As we ascended the hill, he looked about him with a sharp eye — the day was now breaking — and reminded me that I had come down it one night, as I had reason for remembering, with my little servant and poor Jo: whom he called Toughey.

I wondered how he knew that.

“When you passed a man upon the road, just yonder, you know,” said Mr Bucket.

Yes, I remembered that too, very well.

“That was me,” said Mr Bucket.

Seeing my surprise, he went on:

“I drove down in a gig that afternoon, to look after that boy. You might have heard my wheels when you came out to look after him yourself, for I was aware of you and your little maid going up, when I was walking the horse down. Making an inquiry or two about him in the town, I soon heard what company he was in; and was coming among the brick-fields to look for him, when I observed you bringing him home here.”

“Had he committed any crime?” I asked.

“None was charged against him,” said Mr Bucket, coolly lifting off his hat; “but I suppose he wasn’t over- particular. No. What I wanted him for, was in connexion with keeping this very matter of Lady Dedlock quiet. He had been making his tongue more free than welcome, as to a small accidental service he had been paid for by the deceased Mr Tulkinghorn; and it wouldn’t do, at any sort of price, to have him playing those games. So having warned him out of London, I made an afternoon of it to warn him to keep out of it now he was away, and go farther from it, and maintain a bright look out that I didn’t catch him coming back again.”

“Poor creature!” said I.

“Poor enough,” assented Mr Bucket, “and trouble enough, and well enough away from London, or anywhere else. I was regularly turned on my back when I found him taken up by your establishment, I do assure you.

I asked him why. “Why, my dear?” said Mr Bucket. “Naturally there was no end to his tongue then. He might as well have been born with a yard and a half of it, and a remnant over.”

Although I remember this conversation now, my head was in confusion at the time, and my power of attention hardly did more than enable me to understand that he entered into these particulars to divert me. With the same kind intention, manifestly, he often spoke to me of indifferent things, while his face was busy with the one object that we had in view. He still pursued this subject, as we turned in at the garden gate.

“Ah!” said Mr Bucket. “Here we are, and a nice retired place it is. Puts a man in mind of the country house in the Woodpecker tapping, that was known by the smoke which so gracefully curled. They’re early with the kitchen fire, and that denotes good servants. But what you’ve always got to be careful of with servants, is, who comes to see ’em; you never know what they’re up to, if you don’t know that. And another thing, my dear. Whenever you find a young man behind the kitchen door, you give that young man in charge on suspicion of being secreted in a dwelling-house with an unlawful purpose.”

We were now in front of the house; he looked attentively and closely at the gravel for footprints, before he raised his eyes to the windows.