"So be it, then," said the peer; "and now you must return to speak with the person I mentioned, who shall soon be sent to you." Thus saying, Lord Dewry called back the two men who had brought the young gipsy thither; and, after bidding them take him back to the strong room, told them, in his hearing, as an earnest of his good-will, to let him have everything that could render him comfortable in strict imprisonment. As soon as the men appeared, the boy resumed his look of sullen shyness; and, hanging his head, followed them in silence from the room.
The moment he had departed, the peer sent to inquire for the keeper, who had not yet returned, however; and Lord Dewry was kept for a short time under the irritation of his own impatient spirit. At length Harvey appeared, followed by his confederate, Harry Saxon; and it would have given sincere pleasure to a disciple of Lavater to see how well this worthy's countenance corresponded with his actions.
He was a man of about five-and-forty, and what many people would call a good-looking man; that is to say, he had a fresh country complexion, a high large nose, with small nostrils, a capacious mouth, furnished with white and regular teeth, a small keen black eye, under a very overhanging and observing brow, a forehead low, but broad, and surmounted with a layer of fine jet-black hair, smoothed down, and polished with the most careful and scrupulous precision. His dress, without being exactly that of a gamekeeper, had a sufficient portion of the style usually attributed to that class to show his hankering after the beasts of the field. His coat was green, and on the buttons thereof appeared, not alone the fox, that most sagacious animal, but a variety of birds and beasts, so comprehensive in their number, and so limited in their kind, that his garment formed a very excellent hieroglyphical abstract of the game act. Leathern gaiters, with small round leathern buttons, cased a pair of sturdy legs, and defended them from the brambles of those paths he most frequented; and a pair of hedger's gloves upon his hands seemed well calculated to grope for springes and gins amid the thorny ways of life.
The peer surveyed him, as he entered, with the keen eye of worldly experience, and saw that he was a man to be depended on by those who could pay him well. After a brief question or two, to which the other replied with sly significance, the peer explained to him the ostensible object he had in view; namely, that of securing the apprehension of a gipsy felon called Pharold, by the instrumentality of the boy they had taken on the preceding night, and asked him if he were willing to undertake the part he was to play, and to perform it carefully.
"You are, I hear," he added, with some degree of irony, "in some way acquainted with these gipsies, and may, therefore, not like to bring one of them to justice. If it be so, speak, and we will find some other person."
"No, no, my lord," answered the man. "A gipsy! why, I hate a gipsy! they come in and spoil every thing like the regular trade. No, no, hang 'em all for me."
Lord Dewry did not pause to inquire what Harry Saxon called the regular trade; but replied, "Well, if such be your opinion, go in and speak to this lad. Do not let him know that you have had any conversation with me upon the subject; but offer to do anything for him that you can; and when you have heard what he has to say, come back and let me know the result."
The peer added an injunction to be quick; and Harry Saxon was conducted, by his worthy associate Harvey, to the strong room in which the gipsy lad had been confined.
The chamber would have been in every respect a comfortable one, had not the doors and windows been furnished on the outside with those appurtenances, obnoxious to all comfort, called bolts and bars. The house had been constructed when population was much thinner than at present, and when it was necessary that the dwelling of a magistrate, if situated far from any great town, should be provided with some place in which a prisoner might be confined for a few hours; for this purpose the room we speak of had been selected and fitted up, both on account of the distance at which it lay from the more frequented parts of the building, and of its proximity to a large old hall, which formed the extreme wing of the house, and topped the bank overhanging the river. This hall had often served, in cases of necessity, as a justice-room in the olden times; and though many years had elapsed since it had been employed on any very important occasion, yet even of later days it had been used for the meeting of magistrates and county functionaries, when anything caused them to assemble in that part of the country.
The strong room, however, had never been intended for anything but temporary purposes, and was not at all calculated for securing a strong and determined prisoner for any length of time, as the windows, which opened into the park, were only closed by iron bars, which, as the peer had hinted, might easily be filed away from within, or forced off from without. These bars the boy took care to examine minutely as soon as he was taken back to the place of his confinement; and he then turned his eyes to the park beyond, to ascertain how far the plan he had to propose to Pharold would be recommended by the probability of its success.