“Of course, we should expect a little suthin for our trouble,” said Hank; “but that can all be agreed on aforehand. If you can git back the money, you won’t mind payin’ us—say—here’s me an’ Tug an’ Cub—ten dollars apiece,—that’s thirty dollars, for the resk we run?”
“But we can’t get it!”
“Mebby not, but we can try. No harm in that. It’s gittin’ dark now,—we can edge along towards the squire’s, and see what we can do. Send your dog hum; he’ll only be in the way.”
Jack was far from putting implicit trust in the honor of a Huswick, even where the serious subject of money was involved; but was not this his only chance—though a slender one—of getting back any portion of his treasure? And would he not prefer sharing it with these scamps, to leaving it peaceably in the possession of his enemy, the squire?
“If we can only find out where it is,” said Hank, “then we can be arguin’ with the old man,—for I guess he’ll let us into the house, one at a time,—an’ finally carry it off ’fore his face an’ eyes, without we can hit on some luckier way.”
Jack remembered Mr. Chatford’s word, reported to him by Phin,—that such an act on his part would be justifiable,—and so, regardless of the whisperings of conscience and of prudence, which nevertheless he could not quite reconcile to the course he was about to take, yielded to temptation, sent Lion home, and entered into an agreement with the Huswick boys.
CHAPTER XVI
HOW JACK CALLED AT THE SQUIRE’S.
About an hour later several dark figures might have been seen creeping stealthily along, behind Squire Peternot’s garden wall, in the direction of the house. A dim light shone at a window, and towards this they cautiously advanced. Jack remembered how, on a former occasion, he had gone with two of these same companions,—Cub and Tug, though he did not know them then,—in a mob that was to have attacked Aunt Patsy’s house, how they had approached her window, and how he had abhorred their base designs; and he could not help wondering a little at the strange chance which now made him the accomplice of such wrong-doers. He seemed to himself in the mean time much more the reckless little canal-driver of old times, than the better self which had been developed under the wholesome influences of his new home and friends.