The stranger complied with this invitation, and felt highly gratified that matters seemed about to take a more favorable turn.
“I trust,” said he, “you are satisfied that I am fully entitled to any confidence you may feel disposed to place in me?”
“The priest speaks well of you,” replied Dunphy; “but then, sure I know him; he's so kind-hearted a creature, that any one who speaks him fair, or that he happens to take a fancy to, will be sure to get his good word. It isn't much assistance I can give you, and it's not on account of his letther altogether that I do it; but bekaise I think the time's come, or rather soon will be come. Oh, here,” he said, “is the ould woman, and she'll keep the shop. Now, sir, come upstairs, if you plaise, for what we're goin' to talk about is what the very stones oughtn't to hear so long as that man—”
He paused, and instantly checked himself, as if he felt that he had already gone too far.
“Now, sir,” he proceeded, “what is it you expect from me? Name it at wanst.”
“You are aware,” said the stranger, “that the son of the late Sir Edward Gourlay, and the heir of his property, disappeared very mysteriously and suspiciously—”
“And so did the son of the present man,” replied Dunphy, eying the stranger keenly.
“It is not of him I am speaking,” replied the other; “although at the same time I must say, that if I could find a trace even of him I would leave no stone unturned to recover him.”
The old man looked into the floor, and mused for some time.
“It was a strange business,” he observed, “that both should go—you may take my word, there has been mischief and revenge, or both, at the bottom of the same business.”