"Part of the time, ma'am. Mostly we are away at sea or on the Island; but when anything goes wrong, and we're angry about it, we always go home and stay there, in High Dudgeon. Yes, ma'am." "And what are they going to do with us when they get us there?" "S-sh! You'll be in great danger there. If you can find any way to escape from there, I advise you--S-sh! Not another word. Captain Lingo is looking this way. I must go." Aunt Amanda did not sleep very well that night. In the morning, after a breakfast of fried bacon, prepared by Mr. Leatherbread, the company resumed its march. At noon, a halt was made beside a spring for rest and food, and here Mr. Leatherbread prepared a luncheon of fried bacon. In the evening, as the travellers were plodding onward, Ketch walked for a time at the head of Aunt Amanda's mule. Aunt Amanda leaned forward and said to him: "Ketch, are we going to have more bacon tonight?" "No, ma'am," said he, in a low voice. "We'll have supper in High Dudgeon. My old mother's the cook there. You heard me mention her yesterday morning. I've an idea there'll be pigeon pies for supper. And mark what I'm saying to you, ma'am." His voice sank to a whisper. "If you get a pigeon pie for supper, look careful to see what's inside of it before you eat it." "Mercy on us!" said Aunt Amanda. "Are they going to poison us?" But Ketch slipped away in the gathering darkness, and said no more. They had gone but a few hundred yards further, when, at the moment when the darkness of night was making ready to blot out everything, they suddenly emerged into a round grassy clearing enclosed by the forest, where the light was better, and over which a star or two could be seen glimmering in a pale blue sky. In the midst of this clearing rose a tower. It was a round tower, built of stone; its top came scarcely to the top of the surrounding trees, and it was in fact not more than two stories high; it appeared, with its wide girth, low and squat. Its sides were pierced here and there with deep and narrow slits, for windows, and on one side was a heavy oaken door, with great iron hinges and an iron lock. Through two or three of the upper slits in the wall glimmered a light from within. It was otherwise dark and forbidding. Aunt Amanda found Ketch at her mule's head again. She leaned forward and said to him: "Is that High Dudgeon?" "No, ma'am. That's Low Dudgeon." "Low Dudgeon? What do you mean by Low Dudgeon?" Ketch looked at the tower and shuddered. "I don't like to talk about it, ma'am. I don't like the place. It's the place where we used to live long ago, before we built High Dudgeon. There's none of us wants to live there now. We haven't lived there since--" Ketch paused, and shuddered again, and evidently decided not to go on. "There's a light up there," said Aunt Amanda. "Does anybody live there?" "No, ma'am," said Ketch. "Nobody _lives_ there." "But there's a light," said Aunt Amanda. "Surely there must be somebody there."