This last impression, more horrible to me than all the rest, made me spring from my couch, and I awoke.

The cold drops of perspiration stood upon my brow, my mouth was parched and open, and my temples throbbed so that I could count their beatings; for some seconds I could not throw off the frightful illusion I labored under, and it was only by degrees I recovered consciousness and remembered where I was.

Before me, and on one side of the bright wood-fire, sat Mike, who, apparently deep in thought, gazed fixedly at the blaze.

The start I gave on awaking had not attracted his attention, and I could see, as the flickering glare fell upon his features, that he was pale and ghastly, while his eyes were riveted upon the fire; his lips moved rapidly, as if in prayer, 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.