Part 27 (2/2)

”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 un.o.bserved. But, somehow or other, either Philip had been misinformed as to an inn where he had proposed to pa.s.s 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, compa.s.sionately 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 l.u.s.tre. 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 pa.s.sing 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 gra.s.s 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! G.o.d 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 sh.o.r.e.

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 blus.h.i.+ng 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 coa.r.s.e and low career.

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