"Three or four more things like Torrings's and this," observed Tim the Snammer, "and we shall be able to set up in business as genelmen for the rest of our lives."
"Now listen to me," resumed Old Death, his countenance expressing an infernal triumph, as if his vengeance were already more than half consummated. "In the first place I must tell you that I'm going to move to-morrow morning up to Bunce's house, in Earl Street, Seven Dials; and to-morrow night must you perform the first duty I require of you."
"And what's that?" demanded Josh Pedler.
"You know that a few weeks ago a certain person, named Thomas Rainford, was hanged at Horsemonger Lane Gaol," proceeded Old Death, glancing rapidly around from beneath his shaggy, overhanging brows.
"The very prince of highwaymen—a glorious fellow,—a man that I could have loved!" exclaimed Josh Pedler, in a tone the enthusiasm of which denoted his heart's sincerity.
"Well—well," said Old Death, impatiently: "but he's put out of the way—dead—and gone—and it's no use regretting him. I suppose," he added, "that if you saw Tom Rain's body here, you wouldn't mind spitting in the face of the corpse, or treating it with any other kind of indignity, if you was well rewarded for your pains!"
"Why—my respect for the man while he was living wouldn't make me such a fool to my own interests as to refuse to do what you say now that he's dead," answered Josh Pedler. "Besides, a dead body's a lump of clay, or earth—or whatever else you may choose to call it: at all events it can't feel any thing that's done to it. But what in the world has made you touch on such a queer subject?"
"Because it is with Tom Rain's body that you will have to come in contact to-morrow night!" responded Old Death, in a low, sepulchral voice, and now fixing his eyes as it were on all the three at the same time.
And those three men started with astonishment at this extraordinary and incomprehensible announcement.
"Yes," proceeded Benjamin Bones: "it is just as I tell you—for the late Thomas Rainford was the elder brother of the Earl of Ellingham, and was legitimately born!"