“Lord, sir, I have my barkers with me. Who’s there?” The barouche stopped--a man came to the window. “Excuse me, sir,” said the stranger; “but there is a poor boy here so tired and ill that I fear he will never reach the next town, unless you will koindly give him a lift.”
“A poor boy!” said Mr. Spencer, poking his head over the head of Mr. Sharp. “Where?”
“If you would just drop him at the King’s Awrms it would be a chaurity,” said the man.
Sharp pinched Mr. Spencer in his shoulder. “That’s Dashing Jerry; I’ll get out.” So saying, he opened the door, jumped into the road, and presently reappeared with the lost and welcome Sidney in his arms. “Ben’t this the boy?” he whispered to Mr. Spencer; and, taking the lamp from the carriage, he raised it to the child’s face.
“It is! it is! God be thanked!” exclaimed the worthy man.
“Will you leave him at the King’s Awrms?--we shall be there in an hour or two,” cried the Captain.
“We! Who’s we?” said Sharp, gruffly. “Why, myself and the choild’s brother.”
“Oh!” said Sharp, raising the lantern to his own face; “you knows me, I think, Master Jerry? Let me kitch you again, that’s all. And give my compliments to your ‘sociate, and say, if he prosecutes this here hurchin any more, we’ll settle his bizness for him; and so take a hint and make yourself scarce, old boy!”
With that Mr. Sharp jumped into the barouche, and bade the postboy drive on as fast as he could.
Ten minutes after this abduction, Philip, followed by two labourers, with a barrow, a lantern, and two blankets, returned from the hospitable farm to which the light had conducted him. The spot where he had left Sidney, and which he knew by a neighbouring milestone, was vacant; he shouted an alarm, and the Captain answered from the distance of some threescore yards. Philip came to him. “Where is my brother?”
“Gone away in a barouche and pair. Devil take me if I understand it.” And the Captain proceeded to give a confused account of what had passed.
“My brother! my brother! they have torn thee from me, then;” cried Philip, and he fell to the earth insensible.
“Vous me rendrez mon frere!” CASIMER DELAVIGNE: Les Enfans d’Edouard.
One evening, a week after this event, a wild, tattered, haggard youth knocked at the door of Mr. Robert Beaufort. The porter slowly presented himself.