“But upon what reasons do you ground those suspicions.” asked his reverence.

The stranger then related to him the circumstances in connection with Fenton’s mysterious terror of Sir Thomas Gourlay, precisely as the reader is already acquainted with them.

“But,” said the priest, “can you believe now, if Sir Thomas was the kidnapper in this instance, that he would allow unfortunate Fenton, supposing he is his brother’s heir, and who, they say, is often non compos, to remain twenty-four hours at large?”

“Probably not; but you know he may be unaware of his residence so near him.  Sir Thomas, like too many of his countrymen, has been an absentee for years, and is only a short time in this country, and still a shorter at Red Hall.  The young man probably is at large, because he may have escaped.  There is evidently some mysterious relation between Fenton and the baronet, but what it is or can be I am utterly unable to trace.  Fenton, with all his wild eccentricity or insanity, is cautious, and on his guard against me; and I find it impossible to get anything out of him.”

The worthy priest fell into a mood of apparently deep but agreeable reflection, and the stranger felt a hope that he had fallen upon some plan, or, at all events, that he had thought of or recalled to memory some old recollection that might probably be of service to him.

“The poor fellow, sir,” said he, addressing the other with singular benignity, “is an orphan; his mother is dead more than twelve years, and his father, the idle and unfortunate man, never has been of the slightest use to him, poor creature.”

“What,” exclaimed the stranger, with animation, “you, then, know his father!”

“Know him! to be sure I do.  He is, or rather he was, a horse-jockey, and I took the poor neglected young lad in because he had no one to look after him.  But wasn’t it kind-hearted of the creature to heap the creel of turf though, and shed tears for poor Widow Magowran?  In truth, I won’t forget either of these two acts to him.”

“You speak, sir, of your servant, I believe.” observed the other, with something like chagrin.

“In truth, there’s not a kind-hearted young giant alive this day.  Many a little bounty that I, through the piety and liberality of the charitable, am enabled to distribute among my poor, and often send to them with Mat; and I believe there’s scarcely an instance of the kind in which he is the bearer of it, that he doesn’t shed tears just as he did with Widow Magowran.  Sure I have it from his own lips.”

“I have little doubt of it,” replied the stranger.

“And one day,” proceeded the credulous, easy man, “that I was going along the Race-road, I overtook him with a creel of turf, the same way, on his back, and when I looked down from my horse into the creel, I saw with astonishment that it wasn’t more than half full.  ‘Mat,’ said I, ’what’s the raison of this?  Didn’t I desire you to fill the creel to the top, and above it?’