rsquo;s my motto.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Spoke like yourself, Roger,&rdquo; said Mrs. Morton, with great animation. &ldquo;But
+      you see he has not had the advantage of such a father as you. I wonder
+      your sister don&rsquo;t write to you. Some people make a great fuss about their
+      feelings; but out of sight out of mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope she is not ill. Poor Catherine! she looked in a very bad way when
+      she was here,&rdquo; said Morton; and he turned uneasily to the fireplace and
+      sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the servant entered with the supper-tray, and the conversation fell
+      upon other topics.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Roger Morton&rsquo;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;&mdash;the grim aunt&mdash;even
+      the quiet, kind, cold, austere uncle&mdash;the apprentices&mdash;the
+      strange servants&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;a
+      point of education to which Mr. Morton attended with great care. As soon
+      as his father&rsquo;s back was turned, Master Tom&rsquo;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&mdash;at least the parts of it yet extant&mdash;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&mdash;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,&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;And ere a man had power to say &lsquo;Behold!&rsquo; 
+     The jaws of Thomas had devoured it up.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Sidney, disturbed from his studies by the agitation of his companion,
+      witnessed this proceeding with great and conscientious alarm. &ldquo;O Tom!&rdquo;
+       said he, &ldquo;what will your papa say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at that!&rdquo; said Tom, putting his fist under Sidney&rsquo;s reluctant nose.
+      &ldquo;If father misses it, you&rsquo;ll say the cat took it. If you don&rsquo;t&mdash;my
+      eye, what a wapping I&rsquo;ll give you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Mr. Morton&rsquo;s voice was heard wishing the lady &ldquo;Good morning!&rdquo; and
+      Master Tom, thinking it better to leave the credit of the invention solely
+      to Sidney, whispered, &ldquo;Say I&rsquo;m gone up stairs for my pocket-hanker,&rdquo; and
+      hastily absconded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who has been at my muffin?&rdquo; said he, in a voice that seemed to Sidney
+      like the voice he had always supposed an ogre to possess. &ldquo;Have you,
+      Master Sidney?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;N&mdash;n&mdash;no, sir; indeed, sir!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then Tom has. Where is he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gone up stairs for his handkerchief, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he take my muffin? Speak the truth!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir; it was the&mdash;it was the&mdash;the cat, sir!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O you wicked, wicked boy!&rdquo; cried Mrs. Morton, who had followed her
+      husband into the parlour; &ldquo;the cat kittened last night, and is locked up
+      in the coal-cellar!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.,&rdquo; said Mr. Morton, just
+      even in his wrath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Morton went, and there was a dead silence, except indeed in Sidney&rsquo;s
+      heart, which beat louder than a clock ticks. Mr. Morton, meanwhile, went
+      to a little cupboard;&mdash;while still there, Mrs. Morton returned: the
+      cat was in the cellar&mdash;the key turned on her&mdash;in no mood to eat
+      muffins, poor thing!&mdash;she would not even lap her milk! like her
+      mistress, she had had a very bad time!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now come here, sir,&rdquo; said Mr. Morton, withdrawing himself from the
+      cupboard, with a small horsewhip in his hand, &ldquo;I will teach you how to
+      speak the truth in future! Confess that you have told a lie!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir, it was a lie! Pray&mdash;pray forgive me: but Tom made me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What! when poor Tom is up-stairs? worse and worse!&rdquo; said Mrs. Morton,
+      lifting up her hands and eyes. &ldquo;What a viper!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For shame, boy,&mdash;for shame! Take that&mdash;and that&mdash;and that&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Writhing&mdash;shrinking, still more terrified than hurt, the poor child
+      cowered beneath the lash.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mamma! mamma!&rdquo; he cried at last, &ldquo;Oh, why&mdash;why did you leave me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At these words Mr. Morton stayed his hand, the whip fell to the ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet it is all for the boy&rsquo;s good,&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;There, child, I hope
+      this is the last time. There, you are not much hurt. Zounds, don&rsquo;t cry
+      so!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will alarm the whole street,&rdquo; said Mrs. Morton; &ldquo;I never see such a
+      child! Here, take this parcel to Mrs. Birnie&rsquo;s&mdash;you know the house&mdash;only
+      next street, and dry your eyes before you get there. Don&rsquo;t go through the
+      shop; this way out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are convinced now, Mr. M.?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pshaw! ma&rsquo;am; don&rsquo;t talk. But, to be sure, that&rsquo;s how I cured Tom of
+      fibbing.&mdash;The tea&rsquo;s as cold as a stone!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;Le bien nous le faisons: le mal c&rsquo;est la Fortune.
+   On a toujours raison, le Destin toujours tort.&rdquo;&mdash;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.]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;evidently
+      purchased of a Jew in some great fair&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Der Teufel, my goot Madchen&mdash;but you are von var pretty&mdash;vat
+      you call it?&rdquo; and he gave her, as he spoke, so hearty a smack that the
+      girl was more flustered than flattered by the courtesy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Keep yourself to yourself, sir!&rdquo; 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,&mdash;it is immaterial to
+      state the exact spot to which that delicate caress was directed. But this
+      last offence was so inexpiable, that the &ldquo;Madchen&rdquo; bounced off with a face
+      of scarlet, and a &ldquo;Sir, you are no gentleman&mdash;that&rsquo;s what you arn&rsquo;t!&rdquo;
+       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, &ldquo;There, Master Philip, we have got rid of the girl
+      for the rest of the morning, and that&rsquo;s exactly what I wanted to do&mdash;women&rsquo;s
+      wits are confoundedly sharp. Well, did I not tell you right, we have
+      baffled all the bloodhounds!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And here, then, Gawtrey, we are to part,&rdquo; said Philip, mournfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish you would think better of it, my boy,&rdquo; returned Mr. Gawtrey,
+      breaking an egg; &ldquo;how can you shift for yourself&mdash;no kith nor kin,
+      not even that important machine for giving advice called a friend&mdash;no,
+      not a friend, when I am gone? I foresee how it must end. [D&mdash;- it,
+      salt butter, by Jove!]&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;bah!
+      is he not very well off with his own uncle and aunt?&mdash;plenty to eat
+      and drink, I dare say. Come, man, you must be as hungry as a hawk&mdash;a
+      slice of the beef? Let well alone, and shift for yourself. What good can
+      you do your brother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know, but I must see him; I have sworn it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, go and see him, and then strike across the country to me. I will
+      wait a day for you,&mdash;there now!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But tell me first,&rdquo; said Philip, very earnestly, and fixing his dark eyes
+      on his companion,&mdash;&ldquo;tell me&mdash;yes, I must speak frankly&mdash;tell
+      me, you who would link my fortunes with your own,&mdash;tell me, what and
+      who are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gawtrey looked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you suppose?&rdquo; said he, dryly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well-dressed, and very civil to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True! but with a certain wild looseness in their talk that&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your dress&mdash;your disguise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Disguised yourself!&mdash;ha! ha! Behold the world&rsquo;s charity! You fly
+      from some danger, some pursuit, disguised&mdash;you, who hold yourself
+      guiltless&mdash;I do the same, and you hold me criminal&mdash;a robber,
+      perhaps&mdash;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&mdash;so do poets and
+      lawyers, and all the charlatans of the world; I am a charlatan&mdash;a
+      chameleon. &lsquo;Each man in his time plays many parts:&rsquo; I play any part in
+      which Money, the Arch-Manager, promises me a livelihood. Are you
+      satisfied?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; answered the boy, sadly, &ldquo;when I know more of the world, I
+      shall understand you better. Strange&mdash;strange, that you, out of all
+      men, should have been kind to me in distress!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all strange. Ask the beggar whom he gets the most pence from&mdash;the
+      fine lady in her carriage&mdash;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,&mdash;the way of the world. Come, eat while
+      you can; this time next year you may have no beef to your bread.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;doubtless
+      more German than its master&mdash;he said, as he lifted up his carpet-bag,
+      &ldquo;I must be off&mdash;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&rsquo;t know Fan&mdash;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,&mdash;you can find it again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here, then, is the address. Whenever you want me, go there, ask to see
+      Mr. Gregg&mdash;old fellow with one eye, you recollect&mdash;shake him by
+      the hand just so&mdash;you catch the trick&mdash;practise it again. No,
+      the forefinger thus, that&rsquo;s right. Say &lsquo;blater,&rsquo; no more&mdash;&lsquo;blater;&rsquo;&mdash;stay,
+      I will write it down for you; and then ask for William Gawtrey&rsquo;s
+      direction. He will give it you at once, without questions&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke, Gawtrey shook the young man&rsquo;s hand with cordial vigour, and
+      strode off to his chaise, muttering, &ldquo;Money well laid out&mdash;fee money;
+      I shall have him, and, Gad, I like him,&mdash;poor devil!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;He is a cunning coachman that can turn well in a narrow room.&rdquo;
+    Old Play: from Lamb&rsquo;s Specimens.
+
+   &ldquo;Here are two pilgrims,
+   And neither knows one footstep of the way.&rdquo;
+    HEYWOOD&rsquo;s Duchess of Suffolk, Ibid.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Nelson Slow and Sure.&rdquo; From
+      under the shade of his cap, he darted that quick, quiet glance, which a
+      man who hunts, or is hunted,&mdash;in other words, who observes, or shuns,&mdash;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&rsquo;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, &ldquo;Pawdon me, and split legs!&rdquo;
+       therewith stretching himself between Philip&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must take this&mdash;you must now; it will keep the cold out,&rdquo; (the
+      day was broiling,) said he to the young woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gracious me!&rdquo; was the answer, &ldquo;but I never drink wine of a morning,
+      James; it will get into my head.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To oblige me!&rdquo; said the young man, sentimentally; whereupon the young
+      lady took the glass, and looking very kindly at her Ganymede, said, &ldquo;Your
+      health!&rdquo; and sipped, and made a wry face&mdash;then she looked at the
+      passengers, tittered, and said, &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t bear wine!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right!&rdquo; cried the coachman: the ostler twitched the cloths from the
+      leaders, and away went the &ldquo;Nelson Slow and Sure,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That young gentleman seems very auttentive, miss!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is a very good young man, sir, and takes great care of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not your brother, miss,&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;La, sir&mdash;why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No faumily likeness&mdash;noice-looking fellow enough! But your oiyes and
+      mouth&mdash;ah, miss!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss turned away her head, and uttered with pert vivacity: &ldquo;I never likes
+      compliments, sir! But the young man is not my brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A sweetheart,&mdash;eh? Oh fie, miss! Haw! haw!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, sir, there is no harm in a sweetheart, is there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None in the least, ma&rsquo;am; I advoise you to double the dose. We often hear
+      of two strings to a bow. Daun&rsquo;t you think it would be noicer to have two
+      beaux to your string?&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;How you do run on, you gentlemen!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I may well run on, miss, as long as I run aufter you,&rdquo; was the gallant
+      reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you unwell, sir?&rdquo; asked the young lady, compassionately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A little pain in my side, nothing more!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Chaunge places with me, sir,&rdquo; cried the Lothario, officiously. &ldquo;Now do!&rdquo;
+       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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you going to N&mdash;&mdash;? asked the gentleman, in a gentle, timid
+      voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it the first time you have ever been there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir!&rdquo; returned Philip, in a voice that spoke surprise and distaste at his
+      neighbour&rsquo;s curiosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgive me,&rdquo; said the gentleman, shrinking back; &ldquo;but you remind me of-of&mdash;a
+      family I once knew in the town. Do you know&mdash;the&mdash;the Mortons?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One in Philip&rsquo;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, &ldquo;I am quite a stranger to the town,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gentleman sighed again, and never spoke more to the end of the
+      journey. When the coach halted at the inn,&mdash;the same inn which had
+      before given its shelter to poor Catherine,&mdash;the young man in the
+      white coat opened the door, and offered his arm to the young lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you make any stay here, sir?&rdquo; said she to the beau, as she unpinned
+      her bonnet from the roof.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps so; I am waiting for my phe-a-ton, which my faellow is to bring
+      down,&mdash;tauking a little tour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall be very happy to see you, sir!&rdquo; said the young lady, on whom the
+      phe-a-ton completed the effect produced by the gentleman&rsquo;s previous
+      gallantries; and with that she dropped into his hand a very neat card, on
+      which was printed, &ldquo;Wavers and Snow, Staymakers, High Street.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The beau put the card gracefully into his pocket&mdash;leaped from the
+      coach&mdash;nudged aside his rival of the white coat, and offered his arm
+      to the lady, who leaned on it affectionately as she descended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This gentleman has been so perlite to me, James,&rdquo; said she. James touched
+      his hat; the beau clapped him on the shoulder,&mdash;&ldquo;Ah! you are not a
+      hauppy man,&mdash;are you? Oh no, not at all a hauppy man!&mdash;Good day
+      to you! Guard, that hat-box is mine!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While Philip was paying the coachman, the beau passed, and whispered him&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Recollect old Gregg&mdash;anything on the lay here&mdash;don&rsquo;t spoil my
+      sport if we meet!&rdquo; and bustled off into the inn, whistling &ldquo;God save the
+      king!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip started, then tried to bring to mind the faces which he had seen at
+      the &ldquo;strange place,&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s house, and thither he now proceeded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Morton,&rdquo;&mdash;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&rsquo;s door, he saw
+      a child seated on the stone steps weeping bitterly&mdash;a thrill shot
+      through Philip&rsquo;s heart! Did he recognise, disguised as it was by pain and
+      sorrow, that voice? He paused, and laid his hand on the child&rsquo;s shoulder:
+      &ldquo;Oh, don&rsquo;t&mdash;don&rsquo;t&mdash;pray don&rsquo;t&mdash;I am going, I am indeed:&rdquo;
+       cried the child, quailing, and still keeping his hands clasped before his
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sidney!&rdquo; said Philip. The boy started to his feet, uttered a cry of
+      rapturous joy, and fell upon his brother&rsquo;s breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O Philip!&mdash;dear, dear Philip! you are come to take me away back to
+      my own&mdash;own mamma; I will be so good, I will never tease her again,&mdash;never,
+      never! I have been so wretched!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sit down, and tell me what they have done to you,&rdquo; said Philip, checking
+      the rising heart that heaved at his mother&rsquo;s name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So, there they sat, on the cold stone under the stranger&rsquo;s porch, these
+      two orphans: Philip&rsquo;s arms round his brother&rsquo;s waist, Sidney leaning on
+      his shoulder, and imparting to him&mdash;perhaps with pardonable
+      exaggeration, all the sufferings he had gone through; and, when he came to
+      that morning&rsquo;s chastisement, and showed the wale across the little hands
+      which he had vainly held up in supplication, Philip&rsquo;s passion shook him
+      from limb to limb. His impulse was to march straight into Mr. Morton&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had done, and clinging tightly to his brother&rsquo;s broad chest, said&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But never mind, Philip; now we will go home to mamma.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip replied&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;we two! If you will
+      come with me&mdash;God help you!&mdash;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,&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Comforts!&rdquo; repeated Sidney, ruefully, and looking at the wale over his
+      hands. &ldquo;Oh! let&mdash;let&mdash;let me go with you, I shall die if I stay
+      here. I shall indeed&mdash;indeed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he was gone. Philip rose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is settled, then,&rdquo; said he, firmly. &ldquo;Come with me at once. You shall
+      return to their roof no more. Come, quick: we shall have many miles to go
+      to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;He comes&mdash;
+     Yet careless what he brings; his one concern
+     Is to conduct it to the destined inn;
+     And having dropp&rsquo;d the expected bag, pass on&mdash;
+     To him indifferent whether grief or joy.&rdquo;
+              COWPER: Description of the Postman.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The pale gentleman entered Mr. Morton&rsquo;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&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will wait till Mr. Morton is disengaged.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young lady having closely examined seven shawls, and declared they
+      were beautiful, said, &ldquo;she would think of it,&rdquo; and walked away. Mr. Morton
+      now approached the stranger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Morton,&rdquo; said the pale gentleman; &ldquo;you are very little altered. You
+      do not recollect me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;&mdash;?
+      Business?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, business. Let us go within?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Morton,&rdquo; said he, glancing over his dress, &ldquo;you see I am in mourning.
+      It is for your sister. I never got the better of that early attachment&mdash;never.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My sister! Good Heavens!&rdquo; said Mr. Morton, turning very pale; &ldquo;is she
+      dead? Poor Catherine!&mdash;and I not know of it! When did she die?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not many days since; and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo; said Mr. Spencer, greatly
+      affected, &ldquo;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&mdash;her
+      burial. I then determined to visit poor Catherine&rsquo;s brother, and learn if
+      anything could be done for the children she had left behind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She left but two. Philip, the elder, is very comfortably placed at R&mdash;&mdash;;
+      the younger has his home with me; and Mrs. Morton is a moth&mdash;that is
+      to say, she takes great pains with him. Ehem! And my poor&mdash;poor
+      sister!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he like his mother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very much, when she was young&mdash;poor dear Catherine!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What age is he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About ten, perhaps; I don&rsquo;t know exactly; much younger than the other.
+      And so she&rsquo;s dead!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Morton, I am an old bachelor&rdquo; (here a sickly smile crossed Mr.
+      Spencer&rsquo;s face); &ldquo;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&mdash;perhaps you have a family of your own, and can
+      spare him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Morton hesitated, and twitched up his trousers. &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;this
+      is very kind in you. I don&rsquo;t know&mdash;we&rsquo;ll see. The boy is out now;
+      come and dine with us at two&mdash;pot-luck. Well, so she is no more!
+      Heigho! Meanwhile, I&rsquo;ll talk it over with Mrs. M.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will be with you,&rdquo; said Mr. Spencer, rising.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; sighed Mr. Morton, &ldquo;if Catherine had but married you she would have
+      been a happy woman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would have tried to make her so,&rdquo; said Mr. Spencer, as he turned away
+      his face and took his departure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two o&rsquo;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&rsquo;clock came, and the boy was still missing,&mdash;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&rsquo;clock before they
+      were reunited; and then all the news picked up was, that a boy, answering
+      Sidney&rsquo;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&rsquo;s mind that he dismissed the chilling fear that had crept there,&mdash;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&rsquo;s suspicion. The mystery was thus made clear&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;SIR,&mdash;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 &mdash;&mdash;, 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,&mdash;this poor Philip, who has suffered
+      so unjustly,&mdash;for our lawyer has seen Mr. Plaskwith, and heard the
+      whole story&mdash;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,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        &ldquo;I am, sir, &amp;c.,
+            &ldquo;ARTHUR BEAUFORT.
+   &ldquo;Berkely Square.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      The second letter was from Mr. Plaskwith, and ran thus:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;DEAR MORTON,&mdash;Something very awkward has happened,&mdash;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,&mdash;for want,
+      perhaps, poor boy! of being taught better, and Mrs. P. is, you know, a
+      very genteel woman&mdash;women go too much by manners&mdash;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&mdash;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&rsquo;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&mdash;quite clear. However, I was
+      naturally very angry, thought he&rsquo;d comeback again&mdash;meant to reprove
+      him properly&mdash;waited several days&mdash;heard nothing of him&mdash;grew
+      uneasy&mdash;would not attend longer to Mrs. P.; for, as Napoleon
+      Buonaparte observed, &lsquo;women are well in their way, not in ours.&rsquo; Made
+      Plimmins go with me to town&mdash;hired a Bow Street runner to track him
+      out&mdash;cost me L1. 1s, and two glasses of brandy and water. Poor Mrs.
+      Morton was just buried&mdash;quite shocked! Suddenly saw the boy in the
+      streets. Plimmins rushed forward in the kindest way&mdash;was knocked down&mdash;hurt
+      his arm&mdash;paid 2s. 6d. for lotion. Philip ran off, we ran after him&mdash;could
+      not find him. Forced to return home. Next day, a lawyer from a Mr.
+      Beaufort&mdash;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&rsquo;s nothing&mdash;thought I had best write to you for
+      instructions.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      &ldquo;Yours truly,
+          &ldquo;C. PLASHWITH.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;P. S.&mdash;Just open my letter to say, Bow Street officer just been here&mdash;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&mdash;very
+      expensive: so now you can decide.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Spencer scarcely listened to Mr. Plaskwith&rsquo;s letter, but of Arthur&rsquo;s
+      he felt jealous. He would fain have been the only protector to Catherine&rsquo;s
+      children; but he was the last man fitted to head the search, now so
+      necessary to prosecute with equal tact and energy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        &ldquo;Give the gentle South
+        Yet leave to court these sails.&rdquo;
+         BEAUMONT AND FLLTCHER: Beggar&rsquo;s Bush.
+
+        &ldquo;Cut your cloth, sir,
+        According to your calling.&rdquo;&mdash;Ibid.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s death, and Sidney had wept with bitter passion.
+      But children,&mdash;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&rsquo;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,
+      &ldquo;Grieve not for the dead: I, who live for ever, I will be your mother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Who in his boyhood has not felt the delight of freedom and adventure? to
+      have the world of woods and sward before him&mdash;to escape restriction&mdash;to
+      lean, for the first time, on his own resources&mdash;to rejoice in the
+      wild but manly luxury of independence&mdash;to act the Crusoe&mdash;and to
+      fancy a Friday in every footprint&mdash;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&mdash;happy in
+      their youth&mdash;their freedom&mdash;their love&mdash;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!&mdash;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,&mdash;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&mdash;the convolvulus glittered in the tangles of
+      the brake&mdash;the hardy heathflower smiled on the green waste.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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,&mdash;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&rsquo;s reasonings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s walk, Philip sallied forth alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After his long rambling, Philip was pleased and struck with the broad
+      bustling streets, the gay shops&mdash;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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;OFFICE FOR EMPLOYMENT.&mdash;RECIPROCAL ADVANTAGE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. John Clump&rsquo;s bureau open every day, from ten till four. Clerks,
+      servants, labourers, &amp;c., provided with suitable situations. Terms
+      moderate. N.B.&mdash;The oldest established office in the town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wanted, a good cook. An under gardener.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; said Philip, &ldquo;I wish for a situation. I don&rsquo;t care what.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Half-a-crown for entry, if you please. That&rsquo;s right. Now for particulars.
+      Hum!&mdash;you don&rsquo;t look like a servant!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well; very genteel young man&mdash;prepossessing appearance (that&rsquo;s
+      a fudge!), highly educated; usher in a school, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What you like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;References?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have none.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh!&mdash;none?&rdquo; and Mr. Clump fixed his spectacles full upon Philip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip was prepared for the question, and had the sense to perceive that a
+      frank reply was his best policy. &ldquo;The fact is,&rdquo; said he boldly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I can help you, I will,&rdquo; said Mr. Clump, coldly. &ldquo;Can&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come off, clumsy! you can&rsquo;t manage that I &lsquo;ere fine hanimal,&rdquo; cried the
+      liveryman. &ldquo;Ah! he&rsquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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, in his own way, &ldquo;Are there any more of you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A suspicion that the horse was an old acquaintance crossed Philip&rsquo;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&rsquo;s back was turned; a friend, in short, of
+      the happy Lang syne;&mdash;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&rsquo;s
+      neck, and whispered, &ldquo;Soho! So, Billy!&rdquo; and the horse turned sharp round
+      with a quick joyous neigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you please, sir,&rdquo; said Philip, appealing to the liveryman, &ldquo;I will
+      undertake to ride this horse, and take him over yon leaping-bar. Just let
+      me try him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a fine-spirited lad for you!&rdquo; said the liveryman, much pleased at
+      the offer. &ldquo;Now, gentlemen, did I not tell you that &lsquo;ere hanimal had no
+      vice if he was properly managed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The horse-dealers shook their heads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May I give him some bread first?&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s hand, the whole yard
+      seemed in as much delight and surprise as if they had witnessed one of
+      Monsieur Van Amburgh&rsquo;s exploits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, Philip, still caressing the horse, slowly and cautiously mounted;
+      the animal made one bound half-across the yard&mdash;a bound which sent
+      all the horse-dealers into a corner&mdash;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&rsquo;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, &ldquo;Sir, you are a man! and
+      I am proud to see you here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My good sir, you have sold that horse for me&mdash;that you have!
+      Anything as I can do for you? One good turn de serves another. Here&rsquo;s a
+      brace of shiners.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Saw it, sir! that&rsquo;s very clear. I say, that &lsquo;ere horse knows you!&rdquo; and
+      the dealer put his finger to his nose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite right to be mum! He was bred by an old customer of mine&mdash;famous
+      rider!&mdash;Mr. Beaufort. Aha! that&rsquo;s where you knew him, I s&rsquo;pose. Were
+      you in his stables?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hem&mdash;I knew Mr. Beaufort well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;eh?
+      Never mind; don&rsquo;t want you to groom!&mdash;but superintend things. D&rsquo;ye
+      know accounts, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Character?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s narration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Understand you perfectly, my man. Brought up with them &lsquo;ere fine creturs,
+      how could you nail your nose to a desk? I&rsquo;ll take you without more
+      palaver. What&rsquo;s your name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Philips.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come to-morrow, and we&rsquo;ll settle about wages. Sleep here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;he is too young.
+      But I can come early every day, and go home late.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, just as you like, my man. Good day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And thus, not from any mental accomplishment&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Don Salluste (souriunt). Je paire
+     Que vous ne pensiez pas a moi?&rdquo;&mdash;Ruy Blas.
+
+     &ldquo;Don Salluste. Cousin!
+     Don Cesar. De vos bienfaits je n&rsquo;aurai nulle envie,
+     Tant que je trouverai vivant ma libre vie.&rdquo;&mdash;Ibid.
+
+   Don Sallust (smiling). I&rsquo;ll lay a wager you won&rsquo;t think of me?
+   Don Sallust. Cousin!
+   Don Caesar. I covet not your favours, so but I lead an independent
+   life.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Phillip&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;to the obscene slang of
+      grooms and ostlers&mdash;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&mdash;to lose sight of his brother from daybreak till bed-time&mdash;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,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This speech cut Philip to the heart. What, then, he had taken from the
+      child a respectable and safe shelter&mdash;the sure provision of a life&mdash;and
+      the child now reproached him! When this was said to him, the tears gushed
+      from his eyes. &ldquo;God forgive me, Sidney,&rdquo; said he, and turned away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;Love. It has its jealousies, and humours,
+      and caprices, like love itself. Philip was painfully acute to Sidney&rsquo;s
+      affection, was jealous of every particle of it. He dreaded lest his
+      brother should ever be torn from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He would start from his sleep at night, and go to Sidney&rsquo;s bed to see that
+      he was there. He left him in the morning with forebodings&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Philips, show this gentleman the brown mare. She is a beauty in harness,
+      is she not? This gentleman wants a match for his pheaton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She must step very hoigh,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, my man, I am at your service,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip, with many misgivings, followed him across the yard. The gentleman
+      then beckoned him to approach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You, sir,&mdash;moind, I never peach&mdash;setting up here in the honest
+      line? Dull work, honesty,&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir, I really don&rsquo;t know you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Daun&rsquo;t you recollect old Greggs, the evening you came there with jolly
+      Bill Gawtrey? Recollect that, eh?&rdquo; Philip was mute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was among the gentlemen in the back parlour who shook you by the hand.
+      Bill&rsquo;s off to France, then. I am tauking the provinces. I want a good
+      horse&mdash;the best in the yard, moind! Cutting such a swell here! My
+      name is Captain de Burgh Smith&mdash;never moind yours, my fine faellow.
+      Now, then, out with your rattlers, and keep your tongue in your mouth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Drive over the greys to Sir John,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;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&mdash;says you were the pet at Elmore&rsquo;s in London. Served him
+      many a day. Pleasant, gentlemanlike man!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Y-e-s!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is he! I am almost sure it is,&rdquo; said one. &ldquo;Oh! then it&rsquo;s all smooth
+      sailing,&rdquo; replied the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, bless my eyes! you must be mistaken! See whom he&rsquo;s talking to now!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment Captain de Burgh Smith, mounted on the brown mare, stopped
+      Philip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you see, I&rsquo;ve bought her,&mdash;hope she&rsquo;ll turn out well. What do
+      you really think she&rsquo;s worth? Not to buy, but to sell?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sixty guineas.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that&rsquo;s a good day&rsquo;s work; and I owe it to you. The old faellow
+      would not have trusted me if you had not served me at Elmore&rsquo;s&mdash;ha!
+      ha! If he gets scent and looks shy at you, my lad, come to me. I&rsquo;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&rsquo;m none of your stingy ones. I say, I hope
+      this devil is quiet? She cocks up her ears dawmnably!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look you, sir!&rdquo; said Philip, very gravely, and rising up in his break; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you, my fine faellow? then take care of yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay, and if you dare utter a word against me,&rdquo; said Philip, with that
+      frown to which his swarthy complexion and flashing eyes gave an expression
+      of fierce power beyond his years, &ldquo;you will find that, as I am the last to
+      care for a threat, so I am the first to resent an injury!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you know against the person he spoke to?&rdquo; said one of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Merely that he is one of the cunningest swells on this side the Bay,&rdquo;
+       returned the other. &ldquo;It looks bad for your young friend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The first speaker shook his head and made no reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fine evening, Mr. Philip Morton. I am rejoiced to see you at last. You
+      remember me&mdash;Mr. Blackwell, Lincoln&rsquo;s Inn.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is your business?&rdquo; said Philip, halting, and speaking short and
+      fiercely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now don&rsquo;t be in a passion, my dear sir,&mdash;now don&rsquo;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&rsquo;s for you (might have been
+      ugly), and now I hope you will&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To your business, sir! What do you want with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, now, don&rsquo;t be so quick! &lsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Out of my path, or speak plainly!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then,&mdash;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&mdash;yes, most happy&mdash;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&mdash;most amiable young man!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look you, sir,&rdquo; said Philip, drawing himself up &ldquo;neither from father, nor
+      from son, nor from one of that family, on whose heads rest the mother&rsquo;s
+      death and the orphans&rsquo; curse, will I ever accept boon or benefit&mdash;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&mdash;I
+      am independent&mdash;I want them not. Begone!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With that, Philip pushed aside the lawyer and strode on rapidly. Mr.
+      Blackwell, abashed and perplexed, returned to his companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is so good in you, Philip. I have been so dull; you will come and
+      play now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With all my heart&mdash;where shall we play?&rdquo; said Philip, with a
+      cheerful smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, in the garden!&mdash;it&rsquo;s such a nice time for hide and seek.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But is it not chill and damp for you?&rdquo; said Philip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There now; you are always making excuses. I see you don&rsquo;t like it. I have
+      no heart to play now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney seated himself and pouted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor Sidney! you must be dull without me. Yes, let us play; but put on
+      this handkerchief;&rdquo; and Philip took off his own cravat and tied it round
+      his brother&rsquo;s neck, and kissed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This must be the last time,&rdquo; cried Philip. &ldquo;It is my turn to hide.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well! Now, then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the child clung to him, shouting with gladness, Philip, unheeding his
+      playmate, called aloud and imperiously to the stranger&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you gaping at? Why do you stand watching us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man muttered something, moved on, and disappeared. &ldquo;I hope there are
+      no thieves here! I am so much afraid of thieves,&rdquo; said Sidney,
+      tremulously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fear grated on Philip&rsquo;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&mdash;the tender patience of the
+      elder lending itself to every whim of the younger&mdash;now building
+      houses with cards&mdash;now telling stories of fairy and knight-errant&mdash;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:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you sad now, Sidney?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No! not when you are with me&mdash;but that is so seldom.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you read none of the story-books I bought for you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sometimes! but one can&rsquo;t read all day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! Sidney, if ever we should part, perhaps you will love me no longer!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t say so,&rdquo; said Sidney. &ldquo;But we sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t part, Philip?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;But oh, what storm was in that mind!&rdquo;&mdash;CRABBE. Ruth
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so,&rdquo; said the first, &ldquo;he rejected every overture from the Beauforts?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With a scorn I cannot convey to you!&rdquo; replied the lawyer. &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is too dreadful to contemplate!&rdquo; said Arthur, who, still ill and
+      languid, reclined on a sofa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is, indeed,&rdquo; said Mr. Spencer; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is Mr. Sharp?&rdquo; asked Arthur.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; said the lawyer, &ldquo;he has followed Philip at a distance to find out
+      his lodgings, and learn if his brother is with him. Oh! here he is!&rdquo; and
+      Blackwell&rsquo;s companion in the earlier part of the evening entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have found him out, sir,&rdquo; said Mr. Sharp, wiping his forehead. &ldquo;What a
+      fierce &lsquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is the child with him?&rdquo; asked Mr. Spencer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A little, quiet, subdued boy?&rdquo; asked the melancholy inhabitant of the
+      Lakes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see,&rdquo; groaned Mr. Spencer, &ldquo;he will make that poor child as bad as
+      himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What shall us do, Mr. Blackwell?&rdquo; asked Sharp, who longed for his brandy
+      and water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; interrupted Arthur, &ldquo;do not expose his name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;-&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand,&rdquo; said Sharp; &ldquo;I have no doubt as how I can settle it. We
+      learns to know human natur in our profession;&mdash;&lsquo;cause why? we gets at
+      its blind side. Good night, gentlemen!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem very pale, Mr. Arthur; you had better go to bed; you promised
+      your father, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I am not well; I will go to bed;&rdquo; and Arthur rose, lighted his
+      candle, and sought his room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will see Philip to-morrow,&rdquo; he said to himself; &ldquo;he will listen to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &mdash;&mdash;, the name of Philip&rsquo;s employer at R&mdash;&mdash;. At
+      Arthur&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s whereabout. That
+      shrewd functionary soon reported that a youth every way answering to
+      Philip&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s flight and absence as proofs of a reprobate
+      disposition; and this conduct was greatly aggravated in his eyes by Mr.
+      Sharp&rsquo;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&rsquo;s ears in so distorted a shape, that
+      even he was staggered and revolted:&mdash;still Philip was so young&mdash;Arthur&rsquo;s
+      oath to the orphans&rsquo; mother so recent&mdash;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&rsquo;s pride might work equally
+      against himself, and therefore evaded the landlady&rsquo;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&mdash;&mdash;
+      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&mdash;&mdash;. 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning Mr. Sharp entered betimes Mr. Stubmore&rsquo;s counting-house.
+      In the yard he caught a glimpse of Philip, and managed to keep himself
+      unseen by that young gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Stubmore, I think?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At your service, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see that &lsquo;ere young man in the velveteen jacket? you employs him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do, sir; he&rsquo;s my right hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, now, don&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be you a father? a father of a family, Mr. Stubmore?&rdquo; said Sharp,
+      thrusting his hands into his breeches pockets, swelling out his stomach,
+      and pursing up his lips with great solemnity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense! no gammon with me! Take your chaff to the goslings. I tells you
+      I can&rsquo;t do without that &lsquo;ere lad. Every man to himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oho!&rdquo; thought Sharp, &ldquo;I must change the tack.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Stubmore,&rdquo; said he, taking a stool, &ldquo;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 &lsquo;ere youngster. Had you a carakter
+      with him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s that to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, it&rsquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Y&mdash;e&mdash;s!&rdquo; said Mr. Stubmore, growing rather pale, &ldquo;and I knows
+      the mare, too. Why, sir, I sold him that mare!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he pay you for her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, to be sure, he gave me a cheque on Coutts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you took it! My eyes! what a flat!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Stubmore became evidently nervous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, what now;&mdash;you don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;m done? I did not let him have the
+      mare till I went to the hotel,&mdash;found he was cutting a great dash
+      there, a groom, a pheaton, and a fine horse, and as extravagant as the
+      devil!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O Lord!&mdash;O Lord! what a world this is! What does he call his-self?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, here&rsquo;s the cheque&mdash;George Frederick de&mdash;de Burgh Smith.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Put it in your pipe, my man,&mdash;put it in your pipe&mdash;not worth a
+      d&mdash;-!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And who the deuce are you, sir?&rdquo; bawled out Mr. Stubmore, in an equal
+      rage both with himself and his guest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I, sir,&rdquo; said the visitor, rising with great dignity,&mdash;&ldquo;I, sir, am
+      of the great Bow Street Office, and my name is John Sharp!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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, &lsquo;Mr. Stubmore is a respectable man.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope I am, sir,&rdquo; said the crestfallen horse-dealer; &ldquo;that was always my
+      character.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the father of a family?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Three boys and a babe at the buzzom,&rdquo; said Mr. Stubmore pathetically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t be taken in if I can help it! That &lsquo;ere young man as I am
+      arter, you see, knows Captain Smith&mdash;ha! ha!&mdash;smell a rat now&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain Smith said he knew him&mdash;the wiper&mdash;and that&rsquo;s what made
+      me so green.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, we must not be hard on the youngster: &lsquo;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&rsquo;t keep him; and if he don&rsquo;t go
+      back, he&rsquo;ll have to get his livelihood without a carakter; and use your
+      influence with him like a man and a Christian, and what&rsquo;s more, like the
+      father of a family&mdash;Mr. Stubmore&mdash;with three boys and a babe at
+      the buzzom. You won&rsquo;t keep him now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Keep him! I have had a precious escape. I&rsquo;d better go and see after the
+      mare.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I doubt if you&rsquo;ll find her: the Captain caught a sight of me this
+      morning. Why, he lodges at our hotel. He&rsquo;s off by this time!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And why the devil did you let him go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Cause I had no writ agin him!&rdquo; said the Bow Street officer; and he
+      walked straight out of the counting-office, satisfied that he had &ldquo;done
+      the job.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To snatch his hat&mdash;to run to the hotel&mdash;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&mdash;having
+      left with the landlord the amount of his bill in another cheque upon
+      Coutts&mdash;was the work of five minutes with Mr. Stubmore. He returned
+      home, panting and purple with indignation and wounded feeling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To think that chap, whom I took into my yard like a son, should have
+      connived at this! &lsquo;Tain&rsquo;t the money&mdash;&lsquo;tis the willany that &lsquo;flicts
+      me!&rdquo; muttered Mr. Stubmore, as he re-entered the mews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here he came plump upon Philip, who said&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir, I wished to see you, to say that you had better take care of Captain
+      Smith.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you did, did you, now he&rsquo;s gone? &lsquo;sconded off to America, I dare say,
+      by this time. Now look ye, young man; your friends are after you, I won&rsquo;t
+      say anything agin you; but you go back to them&mdash;I wash my hands of
+      you. Quite too much for me. There&rsquo;s your week, and never let me catch you
+      in my yard agin, that&rsquo;s all!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip dropped the money which Stubmore had put into his hand. &ldquo;My
+      friends!&mdash;friends have been with you, have they? I thought so&mdash;I
+      thank them. And so you part with me? Well, you have been very kind, very
+      kind; let us part kindly;&rdquo; and he held out his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Stubmore was softened&mdash;he touched the hand held out to him, and
+      looked doubtful a moment; but Captain de Burgh Smith&rsquo;s cheque for eighty
+      guineas suddenly rose before his eyes. He turned on his heel abruptly, and
+      said, over his shoulder:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t go after Captain Smith (he&rsquo;ll come to the gallows); mend your ways,
+      and be ruled by your poor dear relatives, whose hearts you are breaking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain Smith! Did my relations tell you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;yes&mdash;they told me all&mdash;that is, they sent to tell me;
+      so you see I&rsquo;m d&mdash;-d soft not to lay hold of you. But, perhaps, if
+      they be gemmen, they&rsquo;ll act as sich, and cash me this here cheque!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the last words were said to air. Philip had rushed from the yard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;the bread from his lips&mdash;so that
+      he might fawn at their knees for bounty. &ldquo;But they shall not break my
+      spirit, nor steal away my curse. No, my dead mother, never!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;seen most in minutiae&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The past rushed back on him. The sunny lawn&mdash;the gun offered and
+      rejected&mdash;the pride of old, much less haughty than the pride of
+      to-day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Philip,&rdquo; said Beaufort, feebly, &ldquo;they tell me you will not accept any
+      kindness from me or mine. Ah! if you knew how we have sought you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knew!&rdquo; cried Philip, savagely, for that unlucky sentence recalled to him
+      his late interview with his employer, and his present destitution. &ldquo;Knew!
+      And why have you dared to hunt me out, and halloo me down?&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your poor mother&mdash;&rdquo; began Beaufort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Name her not with your lips&mdash;name her not!&rdquo; cried Philip, growing
+      livid with his emotions. &ldquo;Talk not of the mercy&mdash;the forethought&mdash;a
+      Beaufort could show to her and her offspring! I accept it not&mdash;I
+      believe it not. Oh, yes! you follow me now with your false kindness; and
+      why? Because your father&mdash;your vain, hollow, heartless father&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hold!&rdquo; said Beaufort, in a tone of such reproach, that it startled the
+      wild heart on which it fell; &ldquo;it is my father you speak of. Let the son
+      respect the son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;no&mdash;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&mdash;they&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stopped, almost choked with his passion; but continued instantly, with
+      equal intensity of fervour:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;restore
+      my dead mother&rsquo;s fair name? Minion!&mdash;sleek, dainty, luxurious minion!&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Philip&mdash;Philip,&rdquo; cried Beaufort, catching his arm; &ldquo;hear one&mdash;hear
+      one who stood by your&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sentence that would have saved the outcast from the demons that were
+      darkening and swooping round his soul, died upon the young Protector&rsquo;s
+      lips. Blinded, maddened, excited, and exasperated, almost out of humanity
+      itself, Philip fiercely&mdash;brutally&mdash;swung aside the enfeebled
+      form that sought to cling to him, and Beaufort fell at his feet. Morton
+      stopped&mdash;glared at him with clenched hands and a smiling lip, sprung
+      over his prostrate form, and bounded to his home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has pleased you, Sidney?&rdquo; The child smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! it is a secret&mdash;I was not to tell you. But I&rsquo;m sure you are not
+      the naughty boy he says you are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He!&mdash;who?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t look so angry, Philip: you frighten me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you torture me. Who could malign one brother to the other?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! it was all meant very kindly&mdash;there&rsquo;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&mdash;as pretty&mdash;as pretty&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he say that he was to take me, too, Sidney?&rdquo; said Morton, seating
+      himself, and looking very pale. At that question Sidney hung his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, brother&mdash;he says you won&rsquo;t go, and that you are a bad boy&mdash;and
+      that you associate with wicked people&mdash;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&mdash;yes, indeed, I told him so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Sidney endeavoured caressingly to withdraw the hands that his brother
+      placed before his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Morton started up, and walked hastily to and fro the room. &ldquo;This,&rdquo; thought
+      he, &ldquo;is another emissary of the Beauforts&rsquo;&mdash;perhaps the lawyer: they
+      will take him from me&mdash;the last thing left to love and hope for. I
+      will foil them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sidney,&rdquo; he said aloud, &ldquo;we must go hence today, this very hour&mdash;nay,
+      instantly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What! away from this nice, good gentleman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Curse him! yes, away from him. Do not cry&mdash;it is of no use&mdash;you
+      must go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+               &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll carry thee
+        In sorrow&rsquo;s arms to welcome Misery.&rdquo;
+ 
+               HEYWOOD&rsquo;s Duchess of Sufolk.
+
+        &ldquo;Who&rsquo;s here besides foul weather?&rdquo;
+                    SHAKSPEARE Lear.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At times, over the sloping stubbles, broke the sound of the sportsman&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;We have no other room, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, then,&mdash;I&rsquo;m not particular; a tumbler of braundy and
+      water, stiffish, cold without, the newspaper&mdash;and a cigar. You&rsquo;ll
+      excuse smoking, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip looked up from his hoard, and Captain de Burgh Smith stood before
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said the latter, &ldquo;well met!&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s bank-notes,
+      sovereigns, and shillings were arrayed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish I had never seen you at all,&rdquo; replied Philip, uncourteously, and
+      restoring his money to his pocket; &ldquo;your fraud upon Mr. Stubmore, and your
+      assurance that you knew me, have sent me adrift upon the world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s one man&rsquo;s meat is another man&rsquo;s poison,&rdquo; said the captain,
+      philosophically; &ldquo;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&mdash;went to N&mdash;&mdash;,
+      left my pheaton and groom there for the present, and have doubled back, to
+      bauffle pursuit, and cut across the country. You recollect that noice girl
+      we saw in the coach; &lsquo;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&mdash;it&rsquo;s only just gone, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the chambermaid entered with the brandy and water, the newspaper, and
+      cigar,&mdash;the captain lighted the last, took a deep sup from the
+      beverage, and said, gaily:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, now, let us join fortunes; we are both, as you say, &lsquo;adrift.&rsquo; Best
+      way to staund the breeze is to unite the caubles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;There will be a storm,&rdquo; said he, anxiously. &ldquo;Come on&mdash;pray,
+      Sidney, come on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is so cruel in you, brother Philip,&rdquo; replied Sidney, sobbing. &ldquo;I wish
+      I had never&mdash;never gone with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A flash of lightning, that illuminated the whole heavens, lingered round
+      Sidney&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s brave heart failed him. How could he
+      ask Sidney to proceed, when they could scarcely see an inch before them?&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s
+      voice wail and moan. But that voice grew more languid and faint&mdash;it
+      ceased&mdash;Sidney&rsquo;s weight hung heavy&mdash;heavier on the fostering
+      arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For Heaven&rsquo;s sake, speak!&mdash;speak, Sidney!&mdash;only one word&mdash;I
+      will carry you in my arms!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I am dying,&rdquo; replied Sidney, in a low murmur; &ldquo;I am so tired and
+      worn out I can go no further&mdash;I must lie here.&rdquo; And he sank at once
+      upon the reeking grass beside the road. At this time the rain gradually
+      relaxed, the clouds broke away&mdash;a grey light succeeded to the
+      darkness&mdash;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&mdash;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&rsquo;-the-wisp, it was too stationary&mdash;human
+      shelter was then nearer than he had thought for. He pointed to the light,
+      and whispered, &ldquo;Rouse yourself, one struggle more&mdash;it cannot be far
+      off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is impossible&mdash;I cannot stir,&rdquo; answered Sidney: and a sudden
+      flash of lightning showed his countenance, ghastly, as if with the damps
+      of Death. What could the brother do?&mdash;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&mdash;a form became dimly visible&mdash;it
+      approached.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip shouted aloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What now?&rdquo; answered the voice, and it seemed familiar to Morton&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, my lad, is it you then? &lsquo;Gad, you froightened me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Odious as this man had hitherto been to Philip, he was as welcome to him
+      as daylight now; he grasped his hand,&mdash;&ldquo;My brother&mdash;a child&mdash;is
+      here, dying, I fear, with cold and fatigue; he cannot stir. Will you stay
+      with him&mdash;support him&mdash;but for a few moments, while I make to
+      yon light? See, I have money&mdash;plenty of money!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My good lad, it is very ugly work staying here at this hour: still&mdash;where&rsquo;s
+      the choild?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here, here! make haste, raise him! that&rsquo;s right! God bless you! I shall
+      be back ere you think me gone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He sprang from the road, and plunged through the heath, the furze, the
+      rank glistening pools, straight towards the light&mdash;as the swimmer
+      towards the shore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain, though a rogue, was human; and when life&mdash;an innocent
+      life&mdash;is at stake, even a rogue&rsquo;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&rsquo;s throat
+      and then, by way of company, down his own. The cordial revived the boy; he
+      opened his eyes, and said, &ldquo;I think I can go on now, Philip.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     ........
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What!&rdquo; said Mr. Spencer, changing countenance, &ldquo;you do not intend to take
+      Sidney to live with you. I meant him for my son&mdash;my adopted son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; generous as you are,&rdquo; said Arthur, pressing his hand, &ldquo;this charge
+      devolves on me&mdash;it is my right. I am the orphan&rsquo;s relation&mdash;his
+      mother consigned him to me. But he shall be taught to love you not the
+      less.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two travellers, in a hired barouche, were slowly dragged by a pair of
+      jaded posters along the commons I have just described.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said one, &ldquo;that the storm is very much abated; heigho! what an
+      unpleasant night!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unkimmon ugly, sir,&rdquo; answered the other; &ldquo;and an awful long stage,
+      eighteen miles. These here remote places are quite behind the age, sir&mdash;quite.
+      However, I think we shall kitch them now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am very much afraid of that eldest boy, Sharp. He seems a dreadful
+      vagabond.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, sir, quite hand in glove with Dashing Jerry; met in the same inn
+      last night&mdash;preconcerted, you may be quite shure. It would be the
+      best day&rsquo;s job I have done this many a day to save that &lsquo;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&mdash;slip
+      him through a pane of glass like a ferret, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t talk of it, Sharp,&rdquo; said Mr. Spencer, with a groan; &ldquo;and recollect,
+      if we get hold of him, that you are not to say a word to Mr. Beaufort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand, sir; and I always goes with the gemman who behaves most
+      like a gemman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here a loud halloo was heard close by the horses&rsquo; heads. &ldquo;Good Heavens, if
+      that is a footpad!&rdquo; said Mr. Spencer, shaking violently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord, sir, I have my barkers with me. Who&rsquo;s there?&rdquo; The barouche stopped&mdash;a
+      man came to the window. &ldquo;Excuse me, sir,&rdquo; said the stranger; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A poor boy!&rdquo; said Mr. Spencer, poking his head over the head of Mr.
+      Sharp. &ldquo;Where?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you would just drop him at the King&rsquo;s Awrms it would be a chaurity,&rdquo;
+       said the man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sharp pinched Mr. Spencer in his shoulder. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s Dashing Jerry; I&rsquo;ll get
+      out.&rdquo; So saying, he opened the door, jumped into the road, and presently
+      reappeared with the lost and welcome Sidney in his arms. &ldquo;Ben&rsquo;t this the
+      boy?&rdquo; he whispered to Mr. Spencer; and, taking the lamp from the carriage,
+      he raised it to the child&rsquo;s face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is! it is! God be thanked!&rdquo; exclaimed the worthy man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you leave him at the King&rsquo;s Awrms?&mdash;we shall be there in an
+      hour or two,&rdquo; cried the Captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We! Who&rsquo;s we?&rdquo; said Sharp, gruffly. &ldquo;Why, myself and the choild&rsquo;s
+      brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; said Sharp, raising the lantern to his own face; &ldquo;you knows me, I
+      think, Master Jerry? Let me kitch you again, that&rsquo;s all. And give my
+      compliments to your &lsquo;sociate, and say, if he prosecutes this here hurchin
+      any more, we&rsquo;ll settle his bizness for him; and so take a hint and make
+      yourself scarce, old boy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With that Mr. Sharp jumped into the barouche, and bade the postboy drive
+      on as fast as he could.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Where is my brother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gone away in a barouche and pair. Devil take me if I understand it.&rdquo; And
+      the Captain proceeded to give a confused account of what had passed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My brother! my brother! they have torn thee from me, then;&rdquo; cried Philip,
+      and he fell to the earth insensible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Vous me rendrez mon frere!&rdquo;
+         CASIMER DELAVIGNE: Les Enfans d&rsquo;Edouard.
+
+     [You shall restore me my brother!]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is your master at home? I must see him instantly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s more than you can, my man; my master does not see the like of you
+      at this time of night,&rdquo; replied the porter, eying the ragged apparition
+      before him with great disdain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See me he must and shall,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop! stop!&rdquo; cried the porter, recovering himself. &ldquo;James! John! here&rsquo;s a
+      go!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Who are you?&rdquo; said she; &ldquo;and what
+      do you want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am Philip Morton. Who are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My husband,&rdquo; said Mrs. Beaufort, shrinking into the parlour, while Morton
+      followed her and closed the door, &ldquo;my husband, Mr. Beaufort, is not at
+      home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo; And
+      Philip fell on his knees and grasped the train of her gown. &ldquo;I know
+      nothing of your brother, Mr. Morton,&rdquo; cried Mrs. Beaufort, surprised and
+      alarmed. &ldquo;Arthur, whom we expect every day, writes us word that all search
+      for him has been in vain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha! you admit the search?&rdquo; cried Morton, rising and clenching his hands.
+      &ldquo;And who else but you or yours would have parted brother and brother?
+      Answer me where he is. No subterfuge, madam: I am desperate!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At that instant the door opened, and Mr. Robert Beaufort entered. The
+      lady, with a shriek of joy, wrenched herself from Philip&rsquo;s grasp, and flew
+      to her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Save me from this ruffian!&rdquo; she said, with an hysterical sob.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Beaufort, who had heard from Blackwell strange accounts of Philip&rsquo;s
+      obdurate perverseness, vile associates, and unredeemable character, was
+      roused from his usual timidity by the appeal of his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Insolent reprobate!&rdquo; he said, advancing to Philip; &ldquo;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Man, man,&rdquo; cried Philip, restraining the fury that shook him from head to
+      foot, &ldquo;I care not for your threats&mdash;I scarcely hear your abuse&mdash;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&mdash;on my knees I implore you&mdash;yes,
+      I,&mdash;I implore you, Robert Beaufort, to have mercy on your brother&rsquo;s
+      son. Where is Sidney?&rdquo; Like all mean and cowardly men, Robert Beaufort was
+      rather encouraged than softened by Philip&rsquo;s abrupt humility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know nothing of your brother; and if this is not all some villainous
+      trick&mdash;which it may be&mdash;I am heartily rejoiced that he, poor
+      child! is rescued from the contamination of such a companion,&rdquo; answered
+      Beaufort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am at your feet still; again, for the last time, clinging to you a
+      suppliant: I pray you to tell me the truth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Beaufort, more and more exasperated by Morton&rsquo;s forbearance, raised
+      his hand as if to strike; when, at that moment, one hitherto unobserved&mdash;one
+      who, terrified by the scene she had witnessed but could not comprehend,
+      had slunk into a dark corner of the room,&mdash;now came from her retreat.
+      And a child&rsquo;s soft voice was heard, saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not strike him, papa!&mdash;let him have his brother!&rdquo; Mr. Beaufort&rsquo;s
+      arm fell to his side: kneeling before him, and by the outcast&rsquo;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&mdash;for
+      children have a quick insight into the reality of grief in those not far
+      removed from their own years&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hear her!&rdquo; he murmured: &ldquo;Oh, hear her! For her sake, do not sever one
+      orphan from the other!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take away that child, Mrs. Beaufort,&rdquo; cried Robert, angrily. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you go?&rdquo; continued Mr. Beaufort, more and more emboldened, as he saw
+      the menials at hand, &ldquo;or shall they expel you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is enough, sir,&rdquo; said Philip, with a sudden calm and dignity that
+      surprised and almost awed his uncle. &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what news of your brother, Bully Phil?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None: they will reveal nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you give him up?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never! My hope now is in you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;Heaven knows that is easily done; and, if you can pay well, you
+      will get your news.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall have all I possess, if you restore my brother. See what it is,
+      one hundred pounds&mdash;it was his fortune. It is useless to me without
+      him. There, take fifty now, and if&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip stopped, for his voice trembled too much to allow him farther
+      speech. Captain Smith thrust the notes into his pocket, and said&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll consider it settled.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s own sprawling hand:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;DEAR BROTHER PHILIP,&mdash;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&mdash;much more so than I have been
+      since poor deir mama died; so I beg you won&rsquo;t vex yourself about me: and
+      pray don&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Oct. 8, 18&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pray, pray don&rsquo;t come after me Any more. You know I neerly died of it,
+      but for this deir good gentleman I am with.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s rough scrawl; the serpent&rsquo;s tooth pierced
+      to the heart, and left there its most lasting venom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have done with him for ever,&rdquo; said Philip, brushing away the bitter
+      tears. &ldquo;I will molest him no farther; I care no more to pierce this
+      mystery. Better for him as it is&mdash;he is happy! Well, well, and I&mdash;I
+      will never care for a human being again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        &ldquo;But you have found the mountain&rsquo;s top&mdash;there sit
+        On the calm flourishing head of it;
+        And whilst with wearied steps we upward go,
+        See us and clouds below.&rdquo;&mdash;COWLEY.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It was true that Sidney was happy in his new home, and thither we must now
+      trace him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On reaching the town where the travellers in the barouche had been
+      requested to leave Sidney, &ldquo;The King&rsquo;s Arms&rdquo; 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&mdash;reasons
+      in which the worthy officer professed to sympathise&mdash;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&rsquo;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 &ldquo;the
+      poet,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Philip was a very
+      wicked boy.&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;should
+      we lose the last smile that gilds the solemn agony, if we could look one
+      year into the Future?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Arthur Beaufort, after an ineffectual search for Sidney, heard, on
+      returning to his home, no unexaggerated narrative of Philip&rsquo;s visit, and
+      listened, with deep resentment, to his mother&rsquo;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&rsquo;s
+      last request, and Philip&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s gripe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, Arthur Beaufort&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So, O dark mystery of the Moral World!&mdash;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&rsquo;s eye
+      over both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BOOK III.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        &ldquo;The knight of arts and industry,
+        And his achievements fair.&rdquo;
+    THOMSON&rsquo;S Castle of Indolence: Explanatory Verse to Canto II.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In a popular and respectable, but not very fashionable quartier in Paris,
+      and in the tolerably broad and effective locale of the Rue &mdash;&mdash;,
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the door was neatly engraved, on a brass plate, the following
+      inscription:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+         &ldquo;MONSIEUR LOVE, ANGLAIS,
+            A L&rsquo;ENTRESOL.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The office of M. Love&mdash;for office it was, and of a nature not
+      unfrequently designated in the &ldquo;petites affiches&rdquo; of Paris&mdash;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&mdash;as
+      M. Love classically termed it&mdash;had become exceedingly in vogue in the
+      Faubourg St.&mdash;. 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,&mdash;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&mdash;a circumstance that was greatly to
+      the credit of Mr. Love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps the secret of Mr. Love&rsquo;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&rsquo;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 <i>gene</i>. As he himself was a jolly,
+      convivial fellow of much <i>savoir vivre</i>, 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&mdash;an extra of course in the abonnement&mdash;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was about eight o&rsquo;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&mdash;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 frill 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&mdash;Heaven knows
+      how&mdash;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&mdash;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&rsquo;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&mdash;who was now some eighteen
+      or nineteen years old&mdash;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&mdash;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These are the best bon-bons I ever ate,&rdquo; said Mr. Love, glancing at
+      Madame Caumartin. &ldquo;My fair friends, have compassion on the table of a poor
+      bachelor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you ought not to be a bachelor, Monsieur Lofe,&rdquo; replied the fair
+      Rosalie, with an arch look; &ldquo;you who make others marry, should set the
+      example.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All in good time,&rdquo; answered Mr. Love, nodding; &ldquo;one serves one&rsquo;s
+      customers to so much happiness that one has none left for one&rsquo;s self.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here a loud explosion was heard. Monsieur Goupille had pulled one of the
+      bon-bon crackers with Mademoiselle Adele.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got the motto!&mdash;no&mdash;Monsieur has it: I&rsquo;m always unlucky,&rdquo;
+       said the gentle Adele.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        &ldquo;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&rsquo;esclavage.&rdquo;
+ 
+   [The coquette, who subjugates a heart, yet refuses its tender
+   homage, one may treat as a conqueror: of modest beauty we cherish
+   the slavery.]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I present it to Mademoiselle,&rdquo; said he, laying the motto solemnly in
+      Adele&rsquo;s plate, upon a little mountain of chestnut-husks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is very pretty,&rdquo; said she, looking down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is very a propos,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you fond of bon-bons, Mademoiselle Adele? I have a very fine stock at
+      home,&rdquo; said Monsieur Goupille. Mademoiselle Adele de Courval sighed:
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The epicier bowed and looked puzzled. He did not quite see the connection
+      between the bon-bons and the guillotine. &ldquo;You are triste, Monsieur,&rdquo;
+       observed Madame Beavor, in rather a piqued tone, to the Pole, who had not
+      said a word since the roti.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame, an exile is always triste: I think of my pauvre pays.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bah!&rdquo; cried Mr. Love. &ldquo;Think that there is no exile by the side of a
+      belle dame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Pole smiled mournfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pull it,&rdquo; said Madame Beavor, holding a cracker to the patriot, and
+      turning away her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, madame; I wish it were a cannon in defence of La Pologne.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;une force immense.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+          &ldquo;Helas! J&rsquo;ai cru jusqu&rsquo;a ce jour
+          Pouvoir triompher de l&rsquo;amour,&rdquo;
+ 
+   [Alas! I believed until to-day that I could triumph over love.]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      said Madame Beavor, reading the motto. &ldquo;What do you say to that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame, there is no triumph for La Pologne!&rdquo; Madame Beavor uttered a
+      little peevish exclamation, and glanced in despair at her red-headed
+      countryman. &ldquo;Are you, too, a great politician, sir?&rdquo; said she in English.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, mem!&mdash;I&rsquo;m all for the ladies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does he say?&rdquo; asked Madame Caumartin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur Higgins est tout pour les dames.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure he is,&rdquo; cried Mr. Love; &ldquo;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&mdash;always. What do you say,
+      Mademoiselle Adele?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I like fair hair,&rdquo; said Mademoiselle, looking bashfully askew at
+      Monsieur Goupille&rsquo;s peruque. &ldquo;Grandmamma said her papa&mdash;the marquis&mdash;used
+      yellow powder: it must have been very pretty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rather a la sucre d&rsquo; orge,&rdquo; remarked the epicier, smiling on the right
+      side of his mouth, where his best teeth were. Mademoiselle de Courval
+      looked displeased. &ldquo;I fear you are a republican, Monsieur Goupille.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I, Mademoiselle. No; I&rsquo;m for the Restoration;&rdquo; and again the epicier
+      perplexed himself to discover the association of idea between
+      republicanism and sucre d&rsquo;orge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Another glass of wine. Come, another,&rdquo; said Mr. Love, stretching across
+      the Vicomte to help Madame Canmartin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; said the tall Frenchman with the riband, eying the epicier with
+      great disdain, &ldquo;you say you are for the Restoration&mdash;I am for the
+      Empire&mdash;Moi!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No politics!&rdquo; cried Mr. Love. &ldquo;Let us adjourn to the salon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Vicomte, who had seemed supremely ennuye during this dialogue, plucked
+      Mr. Love by the sleeve as he rose, and whispered petulantly, &ldquo;I do not see
+      any one here to suit me, Monsieur Love&mdash;none of my rank.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mon Dieu!&rdquo; answered Mr. Love: &ldquo;point d&rsquo; argent point de Suisse. I could
+      introduce you to a duchess, but then the fee is high. There&rsquo;s Mademoiselle
+      de Courval&mdash;she dates from the Carlovingians.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is very like a boiled sole,&rdquo; answered the Vicomte, with a wry face.
+      &ldquo;Still&mdash;what dower has she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forty thousand francs, and sickly,&rdquo; replied Mr. Love; &ldquo;but she likes a
+      tall man, and Monsieur Goupille is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tall men are never well made,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse me, ma&rsquo;am,&rdquo; said Mr. Love to Madame Beavor, as they adjourned to
+      the salon, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think you manage that brave man well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ma foi, comme il est ennuyeux avec sa Pologne,&rdquo; replied Madame Beavor,
+      shrugging her shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the attendant engaged for the evening announced Monsieur and Madame
+      Giraud; whereupon there entered a little&mdash;little couple, very fair,
+      very plump, and very like each other. This was Mr. Love&rsquo;s show couple&mdash;his
+      decoy ducks&mdash;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&rsquo;hote; but Mr. Love often invited them
+      after the dessert, pour encourager les autres.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear friends,&rdquo; cried Mr. Love, shaking each by the hand, &ldquo;I am
+      ravished to see you. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Monsieur and
+      Madame Giraud, the happiest couple in Christendom;&mdash;if I had done
+      nothing else in my life but bring them together I should not have lived in
+      vain!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The company eyed the objects of this eulogium with great attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur, my prayer is to deserve my bonheur,&rdquo; said Monsieur Giraud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cher ange!&rdquo; murmured Madame: and the happy pair seated themselves next to
+      each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Love, who was all for those innocent pastimes which do away with
+      conventional formality and reserve, now proposed a game at &ldquo;Hunt the
+      Slipper,&rdquo; which was welcomed by the whole party, except the Pole and the
+      Vicomte; though Mademoiselle Adele looked prudish, and observed to the
+      epicier, &ldquo;that Monsieur Lofe was so droll, but she should not have liked
+      her pauvre grandmaman to see her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Vicomte had stationed himself opposite to Mademoiselle de Courval, and
+      kept his eyes fixed on her very tenderly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mademoiselle, I see, does not approve of such bourgeois diversions,&rdquo; said
+      he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, monsieur,&rdquo; said the gentle Adele. &ldquo;But I think we must sacrifice our
+      own tastes to those of the company.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a very amiable sentiment,&rdquo; said the epicier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is one attributed to grandmamma&rsquo;s papa, the Marquis de Courval. It has
+      become quite a hackneyed remark since,&rdquo; said Adele.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, ladies,&rdquo; said the joyous Rosalie; &ldquo;I volunteer my slipper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Asseyez-vous donc,&rdquo; said Madame Beavor to the Pole. &ldquo;Have you no games of
+      this sort in Poland?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame, La Pologne is no more,&rdquo; said the Pole. &ldquo;But with the swords of
+      her brave&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No swords here, if you please,&rdquo; said Mr. Love, putting his vast hands on
+      the Pole&rsquo;s shoulder, and sinking him forcibly down into the circle now
+      formed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;d
+      mademoiselle; whereupon the Vicomte called him an impertinent; and the
+      tall Frenchman, with the riband, sprang up and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can I be of any assistance, gentlemen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Therewith Mr. Love, the great peacemaker, interposed, and reconciling the
+      rivals, proposed to change the game to Colin Maillard-Anglice, &ldquo;Blind
+      Man&rsquo;s Buff.&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Amuse yourself, _mon ami_,&rdquo; said Madame Beaver, to the liberated Pole.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, madame,&rdquo; sighed Monsieur Sovolofski, &ldquo;how can I be gay! All my
+      property confiscated by the Emperor of Russia! Has La Pologne no Brutus?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you are in love,&rdquo; said the host, clapping him on the back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you quite sure,&rdquo; whispered the Pole to the matchmaker, &ldquo;that Madame
+      Beavor has vingt mille livres de rentes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a sous less.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Pole mused, and, glancing at Madame Beavor, said, &ldquo;And yet, madame,
+      your charming gaiety consoles me amidst all my suffering;&rdquo; upon which
+      Madame Beavor called him &ldquo;flatterer,&rdquo; 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&rsquo; pockets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;mounted
+      the chairs and tables, as Rosalie approached&mdash;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,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      &ldquo;The fatal vesture left the unguarded side;&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s graceful frame thus exposed, by surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know who this is. Quelle drole de visage!&rdquo; muttered Rosalie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mais, madame,&rdquo; faltered Monsieur Goupille, looking greatly disconcerted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not fair. But I will know who this is,&rdquo; cried Rosalie, angrily;
+      &ldquo;you sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t escape!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A sudden and universal burst of laughter roused her suspicions&mdash;she
+      drew back&mdash;and exclaiming, &ldquo;Mais quelle mauvaise plaisanterie; c&rsquo;est
+      trop fort!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was just at this moment, and in the midst of the excitement caused by
+      Monsieur Goupille&rsquo;s misfortune, that the door opened, and the attendant
+      reappeared, followed by a young man in a large cloak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The new-comer paused at the threshold, and gazed around him in evident
+      surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Diable!&rdquo; said Mr. Love, approaching, and gazing hard at the stranger. &ldquo;Is
+      it possible?&mdash;You are come at last? Welcome!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; said the stranger, apparently still bewildered, &ldquo;there is some
+      mistake; you are not&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I am Mr. Love!&mdash;Love all the world over. How is our friend
+      Gregg?&mdash;told you to address yourself to Mr. Love,&mdash;eh?&mdash;Mum!&mdash;Ladies
+      and gentlemen, an acquisition to our party. Fine fellow, eh?&mdash;Five
+      feet eleven without his shoes,&mdash;and young enough to hope to be thrice
+      married before he dies. When did you arrive?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And thus, Philip Morton and Mr. William Gawtrey met once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Happy the man who, void of care and strife, In silken or in leathern
+      purse retains A splendid shilling!&rdquo;&mdash;The Splendid Shilling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo; WEST&rsquo;S Education.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor, boy! your story interests me. The events are romantic, but the
+      moral is practical, old, everlasting&mdash;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&mdash;poverty
+      and feeling&mdash;poverty and pride&mdash;the poverty one is not born to,&mdash;but
+      falls into;&mdash;and the man who ousts you out of your easy-chair,
+      kicking you with every turn he takes, as he settles himself more
+      comfortably&mdash;why there&rsquo;s no romance in that&mdash;hard every-day
+      life, sir! Well, well:&mdash;so after your brother&rsquo;s letter you resigned
+      yourself to that fellow Smith.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;I cared
+      not whither&mdash;out of the town, into the fields&mdash;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, &lsquo;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.&rsquo; 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, &lsquo;I have youth and
+      health.&rsquo; 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.&mdash;Oh, such a winter!&mdash;Then&mdash;then I knew what
+      it was to be houseless. How I lived for some months&mdash;if to live it
+      can be called&mdash;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&mdash;for nothing else seemed left, and I had
+      not touched food for two days&mdash;to come to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And why did that never occur to you before?&rdquo;!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because,&rdquo; said Philip, with a deep blush,&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Love, or Gawtrey, with a singular mixture of irony and
+      compassion in his voice; &ldquo;and it was hunger, then, that terrified you at
+      last even more than I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps hunger&mdash;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!&mdash;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&mdash;held out
+      my hand to the first passenger, and started at the shrillness of my own
+      voice, as it cried &lsquo;Charity.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gawtrey threw another log on the fire, looked complacently round the
+      comfortable room, and rubbed his hands. The young man continued,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;You should be ashamed of yourself&mdash;I&rsquo;ve a great mind to give you to
+      the police,&rsquo; was the answer, in a pert and sharp tone. I looked up, and
+      saw the livery my father&rsquo;s menials had worn. I had been begging my bread
+      from Robert Beaufort&rsquo;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&mdash;thoughts I had often wrestled against, but to which I
+      now gave myself up with a sort of mad joy&mdash;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&mdash;pressed on me clothing and
+      money&mdash;procured me a passport&mdash;gave me your address&mdash;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&mdash;but as you alone
+      have been kind to me, so it is to your kindness rather than your aid, that
+      I now cling&mdash;your kind words and kind looks&mdash;yet&mdash;&rdquo; he
+      stopped short, and breathed hard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;t live exactly within the
+      pale of the law. But I&rsquo;m not a villain! I never plundered my friend and
+      called it play!&mdash;I never murdered my friend and called it honour!&mdash;I
+      never seduced my friend&rsquo;s wife and called it gallantry!&rdquo; As Gawtrey said
+      this, he drew the words out, one by one, through his grinded teeth, paused
+      and resumed more gaily: &ldquo;I struggle with Fortune; voila tout! I am not
+      what you seem to suppose&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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;&mdash;and for the rest, own that I am well disguised! What a
+      benevolent air this bald forehead gives me&mdash;eh? True,&rdquo; added Gawtrey,
+      somewhat more seriously, &ldquo;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&mdash;nay,
+      as many a dissolute father says (or ought to say) to his son, &lsquo;It is no
+      reason you should be a sinner, because I am not a saint.&rsquo; 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&rsquo;t see what you can do better.&rdquo; Gawtrey made this speech with so much
+      frankness and ease, that it seemed greatly to relieve the listener, and
+      when he wound up with, &ldquo;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!&mdash;Will you see how you like it?&rdquo; Philip, with a
+      confiding and grateful impulse, put his hand into Gawtrey&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;&mdash; 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,&mdash;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&rsquo;s life when he was before for some
+      days Gawtrey&rsquo;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&rsquo;s broad humour&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s beauty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&rsquo; heads&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;enjoyed nothing&mdash;drank hard&mdash;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One evening as they thus sat together, Morton, after listening for some
+      time to his companion&rsquo;s comments on men and things, said abruptly,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My early life! well&mdash;you shall hear it. It will put you on your
+      guard, I hope, betimes against the two rocks of youth&mdash;love and
+      friendship.&rdquo; Then, while squeezing the lemon into his favourite beverage,
+      which Morton observed he made stronger than usual, Gawtrey thus commenced:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+         THE HISTORY OF A GOOD-FOR-NOTHING.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        &ldquo;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.&rdquo;&mdash;CRABBE.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My grandfather sold walking-sticks and umbrellas in the little passage by
+      Exeter &lsquo;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&rsquo;s, where the tenants paid weekly (all thieves or rogues&mdash;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,&mdash;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&mdash;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&rsquo;s
+      prevented him, and he only left L20,000. equally divided between the sons.
+      My father, the College man&rdquo; (here Gawtrey paused a moment, took a large
+      draught of the punch, and resumed with a visible effort)&mdash;&ldquo;my father,
+      the College man, was a person of rigid principles&mdash;bore an excellent
+      character&mdash;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&rsquo;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&mdash;genteel,
+      spindle-shanked striplings, who might have passed for a collection of my
+      grandfather&rsquo;s walking-canes&mdash;bad in their whole bodies. And I often
+      think,&rdquo; continued Gawtrey, &ldquo;that health and spirits have a great deal to
+      answer for! When we are young we so far resemble savages who are Nature&rsquo;s
+      young people&mdash;that we attach prodigious value to physical advantages.
+      My feats of strength and activity&mdash;the clods I thrashed&mdash;and the
+      railings I leaped&mdash;and the boat-races I won&mdash;are they not
+      written in the chronicle of St. John&rsquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;lamp-breaker&mdash;tandem-driver&mdash;mob-fighter&mdash;a
+      very devil in short&mdash;clever, but not in the reading line&mdash;small
+      and slight, but brave as a lion. Congenial habits made us intimate, and I
+      loved him like a brother&mdash;better than a brother&mdash;as a dog loves
+      his master. In all our rows I covered him with my body. He had but to say
+      to me, &lsquo;Leap into the water,&rsquo; 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,&mdash;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&rsquo;s old
+      maidservant, after emptying on his head all the vessels of wrath she could
+      lay her hand to, screamed, &lsquo;Rape and murder!&rsquo; 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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, you were not concerned in it?&rdquo; said Philip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; but I was suspected and accused. I could have got off by betraying
+      the true culprits, but my friend&rsquo;s father was in public life&mdash;a
+      stern, haughty old statesman; my friend was mortally afraid of him&mdash;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&rsquo;s house (which had grown insufferable) to live with him. He had
+      been a very handsome man&mdash;a gay spendthrift; he had got through his
+      fortune, and now lived on his wits&mdash;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,&mdash;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&mdash;but a frolicsome scamp&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Gawtrey paused, and frowned darkly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He had great natural parts, this young man&mdash;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&mdash;he paid him L1,000. for the
+      knowledge!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How! a cheat? You said he was rich.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;you don&rsquo;t know what that is yet&mdash;so much the
+      better for you. The girl was beautiful, and I thought she loved me&mdash;perhaps
+      she did&mdash;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&rsquo;s example. I was
+      fool enough to speak to him of Mary&mdash;to present him to her&mdash;this
+      ended in her seduction.&rdquo; (Again Gawtrey paused, and breathed hard.) &ldquo;I
+      discovered the treachery&mdash;I called out the seducer&mdash;he sneered,
+      and refused to fight the low-born adventurer. I struck him to the earth&mdash;and
+      then we fought. I was satisfied by a ball through my side! but he,&rdquo; added
+      Gawtrey, rubbing his hands, and with a vindictive chuckle,&mdash;&ldquo;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&mdash;then I commenced that career which I have trodden since&mdash;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!&mdash;Ho! ho! ho!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But your father&mdash;surely your father&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My father,&rdquo; interrupted Gawtrey, &ldquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;this cautious, moral, money-loving man, three
+      months afterwards, suffered a rogue&mdash;almost a stranger&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And your friend,&rdquo; said Philip, after a pause in which his young
+      sympathies went dangerously with the excuses for his benefactor; &ldquo;what has
+      become of him, and the poor girl?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My friend became a great man; he succeeded to his father&rsquo;s peerage&mdash;a
+      very ancient one&mdash;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&mdash;when she catches
+      vice from the breath upon which she has hung&mdash;when she ripens, and
+      mellows, and rots away into painted, blazing, staring, wholesale harlotry&mdash;when,
+      in her turn, she ruins warm youth with false smiles and long bills&mdash;and
+      when worse&mdash;worse than all&mdash;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,&rdquo; said Gawtrey, abruptly
+      breaking off the thread of his narrative, &ldquo;that I am not altogether the
+      low dog you might suppose in seeing me here. At Paris&mdash;ah! you don&rsquo;t
+      know Paris&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   [This passage was written at a period when the dynasty of Louis
+   Philippe seemed the most assured, and Napoleonism was indeed
+   considered extinct.]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But to return. Paris, I say, is the atmosphere for adventurers&mdash;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&rsquo;s
+      character to spy out where it wants piercing! Some lean Greek poet put
+      lead in his pockets to prevent being blown away;&mdash;put gold in your
+      pockets, and at Paris you may defy the sharpest wind in the world,&mdash;yea,
+      even the breath of that old AEolus&mdash;Scandal! Well, then, I had money&mdash;no
+      matter how I came by it&mdash;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&mdash;the daughter,
+      still innocent, but, sacra! in what an element of vice! We knew each
+      other&rsquo;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&mdash;he was
+      the man. I had to choose, then, between mother and daughter: I chose the
+      last.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip seized hold of Gawtrey&rsquo;s hand, grasped it warmly, and the
+      good-for-nothing continued&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;s had been of vanity. I loved that child as if she had been
+      my own daughter. I induced her to leave her mother&rsquo;s house&mdash;I
+      secreted her&mdash;I saw her married to the man she loved&mdash;I gave her
+      away, and saw no more of her for several months.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;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,&rdquo; pursued
+      Gawtrey, changing his tone into the allegro; &ldquo;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&mdash;the adventurer&mdash;the
+      charlatan&mdash;the good-for-nothing&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And your father?&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, now,&rdquo; said his host, while a slight blush rose to his cheeks, &ldquo;I
+      will tell you, that though to my father&rsquo;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&mdash;and&mdash;but you say you heard what
+      passed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; and I heard him also call you by name, when it was too late, and I
+      saw the tears on his cheeks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you? Will you swear to that?&rdquo; exclaimed Gawtrey, with vehemence:
+      then, shading his brow with his band, he fell into a reverie that lasted
+      some moments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If anything happen to me, Philip,&rdquo; he said, abruptly, &ldquo;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&mdash;never forget it&mdash;there! It
+      is time to go to bed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gawtrey&rsquo;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;a great schoolboy&rsquo;s scrapes,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;And she&rsquo;s a stranger
+     Women&mdash;beware women.&rdquo;&mdash;MIDDLETON.
+
+     &ldquo;As we love our youngest children best,
+     So the last fruit of our affection,
+     Wherever we bestow it, is most strong;
+     Since &lsquo;tis indeed our latest harvest-home,
+     Last merriment &lsquo;fore winter!&rdquo;
+      WEBSTER, Devil&rsquo;s Law Case.
+
+     &ldquo;I would fain know what kind of thing a man&rsquo;s heart is?
+     I will report it to you; &lsquo;tis a thing framed
+     With divers corners!&rdquo;&mdash;ROWLEY.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I have said that Gawtrey&rsquo;s tale made a deep impression on Philip;&mdash;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&mdash;from a health which made his
+      spirits buoyant and hearty under all circumstances&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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,&mdash;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&rsquo;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:&mdash;the spirit which, on a vast theatre, rises up, gigantic
+      and sublime, in the heroes of war and revolution&mdash;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pardon me, I would wish a private conversation.&rdquo; Philip rose to withdraw,
+      when the lady, observing him with eyes whose lustre shone through the
+      veil, said gently: &ldquo;But perhaps the young gentleman is discreet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is not discreet, he is discretion!&mdash;my adopted son. You may
+      confide in him&mdash;upon my honour you may, madam!&rdquo; and Mr. Love placed
+      his hand on his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is very young,&rdquo; said the lady, in a tone of involuntary compassion,
+      as, with a very white hand, she unclasped the buckle of her cloak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He can the better understand the curse of celibacy,&rdquo; returned Mr. Love,
+      smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I assure you, madam,&rdquo; said Mr. Love, with dignity, &ldquo;that we have
+      contributed to the very first&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mon Dieu!&rdquo; interrupted the lady, with much impatience, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perfectly, madam; yet it is not your offer that will bias me, but the
+      desire to oblige so charming a lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is agreed, then?&rdquo; said the lady, carelessly; and as she spoke she
+      again glanced at Philip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If madame will call again, I will inform her of my plans,&rdquo; said Mr. Love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I will call again. Good morning!&rdquo; 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&mdash;the look
+      that an artist may give to a picture that seems 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Gawtrey, laughing, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh!&rdquo; said Philip, colouring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, Gawtrey broke silence:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My young friend,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;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&mdash;she will then be six years old. But&mdash;but&mdash;&rdquo;
+       here Gawtrey sighed&mdash;&ldquo;I fear she is not all right here,&rdquo; and he
+      touched his forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like much to see her,&rdquo; said Philip, not noticing the latter
+      remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you shall&mdash;you shall come with me to-morrow. Heigho! I should
+      not like to die, for her sake!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does her wretched relation attempt to regain her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her relation! No; she is no more&mdash;she died about two years since!
+      Poor Mary! I&mdash;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,&mdash;again I ask, what would become of her, unless,
+      as I before said, my father&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you are making a fortune now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If this lasts&mdash;yes; but I live in fear&mdash;the police of this
+      cursed city are lynx-eyed; however, that is the bright side of the
+      question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not have the child with you, since you love her so much? She would be
+      a great comfort to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is this a place for a child&mdash;a girl?&rdquo; said Gawtrey, stamping his
+      foot impatiently. &ldquo;I should go mad if I saw that villainous deadman&rsquo;s eye
+      bent upon her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You speak of Birnie. How can you endure him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you are my age you will know why we endure what we dread&mdash;why
+      we make friends of those who else would be most horrible foes: no, no&mdash;nothing
+      can deliver me of this man but Death. And&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo; added Gawtrey,
+      turning pale, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, begone, dull care!&rdquo; exclaimed Gawtrey, rousing himself. &ldquo;And, after
+      all, Birnie is a useful fellow, and dare no more turn against me than I
+      against him! Why don&rsquo;t you drink more?
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;Oh! have you e&rsquo;er heard of the famed Captain Wattle?&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      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:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;at
+      least, as far as I can foresee. But one can never feel too sure of one&rsquo;s
+      lamb, if one once introduces it to the butcher!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s own
+      childhood came back to him as he gazed on the quiet of the lonely place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The door opened&mdash;an infant voice was heard, a voice of glee&mdash;of
+      rapture; and a child, light and beautiful as a fairy, bounded to Gawtrey&rsquo;s
+      breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Morton, unheeded by both, stood by with folded arms. He thought of his
+      lost and ungrateful brother, and muttered to himself:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fool! when she is older, she will forsake him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly Fanny started from Gawtrey&rsquo;s arms, and running up to Morton,
+      gazed at him wistfully, and said, in French:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are you? Do you come from the moon? I think you do.&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s eyes, though soft, were so vacant in their gaze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And why do I come from the moon?&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because you look sad and cross. I don&rsquo;t like you&mdash;I don&rsquo;t like the
+      moon; it gives me a pain here!&rdquo; and she put her hand to her temples. &ldquo;Have
+      you got anything for Fanny&mdash;poor, poor Fanny?&rdquo; and, dwelling on the
+      epithet, she shook her head mournfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are rich, Fanny, with all those toys.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I? Everybody calls me poor Fanny&mdash;everybody but papa;&rdquo; and she
+      ran again to Gawtrey, and laid her head on his shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She calls me papa!&rdquo; said Gawtrey, kissing her; &ldquo;you hear it? Bless her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you never kiss any one but Fanny&mdash;you have no other little
+      girl?&rdquo; said the child, earnestly, and with a look less vacant than that
+      which had saddened Morton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No other&mdash;no&mdash;nothing under heaven, and perhaps above it, but
+      you!&rdquo; and he clasped her in his arms. &ldquo;But,&rdquo; he added, after a pause&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I won&rsquo;t like him&mdash;I won&rsquo;t like anybody but you and my sister!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sister!&mdash;who is your sister?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The child&rsquo;s face relapsed into an expression almost of idiotcy. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t
+      know&mdash;I never saw her. I hear her sometimes, but I don&rsquo;t understand
+      what she says.&mdash;Hush! come here!&rdquo; and she stole to the window on
+      tiptoe. Gawtrey followed and looked out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you hear her, now?&rdquo; said Fanny. &ldquo;What does she say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As the girl spoke, some bird among the evergreens uttered a shrill,
+      plaintive cry, rather than song&mdash;a sound which the thrush
+      occasionally makes in the winter, and which seems to express something of
+      fear, and pain, and impatience. &ldquo;What does she say?&mdash;can you tell
+      me?&rdquo; asked the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh! that is a bird; why do you call it your sister?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know!&mdash;because it is&mdash;because it&mdash;because&mdash;I
+      don&rsquo;t know&mdash;is it not in pain?&mdash;do something for it, papa!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gawtrey glanced at Morton, whose face betokened his deep pity, and
+      creeping up to him, whispered,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think she is really touched here? No, no,&mdash;she will outgrow
+      it&mdash;I am sure she will!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Morton sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last Gawtrey was obliged to depart. The lay sister, who had charge of
+      Fanny, was summoned into the parlour; and then the child&rsquo;s manner entirely
+      changed; her face grew purple&mdash;she sobbed with as much anger as
+      grief. &ldquo;She would not leave papa&mdash;she would not go&mdash;that she
+      would not!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is always so,&rdquo; whispered Gawtrey to Morton, in an abashed and
+      apologetic voice. &ldquo;It is so difficult to get away from her. Just go and
+      talk with her while I steal out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tu es mechant, tu. Poor Fanny!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But this pretty doll&mdash;&rdquo; began the sister. The child looked at it
+      joylessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And papa is going to die!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whenever Monsieur goes,&rdquo; whispered the nun, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor child!&rdquo; said Morton, with a trembling voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child looked up, smiled, stroked his cheek with her little hand, and
+      said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you!&mdash;Yes! poor Fanny! Ah, he is going&mdash;see!&mdash;let me
+      go too&mdash;tu es mechant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; said Morton, detaining her gently, &ldquo;do you know that you give him
+      pain?&mdash;you make him cry by showing pain yourself. Don&rsquo;t make him so
+      sad!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The child seemed struck, hung down her head for a moment, as if in
+      thought, and then, jumping from Morton&rsquo;s lap, ran to Gawtrey, put up her
+      pouting lips, and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One kiss more!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gawtrey kissed her, and turned away his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fanny is a good girl!&rdquo; and Fanny, as she spoke, went back to Morton, and
+      put her little fingers into her eyes, as if either to shut out Gawtrey&rsquo;s
+      retreat from her sight, or to press back her tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me the doll now, sister Marie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Morton smiled and sighed, placed the child, who struggled no more, in the
+      nun&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she not a little darling?&rdquo; said Gawtrey, as they gained the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is, indeed, a most beautiful child!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you will love her if I leave her penniless,&rdquo; said Gawtrey, abruptly.
+      &ldquo;It was your love for your mother and your brother that made me like you
+      from the first. Ay,&rdquo; continued Gawtrey, in a tone of great earnestness,
+      &ldquo;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,&mdash;yes, be good to her! and I won&rsquo;t say a
+      harsh word to you if ever you like to turn king&rsquo;s evidence against
+      myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gawtrey!&rdquo; said Morton, reproachfully, and almost fiercely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bah!&mdash;such things are! But tell me honestly, do you think she is
+      very strange&mdash;very deficient?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not seen enough of her to judge,&rdquo; answered Morton, evasively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is so changeful,&rdquo; persisted Gawtrey. &ldquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;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,&rdquo; continued Gawtrey,
+      &ldquo;you must perceive that she loves nothing in the world but me&mdash;me,
+      whom nobody else loves! Well&mdash;well, now to the shop again!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;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&rsquo;d,
+     The grave majestic knight approaching nigh,
+     His countenance fell.&rdquo;&mdash;THOMSON, Castle of Indolence.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s expense, a most tasteful entertainment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sacre! but you have not played the economist, Monsieur Lofe,&rdquo; said
+      Monsieur Goupille, rather querulously, as he glanced at the long room
+      adorned with artificial flowers, and the table a cingitante couverts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bah!&rdquo; replied Mr. Love, &ldquo;you can retrench afterwards. Think of the
+      fortune she brought you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a pretty sum, certainly,&rdquo; said Monsieur Goupille, &ldquo;and the notary
+      is perfectly satisfied.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is not a marriage in Paris that does me more credit,&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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?&mdash;who had invited them?&mdash;they
+      were new faces in the Faubourg&mdash;perhaps relations to Adele?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;La voila!&mdash;sacre tonnerre!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At that voice&mdash;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, &ldquo;Bravo!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mon Dieu!&rdquo; cried Monsieur Goupille. &ldquo;Ma douce amie&mdash;she has fainted
+      away!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No sham if you please, madame&mdash;speak! What the devil have you done
+      with the money?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really, sir,&rdquo; said Monsieur Goupille, drawing tip his cravat, &ldquo;this is
+      very extraordinary conduct! What have you got to say to this lady&rsquo;s money?&mdash;it
+      is my money now, sir!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oho! it is, is it? We&rsquo;ll soon see that. Approchez donc, Monsieur Favart,
+      faites votre devoir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;a man worthy to be the
+      contemporary of the illustrious Vidocq.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Calmez vous, messieurs; do not be alarmed, ladies,&rdquo; 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&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aha, mon brave! c&rsquo;est toi. Restez donc. Restez, tenant toujours la dame!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Pole, thus condemned, in the French idiom, &ldquo;always to hold the dame,&rdquo;
+       mechanically raised the arms he had previously dejected, and the police
+      officer, with an approving nod of the head, said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bon! ne bougez point,&mdash;c&rsquo;est ca!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mon bourgeois, meddle not with what does not concern you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With what does not concern me!&rdquo; repeated Monsieur Goupille, drawing
+      himself up to so great a stretch that he seemed pulling off his tights the
+      wrong way. &ldquo;Explain yourself, if you please! This lady is my wife!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say that again,&mdash;that&rsquo;s all!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say it again, sir,&rdquo; said Monsieur Goupille, by no means daunted; &ldquo;and why
+      should not I say it again? That lady is my wife!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You lie!&mdash;she is mine!&rdquo; 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,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Speak! Madame Bihl! Are you my wife or not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monstre!&rdquo; murmured Adele, opening her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&mdash;you hear&mdash;she owns me!&rdquo; said the German, appealing to
+      the company with a triumphant air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;C&rsquo;est vrai!&rdquo; said the soft voice of the policeman. &ldquo;And now, pray don&rsquo;t
+      let us disturb your amusements any longer. We have a fiacre at the door.
+      Remove your lady, Monsieur Bihl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur Lofe!&mdash;Monsieur Lofe!&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush-hush! mon bon bourgeois!&rdquo; whispered Mr. Love; &ldquo;all shall be
+      explained to-morrow!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is this gentleman?&rdquo; asked Monsieur Favart, approaching Mr. Love, who,
+      seeing himself in for it, suddenly jerked off the epicier, thrust his
+      hands down into his breeches&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is this gentleman?&rdquo; repeated the little officer, standing beside, or
+      rather below, Mr. Love, and looking so diminutive by the contrast that you
+      might have fancied that the Priest of Hymen had only to breathe to blow
+      him away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who should he be, monsieur?&rdquo; cried, with great pertness, Madame Rosalie
+      Caumartin, coming to the relief, with the generosity of her sex.&mdash;&ldquo;This
+      is Monsieur Lofe&mdash;Anglais celebre. What have you to say against him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has got five hundred francs of mine!&rdquo; cried the epicier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The policeman scanned Mr. Love, with great attention. &ldquo;So you are in Paris
+      again?&mdash;Hein!&mdash;vous jouez toujours votre role!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ma foi!&rdquo; said Mr. Love, boldly; &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t understand what monsieur means;
+      my character is well known&mdash;go and inquire it in London&mdash;ask the
+      Secretary of Foreign Affairs what is said of me&mdash;inquire of my
+      Ambassador&mdash;demand of my&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Votre passeport, monsieur?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is at home. A gentleman does not carry his passport in his pocket when
+      he goes to a ball!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will call and see it&mdash;au revoir! Take my advice and leave Paris; I
+      think I have seen you somewhere!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet I have never had the honour to marry monsieur!&rdquo; said Mr. Love, with a
+      polite bow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In return for his joke, the policeman gave Mr. Love one look&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What name does that gentleman go by?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So&mdash;vo&mdash;lofski, the heroic Pole,&rdquo; cried Madame Beavor, with
+      sundry misgivings at the unexpected cowardice of so great a patriot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And this lady&rsquo;s fortune!&rdquo; cried Monsieur Groupille, pathetically; &ldquo;the
+      settlements are all made&mdash;the notaries all paid. I am sure there must
+      be some mistake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir, there is no mistake! But, when I have got the money, if you like to
+      have the lady you are welcome to her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monstre!&rdquo; again muttered the fair Adele.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The long and the short of it,&rdquo; said Monsieur Favart, &ldquo;is that Monsieur
+      Bihl is a brave garcon, and has been half over the world as a courier.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A courier!&rdquo; exclaimed several voices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame was nursery-governess to an English milord. They married, and
+      quarrelled&mdash;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&mdash;he retired from service, and fell ill, perhaps from
+      idleness or beer. Is not that the story, Monsieur Bihl?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was always drunk&mdash;the wretch!&rdquo; sobbed Adele. &ldquo;That was to drown
+      my domestic sorrows,&rdquo; said the German; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dansez-vous toujours, mes amis,&rdquo; said the officer, bowing. And following
+      Adele and her spouse, the little man left the room&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Morton had outstayed Mr. Love. But he thought it unnecessary to linger
+      long after that gentleman&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why&mdash;when did you leave?&rdquo; said Morton to Mr. Birnie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw the policeman enter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And why the deuce did not you tell us?&rdquo; said Gawtrey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Every man for himself. Besides, Mr. Love was dancing,&rdquo; replied Mr.
+      Birnie, with a dull glance of disdain. &ldquo;Philosophy,&rdquo; muttered Gawtrey,
+      thrusting his dresscoat into his trunk; then, suddenly changing his voice,
+      &ldquo;Ha! ha! it was a very good joke after all&mdash;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&mdash;-d fellows learn of the mad doctors how to tame
+      us. Faith, my heart went down to my shoes&mdash;yet I&rsquo;m no coward!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, after all, he evidently did not know you,&rdquo; said Morton; &ldquo;and what
+      has he to say against you? Your trade is a strange one, but not dishonest.
+      Why give up as if&mdash;-&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My young friend,&rdquo; interrupted Gawtrey, &ldquo;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&mdash;eh, Birnie?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go to bed, Philip: we&rsquo;ll call thee at daybreak, for we must make clear
+      work before our neighbours open their shutters.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take care, man,&rdquo; said Gawtrey, as Morton, in this belief, grasped his
+      arm. &ldquo;You have a precious rough gripe of your own. Be quiet, will you? I
+      have a word to say to you.&rdquo; Here Gawtrey, placing the candle on a chair,
+      returned to the door and closed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look you,&rdquo; he said in a whisper, &ldquo;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&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; interrupted Morton, raising himself on his arm, and fixing his dark
+      eyes upon his host,&mdash;&ldquo;but you have told me again and again that you
+      have committed no crime; why then be so fearful of discovery?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; repeated Gawtrey, with a slight hesitation which he instantly
+      overcame, &ldquo;why! have not you yourself learned that appearances have the
+      effect of crimes?&mdash;were you not chased as a thief when I rescued you
+      from your foe, the law?&mdash;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor Gawtrey!&rdquo; said he, pushing back the canvas bag of gold held out to
+      him, &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I cannot reject the only friend left me; and while I
+      live&mdash;. But I will make no professions. Quick, then, our luggage is
+      already gone, and I hear Birnie grunting the rogue&rsquo;s march of retreat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Morton&rsquo;s toilet was soon completed, and the three associates bade adieu to
+      the bureau.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Birnie, who was taciturn and impenetrable as ever, walked a little before
+      as guide. They arrived, at length, at a serrurier&rsquo;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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The serrurier nodded again, grinned, and withdrew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rest here,&rdquo; said Birnie, in his calm, passionless voice, that seemed to
+      Morton, however, to assume an unwonted tone of command. &ldquo;I will go and
+      make the best bargain I can for our furniture, buy fresh clothes, and
+      engage our places for Tours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For Tours?&rdquo; repeated Morton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, there are some English there; one can live wherever there are
+      English,&rdquo; said Gawtrey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hum!&rdquo; grunted Birnie, drily, and, buttoning up his coat, he walked slowly
+      away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Bon!&mdash;c&rsquo;est
+      va.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have done well with the Jew,&rdquo; said Birnie, drawing from his coat pocket
+      two heavy bags. &ldquo;One hundred and eighty napoleons. We shall commence with
+      a good capital.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are right, my friend,&rdquo; said Gawtrey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Then out again he flies to wing his marry round.&rdquo;
+                 THOMPSON&rsquo;S Castle of Indolence.
+
+     &ldquo;Again he gazed, &lsquo;It is,&rsquo; said he, &lsquo;the same;
+     There sits he upright in his seat secure,
+     As one whose conscience is correct and pure.&rsquo;&rdquo;&mdash;CRABBE.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The adventurers arrived at Tours, and established themselves there in a
+      lodging, without any incident worth narrating by the way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Tours Morton had nothing to do but take his pleasure and enjoy himself.
+      He passed for a young heir; Gawtrey for his tutor&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Mr. Gawtrey, &ldquo;the world nowadays has grown so ostentatious that
+      one cannot travel advantageously without a post-chariot and four horses.&rdquo;
+       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&rsquo;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 &ldquo;a vara genteel mon.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Macgregor, rising, advanced with great respect to this personage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I scarcely ventured to hope you would coom, Lord Lilburne, the night is
+      so cold.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did not allow sufficiently, then, for the dulness of my solitary inn
+      and the attractions of your circle. Aha! whist, I see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You play sometimes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very seldom, now; I have sown all my wild oats, and even the ace of
+      spades can scarcely dig them out again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha! ha! vara gude.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will look on;&rdquo; and Lord Lilburne drew his chair to the table, exactly
+      opposite to Mr. Gawtrey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old gentleman turned to Philip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An extraordinary man, Lord Lilburne; you have heard of him, of course?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, indeed; what of him?&rdquo; asked the young man, rousing himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What of him?&rdquo; said the old gentleman, with a smile; &ldquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beaufort!&rdquo; exclaimed Morton, and then muttered to himself, &ldquo;Ah, true&mdash;true;
+      I have heard the name of Lilburne before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know the Beauforts? Well, you remember how luckily Robert,
+      Lilburne&rsquo;s brother-in-law, came into that fine property just as his
+      predecessor was about to marry a&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Morton scowled at his garrulous acquaintance, and stalked abruptly to the
+      card table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s best diamond; finally he
+      revoked, threw down his money, and said, with a forced smile, &ldquo;that the
+      heat of the room overcame him.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, Doctor,&rdquo; said Mr. Macgregor, &ldquo;let me introduce you to Lord Lilburne.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lilburne, however, who had never lost his self-composure at this strange
+      rudeness, was now quietly talking with their host.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Doctor seems an eccentric man&mdash;a little absent&mdash;learned, I
+      suppose. Have you been to Como, yet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Gawtrey remained by the fire beating the devil&rsquo;s tattoo upon the
+      chimney-piece, and ever and anon turning his glance towards Lilburne, who
+      seemed to have forgotten his existence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s lodge, they found Lilburne on
+      the step of his carriage; he turned his head abruptly, and again met Mr.
+      Gawtrey&rsquo;s eye; paused a moment, and whispered over his shoulder:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So we remember each other, sir? Let us not meet again; and, on that
+      condition, bygones are bygones.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Scoundrel!&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s
+      right pump.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gawtrey walked on for some moments in great excitement; at length he
+      turned to his companion,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you guess who Lord Lilburne is? I will tell you my first foe and
+      Fanny&rsquo;s grandfather! Now, note the justice of Fate: here is this man&mdash;mark
+      well&mdash;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&mdash;I swear it&mdash;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!&mdash;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;&mdash;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&mdash;vagabond&mdash;outcast&mdash;skulking through tricks to
+      avoid crime&mdash;why the difference? Because one is born rich and the
+      other poor&mdash;because he has no excuse for crime, and therefore no one
+      suspects him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;the wonder of
+      Gothic Italy&mdash;the Cathedral Church of Milan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Chafe not yourself at the universal fate,&rdquo; said the young man, with a
+      bitter smile on his lips and pointing to the cathedral; &ldquo;I have not lived
+      long, but I have learned already enough to know this,&mdash; 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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                &ldquo;A desert wild
+     Before them stretched bare, comfortless, and vast,
+     With gibbets, bones, and carcasses defiled.&rdquo;
+              THOMPSON&rsquo;S Castle of Indolenece.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&mdash;a
+      country too poor for gamesters; and ever since the interview with
+      Lilburne, a great change had come over Gawtrey&rsquo;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. &ldquo;You would never
+      have left it, if you had taken my advice,&rdquo; he said, and quitted the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Gawtrey gazed after him and muttered, &ldquo;Is the die then cast?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does he mean?&rdquo; said Morton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will know soon,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+    ..........
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two of these men walked abreast, the other preceded them a few steps. The
+      one who went first&mdash;thin, pale, and threadbare&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Philip,&rdquo; said the last, &ldquo;in coming back to Paris&mdash;I feel that I am
+      coming back to my grave!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh&mdash;you were equally despondent in our excursions elsewhere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I was always thinking of poor Fanny, and because&mdash;because&mdash;Birnie
+      was ever at me with his horrible temptations!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Birnie! I loathe the man! Will you never get rid of him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot! Hush! he will hear us. How unlucky we have been! and now
+      without a sou in our pockets&mdash;here the dunghill&mdash;there the gaol!
+      We are in his power at last!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His power! what mean you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What ho! Birnie!&rdquo; cried Gawtrey, unheeding Morton&rsquo;s question. &ldquo;Let us
+      halt and breakfast: I am tired.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You forget!&mdash;we have no money till we make it,&rdquo; returned Birnie,
+      coldly.&mdash;&ldquo;Come to the serrurier&rsquo;s he will trust us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Gaunt Beggary and Scorn with many bell-hounds more.&rdquo;
+      THOMSON&rsquo;S Castle of Indolence.
+
+     &ldquo;The other was a fell, despiteful fiend.&rdquo;&mdash;Ibid.
+
+     &ldquo;Your happiness behold! then straight a wand
+     He waved, an anti-magic power that hath
+     Truth from illusive falsehood to command.&rdquo;&mdash;Ibid.
+
+     &ldquo;But what for us, the children of despair,
+     Brought to the brink of hell&mdash;what hope remains?
+     RESOLVE, RESOLVE!&rdquo;&mdash;Ibid.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;at another,
+      Swingism&mdash;now, suicide is in vogue&mdash;now, poisoning tradespeople
+      in apple-dumplings&mdash;now, little boys stab each other with penknives&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   [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.]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; 
+      imprisonment by the government. For all governments in free countries
+      aspire rather to be popular than just.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No sooner was this case reported in the journals&mdash;and even the
+      gravest took notice, of it (which is not common with the scholastic
+      journals of France)&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have heard of our messieurs!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have: I am to visit them to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bravo! How many men will you take?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are desperate fellows, these coiners, always; better be cautious.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You forget I was one of them, and know the masonry.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;I wonder
+      where Birnie has been, and why he has not returned. I grow suspicious of
+      that man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suspicious of what?&rdquo; asked Morton. &ldquo;Of his honesty? Would he rob you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rob me! Humph&mdash;perhaps! but you see I am in Paris, in spite of the
+      hints of the police; he may denounce me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, then, suffer him to lodge away from you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But wherefore such precautions? You blind&mdash;you deceive me; what have
+      you done?&mdash;what is your employment now? You are mute. Hark you,
+      Gawtrey. I have pinned my fate to you&mdash;I am fallen from hope itself!
+      At times it almost makes me mad to look back&mdash;and yet you do not
+      trust me. Since your return to Paris you are absent whole nights&mdash;often
+      days; you are moody and thoughtful&mdash;yet, whatever your business, it
+      seems to bring you ample returns.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think that,&rdquo; said Gawtrey, mildly, and with a sort of pity in his
+      voice; &ldquo;yet you refuse to take even the money to change those rags.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I know not how the money was gained. Ah, Gawtrey, I am not too
+      proud for charity, but I am for&mdash;&rdquo; He checked the word uppermost in
+      his thoughts, and resumed&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; your occupations seem lucrative. It was but yesterday Birnie gave me
+      fifty napoleons, for which he said you wished change in silver.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he? The ras&mdash; Well! and you got change for them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know not why, but I refused.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was right, Philip. Do nothing that man tells you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you, then, trust me? You are engaged in some horrible traffic! it
+      may be blood! I am no longer a boy&mdash;I have a will of my own&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be ruled. Some secrets it is better not to know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It matters not. I have come to my decision&mdash;I ask yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gawtrey paused for some moments in deep thought. At last he lifted his
+      eyes to Philip, and replied:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;will you witness it to-night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am prepared: to-night!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here a step was heard on the stairs&mdash;a knock at the door&mdash;and
+      Birnie entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He drew aside Gawtrey, and whispered him, as usual, for some moments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gawtrey nodded his head, and then said aloud&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To-morrow we shall talk without reserve before my young friend. To-night
+      he joins us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To-night!&mdash;very well,&rdquo; said Birnie, with his cold sneer. &ldquo;He must
+      take the oath; and you, with your life, will be responsible for his
+      honesty?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay! it is the rule.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, then, till we meet,&rdquo; said Birnie, and withdrew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder,&rdquo; said Gawtrey, musingly, and between his grinded teeth,
+      &ldquo;whether I shall ever have a good fair shot at that fellow? Ho! ho!&rdquo; and
+      his laugh shook the walls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m thinking that my life has been one mistake! I had talents&mdash;you
+      would not fancy it&mdash;but once I was neither a fool nor a villain! Odd,
+      isn&rsquo;t it? Just reach me the brandy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Morton, with a slight shudder, turned and left the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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;&mdash;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;&mdash;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&rsquo;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&mdash;he had dared to forget
+      the Providence of God&mdash;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&mdash;stood no less poor&mdash;no less abject&mdash;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&mdash;those
+      rivers that rolled between, seemed to him then to take a more mystic and
+      typical sense than belongs to the outer world&mdash;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;&mdash;two passengers halted, also by his side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will be late for the debate,&rdquo; said one of them to the other. &ldquo;Why do
+      you stop?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My friend,&rdquo; said the other, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You!&mdash;now so rich&mdash;so fortunate in repute and station&mdash;is
+      it possible? How was it? A lucky chance?&mdash;a sudden legacy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No: Time, Faith, and Energy&mdash;the three Friends God has given to the
+      Poor!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quickly, then, and as if by magic, the former confusion of his mind seemed
+      to settle into distinct shapes of courage and resolve. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he muttered;
+      &ldquo;I will keep this night&rsquo;s appointment&mdash;I will learn the secret of
+      these men&rsquo;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&mdash;my
+      unworthy palterings with my better self. If Gawtrey be as I dread to find
+      him&mdash;if he be linked in some guilty and hateful traffic; with that
+      loathsome accomplice&mdash;I will&mdash;&rdquo; He paused, for his heart
+      whispered, &ldquo;Well, and even so,&mdash;the guilty man clothed and fed thee!&rdquo;
+       &ldquo;I will,&rdquo; resumed his thought, in answer to his heart&mdash;&ldquo;I will go on
+      my knees to him to fly while there is yet time, to work&mdash;beg&mdash;starve&mdash;perish
+      even&mdash;rather than lose the right to look man in the face without a
+      blush, and kneel to his God without remorse!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;he inhaled the balm and freshness
+      of the air&mdash;he comprehended the delight which the liberal June was
+      scattering over the earth&mdash;he looked above, and his eyes were
+      suffused with pleasure, at the smile of the soft blue skies. The MORNING
+      became, as it were, a part of his own being; and he felt that as the world
+      in spite of the storms is fair, so in spite of evil God is good. He walked
+      on&mdash;he passed the bridge, but his step was no more the same,&mdash;he
+      forgot his rags. Why should he be ashamed? And thus, in the very flush of
+      this new and strange elation and elasticity of spirit, he came unawares
+      upon a group of young men, lounging before the porch of one of the chief
+      hotels in that splendid Rue de Rivoli, wherein Wealth and the English have
+      made their homes. A groom, mounted, was leading another horse up and down
+      the road, and the young men were making their comments of approbation upon
+      both the horses, especially the one led, which was, indeed, of uncommon
+      beauty and great value. Even Morton, in whom the boyish passion of his
+      earlier life yet existed, paused to turn his experienced and admiring eye
+      upon the stately shape and pace of the noble animal, and as he did so, a
+      name too well remembered came upon his ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, Arthur Beaufort is the most enviable fellow in Europe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, yes,&rdquo; said another of the young men; &ldquo;he has plenty of money&mdash;is
+      good-looking, devilish good-natured, clever, and spends like a prince.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has the best horses!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The best luck at roulette!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The prettiest girls in love with him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And no one enjoys life more. Ah! here he is!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The group parted as a light, graceful figure came out of a jeweller&rsquo;s shop
+      that adjoined the hotel, and halted gaily amongst the loungers. Morton&rsquo;s
+      first impulse was to hurry from the spot; his second impulse arrested his
+      step, and, a little apart, and half-hid beneath one of the arches of the
+      colonnade which adorns the street, the Outcast gazed upon the Heir. There
+      was no comparison in the natural personal advantages of the two young men;
+      for Philip Morton, despite all the hardships of his rough career, had now
+      grown up and ripened into a rare perfection of form and feature. His broad
+      chest, his erect air, his lithe and symmetrical length of limb, united,
+      happily, the attributes of activity and strength; and though there was no
+      delicacy of youthful bloom upon his dark cheek, and though lines which
+      should have come later marred its smoothness with the signs of care and
+      thought, yet an expression of intelligence and daring, equally beyond his
+      years, and the evidence of hardy, abstemious, vigorous health, served to
+      show to the full advantage the outline of features which, noble and
+      regular, though stern and masculine, the artist might have borrowed for
+      his ideal of a young Spartan arming for his first battle. Arthur, slight
+      to feebleness, and with the paleness, partly of constitution, partly of
+      gay excess, on his fair and clear complexion, had features far less
+      symmetrical and impressive than his cousin: but what then? All that are
+      bestowed by elegance of dress, the refinements of luxurious habit, the
+      nameless grace that comes from a mind and a manner polished, the one by
+      literary culture, the other by social intercourse, invested the person of
+      the heir with a fascination that rude Nature alone ever fails to give. And
+      about him there was a gaiety, an airiness of spirit, an atmosphere of
+      enjoyment which bespoke one who is in love with life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, this is lucky! I&rsquo;m so glad to see you all!&rdquo; said Arthur Beaufort,
+      with that silver-ringing tone and charming smile which are to the happy
+      spring of man what its music and its sunshine are to the spring of earth.
+      &ldquo;You must dine with me at Verey&rsquo;s. I want something to rouse me to-day;
+      for I did not get home from the Salon* till four this morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   *[The most celebrated gaming-house in Paris in the day before
+   gaming-houses were suppressed by the well-directed energy of the
+   government.]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you won?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Marsden. Hang it! I always win: I who could so well afford to lose:
+      I&rsquo;m quite ashamed of my luck!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is easy to spend what one wins,&rdquo; observed Mr. Marsden, sententiously;
+      &ldquo;and I see you have been at the jeweller&rsquo;s! A present for Cecile? Well,
+      don&rsquo;t blush, my dear fellow. What is life without women?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And wine?&rdquo; said a second. &ldquo;And play?&rdquo; said a third. &ldquo;And wealth?&rdquo; said a
+      fourth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you enjoy them all! Happy fellow!&rdquo; said a fifth. The Outcast pulled
+      his hat over his brows, and walked away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This dear Paris,&rdquo; said Beaufort, as his eye carelessly and unconsciously
+      followed the dark form retreating through the arches;&mdash;&ldquo;this dear
+      Paris! I must make the most of it while I stay! I have only been here a
+      few weeks, and next week I must go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh&mdash;your health is better: you don&rsquo;t look like the same man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think so really? Still I don&rsquo;t know: the doctors say that I must
+      either go to the German waters&mdash;the season is begun&mdash;or&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Live less with such pleasant companions, my dear fellow! But as you say,
+      what is life without&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Women!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wine!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Play!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wealth!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha! ha. &lsquo;Throw physic to the dogs: I&rsquo;ll none of it!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Arthur leaped lightly on his saddle, and as he rode gaily on, humming
+      the favourite air of the last opera, the hoofs of his horse splashed the
+      mud over a foot-passenger halting at the crossing. Morton checked the
+      fiery exclamation rising to his lips; and gazing after the brilliant form
+      that hurried on towards the Champs Elysees, his eye caught the statues on
+      the bridge, and a voice, as of a cheering angel, whispered again to his
+      heart, &ldquo;TIME, FAITH, ENERGY!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The expression of his countenance grew calm at once, and as he continued
+      his rambles it was with a mind that, casting off the burdens of the past,
+      looked serenely and steadily on the obstacles and hardships of the future.
+      We have seen that a scruple of conscience or of pride, not without its
+      nobleness, had made him refuse the importunities of Gawtrey for less
+      sordid raiment; the same feeling made it his custom to avoid sharing the
+      luxurious and dainty food with which Gawtrey was wont to regale himself.
+      For that strange man, whose wonderful felicity of temperament and
+      constitution rendered him, in all circumstances, keenly alive to the
+      hearty and animal enjoyments of life, would still emerge, as the day
+      declined, from their wretched apartment, and, trusting to his disguises,
+      in which indeed he possessed a masterly art, repair to one of the better
+      description of restaurants, and feast away his cares for the moment.
+      William Gawtrey would not have cared three straws for the curse of
+      Damocles. The sword over his head would never have spoiled his appetite!
+      He had lately, too, taken to drinking much more deeply than he had been
+      used to do&mdash;the fine intellect of the man was growing thickened and
+      dulled; and this was a spectacle that Morton could not bear to
+      contemplate. Yet so great was Gawtrey&rsquo;s vigour of health, that, after
+      draining wine and spirits enough to have despatched a company of
+      fox-hunters, and after betraying, sometimes in uproarious glee, sometimes
+      in maudlin self-bewailings, that he himself was not quite invulnerable to
+      the thyrsus of the god, he would&mdash;on any call on his energies, or
+      especially before departing on those mysterious expeditions which kept him
+      from home half, and sometimes all, the night&mdash;plunge his head into
+      cold water&mdash;drink as much of the lymph as a groom would have
+      shuddered to bestow on a horse&mdash;close his eyes in a doze for half an
+      hour, and wake, cool, sober, and collected, as if he had lived according
+      to the precepts of Socrates or Cornaro!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But to return to Morton. It was his habit to avoid as much as possible
+      sharing the good cheer of his companion; and now, as he entered the Champs
+      Elysees, he saw a little family, consisting of a young mechanic, his wife,
+      and two children, who, with that love of harmless recreation which yet
+      characterises the French, had taken advantage of a holiday in the craft,
+      and were enjoying their simple meal under the shadow of the trees. Whether
+      in hunger or in envy, Morton paused and contemplated the happy group.
+      Along the road rolled the equipages and trampled the steeds of those to
+      whom all life is a holiday. There, was Pleasure&mdash;under those trees
+      was Happiness. One of the children, a little boy of about six years old,
+      observing the attitude and gaze of the pausing wayfarer, ran to him, and
+      holding up a fragment of a coarse kind of cake, said to him, willingly,
+      &ldquo;Take it&mdash;I have had enough!&rdquo; The child reminded Morton of his
+      brother&mdash;his heart melted within him&mdash;he lifted the young
+      Samaritan in his arms, and as he kissed him, wept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mother observed and rose also. She laid her hand on his own: &ldquo;Poor
+      boy! why do you weep?&mdash;can we relieve you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now that bright gleam of human nature, suddenly darting across the sombre
+      recollections and associations of his past life, seemed to Morton as if it
+      came from Heaven, in approval and in blessing of this attempt at
+      reconciliation to his fate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank you,&rdquo; said he, placing the child on the ground, and passing his
+      hand over his eyes,&mdash;&ldquo;I thank you&mdash;yes! Let me sit down amongst
+      you.&rdquo; And he sat down, the child by his side, and partook of their fare,
+      and was merry with them,&mdash;the proud Philip!&mdash;had he not begun to
+      discover the &ldquo;precious jewel&rdquo; in the &ldquo;ugly and venomous&rdquo; Adversity?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mechanic, though a gay fellow on the whole, was not without some of
+      that discontent of his station which is common with his class; he vented
+      it, however, not in murmurs, but in jests. He was satirical on the
+      carriages and the horsemen that passed; and, lolling on the grass,
+      ridiculed his betters at his ease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; said his wife, suddenly; &ldquo;here comes Madame de Merville;&rdquo; and
+      rising as she spoke, she made a respectful inclination of her head towards
+      an open carriage that was passing very slowly towards the town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame de Merville!&rdquo; repeated the husband, rising also, and lifting his
+      cap from his head. &ldquo;Ah! I have nothing to say against her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Morton looked instinctively towards the carriage, and saw a fair
+      countenance turned graciously to answer the silent salutations of the
+      mechanic and his wife&mdash;a countenance that had long haunted his
+      dreams, though of late it had faded away beneath harsher thoughts&mdash;the
+      countenance of the stranger whom he had seen at the bureau of Gawtrey,
+      when that worthy personage had borne a more mellifluous name. He started
+      and changed colour: the lady herself now seemed suddenly to recognise him;
+      for their eyes met, and she bent forward eagerly. She pulled the
+      check-string&mdash;the carriage halted&mdash;she beckoned to the
+      mechanic&rsquo;s wife, who went up to the roadside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I worked once for that lady,&rdquo; said the man with a tone of feeling; &ldquo;and
+      when my wife fell ill last winter she paid the doctors. Ah, she is an
+      angel of charity and kindness!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Morton scarcely heard this eulogium, for he observed, by something eager
+      and inquisitive in the face of Madame de Merville, and by the sudden
+      manner in which the mechanic&rsquo;s helpmate turned her head to the spot in
+      which he stood, that he was the object of their conversation. Once more he
+      became suddenly aware of his ragged dress, and with a natural shame&mdash;a
+      fear that charity might be extended to him from her&mdash;he muttered an
+      abrupt farewell to the operative, and without another glance at the
+      carriage, walked away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before he had got many paces, the wife however came up to him, breathless.
+      &ldquo;Madame de Merville would speak to you, sir!&rdquo; she said, with more respect
+      than she had hitherto thrown into her manner. Philip paused an instant,
+      and again strode on&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It must be some mistake,&rdquo; he said, hurriedly: &ldquo;I have no right to expect
+      such an honour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He struck across the road, gained the opposite side, and had vanished from
+      Madame de Merville&rsquo;s eyes, before the woman regained the carriage. But
+      still that calm, pale, and somewhat melancholy face, presented itself
+      before him; and as he walked again through the town, sweet and gentle
+      fancies crowded confusedly on his heart. On that soft summer day,
+      memorable for so many silent but mighty events in that inner life which
+      prepares the catastrophes of the outer one; as in the region, of which
+      Virgil has sung, the images of men to be born hereafter repose or glide&mdash;on
+      that soft summer day, he felt he had reached the age when Youth begins to
+      clothe in some human shape its first vague ideal of desire and love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In such thoughts, and still wandering, the day wore away, till he found
+      himself in one of the lanes that surround that glittering Microcosm of the
+      vices, the frivolities, the hollow show, and the real beggary of the gay
+      City&mdash;the gardens and the galleries of the Palais Royal. Surprised at
+      the lateness of the hour, it was then on the stroke of seven, he was about
+      to return homewards, when the loud voice of Gawtrey sounded behind, and
+      that personage, tapping him on the back, said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hollo, my young friend, well met! This will be a night of trial to you.
+      Empty stomachs produce weak nerves. Come along! you must dine with me. A
+      good dinner and a bottle of old wine&mdash;come! nonsense, I say you shall
+      come! Vive la joie!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While speaking, he had linked his arm in Morton&rsquo;s, and hurried him on
+      several paces in spite of his struggles; but just as the words Vive la
+      joie left his lips, he stood still and mute, as if a thunderbolt had
+      fallen at his feet; and Morton felt that heavy arm shiver and tremble like
+      a leaf. He looked up, and just at the entrance of that part of the Palais
+      Royal in which are situated the restaurants of Verey and Vefour, he saw
+      two men standing but a few paces before them, and gazing full on Gawtrey
+      and himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is my evil genius,&rdquo; muttered Gawtrey, grinding his teeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And mine!&rdquo; said Morton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The younger of the two men thus apostrophised made a step towards Philip,
+      when his companion drew him back and whispered,&mdash;&ldquo;What are you about&mdash;do
+      you know that young man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is my cousin; Philip Beaufort&rsquo;s natural son!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he? then discard him for ever. He is with the most dangerous knave in
+      Europe!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As Lord Lilburne&mdash;for it was he&mdash;thus whispered his nephew,
+      Gawtrey strode up to him; and, glaring full in his face, said in a deep
+      and hollow tone,&mdash;&ldquo;There is a hell, my lord,&mdash;I go to drink to
+      our meeting!&rdquo; Thus saying, he took off his hat with a ceremonious mockery,
+      and disappeared within the adjoining restaurant, kept by Vefour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A hell!&rdquo; said Lilburne, with his frigid smile; &ldquo;the rogue&rsquo;s head runs
+      upon gambling-houses!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I have suffered Philip again to escape me,&rdquo; said Arthur, in
+      self-reproach: for while Gawtrey had addressed Lord Lilburne, Morton had
+      plunged back amidst the labyrinth of alleys. &ldquo;How have I kept my oath?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come! your guests must have arrived by this time. As for that wretched
+      young man, depend upon it that he is corrupted body and soul.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he is my own cousin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh! there is no relationship in natural children: besides, he will find
+      you out fast enough. Ragged claimants are not long too proud to beg.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You speak in earnest?&rdquo; said Arthur, irresolutely. &ldquo;Ay! trust my
+      experience of the world&mdash;Allons!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And in a cabinet of the very restaurant, adjoining that in which the
+      solitary Gawtrey gorged his conscience, Lilburne, Arthur, and their gay
+      friends, soon forgetful of all but the roses of the moment, bathed their
+      airy spirits in the dews of the mirthful wine. Oh, extremes of life! Oh,
+      Night! Oh, Morning!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Meantime a moving scene was open laid, That lazar house.&rdquo;&mdash;THOMSON&rsquo;S
+      Castle of Indolence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was near midnight. At the mouth of the lane in which Gawtrey resided
+      there stood four men. Not far distant, in the broad street at angles with
+      the lane, were heard the wheels of carriages and the sound of music. A
+      lady, fair in form, tender of heart, stainless in repute, was receiving
+      her friends!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur Favart,&rdquo; said one of the men to the smallest of the four; &ldquo;you
+      understand the conditions&mdash;20,000 francs and a free pardon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing more reasonable&mdash;it is understood. Still I confess that I
+      should like to have my men close at hand. I am not given to fear; but this
+      is a dangerous experiment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You knew the danger beforehand and subscribed to it: you must enter alone
+      with me, or not at all. Mark you, the men are sworn to murder him who
+      betrays them. Not for twenty times 20,000 francs would I have them know me
+      as the informer. My life were not worth a day&rsquo;s purchase. Now, if you feel
+      secure in your disguise, all is safe. You will have seen them at their
+      work&mdash;you will recognise their persons&mdash;you can depose against
+      them at the trial&mdash;I shall have time to quit France.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well! as you please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mind, you must wait in the vault with them till they separate. We have so
+      planted your men that whatever street each of the gang takes in going
+      home, he can be seized quietly and at once. The bravest and craftiest of
+      all, who, though he has but just joined, is already their captain;&mdash;him,
+      the man I told you of, who lives in the house, you must take after his
+      return, in his bed. It is the sixth story to the right, remember: here is
+      the key to his door. He is a giant in strength; and will never be taken
+      alive if up and armed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, I comprehend!&mdash;Gilbert&rdquo; (and Favart turned to one of his
+      companions who had not yet spoken) &ldquo;take three men besides yourself,
+      according to the directions I gave you,&mdash;the porter will admit you,
+      that&rsquo;s arranged. Make no noise. If I don&rsquo;t return by four o&rsquo;clock, don&rsquo;t
+      wait for me, but proceed at once. Look well to your primings. Take him
+      alive, if possible&mdash;at the worst, dead. And now&mdash;mon ami&mdash;lead
+      on!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The traitor nodded, and walked slowly down the street. Favart, pausing,
+      whispered hastily to the man whom he had called Gilbert,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Follow me close&mdash;get to the door of the cellar-place eight men
+      within hearing of my whistle&mdash;recollect the picklocks, the axes. If
+      you hear the whistle, break in; if not, I&rsquo;m safe, and the first orders to
+      seize the captain in his room stand good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, Favart strode after his guide. The door of a large, but
+      ill-favoured-looking house stood ajar&mdash;they entered-passed unmolested
+      through a court-yard&mdash;descended some stairs; the guide unlocked the
+      door of a cellar, and took a dark lantern from under his cloak. As he drew
+      up the slide, the dim light gleamed on barrels and wine-casks, which
+      appeared to fill up the space. Rolling aside one of these, the guide
+      lifted a trap-door, and lowered his lantern. &ldquo;Enter,&rdquo; said he; and the two
+      men disappeared.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      ........
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The coiners were at their work. A man, seated on a stool before a desk,
+      was entering accounts in a large book. That man was William Gawtrey.
+      While, with the rapid precision of honest mechanics, the machinery of the
+      Dark Trade went on in its several departments. Apart&mdash;alone&mdash;at
+      the foot of a long table, sat Philip Morton. The truth had exceeded his
+      darkest suspicions. He had consented to take the oath not to divulge what
+      was to be given to his survey; and when, led into that vault, the bandage
+      was taken from his eyes, it was some minutes before he could fully
+      comprehend the desperate and criminal occupations of the wild forms amidst
+      which towered the burly stature of his benefactor. As the truth slowly
+      grew upon him, he shrank from the side of Gawtrey; but, deep compassion
+      for his friend&rsquo;s degradation swallowing up the horror of the trade, he
+      flung himself on one of the rude seats, and felt that the bond between
+      them was indeed broken, and that the next morning he should be again alone
+      in the world. Still, as the obscene jests, the fearful oaths, that from
+      time to time rang through the vault, came on his ear, he cast his haughty
+      eye in such disdain over the groups, that Gawtrey, observing him, trembled
+      for his safety; and nothing but Philip&rsquo;s sense of his own impotence, and
+      the brave, not timorous, desire not to perish by such hands, kept silent
+      the fiery denunciations of a nature still proud and honest, that quivered
+      on his lips. All present were armed with pistols and cutlasses except
+      Morton, who suffered the weapons presented to him to lie unheeded on the
+      table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Courage, mes amis!&rdquo; said Gawtrey, closing his book,&mdash;&ldquo;Courage!&mdash;a
+      few months more, and we shall have made enough to retire upon, and enjoy
+      ourselves for the rest of the days. Where is Birnie?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he not tell you?&rdquo; said one of the artisans, looking up. &ldquo;He has found
+      out the cleverest hand in France, the very fellow who helped Bouchard in
+      all his five-franc pieces. He has promised to bring him to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, I remember,&rdquo; returned Gawtrey, &ldquo;he told me this morning,&mdash;he is
+      a famous decoy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think so, indeed!&rdquo; quoth a coiner; &ldquo;for he caught you, the best head to
+      our hands that ever les industriels were blessed with&mdash;sacre
+      fichtre!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Flatterer!&rdquo; said Gawtrey, coming from the desk to the table, and pouring
+      out wine from one of the bottles into a huge flagon&mdash;&ldquo;To your
+      healths!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the door slided back, and Birnie glided in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is your booty, mon brave?&rdquo; said Gawtrey. &ldquo;We only coin money; you
+      coin men, stamp with your own seal, and send them current to the devil!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The coiners, who liked Birnie&rsquo;s ability (for the ci-devant engraver was of
+      admirable skill in their craft), but who hated his joyless manners,
+      laughed at this taunt, which Birnie did not seem to heed, except by a
+      malignant gleam of his dead eye.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you mean the celebrated coiner, Jacques Giraumont, he waits without.
+      You know our rules. I cannot admit him without leave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bon! we give it,&mdash;eh, messieurs?&rdquo; said Gawtrey. &ldquo;Ay-ay,&rdquo; cried
+      several voices. &ldquo;He knows the oath, and will hear the penalty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, he knows the oath,&rdquo; replied Birnie, and glided back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a moment more he returned with a small man in a mechanic&rsquo;s blouse. The
+      new comer wore the republican beard and moustache&mdash;of a sandy grey&mdash;his
+      hair was the same colour; and a black patch over one eye increased the
+      ill-favoured appearance of his features.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Diable! Monsieur Giraumont! but you are more like Vulcan than Adonis!&rdquo;
+       said Gawtrey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know anything about Vulcan, but I know how to make five-franc
+      pieces,&rdquo; said Monsieur Giraumont, doggedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you poor?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As a church mouse! The only thing belonging to a church, since the
+      Bourbons came back, that is poor!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this sally, the coiners, who had gathered round the table, uttered the
+      shout with which, in all circumstances, Frenchmen receive a bon mot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph!&rdquo; said Gawtrey. &ldquo;Who responds with his own life for your fidelity?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I,&rdquo; said Birnie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Administer the oath to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly four men advanced, seized the visitor, and bore him from the
+      vault into another one within. After a few moments they returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has taken the oath and heard the penalty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Death to yourself, your wife, your son, and your grandson, if you betray
+      us!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have neither son nor grandson; as for my wife, Monsieur le Capitaine,
+      you offer a bribe instead of a threat when you talk of her death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sacre! but you will be an addition to our circle, mon brave!&rdquo; said
+      Gawtrey, laughing; while again the grim circle shouted applause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I suppose you care for your own life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Otherwise I should have preferred starving to coming here,&rdquo; answered the
+      laconic neophyte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have done with you. Your health!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On this the coiners gathered round Monsieur Giraumont, shook him by the
+      hand, and commenced many questions with a view to ascertain his skill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Show me your coinage first; I see you use both the die and the furnace.
+      Hem! this piece is not bad&mdash;you have struck it from an iron die?&mdash;right&mdash;it
+      makes the impression sharper than plaster of Paris. But you take the
+      poorest and the most dangerous part of the trade in taking the home
+      market. I can put you in a way to make ten times as much&mdash;and with
+      safety. Look at this!&rdquo;&mdash;and Monsieur Giraumont took a forged Spanish
+      dollar from his pocket, so skilfully manufactured that the connoisseurs
+      were lost in admiration&mdash;&ldquo;you may pass thousands of these all over
+      Europe, except France, and who is ever to detect you? But it will require
+      better machinery than you have here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus conversing, Monsieur Giraumont did not perceive that Mr. Gawtrey had
+      been examining him very curiously and minutely. But Birnie had noted their
+      chief&rsquo;s attention, and once attempted to join his new ally, when Gawtrey
+      laid his hand on his shoulder, and stopped him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not speak to your friend till I bid you, or&mdash;&rdquo; he stopped short,
+      and touched his pistols.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Birnie grew a shade more pale, but replied with his usual sneer:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suspicious!&mdash;well, so much the better!&rdquo; and seating himself
+      carelessly at the table, lighted his pipe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now, Monsieur Giraumont,&rdquo; said Gawtrey, as he took the head of the
+      table, &ldquo;come to my right hand. A half-holiday in your honour. Clear these
+      infernal instruments; and more wine, mes amis!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The party arranged themselves at the table. Among the desperate there is
+      almost invariably a tendency to mirth. A solitary ruffian, indeed, is
+      moody, but a gang of ruffians are jovial. The coiners talked and laughed
+      loud. Mr. Birnie, from his dogged silence, seemed apart from the rest,
+      though in the centre. For in a noisy circle a silent tongue builds a wall
+      round its owner. But that respectable personage kept his furtive watch
+      upon Giraumont and Gawtrey, who appeared talking together, very amicably.
+      The younger novice of that night, equally silent, seated towards the
+      bottom of the table, was not less watchful than Birnie. An uneasy,
+      undefinable foreboding had come over him since the entrance of Monsieur
+      Giraumont; this had been increased by the manner of Mr. Gawtrey. His
+      faculty of observation, which was very acute, had detected something false
+      in the chief&rsquo;s blandness to their guest&mdash;something dangerous in the
+      glittering eye that Gawtrey ever, as he spoke to Giraumont, bent on that
+      person&rsquo;s lips as he listened to his reply. For, whenever William Gawtrey
+      suspected a man, he watched not his eyes, but his lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Waked from his scornful reverie, a strange spell chained Morton&rsquo;s
+      attention to the chief and the guest, and he bent forward, with parted
+      mouth and straining ear, to catch their conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems to me a little strange,&rdquo; said Mr. Gawtrey, raising his voice so
+      as to be heard by the party, &ldquo;that a coiner so dexterous as Monsieur
+      Giraumont should not be known to any of us except our friend Birnie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all,&rdquo; replied Giraumont; &ldquo;I worked only with Bouchard and two
+      others since sent to the galleys. We were but a small fraternity&mdash;everything
+      has its commencement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;C&rsquo;est juste: buvez, donc, cher ami!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The wine circulated. Gawtrey began again:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have had a bad accident, seemingly, Monsieur Giraumont. How did you
+      lose your eye?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In a scuffle with the gens d&rsquo; armes the night Bouchard was taken and I
+      escaped. Such misfortunes are on the cards.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;C&rsquo;est juste: buvez, donc, Monsieur Giraumont!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again there was a pause, and again Gawtrey&rsquo;s deep voice was heard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You wear a wig, I think, Monsieur Giraumont? To judge by your eyelashes
+      your own hair has been a handsomer colour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We seek disguise, not beauty, my host; and the police have sharp eyes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;C&rsquo;est juste: buvez, donc-vieux Renard! When did we two meet last?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never, that I know of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ce n&rsquo;est pas vrai! buvez, donc, MONSIEUR FAVART!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the sound of that name the company started in dismay and confusion, and
+      the police officer, forgetting himself for the moment, sprang from his
+      seat, and put his right hand into his blouse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ho, there!&mdash;treason!&rdquo; cried Gawtrey, in a voice of thunder; and he
+      caught the unhappy man by the throat. It was the work of a moment. Morton,
+      where he sat, beheld a struggle&mdash;he heard a death-cry. He saw the
+      huge form of the master-coiner rising above all the rest, as cutlasses
+      gleamed and eyes sparkled round. He saw the quivering and powerless frame
+      of the unhappy guest raised aloft in those mighty arms, and presently it
+      was hurled along the table-bottles crashing&mdash;the board shaking
+      beneath its weight&mdash;and lay before the very eyes of Morton, a
+      distorted and lifeless mass. At the same instant Gawtrey sprang upon the
+      table, his black frown singling out from the group the ashen, cadaverous
+      face of the shrinking traitor. Birnie had darted from the table&mdash;he
+      was half-way towards the sliding door&mdash;his face, turned over his
+      shoulder, met the eyes of the chief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Devil!&rdquo; shouted Gawtrey, in his terrible voice, which the echoes of the
+      vault gave back from side to side. &ldquo;Did I not give thee up my soul that
+      thou mightest not compass my death? Hark ye! thus die my slavery and all
+      our secrets!&rdquo; The explosion of his pistol half swallowed up the last word,
+      and with a single groan the traitor fell on the floor, pierced through the
+      brain&mdash;then there was a dead and grim hush as the smoke rolled slowly
+      along the roof of the dreary vault.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Morton sank back on his seat, and covered his face with his hands. The
+      last seal on the fate of THE MAN OF CRIME was set; the last wave in the
+      terrible and mysterious tide of his destiny had dashed on his soul to the
+      shore whence there is no return. Vain, now and henceforth, the humour, the
+      sentiment, the kindly impulse, the social instincts which had invested
+      that stalwart shape with dangerous fascination, which had implied the hope
+      of ultimate repentance, of redemption even in this world. The HOUR and the
+      CIRCUMSTANCE had seized their prey; and the self-defence, which a lawless
+      career rendered a necessity, left the eternal die of blood upon his doom!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Friends, I have saved you,&rdquo; said Gawtrey, slowly gazing on the corpse of
+      his second victim, while he turned the pistol to his belt. &ldquo;I have not
+      quailed before this man&rsquo;s eye&rdquo; (and he spurned the clay of the officer as
+      he spoke with a revengeful scorn) &ldquo;without treasuring up its aspect in my
+      heart of hearts. I knew him when he entered&mdash;knew him through his
+      disguise&mdash;yet, faith, it was a clever one! Turn up his face and gaze
+      on him now; he will never terrify us again, unless there be truth in
+      ghosts!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Murmuring and tremulous the coiners scrambled on the table and examined
+      the dead man. From this task Gawtrey interrupted them, for his quick eye
+      detected, with the pistols under the policeman&rsquo;s blouse, a whistle of
+      metal of curious construction, and he conjectured at once that danger was
+      at hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have saved you, I say, but only for the hour. This deed cannot sleep.
+      See, he had help within call! The police knew where to look for their
+      comrade&mdash;we are dispersed. Each for himself. Quick, divide the
+      spoils! Sauve qui peat!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Morton heard where he sat, his hands still clasped before his face, a
+      confused hubbub of voices, the jingle of money, the scrambling of feet,
+      the creaking of doors. All was silent!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A strong grasp drew his hands from his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your first scene of life against life,&rdquo; said Gawtrey&rsquo;s voice, which
+      seemed fearfully changed to the ear that heard it. &ldquo;Bah! what would you
+      think of a battle? Come to our eyrie: the carcasses are gone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Morton looked fearfully round the vault. He and Gawtrey were alone. His
+      eyes sought the places where the dead had lain&mdash;they were removed&mdash;no
+      vestige of the deeds, not even a drop of blood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, take up your cutlass, come!&rdquo; repeated the voice of the chief, as
+      with his dim lantern&mdash;now the sole light of the vault&mdash;he stood
+      in the shadow of the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Morton rose, took up the weapon mechanically, and followed that terrible
+      guide, mute and unconscious, as a Soul follows a Dream through the House
+      of Sleep!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0032" id="link2HCH0032">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        &ldquo;Sleep no more!&rdquo;&mdash;Macbeth
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      After winding through gloomy and labyrinthine passages, which conducted to
+      a different range of cellars from those entered by the unfortunate Favart,
+      Gawtrey emerged at the foot of a flight of stairs, which, dark, narrow,
+      and in many places broken, had been probably appropriated to servants of
+      the house in its days of palmier glory. By these steps the pair regained
+      their attic. Gawtrey placed the lantern on the table and seated himself in
+      silence. Morton, who had recovered his self-possession and formed his
+      resolution, gazed on him for some moments, equally taciturn. At length he
+      spoke:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gawtrey!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I bade you not call me by that name,&rdquo; said the coiner; for we need
+      scarcely say that in his new trade he had assumed a new appellation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the least guilty one by which I have known you,&rdquo; returned Morton,
+      firmly. &ldquo;It is for the last time I call you by it! I demanded to see by
+      what means one to whom I had entrusted my fate supported himself. I have
+      seen,&rdquo; continued the young man, still firmly, but with a livid cheek and
+      lip, &ldquo;and the tie between us is rent for ever. Interrupt me not! it is not
+      for me to blame you. I have eaten of your bread and drunk of your cup.
+      Confiding in you too blindly, and believing that you were at least free
+      from those dark and terrible crimes for which there is no expiation&mdash;at
+      least in this life&mdash;my conscience seared by distress, my very soul
+      made dormant by despair, I surrendered myself to one leading a career
+      equivocal, suspicious, dishonourable perhaps, but still not, as I
+      believed, of atrocity and bloodshed. I wake at the brink of the abyss&mdash;my
+      mother&rsquo;s hand beckons to me from the grave; I think I hear her voice while
+      I address you&mdash;I recede while it is yet time&mdash;we part, and for
+      ever!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gawtrey, whose stormy passion was still deep upon his soul, had listened
+      hitherto in sullen and dogged silence, with a gloomy frown on his knitted
+      brow; he now rose with an oath&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Part! that I may let loose on the world a new traitor! Part! when you
+      have seen me fresh from an act that, once whispered, gives me to the
+      guillotine! Part&mdash;never! at least alive!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have said it,&rdquo; said Morton, folding his arms calmly; &ldquo;I say it to your
+      face, though I might part from you in secret. Frown not on me, man of
+      blood! I am fearless as yourself! In another minute I am gone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! is it so?&rdquo; said Gawtrey; and glancing round the room, which contained
+      two doors, the one concealed by the draperies of a bed, communicating with
+      the stairs by which they had entered, the other with the landing of the
+      principal and common flight: he turned to the former, within his reach,
+      which he locked, and put the key into his pocket, and then, throwing
+      across the latter a heavy swing bar, which fell into its socket with a
+      harsh noise,&mdash;before the threshold he placed his vast bulk, and burst
+      into his loud, fierce laugh: &ldquo;Ho! ho! Slave and fool, once mine, you were
+      mine body and soul for ever!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tempter, I defy you! stand back!&rdquo; And, firm and dauntless, Morton laid
+      his hand on the giant&rsquo;s vest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gawtrey seemed more astonished than enraged. He looked hard at his daring
+      associate, on whose lip the down was yet scarcely dark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Boy,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;off! do not rouse the devil in me again! I could crush
+      you with a hug.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My soul supports my body, and I am armed,&rdquo; said Morton, laying hand on
+      his cutlass. &ldquo;But you dare not harm me, nor I you; bloodstained as you
+      are, you gave me shelter and bread; but accuse me not that I will save my
+      soul while it is yet time!&mdash;Shall my mother have blessed me in vain
+      upon her death-bed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gawtrey drew back, and Morton, by a sudden impulse, grasped his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! hear me&mdash;hear me!&rdquo; he cried, with great emotion. &ldquo;Abandon this
+      horrible career; you have been decoyed and betrayed to it by one who can
+      deceive or terrify you no more! Abandon it, and I will never desert you.
+      For her sake&mdash;for your Fanny&rsquo;s sake&mdash;pause, like me, before the
+      gulf swallow us. Let us fly!&mdash;far to the New World&mdash;to any land
+      where our thews and sinews, our stout hands and hearts, can find an honest
+      mart. Men, desperate as we are, have yet risen by honest means. Take her,
+      your orphan, with us. We will work for her, both of us. Gawtrey! hear me.
+      It is not my voice that speaks to you&mdash;it is your good angel&rsquo;s!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gawtrey fell back against the wall, and his chest heaved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Morton,&rdquo; he said, with choked and tremulous accent, &ldquo;go now; leave me to
+      my fate! I have sinned against you&mdash;shamefully sinned. It seemed to
+      me so sweet to have a friend; in your youth and character of mind there
+      was so much about which the tough strings of my heart wound themselves,
+      that I could not bear to lose you&mdash;to suffer you to know me for what
+      I was. I blinded&mdash;I deceived you as to my past deeds; that was base
+      in me: but I swore to my own heart to keep you unexposed to every danger,
+      and free from every vice that darkened my own path. I kept that oath till
+      this night, when, seeing that you began to recoil from me, and dreading
+      that you should desert me, I thought to bind you to me for ever by
+      implicating you in this fellowship of crime. I am punished, and justly.
+      Go, I repeat&mdash;leave me to the fate that strides nearer and nearer to
+      me day by day. You are a boy still&mdash;I am no longer young. Habit is a
+      second nature. Still&mdash;still I could repent&mdash;I could begin life
+      again. But repose!&mdash;to look back&mdash;to remember&mdash;to be
+      haunted night and day with deeds that shall meet me bodily and face to
+      face on the last day&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Add not to the spectres! Come&mdash;fly this night&mdash;this hour!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gawtrey paused, irresolute and wavering, when at that moment he heard
+      steps on the stairs below. He started&mdash;as starts the boar caught in
+      his lair&mdash;and listened, pale and breathless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush!&mdash;they are on us!&mdash;they come!&rdquo; as he whispered, the key
+      from without turned in the wards&mdash;the door shook. &ldquo;Soft! the bar
+      preserves us both&mdash;this way.&rdquo; And the coiner crept to the door of the
+      private stairs. He unlocked and opened it cautiously. A man sprang through
+      the aperture:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yield!&mdash;you are my prisoner!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never!&rdquo; cried Gawtrey, hurling back the intruder, and clapping to the
+      door, though other and stout men were pressing against it with all their
+      power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ho! ho! Who shall open the tiger&rsquo;s cage?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At both doors now were heard the sound of voices. &ldquo;Open in the king&rsquo;s
+      name, or expect no mercy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hist!&rdquo; said Gawtrey. &ldquo;One way yet&mdash;the window&mdash;the rope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Morton opened the casement&mdash;Gawtrey uncoiled the rope. The dawn was
+      breaking; it was light in the streets, but all seemed quiet without. The
+      doors reeled and shook beneath the pressure of the pursuers. Gawtrey flung
+      the rope across the street to the opposite parapet; after two or three
+      efforts, the grappling-hook caught firm hold&mdash;the perilous path was
+      made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On!&mdash;quick!&mdash;loiter not!&rdquo; whispered Gawtrey; &ldquo;you are active&mdash;it
+      seems more dangerous than it is&mdash;cling with both hands&mdash;shut
+      your eyes. When on the other side&mdash;you see the window of Birnie&rsquo;s
+      room,&mdash;enter it&mdash;descend the stairs&mdash;let yourself out, and
+      you are safe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go first,&rdquo; said Morton, in the same tone: &ldquo;I will not leave you now: you
+      will be longer getting across than I shall. I will keep guard till you are
+      over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hark! hark!&mdash;are you mad? You keep guard! what is your strength to
+      mine? Twenty men shall not move that door, while my weight is against it.
+      Quick, or you destroy us both! Besides, you will hold the rope for me, it
+      may not be strong enough for my bulk in itself. Stay!&mdash;stay one
+      moment. If you escape, and I fall&mdash;Fanny&mdash;my father, he will
+      take care of her,&mdash;you remember&mdash;thanks! Forgive me all! Go;
+      that&rsquo;s right!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With a firm impulse, Morton threw himself on the dreadful bridge; it swung
+      and crackled at his weight. Shifting his grasp rapidly&mdash;holding his
+      breath&mdash;with set teeth-with closed eyes&mdash;he moved on&mdash;he
+      gained the parapet&mdash;he stood safe on the opposite side. And now,
+      straining his eyes across, he saw through the open casement into the
+      chamber he had just quitted. Gawtrey was still standing against the door
+      to the principal staircase, for that of the two was the weaker and the
+      more assailed. Presently the explosion of a fire-arm was heard; they had
+      shot through the panel. Gawtrey seemed wounded, for he staggered forward,
+      and uttered a fierce cry; a moment more, and he gained the window&mdash;he
+      seized the rope&mdash;he hung over the tremendous depth! Morton knelt by
+      the parapet, holding the grappling-hook in its place, with convulsive
+      grasp, and fixing his eyes, bloodshot with fear and suspense, on the huge
+      bulk that clung for life to that slender cord!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Le voiles! Le voiles!&rdquo; cried a voice from the opposite side. Morton
+      raised his gaze from Gawtrey; the casement was darkened by the forms of
+      his pursuers&mdash;they had burst into the room&mdash;an officer sprang
+      upon the parapet, and Gawtrey, now aware of his danger, opened his eyes,
+      and as he moved on, glared upon the foe. The policeman deliberately raised
+      his pistol&mdash;Gawtrey arrested himself&mdash;from a wound in his side
+      the blood trickled slowly and darkly down, drop by drop, upon the stones
+      below; even the officers of law shuddered as they eyed him&mdash;his hair
+      bristling&mdash;his cheek white&mdash;his lips drawn convulsively from his
+      teeth, and his eyes glaring from beneath the frown of agony and menace in
+      which yet spoke the indomitable power and fierceness of the man. His look,
+      so fixed&mdash;so intense&mdash;so stern, awed the policeman; his hand
+      trembled as he fired, and the ball struck the parapet an inch below the
+      spot where Morton knelt. An indistinct, wild, gurgling sound-half-laugh,
+      half-yell of scorn and glee, broke from Gawtrey&rsquo;s lips. He swung himself
+      on&mdash;near&mdash;near&mdash;nearer&mdash;a yard from the parapet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are saved!&rdquo; cried Morton; when at the moment a volley burst from the
+      fatal casement&mdash;the smoke rolled over both the fugitives&mdash;a
+      groan, or rather howl, of rage, and despair, and agony, appalled even the
+      hardest on whose ear it came. Morton sprang to his feet and looked below.
+      He saw on the rugged stones far down, a dark, formless, motionless mass&mdash;the
+      strong man of passion and levity&mdash;the giant who had played with life
+      and soul, as an infant with the baubles that it prizes and breaks&mdash;was
+      what the Caesar and the leper alike are, when the clay is without God&rsquo;s
+      breath&mdash;what glory, genius, power, and beauty, would be for ever and
+      for ever, if there were no God!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is another!&rdquo; cried the voice of one of the pursuers. &ldquo;Fire!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor Gawtrey!&rdquo; muttered Philip. &ldquo;I will fulfil your last wish;&rdquo; and
+      scarcely conscious of the bullet that whistled by him, he disappeared
+      behind the parapet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0033" id="link2HCH0033">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+             &ldquo;Gently moved
+     By the soft wind of whispering silks.&rdquo;&mdash;DECKER.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The reader may remember that while Monsieur Favart and Mr. Birnie were
+      holding commune in the lane, the sounds of festivity were heard from a
+      house in the adjoining street. To that house we are now summoned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Paris, the gaieties of balls, or soirees, are, I believe, very rare in
+      that period of the year in which they are most frequent in London. The
+      entertainment now given was in honour of a christening; the lady who gave
+      it, a relation of the new-born.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame de Merville was a young widow; even before her marriage she had
+      been distinguished in literature; she had written poems of more than
+      common excellence; and being handsome, of good family, and large fortune,
+      her talents made her an object of more interest than they might otherwise
+      have done. Her poetry showed great sensibility and tenderness. If poetry
+      be any index to the heart, you would have thought her one to love truly
+      and deeply. Nevertheless, since she married&mdash;as girls in France do&mdash;not
+      to please herself, but her parents, she made a mariage de convenance.
+      Monsieur de Merville was a sober, sensible man, past middle age. Not being
+      fond of poetry, and by no means coveting a professional author for his
+      wife, he had during their union, which lasted four years, discouraged his
+      wife&rsquo;s liaison with Apollo. But her mind, active and ardent, did not the
+      less prey upon itself. At the age of four-and-twenty she became a widow,
+      with an income large even in England for a single woman, and at Paris
+      constituting no ordinary fortune. Madame de Merville, however, though a
+      person of elegant taste, was neither ostentatious nor selfish; she had no
+      children, and she lived quietly in apartments, handsome, indeed, but not
+      more than adequate to the small establishment which&mdash;where, as on the
+      Continent, the costly convenience of an entire house is not usually
+      incurred&mdash;sufficed for her retinue. She devoted at least half her
+      income, which was entirely at her own disposal, partly to the aid of her
+      own relations, who were not rich, and partly to the encouragement of the
+      literature she cultivated. Although she shrank from the ordeal of
+      publication, her poems and sketches of romance were read to her own
+      friends, and possessed an eloquence seldom accompanied with so much
+      modesty. Thus, her reputation, though not blown about the winds, was high
+      in her own circle, and her position in fashion and in fortune made her
+      looked up to by her relations as the head of her family; they regarded her
+      as femme superieure, and her advice with them was equivalent to a command.
+      Eugenie de Merville was a strange mixture of qualities at once feminine
+      and masculine. On the one hand, she had a strong will, independent views,
+      some contempt for the world, and followed her own inclinations without
+      servility to the opinion of others; on the other hand, she was
+      susceptible, romantic, of a sweet, affectionate, kind disposition. Her
+      visit to M. Love, however indiscreet, was not less in accordance with her
+      character than her charity to the mechanic&rsquo;s wife; masculine and careless
+      where an eccentric thing was to be done&mdash;curiosity satisfied, or some
+      object in female diplomacy achieved&mdash;womanly, delicate, and gentle,
+      the instant her benevolence was appealed to or her heart touched. She had
+      now been three years a widow, and was consequently at the age of
+      twenty-seven. Despite the tenderness of her poetry and her character, her
+      reputation was unblemished. She had never been in love. People who are
+      much occupied do not fall in love easily; besides, Madame de Merville was
+      refining, exacting, and wished to find heroes where she only met handsome
+      dandies or ugly authors. Moreover, Eugenie was both a vain and a proud
+      person&mdash;vain of her celebrity and proud of her birth. She was one
+      whose goodness of heart made her always active in promoting the happiness
+      of others. She was not only generous and charitable, but willing to serve
+      people by good offices as well as money. Everybody loved her. The new-born
+      infant, to whose addition to the Christian community the fete of this
+      night was dedicated, was the pledge of a union which Madame de Merville
+      had managed to effect between two young persons, first cousins to each
+      other, and related to herself. There had been scruples of parents to
+      remove&mdash;money matters to adjust&mdash;Eugenie had smoothed all. The
+      husband and wife, still lovers, looked up to her as the author, under
+      Heaven, of their happiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gala of that night had been, therefore, of a nature more than usually
+      pleasurable, and the mirth did not sound hollow, but wrung from the heart.
+      Yet, as Eugenie from time to time contemplated the young people, whose
+      eyes ever sought each other&mdash;so fair, so tender, and so joyous as
+      they seemed&mdash;a melancholy shadow darkened her brow, and she sighed
+      involuntarily. Once the young wife, Madame d&rsquo;Anville, approaching her
+      timidly, said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! my sweet cousin, when shall we see you as happy as ourselves? There
+      is such happiness,&rdquo; she added, innocently, and with a blush, &ldquo;in being a
+      mother!&mdash;that little life all one&rsquo;s own&mdash;it is something to
+      think of every hour!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; said Eugenie, smiling, and seeking to turn the conversation
+      from a subject that touched too nearly upon feelings and thoughts her
+      pride did not wish to reveal&mdash;&ldquo;perhaps it is you, then, who have made
+      our cousin, poor Monsieur de Vaudemont, so determined to marry? Pray, be
+      more cautious with him. How difficult I have found it to prevent his
+      bringing into our family some one to make us all ridiculous!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True,&rdquo; said Madame d&rsquo;Anville, laughing. &ldquo;But then, the Vicomte is so
+      poor, and in debt. He would fall in love, not with the demoiselle, but the
+      dower. A propos of that, how cleverly you took advantage of his boastful
+      confession to break off his liaisons with that bureau de mariage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; I congratulate myself on that manoeuvre. Unpleasant as it was to go
+      to such a place (for, of course, I could not send for Monsieur Love here),
+      it would have been still more unpleasant to have received such a Madame de
+      Vaudemont as our cousin would have presented to us. Only think&mdash;he
+      was the rival of an epicier! I heard that there was some curious
+      denouement to the farce of that establishment; but I could never get from
+      Vaudemont the particulars. He was ashamed of them, I fancy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What droll professions there are in Paris!&rdquo; said Madame d&rsquo;Anville. &ldquo;As if
+      people could not marry without going to an office for a spouse as we go
+      for a servant! And so the establishment is broken up? And you never again
+      saw that dark, wild-looking boy who so struck your fancy that you have
+      taken him as the original for the Murillo sketch of the youth in that
+      charming tale you read to us the other evening? Ah! cousin, I think you
+      were a little taken with him. The bureau de mariage had its allurements
+      for you as well as for our poor cousin!&rdquo; The young mother said this
+      laughingly and carelessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh!&rdquo; returned Madame de Merville, laughing also; but a slight blush
+      broke over her natural paleness. &ldquo;But a propos of the Vicomte. You know
+      how cruelly he has behaved to that poor boy of his by his English wife&mdash;never
+      seen him since he was an infant&mdash;kept him at some school in England;
+      and all because his vanity does not like the world to know that he has a
+      son of nineteen! Well, I have induced him to recall this poor youth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed! and how?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; said Eugenie, with a smile, &ldquo;he wanted a loan, poor man, and I
+      could therefore impose conditions by way of interest. But I also managed
+      to conciliate him to the proposition, by representing that, if the young
+      man were good-looking, he might, himself, with our connections, &amp;c.,
+      form an advantageous marriage; and that in such a case, if the father
+      treated him now justly and kindly, he would naturally partake with the
+      father whatever benefits the marriage might confer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! you are an excellent diplomatist, Eugenie; and you turn people&rsquo;s
+      heads by always acting from your heart. Hush! here comes the Vicomte!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A delightful ball,&rdquo; said Monsieur de Vaudemont, approaching the hostess.
+      &ldquo;Pray, has that young lady yonder, in the pink dress, any fortune? She is
+      pretty&mdash;eh? You observe she is looking at me&mdash;I mean at us!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear cousin, what a compliment you pay to marriage! You have had two
+      wives, and you are ever on the qui vive for a third!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What would you have me do?&mdash;we cannot resist the overtures of your
+      bewitching sex. Hum&mdash;what fortune has she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a sou; besides, she is engaged.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! now I look at her, she is not pretty&mdash;not at all. I made a
+      mistake. I did not mean her; I meant the young lady in blue.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Worse and worse&mdash;she is married already. Shall I present you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, Monsieur de Vaudemont,&rdquo; said Madame d&rsquo;Anville; &ldquo;have you found out a
+      new bureau de mariage?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Vicomte pretended not to hear that question. But, turning to Eugenie,
+      took her aside, and said, with an air in which he endeavoured to throw a
+      great deal of sorrow, &ldquo;You know, my dear cousin, that, to oblige you, I
+      consented to send for my son, though, as I always said, it is very
+      unpleasant for a man like me, in the prime of life, to hawk about a great
+      boy of nineteen or twenty. People soon say, &lsquo;Old Vaudemont and younq
+      Vaudemont.&rsquo; However, a father&rsquo;s feelings are never appealed to in vain.&rdquo;
+       (Here the Vicomte put his handkerchief to his eyes, and after a pause,
+      continued,)&mdash;&ldquo;I sent for him&mdash;I even went to your old bonne,
+      Madame Dufour, to make a bargain for her lodgings, and this day&mdash;guess
+      my grief&mdash;I received a letter sealed with black. My son is dead!&mdash;a
+      sudden fever&mdash;it is shocking!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Horrible! dead!&mdash;your own son, whom you hardly ever saw&mdash;never
+      since he was an Infant!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, that softens the blow very much. And now you see I must marry. If
+      the boy had been good-looking, and like me, and so forth, why, as you
+      observed, he might have made a good match, and allowed me a certain sum,
+      or we could have all lived together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And your son is dead, and you come to a ball!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Je suis philosophe,&rdquo; said the Vicomte, shrugging his shoulders. &ldquo;And, as
+      you say, I never saw him. It saves me seven hundred francs a-year. Don&rsquo;t
+      say a word to any one&mdash;I sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t give out that he is dead, poor
+      fellow! Pray be discreet: you see there are some ill-natured people who
+      might think it odd I do not shut myself up. I can wait till Paris is quite
+      empty. It would be a pity to lose any opportunity at present, for now, you
+      see, I must marry!&rdquo; And the philosophe sauntered away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0034" id="link2HCH0034">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+          GUIOMAR.
+     &ldquo;Those devotions I am to pay
+     Are written in my heart, not in this book.&rdquo;
+ 
+         Enter RUTILIO.
+     &ldquo;I am pursued&mdash;all the ports are stopped too,
+     Not any hope to escape&mdash;behind, before me,
+     On either side, I am beset.&rdquo;
+      BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, The Custom of the Country
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The party were just gone&mdash;it was already the peep of day&mdash;the
+      wheels of the last carriage had died in the distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame de Merville had dismissed her woman, and was seated in her own
+      room, leaning her head musingly on her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beside her was the table that held her MSS. and a few books, amidst which
+      were scattered vases of flowers. On a pedestal beneath the window was
+      placed a marble bust of Dante. Through the open door were seen in
+      perspective two rooms just deserted by her guests; the lights still burned
+      in the chandeliers and girandoles, contending with the daylight that came
+      through the half-closed curtains. The person of the inmate was in harmony
+      with the apartment. It was characterised by a certain grace which, for
+      want of a better epithet, writers are prone to call classical or antique.
+      Her complexion, seeming paler than usual by that light, was yet soft and
+      delicate&mdash;the features well cut, but small and womanly. About the
+      face there was that rarest of all charms, the combination of intellect
+      with sweetness; the eyes, of a dark blue, were thoughtful, perhaps
+      melancholy, in their expression; but the long dark lashes, and the shape
+      of the eyes, themselves more long than full, gave to their intelligence a
+      softness approaching to languor, increased, perhaps, by that slight shadow
+      round and below the orbs which is common with those who have tasked too
+      much either the mind or the heart. The contour of the face, without being
+      sharp or angular, had yet lost a little of the roundness of earlier youth;
+      and the hand on which she leaned was, perhaps, even too white, too
+      delicate, for the beauty which belongs to health; but the throat and bust
+      were of exquisite symmetry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not happy,&rdquo; murmured Eugenie to herself; &ldquo;yet I scarce know why. Is
+      it really, as we women of romance have said till the saying is worn
+      threadbare, that the destiny of women is not fame but love. Strange, then,
+      that while I have so often pictured what love should be, I have never felt
+      it. And now,&mdash;and now,&rdquo; she continued, half rising, and with a
+      natural pang&mdash;&ldquo;now I am no longer in my first youth. If I loved,
+      should I be loved again? How happy the young pair seemed&mdash;they are
+      never alone!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment, at a distance, was heard the report of fire-arms&mdash;again!
+      Eugenie started, and called to her servant, who, with one of the waiters
+      hired for the night, was engaged in removing, and nibbling as he removed,
+      the remains of the feast. &ldquo;What is that, at this hour?&mdash;open the
+      window and look out!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can see nothing, madame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Again&mdash;that is the third time. Go into the street and look&mdash;some
+      one must be in danger.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The servant and the waiter, both curious, and not willing to part company,
+      ran down the stairs, and thence into the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, Morton, after vainly attempting Birnie&rsquo;s window, which the
+      traitor had previously locked and barred against the escape of his
+      intended victim, crept rapidly along the roof, screened by the parapet not
+      only from the shot but the sight of the foe. But just as he gained the
+      point at which the lane made an angle with the broad street it adjoined,
+      he cast his eyes over the parapet, and perceived that one of the officers
+      had ventured himself to the fearful bridge; he was pursued&mdash;detection
+      and capture seemed inevitable. He paused, and breathed hard. He, once the
+      heir to such fortunes, the darling of such affections!&mdash;he, the
+      hunted accomplice of a gang of miscreants! That was the thought that
+      paralysed&mdash;the disgrace, not the danger. But he was in advance of the
+      pursuer&mdash;he hastened on&mdash;he turned the angle&mdash;he heard a
+      shout behind from the opposite side&mdash;the officer had passed the
+      bridge: &ldquo;it is but one man as yet,&rdquo; thought he, and his nostrils dilated
+      and his hands clenched as he glided on, glancing at each casement as he
+      passed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now as youth and vigour thus struggled against Law for life, near at hand
+      Death was busy with toil and disease. In a miserable grabat, or garret, a
+      mechanic, yet young, and stricken by a lingering malady contracted by the
+      labour of his occupation, was slowly passing from that world which had
+      frowned on his cradle, and relaxed not the gloom of its aspect to comfort
+      his bed of Death. Now this man had married for love, and his wife had
+      loved him; and it was the cares of that early marriage which had consumed
+      him to the bone. But extreme want, if long continued, eats up love when it
+      has nothing else to eat. And when people are very long dying, the people
+      they fret and trouble begin to think of that too often hypocritical
+      prettiness of phrase called &ldquo;a happy release.&rdquo; So the worn-out and
+      half-famished wife did not care three straws for the dying husband, whom a
+      year or two ago she had vowed to love and cherish in sickness and in
+      health. But still she seemed to care, for she moaned, and pined, and wept,
+      as the man&rsquo;s breath grew fainter and fainter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, Jean!&rdquo; said she, sobbing, &ldquo;what will become of me, a poor lone widow,
+      with nobody to work for my bread?&rdquo; And with that thought she took on worse
+      than before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am stifling,&rdquo; said the dying man, rolling round his ghastly eyes. &ldquo;How
+      hot it is! Open the window; I should like to see the light&mdash;daylight
+      once again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mon Dieu! what whims he has, poor man!&rdquo; muttered the woman, without
+      stirring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor wretch put out his skeleton hand and clutched his wife&rsquo;s arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t trouble you long, Marie! Air&mdash;air!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jean, you will make yourself worse&mdash;besides, I shall catch my death
+      of cold. I have scarce a rag on, but I will just open the door.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pardon me,&rdquo; groaned the sufferer; &ldquo;leave me, then.&rdquo; Poor fellow! perhaps
+      at that moment the thought of unkindness was sharper than the sharp cough
+      which brought blood at every paroxysm. He did not like her so near him,
+      but he did not blame her. Again, I say,&mdash;poor fellow! The woman
+      opened the door, went to the other side of the room, and sat down on an
+      old box and began darning an old neck-handkerchief. The silence was soon
+      broken by the moans of the fast-dying man, and again he muttered, as he
+      tossed to and fro, with baked white lips:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Je m&rsquo;etoufee!&mdash;Air!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no resisting that prayer, it seemed so like the last. The wife
+      laid down the needle, put the handkerchief round her throat, and opened
+      the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you feel easier now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bless you, Marie&mdash;yes; that&rsquo;s good&mdash;good. It puts me in mind of
+      old days, that breath of air, before we came to Paris. I wish I could work
+      for you now, Marie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jean! my poor Jean!&rdquo; said the woman, and the words and the voice took
+      back her hardening heart to the fresh fields and tender thoughts of the
+      past time. And she walked up to the bed, and he leaned his temples, damp
+      with livid dews, upon her breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been a sad burden to you, Marie; we should not have married so
+      soon; but I thought I was stronger. Don&rsquo;t cry; we have no little ones,
+      thank God. It will be much better for you when I am gone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And so, word after word gasped out&mdash;he stopped suddenly, and seemed
+      to fall asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wife then attempted gently to lay him once more on his pillow&mdash;the
+      head fell back heavily&mdash;the jaw had dropped&mdash;the teeth were set&mdash;the
+      eyes were open and like the stone&mdash;the truth broke on her!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jean&mdash;Jean! My God, he is dead! and I was unkind to him at the
+      last!&rdquo; With these words she fell upon the corpse, happily herself
+      insensible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just at that moment a human face peered in at the window. Through that
+      aperture, after a moment&rsquo;s pause, a young man leaped lightly into the
+      room. He looked round with a hurried glance, but scarcely noticed the
+      forms stretched on the pallet. It was enough for him that they seemed to
+      sleep, and saw him not. He stole across the room, the door of which Marie
+      had left open, and descended the stairs. He had almost gained the
+      courtyard into which the stairs had conducted, when he heard voices below
+      by the porter&rsquo;s lodge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The police have discovered a gang of coiners!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Coiners!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, one has been shot dead! I have seen his body in the kennel; another
+      has fled along the roofs&mdash;a desperate fellow! We were to watch for
+      him. Let us go up-stairs and get on the roof and look out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      By the hum of approval that followed this proposition, Morton judged
+      rightly that it had been addressed to several persons whom curiosity and
+      the explosion of the pistols had drawn from their beds, and who were
+      grouped round the porter&rsquo;s lodge. What was to be done?&mdash;to advance
+      was impossible: and was there yet time to retreat?&mdash;it was at least
+      the only course left him; he sprang back up the stairs; he had just gained
+      the first flight when he heard steps descending; then, suddenly, it
+      flashed across him that he had left open the window above&mdash;that,
+      doubtless, by that imprudent oversight the officer in pursuit had detected
+      a clue to the path he had taken. What was to be done?&mdash;die as Gawtrey
+      had done!&mdash;death rather than the galleys. As he thus resolved, he saw
+      to the right the open door of an apartment in which lights still glimmered
+      in their sockets. It seemed deserted&mdash;he entered boldly and at once,
+      closing the door after him. Wines and viands still left on the table;
+      gilded mirrors, reflecting the stern face of the solitary intruder; here
+      and there an artificial flower, a knot of riband on the floor, all
+      betokening the gaieties and graces of luxurious life&mdash;the dance, the
+      revel, the feast&mdash;all this in one apartment!&mdash;above, in the same
+      house, the pallet&mdash;the corpse&mdash;the widow&mdash;famine and woe!
+      Such is a great city! such, above all, is Paris! where, under the same
+      roof, are gathered such antagonist varieties of the social state! Nothing
+      strange in this; it is strange and sad that so little do people thus
+      neighbours know of each other, that the owner of those rooms had a heart
+      soft to every distress, but she did not know the distress so close at
+      hand. The music that had charmed her guests had mounted gaily to the vexed
+      ears of agony and hunger. Morton passed the first room&mdash;a second&mdash;he
+      came to a third, and Eugenie de Merville, looking up at that instant, saw
+      before her an apparition that might well have alarmed the boldest. His
+      head was uncovered&mdash;his dark hair shadowed in wild and disorderly
+      profusion the pale face and features, beautiful indeed, but at that moment
+      of the beauty which an artist would impart to a young gladiator&mdash;stamped
+      with defiance, menace, and despair. The disordered garb&mdash;the fierce
+      aspect&mdash;the dark eyes, that literally shone through the shadows of
+      the room&mdash;all conspired to increase the terror of so abrupt a
+      presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you?&mdash;What do you seek here?&rdquo; said she, falteringly,
+      placing her hand on the bell as she spoke. Upon that soft hand Morton laid
+      his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I seek my life! I am pursued! I am at your mercy! I am innocent! Can you
+      save me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke, the door of the outer room beyond was heard to open, and
+      steps and voices were at hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; he exclaimed, recoiling as he recognised her face. &ldquo;And is it to you
+      that I have fled?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Eugenie also recognised the stranger; and there was something in their
+      relative positions&mdash;the suppliant, the protectress&mdash;that excited
+      both her imagination and her pity. A slight colour mantled to her cheeks&mdash;her
+      look was gentle and compassionate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor boy! so young!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She withdrew her hand from his, retired a few steps, lifted a curtain
+      drawn across a recess&mdash;and pointing to an alcove that contained one
+      of those sofa-beds common in French houses, added in a whisper,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Enter&mdash;you are saved.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Morton obeyed, and Eugenie replaced the curtain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0035" id="link2HCH0035">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+             GUIOMAR.
+     &ldquo;Speak! What are you?&rdquo;
+ 
+            RUTILIO.
+     &ldquo;Gracious woman, hear me. I am a stranger:
+     And in that I answer all your demands.&rdquo;
+       Custom of the Country.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Eugenie replaced the curtain. And scarcely had she done so ere the steps
+      in the outer room entered the chamber where she stood. Her servant was
+      accompanied by two officers of the police.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pardon, madame,&rdquo; said one of the latter; &ldquo;but we are in pursuit of a
+      criminal. We think he must have entered this house through a window above
+      while your servant was in the street. Permit us to search?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Without doubt,&rdquo; answered Eugenie, seating herself. &ldquo;If he has entered,
+      look in the other apartments. I have not quitted this room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are right. Accept our apologies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the officers turned back to examine every corner where the fugitive
+      was not. For in that, the scouts of Justice resembled their mistress: when
+      does man&rsquo;s justice look to the right place?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The servant lingered to repeat the tale he had heard&mdash;the sight he
+      had seen. When, at that instant, he saw the curtain of the alcove slightly
+      stirred. He uttered an exclamation&mdash;sprung to the bed&mdash;his hand
+      touched the curtain&mdash;Eugenie seized his arm. She did not speak; but
+      as he turned his eyes to her, astonished, he saw that she trembled, and
+      that her cheek was as white as marble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame,&rdquo; he said, hesitating, &ldquo;there is some one hid in the recess.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is! Be silent!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A suspicion flashed across the servant&rsquo;s mind. The pure, the proud, the
+      immaculate Eugenie!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is!&mdash;and in madame&rsquo;s chamber!&rdquo; he faltered unconsciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eugenie&rsquo;s quick apprehensions seized the foul thought. Her eyes flashed&mdash;her
+      cheek crimsoned. But her lofty and generous nature conquered even the
+      indignant and scornful burst that rushed to her lips. The truth!&mdash;could
+      she trust the man? A doubt&mdash;and the charge of the human life rendered
+      to her might be betrayed. Her colour fell&mdash;tears gushed to her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been kind to you, Francois. Not a word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame confides in me&mdash;it is enough,&rdquo; said the Frenchman, bowing,
+      with a slight smile on his lips; and he drew back respectfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the police officers re-entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have done, madame; he is not here. Aha! that curtain!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is madame&rsquo;s bed,&rdquo; said Francois. &ldquo;But I have looked behind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am most sorry to have disarranged you,&rdquo; said the policeman, satisfied
+      with the answer; &ldquo;but we shall have him yet.&rdquo; And he retired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The last footsteps died away, the last door of the apartments closed
+      behind the officers, and Eugenie and her servant stood alone gazing on
+      each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may retire,&rdquo; said she at last; and taking her purse from the table,
+      she placed it in his hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man took it, with a significant look. &ldquo;Madame may depend on my
+      discretion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Eugenie was alone again. Those words rang in her ear,&mdash;Eugenie de
+      Merville dependent on the discretion of her lackey! She sunk into her
+      chair, and, her excitement succeeded by exhaustion, leaned her face on her
+      hands, and burst into tears. She was aroused by a low voice; she looked
+      up, and the young man was kneeling at her feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go&mdash;go!&rdquo; she said: &ldquo;I have done for you all I can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You heard&mdash;you heard&mdash;my own hireling, too! At the hazard of my
+      own good name you are saved. Go!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of your good name!&rdquo;&mdash;for Eugenie forgot that it was looks, not
+      words, that had so wrung her pride&mdash;&ldquo;Your good name,&rdquo; he repeated:
+      and glancing round the room&mdash;the toilette, the curtain, the recess he
+      had quitted&mdash;all that bespoke that chastest sanctuary of a chaste
+      woman, which for a stranger to enter is, as it were, to profane&mdash;her
+      meaning broke on him. &ldquo;Your good name&mdash;your hireling! No, madame,&mdash;no!&rdquo;
+       And as he spoke, he rose to his feet. &ldquo;Not for me, that sacrifice! Your
+      humanity shall not cost you so dear. Ho, there! I am the man you seek.&rdquo;
+       And he strode to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eugenie was penetrated with the answer. She sprung to him&mdash;she
+      grasped his garments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! hush!&mdash;for mercy&rsquo;s sake! What would you do? Think you I could
+      ever be happy again, if the confidence you placed in me were betrayed? Be
+      calm&mdash;be still. I knew not what I said. It will be easy to undeceive
+      the man&mdash;later&mdash;when you are saved. And you are innocent,&mdash;are
+      you not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, madame,&rdquo; said Morton, &ldquo;from my soul I say it, I am innocent&mdash;not
+      of poverty&mdash;wretchedness&mdash;error&mdash;shame; I am innocent of
+      crime. May Heaven bless you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And as he reverently kissed the hand laid on his arm, there was something
+      in his voice so touching, in his manner something so above his fortunes,
+      that Eugenie was lost in her feelings of compassion, surprise, and
+      something, it might be, of admiration in her wonder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And, oh!&rdquo; he said, passionately, gazing on her with his dark, brilliant
+      eyes, liquid with emotion, &ldquo;you have made my life sweet in saving it. You&mdash;you&mdash;of
+      whom, ever since the first time, almost the sole time, I beheld you&mdash;I
+      have so often mused and dreamed. Henceforth, whatever befall me, there
+      will be some recollections that will&mdash;that&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stopped short, for his heart was too full for words; and the silence
+      said more to Eugenie than if all the eloquence of Rousseau had glowed upon
+      his tongue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And who, and what are you?&rdquo; she asked, after a pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An exile&mdash;an orphan&mdash;an outcast! I have no name! Farewell!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;stay yet&mdash;the danger is not past. Wait till my servant is
+      gone to rest; I hear him yet. Sit down&mdash;sit down. And whither would
+      you go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you no friends?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No home?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the police of Paris so vigilant!&rdquo; cried Eugenie, wringing her hands.
+      &ldquo;What is to be done? I shall have saved you in vain&mdash;you will be
+      discovered! Of what do they charge you? Not robbery&mdash;not&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she, too, stopped short, for she did not dare to breathe the black
+      word, &ldquo;Murder!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know not,&rdquo; said Morton, putting his hand to his forehead, &ldquo;except of
+      being friends with the only man who befriended me&mdash;and they have
+      killed him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Another time you shall tell me all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Another time!&rdquo; he exclaimed, eagerly&mdash;&ldquo;shall I see you again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Eugenie blushed beneath the gaze and the voice of joy. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said;
+      &ldquo;yes. But I must reflect. Be calm be silent. Ah!&mdash;a happy thought!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat down, wrote a hasty line, sealed, and gave it to Morton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take this note, as addressed, to Madame Dufour; it will provide you with
+      a safe lodging. She is a person I can depend on&mdash;an old servant who
+      lived with my mother, and to whom I have given a small pension. She has a
+      lodging&mdash;it is lately vacant&mdash;I promised to procure her a tenant&mdash;go&mdash;say
+      nothing of what has passed. I will see her, and arrange all. Wait!&mdash;hark!&mdash;all
+      is still. I will go first, and see that no one watches you. Stop,&rdquo; (and
+      she threw open the window, and looked into the court.) &ldquo;The porter&rsquo;s door
+      is open&mdash;that is fortunate! Hurry on, and God be with you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In a few minutes Morton was in the streets. It was still early&mdash;the
+      thoroughfares deserted-none of the shops yet open. The address on the note
+      was to a street at some distance, on the other side of the Seine. He
+      passed along the same Quai which he had trodden but a few hours since&mdash;he
+      passed the same splendid bridge on which he had stood despairing, to quit
+      it revived&mdash;he gained the Rue Faubourg St. Honore. A young man in a
+      cabriolet, on whose fair cheek burned the hectic of late vigils and lavish
+      dissipation, was rolling leisurely home from the gaming-house, at which he
+      had been more than usually fortunate&mdash;his pockets were laden with
+      notes and gold. He bent forwards as Morton passed him. Philip, absorbed in
+      his reverie, perceived him not, and continued his way. The gentleman
+      turned down one of the streets to the left, stopped, and called to the
+      servant dozing behind his cabriolet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Follow that passenger! quietly&mdash;see where he lodges; be sure to find
+      out and let me know. I shall go home without you.&rdquo; With that he drove on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip, unconscious of the espionage, arrived at a small house in a quiet
+      but respectable street, and rang the bell several times before at last he
+      was admitted by Madame Dufour herself, in her nightcap. The old woman
+      looked askant and alarmed at the unexpected apparition. But the note
+      seemed at once to satisfy her. She conducted him to an apartment on the
+      first floor, small, but neatly and even elegantly furnished, consisting of
+      a sitting-room and a bedchamber, and said, quietly,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will they suit monsieur?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To monsieur they seemed a palace. Morton nodded assent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And will monsieur sleep for a short time?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The bed is well aired. The rooms have only been vacant three days since.
+      Can I get you anything till your luggage arrives?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The woman left him. He threw off his clothes&mdash;flung himself on the
+      bed&mdash;and did not wake till noon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When his eyes unclosed&mdash;when they rested on that calm chamber, with
+      its air of health, and cleanliness, and comfort, it was long before he
+      could convince himself that he was yet awake. He missed the loud, deep
+      voice of Gawtrey&mdash;the smoke of the dead man&rsquo;s meerschaum&mdash;the
+      gloomy garret&mdash;the distained walls&mdash;the stealthy whisper of the
+      loathed Birnie; slowly the life led and the life gone within the last
+      twelve hours grew upon his struggling memory. He groaned, and turned
+      uneasily round, when the door slightly opened, and he sprung up fiercely,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is only I, sir,&rdquo; answered Madame Dufour. &ldquo;I have been in three times
+      to see if you were stirring. There is a letter I believe for you, sir;
+      though there is no name to it,&rdquo; and she laid the letter on the chair
+      beside him. Did it come from her&mdash;the saving angel? He seized it. The
+      cover was blank; it was sealed with a small device, as of a ring seal. He
+      tore it open, and found four billets de banque for 1,000 francs each,&mdash;a
+      sum equivalent in our money to about L160.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who sent this, the&mdash;the lady from whom I brought the note?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame de Merville? certainly not, sir,&rdquo; said Madame Dufour, who, with
+      the privilege of age, was now unscrupulously filling the water-jugs and
+      settling the toilette-table. &ldquo;A young man called about two hours after you
+      had gone to bed; and, describing you, inquired if you lodged here, and
+      what your name was. I said you had just arrived, and that I did not yet
+      know your name. So he went away, and came again half an hour afterwards
+      with this letter, which he charged me to deliver to you safely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A young man&mdash;a gentleman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir; he seemed a smart but common sort of lad.&rdquo; For the
+      unsophisticated Madame Dufour did not discover in the plain black frock
+      and drab gaiters of the bearer of that letter the simple livery of an
+      English gentleman&rsquo;s groom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whom could it come from, if not from Madame de Merville? Perhaps one of
+      Gawtrey&rsquo;s late friends. A suspicion of Arthur Beaufort crossed him, but he
+      indignantly dismissed it. Men are seldom credulous of what they are
+      unwilling to believe. What kindness had the Beauforts hitherto shown him?&mdash;Left
+      his mother to perish broken-hearted&mdash;stolen from him his brother, and
+      steeled, in that brother, the only heart wherein he had a right to look
+      for gratitude and love! No, it must be Madame de Merville. He dismissed
+      Madame Dufour for pen and paper&mdash;rose&mdash;wrote a letter to Eugenie&mdash;grateful,
+      but proud, and inclosed the notes. He then summoned Madame Dufour, and
+      sent her with his despatch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, madame,&rdquo; said the ci-devant bonne, when she found herself in
+      Eugenie&rsquo;s presence. &ldquo;The poor lad! how handsome he is, and how shameful in
+      the Vicomte to let him wear such clothes!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Vicomte!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, my dear mistress, you must not deny it. You told me, in your note, to
+      ask him no questions, but I guessed at once. The Vicomte told me himself
+      that he should have the young gentleman over in a few days. You need not
+      be ashamed of him. You will see what a difference clothes will make in his
+      appearance; and I have taken it on myself to order a tailor to go to him.
+      The Vicomte&mdash;must pay me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a word to the Vicomte as yet. We will surprise him,&rdquo; said Eugenie,
+      laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame de Merville had been all that morning trying to invent some story
+      to account for her interest in the lodger, and now how Fortune favoured
+      her!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But is that a letter for me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I had almost forgot it,&rdquo; said Madame Dufour, as she extended the
+      letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whatever there had hitherto been in the circumstances connected with
+      Morton, that had roused the interest and excited the romance of Eugenie de
+      Merville, her fancy was yet more attracted by the tone of the letter she
+      now read. For though Morton, more accustomed to speak than to write
+      French, expressed himself with less precision, and a less euphuistic
+      selection of phrase, than the authors and elegans who formed her usual
+      correspondents; there was an innate and rough nobleness&mdash;a strong and
+      profound feeling in every line of his letter, which increased her surprise
+      and admiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All that surrounds him&mdash;all that belongs to him, is strangeness and
+      mystery!&rdquo; murmured she; and she sat down to reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Madame Dufour departed with that letter, Eugenie remained silent and
+      thoughtful for more than an hour, Morton&rsquo;s letter before her; and sweet,
+      in their indistinctness, were the recollections and the images that
+      crowded on her mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Morton, satisfied by the earnest and solemn assurances of Eugenie that she
+      was not the unknown donor of the sum she reinclosed, after puzzling
+      himself in vain to form any new conjectures as to the quarter whence it
+      came, felt that under his present circumstances it would be an absurd
+      Quixotism to refuse to apply what the very Providence to whom he had anew
+      consigned himself seemed to have sent to his aid. And it placed him, too,
+      beyond the offer of all pecuniary assistance from one from whom he could
+      least have brooked to receive it. He consented, therefore, to all that the
+      loquacious tailor proposed to him. And it would have been difficult to
+      have recognised the wild and frenzied fugitive in the stately form, with
+      its young beauty and air of well-born pride, which the next day sat by the
+      side of Eugenie. And that day he told his sad and troubled story, and
+      Eugenie wept: and from that day he came daily; and two weeks&mdash;happy,
+      dreamlike, intoxicating to both&mdash;passed by; and as their last sun
+      set, he was kneeling at her feet, and breathing to one to whom the homage
+      of wit, and genius, and complacent wealth had hitherto been vainly
+      proffered, the impetuous, agitated, delicious secrets of the First Love.
+      He spoke, and rose to depart for ever&mdash;when the look and sigh
+      detained him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day, after a sleepless night, Eugenie de Merville sent for the
+      Vicomte de Vaudemont.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0036" id="link2HCH0036">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        &ldquo;A silver river small
+        In sweet accents
+        Its music vents;
+        The warbling virginal
+        To which the merry birds do sing,
+        Timed with stops of gold the silver string.&rdquo;
+         Sir Richard Fanshawe.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      One evening, several weeks after the events just commemorated, a stranger,
+      leading in his hand, a young child, entered the churchyard of H&mdash;&mdash;.
+      The sun had not long set, and the short twilight of deepening summer
+      reigned in the tranquil skies; you might still hear from the trees above
+      the graves the chirp of some joyous bird;&mdash;what cared he, the denizen
+      of the skies, for the dead that slept below?&mdash;what did he value save
+      the greenness and repose of the spot,&mdash;to him alike the garden or the
+      grave! As the man and the child passed, the robin, scarcely scared by
+      their tread from the long grass beside one of the mounds, looked at them
+      with its bright, blithe eye. It was a famous plot for the robin&mdash;the
+      old churchyard! That domestic bird&mdash;&ldquo;the friend of man,&rdquo; as it has
+      been called by the poets&mdash;found a jolly supper among the worms!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger, on reaching the middle of the sacred ground, paused and
+      looked round him wistfully. He then approached, slowly and hesitatingly,
+      an oblong tablet, on which were graven, in letters yet fresh and new,
+      these words:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                 TO THE
+         MEMORY OF ONE CALUMNIATED AND WRONGED
+           THIS BURIAL-STONE IS DEDICATED
+               BY HER SON.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Such, with the addition of the dates of birth and death, was the tablet
+      which Philip Morton had directed to be placed over his mother&rsquo;s bones; and
+      around it was set a simple palisade, which defended it from the tread of
+      the children, who sometimes, in defiance of the beadle, played over the
+      dust of the former race.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thy son!&rdquo; muttered the stranger, while the child stood quietly by his
+      side, pleased by the trees, the grass, the song of the birds, and reeking
+      not of grief or death,&mdash;&ldquo;thy son!&mdash;but not thy favoured son&mdash;thy
+      darling&mdash;thy youngest born; on what spot of earth do thine eyes look
+      down on him? Surely in heaven thy love has preserved the one whom on earth
+      thou didst most cherish, from the sufferings and the trials that have
+      visited the less-favoured outcast. Oh, mother&mdash;mother!&mdash;it was
+      not his crime&mdash;not Philip&rsquo;s&mdash;that he did not fulfil to the last
+      the trust bequeathed to him! Happier, perhaps, as it is! And, oh, if thy
+      memory be graven as deeply in my brother&rsquo;s heart as my own, how often will
+      it warn and save him! That memory!&mdash;it has been to me the angel of my
+      life! To thee&mdash;to thee, even in death, I owe it, if, though erring, I
+      am not criminal,&mdash;if I have lived with the lepers, and am still
+      undefiled!&rdquo; His lips then were silent&mdash;not his heart!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a few minutes thus consumed he turned to the child, and said, gently
+      and in a tremulous voice, &ldquo;Fanny, you have been taught to pray&mdash;you
+      will live near this spot,&mdash;will you come sometimes here and pray that
+      you may grow up good and innocent, and become a blessing to those who love
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will papa ever come to hear me pray?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That sad and unconscious question went to the heart of Morton. The child
+      could not comprehend death. He had sought to explain it, but she had been
+      accustomed to consider her protector dead when he was absent from her, and
+      she still insisted that he must come again to life. And that man of
+      turbulence and crime, who had passed unrepentant, unabsolved, from sin to
+      judgment: it was an awful question, &ldquo;If he should hear her pray?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes!&rdquo; said he, after a pause,&mdash;&ldquo;yes, Fanny, there is a Father who
+      will hear you pray; and pray to Him to be merciful to those who have been
+      kind to you. Fanny, you and I may never meet again!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you going to die too? Mechant, every one dies to Fanny!&rdquo; and,
+      clinging to him endearingly, she put up her lips to kiss him. He took her
+      in his arms: and, as a tear fell upon her rosy cheek, she said, &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t
+      cry, brother, for I love you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you, dear Fanny? Then, for my sake, when you come to this place, if
+      any one will give you a few flowers, scatter them on that stone. And now
+      we will go to one whom you must love also, and to whom, as I have told
+      you, he sends you; he who&mdash;Come!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he thus spoke, and placed Fanny again on the ground, he was startled to
+      see: precisely on the spot where he had seen before the like apparition&mdash;on
+      the same spot where the father had cursed the son, the motionless form of
+      an old man. Morton recognised, as if by an instinct rather than by an
+      effort of the memory, the person to whom he was bound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked slowly towards him; but Fanny abruptly left his side, lured by a
+      moth that flitted duskily over the graves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your name, sir, I think, is Simon Gawtrey?&rdquo; said Morton. &ldquo;I have came to
+      England in quest of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of me?&rdquo; said the old man, half rising, and his eyes, now completely
+      blind, rolled vacantly over Morton&rsquo;s person&mdash;&ldquo;Of me?&mdash;for what?&mdash;Who
+      are you?&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know your voice!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I come to you from your son!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My son!&rdquo; exclaimed the old man, with great vehemence,&mdash;&ldquo;the
+      reprobate!&mdash;the dishonoured!&mdash;the infamous!&mdash;the accursed&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! you revile the dead!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dead!&rdquo; muttered the wretched father, tottering back to the seat he had
+      quitted,&mdash;&ldquo;dead!&rdquo; and the sound of his voice was so full of anguish,
+      that the dog at his feet, which Morton had not hitherto perceived, echoed
+      it with a dismal cry, that recalled to Philip the awful day in which he
+      had seen the son quit the father for the last time on earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sound brought Fanny to the spot; and, with a laugh of delight, which
+      made to it a strange contrast, she threw herself on the grass beside the
+      dog and sought to entice it to play. So there, in that place of death,
+      were knit together the four links in the Great Chain;&mdash;lusty and
+      blooming life&mdash;desolate and doting age&mdash;infancy, yet scarce
+      conscious of a soul&mdash;and the dumb brute, that has no warrant of a
+      Hereafter!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dead!&mdash;dead!&rdquo; repeated the old man, covering his sightless balls
+      with his withered hands. &ldquo;Poor William!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He remembered you to the last. He bade me seek you out&mdash;he bade me
+      replace the guilty son with a thing pure and innocent, as he had been had
+      he died in his cradle&mdash;a child to comfort your old age! Kneel, Fanny,
+      I have found you a father who will cherish you&mdash;(oh! you will, sir,
+      will you not?)&mdash;as he whom you may see no more!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was something in Morton&rsquo;s voice so solemn, that it awed and touched
+      both the old man and the infant; and Fanny, creeping to the protector thus
+      assigned to her, and putting her little hands confidingly on his knees,
+      said&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fanny will love you if papa wished it. Kiss Fanny.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it his child&mdash;his?&rdquo; said the blind man, sobbing. &ldquo;Come to my
+      heart; here&mdash;here! O God, forgive me!&rdquo; Morton did not think it right
+      at that moment to undeceive him with regard to the poor child&rsquo;s true
+      connexion with the deceased: and he waited in silence till Simon, after a
+      burst of passionate grief and tenderness, rose, and still clasping the
+      child to his breast, said&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir, forgive me!&mdash;I am a very weak old man&mdash;I have many thanks
+      to give&mdash;I have much, too, to learn. My poor son! he did not die in
+      want,&mdash;did he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The particulars of Gawtrey&rsquo;s fate, with his real name and the various
+      aliases he had assumed, had appeared in the French journals, had been
+      partially copied into the English; and Morton had expected to have been
+      saved the painful narrative of that fearful death; but the utter seclusion
+      of the old man, his infirmity, and his estranged habits, had shut him out
+      from the intelligence that it now devolved on Philip to communicate.
+      Morton hesitated a little before he answered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is late now; you are not yet prepared to receive this poor infant at
+      your home, nor to hear the details I have to state. I arrived in England
+      but to-day. I shall lodge in the neighbourhood, for it is dear to me. If I
+      may feel sure, then, that you will receive and treasure this sacred and
+      last deposit bequeathed to you by your unhappy son, I will bring my charge
+      to you to-morrow, and we will then, more calmly than we can now, talk over
+      the past.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do not answer my question,&rdquo; said Simon, passionately; &ldquo;answer that,
+      and I will wait for the rest. They call me a miser! Did I send out my only
+      child to starve? Answer that!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be comforted. He did not die in want; and he has even left some little
+      fortune for Fanny, which I was to place in your hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he thought to bribe the old miser to be human! Well&mdash;well&mdash;well&mdash;I
+      will go home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lean on me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The dog leapt playfully on his master as the latter rose, and Fanny slid
+      from Simon&rsquo;s arms to caress and talk to the animal in her own way. As they
+      slowly passed through the churchyard Simon muttered incoherently to
+      himself for several paces, and Morton would not disturb, since he could
+      not comfort, him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last he said abruptly, &ldquo;Did my son repent?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hoped,&rdquo; answered Morton, evasively, &ldquo;that, had his life been spared, he
+      would have amended!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tush, sir!&mdash;I am past seventy; we repent!&mdash;we never amend!&rdquo; And
+      Simon again sunk into his own dim and disconnected reveries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length they arrived at the blind man&rsquo;s house. The door was opened to
+      them by an old woman of disagreeable and sinister aspect, dressed out much
+      too gaily for the station of a servant, though such was her reputed
+      capacity; but the miser&rsquo;s affliction saved her from the chance of his
+      comment on her extravagance. As she stood in the doorway with a candle in
+      her hand, she scanned curiously, and with no welcoming eye, her master&rsquo;s
+      companions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mrs. Boxer, my son is dead!&rdquo; said Simon, in a hollow voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And a good thing it is, then, sir!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For shame, woman!&rdquo; said Morton, indignantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey-dey! sir! whom have we got here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One,&rdquo; said Simon, sternly, &ldquo;whom you will treat with respect. He brings
+      me a blessing to lighten my loss. One harsh word to this child, and you
+      quit my house!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The woman looked perfectly thunderstruck; but, recovering herself, she
+      said, whiningly&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I! a harsh word to anything my dear, kind master cares for. And, Lord,
+      what a sweet pretty creature it is! Come here, my dear!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Fanny shrunk back, and would not let go Philip&rsquo;s hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To-morrow, then,&rdquo; said Morton; and he was turning away, when a sudden
+      thought seemed to cross the old man,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay, sir&mdash;stay! I&mdash;I&mdash;did my son say I was rich? I am
+      very, very poor&mdash;nothing in the house, or I should have been robbed
+      long ago!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your son told me to bring money, not to ask for it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ask for it! No; but,&rdquo; added the old man, and a gleam of cunning
+      intelligence shot over his face,&mdash;&ldquo;but he had got into a bad set.
+      Ask!&mdash;No!&mdash;Put up the door-chain, Mrs. Boxer!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was with doubt and misgivings that Morton, the next day, consigned the
+      child, who had already nestled herself into the warmest core of his heart,
+      to the care of Simon. Nothing short of that superstitious respect, which
+      all men owe to the wishes of the dead, would have made him select for her
+      that asylum; for Fate had now, in brightening his own prospects, given him
+      an alternative in the benevolence of Madame de Merville. But Gawtrey had
+      been so earnest on the subject, that he felt as if he had no right to
+      hesitate. And was it not a sort of atonement to any faults the son might
+      have committed against the parent, to place by the old man&rsquo;s hearth so
+      sweet a charge?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The strange and peculiar mind and character of Fanny made him, however,
+      yet more anxious than otherwise he might have been. She certainly deserved
+      not the harsh name of imbecile or idiot, but she was different from all
+      other children; she felt more acutely than most of her age, but she could
+      not be taught to reason. There was something either oblique or deficient
+      in her intellect, which justified the most melancholy apprehensions; yet
+      often, when some disordered, incoherent, inexplicable train of ideas most
+      saddened the listener, it would be followed by fancies so exquisite in
+      their strangeness, or feelings so endearing in their tenderness, that
+      suddenly she seemed as much above, as before she seemed below, the
+      ordinary measure of infant comprehension. She was like a creature to which
+      Nature, in some cruel but bright caprice, has given all that belongs to
+      poetry, but denied all that belongs to the common understanding necessary
+      to mankind; or, as a fairy changeling, not, indeed, according to the
+      vulgar superstition, malignant and deformed, but lovelier than the
+      children of men, and haunted by dim and struggling associations of a
+      gentler and fairer being, yet wholly incapable to learn the dry and hard
+      elements which make up the knowledge of actual life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Morton, as well as he could, sought to explain to Simon the peculiarities
+      in Fanny&rsquo;s mental constitution. He urged on him the necessity of providing
+      for her careful instruction, and Simon promised to send her to the best
+      school the neighbourhood could afford; but, as the old man spoke, he dwelt
+      so much on the supposed fact that Fanny was William&rsquo;s daughter, and with
+      his remorse, or affection, there ran so interwoven a thread of selfishness
+      and avarice, that Morton thought it would be dangerous to his interest in
+      the child to undeceive his error. He, therefore,&mdash;perhaps excusably
+      enough&mdash;remained silent on that subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gawtrey had placed with the superior of the convent, together with an
+      order to give up the child to any one who should demand her in his true
+      name, which he confided to the superior, a sum of nearly L300., which he
+      solemnly swore had been honestly obtained, and which, in all his shifts
+      and adversities, he had never allowed himself to touch. This sum, with the
+      trifling deduction made for arrears due to the convent, Morton now placed
+      in Simon&rsquo;s hands. The old man clutched the money, which was for the most
+      in French gold, with a convulsive gripe: and then, as if ashamed of the
+      impulse, said&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you, sir&mdash;will any sum&mdash;that is, any reasonable sum&mdash;be
+      of use to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No! and if it were, it is neither yours nor mine&mdash;it is hers. Save
+      it for her, and add to it what you can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While this conversation took place, Fanny had been consigned to the care
+      of Mrs. Boxer, and Philip now rose to see and bid her farewell before he
+      departed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I may come again to visit you, Mr. Gawtrey; and I pray Heaven to find
+      that you and Fanny have been a mutual blessing to each other. Oh, remember
+      how your son loved her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He had a good heart, in spite of all his sins. Poor William!&rdquo; said Simon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip Morton heard, and his lip curled with a sad and a just disdain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If when, at the age of nineteen, William Gawtrey had quitted his father&rsquo;s
+      roof, the father had then remembered that the son&rsquo;s heart was good,&mdash;the
+      son had been alive still, an honest and a happy man. Do ye not laugh, O ye
+      all-listening Fiends! when men praise those dead whose virtues they
+      discovered not when alive? It takes much marble to build the sepulchre&mdash;how
+      little of lath and plaster would have repaired the garret!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On turning into a small room adjoining the parlour in which Gawtrey sat,
+      Morton found Fanny standing gloomily by a dull, soot-grimed window, which
+      looked out on the dead walls of a small yard. Mrs. Boxer, seated by a
+      table, was employed in trimming a cap, and putting questions to Fanny in
+      that falsetto voice of endearment in which people not used to children are
+      apt to address them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so, my dear, they&rsquo;ve never taught you to read or write? You&rsquo;ve been
+      sadly neglected, poor thing!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We must do our best to supply the deficiency,&rdquo; said Morton, as he
+      entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bless me, sir, is that you?&rdquo; and the gouvernante bustled up and dropped a
+      low courtesy; for Morton, dressed then in the garb of a gentleman, was of
+      a mien and person calculated to strike the gaze of the vulgar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, brother!&rdquo; cried Fanny, for by that name he had taught her to call
+      him; and she flew to his side. &ldquo;Come away&mdash;it&rsquo;s ugly there&mdash;it
+      makes me cold.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My child, I told you you must stay; but I shall hope to see you again
+      some day. Will you not be kind to this poor creature, ma&rsquo;am? Forgive me,
+      if I offended you last night, and favour me by accepting this, to show
+      that we are friends.&rdquo; As he spoke, he slid his purse into the woman&rsquo;s
+      hand. &ldquo;I shall feel ever grateful for whatever you can do for Fanny.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fanny wants nothing from any one else; Fanny wants her brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sweet child! I fear she don&rsquo;t take to me. Will you like me, Miss Fanny?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No! get along!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fie, Fanny&mdash;you remember you did not take to me at first. But she is
+      so affectionate, ma&rsquo;am; she never forgets a kindness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will do all I can to please her, sir. And so she is really master&rsquo;s
+      grandchild?&rdquo; The woman fixed her eyes, as she spoke, so intently on
+      Morton, that he felt embarrassed, and busied himself, without answering,
+      in caressing and soothing Fanny, who now seemed to awake to the affliction
+      about to visit her; for though she did not weep&mdash;she very rarely wept&mdash;her
+      slight frame trembled&mdash;her eyes closed&mdash;her cheeks, even her
+      lips, were white&mdash;and her delicate hands were clasped tightly round
+      the neck of the one about to abandon her to strange breasts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Morton was greatly moved. &ldquo;One kiss, Fanny! and do not forget me when we
+      meet again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The child pressed her lips to his cheek, but the lips were cold. He put
+      her down gently; she stood mute and passive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Remember that he wished me to leave you here,&rdquo; whispered Morton, using an
+      argument that never failed. &ldquo;We must obey him; and so&mdash;God bless you,
+      Fanny!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He rose and retreated to the door; the child unclosed her eyes, and gazed
+      at him with a strained, painful, imploring gaze; her lips moved, but she
+      did not speak. Morton could not bear that silent woe. He sought to smile
+      on her consolingly; but the smile would not come. He closed the door, and
+      hurried from the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From that day Fanny settled into a kind of dreary, inanimate stupor, which
+      resembled that of the somnambulist whom the magnetiser forgets to waken.
+      Hitherto, with all the eccentricities or deficiencies of her mind, had
+      mingled a wild and airy gaiety. That was vanished. She spoke little&mdash;she
+      never played&mdash;no toys could lure her&mdash;even the poor dog failed
+      to win her notice. If she was told to do anything she stared vacantly and
+      stirred not. She evinced, however, a kind of dumb regard to the old blind
+      man; she would creep to his knees and sit there for hours, seldom
+      answering when he addressed her, but uneasy, anxious, and restless, if he
+      left her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you die too?&rdquo; she asked once; the old man understood her not, and
+      she did not try to explain. Early one morning, some days after Morton was
+      gone, they missed her: she was not in the house, nor the dull yard where
+      she was sometimes dismissed and told to play&mdash;told in vain. In great
+      alarm the old man accused Mrs. Boxer of having spirited her away, and
+      threatened and stormed so loudly that the woman, against her will, went
+      forth to the search. At last she found the child in the churchyard,
+      standing wistfully beside a tomb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you here, you little plague?&rdquo; said Mrs. Boxer, rudely seizing her
+      by the arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is the way they will both come back some day! I dreamt so!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If ever I catch you here again!&rdquo; said the housekeeper, and, wiping her
+      brow with one hand, she struck the child with the other. Fanny had never
+      been struck before. She recoiled in terror and amazement, and, for the
+      first time since her arrival, burst into tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come&mdash;come, no crying! and if you tell master I&rsquo;ll beat you within
+      an inch of your life!&rdquo; So saying, she caught Fanny in her arms, and,
+      walking about, scolding and menacing, till she had frightened back the
+      child&rsquo;s tears, she returned triumphantly to the house, and bursting into
+      the parlour, exclaimed, &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s the little darling, sir!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When old Simon learned where the child had been found he was glad; for it
+      was his constant habit, whenever the evening was fine, to glide out to
+      that churchyard&mdash;his dog his guide&mdash;and sit on his one favourite
+      spot opposite the setting sun. This, not so much for the sanctity of the
+      place, or the meditations it might inspire, as because it was the nearest,
+      the safest, and the loneliest spot in the neighbourhood of his home, where
+      the blind man could inhale the air and bask in the light of heaven.
+      Hitherto, thinking it sad for the child, he had never taken her with him;
+      indeed, at the hour of his monotonous excursion she had generally been
+      banished to bed. Now she was permitted to accompany him; and the old man
+      and the infant would sit there side by side, as Age and Infancy rested
+      side by side in the graves below. The first symptom of childlike interest
+      and curiosity that Fanny betrayed was awakened by the affliction of her
+      protector. One evening, as they thus sat, she made him explain what the
+      desolation of blindness is. She seemed to comprehend him, though he did
+      not seek to adapt his complaints to her understanding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fanny knows,&rdquo; said she, touchingly; &ldquo;for she, too, is blind here;&rdquo; and
+      she pressed her hands to her temples. Notwithstanding her silence and
+      strange ways, and although he could not see the exquisite loveliness which
+      Nature, as in remorseful pity, had lavished on her outward form, Simon
+      soon learned to love her better than he had ever loved yet: for they most
+      cold to the child are often dotards to the grandchild. For her even his
+      avarice slept. Dainties, never before known at his sparing board, were
+      ordered to tempt her appetite, toy-shops ransacked to amuse her indolence.
+      He was long, however, before he could prevail on himself to fulfil his
+      promise to Morton, and rob himself of her presence. At length, however,
+      wearied with Mrs. Boxer&rsquo;s lamentations at her ignorance, and alarmed
+      himself at some evidences of helplessness, which made him dread to think
+      what her future might be when left alone in life, he placed her at a
+      day-school in the suburb. Here Fanny, for a considerable time, justified
+      the harshest assertions of her stupidity. She could not even keep her eyes
+      two minutes together on the page from which she was to learn the mysteries
+      of reading; months passed before she mastered the alphabet, and, a month
+      after, she had again forgot it, and the labour was renewed. The only thing
+      in which she showed ability, if so it might be called, was in the use of
+      the needle. The sisters of the convent had already taught her many pretty
+      devices in this art; and when she found that at the school they were
+      admired&mdash;that she was praised instead of blamed&mdash;her vanity was
+      pleased, and she learned so readily all that they could teach in this not
+      unprofitable accomplishment, that Mrs. Boxer slyly and secretly turned her
+      tasks to account and made a weekly perquisite of the poor pupil&rsquo;s
+      industry. Another faculty she possessed, in common with persons usually
+      deficient, and with the lower species&mdash;viz., a most accurate and
+      faithful recollection of places. At first Mrs. Boxer had been duly sent,
+      morning, noon, and evening, to take her to, or bring her from, the school;
+      but this was so great a grievance to Simon&rsquo;s solitary superintendent, and
+      Fanny coaxed the old man so endearingly to allow her to go and return
+      alone, that the attendance, unwelcome to both, was waived. Fanny exulted
+      in this liberty; and she never, in going or in returning, missed passing
+      through the burial-ground, and gazing wistfully at the tomb from which she
+      yet believed Morton would one day reappear. With his memory she cherished
+      also that of her earlier and more guilty protector; but they were separate
+      feelings, which she distinguished in her own way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Papa had given her up. She knew that he would not have sent her away, far&mdash;far
+      over the great water, if he had meant to see Fanny again; but her brother
+      was forced to leave her&mdash;he would come to life one day, and then they
+      should live together!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One day, towards the end of autumn, as her schoolmistress, a good woman on
+      the whole, but who had not yet had the wit to discover by what chords to
+      tune the instrument, over which so wearily she drew her unskilful hand&mdash;one
+      day, we say, the schoolmistress happened to be dressed for a christening
+      party to which she was invited in the suburb; and, accordingly, after the
+      morning lessons, the pupils were to be dismissed to a holiday. As Fanny
+      now came last, with the hopeless spelling-book, she stopped suddenly
+      short, and her eyes rested with avidity upon a large bouquet of exotic
+      flowers, with which the good lady had enlivened the centre of the parted
+      kerchief, whose yellow gauze modestly veiled that tender section of female
+      beauty which poets have likened to hills of snow&mdash;a chilling simile!
+      It was then autumn; and field, and even garden flowers were growing rare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you give me one of those flowers?&rdquo; said Fanny, dropping her book.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One of these flowers, child! why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fanny did not answer; but one of the elder and cleverer girls said&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! she comes from France, you know, ma&rsquo;am, and the Roman Catholics put
+      flowers, and ribands, and things, over the graves; you recollect, ma&rsquo;am,
+      we were reading yesterday about Pere-la-Chaise?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well! what then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And Miss Fanny will do any kind of work for us if we will give her
+      flowers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My brother told me where to put them;&mdash;but these pretty flowers, I
+      never had any like them; they may bring him back again! I&rsquo;ll be so good if
+      you&rsquo;ll give me one, only one!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you learn your lesson if I do, Fanny?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! yes! Wait a moment!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Fanny stole back to her desk, put the hateful book resolutely before
+      her, pressed both hands tightly on her temples,&mdash;Eureka! the chord
+      was touched; and Fanny marched in triumph through half a column of hostile
+      double syllables!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From that day the schoolmistress knew how to stimulate her, and Fanny
+      learned to read: her path to knowledge thus literally strewn with flowers!
+      Catherine, thy children were far off, and thy grave looked gay!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It naturally happened that those short and simple rhymes, often sacred,
+      which are repeated in schools as helps to memory, made a part of her
+      studies; and no sooner had the sound of verse struck upon her fancy than
+      it seemed to confuse and agitate anew all her senses. It was like the
+      music of some breeze, to which dance and tremble all the young leaves of a
+      wild plant. Even when at the convent she had been fond of repeating the
+      infant rhymes with which they had sought to lull or to amuse her, but now
+      the taste was more strongly developed. She confounded, however, in
+      meaningless and motley disorder, the various snatches of song that came to
+      her ear, weaving them together in some form which she understood, but
+      which was jargon to all others; and often, as she went alone through the
+      green lanes or the bustling streets, the passenger would turn in pity and
+      fear to hear her half chant&mdash;half murmur&mdash;ditties that seemed to
+      suit only a wandering and unsettled imagination. And as Mrs. Boxer, in her
+      visits to the various shops in the suburb, took care to bemoan her hard
+      fate in attending to a creature so evidently moon-stricken, it was no
+      wonder that the manner and habits of the child, coupled with that strange
+      predilection to haunt the burial-ground, which is not uncommon with
+      persons of weak and disordered intellect; confirmed the character thus
+      given to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So, as she tripped gaily and lightly along the thoroughfares, the children
+      would draw aside from her path, and whisper with superstitious fear
+      mingled with contempt, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the idiot girl!&rdquo;&mdash;Idiot&mdash;how much
+      more of heaven&rsquo;s light was there in that cloud than in the rushlights
+      that, flickering in sordid chambers, shed on dull things the dull ray&mdash;esteeming
+      themselves as stars!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Months&mdash;years passed&mdash;Fanny was thirteen, when there dawned a
+      new era to her existence. Mrs. Boxer had never got over her first grudge
+      to Fanny. Her treatment of the poor girl was always harsh, and sometimes
+      cruel. But Fanny did not complain, and as Mrs. Boxer&rsquo;s manner to her
+      before Simon was invariably cringing and caressing, the old man never
+      guessed the hardships his supposed grandchild underwent. There had been
+      scandal some years back in the suburb about the relative connexion of the
+      master and the housekeeper; and the flaunting dress of the latter,
+      something bold in her regard, and certain whispers that her youth had not
+      been vowed to Vesta, confirmed the suspicion. The only reason why we do
+      not feel sure that the rumour was false is this,&mdash;Simon Gawtrey had
+      been so hard on the early follies of his son! Certainly, at all events,
+      the woman had exercised great influence over the miser before the arrival
+      of Fanny, and she had done much to steel his selfishness against the
+      ill-fated William. And, as certainly, she had fully calculated on
+      succeeding to the savings, whatever they might be, of the miser, whenever
+      Providence should be pleased to terminate his days. She knew that Simon
+      had, many years back, made his will in her favour; she knew that he had
+      not altered that will: she believed, therefore, that in spite of all his
+      love for Fanny, he loved his gold so much more, that he could not accustom
+      himself to the thought of bequeathing it to hands too helpless to guard
+      the treasure. This had in some measure reconciled the housekeeper to the
+      intruder; whom, nevertheless, she hated as a dog hates another dog, not
+      only for taking his bone, but for looking at it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But suddenly Simon fell ill. His age made it probable he would die. He
+      took to his bed&mdash;his breathing grew fainter and fainter&mdash;he
+      seemed dead. Fanny, all unconscious, sat by his bedside as usual, holding
+      her breath not to waken him. Mrs. Boxer flew to the bureau&mdash;she
+      unlocked it&mdash;she could not find the will; but she found three bags of
+      bright gold guineas: the sight charmed her. She tumbled them forth on the
+      distained green cloth of the bureau&mdash;she began to count them; and at
+      that moment, the old man, as if there were a secret magnetism between
+      himself and the guineas, woke from his trance. His blindness saved him the
+      pain that might have been fatal, of seeing the unhallowed profanation; but
+      he heard the chink of the metal. The very sound restored his strength. But
+      the infirm are always cunning&mdash;he breathed not a suspicion. &ldquo;Mrs.
+      Boxer,&rdquo; said he, faintly, &ldquo;I think I could take some broth.&rdquo; Mrs. Boxer
+      rose in great dismay, gently re-closed the bureau, and ran down-stairs for
+      the broth. Simon took the occasion to question Fanny; and no sooner had he
+      learnt the operation of the heir-expectant, than he bade the girl first
+      lock the bureau and bring him the key, and next run to a lawyer (whose
+      address he gave her), and fetch him instantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With a malignant smile the old man took the broth from his handmaid,&mdash;&ldquo;Poor
+      Boxer, you are a disinterested creature,&rdquo; said he, feebly; &ldquo;I think you
+      will grieve when I go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Boxer sobbed, and before she had recovered, the lawyer entered. That
+      day a new will was made; and the lawyer politely informed Mrs. Boxer that
+      her services would be dispensed with the next morning, when he should
+      bring a nurse to the house. Mrs. Boxer heard, and took her resolution. As
+      soon as Simon again fell asleep, she crept into the room&mdash;led away
+      Fanny&mdash;locked her up in her own chamber&mdash;returned&mdash;searched
+      for the key of the bureau, which she found at last under Simon&rsquo;s pillow&mdash;possessed
+      herself of all she could lay her hands on&mdash;and the next morning she
+      had disappeared forever! Simon&rsquo;s loss was greater than might have been
+      supposed; for, except a trifling sum in the savings bank, he, like many
+      other misers, kept all he had, in notes or specie, under his own lock and
+      key. His whole fortune, indeed, was far less than was supposed: for money
+      does not make money unless it is put out to interest,&mdash;and the miser
+      cheated himself. Such portion as was in bank-notes Mrs. Boxer probably had
+      the prudence to destroy; for those numbers which Simon could remember were
+      never traced; the gold, who could swear to? Except the pittance in the
+      savings bank, and whatever might be the paltry worth of the house he
+      rented, the father who had enriched the menial to exile the son was a
+      beggar in his dotage. This news, however, was carefully concealed from him
+      by the advice of the doctor, whom, on his own responsibility, the lawyer
+      introduced, till he had recovered sufficiently to bear the shock without
+      danger; and the delay naturally favoured Mrs. Boxer&rsquo;s escape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Simon remained for some moments perfectly stunned and speechless when the
+      news was broken to him. Fanny, in alarm at his increasing paleness, sprang
+      to his breast. He pushed her away,&mdash;&ldquo;Go&mdash;go&mdash;go, child,&rdquo; he
+      said; &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t feed you now. Leave me to starve.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To starve!&rdquo; said Fanny, wonderingly; and she stole away, and sat herself
+      down as if in deep thought. She then crept up to the lawyer as he was
+      about to leave the room, after exhausting his stock of commonplace
+      consolation; and putting her hand in his, whispered, &ldquo;I want to talk to
+      you&mdash;this way:&rdquo;&mdash;She led him through the passage into the open
+      air. &ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;when poor people try not to starve, don&rsquo;t they
+      work?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear, yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For rich people buy poor people&rsquo;s work?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, my dear; to be sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well. Mrs. Boxer used to sell my work. Fanny will feed grandpapa! Go
+      and tell him never to say &lsquo;starve&rsquo; again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The good-natured lawyer was moved. &ldquo;Can you work, indeed, my poor girl?
+      Well, put on your bonnet, and come and talk to my wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And that was the new era in Fanny&rsquo;s existence! Her schooling was stopped.
+      But now life schooled her. Necessity ripened her intellect. And many a
+      hard eye moistened,&mdash;as, seeing her glide with her little basket of
+      fancy work along the streets, still murmuring her happy and bird-like
+      snatches of unconnected song&mdash;men and children alike said with
+      respect, in which there was now no contempt, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the idiot girl who
+      supports her blind grandfather!&rdquo; They called her idiot still!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0043" id="link2H_4_0043">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BOOK IV.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0037" id="link2HCH0037">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;O that sweet gleam of sunshine on the lake!&rdquo;
+      WILSON&rsquo;S City of the Plague
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      If, reader, you have ever looked through a solar microscope at the
+      monsters in a drop of water, perhaps you have wondered to yourself how
+      things so terrible have been hitherto unknown to you&mdash;you have felt a
+      loathing at the limpid element you hitherto deemed so pure&mdash;you have
+      half fancied that you would cease to be a water-drinker; yet, the next day
+      you have forgotten the grim life that started before you, with its
+      countless shapes, in that teeming globule; and, if so tempted by your
+      thirst, you have not shrunk from the lying crystal, although myriads of
+      the horrible Unseen are mangling, devouring, gorging each other in the
+      liquid you so tranquilly imbibe; so is it with that ancestral and master
+      element called Life. Lapped in your sleek comforts, and lolling on the
+      sofa of your patent conscience&mdash;when, perhaps for the first time, you
+      look through the glass of science upon one ghastly globule in the waters
+      that heave around, that fill up, with their succulence, the pores of
+      earth, that moisten every atom subject to your eyes or handled by your
+      touch&mdash;you are startled and dismayed; you say, mentally, &ldquo;Can such
+      things be? I never dreamed of this before! I thought what was invisible to
+      me was non-existent in itself&mdash;I will remember this dread
+      experiment.&rdquo; The next day the experiment is forgotten.&mdash;The Chemist
+      may purify the Globule&mdash;can Science make pure the World?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Turn we now to the pleasant surface, seen in the whole, broad and fair to
+      the common eye. Who would judge well of God&rsquo;s great designs, if he could
+      look on no drop pendent from the rose-tree, or sparkling in the sun,
+      without the help of his solar microscope?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is ten years after the night on which William Gawtrey perished:&mdash;I
+      transport you, reader, to the fairest scenes in England,&mdash;scenes
+      consecrated by the only true pastoral poetry we have known to
+      Contemplation and Repose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Autumn had begun to tinge the foliage on the banks of Winandermere. It had
+      been a summer of unusual warmth and beauty; and if that year you had
+      visited the English lakes, you might, from time to time, amidst the groups
+      of happy idlers you encountered, have singled out two persons for
+      interest, or, perhaps, for envy. Two who might have seemed to you in
+      peculiar harmony with those serene and soft retreats, both young&mdash;both
+      beautiful. Lovers you would have guessed them to be; but such lovers as
+      Fletcher might have placed under the care of his &ldquo;Holy Shepherdess&rdquo;&mdash;forms
+      that might have reclined by
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;The virtuous well, about whose flowery banks
+     The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds
+     By the pale moonshine.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      For in the love of those persons there seemed a purity and innocence that
+      suited well their youth and the character of their beauty. Perhaps,
+      indeed, on the girl&rsquo;s side, love sprung rather from those affections which
+      the spring of life throws upward to the surface, as the spring of earth
+      does its flowers, than from that concentrated and deep absorption of self
+      in self, which alone promises endurance and devotion, and of which first
+      love, or rather the first fancy, is often less susceptible than that which
+      grows out of the more thoughtful fondness of maturer years. Yet he, the
+      lover, was of so rare and singular a beauty, that he might well seem
+      calculated to awake, to the utmost, the love which wins the heart through
+      the eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But to begin at the beginning. A lady of fashion had, in the autumn
+      previous to the year in which our narrative re-opens, taken, with her
+      daughter, a girl then of about eighteen, the tour of the English lakes.
+      Charmed by the beauty of Winandermere, and finding one of the most
+      commodious villas on its banks to be let, they had remained there all the
+      winter. In the early spring a severe illness had seized the elder lady,
+      and finding herself, as she slowly recovered, unfit for the gaieties of a
+      London season, nor unwilling, perhaps,&mdash;for she had been a beauty in
+      her day&mdash;to postpone for another year the debut of her daughter, she
+      had continued her sojourn, with short intervals of absence, for a whole
+      year. Her husband, a busy man of the world, with occupation in London, and
+      fine estates in the country, joined them only occasionally, glad to escape
+      the still beauty of landscapes which brought him no rental, and therefore
+      afforded no charm to his eye.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the first month of their arrival at Winandermere, the mother and
+      daughter had made an eventful acquaintance in the following manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One evening, as they were walking on their lawn, which sloped to the lake,
+      they heard the sound of a flute, played with a skill so exquisite as to
+      draw them, surprised and spellbound, to the banks. The musician was a
+      young man, in a boat, which he had moored beneath the trees of their
+      demesne. He was alone, or, rather, he had one companion, in a large
+      Newfoundland dog, that sat watchful at the helm of the boat, and appeared
+      to enjoy the music as much as his master. As the ladies approached the
+      spot, the dog growled, and the young man ceased, though without seeing the
+      fair causes of his companion&rsquo;s displeasure. The sun, then setting, shone
+      full on his countenance as he looked round; and that countenance was one
+      that might have haunted the nymphs of Delos; the face of Apollo, not as
+      the hero, but the shepherd&mdash;not of the bow, but of the lute&mdash;not
+      the Python-slayer, but the young dreamer by shady places&mdash;he whom the
+      sculptor has portrayed leaning idly against the tree&mdash;the boy-god
+      whose home is yet on earth, and to whom the Oracle and the Spheres are
+      still unknown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment the dog leaped from the boat, and the elder lady uttered a
+      faint cry of alarm, which, directing the attention of the musician,
+      brought him also ashore. He called off his dog, and apologised, with a not
+      ungraceful mixture of diffidence and ease, for his intrusion. He was not
+      aware the place was inhabited&mdash;it was a favourite haunt of his&mdash;he
+      lived near. The elder lady was pleased with his address, and struck with
+      his appearance. There was, indeed, in his manner that indefinable charm,
+      which is more attractive than mere personal appearance, and which can
+      never be imitated or acquired. They parted, however, without establishing
+      any formal acquaintance. A few days after, they met at dinner at a
+      neighbouring house, and were introduced by name. That of the young man
+      seemed strange to the ladies; not so theirs to him. He turned pale when he
+      heard it, and remained silent and aloof the rest of the evening. They met
+      again and often; and for some weeks&mdash;nay, even for months&mdash;he
+      appeared to avoid, as much as possible, the acquaintance so auspiciously
+      begun; but, by little and little, the beauty of the younger lady seemed to
+      gain ground on his diffidence or repugnance. Excursions among the
+      neighbouring mountains threw them together, and at last he fairly
+      surrendered himself to the charm he had at first determined to resist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This young man lived on the opposite side of the lake, in a quiet
+      household, of which he was the idol. His life had been one of almost
+      monastic purity and repose; his tastes were accomplished, his character
+      seemed soft and gentle; but beneath that calm exterior, flashes of passion&mdash;the
+      nature of the poet, ardent and sensitive&mdash;would break forth at times.
+      He had scarcely ever, since his earliest childhood, quitted those
+      retreats; he knew nothing of the world, except in books&mdash;books of
+      poetry and romance. Those with whom he lived&mdash;his relations, an old
+      bachelor, and the cold bachelor&rsquo;s sisters, old maids&mdash;seemed equally
+      innocent and inexperienced. It was a family whom the rich respected and
+      the poor loved&mdash;inoffensive, charitable, and well off. To whatever
+      their easy fortune might be, he appeared the heir. The name of this young
+      man was Charles Spencer; the ladies were Mrs. Beaufort, and Camilla her
+      daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Beaufort, though a shrewd woman, did not at first perceive any danger
+      in the growing intimacy between Camilla and the younger Spencer. Her
+      daughter was not her favourite&mdash;not the object of her one thought or
+      ambition. Her whole heart and soul were wrapped in her son Arthur, who
+      lived principally abroad. Clever enough to be considered capable, when he
+      pleased, of achieving distinction, good-looking enough to be thought
+      handsome by all who were on the qui vive for an advantageous match,
+      good-natured enough to be popular with the society in which he lived,
+      scattering to and fro money without limit,&mdash;Arthur Beaufort, at the
+      age of thirty, had established one of those brilliant and evanescent
+      reputations, which, for a few years, reward the ambition of the fine
+      gentleman. It was precisely the reputation that the mother could
+      appreciate, and which even the more saving father secretly admired, while,
+      ever respectable in phrase, Mr. Robert Beaufort seemed openly to regret
+      it. This son was, I say, everything to them; they cared little, in
+      comparison, for their daughter. How could a daughter keep up the proud
+      name of Beaufort? However well she might marry, it was another house, not
+      theirs, which her graces and beauty would adorn. Moreover, the better she
+      might marry the greater her dowry would naturally be,&mdash;the dowry, to
+      go out of the family! And Arthur, poor fellow! was so extravagant, that
+      really he would want every sixpence. Such was the reasoning of the father.
+      The mother reasoned less upon the matter. Mrs. Beaufort, faded and meagre,
+      in blonde and cashmere, was jealous of the charms of her daughter; and she
+      herself, growing sentimental and lachrymose as she advanced in life, as
+      silly women often do, had convinced herself that Camilla was a girl of no
+      feeling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Beaufort was, indeed, of a character singularly calm and placid; it
+      was the character that charms men in proportion, perhaps, to their own
+      strength and passion. She had been rigidly brought up&mdash;her affections
+      had been very early chilled and subdued; they moved, therefore, now, with
+      ease, in the serene path of her duties. She held her parents, especially
+      her father, in reverential fear, and never dreamed of the possibility of
+      resisting one of their wishes, much less their commands. Pious, kind,
+      gentle, of a fine and never-ruffled temper, Camilla, an admirable
+      daughter, was likely to make no less admirable a wife; you might depend on
+      her principles, if ever you could doubt her affection. Few girls were more
+      calculated to inspire love. You would scarcely wonder at any folly, any
+      madness, which even a wise man might commit for her sake. This did not
+      depend on her beauty alone, though she was extremely lovely rather than
+      handsome, and of that style of loveliness which is universally
+      fascinating: the figure, especially as to the arms, throat, and bust, was
+      exquisite; the mouth dimpled; the teeth dazzling; the eyes of that velvet
+      softness which to look on is to love. But her charm was in a certain
+      prettiness of manner, an exceeding innocence, mixed with the most
+      captivating, because unconscious, coquetry. With all this, there was a
+      freshness, a joy, a virgin and bewitching candour in her voice, her laugh&mdash;you
+      might almost say in her very movements. Such was Camilla Beaufort at that
+      age. Such she seemed to others. To her parents she was only a great girl
+      rather in the way. To Mrs. Beaufort a rival, to Mr. Beaufort an
+      encumbrance on the property.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0038" id="link2HCH0038">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * * * &ldquo;The moon
+     Saddening the solemn night, yet with that sadness
+     Mingling the breath of undisturbed Peace.&rdquo;
+                 WILSON: City of the Plague
+
+     * * * &ldquo;Tell me his fate.
+     Say that he lives, or say that he is dead
+     But tell me&mdash;tell me!
+     * * * * * *
+     I see him not&mdash;some cloud envelopes him.&rdquo;&mdash;Ibid.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      One day (nearly a year after their first introduction) as with a party of
+      friends Camilla and Charles Spencer were riding through those wild and
+      romantic scenes which lie between the sunny Winandermere and the dark and
+      sullen Wastwater, their conversation fell on topics more personal than it
+      had hitherto done, for as yet, if they felt love, they had never spoken of
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The narrowness of the path allowed only two to ride abreast, and the two
+      to whom I confine my description were the last of the little band.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How I wish Arthur were here!&rdquo; said Camilla; &ldquo;I am sure you would like
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you? He lives much in the world&mdash;the world of which I know
+      nothing. Are we then characters to suit each other?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is the kindest&mdash;the best of human beings!&rdquo; said Camilla, rather
+      evasively, but with more warmth than usually dwelt in her soft and low
+      voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he so kind?&rdquo; returned Spencer, musingly. &ldquo;Well, it may be so. And who
+      would not be kind to you? Ah! it is a beautiful connexion that of brother
+      and sister&mdash;I never had a sister!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you then a brother?&rdquo; asked Camilla, in some surprise, and turning
+      her ingenuous eyes full on her companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Spencer&rsquo;s colour rose&mdash;rose to his temples: his voice trembled as he
+      answered, &ldquo;No;&mdash;no brother!&rdquo; then, speaking in a rapid and hurried
+      tone, he continued, &ldquo;My life has been a strange and lonely one. I am an
+      orphan. I have mixed with few of my own age: my boyhood and youth have
+      been spent in these scenes; my education such as Nature and books could
+      bestow, with scarcely any guide or tutor save my guardian&mdash;the dear
+      old man! Thus the world, the stir of cities, ambition, enterprise,&mdash;all
+      seem to me as things belonging to a distant land to which I shall never
+      wander. Yet I have had my dreams, Miss Beaufort; dreams of which these
+      solitudes still form a part&mdash;but solitudes not unshared. And lately I
+      have thought that those dreams might be prophetic. And you&mdash;do you
+      love the world?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I, like you, have scarcely tried it,&rdquo; said Camilla, with a sweet laugh.
+      &ldquo;but I love the country better,&mdash;oh! far better than what little I
+      have seen of towns. But for you,&rdquo; she continued with a charming
+      hesitation, &ldquo;a man is so different from us,&mdash;for you to shrink from
+      the world&mdash;you, so young and with talents too&mdash;nay, it is true!&mdash;it
+      seems to me strange.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may be so, but I cannot tell you what feelings of dread&mdash;what
+      vague forebodings of terror seize me if I carry my thoughts beyond these
+      retreats. Perhaps my good guardian&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your uncle?&rdquo; interrupted Camilla.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, my uncle&mdash;may have contributed to engender feelings, as you say,
+      strange at my age; but still&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Still what!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My earlier childhood,&rdquo; continued Spencer, breathing hard and turning
+      pale, &ldquo;was not spent in the happy home I have now; it was passed in a
+      premature ordeal of suffering and pain. Its recollections have left a dark
+      shadow on my mind, and under that shadow lies every thought that points
+      towards the troublous and labouring career of other men. But,&rdquo; he resumed
+      after a pause, and in a deep, earnest, almost solemn voice,&mdash;&ldquo;but
+      after all, is this cowardice or wisdom? I find no monotony&mdash;no tedium
+      in this quiet life. Is there not a certain morality&mdash;a certain
+      religion in the spirit of a secluded and country existence? In it we do
+      not know the evil passions which ambition and strife are said to arouse. I
+      never feel jealous or envious of other men; I never know what it is to
+      hate; my boat, my horse, our garden, music, books, and, if I may dare to
+      say so, the solemn gladness that comes from the hopes of another life,&mdash;these
+      fill up every hour with thoughts and pursuits, peaceful, happy, and
+      without a cloud, till of late, when&mdash;when&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When what?&rdquo; said Camilla, innocently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I have longed, but did not dare to ask another, if to share such a
+      lot would content her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He bent, as he spoke, his soft blue eyes full upon the blushing face of
+      her whom he addressed, and Camilla half smiled and half sighed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our companions are far before us,&rdquo; said she, turning away her face, &ldquo;and
+      see, the road is now smooth.&rdquo; She quickened her horse&rsquo;s pace as she said
+      this; and Spencer, too new to women to interpret favourably her evasion of
+      his words and looks, fell into a profound silence which lasted during the
+      rest of their excursion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As towards the decline of day he bent his solitary way home, emotions and
+      passions to which his life had hitherto been a stranger, and which, alas!
+      he had vainly imagined a life so tranquil would everlastingly restrain,
+      swelled his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She does not love me,&rdquo; he muttered, half aloud; &ldquo;she will leave me, and
+      what then will all the beauty of the landscape seem in my eyes? And how
+      dare I look up to her? Even if her cold, vain mother&mdash;her father, the
+      man, they say, of forms and scruples, were to consent, would they not
+      question closely of my true birth and origin? And if the one blot were
+      overlooked, is there no other? His early habits and vices, his?&mdash;a
+      brother&rsquo;s&mdash;his unknown career terminating at any day, perhaps, in
+      shame, in crime, in exposure, in the gibbet,&mdash;will they overlook
+      this?&rdquo; As he spoke, he groaned aloud, and, as if impatient to escape
+      himself, spurred on his horse and rested not till he reached the belt of
+      trim and sober evergreens that surrounded his hitherto happy home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leaving his horse to find its way to the stables, the young man passed
+      through rooms, which he found deserted, to the lawn on the other side,
+      which sloped to the smooth waters of the lake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here, seated under the one large tree that formed the pride of the lawn,
+      over which it cast its shadow broad and far, he perceived his guardian
+      poring idly over an oft-read book, one of those books of which literary
+      dreamers are apt to grow fanatically fond&mdash;books by the old English
+      writers, full of phrases and conceits half quaint and half sublime,
+      interspersed with praises of the country, imbued with a poetical rather
+      than orthodox religion, and adorned with a strange mixture of monastic
+      learning and aphorisms collected from the weary experience of actual life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To the left, by a greenhouse, built between the house and the lake, might
+      be seen the white dress and lean form of the eldest spinster sister, to
+      whom the care of the flowers&mdash;for she had been early crossed in love&mdash;was
+      consigned; at a little distance from her, the other two were seated at
+      work, and conversing in whispers, not to disturb their studious brother,
+      no doubt upon the nephew, who was their all in all. It was the calmest
+      hour of eve, and the quiet of the several forms, their simple and harmless
+      occupations&mdash;if occupations they might be called&mdash;the breathless
+      foliage rich in the depth of summer; behind, the old-fashioned house,
+      unpretending, not mean, its open doors and windows giving glimpses of the
+      comfortable repose within; before, the lake, without a ripple and catching
+      the gleam of the sunset clouds,&mdash;all made a picture of that complete
+      tranquillity and stillness, which sometimes soothes and sometimes saddens
+      us, according as we are in the temper to woo CONTENT.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man glided to his guardian and touched his shoulder,&mdash;&ldquo;Sir,
+      may I speak to you?&mdash;Hush! they need not see us now! it is only you I
+      would speak with.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The elder Spencer rose; and, with his book still in his hand, moved side
+      by side with his nephew under the shadow of the tree and towards a walk to
+      the right, which led for a short distance along the margin of the lake,
+      backed by the interlaced boughs of a thick copse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir!&rdquo; said the young man, speaking first, and with a visible effort,
+      &ldquo;your cautions have been in vain! I love this girl&mdash;this daughter of
+      the haughty Beauforts! I love her&mdash;better than life I love her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My poor boy,&rdquo; said the uncle tenderly, and with a simple fondness passing
+      his arm over the speaker&rsquo;s shoulder, &ldquo;do not think I can chide you&mdash;I
+      know what it is to love in vain!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In vain!&mdash;but why in vain?&rdquo; exclaimed the younger Spencer, with a
+      vehemence that had in it something of both agony and fierceness. &ldquo;She may
+      love me&mdash;she shall love me!&rdquo; and almost for the first time in his
+      life, the proud consciousness of his rare gifts of person spoke in his
+      kindled eye and dilated stature. &ldquo;Do they not say that Nature has been
+      favourable to me?&mdash;What rival have I here?&mdash;Is she not young?&mdash;And
+      (sinking his voice till it almost breathed like music) is not love
+      contagious?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not doubt that she may love you&mdash;who would not?&mdash;but&mdash;but&mdash;the
+      parents, will they ever consent?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay!&rdquo; answered the lover, as with that inconsistency common to passion,
+      he now argued stubbornly against those fears in another to which he had
+      just before yielded in himself,&mdash;&ldquo;Nay!&mdash;after all, am I not of
+      their own blood?&mdash;Do I not come from the elder branch?&mdash;Was I
+      not reared in equal luxury and with higher hopes?&mdash;And my mother&mdash;my
+      poor mother&mdash;did she not to the last maintain our birthright&mdash;her
+      own honour?&mdash;Has not accident or law unjustly stripped us of our true
+      station?&mdash;Is it not for us to forgive spoliation?&mdash;Am I not, in
+      fact, the person who descends, who forgets the wrongs of the dead&mdash;the
+      heritage of the living?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man had never yet assumed this tone&mdash;had never yet shown
+      that he looked back to the history connected with his birth with the
+      feelings of resentment and the remembrance of wrong. It was a tone
+      contrary to his habitual calm and contentment&mdash;it struck forcibly on
+      his listener&mdash;and the elder Spencer was silent for some moments
+      before he replied, &ldquo;If you feel thus (and it is natural), you have yet
+      stronger reason to struggle against this unhappy affection.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been conscious of that, sir,&rdquo; replied the young man, mournfully.
+      &ldquo;I have struggled!&mdash;and I say again it is in vain! I turn, then, to
+      face the obstacles! My birth&mdash;let us suppose that the Beauforts
+      overlook it. Did you not tell me that Mr. Beaufort wrote to inform you of
+      the abrupt and intemperate visit of my brother&mdash;of his determination
+      never to forgive it? I think I remember something of this years ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is true!&rdquo; said the guardian; &ldquo;and the conduct of that brother is, in
+      fact, the true cause why you never ought to reassume your proper name!&mdash;never
+      to divulge it, even to the family with whom you connect yourself by
+      marriage; but, above all, to the Beauforts, who for that cause, if that
+      cause alone, would reject your suit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man groaned&mdash;placed one hand before his eyes, and with the
+      other grasped his guardian&rsquo;s arm convulsively, as if to check him from
+      proceeding farther; but the good man, not divining his meaning, and
+      absorbed in his subject, went on, irritating the wound he had touched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Reflect!&mdash;your brother in boyhood&mdash;in the dying hours of his
+      mother, scarcely saved from the crime of a thief, flying from a friendly
+      pursuit with a notorious reprobate; afterwards implicated in some
+      discreditable transaction about a horse, rejecting all&mdash;every hand
+      that could save him, clinging by choice to the lowest companions and the
+      meanest-habits, disappearing from the country, and last seen, ten years
+      ago&mdash;the beard not yet on his chin&mdash;with that same reprobate of
+      whom I have spoken, in Paris; a day or so only before his companion, a
+      coiner&mdash;a murderer&mdash;fell by the hands of the police! You
+      remember that when, in your seventeenth year, you evinced some desire to
+      retake your name&mdash;nay, even to re-find that guilty brother&mdash;I
+      placed before you, as a sad and terrible duty, the newspaper that
+      contained the particulars of the death and the former adventures of that
+      wretched accomplice, the notorious Gawtrey. And,&mdash;telling you that
+      Mr. Beaufort had long since written to inform me that his own son and Lord
+      Lilburne had seen your brother in company with the miscreant just before
+      his fate&mdash;nay, was, in all probability, the very youth described in
+      the account as found in his chamber and escaping the pursuit&mdash;I asked
+      you if you would now venture to leave that disguise&mdash;that shelter
+      under which you would for ever be safe from the opprobrium of the world&mdash;from
+      the shame that, sooner or later, your brother must bring upon your name!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is true&mdash;it is true!&rdquo; said the pretended nephew, in a tone of
+      great anguish, and with trembling lips which the blood had forsaken.
+      &ldquo;Horrible to look either to his past or his future! But&mdash;but&mdash;we
+      have heard of him no more&mdash;no one ever has learned his fate. Perhaps&mdash;perhaps&rdquo;
+       (and he seemed to breathe more freely)&mdash;&ldquo;my brother is no more!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And poor Catherine&mdash;and poor Philip&mdash;-had it come to this? Did
+      the one brother feel a sentiment of release, of joy, in conjecturing the
+      death&mdash;perhaps the death of violence and shame&mdash;of his
+      fellow-orphan? Mr. Spencer shook his head doubtingly, but made no reply.
+      The young man sighed heavily, and strode on for several paces in advance
+      of his protector, then, turning back, he laid his hand on his shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; he said in a low voice and with downcast eyes, &ldquo;you are right: this
+      disguise&mdash;this false name&mdash;must be for ever borne! Why need the
+      Beauforts, then, ever know who and what I am? Why not as your nephew&mdash;nephew
+      to one so respected and exemplary&mdash;proffer my claims and plead my
+      cause?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are proud&mdash;so it is said&mdash;and worldly;&mdash;you know my
+      family was in trade&mdash;still&mdash;but&mdash;&rdquo; and here Mr. Spencer
+      broke off from a tone of doubt into that of despondency, &ldquo;but, recollect,
+      though Mrs. Beaufort may not remember the circumstance, both her husband
+      and her son have seen me&mdash;have known my name. Will they not suspect,
+      when once introduced to you, the stratagem that has been adopted?&mdash;Nay,
+      has it not been from that very fear that you have wished me to shun the
+      acquaintance of the family? Both Mr. Beaufort and Arthur saw you in
+      childhood, and their suspicion once aroused, they may recognise you at
+      once; your features are developed, but not altogether changed. Come, come!&mdash;my
+      adopted, my dear son, shake off this fantasy betimes: let us change the
+      scene: I will travel with you&mdash;read with you&mdash;go where&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir&mdash;sir!&rdquo; exclaimed the lover, smiting his breast, &ldquo;you are ever
+      kind, compassionate, generous; but do not&mdash;do not rob me of hope. I
+      have never&mdash;thanks to you&mdash;felt, save in a momentary dejection,
+      the curse of my birth. Now how heavily it falls! Where shall I look for
+      comfort?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke, the sound of a bell broke over the translucent air and the
+      slumbering lake: it was the bell that every eve and morn summoned that
+      innocent and pious family to prayer. The old man&rsquo;s face changed as he
+      heard it&mdash;changed from its customary indolent, absent, listless
+      aspect, into an expression of dignity, even of animation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hark!&rdquo; he said, pointing upwards; &ldquo;Hark! it chides you. Who shall say,
+      &lsquo;Where shall I look for comfort&rsquo; while God is in the heavens?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man, habituated to the faith and observance of religion, till
+      they had pervaded his whole nature, bowed his head in rebuke; a few tears
+      stole from his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are right, father&mdash;,&rdquo; he said tenderly, giving emphasis to the
+      deserved and endearing name. &ldquo;I am comforted already!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So, side by side, silently and noiselessly, the young and the old man
+      glided back to the house. When they gained the quiet room in which the
+      family usually assembled, the sisters and servants were already gathered
+      round the table. They knelt as the loiterers entered. It was the wonted
+      duty of the younger Spencer to read the prayers; and, as he now did so,
+      his graceful countenance more hushed, his sweet voice more earnest than
+      usual, in its accents: who that heard could have deemed the heart within
+      convulsed by such stormy passions? Or was it not in that hour&mdash;that
+      solemn commune&mdash;soothed from its woe? O beneficent Creator! thou who
+      inspirest all the tribes of earth with the desire to pray, hast Thou not,
+      in that divinest instinct, bestowed on us the happiest of Thy gifts?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0039" id="link2HCH0039">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;Bertram. I mean the business is not ended, as fearing to hear of
+   it hereafter.
+
+   &ldquo;1st Soldier. Do you know this Captain Dumain?&rdquo;
+                     All&rsquo;s Well that Ends Well.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      One evening, some weeks after the date of the last chapter, Mr. Robert
+      Beaufort sat alone in his house in Berkeley Square. He had arrived that
+      morning from Beaufort Court, on his way to Winandermere, to which he was
+      summoned by a letter from his wife. That year was an agitated and eventful
+      epoch in England; and Mr. Beaufort had recently gone through the bustle of
+      an election&mdash;not, indeed, contested; for his popularity and his
+      property defied all rivalry in his own county.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rich man had just dined, and was seated in lazy enjoyment by the side
+      of the fire, which he had had lighted, less for the warmth&mdash;though it
+      was then September&mdash;than for the companionship;&mdash;engaged in
+      finishing his madeira, and, with half-closed eyes, munching his devilled
+      biscuits. &ldquo;I am sure,&rdquo; he soliloquised while thus employed, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know
+      exactly what to do,&mdash;my wife ought to decide matters where the girl
+      is concerned; a son is another affair&mdash;that&rsquo;s the use of a wife.
+      Humph!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; said a fat servant, opening the door, &ldquo;a gentleman wishes to see
+      you upon very particular business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Business at this hour! Tell him to go to Mr. Blackwell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay! perhaps he is a constituent, Simmons. Ask him if he belongs to the
+      county.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A great estate is a great plague,&rdquo; muttered Mr. Beaufort; &ldquo;so is a great
+      constituency. It is pleasanter, after all, to be in the House of Lords. I
+      suppose I could if I wished; but then one must rat&mdash;that&rsquo;s a bore. I
+      will consult Lilburne. Humph!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The servant re-appeared. &ldquo;Sir, he says he does belong to the county.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Show him in!&mdash;What sort of a person?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A sort of gentleman, sir; that is,&rdquo; continued the butler, mindful of five
+      shillings just slipped within his palm by the stranger, &ldquo;quite the
+      gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;More wine, then&mdash;stir up the fire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In a few moments the visitor was ushered into the apartment. He was a man
+      between fifty and sixty, but still aiming at the appearance of youth. His
+      dress evinced military pretensions; consisting of a blue coat, buttoned up
+      to the chin, a black stock, loose trousers of the fashion called Cossacks,
+      and brass spurs. He wore a wig, of great luxuriance in curl and rich
+      auburn in hue; with large whiskers of the same colour slightly tinged with
+      grey at the roots. By the imperfect light of the room it was not
+      perceptible that the clothes were somewhat threadbare, and that the boots,
+      cracked at the side, admitted glimpses of no very white hosiery within.
+      Mr. Beaufort, reluctantly rising from his repose and gladly sinking back
+      to it, motioned to a chair, and put on a doleful and doubtful semi-smile
+      of welcome. The servant placed the wine and glasses before the stranger;&mdash;the
+      host and visitor were alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So, sir,&rdquo; said Mr. Beaufort, languidly, &ldquo;you are from &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;shire;
+      I suppose about the canal,&mdash;may I offer you a glass of wine?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Most hauppy, sir&mdash;your health!&rdquo; and the stranger, with evident
+      satisfaction, tossed off a bumper to so complimentary a toast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About the canal?&rdquo; repeated Mr. Beaufort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir, no! You parliament gentlemen must hauve a vaust deal of trouble
+      on your haunds&mdash;very foine property I understaund yours is, sir. Sir,
+      allow me to drink the health of your good lady!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank you, Mr.&mdash;, Mr.&mdash;, what did you say your name was?&mdash;I
+      beg you a thousand pardons.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No offaunce in the least, sir; no ceremony with me&mdash;this is
+      perticler good madeira!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May I ask how I can serve you?&rdquo; said Mr. Beaufort, struggling between the
+      sense of annoyance and the fear to be uncivil. &ldquo;And pray, had I the honour
+      of your vote in the last election!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir, no! It&rsquo;s mauny years since I have been in your part of the
+      world, though I was born there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I don&rsquo;t exactly see&mdash;&rdquo; began Mr. Beaufort, and stopped with
+      dignity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why I call on you,&rdquo; put in the stranger, tapping his boots with his cane;
+      and then recognising the rents, he thrust both feet under the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t say that; but at this hour I am seldom at leisure&mdash;not but
+      what I am always at the service of a constituent, that is, a voter! Mr.&mdash;,
+      I beg your pardon, I did not catch your name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; said the stranger, helping himself to a third glass of wine;
+      &ldquo;here&rsquo;s a health to your young folk! And now to business.&rdquo; Here the
+      visitor, drawing his chair nearer to his host, assuming a more grave
+      aspect, and dropping something of his stilted pronunciation, continued,
+      &ldquo;You had a brother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, sir,&rdquo; said Mr. Beaufort, with a very changed countenance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that brother had a wife!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Had a cannon gone off in the ear of Mr. Robert Beaufort, it could not have
+      shocked or stunned him more than that simple word with which his companion
+      closed his sentence. He fell back in his chair&mdash;his lips apart, his
+      eyes fixed on the stranger. He sought to speak, but his tongue clove to
+      his mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That wife had two sons, born in wedlock!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is false!&rdquo; cried Mr. Beaufort, finding a voice at length, and
+      springing to his feet. &ldquo;And who are you, sir? and what do you mean by&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; said the stranger, perfectly unconcerned, and regaining the
+      dignity of his haw-haw enunciation, &ldquo;better not let the servants hear
+      aunything. For my pawt, I think servants hauve the longest pair of ears of
+      auny persons, not excepting jauckasses; their ears stretch from the
+      pauntry to the parlour. Hush, sir!&mdash;perticler good madeira, this!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir!&rdquo; said Mr. Beaufort, struggling to preserve, or rather recover, his
+      temper, &ldquo;your conduct is exceedingly strange; but allow me to say that you
+      are wholly misinformed. My brother never did marry; and if you have
+      anything to say on behalf of those young men&mdash;his natural sons&mdash;I
+      refer you to my solicitor, Mr. Blackwell, of Lincoln&rsquo;s Inn. I wish you a
+      good evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir!&mdash;the same to you&mdash;I won&rsquo;t trouble you auny farther; it was
+      only out of koindness I called&mdash;I am not used to be treated so&mdash;sir,
+      I am in his maujesty&rsquo;s service&mdash;sir, you will foind that the witness
+      of the marriage is forthcoming; you will think of me then, and, perhaps,
+      be sorry. But I&rsquo;ve done, &lsquo;Your most obedient humble, sir!&rsquo;&rdquo; And the
+      stranger, with a flourish of his hand, turned to the door. At the sight of
+      this determination on the part of his strange guest, a cold, uneasy, vague
+      presentiment seized Mr. Beaufort. There, not flashed, but rather froze,
+      across him the recollection of his brother&rsquo;s emphatic but disbelieved
+      assurances&mdash;of Catherine&rsquo;s obstinate assertion of her son&rsquo;s alleged
+      rights&mdash;rights which her lawsuit, undertaken on her own behalf, had
+      not compromised;&mdash;a fresh lawsuit might be instituted by the son, and
+      the evidence which had been wanting in the former suit might be found at
+      last. With this remembrance and these reflections came a horrible train of
+      shadowy fears,&mdash;witnesses, verdict, surrender, spoliation&mdash;arrears&mdash;ruin!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man, who had gained the door, turned back and looked at him with a
+      complacent, half-triumphant leer upon his impudent, reckless face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; then said Mr. Beaufort, mildly, &ldquo;I repeat that you had better see
+      Mr. Blackwell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The tempter saw his triumph. &ldquo;I have a secret to communicate which it is
+      best for you to keep snug. How mauny people do you wish me to see about
+      it? Come, sir, there is no need of a lawyer; or, if you think so, tell him
+      yourself. Now or never, Mr. Beaufort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can have no objection to hear anything you have to say, sir,&rdquo; said the
+      rich man, yet more mildly than before; and then added, with a forced
+      smile, &ldquo;though my rights are already too confirmed to admit of a doubt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Without heeding the last assertion, the stranger coolly walked back,
+      resumed his seat, and, placing both arms on the table and looking Mr.
+      Beaufort full in the face, thus proceeded,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir, of the marriage between Philip Beaufort and Catherine Morton there
+      were two witnesses: the one is dead, the other went abroad&mdash;the last
+      is alive still!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If so,&rdquo; said Mr. Beaufort, who, not naturally deficient in cunning and
+      sense, felt every faculty now prodigiously sharpened, and was resolved to
+      know the precise grounds for alarm,&mdash;&ldquo;if so, why did not the man&mdash;it
+      was a servant, sir, a man-servant, whom Mrs. Morton pretended to rely on&mdash;appear
+      on the trial?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because, I say, he was abroad and could not be found; or, the search
+      after him miscaurried, from clumsy management and a lack of the rhino.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hum!&rdquo; said Mr. Beaufort&mdash;&ldquo;one witness&mdash;one witness, observe,
+      there is only one!&mdash;does not alarm me much. It is not what a man
+      deposes, it is what a jury believe, sir! Moreover, what has become of the
+      young men? They have never been heard of for years. They are probably
+      dead; if so, I am heir-at-law!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know where one of them is to be found at all events.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The elder?&mdash;Philip?&rdquo; asked Mr. Beaufort anxiously, and with a
+      fearful remembrance of the energetic and vehement character prematurely
+      exhibited by his nephew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pawdon me! I need not aunswer that question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir! a lawsuit of this nature, against one in possession, is very
+      doubtful, and,&rdquo; added the rich man, drawing himself up&mdash;&ldquo;and, perhaps
+      very expensive!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The young man I speak of does not want friends, who will not grudge the
+      money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir!&rdquo; said Mr. Beaufort, rising and placing his back to the fire&mdash;&ldquo;sir!
+      what is your object in this communication? Do you come, on the part of the
+      young man, to propose a compromise? If so, be plain!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I come on my own pawt. It rests with you to say if the young men shall
+      never know it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what do you want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Five hundred a year as long as the secret is kept.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how can you prove that there is a secret, after all?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By producing the witness if you wish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will he go halves in the L500. a year?&rdquo; asked Mr. Beaufort artfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is moy affair, sir,&rdquo; replied the stranger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What you say,&rdquo; resumed Mr. Beaufort, &ldquo;is so extraordinary&mdash;so
+      unexpected, and still, to me, seems so improbable, that I must have time
+      to consider. If you will call on me in a week, and produce your facts, I
+      will give you my answer. I am not the man, sir, to wish to keep any one
+      out of his true rights, but I will not yield, on the other hand, to
+      imposture.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t want to keep them out of their rights, I&rsquo;d best go and tell
+      my young gentlemen,&rdquo; said the stranger, with cool impudence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you I must have time,&rdquo; repeated Beaufort, disconcerted. &ldquo;Besides,
+      I have not myself alone to look to, sir,&rdquo; he added, with dignified
+      emphasis&mdash;&ldquo;I am a father!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This day week I will call on you again. Good evening, Mr. Beaufort!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the man stretched out his hand with an air of amicable condescension.
+      The respectable Mr. Beaufort changed colour, hesitated, and finally
+      suffered two fingers to be enticed into the grasp of the visitor, whom he
+      ardently wished at that bourne whence no visitor returns.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger smiled, stalked to the door, laid his finger on his lip,
+      winked knowingly, and vanished, leaving Mr. Beaufort a prey to such
+      feelings of uneasiness, dread, and terror, as may be experienced by a man
+      whom, on some inch or two of slippery rock, the tides have suddenly
+      surrounded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He remained perfectly still for some moments, and then glancing round the
+      dim and spacious room, his eyes took in all the evidences of luxury and
+      wealth which it betrayed. Above the huge sideboard, that on festive days
+      groaned beneath the hoarded weight of the silver heirlooms of the
+      Beauforts, hung, in its gilded frame, a large picture of the family seat,
+      with the stately porticoes&mdash;the noble park&mdash;the groups of deer;
+      and around the wall, interspersed here and there with ancestral portraits
+      of knight and dame, long since gathered to their rest, were placed
+      masterpieces of the Italian and Flemish art, which generation after
+      generation had slowly accumulated, till the Beaufort Collection had become
+      the theme of connoisseurs and the study of young genius.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The still room, the dumb pictures&mdash;even the heavy sideboard seemed to
+      gain voice, and speak to him audibly. He thrust his hand into the folds of
+      his waistcoat, and griped his own flesh convulsively; then, striding to
+      and fro the apartment, he endeavoured to re-collect his thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dare not consult Mrs. Beaufort,&rdquo; he muttered; &ldquo;no&mdash;no,&mdash;she
+      is a fool! Besides, she&rsquo;s not in the way. No time to lose&mdash;I will go
+      to Lilburne.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Scarce had that thought crossed him than he hastened to put it into
+      execution. He rang for his hat and gloves and sallied out on foot to Lord
+      Lilburne&rsquo;s house in Park Lane,&mdash;the distance was short, and
+      impatience has long strides.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He knew Lord Lilburne was in town, for that personage loved London for its
+      own sake; and even in September he would have said with the old Duke of
+      Queensberry, when some one observed that London was very empty&mdash;&ldquo;Yes;
+      but it is fuller than the country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Beaufort found Lord Lilburne reclined on a sofa, by the open window of
+      his drawing-room, beyond which the early stars shone upon the glimmering
+      trees and silver turf of the deserted park. Unlike the simple dessert of
+      his respectable brother-in-law, the costliest fruits, the richest wines of
+      France, graced the small table placed beside his sofa; and as the starch
+      man of forms and method entered the room at one door, a rustling silk,
+      that vanished through the aperture of another, seemed to betray tokens of
+      a tete-a-tete, probably more agreeable to Lilburne than the one with which
+      only our narrative is concerned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would have been a curious study for such men as love to gaze upon the
+      dark and wily features of human character, to have watched the contrast
+      between the reciter and the listener, as Beaufort, with much
+      circumlocution, much affected disdain and real anxiety, narrated the
+      singular and ominous conversation between himself and his visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The servant, in introducing Mr. Beaufort, had added to the light of the
+      room; and the candles shone full on the face and form of Mr. Beaufort. All
+      about that gentleman was so completely in unison with the world&rsquo;s forms
+      and seemings, that there was something moral in the very sight of him!
+      Since his accession of fortune he had grown less pale and less thin; the
+      angles in his figure were filled up. On his brow there was no trace of
+      younger passion. No able vice had ever sharpened the expression&mdash;no
+      exhausting vice ever deepened the lines. He was the beau-ideal of a county
+      member,&mdash;so sleek, so staid, so business-like; yet so clean, so neat,
+      so much the gentleman. And now there was a kind of pathos in his grey
+      hairs, his nervous smile, his agitated hands, his quick and uneasy
+      transition of posture, the tremble of his voice. He would have appeared to
+      those who saw, but heard not, The Good Man in trouble. Cold, motionless,
+      speechless, seemingly apathetic, but in truth observant, still reclined on
+      the sofa, his head thrown back, but one eye fixed on his companion, his
+      hands clasped before him, Lord Lilburne listened; and in that repose,
+      about his face, even about his person, might be read the history of how
+      different a life and character! What native acuteness in the stealthy eye!
+      What hardened resolve in the full nostril and firm lips! What sardonic
+      contempt for all things in the intricate lines about the mouth. What
+      animal enjoyment of all things so despised in that delicate nervous
+      system, which, combined with original vigour of constitution, yet betrayed
+      itself in the veins on the hands and temples, the occasional quiver of the
+      upper lip! His was the frame above all others the most alive to pleasure&mdash;deep-chested,
+      compact, sinewy, but thin to leanness&mdash;delicate in its texture and
+      extremities, almost to effeminacy. The indifference of the posture, the
+      very habit of the dress&mdash;not slovenly, indeed, but easy, loose,
+      careless&mdash;seemed to speak of the man&rsquo;s manner of thought and life&mdash;his
+      profound disdain of externals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not till Beaufort had concluded did Lord Lilburne change his position or
+      open his lips; and then, turning to his brother-in-law his calm face, he
+      said drily,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I always thought your brother had married that woman; he was the sort of
+      man to do it. Besides, why should she have gone to law without a vestige
+      of proof, unless she was convinced of her rights? Imposture never proceeds
+      without some evidence. Innocence, like a fool as it is, fancies it has
+      only to speak to be believed. But there is no cause for alarm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No cause!&mdash;And yet you think there was a marriage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is quite clear,&rdquo; continued Lilburne, without heeding this
+      interruption; &ldquo;that the man, whatever his evidence, has not got sufficient
+      proofs. If he had, he would go to the young men rather than you: it is
+      evident that they would promise infinitely larger rewards than he could
+      expect from yourself. Men are always more generous with what they expect
+      than with what they have. All rogues know this. &lsquo;Tis the way Jews and
+      usurers thrive upon heirs rather than possessors; &lsquo;tis the philosophy of
+      post-obits. I dare say the man has found out the real witness of the
+      marriage, but ascertained, also, that the testimony of that witness would
+      not suffice to dispossess you. He might be discredited&mdash;rich men have
+      a way sometimes of discrediting poor witnesses. Mind, he says nothing of
+      the lost copy of the register&mdash;whatever may be the value of that
+      document, which I am not lawyer enough to say&mdash;of any letters of your
+      brother avowing the marriage. Consider, the register itself is destroyed&mdash;the
+      clergyman dead. Pooh! make yourself easy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True,&rdquo; said Mr. Beaufort, much comforted; &ldquo;what a memory you have!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naturally. Your wife is my sister&mdash;I hate poor relations&mdash;and I
+      was therefore much interested in your accession and your lawsuit. No&mdash;you
+      may feel&mdash;at rest on this matter, so far as a successful lawsuit is
+      concerned. The next question is, Will you have a lawsuit at all? and is it
+      worth while buying this fellow? That I can&rsquo;t say unless I see him myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish to Heaven you would!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very willingly: &lsquo;tis a sort of thing I like&mdash;I&rsquo;m fond of dealing
+      with rogues&mdash;it amuses me. This day week? I&rsquo;ll be at your house&mdash;your
+      proxy; I shall do better than Blackwell. And since you say you are wanted
+      at the Lakes, go down, and leave all to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A thousand thanks. I can&rsquo;t say how grateful I am. You certainly are the
+      kindest and cleverest person in the world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t think worse of the world&rsquo;s cleverness and kindness than I do,&rdquo;
+       was Lilburne&rsquo;s rather ambiguous answer to the compliment. &ldquo;But why does my
+      sister want to see you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I forgot!&mdash;here is her letter. I was going to ask your advice in
+      this too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Lilburne took the letter, and glanced over it with the rapid eye of a
+      man accustomed to seize in everything the main gist and pith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An offer to my pretty niece&mdash;Mr. Spencer&mdash;requires no fortune&mdash;his
+      uncle will settle all his own&mdash;(poor silly old man!) All! Why that&rsquo;s
+      only L1000. a year. You don&rsquo;t think much of this, eh? How my sister can
+      even ask you about it puzzles me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, you see, Lilburne,&rdquo; said Mr. Beaufort, rather embarrassed, &ldquo;there is
+      no question of fortune&mdash;nothing to go out of the family; and, really,
+      Arthur is so expensive, and, if she were to marry well, I could not give
+      her less than fifteen or twenty thousand pounds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aha!&mdash;I see&mdash;every man to his taste: here a daughter&mdash;there
+      a dowry. You are devilish fond of money, Beaufort. Any pleasure in
+      avarice,&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Beaufort coloured very much at the remark and the question, and,
+      forcing a smile, said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are severe. But you don&rsquo;t know what it is to be father to a young
+      man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then a great many young women have told me sad fibs! But you are right in
+      your sense of the phrase. No, I never had an heir apparent, thank Heaven!
+      No children imposed upon me by law&mdash;natural enemies, to count the
+      years between the bells that ring for their majority, and those that will
+      toll for my decease. It is enough for me that I have a brother and a
+      sister&mdash;that my brother&rsquo;s son will inherit my estates&mdash;and that,
+      in the meantime, he grudges me every tick in that clock. What then? If he
+      had been my uncle, I had done the same. Meanwhile, I see as little of him
+      as good breeding will permit. On the face of a rich man&rsquo;s heir is written
+      the rich man&rsquo;s memento mori! But revenons a nos moutons. Yes, if you give
+      your daughter no fortune, your death will be so much the more profitable
+      to Arthur!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really, you take such a very odd view of the matter,&rdquo; said Mr. Beaufort,
+      exceedingly shocked. &ldquo;But I see you don&rsquo;t like the marriage; perhaps you
+      are right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, I have no choice in the matter; I never interfere between father
+      and children. If I had children myself, I will, however, tell you, for
+      your comfort, that they might marry exactly as they pleased&mdash;I would
+      never thwart them. I should be too happy to get them out of my way. If
+      they married well, one would have all the credit; if ill, one would have
+      an excuse to disown them. As I said before, I dislike poor relations.
+      Though if Camilla lives at the Lakes when she is married, it is but a
+      letter now and then; and that&rsquo;s your wife&rsquo;s trouble, not yours. But,
+      Spencer&mdash;what Spencer!&mdash;what family? Was there not a Mr. Spencer
+      who lived at Winandermere&mdash;who&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who went with us in search of these boys, to be sure. Very likely the
+      same&mdash;nay, he must be so. I thought so at the first.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go down to the Lakes to-morrow. You may hear something about your
+      nephews;&rdquo; at that word Mr. Beaufort winced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Tis well to be forearmed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Many thanks for all your counsel,&rdquo; said Beaufort, rising, and glad to
+      escape; for though both he and his wife held the advice of Lord Lilburne
+      in the highest reverence, they always smarted beneath the quiet and
+      careless stings which accompanied the honey. Lord Lilburne was singular in
+      this,&mdash;he would give to any one who asked it, but especially a
+      relation, the best advice in his power; and none gave better, that is,
+      more worldly advice. Thus, without the least benevolence, he was often of
+      the greatest service; but he could not help mixing up the draught with as
+      much aloes and bitter-apple as possible. His intellect delighted in
+      exhibiting itself even gratuitously. His heart equally delighted in that
+      only cruelty which polished life leaves to its tyrants towards their
+      equals,&mdash;thrusting pins into the feelings and breaking self-love upon
+      the wheel. But just as Mr. Beaufort had drawn on his gloves and gained the
+      doorway, a thought seemed to strike Lord Lilburne:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By the by,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you understand that when I promised I would try and
+      settle the matter for you, I only meant that I would learn the exact
+      causes you have for alarm on the one hand, or for a compromise with this
+      fellow on the other. If the last be advisable you are aware that I cannot
+      interfere. I might get into a scrape; and Beaufort Court is not my
+      property.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t quite understand you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am plain enough, too. If there is money to be given it is given in
+      order to defeat what is called justice&mdash;to keep these nephews of
+      yours out of their inheritance. Now, should this ever come to light, it
+      would have an ugly appearance. They who risk the blame must be the persons
+      who possess the estate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you think it dishonourable or dishonest&mdash;&rdquo; said Beaufort,
+      irresolutely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I! I never can advise as to the feelings; I can only advise as to the
+      policy. If you don&rsquo;t think there ever was a marriage, it may, still, be
+      honest in you to prevent the bore of a lawsuit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if he can prove to me that they were married?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh!&rdquo; said Lilburne, raising his eyebrows with a slight expression of
+      contemptuous impatience; &ldquo;it rests on yourself whether or not he prove it
+      to YOUR satisfaction! For my part, as a third person, I am persuaded the
+      marriage did take place. But if I had Beaufort Court, my convictions would
+      be all the other way. You understand. I am too happy to serve you. But no
+      man can be expected to jeopardise his character, or coquet with the law,
+      unless it be for his own individual interest. Then, of course, he must
+      judge for himself. Adieu! I expect some friends foreigners&mdash;Carlists&mdash;to
+      whist. You won&rsquo;t join them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never play, you know. You will write to me at Winandermere: and, at all
+      events, you will keep off the man till I return?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Beaufort, whom the latter part of the conversation had comforted far less
+      than the former, hesitated, and turned the door-handle three or four
+      times; but, glancing towards his brother-in-law, he saw in that cold face
+      so little sympathy in the struggle between interest and conscience, that
+      he judged it best to withdraw at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as he was gone, Lilburne summoned his valet, who had lived with
+      him many years, and who was his confidant in all the adventurous
+      gallantries with which he still enlivened the autumn of his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dykeman,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;you have let out that lady?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, my lord.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not at home if she calls again. She is stupid; she cannot get the
+      girl to come to her again. I shall trust you with an adventure, Dykeman&mdash;an
+      adventure that will remind you of our young days, man. This charming
+      creature&mdash;I tell you she is irresistible&mdash;her very oddities
+      bewitch me. You must&mdash;well, you look uneasy. What would you say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord, I have found out more about her&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The valet drew near and whispered something in his master&rsquo;s ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are idiots who say it, then,&rdquo; answered Lilburne. &ldquo;And,&rdquo; faltered the
+      man, with the shame of humanity on his face, &ldquo;she is not worthy your
+      lordship&rsquo;s notice&mdash;a poor&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I know she is poor; and, for that reason, there can be no
+      difficulty, if the thing is properly managed. You never, perhaps, heard of
+      a certain Philip, king of Macedon; but I will tell you what he once said,
+      as well as I can remember it: &lsquo;Lead an ass with a pannier of gold; send
+      the ass through the gates of a city, and all the sentinels will run away.&rsquo; 
+      Poor!&mdash;where there is love, there is charity also, Dykeman. Besides&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Lilburne&rsquo;s countenance assumed a sudden aspect of dark and angry
+      passion,&mdash;he broke off abruptly, rose, and paced the room, muttering
+      to himself. Suddenly he stopped, and put his hand to his hip, as an
+      expression of pain again altered the character of his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The limb pains me still! Dykeman&mdash;I was scarce twenty-one&mdash;when
+      I became a cripple for life.&rdquo; He paused, drew a long breath, smiled,
+      rubbed his hands gently, and added: &ldquo;Never fear&mdash;you shall be the
+      ass; and thus Philip of Macedon begins to fill the pannier.&rdquo; And he tossed
+      his purse into the hands of the valet, whose face seemed to lose its
+      anxious embarrassment at the touch of the gold. Lilburne glanced at him
+      with a quiet sneer: &ldquo;Go!&mdash;I will give you my orders when I undress.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes!&rdquo; he repeated to himself, &ldquo;the limb pains me still. But he died!&mdash;shot
+      as a man would shoot a jay or a polecat!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have the newspaper still in that drawer. He died an outcast&mdash;a
+      felon&mdash;a murderer! And I blasted his name&mdash;and I seduced his
+      mistress&mdash;and I&mdash;am John Lord Lilburne!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      About ten o&rsquo;clock, some half-a-dozen of those gay lovers of London, who,
+      like Lilburne, remain faithful to its charms when more vulgar worshippers
+      desert its sunburnt streets&mdash;mostly single men&mdash;mostly men of
+      middle age&mdash;dropped in. And soon after came three or four high-born
+      foreigners, who had followed into England the exile of the unfortunate
+      Charles X. Their looks, at once proud and sad&mdash;their moustaches
+      curled downward&mdash;their beards permitted to grow&mdash;made at first a
+      strong contrast with the smooth gay Englishmen. But Lilburne, who was fond
+      of French society, and who, when he pleased, could be courteous and
+      agreeable, soon placed the exiles at their ease; and, in the excitement of
+      high play, all differences of mood and humour speedily vanished. Morning
+      was in the skies before they sat down to supper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have been very fortunate to-night, milord,&rdquo; said one of the
+      Frenchmen, with an envious tone of congratulation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, indeed,&rdquo; said another, who, having been several times his host&rsquo;s
+      partner, had won largely, &ldquo;you are the finest player, milord, I ever
+      encountered.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Always excepting Monsieur Deschapelles and&mdash;,&rdquo; replied Lilburne,
+      indifferently. And, turning the conversation, he asked one of the guests
+      why he had not introduced him to a French officer of merit and
+      distinction; &ldquo;With whom,&rdquo; said Lord Lilburne, &ldquo;I understand that you are
+      intimate, and of whom I hear your countrymen very often speak.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean De Vaudemont. Poor fellow!&rdquo; said a middle-aged Frenchman, of a
+      graver appearance than the rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why &lsquo;poor fellow!&rsquo; Monsieur de Liancourt?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was rising so high before the revolution. There was not a braver
+      officer in the army. But he is but a soldier of fortune, and his career is
+      closed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Till the Bourbons return,&rdquo; said another Carlist, playing with his
+      moustache.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will really honour me much by introducing me to him,&rdquo; said Lord
+      Lilburne. &ldquo;De Vaudemont&mdash;it is a good name,&mdash;perhaps, too, he
+      plays at whist.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; observed one of the Frenchmen, &ldquo;I am by no means sure that he has
+      the best right in the world to the name. &lsquo;Tis a strange story.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May I hear it?&rdquo; asked the host.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly. It is briefly this: There was an old Vicomte de Vaudemont
+      about Paris; of good birth, but extremely poor&mdash;a mauvais sujet. He
+      had already had two wives, and run through their fortunes. Being old and
+      ugly, and men who survive two wives having a bad reputation among
+      marriageable ladies at Paris, he found it difficult to get a third.
+      Despairing of the noblesse he went among the bourgeoisie with that hope.
+      His family were kept in perpetual fear of a ridiculous mesalliance. Among
+      these relations was Madame de Merville, whom you may have heard of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame de Merville! Ah, yes! Handsome, was she not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is true. Madame de Merville, whose failing was pride, was known more
+      than once to have bought off the matrimonial inclinations of the amorous
+      vicomte. Suddenly there appeared in her circles a very handsome young man.
+      He was presented formally to her friends as the son of the Vicomte de
+      Vaudemont by his second marriage with an English lady, brought up in
+      England, and now for the first time publicly acknowledged. Some scandal
+      was circulated&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; interrupted Monsieur de Liancourt, very gravely, &ldquo;the scandal was
+      such as all honourable men must stigmatise and despise&mdash;it was only
+      to be traced to some lying lackey&mdash;a scandal that the young man was
+      already the lover of a woman of stainless reputation the very first day
+      that he entered Paris! I answer for the falsity of that report. But that
+      report I own was one that decided not only Madame de Merville, who was a
+      sensitive&mdash;too sensitive a person, but my friend young Vaudemont, to
+      a marriage, from the pecuniary advantages of which he was too
+      high-spirited not to shrink.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Lord Lilburne, &ldquo;then this young De Vaudemont married Madame
+      de Merville?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Liancourt somewhat sadly, &ldquo;it was not so decreed; for
+      Vaudemont, with a feeling which belongs to a gentleman, and which I
+      honour, while deeply and gratefully attached to Madame de Merville,
+      desired that he might first win for himself some honourable distinction
+      before he claimed a hand to which men of fortunes so much higher had
+      aspired in vain. I am not ashamed,&rdquo; he added, after a slight pause, &ldquo;to
+      say that I had been one of the rejected suitors, and that I still revere
+      the memory of Eugenie de Merville. The young man, therefore, was to have
+      entered my regiment. Before, however, he had joined it, and while yet in
+      the full flush of a young man&rsquo;s love for a woman formed to excite the
+      strongest attachment, she&mdash;she&mdash;-&rdquo; The Frenchman&rsquo;s voice
+      trembled, and he resumed with affected composure: &ldquo;Madame de Merville, who
+      had the best and kindest heart that ever beat in a human breast, learned
+      one day that there was a poor widow in the garret of the hotel she
+      inhabited who was dangerously ill&mdash;without medicine and without food&mdash;having
+      lost her only friend and supporter in her husband some time before. In the
+      impulse of the moment, Madame de Merville herself attended this widow&mdash;caught
+      the fever that preyed upon her&mdash;was confined to her bed ten days&mdash;and
+      died as she had lived, in serving others and forgetting self.&mdash;And so
+      much, sir, for the scandal you spoke of!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A warning,&rdquo; observed Lord Lilburne, &ldquo;against trifling with one&rsquo;s health
+      by that vanity of parading a kind heart, which is called charity. If
+      charity, mon cher, begins at home, it is in the drawing-room, not the
+      garret!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Frenchman looked at his host in some disdain, bit his lip, and was
+      silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But still,&rdquo; resumed Lord Lilburne, &ldquo;still it is so probable that your old
+      vicomte had a son; and I can so perfectly understand why he did not wish
+      to be embarrassed with him as long as he could help it, that I do not
+      understand why there should be any doubt of the younger De Vaudemont&rsquo;s
+      parentage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because,&rdquo; said the Frenchman who had first commenced the narrative,&mdash;&ldquo;because
+      the young man refused to take the legal steps to proclaim his birth and
+      naturalise himself a Frenchman; because, no sooner was Madame de Merville
+      dead than he forsook the father he had so newly discovered&mdash;forsook
+      France, and entered with some other officers, under the brave, &amp;m&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;
+      in the service of one of the native princes of India.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But perhaps he was poor,&rdquo; observed Lord Lilburne. &ldquo;A father is a very
+      good thing, and a country is a very good thing, but still a man must have
+      money; and if your father does not do much for you, somehow or other, your
+      country generally follows his example.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; said Liancourt, &ldquo;my friend here has forgotten to say that
+      Madame de Merville had by deed of gift; (though unknown to her lover),
+      before her death, made over to young Vaudemont the bulk of her fortune;
+      and that, when he was informed of this donation after her decease, and
+      sufficiently recovered from the stupor of his grief, he summoned her
+      relations round him, declared that her memory was too dear to him for
+      wealth to console him for her loss, and reserving to himself but a modest
+      and bare sufficiency for the common necessaries of a gentleman, he divided
+      the rest amongst them, and repaired to the East; not only to conquer his
+      sorrow by the novelty and stir of an exciting life, but to carve out with
+      his own hand the reputation of an honourable and brave man. My friend
+      remembered the scandal long buried&mdash;he forgot the generous action.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your friend, you see, my dear Monsieur de Liancourt,&rdquo; remarked Lilburne,
+      &ldquo;is more a man of the world than you are!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I was just going to observe,&rdquo; said the friend thus referred to, &ldquo;that
+      that very action seemed to confirm the rumour that there had been some
+      little manoeuvring as to this unexpected addition to the name of De
+      Vaudemont; for, if himself related to Madame de Merville, why have such
+      scruples to receive her gift?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A very shrewd remark,&rdquo; said Lord Lilburne, looking with some respect at
+      the speaker; &ldquo;and I own that it is a very unaccountable proceeding, and
+      one of which I don&rsquo;t think you or I would ever have been guilty. Well, and
+      the old Vicomte?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did not live long!&rdquo; said the Frenchman, evidently gratified by his host&rsquo;s
+      compliment, while Liancourt threw himself back in his chair in grave
+      displeasure. &ldquo;The young man remained some years in India, and when he
+      returned to Paris, our friend here, Monsieur de Liancourt (then in favour
+      with Charles X.), and Madame de Merville&rsquo;s relations took him up. He had
+      already acquired a reputation in this foreign service, and he obtained a
+      place at the court, and a commission in the king&rsquo;s guards. I allow that he
+      would certainly have made a career, had it not been for the Three Days. As
+      it is, you see him in London, like the rest of us, an exile!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I suppose, without a sous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I believe that he had still saved, and even augmented, in India, the
+      portion he allotted to himself from Madame de Merville&rsquo;s bequest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if he don&rsquo;t play whist, he ought to play it,&rdquo; said Lilburne. &ldquo;You
+      have roused my curiosity; I hope you will let me make his acquaintance,
+      Monsieur de Liancourt. I am no politician, but allow me to propose this
+      toast, &lsquo;Success to those who have the wit to plan, and the strength to
+      execute.&rsquo; In other words, &lsquo;the Right Divine!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon afterwards the guests retired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0040" id="link2HCH0040">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      &ldquo;Ros. Happily, he&rsquo;s the second time come to them.&rdquo;&mdash;Hamlet.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      It was the evening after that in which the conversations recorded in our
+      last chapter were held;&mdash;evening in the quiet suburb of H&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;.
+      The desertion and silence of the metropolis in September had extended to
+      its neighbouring hamlets;&mdash;a village in the heart of the country
+      could scarcely have seemed more still; the lamps were lighted, many of the
+      shops already closed, a few of the sober couples and retired spinsters of
+      the place might, here and there, be seen slowly wandering homeward after
+      their evening walk: two or three dogs, in spite of the prohibitions of the
+      magistrates placarded on the walls,&mdash;(manifestoes which threatened
+      with death the dogs, and predicted more than ordinary madness to the
+      public,)&mdash;were playing in the main road, disturbed from time to time
+      as the slow coach, plying between the city and the suburb, crawled along
+      the thoroughfare, or as the brisk mails whirled rapidly by, announced by
+      the cloudy dust and the guard&rsquo;s lively horn. Gradually even these
+      evidences of life ceased&mdash;the saunterers disappeared, the mails had
+      passed, the dogs gave place to the later and more stealthy perambulations
+      of their feline successors &ldquo;who love the moon.&rdquo; At unfrequent intervals,
+      the more important shops&mdash;the linen-drapers&rsquo;, the chemists&rsquo;, and the
+      gin-palace&mdash;still poured out across the shadowy road their streams of
+      light from windows yet unclosed: but with these exceptions, the business
+      of the place stood still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this time there emerged from a milliner&rsquo;s house (shop, to outward
+      appearance, it was not, evincing its gentility and its degree above the
+      Capelocracy, to use a certain classical neologism, by a brass plate on an
+      oak door, whereon was graven, &ldquo;Miss Semper, Milliner and Dressmaker, from
+      Madame Devy,&rdquo;)&mdash;at this time, I say, and from this house there
+      emerged the light and graceful form of a young female. She held in her
+      left hand a little basket, of the contents of which (for it was empty) she
+      had apparently just disposed; and, as she stepped across the road, the
+      lamplight fell on a face in the first bloom of youth, and characterised by
+      an expression of childlike innocence and candour. It was a face regularly
+      and exquisitely lovely, yet something there was in the aspect that
+      saddened you; you knew not why, for it was not sad itself; on the
+      contrary, the lips smiled and the eyes sparkled. As she now glided along
+      the shadowy street with a light, quick step, a man, who had hitherto been
+      concealed by the portico of an attorney&rsquo;s house, advanced stealthily, and
+      followed her at a little distance. Unconscious that she was dogged, and
+      seemingly fearless of all danger, the girl went lightly on, swinging her
+      basket playfully to and fro, and chaunting, in a low but musical tone,
+      some verses that seemed rather to belong to the nursery than to that age
+      which the fair singer had attained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As she came to an angle which the main street formed with a lane, narrow
+      and partially lighted, a policeman, stationed there, looked hard at her,
+      and then touched his hat with an air of respect, in which there seemed
+      also a little of compassion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good night to you,&rdquo; said the girl, passing him, and with a frank, gay
+      tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I attend you home, Miss?&rdquo; said the man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What for? I am very well!&rdquo; answered the young woman, with an accent and
+      look of innocent surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just at this time the man, who had hitherto followed her, gained the spot,
+      and turned down the lane.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; replied the policeman; &ldquo;but it is getting dark, Miss.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So it is every night when I walk home, unless there&rsquo;s a moon.&mdash;Good-bye.&mdash;The
+      moon,&rdquo; she repeated to herself, as she walked on, &ldquo;I used to be afraid of
+      the moon when I was a little child;&rdquo; and then, after a pause, she
+      murmured, in a low chaunt:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        &ldquo;&lsquo;The moon she is a wandering ghost,
+        That walks in penance nightly;
+        How sad she is, that wandering moon,
+        For all she shines so brightly!
+
+        &ldquo;&lsquo;I watched her eyes when I was young,
+        Until they turned my brain,
+        And now I often weep to think
+        &lsquo;Twill ne&rsquo;er be right again.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      As the murmur of these words died at a distance down the lane in which the
+      girl had disappeared, the policeman, who had paused to listen, shook his
+      head mournfully, and said, while he moved on,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor thing! they should not let her always go about by herself; and yet,
+      who would harm her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile the girl proceeded along the lane, which was skirted by small,
+      but not mean houses, till it terminated in a cross-stile that admitted
+      into a church yard. Here hung the last lamp in the path, and a few dim
+      stars broke palely over the long grass, and scattered gravestones, without
+      piercing the deep shadow which the church threw over a large portion of
+      the sacred ground. Just as she passed the stile, the man, whom we have
+      before noticed, and who had been leaning, as if waiting for some one,
+      against the pales, approached, and said gently,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, Miss! it is a lone place for one so beautiful as you are to be alone.
+      You ought never to be on foot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl stopped, and looked full, but without any alarm in her eyes, into
+      the man&rsquo;s face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go away!&rdquo; she said, with a half-peevish, half-kindly tone of command. &ldquo;I
+      don&rsquo;t know you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I have been sent to speak to you by one who does know you, Miss&mdash;one
+      who loves you to distraction&mdash;he has seen you before at Mrs. West&rsquo;s.
+      He is so grieved to think you should walk&mdash;you ought, he says, to
+      have every luxury&mdash;that he has sent his carriage for you. It is on
+      the other side of the yard. Do come now;&rdquo; and he laid his hand, though
+      very lightly, on her arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At Mrs. West&rsquo;s!&rdquo; she said; and, for the first time, her voice and look
+      showed fear. &ldquo;Go away directly! How dare you touch me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my dear Miss, you have no idea how my employer loves you, and how
+      rich he is. See, he has sent you all this money; it is gold&mdash;real
+      gold. You may have what you like, if you will but come. Now, don&rsquo;t be
+      silly, Miss.&rdquo; The girl made no answer, but, with a sudden spring, passed
+      the man, and ran lightly and rapidly along the path, in an opposite
+      direction from that to which the tempter had pointed, when inviting her to
+      the carriage. The man, surprised, but not baffled, reached her in an
+      instant, and caught hold of her dress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay! you must come&mdash;you must!&rdquo; he said, threateningly; and,
+      loosening his grasp on her shawl, he threw his arm round her waist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t!&rdquo; cried the girl, pleadingly, and apparently subdued, turning her
+      fair, soft face upon her pursuer, and clasping her hands. &ldquo;Be quiet! Fanny
+      is silly! No one is ever rude to poor Fanny!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And no one will be rude to you, Miss,&rdquo; said the man, apparently touched;
+      &ldquo;but I dare not go without you. You don&rsquo;t know what you refuse. Come;&rdquo; and
+      he attempted gently to draw her back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no!&rdquo; said the girl, changing from supplication to anger, and raising
+      her voice into a loud shriek, &ldquo;No! I will&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, then,&rdquo; interrupted the man, looking round anxiously, and, with a
+      quick and dexterous movement he threw a large handkerchief over her face,
+      and, as he held it fast to her lips with one hand, he lifted her from the
+      ground. Still violently struggling, the girl contrived to remove the
+      handkerchief, and once more her shriek of terror rang through the violated
+      sanctuary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that instant a loud deep voice was heard, &ldquo;Who calls?&rdquo; And a tall
+      figure seemed to rise, as from the grave itself, and emerge from the
+      shadow of the church. A moment more, and a strong gripe was laid on the
+      shoulder of the ravisher. &ldquo;What is this? On God&rsquo;s ground, too! Release
+      her, wretch!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man, trembling, half with superstitious, half with bodily fear, let go
+      his captive, who fell at once at the knees of her deliverer. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you
+      hurt me too,&rdquo; she said, as the tears rolled down her eyes. &ldquo;I am a good
+      girl&mdash;and my grandfather&rsquo;s blind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger bent down and raised her; then looking round for the
+      assailant with an eye whose dark fire shone through the gloom, he
+      perceived the coward stealing off. He disdained to pursue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My poor child,&rdquo; said he, with that voice which the strong assume to the
+      weak&mdash;the man to some wounded infant&mdash;the voice of tender
+      superiority and compassion, &ldquo;there is no cause for fear now. Be soothed.
+      Do you live near? Shall I see you home?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you! That&rsquo;s kind. Pray do!&rdquo; And, with an infantine confidence she
+      took his hand, as a child does that of a grown-up person;&mdash;so they
+      walked on together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And,&rdquo; said the stranger, &ldquo;do you know that man? Has he insulted you
+      before?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;don&rsquo;t talk of him: ce me fait mal!&rdquo; And she put her hand to her
+      forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The French was spoken with so French an accent, that, in some curiosity,
+      the stranger cast his eye over her plain dress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You speak French well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do I? I wish I knew more words&mdash;I only recollect a few. When I am
+      very happy or very sad they come into my head. But I am happy now. I like
+      your voice&mdash;I like you&mdash;Oh! I have dropped my basket!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I go back for it, or shall I buy you another?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Another!&mdash;Oh, no! come back for it. How kind you are!&mdash;Ah! I
+      see it!&rdquo; and she broke away and ran forward to pick it up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When she had recovered it, she laughed&mdash;she spoke to it&mdash;she
+      kissed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her companion smiled as he said: &ldquo;Some sweetheart has given you that
+      basket&mdash;it seems but a common basket too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have had it&mdash;oh, ever since&mdash;since&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know how
+      long! It came with me from France&mdash;it was full of little toys. They
+      are gone&mdash;I am so sorry!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How old are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My pretty one,&rdquo; said the stranger, with deep pity in his rich voice,
+      &ldquo;your mother should not let you go out alone at this hour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother!&mdash;mother!&rdquo; repeated the girl, in a tone of surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you no mother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No! I had a father once. But he died, they say. I did not see him die. I
+      sometimes cry when I think that I shall never, never see him again! But,&rdquo;
+       she said, changing her accent from melancholy almost to joy, &ldquo;he is to
+      have a grave here like the other girl&rsquo;s fathers&mdash;a fine stone upon it&mdash;and
+      all to be done with my money!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your money, my child?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; the money I make. I sell my work and take the money to my
+      grandfather; but I lay by a little every week for a gravestone for my
+      father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will the gravestone be placed in that churchyard?&rdquo; They were now in
+      another lane; and, as he spoke, the stranger checked her, and bending down
+      to look into her face, he murmured to himself, &ldquo;Is it possible?&mdash;it
+      must be&mdash;it must!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes! I love that churchyard&mdash;my brother told me to put flowers
+      there; and grandfather and I sit there in the summer, without speaking.
+      But I don&rsquo;t talk much, I like singing better:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        &ldquo;&lsquo;All things that good and harmless are
+        Are taught, they say, to sing
+        The maiden resting at her work,
+        The bird upon the wing;
+        The little ones at church, in prayer;
+        The angels in the sky
+        The angels less when babes are born
+        Than when the aged die.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      And unconscious of the latent moral, dark or cheering, according as we
+      estimate the value of this life, couched in the concluding rhyme, Fanny
+      turned round to the stranger, and said, &ldquo;Why should the angels be glad
+      when the aged die?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That they are released from a false, unjust, and miserable world, in
+      which the first man was a rebel, and the second a murderer!&rdquo; muttered the
+      stranger between his teeth, which he gnashed as he spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl did not understand him: she shook her head gently, and made no
+      reply. A few moments, and she paused before a small house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is my home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is so,&rdquo; said her companion, examining the exterior of the house with
+      an earnest gaze; &ldquo;and your name is Fanny.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;every one knows Fanny. Come in;&rdquo; and the girl opened the door
+      with a latch-key.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger bowed his stately height as he crossed the low threshold and
+      followed his guide into a little parlour. Before a table on which burned
+      dimly, and with unheeded wick, a single candle, sat a man of advanced age;
+      and as he turned his face to the door, the stranger saw that he was blind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl bounded to his chair, passed her arms round the old man&rsquo;s neck,
+      and kissed his forehead; then nestling herself at his feet, and leaning
+      her clasped hands caressingly on his knee, she said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandpapa, I have brought you somebody you must love. He has been so kind
+      to Fanny.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And neither of you can remember me!&rdquo; said the guest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man, whose dull face seemed to indicate dotage, half raised
+      himself at the sound of the stranger&rsquo;s voice. &ldquo;Who is that?&rdquo; said he, with
+      a feeble and querulous voice. &ldquo;Who wants me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am the friend of your lost son. I am he who, ten years go, brought
+      Fanny to your roof, and gave her to your care&mdash;your son&rsquo;s last
+      charge. And you blessed your son, and forgave him, and vowed to be a
+      father to his Fanny.&rdquo; The old man, who had now slowly risen to his feet,
+      trembled violently, and stretched out his hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come near&mdash;near&mdash;let me put my hands on your head. I cannot see
+      you; but Fanny talks of you, and prays for you; and Fanny&mdash;she has
+      been an angel to me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger approached and half knelt as the old man spread his hands
+      over his head, muttering inaudibly. Meanwhile Fanny, pale as death&mdash;her
+      lips apart&mdash;an eager, painful expression on her face&mdash;looked
+      inquiringly on the dark, marked countenance of the visitor, and creeping
+      towards him inch by inch, fearfully touched his dress&mdash;his arms&mdash;his
+      countenance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brother,&rdquo; she said at last, doubtingly and timidly, &ldquo;Brother, I thought I
+      could never forget you! But you are not like my brother; you are older;&mdash;you
+      are&mdash;you are!&mdash;no! no! you are not my brother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am much changed, Fanny; and you too!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled as he spoke; and the smile&mdash;sweet and pitying&mdash;thoroughly
+      changed the character of his face, which was ordinarily stern, grave, and
+      proud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know you now!&rdquo; exclaimed Fanny, in a tone of wild joy. &ldquo;And you come
+      back from that grave! My flowers have brought you back at last! I knew
+      they would! Brother! Brother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she threw herself on his breast and burst into passionate tears. Then,
+      suddenly drawing herself back, she laid her finger on his arm, and looked
+      up at him beseechingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pray, now, is he really dead? He, my father!&mdash;he, too, was lost like
+      you. Can&rsquo;t he come back again as you have done?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you grieve for him still, then? Poor girl!&rdquo; said the stranger,
+      evasively, and seating himself. Fanny continued to listen for an answer to
+      her touching question; but finding that none was given, she stole away to
+      a corner of the room, and leaned her face on her hands, and seemed to
+      think&mdash;till at last, as she so sat, the tears began to flow down her
+      cheeks, and she wept, but silently and unnoticed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, sir,&rdquo; said the guest, after a short pause, &ldquo;how is this? Fanny tells
+      me she supports you by her work. Are you so poor, then? Yet I left you
+      your son&rsquo;s bequest; and you, too, I understood, though not rich, were not
+      in want!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was a curse on my gold,&rdquo; said the old man, sternly. &ldquo;It was stolen
+      from us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was another pause. Simon broke it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you, young man&mdash;how has it fared with you? You have prospered, I
+      hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am as I have been for years&mdash;alone in the world, without kindred
+      and without friends. But, thanks to Heaven, I am not a beggar!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No kindred and no friends!&rdquo; repeated the old man. &ldquo;No father&mdash;no
+      brother&mdash;no wife&mdash;no sister!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None! No one to care whether I live or die,&rdquo; answered the stranger, with
+      a mixture of pride and sadness in his voice. &ldquo;But, as the song has it&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+          &ldquo;&lsquo;I care for nobody&mdash;no, not I,
+          For nobody cares for me!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      There was a certain pathos in the mockery with which he repeated the
+      homely lines, although, as he did, he gathered himself up, as if conscious
+      of a certain consolation and reliance on the resources not dependent on
+      others which he had found in his own strong limbs and his own stout heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment he felt a soft touch upon his hand, and he saw Fanny
+      looking at him through the tears that still flowed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have no one to care for you? Don&rsquo;t say so! Come and live with us,
+      brother; we&rsquo;ll care for you. I have never forgotten the flowers&mdash;never!
+      Do come! Fanny shall love you. Fanny can work for three!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And they call her an idiot!&rdquo; mumbled the old man, with a vacant smile on
+      his lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My sister! You shall be my sister! Forlorn one&mdash;whom even Nature has
+      fooled and betrayed! Sister!&mdash;we, both orphans! Sister!&rdquo; exclaimed
+      that dark, stern man, passionately, and with a broken voice; and he opened
+      his arms, and Fanny, without a blush or a thought of shame, threw herself
+      on his breast. He kissed her forehead with a kiss that was, indeed, pure
+      and holy as a brother&rsquo;s: and Fanny felt that he had left upon her cheek a
+      tear that was not her own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, with an altered voice, and taking the old man&rsquo;s hand,
+      &ldquo;what say you? Shall I take up my lodging with you? I have a little money;
+      I can protect and aid you both. I shall be often away&mdash;in London or
+      else where&mdash;and will not intrude too much on you. But you blind, and
+      she&mdash;(here he broke off the sentence abruptly and went on)&mdash;you
+      should not be left alone. And this neighbourhood, that burial-place, are
+      dear to me. I, too, Fanny, have lost a parent; and that grave&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused, and then added, in a trembling voice, &ldquo;And you have placed
+      flowers over that grave?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay with us,&rdquo; said the blind man; &ldquo;not for our sake, but your own. The
+      world is a bad place. I have been long sick of the world. Yes! come and
+      live near the burial-ground&mdash;the nearer you are to the grave, the
+      safer you are;&mdash;and you have a little money, you say!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will come to-morrow, then. I must return now. Tomorrow, Fanny, we shall
+      meet again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Must you go?&rdquo; said Fanny, tenderly. &ldquo;But you will come again; you know I
+      used to think every one died when he left me. I am wiser now. Yet still,
+      when you do leave me, it is true that you die for Fanny!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment, as the three persons were grouped, each had assumed a
+      posture of form, an expression of face, which a painter of fitting
+      sentiment and skill would have loved to study. The visitor had gained the
+      door; and as he stood there, his noble height&mdash;the magnificent
+      strength and health of his manhood in its full prime&mdash;contrasted
+      alike the almost spectral debility of extreme age and the graceful
+      delicacy of Fanny&mdash;half girl, half child. There was something foreign
+      in his air&mdash;and the half military habit, relieved by the red riband
+      of the Bourbon knighthood. His complexion was dark as that of a Moor, and
+      his raven hair curled close to the stately head. The soldier-moustache&mdash;thick,
+      but glossy as silk-shaded the firm lip; and the pointed beard, assumed by
+      the exiled Carlists, heightened the effect of the strong and haughty
+      features and the expression of the martial countenance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as Fanny&rsquo;s voice died on his ear, he half averted that proud face; and
+      the dark eyes&mdash;almost Oriental in their brilliancy and depth of shade&mdash;seemed
+      soft and humid. And there stood Fanny, in a posture of such unconscious
+      sadness&mdash;such childlike innocence; her arms drooping&mdash;her face
+      wistfully turned to his&mdash;and a half smile upon the lips, that made
+      still more touching the tears not yet dried upon her cheeks. While thin,
+      frail, shadowy, with white hair and furrowed cheeks, the old man fixed his
+      sightless orbs on space; and his face, usually only animated from the
+      lethargy of advancing dotage by a certain querulous cynicism, now grew
+      suddenly earnest, and even thoughtful, as Fanny spoke of Death!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0041" id="link2HCH0041">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        &ldquo;Ulyss. Time hath a wallet at his back
+        Wherein he puts alms for oblivion.
+        * * Perseverance, dear my lord,
+        Keeps honour bright.&rdquo;&mdash;Troilus and Cressida.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I have not sought&mdash;as would have been easy, by a little ingenuity in
+      the earlier portion of this narrative&mdash;whatever source of vulgar
+      interest might be derived from the mystery of names and persons. As in
+      Charles Spencer the reader is allowed at a glance to detect Sidney Morton,
+      so in Philip de Vaudemont (the stranger who rescued Fanny) the reader at
+      once recognises the hero of my tale; but since neither of these young men
+      has a better right to the name resigned than to the name adopted, it will
+      be simpler and more convenient to designate them by those appellations by
+      which they are now known to the world. In truth, Philip de Vaudemont was
+      scarcely the same being as Philip Morton. In the short visit he had paid
+      to the elder Gawtrey, when he consigned Fanny to his charge, he had given
+      no name; and the one he now took (when, towards the evening of the next
+      day he returned to Simon&rsquo;s house) the old man heard for the first time.
+      Once more sunk into his usual apathy, Simon did not express any surprise
+      that a Frenchman should be so well acquainted with English&mdash;he
+      scarcely observed that the name was French. Simon&rsquo;s age seemed daily to
+      bring him more and more to that state when life is mere mechanism, and the
+      soul, preparing for its departure, no longer heeds the tenement that
+      crumbles silently and neglected into its lonely dust. Vaudemont came with
+      but little luggage (for he had an apartment also in London), and no
+      attendant,&mdash;a single horse was consigned to the stables of an inn at
+      hand, and he seemed, as soldiers are, more careful for the comforts of the
+      animal than his own. There was but one woman servant in the humble
+      household, who did all the ruder work, for Fanny&rsquo;s industry could afford
+      it. The solitary servant and the homely fare sufficed for the simple and
+      hardy adventurer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fanny, with a countenance radiant with joy, took his hand and led him to
+      his room. Poor child! with that instinct of woman which never deserted
+      her, she had busied herself the whole day in striving to deck the chamber
+      according to her own notions of comfort. She had stolen from her little
+      hoard wherewithal to make some small purchases, on which the Dowbiggin of
+      the suburb had been consulted. And what with flowers on the table, and a
+      fire at the hearth, the room looked cheerful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She watched him as he glanced around, and felt disappointed that he did
+      not utter the admiration she expected. Angry at last with the indifference
+      which, in fact, as to external accommodation, was habitual to him, she
+      plucked his sleeve, and said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you speak? Is it not nice?&mdash;Fanny did her best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And a thousand thanks to Fanny! It is all I could wish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is another room, bigger than this, but the wicked woman who robbed
+      us slept there; and besides, you said you liked the churchyard. See!&rdquo; and
+      she opened the window and pointed to the church-tower rising dark against
+      the evening sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is better than all!&rdquo; said Vaudemont; and he looked out from the
+      window in a silent reverie, which Fanny did not disturb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now he was settled! From a career so wild, agitated, and various, the
+      adventurer paused in that humble resting-nook. But quiet is not repose&mdash;obscurity
+      is not content. Often as, morn and eve, he looked forth upon the spot,
+      where his mother&rsquo;s heart, unconscious of love and woe, mouldered away, the
+      indignant and bitter feelings of the wronged outcast and the son who could
+      not clear the mother&rsquo;s name swept away the subdued and gentle melancholy
+      into which time usually softens regret for the dead, and with which most
+      of us think of the distant past, and the once joyous childhood!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this man&rsquo;s breast lay, concealed by his external calm, those memories
+      and aspirations which are as strong as passions. In his earlier years,
+      when he had been put to hard shifts for existence, he had found no leisure
+      for close and brooding reflection upon that spoliation of just rights&mdash;that
+      calumny upon his mother&rsquo;s name, which had first brought the Night into his
+      Morning. His resentment towards the Beauforts, it is true, had ever been
+      an intense but a fitful and irregular passion. It was exactly in
+      proportion as, by those rare and romantic incidents which Fiction cannot
+      invent, and which Narrative takes with diffidence from the great
+      Store-house of Real Life, his steps had ascended in the social ladder&mdash;that
+      all which his childhood had lost&mdash;all which the robbers of his
+      heritage had gained, the grandeur and the power of WEALTH&mdash;above all,
+      the hourly and the tranquil happiness of a stainless name, became palpable
+      and distinct. He had loved Eugenie as a boy loves for the first time an
+      accomplished woman. He regarded her, so refined&mdash;so gentle&mdash;so
+      gifted, with the feelings due to a superior being, with an eternal
+      recollection of the ministering angel that had shone upon him when he
+      stood on the dark abyss. She was the first that had redeemed his fate&mdash;the
+      first that had guided aright his path&mdash;the first that had tamed the
+      savage at his breast:&mdash;it was the young lion charmed by the eyes of
+      Una. The outline of his story had been truly given at Lord Lilburne&rsquo;s.
+      Despite his pride, which revolted from such obligations to another, and a
+      woman&mdash;which disliked and struggled against a disguise which at once
+      and alone saved him from the detection of the past and the terrors of the
+      future&mdash;he had yielded to her, the wise and the gentle, as one whose
+      judgment he could not doubt; and, indeed, the slanderous falsehoods
+      circulated by the lackey, to whose discretion, the night of Gawtrey&rsquo;s
+      death, Eugenie had preferred to confide her own honour, rather than
+      another&rsquo;s life, had (as Liancourt rightly stated) left Philip no option
+      but that which Madame de Merville deemed the best, whether for her
+      happiness or her good name. Then had followed a brief season&mdash;the
+      holiday of his life&mdash;the season of young hope and passion, of
+      brilliancy and joy, closing by that abrupt death which again left him
+      lonely in the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, from the grief that succeeded to the death of Eugenie, he woke to
+      find himself amidst the strange faces and exciting scenes of an Oriental
+      court, he turned with hard and disgustful contempt from Pleasure, as an
+      infidelity to the dead. Ambition crept over him&mdash;his mind hardened as
+      his cheek bronzed under those burning suns&mdash;his hardy frame, his
+      energies prematurely awakened, his constitutional disregard to danger,&mdash;made
+      him a brave and skilful soldier. He acquired reputation and rank. But, as
+      time went on, the ambition took a higher flight&mdash;he felt his sphere
+      circumscribed; the Eastern indolence that filled up the long intervals
+      between Eastern action chafed a temper never at rest: he returned to
+      France: his reputation, Liancourt&rsquo;s friendship, and the relations of
+      Eugenie&mdash;grateful, as has before been implied, for the generosity
+      with which he surrendered the principal part of her donation&mdash;opened
+      for him a new career, but one painful and galling. In the Indian court
+      there was no question of his birth&mdash;one adventurer was equal with the
+      rest. But in Paris, a man attempting to rise provoked all the sarcasm of
+      wit, all the cavils of party; and in polished and civil life, what valour
+      has weapons against a jest? Thus, in civilisation, all the passions that
+      spring from humiliated self-love and baffled aspiration again preyed upon
+      his breast. He saw, then, that the more he struggled from obscurity, the
+      more acute would become research into his true origin; and his writhing
+      pride almost stung to death his ambition. To succeed in life by regular
+      means was indeed difficult for this man; always recoiling from the name he
+      bore&mdash;always strong in the hope yet to regain that to which he
+      conceived himself entitled&mdash;cherishing that pride of country which
+      never deserts the native of a Free State, however harsh a parent she may
+      have proved; and, above all, whatever his ambition and his passions,
+      taking, from the very misfortunes he had known, an indomitable belief in
+      the ultimate justice of Heaven;&mdash;he had refused to sever the last
+      ties that connected him with his lost heritage and his forsaken land&mdash;he
+      refused to be naturalised&mdash;to make the name he bore legally
+      undisputed&mdash;he was contented to be an alien. Neither was Vaudemont
+      fitted exactly for that crisis in the social world when the men of
+      journals and talk bustle aside the men of action. He had not cultivated
+      literature, he had no book-knowledge&mdash;the world had been his school,
+      and stern life his teacher. Still, eminently skilled in those physical
+      accomplishments which men admire and soldiers covet, calm and
+      self-possessed in manner, of great personal advantages, of much ready
+      talent and of practised observation in character, he continued to breast
+      the obstacles around him, and to establish himself in the favour of those
+      in power. It was natural to a person so reared and circumstanced to have
+      no sympathy with what is called the popular cause. He was no citizen in
+      the state&mdash;he was a stranger in the land. He had suffered and still
+      suffered too much from mankind to have that philanthropy, sometimes
+      visionary but always noble, which, in fact, generally springs from the
+      studies we cultivate, not in the forum, but the closet. Men, alas! too
+      often lose the Democratic Enthusiasm in proportion as they find reason to
+      suspect or despise their kind. And if there were not hopes for the Future,
+      which this hard, practical daily life does not suffice to teach us, the
+      vision and the glory that belong to the Great Popular Creed, dimmed
+      beneath the injustice, the follies, and the vices of the world as it is,
+      would fade into the lukewarm sectarianism of temporary Party. Moreover,
+      Vaudemont&rsquo;s habits of thought and reasoning were those of the camp,
+      confirmed by the systems familiar to him in the East: he regarded the
+      populace as a soldier enamoured of discipline and order usually does. His
+      theories, therefore, or rather his ignorance of what is sound in theory,
+      went with Charles the Tenth in his excesses, but not with the timidity
+      which terminated those excesses by dethronement and disgrace. Chafed to
+      the heart, gnawed with proud grief, he obeyed the royal mandates, and
+      followed the exiled monarch: his hopes overthrown, his career in France
+      annihilated forever. But on entering England, his temper, confident and
+      ready of resource, fastened itself on new food. In the land where he had
+      no name he might yet rebuild his fortunes. It was an arduous effort&mdash;an
+      improbable hope; but the words heard by the bridge of Paris&mdash;words
+      that had often cheered him in his exile through hardships and through
+      dangers which it is unnecessary to our narrative to detail&mdash;yet rung
+      again in his ear, as he leaped on his native land,&mdash;&ldquo;Time, Faith,
+      Energy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While such his character in the larger and more distant relations of life,
+      in the closer circles of companionship many rare and noble qualities were
+      visible. It is true that he was stern, perhaps imperious&mdash;of a temper
+      that always struggled for command; but he was deeply susceptible of
+      kindness, and, if feared by those who opposed, loved by those who served
+      him. About his character was that mixture of tenderness and fierceness
+      which belonged, of old, to the descriptions of the warrior. Though so
+      little unlettered, Life had taught him a certain poetry of sentiment and
+      idea&mdash;More poetry, perhaps, in the silent thoughts that, in his
+      happier moments, filled his solitude, than in half the pages that his
+      brother had read and written by the dreaming lake. A certain largeness of
+      idea and nobility of impulse often made him act the sentiments of which
+      bookmen write. With all his passions, he held licentiousness in disdain;
+      with all his ambition for the power of wealth, he despised its luxury.
+      Simple, masculine, severe, abstemious, he was of that mould in which, in
+      earlier times, the successful men of action have been cast. But to
+      successful action, circumstance is more necessary than to triumphant
+      study.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was to be expected that, in proportion as he had been familiar with a
+      purer and nobler life, he should look with great and deep self-humiliation
+      at his early association with Gawtrey. He was in this respect more severe
+      on himself than any other mind ordinarily just and candid would have been,&mdash;when
+      fairly surveying the circumstances of penury, hunger, and despair, which
+      had driven him to Gawtrey&rsquo;s roof, the imperfect nature of his early
+      education, the boyish trust and affection he had felt for his protector,
+      and his own ignorance of, and exemption from, all the worst practices of
+      that unhappy criminal. But still, when, with the knowledge he had now
+      acquired, the man looked calmly back, his cheek burned with remorseful
+      shame at his unreflecting companionship in a life of subterfuge and
+      equivocation, the true nature of which, the boy (so circumstanced as we
+      have shown him) might be forgiven for not at that time comprehending. Two
+      advantages resulted, however, from the error and the remorse: first, the
+      humiliation it brought curbed, in some measure, a pride that might
+      otherwise have been arrogant and unamiable, and, secondly, as I have
+      before intimated, his profound gratitude to Heaven for his deliverance
+      from the snares that had beset his youth gave his future the guide of an
+      earnest and heartfelt faith. He acknowledged in life no such thing as
+      accident. Whatever his struggles, whatever his melancholy, whatever his
+      sense of worldly wrong, he never despaired; for nothing now could shake
+      his belief in one directing Providence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ways and habits of Vaudemont were not at discord with those of the
+      quiet household in which he was now a guest. Like most men of strong
+      frames, and accustomed to active, not studious pursuits, he rose early;&mdash;and
+      usually rode to London, to come back late at noon to their frugal meal.
+      And if again, perhaps after the hour when Fanny and Simon retired, he
+      would often return to London, his own pass-key re-admitted him, at
+      whatever time he came back, without disturbing the sleep of the household.
+      Sometimes, when the sun began to decline, if the air was warm, the old man
+      would crawl out, leaning on that strong arm, through the neighbouring
+      lanes, ever returning through the lonely burial-ground; or when the blind
+      host clung to his fireside, and composed himself to sleep, Philip would
+      saunter forth along with Fanny; and on the days when she went to sell her
+      work, or select her purchases, he always made a point of attending her.
+      And her cheek wore a flush of pride when she saw him carrying her little
+      basket, or waiting without, in musing patience, while she performed her
+      commissions in the shops. Though in reality Fanny&rsquo;s intellect was ripening
+      within, yet still the surface often misled the eye as to the depths. It
+      was rather that something yet held back the faculties from their growth
+      than that the faculties themselves were wanting. Her weakness was more of
+      the nature of the infant&rsquo;s than of one afflicted with incurable
+      imbecility. For instance, she managed the little household with skill and
+      prudence; she could calculate in her head, as rapidly as Vaudemont
+      himself, the arithmetic necessary to her simple duties; she knew the value
+      of money, which is more than some of us wise folk do. Her skill, even in
+      her infancy so remarkable, in various branches of female handiwork, was
+      carried, not only by perseverance, but by invention and peculiar talent,
+      to a marvellous and exquisite perfection. Her embroidery, especially in
+      what was then more rare than at present, viz., flowers on silk, was much
+      in request among the great modistes of London, to whom it found its way
+      through the agency of Miss Semper. So that all this had enabled her, for
+      years, to provide every necessary comfort of life for herself and her
+      blind protector. And her care for the old man was beautiful in its
+      minuteness, its vigilance. Wherever her heart was interested, there never
+      seemed a deficiency of mind. Vaudemont was touched to see how much of
+      affectionate and pitying respect she appeared to enjoy in the
+      neighbourhood, especially among the humbler classes&mdash;even the beggar
+      who swept the crossings did not beg of her, but bade God bless her as she
+      passed; and the rude, discontented artisan would draw himself from the
+      wall and answer, with a softened brow, the smile with which the harmless
+      one charmed his courtesy. In fact, whatever attraction she took from her
+      youth, her beauty, her misfortune, and her affecting industry, was
+      heightened, in the eyes of the poorer neighbours, by many little traits of
+      charity and kindness; many a sick child had she tended, and many a
+      breadless board had stolen something from the stock set aside for her
+      father&rsquo;s grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you think,&rdquo; she once whispered to Vaudemont, &ldquo;that God attends to
+      us more if we are good to those who are sick and hungry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly we are taught to think so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;ll tell you a secret&mdash;don&rsquo;t tell again. Grandpapa once said
+      that my father had done bad things; now, if Fanny is good to those she can
+      help, I think that God will hear her more kindly when she prays him to
+      forgive what her father did. Do you think so too? Do say&mdash;you are so
+      wise!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fanny, you are wiser than all of us; and I feel myself better and happier
+      when I hear you speak.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There were, indeed, many moments when Vaudemont thought that her
+      deficiencies of intellect might have been repaired, long since, by skilful
+      culture and habitual companionship with those of her own age; from which
+      companionship, however, Fanny, even when at school, had shrunk aloof. At
+      other moments there was something so absent and distracted about her, or
+      so fantastic and incoherent, that Vaudemont, with the man&rsquo;s hard, worldly
+      eye, read in it nothing but melancholy confusion. Nevertheless, if the
+      skein of ideas was entangled, each thread in itself was a thread of gold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fanny&rsquo;s great object&mdash;her great ambition&mdash;her one hope&mdash;was
+      a tomb for her supposed father. Whether from some of that early religion
+      attached to the grave, which is most felt in Catholic countries, and which
+      she had imbibed at the convent; or from her residence so near the burial
+      ground, and the affection with which she regarded the spot;&mdash;whatever
+      the cause, she had cherished for some years, as young maidens usually
+      cherish the desire of the Altar&mdash;the dream of the Gravestone. But the
+      hoard was amassed so slowly;&mdash;now old Gawtrey was attacked by
+      illness;&mdash;now there was some little difficulty in the rent; now some
+      fluctuation in the price of work; and now, and more often than all, some
+      demand on her charity, which interfered with, and drew from, the pious
+      savings. This was a sentiment in which her new friend sympathised deeply;
+      for he, too, remembered that his first gold had bought that humble stone
+      which still preserved upon the earth the memory of his mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, days crept on, and no new violence was offered to Fanny.
+      Vaudemont learned, then, by little and little&mdash;and Fanny&rsquo;s account
+      was very confused&mdash;the nature of the danger she had run.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed that one day, tempted by the fineness of the weather up the road
+      that led from the suburb farther into the country, Fanny was stopped by a
+      gentleman in a carriage, who accosted her, as she said, very kindly: and
+      after several questions, which she answered with her usual unsuspecting
+      innocence, learned her trade, insisted on purchasing some articles of work
+      which she had at the moment in her basket, and promised to procure her a
+      constant purchaser, upon much better terms than she had hitherto obtained,
+      if she would call at the house of a Mrs. West, about a mile from the
+      suburb towards London. This she promised to do, and this she did,
+      according to the address he gave her. She was admitted to a lady more
+      gaily dressed than Fanny had ever seen a lady before,&mdash;the gentleman
+      was also present,&mdash;they both loaded her with compliments, and bought
+      her work at a price which seemed about to realise all the hopes of the
+      poor girl as to the gravestone for William Gawtrey,&mdash;as if his evil
+      fate pursued that wild man beyond the grave, and his very tomb was to be
+      purchased by the gold of the polluter! The lady then appointed her to call
+      again; but, meanwhile, she met Fanny in the streets, and while she was
+      accosting her, it fortunately chanced that Miss Semper the milliner passed
+      that way&mdash;turned round, looked hard at the lady, used very angry
+      language to her, seized Fanny&rsquo;s hand, led her away while the lady slunk
+      off; and told her that the said lady was a very bad woman, and that Fanny
+      must never speak to her again. Fanny most cheerfully promised this. And,
+      in fact, the lady, probably afraid, whether of the mob or the magistrates,
+      never again came near her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And,&rdquo; said Fanny, &ldquo;I gave the money they had both given to me to Miss
+      Semper, who said she would send it back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did right, Fanny; and as you made one promise to Miss Semper, so you
+      must make me one&mdash;never to stir from home again without me or some
+      other person. No, no other person&mdash;only me. I will give up everything
+      else to go with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you? Oh, yes. I promise! I used to like going alone, but that was
+      before you came, brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And as Fanny kept her promise, it would have been a bold gallant indeed
+      who would have ventured to molest her by the side of that stately and
+      strong protector.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0042" id="link2HCH0042">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Timon. Each thing&rsquo;s a thief
+     The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough power
+     Have unchecked theft.
+
+     The sweet degrees that this brief world affords,
+     To such as may the passive drugs of it
+     Freely command.&rdquo;&mdash;Timon of Athens.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      On the day and at the hour fixed for the interview with the stranger who
+      had visited Mr. Beaufort, Lord Lilburne was seated in the library of his
+      brother-in-law; and before the elbow-chair, on which he lolled carelessly,
+      stood our old friend Mr. Sharp, of Bow Street notability.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Sharp,&rdquo; said the peer, &ldquo;I have sent for you to do me a little favour.
+      I expect a man here who professes to give Mr. Beaufort, my brother-in-law,
+      some information about a lawsuit. It is necessary to know the exact value
+      of his evidence. I wish you to ascertain all particulars about him. Be so
+      good as to seat yourself in the porter&rsquo;s chair in the hall; note him when
+      he enters, unobserved yourself&mdash;but as he is probably a stranger to
+      you, note him still more when he leaves the house; follow him at a
+      distance; find out where he lives, whom he associates with, where he
+      visits, their names and directions, what his character and calling are;&mdash;in
+      a word, everything you can, and report to me each evening. Dog him well,
+      never lose sight of him&mdash;you will be handsomely paid. You
+      understand?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Mr. Sharp, &ldquo;leave me alone, my lord. Been employed before by
+      your lordship&rsquo;s brother-in-law. We knows what&rsquo;s what.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t doubt it. To your post&mdash;I expect him every moment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And, in fact, Mr. Sharp had only just ensconced himself in the porter&rsquo;s
+      chair when the stranger knocked at the door&mdash;in another moment he was
+      shown in to Lord Lilburne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; said his lordship, without rising, &ldquo;be so good as to take a chair.
+      Mr. Beaufort is obliged to leave town&mdash;he has asked me to see you&mdash;I
+      am one of his family&mdash;his wife is my sister&mdash;you may be as frank
+      with me as with him,&mdash;more so, perhaps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg the fauvour of your name, sir,&rdquo; said the stranger, adjusting his
+      collar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yours first&mdash;business is business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, Captain Smith.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of what regiment?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Half-pay.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am Lord Lilburne. Your name is Smith&mdash;humph!&rdquo; added the peer,
+      looking over some notes before him. &ldquo;I see it is also the name of the
+      witness appealed to by Mrs. Morton&mdash;humph!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this remark, and still more at the look which accompanied it, the
+      countenance, before impudent and complacent, of Captain Smith fell into
+      visible embarrassment; he cleared his throat and said, with a little
+      hesitation,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord, that witness is living!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt of it&mdash;witnesses never die where property is concerned and
+      imposture intended.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment the servant entered, and placed a little note, quaintly
+      folded, before Lord Lilburne. He glanced at it in surprise&mdash;opened,
+      and read as follows, in pencil,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My LORD,&mdash;I knows the man; take caer of him; he is as big a roge as
+      ever stept; he was transported some three year back, and unless his time
+      has been shortened by the Home, he&rsquo;s absent without leve. We used to call
+      him Dashing Jerry. That ere youngster we went arter, by Mr. Bofort&rsquo;s wish,
+      was a pall of his. Scuze the liberty I take.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;J. SHARP.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While Lord Lilburne held this effusion to the candle, and spelled his way
+      through it, Captain Smith, recovering his self-composure, thus proceeded:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Imposture, my lord! imposture! I really don&rsquo;t understand. Your lordship
+      really seems so suspicious, that it is quite uncomfortable. I am sure it
+      is all the same to me; and if Mr. Beaufort does not think proper to see me
+      himself, why I&rsquo;d best make my bow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Captain Smith rose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay a moment, sir. What Mr. Beaufort may yet do, I cannot say; but I
+      know this, you stand charged of a very grave offence, and if your witness
+      or witnesses&mdash;you may have fifty, for what I care&mdash;are equally
+      guilty, so much the worse for them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord, I really don&rsquo;t comprehend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I will be more plain. I accuse you of devising an infamous falsehood
+      for the purpose of extorting money. Let your witnesses appear in court,
+      and I promise that you, they, and the young man, Mr. Morton, whose claim
+      they set up, shall be indicted for conspiracy&mdash;conspiracy, if
+      accompanied (as in the case of your witnesses) with perjury, of the
+      blackest die. Mr. Smith, I know you; and, before ten o&rsquo;clock to-morrow, I
+      shall know also if you had his majesty&rsquo;s leave to quit the colonies! Ah! I
+      am plain enough now, I see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Lord Lilburne threw himself back in his chair, and coldly contemplated
+      the white face and dismayed expression of the crestfallen captain. That
+      most worthy person, after a pause of confusion, amaze, and fear, made an
+      involuntary stride, with a menacing gesture, towards Lilburne; the peer
+      quietly placed his hand on the bell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One moment more,&rdquo; said the latter; &ldquo;if I ring this bell, it is to place
+      you in custody. Let Mr. Beaufort but see you here once again&mdash;nay,
+      let him but hear another word of this pretended lawsuit&mdash;and you
+      return to the colonies. Pshaw! Frown not at me, sir! A Bow Street officer
+      is in the hall. Begone!&mdash;no, stop one moment, and take a lesson in
+      life. Never again attempt to threaten people of property and station.
+      Around every rich man is a wall&mdash;better not run your head against
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I swear solemnly,&rdquo; cried the knave, with an emphasis so startling
+      that it carried with it the appearance of truth, &ldquo;that the marriage did
+      take place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I say, no less solemnly, that any one who swears it in a court of law
+      shall be prosecuted for perjury! Bah! you are a sorry rogue, after all!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And with an air of supreme and half-compassionate contempt, Lord Lilburne
+      turned away and stirred the fire. Captain Smith muttered and fumbled a
+      moment with his gloves, then shrugged his shoulders and sneaked out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That night Lord Lilburne again received his friends, and amongst his
+      guests came Vaudemont. Lilburne was one who liked the study of character,
+      especially the character of men wrestling against the world. Wholly free
+      from every species of ambition, he seemed to reconcile himself to his
+      apathy by examining into the disquietude, the mortification, the heart&rsquo;s
+      wear and tear, which are the lot of the ambitious. Like the spider in his
+      hole, he watched with hungry pleasure the flies struggling in the web;
+      through whose slimy labyrinth he walked with an easy safety. Perhaps one
+      reason why he loved gaming was less from the joy of winning than the
+      philosophical complacency with which he feasted on the emotions of those
+      who lost; always serene, and, except in debauch, always passionless,&mdash;Majendie,
+      tracing the experiments of science in the agonies of some tortured dog,
+      could not be more rapt in the science, and more indifferent to the dog,
+      than Lord Lilburne, ruining a victim, in the analysis of human passions,&mdash;stoical
+      in the writhings of the wretch whom he tranquilly dissected. He wished to
+      win money of Vaudemont&mdash;to ruin this man, who presumed to be more
+      generous than other people&mdash;to see a bold adventurer submitted to the
+      wheel of the Fortune which reigns in a pack of cards;&mdash;and all, of
+      course, without the least hate to the man whom he then saw for the first
+      time. On the contrary, he felt a respect for Vaudemont. Like most worldly
+      men, Lord Lilburne was prepossessed in favour of those who seek to rise in
+      life: and like men who have excelled in manly and athletic exercises, he
+      was also prepossessed in favour of those who appeared fitted for the same
+      success.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Liancourt took aside his friend, as Lord Lilburne was talking with his
+      other guests:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I need not caution you, who never play, not to commit yourself to Lord
+      Lilburne&rsquo;s tender mercies; remember, he is an admirable player.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay,&rdquo; answered Vaudemont, &ldquo;I want to know this man: I have reasons, which
+      alone induce me to enter his house. I can afford to venture something,
+      because I wish to see if I can gain something for one dear to me. And for
+      the rest (he muttered)&mdash;I know him too well not to be on my guard.&rdquo;
+       With that he joined Lord Lilburne&rsquo;s group, and accepted the invitation to
+      the card-table. At supper, Vaudemont conversed more than was habitual to
+      him; he especially addressed himself to his host, and listened, with great
+      attention, to Lilburne&rsquo;s caustic comments upon every topic successively
+      started. And whether it was the art of De Vaudemont, or from an interest
+      that Lord Lilburne took in studying what was to him a new character,&mdash;or
+      whether that, both men excelling peculiarly in all masculine
+      accomplishments, their conversation was of a nature that was more
+      attractive to themselves than to others; it so happened that they were
+      still talking while the daylight already peered through the
+      window-curtains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I have outstayed all your guests,&rdquo; said De Vaudemont, glancing round
+      the emptied room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the best compliment you could pay me. Another night we can enliven
+      our tete-a-tete with ecarte; though at your age, and with your appearance,
+      I am surprised, Monsieur de Vaudemont, that you are fond of play: I should
+      have thought that it was not in a pack of cards that you looked for
+      hearts. But perhaps you are <i>blase </i>betimes of the <i>beau sexe</i>.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet your lordship&rsquo;s devotion to it is, perhaps, as great now as ever?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mine?&mdash;no, not as ever. To different ages different degrees. At your
+      age I wooed; at mine I purchase&mdash;the better plan of the two: it does
+      not take up half so much time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your marriage, I think, Lord Lilburne, was not blessed with children.
+      Perhaps sometimes you feel the want of them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I did, I could have them by the dozen. Other ladies have been more
+      generous in that department than the late Lady Lilburne, Heaven rest her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And,&rdquo; said Vaudemont, fixing his eyes with some earnestness on his host,
+      &ldquo;if you were really persuaded that you had a child, or perhaps a
+      grandchild&mdash;the mother one whom you loved in your first youth&mdash;a
+      child affectionate, beautiful, and especially needing your care and
+      protection, would you not suffer that child, though illegitimate, to
+      supply to you the want of filial affection?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Filial affection, mon cher!&rdquo; repeated Lord Lilburne, &ldquo;needing my care and
+      protection! Pshaw! In other words, would I give board and lodging to some
+      young vagabond who was good enough to say he was son to Lord Lilburne?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if you were convinced that the claimant were your son, or perhaps
+      your daughter&mdash;a tenderer name of the two, and a more helpless
+      claimant?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Monsieur de Vaudemont, you are doubtless a man of gallantry and
+      of the world. If the children whom the law forces on one are, nine times
+      out of ten, such damnable plagues, judge if one would father those whom
+      the law permits us to disown! Natural children are the pariahs of the
+      world, and I&mdash;am one of the Brahmans.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; persisted Vaudemont, &ldquo;forgive me if I press the question farther.
+      Perhaps I seek from your wisdom a guide to my own conduct;&mdash;suppose,
+      then, a man had loved, had wronged, the mother;&mdash;suppose that in the
+      child he saw one who, without his aid, might be exposed to every curse
+      with which the pariahs (true, the pariahs!) of the world are too often
+      visited, and who with his aid might become, as age advanced, his
+      companion, his nurse, his comforter&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tush!&rdquo; interrupted Lilburne, with some impatience; &ldquo;I know not how our
+      conversation fell on such a topic&mdash;but if you really ask my opinion
+      in reference to any case in practical life, you shall have it. Look you,
+      then Monsieur de Vaudemont, no man has studied the art of happiness more
+      than I have; and I will tell you the great secret&mdash;have as few ties
+      as possible. Nurse!&mdash;pooh! you or I could hire one by the week a
+      thousand times more useful and careful than a bore of a child. Comforter!&mdash;a
+      man of mind never wants comfort. And there is no such thing as sorrow
+      while we have health and money, and don&rsquo;t care a straw for anybody in the
+      world. If you choose to love people, their health and circumstances, if
+      either go wrong, can fret you: that opens many avenues to pain. Never live
+      alone, but always feel alone. You think this unamiable: possibly. I am no
+      hypocrite, and, for my part, I never affect to be anything but what I am&mdash;John
+      Lilburne.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As the peer thus spoke, Vaudemont, leaning against the door, contemplated
+      him with a strange mixture of interest and disgust. &ldquo;And John Lilburne is
+      thought a great man, and William Gawtrey was a great rogue. You don&rsquo;t
+      conceal your heart?&mdash;no, I understand. Wealth and power have no need
+      of hypocrisy: you are the man of vice&mdash;Gawtrey, the man of crime. You
+      never sin against the law&mdash;he was a felon by his trade. And the felon
+      saved from vice the child, and from want the grandchild (Your flesh and
+      blood) whom you disown: which will Heaven consider the worse man? No, poor
+      Fanny, I see I am wrong. If he would own you, I would not give you up to
+      the ice of such a soul:&mdash;better the blind man than the dead heart!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Lord Lilburne,&rdquo; said De Vaudemont aloud, shaking off his reverie,
+      &ldquo;I must own that your philosophy seems to me the wisest for yourself. For
+      a poor man it might be different&mdash;the poor need affection.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, the poor, certainly,&rdquo; said Lord Lilburne, with an air of patronising
+      candour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I will own farther,&rdquo; continued De Vaudemont, &ldquo;that I have willingly
+      lost my money in return for the instruction I have received in hearing you
+      converse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are kind: come and take your revenge next Thursday. Adieu.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As Lord Lilburne undressed, and his valet attended him, he said to that
+      worthy functionary,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you have not been able to make out the name of the stranger&mdash;the
+      new lodger you tell me of?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, my lord. They only say he is a very fine-looking man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have not seen him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, my lord. What do you wish me now to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Nothing at this moment! You manage things so badly, you might get
+      me into a scrape. I never do anything which the law or the police, or even
+      the news papers, can get hold of. I must think of some other way&mdash;humph!
+      I never give up what I once commence, and I never fail in what I
+      undertake! If life had been worth what fools trouble it with&mdash;business
+      and ambition&mdash;I suppose I should have been a great man with a very
+      bad liver&mdash;ha ha! I alone, of all the world, ever found out what the
+      world was good for! Draw the curtains, Dykeman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0043" id="link2HCH0043">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Org. Welcome, thou ice that sitt&rsquo;st about his heart
+     No heat can ever thaw thee!&rdquo;&mdash;FORD: Broken Heart.
+
+     &ldquo;Nearch. Honourable infamy!&rdquo;&mdash;Ibid.
+
+     &ldquo;Amye. Her tenderness hath yet deserved no rigour,
+     So to be crossed by fate!&rdquo;
+ 
+     &ldquo;Arm. You misapply, sir,
+     With favour let me speak it, what Apollo
+     Hath clouded in dim sense!&rdquo;&mdash;Ibid.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      If Vaudemont had fancied that, considering the age and poverty of Simon,
+      it was his duty to see whether Fanny&rsquo;s not more legal, but more natural
+      protector were, indeed, the unredeemed and unmalleable egotist which
+      Gawtrey had painted him, the conversation of one night was sufficient to
+      make him abandon for ever the notion of advancing her claims upon Lord
+      Lilburne. But Philip had another motive in continuing his acquaintance
+      with that personage. The sight of his mother&rsquo;s grave had recalled to him
+      the image of that lost brother over whom he had vowed to watch. And,
+      despite the deep sense of wronged affection with which he yet remembered
+      the cruel letter that had contained the last tidings of Sidney, Philip&rsquo;s
+      heart clung with undying fondness to that fair shape associated with all
+      the happy recollections of childhood; and his conscience as well as his
+      love asked him, each time that he passed the churchyard, &ldquo;Will you make no
+      effort to obey that last prayer of the mother who consigned her darling to
+      your charge?&rdquo; Perhaps, had Philip been in want, or had the name he now
+      bore been sullied by his conduct, he might have shrunk from seeking one
+      whom he might injure, but could not serve. But though not rich, he had
+      more than enough for tastes as hardy and simple as any to which soldier of
+      fortune ever limited his desires. And he thought, with a sentiment of just
+      and noble pride, that the name which Eugenie had forced upon him had been
+      borne spotless as the ermine through the trials and vicissitudes he had
+      passed since he had assumed it. Sidney could give him nothing, and
+      therefore it was his duty to seek Sidney out. Now, he had always believed
+      in his heart that the Beauforts were acquainted with a secret which he
+      more and more pined to penetrate. He would, for Sidney&rsquo;s sake, smother his
+      hate to the Beauforts; he would not reject their acquaintance if thrown in
+      his way; nay, secure in his change of name and his altered features, from
+      all suspicion on their part, he would seek that acquaintance in order to
+      find his brother and fulfil Catherine&rsquo;s last commands. His intercourse
+      with Lilburne would necessarily bring him easily into contact with
+      Lilburne&rsquo;s family. And in this thought he did not reject the invitations
+      pressed on him. He felt, too, a dark and absorbing interest in examining a
+      man who was in himself the incarnation of the World&mdash;the World of Art&mdash;the
+      World as the Preacher paints it&mdash;the hollow, sensual, sharp-witted,
+      self-wrapped WORLD&mdash;the World that is all for this life, and thinks
+      of no Future and no God!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Lilburne was, indeed, a study for deep contemplation. A study to
+      perplex the ordinary thinker, and task to the utmost the analysis of more
+      profound reflection. William Gawtrey had possessed no common talents; he
+      had discovered that his life had been one mistake; Lord Lilburne&rsquo;s
+      intellect was far keener than Gawtrey&rsquo;s, and he had never made, and if he
+      had lived to the age of Old Parr, never would have made a similar
+      discovery. He never wrestled against a law, though he slipped through all
+      laws! And he knew no remorse, for he knew no fear. Lord Lilburne had
+      married early, and long survived, a lady of fortune, the daughter of the
+      then Premier&mdash;the best match, in fact, of his day. And for one very
+      brief period of his life he had suffered himself to enter into the field
+      of politics the only ambition common with men of equal rank. He showed
+      talents that might have raised one so gifted by circumstance to any
+      height, and then retired at once into his old habits and old system of
+      pleasure. &ldquo;I wished to try,&rdquo; said he once, &ldquo;if fame was worth one
+      headache, and I have convinced myself that the man who can sacrifice the
+      bone in his mouth to the shadow of the bone in the water is a fool.&rdquo; From
+      that time he never attended the House of Lords, and declared himself of no
+      political opinions one way or the other. Nevertheless, the world had a
+      general belief in his powers, and Vaudemont reluctantly subscribed to the
+      world&rsquo;s verdict. Yet he had done nothing, he had read but little, he
+      laughed at the world to its face,&mdash;and that last was, after all, the
+      main secret of his ascendancy over those who were drawn into his circle.
+      That contempt of the world placed the world at his feet. His sardonic and
+      polished indifference, his professed code that there was no life worth
+      caring for but his own life, his exemption from all cant, prejudice, and
+      disguise, the frigid lubricity with which he glided out of the grasp of
+      the Conventional, whenever it so pleased him, without shocking the
+      Decorums whose sense is in their ear, and who are not roused by the deed
+      but by the noise,&mdash;all this had in it the marrow and essence of a
+      system triumphant with the vulgar; for little minds give importance to the
+      man who gives importance to nothing. Lord Lilburne&rsquo;s authority, not in
+      matters of taste alone, but in those which the world calls judgment and
+      common sense, was regarded as an oracle. He cared not a straw for the
+      ordinary baubles that attract his order; he had refused both an earldom
+      and the garter, and this was often quoted in his honour. But you only try
+      a man&rsquo;s virtue when you offer him something that he covets. The earldom
+      and the garter were to Lord Lilburne no more tempting inducements than a
+      doll or a skipping-rope; had you offered him an infallible cure for the
+      gout, or an antidote against old age, you might have hired him as your
+      lackey on your own terms. Lord Lilburne&rsquo;s next heir was the son of his
+      only brother, a person entirely dependent on his uncle. Lord Lilburne
+      allowed him L1000. a year and kept him always abroad in a diplomatic
+      situation. He looked upon his successor as a man who wanted power, but not
+      inclination, to become his assassin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though he lived sumptuously and grudged himself nothing, Lord Lilburne was
+      far from an extravagant man; he might, indeed, be considered close; for he
+      knew how much of comfort and consideration he owed to his money, and
+      valued it accordingly; he knew the best speculations and the best
+      investments. If he took shares in an American canal, you might be sure
+      that the shares would soon be double in value; if he purchased an estate,
+      you might be certain it was a bargain. This pecuniary tact and success
+      necessarily augmented his fame for wisdom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had been in early life a successful gambler, and some suspicions of his
+      fair play had been noised abroad; but, as has been recently seen in the
+      instance of a man of rank equal to Lilburne&rsquo;s, though, perhaps, of less
+      acute if more cultivated intellect, it is long before the pigeon will turn
+      round upon a falcon of breed and mettle. The rumours, indeed, were so
+      vague as to carry with them no weight. During the middle of his career,
+      when in the full flush of health and fortune, he had renounced the
+      gaming-table. Of late years, as advancing age made time more heavy, he had
+      resumed the resource, and with all his former good luck. The money-market,
+      the table, the sex, constituted the other occupations and amusements with
+      which Lord Lilburne filled up his rosy leisure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another way by which this man had acquired reputation for ability was
+      this,&mdash;he never pretended to any branch of knowledge of which he was
+      ignorant, any more than to any virtue in which he was deficient. Honesty
+      itself was never more free from quackery or deception than was this
+      embodied and walking Vice. If the world chose to esteem him, he did not
+      buy its opinion by imposture. No man ever saw Lord Lilburne&rsquo;s name in a
+      public subscription, whether for a new church, or a Bible Society, or a
+      distressed family, no man ever heard of his doing one generous,
+      benevolent, or kindly action,&mdash;no man was ever startled by one
+      philanthropic, pious, or amiable sentiment from those mocking lips. Yet,
+      in spite of all this, John Lord Lilburne was not only esteemed but liked
+      by the world, and set up in the chair of its Rhadamanthuses. In a word, he
+      seemed to Vaudemont, and he was so in reality, a brilliant example of the
+      might of Circumstance&mdash;an instance of what may be done in the way of
+      reputation and influence by a rich, well-born man to whom the will a
+      kingdom is. A little of genius, and Lord Lilburne would have made his
+      vices notorious and his deficiencies glaring; a little of heart, and his
+      habits would have led him into countless follies and discreditable
+      scrapes. It was the lead and the stone that he carried about him that
+      preserved his equilibrium, no matter which way the breeze blew. But all
+      his qualities, positive or negative, would have availed him nothing
+      without that position which enabled him to take his ease in that inn, the
+      world&mdash;which presented, to every detection of his want of intrinsic
+      nobleness, the irreproachable respectability of a high name, a splendid
+      mansion, and a rent-roll without a flaw. Vaudemont drew comparisons
+      between Lilburne and Gawtrey, and he comprehended at last, why one was a
+      low rascal and the other a great man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although it was but a few days after their first introduction to each
+      other, Vaudemont had been twice to Lord Lilburne&rsquo;s, and their acquaintance
+      was already on an easy footing&mdash;when one afternoon as the former was
+      riding through the streets towards H&mdash;&mdash;, he met the peer
+      mounted on a stout cob, which, from its symmetrical strength, pure English
+      breed, and exquisite grooming, showed something of those sporting tastes
+      for which, in earlier life, Lord Lilburne had been noted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Monsieur de Vaudemont, what brings you to this part of the town?&mdash;curiosity
+      and the desire to explore?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That might be natural enough in me; but you, who know London so well;
+      rather what brings you here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why I am returned from a long ride. I have had symptoms of a fit of the
+      gout, and been trying to keep it off by exercise. I have been to a cottage
+      that belongs to me, some miles from the town&mdash;a pretty place enough,
+      by the way&mdash;you must come and see me there next month. I shall fill
+      the house for a battue! I have some tolerable covers&mdash;you are a good
+      shot, I suppose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not practised, except with a rifle, for some years.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a pity; for as I think a week&rsquo;s shooting once a year quite enough,
+      I fear that your visit to me at Fernside may not be sufficiently long to
+      put your hand in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fernside!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; is the name familiar to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I have heard it before. Did your lordship purchase or inherit
+      it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I bought it of my brother-in-law. It belonged to his brother&mdash;a gay,
+      wild sort of fellow, who broke his neck over a six-barred gate; through
+      that gate my friend Robert walked the same day into a very fine estate!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have heard so. The late Mr. Beaufort, then, left no children?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; two. But they came into the world in the primitive way in which Mr.
+      Owen wishes us all to come&mdash;too naturally for the present state of
+      society, and Mr. Owen&rsquo;s parallelogram was not ready for them. By the way,
+      one of them disappeared at Paris&mdash;you never met with him, I suppose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Under what name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Morton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Morton! hem! What Christian name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Philip.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Philip! no. But did Mr. Beaufort do nothing for the young men? I think I
+      have heard somewhere that he took compassion on one of them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you? Ah, my brother-in-law is precisely one of those excellent men
+      of whom the world always speaks well. No; he would very willingly have
+      served either or both the boys, but the mother refused all his overtures
+      and went to law, I fancy. The elder of these bastards turned out a sad
+      fellow, and the younger,&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know exactly where he is, but no
+      doubt with one of his mother&rsquo;s relations. You seem to interest yourself in
+      natural children, my dear Vaudemont?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you have heard that people have doubted if I were a natural son?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! I understand now. But are you going?&mdash;I was in hopes you would
+      have turned back my way, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very good; but I have a particular appointment, and I am now too
+      late. Good morning, Lord Lilburne.&rdquo; Sidney with one of his mother&rsquo;s
+      relations! Returned, perhaps, to the Mortons! How had he never before
+      chanced on a conjecture so probable? He would go at once!&mdash;that very
+      night he would go to the house from which he had taken his brother. At
+      least, and at the worst, they might give him some clue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Buoyed with this hope and this resolve, he rode hastily to H&mdash;&mdash;-,
+      to announce to Simon and Fanny that he should not return to them, perhaps,
+      for two or three days. As he entered the suburb, he drew up by the
+      statuary of whom he had purchased his mother&rsquo;s gravestone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The artist of the melancholy trade was at work in his yard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ho! there!&rdquo; said Vaudemont, looking over the low railing; &ldquo;is the tomb I
+      have ordered nearly finished?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, sir, as you were so anxious for despatch, and as it would take a
+      long time to get a new one ready, I thought of giving you this, which is
+      finished all but the inscription. It was meant for Miss Deborah Primme;
+      but her nephew and heir called on me yesterday to say, that as the poor
+      lady died worth less by L5,000. than he had expected, he thought a
+      handsome wooden tomb would do as well, if I could get rid of this for him.
+      It is a beauty, sir. It will look so cheerful&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that will do: and you can place it now where I told you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In three days, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So be it.&rdquo; And he rode on, muttering, &ldquo;Fanny, your pious wish will be
+      fulfilled. But flowers,&mdash;will they suit that stone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He put up his horse, and walked through the lane to Simon&rsquo;s.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he approached the house, he saw Fanny&rsquo;s bright eyes at the window. She
+      was watching his return. She hastened to open the door to him, and the
+      world&rsquo;s wanderer felt what music there is in the footstep, what summer
+      there is in the smile, of Welcome!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Fanny,&rdquo; he said, affected by her joyous greeting, &ldquo;it makes my
+      heart warm to see you. I have brought you a present from town. When I was
+      a boy, I remember that my poor mother was fond of singing some simple
+      songs, which often, somehow or other, come back to me, when I see and hear
+      you. I fancied you would understand and like them as well at least as I do&mdash;for
+      Heaven knows (he added to himself) my ear is dull enough generally to the
+      jingle of rhyme.&rdquo; And he placed in her hands a little volume of those
+      exquisite songs, in which Burns has set Nature to music.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! you are so kind, brother,&rdquo; said Fanny, with tears swimming in her
+      eyes, and she kissed the book.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After their simple meal, Vaudemont broke to Fanny and Simon the
+      intelligence of his intended departure for a few days. Simon heard it with
+      the silent apathy into which, except on rare occasions, his life had
+      settled. But Fanny turned away her face and wept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is but for a day or two, Fanny.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An hour is very&mdash;very long sometimes,&rdquo; said the girl, shaking her
+      head mournfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, I have a little time yet left, and the air is mild, you have not
+      been out to-day, shall we walk&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hem!&rdquo; interrupted Simon, clearing his throat, and seeming to start into
+      sudden animation; &ldquo;had not you better settle the board and lodging before
+      you go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, grandfather!&rdquo; cried Fanny, springing to her feet, with such a blush
+      upon her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, child,&rdquo; said Vaudemont, laughingly; &ldquo;your grandfather only
+      anticipates me. But do not talk of board and lodging; Fanny is as a sister
+      to me, and our purse is in common.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to feel a sovereign&mdash;just to feel it,&rdquo; muttered Simon,
+      in a sort of apologetic tone, that was really pathetic; and as Vaudemont
+      scattered some coins on the table, the old man clawed them up, chuckling
+      and talking to himself; and, rising with great alacrity, hobbled out of
+      the room like a raven carrying some cunning theft to its hiding-place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was so amusing to Vaudemont that he burst out fairly into an
+      uncontrollable laughter. Fanny looked at him, humbled and wondering for
+      some moments; and then, creeping to him, put her hand gently on his arm
+      and said&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t laugh&mdash;it pains me. It was not nice in grand papa; but&mdash;but,
+      it does not mean anything. It&mdash;it&mdash;don&rsquo;t laugh&mdash;Fanny feels
+      so sad!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you are right. Come, put on your bonnet, we will go out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fanny obeyed; but with less ready delight than usual. And they took their
+      way through lanes over which hung, still in the cool air, the leaves of
+      the yellow autumn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fanny was the first to break silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know,&rdquo; she said, timidly, &ldquo;that people here think me very silly?&mdash;do
+      you think so too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vaudemont was startled by the simplicity of the question, and hesitated.
+      Fanny looked up in his dark face anxiously and inquiringly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you don&rsquo;t answer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Fanny, there are some things in which I could wish you less
+      childlike and, perhaps, less charming. Those strange snatches of song, for
+      instance!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What! do you not like me to sing? It is my way of talking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; sing, pretty one! But sing something that we can understand,&mdash;sing
+      the songs I have given you, if you will. And now, may I ask why you put to
+      me that question?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have forgotten,&rdquo; said Fanny, absently, and looking down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, at that instant, as Philip Vaudemont bent over the exceeding
+      sweetness of that young face, a sudden thrill shot through his heart, and
+      he, too, became silent, and lost in thought. Was it possible that there
+      could creep into his breast a wilder affection for this creature than that
+      of tenderness and pity? He was startled as the idea crossed him. He shrank
+      from it as a profanation&mdash;as a crime&mdash;as a frenzy. He with his
+      fate so uncertain and chequered&mdash;he to link himself with one so
+      helpless&mdash;he to debase the very poetry that clung to the mental
+      temperament of this pure being, with the feelings which every fair face
+      may awaken to every coarse heart&mdash;to love Fanny! No, it was
+      impossible! For what could he love in her but beauty, which the very
+      spirit had forgotten to guard? And she&mdash;could she even know what love
+      was? He despised himself for even admitting such a thought; and with that
+      iron and hardy vigour which belonged to his mind, resolved to watch
+      closely against every fancy that would pass the fairy boundary which
+      separated Fanny from the world of women.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was roused from this self-commune by an abrupt exclamation from his
+      companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! I recollect now why I asked you that question. There is one thing
+      that always puzzles me&mdash;I want you to explain it. Why does everything
+      in life depend upon money? You see even my poor grandfather forgot how
+      good you are to us both, when&mdash;when Ah! I don&rsquo;t understand&mdash;it
+      pains&mdash;it puzzles me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fanny, look there&mdash;no, to the left&mdash;you see that old woman, in
+      rags, crawling wearily along; turn now to the right&mdash;you see that
+      fine house glancing through the trees, with a carriage and four at the
+      gates? The difference between that old woman and the owner of that house
+      is&mdash;Money; and who shall blame your grandfather for liking Money?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fanny understood; and while the wise man thus moralised, the girl, whom
+      his very compassion so haughtily contemned, moved away to the old woman to
+      do her little best to smooth down those disparities from which wisdom and
+      moralising never deduct a grain! Vaudemont felt this as he saw her glide
+      towards the beggar; but when she came bounding back to him, she had
+      forgotten his dislike to her songs, and was chaunting, in the glee of the
+      heart that a kind act had made glad, one of her own impromptu melodies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vaudemont turned away. Poor Fanny had unconsciously decided his
+      self-conquest; she guessed not what passed within him, but she suddenly
+      recollected&mdash;what he had said to her about her songs, and fancied him
+      displeased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah I will never do it again. Brother, don&rsquo;t turn away!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But we must go home. Hark! the clock strikes seven&mdash;I have no time
+      to lose. And you will promise me never to stir out till I return?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall have no heart to stir out,&rdquo; said Fanny, sadly; and then in a more
+      cheerful voice, she added, &ldquo;And I shall sing the songs you like before you
+      come back again!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0044" id="link2HCH0044">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Well did they know that service all by rote;
+
+     Some singing loud as if they had complained,
+     Some with their notes another manner feigned.&rdquo;
+      CHAUCER: Pie Cuckoo and the Nightingale,
+     modernised by WORDSWORTH.&mdash;HORNE&rsquo;s Edition.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And once more, sweet Winandermere, we are on the banks of thy happy lake!
+      The softest ray of the soft clear sun of early autumn trembled on the
+      fresh waters, and glanced through the leaves of the limes and willows that
+      were reflected&mdash;distinct as a home for the Naiads&mdash;beneath the
+      limpid surface. You might hear in the bushes the young blackbirds trilling
+      their first untutored notes. And the graceful dragon-fly, his wings
+      glittering in the translucent sunshine, darted to and fro&mdash;the reeds
+      gathered here and there in the mimic bays that broke the shelving marge of
+      the grassy shore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And by that grassy shore, and beneath those shadowy limes, sat the young
+      lovers. It was the very place where Spencer had first beheld Camilla. And
+      now they were met to say, &ldquo;Farewell!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Camilla!&rdquo; said he, with great emotion, and eyes that swam in tears,
+      &ldquo;be firm&mdash;be true. You know how my whole life is wrapped up in your
+      love. You go amidst scenes where all will tempt you to forget me. I linger
+      behind in those which are consecrated by your remembrance, which will
+      speak to me every hour of you. Camilla, since you do love me&mdash;you do&mdash;do
+      you not?&mdash;since you have confessed it&mdash;since your parents have
+      consented to our marriage, provided only that your love last (for of mine
+      there can be no doubt) for one year&mdash;one terrible year&mdash;shall I
+      not trust you as truth itself? And yet how darkly I despair at times!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Camilla innocently took the hands that, clasped together, were raised to
+      her, as if in supplication, and pressed them kindly between her own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not doubt me&mdash;never doubt my affection. Has not my father
+      consented? Reflect, it is but a year&rsquo;s delay!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A year!&mdash;can you speak thus of a year&mdash;a whole year? Not to see&mdash;not
+      to hear you for a whole year, except in my dreams! And, if at the end your
+      parents waver? Your father&mdash;I distrust him still. If this delay is
+      but meant to wean you from me,&mdash;if, at the end, there are new excuses
+      found,&mdash;if they then, for some cause or other not now foreseen, still
+      refuse their assent? You&mdash;may I not still look to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Camilla sighed heavily; and turning her meek face on her lover, said,
+      timidly, &ldquo;Never think that so short a time can make me unfaithful, and do
+      not suspect that my father will break his promise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, if he does, you will still be mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, Charles, how could you esteem me as a wife if I were to tell you I
+      could forget I am a daughter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was said so touchingly, and with so perfect a freedom from all
+      affectation, that her lover could only reply by covering her hand with his
+      kisses. And it was not till after a pause that he continued passionately,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do but show me how much deeper is my love than yours. You can never
+      dream how I love you. But I do not ask you to love me as well&mdash;it
+      would be impossible. My life from my earliest childhood has been passed in
+      these solitudes;&mdash;a happy life, though tranquil and monotonous, till
+      you suddenly broke upon it. You seemed to me the living form of the very
+      poetry I had worshipped&mdash;so bright&mdash;so heavenly&mdash;I loved
+      you from the very first moment that we met. I am not like other men of my
+      age. I have no pursuit&mdash;no occupation&mdash;nothing to abstract me
+      from your thought. And I love you so purely&mdash;so devotedly, Camilla. I
+      have never known even a passing fancy for another. You are the first&mdash;the
+      only woman&mdash;it ever seemed to me possible to love. You are my Eve&mdash;your
+      presence my paradise! Think how sad I shall be when you are gone&mdash;how
+      I shall visit every spot your footstep has hallowed&mdash;how I shall
+      count every moment till the year is past!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While he thus spoke, he had risen in that restless agitation which belongs
+      to great emotion; and Camilla now rose also, and said soothingly, as she
+      laid her hand on his shoulder with tender but modest frankness:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And shall I not also think of you? I am sad to feel that you will be so
+      much alone&mdash;no sister&mdash;no brother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not grieve for that. The memory of you will be dearer to me than
+      comfort from all else. And you will be true!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Camilla made no answer by words, but her eyes and her colour spoke. And in
+      that moment, while plighting eternal truth, they forgot that they were
+      about to part!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, in a room in the house which, screened by the foliage, was only
+      partially visible where the lovers stood, sat Mr. Robert Beaufort and Mr.
+      Spencer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I assure you, sir,&rdquo; said the former, &ldquo;that I am not insensible to the
+      merits of your nephew and to the very handsome proposals you make, still I
+      cannot consent to abridge the time I have named. They are both very young.
+      What is a year?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a long time when it is a year of suspense,&rdquo; said the recluse,
+      shaking his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a longer time when it is a year of domestic dissension and
+      repentance. And it is a very true proverb, &lsquo;Marry in haste and repent at
+      leisure.&rsquo; No! If at the end of the year the young people continue of the
+      same mind, and no unforeseen circumstances occur&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No unforeseen circumstances, Mr. Beaufort!&mdash;that is a new condition&mdash;it
+      is a very vague phrase.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear sir, it is hard to please you. Unforeseen circumstances,&rdquo; said
+      the wary father, with a wise look, &ldquo;mean circumstances that we don&rsquo;t
+      foresee at present. I assure you that I have no intention to trifle with
+      you, and I shall be sincerely happy in so respectable a connexion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The young people may write to each other?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I&rsquo;ll consult Mrs. Beaufort. At all events, it must not be very
+      often, and Camilla is well brought up, and will show all the letters to
+      her mother. I don&rsquo;t much like a correspondence of that nature. It often
+      leads to unpleasant results; if, for instance&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, if the parties change their minds, and my girl were to marry
+      another. It is not prudent in matters of business, my dear sir, to put
+      down anything on paper that can be avoided.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Spencer opened his eyes. &ldquo;Matters of business, Mr. Beaufort!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, is not marriage a matter of business, and a very grave matter too?
+      More lawsuits about marriage and settlements, &amp;c., than I like to
+      think of. But to change the subject. You have never heard anything more of
+      those young men, you say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Mr. Spencer, rather inaudibly, and looking down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And it is your firm impression that the elder one, Philip, is dead?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t doubt it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was a very vexatious and improper lawsuit their mother brought
+      against me. Do you know that some wretched impostor, who, it appears, is a
+      convict broke loose before his time, has threatened me with another, on
+      the part of one of those young men? You never heard anything of it&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never, upon my honour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And, of course, you would not countenance so villanous an attempt?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because that would break off our contract at once. But you are too much a
+      gentleman and a man of honour. Forgive me so improper a question. As for
+      the younger Mr. Morton, I have no ill-feeling against him. But the elder!
+      Oh, a thorough reprobate! a very alarming character! I could have nothing
+      to do with any member of the family while the elder lived; it would only
+      expose me to every species of insult and imposition. And now I think we
+      have left our young friends alone long enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But stay, to prevent future misunderstanding, I may as well read over
+      again the heads of the arrangement you honour me by proposing. You agree
+      to settle your fortune after your decease, amounting to L23,000. and your
+      house, with twenty-five acres one rood and two poles, more or less, upon
+      your nephew and my daughter, jointly&mdash;remainder to their children.
+      Certainly, without offence, in a worldly point of view, Camilla might do
+      better; still, you are so very respectable, and you speak so handsomely,
+      that I cannot touch upon that point; and I own, that though there is a
+      large nominal rent-roll attached to Beaufort Court (indeed, there is not a
+      finer property in the county), yet there are many incumbrances, and ready
+      money would not be convenient to me. Arthur&mdash;poor fellow, a very fine
+      young man, sir,&mdash;is, as I have told you in perfect confidence, a
+      little imprudent and lavish; in short, your offer to dispense with any
+      dowry is extremely liberal, and proves your nephew is actuated by no
+      mercenary feelings: such conduct prepossesses me highly in your favour and
+      his too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Spencer bowed, and the great man rising, with a stiff affectation of
+      kindly affability, put his arm into the uncle&rsquo;s, and strolled with him
+      across the lawn towards the lovers. And such is life&mdash;love on the
+      lawn and settlements in the parlour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lover was the first to perceive the approach of the elder parties. And
+      a change came over his face as he saw the dry aspect and marked the
+      stealthy stride of his future father-in-law; for then there flashed across
+      him a dreary reminiscence of early childhood; the happy evening when, with
+      his joyous father, that grave and ominous aspect was first beheld; and
+      then the dismal burial, the funereal sables, the carriage at the door, and
+      he himself clinging to the cold uncle to ask him to say a word of comfort
+      to the mother, who now slept far away. &ldquo;Well, my young friend,&rdquo; said Mr.
+      Beaufort, patronisingly, &ldquo;your good uncle and myself are quite agreed&mdash;a
+      little time for reflection, that&rsquo;s all. Oh! I don&rsquo;t think the worse of you
+      for wishing to abridge it. But papas must be papas.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was so little jocular about that sedate man, that this attempt at
+      jovial good humour seemed harsh and grating&mdash;the hinges of that wily
+      mouth wanted oil for a hearty smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, don&rsquo;t be faint-hearted, Mr. Charles. &lsquo;Faint heart,&rsquo;&mdash;you know
+      the proverb. You must stay and dine with us. We return to-morrow to town.
+      I should tell you, that I received this morning a letter from my son
+      Arthur, announcing his return from Baden, so we must give him the meeting&mdash;a
+      very joyful one you may guess. We have not seen him these three years.
+      Poor fellow! he says he has been very ill and the waters have ceased to do
+      him any good. But a little quiet and country air at Beaufort Court will
+      set him up, I hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus running on about his son, then about his shooting&mdash;about
+      Beaufort Court and its splendours&mdash;about parliament and its fatigues&mdash;about
+      the last French Revolution, and the last English election&mdash;about Mrs.
+      Beaufort and her good qualities and bad health&mdash;about, in short,
+      everything relating to himself, some things relating to the public, and
+      nothing that related to the persons to whom his conversation was directed,
+      Mr. Robert Beaufort wore away half an hour, when the Spencer&rsquo;s took their
+      leave, promising to return to dinner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charles,&rdquo; said Mr. Spencer, as the boat, which the young man rowed,
+      bounded over the water towards their quiet home; &ldquo;Charles, I dislike these
+      Beauforts!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not the daughter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, she is beautiful, and seems good; not so handsome as your poor
+      mother, but who ever was?&rdquo;&mdash;here Mr. Spencer sighed, and repeated
+      some lines from Shenstone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think Mr. Beaufort suspects in the least who I am?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, that puzzles me; I rather think he does.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that is the cause of the delay? I knew it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, on the contrary, I incline to think he has some kindly feeling to
+      you, though not to your brother, and that it is such a feeling that made
+      him consent to your marriage. He sifted me very closely as to what I knew
+      of the young Mortons&mdash;observed that you were very handsome, and that
+      he had fancied at first that he had seen you before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes: and looked hard at me while he spoke; and said more than once,
+      significantly, &lsquo;So his name is Charles?&rsquo; He talked about some attempt at
+      imposture and litigation, but that was, evidently, merely invented to
+      sound me about your brother&mdash;whom, of course, he spoke ill of&mdash;impressing
+      on me three or four times that he would never have anything to say to any
+      of the family while Philip lived.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you told him,&rdquo; said the young man, hesitatingly, and with a deep
+      blush of shame over his face, &ldquo;that you were persuaded&mdash;that is, that
+      you believed Philip was&mdash;was&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was dead! Yes&mdash;and without confusion. For the more I reflect, the
+      more I think he must be dead. At all events, you may be sure that he is
+      dead to us, that we shall never hear more of him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor Philip!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your feelings are natural; they are worthy of your excellent heart; but
+      remember, what would have become of you if you had stayed with him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True!&rdquo; said the brother, with a slight shudder&mdash;&ldquo;a career of
+      suffering&mdash;crime&mdash;perhaps the gibbet! Ah! what do I owe you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The dinner-party at Mr. Beaufort&rsquo;s that day was constrained and formal,
+      though the host, in unusual good humour, sought to make himself agreeable.
+      Mrs. Beaufort, languid and afflicted with headache, said little. The two
+      Spencers were yet more silent. But the younger sat next to her he loved;
+      and both hearts were full: and in the evening they contrived to creep
+      apart into a corner by the window, through which the starry heavens looked
+      kindly on them. They conversed in whispers, with long pauses between each:
+      and at times Camilla&rsquo;s tears flowed silently down her cheeks, and were
+      followed by the false smiles intended to cheer her lover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Time did not fly, but crept on breathlessly and heavily. And then came the
+      last parting&mdash;formal, cold&mdash;before witnesses. But the lover
+      could not restrain his emotion, and the hard father heard his suppressed
+      sob as he closed the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It will now be well to explain the cause of Mr. Beaufort&rsquo;s heightened
+      spirits, and the motives of his conduct with respect to his daughter&rsquo;s
+      suitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This, perhaps, can be best done by laying before the reader the following
+      letters that passed between Mr. Beaufort and Lord Lilburne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From LORD LILBURNE to ROBERT BEAUFORT, ESQ., M.P.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;DEAR BEAUFORT,&mdash;I think I have settled, pretty satisfactorily, your
+      affair with your unwelcome visitor. The first thing it seemed to me
+      necessary to do, was to learn exactly what and who he was, and with what
+      parties that could annoy you he held intercourse. I sent for Sharp, the
+      Bow Street officer, and placed him in the hall to mark, and afterwards to
+      dog and keep watch on your new friend. The moment the latter entered I saw
+      at once, from his dress and his address, that he was a &lsquo;scamp;&rsquo; and
+      thought it highly inexpedient to place you in his power by any money
+      transactions. While talking with him, Sharp sent in a billet containing
+      his recognition of our gentleman as a transported convict.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I acted accordingly; soon saw, from the fellow&rsquo;s manner, that he had
+      returned before his time; and sent him away with a promise, which you may
+      be sure he believes will be kept, that if he molest you farther, he shall
+      return to the colonies, and that if his lawsuit proceed, his witness or
+      witnesses shall be indicted for conspiracy and perjury. Make your mind
+      easy so far. For the rest, I own to you that I think what he says probable
+      enough: but my object in setting Sharp to watch him is to learn what other
+      parties he sees. And if there be really anything formidable in his proofs
+      or witnesses, it is with those other parties I advise you to deal. Never
+      transact business with the go between, if you can with the principal.
+      Remember, the two young men are the persons to arrange with after all.
+      They must be poor, and therefore easily dealt with. For, if poor, they
+      will think a bird in the hand worth two in the bush of a lawsuit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If, through Mr. Spencer, you can learn anything of either of the young
+      men, do so; and try and open some channel, through which you can always
+      establish a communication with them, if necessary. Perhaps, by learning
+      their early history, you may learn something to put them into your power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have had a twinge of the gout this morning, and am likely, I fear, to
+      be laid up for some weeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yours truly,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;LILBURNE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;P.S.&mdash;Sharp has just been here. He followed the man who calls
+      himself &lsquo;Captain Smith&rsquo; to a house in Lambeth, where he lodges, and from
+      which he did not stir till midnight, when Sharp ceased his watch. On
+      renewing it this morning, he found that the captain had gone off, to what
+      place Sharp has not yet discovered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Burn this immediately.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      From ROBERT BEAUFORT, ESQ., M.P., to the LORD LILBURNE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;DEAR, LILBURNE,&mdash;Accept my warmest thanks for your kindness; you
+      have done admirably, and I do not see that I have anything further to
+      apprehend. I suspect that it was an entire fabrication on that man&rsquo;s part,
+      and your firmness has foiled his wicked designs. Only think, I have
+      discovered&mdash;I am sure of it&mdash;one of the Mortons; and he, too,
+      though the younger, yet, in all probability, the sole pretender the fellow
+      could set up. You remember that the child Sidney had disappeared
+      mysteriously,&mdash;you remember also, how much that Mr. Spencer had
+      interested himself in finding out the same Sidney. Well,&mdash;this
+      gentleman at the Lakes is, as we suspected, the identical Mr. Spencer, and
+      his soi-disant nephew, Camilla&rsquo;s suitor, is assuredly no other than the
+      lost Sidney. The moment I saw the young man I recognised him, for he is
+      very little altered, and has a great look of his mother into the bargain.
+      Concealing my more than suspicions, I, however, took care to sound Mr.
+      Spencer (a very poor soul), and his manner was so embarrassed as to leave
+      no doubt of the matter; but in asking him what he had heard of the
+      brothers, I had the satisfaction of learning that, in all human
+      probability, the elder is dead: of this Mr. Spencer seems convinced. I
+      also assured myself that neither Spencer nor the young man had the
+      remotest connection with our Captain Smith, nor any idea of litigation.
+      This is very satisfactory, you will allow. And now, I hope you will
+      approve of what I have done. I find that young Morton, or Spencer, as he
+      is called, is desperately enamoured of Camilla; he seems a meek,
+      well-conditioned, amiable young man; writes poetry;&mdash;in short, rather
+      weak than otherwise. I have demanded a year&rsquo;s delay, to allow mutual trial
+      and reflection. This gives us the channel for constant information which
+      you advise me to establish, and I shall have the opportunity to learn if
+      the impostor makes any communication to them, or if there be any news of
+      the brother. If by any trick or chicanery (for I will never believe that
+      there was a marriage) a lawsuit that might be critical or hazardous can be
+      cooked up, I can, I am sure, make such terms with Sidney, through his love
+      for my daughter, as would effectively and permanently secure me from all
+      further trouble and machinations in regard to my property. And if, during
+      the year, we convince ourselves that, after all, there is not a leg of law
+      for any claimant to stand on, I may be guided by other circumstances how
+      far I shall finally accept or reject the suit. That must depend on any
+      other views we may then form for Camilla; and I shall not allow a hint of
+      such an engagement to get abroad. At the worst, as Mr. Spencer&rsquo;s heir, it
+      is not so very bad a match, seeing that they dispense with all marriage
+      portion, &amp;c.&mdash;a proof how easily they can be managed. I have not
+      let Mr. Spencer see that I have discovered his secret&mdash;I can do that
+      or not, according to circumstances hereafter; neither have I said anything
+      of my discovery to Mrs. B., or Camilla. At present, &lsquo;Least said soonest
+      mended.&rsquo; I heard from Arthur to-day. He is on his road home, and we hasten
+      to town, sooner than we expected, to meet him. He complains still of his
+      health. We shall all go down to Beaufort Court. I write this at night, the
+      pretended uncle and sham nephew having just gone. But though we start
+      to-morrow, you will get this a day or two before we arrive, as Mrs.
+      Beaufort&rsquo;s health renders short stages necessary. I really do hope that
+      Arthur, also, will not be an invalid, poor fellow! one in a family is
+      quite enough; and I find Mrs. Beaufort&rsquo;s delicacy very inconvenient,
+      especially in moving about and in keeping up one&rsquo;s county connexions. A
+      young man&rsquo;s health, however, is soon restored. I am very sorry to hear of
+      your gout, except that it carries off all other complaints. I am very
+      well, thank Heaven; indeed, my health has been much better of late years:
+      Beaufort Court agrees with me so well! The more I reflect, the more I am
+      astonished at the monstrous and wicked impudence of that fellow&mdash;to
+      defraud a man out of his own property! You are quite right,&mdash;certainly
+      a conspiracy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yours truly, &ldquo;R. B.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;P. S.&mdash;I shall keep a constant eye on the Spencers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Burn this immediately.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After he had written and sealed this letter, Mr. Beaufort went to bed and
+      slept soundly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the next day that place was desolate, and the board on the lawn
+      announced that it was again to be let. But thither daily, in rain or
+      sunshine, came the solitary lover, as a bird that seeks its young in the
+      deserted nest:&mdash;Again and again he haunted the spot where he had
+      strayed with the lost one,&mdash;and again and again murmured his
+      passionate vows beneath the fast-fading limes. Are those vows destined to
+      be ratified or annulled? Will the absent forget, or the lingerer be
+      consoled? Had the characters of that young romance been lightly stamped on
+      the fancy where once obliterated they are erased for ever,&mdash;or were
+      they graven deep in those tablets where the writing, even when invisible,
+      exists still, and revives, sweet letter by letter, when the light and the
+      warmth borrowed from the One Bright Presence are applied to the faithful
+      record? There is but one Wizard to disclose that secret, as all others,&mdash;the
+      old Grave-digger, whose Churchyard is the Earth,&mdash;whose trade is to
+      find burial-places for Passions that seemed immortal,&mdash;disinterring
+      the ashes of some long-crumbling Memory&mdash;to hollow out the dark bed
+      of some new-perished Hope:&mdash;He who determines all things, and
+      prophesies none,&mdash;for his oracles are uncomprehended till the doom is
+      sealed&mdash;He who in the bloom of the fairest affection detects the
+      hectic that consumes it, and while the hymn rings at the altar, marks with
+      his joyless eye the grave for the bridal vow.&mdash;Wherever is the
+      sepulchre, there is thy temple, O melancholy Time!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0052" id="link2H_4_0052">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BOOK V.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0045" id="link2HCH0045">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Per ambages et ministeria deorum.&rdquo;&mdash;PETRONTUS.
+
+     [Through the mysteries and ministerings of the gods.]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Roger Morton was behind his counter one drizzling, melancholy day. Mr.
+      Roger Morton, alderman, and twice mayor of his native town, was a thriving
+      man. He had grown portly and corpulent. The nightly potations of brandy
+      and water, continued year after year with mechanical perseverance, had
+      deepened the roses on his cheek. Mr. Roger Morton was never intoxicated&mdash;he
+      &ldquo;only made himself comfortable.&rdquo; His constitution was strong; but, somehow
+      or other, his digestion was not as good as it might be. He was certain
+      that something or other disagreed with him. He left off the joint one day&mdash;the
+      pudding another. Now he avoided vegetables as poison&mdash;and now he
+      submitted with a sigh to the doctor&rsquo;s interdict of his cigar. Mr. Roger
+      Morton never thought of leaving off the brandy and water: and he would
+      have resented as the height of impertinent insinuation any hint upon that
+      score to a man of so sober and respectable a character.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Roger Morton was seated&mdash;for the last four years, ever since his
+      second mayoralty, he had arrogated to himself the dignity of a chair. He
+      received rather than served his customers. The latter task was left to two
+      of his sons. For Tom, after much cogitation, the profession of an
+      apothecary had been selected. Mrs. Morton observed, that it was a genteel
+      business, and Tom had always been a likely lad. And Mr. Roger considered
+      that it would be a great comfort and a great saving to have his medical
+      adviser in his own son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other two sons and the various attendants of the shop were plying the
+      profitable trade, as customer after customer, with umbrellas and in
+      pattens, dropped into the tempting shelter&mdash;when a man, meanly
+      dressed, and who was somewhat past middle age, with a careworn, hungry
+      face, entered timidly. He waited in patience by the crowded counter,
+      elbowed by sharp-boned and eager spinsters&mdash;and how sharp the elbows
+      of spinsters are, no man can tell who has not forced his unwelcome way
+      through the agitated groups in a linendraper&rsquo;s shop!&mdash;the man, I say,
+      waited patiently and sadly, till the smallest of the shopboys turned from
+      a lady, who, after much sorting and shading, had finally decided on two
+      yards of lilac-coloured penny riband, and asked, in an insinuating
+      professional tone,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What shall I show you, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish to speak to Mr. Morton. Which is he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Morton is engaged, sir. I can give you what you want.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;it is a matter of business&mdash;important business.&rdquo; The boy
+      eyed the napless and dripping hat, the gloveless hands, and the rusty
+      neckcloth of the speaker; and said, as he passed his fingers through a
+      profusion of light curls &ldquo;Mr. Morton don&rsquo;t attend much to business himself
+      now; but that&rsquo;s he. Any cravats, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man made no answer, but moved where, near the window, and chatting
+      with the banker of the town (as the banker tried on a pair of beaver
+      gloves), sat still&mdash;after due apology for sitting&mdash;Mr. Roger
+      Morton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The alderman lowered his spectacles as he glanced grimly at the lean
+      apparition that shaded the spruce banker, and said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you want me, friend?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir, if you please;&rdquo; and the man took off his shabby hat, and bowed
+      low.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, speak out. No begging petition, I hope?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir! Your nephews&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The banker turned round, and in his turn eyed the newcomer. The
+      linendraper started back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nephews!&rdquo; he repeated, with a bewildered look. &ldquo;What does the man mean?
+      Wait a bit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I&rsquo;ve done!&rdquo; said the banker, smiling. &ldquo;I am glad to find we agree so
+      well upon this question: I knew we should. Our member will never suit us
+      if he goes on in this way. Trade must take care of itself. Good day to
+      You!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nephews!&rdquo; repeated Mr. Morton, rising, and beckoning to the man to follow
+      him into the back parlour, where Mrs. Morton sat casting up the washing
+      bills.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said the husband, closing the door, &ldquo;what do you mean, my good
+      fellow?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir, what I wish to ask you is&mdash;if you can tell me what has become
+      of&mdash;of the young Beau&mdash;, that is, of your sister&rsquo;s sons. I
+      understand there were two&mdash;and I am told that&mdash;that they are
+      both dead. Is it so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is that to you, friend?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An please you, sir, it is a great deal to them!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;ha! ha! it is a great deal to everybody whether they are alive
+      or dead!&rdquo; Mr. Morton, since he had been mayor, now and then had his joke.
+      &ldquo;But really&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Roger!&rdquo; said Mrs. Morton, under her breath&mdash;&ldquo;Roger!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, my dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come this way&mdash;I want to speak to you about this bill.&rdquo; The husband
+      approached, and bent over his wife. &ldquo;Who&rsquo;s this man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Depend on it, he has some claim to make&mdash;some bills or something.
+      Don&rsquo;t commit yourself&mdash;the boys are dead for what we know!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Morton hemmed and returned to his visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To tell you the truth, I am not aware of what has become of the young
+      men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then they are not dead&mdash;I thought not!&rdquo; exclaimed the man, joyously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s more than I can say. It&rsquo;s many years since I lost sight of the
+      only one I ever saw; and they may be both dead for what I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; said the man. &ldquo;Then you can give me no kind of&mdash;of&mdash;hint
+      like, to find them out?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. Do they owe you anything?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It does not signify talking now, sir. I beg your pardon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay&mdash;who are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am a very poor man, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Morton recoiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor! Oh, very well&mdash;very well. You have done with me now. Good day&mdash;good
+      day. I&rsquo;m busy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger pecked for a moment at his hat&mdash;turned the handle of the
+      door&mdash;peered under his grey eyebrows at the portly trader, who, with
+      both hands buried in his pockets, his mouth pursed up, like a man about to
+      say &ldquo;No&rdquo; fidgeted uneasily behind Mrs. Morton&rsquo;s chair. He sighed, shook
+      his head, and vanished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Morton rang the bell&mdash;the maid-servant entered. &ldquo;Wipe the
+      carpet, Jenny;&mdash;dirty feet! Mr. Morton, it&rsquo;s a Brussels!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was not my fault, my dear. I could not talk about family matters
+      before the whole shop. Do you know, I&rsquo;d quite forgot those poor boys. This
+      unsettles me. Poor Catherine! she was so fond of them. A pretty boy that
+      Sidney, too. What can have become of them? My heart rebukes me. I wish I
+      had asked the man more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;More!&mdash;why he was just going to beg.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beg&mdash;yes&mdash;very true!&rdquo; said Mr. Morton, pausing irresolutely;
+      and then, with a hearty tone, he cried out, &ldquo;And, damme, if he had begged,
+      I could afford him a shilling! I&rsquo;ll go after him.&rdquo; So saying, he hastened
+      back through the shop, but the man was gone&mdash;the rain was falling,
+      Mr. Morton had his thin shoes on&mdash;he blew his nose, and went back to
+      the counter. But, there, still rose to his memory the pale face of his
+      dead sister; and a voice murmured in his ear, &ldquo;Brother, where is my
+      child?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pshaw! it is not my fault if he ran away. Bob, go and get me the county
+      paper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Morton had again settled himself, and was deep in a trial for murder,
+      when another stranger strode haughtily into the shop. The new-comer,
+      wrapped in a pelisse of furs, with a thick moustache, and an eye that took
+      in the whole shop, from master to boy, from ceiling to floor, in a glance,
+      had the air at once of a foreigner and a soldier. Every look fastened on
+      him, as he paused an instant, and then walking up to the alderman, said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir, you are doubtless Mr. Morton?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At your commands, sir,&rdquo; said Roger, rising involuntarily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A word with you, then, on business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Business!&rdquo; echoed Mr. Morton, turning rather pale, for he began to think
+      himself haunted; &ldquo;anything in my line, sir? I should be&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger bent down his tall stature, and hissed into Mr. Morton&rsquo;s
+      foreboding ear:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your nephews!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Morton was literally dumb-stricken. Yes, he certainly was haunted! He
+      stared at this second questioner, and fancied that there was something
+      very supernatural and unearthly about him. He was so tall, and so dark,
+      and so stern, and so strange. Was it the Unspeakable himself come for the
+      linendraper? Nephews again! The uncle of the babes in the wood could
+      hardly have been more startled by the demand!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; said Mr. Morton at last, recovering his dignity and somewhat
+      peevishly,&mdash;&ldquo;sir, I don&rsquo;t know why people should meddle with my
+      family affairs. I don&rsquo;t ask other folks about their nephews. I have no
+      nephew that I know of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Permit me to speak to you, alone, for one instant.&rdquo; Mr. Morton sighed,
+      hitched up his trousers, and led the way to the parlour, where Mrs.
+      Morton, having finished the washing bills, was now engaged in tying
+      certain pieces of bladder round certain pots of preserves. The eldest Miss
+      Morton, a young woman of five or six-and-twenty, who was about to be very
+      advantageously married to a young gentleman who dealt in coals and played
+      the violin (for N&mdash;&mdash;- was a very musical town), had just joined
+      her for the purpose of extorting &ldquo;The Swiss Boy, with variations,&rdquo; out of
+      a sleepy little piano, that emitted a very painful cry under the awakening
+      fingers of Miss Margaret Morton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Morton threw open the door with a grunt, and the stranger pausing at
+      the threshold, the full flood of sound (key C) upon which &ldquo;the Swiss Boy&rdquo;
+       was swimming along, &ldquo;kine&rdquo; and all, for life and death, came splash upon
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Silence! can&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; cried the father, putting one hand to his ear, while
+      with the other he pointed to a chair; and as Mrs. Morton looked up from
+      the preserves with that air of indignant suffering with which female
+      meekness upbraids a husband&rsquo;s wanton outrage, Mr. Roger added, shrugging
+      his shoulders,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My nephews again, Mrs. K!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Margaret turned round, and dropped a courtesy. Mrs. Morton gently let
+      fall a napkin over the preserves, and muttered a sort of salutation, as
+      the stranger, taking off his hat, turned to mother and daughter one of
+      those noble faces in which Nature has written her grant and warranty of
+      the lordship of creation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pardon me,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;if I disturb you. But my business will be short. I
+      have come to ask you, sir, frankly, and as one who has a right to ask it,
+      what tidings you can give me of Sidney Morton?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir, I know nothing whatever about him. He was taken from my house, about
+      twelve years since, by his brother. Myself, and the two Mr. Beauforts, and
+      another friend of the family, went in search of them both. My search
+      failed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And theirs?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understood from Mr. Beaufort that they had not been more successful. I
+      have had no communication with those gentlemen since. But that&rsquo;s neither
+      here nor there. In all probability, the elder of the boys&mdash;who, I
+      fear, was a sad character&mdash;corrupted and ruined his brother; and, by
+      this time, Heaven knows what and where they are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And no one has inquired of you since&mdash;no one has asked the brother
+      of Catherine Morton, nay, rather of Catherine Beaufort&mdash;where is the
+      child intrusted to your care?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This question, so exactly similar to that which his superstition had rung
+      on his own ears, perfectly appalled the worthy alderman. He staggered
+      back-stared at the marked and stern face that lowered upon him&mdash;and
+      at last cried,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For pity&rsquo;s sake, sir, be just! What could I do for one who left me of his
+      own accord?&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The day you had beaten him like a dog. You see, Mr. Morton, I know all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what are you?&rdquo; said Mr. Morton, recovering his English courage, and
+      feeling himself strangely browbeaten in his own house;&mdash;&ldquo;What and who
+      are you, that you thus take the liberty to catechise a man of my character
+      and respectability?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Twice mayor&mdash;&rdquo; began Mrs. Morton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, mother!&rdquo; whispered Miss Margaret,&mdash;&ldquo;don&rsquo;t work him up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I repeat, sir, what are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What am I?&mdash;your nephew! Who am I? Before men, I bear a name that I
+      have assumed, and not dishonoured&mdash;before Heaven I am Philip
+      Beaufort!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Morton dropped down upon her stool. Margaret murmured &ldquo;My cousin!&rdquo; in
+      a tone that the ear of the musical coal-merchant might not have greatly
+      relished. And Mr. Morton, after a long pause, came up with a frank and
+      manly expression of joy, and said:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, sir, I thank Heaven, from my heart, that one of my sister&rsquo;s
+      children stands alive before me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now, again, I&mdash;I whom you accuse of having corrupted and ruined
+      him&mdash;him for whom I toiled and worked&mdash;him, who was to me, then,
+      as a last surviving son to some anxious father&mdash;I, from whom he was
+      reft and robbed&mdash;I ask you again for Sidney&mdash;for my brother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And again, I say, that I have no information to give you&mdash;that&mdash;Stay
+      a moment&mdash;stay. You must pardon what I have said of you before you
+      made yourself known. I went but by the accounts I had received from Mr.
+      Beaufort. Let me speak plainly; that gentleman thought, right or wrong,
+      that it would be a great thing to separate your brother from you. He may
+      have found him&mdash;it must be so&mdash;and kept his name and condition
+      concealed from us all, lest you should detect it. Mrs. M., don&rsquo;t you think
+      so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure I&rsquo;m so terrified I don&rsquo;t know what to think,&rdquo; said Mrs. Morton,
+      putting her hand to her forehead, and see-sawing herself to and fro upon
+      her stool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But since they wronged you&mdash;since you&mdash;you seem so very&mdash;very&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very much the gentleman,&rdquo; suggested Miss Margaret. &ldquo;Yes, so much the
+      gentleman;&mdash;well off, too, I should hope, sir,&rdquo;&mdash;and the
+      experienced eye of Mr. Morton glanced at the costly sables that lined the
+      pelisse,&mdash;&ldquo;there can be no difficulty in your learning from Mr.
+      Beaufort all that you wish to know. And pray, sir, may I ask, did you send
+      any one here to-day to make the very inquiry you have made?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I?&mdash;No. What do you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well&mdash;sit down&mdash;there may be something in all this that
+      you may make out better than I can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And as Philip obeyed, Mr. Morton, who was really and honestly rejoiced to
+      see his sister&rsquo;s son alive and apparently thriving, proceeded to relate
+      pretty exactly the conversation he had held with the previous visitor.
+      Philip listened earnestly and with attention. Who could this questioner
+      be? Some one who knew his birth&mdash;some one who sought him out?&mdash;some
+      one, who&mdash;Good Heavens! could it be the long-lost witness of the
+      marriage?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as that idea struck him, he started from his seat and entreated
+      Morton to accompany him in search of the stranger. &ldquo;You know not,&rdquo; he
+      said, in a tone impressed with that energy of will in which lay the talent
+      of his mind,&mdash;&ldquo;you know not of what importance this may be to my
+      prospects&mdash;to your sister&rsquo;s fair name. If it should be the witness
+      returned at last! Who else, of the rank you describe, would be interested
+      in such inquiries? Come!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What witness?&rdquo; said Mrs. Morton, fretfully. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t mean to come over
+      us with the old story of the marriage?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall your wife slander your own sister, sir? A marriage there was&mdash;God
+      yet will proclaim the right&mdash;and the name of Beaufort shall be yet
+      placed on my mother&rsquo;s gravestone. Come!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here are your shoes and umbrella, pa,&rdquo; cried Miss Margaret, inspired by
+      Philip&rsquo;s earnestness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My fair cousin, I guess,&rdquo; and as the soldier took her hand, he kissed the
+      unreluctant cheek&mdash;turned to the door&mdash;Mr. Morton placed his arm
+      in his, and the next moment they were in the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Catherine, in her meek tones, had said, &ldquo;Philip Beaufort was my
+      husband,&rdquo; Roger Morton had disbelieved her. And now one word from the son,
+      who could, in comparison, know so little of the matter, had almost
+      sufficed to convert and to convince the sceptic. Why was this? Because&mdash;Man
+      believes the Strong!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0046" id="link2HCH0046">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        &ldquo;&mdash;Quid Virtus et quid Sapientia possit
+        Utile proposuit nobis exemplar Ulssem.&rdquo; HOR.
+
+     [&ldquo;He has proposed to us Ulysses as a useful example of how
+     much may be accomplished by Virtue and Wisdom.&rdquo;]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile the object of their search, on quitting Mr. Morton&rsquo;s shop, had
+      walked slowly and sadly on, through the plashing streets, till he came to
+      a public house in the outskirts and on the high road to London. Here he
+      took shelter for a short time, drying himself by the kitchen fire, with
+      the license purchased by fourpenny-worth of gin; and having learned that
+      the next coach to London would not pass for some hours, he finally settled
+      himself in the Ingle, till the guard&rsquo;s horn should arouse him. By the same
+      coach that the night before had conveyed Philip to N&mdash;&mdash;, had
+      the very man he sought been also a passenger!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor fellow was sickly and wearied out: he had settled into a doze,
+      when he was suddenly wakened by the wheels of a coach and the trampling of
+      horses. Not knowing how long he had slept, and imagining that the vehicle
+      he had awaited was at the door, he ran out. It was a coach coming from
+      London, and the driver was joking with a pretty barmaid who, in rather
+      short petticoats, was fielding up to him the customary glass. The man,
+      after satisfying himself that his time was not yet come, was turning back
+      to the fire, when a head popped itself out of the window, and a voice
+      cried, &ldquo;Stars and garters! Will&mdash;so that&rsquo;s you!&rdquo; At the sound of the
+      voice the man halted abruptly, turned very pale, and his limbs trembled.
+      The inside passenger opened the door, jumped out with a little carpet-bag
+      in his hand, took forth a long leathern purse from which he ostentatiously
+      selected the coins that paid his fare and satisfied the coachman, and
+      then, passing his arm through that of the acquaintance he had discovered,
+      led him back into the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will&mdash;Will,&rdquo; he whispered, &ldquo;you have been to the Mortons. Never
+      moind&mdash;let&rsquo;s hear all. Jenny or Dolly, or whatever your sweet praetty
+      name is&mdash;a private room and a pint of brandy, my dear. Hot water and
+      lots of the grocery. That&rsquo;s right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And as soon as the pair found themselves, with the brandy before them, in
+      a small parlour with a good fire, the last comer went to the door, shut it
+      cautiously, flung his bag under the table, took off his gloves, spread
+      himself wider and wider before the fire, until he had entirely excluded
+      every ray from his friend, and then suddenly turning so that the back
+      might enjoy what the front had gained, he exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damme, Will, you&rsquo;re a praetty sort of a broather to give me the slip in
+      that way. But in this world every man for his-self!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you,&rdquo; said William, with something like decision in his voice,
+      &ldquo;that I will not do any wrong to these young men if they live.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who asks you to do a wrong to them?&mdash;booby! Perhaps I may be the
+      best friend they may have yet&mdash;ay, or you too, though you&rsquo;re the
+      ungratefulest whimsicallist sort of a son of a gun that ever I came
+      across. Come, help yourself, and don&rsquo;t roll up your eyes in that way, like
+      a Muggletonian asoide of a Fye-Fye!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the speaker paused a moment, and with a graver and more natural tone
+      of voice proceeded:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you did not believe me when I told you that these brothers were dead,
+      and you have been to the Mortons to learn more?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, and what have you learned?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing. Morton declares that he does not know that they are alive, but
+      he says also that he does not know that they are dead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed,&rdquo; said the other, listening with great attention; &ldquo;and you really
+      think that he does not know anything about them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do, indeed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hum! Is he a sort of man who would post down the rhino to help the
+      search?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He looked as if he had the yellow fever when I said I was poor,&rdquo; returned
+      William, turning round, and trying to catch a glimpse at the fire, as he
+      gulped his brandy and water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I&rsquo;ll be d&mdash;-d if I run the risk of calling. I have done some
+      things in this town by way of business before now; and though it&rsquo;s a long
+      time ago, yet folks don&rsquo;t forget a haundsome man in a hurry&mdash;especially
+      if he has done &lsquo;em! Now, then, listen to me. You see, I have given this
+      matter all the &lsquo;tention in my power. &lsquo;If the lads be dead,&rsquo; said I to you,
+      &lsquo;it is no use burning one&rsquo;s fingers by holding a candle to bones in a
+      coffin. But Mr. Beaufort need not know they are dead, and we&rsquo;ll see what
+      we can get out of him; and if I succeeds, as I think I shall, you and I
+      may hold up our heads for the rest of our life.&rsquo; Accordingly, as I told
+      you, I went to Mr. Beaufort, and&mdash;&lsquo;Gad, I thought we had it all our
+      own way. But since I saw you last, there&rsquo;s been the devil and all. When I
+      called again, Will, I was shown in to an old lord, sharp as a gimblet.
+      Hang me, William, if he did not frighten me out of my seven senses!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Captain Smith (the reader has, no doubt, already discovered that the
+      speaker was no less a personage) took three or four nervous strides across
+      the room, returned to the table, threw himself in a chair, placed one foot
+      on one hob, and one on the other, laid his finger on his nose, and, with a
+      significant wink, said in a whisper, &ldquo;Will, he knew I had been lagged! He
+      not only refused to hear all I had to say, but threatened to prosecute&mdash;persecute,
+      hang, draw, and quarter us both, if we ever dared to come out with the
+      truth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what&rsquo;s the good of the truth if the boys are dead?&rdquo; said William,
+      timidly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain, without heeding this question, continued, as he stirred the
+      sugar in his glass, &ldquo;Well, out I sneaked, and as soon as I had got to my
+      own door I turned round and saw Sharp the runner on the other side of the
+      way&mdash;I felt deuced queer. However, I went in, sat down, and began to
+      think. I saw that it was up with us, so far as the old uns were concerned;
+      and it might be worth while to find out if the young uns really were
+      dead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you did not know that after all! I thought so. Oh, Jerry!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, look you, man, it was not our interest to take their side if we
+      could make our bargain out of the other. &lsquo;Cause why? You are only one
+      witness&mdash;you are a good fellow, but poor, and with very shaky nerves,
+      Will. You does not know what them big wigs are when a man&rsquo;s caged in a
+      witness-box&mdash;they flank one up, and they flank one down, and they
+      bully and bother, till one&rsquo;s like a horse at Astley&rsquo;s dancing on hot iron.
+      If your testimony broke down, why it would be all up with the case, and
+      what then would become of us? Besides,&rdquo; added the captain, with dignified
+      candour, &ldquo;I have been lagged, it&rsquo;s no use denying it; I am back before my
+      time. Inquiries about your respectability would soon bring the bulkies
+      about me. And you would not have poor Jerry sent back to that d&mdash;-d
+      low place on t&rsquo;other side of the herring-pond, would you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, Jerry!&rdquo; said William, kindly placing his hand in his brother&rsquo;s, &ldquo;you
+      know I helped you to escape; I left all to come over with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you did, and you&rsquo;re a good fellow; though as to leaving all, why you
+      had got rid of all first. And when you told me about the marriage, did not
+      I say that I saw our way to a snug thing for life? But to return to my
+      story. There is a danger in going with the youngsters. But since, Will,&mdash;since
+      nothing but hard words is to be got on the other side, we&rsquo;ll do our duty,
+      and I&rsquo;ll find them out, and do the best I can for us&mdash;that is, if
+      they be yet above ground. And now I&rsquo;ll own to you that I think I knows
+      that the younger one is alive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes! But as he won&rsquo;t come in for anything unless his brother is dead, we
+      must have a hunt for the heir. Now I told you that, many years ago, there
+      was a lad with me, who, putting all things together&mdash;seeing how the
+      Beauforts came after him, and recollecting different things he let out at
+      the time&mdash;I feel pretty sure is your old master&rsquo;s Hopeful. I know
+      that poor Will Gawtrey gave this lad the address of Old Gregg, a friend of
+      mine. So after watching Sharp off the sly, I went that very night, or
+      rather at two in the morning, to Gregg&rsquo;s house, and, after brushing up his
+      memory, I found that the lad had been to him, and gone over afterwards to
+      Paris in search of Gawtrey, who was then keeping a matrimony shop. As I
+      was not rich enough to go off to Paris in a pleasant, gentlemanlike way, I
+      allowed Gregg to put me up to a noice quiet little bit of business. Don&rsquo;t
+      shake your head&mdash;all safe&mdash;a rural affair! That took some days.
+      You see it has helped to new rig me,&rdquo; and the captain glanced complacently
+      over a very smart suit of clothes. &ldquo;Well, on my return I went to call on
+      you, but you had flown. I half suspected you might have gone to the
+      mother&rsquo;s relations here; and I thought, at all events, that I could not do
+      better than go myself and see what they knew of the matter. From what you
+      say I feel I had better now let that alone, and go over to Paris at once;
+      leave me alone to find out. And faith, what with Sharp and the old lord,
+      the sooner I quit England the better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you really think you shall get hold of them after all? Oh, never fear
+      my nerves if I&rsquo;m once in the right; it&rsquo;s living with you, and seeing you
+      do wrong, and hearing you talk wickedly, that makes me tremble.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bother!&rdquo; said the captain, &ldquo;you need not crow over me. Stand up, Will;
+      there now, look at us two in the glass! Why, I look ten years younger than
+      you do, in spite of all my troubles. I dress like a gentleman, as I am; I
+      have money in my pocket; I put money in yours; without me you&rsquo;d starve.
+      Look you, you carried over a little fortune to Australia&mdash;you married&mdash;you
+      farmed&mdash;you lived honestly, and yet that d&mdash;-d shilly-shally
+      disposition of yours, &lsquo;ticed into one speculation to-day, and scared out
+      of another to-morrow, ruined you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jerry! Jerry!&rdquo; cried William, writhing; &ldquo;don&rsquo;t&mdash;don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s all true, and I wants to cure you of preaching. And then, when
+      you were nearly run out, instead of putting a bold face on it, and setting
+      your shoulder to the wheel, you gives it up&mdash;you sells what you have&mdash;you
+      bolts over, wife and all, to Boston, because some one tells you you can do
+      better in America&mdash;you are out of the way when a search is made for
+      you&mdash;years ago when you could have benefited yourself and your
+      master&rsquo;s family without any danger to you or me&mdash;nobody can find you;
+      &lsquo;cause why, you could not bear that your old friends in England, or in the
+      colony either, should know that you were turned a slave-driver in
+      Kentucky. You kick up a mutiny among the niggers by moaning over them,
+      instead of keeping &lsquo;em to it&mdash;you get kicked out yourself&mdash;your
+      wife begs you to go back to Australia, where her relations will do
+      something for you&mdash;you work your passage out, looking as ragged as a
+      colt from grass&mdash;wife&rsquo;s uncle don&rsquo;t like ragged nephews-in-law&mdash;wife
+      dies broken-hearted&mdash;and you might be breaking stones on the roads
+      with the convicts, if I, myself a convict, had not taken compassion on
+      you. Don&rsquo;t cry, Will, it is all for your own good&mdash;I hates cant!
+      Whereas I, my own master from eighteen, never stooped to serve any other&mdash;have
+      dressed like a gentleman&mdash;kissed the pretty girls&mdash;drove my
+      pheaton&mdash;been in all the papers as &lsquo;the celebrated Dashing Jerry&rsquo;&mdash;never
+      wanted a guinea in my pocket, and even when lagged at last, had a pretty
+      little sum in the colonial bank to lighten my misfortunes. I escape,&mdash;I
+      bring you over&mdash;and here I am, supporting you, and in all
+      probability, the one on whom depends the fate of one of the first families
+      in the country. And you preaches at me, do you? Look you, Will;&mdash;in
+      this world, honesty&rsquo;s nothing without force of character! And so your
+      health!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the captain emptied the rest of the brandy into his glass, drained it
+      at a draught, and, while poor William was wiping his eyes with a ragged
+      blue pocket-handkerchief, rang the bell, and asked what coaches would pass
+      that way to &mdash;&mdash;-, a seaport town at some distance. On hearing
+      that there was one at six o&rsquo;clock, the captain ordered the best dinner the
+      larder would afford to be got ready as soon as possible; and, when they
+      were again alone, thus accosted his brother:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now you go back to town&mdash;here are four shiners for you. Keep quiet&mdash;don&rsquo;t
+      speak to a soul&mdash;don&rsquo;t put your foot in it, that&rsquo;s all I beg, and
+      I&rsquo;ll find out whatever there is to be found. It is damnably out of my way
+      embarking at &mdash;&mdash;-, but I had best keep clear of Lunnon. And I
+      tell you what, if these youngsters have hopped the twig, there&rsquo;s another
+      bird on the bough that may prove a goldfinch after all&mdash;Young Arthur
+      Beaufort: I hear he is a wild, expensive chap, and one who can&rsquo;t live
+      without lots of money. Now, it&rsquo;s easy to frighten a man of that sort, and
+      I sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t have the old lord at his elbow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I tell you, that I only care for my poor master&rsquo;s children.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; but if they are dead, and by saying they are alive, one can make old
+      age comfortable, there&rsquo;s no harm in it&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; said William, irresolutely. &ldquo;But certainly it is a hard
+      thing to be so poor at my time of life; and so honest a man as I&rsquo;ve been,
+      too!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain Smith went a little too far when he said that &ldquo;honesty&rsquo;s nothing
+      without force of character.&rdquo; Still, Honesty has no business to be helpless
+      and draggle-tailed;&mdash;she must be active and brisk, and make use of
+      her wits; or, though she keep clear or the prison, &lsquo;tis no very great
+      wonder if she fall on the parish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0047" id="link2HCH0047">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Mitis.&mdash;This Macilente, signior, begins to be more sociable on
+     a sudden.&rdquo; Every Man out of his Humour.
+
+     &ldquo;Punt. Signior, you are sufficiently instructed.
+
+     &ldquo;Fast. Who, I, sir?&rdquo;&mdash;Ibid.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      After spending the greater part of the day in vain inquiries and a vain
+      search, Philip and Mr. Morton returned to the house of the latter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now,&rdquo; said Philip, &ldquo;all that remains to be done is this: first give
+      to the police of the town a detailed description of the man; and secondly,
+      let us put an advertisement both in the county journal and in some of the
+      London papers, to the effect, that if the person who called on you will
+      take the trouble to apply again, either personally or by letter, he may
+      obtain the information sought for. In case he does, I will trouble you to
+      direct him to&mdash;yes&mdash;to Monsieur de Vaudemont, according to this
+      address.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to you, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the same thing,&rdquo; replied Philip, drily. &ldquo;You have confirmed my
+      suspicions, that the Beauforts know some thing of my brother. What did you
+      say of some other friend of the family who assisted in the search?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&mdash;a Mr. Spencer! an old acquaintance of your mother&rsquo;s.&rdquo; Here Mr.
+      Morton smiled, but not being encouraged in a joke, went on, &ldquo;However,
+      that&rsquo;s neither here nor there; he certainly never found out your brother.
+      For I have had several letters from him at different times, asking if any
+      news had been heard of either of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And, indeed, Spencer had taken peculiar pains to deceive the Mortons,
+      whose interposition he feared little less than that of the Beauforts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then it can be of no use to apply to him,&rdquo; said Philip, carelessly, not
+      having any recollection of the name of Spencer, and therefore attaching
+      little importance to the mention of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, I should think not. Depend on it, Mr. Beaufort must know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True,&rdquo; said Philip. &ldquo;And I have only to thank you for your kindness, and
+      return to town.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But stay with us this day&mdash;do&mdash;let me feel that we are friends.
+      I assure you poor Sidney&rsquo;s fate has been a load on my mind ever since he
+      left. You shall have the bed he slept in, and over which your mother bent
+      when she left him and me for the last time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These words were said with so much feeling, that the adventurer wrung his
+      uncle&rsquo;s hand, and said, &ldquo;Forgive me, I wronged you&mdash;I will be your
+      guest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Morton, strange to say, evinced no symptoms of ill-humour at the news
+      of the proffered hospitality. In fact, Miss Margaret had been so eloquent
+      in Philip&rsquo;s praise during his absence, that she suffered herself to be
+      favourably impressed. Her daughter, indeed, had obtained a sort of
+      ascendency over Mrs. M. and the whole house, ever since she had received
+      so excellent an offer. And, moreover, some people are like dogs&mdash;they
+      snarl at the ragged and fawn on the well-dressed. Mrs. Morton did not
+      object to a nephew de facto, she only objected to a nephew in forma
+      pauperis. The evening, therefore, passed more cheerfully than might have
+      been anticipated, though Philip found some difficulty in parrying the many
+      questions put to him on the past. He contented himself with saying, as
+      briefly as possible, that he had served in a foreign service, and acquired
+      what sufficed him for an independence; and then, with the ease which a man
+      picks up in the great world, turned the conversation to the prospects of
+      the family whose guest he was. Having listened with due attention to Mrs.
+      Morton&rsquo;s eulogies on Tom, who had been sent for, and who drank the praises
+      on his own gentility into a very large pair of blushing ears,&mdash;also,
+      to her self-felicitations on Miss Margaret&rsquo;s marriage,&mdash;item, on the
+      service rendered to the town by Mr. Roger, who had repaired the town-hall
+      in his first mayoralty at his own expense,&mdash;item, to a long chronicle
+      of her own genealogy, how she had one cousin a clergyman, and how her
+      great-grandfather had been knighted,&mdash;item, to the domestic virtues
+      of all her children,&mdash;item, to a confused explanation of the
+      chastisement inflicted on Sidney, which Philip cut short in the middle; he
+      asked, with a smile, what had become of the Plaskwiths. &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; said Mrs.
+      Morton, &ldquo;my brother Kit has retired from business. His son-in-law, Mr.
+      Plimmins, has succeeded.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, then, Plimmins married one of the young ladies?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Jane&mdash;she had a sad squint!&mdash;Tom, there is nothing to
+      laugh at,&mdash;we are all as God made us,&mdash;&lsquo;Handsome is as handsome
+      does,&rsquo;&mdash;she has had three little uns!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do they squint too?&rdquo; asked Philip; and Miss Margaret giggled, and Tom
+      roared, and the other young men roared too. Philip had certainly said
+      something very witty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This time Mrs. Morton administered no reproof; but replied pensively
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Natur is very mysterious&mdash;they all squint!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Morton conducted Philip to his chamber. There it was, fresh, clean,
+      unaltered&mdash;the same white curtains, the same honeysuckle paper as
+      when Catherine had crept across the threshold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did Sidney ever tell you that his mother placed a ring round his neck
+      that night?&rdquo; asked Mr. Morton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; and the dear boy wept when he said that he had slept too soundly to
+      know that she was by his side that last, last time. The ring&mdash;oh, how
+      well I remember it! she never put it off till then; and often in the
+      fields&mdash;for we were wild wanderers together in that day&mdash;often
+      when his head lay on my shoulder, I felt that ring still resting on his
+      heart, and fancied it was a talisman&mdash;a blessing. Well, well-good
+      night to you!&rdquo; And he shut the door on his uncle, and was alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0048" id="link2HCH0048">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        &ldquo;The Man of Law,.......
+        And a great suit is like to be between them.&rdquo;
+         BEN JONSON: Staple of News.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      On arriving in London, Philip went first to the lodging he still kept
+      there, and to which his letters were directed; and, among some
+      communications from Paris, full of the politics and the hopes of the
+      Carlists, he found the following note from Lord Lilburne:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;DEAR SIR,&mdash;When I met you the other day I told you I had been
+      threatened with the gout. The enemy has now taken possession of the field.
+      I am sentenced to regimen and the sofa. But as it is my rule in life to
+      make afflictions as light as possible, so I have asked a few friends to
+      take compassion on me, and help me &lsquo;to shuffle off this mortal coil&rsquo; by
+      dealing me, if they can, four by honours. Any time between nine and twelve
+      to-night, or to-morrow night, you will find me at home; and if you are not
+      better engaged, suppose you dine with me to-day&mdash;or rather dine
+      opposite to me&mdash;and excuse my Spartan broth. You will meet (besides
+      any two or three friends whom an impromptu invitation may find disengaged)
+      my sister, with Beaufort and their daughter: they only arrived in town
+      this morning, and are kind enough &lsquo;to nurse me,&rsquo; as they call it,&mdash;that
+      is to say, their cook is taken ill!
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                   &ldquo;Yours,
+
+                      &ldquo;LILBURNE
+&ldquo;Park Lane, Sept. &mdash;&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Beauforts. Fate favors me&mdash;I will go. The date is for to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He sent off a hasty line to accept the invitation, and finding he had a
+      few hours yet to spare, he resolved to employ them in consultation with
+      some lawyer as to the chances of ultimately regaining his inheritance&mdash;a
+      hope which, however wild, he had, since his return to his native shore,
+      and especially since he had heard of the strange visit made to Roger
+      Morton, permitted himself to indulge. With this idea he sallied out,
+      meaning to consult Liancourt, who, having a large acquaintance among the
+      English, seemed the best person to advise him as to the choice of a lawyer
+      at once active and honest,&mdash;when he suddenly chanced upon that
+      gentleman himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is lucky, my dear Liancourt. I was just going to your lodgings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I was coming to yours to know if you dine with Lord Lilburne. He told
+      me he had asked you. I have just left him. And, by the sofa of
+      Mephistopheles, there was the prettiest Margaret you ever beheld.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed!&mdash;Who?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He called her his niece; but I should doubt if he had any relation on
+      this side the Styx so human as a niece.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem to have no great predilection for our host.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Vaudemont, between our blunt, soldierly natures, and those wily,
+      icy, sneering intellects, there is the antipathy of the dog to the cat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps so on our side, not on his&mdash;or why does he invite us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;London is empty; there is no one else to ask. We are new faces, new minds
+      to him. We amuse him more than the hackneyed comrades he has worn out.
+      Besides, he plays&mdash;and you, too. Fie on you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Liancourt, I had two objects in knowing that man, and I pay to the toll
+      for the bridge. When I cease to want the passage, I shall cease to pay the
+      toll.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the bridge may be a draw-bridge, and the moat is devilish deep below.
+      Without metaphor, that man may ruin you before you know where you are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bah! I have my eyes open. I know how much to spend on the rogue whose
+      service I hire as a lackey&rsquo;s; and I know also where to stop. Liancourt,&rdquo;
+       he added, after a short pause, and in a tone deep with suppressed passion,
+      &ldquo;when I first saw that man, I thought of appealing to his heart for one
+      who has a claim on it. That was a vain hope. And then there came upon me a
+      sterner and deadlier thought&mdash;the scheme of the Avenger! This
+      Lilburne&mdash;this rogue whom the world sets up to worship&mdash;ruined,
+      body and soul ruined&mdash;one whose name the world gibbets with scorn!
+      Well, I thought to avenge that man. In his own house&mdash;amidst you all&mdash;I
+      thought to detect the sharper, and brand the cheat!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You startle me!&mdash;It has been whispered, indeed, that Lord Lilburne
+      is dangerous,&mdash;but skill is dangerous. To cheat!&mdash;an Englishman!&mdash;a
+      nobleman!&mdash;impossible!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whether he do or not,&rdquo; returned Vaudemont, in a calmer tone, &ldquo;I have
+      foregone the vengeance, because he is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No matter,&rdquo; said Vaudemont aloud, but he added to himself,&mdash;&ldquo;Because
+      he is the grandfather of Fanny!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very enigmatical to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Patience, Liancourt; I may solve all the riddles that make up my life,
+      yet. Bear with me a little longer. And now can you help me to a lawyer?&mdash;a
+      man experienced, indeed, and of repute, but young, active, not overladen
+      with business;&mdash;I want his zeal and his time, for a hazard that your
+      monopolists of clients may not deem worth their devotion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can recommend you, then, the very man you require. I had a suit some
+      years ago at Paris, for which English witnesses were necessary. My avocat
+      employed a solicitor here whose activity in collecting my evidence gained
+      my cause. I will answer for his diligence and his honesty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His address?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Barlow&mdash;somewhere by the Strand&mdash;let me see&mdash;Essex-yes,
+      Essex Street.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then good-bye to you for the present.&mdash;You dine at Lord Lilburne&rsquo;s
+      too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Adieu till then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vaudemont was not long before he arrived at Mr. Barlow&rsquo;s; a brass-plate
+      announced to him the house. He was shown at once into a parlour, where he
+      saw a man whom lawyers would call young, and spinsters middle-aged&mdash;viz.,
+      about two-and-forty; with a bold, resolute, intelligent countenance, and
+      that steady, calm, sagacious eye, which inspires at once confidence and
+      esteem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vaudemont scanned him with the look of one who has been accustomed to
+      judge mankind&mdash;as a scholar does books&mdash;with rapidity because
+      with practice. He had at first resolved to submit to him the heads of his
+      case without mentioning names, and, in fact, he so commenced his
+      narrative; but by degrees, as he perceived how much his own earnestness
+      arrested and engrossed the interest of his listener, he warmed into fuller
+      confidence, and ended by a full disclosure, and a caution as to the
+      profoundest secrecy in case, if there were no hope to recover his rightful
+      name, he might yet wish to retain, unannoyed by curiosity or suspicion,
+      that by which he was not discreditably known.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; said Mr. Barlow, after assuring him of the most scrupulous
+      discretion,&mdash;&ldquo;sir, I have some recollection of the trial instituted
+      by your mother, Mrs. Beaufort&rdquo;&mdash;and the slight emphasis he laid on
+      that name was the most grateful compliment he could have paid to the truth
+      of Philip&rsquo;s recital. &ldquo;My impression is, that it was managed in a very
+      slovenly manner by her lawyer; and some of his oversights we may repair in
+      a suit instituted by yourself. But it would be absurd to conceal from you
+      the great difficulties that beset us&mdash;your mother&rsquo;s suit, designed to
+      establish her own rights, was far easier than that which you must commence&mdash;viz.,
+      an action for ejectment against a man who has been some years in
+      undisturbed possession. Of course, until the missing witness is found out,
+      it would be madness to commence litigation. And the question, then, will
+      be, how far that witness will suffice? It is true, that one witness of a
+      marriage, if the others are dead, is held sufficient by law. But I need
+      not add, that that witness must be thoroughly credible. In suits for real
+      property, very little documentary or secondary evidence is admitted. I
+      doubt even whether the certificate of the marriage on which&mdash;in the
+      loss or destruction of the register&mdash;you lay so much stress, would be
+      available in itself. But if an examined copy, it becomes of the last
+      importance, for it will then inform us of the name of the person who
+      extracted and examined it. Heaven grant it may not have been the clergyman
+      himself who performed the ceremony, and who, you say, is dead; if some one
+      else, we should then have a second, no doubt credible and most valuable
+      witness. The document would thus become available as proof, and, I think,
+      that we should not fail to establish our case.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But this certificate, how is it ever to be found? I told you we had
+      searched everywhere in vain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True; but you say that your mother always declared that the late Mr.
+      Beaufort had so solemnly assured her, even just prior to his decease, that
+      it was in existence, that I have no doubt as to the fact. It may be
+      possible, but it is a terrible insinuation to make, that if Mr. Robert
+      Beaufort, in examining the papers of the deceased, chanced upon a document
+      so important to him, he abstracted or destroyed it. If this should not
+      have been the case (and Mr. Robert Beaufort&rsquo;s moral character is unspotted&mdash;and
+      we have no right to suppose it), the probability is, either that it was
+      intrusted to some third person, or placed in some hidden drawer or
+      deposit, the secret of which your father never disclosed. Who has
+      purchased the house you lived in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fernside? Lord Lilburne. Mrs. Robert Beaufort&rsquo;s brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph&mdash;probably, then, he took the furniture and all. Sir, this is a
+      matter that requires some time for close consideration. With your leave, I
+      will not only insert in the London papers an advertisement to the effect
+      that you suggested to Mr. Roger Morton (in case you should have made a
+      right conjecture as to the object of the man who applied to him), but I
+      will also advertise for the witness himself. William Smith, you say, his
+      name is. Did the lawyer employed by Mrs. Beaufort send to inquire for him
+      in the colony?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; I fear there could not have been time for that. My mother was so
+      anxious and eager, and so convinced of the justice of her case&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a pity; her lawyer must have been a sad driveller.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Besides, now I remember, inquiry was made of his relations in England.
+      His father, a farmer, was then alive; the answer was that he had certainly
+      left Australia. His last letter, written two years before that date,
+      containing a request for money, which the father, himself made a bankrupt
+      by reverses, could not give, had stated that he was about to seek his
+      fortune elsewhere&mdash;since then they had heard nothing of him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ahem! Well, you will perhaps let me know where any relations of his are
+      yet to be found, and I will look up the former suit, and go into the whole
+      case without delay. In the meantime, you do right, sir&mdash;if you will
+      allow me to say it&mdash;not to disclose either your own identity or a
+      hint of your intentions. It is no use putting suspicion on its guard. And
+      my search for this certificate must be managed with the greatest address.
+      But, by the way&mdash;speaking of identity&mdash;there can be no
+      difficulty, I hope, in proving yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip was startled. &ldquo;Why, I am greatly altered.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But probably your beard and moustache may contribute to that change; and
+      doubtless, in the village where you lived, there would be many with whom
+      you were in sufficient intercourse, and on whose recollection, by
+      recalling little anecdotes and circumstances with which no one but
+      yourself could be acquainted, your features would force themselves along
+      with the moral conviction that the man who spoke to them could be no other
+      but Philip Morton&mdash;or rather Beaufort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are right; there must be many such. There was not a cottage in the
+      place where I and my dogs were not familiar and half domesticated.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All&rsquo;s right, so far, then. But I repeat, we must not be too sanguine. Law
+      is not justice&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But God is,&rdquo; said Philip; and he left the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0049" id="link2HCH0049">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Volpone. A little in a mist, but not dejected;
+     Never&mdash;but still myself.&rdquo;
+                BEN JONSON: Volpone.
+
+     &ldquo;Peregrine. Am I enough disguised?
+     Mer. Ay. I warrant you.
+     Per. Save you, fair lady.&rdquo;&mdash;Ibid.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. The ill wind that had blown gout
+      to Lord Lilburne had blown Lord Lilburne away from the injury he had
+      meditated against what he called &ldquo;the object of his attachment.&rdquo; How
+      completely and entirely, indeed, the state of Lord Lilburne&rsquo;s feelings
+      depended on the state of his health, may be seen in the answer he gave to
+      his valet, when, the morning after the first attack of the gout, that
+      worthy person, by way of cheering his master, proposed to ascertain
+      something as to the movements of one with whom Lord Lilburne professed to
+      be so violently in love,&mdash;&ldquo;Confound you, Dykeman!&rdquo; exclaimed the
+      invalid,&mdash;&ldquo;why do you trouble me about women when I&rsquo;m in this
+      condition? I don&rsquo;t care if they were all at the bottom of the sea! Reach
+      me the colchicum! I must keep my mind calm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Whenever tolerably well, Lord Lilburne was careless of his health; the
+      moment he was ill, Lord Lilburne paid himself the greatest possible
+      attention. Though a man of firm nerves, in youth of remarkable daring, and
+      still, though no longer rash, of sufficient personal courage, he was by no
+      means fond of the thought of death&mdash;that is, of his own death. Not
+      that he was tormented by any religious apprehensions of the Dread Unknown,
+      but simply because the only life of which he had any experience seemed to
+      him a peculiarly pleasant thing. He had a sort of instinctive persuasion
+      that John Lord Lilburne would not be better off anywhere else. Always
+      disliking solitude, he disliked it more than ever when he was ill, and he
+      therefore welcomed the visit of his sister and the gentle hand of his
+      pretty niece. As for Beaufort, he bored the sufferer; and when that
+      gentleman, on his arrival, shutting out his wife and daughter, whispered
+      to Lilburne, &ldquo;Any more news of that impostor?&rdquo; Lilburne answered
+      peevishly, &ldquo;I never talk about business when I have the gout! I have set
+      Sharp to keep a lookout for him, but he has learned nothing as yet. And
+      now go to your club. You are a worthy creature, but too solemn for my
+      spirits just at this moment. I have a few people coming to dine with me,
+      your wife will do the honors, and&mdash;you can come in the evening.&rdquo;
+       Though Mr. Robert Beaufort&rsquo;s sense of importance swelled and chafed at
+      this very unceremonious conge, he forced a smile, and said:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it is no wonder you are a little fretful with the gout. I have
+      plenty to do in town, and Mrs. Beaufort and Camilla can come back without
+      waiting for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, as your cook is ill, and they can&rsquo;t dine at a club, you may as well
+      leave them here till I am a little better; not that I care, for I can hire
+      a better nurse than either of them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Lilburne, don&rsquo;t talk of hiring nurses; certainly, I am too happy
+      if they can be of comfort to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No! on second thoughts, you may take back your wife, she&rsquo;s always talking
+      of her own complaints, and leave me Camilla: you can&rsquo;t want her for a few
+      days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just as you like. And you really think I have managed as well as I could
+      about this young man,&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;yes! And so you go to Beaufort Court in a few days?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I propose doing so. I wish you were well enough to come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Um! Chambers says that it would be a very good air for me&mdash;better
+      than Fernside; and as to my castle in the north, I would as soon go to
+      Siberia. Well, if I get better, I will pay you a visit, only you always
+      have such a stupid set of respectable people about you. I shock them, and
+      they oppress me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, as I hope soon to see Arthur, I shall make it as agreeable to him as
+      I can, and I shall be very much obliged to you if you would invite a few
+      of your own friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you are a good fellow, Beaufort, and I will take you at your word;
+      and, since one good turn deserves another, I have now no scruples in
+      telling you that I feel quite sure that you will have no further annoyance
+      from this troublesome witness-monger.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In that case,&rdquo; said Beaufort, &ldquo;I may pick up a better match for Camilla!
+      Good-bye, my dear Lilburne.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Form and Ceremony of the world!&rdquo; snarled the peer, as the door closed on
+      his brother-in-law, &ldquo;ye make little men very moral, and not a bit the
+      better for being so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It so happened that Vaudemont arrived before any of the other guests that
+      day, and during the half hour which Dr. Chambers assigned to his
+      illustrious patient, so that, when he entered, there were only Mrs.
+      Beaufort and Camilla in the drawing-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vaudemont drew back involuntarily as he recognized in the faded
+      countenance of the elder lady, features associated with one of the dark
+      passages in his earlier life; but Mrs. Beaufort&rsquo;s gracious smile, and
+      urbane, though languid welcome, sufficed to assure him that the
+      recognition was not mutual. He advanced, and again stopped short, as his
+      eye fell upon that fair and still childlike form, which had once knelt by
+      his side and pleaded, with the orphan, for his brother. While he spoke to
+      her, many recollections, some dark and stern&mdash;but those, at least,
+      connected with Camilla, soft and gentle&mdash;thrilled through his heart.
+      Occupied as her own thoughts and feelings necessarily were with Sidney,
+      there was something in Vaudemont&rsquo;s appearance&mdash;his manner, his voice&mdash;which
+      forced upon Camilla a strange and undefined interest; and even Mrs.
+      Beaufort was roused from her customary apathy, as she glanced at that dark
+      and commanding face with something between admiration and fear. Vaudemont
+      had scarcely, however, spoken ten words, when some other guests were
+      announced, and Lord Lilburne was wheeled in upon his sofa shortly
+      afterwards. Vaudemont continued, however, seated next to Camilla, and the
+      embarrassment he had at first felt disappeared. He possessed, when he
+      pleased, that kind of eloquence which belongs to men who have seen much
+      and felt deeply, and whose talk has not been frittered down to the
+      commonplace jargon of the world. His very phraseology was distinct and
+      peculiar, and he had that rarest of all charms in polished life,
+      originality both of thought and of manner. Camilla blushed, when she found
+      at dinner that he placed himself by her side. That evening De Vaudemont
+      excused himself from playing, but the table was easily made without him,
+      and still he continued to converse with the daughter of the man whom he
+      held as his worst foe. By degrees, he turned the conversation into a
+      channel that might lead him to the knowledge he sought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was my fate,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;once to become acquainted with an intimate
+      friend of the late Mr. Beaufort. Will you pardon me if I venture to fulfil
+      a promise I made to him, and ask you to inform me what has become of a&mdash;a&mdash;that
+      is, of Sidney Morton?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sidney Morton! I don&rsquo;t even remember the name. Oh, yes! I have heard it,&rdquo;
+       added Camilla, innocently, and with a candour that showed how little she
+      knew of the secrets of the family; &ldquo;he was one of two poor boys in whom my
+      brother felt a deep interest&mdash;some relations to my uncle. Yes&mdash;yes!
+      I remember now. I never knew Sidney, but I once did see his brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed! and you remember&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes! I was very young then. I scarcely recollect what passed, it was all
+      so confused and strange; but, I know that I made papa very angry, and I
+      was told never to mention the name of Morton again. I believe they behaved
+      very ill to papa.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you never learned&mdash;never!&mdash;the fate of either&mdash;of
+      Sidney?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But your father must know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think not; but tell me,&rdquo;&mdash;said Camilla, with girlish and
+      unaffected innocence, &ldquo;I have always felt anxious to know,&mdash;what and
+      who were those poor boys?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What and who were they? So deep, then, was the stain upon their name, that
+      the modest mother and the decorous father had never even said to that
+      young girl, &ldquo;They are your cousins&mdash;the children of the man in whose
+      gold we revel!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip bit his lip, and the spell of Camilla&rsquo;s presence seemed vanished.
+      He muttered some inaudible answer, turned away to the card-table, and
+      Liancourt took the chair he had left vacant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how does Miss Beaufort like my friend Vaudemont? I assure you that I
+      have seldom seen him so alive to the fascination of female beauty!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; said Camilla, with her silver laugh, &ldquo;your nation spoils us for our
+      own countrymen. You forget how little we are accustomed to flattery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Flattery! what truth could flatter on the lips of an exile? But you don&rsquo;t
+      answer my question&mdash;what think you of Vaudemont? Few are more
+      admired. He is handsome!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he?&rdquo; said Camilla, and she glanced at Vaudemont, as he stood at a
+      little distance, thoughtful and abstracted. Every girl forms to herself
+      some untold dream of that which she considers fairest. And Vaudemont had
+      not the delicate and faultless beauty of Sidney. There was nothing that
+      corresponded to her ideal in his marked features and lordly shape! But she
+      owned, reluctantly to herself, that she had seldom seen, among the trim
+      gallants of everyday life, a form so striking and impressive. The air,
+      indeed, was professional&mdash;the most careless glance could detect the
+      soldier. But it seemed the soldier of an elder age or a wilder clime. He
+      recalled to her those heads which she had seen in the Beaufort Gallery and
+      other Collections yet more celebrated&mdash;portraits by Titian of those
+      warrior statesman who lived in the old Republics of Italy in a perpetual
+      struggle with their kind&mdash;images of dark, resolute, earnest men. Even
+      whatever was intellectual in his countenance spoke, as in those portraits,
+      of a mind sharpened rather in active than in studious life;&mdash;intellectual,
+      not from the pale hues, the worn exhaustion, and the sunken cheek of the
+      bookman and dreamer, but from its collected and stern repose, the calm
+      depth that lay beneath the fire of the eyes, and the strong will that
+      spoke in the close full lips, and the high but not cloudless forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, as she gazed, Vaudemont turned round&mdash;her eyes fell beneath his,
+      and she felt angry with herself that she blushed. Vaudemont saw the
+      downcast eye, he saw the blush, and the attraction of Camilla&rsquo;s presence
+      was restored. He would have approached her, but at that moment Mr.
+      Beaufort himself entered, and his thoughts went again into a darker
+      channel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Liancourt, &ldquo;you must allow Vaudemont looks what he is&mdash;a
+      noble fellow and a gallant soldier. Did you never hear of his battle with
+      the tigress? It made a noise in India. I must tell it you as I have heard
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And while Laincourt was narrating the adventure, whatever it was, to which
+      he referred, the card-table was broken up, and Lord Lilburne, still
+      reclining on his sofa, lazily introduced his brother-in-law to such of the
+      guests as were strangers to him&mdash;Vaudemont among the rest. Mr.
+      Beaufort had never seen Philip Morton more than three times; once at
+      Fernside, and the other times by an imperfect light, and when his features
+      were convulsed by passion, and his form disfigured by his dress.
+      Certainly, therefore, had Robert Beaufort even possessed that faculty of
+      memory which is supposed to belong peculiarly to kings and princes, and
+      which recalls every face once seen, it might have tasked the gift to the
+      utmost to have detected, in the bronzed and decorated foreigner to whom he
+      was now presented, the features of the wild and long-lost boy. But still
+      some dim and uneasy presentiment, or some struggling and painful effort of
+      recollection, was in his mind, as he spoke to Vaudemont, and listened to
+      the cold calm tone of his reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who do you say that Frenchman is?&rdquo; he whispered to his brother-in-law, as
+      Vaudemont turned away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! a cleverish sort of adventurer&mdash;a gentleman; he plays.&mdash;He
+      has seen a good deal of the world&mdash;he rather amuses me&mdash;different
+      from other people. I think of asking him to join our circle at Beaufort
+      Court.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Beaufort coughed huskily, but not seeing any reasonable objection to
+      the proposal, and afraid of rousing the sleeping hyaena of Lord Lilburne&rsquo;s
+      sarcasm, he merely said:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Any one you like to invite:&rdquo; and looking round for some one on whom to
+      vent his displeasure, perceived Camilla still listening to Liancourt. He
+      stalked up to her, and as Liancourt, seeing her rise, rose also and moved
+      away, he said peevishly, &ldquo;You will never learn to conduct yourself
+      properly; you are to be left here to nurse and comfort your uncle, and not
+      to listen to the gibberish of every French adventurer. Well, Heaven be
+      praised, I have a son&mdash;girls are a great plague!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So they are, Mr. Beaufort,&rdquo; sighed his wife, who had just joined him, and
+      who was jealous of the preference Lilburne had given to her daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so selfish,&rdquo; added Mrs. Beaufort; &ldquo;they only care for their own
+      amusements, and never mind how uncomfortable their parents are for want of
+      them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! dear mamma, don&rsquo;t say so&mdash;let me go home with you&mdash;I&rsquo;ll
+      speak to my uncle!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense, child! Come along, Mr. Beaufort;&rdquo; and the affectionate parents
+      went out arm in arm. They did not perceive that Vaudemont had been
+      standing close behind them; but Camilla, now looking up with tears in her
+      eyes, again caught his gaze: he had heard all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And they ill-treat her,&rdquo; he muttered: &ldquo;that divides her from them!&mdash;she
+      will be left here&mdash;I shall see her again.&rdquo; As he turned to depart,
+      Lilburne beckoned to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do not mean to desert our table?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No: but I am not very well to-night&mdash;to-morrow, if you will allow
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, to-morrow; and if you can spare an hour in the morning it will be a
+      charity. You see,&rdquo; he added in a whisper, &ldquo;I have a nurse, though I have
+      no children. D&rsquo;ye think that&rsquo;s love? Bah! sir&mdash;a legacy! Good night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;no&mdash;no!&rdquo; said Vaudemont to himself, as he walked through
+      the moonlit streets. &ldquo;No! though my heart burns,&mdash;poor murdered
+      felon!&mdash;to avenge thy wrongs and thy crimes, revenge cannot come from
+      me&mdash;he is Fanny&rsquo;s grandfather and&mdash;Camilla&rsquo;s uncle!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Camilla, when that uncle had dismissed her for the night, sat down
+      thoughtfully in her own room. The dark eyes of Vaudemont seemed still to
+      shine on her; his voice yet rung in her ear; the wild tales of daring and
+      danger with which Liancourt had associated his name yet haunted her
+      bewildered fancy&mdash;she started, frightened at her own thoughts. She
+      took from her bosom some lines that Sidney had addressed to her, and, as
+      she read and re-read, her spirit became calmed to its wonted and faithful
+      melancholy. Vaudemont was forgotten, and the name of Sidney yet murmured
+      on her lips, when sleep came to renew the image of the absent one, and
+      paint in dreams the fairy land of a happy Future!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0050" id="link2HCH0050">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Ring on, ye bells&mdash;most pleasant is your chime!&rdquo;
+       WILSON. Isle of Palms.
+
+     &ldquo;O fairy child! What can I wish for thee?&rdquo;&mdash;Ibid.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Vaudemont remained six days in London without going to H&mdash;&mdash;,
+      and on each of those days he paid a visit to Lord Lilburne. On the seventh
+      day, the invalid being much better, though still unable to leave his room,
+      Camilla returned to Berkeley Square. On the same day, Vaudemont went once
+      more to see Simon and poor Fanny.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he approached the door, he heard from the window, partially opened, for
+      the day was clear and fine, Fanny&rsquo;s sweet voice. She was chaunting one of
+      the simple songs she had promised to learn by heart; and Vaudemont, though
+      but a poor judge of the art, was struck and affected by the music of the
+      voice and the earnest depth of the feeling. He paused opposite the window
+      and called her by her name. Fanny looked forth joyously, and ran, as
+      usual, to open the door to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! you have been so long away; but I already know many of the songs:
+      they say so much that I always wanted to say!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vaudemont smiled, but languidly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How strange it is,&rdquo; said Fanny, musingly, &ldquo;that there should be so much
+      in a piece of paper! for, after all,&rdquo; pointing to the open page of her
+      book, &ldquo;this is but a piece of paper&mdash;only there is life in it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay,&rdquo; said Vaudemont, gloomily, and far from seizing the subtle delicacy
+      of Fanny&rsquo;s thought&mdash;her mind dwelling upon Poetry, and his upon Law,&mdash;&ldquo;ay,
+      and do you know that upon a mere scrap of paper, if I could but find it,
+      may depend my whole fortune, my whole happiness, all that I care for in
+      life?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Upon a scrap of paper? Oh! how I wish I could find it! Ah! you look as if
+      you thought I should never be wise enough for that!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vaudemont, not listening to her, uttered a deep sigh. Fanny approached him
+      timidly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not sigh, brother,&mdash;I can&rsquo;t bear to hear you sigh. You are
+      changed. Have you, too, not been happy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Happy, Fanny! yes, lately very happy&mdash;too happy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Happy, have you? and I&mdash;&rdquo; the girl stopped short&mdash;her tone had
+      been that of sadness and reproach, and she stopped&mdash;why, she knew
+      not, but she felt her heart sink within her. Fanny suffered him to pass
+      her, and he went straight to his room. Her eyes followed him wistfully: it
+      was not his habit to leave her thus abruptly. The family meal of the day
+      was over; and it was an hour before Vaudemont descended to the parlour.
+      Fanny had put aside the songs; she had no heart to recommence those gentle
+      studies that had been so sweet,&mdash;they had drawn no pleasure, no
+      praise from him. She was seated idly and listlessly beside the silent old
+      man, who every day grew more and more silent still. She turned her head as
+      Vaudemont entered, and her pretty lip pouted as that of a neglected child.
+      But he did not heed it, and the pout vanished, and tears rushed to her
+      eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vaudemont was changed. His countenance was thoughtful and overcast. His
+      manner abstracted. He addressed a few words to Simon, and then, seating
+      himself by the window, leant his cheek on his hand, and was soon lost in
+      reverie. Fanny, finding that he did not speak, and after stealing many a
+      long and earnest glance at his motionless attitude and gloomy brow, rose
+      gently, and gliding to him with her light step, said, in a trembling
+      voice,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you in pain, brother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, pretty one!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why won&rsquo;t you speak to Fanny? Will you not walk with her? Perhaps my
+      grandfather will come too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not this evening. I shall go out; but it will be alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where? Has not Fanny been good? I have not been out since you left us.
+      And the grave&mdash;brother!&mdash;I sent Sarah with the flowers&mdash;but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vaudemont rose abruptly. The mention of the grave brought back his
+      thoughts from the dreaming channel into which they had flowed. Fanny,
+      whose very childishness had once so soothed him, now disturbed; he felt
+      the want of that complete solitude which makes the atmosphere of growing
+      passion: he muttered some scarcely audible excuse, and quitted the house.
+      Fanny saw him no more that evening. He did not return till midnight. But
+      Fanny did not sleep till she heard his step on the stairs, and his chamber
+      door close: and when she did sleep, her dreams were disturbed and painful.
+      The next morning, when they met at breakfast (for Vaudemont did not return
+      to London), her eyes were red and heavy, and her cheek pale. And, still
+      buried in meditation, Vaudemont&rsquo;s eye, usually so kind and watchful, did
+      not detect those signs of a grief that Fanny could not have explained.
+      After breakfast, however, he asked her to walk out; and her face
+      brightened as she hastened to put on her bonnet, and take her little
+      basket full of fresh flowers which she had already sent Sarah forth to
+      purchase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fanny,&rdquo; said Vaudemont, as leaving the house, he saw the basket on her
+      arm, &ldquo;to-day you may place some of those flowers on another tombstone!&mdash;Poor
+      child, what natural goodness there is in that heart!&mdash;what pity that&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused. Fanny looked delightedly in his face. &ldquo;You were praising me&mdash;you!
+      And what is a pity, brother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While she spoke, the sound of the joy-bells was heard near at hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hark!&rdquo; said Vaudemont, forgetting her question&mdash;and almost gaily&mdash;&ldquo;Hark!&mdash;I
+      accept the omen. It is a marriage peal!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He quickened his steps, and they reached the churchyard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a crowd already assembled, and Vaudemont and Fanny paused; and,
+      leaning over the little gate, looked on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why are these people here, and why does the bell ring so merrily?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is to be a wedding, Fanny.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have heard of a wedding very often,&rdquo; said Fanny, with a pretty look of
+      puzzlement and doubt, &ldquo;but I don&rsquo;t know exactly what it means. Will you
+      tell me?&mdash;and the bells, too!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Fanny, those bells toll but three times for man! The first time,
+      when he comes into the world; the last time, when he leaves it; the time
+      between when he takes to his side a partner in all the sorrows&mdash;in
+      all the joys that yet remain to him; and who, even when the last bell
+      announces his death to this earth, may yet, for ever and ever, be his
+      partner in that world to come&mdash;that heaven, where they who are as
+      innocent as you, Fanny, may hope to live and to love each other in a land
+      in which there are no graves!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And this bell?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tolls for that partnership&mdash;for the wedding!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I understand you;&mdash;and they who are to be wed are happy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Happy, Fanny, if they love, and their love continue. Oh! conceive the
+      happiness to know some one person dearer to you than your own self&mdash;some
+      one breast into which you can pour every thought, every grief, every joy!
+      One person, who, if all the rest of the world were to calumniate or
+      forsake you, would never wrong you by a harsh thought or an unjust word,&mdash;who
+      would cling to you the closer in sickness, in poverty, in care,&mdash;who
+      would sacrifice all things to you, and for whom you would sacrifice all&mdash;from
+      whom, except by death, night or day, you must be never divided&mdash;whose
+      smile is ever at your hearth&mdash;who has no tears while you are well and
+      happy, and your love the same. Fanny, such is marriage, if they who marry
+      have hearts and souls to feel that there is no bond on earth so tender and
+      so sublime. There is an opposite picture;&mdash;I will not draw that! And
+      as it is, Fanny, you cannot understand me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned away:&mdash;and Fanny&rsquo;s tears were falling like rain upon the
+      grass below;&mdash;he did not see them! He entered the churchyard; for the
+      bell now ceased. The ceremony was to begin. He followed the bridal party
+      into the church, and Fanny, lowering her veil, crept after him, awed and
+      trembling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They stood, unobserved, at a little distance, and heard the service.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The betrothed were of the middle class of life, young, both comely; and
+      their behaviour was such as suited the reverence and sanctity of the rite.
+      Vaudemont stood looking on intently, with his arms folded on his breast.
+      Fanny leant behind him, and apart from all, against one of the pews. And
+      still in her hand, while the priest was solemnising Marriage, she held the
+      flowers intended for the Grave. Even to that MORNING&mdash;hushed, calm,
+      earliest, with her mysterious and unconjectured heart&mdash;her shape
+      brought a thought of NIGHT!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the ceremony was over&mdash;when the bride fell on her mother&rsquo;s
+      breast and wept; and then, when turning thence, her eyes met the
+      bridegroom&rsquo;s, and the tears were all smiled away&mdash;when, in that one
+      rapid interchange of looks, spoke all that holy love can speak to love,
+      and with timid frankness she placed her hand in his to whom she had just
+      vowed her life,&mdash;a thrill went through the hearts of those present.
+      Vaudemont sighed heavily. He heard his sigh echoed; but by one that had in
+      its sound no breath of pain; he turned; Fanny had raised her veil; her
+      eyes met his, moistened, but bright, soft, and her cheeks were rosy-red.
+      Vaudemont recoiled before that gaze, and turned from the church. The
+      persons interested retired to the vestry to sign their names in the
+      registry; the crowd dispersed, and Vaudemont and Fanny stood alone in the
+      burial-ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look, Fanny,&rdquo; said the former, pointing to a tomb that stood far from his
+      mother&rsquo;s (for those ashes were too hallowed for such a neighbourhood).
+      &ldquo;Look yonder; it is a new tomb. Fanny, let us approach it. Can you read
+      what is there inscribed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The inscription was simply this:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                TO W&mdash;
+ G&mdash;
+              MAN SEES THE DEED
+            GOD THE CIRCUMSTANCE.
+               JUDGE NOT,
+             THAT YE BE NOT JUDGED.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fanny, this tomb fulfils your pious wish: it is to the memory of him whom
+      you called your father. Whatever was his life here&mdash;whatever sentence
+      it hath received, Heaven, at least, will not condemn your piety, if you
+      honour one who was good to you, and place flowers, however idle, even over
+      that grave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is his&mdash;my father&rsquo;s&mdash;and you have thought of this for me!&rdquo;
+       said Fanny, taking his hand, and sobbing. &ldquo;And I have been thinking that
+      you were not so kind to me as you were!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have I not been so kind to you? Nay, forgive me, I am not happy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not?&mdash;you said yesterday you had been too happy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To remember happiness is not to be happy, Fanny.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s true&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fanny stopped; and, as she bent over the tomb, musing, Vaudemont, willing
+      to leave her undisturbed, and feeling bitterly how little his conscience
+      could vindicate, though it might find palliation for, the dark man who
+      slept not there&mdash;retired a few paces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this time the new-married pair, with their witnesses, the clergyman,
+      &amp;c., came from the vestry, and crossed the path. Fanny, as she turned
+      from the tomb, saw them, and stood still, looking earnestly at the bride.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a lovely face!&rdquo; said the mother. &ldquo;Is it&mdash;yes it is&mdash;the
+      poor idiot girl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said the bridegroom, tenderly, &ldquo;and she, Mary, beautiful as she is,
+      she can never make another as happy as you have made me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vaudemont heard, and his heart felt sad. &ldquo;Poor Fanny!&mdash;And yet, but
+      for that affliction&mdash;I might have loved her, ere I met the fatal face
+      of the daughter of my foe!&rdquo; And with a deep compassion, an inexpressible
+      and holy fondness, he moved to Fanny.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, my child; now let us go home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay,&rdquo; said Fanny&mdash;&ldquo;you forget.&rdquo; And she went to strew the flowers
+      still left over Catherine&rsquo;s grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will my mother,&rdquo; thought Vaudemont, &ldquo;forgive me, if I have other thoughts
+      than hate and vengeance for that house which builds its greatness over her
+      slandered name?&rdquo; He groaned:&mdash;and that grave had lost its melancholy
+      charm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0051" id="link2HCH0051">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        &ldquo;Of all men, I say,
+        That dare, for &lsquo;tis a desperate adventure,
+        Wear on their free necks the yoke of women,
+        Give me a soldier.&rdquo;&mdash;Knight of Malta.
+
+        &ldquo;So lightly doth this little boat
+        Upon the scarce-touch&rsquo;d billows float;
+        So careless doth she seem to be,
+        Thus left by herself on the homeless sea,
+        To lie there with her cheerful sail,
+        Till Heaven shall send some gracious gale.&rdquo;
+         WILSON: Isle of Palms.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Vaudemont returned that evening to London, and found at his lodgings a
+      note from Lord Lilburne, stating that as his gout was now somewhat
+      mitigated, his physician had recommended him to try change of air&mdash;that
+      Beaufort Court was in one of the western counties, in a genial climate&mdash;that
+      he was therefore going thither the next day for a short time&mdash;that he
+      had asked some of Monsieur de Vaudemont&rsquo;s countrymen, and a few other
+      friends, to enliven the circle of a dull country-house&mdash;that Mr. and
+      Mrs. Beaufort would be delighted to see Monsieur de Vaudemont also&mdash;and
+      that his compliance with their invitation would be a charity to Monsieur
+      de Vaudemont&rsquo;s faithful and obliged, LILBURNE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first sensation of Vaudemont on reading this effusion was delight. &ldquo;I
+      shall see her,&rdquo; he cried; &ldquo;I shall be under the same roof!&rdquo; But the glow
+      faded at once from his cheek;&mdash;the roof!&mdash;what roof? Be the
+      guest where he held himself the lord!&mdash;be the guest of Robert
+      Beaufort!&mdash;Was that all? Did he not meditate the deadliest war which
+      civilised life admits of&mdash;the War of Law&mdash;war for name,
+      property, that very hearth, with all its household gods, against this man&mdash;could
+      he receive his hospitality? &ldquo;And what then!&rdquo; he exclaimed, as he paced to
+      and fro the room,&mdash;&ldquo;because her father wronged me, and because I
+      would claim mine own&mdash;must I therefore exclude from my thoughts, from
+      my sight, an image so fair and gentle;&mdash;the one who knelt by my side,
+      an infant, to that hard man?&mdash;Is hate so noble a passion that it is
+      not to admit one glimpse of Love?&mdash;Love! what word is that? Let me
+      beware in time!&rdquo; He paused in fierce self-contest, and, throwing open the
+      window, gasped for air. The street in which he lodged was situated in the
+      neighbourhood of St. James&rsquo;s; and, at that very moment, as if to defeat
+      all opposition, and to close the struggle, Mrs. Beaufort&rsquo;s barouche drove
+      by, Camilla at her side. Mrs. Beaufort, glancing up; languidly bowed; and
+      Camilla herself perceived him, and he saw her change colour as she
+      inclined her head. He gazed after them almost breathless, till the
+      carriage disappeared; and then reclosing the window, he sat down to
+      collect his thoughts, and again to reason with himself. But still, as he
+      reasoned, he saw ever before him that blush and that smile. At last he
+      sprang up, and a noble and bright expression elevated the character of his
+      face,&mdash;&ldquo;Yes, if I enter that house, if I eat that man&rsquo;s bread, and
+      drink of his cup, I must forego, not justice&mdash;not what is due to my
+      mother&rsquo;s name&mdash;but whatever belongs to hate and vengeance. If I enter
+      that house&mdash;and if Providence permit me the means whereby to regain
+      my rights, why she&mdash;the innocent one&mdash;she may be the means of
+      saving her father from ruin, and stand like an angel by that boundary
+      where justice runs into revenge!&mdash;Besides, is it not my duty to
+      discover Sidney? Here is the only clue I shall obtain.&rdquo; With these
+      thoughts he hesitated no more&mdash;he decided he would not reject this
+      hospitality, since it might be in his power to pay it back ten
+      thousandfold. &ldquo;And who knows,&rdquo; he murmured again, &ldquo;if Heaven, in throwing
+      this sweet being in my way, might not have designed to subdue and chasten
+      in me the angry passions I have so long fed on? I have seen her,&mdash;can
+      I now hate her father?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He sent off his note accepting the invitation. When he had done so, was he
+      satisfied? He had taken as noble and as large a view of the duties thereby
+      imposed on him as he well could take: but something whispered at his
+      heart, &ldquo;There is weakness in thy generosity&mdash;Darest thou love the
+      daughter of Robert Beaufort?&rdquo; And his heart had no answer to this voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rapidity with which love is ripened depends less upon the actual
+      number of years that have passed over the soil in which the seed is cast,
+      than upon the freshness of the soil itself. A young man who lives the
+      ordinary life of the world, and who fritters away, rather than exhausts,
+      his feelings upon a variety of quick succeeding subjects&mdash;the
+      Cynthias of the minute&mdash;is not apt to form a real passion at the
+      first sight. Youth is inflammable only when the heart is young!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are certain times of life when, in either sex, the affections are
+      prepared, as it were, to be impressed with the first fair face that
+      attracts the fancy and delights the eye. Such times are when the heart has
+      been long solitary, and when some interval of idleness and rest succeeds
+      to periods of harsher and more turbulent excitement. It was precisely such
+      a period in the life of Vaudemont. Although his ambition had been for many
+      years his dream, and his sword his mistress, yet naturally affectionate,
+      and susceptible of strong emotion, he had often repined at his lonely lot.
+      By degrees the boy&rsquo;s fantasy and reverence which had wound themselves
+      round the image of Eugenie subsided into that gentle and tender melancholy
+      which, perhaps by weakening the strength of the sterner thoughts, leaves
+      us inclined rather to receive, than to resist, a new attachment;&mdash;and
+      on the verge of the sweet Memory trembles the sweet Hope. The suspension
+      of his profession, his schemes, his struggles, his career, left his
+      passions unemployed. Vaudemont was thus unconsciously prepared to love. As
+      we have seen, his first and earliest feelings directed themselves to
+      Fanny. But he had so immediately detected the clanger, and so immediately
+      recoiled from nursing those thoughts and fancies, without which love dies
+      for want of food, for a person to whom he ascribed the affliction of an
+      imbecility which would give to such a sentiment all the attributes either
+      of the weakest rashness or of dishonour approaching to sacrilege&mdash;that
+      the wings of the deity were scared away the instant their very shadow fell
+      upon his mind. And thus, when Camilla rose upon him his heart was free to
+      receive her image. Her graces, her accomplishments, a certain nameless
+      charm that invested her, pleased him even more than her beauty; the
+      recollections connected with that first time in which he had ever beheld
+      her, were also grateful and endearing; the harshness with which her
+      parents spoke to her moved his compassion, and addressed itself to a
+      temper peculiarly alive to the generosity that leans towards the weak and
+      the wronged; the engaging mixture of mildness and gaiety with which she
+      tended her peevish and sneering uncle, convinced him of her better and
+      more enduring qualities of disposition and womanly heart. And even&mdash;so
+      strange and contradictory are our feelings&mdash;the very remembrance that
+      she was connected with a family so hateful to him made her own image the
+      more bright from the darkness that surrounded it. For was it not with the
+      daughter of his foe that the lover of Verona fell in love at first sight?
+      And is not that a common type of us all&mdash;as if Passion delighted in
+      contradictions? As the Diver, in Schiller&rsquo;s exquisite ballad, fastened
+      upon the rock of coral in the midst of the gloomy sea, so we cling the
+      more gratefully to whatever of fair thought and gentle shelter smiles out
+      to us in the depths of Hate and Strife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, perhaps, Vaudemont would not so suddenly and so utterly have rendered
+      himself to a passion that began, already, completely to master his strong
+      spirit, if he had not, from Camilla&rsquo;s embarrassment, her timidity, her
+      blushes, intoxicated himself with the belief that his feelings were not
+      unshared. And who knows not that such a belief, once cherished, ripens our
+      own love to a development in which hours are as years?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was, then, with such emotions as made him almost insensible to every
+      thought but the luxury of breathing the same air as his cousin, which
+      swept from his mind the Past, the Future&mdash;leaving nothing but a
+      joyous, a breathless PRESENT on the Face of Time, that he repaired to
+      Beaufort Court. He did not return to H&mdash;&mdash; before he went, but
+      he wrote to Fanny a short and hurried line to explain that he might be
+      absent for some days at least, and promised to write again, if he should
+      be detained longer than he anticipated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meanwhile, one of those successive revolutions which had marked the
+      eras in Fanny&rsquo;s moral existence took its date from that last time they had
+      walked and conversed together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The very evening of that day, some hours after Philip was gone, and after
+      Simon had retired to rest, Fanny was sitting before the dying fire in the
+      little parlour in an attitude of deep and pensive reverie. The old
+      woman-servant, Sarah, who, very different from Mrs. Boxer, loved Fanny
+      with her whole heart, came into the room as was her wont before going to
+      bed, to see that the fire was duly out, and all safe: and as she
+      approached the hearth, she started to see Fanny still up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear heart alive!&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;why, Miss Fanny, you will catch your death
+      of cold,&mdash;what are you thinking about?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sit down, Sarah; I want to speak to you.&rdquo; Now, though Fanny was
+      exceedingly kind, and attached to Sarah, she was seldom communicative to
+      her, or indeed to any one. It was usually in its own silence and darkness
+      that that lovely mind worked out its own doubts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you, my sweet young lady? I&rsquo;m sure anything I can do&mdash;&rdquo; and Sarah
+      seated herself in her master&rsquo;s great chair, and drew it close to Fanny.
+      There was no light in the room but the expiring fire, and it threw upward
+      a pale glimmer on the two faces bending over it,&mdash;the one so
+      strangely beautiful, so smooth, so blooming, so exquisite in its youth and
+      innocence,&mdash;the other withered, wrinkled, meagre, and astute. It was
+      like the Fairy and the Witch together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, miss,&rdquo; said the crone, observing that, after a considerable pause,
+      Fanny was still silent,&mdash;&ldquo;Well&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sarah, I have seen a wedding!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you?&rdquo; and the old woman laughed. &ldquo;Oh! I heard it was to be to-day!&mdash;young
+      Waldron&rsquo;s wedding! Yes, they have been long sweethearts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were you ever married, Sarah?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord bless you,&mdash;yes! and a very good husband I had, poor man! But
+      he&rsquo;s dead these many years; and if you had not taken me, I must have gone
+      to the workhus.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is dead! Wasn&rsquo;t it very hard to live after that, Sarah?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Lord strengthens the hearts of widders!&rdquo; observed Sarah,
+      sanctimoniously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you marry your brother, Sarah?&rdquo; said Fanny, playing with the corner
+      of her apron.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My brother!&rdquo; exclaimed the old woman, aghast. &ldquo;La! miss, you must not
+      talk in that way,&mdash;it&rsquo;s quite wicked and heathenish! One must not
+      marry one&rsquo;s brother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No!&rdquo; said Fanny, tremblingly, and turning very pale, even by that light.
+      &ldquo;No!&mdash;are you sure of that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the wickedest thing even to talk about, my dear young mistress;&mdash;but
+      you&rsquo;re like a babby unborn!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fanny was silent for some moments. At length she said, unconscious that
+      she was speaking aloud, &ldquo;But he is not my brother, after all!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, miss, fie! Are you letting your pretty head run on the handsome
+      gentleman. You, too,&mdash;dear, dear! I see we&rsquo;re all alike, we poor
+      femel creturs! You! who&rsquo;d have thought it? Oh, Miss Fanny!&mdash;you&rsquo;ll
+      break your heart if you goes for to fancy any such thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Any what thing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, that that gentleman will marry you!&mdash;I&rsquo;m sure, tho&rsquo; he&rsquo;s so
+      simple like, he&rsquo;s some great gentleman! They say his hoss is worth a
+      hundred pounds! Dear, dear! why didn&rsquo;t I ever think of this before? He
+      must be a very wicked man. I see, now, why he comes here. I&rsquo;ll speak to
+      him, that I will!&mdash;a very wicked man!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sarah was startled from her indignation by Fanny&rsquo;s rising suddenly, and
+      standing before her in the flickering twilight, almost like a shape
+      transformed,&mdash;so tall did she seem, so stately, so dignified.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it of him that you are speaking?&rdquo; said she, in a voice of calm but
+      deep resentment&mdash;&ldquo;of him! If so, Sarah, we two can live no more in
+      the same house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And these words were said with a propriety and collectedness that even,
+      through all her terrors, showed at once to Sarah how much they now wronged
+      Fanny who had suffered their lips to repeat the parrot-cry of the &ldquo;idiot
+      girl!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O! gracious me!&mdash;miss&mdash;ma&rsquo;am&mdash;I am so sorry&mdash;I&rsquo;d
+      rather bite out my tongue than say a word to offend you; it was only my
+      love for you, dear innocent creature that you are!&rdquo; and the honest woman
+      sobbed with real passion as she clasped Fanny&rsquo;s hand. &ldquo;There have been so
+      many young persons, good and harmless, yes, even as you are, ruined. But
+      you don&rsquo;t understand me. Miss Fanny! hear me; I must try and say what I
+      would say. That man, that gentleman&mdash;so proud, so well-dressed, so
+      grand-like, will never marry you, never&mdash;never. And if ever he says
+      he does love you, and you say you love him, and you two don&rsquo;t marry, you
+      will be ruined and wicked, and die&mdash;die of a broken heart!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The earnestness of Sarah&rsquo;s manner subdued and almost awed Fanny. She sank
+      down again in her chair, and suffered the old woman to caress and weep
+      over her hand for some moments in a silence that concealed the darkest and
+      most agitated feelings Fanny&rsquo;s life had hitherto known. At length she
+      said:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why may he not marry me if he loves me?&mdash;he is not my brother,&mdash;indeed
+      he is not! I&rsquo;ll never call him so again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He cannot marry you,&rdquo; said Sarah, resolved, with a sort of rude
+      nobleness, to persevere in what she felt to be a duty; &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t say
+      anything about money, because that does not always signify. But he cannot
+      marry you, because&mdash;because people who are hedicated one way never
+      marry those who are hedicated and brought up in another. A gentleman of
+      that kind requires a wife to know&mdash;oh&mdash;to know ever so much; and
+      you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sarah,&rdquo; interrupted Fanny, rising again, but this time with a smile on
+      her face, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t say anything more about it; I forgive you, if you promise
+      never to speak unkindly of him again&mdash;never&mdash;never&mdash;never,
+      Sarah!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But may I just tell him that&mdash;that&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That you are so young and innocent, and has no pertector like; and that
+      if you were to love him it would be a shame in him&mdash;that it would!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then (oh, no, Fanny, there was nothing clouded now in your reason!)&mdash;and
+      then the woman&rsquo;s alarm, the modesty, the instinct, the terror came upon
+      her:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never! never! I will not love him, I do not love him, indeed, Sarah. If
+      you speak to him, I will never look you in the face again. It is all past&mdash;all,
+      dear Sarah!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She kissed the old woman; and Sarah, fancying that her sagacity and
+      counsel had prevailed, promised all she was asked; so they went up-stairs
+      together&mdash;friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0052" id="link2HCH0052">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        &ldquo;As the wind
+        Sobs, an uncertain sweetness comes from out
+        The orange-trees.
+
+        Rise up, Olympia.&mdash;She sleeps soundly. Ho!
+        Stirring at last.&rdquo; BARRY CORNWALL.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The next day, Fanny was seen by Sarah counting the little hoard that she
+      had so long and so painfully saved for her benefactor&rsquo;s tomb. The money
+      was no longer wanted for that object. Fanny had found another; she said
+      nothing to Sarah or to Simon. But there was a strange complacent smile
+      upon her lip as she busied herself in her work, that puzzled the old
+      woman. Late at noon came the postman&rsquo;s unwonted knock at the door. A
+      letter!&mdash;a letter for Miss Fanny. A letter!&mdash;the first she had
+      ever received in her life! And it was from him!&mdash;and it began with
+      &ldquo;Dear Fanny.&rdquo; Vaudemont had called her &ldquo;dear Fanny&rdquo; a hundred times, and
+      the expression had become a matter of course. But &ldquo;Dear Fanny&rdquo; seemed so
+      very different when it was written. The letter could not well be shorter,
+      nor, all things considered, colder. But the girl found no fault with it.
+      It began with &ldquo;Dear Fanny,&rdquo; and it ended with &ldquo;yours truly.&rdquo; &ldquo;&mdash;Yours
+      truly&mdash;mine truly&mdash;and how kind to write at all!&rdquo; Now it so
+      happened that Vaudemont, having never merged the art of the penman into
+      that rapid scrawl into which people, who are compelled to write hurriedly
+      and constantly, degenerate, wrote a remarkably good hand,&mdash;bold,
+      clear, symmetrical&mdash;almost too good a hand for one who was not to
+      make money by caligraphy. And after Fanny had got the words by heart, she
+      stole gently to a cupboard and took forth some specimens of her own hand,
+      in the shape of house and work memoranda, and extracts which, the better
+      to help her memory, she had made from the poem-book Vaudemont had given
+      her. She gravely laid his letter by the side of these specimens, and
+      blushed at the contrast; yet, after all, her own writing, though trembling
+      and irresolute, was far from a bad or vulgar hand. But emulation was now
+      fairly roused within her. Vaudemont, pre-occupied by more engrossing
+      thoughts, and indeed, forgetting a danger which had seemed so thoroughly
+      to have passed away, did not in his letter caution Fanny against going out
+      alone. She remarked this; and having completely recovered her own alarm at
+      the attempt that had been made on her liberty, she thought she was now
+      released from her promise to guard against a past and imaginary peril. So
+      after dinner she slipped out alone, and went to the mistress of the school
+      where she had received her elementary education. She had ever since
+      continued her acquaintance with that lady, who, kindhearted, and touched
+      by her situation, often employed her industry, and was far from blind to
+      the improvement that had for some time been silently working in the mind
+      of her old pupil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fanny had a long conversation with this lady, and she brought back a
+      bundle of books. The light might have been seen that night, and many
+      nights after, burning long and late from her little window. And having
+      recovered her old freedom of habits, which Simon, poor man, did not
+      notice, and which Sarah, thinking that anything was better than moping at
+      home, did not remonstrate against, Fanny went out regularly for two hours,
+      or sometimes for even a longer period, every evening after old Simon had
+      composed himself to the nap that filled up the interval between dinner and
+      tea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a very short time&mdash;a time that with ordinary stimulants would have
+      seemed marvellously short&mdash;Fanny&rsquo;s handwriting was not the same
+      thing; her manner of talking became different; she no longer called
+      herself &ldquo;Fanny&rdquo; when she spoke; the music of her voice was more quiet and
+      settled; her sweet expression of face was more thoughtful; the eyes seemed
+      to have deepened in their very colour; she was no longer heard chaunting
+      to herself as she tripped along. The books that she nightly fed on had
+      passed into her mind; the poetry that had ever unconsciously sported round
+      her young years began now to create poetry in herself. Nay, it might
+      almost have seemed as if that restless disorder of the intellect, which
+      the dullards had called Idiotcy, had been the wild efforts, not of Folly,
+      but of GENIUS seeking to find its path and outlet from the cold and dreary
+      solitude to which the circumstances of her early life had compelled it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Days, even weeks, passed&mdash;she never spoke of Vaudemont. And once,
+      when Sarah, astonished and bewildered by the change in her young mistress,
+      asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When does the gentleman come back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fanny answered, with a mysterious smile, &ldquo;Not yet, I hope,&mdash;not quite
+      yet!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0053" id="link2HCH0053">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        &ldquo;Thierry. I do begin
+        To feel an alteration in my nature,
+        And in his full-sailed confidence a shower
+        Of gentle rain, that falling on the fire
+        Hath quenched it.
+
+        How is my heart divided
+        Between the duty of a son and love!&rdquo;
+           BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: Thierry and Theodorat.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Vaudemont had now been a month at Beaufort Court. The scene of a
+      country-house, with the sports that enliven it, and the accomplishments it
+      calls forth, was one in which he was well fitted to shine. He had been an
+      excellent shot as a boy; and though long unused to the fowling-piece, had,
+      in India, acquired a deadly precision with the rifle; so that a very few
+      days of practice in the stubbles and covers of Beaufort Court made his
+      skill the theme of the guests and the admiration of the keepers. Hunting
+      began, and&mdash;this pursuit, always so strong a passion in the active
+      man, and which, to the turbulence and agitation of his half-tamed breast,
+      now excited by a kind of frenzy of hope and fear, gave a vent and release&mdash;was
+      a sport in which he was yet more fitted to excel. His horsemanship, his
+      daring, the stone walls he leaped and the floods through which he dashed,
+      furnished his companions with wondering tale and comment on their return
+      home. Mr. Marsden, who, with some other of Arthur&rsquo;s early friends, had
+      been invited to Beaufort Court, in order to welcome its expected heir, and
+      who retained all the prudence which had distinguished him of yore, when
+      having ridden over old Simon he dismounted to examine the knees of his
+      horse;&mdash;Mr. Marsden, a skilful huntsman, who rode the most
+      experienced horses in the world, and who generally contrived to be in at
+      the death without having leaped over anything higher than a hurdle,
+      suffering the bolder quadruped (in case what is called the &ldquo;knowledge of
+      the country&rdquo;&mdash;that is, the knowledge of gaps and gates&mdash;failed
+      him) to perform the more dangerous feats alone, as he quietly scrambled
+      over or scrambled through upon foot, and remounted the well-taught animal
+      when it halted after the exploit, safe and sound;&mdash;Mr. Marsden
+      declared that he never saw a rider with so little judgment as Monsieur de
+      Vaudemont, and that the devil was certainly in him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This sort of reputation, commonplace and merely physical as it was in
+      itself, had a certain effect upon Camilla; it might be an effect of fear.
+      I do not say, for I do not know, what her feelings towards Vaudemont
+      exactly were. As the calmest natures are often those the most hurried away
+      by their contraries, so, perhaps, he awed and dazzled rather than pleased
+      her;&mdash;at least, he certainly forced himself on her interest. Still
+      she would have started in terror if any one had said to her, &ldquo;Do you love
+      your betrothed less than when you met by that happy lake?&rdquo;&mdash;and her
+      heart would have indignantly rebuked the questioner. The letters of her
+      lover were still long and frequent; hers were briefer and more subdued.
+      But then there was constraint in the correspondence&mdash;it was submitted
+      to her mother. Whatever might be Vaudemont&rsquo;s manner to Camilla whenever
+      occasion threw them alone together, he certainly did not make his
+      attentions glaring enough to be remarked. His eye watched her rather than
+      his lip addressed; he kept as much aloof as possible from the rest of her
+      family, and his customary bearing was silent even to gloom. But there were
+      moments when he indulged in a fitful exuberance of spirits, which had
+      something strained and unnatural. He had outlived Lord Lilburne&rsquo;s short
+      liking; for since he had resolved no longer to keep watch on that noble
+      gamester&rsquo;s method of play, he played but little himself; and Lord Lilburne
+      saw that he had no chance of ruining him&mdash;there was, therefore, no
+      longer any reason to like him. But this was not all; when Vaudemont had
+      been at the house somewhat more than two weeks, Lilburne, petulant and
+      impatient, whether at his refusals to join the card-table, or at the
+      moderation with which, when he did, he confined his ill-luck to petty
+      losses, one day limped up to him, as he stood at the embrasure of the
+      window, gazing on the wide lands beyond, and said:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Vaudemont, you are bolder in hunting, they tell me, than you are at
+      whist.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Honours don&rsquo;t tell against one&mdash;over a hedge!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; said Lilburne, rather haughtily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vaudemont was, at that moment, in one of those bitter moods when the sense
+      of his situation, the sight of the usurper in his home, often swept away
+      the gentler thoughts inspired by his fatal passion. And the tone of Lord
+      Lilburne, and his loathing to the man, were too much for his temper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord Lilburne,&rdquo; he said, and his lip curled, &ldquo;if you had been born poor,
+      you would have made a great fortune&mdash;you play luckily.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How am I to take this, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As you please,&rdquo; answered Vaudemont, calmly, but with an eye of fire. And
+      he turned away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lilburne remained on the spot very thoughtful: &ldquo;Hum! he suspects me. I
+      cannot quarrel on such ground&mdash;the suspicion itself dishonours me&mdash;I
+      must seek another.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day, Lilburne, who was familiar with Mr. Harsden (though the
+      latter gentleman never played at the same table), asked that prudent
+      person after breakfast if he happened to have his pistols with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; I always take them into the country&mdash;one may as well practise
+      when one has the opportunity. Besides, sportsmen are often quarrelsome;
+      and if it is known that one shoots well,&mdash;it keeps one out of
+      quarrels!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very true,&rdquo; said Lilburne, rather admiringly. &ldquo;I have made the same
+      remark myself when I was younger. I have not shot with a pistol for some
+      years. I am well enough now to walk out with the help of a stick. Suppose
+      we practise for half-an-hour or so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With all my heart,&rdquo; said Mr. Marsden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pistols were brought, and they strolled forth;&mdash;Lord Lilburne
+      found his hand out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As I never hunt now,&rdquo; said the peer, and he gnashed his teeth, and
+      glanced at his maimed limb; &ldquo;for though lameness would not prevent my
+      keeping my seat, violent exercise hurts my leg; and Brodie says any fresh
+      accident might bring on tic douloureux;&mdash;and as my gout does not
+      permit me to join the shooting parties at present, it would be a kindness
+      in you to lend me your pistols&mdash;it would while away an hour or so;
+      though, thank Heaven, my duelling days are over!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly,&rdquo; said Mr. Marsden; and the pistols were consigned to Lord
+      Lilburne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Four days from the date, as Mr. Marsden, Vaudemont, and some other
+      gentlemen were making for the covers, they came upon Lord Lilburne, who,
+      in a part of the park not within sight or sound of the house, was amusing
+      himself with Mr. Marsden&rsquo;s pistols, which Dykeman was at hand to load for
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned round, not at all disconcerted by the interruption.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have no idea how I&rsquo;ve improved, Marsden:&mdash;just see!&rdquo; and he
+      pointed to a glove nailed to a tree. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve hit that mark twice in five
+      times; and every time I have gone straight enough along the line to have
+      killed my man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, the mark itself does not so much signify,&rdquo; said Mr. Marsden, &ldquo;at
+      least, not in actual duelling&mdash;the great thing is to be in the line.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While he spoke, Lord Lilburne&rsquo;s ball went a third time through the glove.
+      His cold bright eye turned on Vaudemont, as he said, with a smile,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They tell me you shoot well with a fowling-piece, my dear Vaudemont&mdash;are
+      you equally adroit with a pistol?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may see, if you like; but you take aim, Lord Lilburne; that would be
+      of no use in English duelling. Permit me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked to the glove, and tore from it one of the fingers, which he
+      fastened separately to the tree, took the pistol from Dykeman as he walked
+      past him, gained the spot whence to fire, turned at once round, without
+      apparent aim, and the finger fell to the ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lilburne stood aghast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s wonderful!&rdquo; said Marsden; &ldquo;quite wonderful. Where the devil did
+      you get such a knack?&mdash;for it is only knack after all!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I lived for many years in a country where the practice was constant,
+      where all that belongs to rifle-shooting was a necessary accomplishment&mdash;a
+      country in which man had often to contend against the wild beast. In
+      civilised states, man himself supplies the place of the wild beast&mdash;but
+      we don&rsquo;t hunt him!&mdash;Lord Lilburne&rdquo; (and this was added with a smiling
+      and disdainful whisper), &ldquo;you must practise a little more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But, disregardful of the advice, from that day Lord Lilburne&rsquo;s morning
+      occupation was gone. He thought no longer of a duel with Vaudemont. As
+      soon as the sportsman had left him, he bade Dykeman take up the pistols,
+      and walked straight home into the library, where Robert Beaufort, who was
+      no sportsman, generally spent his mornings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He flung himself into an arm-chair, and said, as he stirred the fire with
+      unusual vehemence,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beaufort, I&rsquo;m very sorry I asked you to invite Vaudemont. He&rsquo;s a very
+      ill-bred, disagreeable fellow!&rdquo; Beaufort threw down his steward&rsquo;s
+      account-book, on which he was employed, and replied,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lilburne, I have never had an easy moment since that man has been in the
+      house. As he was your guest, I did not like to speak before, but don&rsquo;t you
+      observe&mdash;you must observe&mdash;how like he is to the old family
+      portraits? The more I have examined him, the more another resemblance
+      grows upon me. In a word,&rdquo; said Robert, pausing and breathing hard, &ldquo;if
+      his name were not Vaudemont&mdash;if his history were not, apparently, so
+      well known, I should say&mdash;I should swear, that it is Philip Morton
+      who sleeps under this roof!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha!&rdquo; said Lilburne, with an earnestness that surprised Beaufort, who
+      expected to have heard his brother-in-law&rsquo;s sneering sarcasm at his fears;
+      &ldquo;the likeness you speak of to the old portraits did strike me; it struck
+      Marsden, too, the other day, as we were passing through the
+      picture-gallery; and Marsden remarked it aloud to Vaudemont. I remember
+      now that he changed countenance and made no answer. Hush! hush! hold your
+      tongue, let me think&mdash;let me think. This Philip&mdash;yes&mdash;yes&mdash;I
+      and Arthur saw him with&mdash;with Gawtrey&mdash;in Paris&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gawtrey! was that the name of the rogue he was said to&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;yes&mdash;yes. Ah! now I guess the meaning of those looks&mdash;those
+      words,&rdquo; muttered Lilburne between his teeth. &ldquo;This pretension to the name
+      of Vaudemont was always apocryphal&mdash;the story always but half
+      believed&mdash;the invention of a woman in love with him&mdash;the claim
+      on your property is made at the very time he appears in England. Ha! Have
+      you a newspaper there? Give it me. No! &lsquo;tis not in this paper. Ring the
+      bell for the file!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s the matter? you terrify me!&rdquo; gasped out Mr. Beaufort, as he rang
+      the bell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why! have you not seen an advertisement repeated several times within the
+      last month?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never read advertisements; except in the county paper, if land is to be
+      sold.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nor I often; but this caught my eye. John&rdquo; (here the servant entered),
+      &ldquo;bring the file of the newspapers. The name of the witness whom Mrs.
+      Morton appealed to was Smith, the same name as the captain; what was the
+      Christian name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t remember.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here are the papers&mdash;shut the door&mdash;and here is the
+      advertisement: &lsquo;If Mr. William Smith, son of Jeremiah Smith, who formerly
+      rented the farm of Shipdale-Bury, under the late Right Hon. Charles
+      Leopold Beaufort (that&rsquo;s your uncle), and who emigrated in the year 18&mdash;
+      to Australia, will apply to Mr. Barlow, Solicitor, Essex Street, Strand,
+      he will hear of something to his advantage.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good Heavens! why did not you mention this to me before?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I did not think it of any importance. In the first place, there
+      might be some legacy left to the man, quite distinct from your business.
+      Indeed, that was the probable supposition;&mdash;or even if connected with
+      the claim, such an advertisement might be but a despicable attempt to
+      frighten you. Never mind&mdash;don&rsquo;t look so pale&mdash;after all, this is
+      a proof that the witness is not found&mdash;that Captain Smith is neither
+      the Smith, nor has discovered where the Smith is!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True!&rdquo; observed Mr. Beaufort: &ldquo;true&mdash;very true!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph!&rdquo; said Lord Lilburne, who was still rapidly glancing over the file&mdash;&ldquo;Here
+      is another advertisement which I never saw before: this looks suspicious:
+      &lsquo;If the person who called on the &mdash; of September, on Mr. Morton,
+      linendraper, &amp;c., of N&mdash;&mdash;, will renew his application
+      personally or by letter, he may now obtain the information he sought
+      for.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Morton!&mdash;the woman&rsquo;s brother! their uncle! it is too clear!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what brings this man, if he be really Philip Morton, what brings him
+      here!&mdash;to spy or to threaten?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will get him out of the house this day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;no; turn the watch upon himself. I see now; he is attracted by
+      your daughter; sound her quietly; don&rsquo;t tell her to discourage his
+      confidences; find out if he ever speaks of these Mortons. Ha! I recollect&mdash;he
+      has spoken to me of the Mortons, but vaguely&mdash;I forget what. Humph!
+      this is a man of spirit and daring&mdash;watch him, I say,&mdash;watch
+      him! When does Arthur came back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has been travelling so slowly, for he still complains of his health,
+      and has had relapses; but he ought to be in Paris this week, perhaps he is
+      there now. Good Heavens! he must not meet this man!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do what I tell you! get out all from your daughter. Never fear: he can do
+      nothing against you except by law. But if he really like Camilla&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He!&mdash;Philip Morton&mdash;the adventurer&mdash;the&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is the eldest son: remember you thought even of accepting the second.
+      He&mdash;nay find the witness&mdash;he may win his suit; if he likes
+      Camilla, there may be a compromise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Beaufort felt as if turned to ice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think him likely to win this infamous suit, then?&rdquo; he faltered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did not you guard against the possibility by securing the brother? More
+      worth while to do it with this man. Hark ye! the politics of private are
+      like those of public life,&mdash;when the state can&rsquo;t crush a demagogue,
+      it should entice him over. If you can ruin this dog&rdquo; (and Lilburne stamped
+      his foot fiercely, forgetful of the gout), &ldquo;ruin him! hang him! If you
+      can&rsquo;t&rdquo; (and here with a wry face he caressed the injured foot), &ldquo;if you
+      can&rsquo;t (&lsquo;sdeath, what a twinge!), and he can ruin you,&mdash;bring him into
+      the family, and make his secret ours! I must go and lie down&mdash;I have
+      overexcited myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In great perplexity Beaufort repaired at once to Camilla. His nervous
+      agitation betrayed itself, though he smiled a ghastly smile, and intended
+      to be exceeding cool and collected. His questions, which confused and
+      alarmed her, soon drew out the fact that the very first time Vaudemont had
+      been introduced to her he had spoken of the Mortons; and that he had often
+      afterwards alluded to the subject, and seemed at first strongly impressed
+      with the notion that the younger brother was under Beaufort&rsquo;s protection;
+      though at last he appeared reluctantly convinced of the contrary. Robert,
+      however agitated, preserved at least enough of his natural slyness not to
+      let out that he suspected Vaudemont to be Philip Morton himself, for he
+      feared lest his daughter should betray that suspicion to its object.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; he said, with a look meant to win confidence, &ldquo;I dare say he knows
+      these young men. I should like myself to know more about them. Learn all
+      you can, and tell me, and, I say&mdash;I say, Camilla,&mdash;he! he! he!&mdash;you
+      have made a conquest, you little flirt, you! Did he, this Vaudemont, ever
+      say how much he admired you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He!&mdash;never!&rdquo; said Camilla, blushing, and then turning pale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he looks it. Ah! you say nothing, then. Well, well, don&rsquo;t discourage
+      him; that is to say,&mdash;yes, don&rsquo;t discourage him. Talk to him as much
+      as you can,&mdash;ask him about his own early life. I&rsquo;ve a particular wish
+      to know&mdash;&lsquo;tis of great importance to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my dear father,&rdquo; said Camilla, trembling and thoroughly bewildered,
+      &ldquo;I fear this man,&mdash;I fear&mdash;I fear&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Was she going to add, &ldquo;I fear myself?&rdquo; I know not; but she stopped short,
+      and burst into tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hang these girls!&rdquo; muttered Mr. Beaufort, &ldquo;always crying when they ought
+      to be of use to one. Go down, dry your eyes, do as I tell you,&mdash;get
+      all you can from him. Fear him!&mdash;yes, I dare say she does!&rdquo; muttered
+      the poor man, as he closed the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From that time what wonder that Camilla&rsquo;s manner to Vaudemont was yet more
+      embarrassed than ever: what wonder that he put his own heart&rsquo;s
+      interpretation on that confusion. Beaufort took care to thrust her more
+      often than before in his way; he suddenly affected a creeping, fawning
+      civility to Vaudemont; he was sure he was fond of music; what did he think
+      of that new air Camilla was so fond of? He must be a judge of scenery, he
+      who had seen so much: there were beautiful landscapes in the
+      neighbourhood, and, if he would forego his sports, Camilla drew prettily,
+      had an eye for that sort of thing, and was so fond of riding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vaudemont was astonished at this change, but his delight was greater than
+      the astonishment. He began to perceive that his identity was suspected;
+      perhaps Beaufort, more generous than he had deemed him, meant to repay
+      every early wrong or harshness by one inestimable blessing. The generous
+      interpret motives in extremes&mdash;ever too enthusiastic or too severe.
+      Vaudemont felt as if he had wronged the wronger; he began to conquer even
+      his dislike to Robert Beaufort. For some days he was thus thrown much with
+      Camilla; the questions her father forced her to put to him, uttered
+      tremulously and fearfully, seemed to him proof of her interest in his
+      fate. His feelings to Camilla, so sudden in their growth&mdash;so ripened
+      and so favoured by the Sub-Ruler of the world&mdash;CIRCUMSTANCE&mdash;might
+      not, perhaps, have the depth and the calm completeness of that, One True
+      Love, of which there are many counterfeits,&mdash;and which in Man, at
+      least, possibly requires the touch and mellowness, if not of time, at
+      least of many memories&mdash;of perfect and tried conviction of the faith,
+      the worth, the value and the beauty of the heart to which it clings;&mdash;but
+      those feelings were, nevertheless, strong, ardent, and intense. He
+      believed himself beloved&mdash;he was in Elysium. But he did not yet
+      declare the passion that beamed in his eyes. No! he would not yet claim
+      the hand of Camilla Beaufort, for he imagined the time would soon come
+      when he could claim it, not as the inferior or the suppliant, but as the
+      lord of her father&rsquo;s fate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0054" id="link2HCH0054">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s something got amongst us!&rdquo;&mdash;Knight of Malta.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Two or three nights after his memorable conversation with Robert Beaufort,
+      as Lord Lilburne was undressing, he said to his valet:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dykeman, I am getting well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, my lord, I never saw your lordship look better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There you lie. I looked better last year&mdash;I looked better the year
+      before&mdash;and I looked better and better every year back to the age of
+      twenty-one! But I&rsquo;m not talking of looks, no man with money wants looks. I
+      am talking of feelings. I feel better. The gout is almost gone. I have
+      been quiet now for a month&mdash;that&rsquo;s a long time&mdash;time wasted
+      when, at my age, I have so little time to waste. Besides, as you know, I
+      am very much in love!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In love, my lord? I thought that you told me never to speak of&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Blockhead! what the deuce was the good of speaking about it when I was
+      wrapped in flannels! I am never in love when I am ill&mdash;who is? I am
+      well now, or nearly so; and I&rsquo;ve had things to vex me&mdash;things to make
+      this place very disagreeable; I shall go to town, and before this day
+      week, perhaps, that charming face may enliven the solitude of Fernside. I
+      shall look to it myself now. I see you&rsquo;re going to say something. Spare
+      yourself the trouble! nothing ever goes wrong if I myself take it in
+      hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day Lord Lilburne, who, in truth, felt himself uncomfortable and
+      <i>gene</i> in the presence of Vaudemont; who had won as much as the
+      guests at Beaufort Court seemed inclined to lose; and who made it the rule
+      of his life to consult his own pleasure and amusement before anything
+      else, sent for his post-horses, and informed his brother-in-law of his
+      departure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you leave me alone with this man just when I am convinced that he is
+      the person we suspected! My dear Lilburne, do stay till he goes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Impossible! I am between fifty and sixty&mdash;every moment is precious
+      at that time of life. Besides, I&rsquo;ve said all I can say; rest quiet&mdash;act
+      on the defensive&mdash;entangle this cursed Vaudemont, or Morton, or
+      whoever he be, in the mesh of your daughter&rsquo;s charms, and then get rid of
+      him, not before. This can do no harm, let the matter turn out how it will.
+      Read the papers; and send for Blackwell if you want advice on any new
+      advertisements. I don&rsquo;t see that anything more is to be done at present.
+      You can write to me; I shall be at Park Lane or Fernside. Take care of
+      yourself. You&rsquo;re a lucky fellow&mdash;you never have the gout! Good-bye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And in half an hour Lord Lilburne was on the road to London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The departure of Lilburne was a signal to many others, especially and
+      naturally to those he himself had invited. He had not announced to such
+      visitors his intention of going till his carriage was at the door. This
+      might be delicacy or carelessness, just as people chose to take it: and
+      how they did take it, Lord Lilburne, much too selfish to be well-bred, did
+      not care a rush. The next day half at least of the guests were gone; and
+      even Mr. Marsden, who had been specially invited on Arthur&rsquo;s account,
+      announced that he should go after dinner! he always travelled by night&mdash;he
+      slept well on the road&mdash;a day was not lost by it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And it is so long since you saw Arthur,&rdquo; said Mr. Beaufort, in
+      remonstrance, &ldquo;and I expect him every day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very sorry&mdash;best fellow in the world&mdash;but the fact is, that I
+      am not very well myself. I want a little sea air; I shall go to Dover or
+      Brighton. But I suppose you will have the house full again about
+      Christmas; in that case I shall be delighted to repeat my visit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The fact was, that Mr. Marsden, without Lilburne&rsquo;s intellect on the one
+      hand, or vices on the other, was, like that noble sensualist, one of the
+      broken pieces of the great looking-glass &ldquo;SELF.&rdquo; He was noticed in society
+      as always haunting the places where Lilburne played at cards, carefully
+      choosing some other table, and as carefully betting upon Lilburne&rsquo;s side.
+      The card-tables were now broken up; Vaudemont&rsquo;s superiority in shooting,
+      and the manner in which he engrossed the talk of the sportsmen, displeased
+      him. He was bored&mdash;he wanted to be off&mdash;and off he went.
+      Vaudemont felt that the time was come for him to depart, too; Robert
+      Beaufort&mdash;who felt in his society the painful fascination of the bird
+      with the boa, who hated to see him there, and dreaded to see him depart,
+      who had not yet extracted all the confirmation of his persuasions that he
+      required, for Vaudemont easily enough parried the artless questions of
+      Camilla&mdash;pressed him to stay with so eager a hospitality, and made
+      Camilla herself falter out, against her will, and even against her
+      remonstrances&mdash;(she never before had dared to remonstrate with either
+      father or mother),&mdash;&ldquo;Could not you stay a few days longer?&rdquo;&mdash;that
+      Vaudemont was too contented to yield to his own inclinations; and so for
+      some little time longer he continued to move before the eyes of Mr.
+      Beaufort&mdash;stern, sinister, silent, mysterious&mdash;like one of the
+      family pictures stepped down from its frame. Vaudemont wrote, however, to
+      Fanny, to excuse his delay; and anxious to hear from her as to her own and
+      Simon&rsquo;s health, bade her direct her letter to his lodging in London (of
+      which he gave her the address), whence, if he still continued to defer his
+      departure, it would be forwarded to him. He did not do this, however, till
+      he had been at Beaufort Court several days after Lilburne&rsquo;s departure, and
+      till, in fact, two days before the eventful one which closed his visit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The party, now greatly diminished; were at breakfast, when the servant
+      entered, as usual, with the letter-bag. Mr. Beaufort, who was always
+      important and pompous in the small ceremonials of life, unlocked the
+      precious deposit with slow dignity, drew forth the newspapers, which he
+      threw on the table, and which the gentlemen of the party eagerly seized;
+      then, diving out one by one, jerked first a letter to Camilla, next a
+      letter to Vaudemont, and, thirdly, seized a letter for himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg that there may be no ceremony, Monsieur de Vaudemont: pray excuse
+      me and follow my example: I see this letter is from my son;&rdquo; and he broke
+      the seal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letter ran thus:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;MY DEAR FATHER,&mdash;Almost as soon as you receive this, I shall be with
+      you. Ill as I am, I can have no peace till I see and consult you. The most
+      startling&mdash;the most painful intelligence has just been conveyed to
+      me. It is of a nature not to bear any but personal communication.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+          &ldquo;Your affectionate son,
+                     &ldquo;ARTHUR BEAUFORT.
+&ldquo;Boulogne.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;P.S.&mdash;This will go by the same packet-boat that I shall take myself,
+      and can only reach you a few hours before I arrive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Beaufort&rsquo;s trembling hand dropped the letter&mdash;he grasped the
+      elbow of the chair to save himself from falling. It was clear!&mdash;the
+      same visitor who had persecuted himself had now sought his son! He grew
+      sick, his son might have heard the witness&mdash;might be convinced. His
+      son himself now appeared to him as a foe&mdash;for the father dreaded the
+      son&rsquo;s honour! He glanced furtively round the table, till his eye rested on
+      Vaudemont, and his terror was redoubled, for Vaudemont&rsquo;s face, usually so
+      calm, was animated to an extraordinary degree, as he now lifted it from
+      the letter he had just read. Their eyes met. Robert Beaufort looked on him
+      as a prisoner at the bar looks on the accusing counsel, when he first
+      commences his harangue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Beaufort,&rdquo; said the guest, &ldquo;the letter you have given me summons me
+      to London on important business, and immediately. Suffer me to send for
+      horses at your earliest convenience.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s the matter?&rdquo; said the feeble and seldom heard voice of Mrs.
+      Beaufort. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s the matter, Robert?&mdash;is Arthur coming?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He comes to-day,&rdquo; said the father, with a deep sigh; and Vaudemont, at
+      that moment rising from his half-finished breakfast, with a bow that
+      included the group, and with a glance that lingered on Camilla, as she
+      bent over her own unopened letter (a letter from Winandermere, the seal of
+      which she dared not yet to break), quitted the room. He hastened to his
+      own chamber, and strode to and fro with a stately step&mdash;the step of
+      the Master&mdash;then, taking forth the letter, he again hurried over its
+      contents. They ran thus:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DEAR, Sir,&mdash;At last the missing witness has applied to me. He proves
+      to be, as you conjectured, the same person who had called on Mr. Roger
+      Morton; but as there are some circumstances on which I wish to take your
+      instructions without a moment&rsquo;s delay, I shall leave London by the mail,
+      and wait you at D&mdash;&mdash; (at the principal inn), which is, I
+      understand, twenty miles on the high road from Beaufort Court.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+            &ldquo;I have the honor to be, sir,
+                  &ldquo;Yours, &amp;c.,
+                      &ldquo;JOHN BARLOW.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Vaudemont was yet lost in the emotions that this letter aroused, when they
+      came to announce that his chaise was arrived. As he went down the stairs
+      he met Camilla, who was on the way to her own room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Beaufort,&rdquo; said he, in a low and tremulous voice, &ldquo;in wishing you
+      farewell I may not now say more. I leave you, and, strange to say, I do
+      not regret it, for I go upon an errand that may entitle me to return
+      again, and speak those thoughts which are uppermost in my soul even at
+      this moment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He raised her hand to his lips as he spoke, and at that moment Mr.
+      Beaufort looked from the door of his own room, and cried, &ldquo;Camilla.&rdquo; She
+      was too glad to escape. Philip gazed after her light form for an instant,
+      and then hurried down the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0055" id="link2HCH0055">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Longueville.&mdash;What! are you married, Beaufort?
+     Beaufort.&mdash;Ay, as fast
+     As words, and hands, and hearts, and priest,
+     Could make us.&rdquo;&mdash;BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: Noble Gentleman.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In the parlour of the inn at D&mdash;&mdash;&mdash; sat Mr. John Barlow.
+      He had just finished his breakfast, and was writing letters and looking
+      over papers connected with his various business&mdash;when the door was
+      thrown open, and a gentleman entered abruptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Beaufort,&rdquo; said the lawyer rising, &ldquo;Mr. Philip Beaufort&mdash;for
+      such I now feel you are by right&mdash;though,&rdquo; he added, with his usual
+      formal and quiet smile, &ldquo;not yet by law; and much&mdash;very much, remains
+      to be done to make the law and the right the same;&mdash;I congratulate
+      you on having something at last to work on. I had begun to despair of
+      finding our witness, after a month&rsquo;s advertising; and had commenced other
+      investigations, of which I will speak to you presently, when yesterday, on
+      my return to town from an errand on your business, I had the pleasure of a
+      visit from William Smith himself.&mdash;My dear sir, do not yet be too
+      sanguine.&mdash;It seems that this poor fellow, having known misfortune,
+      was in America when the first fruitless inquiries were made. Long after
+      this he returned to the colony, and there met with a brother, who, as I
+      drew from him, was a convict. He helped the brother to escape. They both
+      came to England. William learned from a distant relation, who lent him
+      some little money, of the inquiry that had been set on foot for him;
+      consulted his brother, who desired him to leave all to his management. The
+      brother afterwards assured him that you and Mr. Sidney were both dead; and
+      it seems (for the witness is simple enough to allow me to extract all)
+      this same brother then went to Mr. Beaufort to hold out the threat of a
+      lawsuit, and to offer the sale of the evidence yet existing&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And Mr. Beaufort?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am happy to say, seems to have spurned the offer. Meanwhile William,
+      incredulous of his brother&rsquo;s report, proceeded to N&mdash;&mdash;, learned
+      nothing from Mr. Morton, met his brother again&mdash;and the brother
+      (confessing that he had deceived him in the assertion that you and Mr.
+      Sidney were dead) told him that he had known you in earlier life, and set
+      out to Paris to seek you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Known me?&mdash;To Paris?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;More of this presently. William returned to town, living hardly and
+      penuriously on the little his brother bestowed on him, too melancholy and
+      too poor for the luxury of a newspaper, and never saw our advertisement,
+      till, as luck would have it, his money was out; he had heard nothing
+      further of his brother, and he went for new assistance to the same
+      relation who had before aided him. This relation, to his surprise,
+      received the poor man very kindly, lent him what he wanted, and then asked
+      him if he had not seen our advertisement. The newspaper shown him
+      contained both the advertisements&mdash;that relating to Mr. Morton&rsquo;s
+      visitor, that containing his own name. He coupled them both together&mdash;called
+      on me at once. I was from town on your business. He returned to his own
+      home; the next morning (yesterday morning) came a letter from his brother,
+      which I obtained from him at last, and with promises that no harm should
+      happen to the writer on account of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vaudemont took the letter and read as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;DEAR WILLIAM,&mdash;No go about the youngster I went after: all
+      researches in vane. Paris develish expensive. Never mind, I have sene the
+      other&mdash;the young B&mdash;; different sort of fellow from his father&mdash;very
+      ill&mdash;frightened out of his wits&mdash;will go off to the governor,
+      take me with him as far as Bullone. I think we shall settel it now. Mind
+      as I saide before, don&rsquo;t put your foot in it. I send you a Nap in the
+      Seele&mdash;all I can spare.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+             &ldquo;Yours,
+                  &ldquo;JEREMIAH SMITH.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Direct to me, Monsieur Smith&mdash;always a safe name&mdash;Ship Inn,
+      Bullone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jeremiah&mdash;Smith&mdash;Jeremiah!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know the name then?&rdquo; said Mr. Barlow. &ldquo;Well; the poor man owns
+      that he was frightened at his brother&mdash;that he wished to do what is
+      right&mdash;that he feared his brother would not let him&mdash;that your
+      father was very kind to him&mdash;and so he came off at once to me; and I
+      was very luckily at home to assure him that the heir was alive, and
+      prepared to assert his rights. Now then, Mr. Beaufort, we have the
+      witness, but will that suffice us? I fear not. Will the jury believe him
+      with no other testimony at his back? Consider!&mdash;When he was gone I
+      put myself in communication with some officers at Bow Street about this
+      brother of his&mdash;a most notorious character, commonly called in the
+      police slang Dashing Jerry&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! Well, proceed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your one witness, then, is a very poor, penniless man, his brother a
+      rogue, a convict: this witness, too, is the most timid, fluctuating,
+      irresolute fellow I ever saw; I should tremble for his testimony against a
+      sharp, bullying lawyer. And that, sir, is all at present we have to look
+      to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see&mdash;I see. It is dangerous&mdash;it is hazardous. But truth is
+      truth; justice&mdash;justice! I will run the risk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pardon me, if I ask, did you ever know this brother?&mdash;were you ever
+      absolutely acquainted with him&mdash;in the same house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Many years since&mdash;years of early hardship and trial&mdash;I was
+      acquainted with him&mdash;what then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sorry to hear it,&rdquo; and the lawyer looked grave. &ldquo;Do you not see that
+      if this witness is browbeat&mdash;is disbelieved, and if it be shown that
+      you, the claimant, was&mdash;forgive my saying it&mdash;intimate with a
+      brother of such a character, why the whole thing might be made to look
+      like perjury and conspiracy. If we stop here it is an ugly business!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And is this all you have to say to me? The witness is found&mdash;the
+      only surviving witness&mdash;the only proof I ever shall or ever can
+      obtain, and you seek to terrify me&mdash;me too&mdash;from using the means
+      for redress Providence itself vouchsafes me&mdash;Sir, I will not hear
+      you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Beaufort, you are impatient&mdash;it is natural. But if we go to law&mdash;that
+      is, should I have anything to do with it, wait&mdash;wait till your case
+      is good. And hear me yet. This is not the only proof&mdash;this is not the
+      only witness; you forget that there was an examined copy of the register;
+      we may yet find that copy, and the person who copied it may yet be alive
+      to attest it. Occupied with this thought, and weary of waiting the result
+      of our advertisement, I resolved to go into the neighbourhood of Fernside;
+      luckily, there was a gentleman&rsquo;s seat to be sold in the village. I made
+      the survey of this place my apparent business. After going over the house,
+      I appeared anxious to see how far some alterations could be made&mdash;alterations
+      to render it more like Lord Lilburne&rsquo;s villa. This led me to request a
+      sight of that villa&mdash;a crown to the housekeeper got me admittance.
+      The housekeeper had lived with your father, and been retained by his
+      lordship. I soon, therefore, knew which were the rooms the late Mr.
+      Beaufort had principally occupied; shown into his study, where it was
+      probable he would keep his papers, I inquired if it were the same
+      furniture (which seemed likely enough from its age and fashion) as in your
+      father&rsquo;s time: it was so; Lord Lilburne had bought the house just as it
+      stood, and, save a few additions in the drawing-room, the general
+      equipment of the villa remained unaltered. You look impatient!&mdash;I&rsquo;m
+      coming to the point. My eye fell upon an old-fashioned bureau&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But we searched every drawer in that bureau!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Any secret drawers?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Secret drawers! No! there were no secret drawers that I ever heard of!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Barlow rubbed his hands and mused a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was struck with that bureau; for any father had had one like it. It is
+      not English&mdash;it is of Dutch manufacture.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I have heard that my father bought it at a sale, three or four years
+      after his marriage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I learned this from the housekeeper, who was flattered by my admiring it.
+      I could not find out from her at what sale it had been purchased, but it
+      was in the neighbourhood she was sure. I had now a date to go upon; I
+      learned, by careless inquiries, what sales near Fernside had taken place
+      in a certain year. A gentleman had died at that date whose furniture was
+      sold by auction. With great difficulty, I found that his widow was still
+      alive, living far up the country: I paid her a visit; and, not to fatigue
+      you with too long an account, I have only to say that she not only assured
+      me that she perfectly remembered the bureau, but that it had secret
+      drawers and wells, very curiously contrived; nay, she showed me the very
+      catalogue in which the said receptacles are noticed in capitals, to arrest
+      the eye of the bidder, and increase the price of the bidding. That your
+      father should never have revealed where he stowed this document is natural
+      enough, during the life of his uncle; his own life was not spared long
+      enough to give him much opportunity to explain afterwards, but I feel
+      perfectly persuaded in my mind&mdash;that unless Mr. Robert Beaufort
+      discovered that paper amongst the others he examined&mdash;in one of those
+      drawers will be found all we want to substantiate your claims. This is the
+      more likely from your father never mentioning, even to your mother
+      apparently, the secret receptacles in the bureau. Why else such mystery?
+      The probability is that he received the document either just before or at
+      the time he purchased the bureau, or that he bought it for that very
+      purpose: and, having once deposited the paper in a place he deemed secure
+      from curiosity&mdash;accident, carelessness, policy, perhaps, rather shame
+      itself (pardon me) for the doubt of your mother&rsquo;s discretion, that his
+      secrecy seemed to imply, kept him from ever alluding to the circumstance,
+      even when the intimacy of after years made him more assured of your
+      mother&rsquo;s self-sacrificing devotion to his interests. At his uncle&rsquo;s death
+      he thought to repair all!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how, if that be true&mdash;if that Heaven which has delivered me
+      hitherto from so many dangers, has, in the very secrecy of my poor father,
+      saved my birthright front the gripe of the usurper&mdash;how, I say, is&mdash;-&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The bureau to pass into our possession? That is the difficulty. But we
+      must contrive it somehow, if all else fail us; meanwhile, as I now feel
+      sure that there has been a copy of that register made, I wish to know
+      whether I should not immediately cross the country into Wales, and see if
+      I can find any person in the neighbourhood of A&mdash;&mdash;- who did
+      examine the copy taken: for, mark you, the said copy is only of importance
+      as leading to the testimony of the actual witness who took it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; said Vaudemont, heartily shaking Mr. Barlow by the hand, &ldquo;forgive
+      my first petulance. I see in you the very man I desired and wanted&mdash;your
+      acuteness surprises and encourages me. Go to Wales, and God speed you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well!&mdash;in five minutes I shall be off. Meanwhile, see the
+      witness yourself; the sight of his benefactor&rsquo;s son will do more to keep
+      him steady than anything else. There&rsquo;s his address, and take care not to
+      give him money. And now I will order my chaise&mdash;the matter begins to
+      look worth expense. Oh! I forgot to say that Monsieur Liancourt called on
+      you yesterday about his own affairs. He wishes much to consult you. I told
+      him you would probably be this evening in town, and he said he would wait
+      you at your lodging.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;I will lose not a moment in going to London, and visiting our
+      witness. And he saw my mother at the altar! My poor mother&mdash;Ah, how
+      could my father have doubted her!&rdquo; and as he spoke, he blushed for the
+      first time with shame at that father&rsquo;s memory. He could not yet conceive
+      that one so frank, one usually so bold and open, could for years have
+      preserved from the woman who had sacrificed all to him, a secret to her so
+      important! That was, in fact, the only blot on his father&rsquo;s honour&mdash;a
+      foul and grave blot it was. Heavily had the punishment fallen on those
+      whom the father loved best! Alas, Philip had not yet learned what terrible
+      corrupters are the Hope and the Fear of immense Wealthy, even to men
+      reputed the most honourable, if they have been reared and pampered in the
+      belief that wealth is the Arch blessing of life. Rightly considered, in
+      Philip Beaufort&rsquo;s solitary meanness lay the vast moral of this world&rsquo;s
+      darkest truth!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Barlow was gone. Philip was about to enter his own chaise, when a
+      dormeuse-and-four drove up to the inn-door to change horses. A young man
+      was reclining, at his length, in the carriage, wrapped in cloaks, and with
+      a ghastly paleness&mdash;the paleness of long and deep disease upon his
+      cheeks. He turned his dim eye with, perhaps, a glance of the sick man&rsquo;s
+      envy on that strong and athletic, form, majestic with health and vigour,
+      as it stood beside the more humble vehicle. Philip did not, however,
+      notice the new arrival; he sprang into the chaise, it rattled on, and
+      thus, unconsciously, Arthur Beaufort and his cousin had again met. To
+      which was now the Night&mdash;to which the Morning?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0056" id="link2HCH0056">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Bakam. Let my men guard the walls.
+     Syana. And mine the temple.&rdquo;&mdash;The Island Princess.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      While thus eventfully the days and the weeks had passed for Philip, no
+      less eventfully, so far as the inner life is concerned, had they glided
+      away for Fanny. She had feasted in quiet and delighted thought on the
+      consciousness that she was improving&mdash;that she was growing worthier
+      of him&mdash;that he would perceive it on his return. Her manner was more
+      thoughtful, more collected&mdash;less childish, in short, than it had
+      been. And yet, with all the stir and flutter of the aroused intellect, the
+      charm of her strange innocence was not scared away. She rejoiced in the
+      ancient liberty she had regained of going out and coming back when she
+      pleased; and as the weather was too cold ever to tempt Simon from his
+      fireside, except, perhaps, for half-an-hour in the forenoon, so the hours
+      of dusk, when he least missed her, were those which she chiefly
+      appropriated for stealing away to the good school-mistress, and growing
+      wiser and wiser every day in the ways of God and the learning of His
+      creatures. The schoolmistress was not a brilliant woman. Nor was it
+      accomplishments of which Fanny stood in need, so much as the opening of
+      her thoughts and mind by profitable books and rational conversation.
+      Beautiful as were all her natural feelings, the schoolmistress had now
+      little difficulty in educating feelings up to the dignity of principles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, hitherto patient under the absence of one never absent from her
+      heart, Fanny received from him the letter he had addressed to her two days
+      before he quitted Beaufort Court;&mdash;another letter&mdash;a second
+      letter&mdash;a letter to excuse himself for not coming before&mdash;a
+      letter that gave her an address that asked for a reply. It was a morning
+      of unequalled delight approaching to transport. And then the excitement of
+      answering the letter&mdash;the pride of showing how she was improved, what
+      an excellent hand she now wrote! She shut herself up in her room: she did
+      not go out that day. She placed the paper before her, and, to her
+      astonishment, all that she had to say vanished from her mind at once. How
+      was she even to begin? She had always hitherto called him &ldquo;Brother.&rdquo; Ever
+      since her conversation with Sarah she felt that she could not call him
+      that name again for the world&mdash;no, never! But what should she call
+      him&mdash;what could she call him? He signed himself &ldquo;Philip.&rdquo; She knew
+      that was his name. She thought it a musical name to utter, but to write
+      it! No! some instinct she could not account for seemed to whisper that it
+      was improper&mdash;presumptuous, to call him &ldquo;Dear Philip.&rdquo; Had Burns&rsquo;s
+      songs&mdash;the songs that unthinkingly he had put into her hand, and told
+      her to read&mdash;songs that comprise the most beautiful love-poems in the
+      world&mdash;had they helped to teach her some of the secrets of her own
+      heart? And had timidity come with knowledge? Who shall say&mdash;who guess
+      what passed within her? Nor did Fanny herself, perhaps, know her own
+      feelings: but write the words &ldquo;Dear Philip&rdquo; she could not. And the whole
+      of that day, though she thought of nothing else, she could not even get
+      through the first line to her satisfaction. The next morning she sat down
+      again. It would be so unkind if she did not answer immediately: she must
+      answer. She placed his letter before her&mdash;she resolutely began. But
+      copy after copy was made and torn. And Simon wanted her&mdash;and Sarah
+      wanted her&mdash;and there were bills to be paid; and dinner was over
+      before her task was really begun. But after dinner she began in good
+      earnest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How kind in you to write to me&rdquo; (the difficulty of any name was dispensed
+      with by adopting none), &ldquo;and to wish to know about my dear grandfather! He
+      is much the same, but hardly ever walks out now, and I have had a good
+      deal of time to myself. I think something will surprise you, and make you
+      smile, as you used to do at first, when you come back. You must not be
+      angry with me that I have gone out by myself very often&mdash;every day,
+      indeed. I have been so safe. Nobody has ever offered to be rude again to
+      Fanny&rdquo; (the word &ldquo;Fanny&rdquo; was carefully scratched out with a penknife, and
+      me substituted). &ldquo;But you shall know all when you come. And are you sure
+      you are well&mdash;quite&mdash;quite well? Do you never have the headaches
+      you complained of sometimes? Do say this! Do you walk out-every day? Is
+      there any pretty churchyard near you now? Whom do you walk with?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been so happy in putting the flowers on the two graves. But I
+      still give yours the prettiest, though the other is so dear to me. I feel
+      sad when I come to the last, but not when I look at the one I have looked
+      at so long. Oh, how good you were! But you don&rsquo;t like me to thank you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is very stupid!&rdquo; cried Fanny, suddenly throwing down her pen; &ldquo;and I
+      don&rsquo;t think I am improved at it;&rdquo; and she half cried with vexation.
+      Suddenly a bright idea crossed her. In the little parlour where the
+      schoolmistress privately received her, she had seen among the books, and
+      thought at the time how useful it might be to her if ever she had to write
+      to Philip, a little volume entitled, The Complete Letter Writer. She knew
+      by the title-page that it contained models for every description of letter&mdash;no
+      doubt it would contain the precise thing that would suit the present
+      occasion. She started up at the notion. She would go&mdash;she could be
+      back to finish the letter before post-time. She put on her bonnet&mdash;left
+      the letter, in her haste, open on the table&mdash;and just looking into
+      the parlour in her way to the street door, to convince herself that Simon
+      was asleep, and the wire-guard was on the fire, she hurried to the kind
+      schoolmistress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the fogs that in autumn gather sullenly over London and its suburbs
+      covered the declining day with premature dimness. It grew darker and
+      darker as she proceeded, but she reached the house in safety. She spent a
+      quarter of an hour in timidly consulting her friend about all kinds of
+      letters except the identical one that she intended to write, and having
+      had it strongly impressed on her mind that if the letter was to a
+      gentleman at all genteel, she ought to begin &ldquo;Dear Sir,&rdquo; and end with &ldquo;I
+      have the honour to remain;&rdquo; and that he would be everlastingly offended if
+      she did not in the address affix &ldquo;Esquire&rdquo; to his name (that, was a great
+      discovery),&mdash;she carried off the precious volume, and quitted the
+      house. There was a wall that, bounding the demesnes of the school, ran for
+      some short distance into the main street. The increasing fog, here,
+      faintly struggled against the glimmer of a single lamp at some little
+      distance. Just in this spot, her eye was caught by a dark object in the
+      road, which she could scarcely perceive to be a carriage, when her hand
+      was seized, and a voice said in her ear:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! you will not be so cruel to me, I hope, as you were to my messenger!
+      I have come myself for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned in great alarm, but the darkness prevented her recognising the
+      face of him who thus accosted her. &ldquo;Let me go!&rdquo; she cried,&mdash;&ldquo;let me
+      go!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! hush! No&mdash;no. Come with me. You shall have a house&mdash;carriage&mdash;servants!
+      You shall wear silk gowns and jewels! You shall be a great lady!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As these various temptations succeeded in rapid course each new struggle
+      of Fanny, a voice from the coach-box said in a low tone,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take care, my lord, I see somebody coming&mdash;perhaps a policeman!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fanny heard the caution, and screamed for rescue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it so?&rdquo; muttered the molester. And suddenly Fanny felt her voice
+      checked&mdash;her head mantled&mdash;her light form lifted from the
+      ground. She clung&mdash;she struggled it was in vain. It was the affair of
+      a moment: she felt herself borne into the carriage&mdash;the door closed&mdash;the
+      stranger was by her side, and his voice said:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Drive on, Dykeman. Fast! fast!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Two or three minutes, which seemed to her terror as ages, elapsed, when
+      the gag and the mantle were gently removed, and the same voice (she still
+      could not see her companion) said in a very mild tone:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not alarm yourself; there is no cause,&mdash;indeed there is not. I
+      would not have adopted this plan had there been any other&mdash;any
+      gentler one. But I could not call at your own house&mdash;I knew no other
+      where to meet you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This was the only course left to me&mdash;indeed it was. I made myself
+      acquainted with your movements. Do not blame me, then, for prying into
+      your footsteps. I watched for you all last night&mdash;you did not come
+      out. I was in despair. At last I find you. Do not be so terrified: I will
+      not even touch your hand if you do not wish it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke, however, he attempted to touch it, and was repulsed with an
+      energy that rather disconcerted him. The poor girl recoiled from him into
+      the farthest corner of that prison in speechless horror&mdash;in the
+      darkest confusion of ideas. She did not weep&mdash;she did not sob&mdash;but
+      her trembling seemed to shake the very carriage. The man continued to
+      address, to expostulate, to pray, to soothe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His manner was respectful. His protestations that he would not harm her
+      for the world were endless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only just see the home I can give you; for two days&mdash;for one day.
+      Only just hear how rich I can make you and your grandfather, and then if
+      you wish to leave me, you shall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      More, much more, to this effect, did he continue to pour forth, without
+      extracting any sound from Fanny but gasps as for breath, and now and then
+      a low murmur:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me go, let me go! My grandfather, my blind grandfather!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And finally tears came to her relief, and she sobbed with a passion that
+      alarmed, and perhaps even touched her companion, cynical and icy as he
+      was. Meanwhile the carriage seemed to fly. Fast as two horses,
+      thorough-bred, and almost at full speed, could go, they were whirled
+      along, till about an hour, or even less, from the time in which she had
+      been thus captured, the carriage stopped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are we here already?&rdquo; said the man, putting his head out of the window.
+      &ldquo;Do then as I told you. Not to the front door; to my study.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In two minutes more the carriage halted again, before a building which
+      looked white and ghostlike through the mist. The driver dismounted, opened
+      with a latch-key a window-door, entered for a moment to light the candles
+      in a solitary room from a fire that blazed on the hearth, reappeared, and
+      opened the carriage-door. It was with a difficulty for which they were
+      scarcely prepared that they were enabled to get Fanny from the carriage.
+      No soft words, no whispered prayers could draw her forth; and it was with
+      no trifling address, for her companion sought to be as gentle as the force
+      necessary to employ would allow, that he disengaged her hands from the
+      window-frame, the lining, the cushions, to which they clung; and at last
+      bore her into the house. The driver closed the window again as he
+      retreated, and they were alone. Fanny then cast a wild, scarce conscious
+      glance over the apartment. It was small and simply furnished. Opposite to
+      her was an old-fashioned bureau, one of those quaint, elaborate monuments
+      of Dutch ingenuity, which, during the present century, the audacious
+      spirit of curiosity-vendors has transplanted from their native
+      receptacles, to contrast, with grotesque strangeness, the neat handiwork
+      of Gillow and Seddon. It had a physiognomy and character of its own&mdash;this
+      fantastic foreigner! Inlaid with mosaics, depicting landscapes and
+      animals; graceless in form and fashion, but still picturesque, and winning
+      admiration, when more closely observed, from the patient defiance of all
+      rules of taste which had formed its cumbrous parts into one profusely
+      ornamented and eccentric whole. It was the more noticeable from its total
+      want of harmony with the other appurtenances of the room, which bespoke
+      the tastes of the plain English squire. Prints of horses and hunts,
+      fishing-rods and fowling-pieces, carefully suspended, decorated the walls.
+      Not, however, on this notable stranger from the sluggish land rested the
+      eye of Fanny. That, in her hurried survey, was arrested only by a portrait
+      placed over the bureau&mdash;the portrait of a female in the bloom of
+      life; a face so fair, a brow so candid, and eyes so pure, a lip so rich in
+      youth and joy&mdash;that as her look lingered on the features Fanny felt
+      comforted, felt as if some living protectress were there. The fire burned
+      bright and merrily; a table, spread as for dinner, was drawn near it. To
+      any other eye but Fanny&rsquo;s the place would have seemed a picture of English
+      comfort. At last her looks rested on her companion. He had thrown himself,
+      with a long sigh, partly of fatigue, partly of satisfaction, on one of the
+      chairs, and was contemplating her as she thus stood and gazed, with an
+      expression of mingled curiosity and admiration; she recognised at once her
+      first, her only persecutor. She recoiled, and covered her face with her
+      hands. The man approached her:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not hate me, Fanny,&mdash;do not turn away. Believe me, though I have
+      acted thus violently, here all violence will cease. I love you, but I will
+      not be satisfied till you love me in return. I am not young, and I am not
+      handsome, but I am rich and great, and I can make those whom I love happy,&mdash;so
+      happy, Fanny!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Fanny had turned away, and was now busily employed in trying to
+      re-open the door at which she had entered. Failing in this, she suddenly
+      darted away, opened the inner door, and rushed into the passage with a
+      loud cry. Her persecutor stifled an oath, and sprung after and arrested
+      her. He now spoke sternly, and with a smile and a frown at once:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is folly;&mdash;come back, or you will repent it! I have promised
+      you, as a gentleman&mdash;as a nobleman, if you know what that is&mdash;to
+      respect you. But neither will I myself be trifled with nor insulted. There
+      must be no screams!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His look and his voice awed Fanny in spite of her bewilderment and her
+      loathing, and she suffered herself passively to be drawn into the room. He
+      closed and bolted the door. She threw herself on the ground in one corner,
+      and moaned low but piteously. He looked at her musingly for some moments,
+      as he stood by the fire, and at last went to the door, opened it, and
+      called &ldquo;Harriet&rdquo; in a low voice. Presently a young woman, of about thirty,
+      appeared, neatly but plainly dressed, and of a countenance that, if not
+      very winning, might certainly be called very handsome. He drew her aside
+      for a few moments, and a whispered conference was exchanged. He then
+      walked gravely up to Fanny &ldquo;My young friend,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I see my presence
+      is too much for you this evening. This young woman will attend you&mdash;will
+      get you all you want. She can tell you, too, that I am not the terrible
+      sort of person you seem to suppose. I shall see you to-morrow.&rdquo; So saying,
+      he turned on his heel and walked out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fanny felt something like liberty, something like joy, again. She rose,
+      and looked so pleadingly, so earnestly, so intently into the woman&rsquo;s face,
+      that Harriet turned away her bold eyes abashed; and at this moment Dykeman
+      himself looked into the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are to bring us in dinner here yourself, uncle; and then go to my
+      lord in the drawing-room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dykeman looked pleased, and vanished. Then Harriet came up and took
+      Fanny&rsquo;s hand, and said, kindly,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be frightened. I assure you, half the girls in London would give I
+      don&rsquo;t know what to be in your place. My lord never will force you to do
+      anything you don&rsquo;t like&mdash;it&rsquo;s not his way; and he&rsquo;s the kindest and
+      best man,&mdash;and so rich; he does not know what to do with his money!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To all this Fanny made but one answer,&mdash;she threw herself suddenly
+      upon the woman&rsquo;s breast, and sobbed out: &ldquo;My grandfather is blind, he
+      cannot do without me&mdash;he will die&mdash;die. Have you nobody you
+      love, too? Let me go&mdash;let me out! What can they want with me?&mdash;I
+      never did harm to any one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And no one will harm you;&mdash;I swear it!&rdquo; said Harriet, earnestly. &ldquo;I
+      see you don&rsquo;t know my lord. But here&rsquo;s the dinner; come, and take a bit of
+      something, and a glass of wine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fanny could not touch anything except a glass of water, and that nearly
+      choked her. But at last, as she recovered her senses, the absence of her
+      tormentor&mdash;the presence of a woman&mdash;the solemn assurances of
+      Harriet that, if she did not like to stay there, after a day or two, she
+      should go back, tranquillised her in some measure. She did not heed the
+      artful and lengthened eulogiums that the she-tempter then proceeded to
+      pour forth upon the virtues, and the love, and the generosity, and, above
+      all, the money of my lord. She only kept repeating to herself, &ldquo;I shall go
+      back in a day or two.&rdquo; At length, Harriet, having eaten and drunk as much
+      as she could by her single self, and growing wearied with efforts from
+      which so little resulted, proposed to Fanny to retire to rest. She opened
+      a door to the right of the fireplace, and lighted her up a winding
+      staircase to a pretty and comfortable chamber, where she offered to help
+      her to undress. Fanny&rsquo;s complete innocence, and her utter ignorance of the
+      precise nature of the danger that awaited her, though she fancied it must
+      be very great and very awful, prevented her quite comprehending all that
+      Harriet meant to convey by her solemn assurances that she should not be
+      disturbed. But she understood, at least, that she was not to see her
+      hateful gaoler till the next morning; and when Harriet, wishing her &ldquo;good
+      night,&rdquo; showed her a bolt to her door, she was less terrified at the
+      thought of being alone in that strange place. She listened till Harriet&rsquo;s
+      footsteps had died away, and then, with a beating heart, tried to open the
+      door; it was locked from without. She sighed heavily. The window?&mdash;alas!
+      when she had removed the shutter, there was another one barred from
+      without, which precluded all hope there; she had no help for it but to
+      bolt her door, stand forlorn and amazed at her own condition, and, at
+      last, falling on her knees, to pray, in her own simple fashion, which
+      since her recent visits to the schoolmistress had become more intelligent
+      and earnest, to Him from whom no bolts and no bars can exclude the voice
+      of the human heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0057" id="link2HCH0057">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;In te omnis domus inclinata recumbit.&rdquo;&mdash;VIRGIL.
+
+      [On thee the whole house rests confidingly.]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Lord Lilburne, seated before a tray in the drawing-room, was finishing his
+      own solitary dinner, and Dykeman was standing close behind him, nervous
+      and agitated. The confidence of many years between the master and the
+      servant&mdash;the peculiar mind of Lilburne, which excluded him from all
+      friendship with his own equals&mdash;had established between the two the
+      kind of intimacy so common with the noble and the valet of the old French
+      regime, and indeed, in much Lilburne more resembled the men of that day
+      and land, than he did the nobler and statelier being which belongs to our
+      own. But to the end of time, whatever is at once vicious, polished, and
+      intellectual, will have a common likeness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my lord,&rdquo; said Dykeman, &ldquo;just reflect. This girl is so well known in
+      the place; she will be sure to be missed; and if any violence is done to
+      her, it&rsquo;s a capital crime, my lord&mdash;a capital crime. I know they
+      can&rsquo;t hang a great lord like you, but all concerned in it may&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Lilburne interrupted the speaker by, &ldquo;Give me some wine and hold your
+      tongue!&rdquo; Then, when he had emptied his glass, he drew himself nearer to
+      the fire, warmed his hands, mused a moment, and turned round to his
+      confidant:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dykeman,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;though you&rsquo;re an ass and a coward, and you don&rsquo;t
+      deserve that I should be so condescending, I will relieve your fears at
+      once. I know the law better than you can, for my whole life has been spent
+      in doing exactly as I please, without ever putting myself in the power of
+      LAW, which interferes with the pleasures of other men. You are right in
+      saying violence would be a capital crime. Now the difference between vice
+      and crime is this: Vice is what parsons write sermons against, Crime is
+      what we make laws against. I never committed a crime in all my life,&mdash;at
+      an age between fifty and sixty&mdash;I am not going to begin. Vices are
+      safe things; I may have my vices like other men: but crimes are dangerous
+      things&mdash;illegal things&mdash;things to be carefully avoided. Look
+      you&rdquo; (and here the speaker, fixing his puzzled listener with his eye,
+      broke into a grin of sublime mockery), &ldquo;let me suppose you to be the World&mdash;that
+      cringing valet of valets, the WORLD! I should say to you this, &lsquo;My dear
+      World, you and I understand each other well,&mdash;we are made for each
+      other,&mdash;I never come in your way, nor you in mine. If I get drunk
+      every day in my own room, that&rsquo;s vice, you can&rsquo;t touch me; if I take an
+      extra glass for the first time in my life, and knock down the watchman,
+      that&rsquo;s a crime which, if I am rich, costs me one pound&mdash;perhaps five
+      pounds; if I am poor, sends me to the treadmill. If I break the hearts of
+      five hundred old fathers, by buying with gold or flattery the embraces of
+      five hundred young daughters, that&rsquo;s vice,&mdash;your servant, Mr. World!
+      If one termagant wench scratches my face, makes a noise, and goes
+      brazen-faced to the Old Bailey to swear to her shame, why that&rsquo;s crime,
+      and my friend, Mr. World, pulls a hemp-rope out of his pocket.&rsquo; Now, do
+      you understand? Yes, I repeat,&rdquo; he added, with a change of voice, &ldquo;I never
+      committed a crime in my life,&mdash;I have never even been accused of one,&mdash;never
+      had an action of crim. con.&mdash;of seduction against me. I know how to
+      manage such matters better. I was forced to carry off this girl, because I
+      had no other means of courting her. To court her is all I mean to do now.
+      I am perfectly aware that an action for violence, as you call it, would be
+      the more disagreeable, because of the very weakness of intellect which the
+      girl is said to possess, and of which report I don&rsquo;t believe a word. I
+      shall most certainly avoid even the remotest appearance that could be so
+      construed. It is for that reason that no one in the house shall attend the
+      girl except yourself and your niece. Your niece I can depend on, I know; I
+      have been kind to her; I have got her a good husband; I shall get her
+      husband a good place;&mdash;I shall be godfather to her first child. To be
+      sure, the other servants will know there&rsquo;s a lady in the house, but to
+      that they are accustomed; I don&rsquo;t set up for a Joseph. They need know no
+      more, unless you choose to blab it out. Well, then, supposing that at the
+      end of a few days, more or less, without any rudeness on my part, a young
+      woman, after seeing a few jewels, and fine dresses, and a pretty house,
+      and being made very comfortable, and being convinced that her grandfather
+      shall be taken care of without her slaving herself to death, chooses of
+      her own accord to live with me, where&rsquo;s the crime, and who can interfere
+      with it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, my lord, that alters the case,&rdquo; said Dykeman, considerably
+      relieved. &ldquo;But still,&rdquo; he added, anxiously, &ldquo;if the inquiry is made,&mdash;if
+      before all this is settled, it is found out where she is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why then no harm will be done&mdash;no violence will be committed. Her
+      grandfather,&mdash;drivelling and a miser, you say&mdash;can be appeased
+      by a little money, and it will be nobody&rsquo;s business, and no case can be
+      made of it. Tush! man! I always look before I leap! People in this world
+      are not so charitable as you suppose. What more natural than that a poor
+      and pretty girl&mdash;not as wise as Queen Elizabeth&mdash;should be
+      tempted to pay a visit to a rich lover!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All they can say of the lover is, that he is a very gay man or a very bad
+      man, and that&rsquo;s saying nothing new of me. But don&rsquo;t think it will be found
+      out. Just get me that stool; this has been a very troublesome piece of
+      business&mdash;rather tried me. I am not so young as I was. Yes, Dykeman,
+      something which that Frenchman Vaudemont, or Vautrien, or whatever his
+      name is, said to me once, has a certain degree of truth. I felt it in the
+      last fit of the gout, when my pretty niece was smoothing my pillows. A
+      nurse, as we grow older, may be of use to one. I wish to make this girl
+      like me, or be grateful to me. I am meditating a longer and more serious
+      attachment than usual,&mdash;a companion!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A companion, my lord, in that poor creature!&mdash;so ignorant&mdash;so
+      uneducated!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So much the better. This world palls upon me,&rdquo; said Lilburne, almost
+      gloomily. &ldquo;I grow sick of the miserable quackeries&mdash;of the piteous
+      conceits that men, women, and children call &lsquo;knowledge,&rsquo; I wish to catch a
+      glimpse of nature before I die. This creature interests me, and that is
+      something in this life. Clear those things away, and leave me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay!&rdquo; muttered Lilburne, as he bent over the fire alone, &ldquo;when I first
+      heard that that girl was the granddaughter of Simon Gawtrey, and,
+      therefore, the child of the man whom I am to thank that I am a cripple, I
+      felt as if love to her were a part of that hate which I owe to him; a
+      segment in the circle of my vengeance. But now, poor child!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I forget all this. I feel for her, not passion, but what I never felt
+      before, affection. I feel that if I had such a child, I could understand
+      what men mean when they talk of the tenderness of a father. I have not one
+      impure thought for that girl&mdash;not one. But I would give thousands if
+      she could love me. Strange! strange! in all this I do not recognise
+      myself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Lilburne retired to rest betimes that night; he slept sound; rose
+      refreshed at an earlier hour than usual; and what he considered a fit of
+      vapours of the previous night was passed away. He looked with eagerness to
+      an interview with Fanny. Proud of his intellect, pleased in any of those
+      sinister exercises of it which the code and habits of his life so long
+      permitted to him, he regarded the conquest of his fair adversary with the
+      interest of a scientific game. Harriet went to Fanny&rsquo;s room to prepare her
+      to receive her host; and Lord Lilburne now resolved to make his own visit
+      the less unwelcome by reserving for his especial gift some showy, if not
+      valuable, trinkets, which for similar purposes never failed the
+      depositories of the villa he had purchased for his pleasures. He,
+      recollected that these gewgaws were placed in the bureau in the study; in
+      which, as having a lock of foreign and intricate workmanship, he usually
+      kept whatever might tempt cupidity in those frequent absences when the
+      house was left guarded but by two women servants. Finding that Fanny had
+      not yet quitted her own chamber, while Harriet went up to attend and
+      reason with her, he himself limped into the study below, unlocked the
+      bureau, and was searching in the drawers, when he heard the voice of Fanny
+      above, raised a little as if in remonstrance or entreaty; and he paused to
+      listen. He could not, however, distinguish what was said; and in the
+      meanwhile, without attending much to what he was about, his hands were
+      still employed in opening and shutting the drawers, passing through the
+      pigeon-holes, and feeling for a topaz brooch, which he thought could not
+      fail of pleasing the unsophisticated eyes of Fanny. One of the recesses
+      was deeper than the rest; he fancied the brooch was there; he stretched
+      his hand into the recess; and, as the room was partially darkened by the
+      lower shutters from without, which were still unclosed to prevent any
+      attempted escape of his captive, he had only the sense of touch to depend
+      on; not finding the brooch, he stretched on till he came to the extremity
+      of the recess, and was suddenly sensible of a sharp pain; the flesh seemed
+      caught as in a trap; he drew back his finger with sudden force and a
+      half-suppressed exclamation, and he perceived the bottom or floor of the
+      pigeon-hole recede, as if sliding back. His curiosity was aroused; he
+      again felt warily and cautiously, and discovered a very slight inequality
+      and roughness at the extremity of the recess. He was aware instantly that
+      there was some secret spring; he pressed with some force on the spot, and
+      he felt the board give way; he pushed it back towards him, and it slid
+      suddenly with a whirring noise, and left a cavity below exposed to his
+      sight. He peered in, and drew forth a paper; he opened it at first
+      carelessly, for he was still trying to listen to Fanny. His eye ran
+      rapidly over a few preliminary lines till it rested on what follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Marriage. The year 18&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. 83, page 21.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Philip Beaufort, of this parish of A&mdash;&mdash;-, and Catherine
+      Morton, of the parish of St. Botolph, Aldgate, London, were married in
+      this church by banns, this 12th day of November, in the year one thousand
+      eight hundred and &mdash;&mdash;&rsquo; by me,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                   &ldquo;CALEB PRICE, Vicar.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This marriage was solemnised between us,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                   &ldquo;PHILIP BEAUFORT.
+                   &ldquo;CATHERINE MORTON.
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+&ldquo;In the presence of
+                   &ldquo;DAVID APREECE.
+                   &ldquo;WILLIAM SMITH.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The above is a true copy taken from the registry of marriages, in A&mdash;&mdash;-parish,
+      this 19th day of March, 18&mdash;, by me,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                &ldquo;MORGAN JONES, Curate of C&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;-.&rdquo;
+ 
+   [This is according to the form customary at the date at which the
+   copy was made. There has since been an alteration.]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Lord Lilburne again cast his eye over the lines prefixed to this startling
+      document, which, being those written at Caleb&rsquo;s desire, by Mr. Jones to
+      Philip Beaufort, we need not here transcribe to the reader. At that
+      instant Harriet descended the stairs, and came into the room; she crept up
+      on tiptoe to Lilburne, and whispered,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is coming down, I think; she does not know you are here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well&mdash;go!&rdquo; said Lord Lilburne. And scarce had Harriet left the
+      room, when a carriage drove furiously to the door, and Robert Beaufort
+      rushed into the study.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0058" id="link2HCH0058">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;Gone, and none know it.
+
+   How now?&mdash;What news, what hopes and steps discovered!&rdquo;
+    BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: The Pilgrim.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      When Philip arrived at his lodgings in town it was very late, but he still
+      found Liancourt waiting the chance of his arrival. The Frenchman was full
+      of his own schemes and projects. He was a man of high repute and
+      connections; negotiations for his recall to Paris had been entered into;
+      he was divided between a Quixotic loyalty and a rational prudence; he
+      brought his doubts to Vaudemont. Occupied as he was with thoughts of so
+      important and personal a nature, Philip could yet listen patiently to his
+      friend, and weigh with him the pros and cons. And after having mutually
+      agreed that loyalty and prudence would both be best consulted by waiting a
+      little, to see if the nation, as the Carlists yet fondly trusted, would
+      soon, after its first fever, offer once more the throne and the purple to
+      the descendant of St. Louis, Liancourt, as he lighted his cigar to walk
+      home, said, &ldquo;A thousand thanks to you, my dear friend: and how have you
+      enjoyed yourself in your visit? I am not surprised or jealous that
+      Lilburne did not invite me, as I do not play at cards, and as I have said
+      some sharp things to him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I fancy I shall have the same disqualifications for another invitation,&rdquo;
+       said Vaudemont, with a severe smile. &ldquo;I may have much to disclose to you
+      in a few days. At present my news is still unripe. And have you seen
+      anything of Lilburne? He left us some days since. Is he in London?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; I was riding with our friend Henri, who wished to try a new horse
+      off the stones, a little way into the country yesterday. We went through&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;and
+      H&mdash;&mdash;. Pretty places, those. Do you know them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; I know H&mdash;&mdash;.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And just at dusk, as we were spurring back to town, whom should I see
+      walking on the path of the high-road but Lord Lilburne himself! I could
+      hardly believe my eyes. I stopped, and, after asking him about you, I
+      could not help expressing my surprise to see him on foot at such a place.
+      You know the man&rsquo;s sneer. &lsquo;A Frenchman so gallant as Monsieur de
+      Liancourt,&rsquo; said he, &lsquo;need not be surprised at much greater miracles; the
+      iron moves to the magnet: I have a little adventure here. Pardon me if I
+      ask you to ride on.&rsquo; Of course I wished him good day; and a little farther
+      up the road I saw a dark plain chariot, no coronet, no arms, no footman
+      only the man on the box, but the beauty of the horses assured me it must
+      belong to Lilburne. Can you conceive such absurdity in a man of that age&mdash;and
+      a very clever fellow too? Yet, how is it that one does not ridicule it in
+      Lilburne, as one would in another man between fifty and sixty?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because one does not ridicule,&mdash;one loathes-him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; that&rsquo;s not it. The fact is that one can&rsquo;t fancy Lilburne old. His
+      manner is young&mdash;his eye is young. I never saw any one with so much
+      vitality. &lsquo;The bad heart and the good digestion&rsquo;&mdash;the twin secrets
+      for wearing well, eh!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where did you meet him&mdash;not near H&mdash;&mdash;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; close by. Why? Have you any adventure there too? Nay, forgive me; it
+      was but a jest. Good night!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vaudemont fell into an uneasy reverie: he could not divine exactly why he
+      should be alarmed; but he was alarmed at Lilburne being in the
+      neighbourhood of H&mdash;&mdash;. It was the foot of the profane violating
+      the sanctuary. An undefined thrill shot through him, as his mind coupled
+      together the associations of Lilburne and Fanny; but there was no ground
+      for forebodings. Fanny did not stir out alone. An adventure, too&mdash;pooh!
+      Lord Lilburne must be awaiting a willing and voluntary appointment, most
+      probably from some one of the fair but decorous frailties of London. Lord
+      Lilburne&rsquo;s more recent conquests were said to be among those of his own
+      rank; suburbs are useful for such assignations. Any other thought was too
+      horrible to be contemplated. He glanced to the clock; it was three in the
+      morning. He would go to H&mdash;&mdash; early, even before he sought out
+      Mr. William Smith. With that resolution, and even his hardy frame worn out
+      by the excitement of the day, he threw himself on his bed and fell asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not wake till near nine, and had just dressed, and hurried over his
+      abstemious breakfast, when the servant of the house came to tell him that
+      an old woman, apparently in great agitation, wished to see him. His head
+      was still full of witnesses and lawsuits; and he was vaguely expecting
+      some visitor connected with his primary objects, when Sarah broke into the
+      room. She cast a hurried, suspicious look round her, and then throwing
+      herself on her knees to him, &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;if you have taken that poor
+      young thing away, God forgive you. Let her come back again. It shall be
+      all hushed up. Don&rsquo;t ruin her! don&rsquo;t, that&rsquo;s a dear good gentleman!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Speak plainly, woman&mdash;what do you mean?&rdquo; cried Philip, turning pale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A very few words sufficed for an explanation: Fanny&rsquo;s disappearance the
+      previous night; the alarm of Sarah at her non-return; the apathy of old
+      Simon, who did not comprehend what had happened, and quietly went to bed;
+      the search Sarah had made during half the night; the intelligence she had
+      picked up, that the policeman, going his rounds, had heard a female shriek
+      near the school; but that all he could perceive through the mist was a
+      carriage driving rapidly past him; Sarah&rsquo;s suspicions of Vaudemont
+      confirmed in the morning, when, entering Fanny&rsquo;s room, she perceived the
+      poor girl&rsquo;s unfinished letter with his own, the clue to his address that
+      the letter gave her; all this, ere she well understood what she herself
+      was talking about,&mdash;Vaudemont&rsquo;s alarm seized, and the reflection of a
+      moment construed: the carriage; Lilburne seen lurking in the neighbourhood
+      the previous day; the former attempt;&mdash;all flashed on him with an
+      intolerable glare. While Sarah was yet speaking, he rushed from the house,
+      he flew to Lord Lilburne&rsquo;s in Park Lane; he composed his manner, he
+      inquired calmly. His lordship had slept from home; he was, they believed,
+      at Fernside: Fernside! H&mdash;&mdash; was on the direct way to that
+      villa. Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed since he heard the story ere he
+      was on the road, with such speed as the promise of a guinea a mile could
+      extract from the spurs of a young post-boy applied to the flanks of London
+      post-horses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0059" id="link2HCH0059">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+          &ldquo;Ex humili magna ad fastigia rerum
+          Extollit.&rdquo;&mdash;JUVENAL.
+
+        [Fortune raises men from low estate to the very
+        summit of prosperity.]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      When Harriet had quitted Fanny, the waiting-woman, craftily wishing to
+      lure her into Lilburne&rsquo;s presence, had told her that the room below was
+      empty; and the captive&rsquo;s mind naturally and instantly seized on the
+      thought of escape. After a brief breathing pause, she crept noiselessly
+      down the stairs, and gently opened the door; and at the very instant she
+      did so, Robert Beaufort entered from the other door; she drew back in
+      terror, when, what was her astonishment in hearing a name uttered that
+      spell-bound her&mdash;the last name she could have expected to hear; for
+      Lilburne, the instant he saw Beaufort, pale, haggard, agitated, rush into
+      the room, and bang the door after him, could only suppose that something
+      of extraordinary moment had occurred with regard to the dreaded guest, and
+      cried:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You come about Vaudemont! Something has happened about Vaudemont! about
+      Philip! What is it? Calm yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fanny, as the name was thus abruptly uttered, actually thrust her face
+      through the door; but she again drew back, and, all her senses
+      preternaturally quickened at that name, while she held the door almost
+      closed, listened with her whole soul in her ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The faces of both the men were turned from her, and her partial entry had
+      not been perceived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Robert Beaufort, leaning his weight, as if ready to sink to
+      the ground, upon Lilburne&rsquo;s shoulder, &ldquo;Yes; Vaudemont, or Philip, for they
+      are one,&mdash;yes, it is about that man I have come to consult you.
+      Arthur has arrived.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And Arthur has seen the wretch who visited us, and the rascal&rsquo;s manner
+      has so imposed on him, so convinced him that Philip is the heir to all our
+      property, that he has come over-ill, ill&mdash;I fear&rdquo; (added Beaufort, in
+      a hollow voice), &ldquo;dying, to&mdash;to&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To guard against their machinations?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, no&mdash;to say that if such be the case, neither honour nor
+      conscience will allow us to resist his rights. He is so obstinate in this
+      matter; his nerves so ill bear reasoning and contradiction, that I know
+      not what to do&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take breath&mdash;go on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it seems that this man found out Arthur almost as soon as my son
+      arrived at Paris&mdash;that he has persuaded Arthur that he has it in his
+      power to prove the marriage&mdash;that he pretended to be very impatient
+      for a decision&mdash;that Arthur, in order to gain time to see me,
+      affected irresolution&mdash;took him to Boulogne, for the rascal does not
+      dare to return to England&mdash;left him there; and now comes back, my own
+      son, as my worst enemy, to conspire against me for my property! I could
+      not have kept my temper if I had stayed. But that&rsquo;s not all&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+      not the worst: Vaudemont left me suddenly in the morning on the receipt of
+      a letter. In taking leave of Camilla he let fall hints which fill me with
+      fear. Well, I inquired his movements as I came along; he had stopped at D&mdash;&mdash;,
+      had been closeted for above an hour with a man whose name the landlord of
+      the inn knew, for it was on his carpet-bag&mdash;the name was Barlow. You
+      remember the advertisements! Good Heavens! what is to be done? I would not
+      do anything unhandsome or dishonest. But there never was a marriage. I
+      never will believe there was a marriage&mdash;never!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was a marriage, Robert Beaufort,&rdquo; said Lord Lilburne, almost
+      enjoying the torture he was about to inflict; &ldquo;and I hold here a paper
+      that Philip Vaudemont&mdash;for so we will yet call him&mdash;would give
+      his right hand to clutch for a moment. I have but just found it in a
+      secret cavity in that bureau. Robert, on this paper may depend the fate,
+      the fortune, the prosperity, the greatness of Philip Vaudemont;&mdash;or
+      his poverty, his exile, his ruin. See!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert Beaufort glanced over the paper held out to him&mdash;dropped it on
+      the floor&mdash;and staggered to a seat. Lilburne coolly replaced the
+      document in the bureau, and, limping to his brother-in-law, said with a
+      smile,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the paper is in my possession&mdash;I will not destroy it. No; I have
+      no right to destroy it. Besides, it would be a crime; but if I give it to
+      you, you can do with it as you please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O Lilburne, spare me&mdash;spare me. I meant to be an honest man. I&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+       And Robert Beaufort sobbed. Lilburne looked at him in scornful surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not fear that I shall ever think worse of you; and who else will know
+      it? Do not fear me. No;&mdash;I, too, have reasons to hate and to fear
+      this Philip Vaudemont; for Vaudemont shall be his name, and not Beaufort,
+      in spite of fifty such scraps of paper! He has known a man&mdash;my worst
+      foe&mdash;he has secrets of mine&mdash;of my past&mdash;perhaps of my
+      present: but I laugh at his knowledge while he is a wandering adventurer;&mdash;I
+      should tremble at that knowledge if he could thunder it out to the world
+      as Philip Beaufort of Beaufort Court! There, I am candid with you. Now
+      hear my plan. Prove to Arthur that his visitor is a convicted felon, by
+      sending the officers of justice after him instantly&mdash;off with him
+      again to the Settlements. Defy a single witness&mdash;entrap Vaudemont
+      back to France and prove him (I think I will prove him such&mdash;I think
+      so&mdash;with a little money and a little pains)&mdash;prove him the
+      accomplice of William Gawtrey, a coiner and a murderer! Pshaw! take yon
+      paper. Do with it as you will&mdash;keep it&mdash;give it to Arthur&mdash;let
+      Philip Vaudemont have it, and Philip Vaudemont will be rich and great, the
+      happiest man between earth and paradise! On the other hand, come and tell
+      me that you have lost it, or that I never gave you such a paper, or that
+      no such paper ever existed; and Philip Vaudemont may live a pauper, and
+      die, perhaps, a slave at the galleys! Lose it, I say,&mdash;lose it,&mdash;and
+      advise with me upon the rest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Horror-struck, bewildered, the weak man gazed upon the calm face of the
+      Master-villain, as the scholar of the old fables might have gazed on the
+      fiend who put before him worldly prosperity here and the loss of his soul
+      hereafter. He had never hitherto regarded Lilburne in his true light. He
+      was appalled by the black heart that lay bare before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t destroy it&mdash;I can&rsquo;t,&rdquo; he faltered out; &ldquo;and if I did, out of
+      love for Arthur,&mdash;don&rsquo;t talk of galleys,&mdash;of vengeance&mdash;I&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The arrears of the rents you have enjoyed will send you to gaol for your
+      life. No, no; don&rsquo;t destroy the paper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Beaufort rose with a desperate effort; he moved to the bureau. Fanny&rsquo;s
+      heart was on her lips;&mdash;of this long conference she had understood
+      only the one broad point on which Lilburne had insisted with an emphasis
+      that could have enlightened an infant; and he looked on Beaufort as an
+      infant then&mdash;On that paper rested Philip Vaudemont&rsquo;s fate&mdash;happiness
+      if saved, ruin if destroyed; Philip&mdash;her Philip! And Philip himself
+      had said to her once&mdash;when had she ever forgotten his words? and now
+      how those words flashed across her&mdash;Philip himself had said to her
+      once, &ldquo;Upon a scrap of paper, if I could but find it, may depend my whole
+      fortune, my whole happiness, all that I care for in life.&rdquo;&mdash;Robert
+      Beaufort moved to the bureau&mdash;he seized the document&mdash;he looked
+      over it again, hurriedly, and ere Lilburne, who by no means wished to have
+      it destroyed in his own presence, was aware of his intention&mdash;he
+      hastened with tottering steps to the hearth-averted his eyes, and cast it
+      on the fire. At that instant something white&mdash;he scarce knew what, it
+      seemed to him as a spirit, as a ghost&mdash;darted by him, and snatched
+      the paper, as yet uninjured, from the embers! There was a pause for the
+      hundredth part of a moment:&mdash;a gurgling sound of astonishment and
+      horror from Beaufort&mdash;an exclamation from Lilburne&mdash;a laugh from
+      Fanny, as, her eyes flashing light, with a proud dilation of stature, with
+      the paper clasped tightly to her bosom, she turned her looks of triumph
+      from one to the other. The two men were both too amazed, at the instant,
+      for rapid measures. But Lilburne, recovering himself first, hastened to
+      her; she eluded his grasp&mdash;she made towards the door to the passage;
+      when Lilburne, seriously alarmed, seized her arm;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Foolish child!&mdash;give me that paper!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never but with my life!&rdquo; And Fanny&rsquo;s cry for help rang through the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then&mdash;&rdquo; the speech died on his lips, for at that instant a rapid
+      stride was heard without&mdash;a momentary scuffle&mdash;voices in
+      altercation;&mdash;the door gave way as if a battering ram had forced it;&mdash;not
+      so much thrown forward as actually hurled into the room, the body of
+      Dykeman fell heavily, like a dead man&rsquo;s, at the very feet of Lord Lilburne&mdash;and
+      Philip Vaudemont stood in the doorway!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The grasp of Lilburne on Fanny&rsquo;s arm relaxed, and the girl, with one
+      bound, sprung to Philip&rsquo;s breast. &ldquo;Here, here!&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;take it&mdash;take
+      it!&rdquo; and she thrust the paper into his hand. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t let them have it&mdash;read
+      it&mdash;see it&mdash;never mind me!&rdquo; But Philip, though his hand
+      unconsciously closed on the precious document, did mind Fanny; and in that
+      moment her cause was the only one in the world to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Foul villain!&rdquo; he said, as he strode to Lilburne, while Fanny still clung
+      to his breast: &ldquo;Speak!&mdash;speak!&mdash;is&mdash;she&mdash;is she?&mdash;man&mdash;man,
+      speak!&mdash;you know what I would say!&mdash;She is the child of your own
+      daughter&mdash;the grandchild of that Mary whom you dishonoured&mdash;the
+      child of the woman whom William Gawtrey saved from pollution! Before he
+      died, Gawtrey commended her to my care!&mdash;O God of Heaven!&mdash;speak!&mdash;I
+      am not too late!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The manner, the words, the face of Philip left Lilburne terror-stricken
+      with conviction. But the man&rsquo;s crafty ability, debased as it was,
+      triumphed even over remorse for the dread guilt meditated,&mdash;over
+      gratitude for the dread guilt spared. He glanced at Beaufort&mdash;at
+      Dykeman, who now, slowly recovering, gazed at him with eyes that seemed
+      starting from their sockets; and lastly fixed his look on Philip himself.
+      There were three witnesses&mdash;presence of mind was his great attribute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if, Monsieur de Vaudemont, I knew, or, at least, had the firmest
+      persuasion that Fanny was my grandchild, what then? Why else should she be
+      here?&mdash;Pooh, sir! I am an old man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip recoiled a step in wonder; his plain sense was baffled by the calm
+      lie. He looked down at Fanny, who, comprehending nothing of what was
+      spoken, for all her faculties, even her very sense of sight and hearing,
+      were absorbed in her impatient anxiety for him, cried out:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No harm has come to Fanny&mdash;none: only frightened. Read!&mdash;Read!&mdash;Save
+      that paper!&mdash;You know what you once said about a mere scrap of paper!
+      Come away! Come!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did now cast his eyes on the paper he held. That was an awful moment
+      for Robert Beaufort&mdash;even for Lilburne! To snatch the fatal document
+      from that gripe! They would as soon have snatched it from a tiger! He
+      lifted his eyes&mdash;they rested on his mother&rsquo;s picture! Her lips smiled
+      on him! He turned to Beaufort in a state of emotion too exulting, too
+      blest for vulgar vengeance&mdash;for vulgar triumph&mdash;almost for
+      words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look yonder, Robert Beaufort&mdash;look!&rdquo; and he pointed to the picture.
+      &ldquo;Her name is spotless! I stand again beneath a roof that was my father&rsquo;s,&mdash;the
+      Heir of Beaufort! We shall meet before the justice of our country. For
+      you, Lord Lilburne, I will believe you: it is too horrible to doubt even
+      your intentions. If wrong had chanced to her, I would have rent you where
+      you stand, limb from limb. And thank her&rdquo;,&mdash;(for Lilburne recovered
+      at this language the daring of his youth, before calculation, indolence,
+      and excess had dulled the edge of his nerves; and, unawed by the height,
+      and manhood, and strength of his menacer, stalked haughtily up to him)&mdash;&ldquo;and
+      thank your relationship to her,&rdquo; said Philip, sinking his voice into a
+      whisper, &ldquo;that I do not brand you as a pilferer and a cheat! Hush, knave!&mdash;hush,
+      pupil of George Gawtrey!&mdash;there are no duels for me but with men of
+      honour!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lilburne now turned white, and the big word stuck in his throat. In
+      another instant Fanny and her guardian had quitted the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dykeman,&rdquo; said Lord Lilburne after a long silence, &ldquo;I shall ask you
+      another time how you came to admit that impertinent person. At present, go
+      and order breakfast for Mr. Beaufort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as Dykeman, more astounded, perhaps, by his lord&rsquo;s coolness than
+      even by the preceding circumstances, had left the study, Lilburne came up
+      to Beaufort,&mdash;who seemed absolutely stricken as if by palsy,&mdash;and
+      touching him impatiently and rudely, said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Sdeath, man!&mdash;rouse yourself! There is not a moment to be lost! I
+      have already decided on what you are to do. This paper is not worth a
+      rush, unless the curate who examined it will depose to that fact. He is a
+      curate&mdash;a Welsh curate;&mdash;you are yet Mr. Beaufort, a rich and a
+      great man. The curate, properly managed, may depose to the contrary; and
+      then we will indict them all for forgery and conspiracy. At the worst, you
+      can, no doubt, get the parson to forget all about it&mdash;to stay away.
+      His address was on the certificate:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&mdash;C&mdash;&mdash;-. Go yourself into Wales without an instant&rsquo;s
+      delay&mdash; Then, having arranged with Mr. Jones, hurry back, cross to
+      Boulogne, and buy this convict and his witnesses, buy them! That, now, is
+      the only thing. Quick! quick!&mdash;quick! Zounds, man! if it were my
+      affair, my estate, I would not care a pin for that fragment of paper; I
+      should rather rejoice at it. I see how it could be turned against them!
+      Go!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no; I am not equal to it! Will you manage it? will you? Half my
+      estate!&mdash;all! Take it: but save&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tut!&rdquo; interrupted Lord Lilburne, in great disdain. &ldquo;I am as rich as I
+      want to be. Money does not bribe me. I manage this! I! Lord Lilburne. I!
+      Why, if found out, it is subornation of witnesses. It is exposure&mdash;it
+      is dishonour&mdash;it is ruin. What then? You should take the risk&mdash;for
+      you must meet ruin if you do not. I cannot. I have nothing to gain!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dare not!&mdash;I dare not!&rdquo; murmured Beaufort, quite spirit-broken.
+      &ldquo;Subornation, dishonour, exposure!&mdash;and I, so respectable&mdash;my
+      character!&mdash;and my son against me, too!&mdash;my son, in whom I lived
+      again! No, no; let them take all! Let them take it! Ha! ha! let them take
+      it! Good-day to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall consult Mr. Blackwell, and I&rsquo;ll let you know.&rdquo; And Beaufort
+      walked tremulously back to his carriage. &ldquo;Go to his lawyer!&rdquo; growled
+      Lilburne. &ldquo;Yes, if his lawyer can help him to defraud men lawfully, he&rsquo;ll
+      defraud them fast enough. That will be the respectable way of doing it!
+      Um!&mdash;This may be an ugly business for me&mdash;the paper found here&mdash;if
+      the girl can depose to what she heard, and she must have heard something.&mdash;No,
+      I think the laws of real property will hardly allow her evidence; and if
+      they do&mdash;Um!&mdash;My granddaughter&mdash;is it possible!&mdash;And
+      Gawtrey rescued her mother, my child, from her own mother&rsquo;s vices! I
+      thought my liking to that girl different from any other I have ever felt:
+      it was pure&mdash;it was!&mdash;it was pity&mdash;affection. And I must
+      never see her again&mdash;must forget the whole thing! And I am growing
+      old&mdash;and I am childless&mdash;and alone!&rdquo; He paused, almost with a
+      groan: and then the expression of his face changing to rage, he cried out,
+      &ldquo;The man threatened me, and I was a coward! What to do?&mdash;Nothing! The
+      defensive is my line. I shall play no more.&mdash;I attack no one. Who
+      will accuse Lord Lilburne? Still, Robert is a fool. I must not leave him
+      to himself. Ho! there! Dykeman!&mdash;the carriage! I shall go to London.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fortunate, no doubt, it was for Philip that Mr. Beaufort was not Lord
+      Lilburne. For all history teaches us&mdash;public and private history&mdash;conquerors&mdash;statesmen&mdash;sharp
+      hypocrites and brave designers&mdash;yes, they all teach us how mighty one
+      man of great intellect and no scruple is against the justice of millions!
+      The One Man moves&mdash;the Mass is inert. Justice sits on a throne.
+      Roguery never rests,&mdash;Activity is the lever of Archimedes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0060" id="link2HCH0060">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Quam inulta injusta ac prava fiunt moribus.&rdquo;&mdash;TULL.
+
+     [How many unjust and vicious actions are perpetrated
+     under the name of morals.]
+
+             &ldquo;Volat ambiguis
+             Mobilis alis Hera.&rdquo;&mdash;SENECA.
+
+         [The hour flies moving with doubtful wings.]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Robert Beaufort sought Mr. Blackwell, and long, rambling, and
+      disjointed was his narrative. Mr. Blackwell, after some consideration,
+      proposed to set about doing the very things that Lilburne had proposed at
+      once to do. But the lawyer expressed himself legally and covertly, so that
+      it did not seem to the sober sense of Mr. Beaufort at all the same plan.
+      He was not the least alarmed at what Mr. Blackwell proposed, though so
+      shocked at what Lilburne dictated. Blackwell would go the next day into
+      Wales&mdash;he would find out Mr. Jones&mdash;he would sound him! Nothing
+      was more common with people of the nicest honour, than just to get a
+      witness out of the way! Done in election petitions, for instance, every
+      day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True,&rdquo; said Mr. Beaufort, much relieved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, after having done that, Mr. Blackwell would return to town, and
+      cross over to Boulogne to see this very impudent person whom Arthur (young
+      men were so apt to be taken in!) had actually believed. He had no doubt he
+      could settle it all. Robert Beaufort returned to Berkeley Square actually
+      in spirits. There he found Lilburne, who, on reflection, seeing that
+      Blackwell was at all events more up to the business than his brother,
+      assented to the propriety of the arrangement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Blackwell accordingly did set off the next day. That next day,
+      perhaps, made all the difference. Within two hours from his gaining the
+      document so important, Philip, without any subtler exertion of intellect
+      than the decision of a plain, bold sense, had already forestalled both the
+      peer and the lawyer. He had sent down Mr. Barlow&rsquo;s head clerk to his
+      master in Wales with the document, and a short account of the manner in
+      which it had been discovered. And fortunate, indeed, was it that the copy
+      had been found; for all the inquiries of Mr. Barlow at A&mdash;&mdash; had
+      failed, and probably would have failed, without such a clue, in fastening
+      upon any one probable person to have officiated as Caleb Price&rsquo;s
+      amanuensis. The sixteen hours&rsquo; start Mr. Barlow gained over Blackwell
+      enabled the former to see Mr. Jones&mdash;to show him his own handwriting&mdash;to
+      get a written and witnessed attestation from which the curate, however
+      poor, and however tempted, could never well have escaped (even had he been
+      dishonest, which he was not), of his perfect recollection of the fact of
+      making an extract from the registry at Caleb&rsquo;s desire, though he owned he
+      had quite forgotten the names he extracted till they were again placed
+      before him. Barlow took care to arouse Mr. Jones&rsquo;s interest in the case&mdash;quitted
+      Wales&mdash;hastened over to Boulogne&mdash;saw Captain Smith, and without
+      bribes, without threats, but by plainly proving to that worthy person that
+      he could not return to England nor see his brother without being
+      immediately arrested; that his brother&rsquo;s evidence was already pledged on
+      the side of truth; and that by the acquisition of new testimony there
+      could be no doubt that the suit would be successful&mdash;he diverted the
+      captain from all disposition towards perfidy, convinced him on which side
+      his interest lay, and saw him return to Paris, where very shortly
+      afterwards he disappeared for ever from this world, being forced into a
+      duel, much against his will (with a Frenchman whom he had attempted to
+      defraud), and shot through the lungs. Thus verifying a favourite maxim of
+      Lord Lilburne&rsquo;s, viz. that it does not do, in the long run, for little men
+      to play the Great Game!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the same day that Blackwell returned, frustrated in his half-and-half
+      attempts to corrupt Mr. Jones, and not having been able even to discover
+      Mr. Smith, Mr. Robert Beaufort received a notice of an Action for
+      Ejectment to be brought by Philip Beaufort at the next Assizes. And, to
+      add to his afflictions, Arthur, whom he had hitherto endeavoured to amuse
+      by a sort of ambiguous shilly-shally correspondence, became so alarmingly
+      worse, that his mother brought him up to town for advice. Lord Lilburne
+      was, of course, sent for; and on learning all, his counsel was prompt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you before that this man loves your daughter. See if you can
+      effect a compromise. The lawsuit will be ugly, and probably ruinous. He
+      has a right to claim six years&rsquo; arrears&mdash;that is above L100,000. Make
+      yourself his father-in-law, and me his uncle-in-law; and, since we can&rsquo;t
+      kill the wasp, we may at least soften the venom of his sting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Beaufort, still perplexed, irresolute, sought his son; and, for the first
+      time, spoke to him frankly&mdash;that is, frankly for Robert Beaufort! He
+      owned that the copy of the register had been found by Lilburne in a secret
+      drawer. He made the best of the story Lilburne himself furnished him with
+      (adhering, of course, to the assertion uttered or insinuated to Philip) in
+      regard to Fanny&rsquo;s abduction and interposition; he said nothing of his
+      attempt to destroy the paper. Why should he? By admitting the copy in
+      court&mdash;if so advised&mdash;he could get rid of Fanny&rsquo;s evidence
+      altogether; even without such concession, her evidence might possibly be
+      objected to or eluded. He confessed that he feared the witness who copied
+      the register and the witness to the marriage were alive. And then he
+      talked pathetically of his desire to do what was right, his dread of
+      slander and misinterpretation. He said nothing of Sidney, and his belief
+      that Sidney and Charles Spencer were the same; because, if his daughter
+      were to be the instrument for effecting a compromise, it was clear that
+      her engagement with Spencer must be cancelled and concealed. And luckily
+      Arthur&rsquo;s illness and Camilla&rsquo;s timidity, joined now to her father&rsquo;s
+      injunctions not to excite Arthur in his present state with any additional
+      causes of anxiety, prevented the confidence that might otherwise have
+      ensued between the brother and sister. And Camilla, indeed, had no heart
+      for such a conference. How, when she looked on Arthur&rsquo;s glassy eye, and
+      listened to his hectic cough, could she talk to him of love and marriage?
+      As to the automaton, Mrs. Beaufort, Robert made sure of her discretion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Arthur listened attentively to his father&rsquo;s communication; and the result
+      of that interview was the following letter from Arthur to his cousin:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I write to you without fear of misconstruction; for I write to you
+      unknown to all my family, and I am the only one of them who can have no
+      personal interest in the struggle about to take place between my father
+      and yourself. Before the law can decide between you, I shall be in my
+      grave. I write this from the Bed of Death. Philip, I write this&mdash;I,
+      who stood beside a deathbed more sacred to you than mine&mdash;I, who
+      received your mother&rsquo;s last sigh. And with that sigh there was a smile
+      that lasted when the sigh was gone: for I promised to befriend her
+      children. Heaven knows how anxiously I sought to fulfil that solemn vow!
+      Feeble and sick myself, I followed you and your brother with no aim, no
+      prayer, but this,&mdash;to embrace you and say, &lsquo;Accept a new brother in
+      me.&rsquo; I spare you the humiliation, for it is yours, not mine, of recalling
+      what passed between us when at last we met. Yet, I still sought to save,
+      at least, Sidney,&mdash;more especially confided to my care by his dying
+      mother. He mysteriously eluded our search; but we had reason, by a letter
+      received from some unknown hand, to believe him saved and provided for.
+      Again I met you at Paris. I saw you were poor. Judging from your
+      associate, I might with justice think you depraved. Mindful of your
+      declaration never to accept bounty from a Beaufort, and remembering with
+      natural resentment the outrage I had before received from you, I judged it
+      vain to seek and remonstrate with you, but I did not judge it vain to aid.
+      I sent you, anonymously, what at least would suffice, if absolute poverty
+      had subjected you to evil courses, to rescue you from them it your heart
+      were so disposed. Perhaps that sum, trifling as it was, may have smoothed
+      your path and assisted your career. And why tell you all this now? To
+      dissuade from asserting rights you conceive to be just?&mdash;Heaven
+      forbid! If justice is with you, so also is the duty due to your mother&rsquo;s
+      name. But simply for this: that in asserting such rights, you content
+      yourself with justice, not revenge&mdash;that in righting yourself, you do
+      not wrong others. If the law should decide for you, the arrears you could
+      demand would leave my father and sister beggars. This may be law&mdash;it
+      would not be justice; for my father solemnly believed himself, and had
+      every apparent probability in his favour, the true heir of the wealth that
+      devolved upon him. This is not all. There may be circumstances connected
+      with the discovery of a certain document that, if authentic, and I do not
+      presume to question it, may decide the contest so far as it rests on
+      truth; circumstances which might seem to bear hard upon my father&rsquo;s good
+      name and faith. I do not know sufficiently of law to say how far these
+      could be publicly urged, or, if urged, exaggerated and tortured by an
+      advocate&rsquo;s calumnious ingenuity. But again, I say justice, and not
+      revenge! And with this I conclude, inclosing to you these lines, written
+      in your own hand, and leaving you the arbiter of their value.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+             &ldquo;ARTHUR BEAUFORT.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      The lines inclosed were these, a second time placed before the reader
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;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&mdash;she died in your arms; and if ever-years, long years, hence&mdash;
+   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 &mdash;&mdash; with Mr. Morton. If you can serve him, my
+   mother&rsquo;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&rsquo;s grave.
+
+                       PHILIP.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      This letter was sent to the only address of Monsieur de Vaudemont which
+      the Beauforts knew, viz., his apartments in town, and he did not receive
+      it the day it was sent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Arthur Beaufort&rsquo;s malady continued to gain ground rapidly. His
+      father, absorbed in his own more selfish fears (though, at the first sight
+      of Arthur, overcome by the alteration of his appearance), had ceased to
+      consider his illness fatal. In fact, his affection for Arthur was rather
+      one of pride than love: long absence had weakened the ties of early
+      custom. He prized him as an heir rather than treasured him as a son. It
+      almost seemed that as the Heritage was in danger, so the Heir became less
+      dear: this was only because he was less thought of. Poor Mrs. Beaufort,
+      yet but partially acquainted with the terrors of her husband, still clung
+      to hope for Arthur. Her affection for him brought out from the depths of
+      her cold and insignificant character qualities that had never before been
+      apparent. She watched&mdash;she nursed&mdash;she tended him. The fine lady
+      was gone; nothing but the mother was left behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With a delicate constitution, and with an easy temper, which yielded to
+      the influence of companions inferior to himself, except in bodily vigour
+      and more sturdy will, Arthur Beaufort had been ruined by prosperity. His
+      talents and acquirements, if not first-rate, at least far above
+      mediocrity, had only served to refine his tastes, not to strengthen his
+      mind. His amiable impulses, his charming disposition and sweet temper, had
+      only served to make him the dupe of the parasites that feasted on the
+      lavish heir. His heart, frittered away in the usual round of light
+      intrigues and hollow pleasures, had become too sated and exhausted for the
+      redeeming blessings of a deep and a noble love. He had so lived for
+      Pleasure that he had never known Happiness. His frame broke by excesses in
+      which his better nature never took delight, he came home&mdash;to hear of
+      ruin and to die!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was evening in the sick-room. Arthur had risen from the bed to which,
+      for some days, he had voluntarily taken, and was stretched on the sofa
+      before the fire. Camilla was leaning over him, keeping in the shade, that
+      he might not see the tears which she could not suppress. His mother had
+      been endeavouring to amuse him, as she would have amused herself, by
+      reading aloud one of the light novels of the hour; novels that paint the
+      life of the higher classes as one gorgeous holyday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear mother,&rdquo; said the patient querulously, &ldquo;I have no interest in
+      these false descriptions of the life I have led. I know that life&rsquo;s worth.
+      Ah! had I been trained to some employment, some profession! had I&mdash;well&mdash;it
+      is weak to repine. Mother, tell me, you have seen Mons. de Vaudemont: is
+      he strong and healthy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; too much so. He has not your elegance, dear Arthur.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And do you admire him, Camilla? Has no other caught your heart or your
+      fancy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Arthur,&rdquo; interrupted Mrs. Beaufort, &ldquo;you forget that Camilla is
+      scarcely out; and of course a young girl&rsquo;s affections, if she&rsquo;s well
+      brought up, are regulated by the experience of her parents. It is time to
+      take the medicine: it certainly agrees with you; you have more colour
+      to-day, my dear, dear son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While Mrs. Beaufort was pouring out the medicine, the door gently opened,
+      and Mr. Robert Beaufort appeared; behind him there rose a taller and a
+      statelier form, but one which seemed more bent, more humbled, more
+      agitated. Beaufort advanced. Camilla looked up and turned pale. The
+      visitor escaped from Mr. Beaufort&rsquo;s grasp on his arm; he came forward,
+      trembling, he fell on his knees beside Arthur, and seizing his hand, bent
+      over, it in silence. But silence so stormy! silence more impressive than
+      all words his breast heaved, his whole frame shook. Arthur guessed at once
+      whom he saw, and bent down gently as if to raise his visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! Arthur! Arthur!&rdquo; then cried Philip; &ldquo;forgive me! My mother&rsquo;s
+      comforter&mdash;my cousin&mdash;my brother! Oh! brother, forgive me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And as he half rose, Arthur stretched out his arms, and Philip clasped him
+      to his breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is in vain to describe the different feelings that agitated those who
+      beheld; the selfish congratulations of Robert, mingled with a better and
+      purer feeling; the stupor of the mother; the emotions that she herself
+      could not unravel, which rooted Camilla to the spot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You own me, then,&mdash;you own me!&rdquo; cried Philip. &ldquo;You accept the
+      brotherhood that my mad passions once rejected! And you, too&mdash;you,
+      Camilla&mdash;you who once knelt by my side, under this very roof&mdash;do
+      you remember me now? Oh, Arthur! that letter&mdash;that letter!&mdash;yes,
+      indeed, that aid which I ascribed to any one&mdash;rather than to you&mdash;made
+      the date of a fairer fortune. I may have owed to that aid the very fate
+      that has preserved me till now; the very name which I have not
+      discredited. No, no; do not think you can ask me a favour; you can but
+      claim your due. Brother! my dear brother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0061" id="link2HCH0061">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;Warwick.&mdash;Exceeding well! his cares are now all over.&rdquo;
+    &mdash;Henry IV.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The excitement of this interview soon overpowering Arthur, Philip, in
+      quitting the room with Mr. Beaufort, asked a conference with that
+      gentleman; and they went into the very parlour from which the rich man had
+      once threatened to expel the haggard suppliant. Philip glanced round the
+      room, and the whole scene came again before him. After a pause, he thus
+      began,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Beaufort, let the Past be forgotten. We may have need of mutual
+      forgiveness, and I, who have so wronged your noble son, am willing to
+      suppose that I misjudged you. I cannot, it is true, forego this lawsuit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Beaufort&rsquo;s face fell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no right to do so. I am the trustee of my father&rsquo;s honour and my
+      mother&rsquo;s name: I must vindicate both: I cannot forego this lawsuit. But
+      when I once bowed myself to enter your house&mdash;then only with a hope,
+      where now I have the certainty of obtaining my heritage&mdash;it was with
+      the resolve to bury in oblivion every sentiment that would transgress the
+      most temperate justice. Now, I will do more. If the law decide against me,
+      we are as we were; if with me&mdash;listen: I will leave you the lands of
+      Beaufort, for your life and your son&rsquo;s. I ask but for me and for mine such
+      a deduction from your wealth as will enable me, should my brother be yet
+      living, to provide for him; and (if you approve the choice, which out of
+      all earth I would desire to make) to give whatever belongs to more refined
+      or graceful existence than I myself care for,&mdash;to her whom I would
+      call my wife. Robert Beaufort, in this room I once asked you to restore to
+      me the only being I then loved: I am now again your suppliant; and this
+      time you have it in your power to grant my prayer. Let Arthur be, in
+      truth, my brother: give me, if I prove myself, as I feel assured, entitled
+      to hold the name my father bore, give me your daughter as my wife; give me
+      Camilla, and I will not envy you the lands I am willing for myself to
+      resign; and if they pass to any children, those children will be your
+      daughter&rsquo;s!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The first impulse of Mr. Beaufort was to grasp the hand held out to him;
+      to pour forth an incoherent torrent of praise and protestation, of
+      assurances that he could not hear of such generosity, that what was right
+      was right, that he should be proud of such a son-in-law, and much more in
+      the same key. And in the midst of this, it suddenly occurred to Mr.
+      Beaufort, that if Philip&rsquo;s case were really as good as he said it was, he
+      could not talk so coolly of resigning the property it would secure him for
+      the term of a life (Mr. Beaufort thought of his own) so uncommonly good,
+      to say nothing of Arthur&rsquo;s. At this notion, he thought it best not to
+      commit himself too far; drew in as artfully as he could, until he could
+      consult Lord Lilburne and his lawyer; and recollecting also that he had a
+      great deal to manage with respect to Camilla and her prior attachment, he
+      began to talk of his distress for Arthur, of the necessity of waiting a
+      little before Camilla was spoken to, while so agitated about her brother,
+      of the exceedingly strong case which his lawyer advised him he possessed&mdash;not
+      but what he would rather rest the matter on justice than law&mdash;and
+      that if the law should be with him, he would not the less (provided he did
+      not force his daughter&rsquo;s inclinations, of which, indeed, he had no fear)
+      be most happy to bestow her hand on his brother&rsquo;s nephew, with such a
+      portion as would be most handsome to all parties.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It often happens to us in this world, that when we come with our heart in
+      our hands to some person or other,&mdash;when we pour out some generous
+      burst of feeling so enthusiastic and self-sacrificing, that a bystander
+      would call us fool and Quixote;&mdash;it often, I say, happens to us, to
+      find our warm self suddenly thrown back upon our cold self; to discover
+      that we are utterly uncomprehended, and that the swine who would have
+      munched up the acorn does not know what to make of the pearl. That sudden
+      ice which then freezes over us, that supreme disgust and despair almost of
+      the whole world, which for the moment we confound with the one worldling&mdash;they
+      who have felt, may reasonably ascribe to Philip. He listened to Mr.
+      Beaufort in utter and contemptuous silence, and then replied only,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir, at all events this is a question for law to decide. If it decide as
+      you think, it is for you to act; if as I think, it is for me. Till then I
+      will speak to you no more of your daughter, or my intentions. Meanwhile,
+      all I ask is the liberty to visit your son. I would not be banished from
+      his sick-room!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear nephew!&rdquo; cried Mr. Beaufort, again alarmed, &ldquo;consider this house
+      as your home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip bowed and retreated to the door, followed obsequiously by his
+      uncle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It chanced that both Lord Lilburne and Mr. Blackwell were of the same mind
+      as to the course advisable for Mr. Beaufort now to pursue. Lord Lilburne
+      was not only anxious to exchange a hostile litigation for an amicable
+      lawsuit, but he was really eager to put the seal of relationship upon any
+      secret with regard to himself that a man who might inherit L20,000. a year&mdash;a
+      dead shot, and a bold tongue&mdash;might think fit to disclose. This made
+      him more earnest than he otherwise might have been in advice as to other
+      people&rsquo;s affairs. He spoke to Beaufort as a man of the world&mdash;to
+      Blackwell as a lawyer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pin the man down to his generosity,&rdquo; said Lilburne, &ldquo;before he gets the
+      property. Possession makes a great change in a man&rsquo;s value of money. After
+      all, you can&rsquo;t enjoy the property when you&rsquo;re dead: he gives it next to
+      Arthur, who is not married; and if anything happen to Arthur, poor fellow,
+      why, in devolving on your daughter&rsquo;s husband and children, it goes in the
+      right line. Pin him down at once: get credit with the world for the most
+      noble and disinterested conduct, by letting your counsel state that the
+      instant you discovered the lost document you wished to throw no obstacle
+      in the way of proving the marriage, and that the only thing to consider
+      is, if the marriage be proved; if so, you will be the first to rejoice,
+      &amp;c. &amp;c. You know all that sort of humbug as well as any man!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Blackwell suggested the same advice, though in different words&mdash;after
+      taking the opinions of three eminent members of the bar; those opinions,
+      indeed, were not all alike&mdash;one was adverse to Mr. Robert Beaufort&rsquo;s
+      chance of success, one was doubtful of it, the third maintained that he
+      had nothing to fear from the action&mdash;except, possibly, the
+      ill-natured construction of the world. Mr. Robert Beaufort disliked the
+      idea of the world&rsquo;s ill-nature, almost as much as he did that of losing
+      his property. And when even this last and more encouraging authority,
+      learning privately from Mr. Blackwell that Arthur&rsquo;s illness was of a
+      nature to terminate fatally, observed, &ldquo;that a compromise with a claimant,
+      who was at all events Mr. Beaufort&rsquo;s nephew, by which Mr. Beaufort could
+      secure the enjoyment of the estates to himself for life, and to his son
+      for life also, should not (whatever his probabilities of legal success) be
+      hastily rejected&mdash;unless he had a peculiar affection for a very
+      distant relation&mdash;who, failing Mr. Beaufort&rsquo;s male issue and Philip&rsquo;s
+      claim, would be heir-at-law, but whose rights would cease if Arthur liked
+      to cut off the entail.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Beaufort at once decided. He had a personal dislike to that distant
+      heir-at-law; he had a strong desire to retain the esteem of the world; he
+      had an innate conviction of the justice of Philip&rsquo;s claim; he had a
+      remorseful recollection of his brother&rsquo;s generous kindness to himself; he
+      preferred to have for his heir, in case of Arthur&rsquo;s decease, a nephew who
+      would marry his daughter, than a remote kinsman. And should, after all,
+      the lawsuit fail to prove Philip&rsquo;s right, he was not sorry to have the
+      estate in his own power by Arthur&rsquo;s act in cutting off the entail. Brief;
+      all these reasons decided him. He saw Philip&mdash;he spoke to Arthur&mdash;and
+      all the preliminaries, as suggested above, were arranged between the
+      parties. The entail was cut off, and Arthur secretly prevailed upon his
+      father, to whom, for the present, the fee-simple thus belonged, to make a
+      will, by which he bequeathed the estates to Philip, without reference to
+      the question of his legitimacy. Mr. Beaufort felt his conscience greatly
+      eased after this action&mdash;which, too, he could always retract if he
+      pleased; and henceforth the lawsuit became but a matter of form, so far as
+      the property it involved was concerned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While these negotiations went on, Arthur continued gradually to decline.
+      Philip was with him always. The sufferer took a strange liking to this
+      long-dreaded relation, this man of iron frame and thews. In Philip there
+      was so much of life, that Arthur almost felt as if in his presence itself
+      there was an antagonism to death. And Camilla saw thus her cousin, day by
+      day, hour by hour, in that sick chamber, lending himself, with the gentle
+      tenderness of a woman, to soften the pang, to arouse the weariness, to
+      cheer the dejection. Philip never spoke to her of love: in such a scene
+      that had been impossible. She overcame in their mutual cares the
+      embarrassment she had before felt in his presence; whatever her other
+      feelings, she could not, at least, but be grateful to one so tender to her
+      brother. Three letters of Charles Spencer&rsquo;s had been, in the afflictions
+      of the house, only answered by a brief line. She now took the occasion of
+      a momentary and delusive amelioration in Arthur&rsquo;s disease to write to him
+      more at length. She was carrying, as usual, the letter to her mother, when
+      Mr. Beaufort met her, and took the letter from her hand. He looked
+      embarrassed for a moment, and bade her follow him into his study. It was
+      then that Camilla learned, for the first time, distinctly, the claims and
+      rights of her cousin; then she learned also at what price those rights
+      were to be enforced with the least possible injury to her father. Mr.
+      Beaufort naturally put the case before her in the strongest point of the
+      dilemma. He was to be ruined&mdash;utterly ruined; a pauper, a beggar, if
+      Camilla did not save him. The master of his fate demanded his daughter&rsquo;s
+      hand. Habitually subservient to even a whim of her parents, this
+      intelligence, the entreaty, the command with which it was accompanied,
+      overwhelmed her. She answered but by tears; and Mr. Beaufort, assured of
+      her submission, left her, to consider of the tone of the letter he himself
+      should write to Mr. Spencer. He had sat down to this very task when he was
+      summoned to Arthur&rsquo;s room. His son was suddenly taken worse: spasms that
+      threatened immediate danger convulsed and exhausted him, and when these
+      were allayed, he continued for three days so feeble that Mr. Beaufort, his
+      eyes now thoroughly opened to the loss that awaited him, had no thoughts
+      even for worldly interests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the night of the third day, Philip, Robert Beaufort, his wife, his
+      daughter, were grouped round the death-bed of Arthur. The sufferer had
+      just wakened from sleep, and he motioned to Philip to raise him. Mr.
+      Beaufort started, as by the dim light he saw his son in the arms of
+      Catherine&rsquo;s! and another Chamber of Death seemed, shadow-like, to replace
+      the one before him. Words, long since uttered, knelled in his ear: &ldquo;There
+      shall be a death-bed yet beside which you shall see the spectre of her,
+      now so calm, rising for retribution from the grave!&rdquo; His blood froze, his
+      hair stood erect; he cast a hurried, shrinking glance round the twilight
+      of the darkened room: and with a feeble cry covered his white face with
+      his trembling hands! But on Arthur&rsquo;s lips there was a serene smile; he
+      turned his eyes from Philip to Camilla, and murmured, &ldquo;She will repay
+      you!&rdquo; A pause, and the mother&rsquo;s shriek rang through the room! Robert
+      Beaufort raised his face from his hands. His son was dead!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0062" id="link2HCH0062">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        &ldquo;Jul. And what reward do you propose?
+
+        It must be my love.&rdquo;&mdash;The Double Marriage.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      While these events, dark, hurried, and stormy, had befallen the family of
+      his betrothed, Sidney Beaufort continued his calm life by the banks of the
+      lovely lake. After a few weeks, his confidence in Camilla&rsquo;s fidelity
+      overbore all his apprehensions and forebodings. Her letters, though
+      constrained by the inspection to which they were submitted, gave him
+      inexpressible consolation and delight. He began, however, early to fancy
+      that there was a change in their tone. The letters seemed to shun the one
+      subject to which all others were as nought; they turned rather upon the
+      guests assembled at Beaufort Court; and why I know not,&mdash;for there
+      was nothing in them to authorise jealousy&mdash;the brief words devoted to
+      Monsieur de Vaudemont filled him with uneasy and terrible suspicion. He
+      gave vent to these feelings, as fully as he dared do, under the knowledge
+      that his letter would be seen; and Camilla never again even mentioned the
+      name of Vaudemont. Then there was a long pause; then her brother&rsquo;s arrival
+      and illness were announced; then, at intervals, but a few hurried lines;
+      then a complete, long, dreadful silence, and lastly, with a deep black
+      border and a solemn black seal, came the following letter from Mr.
+      Beaufort:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;MY DEAR SIR,&mdash;I have the unutterable grief to announce to you and
+      your worthy uncle the irreparable loss I have sustained in the death of my
+      only son. It is a month to day since he departed this life. He died, sir,
+      as a Christian should die&mdash;humbly, penitently&mdash;exaggerating the
+      few faults of his short life, but&mdash;(and here the writer&rsquo;s hypocrisy,
+      though so natural to him&mdash;was it, that he knew not that he was
+      hypocritical?&mdash;fairly gave way before the real and human anguish, for
+      which there is no dictionary!) but I cannot pursue this theme!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Slowly now awakening to the duties yet left me to discharge, I cannot but
+      be sensible of the material difference in the prospects of my remaining
+      child. Miss Beaufort is now the heiress to an ancient name and a large
+      fortune. She subscribes with me to the necessity of consulting those new
+      considerations which so melancholy an event forces upon her mind. The
+      little fancy&mdash;or liking&mdash;(the acquaintance was too short for
+      more) that might naturally spring up between two amiable young persons
+      thrown together in the country, must be banished from our thoughts. As a
+      friend, I shall be always happy to hear of your welfare; and should you
+      ever think of a profession in which I can serve you, you may command my
+      utmost interest and exertions. I know, my young friend, what you will feel
+      at first, and how disposed you will be to call me mercenary and selfish.
+      Heaven knows if that be really my character! But at your age, impressions
+      are easily effaced; and any experienced friend of the world will assure
+      you that, in the altered circumstances of the case, I have no option. All
+      intercourse and correspondence, of course, cease with this letter,&mdash;until,
+      at least, we may all meet, with no sentiments but those of friendship and
+      esteem. I desire my compliments to your worthy uncle, in which Mrs. and
+      Miss Beaufort join; and I am sure you will be happy to hear that my wife
+      and daughter, though still in great affliction, have suffered less in
+      health than I could have ventured to anticipate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Believe me, dear Sir,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yours sincerely,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;ROBERT BEAUFORT.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To C. SPENCER, Esq., Jun.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Sidney received this letter, he was with Mr. Spencer, and the latter
+      read it over the young man&rsquo;s shoulder, on which he leant affectionately.
+      When they came to the concluding words, Sidney turned round with a vacant
+      look and a hollow smile. &ldquo;You see, sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you see&mdash;-&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My boy&mdash;my son&mdash;you bear this as you ought. Contempt will soon
+      efface&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney started to his feet, and his whole countenance was changed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Contempt&mdash;yes, for him! But for her&mdash;she knows it not&mdash;she
+      is no party to this&mdash;I cannot believe it&mdash;I will not! I&mdash;I&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+       and he rushed out of the room. He was absent till nightfall, and when he
+      returned, he endeavoured to appear calm&mdash;but it was in vain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day brought him a letter from Camilla, written unknown to her
+      parents,&mdash;short, it is true (confirming the sentence of separation
+      contained in her father&rsquo;s), and imploring him not to reply to it,&mdash;but
+      still so full of gentle and of sorrowful feeling, so evidently worded in
+      the wish to soften the anguish she inflicted, that it did more than soothe&mdash;it
+      even administered hope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now when Mr. Robert Beaufort had recovered the ordinary tone of his mind
+      sufficiently to indite the letter Sidney had just read, he had become
+      fully sensible of the necessity of concluding the marriage between Philip
+      and Camilla before the publicity of the lawsuit. The action for the
+      ejectment could not take place before the ensuing March or April. He would
+      waive the ordinary etiquette of time and mourning to arrange all before.
+      Indeed, he lived in hourly fear lest Philip should discover that he had a
+      rival in his brother, and break off the marriage, with its contingent
+      advantages. The first announcement of such a suit in the newspapers might
+      reach the Spencers; and if the young man were, as he doubted not, Sidney
+      Beaufort, would necessarily bring him forward, and ensure the dreaded
+      explanation. Thus apprehensive and ever scheming, Robert Beaufort spoke to
+      Philip so much, and with such apparent feeling, of his wish to gratify, at
+      the earliest possible period, the last wish of his son, in the union now
+      arranged&mdash;he spoke, with such seeming consideration and good sense,
+      of the avoidance of all scandal and misinterpretation in the suit itself,
+      which suit a previous marriage between the claimant and his daughter would
+      show at once to be of so amicable a nature,&mdash;that Philip, ardently in
+      love as he was, could not but assent to any hastening of his expected
+      happiness compatible with decorum. As to any previous publicity by way of
+      newspaper comment, he agreed with Mr. Beaufort in deprecating it. But then
+      came the question, What name was he to bear in the interval?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As to that,&rdquo; said Philip, somewhat proudly, &ldquo;when, after my mother&rsquo;s suit
+      in her own behalf, I persuaded her not to bear the name of Beaufort,
+      though her due&mdash;and for my own part, I prized her own modest name,
+      which under such dark appearances was in reality spotless&mdash;as much as
+      the loftier one which you bear and my father bore;&mdash;so I shall not
+      resume the name the law denies me till the law restores it to me. Law
+      alone can efface the wrong which law has done me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Beaufort was pleased with this reasoning (erroneous though it was),
+      and he now hoped that all would be safely arranged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That a girl so situated as Camilla, and of a character not energetic or
+      profound, but submissive, dutiful, and timid, should yield to the
+      arguments of her father, the desire of her dying brother&mdash;that she
+      should not dare to refuse to become the instrument of peace to a divided
+      family, the saving sacrifice to her father&rsquo;s endangered fortunes&mdash;that,
+      in fine, when, nearly a month after Arthur&rsquo;s death, her father, leading
+      her into the room, where Philip waited her footstep with a beating heart,
+      placed her hand in his&mdash;and Philip falling on his knees said, &ldquo;May I
+      hope to retain this hand for life?&rdquo;&mdash;she should falter out such words
+      as he might construe into not reluctant acquiescence; that all this should
+      happen is so natural that the reader is already prepared for it. But still
+      she thought with bitter and remorseful feelings of him thus deliberately
+      and faithlessly renounced. She felt how deeply he had loved her&mdash;she
+      knew how fearful would be his grief. She looked sad and thoughtful; but
+      her brother&rsquo;s death was sufficient in Philip&rsquo;s eyes to account for that.
+      The praises and gratitude of her father, to whom she suddenly seemed to
+      become an object of even greater pride and affection than ever Arthur had
+      been&mdash;the comfort of a generous heart, that takes pleasure in the
+      very sacrifice it makes&mdash;the acquittal of her conscience as to the
+      motives of her conduct&mdash;began, however, to produce their effect. Nor,
+      as she had lately seen more of Philip, could she be insensible of his
+      attachment&mdash;of his many noble qualities&mdash;of the pride which most
+      women might have felt in his addresses, when his rank was once made clear;
+      and as she had ever been of a character more regulated by duty than
+      passion, so one who could have seen what was passing in her mind would
+      have had little fear for Philip&rsquo;s future happiness in her keeping&mdash;little
+      fear but that, when once married to him, her affections would have gone
+      along with her duties; and that if the first love were yet recalled, it
+      would be with a sigh due rather to some romantic recollection than some
+      continued regret. Few of either sex are ever united to their first love;
+      yet married people jog on, and call each other &ldquo;my dear&rdquo; and &ldquo;my darling&rdquo;
+       all the same. It might be, it is true, that Philip would be scarcely loved
+      with the intenseness with which he loved; but if Camilla&rsquo;s feelings were
+      capable of corresponding to the ardent and impassioned ones of that strong
+      and vehement nature&mdash;such feelings were not yet developed in her. The
+      heart of the woman might still be half concealed in the vale of the virgin
+      innocence. Philip himself was satisfied&mdash;he believed that he was
+      beloved: for it is the property of love, in a large and noble heart, to
+      reflect itself, and to see its own image in the eyes on which it looks. As
+      the Poet gives ideal beauty and excellence to some ordinary child of Eve,
+      worshipping less the being that is than the being he imagines and
+      conceives&mdash;so Love, which makes us all poets for a while, throws its
+      own divine light over a heart perhaps really cold; and becomes dazzled
+      into the joy of a false belief by the very lustre with which it surrounds
+      its object.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The more, however, Camilla saw of Philip, the more (gradually overcoming
+      her former mysterious and superstitious awe of him) she grew familiarised
+      to his peculiar cast of character and thought, so the more she began to
+      distrust her father&rsquo;s assertion, that he had insisted on her hand as a
+      price&mdash;a bargain&mdash;an equivalent for the sacrifice of a dire
+      revenge. And with this thought came another. Was she worthy of this man?&mdash;was
+      she not deceiving him? Ought she not to say, at least, that she had known
+      a previous attachment, however determined she might be to subdue it? Often
+      the desire for this just and honourable confession trembled on her lips,
+      and as often was it checked by some chance circumstance or some maiden
+      fear. Despite their connection, there was not yet between them that
+      delicious intimacy which ought to accompany the affiance of two hearts and
+      souls. The gloom of the house; the restraint on the very language of love
+      imposed by a death so recent and so deplored, accounted in much for this
+      reserve. And for the rest, Robert Beaufort prudently left them very few
+      and very brief opportunities to be alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meantime, Philip (now persuaded that the Beauforts were ignorant of
+      his brother&rsquo;s fate) had set Mr. Barlow&rsquo;s activity in search of Sidney; and
+      his painful anxiety to discover one so dear and so mysteriously lost was
+      the only cause of uneasiness apparent in the brightening Future. While
+      these researches, hitherto fruitless, were being made, it so happened, as
+      London began now to refill, and gossip began now to revive, that a report
+      got abroad, no one knew how (probably from the servants) that Monsieur de
+      Vaudemont, a distinguished French officer, was shortly to lead the
+      daughter and sole heiress of Robert Beaufort, Esq., M.P., to the hymeneal
+      altar; and that report very quickly found its way into the London papers:
+      from the London papers it spread to the provincial&mdash;it reached the
+      eyes of Sidney in his now gloomy and despairing solitude. The day that he
+      read it he disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0063" id="link2HCH0063">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Jul.... Good lady, love him!
+     You have a noble and an honest gentleman.
+     I ever found him so.
+     Love him no less than I have done, and serve him,
+     And Heaven shall bless you&mdash;you shall bless my ashes.&rdquo;
+      BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: The Double Marriage.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      We have been too long absent from Fanny; it is time to return to her. The
+      delight she experienced when Philip made her understand all the benefits,
+      the blessings, that her courage, nay, her intellect, had bestowed upon
+      him, the blushing ecstasy with which she heard (as they returned to H&mdash;&mdash;,
+      the eventful morning of her deliverance, side by side, her hand clasped in
+      his, and often pressed to his grateful lips) his praises, his thanks, his
+      fear for her safety, his joy at regaining her&mdash;all this amounted to a
+      bliss, which, till then, she could not have conceived that life was
+      capable of bestowing. And when he left her at H&mdash;&mdash;, to hurry to
+      his lawyer&rsquo;s with the recovered document, it was but for an hour. He
+      returned, and did not quit her for several days. And in that time he
+      became sensible of her astonishing, and, to him, it seemed miraculous,
+      improvement in all that renders Mind the equal to Mind; miraculous, for he
+      guessed not the Influence that makes miracles its commonplace. And now he
+      listened attentively to her when she conversed; he read with her (though
+      reading was never much in his vocation), his unfastidious ear was charmed
+      with her voice, when it sang those simple songs; and his manner (impressed
+      alike by gratitude for the signal service rendered to him, and by the
+      discovery that Fanny was no longer a child, whether in mind or years),
+      though not less gentle than before, was less familiar, less superior, more
+      respectful, and more earnest. It was a change which raised her in her own
+      self-esteem. Ah, those were rosy days for Fanny!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A less sagacious judge of character than Lilburne would have formed doubts
+      perhaps of the nature of Philip&rsquo;s interest in Fanny. But he comprehended
+      at once the fraternal interest which a man like Philip might well take in
+      a creature like Fanny, if commended to his care by a protector whose doom
+      was so awful as that which had ingulfed the life of William Gawtrey.
+      Lilburne had some thoughts at first of claiming her, but as he had no
+      power to compel her residence with him, he did not wish, on consideration,
+      to come again in contact with Philip upon ground so full of humbling
+      recollections as that still overshadowed by the images of Gawtrey and
+      Mary. He contented himself with writing an artful letter to Simon, stating
+      that from Fanny&rsquo;s residence with Mr. Gawtrey, and from her likeness to her
+      mother, whom he had only seen as a child, he had conjectured the
+      relationship she bore to himself; and having obtained other evidence of
+      that fact (he did not say what or where), he had not scrupled to remove
+      her to his roof, meaning to explain all to Mr. Simon Gawtrey the next day.
+      This letter was accompanied by one from a lawyer, informing Simon Gawtrey
+      that Lord Lilburne would pay L200. a year, in quarterly payments, to his
+      order; and that he was requested to add, that when the young lady he had
+      so benevolently reared came of age, or married, an adequate provision
+      would be made for her. Simon&rsquo;s mind blazed up at this last intelligence,
+      when read to him, though he neither comprehended nor sought to know why
+      Lord Lilburne should be so generous, or what that noble person&rsquo;s letter to
+      himself was intended to convey. For two days, he seemed restored to
+      vigorous sense; but when he had once clutched the first payment made in
+      advance, the touch of the money seemed to numb him back to his lethargy:
+      the excitement of desire died in the dull sense of possession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And just at that time Fanny&rsquo;s happiness came to a close. Philip received
+      Arthur Beaufort&rsquo;s letter; and now ensued long and frequent absences; and
+      on his return, for about an hour or so at a time, he spoke of sorrow and
+      death; and the books were closed and the songs silenced. All fear for
+      Fanny&rsquo;s safety was, of course, over; all necessity for her work; their
+      little establishment was increased. She never stirred out without Sarah;
+      yet she would rather that there had been some danger on her account for
+      him to guard against, or some trial that his smile might soothe. His
+      prolonged absences began to prey upon her&mdash;the books ceased to
+      interest&mdash;no study filled up the dreary gap&mdash;her step grew
+      listless&mdash;her cheek pale&mdash;she was sensible at last that his
+      presence had become necessary to her very life. One day, he came to the
+      house earlier than usual, and with a much happier and serener expression
+      of countenance than he had worn of late.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Simon was dozing in his chair, with his old dog, now scarce vigorous
+      enough to bark, curled up at his feet. Neither man nor dog was more as a
+      witness to what was spoken than the leathern chair, or the hearth-rug, on
+      which they severally reposed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was something which, in actual life, greatly contributed to the
+      interest of Fanny&rsquo;s strange lot, but which, in narration, I feel I cannot
+      make sufficiently clear to the reader. And this was her connection and
+      residence with that old man. Her character forming, as his was completely
+      gone; here, the blank becoming filled&mdash;there, the page fading to a
+      blank. It was the utter, total Deathliness-in-Life of Simon, that, while
+      so impressive to see, renders it impossible to bring him before the reader
+      in his full force of contrast to the young Psyche. He seldom spoke&mdash;often,
+      not from morning till night; he now seldom stirred. It is in vain to
+      describe the indescribable: let the reader draw the picture for himself.
+      And whenever (as I sometimes think he will, after he has closed this book)
+      he conjures up the idea he attaches to the name of its heroine, let him
+      see before her, as she glides through the humble room&mdash;as she listens
+      to the voice of him she loves&mdash;as she sits musing by the window, with
+      the church spire just visible&mdash;as day by day the soul brightens and
+      expands within her&mdash;still let the reader see within the same walls,
+      greyhaired, blind, dull to all feeling, frozen to all life, that stony
+      image of Time and Death! Perhaps then he may understand why they who
+      beheld the real and living Fanny blooming under that chill and mass of
+      shadow, felt that her grace, her simplicity, her charming beauty, were
+      raised by the contrast, till they grew associated with thoughts and
+      images, mysterious and profound, belonging not more to the lovely than to
+      the sublime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So there sat the old man; and Philip, though aware of his presence,
+      speaking as if he were alone with Fanny, after touching on more casual
+      topics, thus addressed her:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My true and my dear friend, it is to you that I shall owe, not only my
+      rights and fortune, but the vindication of my mother&rsquo;s memory. You have
+      not only placed flowers upon that gravestone, but it is owing to you,
+      under Providence, that it will be inscribed at last with the Name which
+      refutes all calumny. Young and innocent as you now are, my gentle and
+      beloved benefactress, you cannot as yet know what a blessing it will be to
+      me to engrave that Name upon that simple stone. Hereafter, when you
+      yourself are a wife, a mother, you will comprehend the service you have
+      rendered to the living and the dead!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stopped&mdash;struggling with the rush of emotions that overflowed his
+      heart. Alas, THE DEAD! what service can we render to them?&mdash;what
+      availed it now, either to the dust below, or to the immortality above,
+      that the fools and knaves of this world should mention the Catherine whose
+      life was gone, whose ears were deaf, with more or less respect? There is
+      in calumny that poison that, even when the character throws off the
+      slander, the heart remains diseased beneath the effect. They say that
+      truth comes sooner or later; but it seldom comes before the soul, passing
+      from agony to contempt, has grown callous to men&rsquo;s judgments. Calumniate a
+      human being in youth&mdash;adulate that being in age;&mdash;what has been
+      the interval? Will the adulation atone either for the torture, or the
+      hardness which the torture leaves at last? And if, as in Catherine&rsquo;s case
+      (a case, how common!), the truth come too late&mdash;if the tomb is closed&mdash;if
+      the heart you have wrung can be wrung no more&mdash;why the truth is as
+      valueless as the epitaph on a forgotten Name! Some such conviction of the
+      hollowness of his own words, when he spoke of service to the dead, smote
+      upon Philip&rsquo;s heart, and stopped the flow of his words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fanny, conscious only of his praise, his thanks, and the tender affection
+      of his voice, stood still silent&mdash;her eyes downcast, her breast
+      heaving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip resumed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now, Fanny, my honoured sister, I would thank you for more, were it
+      possible, even than this. I shall owe to you not only name and fortune,
+      but happiness. It is from the rights to which you have assisted me, and
+      which will shortly be made clear, that I am able to demand a hand I have
+      so long coveted&mdash;the hand of one as dear to me as you are. In a word,
+      the time has, this day, been fixed, when I shall have a home to offer to
+      you and to this old man&mdash;when I can present to you a sister who will
+      prize you as I do: for I love you so dearly&mdash;I owe you so much&mdash;that
+      even that home would lose half its smiles if you were not there. Do you
+      understand me, Fanny? The sister I speak of will be my wife!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor girl who heard this speech of most cruel tenderness did not fall,
+      or faint, or evince any outward emotion, except in a deadly paleness. She
+      seemed like one turned to stone. Her very breath forsook her for some
+      moments, and then came back with a long deep sigh. She laid her hand
+      lightly on his arm, and said calmly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;I understand. We once saw a wedding. You are to be married&mdash;I
+      shall see yours!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall; and, later, perhaps, I may see your own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have a brother. Ah! if I could but find him&mdash;younger than I am&mdash;beautiful
+      almost as you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will be happy,&rdquo; said Fanny, still calmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have long placed my hopes of happiness in such a union! Stay, where are
+      you going?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To pray for you,&rdquo; said Fanny, with a smile, in which there was something
+      of the old vacancy, as she walked gently from the room. Philip followed
+      her with moistened eyes. Her manner might have deceived one more vain. He
+      soon after quitted the house, and returned to town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three hours after, Sarah found Fanny stretched on the floor of her own
+      room&mdash;so still&mdash;so white&mdash;that, for some moments, the old
+      woman thought life was gone. She recovered, however, by degrees; and,
+      after putting her hands to her eyes, and muttering some moments, seemed
+      much as usual, except that she was more silent, and that her lips remained
+      colourless, and her hands cold like stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0064" id="link2HCH0064">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XX.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;Vec. Ye see what follows.
+   Duke. O gentle sir! this shape again!&rdquo;&mdash;The Chances.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      That evening Sidney Beaufort arrived in London. It is the nature of
+      solitude to make passions calm on the surface&mdash;agitated in the deeps.
+      Sidney had placed his whole existence in one object. When the letter
+      arrived that told him to hope no more, he was at first rather sensible of
+      the terrible and dismal blank&mdash;the &ldquo;void abyss&rdquo;&mdash;to which all
+      his future was suddenly changed, than roused to vehement and turbulent
+      emotion. But Camilla&rsquo;s letter had, as we have seen, raised his courage and
+      animated his heart. To the idea of her faith he still clung with the
+      instinct of hope in the midst of despair. The tidings that she was
+      absolutely betrothed to another, and in so short a time since her
+      rejection of him, let loose from all restraint his darker and more
+      tempestuous passions. In a state of mind bordering upon frenzy, he hurried
+      to London&mdash;to seek her&mdash;to see her; with what intent&mdash;what
+      hope, if hope there were&mdash;he himself could scarcely tell. But what
+      man who has loved with fervour and trust will be contented to receive the
+      sentence of eternal separation except from the very lips of the one thus
+      worshipped and thus foresworn?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The day had been intensely cold. Towards evening the snow fell fast and
+      heavily. Sidney had not, since a child, been before in London; and the
+      immense City, covered with a wintry and icy mist, through which the
+      hurrying passengers and the slow-moving vehicles passed, spectre-like,
+      along the dismal and slippery streets&mdash;opened to the stranger no
+      hospitable arms. He knew not a step of the way&mdash;he was pushed to and
+      fro&mdash;his scarce intelligible questions impatiently answered&mdash;the
+      snow covered him&mdash;the frost pierced to his veins. At length a man,
+      more kindly than the rest, seeing that he was a stranger to London,
+      procured him a hackney-coach, and directed the driver to the distant
+      quarter of Berkeley Square. The snow balled under the hoofs of the horses&mdash;the
+      groaning vehicle proceeded at the pace of a hearse. At length, and after a
+      period of such suspense, and such emotion, as Sidney never in after-life
+      could recall without a shudder, the coach stopped&mdash;the benumbed
+      driver heavily descended&mdash;the sound of the knocker knelled loud
+      through the muffled air&mdash;and the light from Mr. Beaufort&rsquo;s hall
+      glared full upon the dizzy eyes of the visitor. He pushed aside the
+      porter, and sprang into the hall. Luckily, one of the footmen who had
+      attended Mrs. Beaufort to the Lakes recognised him; and, in answer to his
+      breathless inquiry, said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, indeed, Mr. Spencer, Miss Beaufort is at home&mdash;up-stairs in the
+      drawing-room, with master and mistress, and Monsieur de Vaudemont; but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney waited no more. He bounded up the stairs&mdash;he opened the first
+      door that presented itself to him, and burst, unannounced and
+      unlooked-for, upon the eyes of the group seated within. He saw not the
+      terrified start of Mr. Robert Beaufort&mdash;he heeded not the faint,
+      nervous exclamation of the mother&mdash;he caught not the dark and
+      wondering glace of the stranger seated beside Camilla&mdash;he saw but
+      Camilla herself, and in a moment he was at her feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Camilla, I am here!&mdash;I, who love you so&mdash;I, who have nothing in
+      the world but you! I am here&mdash;to learn from you, and you alone, if I
+      am indeed abandoned&mdash;if you are indeed to be another&rsquo;s!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had dashed his hat from his brow as he sprang forward; his long fair
+      hair, damp with the snows, fell disordered over his forehead; his eyes
+      were fixed, as for life and death, upon the pale face and trembling lips
+      of Camilla. Robert Beaufort, in great alarm, and well aware of the fierce
+      temper of Philip, anticipative of some rash and violent impulse, turned
+      his glance upon his destined son-in-law. But there was no angry pride in
+      the countenance he there beheld. Philip had risen, but his frame was bent&mdash;his
+      knees knocked together&mdash;his lips were parted&mdash;his eyes were
+      staring full upon the face of the kneeling man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly Camilla, sharing her father&rsquo;s fear, herself half rose, and with
+      an unconscious pathos, stretched one hand, as if to shelter, over Sidney&rsquo;s
+      head, and looked to Philip. Sidney&rsquo;s eyes followed hers. He sprang to his
+      feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, then, it is true! And this is the man for whom I am abandoned! But
+      unless you&mdash;you, with your own lips, tell me that you love me no more&mdash;that
+      you love another&mdash;I will not yield you but with life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stalked sternly and impetuously up to Philip, who recoiled as his rival
+      advanced. The characters of the two men seemed suddenly changed. The timid
+      dreamer seemed dilated into the fearless soldier. The soldier seemed
+      shrinking&mdash;quailing&mdash;into nameless terror. Sidney grasped that
+      strong arm, as Philip still retreated, with his slight and delicate
+      fingers, grasped it with violence and menace; and frowning into the face
+      from which the swarthy blood was scared away, said, in a hollow whisper:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you hear me? Do you comprehend me? I say that she shall not be forced
+      into a marriage at which I yet believe her heart rebels. My claim is
+      holier than yours. Renounce her, or win her but with my blood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip did not apparently hear the words thus addressed to him. His whole
+      senses seemed absorbed in the one sense of sight. He continued to gaze
+      upon the speaker, till his eye dropped on the hand that yet griped his
+      arm. And as he thus looked, he uttered an inarticulate cry. He caught the
+      hand in his own, and pointed to a ring on the finger, but remained
+      speechless. Mr. Beaufort approached, and began some stammered words of
+      soothing to Sidney, but Philip motioned him to be silent, and, at last, as
+      if by a violent effort, gasped forth, not to Sidney, but to Beaufort,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His name?&mdash;his name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is Mr. Spencer&mdash;Mr. Charles Spencer,&rdquo; cried Beaufort. &ldquo;Listen to
+      me, I will explain all&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, hush! cried Philip; and turning to Sidney, he put his hand on his
+      shoulder, and looking him full in the face, said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you not known another name? Are you not&mdash;yes, it is so&mdash;it
+      is&mdash;it is! Follow me&mdash;follow!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And still retaining his grasp, and leading Sidney, who was now subdued,
+      awed, and a prey to new and wild suspicions, he moved on gently, stride by
+      stride&mdash;his eyes fixed on that fair face&mdash;his lips muttering&mdash;till
+      the closing door shut both forms from the eyes of the three there left.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the adjoining room into which Philip led his rival. It was lit but
+      by a small reading-lamp, and the bright, steady blaze of the fire; and by
+      this light they both continued to gaze on each other, as if spellbound, in
+      complete silence. At last Philip, by an irresistible impulse, fell upon
+      Sidney&rsquo;s bosom, and, clasping him with convulsive energy, gasped out:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sidney!&mdash;Sidney!&mdash;my mother&rsquo;s son!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What!&rdquo; exclaimed Sidney, struggling from the embrace, and at last freeing
+      himself; &ldquo;it is you, then!&mdash;you, my own brother! You, who have been
+      hitherto the thorn in my path, the cloud in my fate! You, who are now come
+      to make me a wretch for life! I love that woman, and you tear her from me!
+      You, who subjected my infancy to hardship, and, but for Providence, might
+      have degraded my youth, by your example, into shame and guilt!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forbear!&mdash;forbear!&rdquo; cried Philip, with a voice so shrill in its
+      agony, that it smote the hearts of those in the adjoining chamber like the
+      shriek of some despairing soul. They looked at each other, but not one had
+      the courage to break upon the interview.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney himself was appalled by the sound. He threw himself on a seat, and,
+      overcome by passions so new to him, by excitement so strange, hid his
+      face, and sobbed as a child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip walked rapidly to and fro the room for some moments; at length he
+      paused opposite to Sidney, and said, with the deep calmness of a wronged
+      and goaded spirit:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sidney Beaufort, hear me! When my mother died she confided you to my
+      care, my love, and my protection. In the last lines that her hand traced,
+      she bade me think less of myself than of you; to be to you as a father as
+      well as brother. The hour that I read that letter I fell on my knees, and
+      vowed that I would fulfil that injunction&mdash;that I would sacrifice my
+      very self, if I could give fortune or happiness to you. And this not for
+      your sake alone, Sidney; no! but as my mother&mdash;our wronged, our
+      belied, our broken-hearted mother!&mdash;O Sidney, Sidney! have you no
+      tears for her, too?&rdquo; He passed his hand over his own eyes for a moment,
+      and resumed: &ldquo;But as our mother, in that last letter, said to me, &lsquo;let my
+      love pass into your breast for him,&rsquo; so, Sidney, so, in all that I could
+      do for you, I fancied that my mother&rsquo;s smile looked down upon me, and that
+      in serving you it was my mother whom I obeyed. Perhaps, hereafter, Sidney,
+      when we talk over that period of my earlier life when I worked for you,
+      when the degradation you speak of (there was no crime in it!)&mdash;was
+      borne cheerfully for your sake, and yours the holiday though mine the task&mdash;perhaps,
+      hereafter, you will do me more justice. You left me, or were reft from me,
+      and I gave all the little fortune that my mother had bequeathed us, to get
+      some tidings from you. I received your letter&mdash;that bitter letter&mdash;and
+      I cared not then that I was a beggar, since I was alone. You talk of what
+      I have cost you&mdash;you talk! and you now ask me to&mdash;to&mdash;Merciful
+      Heaven! let me understand you&mdash;do you love Camilla? Does she love
+      you? Speak&mdash;speak&mdash;explain&mdash;what, new agony awaits me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was then that Sidney, affected and humbled, amidst all his more selfish
+      sorrows, by his brother&rsquo;s language and manner, related, as succinctly as
+      he could, the history of his affection for Camilla, the circumstances of
+      their engagement, and ended by placing before him the letter he had
+      received from Mr. Beaufort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of all his efforts for self-control, Philip&rsquo;s anguish was so
+      great, so visible, that Sidney, after looking at his working features, his
+      trembling hands, for a moment, felt all the earlier parts of his nature
+      melt in a flow of generous sympathy and remorse. He flung himself on the
+      breast from which he had shrunk before, and cried,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brother, brother! forgive me; I see how I have wronged you. If she has
+      forgotten me, if she love you, take her and be happy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip returned his embrace, but without warmth, and then moved away; and,
+      again, in great disorder, paced the room. His brother only heard
+      disjointed exclamations that seemed to escape him unawares: &ldquo;They said she
+      loved me! Heaven give me strength! Mother&mdash;mother! let me fulfil my
+      vow! Oh, that I had died ere this!&rdquo; He stopped at last, and the large dews
+      rolled down his forehead. &ldquo;Sidney!&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;there is a mystery here that
+      I comprehend not. But my mind now is very confused. If she loves you&mdash;if!&mdash;is
+      it possible for a woman to love two? Well, well, I go to solve the riddle:
+      wait here!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He vanished into the next room, and for nearly half an hour Sidney was
+      alone. He heard through the partition murmured voices; he caught more
+      clearly the sound of Camilla&rsquo;s sobs. The particulars of that interview
+      between Philip and Camilla, alone at first (afterwards Mr. Robert Beaufort
+      was re-admitted), Philip never disclosed, nor could Sidney himself ever
+      obtain a clear account from Camilla, who could not recall it, even years
+      after, without great emotion. But at last the door was opened, and Philip
+      entered, leading Camilla by the hand. His face was calm, and there was a
+      smile on his lips; a greater dignity than even that habitual to him was
+      diffused over his whole person. Camilla was holding her handkerchief to
+      her eyes and weeping passionately. Mr. Beaufort followed them with a
+      mortified and slinking air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sidney,&rdquo; said Philip, &ldquo;it is past. All is arranged. I yield to your
+      earlier, and therefore better, claim. Mr. Beaufort consents to your union.
+      He will tell you, at some fitter time, that our birthright is at last made
+      clear, and that there is no blot on the name we shall hereafter bear.
+      Sidney, embrace your bride!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Amazed, delighted, and still half incredulous, Sidney seized and kissed
+      the hand of Camilla; and as he then drew her to his breast, she said, as
+      she pointed to Philip:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! if you do love me as you say, see in him the generous, the noble&mdash;&rdquo;
+       Fresh sobs broke off her speech; but as Sidney sought again to take her
+      hand, she whispered, with a touching and womanly sentiment, &ldquo;Ah! respect
+      him: see!&mdash;&rdquo; and Sidney, looking then at his brother, saw, that
+      though he still attempted to smile, his lip writhed, and his features were
+      drawn together, as one whose frame is wrung by torture, but who struggles
+      not to groan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He flew to Philip, who, grasping his hand, held him back, and said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have fulfilled my vow! I have given you up the only blessing my life
+      has known. Enough, you are happy, and I shall be so too, when God pleases
+      to soften this blow. And now you must not wonder or blame me, if, though
+      so lately found, I leave you for a while. Do me one kindness,&mdash;you,
+      Sidney&mdash;you, Mr. Beaufort. Let the marriage take place at H&mdash;&mdash;,
+      in the village church by which my mother sleeps; let it be delayed till
+      the suit is terminated: by that time I shall hope to meet you all&mdash;to
+      meet you, Camilla, as I ought to meet my brother&rsquo;s wife; till then, my
+      presence will not sadden your happiness. Do not seek to see me; do not
+      expect to hear from me. Hist! be silent, all of you; my heart is yet
+      bruised and sore. O THOU,&rdquo; and here, deepening his voice, he raised his
+      arms, &ldquo;Thou who hast preserved my youth from such snares and such peril,
+      who hast guided my steps from the abyss to which they wandered, and
+      beneath whose hand I now bow, grateful if chastened, receive this
+      offering, and bless that union! Fare ye well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0065" id="link2HCH0065">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXI.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Heaven&rsquo;s airs amid the harpstrings dwell;
+     And we wish they ne&rsquo;er may fade;
+     They cease; and the soul is a silent cell,
+     Where music never played.
+     Dream follows dream through the long night-hours.&rdquo;
+      WILSON: The Past, a poem.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The self-command which Philip had obtained for a while deserted him when
+      he was without the house. His mind felt broken up into chaos; he hurried
+      on, mechanically, on foot; he passed street upon street, now solitary and
+      deserted, as the lamps gleamed upon the thick snow. The city was left
+      behind him. He paused not, till, breathless, and exhausted in spirit if
+      not in frame, he reached the churchyard where Catherine&rsquo;s dust reposed.
+      The snow had ceased to fall, but it lay deep over the graves; the
+      yew-trees, clad in their white shrouds, gleamed ghost-like through the
+      dimness. Upon the rail that fenced the tomb yet hung a wreath that Fanny&rsquo;s
+      hand had placed there. But the flowers were hid; it was a wreath of snow!
+      Through the intervals of the huge and still clouds, there gleamed a few
+      melancholy stars. The very calm of the holy spot seemed unutterably sad.
+      The Death of the year overhung the Death of man. And as Philip bent over
+      the tomb, within and without all was ICE and NIGHT!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For hours he remained on that spot, alone with his grief and absorbed in
+      his prayer. Long past midnight Fanny heard his step on the stairs, and the
+      door of his chamber close with unwonted violence. She heard, too, for some
+      time, his heavy tread on the floor, till suddenly all was silent. The next
+      morning, when, at the usual hour, Sarah entered to unclose the shutters
+      and light the fire, she was startled by wild exclamations and wilder
+      laughter. The fever had mounted to the brain&mdash;he was delirious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For several weeks Philip Beaufort was in imminent danger; for a
+      considerable part of that time he was unconscious; and when the peril was
+      past, his recovery was slow and gradual. It was the only illness to which
+      his vigorous frame had ever been subjected: and the fever had perhaps
+      exhausted him more than it might have done one in whose constitution the
+      disease had encountered less resistance. His brother; imagining he had
+      gone abroad, was unacquainted with his danger. None tended his sick-bed
+      save the hireling nurse, the feed physician, and the unpurchasable heart
+      of the only being to whom the wealth and rank of the Heir of Beaufort
+      Court were as nothing. Here was reserved for him Fate&rsquo;s crowning lesson,
+      in the vanity of those human wishes which anchor in gold and power. For
+      how many years had the exile and the outcast pined indignantly for his
+      birthright?&mdash;Lo! it was won: and with it came the crushed heart and
+      the smitten frame. As he slowly recovered sense and reasoning, these
+      thoughts struck him forcibly. He felt as if he were rightly punished in
+      having disdained, during his earlier youth, the enjoyments within his
+      reach. Was there nothing in the glorious health&mdash;the unconquerable
+      hope&mdash;the heart, if wrung, and chafed, and sorely tried, free at
+      least from the direst anguish of the passions, disappointed and jealous
+      love? Though now certain, if spared to the future, to be rich, powerful,
+      righted in name and honour, might he not from that sick-bed envy his
+      earlier past? even when with his brother orphan he wandered through the
+      solitary fields, and felt with what energies we are gifted when we have
+      something to protect; or when, loving and beloved, he saw life smile out
+      to him in the eyes of Eugenie; or when, after that melancholy loss, he
+      wrestled boldly, and breast to breast with Fortune, in a far land, for
+      honour and independence? There is something in severe illness, especially
+      if it be in violent contrast to the usual strength of the body, which has
+      often the most salutary effect upon the mind; which often, by the
+      affliction of the frame, roughly wins us from the too morbid pains of the
+      heart! which makes us feel that, in mere LIFE, enjoyed as the robust enjoy
+      it, God&rsquo;s Great Principle of Good breathes and moves. We rise thus from
+      the sick-bed softened and humbled, and more disposed to look around us for
+      such blessings as we may yet command.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The return of Philip, his danger, the necessity of exertion, of tending
+      him, had roused Fanny from a state which might otherwise have been
+      permanently dangerous to the intellect so lately ripened within her. With
+      what patience, with what fortitude, with what unutterable thought and
+      devotion, she fulfilled that best and holiest woman&rsquo;s duty&mdash;let the
+      man whose struggle with life and death has been blessed with the vigil
+      that wakes and saves, imagine to himself. And in all her anxiety and
+      terror, she had glimpses of a happiness which it seemed to her almost
+      criminal to acknowledge. For, even in his delirium, her voice seemed to
+      have some soothing influence over him, and he was calmer while she was by.
+      And when at last he was conscious, her face was the first he saw, and her
+      name the first which his lips uttered. As then he grew gradually stronger,
+      and the bed was deserted for the sofa, he took more than the old pleasure
+      in hearing her read to him; which she did with a feeling that lecturers
+      cannot teach. And once, in a pause from this occupation, he spoke to her
+      frankly,&mdash;he sketched his past history&mdash;his last sacrifice. And
+      Fanny, as she wept, learned that he was no more another&rsquo;s!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has been said that this man, naturally of an active and impatient
+      temperament, had been little accustomed to seek those resources which are
+      found in books. But somehow in that sick chamber&mdash;it was Fanny&rsquo;s
+      voice&mdash;the voice of her over whose mind he had once so haughtily
+      lamented, that taught him how much of aid and solace the Herd of Men
+      derive from the Everlasting Genius of the Few.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gradually, and interval by interval, moment by moment, thus drawn
+      together, all thought beyond shut out (for, however crushing for the time
+      the blow that had stricken Philip from health and reason, he was not that
+      slave to a guilty fancy, that he could voluntarily indulge&mdash;that he
+      would not earnestly seek to shun&mdash;all sentiments that yet turned with
+      unholy yearning towards the betrothed of his brother);&mdash;gradually, I
+      say, and slowly, came those progressive and delicious epochs which mark a
+      revolution in the affections:&mdash;unspeakable gratitude, brotherly
+      tenderness, the united strength of compassion and respect that he had felt
+      for Fanny seemed, as he gained health, to mellow into feelings yet more
+      exquisite and deep. He could no longer delude himself with a vain and
+      imperious belief that it was a defective mind that his heart protected; he
+      began again to be sensible to the rare beauty of that tender face&mdash;more
+      lovely, perhaps, for the paleness that had replaced its bloom. The fancy
+      that he had so imperiously checked before&mdash;before he saw Camilla,
+      returned to him, and neither pride nor honour had now the right to chase
+      the soft wings away. One evening, fancying himself alone, he fell into a
+      profound reverie; he awoke with a start, and the exclamation, &ldquo;was it true
+      love that I ever felt for Camilla, or a passion, a frenzy, a delusion?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His exclamation was answered by a sound that seemed both of joy and grief.
+      He looked up, and saw Fanny before him; the light of the moon, just risen,
+      fell full on her form, but her hands were clasped before her face; he
+      heard her sob.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fanny, dear Fanny!&rdquo; he cried, and sought to throw himself from the sofa
+      to her feet. But she drew herself away, and fled from the chamber silent
+      as a dream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip rose, and, for the first time since his illness, walked, but with
+      feeble steps, to and fro the room. With what different emotions from those
+      in which last, in fierce and intolerable agony, he had paced that narrow
+      boundary! Returning health crept through his veins&mdash;a serene, a
+      kindly, a celestial joy circumfused his heart. Had the time yet come when
+      the old Florimel had melted into snow; when the new and the true one, with
+      its warm life, its tender beauty, its maiden wealth of love, had risen
+      before his hopes? He paused before the window; the spot within seemed so
+      confined, the night without so calm and lovely, that he forgot his
+      still-clinging malady, and unclosed the casement: the air came soft and
+      fresh upon his temples, and the church-tower and spire, for the first
+      time, did not seem to him to rise in gloom against the heavens. Even the
+      gravestone of Catherine, half in moonlight, half in shadow, appeared to
+      him to wear a smile. His mother&rsquo;s memory was become linked with the living
+      Fanny.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou art vindicated&mdash;thy Sidney is happy,&rdquo; he murmured: &ldquo;to her the
+      thanks!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fair hopes, and soft thoughts busy within him, he remained at the casement
+      till the increasing chill warned him of the danger he incurred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day, when the physician visited him, he found the fever had
+      returned. For many days, Philip was again in danger&mdash;dull,
+      unconscious even of the step and voice of Fanny.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He woke at last as from a long and profound sleep; woke so refreshed, so
+      revived, that he felt at once that some great crisis had been passed, and
+      that at length he had struggled back to the sunny shores of Life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By his bedside sat Liancourt, who, long alarmed at his disappearance, had
+      at last contrived, with the help of Mr. Barlow, to trace him to Gawtrey&rsquo;s
+      house, and had for several days taken share in the vigils of poor Fanny.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While he was yet explaining all this to Philip, and congratulating him on
+      his evident recovery, the physician entered to confirm the congratulation.
+      In a few days the invalid was able to quit his room, and nothing but
+      change of air seemed necessary for his convalescence. It was then that
+      Liancourt, who had for two days seemed impatient to unburden himself of
+      some communication, thus addressed him:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My&mdash;My dear friend, I have learned now your story from Barlow, who
+      called several times during your relapse; and who is the more anxious
+      about you, as the time for the decision of your case now draws near. The
+      sooner you quit this house the better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quit this house! and why? Is there not one in this house to whom I owe my
+      fortune and my life?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; and for that reason I say, &lsquo;Go hence:&rsquo; it is the only return you can
+      make her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pshaw!&mdash;speak intelligibly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will,&rdquo; said Liancourt, gravely. &ldquo;I have been a watcher with her by your
+      sick-bed, and I know what you must feel already:&mdash;nay, I must confess
+      that even the old servant has ventured to speak to me. You have inspired
+      that poor girl with feelings dangerous to her peace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha!&rdquo; cried Philip, with such joy that Liancourt frowned, and said,
+      &ldquo;Hitherto I have believed you too honourable to&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you think she loves me?&rdquo; interrupted Philip. &ldquo;Yes; what then? You, the
+      heir of Beaufort Court, of a rental of L20,000. a year,&mdash;of an
+      historical name,&mdash;you cannot marry this poor girl?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well!&mdash;I will consider what you say, and, at all events, I will
+      leave the house to attend the result of the trial. Let us talk no more on
+      the subject now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip had the penetration to perceive that Liancourt, who was greatly
+      moved by the beauty, the innocence, and the unprotected position of Fanny,
+      had not confined caution to himself; that with his characteristic
+      well-meaning bluntness, and with the license of a man somewhat advanced in
+      years, he had spoken to Fanny herself: for Fanny now seemed to shun
+      Philip,&mdash;her eyes were heavy, her manner was embarrassed. He saw the
+      change, but it did not grieve him; he hailed the omens which he drew from
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And at last he and Liancourt went. He was absent three weeks, during which
+      time the formality of the friendly lawsuit was decided in the plaintiff&rsquo;s
+      favour; and the public were in ecstasies at the noble and sublime conduct
+      of Mr. Robert Beaufort: who, the moment he had discovered a document which
+      he might so easily have buried for ever in oblivion, voluntarily agreed to
+      dispossess himself of estates he had so long enjoyed, preferring
+      conscience to lucre. Some persons observed that it was reported that Mr.
+      Philip Beaufort had also been generous&mdash;that he had agreed to give up
+      the estates for his uncle&rsquo;s life, and was only in the meanwhile to receive
+      a fourth of the revenues. But the universal comment was, &ldquo;He could not
+      have done less!&rdquo; Mr. Robert Beaufort was, as Lord Lilburne had once
+      observed, a man who was born, made, and reared to be spoken well of by the
+      world; and it was a comfort to him now, poor man, to feel that his
+      character was so highly estimated. If Philip should live to the age of one
+      hundred, he will never become so respectable and popular a man with the
+      crowd as his worthy uncle. But does it much matter? Philip returned to H&mdash;&mdash;
+      the eve before the day fixed for the marriage of his brother and Camilla.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0066" id="link2HCH0066">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     From Night, Sunshine and Day arose&mdash;HES
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The sun of early May shone cheerfully over the quiet suburb of H&mdash;&mdash;.
+      In the thoroughfares life was astir. It was the hour of noon&mdash;the
+      hour at which commerce is busy, and streets are full. The old retired
+      trader, eying wistfully the rolling coach or the oft-pausing omnibus, was
+      breathing the fresh and scented air in the broadest and most crowded road,
+      from which, afar in the distance, rose the spires of the metropolis. The
+      boy let loose from the day-school was hurrying home to dinner, his satchel
+      on his back: the ballad-singer was sending her cracked whine through the
+      obscurer alleys, where the baker&rsquo;s boy, with puddings on his tray, and the
+      smart maid-servant, despatched for porter, paused to listen. And round the
+      shops where cheap shawls and cottons tempted the female eye, many a
+      loitering girl detained her impatient mother, and eyed the tickets and
+      calculated her hard-gained savings for the Sunday gear. And in the corners
+      of the streets steamed the itinerant kitchens of the piemen, and rose the
+      sharp cry, &ldquo;All hot! all hot!&rdquo; in the ear of infant and ragged hunger. And
+      amidst them all rolled on some lazy coach of ancient merchant or withered
+      maiden, unconscious of any life but that creeping through their own
+      languid veins. And before the house in which Catherine died, there
+      loitered many stragglers, gossips, of the hamlet, subscribers to the
+      news-room hard by, to guess, and speculate, and wonder why, from the
+      church behind, there rose the merry peal of the marriage-bell!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length along the broad road leading from the great city, there were
+      seen rapidly advancing three carriages of a very different fashion from
+      those familiar to the suburb. On they came; swiftly they whirled round the
+      angle that conducted to the church; the hoofs of the gay steeds ringing
+      cheerily on the ground; the white favours of the servants gleaming in the
+      sun. Happy is the bride the sun shines on! And when the carriages had thus
+      vanished, the scattered groups melted into one crowd, and took their way
+      to the church. They stood idling without in the burial-ground; many of
+      them round the fence that guarded from their footsteps Catherine&rsquo;s lonely
+      grave. All in nature was glad, exhilarating, and yet serene; a genial
+      freshness breathed through the soft air; not a cloud was to be seen in the
+      smiling azure; even the old dark yews seemed happy in their everlasting
+      verdure. The bell ceased, and then even the crowd grew silent; and not a
+      sound was heard in that solemn spot to whose demesnes are consecrated
+      alike the Birth, the Marriage, and the Death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length there came forth from the church door the goodly form of a rosy
+      beadle. Approaching the groups, he whispered the better-dressed and
+      commanded the ragged, remonstrated with the old and lifted his cane
+      against the young; and the result of all was, that the churchyard, not
+      without many a murmur and expostulation, was cleared, and the crowd fell
+      back in the space behind the gates of the principal entrance, where they
+      swayed and gaped and chattered round the carriages, which were to bear
+      away the bridal party.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Within the church, as the ceremony was now concluded, Philip Beaufort
+      conducted, hand-in-hand, silently along the aisle, his brother&rsquo;s wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leaning on his stick, his cold sneer upon his thin lip, Lord Lilburne
+      limped, step by step, with the pair, though a little apart from them,
+      glancing from moment to moment at the face of Philip Beaufort, where he
+      had hoped to read a grief that he could not detect. Lord Lilburne had
+      carefully refrained from an interview with Philip till that day, and he
+      now only came to the wedding as a surgeon goes to an hospital, to examine
+      a disease he had been told would be great and sore: he was disappointed.
+      Close behind followed Sidney, radiant with joy, and bloom, and beauty; and
+      his kind guardian, the tears rolling down his eyes, murmured blessings as
+      he looked upon him. Mrs. Beaufort had declined attending the ceremony&mdash;her
+      nerves were too weak&mdash;but, behind, at a longer interval, came Robert
+      Beaufort, sober, staid, collected as ever to outward seeming; but a close
+      observer might have seen that his eye had lost its habitual complacent
+      cunning, that his step was more heavy, his stoop more joyless. About his
+      air there was a some thing crestfallen. The consciousness of acres had
+      passed away from his portly presence. He was no longer a possessor, but a
+      pensioner. The rich man, who had decided as he pleased on the happiness of
+      others, was a cipher; he had ceased to have any interest in anything. What
+      to him the marriage of his daughter now? Her children would not be the
+      heirs of Beaufort. As Camilla kindly turned round, and through happy tears
+      waited for his approach, to clasp his hand, he forced a smile, but it was
+      sickly and piteous. He longed to creep away, and be alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My father!&rdquo; said Camilla, in her sweet low voice; and she extricated
+      herself from Philip, and threw herself on his breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is a good child,&rdquo; said Robert Beaufort vacantly, and, turning his dry
+      eyes to the group, he caught instinctively at his customary commonplaces;&mdash;&ldquo;and
+      a good child, Mr. Sidney, makes a good wife!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The clergyman bowed as if the compliment were addressed to himself: he was
+      the only man there whom Robert Beaufort could now deceive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My sister,&rdquo; said Philip Beaufort, as once more leaning on his arm, they
+      paused before the church door, &ldquo;may Sidney love and prize you as&mdash;as
+      I would have done; and believe me, both of you, I have no regret, no
+      memory, that wounds me now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He dropped the hand, and motioned to her father to load her to the
+      carriage. Then winding his arm into Sidney&rsquo;s, he said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait till they are gone: I have one word yet with you. Go on, gentlemen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The clergyman bowed, and walked through the churchyard. But Lilburne,
+      pausing and surveying Philip Beaufort, said to him, whisperingly,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so much for feeling&mdash;the folly! So much for generosity&mdash;the
+      delusion! Happy man!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am thoroughly happy, Lord Lilburne.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you?&mdash;Then, it was neither feeling nor generosity; and we were
+      taken in! Good day.&rdquo; With that he limped slowly to the gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip answered not the sarcasm even by a look. For at that moment a loud
+      shout was set up by the mob without&mdash;they had caught a glimpse of the
+      bride.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Sidney, this way.&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;I must not detain you long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Arm in arm they passed out of the church, and turned to the spot hard by,
+      where the flowers smiled up to them from the stone on their mother&rsquo;s
+      grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old inscription had been effaced, and the name of CATHERINE BEAUFORT
+      was placed upon the stone. &ldquo;Brother,&rdquo; said Philip, &ldquo;do not forget this
+      grave: years hence, when children play around your own hearth. Observe,
+      the name of Catherine Beaufort is fresher on the stone than the dates of
+      birth and death&mdash;the name was only inscribed there to-day&mdash;your
+      wedding-day. Brother, by this grave we are now indeed united.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Philip!&rdquo; cried Sidney, in deep emotion, clasping the hand stretched
+      out to him; &ldquo;I feel, I feel how noble, how great you are&mdash;that you
+      have sacrificed more than I dreamed of&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; said Philip, with a smile. &ldquo;No talk of this. I am happier than you
+      deem me. Go back now&mdash;she waits you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you?&mdash;leave you!&mdash;alone!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not alone,&rdquo; said Philip, pointing to the grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Scarce had he spoken when, from the gate, came the shrill, clear voice of
+      Lord Lilburne,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We wait for Mr. Sidney Beaufort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sidney passed his hand over his eyes, wrung the hand of his brother once
+      more, and in a moment was by Camilla&rsquo;s side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another shout&mdash;the whirl of the wheels&mdash;the trampling of feet&mdash;the
+      distant hum and murmur&mdash;and all was still. The clerk returned to lock
+      up the church&mdash;he did not observe where Philip stood in the shadow of
+      the wall&mdash;and went home to talk of the gay wedding, and inquire at
+      what hour the funeral of the young woman; his next-door neighbour, would
+      take place the next day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It might be a quarter of an hour after Philip was thus left&mdash;nor had
+      he moved from the spot&mdash;when he felt his sleeve pulled gently. He
+      turned round and saw before him the wistful face of Fanny!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you would not come to the wedding?&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. But I fancied you might be here alone&mdash;and sad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you will not even wear the dress I gave you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Another time. Tell me, are you unhappy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unhappy, Fanny! No; look around. The very burial-ground has a smile. See
+      the laburnums clustering over the wall, listen to the birds on the dark
+      yews above, and yonder see even the butterfly has settled upon her grave!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not unhappy.&rdquo; As he thus spoke he looked at her earnestly, and
+      taking both her hands in his, drew her gently towards him, and continued:
+      &ldquo;Fanny, do you remember, that, leaning over that gate, I once spoke to you
+      of the happiness of marriage where two hearts are united? Nay, Fanny, nay,
+      I must go on. It was here in this spot,&mdash;it was here that I first saw
+      you on my return to England. I came to seek the dead, and I have thought
+      since, it was my mother&rsquo;s guardian spirit that drew me hither to find you&mdash;the
+      living! And often afterwards, Fanny, you would come with me here, when,
+      blinded and dull as I was, I came to brood and to repine, insensible of
+      the treasures even then perhaps within my reach. But, best as it was: the
+      ordeal through which I have passed has made me more grateful for the prize
+      I now dare to hope for. On this grave your hand daily renewed the flowers.
+      By this grave, the link between the Time and the Eternity, whose lessons
+      we have read together, will you consent to record our vows? Fanny,
+      dearest, fairest, tenderest, best, I love you, and at last as alone you
+      should be loved!&mdash;I woo you as my wife! Mine, not for a season, but
+      for ever&mdash;for ever, even when these graves are open, and the World
+      shrivels like a scroll. Do you understand me?&mdash;do you heed me?&mdash;or
+      have I dreamed that that&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stopped short&mdash;a dismay seized him at her silence. Had he been
+      mistaken in his divine belief!&mdash;the fear was momentary: for Fanny,
+      who had recoiled as he spoke, now placing her hands to her temples, gazing
+      on him, breathlessly and with lips apart, as if, indeed, with great effort
+      and struggle her modest spirit conceived the possibility of the happiness
+      that broke upon it, advanced timidly, her face suffused in blushes; and,
+      looking into his eyes, as if she would read into his very soul, said, with
+      an accent, the intenseness of which showed that her whole fate hung on his
+      answer,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But this is pity?&mdash;they have told you that I&mdash;in short, you are
+      generous&mdash;you&mdash;you&mdash;Oh, deceive me not! Do you love her
+      still?&mdash;Can you&mdash;do you love the humble, foolish Fanny?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As God shall judge me, sweet one, I am sincere! I have survived a passion&mdash;never
+      so deep, so tender, so entire as that I now feel for you! And, oh, Fanny,
+      hear this true confession. It was you&mdash;you to whom my heart turned
+      before I saw Camilla!&mdash;against that impulse I struggled in the
+      blindness of a haughty error!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fanny uttered a low and suppressed cry of delight and rapture. Philip
+      passionately continued,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fanny, make blessed the life you have saved. Fate destined us for each
+      other. Fate for me has ripened your sweet mind. Fate for you has softened
+      this rugged heart. We may have yet much to bear and much to learn. We will
+      console and teach each other!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He drew her to his breast as he spoke&mdash;drew her trembling, blushing,
+      confused, but no more reluctant; and there, by the GRAVE that had been so
+      memorable a scene in their common history, were murmured those vows in
+      which all this world knows of human happiness is treasured and recorded&mdash;love
+      that takes the sting from grief, and faith that gives eternity to love.
+      All silent, yet all serene around them! Above, the heaven,&mdash;at their
+      feet, the grave:&mdash;For the love, the grave!&mdash;for the faith, the
+      heaven!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0067" id="link2HCH0067">
+       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER THE LAST.
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        &ldquo;A labore reclinat otium.&rdquo;&mdash;HORAT.
+
+        [Leisure unbends itself from labour.]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I feel that there is some justice in the affection the general reader
+      entertains for the old-fashioned and now somewhat obsolete custom, of
+      giving to him, at the close of a work, the latest news of those who sought
+      his acquaintance through its progress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The weak but well-meaning Smith, no more oppressed by the evil influence
+      of his brother, has continued to pass his days in comfort and
+      respectability on the income settled on him by Philip Beaufort. Mr. and
+      Mrs. Roger Morton still live, and have just resigned their business to
+      their eldest son; retiring themselves to a small villa adjoining the town
+      in which they had made their fortune. Mrs. Morton is very apt, when she
+      goes out to tea, to talk of her dear deceased sister-in-law, the late Mrs.
+      Beaufort, and of her own remarkable kindness to her nephew when a little
+      boy. She observes that, in fact, the young men owe everything to Mr. Roger
+      and herself; and, indeed, though Sidney was never of a grateful
+      disposition, and has not been near her since, yet the elder brother, the
+      Mr. Beaufort, always evinces his respect to them by the yearly present of
+      a fat buck. She then comments on the ups and downs of life; and observes
+      that it is a pity her son Tom preferred the medical profession to the
+      church. Their cousin, Mr. Beaufort, has two livings. To all this Mr. Roger
+      says nothing, except an occasional &ldquo;Thank Heaven, I want no man&rsquo;s help! I
+      am as well to do as my neighbours. But that&rsquo;s neither here nor there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There are some readers&mdash;they who do not thoroughly consider the
+      truths of this life&mdash;who will yet ask, &ldquo;But how is Lord Lilburne
+      punished?&rdquo; Punished?&mdash;ay, and indeed, how? The world, and not the
+      poet, must answer that question. Crime is punished from without. If Vice
+      is punished, it must be from within. The Lilburnes of this hollow world
+      are not to be pelted with the soft roses of poetical justice. They who ask
+      why he is not punished may be the first to doff the hat to the equipage in
+      which my lord lolls through the streets! The only offence he habitually
+      committed of a nature to bring the penalties of detection, he renounced
+      the moment he perceived there was clanger of discovery! he gambled no more
+      after Philip&rsquo;s hint. He was one of those, some years after, most bitter
+      upon a certain nobleman charged with unfair play&mdash;one of those who
+      took the accusation as proved; and whose authority settled all disputes
+      thereon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, if no thunderbolt falls on Lord Lilburne&rsquo;s head&mdash;if he is fated
+      still to eat, and drink, and to die on his bed, he may yet taste the ashes
+      of the Dead Sea fruit which his hands have culled. He is grown old. His
+      infirmities increase upon him; his sole resources of pleasure&mdash;the
+      senses&mdash;are dried up. For him there is no longer savour in the
+      viands, or sparkle in the wine,&mdash;man delights him not, nor woman
+      neither. He is alone with Old Age, and in the sight of Death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the exception of Simon, who died in his chair not many days after
+      Sidney&rsquo;s marriage, Robert Beaufort is the only one among the more
+      important agents left at the last scene of this history who has passed
+      from our mortal stage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the marriage of his daughter he for some time moped and drooped. But
+      Philip learned from Mr. Blackwell of the will that Robert had made
+      previously to the lawsuit; and by which, had the lawsuit failed, his
+      rights would yet have been preserved to him. Deeply moved by a generosity
+      he could not have expected from his uncle, and not pausing to inquire too
+      closely how far it was to be traced to the influence of Arthur, Philip so
+      warmly expressed his gratitude, and so surrounded Mr. Beaufort with
+      affectionate attentions, that the poor man began to recover his
+      self-respect,&mdash;began even to regard the nephew he had so long
+      dreaded, as a son,&mdash;to forgive him for not marrying Camilla. And,
+      perhaps, to his astonishment, an act in his life for which the customs of
+      the world (that never favour natural ties not previously sanctioned by the
+      legal) would have rather censured than praised, became his consolation;
+      and the memory he was most proud to recall. He gradually recovered his
+      spirits; he was very fond of looking over that will: he carefully
+      preserved it: he even flattered himself that it was necessary to preserve
+      Philip from all possible litigation hereafter; for if the estates were not
+      legally Philip&rsquo;s, why, then, they were his to dispose of as he pleased. He
+      was never more happy than when his successor was by his side; and was
+      certainly a more cheerful and, I doubt not, a better man&mdash;during the
+      few years in which he survived the law-suit&mdash;than ever he had been
+      before. He died&mdash;still member for the county, and still quoted as a
+      pattern to county members&mdash;in Philip&rsquo;s arms; and on his lips there
+      was a smile that even Lilburne would have called sincere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Beaufort, after her husband&rsquo;s death, established herself in London;
+      and could never be persuaded to visit Beaufort Court. She took a
+      companion, who more than replaced, in her eyes, the absence of Camilla.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Camilla-Spencer-Sidney. They live still by the gentle Lake, happy in
+      their own serene joys and graceful leisure; shunning alike ambition and
+      its trials, action and its sharp vicissitudes; envying no one, covetous of
+      nothing; making around them, in the working world, something of the old
+      pastoral and golden holiday. If Camilla had at one time wavered in her
+      allegiance to Sidney, her good and simple heart has long since been
+      entirely regained by his devotion; and, as might be expected from her
+      disposition, she loved him better after marriage than before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Philip had gone through severer trials than Sidney. But, had their earlier
+      fates been reversed, and that spirit, in youth so haughty and self-willed,
+      been lapped in ease and luxury, would Philip now be a better or a happier
+      man? Perhaps, too, for a less tranquil existence than his brother, Philip
+      yet may be reserved; but, in proportion to the uses of our destiny, do we
+      repose or toil: he who never knows pain knows but the half of pleasure.
+      The lot of whatever is most noble on the earth below falls not amidst the
+      rosy Gardels of the Epicurean. We may envy the man who enjoys and rests;
+      but the smile of Heaven settles rather on the front of him who labours and
+      aspires.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And did Philip ever regret the circumstances that had given him Fanny for
+      the partner of his life? To some who take their notions of the Ideal from
+      the conventional rules of romance, rather than from their own perceptions
+      of what is true, this narrative would have been more pleasing had Philip
+      never loved but Fanny. But all that had led to that love had only served
+      to render it more enduring and concentred. Man&rsquo;s strongest and worthiest
+      affection is his last&mdash;is the one that unites and embodies all his
+      past dreams of what is excellent&mdash;the one from which Hope springs out
+      the brighter from former disappointments&mdash;the one in which the
+      MEMORIES are the most tender and the most abundant&mdash;the one which,
+      replacing all others, nothing hereafter can replace.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+         ......
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And now ere the scene closes, and the audience, whom perhaps the actors
+      may have interested for a while, disperse, to forget amidst the pursuits
+      of actual life the Shadows that have amused an hour, or beguiled a care,
+      let the curtain fall on one happy picture:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is some years after the marriage of Philip and Fanny. It is a summer
+      morning. In a small old-fashioned room at Beaufort Court, with its
+      casements open to the gardens, stood Philip, having just entered; and near
+      the window sat Fanny, his boy by her side. She was at the mother&rsquo;s hardest
+      task&mdash;the first lessons to the first-born child; and as the boy
+      looked up at her sweet earnest face with a smile of intelligence on his
+      own, you might have seen at a glance how well understood were the teacher
+      and the pupil. Yes: whatever might have been wanting in the Virgin to the
+      full development of mind, the cares of the mother had supplied. When a
+      being was born to lean on her alone&mdash;dependent on her providence for
+      life&mdash;then hour after hour, step after step, in the progress of
+      infant destinies, had the reason of the mother grown in the child&rsquo;s
+      growth, adapting itself to each want that it must foresee, and taking its
+      perfectness and completion from the breath of the New Love!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child caught sight of Philip and rushed to embrace him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See!&rdquo; whispered Fanny, as she also hung upon him, and strange
+      recollections of her own mysterious childhood crowded upon her,&mdash;&ldquo;See,&rdquo;
+       whispered she, with a blush half of shame and half of pride, &ldquo;the poor
+      idiot girl is the teacher of your child!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And,&rdquo; answered Philip, &ldquo;whether for child or mother, what teacher is like
+      Love?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus saying, he took the boy into his arms; and, as he bent over those
+      rosy cheeks, Fanny saw, from the movement of his lips and the moisture in
+      his eyes, that he blessed God. He looked upon the mother&rsquo;s face, he
+      glanced round on the flowers and foliage of the luxurious summer, and
+      again he blessed God: And without and within, it was Light and MORNING!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE END. <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
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+</pre>
+  </body>
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+Project Gutenberg's Night and Morning, Complete, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost
+no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use
+it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Night and Morning, Complete
+
+Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton
+
+Release Date: March 17, 2009 [EBook #9755]
+Last Updated: July 24, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NIGHT AND MORNING, COMPLETE
+***
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+NIGHT AND MORNING
+
+
+By Edward Bulwer Lytton
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1845.
+
+
+
+NIGHT AND MORNING.
+
+
+
+BOOK I.
+
+INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+BOOK IV.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+BOOK V.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+CHAPTER THE LAST.
+
+
+
+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 Hustings, 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.
+
+Knelworth, 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.
+
+Kenbworth.
+
+
+
+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 down 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 vest 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 bosquets 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 roseries, 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 help 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! 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 hardship 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, &amp;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 he 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 head 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, &amp;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 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, in 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--eh? 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. Stubmore--with three boys and a babe at
+the buzzom. You won't keep him now?"
+
+"Keep him! I have had a precious escape. I'd better go and see after the
+mare."
+
+"I doubt if you'll find her: the Captain caught a sight of me this
+morning. Why, he lodges at our hotel. He's off by this time!"
+
+"And why the devil did you let him go?"
+
+"'Cause I had no writ agin him!" said the Bow Street officer; and he
+walked straight out of the counting-office, satisfied that he had "done
+the job."
+
+To snatch his hat--to run to the hotel--to find that Captain Smith had
+indeed gone off in his phaeton, bag and baggage, the same as he came,
+except that he had now two horses to the phaeton instead of one--having
+left with the landlord the amount of his bill in another cheque upon
+Coutts--was the work of five minutes with Mr. Stubmore. He returned
+home, panting and purple with indignation and wounded feeling.
+
+"To think that chap, whom I took into my yard like a son, should have
+connived at this! 'Tain't the money--'tis the willany that 'flicts me!"
+muttered Mr. Stubmore, as he re-entered the mews.
+
+Here he came plump upon Philip, who said--
+
+"Sir, I wished to see you, to say that you had better take care of
+Captain Smith."
+
+"Oh, you did, did you, now he's gone? 'sconded off to America, I dare
+say, by this time. Now look ye, young man; your friends are after you, I
+won't say anything agin you; but you go back to them--I wash my hands
+of you. Quite too much for me. There's your week, and never let me catch
+you in my yard agin, that's all!"
+
+Philip dropped the money which Stubmore had put into his hand. "My
+friends!--friends have been with you, have they? I thought so--I thank
+them. And so you part with me? Well, you have been very kind, very kind;
+let us part kindly;" and he held out his hand.
+
+Mr. Stubmore was softened--he touched the hand held out to him, and
+looked doubtful a moment; but Captain de Burgh Smith's cheque for eighty
+guineas suddenly rose before his eyes. He turned on his heel abruptly,
+and said, over his shoulder:
+
+"Don't go after Captain Smith (he'll come to the gallows); mend your
+ways, and be ruled by your poor dear relatives, whose hearts you are
+breaking."
+
+"Captain Smith! Did my relations tell you?"
+
+"Yes--yes--they told me all--that is, they sent to tell me; so you see
+I'm d---d soft not to lay hold of you. But, perhaps, if they be gemmen,
+they'll act as sich, and cash me this here cheque!"
+
+But the last words were said to air. Philip had rushed from the yard.
+
+With a heaving breast, and every nerve in his body quivering with wrath,
+the proud, unhappy boy strode through the gay streets. They had betrayed
+him then, these accursed Beauforts! they circled his steps with schemes
+to drive him like a deer into the snare of their loathsome charity! The
+roof was to be taken from his head--the bread from his lips--so that
+he might fawn at their knees for bounty. "But they shall not break my
+spirit, nor steal away my curse. No, my dead mother, never!"
+
+As he thus muttered, he passed through a patch of waste land that led
+to the row of houses in which his lodging was placed. And here a voice
+called to him, and a hand was laid on his shoulder. He turned, and
+Arthur Beaufort, who had followed him from the street, stood behind him.
+Philip did not, at the first glance, recognise his cousin; illness had
+so altered him, and his dress was so different from that in which he had
+first and last beheld him. The contrast between the two young men
+was remarkable. Philip was clad in a rough garb suited to his late
+calling--a jacket of black velveteen, ill-fitting and ill-fashioned,
+loose fustian trousers, coarse shoes, his hat set deep over his pent
+eyebrows, his raven hair long and neglected. He was just at that age
+when one with strong features and robust frame is at the worst in point
+of appearance--the sinewy proportions not yet sufficiently fleshed, and
+seeming inharmonious and undeveloped; precisely in proportion, perhaps,
+to the symmetry towards which they insensibly mature: the contour of
+the face sharpened from the roundness of boyhood, and losing its bloom
+without yet acquiring that relief and shadow which make the expression
+and dignity of the masculine countenance. Thus accoutred, thus gaunt,
+and uncouth, stood Morton. Arthur Beaufort, always refined in his
+appearance, seemed yet more so from the almost feminine delicacy which
+ill-health threw over his pale complexion and graceful figure; that sort
+of unconscious elegance which belongs to the dress of the rich when
+they are young--seen most in minutiae--not observable, perhaps, by
+themselves-marked forcibly and painfully the distinction of rank between
+the two. That distinction Beaufort did not feel; but at a glance it was
+visible to Philip.
+
+The past rushed back on him. The sunny lawn--the gun offered and
+rejected--the pride of old, much less haughty than the pride of to-day.
+
+"Philip," said Beaufort, feebly, "they tell me you will not accept any
+kindness from me or mine. Ah! if you knew how we have sought you!"
+
+"Knew!" cried Philip, savagely, for that unlucky sentence recalled to
+him his late interview with his employer, and his present destitution.
+"Knew! And why have you dared to hunt me out, and halloo me down?--why
+must this insolent tyranny, that assumes the right over these limbs
+and this free will, betray and expose me and my wretchedness wherever I
+turn?"
+
+"Your poor mother--" began Beaufort.
+
+"Name her not with your lips--name her not!" cried Philip, growing livid
+with his emotions. "Talk not of the mercy--the forethought--a Beaufort
+could show to her and her offspring! I accept it not--I believe it not.
+Oh, yes! you follow me now with your false kindness; and why? Because
+your father--your vain, hollow, heartless father--"
+
+"Hold!" said Beaufort, in a tone of such reproach, that it startled the
+wild heart on which it fell; "it is my father you speak of. Let the son
+respect the son."
+
+"No--no--no! I will respect none of your race. I tell you your father
+fears me. I tell you that my last words to him ring in his ears! My
+wrongs! Arthur Beaufort, when you are absent I seek to forget them; in
+your abhorred presence they revive--they--"
+
+He stopped, almost choked with his passion; but continued instantly,
+with equal intensity of fervour:
+
+"Were yon tree the gibbet, and to touch your hand could alone save me
+from it, I would scorn your aid. Aid! The very thought fires my
+blood and nerves my hand. Aid! Will a Beaufort give me back my
+birthright--restore my dead mother's fair name? Minion!--sleek, dainty,
+luxurious minion!--out of my path! You have my fortune, my station, my
+rights; I have but poverty, and hate, and disdain. I swear, again and
+again, that you shall not purchase these from me."
+
+"But, Philip--Philip," cried Beaufort, catching his arm; "hear one--hear
+one who stood by your--"
+
+The sentence that would have saved the outcast from the demons that were
+darkening and swooping round his soul, died upon the young Protector's
+lips. Blinded, maddened, excited, and exasperated, almost out of
+humanity itself, Philip fiercely--brutally--swung aside the enfeebled
+form that sought to cling to him, and Beaufort fell at his feet. Morton
+stopped--glared at him with clenched hands and a smiling lip, sprung
+over his prostrate form, and bounded to his home.
+
+He slackened his pace as he neared the house, and looked behind; but
+Beaufort had not followed him. He entered the house, and found Sidney
+in the room, with a countenance so much more gay than that he had lately
+worn, that, absorbed as he was in thought and passion, it yet did not
+fail to strike him.
+
+"What has pleased you, Sidney?" The child smiled.
+
+"Ah! it is a secret--I was not to tell you. But I'm sure you are not the
+naughty boy he says you are."
+
+"He!--who?"
+
+"Don't look so angry, Philip: you frighten me!"
+
+"And you torture me. Who could malign one brother to the other?"
+
+"Oh! it was all meant very kindly--there's been such a nice, dear,
+good gentleman here, and he cried when he saw me, and said he knew dear
+mamma. Well, and he has promised to take me home with him and give me a
+pretty pony--as pretty--as pretty--oh, as pretty as it can be got! And
+he is to call again and tell me more: I think he is a fairy, Philip."
+
+"Did he say that he was to take me, too, Sidney?" said Morton, seating
+himself, and looking very pale. At that question Sidney hung his head.
+
+"No, brother--he says you won't go, and that you are a bad boy--and that
+you associate with wicked people--and that you want to keep me shut up
+here and not let any one be good to me. But I told him I did not believe
+that--yes, indeed, I told him so."
+
+And Sidney endeavoured caressingly to withdraw the hands that his
+brother placed before his face.
+
+Morton started up, and walked hastily to and fro the room. "This,"
+thought he, "is another emissary of the Beauforts'--perhaps the lawyer:
+they will take him from me--the last thing left to love and hope for. I
+will foil them."
+
+"Sidney," he said aloud, "we must go hence today, this very hour--nay,
+instantly."
+
+"What! away from this nice, good gentleman?"
+
+"Curse him! yes, away from him. Do not cry--it is of no use--you must
+go."
+
+This was said more harshly than Philip had ever yet spoken to Sidney;
+and when he had said it, he left the room to settle with the landlady,
+and to pack up their scanty effects. In another hour, the brothers had
+turned their backs on the town.
+
+
+
+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 noice
+girl we saw in the coach; 'gad, I served her spouse that is to be a
+praetty trick! Borrowed his money under pretence of investing it in the
+New Grand Anti-Dry-Rot Company; cool hundred--it's only just gone, sir."
+
+Here the chambermaid entered with the brandy and water, the newspaper,
+and cigar,--the captain lighted the last, took a deep sup from the
+beverage, and said, gaily:
+
+"Well, now, let us join fortunes; we are both, as you say, 'adrift.'
+Best way to staund the breeze is to unite the caubles."
+
+Philip shook his head, and, displeased with his companion, sought his
+pillow. He took care to put his money under his head, and to lock his
+door.
+
+The brothers started at daybreak; Sidney was even more discontented than
+on the previous day. The weather was hot and oppressive; they rested for
+some hours at noon, and in the cool of the evening renewed their way.
+Philip had made up his mind to steer for a town in the thick of a
+hunting district, where he hoped his equestrian capacities might again
+befriend him; and their path now lay through a chain of vast dreary
+commons, which gave them at least the advantage to skirt the road-side
+unobserved. But, somehow or other, either Philip had been misinformed as
+to an inn where he had proposed to pass the night, or he had missed it;
+for the clouds darkened, and the sun went down, and no vestige of human
+habitation was discernible.
+
+Sidney, footsore and querulous, began to weep, and declare that he could
+stir no further; and while Philip, whose iron frame defied fatigue,
+compassionately paused to rest his brother, a low roll of thunder broke
+upon the gloomy air. "There will be a storm," said he, anxiously. "Come
+on--pray, Sidney, come on."
+
+"It is so cruel in you, brother Philip," replied Sidney, sobbing. "I
+wish I had never--never gone with you."
+
+A flash of lightning, that illuminated the whole heavens, lingered round
+Sidney's pale face as he spoke; and Philip threw himself instinctively
+on the child, as if to protect him even from the wrath of the
+unshelterable flame. Sidney, hushed and terrified, clung to his
+brother's breast; after a pause, he silently consented to resume their
+journey. But now the storm came nearer and nearer to the wanderers.
+The darkness grew rapidly more intense, save when the lightning lit up
+heaven and earth alike with intolerable lustre. And when at length the
+rain began to fall in merciless and drenching torrents, even Philip's
+brave heart failed him. How could he ask Sidney to proceed, when they
+could scarcely see an inch before them?--all that could now be done was
+to gain the high-road, and hope for some passing conveyance. With fits
+and starts, and by the glare of the lightning, they obtained their
+object; and stood at last on the great broad thoroughfare, along which,
+since the day when the Roman carved it from the waste, Misery hath
+plodded, and Luxury rolled, their common way.
+
+Philip had stripped handkerchief, coat, vest, all to shelter Sidney;
+and he felt a kind of strange pleasure through the dark, even to hear
+Sidney's voice wail and moan. But that voice grew more languid and
+faint--it ceased--Sidney's weight hung heavy--heavier on the fostering
+arm.
+
+"For Heaven's sake, speak!--speak, Sidney!--only one word--I will carry
+you in my arms!"
+
+"I think I am dying," replied Sidney, in a low murmur; "I am so tired
+and worn out I can go no further--I must lie here." And he sank at once
+upon the reeking grass beside the road. At this time the rain
+gradually relaxed, the clouds broke away--a grey light succeeded to the
+darkness--the lightning was more distant; and the thunder rolled onward
+in its awful path. Kneeling on the ground, Philip supported his brother
+in his arms, and cast his pleading eyes upward to the softening terrors
+of the sky. A star, a solitary star--broke out for one moment, as if to
+smile comfort upon him, and then vanished. But lo! in the distance there
+suddenly gleamed a red, steady light, like that in some solitary window;
+it was no will-o'-the-wisp, it was too stationary--human shelter was
+then nearer than he had thought for. He pointed to the light, and
+whispered, "Rouse yourself, one struggle more--it cannot be far off."
+
+"It is impossible--I cannot stir," answered Sidney: and a sudden flash
+of lightning showed his countenance, ghastly, as if with the damps of
+Death. What could the brother do?--stay there, and see the boy perish
+before his eyes? leave him on the road and fly to the friendly light?
+The last plan was the sole one left, yet he shrank from it in greater
+terror than the first. Was that a step that he heard across the road? He
+held his breath to listen--a form became dimly visible--it approached.
+
+Philip shouted aloud.
+
+"What now?" answered the voice, and it seemed familiar to Morton's ear.
+He sprang forward; and putting his face close to the wayfarer, thought
+to recognise the features of Captain de Burgh Smith. The Captain, whose
+eyes were yet more accustomed to the dark, made the first overture.
+
+"Why, my lad, is it you then? 'Gad, you froightened me!"
+
+Odious as this man had hitherto been to Philip, he was as welcome to him
+as daylight now; he grasped his hand,--"My brother--a child--is here,
+dying, I fear, with cold and fatigue; he cannot stir. Will you stay with
+him--support him--but for a few moments, while I make to yon light? See,
+I have money--plenty of money!"
+
+"My good lad, it is very ugly work staying here at this hour:
+still--where's the choild?"
+
+"Here, here! make haste, raise him! that's right! God bless you! I shall
+be back ere you think me gone."
+
+He sprang from the road, and plunged through the heath, the furze,
+the rank glistening pools, straight towards the light--as the swimmer
+towards the shore.
+
+The captain, though a rogue, was human; and when life--an innocent
+life--is at stake, even a rogue's heart rises up from its weedy bed.
+He muttered a few oaths, it is true, but he held the child in his arms;
+and, taking out a little tin case, poured some brandy down Sidney's
+throat and then, by way of company, down his own. The cordial revived
+the boy; he opened his eyes, and said, "I think I can go on now,
+Philip."
+
+
+     ........
+
+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 frill 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, _mon 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 seems 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 contrast
+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 Groupille, 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 sou 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 earth--he looked above, and his eyes were suffused
+with pleasure, at the smile of the soft blue skies. The MORNING became,
+as it were, a part of his own being; and he felt that as the world in
+spite of the storms is fair, so in spite of evil God is good. He walked
+on--he passed the bridge, but his step was no more the same,--he forgot
+his rags. Why should he be ashamed? And thus, in the very flush of this
+new and strange elation and elasticity of spirit, he came unawares upon
+a group of young men, lounging before the porch of one of the chief
+hotels in that splendid Rue de Rivoli, wherein Wealth and the English
+have made their homes. A groom, mounted, was leading another horse
+up and down the road, and the young men were making their comments of
+approbation upon both the horses, especially the one led, which was,
+indeed, of uncommon beauty and great value. Even Morton, in whom the
+boyish passion of his earlier life yet existed, paused to turn his
+experienced and admiring eye upon the stately shape and pace of the
+noble animal, and as he did so, a name too well remembered came upon his
+ear.
+
+"Certainly, Arthur Beaufort is the most enviable fellow in Europe."
+
+"Why, yes," said another of the young men; "he has plenty of money--is
+good-looking, devilish good-natured, clever, and spends like a prince."
+
+"Has the best horses!"
+
+"The best luck at roulette!"
+
+"The prettiest girls in love with him!"
+
+"And no one enjoys life more. Ah! here he is!"
+
+The group parted as a light, graceful figure came out of a jeweller's
+shop that adjoined the hotel, and halted gaily amongst the loungers.
+Morton's first impulse was to hurry from the spot; his second impulse
+arrested his step, and, a little apart, and half-hid beneath one of the
+arches of the colonnade which adorns the street, the Outcast gazed upon
+the Heir. There was no comparison in the natural personal advantages of
+the two young men; for Philip Morton, despite all the hardships of his
+rough career, had now grown up and ripened into a rare perfection
+of form and feature. His broad chest, his erect air, his lithe and
+symmetrical length of limb, united, happily, the attributes of activity
+and strength; and though there was no delicacy of youthful bloom upon
+his dark cheek, and though lines which should have come later marred
+its smoothness with the signs of care and thought, yet an expression of
+intelligence and daring, equally beyond his years, and the evidence of
+hardy, abstemious, vigorous health, served to show to the full advantage
+the outline of features which, noble and regular, though stern and
+masculine, the artist might have borrowed for his ideal of a young
+Spartan arming for his first battle. Arthur, slight to feebleness, and
+with the paleness, partly of constitution, partly of gay excess, on
+his fair and clear complexion, had features far less symmetrical and
+impressive than his cousin: but what then? All that are bestowed by
+elegance of dress, the refinements of luxurious habit, the nameless
+grace that comes from a mind and a manner polished, the one by literary
+culture, the other by social intercourse, invested the person of the
+heir with a fascination that rude Nature alone ever fails to give. And
+about him there was a gaiety, an airiness of spirit, an atmosphere of
+enjoyment which bespoke one who is in love with life.
+
+"Why, this is lucky! I'm so glad to see you all!" said Arthur Beaufort,
+with that silver-ringing tone and charming smile which are to the happy
+spring of man what its music and its sunshine are to the spring of
+earth. "You must dine with me at Verey's. I want something to rouse me
+to-day; for I did not get home from the Salon* till four this morning."
+
+
+   *[The most celebrated gaming-house in Paris in the day before
+   gaming-houses were suppressed by the well-directed energy of the
+   government.]
+
+"But you won?"
+
+"Yes, Marsden. Hang it! I always win: I who could so well afford to
+lose: I'm quite ashamed of my luck!"
+
+"It is easy to spend what one wins," observed Mr. Marsden,
+sententiously; "and I see you have been at the jeweller's! A present for
+Cecile? Well, don't blush, my dear fellow. What is life without women?"
+
+"And wine?" said a second. "And play?" said a third. "And wealth?" said
+a fourth.
+
+"And you enjoy them all! Happy fellow!" said a fifth. The Outcast pulled
+his hat over his brows, and walked away.
+
+"This dear Paris," said Beaufort, as his eye carelessly and
+unconsciously followed the dark form retreating through the
+arches;--"this dear Paris! I must make the most of it while I stay! I
+have only been here a few weeks, and next week I must go."
+
+"Pooh--your health is better: you don't look like the same man."
+
+"You think so really? Still I don't know: the doctors say that I must
+either go to the German waters--the season is begun--or--"
+
+"Or what?"
+
+"Live less with such pleasant companions, my dear fellow! But as you
+say, what is life without--"
+
+"Women!"
+
+"Wine!"
+
+"Play!"
+
+"Wealth!"
+
+"Ha! ha. 'Throw physic to the dogs: I'll none of it!'"
+
+And Arthur leaped lightly on his saddle, and as he rode gaily on,
+humming the favourite air of the last opera, the hoofs of his horse
+splashed the mud over a foot-passenger halting at the crossing. Morton
+checked the fiery exclamation rising to his lips; and gazing after
+the brilliant form that hurried on towards the Champs Elysees, his eye
+caught the statues on the bridge, and a voice, as of a cheering angel,
+whispered again to his heart, "TIME, FAITH, ENERGY!"
+
+The expression of his countenance grew calm at once, and as he continued
+his rambles it was with a mind that, casting off the burdens of the
+past, looked serenely and steadily on the obstacles and hardships of
+the future. We have seen that a scruple of conscience or of pride, not
+without its nobleness, had made him refuse the importunities of Gawtrey
+for less sordid raiment; the same feeling made it his custom to avoid
+sharing the luxurious and dainty food with which Gawtrey was wont
+to regale himself. For that strange man, whose wonderful felicity of
+temperament and constitution rendered him, in all circumstances, keenly
+alive to the hearty and animal enjoyments of life, would still emerge,
+as the day declined, from their wretched apartment, and, trusting to his
+disguises, in which indeed he possessed a masterly art, repair to one of
+the better description of restaurants, and feast away his cares for the
+moment. William Gawtrey would not have cared three straws for the
+curse of Damocles. The sword over his head would never have spoiled his
+appetite! He had lately, too, taken to drinking much more deeply than he
+had been used to do--the fine intellect of the man was growing thickened
+and dulled; and this was a spectacle that Morton could not bear to
+contemplate. Yet so great was Gawtrey's vigour of health, that, after
+draining wine and spirits enough to have despatched a company of
+fox-hunters, and after betraying, sometimes in uproarious glee,
+sometimes in maudlin self-bewailings, that he himself was not quite
+invulnerable to the thyrsus of the god, he would--on any call on his
+energies, or especially before departing on those mysterious expeditions
+which kept him from home half, and sometimes all, the night--plunge his
+head into cold water--drink as much of the lymph as a groom would have
+shuddered to bestow on a horse--close his eyes in a doze for half an
+hour, and wake, cool, sober, and collected, as if he had lived according
+to the precepts of Socrates or Cornaro!
+
+But to return to Morton. It was his habit to avoid as much as possible
+sharing the good cheer of his companion; and now, as he entered the
+Champs Elysees, he saw a little family, consisting of a young mechanic,
+his wife, and two children, who, with that love of harmless recreation
+which yet characterises the French, had taken advantage of a holiday in
+the craft, and were enjoying their simple meal under the shadow of the
+trees. Whether in hunger or in envy, Morton paused and contemplated the
+happy group. Along the road rolled the equipages and trampled the steeds
+of those to whom all life is a holiday. There, was Pleasure--under those
+trees was Happiness. One of the children, a little boy of about six
+years old, observing the attitude and gaze of the pausing wayfarer, ran
+to him, and holding up a fragment of a coarse kind of cake, said to him,
+willingly, "Take it--I have had enough!" The child reminded Morton of
+his brother--his heart melted within him--he lifted the young Samaritan
+in his arms, and as he kissed him, wept.
+
+The mother observed and rose also. She laid her hand on his own: "Poor
+boy! why do you weep?--can we relieve you?"
+
+Now that bright gleam of human nature, suddenly darting across the
+sombre recollections and associations of his past life, seemed to Morton
+as if it came from Heaven, in approval and in blessing of this attempt
+at reconciliation to his fate.
+
+"I thank you," said he, placing the child on the ground, and passing his
+hand over his eyes,--"I thank you--yes! Let me sit down amongst you."
+And he sat down, the child by his side, and partook of their fare, and
+was merry with them,--the proud Philip!--had he not begun to discover
+the "precious jewel" in the "ugly and venomous" Adversity?
+
+The mechanic, though a gay fellow on the whole, was not without some of
+that discontent of his station which is common with his class; he vented
+it, however, not in murmurs, but in jests. He was satirical on the
+carriages and the horsemen that passed; and, lolling on the grass,
+ridiculed his betters at his ease.
+
+"Hush!" said his wife, suddenly; "here comes Madame de Merville;" and
+rising as she spoke, she made a respectful inclination of her head
+towards an open carriage that was passing very slowly towards the town.
+
+"Madame de Merville!" repeated the husband, rising also, and lifting his
+cap from his head. "Ah! I have nothing to say against her!"
+
+Morton looked instinctively towards the carriage, and saw a fair
+countenance turned graciously to answer the silent salutations of the
+mechanic and his wife--a countenance that had long haunted his
+dreams, though of late it had faded away beneath harsher thoughts--the
+countenance of the stranger whom he had seen at the bureau of Gawtrey,
+when that worthy personage had borne a more mellifluous name. He started
+and changed colour: the lady herself now seemed suddenly to recognise
+him; for their eyes met, and she bent forward eagerly. She pulled the
+check-string--the carriage halted--she beckoned to the mechanic's wife,
+who went up to the roadside.
+
+"I worked once for that lady," said the man with a tone of feeling; "and
+when my wife fell ill last winter she paid the doctors. Ah, she is an
+angel of charity and kindness!"
+
+Morton scarcely heard this eulogium, for he observed, by something eager
+and inquisitive in the face of Madame de Merville, and by the sudden
+manner in which the mechanic's helpmate turned her head to the spot in
+which he stood, that he was the object of their conversation. Once
+more he became suddenly aware of his ragged dress, and with a natural
+shame--a fear that charity might be extended to him from her--he
+muttered an abrupt farewell to the operative, and without another glance
+at the carriage, walked away.
+
+Before he had got many paces, the wife however came up to him,
+breathless. "Madame de Merville would speak to you, sir!" she said, with
+more respect than she had hitherto thrown into her manner. Philip paused
+an instant, and again strode on--
+
+"It must be some mistake," he said, hurriedly: "I have no right to
+expect such an honour."
+
+He struck across the road, gained the opposite side, and had vanished
+from Madame de Merville's eyes, before the woman regained the carriage.
+But still that calm, pale, and somewhat melancholy face, presented
+itself before him; and as he walked again through the town, sweet and
+gentle fancies crowded confusedly on his heart. On that soft summer day,
+memorable for so many silent but mighty events in that inner life which
+prepares the catastrophes of the outer one; as in the region, of which
+Virgil has sung, the images of men to be born hereafter repose or
+glide--on that soft summer day, he felt he had reached the age when
+Youth begins to clothe in some human shape its first vague ideal of
+desire and love.
+
+In such thoughts, and still wandering, the day wore away, till he found
+himself in one of the lanes that surround that glittering Microcosm of
+the vices, the frivolities, the hollow show, and the real beggary of the
+gay City--the gardens and the galleries of the Palais Royal. Surprised
+at the lateness of the hour, it was then on the stroke of seven, he
+was about to return homewards, when the loud voice of Gawtrey sounded
+behind, and that personage, tapping him on the back, said,--
+
+"Hollo, my young friend, well met! This will be a night of trial to you.
+Empty stomachs produce weak nerves. Come along! you must dine with me.
+A good dinner and a bottle of old wine--come! nonsense, I say you shall
+come! Vive la joie!"
+
+While speaking, he had linked his arm in Morton's, and hurried him on
+several paces in spite of his struggles; but just as the words Vive la
+joie left his lips, he stood still and mute, as if a thunderbolt had
+fallen at his feet; and Morton felt that heavy arm shiver and tremble
+like a leaf. He looked up, and just at the entrance of that part of the
+Palais Royal in which are situated the restaurants of Verey and Vefour,
+he saw two men standing but a few paces before them, and gazing full on
+Gawtrey and himself.
+
+"It is my evil genius," muttered Gawtrey, grinding his teeth.
+
+"And mine!" said Morton.
+
+The younger of the two men thus apostrophised made a step towards
+Philip, when his companion drew him back and whispered,--"What are you
+about--do you know that young man?"
+
+"He is my cousin; Philip Beaufort's natural son!"
+
+"Is he? then discard him for ever. He is with the most dangerous knave
+in Europe!"
+
+As Lord Lilburne--for it was he--thus whispered his nephew, Gawtrey
+strode up to him; and, glaring full in his face, said in a deep and
+hollow tone,--"There is a hell, my lord,--I go to drink to our meeting!"
+Thus saying, he took off his hat with a ceremonious mockery, and
+disappeared within the adjoining restaurant, kept by Vefour.
+
+"A hell!" said Lilburne, with his frigid smile; "the rogue's head runs
+upon gambling-houses!"
+
+"And I have suffered Philip again to escape me," said Arthur, in
+self-reproach: for while Gawtrey had addressed Lord Lilburne, Morton had
+plunged back amidst the labyrinth of alleys. "How have I kept my oath?"
+
+"Come! your guests must have arrived by this time. As for that wretched
+young man, depend upon it that he is corrupted body and soul."
+
+"But he is my own cousin."
+
+"Pooh! there is no relationship in natural children: besides, he will
+find you out fast enough. Ragged claimants are not long too proud to
+beg."
+
+"You speak in earnest?" said Arthur, irresolutely. "Ay! trust my
+experience of the world--Allons!"
+
+And in a cabinet of the very restaurant, adjoining that in which the
+solitary Gawtrey gorged his conscience, Lilburne, Arthur, and their gay
+friends, soon forgetful of all but the roses of the moment, bathed their
+airy spirits in the dews of the mirthful wine. Oh, extremes of life! Oh,
+Night! Oh, Morning!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+"Meantime a moving scene was open laid, That lazar house."--THOMSON'S
+Castle of Indolence.
+
+It was near midnight. At the mouth of the lane in which Gawtrey resided
+there stood four men. Not far distant, in the broad street at angles
+with the lane, were heard the wheels of carriages and the sound of
+music. A lady, fair in form, tender of heart, stainless in repute, was
+receiving her friends!
+
+"Monsieur Favart," said one of the men to the smallest of the four; "you
+understand the conditions--20,000 francs and a free pardon?"
+
+"Nothing more reasonable--it is understood. Still I confess that I
+should like to have my men close at hand. I am not given to fear; but
+this is a dangerous experiment."
+
+"You knew the danger beforehand and subscribed to it: you must enter
+alone with me, or not at all. Mark you, the men are sworn to murder him
+who betrays them. Not for twenty times 20,000 francs would I have them
+know me as the informer. My life were not worth a day's purchase. Now,
+if you feel secure in your disguise, all is safe. You will have seen
+them at their work--you will recognise their persons--you can depose
+against them at the trial--I shall have time to quit France."
+
+"Well, well! as you please."
+
+"Mind, you must wait in the vault with them till they separate. We have
+so planted your men that whatever street each of the gang takes in going
+home, he can be seized quietly and at once. The bravest and craftiest of
+all, who, though he has but just joined, is already their captain;--him,
+the man I told you of, who lives in the house, you must take after his
+return, in his bed. It is the sixth story to the right, remember: here
+is the key to his door. He is a giant in strength; and will never be
+taken alive if up and armed."
+
+"Ah, I comprehend!--Gilbert" (and Favart turned to one of his companions
+who had not yet spoken) "take three men besides yourself, according to
+the directions I gave you,--the porter will admit you, that's arranged.
+Make no noise. If I don't return by four o'clock, don't wait for me,
+but proceed at once. Look well to your primings. Take him alive, if
+possible--at the worst, dead. And now--mon ami--lead on!"
+
+The traitor nodded, and walked slowly down the street. Favart, pausing,
+whispered hastily to the man whom he had called Gilbert,--
+
+"Follow me close--get to the door of the cellar-place eight men within
+hearing of my whistle--recollect the picklocks, the axes. If you hear
+the whistle, break in; if not, I'm safe, and the first orders to seize
+the captain in his room stand good."
+
+So saying, Favart strode after his guide. The door of a large, but
+ill-favoured-looking house stood ajar--they entered-passed unmolested
+through a court-yard--descended some stairs; the guide unlocked the door
+of a cellar, and took a dark lantern from under his cloak. As he drew
+up the slide, the dim light gleamed on barrels and wine-casks, which
+appeared to fill up the space. Rolling aside one of these, the guide
+lifted a trap-door, and lowered his lantern. "Enter," said he; and the
+two men disappeared.
+
+
+      ........
+
+The coiners were at their work. A man, seated on a stool before a desk,
+was entering accounts in a large book. That man was William Gawtrey.
+While, with the rapid precision of honest mechanics, the machinery of
+the Dark Trade went on in its several departments. Apart--alone--at
+the foot of a long table, sat Philip Morton. The truth had exceeded his
+darkest suspicions. He had consented to take the oath not to divulge
+what was to be given to his survey; and when, led into that vault, the
+bandage was taken from his eyes, it was some minutes before he could
+fully comprehend the desperate and criminal occupations of the wild
+forms amidst which towered the burly stature of his benefactor. As the
+truth slowly grew upon him, he shrank from the side of Gawtrey; but,
+deep compassion for his friend's degradation swallowing up the horror of
+the trade, he flung himself on one of the rude seats, and felt that the
+bond between them was indeed broken, and that the next morning he should
+be again alone in the world. Still, as the obscene jests, the fearful
+oaths, that from time to time rang through the vault, came on his ear,
+he cast his haughty eye in such disdain over the groups, that Gawtrey,
+observing him, trembled for his safety; and nothing but Philip's sense
+of his own impotence, and the brave, not timorous, desire not to perish
+by such hands, kept silent the fiery denunciations of a nature still
+proud and honest, that quivered on his lips. All present were armed with
+pistols and cutlasses except Morton, who suffered the weapons presented
+to him to lie unheeded on the table.
+
+"Courage, mes amis!" said Gawtrey, closing his book,--"Courage!--a few
+months more, and we shall have made enough to retire upon, and enjoy
+ourselves for the rest of the days. Where is Birnie?"
+
+"Did he not tell you?" said one of the artisans, looking up. "He has
+found out the cleverest hand in France, the very fellow who helped
+Bouchard in all his five-franc pieces. He has promised to bring him
+to-night."
+
+"Ay, I remember," returned Gawtrey, "he told me this morning,--he is a
+famous decoy!"
+
+"I think so, indeed!" quoth a coiner; "for he caught you, the best
+head to our hands that ever les industriels were blessed with--sacre
+fichtre!"
+
+"Flatterer!" said Gawtrey, coming from the desk to the table, and
+pouring out wine from one of the bottles into a huge flagon--"To your
+healths!"
+
+Here the door slided back, and Birnie glided in.
+
+"Where is your booty, mon brave?" said Gawtrey. "We only coin money; you
+coin men, stamp with your own seal, and send them current to the devil!"
+
+The coiners, who liked Birnie's ability (for the ci-devant engraver was
+of admirable skill in their craft), but who hated his joyless manners,
+laughed at this taunt, which Birnie did not seem to heed, except by a
+malignant gleam of his dead eye.
+
+"If you mean the celebrated coiner, Jacques Giraumont, he waits without.
+You know our rules. I cannot admit him without leave."
+
+"Bon! we give it,--eh, messieurs?" said Gawtrey. "Ay-ay," cried several
+voices. "He knows the oath, and will hear the penalty."
+
+"Yes, he knows the oath," replied Birnie, and glided back.
+
+In a moment more he returned with a small man in a mechanic's blouse.
+The new comer wore the republican beard and moustache--of a sandy
+grey--his hair was the same colour; and a black patch over one eye
+increased the ill-favoured appearance of his features.
+
+"Diable! Monsieur Giraumont! but you are more like Vulcan than Adonis!"
+said Gawtrey.
+
+"I don't know anything about Vulcan, but I know how to make five-franc
+pieces," said Monsieur Giraumont, doggedly.
+
+"Are you poor?"
+
+"As a church mouse! The only thing belonging to a church, since the
+Bourbons came back, that is poor!"
+
+At this sally, the coiners, who had gathered round the table, uttered
+the shout with which, in all circumstances, Frenchmen receive a bon mot.
+
+"Humph!" said Gawtrey. "Who responds with his own life for your
+fidelity?"
+
+"I," said Birnie.
+
+"Administer the oath to him."
+
+Suddenly four men advanced, seized the visitor, and bore him from the
+vault into another one within. After a few moments they returned.
+
+"He has taken the oath and heard the penalty."
+
+"Death to yourself, your wife, your son, and your grandson, if you
+betray us!"
+
+"I have neither son nor grandson; as for my wife, Monsieur le Capitaine,
+you offer a bribe instead of a threat when you talk of her death."
+
+"Sacre! but you will be an addition to our circle, mon brave!" said
+Gawtrey, laughing; while again the grim circle shouted applause.
+
+"But I suppose you care for your own life."
+
+"Otherwise I should have preferred starving to coming here," answered
+the laconic neophyte.
+
+"I have done with you. Your health!"
+
+On this the coiners gathered round Monsieur Giraumont, shook him by the
+hand, and commenced many questions with a view to ascertain his skill.
+
+"Show me your coinage first; I see you use both the die and the
+furnace. Hem! this piece is not bad--you have struck it from an iron
+die?--right--it makes the impression sharper than plaster of Paris. But
+you take the poorest and the most dangerous part of the trade in taking
+the home market. I can put you in a way to make ten times as much--and
+with safety. Look at this!"--and Monsieur Giraumont took a forged
+Spanish dollar from his pocket, so skilfully manufactured that the
+connoisseurs were lost in admiration--"you may pass thousands of these
+all over Europe, except France, and who is ever to detect you? But it
+will require better machinery than you have here."
+
+Thus conversing, Monsieur Giraumont did not perceive that Mr. Gawtrey
+had been examining him very curiously and minutely. But Birnie had noted
+their chief's attention, and once attempted to join his new ally, when
+Gawtrey laid his hand on his shoulder, and stopped him.
+
+"Do not speak to your friend till I bid you, or--" he stopped short, and
+touched his pistols.
+
+Birnie grew a shade more pale, but replied with his usual sneer:
+
+"Suspicious!--well, so much the better!" and seating himself carelessly
+at the table, lighted his pipe.
+
+"And now, Monsieur Giraumont," said Gawtrey, as he took the head of
+the table, "come to my right hand. A half-holiday in your honour. Clear
+these infernal instruments; and more wine, mes amis!"
+
+The party arranged themselves at the table. Among the desperate there
+is almost invariably a tendency to mirth. A solitary ruffian, indeed, is
+moody, but a gang of ruffians are jovial. The coiners talked and laughed
+loud. Mr. Birnie, from his dogged silence, seemed apart from the rest,
+though in the centre. For in a noisy circle a silent tongue builds a
+wall round its owner. But that respectable personage kept his furtive
+watch upon Giraumont and Gawtrey, who appeared talking together, very
+amicably. The younger novice of that night, equally silent, seated
+towards the bottom of the table, was not less watchful than Birnie. An
+uneasy, undefinable foreboding had come over him since the entrance
+of Monsieur Giraumont; this had been increased by the manner of Mr.
+Gawtrey. His faculty of observation, which was very acute, had detected
+something false in the chief's blandness to their guest--something
+dangerous in the glittering eye that Gawtrey ever, as he spoke to
+Giraumont, bent on that person's lips as he listened to his reply. For,
+whenever William Gawtrey suspected a man, he watched not his eyes, but
+his lips.
+
+Waked from his scornful reverie, a strange spell chained Morton's
+attention to the chief and the guest, and he bent forward, with parted
+mouth and straining ear, to catch their conversation.
+
+"It seems to me a little strange," said Mr. Gawtrey, raising his voice
+so as to be heard by the party, "that a coiner so dexterous as Monsieur
+Giraumont should not be known to any of us except our friend Birnie."
+
+"Not at all," replied Giraumont; "I worked only with Bouchard and
+two others since sent to the galleys. We were but a small
+fraternity--everything has its commencement."
+
+"C'est juste: buvez, donc, cher ami!"
+
+The wine circulated. Gawtrey began again:
+
+"You have had a bad accident, seemingly, Monsieur Giraumont. How did you
+lose your eye?"
+
+"In a scuffle with the gens d' armes the night Bouchard was taken and I
+escaped. Such misfortunes are on the cards."
+
+"C'est juste: buvez, donc, Monsieur Giraumont!"
+
+Again there was a pause, and again Gawtrey's deep voice was heard.
+
+"You wear a wig, I think, Monsieur Giraumont? To judge by your eyelashes
+your own hair has been a handsomer colour."
+
+"We seek disguise, not beauty, my host; and the police have sharp eyes."
+
+"C'est juste: buvez, donc-vieux Renard! When did we two meet last?"
+
+"Never, that I know of."
+
+"Ce n'est pas vrai! buvez, donc, MONSIEUR FAVART!"
+
+At the sound of that name the company started in dismay and confusion,
+and the police officer, forgetting himself for the moment, sprang from
+his seat, and put his right hand into his blouse.
+
+"Ho, there!--treason!" cried Gawtrey, in a voice of thunder; and he
+caught the unhappy man by the throat. It was the work of a moment.
+Morton, where he sat, beheld a struggle--he heard a death-cry. He
+saw the huge form of the master-coiner rising above all the rest, as
+cutlasses gleamed and eyes sparkled round. He saw the quivering and
+powerless frame of the unhappy guest raised aloft in those mighty arms,
+and presently it was hurled along the table-bottles crashing--the board
+shaking beneath its weight--and lay before the very eyes of Morton, a
+distorted and lifeless mass. At the same instant Gawtrey sprang upon the
+table, his black frown singling out from the group the ashen, cadaverous
+face of the shrinking traitor. Birnie had darted from the table--he was
+half-way towards the sliding door--his face, turned over his shoulder,
+met the eyes of the chief.
+
+"Devil!" shouted Gawtrey, in his terrible voice, which the echoes of the
+vault gave back from side to side. "Did I not give thee up my soul that
+thou mightest not compass my death? Hark ye! thus die my slavery and
+all our secrets!" The explosion of his pistol half swallowed up the last
+word, and with a single groan the traitor fell on the floor, pierced
+through the brain--then there was a dead and grim hush as the smoke
+rolled slowly along the roof of the dreary vault.
+
+Morton sank back on his seat, and covered his face with his hands. The
+last seal on the fate of THE MAN OF CRIME was set; the last wave in the
+terrible and mysterious tide of his destiny had dashed on his soul
+to the shore whence there is no return. Vain, now and henceforth, the
+humour, the sentiment, the kindly impulse, the social instincts which
+had invested that stalwart shape with dangerous fascination, which had
+implied the hope of ultimate repentance, of redemption even in this
+world. The HOUR and the CIRCUMSTANCE had seized their prey; and the
+self-defence, which a lawless career rendered a necessity, left the
+eternal die of blood upon his doom!
+
+"Friends, I have saved you," said Gawtrey, slowly gazing on the corpse
+of his second victim, while he turned the pistol to his belt. "I have
+not quailed before this man's eye" (and he spurned the clay of the
+officer as he spoke with a revengeful scorn) "without treasuring up
+its aspect in my heart of hearts. I knew him when he entered--knew him
+through his disguise--yet, faith, it was a clever one! Turn up his face
+and gaze on him now; he will never terrify us again, unless there be
+truth in ghosts!"
+
+Murmuring and tremulous the coiners scrambled on the table and examined
+the dead man. From this task Gawtrey interrupted them, for his quick eye
+detected, with the pistols under the policeman's blouse, a whistle of
+metal of curious construction, and he conjectured at once that danger
+was at hand.
+
+"I have saved you, I say, but only for the hour. This deed cannot sleep.
+See, he had help within call! The police knew where to look for their
+comrade--we are dispersed. Each for himself. Quick, divide the spoils!
+Sauve qui peat!"
+
+Then Morton heard where he sat, his hands still clasped before his face,
+a confused hubbub of voices, the jingle of money, the scrambling of
+feet, the creaking of doors. All was silent!
+
+A strong grasp drew his hands from his eyes.
+
+"Your first scene of life against life," said Gawtrey's voice, which
+seemed fearfully changed to the ear that heard it. "Bah! what would you
+think of a battle? Come to our eyrie: the carcasses are gone."
+
+Morton looked fearfully round the vault. He and Gawtrey were alone. His
+eyes sought the places where the dead had lain--they were removed--no
+vestige of the deeds, not even a drop of blood.
+
+"Come, take up your cutlass, come!" repeated the voice of the chief, as
+with his dim lantern--now the sole light of the vault--he stood in the
+shadow of the doorway.
+
+Morton rose, took up the weapon mechanically, and followed that terrible
+guide, mute and unconscious, as a Soul follows a Dream through the House
+of Sleep!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+        "Sleep no more!"--Macbeth
+
+After winding through gloomy and labyrinthine passages, which conducted
+to a different range of cellars from those entered by the unfortunate
+Favart, Gawtrey emerged at the foot of a flight of stairs, which, dark,
+narrow, and in many places broken, had been probably appropriated to
+servants of the house in its days of palmier glory. By these steps the
+pair regained their attic. Gawtrey placed the lantern on the table and
+seated himself in silence. Morton, who had recovered his self-possession
+and formed his resolution, gazed on him for some moments, equally
+taciturn. At length he spoke:
+
+"Gawtrey!"
+
+"I bade you not call me by that name," said the coiner; for we need
+scarcely say that in his new trade he had assumed a new appellation.
+
+"It is the least guilty one by which I have known you," returned Morton,
+firmly. "It is for the last time I call you by it! I demanded to see by
+what means one to whom I had entrusted my fate supported himself. I have
+seen," continued the young man, still firmly, but with a livid cheek and
+lip, "and the tie between us is rent for ever. Interrupt me not! it is
+not for me to blame you. I have eaten of your bread and drunk of your
+cup. Confiding in you too blindly, and believing that you were at
+least free from those dark and terrible crimes for which there is no
+expiation--at least in this life--my conscience seared by distress, my
+very soul made dormant by despair, I surrendered myself to one leading a
+career equivocal, suspicious, dishonourable perhaps, but still not, as
+I believed, of atrocity and bloodshed. I wake at the brink of the
+abyss--my mother's hand beckons to me from the grave; I think I hear her
+voice while I address you--I recede while it is yet time--we part, and
+for ever!"
+
+Gawtrey, whose stormy passion was still deep upon his soul, had listened
+hitherto in sullen and dogged silence, with a gloomy frown on his
+knitted brow; he now rose with an oath--
+
+"Part! that I may let loose on the world a new traitor! Part! when you
+have seen me fresh from an act that, once whispered, gives me to the
+guillotine! Part--never! at least alive!"
+
+"I have said it," said Morton, folding his arms calmly; "I say it to
+your face, though I might part from you in secret. Frown not on me, man
+of blood! I am fearless as yourself! In another minute I am gone."
+
+"Ah! is it so?" said Gawtrey; and glancing round the room, which
+contained two doors, the one concealed by the draperies of a bed,
+communicating with the stairs by which they had entered, the other with
+the landing of the principal and common flight: he turned to the former,
+within his reach, which he locked, and put the key into his pocket, and
+then, throwing across the latter a heavy swing bar, which fell into
+its socket with a harsh noise,--before the threshold he placed his vast
+bulk, and burst into his loud, fierce laugh: "Ho! ho! Slave and fool,
+once mine, you were mine body and soul for ever!"
+
+"Tempter, I defy you! stand back!" And, firm and dauntless, Morton laid
+his hand on the giant's vest.
+
+Gawtrey seemed more astonished than enraged. He looked hard at his
+daring associate, on whose lip the down was yet scarcely dark.
+
+"Boy," said he, "off! do not rouse the devil in me again! I could crush
+you with a hug."
+
+"My soul supports my body, and I am armed," said Morton, laying hand on
+his cutlass. "But you dare not harm me, nor I you; bloodstained as you
+are, you gave me shelter and bread; but accuse me not that I will save
+my soul while it is yet time!--Shall my mother have blessed me in vain
+upon her death-bed?"
+
+Gawtrey drew back, and Morton, by a sudden impulse, grasped his hand.
+
+"Oh! hear me--hear me!" he cried, with great emotion. "Abandon this
+horrible career; you have been decoyed and betrayed to it by one who can
+deceive or terrify you no more! Abandon it, and I will never desert you.
+For her sake--for your Fanny's sake--pause, like me, before the gulf
+swallow us. Let us fly!--far to the New World--to any land where our
+thews and sinews, our stout hands and hearts, can find an honest mart.
+Men, desperate as we are, have yet risen by honest means. Take her, your
+orphan, with us. We will work for her, both of us. Gawtrey! hear me. It
+is not my voice that speaks to you--it is your good angel's!"
+
+Gawtrey fell back against the wall, and his chest heaved.
+
+"Morton," he said, with choked and tremulous accent, "go now; leave me
+to my fate! I have sinned against you--shamefully sinned. It seemed to
+me so sweet to have a friend; in your youth and character of mind there
+was so much about which the tough strings of my heart wound themselves,
+that I could not bear to lose you--to suffer you to know me for what I
+was. I blinded--I deceived you as to my past deeds; that was base in me:
+but I swore to my own heart to keep you unexposed to every danger, and
+free from every vice that darkened my own path. I kept that oath till
+this night, when, seeing that you began to recoil from me, and dreading
+that you should desert me, I thought to bind you to me for ever by
+implicating you in this fellowship of crime. I am punished, and justly.
+Go, I repeat--leave me to the fate that strides nearer and nearer to me
+day by day. You are a boy still--I am no longer young. Habit is a second
+nature. Still--still I could repent--I could begin life again. But
+repose!--to look back--to remember--to be haunted night and day with
+deeds that shall meet me bodily and face to face on the last day--"
+
+"Add not to the spectres! Come--fly this night--this hour!"
+
+Gawtrey paused, irresolute and wavering, when at that moment he heard
+steps on the stairs below. He started--as starts the boar caught in his
+lair--and listened, pale and breathless.
+
+"Hush!--they are on us!--they come!" as he whispered, the key from
+without turned in the wards--the door shook. "Soft! the bar preserves us
+both--this way." And the coiner crept to the door of the private stairs.
+He unlocked and opened it cautiously. A man sprang through the aperture:
+
+"Yield!--you are my prisoner!"
+
+"Never!" cried Gawtrey, hurling back the intruder, and clapping to the
+door, though other and stout men were pressing against it with all their
+power.
+
+"Ho! ho! Who shall open the tiger's cage?"
+
+At both doors now were heard the sound of voices. "Open in the king's
+name, or expect no mercy!"
+
+"Hist!" said Gawtrey. "One way yet--the window--the rope."
+
+Morton opened the casement--Gawtrey uncoiled the rope. The dawn was
+breaking; it was light in the streets, but all seemed quiet without.
+The doors reeled and shook beneath the pressure of the pursuers. Gawtrey
+flung the rope across the street to the opposite parapet; after two or
+three efforts, the grappling-hook caught firm hold--the perilous path
+was made.
+
+"On!--quick!--loiter not!" whispered Gawtrey; "you are active--it seems
+more dangerous than it is--cling with both hands--shut your eyes.
+When on the other side--you see the window of Birnie's room,--enter
+it--descend the stairs--let yourself out, and you are safe."
+
+"Go first," said Morton, in the same tone: "I will not leave you now:
+you will be longer getting across than I shall. I will keep guard till
+you are over."
+
+"Hark! hark!--are you mad? You keep guard! what is your strength to
+mine? Twenty men shall not move that door, while my weight is against
+it. Quick, or you destroy us both! Besides, you will hold the rope for
+me, it may not be strong enough for my bulk in itself. Stay!--stay one
+moment. If you escape, and I fall--Fanny--my father, he will take care
+of her,--you remember--thanks! Forgive me all! Go; that's right!"
+
+With a firm impulse, Morton threw himself on the dreadful bridge; it
+swung and crackled at his weight. Shifting his grasp rapidly--holding
+his breath--with set teeth-with closed eyes--he moved on--he gained the
+parapet--he stood safe on the opposite side. And now, straining his eyes
+across, he saw through the open casement into the chamber he had just
+quitted. Gawtrey was still standing against the door to the principal
+staircase, for that of the two was the weaker and the more assailed.
+Presently the explosion of a fire-arm was heard; they had shot through
+the panel. Gawtrey seemed wounded, for he staggered forward, and uttered
+a fierce cry; a moment more, and he gained the window--he seized the
+rope--he hung over the tremendous depth! Morton knelt by the parapet,
+holding the grappling-hook in its place, with convulsive grasp, and
+fixing his eyes, bloodshot with fear and suspense, on the huge bulk that
+clung for life to that slender cord!
+
+"Le voiles! Le voiles!" cried a voice from the opposite side. Morton
+raised his gaze from Gawtrey; the casement was darkened by the forms of
+his pursuers--they had burst into the room--an officer sprang upon the
+parapet, and Gawtrey, now aware of his danger, opened his eyes, and as
+he moved on, glared upon the foe. The policeman deliberately raised his
+pistol--Gawtrey arrested himself--from a wound in his side the blood
+trickled slowly and darkly down, drop by drop, upon the stones
+below; even the officers of law shuddered as they eyed him--his hair
+bristling--his cheek white--his lips drawn convulsively from his teeth,
+and his eyes glaring from beneath the frown of agony and menace in which
+yet spoke the indomitable power and fierceness of the man. His look, so
+fixed--so intense--so stern, awed the policeman; his hand trembled as
+he fired, and the ball struck the parapet an inch below the spot where
+Morton knelt. An indistinct, wild, gurgling sound-half-laugh, half-yell
+of scorn and glee, broke from Gawtrey's lips. He swung himself
+on--near--near--nearer--a yard from the parapet.
+
+"You are saved!" cried Morton; when at the moment a volley burst from
+the fatal casement--the smoke rolled over both the fugitives--a groan,
+or rather howl, of rage, and despair, and agony, appalled even the
+hardest on whose ear it came. Morton sprang to his feet and looked
+below. He saw on the rugged stones far down, a dark, formless,
+motionless mass--the strong man of passion and levity--the giant who had
+played with life and soul, as an infant with the baubles that it prizes
+and breaks--was what the Caesar and the leper alike are, when the clay
+is without God's breath--what glory, genius, power, and beauty, would be
+for ever and for ever, if there were no God!
+
+"There is another!" cried the voice of one of the pursuers. "Fire!"
+
+"Poor Gawtrey!" muttered Philip. "I will fulfil your last wish;" and
+scarcely conscious of the bullet that whistled by him, he disappeared
+behind the parapet.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+             "Gently moved
+     By the soft wind of whispering silks."--DECKER.
+
+The reader may remember that while Monsieur Favart and Mr. Birnie were
+holding commune in the lane, the sounds of festivity were heard from a
+house in the adjoining street. To that house we are now summoned.
+
+At Paris, the gaieties of balls, or soirees, are, I believe, very rare
+in that period of the year in which they are most frequent in London.
+The entertainment now given was in honour of a christening; the lady who
+gave it, a relation of the new-born.
+
+Madame de Merville was a young widow; even before her marriage she had
+been distinguished in literature; she had written poems of more than
+common excellence; and being handsome, of good family, and large
+fortune, her talents made her an object of more interest than they might
+otherwise have done. Her poetry showed great sensibility and tenderness.
+If poetry be any index to the heart, you would have thought her one
+to love truly and deeply. Nevertheless, since she married--as girls in
+France do--not to please herself, but her parents, she made a mariage de
+convenance. Monsieur de Merville was a sober, sensible man, past middle
+age. Not being fond of poetry, and by no means coveting a professional
+author for his wife, he had during their union, which lasted four years,
+discouraged his wife's liaison with Apollo. But her mind, active and
+ardent, did not the less prey upon itself. At the age of four-and-twenty
+she became a widow, with an income large even in England for a single
+woman, and at Paris constituting no ordinary fortune. Madame de
+Merville, however, though a person of elegant taste, was neither
+ostentatious nor selfish; she had no children, and she lived quietly in
+apartments, handsome, indeed, but not more than adequate to the small
+establishment which--where, as on the Continent, the costly convenience
+of an entire house is not usually incurred--sufficed for her retinue.
+She devoted at least half her income, which was entirely at her own
+disposal, partly to the aid of her own relations, who were not rich, and
+partly to the encouragement of the literature she cultivated. Although
+she shrank from the ordeal of publication, her poems and sketches of
+romance were read to her own friends, and possessed an eloquence seldom
+accompanied with so much modesty. Thus, her reputation, though not blown
+about the winds, was high in her own circle, and her position in fashion
+and in fortune made her looked up to by her relations as the head of her
+family; they regarded her as femme superieure, and her advice with them
+was equivalent to a command. Eugenie de Merville was a strange mixture
+of qualities at once feminine and masculine. On the one hand, she had
+a strong will, independent views, some contempt for the world, and
+followed her own inclinations without servility to the opinion of
+others; on the other hand, she was susceptible, romantic, of a
+sweet, affectionate, kind disposition. Her visit to M. Love, however
+indiscreet, was not less in accordance with her character than her
+charity to the mechanic's wife; masculine and careless where an
+eccentric thing was to be done--curiosity satisfied, or some object in
+female diplomacy achieved--womanly, delicate, and gentle, the instant
+her benevolence was appealed to or her heart touched. She had now been
+three years a widow, and was consequently at the age of twenty-seven.
+Despite the tenderness of her poetry and her character, her reputation
+was unblemished. She had never been in love. People who are much
+occupied do not fall in love easily; besides, Madame de Merville
+was refining, exacting, and wished to find heroes where she only met
+handsome dandies or ugly authors. Moreover, Eugenie was both a vain and
+a proud person--vain of her celebrity and proud of her birth. She was
+one whose goodness of heart made her always active in promoting the
+happiness of others. She was not only generous and charitable, but
+willing to serve people by good offices as well as money. Everybody
+loved her. The new-born infant, to whose addition to the Christian
+community the fete of this night was dedicated, was the pledge of a
+union which Madame de Merville had managed to effect between two young
+persons, first cousins to each other, and related to herself. There had
+been scruples of parents to remove--money matters to adjust--Eugenie had
+smoothed all. The husband and wife, still lovers, looked up to her as
+the author, under Heaven, of their happiness.
+
+The gala of that night had been, therefore, of a nature more than
+usually pleasurable, and the mirth did not sound hollow, but wrung from
+the heart. Yet, as Eugenie from time to time contemplated the young
+people, whose eyes ever sought each other--so fair, so tender, and so
+joyous as they seemed--a melancholy shadow darkened her brow, and she
+sighed involuntarily. Once the young wife, Madame d'Anville, approaching
+her timidly, said:
+
+"Ah! my sweet cousin, when shall we see you as happy as ourselves? There
+is such happiness," she added, innocently, and with a blush, "in being
+a mother!--that little life all one's own--it is something to think of
+every hour!"
+
+"Perhaps," said Eugenie, smiling, and seeking to turn the conversation
+from a subject that touched too nearly upon feelings and thoughts her
+pride did not wish to reveal--"perhaps it is you, then, who have made
+our cousin, poor Monsieur de Vaudemont, so determined to marry? Pray,
+be more cautious with him. How difficult I have found it to prevent his
+bringing into our family some one to make us all ridiculous!"
+
+"True," said Madame d'Anville, laughing. "But then, the Vicomte is so
+poor, and in debt. He would fall in love, not with the demoiselle, but
+the dower. A propos of that, how cleverly you took advantage of his
+boastful confession to break off his liaisons with that bureau de
+mariage."
+
+"Yes; I congratulate myself on that manoeuvre. Unpleasant as it was to
+go to such a place (for, of course, I could not send for Monsieur Love
+here), it would have been still more unpleasant to have received such
+a Madame de Vaudemont as our cousin would have presented to us. Only
+think--he was the rival of an epicier! I heard that there was some
+curious denouement to the farce of that establishment; but I could never
+get from Vaudemont the particulars. He was ashamed of them, I fancy."
+
+"What droll professions there are in Paris!" said Madame d'Anville. "As
+if people could not marry without going to an office for a spouse as we
+go for a servant! And so the establishment is broken up? And you never
+again saw that dark, wild-looking boy who so struck your fancy that you
+have taken him as the original for the Murillo sketch of the youth in
+that charming tale you read to us the other evening? Ah! cousin, I
+think you were a little taken with him. The bureau de mariage had its
+allurements for you as well as for our poor cousin!" The young mother
+said this laughingly and carelessly.
+
+"Pooh!" returned Madame de Merville, laughing also; but a slight blush
+broke over her natural paleness. "But a propos of the Vicomte. You
+know how cruelly he has behaved to that poor boy of his by his English
+wife--never seen him since he was an infant--kept him at some school in
+England; and all because his vanity does not like the world to know that
+he has a son of nineteen! Well, I have induced him to recall this poor
+youth."
+
+"Indeed! and how?"
+
+"Why," said Eugenie, with a smile, "he wanted a loan, poor man, and I
+could therefore impose conditions by way of interest. But I also managed
+to conciliate him to the proposition, by representing that, if the young
+man were good-looking, he might, himself, with our connections, &c.,
+form an advantageous marriage; and that in such a case, if the father
+treated him now justly and kindly, he would naturally partake with the
+father whatever benefits the marriage might confer."
+
+"Ah! you are an excellent diplomatist, Eugenie; and you turn people's
+heads by always acting from your heart. Hush! here comes the Vicomte!"
+
+"A delightful ball," said Monsieur de Vaudemont, approaching the
+hostess. "Pray, has that young lady yonder, in the pink dress, any
+fortune? She is pretty--eh? You observe she is looking at me--I mean at
+us!"
+
+"My dear cousin, what a compliment you pay to marriage! You have had two
+wives, and you are ever on the qui vive for a third!"
+
+"What would you have me do?--we cannot resist the overtures of your
+bewitching sex. Hum--what fortune has she?"
+
+"Not a sou; besides, she is engaged."
+
+"Oh! now I look at her, she is not pretty--not at all. I made a mistake.
+I did not mean her; I meant the young lady in blue."
+
+"Worse and worse--she is married already. Shall I present you?"
+
+"Ah, Monsieur de Vaudemont," said Madame d'Anville; "have you found out
+a new bureau de mariage?"
+
+The Vicomte pretended not to hear that question. But, turning to
+Eugenie, took her aside, and said, with an air in which he endeavoured
+to throw a great deal of sorrow, "You know, my dear cousin, that, to
+oblige you, I consented to send for my son, though, as I always said,
+it is very unpleasant for a man like me, in the prime of life, to hawk
+about a great boy of nineteen or twenty. People soon say, 'Old Vaudemont
+and younq Vaudemont.' However, a father's feelings are never appealed to
+in vain." (Here the Vicomte put his handkerchief to his eyes, and after
+a pause, continued,)--"I sent for him--I even went to your old bonne,
+Madame Dufour, to make a bargain for her lodgings, and this day--guess
+my grief--I received a letter sealed with black. My son is dead!--a
+sudden fever--it is shocking!"
+
+"Horrible! dead!--your own son, whom you hardly ever saw--never since he
+was an Infant!"
+
+"Yes, that softens the blow very much. And now you see I must marry. If
+the boy had been good-looking, and like me, and so forth, why, as you
+observed, he might have made a good match, and allowed me a certain sum,
+or we could have all lived together."
+
+"And your son is dead, and you come to a ball!"
+
+"Je suis philosophe," said the Vicomte, shrugging his shoulders. "And,
+as you say, I never saw him. It saves me seven hundred francs a-year.
+Don't say a word to any one--I sha'n't give out that he is dead, poor
+fellow! Pray be discreet: you see there are some ill-natured people who
+might think it odd I do not shut myself up. I can wait till Paris is
+quite empty. It would be a pity to lose any opportunity at present, for
+now, you see, I must marry!" And the philosophe sauntered away.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+          GUIOMAR.
+     "Those devotions I am to pay
+     Are written in my heart, not in this book."
+
+         Enter RUTILIO.
+     "I am pursued--all the ports are stopped too,
+     Not any hope to escape--behind, before me,
+     On either side, I am beset."
+     BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, The Custom of the Country
+
+The party were just gone--it was already the peep of day--the wheels of
+the last carriage had died in the distance.
+
+Madame de Merville had dismissed her woman, and was seated in her own
+room, leaning her head musingly on her hand.
+
+Beside her was the table that held her MSS. and a few books, amidst
+which were scattered vases of flowers. On a pedestal beneath the window
+was placed a marble bust of Dante. Through the open door were seen in
+perspective two rooms just deserted by her guests; the lights still
+burned in the chandeliers and girandoles, contending with the daylight
+that came through the half-closed curtains. The person of the inmate was
+in harmony with the apartment. It was characterised by a certain grace
+which, for want of a better epithet, writers are prone to call classical
+or antique. Her complexion, seeming paler than usual by that light, was
+yet soft and delicate--the features well cut, but small and womanly.
+About the face there was that rarest of all charms, the combination of
+intellect with sweetness; the eyes, of a dark blue, were thoughtful,
+perhaps melancholy, in their expression; but the long dark lashes, and
+the shape of the eyes, themselves more long than full, gave to their
+intelligence a softness approaching to languor, increased, perhaps, by
+that slight shadow round and below the orbs which is common with those
+who have tasked too much either the mind or the heart. The contour of
+the face, without being sharp or angular, had yet lost a little of
+the roundness of earlier youth; and the hand on which she leaned was,
+perhaps, even too white, too delicate, for the beauty which belongs to
+health; but the throat and bust were of exquisite symmetry.
+
+"I am not happy," murmured Eugenie to herself; "yet I scarce know why.
+Is it really, as we women of romance have said till the saying is worn
+threadbare, that the destiny of women is not fame but love. Strange,
+then, that while I have so often pictured what love should be, I have
+never felt it. And now,--and now," she continued, half rising, and
+with a natural pang--"now I am no longer in my first youth. If I loved,
+should I be loved again? How happy the young pair seemed--they are never
+alone!"
+
+At this moment, at a distance, was heard the report of fire-arms--again!
+Eugenie started, and called to her servant, who, with one of the
+waiters hired for the night, was engaged in removing, and nibbling as
+he removed, the remains of the feast. "What is that, at this hour?--open
+the window and look out!"
+
+"I can see nothing, madame."
+
+"Again--that is the third time. Go into the street and look--some one
+must be in danger."
+
+The servant and the waiter, both curious, and not willing to part
+company, ran down the stairs, and thence into the street.
+
+Meanwhile, Morton, after vainly attempting Birnie's window, which the
+traitor had previously locked and barred against the escape of his
+intended victim, crept rapidly along the roof, screened by the parapet
+not only from the shot but the sight of the foe. But just as he gained
+the point at which the lane made an angle with the broad street it
+adjoined, he cast his eyes over the parapet, and perceived that one
+of the officers had ventured himself to the fearful bridge; he was
+pursued--detection and capture seemed inevitable. He paused, and
+breathed hard. He, once the heir to such fortunes, the darling of such
+affections!--he, the hunted accomplice of a gang of miscreants! That was
+the thought that paralysed--the disgrace, not the danger. But he was in
+advance of the pursuer--he hastened on--he turned the angle--he heard a
+shout behind from the opposite side--the officer had passed the bridge:
+"it is but one man as yet," thought he, and his nostrils dilated and his
+hands clenched as he glided on, glancing at each casement as he passed.
+
+Now as youth and vigour thus struggled against Law for life, near at
+hand Death was busy with toil and disease. In a miserable grabat,
+or garret, a mechanic, yet young, and stricken by a lingering malady
+contracted by the labour of his occupation, was slowly passing from that
+world which had frowned on his cradle, and relaxed not the gloom of its
+aspect to comfort his bed of Death. Now this man had married for love,
+and his wife had loved him; and it was the cares of that early marriage
+which had consumed him to the bone. But extreme want, if long continued,
+eats up love when it has nothing else to eat. And when people are very
+long dying, the people they fret and trouble begin to think of that too
+often hypocritical prettiness of phrase called "a happy release." So the
+worn-out and half-famished wife did not care three straws for the dying
+husband, whom a year or two ago she had vowed to love and cherish in
+sickness and in health. But still she seemed to care, for she moaned,
+and pined, and wept, as the man's breath grew fainter and fainter.
+
+"Ah, Jean!" said she, sobbing, "what will become of me, a poor lone
+widow, with nobody to work for my bread?" And with that thought she took
+on worse than before.
+
+"I am stifling," said the dying man, rolling round his ghastly
+eyes. "How hot it is! Open the window; I should like to see the
+light--daylight once again."
+
+"Mon Dieu! what whims he has, poor man!" muttered the woman, without
+stirring.
+
+The poor wretch put out his skeleton hand and clutched his wife's arm.
+
+"I sha'n't trouble you long, Marie! Air--air!"
+
+"Jean, you will make yourself worse--besides, I shall catch my death of
+cold. I have scarce a rag on, but I will just open the door."
+
+"Pardon me," groaned the sufferer; "leave me, then." Poor fellow!
+perhaps at that moment the thought of unkindness was sharper than the
+sharp cough which brought blood at every paroxysm. He did not like her
+so near him, but he did not blame her. Again, I say,--poor fellow! The
+woman opened the door, went to the other side of the room, and sat down
+on an old box and began darning an old neck-handkerchief. The silence
+was soon broken by the moans of the fast-dying man, and again he
+muttered, as he tossed to and fro, with baked white lips:
+
+"Je m'etoufee!--Air!"
+
+There was no resisting that prayer, it seemed so like the last. The wife
+laid down the needle, put the handkerchief round her throat, and opened
+the window.
+
+"Do you feel easier now?"
+
+"Bless you, Marie--yes; that's good--good. It puts me in mind of old
+days, that breath of air, before we came to Paris. I wish I could work
+for you now, Marie."
+
+"Jean! my poor Jean!" said the woman, and the words and the voice took
+back her hardening heart to the fresh fields and tender thoughts of the
+past time. And she walked up to the bed, and he leaned his temples, damp
+with livid dews, upon her breast.
+
+"I have been a sad burden to you, Marie; we should not have married so
+soon; but I thought I was stronger. Don't cry; we have no little ones,
+thank God. It will be much better for you when I am gone."
+
+And so, word after word gasped out--he stopped suddenly, and seemed to
+fall asleep.
+
+The wife then attempted gently to lay him once more on his pillow--the
+head fell back heavily--the jaw had dropped--the teeth were set--the
+eyes were open and like the stone--the truth broke on her!
+
+"Jean--Jean! My God, he is dead! and I was unkind to him at the last!"
+With these words she fell upon the corpse, happily herself insensible.
+
+Just at that moment a human face peered in at the window. Through that
+aperture, after a moment's pause, a young man leaped lightly into the
+room. He looked round with a hurried glance, but scarcely noticed the
+forms stretched on the pallet. It was enough for him that they seemed
+to sleep, and saw him not. He stole across the room, the door of which
+Marie had left open, and descended the stairs. He had almost gained
+the courtyard into which the stairs had conducted, when he heard voices
+below by the porter's lodge.
+
+"The police have discovered a gang of coiners!"
+
+"Coiners!"
+
+"Yes, one has been shot dead! I have seen his body in the kennel;
+another has fled along the roofs--a desperate fellow! We were to watch
+for him. Let us go up-stairs and get on the roof and look out."
+
+By the hum of approval that followed this proposition, Morton judged
+rightly that it had been addressed to several persons whom curiosity
+and the explosion of the pistols had drawn from their beds, and who were
+grouped round the porter's lodge. What was to be done?--to advance was
+impossible: and was there yet time to retreat?--it was at least the only
+course left him; he sprang back up the stairs; he had just gained the
+first flight when he heard steps descending; then, suddenly, it flashed
+across him that he had left open the window above--that, doubtless, by
+that imprudent oversight the officer in pursuit had detected a clue
+to the path he had taken. What was to be done?--die as Gawtrey had
+done!--death rather than the galleys. As he thus resolved, he saw to the
+right the open door of an apartment in which lights still glimmered
+in their sockets. It seemed deserted--he entered boldly and at once,
+closing the door after him. Wines and viands still left on the table;
+gilded mirrors, reflecting the stern face of the solitary intruder;
+here and there an artificial flower, a knot of riband on the floor, all
+betokening the gaieties and graces of luxurious life--the dance, the
+revel, the feast--all this in one apartment!--above, in the same house,
+the pallet--the corpse--the widow--famine and woe! Such is a great city!
+such, above all, is Paris! where, under the same roof, are gathered such
+antagonist varieties of the social state! Nothing strange in this; it
+is strange and sad that so little do people thus neighbours know of each
+other, that the owner of those rooms had a heart soft to every distress,
+but she did not know the distress so close at hand. The music that had
+charmed her guests had mounted gaily to the vexed ears of agony and
+hunger. Morton passed the first room--a second--he came to a third,
+and Eugenie de Merville, looking up at that instant, saw before her
+an apparition that might well have alarmed the boldest. His head was
+uncovered--his dark hair shadowed in wild and disorderly profusion the
+pale face and features, beautiful indeed, but at that moment of the
+beauty which an artist would impart to a young gladiator--stamped
+with defiance, menace, and despair. The disordered garb--the fierce
+aspect--the dark eyes, that literally shone through the shadows of the
+room--all conspired to increase the terror of so abrupt a presence.
+
+"What are you?--What do you seek here?" said she, falteringly, placing
+her hand on the bell as she spoke. Upon that soft hand Morton laid his
+own.
+
+"I seek my life! I am pursued! I am at your mercy! I am innocent! Can
+you save me?"
+
+As he spoke, the door of the outer room beyond was heard to open, and
+steps and voices were at hand.
+
+"Ah!" he exclaimed, recoiling as he recognised her face. "And is it to
+you that I have fled?"
+
+Eugenie also recognised the stranger; and there was something in their
+relative positions--the suppliant, the protectress--that excited both
+her imagination and her pity. A slight colour mantled to her cheeks--her
+look was gentle and compassionate.
+
+"Poor boy! so young!" she said. "Hush!"
+
+She withdrew her hand from his, retired a few steps, lifted a curtain
+drawn across a recess--and pointing to an alcove that contained one of
+those sofa-beds common in French houses, added in a whisper,--
+
+"Enter--you are saved."
+
+Morton obeyed, and Eugenie replaced the curtain.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+             GUIOMAR.
+     "Speak! What are you?"
+
+            RUTILIO.
+     "Gracious woman, hear me. I am a stranger:
+     And in that I answer all your demands."
+      Custom of the Country.
+
+Eugenie replaced the curtain. And scarcely had she done so ere the steps
+in the outer room entered the chamber where she stood. Her servant was
+accompanied by two officers of the police.
+
+"Pardon, madame," said one of the latter; "but we are in pursuit of
+a criminal. We think he must have entered this house through a window
+above while your servant was in the street. Permit us to search?"
+
+"Without doubt," answered Eugenie, seating herself. "If he has entered,
+look in the other apartments. I have not quitted this room."
+
+"You are right. Accept our apologies."
+
+And the officers turned back to examine every corner where the fugitive
+was not. For in that, the scouts of Justice resembled their mistress:
+when does man's justice look to the right place?
+
+The servant lingered to repeat the tale he had heard--the sight he had
+seen. When, at that instant, he saw the curtain of the alcove slightly
+stirred. He uttered an exclamation--sprung to the bed--his hand touched
+the curtain--Eugenie seized his arm. She did not speak; but as he turned
+his eyes to her, astonished, he saw that she trembled, and that her
+cheek was as white as marble.
+
+"Madame," he said, hesitating, "there is some one hid in the recess."
+
+"There is! Be silent!"
+
+A suspicion flashed across the servant's mind. The pure, the proud, the
+immaculate Eugenie!
+
+"There is!--and in madame's chamber!" he faltered unconsciously.
+
+Eugenie's quick apprehensions seized the foul thought. Her eyes
+flashed--her cheek crimsoned. But her lofty and generous nature
+conquered even the indignant and scornful burst that rushed to her lips.
+The truth!--could she trust the man? A doubt--and the charge of the
+human life rendered to her might be betrayed. Her colour fell--tears
+gushed to her eyes.
+
+"I have been kind to you, Francois. Not a word."
+
+"Madame confides in me--it is enough," said the Frenchman, bowing, with
+a slight smile on his lips; and he drew back respectfully.
+
+One of the police officers re-entered.
+
+"We have done, madame; he is not here. Aha! that curtain!"
+
+"It is madame's bed," said Francois. "But I have looked behind."
+
+"I am most sorry to have disarranged you," said the policeman, satisfied
+with the answer; "but we shall have him yet." And he retired.
+
+The last footsteps died away, the last door of the apartments closed
+behind the officers, and Eugenie and her servant stood alone gazing on
+each other.
+
+"You may retire," said she at last; and taking her purse from the table,
+she placed it in his hands.
+
+The man took it, with a significant look. "Madame may depend on my
+discretion."
+
+Eugenie was alone again. Those words rang in her ear,--Eugenie de
+Merville dependent on the discretion of her lackey! She sunk into her
+chair, and, her excitement succeeded by exhaustion, leaned her face on
+her hands, and burst into tears. She was aroused by a low voice; she
+looked up, and the young man was kneeling at her feet.
+
+"Go--go!" she said: "I have done for you all I can."
+
+"You heard--you heard--my own hireling, too! At the hazard of my own
+good name you are saved. Go!"
+
+"Of your good name!"--for Eugenie forgot that it was looks, not words,
+that had so wrung her pride--"Your good name," he repeated: and
+glancing round the room--the toilette, the curtain, the recess he had
+quitted--all that bespoke that chastest sanctuary of a chaste woman,
+which for a stranger to enter is, as it were, to profane--her meaning
+broke on him. "Your good name--your hireling! No, madame,--no!" And
+as he spoke, he rose to his feet. "Not for me, that sacrifice! Your
+humanity shall not cost you so dear. Ho, there! I am the man you seek."
+And he strode to the door.
+
+Eugenie was penetrated with the answer. She sprung to him--she grasped
+his garments.
+
+"Hush! hush!--for mercy's sake! What would you do? Think you I could
+ever be happy again, if the confidence you placed in me were betrayed?
+Be calm--be still. I knew not what I said. It will be easy to undeceive
+the man--later--when you are saved. And you are innocent,--are you not?"
+
+"Oh, madame," said Morton, "from my soul I say it, I am innocent--not of
+poverty--wretchedness--error--shame; I am innocent of crime. May Heaven
+bless you!"
+
+And as he reverently kissed the hand laid on his arm, there was
+something in his voice so touching, in his manner something so above his
+fortunes, that Eugenie was lost in her feelings of compassion, surprise,
+and something, it might be, of admiration in her wonder.
+
+"And, oh!" he said, passionately, gazing on her with his dark, brilliant
+eyes, liquid with emotion, "you have made my life sweet in saving it.
+You--you--of whom, ever since the first time, almost the sole time,
+I beheld you--I have so often mused and dreamed. Henceforth, whatever
+befall me, there will be some recollections that will--that--"
+
+He stopped short, for his heart was too full for words; and the silence
+said more to Eugenie than if all the eloquence of Rousseau had glowed
+upon his tongue.
+
+"And who, and what are you?" she asked, after a pause.
+
+"An exile--an orphan--an outcast! I have no name! Farewell!"
+
+"No--stay yet--the danger is not past. Wait till my servant is gone to
+rest; I hear him yet. Sit down--sit down. And whither would you go?"
+
+"I know not."
+
+"Have you no friends?"
+
+"Gone."
+
+"No home?"
+
+"None."
+
+"And the police of Paris so vigilant!" cried Eugenie, wringing her
+hands. "What is to be done? I shall have saved you in vain--you will be
+discovered! Of what do they charge you? Not robbery--not--"
+
+And she, too, stopped short, for she did not dare to breathe the black
+word, "Murder!"
+
+"I know not," said Morton, putting his hand to his forehead, "except of
+being friends with the only man who befriended me--and they have killed
+him!"
+
+"Another time you shall tell me all."
+
+"Another time!" he exclaimed, eagerly--"shall I see you again?"
+
+Eugenie blushed beneath the gaze and the voice of joy. "Yes," she said;
+"yes. But I must reflect. Be calm be silent. Ah!--a happy thought!"
+
+She sat down, wrote a hasty line, sealed, and gave it to Morton.
+
+"Take this note, as addressed, to Madame Dufour; it will provide you
+with a safe lodging. She is a person I can depend on--an old servant who
+lived with my mother, and to whom I have given a small pension. She
+has a lodging--it is lately vacant--I promised to procure her a
+tenant--go--say nothing of what has passed. I will see her, and arrange
+all. Wait!--hark!--all is still. I will go first, and see that no one
+watches you. Stop," (and she threw open the window, and looked into the
+court.) "The porter's door is open--that is fortunate! Hurry on, and God
+be with you!"
+
+In a few minutes Morton was in the streets. It was still early--the
+thoroughfares deserted-none of the shops yet open. The address on the
+note was to a street at some distance, on the other side of the Seine.
+He passed along the same Quai which he had trodden but a few hours
+since--he passed the same splendid bridge on which he had stood
+despairing, to quit it revived--he gained the Rue Faubourg St. Honore. A
+young man in a cabriolet, on whose fair cheek burned the hectic of
+late vigils and lavish dissipation, was rolling leisurely home from
+the gaming-house, at which he had been more than usually fortunate--his
+pockets were laden with notes and gold. He bent forwards as Morton
+passed him. Philip, absorbed in his reverie, perceived him not, and
+continued his way. The gentleman turned down one of the streets to the
+left, stopped, and called to the servant dozing behind his cabriolet.
+
+"Follow that passenger! quietly--see where he lodges; be sure to find
+out and let me know. I shall go home without you." With that he drove
+on.
+
+Philip, unconscious of the espionage, arrived at a small house in a
+quiet but respectable street, and rang the bell several times before at
+last he was admitted by Madame Dufour herself, in her nightcap. The old
+woman looked askant and alarmed at the unexpected apparition. But the
+note seemed at once to satisfy her. She conducted him to an apartment
+on the first floor, small, but neatly and even elegantly furnished,
+consisting of a sitting-room and a bedchamber, and said, quietly,--
+
+"Will they suit monsieur?"
+
+To monsieur they seemed a palace. Morton nodded assent.
+
+"And will monsieur sleep for a short time?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"The bed is well aired. The rooms have only been vacant three days
+since. Can I get you anything till your luggage arrives?"
+
+"No."
+
+The woman left him. He threw off his clothes--flung himself on the
+bed--and did not wake till noon.
+
+When his eyes unclosed--when they rested on that calm chamber, with its
+air of health, and cleanliness, and comfort, it was long before he could
+convince himself that he was yet awake. He missed the loud, deep
+voice of Gawtrey--the smoke of the dead man's meerschaum--the gloomy
+garret--the distained walls--the stealthy whisper of the loathed Birnie;
+slowly the life led and the life gone within the last twelve hours grew
+upon his struggling memory. He groaned, and turned uneasily round, when
+the door slightly opened, and he sprung up fiercely,--
+
+"Who is there?"
+
+"It is only I, sir," answered Madame Dufour. "I have been in three times
+to see if you were stirring. There is a letter I believe for you, sir;
+though there is no name to it," and she laid the letter on the chair
+beside him. Did it come from her--the saving angel? He seized it. The
+cover was blank; it was sealed with a small device, as of a ring seal.
+He tore it open, and found four billets de banque for 1,000 francs
+each,--a sum equivalent in our money to about L160.
+
+"Who sent this, the--the lady from whom I brought the note?"
+
+"Madame de Merville? certainly not, sir," said Madame Dufour, who, with
+the privilege of age, was now unscrupulously filling the water-jugs and
+settling the toilette-table. "A young man called about two hours after
+you had gone to bed; and, describing you, inquired if you lodged here,
+and what your name was. I said you had just arrived, and that I did
+not yet know your name. So he went away, and came again half an hour
+afterwards with this letter, which he charged me to deliver to you
+safely."
+
+"A young man--a gentleman?"
+
+"No, sir; he seemed a smart but common sort of lad." For the
+unsophisticated Madame Dufour did not discover in the plain black frock
+and drab gaiters of the bearer of that letter the simple livery of an
+English gentleman's groom.
+
+Whom could it come from, if not from Madame de Merville? Perhaps one of
+Gawtrey's late friends. A suspicion of Arthur Beaufort crossed him, but
+he indignantly dismissed it. Men are seldom credulous of what they are
+unwilling to believe. What kindness had the Beauforts hitherto shown
+him?--Left his mother to perish broken-hearted--stolen from him his
+brother, and steeled, in that brother, the only heart wherein he had a
+right to look for gratitude and love! No, it must be Madame de Merville.
+He dismissed Madame Dufour for pen and paper--rose--wrote a letter to
+Eugenie--grateful, but proud, and inclosed the notes. He then summoned
+Madame Dufour, and sent her with his despatch.
+
+"Ah, madame," said the ci-devant bonne, when she found herself in
+Eugenie's presence. "The poor lad! how handsome he is, and how shameful
+in the Vicomte to let him wear such clothes!"
+
+"The Vicomte!"
+
+"Oh, my dear mistress, you must not deny it. You told me, in your note,
+to ask him no questions, but I guessed at once. The Vicomte told me
+himself that he should have the young gentleman over in a few days. You
+need not be ashamed of him. You will see what a difference clothes will
+make in his appearance; and I have taken it on myself to order a tailor
+to go to him. The Vicomte--must pay me."
+
+"Not a word to the Vicomte as yet. We will surprise him," said Eugenie,
+laughing.
+
+Madame de Merville had been all that morning trying to invent some story
+to account for her interest in the lodger, and now how Fortune favoured
+her!
+
+"But is that a letter for me?"
+
+"And I had almost forgot it," said Madame Dufour, as she extended the
+letter.
+
+Whatever there had hitherto been in the circumstances connected with
+Morton, that had roused the interest and excited the romance of Eugenie
+de Merville, her fancy was yet more attracted by the tone of the letter
+she now read. For though Morton, more accustomed to speak than to write
+French, expressed himself with less precision, and a less euphuistic
+selection of phrase, than the authors and elegans who formed her usual
+correspondents; there was an innate and rough nobleness--a strong
+and profound feeling in every line of his letter, which increased her
+surprise and admiration.
+
+"All that surrounds him--all that belongs to him, is strangeness and
+mystery!" murmured she; and she sat down to reply.
+
+When Madame Dufour departed with that letter, Eugenie remained silent
+and thoughtful for more than an hour, Morton's letter before her; and
+sweet, in their indistinctness, were the recollections and the images
+that crowded on her mind.
+
+Morton, satisfied by the earnest and solemn assurances of Eugenie that
+she was not the unknown donor of the sum she reinclosed, after puzzling
+himself in vain to form any new conjectures as to the quarter whence it
+came, felt that under his present circumstances it would be an absurd
+Quixotism to refuse to apply what the very Providence to whom he had
+anew consigned himself seemed to have sent to his aid. And it placed
+him, too, beyond the offer of all pecuniary assistance from one from
+whom he could least have brooked to receive it. He consented, therefore,
+to all that the loquacious tailor proposed to him. And it would have
+been difficult to have recognised the wild and frenzied fugitive in the
+stately form, with its young beauty and air of well-born pride, which
+the next day sat by the side of Eugenie. And that day he told his sad
+and troubled story, and Eugenie wept: and from that day he came daily;
+and two weeks--happy, dreamlike, intoxicating to both--passed by; and as
+their last sun set, he was kneeling at her feet, and breathing to one to
+whom the homage of wit, and genius, and complacent wealth had hitherto
+been vainly proffered, the impetuous, agitated, delicious secrets of
+the First Love. He spoke, and rose to depart for ever--when the look and
+sigh detained him.
+
+The next day, after a sleepless night, Eugenie de Merville sent for the
+Vicomte de Vaudemont.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+        "A silver river small
+        In sweet accents
+        Its music vents;
+        The warbling virginal
+        To which the merry birds do sing,
+        Timed with stops of gold the silver string."
+        Sir Richard Fanshawe.
+
+One evening, several weeks after the events just commemorated, a
+stranger, leading in his hand, a young child, entered the churchyard
+of H----. The sun had not long set, and the short twilight of deepening
+summer reigned in the tranquil skies; you might still hear from the
+trees above the graves the chirp of some joyous bird;--what cared he,
+the denizen of the skies, for the dead that slept below?--what did
+he value save the greenness and repose of the spot,--to him alike
+the garden or the grave! As the man and the child passed, the robin,
+scarcely scared by their tread from the long grass beside one of the
+mounds, looked at them with its bright, blithe eye. It was a famous plot
+for the robin--the old churchyard! That domestic bird--"the friend of
+man," as it has been called by the poets--found a jolly supper among the
+worms!
+
+The stranger, on reaching the middle of the sacred ground, paused and
+looked round him wistfully. He then approached, slowly and hesitatingly,
+an oblong tablet, on which were graven, in letters yet fresh and new,
+these words:--
+
+
+                 TO THE
+         MEMORY OF ONE CALUMNIATED AND WRONGED
+           THIS BURIAL-STONE IS DEDICATED
+               BY HER SON.
+
+Such, with the addition of the dates of birth and death, was the tablet
+which Philip Morton had directed to be placed over his mother's bones;
+and around it was set a simple palisade, which defended it from the
+tread of the children, who sometimes, in defiance of the beadle, played
+over the dust of the former race.
+
+"Thy son!" muttered the stranger, while the child stood quietly by
+his side, pleased by the trees, the grass, the song of the birds, and
+reeking not of grief or death,--"thy son!--but not thy favoured son--thy
+darling--thy youngest born; on what spot of earth do thine eyes look
+down on him? Surely in heaven thy love has preserved the one whom on
+earth thou didst most cherish, from the sufferings and the trials that
+have visited the less-favoured outcast. Oh, mother--mother!--it was not
+his crime--not Philip's--that he did not fulfil to the last the trust
+bequeathed to him! Happier, perhaps, as it is! And, oh, if thy memory be
+graven as deeply in my brother's heart as my own, how often will it warn
+and save him! That memory!--it has been to me the angel of my life!
+To thee--to thee, even in death, I owe it, if, though erring, I am not
+criminal,--if I have lived with the lepers, and am still undefiled!" His
+lips then were silent--not his heart!
+
+After a few minutes thus consumed he turned to the child, and said,
+gently and in a tremulous voice, "Fanny, you have been taught to
+pray--you will live near this spot,--will you come sometimes here and
+pray that you may grow up good and innocent, and become a blessing to
+those who love you?"
+
+"Will papa ever come to hear me pray?"
+
+That sad and unconscious question went to the heart of Morton. The child
+could not comprehend death. He had sought to explain it, but she had
+been accustomed to consider her protector dead when he was absent from
+her, and she still insisted that he must come again to life. And that
+man of turbulence and crime, who had passed unrepentant, unabsolved,
+from sin to judgment: it was an awful question, "If he should hear her
+pray?"
+
+"Yes!" said he, after a pause,--"yes, Fanny, there is a Father who will
+hear you pray; and pray to Him to be merciful to those who have been
+kind to you. Fanny, you and I may never meet again!"
+
+"Are you going to die too? Mechant, every one dies to Fanny!" and,
+clinging to him endearingly, she put up her lips to kiss him. He took
+her in his arms: and, as a tear fell upon her rosy cheek, she said,
+"Don't cry, brother, for I love you."
+
+"Do you, dear Fanny? Then, for my sake, when you come to this place, if
+any one will give you a few flowers, scatter them on that stone. And now
+we will go to one whom you must love also, and to whom, as I have told
+you, he sends you; he who--Come!"
+
+As he thus spoke, and placed Fanny again on the ground, he was startled
+to see: precisely on the spot where he had seen before the like
+apparition--on the same spot where the father had cursed the son, the
+motionless form of an old man. Morton recognised, as if by an instinct
+rather than by an effort of the memory, the person to whom he was bound.
+
+He walked slowly towards him; but Fanny abruptly left his side, lured by
+a moth that flitted duskily over the graves.
+
+"Your name, sir, I think, is Simon Gawtrey?" said Morton. "I have came
+to England in quest of you."
+
+"Of me?" said the old man, half rising, and his eyes, now completely
+blind, rolled vacantly over Morton's person--"Of me?--for what?--Who are
+you?--I don't know your voice!"
+
+"I come to you from your son!"
+
+"My son!" exclaimed the old man, with great vehemence,--"the
+reprobate!--the dishonoured!--the infamous!--the accursed--"
+
+"Hush! you revile the dead!"
+
+"Dead!" muttered the wretched father, tottering back to the seat he had
+quitted,--"dead!" and the sound of his voice was so full of anguish,
+that the dog at his feet, which Morton had not hitherto perceived,
+echoed it with a dismal cry, that recalled to Philip the awful day in
+which he had seen the son quit the father for the last time on earth.
+
+The sound brought Fanny to the spot; and, with a laugh of delight, which
+made to it a strange contrast, she threw herself on the grass beside the
+dog and sought to entice it to play. So there, in that place of death,
+were knit together the four links in the Great Chain;--lusty and
+blooming life--desolate and doting age--infancy, yet scarce conscious of
+a soul--and the dumb brute, that has no warrant of a Hereafter!
+
+"Dead!--dead!" repeated the old man, covering his sightless balls with
+his withered hands. "Poor William!"
+
+"He remembered you to the last. He bade me seek you out--he bade me
+replace the guilty son with a thing pure and innocent, as he had been
+had he died in his cradle--a child to comfort your old age! Kneel,
+Fanny, I have found you a father who will cherish you--(oh! you will,
+sir, will you not?)--as he whom you may see no more!"
+
+There was something in Morton's voice so solemn, that it awed and
+touched both the old man and the infant; and Fanny, creeping to the
+protector thus assigned to her, and putting her little hands confidingly
+on his knees, said--
+
+"Fanny will love you if papa wished it. Kiss Fanny."
+
+"Is it his child--his?" said the blind man, sobbing. "Come to my heart;
+here--here! O God, forgive me!" Morton did not think it right at that
+moment to undeceive him with regard to the poor child's true connexion
+with the deceased: and he waited in silence till Simon, after a burst of
+passionate grief and tenderness, rose, and still clasping the child to
+his breast, said--
+
+"Sir, forgive me!--I am a very weak old man--I have many thanks to
+give--I have much, too, to learn. My poor son! he did not die in
+want,--did he?"
+
+The particulars of Gawtrey's fate, with his real name and the various
+aliases he had assumed, had appeared in the French journals, had been
+partially copied into the English; and Morton had expected to have
+been saved the painful narrative of that fearful death; but the utter
+seclusion of the old man, his infirmity, and his estranged habits, had
+shut him out from the intelligence that it now devolved on Philip to
+communicate. Morton hesitated a little before he answered:
+
+"It is late now; you are not yet prepared to receive this poor infant at
+your home, nor to hear the details I have to state. I arrived in England
+but to-day. I shall lodge in the neighbourhood, for it is dear to me.
+If I may feel sure, then, that you will receive and treasure this sacred
+and last deposit bequeathed to you by your unhappy son, I will bring my
+charge to you to-morrow, and we will then, more calmly than we can now,
+talk over the past."
+
+"You do not answer my question," said Simon, passionately; "answer that,
+and I will wait for the rest. They call me a miser! Did I send out my
+only child to starve? Answer that!"
+
+"Be comforted. He did not die in want; and he has even left some little
+fortune for Fanny, which I was to place in your hands."
+
+"And he thought to bribe the old miser to be human! Well--well--well--I
+will go home."
+
+"Lean on me!"
+
+The dog leapt playfully on his master as the latter rose, and Fanny slid
+from Simon's arms to caress and talk to the animal in her own way. As
+they slowly passed through the churchyard Simon muttered incoherently to
+himself for several paces, and Morton would not disturb, since he could
+not comfort, him.
+
+At last he said abruptly, "Did my son repent?"
+
+"I hoped," answered Morton, evasively, "that, had his life been spared,
+he would have amended!"
+
+"Tush, sir!--I am past seventy; we repent!--we never amend!" And Simon
+again sunk into his own dim and disconnected reveries.
+
+At length they arrived at the blind man's house. The door was opened to
+them by an old woman of disagreeable and sinister aspect, dressed out
+much too gaily for the station of a servant, though such was her reputed
+capacity; but the miser's affliction saved her from the chance of his
+comment on her extravagance. As she stood in the doorway with a candle
+in her hand, she scanned curiously, and with no welcoming eye, her
+master's companions.
+
+"Mrs. Boxer, my son is dead!" said Simon, in a hollow voice.
+
+"And a good thing it is, then, sir!"
+
+"For shame, woman!" said Morton, indignantly.
+
+"Hey-dey! sir! whom have we got here?"
+
+"One," said Simon, sternly, "whom you will treat with respect. He brings
+me a blessing to lighten my loss. One harsh word to this child, and you
+quit my house!"
+
+The woman looked perfectly thunderstruck; but, recovering herself, she
+said, whiningly--
+
+"I! a harsh word to anything my dear, kind master cares for. And, Lord,
+what a sweet pretty creature it is! Come here, my dear!"
+
+But Fanny shrunk back, and would not let go Philip's hand.
+
+"To-morrow, then," said Morton; and he was turning away, when a sudden
+thought seemed to cross the old man,--
+
+"Stay, sir--stay! I--I--did my son say I was rich? I am very, very
+poor--nothing in the house, or I should have been robbed long ago!"
+
+"Your son told me to bring money, not to ask for it!"
+
+"Ask for it! No; but," added the old man, and a gleam of cunning
+intelligence shot over his face,--"but he had got into a bad set.
+Ask!--No!--Put up the door-chain, Mrs. Boxer!"
+
+It was with doubt and misgivings that Morton, the next day, consigned
+the child, who had already nestled herself into the warmest core of
+his heart, to the care of Simon. Nothing short of that superstitious
+respect, which all men owe to the wishes of the dead, would have made
+him select for her that asylum; for Fate had now, in brightening his
+own prospects, given him an alternative in the benevolence of Madame de
+Merville. But Gawtrey had been so earnest on the subject, that he felt
+as if he had no right to hesitate. And was it not a sort of atonement to
+any faults the son might have committed against the parent, to place by
+the old man's hearth so sweet a charge?
+
+The strange and peculiar mind and character of Fanny made him, however,
+yet more anxious than otherwise he might have been. She certainly
+deserved not the harsh name of imbecile or idiot, but she was different
+from all other children; she felt more acutely than most of her age, but
+she could not be taught to reason. There was something either oblique
+or deficient in her intellect, which justified the most melancholy
+apprehensions; yet often, when some disordered, incoherent, inexplicable
+train of ideas most saddened the listener, it would be followed by
+fancies so exquisite in their strangeness, or feelings so endearing in
+their tenderness, that suddenly she seemed as much above, as before she
+seemed below, the ordinary measure of infant comprehension. She was like
+a creature to which Nature, in some cruel but bright caprice, has given
+all that belongs to poetry, but denied all that belongs to the common
+understanding necessary to mankind; or, as a fairy changeling, not,
+indeed, according to the vulgar superstition, malignant and deformed,
+but lovelier than the children of men, and haunted by dim and struggling
+associations of a gentler and fairer being, yet wholly incapable to
+learn the dry and hard elements which make up the knowledge of actual
+life.
+
+Morton, as well as he could, sought to explain to Simon the
+peculiarities in Fanny's mental constitution. He urged on him the
+necessity of providing for her careful instruction, and Simon promised
+to send her to the best school the neighbourhood could afford; but, as
+the old man spoke, he dwelt so much on the supposed fact that Fanny was
+William's daughter, and with his remorse, or affection, there ran so
+interwoven a thread of selfishness and avarice, that Morton thought it
+would be dangerous to his interest in the child to undeceive his error.
+He, therefore,--perhaps excusably enough--remained silent on that
+subject.
+
+Gawtrey had placed with the superior of the convent, together with an
+order to give up the child to any one who should demand her in his true
+name, which he confided to the superior, a sum of nearly L300., which he
+solemnly swore had been honestly obtained, and which, in all his shifts
+and adversities, he had never allowed himself to touch. This sum, with
+the trifling deduction made for arrears due to the convent, Morton now
+placed in Simon's hands. The old man clutched the money, which was
+for the most in French gold, with a convulsive gripe: and then, as if
+ashamed of the impulse, said--
+
+"But you, sir--will any sum--that is, any reasonable sum--be of use to
+you?"
+
+"No! and if it were, it is neither yours nor mine--it is hers. Save it
+for her, and add to it what you can."
+
+While this conversation took place, Fanny had been consigned to the care
+of Mrs. Boxer, and Philip now rose to see and bid her farewell before he
+departed.
+
+"I may come again to visit you, Mr. Gawtrey; and I pray Heaven to
+find that you and Fanny have been a mutual blessing to each other. Oh,
+remember how your son loved her!"
+
+"He had a good heart, in spite of all his sins. Poor William!" said
+Simon.
+
+Philip Morton heard, and his lip curled with a sad and a just disdain.
+
+If when, at the age of nineteen, William Gawtrey had quitted his
+father's roof, the father had then remembered that the son's heart was
+good,--the son had been alive still, an honest and a happy man. Do ye
+not laugh, O ye all-listening Fiends! when men praise those dead whose
+virtues they discovered not when alive? It takes much marble to build
+the sepulchre--how little of lath and plaster would have repaired the
+garret!
+
+On turning into a small room adjoining the parlour in which Gawtrey
+sat, Morton found Fanny standing gloomily by a dull, soot-grimed window,
+which looked out on the dead walls of a small yard. Mrs. Boxer, seated
+by a table, was employed in trimming a cap, and putting questions to
+Fanny in that falsetto voice of endearment in which people not used to
+children are apt to address them.
+
+"And so, my dear, they've never taught you to read or write? You've been
+sadly neglected, poor thing!"
+
+"We must do our best to supply the deficiency," said Morton, as he
+entered.
+
+"Bless me, sir, is that you?" and the gouvernante bustled up and dropped
+a low courtesy; for Morton, dressed then in the garb of a gentleman, was
+of a mien and person calculated to strike the gaze of the vulgar.
+
+"Ah, brother!" cried Fanny, for by that name he had taught her to call
+him; and she flew to his side. "Come away--it's ugly there--it makes me
+cold."
+
+"My child, I told you you must stay; but I shall hope to see you again
+some day. Will you not be kind to this poor creature, ma'am? Forgive me,
+if I offended you last night, and favour me by accepting this, to show
+that we are friends." As he spoke, he slid his purse into the woman's
+hand. "I shall feel ever grateful for whatever you can do for Fanny."
+
+"Fanny wants nothing from any one else; Fanny wants her brother."
+
+"Sweet child! I fear she don't take to me. Will you like me, Miss
+Fanny?"
+
+"No! get along!"
+
+"Fie, Fanny--you remember you did not take to me at first. But she is so
+affectionate, ma'am; she never forgets a kindness."
+
+"I will do all I can to please her, sir. And so she is really master's
+grandchild?" The woman fixed her eyes, as she spoke, so intently on
+Morton, that he felt embarrassed, and busied himself, without answering,
+in caressing and soothing Fanny, who now seemed to awake to the
+affliction about to visit her; for though she did not weep--she very
+rarely wept--her slight frame trembled--her eyes closed--her cheeks,
+even her lips, were white--and her delicate hands were clasped tightly
+round the neck of the one about to abandon her to strange breasts.
+
+Morton was greatly moved. "One kiss, Fanny! and do not forget me when we
+meet again."
+
+The child pressed her lips to his cheek, but the lips were cold. He put
+her down gently; she stood mute and passive.
+
+"Remember that he wished me to leave you here," whispered Morton, using
+an argument that never failed. "We must obey him; and so--God bless you,
+Fanny!"
+
+He rose and retreated to the door; the child unclosed her eyes, and
+gazed at him with a strained, painful, imploring gaze; her lips moved,
+but she did not speak. Morton could not bear that silent woe. He sought
+to smile on her consolingly; but the smile would not come. He closed the
+door, and hurried from the house.
+
+From that day Fanny settled into a kind of dreary, inanimate stupor,
+which resembled that of the somnambulist whom the magnetiser forgets
+to waken. Hitherto, with all the eccentricities or deficiencies of her
+mind, had mingled a wild and airy gaiety. That was vanished. She spoke
+little--she never played--no toys could lure her--even the poor dog
+failed to win her notice. If she was told to do anything she stared
+vacantly and stirred not. She evinced, however, a kind of dumb regard to
+the old blind man; she would creep to his knees and sit there for
+hours, seldom answering when he addressed her, but uneasy, anxious, and
+restless, if he left her.
+
+"Will you die too?" she asked once; the old man understood her not, and
+she did not try to explain. Early one morning, some days after Morton
+was gone, they missed her: she was not in the house, nor the dull yard
+where she was sometimes dismissed and told to play--told in vain. In
+great alarm the old man accused Mrs. Boxer of having spirited her away,
+and threatened and stormed so loudly that the woman, against her will,
+went forth to the search. At last she found the child in the churchyard,
+standing wistfully beside a tomb.
+
+"What do you here, you little plague?" said Mrs. Boxer, rudely seizing
+her by the arm.
+
+"This is the way they will both come back some day! I dreamt so!"
+
+"If ever I catch you here again!" said the housekeeper, and, wiping her
+brow with one hand, she struck the child with the other. Fanny had never
+been struck before. She recoiled in terror and amazement, and, for the
+first time since her arrival, burst into tears.
+
+"Come--come, no crying! and if you tell master I'll beat you within
+an inch of your life!" So saying, she caught Fanny in her arms, and,
+walking about, scolding and menacing, till she had frightened back the
+child's tears, she returned triumphantly to the house, and bursting into
+the parlour, exclaimed, "Here's the little darling, sir!"
+
+When old Simon learned where the child had been found he was glad; for
+it was his constant habit, whenever the evening was fine, to glide out
+to that churchyard--his dog his guide--and sit on his one favourite
+spot opposite the setting sun. This, not so much for the sanctity of
+the place, or the meditations it might inspire, as because it was the
+nearest, the safest, and the loneliest spot in the neighbourhood of his
+home, where the blind man could inhale the air and bask in the light of
+heaven. Hitherto, thinking it sad for the child, he had never taken
+her with him; indeed, at the hour of his monotonous excursion she had
+generally been banished to bed. Now she was permitted to accompany him;
+and the old man and the infant would sit there side by side, as Age and
+Infancy rested side by side in the graves below. The first symptom of
+childlike interest and curiosity that Fanny betrayed was awakened by the
+affliction of her protector. One evening, as they thus sat, she made him
+explain what the desolation of blindness is. She seemed to
+comprehend him, though he did not seek to adapt his complaints to her
+understanding.
+
+"Fanny knows," said she, touchingly; "for she, too, is blind here;" and
+she pressed her hands to her temples. Notwithstanding her silence and
+strange ways, and although he could not see the exquisite loveliness
+which Nature, as in remorseful pity, had lavished on her outward form,
+Simon soon learned to love her better than he had ever loved yet: for
+they most cold to the child are often dotards to the grandchild. For
+her even his avarice slept. Dainties, never before known at his sparing
+board, were ordered to tempt her appetite, toy-shops ransacked to amuse
+her indolence. He was long, however, before he could prevail on himself
+to fulfil his promise to Morton, and rob himself of her presence.
+At length, however, wearied with Mrs. Boxer's lamentations at her
+ignorance, and alarmed himself at some evidences of helplessness, which
+made him dread to think what her future might be when left alone in
+life, he placed her at a day-school in the suburb. Here Fanny, for a
+considerable time, justified the harshest assertions of her stupidity.
+She could not even keep her eyes two minutes together on the page from
+which she was to learn the mysteries of reading; months passed before
+she mastered the alphabet, and, a month after, she had again forgot it,
+and the labour was renewed. The only thing in which she showed ability,
+if so it might be called, was in the use of the needle. The sisters of
+the convent had already taught her many pretty devices in this art;
+and when she found that at the school they were admired--that she was
+praised instead of blamed--her vanity was pleased, and she learned
+so readily all that they could teach in this not unprofitable
+accomplishment, that Mrs. Boxer slyly and secretly turned her tasks
+to account and made a weekly perquisite of the poor pupil's industry.
+Another faculty she possessed, in common with persons usually deficient,
+and with the lower species--viz., a most accurate and faithful
+recollection of places. At first Mrs. Boxer had been duly sent, morning,
+noon, and evening, to take her to, or bring her from, the school; but
+this was so great a grievance to Simon's solitary superintendent, and
+Fanny coaxed the old man so endearingly to allow her to go and return
+alone, that the attendance, unwelcome to both, was waived. Fanny exulted
+in this liberty; and she never, in going or in returning, missed passing
+through the burial-ground, and gazing wistfully at the tomb from which
+she yet believed Morton would one day reappear. With his memory she
+cherished also that of her earlier and more guilty protector; but they
+were separate feelings, which she distinguished in her own way.
+
+"Papa had given her up. She knew that he would not have sent her away,
+far--far over the great water, if he had meant to see Fanny again; but
+her brother was forced to leave her--he would come to life one day, and
+then they should live together!"
+
+One day, towards the end of autumn, as her schoolmistress, a good woman
+on the whole, but who had not yet had the wit to discover by what chords
+to tune the instrument, over which so wearily she drew her unskilful
+hand--one day, we say, the schoolmistress happened to be dressed for
+a christening party to which she was invited in the suburb; and,
+accordingly, after the morning lessons, the pupils were to be dismissed
+to a holiday. As Fanny now came last, with the hopeless spelling-book,
+she stopped suddenly short, and her eyes rested with avidity upon a
+large bouquet of exotic flowers, with which the good lady had enlivened
+the centre of the parted kerchief, whose yellow gauze modestly veiled
+that tender section of female beauty which poets have likened to hills
+of snow--a chilling simile! It was then autumn; and field, and even
+garden flowers were growing rare.
+
+"Will you give me one of those flowers?" said Fanny, dropping her book.
+
+"One of these flowers, child! why?"
+
+Fanny did not answer; but one of the elder and cleverer girls said--
+
+"Oh! she comes from France, you know, ma'am, and the Roman Catholics put
+flowers, and ribands, and things, over the graves; you recollect, ma'am,
+we were reading yesterday about Pere-la-Chaise?"
+
+"Well! what then?"
+
+"And Miss Fanny will do any kind of work for us if we will give her
+flowers."
+
+"My brother told me where to put them;--but these pretty flowers, I
+never had any like them; they may bring him back again! I'll be so good
+if you'll give me one, only one!"
+
+"Will you learn your lesson if I do, Fanny?"
+
+"Oh! yes! Wait a moment!"
+
+And Fanny stole back to her desk, put the hateful book resolutely before
+her, pressed both hands tightly on her temples,--Eureka! the chord was
+touched; and Fanny marched in triumph through half a column of hostile
+double syllables!
+
+From that day the schoolmistress knew how to stimulate her, and Fanny
+learned to read: her path to knowledge thus literally strewn with
+flowers! Catherine, thy children were far off, and thy grave looked gay!
+
+It naturally happened that those short and simple rhymes, often sacred,
+which are repeated in schools as helps to memory, made a part of her
+studies; and no sooner had the sound of verse struck upon her fancy than
+it seemed to confuse and agitate anew all her senses. It was like the
+music of some breeze, to which dance and tremble all the young leaves
+of a wild plant. Even when at the convent she had been fond of repeating
+the infant rhymes with which they had sought to lull or to amuse her,
+but now the taste was more strongly developed. She confounded, however,
+in meaningless and motley disorder, the various snatches of song
+that came to her ear, weaving them together in some form which she
+understood, but which was jargon to all others; and often, as she went
+alone through the green lanes or the bustling streets, the passenger
+would turn in pity and fear to hear her half chant--half murmur--ditties
+that seemed to suit only a wandering and unsettled imagination. And as
+Mrs. Boxer, in her visits to the various shops in the suburb, took
+care to bemoan her hard fate in attending to a creature so evidently
+moon-stricken, it was no wonder that the manner and habits of the child,
+coupled with that strange predilection to haunt the burial-ground, which
+is not uncommon with persons of weak and disordered intellect; confirmed
+the character thus given to her.
+
+So, as she tripped gaily and lightly along the thoroughfares, the
+children would draw aside from her path, and whisper with superstitious
+fear mingled with contempt, "It's the idiot girl!"--Idiot--how much more
+of heaven's light was there in that cloud than in the rushlights
+that, flickering in sordid chambers, shed on dull things the dull
+ray--esteeming themselves as stars!
+
+Months--years passed--Fanny was thirteen, when there dawned a new era to
+her existence. Mrs. Boxer had never got over her first grudge to Fanny.
+Her treatment of the poor girl was always harsh, and sometimes cruel.
+But Fanny did not complain, and as Mrs. Boxer's manner to her before
+Simon was invariably cringing and caressing, the old man never guessed
+the hardships his supposed grandchild underwent. There had been scandal
+some years back in the suburb about the relative connexion of the master
+and the housekeeper; and the flaunting dress of the latter, something
+bold in her regard, and certain whispers that her youth had not been
+vowed to Vesta, confirmed the suspicion. The only reason why we do not
+feel sure that the rumour was false is this,--Simon Gawtrey had been
+so hard on the early follies of his son! Certainly, at all events, the
+woman had exercised great influence over the miser before the arrival
+of Fanny, and she had done much to steel his selfishness against the
+ill-fated William. And, as certainly, she had fully calculated on
+succeeding to the savings, whatever they might be, of the miser,
+whenever Providence should be pleased to terminate his days. She knew
+that Simon had, many years back, made his will in her favour; she knew
+that he had not altered that will: she believed, therefore, that in
+spite of all his love for Fanny, he loved his gold so much more, that he
+could not accustom himself to the thought of bequeathing it to hands too
+helpless to guard the treasure. This had in some measure reconciled
+the housekeeper to the intruder; whom, nevertheless, she hated as a dog
+hates another dog, not only for taking his bone, but for looking at it.
+
+But suddenly Simon fell ill. His age made it probable he would die. He
+took to his bed--his breathing grew fainter and fainter--he seemed dead.
+Fanny, all unconscious, sat by his bedside as usual, holding her breath
+not to waken him. Mrs. Boxer flew to the bureau--she unlocked it--she
+could not find the will; but she found three bags of bright gold
+guineas: the sight charmed her. She tumbled them forth on the distained
+green cloth of the bureau--she began to count them; and at that moment,
+the old man, as if there were a secret magnetism between himself and
+the guineas, woke from his trance. His blindness saved him the pain
+that might have been fatal, of seeing the unhallowed profanation; but he
+heard the chink of the metal. The very sound restored his strength.
+But the infirm are always cunning--he breathed not a suspicion. "Mrs.
+Boxer," said he, faintly, "I think I could take some broth." Mrs. Boxer
+rose in great dismay, gently re-closed the bureau, and ran down-stairs
+for the broth. Simon took the occasion to question Fanny; and no sooner
+had he learnt the operation of the heir-expectant, than he bade the girl
+first lock the bureau and bring him the key, and next run to a lawyer
+(whose address he gave her), and fetch him instantly.
+
+With a malignant smile the old man took the broth from his
+handmaid,--"Poor Boxer, you are a disinterested creature," said he,
+feebly; "I think you will grieve when I go."
+
+Mrs. Boxer sobbed, and before she had recovered, the lawyer entered.
+That day a new will was made; and the lawyer politely informed Mrs.
+Boxer that her services would be dispensed with the next morning, when
+he should bring a nurse to the house. Mrs. Boxer heard, and took her
+resolution. As soon as Simon again fell asleep, she crept into
+the room--led away Fanny--locked her up in her own
+chamber--returned--searched for the key of the bureau, which she found
+at last under Simon's pillow--possessed herself of all she could lay her
+hands on--and the next morning she had disappeared forever! Simon's loss
+was greater than might have been supposed; for, except a trifling sum in
+the savings bank, he, like many other misers, kept all he had, in notes
+or specie, under his own lock and key. His whole fortune, indeed, was
+far less than was supposed: for money does not make money unless it is
+put out to interest,--and the miser cheated himself. Such portion as was
+in bank-notes Mrs. Boxer probably had the prudence to destroy; for those
+numbers which Simon could remember were never traced; the gold, who
+could swear to? Except the pittance in the savings bank, and whatever
+might be the paltry worth of the house he rented, the father who had
+enriched the menial to exile the son was a beggar in his dotage. This
+news, however, was carefully concealed from him by the advice of the
+doctor, whom, on his own responsibility, the lawyer introduced, till
+he had recovered sufficiently to bear the shock without danger; and the
+delay naturally favoured Mrs. Boxer's escape.
+
+Simon remained for some moments perfectly stunned and speechless when
+the news was broken to him. Fanny, in alarm at his increasing paleness,
+sprang to his breast. He pushed her away,--"Go--go--go, child," he said;
+"I can't feed you now. Leave me to starve."
+
+"To starve!" said Fanny, wonderingly; and she stole away, and sat
+herself down as if in deep thought. She then crept up to the lawyer
+as he was about to leave the room, after exhausting his stock of
+commonplace consolation; and putting her hand in his, whispered, "I want
+to talk to you--this way:"--She led him through the passage into the
+open air. "Tell me," she said, "when poor people try not to starve,
+don't they work?"
+
+"My dear, yes."
+
+"For rich people buy poor people's work?"
+
+"Certainly, my dear; to be sure."
+
+"Very well. Mrs. Boxer used to sell my work. Fanny will feed grandpapa!
+Go and tell him never to say 'starve' again."
+
+The good-natured lawyer was moved. "Can you work, indeed, my poor girl?
+Well, put on your bonnet, and come and talk to my wife."
+
+And that was the new era in Fanny's existence! Her schooling was
+stopped. But now life schooled her. Necessity ripened her intellect. And
+many a hard eye moistened,--as, seeing her glide with her little basket
+of fancy work along the streets, still murmuring her happy and bird-like
+snatches of unconnected song--men and children alike said with respect,
+in which there was now no contempt, "It's the idiot girl who supports
+her blind grandfather!" They called her idiot still!
+
+
+
+BOOK IV.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+     "O that sweet gleam of sunshine on the lake!"
+     WILSON'S City of the Plague
+
+If, reader, you have ever looked through a solar microscope at the
+monsters in a drop of water, perhaps you have wondered to yourself how
+things so terrible have been hitherto unknown to you--you have felt a
+loathing at the limpid element you hitherto deemed so pure--you have
+half fancied that you would cease to be a water-drinker; yet, the next
+day you have forgotten the grim life that started before you, with its
+countless shapes, in that teeming globule; and, if so tempted by your
+thirst, you have not shrunk from the lying crystal, although myriads of
+the horrible Unseen are mangling, devouring, gorging each other in the
+liquid you so tranquilly imbibe; so is it with that ancestral and master
+element called Life. Lapped in your sleek comforts, and lolling on the
+sofa of your patent conscience--when, perhaps for the first time, you
+look through the glass of science upon one ghastly globule in the waters
+that heave around, that fill up, with their succulence, the pores of
+earth, that moisten every atom subject to your eyes or handled by your
+touch--you are startled and dismayed; you say, mentally, "Can such
+things be? I never dreamed of this before! I thought what was
+invisible to me was non-existent in itself--I will remember this dread
+experiment." The next day the experiment is forgotten.--The Chemist may
+purify the Globule--can Science make pure the World?
+
+Turn we now to the pleasant surface, seen in the whole, broad and fair
+to the common eye. Who would judge well of God's great designs, if he
+could look on no drop pendent from the rose-tree, or sparkling in the
+sun, without the help of his solar microscope?
+
+It is ten years after the night on which William Gawtrey perished:--I
+transport you, reader, to the fairest scenes in England,--scenes
+consecrated by the only true pastoral poetry we have known to
+Contemplation and Repose.
+
+Autumn had begun to tinge the foliage on the banks of Winandermere. It
+had been a summer of unusual warmth and beauty; and if that year you
+had visited the English lakes, you might, from time to time, amidst the
+groups of happy idlers you encountered, have singled out two persons
+for interest, or, perhaps, for envy. Two who might have seemed to you in
+peculiar harmony with those serene and soft retreats, both young--both
+beautiful. Lovers you would have guessed them to be; but such lovers
+as Fletcher might have placed under the care of his "Holy
+Shepherdess"--forms that might have reclined by
+
+
+     "The virtuous well, about whose flowery banks
+     The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds
+     By the pale moonshine."
+
+For in the love of those persons there seemed a purity and innocence
+that suited well their youth and the character of their beauty. Perhaps,
+indeed, on the girl's side, love sprung rather from those affections
+which the spring of life throws upward to the surface, as the spring of
+earth does its flowers, than from that concentrated and deep absorption
+of self in self, which alone promises endurance and devotion, and of
+which first love, or rather the first fancy, is often less susceptible
+than that which grows out of the more thoughtful fondness of maturer
+years. Yet he, the lover, was of so rare and singular a beauty, that he
+might well seem calculated to awake, to the utmost, the love which wins
+the heart through the eyes.
+
+But to begin at the beginning. A lady of fashion had, in the autumn
+previous to the year in which our narrative re-opens, taken, with her
+daughter, a girl then of about eighteen, the tour of the English lakes.
+Charmed by the beauty of Winandermere, and finding one of the most
+commodious villas on its banks to be let, they had remained there all
+the winter. In the early spring a severe illness had seized the elder
+lady, and finding herself, as she slowly recovered, unfit for the
+gaieties of a London season, nor unwilling, perhaps,--for she had been
+a beauty in her day--to postpone for another year the debut of her
+daughter, she had continued her sojourn, with short intervals of
+absence, for a whole year. Her husband, a busy man of the world, with
+occupation in London, and fine estates in the country, joined them
+only occasionally, glad to escape the still beauty of landscapes which
+brought him no rental, and therefore afforded no charm to his eye.
+
+In the first month of their arrival at Winandermere, the mother and
+daughter had made an eventful acquaintance in the following manner.
+
+One evening, as they were walking on their lawn, which sloped to the
+lake, they heard the sound of a flute, played with a skill so exquisite
+as to draw them, surprised and spellbound, to the banks. The musician
+was a young man, in a boat, which he had moored beneath the trees of
+their demesne. He was alone, or, rather, he had one companion, in a
+large Newfoundland dog, that sat watchful at the helm of the boat,
+and appeared to enjoy the music as much as his master. As the ladies
+approached the spot, the dog growled, and the young man ceased, though
+without seeing the fair causes of his companion's displeasure. The sun,
+then setting, shone full on his countenance as he looked round; and that
+countenance was one that might have haunted the nymphs of Delos; the
+face of Apollo, not as the hero, but the shepherd--not of the bow,
+but of the lute--not the Python-slayer, but the young dreamer by shady
+places--he whom the sculptor has portrayed leaning idly against the
+tree--the boy-god whose home is yet on earth, and to whom the Oracle and
+the Spheres are still unknown.
+
+At that moment the dog leaped from the boat, and the elder lady uttered
+a faint cry of alarm, which, directing the attention of the musician,
+brought him also ashore. He called off his dog, and apologised, with a
+not ungraceful mixture of diffidence and ease, for his intrusion. He was
+not aware the place was inhabited--it was a favourite haunt of his--he
+lived near. The elder lady was pleased with his address, and struck with
+his appearance. There was, indeed, in his manner that indefinable charm,
+which is more attractive than mere personal appearance, and which
+can never be imitated or acquired. They parted, however, without
+establishing any formal acquaintance. A few days after, they met at
+dinner at a neighbouring house, and were introduced by name. That of the
+young man seemed strange to the ladies; not so theirs to him. He turned
+pale when he heard it, and remained silent and aloof the rest of the
+evening. They met again and often; and for some weeks--nay, even for
+months--he appeared to avoid, as much as possible, the acquaintance so
+auspiciously begun; but, by little and little, the beauty of the younger
+lady seemed to gain ground on his diffidence or repugnance. Excursions
+among the neighbouring mountains threw them together, and at last he
+fairly surrendered himself to the charm he had at first determined to
+resist.
+
+This young man lived on the opposite side of the lake, in a quiet
+household, of which he was the idol. His life had been one of almost
+monastic purity and repose; his tastes were accomplished, his character
+seemed soft and gentle; but beneath that calm exterior, flashes of
+passion--the nature of the poet, ardent and sensitive--would break forth
+at times. He had scarcely ever, since his earliest childhood, quitted
+those retreats; he knew nothing of the world, except in books--books
+of poetry and romance. Those with whom he lived--his relations, an old
+bachelor, and the cold bachelor's sisters, old maids--seemed equally
+innocent and inexperienced. It was a family whom the rich respected and
+the poor loved--inoffensive, charitable, and well off. To whatever their
+easy fortune might be, he appeared the heir. The name of this young
+man was Charles Spencer; the ladies were Mrs. Beaufort, and Camilla her
+daughter.
+
+Mrs. Beaufort, though a shrewd woman, did not at first perceive any
+danger in the growing intimacy between Camilla and the younger Spencer.
+Her daughter was not her favourite--not the object of her one thought or
+ambition. Her whole heart and soul were wrapped in her son Arthur, who
+lived principally abroad. Clever enough to be considered capable, when
+he pleased, of achieving distinction, good-looking enough to be thought
+handsome by all who were on the qui vive for an advantageous match,
+good-natured enough to be popular with the society in which he lived,
+scattering to and fro money without limit,--Arthur Beaufort, at the
+age of thirty, had established one of those brilliant and evanescent
+reputations, which, for a few years, reward the ambition of the fine
+gentleman. It was precisely the reputation that the mother could
+appreciate, and which even the more saving father secretly admired,
+while, ever respectable in phrase, Mr. Robert Beaufort seemed openly to
+regret it. This son was, I say, everything to them; they cared little,
+in comparison, for their daughter. How could a daughter keep up the
+proud name of Beaufort? However well she might marry, it was another
+house, not theirs, which her graces and beauty would adorn. Moreover,
+the better she might marry the greater her dowry would naturally
+be,--the dowry, to go out of the family! And Arthur, poor fellow! was
+so extravagant, that really he would want every sixpence. Such was the
+reasoning of the father. The mother reasoned less upon the matter. Mrs.
+Beaufort, faded and meagre, in blonde and cashmere, was jealous of
+the charms of her daughter; and she herself, growing sentimental
+and lachrymose as she advanced in life, as silly women often do, had
+convinced herself that Camilla was a girl of no feeling.
+
+Miss Beaufort was, indeed, of a character singularly calm and placid; it
+was the character that charms men in proportion, perhaps, to their own
+strength and passion. She had been rigidly brought up--her affections
+had been very early chilled and subdued; they moved, therefore, now,
+with ease, in the serene path of her duties. She held her parents,
+especially her father, in reverential fear, and never dreamed of the
+possibility of resisting one of their wishes, much less their commands.
+Pious, kind, gentle, of a fine and never-ruffled temper, Camilla, an
+admirable daughter, was likely to make no less admirable a wife; you
+might depend on her principles, if ever you could doubt her affection.
+Few girls were more calculated to inspire love. You would scarcely
+wonder at any folly, any madness, which even a wise man might commit
+for her sake. This did not depend on her beauty alone, though she was
+extremely lovely rather than handsome, and of that style of loveliness
+which is universally fascinating: the figure, especially as to the arms,
+throat, and bust, was exquisite; the mouth dimpled; the teeth dazzling;
+the eyes of that velvet softness which to look on is to love. But her
+charm was in a certain prettiness of manner, an exceeding innocence,
+mixed with the most captivating, because unconscious, coquetry. With all
+this, there was a freshness, a joy, a virgin and bewitching candour in
+her voice, her laugh--you might almost say in her very movements. Such
+was Camilla Beaufort at that age. Such she seemed to others. To her
+parents she was only a great girl rather in the way. To Mrs. Beaufort a
+rival, to Mr. Beaufort an encumbrance on the property.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+     * * * "The moon
+     Saddening the solemn night, yet with that sadness
+     Mingling the breath of undisturbed Peace."
+                WILSON: City of the Plague
+
+     * * * "Tell me his fate.
+     Say that he lives, or say that he is dead
+     But tell me--tell me!
+     * * * * * *
+     I see him not--some cloud envelopes him."--Ibid.
+
+One day (nearly a year after their first introduction) as with a party
+of friends Camilla and Charles Spencer were riding through those wild
+and romantic scenes which lie between the sunny Winandermere and the
+dark and sullen Wastwater, their conversation fell on topics more
+personal than it had hitherto done, for as yet, if they felt love, they
+had never spoken of it.
+
+The narrowness of the path allowed only two to ride abreast, and the two
+to whom I confine my description were the last of the little band.
+
+"How I wish Arthur were here!" said Camilla; "I am sure you would like
+him."
+
+"Are you? He lives much in the world--the world of which I know nothing.
+Are we then characters to suit each other?"
+
+"He is the kindest--the best of human beings!" said Camilla, rather
+evasively, but with more warmth than usually dwelt in her soft and low
+voice.
+
+"Is he so kind?" returned Spencer, musingly. "Well, it may be so. And
+who would not be kind to you? Ah! it is a beautiful connexion that of
+brother and sister--I never had a sister!"
+
+"Have you then a brother?" asked Camilla, in some surprise, and turning
+her ingenuous eyes full on her companion.
+
+Spencer's colour rose--rose to his temples: his voice trembled as he
+answered, "No;--no brother!" then, speaking in a rapid and hurried
+tone, he continued, "My life has been a strange and lonely one. I am an
+orphan. I have mixed with few of my own age: my boyhood and youth have
+been spent in these scenes; my education such as Nature and books could
+bestow, with scarcely any guide or tutor save my guardian--the dear old
+man! Thus the world, the stir of cities, ambition, enterprise,--all
+seem to me as things belonging to a distant land to which I shall never
+wander. Yet I have had my dreams, Miss Beaufort; dreams of which these
+solitudes still form a part--but solitudes not unshared. And lately I
+have thought that those dreams might be prophetic. And you--do you love
+the world?"
+
+"I, like you, have scarcely tried it," said Camilla, with a sweet laugh.
+"but I love the country better,--oh! far better than what little I have
+seen of towns. But for you," she continued with a charming hesitation,
+"a man is so different from us,--for you to shrink from the world--you,
+so young and with talents too--nay, it is true!--it seems to me
+strange."
+
+"It may be so, but I cannot tell you what feelings of dread--what vague
+forebodings of terror seize me if I carry my thoughts beyond these
+retreats. Perhaps my good guardian--"
+
+"Your uncle?" interrupted Camilla.
+
+"Ay, my uncle--may have contributed to engender feelings, as you say,
+strange at my age; but still--"
+
+"Still what!"
+
+"My earlier childhood," continued Spencer, breathing hard and turning
+pale, "was not spent in the happy home I have now; it was passed in a
+premature ordeal of suffering and pain. Its recollections have left a
+dark shadow on my mind, and under that shadow lies every thought that
+points towards the troublous and labouring career of other men. But,"
+he resumed after a pause, and in a deep, earnest, almost solemn
+voice,--"but after all, is this cowardice or wisdom? I find no
+monotony--no tedium in this quiet life. Is there not a certain
+morality--a certain religion in the spirit of a secluded and country
+existence? In it we do not know the evil passions which ambition and
+strife are said to arouse. I never feel jealous or envious of other men;
+I never know what it is to hate; my boat, my horse, our garden, music,
+books, and, if I may dare to say so, the solemn gladness that comes from
+the hopes of another life,--these fill up every hour with thoughts
+and pursuits, peaceful, happy, and without a cloud, till of late,
+when--when--"
+
+"When what?" said Camilla, innocently.
+
+"When I have longed, but did not dare to ask another, if to share such a
+lot would content her!"
+
+He bent, as he spoke, his soft blue eyes full upon the blushing face of
+her whom he addressed, and Camilla half smiled and half sighed:
+
+"Our companions are far before us," said she, turning away her face,
+"and see, the road is now smooth." She quickened her horse's pace as
+she said this; and Spencer, too new to women to interpret favourably
+her evasion of his words and looks, fell into a profound silence which
+lasted during the rest of their excursion.
+
+As towards the decline of day he bent his solitary way home, emotions
+and passions to which his life had hitherto been a stranger, and which,
+alas! he had vainly imagined a life so tranquil would everlastingly
+restrain, swelled his heart.
+
+"She does not love me," he muttered, half aloud; "she will leave me, and
+what then will all the beauty of the landscape seem in my eyes? And how
+dare I look up to her? Even if her cold, vain mother--her father, the
+man, they say, of forms and scruples, were to consent, would they not
+question closely of my true birth and origin? And if the one blot were
+overlooked, is there no other? His early habits and vices, his?--a
+brother's--his unknown career terminating at any day, perhaps, in shame,
+in crime, in exposure, in the gibbet,--will they overlook this?" As he
+spoke, he groaned aloud, and, as if impatient to escape himself, spurred
+on his horse and rested not till he reached the belt of trim and sober
+evergreens that surrounded his hitherto happy home.
+
+Leaving his horse to find its way to the stables, the young man passed
+through rooms, which he found deserted, to the lawn on the other side,
+which sloped to the smooth waters of the lake.
+
+Here, seated under the one large tree that formed the pride of the lawn,
+over which it cast its shadow broad and far, he perceived his guardian
+poring idly over an oft-read book, one of those books of which literary
+dreamers are apt to grow fanatically fond--books by the old English
+writers, full of phrases and conceits half quaint and half sublime,
+interspersed with praises of the country, imbued with a poetical rather
+than orthodox religion, and adorned with a strange mixture of monastic
+learning and aphorisms collected from the weary experience of actual
+life.
+
+To the left, by a greenhouse, built between the house and the lake,
+might be seen the white dress and lean form of the eldest spinster
+sister, to whom the care of the flowers--for she had been early crossed
+in love--was consigned; at a little distance from her, the other two
+were seated at work, and conversing in whispers, not to disturb their
+studious brother, no doubt upon the nephew, who was their all in all. It
+was the calmest hour of eve, and the quiet of the several forms,
+their simple and harmless occupations--if occupations they might be
+called--the breathless foliage rich in the depth of summer; behind, the
+old-fashioned house, unpretending, not mean, its open doors and windows
+giving glimpses of the comfortable repose within; before, the lake,
+without a ripple and catching the gleam of the sunset clouds,--all made
+a picture of that complete tranquillity and stillness, which sometimes
+soothes and sometimes saddens us, according as we are in the temper to
+woo CONTENT.
+
+The young man glided to his guardian and touched his shoulder,--"Sir,
+may I speak to you?--Hush! they need not see us now! it is only you I
+would speak with."
+
+The elder Spencer rose; and, with his book still in his hand, moved side
+by side with his nephew under the shadow of the tree and towards a walk
+to the right, which led for a short distance along the margin of the
+lake, backed by the interlaced boughs of a thick copse.
+
+"Sir!" said the young man, speaking first, and with a visible effort,
+"your cautions have been in vain! I love this girl--this daughter of the
+haughty Beauforts! I love her--better than life I love her!"
+
+"My poor boy," said the uncle tenderly, and with a simple fondness
+passing his arm over the speaker's shoulder, "do not think I can chide
+you--I know what it is to love in vain!"
+
+"In vain!--but why in vain?" exclaimed the younger Spencer, with a
+vehemence that had in it something of both agony and fierceness. "She
+may love me--she shall love me!" and almost for the first time in his
+life, the proud consciousness of his rare gifts of person spoke in his
+kindled eye and dilated stature. "Do they not say that Nature has been
+favourable to me?--What rival have I here?--Is she not young?--And
+(sinking his voice till it almost breathed like music) is not love
+contagious?"
+
+"I do not doubt that she may love you--who would not?--but--but--the
+parents, will they ever consent?"
+
+"Nay!" answered the lover, as with that inconsistency common to passion,
+he now argued stubbornly against those fears in another to which he had
+just before yielded in himself,--"Nay!--after all, am I not of their own
+blood?--Do I not come from the elder branch?--Was I not reared in equal
+luxury and with higher hopes?--And my mother--my poor mother--did
+she not to the last maintain our birthright--her own honour?--Has not
+accident or law unjustly stripped us of our true station?--Is it not for
+us to forgive spoliation?--Am I not, in fact, the person who descends,
+who forgets the wrongs of the dead--the heritage of the living?"
+
+The young man had never yet assumed this tone--had never yet shown that
+he looked back to the history connected with his birth with the feelings
+of resentment and the remembrance of wrong. It was a tone contrary
+to his habitual calm and contentment--it struck forcibly on his
+listener--and the elder Spencer was silent for some moments before he
+replied, "If you feel thus (and it is natural), you have yet stronger
+reason to struggle against this unhappy affection."
+
+"I have been conscious of that, sir," replied the young man, mournfully.
+"I have struggled!--and I say again it is in vain! I turn, then, to face
+the obstacles! My birth--let us suppose that the Beauforts overlook it.
+Did you not tell me that Mr. Beaufort wrote to inform you of the abrupt
+and intemperate visit of my brother--of his determination never to
+forgive it? I think I remember something of this years ago."
+
+"It is true!" said the guardian; "and the conduct of that brother is,
+in fact, the true cause why you never ought to reassume your proper
+name!--never to divulge it, even to the family with whom you connect
+yourself by marriage; but, above all, to the Beauforts, who for that
+cause, if that cause alone, would reject your suit."
+
+The young man groaned--placed one hand before his eyes, and with the
+other grasped his guardian's arm convulsively, as if to check him from
+proceeding farther; but the good man, not divining his meaning, and
+absorbed in his subject, went on, irritating the wound he had touched.
+
+"Reflect!--your brother in boyhood--in the dying hours of his mother,
+scarcely saved from the crime of a thief, flying from a friendly pursuit
+with a notorious reprobate; afterwards implicated in some discreditable
+transaction about a horse, rejecting all--every hand that could save
+him, clinging by choice to the lowest companions and the meanest-habits,
+disappearing from the country, and last seen, ten years ago--the beard
+not yet on his chin--with that same reprobate of whom I have spoken, in
+Paris; a day or so only before his companion, a coiner--a murderer--fell
+by the hands of the police! You remember that when, in your seventeenth
+year, you evinced some desire to retake your name--nay, even to re-find
+that guilty brother--I placed before you, as a sad and terrible duty,
+the newspaper that contained the particulars of the death and the
+former adventures of that wretched accomplice, the notorious Gawtrey.
+And,--telling you that Mr. Beaufort had long since written to inform me
+that his own son and Lord Lilburne had seen your brother in company with
+the miscreant just before his fate--nay, was, in all probability, the
+very youth described in the account as found in his chamber and
+escaping the pursuit--I asked you if you would now venture to leave that
+disguise--that shelter under which you would for ever be safe from the
+opprobrium of the world--from the shame that, sooner or later, your
+brother must bring upon your name!"
+
+"It is true--it is true!" said the pretended nephew, in a tone of great
+anguish, and with trembling lips which the blood had forsaken. "Horrible
+to look either to his past or his future! But--but--we have heard of
+him no more--no one ever has learned his fate. Perhaps--perhaps" (and he
+seemed to breathe more freely)--"my brother is no more!"
+
+And poor Catherine--and poor Philip---had it come to this? Did the
+one brother feel a sentiment of release, of joy, in conjecturing the
+death--perhaps the death of violence and shame--of his fellow-orphan?
+Mr. Spencer shook his head doubtingly, but made no reply. The young
+man sighed heavily, and strode on for several paces in advance of his
+protector, then, turning back, he laid his hand on his shoulder.
+
+"Sir," he said in a low voice and with downcast eyes, "you are right:
+this disguise--this false name--must be for ever borne! Why need
+the Beauforts, then, ever know who and what I am? Why not as your
+nephew--nephew to one so respected and exemplary--proffer my claims and
+plead my cause?"
+
+"They are proud--so it is said--and worldly;--you know my family was in
+trade--still--but--" and here Mr. Spencer broke off from a tone of doubt
+into that of despondency, "but, recollect, though Mrs. Beaufort may
+not remember the circumstance, both her husband and her son have seen
+me--have known my name. Will they not suspect, when once introduced to
+you, the stratagem that has been adopted?--Nay, has it not been from
+that very fear that you have wished me to shun the acquaintance of the
+family? Both Mr. Beaufort and Arthur saw you in childhood, and their
+suspicion once aroused, they may recognise you at once; your features
+are developed, but not altogether changed. Come, come!--my adopted, my
+dear son, shake off this fantasy betimes: let us change the scene: I
+will travel with you--read with you--go where--"
+
+"Sir--sir!" exclaimed the lover, smiting his breast, "you are ever
+kind, compassionate, generous; but do not--do not rob me of hope. I have
+never--thanks to you--felt, save in a momentary dejection, the curse of
+my birth. Now how heavily it falls! Where shall I look for comfort?"
+
+As he spoke, the sound of a bell broke over the translucent air and the
+slumbering lake: it was the bell that every eve and morn summoned that
+innocent and pious family to prayer. The old man's face changed as he
+heard it--changed from its customary indolent, absent, listless aspect,
+into an expression of dignity, even of animation.
+
+"Hark!" he said, pointing upwards; "Hark! it chides you. Who shall say,
+'Where shall I look for comfort' while God is in the heavens?"
+
+The young man, habituated to the faith and observance of religion, till
+they had pervaded his whole nature, bowed his head in rebuke; a few
+tears stole from his eyes.
+
+"You are right, father--," he said tenderly, giving emphasis to the
+deserved and endearing name. "I am comforted already!"
+
+So, side by side, silently and noiselessly, the young and the old man
+glided back to the house. When they gained the quiet room in which the
+family usually assembled, the sisters and servants were already gathered
+round the table. They knelt as the loiterers entered. It was the wonted
+duty of the younger Spencer to read the prayers; and, as he now did so,
+his graceful countenance more hushed, his sweet voice more earnest than
+usual, in its accents: who that heard could have deemed the heart within
+convulsed by such stormy passions? Or was it not in that hour--that
+solemn commune--soothed from its woe? O beneficent Creator! thou who
+inspirest all the tribes of earth with the desire to pray, hast Thou
+not, in that divinest instinct, bestowed on us the happiest of Thy
+gifts?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+   "Bertram. I mean the business is not ended, as fearing to hear of
+   it hereafter.
+
+   "1st Soldier. Do you know this Captain Dumain?"
+                    All's Well that Ends Well.
+
+One evening, some weeks after the date of the last chapter, Mr. Robert
+Beaufort sat alone in his house in Berkeley Square. He had arrived that
+morning from Beaufort Court, on his way to Winandermere, to which he
+was summoned by a letter from his wife. That year was an agitated and
+eventful epoch in England; and Mr. Beaufort had recently gone through
+the bustle of an election--not, indeed, contested; for his popularity
+and his property defied all rivalry in his own county.
+
+The rich man had just dined, and was seated in lazy enjoyment by the
+side of the fire, which he had had lighted, less for the warmth--though
+it was then September--than for the companionship;--engaged in finishing
+his madeira, and, with half-closed eyes, munching his devilled biscuits.
+"I am sure," he soliloquised while thus employed, "I don't know
+exactly what to do,--my wife ought to decide matters where the girl is
+concerned; a son is another affair--that's the use of a wife. Humph!"
+
+"Sir," said a fat servant, opening the door, "a gentleman wishes to see
+you upon very particular business."
+
+"Business at this hour! Tell him to go to Mr. Blackwell."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Stay! perhaps he is a constituent, Simmons. Ask him if he belongs to
+the county."
+
+"Yes, Sir."
+
+"A great estate is a great plague," muttered Mr. Beaufort; "so is a
+great constituency. It is pleasanter, after all, to be in the House of
+Lords. I suppose I could if I wished; but then one must rat--that's a
+bore. I will consult Lilburne. Humph!"
+
+The servant re-appeared. "Sir, he says he does belong to the county."
+
+"Show him in!--What sort of a person?"
+
+"A sort of gentleman, sir; that is," continued the butler, mindful of
+five shillings just slipped within his palm by the stranger, "quite the
+gentleman."
+
+"More wine, then--stir up the fire."
+
+In a few moments the visitor was ushered into the apartment. He was
+a man between fifty and sixty, but still aiming at the appearance of
+youth. His dress evinced military pretensions; consisting of a blue
+coat, buttoned up to the chin, a black stock, loose trousers of the
+fashion called Cossacks, and brass spurs. He wore a wig, of great
+luxuriance in curl and rich auburn in hue; with large whiskers of the
+same colour slightly tinged with grey at the roots. By the imperfect
+light of the room it was not perceptible that the clothes were somewhat
+threadbare, and that the boots, cracked at the side, admitted glimpses
+of no very white hosiery within. Mr. Beaufort, reluctantly rising from
+his repose and gladly sinking back to it, motioned to a chair, and put
+on a doleful and doubtful semi-smile of welcome. The servant placed the
+wine and glasses before the stranger;--the host and visitor were alone.
+
+"So, sir," said Mr. Beaufort, languidly, "you are from ------shire; I
+suppose about the canal,--may I offer you a glass of wine?"
+
+"Most hauppy, sir--your health!" and the stranger, with evident
+satisfaction, tossed off a bumper to so complimentary a toast.
+
+"About the canal?" repeated Mr. Beaufort.
+
+"No, sir, no! You parliament gentlemen must hauve a vaust deal of
+trouble on your haunds--very foine property I understaund yours is, sir.
+Sir, allow me to drink the health of your good lady!"
+
+"I thank you, Mr.--, Mr.--, what did you say your name was?--I beg you a
+thousand pardons."
+
+"No offaunce in the least, sir; no ceremony with me--this is perticler
+good madeira!"
+
+"May I ask how I can serve you?" said Mr. Beaufort, struggling between
+the sense of annoyance and the fear to be uncivil. "And pray, had I the
+honour of your vote in the last election!"
+
+"No, sir, no! It's mauny years since I have been in your part of the
+world, though I was born there."
+
+"Then I don't exactly see--" began Mr. Beaufort, and stopped with
+dignity.
+
+"Why I call on you," put in the stranger, tapping his boots with his
+cane; and then recognising the rents, he thrust both feet under the
+table.
+
+"I don't say that; but at this hour I am seldom at leisure--not but what
+I am always at the service of a constituent, that is, a voter! Mr.--, I
+beg your pardon, I did not catch your name."
+
+"Sir," said the stranger, helping himself to a third glass of wine;
+"here's a health to your young folk! And now to business." Here the
+visitor, drawing his chair nearer to his host, assuming a more grave
+aspect, and dropping something of his stilted pronunciation, continued,
+"You had a brother?"
+
+"Well, sir," said Mr. Beaufort, with a very changed countenance.
+
+"And that brother had a wife!"
+
+Had a cannon gone off in the ear of Mr. Robert Beaufort, it could not
+have shocked or stunned him more than that simple word with which his
+companion closed his sentence. He fell back in his chair--his lips
+apart, his eyes fixed on the stranger. He sought to speak, but his
+tongue clove to his mouth.
+
+"That wife had two sons, born in wedlock!"
+
+"It is false!" cried Mr. Beaufort, finding a voice at length, and
+springing to his feet. "And who are you, sir? and what do you mean by--"
+
+"Hush!" said the stranger, perfectly unconcerned, and regaining the
+dignity of his haw-haw enunciation, "better not let the servants hear
+aunything. For my pawt, I think servants hauve the longest pair of ears
+of auny persons, not excepting jauckasses; their ears stretch from the
+pauntry to the parlour. Hush, sir!--perticler good madeira, this!"
+
+"Sir!" said Mr. Beaufort, struggling to preserve, or rather recover, his
+temper, "your conduct is exceedingly strange; but allow me to say that
+you are wholly misinformed. My brother never did marry; and if you have
+anything to say on behalf of those young men--his natural sons--I refer
+you to my solicitor, Mr. Blackwell, of Lincoln's Inn. I wish you a good
+evening."
+
+"Sir!--the same to you--I won't trouble you auny farther; it was only
+out of koindness I called--I am not used to be treated so--sir, I am
+in his maujesty's service--sir, you will foind that the witness of the
+marriage is forthcoming; you will think of me then, and, perhaps,
+be sorry. But I've done, 'Your most obedient humble, sir!'" And the
+stranger, with a flourish of his hand, turned to the door. At the sight
+of this determination on the part of his strange guest, a cold, uneasy,
+vague presentiment seized Mr. Beaufort. There, not flashed, but rather
+froze, across him the recollection of his brother's emphatic but
+disbelieved assurances--of Catherine's obstinate assertion of her son's
+alleged rights--rights which her lawsuit, undertaken on her own behalf,
+had not compromised;--a fresh lawsuit might be instituted by the son,
+and the evidence which had been wanting in the former suit might be
+found at last. With this remembrance and these reflections came a
+horrible train of shadowy fears,--witnesses, verdict, surrender,
+spoliation--arrears--ruin!
+
+The man, who had gained the door, turned back and looked at him with a
+complacent, half-triumphant leer upon his impudent, reckless face.
+
+"Sir," then said Mr. Beaufort, mildly, "I repeat that you had better see
+Mr. Blackwell."
+
+The tempter saw his triumph. "I have a secret to communicate which it is
+best for you to keep snug. How mauny people do you wish me to see about
+it? Come, sir, there is no need of a lawyer; or, if you think so, tell
+him yourself. Now or never, Mr. Beaufort."
+
+"I can have no objection to hear anything you have to say, sir," said
+the rich man, yet more mildly than before; and then added, with a forced
+smile, "though my rights are already too confirmed to admit of a doubt."
+
+Without heeding the last assertion, the stranger coolly walked back,
+resumed his seat, and, placing both arms on the table and looking Mr.
+Beaufort full in the face, thus proceeded,--
+
+"Sir, of the marriage between Philip Beaufort and Catherine Morton there
+were two witnesses: the one is dead, the other went abroad--the last is
+alive still!"
+
+"If so," said Mr. Beaufort, who, not naturally deficient in cunning and
+sense, felt every faculty now prodigiously sharpened, and was resolved
+to know the precise grounds for alarm,--"if so, why did not the man--it
+was a servant, sir, a man-servant, whom Mrs. Morton pretended to rely
+on--appear on the trial?"
+
+"Because, I say, he was abroad and could not be found; or, the search
+after him miscaurried, from clumsy management and a lack of the rhino."
+
+"Hum!" said Mr. Beaufort--"one witness--one witness, observe, there is
+only one!--does not alarm me much. It is not what a man deposes, it is
+what a jury believe, sir! Moreover, what has become of the young men?
+They have never been heard of for years. They are probably dead; if so,
+I am heir-at-law!"
+
+"I know where one of them is to be found at all events."
+
+"The elder?--Philip?" asked Mr. Beaufort anxiously, and with a fearful
+remembrance of the energetic and vehement character prematurely
+exhibited by his nephew.
+
+"Pawdon me! I need not aunswer that question."
+
+"Sir! a lawsuit of this nature, against one in possession, is very
+doubtful, and," added the rich man, drawing himself up--"and, perhaps
+very expensive!"
+
+"The young man I speak of does not want friends, who will not grudge the
+money."
+
+"Sir!" said Mr. Beaufort, rising and placing his back to the fire--"sir!
+what is your object in this communication? Do you come, on the part of
+the young man, to propose a compromise? If so, be plain!"
+
+"I come on my own pawt. It rests with you to say if the young men shall
+never know it!"
+
+"And what do you want?"
+
+"Five hundred a year as long as the secret is kept."
+
+"And how can you prove that there is a secret, after all?"
+
+"By producing the witness if you wish."
+
+"Will he go halves in the L500. a year?" asked Mr. Beaufort artfully.
+
+"That is moy affair, sir," replied the stranger.
+
+"What you say," resumed Mr. Beaufort, "is so extraordinary--so
+unexpected, and still, to me, seems so improbable, that I must have time
+to consider. If you will call on me in a week, and produce your facts, I
+will give you my answer. I am not the man, sir, to wish to keep any
+one out of his true rights, but I will not yield, on the other hand, to
+imposture."
+
+"If you don't want to keep them out of their rights, I'd best go and
+tell my young gentlemen," said the stranger, with cool impudence.
+
+"I tell you I must have time," repeated Beaufort, disconcerted.
+"Besides, I have not myself alone to look to, sir," he added, with
+dignified emphasis--"I am a father!"
+
+"This day week I will call on you again. Good evening, Mr. Beaufort!"
+
+And the man stretched out his hand with an air of amicable
+condescension. The respectable Mr. Beaufort changed colour, hesitated,
+and finally suffered two fingers to be enticed into the grasp of the
+visitor, whom he ardently wished at that bourne whence no visitor
+returns.
+
+The stranger smiled, stalked to the door, laid his finger on his lip,
+winked knowingly, and vanished, leaving Mr. Beaufort a prey to such
+feelings of uneasiness, dread, and terror, as may be experienced by a
+man whom, on some inch or two of slippery rock, the tides have suddenly
+surrounded.
+
+He remained perfectly still for some moments, and then glancing round
+the dim and spacious room, his eyes took in all the evidences of luxury
+and wealth which it betrayed. Above the huge sideboard, that on festive
+days groaned beneath the hoarded weight of the silver heirlooms of the
+Beauforts, hung, in its gilded frame, a large picture of the family
+seat, with the stately porticoes--the noble park--the groups of
+deer; and around the wall, interspersed here and there with ancestral
+portraits of knight and dame, long since gathered to their rest, were
+placed masterpieces of the Italian and Flemish art, which generation
+after generation had slowly accumulated, till the Beaufort Collection
+had become the theme of connoisseurs and the study of young genius.
+
+The still room, the dumb pictures--even the heavy sideboard seemed to
+gain voice, and speak to him audibly. He thrust his hand into the folds
+of his waistcoat, and griped his own flesh convulsively; then, striding
+to and fro the apartment, he endeavoured to re-collect his thoughts.
+
+"I dare not consult Mrs. Beaufort," he muttered; "no--no,--she is a
+fool! Besides, she's not in the way. No time to lose--I will go to
+Lilburne."
+
+Scarce had that thought crossed him than he hastened to put it into
+execution. He rang for his hat and gloves and sallied out on foot
+to Lord Lilburne's house in Park Lane,--the distance was short, and
+impatience has long strides.
+
+He knew Lord Lilburne was in town, for that personage loved London for
+its own sake; and even in September he would have said with the old Duke
+of Queensberry, when some one observed that London was very empty--"Yes;
+but it is fuller than the country."
+
+Mr. Beaufort found Lord Lilburne reclined on a sofa, by the open
+window of his drawing-room, beyond which the early stars shone upon the
+glimmering trees and silver turf of the deserted park. Unlike the simple
+dessert of his respectable brother-in-law, the costliest fruits, the
+richest wines of France, graced the small table placed beside his sofa;
+and as the starch man of forms and method entered the room at one door,
+a rustling silk, that vanished through the aperture of another, seemed
+to betray tokens of a tete-a-tete, probably more agreeable to Lilburne
+than the one with which only our narrative is concerned.
+
+It would have been a curious study for such men as love to gaze upon the
+dark and wily features of human character, to have watched the
+contrast between the reciter and the listener, as Beaufort, with much
+circumlocution, much affected disdain and real anxiety, narrated the
+singular and ominous conversation between himself and his visitor.
+
+The servant, in introducing Mr. Beaufort, had added to the light of the
+room; and the candles shone full on the face and form of Mr. Beaufort.
+All about that gentleman was so completely in unison with the world's
+forms and seemings, that there was something moral in the very sight
+of him! Since his accession of fortune he had grown less pale and less
+thin; the angles in his figure were filled up. On his brow there was
+no trace of younger passion. No able vice had ever sharpened the
+expression--no exhausting vice ever deepened the lines. He was the
+beau-ideal of a county member,--so sleek, so staid, so business-like;
+yet so clean, so neat, so much the gentleman. And now there was a kind
+of pathos in his grey hairs, his nervous smile, his agitated hands, his
+quick and uneasy transition of posture, the tremble of his voice. He
+would have appeared to those who saw, but heard not, The Good Man in
+trouble. Cold, motionless, speechless, seemingly apathetic, but in truth
+observant, still reclined on the sofa, his head thrown back, but one
+eye fixed on his companion, his hands clasped before him, Lord Lilburne
+listened; and in that repose, about his face, even about his person,
+might be read the history of how different a life and character! What
+native acuteness in the stealthy eye! What hardened resolve in the full
+nostril and firm lips! What sardonic contempt for all things in the
+intricate lines about the mouth. What animal enjoyment of all things so
+despised in that delicate nervous system, which, combined with original
+vigour of constitution, yet betrayed itself in the veins on the hands
+and temples, the occasional quiver of the upper lip! His was the frame
+above all others the most alive to pleasure--deep-chested, compact,
+sinewy, but thin to leanness--delicate in its texture and extremities,
+almost to effeminacy. The indifference of the posture, the very habit
+of the dress--not slovenly, indeed, but easy, loose, careless--seemed to
+speak of the man's manner of thought and life--his profound disdain of
+externals.
+
+Not till Beaufort had concluded did Lord Lilburne change his position or
+open his lips; and then, turning to his brother-in-law his calm face, he
+said drily,--
+
+"I always thought your brother had married that woman; he was the sort
+of man to do it. Besides, why should she have gone to law without a
+vestige of proof, unless she was convinced of her rights? Imposture
+never proceeds without some evidence. Innocence, like a fool as it is,
+fancies it has only to speak to be believed. But there is no cause for
+alarm."
+
+"No cause!--And yet you think there was a marriage."
+
+"It is quite clear," continued Lilburne, without heeding this
+interruption; "that the man, whatever his evidence, has not got
+sufficient proofs. If he had, he would go to the young men rather than
+you: it is evident that they would promise infinitely larger rewards
+than he could expect from yourself. Men are always more generous with
+what they expect than with what they have. All rogues know this. 'Tis
+the way Jews and usurers thrive upon heirs rather than possessors; 'tis
+the philosophy of post-obits. I dare say the man has found out the real
+witness of the marriage, but ascertained, also, that the testimony
+of that witness would not suffice to dispossess you. He might be
+discredited--rich men have a way sometimes of discrediting
+poor witnesses. Mind, he says nothing of the lost copy of the
+register--whatever may be the value of that document, which I am
+not lawyer enough to say--of any letters of your brother avowing the
+marriage. Consider, the register itself is destroyed--the clergyman
+dead. Pooh! make yourself easy."
+
+"True," said Mr. Beaufort, much comforted; "what a memory you have!"
+
+"Naturally. Your wife is my sister--I hate poor relations--and I was
+therefore much interested in your accession and your lawsuit. No--you
+may feel--at rest on this matter, so far as a successful lawsuit is
+concerned. The next question is, Will you have a lawsuit at all? and
+is it worth while buying this fellow? That I can't say unless I see him
+myself."
+
+"I wish to Heaven you would!"
+
+"Very willingly: 'tis a sort of thing I like--I'm fond of dealing with
+rogues--it amuses me. This day week? I'll be at your house--your proxy;
+I shall do better than Blackwell. And since you say you are wanted at
+the Lakes, go down, and leave all to me."
+
+"A thousand thanks. I can't say how grateful I am. You certainly are the
+kindest and cleverest person in the world."
+
+"You can't think worse of the world's cleverness and kindness than I
+do," was Lilburne's rather ambiguous answer to the compliment. "But why
+does my sister want to see you?"
+
+"Oh, I forgot!--here is her letter. I was going to ask your advice in
+this too."
+
+Lord Lilburne took the letter, and glanced over it with the rapid eye of
+a man accustomed to seize in everything the main gist and pith.
+
+"An offer to my pretty niece--Mr. Spencer--requires no fortune--his
+uncle will settle all his own--(poor silly old man!) All! Why that's
+only L1000. a year. You don't think much of this, eh? How my sister can
+even ask you about it puzzles me."
+
+"Why, you see, Lilburne," said Mr. Beaufort, rather embarrassed, "there
+is no question of fortune--nothing to go out of the family; and, really,
+Arthur is so expensive, and, if she were to marry well, I could not give
+her less than fifteen or twenty thousand pounds."
+
+"Aha!--I see--every man to his taste: here a daughter--there a dowry.
+You are devilish fond of money, Beaufort. Any pleasure in avarice,--eh?"
+
+Mr. Beaufort coloured very much at the remark and the question, and,
+forcing a smile, said,--
+
+"You are severe. But you don't know what it is to be father to a young
+man."
+
+"Then a great many young women have told me sad fibs! But you are right
+in your sense of the phrase. No, I never had an heir apparent, thank
+Heaven! No children imposed upon me by law--natural enemies, to count
+the years between the bells that ring for their majority, and those that
+will toll for my decease. It is enough for me that I have a brother and
+a sister--that my brother's son will inherit my estates--and that, in
+the meantime, he grudges me every tick in that clock. What then? If he
+had been my uncle, I had done the same. Meanwhile, I see as little of
+him as good breeding will permit. On the face of a rich man's heir is
+written the rich man's memento mori! But revenons a nos moutons. Yes, if
+you give your daughter no fortune, your death will be so much the more
+profitable to Arthur!"
+
+"Really, you take such a very odd view of the matter," said Mr.
+Beaufort, exceedingly shocked. "But I see you don't like the marriage;
+perhaps you are right."
+
+"Indeed, I have no choice in the matter; I never interfere between
+father and children. If I had children myself, I will, however, tell
+you, for your comfort, that they might marry exactly as they pleased--I
+would never thwart them. I should be too happy to get them out of my
+way. If they married well, one would have all the credit; if ill, one
+would have an excuse to disown them. As I said before, I dislike poor
+relations. Though if Camilla lives at the Lakes when she is married, it
+is but a letter now and then; and that's your wife's trouble, not yours.
+But, Spencer--what Spencer!--what family? Was there not a Mr. Spencer
+who lived at Winandermere--who----"
+
+"Who went with us in search of these boys, to be sure. Very likely the
+same--nay, he must be so. I thought so at the first."
+
+"Go down to the Lakes to-morrow. You may hear something about your
+nephews;" at that word Mr. Beaufort winced.
+
+"'Tis well to be forearmed."
+
+"Many thanks for all your counsel," said Beaufort, rising, and glad to
+escape; for though both he and his wife held the advice of Lord Lilburne
+in the highest reverence, they always smarted beneath the quiet and
+careless stings which accompanied the honey. Lord Lilburne was singular
+in this,--he would give to any one who asked it, but especially a
+relation, the best advice in his power; and none gave better, that is,
+more worldly advice. Thus, without the least benevolence, he was often
+of the greatest service; but he could not help mixing up the draught
+with as much aloes and bitter-apple as possible. His intellect delighted
+in exhibiting itself even gratuitously. His heart equally delighted
+in that only cruelty which polished life leaves to its tyrants towards
+their equals,--thrusting pins into the feelings and breaking self-love
+upon the wheel. But just as Mr. Beaufort had drawn on his gloves and
+gained the doorway, a thought seemed to strike Lord Lilburne:
+
+"By the by," he said, "you understand that when I promised I would try
+and settle the matter for you, I only meant that I would learn the exact
+causes you have for alarm on the one hand, or for a compromise with
+this fellow on the other. If the last be advisable you are aware that I
+cannot interfere. I might get into a scrape; and Beaufort Court is not
+my property."
+
+"I don't quite understand you."
+
+"I am plain enough, too. If there is money to be given it is given in
+order to defeat what is called justice--to keep these nephews of yours
+out of their inheritance. Now, should this ever come to light, it would
+have an ugly appearance. They who risk the blame must be the persons who
+possess the estate."
+
+"If you think it dishonourable or dishonest--" said Beaufort,
+irresolutely.
+
+"I! I never can advise as to the feelings; I can only advise as to the
+policy. If you don't think there ever was a marriage, it may, still, be
+honest in you to prevent the bore of a lawsuit."
+
+"But if he can prove to me that they were married?"
+
+"Pooh!" said Lilburne, raising his eyebrows with a slight expression of
+contemptuous impatience; "it rests on yourself whether or not he prove
+it to YOUR satisfaction! For my part, as a third person, I am persuaded
+the marriage did take place. But if I had Beaufort Court, my convictions
+would be all the other way. You understand. I am too happy to serve you.
+But no man can be expected to jeopardise his character, or coquet with
+the law, unless it be for his own individual interest. Then, of
+course, he must judge for himself. Adieu! I expect some friends
+foreigners--Carlists--to whist. You won't join them?"
+
+"I never play, you know. You will write to me at Winandermere: and, at
+all events, you will keep off the man till I return?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+Beaufort, whom the latter part of the conversation had comforted far
+less than the former, hesitated, and turned the door-handle three or
+four times; but, glancing towards his brother-in-law, he saw in that
+cold face so little sympathy in the struggle between interest and
+conscience, that he judged it best to withdraw at once.
+
+As soon as he was gone, Lilburne summoned his valet, who had lived
+with him many years, and who was his confidant in all the adventurous
+gallantries with which he still enlivened the autumn of his life.
+
+"Dykeman," said he, "you have let out that lady?"
+
+"Yes, my lord."
+
+"I am not at home if she calls again. She is stupid; she cannot get
+the girl to come to her again. I shall trust you with an adventure,
+Dykeman--an adventure that will remind you of our young days, man. This
+charming creature--I tell you she is irresistible--her very oddities
+bewitch me. You must--well, you look uneasy. What would you say?"
+
+"My lord, I have found out more about her--and--and----"
+
+"Well, well."
+
+The valet drew near and whispered something in his master's ear.
+
+"They are idiots who say it, then," answered Lilburne. "And," faltered
+the man, with the shame of humanity on his face, "she is not worthy your
+lordship's notice--a poor--"
+
+"Yes, I know she is poor; and, for that reason, there can be no
+difficulty, if the thing is properly managed. You never, perhaps, heard
+of a certain Philip, king of Macedon; but I will tell you what he once
+said, as well as I can remember it: 'Lead an ass with a pannier of gold;
+send the ass through the gates of a city, and all the sentinels will
+run away.' Poor!--where there is love, there is charity also, Dykeman.
+Besides--"
+
+Here Lilburne's countenance assumed a sudden aspect of dark and angry
+passion,--he broke off abruptly, rose, and paced the room, muttering
+to himself. Suddenly he stopped, and put his hand to his hip, as an
+expression of pain again altered the character of his face.
+
+"The limb pains me still! Dykeman--I was scarce twenty-one--when I
+became a cripple for life." He paused, drew a long breath, smiled,
+rubbed his hands gently, and added: "Never fear--you shall be the ass;
+and thus Philip of Macedon begins to fill the pannier." And he tossed
+his purse into the hands of the valet, whose face seemed to lose its
+anxious embarrassment at the touch of the gold. Lilburne glanced at him
+with a quiet sneer: "Go!--I will give you my orders when I undress."
+
+"Yes!" he repeated to himself, "the limb pains me still. But he
+died!--shot as a man would shoot a jay or a polecat!
+
+"I have the newspaper still in that drawer. He died an outcast--a
+felon--a murderer! And I blasted his name--and I seduced his
+mistress--and I--am John Lord Lilburne!"
+
+About ten o'clock, some half-a-dozen of those gay lovers of London,
+who, like Lilburne, remain faithful to its charms when more vulgar
+worshippers desert its sunburnt streets--mostly single men--mostly men
+of middle age--dropped in. And soon after came three or four high-born
+foreigners, who had followed into England the exile of the unfortunate
+Charles X. Their looks, at once proud and sad--their moustaches curled
+downward--their beards permitted to grow--made at first a strong
+contrast with the smooth gay Englishmen. But Lilburne, who was fond
+of French society, and who, when he pleased, could be courteous and
+agreeable, soon placed the exiles at their ease; and, in the excitement
+of high play, all differences of mood and humour speedily vanished.
+Morning was in the skies before they sat down to supper.
+
+"You have been very fortunate to-night, milord," said one of the
+Frenchmen, with an envious tone of congratulation.
+
+"But, indeed," said another, who, having been several times his host's
+partner, had won largely, "you are the finest player, milord, I ever
+encountered."
+
+"Always excepting Monsieur Deschapelles and--," replied Lilburne,
+indifferently. And, turning the conversation, he asked one of the
+guests why he had not introduced him to a French officer of merit and
+distinction; "With whom," said Lord Lilburne, "I understand that you are
+intimate, and of whom I hear your countrymen very often speak."
+
+"You mean De Vaudemont. Poor fellow!" said a middle-aged Frenchman, of a
+graver appearance than the rest.
+
+"But why 'poor fellow!' Monsieur de Liancourt?"
+
+"He was rising so high before the revolution. There was not a braver
+officer in the army. But he is but a soldier of fortune, and his career
+is closed."
+
+"Till the Bourbons return," said another Carlist, playing with his
+moustache.
+
+"You will really honour me much by introducing me to him," said Lord
+Lilburne. "De Vaudemont--it is a good name,--perhaps, too, he plays at
+whist."
+
+"But," observed one of the Frenchmen, "I am by no means sure that he has
+the best right in the world to the name. 'Tis a strange story."
+
+"May I hear it?" asked the host.
+
+"Certainly. It is briefly this: There was an old Vicomte de Vaudemont
+about Paris; of good birth, but extremely poor--a mauvais sujet. He had
+already had two wives, and run through their fortunes. Being old and
+ugly, and men who survive two wives having a bad reputation among
+marriageable ladies at Paris, he found it difficult to get a third.
+Despairing of the noblesse he went among the bourgeoisie with that hope.
+His family were kept in perpetual fear of a ridiculous mesalliance.
+Among these relations was Madame de Merville, whom you may have heard
+of."
+
+"Madame de Merville! Ah, yes! Handsome, was she not?"
+
+"It is true. Madame de Merville, whose failing was pride, was known more
+than once to have bought off the matrimonial inclinations of the amorous
+vicomte. Suddenly there appeared in her circles a very handsome young
+man. He was presented formally to her friends as the son of the Vicomte
+de Vaudemont by his second marriage with an English lady, brought up in
+England, and now for the first time publicly acknowledged. Some scandal
+was circulated--"
+
+"Sir," interrupted Monsieur de Liancourt, very gravely, "the scandal was
+such as all honourable men must stigmatise and despise--it was only to
+be traced to some lying lackey--a scandal that the young man was already
+the lover of a woman of stainless reputation the very first day that he
+entered Paris! I answer for the falsity of that report. But that report
+I own was one that decided not only Madame de Merville, who was a
+sensitive--too sensitive a person, but my friend young Vaudemont, to
+a marriage, from the pecuniary advantages of which he was too
+high-spirited not to shrink."
+
+"Well," said Lord Lilburne, "then this young De Vaudemont married Madame
+de Merville?"
+
+"No," said Liancourt somewhat sadly, "it was not so decreed; for
+Vaudemont, with a feeling which belongs to a gentleman, and which I
+honour, while deeply and gratefully attached to Madame de Merville,
+desired that he might first win for himself some honourable distinction
+before he claimed a hand to which men of fortunes so much higher had
+aspired in vain. I am not ashamed," he added, after a slight pause, "to
+say that I had been one of the rejected suitors, and that I still revere
+the memory of Eugenie de Merville. The young man, therefore, was to have
+entered my regiment. Before, however, he had joined it, and while yet
+in the full flush of a young man's love for a woman formed to excite the
+strongest attachment, she--she---" The Frenchman's voice trembled, and
+he resumed with affected composure: "Madame de Merville, who had the
+best and kindest heart that ever beat in a human breast, learned one day
+that there was a poor widow in the garret of the hotel she inhabited who
+was dangerously ill--without medicine and without food--having lost
+her only friend and supporter in her husband some time before. In
+the impulse of the moment, Madame de Merville herself attended this
+widow--caught the fever that preyed upon her--was confined to her bed
+ten days--and died as she had lived, in serving others and forgetting
+self.--And so much, sir, for the scandal you spoke of!"
+
+"A warning," observed Lord Lilburne, "against trifling with one's health
+by that vanity of parading a kind heart, which is called charity. If
+charity, mon cher, begins at home, it is in the drawing-room, not the
+garret!"
+
+The Frenchman looked at his host in some disdain, bit his lip, and was
+silent.
+
+"But still," resumed Lord Lilburne, "still it is so probable that your
+old vicomte had a son; and I can so perfectly understand why he did not
+wish to be embarrassed with him as long as he could help it, that I
+do not understand why there should be any doubt of the younger De
+Vaudemont's parentage."
+
+"Because," said the Frenchman who had first commenced the
+narrative,--"because the young man refused to take the legal steps
+to proclaim his birth and naturalise himself a Frenchman; because, no
+sooner was Madame de Merville dead than he forsook the father he had so
+newly discovered--forsook France, and entered with some other officers,
+under the brave, &m------ in the service of one of the native princes of
+India."
+
+"But perhaps he was poor," observed Lord Lilburne. "A father is a very
+good thing, and a country is a very good thing, but still a man must
+have money; and if your father does not do much for you, somehow or
+other, your country generally follows his example."
+
+"My lord," said Liancourt, "my friend here has forgotten to say that
+Madame de Merville had by deed of gift; (though unknown to her lover),
+before her death, made over to young Vaudemont the bulk of her fortune;
+and that, when he was informed of this donation after her decease, and
+sufficiently recovered from the stupor of his grief, he summoned her
+relations round him, declared that her memory was too dear to him for
+wealth to console him for her loss, and reserving to himself but a
+modest and bare sufficiency for the common necessaries of a gentleman,
+he divided the rest amongst them, and repaired to the East; not only to
+conquer his sorrow by the novelty and stir of an exciting life, but to
+carve out with his own hand the reputation of an honourable and brave
+man. My friend remembered the scandal long buried--he forgot the
+generous action."
+
+"Your friend, you see, my dear Monsieur de Liancourt," remarked
+Lilburne, "is more a man of the world than you are!"
+
+"And I was just going to observe," said the friend thus referred to,
+"that that very action seemed to confirm the rumour that there had been
+some little manoeuvring as to this unexpected addition to the name of De
+Vaudemont; for, if himself related to Madame de Merville, why have such
+scruples to receive her gift?"
+
+"A very shrewd remark," said Lord Lilburne, looking with some respect at
+the speaker; "and I own that it is a very unaccountable proceeding, and
+one of which I don't think you or I would ever have been guilty. Well,
+and the old Vicomte?"
+
+"Did not live long!" said the Frenchman, evidently gratified by his
+host's compliment, while Liancourt threw himself back in his chair in
+grave displeasure. "The young man remained some years in India, and when
+he returned to Paris, our friend here, Monsieur de Liancourt (then in
+favour with Charles X.), and Madame de Merville's relations took him
+up. He had already acquired a reputation in this foreign service, and he
+obtained a place at the court, and a commission in the king's guards.
+I allow that he would certainly have made a career, had it not been for
+the Three Days. As it is, you see him in London, like the rest of us, an
+exile!"
+
+"And I suppose, without a sous."
+
+"No, I believe that he had still saved, and even augmented, in India,
+the portion he allotted to himself from Madame de Merville's bequest."
+
+"And if he don't play whist, he ought to play it," said Lilburne. "You
+have roused my curiosity; I hope you will let me make his acquaintance,
+Monsieur de Liancourt. I am no politician, but allow me to propose this
+toast, 'Success to those who have the wit to plan, and the strength to
+execute.' In other words, 'the Right Divine!'"
+
+Soon afterwards the guests retired.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+"Ros. Happily, he's the second time come to them."--Hamlet.
+
+It was the evening after that in which the conversations recorded in
+our last chapter were held;--evening in the quiet suburb of H------. The
+desertion and silence of the metropolis in September had extended to
+its neighbouring hamlets;--a village in the heart of the country could
+scarcely have seemed more still; the lamps were lighted, many of the
+shops already closed, a few of the sober couples and retired spinsters
+of the place might, here and there, be seen slowly wandering
+homeward after their evening walk: two or three dogs, in spite of the
+prohibitions of the magistrates placarded on the walls,--(manifestoes
+which threatened with death the dogs, and predicted more than ordinary
+madness to the public,)--were playing in the main road, disturbed from
+time to time as the slow coach, plying between the city and the suburb,
+crawled along the thoroughfare, or as the brisk mails whirled rapidly
+by, announced by the cloudy dust and the guard's lively horn. Gradually
+even these evidences of life ceased--the saunterers disappeared, the
+mails had passed, the dogs gave place to the later and more stealthy
+perambulations of their feline successors "who love the moon." At
+unfrequent intervals, the more important shops--the linen-drapers', the
+chemists', and the gin-palace--still poured out across the shadowy
+road their streams of light from windows yet unclosed: but with these
+exceptions, the business of the place stood still.
+
+At this time there emerged from a milliner's house (shop, to outward
+appearance, it was not, evincing its gentility and its degree above the
+Capelocracy, to use a certain classical neologism, by a brass plate on
+an oak door, whereon was graven, "Miss Semper, Milliner and Dressmaker,
+from Madame Devy,")--at this time, I say, and from this house there
+emerged the light and graceful form of a young female. She held in her
+left hand a little basket, of the contents of which (for it was empty)
+she had apparently just disposed; and, as she stepped across the
+road, the lamplight fell on a face in the first bloom of youth, and
+characterised by an expression of childlike innocence and candour. It
+was a face regularly and exquisitely lovely, yet something there was
+in the aspect that saddened you; you knew not why, for it was not sad
+itself; on the contrary, the lips smiled and the eyes sparkled. As she
+now glided along the shadowy street with a light, quick step, a man,
+who had hitherto been concealed by the portico of an attorney's house,
+advanced stealthily, and followed her at a little distance. Unconscious
+that she was dogged, and seemingly fearless of all danger, the girl went
+lightly on, swinging her basket playfully to and fro, and chaunting, in
+a low but musical tone, some verses that seemed rather to belong to the
+nursery than to that age which the fair singer had attained.
+
+As she came to an angle which the main street formed with a lane, narrow
+and partially lighted, a policeman, stationed there, looked hard at her,
+and then touched his hat with an air of respect, in which there seemed
+also a little of compassion.
+
+"Good night to you," said the girl, passing him, and with a frank, gay
+tone.
+
+"Shall I attend you home, Miss?" said the man.
+
+"What for? I am very well!" answered the young woman, with an accent and
+look of innocent surprise.
+
+Just at this time the man, who had hitherto followed her, gained the
+spot, and turned down the lane.
+
+"Yes," replied the policeman; "but it is getting dark, Miss."
+
+"So it is every night when I walk home, unless there's a
+moon.--Good-bye.--The moon," she repeated to herself, as she walked on,
+"I used to be afraid of the moon when I was a little child;" and then,
+after a pause, she murmured, in a low chaunt:
+
+
+        "'The moon she is a wandering ghost,
+        That walks in penance nightly;
+        How sad she is, that wandering moon,
+        For all she shines so brightly!
+
+        "'I watched her eyes when I was young,
+        Until they turned my brain,
+        And now I often weep to think
+        'Twill ne'er be right again.'"
+
+As the murmur of these words died at a distance down the lane in which
+the girl had disappeared, the policeman, who had paused to listen, shook
+his head mournfully, and said, while he moved on,--
+
+"Poor thing! they should not let her always go about by herself; and
+yet, who would harm her?"
+
+Meanwhile the girl proceeded along the lane, which was skirted by small,
+but not mean houses, till it terminated in a cross-stile that admitted
+into a church yard. Here hung the last lamp in the path, and a few
+dim stars broke palely over the long grass, and scattered gravestones,
+without piercing the deep shadow which the church threw over a large
+portion of the sacred ground. Just as she passed the stile, the man,
+whom we have before noticed, and who had been leaning, as if waiting for
+some one, against the pales, approached, and said gently,--
+
+"Ah, Miss! it is a lone place for one so beautiful as you are to be
+alone. You ought never to be on foot."
+
+The girl stopped, and looked full, but without any alarm in her eyes,
+into the man's face.
+
+"Go away!" she said, with a half-peevish, half-kindly tone of command.
+"I don't know you."
+
+"But I have been sent to speak to you by one who does know you,
+Miss--one who loves you to distraction--he has seen you before at Mrs.
+West's. He is so grieved to think you should walk--you ought, he says,
+to have every luxury--that he has sent his carriage for you. It is on
+the other side of the yard. Do come now;" and he laid his hand, though
+very lightly, on her arm.
+
+"At Mrs. West's!" she said; and, for the first time, her voice and look
+showed fear. "Go away directly! How dare you touch me!"
+
+"But, my dear Miss, you have no idea how my employer loves you, and how
+rich he is. See, he has sent you all this money; it is gold--real gold.
+You may have what you like, if you will but come. Now, don't be silly,
+Miss." The girl made no answer, but, with a sudden spring, passed
+the man, and ran lightly and rapidly along the path, in an opposite
+direction from that to which the tempter had pointed, when inviting her
+to the carriage. The man, surprised, but not baffled, reached her in an
+instant, and caught hold of her dress.
+
+"Stay! you must come--you must!" he said, threateningly; and, loosening
+his grasp on her shawl, he threw his arm round her waist.
+
+"Don't!" cried the girl, pleadingly, and apparently subdued, turning
+her fair, soft face upon her pursuer, and clasping her hands. "Be quiet!
+Fanny is silly! No one is ever rude to poor Fanny!"
+
+"And no one will be rude to you, Miss," said the man, apparently
+touched; "but I dare not go without you. You don't know what you refuse.
+Come;" and he attempted gently to draw her back.
+
+"No, no!" said the girl, changing from supplication to anger, and
+raising her voice into a loud shriek, "No! I will--"
+
+"Nay, then," interrupted the man, looking round anxiously, and, with
+a quick and dexterous movement he threw a large handkerchief over her
+face, and, as he held it fast to her lips with one hand, he lifted
+her from the ground. Still violently struggling, the girl contrived to
+remove the handkerchief, and once more her shriek of terror rang through
+the violated sanctuary.
+
+At that instant a loud deep voice was heard, "Who calls?" And a tall
+figure seemed to rise, as from the grave itself, and emerge from the
+shadow of the church. A moment more, and a strong gripe was laid on the
+shoulder of the ravisher. "What is this? On God's ground, too! Release
+her, wretch!"
+
+The man, trembling, half with superstitious, half with bodily fear, let
+go his captive, who fell at once at the knees of her deliverer. "Don't
+you hurt me too," she said, as the tears rolled down her eyes. "I am a
+good girl--and my grandfather's blind."
+
+The stranger bent down and raised her; then looking round for the
+assailant with an eye whose dark fire shone through the gloom, he
+perceived the coward stealing off. He disdained to pursue.
+
+"My poor child," said he, with that voice which the strong assume to the
+weak--the man to some wounded infant--the voice of tender superiority
+and compassion, "there is no cause for fear now. Be soothed. Do you live
+near? Shall I see you home?"
+
+"Thank you! That's kind. Pray do!" And, with an infantine confidence
+she took his hand, as a child does that of a grown-up person;--so they
+walked on together.
+
+"And," said the stranger, "do you know that man? Has he insulted you
+before?"
+
+"No--don't talk of him: ce me fait mal!" And she put her hand to her
+forehead.
+
+The French was spoken with so French an accent, that, in some curiosity,
+the stranger cast his eye over her plain dress.
+
+"You speak French well."
+
+"Do I? I wish I knew more words--I only recollect a few. When I am very
+happy or very sad they come into my head. But I am happy now. I like
+your voice--I like you--Oh! I have dropped my basket!"
+
+"Shall I go back for it, or shall I buy you another?"
+
+"Another!--Oh, no! come back for it. How kind you are!--Ah! I see it!"
+and she broke away and ran forward to pick it up.
+
+When she had recovered it, she laughed--she spoke to it--she kissed it.
+
+Her companion smiled as he said: "Some sweetheart has given you that
+basket--it seems but a common basket too."
+
+"I have had it--oh, ever since--since--I don't know how long! It came
+with me from France--it was full of little toys. They are gone--I am so
+sorry!"
+
+"How old are you?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"My pretty one," said the stranger, with deep pity in his rich voice,
+"your mother should not let you go out alone at this hour."
+
+"Mother!--mother!" repeated the girl, in a tone of surprise.
+
+"Have you no mother?"
+
+"No! I had a father once. But he died, they say. I did not see him die.
+I sometimes cry when I think that I shall never, never see him again!
+But," she said, changing her accent from melancholy almost to joy, "he
+is to have a grave here like the other girl's fathers--a fine stone upon
+it--and all to be done with my money!"
+
+"Your money, my child?"
+
+"Yes; the money I make. I sell my work and take the money to my
+grandfather; but I lay by a little every week for a gravestone for my
+father."
+
+"Will the gravestone be placed in that churchyard?" They were now in
+another lane; and, as he spoke, the stranger checked her, and bending
+down to look into her face, he murmured to himself, "Is it possible?--it
+must be--it must!"
+
+"Yes! I love that churchyard--my brother told me to put flowers there;
+and grandfather and I sit there in the summer, without speaking. But I
+don't talk much, I like singing better:--
+
+
+        "'All things that good and harmless are
+        Are taught, they say, to sing
+        The maiden resting at her work,
+        The bird upon the wing;
+        The little ones at church, in prayer;
+        The angels in the sky
+        The angels less when babes are born
+        Than when the aged die.'"
+
+And unconscious of the latent moral, dark or cheering, according as we
+estimate the value of this life, couched in the concluding rhyme, Fanny
+turned round to the stranger, and said, "Why should the angels be glad
+when the aged die?"
+
+"That they are released from a false, unjust, and miserable world, in
+which the first man was a rebel, and the second a murderer!" muttered
+the stranger between his teeth, which he gnashed as he spoke.
+
+The girl did not understand him: she shook her head gently, and made no
+reply. A few moments, and she paused before a small house.
+
+"This is my home."
+
+"It is so," said her companion, examining the exterior of the house with
+an earnest gaze; "and your name is Fanny."
+
+"Yes--every one knows Fanny. Come in;" and the girl opened the door with
+a latch-key.
+
+The stranger bowed his stately height as he crossed the low threshold
+and followed his guide into a little parlour. Before a table on which
+burned dimly, and with unheeded wick, a single candle, sat a man of
+advanced age; and as he turned his face to the door, the stranger saw
+that he was blind.
+
+The girl bounded to his chair, passed her arms round the old man's neck,
+and kissed his forehead; then nestling herself at his feet, and leaning
+her clasped hands caressingly on his knee, she said,--
+
+"Grandpapa, I have brought you somebody you must love. He has been so
+kind to Fanny."
+
+"And neither of you can remember me!" said the guest.
+
+The old man, whose dull face seemed to indicate dotage, half raised
+himself at the sound of the stranger's voice. "Who is that?" said he,
+with a feeble and querulous voice. "Who wants me?"
+
+"I am the friend of your lost son. I am he who, ten years go, brought
+Fanny to your roof, and gave her to your care--your son's last charge.
+And you blessed your son, and forgave him, and vowed to be a father to
+his Fanny." The old man, who had now slowly risen to his feet, trembled
+violently, and stretched out his hands.
+
+"Come near--near--let me put my hands on your head. I cannot see you;
+but Fanny talks of you, and prays for you; and Fanny--she has been an
+angel to me!"
+
+The stranger approached and half knelt as the old man spread his hands
+over his head, muttering inaudibly. Meanwhile Fanny, pale as death--her
+lips apart--an eager, painful expression on her face--looked inquiringly
+on the dark, marked countenance of the visitor, and creeping towards him
+inch by inch, fearfully touched his dress--his arms--his countenance.
+
+"Brother," she said at last, doubtingly and timidly, "Brother, I thought
+I could never forget you! But you are not like my brother; you are
+older;--you are--you are!--no! no! you are not my brother!"
+
+"I am much changed, Fanny; and you too!"
+
+He smiled as he spoke; and the smile--sweet and pitying--thoroughly
+changed the character of his face, which was ordinarily stern, grave,
+and proud.
+
+"I know you now!" exclaimed Fanny, in a tone of wild joy. "And you come
+back from that grave! My flowers have brought you back at last! I knew
+they would! Brother! Brother!"
+
+And she threw herself on his breast and burst into passionate tears.
+Then, suddenly drawing herself back, she laid her finger on his arm, and
+looked up at him beseechingly.
+
+"Pray, now, is he really dead? He, my father!--he, too, was lost like
+you. Can't he come back again as you have done?"
+
+"Do you grieve for him still, then? Poor girl!" said the stranger,
+evasively, and seating himself. Fanny continued to listen for an answer
+to her touching question; but finding that none was given, she stole
+away to a corner of the room, and leaned her face on her hands, and
+seemed to think--till at last, as she so sat, the tears began to flow
+down her cheeks, and she wept, but silently and unnoticed.
+
+"But, sir," said the guest, after a short pause, "how is this? Fanny
+tells me she supports you by her work. Are you so poor, then? Yet I left
+you your son's bequest; and you, too, I understood, though not rich,
+were not in want!"
+
+"There was a curse on my gold," said the old man, sternly. "It was
+stolen from us."
+
+There was another pause. Simon broke it.
+
+"And you, young man--how has it fared with you? You have prospered, I
+hope."
+
+"I am as I have been for years--alone in the world, without kindred and
+without friends. But, thanks to Heaven, I am not a beggar!"
+
+"No kindred and no friends!" repeated the old man. "No father--no
+brother--no wife--no sister!"
+
+"None! No one to care whether I live or die," answered the stranger,
+with a mixture of pride and sadness in his voice. "But, as the song has
+it--
+
+
+          "'I care for nobody--no, not I,
+          For nobody cares for me!'"
+
+There was a certain pathos in the mockery with which he repeated
+the homely lines, although, as he did, he gathered himself up, as if
+conscious of a certain consolation and reliance on the resources not
+dependent on others which he had found in his own strong limbs and his
+own stout heart.
+
+At that moment he felt a soft touch upon his hand, and he saw Fanny
+looking at him through the tears that still flowed.
+
+"You have no one to care for you? Don't say so! Come and live with us,
+brother; we'll care for you. I have never forgotten the flowers--never!
+Do come! Fanny shall love you. Fanny can work for three!"
+
+"And they call her an idiot!" mumbled the old man, with a vacant smile
+on his lips.
+
+"My sister! You shall be my sister! Forlorn one--whom even Nature has
+fooled and betrayed! Sister!--we, both orphans! Sister!" exclaimed that
+dark, stern man, passionately, and with a broken voice; and he opened
+his arms, and Fanny, without a blush or a thought of shame, threw
+herself on his breast. He kissed her forehead with a kiss that was,
+indeed, pure and holy as a brother's: and Fanny felt that he had left
+upon her cheek a tear that was not her own.
+
+"Well," he said, with an altered voice, and taking the old man's hand,
+"what say you? Shall I take up my lodging with you? I have a little
+money; I can protect and aid you both. I shall be often away--in London
+or else where--and will not intrude too much on you. But you blind, and
+she--(here he broke off the sentence abruptly and went on)--you should
+not be left alone. And this neighbourhood, that burial-place, are dear
+to me. I, too, Fanny, have lost a parent; and that grave--"
+
+He paused, and then added, in a trembling voice, "And you have placed
+flowers over that grave?"
+
+"Stay with us," said the blind man; "not for our sake, but your own. The
+world is a bad place. I have been long sick of the world. Yes! come and
+live near the burial-ground--the nearer you are to the grave, the safer
+you are;--and you have a little money, you say!"
+
+"I will come to-morrow, then. I must return now. Tomorrow, Fanny, we
+shall meet again."
+
+"Must you go?" said Fanny, tenderly. "But you will come again; you know
+I used to think every one died when he left me. I am wiser now. Yet
+still, when you do leave me, it is true that you die for Fanny!"
+
+At this moment, as the three persons were grouped, each had assumed
+a posture of form, an expression of face, which a painter of fitting
+sentiment and skill would have loved to study. The visitor had gained
+the door; and as he stood there, his noble height--the magnificent
+strength and health of his manhood in its full prime--contrasted alike
+the almost spectral debility of extreme age and the graceful delicacy
+of Fanny--half girl, half child. There was something foreign in his
+air--and the half military habit, relieved by the red riband of the
+Bourbon knighthood. His complexion was dark as that of a Moor, and
+his raven hair curled close to the stately head. The
+soldier-moustache--thick, but glossy as silk-shaded the firm lip; and
+the pointed beard, assumed by the exiled Carlists, heightened the effect
+of the strong and haughty features and the expression of the martial
+countenance.
+
+But as Fanny's voice died on his ear, he half averted that proud face;
+and the dark eyes--almost Oriental in their brilliancy and depth of
+shade--seemed soft and humid. And there stood Fanny, in a posture
+of such unconscious sadness--such childlike innocence; her arms
+drooping--her face wistfully turned to his--and a half smile upon the
+lips, that made still more touching the tears not yet dried upon her
+cheeks. While thin, frail, shadowy, with white hair and furrowed cheeks,
+the old man fixed his sightless orbs on space; and his face, usually
+only animated from the lethargy of advancing dotage by a certain
+querulous cynicism, now grew suddenly earnest, and even thoughtful, as
+Fanny spoke of Death!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+        "Ulyss. Time hath a wallet at his back
+        Wherein he puts alms for oblivion.
+        * * Perseverance, dear my lord,
+        Keeps honour bright."--Troilus and Cressida.
+
+I have not sought--as would have been easy, by a little ingenuity in the
+earlier portion of this narrative--whatever source of vulgar interest
+might be derived from the mystery of names and persons. As in Charles
+Spencer the reader is allowed at a glance to detect Sidney Morton, so in
+Philip de Vaudemont (the stranger who rescued Fanny) the reader at once
+recognises the hero of my tale; but since neither of these young men has
+a better right to the name resigned than to the name adopted, it will be
+simpler and more convenient to designate them by those appellations by
+which they are now known to the world. In truth, Philip de Vaudemont was
+scarcely the same being as Philip Morton. In the short visit he had
+paid to the elder Gawtrey, when he consigned Fanny to his charge, he had
+given no name; and the one he now took (when, towards the evening of the
+next day he returned to Simon's house) the old man heard for the first
+time. Once more sunk into his usual apathy, Simon did not express any
+surprise that a Frenchman should be so well acquainted with English--he
+scarcely observed that the name was French. Simon's age seemed daily to
+bring him more and more to that state when life is mere mechanism, and
+the soul, preparing for its departure, no longer heeds the tenement that
+crumbles silently and neglected into its lonely dust. Vaudemont came
+with but little luggage (for he had an apartment also in London), and
+no attendant,--a single horse was consigned to the stables of an inn at
+hand, and he seemed, as soldiers are, more careful for the comforts of
+the animal than his own. There was but one woman servant in the humble
+household, who did all the ruder work, for Fanny's industry could afford
+it. The solitary servant and the homely fare sufficed for the simple and
+hardy adventurer.
+
+Fanny, with a countenance radiant with joy, took his hand and led him to
+his room. Poor child! with that instinct of woman which never deserted
+her, she had busied herself the whole day in striving to deck the
+chamber according to her own notions of comfort. She had stolen from
+her little hoard wherewithal to make some small purchases, on which the
+Dowbiggin of the suburb had been consulted. And what with flowers on the
+table, and a fire at the hearth, the room looked cheerful.
+
+She watched him as he glanced around, and felt disappointed that he
+did not utter the admiration she expected. Angry at last with the
+indifference which, in fact, as to external accommodation, was habitual
+to him, she plucked his sleeve, and said,--
+
+"Why don't you speak? Is it not nice?--Fanny did her best."
+
+"And a thousand thanks to Fanny! It is all I could wish."
+
+"There is another room, bigger than this, but the wicked woman who
+robbed us slept there; and besides, you said you liked the churchyard.
+See!" and she opened the window and pointed to the church-tower rising
+dark against the evening sky.
+
+"This is better than all!" said Vaudemont; and he looked out from the
+window in a silent reverie, which Fanny did not disturb.
+
+And now he was settled! From a career so wild, agitated, and various,
+the adventurer paused in that humble resting-nook. But quiet is not
+repose--obscurity is not content. Often as, morn and eve, he looked
+forth upon the spot, where his mother's heart, unconscious of love and
+woe, mouldered away, the indignant and bitter feelings of the wronged
+outcast and the son who could not clear the mother's name swept away the
+subdued and gentle melancholy into which time usually softens regret for
+the dead, and with which most of us think of the distant past, and the
+once joyous childhood!
+
+In this man's breast lay, concealed by his external calm, those memories
+and aspirations which are as strong as passions. In his earlier years,
+when he had been put to hard shifts for existence, he had found no
+leisure for close and brooding reflection upon that spoliation of just
+rights--that calumny upon his mother's name, which had first brought
+the Night into his Morning. His resentment towards the Beauforts, it is
+true, had ever been an intense but a fitful and irregular passion. It
+was exactly in proportion as, by those rare and romantic incidents which
+Fiction cannot invent, and which Narrative takes with diffidence from
+the great Store-house of Real Life, his steps had ascended in the social
+ladder--that all which his childhood had lost--all which the robbers
+of his heritage had gained, the grandeur and the power of WEALTH--above
+all, the hourly and the tranquil happiness of a stainless name, became
+palpable and distinct. He had loved Eugenie as a boy loves for the first
+time an accomplished woman. He regarded her, so refined--so gentle--so
+gifted, with the feelings due to a superior being, with an eternal
+recollection of the ministering angel that had shone upon him when
+he stood on the dark abyss. She was the first that had redeemed his
+fate--the first that had guided aright his path--the first that had
+tamed the savage at his breast:--it was the young lion charmed by the
+eyes of Una. The outline of his story had been truly given at Lord
+Lilburne's. Despite his pride, which revolted from such obligations to
+another, and a woman--which disliked and struggled against a disguise
+which at once and alone saved him from the detection of the past and the
+terrors of the future--he had yielded to her, the wise and the gentle,
+as one whose judgment he could not doubt; and, indeed, the slanderous
+falsehoods circulated by the lackey, to whose discretion, the night of
+Gawtrey's death, Eugenie had preferred to confide her own honour, rather
+than another's life, had (as Liancourt rightly stated) left Philip no
+option but that which Madame de Merville deemed the best, whether for
+her happiness or her good name. Then had followed a brief season--the
+holiday of his life--the season of young hope and passion, of brilliancy
+and joy, closing by that abrupt death which again left him lonely in the
+world.
+
+When, from the grief that succeeded to the death of Eugenie, he woke to
+find himself amidst the strange faces and exciting scenes of an Oriental
+court, he turned with hard and disgustful contempt from Pleasure, as an
+infidelity to the dead. Ambition crept over him--his mind hardened
+as his cheek bronzed under those burning suns--his hardy frame,
+his energies prematurely awakened, his constitutional disregard to
+danger,--made him a brave and skilful soldier. He acquired reputation
+and rank. But, as time went on, the ambition took a higher flight--he
+felt his sphere circumscribed; the Eastern indolence that filled up the
+long intervals between Eastern action chafed a temper never at rest:
+he returned to France: his reputation, Liancourt's friendship, and the
+relations of Eugenie--grateful, as has before been implied, for
+the generosity with which he surrendered the principal part of her
+donation--opened for him a new career, but one painful and galling. In
+the Indian court there was no question of his birth--one adventurer was
+equal with the rest. But in Paris, a man attempting to rise provoked all
+the sarcasm of wit, all the cavils of party; and in polished and civil
+life, what valour has weapons against a jest? Thus, in civilisation,
+all the passions that spring from humiliated self-love and baffled
+aspiration again preyed upon his breast. He saw, then, that the more he
+struggled from obscurity, the more acute would become research into his
+true origin; and his writhing pride almost stung to death his ambition.
+To succeed in life by regular means was indeed difficult for this man;
+always recoiling from the name he bore--always strong in the hope yet
+to regain that to which he conceived himself entitled--cherishing that
+pride of country which never deserts the native of a Free State,
+however harsh a parent she may have proved; and, above all, whatever
+his ambition and his passions, taking, from the very misfortunes he had
+known, an indomitable belief in the ultimate justice of Heaven;--he had
+refused to sever the last ties that connected him with his lost heritage
+and his forsaken land--he refused to be naturalised--to make the name
+he bore legally undisputed--he was contented to be an alien. Neither was
+Vaudemont fitted exactly for that crisis in the social world when the
+men of journals and talk bustle aside the men of action. He had not
+cultivated literature, he had no book-knowledge--the world had been his
+school, and stern life his teacher. Still, eminently skilled in those
+physical accomplishments which men admire and soldiers covet, calm and
+self-possessed in manner, of great personal advantages, of much ready
+talent and of practised observation in character, he continued to breast
+the obstacles around him, and to establish himself in the favour of
+those in power. It was natural to a person so reared and circumstanced
+to have no sympathy with what is called the popular cause. He was no
+citizen in the state--he was a stranger in the land. He had suffered
+and still suffered too much from mankind to have that philanthropy,
+sometimes visionary but always noble, which, in fact, generally springs
+from the studies we cultivate, not in the forum, but the closet. Men,
+alas! too often lose the Democratic Enthusiasm in proportion as they
+find reason to suspect or despise their kind. And if there were not
+hopes for the Future, which this hard, practical daily life does not
+suffice to teach us, the vision and the glory that belong to the Great
+Popular Creed, dimmed beneath the injustice, the follies, and the vices
+of the world as it is, would fade into the lukewarm sectarianism of
+temporary Party. Moreover, Vaudemont's habits of thought and reasoning
+were those of the camp, confirmed by the systems familiar to him in the
+East: he regarded the populace as a soldier enamoured of discipline and
+order usually does. His theories, therefore, or rather his ignorance of
+what is sound in theory, went with Charles the Tenth in his excesses,
+but not with the timidity which terminated those excesses by
+dethronement and disgrace. Chafed to the heart, gnawed with proud grief,
+he obeyed the royal mandates, and followed the exiled monarch: his hopes
+overthrown, his career in France annihilated forever. But on entering
+England, his temper, confident and ready of resource, fastened itself
+on new food. In the land where he had no name he might yet rebuild his
+fortunes. It was an arduous effort--an improbable hope; but the words
+heard by the bridge of Paris--words that had often cheered him in his
+exile through hardships and through dangers which it is unnecessary to
+our narrative to detail--yet rung again in his ear, as he leaped on his
+native land,--"Time, Faith, Energy."
+
+While such his character in the larger and more distant relations
+of life, in the closer circles of companionship many rare and
+noble qualities were visible. It is true that he was stern, perhaps
+imperious--of a temper that always struggled for command; but he was
+deeply susceptible of kindness, and, if feared by those who opposed,
+loved by those who served him. About his character was that mixture of
+tenderness and fierceness which belonged, of old, to the descriptions of
+the warrior. Though so little unlettered, Life had taught him a certain
+poetry of sentiment and idea--More poetry, perhaps, in the silent
+thoughts that, in his happier moments, filled his solitude, than in half
+the pages that his brother had read and written by the dreaming lake. A
+certain largeness of idea and nobility of impulse often made him act
+the sentiments of which bookmen write. With all his passions, he held
+licentiousness in disdain; with all his ambition for the power of
+wealth, he despised its luxury. Simple, masculine, severe, abstemious,
+he was of that mould in which, in earlier times, the successful men of
+action have been cast. But to successful action, circumstance is more
+necessary than to triumphant study.
+
+It was to be expected that, in proportion as he had been familiar with
+a purer and nobler life, he should look with great and deep
+self-humiliation at his early association with Gawtrey. He was in this
+respect more severe on himself than any other mind ordinarily just and
+candid would have been,--when fairly surveying the circumstances of
+penury, hunger, and despair, which had driven him to Gawtrey's roof, the
+imperfect nature of his early education, the boyish trust and affection
+he had felt for his protector, and his own ignorance of, and exemption
+from, all the worst practices of that unhappy criminal. But still, when,
+with the knowledge he had now acquired, the man looked calmly back, his
+cheek burned with remorseful shame at his unreflecting companionship in
+a life of subterfuge and equivocation, the true nature of which, the
+boy (so circumstanced as we have shown him) might be forgiven for not
+at that time comprehending. Two advantages resulted, however, from the
+error and the remorse: first, the humiliation it brought curbed, in some
+measure, a pride that might otherwise have been arrogant and unamiable,
+and, secondly, as I have before intimated, his profound gratitude to
+Heaven for his deliverance from the snares that had beset his youth gave
+his future the guide of an earnest and heartfelt faith. He acknowledged
+in life no such thing as accident. Whatever his struggles, whatever his
+melancholy, whatever his sense of worldly wrong, he never despaired; for
+nothing now could shake his belief in one directing Providence.
+
+The ways and habits of Vaudemont were not at discord with those of the
+quiet household in which he was now a guest. Like most men of strong
+frames, and accustomed to active, not studious pursuits, he rose
+early;--and usually rode to London, to come back late at noon to their
+frugal meal. And if again, perhaps after the hour when Fanny and Simon
+retired, he would often return to London, his own pass-key re-admitted
+him, at whatever time he came back, without disturbing the sleep of
+the household. Sometimes, when the sun began to decline, if the air was
+warm, the old man would crawl out, leaning on that strong arm, through
+the neighbouring lanes, ever returning through the lonely burial-ground;
+or when the blind host clung to his fireside, and composed himself to
+sleep, Philip would saunter forth along with Fanny; and on the days when
+she went to sell her work, or select her purchases, he always made a
+point of attending her. And her cheek wore a flush of pride when she saw
+him carrying her little basket, or waiting without, in musing patience,
+while she performed her commissions in the shops. Though in reality
+Fanny's intellect was ripening within, yet still the surface often
+misled the eye as to the depths. It was rather that something yet held
+back the faculties from their growth than that the faculties themselves
+were wanting. Her weakness was more of the nature of the infant's than
+of one afflicted with incurable imbecility. For instance, she managed
+the little household with skill and prudence; she could calculate in her
+head, as rapidly as Vaudemont himself, the arithmetic necessary to her
+simple duties; she knew the value of money, which is more than some
+of us wise folk do. Her skill, even in her infancy so remarkable,
+in various branches of female handiwork, was carried, not only by
+perseverance, but by invention and peculiar talent, to a marvellous and
+exquisite perfection. Her embroidery, especially in what was then more
+rare than at present, viz., flowers on silk, was much in request among
+the great modistes of London, to whom it found its way through the
+agency of Miss Semper. So that all this had enabled her, for years,
+to provide every necessary comfort of life for herself and her blind
+protector. And her care for the old man was beautiful in its minuteness,
+its vigilance. Wherever her heart was interested, there never seemed
+a deficiency of mind. Vaudemont was touched to see how much of
+affectionate and pitying respect she appeared to enjoy in the
+neighbourhood, especially among the humbler classes--even the beggar who
+swept the crossings did not beg of her, but bade God bless her as she
+passed; and the rude, discontented artisan would draw himself from the
+wall and answer, with a softened brow, the smile with which the harmless
+one charmed his courtesy. In fact, whatever attraction she took from
+her youth, her beauty, her misfortune, and her affecting industry, was
+heightened, in the eyes of the poorer neighbours, by many little traits
+of charity and kindness; many a sick child had she tended, and many a
+breadless board had stolen something from the stock set aside for her
+father's grave.
+
+"Don't you think," she once whispered to Vaudemont, "that God attends to
+us more if we are good to those who are sick and hungry?"
+
+"Certainly we are taught to think so."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you a secret--don't tell again. Grandpapa once said
+that my father had done bad things; now, if Fanny is good to those she
+can help, I think that God will hear her more kindly when she prays him
+to forgive what her father did. Do you think so too? Do say--you are so
+wise!"
+
+"Fanny, you are wiser than all of us; and I feel myself better and
+happier when I hear you speak."
+
+There were, indeed, many moments when Vaudemont thought that her
+deficiencies of intellect might have been repaired, long since, by
+skilful culture and habitual companionship with those of her own age;
+from which companionship, however, Fanny, even when at school, had
+shrunk aloof. At other moments there was something so absent and
+distracted about her, or so fantastic and incoherent, that Vaudemont,
+with the man's hard, worldly eye, read in it nothing but melancholy
+confusion. Nevertheless, if the skein of ideas was entangled, each
+thread in itself was a thread of gold.
+
+Fanny's great object--her great ambition--her one hope--was a tomb for
+her supposed father. Whether from some of that early religion attached
+to the grave, which is most felt in Catholic countries, and which she
+had imbibed at the convent; or from her residence so near the burial
+ground, and the affection with which she regarded the spot;--whatever
+the cause, she had cherished for some years, as young maidens usually
+cherish the desire of the Altar--the dream of the Gravestone. But
+the hoard was amassed so slowly;--now old Gawtrey was attacked by
+illness;--now there was some little difficulty in the rent; now some
+fluctuation in the price of work; and now, and more often than all, some
+demand on her charity, which interfered with, and drew from, the pious
+savings. This was a sentiment in which her new friend sympathised
+deeply; for he, too, remembered that his first gold had bought that
+humble stone which still preserved upon the earth the memory of his
+mother.
+
+Meanwhile, days crept on, and no new violence was offered to Fanny.
+Vaudemont learned, then, by little and little--and Fanny's account was
+very confused--the nature of the danger she had run.
+
+It seemed that one day, tempted by the fineness of the weather up
+the road that led from the suburb farther into the country, Fanny was
+stopped by a gentleman in a carriage, who accosted her, as she said,
+very kindly: and after several questions, which she answered with her
+usual unsuspecting innocence, learned her trade, insisted on purchasing
+some articles of work which she had at the moment in her basket, and
+promised to procure her a constant purchaser, upon much better terms
+than she had hitherto obtained, if she would call at the house of a Mrs.
+West, about a mile from the suburb towards London. This she promised
+to do, and this she did, according to the address he gave her. She was
+admitted to a lady more gaily dressed than Fanny had ever seen a lady
+before,--the gentleman was also present,--they both loaded her with
+compliments, and bought her work at a price which seemed about to
+realise all the hopes of the poor girl as to the gravestone for William
+Gawtrey,--as if his evil fate pursued that wild man beyond the grave,
+and his very tomb was to be purchased by the gold of the polluter! The
+lady then appointed her to call again; but, meanwhile, she met Fanny
+in the streets, and while she was accosting her, it fortunately chanced
+that Miss Semper the milliner passed that way--turned round, looked hard
+at the lady, used very angry language to her, seized Fanny's hand, led
+her away while the lady slunk off; and told her that the said lady was a
+very bad woman, and that Fanny must never speak to her again. Fanny
+most cheerfully promised this. And, in fact, the lady, probably afraid,
+whether of the mob or the magistrates, never again came near her.
+
+"And," said Fanny, "I gave the money they had both given to me to Miss
+Semper, who said she would send it back."
+
+"You did right, Fanny; and as you made one promise to Miss Semper, so
+you must make me one--never to stir from home again without me or some
+other person. No, no other person--only me. I will give up everything
+else to go with you."
+
+"Will you? Oh, yes. I promise! I used to like going alone, but that was
+before you came, brother."
+
+And as Fanny kept her promise, it would have been a bold gallant indeed
+who would have ventured to molest her by the side of that stately and
+strong protector.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+     "Timon. Each thing's a thief
+     The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough power
+     Have unchecked theft.
+
+     The sweet degrees that this brief world affords,
+     To such as may the passive drugs of it
+     Freely command."--Timon of Athens.
+
+On the day and at the hour fixed for the interview with the stranger who
+had visited Mr. Beaufort, Lord Lilburne was seated in the library of
+his brother-in-law; and before the elbow-chair, on which he lolled
+carelessly, stood our old friend Mr. Sharp, of Bow Street notability.
+
+"Mr. Sharp," said the peer, "I have sent for you to do me a little
+favour. I expect a man here who professes to give Mr. Beaufort, my
+brother-in-law, some information about a lawsuit. It is necessary
+to know the exact value of his evidence. I wish you to ascertain all
+particulars about him. Be so good as to seat yourself in the porter's
+chair in the hall; note him when he enters, unobserved yourself--but as
+he is probably a stranger to you, note him still more when he leaves
+the house; follow him at a distance; find out where he lives, whom he
+associates with, where he visits, their names and directions, what his
+character and calling are;--in a word, everything you can, and report
+to me each evening. Dog him well, never lose sight of him--you will be
+handsomely paid. You understand?"
+
+"Ah!" said Mr. Sharp, "leave me alone, my lord. Been employed before by
+your lordship's brother-in-law. We knows what's what."
+
+"I don't doubt it. To your post--I expect him every moment."
+
+And, in fact, Mr. Sharp had only just ensconced himself in the porter's
+chair when the stranger knocked at the door--in another moment he was
+shown in to Lord Lilburne.
+
+"Sir," said his lordship, without rising, "be so good as to take a
+chair. Mr. Beaufort is obliged to leave town--he has asked me to see
+you--I am one of his family--his wife is my sister--you may be as frank
+with me as with him,--more so, perhaps."
+
+"I beg the fauvour of your name, sir," said the stranger, adjusting his
+collar.
+
+"Yours first--business is business."
+
+"Well, then, Captain Smith."
+
+"Of what regiment?"
+
+"Half-pay."
+
+"I am Lord Lilburne. Your name is Smith--humph!" added the peer, looking
+over some notes before him. "I see it is also the name of the witness
+appealed to by Mrs. Morton--humph!"
+
+At this remark, and still more at the look which accompanied it, the
+countenance, before impudent and complacent, of Captain Smith fell into
+visible embarrassment; he cleared his throat and said, with a little
+hesitation,--
+
+"My lord, that witness is living!"
+
+"No doubt of it--witnesses never die where property is concerned and
+imposture intended."
+
+At this moment the servant entered, and placed a little note, quaintly
+folded, before Lord Lilburne. He glanced at it in surprise--opened, and
+read as follows, in pencil,--
+
+"My LORD,--I knows the man; take caer of him; he is as big a roge as
+ever stept; he was transported some three year back, and unless his time
+has been shortened by the Home, he's absent without leve. We used
+to call him Dashing Jerry. That ere youngster we went arter, by Mr.
+Bofort's wish, was a pall of his. Scuze the liberty I take.
+
+"J. SHARP."
+
+While Lord Lilburne held this effusion to the candle, and spelled his
+way through it, Captain Smith, recovering his self-composure, thus
+proceeded:
+
+"Imposture, my lord! imposture! I really don't understand. Your lordship
+really seems so suspicious, that it is quite uncomfortable. I am sure it
+is all the same to me; and if Mr. Beaufort does not think proper to see
+me himself, why I'd best make my bow."
+
+And Captain Smith rose.
+
+"Stay a moment, sir. What Mr. Beaufort may yet do, I cannot say; but
+I know this, you stand charged of a very grave offence, and if your
+witness or witnesses--you may have fifty, for what I care--are equally
+guilty, so much the worse for them."
+
+"My lord, I really don't comprehend."
+
+"Then I will be more plain. I accuse you of devising an infamous
+falsehood for the purpose of extorting money. Let your witnesses appear
+in court, and I promise that you, they, and the young man, Mr. Morton,
+whose claim they set up, shall be indicted for conspiracy--conspiracy,
+if accompanied (as in the case of your witnesses) with perjury, of the
+blackest die. Mr. Smith, I know you; and, before ten o'clock to-morrow,
+I shall know also if you had his majesty's leave to quit the colonies!
+Ah! I am plain enough now, I see."
+
+And Lord Lilburne threw himself back in his chair, and coldly
+contemplated the white face and dismayed expression of the crestfallen
+captain. That most worthy person, after a pause of confusion, amaze,
+and fear, made an involuntary stride, with a menacing gesture, towards
+Lilburne; the peer quietly placed his hand on the bell.
+
+"One moment more," said the latter; "if I ring this bell, it is to place
+you in custody. Let Mr. Beaufort but see you here once again--nay, let
+him but hear another word of this pretended lawsuit--and you return to
+the colonies. Pshaw! Frown not at me, sir! A Bow Street officer is in
+the hall. Begone!--no, stop one moment, and take a lesson in life. Never
+again attempt to threaten people of property and station. Around every
+rich man is a wall--better not run your head against it."
+
+"But I swear solemnly," cried the knave, with an emphasis so startling
+that it carried with it the appearance of truth, "that the marriage did
+take place."
+
+"And I say, no less solemnly, that any one who swears it in a court of
+law shall be prosecuted for perjury! Bah! you are a sorry rogue, after
+all!"
+
+And with an air of supreme and half-compassionate contempt, Lord
+Lilburne turned away and stirred the fire. Captain Smith muttered
+and fumbled a moment with his gloves, then shrugged his shoulders and
+sneaked out.
+
+That night Lord Lilburne again received his friends, and amongst
+his guests came Vaudemont. Lilburne was one who liked the study of
+character, especially the character of men wrestling against the world.
+Wholly free from every species of ambition, he seemed to reconcile
+himself to his apathy by examining into the disquietude, the
+mortification, the heart's wear and tear, which are the lot of the
+ambitious. Like the spider in his hole, he watched with hungry pleasure
+the flies struggling in the web; through whose slimy labyrinth he walked
+with an easy safety. Perhaps one reason why he loved gaming was less
+from the joy of winning than the philosophical complacency with which he
+feasted on the emotions of those who lost; always serene, and, except
+in debauch, always passionless,--Majendie, tracing the experiments of
+science in the agonies of some tortured dog, could not be more rapt
+in the science, and more indifferent to the dog, than Lord Lilburne,
+ruining a victim, in the analysis of human passions,--stoical in the
+writhings of the wretch whom he tranquilly dissected. He wished to win
+money of Vaudemont--to ruin this man, who presumed to be more generous
+than other people--to see a bold adventurer submitted to the wheel
+of the Fortune which reigns in a pack of cards;--and all, of course,
+without the least hate to the man whom he then saw for the first time.
+On the contrary, he felt a respect for Vaudemont. Like most worldly men,
+Lord Lilburne was prepossessed in favour of those who seek to rise in
+life: and like men who have excelled in manly and athletic exercises,
+he was also prepossessed in favour of those who appeared fitted for the
+same success.
+
+Liancourt took aside his friend, as Lord Lilburne was talking with his
+other guests:--
+
+"I need not caution you, who never play, not to commit yourself to Lord
+Lilburne's tender mercies; remember, he is an admirable player."
+
+"Nay," answered Vaudemont, "I want to know this man: I have reasons,
+which alone induce me to enter his house. I can afford to venture
+something, because I wish to see if I can gain something for one dear to
+me. And for the rest (he muttered)--I know him too well not to be on
+my guard." With that he joined Lord Lilburne's group, and accepted the
+invitation to the card-table. At supper, Vaudemont conversed more than
+was habitual to him; he especially addressed himself to his host, and
+listened, with great attention, to Lilburne's caustic comments upon
+every topic successively started. And whether it was the art of De
+Vaudemont, or from an interest that Lord Lilburne took in studying
+what was to him a new character,--or whether that, both men excelling
+peculiarly in all masculine accomplishments, their conversation was of
+a nature that was more attractive to themselves than to others; it so
+happened that they were still talking while the daylight already peered
+through the window-curtains.
+
+"And I have outstayed all your guests," said De Vaudemont, glancing
+round the emptied room.
+
+"It is the best compliment you could pay me. Another night we can
+enliven our tete-a-tete with ecarte; though at your age, and with your
+appearance, I am surprised, Monsieur de Vaudemont, that you are fond of
+play: I should have thought that it was not in a pack of cards that
+you looked for hearts. But perhaps you are _blase _betimes of the _beau
+sexe_."
+
+"Yet your lordship's devotion to it is, perhaps, as great now as ever?"
+
+"Mine?--no, not as ever. To different ages different degrees. At your
+age I wooed; at mine I purchase--the better plan of the two: it does not
+take up half so much time."
+
+"Your marriage, I think, Lord Lilburne, was not blessed with children.
+Perhaps sometimes you feel the want of them?"
+
+"If I did, I could have them by the dozen. Other ladies have been more
+generous in that department than the late Lady Lilburne, Heaven rest
+her!"
+
+"And," said Vaudemont, fixing his eyes with some earnestness on his
+host, "if you were really persuaded that you had a child, or perhaps a
+grandchild--the mother one whom you loved in your first youth--a
+child affectionate, beautiful, and especially needing your care and
+protection, would you not suffer that child, though illegitimate, to
+supply to you the want of filial affection?"
+
+"Filial affection, mon cher!" repeated Lord Lilburne, "needing my care
+and protection! Pshaw! In other words, would I give board and lodging
+to some young vagabond who was good enough to say he was son to Lord
+Lilburne?"
+
+"But if you were convinced that the claimant were your son, or
+perhaps your daughter--a tenderer name of the two, and a more helpless
+claimant?"
+
+"My dear Monsieur de Vaudemont, you are doubtless a man of gallantry and
+of the world. If the children whom the law forces on one are, nine times
+out of ten, such damnable plagues, judge if one would father those whom
+the law permits us to disown! Natural children are the pariahs of the
+world, and I--am one of the Brahmans."
+
+"But," persisted Vaudemont, "forgive me if I press the question farther.
+Perhaps I seek from your wisdom a guide to my own conduct;--suppose,
+then, a man had loved, had wronged, the mother;--suppose that in the
+child he saw one who, without his aid, might be exposed to every curse
+with which the pariahs (true, the pariahs!) of the world are too
+often visited, and who with his aid might become, as age advanced, his
+companion, his nurse, his comforter--"
+
+"Tush!" interrupted Lilburne, with some impatience; "I know not how our
+conversation fell on such a topic--but if you really ask my opinion in
+reference to any case in practical life, you shall have it. Look you,
+then Monsieur de Vaudemont, no man has studied the art of happiness more
+than I have; and I will tell you the great secret--have as few ties as
+possible. Nurse!--pooh! you or I could hire one by the week a thousand
+times more useful and careful than a bore of a child. Comforter!--a man
+of mind never wants comfort. And there is no such thing as sorrow while
+we have health and money, and don't care a straw for anybody in the
+world. If you choose to love people, their health and circumstances, if
+either go wrong, can fret you: that opens many avenues to pain. Never
+live alone, but always feel alone. You think this unamiable: possibly.
+I am no hypocrite, and, for my part, I never affect to be anything but
+what I am--John Lilburne."
+
+As the peer thus spoke, Vaudemont, leaning against the door,
+contemplated him with a strange mixture of interest and disgust. "And
+John Lilburne is thought a great man, and William Gawtrey was a great
+rogue. You don't conceal your heart?--no, I understand. Wealth and power
+have no need of hypocrisy: you are the man of vice--Gawtrey, the man of
+crime. You never sin against the law--he was a felon by his trade. And
+the felon saved from vice the child, and from want the grandchild (Your
+flesh and blood) whom you disown: which will Heaven consider the worse
+man? No, poor Fanny, I see I am wrong. If he would own you, I would not
+give you up to the ice of such a soul:--better the blind man than the
+dead heart!"
+
+"Well, Lord Lilburne," said De Vaudemont aloud, shaking off his reverie,
+"I must own that your philosophy seems to me the wisest for yourself.
+For a poor man it might be different--the poor need affection."
+
+"Ay, the poor, certainly," said Lord Lilburne, with an air of
+patronising candour.
+
+"And I will own farther," continued De Vaudemont, "that I have willingly
+lost my money in return for the instruction I have received in hearing
+you converse."
+
+"You are kind: come and take your revenge next Thursday. Adieu."
+
+As Lord Lilburne undressed, and his valet attended him, he said to that
+worthy functionary,--
+
+"So you have not been able to make out the name of the stranger--the new
+lodger you tell me of?"
+
+"No, my lord. They only say he is a very fine-looking man."
+
+"You have not seen him?"
+
+"No, my lord. What do you wish me now to do?"
+
+"Humph! Nothing at this moment! You manage things so badly, you might
+get me into a scrape. I never do anything which the law or the police,
+or even the news papers, can get hold of. I must think of some other
+way--humph! I never give up what I once commence, and I never fail
+in what I undertake! If life had been worth what fools trouble it
+with--business and ambition--I suppose I should have been a great man
+with a very bad liver--ha ha! I alone, of all the world, ever found out
+what the world was good for! Draw the curtains, Dykeman."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+     "Org. Welcome, thou ice that sitt'st about his heart
+     No heat can ever thaw thee!"--FORD: Broken Heart.
+
+     "Nearch. Honourable infamy!"--Ibid.
+
+     "Amye. Her tenderness hath yet deserved no rigour,
+     So to be crossed by fate!"
+
+     "Arm. You misapply, sir,
+     With favour let me speak it, what Apollo
+     Hath clouded in dim sense!"--Ibid.
+
+If Vaudemont had fancied that, considering the age and poverty of Simon,
+it was his duty to see whether Fanny's not more legal, but more natural
+protector were, indeed, the unredeemed and unmalleable egotist which
+Gawtrey had painted him, the conversation of one night was sufficient to
+make him abandon for ever the notion of advancing her claims upon Lord
+Lilburne. But Philip had another motive in continuing his acquaintance
+with that personage. The sight of his mother's grave had recalled to
+him the image of that lost brother over whom he had vowed to watch. And,
+despite the deep sense of wronged affection with which he yet remembered
+the cruel letter that had contained the last tidings of Sidney, Philip's
+heart clung with undying fondness to that fair shape associated with all
+the happy recollections of childhood; and his conscience as well as his
+love asked him, each time that he passed the churchyard, "Will you
+make no effort to obey that last prayer of the mother who consigned her
+darling to your charge?" Perhaps, had Philip been in want, or had the
+name he now bore been sullied by his conduct, he might have shrunk from
+seeking one whom he might injure, but could not serve. But though not
+rich, he had more than enough for tastes as hardy and simple as any to
+which soldier of fortune ever limited his desires. And he thought, with
+a sentiment of just and noble pride, that the name which Eugenie had
+forced upon him had been borne spotless as the ermine through the trials
+and vicissitudes he had passed since he had assumed it. Sidney could
+give him nothing, and therefore it was his duty to seek Sidney out. Now,
+he had always believed in his heart that the Beauforts were acquainted
+with a secret which he more and more pined to penetrate. He would, for
+Sidney's sake, smother his hate to the Beauforts; he would not reject
+their acquaintance if thrown in his way; nay, secure in his change of
+name and his altered features, from all suspicion on their part, he
+would seek that acquaintance in order to find his brother and fulfil
+Catherine's last commands. His intercourse with Lilburne would
+necessarily bring him easily into contact with Lilburne's family. And in
+this thought he did not reject the invitations pressed on him. He felt,
+too, a dark and absorbing interest in examining a man who was in
+himself the incarnation of the World--the World of Art--the World as
+the Preacher paints it--the hollow, sensual, sharp-witted, self-wrapped
+WORLD--the World that is all for this life, and thinks of no Future and
+no God!
+
+Lord Lilburne was, indeed, a study for deep contemplation. A study to
+perplex the ordinary thinker, and task to the utmost the analysis
+of more profound reflection. William Gawtrey had possessed no common
+talents; he had discovered that his life had been one mistake; Lord
+Lilburne's intellect was far keener than Gawtrey's, and he had never
+made, and if he had lived to the age of Old Parr, never would have made
+a similar discovery. He never wrestled against a law, though he slipped
+through all laws! And he knew no remorse, for he knew no fear. Lord
+Lilburne had married early, and long survived, a lady of fortune, the
+daughter of the then Premier--the best match, in fact, of his day. And
+for one very brief period of his life he had suffered himself to enter
+into the field of politics the only ambition common with men of
+equal rank. He showed talents that might have raised one so gifted by
+circumstance to any height, and then retired at once into his old habits
+and old system of pleasure. "I wished to try," said he once, "if fame
+was worth one headache, and I have convinced myself that the man who can
+sacrifice the bone in his mouth to the shadow of the bone in the water
+is a fool." From that time he never attended the House of Lords,
+and declared himself of no political opinions one way or the other.
+Nevertheless, the world had a general belief in his powers, and
+Vaudemont reluctantly subscribed to the world's verdict. Yet he had
+done nothing, he had read but little, he laughed at the world to its
+face,--and that last was, after all, the main secret of his ascendancy
+over those who were drawn into his circle. That contempt of the world
+placed the world at his feet. His sardonic and polished indifference,
+his professed code that there was no life worth caring for but his own
+life, his exemption from all cant, prejudice, and disguise, the frigid
+lubricity with which he glided out of the grasp of the Conventional,
+whenever it so pleased him, without shocking the Decorums whose sense is
+in their ear, and who are not roused by the deed but by the noise,--all
+this had in it the marrow and essence of a system triumphant with the
+vulgar; for little minds give importance to the man who gives importance
+to nothing. Lord Lilburne's authority, not in matters of taste alone,
+but in those which the world calls judgment and common sense, was
+regarded as an oracle. He cared not a straw for the ordinary baubles
+that attract his order; he had refused both an earldom and the garter,
+and this was often quoted in his honour. But you only try a man's virtue
+when you offer him something that he covets. The earldom and the garter
+were to Lord Lilburne no more tempting inducements than a doll or a
+skipping-rope; had you offered him an infallible cure for the gout, or
+an antidote against old age, you might have hired him as your lackey
+on your own terms. Lord Lilburne's next heir was the son of his only
+brother, a person entirely dependent on his uncle. Lord Lilburne allowed
+him L1000. a year and kept him always abroad in a diplomatic situation.
+He looked upon his successor as a man who wanted power, but not
+inclination, to become his assassin.
+
+Though he lived sumptuously and grudged himself nothing, Lord Lilburne
+was far from an extravagant man; he might, indeed, be considered close;
+for he knew how much of comfort and consideration he owed to his money,
+and valued it accordingly; he knew the best speculations and the best
+investments. If he took shares in an American canal, you might be
+sure that the shares would soon be double in value; if he purchased an
+estate, you might be certain it was a bargain. This pecuniary tact and
+success necessarily augmented his fame for wisdom.
+
+He had been in early life a successful gambler, and some suspicions of
+his fair play had been noised abroad; but, as has been recently seen in
+the instance of a man of rank equal to Lilburne's, though, perhaps, of
+less acute if more cultivated intellect, it is long before the pigeon
+will turn round upon a falcon of breed and mettle. The rumours, indeed,
+were so vague as to carry with them no weight. During the middle of his
+career, when in the full flush of health and fortune, he had renounced
+the gaming-table. Of late years, as advancing age made time more heavy,
+he had resumed the resource, and with all his former good luck. The
+money-market, the table, the sex, constituted the other occupations and
+amusements with which Lord Lilburne filled up his rosy leisure.
+
+Another way by which this man had acquired reputation for ability was
+this,--he never pretended to any branch of knowledge of which he was
+ignorant, any more than to any virtue in which he was deficient. Honesty
+itself was never more free from quackery or deception than was this
+embodied and walking Vice. If the world chose to esteem him, he did not
+buy its opinion by imposture. No man ever saw Lord Lilburne's name in a
+public subscription, whether for a new church, or a Bible Society, or
+a distressed family, no man ever heard of his doing one generous,
+benevolent, or kindly action,--no man was ever startled by one
+philanthropic, pious, or amiable sentiment from those mocking lips. Yet,
+in spite of all this, John Lord Lilburne was not only esteemed but liked
+by the world, and set up in the chair of its Rhadamanthuses. In a word,
+he seemed to Vaudemont, and he was so in reality, a brilliant example of
+the might of Circumstance--an instance of what may be done in the way
+of reputation and influence by a rich, well-born man to whom the will
+a kingdom is. A little of genius, and Lord Lilburne would have made his
+vices notorious and his deficiencies glaring; a little of heart, and
+his habits would have led him into countless follies and discreditable
+scrapes. It was the lead and the stone that he carried about him that
+preserved his equilibrium, no matter which way the breeze blew. But
+all his qualities, positive or negative, would have availed him nothing
+without that position which enabled him to take his ease in that inn,
+the world--which presented, to every detection of his want of intrinsic
+nobleness, the irreproachable respectability of a high name, a splendid
+mansion, and a rent-roll without a flaw. Vaudemont drew comparisons
+between Lilburne and Gawtrey, and he comprehended at last, why one was a
+low rascal and the other a great man.
+
+Although it was but a few days after their first introduction to
+each other, Vaudemont had been twice to Lord Lilburne's, and their
+acquaintance was already on an easy footing--when one afternoon as the
+former was riding through the streets towards H----, he met the peer
+mounted on a stout cob, which, from its symmetrical strength, pure
+English breed, and exquisite grooming, showed something of those
+sporting tastes for which, in earlier life, Lord Lilburne had been
+noted.
+
+"Why, Monsieur de Vaudemont, what brings you to this part of the
+town?--curiosity and the desire to explore?"
+
+"That might be natural enough in me; but you, who know London so well;
+rather what brings you here?"
+
+"Why I am returned from a long ride. I have had symptoms of a fit of
+the gout, and been trying to keep it off by exercise. I have been to
+a cottage that belongs to me, some miles from the town--a pretty place
+enough, by the way--you must come and see me there next month. I shall
+fill the house for a battue! I have some tolerable covers--you are a
+good shot, I suppose?"
+
+"I have not practised, except with a rifle, for some years."
+
+"That's a pity; for as I think a week's shooting once a year quite
+enough, I fear that your visit to me at Fernside may not be sufficiently
+long to put your hand in."
+
+"Fernside!"
+
+"Yes; is the name familiar to you?"
+
+"I think I have heard it before. Did your lordship purchase or inherit
+it?"
+
+"I bought it of my brother-in-law. It belonged to his brother--a gay,
+wild sort of fellow, who broke his neck over a six-barred gate; through
+that gate my friend Robert walked the same day into a very fine estate!"
+
+"I have heard so. The late Mr. Beaufort, then, left no children?"
+
+"Yes; two. But they came into the world in the primitive way in which
+Mr. Owen wishes us all to come--too naturally for the present state of
+society, and Mr. Owen's parallelogram was not ready for them. By
+the way, one of them disappeared at Paris--you never met with him, I
+suppose?"
+
+"Under what name?"
+
+"Morton."
+
+"Morton! hem! What Christian name?"
+
+"Philip."
+
+"Philip! no. But did Mr. Beaufort do nothing for the young men? I think
+I have heard somewhere that he took compassion on one of them."
+
+"Have you? Ah, my brother-in-law is precisely one of those excellent men
+of whom the world always speaks well. No; he would very willingly have
+served either or both the boys, but the mother refused all his overtures
+and went to law, I fancy. The elder of these bastards turned out a sad
+fellow, and the younger,--I don't know exactly where he is, but no doubt
+with one of his mother's relations. You seem to interest yourself in
+natural children, my dear Vaudemont?"
+
+"Perhaps you have heard that people have doubted if I were a natural
+son?"
+
+"Ah! I understand now. But are you going?--I was in hopes you would have
+turned back my way, and--"
+
+"You are very good; but I have a particular appointment, and I am now
+too late. Good morning, Lord Lilburne." Sidney with one of his mother's
+relations! Returned, perhaps, to the Mortons! How had he never before
+chanced on a conjecture so probable? He would go at once!--that very
+night he would go to the house from which he had taken his brother. At
+least, and at the worst, they might give him some clue.
+
+Buoyed with this hope and this resolve, he rode hastily to H-----, to
+announce to Simon and Fanny that he should not return to them, perhaps,
+for two or three days. As he entered the suburb, he drew up by the
+statuary of whom he had purchased his mother's gravestone.
+
+The artist of the melancholy trade was at work in his yard.
+
+"Ho! there!" said Vaudemont, looking over the low railing; "is the tomb
+I have ordered nearly finished?"
+
+"Why, sir, as you were so anxious for despatch, and as it would take a
+long time to get a new one ready, I thought of giving you this, which is
+finished all but the inscription. It was meant for Miss Deborah Primme;
+but her nephew and heir called on me yesterday to say, that as the
+poor lady died worth less by L5,000. than he had expected, he thought
+a handsome wooden tomb would do as well, if I could get rid of this for
+him. It is a beauty, sir. It will look so cheerful--"
+
+"Well, that will do: and you can place it now where I told you."
+
+"In three days, sir."
+
+"So be it." And he rode on, muttering, "Fanny, your pious wish will be
+fulfilled. But flowers,--will they suit that stone?"
+
+He put up his horse, and walked through the lane to Simon's.
+
+As he approached the house, he saw Fanny's bright eyes at the window.
+She was watching his return. She hastened to open the door to him, and
+the world's wanderer felt what music there is in the footstep, what
+summer there is in the smile, of Welcome!
+
+"My dear Fanny," he said, affected by her joyous greeting, "it makes my
+heart warm to see you. I have brought you a present from town. When
+I was a boy, I remember that my poor mother was fond of singing some
+simple songs, which often, somehow or other, come back to me, when I see
+and hear you. I fancied you would understand and like them as well at
+least as I do--for Heaven knows (he added to himself) my ear is dull
+enough generally to the jingle of rhyme." And he placed in her hands a
+little volume of those exquisite songs, in which Burns has set Nature to
+music.
+
+"Oh! you are so kind, brother," said Fanny, with tears swimming in her
+eyes, and she kissed the book.
+
+After their simple meal, Vaudemont broke to Fanny and Simon the
+intelligence of his intended departure for a few days. Simon heard it
+with the silent apathy into which, except on rare occasions, his life
+had settled. But Fanny turned away her face and wept.
+
+"It is but for a day or two, Fanny."
+
+"An hour is very--very long sometimes," said the girl, shaking her head
+mournfully.
+
+"Come, I have a little time yet left, and the air is mild, you have not
+been out to-day, shall we walk--"
+
+"Hem!" interrupted Simon, clearing his throat, and seeming to start
+into sudden animation; "had not you better settle the board and lodging
+before you go?"
+
+"Oh, grandfather!" cried Fanny, springing to her feet, with such a blush
+upon her face.
+
+"Nay, child," said Vaudemont, laughingly; "your grandfather only
+anticipates me. But do not talk of board and lodging; Fanny is as a
+sister to me, and our purse is in common."
+
+"I should like to feel a sovereign--just to feel it," muttered Simon,
+in a sort of apologetic tone, that was really pathetic; and as Vaudemont
+scattered some coins on the table, the old man clawed them up, chuckling
+and talking to himself; and, rising with great alacrity, hobbled out of
+the room like a raven carrying some cunning theft to its hiding-place.
+
+This was so amusing to Vaudemont that he burst out fairly into an
+uncontrollable laughter. Fanny looked at him, humbled and wondering for
+some moments; and then, creeping to him, put her hand gently on his arm
+and said--
+
+"Don't laugh--it pains me. It was not nice in grand papa; but--but, it
+does not mean anything. It--it--don't laugh--Fanny feels so sad!"
+
+"Well, you are right. Come, put on your bonnet, we will go out."
+
+Fanny obeyed; but with less ready delight than usual. And they took
+their way through lanes over which hung, still in the cool air, the
+leaves of the yellow autumn.
+
+Fanny was the first to break silence.
+
+"Do you know," she said, timidly, "that people here think me very
+silly?--do you think so too?"
+
+Vaudemont was startled by the simplicity of the question, and hesitated.
+Fanny looked up in his dark face anxiously and inquiringly.
+
+"Well," she said, "you don't answer?"
+
+"My dear Fanny, there are some things in which I could wish you less
+childlike and, perhaps, less charming. Those strange snatches of song,
+for instance!"
+
+"What! do you not like me to sing? It is my way of talking."
+
+"Yes; sing, pretty one! But sing something that we can understand,--sing
+the songs I have given you, if you will. And now, may I ask why you put
+to me that question?"
+
+"I have forgotten," said Fanny, absently, and looking down.
+
+Now, at that instant, as Philip Vaudemont bent over the exceeding
+sweetness of that young face, a sudden thrill shot through his heart,
+and he, too, became silent, and lost in thought. Was it possible that
+there could creep into his breast a wilder affection for this creature
+than that of tenderness and pity? He was startled as the idea crossed
+him. He shrank from it as a profanation--as a crime--as a frenzy. He
+with his fate so uncertain and chequered--he to link himself with one
+so helpless--he to debase the very poetry that clung to the mental
+temperament of this pure being, with the feelings which every fair face
+may awaken to every coarse heart--to love Fanny! No, it was impossible!
+For what could he love in her but beauty, which the very spirit had
+forgotten to guard? And she--could she even know what love was? He
+despised himself for even admitting such a thought; and with that iron
+and hardy vigour which belonged to his mind, resolved to watch closely
+against every fancy that would pass the fairy boundary which separated
+Fanny from the world of women.
+
+He was roused from this self-commune by an abrupt exclamation from his
+companion.
+
+"Oh! I recollect now why I asked you that question. There is one thing
+that always puzzles me--I want you to explain it. Why does everything in
+life depend upon money? You see even my poor grandfather forgot how
+good you are to us both, when--when Ah! I don't understand--it pains--it
+puzzles me!"
+
+"Fanny, look there--no, to the left--you see that old woman, in rags,
+crawling wearily along; turn now to the right--you see that fine house
+glancing through the trees, with a carriage and four at the gates? The
+difference between that old woman and the owner of that house is--Money;
+and who shall blame your grandfather for liking Money?"
+
+Fanny understood; and while the wise man thus moralised, the girl, whom
+his very compassion so haughtily contemned, moved away to the old woman
+to do her little best to smooth down those disparities from which wisdom
+and moralising never deduct a grain! Vaudemont felt this as he saw her
+glide towards the beggar; but when she came bounding back to him, she
+had forgotten his dislike to her songs, and was chaunting, in the glee
+of the heart that a kind act had made glad, one of her own impromptu
+melodies.
+
+Vaudemont turned away. Poor Fanny had unconsciously decided his
+self-conquest; she guessed not what passed within him, but she suddenly
+recollected--what he had said to her about her songs, and fancied him
+displeased.
+
+"Ah I will never do it again. Brother, don't turn away!"
+
+"But we must go home. Hark! the clock strikes seven--I have no time to
+lose. And you will promise me never to stir out till I return?"
+
+"I shall have no heart to stir out," said Fanny, sadly; and then in a
+more cheerful voice, she added, "And I shall sing the songs you like
+before you come back again!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+     "Well did they know that service all by rote;
+
+     Some singing loud as if they had complained,
+     Some with their notes another manner feigned."
+     CHAUCER: Pie Cuckoo and the Nightingale,
+     modernised by WORDSWORTH.--HORNE's Edition.
+
+And once more, sweet Winandermere, we are on the banks of thy happy
+lake! The softest ray of the soft clear sun of early autumn trembled
+on the fresh waters, and glanced through the leaves of the limes and
+willows that were reflected--distinct as a home for the Naiads--beneath
+the limpid surface. You might hear in the bushes the young blackbirds
+trilling their first untutored notes. And the graceful dragon-fly, his
+wings glittering in the translucent sunshine, darted to and fro--the
+reeds gathered here and there in the mimic bays that broke the shelving
+marge of the grassy shore.
+
+And by that grassy shore, and beneath those shadowy limes, sat the young
+lovers. It was the very place where Spencer had first beheld Camilla.
+And now they were met to say, "Farewell!"
+
+"Oh, Camilla!" said he, with great emotion, and eyes that swam in tears,
+"be firm--be true. You know how my whole life is wrapped up in your
+love. You go amidst scenes where all will tempt you to forget me. I
+linger behind in those which are consecrated by your remembrance, which
+will speak to me every hour of you. Camilla, since you do love me--you
+do--do you not?--since you have confessed it--since your parents have
+consented to our marriage, provided only that your love last (for of
+mine there can be no doubt) for one year--one terrible year--shall I not
+trust you as truth itself? And yet how darkly I despair at times!"
+
+Camilla innocently took the hands that, clasped together, were raised to
+her, as if in supplication, and pressed them kindly between her own.
+
+"Do not doubt me--never doubt my affection. Has not my father consented?
+Reflect, it is but a year's delay!"
+
+"A year!--can you speak thus of a year--a whole year? Not to see--not to
+hear you for a whole year, except in my dreams! And, if at the end your
+parents waver? Your father--I distrust him still. If this delay is
+but meant to wean you from me,--if, at the end, there are new excuses
+found,--if they then, for some cause or other not now foreseen, still
+refuse their assent? You--may I not still look to you?"
+
+Camilla sighed heavily; and turning her meek face on her lover, said,
+timidly, "Never think that so short a time can make me unfaithful, and
+do not suspect that my father will break his promise."
+
+"But, if he does, you will still be mine."
+
+"Ah, Charles, how could you esteem me as a wife if I were to tell you I
+could forget I am a daughter?"
+
+This was said so touchingly, and with so perfect a freedom from all
+affectation, that her lover could only reply by covering her hand
+with his kisses. And it was not till after a pause that he continued
+passionately,--
+
+"You do but show me how much deeper is my love than yours. You can never
+dream how I love you. But I do not ask you to love me as well--it would
+be impossible. My life from my earliest childhood has been passed in
+these solitudes;--a happy life, though tranquil and monotonous, till
+you suddenly broke upon it. You seemed to me the living form of the very
+poetry I had worshipped--so bright--so heavenly--I loved you from the
+very first moment that we met. I am not like other men of my age. I have
+no pursuit--no occupation--nothing to abstract me from your thought. And
+I love you so purely--so devotedly, Camilla. I have never known even a
+passing fancy for another. You are the first--the only woman--it
+ever seemed to me possible to love. You are my Eve--your presence my
+paradise! Think how sad I shall be when you are gone--how I shall visit
+every spot your footstep has hallowed--how I shall count every moment
+till the year is past!"
+
+While he thus spoke, he had risen in that restless agitation which
+belongs to great emotion; and Camilla now rose also, and said
+soothingly, as she laid her hand on his shoulder with tender but modest
+frankness:
+
+"And shall I not also think of you? I am sad to feel that you will be so
+much alone--no sister--no brother!"
+
+"Do not grieve for that. The memory of you will be dearer to me than
+comfort from all else. And you will be true!"
+
+Camilla made no answer by words, but her eyes and her colour spoke. And
+in that moment, while plighting eternal truth, they forgot that they
+were about to part!
+
+Meanwhile, in a room in the house which, screened by the foliage, was
+only partially visible where the lovers stood, sat Mr. Robert Beaufort
+and Mr. Spencer.
+
+"I assure you, sir," said the former, "that I am not insensible to the
+merits of your nephew and to the very handsome proposals you make, still
+I cannot consent to abridge the time I have named. They are both very
+young. What is a year?"
+
+"It is a long time when it is a year of suspense," said the recluse,
+shaking his head.
+
+"It is a longer time when it is a year of domestic dissension and
+repentance. And it is a very true proverb, 'Marry in haste and repent at
+leisure.' No! If at the end of the year the young people continue of the
+same mind, and no unforeseen circumstances occur--"
+
+"No unforeseen circumstances, Mr. Beaufort!--that is a new condition--it
+is a very vague phrase."
+
+"My dear sir, it is hard to please you. Unforeseen circumstances," said
+the wary father, with a wise look, "mean circumstances that we don't
+foresee at present. I assure you that I have no intention to trifle with
+you, and I shall be sincerely happy in so respectable a connexion."
+
+"The young people may write to each other?"
+
+"Why, I'll consult Mrs. Beaufort. At all events, it must not be very
+often, and Camilla is well brought up, and will show all the letters to
+her mother. I don't much like a correspondence of that nature. It often
+leads to unpleasant results; if, for instance--"
+
+"If what?"
+
+"Why, if the parties change their minds, and my girl were to marry
+another. It is not prudent in matters of business, my dear sir, to put
+down anything on paper that can be avoided."
+
+Mr. Spencer opened his eyes. "Matters of business, Mr. Beaufort!"
+
+"Well, is not marriage a matter of business, and a very grave matter
+too? More lawsuits about marriage and settlements, &c., than I like to
+think of. But to change the subject. You have never heard anything more
+of those young men, you say?"
+
+"No," said Mr. Spencer, rather inaudibly, and looking down.
+
+"And it is your firm impression that the elder one, Philip, is dead?"
+
+"I don't doubt it."
+
+"That was a very vexatious and improper lawsuit their mother brought
+against me. Do you know that some wretched impostor, who, it appears, is
+a convict broke loose before his time, has threatened me with another,
+on the part of one of those young men? You never heard anything of
+it--eh?"
+
+"Never, upon my honour."
+
+"And, of course, you would not countenance so villanous an attempt?"
+
+"Certainly not."
+
+"Because that would break off our contract at once. But you are too much
+a gentleman and a man of honour. Forgive me so improper a question. As
+for the younger Mr. Morton, I have no ill-feeling against him. But the
+elder! Oh, a thorough reprobate! a very alarming character! I could have
+nothing to do with any member of the family while the elder lived; it
+would only expose me to every species of insult and imposition. And now
+I think we have left our young friends alone long enough.
+
+"But stay, to prevent future misunderstanding, I may as well read over
+again the heads of the arrangement you honour me by proposing. You agree
+to settle your fortune after your decease, amounting to L23,000. and
+your house, with twenty-five acres one rood and two poles, more or less,
+upon your nephew and my daughter, jointly--remainder to their children.
+Certainly, without offence, in a worldly point of view, Camilla might do
+better; still, you are so very respectable, and you speak so handsomely,
+that I cannot touch upon that point; and I own, that though there is a
+large nominal rent-roll attached to Beaufort Court (indeed, there is not
+a finer property in the county), yet there are many incumbrances, and
+ready money would not be convenient to me. Arthur--poor fellow, a very
+fine young man, sir,--is, as I have told you in perfect confidence, a
+little imprudent and lavish; in short, your offer to dispense with any
+dowry is extremely liberal, and proves your nephew is actuated by no
+mercenary feelings: such conduct prepossesses me highly in your favour
+and his too."
+
+Mr. Spencer bowed, and the great man rising, with a stiff affectation of
+kindly affability, put his arm into the uncle's, and strolled with him
+across the lawn towards the lovers. And such is life--love on the lawn
+and settlements in the parlour.
+
+The lover was the first to perceive the approach of the elder parties.
+And a change came over his face as he saw the dry aspect and marked
+the stealthy stride of his future father-in-law; for then there flashed
+across him a dreary reminiscence of early childhood; the happy evening
+when, with his joyous father, that grave and ominous aspect was first
+beheld; and then the dismal burial, the funereal sables, the carriage at
+the door, and he himself clinging to the cold uncle to ask him to say a
+word of comfort to the mother, who now slept far away. "Well, my young
+friend," said Mr. Beaufort, patronisingly, "your good uncle and myself
+are quite agreed--a little time for reflection, that's all. Oh! I don't
+think the worse of you for wishing to abridge it. But papas must be
+papas."
+
+There was so little jocular about that sedate man, that this attempt
+at jovial good humour seemed harsh and grating--the hinges of that wily
+mouth wanted oil for a hearty smile.
+
+"Come, don't be faint-hearted, Mr. Charles. 'Faint heart,'--you know the
+proverb. You must stay and dine with us. We return to-morrow to town.
+I should tell you, that I received this morning a letter from my son
+Arthur, announcing his return from Baden, so we must give him the
+meeting--a very joyful one you may guess. We have not seen him these
+three years. Poor fellow! he says he has been very ill and the waters
+have ceased to do him any good. But a little quiet and country air at
+Beaufort Court will set him up, I hope."
+
+Thus running on about his son, then about his shooting--about Beaufort
+Court and its splendours--about parliament and its fatigues--about
+the last French Revolution, and the last English election--about
+Mrs. Beaufort and her good qualities and bad health--about, in short,
+everything relating to himself, some things relating to the public,
+and nothing that related to the persons to whom his conversation was
+directed, Mr. Robert Beaufort wore away half an hour, when the Spencer's
+took their leave, promising to return to dinner.
+
+"Charles," said Mr. Spencer, as the boat, which the young man rowed,
+bounded over the water towards their quiet home; "Charles, I dislike
+these Beauforts!"
+
+"Not the daughter?"
+
+"No, she is beautiful, and seems good; not so handsome as your poor
+mother, but who ever was?"--here Mr. Spencer sighed, and repeated some
+lines from Shenstone.
+
+"Do you think Mr. Beaufort suspects in the least who I am?"
+
+"Why, that puzzles me; I rather think he does."
+
+"And that is the cause of the delay? I knew it."
+
+"No, on the contrary, I incline to think he has some kindly feeling to
+you, though not to your brother, and that it is such a feeling that made
+him consent to your marriage. He sifted me very closely as to what I
+knew of the young Mortons--observed that you were very handsome, and
+that he had fancied at first that he had seen you before."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"Yes: and looked hard at me while he spoke; and said more than once,
+significantly, 'So his name is Charles?' He talked about some attempt
+at imposture and litigation, but that was, evidently, merely invented
+to sound me about your brother--whom, of course, he spoke ill
+of--impressing on me three or four times that he would never have
+anything to say to any of the family while Philip lived."
+
+"And you told him," said the young man, hesitatingly, and with a deep
+blush of shame over his face, "that you were persuaded--that is, that
+you believed Philip was--was--"
+
+"Was dead! Yes--and without confusion. For the more I reflect, the more
+I think he must be dead. At all events, you may be sure that he is dead
+to us, that we shall never hear more of him."
+
+"Poor Philip!"
+
+"Your feelings are natural; they are worthy of your excellent heart; but
+remember, what would have become of you if you had stayed with him!"
+
+"True!" said the brother, with a slight shudder--"a career of
+suffering--crime--perhaps the gibbet! Ah! what do I owe you?"
+
+The dinner-party at Mr. Beaufort's that day was constrained and
+formal, though the host, in unusual good humour, sought to make himself
+agreeable. Mrs. Beaufort, languid and afflicted with headache, said
+little. The two Spencers were yet more silent. But the younger sat next
+to her he loved; and both hearts were full: and in the evening they
+contrived to creep apart into a corner by the window, through which the
+starry heavens looked kindly on them. They conversed in whispers, with
+long pauses between each: and at times Camilla's tears flowed silently
+down her cheeks, and were followed by the false smiles intended to cheer
+her lover.
+
+Time did not fly, but crept on breathlessly and heavily. And then came
+the last parting--formal, cold--before witnesses. But the lover could
+not restrain his emotion, and the hard father heard his suppressed sob
+as he closed the door.
+
+It will now be well to explain the cause of Mr. Beaufort's heightened
+spirits, and the motives of his conduct with respect to his daughter's
+suitor.
+
+This, perhaps, can be best done by laying before the reader the
+following letters that passed between Mr. Beaufort and Lord Lilburne.
+
+From LORD LILBURNE to ROBERT BEAUFORT, ESQ., M.P.
+
+"DEAR BEAUFORT,--I think I have settled, pretty satisfactorily, your
+affair with your unwelcome visitor. The first thing it seemed to me
+necessary to do, was to learn exactly what and who he was, and with what
+parties that could annoy you he held intercourse. I sent for Sharp, the
+Bow Street officer, and placed him in the hall to mark, and afterwards
+to dog and keep watch on your new friend. The moment the latter entered
+I saw at once, from his dress and his address, that he was a 'scamp;'
+and thought it highly inexpedient to place you in his power by any money
+transactions. While talking with him, Sharp sent in a billet containing
+his recognition of our gentleman as a transported convict.
+
+"I acted accordingly; soon saw, from the fellow's manner, that he had
+returned before his time; and sent him away with a promise, which you
+may be sure he believes will be kept, that if he molest you farther,
+he shall return to the colonies, and that if his lawsuit proceed, his
+witness or witnesses shall be indicted for conspiracy and perjury. Make
+your mind easy so far. For the rest, I own to you that I think what he
+says probable enough: but my object in setting Sharp to watch him is
+to learn what other parties he sees. And if there be really anything
+formidable in his proofs or witnesses, it is with those other parties I
+advise you to deal. Never transact business with the go between, if you
+can with the principal. Remember, the two young men are the persons to
+arrange with after all. They must be poor, and therefore easily dealt
+with. For, if poor, they will think a bird in the hand worth two in the
+bush of a lawsuit.
+
+"If, through Mr. Spencer, you can learn anything of either of the young
+men, do so; and try and open some channel, through which you can always
+establish a communication with them, if necessary. Perhaps, by learning
+their early history, you may learn something to put them into your
+power.
+
+"I have had a twinge of the gout this morning, and am likely, I fear, to
+be laid up for some weeks.
+
+"Yours truly,
+
+"LILBURNE.
+
+"P.S.--Sharp has just been here. He followed the man who calls himself
+'Captain Smith' to a house in Lambeth, where he lodges, and from which
+he did not stir till midnight, when Sharp ceased his watch. On renewing
+it this morning, he found that the captain had gone off, to what place
+Sharp has not yet discovered.
+
+"Burn this immediately."
+
+From ROBERT BEAUFORT, ESQ., M.P., to the LORD LILBURNE.
+
+"DEAR, LILBURNE,--Accept my warmest thanks for your kindness; you
+have done admirably, and I do not see that I have anything further to
+apprehend. I suspect that it was an entire fabrication on that man's
+part, and your firmness has foiled his wicked designs. Only think,
+I have discovered--I am sure of it--one of the Mortons; and he, too,
+though the younger, yet, in all probability, the sole pretender the
+fellow could set up. You remember that the child Sidney had disappeared
+mysteriously,--you remember also, how much that Mr. Spencer had
+interested himself in finding out the same Sidney. Well,--this gentleman
+at the Lakes is, as we suspected, the identical Mr. Spencer, and his
+soi-disant nephew, Camilla's suitor, is assuredly no other than the lost
+Sidney. The moment I saw the young man I recognised him, for he is very
+little altered, and has a great look of his mother into the bargain.
+Concealing my more than suspicions, I, however, took care to sound Mr.
+Spencer (a very poor soul), and his manner was so embarrassed as to
+leave no doubt of the matter; but in asking him what he had heard of
+the brothers, I had the satisfaction of learning that, in all human
+probability, the elder is dead: of this Mr. Spencer seems convinced.
+I also assured myself that neither Spencer nor the young man had the
+remotest connection with our Captain Smith, nor any idea of litigation.
+This is very satisfactory, you will allow. And now, I hope you will
+approve of what I have done. I find that young Morton, or Spencer, as
+he is called, is desperately enamoured of Camilla; he seems a meek,
+well-conditioned, amiable young man; writes poetry;--in short, rather
+weak than otherwise. I have demanded a year's delay, to allow mutual
+trial and reflection. This gives us the channel for constant information
+which you advise me to establish, and I shall have the opportunity to
+learn if the impostor makes any communication to them, or if there be
+any news of the brother. If by any trick or chicanery (for I will never
+believe that there was a marriage) a lawsuit that might be critical
+or hazardous can be cooked up, I can, I am sure, make such terms with
+Sidney, through his love for my daughter, as would effectively and
+permanently secure me from all further trouble and machinations in
+regard to my property. And if, during the year, we convince ourselves
+that, after all, there is not a leg of law for any claimant to stand on,
+I may be guided by other circumstances how far I shall finally accept
+or reject the suit. That must depend on any other views we may then form
+for Camilla; and I shall not allow a hint of such an engagement to get
+abroad. At the worst, as Mr. Spencer's heir, it is not so very bad a
+match, seeing that they dispense with all marriage portion, &c.--a proof
+how easily they can be managed. I have not let Mr. Spencer see that
+I have discovered his secret--I can do that or not, according to
+circumstances hereafter; neither have I said anything of my discovery
+to Mrs. B., or Camilla. At present, 'Least said soonest mended.' I
+heard from Arthur to-day. He is on his road home, and we hasten to town,
+sooner than we expected, to meet him. He complains still of his health.
+We shall all go down to Beaufort Court. I write this at night, the
+pretended uncle and sham nephew having just gone. But though we start
+to-morrow, you will get this a day or two before we arrive, as Mrs.
+Beaufort's health renders short stages necessary. I really do hope that
+Arthur, also, will not be an invalid, poor fellow! one in a family is
+quite enough; and I find Mrs. Beaufort's delicacy very inconvenient,
+especially in moving about and in keeping up one's county connexions. A
+young man's health, however, is soon restored. I am very sorry to hear
+of your gout, except that it carries off all other complaints. I am
+very well, thank Heaven; indeed, my health has been much better of late
+years: Beaufort Court agrees with me so well! The more I reflect, the
+more I am astonished at the monstrous and wicked impudence of that
+fellow--to defraud a man out of his own property! You are quite
+right,--certainly a conspiracy.
+
+"Yours truly, "R. B."
+
+"P. S.--I shall keep a constant eye on the Spencers.
+
+"Burn this immediately."
+
+After he had written and sealed this letter, Mr. Beaufort went to bed
+and slept soundly.
+
+And the next day that place was desolate, and the board on the lawn
+announced that it was again to be let. But thither daily, in rain or
+sunshine, came the solitary lover, as a bird that seeks its young in the
+deserted nest:--Again and again he haunted the spot where he had strayed
+with the lost one,--and again and again murmured his passionate vows
+beneath the fast-fading limes. Are those vows destined to be ratified or
+annulled? Will the absent forget, or the lingerer be consoled? Had the
+characters of that young romance been lightly stamped on the fancy where
+once obliterated they are erased for ever,--or were they graven deep in
+those tablets where the writing, even when invisible, exists still, and
+revives, sweet letter by letter, when the light and the warmth borrowed
+from the One Bright Presence are applied to the faithful record? There
+is but one Wizard to disclose that secret, as all others,--the old
+Grave-digger, whose Churchyard is the Earth,--whose trade is to find
+burial-places for Passions that seemed immortal,--disinterring the
+ashes of some long-crumbling Memory--to hollow out the dark bed of
+some new-perished Hope:--He who determines all things, and prophesies
+none,--for his oracles are uncomprehended till the doom is sealed--He
+who in the bloom of the fairest affection detects the hectic that
+consumes it, and while the hymn rings at the altar, marks with his
+joyless eye the grave for the bridal vow.--Wherever is the sepulchre,
+there is thy temple, O melancholy Time!
+
+
+
+BOOK V.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+     "Per ambages et ministeria deorum."--PETRONTUS.
+
+     [Through the mysteries and ministerings of the gods.]
+
+Mr. Roger Morton was behind his counter one drizzling, melancholy day.
+Mr. Roger Morton, alderman, and twice mayor of his native town, was a
+thriving man. He had grown portly and corpulent. The nightly potations
+of brandy and water, continued year after year with mechanical
+perseverance, had deepened the roses on his cheek. Mr. Roger Morton was
+never intoxicated--he "only made himself comfortable." His constitution
+was strong; but, somehow or other, his digestion was not as good as it
+might be. He was certain that something or other disagreed with him.
+He left off the joint one day--the pudding another. Now he avoided
+vegetables as poison--and now he submitted with a sigh to the doctor's
+interdict of his cigar. Mr. Roger Morton never thought of leaving
+off the brandy and water: and he would have resented as the height of
+impertinent insinuation any hint upon that score to a man of so sober
+and respectable a character.
+
+Mr. Roger Morton was seated--for the last four years, ever since his
+second mayoralty, he had arrogated to himself the dignity of a chair. He
+received rather than served his customers. The latter task was left to
+two of his sons. For Tom, after much cogitation, the profession of
+an apothecary had been selected. Mrs. Morton observed, that it was a
+genteel business, and Tom had always been a likely lad. And Mr. Roger
+considered that it would be a great comfort and a great saving to have
+his medical adviser in his own son.
+
+The other two sons and the various attendants of the shop were plying
+the profitable trade, as customer after customer, with umbrellas and in
+pattens, dropped into the tempting shelter--when a man, meanly dressed,
+and who was somewhat past middle age, with a careworn, hungry face,
+entered timidly. He waited in patience by the crowded counter, elbowed
+by sharp-boned and eager spinsters--and how sharp the elbows of
+spinsters are, no man can tell who has not forced his unwelcome way
+through the agitated groups in a linendraper's shop!--the man, I say,
+waited patiently and sadly, till the smallest of the shopboys turned
+from a lady, who, after much sorting and shading, had finally decided on
+two yards of lilac-coloured penny riband, and asked, in an insinuating
+professional tone,--
+
+"What shall I show you, sir?"
+
+"I wish to speak to Mr. Morton. Which is he?"
+
+"Mr. Morton is engaged, sir. I can give you what you want."
+
+"No--it is a matter of business--important business." The boy eyed the
+napless and dripping hat, the gloveless hands, and the rusty neckcloth
+of the speaker; and said, as he passed his fingers through a profusion
+of light curls "Mr. Morton don't attend much to business himself now;
+but that's he. Any cravats, sir?"
+
+The man made no answer, but moved where, near the window, and chatting
+with the banker of the town (as the banker tried on a pair of beaver
+gloves), sat still--after due apology for sitting--Mr. Roger Morton.
+
+The alderman lowered his spectacles as he glanced grimly at the lean
+apparition that shaded the spruce banker, and said,--
+
+"Do you want me, friend?"
+
+"Yes, sir, if you please;" and the man took off his shabby hat, and
+bowed low.
+
+"Well, speak out. No begging petition, I hope?"
+
+"No, sir! Your nephews--"
+
+The banker turned round, and in his turn eyed the newcomer. The
+linendraper started back.
+
+"Nephews!" he repeated, with a bewildered look. "What does the man mean?
+Wait a bit."
+
+"Oh, I've done!" said the banker, smiling. "I am glad to find we agree
+so well upon this question: I knew we should. Our member will never suit
+us if he goes on in this way. Trade must take care of itself. Good day
+to You!"
+
+"Nephews!" repeated Mr. Morton, rising, and beckoning to the man to
+follow him into the back parlour, where Mrs. Morton sat casting up the
+washing bills.
+
+"Now," said the husband, closing the door, "what do you mean, my good
+fellow?"
+
+"Sir, what I wish to ask you is--if you can tell me what has become
+of--of the young Beau--, that is, of your sister's sons. I understand
+there were two--and I am told that--that they are both dead. Is it so?"
+
+"What is that to you, friend?"
+
+"An please you, sir, it is a great deal to them!"
+
+"Yes--ha! ha! it is a great deal to everybody whether they are alive or
+dead!" Mr. Morton, since he had been mayor, now and then had his joke.
+"But really--"
+
+"Roger!" said Mrs. Morton, under her breath--"Roger!"
+
+"Yes, my dear."
+
+"Come this way--I want to speak to you about this bill." The husband
+approached, and bent over his wife. "Who's this man?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Depend on it, he has some claim to make--some bills or something. Don't
+commit yourself--the boys are dead for what we know!"
+
+Mr. Morton hemmed and returned to his visitor.
+
+"To tell you the truth, I am not aware of what has become of the young
+men."
+
+"Then they are not dead--I thought not!" exclaimed the man, joyously.
+
+"That's more than I can say. It's many years since I lost sight of the
+only one I ever saw; and they may be both dead for what I know."
+
+"Indeed!" said the man. "Then you can give me no kind of--of--hint like,
+to find them out?"
+
+"No. Do they owe you anything?"
+
+"It does not signify talking now, sir. I beg your pardon."
+
+"Stay--who are you?"
+
+"I am a very poor man, sir."
+
+Mr. Morton recoiled.
+
+"Poor! Oh, very well--very well. You have done with me now. Good
+day--good day. I'm busy."
+
+The stranger pecked for a moment at his hat--turned the handle of the
+door--peered under his grey eyebrows at the portly trader, who, with
+both hands buried in his pockets, his mouth pursed up, like a man about
+to say "No" fidgeted uneasily behind Mrs. Morton's chair. He sighed,
+shook his head, and vanished.
+
+Mrs. Morton rang the bell--the maid-servant entered. "Wipe the carpet,
+Jenny;--dirty feet! Mr. Morton, it's a Brussels!"
+
+"It was not my fault, my dear. I could not talk about family matters
+before the whole shop. Do you know, I'd quite forgot those poor boys.
+This unsettles me. Poor Catherine! she was so fond of them. A pretty boy
+that Sidney, too. What can have become of them? My heart rebukes me. I
+wish I had asked the man more."
+
+"More!--why he was just going to beg."
+
+"Beg--yes--very true!" said Mr. Morton, pausing irresolutely; and then,
+with a hearty tone, he cried out, "And, damme, if he had begged, I could
+afford him a shilling! I'll go after him." So saying, he hastened back
+through the shop, but the man was gone--the rain was falling, Mr. Morton
+had his thin shoes on--he blew his nose, and went back to the counter.
+But, there, still rose to his memory the pale face of his dead sister;
+and a voice murmured in his ear, "Brother, where is my child?"
+
+"Pshaw! it is not my fault if he ran away. Bob, go and get me the county
+paper."
+
+Mr. Morton had again settled himself, and was deep in a trial for
+murder, when another stranger strode haughtily into the shop. The
+new-comer, wrapped in a pelisse of furs, with a thick moustache, and
+an eye that took in the whole shop, from master to boy, from ceiling to
+floor, in a glance, had the air at once of a foreigner and a soldier.
+Every look fastened on him, as he paused an instant, and then walking up
+to the alderman, said,--
+
+"Sir, you are doubtless Mr. Morton?"
+
+"At your commands, sir," said Roger, rising involuntarily.
+
+"A word with you, then, on business."
+
+"Business!" echoed Mr. Morton, turning rather pale, for he began to
+think himself haunted; "anything in my line, sir? I should be--"
+
+The stranger bent down his tall stature, and hissed into Mr. Morton's
+foreboding ear:
+
+"Your nephews!"
+
+Mr. Morton was literally dumb-stricken. Yes, he certainly was haunted!
+He stared at this second questioner, and fancied that there was
+something very supernatural and unearthly about him. He was so tall, and
+so dark, and so stern, and so strange. Was it the Unspeakable himself
+come for the linendraper? Nephews again! The uncle of the babes in the
+wood could hardly have been more startled by the demand!
+
+"Sir," said Mr. Morton at last, recovering his dignity and somewhat
+peevishly,--"sir, I don't know why people should meddle with my family
+affairs. I don't ask other folks about their nephews. I have no nephew
+that I know of."
+
+"Permit me to speak to you, alone, for one instant." Mr. Morton sighed,
+hitched up his trousers, and led the way to the parlour, where Mrs.
+Morton, having finished the washing bills, was now engaged in tying
+certain pieces of bladder round certain pots of preserves. The eldest
+Miss Morton, a young woman of five or six-and-twenty, who was about to
+be very advantageously married to a young gentleman who dealt in coals
+and played the violin (for N----- was a very musical town), had
+just joined her for the purpose of extorting "The Swiss Boy, with
+variations," out of a sleepy little piano, that emitted a very painful
+cry under the awakening fingers of Miss Margaret Morton.
+
+Mr. Morton threw open the door with a grunt, and the stranger pausing
+at the threshold, the full flood of sound (key C) upon which "the Swiss
+Boy" was swimming along, "kine" and all, for life and death, came splash
+upon him.
+
+"Silence! can't you?" cried the father, putting one hand to his ear,
+while with the other he pointed to a chair; and as Mrs. Morton looked
+up from the preserves with that air of indignant suffering with which
+female meekness upbraids a husband's wanton outrage, Mr. Roger added,
+shrugging his shoulders,--
+
+"My nephews again, Mrs. K!"
+
+Miss Margaret turned round, and dropped a courtesy. Mrs. Morton gently
+let fall a napkin over the preserves, and muttered a sort of salutation,
+as the stranger, taking off his hat, turned to mother and daughter one
+of those noble faces in which Nature has written her grant and warranty
+of the lordship of creation.
+
+"Pardon me," he said, "if I disturb you. But my business will be short.
+I have come to ask you, sir, frankly, and as one who has a right to ask
+it, what tidings you can give me of Sidney Morton?"
+
+"Sir, I know nothing whatever about him. He was taken from my house,
+about twelve years since, by his brother. Myself, and the two Mr.
+Beauforts, and another friend of the family, went in search of them
+both. My search failed."
+
+"And theirs?"
+
+"I understood from Mr. Beaufort that they had not been more successful.
+I have had no communication with those gentlemen since. But that's
+neither here nor there. In all probability, the elder of the boys--who,
+I fear, was a sad character--corrupted and ruined his brother; and, by
+this time, Heaven knows what and where they are."
+
+"And no one has inquired of you since--no one has asked the brother of
+Catherine Morton, nay, rather of Catherine Beaufort--where is the child
+intrusted to your care?"
+
+This question, so exactly similar to that which his superstition
+had rung on his own ears, perfectly appalled the worthy alderman. He
+staggered back-stared at the marked and stern face that lowered upon
+him--and at last cried,--
+
+"For pity's sake, sir, be just! What could I do for one who left me of
+his own accord?--"
+
+"The day you had beaten him like a dog. You see, Mr. Morton, I know
+all."
+
+"And what are you?" said Mr. Morton, recovering his English courage, and
+feeling himself strangely browbeaten in his own house;--"What and
+who are you, that you thus take the liberty to catechise a man of my
+character and respectability?"
+
+"Twice mayor--" began Mrs. Morton.
+
+"Hush, mother!" whispered Miss Margaret,--"don't work him up."
+
+"I repeat, sir, what are you?"
+
+"What am I?--your nephew! Who am I? Before men, I bear a name that I
+have assumed, and not dishonoured--before Heaven I am Philip Beaufort!"
+
+Mrs. Morton dropped down upon her stool. Margaret murmured "My cousin!"
+in a tone that the ear of the musical coal-merchant might not have
+greatly relished. And Mr. Morton, after a long pause, came up with a
+frank and manly expression of joy, and said:--
+
+"Then, sir, I thank Heaven, from my heart, that one of my sister's
+children stands alive before me!"
+
+"And now, again, I--I whom you accuse of having corrupted and ruined
+him--him for whom I toiled and worked--him, who was to me, then, as a
+last surviving son to some anxious father--I, from whom he was reft and
+robbed--I ask you again for Sidney--for my brother!"
+
+"And again, I say, that I have no information to give you--that--Stay
+a moment--stay. You must pardon what I have said of you before you
+made yourself known. I went but by the accounts I had received from Mr.
+Beaufort. Let me speak plainly; that gentleman thought, right or wrong,
+that it would be a great thing to separate your brother from you. He may
+have found him--it must be so--and kept his name and condition concealed
+from us all, lest you should detect it. Mrs. M., don't you think so?"
+
+"I'm sure I'm so terrified I don't know what to think," said Mrs.
+Morton, putting her hand to her forehead, and see-sawing herself to and
+fro upon her stool.
+
+"But since they wronged you--since you--you seem so very--very--"
+
+"Very much the gentleman," suggested Miss Margaret. "Yes, so much the
+gentleman;--well off, too, I should hope, sir,"--and the experienced
+eye of Mr. Morton glanced at the costly sables that lined the
+pelisse,--"there can be no difficulty in your learning from Mr. Beaufort
+all that you wish to know. And pray, sir, may I ask, did you send any
+one here to-day to make the very inquiry you have made?"
+
+"I?--No. What do you mean?"
+
+"Well, well--sit down--there may be something in all this that you may
+make out better than I can."
+
+And as Philip obeyed, Mr. Morton, who was really and honestly rejoiced
+to see his sister's son alive and apparently thriving, proceeded to
+relate pretty exactly the conversation he had held with the previous
+visitor. Philip listened earnestly and with attention. Who could this
+questioner be? Some one who knew his birth--some one who sought him
+out?--some one, who--Good Heavens! could it be the long-lost witness of
+the marriage?
+
+As soon as that idea struck him, he started from his seat and entreated
+Morton to accompany him in search of the stranger. "You know not," he
+said, in a tone impressed with that energy of will in which lay the
+talent of his mind,--"you know not of what importance this may be to
+my prospects--to your sister's fair name. If it should be the witness
+returned at last! Who else, of the rank you describe, would be
+interested in such inquiries? Come!"
+
+"What witness?" said Mrs. Morton, fretfully. "You don't mean to come
+over us with the old story of the marriage?"
+
+"Shall your wife slander your own sister, sir? A marriage there was--God
+yet will proclaim the right--and the name of Beaufort shall be yet
+placed on my mother's gravestone. Come!"
+
+"Here are your shoes and umbrella, pa," cried Miss Margaret, inspired by
+Philip's earnestness.
+
+"My fair cousin, I guess," and as the soldier took her hand, he kissed
+the unreluctant cheek--turned to the door--Mr. Morton placed his arm in
+his, and the next moment they were in the street.
+
+When Catherine, in her meek tones, had said, "Philip Beaufort was my
+husband," Roger Morton had disbelieved her. And now one word from the
+son, who could, in comparison, know so little of the matter, had
+almost sufficed to convert and to convince the sceptic. Why was this?
+Because--Man believes the Strong!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+        "--Quid Virtus et quid Sapientia possit
+        Utile proposuit nobis exemplar Ulssem." HOR.
+
+     ["He has proposed to us Ulysses as a useful example of how
+     much may be accomplished by Virtue and Wisdom."]
+
+Meanwhile the object of their search, on quitting Mr. Morton's shop, had
+walked slowly and sadly on, through the plashing streets, till he came
+to a public house in the outskirts and on the high road to London. Here
+he took shelter for a short time, drying himself by the kitchen fire,
+with the license purchased by fourpenny-worth of gin; and having learned
+that the next coach to London would not pass for some hours, he finally
+settled himself in the Ingle, till the guard's horn should arouse him.
+By the same coach that the night before had conveyed Philip to N----,
+had the very man he sought been also a passenger!
+
+The poor fellow was sickly and wearied out: he had settled into a doze,
+when he was suddenly wakened by the wheels of a coach and the trampling
+of horses. Not knowing how long he had slept, and imagining that the
+vehicle he had awaited was at the door, he ran out. It was a coach
+coming from London, and the driver was joking with a pretty barmaid who,
+in rather short petticoats, was fielding up to him the customary glass.
+The man, after satisfying himself that his time was not yet come, was
+turning back to the fire, when a head popped itself out of the window,
+and a voice cried, "Stars and garters! Will--so that's you!" At the
+sound of the voice the man halted abruptly, turned very pale, and his
+limbs trembled. The inside passenger opened the door, jumped out with
+a little carpet-bag in his hand, took forth a long leathern purse
+from which he ostentatiously selected the coins that paid his fare and
+satisfied the coachman, and then, passing his arm through that of the
+acquaintance he had discovered, led him back into the house.
+
+"Will--Will," he whispered, "you have been to the Mortons. Never
+moind--let's hear all. Jenny or Dolly, or whatever your sweet praetty
+name is--a private room and a pint of brandy, my dear. Hot water and
+lots of the grocery. That's right."
+
+And as soon as the pair found themselves, with the brandy before them,
+in a small parlour with a good fire, the last comer went to the door,
+shut it cautiously, flung his bag under the table, took off his gloves,
+spread himself wider and wider before the fire, until he had entirely
+excluded every ray from his friend, and then suddenly turning so that
+the back might enjoy what the front had gained, he exclaimed.
+
+"Damme, Will, you're a praetty sort of a broather to give me the slip in
+that way. But in this world every man for his-self!"
+
+"I tell you," said William, with something like decision in his voice,
+"that I will not do any wrong to these young men if they live."
+
+"Who asks you to do a wrong to them?--booby! Perhaps I may be the
+best friend they may have yet--ay, or you too, though you're the
+ungratefulest whimsicallist sort of a son of a gun that ever I came
+across. Come, help yourself, and don't roll up your eyes in that way,
+like a Muggletonian asoide of a Fye-Fye!"
+
+Here the speaker paused a moment, and with a graver and more natural
+tone of voice proceeded:
+
+"So you did not believe me when I told you that these brothers were
+dead, and you have been to the Mortons to learn more?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, and what have you learned?"
+
+"Nothing. Morton declares that he does not know that they are alive, but
+he says also that he does not know that they are dead."
+
+"Indeed," said the other, listening with great attention; "and you
+really think that he does not know anything about them?"
+
+"I do, indeed."
+
+"Hum! Is he a sort of man who would post down the rhino to help the
+search?"
+
+"He looked as if he had the yellow fever when I said I was poor,"
+returned William, turning round, and trying to catch a glimpse at the
+fire, as he gulped his brandy and water.
+
+"Then I'll be d---d if I run the risk of calling. I have done some
+things in this town by way of business before now; and though it's
+a long time ago, yet folks don't forget a haundsome man in a
+hurry--especially if he has done 'em! Now, then, listen to me. You see,
+I have given this matter all the 'tention in my power. 'If the lads be
+dead,' said I to you, 'it is no use burning one's fingers by holding
+a candle to bones in a coffin. But Mr. Beaufort need not know they are
+dead, and we'll see what we can get out of him; and if I succeeds, as
+I think I shall, you and I may hold up our heads for the rest of our
+life.' Accordingly, as I told you, I went to Mr. Beaufort, and--'Gad,
+I thought we had it all our own way. But since I saw you last, there's
+been the devil and all. When I called again, Will, I was shown in to an
+old lord, sharp as a gimblet. Hang me, William, if he did not frighten
+me out of my seven senses!"
+
+Here Captain Smith (the reader has, no doubt, already discovered that
+the speaker was no less a personage) took three or four nervous strides
+across the room, returned to the table, threw himself in a chair, placed
+one foot on one hob, and one on the other, laid his finger on his nose,
+and, with a significant wink, said in a whisper, "Will, he knew I
+had been lagged! He not only refused to hear all I had to say, but
+threatened to prosecute--persecute, hang, draw, and quarter us both, if
+we ever dared to come out with the truth."
+
+"But what's the good of the truth if the boys are dead?" said William,
+timidly.
+
+The captain, without heeding this question, continued, as he stirred the
+sugar in his glass, "Well, out I sneaked, and as soon as I had got to
+my own door I turned round and saw Sharp the runner on the other side of
+the way--I felt deuced queer. However, I went in, sat down, and began
+to think. I saw that it was up with us, so far as the old uns were
+concerned; and it might be worth while to find out if the young uns
+really were dead."
+
+"Then you did not know that after all! I thought so. Oh, Jerry!"
+
+"Why, look you, man, it was not our interest to take their side if we
+could make our bargain out of the other. 'Cause why? You are only one
+witness--you are a good fellow, but poor, and with very shaky nerves,
+Will. You does not know what them big wigs are when a man's caged in a
+witness-box--they flank one up, and they flank one down, and they bully
+and bother, till one's like a horse at Astley's dancing on hot iron.
+If your testimony broke down, why it would be all up with the case,
+and what then would become of us? Besides," added the captain, with
+dignified candour, "I have been lagged, it's no use denying it; I am
+back before my time. Inquiries about your respectability would soon
+bring the bulkies about me. And you would not have poor Jerry sent back
+to that d---d low place on t'other side of the herring-pond, would you?"
+
+"Ah, Jerry!" said William, kindly placing his hand in his brother's,
+"you know I helped you to escape; I left all to come over with you."
+
+"So you did, and you're a good fellow; though as to leaving all, why you
+had got rid of all first. And when you told me about the marriage, did
+not I say that I saw our way to a snug thing for life? But to return
+to my story. There is a danger in going with the youngsters. But since,
+Will,--since nothing but hard words is to be got on the other side,
+we'll do our duty, and I'll find them out, and do the best I can for
+us--that is, if they be yet above ground. And now I'll own to you that I
+think I knows that the younger one is alive."
+
+"You do?"
+
+"Yes! But as he won't come in for anything unless his brother is dead,
+we must have a hunt for the heir. Now I told you that, many years ago,
+there was a lad with me, who, putting all things together--seeing how
+the Beauforts came after him, and recollecting different things he let
+out at the time--I feel pretty sure is your old master's Hopeful. I know
+that poor Will Gawtrey gave this lad the address of Old Gregg, a friend
+of mine. So after watching Sharp off the sly, I went that very night, or
+rather at two in the morning, to Gregg's house, and, after brushing
+up his memory, I found that the lad had been to him, and gone over
+afterwards to Paris in search of Gawtrey, who was then keeping a
+matrimony shop. As I was not rich enough to go off to Paris in a
+pleasant, gentlemanlike way, I allowed Gregg to put me up to a noice
+quiet little bit of business. Don't shake your head--all safe--a rural
+affair! That took some days. You see it has helped to new rig me," and
+the captain glanced complacently over a very smart suit of clothes.
+"Well, on my return I went to call on you, but you had flown. I half
+suspected you might have gone to the mother's relations here; and I
+thought, at all events, that I could not do better than go myself and
+see what they knew of the matter. From what you say I feel I had better
+now let that alone, and go over to Paris at once; leave me alone to
+find out. And faith, what with Sharp and the old lord, the sooner I quit
+England the better."
+
+"And you really think you shall get hold of them after all? Oh, never
+fear my nerves if I'm once in the right; it's living with you, and
+seeing you do wrong, and hearing you talk wickedly, that makes me
+tremble."
+
+"Bother!" said the captain, "you need not crow over me. Stand up, Will;
+there now, look at us two in the glass! Why, I look ten years younger
+than you do, in spite of all my troubles. I dress like a gentleman, as
+I am; I have money in my pocket; I put money in yours; without me you'd
+starve. Look you, you carried over a little fortune to Australia--you
+married--you farmed--you lived honestly, and yet that d---d
+shilly-shally disposition of yours, 'ticed into one speculation to-day,
+and scared out of another to-morrow, ruined you!"
+
+"Jerry! Jerry!" cried William, writhing; "don't--don't."
+
+"But it's all true, and I wants to cure you of preaching. And then,
+when you were nearly run out, instead of putting a bold face on it, and
+setting your shoulder to the wheel, you gives it up--you sells what you
+have--you bolts over, wife and all, to Boston, because some one tells
+you you can do better in America--you are out of the way when a search
+is made for you--years ago when you could have benefited yourself and
+your master's family without any danger to you or me--nobody can find
+you; 'cause why, you could not bear that your old friends in England, or
+in the colony either, should know that you were turned a slave-driver in
+Kentucky. You kick up a mutiny among the niggers by moaning over them,
+instead of keeping 'em to it--you get kicked out yourself--your wife
+begs you to go back to Australia, where her relations will do something
+for you--you work your passage out, looking as ragged as a colt
+from grass--wife's uncle don't like ragged nephews-in-law--wife dies
+broken-hearted--and you might be breaking stones on the roads with the
+convicts, if I, myself a convict, had not taken compassion on you. Don't
+cry, Will, it is all for your own good--I hates cant! Whereas I, my own
+master from eighteen, never stooped to serve any other--have dressed
+like a gentleman--kissed the pretty girls--drove my pheaton--been in all
+the papers as 'the celebrated Dashing Jerry'--never wanted a guinea in
+my pocket, and even when lagged at last, had a pretty little sum in
+the colonial bank to lighten my misfortunes. I escape,--I bring you
+over--and here I am, supporting you, and in all probability, the one on
+whom depends the fate of one of the first families in the country. And
+you preaches at me, do you? Look you, Will;--in this world, honesty's
+nothing without force of character! And so your health!"
+
+Here the captain emptied the rest of the brandy into his glass, drained
+it at a draught, and, while poor William was wiping his eyes with a
+ragged blue pocket-handkerchief, rang the bell, and asked what coaches
+would pass that way to -----, a seaport town at some distance. On
+hearing that there was one at six o'clock, the captain ordered the best
+dinner the larder would afford to be got ready as soon as possible; and,
+when they were again alone, thus accosted his brother:--
+
+"Now you go back to town--here are four shiners for you. Keep
+quiet--don't speak to a soul--don't put your foot in it, that's all I
+beg, and I'll find out whatever there is to be found. It is damnably out
+of my way embarking at -----, but I had best keep clear of Lunnon. And I
+tell you what, if these youngsters have hopped the twig, there's another
+bird on the bough that may prove a goldfinch after all--Young Arthur
+Beaufort: I hear he is a wild, expensive chap, and one who can't live
+without lots of money. Now, it's easy to frighten a man of that sort,
+and I sha'n't have the old lord at his elbow."
+
+"But I tell you, that I only care for my poor master's children."
+
+"Yes; but if they are dead, and by saying they are alive, one can make
+old age comfortable, there's no harm in it--eh?"
+
+"I don't know," said William, irresolutely. "But certainly it is a hard
+thing to be so poor at my time of life; and so honest a man as I've
+been, too!"
+
+Captain Smith went a little too far when he said that "honesty's nothing
+without force of character." Still, Honesty has no business to be
+helpless and draggle-tailed;--she must be active and brisk, and make use
+of her wits; or, though she keep clear or the prison, 'tis no very great
+wonder if she fall on the parish.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+     "Mitis.--This Macilente, signior, begins to be more sociable on
+     a sudden." Every Man out of his Humour.
+
+     "Punt. Signior, you are sufficiently instructed.
+
+     "Fast. Who, I, sir?"--Ibid.
+
+After spending the greater part of the day in vain inquiries and a vain
+search, Philip and Mr. Morton returned to the house of the latter.
+
+"And now," said Philip, "all that remains to be done is this: first
+give to the police of the town a detailed description of the man; and
+secondly, let us put an advertisement both in the county journal and in
+some of the London papers, to the effect, that if the person who called
+on you will take the trouble to apply again, either personally or by
+letter, he may obtain the information sought for. In case he does,
+I will trouble you to direct him to--yes--to Monsieur de Vaudemont,
+according to this address."
+
+"Not to you, then?"
+
+"It is the same thing," replied Philip, drily. "You have confirmed my
+suspicions, that the Beauforts know some thing of my brother. What did
+you say of some other friend of the family who assisted in the search?"
+
+"Oh,--a Mr. Spencer! an old acquaintance of your mother's." Here Mr.
+Morton smiled, but not being encouraged in a joke, went on, "However,
+that's neither here nor there; he certainly never found out your
+brother. For I have had several letters from him at different times,
+asking if any news had been heard of either of you."
+
+And, indeed, Spencer had taken peculiar pains to deceive the Mortons,
+whose interposition he feared little less than that of the Beauforts.
+
+"Then it can be of no use to apply to him," said Philip, carelessly, not
+having any recollection of the name of Spencer, and therefore attaching
+little importance to the mention of him.
+
+"Certainly, I should think not. Depend on it, Mr. Beaufort must know."
+
+"True," said Philip. "And I have only to thank you for your kindness,
+and return to town."
+
+"But stay with us this day--do--let me feel that we are friends. I
+assure you poor Sidney's fate has been a load on my mind ever since he
+left. You shall have the bed he slept in, and over which your mother
+bent when she left him and me for the last time."
+
+These words were said with so much feeling, that the adventurer wrung
+his uncle's hand, and said, "Forgive me, I wronged you--I will be your
+guest."
+
+Mrs. Morton, strange to say, evinced no symptoms of ill-humour at the
+news of the proffered hospitality. In fact, Miss Margaret had been
+so eloquent in Philip's praise during his absence, that she suffered
+herself to be favourably impressed. Her daughter, indeed, had obtained a
+sort of ascendency over Mrs. M. and the whole house, ever since she
+had received so excellent an offer. And, moreover, some people are like
+dogs--they snarl at the ragged and fawn on the well-dressed. Mrs. Morton
+did not object to a nephew de facto, she only objected to a nephew in
+forma pauperis. The evening, therefore, passed more cheerfully than
+might have been anticipated, though Philip found some difficulty in
+parrying the many questions put to him on the past. He contented himself
+with saying, as briefly as possible, that he had served in a foreign
+service, and acquired what sufficed him for an independence; and then,
+with the ease which a man picks up in the great world, turned the
+conversation to the prospects of the family whose guest he was. Having
+listened with due attention to Mrs. Morton's eulogies on Tom, who had
+been sent for, and who drank the praises on his own gentility into a
+very large pair of blushing ears,--also, to her self-felicitations on
+Miss Margaret's marriage,--item, on the service rendered to the town by
+Mr. Roger, who had repaired the town-hall in his first mayoralty at his
+own expense,--item, to a long chronicle of her own genealogy, how she
+had one cousin a clergyman, and how her great-grandfather had been
+knighted,--item, to the domestic virtues of all her children,--item, to
+a confused explanation of the chastisement inflicted on Sidney, which
+Philip cut short in the middle; he asked, with a smile, what had become
+of the Plaskwiths. "Oh!" said Mrs. Morton, "my brother Kit has retired
+from business. His son-in-law, Mr. Plimmins, has succeeded."
+
+"Oh, then, Plimmins married one of the young ladies?"
+
+"Yes, Jane--she had a sad squint!--Tom, there is nothing to laugh
+at,--we are all as God made us,--'Handsome is as handsome does,'--she
+has had three little uns!"
+
+"Do they squint too?" asked Philip; and Miss Margaret giggled, and Tom
+roared, and the other young men roared too. Philip had certainly said
+something very witty.
+
+This time Mrs. Morton administered no reproof; but replied pensively
+
+"Natur is very mysterious--they all squint!"
+
+Mr. Morton conducted Philip to his chamber. There it was, fresh, clean,
+unaltered--the same white curtains, the same honeysuckle paper as when
+Catherine had crept across the threshold.
+
+"Did Sidney ever tell you that his mother placed a ring round his neck
+that night?" asked Mr. Morton.
+
+"Yes; and the dear boy wept when he said that he had slept too soundly
+to know that she was by his side that last, last time. The ring--oh,
+how well I remember it! she never put it off till then; and often in the
+fields--for we were wild wanderers together in that day--often when his
+head lay on my shoulder, I felt that ring still resting on his heart,
+and fancied it was a talisman--a blessing. Well, well-good night to
+you!" And he shut the door on his uncle, and was alone.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+        "The Man of Law,.......
+        And a great suit is like to be between them."
+        BEN JONSON: Staple of News.
+
+On arriving in London, Philip went first to the lodging he still
+kept there, and to which his letters were directed; and, among some
+communications from Paris, full of the politics and the hopes of the
+Carlists, he found the following note from Lord Lilburne:--
+
+"DEAR SIR,--When I met you the other day I told you I had been
+threatened with the gout. The enemy has now taken possession of the
+field. I am sentenced to regimen and the sofa. But as it is my rule in
+life to make afflictions as light as possible, so I have asked a few
+friends to take compassion on me, and help me 'to shuffle off this
+mortal coil' by dealing me, if they can, four by honours. Any time
+between nine and twelve to-night, or to-morrow night, you will find me
+at home; and if you are not better engaged, suppose you dine with me
+to-day--or rather dine opposite to me--and excuse my Spartan broth. You
+will meet (besides any two or three friends whom an impromptu invitation
+may find disengaged) my sister, with Beaufort and their daughter: they
+only arrived in town this morning, and are kind enough 'to nurse me,' as
+they call it,--that is to say, their cook is taken ill!
+
+
+                   "Yours,
+
+                      "LILBURNE
+"Park Lane, Sept. --"
+
+"The Beauforts. Fate favors me--I will go. The date is for to-day."
+
+He sent off a hasty line to accept the invitation, and finding he had a
+few hours yet to spare, he resolved to employ them in consultation with
+some lawyer as to the chances of ultimately regaining his inheritance--a
+hope which, however wild, he had, since his return to his native shore,
+and especially since he had heard of the strange visit made to Roger
+Morton, permitted himself to indulge. With this idea he sallied out,
+meaning to consult Liancourt, who, having a large acquaintance among
+the English, seemed the best person to advise him as to the choice of
+a lawyer at once active and honest,--when he suddenly chanced upon that
+gentleman himself.
+
+"This is lucky, my dear Liancourt. I was just going to your lodgings."
+
+"And I was coming to yours to know if you dine with Lord Lilburne. He
+told me he had asked you. I have just left him. And, by the sofa of
+Mephistopheles, there was the prettiest Margaret you ever beheld."
+
+"Indeed!--Who?"
+
+"He called her his niece; but I should doubt if he had any relation on
+this side the Styx so human as a niece."
+
+"You seem to have no great predilection for our host."
+
+"My dear Vaudemont, between our blunt, soldierly natures, and those
+wily, icy, sneering intellects, there is the antipathy of the dog to the
+cat."
+
+"Perhaps so on our side, not on his--or why does he invite us?"
+
+"London is empty; there is no one else to ask. We are new faces, new
+minds to him. We amuse him more than the hackneyed comrades he has worn
+out. Besides, he plays--and you, too. Fie on you!"
+
+"Liancourt, I had two objects in knowing that man, and I pay to the toll
+for the bridge. When I cease to want the passage, I shall cease to pay
+the toll."
+
+"But the bridge may be a draw-bridge, and the moat is devilish deep
+below. Without metaphor, that man may ruin you before you know where you
+are."
+
+"Bah! I have my eyes open. I know how much to spend on the rogue whose
+service I hire as a lackey's; and I know also where to stop. Liancourt,"
+he added, after a short pause, and in a tone deep with suppressed
+passion, "when I first saw that man, I thought of appealing to his heart
+for one who has a claim on it. That was a vain hope. And then there came
+upon me a sterner and deadlier thought--the scheme of the Avenger! This
+Lilburne--this rogue whom the world sets up to worship--ruined, body
+and soul ruined--one whose name the world gibbets with scorn! Well, I
+thought to avenge that man. In his own house--amidst you all--I thought
+to detect the sharper, and brand the cheat!"
+
+"You startle me!--It has been whispered, indeed, that Lord Lilburne
+is dangerous,--but skill is dangerous. To cheat!--an Englishman!--a
+nobleman!--impossible!"
+
+"Whether he do or not," returned Vaudemont, in a calmer tone, "I have
+foregone the vengeance, because he is--"
+
+"Is what?"
+
+"No matter," said Vaudemont aloud, but he added to himself,--"Because he
+is the grandfather of Fanny!"
+
+"You are very enigmatical to-day."
+
+"Patience, Liancourt; I may solve all the riddles that make up my
+life, yet. Bear with me a little longer. And now can you help me to a
+lawyer?--a man experienced, indeed, and of repute, but young, active,
+not overladen with business;--I want his zeal and his time, for a hazard
+that your monopolists of clients may not deem worth their devotion."
+
+"I can recommend you, then, the very man you require. I had a suit
+some years ago at Paris, for which English witnesses were necessary.
+My avocat employed a solicitor here whose activity in collecting my
+evidence gained my cause. I will answer for his diligence and his
+honesty."
+
+"His address?"
+
+"Mr. Barlow--somewhere by the Strand--let me see--Essex-yes, Essex
+Street."
+
+"Then good-bye to you for the present.--You dine at Lord Lilburne's
+too?"
+
+"Yes. Adieu till then."
+
+Vaudemont was not long before he arrived at Mr. Barlow's; a brass-plate
+announced to him the house. He was shown at once into a parlour,
+where he saw a man whom lawyers would call young, and spinsters
+middle-aged--viz., about two-and-forty; with a bold, resolute,
+intelligent countenance, and that steady, calm, sagacious eye, which
+inspires at once confidence and esteem.
+
+Vaudemont scanned him with the look of one who has been accustomed
+to judge mankind--as a scholar does books--with rapidity because with
+practice. He had at first resolved to submit to him the heads of
+his case without mentioning names, and, in fact, he so commenced his
+narrative; but by degrees, as he perceived how much his own earnestness
+arrested and engrossed the interest of his listener, he warmed into
+fuller confidence, and ended by a full disclosure, and a caution as to
+the profoundest secrecy in case, if there were no hope to recover his
+rightful name, he might yet wish to retain, unannoyed by curiosity or
+suspicion, that by which he was not discreditably known.
+
+"Sir," said Mr. Barlow, after assuring him of the most scrupulous
+discretion,--"sir, I have some recollection of the trial instituted by
+your mother, Mrs. Beaufort"--and the slight emphasis he laid on that
+name was the most grateful compliment he could have paid to the truth
+of Philip's recital. "My impression is, that it was managed in a very
+slovenly manner by her lawyer; and some of his oversights we may repair
+in a suit instituted by yourself. But it would be absurd to conceal from
+you the great difficulties that beset us--your mother's suit, designed
+to establish her own rights, was far easier than that which you must
+commence--viz., an action for ejectment against a man who has been some
+years in undisturbed possession. Of course, until the missing witness is
+found out, it would be madness to commence litigation. And the question,
+then, will be, how far that witness will suffice? It is true, that one
+witness of a marriage, if the others are dead, is held sufficient by
+law. But I need not add, that that witness must be thoroughly credible.
+In suits for real property, very little documentary or secondary
+evidence is admitted. I doubt even whether the certificate of the
+marriage on which--in the loss or destruction of the register--you lay
+so much stress, would be available in itself. But if an examined copy,
+it becomes of the last importance, for it will then inform us of the
+name of the person who extracted and examined it. Heaven grant it may
+not have been the clergyman himself who performed the ceremony, and who,
+you say, is dead; if some one else, we should then have a second, no
+doubt credible and most valuable witness. The document would thus become
+available as proof, and, I think, that we should not fail to establish
+our case."
+
+"But this certificate, how is it ever to be found? I told you we had
+searched everywhere in vain."
+
+"True; but you say that your mother always declared that the late Mr.
+Beaufort had so solemnly assured her, even just prior to his decease,
+that it was in existence, that I have no doubt as to the fact. It may be
+possible, but it is a terrible insinuation to make, that if Mr. Robert
+Beaufort, in examining the papers of the deceased, chanced upon a
+document so important to him, he abstracted or destroyed it. If this
+should not have been the case (and Mr. Robert Beaufort's moral character
+is unspotted--and we have no right to suppose it), the probability is,
+either that it was intrusted to some third person, or placed in
+some hidden drawer or deposit, the secret of which your father never
+disclosed. Who has purchased the house you lived in?"
+
+"Fernside? Lord Lilburne. Mrs. Robert Beaufort's brother."
+
+"Humph--probably, then, he took the furniture and all. Sir, this is a
+matter that requires some time for close consideration. With your leave,
+I will not only insert in the London papers an advertisement to the
+effect that you suggested to Mr. Roger Morton (in case you should have
+made a right conjecture as to the object of the man who applied to him),
+but I will also advertise for the witness himself. William Smith, you
+say, his name is. Did the lawyer employed by Mrs. Beaufort send to
+inquire for him in the colony?"
+
+"No; I fear there could not have been time for that. My mother was so
+anxious and eager, and so convinced of the justice of her case--"
+
+"That's a pity; her lawyer must have been a sad driveller."
+
+"Besides, now I remember, inquiry was made of his relations in England.
+His father, a farmer, was then alive; the answer was that he had
+certainly left Australia. His last letter, written two years before that
+date, containing a request for money, which the father, himself made a
+bankrupt by reverses, could not give, had stated that he was about to
+seek his fortune elsewhere--since then they had heard nothing of him."
+
+"Ahem! Well, you will perhaps let me know where any relations of his
+are yet to be found, and I will look up the former suit, and go into
+the whole case without delay. In the meantime, you do right, sir--if you
+will allow me to say it--not to disclose either your own identity or a
+hint of your intentions. It is no use putting suspicion on its guard.
+And my search for this certificate must be managed with the greatest
+address. But, by the way--speaking of identity--there can be no
+difficulty, I hope, in proving yours."
+
+Philip was startled. "Why, I am greatly altered."
+
+"But probably your beard and moustache may contribute to that change;
+and doubtless, in the village where you lived, there would be many with
+whom you were in sufficient intercourse, and on whose recollection,
+by recalling little anecdotes and circumstances with which no one but
+yourself could be acquainted, your features would force themselves along
+with the moral conviction that the man who spoke to them could be no
+other but Philip Morton--or rather Beaufort."
+
+"You are right; there must be many such. There was not a cottage in the
+place where I and my dogs were not familiar and half domesticated."
+
+"All's right, so far, then. But I repeat, we must not be too sanguine.
+Law is not justice--"
+
+"But God is," said Philip; and he left the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+     "Volpone. A little in a mist, but not dejected;
+     Never--but still myself."
+               BEN JONSON: Volpone.
+
+     "Peregrine. Am I enough disguised?
+     Mer. Ay. I warrant you.
+     Per. Save you, fair lady."--Ibid.
+
+It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. The ill wind that had blown
+gout to Lord Lilburne had blown Lord Lilburne away from the injury he
+had meditated against what he called "the object of his attachment." How
+completely and entirely, indeed, the state of Lord Lilburne's feelings
+depended on the state of his health, may be seen in the answer he gave
+to his valet, when, the morning after the first attack of the gout,
+that worthy person, by way of cheering his master, proposed to ascertain
+something as to the movements of one with whom Lord Lilburne professed
+to be so violently in love,--"Confound you, Dykeman!" exclaimed the
+invalid,--"why do you trouble me about women when I'm in this condition?
+I don't care if they were all at the bottom of the sea! Reach me the
+colchicum! I must keep my mind calm."
+
+Whenever tolerably well, Lord Lilburne was careless of his health; the
+moment he was ill, Lord Lilburne paid himself the greatest possible
+attention. Though a man of firm nerves, in youth of remarkable daring,
+and still, though no longer rash, of sufficient personal courage, he was
+by no means fond of the thought of death--that is, of his own death.
+Not that he was tormented by any religious apprehensions of the Dread
+Unknown, but simply because the only life of which he had any experience
+seemed to him a peculiarly pleasant thing. He had a sort of instinctive
+persuasion that John Lord Lilburne would not be better off anywhere
+else. Always disliking solitude, he disliked it more than ever when
+he was ill, and he therefore welcomed the visit of his sister and the
+gentle hand of his pretty niece. As for Beaufort, he bored the sufferer;
+and when that gentleman, on his arrival, shutting out his wife and
+daughter, whispered to Lilburne, "Any more news of that impostor?"
+Lilburne answered peevishly, "I never talk about business when I have
+the gout! I have set Sharp to keep a lookout for him, but he has learned
+nothing as yet. And now go to your club. You are a worthy creature,
+but too solemn for my spirits just at this moment. I have a few people
+coming to dine with me, your wife will do the honors, and--you can
+come in the evening." Though Mr. Robert Beaufort's sense of importance
+swelled and chafed at this very unceremonious conge, he forced a smile,
+and said:--
+
+"Well, it is no wonder you are a little fretful with the gout. I have
+plenty to do in town, and Mrs. Beaufort and Camilla can come back
+without waiting for me."
+
+"Why, as your cook is ill, and they can't dine at a club, you may as
+well leave them here till I am a little better; not that I care, for I
+can hire a better nurse than either of them."
+
+"My dear Lilburne, don't talk of hiring nurses; certainly, I am too
+happy if they can be of comfort to you."
+
+"No! on second thoughts, you may take back your wife, she's always
+talking of her own complaints, and leave me Camilla: you can't want her
+for a few days."
+
+"Just as you like. And you really think I have managed as well as I
+could about this young man,--eh?"
+
+"Yes--yes! And so you go to Beaufort Court in a few days?"
+
+"I propose doing so. I wish you were well enough to come."
+
+"Um! Chambers says that it would be a very good air for me--better
+than Fernside; and as to my castle in the north, I would as soon go to
+Siberia. Well, if I get better, I will pay you a visit, only you always
+have such a stupid set of respectable people about you. I shock them,
+and they oppress me."
+
+"Why, as I hope soon to see Arthur, I shall make it as agreeable to him
+as I can, and I shall be very much obliged to you if you would invite a
+few of your own friends."
+
+"Well, you are a good fellow, Beaufort, and I will take you at your
+word; and, since one good turn deserves another, I have now no scruples
+in telling you that I feel quite sure that you will have no further
+annoyance from this troublesome witness-monger."
+
+"In that case," said Beaufort, "I may pick up a better match for
+Camilla! Good-bye, my dear Lilburne."
+
+"Form and Ceremony of the world!" snarled the peer, as the door closed
+on his brother-in-law, "ye make little men very moral, and not a bit the
+better for being so."
+
+It so happened that Vaudemont arrived before any of the other guests
+that day, and during the half hour which Dr. Chambers assigned to his
+illustrious patient, so that, when he entered, there were only Mrs.
+Beaufort and Camilla in the drawing-room.
+
+Vaudemont drew back involuntarily as he recognized in the faded
+countenance of the elder lady, features associated with one of the dark
+passages in his earlier life; but Mrs. Beaufort's gracious smile,
+and urbane, though languid welcome, sufficed to assure him that the
+recognition was not mutual. He advanced, and again stopped short, as his
+eye fell upon that fair and still childlike form, which had once knelt
+by his side and pleaded, with the orphan, for his brother. While he
+spoke to her, many recollections, some dark and stern--but those, at
+least, connected with Camilla, soft and gentle--thrilled through his
+heart. Occupied as her own thoughts and feelings necessarily were with
+Sidney, there was something in Vaudemont's appearance--his manner, his
+voice--which forced upon Camilla a strange and undefined interest; and
+even Mrs. Beaufort was roused from her customary apathy, as she glanced
+at that dark and commanding face with something between admiration and
+fear. Vaudemont had scarcely, however, spoken ten words, when some other
+guests were announced, and Lord Lilburne was wheeled in upon his
+sofa shortly afterwards. Vaudemont continued, however, seated next to
+Camilla, and the embarrassment he had at first felt disappeared. He
+possessed, when he pleased, that kind of eloquence which belongs to
+men who have seen much and felt deeply, and whose talk has not been
+frittered down to the commonplace jargon of the world. His very
+phraseology was distinct and peculiar, and he had that rarest of all
+charms in polished life, originality both of thought and of manner.
+Camilla blushed, when she found at dinner that he placed himself by her
+side. That evening De Vaudemont excused himself from playing, but the
+table was easily made without him, and still he continued to converse
+with the daughter of the man whom he held as his worst foe. By degrees,
+he turned the conversation into a channel that might lead him to the
+knowledge he sought.
+
+"It was my fate," said he, "once to become acquainted with an intimate
+friend of the late Mr. Beaufort. Will you pardon me if I venture to
+fulfil a promise I made to him, and ask you to inform me what has become
+of a--a--that is, of Sidney Morton?"
+
+"Sidney Morton! I don't even remember the name. Oh, yes! I have heard
+it," added Camilla, innocently, and with a candour that showed how
+little she knew of the secrets of the family; "he was one of two poor
+boys in whom my brother felt a deep interest--some relations to my
+uncle. Yes--yes! I remember now. I never knew Sidney, but I once did see
+his brother."
+
+"Indeed! and you remember--"
+
+"Yes! I was very young then. I scarcely recollect what passed, it was
+all so confused and strange; but, I know that I made papa very angry,
+and I was told never to mention the name of Morton again. I believe they
+behaved very ill to papa."
+
+"And you never learned--never!--the fate of either--of Sidney?"
+
+"Never!"
+
+"But your father must know?"
+
+"I think not; but tell me,"--said Camilla, with girlish and unaffected
+innocence, "I have always felt anxious to know,--what and who were those
+poor boys?"
+
+What and who were they? So deep, then, was the stain upon their name,
+that the modest mother and the decorous father had never even said to
+that young girl, "They are your cousins--the children of the man in
+whose gold we revel!"
+
+Philip bit his lip, and the spell of Camilla's presence seemed vanished.
+He muttered some inaudible answer, turned away to the card-table, and
+Liancourt took the chair he had left vacant.
+
+"And how does Miss Beaufort like my friend Vaudemont? I assure you that
+I have seldom seen him so alive to the fascination of female beauty!"
+
+"Oh!" said Camilla, with her silver laugh, "your nation spoils us
+for our own countrymen. You forget how little we are accustomed to
+flattery."
+
+"Flattery! what truth could flatter on the lips of an exile? But you
+don't answer my question--what think you of Vaudemont? Few are more
+admired. He is handsome!"
+
+"Is he?" said Camilla, and she glanced at Vaudemont, as he stood at a
+little distance, thoughtful and abstracted. Every girl forms to herself
+some untold dream of that which she considers fairest. And Vaudemont had
+not the delicate and faultless beauty of Sidney. There was nothing that
+corresponded to her ideal in his marked features and lordly shape! But
+she owned, reluctantly to herself, that she had seldom seen, among the
+trim gallants of everyday life, a form so striking and impressive. The
+air, indeed, was professional--the most careless glance could detect the
+soldier. But it seemed the soldier of an elder age or a wilder clime. He
+recalled to her those heads which she had seen in the Beaufort Gallery
+and other Collections yet more celebrated--portraits by Titian of those
+warrior statesman who lived in the old Republics of Italy in a perpetual
+struggle with their kind--images of dark, resolute, earnest men.
+Even whatever was intellectual in his countenance spoke, as in those
+portraits, of a mind sharpened rather in active than in studious
+life;--intellectual, not from the pale hues, the worn exhaustion, and
+the sunken cheek of the bookman and dreamer, but from its collected and
+stern repose, the calm depth that lay beneath the fire of the eyes, and
+the strong will that spoke in the close full lips, and the high but not
+cloudless forehead.
+
+And, as she gazed, Vaudemont turned round--her eyes fell beneath his,
+and she felt angry with herself that she blushed. Vaudemont saw the
+downcast eye, he saw the blush, and the attraction of Camilla's presence
+was restored. He would have approached her, but at that moment Mr.
+Beaufort himself entered, and his thoughts went again into a darker
+channel.
+
+"Yes," said Liancourt, "you must allow Vaudemont looks what he is--a
+noble fellow and a gallant soldier. Did you never hear of his battle
+with the tigress? It made a noise in India. I must tell it you as I have
+heard it."
+
+And while Laincourt was narrating the adventure, whatever it was, to
+which he referred, the card-table was broken up, and Lord Lilburne,
+still reclining on his sofa, lazily introduced his brother-in-law to
+such of the guests as were strangers to him--Vaudemont among the rest.
+Mr. Beaufort had never seen Philip Morton more than three times; once
+at Fernside, and the other times by an imperfect light, and when his
+features were convulsed by passion, and his form disfigured by his
+dress. Certainly, therefore, had Robert Beaufort even possessed that
+faculty of memory which is supposed to belong peculiarly to kings and
+princes, and which recalls every face once seen, it might have tasked
+the gift to the utmost to have detected, in the bronzed and decorated
+foreigner to whom he was now presented, the features of the wild and
+long-lost boy. But still some dim and uneasy presentiment, or some
+struggling and painful effort of recollection, was in his mind, as he
+spoke to Vaudemont, and listened to the cold calm tone of his reply.
+
+"Who do you say that Frenchman is?" he whispered to his brother-in-law,
+as Vaudemont turned away.
+
+"Oh! a cleverish sort of adventurer--a gentleman; he plays.--He has
+seen a good deal of the world--he rather amuses me--different from other
+people. I think of asking him to join our circle at Beaufort Court."
+
+Mr. Beaufort coughed huskily, but not seeing any reasonable objection
+to the proposal, and afraid of rousing the sleeping hyaena of Lord
+Lilburne's sarcasm, he merely said:--
+
+"Any one you like to invite:" and looking round for some one on whom to
+vent his displeasure, perceived Camilla still listening to Liancourt.
+He stalked up to her, and as Liancourt, seeing her rise, rose also and
+moved away, he said peevishly, "You will never learn to conduct yourself
+properly; you are to be left here to nurse and comfort your uncle, and
+not to listen to the gibberish of every French adventurer. Well, Heaven
+be praised, I have a son--girls are a great plague!"
+
+"So they are, Mr. Beaufort," sighed his wife, who had just joined
+him, and who was jealous of the preference Lilburne had given to her
+daughter.
+
+"And so selfish," added Mrs. Beaufort; "they only care for their own
+amusements, and never mind how uncomfortable their parents are for want
+of them."
+
+"Oh! dear mamma, don't say so--let me go home with you--I'll speak to my
+uncle!"
+
+"Nonsense, child! Come along, Mr. Beaufort;" and the affectionate
+parents went out arm in arm. They did not perceive that Vaudemont had
+been standing close behind them; but Camilla, now looking up with tears
+in her eyes, again caught his gaze: he had heard all.
+
+"And they ill-treat her," he muttered: "that divides her from them!--she
+will be left here--I shall see her again." As he turned to depart,
+Lilburne beckoned to him.
+
+"You do not mean to desert our table?"
+
+"No: but I am not very well to-night--to-morrow, if you will allow me."
+
+"Ay, to-morrow; and if you can spare an hour in the morning it will be a
+charity. You see," he added in a whisper, "I have a nurse, though I have
+no children. D'ye think that's love? Bah! sir--a legacy! Good night."
+
+"No--no--no!" said Vaudemont to himself, as he walked through the
+moonlit streets. "No! though my heart burns,--poor murdered felon!--to
+avenge thy wrongs and thy crimes, revenge cannot come from me--he is
+Fanny's grandfather and--Camilla's uncle!"
+
+And Camilla, when that uncle had dismissed her for the night, sat down
+thoughtfully in her own room. The dark eyes of Vaudemont seemed still
+to shine on her; his voice yet rung in her ear; the wild tales of daring
+and danger with which Liancourt had associated his name yet haunted her
+bewildered fancy--she started, frightened at her own thoughts. She took
+from her bosom some lines that Sidney had addressed to her, and, as she
+read and re-read, her spirit became calmed to its wonted and faithful
+melancholy. Vaudemont was forgotten, and the name of Sidney yet murmured
+on her lips, when sleep came to renew the image of the absent one, and
+paint in dreams the fairy land of a happy Future!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+     "Ring on, ye bells--most pleasant is your chime!"
+      WILSON. Isle of Palms.
+
+     "O fairy child! What can I wish for thee?"--Ibid.
+
+Vaudemont remained six days in London without going to H----, and on
+each of those days he paid a visit to Lord Lilburne. On the seventh day,
+the invalid being much better, though still unable to leave his room,
+Camilla returned to Berkeley Square. On the same day, Vaudemont went
+once more to see Simon and poor Fanny.
+
+As he approached the door, he heard from the window, partially opened,
+for the day was clear and fine, Fanny's sweet voice. She was chaunting
+one of the simple songs she had promised to learn by heart; and
+Vaudemont, though but a poor judge of the art, was struck and affected
+by the music of the voice and the earnest depth of the feeling. He
+paused opposite the window and called her by her name. Fanny looked
+forth joyously, and ran, as usual, to open the door to him.
+
+"Oh! you have been so long away; but I already know many of the songs:
+they say so much that I always wanted to say!"
+
+Vaudemont smiled, but languidly.
+
+"How strange it is," said Fanny, musingly, "that there should be so much
+in a piece of paper! for, after all," pointing to the open page of her
+book, "this is but a piece of paper--only there is life in it!"
+
+"Ay," said Vaudemont, gloomily, and far from seizing the subtle
+delicacy of Fanny's thought--her mind dwelling upon Poetry, and his upon
+Law,--"ay, and do you know that upon a mere scrap of paper, if I could
+but find it, may depend my whole fortune, my whole happiness, all that I
+care for in life?"
+
+"Upon a scrap of paper? Oh! how I wish I could find it! Ah! you look as
+if you thought I should never be wise enough for that!"
+
+Vaudemont, not listening to her, uttered a deep sigh. Fanny approached
+him timidly.
+
+"Do not sigh, brother,--I can't bear to hear you sigh. You are changed.
+Have you, too, not been happy?"
+
+"Happy, Fanny! yes, lately very happy--too happy!"
+
+"Happy, have you? and I--" the girl stopped short--her tone had been
+that of sadness and reproach, and she stopped--why, she knew not, but
+she felt her heart sink within her. Fanny suffered him to pass her, and
+he went straight to his room. Her eyes followed him wistfully: it was
+not his habit to leave her thus abruptly. The family meal of the day
+was over; and it was an hour before Vaudemont descended to the parlour.
+Fanny had put aside the songs; she had no heart to recommence those
+gentle studies that had been so sweet,--they had drawn no pleasure, no
+praise from him. She was seated idly and listlessly beside the silent
+old man, who every day grew more and more silent still. She turned
+her head as Vaudemont entered, and her pretty lip pouted as that of
+a neglected child. But he did not heed it, and the pout vanished, and
+tears rushed to her eyes.
+
+Vaudemont was changed. His countenance was thoughtful and overcast. His
+manner abstracted. He addressed a few words to Simon, and then, seating
+himself by the window, leant his cheek on his hand, and was soon lost in
+reverie. Fanny, finding that he did not speak, and after stealing many a
+long and earnest glance at his motionless attitude and gloomy brow, rose
+gently, and gliding to him with her light step, said, in a trembling
+voice,--
+
+"Are you in pain, brother?"
+
+"No, pretty one!"
+
+"Then why won't you speak to Fanny? Will you not walk with her? Perhaps
+my grandfather will come too."
+
+"Not this evening. I shall go out; but it will be alone."
+
+"Where? Has not Fanny been good? I have not been out since you left us.
+And the grave--brother!--I sent Sarah with the flowers--but--"
+
+Vaudemont rose abruptly. The mention of the grave brought back his
+thoughts from the dreaming channel into which they had flowed. Fanny,
+whose very childishness had once so soothed him, now disturbed; he felt
+the want of that complete solitude which makes the atmosphere of growing
+passion: he muttered some scarcely audible excuse, and quitted the
+house. Fanny saw him no more that evening. He did not return till
+midnight. But Fanny did not sleep till she heard his step on the stairs,
+and his chamber door close: and when she did sleep, her dreams were
+disturbed and painful. The next morning, when they met at breakfast (for
+Vaudemont did not return to London), her eyes were red and heavy,
+and her cheek pale. And, still buried in meditation, Vaudemont's eye,
+usually so kind and watchful, did not detect those signs of a grief that
+Fanny could not have explained. After breakfast, however, he asked
+her to walk out; and her face brightened as she hastened to put on her
+bonnet, and take her little basket full of fresh flowers which she had
+already sent Sarah forth to purchase.
+
+"Fanny," said Vaudemont, as leaving the house, he saw the basket on
+her arm, "to-day you may place some of those flowers on another
+tombstone!--Poor child, what natural goodness there is in that
+heart!--what pity that--"
+
+He paused. Fanny looked delightedly in his face. "You were praising
+me--you! And what is a pity, brother?"
+
+While she spoke, the sound of the joy-bells was heard near at hand.
+
+"Hark!" said Vaudemont, forgetting her question--and almost
+gaily--"Hark!--I accept the omen. It is a marriage peal!"
+
+He quickened his steps, and they reached the churchyard.
+
+There was a crowd already assembled, and Vaudemont and Fanny paused;
+and, leaning over the little gate, looked on.
+
+"Why are these people here, and why does the bell ring so merrily?"
+
+"There is to be a wedding, Fanny."
+
+"I have heard of a wedding very often," said Fanny, with a pretty look
+of puzzlement and doubt, "but I don't know exactly what it means. Will
+you tell me?--and the bells, too!"
+
+"Yes, Fanny, those bells toll but three times for man! The first time,
+when he comes into the world; the last time, when he leaves it; the time
+between when he takes to his side a partner in all the sorrows--in
+all the joys that yet remain to him; and who, even when the last bell
+announces his death to this earth, may yet, for ever and ever, be
+his partner in that world to come--that heaven, where they who are as
+innocent as you, Fanny, may hope to live and to love each other in a
+land in which there are no graves!"
+
+"And this bell?"
+
+"Tolls for that partnership--for the wedding!"
+
+"I think I understand you;--and they who are to be wed are happy?"
+
+"Happy, Fanny, if they love, and their love continue. Oh! conceive the
+happiness to know some one person dearer to you than your own self--some
+one breast into which you can pour every thought, every grief, every
+joy! One person, who, if all the rest of the world were to calumniate
+or forsake you, would never wrong you by a harsh thought or an unjust
+word,--who would cling to you the closer in sickness, in poverty, in
+care,--who would sacrifice all things to you, and for whom you would
+sacrifice all--from whom, except by death, night or day, you must be
+never divided--whose smile is ever at your hearth--who has no tears
+while you are well and happy, and your love the same. Fanny, such is
+marriage, if they who marry have hearts and souls to feel that there
+is no bond on earth so tender and so sublime. There is an opposite
+picture;--I will not draw that! And as it is, Fanny, you cannot
+understand me!"
+
+He turned away:--and Fanny's tears were falling like rain upon the grass
+below;--he did not see them! He entered the churchyard; for the bell now
+ceased. The ceremony was to begin. He followed the bridal party into
+the church, and Fanny, lowering her veil, crept after him, awed and
+trembling.
+
+They stood, unobserved, at a little distance, and heard the service.
+
+The betrothed were of the middle class of life, young, both comely; and
+their behaviour was such as suited the reverence and sanctity of the
+rite. Vaudemont stood looking on intently, with his arms folded on his
+breast. Fanny leant behind him, and apart from all, against one of the
+pews. And still in her hand, while the priest was solemnising
+Marriage, she held the flowers intended for the Grave. Even to that
+MORNING--hushed, calm, earliest, with her mysterious and unconjectured
+heart--her shape brought a thought of NIGHT!
+
+When the ceremony was over--when the bride fell on her mother's breast
+and wept; and then, when turning thence, her eyes met the bridegroom's,
+and the tears were all smiled away--when, in that one rapid interchange
+of looks, spoke all that holy love can speak to love, and with timid
+frankness she placed her hand in his to whom she had just vowed her
+life,--a thrill went through the hearts of those present. Vaudemont
+sighed heavily. He heard his sigh echoed; but by one that had in its
+sound no breath of pain; he turned; Fanny had raised her veil; her eyes
+met his, moistened, but bright, soft, and her cheeks were rosy-red.
+Vaudemont recoiled before that gaze, and turned from the church. The
+persons interested retired to the vestry to sign their names in the
+registry; the crowd dispersed, and Vaudemont and Fanny stood alone in
+the burial-ground.
+
+"Look, Fanny," said the former, pointing to a tomb that stood far
+from his mother's (for those ashes were too hallowed for such a
+neighbourhood). "Look yonder; it is a new tomb. Fanny, let us approach
+it. Can you read what is there inscribed?"
+
+The inscription was simply this:
+
+
+                TO W--
+ G--
+              MAN SEES THE DEED
+            GOD THE CIRCUMSTANCE.
+               JUDGE NOT,
+             THAT YE BE NOT JUDGED.
+
+"Fanny, this tomb fulfils your pious wish: it is to the memory of
+him whom you called your father. Whatever was his life here--whatever
+sentence it hath received, Heaven, at least, will not condemn your
+piety, if you honour one who was good to you, and place flowers, however
+idle, even over that grave."
+
+"It is his--my father's--and you have thought of this for me!" said
+Fanny, taking his hand, and sobbing. "And I have been thinking that you
+were not so kind to me as you were!"
+
+"Have I not been so kind to you? Nay, forgive me, I am not happy."
+
+"Not?--you said yesterday you had been too happy."
+
+"To remember happiness is not to be happy, Fanny."
+
+"That's true--and--"
+
+Fanny stopped; and, as she bent over the tomb, musing, Vaudemont,
+willing to leave her undisturbed, and feeling bitterly how little his
+conscience could vindicate, though it might find palliation for, the
+dark man who slept not there--retired a few paces.
+
+At this time the new-married pair, with their witnesses, the clergyman,
+&c., came from the vestry, and crossed the path. Fanny, as she turned
+from the tomb, saw them, and stood still, looking earnestly at the
+bride.
+
+"What a lovely face!" said the mother. "Is it--yes it is--the poor idiot
+girl."
+
+"Ah!" said the bridegroom, tenderly, "and she, Mary, beautiful as she
+is, she can never make another as happy as you have made me."
+
+Vaudemont heard, and his heart felt sad. "Poor Fanny!--And yet, but for
+that affliction--I might have loved her, ere I met the fatal face of the
+daughter of my foe!" And with a deep compassion, an inexpressible and
+holy fondness, he moved to Fanny.
+
+"Come, my child; now let us go home."
+
+"Stay," said Fanny--"you forget." And she went to strew the flowers
+still left over Catherine's grave.
+
+"Will my mother," thought Vaudemont, "forgive me, if I have other
+thoughts than hate and vengeance for that house which builds its
+greatness over her slandered name?" He groaned:--and that grave had lost
+its melancholy charm.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+        "Of all men, I say,
+        That dare, for 'tis a desperate adventure,
+        Wear on their free necks the yoke of women,
+        Give me a soldier."--Knight of Malta.
+
+        "So lightly doth this little boat
+        Upon the scarce-touch'd billows float;
+        So careless doth she seem to be,
+        Thus left by herself on the homeless sea,
+        To lie there with her cheerful sail,
+        Till Heaven shall send some gracious gale."
+        WILSON: Isle of Palms.
+
+Vaudemont returned that evening to London, and found at his lodgings
+a note from Lord Lilburne, stating that as his gout was now somewhat
+mitigated, his physician had recommended him to try change of air--that
+Beaufort Court was in one of the western counties, in a genial
+climate--that he was therefore going thither the next day for a short
+time--that he had asked some of Monsieur de Vaudemont's countrymen, and
+a few other friends, to enliven the circle of a dull country-house--that
+Mr. and Mrs. Beaufort would be delighted to see Monsieur de Vaudemont
+also--and that his compliance with their invitation would be a charity
+to Monsieur de Vaudemont's faithful and obliged, LILBURNE.
+
+The first sensation of Vaudemont on reading this effusion was delight.
+"I shall see her," he cried; "I shall be under the same roof!" But the
+glow faded at once from his cheek;--the roof!--what roof? Be the guest
+where he held himself the lord!--be the guest of Robert Beaufort!--Was
+that all? Did he not meditate the deadliest war which civilised life
+admits of--the War of Law--war for name, property, that very hearth,
+with all its household gods, against this man--could he receive his
+hospitality? "And what then!" he exclaimed, as he paced to and fro the
+room,--"because her father wronged me, and because I would claim mine
+own--must I therefore exclude from my thoughts, from my sight, an image
+so fair and gentle;--the one who knelt by my side, an infant, to that
+hard man?--Is hate so noble a passion that it is not to admit one
+glimpse of Love?--Love! what word is that? Let me beware in time!" He
+paused in fierce self-contest, and, throwing open the window, gasped for
+air. The street in which he lodged was situated in the neighbourhood of
+St. James's; and, at that very moment, as if to defeat all opposition,
+and to close the struggle, Mrs. Beaufort's barouche drove by, Camilla
+at her side. Mrs. Beaufort, glancing up; languidly bowed; and Camilla
+herself perceived him, and he saw her change colour as she inclined
+her head. He gazed after them almost breathless, till the carriage
+disappeared; and then reclosing the window, he sat down to collect his
+thoughts, and again to reason with himself. But still, as he reasoned,
+he saw ever before him that blush and that smile. At last he sprang
+up, and a noble and bright expression elevated the character of his
+face,--"Yes, if I enter that house, if I eat that man's bread, and drink
+of his cup, I must forego, not justice--not what is due to my mother's
+name--but whatever belongs to hate and vengeance. If I enter that
+house--and if Providence permit me the means whereby to regain my
+rights, why she--the innocent one--she may be the means of saving her
+father from ruin, and stand like an angel by that boundary where justice
+runs into revenge!--Besides, is it not my duty to discover Sidney? Here
+is the only clue I shall obtain." With these thoughts he hesitated no
+more--he decided he would not reject this hospitality, since it might
+be in his power to pay it back ten thousandfold. "And who knows," he
+murmured again, "if Heaven, in throwing this sweet being in my way,
+might not have designed to subdue and chasten in me the angry passions I
+have so long fed on? I have seen her,--can I now hate her father?"
+
+He sent off his note accepting the invitation. When he had done so, was
+he satisfied? He had taken as noble and as large a view of the duties
+thereby imposed on him as he well could take: but something whispered
+at his heart, "There is weakness in thy generosity--Darest thou love the
+daughter of Robert Beaufort?" And his heart had no answer to this voice.
+
+The rapidity with which love is ripened depends less upon the actual
+number of years that have passed over the soil in which the seed is
+cast, than upon the freshness of the soil itself. A young man who lives
+the ordinary life of the world, and who fritters away, rather than
+exhausts, his feelings upon a variety of quick succeeding subjects--the
+Cynthias of the minute--is not apt to form a real passion at the first
+sight. Youth is inflammable only when the heart is young!
+
+There are certain times of life when, in either sex, the affections
+are prepared, as it were, to be impressed with the first fair face that
+attracts the fancy and delights the eye. Such times are when the heart
+has been long solitary, and when some interval of idleness and rest
+succeeds to periods of harsher and more turbulent excitement. It was
+precisely such a period in the life of Vaudemont. Although his ambition
+had been for many years his dream, and his sword his mistress, yet
+naturally affectionate, and susceptible of strong emotion, he had often
+repined at his lonely lot. By degrees the boy's fantasy and reverence
+which had wound themselves round the image of Eugenie subsided into that
+gentle and tender melancholy which, perhaps by weakening the strength
+of the sterner thoughts, leaves us inclined rather to receive, than to
+resist, a new attachment;--and on the verge of the sweet Memory trembles
+the sweet Hope. The suspension of his profession, his schemes, his
+struggles, his career, left his passions unemployed. Vaudemont was thus
+unconsciously prepared to love. As we have seen, his first and earliest
+feelings directed themselves to Fanny. But he had so immediately
+detected the clanger, and so immediately recoiled from nursing those
+thoughts and fancies, without which love dies for want of food, for a
+person to whom he ascribed the affliction of an imbecility which would
+give to such a sentiment all the attributes either of the weakest
+rashness or of dishonour approaching to sacrilege--that the wings of the
+deity were scared away the instant their very shadow fell upon his mind.
+And thus, when Camilla rose upon him his heart was free to receive her
+image. Her graces, her accomplishments, a certain nameless charm that
+invested her, pleased him even more than her beauty; the recollections
+connected with that first time in which he had ever beheld her, were
+also grateful and endearing; the harshness with which her parents spoke
+to her moved his compassion, and addressed itself to a temper peculiarly
+alive to the generosity that leans towards the weak and the wronged;
+the engaging mixture of mildness and gaiety with which she tended
+her peevish and sneering uncle, convinced him of her better and more
+enduring qualities of disposition and womanly heart. And even--so
+strange and contradictory are our feelings--the very remembrance that
+she was connected with a family so hateful to him made her own image the
+more bright from the darkness that surrounded it. For was it not with
+the daughter of his foe that the lover of Verona fell in love at first
+sight? And is not that a common type of us all--as if Passion delighted
+in contradictions? As the Diver, in Schiller's exquisite ballad,
+fastened upon the rock of coral in the midst of the gloomy sea, so we
+cling the more gratefully to whatever of fair thought and gentle shelter
+smiles out to us in the depths of Hate and Strife.
+
+But, perhaps, Vaudemont would not so suddenly and so utterly have
+rendered himself to a passion that began, already, completely to master
+his strong spirit, if he had not, from Camilla's embarrassment, her
+timidity, her blushes, intoxicated himself with the belief that his
+feelings were not unshared. And who knows not that such a belief, once
+cherished, ripens our own love to a development in which hours are as
+years?
+
+It was, then, with such emotions as made him almost insensible to every
+thought but the luxury of breathing the same air as his cousin, which
+swept from his mind the Past, the Future--leaving nothing but a joyous,
+a breathless PRESENT on the Face of Time, that he repaired to Beaufort
+Court. He did not return to H---- before he went, but he wrote to Fanny
+a short and hurried line to explain that he might be absent for some
+days at least, and promised to write again, if he should be detained
+longer than he anticipated.
+
+In the meanwhile, one of those successive revolutions which had marked
+the eras in Fanny's moral existence took its date from that last time
+they had walked and conversed together.
+
+The very evening of that day, some hours after Philip was gone, and
+after Simon had retired to rest, Fanny was sitting before the dying fire
+in the little parlour in an attitude of deep and pensive reverie. The
+old woman-servant, Sarah, who, very different from Mrs. Boxer, loved
+Fanny with her whole heart, came into the room as was her wont before
+going to bed, to see that the fire was duly out, and all safe: and as
+she approached the hearth, she started to see Fanny still up.
+
+"Dear heart alive!" she said; "why, Miss Fanny, you will catch your
+death of cold,--what are you thinking about?"
+
+"Sit down, Sarah; I want to speak to you." Now, though Fanny was
+exceedingly kind, and attached to Sarah, she was seldom communicative
+to her, or indeed to any one. It was usually in its own silence and
+darkness that that lovely mind worked out its own doubts.
+
+"Do you, my sweet young lady? I'm sure anything I can do--" and Sarah
+seated herself in her master's great chair, and drew it close to Fanny.
+There was no light in the room but the expiring fire, and it threw
+upward a pale glimmer on the two faces bending over it,--the one so
+strangely beautiful, so smooth, so blooming, so exquisite in its youth
+and innocence,--the other withered, wrinkled, meagre, and astute. It was
+like the Fairy and the Witch together.
+
+"Well, miss," said the crone, observing that, after a considerable
+pause, Fanny was still silent,--"Well--"
+
+"Sarah, I have seen a wedding!"
+
+"Have you?" and the old woman laughed. "Oh! I heard it was to be
+to-day!--young Waldron's wedding! Yes, they have been long sweethearts."
+
+"Were you ever married, Sarah?"
+
+"Lord bless you,--yes! and a very good husband I had, poor man! But he's
+dead these many years; and if you had not taken me, I must have gone to
+the workhus."
+
+"He is dead! Wasn't it very hard to live after that, Sarah?"
+
+"The Lord strengthens the hearts of widders!" observed Sarah,
+sanctimoniously.
+
+"Did you marry your brother, Sarah?" said Fanny, playing with the corner
+of her apron.
+
+"My brother!" exclaimed the old woman, aghast. "La! miss, you must not
+talk in that way,--it's quite wicked and heathenish! One must not marry
+one's brother!"
+
+"No!" said Fanny, tremblingly, and turning very pale, even by that
+light. "No!--are you sure of that?"
+
+"It is the wickedest thing even to talk about, my dear young
+mistress;--but you're like a babby unborn!"
+
+Fanny was silent for some moments. At length she said, unconscious that
+she was speaking aloud, "But he is not my brother, after all!"
+
+"Oh, miss, fie! Are you letting your pretty head run on the handsome
+gentleman. You, too,--dear, dear! I see we're all alike, we poor femel
+creturs! You! who'd have thought it? Oh, Miss Fanny!--you'll break your
+heart if you goes for to fancy any such thing."
+
+"Any what thing?"
+
+"Why, that that gentleman will marry you!--I'm sure, tho' he's so simple
+like, he's some great gentleman! They say his hoss is worth a hundred
+pounds! Dear, dear! why didn't I ever think of this before? He must be a
+very wicked man. I see, now, why he comes here. I'll speak to him, that
+I will!--a very wicked man!"
+
+Sarah was startled from her indignation by Fanny's rising suddenly,
+and standing before her in the flickering twilight, almost like a shape
+transformed,--so tall did she seem, so stately, so dignified.
+
+"Is it of him that you are speaking?" said she, in a voice of calm but
+deep resentment--"of him! If so, Sarah, we two can live no more in the
+same house."
+
+And these words were said with a propriety and collectedness that even,
+through all her terrors, showed at once to Sarah how much they now
+wronged Fanny who had suffered their lips to repeat the parrot-cry of
+the "idiot girl!"
+
+"O! gracious me!--miss--ma'am--I am so sorry--I'd rather bite out my
+tongue than say a word to offend you; it was only my love for you, dear
+innocent creature that you are!" and the honest woman sobbed with real
+passion as she clasped Fanny's hand. "There have been so many young
+persons, good and harmless, yes, even as you are, ruined. But you don't
+understand me. Miss Fanny! hear me; I must try and say what I would say.
+That man, that gentleman--so proud, so well-dressed, so grand-like, will
+never marry you, never--never. And if ever he says he does love you, and
+you say you love him, and you two don't marry, you will be ruined and
+wicked, and die--die of a broken heart!"
+
+The earnestness of Sarah's manner subdued and almost awed Fanny. She
+sank down again in her chair, and suffered the old woman to caress and
+weep over her hand for some moments in a silence that concealed the
+darkest and most agitated feelings Fanny's life had hitherto known. At
+length she said:--
+
+"Why may he not marry me if he loves me?--he is not my brother,--indeed
+he is not! I'll never call him so again."
+
+"He cannot marry you," said Sarah, resolved, with a sort of rude
+nobleness, to persevere in what she felt to be a duty; "I don't say
+anything about money, because that does not always signify. But he
+cannot marry you, because--because people who are hedicated one way
+never marry those who are hedicated and brought up in another. A
+gentleman of that kind requires a wife to know--oh--to know ever so
+much; and you--"
+
+"Sarah," interrupted Fanny, rising again, but this time with a smile
+on her face, "don't say anything more about it; I forgive you, if you
+promise never to speak unkindly of him again--never--never--never,
+Sarah!"
+
+"But may I just tell him that--that--"
+
+"That what?"
+
+"That you are so young and innocent, and has no pertector like; and that
+if you were to love him it would be a shame in him--that it would!"
+
+And then (oh, no, Fanny, there was nothing clouded now in your
+reason!)--and then the woman's alarm, the modesty, the instinct, the
+terror came upon her:--
+
+"Never! never! I will not love him, I do not love him, indeed, Sarah.
+If you speak to him, I will never look you in the face again. It is all
+past--all, dear Sarah!"
+
+She kissed the old woman; and Sarah, fancying that her sagacity
+and counsel had prevailed, promised all she was asked; so they went
+up-stairs together--friends.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+        "As the wind
+        Sobs, an uncertain sweetness comes from out
+        The orange-trees.
+
+        Rise up, Olympia.--She sleeps soundly. Ho!
+        Stirring at last." BARRY CORNWALL.
+
+The next day, Fanny was seen by Sarah counting the little hoard that she
+had so long and so painfully saved for her benefactor's tomb. The money
+was no longer wanted for that object. Fanny had found another; she said
+nothing to Sarah or to Simon. But there was a strange complacent smile
+upon her lip as she busied herself in her work, that puzzled the old
+woman. Late at noon came the postman's unwonted knock at the door. A
+letter!--a letter for Miss Fanny. A letter!--the first she had ever
+received in her life! And it was from him!--and it began with "Dear
+Fanny." Vaudemont had called her "dear Fanny" a hundred times, and the
+expression had become a matter of course. But "Dear Fanny" seemed
+so very different when it was written. The letter could not well be
+shorter, nor, all things considered, colder. But the girl found no fault
+with it. It began with "Dear Fanny," and it ended with "yours truly."
+"--Yours truly--mine truly--and how kind to write at all!" Now it so
+happened that Vaudemont, having never merged the art of the penman
+into that rapid scrawl into which people, who are compelled to
+write hurriedly and constantly, degenerate, wrote a remarkably good
+hand,--bold, clear, symmetrical--almost too good a hand for one who was
+not to make money by caligraphy. And after Fanny had got the words by
+heart, she stole gently to a cupboard and took forth some specimens of
+her own hand, in the shape of house and work memoranda, and extracts
+which, the better to help her memory, she had made from the poem-book
+Vaudemont had given her. She gravely laid his letter by the side of
+these specimens, and blushed at the contrast; yet, after all, her own
+writing, though trembling and irresolute, was far from a bad or vulgar
+hand. But emulation was now fairly roused within her. Vaudemont,
+pre-occupied by more engrossing thoughts, and indeed, forgetting a
+danger which had seemed so thoroughly to have passed away, did not in
+his letter caution Fanny against going out alone. She remarked this; and
+having completely recovered her own alarm at the attempt that had been
+made on her liberty, she thought she was now released from her promise
+to guard against a past and imaginary peril. So after dinner she slipped
+out alone, and went to the mistress of the school where she had received
+her elementary education. She had ever since continued her acquaintance
+with that lady, who, kindhearted, and touched by her situation, often
+employed her industry, and was far from blind to the improvement that
+had for some time been silently working in the mind of her old pupil.
+
+Fanny had a long conversation with this lady, and she brought back a
+bundle of books. The light might have been seen that night, and many
+nights after, burning long and late from her little window. And having
+recovered her old freedom of habits, which Simon, poor man, did not
+notice, and which Sarah, thinking that anything was better than moping
+at home, did not remonstrate against, Fanny went out regularly for two
+hours, or sometimes for even a longer period, every evening after
+old Simon had composed himself to the nap that filled up the interval
+between dinner and tea.
+
+In a very short time--a time that with ordinary stimulants would have
+seemed marvellously short--Fanny's handwriting was not the same thing;
+her manner of talking became different; she no longer called herself
+"Fanny" when she spoke; the music of her voice was more quiet and
+settled; her sweet expression of face was more thoughtful; the eyes
+seemed to have deepened in their very colour; she was no longer heard
+chaunting to herself as she tripped along. The books that she nightly
+fed on had passed into her mind; the poetry that had ever unconsciously
+sported round her young years began now to create poetry in herself.
+Nay, it might almost have seemed as if that restless disorder of the
+intellect, which the dullards had called Idiotcy, had been the wild
+efforts, not of Folly, but of GENIUS seeking to find its path and outlet
+from the cold and dreary solitude to which the circumstances of her
+early life had compelled it.
+
+Days, even weeks, passed--she never spoke of Vaudemont. And once, when
+Sarah, astonished and bewildered by the change in her young mistress,
+asked:
+
+"When does the gentleman come back?"
+
+Fanny answered, with a mysterious smile, "Not yet, I hope,--not quite
+yet!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+        "Thierry. I do begin
+        To feel an alteration in my nature,
+        And in his full-sailed confidence a shower
+        Of gentle rain, that falling on the fire
+        Hath quenched it.
+
+        How is my heart divided
+        Between the duty of a son and love!"
+          BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: Thierry and Theodorat.
+
+Vaudemont had now been a month at Beaufort Court. The scene of a
+country-house, with the sports that enliven it, and the accomplishments
+it calls forth, was one in which he was well fitted to shine. He
+had been an excellent shot as a boy; and though long unused to the
+fowling-piece, had, in India, acquired a deadly precision with the
+rifle; so that a very few days of practice in the stubbles and covers of
+Beaufort Court made his skill the theme of the guests and the admiration
+of the keepers. Hunting began, and--this pursuit, always so strong a
+passion in the active man, and which, to the turbulence and agitation of
+his half-tamed breast, now excited by a kind of frenzy of hope and fear,
+gave a vent and release--was a sport in which he was yet more fitted to
+excel. His horsemanship, his daring, the stone walls he leaped and the
+floods through which he dashed, furnished his companions with wondering
+tale and comment on their return home. Mr. Marsden, who, with some other
+of Arthur's early friends, had been invited to Beaufort Court, in order
+to welcome its expected heir, and who retained all the prudence which
+had distinguished him of yore, when having ridden over old Simon he
+dismounted to examine the knees of his horse;--Mr. Marsden, a skilful
+huntsman, who rode the most experienced horses in the world, and who
+generally contrived to be in at the death without having leaped over
+anything higher than a hurdle, suffering the bolder quadruped (in case
+what is called the "knowledge of the country"--that is, the knowledge of
+gaps and gates--failed him) to perform the more dangerous feats alone,
+as he quietly scrambled over or scrambled through upon foot, and
+remounted the well-taught animal when it halted after the exploit,
+safe and sound;--Mr. Marsden declared that he never saw a rider with
+so little judgment as Monsieur de Vaudemont, and that the devil was
+certainly in him.
+
+This sort of reputation, commonplace and merely physical as it was in
+itself, had a certain effect upon Camilla; it might be an effect
+of fear. I do not say, for I do not know, what her feelings towards
+Vaudemont exactly were. As the calmest natures are often those the
+most hurried away by their contraries, so, perhaps, he awed and dazzled
+rather than pleased her;--at least, he certainly forced himself on her
+interest. Still she would have started in terror if any one had said to
+her, "Do you love your betrothed less than when you met by that happy
+lake?"--and her heart would have indignantly rebuked the questioner. The
+letters of her lover were still long and frequent; hers were briefer and
+more subdued. But then there was constraint in the correspondence--it
+was submitted to her mother. Whatever might be Vaudemont's manner to
+Camilla whenever occasion threw them alone together, he certainly did
+not make his attentions glaring enough to be remarked. His eye watched
+her rather than his lip addressed; he kept as much aloof as possible
+from the rest of her family, and his customary bearing was silent even
+to gloom. But there were moments when he indulged in a fitful exuberance
+of spirits, which had something strained and unnatural. He had outlived
+Lord Lilburne's short liking; for since he had resolved no longer to
+keep watch on that noble gamester's method of play, he played but
+little himself; and Lord Lilburne saw that he had no chance of ruining
+him--there was, therefore, no longer any reason to like him. But this
+was not all; when Vaudemont had been at the house somewhat more than two
+weeks, Lilburne, petulant and impatient, whether at his refusals to
+join the card-table, or at the moderation with which, when he did, he
+confined his ill-luck to petty losses, one day limped up to him, as he
+stood at the embrasure of the window, gazing on the wide lands beyond,
+and said:--
+
+"Vaudemont, you are bolder in hunting, they tell me, than you are at
+whist."
+
+"Honours don't tell against one--over a hedge!"
+
+"What do you mean?" said Lilburne, rather haughtily.
+
+Vaudemont was, at that moment, in one of those bitter moods when the
+sense of his situation, the sight of the usurper in his home, often
+swept away the gentler thoughts inspired by his fatal passion. And the
+tone of Lord Lilburne, and his loathing to the man, were too much for
+his temper.
+
+"Lord Lilburne," he said, and his lip curled, "if you had been born
+poor, you would have made a great fortune--you play luckily."
+
+"How am I to take this, sir?"
+
+"As you please," answered Vaudemont, calmly, but with an eye of fire.
+And he turned away.
+
+Lilburne remained on the spot very thoughtful: "Hum! he suspects me.
+I cannot quarrel on such ground--the suspicion itself dishonours me--I
+must seek another."
+
+The next day, Lilburne, who was familiar with Mr. Harsden (though the
+latter gentleman never played at the same table), asked that prudent
+person after breakfast if he happened to have his pistols with him.
+
+"Yes; I always take them into the country--one may as well practise when
+one has the opportunity. Besides, sportsmen are often quarrelsome; and
+if it is known that one shoots well,--it keeps one out of quarrels!"
+
+"Very true," said Lilburne, rather admiringly. "I have made the same
+remark myself when I was younger. I have not shot with a pistol for
+some years. I am well enough now to walk out with the help of a stick.
+Suppose we practise for half-an-hour or so."
+
+"With all my heart," said Mr. Marsden.
+
+The pistols were brought, and they strolled forth;--Lord Lilburne found
+his hand out.
+
+"As I never hunt now," said the peer, and he gnashed his teeth, and
+glanced at his maimed limb; "for though lameness would not prevent my
+keeping my seat, violent exercise hurts my leg; and Brodie says any
+fresh accident might bring on tic douloureux;--and as my gout does
+not permit me to join the shooting parties at present, it would be a
+kindness in you to lend me your pistols--it would while away an hour or
+so; though, thank Heaven, my duelling days are over!"
+
+"Certainly," said Mr. Marsden; and the pistols were consigned to Lord
+Lilburne.
+
+Four days from the date, as Mr. Marsden, Vaudemont, and some other
+gentlemen were making for the covers, they came upon Lord Lilburne,
+who, in a part of the park not within sight or sound of the house, was
+amusing himself with Mr. Marsden's pistols, which Dykeman was at hand to
+load for him.
+
+He turned round, not at all disconcerted by the interruption.
+
+"You have no idea how I've improved, Marsden:--just see!" and he pointed
+to a glove nailed to a tree. "I've hit that mark twice in five times;
+and every time I have gone straight enough along the line to have killed
+my man."
+
+"Ay, the mark itself does not so much signify," said Mr. Marsden, "at
+least, not in actual duelling--the great thing is to be in the line."
+
+While he spoke, Lord Lilburne's ball went a third time through the
+glove. His cold bright eye turned on Vaudemont, as he said, with a
+smile,--
+
+"They tell me you shoot well with a fowling-piece, my dear
+Vaudemont--are you equally adroit with a pistol?"
+
+"You may see, if you like; but you take aim, Lord Lilburne; that would
+be of no use in English duelling. Permit me."
+
+He walked to the glove, and tore from it one of the fingers, which he
+fastened separately to the tree, took the pistol from Dykeman as he
+walked past him, gained the spot whence to fire, turned at once round,
+without apparent aim, and the finger fell to the ground.
+
+Lilburne stood aghast.
+
+"That's wonderful!" said Marsden; "quite wonderful. Where the devil did
+you get such a knack?--for it is only knack after all!"
+
+"I lived for many years in a country where the practice was
+constant, where all that belongs to rifle-shooting was a necessary
+accomplishment--a country in which man had often to contend against the
+wild beast. In civilised states, man himself supplies the place of the
+wild beast--but we don't hunt him!--Lord Lilburne" (and this was added
+with a smiling and disdainful whisper), "you must practise a little
+more."
+
+But, disregardful of the advice, from that day Lord Lilburne's morning
+occupation was gone. He thought no longer of a duel with Vaudemont. As
+soon as the sportsman had left him, he bade Dykeman take up the pistols,
+and walked straight home into the library, where Robert Beaufort, who
+was no sportsman, generally spent his mornings.
+
+He flung himself into an arm-chair, and said, as he stirred the fire
+with unusual vehemence,--
+
+"Beaufort, I'm very sorry I asked you to invite Vaudemont. He's a
+very ill-bred, disagreeable fellow!" Beaufort threw down his steward's
+account-book, on which he was employed, and replied,--
+
+"Lilburne, I have never had an easy moment since that man has been in
+the house. As he was your guest, I did not like to speak before, but
+don't you observe--you must observe--how like he is to the old family
+portraits? The more I have examined him, the more another resemblance
+grows upon me. In a word," said Robert, pausing and breathing hard, "if
+his name were not Vaudemont--if his history were not, apparently, so
+well known, I should say--I should swear, that it is Philip Morton who
+sleeps under this roof!"
+
+"Ha!" said Lilburne, with an earnestness that surprised Beaufort, who
+expected to have heard his brother-in-law's sneering sarcasm at his
+fears; "the likeness you speak of to the old portraits did strike me;
+it struck Marsden, too, the other day, as we were passing through the
+picture-gallery; and Marsden remarked it aloud to Vaudemont. I remember
+now that he changed countenance and made no answer. Hush! hush! hold
+your tongue, let me think--let me think. This Philip--yes--yes--I and
+Arthur saw him with--with Gawtrey--in Paris--"
+
+"Gawtrey! was that the name of the rogue he was said to--"
+
+"Yes--yes--yes. Ah! now I guess the meaning of those looks--those
+words," muttered Lilburne between his teeth. "This pretension to the
+name of Vaudemont was always apocryphal--the story always but half
+believed--the invention of a woman in love with him--the claim on your
+property is made at the very time he appears in England. Ha! Have you a
+newspaper there? Give it me. No! 'tis not in this paper. Ring the bell
+for the file!"
+
+"What's the matter? you terrify me!" gasped out Mr. Beaufort, as he rang
+the bell.
+
+"Why! have you not seen an advertisement repeated several times within
+the last month?"
+
+"I never read advertisements; except in the county paper, if land is to
+be sold."
+
+"Nor I often; but this caught my eye. John" (here the servant entered),
+"bring the file of the newspapers. The name of the witness whom Mrs.
+Morton appealed to was Smith, the same name as the captain; what was the
+Christian name?"
+
+"I don't remember."
+
+"Here are the papers--shut the door--and here is the advertisement: 'If
+Mr. William Smith, son of Jeremiah Smith, who formerly rented the farm
+of Shipdale-Bury, under the late Right Hon. Charles Leopold Beaufort
+(that's your uncle), and who emigrated in the year 18-- to Australia,
+will apply to Mr. Barlow, Solicitor, Essex Street, Strand, he will hear
+of something to his advantage.'"
+
+"Good Heavens! why did not you mention this to me before?"
+
+"Because I did not think it of any importance. In the first place, there
+might be some legacy left to the man, quite distinct from your business.
+Indeed, that was the probable supposition;--or even if connected with
+the claim, such an advertisement might be but a despicable attempt to
+frighten you. Never mind--don't look so pale--after all, this is a proof
+that the witness is not found--that Captain Smith is neither the Smith,
+nor has discovered where the Smith is!"
+
+"True!" observed Mr. Beaufort: "true--very true!"
+
+"Humph!" said Lord Lilburne, who was still rapidly glancing over the
+file--"Here is another advertisement which I never saw before: this
+looks suspicious: 'If the person who called on the -- of September,
+on Mr. Morton, linendraper, &c., of N----, will renew his application
+personally or by letter, he may now obtain the information he sought
+for.'"
+
+"Morton!--the woman's brother! their uncle! it is too clear!"
+
+"But what brings this man, if he be really Philip Morton, what brings
+him here!--to spy or to threaten?"
+
+"I will get him out of the house this day."
+
+"No--no; turn the watch upon himself. I see now; he is attracted by
+your daughter; sound her quietly; don't tell her to discourage his
+confidences; find out if he ever speaks of these Mortons. Ha! I
+recollect--he has spoken to me of the Mortons, but vaguely--I
+forget what. Humph! this is a man of spirit and daring--watch him, I
+say,--watch him! When does Arthur came back?"
+
+"He has been travelling so slowly, for he still complains of his health,
+and has had relapses; but he ought to be in Paris this week, perhaps he
+is there now. Good Heavens! he must not meet this man!"
+
+"Do what I tell you! get out all from your daughter. Never fear: he can
+do nothing against you except by law. But if he really like Camilla--"
+
+"He!--Philip Morton--the adventurer--the--"
+
+"He is the eldest son: remember you thought even of accepting the
+second. He--nay find the witness--he may win his suit; if he likes
+Camilla, there may be a compromise."
+
+Mr. Beaufort felt as if turned to ice.
+
+"You think him likely to win this infamous suit, then?" he faltered.
+
+"Did not you guard against the possibility by securing the brother? More
+worth while to do it with this man. Hark ye! the politics of private are
+like those of public life,--when the state can't crush a demagogue, it
+should entice him over. If you can ruin this dog" (and Lilburne stamped
+his foot fiercely, forgetful of the gout), "ruin him! hang him! If you
+can't" (and here with a wry face he caressed the injured foot), "if you
+can't ('sdeath, what a twinge!), and he can ruin you,--bring him into
+the family, and make his secret ours! I must go and lie down--I have
+overexcited myself."
+
+In great perplexity Beaufort repaired at once to Camilla. His nervous
+agitation betrayed itself, though he smiled a ghastly smile, and
+intended to be exceeding cool and collected. His questions, which
+confused and alarmed her, soon drew out the fact that the very first
+time Vaudemont had been introduced to her he had spoken of the Mortons;
+and that he had often afterwards alluded to the subject, and seemed at
+first strongly impressed with the notion that the younger brother was
+under Beaufort's protection; though at last he appeared reluctantly
+convinced of the contrary. Robert, however agitated, preserved at least
+enough of his natural slyness not to let out that he suspected Vaudemont
+to be Philip Morton himself, for he feared lest his daughter should
+betray that suspicion to its object.
+
+"But," he said, with a look meant to win confidence, "I dare say he
+knows these young men. I should like myself to know more about them.
+Learn all you can, and tell me, and, I say--I say, Camilla,--he! he!
+he!--you have made a conquest, you little flirt, you! Did he, this
+Vaudemont, ever say how much he admired you?"
+
+"He!--never!" said Camilla, blushing, and then turning pale.
+
+"But he looks it. Ah! you say nothing, then. Well, well, don't
+discourage him; that is to say,--yes, don't discourage him. Talk to him
+as much as you can,--ask him about his own early life. I've a particular
+wish to know--'tis of great importance to me."
+
+"But, my dear father," said Camilla, trembling and thoroughly
+bewildered, "I fear this man,--I fear--I fear--"
+
+Was she going to add, "I fear myself?" I know not; but she stopped
+short, and burst into tears.
+
+"Hang these girls!" muttered Mr. Beaufort, "always crying when they
+ought to be of use to one. Go down, dry your eyes, do as I tell
+you,--get all you can from him. Fear him!--yes, I dare say she does!"
+muttered the poor man, as he closed the door.
+
+From that time what wonder that Camilla's manner to Vaudemont was yet
+more embarrassed than ever: what wonder that he put his own heart's
+interpretation on that confusion. Beaufort took care to thrust her more
+often than before in his way; he suddenly affected a creeping, fawning
+civility to Vaudemont; he was sure he was fond of music; what did he
+think of that new air Camilla was so fond of? He must be a judge of
+scenery, he who had seen so much: there were beautiful landscapes in
+the neighbourhood, and, if he would forego his sports, Camilla drew
+prettily, had an eye for that sort of thing, and was so fond of riding.
+
+Vaudemont was astonished at this change, but his delight was greater
+than the astonishment. He began to perceive that his identity was
+suspected; perhaps Beaufort, more generous than he had deemed him, meant
+to repay every early wrong or harshness by one inestimable blessing.
+The generous interpret motives in extremes--ever too enthusiastic or
+too severe. Vaudemont felt as if he had wronged the wronger; he began to
+conquer even his dislike to Robert Beaufort. For some days he was thus
+thrown much with Camilla; the questions her father forced her to put
+to him, uttered tremulously and fearfully, seemed to him proof of
+her interest in his fate. His feelings to Camilla, so sudden in
+their growth--so ripened and so favoured by the Sub-Ruler of the
+world--CIRCUMSTANCE--might not, perhaps, have the depth and the
+calm completeness of that, One True Love, of which there are many
+counterfeits,--and which in Man, at least, possibly requires the touch
+and mellowness, if not of time, at least of many memories--of perfect
+and tried conviction of the faith, the worth, the value and the beauty
+of the heart to which it clings;--but those feelings were, nevertheless,
+strong, ardent, and intense. He believed himself beloved--he was in
+Elysium. But he did not yet declare the passion that beamed in his eyes.
+No! he would not yet claim the hand of Camilla Beaufort, for he imagined
+the time would soon come when he could claim it, not as the inferior or
+the suppliant, but as the lord of her father's fate.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+   "Here's something got amongst us!"--Knight of Malta.
+
+Two or three nights after his memorable conversation with Robert
+Beaufort, as Lord Lilburne was undressing, he said to his valet:
+
+"Dykeman, I am getting well."
+
+"Indeed, my lord, I never saw your lordship look better."
+
+"There you lie. I looked better last year--I looked better the year
+before--and I looked better and better every year back to the age of
+twenty-one! But I'm not talking of looks, no man with money wants looks.
+I am talking of feelings. I feel better. The gout is almost gone. I have
+been quiet now for a month--that's a long time--time wasted when, at
+my age, I have so little time to waste. Besides, as you know, I am very
+much in love!"
+
+"In love, my lord? I thought that you told me never to speak of--"
+
+"Blockhead! what the deuce was the good of speaking about it when I was
+wrapped in flannels! I am never in love when I am ill--who is? I am well
+now, or nearly so; and I've had things to vex me--things to make this
+place very disagreeable; I shall go to town, and before this day week,
+perhaps, that charming face may enliven the solitude of Fernside. I
+shall look to it myself now. I see you're going to say something. Spare
+yourself the trouble! nothing ever goes wrong if I myself take it in
+hand."
+
+The next day Lord Lilburne, who, in truth, felt himself uncomfortable
+and _gene_ in the presence of Vaudemont; who had won as much as the
+guests at Beaufort Court seemed inclined to lose; and who made it
+the rule of his life to consult his own pleasure and amusement before
+anything else, sent for his post-horses, and informed his brother-in-law
+of his departure.
+
+"And you leave me alone with this man just when I am convinced that he
+is the person we suspected! My dear Lilburne, do stay till he goes."
+
+"Impossible! I am between fifty and sixty--every moment is precious at
+that time of life. Besides, I've said all I can say; rest quiet--act on
+the defensive--entangle this cursed Vaudemont, or Morton, or whoever he
+be, in the mesh of your daughter's charms, and then get rid of him, not
+before. This can do no harm, let the matter turn out how it will.
+Read the papers; and send for Blackwell if you want advice on any new
+advertisements. I don't see that anything more is to be done at present.
+You can write to me; I shall be at Park Lane or Fernside. Take care of
+yourself. You're a lucky fellow--you never have the gout! Good-bye."
+
+And in half an hour Lord Lilburne was on the road to London.
+
+The departure of Lilburne was a signal to many others, especially and
+naturally to those he himself had invited. He had not announced to such
+visitors his intention of going till his carriage was at the door. This
+might be delicacy or carelessness, just as people chose to take it: and
+how they did take it, Lord Lilburne, much too selfish to be well-bred,
+did not care a rush. The next day half at least of the guests were
+gone; and even Mr. Marsden, who had been specially invited on Arthur's
+account, announced that he should go after dinner! he always travelled
+by night--he slept well on the road--a day was not lost by it.
+
+"And it is so long since you saw Arthur," said Mr. Beaufort, in
+remonstrance, "and I expect him every day."
+
+"Very sorry--best fellow in the world--but the fact is, that I am
+not very well myself. I want a little sea air; I shall go to Dover
+or Brighton. But I suppose you will have the house full again about
+Christmas; in that case I shall be delighted to repeat my visit."
+
+The fact was, that Mr. Marsden, without Lilburne's intellect on the one
+hand, or vices on the other, was, like that noble sensualist, one of
+the broken pieces of the great looking-glass "SELF." He was noticed in
+society as always haunting the places where Lilburne played at cards,
+carefully choosing some other table, and as carefully betting upon
+Lilburne's side. The card-tables were now broken up; Vaudemont's
+superiority in shooting, and the manner in which he engrossed the talk
+of the sportsmen, displeased him. He was bored--he wanted to be off--and
+off he went. Vaudemont felt that the time was come for him to depart,
+too; Robert Beaufort--who felt in his society the painful fascination
+of the bird with the boa, who hated to see him there, and dreaded to
+see him depart, who had not yet extracted all the confirmation of his
+persuasions that he required, for Vaudemont easily enough parried
+the artless questions of Camilla--pressed him to stay with so eager a
+hospitality, and made Camilla herself falter out, against her will,
+and even against her remonstrances--(she never before had dared to
+remonstrate with either father or mother),--"Could not you stay a few
+days longer?"--that Vaudemont was too contented to yield to his own
+inclinations; and so for some little time longer he continued to
+move before the eyes of Mr. Beaufort--stern, sinister, silent,
+mysterious--like one of the family pictures stepped down from its frame.
+Vaudemont wrote, however, to Fanny, to excuse his delay; and anxious
+to hear from her as to her own and Simon's health, bade her direct her
+letter to his lodging in London (of which he gave her the address),
+whence, if he still continued to defer his departure, it would be
+forwarded to him. He did not do this, however, till he had been at
+Beaufort Court several days after Lilburne's departure, and till, in
+fact, two days before the eventful one which closed his visit.
+
+The party, now greatly diminished; were at breakfast, when the servant
+entered, as usual, with the letter-bag. Mr. Beaufort, who was always
+important and pompous in the small ceremonials of life, unlocked the
+precious deposit with slow dignity, drew forth the newspapers, which he
+threw on the table, and which the gentlemen of the party eagerly seized;
+then, diving out one by one, jerked first a letter to Camilla, next a
+letter to Vaudemont, and, thirdly, seized a letter for himself.
+
+"I beg that there may be no ceremony, Monsieur de Vaudemont: pray excuse
+me and follow my example: I see this letter is from my son;" and he
+broke the seal.
+
+The letter ran thus:
+
+"MY DEAR FATHER,--Almost as soon as you receive this, I shall be with
+you. Ill as I am, I can have no peace till I see and consult you. The
+most startling--the most painful intelligence has just been conveyed to
+me. It is of a nature not to bear any but personal communication.
+
+
+          "Your affectionate son,
+                     "ARTHUR BEAUFORT.
+"Boulogne.
+
+"P.S.--This will go by the same packet-boat that I shall take myself,
+and can only reach you a few hours before I arrive."
+
+Mr. Beaufort's trembling hand dropped the letter--he grasped the elbow
+of the chair to save himself from falling. It was clear!--the same
+visitor who had persecuted himself had now sought his son! He grew
+sick, his son might have heard the witness--might be convinced. His son
+himself now appeared to him as a foe--for the father dreaded the son's
+honour! He glanced furtively round the table, till his eye rested on
+Vaudemont, and his terror was redoubled, for Vaudemont's face, usually
+so calm, was animated to an extraordinary degree, as he now lifted it
+from the letter he had just read. Their eyes met. Robert Beaufort looked
+on him as a prisoner at the bar looks on the accusing counsel, when he
+first commences his harangue.
+
+"Mr. Beaufort," said the guest, "the letter you have given me summons me
+to London on important business, and immediately. Suffer me to send for
+horses at your earliest convenience."
+
+"What's the matter?" said the feeble and seldom heard voice of Mrs.
+Beaufort. "What's the matter, Robert?--is Arthur coming?"
+
+"He comes to-day," said the father, with a deep sigh; and Vaudemont,
+at that moment rising from his half-finished breakfast, with a bow that
+included the group, and with a glance that lingered on Camilla, as she
+bent over her own unopened letter (a letter from Winandermere, the seal
+of which she dared not yet to break), quitted the room. He hastened to
+his own chamber, and strode to and fro with a stately step--the step
+of the Master--then, taking forth the letter, he again hurried over its
+contents. They ran thus:
+
+DEAR, Sir,--At last the missing witness has applied to me. He proves
+to be, as you conjectured, the same person who had called on Mr. Roger
+Morton; but as there are some circumstances on which I wish to take your
+instructions without a moment's delay, I shall leave London by the mail,
+and wait you at D---- (at the principal inn), which is, I understand,
+twenty miles on the high road from Beaufort Court.
+
+
+            "I have the honor to be, sir,
+                  "Yours, &amp;c.,
+                      "JOHN BARLOW.
+
+Vaudemont was yet lost in the emotions that this letter aroused, when
+they came to announce that his chaise was arrived. As he went down the
+stairs he met Camilla, who was on the way to her own room.
+
+"Miss Beaufort," said he, in a low and tremulous voice, "in wishing you
+farewell I may not now say more. I leave you, and, strange to say, I
+do not regret it, for I go upon an errand that may entitle me to return
+again, and speak those thoughts which are uppermost in my soul even at
+this moment."
+
+He raised her hand to his lips as he spoke, and at that moment Mr.
+Beaufort looked from the door of his own room, and cried, "Camilla."
+She was too glad to escape. Philip gazed after her light form for an
+instant, and then hurried down the stairs.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+     "Longueville.--What! are you married, Beaufort?
+     Beaufort.--Ay, as fast
+     As words, and hands, and hearts, and priest,
+     Could make us."--BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: Noble Gentleman.
+
+In the parlour of the inn at D------ sat Mr. John Barlow. He had just
+finished his breakfast, and was writing letters and looking over papers
+connected with his various business--when the door was thrown open, and
+a gentleman entered abruptly.
+
+"Mr. Beaufort," said the lawyer rising, "Mr. Philip Beaufort--for such I
+now feel you are by right--though," he added, with his usual formal and
+quiet smile, "not yet by law; and much--very much, remains to be done
+to make the law and the right the same;--I congratulate you on having
+something at last to work on. I had begun to despair of finding
+our witness, after a month's advertising; and had commenced other
+investigations, of which I will speak to you presently, when yesterday,
+on my return to town from an errand on your business, I had the pleasure
+of a visit from William Smith himself.--My dear sir, do not yet be too
+sanguine.--It seems that this poor fellow, having known misfortune, was
+in America when the first fruitless inquiries were made. Long after this
+he returned to the colony, and there met with a brother, who, as I drew
+from him, was a convict. He helped the brother to escape. They both came
+to England. William learned from a distant relation, who lent him
+some little money, of the inquiry that had been set on foot for him;
+consulted his brother, who desired him to leave all to his management.
+The brother afterwards assured him that you and Mr. Sidney were both
+dead; and it seems (for the witness is simple enough to allow me to
+extract all) this same brother then went to Mr. Beaufort to hold out
+the threat of a lawsuit, and to offer the sale of the evidence yet
+existing--"
+
+"And Mr. Beaufort?"
+
+"I am happy to say, seems to have spurned the offer. Meanwhile William,
+incredulous of his brother's report, proceeded to N----, learned nothing
+from Mr. Morton, met his brother again--and the brother (confessing that
+he had deceived him in the assertion that you and Mr. Sidney were dead)
+told him that he had known you in earlier life, and set out to Paris to
+seek you--"
+
+"Known me?--To Paris?"
+
+"More of this presently. William returned to town, living hardly and
+penuriously on the little his brother bestowed on him, too melancholy
+and too poor for the luxury of a newspaper, and never saw our
+advertisement, till, as luck would have it, his money was out; he had
+heard nothing further of his brother, and he went for new assistance
+to the same relation who had before aided him. This relation, to his
+surprise, received the poor man very kindly, lent him what he wanted,
+and then asked him if he had not seen our advertisement. The newspaper
+shown him contained both the advertisements--that relating to Mr.
+Morton's visitor, that containing his own name. He coupled them both
+together--called on me at once. I was from town on your business. He
+returned to his own home; the next morning (yesterday morning) came a
+letter from his brother, which I obtained from him at last, and with
+promises that no harm should happen to the writer on account of it."
+
+Vaudemont took the letter and read as follows:
+
+"DEAR WILLIAM,--No go about the youngster I went after: all researches
+in vane. Paris develish expensive. Never mind, I have sene the
+other--the young B--; different sort of fellow from his father--very
+ill--frightened out of his wits--will go off to the governor, take me
+with him as far as Bullone. I think we shall settel it now. Mind as
+I saide before, don't put your foot in it. I send you a Nap in the
+Seele--all I can spare.
+
+
+             "Yours,
+                  "JEREMIAH SMITH.
+
+"Direct to me, Monsieur Smith--always a safe name--Ship Inn, Bullone."
+
+"Jeremiah--Smith--Jeremiah!"
+
+"Do you know the name then?" said Mr. Barlow. "Well; the poor man owns
+that he was frightened at his brother--that he wished to do what is
+right--that he feared his brother would not let him--that your father
+was very kind to him--and so he came off at once to me; and I was very
+luckily at home to assure him that the heir was alive, and prepared to
+assert his rights. Now then, Mr. Beaufort, we have the witness, but will
+that suffice us? I fear not. Will the jury believe him with no other
+testimony at his back? Consider!--When he was gone I put myself in
+communication with some officers at Bow Street about this brother of
+his--a most notorious character, commonly called in the police slang
+Dashing Jerry--"
+
+"Ah! Well, proceed!"
+
+"Your one witness, then, is a very poor, penniless man, his brother a
+rogue, a convict: this witness, too, is the most timid, fluctuating,
+irresolute fellow I ever saw; I should tremble for his testimony against
+a sharp, bullying lawyer. And that, sir, is all at present we have to
+look to."
+
+"I see--I see. It is dangerous--it is hazardous. But truth is truth;
+justice--justice! I will run the risk."
+
+"Pardon me, if I ask, did you ever know this brother?--were you ever
+absolutely acquainted with him--in the same house?"
+
+"Many years since--years of early hardship and trial--I was acquainted
+with him--what then?"
+
+"I am sorry to hear it," and the lawyer looked grave. "Do you not see
+that if this witness is browbeat--is disbelieved, and if it be shown
+that you, the claimant, was--forgive my saying it--intimate with a
+brother of such a character, why the whole thing might be made to look
+like perjury and conspiracy. If we stop here it is an ugly business!"
+
+"And is this all you have to say to me? The witness is found--the only
+surviving witness--the only proof I ever shall or ever can obtain,
+and you seek to terrify me--me too--from using the means for redress
+Providence itself vouchsafes me--Sir, I will not hear you!"
+
+"Mr. Beaufort, you are impatient--it is natural. But if we go to
+law--that is, should I have anything to do with it, wait--wait till your
+case is good. And hear me yet. This is not the only proof--this is not
+the only witness; you forget that there was an examined copy of the
+register; we may yet find that copy, and the person who copied it may
+yet be alive to attest it. Occupied with this thought, and weary of
+waiting the result of our advertisement, I resolved to go into the
+neighbourhood of Fernside; luckily, there was a gentleman's seat to
+be sold in the village. I made the survey of this place my apparent
+business. After going over the house, I appeared anxious to see how far
+some alterations could be made--alterations to render it more like Lord
+Lilburne's villa. This led me to request a sight of that villa--a crown
+to the housekeeper got me admittance. The housekeeper had lived with
+your father, and been retained by his lordship. I soon, therefore, knew
+which were the rooms the late Mr. Beaufort had principally occupied;
+shown into his study, where it was probable he would keep his papers, I
+inquired if it were the same furniture (which seemed likely enough from
+its age and fashion) as in your father's time: it was so; Lord Lilburne
+had bought the house just as it stood, and, save a few additions in the
+drawing-room, the general equipment of the villa remained unaltered.
+You look impatient!--I'm coming to the point. My eye fell upon an
+old-fashioned bureau--"
+
+"But we searched every drawer in that bureau!"
+
+"Any secret drawers?"
+
+"Secret drawers! No! there were no secret drawers that I ever heard of!"
+
+Mr. Barlow rubbed his hands and mused a moment.
+
+"I was struck with that bureau; for any father had had one like it. It
+is not English--it is of Dutch manufacture."
+
+"Yes, I have heard that my father bought it at a sale, three or four
+years after his marriage."
+
+"I learned this from the housekeeper, who was flattered by my admiring
+it. I could not find out from her at what sale it had been purchased,
+but it was in the neighbourhood she was sure. I had now a date to go
+upon; I learned, by careless inquiries, what sales near Fernside had
+taken place in a certain year. A gentleman had died at that date whose
+furniture was sold by auction. With great difficulty, I found that his
+widow was still alive, living far up the country: I paid her a visit;
+and, not to fatigue you with too long an account, I have only to say
+that she not only assured me that she perfectly remembered the bureau,
+but that it had secret drawers and wells, very curiously contrived;
+nay, she showed me the very catalogue in which the said receptacles are
+noticed in capitals, to arrest the eye of the bidder, and increase the
+price of the bidding. That your father should never have revealed where
+he stowed this document is natural enough, during the life of his uncle;
+his own life was not spared long enough to give him much opportunity
+to explain afterwards, but I feel perfectly persuaded in my mind--that
+unless Mr. Robert Beaufort discovered that paper amongst the others
+he examined--in one of those drawers will be found all we want to
+substantiate your claims. This is the more likely from your father never
+mentioning, even to your mother apparently, the secret receptacles in
+the bureau. Why else such mystery? The probability is that he received
+the document either just before or at the time he purchased the bureau,
+or that he bought it for that very purpose: and, having once deposited
+the paper in a place he deemed secure from curiosity--accident,
+carelessness, policy, perhaps, rather shame itself (pardon me) for the
+doubt of your mother's discretion, that his secrecy seemed to imply,
+kept him from ever alluding to the circumstance, even when the intimacy
+of after years made him more assured of your mother's self-sacrificing
+devotion to his interests. At his uncle's death he thought to repair
+all!"
+
+"And how, if that be true--if that Heaven which has delivered me
+hitherto from so many dangers, has, in the very secrecy of my poor
+father, saved my birthright front the gripe of the usurper--how, I say,
+is---"
+
+"The bureau to pass into our possession? That is the difficulty. But we
+must contrive it somehow, if all else fail us; meanwhile, as I now feel
+sure that there has been a copy of that register made, I wish to know
+whether I should not immediately cross the country into Wales, and see
+if I can find any person in the neighbourhood of A----- who did examine
+the copy taken: for, mark you, the said copy is only of importance as
+leading to the testimony of the actual witness who took it."
+
+"Sir," said Vaudemont, heartily shaking Mr. Barlow by the hand, "forgive
+my first petulance. I see in you the very man I desired and wanted--your
+acuteness surprises and encourages me. Go to Wales, and God speed you!"
+
+"Very well!--in five minutes I shall be off. Meanwhile, see the witness
+yourself; the sight of his benefactor's son will do more to keep him
+steady than anything else. There's his address, and take care not to
+give him money. And now I will order my chaise--the matter begins to
+look worth expense. Oh! I forgot to say that Monsieur Liancourt called
+on you yesterday about his own affairs. He wishes much to consult you.
+I told him you would probably be this evening in town, and he said he
+would wait you at your lodging."
+
+"Yes--I will lose not a moment in going to London, and visiting our
+witness. And he saw my mother at the altar! My poor mother--Ah, how
+could my father have doubted her!" and as he spoke, he blushed for the
+first time with shame at that father's memory. He could not yet conceive
+that one so frank, one usually so bold and open, could for years have
+preserved from the woman who had sacrificed all to him, a secret to her
+so important! That was, in fact, the only blot on his father's honour--a
+foul and grave blot it was. Heavily had the punishment fallen on those
+whom the father loved best! Alas, Philip had not yet learned what
+terrible corrupters are the Hope and the Fear of immense Wealthy,
+even to men reputed the most honourable, if they have been reared and
+pampered in the belief that wealth is the Arch blessing of life. Rightly
+considered, in Philip Beaufort's solitary meanness lay the vast moral of
+this world's darkest truth!
+
+Mr. Barlow was gone. Philip was about to enter his own chaise, when a
+dormeuse-and-four drove up to the inn-door to change horses. A young man
+was reclining, at his length, in the carriage, wrapped in cloaks, and
+with a ghastly paleness--the paleness of long and deep disease upon his
+cheeks. He turned his dim eye with, perhaps, a glance of the sick man's
+envy on that strong and athletic, form, majestic with health and vigour,
+as it stood beside the more humble vehicle. Philip did not, however,
+notice the new arrival; he sprang into the chaise, it rattled on, and
+thus, unconsciously, Arthur Beaufort and his cousin had again met. To
+which was now the Night--to which the Morning?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+     "Bakam. Let my men guard the walls.
+     Syana. And mine the temple."--The Island Princess.
+
+While thus eventfully the days and the weeks had passed for Philip, no
+less eventfully, so far as the inner life is concerned, had they glided
+away for Fanny. She had feasted in quiet and delighted thought on the
+consciousness that she was improving--that she was growing worthier
+of him--that he would perceive it on his return. Her manner was more
+thoughtful, more collected--less childish, in short, than it had been.
+And yet, with all the stir and flutter of the aroused intellect, the
+charm of her strange innocence was not scared away. She rejoiced in the
+ancient liberty she had regained of going out and coming back when she
+pleased; and as the weather was too cold ever to tempt Simon from his
+fireside, except, perhaps, for half-an-hour in the forenoon, so the
+hours of dusk, when he least missed her, were those which she chiefly
+appropriated for stealing away to the good school-mistress, and growing
+wiser and wiser every day in the ways of God and the learning of His
+creatures. The schoolmistress was not a brilliant woman. Nor was it
+accomplishments of which Fanny stood in need, so much as the opening
+of her thoughts and mind by profitable books and rational conversation.
+Beautiful as were all her natural feelings, the schoolmistress had now
+little difficulty in educating feelings up to the dignity of principles.
+
+At last, hitherto patient under the absence of one never absent from her
+heart, Fanny received from him the letter he had addressed to her
+two days before he quitted Beaufort Court;--another letter--a second
+letter--a letter to excuse himself for not coming before--a letter
+that gave her an address that asked for a reply. It was a morning of
+unequalled delight approaching to transport. And then the excitement of
+answering the letter--the pride of showing how she was improved, what an
+excellent hand she now wrote! She shut herself up in her room: she
+did not go out that day. She placed the paper before her, and, to her
+astonishment, all that she had to say vanished from her mind at once.
+How was she even to begin? She had always hitherto called him "Brother."
+Ever since her conversation with Sarah she felt that she could not call
+him that name again for the world--no, never! But what should she call
+him--what could she call him? He signed himself "Philip." She knew that
+was his name. She thought it a musical name to utter, but to write it!
+No! some instinct she could not account for seemed to whisper that
+it was improper--presumptuous, to call him "Dear Philip." Had Burns's
+songs--the songs that unthinkingly he had put into her hand, and told
+her to read--songs that comprise the most beautiful love-poems in the
+world--had they helped to teach her some of the secrets of her own
+heart? And had timidity come with knowledge? Who shall say--who guess
+what passed within her? Nor did Fanny herself, perhaps, know her own
+feelings: but write the words "Dear Philip" she could not. And the whole
+of that day, though she thought of nothing else, she could not even get
+through the first line to her satisfaction. The next morning she sat
+down again. It would be so unkind if she did not answer immediately: she
+must answer. She placed his letter before her--she resolutely began.
+But copy after copy was made and torn. And Simon wanted her--and Sarah
+wanted her--and there were bills to be paid; and dinner was over before
+her task was really begun. But after dinner she began in good earnest.
+
+"How kind in you to write to me" (the difficulty of any name was
+dispensed with by adopting none), "and to wish to know about my dear
+grandfather! He is much the same, but hardly ever walks out now, and I
+have had a good deal of time to myself. I think something will surprise
+you, and make you smile, as you used to do at first, when you come
+back. You must not be angry with me that I have gone out by myself very
+often--every day, indeed. I have been so safe. Nobody has ever offered
+to be rude again to Fanny" (the word "Fanny" was carefully scratched out
+with a penknife, and me substituted). "But you shall know all when you
+come. And are you sure you are well--quite--quite well? Do you never
+have the headaches you complained of sometimes? Do say this! Do you walk
+out-every day? Is there any pretty churchyard near you now? Whom do you
+walk with?
+
+"I have been so happy in putting the flowers on the two graves. But I
+still give yours the prettiest, though the other is so dear to me. I
+feel sad when I come to the last, but not when I look at the one I have
+looked at so long. Oh, how good you were! But you don't like me to thank
+you."
+
+"This is very stupid!" cried Fanny, suddenly throwing down her pen; "and
+I don't think I am improved at it;" and she half cried with vexation.
+Suddenly a bright idea crossed her. In the little parlour where the
+schoolmistress privately received her, she had seen among the books,
+and thought at the time how useful it might be to her if ever she had to
+write to Philip, a little volume entitled, The Complete Letter
+Writer. She knew by the title-page that it contained models for every
+description of letter--no doubt it would contain the precise thing that
+would suit the present occasion. She started up at the notion. She would
+go--she could be back to finish the letter before post-time. She put on
+her bonnet--left the letter, in her haste, open on the table--and just
+looking into the parlour in her way to the street door, to convince
+herself that Simon was asleep, and the wire-guard was on the fire, she
+hurried to the kind schoolmistress.
+
+One of the fogs that in autumn gather sullenly over London and its
+suburbs covered the declining day with premature dimness. It grew darker
+and darker as she proceeded, but she reached the house in safety. She
+spent a quarter of an hour in timidly consulting her friend about all
+kinds of letters except the identical one that she intended to write,
+and having had it strongly impressed on her mind that if the letter was
+to a gentleman at all genteel, she ought to begin "Dear Sir," and end
+with "I have the honour to remain;" and that he would be everlastingly
+offended if she did not in the address affix "Esquire" to his name
+(that, was a great discovery),--she carried off the precious volume, and
+quitted the house. There was a wall that, bounding the demesnes of the
+school, ran for some short distance into the main street. The increasing
+fog, here, faintly struggled against the glimmer of a single lamp at
+some little distance. Just in this spot, her eye was caught by a dark
+object in the road, which she could scarcely perceive to be a carriage,
+when her hand was seized, and a voice said in her ear:--
+
+"Ah! you will not be so cruel to me, I hope, as you were to my
+messenger! I have come myself for you."
+
+She turned in great alarm, but the darkness prevented her recognising
+the face of him who thus accosted her. "Let me go!" she cried,--"let me
+go!"
+
+"Hush! hush! No--no. Come with me. You shall have a
+house--carriage--servants! You shall wear silk gowns and jewels! You
+shall be a great lady!"
+
+As these various temptations succeeded in rapid course each new struggle
+of Fanny, a voice from the coach-box said in a low tone,--
+
+"Take care, my lord, I see somebody coming--perhaps a policeman!"
+
+Fanny heard the caution, and screamed for rescue.
+
+"Is it so?" muttered the molester. And suddenly Fanny felt her voice
+checked--her head mantled--her light form lifted from the ground. She
+clung--she struggled it was in vain. It was the affair of a moment: she
+felt herself borne into the carriage--the door closed--the stranger was
+by her side, and his voice said:--
+
+"Drive on, Dykeman. Fast! fast!"
+
+Two or three minutes, which seemed to her terror as ages, elapsed, when
+the gag and the mantle were gently removed, and the same voice (she
+still could not see her companion) said in a very mild tone:--
+
+"Do not alarm yourself; there is no cause,--indeed there is not. I would
+not have adopted this plan had there been any other--any gentler one.
+But I could not call at your own house--I knew no other where to meet
+you.
+
+"This was the only course left to me--indeed it was. I made myself
+acquainted with your movements. Do not blame me, then, for prying into
+your footsteps. I watched for you all last night--you did not come out.
+I was in despair. At last I find you. Do not be so terrified: I will not
+even touch your hand if you do not wish it."
+
+As he spoke, however, he attempted to touch it, and was repulsed with
+an energy that rather disconcerted him. The poor girl recoiled from him
+into the farthest corner of that prison in speechless horror--in the
+darkest confusion of ideas. She did not weep--she did not sob--but
+her trembling seemed to shake the very carriage. The man continued to
+address, to expostulate, to pray, to soothe.
+
+His manner was respectful. His protestations that he would not harm her
+for the world were endless.
+
+"Only just see the home I can give you; for two days--for one day. Only
+just hear how rich I can make you and your grandfather, and then if you
+wish to leave me, you shall."
+
+More, much more, to this effect, did he continue to pour forth, without
+extracting any sound from Fanny but gasps as for breath, and now and
+then a low murmur:
+
+"Let me go, let me go! My grandfather, my blind grandfather!"
+
+And finally tears came to her relief, and she sobbed with a passion that
+alarmed, and perhaps even touched her companion, cynical and icy as
+he was. Meanwhile the carriage seemed to fly. Fast as two horses,
+thorough-bred, and almost at full speed, could go, they were whirled
+along, till about an hour, or even less, from the time in which she had
+been thus captured, the carriage stopped.
+
+"Are we here already?" said the man, putting his head out of the window.
+"Do then as I told you. Not to the front door; to my study."
+
+In two minutes more the carriage halted again, before a building which
+looked white and ghostlike through the mist. The driver dismounted,
+opened with a latch-key a window-door, entered for a moment to light
+the candles in a solitary room from a fire that blazed on the hearth,
+reappeared, and opened the carriage-door. It was with a difficulty for
+which they were scarcely prepared that they were enabled to get Fanny
+from the carriage. No soft words, no whispered prayers could draw her
+forth; and it was with no trifling address, for her companion sought
+to be as gentle as the force necessary to employ would allow, that he
+disengaged her hands from the window-frame, the lining, the cushions, to
+which they clung; and at last bore her into the house. The driver closed
+the window again as he retreated, and they were alone. Fanny then cast
+a wild, scarce conscious glance over the apartment. It was small and
+simply furnished. Opposite to her was an old-fashioned bureau, one of
+those quaint, elaborate monuments of Dutch ingenuity, which, during
+the present century, the audacious spirit of curiosity-vendors has
+transplanted from their native receptacles, to contrast, with grotesque
+strangeness, the neat handiwork of Gillow and Seddon. It had a
+physiognomy and character of its own--this fantastic foreigner! Inlaid
+with mosaics, depicting landscapes and animals; graceless in form
+and fashion, but still picturesque, and winning admiration, when more
+closely observed, from the patient defiance of all rules of taste
+which had formed its cumbrous parts into one profusely ornamented and
+eccentric whole. It was the more noticeable from its total want of
+harmony with the other appurtenances of the room, which bespoke
+the tastes of the plain English squire. Prints of horses and hunts,
+fishing-rods and fowling-pieces, carefully suspended, decorated the
+walls. Not, however, on this notable stranger from the sluggish land
+rested the eye of Fanny. That, in her hurried survey, was arrested only
+by a portrait placed over the bureau--the portrait of a female in the
+bloom of life; a face so fair, a brow so candid, and eyes so pure, a
+lip so rich in youth and joy--that as her look lingered on the features
+Fanny felt comforted, felt as if some living protectress were there. The
+fire burned bright and merrily; a table, spread as for dinner, was drawn
+near it. To any other eye but Fanny's the place would have seemed a
+picture of English comfort. At last her looks rested on her companion.
+He had thrown himself, with a long sigh, partly of fatigue, partly of
+satisfaction, on one of the chairs, and was contemplating her as she
+thus stood and gazed, with an expression of mingled curiosity and
+admiration; she recognised at once her first, her only persecutor. She
+recoiled, and covered her face with her hands. The man approached her:--
+
+"Do not hate me, Fanny,--do not turn away. Believe me, though I have
+acted thus violently, here all violence will cease. I love you, but I
+will not be satisfied till you love me in return. I am not young, and
+I am not handsome, but I am rich and great, and I can make those whom I
+love happy,--so happy, Fanny!"
+
+But Fanny had turned away, and was now busily employed in trying to
+re-open the door at which she had entered. Failing in this, she suddenly
+darted away, opened the inner door, and rushed into the passage with a
+loud cry. Her persecutor stifled an oath, and sprung after and arrested
+her. He now spoke sternly, and with a smile and a frown at once:--
+
+"This is folly;--come back, or you will repent it! I have promised you,
+as a gentleman--as a nobleman, if you know what that is--to respect you.
+But neither will I myself be trifled with nor insulted. There must be no
+screams!"
+
+His look and his voice awed Fanny in spite of her bewilderment and her
+loathing, and she suffered herself passively to be drawn into the room.
+He closed and bolted the door. She threw herself on the ground in one
+corner, and moaned low but piteously. He looked at her musingly for some
+moments, as he stood by the fire, and at last went to the door, opened
+it, and called "Harriet" in a low voice. Presently a young woman, of
+about thirty, appeared, neatly but plainly dressed, and of a countenance
+that, if not very winning, might certainly be called very handsome.
+He drew her aside for a few moments, and a whispered conference was
+exchanged. He then walked gravely up to Fanny "My young friend," said
+he, "I see my presence is too much for you this evening. This young
+woman will attend you--will get you all you want. She can tell you, too,
+that I am not the terrible sort of person you seem to suppose. I shall
+see you to-morrow." So saying, he turned on his heel and walked out.
+
+Fanny felt something like liberty, something like joy, again. She rose,
+and looked so pleadingly, so earnestly, so intently into the woman's
+face, that Harriet turned away her bold eyes abashed; and at this moment
+Dykeman himself looked into the room.
+
+"You are to bring us in dinner here yourself, uncle; and then go to my
+lord in the drawing-room."
+
+Dykeman looked pleased, and vanished. Then Harriet came up and took
+Fanny's hand, and said, kindly,--
+
+"Don't be frightened. I assure you, half the girls in London would give
+I don't know what to be in your place. My lord never will force you to
+do anything you don't like--it's not his way; and he's the kindest and
+best man,--and so rich; he does not know what to do with his money!"
+
+To all this Fanny made but one answer,--she threw herself suddenly upon
+the woman's breast, and sobbed out: "My grandfather is blind, he cannot
+do without me--he will die--die. Have you nobody you love, too? Let me
+go--let me out! What can they want with me?--I never did harm to any
+one."
+
+"And no one will harm you;--I swear it!" said Harriet, earnestly. "I see
+you don't know my lord. But here's the dinner; come, and take a bit of
+something, and a glass of wine."
+
+Fanny could not touch anything except a glass of water, and that nearly
+choked her. But at last, as she recovered her senses, the absence of
+her tormentor--the presence of a woman--the solemn assurances of Harriet
+that, if she did not like to stay there, after a day or two, she should
+go back, tranquillised her in some measure. She did not heed the artful
+and lengthened eulogiums that the she-tempter then proceeded to pour
+forth upon the virtues, and the love, and the generosity, and, above
+all, the money of my lord. She only kept repeating to herself, "I shall
+go back in a day or two." At length, Harriet, having eaten and drunk as
+much as she could by her single self, and growing wearied with efforts
+from which so little resulted, proposed to Fanny to retire to rest.
+She opened a door to the right of the fireplace, and lighted her up a
+winding staircase to a pretty and comfortable chamber, where she offered
+to help her to undress. Fanny's complete innocence, and her utter
+ignorance of the precise nature of the danger that awaited her, though
+she fancied it must be very great and very awful, prevented her quite
+comprehending all that Harriet meant to convey by her solemn assurances
+that she should not be disturbed. But she understood, at least, that
+she was not to see her hateful gaoler till the next morning; and when
+Harriet, wishing her "good night," showed her a bolt to her door, she
+was less terrified at the thought of being alone in that strange place.
+She listened till Harriet's footsteps had died away, and then, with a
+beating heart, tried to open the door; it was locked from without. She
+sighed heavily. The window?--alas! when she had removed the shutter,
+there was another one barred from without, which precluded all hope
+there; she had no help for it but to bolt her door, stand forlorn and
+amazed at her own condition, and, at last, falling on her knees, to
+pray, in her own simple fashion, which since her recent visits to the
+schoolmistress had become more intelligent and earnest, to Him from whom
+no bolts and no bars can exclude the voice of the human heart.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+     "In te omnis domus inclinata recumbit."--VIRGIL.
+
+      [On thee the whole house rests confidingly.]
+
+Lord Lilburne, seated before a tray in the drawing-room, was finishing
+his own solitary dinner, and Dykeman was standing close behind him,
+nervous and agitated. The confidence of many years between the master
+and the servant--the peculiar mind of Lilburne, which excluded him from
+all friendship with his own equals--had established between the two
+the kind of intimacy so common with the noble and the valet of the old
+French regime, and indeed, in much Lilburne more resembled the men of
+that day and land, than he did the nobler and statelier being which
+belongs to our own. But to the end of time, whatever is at once vicious,
+polished, and intellectual, will have a common likeness.
+
+"But, my lord," said Dykeman, "just reflect. This girl is so well known
+in the place; she will be sure to be missed; and if any violence is
+done to her, it's a capital crime, my lord--a capital crime. I know they
+can't hang a great lord like you, but all concerned in it may----"
+
+Lord Lilburne interrupted the speaker by, "Give me some wine and hold
+your tongue!" Then, when he had emptied his glass, he drew himself
+nearer to the fire, warmed his hands, mused a moment, and turned round
+to his confidant:--
+
+"Dykeman," said he, "though you're an ass and a coward, and you don't
+deserve that I should be so condescending, I will relieve your fears
+at once. I know the law better than you can, for my whole life has been
+spent in doing exactly as I please, without ever putting myself in the
+power of LAW, which interferes with the pleasures of other men. You are
+right in saying violence would be a capital crime. Now the difference
+between vice and crime is this: Vice is what parsons write sermons
+against, Crime is what we make laws against. I never committed a crime
+in all my life,--at an age between fifty and sixty--I am not going to
+begin. Vices are safe things; I may have my vices like other men: but
+crimes are dangerous things--illegal things--things to be carefully
+avoided. Look you" (and here the speaker, fixing his puzzled listener
+with his eye, broke into a grin of sublime mockery), "let me suppose you
+to be the World--that cringing valet of valets, the WORLD! I should say
+to you this, 'My dear World, you and I understand each other well,--we
+are made for each other,--I never come in your way, nor you in mine. If
+I get drunk every day in my own room, that's vice, you can't touch me;
+if I take an extra glass for the first time in my life, and knock
+down the watchman, that's a crime which, if I am rich, costs me one
+pound--perhaps five pounds; if I am poor, sends me to the treadmill. If
+I break the hearts of five hundred old fathers, by buying with gold
+or flattery the embraces of five hundred young daughters, that's
+vice,--your servant, Mr. World! If one termagant wench scratches my
+face, makes a noise, and goes brazen-faced to the Old Bailey to swear to
+her shame, why that's crime, and my friend, Mr. World, pulls a hemp-rope
+out of his pocket.' Now, do you understand? Yes, I repeat," he added,
+with a change of voice, "I never committed a crime in my life,--I have
+never even been accused of one,--never had an action of crim. con.--of
+seduction against me. I know how to manage such matters better. I was
+forced to carry off this girl, because I had no other means of courting
+her. To court her is all I mean to do now. I am perfectly aware that
+an action for violence, as you call it, would be the more disagreeable,
+because of the very weakness of intellect which the girl is said to
+possess, and of which report I don't believe a word. I shall most
+certainly avoid even the remotest appearance that could be so construed.
+It is for that reason that no one in the house shall attend the girl
+except yourself and your niece. Your niece I can depend on, I know; I
+have been kind to her; I have got her a good husband; I shall get her
+husband a good place;--I shall be godfather to her first child. To be
+sure, the other servants will know there's a lady in the house, but to
+that they are accustomed; I don't set up for a Joseph. They need know
+no more, unless you choose to blab it out. Well, then, supposing that at
+the end of a few days, more or less, without any rudeness on my part, a
+young woman, after seeing a few jewels, and fine dresses, and a pretty
+house, and being made very comfortable, and being convinced that her
+grandfather shall be taken care of without her slaving herself to death,
+chooses of her own accord to live with me, where's the crime, and who
+can interfere with it?"
+
+"Certainly, my lord, that alters the case," said Dykeman, considerably
+relieved. "But still," he added, anxiously, "if the inquiry is made,--if
+before all this is settled, it is found out where she is?"
+
+"Why then no harm will be done--no violence will be committed. Her
+grandfather,--drivelling and a miser, you say--can be appeased by a
+little money, and it will be nobody's business, and no case can be made
+of it. Tush! man! I always look before I leap! People in this world are
+not so charitable as you suppose. What more natural than that a poor and
+pretty girl--not as wise as Queen Elizabeth--should be tempted to pay a
+visit to a rich lover!
+
+"All they can say of the lover is, that he is a very gay man or a very
+bad man, and that's saying nothing new of me. But don't think it will
+be found out. Just get me that stool; this has been a very troublesome
+piece of business--rather tried me. I am not so young as I was. Yes,
+Dykeman, something which that Frenchman Vaudemont, or Vautrien, or
+whatever his name is, said to me once, has a certain degree of truth. I
+felt it in the last fit of the gout, when my pretty niece was smoothing
+my pillows. A nurse, as we grow older, may be of use to one. I wish to
+make this girl like me, or be grateful to me. I am meditating a longer
+and more serious attachment than usual,--a companion!"
+
+"A companion, my lord, in that poor creature!--so ignorant--so
+uneducated!"
+
+"So much the better. This world palls upon me," said Lilburne, almost
+gloomily. "I grow sick of the miserable quackeries--of the piteous
+conceits that men, women, and children call 'knowledge,' I wish to catch
+a glimpse of nature before I die. This creature interests me, and that
+is something in this life. Clear those things away, and leave me."
+
+"Ay!" muttered Lilburne, as he bent over the fire alone, "when I first
+heard that that girl was the granddaughter of Simon Gawtrey, and,
+therefore, the child of the man whom I am to thank that I am a cripple,
+I felt as if love to her were a part of that hate which I owe to him; a
+segment in the circle of my vengeance. But now, poor child!
+
+"I forget all this. I feel for her, not passion, but what I never felt
+before, affection. I feel that if I had such a child, I could understand
+what men mean when they talk of the tenderness of a father. I have not
+one impure thought for that girl--not one. But I would give thousands
+if she could love me. Strange! strange! in all this I do not recognise
+myself!"
+
+Lord Lilburne retired to rest betimes that night; he slept sound; rose
+refreshed at an earlier hour than usual; and what he considered a fit of
+vapours of the previous night was passed away. He looked with eagerness
+to an interview with Fanny. Proud of his intellect, pleased in any of
+those sinister exercises of it which the code and habits of his life so
+long permitted to him, he regarded the conquest of his fair adversary
+with the interest of a scientific game. Harriet went to Fanny's room to
+prepare her to receive her host; and Lord Lilburne now resolved to make
+his own visit the less unwelcome by reserving for his especial gift
+some showy, if not valuable, trinkets, which for similar purposes never
+failed the depositories of the villa he had purchased for his pleasures.
+He, recollected that these gewgaws were placed in the bureau in the
+study; in which, as having a lock of foreign and intricate workmanship,
+he usually kept whatever might tempt cupidity in those frequent absences
+when the house was left guarded but by two women servants. Finding that
+Fanny had not yet quitted her own chamber, while Harriet went up to
+attend and reason with her, he himself limped into the study below,
+unlocked the bureau, and was searching in the drawers, when he heard the
+voice of Fanny above, raised a little as if in remonstrance or entreaty;
+and he paused to listen. He could not, however, distinguish what was
+said; and in the meanwhile, without attending much to what he was about,
+his hands were still employed in opening and shutting the drawers,
+passing through the pigeon-holes, and feeling for a topaz brooch, which
+he thought could not fail of pleasing the unsophisticated eyes of Fanny.
+One of the recesses was deeper than the rest; he fancied the brooch
+was there; he stretched his hand into the recess; and, as the room was
+partially darkened by the lower shutters from without, which were still
+unclosed to prevent any attempted escape of his captive, he had only
+the sense of touch to depend on; not finding the brooch, he stretched on
+till he came to the extremity of the recess, and was suddenly sensible
+of a sharp pain; the flesh seemed caught as in a trap; he drew back
+his finger with sudden force and a half-suppressed exclamation, and he
+perceived the bottom or floor of the pigeon-hole recede, as if sliding
+back. His curiosity was aroused; he again felt warily and cautiously,
+and discovered a very slight inequality and roughness at the extremity
+of the recess. He was aware instantly that there was some secret spring;
+he pressed with some force on the spot, and he felt the board give way;
+he pushed it back towards him, and it slid suddenly with a whirring
+noise, and left a cavity below exposed to his sight. He peered in, and
+drew forth a paper; he opened it at first carelessly, for he was still
+trying to listen to Fanny. His eye ran rapidly over a few preliminary
+lines till it rested on what follows:
+
+"Marriage. The year 18--
+
+"No. 83, page 21.
+
+"Philip Beaufort, of this parish of A-----, and Catherine Morton, of the
+parish of St. Botolph, Aldgate, London, were married in this church by
+banns, this 12th day of November, in the year one thousand eight hundred
+and ----' by me,
+
+
+                   "CALEB PRICE, Vicar.
+
+"This marriage was solemnised between us,
+
+
+                   "PHILIP BEAUFORT.
+                   "CATHERINE MORTON.
+
+
+"In the presence of                   "DAVID APREECE.
+                   "WILLIAM SMITH.
+
+"The above is a true copy taken from the registry of marriages, in
+A-----parish, this 19th day of March, 18--, by me,
+
+
+                "MORGAN JONES, Curate of C-------."
+
+   [This is according to the form customary at the date at which the
+   copy was made. There has since been an alteration.]
+
+Lord Lilburne again cast his eye over the lines prefixed to this
+startling document, which, being those written at Caleb's desire, by Mr.
+Jones to Philip Beaufort, we need not here transcribe to the reader. At
+that instant Harriet descended the stairs, and came into the room; she
+crept up on tiptoe to Lilburne, and whispered,--
+
+"She is coming down, I think; she does not know you are here."
+
+"Very well--go!" said Lord Lilburne. And scarce had Harriet left the
+room, when a carriage drove furiously to the door, and Robert Beaufort
+rushed into the study.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+   "Gone, and none know it.
+
+   How now?--What news, what hopes and steps discovered!"
+   BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: The Pilgrim.
+
+When Philip arrived at his lodgings in town it was very late, but he
+still found Liancourt waiting the chance of his arrival. The Frenchman
+was full of his own schemes and projects. He was a man of high repute
+and connections; negotiations for his recall to Paris had been entered
+into; he was divided between a Quixotic loyalty and a rational prudence;
+he brought his doubts to Vaudemont. Occupied as he was with thoughts of
+so important and personal a nature, Philip could yet listen patiently
+to his friend, and weigh with him the pros and cons. And after having
+mutually agreed that loyalty and prudence would both be best consulted
+by waiting a little, to see if the nation, as the Carlists yet fondly
+trusted, would soon, after its first fever, offer once more the throne
+and the purple to the descendant of St. Louis, Liancourt, as he lighted
+his cigar to walk home, said, "A thousand thanks to you, my dear friend:
+and how have you enjoyed yourself in your visit? I am not surprised or
+jealous that Lilburne did not invite me, as I do not play at cards, and
+as I have said some sharp things to him!"
+
+"I fancy I shall have the same disqualifications for another
+invitation," said Vaudemont, with a severe smile. "I may have much to
+disclose to you in a few days. At present my news is still unripe. And
+have you seen anything of Lilburne? He left us some days since. Is he in
+London?"
+
+"Yes; I was riding with our friend Henri, who wished to try a new
+horse off the stones, a little way into the country yesterday. We went
+through------and H----. Pretty places, those. Do you know them?"
+
+"Yes; I know H----."
+
+"And just at dusk, as we were spurring back to town, whom should I see
+walking on the path of the high-road but Lord Lilburne himself! I could
+hardly believe my eyes. I stopped, and, after asking him about you,
+I could not help expressing my surprise to see him on foot at such a
+place. You know the man's sneer. 'A Frenchman so gallant as Monsieur de
+Liancourt,' said he, 'need not be surprised at much greater miracles;
+the iron moves to the magnet: I have a little adventure here. Pardon me
+if I ask you to ride on.' Of course I wished him good day; and a little
+farther up the road I saw a dark plain chariot, no coronet, no arms, no
+footman only the man on the box, but the beauty of the horses assured me
+it must belong to Lilburne. Can you conceive such absurdity in a man of
+that age--and a very clever fellow too? Yet, how is it that one does not
+ridicule it in Lilburne, as one would in another man between fifty and
+sixty?"
+
+"Because one does not ridicule,--one loathes-him."
+
+"No; that's not it. The fact is that one can't fancy Lilburne old. His
+manner is young--his eye is young. I never saw any one with so much
+vitality. 'The bad heart and the good digestion'--the twin secrets for
+wearing well, eh!"
+
+"Where did you meet him--not near H----?"
+
+"Yes; close by. Why? Have you any adventure there too? Nay, forgive me;
+it was but a jest. Good night!"
+
+Vaudemont fell into an uneasy reverie: he could not divine exactly
+why he should be alarmed; but he was alarmed at Lilburne being in the
+neighbourhood of H----. It was the foot of the profane violating the
+sanctuary. An undefined thrill shot through him, as his mind coupled
+together the associations of Lilburne and Fanny; but there was no ground
+for forebodings. Fanny did not stir out alone. An adventure, too--pooh!
+Lord Lilburne must be awaiting a willing and voluntary appointment, most
+probably from some one of the fair but decorous frailties of London.
+Lord Lilburne's more recent conquests were said to be among those of his
+own rank; suburbs are useful for such assignations. Any other thought
+was too horrible to be contemplated. He glanced to the clock; it was
+three in the morning. He would go to H---- early, even before he sought
+out Mr. William Smith. With that resolution, and even his hardy frame
+worn out by the excitement of the day, he threw himself on his bed and
+fell asleep.
+
+He did not wake till near nine, and had just dressed, and hurried over
+his abstemious breakfast, when the servant of the house came to tell him
+that an old woman, apparently in great agitation, wished to see him.
+His head was still full of witnesses and lawsuits; and he was vaguely
+expecting some visitor connected with his primary objects, when Sarah
+broke into the room. She cast a hurried, suspicious look round her, and
+then throwing herself on her knees to him, "Oh!" she cried, "if you have
+taken that poor young thing away, God forgive you. Let her come back
+again. It shall be all hushed up. Don't ruin her! don't, that's a dear
+good gentleman!"
+
+"Speak plainly, woman--what do you mean?" cried Philip, turning pale.
+
+A very few words sufficed for an explanation: Fanny's disappearance the
+previous night; the alarm of Sarah at her non-return; the apathy of old
+Simon, who did not comprehend what had happened, and quietly went to
+bed; the search Sarah had made during half the night; the intelligence
+she had picked up, that the policeman, going his rounds, had heard a
+female shriek near the school; but that all he could perceive through
+the mist was a carriage driving rapidly past him; Sarah's suspicions
+of Vaudemont confirmed in the morning, when, entering Fanny's room, she
+perceived the poor girl's unfinished letter with his own, the clue to
+his address that the letter gave her; all this, ere she well understood
+what she herself was talking about,--Vaudemont's alarm seized, and the
+reflection of a moment construed: the carriage; Lilburne seen lurking in
+the neighbourhood the previous day; the former attempt;--all flashed on
+him with an intolerable glare. While Sarah was yet speaking, he rushed
+from the house, he flew to Lord Lilburne's in Park Lane; he composed his
+manner, he inquired calmly. His lordship had slept from home; he was,
+they believed, at Fernside: Fernside! H---- was on the direct way to
+that villa. Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed since he heard the story
+ere he was on the road, with such speed as the promise of a guinea a
+mile could extract from the spurs of a young post-boy applied to the
+flanks of London post-horses.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+          "Ex humili magna ad fastigia rerum
+          Extollit."--JUVENAL.
+
+        [Fortune raises men from low estate to the very
+        summit of prosperity.]
+
+When Harriet had quitted Fanny, the waiting-woman, craftily wishing to
+lure her into Lilburne's presence, had told her that the room below
+was empty; and the captive's mind naturally and instantly seized on the
+thought of escape. After a brief breathing pause, she crept noiselessly
+down the stairs, and gently opened the door; and at the very instant she
+did so, Robert Beaufort entered from the other door; she drew back in
+terror, when, what was her astonishment in hearing a name uttered that
+spell-bound her--the last name she could have expected to hear; for
+Lilburne, the instant he saw Beaufort, pale, haggard, agitated, rush
+into the room, and bang the door after him, could only suppose that
+something of extraordinary moment had occurred with regard to the
+dreaded guest, and cried:
+
+"You come about Vaudemont! Something has happened about Vaudemont! about
+Philip! What is it? Calm yourself."
+
+Fanny, as the name was thus abruptly uttered, actually thrust her
+face through the door; but she again drew back, and, all her senses
+preternaturally quickened at that name, while she held the door almost
+closed, listened with her whole soul in her ears.
+
+The faces of both the men were turned from her, and her partial entry
+had not been perceived.
+
+"Yes," said Robert Beaufort, leaning his weight, as if ready to sink to
+the ground, upon Lilburne's shoulder, "Yes; Vaudemont, or Philip, for
+they are one,--yes, it is about that man I have come to consult you.
+Arthur has arrived."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"And Arthur has seen the wretch who visited us, and the rascal's manner
+has so imposed on him, so convinced him that Philip is the heir to all
+our property, that he has come over-ill, ill--I fear" (added Beaufort,
+in a hollow voice), "dying, to--to--"
+
+"To guard against their machinations?"
+
+"No, no, no--to say that if such be the case, neither honour nor
+conscience will allow us to resist his rights. He is so obstinate in
+this matter; his nerves so ill bear reasoning and contradiction, that I
+know not what to do--"
+
+"Take breath--go on."
+
+"Well, it seems that this man found out Arthur almost as soon as my son
+arrived at Paris--that he has persuaded Arthur that he has it in his
+power to prove the marriage--that he pretended to be very impatient
+for a decision--that Arthur, in order to gain time to see me, affected
+irresolution--took him to Boulogne, for the rascal does not dare to
+return to England--left him there; and now comes back, my own son, as
+my worst enemy, to conspire against me for my property! I could not
+have kept my temper if I had stayed. But that's not all--that's not the
+worst: Vaudemont left me suddenly in the morning on the receipt of a
+letter. In taking leave of Camilla he let fall hints which fill me with
+fear. Well, I inquired his movements as I came along; he had stopped
+at D----, had been closeted for above an hour with a man whose name the
+landlord of the inn knew, for it was on his carpet-bag--the name was
+Barlow. You remember the advertisements! Good Heavens! what is to be
+done? I would not do anything unhandsome or dishonest. But there never
+was a marriage. I never will believe there was a marriage--never!"
+
+"There was a marriage, Robert Beaufort," said Lord Lilburne, almost
+enjoying the torture he was about to inflict; "and I hold here a paper
+that Philip Vaudemont--for so we will yet call him--would give his right
+hand to clutch for a moment. I have but just found it in a secret cavity
+in that bureau. Robert, on this paper may depend the fate, the fortune,
+the prosperity, the greatness of Philip Vaudemont;--or his poverty, his
+exile, his ruin. See!"
+
+Robert Beaufort glanced over the paper held out to him--dropped it
+on the floor--and staggered to a seat. Lilburne coolly replaced the
+document in the bureau, and, limping to his brother-in-law, said with a
+smile,--
+
+"But the paper is in my possession--I will not destroy it. No; I have no
+right to destroy it. Besides, it would be a crime; but if I give it to
+you, you can do with it as you please."
+
+"O Lilburne, spare me--spare me. I meant to be an honest man. I--I--"
+And Robert Beaufort sobbed. Lilburne looked at him in scornful surprise.
+
+"Do not fear that I shall ever think worse of you; and who else will
+know it? Do not fear me. No;--I, too, have reasons to hate and to
+fear this Philip Vaudemont; for Vaudemont shall be his name, and not
+Beaufort, in spite of fifty such scraps of paper! He has known a man--my
+worst foe--he has secrets of mine--of my past--perhaps of my present:
+but I laugh at his knowledge while he is a wandering adventurer;--I
+should tremble at that knowledge if he could thunder it out to the world
+as Philip Beaufort of Beaufort Court! There, I am candid with you. Now
+hear my plan. Prove to Arthur that his visitor is a convicted felon, by
+sending the officers of justice after him instantly--off with him again
+to the Settlements. Defy a single witness--entrap Vaudemont back to
+France and prove him (I think I will prove him such--I think so--with
+a little money and a little pains)--prove him the accomplice of William
+Gawtrey, a coiner and a murderer! Pshaw! take yon paper. Do with it as
+you will--keep it--give it to Arthur--let Philip Vaudemont have it, and
+Philip Vaudemont will be rich and great, the happiest man between earth
+and paradise! On the other hand, come and tell me that you have lost
+it, or that I never gave you such a paper, or that no such paper ever
+existed; and Philip Vaudemont may live a pauper, and die, perhaps, a
+slave at the galleys! Lose it, I say,--lose it,--and advise with me upon
+the rest."
+
+Horror-struck, bewildered, the weak man gazed upon the calm face of the
+Master-villain, as the scholar of the old fables might have gazed on
+the fiend who put before him worldly prosperity here and the loss of
+his soul hereafter. He had never hitherto regarded Lilburne in his true
+light. He was appalled by the black heart that lay bare before him.
+
+"I can't destroy it--I can't," he faltered out; "and if I did, out of
+love for Arthur,--don't talk of galleys,--of vengeance--I--I--"
+
+"The arrears of the rents you have enjoyed will send you to gaol for
+your life. No, no; don't destroy the paper."
+
+Beaufort rose with a desperate effort; he moved to the bureau. Fanny's
+heart was on her lips;--of this long conference she had understood only
+the one broad point on which Lilburne had insisted with an emphasis that
+could have enlightened an infant; and he looked on Beaufort as an infant
+then--On that paper rested Philip Vaudemont's fate--happiness if saved,
+ruin if destroyed; Philip--her Philip! And Philip himself had said to
+her once--when had she ever forgotten his words? and now how those words
+flashed across her--Philip himself had said to her once, "Upon a scrap
+of paper, if I could but find it, may depend my whole fortune, my whole
+happiness, all that I care for in life."--Robert Beaufort moved to the
+bureau--he seized the document--he looked over it again, hurriedly, and
+ere Lilburne, who by no means wished to have it destroyed in his own
+presence, was aware of his intention--he hastened with tottering steps
+to the hearth-averted his eyes, and cast it on the fire. At that instant
+something white--he scarce knew what, it seemed to him as a spirit, as a
+ghost--darted by him, and snatched the paper, as yet uninjured, from
+the embers! There was a pause for the hundredth part of a moment:--a
+gurgling sound of astonishment and horror from Beaufort--an exclamation
+from Lilburne--a laugh from Fanny, as, her eyes flashing light, with a
+proud dilation of stature, with the paper clasped tightly to her bosom,
+she turned her looks of triumph from one to the other. The two men
+were both too amazed, at the instant, for rapid measures. But Lilburne,
+recovering himself first, hastened to her; she eluded his grasp--she
+made towards the door to the passage; when Lilburne, seriously alarmed,
+seized her arm;--
+
+"Foolish child!--give me that paper!"
+
+"Never but with my life!" And Fanny's cry for help rang through the
+house.
+
+"Then--" the speech died on his lips, for at that instant a rapid stride
+was heard without--a momentary scuffle--voices in altercation;--the
+door gave way as if a battering ram had forced it;--not so much thrown
+forward as actually hurled into the room, the body of Dykeman fell
+heavily, like a dead man's, at the very feet of Lord Lilburne--and
+Philip Vaudemont stood in the doorway!
+
+The grasp of Lilburne on Fanny's arm relaxed, and the girl, with
+one bound, sprung to Philip's breast. "Here, here!" she cried, "take
+it--take it!" and she thrust the paper into his hand. "Don't let them
+have it--read it--see it--never mind me!" But Philip, though his hand
+unconsciously closed on the precious document, did mind Fanny; and in
+that moment her cause was the only one in the world to him.
+
+"Foul villain!" he said, as he strode to Lilburne, while Fanny still
+clung to his breast: "Speak!--speak!--is--she--is she?--man--man,
+speak!--you know what I would say!--She is the child of your own
+daughter--the grandchild of that Mary whom you dishonoured--the child
+of the woman whom William Gawtrey saved from pollution! Before he died,
+Gawtrey commended her to my care!--O God of Heaven!--speak!--I am not
+too late!"
+
+The manner, the words, the face of Philip left Lilburne terror-stricken
+with conviction. But the man's crafty ability, debased as it was,
+triumphed even over remorse for the dread guilt meditated,--over
+gratitude for the dread guilt spared. He glanced at Beaufort--at
+Dykeman, who now, slowly recovering, gazed at him with eyes that
+seemed starting from their sockets; and lastly fixed his look on Philip
+himself. There were three witnesses--presence of mind was his great
+attribute.
+
+"And if, Monsieur de Vaudemont, I knew, or, at least, had the firmest
+persuasion that Fanny was my grandchild, what then? Why else should she
+be here?--Pooh, sir! I am an old man."
+
+Philip recoiled a step in wonder; his plain sense was baffled by the
+calm lie. He looked down at Fanny, who, comprehending nothing of what
+was spoken, for all her faculties, even her very sense of sight and
+hearing, were absorbed in her impatient anxiety for him, cried out:
+
+"No harm has come to Fanny--none: only frightened. Read!--Read!--Save
+that paper!--You know what you once said about a mere scrap of paper!
+Come away! Come!"
+
+He did now cast his eyes on the paper he held. That was an awful moment
+for Robert Beaufort--even for Lilburne! To snatch the fatal document
+from that gripe! They would as soon have snatched it from a tiger! He
+lifted his eyes--they rested on his mother's picture! Her lips smiled on
+him! He turned to Beaufort in a state of emotion too exulting, too blest
+for vulgar vengeance--for vulgar triumph--almost for words.
+
+"Look yonder, Robert Beaufort--look!" and he pointed to the picture.
+"Her name is spotless! I stand again beneath a roof that was my
+father's,--the Heir of Beaufort! We shall meet before the justice of our
+country. For you, Lord Lilburne, I will believe you: it is too horrible
+to doubt even your intentions. If wrong had chanced to her, I would have
+rent you where you stand, limb from limb. And thank her",--(for Lilburne
+recovered at this language the daring of his youth, before calculation,
+indolence, and excess had dulled the edge of his nerves; and, unawed by
+the height, and manhood, and strength of his menacer, stalked haughtily
+up to him)--"and thank your relationship to her," said Philip, sinking
+his voice into a whisper, "that I do not brand you as a pilferer and a
+cheat! Hush, knave!--hush, pupil of George Gawtrey!--there are no duels
+for me but with men of honour!"
+
+Lilburne now turned white, and the big word stuck in his throat. In
+another instant Fanny and her guardian had quitted the house.
+
+"Dykeman," said Lord Lilburne after a long silence, "I shall ask you
+another time how you came to admit that impertinent person. At present,
+go and order breakfast for Mr. Beaufort."
+
+As soon as Dykeman, more astounded, perhaps, by his lord's coolness than
+even by the preceding circumstances, had left the study, Lilburne came
+up to Beaufort,--who seemed absolutely stricken as if by palsy,--and
+touching him impatiently and rudely, said,--
+
+"'Sdeath, man!--rouse yourself! There is not a moment to be lost! I have
+already decided on what you are to do. This paper is not worth a rush,
+unless the curate who examined it will depose to that fact. He is a
+curate--a Welsh curate;--you are yet Mr. Beaufort, a rich and a great
+man. The curate, properly managed, may depose to the contrary; and then
+we will indict them all for forgery and conspiracy. At the worst, you
+can, no doubt, get the parson to forget all about it--to stay away. His
+address was on the certificate:
+
+"--C-----. Go yourself into Wales without an instant's delay-- Then,
+having arranged with Mr. Jones, hurry back, cross to Boulogne, and buy
+this convict and his witnesses, buy them! That, now, is the only thing.
+Quick! quick!--quick! Zounds, man! if it were my affair, my estate, I
+would not care a pin for that fragment of paper; I should rather rejoice
+at it. I see how it could be turned against them! Go!"
+
+"No, no; I am not equal to it! Will you manage it? will you? Half my
+estate!--all! Take it: but save--"
+
+"Tut!" interrupted Lord Lilburne, in great disdain. "I am as rich as I
+want to be. Money does not bribe me. I manage this! I! Lord Lilburne. I!
+Why, if found out, it is subornation of witnesses. It is exposure--it is
+dishonour--it is ruin. What then? You should take the risk--for you must
+meet ruin if you do not. I cannot. I have nothing to gain!"
+
+"I dare not!--I dare not!" murmured Beaufort, quite spirit-broken.
+"Subornation, dishonour, exposure!--and I, so respectable--my
+character!--and my son against me, too!--my son, in whom I lived again!
+No, no; let them take all! Let them take it! Ha! ha! let them take it!
+Good-day to you."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"I shall consult Mr. Blackwell, and I'll let you know." And Beaufort
+walked tremulously back to his carriage. "Go to his lawyer!" growled
+Lilburne. "Yes, if his lawyer can help him to defraud men lawfully,
+he'll defraud them fast enough. That will be the respectable way of
+doing it! Um!--This may be an ugly business for me--the paper found
+here--if the girl can depose to what she heard, and she must have heard
+something.--No, I think the laws of real property will hardly allow her
+evidence; and if they do--Um!--My granddaughter--is it possible!--And
+Gawtrey rescued her mother, my child, from her own mother's vices! I
+thought my liking to that girl different from any other I have ever
+felt: it was pure--it was!--it was pity--affection. And I must never see
+her again--must forget the whole thing! And I am growing old--and I
+am childless--and alone!" He paused, almost with a groan: and then
+the expression of his face changing to rage, he cried out, "The man
+threatened me, and I was a coward! What to do?--Nothing! The defensive
+is my line. I shall play no more.--I attack no one. Who will accuse Lord
+Lilburne? Still, Robert is a fool. I must not leave him to himself. Ho!
+there! Dykeman!--the carriage! I shall go to London."
+
+Fortunate, no doubt, it was for Philip that Mr. Beaufort was not
+Lord Lilburne. For all history teaches us--public and private
+history--conquerors--statesmen--sharp hypocrites and brave
+designers--yes, they all teach us how mighty one man of great intellect
+and no scruple is against the justice of millions! The One Man
+moves--the Mass is inert. Justice sits on a throne. Roguery never
+rests,--Activity is the lever of Archimedes.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+     "Quam inulta injusta ac prava fiunt moribus."--TULL.
+
+     [How many unjust and vicious actions are perpetrated
+     under the name of morals.]
+
+             "Volat ambiguis
+             Mobilis alis Hera."--SENECA.
+
+         [The hour flies moving with doubtful wings.]
+
+Mr. Robert Beaufort sought Mr. Blackwell, and long, rambling, and
+disjointed was his narrative. Mr. Blackwell, after some consideration,
+proposed to set about doing the very things that Lilburne had proposed
+at once to do. But the lawyer expressed himself legally and covertly, so
+that it did not seem to the sober sense of Mr. Beaufort at all the
+same plan. He was not the least alarmed at what Mr. Blackwell proposed,
+though so shocked at what Lilburne dictated. Blackwell would go the next
+day into Wales--he would find out Mr. Jones--he would sound him! Nothing
+was more common with people of the nicest honour, than just to get a
+witness out of the way! Done in election petitions, for instance, every
+day.
+
+"True," said Mr. Beaufort, much relieved.
+
+Then, after having done that, Mr. Blackwell would return to town, and
+cross over to Boulogne to see this very impudent person whom Arthur
+(young men were so apt to be taken in!) had actually believed. He had
+no doubt he could settle it all. Robert Beaufort returned to Berkeley
+Square actually in spirits. There he found Lilburne, who, on reflection,
+seeing that Blackwell was at all events more up to the business than his
+brother, assented to the propriety of the arrangement.
+
+Mr. Blackwell accordingly did set off the next day. That next day,
+perhaps, made all the difference. Within two hours from his gaining the
+document so important, Philip, without any subtler exertion of intellect
+than the decision of a plain, bold sense, had already forestalled both
+the peer and the lawyer. He had sent down Mr. Barlow's head clerk to his
+master in Wales with the document, and a short account of the manner
+in which it had been discovered. And fortunate, indeed, was it that the
+copy had been found; for all the inquiries of Mr. Barlow at A----
+had failed, and probably would have failed, without such a clue, in
+fastening upon any one probable person to have officiated as Caleb
+Price's amanuensis. The sixteen hours' start Mr. Barlow gained over
+Blackwell enabled the former to see Mr. Jones--to show him his own
+handwriting--to get a written and witnessed attestation from which the
+curate, however poor, and however tempted, could never well have
+escaped (even had he been dishonest, which he was not), of his perfect
+recollection of the fact of making an extract from the registry at
+Caleb's desire, though he owned he had quite forgotten the names he
+extracted till they were again placed before him. Barlow took care to
+arouse Mr. Jones's interest in the case--quitted Wales--hastened over to
+Boulogne--saw Captain Smith, and without bribes, without threats, but
+by plainly proving to that worthy person that he could not return to
+England nor see his brother without being immediately arrested; that his
+brother's evidence was already pledged on the side of truth; and that by
+the acquisition of new testimony there could be no doubt that the
+suit would be successful--he diverted the captain from all disposition
+towards perfidy, convinced him on which side his interest lay, and saw
+him return to Paris, where very shortly afterwards he disappeared for
+ever from this world, being forced into a duel, much against his will
+(with a Frenchman whom he had attempted to defraud), and shot through
+the lungs. Thus verifying a favourite maxim of Lord Lilburne's, viz.
+that it does not do, in the long run, for little men to play the Great
+Game!
+
+On the same day that Blackwell returned, frustrated in his half-and-half
+attempts to corrupt Mr. Jones, and not having been able even to discover
+Mr. Smith, Mr. Robert Beaufort received a notice of an Action for
+Ejectment to be brought by Philip Beaufort at the next Assizes. And,
+to add to his afflictions, Arthur, whom he had hitherto endeavoured to
+amuse by a sort of ambiguous shilly-shally correspondence, became so
+alarmingly worse, that his mother brought him up to town for advice.
+Lord Lilburne was, of course, sent for; and on learning all, his counsel
+was prompt.
+
+"I told you before that this man loves your daughter. See if you can
+effect a compromise. The lawsuit will be ugly, and probably ruinous. He
+has a right to claim six years' arrears--that is above L100,000. Make
+yourself his father-in-law, and me his uncle-in-law; and, since we can't
+kill the wasp, we may at least soften the venom of his sting."
+
+Beaufort, still perplexed, irresolute, sought his son; and, for the
+first time, spoke to him frankly--that is, frankly for Robert Beaufort!
+He owned that the copy of the register had been found by Lilburne in a
+secret drawer. He made the best of the story Lilburne himself furnished
+him with (adhering, of course, to the assertion uttered or insinuated
+to Philip) in regard to Fanny's abduction and interposition; he said
+nothing of his attempt to destroy the paper. Why should he? By admitting
+the copy in court--if so advised--he could get rid of Fanny's evidence
+altogether; even without such concession, her evidence might possibly
+be objected to or eluded. He confessed that he feared the witness who
+copied the register and the witness to the marriage were alive. And then
+he talked pathetically of his desire to do what was right, his dread of
+slander and misinterpretation. He said nothing of Sidney, and his belief
+that Sidney and Charles Spencer were the same; because, if his daughter
+were to be the instrument for effecting a compromise, it was clear that
+her engagement with Spencer must be cancelled and concealed. And luckily
+Arthur's illness and Camilla's timidity, joined now to her father's
+injunctions not to excite Arthur in his present state with any
+additional causes of anxiety, prevented the confidence that might
+otherwise have ensued between the brother and sister. And Camilla,
+indeed, had no heart for such a conference. How, when she looked on
+Arthur's glassy eye, and listened to his hectic cough, could she talk
+to him of love and marriage? As to the automaton, Mrs. Beaufort, Robert
+made sure of her discretion.
+
+Arthur listened attentively to his father's communication; and the
+result of that interview was the following letter from Arthur to his
+cousin:
+
+"I write to you without fear of misconstruction; for I write to you
+unknown to all my family, and I am the only one of them who can have no
+personal interest in the struggle about to take place between my father
+and yourself. Before the law can decide between you, I shall be in my
+grave. I write this from the Bed of Death. Philip, I write this--I, who
+stood beside a deathbed more sacred to you than mine--I, who received
+your mother's last sigh. And with that sigh there was a smile that
+lasted when the sigh was gone: for I promised to befriend her children.
+Heaven knows how anxiously I sought to fulfil that solemn vow! Feeble
+and sick myself, I followed you and your brother with no aim, no prayer,
+but this,--to embrace you and say, 'Accept a new brother in me.' I spare
+you the humiliation, for it is yours, not mine, of recalling what passed
+between us when at last we met. Yet, I still sought to save, at least,
+Sidney,--more especially confided to my care by his dying mother. He
+mysteriously eluded our search; but we had reason, by a letter received
+from some unknown hand, to believe him saved and provided for. Again I
+met you at Paris. I saw you were poor. Judging from your associate, I
+might with justice think you depraved. Mindful of your declaration
+never to accept bounty from a Beaufort, and remembering with natural
+resentment the outrage I had before received from you, I judged it vain
+to seek and remonstrate with you, but I did not judge it vain to aid. I
+sent you, anonymously, what at least would suffice, if absolute poverty
+had subjected you to evil courses, to rescue you from them it your
+heart were so disposed. Perhaps that sum, trifling as it was, may have
+smoothed your path and assisted your career. And why tell you all this
+now? To dissuade from asserting rights you conceive to be just?--Heaven
+forbid! If justice is with you, so also is the duty due to your mother's
+name. But simply for this: that in asserting such rights, you content
+yourself with justice, not revenge--that in righting yourself, you do
+not wrong others. If the law should decide for you, the arrears you
+could demand would leave my father and sister beggars. This may be
+law--it would not be justice; for my father solemnly believed himself,
+and had every apparent probability in his favour, the true heir of
+the wealth that devolved upon him. This is not all. There may be
+circumstances connected with the discovery of a certain document that,
+if authentic, and I do not presume to question it, may decide the
+contest so far as it rests on truth; circumstances which might seem
+to bear hard upon my father's good name and faith. I do not know
+sufficiently of law to say how far these could be publicly urged, or, if
+urged, exaggerated and tortured by an advocate's calumnious ingenuity.
+But again, I say justice, and not revenge! And with this I conclude,
+inclosing to you these lines, written in your own hand, and leaving you
+the arbiter of their value.
+
+
+             "ARTHUR BEAUFORT."
+
+The lines inclosed were these, a second time placed before the reader
+
+
+   "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."
+
+This letter was sent to the only address of Monsieur de Vaudemont which
+the Beauforts knew, viz., his apartments in town, and he did not receive
+it the day it was sent.
+
+Meanwhile Arthur Beaufort's malady continued to gain ground rapidly.
+His father, absorbed in his own more selfish fears (though, at the first
+sight of Arthur, overcome by the alteration of his appearance), had
+ceased to consider his illness fatal. In fact, his affection for Arthur
+was rather one of pride than love: long absence had weakened the ties
+of early custom. He prized him as an heir rather than treasured him as
+a son. It almost seemed that as the Heritage was in danger, so the Heir
+became less dear: this was only because he was less thought of. Poor
+Mrs. Beaufort, yet but partially acquainted with the terrors of her
+husband, still clung to hope for Arthur. Her affection for him brought
+out from the depths of her cold and insignificant character qualities
+that had never before been apparent. She watched--she nursed--she tended
+him. The fine lady was gone; nothing but the mother was left behind.
+
+With a delicate constitution, and with an easy temper, which yielded to
+the influence of companions inferior to himself, except in bodily vigour
+and more sturdy will, Arthur Beaufort had been ruined by prosperity.
+His talents and acquirements, if not first-rate, at least far above
+mediocrity, had only served to refine his tastes, not to strengthen his
+mind. His amiable impulses, his charming disposition and sweet temper,
+had only served to make him the dupe of the parasites that feasted on
+the lavish heir. His heart, frittered away in the usual round of light
+intrigues and hollow pleasures, had become too sated and exhausted for
+the redeeming blessings of a deep and a noble love. He had so lived for
+Pleasure that he had never known Happiness. His frame broke by excesses
+in which his better nature never took delight, he came home--to hear of
+ruin and to die!
+
+It was evening in the sick-room. Arthur had risen from the bed to which,
+for some days, he had voluntarily taken, and was stretched on the sofa
+before the fire. Camilla was leaning over him, keeping in the shade,
+that he might not see the tears which she could not suppress. His mother
+had been endeavouring to amuse him, as she would have amused herself, by
+reading aloud one of the light novels of the hour; novels that paint the
+life of the higher classes as one gorgeous holyday.
+
+"My dear mother," said the patient querulously, "I have no interest
+in these false descriptions of the life I have led. I know that life's
+worth. Ah! had I been trained to some employment, some profession! had
+I--well--it is weak to repine. Mother, tell me, you have seen Mons. de
+Vaudemont: is he strong and healthy?"
+
+"Yes; too much so. He has not your elegance, dear Arthur."
+
+"And do you admire him, Camilla? Has no other caught your heart or your
+fancy?"
+
+"My dear Arthur," interrupted Mrs. Beaufort, "you forget that Camilla
+is scarcely out; and of course a young girl's affections, if she's well
+brought up, are regulated by the experience of her parents. It is time
+to take the medicine: it certainly agrees with you; you have more colour
+to-day, my dear, dear son."
+
+While Mrs. Beaufort was pouring out the medicine, the door gently
+opened, and Mr. Robert Beaufort appeared; behind him there rose a taller
+and a statelier form, but one which seemed more bent, more humbled,
+more agitated. Beaufort advanced. Camilla looked up and turned pale. The
+visitor escaped from Mr. Beaufort's grasp on his arm; he came forward,
+trembling, he fell on his knees beside Arthur, and seizing his hand,
+bent over, it in silence. But silence so stormy! silence more impressive
+than all words his breast heaved, his whole frame shook. Arthur guessed
+at once whom he saw, and bent down gently as if to raise his visitor.
+
+"Oh! Arthur! Arthur!" then cried Philip; "forgive me! My mother's
+comforter--my cousin--my brother! Oh! brother, forgive me!"
+
+And as he half rose, Arthur stretched out his arms, and Philip clasped
+him to his breast.
+
+It is in vain to describe the different feelings that agitated those who
+beheld; the selfish congratulations of Robert, mingled with a better and
+purer feeling; the stupor of the mother; the emotions that she herself
+could not unravel, which rooted Camilla to the spot.
+
+"You own me, then,--you own me!" cried Philip. "You accept the
+brotherhood that my mad passions once rejected! And you, too--you,
+Camilla--you who once knelt by my side, under this very roof--do you
+remember me now? Oh, Arthur! that letter--that letter!--yes, indeed,
+that aid which I ascribed to any one--rather than to you--made the date
+of a fairer fortune. I may have owed to that aid the very fate that has
+preserved me till now; the very name which I have not discredited. No,
+no; do not think you can ask me a favour; you can but claim your due.
+Brother! my dear brother!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+   "Warwick.--Exceeding well! his cares are now all over."
+   --Henry IV.
+
+The excitement of this interview soon overpowering Arthur, Philip,
+in quitting the room with Mr. Beaufort, asked a conference with that
+gentleman; and they went into the very parlour from which the rich man
+had once threatened to expel the haggard suppliant. Philip glanced round
+the room, and the whole scene came again before him. After a pause, he
+thus began,--
+
+"Mr. Beaufort, let the Past be forgotten. We may have need of mutual
+forgiveness, and I, who have so wronged your noble son, am willing
+to suppose that I misjudged you. I cannot, it is true, forego this
+lawsuit."
+
+Mr. Beaufort's face fell.
+
+"I have no right to do so. I am the trustee of my father's honour and my
+mother's name: I must vindicate both: I cannot forego this lawsuit. But
+when I once bowed myself to enter your house--then only with a hope,
+where now I have the certainty of obtaining my heritage--it was with the
+resolve to bury in oblivion every sentiment that would transgress the
+most temperate justice. Now, I will do more. If the law decide against
+me, we are as we were; if with me--listen: I will leave you the lands
+of Beaufort, for your life and your son's. I ask but for me and for mine
+such a deduction from your wealth as will enable me, should my brother
+be yet living, to provide for him; and (if you approve the choice, which
+out of all earth I would desire to make) to give whatever belongs to
+more refined or graceful existence than I myself care for,--to her whom
+I would call my wife. Robert Beaufort, in this room I once asked you
+to restore to me the only being I then loved: I am now again your
+suppliant; and this time you have it in your power to grant my prayer.
+Let Arthur be, in truth, my brother: give me, if I prove myself, as I
+feel assured, entitled to hold the name my father bore, give me your
+daughter as my wife; give me Camilla, and I will not envy you the lands
+I am willing for myself to resign; and if they pass to any children,
+those children will be your daughter's!"
+
+The first impulse of Mr. Beaufort was to grasp the hand held out to
+him; to pour forth an incoherent torrent of praise and protestation,
+of assurances that he could not hear of such generosity, that what was
+right was right, that he should be proud of such a son-in-law, and much
+more in the same key. And in the midst of this, it suddenly occurred to
+Mr. Beaufort, that if Philip's case were really as good as he said it
+was, he could not talk so coolly of resigning the property it would
+secure him for the term of a life (Mr. Beaufort thought of his own) so
+uncommonly good, to say nothing of Arthur's. At this notion, he thought
+it best not to commit himself too far; drew in as artfully as he could,
+until he could consult Lord Lilburne and his lawyer; and recollecting
+also that he had a great deal to manage with respect to Camilla and her
+prior attachment, he began to talk of his distress for Arthur, of the
+necessity of waiting a little before Camilla was spoken to, while so
+agitated about her brother, of the exceedingly strong case which his
+lawyer advised him he possessed--not but what he would rather rest the
+matter on justice than law--and that if the law should be with him,
+he would not the less (provided he did not force his daughter's
+inclinations, of which, indeed, he had no fear) be most happy to bestow
+her hand on his brother's nephew, with such a portion as would be most
+handsome to all parties.
+
+It often happens to us in this world, that when we come with our heart
+in our hands to some person or other,--when we pour out some generous
+burst of feeling so enthusiastic and self-sacrificing, that a bystander
+would call us fool and Quixote;--it often, I say, happens to us, to find
+our warm self suddenly thrown back upon our cold self; to discover that
+we are utterly uncomprehended, and that the swine who would have munched
+up the acorn does not know what to make of the pearl. That sudden ice
+which then freezes over us, that supreme disgust and despair almost
+of the whole world, which for the moment we confound with the one
+worldling--they who have felt, may reasonably ascribe to Philip. He
+listened to Mr. Beaufort in utter and contemptuous silence, and then
+replied only,--
+
+"Sir, at all events this is a question for law to decide. If it decide
+as you think, it is for you to act; if as I think, it is for me. Till
+then I will speak to you no more of your daughter, or my intentions.
+Meanwhile, all I ask is the liberty to visit your son. I would not be
+banished from his sick-room!"
+
+"My dear nephew!" cried Mr. Beaufort, again alarmed, "consider this
+house as your home."
+
+Philip bowed and retreated to the door, followed obsequiously by his
+uncle.
+
+It chanced that both Lord Lilburne and Mr. Blackwell were of the same
+mind as to the course advisable for Mr. Beaufort now to pursue. Lord
+Lilburne was not only anxious to exchange a hostile litigation for
+an amicable lawsuit, but he was really eager to put the seal of
+relationship upon any secret with regard to himself that a man who might
+inherit L20,000. a year--a dead shot, and a bold tongue--might think
+fit to disclose. This made him more earnest than he otherwise might have
+been in advice as to other people's affairs. He spoke to Beaufort as a
+man of the world--to Blackwell as a lawyer.
+
+"Pin the man down to his generosity," said Lilburne, "before he gets
+the property. Possession makes a great change in a man's value of money.
+After all, you can't enjoy the property when you're dead: he gives it
+next to Arthur, who is not married; and if anything happen to Arthur,
+poor fellow, why, in devolving on your daughter's husband and children,
+it goes in the right line. Pin him down at once: get credit with the
+world for the most noble and disinterested conduct, by letting your
+counsel state that the instant you discovered the lost document you
+wished to throw no obstacle in the way of proving the marriage, and that
+the only thing to consider is, if the marriage be proved; if so, you
+will be the first to rejoice, &c. &c. You know all that sort of humbug
+as well as any man!"
+
+Mr. Blackwell suggested the same advice, though in different
+words--after taking the opinions of three eminent members of the bar;
+those opinions, indeed, were not all alike--one was adverse to Mr.
+Robert Beaufort's chance of success, one was doubtful of it, the
+third maintained that he had nothing to fear from the action--except,
+possibly, the ill-natured construction of the world. Mr. Robert Beaufort
+disliked the idea of the world's ill-nature, almost as much as he
+did that of losing his property. And when even this last and more
+encouraging authority, learning privately from Mr. Blackwell that
+Arthur's illness was of a nature to terminate fatally, observed, "that a
+compromise with a claimant, who was at all events Mr. Beaufort's nephew,
+by which Mr. Beaufort could secure the enjoyment of the estates to
+himself for life, and to his son for life also, should not (whatever
+his probabilities of legal success) be hastily rejected--unless he had
+a peculiar affection for a very distant relation--who, failing Mr.
+Beaufort's male issue and Philip's claim, would be heir-at-law, but
+whose rights would cease if Arthur liked to cut off the entail."
+
+Mr. Beaufort at once decided. He had a personal dislike to that distant
+heir-at-law; he had a strong desire to retain the esteem of the world;
+he had an innate conviction of the justice of Philip's claim; he had a
+remorseful recollection of his brother's generous kindness to himself;
+he preferred to have for his heir, in case of Arthur's decease, a nephew
+who would marry his daughter, than a remote kinsman. And should, after
+all, the lawsuit fail to prove Philip's right, he was not sorry to have
+the estate in his own power by Arthur's act in cutting off the entail.
+Brief; all these reasons decided him. He saw Philip--he spoke to
+Arthur--and all the preliminaries, as suggested above, were arranged
+between the parties. The entail was cut off, and Arthur secretly
+prevailed upon his father, to whom, for the present, the fee-simple thus
+belonged, to make a will, by which he bequeathed the estates to Philip,
+without reference to the question of his legitimacy. Mr. Beaufort felt
+his conscience greatly eased after this action--which, too, he could
+always retract if he pleased; and henceforth the lawsuit became but a
+matter of form, so far as the property it involved was concerned.
+
+While these negotiations went on, Arthur continued gradually to decline.
+Philip was with him always. The sufferer took a strange liking to this
+long-dreaded relation, this man of iron frame and thews. In Philip
+there was so much of life, that Arthur almost felt as if in his presence
+itself there was an antagonism to death. And Camilla saw thus her
+cousin, day by day, hour by hour, in that sick chamber, lending himself,
+with the gentle tenderness of a woman, to soften the pang, to arouse the
+weariness, to cheer the dejection. Philip never spoke to her of love:
+in such a scene that had been impossible. She overcame in their mutual
+cares the embarrassment she had before felt in his presence; whatever
+her other feelings, she could not, at least, but be grateful to one so
+tender to her brother. Three letters of Charles Spencer's had been, in
+the afflictions of the house, only answered by a brief line. She now
+took the occasion of a momentary and delusive amelioration in Arthur's
+disease to write to him more at length. She was carrying, as usual, the
+letter to her mother, when Mr. Beaufort met her, and took the letter
+from her hand. He looked embarrassed for a moment, and bade her follow
+him into his study. It was then that Camilla learned, for the first
+time, distinctly, the claims and rights of her cousin; then she learned
+also at what price those rights were to be enforced with the least
+possible injury to her father. Mr. Beaufort naturally put the case
+before her in the strongest point of the dilemma. He was to be
+ruined--utterly ruined; a pauper, a beggar, if Camilla did not save
+him. The master of his fate demanded his daughter's hand. Habitually
+subservient to even a whim of her parents, this intelligence, the
+entreaty, the command with which it was accompanied, overwhelmed her.
+She answered but by tears; and Mr. Beaufort, assured of her submission,
+left her, to consider of the tone of the letter he himself should write
+to Mr. Spencer. He had sat down to this very task when he was summoned
+to Arthur's room. His son was suddenly taken worse: spasms that
+threatened immediate danger convulsed and exhausted him, and when these
+were allayed, he continued for three days so feeble that Mr. Beaufort,
+his eyes now thoroughly opened to the loss that awaited him, had no
+thoughts even for worldly interests.
+
+On the night of the third day, Philip, Robert Beaufort, his wife, his
+daughter, were grouped round the death-bed of Arthur. The sufferer had
+just wakened from sleep, and he motioned to Philip to raise him. Mr.
+Beaufort started, as by the dim light he saw his son in the arms of
+Catherine's! and another Chamber of Death seemed, shadow-like, to
+replace the one before him. Words, long since uttered, knelled in his
+ear: "There shall be a death-bed yet beside which you shall see the
+spectre of her, now so calm, rising for retribution from the grave!" His
+blood froze, his hair stood erect; he cast a hurried, shrinking glance
+round the twilight of the darkened room: and with a feeble cry covered
+his white face with his trembling hands! But on Arthur's lips there was
+a serene smile; he turned his eyes from Philip to Camilla, and murmured,
+"She will repay you!" A pause, and the mother's shriek rang through the
+room! Robert Beaufort raised his face from his hands. His son was dead!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+        "Jul. And what reward do you propose?
+
+        It must be my love."--The Double Marriage.
+
+While these events, dark, hurried, and stormy, had befallen the family
+of his betrothed, Sidney Beaufort continued his calm life by the banks
+of the lovely lake. After a few weeks, his confidence in Camilla's
+fidelity overbore all his apprehensions and forebodings. Her letters,
+though constrained by the inspection to which they were submitted, gave
+him inexpressible consolation and delight. He began, however, early to
+fancy that there was a change in their tone. The letters seemed to shun
+the one subject to which all others were as nought; they turned rather
+upon the guests assembled at Beaufort Court; and why I know not,--for
+there was nothing in them to authorise jealousy--the brief words devoted
+to Monsieur de Vaudemont filled him with uneasy and terrible suspicion.
+He gave vent to these feelings, as fully as he dared do, under the
+knowledge that his letter would be seen; and Camilla never again even
+mentioned the name of Vaudemont. Then there was a long pause; then her
+brother's arrival and illness were announced; then, at intervals, but a
+few hurried lines; then a complete, long, dreadful silence, and lastly,
+with a deep black border and a solemn black seal, came the following
+letter from Mr. Beaufort:
+
+"MY DEAR SIR,--I have the unutterable grief to announce to you and your
+worthy uncle the irreparable loss I have sustained in the death of my
+only son. It is a month to day since he departed this life. He died,
+sir, as a Christian should die--humbly, penitently--exaggerating the few
+faults of his short life, but--(and here the writer's hypocrisy,
+though so natural to him--was it, that he knew not that he was
+hypocritical?--fairly gave way before the real and human anguish, for
+which there is no dictionary!) but I cannot pursue this theme!
+
+"Slowly now awakening to the duties yet left me to discharge, I cannot
+but be sensible of the material difference in the prospects of my
+remaining child. Miss Beaufort is now the heiress to an ancient name and
+a large fortune. She subscribes with me to the necessity of consulting
+those new considerations which so melancholy an event forces upon her
+mind. The little fancy--or liking--(the acquaintance was too short for
+more) that might naturally spring up between two amiable young persons
+thrown together in the country, must be banished from our thoughts. As a
+friend, I shall be always happy to hear of your welfare; and should you
+ever think of a profession in which I can serve you, you may command my
+utmost interest and exertions. I know, my young friend, what you will
+feel at first, and how disposed you will be to call me mercenary and
+selfish. Heaven knows if that be really my character! But at your age,
+impressions are easily effaced; and any experienced friend of the world
+will assure you that, in the altered circumstances of the case, I have
+no option. All intercourse and correspondence, of course, cease with
+this letter,--until, at least, we may all meet, with no sentiments but
+those of friendship and esteem. I desire my compliments to your worthy
+uncle, in which Mrs. and Miss Beaufort join; and I am sure you will
+be happy to hear that my wife and daughter, though still in great
+affliction, have suffered less in health than I could have ventured to
+anticipate.
+
+"Believe me, dear Sir,
+
+"Yours sincerely,
+
+"ROBERT BEAUFORT.
+
+"To C. SPENCER, Esq., Jun."
+
+When Sidney received this letter, he was with Mr. Spencer, and the
+latter read it over the young man's shoulder, on which he leant
+affectionately. When they came to the concluding words, Sidney turned
+round with a vacant look and a hollow smile. "You see, sir," he said,
+"you see---"
+
+"My boy--my son--you bear this as you ought. Contempt will soon
+efface--"
+
+Sidney started to his feet, and his whole countenance was changed.
+
+"Contempt--yes, for him! But for her--she knows it not--she is no party
+to this--I cannot believe it--I will not! I--I----" and he rushed out
+of the room. He was absent till nightfall, and when he returned, he
+endeavoured to appear calm--but it was in vain.
+
+The next day brought him a letter from Camilla, written unknown to
+her parents,--short, it is true (confirming the sentence of separation
+contained in her father's), and imploring him not to reply to it,--but
+still so full of gentle and of sorrowful feeling, so evidently worded
+in the wish to soften the anguish she inflicted, that it did more than
+soothe--it even administered hope.
+
+Now when Mr. Robert Beaufort had recovered the ordinary tone of his mind
+sufficiently to indite the letter Sidney had just read, he had become
+fully sensible of the necessity of concluding the marriage between
+Philip and Camilla before the publicity of the lawsuit. The action for
+the ejectment could not take place before the ensuing March or April. He
+would waive the ordinary etiquette of time and mourning to arrange all
+before. Indeed, he lived in hourly fear lest Philip should discover
+that he had a rival in his brother, and break off the marriage, with
+its contingent advantages. The first announcement of such a suit in the
+newspapers might reach the Spencers; and if the young man were, as he
+doubted not, Sidney Beaufort, would necessarily bring him forward, and
+ensure the dreaded explanation. Thus apprehensive and ever scheming,
+Robert Beaufort spoke to Philip so much, and with such apparent feeling,
+of his wish to gratify, at the earliest possible period, the last wish
+of his son, in the union now arranged--he spoke, with such seeming
+consideration and good sense, of the avoidance of all scandal and
+misinterpretation in the suit itself, which suit a previous marriage
+between the claimant and his daughter would show at once to be of so
+amicable a nature,--that Philip, ardently in love as he was, could not
+but assent to any hastening of his expected happiness compatible with
+decorum. As to any previous publicity by way of newspaper comment, he
+agreed with Mr. Beaufort in deprecating it. But then came the question,
+What name was he to bear in the interval?
+
+"As to that," said Philip, somewhat proudly, "when, after my mother's
+suit in her own behalf, I persuaded her not to bear the name of
+Beaufort, though her due--and for my own part, I prized her own modest
+name, which under such dark appearances was in reality spotless--as much
+as the loftier one which you bear and my father bore;--so I shall not
+resume the name the law denies me till the law restores it to me. Law
+alone can efface the wrong which law has done me."
+
+Mr. Beaufort was pleased with this reasoning (erroneous though it was),
+and he now hoped that all would be safely arranged.
+
+That a girl so situated as Camilla, and of a character not energetic
+or profound, but submissive, dutiful, and timid, should yield to the
+arguments of her father, the desire of her dying brother--that she
+should not dare to refuse to become the instrument of peace to a divided
+family, the saving sacrifice to her father's endangered fortunes--that,
+in fine, when, nearly a month after Arthur's death, her father, leading
+her into the room, where Philip waited her footstep with a beating
+heart, placed her hand in his--and Philip falling on his knees said,
+"May I hope to retain this hand for life?"--she should falter out such
+words as he might construe into not reluctant acquiescence; that all
+this should happen is so natural that the reader is already prepared
+for it. But still she thought with bitter and remorseful feelings of him
+thus deliberately and faithlessly renounced. She felt how deeply he had
+loved her--she knew how fearful would be his grief. She looked sad and
+thoughtful; but her brother's death was sufficient in Philip's eyes to
+account for that. The praises and gratitude of her father, to whom she
+suddenly seemed to become an object of even greater pride and affection
+than ever Arthur had been--the comfort of a generous heart, that takes
+pleasure in the very sacrifice it makes--the acquittal of her conscience
+as to the motives of her conduct--began, however, to produce their
+effect. Nor, as she had lately seen more of Philip, could she be
+insensible of his attachment--of his many noble qualities--of the pride
+which most women might have felt in his addresses, when his rank was
+once made clear; and as she had ever been of a character more regulated
+by duty than passion, so one who could have seen what was passing in
+her mind would have had little fear for Philip's future happiness in her
+keeping--little fear but that, when once married to him, her affections
+would have gone along with her duties; and that if the first love
+were yet recalled, it would be with a sigh due rather to some romantic
+recollection than some continued regret. Few of either sex are ever
+united to their first love; yet married people jog on, and call each
+other "my dear" and "my darling" all the same. It might be, it is true,
+that Philip would be scarcely loved with the intenseness with which he
+loved; but if Camilla's feelings were capable of corresponding to the
+ardent and impassioned ones of that strong and vehement nature--such
+feelings were not yet developed in her. The heart of the woman might
+still be half concealed in the vale of the virgin innocence. Philip
+himself was satisfied--he believed that he was beloved: for it is the
+property of love, in a large and noble heart, to reflect itself, and to
+see its own image in the eyes on which it looks. As the Poet gives ideal
+beauty and excellence to some ordinary child of Eve, worshipping less
+the being that is than the being he imagines and conceives--so Love,
+which makes us all poets for a while, throws its own divine light over
+a heart perhaps really cold; and becomes dazzled into the joy of a false
+belief by the very lustre with which it surrounds its object.
+
+The more, however, Camilla saw of Philip, the more (gradually
+overcoming her former mysterious and superstitious awe of him) she grew
+familiarised to his peculiar cast of character and thought, so the more
+she began to distrust her father's assertion, that he had insisted on
+her hand as a price--a bargain--an equivalent for the sacrifice of a
+dire revenge. And with this thought came another. Was she worthy of this
+man?--was she not deceiving him? Ought she not to say, at least, that
+she had known a previous attachment, however determined she might be
+to subdue it? Often the desire for this just and honourable confession
+trembled on her lips, and as often was it checked by some chance
+circumstance or some maiden fear. Despite their connection, there was
+not yet between them that delicious intimacy which ought to accompany
+the affiance of two hearts and souls. The gloom of the house; the
+restraint on the very language of love imposed by a death so recent
+and so deplored, accounted in much for this reserve. And for the
+rest, Robert Beaufort prudently left them very few and very brief
+opportunities to be alone.
+
+In the meantime, Philip (now persuaded that the Beauforts were ignorant
+of his brother's fate) had set Mr. Barlow's activity in search
+of Sidney; and his painful anxiety to discover one so dear and so
+mysteriously lost was the only cause of uneasiness apparent in the
+brightening Future. While these researches, hitherto fruitless, were
+being made, it so happened, as London began now to refill, and gossip
+began now to revive, that a report got abroad, no one knew how (probably
+from the servants) that Monsieur de Vaudemont, a distinguished French
+officer, was shortly to lead the daughter and sole heiress of Robert
+Beaufort, Esq., M.P., to the hymeneal altar; and that report very
+quickly found its way into the London papers: from the London papers
+it spread to the provincial--it reached the eyes of Sidney in his now
+gloomy and despairing solitude. The day that he read it he disappeared.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+     "Jul.... Good lady, love him!
+     You have a noble and an honest gentleman.
+     I ever found him so.
+     Love him no less than I have done, and serve him,
+     And Heaven shall bless you--you shall bless my ashes."
+     BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: The Double Marriage.
+
+We have been too long absent from Fanny; it is time to return to her.
+The delight she experienced when Philip made her understand all the
+benefits, the blessings, that her courage, nay, her intellect, had
+bestowed upon him, the blushing ecstasy with which she heard (as they
+returned to H----, the eventful morning of her deliverance, side by
+side, her hand clasped in his, and often pressed to his grateful lips)
+his praises, his thanks, his fear for her safety, his joy at regaining
+her--all this amounted to a bliss, which, till then, she could not have
+conceived that life was capable of bestowing. And when he left her at
+H----, to hurry to his lawyer's with the recovered document, it was but
+for an hour. He returned, and did not quit her for several days. And in
+that time he became sensible of her astonishing, and, to him, it seemed
+miraculous, improvement in all that renders Mind the equal to Mind;
+miraculous, for he guessed not the Influence that makes miracles its
+commonplace. And now he listened attentively to her when she conversed;
+he read with her (though reading was never much in his vocation), his
+unfastidious ear was charmed with her voice, when it sang those simple
+songs; and his manner (impressed alike by gratitude for the signal
+service rendered to him, and by the discovery that Fanny was no longer
+a child, whether in mind or years), though not less gentle than before,
+was less familiar, less superior, more respectful, and more earnest.
+It was a change which raised her in her own self-esteem. Ah, those were
+rosy days for Fanny!
+
+A less sagacious judge of character than Lilburne would have formed
+doubts perhaps of the nature of Philip's interest in Fanny. But he
+comprehended at once the fraternal interest which a man like Philip
+might well take in a creature like Fanny, if commended to his care by a
+protector whose doom was so awful as that which had ingulfed the life
+of William Gawtrey. Lilburne had some thoughts at first of claiming
+her, but as he had no power to compel her residence with him, he did not
+wish, on consideration, to come again in contact with Philip upon ground
+so full of humbling recollections as that still overshadowed by the
+images of Gawtrey and Mary. He contented himself with writing an artful
+letter to Simon, stating that from Fanny's residence with Mr. Gawtrey,
+and from her likeness to her mother, whom he had only seen as a child,
+he had conjectured the relationship she bore to himself; and having
+obtained other evidence of that fact (he did not say what or where), he
+had not scrupled to remove her to his roof, meaning to explain all to
+Mr. Simon Gawtrey the next day. This letter was accompanied by one from
+a lawyer, informing Simon Gawtrey that Lord Lilburne would pay L200. a
+year, in quarterly payments, to his order; and that he was requested to
+add, that when the young lady he had so benevolently reared came of age,
+or married, an adequate provision would be made for her. Simon's mind
+blazed up at this last intelligence, when read to him, though he neither
+comprehended nor sought to know why Lord Lilburne should be so generous,
+or what that noble person's letter to himself was intended to convey.
+For two days, he seemed restored to vigorous sense; but when he had
+once clutched the first payment made in advance, the touch of the money
+seemed to numb him back to his lethargy: the excitement of desire died
+in the dull sense of possession.
+
+And just at that time Fanny's happiness came to a close. Philip received
+Arthur Beaufort's letter; and now ensued long and frequent absences; and
+on his return, for about an hour or so at a time, he spoke of sorrow and
+death; and the books were closed and the songs silenced. All fear for
+Fanny's safety was, of course, over; all necessity for her work; their
+little establishment was increased. She never stirred out without Sarah;
+yet she would rather that there had been some danger on her account for
+him to guard against, or some trial that his smile might soothe.
+His prolonged absences began to prey upon her--the books ceased to
+interest--no study filled up the dreary gap--her step grew listless--her
+cheek pale--she was sensible at last that his presence had become
+necessary to her very life. One day, he came to the house earlier than
+usual, and with a much happier and serener expression of countenance
+than he had worn of late.
+
+Simon was dozing in his chair, with his old dog, now scarce vigorous
+enough to bark, curled up at his feet. Neither man nor dog was more as
+a witness to what was spoken than the leathern chair, or the hearth-rug,
+on which they severally reposed.
+
+There was something which, in actual life, greatly contributed to the
+interest of Fanny's strange lot, but which, in narration, I feel
+I cannot make sufficiently clear to the reader. And this was her
+connection and residence with that old man. Her character forming, as
+his was completely gone; here, the blank becoming filled--there, the
+page fading to a blank. It was the utter, total Deathliness-in-Life of
+Simon, that, while so impressive to see, renders it impossible to bring
+him before the reader in his full force of contrast to the young Psyche.
+He seldom spoke--often, not from morning till night; he now seldom
+stirred. It is in vain to describe the indescribable: let the reader
+draw the picture for himself. And whenever (as I sometimes think he
+will, after he has closed this book) he conjures up the idea he attaches
+to the name of its heroine, let him see before her, as she glides
+through the humble room--as she listens to the voice of him she
+loves--as she sits musing by the window, with the church spire just
+visible--as day by day the soul brightens and expands within her--still
+let the reader see within the same walls, greyhaired, blind, dull to all
+feeling, frozen to all life, that stony image of Time and Death! Perhaps
+then he may understand why they who beheld the real and living Fanny
+blooming under that chill and mass of shadow, felt that her grace, her
+simplicity, her charming beauty, were raised by the contrast, till
+they grew associated with thoughts and images, mysterious and profound,
+belonging not more to the lovely than to the sublime.
+
+So there sat the old man; and Philip, though aware of his presence,
+speaking as if he were alone with Fanny, after touching on more casual
+topics, thus addressed her:
+
+"My true and my dear friend, it is to you that I shall owe, not only my
+rights and fortune, but the vindication of my mother's memory. You have
+not only placed flowers upon that gravestone, but it is owing to you,
+under Providence, that it will be inscribed at last with the Name which
+refutes all calumny. Young and innocent as you now are, my gentle and
+beloved benefactress, you cannot as yet know what a blessing it will be
+to me to engrave that Name upon that simple stone. Hereafter, when you
+yourself are a wife, a mother, you will comprehend the service you have
+rendered to the living and the dead!"
+
+He stopped--struggling with the rush of emotions that overflowed his
+heart. Alas, THE DEAD! what service can we render to them?--what availed
+it now, either to the dust below, or to the immortality above, that the
+fools and knaves of this world should mention the Catherine whose life
+was gone, whose ears were deaf, with more or less respect? There is
+in calumny that poison that, even when the character throws off the
+slander, the heart remains diseased beneath the effect. They say that
+truth comes sooner or later; but it seldom comes before the soul,
+passing from agony to contempt, has grown callous to men's judgments.
+Calumniate a human being in youth--adulate that being in age;--what has
+been the interval? Will the adulation atone either for the torture, or
+the hardness which the torture leaves at last? And if, as in Catherine's
+case (a case, how common!), the truth come too late--if the tomb is
+closed--if the heart you have wrung can be wrung no more--why the truth
+is as valueless as the epitaph on a forgotten Name! Some such conviction
+of the hollowness of his own words, when he spoke of service to the
+dead, smote upon Philip's heart, and stopped the flow of his words.
+
+Fanny, conscious only of his praise, his thanks, and the tender
+affection of his voice, stood still silent--her eyes downcast, her
+breast heaving.
+
+Philip resumed:
+
+"And now, Fanny, my honoured sister, I would thank you for more, were it
+possible, even than this. I shall owe to you not only name and fortune,
+but happiness. It is from the rights to which you have assisted me, and
+which will shortly be made clear, that I am able to demand a hand I have
+so long coveted--the hand of one as dear to me as you are. In a word,
+the time has, this day, been fixed, when I shall have a home to offer
+to you and to this old man--when I can present to you a sister who will
+prize you as I do: for I love you so dearly--I owe you so much--that
+even that home would lose half its smiles if you were not there. Do you
+understand me, Fanny? The sister I speak of will be my wife!"
+
+The poor girl who heard this speech of most cruel tenderness did not
+fall, or faint, or evince any outward emotion, except in a deadly
+paleness. She seemed like one turned to stone. Her very breath forsook
+her for some moments, and then came back with a long deep sigh. She laid
+her hand lightly on his arm, and said calmly:
+
+"Yes--I understand. We once saw a wedding. You are to be married--I
+shall see yours!"
+
+"You shall; and, later, perhaps, I may see your own."
+
+"I have a brother. Ah! if I could but find him--younger than I
+am--beautiful almost as you!"
+
+"You will be happy," said Fanny, still calmly.
+
+"I have long placed my hopes of happiness in such a union! Stay, where
+are you going?"
+
+"To pray for you," said Fanny, with a smile, in which there was
+something of the old vacancy, as she walked gently from the room. Philip
+followed her with moistened eyes. Her manner might have deceived one
+more vain. He soon after quitted the house, and returned to town.
+
+Three hours after, Sarah found Fanny stretched on the floor of her own
+room--so still--so white--that, for some moments, the old woman thought
+life was gone. She recovered, however, by degrees; and, after putting
+her hands to her eyes, and muttering some moments, seemed much as usual,
+except that she was more silent, and that her lips remained colourless,
+and her hands cold like stone.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+   "Vec. Ye see what follows.
+   Duke. O gentle sir! this shape again!"--The Chances.
+
+That evening Sidney Beaufort arrived in London. It is the nature of
+solitude to make passions calm on the surface--agitated in the deeps.
+Sidney had placed his whole existence in one object. When the letter
+arrived that told him to hope no more, he was at first rather sensible
+of the terrible and dismal blank--the "void abyss"--to which all his
+future was suddenly changed, than roused to vehement and turbulent
+emotion. But Camilla's letter had, as we have seen, raised his courage
+and animated his heart. To the idea of her faith he still clung with
+the instinct of hope in the midst of despair. The tidings that she
+was absolutely betrothed to another, and in so short a time since her
+rejection of him, let loose from all restraint his darker and more
+tempestuous passions. In a state of mind bordering upon frenzy, he
+hurried to London--to seek her--to see her; with what intent--what hope,
+if hope there were--he himself could scarcely tell. But what man who has
+loved with fervour and trust will be contented to receive the sentence
+of eternal separation except from the very lips of the one thus
+worshipped and thus foresworn?
+
+The day had been intensely cold. Towards evening the snow fell fast and
+heavily. Sidney had not, since a child, been before in London; and the
+immense City, covered with a wintry and icy mist, through which the
+hurrying passengers and the slow-moving vehicles passed, spectre-like,
+along the dismal and slippery streets--opened to the stranger no
+hospitable arms. He knew not a step of the way--he was pushed to and
+fro--his scarce intelligible questions impatiently answered--the snow
+covered him--the frost pierced to his veins. At length a man, more
+kindly than the rest, seeing that he was a stranger to London, procured
+him a hackney-coach, and directed the driver to the distant quarter
+of Berkeley Square. The snow balled under the hoofs of the horses--the
+groaning vehicle proceeded at the pace of a hearse. At length, and
+after a period of such suspense, and such emotion, as Sidney never
+in after-life could recall without a shudder, the coach stopped--the
+benumbed driver heavily descended--the sound of the knocker knelled loud
+through the muffled air--and the light from Mr. Beaufort's hall glared
+full upon the dizzy eyes of the visitor. He pushed aside the porter, and
+sprang into the hall. Luckily, one of the footmen who had attended Mrs.
+Beaufort to the Lakes recognised him; and, in answer to his breathless
+inquiry, said,--
+
+"Why, indeed, Mr. Spencer, Miss Beaufort is at home--up-stairs in the
+drawing-room, with master and mistress, and Monsieur de Vaudemont;
+but--"
+
+Sidney waited no more. He bounded up the stairs--he opened the
+first door that presented itself to him, and burst, unannounced and
+unlooked-for, upon the eyes of the group seated within. He saw not the
+terrified start of Mr. Robert Beaufort--he heeded not the faint, nervous
+exclamation of the mother--he caught not the dark and wondering glace of
+the stranger seated beside Camilla--he saw but Camilla herself, and in a
+moment he was at her feet.
+
+"Camilla, I am here!--I, who love you so--I, who have nothing in the
+world but you! I am here--to learn from you, and you alone, if I am
+indeed abandoned--if you are indeed to be another's!"
+
+He had dashed his hat from his brow as he sprang forward; his long fair
+hair, damp with the snows, fell disordered over his forehead; his eyes
+were fixed, as for life and death, upon the pale face and trembling
+lips of Camilla. Robert Beaufort, in great alarm, and well aware of the
+fierce temper of Philip, anticipative of some rash and violent impulse,
+turned his glance upon his destined son-in-law. But there was no angry
+pride in the countenance he there beheld. Philip had risen, but his
+frame was bent--his knees knocked together--his lips were parted--his
+eyes were staring full upon the face of the kneeling man.
+
+Suddenly Camilla, sharing her father's fear, herself half rose, and
+with an unconscious pathos, stretched one hand, as if to shelter, over
+Sidney's head, and looked to Philip. Sidney's eyes followed hers. He
+sprang to his feet.
+
+"What, then, it is true! And this is the man for whom I am abandoned!
+But unless you--you, with your own lips, tell me that you love me no
+more--that you love another--I will not yield you but with life."
+
+He stalked sternly and impetuously up to Philip, who recoiled as his
+rival advanced. The characters of the two men seemed suddenly changed.
+The timid dreamer seemed dilated into the fearless soldier. The soldier
+seemed shrinking--quailing--into nameless terror. Sidney grasped that
+strong arm, as Philip still retreated, with his slight and delicate
+fingers, grasped it with violence and menace; and frowning into the face
+from which the swarthy blood was scared away, said, in a hollow whisper:
+
+"Do you hear me? Do you comprehend me? I say that she shall not be
+forced into a marriage at which I yet believe her heart rebels. My claim
+is holier than yours. Renounce her, or win her but with my blood."
+
+Philip did not apparently hear the words thus addressed to him. His
+whole senses seemed absorbed in the one sense of sight. He continued to
+gaze upon the speaker, till his eye dropped on the hand that yet griped
+his arm. And as he thus looked, he uttered an inarticulate cry. He
+caught the hand in his own, and pointed to a ring on the finger, but
+remained speechless. Mr. Beaufort approached, and began some stammered
+words of soothing to Sidney, but Philip motioned him to be silent, and,
+at last, as if by a violent effort, gasped forth, not to Sidney, but to
+Beaufort,--
+
+"His name?--his name?"
+
+"It is Mr. Spencer--Mr. Charles Spencer," cried Beaufort. "Listen to me,
+I will explain all--I--"
+
+"Hush, hush! cried Philip; and turning to Sidney, he put his hand on his
+shoulder, and looking him full in the face, said,--
+
+"Have you not known another name? Are you not--yes, it is so--it is--it
+is! Follow me--follow!"
+
+And still retaining his grasp, and leading Sidney, who was now subdued,
+awed, and a prey to new and wild suspicions, he moved on gently, stride
+by stride--his eyes fixed on that fair face--his lips muttering--till
+the closing door shut both forms from the eyes of the three there left.
+
+It was the adjoining room into which Philip led his rival. It was lit
+but by a small reading-lamp, and the bright, steady blaze of the fire;
+and by this light they both continued to gaze on each other, as if
+spellbound, in complete silence. At last Philip, by an irresistible
+impulse, fell upon Sidney's bosom, and, clasping him with convulsive
+energy, gasped out:
+
+"Sidney!--Sidney!--my mother's son!"
+
+"What!" exclaimed Sidney, struggling from the embrace, and at last
+freeing himself; "it is you, then!--you, my own brother! You, who have
+been hitherto the thorn in my path, the cloud in my fate! You, who are
+now come to make me a wretch for life! I love that woman, and you tear
+her from me! You, who subjected my infancy to hardship, and, but for
+Providence, might have degraded my youth, by your example, into shame
+and guilt!"
+
+"Forbear!--forbear!" cried Philip, with a voice so shrill in its agony,
+that it smote the hearts of those in the adjoining chamber like the
+shriek of some despairing soul. They looked at each other, but not one
+had the courage to break upon the interview.
+
+Sidney himself was appalled by the sound. He threw himself on a seat,
+and, overcome by passions so new to him, by excitement so strange, hid
+his face, and sobbed as a child.
+
+Philip walked rapidly to and fro the room for some moments; at length he
+paused opposite to Sidney, and said, with the deep calmness of a wronged
+and goaded spirit:
+
+"Sidney Beaufort, hear me! When my mother died she confided you to
+my care, my love, and my protection. In the last lines that her hand
+traced, she bade me think less of myself than of you; to be to you as a
+father as well as brother. The hour that I read that letter I fell on
+my knees, and vowed that I would fulfil that injunction--that I would
+sacrifice my very self, if I could give fortune or happiness to you. And
+this not for your sake alone, Sidney; no! but as my mother--our wronged,
+our belied, our broken-hearted mother!--O Sidney, Sidney! have you no
+tears for her, too?" He passed his hand over his own eyes for a moment,
+and resumed: "But as our mother, in that last letter, said to me, 'let
+my love pass into your breast for him,' so, Sidney, so, in all that I
+could do for you, I fancied that my mother's smile looked down upon
+me, and that in serving you it was my mother whom I obeyed. Perhaps,
+hereafter, Sidney, when we talk over that period of my earlier life when
+I worked for you, when the degradation you speak of (there was no crime
+in it!)--was borne cheerfully for your sake, and yours the holiday
+though mine the task--perhaps, hereafter, you will do me more justice.
+You left me, or were reft from me, and I gave all the little fortune
+that my mother had bequeathed us, to get some tidings from you. I
+received your letter--that bitter letter--and I cared not then that I
+was a beggar, since I was alone. You talk of what I have cost you--you
+talk! and you now ask me to--to--Merciful Heaven! let me
+understand you--do you love Camilla? Does she love you?
+Speak--speak--explain--what, new agony awaits me?"
+
+It was then that Sidney, affected and humbled, amidst all his more
+selfish sorrows, by his brother's language and manner, related, as
+succinctly as he could, the history of his affection for Camilla, the
+circumstances of their engagement, and ended by placing before him the
+letter he had received from Mr. Beaufort.
+
+In spite of all his efforts for self-control, Philip's anguish was so
+great, so visible, that Sidney, after looking at his working features,
+his trembling hands, for a moment, felt all the earlier parts of his
+nature melt in a flow of generous sympathy and remorse. He flung himself
+on the breast from which he had shrunk before, and cried,--
+
+"Brother, brother! forgive me; I see how I have wronged you. If she has
+forgotten me, if she love you, take her and be happy!"
+
+Philip returned his embrace, but without warmth, and then moved away;
+and, again, in great disorder, paced the room. His brother only heard
+disjointed exclamations that seemed to escape him unawares: "They said
+she loved me! Heaven give me strength! Mother--mother! let me fulfil my
+vow! Oh, that I had died ere this!" He stopped at last, and the large
+dews rolled down his forehead. "Sidney!" said he, "there is a mystery
+here that I comprehend not. But my mind now is very confused. If she
+loves you--if!--is it possible for a woman to love two? Well, well, I go
+to solve the riddle: wait here!"
+
+He vanished into the next room, and for nearly half an hour Sidney was
+alone. He heard through the partition murmured voices; he caught more
+clearly the sound of Camilla's sobs. The particulars of that interview
+between Philip and Camilla, alone at first (afterwards Mr. Robert
+Beaufort was re-admitted), Philip never disclosed, nor could Sidney
+himself ever obtain a clear account from Camilla, who could not recall
+it, even years after, without great emotion. But at last the door was
+opened, and Philip entered, leading Camilla by the hand. His face was
+calm, and there was a smile on his lips; a greater dignity than even
+that habitual to him was diffused over his whole person. Camilla was
+holding her handkerchief to her eyes and weeping passionately. Mr.
+Beaufort followed them with a mortified and slinking air.
+
+"Sidney," said Philip, "it is past. All is arranged. I yield to your
+earlier, and therefore better, claim. Mr. Beaufort consents to your
+union. He will tell you, at some fitter time, that our birthright is
+at last made clear, and that there is no blot on the name we shall
+hereafter bear. Sidney, embrace your bride!"
+
+Amazed, delighted, and still half incredulous, Sidney seized and kissed
+the hand of Camilla; and as he then drew her to his breast, she said, as
+she pointed to Philip:--
+
+"Oh! if you do love me as you say, see in him the generous, the noble--"
+Fresh sobs broke off her speech; but as Sidney sought again to take her
+hand, she whispered, with a touching and womanly sentiment, "Ah! respect
+him: see!--" and Sidney, looking then at his brother, saw, that though
+he still attempted to smile, his lip writhed, and his features were
+drawn together, as one whose frame is wrung by torture, but who
+struggles not to groan.
+
+He flew to Philip, who, grasping his hand, held him back, and said,--
+
+"I have fulfilled my vow! I have given you up the only blessing my
+life has known. Enough, you are happy, and I shall be so too, when God
+pleases to soften this blow. And now you must not wonder or blame
+me, if, though so lately found, I leave you for a while. Do me one
+kindness,--you, Sidney--you, Mr. Beaufort. Let the marriage take place
+at H----, in the village church by which my mother sleeps; let it be
+delayed till the suit is terminated: by that time I shall hope to meet
+you all--to meet you, Camilla, as I ought to meet my brother's wife;
+till then, my presence will not sadden your happiness. Do not seek to
+see me; do not expect to hear from me. Hist! be silent, all of you; my
+heart is yet bruised and sore. O THOU," and here, deepening his voice,
+he raised his arms, "Thou who hast preserved my youth from such snares
+and such peril, who hast guided my steps from the abyss to which they
+wandered, and beneath whose hand I now bow, grateful if chastened,
+receive this offering, and bless that union! Fare ye well."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+     "Heaven's airs amid the harpstrings dwell;
+     And we wish they ne'er may fade;
+     They cease; and the soul is a silent cell,
+     Where music never played.
+     Dream follows dream through the long night-hours."
+     WILSON: The Past, a poem.
+
+The self-command which Philip had obtained for a while deserted him when
+he was without the house. His mind felt broken up into chaos; he hurried
+on, mechanically, on foot; he passed street upon street, now solitary
+and deserted, as the lamps gleamed upon the thick snow. The city was
+left behind him. He paused not, till, breathless, and exhausted in
+spirit if not in frame, he reached the churchyard where Catherine's dust
+reposed. The snow had ceased to fall, but it lay deep over the graves;
+the yew-trees, clad in their white shrouds, gleamed ghost-like through
+the dimness. Upon the rail that fenced the tomb yet hung a wreath that
+Fanny's hand had placed there. But the flowers were hid; it was a wreath
+of snow! Through the intervals of the huge and still clouds, there
+gleamed a few melancholy stars. The very calm of the holy spot seemed
+unutterably sad. The Death of the year overhung the Death of man. And as
+Philip bent over the tomb, within and without all was ICE and NIGHT!
+
+For hours he remained on that spot, alone with his grief and absorbed in
+his prayer. Long past midnight Fanny heard his step on the stairs, and
+the door of his chamber close with unwonted violence. She heard, too,
+for some time, his heavy tread on the floor, till suddenly all was
+silent. The next morning, when, at the usual hour, Sarah entered to
+unclose the shutters and light the fire, she was startled by wild
+exclamations and wilder laughter. The fever had mounted to the brain--he
+was delirious.
+
+For several weeks Philip Beaufort was in imminent danger; for a
+considerable part of that time he was unconscious; and when the peril
+was past, his recovery was slow and gradual. It was the only illness
+to which his vigorous frame had ever been subjected: and the fever
+had perhaps exhausted him more than it might have done one in whose
+constitution the disease had encountered less resistance. His brother;
+imagining he had gone abroad, was unacquainted with his danger. None
+tended his sick-bed save the hireling nurse, the feed physician, and the
+unpurchasable heart of the only being to whom the wealth and rank of the
+Heir of Beaufort Court were as nothing. Here was reserved for him Fate's
+crowning lesson, in the vanity of those human wishes which anchor in
+gold and power. For how many years had the exile and the outcast pined
+indignantly for his birthright?--Lo! it was won: and with it came the
+crushed heart and the smitten frame. As he slowly recovered sense and
+reasoning, these thoughts struck him forcibly. He felt as if he were
+rightly punished in having disdained, during his earlier youth,
+the enjoyments within his reach. Was there nothing in the glorious
+health--the unconquerable hope--the heart, if wrung, and chafed, and
+sorely tried, free at least from the direst anguish of the passions,
+disappointed and jealous love? Though now certain, if spared to the
+future, to be rich, powerful, righted in name and honour, might he not
+from that sick-bed envy his earlier past? even when with his brother
+orphan he wandered through the solitary fields, and felt with what
+energies we are gifted when we have something to protect; or when,
+loving and beloved, he saw life smile out to him in the eyes of Eugenie;
+or when, after that melancholy loss, he wrestled boldly, and breast to
+breast with Fortune, in a far land, for honour and independence? There
+is something in severe illness, especially if it be in violent contrast
+to the usual strength of the body, which has often the most salutary
+effect upon the mind; which often, by the affliction of the frame,
+roughly wins us from the too morbid pains of the heart! which makes us
+feel that, in mere LIFE, enjoyed as the robust enjoy it, God's Great
+Principle of Good breathes and moves. We rise thus from the sick-bed
+softened and humbled, and more disposed to look around us for such
+blessings as we may yet command.
+
+The return of Philip, his danger, the necessity of exertion, of tending
+him, had roused Fanny from a state which might otherwise have been
+permanently dangerous to the intellect so lately ripened within her.
+With what patience, with what fortitude, with what unutterable thought
+and devotion, she fulfilled that best and holiest woman's duty--let the
+man whose struggle with life and death has been blessed with the vigil
+that wakes and saves, imagine to himself. And in all her anxiety and
+terror, she had glimpses of a happiness which it seemed to her almost
+criminal to acknowledge. For, even in his delirium, her voice seemed to
+have some soothing influence over him, and he was calmer while she was
+by. And when at last he was conscious, her face was the first he saw,
+and her name the first which his lips uttered. As then he grew gradually
+stronger, and the bed was deserted for the sofa, he took more than the
+old pleasure in hearing her read to him; which she did with a feeling
+that lecturers cannot teach. And once, in a pause from this occupation,
+he spoke to her frankly,--he sketched his past history--his last
+sacrifice. And Fanny, as she wept, learned that he was no more
+another's!
+
+It has been said that this man, naturally of an active and impatient
+temperament, had been little accustomed to seek those resources which
+are found in books. But somehow in that sick chamber--it was Fanny's
+voice--the voice of her over whose mind he had once so haughtily
+lamented, that taught him how much of aid and solace the Herd of Men
+derive from the Everlasting Genius of the Few.
+
+Gradually, and interval by interval, moment by moment, thus drawn
+together, all thought beyond shut out (for, however crushing for the
+time the blow that had stricken Philip from health and reason, he
+was not that slave to a guilty fancy, that he could voluntarily
+indulge--that he would not earnestly seek to shun--all sentiments
+that yet turned with unholy yearning towards the betrothed of his
+brother);--gradually, I say, and slowly, came those progressive and
+delicious epochs which mark a revolution in the affections:--unspeakable
+gratitude, brotherly tenderness, the united strength of compassion
+and respect that he had felt for Fanny seemed, as he gained health, to
+mellow into feelings yet more exquisite and deep. He could no longer
+delude himself with a vain and imperious belief that it was a defective
+mind that his heart protected; he began again to be sensible to the rare
+beauty of that tender face--more lovely, perhaps, for the paleness that
+had replaced its bloom. The fancy that he had so imperiously checked
+before--before he saw Camilla, returned to him, and neither pride nor
+honour had now the right to chase the soft wings away. One evening,
+fancying himself alone, he fell into a profound reverie; he awoke with
+a start, and the exclamation, "was it true love that I ever felt for
+Camilla, or a passion, a frenzy, a delusion?"
+
+His exclamation was answered by a sound that seemed both of joy and
+grief. He looked up, and saw Fanny before him; the light of the moon,
+just risen, fell full on her form, but her hands were clasped before her
+face; he heard her sob.
+
+"Fanny, dear Fanny!" he cried, and sought to throw himself from the sofa
+to her feet. But she drew herself away, and fled from the chamber silent
+as a dream.
+
+Philip rose, and, for the first time since his illness, walked, but with
+feeble steps, to and fro the room. With what different emotions from
+those in which last, in fierce and intolerable agony, he had paced that
+narrow boundary! Returning health crept through his veins--a serene,
+a kindly, a celestial joy circumfused his heart. Had the time yet come
+when the old Florimel had melted into snow; when the new and the true
+one, with its warm life, its tender beauty, its maiden wealth of love,
+had risen before his hopes? He paused before the window; the spot within
+seemed so confined, the night without so calm and lovely, that he forgot
+his still-clinging malady, and unclosed the casement: the air came soft
+and fresh upon his temples, and the church-tower and spire, for the
+first time, did not seem to him to rise in gloom against the heavens.
+Even the gravestone of Catherine, half in moonlight, half in shadow,
+appeared to him to wear a smile. His mother's memory was become linked
+with the living Fanny.
+
+"Thou art vindicated--thy Sidney is happy," he murmured: "to her the
+thanks!"
+
+Fair hopes, and soft thoughts busy within him, he remained at the
+casement till the increasing chill warned him of the danger he incurred.
+
+The next day, when the physician visited him, he found the fever had
+returned. For many days, Philip was again in danger--dull, unconscious
+even of the step and voice of Fanny.
+
+He woke at last as from a long and profound sleep; woke so refreshed,
+so revived, that he felt at once that some great crisis had been passed,
+and that at length he had struggled back to the sunny shores of Life.
+
+By his bedside sat Liancourt, who, long alarmed at his disappearance,
+had at last contrived, with the help of Mr. Barlow, to trace him to
+Gawtrey's house, and had for several days taken share in the vigils of
+poor Fanny.
+
+While he was yet explaining all this to Philip, and congratulating
+him on his evident recovery, the physician entered to confirm the
+congratulation. In a few days the invalid was able to quit his room, and
+nothing but change of air seemed necessary for his convalescence. It was
+then that Liancourt, who had for two days seemed impatient to unburden
+himself of some communication, thus addressed him:--
+
+"My--My dear friend, I have learned now your story from Barlow, who
+called several times during your relapse; and who is the more anxious
+about you, as the time for the decision of your case now draws near. The
+sooner you quit this house the better."
+
+"Quit this house! and why? Is there not one in this house to whom I owe
+my fortune and my life?"
+
+"Yes; and for that reason I say, 'Go hence:' it is the only return you
+can make her."
+
+"Pshaw!--speak intelligibly."
+
+"I will," said Liancourt, gravely. "I have been a watcher with her
+by your sick-bed, and I know what you must feel already:--nay, I must
+confess that even the old servant has ventured to speak to me. You have
+inspired that poor girl with feelings dangerous to her peace."
+
+"Ha!" cried Philip, with such joy that Liancourt frowned, and said,
+"Hitherto I have believed you too honourable to--"
+
+"So you think she loves me?" interrupted Philip. "Yes; what then? You,
+the heir of Beaufort Court, of a rental of L20,000. a year,--of an
+historical name,--you cannot marry this poor girl?"
+
+"Well!--I will consider what you say, and, at all events, I will leave
+the house to attend the result of the trial. Let us talk no more on the
+subject now."
+
+Philip had the penetration to perceive that Liancourt, who was greatly
+moved by the beauty, the innocence, and the unprotected position of
+Fanny, had not confined caution to himself; that with his characteristic
+well-meaning bluntness, and with the license of a man somewhat advanced
+in years, he had spoken to Fanny herself: for Fanny now seemed to shun
+Philip,--her eyes were heavy, her manner was embarrassed. He saw the
+change, but it did not grieve him; he hailed the omens which he drew
+from it.
+
+And at last he and Liancourt went. He was absent three weeks, during
+which time the formality of the friendly lawsuit was decided in the
+plaintiff's favour; and the public were in ecstasies at the noble
+and sublime conduct of Mr. Robert Beaufort: who, the moment he had
+discovered a document which he might so easily have buried for ever in
+oblivion, voluntarily agreed to dispossess himself of estates he had so
+long enjoyed, preferring conscience to lucre. Some persons observed that
+it was reported that Mr. Philip Beaufort had also been generous--that he
+had agreed to give up the estates for his uncle's life, and was only
+in the meanwhile to receive a fourth of the revenues. But the universal
+comment was, "He could not have done less!" Mr. Robert Beaufort was, as
+Lord Lilburne had once observed, a man who was born, made, and reared
+to be spoken well of by the world; and it was a comfort to him now,
+poor man, to feel that his character was so highly estimated. If
+Philip should live to the age of one hundred, he will never become so
+respectable and popular a man with the crowd as his worthy uncle. But
+does it much matter? Philip returned to H---- the eve before the day
+fixed for the marriage of his brother and Camilla.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+     From Night, Sunshine and Day arose--HES
+
+The sun of early May shone cheerfully over the quiet suburb of H----. In
+the thoroughfares life was astir. It was the hour of noon--the hour at
+which commerce is busy, and streets are full. The old retired trader,
+eying wistfully the rolling coach or the oft-pausing omnibus, was
+breathing the fresh and scented air in the broadest and most crowded
+road, from which, afar in the distance, rose the spires of the
+metropolis. The boy let loose from the day-school was hurrying home
+to dinner, his satchel on his back: the ballad-singer was sending her
+cracked whine through the obscurer alleys, where the baker's boy, with
+puddings on his tray, and the smart maid-servant, despatched for porter,
+paused to listen. And round the shops where cheap shawls and cottons
+tempted the female eye, many a loitering girl detained her impatient
+mother, and eyed the tickets and calculated her hard-gained savings for
+the Sunday gear. And in the corners of the streets steamed the itinerant
+kitchens of the piemen, and rose the sharp cry, "All hot! all hot!" in
+the ear of infant and ragged hunger. And amidst them all rolled on some
+lazy coach of ancient merchant or withered maiden, unconscious of any
+life but that creeping through their own languid veins. And before the
+house in which Catherine died, there loitered many stragglers, gossips,
+of the hamlet, subscribers to the news-room hard by, to guess, and
+speculate, and wonder why, from the church behind, there rose the merry
+peal of the marriage-bell!
+
+At length along the broad road leading from the great city, there were
+seen rapidly advancing three carriages of a very different fashion from
+those familiar to the suburb. On they came; swiftly they whirled round
+the angle that conducted to the church; the hoofs of the gay steeds
+ringing cheerily on the ground; the white favours of the servants
+gleaming in the sun. Happy is the bride the sun shines on! And when the
+carriages had thus vanished, the scattered groups melted into one crowd,
+and took their way to the church. They stood idling without in the
+burial-ground; many of them round the fence that guarded from
+their footsteps Catherine's lonely grave. All in nature was glad,
+exhilarating, and yet serene; a genial freshness breathed through the
+soft air; not a cloud was to be seen in the smiling azure; even the old
+dark yews seemed happy in their everlasting verdure. The bell ceased,
+and then even the crowd grew silent; and not a sound was heard in that
+solemn spot to whose demesnes are consecrated alike the Birth, the
+Marriage, and the Death.
+
+At length there came forth from the church door the goodly form of a
+rosy beadle. Approaching the groups, he whispered the better-dressed
+and commanded the ragged, remonstrated with the old and lifted his cane
+against the young; and the result of all was, that the churchyard, not
+without many a murmur and expostulation, was cleared, and the crowd fell
+back in the space behind the gates of the principal entrance, where they
+swayed and gaped and chattered round the carriages, which were to bear
+away the bridal party.
+
+Within the church, as the ceremony was now concluded, Philip Beaufort
+conducted, hand-in-hand, silently along the aisle, his brother's wife.
+
+Leaning on his stick, his cold sneer upon his thin lip, Lord Lilburne
+limped, step by step, with the pair, though a little apart from them,
+glancing from moment to moment at the face of Philip Beaufort, where he
+had hoped to read a grief that he could not detect. Lord Lilburne had
+carefully refrained from an interview with Philip till that day, and
+he now only came to the wedding as a surgeon goes to an hospital, to
+examine a disease he had been told would be great and sore: he was
+disappointed. Close behind followed Sidney, radiant with joy, and bloom,
+and beauty; and his kind guardian, the tears rolling down his eyes,
+murmured blessings as he looked upon him. Mrs. Beaufort had declined
+attending the ceremony--her nerves were too weak--but, behind, at a
+longer interval, came Robert Beaufort, sober, staid, collected as ever
+to outward seeming; but a close observer might have seen that his eye
+had lost its habitual complacent cunning, that his step was more
+heavy, his stoop more joyless. About his air there was a some thing
+crestfallen. The consciousness of acres had passed away from his portly
+presence. He was no longer a possessor, but a pensioner. The rich man,
+who had decided as he pleased on the happiness of others, was a cipher;
+he had ceased to have any interest in anything. What to him the marriage
+of his daughter now? Her children would not be the heirs of Beaufort.
+As Camilla kindly turned round, and through happy tears waited for his
+approach, to clasp his hand, he forced a smile, but it was sickly and
+piteous. He longed to creep away, and be alone.
+
+"My father!" said Camilla, in her sweet low voice; and she extricated
+herself from Philip, and threw herself on his breast.
+
+"She is a good child," said Robert Beaufort vacantly, and, turning
+his dry eyes to the group, he caught instinctively at his customary
+commonplaces;--"and a good child, Mr. Sidney, makes a good wife!"
+
+The clergyman bowed as if the compliment were addressed to himself: he
+was the only man there whom Robert Beaufort could now deceive.
+
+"My sister," said Philip Beaufort, as once more leaning on his arm, they
+paused before the church door, "may Sidney love and prize you as--as
+I would have done; and believe me, both of you, I have no regret, no
+memory, that wounds me now."
+
+He dropped the hand, and motioned to her father to load her to the
+carriage. Then winding his arm into Sidney's, he said,--
+
+"Wait till they are gone: I have one word yet with you. Go on,
+gentlemen."
+
+The clergyman bowed, and walked through the churchyard. But Lilburne,
+pausing and surveying Philip Beaufort, said to him, whisperingly,--
+
+"And so much for feeling--the folly! So much for generosity--the
+delusion! Happy man!"
+
+"I am thoroughly happy, Lord Lilburne."
+
+"Are you?--Then, it was neither feeling nor generosity; and we were
+taken in! Good day." With that he limped slowly to the gate.
+
+Philip answered not the sarcasm even by a look. For at that moment a
+loud shout was set up by the mob without--they had caught a glimpse of
+the bride.
+
+"Come, Sidney, this way." he said; "I must not detain you long."
+
+Arm in arm they passed out of the church, and turned to the spot hard
+by, where the flowers smiled up to them from the stone on their mother's
+grave.
+
+The old inscription had been effaced, and the name of CATHERINE BEAUFORT
+was placed upon the stone. "Brother," said Philip, "do not forget this
+grave: years hence, when children play around your own hearth. Observe,
+the name of Catherine Beaufort is fresher on the stone than the dates
+of birth and death--the name was only inscribed there to-day--your
+wedding-day. Brother, by this grave we are now indeed united."
+
+"Oh, Philip!" cried Sidney, in deep emotion, clasping the hand stretched
+out to him; "I feel, I feel how noble, how great you are--that you have
+sacrificed more than I dreamed of--"
+
+"Hush!" said Philip, with a smile. "No talk of this. I am happier than
+you deem me. Go back now--she waits you."
+
+"And you?--leave you!--alone!"
+
+"Not alone," said Philip, pointing to the grave.
+
+Scarce had he spoken when, from the gate, came the shrill, clear voice
+of Lord Lilburne,--
+
+"We wait for Mr. Sidney Beaufort."
+
+Sidney passed his hand over his eyes, wrung the hand of his brother once
+more, and in a moment was by Camilla's side.
+
+Another shout--the whirl of the wheels--the trampling of feet--the
+distant hum and murmur--and all was still. The clerk returned to lock up
+the church--he did not observe where Philip stood in the shadow of the
+wall--and went home to talk of the gay wedding, and inquire at what
+hour the funeral of the young woman; his next-door neighbour, would take
+place the next day.
+
+It might be a quarter of an hour after Philip was thus left--nor had he
+moved from the spot--when he felt his sleeve pulled gently. He turned
+round and saw before him the wistful face of Fanny!
+
+"So you would not come to the wedding?" said he.
+
+"No. But I fancied you might be here alone--and sad."
+
+"And you will not even wear the dress I gave you?"
+
+"Another time. Tell me, are you unhappy?"
+
+"Unhappy, Fanny! No; look around. The very burial-ground has a smile.
+See the laburnums clustering over the wall, listen to the birds on the
+dark yews above, and yonder see even the butterfly has settled upon her
+grave!
+
+"I am not unhappy." As he thus spoke he looked at her earnestly,
+and taking both her hands in his, drew her gently towards him, and
+continued: "Fanny, do you remember, that, leaning over that gate, I once
+spoke to you of the happiness of marriage where two hearts are united?
+Nay, Fanny, nay, I must go on. It was here in this spot,--it was here
+that I first saw you on my return to England. I came to seek the dead,
+and I have thought since, it was my mother's guardian spirit that drew
+me hither to find you--the living! And often afterwards, Fanny, you
+would come with me here, when, blinded and dull as I was, I came to
+brood and to repine, insensible of the treasures even then perhaps
+within my reach. But, best as it was: the ordeal through which I have
+passed has made me more grateful for the prize I now dare to hope for.
+On this grave your hand daily renewed the flowers. By this grave, the
+link between the Time and the Eternity, whose lessons we have read
+together, will you consent to record our vows? Fanny, dearest, fairest,
+tenderest, best, I love you, and at last as alone you should be
+loved!--I woo you as my wife! Mine, not for a season, but for ever--for
+ever, even when these graves are open, and the World shrivels like a
+scroll. Do you understand me?--do you heed me?--or have I dreamed that
+that--"
+
+He stopped short--a dismay seized him at her silence. Had he been
+mistaken in his divine belief!--the fear was momentary: for Fanny, who
+had recoiled as he spoke, now placing her hands to her temples, gazing
+on him, breathlessly and with lips apart, as if, indeed, with great
+effort and struggle her modest spirit conceived the possibility of the
+happiness that broke upon it, advanced timidly, her face suffused in
+blushes; and, looking into his eyes, as if she would read into his very
+soul, said, with an accent, the intenseness of which showed that her
+whole fate hung on his answer,--
+
+"But this is pity?--they have told you that I--in short, you are
+generous--you--you--Oh, deceive me not! Do you love her still?--Can
+you--do you love the humble, foolish Fanny?"
+
+"As God shall judge me, sweet one, I am sincere! I have survived a
+passion--never so deep, so tender, so entire as that I now feel for you!
+And, oh, Fanny, hear this true confession. It was you--you to whom my
+heart turned before I saw Camilla!--against that impulse I struggled in
+the blindness of a haughty error!"
+
+Fanny uttered a low and suppressed cry of delight and rapture. Philip
+passionately continued,--
+
+"Fanny, make blessed the life you have saved. Fate destined us for
+each other. Fate for me has ripened your sweet mind. Fate for you has
+softened this rugged heart. We may have yet much to bear and much to
+learn. We will console and teach each other!"
+
+He drew her to his breast as he spoke--drew her trembling, blushing,
+confused, but no more reluctant; and there, by the GRAVE that had been
+so memorable a scene in their common history, were murmured those
+vows in which all this world knows of human happiness is treasured and
+recorded--love that takes the sting from grief, and faith that gives
+eternity to love. All silent, yet all serene around them! Above, the
+heaven,--at their feet, the grave:--For the love, the grave!--for the
+faith, the heaven!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE LAST.
+
+
+        "A labore reclinat otium."--HORAT.
+
+        [Leisure unbends itself from labour.]
+
+I feel that there is some justice in the affection the general reader
+entertains for the old-fashioned and now somewhat obsolete custom, of
+giving to him, at the close of a work, the latest news of those who
+sought his acquaintance through its progress.
+
+The weak but well-meaning Smith, no more oppressed by the evil
+influence of his brother, has continued to pass his days in comfort and
+respectability on the income settled on him by Philip Beaufort. Mr. and
+Mrs. Roger Morton still live, and have just resigned their business to
+their eldest son; retiring themselves to a small villa adjoining the
+town in which they had made their fortune. Mrs. Morton is very apt, when
+she goes out to tea, to talk of her dear deceased sister-in-law, the
+late Mrs. Beaufort, and of her own remarkable kindness to her nephew
+when a little boy. She observes that, in fact, the young men owe
+everything to Mr. Roger and herself; and, indeed, though Sidney was
+never of a grateful disposition, and has not been near her since, yet
+the elder brother, the Mr. Beaufort, always evinces his respect to them
+by the yearly present of a fat buck. She then comments on the ups and
+downs of life; and observes that it is a pity her son Tom preferred the
+medical profession to the church. Their cousin, Mr. Beaufort, has two
+livings. To all this Mr. Roger says nothing, except an occasional "Thank
+Heaven, I want no man's help! I am as well to do as my neighbours. But
+that's neither here nor there."
+
+There are some readers--they who do not thoroughly consider the truths
+of this life--who will yet ask, "But how is Lord Lilburne punished?"
+Punished?--ay, and indeed, how? The world, and not the poet, must answer
+that question. Crime is punished from without. If Vice is punished, it
+must be from within. The Lilburnes of this hollow world are not to be
+pelted with the soft roses of poetical justice. They who ask why he is
+not punished may be the first to doff the hat to the equipage in which
+my lord lolls through the streets! The only offence he habitually
+committed of a nature to bring the penalties of detection, he renounced
+the moment he perceived there was clanger of discovery! he gambled no
+more after Philip's hint. He was one of those, some years after, most
+bitter upon a certain nobleman charged with unfair play--one of those
+who took the accusation as proved; and whose authority settled all
+disputes thereon.
+
+But, if no thunderbolt falls on Lord Lilburne's head--if he is fated
+still to eat, and drink, and to die on his bed, he may yet taste the
+ashes of the Dead Sea fruit which his hands have culled. He is
+grown old. His infirmities increase upon him; his sole resources of
+pleasure--the senses--are dried up. For him there is no longer savour
+in the viands, or sparkle in the wine,--man delights him not, nor woman
+neither. He is alone with Old Age, and in the sight of Death.
+
+With the exception of Simon, who died in his chair not many days after
+Sidney's marriage, Robert Beaufort is the only one among the more
+important agents left at the last scene of this history who has passed
+from our mortal stage.
+
+After the marriage of his daughter he for some time moped and drooped.
+But Philip learned from Mr. Blackwell of the will that Robert had made
+previously to the lawsuit; and by which, had the lawsuit failed,
+his rights would yet have been preserved to him. Deeply moved by a
+generosity he could not have expected from his uncle, and not pausing
+to inquire too closely how far it was to be traced to the influence of
+Arthur, Philip so warmly expressed his gratitude, and so surrounded
+Mr. Beaufort with affectionate attentions, that the poor man began to
+recover his self-respect,--began even to regard the nephew he had so
+long dreaded, as a son,--to forgive him for not marrying Camilla. And,
+perhaps, to his astonishment, an act in his life for which the customs
+of the world (that never favour natural ties not previously sanctioned
+by the legal) would have rather censured than praised, became his
+consolation; and the memory he was most proud to recall. He gradually
+recovered his spirits; he was very fond of looking over that will: he
+carefully preserved it: he even flattered himself that it was necessary
+to preserve Philip from all possible litigation hereafter; for if the
+estates were not legally Philip's, why, then, they were his to dispose
+of as he pleased. He was never more happy than when his successor was by
+his side; and was certainly a more cheerful and, I doubt not, a better
+man--during the few years in which he survived the law-suit--than ever
+he had been before. He died--still member for the county, and still
+quoted as a pattern to county members--in Philip's arms; and on his lips
+there was a smile that even Lilburne would have called sincere.
+
+Mrs. Beaufort, after her husband's death, established herself in
+London; and could never be persuaded to visit Beaufort Court. She took a
+companion, who more than replaced, in her eyes, the absence of Camilla.
+
+And Camilla-Spencer-Sidney. They live still by the gentle Lake, happy in
+their own serene joys and graceful leisure; shunning alike ambition and
+its trials, action and its sharp vicissitudes; envying no one, covetous
+of nothing; making around them, in the working world, something of the
+old pastoral and golden holiday. If Camilla had at one time wavered in
+her allegiance to Sidney, her good and simple heart has long since been
+entirely regained by his devotion; and, as might be expected from her
+disposition, she loved him better after marriage than before.
+
+Philip had gone through severer trials than Sidney. But, had their
+earlier fates been reversed, and that spirit, in youth so haughty and
+self-willed, been lapped in ease and luxury, would Philip now be a
+better or a happier man? Perhaps, too, for a less tranquil existence
+than his brother, Philip yet may be reserved; but, in proportion to the
+uses of our destiny, do we repose or toil: he who never knows pain knows
+but the half of pleasure. The lot of whatever is most noble on the earth
+below falls not amidst the rosy Gardels of the Epicurean. We may envy
+the man who enjoys and rests; but the smile of Heaven settles rather on
+the front of him who labours and aspires.
+
+And did Philip ever regret the circumstances that had given him Fanny
+for the partner of his life? To some who take their notions of the
+Ideal from the conventional rules of romance, rather than from their
+own perceptions of what is true, this narrative would have been more
+pleasing had Philip never loved but Fanny. But all that had led to that
+love had only served to render it more enduring and concentred. Man's
+strongest and worthiest affection is his last--is the one that unites
+and embodies all his past dreams of what is excellent--the one from
+which Hope springs out the brighter from former disappointments--the one
+in which the MEMORIES are the most tender and the most abundant--the one
+which, replacing all others, nothing hereafter can replace.
+
+
+         ......
+
+And now ere the scene closes, and the audience, whom perhaps the actors
+may have interested for a while, disperse, to forget amidst the pursuits
+of actual life the Shadows that have amused an hour, or beguiled a care,
+let the curtain fall on one happy picture:--
+
+It is some years after the marriage of Philip and Fanny. It is a summer
+morning. In a small old-fashioned room at Beaufort Court, with its
+casements open to the gardens, stood Philip, having just entered; and
+near the window sat Fanny, his boy by her side. She was at the mother's
+hardest task--the first lessons to the first-born child; and as the boy
+looked up at her sweet earnest face with a smile of intelligence on
+his own, you might have seen at a glance how well understood were the
+teacher and the pupil. Yes: whatever might have been wanting in the
+Virgin to the full development of mind, the cares of the mother had
+supplied. When a being was born to lean on her alone--dependent on
+her providence for life--then hour after hour, step after step, in the
+progress of infant destinies, had the reason of the mother grown in the
+child's growth, adapting itself to each want that it must foresee, and
+taking its perfectness and completion from the breath of the New Love!
+
+The child caught sight of Philip and rushed to embrace him.
+
+"See!" whispered Fanny, as she also hung upon him, and strange
+recollections of her own mysterious childhood crowded upon her,--"See,"
+whispered she, with a blush half of shame and half of pride, "the poor
+idiot girl is the teacher of your child!"
+
+"And," answered Philip, "whether for child or mother, what teacher is
+like Love?"
+
+Thus saying, he took the boy into his arms; and, as he bent over those
+rosy cheeks, Fanny saw, from the movement of his lips and the moisture
+in his eyes, that he blessed God. He looked upon the mother's face, he
+glanced round on the flowers and foliage of the luxurious summer, and
+again he blessed God: And without and within, it was Light and MORNING!
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Night and Morning, Complete, by
+Edward Bulwer-Lytton
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+Project Gutenberg EBook, Night and Morning by E. B. Lytton, Complete
+#195 in our series by Edward Bulwer Lytton
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+Title: Night and Morning, Complete
+
+Author: Edward Bulwer Lytton
+
+Release Date: January 2006  [EBook #9755]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 9, 2003]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, NIGHT AND MORNING ***
+
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+This eBook was produced by David Widger  [widger@cecomet.net]
+
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+
+
+                           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 be 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 be come 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 lie 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 be 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 be 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 be 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 be 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 yon
+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 lie 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, be took off
+his great-coat, seated himself near Philip, and bent both his eves 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 ago!"
+
+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: be 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 earth--he looked above, and his eyes were suffused
+with pleasure, at the smile of the soft blue skies.  The MORNING became,
+as it were, a part of his own being; and he felt that as the world in
+spite of the storms is fair, so in spite of evil God is good.  He walked
+on--he passed the bridge, but his step was no more the same,--he forgot
+his rags.  Why should he be ashamed?  And thus, in the very flush of this
+new and strange elation and elasticity of spirit, he came unawares upon a
+group of young men, lounging before the porch of one of the chief hotels
+in that splendid Rue de Rivoli, wherein Wealth and the English have made
+their homes.  A groom, mounted, was leading another horse up and down the
+road, and the young men were making their comments of approbation upon
+both the horses, especially the one led, which was, indeed, of uncommon
+beauty and great value.  Even Morton, in whom the boyish passion of his
+earlier life yet existed, paused to turn his experienced and admiring eye
+upon the stately shape and pace of the noble animal, and as he did so, a
+name too well remembered came upon his ear.
+
+"Certainly, Arthur Beaufort is the most enviable fellow in Europe."
+
+"Why, yes," said another of the young men; "he has plenty of money--is
+good-looking, devilish good-natured, clever, and spends like a prince."
+
+"Has the best horses!"
+
+"The best luck at roulette!"
+
+"The prettiest girls in love with him!"
+
+"And no one enjoys life more.  Ah! here he is!"
+
+The group parted as a light, graceful figure came out of a jeweller's
+shop that adjoined the hotel, and halted gaily amongst the loungers.
+Morton's first impulse was to hurry from the spot; his second impulse
+arrested his step, and, a little apart, and half-hid beneath one of the
+arches of the colonnade which adorns the street, the Outcast gazed upon.
+the Heir.  There was no comparison in the natural personal advantages of
+the two young men; for Philip Morton, despite all the hardships of his
+rough career, had now grown up and ripened into a rare perfection of form
+and feature.  His broad chest, his erect air, his lithe and symmetrical
+length of limb, united, happily, the attributes of activity and strength;
+and though there was no delicacy of youthful bloom upon his dark cheek,
+and though lines which should have come later marred its smoothness with
+the signs of care and thought, yet an expression of intelligence and
+daring, equally beyond his years, and the evidence of hardy, abstemious,
+vigorous health, served to show to the full advantage the outline of
+features which, noble and regular, though stern and masculine, the artist
+might have borrowed for his ideal of a young Spartan arming for his first
+battle.  Arthur, slight to feebleness, and with the paleness, partly of
+constitution, partly of gay excess, on his fair and clear complexion, had
+features far less symmetrical and impressive than his cousin: but what
+then?  All that are bestowed by elegance of dress, the refinements of
+luxurious habit, the nameless grace that comes from a mind and a manner
+polished, the one by literary culture, the other by social intercourse,
+invested the person of the heir with a fascination that rude Nature alone
+ever fails to give.  And about him there was a gaiety, an airiness of
+spirit, an atmosphere of enjoyment which bespoke one who is in love with
+life.
+
+"Why, this is lucky!  I'm so glad to see you all!" said Arthur Beaufort,
+with that silver-ringing tone and charming smile which are to the happy
+spring of man what its music and its sunshine are to the spring of earth.
+"You must dine with me at Verey's.  I want something to rouse me to-day;
+for I did not get home from the _Salon_* till four this morning."
+
+     *[The most celebrated gaming-house in Paris in the day before
+     gaming-houses were suppressed by the well-directed energy of the
+     government.]
+
+"But you won?"
+
+"Yes, Marsden.  Hang it!  I always win: I who could so well afford to
+lose: I'm quite ashamed of my luck!"
+
+"It is easy to spend what one wins," observed Mr. Marsden, sententiously;
+"and I see you have been at the jeweller's!  A present for Cecile?  Well,
+don't blush, my dear fellow.  What is life without women?"
+
+"And wine?" said a second.  "And play?" said a third.  "And wealth?" said
+a fourth.
+
+"And you enjoy them all!  Happy fellow!" said a fifth.  The Outcast
+pulled his hat over his brows, and walked away.
+
+"This dear Paris," said Beaufort, as his eye carelessly and unconsciously
+followed the dark form retreating through the arches;--"this dear Paris!
+I must make the most of it while I stay!  I have only been here a few
+weeks, and next week I must go."
+
+"Pooh--your health is better: you don't look like the same man."
+
+"You think so really?  Still I don't know: the doctors say that I must
+either go to the German waters--the season is begun--or--"
+
+"Or what?"
+
+"Live less with such pleasant companions, my dear fellow!  But as you
+say, what is life without--"
+
+"Women!"
+
+"Wine!"
+
+"Play!"
+
+"Wealth!"
+
+"Ha! ha.  'Throw physic to the dogs: I'll none of it!'"
+
+And Arthur leaped lightly on his saddle, and as he rode gaily on, humming
+the favourite air of the last opera, the hoofs of his horse splashed the
+mud over a foot-passenger halting at the crossing.  Morton checked the
+fiery exclamation rising to his lips; and gazing after the brilliant form
+that hurried on towards the Champs Elysees, his eye caught the statues on
+the bridge, and a voice, as of a cheering angel, whispered again to his
+heart, "TIME, FAITH, ENERGY!"
+
+The expression of his countenance grew calm at once, and as he continued
+his rambles it was with a mind that, casting off the burdens of the past,
+looked serenely and steadily on the obstacles and hardships of the
+future.  We have seen that a scruple of conscience or of pride, not
+without its nobleness, had made him refuse the importunities of Gawtrey
+for less sordid raiment; the same feeling made it his custom to avoid
+sharing the luxurious and dainty food with which Gawtrey was wont to
+regale himself.  For that strange man, whose wonderful felicity of
+temperament and constitution rendered him, in all circumstances, keenly
+alive to the hearty and animal enjoyments of life, would still emerge, as
+the day declined, from their wretched apartment, and, trusting to his
+disguises, in which indeed he possessed a masterly art, repair to one of
+the better description of restaurants, and feast away his cares for the
+moment.  William Gawtrey would not have cared three straws for the curse
+of Damocles.  The sword over his head would never have spoiled his
+appetite!  He had lately, too, taken to drinking much more deeply than he
+had been used to do--the fine intellect of the man was growing thickened
+and dulled; and this was a spectacle that Morton could not bear to
+contemplate.  Yet so great was Gawtrey's vigour of health, that, after
+draining wine and spirits enough to have despatched a company of fox-
+hunters, and after betraying, sometimes in uproarious glee, sometimes in
+maudlin self-bewailings, that he himself was not quite invulnerable to
+the thyrsus of the god, he would--on any call on his energies, or
+especially before departing on those mysterious expeditions which kept
+him from home half, and sometimes all, the night--plunge his head into
+cold water--drink as much of the lymph as a groom would have shuddered to
+bestow on a horse--close his eyes in a doze for half an hour, and wake,
+cool, sober, and collected, as if he had lived according to the precepts
+of Socrates or Cornaro!
+
+But to return to Morton.  It was his habit to avoid as much as possible
+sharing the good cheer of his companion; and now, as he entered the,
+Champs Elysees, he saw a little family, consisting of a young mechanic,
+his wife, and two children, who, with that love of harmless recreation
+which yet characterises the French, had taken advantage of a holiday in
+the craft, and were enjoying their simple meal under the shadow of the
+trees.  Whether in hunger or in envy, Morton paused and contemplated the
+happy group.  Along the road rolled the equipages and trampled the steeds
+of those to whom all life is a holiday.  There, was Pleasure--under those
+trees was Happiness.  One of the children, a little boy of about six
+years old, observing the attitude and gaze of the pausing wayfarer, ran
+to him, and holding up a fragment of a coarse kind of cake, said to him,
+willingly, "Take it--I have had enough!"  The child reminded Morton of
+his brother--his heart melted within him--he lifted the young Samaritan
+in his arms, and as he kissed him, wept.
+
+The mother observed and rose also.  She laid her hand on his own: "Poor
+boy! why do you weep?--can we relieve you?"
+
+Now that bright gleam of human nature, suddenly darting across the sombre
+recollections and associations of his past life, seemed to Morton as if
+it came from Heaven, in approval and in blessing of this attempt at
+reconciliation to his fate.
+
+"I thank you," said he, placing the child on the ground, and passing his
+hand over his eyes,--"I thank you--yes!  Let me sit down amongst you."
+And he sat down, the child by his side, and partook of their fare, and
+was merry with them,--the proud Philip!--had he not begun to discover the
+"precious jewel" in the "ugly and venomous" Adversity?
+
+The mechanic, though a gay fellow on the whole, was not without some of
+that discontent of his station which is common with his class; he vented
+it, however, not in murmurs, but in jests.  He was satirical on the
+carriages and the horsemen that passed; and, lolling on the grass,
+ridiculed his betters at his ease.
+
+"Hush!" said his wife, suddenly; "here comes Madame de Merville;" and
+rising as she spoke, she made a respectful inclination of her head
+towards an open carriage that was passing very slowly towards the town.
+
+"Madame de Merville!" repeated the husband, rising also, and lifting his
+cap from his head.  "Ah! I have nothing to say against her!"
+
+Morton looked instinctively towards the carriage, and saw a fair
+countenance turned graciously to answer the silent salutations of the
+mechanic and his wife--a countenance that had long haunted his dreams,
+though of late it had faded away beneath harsher thoughts--the
+countenance of the stranger whom he had seen at the bureau of Gawtrey,
+when that worthy personage had borne a more mellifluous name.  He started
+and changed colour: the lady herself now seemed suddenly to recognise
+him; for their eyes met, and she bent forward eagerly.  She pulled the
+check-string--the carriage halted--she beckoned to the mechanic's wife,
+who went up to the roadside.
+
+"I worked once for that lady," said the man with a tone of feeling; "and
+when my wife fell ill last winter she paid the doctors.  Ah, she is an
+angel of charity and kindness!"
+
+Morton scarcely heard this eulogium, for he observed, by something eager
+and inquisitive in the face of Madame de Merville, and by the sudden
+manner in which the mechanic's helpmate turned her head to the spot in
+which he stood, that he was the object of their conversation.  Once more
+he became suddenly aware of his ragged dress, and with a natural shame--a
+fear that charity might be extended to him from her--he muttered an
+abrupt farewell to the operative, and without another glance at the
+carriage, walked away.
+
+Before he had got many paces, the wife however came up to him,
+breathless. "Madame de Merville would speak to you, sir!" she said, with
+more respect than she had hitherto thrown into her manner.  Philip paused
+an instant, and again strode on--
+
+"It must be some mistake," he said, hurriedly: "I have no right to expect
+such an honour."
+
+He struck across the road, gained the opposite side, and had vanished
+from Madame de Merville's eyes, before the woman regained the carriage.
+But still that calm, pale, and somewhat melancholy face, presented itself
+before him; and as he walked again through the town, sweet and gentle
+fancies crowded confusedly on his heart.  On that soft summer day,
+memorable for so many silent but mighty events in that inner life which
+prepares the catastrophes of the outer one; as in the region, of which
+Virgil has sung, the images of men to be born hereafter repose or glide--
+on that soft summer day, he felt he had reached the age when Youth begins
+to clothe in some human shape its first vague ideal of desire and love.
+
+In such thoughts, and still wandering, the day wore away, till he found
+himself in one of the lanes that surround that glittering Microcosm of
+the vices, the frivolities, the hollow show, and the real beggary of the
+gay City--the gardens and the galleries of the Palais Royal.  Surprised
+at the lateness of the hour, it was then on the stroke of seven, he was
+about to return homewards, when the loud voice of Gawtrey sounded behind,
+and that personage, tapping him on the back, said,--
+
+"Hollo, my young friend, well met!  This will be a night of trial to you.
+Empty stomachs produce weak nerves.  Come along! you must dine with me.
+A good dinner and a bottle of old wine--come! nonsense, I say you shall
+come! _Vive la joie_!"
+
+While speaking, he had linked his arm in Morton's, and hurried him on
+several paces in spite of his struggles; but just as the words _Vive la
+joie_ left his lips, he stood still and mute, as if a thunderbolt had
+fallen at his feet; and Morton felt that heavy arm shiver and tremble
+like a leaf. He looked up, and just at the entrance of that part of the
+Palais Royal in which are situated the restaurants of Verey and Vefour,
+he saw two men standing but a few paces before them, and gazing full on
+Gawtrey and himself.
+
+"It is my evil genius," muttered Gawtrey, grinding his teeth.
+
+"And mine!" said Morton.
+
+The younger of the two men thus apostrophised made a step towards Philip,
+when his companion drew him back and whispered,--"What are you about--do
+you know that young man?"
+
+"He is my cousin; Philip Beaufort's natural son!"
+
+"Is he? then discard him for ever.  He is with the most dangerous knave
+in Europe!"
+
+As Lord Lilburne--for it was he--thus whispered his nephew, Gawtrey
+strode up to him; and, glaring full in his face, said in a deep and
+hollow tone,--"There is a hell, my lord,--I go to drink to our meeting!"
+Thus saying, he took off his hat with a ceremonious mockery, and
+disappeared within the adjoining restaurant, kept by Vefour.
+
+"A hell!" said Lilburne, with his frigid smile; "the rogue's head runs
+upon gambling-houses!"
+
+"And I have suffered Philip again to escape me," said Arthur, in
+self-reproach: for while Gawtrey had addressed Lord Lilburne, Morton had
+plunged back amidst the labyrinth of alleys.  "How have I kept my oath?"
+
+"Come! your guests must have arrived by this time.  As for that wretched
+young man, depend upon it that he is corrupted body and soul."
+
+"But he is my own cousin."
+
+
+
+"Pooh! there is no relationship in natural children: besides, he will
+find you out fast enough.  Ragged claimants are not long too proud to
+beg."
+
+"You speak in earnest?" said Arthur, irresolutely.  "Ay! trust my
+experience of the world--Allons!"
+
+And in a _cabinet_ of the very _restaurant_, adjoining that in which the
+solitary Gawtrey gorged his conscience, Lilburne, Arthur, and their gay
+friends, soon forgetful of all but the roses of the moment, bathed their
+airy spirits in the dews of the mirthful wine.  Oh, extremes of life!
+Oh, Night!  Oh, Morning!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+"Meantime a moving scene was open laid,
+That lazar house."--THOMSON'S _Castle of Indolence_.
+
+It was near midnight.  At the mouth of the lane in which Gawtrey resided
+there stood four men.  Not far distant, in the broad street at angles
+with the lane, were heard the wheels of carriages and the sound of music.
+A lady, fair in form, tender of heart, stainless in repute, was receiving
+her friends!
+
+"Monsieur Favart," said one of the men to the smallest of the four; "you
+understand the conditions--20,000 francs and a free pardon?"
+
+"Nothing more reasonable--it is understood.  Still I confess that I
+should like to have my men close at hand.  I am not given to fear; but
+this is a dangerous experiment."
+
+"You knew the danger beforehand and subscribed to it: you must enter
+alone with me, or not at all.  Mark you, the men are sworn to murder him
+who betrays them.  Not for twenty times 20,000 francs would I have them
+know me as the informer.  My life were not worth a day's purchase.  Now,
+if you feel secure in your disguise, all is safe.  You will have seen
+them at their work--you will recognise their persons--you can depose
+against them at the trial--I shall have time to quit France."
+
+"Well, well! as you please."
+
+"Mind, you must wait in the vault with them till they separate.  We have
+so planted your men that whatever street each of the gang takes in going
+home, he can be seized quietly and at once.  The bravest and craftiest of
+all, who, though he has but just joined, is already their captain;--him,
+the man I told you of, who lives in the house, you must take after his
+return, in his bed.  It is the sixth story to the right, remember: here
+is the key to his door.  He is a giant in strength; and will never be
+taken alive if up and armed."
+
+"Ah, I comprehend!--Gilbert" (and Favart turned to one of his companions
+who had not yet spoken) "take three men besides yourself, according to
+the directions I gave you,--the porter will admit you, that's arranged.
+Make no noise.  If I don't return by four o'clock, don't wait for me, but
+proceed at once.  Look well to your primings.  Take him alive, if
+possible--at the worst, dead.  And now--anon ami--lead on!"
+
+The traitor nodded, and walked slowly down the street.  Favart, pausing,
+whispered hastily to the man whom he had called Gilbert,--
+
+"Follow me close--get to the door of the cellar-place eight men within
+hearing of my whistle--recollect the picklocks, the axes.  If you hear
+the whistle, break in; if not, I'm safe, and the first orders to seize
+the captain in his room stand good."
+
+So saying, Favart strode after his guide.  The door of a large, but ill-
+favoured-looking house stood ajar--they entered-passed unmolested through
+a court-yard--descended some stairs; the guide unlocked the door of a
+cellar, and took a dark lantern from under his cloak.  As he drew up the
+slide, the dim light gleamed on barrels and wine-casks, which appeared to
+fill up the space.  Rolling aside one of these, the guide lifted a trap-
+door, and lowered his lantern.  "Enter," said he; and the two men
+disappeared.
+
+               .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .
+
+The coiners were at their work.  A man, seated on a stool before a desk,
+was entering accounts in a large book.  That man was William Gawtrey.
+While, with the rapid precision of honest mechanics, the machinery of the
+Dark Trade went on in its several departments.  Apart--alone--at the foot
+of a long table, sat Philip Morton.  The truth had exceeded his darkest
+suspicions.  He had consented to take the oath not to divulge what was to
+be given to his survey; and when, led into that vault, the bandage was
+taken from his eyes, it was some minutes before he could fully comprehend
+the desperate and criminal occupations of the wild forms amidst which
+towered the burly stature of his benefactor.  As the truth slowly grew
+upon him, he shrank from the side of Gawtrey; but, deep compassion for
+his friend's degradation swallowing up the horror of the trade, he flung
+himself on one of the rude seats, and felt that the bond between them was
+indeed broken, and that the next morning he should be again alone in the
+world.  Still, as the obscene jests, the fearful oaths, that from time to
+time rang through the vault, came on his ear, he cast his haughty eye in
+such disdain over the groups, that Gawtrey, observing him, trembled for
+his safety; and nothing but Philip's sense of his own impotence, and the
+brave, not timorous, desire not to perish by such hands, kept silent the
+fiery denunciations of a nature still proud and honest, that quivered on
+his lips.  All present were armed with pistols and cutlasses except
+Morton, who suffered the weapons presented to him to lie unheeded on the
+table.
+
+"_Courage, mes amis_!" said Gawtrey, closing his book,--"_Courage_!"--a
+few months more, and we shall have made enough to retire upon, and enjoy
+ourselves for the rest of the days.  Where is Birnie?"
+
+"Did he not tell you?"  said one of the artisans, looking up.  "He has
+found out the cleverest hand in France, the very fellow who helped
+Bouchard in all his five-franc pieces.  He has promised to bring him
+to-night."
+
+"Ay, I remember," returned Gawtrey, "he told me this morning,--he is a
+famous decoy!"
+
+"I think so, indeed!"  quoth a coiner; "for he caught you, the best head
+to our hands that ever _les industriels_ were blessed with--_sacre
+fichtre_!"
+
+"Flatterer!"  said Gawtrey, coming from the desk to the table, and
+pouring out wine from one of the bottles into a huge flagon--"To your
+healths!"
+
+Here the door slided back, and Birnie glided in.
+
+"Where is  your booty, _mon brave_?"  said  Gawtrey.  "We only coin
+money; you coin men, stamp with your own seal, and send them current to
+the devil!"
+
+The coiners, who liked Birnie's ability (for the ci-devant engraver was
+of admirable skill in their craft), but who hated his joyless manners,
+laughed at this taunt, which Birnie did not seem to heed, except by a
+malignant gleam of his dead eye.
+
+"If you mean the celebrated coiner, Jacques Giraumont, he waits without.
+You know our rules.  I cannot admit him without leave."
+
+"_Bon_! we give it,--eh, messieurs?"  said Gawtrey.  "Ay-ay," cried
+several voices.  "He knows the oath, and will hear the penalty."
+
+"Yes, he knows the oath," replied Birnie, and glided back.
+
+In a moment more he returned with a small man in a mechanic's blouse.
+The new comer wore the republican beard and moustache--of a sandy grey--
+his hair was the same colour; and a black patch over one eye increased
+the ill-favoured appearance of his features.
+
+"_Diable_!  Monsieur Giraumont! but you are more like Vulcan than
+Adonis!" said Gawtrey.
+
+"I don't know anything about Vulcan, but I know how to make five-franc
+pieces," said Monsieur Giraumont, doggedly.
+
+"Are you poor?"
+
+"As a church mouse!  The only thing belonging to a church, since the
+Bourbons came back, that is poor!"
+
+At this sally, the coiners, who had gathered round the table, uttered the
+shout with which, in all circumstances, Frenchmen receive a _bon mot_.
+
+"Humph!" said Gawtrey.  "Who responds with his own life for your
+fidelity?"
+
+"I," said Birnie.
+
+"Administer the oath to him."
+
+Suddenly four men advanced, seized the visitor, and bore him from the
+vault into another one within.  After a few moments they returned.
+
+"He has taken the oath and heard the penalty."
+
+"Death to yourself, your wife, your son, and your grandson, if you betray
+us!"
+
+"I have neither son nor grandson; as for my wife, Monsieur le Capitaine,
+you offer a bribe instead of a threat when you talk of her death."
+
+"Sacre! but you will be an addition to our circle, _mon brave_!"  said
+Gawtrey, laughing; while again the grim circle shouted applause.
+
+"But I suppose you care for your own life."
+
+"Otherwise I should have preferred starving to coming here," answered the
+laconic neophyte.
+
+"I have done with you.  Your health!"
+
+On this the coiners gathered round Monsieur Giraumont, shook him by the
+hand, and commenced many questions with a view to ascertain his skill.
+
+"Show me your coinage first; I see you use both the die and the furnace.
+Hem!  this piece is not bad--you have struck it from an iron die?--right
+--it makes the impression sharper than plaster of Paris.  But you take
+the poorest and the most dangerous part of the trade in taking the home
+market.  I can put you in a way to make ten times as much--and with
+safety.  Look at this!"--and Monsieur Giraumont took a forged Spanish
+dollar from his pocket, so skilfully manufactured that the connoisseurs
+were lost in admiration--"you may pass thousands of these all over
+Europe, except France, and who is ever to detect you?  But it will
+require better machinery than you have here."
+
+Thus conversing, Monsieur Giraumont did not perceive that Mr. Gawtrey had
+been examining him very curiously and minutely.  But Birnie had noted
+their chief's attention, and once attempted to join his new ally, when
+Gawtrey laid his hand on his shoulder, and stopped him.
+
+"Do not speak to your friend till I bid you, or--" lie stopped short, and
+touched his pistols.
+
+Birnie grew a shade more pale, but replied with his usual sneer:
+
+"Suspicious!--well, so much the better!"  and seating himself carelessly
+at the table, lighted his pipe.
+
+"And now, Monsieur Giraumont," said Gawtrey, as he took the head of the
+table, "come to my right hand.  A half-holiday in your honour.  Clear
+these infernal instruments; and more wine, mes amis!"
+
+The party arranged themselves at the table.  Among the desperate there is
+almost invariably a tendency to mirth.  A solitary ruffian, indeed, is
+moody, but a gang of ruffians are jovial.  The coiners talked and laughed
+loud.  Mr. Birnie, from his dogged silence, seemed apart from the rest,
+though in the centre.  For in a noisy circle a silent tongue builds a
+wall round its owner.  But that respectable personage kept his furtive
+watch upon Giraumont and Gawtrey, who appeared talking together, very
+amicably.  The younger novice of that night, equally silent, seated
+towards the bottom of the table, was not less watchful than Birnie.  An
+uneasy, undefinable foreboding had come over him since the entrance of
+Monsieur Giraumont; this had been increased by the manner of Mr. Gawtrey.
+His faculty of observation, which was very acute, had detected something
+false in the chief's blandness to their guest--something dangerous in the
+glittering eye that Gawtrey ever, as he spoke to Giraumont, bent on that
+person's lips as he listened to his reply.  For, whenever William Gawtrey
+suspected a man, he watched not his eyes, but his lips.
+
+Waked from his scornful reverie, a strange spell chained Morton's
+attention to the chief and the guest, and he bent forward, with parted
+mouth and straining ear, to catch their conversation.
+
+"It seems to me a little strange," said Mr. Gawtrey, raising his voice so
+as to be heard by the party, "that a coiner so dexterous as Monsieur
+Giraumont should not be known to any of us except our friend Birnie."
+
+"Not at all," replied Giraumont; "I worked only with Bouchard and two
+others since sent to the galleys.  We were but a small fraternity--
+everything has its commencement."
+
+"_C'est juste: buvez, donc, cher ami_!"
+
+The wine circulated.  Gawtrey began again:
+
+"You have had a bad accident, seemingly, Monsieur Giraumont.  How did you
+lose your eye?"
+
+"In a scuffle with the _gens d' armes_ the night Bouchard was taken and I
+escaped.  Such misfortunes are on the cards."
+
+"C'est juste: buvez, donc, Monsieur Giraumont!"
+
+Again there was a pause, and again Gawtrey's deep voice was heard.
+
+"You wear a wig, I think, Monsieur Giraumont?  To judge by your eyelashes
+your own hair has been a handsomer colour."
+
+"We seek disguise, not beauty, my host; and the police have sharp eyes."
+
+"_C'est juste: buvez, donc-vieux Renard_!  When did we two meet last?"
+
+"Never, that I know of."
+
+"_Ce n'est pas vrai! buvez, donc, MONSIEUR FAVART_!"
+
+At the sound of that name the company started in dismay and confusion,
+and the police officer, forgetting himself for the moment, sprang from
+his seat, and put his right hand into his blouse.
+
+"Ho, there!--treason!"  cried Gawtrey, in a voice of thunder; and he
+caught the unhappy man by the throat.  It was the work of a moment.
+Morton, where he sat, beheld a struggle--he heard a death-cry.  He saw
+the huge form of the master-coiner rising above all the rest, as
+cutlasses gleamed and eyes sparkled round.  He saw the quivering and
+powerless frame of the unhappy guest raised aloft in those mighty arms,
+and presently it was hurled along the table-bottles crashing--the board
+shaking beneath its weight--and lay before the very eyes of Morton, a
+distorted and lifeless mass.  At the same instant Gawtrey sprang upon the
+table, his black frown singling out from the group the ashen, cadaverous
+face of the shrinking traitor.  Birnie had darted from the table--he was
+half-way towards the sliding door--his face, turned over his shoulder,
+met the eyes of the chief.
+
+"Devil!" shouted Gawtrey, in his terrible voice, which the echoes of the
+vault gave back from side to side.  "Did I not give thee up my soul that
+thou mightest not compass my death?  Hark ye! thus die my slavery and all
+our secrets!"  The explosion of his pistol half swallowed up the last
+word, and with a single groan the traitor fell on the floor, pierced
+through the brain--then there was a dead and grim hush as the smoke
+rolled slowly along the roof of the dreary vault.
+
+Morton sank back on his seat, and covered his face with his hands.  The
+last seal on the fate of THE MAN OF CRIME was set; the last wave in the
+terrible and mysterious tide of his destiny had dashed on his soul to the
+shore whence there is no return.  Vain, now and henceforth, the humour,
+the sentiment, the kindly impulse, the social instincts which had
+invested that stalwart shape with dangerous fascination, which had
+implied the hope of ultimate repentance, of redemption even in this
+world.  The HOUR and the CIRCUMSTANCE had seized their prey; and the
+self-defence, which a lawless career rendered a necessity, left the
+eternal die of blood upon his doom!
+
+"Friends, I have saved you," said Gawtrey, slowly gazing on the corpse of
+his second victim, while he turned the pistol to his belt.  "I have not
+quailed before this man's eye" (and he spurned the clay of the officer as
+he spoke with a revengeful scorn) "without treasuring up its aspect in my
+heart of hearts.  I knew him when he entered--knew him through his
+disguise--yet, faith, it was a clever one!  Turn up his face and gaze on
+him now; he will never terrify us again, unless there be truth in ghosts!"
+
+Murmuring and tremulous the coiners scrambled on the table and examined
+the dead man.  From this task Gawtrey interrupted them, for his quick eye
+detected, with the pistols under the policeman's blouse, a whistle of
+metal of curious construction, and he conjectured at once that danger was
+at hand.
+
+"I have saved you, I say, but only for the hour.  This deed cannot sleep.
+See, he had help within call!  The police knew where to look for their
+comrade--we are dispersed.  Each for himself.  Quick, divide the spoils!
+_Sauve qui peat_!"
+
+Then Morton heard where he sat, his hands still clasped before his face,
+a confused hubbub of voices, the jingle of money, the scrambling of feet,
+the creaking of doors.  All was silent!
+
+A strong grasp drew his hands from his eyes.
+
+"Your first scene of life against life," said Gawtrey's voice, which
+seemed fearfully changed to the ear that beard it.  "Bah! what would you
+think of a battle?  Come to our eyrie: the carcasses are gone."
+
+Morton looked fearfully round the vault.  He and Gawtrey were alone.  His
+eyes sought the places where the dead had lain--they were removed--no
+vestige of the deeds, not even a drop of blood.
+
+"Come, take up your cutlass, come!"  repeated the voice of the chief, as
+with his dim lantern--now the sole light of the vault--he stood in the
+shadow of the doorway.
+
+Morton rose, took up the weapon mechanically, and followed that terrible
+guide, mute and unconscious, as a Soul follows a Dream through the House
+of Sleep!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+               "Sleep no more!"--_Macbeth_
+
+After winding through gloomy and labyrinthine passages, which conducted
+to a different range of cellars from those entered by the unfortunate
+Favart, Gawtrey emerged at the foot of a flight of stairs, which, dark,
+narrow, and in many places broken, had been probably appropriated to
+servants of the house in its days of palmier glory.  By these steps the
+pair regained their attic.  Gawtrey placed the lantern on the table and
+seated himself in silence.  Morton, who had recovered his self-possession
+and formed his resolution, gazed on him for some moments, equally
+taciturn.  At length he spoke:
+
+"Gawtrey!"
+
+"I bade you not call me by that name," said the coiner; for we need
+scarcely say that in his new trade he had assumed a new appellation.
+
+"It is the least guilty one by which I have known you," returned Morton,
+firmly.  "It is for the last time I call you by it!  I demanded to see by
+what means one to whom I had entrusted my fate supported himself.  I have
+seen," continued the young man, still firmly, but with a livid cheek and
+lip, "and the tie between us is rent for ever.  Interrupt me not! it is
+not for me to blame you.  I have eaten of your bread and drunk of your
+cup.  Confiding in you too blindly, and believing that you were at least
+free from those dark and terrible crimes for which there is no expiation
+--at least in this life--my conscience seared by distress, my very soul
+made dormant by despair, I surrendered myself to one leading a career
+equivocal, suspicious, dishonourable perhaps, but still not, as I
+believed, of atrocity and bloodshed.  I wake at the brink of the abyss--
+my mother's hand beckons to me from the grave; I think I hear her voice
+while I address you--I recede while it is yet time--we part, and for
+ever!"
+
+Gawtrey, whose stormy passion was still deep upon his soul, had listened
+hitherto in sullen and dogged silence, with a gloomy frown on his knitted
+brow; he now rose with an oath--
+
+"Part! that I may let loose on the world a new traitor!  Part! when you
+have seen me fresh from an act that, once whispered, gives me to the
+guillotine!  Part--never! at least alive!"
+
+"I have said it," said Morton, folding his arms calmly; I say it to your
+face, though I might part from you in secret.  Frown not on me, man of
+blood!  I am fearless as yourself!  In another minute I am gone."
+
+"Ah! is it so?"  said Gawtrey; and glancing round the room, which
+contained two doors, the one concealed by the draperies of a bed,
+communicating with the stairs by which they had entered, the other with
+the landing of the principal and common flight: he turned to the former,
+within his reach, which he locked, and put the key into his pocket, and
+then, throwing across the latter a heavy swing bar, which fell into its
+socket with a harsh noise,--before the threshold he placed his vast bulk,
+and burst into his loud, fierce laugh: "Ho! ho!  Slave and fool, once
+mine, you were mine body and soul for ever!"
+
+"Tempter, I defy you! stand back!"  And, firm and dauntless, Morton laid
+his hand on the giant's vest.
+
+Gawtrey seemed more astonished than enraged.  He looked hard at his
+daring associate, on whose lip the down was yet scarcely dark.
+
+"Boy," said he, "off! do not rouse the devil in me again!  I could crush
+you with a hug."
+
+"My soul supports my body, and I am armed," said Morton, laying hand on
+his cutlass.  "But you dare not harm me, nor I you; bloodstained as you
+are, you gave me shelter and bread; but accuse me not that I will save my
+soul while it is yet time!--Shall my mother have blessed me in vain upon
+her death-bed?"
+
+Gawtrey drew back, and Morton, by a sudden impulse, grasped his hand.
+
+"Oh! hear me-hear me!"  he cried, with great emotion.  "Abandon this
+horrible career; you have been decoyed and betrayed to it by one who can
+deceive or terrify you no more!  Abandon it, and I will never desert you.
+For her sake--for your Fanny's sake--pause, like me, before the gulf
+swallow us.  Let us fly!--far to the New World--to any land where our
+thews and sinews, our stout hands and hearts, can find an honest mart.
+Men, desperate as we are, have yet risen by honest means.  Take her, your
+orphan, with us.  We will work for her, both of us.  Gawtrey! hear me.
+It is not my voice that speaks to you--it is your good angel's!"
+
+Gawtrey fell back against the wall, and his chest heaved.
+
+"Morton," he said, with choked and tremulous accent, "go now; leave me to
+my fate!  I have sinned against you--shamefully sinned.  It seemed to me
+so sweet to have a friend; in your youth and character of mind there was
+so much about which the tough strings of my heart wound themselves, that
+I could not bear to lose you--to suffer you to know me for what I was.
+I blinded--I deceived you as to my past deeds; that was base in me: but I
+swore to my own heart to keep you unexposed to every danger, and free
+from every vice that darkened my own path.  I kept that oath till this
+night, when, seeing that you began to recoil from me, and dreading that
+you should desert me, I thought to bind you to me for ever by implicating
+you in this fellowship of crime.  I am punished, and justly.  Go, I
+repeat--leave me to the fate that strides nearer and nearer to me day by
+day.  You are a boy still--I am no longer young.  Habit is a second
+nature.  Still--still I could repent--I could begin life again.  But
+repose!--to look back--to remember--to be haunted night and day with
+deeds that shall meet me bodily and face to face on the last day--"
+
+"Add not to the spectres!  Come--fly this night--this hour!"
+
+Gawtrey paused, irresolute and wavering, when at that moment he heard
+steps on the stairs below.  He started--as starts the boar caught in his
+lair--and listened, pale and breathless.
+
+"Hush!--they are on us!--they come!" as he whispered, the key from
+without turned in the wards--the door shook.  "Soft! the bar preserves us
+both--this way."  And the coiner crept to the door of the private stairs.
+He unlocked and opened it cautiously.  A man sprang through the aperture:
+
+"Yield!--you are my prisoner!"
+
+"Never!" cried Gawtrey, hurling back the intruder, and clapping to the
+door, though other and stout men were pressing against it with all their
+power.
+
+"Ho! ho!  Who shall open the tiger's cage?"
+
+At both doors now were heard the sound of voices.  "Open in the king's
+name, or expect no mercy!"
+
+"Hist!" said Gawtrey.  "One way yet--the window--the rope."
+
+Morton opened the casement--Gawtrey uncoiled the rope.  The dawn was
+breaking; it was light in the streets, but all seemed quiet without.  The
+doors reeled and shook beneath the pressure of the pursuers.  Gawtrey
+flung the rope across the street to the opposite parapet; after two or
+three efforts, the grappling-hook caught firm hold--the perilous path was
+made.
+
+"On!--quick!--loiter not!"  whispered Gawtrey; "you are active--it seems
+more dangerous than it is--cling with both hands-shut your eyes.  When on
+the other side--you see the window of Birnie's room,--enter it--descend
+the stairs--let yourself out, and you are safe."
+
+"Go first," said Morton, in the same tone: "I will not leave you now: you
+will be longer getting across than I shall.  I will keep guard till you
+are over."
+
+"Hark! hark!--are you mad?  You keep guard! what is your strength to
+mine?  Twenty men shall not move that door, while my weight is against
+it.  Quick, or you destroy us both!  Besides, you will hold the rope for
+me, it may not be strong enough for my bulk in itself.  Stay!--stay one
+moment.  If you escape, and I fall--Fanny--my father, he will take care
+of her,--you remember--thanks!  Forgive me all!  Go; that's right!"
+
+With a firm impulse, Morton threw himself on the dreadful bridge; it
+swung and crackled at his weight.  Shifting his grasp rapidly--holding
+his breath--with set teeth-with closed eyes--he moved on--he gained the
+parapet--he stood safe on the opposite side.  And now, straining his eyes
+across, he saw through the open casement into the chamber he had just
+quitted.  Gawtrey was still standing against the door to the principal
+staircase, for that of the two was the weaker and the more assailed.
+Presently the explosion of a fire-arm was heard; they had shot through
+the panel.  Gawtrey seemed wounded, for he staggered forward, and uttered
+a fierce cry; a moment more, and he gained the window--he seized the
+rope--he hung over the tremendous depth!  Morton knelt by the parapet,
+holding the grappling-hook in its place, with convulsive grasp, and
+fixing his eyes, bloodshot with fear and suspense, on the huge bulk that
+clung for life to that slender cord!
+
+"Le voiles!  Le voiles!"  cried a voice from the opposite side.  Morton
+raised his gaze from Gawtrey; the casement was darkened by the forms of
+his pursuers--they had burst into the room--an officer sprang upon the
+parapet, and Gawtrey, now aware of his danger, opened his eyes, and as he
+moved on, glared upon the foe.  The policeman deliberately raised his
+pistol--Gawtrey arrested himself--from a wound in his side the blood
+trickled slowly and darkly down, drop by drop, upon the stones below;
+even the officers of law shuddered as they eyed him--his hair bristling
+--his cheek white--his lips drawn convulsively from his teeth, and his
+eyes glaring from beneath the frown of agony and menace in which yet
+spoke the indomitable power and fierceness of the man.  His look, so
+fixed--so intense--so stern, awed the policeman; his hand trembled as he
+fired, and the ball struck the parapet an inch below the spot where
+Morton knelt.  An indistinct, wild, gurgling sound-half-laugh, half-yell
+of scorn and glee, broke from Gawtrey's lips.  He swung himself on--near
+--near--nearer--a yard from the parapet.
+
+"You are saved!"  cried Morton; when at the moment a volley burst from
+the fatal casement--the smoke rolled over both the fugitives--a groan, or
+rather howl, of rage, and despair, and agony, appalled even the hardest
+on whose ear it came.  Morton sprang to his feet and looked below.  He
+saw on the rugged stones far down, a dark, formless, motionless mass--the
+strong man of passion and levity--the giant who had played with life and
+soul, as an infant with the baubles that it prizes and breaks--was what
+the Caesar and the leper alike are, when the clay is without God's
+breath--what glory, genius, power, and beauty, would be for ever and for
+ever, if there were no God!
+
+"There is another!" cried the voice of one of the pursuers.  "Fire!"
+
+"Poor Gawtrey!" muttered Philip.  "I will fulfil your last wish;" and
+scarcely conscious of the bullet that whistled by him, he disappeared
+behind the parapet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+                         "Gently moved
+          By the soft wind of whispering silks."--DECKER.
+
+The reader may remember that while Monsieur Favart and Mr. Birnie were
+holding commune in the lane, the sounds of festivity were heard from a
+house in the adjoining street.  To that house we are now summoned.
+
+At Paris, the gaieties of balls, or soirees, are, I believe, very rare in
+that period of the year in which they are most frequent in London.  The
+entertainment now given was in honour of a christening; the lady who gave
+it, a relation of the new-born.
+
+Madame de Merville was a young widow; even before her marriage she had
+been distinguished in literature; she had written poems of more than
+common excellence; and being handsome, of good family, and large fortune,
+her talents made her an object of more interest than they might otherwise
+have done.  Her poetry showed great sensibility and tenderness.  If
+poetry be any index to the heart, you would have thought her one to love
+truly and deeply.  Nevertheless, since she married--as girls in France
+do--not to please herself, but her parents, she made a _mariage de
+convenance_.  Monsieur de Merville was a sober, sensible man, past middle
+age.  Not being fond of poetry, and by no means coveting a professional
+author for his wife, he had during their union, which lasted four years,
+discouraged his wife's liaison with Apollo.  But her mind, active and
+ardent, did not the less prey upon itself.  At the age of four-and-twenty
+she became a widow, with an income large even in England for a single
+woman, and at Paris constituting no ordinary fortune.  Madame de
+Merville, however, though a person of elegant taste, was neither
+ostentatious nor selfish; she had no children, and she lived quietly in
+apartments, handsome, indeed, but not more than adequate to the small
+establishment which--where, as on the Continent, the costly convenience
+of an entire house is not usually incurred--sufficed for her retinue.
+She devoted at least half her income, which was entirely at her own
+disposal, partly to the aid of her own relations, who were not rich, and
+partly to the encouragement of the literature she cultivated.  Although
+she shrank from the ordeal of publication, her poems and sketches of
+romance were read to her own friends, and possessed an eloquence seldom
+accompanied with so much modesty.  Thus, her reputation, though not blown
+about the winds, was high in her own circle, and her position in fashion
+and in fortune made her looked up to by her relations as the head of her
+family; they regarded her as _femme superieure_, and her advice with them
+was equivalent to a command.  Eugenie de Merville was a strange mixture
+of qualities at once feminine and masculine.  On the one hand, she had a
+strong will, independent views, some contempt for the world, and followed
+her own inclinations without servility to the opinion of others; on the
+other hand, she was susceptible, romantic, of a sweet, affectionate, kind
+disposition.  Her visit to M. Love, however indiscreet, was not less in
+accordance with her character than her charity to the mechanic's wife;
+masculine and careless where an eccentric thing was to be done--curiosity
+satisfied, or some object in female diplomacy achieved--womanly,
+delicate, and gentle, the instant her benevolence was appealed to or her
+heart touched.  She had now been three years a widow, and was
+consequently at the age of twenty-seven.  Despite the tenderness of her
+poetry and her character, her reputation was unblemished.  She had never
+been in love.  People who are much occupied do not fall in love easily;
+besides, Madame de Merville was refining, exacting, and wished to find
+heroes where she only met handsome dandies or ugly authors.  Moreover,
+Eugenie was both a vain and a proud person--vain of her celebrity and
+proud of her birth.  She was one whose goodness of heart made her always
+active in promoting the happiness of others.  She was not only generous
+and charitable, but willing to serve people by good offices as well as
+money.  Everybody loved her.  The new-born infant, to whose addition to
+the Christian community the fete of this night was dedicated, was the
+pledge of a union which Madame de Merville had managed to effect between
+two young persons, first cousins to each other, and related to herself.
+There had been scruples of parents to remove--money matters to adjust--
+Eugenie had smoothed all.  The husband and wife, still lovers, looked up
+to her as the author, under Heaven, of their happiness.
+
+The gala of that night had been, therefore, of a nature more than usually
+pleasurable, and the mirth did not sound hollow, but wrung from the
+heart.  Yet, as Eugenie from time to time contemplated the young people,
+whose eyes ever sought each other--so fair, so tender, and so joyous as
+they seemed--a melancholy shadow darkened her brow, and she sighed
+involuntarily.  Once the young wife, Madame d'Anville, approaching her
+timidly, said:
+
+"Ah! my sweet cousin, when shall we see you as happy as ourselves?  There
+is such happiness," she added, innocently, and with a blush, "in being a
+mother!--that little life all one's own--it is something to think of
+every hour!"
+
+"Perhaps," said Eugenie, smiling, and seeking to turn the conversation
+from a subject that touched too nearly upon feelings and thoughts her
+pride did not wish to reveal--"perhaps it is you, then, who have made our
+cousin, poor Monsieur de Vaudemont, so determined to marry?  Pray, be
+more cautious with him.  How difficult I have found it to prevent his
+bringing into our family some one to make us all ridiculous!"
+
+"True," said Madame d'Anville, laughing.  "But then, the Vicomte is so
+poor, and in debt.  He would fall in love, not with the demoiselle, but
+the dower. _A propos_ of that, how cleverly you took advantage of his
+boastful confession to break off his liaisons with that _bureau de
+mariage_."
+
+"Yes; I congratulate myself on that manoeuvre.  Unpleasant as it was to
+go to such a place (for, of course, I could not send for Monsieur Love
+here), it would have been still more unpleasant to have received such a
+Madame de Vaudemont as our cousin would have presented to us.  Only
+think--he was the rival of an _epicier_!  I heard that there was some
+curious _denouement_ to the farce of that establishment; but I could
+never get from Vaudemont the particulars.  He was ashamed of them, I
+fancy."
+
+"What droll professions there are in Paris!"  said Madame d'Anville.  "As
+if people could not marry without going to an office for a spouse as we
+go for a servant!  And so the establishment is broken up?  And you never
+again saw that dark, wild-looking boy who so struck your fancy that you
+have taken him as the original for the Murillo sketch of the youth in
+that charming tale you read to us the other evening?  Ah! cousin, I think
+you were a little taken with him.  The _bureau de mariage_ had its
+allurements for you as well as for our poor cousin!"  The young mother
+said this laughingly and carelessly.
+
+"Pooh!" returned Madame de Merville, laughing also; but a slight blush
+broke over her natural paleness.  "But a propos of the Vicomte.  You know
+how cruelly he has behaved to that poor boy of his by his English wife--
+never seen him since he was an infant--kept him at some school in
+England; and all because his vanity does not like the world to know that
+he has a son of nineteen!  Well, I have induced him to recall this poor
+youth."
+
+"Indeed! and how?"
+
+"Why," said Eugenie, with a smile, "he wanted a loan, poor man, and I
+could therefore impose conditions by way of interest.  But I also managed
+to conciliate him to the proposition, by representing that, if the young
+man were good-looking, he might, himself, with our connections, &c., form
+an advantageous marriage; and that in such a case, if the father treated
+him now justly and kindly, he would naturally partake with the father
+whatever benefits the marriage might confer."
+
+"Ah! you are an excellent diplomatist, Eugenie; and you turn people's
+heads by always acting from your heart.  Hush!  here comes the Vicomte"
+
+"A delightful ball," said Monsieur de Vaudemont, approaching the hostess.
+"Pray, has that young lady yonder, in the pink dress, any fortune?  She
+is pretty--eh?  You observe she is looking at me--I mean at us!"
+
+"My dear cousin, what a compliment you pay to marriage!  You have had two
+wives, and you are ever on the _qui vive_ for a third!"
+
+"What would you have me do?--we cannot resist the overtures of your
+bewitching sex.  Hum--what fortune has she?"
+
+"Not a _sou_; besides, she is engaged."
+
+"Oh! now I look at her, she is not pretty--not at all.  I made a mistake.
+I did not mean her; I meant the young lady in blue."
+
+"Worse and worse--she is married already.  Shall I present you?"
+
+"Ah, Monsieur de Vaudemont," said Madame d'Anville; "have you found out a
+new bureau de mariage?"
+
+The Vicomte pretended not to hear that question.  But, turning to
+Eugenie, took her aside, and said, with an air in which he endeavoured to
+throw a great deal of sorrow, "You know, my dear cousin, that, to oblige
+you, I consented to send for my son, though, as I always said, it is very
+unpleasant for a man like me, in the prime of life, to hawk about a great
+boy of nineteen or twenty.  People soon say, 'Old Vaudemont and younq
+Vaudemont.'  However, a father's feelings are never appealed to in vain."
+(Here the Vicomte put his handkerchief to his eyes, and after a pause,
+continued,)--"I sent for him--I even went to your old _bonne_, Madame
+Dufour, to make a bargain for her lodgings, and this day--guess my grief
+--I received a letter sealed with black.  My son is dead!--a sudden
+fever--it is shocking!"
+
+"Horrible! dead!--your own son, whom you hardly ever saw--never since he
+was an Infant!"
+
+"Yes, that softens the blow very much.  And now you see I must marry.  If
+the boy had been good-looking, and like me, and so forth, why, as you
+observed, he might have made a good match, and allowed me a certain sum,
+or we could have all lived together."
+
+"And your son is dead, and you come to a ball!"
+
+"_Je suis philosophe_," said the Vicomte, shrugging his shoulders.  "And,
+as you say, I never saw him.  It saves me seven hundred francs a-year.
+Don't say a word to any one--I sha'n't give out that he is dead, poor
+fellow!  Pray be discreet: you see there are some ill-natured people who
+might think it odd I do not shut myself up.  I can wait till Paris is
+quite empty.  It would be a pity to lose any opportunity at present, for
+now, you see, I must marry!" And the philosophe sauntered away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+                    GUIOMAR.
+          "Those devotions I am to pay
+          Are written in my heart, not in this book."
+
+                 Enter RUTILIO.
+          "I am pursued--all the ports are stopped too,
+          Not any hope to escape--behind, before me,
+          On either side, I am beset."
+          BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, _The Custom of the Country_
+
+The party were just gone--it was already the peep of day--the wheels of
+the last carriage had died in the distance.
+
+Madame de Merville had dismissed her woman, and was seated in her own
+room, leaning her head musingly on her hand.
+
+Beside her was the table that held her MSS. and a few books, amidst which
+were scattered vases of flowers.  On a pedestal beneath the window was
+placed a marble bust of Dante.  Through the open door were seen in
+perspective two rooms just deserted by her guests; the lights still
+burned in the chandeliers and girandoles, contending with the daylight
+that came through the half-closed curtains.  The person of the inmate was
+in harmony with the apartment.  It was characterised by a certain grace
+which, for want of a better epithet, writers are prone to call classical
+or antique.  Her complexion, seeming paler than usual by that light, was
+yet soft and delicate--the features well cut, but small and womanly.
+About the face there was that rarest of all charms, the combination of
+intellect with sweetness; the eyes, of a dark blue, were thoughtful,
+perhaps melancholy, in their expression; but the long dark lashes, and
+the shape of the eyes, themselves more long than full, gave to their
+intelligence a softness approaching to languor, increased, perhaps, by
+that slight shadow round and below the orbs which is common with those
+who have tasked too much either the mind or the heart.  The contour of
+the face, without being sharp or angular, had yet lost a little of the
+roundness of earlier youth; and the hand on which she leaned was,
+perhaps, even too white, too delicate, for the beauty which belongs to
+health; but the throat and bust were of exquisite symmetry.
+
+"I am not happy," murmured Eugenie to herself; "yet I scarce know why.
+Is it really, as we women of romance have said till the saying is worn
+threadbare, that the destiny of women is not fame but love.  Strange,
+then, that while I have so often pictured what love should be, I have
+never felt it.  And now,--and now," she continued, half rising, and with
+a natural pang--"now I am no longer in my first youth.  If I loved,
+should I be loved again?  How happy the young pair seemed--they are never
+alone!"
+
+At this moment, at a distance, was heard the report of fire-arms--again!
+Eugenie started, and called to her servant, who, with one of the waiters
+hired for the night, was engaged in removing, and nibbling as he removed,
+the re mains of the feast.  "What is that, at this hour?--open the window
+and look out!"
+
+"I can see nothing, madame."
+
+"Again--that is the third time.  Go into the street and look--some one
+must be in danger."
+
+The servant and the waiter, both curious, and not willing to part
+company, ran down the stairs, and thence into the street.
+
+Meanwhile, Morton, after vainly attempting Birnie's window, which the
+traitor had previously locked and barred against the escape of his
+intended victim, crept rapidly along the roof, screened by the parapet
+not only from the shot but the sight of the foe.  But just as he gained
+the point at which the lane made an angle with the broad street it
+adjoined, he cast his eyes over the parapet, and perceived that one of
+the officers had ventured himself to the fearful bridge; he was pursued--
+detection and capture seemed inevitable.  He paused, and breathed hard.
+He, once the heir to such fortunes, the darling of such affections!--he,
+the hunted accomplice of a gang of miscreants!  That was the thought that
+paralysed--the disgrace, not the danger.  But he was in advance of the
+pursuer--he hastened on--he turned the angle--he heard a shout behind
+from the opposite side--the officer had passed the bridge: "it is but one
+man as yet," thought he, and his nostrils dilated and his hands clenched
+as he glided on, glancing at each casement as he passed.
+
+Now as youth and vigour thus struggled against Law for life, near at hand
+Death was busy with toil and disease.  In a miserable _grabat_, or
+garret, a mechanic, yet young, and stricken by a lingering malady
+contracted by the labour of his occupation, was slowly passing from that
+world which had frowned on his cradle, and relaxed not the gloom of its
+aspect to comfort his bed of Death.  Now this man had married for love,
+and his wife had loved him; and it was the cares of that early marriage
+which had consumed him to the bone.  But extreme want, if long continued,
+eats up love when it has nothing else to eat.  And when people are very
+long dying, the people they fret and trouble begin to think of that too
+often hypocritical prettiness of phrase called "a happy release."  So the
+worn-out and half-famished wife did not care three straws for the dying
+husband, whom a year or two ago she had vowed to love and cherish in
+sickness and in health.  But still she seemed to care, for she moaned,
+and pined, and wept, as the man's breath grew fainter and fainter.
+
+"Ah, Jean!" said she, sobbing, "what will become of me, a poor lone
+widow, with nobody to work for my bread?"  And with that thought she took
+on worse than before.
+
+"I am stifling," said the dying man, rolling round his ghastly eyes.
+"How hot it is!  Open the window; I should like to see the light-daylight
+once again."
+
+"Mon Dieu! what whims he has, poor man!"  muttered the woman, without
+stirring.
+
+The poor wretch put out his skeleton hand and clutched his wife's arm.
+
+"I sha'n't trouble you long, Marie!  Air--air!"
+
+"Jean, you will make yourself worse--besides, I shall catch my death of
+cold.  I have scarce a rag on, but I will just open the door."
+
+"Pardon me," groaned the sufferer; "leave me, then."  Poor fellow!
+perhaps at that moment the thought of unkindness was sharper than the
+sharp cough which brought blood at every paroxysm.  He did not like her
+so near him, but he did not blame her.  Again, I say,--poor fellow!  The
+woman opened the door, went to the other side of the room, and sat down
+on an old box and began darning an old neck-handkerchief.  The silence
+was soon broken by the moans of the fast-dying man, and again he
+muttered, as he tossed to and fro, with baked white lips:
+
+"_Je m'etoufee_!--Air!"
+
+There was no resisting that prayer, it seemed so like the last.  The wife
+laid down the needle, put the handkerchief round her throat, and opened
+the window.
+
+"Do you feel easier now?"
+
+"Bless you, Marie--yes; that's good--good.  It puts me in mind of old
+days, that breath of air, before we came to Paris.  I wish I could work
+for you now, Marie."
+
+"Jean! my poor Jean!"  said the woman, and the words and the voice took
+back her hardening heart to the fresh fields and tender thoughts of the
+past time.  And she walked up to the bed, and he leaned his temples, damp
+with livid dews, upon her breast.
+
+"I have been a sad burden to you, Marie; we should not have married so
+soon; but I thought I was stronger.  Don't cry; we have no little ones,
+thank God.  It will be much better for you when I am gone."
+
+And so, word after word gasped out--he stopped suddenly, and seemed to
+fall asleep.
+
+The wife then attempted gently to lay him once more on his pillow--the
+head fell back heavily--the jaw had dropped--the teeth were set--the eyes
+were open and like the stone--the truth broke on her!
+
+"Jean--Jean!  My God, he is dead! and I was unkind to him at the last!"
+With these words she fell upon the corpse, happily herself insensible.
+
+Just at that moment a human face peered in at the window.  Through that
+aperture, after a moment's pause, a young man leaped lightly into the
+room.  He looked round with a hurried glance, but scarcely noticed the
+forms stretched on the pallet.  It was enough for him that they seemed to
+sleep, and saw him not.  He stole across the room, the door of which
+Marie had left open, and descended the stairs.  He had almost gained the
+courtyard into which the stairs had conducted, when he heard voices below
+by the porter's lodge.
+
+"The police have discovered a gang of coiners!"
+
+"Coiners!"
+
+"Yes, one has been shot dead!  I have seen his body in the kennel;
+another has fled along the roofs--a desperate fellow!  We were to watch
+for him.  Let us go up-stairs and get on the roof and look out."
+
+By the hum of approval that followed this proposition, Morton judged
+rightly that it had been addressed to several persons whom curiosity and
+the explosion of the pistols had drawn from their beds, and who were
+grouped round the porter's lodge.  What was to be done?--to advance was
+impossible: and was there yet time to retreat?--it was at least the only
+course left him; he sprang back up the stairs; he had just gained the
+first flight when he heard steps descending; then, suddenly, it flashed
+across him that he had left open the window above--that, doubtless, by
+that imprudent oversight the officer in pursuit had detected a clue to
+the path he had taken.  What was to be done?--die as Gawtrey had done!--
+death rather than the galleys.  As he thus resolved, he saw to the right
+the open door of an apartment in which lights still glimmered in their
+sockets.  It seemed deserted--he entered boldly and at once, closing the
+door after him.  Wines and viands still left on the table; gilded
+mirrors, reflecting the stern face of the solitary intruder; here and
+there an artificial flower, a knot of riband on the floor, all betokening
+the gaieties and graces of luxurious life--the dance, the revel, the
+feast--all this in one apartment!--above, in the same house, the pallet--
+the corpse--the widow--famine and woe!  Such is a great city! such, above
+all, is Paris! where, under the same roof, are gathered such antagonist
+varieties of the social state!  Nothing strange in this; it is strange
+and sad that so little do people thus neighbours know of each other, that
+the owner of those rooms had a heart soft to every distress, but she did
+not know the distress so close at hand.  The music that had charmed her
+guests had mounted gaily to the vexed ears of agony and hunger.  Morton
+passed the first room--a second--he came to a third, and Eugenie de
+Merville, looking up at that instant, saw before her an apparition that
+might well have alarmed the boldest.  His head was uncovered--his dark
+hair shadowed in wild and disorderly profusion the pale face and
+features, beautiful indeed, but at that moment of the beauty which an
+artist would impart to a young gladiator--stamped with defiance, menace,
+and despair.  The disordered garb--the fierce aspect--the dark eyes, that
+literally shone through the shadows of the room-all conspired to increase
+the terror of so abrupt a presence.
+
+"What are you?--What do you seek here?"  said she, falteringly, placing
+her hand on the bell as she spoke.  Upon that soft hand Morton laid his
+own.
+
+"I seek my life!  I am pursued!  I am at your mercy!  I am innocent!  Can
+you save me?"
+
+As he spoke, the door of the outer room beyond was heard to open, and
+steps and voices were at hand.
+
+"Ah!" he exclaimed, recoiling as he recognised her face.  "And is it to
+you that I have fled?"
+
+Eugenie also recognised the stranger; and there was something in their
+relative positions--the suppliant, the protectress--that excited both her
+imagination and her pity.  A slight colour mantled to her cheeks--her
+look was gentle and compassionate.
+
+"Poor boy! so young!" she said.  "Hush!"
+
+She withdrew her hand from his, retired a few steps, lifted a curtain
+drawn across a recess--and pointing to an alcove that contained one of
+those sofa-beds common in French houses, added in a whisper,--
+
+"Enter--you are saved."
+
+Morton obeyed, and Eugenie replaced the curtain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+                         GUIOMAR.
+          "Speak!  What are you?"
+
+                        RUTILIO.
+          "Gracious woman, hear me.  I am a stranger:
+          And in that I answer all your demands."
+           _Custom of the Country_.
+
+Eugenie replaced the curtain.  And scarcely had she done so ere the steps
+in the outer room entered the chamber where she stood.  Her servant was
+accompanied by two officers of the police.
+
+"Pardon, madame," said one of the latter; "but we are in pursuit of a
+criminal.  We think he must have entered this house through a window
+above while your servant was in the street.  Permit us to search?"
+
+"Without doubt," answered Eugenie, seating herself.  "If he has entered,
+look in the other apartments.  I have not quitted this room."
+
+"You are right.  Accept our apologies."
+
+And the officers turned back to examine every corner where the fugitive
+was not.  For in that, the scouts of Justice resembled their mistress:
+when does man's justice look to the right place?
+
+The servant lingered to repeat the tale he had heard--the sight he had
+seen.  When, at that instant, he saw the curtain of the alcove slightly
+stirred.  He uttered an exclamation-sprung to the bed--his hand touched
+the curtain--Eugenie seized his arm.  She did not speak; but as he turned
+his eyes to her, astonished, he saw that she trembled, and that her cheek
+was as white as marble.
+
+"Madame," he said, hesitating, "there is some one hid in the recess."
+
+"There is!  Be silent!"
+
+A suspicion flashed across the servant's mind.  The pure, the proud, the
+immaculate Eugenie!
+
+"There is!--and in madame's chamber!"  he faltered unconsciously.
+
+Eugenie's quick apprehensions seized the foul thought.  Her eyes flashed
+--her cheek crimsoned.  But her lofty and generous nature conquered even
+the indignant and scornful burst that rushed to her lips.  The truth!--
+could she trust the man?  A doubt--and the charge of the human life
+rendered to her might be betrayed.  Her colour fell--tears gushed to her
+eyes.
+
+"I have been kind to you, Francois.  Not a word."  "Madame confides in
+me--it is enough," said the Frenchman, bowing, with a slight smile on his
+lips; and he drew back respectfully.
+
+One of the police officers re-entered.
+
+"We have done, madame; he is not here.  Aha! that curtain!"
+
+"It is madame's bed," said Francois.  "But I have looked behind."
+
+"I am most sorry to have disarranged you," said the policeman, satisfied
+with the answer; "but we shall have him yet."  And he retired.
+
+The last footsteps died away, the last door of the apartments closed
+behind the officers, and Eugenie and her servant stood alone gazing on
+each other.
+
+"You may retire," said she at last; and taking her purse from the table,
+she placed it in his hands.
+
+The man took it, with a significant look.  "Madame may depend on my
+discretion."
+
+Eugenie was alone again.  Those words rang in her ear,--Eugenie de
+Merville dependent on the discretion of her lackey!  She sunk into her
+chair, and, her excitement succeeded by exhaustion, leaned her face on
+her hands, and burst into tears.  She was aroused by a low voice; she
+looked up, and the young man was kneeling at her feet.
+
+"Go--go!"  she said: "I have done for you all I can."
+
+"You heard--you heard--my own hireling, too!  At the hazard of my own good
+name you are saved.  Go!"
+
+"Of your good name!"--for Eugenie forgot that it was looks, not words,
+that had so wrung her pride--"Your good name," he repeated: and glancing
+round the room--the toilette, the curtain, the recess he had quitted--all
+that bespoke that chastest sanctuary of a chaste woman, which for a
+stranger to enter is, as it were, to profane--her meaning broke on him.
+"Your good name--your hireling!  No, madame,--no!"  And as he spoke, he
+rose to his feet.  "Not for me, that sacrifice!  Your humanity shall not
+cost you so dear.  Ho, there!  I am the man you seek."  And he strode to
+the door.
+
+Eugenie was penetrated with the answer.  She sprung to him--she grasped
+his garments.
+
+"Hush! hush!--for mercy's sake!  What would you do?  Think you I could
+ever be happy again, if the confidence you placed in me were betrayed?
+Be calm--be still.  I knew not what I said.  It will be easy to undeceive
+the man--later--when you are saved.  And you are innocent,--are you not?"
+
+"Oh, madame," said Morton, "from my soul I say it, I am innocent--not of
+poverty--wretchedness--error--shame; I am innocent of crime.  May Heaven
+bless you!"
+
+And as he reverently kissed the hand laid on his arm, there was something
+in his voice so touching, in his manner something so above his fortunes,
+that Eugenie was lost in her feelings of compassion, surprise, and
+something, it might be, of admiration in her wonder.
+
+"And, oh!" he said, passionately, gazing on her with his dark, brilliant
+eyes, liquid with emotion, "you have made my life sweet in saving it.
+You--you--of whom, ever since the first time, almost the sole time, I
+beheld you--I have so often mused and dreamed.  Henceforth, whatever
+befall me, there will be some recollections that will--that--"
+
+He stopped short, for his heart was too full for words; and the silence
+said more to Eugenie than if all the eloquence of Rousseau had glowed
+upon his tongue.
+
+"And who, and what are you?"  she asked, after a pause.
+
+"An exile--an orphan--an outcast!  I have no name!  Farewell!"
+
+"No--stay yet--the danger is not past.  Wait till my servant is gone to
+rest; I hear him yet.  Sit down--sit down.  And whither would you go?"
+
+"I know not."
+
+"Have you no friends?"
+
+"Gone."
+
+"No home?"
+
+"None."
+
+"And the police of Paris so vigilant!"  cried Eugenie, wringing her
+hands.  "What is to be done?  I shall have saved you in vain--you will be
+discovered!  Of what do they charge you?  Not robbery--not--"
+
+And she, too, stopped short, for she did not dare to breathe the black
+word, "Murder!"
+
+"I know not," said Morton, putting his hand to his forehead, "except of
+being friends with the only man who befriended me--and they have killed
+him!"
+
+"Another time you shall tell me all."
+
+"Another time!" he exclaimed, eagerly--"shall I see you again?"
+
+Eugenie blushed beneath the gaze and the voice of joy.  "Yes," she said;
+"yes.  But I must reflect.  Be calm be silent.  Ah!--a happy thought!"
+
+She sat down, wrote a hasty line, sealed, and gave it to Morton.
+
+"Take this note, as addressed, to Madame Dufour; it will provide you with
+a safe lodging.  She is a person I can depend on--an old servant who
+lived with my mother, and to whom I have given a small pension.  She has
+a lodging--it is lately vacant--I promised to procure her a tenant--go--
+say nothing of what has passed.  I will see her, and arrange all.  Wait!
+--hark!--all is still.  I will go first, and see that no one watches you.
+Stop," (and she threw open the window, and looked into the court.)  "The
+porter's door is open--that is fortunate!  Hurry on, and God be with
+you!"
+
+In a few minutes Morton was in the streets.  It was still early--the
+thoroughfares deserted-none of the shops yet open.  The address on the
+note was to a street at some distance, on the other side of the Seine.
+He passed along the same Quai which he had trodden but a few hours since
+--he passed the same splendid bridge on which he had stood despairing, to
+quit it revived--he gained the Rue Faubourg St. Honore.  A young man in a
+cabriolet, on whose fair cheek burned the hectic of late vigils and
+lavish dissipation, was rolling leisurely home from the gaming-house, at
+which he had been more than usually fortunate--his pockets were laden
+with notes and gold.  He bent forwards as Morton passed him.  Philip,
+absorbed in his reverie, perceived him not, and continued his way.  The
+gentleman turned down one of the streets to the left, stopped, and called
+to the servant dozing behind his cabriolet.
+
+"Follow that passenger! quietly--see where he lodges; be sure to find out
+and let me know.  I shall go home with out you."  With that he drove on.
+
+Philip, unconscious of the espionage, arrived at a small house in a quiet
+but respectable street, and rang the bell several times before at last he
+was admitted by Madame Dufour herself, in her nightcap.  The old woman
+looked askant and alarmed at the unexpected apparition.  But the note
+seemed at once to satisfy her.  She conducted him to an apartment on the
+first floor, small, but neatly and even elegantly furnished, consisting
+of a sitting-room and a bedchamber, and said, quietly,--
+
+"Will they suit monsieur?"
+
+To monsieur they seemed a palace.  Morton nodded assent.
+
+"And will monsieur sleep for a short time?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"The bed is well aired.  The rooms have only been vacant three days
+since.  Can I get you anything till your luggage arrives?"
+
+"No."
+
+The woman left him.  He threw off his clothes--flung himself on the bed--
+and did not wake till noon.
+
+When his eyes unclosed--when they rested on that calm chamber, with its
+air of health, and cleanliness, and comfort, it was long before he could
+convince himself that he was yet awake.  He missed the loud, deep voice
+of Gawtrey--the smoke of the dead man's meerschaum--the gloomy garret--
+the distained walls--the stealthy whisper of the loathed Birnie; slowly
+the life led and the life gone within the last twelve hours grew upon his
+struggling memory.  He groaned, and turned uneasily round, when the door
+slightly opened, and he sprung up fiercely,--
+
+"Who is there?"
+
+"It is only I, sir," answered Madame Dufour.  "I have been in three times
+to see if you were stirring.  There is a letter I believe for you, sir;
+though there is no name to it," and she laid the letter on the chair
+beside him.  Did it come from her--the saving angel?  He seized it.  The
+cover was blank; it was sealed with a small device, as of a ring seal.
+He tore it open, and found four billets de banque for 1,000 francs each,
+--a sum equivalent in our money to about L160.
+
+"Who sent this, the--the lady from whom I brought the note?"
+
+"Madame de Merville? certainly not, sir," said Madame Dufour, who, with
+the privilege of age, was now unscrupulously filling the water-jugs and
+settling the toilette-table.  "A young man called about two hours after
+you had gone to bed; and, describing you, inquired if you lodged here,
+and what your name was.  I said you had just arrived, and that I did not
+yet know your name.  So he went away, and came again half an hour
+afterwards with this letter, which he charged me to deliver to you
+safely."
+
+A young man--a gentleman?"
+
+"No, sir; he seemed a smart but common sort of lad."  For the
+unsophisticated Madame Dufour did not discover in the plain black frock
+and drab gaiters of the bearer of that letter the simple livery of an
+English gentleman's groom.
+
+Whom could it come from, if not from Madame de Merville?  Perhaps one of
+Gawtrey's late friends.  A suspicion of Arthur Beaufort crossed him, but
+he indignantly dismissed it.  Men are seldom credulous of what they are
+unwilling to believe.  What kindness had the Beauforts hitherto shown
+him?--Left his mother to perish broken-hearted--stolen from him his
+brother, and steeled, in that brother, the only heart wherein he had a
+right to look for gratitude and love!  No, it must be Madame de Merville.
+He dismissed Madame Dufour for pen and paper--rose--wrote a letter to
+Eugenie--grateful, but proud, and inclosed the notes.  He then summoned
+Madame Dufour, and sent her with his despatch.
+
+"Ah, madame," said the _ci-devant bonne_, when she found herself in
+Eugenie's presence.  "The poor lad! how handsome he is, and how shameful
+in the Vicomte to let him wear such clothes!"
+
+"The Vicomte!"
+
+"Oh, my dear mistress, you must not deny it.  You told me, in your note,
+to ask him no questions, but I guessed at once.  The Vicomte told me
+himself that he should have the young gentleman over in a few days.  You
+need not be ashamed of him.  You will see what a difference clothes will
+make in his appearance; and I have taken it on myself to order a tailor
+to go to him.  The Vicomte--must pay me."
+
+"Not a word to the Vicomte as yet.  We will surprise him," said Eugenie,
+laughing.
+
+Madame de Merville had been all that morning trying to invent some story
+to account for her interest in the lodger, and now how Fortune favoured
+her!
+
+"But is that a letter for me?"
+
+"And I had almost forgot it," said Madame Dufour, as she extended the
+letter.
+
+Whatever there had hitherto been in the circumstances connected with
+Morton, that had roused the interest and excited the romance of Eugenie
+de Merville, her fancy was yet more attracted by the tone of the letter
+she now read.  For though Morton, more accustomed to speak than to write
+French, expressed himself with less precision, and a less euphuistic
+selection of phrase, than the authors and _elegans_ who formed her usual
+correspondents; there was an innate and rough nobleness--a strong and
+profound feeling in every line of his letter, which increased her
+surprise and admiration.
+
+"All that surrounds him--all that belongs to him, is strangeness and
+mystery!"  murmured she; and she sat down to reply.
+
+When Madame Dufour departed with that letter, Eugenie remained silent and
+thoughtful for more than an hour, Morton's letter before her; and sweet,
+in their indistinctness, were the recollections and the images that
+crowded on her mind.
+
+Morton, satisfied by the earnest and solemn assurances of Eugenie that
+she was not the unknown donor of the sum she reinclosed, after puzzling
+himself in vain to form any new conjectures as to the quarter whence it
+came, felt that under his present circumstances it would be an absurd
+Quixotism to refuse to apply what the very Providence to whom he had anew
+consigned himself seemed to have sent to his aid.  And it placed him,
+too, beyond the offer of all pecuniary assistance from one from whom he
+could least have brooked to receive it.  He consented, therefore, to all
+that the loquacious tailor proposed to him.  And it would have been
+difficult to have recognised the wild and frenzied fugitive in the
+stately form, with its young beauty and air of well-born pride, which the
+next day sat by the side of Eugenie.  And that day he told his sad and
+troubled story, and Eugenie wept: and from that day he came daily; and
+two weeks--happy, dreamlike, intoxicating to both--passed by; and as
+their last sun set, he was kneeling at her feet, and breathing to one to
+whom the homage of wit, and genius, and complacent wealth had hitherto
+been vainly proffered, the impetuous, agitated, delicious secrets of the
+First Love.  He spoke, and rose to depart for ever--when the look and
+sigh detained him.
+
+The next day, after a sleepless night, Eugenie de Merville sent for the
+Vicomte de Vaudemont.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+               "A silver river small
+               In sweet accents
+               Its music vents;
+               The warbling virginal
+               To which the merry birds do sing,
+               Timed with stops of gold the silver string."
+               _Sir Richard Fanshawe_.
+
+One evening, several weeks after the events just commemorated, a
+stranger, leading in his hand, a young child, entered the churchyard of
+H----.  The sun had not long set, and the short twilight of deepening
+summer reigned in the tranquil skies; you might still hear from the trees
+above the graves the chirp of some joyous bird;--what cared he, the
+denizen of the skies, for the dead that slept below?--what did he value
+save the greenness and repose of the spot,--to him alike the garden or
+the grave!  As the man and the child passed, the robin, scarcely scared
+by their tread from the long grass beside one of the mounds, looked at
+them with its bright, blithe eye.  It was a famous plot for the robin--
+the old churchyard!  That domestic bird--"the friend of man," as it has
+been called by the poets--found a jolly supper among the worms!
+
+The stranger, on reaching the middle of the sacred ground, paused and
+looked round him wistfully.  He then approached, slowly and hesitatingly,
+an oblong tablet, on which were graven, in letters yet fresh and new,
+these words:--
+
+                                 TO THE
+                 MEMORY OF ONE CALUMNIATED AND WRONGED
+                     THIS BURIAL-STONE IS DEDICATED
+                              BY HER SON.
+
+Such, with the addition of the dates of birth and death, was the tablet
+which Philip Morton had directed to be placed over his mother's bones;
+and around it was set a simple palisade, which defended it from the tread
+of the children, who sometimes, in defiance of the beadle, played over
+the dust of the former race.
+
+"Thy son!"  muttered the stranger, while the child stood quietly by his
+side, pleased by the trees, the grass, the song of the birds, and reeking
+not of grief or death,--"thy son!--but not thy favoured son--thy darling
+--thy youngest born; on what spot of earth do thine eyes look down on
+him?  Surely in heaven thy love has preserved the one whom on earth thou
+didst most cherish, from the sufferings and the trials that have visited
+the less-favoured outcast.  Oh, mother--mother!--it was not his crime--
+not Philip's--that he did not fulfil to the last the trust bequeathed to
+him!  Happier, perhaps, as it is!  And, oh, if thy memory be graven as
+deeply in my brother's heart as my own, how often will it warn and save
+him!  That memory!--it has been to me the angel of my life!  To thee--to
+thee, even in death, I owe it, if, though erring, I am not criminal,--if
+I have lived with the lepers, and am still undefiled!"  His lips then
+were silent--not his heart!
+
+After a few minutes thus consumed he turned to the child, and said,
+gently and in a tremulous voice, "Fanny, you have been taught to pray--
+you will live near this spot,--will you come sometimes here and pray that
+you may grow up good and innocent, and become a blessing to those who
+love you?"
+
+"Will papa ever come to hear me pray?"
+
+That sad and unconscious question went to the heart of Morton.  The child
+could not comprehend death.  He had sought to explain it, but she had
+been accustomed to consider her protector dead when he was absent from
+her, and she still insisted that he must come again to life.  And that
+man of turbulence and crime, who had passed unrepentant, unabsolved, from
+sin to judgment: it was an awful question, "If he should hear her pray?"
+
+"Yes!" said he, after a pause,--"yes, Fanny, there is a Father who will
+hear you pray; and pray to Him to be merciful to those who have been kind
+to you.  Fanny, you and I may never meet again!"
+
+"Are you going to die too? _Mechant_, every one dies to Fanny!"  and,
+clinging to him endearingly, she put up her lips to kiss him.  He took
+her in his arms: and, as a tear fell upon her rosy cheek, she said,
+"Don't cry, brother, for I love you."
+
+"Do you, dear Fanny?  Then, for my sake, when you come to this place, if
+any one will give you a few flowers, scatter them on that stone.  And now
+we will go to one whom you must love also, and to whom, as I have told
+you, _he_ sends you; he who--Come!"
+
+As he thus spoke, and placed Fanny again on the ground, he was startled
+to see: precisely on the spot where he had seen before the like
+apparition--on the same spot where the father had cursed the son, the
+motionless form of an old man.  Morton recognised, as if by an instinct
+rather than by an effort of the memory, the person to whom he was bound.
+
+He walked slowly towards him; but Fanny abruptly left his side, lured by
+a moth that flitted duskily over the graves.
+
+"Your name, sir, I think, is Simon Gawtrey?" said Morton.  "I have came
+to England in quest of you."
+
+"Of me?" said the old man, half rising, and his eyes, now completely
+blind, rolled vacantly over Morton's person--"Of me?--for what?--Who are
+you?--I don't know your voice!"
+
+"I come to you from your son!"
+
+"My son!" exclaimed the old man, with great vehemence,--"the reprobate!--
+the dishonoured!--the infamous!--the accursed--"
+
+"Hush! you revile the dead!"
+
+"Dead!"  muttered the wretched father, tottering back to the seat he had
+quitted,--"dead!" and the sound of his voice was so full of anguish, that
+the dog at his feet, which Morton had not hitherto perceived, echoed it
+with a dismal cry, that recalled to Philip the awful day in which he had
+seen the son quit the father for the last time on earth.
+
+The sound brought Fanny to the spot; and, with a laugh of delight, which
+made to it a strange contrast, she threw herself on the grass beside the
+dog and sought to entice it to play.  So there, in that place of death,
+were knit together the four links in the Great Chain;--lusty and blooming
+life--desolate and doting age--infancy, yet scarce conscious of a soul--
+and the dumb brute, that has no warrant of a Hereafter!
+
+"Dead!--dead!"  repeated the old man, covering his sightless balls with
+his withered hands.  "Poor William!"
+
+"He remembered you to the last.  He bade me seek you out--he bade me
+replace the guilty son with a thing pure and innocent, as he had been had
+he died in his cradle--a child to comfort your old age!  Kneel, Fanny, I
+have found you a father who will cherish you--(oh! you will, sir, will
+you not?)--as he whom you may see no more!"
+
+There was something in Morton's voice so solemn, that it awed and touched
+both the old man and the infant; and Fanny, creeping to the protector
+thus assigned to her, and putting her little hands confidingly on his
+knees, said--
+
+"Fanny will love you if papa wished it.  Kiss Fanny."
+
+"Is it his child--his?"  said the blind man, sobbing.  "Come to my heart;
+here--here!  O God, forgive me!"  Morton did not think it right at that
+moment to undeceive him with regard to the poor child's true connexion
+with the deceased: and he waited in silence till Simon, after a burst of
+passionate grief and tenderness, rose, and still clasping the child to
+his breast, said--
+
+"Sir, forgive me!--I am a very weak old man--I have many thanks to give--
+I have much, too, to learn.  My poor son! he did not die in want,--did
+he?"
+
+The particulars of Gawtrey's fate, with his real name and the various
+aliases he had assumed, had appeared in the French journals, had been
+partially copied into the English; and Morton had expected to have been
+saved the painful narrative of that fearful death; but the utter
+seclusion of the old man, his infirmity, and his estranged habits, had
+shut him out from the intelligence that it now devolved on Philip to
+communicate.  Morton hesitated a little before he answered:
+
+"It is late now; you are not yet prepared to receive this poor infant at
+your home, nor to hear the details I have to state.  I arrived in England
+but to-day.  I shall lodge in the neighbourhood, for it is dear to me.
+If I may feel sure, then, that you will receive and treasure this sacred
+and last deposit bequeathed to you by your unhappy son, I will bring my
+charge to you to-morrow, and we will then, more calmly than we can now,
+talk over the past."
+
+"You do not answer my question," said Simon, passionately; "answer that,
+and I will wait for the rest.  They call me a miser!  Did I send out my
+only child to starve?  Answer that!"
+
+"Be comforted.  He did not die in want; and he has even left some little
+fortune for Fanny, which I was to place in your hands."
+
+"And he thought to bribe the old miser to be human!  Well--well--well--I
+will go home."
+
+"Lean on me!"
+
+The dog leapt playfully on his master as the latter rose, and Fanny slid
+from Simon's arms to caress and talk to the animal in her own way.  As
+they slowly passed through the churchyard Simon muttered incoherently to
+himself for several paces, and Morton would not disturb, since he could
+not comfort, him.
+
+At last he said abruptly, "Did my son repent?"
+
+"I hoped," answered Morton, evasively, "that, had his life been spared,
+he would have amended!"
+
+"Tush, sir!--I am past seventy; we repent!--we never amend!"  And Simon
+again sunk into his own dim and disconnected reveries.
+
+At length they arrived at the blind man's house.  The door was opened to
+them by an old woman of disagreeable and sinister aspect, dressed out
+much too gaily for the station of a servant, though such was her reputed
+capacity; but the miser's affliction saved her from the chance of his
+comment on her extravagance.  As she stood in the doorway with a candle
+in her hand, she scanned curiously, and with no welcoming eye, her
+master's companions.
+
+"Mrs. Boxer, my son is dead!"  said Simon, in a hollow voice.
+
+"And a good thing it is, then, sir!"
+
+"For shame, woman!"  said Morton, indignantly.  "Hey-dey! sir! whom have
+we got here?"
+
+"One," said Simon, sternly, "whom you will treat with respect.  He brings
+me a blessing to lighten my loss.  One harsh word to this child, and you
+quit my house!"
+
+The woman looked perfectly thunderstruck; but, recovering herself, she
+said, whiningly--
+
+"I! a harsh word to anything my dear, kind master cares for.  And, Lord,
+what a sweet pretty creature it is!  Come here, my dear!"
+
+But Fanny shrunk back, and would not let go Philip's hand.
+
+"To-morrow, then," said Morton; and he was turning away, when a sudden
+thought seemed to cross the old man,--
+
+"Stay, sir--stay!  I--I--did my son say I was rich?  I am very, very
+poor--nothing in the house, or I should have been robbed long ago!"
+
+"Your son told me to bring money, not to ask for it!"
+
+"Ask for it!  No; but," added the old man, and a gleam of cunning
+intelligence shot over his face,--"but he had got into a bad set.  Ask!--
+No!--Put up the door-chain, Mrs. Boxer!"
+
+It was with doubt and misgivings that Morton, the next day, consigned the
+child, who had already nestled herself into the warmest core of his
+heart, to the care of Simon.  Nothing short of that superstitious
+respect, which all men owe to the wishes of the dead, would have made him
+select for her that asylum; for Fate had now, in brightening his own
+prospects, given him an alternative in the benevolence of Madame de
+Merville.  But Gawtrey had been so earnest on the subject, that he felt
+as if he had no right to hesitate.  And was it not a sort of atonement to
+any faults the son might have committed against the parent, to place by
+the old man's hearth so sweet a charge?
+
+The strange and peculiar mind and character of Fanny made him, however,
+yet more anxious than otherwise he might have been.  She certainly
+deserved not the harsh name of imbecile or idiot, but she was different
+from all other children; she felt more acutely than most of her age, but
+she could not be taught to reason.  There was something either oblique or
+deficient in her intellect, which justified the most melancholy
+apprehensions; yet often, when some disordered, incoherent, inexplicable
+train of ideas most saddened the listener, it would be followed by
+fancies so exquisite in their strangeness, or feelings so endearing in
+their tenderness, that suddenly she seemed as much above, as before she
+seemed below, the ordinary measure of infant comprehension.  She was like
+a creature to which Nature, in some cruel but bright caprice, has given
+all that belongs to poetry, but denied all that belongs to the common
+understanding necessary to mankind; or, as a fairy changeling, not,
+indeed, according to the vulgar superstition, malignant and deformed, but
+lovelier than the children of men, and haunted by dim and struggling
+associations of a gentler and fairer being, yet wholly incapable to learn
+the dry and hard elements which make up the knowledge of actual life.
+
+Morton, as well as he could, sought to explain to Simon the peculiarities
+in Fanny's mental constitution.  He urged on him the necessity of
+providing for her careful instruction, and Simon promised to send her to
+the best school the neighbourhood could afford; but, as the old man
+spoke, he dwelt so much on the supposed fact that Fanny was William's
+daughter, and with his remorse, or affection, there ran so interwoven a
+thread of selfishness and avarice, that Morton thought it would be
+dangerous to his interest in the child to undeceive his error.  He,
+therefore,--perhaps excusably enough--remained silent on that subject.
+
+Gawtrey had placed with the superior of the convent, together with an
+order to give up the child to any one who should demand her in his true
+name, which he confided to the superior, a sum of nearly L300., which he
+solemnly swore had been honestly obtained, and which, in all his shifts
+and adversities, he had never allowed himself to touch.  This sum, with
+the trifling deduction made for arrears due to the convent, Morton now
+placed in Simon's hands.  The old man clutched the money, which was for
+the most in French gold, with a convulsive gripe: and then, as if ashamed
+of the impulse, said--
+
+"But you, sir--will any sum--that is, any reasonable sum--be of use to
+you?"
+
+"No! and if it were, it is neither yours nor mine--it is hers.  Save it
+for her, and add to it what you can."
+
+While this conversation took place, Fanny had been consigned to the care
+of Mrs. Boxer, and Philip now rose to see and bid her farewell before he
+departed.
+
+"I may come again to visit you, Mr. Gawtrey; and I pray Heaven to find
+that you and Fanny have been a mutual blessing to each other.  Oh,
+remember how your son loved her!"
+
+"He had a good heart, in spite of all his sins.  Poor William!"  said
+Simon.
+
+Philip Morton heard, and his lip curled with a sad and a just disdain.
+
+If when, at the age of nineteen, William Gawtrey had quitted his father's
+roof, the father had then remembered that the son's heart was good,--the
+son had been alive still, an honest and a happy man.  Do ye not laugh, O
+ye all-listening Fiends! when men praise those dead whose virtues they
+discovered not when alive?  It takes much marble to build the sepulchre--
+how little of lath and plaster would have repaired the garret!
+
+On turning into a small room adjoining the parlour in which Gawtrey sat,
+Morton found Fanny standing gloomily by a dull, soot-grimed window, which
+looked out on the dead walls of a small yard.  Mrs. Boxer, seated by a
+table, was employed in trimming a cap, and putting questions to Fanny in
+that falsetto voice of endearment in which people not used to children
+are apt to address them.
+
+"And so, my dear, they've never taught you to read or write?  You've been
+sadly neglected, poor thing!"
+
+"We must do our best to supply the deficiency," said Morton, as he
+entered.
+
+"Bless me, sir, is that you?"  and the gouvernante bustled up and dropped
+a low courtesy; for Morton, dressed then in the garb of a gentleman, was
+of a mien and person calculated to strike the gaze of the vulgar.
+
+"Ah, brother!"  cried Fanny, for by that name he had taught her to call
+him; and she flew to his side.  "Come away--it's ugly there--it makes me
+cold."
+
+"My child, I told you you must stay; but I shall hope to see you again
+some day.  Will you not be kind to this poor creature, ma'am?  Forgive
+me, if I offended you last night, and favour me by accepting this, to
+show that we are friends."  As he spoke, he slid his purse into the
+woman's hand.  "I shall feel ever grateful for whatever you can do for
+Fanny."
+
+"Fanny wants nothing from any one else; Fanny wants her brother."
+
+"Sweet child!  I fear she don't take to me.  Will you like me, Miss
+Fanny?"
+
+"No! get along!"
+
+"Fie, Fanny--you remember you did not take to me at first.  But she is so
+affectionate, ma'am; she never forgets a kindness."
+
+"I will do all I can to please her, sir.  And so she is really master's
+grandchild?"  The woman fixed her eyes, as she spoke, so intently on
+Morton, that he felt embarrassed, and busied himself, without answering,
+in caressing and soothing Fanny, who now seemed to awake to the
+affliction about to visit her; for though she did not weep--she very
+rarely wept--her slight frame trembled--her eyes closed--her cheeks, even
+her lips, were white--and her delicate hands were clasped tightly round
+the neck of the one about to abandon her to strange breasts.
+
+Morton was greatly moved.  "One kiss, Fanny! and do not forget me when we
+meet again."
+
+The child pressed her lips to his cheek, but the lips were cold.  He put
+her down gently; she stood mute and passive.
+
+"Remember that he wished me to leave you here," whispered Morton, using
+an argument that never failed.  "We must obey him; and so-God bless you,
+Fanny!"
+
+He rose and retreated to the door; the child unclosed her eyes, and gazed
+at him with a strained, painful, imploring gaze; her lips moved, but she
+did not speak.  Morton could not bear that silent woe.  He sought to
+smile on her consolingly; but the smile would not come.  He closed the
+door, and hurried from the house.
+
+From that day Fanny settled into a kind of dreary, inanimate stupor,
+which resembled that of the somnambulist whom the magnetiser forgets to
+waken.  Hitherto, with all the eccentricities or deficiencies of her
+mind, had mingled a wild and airy gaiety.  That was vanished.  She spoke
+little--she never played--no toys could lure her--even the poor dog
+failed to win her notice.  If she was told to do anything she stared
+vacantly and stirred not.  She evinced, however, a kind of dumb regard to
+the old blind man; she would creep to his knees and sit there for hours,
+seldom answering when he addressed her, but uneasy, anxious, and
+restless, if he left her.
+
+"Will you die too?"  she asked once; the old man understood her not, and
+she did not try to explain.  Early one morning, some days after Morton
+was gone, they missed her: she was not in the house, nor the dull yard
+where she was sometimes dismissed and told to play--told in vain.  In
+great alarm the old man accused Mrs. Boxer of having spirited her away,
+and threatened and stormed so loudly that the woman, against her will,
+went forth to the search.  At last she found the child in the churchyard,
+standing wistfully beside a tomb.
+
+"What do you here, you little plague?"  said Mrs. Boxer, rudely seizing
+her by the arm.
+
+"This is the way they will both come back some day!  I dreamt so!"
+
+"If ever I catch you here again!"  said the housekeeper, and, wiping her
+brow with one hand, she struck the child with the other.  Fanny had never
+been struck before.  She recoiled in terror and amazement, and, for the
+first time since her arrival, burst into tears.
+
+"Come--come, no crying! and if you tell master I'll beat you within an
+inch of your life!"  So saying, she caught Fanny in her arms, and,
+walking about, scolding and menacing, till she had frightened back the
+child's tears, she returned triumphantly to the house, and bursting into
+the parlour, exclaimed, "Here's the little darling, sir!"
+
+When old Simon learned where the child had been found he was glad; for it
+was his constant habit, whenever the evening was fine, to glide out to
+that churchyard--his dog his guide--and sit on his one favourite spot
+opposite the setting sun.  This, not so much for the sanctity of the
+place, or the meditations it might inspire, as because it was the
+nearest, the safest, and the loneliest spot in the neighbourhood of his
+home, where the blind man could inhale the air and bask in the light of
+heaven.  Hitherto, thinking it sad for the child, he had never taken her
+with him; indeed, at the hour of his monotonous excursion she had
+generally been banished to bed.  Now she was permitted to accompany him;
+and the old man and the infant would sit there side by side, as Age and
+Infancy rested side by side in the graves below.  The first symptom of
+childlike interest and curiosity that Fanny betrayed was awakened by the
+affliction of her protector.  One evening, as they thus sat, she made him
+explain what the desolation of blindness is.  She seemed to comprehend
+him, though he did not seek to adapt his complaints to her understanding.
+
+"Fanny knows," said she, touchingly; "for she, too, is blind here;" and
+she pressed her hands to her temples.  Notwithstanding her silence and
+strange ways, and although he could not see the exquisite loveliness
+which Nature, as in remorseful pity, had lavished on her outward form,
+Simon soon learned to love her better than he had ever loved yet: for
+they most cold to the child are often dotards to the grandchild.  For her
+even his avarice slept.  Dainties, never before known at his sparing
+board, were ordered to tempt her appetite, toy-shops ransacked to amuse
+her indolence.  He was long, however, before he could prevail on himself
+to fulfil his promise to Morton, and rob himself of her presence.  At
+length, however, wearied with Mrs. Boxer's lamentations at her ignorance,
+and alarmed himself at some evidences of helplessness, which made him
+dread to think what her future might be when left alone in life, he
+placed her at a day-school in the suburb.  Here Fanny, for a considerable
+time, justified the harshest assertions of her stupidity.  She could not
+even keep her eyes two minutes together on the page from which she was to
+learn the mysteries of reading; months passed before she mastered the
+alphabet, and, a month after, she had again forgot it, and the labour was
+renewed.  The only thing in which she showed ability, if so it might be
+called, was in the use of the needle.  The sisters of the convent had
+already taught her many pretty devices in this art; and when she found
+that at the school they were admired--that she was praised instead of
+blamed--her vanity was pleased, and she learned so readily all that they
+could teach in this not unprofitable accomplishment, that Mrs. Boxer
+slyly and secretly turned her tasks to account and made a weekly
+perquisite of the poor pupil's industry.  Another faculty she possessed,
+in common with persons usually deficient, and with the lower species--
+viz., a most accurate and faithful recollection of places.  At first Mrs.
+Boxer had been duly sent, morning, noon, and evening, to take her to, or
+bring her from, the school; but this was so great a grievance to Simon's
+solitary superintendent, and Fanny coaxed the old man so endearingly to
+allow her to go and return alone, that the attendance, unwelcome to both,
+was waived.  Fanny exulted in this liberty; and she never, in going or in
+returning, missed passing through the burial-ground, and gazing wistfully
+at the tomb from which she yet believed Morton would one day reappear.
+With his memory she cherished also that of her earlier and more guilty
+protector; but they were separate feelings, which she distinguished in
+her own way.
+
+"Papa had given her up.  She knew that he would not have sent her away,
+far--far over the great water, if he had meant to see Fanny again; but
+her brother was forced to leave her--he would come to life one day, and
+then they should live together!"
+
+One day, towards the end of autumn, as her schoolmistress, a good woman
+on the whole, but who had not yet had the wit to discover by what chords
+to tune the instrument, over which so wearily she drew her unskilful
+hand--one day, we say, the schoolmistress happened to be dressed for a
+christening party to which she was invited in the suburb; and,
+accordingly, after the morning lessons, the pupils were to be dismissed
+to a holiday.  As Fanny now came last, with the hopeless spelling-book,
+she stopped suddenly short, and her eyes rested with avidity upon a large
+bouquet of exotic flowers, with which the good lady had enlivened the
+centre of the parted kerchief, whose yellow gauze modestly veiled that
+tender section of female beauty which poets have likened to hills of
+snow--a chilling simile!  It was then autumn; and field, and even garden
+flowers were growing rare.
+
+"Will you give me one of those flowers?"  said Fanny, dropping her book.
+
+"One of these flowers, child!  why?"
+
+Fanny did not answer; but one of the elder and cleverer girls said--
+
+"Oh! she comes from France, you know, ma'am, and the Roman Catholics put
+flowers, and ribands, and things, over the graves; you recollect, ma'am,
+we were reading yesterday about Pere-la-Chaise?"
+
+"Well! what then?"
+
+"And Miss Fanny will do any kind of work for us if we will give her
+flowers."
+
+"My brother told me where to put them;--but these pretty flowers, I never
+had any like them; they may bring him back again!  I'll be so good if
+you'll give me one, only one!"
+
+"Will you learn your lesson if I do, Fanny?"
+
+"Oh! yes!  Wait a moment!"
+
+And Fanny stole back to her desk, put the hateful book resolutely before
+her, pressed both hands tightly on her temples,--Eureka! the chord was
+touched; and Fanny marched in triumph through half a column of hostile
+double syllables!
+
+From that day the schoolmistress knew how to stimulate her, and Fanny
+learned to read: her path to knowledge thus literally strewn with
+flowers!  Catherine, thy children were far off, and thy grave looked gay!
+
+It naturally happened that those short and simple rhymes, often sacred,
+which are repeated in schools as helps to memory, made a part of her
+studies; and no sooner had the sound of verse struck upon her fancy than
+it seemed to confuse and agitate anew all her senses.  It was like the
+music of some breeze, to which dance and tremble all the young leaves of
+a wild plant.  Even when at the convent she had been fond of repeating
+the infant rhymes with which they had sought to lull or to amuse her,
+but now the taste was more strongly developed.  She confounded, however,
+in meaningless and motley disorder, the various snatches of song that
+came to her ear, weaving them together in some form which she understood,
+but which was jargon to all others; and often, as she went alone through
+the green lanes or the bustling streets, the passenger would turn in pity
+and fear to hear her half chant--half murmur--ditties that seemed to suit
+only a wandering and unsettled imagination.  And as Mrs. Boxer, in her
+visits to the various shops in the suburb, took care to bemoan her hard
+fate in attending to a creature so evidently moon-stricken, it was no
+wonder that the manner and habits of the child, coupled with that strange
+predilection to haunt the burial-ground, which is not uncommon with
+persons of weak and disordered intellect; confirmed the character thus
+given to her.
+
+So, as she tripped gaily and lightly along the thoroughfares, the
+children would draw aside from her path, and whisper with superstitious
+fear mingled with contempt, "It's the idiot girl!"--Idiot--how much more
+of heaven's light was there in that cloud than in the rushlights that,
+flickering in sordid chambers, shed on dull things the dull ray--esteeming
+themselves as stars!
+
+Months-years passed--Fanny was thirteen, when there dawned a new era to
+her existence.  Mrs. Boxer had never got over her first grudge to Fanny.
+Her treatment of the poor girl was always harsh, and sometimes cruel.
+But Fanny did not complain, and as Mrs. Boxer's manner to her before
+Simon was invariably cringing and caressing, the old man never guessed
+the hardships his supposed grandchild underwent.  There had been scandal
+some years back in the suburb about the relative connexion of the master
+and the housekeeper; and the flaunting dress of the latter, something
+bold in her regard, and certain whispers that her youth had not been
+vowed to Vesta, confirmed the suspicion.  The only reason why we do not
+feel sure that the rumour was false is this,--Simon Gawtrey had been so
+hard on the early follies of his son!  Certainly, at all events, the
+woman had exercised great influence over the miser before the arrival of
+Fanny, and she had done much to steel his selfishness against the ill-
+fated William.  And, as certainly, she had fully calculated on succeeding
+to the savings, whatever they might be, of the miser, whenever Providence
+should be pleased to terminate his days.  She knew that Simon had, many
+years back, made his will in her favour; she knew that he had not altered
+that will: she believed, therefore, that in spite of all his love for
+Fanny, he loved his gold so much more, that be could not accustom himself
+to the thought of bequeathing it to hands too helpless to guard the
+treasure.  This had in some measure reconciled the housekeeper to the
+intruder; whom, nevertheless, she hated as a dog hates another dog, not
+only for taking his bone, but for looking at it.
+
+But suddenly Simon fell ill.  His age made it probable he would die.  He
+took to his bed--his breathing grew fainter and fainter--he seemed dead.
+Fanny, all unconscious, sat by his bedside as usual, holding her breath
+not to waken him.  Mrs. Boxer flew to the bureau--she unlocked it--she
+could not find the will; but she found three bags of bright gold guineas:
+the sight charmed her.  She tumbled them forth on the distained green
+cloth of the bureau--she began to count them; and at that moment, the old
+man, as if there were a secret magnetism between himself and the guineas,
+woke from his trance.  His blindness saved him the pain that might have
+been fatal, of seeing the unhallowed profanation; but he heard the chink
+of the metal.  The very sound restored his strength.  But the infirm are
+always cunning--he breathed not a suspicion.  "Mrs. Boxer," said he,
+faintly, "I think I could take some broth."  Mrs. Boxer rose in great
+dismay, gently re-closed the bureau, and ran down-stairs for the broth.
+Simon took the occasion to question Fanny; and no sooner had he learnt
+the operation of the heir-expectant, than he bade the girl first lock the
+bureau and bring him the key, and next run to a lawyer (whose address he
+gave her), and fetch him instantly.
+
+With a malignant smile the old man took the broth from his handmaid,--
+"Poor Boxer, you are a disinterested creature," said he, feebly; "I
+think you will grieve when I go."
+
+Mrs. Boxer sobbed, and before she had recovered, the lawyer entered.
+That day a new will was made; and the lawyer politely informed Mrs. Boxer
+that her services would be dispensed with the next morning, when he
+should bring a nurse to the house.  Mrs. Boxer heard, and took her
+resolution.  As soon as Simon again fell asleep, she crept into the room-
+led away Fanny--locked her up in her own chamber--returned--searched for
+the key of the bureau, which she found at last under Simon's pillow--
+possessed herself of all she could lay her hands on--and the next morning
+she had disappeared forever!  Simon's loss was greater than might have
+been supposed; for, except a trifling sum in the savings bank, he, like
+many other misers, kept all he had, in notes or specie, under his own
+lock and key.  His whole fortune, indeed, was far less than was supposed:
+for money does not make money unless it is put out to interest,--and the
+miser cheated himself.  Such portion as was in bank-notes Mrs. Boxer
+probably had the prudence to destroy; for those numbers which Simon could
+remember were never traced; the gold, who could swear to?  Except the
+pittance in the savings bank, and whatever might be the paltry worth of
+the house he rented, the father who had enriched the menial to exile the
+son was a beggar in his dotage.  This news, however, was carefully
+concealed from him by the advice of the doctor, whom, on his own
+responsibility, the lawyer introduced, till he had recovered sufficiently
+to bear the shock without danger; and the delay naturally favoured Mrs.
+Boxer's escape.
+
+Simon remained for some moments perfectly stunned and speechless when the
+news was broken to him.  Fanny, in alarm at his increasing paleness,
+sprang to his breast.  He pushed her away,--"Go--go--go, child," he
+said; "I can't feed you now.  Leave me to starve."
+
+"To starve!"  said Fanny, wonderingly; and she stole away, and sat
+herself down as if in deep thought.  She then crept up to the lawyer as
+he was about to leave the room, after exhausting his stock of commonplace
+consolation; and putting her hand in his, whispered, "I want to talk to
+you--this way:"--She led him through the passage into the open air.
+"Tell me," she said, "when poor people try not to starve, don't they
+work?"
+
+"My dear, yes."
+
+"For rich people buy poor people's work?"
+
+"Certainly, my dear; to be sure."
+
+"Very well.  Mrs. Boxer used to sell my work.  Fanny will feed grandpapa!
+Go and tell him never to say 'starve' again."
+
+The good-natured lawyer was moved.  "Can you work, indeed, my poor girl?
+Well, put on your bonnet, and come and talk to my wife."
+
+And that was the new era in Fanny's existence!  Her schooling was
+stopped.  But now life schooled her.  Necessity ripened her intellect.
+And many a hard eye moistened,--as, seeing her glide with her little
+basket of fancy work along the streets, still murmuring her happy and
+bird-like snatches of unconnected song--men and children alike said with
+respect, in which there was now no contempt, "It's the idiot girl who
+supports her blind grandfather!"  They called her idiot still!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+          "O that sweet gleam of sunshine on the lake!"
+          WILSON'S _City of the Plague_
+
+If, reader, you have ever looked through a solar microscope at the
+monsters in a drop of water, perhaps you have wondered to yourself how
+things so terrible have been hitherto unknown to you--you have felt a
+loathing at the limpid element you hitherto deemed so pure--you have half
+fancied that you would cease to be a water-drinker; yet, the next day you
+have forgotten the grim life that started before you, with its countless
+shapes, in that teeming globule; and, if so tempted by your thirst, you
+have not shrunk from the lying crystal, although myriads of the horrible
+Unseen are mangling, devouring, gorging each other in the liquid you so
+tranquilly imbibe; so is it with that ancestral and master element called
+Life.  Lapped in your sleek comforts, and lolling on the sofa of your
+patent conscience--when, perhaps for the first time, you look through the
+glass of science upon one ghastly globule in the waters that heave
+around, that fill up, with their succulence, the pores of earth, that
+moisten every atom subject to your eyes or handled by your touch--you are
+startled and dismayed; you say, mentally, "Can such things be?  I never
+dreamed of this before!  I thought what was invisible to me was non-
+existent in itself--I will remember this dread experiment."  The next day
+the experiment is forgotten.--The Chemist may purify the Globule--can
+Science make pure the World?
+
+Turn we now to the pleasant surface, seen in the whole, broad and fair to
+the common eye.  Who would judge well of God's great designs, if he could
+look on no drop pendent from the rose-tree, or sparkling in the sun,
+without the help of his solar microscope?
+
+It is ten years after the night on which William Gawtrey perished:--I
+transport you, reader, to the fairest scenes in England,--scenes
+consecrated by the only true pastoral poetry we have known to
+Contemplation and Repose.
+
+Autumn had begun to tinge the foliage on the banks of Winandermere.  It
+had been a summer of unusual warmth and beauty; and if that year you had
+visited the English lakes, you might, from time to time, amidst the
+groups of happy idlers you encountered, have singled out two persons for
+interest, or, perhaps, for envy.  Two who might have seemed to you in
+peculiar harmony with those serene and soft retreats, both young--both
+beautiful.  Lovers you would have guessed them to be; but such lovers as
+Fletcher might have placed under the care of his "Holy Shepherdess"--
+forms that might have reclined by
+
+          "The virtuous well, about whose flowery banks
+          The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds
+          By the pale moonshine."
+
+For in the love of those persons there seemed a purity and innocence that
+suited well their youth and the character of their beauty.  Perhaps,
+indeed, on the girl's side, love sprung rather from those affections
+which the spring of life throws upward to the surface, as the spring of
+earth does its flowers, than from that concentrated and deep absorption
+of self in self, which alone promises endurance and devotion, and of
+which first love, or rather the first fancy, is often less susceptible
+than that which grows out of the more thoughtful fondness of maturer
+years.  Yet he, the lover, was of so rare and singular a beauty, that he
+might well seem calculated to awake, to the utmost, the love which wins
+the heart through the eyes.
+
+But to begin at the beginning.  A lady of fashion had, in the autumn
+previous to the year in which our narrative re-opens, taken, with her
+daughter, a girl then of about eighteen, the tour of the English lakes.
+Charmed by the beauty of Winandermere, and finding one of the most
+commodious villas on its banks to be let, they had remained there all the
+winter.  In the early spring a severe illness had seized the elder lady,
+and finding herself, as she slowly recovered, unfit for the gaieties of a
+London season, nor unwilling, perhaps,--for she had been a beauty in her
+day--to postpone for another year the debut of her daughter, she had
+continued her sojourn, with short intervals of absence, for a whole year.
+Her husband, a busy man of the world, with occupation in London, and fine
+estates in the country, joined them only occasionally, glad to escape the
+still beauty of landscapes which brought him no rental, and therefore
+afforded no charm to his eye.
+
+In the first month of their arrival at Winandermere, the mother and
+daughter had made an eventful acquaintance in the following manner.
+
+One evening, as they were walking on their lawn, which sloped to the
+lake, they heard the sound of a flute, played with a skill so exquisite
+as to draw them, surprised and spellbound, to the banks.  The musician
+was a young man, in a boat, which he had moored beneath the trees of
+their demesne.  He was alone, or, rather, he had one companion, in a
+large Newfoundland dog, that sat watchful at the helm of the boat, and
+appeared to enjoy the music as much as his master.  As the ladies
+approached the spot, the dog growled, and the young man ceased, though
+without seeing the fair causes of his companion's displeasure.  The sun,
+then setting, shone full on his countenance as he looked round; and that
+countenance was one that might have haunted the nymphs of Delos; the face
+of Apollo, not as the hero, but the shepherd--not of the bow, but of the
+lute--not the Python-slayer, but the young dreamer by shady places--he
+whom the sculptor has portrayed leaning idly against the tree--the boy-
+god whose home is yet on earth, and to whom the Oracle and the Spheres
+are still unknown.
+
+At that moment the dog leaped from the boat, and the elder lady uttered a
+faint cry of alarm, which, directing the attention of the musician,
+brought him also ashore.  He called off his dog, and apologised, with a
+not ungraceful mixture of diffidence and ease, for his intrusion.  He was
+not aware the place was inhabited--it was a favourite haunt of his--he
+lived near.  The elder lady was pleased with his address, and struck with
+his appearance.  There was, indeed, in his manner that indefinable charm,
+which is more attractive than mere personal appearance, and which can
+never be imitated or acquired.  They parted, however, without
+establishing any formal acquaintance.  A few days after, they met at
+dinner at a neighbouring house, and were introduced by name.  That of the
+young man seemed strange to the ladies; not so theirs to him.  He turned
+pale when he heard it, and remained silent and aloof the rest of the
+evening.  They met again and often; and for some weeks--nay, even for
+months--he appeared to avoid, as much as possible, the acquaintance so
+auspiciously begun; but, by little and little, the beauty of the younger
+lady seemed to gain ground on his diffidence or repugnance.  Excursions
+among the neighbouring mountains threw them together, and at last he
+fairly surrendered himself to the charm he had at first determined to
+resist.
+
+This young man lived on the opposite side of the lake, in a quiet
+household, of which he was the idol.  His life had been one of almost
+monastic purity and repose; his tastes were accomplished, his character
+seemed soft and gentle; but beneath that calm exterior, flashes of
+passion--the nature of the poet, ardent and sensitive--would break forth
+at times.  He had scarcely ever, since his earliest childhood, quitted
+those retreats; he knew nothing of the world, except in books--books of
+poetry and romance.  Those with whom he lived--his relations, an old
+bachelor, and the cold bachelor's sisters, old maids--seemed equally
+innocent and inexperienced.  It was a family whom the rich respected and
+the poor loved--inoffensive, charitable, and well off.  To whatever their
+easy fortune might be, he appeared the heir.  The name of this young man
+was Charles Spencer; the ladies were Mrs. Beaufort, and Camilla her
+daughter.
+
+Mrs. Beaufort, though a shrewd woman, did not at first perceive any
+danger in the growing intimacy between Camilla and the younger Spencer.
+Her daughter was not her favourite--not the object of her one thought or
+ambition.  Her whole heart and soul were wrapped in her son Arthur, who
+lived principally abroad.  Clever enough to be considered capable, when
+he pleased, of achieving distinction, good-looking enough to be thought
+handsome by all who were on the _qui vive_ for an advantageous match,
+good-natured enough to be popular with the society in which he lived,
+scattering to and fro money without limit,--Arthur Beaufort, at the age
+of thirty, had established one of those brilliant and evanescent
+reputations, which, for a few years, reward the ambition of the fine
+gentleman.  It was precisely the reputation that the mother could
+appreciate, and which even the more saving father secretly admired,
+while, ever respectable in phrase, Mr. Robert Beaufort seemed openly to
+regret it.  This son was, I say, everything to them; they cared little,
+in comparison, for their daughter.  How could a daughter keep up the
+proud name of Beaufort?  However well she might marry, it was another
+house, not theirs, which her graces and beauty would adorn.  Moreover,
+the better she might marry the greater her dowry would naturally be,--the
+dowry, to go out of the family!  And Arthur, poor fellow!  was so
+extravagant, that really he would want every sixpence.  Such was the
+reasoning of the father.  The mother reasoned less upon the matter.  Mrs.
+Beaufort, faded and meagre, in blonde and cashmere, was jealous of the
+charms of her daughter; and she herself, growing sentimental and
+lachrymose as she advanced in life, as silly women often do, had
+convinced herself that Camilla was a girl of no feeling.
+
+Miss Beaufort was, indeed, of a character singularly calm and placid; it
+was the character that charms men in proportion, perhaps, to their own
+strength and passion.  She had been rigidly brought up--her affections
+had been very early chilled and subdued; they moved, therefore, now, with
+ease, in the serene path of her duties.  She held her parents, especially
+her father, in reverential fear, and never dreamed of the possibility of
+resisting one of their wishes, much less their commands.  Pious, kind,
+gentle, of a fine and never-ruffled temper, Camilla, an admirable
+daughter, was likely to make no less admirable a wife; you might depend
+on her principles, if ever you could doubt her affection.  Few girls were
+more calculated to inspire love.  You would scarcely wonder at any folly,
+any madness, which even a wise man might commit for her sake.  This did
+not depend on her beauty alone, though she was extremely lovely rather
+than handsome, and of that style of loveliness which is universally
+fascinating: the figure, especially as to the arms, throat, and bust, was
+exquisite; the mouth dimpled; the teeth dazzling; the eyes of that velvet
+softness which to look on is to love.  But her charm was in a certain
+prettiness of manner, an exceeding innocence, mixed with the most
+captivating, because unconscious, coquetry.  With all this, there was a
+freshness, a joy, a virgin and bewitching candour in her voice, her
+laugh--you might almost say in her very movements.  Such was Camilla
+Beaufort at that age.  Such she seemed to others.  To her parents she was
+only a great girl rather in the way.  To Mrs. Beaufort a rival, to Mr.
+Beaufort an encumbrance on the property.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+          *  *  *  "The moon
+          Saddening the solemn night, yet with that sadness
+          Mingling the breath of undisturbed Peace."
+                               WILSON: _City of the Plague_
+
+          *  *  *  "Tell me his fate.
+          Say that he lives, or say that he is dead
+          But tell me--tell me!
+          * * * * * *
+          I see him not--some cloud envelopes him."--Ibid.
+
+One day (nearly a year after their first introduction) as with a party of
+friends Camilla and Charles Spencer were riding through those wild and
+romantic scenes which lie between the sunny Winandermere and the dark and
+sullen Wastwater, their conversation fell on topics more personal than it
+had hitherto done, for as yet, if they felt love, they had never spoken
+of it.
+
+The narrowness of the path allowed only two to ride abreast, and the two
+to whom I confine my description were the last of the little band.
+
+"How I wish Arthur were here!"  said Camilla; "I am sure you would like
+him."
+
+"Are you?  He lives much in the world--the world of which I know nothing.
+Are we then characters to suit each other?"
+
+"He is the kindest--the best of human beings!"  said Camilla, rather
+evasively, but with more warmth than usually dwelt in her soft and low
+voice.
+
+"Is he so kind?"  returned Spencer, musingly.  "Well, it may be so.  And
+who would not be kind to you?  Ah! it is a beautiful connexion that of
+brother and sister--I never had a sister!"
+
+"Have you then a brother?"  asked Camilla, in some surprise, and turning
+her ingenuous eyes full on her companion.
+
+Spencer's colour rose--rose to his temples: his voice trembled as he
+answered, "No;--no brother!"  then, speaking in a rapid and hurried tone,
+he continued, "My life has been a strange and lonely one.  I am an
+orphan.  I have mixed with few of my own age: my boyhood and youth have
+been spent in these scenes; my education such as Nature and books could
+bestow, with scarcely any guide or tutor save my guardian--the dear old
+man!  Thus the world, the stir of cities, ambition, enterprise,--all seem
+to me as things belonging to a distant land to which I shall never
+wander.  Yet I have had my dreams, Miss Beaufort; dreams of which these
+solitudes still form a part--but solitudes not unshared.  And lately I
+have thought that those dreams might be prophetic.  And you--do you love
+the world?"
+
+"I, like you, have scarcely tried it," said Camilla, with a sweet laugh.
+"but I love the country better,--oh! far better than what little I have
+seen of towns.  But for you," she continued with a charming hesitation,
+"a man is so different from us,--for you to shrink from the world--you,
+so young and with talents too--nay, it is true!--it seems to me strange."
+
+"It may be so, but I cannot tell you what feelings of dread--what vague
+forebodings of terror seize me if I carry my thoughts beyond these
+retreats.  Perhaps my good guardian--"
+
+"Your uncle?"  interrupted Camilla.
+
+"Ay, my uncle--may have contributed to engender feelings, as you say,
+strange at my age; but still--"
+
+"Still what!"
+
+"My earlier childhood," continued Spencer, breathing hard and turning
+pale, "was not spent in the happy home I have now; it was passed in a
+premature ordeal of suffering and pain.  Its recollections have left a
+dark shadow on my mind, and under that shadow lies every thought that
+points towards the troublous and labouring career of other men.  But," he
+resumed after a pause, and in a deep, earnest, almost solemn voice,--"
+but after all, is this cowardice or wisdom?  I find no monotony--no
+tedium in this quiet life.  Is there not a certain morality--a certain
+religion in the spirit of a secluded and country existence?  In it we do
+not know the evil passions which ambition and strife are said to arouse.
+I never feel jealous or envious of other men; I never know what it is to
+hate; my boat, my horse, our garden, music, books, and, if I may dare to
+say so, the solemn gladness that comes from the hopes of another life,--
+these fill up every hour with thoughts and pursuits, peaceful, happy, and
+without a cloud, till of late, when--when--"
+
+"When what?" said Camilla, innocently.
+
+"When I have longed, but did not dare to ask another, if to share such a
+lot would content her!"
+
+He bent, as he spoke, his soft blue eyes full upon the blushing face of
+her whom he addressed, and Camilla half smiled and half sighed:
+
+"Our companions are far before us," said she, turning away her face, "and
+see, the road is now smooth."  She quickened her horse's pace as she said
+this; and Spencer, too new to women to interpret favourably her evasion
+of his words and looks, fell into a profound silence which lasted during
+the rest of their excursion.
+
+As towards the decline of day he bent his solitary way home, emotions and
+passions to which his life had hitherto been a stranger, and which, alas!
+he had vainly imagined a life so tranquil would everlastingly restrain,
+swelled his heart.
+
+"She does not love me," he muttered, half aloud; "she will leave me, and
+what then will all the beauty of the landscape seem in my eyes?  And how
+dare I look up to her?  Even if her cold, vain mother--her father, the
+man, they say, of forms and scruples, were to consent, would they not
+question closely of my true birth and origin?  And if the one blot were
+overlooked, is there no other?  His early habits and vices, his?--a
+brother's--his unknown career terminating at any day, perhaps, in shame,
+in crime, in exposure, in the gibbet,--will they overlook this?"  As he
+spoke, he groaned aloud, and, as if impatient to escape himself, spurred
+on his horse and rested not till he reached the belt of trim and sober
+evergreens that surrounded his hitherto happy home.
+
+Leaving his horse to find its way to the stables, the young man passed
+through rooms, which he found deserted, to the lawn on the other side,
+which sloped to the smooth waters of the lake.
+
+Here, seated under the one large tree that formed the pride of the lawn,
+over which it cast its shadow broad and far, he perceived his guardian
+poring idly over an oft-read book, one of those books of which literary
+dreamers are apt to grow fanatically fond--books by the old English
+writers, full of phrases and conceits half quaint and half sublime,
+interspersed with praises of the country, imbued with a poetical rather
+than orthodox religion, and adorned with a strange mixture of monastic
+learning and aphorisms collected from the weary experience of actual
+life.
+
+To the left, by a greenhouse, built between the house and the lake, might
+be seen the white dress and lean form of the eldest spinster sister, to
+whom the care of the flowers--for she had been early crossed in love--was
+consigned; at a little distance from her, the other two were seated at
+work, and conversing in whispers, not to disturb their studious brother,
+no doubt upon the nephew, who was their all in all.  It was the calmest
+hour of eve, and the quiet of the several forms, their simple and
+harmless occupations--if occupations they might be called--the breathless
+foliage rich in the depth of summer; behind, the old-fashioned house,
+unpretending, not mean, its open doors and windows giving glimpses of the
+comfortable repose within; before, the lake, without a ripple and
+catching the gleam of the sunset clouds,--all made a picture of that
+complete tranquillity and stillness, which sometimes soothes and
+sometimes saddens us, according as we are in the temper to woo CONTENT.
+
+The young man glided to his guardian and touched his shoulder,--"Sir, may
+I speak to you?--Hush! they need not see us now! it is only you I would
+speak with."
+
+The elder Spencer rose; and, with his book still in his hand, moved side
+by side with his nephew under the shadow of the tree and towards a walk
+to the right, which led for a short distance along the margin of the
+lake, backed by the interlaced boughs of a thick copse.
+
+"Sir!" said the young man, speaking first, and with a visible effort,
+"your cautions have been in vain!  I love this girl--this daughter of the
+haughty Beauforts!  I love her--better than life I love her!"
+
+"My poor boy," said the uncle tenderly, and with a simple fondness
+passing his arm over the speaker's shoulder, "do not think I can chide
+you--I know what it is to love in vain!"
+
+"In vain!--but why in vain?"  exclaimed the younger Spencer, with a
+vehemence that had in it something of both agony and fierceness.  "She
+may love me--she shall love me!" and almost for the first time in his
+life, the proud consciousness of his rare gifts of person spoke in his
+kindled eye and dilated stature.  "Do they not say that Nature has been
+favourable to me?--What rival have I here?--Is she not young?--And
+(sinking his voice till it almost breathed like music) is not love
+contagious?"
+
+"I do not doubt that she may love you--who would not?--but--but--the
+parents, will they ever consent?"  "Nay!" answered the lover, as with
+that inconsistency common to passion, he now argued stubbornly against
+those fears in another to which he had just before yielded in himself,--
+"Nay!--after all, am I not of their own blood?--Do I not come from the
+elder branch?--Was I not reared in equal luxury and with higher hopes?--
+And my mother--my poor mother--did she not to the last maintain our
+birthright--her own honour?--Has not accident or law unjustly stripped us
+of our true station?--Is it not for us to forgive spoliation?--Am I not,
+in fact, the person who descends, who forgets the wrongs of the dead--the
+heritage of the living?"
+
+The young man had never yet assumed this tone--had never yet shown that
+he looked back to the history connected with his birth with the feelings
+of resentment and the remembrance of wrong.  It was a tone contrary to
+his habitual calm and contentment--it struck forcibly on his listener--
+and the elder Spencer was silent for some moments before he replied, "If
+you feel thus (and it is natural), you have yet stronger reason to
+struggle against this unhappy affection."
+
+"I have been conscious of that, sir," replied the young man, mournfully.
+"I have struggled!--and I say again it is in vain!  I turn, then, to face
+the obstacles!  My birth--let us suppose that the Beauforts overlook it.
+Did you not tell me that Mr. Beaufort wrote to inform you of the abrupt
+and intemperate visit of my brother--of his determination never to
+forgive it?  I think I remember something of this years ago."
+
+"It is true!" said the guardian; "and the conduct of that brother is, in
+fact, the true cause why you never ought to reassume your proper name!--
+never to divulge it, even to the family with whom you connect yourself by
+marriage; but, above all, to the Beauforts, who for that cause, if that
+cause alone, would reject your suit."
+
+The young man groaned--placed one hand before his eyes, and with the
+other grasped his guardian's arm convulsively, as if to check him from
+proceeding farther; but the good man, not divining his meaning, and
+absorbed in his subject, went on, irritating the wound he had touched.
+
+"Reflect!--your brother in boyhood--in the dying hours of his mother,
+scarcely saved from the crime of a thief, flying from a friendly pursuit
+with a notorious reprobate; afterwards implicated in some discreditable
+transaction about a horse, rejecting all--every hand that could save him,
+clinging by choice to the lowest companions and the meanest-habits,
+disappearing from the country, and last seen, ten years ago--the beard
+not yet on his chin--with that same reprobate of whom I have spoken, in
+Paris; a day or so only before his companion, a coiner--a murderer--fell
+by the hands of the police!  You remember that when, in your seventeenth
+year, you evinced some desire to retake your name--nay, even to re-find
+that guilty brother--I placed before you, as a, sad, and terrible duty,
+the newspaper that contained the particulars of the death and the former
+adventures of that wretched accomplice, the notorious Gawtrey.  And,--
+telling you that Mr. Beaufort had long since written to inform me that
+his own son and Lord Lilburne had seen your brother in company with the
+miscreant just before his fate--nay, was, in all probability, the very
+youth described in the account as found in his chamber and escaping the
+pursuit--I asked you if you would now venture to leave that disguise--
+that shelter under which you would for ever be safe from the opprobrium
+of the world--from the shame that, sooner or later, your brother must
+bring upon your name!"
+
+"It is true--it is true!"  said the pretended nephew, in a tone of great
+anguish, and with trembling lips which the blood had forsaken.  "Horrible
+to look either to his past or his future!  But--but--we have heard of him
+no more--no one ever has learned his fate.  Perhaps--perhaps" (and he
+seemed to breathe more freely)--"my brother is no more!"
+
+And poor Catherine--and poor Philip---had it come to this?  Did the one
+brother feel a sentiment of release, of joy, in conjecturing the death--
+perhaps the death of violence and shame--of his fellow-orphan?  Mr.
+Spencer shook his head doubtingly, but made no reply.  The young man
+sighed heavily, and strode on for several paces in advance of his
+protector, then, turning back, he laid his hand on his shoulder.
+
+"Sir," he said in a low voice and with downcast eyes, you are right: this
+disguise--this false name--must be for ever borne!  Why need the
+Beauforts, then, ever know who and what I am?  Why not as your nephew--
+nephew to one so respected and exemplary--proffer my claims and plead my
+cause?"
+
+"They are proud--so it is said--and worldly;--you know my family was in
+trade--still--but--" and here Mr. Spencer broke off from a tone of doubt
+into that of despondency, "but, recollect, though Mrs. Beaufort may not
+remember the circumstance, both her husband and her son have seen me--
+have known my name.  Will they not suspect, when once introduced to you,
+the stratagem that has been adopted?--Nay, has it not been from that very
+fear that you have wished me to shun the acquaintance of the family?
+Both Mr. Beaufort and Arthur saw you in childhood, and their suspicion
+once aroused, they may recognise you at once; your features are
+developed, but not altogether changed.  Come, come!--my adopted, my dear
+son, shake off this fantasy betimes: let us change the scene: I will
+travel with you--read with you--go where--"
+
+"Sir--sir!" exclaimed the lover, smiting his breast, "you are ever kind,
+compassionate, generous; but do not--do not rob me of hope.  I have
+never--thanks to you--felt, save in a momentary dejection, the curse of
+my birth.  Now how heavily it falls!  Where shall I look for comfort?"
+
+As he spoke, the sound of a bell broke over the translucent air and the
+slumbering lake: it was the bell that every eve and morn summoned that
+innocent and pious family to prayer.  The old man's face changed as he
+heard it--changed from its customary indolent, absent, listless aspect,
+into an expression of dignity, even of animation.
+
+"Hark!" he said, pointing upwards; "Hark! it chides you.  Who shall say,
+'Where shall I look for comfort' while God is in the heavens?"
+
+The young man, habituated to the faith and observance of religion, till
+they had pervaded his whole nature, bowed his head in rebuke; a few tears
+stole from his eyes.
+
+"You are right, father--," he said tenderly, giving emphasis to the
+deserved and endearing name.  "I am comforted already!"
+
+So, side by side, silently and noiselessly, the young and the old man
+glided back to the house.  When they gained the quiet room in which the
+family usually assembled, the sisters and servants were already gathered
+round the table.  They knelt as the loiterers entered.  It was the wonted
+duty of the younger Spencer to read the prayers; and, as he now did so,
+his graceful countenance more hushed, his sweet voice more earnest than
+usual, in its accents: who that heard could have deemed the heart within
+convulsed by such stormy passions?  Or was it not in that hour--that
+solemn commune--soothed from its woe?  O beneficent Creator!  thou who
+inspirest all the tribes of earth with the desire to pray, hast Thou not,
+in that divinest instinct, bestowed on us the happiest of Thy gifts?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+     "Bertram.  I mean the business is not ended, as fearing to hear of
+     it hereafter.
+
+     "1st Soldier.  Do you know this Captain Dumain?"
+                                        _All's Well that Ends Well_.
+
+One evening, some weeks after the date of the last chapter, Mr. Robert
+Beaufort sat alone in his house in Berkeley Square.  He had arrived that
+morning from Beaufort Court, on his way to Winandermere, to which he was
+summoned by a letter from his wife.  That year was an agitated and
+eventful epoch in England; and Mr. Beaufort had recently gone through the
+bustle of an election--not, indeed, contested; for his popularity and his
+property defied all rivalry in his own county.
+
+The rich man had just dined, and was seated in lazy enjoyment by the side
+of the fire, which he had had lighted, less for the warmth--though it was
+then September--than for the companionship;--engaged in finishing his
+madeira, and, with half-closed eyes, munching his devilled biscuits.
+"I am sure," he soliloquised while thus employed, "I don't know exactly
+what to do,--my wife ought to decide matters where the girl is concerned;
+a son is another affair--that's the use of a wife.  Humph!"
+
+"Sir," said a fat servant, opening the door, "a gentleman wishes to see
+you upon very particular business."
+
+"Business at this hour!  Tell him to go to Mr. Blackwell."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Stay! perhaps he is a constituent, Simmons.  Ask him if he belongs to
+the county."
+
+"Yes, Sir."
+
+"A great estate is a great plague," muttered Mr. Beaufort; "so is a great
+constituency.  It is pleasanter, after all, to be in the House of Lords.
+I suppose I could if I wished; but then one must rat--that's a bore.  I
+will consult Lilburne.  Humph!"
+
+The servant re-appeared.  "Sir, he says he does belong to the county."
+
+"Show him in!--What sort of a person?"
+
+"A sort of gentleman, sir; that is," continued the butler, mindful of
+five shillings just slipped within his palm by the stranger, "quite the
+gentleman."
+
+"More wine, then-stir up the fire."
+
+In a few moments the visitor was ushered into the apartment.  He was a
+man between fifty and sixty, but still aiming at the appearance of youth.
+His dress evinced military pretensions; consisting of a blue coat,
+buttoned up to the chin, a black stock, loose trousers of the fashion
+called Cossacks, and brass spurs.  He wore a wig, of great luxuriance in
+curl and rich auburn in hue; with large whiskers of the same colour
+slightly tinged with grey at the roots.  By the imperfect light of the
+room it was not perceptible that the clothes were somewhat threadbare,
+and that the boots, cracked at the side, admitted glimpses of no very
+white hosiery within.  Mr. Beaufort, reluctantly rising from his repose
+and gladly sinking back to it, motioned to a chair, and put on a doleful
+and doubtful semi-smile of welcome.  The servant placed the wine and
+glasses before the stranger;--the host and visitor were alone.
+
+"So, sir," said Mr. Beaufort, languidly, "you are from ------shire; I
+suppose about the canal,--may I offer you a glass of wine?"
+
+"Most hauppy, sir--your health!"  and the stranger, with evident
+satisfaction, tossed off a bumper to so complimentary a toast.
+
+"About the canal?" repeated Mr. Beaufort.
+
+"No, sir, no!  You parliament gentlemen must hauve a vaust deal of
+trouble on your haunds--very foine property I understaund yours is, sir.
+Sir, allow me to drink the health of your good lady!"
+
+"I thank you, Mr.--, Mr.--, what did you say your name was?--I beg you a
+thousand pardons."
+
+"No offaunce in the least, sir; no ceremony with me--this is perticler
+good madeira!"
+
+"May I ask how I can serve you?"  said Mr. Beaufort, struggling between
+the sense of annoyance and the fear to be uncivil.  "And pray, had I the
+honour of your vote in the last election!"
+
+"No, sir, no!  It's mauny years since I have been in your part of the
+world, though I was born there."
+
+"Then I don't exactly see--" began Mr. Beaufort, and stopped with
+dignity.
+
+"Why I call on you," put in the stranger, tapping his boots with his
+cane; and then recognising the rents, he thrust both feet under the
+table.
+
+"I don't say that; but at this hour I am seldom at leisure--not but what
+I am always at the service of a constituent, that is, a voter!  Mr.--, I
+beg your pardon, I did not catch your name."
+
+"Sir," said the stranger, helping himself to a third glass of wine;
+"here's a health to your young folk!  And now to business."  Here the
+visitor, drawing his chair nearer to his host, assuming a more grave
+aspect, and dropping something of his stilted pronunciation, continued,
+"You had a brother?"
+
+"Well, sir," said Mr. Beaufort, with a very changed countenance.
+
+"And that brother had a wife!"
+
+Had a cannon gone off in the ear of Mr. Robert Beaufort, it could not
+have shocked or stunned him more than that simple word with which his
+companion closed his sentence.  He fell back in his chair--his lips
+apart, his eyes fixed on the stranger.  He sought to speak, but his
+tongue clove to his mouth.
+
+"That wife had two sons, born in wedlock!"
+
+"It is false!" cried Mr. Beaufort, finding a voice at length, and
+springing to his feet.  "And who are you, sir?  and what do you mean
+by--"
+
+"Hush!" said the stranger, perfectly unconcerned, and regaining the
+dignity of his haw-haw enunciation, "better not let the servants hear
+aunything.  For my pawt, I think servants hauve the longest pair of ears
+of auny persons, not excepting jauckasses; their ears stretch from the
+pauntry to the parlour.  Hush, sir!--perticler  good  madeira, this!"
+
+"Sir!"  said Mr. Beaufort, struggling to preserve, or rather recover, his
+temper, "your conduct is exceedingly strange; but allow me to say that
+you are wholly misinformed.  My brother never did marry; and if you have
+anything to say on behalf of those young men--his natural sons--I refer
+you to my solicitor, Mr. Blackwell, of Lincoln's Inn.  I wish you a good
+evening."
+
+"Sir!--the same to you--I won't trouble you auny farther; it was only out
+of koindness I called--I am not used to be treated so--sir, I am in his
+maujesty's service--sir, you will foind that the witness of the marriage
+is forthcoming; you will think of me then, and, perhaps, be sorry.  But
+I've done, 'Your most obedient humble, sir!'"  And the stranger, with a
+flourish of his hand, turned to the door.  At the sight of this
+determination on the part of his strange guest, a cold, uneasy, vague
+presentiment seized Mr. Beaufort.  There, not flashed, but rather froze,
+across him the recollection of his brother's emphatic but disbelieved
+assurances--of Catherine's obstinate assertion of her son's alleged
+rights--rights which her lawsuit, undertaken on her own behalf, had not
+compromised;--a fresh lawsuit might be instituted by the son, and the
+evidence which had been wanting in the former suit might be found at
+last.  With this remembrance and these reflections came a horrible train
+of shadowy fears,--witnesses, verdict, surrender, spoliation--arrears--
+ruin!
+
+The man, who had gained the door, turned back and looked at him with a
+complacent, half-triumphant leer upon his impudent, reckless face.
+
+"Sir," then said Mr. Beaufort, mildly, "I repeat that you had better see
+Mr. Blackwell."
+
+The tempter saw his triumph.  "I have a secret to communicate which it is
+best for you to keep snug.  How mauny people do you wish me to see about
+it?  Come, sir, there is no need of a lawyer; or, if you think so, tell
+him yourself.  Now or never, Mr. Beaufort."
+
+"I can have no objection to hear anything you have to say, sir," said the
+rich man, yet more mildly than before; and then added, with a forced
+smile, "though my rights are already too confirmed to admit of a doubt."
+
+Without heeding the last assertion, the stranger coolly walked back,
+resumed his seat, and, placing both arms on the table and looking Mr.
+Beaufort full in the face, thus proceeded,--
+
+"Sir, of the marriage between Philip Beaufort and Catherine Morton there
+were two witnesses: the one is dead, the other went abroad--the last is
+alive still!"
+
+"If so," said Mr. Beaufort, who, not naturally deficient in cunning and
+sense, felt every faculty now prodigiously sharpened, and was resolved to
+know the precise grounds for alarm,--"if so, why did not the man--it was
+a servant, sir, a man-servant, whom Mrs. Morton pretended to rely on--
+appear on the trial?"
+
+"Because, I say, he was abroad and could not be found; or, the search
+after him miscaurried, from clumsy management and a lack of the rhino."
+
+"Hum!" said Mr. Beaufort--"one witness--one witness, observe, there _is_
+only one!--does not alarm me much.  It is not what a man deposes, it is
+what a jury believe, sir!  Moreover, what has become of the young men?
+They have never been heard of for years.  They are probably dead; if so,
+I am heir-at-law!"
+
+"I know where one of them is to be found at all events."
+
+"The elder?--Philip?" asked Mr. Beaufort anxiously, and with a fearful
+remembrance of the energetic and vehement character prematurely exhibited
+by his nephew.
+
+"Pawdon me! I need not aunswer that question."
+
+"Sir! a lawsuit of this nature, against one in possession, is very
+doubtful, and," added the rich man, drawing himself up--"and, perhaps
+very expensive!"
+
+"The young man I speak of does not want friends, who will not grudge the
+money."
+
+"Sir!" said Mr. Beaufort, rising and placing his back to the fire--"sir!
+what is your object in this communication?  Do you come, on the part of
+the young man, to propose a compromise?  If so, be plain!"
+
+"I come on my own pawt.  It rests with you to say if the young men shall
+never know it!"
+
+"And what do you want?"
+
+"Five hundred a year as long as the secret is kept."
+
+"And how can you prove that there is a secret, after all?"
+
+"By producing the witness if you wish."
+
+"Will he go halves in the L500. a year?"  asked Mr. Beaufort artfully.
+
+"That is moy affair, sir," replied the stranger.
+
+"What you say," resumed Mr. Beaufort, "is so extraordinary--so
+unexpected, and still, to me, seems so improbable, that I must have time
+to consider.  If you will call on me in a week, and produce your facts, I
+will give you my answer.  I am not the man, sir, to wish to keep any one
+out of his true rights, but I will not yield, on the other hand, to
+imposture."
+
+"If you don't want to keep them out of their rights, I'd best go and tell
+my young gentlemen," said the stranger, with cool impudence.
+
+"I tell you I must have time," repeated Beaufort, disconcerted.
+"Besides, I have not myself alone to look to, sir," he added, with
+dignified emphasis--"I am a father!"
+
+"This day week I will call on you again.  Good evening, Mr. Beaufort!"
+
+And the man stretched out his hand with an air of amicable condescension.
+The respectable Mr. Beaufort changed colour, hesitated, and finally
+suffered two fingers to be enticed into the grasp of the visitor, whom he
+ardently wished at that bourne whence no visitor returns.
+
+The stranger smiled, stalked to the door, laid his finger on his lip,
+winked knowingly, and vanished, leaving Mr. Beaufort a prey to such
+feelings of uneasiness, dread, and terror, as may be experienced by a man
+whom, on some inch or two of slippery rock, the tides have suddenly
+surrounded.
+
+He remained perfectly still for some moments, and then glancing round the
+dim and spacious room, his eyes took in all the evidences of luxury and
+wealth which it betrayed.  Above the huge sideboard, that on festive days
+groaned beneath the hoarded weight of the silver heirlooms of the
+Beauforts, hung, in its gilded frame, a large picture of the family seat,
+with the stately porticoes--the noble park--the groups of deer; and
+around the wall, interspersed here and there with ancestral portraits of
+knight and dame, long since gathered to their rest, were placed
+masterpieces of the Italian and Flemish art, which generation after
+generation had slowly accumulated, till the Beaufort Collection had
+become the theme of connoisseurs and the study of young genius.
+
+The still room, the dumb pictures--even the heavy sideboard seemed to
+gain voice, and speak to him audibly.  He thrust his hand into the folds
+of his waistcoat, and griped his own flesh convulsively; then, striding
+to and fro the apartment, he endeavoured to re-collect his thoughts.
+
+"I dare not consult Mrs. Beaufort," he muttered; "no--no,--she is a fool!
+Besides, she's not in the way.  No time to lose--I will go to Lilburne."
+
+Scarce had that thought crossed him than he hastened to put it into
+execution.  He rang for his hat and gloves and sallied out on foot to
+Lord Lilburne's house in Park Lane,--the distance was short, and
+impatience has long strides.
+
+He knew Lord Lilburne was in town, for that personage loved London for
+its own sake; and even in September he would have said with the old Duke
+of Queensberry, when some one observed that London was very empty--"Yes;
+but it is fuller than the country."
+
+Mr. Beaufort found Lord Lilburne reclined on a sofa, by the open window
+of his drawing-room, beyond which the early stars shone upon the
+glimmering trees and silver turf of the deserted park.  Unlike the simple
+dessert of his respectable brother-in-law, the costliest fruits, the
+richest wines of France, graced the small table placed beside his sofa;
+and as the starch man of forms and method entered the room at one door, a
+rustling silk, that vanished through the aperture of another, seemed to
+betray tokens of a _tete-a-tete_, probably more agreeable to Lilburne
+than the one with which only our narrative is concerned.
+
+It would have been a curious study for such men as love to gaze upon the
+dark and wily features of human character, to have watched the contrast
+between the reciter and the listener, as Beaufort, with much
+circumlocution, much affected disdain and real anxiety, narrated the
+singular and ominous conversation between himself and his visitor.
+
+The servant, in introducing Mr. Beaufort, had added to the light of the
+room; and the candles shone full on the face and form of Mr. Beaufort.
+All about that gentleman was so completely in unison with the world's
+forms and seemings, that there was something moral in the very sight of
+him!  Since his accession of fortune he had grown less pale and less
+thin; the angles in his figure were filled up.  On his brow there was no
+trace of younger passion.  No able vice had ever sharpened the
+expression--no exhausting vice ever deepened the lines.  He was the beau-
+ideal of a county member,--so sleek, so staid, so business-like; yet so
+clean, so neat, so much the gentleman.  And now there was a kind of
+pathos in his grey hairs, his nervous smile, his agitated hands, his
+quick and uneasy transition of posture, the tremble of his voice.  He
+would have appeared to those who saw, but heard not, The Good Man in
+trouble.  Cold, motionless, speechless, seemingly apathetic, but in truth
+observant, still reclined on the sofa, his head thrown back, but one eye
+fixed on his companion, his hands clasped before him, Lord Lilburne
+listened; and in that repose, about his face, even about his person,
+might be read the history of how different a life and character!  What
+native acuteness in the stealthy eye!  What hardened resolve in the full
+nostril and firm lips!  What sardonic contempt for all things in the
+intricate lines about the mouth.  What animal enjoyment of all things so
+despised in that delicate nervous system, which, combined with original
+vigour of constitution, yet betrayed itself in the veins on the hands and
+temples, the occasional quiver of the upper lip!  His was the frame above
+all others the most alive to pleasure--deep-chested, compact, sinewy, but
+thin to leanness--delicate in its texture and extremities, almost to
+effeminacy.  The indifference of the posture, the very habit of the dress
+--not slovenly, indeed, but easy, loose, careless--seemed to speak of the
+man's manner of thought and life--his profound disdain of externals.
+
+Not till Beaufort had concluded did Lord Lilburne change his position or
+open his lips; and then, turning to his brother-in-law his calm face, he
+said drily,--
+
+"I always thought your brother had married that woman; he was the sort of
+man to do it.  Besides, why should she have gone to law without a vestige
+of proof, unless she was convinced of her rights?  Imposture never
+proceeds without some evidence.  Innocence, like a fool as it is, fancies
+it has only to speak to be believed.  But there is no cause for alarm."
+
+"No cause!--And yet you think there was a marriage."
+
+"It is quite clear," continued Lilburne, without heeding this
+interruption; "that the man, whatever his evidence, has not got
+sufficient proofs.  If he had, he would go to the young men rather than
+you: it is evident that they would promise infinitely larger rewards than
+he could expect from yourself.  Men are always more generous with what
+they expect than with what they have.  All rogues know this.  'Tis the
+way Jews and usurers thrive upon heirs rather than possessors; 'tis the
+philosophy of post-obits.  I dare say the man has found out the real
+witness of the marriage, but ascertained, also, that the testimony of
+that witness would not suffice to dispossess you.  He might be
+discredited--rich men have a way sometimes of discrediting poor
+witnesses.  Mind, he says nothing of the lost copy of the register--
+whatever may be the value of that document, which I am not lawyer enough
+to say--of any letters of your brother avowing the marriage.  Consider,
+the register itself is destroyed--the clergyman dead.  Pooh! make
+yourself easy."
+
+"True," said Mr. Beaufort, much comforted; "what a memory you have!"
+
+"Naturally.  Your wife is my sister--I hate poor relations--and I was
+therefore much interested in your accession and your lawsuit.  No--you
+may feel--at rest on this matter, so far as a successful lawsuit is
+concerned.  The next question is, Will you have a lawsuit at all?  and is
+it worth while buying this fellow?  That I can't say unless I see him
+myself."
+
+"I wish to Heaven you would!"
+
+"Very willingly: 'tis a sort of thing I like--I'm fond of dealing with
+rogues--it amuses me.  This day week?  I'll be at your house--your proxy;
+I shall do better than Black well.  And since you say you are wanted at
+the Lakes, go down, and leave all to me."
+
+"A thousand thanks.  I can't say how grateful I am.  You certainly are
+the kindest and cleverest person in the world."
+
+"You can't think worse of the world's cleverness and kindness than I do,"
+was Lilburne's rather ambiguous answer to the compliment.  "But why does
+my sister want to see you?"
+
+"Oh, I forgot!--here is her letter.  I was going to ask your advice in
+this too."
+
+Lord Lilburne took the letter, and glanced over it with the rapid eye of
+a man accustomed to seize in everything the main gist and pith.
+
+"An offer to my pretty niece--Mr. Spencer--requires no fortune--his uncle
+will settle all his own--(poor silly old man!)  All!  Why that's only
+L1000. a year.  You don't think much of this, eh?  How my sister can even
+ask you about it puzzles me."
+
+"Why, you see, Lilburne," said Mr. Beaufort, rather embarrassed, "there
+is no question of fortune--nothing to go out of the family; and, really,
+Arthur is so expensive, and, if she were to marry well, I could not give
+her less than fifteen or twenty thousand pounds."
+
+"Aha!--I see--every man to his taste: here a daughter--there a dowry.
+You are devilish fond of money, Beaufort.  Any pleasure in avarice,--eh?"
+
+Mr. Beaufort coloured very much at the remark and the question, and,
+forcing a smile, said,--
+
+"You are severe.  But you don't know what it is to be father to a young
+man."
+
+"Then a great many young women have told me sad fibs!  But you are right
+in your sense of the phrase.  No, I never had an heir apparent, thank
+Heaven!  No children imposed upon me by law--natural enemies, to count
+the years between the bells that ring for their majority, and those that
+will toll for my decease.  It is enough for me that I have a brother and
+a sister--that my brother's son will inherit my estates--and that, in the
+meantime, he grudges me every tick in that clock.  What then?  If he had
+been my uncle, I had done the same.  Meanwhile, I see as little of him as
+good breeding will permit.  On the face of a rich man's heir is written
+the rich man's _memento mori_!  But _revenons a nos moutons_.  Yes, if
+you give your daughter no fortune, your death will be so much the more
+profitable to Arthur!"
+
+"Really, you take such a very odd view of the matter," said Mr. Beaufort,
+exceedingly shocked.  "But I see you don't like the marriage; perhaps you
+are right."
+
+"Indeed, I have no choice in the matter; I never interfere between father
+and children.  If I had children myself, I will, however, tell you, for
+your comfort, that they might marry exactly as they pleased--I would
+never thwart them.  I should be too happy to get them out of my way.  If
+they married well, one would have all the credit; if ill, one would have
+an excuse to disown them.  As I said before, I dislike poor relations.
+Though if Camilla lives at the Lakes when she is married, it is but a
+letter now and then; and that's your wife's trouble, not yours.  But,
+Spencer--what Spencer!--what family?  Was there not a Mr. Spencer who
+lived at Winandermere--who----"
+
+"Who went with us in search of these boys, to be sure.  Very likely the
+same--nay, he must be so.  I thought so at the first."
+
+"Go down to the Lakes to-morrow.  You may hear something about your
+nephews;" at that word Mr. Beaufort winced.
+
+"'Tis well to be forearmed."
+
+"Many thanks for all your counsel," said Beaufort, rising, and glad to
+escape; for though both he and his wife held the advice of Lord Lilburne
+in the highest reverence, they always smarted beneath the quiet and
+careless stings which accompanied the honey.  Lord Lilburne was singular
+in this,--he would give to any one who asked it, but especially a
+relation, the best advice in his power; and none gave better, that is,
+more worldly advice.  Thus, without the least benevolence, he was often
+of the greatest service; but he could not help mixing up the draught with
+as much aloes and bitter-apple as possible.  His intellect delighted in
+exhibiting itself even gratuitously.  His heart equally delighted in that
+only cruelty which polished life leaves to its tyrants towards their
+equals,--thrusting pins into the feelings and breaking self-love upon the
+wheel.  But just as Mr. Beaufort had drawn on his gloves and gained the
+doorway, a thought seemed to strike Lord Lilburne:
+
+"By the by," he said, "you understand that when I promised I would try
+and settle the matter for you, I only meant that I would learn the exact
+causes you have for alarm on the one hand, or for a compromise with this
+fellow on the other.  If the last be advisable you are aware that I
+cannot interfere.  I might get into a scrape; and Beaufort Court is not
+my property."
+
+"I don't quite understand you."
+
+"I am plain enough, too.  If there is money to be given it is given in
+order to defeat what is called justice--to keep these nephews of yours
+out of their inheritance.  Now, should this ever come to light, it would
+have an ugly appearance.  They who risk the blame must be the persons who
+possess the estate."
+
+"If you think it dishonourable or dishonest--" said Beaufort,
+irresolutely.
+
+"I! I never can advise as to the feelings; I can only advise as to the
+policy.  If you don't think there ever was a marriage, it may, still, be
+honest in you to prevent the bore of a lawsuit."
+
+"But if he can prove to me that they were married?"
+
+"Pooh!" said Lilburne, raising his eyebrows with a slight expression of
+contemptuous impatience; "it rests on yourself whether or not he prove it
+to YOUR satisfaction!  For my part, as a third person, I am persuaded the
+marriage did take place.  But if I had Beaufort Court, my convictions
+would be all the other way.  You understand.  I am too happy to serve
+you.  But no man can be expected to jeopardise his character, or coquet
+with the law, unless it be for his own individual interest.  Then, of
+course, he must judge for himself.  Adieu! I expect some friends
+foreigners--Carlists--to whist.  You won't join them?"
+
+"I never play, you know.  You will write to me at Winandermere: and, at
+all events, you will keep off the man till I return?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+Beaufort, whom the latter part of the conversation had comforted far less
+than the former, hesitated, and turned the door-handle three or four
+times; but, glancing towards his brother-in-law, he saw in that cold face
+so little sympathy in the struggle between interest and conscience, that
+he judged it best to withdraw at once.
+
+As soon as he was gone, Lilburne summoned his valet, who had lived with
+him many years, and who was his confidant in all the adventurous
+gallantries with which he still enlivened the autumn of his life.
+
+"Dykeman," said he, "you have let out that lady?"
+
+"Yes, my lord."
+
+"I am not at home if she calls again.  She is stupid; she cannot get the
+girl to come to her again.  I shall trust you with an adventure, Dykeman
+--an adventure that will remind you of our young days, man.  This
+charming creature--I tell you she is irresistible--her very oddities
+bewitch me.  You must--well, you look uneasy.  What would you say?"
+
+"My lord, I have found out more about her--and--and----"
+
+"Well, well."
+
+The valet drew near and whispered something in his master's ear.
+
+"They are idiots who say it, then," answered Lilburne.  "And," faltered
+the man, with the shame of humanity on his face, "she is not worthy your
+lordship's notice--a poor--"
+
+"Yes, I know she is poor; and, for that reason, there can be no
+difficulty, if the thing is properly managed.  You never, perhaps, heard
+of a certain Philip, king of Macedon; but I will tell you what he once
+said, as well as I can remember it: 'Lead an ass with a pannier of gold;
+send the ass through the gates of a city, and all the sentinels will run
+away.'  Poor!--where there is love, there is charity also, Dykeman.
+Besides--"
+
+Here Lilburne's countenance assumed a sudden aspect of dark and angry
+passion,--he broke off abruptly, rose, and paced the room, muttering to
+himself.  Suddenly he stopped, and put his hand to his hip, as an
+expression of pain again altered the character of his face.
+
+"The limb pains me still!  Dykeman--I was scarce twenty-one--when I became
+a cripple for life."  He paused, drew a long breath, smiled, rubbed his
+hands gently, and added: "Never fear--you shall be the ass; and thus
+Philip of Macedon begins to fill the pannier."  And he tossed his purse
+into the hands of the valet, whose face seemed to lose its anxious
+embarrassment at the touch of the gold.  Lilburne glanced at him with a
+quiet sneer: "Go!--I will give you my orders when I undress."
+
+"Yes!" he repeated to himself, "the limb pains me still.  But he died!--
+shot as a man would shoot a jay or a polecat!
+
+"I have the newspaper still in that drawer.  He died an outcast--a felon--
+a murderer!  And I blasted his name--and I seduced his mistress--and I--
+am John Lord Lilburne!"
+
+About ten o'clock, some half-a-dozen of those gay lovers of London, who,
+like Lilburne, remain faithful to its charms when more vulgar worshippers
+desert its sunburnt streets--mostly single men--mostly men of middle age
+--dropped in.  And soon after came three or four high-born foreigners,
+who had followed into England the exile of the unfortunate Charles X.
+Their looks, at once proud and sad--their moustaches curled downward--
+their beards permitted to grow--made at first a strong contrast with the
+smooth gay Englishmen.  But Lilburne, who was fond of French society, and
+who, when he pleased, could be courteous and agreeable, soon placed the
+exiles at their ease; and, in the excitement of high play, all
+differences of mood and humour speedily vanished.  Morning was in the
+skies before they sat down to supper.
+
+"You have been very fortunate to-night, milord," said one of the
+Frenchmen, with an envious tone of congratulation.
+
+"But, indeed," said another, who, having been several times his host's
+partner, had won largely, "you are the finest player, milord, I ever
+encountered."
+
+"Always excepting Monsieur Deschapelles and--," replied Lilburne,
+indifferently.  And, turning the conversation, he asked one of the guests
+why he had not introduced him to a French officer of merit and
+distinction; "With whom," said Lord Lilburne, "I understand that you are
+intimate, and of whom I hear your countrymen very often speak."
+
+"You mean De Vaudemont.  Poor fellow!"  said a middle-aged Frenchman, of
+a graver appearance than the rest.
+
+"But why 'poor fellow!' Monsieur de Liancourt?"
+
+"He was rising so high before the revolution.  There was not a braver
+officer in the army.  But he is but a soldier of fortune, and his career
+is closed."
+
+"Till the Bourbons return," said another Carlist, playing with his
+moustache.
+
+"You will really honour me much by introducing me to him," said Lord
+Lilburne.  "De Vaudemont--it is a good name,--perhaps, too, he plays at
+whist."
+
+"But," observed one of the Frenchmen, "I am by no means sure that he has
+the best right in the world to the name.  'Tis a strange story."
+
+"May I hear it?"  asked the host.
+
+"Certainly.  It is briefly this: There was an old Vicomte de Vaudemont
+about Paris; of good birth, but extremely poor--a mauvais sujet.  He had
+already had two wives, and run through their fortunes.  Being old and
+ugly, and men who survive two wives having a bad reputation among
+marriageable ladies at Paris, he found it difficult to get a third.
+Despairing of the noblesse he went among the bourgeoisie with that hope.
+His family were kept in perpetual fear of a ridiculous mesalliance.
+Among these relations was Madame de Merville, whom you may have heard
+of."
+
+"Madame de Merville!  Ah, yes!  Handsome, was she not?"
+
+"It is true.  Madame de Merville, whose failing was pride, was known more
+than once to have bought off the matrimonial inclinations of the amorous
+vicomte.  Suddenly there appeared in her circles a very handsome young
+man.  He was presented formally to her friends as the son of the Vicomte
+de Vaudemont by his second marriage with an English lady, brought up in
+England, and now for the first time publicly acknowledged.  Some scandal
+was circulated--"
+
+"Sir," interrupted Monsieur de Liancourt, very gravely, "the scandal was
+such as all honourable men must stigmatise and despise--it was only to be
+traced to some lying lackey--a scandal that the young man was already the
+lover of a woman of stainless reputation the very first day that he
+entered Paris!  I answer for the falsity of that report.  But that report
+I own was one that decided not only Madame de Merville, who was a
+sensitive--too sensitive a person, but my friend young Vaudemont, to a
+marriage, from the pecuniary advantages of which he was too high-spirited
+not to shrink."
+
+"Well," said Lord Lilburne, "then this young De Vaudemont married Madame
+de Merville?"
+
+"No," said Liancourt somewhat sadly, "it was not so decreed; for
+Vaudemont, with a feeling which belongs to a gentleman, and which I
+honour, while deeply and gratefully attached to Madame de Merville,
+desired that he might first win for himself some honourable distinction
+before he claimed a hand to which men of fortunes so much higher had
+aspired in vain.  I am not ashamed," he added, after a slight pause, "to
+say that I had been one of the rejected suitors, and that I still revere
+the memory of Eugenie de Merville.  The young man, therefore, was to have
+entered my regiment.  Before, however, he had joined it, and while yet in
+the full flush of a young man's love for a woman formed to excite the
+strongest attachment, she--she---" The Frenchman's voice trembled, and he
+resumed with affected composure: "Madame de Merville, who had the best
+and kindest heart that ever beat in a human breast, learned one day that
+there was a poor widow in the garret of the hotel she inhabited who was
+dangerously ill--without medicine and without food--having lost her only
+friend and supporter in her husband some time before.  In the impulse of
+the moment, Madame de Merville herself attended this widow--caught the
+fever that preyed upon her--was confined to her bed ten days--and died as
+she bad lived, in serving others and forgetting self.--And so much, sir,
+for the scandal you spoke of!"
+
+"A warning," observed Lord Lilburne, "against trifling with one's health
+by that vanity of parading a kind heart, which is called charity.  If
+charity, _mon cher_, begins at home, it is in the drawing-room, not the
+garret!"
+
+The Frenchman looked at his host in some disdain, bit his lip, and was
+silent.
+
+"But still," resumed Lord Lilburne, "still it is so probable that your
+old vicomte had a son; and I can so perfectly understand why he did not
+wish to be embarrassed with him as long as he could help it, that I do
+not understand why there should be any doubt of the younger De
+Vaudemont's parentage."
+
+"Because," said the Frenchman who had first commenced the narrative,--
+"because the young man refused to take the legal steps to proclaim his
+birth and naturalise himself a Frenchman; because, no sooner was Madame
+de Merville dead than he forsook the father he had so newly discovered--
+forsook France, and entered with some other officers, under the brave,
+in the service of one of the native princes of India."
+
+"But perhaps he was poor," observed Lord Lilburne.  "A father is a very
+good thing, and a country is a very good thing, but still a man must have
+money; and if your father does not do much for you, somehow or other,
+your country generally follows his example."
+
+"My lord," said Liancourt, "my friend here has forgotten to say that
+Madame de Merville had by deed of gift; (though unknown to her lover),
+before her death, made over to young Vaudemont the bulk of her fortune;
+and that, when he was informed of this donation after her decease, and
+sufficiently recovered from the stupor of his grief, he summoned her
+relations round him, declared that her memory was too dear to him for
+wealth to console him for her loss, and reserving to himself but a,
+modest and bare sufficiency for the common necessaries of a gentleman,
+he divided the rest amongst them, and repaired to the East; not only to
+conquer his sorrow by the novelty and stir of an exciting life, but to
+carve out with his own hand the reputation of an honourable and brave
+man.  My friend remembered the scandal long buried--he forgot the
+generous action."
+
+"Your friend, you see, my dear Monsieur de Liancourt," remarked Lilburne,
+"is more a man of the world than you are!"
+
+"And I was just going to observe," said the friend thus referred to,
+"that that very action seemed to confirm the rumour that there had been
+some little manoeuvring as to this unexpected addition to the name of De
+Vaudemont; for, if himself related to Madame de Merville, why have such
+scruples to receive her gift?"
+
+"A very shrewd remark," said Lord Lilburne, looking with some respect at
+the speaker; "and I own that it is a very unaccountable proceeding, and
+one of which I don't think you or I would ever have been guilty.  Well,
+and the old Vicomte?"
+
+"Did not live long!"  said the Frenchman, evidently gratified by his
+host's compliment, while Liancourt threw himself back in his chair in
+grave displeasure.  "The young man remained some years in India, and when
+he returned to Paris, our friend here, Monsieur de Liancourt (then in
+favour with Charles X.), and Madame de Merville's relations took him up.
+He had already acquired a reputation in this foreign service, and he
+obtained a place at the court, and a commission in the king's guards.  I
+allow that he would certainly have made a career, had it not been for the
+Three Days.  As it is, you see him in London, like the rest of us, an
+exile!"
+
+"And I suppose, without a sous."
+
+"No, I believe that he had still saved, and even augmented, in India, the
+portion he allotted to himself from Madame de Merville's bequest."
+
+"And if he don't play whist, he ought to play it," said Lilburne.  "You
+have roused my curiosity; I hope you will let me make his acquaintance,
+Monsieur de Liancourt.  I am no politician, but allow me to propose this
+toast, 'Success to those who have the wit to plan, and the strength to
+execute.' In other words, 'the Right Divine!'"
+
+Soon afterwards the guests retired.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+"Ros.  Happily, he's the second time come to them."--Hamlet.
+
+It was the evening after that in which the conversations recorded in our
+last chapter were held;--evening in the quiet suburb of H------.  The
+desertion and silence of the metropolis in September had extended to its
+neighbouring hamlets;--a village in the heart of the country could
+scarcely have seemed more still; the lamps were lighted, many of the
+shops already closed, a few of the sober couples and retired spinsters of
+the place might, here and there, be seen slowly wandering homeward after
+their evening walk: two or three dogs, in spite of the prohibitions of
+the magistrates placarded on the walls,--(manifestoes which threatened
+with death the dogs, and predicted more than ordinary madness to the
+public,)--were playing in the main road, disturbed from time to time as
+the slow coach, plying between the city and the suburb, crawled along the
+thoroughfare, or as the brisk mails whirled rapidly by, announced by the
+cloudy dust and the guard's lively horn.  Gradually even these evidences
+of life ceased--the saunterers disappeared, the mails had passed, the
+dogs gave place to the later and more stealthy perambulations of their
+feline successors "who love the moon."  At unfrequent intervals, the more
+important shops--the linen-drapers', the chemists', and the gin-palace--
+still poured out across the shadowy road their streams of light from
+windows yet unclosed: but with these exceptions, the business of the
+place stood still.
+
+At this time there emerged from a milliner's house (shop, to outward
+appearance, it was not, evincing its gentility and its degree above the
+Capelocracy, to use a certain classical neologism, by a brass plate on an
+oak door, whereon was graven, "Miss Semper, Milliner and Dressmaker,
+from Madame Devy,")--at this time, I say, and from this house there
+emerged the light and graceful form of a young female.  She held in her
+left hand a little basket, of the contents of which (for it was empty)
+she had apparently just disposed; and, as she stepped across the road,
+the lamplight fell on a face in the first bloom of youth, and
+characterised by an expression of childlike innocence and candour.  It
+was a face regularly and exquisitely lovely, yet something there was in
+the aspect that saddened you; you knew not why, for it was not sad
+itself; on the contrary, the lips smiled and the eyes sparkled.  As she
+now glided along the shadowy street with a light, quick step, a man, who
+had hitherto been concealed by the portico of an attorney's house,
+advanced stealthily, and followed her at a little distance.  Unconscious
+that she was dogged, and seemingly fearless of all danger, the girl went
+lightly on, swinging her basket playfully to and fro, and chaunting, in a
+low but musical tone, some verses that seemed rather to belong to the
+nursery than to that age which the fair singer had attained.
+
+As she came to an angle which the main street formed with a lane, narrow
+and partially lighted, a policeman, stationed there, looked hard at her,
+and then touched his hat with an air of respect, in which there seemed
+also a little of compassion.
+
+"Good night to you," said the girl, passing him, and with a frank, gay
+tone.
+
+"Shall I attend you home, Miss?" said the man.
+
+"What for?  I am very well!"  answered the young woman, with an accent
+and look of innocent surprise.
+
+Just at this time the man, who had hitherto followed her, gained the
+spot, and turned down the lane.
+
+"Yes," replied the policeman; "but it is getting dark, Miss."
+
+"So it is every night when I walk home, unless there's a moon.--Good-
+bye.--The moon," she repeated to herself, as she walked on, "I used to be
+afraid of the moon when I was a little child;" and then, after a pause,
+she murmured, in a low chaunt:
+
+               "'The moon she is a wandering ghost,
+               That walks in penance nightly;
+               How sad she is, that wandering moon,
+               For all she shines so brightly!
+
+               "'I watched her eyes when I was young,
+               Until they turned my brain,
+               And now I often weep to think
+               'Twill ne'er be right again.'"
+
+As the murmur of these words died at a distance down the lane in which
+the girl had disappeared, the policeman, who had paused to listen, shook
+his head mournfully, and said, while he moved on,--
+
+"Poor thing! they should not let her always go about by herself; and yet,
+who would harm her?"
+
+Meanwhile the girl proceeded along the lane, which was skirted by small,
+but not mean houses, till it terminated in a cross-stile that admitted
+into a church yard.  Here hung the last lamp in the path, and a few dint
+stars broke palely over the long grass, and scattered gravestones,
+without piercing the deep shadow which the church threw over a large
+portion of the sacred ground.  Just as she passed the stile, the man,
+whom we have before noticed, and who had been leaning, as if waiting for
+some one, against the pales, approached, and said gently,--
+
+"Ah, Miss! it is a lone place for one so beautiful as you are to be
+alone.  You ought never to be on foot."
+
+The girl stopped, and looked full, but without any alarm in her eyes,
+into the man's face.
+
+"Go away!" she said, with a half-peevish, half-kindly tone of command.
+"I don't know you."
+
+"But I have been sent to speak to you by one who does know you, Miss--one
+who loves you to distraction--he has seen you before at Mrs. West's.  He
+is so grieved to think you should walk--you ought, he says, to have every
+luxury--that he has sent his carriage for you.  It is on the other side
+of the yard.  Do come now;" and he laid his hand, though very lightly, on
+her arm.
+
+"At Mrs. West's!" she said; and, for the first time, her voice and look
+showed fear.  "Go away directly!  How dare you touch me!"
+
+"But, my dear Miss, you have no idea how my employer loves you, and how
+rich he is.  See, he has sent you all this money; it is gold--real gold.
+You may have what you like, if you will but come.  Now, don't be silly,
+Miss."  The girl made no answer, but, with a sudden spring, passed the
+man, and ran lightly and rapidly along the path, in an opposite direction
+from that to which the tempter had pointed, when inviting her to the
+carriage.  The man, surprised, but not baffled, reached her in an
+instant, and caught hold of her dress.
+
+"Stay! you must come--you must!"  he said, threateningly; and, loosening
+his grasp on her shawl, he threw his arm round her waist.
+
+"Don't!" cried the girl, pleadingly, and apparently subdued, turning her
+fair, soft face upon her pursuer, and clasping her hands.  "Be quiet!
+Fanny is silly!  No one is ever rude to poor Fanny!"
+
+"And no one will be rude to you, Miss," said the man, apparently touched;
+"but I dare not go without you.  You don't know what you refuse.  Come;"
+and he attempted gently to draw her back.
+
+"No, no!"  said the girl, changing from supplication to anger, and
+raising her voice into a loud shriek, "No! I will--"
+
+"Nay, then," interrupted the man, looking round anxiously, and, with a
+quick and dexterous movement he threw a large handkerchief over her face,
+and, as he held it fast to her lips with one hand, he lifted her from the
+ground.  Still violently struggling, the girl contrived to remove the
+handkerchief, and once more her shriek of terror rang through the
+violated sanctuary.
+
+At that instant a loud deep voice was heard, "Who calls?"  And a tall
+figure seemed to rise, as from the grave itself, and emerge from the
+shadow of the church.  A moment more, and a strong gripe was laid on the
+shoulder of the ravisher.  "What is this?  On God's ground, too!  Release
+her, wretch!"
+
+The man, trembling, half with superstitious, half with bodily fear, let
+go his captive, who fell at once at the knees of her deliverer.  "Don't
+you hurt me too," she said, as the tears rolled down her eyes.  "I am a
+good girl-and my grandfather's blind."
+
+The stranger bent down and raised her; then looking round for the
+assailant with an eye whose dark fire shone through the gloom, he
+perceived the coward stealing off.  He disdained to pursue.
+
+"My poor child," said he, with that voice which the strong assume to the
+weak--the man to some wounded infant--the voice of tender superiority and
+compassion, "there is no cause for fear now.  Be soothed.  Do you live
+near?  Shall I see you home?"
+
+"Thank you!  That's kind.  Pray do!"  And, with an infantine confidence
+she took his hand, as a child does that of a grown-up person;--so they
+walked on together.
+
+"And," said the stranger, "do you know that man?  Has he insulted you
+before?"
+
+"No--don't talk of him: _ce me fait mal_!"  And she put her hand to her
+forehead.
+
+The French was spoken with so French an accent, that, in some curiosity,
+the stranger cast his eye over her plain dress.
+
+"You speak French well."
+
+"Do I?  I wish I knew more words--I only recollect a few.  When I am very
+happy or very sad they come into my head.  But I am happy now.  I like
+your voice--I like you--Oh! I have dropped my basket!"
+
+"Shall I go back for it, or shall I buy you another?"
+
+"Another!--Oh, no! come back for it.  How kind you are!--Ah!  I see it!"
+and she broke away and ran forward to pick it up.
+
+When she had recovered it, she laughed-she spoke to it--she kissed it.
+
+Her companion smiled as he said: "Some sweetheart has given you that
+basket--it seems but a common basket too."
+
+"I have had it--oh, ever since--since--I don't know how long!  It came
+with me from France--it was full of little toys.  They are gone--I am so
+sorry!"
+
+"How old are you?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"My pretty one," said the stranger, with deep pity in his rich voice,
+"your mother should not let you go out alone at this hour."
+
+"Mother!--mother!"  repeated the girl, in a tone of surprise.
+
+"Have you no mother?"
+
+"No! I had a father once.  But he died, they say.  I did not see him die.
+I sometimes cry when I think that I shall never, never see him again!
+But," she said, changing her accent from melancholy almost to joy, "he is
+to have a grave here like the other girl's fathers--a fine stone upon it
+--and all to be done with my money!"
+
+"Your money, my child?"
+
+"Yes; the money I make.  I sell my work and take the money to my
+grandfather; but I lay by a little every week for a gravestone for my
+father."
+
+"Will the gravestone be placed in that churchyard?"  They were now in
+another lane; and, as he spoke, the stranger checked her, and bending
+down to look into her face, he murmured to himself, "Is it possible?--it
+must be--it must!"
+
+"Yes! I love that churchyard--my brother told me to put flowers there;
+and grandfather and I sit there in the summer, without speaking.  But I
+don't talk much, I like singing better:--
+
+               "'All things that good and harmless are
+               Are taught, they say, to sing
+               The maiden resting at her work,
+               The bird upon the wing;
+               The little ones at church, in prayer;
+               The angels in the sky
+               The angels less when babes are born
+               Than when the aged die.'"
+
+And unconscious of the latent moral, dark or cheering, according as we
+estimate the value of this life, couched in the concluding rhyme, Fanny
+turned round to the stranger, and said, "Why should the angels be glad
+when the aged die?"
+
+"That they are released from a false, unjust, and miserable world, in
+which the first man was a rebel, and the second a murderer!"  muttered
+the stranger between his teeth, which he gnashed as he spoke.
+
+The girl did not understand him: she shook her head gently, and made no
+reply.  A few moments, and she paused before a small house.
+
+"This is my home."
+
+"It is so," said her companion, examining the exterior of the house with
+an earnest gaze; "and your name is Fanny."
+
+"Yes--every one knows Fanny.  Come in;" and the girl opened the door with
+a latch-key.
+
+The stranger bowed his stately height as he crossed the low threshold and
+followed his guide into a little parlour.  Before a table on which burned
+dimly, and with unheeded wick, a single candle, sat a man of advanced
+age; and as he turned his face to the door, the stranger saw that he was
+blind.
+
+The girl bounded to his chair, passed her arms round the old man's neck,
+and kissed his forehead; then nestling herself at his feet, and leaning
+her clasped hands caressingly on his knee, she said,--
+
+"Grandpapa, I have brought you somebody you must love.  He has been so
+kind to Fanny."
+
+"And neither of you can remember me!"  said the guest.
+
+The old man, whose dull face seemed to indicate dotage, half raised
+himself at the sound of the stranger's voice.  "Who is that?"  said he,
+with a feeble and querulous voice.  "Who wants me?"
+
+"I am the friend of your lost son.  I am he who, ten years go, brought
+Fanny to your roof, and gave her to your care--your son's last charge.
+And you blessed your son, and forgave him, and vowed to be a father to
+his Fanny."  The old man, who had now slowly risen to his feet, trembled
+violently, and stretched out his hands.
+
+"Come near--near--let me put my hands on your head.  I cannot see you;
+but Fanny talks of you, and prays for you; and Fanny--she has been an
+angel to me!"
+
+The stranger approached and half knelt as the old man spread his hands
+over his head, muttering inaudibly.  Meanwhile Fanny, pale as death--her
+lips apart--an eager, painful expression on her face--looked inquiringly
+on the dark, marked countenance of the visitor, and creeping towards him
+inch by inch, fearfully touched his dress--his arms--his countenance.
+
+"Brother," she said at last, doubtingly and timidly, "Brother, I thought
+I could never forget you!  But you are not like my brother; you are
+older;--you are--you are!--no! no! you are not my brother!"
+
+"I am much changed, Fanny; and you too!"
+
+He smiled as he spoke; and the smile-sweet and pitying--thoroughly
+changed the character of his face, which was ordinarily stern, grave, and
+proud.
+
+"I know you now!"  exclaimed Fanny, in a tone of wild joy.  "And you come
+back from that grave!  My flowers have brought you back at last!  I knew
+they would!  Brother!  Brother!"
+
+And she threw herself on his breast and burst into passionate tears.
+Then, suddenly drawing herself back, she laid her finger on his arm, and
+looked up at him beseechingly.
+
+"Pray, now, is he really dead?  He, my father!--he, too, was lost like
+you.  Can't he come back again as you have done?"
+
+"Do you grieve for him still, then?  Poor girl!"  said the stranger,
+evasively, and seating himself.  Fanny continued to listen for an answer
+to her touching question; but finding that none was given, she stole away
+to a corner of the room, and leaned her face on her hands, and seemed to
+think--till at last, as she so sat, the tears began to flow down her
+cheeks, and she wept, but silently and unnoticed.
+
+"But, sir," said the guest, after a short pause, "how is this?  Fanny
+tells me she supports you by her work.  Are you so poor, then?  Yet I
+left you your son's bequest; and you, too, I understood, though not rich,
+were not in want!"
+
+"There was a curse on my gold," said the old man, sternly.  "It was
+stolen from us."
+
+There was another pause.  Simon broke it.
+
+"And you, young man--how has it fared with you?  You have prospered,
+I hope."
+
+"I am as I have been for years--alone in the world, without kindred and
+without friends.  But, thanks to Heaven, I am not a beggar!"
+
+"No kindred and no friends!"  repeated the old man.  "No father--no
+brother--no wife--no sister!"
+
+"None!  No one to care whether I live or die," answered the stranger,
+with a mixture of pride and sadness in his voice.  "But, as the song has
+it--
+
+                    "'I care for nobody--no, not I,
+                    For nobody cares for me!'"
+
+There was a certain pathos in the mockery with which he repeated the
+homely lines, although, as he did, he gathered himself up, as if
+conscious of a certain consolation and reliance on the resources not
+dependent on others which he had found in his own strong limbs and his
+own stout heart.
+
+At that moment he felt a soft touch upon his hand, and he saw Fanny
+looking at him through the tears that still flowed.
+
+"You have no one to care for you?  Don't say so!  Come and live with us,
+brother; we'll care for you.  I have never forgotten the flowers--never!
+Do come!  Fanny shall love you.  Fanny can work for three!"
+
+"And they call her an idiot!"  mumbled the old man, with a vacant smile
+on his lips.
+
+"My sister!  You shall be my sister!  Forlorn one--whom even Nature has
+fooled and betrayed!  Sister!--we, both orphans!  Sister!"  exclaimed
+that dark, stern man, passionately, and with a broken voice; and he
+opened his arms, and Fanny, without a blush or a thought of shame, threw
+herself on his breast.  He kissed her forehead with a kiss that was,
+indeed, pure and holy as a brother's: and Fanny felt that he had left
+upon her cheek a tear that was not her own.
+
+"Well," he said, with an altered voice, and taking the old man's hand,
+"what say you?  Shall I take up my lodging with you?  I have a little
+money; I can protect and aid you both.  I shall be often away--in London
+or else where--and will not intrude too much on you.  But you blind, and
+she--(here he broke off the sentence abruptly and went on)--you should
+not be left alone.  And this neighbourhood, that burial-place, are dear
+to me.  I, too, Fanny, have lost a parent; and that grave--"
+
+He paused, and then added, in a trembling voice, "And you have placed
+flowers over that grave?"
+
+"Stay with us," said the blind man; "not for our sake, but your own.  The
+world is a bad place.  I have been long sick of the world.  Yes! come and
+live near the burial-ground--the nearer you are to the grave, the safer
+you are;--and you have a little money, you say!"
+
+"I will come to-morrow, then.  I must return now.  Tomorrow, Fanny, we
+shall meet again."
+
+"Must you go?"  said Fanny, tenderly.  "But you will come again; you know
+I used to think every one died when he left me.  I am wiser now.  Yet
+still, when you do leave me, it is true that you die for Fanny!"
+
+At this moment, as the three persons were grouped, each had assumed a
+posture of form, an expression of face, which a painter of fitting
+sentiment and skill would have loved to study.  The visitor had gained
+the door; and as he stood there, his noble height--the magnificent
+strength and health of his manhood in its full prime--contrasted alike
+the almost spectral debility of extreme age and the graceful delicacy of
+Fanny--half girl, half child.  There was something foreign in his air--
+and the half military habit, relieved by the red riband of the Bourbon
+knighthood.  His complexion was dark as that of a Moor, and his raven
+hair curled close to the stately head.  The soldier-moustache--thick, but
+glossy as silk-shaded the firm lip; and the pointed beard, assumed by the
+exiled Carlists, heightened the effect of the strong and haughty features
+and the expression of the martial countenance.
+
+But as Fanny's voice died on his ear, he half averted that proud face;
+and the dark eyes--almost Oriental in their brilliancy and depth of
+shade--seemed soft and humid.  And there stood Fanny, in a posture of
+such unconscious sadness--such childlike innocence; her arms drooping--
+her face wistfully turned to his--and a half smile upon the lips, that
+made still more touching the tears not yet dried upon her cheeks.  While
+thin, frail, shadowy, with white hair and furrowed cheeks, the old man
+fixed his sightless orbs on space; and his face, usually only animated
+from the lethargy of advancing dotage by a certain querulous cynicism,
+now grew suddenly earnest, and even thoughtful, as Fanny spoke of Death!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+               "Ulyss.  Time hath a wallet at his back
+               Wherein he puts alms for oblivion.
+               *  *  Perseverance, dear my lord,
+               Keeps honour bright."--_Troilus and Cressida_.
+
+I have, not sought--as would have been easy, by a little ingenuity in the
+earlier portion of this narrative--whatever source of vulgar interest
+might be derived from the mystery of names and persons.  As in Charles
+Spencer the reader is allowed at a glance to detect Sidney Morton, so in
+Philip de Vaudemont (the stranger who rescued Fanny) the reader at once
+recognises the hero of my tale; but since neither of these young men has
+a better right to the name resigned than to the name adopted, it will be
+simpler and more convenient to designate them by those appellations by
+which they are now known to the world.  In truth, Philip de Vaudemont was
+scarcely the same being as Philip Morton.  In the short visit he had paid
+to the elder Gawtrey, when he consigned Fanny to his charge, he had given
+no name; and the one he now took (when, towards the evening of the next
+day he returned to Simon's house) the old man heard for the first time.
+Once more sunk into his usual apathy, Simon did not express any surprise
+that a Frenchman should be so well acquainted with English--he scarcely
+observed that the name was French.  Simon's age seemed daily to bring him
+more and more to that state when life is mere mechanism, and the soul,
+preparing for its departure, no longer heeds the tenement that crumbles
+silently and neglected into its lonely dust.  Vaudemont came with but
+little luggage (for he had an apartment also in London), and no
+attendant,--a single horse was consigned to the stables of an inn at
+hand, and he seemed, as soldiers are, more careful for the comforts of
+the animal than his own.  There was but one woman servant in the humble
+household, who did all the ruder work, for Fanny's industry could afford
+it.  The solitary servant and the homely fare sufficed for the simple and
+hardy adventurer.
+
+Fanny, with a countenance radiant with joy, took his hand and led him to
+his room.  Poor child! with that instinct of woman which never deserted
+her, she had busied herself the whole day in striving to deck the chamber
+according to her own notions of comfort.  She had stolen from her little
+hoard wherewithal to make some small purchases, on which the Dowbiggin of
+the suburb had been consulted.  And what with flowers on the table, and a
+fire at the hearth, the room looked cheerful.
+
+She watched him as he glanced around, and felt disappointed that he did
+not utter the admiration she expected.  Angry at last with the
+indifference which, in fact, as to external accommodation, was habitual
+to him, she plucked his sleeve, and said,--
+
+"Why don't you speak?  Is it not nice?--Fanny did her best."
+
+"And a thousand thanks to Fanny!  It is all I could wish."
+
+"There is another room, bigger than this, but the wicked woman who robbed
+us slept there; and besides, you said you liked the churchyard.  See!"
+and she opened the window and pointed to the church-tower rising dark
+against the evening sky.
+
+"This is better than all!" said Vaudemont; and he looked out from the
+window in a silent reverie, which Fanny did not disturb.
+
+And now he was settled!  From a career so wild, agitated, and various,
+the adventurer paused in that humble resting-nook.  But quiet is not
+repose--obscurity is not content.  Often as, morn and eve, he looked
+forth upon the spot, where his mother's heart, unconscious of love and
+woe, mouldered away, the indignant and bitter feelings of the wronged
+outcast and the son who could not clear the mother's name swept away the
+subdued and gentle melancholy into which time usually softens regret for
+the dead, and with which most of us think of the distant past, and the
+once joyous childhood!
+
+In this man's breast lay, concealed by his external calm, those memories
+and aspirations which are as strong as passions.  In his earlier years,
+when he had been put to hard shifts for existence, he had found no
+leisure for close and brooding reflection upon that spoliation of just
+rights--that calumny upon his mother's name, which had first brought the
+Night into his Morning.  His resentment towards the Beauforts, it is
+true, had ever been an intense but a fitful and irregular passion.  It
+was exactly in proportion as, by those rare and romantic incidents which
+Fiction cannot invent, and which Narrative takes with diffidence from the
+great Store-house of Real Life, his steps had ascended in the social
+ladder--that all which his childhood had lost--all which the robbers of
+his heritage had gained, the grandeur and the power of WEALTH--above all,
+the hourly and the tranquil happiness of a stainless name, became
+palpable and distinct.  He had loved Eugenie as a boy loves for the first
+time an accomplished woman.  He regarded her, so refined--so gentle--so
+gifted, with the feelings due to a superior being, with an eternal
+recollection of the ministering angel that had shone upon him when he
+stood on the dark abyss.  She was the first that had redeemed his fate--
+the first that had guided aright his path--the first that had tamed the
+savage at his breast:--it was the young lion charmed by the eyes of Una.
+The outline of his story had been truly given at Lord Lilburne's.
+Despite his pride, which revolted from such obligations to another, and a
+woman--which disliked and struggled against a disguise which at once and
+alone saved him from the detection of the past and the terrors of the
+future--he had yielded to her, the wise and the gentle, as one whose
+judgment he could not doubt; and, indeed, the slanderous falsehoods
+circulated by the lackey, to whose discretion, the night of Gawtrey's
+death, Eugenie had preferred to confide her own honour, rather than
+another's life, had (as Liancourt rightly stated) left Philip no option
+but that which Madame de Merville deemed the best, whether for her
+happiness or her good name.  Then had followed a brief season--the
+holiday of his life--the season of young hope and passion, of brilliancy
+and joy, closing by that abrupt death which again left him lonely in the
+world.
+
+When, from the grief that succeeded to the death of Eugenie, he woke to
+find himself amidst the strange faces and exciting scenes of an Oriental
+court, he turned with hard and disgustful contempt from Pleasure, as an
+infidelity to the dead.  Ambition crept over him--his mind hardened as
+his cheek bronzed under those burning suns--his hardy frame, his energies
+prematurely awakened, his constitutional disregard to danger,--made him
+a brave and skilful soldier.  He acquired reputation and rank.  But, as
+time went on, the ambition took a higher flight--he felt his sphere
+circumscribed; the Eastern indolence that filled up the long intervals
+between Eastern action chafed a temper never at rest: he returned to
+France: his reputation, Liancourt's friendship, and the relations of
+Eugenie--grateful, as has before been implied, for the generosity with
+which he surrendered the principal part of her donation--opened for him a
+new career, but one painful and galling.  In the Indian court there was
+no question of his birth--one adventurer was equal with the rest.  But in
+Paris, a man attempting to rise provoked all the sarcasm of wit, all the
+cavils of party; and in polished and civil life, what valour has weapons
+against a jest?  Thus, in civilisation, all the passions that spring from
+humiliated self-love and baffled aspiration again preyed upon his breast.
+He saw, then, that the more he struggled from obscurity, the more acute
+would become research into his true origin; and his writhing pride almost
+stung to death his ambition.  To succeed in life by regular means was
+indeed difficult for this man; always recoiling from the name he bore--
+always strong in the hope yet to regain that to which he conceived
+himself entitled--cherishing that pride of country which never deserts
+the native of a Free State, however harsh a parent she may have proved;
+and, above all, whatever his ambition and his passions, taking, from the
+very misfortunes he had known, an indomitable belief in the ultimate
+justice of Heaven;--he had refused to sever the last ties that connected
+him with his lost heritage and his forsaken land--he refused to be
+naturalised--to make the name he bore legally undisputed--he was
+contented to be an alien.  Neither was Vaudemont fitted exactly for that
+crisis in the social world when the men of journals and talk bustle aside
+the men of action.  He had not cultivated literature, he had no book-
+knowledge--the world had been his school, and stern life his teacher.
+Still, eminently skilled in those physical accomplishments which men
+admire and soldiers covet, calm and self-possessed in manner, of great
+personal advantages, of much ready talent and of practised observation in
+character, he continued to breast the obstacles around him, and to
+establish himself in the favour of those in power.  It was natural to a
+person so reared and circumstanced to have no sympathy with what is
+called the popular cause.  He was no citizen in the state--he was a
+stranger in the land.  He had suffered and still suffered too much from
+mankind to have that philanthropy, sometimes visionary but always noble,
+which, in fact, generally springs from the studies we cultivate, not in
+the forum, but the closet.  Men, alas!  too often lose the Democratic
+Enthusiasm in proportion as they find reason to suspect or despise their
+kind.  And if there were not hopes for the Future, which this hard,
+practical daily life does not suffice to teach us, the vision and the
+glory that belong to the Great Popular Creed, dimmed beneath the
+injustice, the follies, and the vices of the world as it is, would fade
+into the lukewarm sectarianism of temporary Party.  Moreover, Vaudemont's
+habits of thought and reasoning were those of the camp, confirmed by the
+systems familiar to him in the East: he regarded the populace as a
+soldier enamoured of discipline and order usually does.  His theories,
+therefore, or rather his ignorance of what is sound in theory, went with
+Charles the Tenth in his excesses, but not with the timidity which
+terminated those excesses by dethronement and disgrace.  Chafed to the
+heart, gnawed with proud grief, he obeyed the royal mandates, and
+followed the exiled monarch: his hopes overthrown, his career in France
+annihilated forever.  But on entering England, his temper, confident and
+ready of resource, fastened itself on new food.  In the land where he had
+no name he might yet rebuild his fortunes.  It was an arduous effort--an
+improbable hope; but the words heard by the bridge of Paris--words that
+had often cheered him in his exile through hardships and through dangers
+which it is unnecessary to our narrative to detail--yet rung again in his
+ear, as he leaped on his native land,--"Time, Faith, Energy."
+
+While such his character in the larger and more distant relations of
+life, in the closer circles of companionship many rare and noble
+qualities were visible.  It is true that he was stern, perhaps imperious
+--of a temper that always struggled for command; but he was deeply
+susceptible of kindness, and, if feared by those who opposed, loved by
+those who served him.  About his character was that mixture of tenderness
+and fierceness which belonged, of old, to the descriptions of the
+warrior.  Though so little unlettered, Life had taught him a certain
+poetry of sentiment and idea--More poetry, perhaps, in the silent
+thoughts that, in his happier moments, filled his solitude, than in half
+the pages that his brother had read and written by the dreaming lake.  A
+certain largeness of idea and nobility of impulse often made him act the
+sentiments of which bookmen write.  With all his passions, he held
+licentiousness in disdain; with all his ambition for the power of wealth,
+he despised its luxury.  Simple, masculine, severe, abstemious, he was of
+that mould in which, in earlier times, the successful men of action have
+been cast.  But to successful action, circumstance is more necessary than
+to triumphant study.
+
+It was to be expected that, in proportion as he had been familiar with
+a purer and nobler life, he should look with great and deep self-
+humiliation at his early association with Gawtrey.  He was in this
+respect more severe on himself than any other mind ordinarily just and
+candid would have been,--when fairly surveying the circumstances of
+penury, hunger, and despair, which had driven him to Gawtrey's roof, the
+imperfect nature of his early education, the boyish trust and affection
+he had felt for his protector, and his own ignorance of, and exemption
+from, all the worst practices of that unhappy criminal.  But still, when,
+with the knowledge he had now acquired, the man looked calmly back, his
+cheek burned with remorseful shame at his unreflecting companionship in a
+life of subterfuge and equivocation, the true nature of which, the boy
+(so circumstanced as we have shown him) might be forgiven for not at that
+time comprehending.  Two advantages resulted, however, from the error and
+the remorse: first, the humiliation it brought curbed, in some measure,
+a pride that might otherwise have been arrogant and unamiable, and,
+secondly, as I have before intimated, his profound gratitude to Heaven
+for his deliverance from the snares that had beset his youth gave his
+future the guide of an earnest and heartfelt faith.  He acknowledged in
+life no such thing as accident.  Whatever his struggles, whatever his
+melancholy, whatever his sense of worldly wrong, he never despaired; for
+nothing now could shake his belief in one directing Providence.
+
+The ways and habits of Vaudemont were not at discord with those of the
+quiet household in which he was now a guest.  Like most men of strong
+frames, and accustomed to active, not studious pursuits, he rose early;
+--and usually rode to London, to come back late at noon to their frugal
+meal.  And if again, perhaps after the hour when Fanny and Simon retired,
+he would often return to London, his own pass-key re-admitted him, at
+whatever time he came back, without disturbing the sleep of the
+household.  Sometimes, when the sun began to decline, if the air was
+warm, the old man would crawl out, leaning on that strong arm, through
+the neighbouring lanes, ever returning through the lonely burial-ground;
+or when the blind host clung to his fireside, and composed himself to
+sleep, Philip would saunter forth along with Fanny; and on the days when
+she went to sell her work, or select her purchases, he always made a
+point of attending her.  And her cheek wore a flush of pride when she saw
+him carrying her little basket, or waiting without, in musing patience,
+while she performed her commissions in the shops.  Though in reality
+Fanny's intellect was ripening within, yet still the surface often misled
+the eye as to the depths.  It was rather that something yet held back the
+faculties from their growth than that the faculties themselves were
+wanting.  Her weakness was more of the nature of the infant's than of one
+afflicted with incurable imbecility.  For instance, she managed the
+little household with skill and prudence; she could calculate in her
+head, as rapidly as Vaudemont himself, the arithmetic necessary to her
+simple duties; she knew the value of money, which is more than some of us
+wise folk do.  Her skill, even in her infancy so remarkable, in various
+branches of female handiwork, was carried, not only by perseverance, but
+by invention and peculiar talent, to a marvellous and exquisite
+perfection.  Her embroidery, especially in what was then more rare than
+at present, viz., flowers on silk, was much in request among the great
+modistes of London, to whom it found its way through the agency of Miss
+Semper.  So that all this had enabled her, for years, to provide every
+necessary comfort of life for herself and her blind protector.  And her
+care for the old man was beautiful in its minuteness, its vigilance.
+Wherever her heart was interested, there never seemed a deficiency of
+mind.  Vaudemont was touched to see how much of affectionate and pitying
+respect she appeared to enjoy in the neighbourhood, especially among the
+humbler classes--even the beggar who swept the crossings did not beg of
+her, but bade God bless her as she passed; and the rude, discontented
+artisan would draw himself from the wall and answer, with a softened
+brow, the smile with which the harmless one charmed his courtesy.  In
+fact, whatever attraction she took from her youth, her beauty, her
+misfortune, and her affecting industry, was heightened, in the eyes of
+the poorer neighbours, by many little traits of charity and kindness;
+many a sick child had she tended, and many a breadless board had stolen
+something from the stock set aside for her father's grave.
+
+"Don't you think," she once whispered to Vaudemont, "that God attends to
+us more if we are good to those who are sick and hungry?"
+
+"Certainly we are taught to think so."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you a secret--don't tell again.  Grandpapa once said
+that my father had done bad things; now, if Fanny is good to those she
+can help, I think that God will hear her more kindly when she prays him
+to forgive what her father did.  Do you think so too?  Do say--you are
+so wise!"
+
+"Fanny, you are wiser than all of us; and I feel myself better and
+happier when I hear you speak."
+
+There were, indeed, many moments when Vaudemont thought that her
+deficiencies of intellect might have been repaired, long since, by
+skilful culture and habitual companionship with those of her own age;
+from which companionship, however, Fanny, even when at school, had shrunk
+aloof.  At other moments there was something so absent and distracted
+about her, or so fantastic and incoherent, that Vaudemont, with the man's
+hard, worldly eye, read in it nothing but melancholy confusion.
+Nevertheless, if the skein of ideas was entangled, each thread in itself
+was a thread of gold.
+
+Fanny's great object--her great ambition--her one hope--was a tomb for
+her supposed father.  Whether from some of that early religion attached
+to the grave, which is most felt in Catholic countries, and which she had
+imbibed at the convent; or from her residence so near the burial ground,
+and the affection with which she regarded the spot;--whatever the cause,
+she had cherished for some years, as young maidens usually cherish the
+desire of the Altar--the dream of the Gravestone.  But the hoard was
+amassed so slowly;--now old Gawtrey was attacked by illness;--now there
+was some little difficulty in the rent; now some fluctuation in the price
+of work; and now, and more often than all, some demand on her charity,
+which interfered with, and drew from, the pious savings.  This was a
+sentiment in which her new friend sympathised deeply; for he, too,
+remembered that his first gold had bought that humble stone which still
+preserved upon the earth the memory of his mother.
+
+Meanwhile, days crept on, and no new violence was offered to Fanny.
+Vaudemont learned, then, by little and little--and Fanny's account was
+very confused--the nature of the danger she had run.
+
+It seemed that one day, tempted by the fineness of the weather up the
+road that led from the suburb farther into the country, Fanny was stopped
+by a gentleman in a carriage, who accosted her, as she said, very kindly:
+and after several questions, which she answered with her usual
+unsuspecting innocence, learned her trade, insisted on purchasing some
+articles of work which she had at the moment in her basket, and promised
+to procure her a constant purchaser, upon much better terms than she had
+hitherto obtained, if she would call at the house of a Mrs. West, about a
+mile from the suburb towards London.  This she promised to do, and this
+she did, according to the address he gave her.  She was admitted to a
+lady more gaily dressed than Fanny had ever seen a lady before,--the
+gentleman was also present,--they both loaded her with compliments, and
+bought her work at a price which seemed about to realise all the hopes of
+the poor girl as to the gravestone for William Gawtrey,--as if his evil
+fate pursued that wild man beyond the grave, and his very tomb was to be
+purchased by the gold of the polluter!  The lady then appointed her to
+call again; but, meanwhile, she met Fanny in the streets, and while she
+was accosting her, it fortunately chanced that Miss Semper the milliner
+passed that way--turned round, looked hard at the lady, used very angry
+language to her, seized Fanny's hand, led her away while the lady slunk
+off; and told her that the said lady was a very bad woman, and that Fanny
+must never speak to her again.  Fanny most cheerfully promised this.
+And, in fact, the lady, probably afraid, whether of the mob or the
+magistrates, never again came near her.
+
+"And," said Fanny, "I gave the money they had both given to me to Miss
+Semper, who said she would send it back."
+
+"You did right, Fanny; and as you made one promise to Miss Semper, so you
+must make me one--never to stir from home again without me or some other
+person.  No, no other person--only me.  I will give up everything else to
+go with you."
+
+"Will you?  Oh, yes.  I promise!  I used to like going alone, but that
+was before you came, brother."
+
+And as Fanny kept her promise, it would have been a bold gallant indeed
+who would have ventured to molest her by the side of that stately and
+strong protector.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+          "Timon.  Each thing's a thief
+          The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough power
+          Have unchecked theft.
+
+          The sweet degrees that this brief world affords,
+          To such as may the passive drugs of it
+          Freely command."--_Timon of Athens_.
+
+On the day and at the hour fixed for the interview with the stranger who
+had visited Mr. Beaufort, Lord Lilburne was seated in the library of his
+brother-in-law; and before the elbow-chair, on which he lolled
+carelessly, stood our old friend Mr. Sharp, of Bow Street notability.
+
+"Mr. Sharp," said the peer, "I have sent for you to do me a little
+favour.  I expect a man here who professes to give Mr. Beaufort, my
+brother-in-law, some information about a lawsuit.  It is necessary to
+know the exact value of his evidence.  I wish you to ascertain all
+particulars about him.  Be so good as to seat yourself in the porter's
+chair in the hall; note him when he enters, unobserved yourself--but as
+he is probably a stranger to you, note him still more when he leaves the
+house; follow him at a distance; find out where he lives, whom he
+associates with, where he visits, their names and directions, what his
+character and calling are;--in a word, everything you can, and report to
+me each evening.  Dog him well, never lose sight of him--you will be
+handsomely paid.  You understand?"
+
+"Ah!" said Mr. Sharp, "leave me alone, my lord.  Been employed before by
+your lordship's brother-in-law.  We knows what's what."
+
+"I don't doubt it.  To your post--I expect him every moment."
+
+And, in fact, Mr. Sharp had only just ensconced himself in the porter's
+chair when the stranger knocked at the door--in another moment he was
+shown in to Lord Lilburne.
+
+"Sir," said his lordship, without rising, "be so good as to take a chair.
+Mr. Beaufort is obliged to leave town--he has asked me to see you--I am
+one of his family--his wife is my sister--you may be as frank with me as
+with him,--more so, perhaps."
+
+"I beg the fauvour of your name, sir," said the stranger, adjusting his
+collar.
+
+"Yours first--business is business."
+
+"Well, then, Captain Smith."
+
+"Of what regiment?"
+
+"Half-pay."
+
+"I am Lord Lilburne.  Your name is Smith--humph!" added the peer, looking
+over some notes before him.  "I see it is also the name of the witness
+appealed to by Mrs. Morton--humph!"
+
+At this remark, and still more at the look which accompanied it, the
+countenance, before impudent and complacent, of Captain Smith fell into
+visible embarrassment; he cleared his throat and said, with a little
+hesitation,--
+
+"My lord, that witness is living!"
+
+"No doubt of it--witnesses never die where property is concerned and
+imposture intended."
+
+At this moment the servant entered, and placed a little note, quaintly
+folded, before Lord Lilburne.  He glanced at it in surprise--opened, and
+read as follows, in pencil,--
+
+"My LORD,--I knows the man; take caer of him; he is as big a roge as ever
+stept; he was transported some three year back, and unless his time has
+been shortened by the Home, he's absent without leve.  We used to call
+him Dashing Jerry.  That ere youngster we went arter, by Mr. Bofort's
+wish, was a pall of his.  Scuze the liberty I take.
+                                                     "J.  SHARP."
+
+While Lord Lilburne held this effusion to the candle, and spelled his way
+through it, Captain Smith, recovering his self-composure, thus proceeded:
+
+"Imposture, my lord! imposture!  I really don't understand.  Your
+lordship really seems so suspicious, that it is quite uncomfortable.  I
+am sure it is all the same to me; and if Mr. Beaufort does not think
+proper to see me himself, why I'd best make my bow."
+
+And Captain Smith rose.
+
+"Stay a moment, sir.  What Mr. Beaufort may yet do, I cannot say; but I
+know this, you stand charged of a very grave offence, and if your witness
+or witnesses--you may have fifty, for what I care--are equally guilty, so
+much the worse for them."
+
+"My lord, I really don't comprehend."
+
+"Then I will be more plain.  I accuse you of devising an infamous
+falsehood for the purpose of extorting money.  Let your witnesses appear
+in court, and I promise that you, they, and the young man, Mr. Morton,
+whose claim they set up, shall be indicted for conspiracy--conspiracy, if
+accompanied (as in the case of your witnesses) with perjury, of the
+blackest die.  Mr. Smith, I know you; and, before ten o'clock to-morrow,
+I shall know also if you had his majesty's leave to quit the colonies!
+Ah! I am plain enough now, I see."
+
+And Lord Lilburne threw himself back in his chair, and coldly
+contemplated the white face and dismayed expression of the crestfallen
+captain.  That most worthy person, after a pause of confusion, amaze, and
+fear, made an involuntary stride, with a menacing gesture, towards
+Lilburne; the peer quietly placed his hand on the bell.
+
+"One moment more," said the latter; "if I ring this bell, it is to place
+you in custody.  Let Mr. Beaufort but see you here once again--nay, let
+him but hear another word of this pretended lawsuit--and you return to
+the colonies.  Pshaw!  Frown not at me, sir!  A Bow Street officer is in
+the hall.  Begone!--no, stop one moment, and take a lesson in life.
+Never again attempt to threaten people of property and station.  Around
+every rich man is a wall--better not run your head against it."
+
+"But I swear solemnly," cried the knave, with an emphasis so startling
+that it carried with it the appearance of truth, "that the marriage did
+take place."
+
+"And I say, no less solemnly, that any one who swears it in a court of
+law shall be prosecuted for perjury!  Bah! you are a sorry rogue, after
+all!"
+
+And with an air of supreme and half-compassionate contempt, Lord Lilburne
+turned away and stirred the fire.  Captain Smith muttered and fumbled a
+moment with his gloves, then shrugged his shoulders and sneaked out.
+
+That night Lord Lilburne again received his friends, and amongst his
+guests came Vaudemont.  Lilburne was one who liked the study of
+character, especially the character of men wrestling against the world.
+Wholly free from every species of ambition, he seemed to reconcile
+himself to his apathy by examining into the disquietude, the
+mortification, the heart's wear and tear, which are the lot of the
+ambitious.  Like the spider in his hole, he watched with hungry pleasure
+the flies struggling in the web; through whose slimy labyrinth he walked
+with an easy safety.  Perhaps one reason why he loved gaming was less
+from the joy of winning than the philosophical complacency with which he
+feasted on the emotions of those who lost; always serene, and, except in
+debauch, always passionless,--Majendie, tracing the experiments of
+science in the agonies of some tortured dog, could not be more rapt in
+the science, and more indifferent to the dog, than Lord Lilburne, ruining
+a victim, in the analysis of human passions,--stoical in the writhings of
+the wretch whom he tranquilly dissected.  He wished to win money of
+Vaudemont--to ruin this man, who presumed to be more generous than other
+people--to see a bold adventurer submitted to the wheel of the Fortune
+which reigns in a pack of cards;--and all, of course, without the least
+hate to the man whom he then saw for the first time.  On the contrary, he
+felt a respect for Vaudemont.  Like most worldly men, Lord Lilburne was
+prepossessed in favour of those who seek to rise in life: and like men
+who have excelled in manly and athletic exercises, he was also
+prepossessed in favour of those who appeared fitted for the same success.
+
+Liancourt took aside his friend, as Lord Lilburne was talking with his
+other guests:--
+
+"I need not caution you, who never play, not to commit yourself to Lord
+Lilburne's tender mercies; remember, he is an admirable player."
+
+"Nay," answered Vaudemont, "I want to know this man: I have reasons,
+which alone induce me to enter his house.  I can afford to venture
+something, because I wish to see if I can gain something for one dear to
+me.  And for the rest (he muttered)--I know him too well not to be on my
+guard."  With that he joined Lord Lilburne's group, and accepted the
+invitation to the card-table.  At supper, Vaudemont conversed more than
+was habitual to him; he especially addressed himself to his host, and
+listened, with great attention, to Lilburne's caustic comments upon every
+topic successively started.  And whether it was the art of De Vaudemont,
+or from an interest that Lord Lilburne took in studying what was to him a
+new character,--or whether that, both men excelling peculiarly in all
+masculine accomplishments, their conversation was of a nature that was
+more attractive to themselves than to others; it so happened that they
+were still talking while the daylight already peered through the window-
+curtains.
+
+"And I have outstayed all your guests," said De Vaudemont, glancing round
+the emptied room.
+
+"It is the best compliment you could pay me.  Another night we can
+enliven our _tete-a-tete_ with _ecarte_; though at your age, and with
+your appearance, I am surprised, Monsieur de Vaudemont, that you are fond
+of play: I should have thought that it was not in a pack of cards that
+you looked for hearts.  But perhaps you are _blaze_ betimes of the _beau
+sexe_."
+
+"Yet your lordship's devotion to it is, perhaps, as great now as ever?"
+
+"Mine?--no, not as ever.  To different ages different degrees.  At your
+age I wooed; at mine I purchase--the better plan of the two: it does not
+take up half so much time."
+
+"Your marriage, I think, Lord Lilburne, was not blessed with children.
+Perhaps sometimes you feel the want of them?"
+
+"If I did, I could have them by the dozen.  Other ladies have been more
+generous in that department than the late Lady Lilburne, Heaven rest
+her!"
+
+"And," said Vaudemont, fixing his eyes with some earnestness on his host,
+"if you were really persuaded that you had a child, or perhaps a
+grandchild--the mother one whom you loved in your first youth--a child
+affectionate, beautiful, and especially needing your care and protection,
+would you not suffer that child, though illegitimate, to supply to you
+the want of filial affection?"
+
+"Filial affection, _mon cher_!" repeated Lord Lilburne, "needing my care
+and protection!  Pshaw!  In other words, would I give board and lodging
+to some young vagabond who was good enough to say he was son to Lord
+Lilburne?"
+
+"But if you were convinced that the claimant were your son, or perhaps
+your daughter--a tenderer name of the two, and a more helpless claimant?"
+
+"My dear Monsieur de Vaudemont, you are doubtless a man of gallantry and
+of the world.  If the children whom the law forces on one are, nine times
+out of ten, such damnable plagues, judge if one would father those whom
+the law permits us to disown!  Natural children are the pariahs of the
+world, and I--am one of the Brahmans."
+
+"But," persisted Vaudemont, "forgive me if I press the question farther.
+Perhaps I seek from your wisdom a guide to my own conduct;--suppose,
+then, a man had loved, had wronged, the mother;--suppose that in the
+child he saw one who, without his aid, might be exposed to every curse
+with which the pariahs (true, the pariahs!) of the world are too often
+visited, and who with his aid might become, as age advanced, his
+companion, his nurse, his comforter--"
+
+"Tush!" interrupted Lilburne, with some impatience; "I know not how our
+conversation fell on such a topic--but if you really ask my opinion in
+reference to any case in practical life, you shall have it.  Look you,
+then Monsieur de Vaudemont, no man has studied the art of happiness more
+than I have; and I will tell you the great secret--have as few ties as
+possible.  Nurse!--pooh! you or I could hire one by the week a thousand
+times more useful and careful than a bore of a child.  Comforter!--a man
+of mind never wants comfort.  And there is no such thing as sorrow while
+we have health and money, and don't care a straw for anybody in the
+world.  If you choose to love people, their health and circumstances, if
+either go wrong, can fret you: that opens many avenues to pain.  Never
+live alone, but always feel alone.  You think this unamiable: possibly.
+I am no hypocrite, and, for my part, I never affect to be anything but
+what I am--John Lilburne."
+
+As the peer thus spoke, Vaudemont, leaning against the door, contemplated
+him with a strange mixture of interest and disgust.  "And John Lilburne
+is thought a great man, and William Gawtrey was a great rogue.  You don't
+conceal your heart?--no, I understand.  Wealth and power have no need of
+hypocrisy: you are the man of vice--Gawtrey, the man of crime.  You never
+sin against the law--he was a felon by his trade.  And the felon saved
+from vice the child, and from want the grandchild (Your flesh and blood)
+whom you disown: which will Heaven consider the worse man?  No, poor
+Fanny, I see I am wrong.  If he would own you, I would not give you up to
+the ice of such a soul:--better the blind man than the dead heart!"
+
+"Well, Lord Lilburne," said De Vaudemont aloud, shaking off his reverie,
+"I must own that your philosophy seems to me the wisest for yourself.
+For a poor man it might be different--the poor need affection."
+
+"Ay, the poor, certainly," said Lord Lilburne, with an air of patronising
+candour.
+
+"And I will own farther," continued De Vaudemont, "that I have willingly
+lost my money in return for the instruction I have received in hearing
+you converse."
+
+"You are kind: come and take your revenge next Thursday.  Adieu."
+
+As Lord Lilburne undressed, and his valet attended him, he said to that
+worthy functionary,--
+
+"So you have not been able to make out the name of the stranger--the new
+lodger you tell me of?"
+
+"No, my lord.  They only say he is a very fine-looking man."
+
+"You have not seen him?"
+
+"No, my lord.  What do you wish me now to do?"
+
+"Humph!  Nothing at this moment!  You manage things so badly, you might
+get me into a scrape.  I never do anything which the law or the police,
+or even the news papers, can get hold of.  I must think of some other
+way--humph!  I never give up what I once commence, and I never fail in
+what I undertake!  If life had been worth what fools trouble it with--
+business and ambition--I suppose I should have been a great man with a
+very bad liver--ha ha!  I alone, of all the world, ever found out what
+the world was good for!  Draw the curtains, Dykeman."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+          "_Org._  Welcome, thou ice that sitt'st about _his_ heart
+          No heat can ever thaw thee!"--FORD: _Broken Heart_.
+
+          "_Nearch._  Honourable infamy!"--Ibid.
+
+          "_Amye._  Her tenderness hath yet deserved no rigour,
+          So to be crossed by fate!"
+
+          "_Arm._  You misapply, sir,
+          With favour let me speak it, what Apollo
+          Hath clouded in dim sense!"--Ibid.
+
+If Vaudemont had fancied that, considering the age and poverty of Simon,
+it was his duty to see whether Fanny's not more legal, but more natural
+protector were, indeed, the unredeemed and unmalleable egotist which
+Gawtrey had painted him, the conversation of one night was sufficient to
+make him abandon for ever the notion of advancing her claims upon Lord
+Lilburne.  But Philip had another motive in continuing his acquaintance
+with that personage.  The sight of his mother's grave had recalled to him
+the image of that lost brother over whom he had vowed to watch.  And,
+despite the deep sense of wronged affection with which he yet remembered
+the cruel letter that had contained the last tidings of Sidney, Philip's
+heart clung with undying fondness to that fair shape associated with all
+the happy recollections of childhood; and his conscience as well as his
+love asked him, each time that he passed the churchyard, "Will you make
+no effort to obey that last prayer of the mother who consigned her
+darling to your charge?"  Perhaps, had Philip been in want, or had the
+name he now bore been sullied by his conduct, he might have shrunk from
+seeking one whom he might injure, but could not serve.  But though not
+rich, he had more than enough for tastes as hardy and simple as any to
+which soldier of fortune ever limited his desires.  And he thought, with
+a sentiment of just and noble pride, that the name which Eugenie had
+forced upon him had been borne spotless as the ermine through the trials
+and vicissitudes he had passed since he had assumed it.  Sidney could
+give him nothing, and therefore it was his duty to seek Sidney out.  Now,
+he had always believed in his heart that the Beauforts were acquainted
+with a secret which he more and more pined to penetrate.  He would, for
+Sidney's sake, smother his hate to the Beauforts; he would not reject
+their acquaintance if thrown in his way; nay, secure in his change of
+name and his altered features, from all suspicion on their part, he
+would seek that acquaintance in order to find his brother and fulfil
+Catherine's last commands.  His intercourse with Lilburne would
+necessarily bring him easily into contact with Lilburne's family.  And in
+this thought he did not reject the invitations pressed on him.  He felt,
+too, a dark and absorbing interest in examining a man who was in himself
+the incarnation of the World--the World of Art--the World as the Preacher
+paints it--the hollow, sensual, sharp-witted, self-wrapped WORLD--the
+World that is all for this life, and thinks of no Future and no God!
+
+Lord Lilburne was, indeed, a study for deep contemplation.  A study to
+perplex the ordinary thinker, and task to the utmost the analysis of more
+profound reflection.  William Gawtrey had possessed no common talents; he
+had discovered that his life had been one mistake; Lord Lilburne's
+intellect was far keener than Gawtrey's, and he had never made, and if he
+had lived to the age of Old Parr, never would have made a similar
+discovery.  He never wrestled against a law, though he slipped through
+all laws!  And he knew no remorse, for he knew no fear.  Lord Lilburne
+had married early, and long survived, a lady of fortune, the daughter of
+the then Premier--the best match, in fact, of his day.  And for one very
+brief period of his life he had suffered himself to enter into the field
+of politics the only ambition common with men of equal rank.  He showed
+talents that might have raised one so gifted by circumstance to any
+height, and then retired at once into his old habits and old system of
+pleasure.  "I wished to try," said he once, "if fame was worth one
+headache, and I have convinced myself that the man who can sacrifice the
+bone in his mouth to the shadow of the bone in the water is a fool."
+From that time he never attended the House of Lords, and declared himself
+of no political opinions one way or the other.  Nevertheless, the world
+had a general belief in his powers, and Vaudemont reluctantly subscribed
+to the world's verdict.  Yet he had done nothing, he had read but little,
+he laughed at the world to its face,--and that last was, after all, the
+main secret of his ascendancy over those who were drawn into his circle.
+That contempt of the world placed the world at his feet.  His sardonic
+and polished indifference, his professed code that there was no life
+worth caring for but his own life, his exemption from all cant,
+prejudice, and disguise, the frigid lubricity with which he glided out of
+the grasp of the Conventional, whenever it so pleased him, without
+shocking the Decorums whose sense is in their ear, and who are not roused
+by the deed but by the noise,--all this had in it the marrow and essence
+of a system triumphant with the vulgar; for little minds give importance
+to the man who gives importance to nothing.  Lord Lilburne's authority,
+not in matters of taste alone, but in those which the world calls
+judgment and common sense, was regarded as an oracle.  He cared not a
+straw for the ordinary baubles that attract his order; he had refused
+both an earldom and the garter, and this was often quoted in his honour.
+But you only try a man's virtue when you offer him something that he
+covets.  The earldom and the garter were to Lord Lilburne no more
+tempting inducements than a doll or a skipping-rope; had you offered him
+an infallible cure for the gout, or an antidote against old age, you
+might have hired him as your lackey on your own terms.  Lord Lilburne's
+next heir was the son of his only brother, a person entirely dependent on
+his uncle.  Lord Lilburne allowed him L1000. a year and kept him always
+abroad in a diplomatic situation.  He looked upon his successor as a man
+who wanted power, but not inclination, to become his assassin.
+
+Though he lived sumptuously and grudged himself nothing, Lord Lilburne
+was far from an extravagant man; he might, indeed, be considered close;
+for he knew how much of comfort and consideration he owed to his money,
+and valued it accordingly; he knew the best speculations and the best
+investments.  If he took shares in an American canal, you might be sure
+that the shares would soon be double in value;  if he purchased an
+estate, you might be certain it was a bargain.  This pecuniary tact and
+success necessarily augmented his fame for wisdom.
+
+He had been in early life a successful gambler, and some suspicions of
+his fair play had been noised abroad; but, as has been recently seen in
+the instance of a man of rank equal to Lilburne's, though, perhaps, of
+less acute if more cultivated intellect, it is long before the pigeon
+will turn round upon a falcon of breed and mettle.  The rumours, indeed,
+were so vague as to carry with them no weight.  During the middle of his
+career, when in the full flush of health and fortune, he had renounced
+the gaming-table.  Of late years, as advancing age made time more heavy,
+he had resumed the resource, and with all his former good luck.  The
+money-market, the table, the sex, constituted the other occupations and
+amusements with which Lord Lilburne filled up his rosy leisure.
+
+Another way by which this man had acquired reputation for ability was
+this,--he never pretended to any branch of knowledge of which he was
+ignorant, any more than to any virtue in which he was deficient.  Honesty
+itself was never more free from quackery or deception than was this
+embodied and walking Vice.  If the world chose to esteem him, he did not
+buy its opinion by imposture.  No man ever saw Lord Lilburne's name in a
+public subscription, whether for a new church, or a Bible Society, or a
+distressed family, no man ever heard of his doing one generous,
+benevolent, or kindly action,--no man was ever startled by one
+philanthropic, pious, or amiable sentiment from those mocking lips.  Yet,
+in spite of all this, John Lord Lilburne was not only esteemed but liked
+by the world, and set up in the chair of its Rhadamanthuses.  In a word,
+he seemed to Vaudemont, and he was so in reality, a brilliant example of
+the might of Circumstance--an instance of what may be done in the way of
+reputation and influence by a rich, well-born man to whom the will a
+kingdom is.  A little of genius, and Lord Lilburne would have made his
+vices notorious and his deficiencies glaring; a little of heart, and his
+habits would have led him into countless follies and discreditable
+scrapes.  It was the lead and the stone that he carried about him that
+preserved his equilibrium, no matter which way the breeze blew.  But all
+his qualities, positive or negative, would have availed him nothing
+without that position which enabled him to take his ease in that inn, the
+world--which presented, to every detection of his want of intrinsic
+nobleness, the irreproachable respectability of a high name, a splendid
+mansion, and a rent-roll without a flaw.  Vaudemont drew comparisons
+between Lilburne and Gawtrey, and he comprehended at last, why one was a
+low rascal and the other a great man.
+
+Although it was but a few days after their first introduction to each
+other, Vaudemont had been twice to Lord Lilburne's, and their
+acquaintance was already on an easy footing--when one afternoon as the
+former was riding through the streets towards H----,  he met the peer
+mounted on a stout cob, which, from its symmetrical strength, pure
+English breed, and exquisite grooming, showed something of those sporting
+tastes for which, in earlier life, Lord Lilburne had been noted.
+
+"Why, Monsieur de Vaudemont, what brings you to this part of the town?--
+curiosity and the desire to explore?"
+
+"That might be natural enough in me; but you, who know London so well;
+rather what brings you here?"
+
+"Why I am returned from a long ride.  I have had symptoms of a fit of the
+gout, and been trying to keep it off by exercise.  I have been to a
+cottage that belongs to me, some miles from the town--a pretty place
+enough, by the way--you must come and see me there next month.  I shall
+fill the house for a battue!  I have some tolerable covers--you are a
+good shot, I suppose?"
+
+"I have not practised, except with a rifle, for some years."
+
+"That's a pity; for as I think a week's shooting once a year quite
+enough, I fear that your visit to me at Fernside may not be sufficiently
+long to put your hand in."
+
+"Fernside!"
+
+"Yes; is the name familiar to you?"
+
+"I think I have heard it before.  Did your lordship purchase or inherit
+it?"
+
+"I bought it of my brother-in-law.  It belonged to his brother--a gay,
+wild sort of fellow, who broke his neck over a six-barred gate; through
+that gate my friend Robert walked the same day into a very fine estate!"
+
+"I have heard so.  The late Mr. Beaufort, then, left no children?"
+
+"Yes; two.  But they came into the world in the primitive way in which
+Mr. Owen wishes us all to come--too naturally for the present state of
+society, and Mr. Owen's parallelogram was not ready for them.  By the
+way, one of them disappeared at Paris;-you never met with him, I
+suppose?"
+
+"Under what name?"
+
+"Morton."
+
+"Morton! hem!  What Christian name?"
+
+"Philip."
+
+"Philip! no.  But did Mr. Beaufort do nothing for the young men?  I think
+I have heard somewhere that he took compassion on one of them."
+
+"Have you?  Ah, my brother-in-law is precisely one of those excellent men
+of whom the world always speaks well.  No; he would very willingly have
+served either or both the boys, but the mother refused all his overtures
+and went to law, I fancy.  The elder of these bastards turned out a sad
+fellow, and the younger,--I don't know exactly where he is, but no doubt
+with one of his mother's relations.  You seem to interest yourself in
+natural children, my dear Vaudemont?"
+
+"Perhaps you have heard that people have doubted if I were a natural
+son?"
+
+"Ah! I understand now.  But are you going?--I was in hopes you would have
+turned back my way, and--"
+
+"You are very good; but I have a particular appointment, and I am now too
+late.  Good morning, Lord Lilburne."  Sidney with one of his mother's
+relations!  Returned, perhaps, to the Mortons!  How had he never before
+chanced on a conjecture so probable?  He would go at once!--that very
+night he would go to the house from which he had taken his brother.  At
+least, and at the worst, they might give him some clue.
+
+Buoyed with this hope and this resolve, he rode hastily to H-----, to
+announce to Simon and Fanny that he should not return to them, perhaps,
+for two or three days.  As he entered the suburb, he drew up by the
+statuary of whom he had purchased his mother's gravestone.
+
+The artist of the melancholy trade was at work in his yard.
+
+"Ho! there!"  said Vaudemont, looking over the low railing; "is the tomb
+I have ordered nearly finished?"  Why, sir, as you were so anxious for
+despatch, and as it would take a long time to get a new one ready, I
+thought of giving you this, which is finished all but the inscription.
+It was meant for Miss Deborah Primme; but her nephew and heir called on
+me yesterday to say, that as the poor lady died worth less by L5,000.
+than he had expected, he thought a handsome wooden tomb would do as well,
+if I could get rid of this for him.  It is a beauty, sir.  It will look
+so cheerful--"
+
+"Well, that will do: and you can place it now where I told you."
+
+"In three days, sir."
+
+"So be it."  And he rode on, muttering, "Fanny, your pious wish will be
+fulfilled.  But flowers,--will they suit that stone?"
+
+He put up his horse, and walked through the lane to Simon's.
+
+As he approached the house, he saw Fanny's bright eyes at the window.
+She was watching his return.  She hastened to open the door to him, and
+the world's wanderer felt what music there is in the footstep, what
+summer there is in the smile, of Welcome!
+
+"My dear Fanny," he said, affected by her joyous greeting, "it makes my
+heart warm to see you.  I have brought you a present from town.  When I
+was a boy, I remember that my poor mother was fond of singing some simple
+songs, which often, somehow or other, come back to me, when I see and
+hear you.  I fancied you would understand and like them as well at least
+as I do--for Heaven knows (he added to himself) my ear is dull enough
+generally to the jingle of rhyme."  And he placed in her hands a little
+volume of those exquisite songs, in which Burns has set Nature to music.
+
+"Oh! you are so kind, brother," said Fanny, with tears swimming in her
+eyes, and she kissed the book.
+
+After their simple meal, Vaudemont broke to Fanny and Simon the
+intelligence of his intended departure for a few days.  Simon heard it
+with the silent apathy into which, except on rare occasions, his life had
+settled.  But Fanny turned away her face and wept.
+
+"It is but for a day or two, Fanny."
+
+"An hour is very--very long sometimes," said the girl, shaking her head
+mournfully.
+
+"Come, I have a little time yet left, and the air is mild, you have not
+been out to-day, shall we walk--"
+
+"Hem!" interrupted Simon, clearing his throat, and seeming to start into
+sudden animation; "had not you better settle the board and lodging before
+you go?"
+
+"Oh, grandfather!" cried Fanny, springing to her feet, with such a blush
+upon her face.
+
+"Nay, child," said Vaudemont, laughingly;  your grandfather only
+anticipates me.  But do not talk of board and lodging; Fanny is as a
+sister to me, and our purse is in common."
+
+"I should like to feel a sovereign--just to feel it," muttered Simon, in
+a sort of apologetic tone, that was really pathetic; and as Vaudemont
+scattered some coins on the table, the old man clawed them up, chuckling
+and talking to himself; and, rising with great alacrity, hobbled out of
+the room like a raven carrying some cunning theft to its hiding-place.
+
+This was so amusing to Vaudemont that he burst out fairly into an
+uncontrollable laughter.  Fanny looked at him, humbled and wondering for
+some moments; and then, creeping to him, put her hand gently on his arm
+and said--
+
+"Don't laugh--it pains me.  It was not nice in grand papa; but--but, it
+does not mean anything.  It--it--don't laugh--Fanny feels so sad!"
+
+"Well, you are right.  Come, put on your bonnet, we will go out."
+
+Fanny obeyed; but with less ready delight than usual.  And they took
+their way through lanes over which hung, still in the cool air, the
+leaves of the yellow autumn.
+
+Fanny was the first to break silence.
+
+"Do you know," she said, timidly, "that people here think me very silly?
+--do you think so too?"
+
+Vaudemont was startled by the simplicity of the question, and hesitated.
+Fanny looked up in his dark face anxiously and inquiringly.
+
+"Well," she said, "you don't answer?"
+
+"My dear Fanny, there are some things in which I could wish you less
+childlike and, perhaps, less charming.  Those strange snatches of song,
+for instance!"
+
+"What! do you not like me to sing?  It is my way of talking."
+
+"Yes; sing, pretty one!  But sing something that we can understand,--sing
+the songs I have given you, if you will.  And now, may I ask why you put
+to me that question?"
+
+"I have forgotten," said Fanny, absently, and looking down.
+
+Now, at that instant, as Philip Vaudemont bent over the exceeding
+sweetness of that young face, a sudden thrill shot through his heart, and
+he, too, became silent, and lost in thought.  Was it possible that there
+could creep into his breast a wilder affection for this creature than
+that of tenderness and pity?  He was startled as the idea crossed him.
+He shrank from it as a profanation--as a crime--as a frenzy.  He with his
+fate so uncertain and chequered--he to link himself with one so helpless
+--he to debase the very poetry that clung to the mental temperament of
+this pure being, with the feelings which every fair face may awaken to
+every coarse heart--to love Fanny!  No, it was impossible!  For what
+could he love in her but beauty, which the very spirit had forgotten to
+guard?  And she--could she even know what love was?  He despised himself
+for even admitting such a thought; and with that iron and hardy vigour
+which belonged to his mind, resolved to watch closely against every fancy
+that would pass the fairy boundary which separated Fanny from the world
+of women.
+
+He was roused from this self-commune by an abrupt exclamation from his
+companion.
+
+"Oh! I recollect now why I asked you that question.  There is one thing
+that always puzzles me--I want you to explain it.  Why does everything in
+life depend upon money?  You see even my poor grandfather forgot how good
+you are to us both, when--when Ah!  I don't understand--it pains--it
+puzzles me!"
+
+"Fanny, look there--no, to the left--you see that old woman, in rags,
+crawling wearily along; turn now to the right--you see that fine house
+glancing through the trees, with a carriage and four at the gates?  The
+difference between that old woman and the owner of that house is--Money;
+and who shall blame your grandfather for liking Money?"
+
+Fanny understood; and while the wise man thus moralised, the girl, whom
+his very compassion so haughtily contemned, moved away to the old woman
+to do her little best to smooth down those disparities from which wisdom
+and moralising never deduct a grain!  Vaudemont felt this as he saw her
+glide towards the beggar; but when she came bounding back to him, she had
+forgotten his dislike to her songs, and was chaunting, in the glee of the
+heart that a kind act had made glad, one of her own impromptu melodies.
+
+Vaudemont turned away.  Poor Fanny had unconsciously decided his self-
+conquest; she guessed not what passed within him, but she suddenly
+recollected--what lie had said to her about her songs, and fancied him
+displeased.
+
+"Ah I will never do it again.  Brother, don't turn away!"
+
+"But we must go home.  Hark! the clock strikes seven--I have no time to
+lose.  And you will promise me never to stir out till I return?"
+
+"I shall have no heart to stir out," said Fanny, sadly; and then in a
+more cheerful voice, she added, "And I shall sing the songs you like
+before you come back again!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+          "Well did they know that service all by rote;
+
+          Some singing loud as if they had complained,
+          Some with their notes another manner feigned."
+          CHAUCER: _Pie Cuckoo and the Nightingale,_
+          modernised by WORDSWORTH.--HORNE's Edition.
+
+And once more, sweet Winandermere, we are on the banks of thy happy lake!
+The softest ray of the soft clear sun of early autumn trembled on the
+fresh waters, and glanced through the leaves of the limes and willows
+that were reflected--distinct as a home for the Naiads--beneath the
+limpid surface.  You might hear in the bushes the young blackbirds
+trilling their first untutored notes.  And the graceful dragon-fly, his
+wings glittering in the translucent sunshine, darted to and fro--the
+reeds gathered here and there in the mimic bays that broke the shelving
+marge of the grassy shore.
+
+And by that grassy shore, and beneath those shadowy limes, sat the young
+lovers.  It was the very place where Spencer had first beheld Camilla.
+And now they were met to say, "Farewell!"
+
+"Oh, Camilla!" said he, with great emotion, and eyes that swam in tears,
+"be firm--be true.  You know how my whole life is wrapped up in your
+love.  You go amidst scenes where all will tempt you to forget me.  I
+linger behind in those which are consecrated by your remembrance, which
+will speak to me every hour of you.  Camilla, since you do love me--you
+do--do you not?--since you have confessed it--since your parents have
+consented to our marriage, provided only that your love last (for of mine
+there can be no doubt) for one year--one terrible year--shall I not trust
+you as truth itself?  And yet how darkly I despair at times!"
+
+Camilla innocently took the hands that, clasped together, were raised to
+her, as if in supplication, and pressed them kindly between her own.
+
+"Do not doubt me--never doubt my affection.  Has not my father consented?
+Reflect, it is but a year's delay!"
+
+"A year!--can you speak thus of a year--a whole year?  Not to see--not to
+hear you for a whole year, except in my dreams!  And, if at the end your
+parents waver?  Your father--I distrust him still.  If this delay is but
+meant to wean you from me,--if, at the end, there are new excuses found,
+--if they then, for some cause or other not now foreseen, still refuse
+their assent?  You--may I not still look to you?"
+
+Camilla sighed heavily; and turning her meek face on her lover, said,
+timidly, "Never think that so short a time can make me unfaithful, and do
+not suspect that my father will break his promise."
+
+"But, if he does, you will still be mine."
+
+"Ah, Charles, how could you esteem me as a wife if I were to tell you I
+could forget I am a daughter?"
+
+This was said so touchingly, and with so perfect a freedom from all
+affectation, that her lover could only reply by covering her hand with
+his kisses.  And it was not till after a pause that he continued
+passionately,--
+
+"You do but show me how much deeper is my love than yours.  You can never
+dream how I love you.  But I do not ask you to love me as well--it would
+be impossible.  My life from my earliest childhood has been passed in
+these solitudes;--a happy life, though tranquil and monotonous, till you
+suddenly broke upon it.  You seemed to me the living form of the very
+poetry I had worshipped--so bright--so heavenly--I loved you from the
+very first moment that we met.  I am not like other men of my age.  I
+have no pursuit--no occupation--nothing to abstract me from your thought.
+And I love you so purely--so devotedly, Camilla.  I have never known even
+a passing fancy for another.  You are the first--the only woman--it ever
+seemed to me possible to love.  You are my Eve--your presence my
+paradise!  Think how sad I shall be when you are gone--how I shall visit
+every spot your footstep has hallowed--how I shall count every moment
+till the year is past!"
+
+While he thus spoke, he had risen in that restless agitation which
+belongs to great emotion; and Camilla now rose also, and said soothingly,
+as she laid her hand on his shoulder with tender but modest frankness:
+
+"And shall I not also think of you?  I am sad to feel that you will be so
+much alone--no sister--no brother!"
+
+"Do not grieve for that.  The memory of you will be dearer to me than
+comfort from all else.  And you will be true!"
+
+Camilla made no answer by words, but her eyes and her colour spoke.  And
+in that moment, while plighting eternal truth, they forgot that they were
+about to part!
+
+Meanwhile, in a room in the house which, screened by the foliage, was
+only partially visible where the lovers stood, sat Mr. Robert Beaufort
+and Mr. Spencer.
+
+"I assure you, sir," said the former, "that I am not insensible to the
+merits of your nephew and to the very handsome proposals you make, still
+I cannot consent to abridge the time I have named.  They are both very
+young.  What is a year?"
+
+"It is a long time when it is a year of suspense," said the recluse,
+shaking his head.
+
+"It is a longer time when it is a year of domestic dissension and
+repentance.  And it is a very true proverb, 'Marry in haste and repent at
+leisure.'  No!  If at the end of the year the young people continue of
+the same mind, and no unforeseen circumstances occur--"
+
+"No unforeseen circumstances, Mr. Beaufort!--that is a new condition--it
+is a very vague phrase."
+
+"My dear sir, it is hard to please you.  Unforeseen circumstances," said
+the wary father, with a wise look, "mean circumstances that we don't
+foresee at present.  I assure you that I have no intention to trifle with
+you, and I shall be sincerely happy in so respectable a connexion."
+
+"The young people may write to each other?"
+
+Why, I'll consult Mrs. Beaufort.  At all events, it must not be very
+often, and Camilla is well brought up, and will show all the letters to
+her mother.  I don't much like a correspondence of that nature.  It often
+leads to unpleasant results; if, for instance--"
+
+"If what?"
+
+"Why, if the parties change their minds, and my girl were to marry
+another.  It is not prudent in matters of business, my dear sir, to put
+down anything on paper that can be avoided."
+
+Mr. Spencer opened his eyes.  "Matters of business, Mr. Beaufort!"
+
+"Well, is not marriage a matter of business, and a very grave matter too?
+More lawsuits about marriage and settlements, &c., than I like to think
+of.  But to change the subject.  You have never heard anything more of
+those young men, you say?"
+
+"No," said Mr. Spencer, rather inaudibly, and looking down.
+
+"And it is your firm impression that the elder one, Philip, is dead?"
+
+"I don't doubt it."
+
+"That was a very vexatious and improper lawsuit their mother brought
+against me.  Do you know that some wretched impostor, who, it appears, is
+a convict broke loose before his time, has threatened me with another, on
+the part of one of those young men?  You never heard anything of it--eh?"
+
+"Never, upon my honour."
+
+"And, of course, you would not countenance so villanous an attempt?"
+
+"Certainly not."
+
+"Because that would break off our contract at once.  But you are too much
+a gentleman and a man of honour.  Forgive me so improper a question.  As
+for the younger Mr. Morton, I have no ill-feeling against him.  But the
+elder!  Oh, a thorough reprobate! a very alarming character!  I could
+have nothing to do with any member of the family while the elder lived;
+it would only expose me to every species of insult and imposition.  And
+now I think we have left our young friends alone long enough.
+
+"But stay, to prevent future misunderstanding, I may as well read over
+again the heads of the arrangement you honour me by proposing.  You agree
+to settle your fortune after your decease, amounting to L23,000.  and
+your house, with twenty-five acres one rood and two poles, more or less,
+upon your nephew and my daughter, jointly--remainder to their children.
+Certainly, without offence, in a worldly point of view, Camilla might do
+better; still, you are so very respectable, and you speak so handsomely,
+that I cannot touch upon that point; and I own, that though there is a
+large nominal rent-roll attached to Beaufort Court (indeed, there is not
+a finer property in the county), yet there are many incumbrances, and
+ready money would not be convenient to me.  Arthur--poor fellow, a very
+fine young man, sir,--is, as I have told you in perfect confidence, a
+little imprudent and lavish; in short, your offer to dispense with any
+dowry is extremely liberal, and proves your nephew is actuated by no
+mercenary feelings: such conduct prepossesses me highly in your favour
+and his too."
+
+Mr. Spencer bowed, and the great man rising, with a stiff affectation of
+kindly affability, put his arm into the uncle's, and strolled with him
+across the lawn towards the lovers.  And such is life-love on the lawn
+and settlements in the parlour.
+
+The lover was the first to perceive the approach of the elder parties.
+And a change came over his face as he saw the dry aspect and marked the
+stealthy stride of his future father-in-law; for then there flashed
+across him a dreary reminiscence of early childhood; the happy evening
+when, with his joyous father, that grave and ominous aspect was first
+beheld; and then the dismal burial, the funereal sables, the carriage at
+the door, and he himself clinging to the cold uncle to ask him to say a
+word of comfort to the mother, who now slept far away.  "Well, my young
+friend," said Mr. Beaufort, patronisingly, "your good uncle and myself
+are quite agreed--a little time for reflection, that's all.  Oh! I don't
+think the worse of you for wishing to abridge it.  But papas must be
+papas."
+
+There was so little jocular about that sedate man, that this attempt at
+jovial good humour seemed harsh and grating--the hinges of that wily
+mouth wanted oil for a hearty smile.
+
+"Come, don't be faint-hearted, Mr. Charles.  'Faint heart,'--you know the
+proverb.  You must stay and dine with us.  We return to-morrow to town.
+I should tell you, that I received this morning a letter from my son
+Arthur, announcing his return from Baden, so we must give him the
+meeting--a very joyful one you may guess.  We have not seen him these
+three years.  Poor fellow! he says be has been very ill and the waters
+have ceased to do him any good.  But a little quiet and country air at
+Beaufort Court will set him up, I hope."
+
+Thus running on about his son, then about his shooting--about Beaufort
+Court and its splendours--about parliament and its fatigues--about the
+last French Revolution, and the last English election--about Mrs.
+Beaufort and her good qualities and bad health--about, in short,
+everything relating to himself, some things relating to the public, and
+nothing that related to the persons to whom his conversation was
+directed, Mr. Robert Beaufort wore away half an hour, when the Spencer's
+took their leave, promising to return to dinner.
+
+"Charles," said Mr. Spencer, as the boat, which the young man rowed,
+bounded over the water towards their quiet home; "Charles, I dislike
+these Beauforts!"
+
+"Not the daughter?"
+
+"No, she is beautiful, and seems good; not so handsome as your poor
+mother, but who ever was?"--here Mr. Spencer sighed, and repeated some
+lines from Shenstone.
+
+"Do you think Mr. Beaufort suspects in the least who I am?"
+
+"Why, that puzzles me; I rather think he does."
+
+"And that is the cause of the delay?  I knew it."
+
+"No, on the contrary, I incline to think he has some kindly feeling to
+you, though not to your brother, and that it is such a feeling that made
+him consent to your marriage.  He sifted me very closely as to what I
+knew of the young Mortons--observed that you were very handsome, and that
+he had fancied at first that he had seen you before."
+
+"Indeed !"
+
+"Yes: and looked hard at me while he spoke; and said more than once,
+significantly, 'So his name is Charles?' He talked about some attempt at
+imposture and litigation, but that was, evidently, merely invented to
+sound me about your brother--whom, of course, he spoke ill of--impressing
+on me three or four times that he would never have anything to say to any
+of the family while Philip lived."
+
+"And you told him," said the young man, hesitatingly, and with a deep
+blush of shame over his face, "that you were persuaded--that is, that you
+believed Philip was--was--"
+
+"Was dead!  Yes--and without confusion.  For the more I reflect, the more
+I think he must be dead.  At all events, you may be sure that he is dead
+to us, that we shall never hear more of him."
+
+"Poor Philip!"
+
+"Your feelings are natural; they are worthy of your excellent heart; but
+remember, what would have become of you if you had stayed with him!"
+
+"True!" said the brother, with a slight shudder--"a career of
+suffering--crime--perhaps the gibbet!  Ah! what do I owe you?"
+
+The dinner-party at Mr. Beaufort's that day was constrained and formal,
+though the host, in unusual good humour, sought to make himself
+agreeable.  Mrs. Beaufort, languid and afflicted with headache, said
+little.  The two Spencers were yet more silent.  But the younger sat next
+to her he loved; and both hearts were full: and in the evening they
+contrived to creep apart into a corner by the window, through which the
+starry heavens looked kindly on them.  They conversed in whispers, with
+long pauses between each: and at times Camilla's tears flowed silently
+down her cheeks, and were followed by the false smiles intended to cheer
+her lover.
+
+Time did not fly, but crept on breathlessly and heavily.  And then came
+the last parting--formal, cold--before witnesses.  But the lover could
+not restrain his emotion, and the hard father heard his suppressed sob as
+he closed the door.
+
+It will now be well to explain the cause of Mr. Beaufort's heightened
+spirits, and the motives of his conduct with respect to his daughter's
+suitor.
+
+This, perhaps, can be best done by laying before the reader the following
+letters that passed between Mr. Beaufort and Lord Lilburne.
+
+
+From LORD LILBURNE to ROBERT BEAUFORT, ESQ., M.P.
+
+"DEAR BEAUFORT,--I think I have settled, pretty satisfactorily, your
+affair with your unwelcome visitor.  The first thing it seemed to me
+necessary to do, was to learn exactly what and who he was, and with what
+parties that could annoy you he held intercourse.  I sent for Sharp, the
+Bow Street officer, and placed him in the hall to mark, and afterwards to
+dog and keep watch on your new friend.  The moment the latter entered I
+saw at once, from his dress and his address, that he was a 'scamp;' and
+thought it highly inexpedient to place you in his power by any money
+transactions.  While talking with him, Sharp sent in a billet containing
+his recognition of our gentleman as a transported convict.
+
+"I acted accordingly; soon saw, from the fellow's manner, that he had
+returned before his time; and sent him away with a promise, which you may
+be sure he believes will be kept, that if he molest you farther, he shall
+return to the colonies, and that if his lawsuit proceed, his witness or
+witnesses shall be indicted for conspiracy and perjury.  Make your mind
+easy so far.  For the rest, I own to you that I think what he says
+probable enough: but my object in setting Sharp to watch him is to learn
+what other parties he sees.  And if there be really anything formidable
+in his proofs or witnesses, it is with those other parties I advise you
+to deal.  Never transact business with the go between, if you can with
+the principal.  Remember, the two young men are the persons to arrange
+with after all.  They must be poor, and therefore easily dealt with.
+For, if poor, they will think a bird in the hand worth two in the bush of
+a lawsuit.
+
+"If, through Mr. Spencer, you can learn anything of either of the young
+men, do so; and try and open some channel, through which you can always
+establish a communication with them, if necessary.  Perhaps, by learning
+their early history, you may learn something to put them into your power.
+
+"I have had a twinge of the gout this morning, and am likely, I fear, to
+be laid up for some weeks.
+
+"Yours truly,
+
+"LILBURNE.
+
+"P.S.--Sharp has just been here.  He followed the man who calls himself
+'Captain Smith' to a house in Lambeth, where he lodges, and from which he
+did not stir till midnight, when Sharp ceased his watch.  On renewing it
+this morning, he found that the captain had gone off, to what place Sharp
+has not yet discovered.
+
+"Burn this immediately."
+
+
+From ROBERT BEAUFORT, ESQ., M.P., to the LORD LILBURNE.
+
+"DEAR, LILBURNE,--Accept my warmest thanks for your kindness; you have
+done admirably, and I do not see that I have anything further to
+apprehend.  I suspect that it was an entire fabrication on that man's
+part, and your firmness has foiled his wicked designs.  Only think, I
+have discovered--I am sure of it--one of the Mortons; and he, too, though
+the younger, yet, in all probability, the sole pretender the fellow could
+set up.  You remember that the child Sidney had disappeared
+mysteriously,--you remember also, how much that Mr. Spencer had
+interested himself in finding out the same Sidney.  Well,--this gentleman
+at the Lakes is, as we suspected, the identical Mr. Spencer, and his soi-
+disant nephew, Camilla's suitor, is assuredly no other than the lost
+Sidney.  The moment I saw the young man I recognised him, for he is very
+little altered, and has a great look of his mother into the bargain.
+Concealing my more than suspicions, I, however, took care to sound Mr.
+Spencer (a very poor soul), and his manner was so embarrassed as to leave
+no doubt of the matter; but in asking him what he had heard of the
+brothers, I had the satisfaction of learning that, in all human
+probability, the elder is dead: of this Mr. Spencer seems convinced.
+I also assured myself that neither Spencer nor the young man had the
+remotest connection with our Captain Smith, nor any idea of litigation.
+This is very satisfactory, you will allow.  And now, I hope you will
+approve of what I have done.  I find that young Morton, or Spencer, as he
+is called, is desperately enamoured of Camilla; he seems a meek, well-
+conditioned, amiable young man; writes poetry;--in short, rather weak
+than otherwise.  I have demanded a year's delay, to allow mutual trial
+and reflection.  This gives us the channel for constant information which
+you advise me to establish, and I shall have the opportunity to learn if
+the impostor makes any communication to them, or if there be any news of
+the brother.  If by any trick or chicanery (for I will never believe that
+there was a marriage) a lawsuit that might be critical or hazardous can
+be cooked up, I can, I am sure, make such terms with Sidney, through his
+love for my daughter, as would effectively and permanently secure me from
+all further trouble and machinations in regard to my property.  And if,
+during the year, we convince ourselves that, after all, there is not a
+leg of law for any claimant to stand on, I may be guided by other
+circumstances how far I shall finally accept or reject the suit.  That
+must depend on any other views we may then form for Camilla; and I shall
+not allow a hint of such an engagement to get abroad.  At the worst, as
+Mr. Spencer's heir, it is not so very bad a match, seeing that they
+dispense with all marriage portion, &c.--a proof how easily they can be
+managed.  I have not let Mr. Spencer see that I have discovered his
+secret--I can do that or not, according to circumstances hereafter;
+neither have I said anything of my discovery to Mrs. B., or Camilla.  At
+present, 'Least said soonest mended.'  I heard from Arthur to-day.  He is
+on his road home, and we hasten to town, sooner than we expected, to meet
+him.  He complains still of his health.  We shall all go down to Beaufort
+Court.  I write this at night, the pretended uncle and sham nephew having
+just gone.  But though we start to-morrow, you will get this a day or two
+before we arrive, as Mrs. Beaufort's health renders short stages
+necessary.  I really do hope that Arthur, also, will not be an invalid,
+poor fellow! one in a family is quite enough; and I find Mrs. Beaufort's
+delicacy very inconvenient, especially in moving about and in keeping up
+one's county connexions.  A young man's health, however, is soon
+restored.  I am very sorry to hear of your gout, except that it carries
+off all other complaints.  I am very well, thank Heaven; indeed, my
+health has been much better of late years: Beaufort Court agrees with me
+so well!  The more I reflect, the more I am astonished at the monstrous
+and wicked impudence of that fellow--to defraud a man out of his own
+property!  You are quite right,--certainly a conspiracy.
+
+"Yours truly,
+
+"R. B."
+
+"P. S.--I shall keep a constant eye on the Spencers.
+
+"Burn this immediately."
+
+
+After he had written and sealed this letter, Mr. Beaufort went to bed and
+slept soundly.
+
+And the next day that place was desolate, and the board on the lawn
+announced that it was again to be let.  But thither daily, in rain or
+sunshine, came the solitary lover, as a bird that seeks its young in the
+deserted nest:--Again and again he haunted the spot where he had strayed
+with the lost one,--and again and again murmured his passionate vows
+beneath the fast-fading limes.  Are those vows destined to be ratified or
+annulled?  Will the absent forget, or the lingerer be consoled?  Had the
+characters of that young romance been lightly stamped on the fancy where
+once obliterated they are erased for ever,--or were they graven deep in
+those tablets where the writing, even when invisible, exists still, and
+revives, sweet letter by letter, when the light and the warmth borrowed
+from the One Bright Presence are applied to the faithful record?  There
+is but one Wizard to disclose that secret, as all others,--the old Grave-
+digger, whose Churchyard is the Earth,--whose trade is to find burial-
+places for Passions that seemed immortal,--disinterring the ashes of some
+long-crumbling Memory--to hollow out the dark bed of some new-perished
+Hope:--He who determines all things, and prophesies none,--for his
+oracles are uncomprehended till the doom is sealed--He who in the bloom
+of the fairest affection detects the hectic that consumes it, and while
+the hymn rings at the altar, marks with his joyless eye the grave for the
+bridal vow.--Wherever is the sepulchre, there is thy temple, O melancholy
+Time!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK V.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+          "Per ambages et ministeria deorum."--PETRONTUS.
+
+         [Through the mysteries and ministerings of the gods.]
+
+Mr. Roger Morton was behind his counter one drizzling, melancholy day.
+Mr. Roger Morton, alderman, and twice mayor of his native town, was a
+thriving man.  He had grown portly and corpulent.  The nightly potations
+of brandy and water, continued year after year with mechanical
+perseverance, had deepened the roses on his cheek.  Mr. Roger Morton was
+never intoxicated--he "only made himself comfortable."  His constitution
+was strong; but, somehow or other, his digestion was not as good as it
+might be.  He was certain that something or other disagreed with him.  He
+left off the joint one day--the pudding another.  Now he avoided
+vegetables as poison--and now he submitted with a sigh to the doctor's
+interdict of his cigar.  Mr. Roger Morton never thought of leaving off
+the brandy and water: and he would have resented as the height of
+impertinent insinuation any hint upon that score to a man of so sober
+and respectable a character.
+
+Mr. Roger Morton was seated--for the last four years, ever since his
+second mayoralty, he had arrogated to himself the dignity of a chair.  He
+received rather than served his customers.  The latter task was left to
+two of his sons.  For Tom, after much cogitation, the profession of an
+apothecary had been selected.  Mrs. Morton observed, that it was a
+genteel business, and Tom had always been a likely lad.  And Mr. Roger
+considered that it would be a great comfort and a great saving to have
+his medical adviser in his own son.
+
+The other two sons and the various attendants of the shop were plying the
+profitable trade, as customer after customer, with umbrellas and in
+pattens, dropped into the tempting shelter--when a man, meanly dressed,
+and who was somewhat past middle age, with a careworn, hungry face,
+entered timidly.  He waited in patience by the crowded counter, elbowed
+by sharp-boned and eager spinsters--and how sharp the elbows of spinsters
+are, no man can tell who has not forced his unwelcome way through the
+agitated groups in a linendraper's shop!--the man, I say, waited
+patiently and sadly, till the smallest of the shopboys turned from a
+lady, who, after much sorting and shading, had finally decided on two
+yards of lilac-coloured penny riband, and asked, in an insinuating
+professional tone,--
+
+"What shall I show you, sir?"
+
+"I wish to speak to Mr. Morton.  Which is he?"
+
+"Mr. Morton is engaged, sir.  I can give you what you want."
+
+"No--it is a matter of business--important business."  The boy eyed the
+napless and dripping hat, the gloveless hands, and the rusty neckcloth of
+the speaker; and said, as he passed his fingers through a profusion of
+light curls "Mr. Morton don't attend much to business himself now; but
+that's he.  Any cravats, sir?"
+
+The man made no answer, but moved where, near the window, and chatting
+with the banker of the town (as the banker tried on a pair of beaver
+gloves), sat still--after due apology for sitting--Mr. Roger Morton.
+
+The alderman lowered his spectacles as he glanced grimly at the lean
+apparition that shaded the spruce banker, and said,--
+
+"Do you want me, friend?"
+
+"Yes, sir, if you please;" and the man took off his shabby hat, and bowed
+low.
+
+"Well, speak out.  No begging petition, I hope?"
+
+"No, sir!  Your nephews--"
+
+The banker turned round, and in his turn eyed the newcomer.  The
+linendraper started back.
+
+"Nephews!" he repeated, with a bewildered look.  "What does the man mean?
+Wait a bit."
+
+"Oh, I've done!"  said the banker, smiling.  "I am glad to find we agree
+so well upon this question: I knew we should.  Our member will never suit
+us if he goes on in this way.  Trade must take care of itself.  Good day
+to You!"
+
+"Nephews!"  repeated Mr. Morton, rising, and beckoning to the man to
+follow him into the back parlour, where Mrs. Morton sat casting up the
+washing bills.
+
+"Now," said the husband, closing the door, "what do you mean, my good
+fellow?"
+
+"Sir, what I wish to ask you is-if you can tell me what has become of--of
+the young Beau--, that is, of your sister's sons.  I understand there
+were two--and I am told that--that they are both dead.  Is it so?"
+
+"What is that to you, friend?"
+
+"An please you, sir, it is a great deal to them!"
+
+"Yes--ha! ha! it is a great deal to everybody whether they are alive or
+dead!"  Mr. Morton, since he had been mayor, now and then had his joke.
+"But really--"
+
+"Roger!" said Mrs. Morton, under her breath--"Roger!"
+
+"Yes, my dear."
+
+"Come this way--I want to speak to you about this bill."  The husband
+approached, and bent over his wife.  "Who's this man?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Depend on it, he has some claim to make-some bills or something.  Don't
+commit yourself--the boys are dead for what we know!"
+
+Mr. Morton hemmed and returned to his visitor.
+
+"To tell you the truth, I am not aware of what has become of the young
+men."
+
+"Then they are not dead--I thought not!"  exclaimed the man, joyously.
+
+"That's more than I can say.  It's many years since I lost sight of the
+only one I ever saw; and they may be both dead for what I know."
+
+"Indeed!" said the man.  "Then you can give me no kind of--of--hint like,
+to find them out?"
+
+"No.  Do they owe you anything?"
+
+"It does not signify  talking now,  sir.  I beg your pardon."
+
+"Stay--who are you?"
+
+"I am a very poor man, sir."
+
+Mr. Morton recoiled.
+
+"Poor!  Oh, very well--very well.  You have done with me now.  Good day--
+good day.  I'm busy."
+
+The stranger pecked for a moment at his hat--turned the handle of the
+door-peered under his grey eyebrows at the portly trader, who, with both
+hands buried in his pockets, his mouth pursed up, like a man about to say
+"No" fidgeted uneasily behind Mrs. Morton's chair.  He sighed, shook his
+head, and vanished.
+
+Mrs. Morton rang the bell-the maid-servant entered.  "Wipe the carpet,
+Jenny;--dirty feet!  Mr. Morton, it's a Brussels!"
+
+"It was not my fault, my dear.  I could not talk about family matters
+before the whole shop.  Do you know, I'd quite forgot those poor boys.
+This unsettles me.  Poor Catherine!  she was so fond of them.  A pretty
+boy that Sidney, too.  What can have become of them?  My heart rebukes
+me.  I wish I had asked the man more."
+
+"More!--why he was just going to beg."
+
+"Beg--yes--very true!"  said Mr. Morton, pausing irresolutely; and then,
+with a hearty tone, he cried out, "And, damme, if he had begged, I could
+afford him a shilling!  I'll go after him."  So saying, he hastened back
+through the shop, but the man was gone--the rain was falling, Mr. Morton
+had his thin shoes on--he blew his nose, and went back to the counter.
+But, there, still rose to his memory the pale face of his dead sister;
+and a voice murmured in his ear, "Brother, where is my child?"
+
+"Pshaw! it is not my fault if he ran away.  Bob, go and get me the county
+paper."
+
+Mr. Morton had again settled himself, and was deep in a trial for murder,
+when another stranger strode haughtily into the shop.  The new-comer,
+wrapped in a pelisse of furs, with a thick moustache, and an eye that
+took in the whole shop, from master to boy, from ceiling to floor, in a
+glance, had the air at once of a foreigner and a soldier.  Every look
+fastened on him, as he paused an instant, and then walking up to the
+alderman, said,--
+
+"Sir, you are doubtless Mr. Morton?"
+
+"At your commands, sir," said Roger, rising involuntarily.
+
+"A word with you, then, on business."
+
+"Business!"  echoed Mr. Morton, turning rather pale, for he began to
+think himself haunted; "anything in my line, sir?  I should be--"
+
+The stranger bent down his tall stature, and hissed into Mr. Morton's
+foreboding ear:
+
+"Your nephews!"
+
+Mr. Morton was literally dumb-stricken.  Yes, he certainly was haunted!
+He stared at this second questioner, and fancied that there was something
+very supernatural and unearthly about him.  He was so tall, and so dark,
+and so stern, and so strange.  Was it the Unspeakable himself come for
+the linendraper?  Nephews again!  The uncle of the babes in the wood
+could hardly have been more startled by the demand!
+
+"Sir," said Mr. Morton at last, recovering his dignity and somewhat
+peevishly,--"sir, I don't know why people should meddle with my family
+affairs.  I don't ask other folks about their nephews.  I have no nephew
+that I know of."
+
+"Permit me to speak to you, alone, for one instant."  Mr. Morton sighed,
+hitched up his trousers, and led the way to the parlour, where Mrs.
+Morton, having finished the washing bills, was now engaged in tying
+certain pieces of bladder round certain pots of preserves.  The eldest
+Miss Morton, a young woman of five or six-and-twenty, who was about to be
+very advantageously married to a young gentleman who dealt in coals and
+played the violin (for N----- was a very musical town), had just joined
+her for the purpose of extorting "The Swiss Boy, with variations," out of
+a sleepy little piano, that emitted a very painful cry under the
+awakening fingers of Miss Margaret Morton.
+
+Mr. Morton threw open the door with a grunt, and the stranger pausing at
+the threshold, the full flood of sound (key C) upon which "the Swiss Boy"
+was swimming along, "kine" and all, for life and death, came splash upon
+him.
+
+"Silence!  can't you?"  cried the father, putting one hand to his ear,
+while with the other he pointed to a chair; and as Mrs. Morton looked up
+from the preserves with that air of indignant suffering with which female
+meekness upbraids a husband's wanton outrage, Mr. Roger added, shrugging
+his shoulders,--
+
+"My nephews again, Mrs. K!"
+
+Miss Margaret turned round, and dropped a courtesy.  Mrs. Morton gently
+let fall a napkin over the preserves, and muttered a sort of salutation,
+as the stranger, taking off his hat, turned to mother and daughter one of
+those noble faces in which Nature has written her grant and warranty of
+the lordship of creation.
+
+"Pardon me," he said, "if I disturb you.  But my business will be short.
+I have come to ask you, sir, frankly, and as one who has a right to ask
+it, what tidings you can give me of Sidney Morton?"
+
+"Sir, I know nothing whatever about him.  He was taken from my house,
+about twelve years since, by his brother.  Myself, and the two Mr.
+Beauforts, and another friend of the family, went in search of them both.
+My search failed."
+
+"And theirs?"
+
+"I understood from Mr. Beaufort that they had not been more successful.
+I have had no communication with those gentlemen since.  But that's
+neither here nor there.  In all probability, the elder of the boys--who,
+I fear, was a sad character--corrupted and ruined his brother; and, by
+this time, Heaven knows what and where they are."
+
+"And no one has inquired of you since--no one has asked the brother of
+Catherine Morton, nay, rather of Catherine Beaufort--where is the child
+intrusted to your care?"
+
+This question, so exactly similar to that which his superstition had rung
+on his own ears, perfectly appalled the worthy alderman.  He staggered
+back-stared at the marked and stern face that lowered upon him--and at
+last cried,--
+
+"For pity's sake, sir, be just!  What could I do for one who left me of
+his own accord?--"
+
+"The day you had beaten him like a dog.  You see, Mr. Morton, I know
+all."
+
+"And what are you?"  said Mr. Morton, recovering his English courage, and
+feeling himself strangely browbeaten in his own house;--"What and who are
+you, that you thus take the liberty to catechise a man of my character
+and respectability?"
+
+"Twice mayor--" began Mrs. Morton.
+
+"Hush, mother!"  whispered Miss Margaret,--"don't work him up."
+
+"I repeat, sir, what are you?"
+
+"What am I?--your nephew!  Who am I?  Before men, I bear a name that I
+have assumed, and not dishonoured--before Heaven I am Philip Beaufort!"
+
+Mrs. Morton dropped down upon her stool.  Margaret murmured "My cousin!"
+in a tone that the ear of the musical coal-merchant might not have
+greatly relished.  And Mr. Morton, after a long pause, came up with a
+frank and manly expression of joy, and said:--
+
+"Then, sir, I thank Heaven, from my heart, that one of my sister's
+children stands alive before me!"
+
+"And now, again, I--I whom you accuse of having corrupted and ruined him
+--him for whom I toiled and worked--him, who was to me, then, as a last
+surviving son to some anxious father--I, from whom he was reft and robbed
+--I ask you again for Sidney--for my brother!"
+
+"And again, I say, that I have no information to give you--that--Stay a
+moment-stay.  You must pardon what I have said of you before you made
+yourself known.  I went but by the accounts I had received from Mr.
+Beaufort.  Let, me speak plainly; that gentleman thought, right or wrong,
+that it would be a great thing to separate your brother from you.  He may
+have found him--it must be so--and kept his name and condition concealed
+from us all, lest you should detect it.  Mrs. M., don't you think so?"
+
+"I'm sure I'm so terrified I don't know what to think," said Mrs. Morton,
+putting her hand to her forehead, and see-sawing herself to and fro upon
+her stool.
+
+"But since they wronged you--since you--you seem so very--very--"
+
+"Very much the gentleman," suggested Miss Margaret.  "Yes, so much the
+gentleman;--well off, too, I should hope, sir,"--and the experienced eye
+of Mr. Morton glanced at the costly sables that lined the pelisse,--
+"there can be no difficulty in your learning from Mr. Beaufort all that
+you wish to know.  And pray, sir, may I ask, did you send any one here
+to-day to make the very inquiry you have made?"
+
+"I?--No.  What do you mean?"
+
+"Well, well--sit down--there may be something in all this that you may
+make out better than I can."
+
+And as Philip obeyed, Mr. Morton, who was really and honestly rejoiced to
+see his sister's son alive and apparently thriving, proceeded to relate
+pretty exactly the conversation he had held with the previous visitor.
+Philip listened earnestly and with attention.  Who could this questioner
+be?  Some one who knew his birth--some one who sought him out?--some one,
+who--Good Heavens! could it be the long-lost witness of the marriage?
+
+As soon as that idea struck him, be started from his seat and entreated
+Morton to accompany him in search of the stranger.  "You know not," he
+said, in a tone impressed with that energy of will in which lay the
+talent of his mind,--"you know not of what importance this may be to my
+prospects--to your sister's fair name.  If it should be the witness
+returned at last!  Who else, of the rank you describe, would be
+interested in such inquiries?  Come!"
+
+"What witness?" said Mrs. Morton, fretfully.  "You don't mean to come
+over us with the old story of the marriage?"
+
+"Shall your wife slander your own sister, sir?  A marriage there was--God
+yet will proclaim the right--and the name of Beaufort shall be yet placed
+on my mother's gravestone.  Come!"
+
+"Here are your shoes and umbrella, pa," cried Miss Margaret, inspired by
+Philip's earnestness.
+
+"My fair cousin, I guess," and as the soldier took her hand, he kissed
+the unreluctant cheek--turned to the door--Mr. Morton placed his arm in
+his, and the next moment they were in the street.
+
+When Catherine, in her meek tones, had said, "Philip Beaufort was my
+husband," Roger Morton had disbelieved her.  And now one word from the
+son, who could, in comparison, know so little of the matter, had almost
+sufficed to convert and to convince the sceptic.  Why was this?
+Because--Man believes the Strong!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+               "--Quid Virtus et quid Sapientia possit
+               Utile proposuit nobis exemplar _Ulssem_." HOR.
+
+          ["He has proposed to us Ulysses as a useful example of how
+          much may be accomplished by Virtue and Wisdom."]
+
+Meanwhile the object of their search, on quitting Mr. Morton's shop, had
+walked slowly and sadly on, through the plashing streets, till he came to
+a public house in the outskirts and on the high road to London.  Here he
+took shelter for a short time, drying himself by the kitchen fire, with
+the license purchased by fourpenny-worth of gin; and having learned that
+the next coach to London would not pass for some hours, he finally
+settled himself in the Ingle, till the guard's horn should arouse him.
+By the same coach that the night before had conveyed Philip to N----, had
+the very man he sought been also a passenger!
+
+The poor fellow was sickly and wearied out: he had settled into a doze,
+when he was suddenly wakened by the wheels of a coach and the trampling
+of horses.  Not knowing how long he had slept, and imagining that the
+vehicle he had awaited was at the door, he ran out.  It was a coach
+coming from London, and the driver was joking with a pretty barmaid who,
+in rather short petticoats, was fielding up to him the customary glass.
+The man, after satisfying himself that his time was not yet come, was
+turning back to the fire, when a head popped itself out of the window,
+and a voice cried,  "Stars and garters!  Will--so that's you!"  At the
+sound of the voice the man halted abruptly, turned very pale, and his
+limbs trembled.  The inside passenger opened the door, jumped out with a
+little carpet-bag in his hand, took forth a long leathern purse from
+which he ostentatiously selected the coins that paid his fare and
+satisfied the coachman, and then, passing his arm through that of the
+acquaintance he had discovered, led him back into the house.
+
+"Will--Will," he whispered, "you have been to the Mortons.  Never moind--
+let's hear all.  Jenny or Dolly, or whatever your sweet praetty name is--
+a private room and a pint of brandy, my dear.  Hot water and lots of the
+grocery.  That's right."
+
+And as soon as the pair found themselves, with the brandy before them, in
+a small parlour with a good fire, the last comer went to the door, shut
+it cautiously, flung his bag under the table, took off his gloves, spread
+himself wider and wider before the fire, until he had entirely excluded
+every ray from his friend, and then suddenly turning so that the back
+might enjoy what the front had gained, he exclaimed.
+
+"Damme, Will, you're a praetty sort of a broather to give me the slip in
+that way.  But in this world every man for his-self!"
+
+"I tell you," said William, with something like decision in his voice,
+"that I will not do any wrong to these young men if they live."
+
+"Who asks you to do a wrong to them?--booby!  Perhaps I may be the best
+friend they may have yet--ay, or you too, though you're the ungratefulest
+whimsicallist sort of a son of a gun that ever I came across.  Come, help
+yourself, and don't roll up your eyes in that way, like a Muggletonian
+asoide of a Fye-Fye!"
+
+Here the speaker paused a moment, and with a graver and more natural tone
+of voice proceeded:
+
+"So you did not believe me when I told you that these brothers were dead,
+and you have been to the Mortons to learn more?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, and what have you learned?"
+
+"Nothing.  Morton declares that he does not know that they are alive, but
+he says also that he does not know that they are dead."
+
+"Indeed," said the other, listening with great attention; "and you really
+think that he does not know anything about them?"
+
+"I do, indeed."
+
+"Hum!  Is he a sort of man who would post down the rhino to help the
+search?"
+
+"He looked as if he had the yellow fever when I said I was poor,"
+returned William, turning round, and trying to catch a glimpse at the
+fire, as he gulped his brandy and water.
+
+"Then I'll be d---d if I run the risk of calling.  I have done some
+things in this town by way of business before now; and though it's a long
+time ago, yet folks don't forget a haundsome man in a hurry--especially
+if he has done 'em!  Now, then, listen to me.  You see, I have given this
+matter all the 'tention in my power.  'If the lads be dead,' said I to
+you, 'it is no use burning one's fingers by holding a candle to bones in
+a coffin.  But Mr. Beaufort need not know they are dead, and we'll see
+what we can get out of him; and if I succeeds, as I think I shall, you
+and I may hold up our heads for the rest of our life.'  Accordingly, as I
+told you, I went to Mr. Beaufort, and--'Gad, I thought we had it all our
+own way.  But since I saw you last, there's been the devil and all.  When
+I called again, Will, I was shown in to an old lord, sharp as a gimblet.
+Hang me, William, if he did not frighten me out of my seven senses!"
+
+Here Captain Smith (the reader has, no doubt, already discovered that the
+speaker was no less a personage) took three or four nervous strides
+across the room, returned to the table, threw himself in a chair, placed
+one foot on one hob, and one on the other, laid his finger on his nose,
+and, with a significant wink, said in a whisper, "Will, he knew I had
+been lagged!  He not only refused to hear all I had to say, but
+threatened to prosecute--persecute, hang, draw, and quarter us both, if
+we ever dared to come out with the truth."
+
+"But what's the good of the truth if the boys are dead?" said William,
+timidly.
+
+The captain, without heeding this question, continued, as he stirred the
+sugar in his glass, "Well, out I sneaked, and as soon as I had got to my
+own door I turned round and saw Sharp the runner on the other side of the
+way--I felt deuced queer.  However, I went in, sat down, and began to
+think.  I saw that it was up with us, so far as the old uns were
+concerned; and it might be worth while to find out if the young uns
+really were dead."
+
+"Then you did not know that after all!  I thought so.  Oh, Jerry!"
+
+"Why, look you, man, it was not our interest to take their side if we
+could make our bargain out of the other.  'Cause why?  You are only one
+witness--you are a good fellow, but poor, and with very shaky nerves,
+Will.  You does not know what them big wigs are when a roan's caged in a
+witness-box--they flank one up, and they flank one down, and they bully
+and bother, till one's like a horse at Astley's dancing on hot iron.  If
+your testimony broke down, why it would be all up with the case, and what
+then would become of us?  Besides," added the captain, with dignified
+candour, "I have been lagged, it's no use denying it; I am back before my
+time.  Inquiries about your respectability would soon bring the bulkies
+about me.  And you would not have poor Jerry sent back to that d---d low
+place on t'other side of the herring-pond, would you?"
+
+"Ah, Jerry!"  said William, kindly placing his hand in his brother's, you
+know I helped you to escape; I left all to come over with you."
+
+"So you did, and you're a good fellow; though as to leaving all, why you
+had got rid of all first.  And when you told me about the marriage, did
+not I say that I saw our way to a snug thing for life?  But to return to
+my story.  There is a danger in going with the youngsters.  But since,
+Will,--since nothing but hard words is to be got on the other side, we'll
+do our duty, and I'll find them out, and do the best I can for us--that
+is, if they be yet above ground.  And now I'll own to you that I think I
+knows that the younger one is alive."
+
+"You do?"
+
+"Yes!  But as he won't come in for anything unless his brother is dead,
+we must have a hunt for the heir.  Now I told you that, many years ago,
+there was a lad with me, who, putting all things together--seeing how the
+Beauforts came after him, and recollecting different things he let out at
+the time--I feel pretty sure is your old master's Hopeful.  I know that
+poor Will Gawtrey gave this lad the address of Old Gregg, a friend of
+mine.  So after watching Sharp off the sly, I went that very night, or
+rather at two in the morning, to Gregg's house, and, after brushing up
+his memory, I found that the lad had been to him, and gone over
+afterwards to Paris in search of Gawtrey, who was then keeping a
+matrimony shop.  As I was not rich enough to go off to Paris in a
+pleasant, gentlemanlike way, I allowed Gregg to put me up to a noice
+quiet little bit of business.  Don't shake your head--all safe--a rural
+affair!  That took some days.  You see it has helped to new rig me," and
+the captain glanced complacently over a very smart suit of clothes.
+"Well, on my return I went to call on you, but you had flown.  I half
+suspected you might have gone to the mother's relations here; and I
+thought, at all events, that I could not do better than go myself and see
+what they knew of the matter.  From what you say I feel I had better now
+let that alone, and go over to Paris at once; leave me alone to find out.
+And faith, what with Sharp and the old lord, the sooner I quit England
+the better."
+
+"And you really think you shall get hold of them after all?  Oh, never
+fear my nerves if I'm once in the right; it's living with you, and seeing
+you do wrong, and hearing you talk wickedly, that makes me tremble."
+
+"Bother!" said the captain, "you need not crow over me.  Stand up, Will;
+there now, look at us two in the glass!  Why, I look ten years younger
+than you do, in spite of all my troubles.  I dress like a gentleman, as I
+am; I have money in my pocket; I put money in yours; without me you'd
+starve.  Look you, you carried over a little fortune to Australia--you
+married--you farmed--you lived honestly, and yet that d---d shilly-shally
+disposition of yours, 'ticed into one speculation to-day, and scared out
+of another to-morrow, ruined you!"
+
+"Jerry! Jerry!" cried William, writhing; "don't--don't."
+
+"But it's all true, and I wants to cure you of preaching.  And then, when
+you were nearly run out, instead of putting a bold face on it, and
+setting your shoulder to the wheel, you gives it up--you sells what you
+have--you bolts over, wife and all, to Boston, because some one tells you
+you can do better in America--you are out of the way when a search is
+made for you--years ago when you could have benefited yourself and your
+master's family without any danger to you or me--nobody can find you;
+'cause why, you could not bear that your old friends in England, or in
+the colony either, should know that you were turned a slave-driver in
+Kentucky.  You kick up a mutiny among the niggers by moaning over them,
+instead of keeping 'em to it--you get kicked out yourself--your wife begs
+you to go back to Australia, where her relations will do something for
+you--you work your passage out, looking as ragged as a colt from grass--
+wife's uncle don't like ragged nephews-in-law--wife dies broken-hearted
+--and you might be breaking stones on the roads with the convicts, if I,
+myself a convict, had not taken compassion on you.  Don't cry, Will, it
+is all for your own good--I hates cant!  Whereas I, my own master from
+eighteen, never stooped to serve any other--have dressed like a
+gentleman--kissed the pretty girls--drove my pheaton--been in all the
+papers as 'the celebrated Dashing Jerry'--never wanted a guinea in my
+pocket, and even when lagged at last, had a pretty little sum in the
+colonial bank to lighten my misfortunes.  I escape,--I bring you over--
+and here I am, supporting you, and in all probability, the one on whom
+depends the fate of one of the first families in the country.  And you
+preaches at me, do you?  Look you, Will;--in this world, honesty's
+nothing without force of character!  And so your health!"
+
+Here the captain emptied the rest of the brandy into his glass, drained
+it at a draught, and, while poor William was wiping his eyes with a
+ragged blue pocket-handkerchief, rang the bell, and asked what coaches
+would pass that way to -----, a seaport town at some distance.  On
+hearing that there was one at six o'clock, the captain ordered the best
+dinner the larder would afford to be got ready as soon as possible; and,
+when they were again alone, thus accosted his brother:--
+
+"Now you go back to town--here are four shiners for you.  Keep quiet--
+don't speak to a soul--don't put your foot in it, that's all I beg, and
+I'll find out whatever there is to be found.  It is damnably out of my
+way embarking at -----, but I had best keep clear of Lunnon.  And I tell
+you what, if these youngsters have hopped the twig, there's another bird
+on the bough that may prove a goldfinch after all--Young Arthur Beaufort:
+I hear he is a wild, expensive chap, and one who can't live without lots
+of money.  Now, it's easy to frighten a man of that sort, and I cha'n't
+have the old lord at his elbow."
+
+"But I tell you, that I only care for my poor master's children."
+
+"Yes; but if they are dead, and by saying they are alive, one can make
+old age comfortable, there's no harm in it--eh?"
+
+"I don't know," said William, irresolutely.  "But certainly it is a hard
+thing to be so poor at my time of life; and so honest a man as I've been,
+too!"
+
+Captain Smith went a little too far when he said that "honesty's nothing
+without force of character."  Still, Honesty has no business to be
+helpless and draggle-tailed;--she must be active and brisk, and make use
+of her wits; or, though she keep clear or the prison, 'tis no very great
+wonder if she fall on the parish.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+          "Mitis.--This Macilente, signior, begins to be more sociable on
+          a sudden." _Every Man out of his Humour_.
+
+          "Punt.  Signior, you are sufficiently instructed.
+
+          "Fast.  Who, I, sir?"--Ibid.
+
+After spending the greater part of the day in vain inquiries and a vain
+search, Philip and Mr. Morton returned to the house of the latter.
+
+"And now," said Philip, "all that remains to be done is this: first give
+to the police of the town a detailed description of the man; and
+secondly, let us put an advertisement both in the county journal and in
+some of the London papers, to the effect, that if the person who called
+on you will take the trouble to apply again, either personally or by
+letter, he may obtain the information sought for.  In case he does, I
+will trouble you to direct him to--yes--to Monsieur de Vaudemont,
+according to this address."
+
+"Not to you, then?"
+
+"It is the same thing," replied Philip, drily.  "You have confirmed my
+suspicions, that the Beauforts know some thing of my brother.  What did
+you say of some other friend of the family who assisted in the search?"
+
+"Oh,--a Mr. Spencer! an old acquaintance of your mother's."  Here Mr.
+Morton smiled, but not being encouraged in a joke, went on,  "However,
+that's neither here nor there; he certainly never found out your brother.
+For I have had several letters from him at different times, asking if any
+news had been heard of either of you."
+
+And, indeed, Spencer had taken peculiar pains to deceive the Mortons,
+whose interposition he feared little less than that of the Beauforts.
+
+"Then it can be of no use to apply to him," said Philip, carelessly, not
+having any recollection of the name of Spencer, and therefore attaching
+little importance to the mention of him.
+
+"Certainly,  I should think not.  Depend on it, Mr. Beaufort must know."
+
+"True," said Philip.  "And I have only to thank you for your kindness,
+and return to town."
+
+"But stay with us this day--do--let me feel that we are friends.  I
+assure you poor Sidney's fate has been a load on my mind ever since he
+left.  You shall have the bed he slept in, and over which your mother
+bent when she left him and me for the last time."
+
+These words were said with so much feeling, that the adventurer wrung his
+uncle's hand, and said, "Forgive me, I wronged you--I will be your
+guest."
+
+Mrs. Morton, strange to say, evinced no symptoms of ill-humour at the
+news of the proffered hospitality.  In fact, Miss Margaret had been so
+eloquent in Philip's praise during his absence, that she suffered herself
+to be favourably impressed.  Her daughter, indeed, had obtained a sort of
+ascendency over Mrs. M. and the whole house, ever since she had received
+so excellent an offer.  And, moreover, some people are like dogs--they
+snarl at the ragged and fawn on the well-dressed.  Mrs. Morton did not
+object to a nephew _de facto_, she only objected to a nephew in _forma
+pauperis_.  The evening, therefore, passed more cheerfully than might
+have been anticipated, though Philip found some difficulty in parrying
+the many questions put to him on the past.  He contented himself with
+saying, as briefly as possible, that he had served in a foreign service,
+and acquired what sufficed him for an independence; and then, with the
+ease which a man picks up in the great world, turned the conversation to
+the prospects of the family whose guest he was.  Having listened with due
+attention to Mrs. Morton's eulogies on Tom, who had been sent for, and
+who drank the praises on his own gentility into a very large pair of
+blushing ears,--also, to her self-felicitations on Miss Margaret's
+marriage,--_item_, on the service rendered to the town by Mr. Roger, who
+had repaired the town-hall in his first mayoralty at his own expense,--
+_item_, to a long chronicle of her own genealogy, how she had one cousin
+a clergyman, and how her great-grandfather had been knighted,--_item_, to
+the domestic virtues of all her children,--_item_, to a confused
+explanation of the chastisement inflicted on Sidney, which Philip cut
+short in the middle; he asked, with a smile, what had become of the
+Plaskwiths.  "Oh!"  said Mrs. Morton, "my brother Kit has retired from
+business.  His son-in-law, Mr. Plimmins, has succeeded."
+
+"Oh, then, Plimmins married one of the young ladies?"
+
+"Yes, Jane--she  bad a sad squint!--Tom, there is nothing to laugh at,--
+we are all as God made us,--'Handsome is as handsome does,'--she has had
+three little uns!"
+
+"Do they squint too?"  asked Philip; and Miss Margaret giggled, and Tom
+roared, and the other young men roared too.  Philip had certainly said
+something very witty.
+
+This time Mrs. Morton administered no reproof; but replied pensively
+
+"Natur is very mysterious--they all squint!"
+
+Mr. Morton conducted Philip to his chamber.  There it was, fresh, clean,
+unaltered--the same white curtains, the same honeysuckle paper as when
+Catherine had crept across the threshold.
+
+"Did Sidney ever tell you that his mother placed a ring round his neck
+that night?"  asked Mr. Morton.
+
+"Yes; and the dear boy wept when he said that he had slept too soundly to
+know that she was by his side that last, last time.  The ring--oh, how
+well I remember it! she never put it off till then; and often in the
+fields--for we were wild wanderers together in that day--often when his
+head lay on my shoulder, I felt that ring still resting on his heart, and
+fancied it was a talisman--a blessing.  Well, well-good night to you!"
+And he shut the door on his uncle, and was alone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+               "The Man of Law, . . . . . . .
+               And a great suit is like to be between them."
+               BEN JONSON: _Staple of News_.
+
+On arriving in London, Philip went first to the lodging he still kept
+there, and to which his letters were directed; and, among some
+communications from Paris, full of the politics and the hopes of the
+Carlists, he found the following note from Lord Lilburne:--
+
+"DEAR SIR,--When I met you the other day I told you I had been threatened
+with the gout.  The enemy has now taken possession of the field.  I am
+sentenced to regimen and the sofa.  But as it is my rule in life to make
+afflictions as light as possible, so I have asked a few friends to take
+compassion on me, and help me 'to shuffle off this mortal coil' by
+dealing me, if they can, four by honours.  Any time between nine and
+twelve to-night, or to-morrow night, you will find me at home; and if you
+are not better engaged, suppose you dine with me to-day--or rather dine
+opposite to me--and excuse my Spartan broth.  You will meet (besides any
+two or three friends whom an impromptu invitation may find disengaged) my
+sister, with Beaufort and their daughter: they only arrived in town this
+morning, and are kind enough 'to nurse me,' as they call it,--that is to
+say, their cook is taken ill!
+                                      "Yours,
+                                            "LILBURNE
+"Park Lane, Sept. --"
+
+
+"The Beauforts.  Fate favors me--I will go.  The date is for to-day."
+
+He sent off a hasty line to accept the invitation, and finding he had a
+few hours yet to spare, he resolved to employ them in consultation with
+some lawyer as to the chances of ultimately regaining his inheritance--
+a hope which, however wild, he had, since his return to his native shore,
+and especially since he had heard of the strange visit made to Roger
+Morton, permitted himself to indulge.  With this idea he sallied out,
+meaning to consult Liancourt, who, having a large acquaintance among the
+English, seemed the best person to advise him as to the choice of a
+lawyer at once active and honest,--when he suddenly chanced upon that
+gentleman himself.
+
+"This is lucky, my dear Liancourt.  I was just going to your lodgings."
+
+"And I was coming to yours to know if you dine with Lord Lilburne.  He
+told me he had asked you.  I have just left him.  And, by the sofa of
+Mephistopheles, there was the prettiest Margaret you ever beheld."
+
+"Indeed!--Who?"
+
+"He called her his niece; but I should doubt if he had any relation on
+this side the Styx so human as a niece."
+
+"You seem to have no great predilection for our host."
+
+"My dear Vaudemont, between our blunt, soldierly natures, and those wily,
+icy, sneering intellects, there is the antipathy of the dog to the cat."
+
+"Perhaps so on our side, not on his--or why does he invite us?"
+
+"London is empty; there is no one else to ask.  We are new faces, new
+minds to him.  We amuse him more than the hackneyed comrades he has worn
+out.  Besides, he plays--and you, too.  Fie on you!"
+
+"Liancourt, I had two objects in knowing that man, and I pay to the toll
+for the bridge.  When I cease to want the passage, I shall cease to pay
+the toll."
+
+"But the bridge may be a draw-bridge, and the moat is devilish deep
+below.  Without metaphor, that man may ruin you before you know where you
+are."
+
+"Bah! I have my eyes open.  I know how much to spend on the rogue whose
+service I hire as a lackey's; and I know also where to stop.  Liancourt,"
+he added, after a short pause, and in a tone deep with suppressed
+passion, "when I first saw that man, I thought of appealing to his heart
+for one who has a claim on it.  That was a vain hope.  And then there
+came upon me a sterner and deadlier thought--the scheme of the Avenger!
+This Lilburne--this rogue whom the world sets up to worship--ruined, body
+and soul ruined--one whose name the world gibbets with scorn!  Well, I
+thought to avenge that man.  In his own house--amidst you all--I thought
+to detect the sharper, and brand the cheat!"
+
+"You startle me!--It has been whispered, indeed, that Lord Lilburne is
+dangerous,--but skill is dangerous.  To cheat!--an Englishman!--a
+nobleman!--impossible!"
+
+"Whether he do or not," returned Vaudemont, in a calmer tone, "I have
+foregone the vengeance, because he is--"
+
+"Is what?"
+
+"No matter," said Vaudemont aloud, but he added to himself,--"Because he
+is the grandfather of Fanny!"
+
+"You are very enigmatical to-day."
+
+"Patience, Liancourt; I may solve all the riddles that make up my life,
+yet.  Bear with me a little longer.  And now can you help me to a
+lawyer?--a man experienced, indeed, and of repute, but young, active, not
+overladen with business;--I want his zeal and his time, for a hazard that
+your monopolists of clients may not deem worth their devotion."
+
+"I can recommend you, then, the very man you require.  I had a suit some
+years ago at Paris, for which English witnesses were necessary.  My
+_avocat_ employed a solicitor here whose activity in collecting my
+evidence gained my cause.  I will answer for his diligence and his
+honesty."
+
+"His address?"
+
+"Mr. Barlow--somewhere by the Strand--let me see--Essex-yes, Essex
+Street."
+
+"Then good-bye to you for the present.--You dine at Lord Lilburne's too?"
+
+"Yes.  Adieu till then."
+
+Vaudemont was not long before he arrived at Mr. Barlow's; a brass-plate
+announced to him the house.  He was shown at once into a parlour, where
+he saw a man whom lawyers would call young, and spinsters middle-aged--
+viz., about two-and-forty; with a bold, resolute, intelligent
+countenance, and that steady, calm, sagacious eye, which inspires
+at once confidence and esteem.
+
+Vaudemont scanned him with the look of one who has been accustomed to
+judge mankind--as a scholar does books--with rapidity because with
+practice.  He had at first resolved to submit to him the heads of his
+case without mentioning names, and, in fact, he so commenced his
+narrative; but by degrees, as he perceived how much his own earnestness
+arrested and engrossed the interest of his listener, he warmed into
+fuller confidence, and ended by a full disclosure, and a caution as to
+the profoundest secrecy in case, if there were no hope to recover his
+rightful name, he might yet wish to retain, unannoyed by curiosity or
+suspicion, that by which he was not discreditably known.
+
+"Sir," said Mr. Barlow, after assuring him of the most scrupulous
+discretion,--"sir, I have some recollection of the trial instituted by
+your mother, Mrs. Beaufort"--and the slight emphasis he laid on that name
+was the most grateful compliment be could have paid to the truth of
+Philip's recital.  "My impression is, that it was managed in a very
+slovenly manner by her lawyer; and some of his oversights we may repair
+in a suit instituted by yourself.  But it would be absurd to conceal from
+you the great difficulties that beset us--your mother's suit, designed to
+establish her own rights, was far easier than that which you must
+commence--viz., an action for ejectment against a man who has been some
+years in undisturbed possession.  Of course, until the missing witness is
+found out, it would be madness to commence litigation.  And the question,
+then, will be, how far that witness will suffice?  It is true, that one
+witness of a marriage, if the others are dead, is held sufficient by law.
+But I need not add, that that witness must be thoroughly credible.  In
+suits for real property, very little documentary or secondary evidence is
+admitted.  I doubt even whether the certificate of the marriage on which
+--in the loss or destruction of the register--you lay so much stress,
+would be available in itself.  But if an examined copy, it becomes of the
+last importance, for it will then inform us of the name of the person who
+extracted and examined it.  Heaven grant it may not have been the
+clergyman himself who performed the ceremony, and who, you say, is dead;
+if some one else, we should then have a second, no doubt credible and
+most valuable witness.  The document would thus become available as
+proof, and, I think, that we should not fail to establish our case."
+
+"But this certificate, how is it ever to be found?  I told you we had
+searched everywhere in vain."
+
+"True; but you say that your mother always declared that the late Mr.
+Beaufort had so solemnly assured her, even just prior to his decease,
+that it was in existence, that I have no doubt as to the fact.  It may be
+possible, but it is a terrible insinuation to make, that if Mr. Robert
+Beaufort, in examining the papers of the deceased, chanced upon a
+document so important to him, he abstracted or destroyed it.  If this
+should not have been the case (and Mr. Robert Beaufort's moral character
+is unspotted--and we have no right to suppose it), the probability is,
+either that it was intrusted to some third person, or placed in some
+hidden drawer or deposit, the secret of which your father never
+disclosed.  Who has purchased the house you lived in?"
+
+"Fernside?  Lord Lilburne.  Mrs. Robert Beaufort's brother."
+
+"Humph--probably, then, he took the furniture and all.  Sir, this is a
+matter that requires some time for close consideration.  With your leave,
+I will not only insert in the London papers an advertisement to the
+effect that you suggested to Mr. Roger Morton (in case you should have
+made a right conjecture as to the object of the man who applied to him),
+but I will also advertise for the witness himself.  William Smith, you
+say, his name is.  Did the lawyer employed by Mrs. Beaufort send to
+inquire for him in the colony?"
+
+"No; I fear there could not have been time for that.  My mother was so
+anxious and eager, and so convinced of the justice of her case--"
+
+"That's a pity; her lawyer must have been a sad driveller."
+
+"Besides, now I remember, inquiry was made of his relations in England.
+His father, a farmer, was then alive; the answer was that he had
+certainly left Australia.  His last letter, written two years before that
+date, containing a request for money, which the father, himself made a
+bankrupt by reverses, could not give, had stated that he was about to
+seek his fortune elsewhere--since then they had heard nothing of him."
+
+"Ahem!  Well, you will perhaps let me know where any relations of his are
+yet to be found, and I will look up the former suit, and go into the
+whole case without delay.  In the meantime, you do right, sir--if you
+will allow me to say it--not to disclose either your own identity or a
+hint of your intentions.  It is no use putting suspicion on its guard.
+And my search for this certificate must be managed with the greatest
+address.  But, by the way--speaking of identity--there can be no
+difficulty, I hope, in proving yours."
+
+Philip was startled.  "Why, I am greatly altered."
+
+"But probably your beard and moustache may contribute to that change; and
+doubtless, in the village where you lived, there would be many with whom
+you were in sufficient intercourse, and on whose recollection, by
+recalling little anecdotes and circumstances with which no one but
+yourself could be acquainted, your features would force themselves along
+with the moral conviction that the man who spoke to them could be no
+other but Philip Morton--or rather Beaufort."
+
+"You are right; there must be many such.  There was not a cottage in the
+place where I and my dogs were not familiar and half domesticated."
+
+"All's right, so far, then.  But I repeat, we must not be too sanguine.
+Law is not justice--"
+
+"But God is," said Philip; and he left the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+          "_Volpone_.  A little in a mist, but not dejected;
+          Never--but still myself."
+                             BEN JONSON: _Volpone_.
+
+          "_Peregrine_.  Am I enough disguised?
+          _Mer_.  Ay.  I warrant you.
+          _Per_.  Save you, fair lady."--Ibid.
+
+It is an ill wind that blows nobody good.  The ill wind that had blown
+gout to Lord Lilburne had blown Lord Lilburne away from the injury he had
+meditated against what he called "the object of his attachment."  How
+completely and entirely, indeed, the state of Lord Lilburne's feelings
+depended on the state of his health, may be seen in the answer he gave to
+his valet, when, the morning after the first attack of the gout, that
+worthy person, by way of cheering his master, proposed to ascertain
+something as to the movements of one with whom Lord Lilburne professed to
+be so violently in love,--"Confound you, Dykeman!" exclaimed the
+invalid,--"why do you trouble me about women when I'm in this condition?
+I don't care if they were all at the bottom of the sea!  Reach me the
+colchicum!  I must keep my mind calm."
+
+Whenever tolerably well, Lord Lilburne was careless of his health; the
+moment he was ill, Lord Lilburne paid himself the greatest possible
+attention.  Though a man of firm nerves, in youth of remarkable daring,
+and still, though no longer rash, of sufficient personal courage, he was
+by no means fond of the thought of death--that is, of his _own_ death.
+Not that he was tormented by any religious apprehensions of the Dread
+Unknown, but simply because the only life of which he had any experience
+seemed to him a peculiarly pleasant thing.  He had a sort of instinctive
+persuasion that John Lord Lilburne would not be better off anywhere else.
+Always disliking solitude, he disliked it more than ever when he was ill,
+and he therefore welcomed the visit of his sister and the gentle hand of
+his pretty niece.  As for Beaufort, he bored the sufferer; and when that
+gentleman, on his arrival, shutting out his wife and daughter, whispered
+to Lilburne, "Any more news of that impostor?"  Lilburne answered
+peevishly, "I never talk about business when I have the gout!  I have set
+Sharp to keep a lookout for him, but he has learned nothing as yet.  And
+now go to your club.  You are a worthy creature, but too solemn for my
+spirits just at this moment.  I have a few people coming to dine with me,
+your wife will do the honors, and--_you_ can come in the evening."
+Though Mr. Robert Beaufort's sense of importance swelled and chafed at
+this very unceremonious _conge_, he forced a smile, and said:--
+
+"Well, it is no wonder you are a little fretful with the gout.  I have
+plenty to do in town, and Mrs. Beaufort and Camilla can come back without
+waiting for me."
+
+"Why, as your cook is ill, and they can't dine at a club, you may as well
+leave them here till I am a little better; not that I care, for I can
+hire a better nurse than either of them."
+
+"My dear Lilburne, don't talk of hiring nurses; certainly, I am too happy
+if they can be of comfort to you."
+
+"No! on second thoughts, you may take back your wife, she's always
+talking of her own complaints, and leave me Camilla: you can't want her
+for a few days."
+
+"Just as you like.  And you really think I have managed as well as I
+could about this young man,--eh?"
+
+"Yes--yes!  And so you go to Beaufort Court in a few days?"
+
+"I propose doing so.  I wish you were well enough to come."
+
+"Um!  Chambers says that it would be a very good air for me--better than
+Fernside; and as to my castle in the north, I would as soon go to
+Siberia.  Well, if I get better, I will pay you a visit, only you always
+have such a stupid set of respectable people about you.  I shock them,
+and they oppress me."
+
+"Why, as I hope soon to see Arthur, I shall make it as agreeable to him
+as I can, and I shall be very much obliged to you if you would invite a
+few of your own friends."
+
+"Well, you are a good fellow, Beaufort, and I will take you at your word;
+and, since one good turn deserves another, I have now no scruples in
+telling you that I feel quite sure that you will have no further
+annoyance from this troublesome witness-monger."
+
+"In that case," said Beaufort, "I may pick up a better match for Camilla!
+Good-bye, my dear Lilburne."
+
+"Form and Ceremony of the world!"  snarled the peer, as the door closed
+on his brother-in-law, "ye make little men very moral, and not a bit the
+better for being so."
+
+It so happened that Vaudemont arrived before any of the other guests that
+day, and during the half hour which Dr. Chambers assigned to his
+illustrious patient, so that, when he entered, there were only Mrs.
+Beaufort and Camilla in the drawing-room.
+
+Vaudemont drew back involuntarily as he recognized in the faded
+countenance of the elder lady, features associated with one of the dark
+passages in his earlier life; but Mrs. Beaufort's gracious smile, and
+urbane, though languid welcome, sufficed to assure him that the
+recognition was not mutual.  He advanced, and again stopped short, as his
+eye fell upon that fair and still childlike form, which had once knelt by
+his side and pleaded, with the orphan, for his brother.  While he spoke
+to her, many recollections, some dark and stern--but those, at least,
+connected with Camilla, soft and gentle-thrilled through his heart.
+Occupied as her own thoughts and feelings necessarily were with Sidney,
+there was something in Vaudemont's appearance--his manner, his voice--
+which forced upon Camilla a strange and undefined interest; and even Mrs.
+Beaufort was roused from her customary apathy, as she glanced at that
+dark and commanding face with something between admiration and fear.
+Vaudemont had scarcely, however, spoken ten words, when some other guests
+were announced, and Lord Lilburne was wheeled in upon his sofa shortly
+afterwards.  Vaudemont continued, however, seated next to Camilla, and
+the embarrassment he had at first felt disappeared.  He possessed, when
+he pleased, that kind of eloquence which belongs to men who have seen
+much and felt deeply, and whose talk has not been frittered down to the
+commonplace jargon of the world.  His very phraseology was distinct and
+peculiar, and he had that rarest of all charms in polished life,
+originality both of thought and of manner.  Camilla blushed, when she
+found at dinner that he placed himself by her side.  That evening De
+Vaudemont excused himself from playing, but the table was easily made
+without him, and still he continued to converse with the daughter of the
+man whom he held as his worst foe.  By degrees, he turned the
+conversation into a channel that might lead him to the knowledge he
+sought.
+
+"It was my fate," said he, "once to become acquainted with an intimate
+friend of the late Mr. Beaufort.  Will you pardon me if I venture to
+fulfil a promise I made to him, and ask you to inform me what has become
+of a--a--that is, of Sidney Morton?"
+
+"Sidney Morton!  I don't even remember the name.  Oh, yes!  I have heard
+it," added Camilla, innocently, and with a candour that showed how little
+she knew of the secrets of the family; "he was one of two poor boys in
+whom my brother felt a deep interest--some relations to my uncle.  Yes--
+yes!  I remember now.  I never knew Sidney, but I once did see his
+brother."
+
+"Indeed! and you remember--"
+
+"Yes! I was very young then.  I scarcely recollect what passed, it was
+all so confused and strange; but, I know that I made papa very angry, and
+I was told never to mention the name of Morton again.  I believe they
+behaved very ill to papa."
+
+"And you never learned--never!--the fate of either--of Sidney?"
+
+"Never!"
+
+"But your father must know?"
+
+"I think not; but tell me,"--said Camilla, with girlish and unaffected
+innocence, "I have always felt anxious to know,--what and who were those
+poor boys?"
+
+What and who were they?  So deep, then, was the stain upon their name,
+that the modest mother and the decorous father had never even said to
+that young girl, "They are your cousins--the children of the man in whose
+gold we revel!"
+
+Philip bit his lip, and the spell of Camilla's presence seemed vanished.
+He muttered some inaudible answer, turned away to the card-table, and
+Liancourt took the chair he had left vacant.
+
+"And how does Miss Beaufort like my friend Vaudemont?  I assure you that
+I have seldom seen him so alive to the fascination of female beauty!"
+
+"Oh!" said Camilla, with her silver laugh, "your nation spoils us for our
+own countrymen.  You forget how little we are accustomed to flattery."
+
+"Flattery! what truth could flatter on the lips of an exile?  But you
+don't answer my question--what think you of Vaudemont?  Few are more
+admired.  He is handsome!"
+
+"Is he?" said Camilla, and she glanced at Vaudemont, as he stood at a
+little distance, thoughtful and abstracted.  Every girl forms to herself
+some untold dream of that which she considers fairest.  And Vaudemont had
+not the delicate and faultless beauty of Sidney.  There was nothing that
+corresponded to her ideal in his marked features and lordly shape!  But
+she owned, reluctantly to herself, that she had seldom seen, among the
+trim gallants of everyday life, a form so striking and impressive.  The
+air, indeed, was professional--the most careless glance could detect the
+soldier.  But it seemed the soldier of an elder age or a wilder clime.
+He recalled to her those heads which she had seen in the Beaufort Gallery
+and other Collections yet more celebrated--portraits by Titian of those
+warrior statesman who lived in the old Republics of Italy in a perpetual
+struggle with their kind--images of dark, resolute, earnest men.  Even
+whatever was intellectual in his countenance spoke, as in those
+portraits, of a mind sharpened rather in active than in studious life;--
+intellectual, not from the pale hues, the worn exhaustion, and the sunken
+cheek of the bookman and dreamer, but from its collected and stern
+repose, the calm depth that lay beneath the fire of the eyes, and the
+strong will that spoke in the close full lips, and the high but not
+cloudless forehead.
+
+And, as she gazed, Vaudemont turned round--her eyes fell beneath his, and
+she felt angry with herself that she blushed.  Vaudemont saw the downcast
+eye, he saw the blush, and the attraction of Camilla's presence was
+restored.  He would have approached her, but at that moment Mr. Beaufort
+himself entered, and his thoughts went again into a darker channel.
+
+"Yes," said Liancourt, "you must allow Vaudemont looks what he is--a
+noble fellow and a gallant soldier.  Did you never hear of his battle
+with the tigress?  It made a noise in India.  I must tell it you as I
+have heard it."
+
+And while Laincourt was narrating the adventure, whatever it was, to
+which he referred, the card-table was broken up, and Lord Lilburne, still
+reclining on his sofa, lazily introduced his brother-in-law to such of
+the guests as were strangers to him--Vaudemont among the rest.  Mr.
+Beaufort had never seen Philip Morton more than three times; once at
+Fernside, and the other times by an imperfect light, and when his
+features were convulsed by passion, and his form disfigured by his dress.
+Certainly, therefore, had Robert Beaufort even possessed that faculty of
+memory which is supposed to belong peculiarly to kings and princes, and
+which recalls every face once seen, it might have tasked the gift to the
+utmost to have detected, in the bronzed and decorated foreigner to whom
+he was now presented, the features of the wild and long-lost boy.  But
+still some dim and uneasy presentiment, or some struggling and painful
+effort of recollection, was in his mind, as he spoke to Vaudemont, and
+listened to the cold calm tone of his reply.
+
+"Who do you say that Frenchman is?" he whispered to his brother-in-law,
+as Vaudemont turned away.
+
+"Oh! a cleverish sort of adventurer--a gentleman; he plays.--He has seen
+a good deal of the world--he rather amuses me--different from other
+people.  I think of asking him to join our circle at Beaufort Court."
+
+Mr. Beaufort coughed huskily, but not seeing any reasonable objection to
+the proposal, and afraid of rousing the sleeping hyaena of Lord
+Lilburne's sarcasm, he merely said:--
+
+"Any one you like to invite:" and looking round for some one on whom to
+vent his displeasure, perceived Camilla still listening to Liancourt.  He
+stalked up to her, and as Liancourt, seeing her rise, rose also and moved
+away, he said peevishly, "You will never learn to conduct yourself
+properly; you are to be left here to nurse and comfort your uncle, and
+not to listen to the gibberish of every French adventurer.  Well, Heaven
+be praised, I have a son--girls are a great plague!"
+
+"So they are, Mr. Beaufort," sighed his wife, who had just joined him,
+and who was jealous of the preference Lilburne had given to her daughter.
+
+"And so selfish," added Mrs. Beaufort; "they only care for their own
+amusements, and never mind how uncomfortable their parents are for want
+of them."
+
+"Oh! dear mamma, don't say so--let me go home with you--I'll speak to my
+uncle!"
+
+"Nonsense, child!  Come along, Mr. Beaufort;" and the affectionate
+parents went out arm in arm.  They did not perceive that Vaudemont had
+been standing close behind them; but Camilla, now looking up with tears
+in her eyes, again caught his gaze: he had heard all.
+
+"And they ill-treat her," he muttered: "that divides her from them!--she
+will be left here--I shall see her again."  As he turned to depart,
+Lilburne beckoned to him.
+
+"You do not mean to desert our table?"
+
+"No: but I am not very well to-night--to-morrow, if you will allow me."
+
+"Ay, to-morrow; and if you can spare an hour in the morning it will be a
+charity.  You see," he added in a whisper, "I have a nurse, though I have
+no children.  D'ye think that's love?  Bah! sir--a legacy!  Good night."
+
+"No--no--no!" said Vaudemont to himself, as he walked through the moonlit
+streets.  "No! though my heart burns,--poor murdered felon!--to avenge
+thy wrongs and thy crimes, revenge cannot come from me--he is Fanny's
+grandfather and--Camilla's uncle!"
+
+And Camilla, when that uncle had dismissed her for the night, sat down
+thoughtfully in her own room.  The dark eyes of Vaudemont seemed still to
+shine on her; his voice yet rung in her ear; the wild tales of daring and
+danger with which Liancourt had associated his name yet haunted her
+bewildered fancy--she started, frightened at her own thoughts.  She took
+from her bosom some lines that Sidney had addressed to her, and, as she
+read and re-read, her spirit became calmed to its wonted and faithful
+melancholy.  Vaudemont was forgotten, and the name of Sidney yet murmured
+on her lips, when sleep came to renew the image of the absent one, and
+paint in dreams the fairy land of a happy Future!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+          "Ring on, ye bells--most pleasant is your chime!"
+           WILSON. _Isle of Palms_.
+
+          "O fairy child!  What can I wish for thee?"--Ibid.
+
+Vaudemont remained six days in London without going to H----, and on each
+of those days he paid a visit to Lord Lilburne.  On the seventh day, the
+invalid being much better, though still unable to leave his room, Camilla
+returned to Berkeley Square.  On the same day, Vaudemont went once more
+to see Simon and poor Fanny.
+
+As he approached the door, he heard from the window, partially opened,
+for the day was clear and fine, Fanny's sweet voice.  She was chaunting
+one of the simple songs she had promised to learn by heart; and
+Vaudemont, though but a poor judge of the art, was struck and affected by
+the music of the voice and the earnest depth of the feeling.  He paused
+opposite the window and called her by her name.  Fanny looked forth
+joyously, and ran, as usual, to open the door to him.
+
+"Oh! you have been so long away; but I already know many of the songs:
+they say so much that I always wanted to say!"
+
+Vaudemont smiled, but languidly.
+
+"How strange it is," said Fanny, musingly, "that there should be so much
+in a piece of paper! for, after all," pointing to the open page of her
+book, "this is but a piece of paper--only there is life in it!"
+
+"Ay," said Vaudemont, gloomily, and far from seizing the subtle delicacy
+of Fanny's thought--her mind dwelling upon Poetry, and his upon Law,--
+"ay, and do you know that upon a mere scrap of paper, if I could but find
+it, may depend my whole fortune, my whole happiness, all that I care for
+in life?"
+
+"Upon a scrap of paper?  Oh!  how I wish I could find it!  Ah! you look
+as if you thought I should never be wise enough for that!"
+
+Vaudemont, not listening to her, uttered a deep sigh.  Fanny approached
+him timidly.
+
+"Do not sigh, brother,--I can't bear to hear you sigh.  You are changed.
+Have you, too, not been happy?"
+
+"Happy, Fanny! yes, lately very happy--too happy!"
+
+"Happy, have you?  and I--" the girl stopped short--her tone had been
+that of sadness and reproach, and she stopped--why, she knew not, but she
+felt her heart sink within her.  Fanny suffered him to pass her, and he
+went straight to his room.  Her eyes followed him wistfully: it was not
+his habit to leave her thus abruptly.  The family meal of the day was
+over; and it was an hour before Vaudemont descended to the parlour.
+Fanny had put aside the songs; she had no heart to recommence those
+gentle studies that had been so sweet,--they had drawn no pleasure, no
+praise from him.  She was seated idly and listlessly beside the silent
+old man, who every day grew more and more silent still.  She turned her
+head as Vaudemont entered, and her pretty lip pouted as that of a
+neglected child.  But he did not heed it, and the pout vanished, and
+tears rushed to her eyes.
+
+Vaudemont was changed.  His countenance was thoughtful and overcast.  His
+manner abstracted.  He addressed a few words to Simon, and then, seating
+himself by the window, leant his cheek on his hand, and was soon lost in
+reverie.  Fanny, finding that he did not speak, and after stealing many a
+long and earnest glance at his motionless attitude and gloomy brow, rose
+gently, and gliding to him with her light step, said, in a trembling
+voice,--
+
+"Are you in pain, brother?"
+
+"No, pretty one!"
+
+"Then why won't you speak to Fanny?  Will you not walk with her?  Perhaps
+my grandfather will come too."
+
+"Not this evening.  I shall go out; but it will be alone."
+
+"Where?  Has not Fanny been good?  I have not been out since you left.
+us.  And the grave--brother!--I sent Sarah with the flowers--but--"
+
+Vaudemont rose abruptly.  The mention of the grave brought back his
+thoughts from the dreaming channel into which they had flowed.  Fanny,
+whose very childishness had once so soothed him, now disturbed; he felt
+the want of that complete solitude which makes the atmosphere of growing
+passion: he muttered some scarcely audible excuse, and quitted the house.
+Fanny saw him no more that evening.  He did not return till midnight.
+But Fanny did not sleep till she heard his step on the stairs, and his
+chamber door close: and when she did sleep, her dreams were disturbed and
+painful.  The next morning, when they met at breakfast (for Vaudemont did
+not return to London), her eyes were red and heavy, and her cheek pale.
+And, still buried in meditation, Vaudemont's eye, usually so kind and
+watchful, did not detect those signs of a grief that Fanny could not have
+explained.  After breakfast, however, he asked her to walk out; and her
+face brightened as she hastened to put on her bonnet, and take her little
+basket full of fresh flowers which she had already sent Sarah forth to
+purchase.
+
+"Fanny," said Vaudemont, as leaving the house, he saw the basket on her
+arm, "to-day you may place some of those flowers on another tombstone!--
+Poor child, what natural goodness there is in that heart!--what pity
+that--"
+
+He paused.  Fanny looked delightedly in his face.  "You were praising me
+--you!  And what is a pity, brother?"
+
+While she spoke, the sound of the joy-bells was heard near at hand.
+
+"Hark!"  said Vaudemont, forgetting her question--and almost gaily--
+"Hark!--I accept the omen.  It is a marriage peal!"
+
+He quickened his steps, and they reached the churchyard.
+
+There was a crowd already assembled, and Vaudemont and Fanny paused; and,
+leaning over the little gate, looked on.
+
+"Why are these people here, and why does the bell ring so merrily?"
+
+"There is to be a wedding, Fanny."
+
+"I have heard of a wedding very often," said Fanny, with a pretty look of
+puzzlement and doubt, "but I don't know exactly what it means.  Will you
+tell me?--and the bells, too!"
+
+"Yes, Fanny, those bells toll but three times for man!  The first time,
+when he comes into the world; the last time, when he leaves it; the time
+between when he takes to his side a partner in all the sorrows--in all
+the joys that yet remain to him; and who, even when the last bell
+announces his death to this earth, may yet, for ever and ever, be his
+partner in that world to come--that heaven, where they who are as
+innocent as you, Fanny, may hope to live and to love each other in a land
+in which there are no graves!"
+
+"And this bell?"
+
+"Tolls for that partnership--for the wedding!"
+
+"I think I understand you;--and they who are to be wed are happy?"
+
+"Happy, Fanny, if they love, and their love continue.  Oh! conceive the
+happiness to know some one person dearer to you than your own self--some
+one breast into which you can pour every thought, every grief, every joy!
+One person, who, if all the rest of the world were to calumniate or
+forsake you, would never wrong you by a harsh thought or an unjust word,
+--who would cling to you the closer in sickness, in poverty, in care,--
+who would sacrifice all things to you, and for whom you would sacrifice
+all--from whom, except by death, night or day, you must be never divided
+--whose smile is ever at your hearth--who has no tears while you are well
+and happy, and your love the same.  Fanny, such is marriage, if they who
+marry have hearts and souls to feel that there is no bond on earth so
+tender and so sublime.  There is an opposite picture;--I will not draw
+that!  And as it is, Fanny, you cannot understand me!"
+
+He turned away:--and Fanny's tears were falling like rain upon the grass
+below;--he did not see them!  He entered the churchyard; for the bell now
+ceased.  The ceremony was to begin.  He followed the bridal party into
+the church, and Fanny, lowering her veil, crept after him, awed and
+trembling.
+
+They stood, unobserved, at a little distance, and heard the service.
+
+The betrothed were of the middle class of life, young, both comely; and
+their behaviour was such as suited the reverence and sanctity of the
+rite.  Vaudemont stood looking on intently, with his arms folded on his
+breast.  Fanny leant behind him, and apart from all, against one of the
+pews.  And still in her hand, while the priest was solemnising Marriage,
+she held the flowers intended for the Grave.  Even to that MORNING--
+hushed, calm, earliest, with her mysterious and unconjectured heart--her
+shape brought a thought of NIGHT!
+
+When the ceremony was over--when the bride fell on her mother's breast
+and wept; and then, when turning thence, her eyes met the bridegroom's,
+and the tears were all smiled away--when, in that one rapid interchange
+of looks, spoke all that holy love can speak to love, and with timid
+frankness she placed her hand in his to whom she had just vowed her
+life,--a thrill went through the hearts of those present.  Vaudemont
+sighed heavily.  He heard his sigh echoed; but by one that had in its
+sound no breath of pain; he turned; Fanny had raised her veil; her eyes
+met his, moistened, but bright, soft, and her cheeks were rosy-red.
+Vaudemont recoiled before that gaze, and turned from the church.  The
+persons interested retired to the vestry to sign their names in the
+registry; the crowd dispersed, and Vaudemont and Fanny stood alone in the
+burial-ground.
+
+"Look, Fanny," said the former, pointing to a tomb that stood far from
+his mother's (for those ashes were too hallowed for such a
+neighbourhood).  "Look yonder; it is a new tomb.  Fanny, let us approach
+it.  Can you read what is there inscribed?"
+
+The inscription was simply this:
+
+                               TO W-- G--
+                           MAN SEES THE DEED
+                        GOD THE CIRCUMSTANCE.
+                              JUDGE NOT,
+                         THAT YE BE NOT JUDGED.
+
+"Fanny, this tomb fulfils your pious wish: it is to the memory of him
+whom you called your father.  Whatever was his life here--whatever
+sentence it hath received, Heaven, at least, will not condemn your piety,
+if you honour one who was good to you, and place flowers, however idle,
+even over that grave."
+
+"It is his--my father's--and you have thought of this for me!"  said
+Fanny, taking his hand, and sobbing.  "And I have been thinking that you
+were not so kind to me as you were!"
+
+"Have I not been so kind to you?  Nay, forgive me, I am not happy."
+
+"Not?--you said yesterday you had been too happy."
+
+"To remember happiness is not to be happy, Fanny."
+
+"That's true--and--"
+
+Fanny stopped; and, as she bent over the tomb, musing, Vaudemont, willing
+to leave her undisturbed, and feeling bitterly how little his conscience
+could vindicate, though it might find palliation for, the dark man who
+slept not there--retired a few paces.
+
+At this time the new-married pair, with their witnesses, the clergyman,
+&c., came from the vestry, and crossed the path.  Fanny, as she turned
+from the tomb, saw them, and stood still, looking earnestly at the bride.
+
+"What a lovely face!"  said the mother.  "Is it--yes it is--the poor
+idiot girl."
+
+"Ah!" said the bridegroom, tenderly, "and she, Mary, beautiful as she is,
+she can never make another as happy as you have made me."
+
+Vaudemont heard, and his heart felt sad.  "Poor Fanny!--And yet, but for
+that affliction--I might have loved her, ere I met the fatal face of the
+daughter of my foe!"  And with a deep compassion, an inexpressible and
+holy fondness, he moved to Fanny.
+
+"Come, my child; now let us go home."
+
+"Stay," said Fanny--"you forget."  And she went to strew the flowers
+still left over Catherine's grave.
+
+"Will my mother," thought Vaudemont, "forgive me, if I have other
+thoughts than hate and vengeance for that house which builds its
+greatness over her slandered name?"  He groaned:--and that grave had lost
+its melancholy charm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+               "Of all men, I say,
+               That dare, for 'tis a desperate adventure,
+               Wear on their free necks the yoke of women,
+               Give me a soldier."--_Knight of Malta_.
+
+               "So lightly doth this little boat
+               Upon the scarce-touch'd billows float;
+               So careless doth she seem to be,
+               Thus left by herself on the homeless sea,
+               To lie there with her cheerful sail,
+               Till Heaven shall send some gracious gale."
+               WILSON: _Isle of Palms_.
+
+Vaudemont returned that evening to London, and found at his lodgings a
+note from Lord Lilburne, stating that as his gout was now somewhat
+mitigated, his physician had recommended him to try change of air--that
+Beaufort Court was in one of the western counties, in a genial climate--
+that he was therefore going thither the next day for a short time--that
+he had asked some of Monsieur de Vaudemont's countrymen, and a few other
+friends, to enliven the circle of a dull country-house--that Mr. and Mrs.
+Beaufort would be delighted to see Monsieur de Vaudemont also--and that
+his compliance with their invitation would be a charity to Monsieur de
+Vaudemont's faithful and obliged,  LILBURNE.
+
+The first sensation of Vaudemont on reading this effusion was delight.
+"I shall see _her_," he cried; "I shall be under the same roof!"  But the
+glow faded at once from his cheek;--the roof!--what roof?  Be the guest
+where he held himself the lord!--be the guest of Robert Beaufort!--Was
+that all?  Did he not meditate the deadliest war which civilised life
+admits of--the _War of Law_--war for name, property, that very hearth,
+with all its household gods, against this man--could he receive his
+hospitality?  "And what then!" he exclaimed, as he paced to and fro the
+room,--"because her father wronged me, and because I would claim mine
+own--must I therefore exclude from my thoughts, from my sight, an image
+so fair and gentle;--the one who knelt by my side, an infant, to that
+hard man?--Is hate so noble a passion that it is not to admit one glimpse
+of Love?--_Love_! what word is that?  Let me beware in time!"  He paused
+in fierce self-contest, and, throwing open the window, gasped for air.
+The street in which he lodged was situated in the neighbourhood of St.
+James's; and, at that very moment, as if to defeat all opposition, and to
+close the struggle, Mrs. Beaufort's barouche drove by, Camilla at her
+side.  Mrs. Beaufort, glancing up; languidly bowed; and Camilla herself
+perceived him, and he saw her change colour as she inclined her head.  He
+gazed after them almost breathless, till the carriage disappeared; and
+then reclosing the window, he sat down to collect his thoughts, and again
+to reason with himself.  But still, as he reasoned, he saw ever before
+him that blush and that smile.  At last he sprang up, and a noble and
+bright expression elevated the character of his face,--"Yes, if I enter
+that house, if I eat that man's bread, and drink of his cup, I must
+forego, not justice--not what is due to my mother's name--but whatever
+belongs to hate and vengeance.  If I enter that house--and if Providence
+permit me the means whereby to regain my rights, why she--the innocent
+one--she may be the means of saving her father from ruin, and stand like
+an angel by that boundary where justice runs into revenge!--Besides, is
+it not my duty to discover Sidney?  Here is the only clue I shall
+obtain."  With these thoughts he hesitated no more--he decided he would
+not reject this hospitality, since it might be in his power to pay it
+back ten thousandfold.  "And who knows," he murmured again, "if Heaven,
+in throwing this sweet being in my way, might not have designed to subdue
+and chasten in me the angry passions I have so long fed on?  I have seen
+her,--can I now hate her father?"
+
+He sent off his note accepting the invitation.  When he had done so, was
+he satisfied?  He had taken as noble and as large a view of the duties
+thereby imposed on him as he well could take: but something whispered at
+his heart, "There is weakness in thy generosity--Darest thou love the
+daughter of Robert Beaufort?"  And his heart had no answer to this voice.
+
+The rapidity with which love is ripened depends less upon the actual
+number of years that have passed over the soil in which the seed is cast,
+than upon the freshness of the soil itself.  A young man who lives the
+ordinary life of the world, and who fritters away, rather than exhausts,
+his feelings upon a variety of quick succeeding subjects--the Cynthias of
+the minute--is not apt to form a real passion at the first sight.  Youth
+is inflammable only when the heart is young!
+
+There are certain times of life when, in either sex, the affections are
+prepared, as it were, to be impressed with the first fair face that
+attracts the fancy and delights the eye.  Such times are when the heart
+has been long solitary, and when some interval of idleness and rest
+succeeds to periods of harsher and more turbulent excitement.  It was
+precisely such a period in the life of Vaudemont.  Although his ambition
+had been for many years his dream, and his sword his mistress, yet
+naturally affectionate, and susceptible of strong emotion, he had often
+repined at his lonely lot.  By degrees the boy's fantasy and reverence
+which had wound themselves round the image of Eugenie subsided into that
+gentle and tender melancholy which, perhaps by weakening the strength of
+the sterner thoughts, leaves us inclined rather to receive, than to
+resist, a new attachment;--and on the verge of the sweet Memory trembles
+the sweet Hope.  The suspension of his profession, his schemes, his
+struggles, his career, left his passions unemployed.  Vaudemont was thus
+unconsciously prepared to love.  As we have seen, his first and earliest
+feelings directed themselves to Fanny.  But he had so immediately
+detected the clanger, and so immediately recoiled from nursing those
+thoughts and fancies, without which love dies for want of food, for a
+person to whom he ascribed the affliction of an imbecility which would
+give to such a sentiment all the attributes either of the weakest
+rashness or of dishonour approaching to sacrilege--that the wings of the
+deity were scared away the instant their very shadow fell upon his mind.
+And thus, when Camilla rose upon him his heart was free to receive her
+image.  Her graces, her accomplishments, a certain nameless charm that
+invested her, pleased him even more than her beauty; the recollections
+connected with that first time in which he had ever beheld her, were also
+grateful and endearing; the harshness with which her parents spoke to her
+moved his compassion, and addressed itself to a temper peculiarly alive
+to the generosity that leans towards the weak and the wronged; the
+engaging mixture of mildness and gaiety with which she tended her peevish
+and sneering uncle, convinced him of her better and more enduring
+qualities of disposition and womanly heart.  And even--so strange and
+contradictory are our feelings--the very remembrance that she was
+connected with a family so hateful to him made her own image the more
+bright from the darkness that surrounded it.  For was it not with the
+daughter of his foe that the lover of Verona fell in love at first sight?
+And is not that a common type of us all--as if Passion delighted in
+contradictions?  As the Diver, in Schiller's exquisite ballad, fastened
+upon the rock of coral in the midst of the gloomy sea, so we cling the
+more gratefully to whatever of fair thought and gentle shelter smiles out
+to us in the depths of Hate and Strife.
+
+But, perhaps, Vaudemont would not so suddenly and so utterly have
+rendered himself to a passion that began, already, completely to master
+his strong spirit, if he had not, from Camilla's embarrassment, her
+timidity, her blushes, intoxicated himself with the belief that his
+feelings were not unshared.  And who knows not that such a belief, once
+cherished, ripens our own love to a development in which hours are as
+years?
+
+It was, then, with such emotions as made him almost insensible to every
+thought but the luxury of breathing the same air as his cousin, which
+swept from his mind the Past, the Future--leaving nothing but a joyous,
+a breathless PRESENT on the Face of Time, that he repaired to Beaufort
+Court.  He did not return to H---- before he went, but he wrote to Fanny
+a short and hurried line to explain that he might be absent for some days
+at least, and promised to write again, if he should be detained longer
+than he anticipated.
+
+In the meanwhile, one of those successive revolutions which had marked
+the eras in Fanny's moral existence took its date from that last time
+they had walked and conversed together.
+
+The very evening of that day, some hours after Philip was gone, and after
+Simon had retired to rest, Fanny was sitting before the dying fire in the
+little parlour in an attitude of deep and pensive reverie.  The old
+woman-servant, Sarah, who, very different from Mrs. Boxer, loved Fanny
+with her whole heart, came into the room as was her wont before going to
+bed, to see that the fire was duly out, and all safe: and as she
+approached the hearth, she started to see Fanny still up.
+
+"Dear heart alive!"  she said; "why, Miss Fanny, you will catch your
+death of cold,-what are you thinking about?"
+
+"Sit down, Sarah; I want to speak to you."  Now, though Fanny was
+exceedingly kind, and attached to Sarah, she was seldom communicative to
+her, or indeed to any one.  It was usually in its own silence and
+darkness that that lovely mind worked out its own doubts.
+
+"Do you, my sweet young lady?  I'm sure anything I can do--" and Sarah
+seated herself in her master's great chair, and drew it close to Fanny.
+There was no light in the room but the expiring fire, and it threw upward
+a pale glimmer on the two faces bending over it,--the one so strangely
+beautiful, so smooth, so blooming, so exquisite in its youth and
+innocence,--the other withered, wrinkled, meagre, and astute.  It was
+like the Fairy and the Witch together.
+
+"Well, miss," said the crone, observing that, after a considerable pause,
+Fanny was still silent,--"Well--"
+
+"Sarah, I have seen a wedding!"
+
+"Have you?"  and the old woman laughed.  "Oh! I heard it was to be
+to-day!--young Waldron's wedding!  Yes, they have been long sweethearts."
+
+"Were you ever married, Sarah?"
+
+"Lord bless you,--yes! and a very good husband I had, poor man!  But he's
+dead these many years; and if you had not taken me, I must have gone to
+the workhus."
+
+"He is dead!  Wasn't it very hard to live after that, Sarah?"
+
+"The Lord strengthens the hearts of widders!"  observed Sarah,
+sanctimoniously.
+
+"Did you marry your brother, Sarah?"  said Fanny, playing with the corner
+of her apron.
+
+"My brother!"  exclaimed the old woman, aghast.  "La! miss, you must not
+talk in that way,--it's quite wicked and heathenish!  One must not marry
+one's brother!"
+
+"No!" said Fanny, tremblingly, and turning very pale, even by that light.
+"No!--are you sure of that?"
+
+"It is the wickedest thing even to talk about, my dear young mistress;--
+but you're like a babby unborn!"
+
+Fanny was silent for some moments.  At length she said, unconscious that
+she was speaking aloud, "But he is not my brother, after all!"
+
+"Oh, miss, fie!  Are you letting your pretty head run on the handsome
+gentleman. _You_, too,--dear, dear! I see we're all alike, we poor femel
+creturs!  You! who'd have thought it?  Oh, Miss Fanny!--you'll break your
+heart if you goes for to fancy any such thing."
+
+"Any what thing?"
+
+"Why, that that gentleman will marry you!--I'm sure, tho' he's so simple
+like, he's some great gentleman!  They say his hoss is worth a hundred
+pounds!  Dear, dear! why didn't I ever think of this before?  He must be
+a very wicked man.  I see, now, why he comes here.  I'll speak to him,
+that, I will!--a very wicked man!"
+
+Sarah was startled from her indignation by Fanny's rising suddenly, and
+standing before her in the flickering twilight, almost like a shape
+transformed,--so tall did she seem, so stately, so dignified.
+
+"Is it of him that you are speaking?" said she, in a voice of calm but
+deep resentment--"of him!  If so, Sarah, we two can live no more in the
+same house."
+
+And these words were said with a propriety and collectedness that even,
+through all her terrors, showed at once to Sarah how much they now
+wronged Fanny who had suffered their lips to repeat the parrot-cry of the
+"idiot girl!"
+
+"O! gracious me!--miss--ma'am--I am so sorry--I'd rather bite out my
+tongue than say a word to offend you; it was only my love for you, dear
+innocent creature that you are!" and the honest woman sobbed with real
+passion as she clasped Fanny's hand.  "There have been so many young
+persons, good and harmless, yes, even as you are, ruined.  But you don't
+understand me.  Miss Fanny! hear me; I must try and say what I would say.
+That man, that gentleman--so proud, so well-dressed, so grand-like, will
+never marry you, never--never.  And if ever he says he does love you, and
+you say you love him, and you two don't marry, you will be ruined and
+wicked, and die--die of a broken heart!"
+
+The earnestness of Sarah's manner subdued and almost awed Fanny.  She
+sank down again in her chair, and suffered the old woman to caress and
+weep over her hand for some moments in a silence that concealed the
+darkest and most agitated feelings Fanny's life had hitherto known.  At
+length she said:--
+
+"Why may he not marry me if he loves me?--he is not my brother,--indeed
+he is not!  I'll never call him so again."
+
+"He cannot marry you," said Sarah, resolved, with a sort of rude
+nobleness, to persevere in what she felt to be a duty; "I don't say
+anything about money, because that does not always signify.  But he
+cannot marry you, because--because people who are hedicated one way never
+marry those who are hedicated and brought up in another.  A gentleman of
+that kind requires a wife to know--oh--to know ever so much; and you--"
+
+"Sarah," interrupted Fanny, rising again, but this time with a smile on
+her face, "don't say anything more about it; I forgive you, if you
+promise never to speak unkindly of him again--never--never--never,
+Sarah!"
+
+"But may I just tell him that--that--"
+
+"That what?"
+
+"That you are so young and innocent, and has no pertector like; and that
+if you were to love him it would be a shame in him--that it would!"
+
+And then (oh, no, Fanny, there was nothing clouded _now_ in your
+reason!)--and then the woman's alarm, the modesty, the instinct, the
+terror came upon her:--
+
+"Never! never! I will not love him, I do not love him, indeed, Sarah.  If
+you speak to him, I will never look you in the face again.  It is all
+past--all, dear Sarah!"
+
+She kissed the old woman; and Sarah, fancying that her sagacity and
+counsel had prevailed, promised all she was asked; so they went up-stairs
+together--friends.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+               "As the wind
+               Sobs, an uncertain sweetness comes from out
+               The orange-trees.
+
+               Rise up, Olympia.--She sleeps soundly.  Ho!
+               Stirring at last."  BARRY CORNWALL.
+
+The next day, Fanny was seen by Sarah counting the little hoard that she
+had so long and so painfully saved for her benefactor's tomb.  The money
+was no longer wanted for that object.  Fanny had found another; she said
+nothing to Sarah or to Simon.  But there was a strange complacent smile
+upon her lip as she busied herself in her work, that puzzled the old
+woman.  Late at noon came the postman's unwonted knock at the door.  A
+letter!--a letter for Miss Fanny.  A letter!--the first she had ever
+received in her life!  And it was from him!--and it began with "Dear
+Fanny."  Vaudemont had called her "dear Fanny" a hundred times, and the
+expression had become a matter of course.  But "Dear Fanny" seemed so
+very different when it was written.  The letter could not well be
+shorter, nor, all things considered, colder.  But the girl found no fault
+with it.  It began with "Dear Fanny," and it ended with "yours truly."
+"--Yours truly--mine truly--and how kind to write at all!"  Now it so
+happened that Vaudemont, having never merged the art of the penman into
+that rapid scrawl into which people, who are compelled to write hurriedly
+and constantly, degenerate, wrote a remarkably good hand,--bold, clear,
+symmetrical--almost too good a hand for one who was not to make money by
+caligraphy.  And after Fanny had got the words by heart, she stole gently
+to a cupboard and took forth some specimens of her own hand, in the shape
+of house and work memoranda, and extracts which, the better to help her
+memory, she had made from the poem-book Vaudemont had given her.  She
+gravely laid his letter by the side of these specimens, and blushed at
+the contrast; yet, after all, her own writing, though trembling and
+irresolute, was far from a bad or vulgar hand.  But emulation was now
+fairly roused within her.  Vaudemont, pre-occupied by more engrossing
+thoughts, and indeed, forgetting a danger which had seemed so thoroughly
+to have passed away, did not in his letter caution Fanny against going
+out alone.  She remarked this; and having completely recovered her own
+alarm at the attempt that had been made on her liberty, she thought she
+was now released from her promise to guard against a past and imaginary
+peril.  So after dinner she slipped out alone, and went to the mistress
+of the school where she had received her elementary education.  She had
+ever since continued her acquaintance with that lady, who, kindhearted,
+and touched by her situation, often employed her industry, and was far
+from blind to the improvement that had for some time been silently
+working in the mind of her old pupil.
+
+Fanny had a long conversation with this lady, and she brought back a
+bundle of books.  The light might have been seen that night, and many
+nights after, burning long and late from her little window.  And having
+recovered her old freedom of habits, which Simon, poor man, did not
+notice, and which Sarah, thinking that anything was better than moping at
+home, did not remonstrate against, Fanny went out regularly for two
+hours, or sometimes for even a longer period, every evening after old
+Simon had composed himself to the nap that filled up the interval between
+dinner and tea.
+
+In a very short time--a time that with ordinary stimulants would have
+seemed marvellously short--Fanny's handwriting was not the same thing;
+her manner of talking became different; she no longer called herself
+"Fanny" when she spoke; the music of her voice was more quiet and
+settled; her sweet expression of face was more thoughtful; the eyes
+seemed to have deepened in their very colour; she was no longer heard
+chaunting to herself as she tripped along.  The books that she nightly
+fed on had passed into her mind; the poetry that had ever unconsciously
+sported round her young years began now to create poetry in herself.
+Nay, it might almost have seemed as if that restless disorder of the
+intellect, which the dullards had called Idiotcy, had been the wild
+efforts, not of Folly, but of GENIUS seeking to find its path and outlet
+from the cold and dreary solitude to which the circumstances of her early
+life had compelled it.
+
+Days, even weeks, passed--she never spoke of Vaudemont.  And once, when
+Sarah, astonished and bewildered by the change in her young mistress,
+asked:
+
+"When does the gentleman come back?"
+
+Fanny answered, with a mysterious smile, "Not yet, I hope,--not quite
+yet!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+               "Thierry.  I do begin
+               To feel an alteration in my nature,
+               And in his full-sailed confidence a shower
+               Of gentle rain, that falling on the fire
+               Hath quenched it.
+
+               How is my heart divided
+               Between the duty of a son and love!"
+                   BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: _Thierry and Theodorat_.
+
+Vaudemont had now been a month at Beaufort Court.  The scene of a
+country-house, with the sports that enliven it, and the accomplishments
+it calls forth, was one in which he was well fitted to shine.  He had
+been an excellent shot as a boy; and though long unused to the fowling-
+piece, had, in India, acquired a deadly precision with the rifle; so that
+a very few days of practice in the stubbles and covers of Beaufort Court
+made his skill the theme of the guests and the admiration of the keepers.
+Hunting began, and--this pursuit, always so strong a passion in the
+active man, and which, to the turbulence and agitation of his half-tamed
+breast, now excited by a kind of frenzy of hope and fear, gave a vent and
+release--was a sport in which he was yet more fitted to excel.  His
+horsemanship, his daring, the stone walls he leaped and the floods
+through which he dashed, furnished his companions with wondering tale and
+comment on their return home.  Mr. Marsden, who, with some other of
+Arthur's early friends, had been invited to Beaufort Court, in order to
+welcome its expected heir, and who retained all the prudence which had
+distinguished him of yore, when having ridden over old Simon he
+dismounted to examine the knees of his horse;--Mr. Marsden, a skilful
+huntsman, who rode the most experienced horses in the world, and who
+generally contrived to be in at the death without having leaped over
+anything higher than a hurdle, suffering the bolder quadruped (in case
+what is called the "knowledge of the country"--that is, the knowledge of
+gaps and gates--failed him) to perform the more dangerous feats alone, as
+he quietly scrambled over or scrambled through upon foot, and remounted
+the well-taught animal when it halted after the exploit, safe and sound;
+--Mr. Marsden declared that he never saw a rider with so little judgment
+as Monsieur de Vaudemont, and that the devil was certainly in him.
+
+This sort of reputation, commonplace and merely physical as it was in
+itself, had a certain effect upon Camilla; it might be an effect of fear.
+I do not say, for I do not know, what her feelings towards Vaudemont
+exactly were.  As the calmest natures are often those the most hurried
+away by their contraries, so, perhaps, he awed and dazzled rather than
+pleased her;--at least, he certainly forced himself on her interest.
+Still she would have started in terror if any one had said to her, "Do
+you love your betrothed less than when you met by that happy lake?"--and
+her heart would have indignantly rebuked the questioner.  The letters of
+her lover were still long and frequent; hers were briefer and more
+subdued.  But then there was constraint in the correspondence--it was
+submitted to her mother.  Whatever might be Vaudemont's manner to Camilla
+whenever occasion threw them alone together, he certainly did not make
+his attentions glaring enough to be remarked.  His eye watched her rather
+than his lip addressed; he kept as much aloof as possible from the rest
+of her family, and his customary bearing was silent even to gloom.  But
+there were moments when he indulged in a fitful exuberance of spirits,
+which had something strained and unnatural.  He had outlived Lord
+Lilburne's short liking; for since he had resolved no longer to keep
+watch on that noble gamester's method of play, he played but little
+himself; and Lord Lilburne saw that he had no chance of ruining him--
+there was, therefore, no longer any reason to like him.  But this was not
+all; when Vaudemont had been at the house somewhat more than two weeks,
+Lilburne, petulant and impatient, whether at his refusals to join the
+card-table, or at the moderation with which, when he did, he confined his
+ill-luck to petty losses, one day limped up to him, as he stood at the
+embrasure of the window, gazing on the wide lands beyond, and said:--
+
+"Vaudemont, you are bolder in hunting, they tell me, than you are at
+whist."
+
+"Honours don't tell against one--over a hedge!"
+
+"What do you mean?"  said Lilburne, rather haughtily.
+
+Vaudemont was, at that moment, in one of those bitter moods when the
+sense of his situation, the sight of the usurper in his home, often swept
+away the gentler thoughts inspired by his fatal passion.  And the tone of
+Lord Lilburne, and his loathing to the man, were too much for his temper.
+
+"Lord Lilburne," he said, and his lip curled, "if you had been born poor,
+you would have made a great fortune--you play luckily."
+
+"How am I to take this, sir?"
+
+"As you please," answered Vaudemont, calmly, but with an eye of fire.
+And he turned away.
+
+Lilburne remained on the spot very thoughtful: "Hum! he suspects me.  I
+cannot quarrel on such ground--the suspicion itself dishonours me--I must
+seek another."
+
+The next day, Lilburne, who was familiar with Mr. Harsden (though the
+latter gentleman never played at the same table), asked that prudent
+person after breakfast if he happened to have his pistols with him.
+
+"Yes; I always take them into the country--one may as well practise when
+one has the opportunity.  Besides, sportsmen are often quarrelsome; and
+if it is known that one shoots well,--it keeps one out of quarrels!"
+
+"Very true," said Lilburne, rather admiringly.  "I have made the same
+remark myself when I was younger.  I have not shot with a pistol for
+since years.  I am well enough now to walk out with the help of a stick.
+Suppose we practise for half-an-hour or so."
+
+"With all my heart," said Mr. Marsden.
+
+The pistols were brought, and they strolled forth;--Lord Lilburne found
+his hand out.
+
+"As I never hunt now," said the peer, and he gnashed his teeth, and
+glanced at his maimed limb; "for though lameness would not prevent my
+keeping my seat, violent exercise hurts my leg; and Brodie says any fresh
+accident might bring on tic douloureux;--and as my gout does not permit
+me to join the shooting parties at present, it would be a kindness in you
+to lend me your pistols--it would while away an hour or so; though, thank
+Heaven, my duelling days are over!"
+
+"Certainly," said Mr. Marsden; and the pistols were consigned to Lord
+Lilburne.
+
+Four days from the date, as Mr. Marsden, Vaudemont, and some other
+gentlemen were making for the covers, they came upon Lord Lilburne, who,
+in a part of the park not within sight or sound of the house, was amusing
+himself with Mr. Marsden's pistols, which Dykeman was at hand to load for
+him.
+
+He turned round, not at all disconcerted by the interruption.
+
+"You have no idea how I've improved, Marsden:--just see!"  and he pointed
+to a glove nailed to a tree.  "I've hit that mark twice in five times;
+and every time I have gone straight enough along the line to have killed
+my man."
+
+"Ay, the mark itself does not so much signify," said Mr. Marsden, "at
+least, not in actual duelling--the great thing is to be in the line."
+
+While he spoke, Lord Lilburne's ball went a third time through the glove.
+His cold bright eye turned on Vaudemont, as he said, with a smile,--
+
+"They tell me you shoot well with a fowling-piece, my dear Vaudemont--are
+you equally adroit with a pistol?"
+
+"You may see, if you like; but you take aim, Lord Lilburne; that would be
+of no use in English duelling.  Permit me."
+
+He walked to the glove, and tore from it one of the fingers, which he
+fastened separately to the tree, took the pistol from Dykeman as he
+walked past him, gained the spot whence to fire, turned at once round,
+without apparent aim, and the finger fell to the ground.
+
+Lilburne stood aghast.
+
+"That's wonderful!"  said Marsden; "quite wonderful.  Where the devil did
+you get such a knack?--for it is only knack after all!"
+
+"I lived for many years in a country where the practice was constant,
+where all that belongs to rifle-shooting was a necessary accomplishment--
+a country in which man had often to contend against the wild beast.  In
+civilised states, man himself supplies the place of the wild beast--but
+we don't hunt him!--Lord Lilburne" (and this was added with a smiling and
+disdainful whisper), "you must practise a little more."
+
+But, disregardful of the advice, from that day Lord Lilburne's morning
+occupation was gone.  He thought no longer of a duel with Vaudemont.  As
+soon as the sportsman had left him, he bade Dykeman take up the pistols,
+and walked straight home into the library, where Robert Beaufort, who was
+no sportsman, generally spent his mornings.
+
+He flung himself into an arm-chair, and said, as he stirred the fire with
+unusual vehemence,--
+
+"Beaufort, I'm very sorry I asked you to invite Vaudemont.  He's a very
+ill-bred, disagreeable fellow!"  Beaufort threw down his steward's
+account-book, on which he was employed, and replied,--
+
+"Lilburne, I have never had an easy moment since that man has been in the
+house.  As he was your guest, I did not like to speak before, but don't
+you observe--you must observe--how like he is to the old family
+portraits?  The more I have examined him, the more another resemblance
+grows upon me.  In a word," said Robert, pausing and breathing hard, "if
+his name were not Vaudemont--if his history were not, apparently, so well
+known, I should say--I should swear, that it is Philip Morton who sleeps
+under this roof!"
+
+"Ha!" said Lilburne, with an earnestness that surprised Beaufort, who
+expected to have heard his brother-in-law's sneering sarcasm at his
+fears; "the likeness you speak of to the old portraits did strike me; it
+struck Marsden, too, the other day, as we were passing through the
+picture-gallery; and Marsden remarked it aloud to Vaudemont.  I remember
+now that he changed countenance and made no answer.  Hush! hush! hold
+your tongue, let me think--let me think.  This Philip--yes--yes--I and
+Arthur saw him with--with Gawtrey--in Paris--"
+
+"Gawtrey! was that the name of the rogue he was said to--"
+
+"Yes--yes--yes.  Ah! now I guess the meaning of those looks--those
+words," muttered Lilburne between his teeth.  "This pretension to the
+name of Vaudemont was always apocryphal--the story always but half
+believed--the invention of a woman in love with him--the claim on your
+property is made at the very time he appears in England.  Ha!  Have you a
+newspaper there?  Give it me.  No! 'tis not in this paper.  Ring the bell
+for the file!"
+
+"What's the matter? you terrify me!" gasped out Mr. Beaufort, as he rang
+the bell.
+
+"Why! have you not seen an advertisement repeated several times within
+the last month?"
+
+"I never read advertisements; except in the county paper, if land is to
+be sold."
+
+"Nor I often; but this caught my eye.  John" (here the servant entered),
+"bring the file of the newspapers.  The name of the witness whom Mrs.
+Morton appealed to was Smith, the same name as the captain; what was the
+Christian name?"
+
+"I don't remember."
+
+"Here are the papers--shut the door--and here is the advertisement: 'If
+Mr. William Smith, son of Jeremiah Smith, who formerly rented the farm of
+Shipdale-Bury, under the late Right Hon. Charles Leopold Beaufort (that's
+your uncle), and who emigrated in the year 18-- to Australia, will apply
+to Mr. Barlow, Solicitor, Essex Street, Strand, he will hear of something
+to his advantage.'"
+
+"Good Heavens! why did not you mention this to me before?"
+
+"Because I did not think it of any importance.  In the first place, there
+might be some legacy left to the man, quite distinct from your business.
+Indeed, that was the probable supposition;--or even if connected with the
+claim, such an advertisement might be but a despicable attempt to
+frighten you.  Never mind--don't look so pale--after all, this is a proof
+that the witness is not found--that Captain Smith is neither the Smith,
+nor has discovered where the Smith is!"
+
+"True!" observed Mr. Beaufort: "true--very true!"
+
+"Humph!" said Lord Lilburne, who was still rapidly glancing over the
+file--"Here is another advertisement which I never saw before: this
+looks suspicious: 'If the person who called on the -- of September, on
+Mr. Morton, linendraper, &c., of N----, will renew his application
+personally or by letter, he may now obtain the information he sought
+for.'"
+
+"Morton!--the woman's brother! their uncle! it is too clear!"
+
+"But what brings this man, if he be really Philip Morton, what brings him
+here!--to spy or to threaten?"
+
+"I will get him out of the house this day."
+
+"No--no; turn the watch upon himself.  I see now; he is attracted by your
+daughter; sound her quietly; don't tell her to discourage his
+confidences; find out if he ever speaks of these Mortons.  Ha! I
+recollect--he has spoken to me of the Mortons, but vaguely--I forget
+what.  Humph! this is a man of spirit and daring--watch him, I say,--
+watch him!  When does Arthur came back?"
+
+"He has been travelling so slowly, for he still complains of his health,
+and has had relapses; but he ought to be in Paris this week, perhaps he
+is there now.  Good Heavens! he must not meet this man!"
+
+"Do what I tell you! get out all from your daughter.  Never fear: he can
+do nothing against you except by law.  But if he really like Camilla--"
+
+"He!--Philip Morton--the adventurer--the--"
+
+"He is the eldest son: remember you thought even of accepting the second.
+He--nay find the witness--he may win his suit; if he likes Camilla, there
+may be a compromise."
+
+Mr. Beaufort felt as if turned to ice.
+
+"You think him likely to win this infamous suit, then?"  he faltered.
+
+"Did not you guard against the possibility by securing the brother?  More
+worth while to do it with this man.  Hark ye! the politics of private are
+like those of public life,--when the state can't crush a demagogue, it
+should entice him over.  If you can ruin this dog" (and Lilburne stamped
+his foot fiercely, forgetful of the gout), "ruin him! hang him!  If you
+can't" (and here with a wry face he caressed the injured foot), "if you
+can't ('sdeath, what a twinge!), and he can ruin you,--bring him into the
+family, and make his secret ours!  I must go and lie down--I have
+overexcited myself."
+
+In great perplexity Beaufort repaired at once to Camilla.  His nervous
+agitation betrayed itself, though he smiled a ghastly smile, and intended
+to be exceeding cool and collected.  His questions, which confused and
+alarmed her, soon drew out the fact that the very first time Vaudemont
+had been introduced to her he had spoken of the Mortons; and that he had
+often afterwards alluded to the subject, and seemed at first strongly
+impressed with the notion that the younger brother was under Beaufort's
+protection; though at last he appeared reluctantly convinced of the
+contrary.  Robert, however agitated, preserved at least enough of his
+natural slyness not to let out that he suspected Vaudemont to be Philip
+Morton himself, for he feared lest his daughter should betray that
+suspicion to its object.
+
+"But," he said, with a look meant to win confidence, "I dare say he knows
+these young men.  I should like myself to know more about them.  Learn
+all you can, and tell me, and, I say--I say, Camilla,--he! he! he!--you
+have made a conquest, you little flirt, you!  Did he, this Vaudemont,
+ever say how much he admired you?"
+
+"He!--never!" said Camilla, blushing, and then turning pale.
+
+"But he looks it.  Ah! you say nothing, then.  Well, well, don't
+discourage him; that is to say,--yes, don't discourage him.  Talk to him
+as much as you can,--ask him about his own early life.  I've a particular
+wish to know--'tis of great importance to me."
+
+"But, my dear father," said Camilla, trembling and thoroughly bewildered,
+"I fear this man,--I fear--I fear--"
+
+Was she going to add, "I fear myself?"  I know not; but she stopped
+short, and burst into tears.
+
+"Hang these girls!"  muttered Mr. Beaufort, "always crying when they
+ought to be of use to one.  Go down, dry your eyes, do as I tell you,--
+get all you can from him.  Fear him!--yes, I dare say she does!"
+muttered the poor man, as he closed the door.
+
+From that time what wonder that Camilla's manner to Vaudemont was yet
+more embarrassed than ever: what wonder that he put his own heart's
+interpretation on that confusion.  Beaufort took care to thrust her more
+often than before in his way; he suddenly affected a creeping, fawning
+civility to Vaudemont; he was sure he was fond of music; what did he
+think of that new air Camilla was so fond of?  He must be a judge of
+scenery, he who had seen so much: there were beautiful landscapes in the
+neighbourhood, and, if he would forego his sports, Camilla drew prettily,
+had an eye for that sort of thing, and was so fond of riding.
+
+Vaudemont was astonished at this change, but his delight was greater than
+the astonishment.  He began to perceive that his identity was suspected;
+perhaps Beaufort, more generous than he had deemed him, meant to repay
+every early wrong or harshness by one inestimable blessing.  The generous
+interpret motives in extremes--ever too enthusiastic or too severe.
+Vaudemont felt as if he had wronged the wronger; he began to conquer even
+his dislike to Robert Beaufort.  For some days he was thus thrown much
+with Camilla; the questions her father forced her to put to him, uttered
+tremulously and fearfully, seemed to him proof of her interest in his
+fate.  His feelings to Camilla, so sudden in their growth--so ripened and
+so favoured by the Sub-Ruler of the world--CIRCUMSTANCE--might not,
+perhaps, have the depth and the calm completeness of that, One True Love,
+of which there are many counterfeits,--and which in Man, at least,
+possibly requires the touch and mellowness, if not of time, at least of
+many memories--of perfect and tried conviction of the faith, the worth,
+the value and the beauty of the heart to which it clings;--but those
+feelings were, nevertheless, strong, ardent, and intense.  He believed
+himself beloved--he was in Elysium.  But he did not yet declare the
+passion that beamed in his eyes.  No! he would not yet claim the hand of
+Camilla Beaufort, for he imagined the time would soon come when he could
+claim it, not as the inferior or the suppliant, but as the lord of her
+father's fate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+     "Here's something got amongst us!"--_Knight of Malta_.
+
+Two or three nights after his memorable conversation with Robert
+Beaufort, as Lord Lilburne was undressing, he said to his valet:
+
+"Dykeman, I am getting well."
+
+"Indeed, my lord, I never saw your lordship look better."
+
+"There you lie.  I looked better last year--I looked better the year
+before--and I looked better and better every year back to the age of
+twenty-one!  But I'm not talking of looks, no man with money wants looks.
+I am talking of feelings.  I feel better.  The gout is almost gone.  I
+have been quiet now for a month--that's a long time--time wasted when, at
+my age, I have so little time to waste.  Besides, as you know, I am very
+much in love!"
+
+"In love, my lord?  I thought that you told me never to speak of--"
+
+"Blockhead! what the deuce was the good of speaking about it when I was
+wrapped in flannels!  I am never in love when I am ill--who is?  I am
+well now, or nearly so; and I've had things to vex me--things to make
+this place very disagreeable; I shall go to town, and before this day
+week, perhaps, that charming face may enliven the solitude of Fernside.
+I shall look to it myself now.  I see you're going to say something.
+Spare yourself the trouble! nothing ever goes wrong if I myself take it
+in hand."
+
+The next day Lord Lilburne, who, in truth, felt himself uncomfortable and
+_gene_ in the presence of Vaudemont; who had won as much as the guests at
+Beaufort Court seemed inclined to lose; and who made it the rule of his
+life to consult his own pleasure and amusement before anything else, sent
+for his post-horses, and informed his brother-in-law of his departure.
+
+"And you leave me alone with this man just when I am convinced that he is
+the person we suspected!  My dear Lilburne, do stay till he goes."
+
+"Impossible!  I am between fifty and sixty--every moment is precious at
+that time of life.  Besides, I've said all I can say; rest quiet--act on
+the defensive--entangle this cursed Vaudemont, or Morton, or whoever he
+be, in the mesh of your daughter's charms, and then get rid of him, not
+before.  This can do no harm, let the matter turn out how it will.  Read
+the papers; and send for Blackwell if you want advice on any, new
+advertisements.  I don't see that anything more is to be done at present.
+You can write to me; I shall be at Park Lane or Fernside.  Take care of
+yourself.  You're a lucky fellow--you never have the gout!  Good-bye."
+
+And in half an hour Lord Lilburne was on the road to London.
+
+The departure of Lilburne was a signal to many others, especially and
+naturally to those he himself had invited.  He had not announced to such
+visitors his intention of going till his carriage was at the door.  This
+might be delicacy or carelessness, just as people chose to take it: and
+how they did take it, Lord Lilburne, much too selfish to be well-bred,
+did not care a rush.  The next day half at least of the guests were gone;
+and even Mr. Marsden, who had been specially invited on Arthur's account,
+announced that he should go after dinner! he always travelled by night--
+he slept well on the road--a day was not lost by it.
+
+"And it is so long since you saw Arthur," said Mr. Beaufort, in
+remonstrance, "and I expect him every day."
+
+"Very sorry--best fellow in the world--but the fact is, that I am not
+very well myself.  I want a little sea air; I shall go to Dover or
+Brighton.  But I suppose you will have the house full again about
+Christmas; in that case I shall be delighted to repeat my visit."
+
+The fact was, that Mr. Marsden, without Lilburne's intellect on the one
+hand, or vices on the other, was, like that noble sensualist, one of the
+broken pieces of the great looking-glass "SELF."  He was noticed in
+society as always haunting the places where Lilburne played at cards,
+carefully choosing some other table, and as carefully betting upon
+Lilburne's side.  The card-tables were now broken up; Vaudemont's
+superiority in shooting, and the manner in which he engrossed the talk of
+the sportsmen, displeased him.  He was bored--he wanted to be off-and off
+he went.  Vaudemont felt that the time was come for him to depart, too;
+Robert Beaufort--who felt in his society the painful fascination of the
+bird with the boa, who hated to see him there, and dreaded to see him
+depart, who had not yet extracted all the confirmation of his persuasions
+that he required, for Vaudemont easily enough parried the artless
+questions of Camilla--pressed him to stay with so eager a hospitality,
+and made Camilla herself falter out, against her will, and even against
+her remonstrances--(she never before had dared to remonstrate with either
+father or mother),--"Could not you stay a few days longer?"--that
+Vaudemont was too contented to yield to his own inclinations; and so for
+some little time longer he continued to move before the eyes of Mr.
+Beaufort--stern, sinister, silent, mysterious--like one of the family
+pictures stepped down from its frame.  Vaudemont wrote, however, to
+Fanny, to excuse his delay; and anxious to hear from her as to her own
+and Simon's health, bade her direct her letter to his lodging in London
+(of which he gave her the address), whence, if he still continued to
+defer his departure, it would be forwarded to him.  He did not do this,
+however, till he had been at Beaufort Court several days after Lilburne's
+departure, and till, in fact, two days before the eventful one which
+closed his visit.
+
+The party, now greatly diminished; were at breakfast, when the servant
+entered, as usual, with the letter-bag.  Mr. Beaufort, who was always
+important and pompous in the small ceremonials of life, unlocked the
+precious deposit with slow dignity, drew forth the newspapers, which he
+threw on the table, and which the gentlemen of the party eagerly seized;
+then, diving out one by one, jerked first a letter to Camilla, next a
+letter to Vaudemont, and, thirdly, seized a letter for himself.
+
+"I beg that there may be no ceremony, Monsieur de Vaudemont: pray excuse
+me and follow my example: I see this letter is from my son;" and he broke
+the seal.
+
+The letter ran thus:
+
+"MY DEAR FATHER,--Almost as soon as you receive this, I shall be with
+you.  Ill as I am, I can have no peace till I see and consult you.  The
+most startling--the most painful intelligence has just been conveyed to
+me.  It is of a nature not to bear any but personal communication.
+
+                    "Your affectionate son,
+                                         "ARTHUR BEAUFORT.
+"Boulogne.
+
+"P.S.--This will go by the same packet-boat that I shall take myself, and
+can only reach you a few hours before I arrive."
+
+
+Mr. Beaufort's trembling hand dropped the letter--he grasped the elbow of
+the chair to save himself from falling.  It was clear!--the same visitor
+who had persecuted himself had now sought his son!  He grew sick, his son
+might have heard the witness--might be convinced.  His son himself now
+appeared to him as a foe--for the father dreaded the son's honour!  He
+glanced furtively round the table, till his eye rested on Vaudemont, and
+his terror was redoubled, for Vaudemont's face, usually so calm, was
+animated to an extraordinary degree, as he now lifted it from the letter
+he had just read.  Their eyes met.  Robert Beaufort looked on him as a
+prisoner at the bar looks on the accusing counsel, when he first
+commences his harangue.
+
+"Mr. Beaufort," said the guest, "the letter you have given me summons me
+to London on important business, and immediately.  Suffer me to send for
+horses at your earliest convenience."
+
+"What's the matter?" said the feeble and seldom heard voice of Mrs.
+Beaufort.  "What's the matter, Robert?--is Arthur coming?"
+
+"He comes to-day," said the father, with a deep sigh; and Vaudemont, at
+that moment rising from his half-finished breakfast, with a bow that
+included the group, and with a glance that lingered on Camilla, as she
+bent over her own unopened letter (a letter from Winandermere, the seal
+of which she dared not yet to break), quitted the room.  He hastened to
+his own chamber, and strode to and fro with a stately step--the step of
+the Master--then, taking forth the letter, he again hurried over its
+contents.  They ran thus:
+
+DEAR, Sir,--At last the missing witness has applied to me.  He proves to
+be, as you conjectured, the same person who had called on Mr. Roger
+Morton; but as there are some circumstances on which I wish to take your
+instructions without a moment's delay, I shall leave London by the mail,
+and wait you at D---- (at the principal inn), which is, I understand,
+twenty miles on the high road from Beaufort Court.
+
+                        "I have the honor to be, sir,
+                                    "Yours, &c.,
+                                           "JOHN BARLOW.
+
+
+Vaudemont was yet lost in the emotions that this letter aroused, when
+they came to announce that his chaise was arrived.  As he went down the
+stairs he met Camilla, who was on the way to her own room.
+
+"Miss Beaufort," said he, in a low and tremulous voice, "in wishing you
+farewell I may not now say more.  I leave you, and, strange to say, I do
+not regret it, for I go upon an errand that may entitle me to return
+again, and speak those thoughts which are uppermost in my soul even at
+this moment."
+
+He raised her hand to his lips as he spoke, and at that moment Mr.
+Beaufort looked from the door of his own room, and cried, "Camilla."  She
+was too glad to escape.  Philip gazed after her light form for an
+instant, and then hurried down the stairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+          "_Longueville_.--What! are you married, Beaufort?
+          _Beaufort_.--Ay, as fast
+          As words, and hands, and hearts, and priest,
+          Could make us."--BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: _Noble Gentleman_.
+
+In the parlour of the inn at D------ sat Mr. John Barlow.  He had just
+finished his breakfast, and was writing letters and looking over papers
+connected with his various business--when the door was thrown open, and a
+gentleman entered abruptly.
+
+"Mr. Beaufort," said the lawyer rising, "Mr. Philip Beaufort--for such I
+now feel you are by right--though," he added, with his usual formal and
+quiet smile, "not yet by law; and much--very much, remains to be done to
+make the law and the right the same;--I congratulate you on having
+something at last to work on.  I had begun to despair of finding our
+witness, after a month's advertising; and had commenced other
+investigations, of which I will speak to you presently, when yesterday,
+on my return to town from an errand on your business, I had the pleasure
+of a visit from William Smith himself.--My dear sir, do not yet be too
+sanguine.--It seems that this poor fellow, having known misfortune, was
+in America when the first fruitless inquiries were made.  Long after this
+he returned to the colony, and there met with a brother, who, as I drew
+from him, was a convict.  He helped the brother to escape.  They both
+came to England.  William learned from a distant relation, who lent him
+some little money, of the inquiry that had been set on foot for him;
+consulted his brother, who desired him to leave all to his management.
+The brother afterwards assured him that you and Mr. Sidney were both
+dead; and it seems (for the witness is simple enough to allow me to
+extract all) this same brother then went to Mr. Beaufort to hold out the
+threat of a lawsuit, and to offer the sale of the evidence yet
+existing--"
+
+"And Mr. Beaufort?"
+
+"I am happy to say, seems to have spurned the offer.  Meanwhile William,
+incredulous of his brother's report, proceeded to N----, learned nothing
+from Mr. Morton, met his brother again--and the brother (confessing that
+he had deceived him in the assertion that you and Mr. Sidney were dead)
+told him that he had known you in earlier life, and set out to Paris to
+seek you--"
+
+"Known me?--To Paris?"
+
+"More of this presently.  William returned to town, living hardly and
+penuriously on the little his brother bestowed on him, too melancholy and
+too poor for the luxury of a newspaper, and never saw our advertisement,
+till, as luck would have it, his money was out; he had heard nothing
+further of his brother, and he went for new assistance to the same
+relation who had before aided him.  This relation, to his surprise,
+received the poor man very kindly, lent him what he wanted, and then
+asked him if he had not seen our advertisement.  The newspaper shown him.
+contained both the advertisements--that relating to Mr. Morton's visitor,
+that containing his own name.  He coupled them both together--called on
+me at once.  I was from town on your business.  He returned to his own
+home; the next morning (yesterday morning) came a letter from his
+brother, which I obtained from him at last, and with promises that no
+harm should happen to the writer on account of it."
+
+Vaudemont took the letter and read as follows:
+
+"DEAR WILLIAM,--No go about the youngster I went after: all researches in
+vane.  Paris develish expensive.  Never mind, I have sene the other--the
+young B--; different sort of fellow from his father--very ill--frightened
+out of his wits--will go off to the governor, take me with him as far as
+Bullone.  I think we shall settel it now.  Mind as I saide before, don't
+put your foot in it.  I send you a Nap in the Seele--all I can spare.
+
+                         "Yours,
+                                   "JEREMIAH SMITH.
+
+"Direct to me, Monsieur Smith--always a safe name--Ship Inn, Bullone."
+
+
+"Jeremiah--Smith--Jeremiah!"
+
+"Do you know the name then?"  said Mr. Barlow.  "Well; the poor man owns
+that he was frightened at his brother--that he wished to do what is
+right--that he feared his brother would not let him--that your father was
+very kind to him--and so he came off at once to me; and I was very
+luckily at home to assure him that the heir was alive, and prepared to
+assert his rights.  Now then, Mr. Beaufort, we have the witness, but will
+that suffice us?  I fear not.  Will the jury believe him with no other
+testimony at his back?  Consider!--When he was gone I put myself in
+communication with some officers at Bow Street about this brother of his
+--a most notorious character, commonly called in the police slang Dashing
+Jerry--"
+
+"Ah!  Well, proceed!"
+
+"Your one witness, then, is a very poor, penniless man, his brother a
+rogue, a convict: this witness, too, is the most timid, fluctuating,
+irresolute fellow I ever saw; I should tremble for his testimony against
+a sharp, bullying lawyer.  And that, sir, is all at present we have to
+look to."
+
+"I see--I see.  It is dangerous--it is hazardous.  But truth is truth;
+justice--justice!  I will run the risk."
+
+"Pardon me, if I ask, did you ever know this brother?--were you ever
+absolutely acquainted with him--in the same house?"
+
+"Many years since--years of early hardship and trial--I was acquainted
+with him--what then?"
+
+"I am sorry to hear it," and the lawyer looked grave.  "Do you not see
+that if this witness is browbeat--is disbelieved, and if it be shown that
+you, the claimant, was--forgive my saying it--intimate with a brother of
+such a character, why the whole thing might be made to look like perjury
+and conspiracy.  If we stop here it is an ugly business!"
+
+"And is this all you have to say to me?  The witness is found--the only
+surviving witness--the only proof I ever shall or ever can obtain, and
+you seek to terrify me--me too--from using the means for redress
+Providence itself vouchsafes me--Sir, I will not hear you!"
+
+"Mr. Beaufort, you are impatient--it is natural.  But if we go to law--
+that is, should I have anything to do with it, wait--wait till your case
+is good.  And hear me yet.  This is not the only proof--this is not the
+only witness; you forget that there was an examined copy of the register;
+we may yet find that copy, and the person who copied it may yet be alive
+to attest it.  Occupied with this thought, and weary of waiting the
+result of our advertisement, I resolved to go into the neighbourhood of
+Fernside; luckily, there was a gentleman's seat to be sold in the
+village.  I made the survey of this place my apparent business.  After
+going over the house, I appeared anxious to see how far some alterations
+could be made--alterations to render it more like Lord Lilburne's villa.
+This led me to request a sight of that villa--a crown to the housekeeper
+got me admittance.  The housekeeper had lived with your father, and been
+retained by his lordship.  I soon, therefore, knew which were the rooms
+the late Mr. Beaufort had principally occupied; shown into his study,
+where it was probable he would keep his papers, I inquired if it were the
+same furniture (which seemed likely enough from its age and fashion) as
+in your father's time: it was so; Lord Lilburne had bought the house just
+as it stood, and, save a few additions in the drawing-room, the general
+equipment of the villa remained unaltered.  You look impatient!--I'm
+coming to the point.  My eye fell upon an old-fashioned bureau--"
+
+"But we searched every drawer in that bureau!"
+
+"Any secret drawers?"
+
+"Secret drawers!  No!  there were no secret drawers that I ever heard
+of!"
+
+Mr. Barlow rubbed his hands and mused a moment.
+
+"I was struck with that bureau; for any father had had one like it.  It
+is not English--it is of Dutch manufacture."
+
+"Yes, I have heard that my father bought it at a sale, three or four
+years after his marriage."
+
+"I learned this from the housekeeper, who was flattered by my admiring
+it.  I could not find out from her at what sale it had been purchased,
+but it was in the neighbourhood she was sure.  I had now a date to go
+upon; I learned, by careless inquiries, what sales near Fernside had
+taken place in a certain year.  A gentleman had died at that date whose
+furniture was sold by auction.  With great difficulty, I found that his
+widow was still alive, living far up the country: I paid her a visit;
+and, not to fatigue you with too long an account, I have only to say that
+she not only assured me that she perfectly remembered the bureau, but
+that it had secret drawers and wells, very curiously contrived; nay, she
+showed me the very catalogue in which the said receptacles are noticed in
+capitals, to arrest the eye of the bidder, and increase the price of the
+bidding.  That your father should never have revealed where he stowed
+this document is natural enough, during the life of his uncle; his own
+life was not spared long enough to give him much opportunity to explain
+afterwards, but I feel perfectly persuaded in my mind--that unless Mr.
+Robert Beaufort discovered that paper amongst the others he examined--in
+one of those drawers will be found all we want to substantiate your
+claims.  This is the more likely from your father never mentioning, even
+to your mother apparently, the secret receptacles in the bureau.  Why
+else such mystery?  The probability is that he received the document
+either just before or at the time he purchased the bureau, or that he
+bought it for that very purpose: and, having once deposited the paper in
+a place he deemed secure from curiosity--accident, carelessness, policy,
+perhaps, rather shame itself (pardon me) for the doubt of your mother's
+discretion, that his secrecy seemed to imply, kept him from ever alluding
+to the circumstance, even when the intimacy of after years made him more
+assured of your mother's self-sacrificing devotion to his interests.  At
+his uncle's death he thought to repair all!"
+
+"And how, if that be true--if that Heaven which has delivered me hitherto
+from so many dangers, has, in the very secrecy of my poor father, saved
+my birthright front the gripe of the usurper--how, I say, is---"
+
+"The bureau to pass into our possession?  That is the difficulty.  But we
+must contrive it somehow, if all else fail us; meanwhile, as I now feel
+sure that there has been a copy of that register made, I wish to know
+whether I should not immediately cross the country into Wales, and see if
+I can find any person in the neighbourhood of A-----  who did examine the
+copy taken: for, mark you, the said copy is only of importance as leading
+to the testimony of the actual witness who took it."
+
+"Sir," said Vaudemont, heartily shaking Mr. Barlow by the hand, "forgive
+my first petulance.  I see in you the very man I desired and wanted--your
+acuteness surprises and encourages me.  Go to Wales, and God speed you!"
+
+"Very well!--in five minutes I shall be off.  Meanwhile, see the witness
+yourself; the sight of his benefactor's son will do more to keep him
+steady than anything else.  There's his address, and take care not to
+give him money.  And now I will order my chaise--the matter begins to
+look worth expense.  Oh! I forgot to say that Monsieur Liancourt called
+on you yesterday about his own affairs.  He wishes much to consult you.
+I told him you would probably be this evening in town, and he said he
+would wait you at your lodging."
+
+"Yes--I will lose not a moment in going to London, and visiting our
+witness.  And he saw my mother at the altar!  My poor mother--Ah, how
+could my father have doubted her!"  and as he spoke, he blushed for the
+first time with shame at that father's memory.  He could not yet conceive
+that one so frank, one usually so bold and open, could for years have
+preserved from the woman who had sacrificed all to him, a secret to her
+so important!  That was, in fact, the only blot on his father's honour--
+a foul and grave blot it was.  Heavily had the punishment fallen on those
+whom the father loved best!  Alas, Philip had not yet learned what
+terrible corrupters are the Hope and the Fear of immense Wealthy, even to
+men reputed the most honourable, if they have been reared and pampered in
+the belief that wealth is the Arch blessing of life.  Rightly considered,
+in Philip Beaufort's solitary meanness lay the vast moral of this world's
+darkest truth!
+
+Mr. Barlow was gone.  Philip was about to enter his own chaise, when a
+dormeuse-and-four drove up to the inn-door to change horses.  A young man
+was reclining, at his length, in the carriage, wrapped in cloaks, and
+with a ghastly paleness--the paleness of long and deep disease upon his
+cheeks.  He turned his dim eye with, perhaps, a glance of the sick man's
+envy on that strong and athletic, form, majestic with health and vigour,
+as it stood beside the more humble vehicle.  Philip did not, however,
+notice the new arrival; he sprang into the chaise, it rattled on, and
+thus, unconsciously, Arthur Beaufort and his cousin had again met.  To
+which was now the Night--to which the Morning?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+          "_Bakam_.  Let my men guard the walls.
+          _Syana_.  And mine the temple."--_The Island Princess_.
+
+While thus eventfully the days and the weeks had passed for Philip, no
+less eventfully, so far as the inner life is concerned, had they glided
+away for Fanny.  She had feasted in quiet and delighted thought on the
+consciousness that she was improving--that she was growing worthier of
+him--that he would perceive it on his return.  Her manner was more
+thoughtful, more collected--less childish, in short, than it had been.
+And yet, with all the stir and flutter of the aroused intellect, the
+charm of her strange innocence was not scared away.  She rejoiced in the
+ancient liberty she had regained of going out and coming back when she
+pleased; and as the weather was too cold ever to tempt Simon from his
+fireside, except, perhaps, for half-an-hour in the forenoon, so the hours
+of dusk, when he least missed her, were those which she chiefly
+appropriated for stealing away to the good school-mistress, and growing
+wiser and wiser every day in the ways of God and the learning of His
+creatures.  The schoolmistress was not a brilliant woman.  Nor was it
+accomplishments of which Fanny stood in need, so much as the opening of
+her thoughts and mind by profitable books and rational conversation.
+Beautiful as were all her natural feelings, the schoolmistress had now
+little difficulty in educating feelings up to the dignity of principles.
+
+At last, hitherto patient under the absence of one never absent from her
+heart, Fanny received from him the letter he had addressed to her two
+days before he quitted Beaufort Court;--another letter--a second letter--
+a letter to excuse himself for not coming before--a letter that gave her
+an address that asked for a reply.  It was a morning of unequalled
+delight approaching to transport.  And then the excitement of answering
+the letter--the pride of showing how she was improved, what an excellent
+hand she now wrote!  She shut herself up in her room: she did not go out
+that day.  She placed the paper before her, and, to her astonishment, all
+that she had to say vanished from her mind at once.  How was she even to
+begin?  She had always hitherto called him "Brother."  Ever since her
+conversation with Sarah she felt that she could not call him that name
+again for the world--no, never!  But what should she call him--what could
+she call him?  He signed himself "Philip."  She knew that was his name.
+She thought it a musical name to utter, but to write it!  No! some
+instinct she could not account for seemed to whisper that it was
+improper--presumptuous, to call him "Dear Philip."  Had Burns's songs--
+the songs that unthinkingly he had put into her hand, and told her to
+read--songs that comprise the most beautiful love-poems in the world--had
+they helped to teach her some of the secrets of her own heart?  And had
+timidity come with knowledge?  Who shall say--who guess what passed
+within her?  Nor did Fanny herself, perhaps, know her own feelings: but
+write the words "Dear Philip" she could not.  And the whole of that day,
+though she thought of nothing else, she could not even get through the
+first line to her satisfaction.  The next morning she sat down again.  It
+would be so unkind if she did not answer immediately: she must answer.
+She placed his letter before her--she resolutely began.  But copy after
+copy was made and torn.  And Simon wanted her--and Sarah wanted her--and
+there were bills to be paid; and dinner was over before her task was
+really begun.  But after dinner she began in good earnest.
+
+"How kind in you to write to me" (the difficulty of any name was
+dispensed with by adopting none), "and to wish to know about my dear
+grandfather!  He is much the same, but hardly ever walks out now, and I
+have had a good deal of time to myself.  I think something will surprise
+you, and make you smile, as you used to do at first, when you come back.
+You must not be angry with me that I have gone out by myself very often
+--every day, indeed.  I have been so safe.  Nobody has ever offered to be
+rude again to Fanny" (the word "Fanny" was carefully scratched out with
+a penknife, and me substituted).  "But you shall know all when you come.
+And are you sure you are well--quite--quite well?  Do you never have the
+headaches you complained of sometimes?  Do say this?  Do you walk out-
+every day?  Is there any pretty churchyard near you now?  Whom do you
+walk with?
+
+"I have been so happy in putting the flowers on the two graves.  But I
+still give yours the prettiest, though the other is so dear to me.  I
+feel sad when I come to the last, but not when I look at the one I have
+looked at so long.  Oh, how good you were!  But you don't like me to
+thank you."
+
+"This is very stupid!" cried Fanny, suddenly throwing down her pen; "and
+I don't think I am improved at it;" and she half cried with vexation.
+Suddenly a bright idea crossed her.  In the little parlour where the
+schoolmistress privately received her, she had seen among the books, and
+thought at the time how useful it might be to her if ever she had to
+write to Philip, a little volume entitled, _The Complete Letter Writer_.
+She knew by the title-page that it contained models for every description
+of letter--no doubt it would contain the precise thing that would suit
+the present occasion.  She started up at the notion.  She would go--she
+could be back to finish the letter before post-time.  She put on her
+bonnet--left the letter, in her haste, open on the table--and just
+looking into the parlour in her way to the street door, to convince
+herself that Simon was asleep, and the wire-guard was on the fire, she
+hurried to the kind schoolmistress.
+
+One of the fogs that in autumn gather sullenly over London and its
+suburbs covered the declining day with premature dimness.  It grew darker
+and darker as she proceeded, but she reached the house in safety.  She
+spent a quarter of an hour in timidly consulting her friend about all
+kinds of letters except the identical one that she intended to write, and
+having had it strongly impressed on her mind that if the letter was to a
+gentleman at all genteel, she ought to begin "Dear Sir," and end with "I
+have the honour to remain;" and that he would be everlastingly offended
+if she did not in the address affix "Esquire" to his name (_that_, was a
+great discovery),--she carried off the precious volume, and quitted the
+house.  There was a wall that, bounding the demesnes of the school, ran
+for some short distance into the main street.  The increasing fog, here,
+faintly struggled against the glimmer of a single lamp at some little
+distance.  Just in this spot, her eye was caught by a dark object in the
+road, which she could scarcely perceive to be a carriage, when her hand
+was seized, and a voice said in her ear:--
+
+"Ah!  you will not be so cruel to me, I hope, as you were to my
+messenger!  I have come myself for you."
+
+She turned in great alarm, but the darkness prevented her recognising the
+face of him who thus accosted her.  "Let me go!"  she cried,--"let me
+go!"
+
+"Hush! hush!  No--no.  Come with me.  You shall have a house--carriage--
+servants!  You shall wear silk gowns and jewels!  You shall be a great
+lady!"
+
+As these various temptations succeeded in rapid course each new struggle
+of Fanny, a voice from the coach-box said in a low tone,--
+
+"Take care, my lord, I see somebody coming--perhaps a policeman!"
+
+Fanny heard the caution, and screamed for rescue.
+
+"Is it so?" muttered the molester.  And suddenly Fanny felt her voice
+checked--her head mantled--her light form lifted from the ground.  She
+clung--she struggled it was in vain.  It was the affair of a moment: she
+felt herself borne into the carriage--the door closed--the stranger was
+by her side, and his voice said:--
+
+"Drive on, Dykeman.  Fast!  fast!"
+
+Two or three minutes, which seemed to her terror as ages, elapsed, when
+the gag and the mantle were gently removed, and the same voice (she still
+could not see her companion) said in a very mild tone:--
+
+"Do not alarm yourself; there is no cause,--indeed there is not.  I would
+not have adopted this plan had there been any other--any gentler one.
+But I could not call at your own house--I knew no other where to meet
+you.
+
+"This was the only course left to me--indeed it was.  I made myself
+acquainted with your movements.  Do not blame me, then, for prying into
+your footsteps.  I watched for you all last night-you did not come out.
+I was in despair.  At last I find you.  Do not be so terrified: I will
+not even touch your hand if you do not wish it."
+
+As he spoke, however, he attempted to touch it, and was repulsed with an
+energy that rather disconcerted him.  The poor girl recoiled from him
+into the farthest corner of that prison in speechless horror--in the
+darkest confusion of ideas.  She did not weep--she did not sob--but her
+trembling seemed to shake the very carriage.  The man continued to
+address, to expostulate, to pray, to soothe.
+
+His manner was respectful.  His protestations that he would not harm her
+for the world were endless.
+
+"Only just see the home I can give you; for two days--for one day.  Only
+just hear how rich I can make you and your grandfather, and then if you
+wish to leave me, you shall."
+
+More, much more, to this effect, did he continue to pour forth, without
+extracting any sound from Fanny but gasps as for breath, and now and then
+a low murmur:
+
+"Let me go, let me go!  My grandfather, my blind grandfather!"
+
+And finally tears came to her relief, and she sobbed with a passion that
+alarmed, and perhaps even touched her companion, cynical and icy as he
+was.  Meanwhile the carriage seemed to fly.  Fast as two horses,
+thorough-bred, and almost at full speed, could go, they were whirled
+along, till about an hour, or even less, from the time in which she had
+been thus captured, the carriage stopped.
+
+"Are we here already?"  said the man, putting his head out of the window.
+"Do then as I told you.  Not to the front door; to my study."
+
+In two minutes more the carriage halted again, before a building which
+looked white and ghostlike through the mist.  The driver dismounted,
+opened with a latch-key a window-door, entered for a moment to light the
+candles in a solitary room from a fire that blazed on the hearth,
+reappeared, and opened the carriage-door.  It was with a difficulty for
+which they were scarcely prepared that they were enabled to get Fanny
+from the carriage.  No soft words, no whispered prayers could draw her
+forth; and it was with no trifling address, for her companion sought to
+be as gentle as the force necessary to employ would allow, that he
+disengaged her hands from the window-frame, the lining, the cushions, to
+which they clung;  and at last bore her into the house.  The driver
+closed the window again as he retreated, and they were alone.  Fanny then
+cast a wild, scarce conscious glance over the apartment.  It was small
+and simply furnished.  Opposite to her was an old-fashioned bureau, one
+of those quaint, elaborate monuments of Dutch ingenuity, which, during
+the present century, the audacious spirit of curiosity-vendors has
+transplanted from their native receptacles, to contrast, with grotesque
+strangeness, the neat handiwork of Gillow and Seddon.  It had a
+physiognomy and character of its own--this fantastic foreigner!  Inlaid
+with mosaics, depicting landscapes and animals; graceless in form and
+fashion, but still picturesque, and winning admiration, when more closely
+observed, from the patient defiance of all rules of taste which had
+formed its cumbrous parts into one profusely ornamented and eccentric
+whole.  It was the more noticeable from its total want of harmony with
+the other appurtenances of the room, which bespoke the tastes of the
+plain English squire.  Prints of horses and hunts, fishing-rods and
+fowling-pieces, carefully suspended, decorated the walls.  Not, however,
+on this notable stranger from the sluggish land rested the eye of Fanny.
+That, in her hurried survey, was arrested only by a portrait placed over
+the bureau--the portrait of a female in the bloom of life; a face so
+fair, a brow so candid, and eyes so pure, a lip so rich in youth and joy
+--that as her look lingered on the features Fanny felt comforted, felt as
+if some living protectress were there.  The fire burned bright and
+merrily; a table, spread as for dinner, was drawn near it.  To any other
+eye but Fanny's the place would have seemed a picture of English comfort.
+At last her looks rested on her companion.  He had thrown himself, with a
+long sigh, partly of fatigue, partly of satisfaction, on one of the
+chairs, and was contemplating her as she thus stood and gazed, with an
+expression of mingled curiosity and admiration; she recognised at once
+her first, her only persecutor.  She recoiled, and covered her face with
+her hands.  The man approached her:--
+
+"Do not hate me, Fanny,--do not turn away.  Believe me, though I have
+acted thus violently, here all violence will cease.  I love you, but I
+will not be satisfied till you love me in return.  I am not young, and I
+am not handsome, but I am rich and great, and I can make those whom I
+love happy,--so happy, Fanny!"
+
+But Fanny had turned away, and was now busily employed in trying to
+re-open the door at which she had entered.  Failing in this, she suddenly
+darted away, opened the inner door, and rushed into the passage with a
+loud cry.  Her persecutor stifled an oath, and sprung after and arrested
+her.  He now spoke sternly, and with a smile and a frown at once:--
+
+"This is folly;--come back, or you will repent it!  I have promised you,
+as a gentleman--as a nobleman, if you know what that is--to respect you.
+But neither will I myself be trifled with nor insulted.  There must be no
+screams!"
+
+His look and his voice awed Fanny in spite of her bewilderment and her
+loathing, and she suffered herself passively to be drawn into the room.
+He closed and bolted the door.  She threw herself on the ground in one
+corner, and moaned low but piteously.  He looked at her musingly for some
+moments, as he stood by the fire, and at last went to the door, opened
+it, and called "Harriet" in a low voice.  Presently a young woman, of
+about thirty, appeared, neatly but plainly dressed, and of a countenance
+that, if not very winning, might certainly be called very handsome.  He
+drew her aside for a few moments, and a whispered conference was
+exchanged.  He then walked gravely up to Fanny "My young friend," said
+he, "I see my presence is too much for you this evening.  This young
+woman will attend you--will get you all you want.  She can tell you, too,
+that I am not the terrible sort of person you seem to suppose.  I shall
+see you to-morrow."  So saying, he turned on his heel and walked out.
+
+Fanny felt something like liberty, something like joy, again.  She rose,
+and looked so pleadingly, so earnestly, so intently into the woman's
+face, that Harriet turned away her bold eyes abashed; and at this moment
+Dykeman himself looked into the room.
+
+"You are to bring us in dinner here yourself, uncle; and then go to my
+lord in the drawing-room."
+
+Dykeman looked pleased, and vanished.  Then Harriet came up and took
+Fanny's hand, and said, kindly,--
+
+"Don't be frightened.  I assure you, half the girls in London would give
+I don't know what to be in your place.  My lord never will force you to
+do anything you don't like--it's not his way; and he's the kindest and
+best man,--and so rich; he does not know what to do with his money!"
+
+To all this Fanny made but one answer,--she threw herself suddenly upon
+the woman's breast, and sobbed out: "My grandfather is blind, he cannot
+do without me--he will die--die.  Have you nobody you love, too?  Let me
+go--let me out!  What can they want with me?--I never did harm to any
+one."
+
+"And no one will harm you;--I swear it!"  said Harriet, earnestly.  "I
+see you don't know my lord.  But here's the dinner; come, and take a bit
+of something, and a glass of wine."
+
+Fanny could not touch anything except a glass of water, and that nearly
+choked her.  But at last, as she recovered her senses, the absence of her
+tormentor--the presence of a woman--the solemn assurances of Harriet
+that, if she did not like to stay there, after a day or two, she should
+go back, tranquillised her in some measure.  She did not heed the artful
+and lengthened eulogiums that the she-tempter then proceeded to pour
+forth upon the virtues, and the love, and the generosity, and, above all,
+the money of my lord.  She only kept repeating to herself, "I shall go
+back in a day or two."  At length, Harriet, having eaten and drunk as
+much as she could by her single self, and growing wearied with efforts
+from which so little resulted, proposed to Fanny to retire to rest.  She
+opened a door to the right of the fireplace, and lighted her up a winding
+staircase to a pretty and comfortable chamber, where she offered to help
+her to undress.  Fanny's complete innocence, and her utter ignorance of
+the precise nature of the danger that awaited her, though she fancied it
+must be very great and very awful, prevented her quite comprehending all
+that Harriet meant to convey by her solemn assurances that she should not
+be disturbed.  But she understood, at least, that she was not to see her
+hateful gaoler till the next morning; and when Harriet, wishing her "good
+night," showed her a bolt to her door, she was less terrified at the
+thought of being alone in that strange place.  She listened till
+Harriet's footsteps had died away, and then, with a beating heart, tried
+to open the door; it was locked from without.  She sighed heavily.  The
+window?--alas! when she had removed the shutter, there was another one
+barred from without, which precluded all hope there; she had no help for
+it but to bolt her door, stand forlorn and amazed at her own condition,
+and, at last, falling on her knees, to pray, in her own simple fashion,
+which since her recent visits to the schoolmistress had become more
+intelligent and earnest, to Him from whom no bolts and no bars can
+exclude the voice of the human heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+          "In te omnis domus inclinata recumbit."--VIRGIL.
+
+            [On thee the whole house rests confidingly.]
+
+Lord Lilburne, seated before a tray in the drawing-room, was finishing
+his own solitary dinner, and Dykeman was standing close behind him,
+nervous and agitated.  The confidence of many years between the master
+and the servant--the peculiar mind of Lilburne, which excluded him from
+all friendship with his own equals--had established between the two the
+kind of intimacy so common with the noble and the valet of the old French
+_regime_, and indeed, in much Lilburne more resembled the men of that day
+and land, than he did the nobler and statelier being which belongs to our
+own.  But to the end of time, whatever is at once vicious, polished, and
+intellectual, will have a common likeness.
+
+"But, my lord," said Dykeman, "just reflect.  This girl is so well known
+in the place; she will be sure to be missed; and if any violence is done
+to her, it's a capital crime, my lord--a capital crime.  I know they
+can't hang a great lord like you, but all concerned in it may----"
+
+Lord Lilburne interrupted the speaker by, "Give me some wine and hold
+your tongue!"  Then, when he had emptied his glass, he drew himself
+nearer to the fire, warmed his hands, mused a moment, and turned round to
+his confidant:--
+
+"Dykeman," said he, "though you're an ass and a coward, and you don't
+deserve that I should be so condescending, I will relieve your fears at
+once.  I know the law better than you can, for my whole life has been
+spent in doing exactly as I please, without ever putting myself in the
+power of LAW, which interferes with the pleasures of other men.  You are
+right in saying violence would be a capital crime.  Now the difference
+between vice and crime is this: Vice is what parsons write sermons
+against, Crime is what we make laws against.  I never committed a crime
+in all my life,--at an age between fifty and sixty--I am not going to
+begin.  Vices are safe things; I may have my vices like other men: but
+crimes are dangerous things--illegal things--things to be carefully
+avoided.  Look you" (and here the speaker, fixing his puzzled listener
+with his eye, broke into a grin of sublime mockery), "let me suppose you
+to be the World--that cringing valet of valets, the WORLD!  I should say
+to you this, 'My dear World, you and I understand each other well,--we
+are made for each other,--I never come in your way, nor you in mine.  If
+I get drunk every day in my own room, that's vice, you can't touch me; if
+I take an extra glass for the first time in my life, and knock down the
+watchman, that's a crime which, if I am rich, costs me one pound--perhaps
+five pounds; if I am poor, sends me to the treadmill.  If I break the
+hearts of five hundred old fathers, by buying with gold or flattery the
+embraces of five hundred young daughters, that's vice,--your servant, Mr.
+World!  If one termagant wench scratches my face, makes a noise, and goes
+brazen-faced to the Old Bailey to swear to her shame, why that's crime,
+and my friend, Mr. World, pulls a hemp-rope out of his pocket.'  Now, do
+you understand?  Yes, I repeat," he added, with a change of voice, "I
+never committed a crime in my life,--I have never even been accused of
+one,--never had an action of _crim. con._--of seduction against me.  I
+know how to manage such matters better.  I was forced to carry off this
+girl, because I had no other means of courting her.  To court her is all
+I mean to do now.  I am perfectly aware that an action for violence, as
+you call it, would be the more disagreeable, because of the very weakness
+of intellect which the girl is said to possess, and of which report I
+don't believe a word.  I shall most certainly avoid even the remotest
+appearance that could be so construed.  It is for that reason that no one
+in the house shall attend the girl except yourself and your niece.  Your
+niece I can depend on, I know; I have been kind to her; I have got her a
+good husband; I shall get her husband a good place;--I shall be godfather
+to her first child.  To be sure, the other servants will know there's a
+lady in the house, but to that they are accustomed; I don't set up for a
+Joseph.  They need know no more, unless you choose to blab it out.  Well,
+then, supposing that at the end of a few days, more or less, without any
+rudeness on my part, a young woman, after seeing a few jewels, and fine
+dresses, and a pretty house, and being made very comfortable, and being
+convinced that her grandfather shall be taken care of without her slaving
+herself to death, chooses of her own accord to live with me, where's the
+crime, and who can interfere with it?"
+
+"Certainly, my lord, that alters the case," said Dykeman, considerably
+relieved.  "But still," he added, anxiously, "if the inquiry is made,--if
+before all this is settled, it is found out where she is?"
+
+"Why then no harm will be done--no violence will be committed.  Her
+grandfather,--drivelling and a miser, you say--can be appeased by a
+little money, and it will be nobody's business, and no case can be made
+of it.  Tush! man!  I always look before I leap!  People in this world
+are not so charitable as you suppose.  What more natural than that a poor
+and pretty girl--not as wise as Queen Elizabeth--should be tempted to pay
+a visit to a rich lover!
+
+"All they can say of the lover is, that he is a very gay man or a very bad
+man, and that's saying nothing new of me.  But don't think it will be
+found out.  Just get me that stool; this has been a very troublesome
+piece of business--rather tried me.  I am not so young as I was.  Yes,
+Dykeman, something which that Frenchman Vaudemont, or Vautrien, or
+whatever his name is, said to me once, has a certain degree of truth.
+I felt it in the last fit of the gout, when my pretty niece was smoothing
+my pillows.  A nurse, as we grow older, may be of use to one.  I wish to
+make this girl like me, or be grateful to me.  I am meditating a longer
+and more serious attachment than usual,--a companion!"
+
+"A companion, my lord, in that poor creature!--so ignorant--so
+uneducated!"
+
+"So much the better.  This world palls upon me," said Lilburne, almost
+gloomily.  "I grow sick of the miserable quackeries--of the piteous
+conceits that men, women, and children call 'knowledge,'  I wish to catch
+a glimpse of nature before I die.  This creature interests me, and that
+is something in this life.  Clear those things away, and leave me."
+
+"Ay!" muttered Lilburne, as he bent over the fire alone, "when I first
+heard that that girl was the granddaughter of Simon Gawtrey, and,
+therefore, the child of the man whom I am to thank that I am a cripple,
+I felt as if love to her were a part of that hate which I owe to him; a
+segment in the circle of my vengeance.  But now, poor child!
+
+"I forget all this.  I feel for her, not passion, but what I never felt
+before, affection.  I feel that if I had such a child, I could understand
+what men mean when they talk of the tenderness of a father.  I have not
+one impure thought for that girl--not one.  But I would give thousands if
+she could love me.  Strange! strange! in all this I do not recognise
+myself!"
+
+Lord Lilburne retired to rest betimes that night; he slept sound; rose
+refreshed at an earlier hour than usual; and what he considered a fit of
+vapours of the previous night was passed away.  He looked with eagerness
+to an interview with Fanny.  Proud of his intellect, pleased in any of
+those sinister exercises of it which the code and habits of his life so
+long permitted to him, he regarded the conquest of his fair adversary
+with the interest of a scientific game.  Harriet went to Fanny's room to
+prepare her to receive her host; and Lord Lilburne now resolved to make
+his own visit the less unwelcome by reserving for his especial gift some
+showy, if not valuable, trinkets, which for similar purposes never failed
+the depositories of the villa he had purchased for his pleasures.  He,
+recollected that these gewgaws were placed in the bureau in the study; in
+which, as having a lock of foreign and intricate workmanship, he usually
+kept whatever might tempt cupidity in those frequent absences when the
+house was left guarded but by two women servants.  Finding that Fanny had
+not yet quitted her own chamber, while Harriet went up to attend and
+reason with her, he himself limped into the study below, unlocked the
+bureau, and was searching in the drawers, when he heard the voice of
+Fanny above, raised a little as if in remonstrance or entreaty; and he
+paused to listen.  He could not, however, distinguish what was said; and
+in the meanwhile, without attending much to what he was about, his bands
+were still employed in opening and shutting the drawers, passing through
+the pigeon-holes, and feeling for a topaz brooch, which he thought could
+not fail of pleasing the unsophisticated eyes of Fanny.  One of the
+recesses was deeper than the rest; he fancied the brooch was there; he
+stretched his hand into the recess; and, as the room was partially
+darkened by the lower shutters from without, which were still unclosed to
+prevent any attempted escape of his captive, he had only the sense of
+touch to depend on; not finding the brooch, he stretched on till he came
+to the extremity of the recess, and was suddenly sensible of a sharp
+pain; the flesh seemed caught as in a trap; he drew back his finger with
+sudden force and a half-suppressed exclamation, and he perceived the
+bottom or floor of the pigeon-hole recede, as if sliding back.  His
+curiosity was aroused; he again felt warily and cautiously, and
+discovered a very slight inequality and roughness at the extremity of the
+recess.  He was aware instantly that there was some secret spring; he
+pressed with some force on the spot, and he felt the board give way; he
+pushed it back towards him, and it slid suddenly with a whirring noise,
+and left a cavity below exposed to his sight.  He peered in, and drew
+forth a paper; he opened it at first carelessly, for he was still trying
+to listen to Fanny.  His eye ran rapidly over a few preliminary lines
+till it rested on what follows:
+
+"Marriage.  The year 18--
+
+"No. 83, page 21.
+
+"Philip Beaufort, of this parish of A-----, and Catherine Morton, of the
+parish of St. Botolph, Aldgate, London, were married in this church by
+banns, this 12th day of November, in the year one thousand eight hundred
+and ----' by me,
+                                      "CALEB PRICE, Vicar.
+
+"This marriage was solemnised between us,
+                                      "PHILIP BEAUFORT.
+                                      "CATHERINE MORTON.
+
+"In the presence of
+                                      "DAVID APREECE.
+                                      "WILLIAM SMITH.
+
+"The above is a true copy taken from the registry of marriages, in A-----
+parish, this 19th day of March, 18--, by me,
+                                "MORGAN JONES, Curate of C-------."
+
+
+     [This is according to the form customary at the date at which the
+     copy was made.  There has since been an alteration.]
+
+
+Lord Lilburne again cast his eye over the lines prefixed to this
+startling document, which, being those written at Caleb's desire, by Mr.
+Jones to Philip Beaufort, we need not here transcribe to the reader.  At
+that instant Harriet descended the stairs, and came into the room; she
+crept up on tiptoe to Lilburne, and whispered,--
+
+"She is coming down, I think; she does not know you are here."
+
+"Very well--go!"  said Lord Lilburne.  And scarce had Harriet left the
+room, when a carriage drove furiously to the door, and Robert Beaufort
+rushed into the study.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+     "Gone, and none know it.
+
+     How now?--What news, what hopes and steps discovered!"
+     BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: _The Pilgrim_.
+
+When Philip arrived at his lodgings in town it was very late, but he
+still found Liancourt waiting the chance of his arrival.  The Frenchman
+was full of his own schemes and projects.  He was a man of high repute
+and connections; negotiations for his recall to Paris had been entered
+into; he was divided between a Quixotic loyalty and a rational prudence;
+he brought his doubts to Vaudemont.  Occupied as he was with thoughts of
+so important and personal a nature, Philip could yet listen patiently to
+his friend, and weigh with him the pros and cons.  And after having
+mutually agreed that loyalty and prudence would both be best consulted by
+waiting a little, to see if the nation, as the Carlists yet fondly
+trusted, would soon, after its first fever, offer once more the throne
+and the purple to the descendant of St. Louis, Liancourt, as he lighted
+his cigar to walk home, said, "A thousand thanks to you, my dear friend:
+and how have you enjoyed yourself in your visit?  I am not surprised or
+jealous that Lilburne did not invite me, as I do not play at cards, and
+as I have said some sharp things to him!"
+
+"I fancy I shall have the same disqualifications for another invitation,"
+said Vaudemont, with a severe smile.  "I may have much to disclose to you
+in a few days.  At present my news is still unripe.  And have you seen
+anything of Lilburne?  He left us some days since.  Is he in London?"
+"Yes; I was riding with our friend Henri, who wished to try a new horse
+off the stones, a little way into the country yesterday.  We went through
+------ and H----.  Pretty places, those.  Do you know them?"
+
+"Yes; I know H----."
+
+"And just at dusk, as we were spurring back to town, whom should I see
+walking on the path of the high-road but Lord Lilburne himself!  I could
+hardly believe my eyes.  I stopped, and, after asking him about you, I
+could not help expressing my surprise to see him on foot at such a place.
+You know the man's sneer.  'A Frenchman so gallant as Monsieur de
+Liancourt,' said he, 'need not be surprised at much greater miracles; the
+iron moves to the magnet: I have a little adventure here.  Pardon me if I
+ask you to ride on.'  Of course I wished him good day; and a little
+farther up the road I saw a dark plain chariot, no coronet, no arms, no
+footman only the man on the box, but the beauty of the horses assured me
+it must belong to Lilburne.  Can you conceive such absurdity in a man of
+that age--and a very clever fellow too?  Yet, how is it that one does not
+ridicule it in Lilburne, as one would in another man between fifty and
+sixty?"
+
+"Because one does not ridicule,--one loathes-him."
+
+"No; that's not it.  The fact is that one can't fancy Lilburne old.  His
+manner is young--his eye is young.  I never saw any one with so much
+vitality.  'The bad heart and the good digestion'--the twin secrets for
+wearing well, eh!"
+
+"Where did you meet him--not near H----?"
+
+"Yes; close by.  Why?  Have you any adventure there too?  Nay, forgive
+me; it was but a jest.  Good night!"
+
+Vaudemont fell into an uneasy reverie: he could not divine exactly why
+he should be alarmed; but he was alarmed at Lilburne being in the
+neighbourhood of H----.  It was the foot of the profane violating the
+sanctuary.  An undefined thrill shot through him, as his mind coupled
+together the associations of Lilburne and Fanny; but there was no ground
+for forebodings.  Fanny did not stir out alone.  An adventure, too--pooh!
+Lord Lilburne must be awaiting a willing and voluntary appointment, most
+probably from some one of the fair but decorous frailties of London.
+Lord Lilburne's more recent conquests were said to be among those of his
+own rank; suburbs are useful for such assignations.  Any other thought
+was too horrible to be contemplated.  He glanced to the clock; it was
+three in the morning.  He would go to H---- early, even before he sought
+out Mr. William Smith.  With that resolution, and even his hardy frame
+worn out by the excitement of the day, he threw himself on his bed and
+fell asleep.
+
+He did not wake till near nine, and had just dressed, and hurried over
+his abstemious breakfast, when the servant of the house came to tell him
+that an old woman, apparently in great agitation, wished to see him.  His
+head was still full of witnesses and lawsuits; and he was vaguely
+expecting some visitor connected with his primary objects, when Sarah
+broke into the room.  She cast a hurried, suspicious look round her, and
+then throwing herself on her knees to him, "Oh!" she cried, "if you have
+taken that poor young thing away, God forgive you.  Let her come back
+again. It shall be all hushed up.  Don't ruin her! don't, that's a dear
+good gentleman!"
+
+"Speak plainly, woman--what do you mean?"  cried Philip, turning pale.
+
+A very few words sufficed for an explanation: Fanny's disappearance the
+previous night; the alarm of Sarah at her non-return; the apathy of old
+Simon, who did not comprehend what had happened, and quietly went to bed;
+the search Sarah had made during half the night; the intelligence she had
+picked up, that the policeman, going his rounds, had heard a female
+shriek near the school; but that all he could perceive through the mist
+was a carriage driving rapidly past him; Sarah's suspicions of Vaudemont
+confirmed in the morning, when, entering Fanny's room, she perceived the
+poor girl's unfinished letter with his own, the clue to his address that
+the letter gave her; all this, ere she well understood what she herself
+was talking about,--Vaudemont's alarm seized, and the reflection of a
+moment construed: the carriage; Lilburne seen lurking in the
+neighbourhood the previous day; the former attempt;--all flashed on him
+with an intolerable glare.  While Sarah was yet speaking, he rushed from
+the house, he flew to Lord Lilburne's in Park Lane; he composed his
+manner, he inquired calmly.  His lordship had slept from home; he was,
+they believed, at Fernside: Fernside!  H---- was on the direct way to
+that villa.  Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed since he heard the story
+ere he was on the road, with such speed as the promise of a guinea a mile
+could extract from the spurs of a young post-boy applied to the flanks of
+London post-horses.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+                    "Ex humili magna ad fastigia rerum
+                    Extollit."--JUVENAL.
+
+               [Fortune raises men from low estate to the very
+               summit of prosperity.]
+
+When Harriet had quitted Fanny, the waiting-woman, craftily wishing to
+lure her into Lilburne's presence, had told her that the room below was
+empty; and the captive's mind naturally and instantly seized on the
+thought of escape.  After a brief breathing pause, she crept noiselessly
+down the stairs, and gently opened the door; and at the very instant she
+did so, Robert Beaufort entered from the other door; she drew back in
+terror, when, what was her astonishment in hearing a name uttered that
+spell-bound her--the last name she could have expected to hear; for
+Lilburne, the instant he saw Beaufort, pale, haggard, agitated, rush into
+the room, and bang the door after him, could only suppose that something
+of extraordinary moment had occurred with regard to the dreaded guest,
+and cried:
+
+"You come about Vaudemont!  Something has happened about Vaudemont!
+about Philip!  What is it?  Calm yourself."
+
+Fanny, as the name was thus abruptly uttered, actually thrust her face
+through the door; but she again drew back, and, all her senses
+preternaturally quickened at that name, while she held the door almost
+closed, listened with her whole soul in her ears.
+
+The faces of both the men were turned from her, and her partial entry had
+not been perceived.
+
+"Yes," said Robert Beaufort, leaning his weight, as if ready to sink to
+the ground, upon Lilburne's shoulder, "Yes; Vaudemont, or Philip, for
+they are one,--yes, it is about that man I have come to consult you.
+Arthur has arrived."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"And Arthur has seen the wretch who visited us, and the rascal's manner
+has so imposed on him, so convinced him that Philip is the heir to all
+our property, that he has come over-ill, ill--I fear" (added Beaufort, in
+a hollow voice), "dying, to--to--"
+
+"To guard against their machinations?"
+
+"No, no, no--to say that if such be the case, neither honour nor
+conscience will allow us to resist his rights.  He is so obstinate in
+this matter; his nerves so ill bear reasoning and contradiction, that I
+know not what to do--"
+
+"Take breath-go on."
+
+"Well, it seems that this man found out Arthur almost as soon as my son
+arrived at Paris--that he has persuaded Arthur that he has it in his
+power to prove the marriage--that he pretended to be very impatient for a
+decision--that Arthur, in order to gain time to see me, affected
+irresolution--took him to Boulogne, for the rascal does not dare to
+return to England--left him there; and now comes back, my own son, as my
+worst enemy, to conspire against me for my property!  I could not have
+kept my temper if I had stayed.  But that's not all--that's not the
+worst: Vaudemont left me suddenly in the morning on the receipt of a
+letter.  In taking leave of Camilla he let fall hints which fill me with
+fear.  Well, I inquired his movements as I came along; he had stopped at
+D----, had been closeted for above an hour with a man whose name the
+landlord of the inn knew, for it was on his carpet-bag--the name was
+Barlow.  You remember the advertisements!  Good Heavens! what is to be
+done?  I would not do anything unhandsome or dishonest.  But there never
+was a marriage.  I never will believe there was a marriage--never!"
+
+"There was a marriage, Robert Beaufort," said Lord Lilburne, almost
+enjoying the torture he was about to inflict; "and I hold here a paper
+that Philip Vaudemont--for so we will yet call him--would give his right
+hand to clutch for a moment.  I have but just found it in a secret cavity
+in that bureau.  Robert, on this paper may depend the fate, the fortune,
+the prosperity, the greatness of Philip Vaudemont;--or his poverty, his
+exile, his ruin.  See!"
+
+Robert Beaufort glanced over the paper held out to him--dropped it on the
+floor--and staggered to a seat.  Lilburne coolly replaced the document in
+the bureau, and, limping to his brother-in-law, said with a smile,--
+
+"But the paper is in my possession--I will not destroy it.  No; I have no
+right to destroy it.  Besides, it would be a crime; but if I give it to
+you, you can do with it as you please."
+
+"O Lilburne, spare me--spare me.  I meant to be an honest man.  I--I--"
+And Robert Beaufort sobbed.  Lilburne looked at him in scornful surprise.
+
+"Do not fear that I shall ever think worse of you; and who else will know
+it?  Do not fear me.  No;--I, too, have reasons to hate and to fear this
+Philip Vaudemont; for Vaudemont shall be his name, and not Beaufort, in
+spite of fifty such scraps of paper!  He has known a man--my worst foe--
+he has secrets of mine--of my past-perhaps of my present:  but I laugh at
+his knowledge while he is a wandering adventurer;--I should tremble at
+that knowledge if he could thunder it out to the world as Philip Beaufort
+of Beaufort Court!  There, I am candid with you.  Now hear my plan.
+Prove to Arthur that his visitor is a convicted felon, by sending the
+officers of justice after him instantly--off with him again to the
+Settlements.  Defy a single witness--entrap Vaudemont back to France and
+prove him (I think I will prove him such--I think so--with a little money
+and a little pains)--prove him the accomplice of William Gawtrey, a
+coiner and a murderer!  Pshaw! take yon paper.  Do with it as you will--
+keep it-give it to Arthur--let Philip Vaudemont have it, and Philip
+Vaudemont will be rich and great, the happiest man between earth and
+paradise!  On the other hand, come and tell me that you have lost it, or
+that I never gave you such a paper, or that no such paper ever existed;
+and Philip Vaudemont may live a pauper, and die, perhaps, a slave at the
+galleys!  Lose it, I say,--lose it,--and advise with me upon the rest."
+
+Horror-struck, bewildered, the weak man gazed upon the calm face of the
+Master-villain, as the scholar of the old fables might have gazed on the
+fiend who put before him worldly prosperity here and the loss of his soul
+hereafter.  He had never hitherto regarded Lilburne in his true light.
+He was appalled by the black heart that lay bare before him.
+
+"I can't destroy it--I can't," he faltered out; "and if I did, out of
+love for Arthur,--don't talk of galleys,--of vengeance--I--I--"
+
+"The arrears of the rents you have enjoyed will send you to gaol for your
+life.  No, no; _don't_ destroy the paper."
+
+Beaufort rose with a desperate effort; he moved to the bureau.  Fanny's
+heart was on her lips;--of this long conference she had understood only
+the one broad point on which Lilburne had insisted with an emphasis that
+could have enlightened an infant; and he looked on Beaufort as an infant
+then--_On that paper rested Philip Vaudemont's fate--happiness if saved,
+ruin if destroyed; Philip--her Philip!_  And Philip himself had said to
+her once--when had she ever forgotten his words? and now how those words
+flashed across her--Philip himself had said to her once, "Upon a scrap of
+paper, if I could but find it, may depend my whole fortune, my whole
+happiness, all that I care for in life."--Robert Beaufort moved to the
+bureau--he seized the document--he looked over it again, hurriedly, and
+ere Lilburne, who by no means wished to have it destroyed in his own
+presence, was aware of his intention--he hastened with tottering steps to
+the hearth-averted his eyes, and cast it on the fire.  At that instant
+something white--he scarce knew what, it seemed to him as a spirit, as a
+ghost--darted by him, and snatched the paper, as yet uninjured, from the
+embers!  There was a pause for the hundredth part of a moment:--a
+gurgling sound of astonishment and horror from Beaufort--an exclamation
+from Lilburne--a laugh from Fanny, as, her eyes flashing light, with a
+proud dilation of stature, with the paper clasped tightly to her bosom,
+she turned her looks of triumph from one to the other.  The two men were
+both too amazed, at the instant, for rapid measures.  But Lilburne,
+recovering himself first, hastened to her; she eluded his grasp--she made
+towards the door to the passage; when Lilburne, seriously alarmed, seized
+her arm;--
+
+"Foolish child!--give me that paper!"
+
+"Never but with my life!"  And Fanny's cry for help rang through the
+house.
+
+"Then--" the speech died on his lips, for at that instant a rapid stride
+was heard without--a momentary scuffle--voices in altercation;--the door
+gave way as if a battering ram had forced it;--not so much thrown forward
+as actually hurled into the room, the body of Dykeman fell heavily, like
+a dead man's, at the very feet of Lord Lilburne--and Philip Vaudemont
+stood in the doorway!
+
+The grasp of Lilburne on Fanny's arm relaxed, and the girl, with one
+bound, sprung to Philip's breast.  "Here, here!" she cried, "take it--
+take it!" and she thrust the paper into his hand.  "Don't let them have
+it--read it--see it--never mind me!"  But Philip, though his hand
+unconsciously closed on the precious document, did mind Fanny; and in
+that moment her cause was the only one in the world to him.
+
+"Foul villain!" he said, as he strode to Lilburne, while Fanny still
+clung to his breast: "Speak!--speak!--is--she--is she?--man--man, speak!
+--you know what I would say!--She is the child of your own daughter--the
+grandchild of that Mary whom you dishonoured--the child of the woman whom
+William Gawtrey saved from pollution!  Before he died, Gawtrey commended
+her to my care!--O God of Heaven!--speak!--I am not too late!"
+
+The manner, the words, the face of Philip left Lilburne terror-stricken
+with conviction.  But the man's crafty ability, debased as it was,
+triumphed even over remorse for the dread guilt meditated,--over
+gratitude for the dread guilt spared.  He glanced at Beaufort--at
+Dykeman, who now, slowly recovering, gazed at him with eyes that seemed
+starting from their sockets; and lastly fixed his look on Philip himself.
+There were three witnesses--presence of mind was his great attribute.
+
+"And if, Monsieur de Vaudemont, I knew, or, at least, had the firmest
+persuasion that Fanny was my grandchild, what then?  Why else should she
+be here?--Pooh, sir!  I am an old man."
+
+Philip recoiled a step in wonder; his plain sense was baffled by the calm
+lie.  He looked down at Fanny, who, comprehending nothing of what was
+spoken, for all her faculties, even her very sense of sight and hearing,
+were absorbed in her impatient anxiety for him, cried out:
+
+"No harm has come to Fanny--none: only frightened.  Read!--Read!--Save
+that paper!--You know what you once said about a mere scrap of paper!
+Come away! Come!"
+
+He did now cast his eyes on the paper he held.  That was an awful moment
+for Robert Beaufort--even for Lilburne!  To snatch the fatal document
+from that gripe!  They would as soon have snatched it from a tiger!  He
+lifted his eyes--they rested on his mother's picture!  Her lips smiled on
+him!  He turned to Beaufort in a state of emotion too exulting, too blest
+for vulgar vengeance--for vulgar triumph--almost for words.
+
+"Look yonder, Robert Beaufort--look!"  and he pointed to the picture.
+"Her name is spotless!  I stand again beneath a roof that was my
+father's,--the Heir of Beaufort!  We shall meet before the justice of our
+country.  For you, Lord Lilburne, I will believe you: it is too horrible
+to doubt even your intentions.  If wrong had chanced to her, I would have
+rent you where you stand, limb from limb.  And thank her",--(for Lilburne
+recovered at this language the daring of his youth, before calculation,
+indolence, and excess had dulled the edge of his nerves; and, unawed by
+the height, and manhood, and strength of his menacer, stalked haughtily
+up to him)--"and thank your relationship to her," said Philip, sinking
+his voice into a whisper, "that I do not brand you as a pilferer and a
+cheat!  Hush, knave!--hush, pupil of George Gawtrey!--there are no duels
+for me but with men of honour!"
+
+Lilburne now turned white, and the big word stuck in his throat.  In
+another instant Fanny and her guardian had quitted the house.
+
+"Dykeman," said Lord Lilburne after a long silence, "I shall ask you
+another time how you came to admit that impertinent person.  At present,
+go and order breakfast for Mr. Beaufort."
+
+As soon as Dykeman, more astounded, perhaps, by his lord's coolness than
+even by the preceding circumstances, had left the study, Lilburne came up
+to Beaufort,--who seemed absolutely stricken as if by palsy,--and
+touching him impatiently and rudely, said,--
+
+"'Sdeath, man!--rouse yourself!  There is not a moment to be lost!  I
+have already decided on what you are to do.  This paper is not worth a
+rush, unless the curate who examined it will depose to that fact.  He is
+a curate--a Welsh curate;--you are yet Mr. Beaufort, a rich and a great
+man.  The curate, properly managed, may depose to the contrary; and then
+we will indict them all for forgery and conspiracy.  At the worst, you
+can, no doubt, get the parson to forget all about it--to stay away.  His
+address was on the certificate:
+
+"--C-----.  Go yourself into Wales without an instant's delay-- Then,
+having arranged with Mr. Jones, hurry back, cross to Boulogne, and buy
+this convict and his witnesses, buy them!  That, now, is the only thing.
+Quick! quick!--quick!  Zounds, man!  if it were my affair, my estate, I
+would not care a pin for that fragment of paper; I should rather rejoice
+at it.  I see how it could be turned against them!  Go!"
+
+"No, no; I am not equal to it!  Will you manage it? will you?  Half my
+estate!--all!  Take it: but save--"
+
+"Tut!"  interrupted Lord Lilburne, in great disdain.  "I am as rich as I
+want to be.  Money does not bribe me.  I manage this!  I!  Lord Lilburne.
+I!  Why, if found out, it is subornation of witnesses.  It is exposure--
+it is dishonour--it is ruin.  What then?  You should take the risk--for
+you must meet ruin if you do not.  I cannot.  I have nothing to gain!"
+
+"I dare not!-I dare not!"  murmured Beaufort, quite spirit-broken.
+"Subornation, dishonour, exposure!--and I, so respectable--my character!
+--and my son against me, too!--my son, in whom I lived again!  No, no;
+let them take all!  Let them take it!  Ha!  ha!  let them take it!  Good-
+day to you."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"I shall consult Mr. Blackwell, and I'll let you know."  And Beaufort
+walked tremulously back to his carriage.  "Go to his lawyer!"  growled
+Lilburne.  "Yes, if his lawyer can help him to defraud men lawfully,
+he'll defraud them fast enough.  That will be the respectable way of
+doing it!  Um!--This may be an ugly business for me--the paper found
+here--if the girl can depose to what she heard, and she must have heard
+something.--No, I think the laws of real property will hardly allow her
+evidence; and if they do--Um!--My granddaughter--is it possible!--And
+Gawtrey rescued her mother, my child, from her own mother's vices!  I
+thought my liking to that girl different from any other I have ever felt:
+it was pure--it _was!_--it was pity--affection.  And I must never see her
+again--must forget the whole thing!  And I sin growing old--and I am
+childless--and alone!"  He paused, almost with a groan: and then the
+expression of his face changing to rage, he cried out, "The man
+threatened me, and I was a coward!  What to do?--Nothing!  The defensive
+is my line.  I shall play no more.--I attack no one.  Who will accuse
+Lord Lilburne?  Still, Robert is a fool.  I must not leave him to
+himself.  Ho! there!  Dykeman!--the carriage!  I shall go to London."
+
+Fortunate, no doubt, it was for Philip that Mr. Beaufort was not Lord
+Lilburne.  For all history teaches us--public and private history--
+conquerors--statesmen--sharp hypocrites and brave designers--yes, they
+all teach us how mighty one man of great intellect and no scruple is
+against the justice of millions!  The One Man moves--the Mass is inert.
+Justice sits on a throne.  Roguery never rests,--Activity is the lever of
+Archimedes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+          "Quam inulta injusta ac prava fiunt moribus."--TULL.
+
+          [How many unjust and vicious actions are perpetrated
+          under the name of morals.]
+
+                         "Volat ambiguis
+                         Mobilis alis Hera."--SENECA.
+
+                 [The hour flies moving with doubtful wings.]
+
+
+Mr. Robert Beaufort sought Mr. Blackwell, and long, rambling, and
+disjointed was his narrative.  Mr. Blackwell, after some consideration,
+proposed to _set about doing_ the very things that Lilburne had proposed
+at once to do.  But the lawyer expressed himself legally and covertly, so
+that it did not seem to the sober sense of Mr. Beaufort at all the same
+plan.  He was not the least alarmed at what Mr. Blackwell proposed,
+though so shocked at what Lilburne dictated.  Blackwell would go the next
+day into Wales--he would find out Mr. Jones--he would sound him!  Nothing
+was more common with people of the nicest honour, than just to get a
+witness out of the way!  Done in election petitions, for instance, every
+day.
+
+"True," said Mr. Beaufort, much relieved.
+
+Then, after having done that, Mr. Blackwell would return to town, and
+cross over to Boulogne to see this very impudent person whom Arthur
+(young men were so apt to be taken in!) had actually believed.  He had no
+doubt he could settle it all.  Robert Beaufort returned to Berkeley
+Square actually in spirits.  There he found Lilburne, who, on reflection,
+seeing that Blackwell was at all events more up to the business than his
+brother, assented to the propriety of the arrangement.
+
+Mr. Blackwell accordingly did set off the next day. _That next_ day,
+perhaps, made all the difference.  Within two hours from his gaining the
+document so important, Philip, without any subtler exertion of intellect
+than the decision of a plain, bold sense, had already forestalled both
+the peer and the lawyer.  He had sent down Mr. Barlow's head clerk to his
+master in Wales with the document, and a short account of the manner in
+which it had been discovered.  And fortunate, indeed, was it that the
+copy had been found; for all the inquiries of Mr. Barlow at A---- had
+failed, and probably would have failed, without such a clue, in fastening
+upon any one probable person to have officiated as Caleb Price's
+amanuensis.  The sixteen hours' start Mr. Barlow gained over Blackwell
+enabled the former to see Mr. Jones--to show him his own handwriting--
+to get a written and witnessed attestation from which the curate, however
+poor, and however tempted, could never well have escaped (even had he
+been dishonest, which he was not), of his perfect recollection of the
+fact of making an extract from the registry at Caleb's desire, though he
+owned he had quite forgotten the names he extracted till they were again
+placed before him.  Barlow took care to arouse Mr. Jones's interest in
+the case--quitted Wales--hastened over to Boulogne--saw Captain Smith,
+and without bribes, without threats, but by plainly proving to that
+worthy person that he could not return to England nor see his brother
+without being immediately arrested; that his brother's evidence was
+already pledged on the side of truth; and that by the acquisition of new
+testimony there could be no doubt that the suit would be successful--he
+diverted the captain from all disposition towards perfidy, convinced him
+on which side his interest lay, and saw him return to Paris, where very
+shortly afterwards he disappeared for ever from this world, being forced
+into a duel, much against his will (with a Frenchman whom he had
+attempted to defraud), and shot through the lungs.  Thus verifying a
+favourite maxim of Lord Lilburne's, viz. that it does not do, in the long
+run, for little men to play the Great Game!
+
+On the same day that Blackwell returned, frustrated in his half-and-half
+attempts to corrupt Mr. Jones, and not having been able even to discover
+Mr. Smith, Mr. Robert Beaufort received a notice of an Action for
+Ejectment to be brought by Philip Beaufort at the next Assizes.  And, to
+add to his afflictions, Arthur, whom he had hitherto endeavoured to amuse
+by a sort of ambiguous shilly-shally correspondence,  became so
+alarmingly worse, that  his mother brought him up to town for advice.
+Lord Lilburne was, of course, sent for; and on learning all, his counsel
+was prompt.
+
+"I told you before that this man loves your daughter.  See if you can
+effect a compromise.  The lawsuit will be ugly, and probably ruinous.  He
+has a right to claim six years' arrears--that is above L100,000.  Make
+yourself his father-in-law, and me his uncle-in-law; and, since we can't
+kill the wasp, we may at least soften the venom of his sting."
+
+Beaufort, still perplexed, irresolute, sought his son; and, for the first
+time, spoke to him frankly--that is, frankly for Robert Beaufort!  He
+owned that the copy of the register had been found by Lilburne in a
+secret drawer.  He made the best of the story Lilburne himself furnished
+him with (adhering, of course, to the assertion uttered or insinuated to
+Philip) in regard to Fanny's abduction and interposition; he said nothing
+of his attempt to destroy the paper.  Why should he?  By admitting the
+copy in court--if so advised--he could get rid of Fanny's evidence
+altogether; even without such concession, her evidence might possibly be
+objected to or eluded.  He confessed that he feared the witness who
+copied the register and the witness to the marriage were alive.  And then
+he talked pathetically of his desire to do what was right, his dread of
+slander and misinterpretation.  He said nothing of Sidney, and his belief
+that Sidney and Charles Spencer were the same; because, if his daughter
+were to be the instrument for effecting a compromise, it was clear that
+her engagement with Spencer must be cancelled and concealed.  And luckily
+Arthur's illness and Camilla's timidity, joined now to her father's
+injunctions not to excite Arthur in his present state with any additional
+causes of anxiety, prevented the confidence that might otherwise have
+ensued between the brother and sister.  And Camilla, indeed, had no heart
+for such a conference.  How, when she looked on Arthur's glassy eye, and
+listened to his hectic cough, could she talk to him of love and marriage?
+As to the automaton, Mrs. Beaufort, Robert made sure of her discretion.
+
+Arthur listened attentively to his father's communication; and the result
+of that interview was the following letter from Arthur to his cousin:
+
+"I write to you without fear of misconstruction; for I write to you
+unknown to all my family, and I am the only one of them who can have no
+personal interest in the struggle about to take place between my father
+and yourself.  Before the law can decide between you, I shall be in my
+grave.  I write this from the Bed of Death.  Philip, I write this--I, who
+stood beside a deathbed more sacred to you than mine--I, who received
+your mother's last sigh.  And with that sigh there was a smile that
+lasted when the sigh was gone: for I promised to befriend her children.
+Heaven knows how anxiously I sought to fulfil that solemn vow!  Feeble
+and sick myself, I followed you and your brother with no aim, no prayer,
+but this,--to embrace you and say, 'Accept a new brother in me.'  I spare
+you the humiliation, for it is yours, not mine, of recalling what passed
+between us when at last we met.  Yet, I still sought to save, at least,
+Sidney,--more especially confided to my care by his dying mother.  He
+mysteriously eluded our search; but we had reason, by a letter received
+from some unknown hand, to believe him saved and provided for.  Again I
+met you at Paris.  I saw you were poor.  Judging from your associate, I
+might with justice think you depraved.  Mindful of your declaration never
+to accept bounty from a Beaufort, and remembering with natural resentment
+the outrage I had before received from you, I judged it vain to seek and
+remonstrate with you, but I did not judge it vain to aid.  I sent you,
+anonymously, what at least would suffice, if absolute poverty had
+subjected you to evil courses, to rescue you from them it your heart were
+so disposed.  Perhaps that sum, trifling as it was, may have smoothed
+your path and assisted your career.  And why tell you all this now?  To
+dissuade from asserting rights you conceive to be just?--Heaven forbid!
+If justice is with you, so also is the duty due to your mother's name.
+But simply for this: that in asserting such rights, you content yourself
+with justice, not revenge--that in righting yourself, you do not wrong
+others.  If the law should decide for you, the arrears you could demand
+would leave my father and sister beggars.  This may be law--it would not
+be justice; for my father solemnly believed himself, and had every
+apparent probability in his favour, the true heir of the wealth that
+devolved upon him.  This is not all.  There may be circumstances
+connected with the discovery of a certain document that, if authentic,
+and I do not presume to question it, may decide the contest so far as it
+rests on truth; circumstances which might seem to bear hard upon my
+father's good name and faith.  I do not know sufficiently of law to say
+how far these could be publicly urged, or, if urged, exaggerated and
+tortured by an advocate's calumnious ingenuity.  But again, I say
+justice, and not revenge!  And with this I conclude, inclosing to you
+these lines, written in your own hand, and leaving you the arbiter of
+their value.
+                          "ARTHUR BEAUFORT."
+
+The lines inclosed were these, a second time placed before the reader
+
+     "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."
+
+
+This letter was sent to the only address of Monsieur de Vaudemont which
+the Beauforts knew, viz., his apartments in town, and he did not receive
+it the day it was sent.
+
+Meanwhile Arthur Beaufort's malady continued to gain ground rapidly.
+His father, absorbed in his own more selfish fears (though, at the first
+sight of Arthur, overcome by the alteration of his appearance), had
+ceased to consider his illness fatal.  In fact, his affection for Arthur
+was rather one of pride than love: long absence had weakened the ties of
+early custom.  He prized him as an heir rather than treasured him as a
+son.  It almost seemed that as the Heritage was in danger, so the Heir
+became less dear: this was only because he was less thought of.  Poor
+Mrs. Beaufort, yet but partially acquainted with the terrors of her
+husband, still clung to hope for Arthur.  Her affection for him brought
+out from the depths of her cold and insignificant character qualities
+that had never before been apparent.  She watched--she nursed--she tended
+him.  The fine lady was gone; nothing but the mother was left behind.
+
+With a delicate constitution, and with an easy temper, which yielded to
+the influence of companions inferior to himself, except in bodily vigour
+and more sturdy will, Arthur Beaufort had been ruined by prosperity.
+His talents and acquirements, if not first-rate, at least far above
+mediocrity, had only served to refine his tastes, not to strengthen his
+mind.  His amiable impulses, his charming disposition and sweet temper,
+had only served to make him the dupe of the parasites that feasted on the
+lavish heir.  His heart, frittered away in the usual round of light
+intrigues and hollow pleasures, had become too sated and exhausted for
+the redeeming blessings of a deep and a noble love.  He had so lived for
+Pleasure that he had never known Happiness.  His frame broke by excesses
+in which his better nature never took delight, he came home--to hear of
+ruin and to die!
+
+It was evening in the sick-room.  Arthur had risen from the bed to which,
+for some days, he had voluntarily taken, and was stretched on the sofa
+before the fire.  Camilla was leaning over him, keeping in the shade,
+that he might not see the tears which she could not suppress.  His mother
+had been endeavouring to amuse him, as she would have amused herself, by
+reading aloud one of the light novels of the hour; novels that paint the
+life of the higher classes as one gorgeous holyday.
+
+"My dear mother," said the patient querulously, "I have no interest in
+these false descriptions of the life I have led.  I know that life's
+worth.  Ah! had I been trained to some employment, some profession! had
+I--well--it is weak to repine.  Mother, tell me, you have seen Mons. de
+Vaudemont: is he strong and healthy?"
+
+"Yes; too much so.  He has not your elegance, dear Arthur."
+
+"And do you admire him, Camilla?  Has no other caught your heart or your
+fancy?"
+
+"My dear Arthur," interrupted Mrs. Beaufort, "you forget that Camilla is
+scarcely out; and of course a young girl's affections, if she's well
+brought up, are regulated by the experience of her parents.  It is time
+to take the medicine: it certainly agrees with you; you have more colour
+to-day, my dear, dear son."
+
+While Mrs. Beaufort was pouring out the medicine, the door gently opened,
+and Mr. Robert Beaufort appeared; behind him there rose a taller and a
+statelier form, but one which seemed more bent, more humbled, more
+agitated.  Beaufort advanced.  Camilla looked up and turned pale.  The
+visitor escaped from Mr. Beaufort's grasp on his arm; he came forward,
+trembling, he fell on his knees beside Arthur, and seizing his hand, bent
+over, it in silence.  But silence so stormy! silence more impressive than
+all words his breast heaved, his whole frame shook.  Arthur guessed at
+once whom he saw, and bent down gently as if to raise his visitor.
+
+"Oh! Arthur! Arthur!"  then cried Philip; "forgive me!  My mother's
+comforter--my cousin--my brother!  Oh! brother, forgive me!"
+
+And as he half rose, Arthur stretched out his arms, and Philip clasped
+him to his breast.
+
+It is in vain to describe the different feelings that agitated those who
+beheld; the selfish congratulations of Robert, mingled with a better and
+purer feeling; the stupor of the mother; the emotions that she herself
+could not unravel, which rooted Camilla to the spot.
+
+"You own me, then,--you own me!" cried Philip.  "You accept the
+brotherhood that my mad passions once rejected!  And you, too--you,
+Camilla--you who once knelt by my side, under this very roof--do you
+remember me now?  Oh, Arthur!  that letter--that letter!--yes, indeed,
+that aid which I ascribed to any one--rather than to you--made the date
+of a fairer fortune.  I may have owed to that aid the very fate that has
+preserved me till now; the very name which I have not discredited.  No,
+no; do not think you can ask me a favour; you can but claim your due.
+Brother! my dear brother!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+     "_Warwick_.--Exceeding well! his cares are now all over."
+     --_Henry IV_.
+
+The excitement of this interview soon overpowering Arthur, Philip, in
+quitting the room with Mr. Beaufort, asked a conference with that
+gentleman; and they went into the very parlour from which the rich man
+had once threatened to expel the haggard suppliant.  Philip glanced round
+the room, and the whole scene came again before him.  After a pause, he
+thus began,--
+
+"Mr. Beaufort, let the Past be forgotten.  We may have need of mutual
+forgiveness, and I, who have so wronged your noble son, am willing to
+suppose that I misjudged you.  I cannot, it is true, forego this
+lawsuit."
+
+Mr. Beaufort's face fell.
+
+"I have no right to do so.  I am the trustee of my father's honour and my
+mother's name: I must vindicate both: I cannot forego this lawsuit.  But
+when I once bowed myself to enter your house--then only with a hope,
+where now I have the certainty of obtaining my heritage--it was with the
+resolve to bury in oblivion every sentiment that would transgress the
+most temperate justice.  Now, I will do more.  If the law decide against
+me, we are as we were; if with me--listen: I will leave you the lands of
+Beaufort, for your life and your son's.  I ask but for me and for mine
+such a deduction from your wealth as will enable me, should my brother be
+yet living, to provide for him; and (if you approve the choice, which out
+of all earth I would desire to make) to give whatever belongs to more
+refined or graceful existence than I myself care for,--to her whom I
+would call my wife.  Robert Beaufort, in this room I once asked you to
+restore to me the only being I then loved: I am now again your suppliant;
+and this time you have it in your power to grant my prayer.  Let Arthur
+be, in truth, my brother: give me, if I prove myself, as I feel assured,
+entitled to hold the name my father bore, give me your daughter as my
+wife; give me Camilla, and I will not envy you the lands I am willing for
+myself to resign; and if they pass to any children, those children will
+be your daughter's!"
+
+The first impulse of Mr. Beaufort was to grasp the hand held out to him;
+to pour forth an incoherent torrent of praise and protestation, of
+assurances that he could not hear of such generosity, that what was right
+was right, that he should be proud of such a son-in-law, and much more in
+the same key.  And in the midst of this, it suddenly occurred to Mr.
+Beaufort, that if Philip's case were really as good as he said it was, he
+could not talk so coolly of resigning the property it would secure him
+for the term of a life (Mr. Beaufort thought of his own) so uncommonly
+good, to say nothing of Arthur's.  At this notion, he thought it best not
+to commit himself too far; drew in as artfully as he could, until he
+could consult Lord Lilburne and his lawyer; and recollecting also that
+he had a great deal to manage with respect to Camilla and her prior
+attachment, he began to talk of his distress for Arthur, of the necessity
+of waiting a little before Camilla was spoken to, while so agitated about
+her brother, of the exceedingly strong case which his lawyer advised him
+he possessed--not but what he would rather rest the matter on justice
+than law--and that if the law should be with him, he would not the less
+(provided he did not force his daughter's inclinations, of which, indeed,
+he had no fear) be most happy to bestow her hand on his brother's nephew,
+with such a portion as would be most handsome to all parties.
+
+It often happens to us in this world, that when we come with our heart in
+our hands to some person or other,--when we pour out some generous burst
+of feeling so enthusiastic and self-sacrificing, that a bystander would
+call us fool and Quixote;--it often, I say, happens to us, to find our
+warm self suddenly thrown back upon our cold self; to discover that we
+are utterly uncomprehended, and that the swine who would have munched up
+the acorn does not know what to make of the pearl.  That sudden ice which
+then freezes over us, that supreme disgust and despair almost of the
+whole world, which for the moment we confound with the one worldling--
+they who have felt, may reasonably ascribe to Philip.  He listened to Mr.
+Beaufort in utter and contemptuous silence, and then replied only,--
+
+"Sir, at all events this is a question for law to decide.  If it decide
+as you think, it is for you to act; if as I think, it is for me.  Till
+then I will speak to you no more of your daughter, or my intentions.
+Meanwhile, all I ask is the liberty to visit your son.  I would not be
+banished from his sick-room!"
+
+"My dear nephew!" cried Mr. Beaufort, again alarmed, "consider this house
+as your home."
+
+Philip bowed and retreated to the door, followed obsequiously by his
+uncle.
+
+It chanced that both Lord Lilburne and Mr. Blackwell were of the same
+mind as to the course advisable for Mr. Beaufort now to pursue.  Lord
+Lilburne was not only anxious to exchange a hostile litigation for an
+amicable lawsuit, but he was really eager to put the seal of relationship
+upon any secret with regard to himself that a man who might inherit
+L20,000. a year--a dead shot, and a bold tongue--might think fit to
+disclose.  This made him more earnest than he otherwise might have been
+in advice as to other people's affairs.  He spoke to Beaufort as a man of
+the world--to Blackwell as a lawyer.
+
+"Pin the man down to his generosity," said Lilburne, "before he gets the
+property.  Possession makes a great change in a man's value of money.
+After all, you can't enjoy the property when you're dead: he gives it
+next to Arthur, who is not married; and if anything happen to Arthur,
+poor fellow, why, in devolving on your daughter's husband and children,
+it goes in the right line.  Pin him down at once: get credit with the
+world for the most noble and disinterested conduct, by letting your
+counsel state that the instant you discovered the lost document you
+wished to throw no obstacle in the way of proving the marriage, and that
+the only thing to consider is, if the marriage be proved; if so, you will
+be the first to rejoice, &c.  &c.  You know all that sort of humbug as
+well as any man!"
+
+Mr. Blackwell suggested the same advice, though in different words--
+after taking the opinions of three eminent members of the bar; those
+opinions, indeed, were not all alike--one was adverse to Mr. Robert
+Beaufort's chance of success, one was doubtful of it, the third
+maintained that he had nothing to fear from the action--except, possibly,
+the ill-natured construction of the world.  Mr. Robert Beaufort disliked
+the idea of the world's ill-nature, almost as much as he did that of
+losing his property.  And when even this last and more encouraging
+authority, learning privately from Mr. Blackwell that Arthur's illness
+was of a nature to terminate fatally, observed, "that a compromise with a
+claimant, who was at all events Mr. Beaufort's nephew, by which Mr.
+Beaufort could secure the enjoyment of the estates to himself for life,
+and to his son for life also, should not (whatever his probabilities of
+legal success) be hastily rejected--unless he had a peculiar affection
+for a very distant relation--who, failing Mr. Beaufort's male issue and
+Philip's claim, would be heir-at-law, but whose rights would cease if
+Arthur liked to cut off the entail,"
+
+Mr. Beaufort at once decided.  He had a personal dislike to that distant
+heir-at-law; he had a strong desire to retain the esteem of the world; he
+had an innate conviction of the justice of Philip's claim; he had a
+remorseful recollection of his brother's generous kindness to himself; he
+preferred to have for his heir, in case of Arthur's decease, a nephew who
+would marry his daughter, than a remote kinsman.  And should, after all,
+the lawsuit fail to prove Philip's right, he was not sorry to have the
+estate in his own power by Arthur's act in cutting off the entail.
+Brief; all these reasons decided him.  He saw Philip--he spoke to Arthur
+--and all the preliminaries, as suggested above, were arranged between
+the parties.  The entail was cut off, and Arthur secretly prevailed upon
+his father, to whom, for the present, the fee-simple thus belonged, to
+make a will, by which he bequeathed the estates to Philip, without
+reference to the question of his legitimacy.  Mr. Beaufort felt his
+conscience greatly eased after this action--which, too, he could always
+retract if he pleased; and henceforth the lawsuit became but a matter of
+form, so far as the property it involved was concerned.
+
+While these negotiations went on, Arthur continued gradually to decline.
+Philip was with him always.  The sufferer took a strange liking to this
+long-dreaded relation, this man of iron frame and thews.  In Philip there
+was so much of life, that Arthur almost felt as if in his presence itself
+there was an antagonism to death.  And Camilla saw thus her cousin, day
+by day, hour by hour, in that sick chamber, lending himself, with the
+gentle tenderness of a woman, to soften the pang, to arouse the
+weariness, to cheer the dejection.  Philip never spoke to her of love: in
+such a scene that had been impossible.  She overcame in their mutual
+cares the embarrassment she had before felt in his presence; whatever her
+other feelings, she could not, at least, but be grateful to one so tender
+to her brother.  Three letters of Charles Spencer's had been, in the
+afflictions of the house, only answered by a brief line.  She now took
+the occasion of a momentary and delusive amelioration in Arthur's disease
+to write to him more at length.  She was carrying, as usual, the letter
+to her mother, when Mr. Beaufort met her, and took the letter from her
+hand.  He looked embarrassed for a moment, and bade her follow him into
+his study.  It was then that Camilla learned, for the first time,
+distinctly, the claims and rights of her cousin; then she learned also at
+what price those rights were to be enforced with the least possible
+injury to her father.  Mr. Beaufort naturally put the case before her in
+the strongest point of the dilemma.  He was to be ruined--utterly ruined;
+a pauper, a beggar, if Camilla did not save him.  The master of his fate
+demanded his daughter's hand.  Habitually subservient to even a whim of
+her parents, this intelligence, the entreaty, the command with which it
+was accompanied, overwhelmed her.  She answered but by tears; and Mr.
+Beaufort, assured of her submission, left her, to consider of the tone of
+the letter he himself should write to Mr. Spencer.  He had sat down to
+this very task when he was summoned to Arthur's room.  His son was
+suddenly taken worse: spasms that threatened immediate danger convulsed
+and exhausted him, and when these were allayed, he continued for three
+days so feeble that Mr. Beaufort, his eyes now thoroughly opened to the
+loss that awaited him, had no thoughts even for worldly interests.
+
+On the night of the third day, Philip, Robert Beaufort, his wife, his
+daughter, were grouped round the death-bed of Arthur.  The sufferer had
+just wakened from sleep, and he motioned to Philip to raise him.  Mr.
+Beaufort started, as by the dim light he saw his son in the arms of
+Catherine's! and another Chamber of Death seemed, shadow-like, to replace
+the one before him.  Words, long since uttered, knelled in his ear:
+"There shall be a death-bed yet beside which you shall see the spectre of
+her, now so calm, rising for retribution from the grave!"  His blood
+froze, his hair stood erect; he cast a hurried, shrinking glance round
+the twilight of the darkened room: and with a feeble cry covered his
+white face with his trembling hands!  But on Arthur's lips there was a
+serene smile; he turned his eyes from Philip to Camilla, and murmured,
+"She will repay you!"  A pause, and the mother's shriek rang through the
+room!  Robert Beaufort raised his face from his hands.  His son was dead!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+               "_Jul_.  And what reward do you propose?
+
+               It must be my love."--_The Double Marriage_.
+
+While these events, dark, hurried, and stormy, had befallen the family of
+his betrothed, Sidney lead continued his calm life by the banks of the
+lovely lake.  After a few weeks, his confidence in Camilla's fidelity
+overbore all his apprehensions and forebodings.  Her letters, though
+constrained by the inspection to which they were submitted, gave him
+inexpressible consolation and delight.  He began, however, early to fancy
+that there was a change in their tone.  The letters seemed to shun the
+one subject to which all others were as nought; they turned rather upon
+the guests assembled at Beaufort Court; and why I know not,--for there
+was nothing in them to authorise jealousy--the brief words devoted to
+Monsieur de Vaudemont filled him with uneasy and terrible suspicion.  He
+gave vent to these feelings, as fully as he dared do, under the knowledge
+that his letter would be seen; and Camilla never again even mentioned the
+name of Vaudemont.  Then there was a long pause; then her brother's
+arrival and illness were announced; then, at intervals, but a few hurried
+lines; then a complete, long, dreadful silence, and lastly, with a deep
+black border and a solemn black seal, came the following letter from Mr.
+Beaufort:
+
+"MY DEAR SIR,--I have the unutterable grief to announce to you and your
+worthy uncle the irreparable loss I have sustained in the death of my
+only son.  It is a month to day since he departed this life.  He died,
+sir, as a Christian should die--humbly, penitently--exaggerating the few
+faults of his short life, but--(and here the writer's hypocrisy, though
+so natural to him--was it, that he knew not that he was hypocritical?--
+fairly gave way before the real and human anguish, for which there is no
+dictionary!) but I cannot pursue this theme!
+
+"Slowly now awakening to the duties yet left me to discharge, I cannot
+but be sensible of the material difference in the prospects of my
+remaining child.  Miss Beaufort is now the heiress to an ancient name and
+a large fortune.  She subscribes with me to the necessity of consulting
+those new considerations which so melancholy an event forces upon her
+mind.  The little fancy--or liking--(the acquaintance was too short for
+more) that might naturally spring up between two amiable young persons
+thrown together in the country, must be banished from our thoughts.  As a
+friend, I shall be always happy to hear of your welfare; and should you
+ever think of a profession in which I can serve you, you may command my
+utmost interest and exertions.  I know, my young friend, what you will
+feel at first, and how disposed you will be to call me mercenary and
+selfish.  Heaven knows if that be really my character!  But at your age,
+impressions are easily effaced; and any experienced friend of the world
+will assure you that, in the altered circumstances of the case, I have no
+option.  All intercourse and correspondence, of course, cease with this
+letter,--until, at least, we may all meet, with no sentiments but those
+of friendship and esteem.  I desire my compliments to your worthy uncle,
+in which Mrs. and Miss Beaufort join; and I am sure you will be happy to
+hear that my wife and daughter, though still in great affliction, have
+suffered less in health than I could have ventured to anticipate.
+
+"Believe me, dear Sir,
+"Yours sincerely,
+"ROBERT BEAUFORT.
+
+"To C. SPENCER, Esq., Jun."
+
+
+When Sidney received this letter, he was with Mr. Spencer, and the latter
+read it over the young man's shoulder, on which he leant affectionately.
+When they came to the concluding words, Sidney turned round with a vacant
+look and a hollow smile.  "You see, sir," he said, "you see---"
+
+"My boy--my son--you bear this as you ought.  Contempt will soon
+efface--"
+
+Sidney started to his feet, and his whole countenance was changed.
+
+"Contempt--yes, for him!  But for her--she knows it not--she is no party
+to this--I cannot believe it--I will not!  I--I----" and he rushed out of
+the room.  He was absent till nightfall, and when he returned, he
+endeavoured to appear calm--but it was in vain.
+
+The next day brought him a letter from Camilla, written unknown to her
+parents,--short, it is true (confirming the sentence of separation
+contained in her father's), and imploring him not to reply to it,--but
+still so full of gentle and of sorrowful feeling, so evidently worded in
+the wish to soften the anguish she inflicted, that it did more than
+soothe--it even administered hope.
+
+Now when Mr. Robert Beaufort had recovered the ordinary tone of his mind
+sufficiently to indite the letter Sidney had just read, he had become
+fully sensible of the necessity of concluding the marriage between Philip
+and Camilla before the publicity of the lawsuit.  The action for the
+ejectment could not take place before the ensuing March or April.  He
+would waive the ordinary etiquette of time and mourning to arrange all
+before.  Indeed, he lived in hourly fear lest Philip should discover that
+he had a rival in his brother, and break off the marriage, with its
+contingent advantages.  The first announcement of such a suit in the
+newspapers might reach the Spencers; and if the young man were, as he
+doubted not, Sidney Beaufort, would necessarily bring him forward, and
+ensure the dreaded explanation.  Thus apprehensive and ever scheming,
+Robert Beaufort spoke to Philip so much, and with such apparent feeling,
+of his wish to gratify, at the earliest possible period, the last wish of
+his son, in the union now arranged--he spoke, with such seeming
+consideration and good sense, of the avoidance of all scandal and
+misinterpretation in the suit itself, which suit a previous marriage
+between the claimant and his daughter would show at once to be of so
+amicable a nature,--that Philip, ardently in love as he was, could not
+but assent to any hastening of his expected happiness compatible with
+decorum.  As to any previous publicity by way of newspaper comment, he
+agreed with Mr. Beaufort in deprecating it.  But then came the question,
+What name was he to bear in the interval?
+
+"As to that," said Philip, somewhat proudly, "when, after my mother's
+suit in her own behalf, I persuaded her not to bear the name of Beaufort,
+though her due--and for my own part, I prized her own modest name, which
+under such dark appearances was in reality spotless--as much as the
+loftier one which you bear and my father bore;--so I shall not resume the
+name the law denies me till the law restores it to me.  Law alone can
+efface the wrong which law has done me."
+
+Mr. Beaufort was pleased with this reasoning (erroneous though it was),
+and he now hoped that all would be safely arranged.
+
+That a girl so situated as Camilla, and of a character not energetic or
+profound, but submissive, dutiful, and timid, should yield to the
+arguments of her father, the desire of her dying brother--that she should
+not dare to refuse to become the instrument of peace to a divided family,
+the saving sacrifice to her father's endangered fortunes--that, in fine,
+when, nearly a month after Arthur's death, her father, leading her into
+the room, where Philip waited her footstep with a beating heart, placed
+her hand in his--and Philip falling on his knees said, "May I hope to
+retain this hand for life?"--she should falter out such words as he might
+construe into not reluctant acquiescence; that all this should happen is
+so natural that the reader is already prepared for it.  But still she
+thought with bitter and remorseful feelings of him thus deliberately and
+faithlessly renounced.  She felt how deeply he had loved her--she knew
+how fearful would be his grief.  She looked sad and thoughtful; but her
+brother's death was sufficient in Philip's eyes to account for that.
+The praises and gratitude of her father, to whom she suddenly seemed to
+become an object of even greater pride and affection than ever Arthur had
+been--the comfort of a generous heart, that takes pleasure in the very
+sacrifice it makes--the acquittal of her conscience as to the motives of
+her conduct--began, however, to produce their effect.  Nor, as she had
+lately seen more of Philip, could she be insensible of his attachment--of
+his many noble qualities--of the pride which most women might have felt
+in his addresses, when his rank was once made clear; and as she had ever
+been of a character more regulated by duty than passion, so one who could
+have seen what was passing in her mind would have had little fear for
+Philip's future happiness in her keeping--little fear but that, when once
+married to him, her affections would have gone along with her duties; and
+that if the first love were yet recalled, it would be with a sigh due
+rather to some romantic recollection than some continued regret.  Few of
+either sex are ever united to their first love; yet married people jog
+on, and call each other "my dear" and "my darling" all the same.  It
+might be, it is true, that Philip would be scarcely loved with the
+intenseness with which he loved; but if Camilla's feelings were capable
+of corresponding to the ardent and impassioned ones of that strong and
+vehement nature--such feelings were not yet developed in her.  The heart
+of the woman might still be half concealed in the vale of the virgin
+innocence.  Philip himself was satisfied--he believed that he was
+beloved: for it is the property of love, in a large and noble heart, to
+reflect itself, and to see its own image in the eyes on which it looks.
+As the Poet gives ideal beauty and excellence to some ordinary child of
+Eve, worshipping less the being that is than the being he imagines and
+conceives--so Love, which makes us all poets for a while, throws its own
+divine light over a heart perhaps really cold; and becomes dazzled into
+the joy of a false belief by the very lustre with which it surrounds its
+object.
+
+The more, however, Camilla saw of Philip, the more (gradually overcoming
+her former mysterious and superstitious awe of him) she grew familiarised
+to his peculiar cast of character and thought, so the more she began to
+distrust her father's assertion, that he had insisted on her hand as a
+price--a bargain--an equivalent for the sacrifice of a dire revenge.  And
+with this thought came another.  Was she worthy of this man?--was she not
+deceiving him?  Ought she not to say, at least, that she had known a
+previous attachment, however determined she might be to subdue it?  Often
+the desire for this just and honourable confession trembled on her lips,
+and as often was it checked by some chance circumstance or some maiden
+fear.  Despite their connection, there was not yet between them that
+delicious intimacy which ought to accompany the affiance of two hearts
+and souls.  The gloom of the house; the restraint on the very language of
+love imposed by a death so recent and so deplored, accounted in much for
+this reserve.  And for the rest, Robert Beaufort prudently left them very
+few and very brief opportunities to be alone.
+
+In the meantime, Philip (now persuaded that the Beauforts were ignorant
+of his brother's fate) had set Mr. Barlow's activity in search of Sidney;
+and his painful anxiety to discover one so dear and so mysteriously lost
+was the only cause of uneasiness apparent in the brightening Future.
+While these researches, hitherto fruitless, were being made, it so
+happened, as London began now to refill, and gossip began now to revive,
+that a report got abroad, no one knew how (probably from the servants)
+that Monsieur de Vaudemont, a distinguished French officer, was shortly
+to lead the daughter and sole heiress of Robert Beaufort, Esq., M.P., to
+the hymeneal altar; and that report very quickly found its way into the
+London papers: from the London papers it spread to the provincial--it
+reached the eyes of Sidney in his now gloomy and despairing solitude.
+The day that he read it he disappeared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+          "_Jul_.  .  .  .  Good lady, love him!
+          You have a noble and an honest gentleman.
+          I ever found him so.
+          Love him no less than I have done, and serve him,
+          And Heaven shall bless you--you shall bless my ashes."
+          BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: _The Double Marriage_.
+
+We have been too long absent from Fanny; it is time to return to her.
+The delight she experienced when Philip made her understand all the
+benefits, the blessings, that her courage, nay, her intellect, had
+bestowed upon him, the blushing ecstasy with which she heard (as they
+returned to H----, the eventful morning of her deliverance, side by side,
+her hand clasped in his, and often pressed to his grateful lips) his
+praises, his thanks, his fear for her safety, his joy at regaining her--
+all this amounted to a bliss, which, till then, she could not have
+conceived that life was capable of bestowing.  And when he left her at
+H----, to hurry to his lawyer's with the recovered document, it was but
+for an hour.  He returned, and did not quit her for several days.  And in
+that time he became sensible of her astonishing, and, to him, it seemed
+miraculous, improvement in all that renders Mind the equal to Mind;
+miraculous, for he guessed not the Influence that makes miracles its
+commonplace.  And now he listened attentively to her when she conversed;
+he read with her (though reading was never much in his vocation), his
+unfastidious ear was charmed with her voice, when it sang those simple
+songs; and his manner (impressed alike by gratitude for the signal
+service rendered to him, and by the discovery that Fanny was no longer a
+child, whether in mind or years), though not less gentle than before, was
+less familiar, less superior, more respectful, and more earnest.  It was
+a change which raised her in her own self-esteem.  Ah, those were rosy
+days for Fanny!
+
+A less sagacious judge of character than Lilburne would have formed
+doubts perhaps of the nature of Philip's interest in Fanny.  But he
+comprehended at once the fraternal interest which a man like Philip might
+well take in a creature like Fanny, if commended to his care by a
+protector whose doom was so awful as that which had ingulfed the life of
+William Gawtrey.  Lilburne had some thoughts at first of claiming her,
+but as he had no power to compel her residence with him, he did not wish,
+on consideration, to come again in contact with Philip upon ground so
+full of humbling recollections as that still overshadowed by the images
+of Gawtrey and Mary.  He contented himself with writing an artful letter
+to Simon, stating that from Fanny's residence with Mr. Gawtrey, and from
+her likeness to her mother, whom he had only seen as a child, he had
+conjectured the relationship she bore to himself; and having obtained
+other evidence of that fact (he did not say what or where), he had not
+scrupled to remove her to his roof, meaning to explain all to Mr. Simon
+Gawtrey the next day.  This letter was accompanied by one from a lawyer,
+informing Simon Gawtrey that Lord Lilburne would pay L200. a year, in
+quarterly payments, to his order; and that he was requested to add, that
+when the young lady he had so benevolently reared came of age, or
+married, an adequate provision would be made for her.  Simon's mind
+blazed up at this last intelligence, when read to him, though he neither
+comprehended nor sought to know why Lord Lilburne should be so generous,
+or what that noble person's letter to himself was intended to convey.
+For two days, he seemed restored to vigorous sense; but when he had once
+clutched the first payment made in advance, the touch of the money seemed
+to numb him back to his lethargy: the excitement of desire died in the
+dull sense of possession.
+
+And just at that time Fanny's happiness came to a close.  Philip received
+Arthur Beaufort's letter; and now ensued long and frequent absences; and
+on his return, for about an hour or so at a time, he spoke of sorrow and
+death; and the books were closed and the songs silenced.  All fear for
+Fanny's safety was, of course, over; all necessity for her work; their
+little establishment was increased.  She never stirred out without Sarah;
+yet she would rather that there had been some danger on her account for
+him to guard against, or some trial that his smile might soothe.  His
+prolonged absences began to prey upon her--the books ceased to interest--
+no study filled up the dreary gap--her step grew listless-her cheek pale
+--she was sensible at last that his presence had become necessary to her
+very life.  One day, he came to the house earlier than usual, and with a
+much happier and serener expression of countenance than he had worn of
+late.
+
+Simon was dozing in his chair, with his old dog, now scarce vigorous
+enough to bark, curled up at his feet.  Neither man nor dog was more as a
+witness to what was spoken than the leathern chair, or the hearth-rug, on
+which they severally reposed.
+
+There was something which, in actual life, greatly contributed to the
+interest of Fanny's strange lot, but which, in narration, I feel I cannot
+make sufficiently clear to the reader.  And this was her connection and
+residence with that old man.  Her character forming, as his was
+completely gone; here, the blank becoming filled--there, the page fading
+to a blank.  It was the tatter, total Deathliness-in-Life of Simon, that,
+while so impressive to see, renders it impossible to bring him before the
+reader in his full force of contrast to the young Psyche.  He seldom
+spoke--often, not from morning till night; he now seldom stirred.  It is
+in vain to describe the indescribable: let the reader draw the picture
+for himself.  And whenever (as I sometimes think he will, after he has
+closed this book) he conjures up the idea he attaches to the name of its
+heroine, let him see before her, as she glides through the humble room--
+as she listens to the voice of him she loves--as she sits musing by the
+window, with the church spire just visible--as day by day the soul
+brightens and expands within her--still let the reader see within the
+same walls, greyhaired, blind, dull to all feeling, frozen to all life,
+that stony image of Time and Death!  Perhaps then he may understand why
+they who beheld the real and living Fanny blooming under that chill and
+mass of shadow, felt that her grace, her simplicity, her charming beauty,
+were raised by the contrast, till they grew associated with thoughts and
+images, mysterious and profound, belonging not more to the lovely than to
+the sublime.
+
+So there sat the old man; and Philip, though aware of his presence,
+speaking as if he were alone with Fanny, after touching on more casual
+topics, thus addressed her:
+
+"My true and my dear friend, it is to you that I shall owe, not only my
+rights and fortune, but the vindication of my mother's memory.  You have
+not only placed flowers upon that gravestone, but it is owing to you,
+under Providence, that it will be inscribed at last with the Name which
+refutes all calumny.  Young and innocent as you now are, my gentle and
+beloved benefactress, you cannot as yet know what a blessing it will be
+to me to engrave that Name upon that simple stone.  Hereafter, when you
+yourself are a wife, a mother, you will comprehend the service you have
+rendered to the living and the dead!"
+
+He stopped--struggling with the rush of emotions that overflowed his
+heart.  Alas, THE DEAD! what service can we render to them?--what availed
+it now, either to the dust below, or to the immortality above, that the
+fools and knaves of this world should mention the Catherine whose life
+was gone, whose ears were deaf, with more or less respect?  There is in
+calumny that poison that, even when the character throws off the slander,
+the heart remains diseased beneath the effect.  They say that truth comes
+sooner or later; but it seldom comes before the soul, passing from agony
+to contempt, has grown callous to men's judgments.  Calumniate a human
+being in youth--adulate that being in age;--what has been the interval?
+Will the adulation atone either for the torture, or the hardness which
+the torture leaves at last?  And if, as in Catherine's case (a case, how
+common!), the truth come too late--if the tomb is closed--if the heart
+you have wrung can be wrung no more--why the truth is as valueless as the
+epitaph on a forgotten Name!  Some such conviction of the hollowness of
+his own words, when he spoke of service to the dead, smote upon Philip's
+heart, and stopped the flow of his words.
+
+Fanny, conscious only of his praise, his thanks, and the tender affection
+of his voice, stood still silent-her eyes downcast, her breast heaving.
+
+Philip resumed:
+
+"And now, Fanny, my honoured sister, I would thank you for more, were it
+possible, even than this.  I shall owe to you not only name and fortune,
+but happiness.  It is from the rights to which you have assisted me, and
+which will shortly be made clear, that I am able to demand a hand I have
+so long coveted--the hand of one as dear to me as you are.  In a word,
+the time has, this day, been fixed, when I shall have a home to offer to
+you and to this old man--when I can present to you a sister who will
+prize you as I do: for I love you so dearly--I owe you so much--that even
+that home would lose half its smiles if you were not there.  Do you
+understand me, Fanny?  The sister I speak of will be my wife!"
+
+The poor girl who heard this speech of most cruel tenderness did not
+fall, or faint, or evince any outward emotion, except in a deadly
+paleness.  She seemed like one turned to stone.  Her very breath forsook
+her for some moments, and then came back with a long deep sigh.  She laid
+her hand lightly on his arm, and said calmly:
+
+"Yes--I understand.  We once saw a wedding.  You are to be married--I
+shall see yours!"
+
+"You shall; and, later, perhaps, I may see your own."
+
+"I have a brother.  Ah!  if I could but find him--younger than I am--
+beautiful almost as you!"
+
+"You will be happy," said Fanny, still calmly.
+
+"I have long placed my hopes of happiness in such a union!  Stay, where
+are you going?"
+
+"To pray for you," said Fanny, with a smile, in which there was something
+of the old vacancy, as she walked gently from the room.  Philip followed
+her with moistened eyes.  Her manner might have deceived one more vain.
+He soon after quitted the house, and returned to town.
+
+Three hours after, Sarah found Fanny stretched on the floor of her own
+room--so still--so white--that, for some moments, the old woman thought
+life was gone.  She recovered, however, by degrees; and, after putting
+her hands to her eyes, and muttering some moments, seemed much as usual,
+except that she was more silent, and that her lips remained colourless,
+and her hands cold like stone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+     "_Vec_.  Ye see what follows.
+     _Duke_.  O gentle sir! this shape again!"--_The Chances_.
+
+That evening Sidney Beaufort arrived in London.  It is the nature of
+solitude to make passions calm on the surface--agitated in the deeps.
+Sidney had placed his whole existence in one object.  When the letter
+arrived that told him to hope no more, he was at first rather sensible of
+the terrible and dismal blank--the "void abyss"--to which all his future
+was suddenly changed, than roused to vehement and turbulent emotion.  But
+Camilla's letter had, as we have seen, raised his courage and animated
+his heart.  To the idea of her faith he still clung with the instinct of
+hope in the midst of despair.  The tidings that she was absolutely
+betrothed to another, and in so short a time since her rejection of him,
+let loose from all restraint his darker and more tempestuous passions.
+In a state of mind bordering upon frenzy, he hurried to London--to seek
+her--to see her; with what intent--what hope, if hope there were--he
+himself could scarcely tell.  But what man who has loved with fervour and
+trust will be contented to receive the sentence of eternal separation
+except from the very lips of the one thus worshipped and thus foresworn?
+
+The day had been intensely cold.  Towards evening the snow fell fast and
+heavily.  Sidney had not, since a child, been before in London; and the
+immense City, covered with a wintry and icy mist, through which the
+hurrying passengers and the slow-moving vehicles passed, spectre-like,
+along the dismal and slippery streets-opened to the stranger no
+hospitable arms.  He knew not a step of the way--he was pushed to and
+fro--his scarce intelligible questions impatiently answered--the snow
+covered him--the frost pierced to his veins.  At length a man, more
+kindly than the rest, seeing that he was a stranger to London, procured
+him a hackney-coach, and directed the driver to the distant quarter of
+Berkeley Square.  The snow balled under the hoofs of the horses--the
+groaning vehicle proceeded at the pace of a hearse.  At length, and after
+a period of such suspense, and such emotion, as Sidney never in after-
+life could recall without a shudder, the coach stopped--the benumbed
+driver heavily descended--the sound of the knocker knelled loud through
+the muffled air--and the light from Mr. Beaufort's hall glared full upon
+the dizzy eyes of the visitor.  He pushed aside the porter, and sprang
+into the hall.  Luckily, one of the footmen who had attended Mrs.
+Beaufort to the Lakes recognised him; and, in answer to his breathless
+inquiry, said,--
+
+"Why, indeed, Mr. Spencer, Miss Beaufort is at home--up-stairs in the
+drawing-room, with master and mistress, and Monsieur de Vaudemont; but--"
+
+Sidney waited no more.  He bounded up the stairs--he opened the first
+door that presented itself to him, and burst, unannounced and unlooked-
+for, upon the eyes of the group seated within.  He saw not the terrified
+start of Mr. Robert Beaufort--he heeded not the faint, nervous
+exclamation of the mother--he caught not the dark and wondering glace of
+the stranger seated beside Camilla--he saw but Camilla herself, and in a
+moment he was at her feet.
+
+"Camilla, I am here!--I, who love you so--I, who have nothing in the
+world but you!  I am here--to learn from you, and you alone, if I am
+indeed abandoned--if you are indeed to be another's!"
+
+He had dashed his hat from his brow as he sprang forward; his long fair
+hair, damp with the snows, fell disordered over his forehead; his eyes
+were fixed, as for life and death, upon the pale face and trembling lips
+of Camilla.  Robert Beaufort, in great alarm, and well aware of the
+fierce temper of Philip, anticipative of some rash and violent impulse,
+turned his glance upon his destined son-in-law.  But there was no angry
+pride in the countenance he there beheld.  Philip had risen, but his
+frame was bent--his knees knocked together--his lips were parted--his
+eyes were staring full upon the face of the kneeling man.
+
+Suddenly Camilla, sharing her father's fear, herself half rose, and with
+an unconscious pathos, stretched one hand, as if to shelter, over
+Sidney's head, and looked to Philip.  Sidney's eyes followed hers.  He
+sprang to his feet.
+
+"What, then, it is true!  And this is the man for whom I am abandoned!
+But unless you--you, with your own lips, tell me that you love me no
+more--that you love another--I will not yield you but with life."
+
+He stalked sternly and impetuously up to Philip, who recoiled as his
+rival advanced.  The characters of the two men seemed suddenly changed.
+The timid dreamer seemed dilated into the fearless soldier.  The soldier
+seemed shrinking--quailing-into nameless terror.  Sidney grasped that
+strong arm, as Philip still retreated, with his slight and delicate
+fingers, grasped it with violence and menace; and frowning into the face
+from which the swarthy blood was scared away, said, in a hollow whisper:
+
+"Do you hear me?  Do you comprehend me?  I say that she shall not be
+forced into a marriage at which I yet believe her heart rebels.  My claim
+is holier than yours.  Renounce her, or win her but with my blood."
+
+Philip did not apparently hear the words thus addressed to him.  His
+whole senses seemed absorbed in the one sense of sight.  He continued to
+gaze upon the speaker, till his eye dropped on the hand that yet griped
+his arm.  And as he thus looked, he uttered an inarticulate cry.  He
+caught the hand in his own, and pointed to a ring on the finger, but
+remained speechless.  Mr. Beaufort approached, and began some stammered
+words of soothing to Sidney, but Philip motioned him to be silent, and,
+at last, as if by a violent effort, gasped forth, not to Sidney, but to
+Beaufort,--
+
+"His name?--his name?"
+
+"It is Mr. Spencer--Mr. Charles Spencer," cried Beaufort.  "Listen to me,
+I will explain all--I--"
+
+"Hush, hush! cried Philip; and turning to Sidney, he put his hand on his
+shoulder, and looking him full in the face, said,--
+
+"Have you not known another name?  Are you not--yes, it is so--it is--it
+is!  Follow me--follow!"
+
+And still retaining his grasp, and leading Sidney, who was now subdued,
+awed, and a prey to new and wild suspicions, he moved on gently, stride
+by stride--his eyes fixed on that fair face--his lips muttering-till the
+closing door shut both forms from the eyes of the three there left.
+
+It was the adjoining room into which Philip led his rival.  It was lit
+but by a small reading-lamp, and the bright, steady blaze of the fire;
+and by this light they both continued to gaze on each other, as if
+spellbound, in complete silence.  At last Philip, by an irresistible
+impulse, fell upon Sidney's bosom, and, clasping him with convulsive
+energy, gasped out:
+
+"Sidney!--Sidney!--my mother's son!"
+
+"What!"  exclaimed Sidney, struggling from the embrace, and at last
+freeing himself; "it is you, then!--you, my own brother!  You, who have
+been hitherto the thorn in my path, the cloud in my fate!  You, who are
+now come to make me a wretch for life!  I love that woman, and you tear
+her from me!  You, who subjected my infancy to hardship, and, but for
+Providence, might have degraded my youth, by your example, into shame and
+guilt!"
+
+"Forbear!--forbear!" cried Philip, with a voice so shrill in its agony,
+that it smote the hearts of those in the adjoining chamber like the
+shriek of some despairing soul.  They looked at each other, but not one
+had the courage to break upon the interview.
+
+Sidney himself was appalled by the sound.  He threw himself on a seat,
+and, overcome by passions so new to him, by excitement so strange, hid
+his face, and sobbed as a child.
+
+Philip walked rapidly to and fro the room for some moments; at length he
+paused opposite to Sidney, and said, with the deep calmness of a wronged
+and goaded spirit:
+
+"Sidney Beaufort, hear me!  When my mother died she confided you to my
+care, my love, and my protection.  In the last lines that her hand
+traced, she bade me think less of myself than of you; to be to you as a
+father as well as brother.  The hour that I read that letter I fell on my
+knees, and vowed that I would fulfil that injunction--that I would
+sacrifice my very self, if I could give fortune or happiness to you.  And
+this not for your sake alone, Sidney; no! but as my mother--our wronged,
+our belied, our broken-hearted mother!--O Sidney, Sidney! have you no
+tears for her, too?"  He passed his hand over his own eyes for a moment,
+and resumed: "But as our mother, in that last letter, said to me, 'let my
+love pass into your breast for him,' so, Sidney, so, in all that I could
+do for you, I fancied that my mother's smile looked down upon me, and
+that in serving you it was my mother whom I obeyed.  Perhaps, hereafter,
+Sidney, when we talk over that period of my earlier life when I worked
+for you, when the degradation you speak of (there was no crime in it!)--
+was borne cheerfully for your sake, and yours the holiday though mine the
+task--perhaps, hereafter, you will do me more justice.  You left me, or
+were reft from me, and I gave all the little fortune that my mother had
+bequeathed us, to get some tidings from you.  I received your letter--
+that bitter letter--and I cared not then that I was a beggar, since I was
+alone.  You talk of what I have cost you--you talk! and you now ask me
+to--to--Merciful Heaven! let me understand you--do you love Camilla?
+Does she love you?  Speak--speak--explain--what, new agony awaits me?"
+
+It was then that Sidney, affected and humbled, amidst all his more
+selfish sorrows, by his brother's language and manner, related, as
+succinctly as he could, the history of his affection for Camilla, the
+circumstances of their engagement, and ended by placing before him the
+letter he had received from Mr. Beaufort.
+
+In spite of all his efforts for self-control, Philip's anguish was so
+great, so visible, that Sidney, after looking at his working features,
+his trembling hands, for a moment, felt all the earlier parts of his
+nature melt in a flow of generous sympathy and remorse.  He flung himself
+on the breast from which he had shrunk before, and cried,--
+
+"Brother, brother! forgive me; I see how I have wronged you.  If she has
+forgotten me, if she love you, take her and be happy!"
+
+Philip returned his embrace, but without warmth, and then moved away;
+and, again, in great disorder, paced the room.  His brother only heard
+disjointed exclamations that seemed to escape him unawares: "They said
+she loved me!  Heaven give me strength!  Mother--mother! let me fulfil my
+vow!  Oh, that I had died ere this!"  He stopped at last, and the large
+dews rolled down his forehead.  "Sidney!" said he, "there is a mystery
+here that I comprehend not.  But my mind now is very confused.  If she
+loves you--if!--is it possible for a woman to love two?  Well, well, I go
+to solve the riddle: wait here!"
+
+He vanished into the next room, and for nearly half an hour Sidney was
+alone.  He heard through the partition murmured voices; he caught more
+clearly the sound of Camilla's sobs.  The particulars of that interview
+between Philip and Camilla, alone at first (afterwards Mr. Robert
+Beaufort was re-admitted), Philip never disclosed, nor could Sidney
+himself ever obtain a clear account from Camilla, who could not recall
+it, even years after, without great emotion.  But at last the door was
+opened, and Philip entered, leading Camilla by the hand.  His face was
+calm, and there was a smile on his lips; a greater dignity than even.
+that habitual to him was diffused over his whole person.  Camilla was
+holding her handkerchief to her eyes and weeping passionately.  Mr.
+Beaufort followed them with a mortified and slinking air.
+
+"Sidney," said Philip, "it is past.  All is arranged.  I yield to your
+earlier, and therefore better, claim.  Mr. Beaufort consents to your
+union.  He will tell you, at some fitter time, that our birthright is at
+last made clear, and that there is no blot on the name we shall hereafter
+bear.  Sidney, embrace your bride!"
+
+Amazed, delighted, and still half incredulous, Sidney seized and kissed
+the hand of Camilla; and as he then drew her to his breast, she said, as
+she pointed to Philip:--
+
+"Oh! if you do love me as you say, see in him the generous, the noble--"
+Fresh sobs broke off her speech; but as Sidney sought again to take her
+hand, she whispered, with a touching and womanly sentiment, "Ah! respect
+him: see!--" and Sidney, looking then at his brother, saw, that though he
+still attempted to smile, his lip writhed, and his features were drawn
+together, as one whose frame is wrung by torture, but who struggles not
+to groan.
+
+He flew to Philip, who, grasping his hand, held him back, and said,--
+
+"I have fulfilled my vow!  I have given you up the only blessing my life
+has known.  Enough, you are happy, and I shall be so too, when God
+pleases to soften this blow.  And now you must not wonder or blame me,
+if, though so lately found, I leave you for a while.  Do me one kindness,
+--you, Sidney--you, Mr. Beaufort.  Let the marriage take place at
+H----, in the village church by which my mother sleeps;  let it be
+delayed till the suit is terminated: by that time I shall hope to meet
+you all--to meet you, Camilla, as I ought to meet my brother's wife; till
+then, my presence will not sadden your happiness.  Do not seek to see me;
+do not expect to hear from me.  Hist! be silent, all of you; my heart is
+yet bruised and sore.  O THOU," and here, deepening his voice, he raised
+his arms, "Thou who hast preserved my youth from such snares and such
+peril, who hast guided my steps from the abyss to which they wandered,
+and beneath whose hand I now bow, grateful if chastened, receive this
+offering, and bless that union!  Fare ye well."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+          "Heaven's airs amid the harpstrings dwell;
+          And we wish they ne'er may fade;
+          They cease; and the soul is a silent cell,
+          Where music never played.
+          Dream follows dream through the long night-hours."
+          WILSON: _The Past, a poem_.
+
+The self-command which Philip had obtained for a while deserted him when
+he was without the house.  His mind felt broken up into chaos; he hurried
+on, mechanically, on foot; he passed street upon street, now solitary and
+deserted, as the lamps gleamed upon the thick snow.  The city was left
+behind him.  He paused not, till, breathless, and exhausted in spirit if
+not in frame, he reached the churchyard where Catherine's dust reposed.
+The snow had ceased to fall, but it lay deep over the graves; the
+yew-trees, clad in their white shrouds, gleamed ghost-like through the
+dimness.  Upon the rail that fenced the tomb yet hung a wreath that
+Fanny's hand had placed there.  But the flowers were hid; it was a wreath
+of snow!  Through the intervals of the huge and still clouds, there
+gleamed a few melancholy stars.  The very calm of the holy spot seemed
+unutterably sad.  The Death of the year overhung the Death of man.  And
+as Philip bent over the tomb, within and without all was ICE and NIGHT!
+
+For hours he remained on that spot, alone with his grief and absorbed in
+his prayer.  Long past midnight Fanny heard his step on the stairs, and
+the door of his chamber close with unwonted violence.  She heard, too,
+for some time, his heavy tread on the floor, till suddenly all was
+silent.  The next morning, when, at the usual hour, Sarah entered to
+unclose the shutters and light the fire, she was startled by wild
+exclamations and wilder laughter.  The fever had mounted to the brain--
+he was delirious.
+
+For several weeks Philip Beaufort was in imminent danger; for a
+considerable part of that time he was unconscious; and when the peril was
+past, his recovery was slow and gradual.  It was the only illness to
+which his vigorous frame had ever been subjected: and the fever had
+perhaps exhausted him more than it might have done one in whose
+constitution the disease had encountered less resistance.  His brother;
+imagining he had gone abroad, was unacquainted with his danger.  None
+tended his sick-bed save the hireling nurse, the feed physician, and the
+unpurchasable heart of the only being to whom the wealth and rank of the
+Heir of Beaufort Court were as nothing.  Here was reserved for him Fate's
+crowning lesson, in the vanity of those human wishes which anchor in gold
+and power.  For how many years had the exile and the outcast pined
+indignantly for his birthright?--Lo! it was won: and with it came the
+crushed heart and the smitten frame.  As he slowly recovered sense and
+reasoning, these thoughts struck him forcibly.  He felt as if he were
+rightly punished in having disdained, during his earlier youth, the
+enjoyments within his reach.  Was there nothing in the glorious health
+--the unconquerable hope--the heart, if wrung, and chafed, and sorely
+tried, free at least from the direst anguish of the passions,
+disappointed and jealous love?  Though now certain, if spared to the
+future, to be rich, powerful, righted in name and honour, might he not
+from that sick-bed envy his earlier past?  even when with his brother
+orphan he wandered through the solitary fields, and felt with what
+energies we are gifted when we have something to protect; or when, loving
+and beloved, he saw life smile out to him in the eyes of Eugenie; or
+when, after that melancholy loss, he wrestled boldly, and breast to
+breast with Fortune, in a far land, for honour and independence?  There
+is something in severe illness, especially if it be in violent contrast
+to the usual strength of the body, which has often the most salutary
+effect upon the mind; which often, by the affliction of the frame,
+roughly wins us from the too morbid pains of the heart! which makes us
+feel that, in mere LIFE, enjoyed as the robust enjoy it, God's Great
+Principle of Good breathes and moves.  We rise thus from the sick-bed
+softened and humbled, and more disposed to look around us for such
+blessings as we may yet command.
+
+The return of Philip, his danger, the necessity of exertion, of tending
+him, had roused Fanny from a state which might otherwise have been
+permanently dangerous to the intellect so lately ripened within her.
+With what patience, with what fortitude, with what unutterable thought
+and devotion, she fulfilled that best and holiest woman's duty--let the
+man whose struggle with life and death has been blessed with the vigil
+that wakes and saves, imagine to himself.  And in all her anxiety and
+terror, she had glimpses of a happiness which it seemed to her almost
+criminal to acknowledge.  For, even in his delirium, her voice seemed to
+have some soothing influence over him, and he was calmer while she was
+by.  And when at last he was conscious, her face was the first he saw,
+and her name the first which his lips uttered.  As then he grew gradually
+stronger, and the bed was deserted for the sofa, he took more than the
+old pleasure in hearing her read to him; which she did with a feeling
+that lecturers cannot teach.  And once, in a pause from this occupation,
+he spoke to her frankly,--he sketched his past history--his last
+sacrifice.  And Fanny, as she wept, learned that he was no more
+another's!
+
+It has been said that this man, naturally of an active and impatient
+temperament, had been little accustomed to seek those resources which are
+found in books.  But somehow in that sick chamber--it was Fanny's voice--
+the voice of her over whose mind he had once so haughtily lamented, that
+taught him how much of aid and solace the Herd of Men derive from the
+Everlasting Genius of the Few.
+
+Gradually, and interval by interval, moment by moment, thus drawn
+together, all thought beyond shut out (for, however crushing for the time
+the blow that had stricken Philip from health and reason, he was not that
+slave to a guilty fancy, that he could voluntarily indulge--that he would
+not earnestly seek to shun--all sentiments 'chat yet turned with unholy
+yearning towards the betrothed of his brother);--gradually, I say, and
+slowly, came those progressive and delicious epochs which mark a
+revolution in the affections:--unspeakable gratitude, brotherly
+tenderness, the united strength of compassion and respect that he had
+felt for Fanny seemed, as he gained health, to mellow into feelings yet
+more exquisite and deep.  He could no longer delude himself with a vain
+and imperious belief that it was a defective mind that his heart
+protected; he began again to be sensible to the rare beauty of that
+tender face--more lovely, perhaps, for the paleness that had replaced its
+bloom.  The fancy that he had so imperiously checked before--before he
+saw Camilla, returned to him, and neither pride nor honour had now the
+right to chase the soft wings away.  One evening, fancying himself alone,
+he fell into a profound reverie; he awoke with a start, and the
+exclamation, "was it true love that I ever felt for Camilla, or a
+passion, a frenzy, a delusion?"
+
+His exclamation was answered by a sound that seemed both of joy and
+grief.  He looked up, and saw Fanny before him; the light of the moon,
+just risen, fell full on her form, but her hands were clasped before her
+face; he heard her sob.
+
+"Fanny, dear Fanny!"  he cried, and sought to throw himself from the sofa
+to her feet.  But she drew herself away, and fled from the chamber silent
+as a dream.
+
+Philip rose, and, for the first time since his illness, walked, but with
+feeble steps, to and fro the room.  With what different emotions from
+those in which last, in fierce and intolerable agony, he had paced that
+narrow boundary!  Returning health crept through his veins--a serene, a
+kindly, a celestial joy circumfused his heart.  Had the time yet come
+when the old Florimel had melted into snow; when the new and the true
+one, with its warm life, its tender beauty, its maiden wealth of love,
+had risen before his hopes?  He paused before the window; the spot within
+seemed so confined, the night without so calm and lovely, that he forgot
+his still-clinging malady, and unclosed the casement: the air came soft
+and fresh upon his temples, and the church-tower and spire, for the first
+time, did not seem to him to rise in gloom against the heavens.  Even the
+gravestone of Catherine, half in moonlight, half in shadow, appeared to
+him to wear a smile.  His mother's memory was become linked with the
+living Fanny.
+
+"Thou art vindicated--thy Sidney is happy," he murmured: "to her the
+thanks!"
+
+Fair hopes, and soft thoughts busy within him, he remained at the
+casement till the increasing chill warned him of the danger he incurred.
+
+The next day, when the physician visited him, he found the fever had
+returned.  For many days, Philip was again in danger--dull, unconscious
+even of the step and voice of Fanny.
+
+He woke at last as from a long and profound sleep; woke so refreshed, so
+revived, that he felt at once that some great crisis had been passed, and
+that at length he had struggled back to the sunny shores of Life.
+
+By his bedside sat Liancourt, who, long alarmed at his disappearance, had
+at last contrived, with the help of Mr. Barlow, to trace him to Gawtrey's
+house, and had for several days taken share in the vigils of poor Fanny.
+
+While he was yet explaining all this to Philip, and congratulating
+him on his evident recovery, the physician entered to confirm the
+congratulation.  In a few days the invalid was able to quit his room, and
+nothing but change of air seemed necessary for his convalescence.  It was
+then that Liancourt, who had for two days seemed impatient to unburden
+himself of some communication, thus addressed him:--
+
+"My--My dear friend, I have learned now your story from Barlow, who
+called several times during your relapse; and who is the more anxious
+about you, as the time for the decision of your case now draws near.  The
+sooner you quit this house the better."
+
+"Quit this house! and why?  Is there not one in this house to whom I owe
+my fortune and my life?"
+
+"Yes; and for that reason I say, 'Go hence:' it is the only return you
+can make her."
+
+"Pshaw!--speak intelligibly."
+
+"I  will,"  said Liancourt,  gravely.  "I have been a watcher with her by
+your sick-bed, and I know what you must feel already:--nay, I must
+confess that even the old servant has ventured to speak to me.  You have
+inspired that poor girl with feelings dangerous to her peace."
+
+"Ha!" cried Philip, with such joy that Liancourt frowned, and said,
+"Hitherto I have believed you too honourable to--"
+
+"So you think she loves me?" interrupted Philip.  "Yes; what then?  You,
+the heir of Beaufort Court, of a rental of L20,000. a year,--of an
+historical name,--you cannot marry this poor girl?"
+
+"Well!--I will consider what you say, and, at all events, I will leave
+the house to attend the result of the trial.  Let us talk no more on the
+subject now."
+
+Philip had the penetration to perceive that Liancourt, who was greatly
+moved by the beauty, the innocence, and the unprotected position of
+Fanny, had not confined caution to himself; that with his characteristic
+well-meaning bluntness, and with the license of a man somewhat advanced
+in years, he had spoken to Fanny herself: for Fanny now seemed to shun
+Philip,--her eyes were heavy, her manner was embarrassed.  He saw the
+change, but it did not grieve him; he hailed the omens which he drew from
+it.
+
+And at last he and Liancourt went.  He was absent three weeks, during
+which time the formality of the friendly lawsuit was decided in the
+plaintiff's favour; and the public were in ecstasies at the noble and
+sublime conduct of Mr. Robert Beaufort: who, the moment he had discovered
+a document which he might so easily have buried for ever in oblivion,
+voluntarily agreed to dispossess himself of estates he had so long
+enjoyed, preferring conscience to lucre.  Some persons observed that it
+was reported that Mr. Philip Beaufort had also been generous--that he had
+agreed to give up the estates for his uncle's life, and was only in the
+meanwhile to receive a fourth of the revenues.  But the universal comment
+was, "He could not have done less!"  Mr. Robert Beaufort was, as Lord
+Lilburne had once observed, a man who was born, made, and reared to be
+spoken well of by the world; and it was a comfort to him now, poor man,
+to feel that his character was so highly estimated.  If Philip should
+live to the age of one hundred, he will never become so respectable and
+popular a man with the crowd as his worthy uncle.  But does it much
+matter?  Philip returned to H---- the eve before the day fixed for the
+marriage of his brother and Camilla.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+          From Night, Sunshine and Day arose--HES
+
+The sun of early May shone cheerfully over the quiet suburb of H----.
+In the thoroughfares life was astir.  It was the hour of noon--the hour
+at which commerce is busy, and streets are full.  The old retired trader,
+eying wistfully the rolling coach or the oft-pausing omnibus, was
+breathing the fresh and scented air in the broadest and most crowded
+road, from which, afar in the distance, rose the spires of the
+metropolis.  The boy let loose from the day-school was hurrying home to
+dinner, his satchel on his back: the ballad-singer was sending her
+cracked whine through the obscurer alleys, where the baker's boy, with
+puddings on his tray, and the smart maid-servant, despatched for porter,
+paused to listen.  And round the shops where cheap shawls and cottons
+tempted the female eye, many a loitering girl detained her impatient
+mother, and eyed the tickets and calculated her hard-gained savings for
+the Sunday gear.  And in the corners of the streets steamed the itinerant
+kitchens of the piemen, and rose the sharp cry, "All hot! all hot!"  in
+the ear of infant and ragged hunger.  And amidst them all rolled on some
+lazy coach of ancient merchant or withered maiden, unconscious of any
+life but that creeping through their own languid veins.  And before the
+house in which Catherine died, there loitered many stragglers, gossips,
+of the hamlet, subscribers to the news-room hard by, to guess, and
+speculate, and wonder why, from the church behind, there rose the merry
+peal of the marriage-bell!
+
+At length along the broad road leading from the great city, there were
+seen rapidly advancing three carriages of a very different fashion from
+those familiar to the suburb.  On they came; swiftly they whirled round
+the angle that conducted to the church; the hoofs of the gay steeds
+ringing cheerily on the ground; the white favours of the servants
+gleaming in the sun.  Happy is the bride the sun shines on!  And when the
+carriages had thus vanished, the scattered groups melted into one crowd,
+and took their way to the church.  They stood idling without in the
+burial-ground; many of them round the fence that guarded from their
+footsteps Catherine's lonely grave.  All in nature was glad,
+exhilarating, and yet serene; a genial freshness breathed through the
+soft air; not a cloud was to be seen in the smiling azure; even the old
+dark yews seemed happy in their everlasting verdure.  The bell ceased,
+and then even the crowd grew silent; and not a sound was heard in that
+solemn spot to whose demesnes are consecrated alike the Birth, the
+Marriage, and the Death.
+
+At length there came forth from the church door the goodly form of a rosy
+beadle.  Approaching the groups, he whispered the better-dressed and
+commanded the ragged, remonstrated with the old and lifted his cane
+against the young; and the result of all was, that the churchyard, not
+without many a murmur and expostulation, was cleared, and the crowd fell
+back in the space behind the gates of the principal entrance, where they
+swayed and gaped and chattered round the carriages, which were to bear
+away the bridal party.
+
+Within the church, as the ceremony was now concluded, Philip Beaufort
+conducted, hand-in-hand, silently along the aisle, his brother's wife.
+
+Leaning on his stick, his cold sneer upon his thin lip, Lord Lilburne
+limped, step by step, with the pair, though a little apart from them,
+glancing from moment to moment at the face of Philip Beaufort, where he
+had hoped to read a grief that he could not detect.  Lord Lilburne had
+carefully refrained from an interview with Philip till that day, and he
+now only came to the wedding as a surgeon goes to an hospital, to examine
+a disease he had been told would be great and sore: he was disappointed.
+Close behind followed Sidney, radiant with joy, and bloom, and beauty;
+and his kind guardian, the tears rolling down his eyes, murmured
+blessings as he looked upon him.  Mrs. Beaufort had declined attending
+the ceremony--her nerves were too weak--but, behind, at a longer
+interval, came Robert Beaufort, sober, staid, collected as ever to
+outward seeming; but a close observer might have seen that his eye had
+lost its habitual complacent cunning, that his step was more heavy, his
+stoop more joyless.  About his air there was a some thing crestfallen.
+The consciousness of acres had passed away from his portly presence.
+He was no longer a possessor, but a pensioner.  The rich man, who had
+decided as he pleased on the happiness of others, was a cipher; he had
+ceased to have any interest in anything.  What to him the marriage of
+his daughter now?  Her children would not be the heirs of Beaufort.  As
+Camilla kindly turned round, and through happy tears waited for his
+approach, to clasp his hand, he forced a smile, but it was sickly and
+piteous.  He longed to creep away, and be alone.
+
+"My father!"  said Camilla, in her sweet low voice; and she extricated
+herself from Philip, and threw herself on his breast.
+
+"She is a good child," said Robert Beaufort vacantly, and, turning his
+dry eyes to the group, he caught instinctively at his customary
+commonplaces;--"and a good child, Mr. Sidney, makes a good wife!"
+
+The clergyman bowed as if the compliment were addressed to himself: he
+was the only man there whom Robert Beaufort could now deceive.
+
+"My sister," said Philip Beaufort, as once more leaning on his arm, they
+paused before the church door, "may Sidney love and prize you as--as I
+would have done; and believe me, both of you, I have no regret, no
+memory, that wounds me now."
+
+He dropped the hand, and motioned to her father to load her to the
+carriage.  Then winding his arm into Sidney's, he said,--
+
+"Wait till they are gone: I have one word yet with you.  Go on,
+gentlemen."
+
+The clergyman bowed, and walked through the churchyard.  But Lilburne,
+pausing and surveying Philip Beaufort, said to him, whisperingly,--
+
+"And so much for feeling--the folly!  So much for generosity--the
+delusion!  Happy man!"
+
+"I am thoroughly happy, Lord Lilburne."
+
+"Are you?--Then, it was neither feeling nor generosity; and we were taken
+in!  Good day."  With that he limped slowly to the gate.
+
+Philip answered not the sarcasm even by a look.  For at that moment a
+loud shout was set up by the mob without--they had caught a glimpse of
+the bride.
+
+"Come, Sidney, this way."  he said; "I must not detain you long."
+
+Arm in arm they passed out of the church, and turned to the spot hard by,
+where the flowers smiled up to them from the stone on their mother's
+grave.
+
+The old inscription had been effaced, and the name of CATHERINE BEAUFORT
+was placed upon the stone.  "Brother," said Philip, "do not forget this
+grave: years hence, when children play around your own hearth.  Observe,
+the name of Catherine Beaufort is fresher on the stone than the dates of
+birth and death--the name was only inscribed there to-day--your wedding-
+day.  Brother, by this grave we are now indeed united."
+
+"Oh, Philip!" cried Sidney, in deep emotion, clasping the hand stretched
+out to him; "I feel, I feel how noble, how great you are--that you have
+sacrificed more than I dreamed of--"
+
+"Hush!" said Philip, with a smile.  "No talk of this.  I am happier than
+you deem me.  Go back now--she waits you."
+
+"And you?--leave you!--alone!"
+
+"Not alone," said Philip, pointing to the grave.
+
+Scarce had he spoken when, from the gate, came the shrill, clear voice of
+Lord Lilburne,--
+
+"We wait for Mr. Sidney Beaufort."
+
+Sidney passed his hand over his eyes, wrung the hand of his brother once
+more, and in a moment was by Camilla's side.
+
+Another shout--the whirl of the wheels--the trampling of feet--the
+distant hum and murmur--and all was still.  The clerk returned to lock
+up the church--he did not observe where Philip stood in the shadow of the
+wall--and went home to talk of the gay wedding, and inquire at what hour
+the funeral of the young woman; his next-door neighbour, would take place
+the next day.
+
+It might be a quarter of an hour after Philip was thus left--nor had he
+moved from the spot--when he felt his sleeve pulled gently.  He turned
+round and saw before him the wistful face of Fanny!
+
+"So you would not come to the wedding?"  said he.
+
+"No.  But I fancied you might be here alone--and sad."
+
+"And you will not even wear the dress I gave you?"
+
+"Another time.  Tell me, are you unhappy?"
+
+"Unhappy, Fanny!  No; look around.  The very burial-ground has a smile.
+See the laburnums clustering over the wall, listen to the birds on the
+dark yews above, and yonder see even the butterfly has settled upon her
+grave!
+
+"I am not unhappy."  As he thus spoke he looked at her earnestly, and
+taking both her hands in his, drew her gently towards him, and continued:
+"Fanny, do you remember, that, leaning over that gate, I once spoke to
+you of the happiness of marriage where two hearts are united?  Nay,
+Fanny, nay, I must go on.  It was here in this spot,--it was here that
+I first saw you on my return to England.  I came to seek the dead, and
+I have thought since, it was my mother's guardian spirit that drew me
+hither to find you--the living!  And often afterwards, Fanny, you would
+come with me here, when, blinded and dull as I was, I came to brood and
+to repine, insensible of the treasures even then perhaps within my reach.
+But, best as it was: the ordeal through which I have passed has made me
+more grateful for the prize I now dare to hope for.  On this grave your
+hand daily renewed the flowers.  By this grave, the link between the Time
+and the Eternity, whose lessons we have read together, will you consent
+to record our vows?  Fanny, dearest, fairest, tenderest, best, I love
+you, and at last as alone you should be loved!--I woo you as my wife!
+Mine, not for a season, but for ever--for ever, even when these graves
+are open, and the World shrivels like a scroll.  Do you understand me?--
+do you heed me?--or have I dreamed that that--"
+
+He stopped short--a dismay seized him at her silence.  Had he been
+mistaken in his divine belief!--the fear was momentary: for Fanny, who
+had recoiled as he spoke, now placing her hands to her temples, gazing on
+him, breathlessly and with lips apart, as if, indeed, with great effort
+and struggle her modest spirit conceived the possibility of the happiness
+that broke upon it, advanced timidly, her face suffused in blushes; and,
+looking into his eyes, as if she would read into his very soul, said,
+with an accent, the intenseness of which showed that her whole fate hung
+on his answer,--
+
+"But this is pity?--they have told you that I--in short, you are
+generous--you--you--Oh, deceive me not!  Do you love her still?--Can you
+--do you love the humble, foolish Fanny?"
+
+"As God shall judge me, sweet one, I am sincere!  I have survived a
+passion--never so deep, so tender, so entire as that I now feel for you!
+And, oh, Fanny, hear this true confession.  It was you--you to whom my
+heart turned before I saw Camilla!--against that impulse I struggled in
+the blindness of a haughty error!"
+
+Fanny uttered a low and suppressed cry of delight and rapture.  Philip
+passionately continued,--
+
+"Fanny, make blessed the life you have saved.  Fate destined us for each
+other.  Fate for me has ripened your sweet mind.  Fate for you has
+softened this rugged heart.  We may have yet much to bear and much to
+learn.  We will console and teach each other!"
+
+He drew her to his breast as he spoke--drew her trembling, blushing,
+confused, but no more reluctant; and there, by the GRAVE that had been
+so memorable a scene in their common history, were murmured those vows in
+which all this world knows of human happiness is treasured and recorded--
+love that takes the sting from grief, and faith that gives eternity to
+love.  All silent, yet all serene around them!  Above, the heaven,--at
+their feet, the grave:--For the love, the grave!--for the faith, the
+heaven!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THE LAST.
+
+               "A labore reclinat otium."--HORAT.
+
+               [Leisure unbends itself from labour.]
+
+I feel that there is some justice in the affection the general reader
+entertains for the old-fashioned and now somewhat obsolete custom, of
+giving to him, at the close of a work, the latest news of those who
+sought his acquaintance through its progress.
+
+The weak but well-meaning Smith, no more oppressed by the evil
+influence of his brother, has continued to pass his days in comfort and
+respectability on the income settled on him by Philip Beaufort.  Mr. and
+Mrs. Roger Morton still live, and have just resigned their business to
+their eldest son; retiring themselves to a small villa adjoining the town
+in which they had made their fortune.  Mrs. Morton is very apt, when she
+goes out to tea, to talk of her dear deceased sister-in-law, the late
+Mrs. Beaufort, and of her own remarkable kindness to her nephew when a
+little boy.  She observes that, in fact, the young men owe everything to
+Mr. Roger and herself; and, indeed, though Sidney was never of a grateful
+disposition, and has not been near her since, yet the elder brother, the
+Mr. Beaufort, always evinces his respect to them by the yearly present of
+a fat buck.  She then comments on the ups and downs of life; and observes
+that it is a pity her son Tom preferred the medical profession to the
+church.  Their cousin, Mr. Beaufort, has two livings.  To all this Mr.
+Roger says nothing, except an occasional "Thank Heaven, I want no man's
+help!  I am as well to do as my neighbours.  But that's neither here nor
+there."
+
+There are some readers--they who do not thoroughly consider the truths of
+this life--who will yet ask, "But how is Lord Lilburne punished?"
+Punished?--ay, and indeed, how?  The world, and not the poet, must answer
+that question.  Crime is punished from without.  If Vice is punished, it
+must be from within.  The Lilburnes of this hollow world are not to be
+pelted with the soft roses of poetical justice.  They who ask why he is
+not punished may be the first to doff the hat to the equipage in which my
+lord lolls through the streets!  The only offence he habitually committed
+of a nature to bring the penalties of detection, he renounced the moment
+he perceived there was clanger of discovery! he gambled no more after
+Philip's hint.  He was one of those, some years after, most bitter upon
+a certain nobleman charged with unfair play--one of those who took the
+accusation as proved; and whose authority settled all disputes thereon.
+
+But, if no thunderbolt falls on Lord Lilburne's head--if he is fated
+still to eat, and drink, and to die on his bed, he may yet taste the
+ashes of the Dead Sea fruit which his hands have culled.  He is grown
+old.  His infirmities increase upon him; his sole resources of pleasure
+--the senses--are dried up.  For him there is no longer savour in the
+viands, or sparkle in the wine,--man delights him not, nor woman neither.
+He is alone with Old Age, and in the sight of Death.
+
+With the exception of Simon, who died in his chair not many days after
+Sidney's marriage, Robert Beaufort is the only one among the more
+important agents left at the last scene of this history who has passed
+from our mortal stage.
+
+After the marriage of his daughter he for some time moped and drooped.
+But Philip learned from Mr. Blackwell of the will that Robert had made
+previously to the lawsuit; and by which, had the lawsuit failed, his
+rights would yet have been preserved to him.  Deeply moved by a
+generosity he could not have expected from his uncle, and not pausing
+to inquire too closely how far it was to be traced to the influence of
+Arthur, Philip so warmly expressed his gratitude, and so surrounded Mr.
+Beaufort with affectionate attentions, that the poor man began to recover
+his self-respect,--began even to regard the nephew he had so long
+dreaded, as a son,--to forgive him for not marrying Camilla.  And,
+perhaps, to his astonishment, an act in his life for which the customs of
+the world (that never favour natural ties not previously sanctioned by
+the legal) would have rather censured than praised, became his
+consolation; and the memory he was most proud to recall.  He gradually
+recovered his spirits; he was very fond of looking over that will: he
+carefully preserved it: he even flattered himself that it was necessary
+to preserve Philip from all possible litigation hereafter; for if the
+estates were not legally Philip's, why, then, they were his to dispose of
+as he pleased.  He was never more happy than when his successor was by
+his side; and was certainly a more cheerful and, I doubt not, a better
+man--during the few years in which he survived the law-suit--than ever he
+had been before.  He died--still member for the county, and still quoted
+as a pattern to county members--in Philip's arms; and on his lips there
+was a smile that even Lilburne would have called sincere.
+
+Mrs. Beaufort, after her husband's death, established herself in London;
+and could never be persuaded to visit Beaufort Court.  She took a
+companion, who more than replaced, in her eyes, the absence of Camilla.
+
+And Camilla-Spencer-Sidney.  They live still by the gentle Lake, happy in
+their own serene joys and graceful leisure; shunning alike ambition and
+its trials, action and its sharp vicissitudes; envying no one, covetous
+of nothing; making around them, in the working world, something of the
+old pastoral and golden holiday.  If Camilla had at one time wavered in
+her allegiance to Sidney, her good and simple heart has long since been
+entirely regained by his devotion; and, as might be expected from her
+disposition, she loved him better after marriage than before.
+
+Philip had gone through severer trials than Sidney.  But, had their
+earlier fates been reversed, and that spirit, in youth so haughty and
+self-willed, been lapped in ease and luxury, would Philip now be a better
+or a happier man?  Perhaps, too, for a less tranquil existence than his
+brother, Philip yet may be reserved; but, in proportion to the uses of
+our destiny, do we repose or toil: he who never knows pain knows but the
+half of pleasure.  The lot of whatever is most noble on the earth below
+falls not amidst the rosy Gardels of the Epicurean.  We may envy the man
+who enjoys and rests; but the smile of Heaven settles rather on the front
+of him who labours and aspires.
+
+And did Philip ever regret the circumstances that had given him Fanny for
+the partner of his life?  To some who take their notions of the Ideal
+from the conventional rules of romance, rather than from their own
+perceptions of what is true, this narrative would have been more pleasing
+had Philip never loved but Fanny.  But all that had led to that love had
+only served to render it more enduring and concentred.  Man's strongest
+and worthiest affection is his last--is the one that unites and embodies
+all his past dreams of what is excellent--the one from which Hope springs
+out the brighter from former disappointments--the one in which the
+MEMORIES are the most tender and the most abundant--the one which,
+replacing all others, nothing hereafter can replace.
+
+                     .    .    .    .    .    .
+
+And now ere the scene closes, and the audience, whom perhaps the actors
+may have interested for a while, disperse, to forget amidst the pursuits
+of actual life the Shadows that have amused an hour, or beguiled a care,
+let the curtain fall on one happy picture:--
+
+It is some years after the marriage of Philip and Fanny.  It is a summer
+morning.  In a small old-fashioned room at Beaufort Court, with its
+casements open to the gardens, stood Philip, having just entered; and
+near the window sat Fanny, his boy by her side.  She was at the mother's
+hardest task--the first lessons to the first-born child; and as the boy
+looked up at her sweet earnest face with a smile of intelligence on his
+own, you might have seen at a glance how well understood were the teacher
+and the pupil.  Yes: whatever might have been wanting in the Virgin to
+the full development of mind, the cares of the mother had supplied.  When
+a being was born to lean on her alone--dependent on her providence for
+life--then hour after hour, step after step, in the progress of infant
+destinies, had the reason of the mother grown in the child's growth,
+adapting itself to each want that it must foresee, and taking its
+perfectness and completion from the breath of the New Love!
+
+The child caught sight of Philip and rushed to embrace him.
+
+"See!" whispered Fanny, as she also hung upon him, and strange
+recollections of her own mysterious childhood crowded upon her,--"See,"
+whispered she, with a blush half of shame and half of pride, "the poor
+idiot girl is the teacher of your child!"
+
+"And," answered Philip, "whether for child or mother, what teacher is
+like Love?"
+
+Thus saying, he took the boy into his arms; and, as he bent over those
+rosy cheeks, Fanny saw, from the movement of his lips and the moisture in
+his eyes, that he blessed God.  He looked upon the mother's face, he
+glanced round on the flowers and foliage of the luxurious summer, and
+again he blessed God: And without and within, it was Light and MORNING!
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, NIGHT AND MORNING, ***
+By Edward Bulwer Lytton
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