"Moreover, Sir Humphrey," added the crafty attorney, slily, "once you have the letters, you can denounce the rogue yourself, and get him hanged safely out of your way."
"He'd denounce me."
"And who'd believe the rascal's word against your Honour's flat denial? Not Squire West, for sure, before whom he'd be tried, and your Honour can have him kept in prison until after your marriage with Lady Patience."
It seemed as if even reason would range herself on the side of this daring plan. There seemed practically no risk as far as Sir Humphrey himself was concerned, and every chance of success, an that rascal Beau Brocade would but consent.
"He would," asserted Mittachip, "an your Honour told him that the coach, the money, and the letters belonged to Lady Rounce, and the young lady travelling in the coach but a niece of her ladyship. Lady Rounce is a hard woman who takes no excuse from a debtor. He! he! he! she has the worst reputation in the two counties, save your Honour!"
The lawyer chuckled at this little joke, but Sir Humphrey was too absorbed to note the impertinence. He was pacing up and down the narrow room in a last agony of indecision.
Mittachip evidently was satisfied with his day's work. The two hundred guineas he looked upon as a certainty already. After a while, noting the look of stern determination upon his Honour's face, he turned the conversation to matters of business. He had been collecting some rents for Sir Humphrey and also for Squire West and Lady Rounce, and would have to return to Wirksworth to bank the money.
Since Sir Humphrey Challoner was occupying the only available bedroom at the Moorhen, there would be no room for Master Mittachip and Master Duffy, his clerk. He hoped to reach Brassington by the bridle path before the footpads were astir, thence at dawn on to Wirksworth.
He had shot his poisonous arrow and did not stop to ascertain how far it had gone home. He bade farewell to his employer, with all the deference which many years of intercourse with the quality had taught him, and never mentioned Beau Brocade, Lady Patience or John Stich's forge again. But when he had bowed and scraped himself out of his Honour's presence, and was sitting once more beside Master Duffy in the bar-parlour, there was a world of satisfaction in his pale, watery eyes.
CHAPTER X