“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.” “Is it transportation for rick-burning?” inquired Ripton aghast. Adrian spoke solemnly: “They shave your head. You are manacled. Your diet is sour bread and cheese-parings. You work in strings of twenties and thirties. ARSON is branded on your backs in an enormous A. Theological works are the sole literary recreation of the well-conducted and deserving. Consider the fate of this poor fellow, and what an act of vengeance brings him to! Do you know his name?” “How should I know his name?” said Richard, with an assumption of innocence painful to see.