[CHAPTER XI.]
THE RASCAL EMPLOYS HIS WITS.
"What shall I do? I can borrow no more of my credit: there's not any of my acquaintance, man or boy, but I have borrowed more or less of. I would I knew where to take a good purse."—The London Prodigal.
Ravenshaw had not the slightest thought that he was being followed, or had been followed during the day. He had recognised Gregory as Jerningham's attendant, but he supposed Jerningham had sent the man, for want of a better instrument, to attempt what Ravenshaw himself had withdrawn from, or perchance to carry a letter; he thus accounted for the serving-man's unexpected presence in the garden.
He knew that the knave would not succeed, even if he tried it, in communicating with Mistress Millicent that night. But doubtless further efforts would be made soon, and, while he felt she was proof against any manifest overtures against her honour, he feared some cunning proposal which might have a false appearance of honesty, and to which, in her desperate desire to escape from Sir Peregrine, she might therefore give ear. Here was additional reason why he must work swiftly to place her out of all danger, either on Jerningham's side or on Sir Peregrine's, if sufficient reason did not already exist in the fact that he had to leave London at noon the next day. The arrangement for his serving Master Jerningham in the country could not be at all affected by his passage with Jerningham's man in the garden. Gregory's action there must have been on the inspiration of the moment, and formed no cause of quarrel with Jerningham; while Jerningham, on learning that Ravenshaw had again visited the goldsmith's daughter, would be the more desirous to get him out of London.
Walking out Cheapside, the captain gave final order to the plans he had been evolving all the afternoon.
He first made search and question in sundry ale-houses and such, about Pye Corner, for Cutting Tom; whom at last he found in a room filled with tobacco smoke, where a number of suburb rascals and sightseeing rustics were at the moment watching a fantastic fellow dance to a comrade's pipe and tabour. From this innocent amusement, Cutting Tom was easily drawn into the privacy of a little garden attached to the place.
"What cheer now?" queried Tom. "Fighting to be done? or coney-catching? You know I'm your man through sea-water and hell-fire, for a brace of angels or so."