hunger--that all the impulses of nature and affection were not merely
banished from the heart, but superseded by the most frightful peals
of insane mirth, cruelty, and the horrible appetite of the ghoul and
vampire. Some were found tearing the flesh from the bodies of the
carcasses that were stretched beside them. Mothers tottered off under
the woful excitement of misery and frenzy, and threw their wretched
children on the sides of the highways, leaving them there, with shouts
of mirth and satisfaction, to perish or be saved, as the chances might
turn out--whilst fathers have been known to make a wolfish meal upon the
dead bodies of their own offspring. We might, therefore, have carried
on our description up to the very highest point of imaginable horror,
without going beyond the truth.

It is well for the world that the schemes and projects of ambition
depend not in their fulfilment upon the means and instruments with
which they are sought to be accomplished. Had Sir Thomas Gourlay,
for instance, not treated his daughter with such brutal cruelty, an
interview must have taken place between her and Lord Cullamore, which
would, as a matter of course, have put an end forever to her father's
hopes of the high rank for which he was so anxious to sacrifice her.
The good old nobleman, failing of the interview he had expected, went
immediately to London, with a hope, among other objects, of being in
some way useful to his son, whom he had not seen for more than two
years, the latter having been, during that period, making the usual tour
of the Continent.

On the second day of his arrival, and after he had in some degree
recovered from the effects of the voyage--by which, on the whole, he was
rather improved--he resolved to call upon Dunroe, in pursuance of a note
which he had written to him to that effect, being unwilling besides to
take him unawares. Before he arrives, however, we shall take the liberty
of looking in upon his lordship, and thus enable ourselves to form
some opinion of the materials which constituted that young nobleman's
character and habits.

The accessories to these habits, as exponents of his life and character,
were in admirable keeping with both, and a slight glance at them will be
sufficient for the reader.

His lordship, who kept a small establishment of his own, now lies in a
very elegantly furnished bedroom, with a table beside his bed, on which
are dressings for his wound, phials of medicines, so