louder than ever, only that this time it seemed to name whomsoever it was lamenting.  Sally now got up and put her ear to the door, to see if she could hear what it said.  At this time the wind got calmer, and the voice also got lower; but although it was still sorrowful, she never heard any living Christian’s voice so sweet, and what was very odd, it fell in fits, exactly as the storm sunk, and rose as it blew louder.

“When she put her ear to the chink of the door, she heard the words repeated, no doubt of it, only couldn’t be quite sure, as they wern’t very plain; but as far as she could make any sense out of them, she thought that it said—­’Oh, Larry M’Farland!—­Larry M’Farland!—­Larry M’Farland!’

“Sally’s hair stood on end when she heard this; but on listening again, she thought it was her own name instead of Larry’s that it repeated, and that it said, ‘Sally M’Farland!—­Sally M’Farland!—­Sally M’Farland!’ Still she wasn’t sure, for the words wern’t plain, and all she could think was, that they resembled her own name or Larry’s more than any other words she knew.  At last, as the wind fell again, it melted away, weeping most sorrowfully, but so sweetly, that the likes of it was never heard.  Sally then went to bed, and the poor woman was so harrished with one thing or another, that at last she fell asleep.”

“’Twas the Banshee,” said Shane Fadh.

“Indeed it was nothing else than that same,” replied M’Roarkin.

“I wonder Sally didn’t think of-that,” said Nancy—­“sure she might know that no living crathur would be out lamenting under such a night as that was.”

“She did think of that,” said Tom; “but as no Banshee ever followed her own* family, didn’t suppose that it could be such a thing; but she forgot that it might follow Larry’s.  I, myself, heard his brother Tom say, afterwards, that a Banshee used always to be heard before any of them died.”

* The Banshee in Ireland is, or rather was, said to follow only particular families—­principally the Old Milesians.  It appeared or was heard before the death of any member of the family.  Its form was always that of a female—­weeping, wailing, wringing its hands, and uttering the national keene, or lamentation for the dead.  Banshee signifies gentle woman.

“Did his brother hear it?” Ned inquired.

“He did,” said Tom, “and his wife along with him, and knew, at once, that some death would happen in the family—­but it wasn’t long till he suspected who it came for; for, as he was going to bed that night, on looking towards his own hearth, he thought he saw his brother standing at the fire, with a very sorrowful face upon him.  ‘Why, Larry,’ says he, ’how did you get in, after me barring the door?—­or did you turn back from helping them with the corn?  You surely hadn’t time to go half the way since.’

[Illustration:  PAGE 713—­ ‘Why, Larry,’ says he, ‘how did you get in’]