And Jim summed up his adventures in very few words. "I was on the shore. Some men carried me off in a ship. We were wrecked at a place called Morecambe, and I've come home as quick as I could." "Who were the men? Did you know them?" asked Sir George sternly. "I can't tell you, sir." And then, looking at Eager, as though he would understand. "It was a promise, a very solemn promise"--and Eager nodded. "You see I was locked up in a little cabin when the ship was wrecked, and I should have been drowned in there----" "And they let you out on your promising not to tell on them," said Eager. Jim nodded. "A promise extorted under such conditions is not binding," said Sir George brusquely. "I want those men. Come, my boy, you must tell us all you know." And Eager watched him anxiously. "I cannot tell, sir. I promised." And nothing would move him from this. Sir George, with much warmth, explained to him that no one was safe if such things were permitted to pass unpunished, said that it was his bounden duty to tell all he knew. But to all he simply shook his head and said, "I promised, sir." And Eager, much as he would have liked to lay hands on the rascals, could not but rejoice in the boy's staunchness. And Sir George gave it up at last, and rode away with Margaret, baffled and outwardly very angry. But as they rode up the avenue at Knoyle, he said: "Eager has done well with those boys. They'll turn out men." Jim was very hungry. They fed him, and then Eager went off with him to break the news to Sir Denzil, and the villagers flocked out and cheered them as they went. "Well, yo're back!" was Mrs. Lee's greeting when they came into the kitchen at Carne. And Jim, in the joy of his return, ran up and kissed her, but her face was like that of a graven image. Jack jumped up with a glad shout, and "Hello, Jim! Where you been?" and circled round and round the wanderer with endless questions. Sir Denzil's reception of him was characteristic. "Well, I'm ----! So you've turned up again." And he eyed his grandson, over a pinch of snuff, as though he were some new and offensive reptile. "What is the meaning of this, sir?" And his hankering after the boy whom, in his innermost mind, he had come to think of as his legitimate heir, and his thwarted satisfaction at what he had hoped was in any case the cutting of his Gordian knot, and a certain anxiety in the matter, which he had very successfully concealed from every one else--all these in combination resulted in an explosion. He listened blackly to such explanation as Jim vouchsafed, peremptorily demanded more, and the boy refused. "You will tell me all you know," said the old man sternly--hoping through fuller knowledge to arrive, perchance, at some clue to the great problem behind. "I promised, sir!" said Jim. "Hang your promise, sir! I absolve you from any such promise. You will tell me all you know." But Jim set his lips stolidly and would not say another word.