"Who are you?" he asked hurriedly. "You cannot be anybody I ever saw before. I am come to see Mr. Martin, Sidney Martin's eldest son. Where is he?"
The man rose to his feet and lifted up his hand in salutation, standing before him in an almost abject attitude. The skin on his bare arms and breast was tanned to a deep brown and covered with short hair. He mumbled some indistinct syllables in reply, but not a word that Andrew could comprehend.
"Who are you? what's your name?" asked Andrew, raising his voice as if he fancied the foreigner was deaf. In another minute footsteps were heard in the silent house, and Philip himself stepped out of the hall into the porch.
"Andrew Goldsmith!" he exclaimed.
"Yes, me, Mr. Philip," said Andrew excitedly, "I'm come to claim my grandson, the child of my only daughter, my poor lost girl Sophy. I know all about it, Mr. Philip, and my lady herself told Rachel. Why didn't he come straight home with them to Apley Hall? What is he hidden away here for? What are you going to do with him? I am his grandfather, and have a right to know. Next to his father, he belongs to me, and his interests are mine. Why did you bring him here?"
"Look at him, Andrew," said Philip.
Martin was standing a little way off, intently watching his brother, with such a look of faithful love on his face as an intelligent dog might have. Philip smiled at him, a sad smile enough, but it made Martin laugh with delight. So dreary and insane was this sound, as if Martin's lips had never been taught to laugh, that it always made Philip's heart ache to hear it.
"No, no!" cried Andrew, retreating from the two brothers with an expression of terror, "that cannot be my Sophy's son! No, Mr. Philip, it is impossible. He's a savage, a Hottentot! he isn't my grandson. Why! the poor fellow is almost an idiot. He can't be my Sophy's boy. Tell me you're only playing a joke upon me."
"He is my brother," said Philip. "See! I will tell him so."
He said a few words in a language strange to Andrew, and Martin seized his hand and held it to his lips, covering it with kisses. Then he fell back into his customary attitude of abject submission.