"I have not heard them say that they do believe it," responded Tynn, with a knowing nod. "Folks may go about and say that I believe it, perhaps; but that wouldn't make it any nearer the fact. And what has all this to do with Mr. Verner?"
"I am coming to it," said Roy. He took a step backward, looked carefully up and down the road, lest listeners might be in ambush; stretched his neck forward, and in like manner surveyed the field On either side the hedge. Apparently it satisfied him, and he resumed his close proximity to Tynn and his meaning whisper. "Can't you guess the riddle, Mr. Tynn?"
"I can't in the least guess what you mean, or what you are driving at," was Tynn's response. "I think you must have been having a drop of drink, Roy. I ask what this is to my master, Mr. Verner?"
"Drink be bothered! I've not had a sup inside my mouth since midday," was Roy's retort. "This secret has been enough drink for me, and meat, too. You'll keep counsel, if I tell it you, Mr. Tynn? Not but what it must soon come out."
"Well?" returned Tynn, in some surprise.
"It's Fred Massingbird fast enough. But it's not his ghost."
"What on earth do you mean?" asked Tynn, never for a moment glancing at the fact of what Roy tried to imply.
"He is come back: Frederick Massingbird. He didn't die, over there."
A pause, devoted by Tynn to staring and thinking. When the full sense of the words broke upon him, he staggered a step or two away from the ex-bailiff.
"Heaven help us, if it's true!" he uttered. "Roy! it can't be!"