to check the young natural lawyer, for the effect of so much masked examination upon Richard was growing baneful.  This fish also felt the hook in his gills, but this fish was more of a pike, and lay in different waters, where there were old stumps and black roots to wind about, and defy alike strong pulling and delicate handling.  In other words, Richard showed symptoms of a disposition to take refuge in lies.

“You know the grounds, my dear boy,” Adrian observed to him.  “Tell me; do you think it easy to get to the rick unperceived?  I hear they suspect one of the farmer’s turned-off hands.”

“I tell you I don’t know the grounds,” Richard sullenly replied.

“Not?” Adrian counterfeited courteous astonishment.  “I thought Mr. Thompson said you were over there yesterday?”

Ripton, glad to speak the truth, hurriedly assured Adrian that it was not he had said so.

“Not?  You had good sport, gentlemen, hadn’t you?”

“Oh, yes!” mumbled the wretched victims, reddening as they remembered, in Adrian’s slightly drawled rusticity of tone, Farmer Blaize’s first address to them.

“I suppose you were among the Fire-worshippers last night, too?” persisted Adrian.  “In some countries, I hear, they manage their best sport at night-time, and beat up for game with torches.  It must be a fine sight.  After all, the country would be dull if we hadn’t a rip here and there to treat us to a little conflagration.”

“A rip!” laughed Richard, to his friend’s disgust and alarm at his daring.  “You don’t mean this Rip, do you?”

“Mr. Thompson fire a rick?  I should as soon suspect you, my dear boy.—­You are aware, young gentlemen, that it is rather a serious thing eh?  In this country, you know, the landlord has always been the pet of the Laws.  By the way,” Adrian continued, as if diverging to another topic, “you met two gentlemen of the road in your explorations yesterday, Magians.  Now, if I were a magistrate of the county, like Sir Miles Papworth, my suspicions would light upon those gentlemen.  A tinker and a ploughman, I think you said, Mr. Thompson.  Not?  Well, say two ploughmen.”

“More likely two tinkers,” said Richard.

“Oh! if you wish to exclude the ploughman—­was he out of employ?”

Ripton, with Adrian’s eyes inveterately fixed on him, stammered an affirmative.

“The tinker, or the ploughman?”

“The ploughm—­” Ingenuous Ripton looking about, as if to aid himself whenever he was able to speak the truth, beheld Richard’s face blackening at him, and swallowed back half the word.

“The ploughman!” Adrian took him up cheerily.  “Then we have here a ploughman out of employ.  Given a ploughman out of employ, and a rick burnt.  The burning of a rick is an act of vengeance, and a ploughman out of employ is a vengeful animal.  The rick and the ploughman are advancing to a juxtaposition.  Motive being established, we have only to prove their proximity at a certain hour, and our ploughman voyages beyond seas.”