“Well,” said he, “my good friend, let me tell you that the colic you speak of is one of the most healthy diseases we have. Don't, if you regard your constitution, and your health, ever attempt to get rid of it. Your constitution is a windy constitution, and that is the reason why you are graciously afflicted with a windy colic.” It was, in fact, diamond cut diamond between the two. Barney, who had never had a colic in his life, shrugged his shoulders very dolefully at the miserable character of the sympathy which was expressed for him; and Greatrakes, from his great powers of observation, saw that every word Barney uttered with respect to his besetting malady was a lie. At length Barney's countenance assumed an expression of such honest sincerity and feeling that Greatrakes was at once struck by it, and he kept his eye steadily fixed upon him. “Sir,” said Barney, “I understand you are a distinguished gentleman and a magistrate besides?” “I am certainly a magistrate,” replied Greatrakes; “but what is your object in asking the question, my good fellow?” “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.”