The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain. William Carleton

Here was a new light thrown upon the mystery or mysteries by which he felt himself surrounded on all hands. The strange guest in the Mitre inn, was then, beyond question, the very individual alluded to in the anonymous letter. The baronet's face had, in the scowl of wrath, got black, as mine host was speaking. This expression, however, gradually diminished in the darkness of that wrathful shadow which lay over it. After a severe internal struggle with his tremendous passions, he at length seemed to cool down. His face became totally changed; and in a few minutes of silence and struggle, it passed from the blackness of almost ungovernable rage to a pallid hue, that might not most aptly be compared to the summit of a volcano covered with snow, when about to project its most awful and formidable eruptions.

      The landlord, while putting the question to the baronet, turned his sharp, piercing eyes upon him, and, at a single glance, perceived that something had unusually moved him.

      “Sir Tammas,” said he, “there is no use in denyin' it, now—the blood's disturbed in you.”

      “Give your guest my compliments—Sir Thomas Gourlay's compliments—and I should feel obliged by a short interview.”

      On going up, Jack found the stranger and Fenton as we have already described them—“Sir,” said he, addressing the former—“there's a gentleman below who wishes to know who you ir.”

      “Who I am!” returned the other, quite unmoved; “and, pray who may he be?”

      “Sir Tammas Gourlay; an' all tell you what, if you don't wish to see him, why don't see him. A 'll take him the message, an' if there's anything about you that you don't wish to be known or heard, make him keep his distance. He's this minute in a de'il of a passion about something, an' was comin' up as if he'd ait you without salt, but a' would n't allow it; so, if you don't wish to see him, am the boy won't be afeard to say so. He's not coming as a friend, a' can tell you.”

      “Sir Thomas Gourlay's in the house, then,” said the stranger, with a good deal of surprise. He then paused for some time, and, during this pause, he very naturally concluded that the baronet had witnessed his daughter's bow, so cautiously and significantly made to himself as she passed. Whilst he turned over these matters in his mind, the landlord addressed Fenton as follows:

      “You can go to another room, Fenton. A'm glad to see you in a decent suit of clothes, any way—a' hope you'll take yourself up, and avoid drink and low company; for de'il a haet good ever the same two brought anybody; but, before you go, a'll give you a gless o' grog to drink the Glorious Memory. Come, now, tramp, like a good fellow.”

      “I have a particular wish,” said the stranger, “that Mr. Fenton should remain; and say to Sir Thomas Gourlay that I am ready to see him.”

      “A' say, then,” said Jack, in a friendly whisper, “be on your edge with him, for, if he finds you saft, the very de'il won't stand him.”

      “The gentleman, Sir Tammas,” said Jack, on going down stairs, “will be glad to see you. He's overhead.”

      Fenton, himself, on hearing that Sir Thomas was about to come up, prepared to depart; but the other besought him so earnestly to stay, that he consented, although with evident reluctance. He brought his chair over to a corner of the room, as if he wished to be as much out of the way as possible, or, it may be, as far from Sir Thomas's eye, as the size of the apartment would permit. Be this as it may, Sir Thomas entered, and brought his ungainly person nearly to the centre of the room before he spoke. At length he did so, but took care not to accompany his words with that courtesy of manner, or those rules of good-breeding, which ever prevail among gentlemen, whether as friends or foes. After standing for a moment, he glanced from the one to the other, his face still hideously pale; and ultimately, fixing his eye upon the stranger, he viewed him from head to foot, and again from foot to head, with a look of such contemptuous curiosity, as certainly was strongly calculated to excite the stranger's indignation. Finding the baronet spoke not, the other did.

      “To what am I to attribute the honor of this visit, sir?”

      Sir Thomas even then did not speak, but still kept looking at him with the expression we have described. At length he did speak:

      “You have been residing for some time in our neighborhood, sir.” The stranger simply bowed.

      “May I ask how long?”

      “I have the honor, I believe, of addressing Sir Thomas Gourlay?”

      “Yes, you have that honor.”

      “And may I beg to know his object in paying me this unceremonious visit, in which he does not condescend either to announce himself, or to observe the usual rules of good-breeding?”

      “From my rank and known position in this part of the country, and in my capacity also as a magistrate, sir,” replied the baronet, “I'm entitled to make such inquiries as I may deem necessary from those who appear here under suspicious circumstances.”

      “Perhaps you may think so, but I am of opinion, sir, that you would consult the honor of the rank and position you allude to much more effectually, by letting such inquiries fall within the proper province of the executive officers of law, whenever you think there is a necessity for it.”

      “Excuse me, but, in that manner, I shall follow my own judgment, not yours.”

      “And under what circumstances of suspicion do you deem me to stand at present?”

      “Very strong circumstances. You have been now living here nearly a week, in a privacy which no gentleman would ever think of observing. You have hemmed yourself in by a mystery, sir; you have studiously concealed your name—your connections—and defaced every mark by which you could be known or traced. This, sir, is not the conduct of a gentleman; and argues either actual or premeditated guilt.”

      “You seem heated, sir, and you also reason in resentment, whatever may have occasioned it. And so a gentleman is not to make an excursion to a country town in a quiet way—perhaps to recruit his health, perhaps to relax his mind, perhaps to gratify a whim—but he must be pounced upon by some outrageous dispenser of magisterial justice, who thinks, that, because he wishes to live quietly and unknown, he must be some cutthroat, or raw-head-and-bloody-bones coming to eat half the country?”

      “I dare say, sir, that is all very fine, and very humorous; but when these mysterious vagabonds—”

      The eye of the stranger blazed; lightning itself, in fact, was not quicker than the fire which gleamed from it, as the baronet uttered the last words. He walked over deliberately, but with a step replete with energy and determination:

      “How, sir,” said he, “do you dare to apply such an expression to me?”

      The baronet's eye quailed. He paused a moment, during which he could perceive that the stranger had a spirit not to be tampered with.

      “No, sir,” he replied, “not exactly to you, but when persons such as you come in this skulking way, probably for the purpose of insinuating themselves into families of rank—”

      “Have I, sir, attempted to insinuate myself into yours,” asked the stranger, interrupting him.

      “When such persons come under circumstances of strong suspicion,” said the other, without replying to him, “it is the business of every gentleman in the country to keep a vigilant eye upon them.”

      “I shall hold myself accountable to no such gentleman,” replied the stranger; “but will consider every man, no matter what his rank or character may be, as unwarrantably impertinent, who arrogantly attempts to intrude himself in affairs that don't—” he was about to add, “that don't concern him,” when he paused, and added, “into any man's affairs. Every man has a right to travel incognito, and to live incognito, if he chooses; and, on that account, sir, so long as I wish to maintain mine, I shall allow no man to assume the right of penetrating it. If this has been the object of your visit, you will much oblige me by relinquishing the one, and putting an end to the other, as soon as may be.”

      “As