covered--The Mad-House

XL.--Lady Gourlay sees her Son

XLI.--Denouement

PREFACE.

The incidents upon which this book is founded seem to be extraordinary
and startling, but they are true; for, as Byron says, and as we all
know, "Truth is strange--stranger than Fiction." Mr. West, brother to
the late member from Dublin, communicated them to me exactly as they
occurred, and precisely as he communicated them, have I given them
to the reader, at least, as far as I can depend upon my memory. With
respect, however, to his facts, they related only to the family which is
shadowed forth under the imaginary name of Gourlay; those connected with
the aristocratic house of Cullamore, I had from another source, and they
are equally authentic. The Lord Dunroe, son to the Earl of Cullamore, is
not many years dead, and there are thousands still living, who can bear
testimony to the life of profligacy and extravagance, which, to the very
last day of his existence, he persisted in leading. That his father was
obliged to get an act of Parliament passed to legitimize his children,
is a fact also pretty well known to many.

At first, I had some notion of writing a distinct story upon each class
of events, but, upon more mature consideration, I thought it better to
construct such a one as would enable me to work them both up into the
same narrative; thus contriving that the incidents of the one house
should be connected with those of the other, and the interest of both
deepened, not only by their connection, but their contrast. It is
unnecessary to say, that the prototypes of the families who appear upon
the stage in the novel, were, in point of fact, personally unknown
to each other, unless, probably, by name, inasmuch as they resided
in different and distant parts of the kingdom. They were, however,
contemporaneous. Such circumstances, nevertheless, matter very little
to the novelist, who can form for his characters whatsoever connections,
whether matrimonial or otherwise, he may deem most proper; and of this,
he must be considered himself as the sole, though probably not the best,
judge. The name of Red Hall, the residence of Sir Thomas Gourlay, is
purely fictitious, but not the description of it, which applies very
accurately to a magnificent family mansion not a thousand miles from
the thriving little town of Ballygawley. Since the first appearance,
however, of the work, I have accidentally discovered, from Jame