Even so did this designing cur crouch in the Dun Cow.
The loyal quadruped is waiting for his master, and his anxiety is disinterested. The biped cur was waiting for the first streak of dawn to slip away to some more distant and safe hiding-place and sally-port than the Dun Cow, kept by a woman who was devoted to Hope, to Walter, and to Mary, and had all her wits about her--mother-wit included.
Monckton slipped away at the dawn, and was off to Derby to prepare first-rate disguises.
At Derby, going through the local papers, he found lodgings offered at a farm-house to invalids, fresh milk and eggs, home-made bread, etc. The place was within a few miles of Clifford Hall. Monckton thought this would suit him much better than being too near. When his disguises were ready, he hired a horse and dog-cart by the month, and paid a deposit, and drove to the place in question. He put some shadow under his eyes to look more like an invalid. He had got used to his own cadaverous tint, so that seemed insufficient.
The farmer's wife looked at him, and hesitated.
"Well, sir," said she, with a blush, "we takes 'em in to cure, not to--"
"Not to bury," said Monckton. "Don't you be alarmed. I have got no time to die; I'm too busy. Why, I have been much worse than this. I am convalescent now."
"Ye don't say so, sir!" said she. "Well, I see your heart is good" (the first time he had ever been told that), "and so I've a mind to risk it."
Then she quickly clapped on ten shillings a week more for color, and he was installed. He washed his face, and then the woman conceived hopes of him, and expressed them in rustic fashion. "Well," said she, "dirt is a disguise. Now I look at you, you have got more mischief to do in the world yet, I do believe."
It now occurred to him, all of a sudden, that really he was not in good health, and that he had difficulties before him which required calm nerves, and that nerves are affected by the stomach. So, not to throw a chance away, he had the sense and the resolution to devote a few days to health and unwholesome meditation.
This is a discordant world: even vices will not always pull the same way. Here was a sinister villain distracted between avarice and revenge, and sore puzzled which way to turn. Of course he could expose the real parentage of Mary Bartley, and put both Bartley and Hope to shame, and then the Cliffords would make Bartley disgorge the £20,000. But he, Monckton, would not make a shilling by that, and it would be a weak revenge on Bartley, who could now spare £20,000, and no revenge at all on Hope, for Hope was now well-to-do, and would most likely be glad to get his daughter back. Then, on the other hand, he could easily frighten Bartley into giving him £5000 to keep dark, but in that case he must forego his vengeance on Hope.