Master Ripton intoned this abrupt interrogation verb seriously.

“I don’t think about it,” said Richard, all his faculties bent on signs from Lobourne.

“Well, but,” Ripton persisted, “suppose we are found out?”

“If we are, I must pay for it.”

Sir Austin breathed the better for this reply.  He was beginning to gather a clue to the dialogue.  His son was engaged in a plot, and was, moreover, the leader of the plot.  He listened for further enlightenment.

“What was the fellow’s name?” inquired Ripton.

His companion answered, “Tom Bakewell.”

“I’ll tell you what,” continued Ripton.  “You let it all clean out to your cousin and uncle at supper.—­How capital claret is with partridge-pie!  What a lot I ate!—­Didn’t you see me frown?”

The young sensualist was in an ecstasy of gratitude to his late refection, and the slightest word recalled him to it.  Richard answered him: 

“Yes; and felt your kick.  It doesn’t matter.  Rady’s safe, and uncle never blabs.”

“Well, my plan is to keep it close.  You’re never safe if you don’t.—­I never drank much claret before,” Ripton was off again.  “Won’t I now, though! claret’s my wine.  You know, it may come out any day, and then we’re done for,” he rather incongruously appended.

Richard only took up the business-thread of his friend’s rambling chatter, and answered: 

“You’ve got nothing to do with it, if we are.”

“Haven’t I, though!  I didn’t stick-in the box but I’m an accomplice, that’s clear.  Besides,” added Ripton, “do you think I should leave you to bear it all on your shoulders?  I ain’t that sort of chap, Ricky, I can tell you.”

Sir Austin thought more highly of the boy Thompson.  Still it looked a detestable conspiracy, and the altered manner of his son impressed him strangely.  He was not the boy of yesterday.  To Sir Austin it seemed as if a gulf had suddenly opened between them.  The boy had embarked, and was on the waters of life in his own vessel.  It was as vain to call him back as to attempt to erase what Time has written with the Judgment Blood!  This child, for whom he had prayed nightly in such a fervour and humbleness to God, the dangers were about him, the temptations thick on him, and the devil on board piloting.  If a day had done so much, what would years do?  Were prayers and all the watchfulness he had expended of no avail?

A sensation of infinite melancholy overcame the poor gentleman—­a thought that he was fighting with a fate in this beloved boy.

He was half disposed to arrest the two conspirators on the spot, and make them confess, and absolve themselves; but it seemed to him better to keep an unseen eye over his son:  Sir Austin’s old system prevailed.

Adrian characterized this system well, in saying that Sir Austin wished to be Providence to his son.

If immeasurable love were perfect wisdom, one human being might almost impersonate Providence to another.  Alas! love, divine as it is, can do no more than lighten the house it inhabits—­must take its shape, sometimes intensify its narrowness—­can spiritualize, but not expel, the old lifelong lodgers above-stairs and below.