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?
