d file first," said he, and to Bursley they went
for those implements to defeat the law, Ripton procuring the file at one
shop and Richard the rope at another, with such masterly cunning did they
lay their measures for the avoidance of every possible chance of
detection. And better to assure this, in a wood outside Bursley Richard
stripped to his shirt and wound the rope round his body, tasting the
tortures of anchorites and penitential friars, that nothing should be
risked to make Tom's escape a certainty. Sir Austin saw the marks at
night as his son lay asleep, through the half-opened folds of his
bed-gown.

It was a severe stroke when, after all their stratagems and trouble,
Austin Wentworth refused the office the boys had zealously designed for
him. Time pressed. In a few days poor Tom would have to face the
redoubtable Sir Miles, and get committed, for rumours of overwhelming
evidence to convict him were rife about Lobourne, and Farmer Blaize's
wrath was unappeasable. Again and again young Richard begged his cousin
not to see him disgraced, and to help him in this extremity. Austin
smiled on him.

"My dear Ricky," said he, "there are two ways of getting out of a scrape:
a long way and a short way. When you've tried the roundabout method, and
failed, come to me, and I'll show you the straight route."

Richard was too entirely bent upon the roundabout method to consider this
advice more than empty words, and only ground his teeth at Austin's
unkind refusal.

He imparted to Ripton, at the eleventh hour, that they must do it
themselves, to which Ripton heavily assented.

On the day preceding poor Tom's doomed appearance before the magistrate,
Dame Bakewell had an interview with Austin, who went to Raynham
immediately, and sought Adrian's counsel upon what was to be done.
Homeric laughter and nothing else could be got out of Adrian when he
heard of the doings of these desperate boys: how they had entered Dame
Bakewell's smallest of retail shops, and purchased tea, sugar, candles,
and comfits of every description, till the shop was clear of customers:
how they had then hurried her into her little back-parlour, where Richard
had torn open his shirt and revealed the coils of rope, and Ripton
displayed the point of a file from a serpentine recess in his jacket: how
they had then told the astonished woman that the rope she saw and the
file she saw were instruments for the liberation of her son; that there
existed no ot