"What, sir, is it about Earls—Barton, and Mears—Ashby?" asked the timid Father Humphrey.
"Oh, you are here. I've heard of these places before—it was many years ago. Some folks came over to America from there."
He turned to the book again. "An Essay on the Toleration Act," said he. "Banbury," he continued. He dropped the book by his side, and lifted his brows again.
Poor Father Humphrey now thought that his customer had indeed gone daft, and was beginning to repeat an old nursery rhyme that that name suggested.
The book went up to the light again. Old Humphrey, frightened, passed him and went to the door, so that he might run if his strange visitor should be incited to do him harm.
Suddenly a very alarming expression came over the book-finder's face. What would he do next, this calm, grand old man, who was going out of his senses in this unfortunate place?
He dropped the book by his side again, and said, as in the voice of another, a long-gone voice:
"Reuben of the Mill—Reuben of the Mill!"
Poor Father Humphrey thought he was summoning the ghost of some strange being from the recesses of the cellar. He began to walk away, when the supposed mind-shattered American seemed to be returning to himself, and said in a very calm and dignified manner:
"Father Humphrey, you must think that I have been acting strangely. There are some notes here that recall old names and places. They carried my thoughts away back to the past."