"I reply to no interrogatory urged upon such authority," said the
stranger; "but let me advise you, young man, not to allow that
mysterious and malignant power which you seem to possess to gratify
itself by injury to your fellow-creatures. Let it be the principal
purpose of your life to serve them by every means within your reach,
otherwise you will neglect to your cost those great duties for which God
created you. Farewell, my friend, and remember my words; for they are
uttered in a spirit of kindness and good feeling."

They had now arrived at cross-roads; the stranger turned to the right,
and Woodward proceeded, as directed, toward Rathfillan House, the
residence of his father.

The building was a tolerably large and comfortable one, without any
pretence to architectural beauty. It had a plain porch before the
hall-door, with a neat lawn, through which wound a pretty drive up to
the house. On each side of the lawn was a semicircle of fine old trees,
that gave an ancient appearance to the whole place.

Now, one might imagine that Woodward would have felt his heart bound
with affection and delight on his return to all that ought to have been
dear to him after so long an absence. So far from that, however, he
returned in disappointment and ill-temper, for he calculated that unless
there had been some indefensible neglect, or unjustifiable offence
offered to his uncle Hamilton by his family, that gentleman, who, he
knew, had the character of being both affectionate and good-natured,
would never have left his property to a stranger. The alienation of this
property from himself was, indeed, the bitter reflection which rankled
in his heart, and established in it a hatred against the Goodwins which
he resolved by some means to wreak upon them in a spirit of the blackest