“You are a consummate rogue!” said Gideon forthrightly.
“Sir,” responded Mr. Liversedge, “I must protest against the use of that epithet! A consummate rogue, you will allow, is a rogue from choice, and feels no compunction for his roguery. With me it is far otherwise, I assure you. Particularly have my feelings been wrung by the plight of your noble relative—a most amiable young man, and one whom I was excessively loth to put to inconvenience!”
“You scoundrel, you would have murdered him at a word from me!” Gideon exclaimed.
“That,” said Mr. Liversedge firmly, “would have been your responsibility, Captain Ware.”
At this point, Wragby, who from his seat behind them had been listening to this conversation, interposed to beg his master to pull up so that he might have the pleasure of drawing Mr. Liversedge’s cork.
“No,” said Gideon. “I prefer to hand him over in due course to the Law.”
“I am persuaded,” said Mr. Liversedge, “that when I have restored your relative to you, as I am really anxious to do, you will think better of that unhandsome notion, sir. Ingratitude is a vice which I abhor!”
“We shall see what my relative has to say about it,” replied Gideon grimly.
Mr. Liversedge, who could not feel that forty-eight hours spent in a dark cellar would engender in his victim any feelings of mercy, relapsed into a depressed silence.
But his mercurial spirits could not long remain damped, and by the time Gideon stopped to change horses, he had recovered enough to regale him with a very entertaining anecdote to his first employer’s discredit. While Wragby besought the ostlers to fig out two lively ones, and made arrangements for the Captain’s own horses to be led back to London, he considered the chances of escape; but even his hopeful mind was obliged to realize that these were slim. However, he was a great believer in Providence, and he could not but feel that Providence would intervene on his behalf before the end of the journey. He had not yet divulged the locality of the Duke’s prison, and he had not been urged to do so. Captain Ware was taking it for granted that he would lead him to it. Upon reflection, Mr. Liversedge acknowledged gloomily that unless something quite unforeseen occurred this was precisely what he would do.