Book 2 - Chapter 5

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_ BOOK II 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." _

Read next: Book 2: Chapter 6

Read previous: Book 2: Chapter 4

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