"True, neibor," said the other bearer, sententiously. "The sight of the ghost wor nothin' to that." "And did the ghost speak to you?" said the little tailor. "Na, na. I b'leeve that them gentry from the other world are sworn over by Satan to hold their tongues, an' never speak unless spoken to. Howdsomever, this ghost never said a word; it stood by centre arch o' bridge, wrapped up in a winding sheet, that flickered all over like moonlight; an' it shook ter heed, an' glowered on us with two fiery eyes as big as saucers, an' then sunk down an' vanished." "Oh, it was him--him!" again groaned forth the terror-stricken man, rising to a sitting posture. "He looked just as _he_ did, that night--that night we found him murdered." "Of whom do you speak, Master Cotton?" said the little tailor. "Of Squire Carlos." "Squire Carlos! Did the ghost resemble him? He has been dead long enough to sleep in peace in his grave. It is more than twenty years agone since he was murdered by that worthless scamp, Bill Martin. I was but a slip of a lad then. I walked all the way from ---- to Ipswich, to see him hung. How came you to think of him?" "It was him, or some demon in his shape," said Noah Cotton--for it was the hero of my tale--now able to rise and take the chair that the gossiping little tailor offered him. "If ever I saw Mr. Carlos in life, I saw his apparition on the bridge this night." "A man should know his own father," mused the tailor, "and yet here is Bob Mason takes the same appearance for the ghostly resemblance of his own _respectable_ progenitor. There is some strange trickery in all this. What the dickens should bring the ghost of Squire Carlos so far from his own parish? He wor shot in his own preserves by Bill Martin. I mind the circumstance quite well. A good man wor the old Squire, but over particular about his game. If I mistake not, you be Measter Noah Cotton, whose mother lived up at the porter's lodge?" Noah nodded assent, but he didn't seem to relish these questions and reminiscences of the honest labourer, while Josh, delighted to hear his tongue run, continued-- "I kind o' 'spect you've forgotten me, Mister Cotton. I used to work in them days at Farmer Humphrey's, up Wood-lane. You have grow'd an old-looking man since I seed you last. You were young and spry enough then. I didna b'leeve the tales that volk did tell of 'un--that you were the Squire's own son. But you be as loike him now as two peas. The neebors wor right arter all." The stranger winced, and turned pale. "They say as how you've grow'd a rich man yoursel' since that time. Is the old 'uman, your mother, livin' still?" "She is dead," said Noah, turning his back abruptly on the interrogator, and addressing himself to the mistress of the house. "Mrs. Mason, I have been very ill. I feel better, but the fit has left me weak and exhausted. Can you give me a bed and a room to myself, where I could sleep the effects of it quietly off?"