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.”