CHAPTER II.

On their escape from the prison to which Mr. Avenel had condemned them,
Leonard and his mother found their way to a small public-house that lay
at a little distance from the town, and on the outskirts of the high
road. With his arm round his mother's waist, Leonard supported her
steps, and soothed her excitement. In fact, the poor woman's nerves
were greatly shaken, and she felt an uneasy remorse at the injury her
intrusion had inflicted on the young man's worldly prospects. As the
shrewd reader has guessed already, that infamous tinker was the prime
agent of evil in this critical turn in the affairs of his quondam
customer; for, on his return to his haunts around Hazeldean and the
Casino, the tinker had hastened to apprise Mrs. Fairfield of his
interview with Leonard, and, on finding that she was not aware that the
boy was under the roof of his uncle, the pestilent vagabond (perhaps from
spite against Mr. Avenel, or perhaps from that pure love of mischief by
which metaphysical critics explain the character of Iago, and which
certainly formed a main element in the idiosyncrasy of Mr. Sprott) had so
impressed on the widow's mind the haughty demeanour of the uncle, and the
refined costume of the nephew, that Mrs. Fairfield had been seized with a
bitter and insupportable jealousy. There was an intention to rob her of
her boy!--he was to be made too fine for her. His silence was now
accounted for. This sort of jealousy, always more or less a feminine
quality, is often very strong amongst the poor; and it was the more
strong in Mrs. Fairfield, because, lone woman that she was, the boy was
all in all to her. And though she was reconciled to the loss of his
presence, nothing could reconcile her to the thought that his affections
should be weaned from her. Moreover, there were in her mind certain