Night and Morning, Volume 2Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
General
Night and Morning, Volume 2
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
English fiction
"I understand," said Sharp; "I have no doubt as how I can settle it. We
learns to know human natur in our profession;--'cause why? we gets at
its blind side. Good night, gentlemen!"
"You seem very pale, Mr. Arthur; you had better go to bed; you promised
your father, you know."
"Yes, I am not well; I will go to bed;" and Arthur rose, lighted his
candle, and sought his room.
"I will see Philip to-morrow," he said to himself; "he will listen to
me."
The conduct of Arthur Beaufort in executing the charge he had undertaken
had brought into full light all the most amiable and generous part of his
character. As soon as he was sufficiently recovered, he had expressed so
much anxiety as to the fate of the orphans, that to quiet him his father
was forced to send for Mr. Blackwell. The lawyer had ascertained,
through Dr. ---, the name of Philip's employer at R----. At Arthur's
request he went down to Mr. Plaskwith; and arriving there the day after
the return of the bookseller, learned those particulars with which Mr.
Plaskwith's letter to Roger Morton has already made the reader
acquainted. The lawyer then sent for Mr. Sharp, the officer before
employed, and commissioned him to track the young man's whereabout. That
shrewd functionary soon reported that a youth every way answering to
Philip's description had been introduced the night of the escape by a man
celebrated, not indeed for robberies, or larcenies, or crimes of the
coarser kind, but for address in all that more large and complex
character which comes under the denomination of living upon one's wits,
to a polite rendezvous frequented by persons of a similar profession.
Since then, however, all clue of Philip was lost. But though Mr.
Blackwell, in the way of his profession, was thus publicly benevolent
towards the fugitive, he did not the less privately represent to his
patrons, senior and junior, the very equivocal character that Philip must
be allowed to bear. Like most lawyers, hard upon all who wander from the
formal tracks, he unaffectedly regarded Philip's flight and absence as
proofs of a reprobate disposition; and this conduct was greatly
aggravated in his eyes by Mr. Sharp's report, by which it appeared that
after his escape Philip had so suddenly, and, as it were, so naturally,
taken to such equivocal companionship. Mr. Robert Beaufort, already
prejudiced against Philip, viewed matters in the same light as the
lawyer; and the story of his supposed predilections reached Arthur's ears
in so distorted a shape, that even he was staggered and revolted:--still
Philip was so young--Arthur's oath to the orphans' mother so recent--and
if thus early inclined to wrong courses, should not every effort be made
to lure him back to the straight path? With these views and reasonings,
as soon as he was able, Arthur himself visited Mrs. Lacy, and the note
from Philip, which the good lady put into his hands, affected him deeply,
and confirmed all his previous resolutions. Mrs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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