“Take your time,” replied the old man, with a peculiar expression.  “Did you ever see a river?”

“Of course,” replied the other; “why do you ask?”

“Well, now, could you, or any livin’ man, make the strame of that river flow faster than its natural course?”

“Certainly not,” replied the stranger.

“Well, then—­I’m an ould man and be advised by me—­don’t attempt to hurry the course o’ the river.  Take things as they come.  If there’s a man on this earth that’s a livin’ divil in flesh and blood, it’s Sir Thomas Gourlay, the Black Barrownight; and if there’s a man livin’ that would go half way into hell to punish him, I’m that man.  Now, sir, you said, the last day you were here, that you were a gentleman and a man of honor, and I believe you.  So these words that have spoken to you about him you will never mention them—­you promise that?”

“Of course I can, and do.  To what purpose should I mention them?”

“For your own sake, or, I should say, for the sake of the cause you are engaged in, don’t do it.”

The bitterness of expression which darkened the old man’s features, while he spoke of the Baronet, was perfectly diabolical, and threw him back from the good opinion which the stranger was about to form of him, notwithstanding his conduct on the previous day’s visit.

“You don’t appear to like Sir Thomas,” he said.  “He is certainly no favorite of yours.”

“Like him,” replied the old man, bitterly.  “He is supposed to be the best friend I have; but little you know the punishment he will get in his heart, sowl, and spirit—­little you know what he will be made to suffer yet.  Of course now you undherstand, that if I could help you, as you say, to advance a single step in finding the right heir of this property I would do it.  As matthers stand now, however, I can do nothing—­but I’ll tell you what I will do—­I’ll be on the lookout—­I’ll ask, seek, and inquire from them that have been about him at the time of the child’s disappearance, and if I can get a single particle worth mentionin’ to you, you shall have it, if I could only know where a letther would find you.”

The cunning, the sagacity, the indefinable twinkle that scintillated from the small, piercing eyes, were too obvious to be overlooked.  The stranger instantly felt himself placed, as it were, upon his guard, and he replied,

“It is possible that I may not be in town, and my address is uncertain; but the moment you are in a capacity to communicate any information that may be useful, go to the proper quarter—­to Lady Gourlay herself.  I understand that a relation of yours lived and died in her service?”

“That’s true,” said the man, “and a betther mistress never did God put breath in, nor a betther masther than Sir Edward.  Well, I will follow your advice, but as for Sir Thomas—­no matther, the time’s comin’—­the river’s flowin—­and if there’s a God in heaven, he will be punished for all his misdeeds—­for other things as well as takin’ away the child—­that is, if he has taken him away.  Now, sir, that’s all I can say to you at present—­for I know nothing about this business.  Who can tell, however, but I may ferret out something?  It won’t be my heart, at any rate, that will hinder me.”