They rambled on, and presently Ida was repeating passages from those Shakespearian plays which had formed Vernon's first introduction to English history, and of which he had never tired. Ida knew all the great speeches, and indeed a good many of the more famous scenes, by heart, and Vernon liked to hear them over and over again, alternately detesting the Lancastrians and pitying the Yorkists, or hating York and compassionating Lancaster, as the fortunes of war wavered. And then there was Richard the Second, more tenderly touched by Shakespeare than by Hume or Hallam; and Richard the Third, whose iniquities were made respectable by a kind of diabolical thoroughness; and that feebler villain John. Vernon was as familiar with them as if they had been flesh and blood acquaintances. 'Cheap Jack knows Shakespeare as well as you do,' said Vernon presently, when they had left the park by a wooden gate that opened into a patch of common land, which lay between the Wimperfield fence and Blackman's Hanger. 'Who is Cheap Jack?' asked Ida absently. 'The man you saw the night I came home, when Mr. Jardine was with us. Don't you remember?' 'The man in the cart--the showman? Yes, I know; but I did not see him.' 'No; he hates the gentry, and women, too, I think. But he likes Shakespeare.' 'I shouldn't have thought he would have known anything about Shakespeare.' 'Oh, but he does--better than you even. When he was mending my fishing-rod--you remember, don't you?--I told you how clever he was at fishing-rods.' 'Yes, I remember--it was the day you were out so long quite alone; and I was dreadfully frightened about you.' 'Oh, but that was silly. Besides, I wasn't alone--I was with Jack all day. And if I had been alone, I can take care of myself--I shall be twelve next birthday. Nobody would try to steal me now,' said Vernon, drawing himself up and swaggering a little. 'What, not even good Mrs. Brown? Well, no; I think you are too clever to be stolen. Still you must not go out again without Robert.' (Robert was a youth of two-and-twenty, Sir Vernon's body-guard and particular attendant, to whom the little baronet occasionally gave the go-by.) 'Besides, I don't think you ought to associate with such a person as this Cheap Jack--a vagabond stroller, whose past life nobody knows.' 'Oh, but you don't know what kind of man Jack is--he's the cleverest man I ever knew--cleverer than Mr. Jardine; he knows everything. Let's go up on the hanger.' 'No, dear, it's getting late; we must go home.' 'No, we needn't go home till we like--nobody wants us. Mamma will be asleep over her knitting,--how she does sleep!--and she'll wake up surprised when we go home, and say, "Gracious, is it ten o'clock? These summer evenings are so short!"' 'But you ought to be in bed, Vernie.' 'No, I oughtn't. The thrushes haven't gone to bed yet. Hark at that one singing his evening hymn! Do come just a wee bit further.'