o mistakin' the true
blood."

"Who is he," asked a third--"Does nobody know him?"

"Troth," said the other, "it doesn't signify a traneen who or what he
is; whether he's gentle or simple, I say that the whole country ought to
put their heads under his feet."

"Why so, Jemmy Trailcudgel," asked a fourth; "what did he do for the
counthry?"

"I'll tell you that, Micky," replied the other--"The Black Baronet,
bad luck to him, came to the inn where he stops, and insisted, right or
wrong, on knowing who and what he was."

"I wouldn't put it past him, the turk o' blazes! Well, an' what
happened?"

"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
l