He looked up, not a little startled, and there was John Trevethick standing beside him, his huge form black against the sun.
"You may well be frightened, young gentleman," were his first ominous words; "it is only a guilty conscience that starts at a shadow." Richard _had_ a guilty conscience; and yet the remark that was thus addressed to him, unconciliatory, if not directly hostile, as it was, rather reassured him than otherwise.
Trevethick's presence there, for he had never made pretense of seeking Richard's society for its own sake--was of evil augury; his tone and manner were morose and threatening; his swarthy face was full of pent-up wrath; and yet it was obvious to the other that the secret was yet safe, the divulging of which he had most cause to fear.

Had it been otherwise there would have been no mere thunder-cloud, but a tornado.

"The post has brought some ill news from Crompton," was what flashed across the young man's brain; and the thought, though sufficiently uncomfortable, was a relief compared with that he had first entertained, and which had driven the color from his cheeks.
"I have no cause to be frightened, that I know of, either of you or any other man, Mr.Trevethick," observed Richard, haughtily.
"I hear you say so," was the other's grim reply; "but I shall be better pleased to hear you prove it." "Prove what ?" "Two things--that you are not a bastard, nor a pauper." Richard leaped down from the wall with a fierce oath; and for a moment it really seemed that he would have flung himself against his gigantic opponent, like a fretful wave against a rock of granite.
Trevethick uttered an exclamation of contempt.

"Pick up your sketch-book, young man, or one of those pretty pictures will be spoiled by which you gain your bread.

You've acted the fine gentleman at Gethin very well, but the play is over now." "I don't understand you, Mr.Trevethick.If you must needs be insolent, at all events, be explicit.