This piece of information rather confounded Miser Farebrother, who, himself an interloper, was feeling his way; but he was politic enough not to betray himself.
"Three days, eh—and not yet caught?"
"Nobody wants to ketch me, your honour."
"Not your father and mother?"
"Ain't got none, your honour."
"Somebody else, then, in their place?"
"There ain't nobody in their place. There ain't a soul that's got a call to lay a hand upon me."
"Except me."
"Yes, your honour," said the lad, humbly: "but I didn't know."
His complete subservience and humbleness had an effect upon Miser Farebrother. He judged others by himself—a common enough standard among mortals—and he was not the man to trust to mere words; but there was a semblance of truth in the manner of the lad which staggered him. In all England it would have been difficult to find a man less given to sentiment, and less likely to be led by it, but the lad's conspicuous helplessness, and his ingenuous blue eyes—which, now that the pistol was put away, looked frankly at the miser—no less than his own scheme of taking possession of Parksides by stealth and in secrecy, were elements in favour of this lad, so strangely found in so strange a situation. A claim upon Parksides Miser Farebrother undoubtedly possessed; he held papers, in the shape of liens upon complicated mortgages, which he had purchased for a song; but he had something more than a latent suspicion that the law's final verdict was necessary to establish the validity and exact value of his claim. This he had not sought to obtain, knowing that it would have led him into ruinous expense and probable failure. These circumstances were the breeders of an uneasy consciousness that he and the lad, in their right to occupy Parksides, were somewhat upon an equality. Hence it was necessary to be cautious, and to feel his way, as it were.