“Perfectly, your honor. But I may not be able to find this Fenton.”
“That won't be your own fault, you must only try another time, when you may have better success. Observe, however, that if there is no scar under the left side of his chin, you are to let him pass—he is not the person in whom I feel interested, and whom I am determined to serve, if I can—even against his wishes. He is, I believe, the son of an old friend, and I will endeavor to have him restored to the perfect use of his reason, if human skill can effect it.”
“That's very kind of you, Sir Thomas, and very few would do it,” replied Gillespie, as he left the apartment, to fulfil his execrable mission.
Gillespie having put the bottle of strong spirits into his pocket, wrapped a great coat about him, and, by a subsequent hint from Sir Thomas, tied a large handkerchief across his face, in order the better to conceal his features, and set out on his way to Ballytrain.
It may be remarked with truth, that the projects of crime are frequently aided by those melancholy but felicitous contingencies, which, though unexpected and unlooked for, are calculated to enable the criminal to effect his wicked purposes with more facility and less risk. Gillespie, on the occasion in question, not only met Fenton within a short distance of the town, and in a lonely place, but also found him far advanced in a state of intoxication.
“Is this Mr. Fenton?” said he. “How do you do, Mr. Fenton? A beautiful night, sir.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the unfortunate young man; “it is Mr. Fenton, and you are a gentleman. Some folks now take the liberty of calling me Fenton, which is not only impudently familiar and ridiculous, but a proof that they do not know how to address a gentleman.”
“You are leaving the town, it seems, Mr. Fenton?”
“Yes, there's a wake down in Killyfaddy, where there will be a superfluity, sir, of fun; and I like to see fun and sorrow associated. They harmonize, my friend—they concatenate.”
“Mr. Fenton,” proceeded Gillespie, “you are a young gentleman—”