In the meantime every preparation was made for the forthcoming banquet.  It was to be on a large scale, and many of the neighboring gentry and their families were asked to it, The knowledge that Cooke, the Pythagorean, was at the Well had taken wind, and a strong curiosity had gone abroad to see him.  This eccentric gentleman’s appearance was exceedingly original, if not startling.  He was, at least, six feet two, but so thin, fleshless, and attenuated, that he resembled a living skeleton.  This was the more strange, inasmuch as in his earlier days he had been robust and stout, approaching even to corpulency.  His dress was as remarkable as his person, if not more so.  It consisted of bleached linen, and was exceedingly white; and so particular was he in point of cleanliness, that he put on a fresh dress every day.  He wore a pair of long pantaloons that, unfortunately for his symmetry, adhered to his legs and thighs as closely as the skin; and as the aforesaid legs and thighs were skeletonic, nothing could be more ludicrous than his appearance in them.  His vest was equally close; and as the hanging cloak which he wore over it did not reach far enough down his back, it was impossible to view him behind without convulsive laughter.  His shoes were made of some description of foreign bark, which had by some chemical process been tanned into toughness, and on his head he wore a turban of linen, made of the same material which furnished his other garments.  Altogether, a more ludicrous figure could not be seen, especially if a person happened to stand behind him when he bowed.  Notwithstanding all this, however, he possessed the manners and bearing of a gentleman; the only thing remarkable about him, beyond what we have described, being a peculiar wildness of the eyes, accompanied, however, by an unquestionable expression of great benignity.

We leave the company at the Well preparing for the forthcoming dinner and return to Rathfillan House, where Harry Woodward is making arrangements for his journey to Ballyspellan, which now we believe goes by the name of Johnstown.  Under every circumstance of his life he was a plotter and a planner, and had at all times some private speculation in view.  On the present occasion, in addition to his murderous design upon Miss Goodwin, he resolved to become a wife-hunter, for, being well acquainted, as he was, with the tone and temper of English society at its most celebrated watering places, and. the matrimonial projects and intrigues which abound at them, he took it for granted that he might stand a chance of making a successful hit with a view to matrimony.  One thing struck him, however, which was, that he had no horse, and could not go there mounted, as a gentleman ought.  It is true his step-father had several horses, but not one of them beyond the character of a common hack.  He resolved, therefore, to purchase a becoming nag for his journey, and with this object he called upon a neighboring farmer, named Murray, who possessed a very beautiful animal, rising four, and which he learned was to be disposed of.