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440 THE ADVENTURES OP PHILIP
N
CHAPTER XXVIII
IN WHICH MRS. MACWHIRTER HAS A NEW BONNET
OW though the unhappy Philip slept quite soundly, so that
his boots, those tramp-worn sentries, remained en faction
at his door until quite a late hour next morning ; and though
little Charlotte, after a prayer or two, sank into the sweetest and
most refreshing girlish slumber, Charlotte's father and mother had
a bad night ; and, for my part, I maintain that they did not deserve
a good one. It was very well for Mrs. Baynes to declare that it
was MacWhirter's snoring which kept them awake (Mr. and Mrs.
Mac being lodged in the bedroom over their relatives)—I don't say
a snoring neighbour is pleasant—but what a bedfellow is a bad
conscience ! Under Mrs. Baynes's night-cap the grim eyes lie open
all night ; on Baynes's pillow is a silent wakeful head that hears
the hours toll. " A plague upon the young man !" thinks the
female bonnet de nuit ; " how dare he come in and disturb everything
? How pale Charlotte will look to-morrow when Mrs. Hely
calls with her son ! When she has been crying she looks hideous,
and her eyelids and nose are quite red. She may fly out and say
something wicked and absurd, as she did to-day. I wish I had
never seen that insolent young man, with his carroty beard and
vulgar blucher boots ! If my boys were grown up, he should not
come hectoring about the house as he does; they would soon find
a way of punishing his impudence!" Baulked revenge and a hungry
disappointment, I think, are keeping that old woman awake; and,
if she hears the hours tolling, it is because wicked thoughts make
her sleepless.
As for Baynes, I believe that old man is awake, because he is
awake to the shabbiness of his own conduct. His conscience has
got the better of him, which he has been trying to bully out of doors.
Do what he will, that reflection forces itself upon him. Mac,
Bunch, and the Doctor all saw the thing at once, and went dead
against him. He wanted to break his word to a young fellow, who,
whatever his faults might be, had acted most nobly and generously
by the Baynes family. He might have been mined but for Philip's
forbearance; and showed his gratitude by breaking his promise to the