“He’s up to mischief o’ some kind, I guess,” said Abel.  “I jest happened daown by the mansion-haouse last night, ‘n’ he come aout o’ the gate on that queer-lookin’ creatur’ o’ his.  I watched him, ‘n’ he rid, very slow, all raoun’ by the Institoot, ‘n’ acted as ef he was spyin’ abaout.  He looks to me like a man that’s calc’latin’ to do some kind of ill-turn to somebody.  I shouldn’t like to have him raoun’ me, ’f there wa’n’t a pitchfork or an eel-spear or some sech weep’n within reach.  He may be all right; but I don’t like his looks, ‘n’ I don’t see what he’s lurkin’ raoun’ the Institoot for, after folks is abed.”

“Have you watched him pretty close for the last few days?” said the Doctor.

“W’ll, yes,—­I’ve had my eye on him consid’ble o’ the time.  I haf to be pooty shy abaout it, or he’ll find aout th’t I’m on his tracks.  I don’ want him to get a spite ag’inst me, ’f I c’n help it; he looks to me like one o’ them kind that kerries what they call slung-shot, ‘n’ hits ye on the side o’ th’ head with ’em so suddin y’ never know what hurts ye.”

“Why,” said the Doctor, sharply,—­“have you ever seen him with any such weapon about him?”

“W’ll, no,—­I caan’t say that I hev,” Abel answered.  “On’y he looks kin’ o’ dangerous.  May-be he’s all jest ’z he ought to be,—­I caan’t say that he a’n’t,—­but he’s aout late nights, ‘n’ lurkin’ raoun’ jest ’z ef he wuz spyin’ somebody; ‘n’ somehaow I caan’t help mistrustin’ them Portagee-lookin’ fellahs.  I caa’n’t keep the run o’ this chap all the time; but I’ve a notion that old black woman daown’t the mansion-haouse knows ’z much abaout him ’z anybody.”

The Doctor paused a moment, after hearing this report from his private detective, and then got into his chaise, and turned Caustic’s head in the direction of the Dudley mansion.  He had been suspicious of Dick from the first.  He did not like his mixed blood, not his looks, nor his ways.  He had formed a conjecture about his projects early.  He had made a shrewd guess as to the probable jealousy Dick would feel of the schoolmaster, had found out something of his movements, and had cautioned Mr. Bernard,—­as we have seen.  He felt an interest in the young man,—­a student of his own profession, an intelligent and ingenuously unsuspecting young fellow, who had been thrown by accident into the companionship or the neighborhood of two person, one of whom he knew to be dangerous, and the other he believed instinctively might be capable of crime.

The Doctor rode down to the Dudley mansion solely for the sake of seeing Old Sophy.  He was lucky enough to find her alone in her kitchen.  He began talking with her as a physician; he wanted to know how her rheumatism had been.  The shrewd old woman saw though all that with her little beady black eyes.  It was something quite different he had come for, and Old Sophy answered very briefly for her aches and ails.