"When I heard footsteps approach I hid myself--though not always quite in time. I was more put out at meeting people than they were at meeting me." "I wonder your keepers here ever let you get out!" cried the Squire, musingly. "They tried hard to keep me in: and generally succeeded. It was only by fits and starts I gained my way. They were afraid, you see, that I should carry out my threat of disclosing myself but for being yielded to now and then." But the Squire did not get over the discovery. He strode about the large kitchen, rubbing his face, giving out sundry Bless my hearts! at intervals. The return to life of Charlotte Tinkle had been marvellous enough, but it was nothing to this. Meanwhile we were on our road to Duffham's. Leaving Dobbs at his own forge, we rushed on, and found the doctor in his little parlour at supper; pickled eels and bread-and-cheese: the eels in the wide stone jar they were baked in--which was Nomy's way of serving pickled fish. "Will you sit down and take some?" asked Duffham, pointing to the jar: out of which he took the pieces with a fork as he wanted them. "I should like to, but there's no time for it," answered Tod, eyeing the jar wistfully. Pickled eels are a favourite dish in our parts: and you don't often eat anything as good. "Look here, Duffham," he went on: "we want you to go with us and see--see somebody: and to undertake not to tell tales out of school. The Squire has answered for it that you will not." "See who?" asked Duffham, going on with his supper. "A ghost," said Tod, grimly. "A dead man." "What good can I do _them_?" "Well, the man has come to life again. Not for long, though, I should say, judging by his looks. You are not to go and tell about it, mind." "Tell what?" "That he is alive, instead of being, as is supposed, under a gravestone in yonder churchyard. I am not sure but that you went to his funeral." Tod's significant tone, half serious, half mocking, attracted Duffham's curiosity more even than the words. But he still went on with his eels. "Who is it?" "Nash Caromel. There. Don't fall off in a faint. Caromel has come to life." Down went Duffham's fork. "Why--what on earth do you mean?" "It is not a joke," said Tod. "Nash Caromel has been alive all this time, concealed in his house--just as Francis Radcliffe was concealed in the tower. The Squire is with him now--and he is very ill." Duffham appealed to me. "Is this true, Johnny Ludlow?" "Yes, sir, it is. We found him out to-night. He looks as if he were dying. Dobbs is sure he is. You never saw anything so like a ghost." Leaving his eels now, calling out to old Nomy that she might take away the supper, Duffham came off with us at once. Dobbs ran up as we passed his forge, and went with us to the turning, talking eagerly.