upon my word as a
plain man, I don't see what you can do better." Gawtrey made this speech
with so much frankness and ease, that it seemed greatly to relieve the
listener, and when he wound up with, "What say you? In fine, my life is
that of a great schoolboy, getting into scrapes for the fun of it, and
fighting his way out as he best can!--Will you see how you like it?"
Philip, with a confiding and grateful impulse, put his hand into
Gawtrey's. The host shook it cordially, and, without saying another
word, showed his guest into a little cabinet where there was a sofa-bed,
and they parted for the night. The new life upon which Philip Morton
entered was so odd, so grotesque, and so amusing, that at his age it
was, perhaps, natural that he should not be clear-sighted as to its
danger.

William Gawtrey was one of those men who are born to exert a certain
influence and ascendency wherever they may be thrown; his vast strength,
his redundant health, had a power of themselves--a moral as well as
physical power. He naturally possessed high animal spirits, beneath
the surface of which, however, at times, there was visible a certain
undercurrent of malignity and scorn. He had evidently received a
superior education, and could command at will the manner of a man not
unfamiliar with a politer class of society. From the first hour that
Philip had seen him on the top of the coach on the R---- road, this man
had attracted his curiosity and interest; the conversation he had heard
in the churchyard, the obligations he owed to Gawtrey in his escape from
the officers of justice, the time afterwards passed in his society
till they separated at the little inn, the rough and hearty kindliness
Gawtrey had shown him at that period, and the hospitality extended to
him now,--all contributed to excite his fancy, and in much, indeed very
much, entitled this singular person to his gratitude. Morton, in a word,
was fascinated; this man was the only friend he had made. I have not
thought it necessary to detail to the reader the conversations that had
taken place between them, during that passage of Morton's life when he
was before for some days Gawtrey's companion; yet those conversations
had sunk deep in his mind. He was struck, and almost awed, by the
profound gloom which lurked under Gawtrey's broad humour--a gloom, not
of temperament, but of knowledge. His views of life, of human justice
and human virtue, were (as, to be sure, is commonly the ca