Philip had money in the Fosters' bank, not so much as it might have
been if he had not had to pay for the furniture in his house. Much
of this furniture was old, and had belonged to the brothers Foster,
and they had let Philip have it at a very reasonable rate; but still
the purchase of it had diminished the amount of his savings. But on
the sum which he possessed he drew largely--he drew all--nay, he
overdrew his account somewhat, to his former masters' dismay,
although the kindness of their hearts overruled the harder arguments
of their heads.
All was wanted to defend Daniel Robson at the approaching York
assizes. His wife had handed over to Philip all the money or money's
worth she could lay her hands upon. Daniel himself was not one to be
much beforehand with the world; but to Bell's thrifty imagination
the round golden guineas, tied up in the old stocking-foot against
rent-day, seemed a mint of money on which Philip might draw
infinitely. As yet she did not comprehend the extent of her
husband's danger. Sylvia went about like one in a dream, keeping
back the hot tears that might interfere with the course of life she
had prescribed for herself in that terrible hour when she first
learnt all. Every penny of money either she or her mother could save
went to Philip. Kester's hoard, too, was placed in Hepburn's hands
at Sylvia's earnest entreaty; for Kester had no great opinion of
Philip's judgment, and would rather have taken his money straight
himself to Mr. Dawson, and begged him to use it for his master's
behoof.
Indeed, if anything, the noiseless breach between Kester and Philip
had widened of late. It was seed-time, and Philip, in his great
anxiety for every possible interest that might affect Sylvia, and
also as some distraction from his extreme anxiety about her father,
had taken to study agriculture of an evening in some old books which
he had borrowed--The Farmer's Complete Guide, and such like; and
from time to time he came down upon the practical dogged Kester with
directions gathered from the theories in his books. Of course the
two fell out, but without many words. Kester persevered in his old
ways, making light of Philip and his books in manner and action,
till at length Philip withdrew from the contest. 'Many a man may
lead a horse to water, but there's few can make him drink,' and
Philip certainly was not one of those few. Kester, indeed, looked
upon him with jealous eyes on many accounts. He had favoured Charley
Kinraid as a lover of Sylvia's; and though he had no idea of the
truth--though he believed in the drowning of the specksioneer as
much as any one--yet the year which had elapsed since Kinraid's
supposed death was but a very short while to the middle-aged man,
who forgot how slowly time passes with the young; and he could often
have scolded Sylvia, if the poor girl had been a whit less heavy at
heart than she was, for letting Philip come so much about her--come,
though it was on her father's business. For the darkness of their
common dread drew them together, occasionally to the comparative
exclusion of Bell and Kester, which the latter perceived and
resented. Kester even allowed himself to go so far as to wonder what
Philip could want with all the money, which to him seemed
unaccountable; and once or twice the ugly thought crossed his mind,
that shops conducted by young men were often not so profitable as
when guided by older heads, and that some of the coin poured into
Philip's keeping might have another destination than the defence of
his master. Poor Philip! and he was spending all his own, and more
than all his own money, and no one ever knew it, as he had bound
down his friendly bankers to secrecy.