“I understand you are going to our Masther Charles Lindsay.  Now, I wish to give you a hint or two concerning him.  His brother—­he of the Evil Eye—­according to my most solemn and serious opinion, is poisoning him by degrees.  I think he has been dosing him upon a small scale, so as to make him die off by the effects of poison, without any suspicion being raised against himself; but when his father told him yesterday that you were to come this day to cure him, his brother insisted that he should sit up with him, and nurse-tend him himself.  I was aware of this, and from a conversation I heard him have with an old herbalist, named Sol Donnel, I had suspicions of his design against his brother’s life.  He strove to kill Miss Goodwin by the damnable force and power of his Evil Eye, and would have done so had not you cured her.”

“And are you sure,” replied Greatrakes, “that it is not his Evil Eye that is killing his brother?”

“I don’t know that,” replied Barney; “perhaps it may be so.”

“No,” replied Greatrakes, “from all I have read and heard of its influence it cannot act upon persons within a certain degree of consanguinity.”

“I would take my oath,” said honest Barney, “that it is the poison that acts in this instance.”

He then gave him a description of Woodward’s having poured the poison—­or at least what he suspected to be such—­into the drink which was usually left at the bedside of his brother, and of its effect upon the dog.

Greatrakes, on hearing this, drew up his horse, and looking Barney sternly in the face, asked him,—­

“Pray, my good fellow, did Mr. Woodward ever injure or offend you?”

“No, sir,” replied Barney, “never in any instance; but what I say I say from my love for his brother, whose life, I can swear, he is tampering with.  It is a weak word, I know, but I will use a stronger, for I say he is bent upon his murder by poison.”

“Well,” said Greatrakes, “keep your counsel for the present.  I will study this matter, and examine into it; and I shall most certainly receive your informations against him; but I must have better opportunities for making myself acquainted with the facts.  In the meantime keep your own secret, and leave the rest to me.”

When Greatrakes reached Rathfillan House the whole family attended him to the sick bed of Charles.  Woodward was there, and appeared to feel a deep interest in the fate of his brother.  Greatrakes, on looking at him, said, before he applied the sanative power which God had placed in his constitution,—­

“This young man is dying of a slow and subtle poison, which some person under the roof of this house has been administering to him in small doses.”

As he uttered these words he fixed his eyes upon Woodward, whose face quailed and blanched under the power and significance of his gaze.

“Sir,” replied Lindsay, “with the greatest respect for you, there is not a single individual under this roof who would injure him.  He is beloved by every one.  The sympathy felt for him through the whole parish is wonderful—­but by none more than by his brother Woodward.”