"And on his return?" said Adeline, anxiously.
"Have I not assured you that the moment which places in my hands the conclusive proofs of Vernon's guilt—the only link wanting to complete the chain——"
Eliza Sydney was suddenly interrupted by an exclamation which came from the lips of Gilbert Vernon.
She rose, and hastened to the window.
"Here is a troop of poor fellows who doubtless endeavour to earn an honest penny by their agility and skill," said Vernon; "and in a country where mendicity is a crime, even such a livelihood as theirs is honourably gained."
Had not Eliza Sydney's curiosity been at the moment attracted by the strange appearance of the corps of mountebanks to whom Vernon alluded, and who were advancing towards the Hall, she would have been struck with surprise at the emanation of such generous sentiments from so cold-hearted, austere, and aristocratic a person as he.
But her attention was for the time directed towards six persons, five of whom were clad in the light grotesque manner in which mountebanks appear at country-fairs, and even not unfrequently in the streets of London. They wore flesh-coloured stockings, nankin breeches, and jackets of variegated colours, as if, in respect to this latter article of their apparel, they attempted to vie with the peculiar costume of world-renowned Harlequin. The sixth was dressed in a common garb, and wore a hideous mask.
One of the jugglers carried an enormous drum slung behind his back, and had a set of Pandean pipes tucked in his neckcloth beneath his chin; and another was laden with a wicker-basket. The man who was dressed in the common garb and wore the mask, bore a long rod with a net twisted round it, upon his shoulder. A fourth carried two stout stakes; and the remaining two were empty-handed, although it was evident by their dress that they took no small share in the performances which itinerant mountebanks and conjurors of this kind are in the habit of exhibiting.
We must observe, in respect to the man who wore the mask, and who, as the reader already knows, was the gipsy Morcar, that beneath his ample straw hat, and over the edges of the mask, projected huge bushes of reddish-yellow hair, which seemed as if they had once belonged to a door-mat. He walked, a little apart from the others, in company with the man who carried the stakes.
"These conjurors evidently contemplate an exhibition upon the lawn before the windows," said Eliza Sydney, as the men drew nearer to the house. "I will send them out some money and request them to retire, as such performances are not suitable to a spot where mourning is still worn for the deceased lord."