.

Shawn-na-Middogue.
-- Shan-Dhinne-Dhuv, or The Black Spectre.
The next evening was calm and mild; the sun shone with a serene and mellow light from the evening sky; the trees were green, and still; but the music of the blackbird and the thrush came sweetly from their leafy branches.

Henry Woodward had been listening to a rather lengthy discussion upon the subject of the blood-shower, which, indeed, was the topic of much conversation and great wonder throughout the whole parish.
His father, a Protestant gentleman, and with some portion of education, although not much, was, nevertheless, deeply imbued with the superstitions which prevailed around him, as, in fact, were most of those who existed in his day; the very air which he breathed was rife with them; but what puzzled him and his family most was the difficulty which they found in shaping the prodigy into significance.

Why should it take place, and upon such an occasion, they could not for their lives imagine.

The only persons in the family who seemed altogether indifferent to it were Woodward and his mother, both of whom treated it with ridicule and contempt.
"It comes before some calamity," observed Mr.Lindsay.
"It comes before a fiddle-stick, Lindsay," replied his wife.