“Why, the gintleman got up, and tuck a hoult o' the black villain by the nose, led him to the head of the stairs, then turned him down before him, and made his feet right and left play against the barrow knight, like the tucks of a cloth mill, until he thrundled him clane—I'm not so sure of that, though—out o' the hall door.”
“An' for that same, God prosper him! Begad, he's a bully gentleman,” observed a stout, frieze-coated fellow, with a large bunch of green linen yarn on his lusty arm—“he is, and it's in him, and upon him, as every one that has eyes to see may know.”
The object of their praise, on entering the office of his friend Birney, found him at his desk, with professional papers and documents before him. After the ordinary greetings of the day, and an accurate account of the baronet's interview with him, the stranger introduced the topic in which he felt so deep an interest.
“I am unfortunate, Mr. Birney,” said he; “Fenton, notwithstanding his eccentricity, insanity, or whatever it may be termed, seems to suspect my design, and evades, with singular address, every attempt, on my part, to get anything out of him. Is he absolutely deranged, think you? For, I assure you, I have just now had a scene with him, in which his conduct and language could proceed from nothing short of actual insanity. A little affected with liquor he unquestionably was, when he came in first. The appearance, however, of Sir Thomas not only reduced him to a state of sobriety, but seemed to strike him with a degree of terror altogether inexplicable.”
“How was that,” asked Birney.
The stranger accordingly described the scene between himself and Fenton, with which the reader is acquainted.
“He is not a madman, certainly, in the ordinary sense of the word,” replied Birney, after a pause; “but, I think, he may be called a kind of lunatic, certainly. My own opinion is, that, whatever insanity he may be occasionally afflicted with results more from an excessive indulgence in liquor than from any other cause. Be that, however, as it may, there is no question but that he is occasionally seized with fits of mental aberration. From what you tell me, and his exaggerated suspicions of a plot between you and Sir Thomas Gourlay, I think it most probable that he is your man still.”
“I, too, think it probable,” replied the stranger; “but, alas, I think it possible he may not. On comparing his features with the miniature, I confess I cannot now trace the resemblance which my sanguine imagination—and that only, I fear—first discovered.”
“But, consider, sir, that that miniature was taken when the original of it was only five or six years of age; and you will also recollect that growth, age, education, and peculiar habits of life, effect the most extraordinary changes in the features of the same individual. No, sir, I would not advise you to feel disheartened by this.”
“But, can you fall upon no hint or principle, Mr. Birney, by which I might succeed in unlocking the secret which this young man evidently possesses?”