s wing had aforetime a bad
character. Notwithstanding what years had done to polish it into fair
repute, the Raynham kitchen stuck to tradition, and preserved certain
stories of ghosts seen there, that effectually blackened it in the
susceptible minds of new house-maids and under-crooks, whose fears would
not allow the sinner to wash his sins. Sir Austin had heard of the tales
circulated by his domestics underground. He cherished his own belief, but
discouraged theirs, and it was treason at Raynham to be caught traducing
the left wing. As the baronet advanced, the fact of a light burning was
clear to him. A slight descent brought him into the passage, and he
beheld a poor human candle standing outside his son's chamber. At the
same moment a door closed hastily. He entered Richard's room. The boy was
absent. The bed was unpressed: no clothes about: nothing to show that he
had been there that night. Sir Austin felt vaguely apprehensive. Has he
gone to my room to await me? thought the father's heart. Something like a
tear quivered in his arid eyes as he meditated and hoped this might be
so. His own sleeping-room faced that of his son. He strode to it with a
quick heart. It was empty. Alarm dislodged anger from his jealous heart,
and dread of evil put a thousand questions to him that were answered in
air. After pacing up and down his room he determined to go and ask the
boy Thompson, as he called Ripton, what was known to him.

The chamber assigned to Master Ripton Thompson was at the northern
extremity of the passage, and overlooked Lobourne and the valley to the
West. The bed stood between the window and the door. Six Austin found the
door ajar, and the interior dark. To his surprise, the boy Thompson's
couch, as revealed by the rays of his lamp, was likewise vacant. He was
turning back when he fancied he heard the sibilation of a whispering in
the room. Sir Austin cloaked the lamp and trod silently toward the
window. The heads of his son Richard and the boy Thompson were seen
crouched against the glass, holding excited converse together. Sir Austin
listened, but he listened to a language of which he possessed not the
key. Their talk was of fire, and of delay: of expected agrarian
astonishment: of a farmer's huge wrath: of violence exercised upon
gentlemen, and of vengeance: talk that the boys jerked out by fits, and
that came as broken links of a chain impossible to connect. But they
awake curiosity. The baronet condescen