I went leaping down at Tod's call. All was safe now. That's how the other earring came back. And "Eccles" had to be let off scot free. But I was glad he had the ducking. XIV. ANNE.[2] [2] This paper, "Anne," ought to have been inserted before some of the papers which have preceded it, as the events it treats of took place at an earlier date. +Part the first.+ "Why, what's the matter with _you_?" cried the Squire. "Matter enough," responded old Coney, who had come hobbling into our house, and sat down with a groan. "If you had the gout in your great toe, Squire, as I have it in mine, you'd soon feel what the matter was." "You have been grunting over that gout for days past, Coney!" "So I have. It won't go in and it won't come out; it stops there on purpose to torment me with perpetual twinges. I have been over to Timberdale Parsonage this morning, and the walk has pretty nigh done for me." The Squire laughed. We often did laugh at Coney's gout: which never seemed to be very bad, or to get beyond incipient "twinges." "Better have stayed at home and nursed your gout than have pranced off to Timberdale." "But I had to go," said the farmer. "Jacob Lewis sent for me." Mr. Coney spoke of Parson Lewis, Rector of Timberdale. At this time the parson was on his last legs, going fast to his rest. His mother and old Coney's mother had been first cousins, which accounted for the intimacy between the parsonage and the farm. It was Eastertide, and we were spending it at Crabb Cot. "Do you remember Thomas Lewis, the doctor?" asked old Coney. "Remember him! ay, that I do," was the Squire's answer. "What of him?" "He has been writing to the parson to take a house for him; he and his daughter are coming to live in old England again. Poor Lewis can't look out for one himself, so he has put it upon me. And much I can get about, with this lame foot!" "A house at Timberdale?" "Either in the neighbourhood of Timberdale or Crabb, Dr. Lewis writes: or he wouldn't mind Islip. I saw his letter. Jacob says there's nothing vacant at Timberdale at all likely to suit. We have been thinking of that little place over here, that the people have just gone out of." "What little place?" "Maythorn Bank. 'Twould be quite large enough." "And it's very pretty," added the Squire. "Thomas Lewis coming back! Wonders will never cease. How he could reconcile himself to staying away all his life, I can't tell. Johnny lad, he will like to see you. He and your father were as thick as inkle weavers." "Ay! Ludlow was a good friend to him while he was doing nothing," nodded old Coney. "As to his staying away, I expect he could not afford to live in England. He has had a legacy left him now, he tells the parson. What are you asking, Johnny?" "Did I ever know Dr Lewis?" "Not you, lad. Thomas Lewis went abroad ages before you were born, or thought of. Five-and-twenty years he must have been away." "More than that," said the Squire.