"Come at last?" said Tidkins, as Vernon entered the ruins. "Been doing the amiable to the ladies, I suppose?"
"I have succeeded in that task tolerably well lately," answered Vernon, with difficulty concealing an expression of disgust at the odious familiarity of his agent; but he had already learnt that crime places the menial upon a footing with the master, and compels the haughty aristocrat to brook the insolence of the vulgar desperado.
"Well, now we are drawing to the end of the play at last," continued Tidkins. "So much the better: for I was getting infernally sick of this moping kind of life. But what if this plan of ours should happen to fail?"
"Then I will try another—and even another, if necessary, until we succeed," answered Vernon, emphatically. "Yes: I am now so bent upon the deed—so resolved to become the lord and owner of these broad lands and yon proud mansion—that I will even risk my neck to attain that end."
"You speak in a plucky manner that I admire," said Tidkins. "Besides, when once you are Lord Ravensworth, who will dare to utter a suspicion—even if there should seem any ground for it?"
"No one—certainly," replied Vernon. "But have you looked about the ruins? Remember the last time we met here—there was an eaves-dropper then——"
"Don't alarm yourself," interrupted Tidkins: "I walked carefully round the place; and I'll swear no one is near. Unless, indeed," he added, with a jocular chuckle, "some very curious person has got into that great cistern up there; and I must confess I didn't climb up to look into it."
"Cease this humour," said Vernon, somewhat sternly. "If you have been round the ruins, that is sufficient. Our business is too important to allow us to waste time in idle bantering. Do the jugglers understand that they are to come up this evening?"
"Fully so," answered Tidkins, coolly inhaling the fragrant vapour of his cigar. "They are all at the Three Kings—that public-house which you see by the road-side yonder,—and most likely making merry with the couple of guineas that I gave them last night. It is not necessary that I should see them again before they come to the Hall."
"You mentioned to them that there was a sick lady at the mansion who would be amused with their sports?" said Vernon.