"And I, too, by ill-luck!" The young man laughed, sauntering up to the shelf and glancing over the titles. "What a life I led them! Ah! 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' 'The Call to Truth,' 'Common Prayer,' 'An History of Rome,' 'Virgil's Æneid--' So you know Latin here, friend Boyd? I used to know it myself. How begins old Virgil?-- "'Ar--arma v_o_rumque can_i_,' it goes, don't it?" He opened the volume idly. In so doing his eye fell upon the title-page. He read the name written there with an exclamation of surprise. Then holding the Virgil he came back to his chair, puzzling over the fly-leaf. Next he smote his hand upon the board with an impetuous, "By the sword of Claver'se! 'Jonas Lockett, His Book.' Can it be the man? What Jonas, except our long-legged Jonas, wrote that cramped fist? Tell me, friend Boyd, was Jonas Lockett, an Edinboro' pedagogue, ever in _your_ house, here, a certain winter?" "One of my son's instructors, years ago, was so named," replied Boyd, cautiously. He did not like to give these interlopers the least significant bit of information upon his family or its history. "Was he from Edinboro'? Tell me of him. Well, well, well--Jonas Lockett! Ha!" "There is little to tell, sir. I understood that he was from Edinboro'. His health suffered there and he travelled into Perthshire and Inverness to recruit it. He was poor and somehow came to me for help. Andrew's ignorance enabled me to give it him. But he only stayed with us a season. I have scarce thought of him since. Did you know him also?" "Know him! Truly I did. I recollect that he came from Scotland directly before he entered my father's employ. A tall, lean, quick-spoken fellow, with a sly eye and many odd stories at his tongue's end." "The same, I dare say," Boyd assented, indifferently; "an odd coincidence. But the world is a narrow place, Captain." Andrew glanced uneasily from one face to the other. Was even this trivial discovery likely to breed the seed of any fresh danger? Danger lurked in every turn of thought or speech. Jermain continued turning over the leaves of the Virgil absently. "Upon my honor!" he suddenly cried, throwing down the book; "of what have I been thinking? This, too, must be the very old Scotch house that Lockett told me all about one evening at the Parsonage! I declare--I have heard of you and it before this night, friend Boyd. I remembered it not until now." "Ah!" came Gilbert's dry monosyllable. Boyd's whole being was at once wholly on the alert. Andrew thought it best not to make for that outer door quite yet. "Nor is that all," continued the young officer, draining his glass. "I dare wager that through Lockett's describing his life here that winter, besides his being a famous hand to poke and pry about and meddle with other people's concerns, I know a rare little secret of you and your Manor House, friend Boyd."