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last night, and he came up behind her again, and I knew
him again.’
‘And did he frighten my aunt again?’
‘All of a shiver,’ said Mr. Dick, counterfeiting that af-
fection and making his teeth chatter. ‘Held by the palings.
Cried. But, Trotwood, come here,’ getting me close to him,
that he might whisper very softly; ‘why did she give him
money, boy, in the moonlight?’
‘He was a beggar, perhaps.’
Mr. Dick shook his head, as utterly renouncing the sug-
gestion; and having replied a great many times, and with
great confidence, ‘No beggar, no beggar, no beggar, sir!’ went
on to say, that from his window he had afterwards, and late
at night, seen my aunt give this person money outside the
garden rails in the moonlight, who then slunk away - into
the ground again, as he thought probable - and was seen no
more: while my aunt came hurriedly and secretly back into
the house, and had, even that morning, been quite different
from her usual self; which preyed on Mr. Dick’s mind.
I had not the least belief, in the outset of this story, that
the unknown was anything but a delusion of Mr. Dick’s,
and one of the line of that ill-fated Prince who occasioned
him so much difficulty; but after some reflection I began
to entertain the question whether an attempt, or threat of
an attempt, might have been twice made to take poor Mr.
Dick himself from under my aunt’s protection, and whether
my aunt, the strength of whose kind feeling towards him I
knew from herself, might have been induced to pay a price
for his peace and quiet. As I was already much attached to