just exactly give what you'd call exact and
definite news, you'd consider it the same thing if I made a suggestion,
wouldn't you, now, Mr. Hugh?--a suggestion that would lead to something?"

"Aye, would I!" I exclaimed. "And if you've got any suggestions, Scott,
out with them, and don't beat about! Tell me anything that'll lead to
discovery, and you'll see your ten pound quickly."

"Well," he answered, "I have to be certain, for I'm a poor man, as you
know, with a young family, and it would be a poor thing for me to hint at
aught that would take the bread out of their mouths--and my own. And I
have the chance of a fine, regular job now at Hathercleugh yonder, and I
wouldn't like to be putting it in peril."

"It's Hathercleugh you're talking of, then?" I asked him eagerly. "For
God's sake, man, out with it! What is it you can tell me?"

"Not a word to a soul of what I say, then, at any time, present or
future, Mr. Hugh?" he urged.

"Oh, man, not a word!" I cried impatiently. "I'll never let on that I had
speech of you in the matter!"

"Well, then," he whispered, getting himself still closer: "mind you, I
can't say anything for certain--it's only a hint I'm giving you; but if I
were in your shoes, I'd take a quiet look round yon old part of
Hathercleugh House--I would so! It's never used, as you'll know--nobody
ever goes near it; but, Mr. Hugh, whoever and however it is, there's
somebody in it now!"

"The old part!" I exclaimed. "The Tower part?"

"Aye, surely!" he answered. "If you could get quietly to it--"

I gave his arm a grip that might have told him volumes.

"I'll see you privately tomorrow, Scott," I said. "And if your news is
any good--man! there'll be your ten pound in your hand as soon as I set
eyes on you!"

And therewith I darted away from him and headlong into our house doorway.

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE OLD TOWER

My mother was at her knitting, in her easy-chair, in her own particular
corner of the living-room when I rushed in, and though she started at the
sight of me, she went on knitting as methodically as if all the world was
regular as her own stitches.

"So you've come to your own roof at last, my man!" she said, with a touch
of the sharpness that she could put into her tongue on occasion. "There's
them would say you'd forgotten the way to it, judging by experience--why
did you not let me know you were not coming home last night, and you in
the town, as I hear from other folks?"