"Don't your honour--don't!" pleaded the lad, still cowering and shrinking. "I ain't done a morsel of harm--upon my soul I ain't! I didn't come here to steal nothink--upon my soul I didn't!" Miser Farebrother put the pistol into his pocket, and the lad began to whimper. "Do you know I could take your life, could lawfully take it," said Miser Farebrother, "for breaking into _my_ house as you have done, and sleeping upon _my_ bed?" "Yes, your honour; but please don't! I didn't break into the house. The door was open." "Stop that crying." "Yes, your honour." And the lad, in default of a handkerchief, dug his knuckles into his eyes. A lad of resource and some decision of character, he cried no more. This fact was not lost upon Miser Farebrother. "You did not break into the house, you say?" "No, your honour; upon my soul I didn't!" "And you found the door open?" "Yes, your honour." "Which door?" "The kitchen door, your honour." "How long have you been here?" "Three days, your honour." This piece of information rather confounded Miser Farebrother, who, himself an interloper, was feeling his way; but he was politic enough not to betray himself. "Three days, eh--and not yet caught?" "Nobody wants to ketch me, your honour." "Not your father and mother?" "Ain't got none, your honour." "Somebody else, then, in their place?" "There ain't nobody in their place. There ain't a soul that's got a call to lay a hand upon me." "Except me." "Yes, your honour," said the lad, humbly: "but I didn't know." His complete subservience and humbleness had an effect upon Miser Farebrother. He judged others by himself--a common enough standard among mortals--and he was not the man to trust to mere words; but there was a semblance of truth in the manner of the lad which staggered him. In all England it would have been difficult to find a man less given to sentiment, and less likely to be led by it, but the lad's conspicuous helplessness, and his ingenuous blue eyes--which, now that the pistol was put away, looked frankly at the miser--no less than his own scheme of taking possession of Parksides by stealth and in secrecy, were elements in favour of this lad, so strangely found in so strange a situation. A claim upon Parksides Miser Farebrother undoubtedly possessed; he held papers, in the shape of liens upon complicated mortgages, which he had purchased for a song; but he had something more than a latent suspicion that the law's final verdict was necessary to establish the validity and exact value of his claim. This he had not sought to obtain, knowing that it would have led him into ruinous expense and probable failure. These circumstances were the breeders of an uneasy consciousness that he and the lad, in their right to occupy Parksides, were somewhat upon an equality. Hence it was necessary to be cautious, and to feel his way, as it were. "Where are your people?" he asked. The lad stared at him. "My people!"