rayer, and his locked hands were pressed
firmly upon his bosom; his voice, at first inaudible, I could gradually
distinguish, and at length heard the following muttered sentences:--

"Oh, mother of mercy! So far from his home and his people, and so young to
die in a strange land--There it is again." Here he appeared listening
to some sounds from without. "Oh, wirra, wirra, I know it well!--the
winding-sheet, the winding-sheet! There it is; my own eyes saw it!"
The tears coursed fast upon his pale cheeks, and his voice grew almost
inaudible, as rocking to and fro, for some time he seemed in a very stupor
of grief; when at last, in a faint, subdued tone, he broke into one of
those sad and plaintive airs of his country, which only need the moment of
depression to make them wring the very heart in agony.

His song was that to which Moore has appended the beautiful lines, "Come
rest on this bosom." The following imperfect translation may serve to
convey some impression of the words, which in Mike's version were Irish:--

"The day was declining,
The dark night drew near,
And the old lord grew sadder
And paler with fear:
'Come listen, my daughter,
Come nearer, oh, near!
Is't the wind or the water
That sighs in my ear?'

"Not the wind nor the water
Now stirred the night air,
But a warning far sadder,--.
The Banshee was there!
Now rising, now swelling,
On the night wind it bore
One cadence, still telling,
'I want thee, Rossmore!'

"And then fast came his breath,
And more fixed grew his eye;
And the shadow of death
Told his hour was nigh.
Ere the dawn of that morning
The struggle was o'er,
For when thrice came the warning
A corpse was Rossmore!"

The plaintive air to which these words were sung fell heavily upon my
heart, and it needed but the low and nervous condition I was in to make me
feel their application to myself. But so it is; the very superstition your
reason rejects and your sense spurns, has, from old association, from
habit, and from mere nationality too, a hold upon your hopes and fears that
demands more firmness and courage than a sick-bed possesses to combat with
success; and I now listened with an eager ear to mark if the Banshee
cried, rather than sought to fortify myself by any recurrence to my own
convictions. Meanwhile Mike's attitude became one of listening attention.
Not a finger moved; he scarce