own of
Ballytrain. Thomas Gourlay--then Sir Thomas--had been away with his
family for two or three years in foreign parts, but when he went to his
seat, Red Hall, near that town, he wasn't long there till he found out
that the young man named Fenton--something unsettled, they said, in his
mind--was his brother's son, for the baronet had been informed of his
escape. Well, he got him once more into his clutches, and in the dead
hour of night, himself--you there, Thomas Gourlay--one of your villain
servants, by name Gillespie, and my own son--you that stand there,
Thomas Corbet--afther making the poor boy dead drunk, brought him off
to one of the mad-houses that he had been in before. He, Mr. Gourlay,
then--or Sir Thomas, if you like--went with them a part of the way.
Providence, my lord, is never asleep, however. The keeper of the last
mad-house was more of a devil than a man. The letter of the baronet was
written to the man that had been there before him, but he was dead, and
this villain took the boy and the money that had been sent with him, and
there he suffered what I am afraid he will never get the betther of."

"But what became of Sir Thomas Gourlay's son?" asked his lordship; "and
where now is Lady Gourlay's?"

"They are both in this room, my lord. Now, Thomas Gourlay, I will
restore your son to you. Advance, Black Baronet," said the old man,
walking over to Fenton, with a condensed tone of vengeance and triumph
in his voice and features, that filled all present with awe. "Come, now,
and look upon your own work--think, if it will comfort you, upon what
you made your own flesh and blood suffer. There he is, Black Baronet;
there is your son--dead!"

A sudden murmur and agitation took place as he pointed to Fenton; but
there was now something of command, nay, absolutely of grandeur, in his
revenge, as well as in his whole manner.

"Keep quiet, all of you," he exclaimed, raising his arm with a spirit of
authority and power; "keep quiet, I say, and don't disturb the dead. I
am not done."

"I must interrupt you a moment," said Lord Dunroe. "I thought the
person--the unfortunate young man here--was the son of Sir Thomas's
brother?"

"And so did he," replied Corbet; "but I will make the whole thing
simple at wanst. When he was big enough to be grown out of his father's
recollection, I brought back his own son to him as the son of his
brother. And while the black villain was huggin' himself with delight
that all th