'Not much chance o' that, sir; there's allus summun a wantin' a weskit o' this make,' answered the man, with a grin, as Vernon and Ida went on, uncomfortably impressed by the idea of those two men sawing their coffin-boards in the calm, bright evening, with every articulation of the branching fern standing sharply out against the yellow light, as on the margin of a golden sea.
They rambled on, and presently Ida was repeating passages from those Shakespearian plays which had formed Vernon's first introduction to English history, and of which he had never tired. Ida knew all the great speeches, and indeed a good many of the more famous scenes, by heart, and Vernon liked to hear them over and over again, alternately detesting the Lancastrians and pitying the Yorkists, or hating York and compassionating Lancaster, as the fortunes of war wavered. And then there was Richard the Second, more tenderly touched by Shakespeare than by Hume or Hallam; and Richard the Third, whose iniquities were made respectable by a kind of diabolical thoroughness; and that feebler villain John. Vernon was as familiar with them as if they had been flesh and blood acquaintances.
'Cheap Jack knows Shakespeare as well as you do,' said Vernon presently, when they had left the park by a wooden gate that opened into a patch of common land, which lay between the Wimperfield fence and Blackman's Hanger.
'Who is Cheap Jack?' asked Ida absently.
'The man you saw the night I came home, when Mr. Jardine was with us.
Don't you remember?'
'The man in the cart—the showman? Yes, I know; but I did not see him.'
'No; he hates the gentry, and women, too, I think. But he likes
Shakespeare.'
'I shouldn't have thought he would have known anything about
Shakespeare.'
'Oh, but he does—better than you even. When he was mending my fishing-rod—you remember, don't you?—I told you how clever he was at fishing-rods.'
'Yes, I remember—it was the day you were out so long quite alone; and I was dreadfully frightened about you.'