ortal wild young gentleman! And I'm a Ass! That's
where 'tis. But I an't a blackguard. Tell him that, sir!"

This was how it came that Austin eyed young Richard seriously while he
told the news at Raynham. The boy was shy of Austin more than of Adrian.
Why, he did not know; but he made it a hard task for Austin to catch him
alone, and turned sulky that instant. Austin was not clever like Adrian:
he seldom divined other people's ideas, and always went the direct road
to his object; so instead of beating about and setting the boy on the
alert at all points, crammed to the muzzle with lies, he just said, "Tom
Bakewell told me to let you know he does not intend to peach on you,"
and left him.

Richard repeated the intelligence to Ripton, who cried aloud that Tom
was a brick.

"He shan't suffer for it," said Richard, and pondered on a thicker rope
and sharper file.

"But will your cousin tell?" was Ripton's reflection.

"He!" Richard's lip expressed contempt. "A ploughman refuses to peach,
and you ask if one of our family will?"

Ripton stood for the twentieth time reproved on this point.

The boys had examined the outer walls of the jail, and arrived at the
conclusion that Tom's escape might be managed if Tom had spirit, and the
rope and file could be anyway reached to him. But to do this, somebody
must gain admittance to his cell, and who was to be taken into their
confidence?

"Try your cousin," Ripton suggested, after much debate.

Richard, smiling, wished to know if he meant Adrian.

"No, no!" Ripton hurriedly reassured him. "Austin."

The same idea was knocking at Richard's head.

"Let's get the rope and 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 f