h extinction. But, even on this festive night
when every heart is tuned for song and mirth, there suddenly appears a
mysterious figure, a pale and shivering form, by "age and frenzy
haggard made," who defiantly exclaims "'Tis vain! 'Tis vain!"

At once all eyes are turned on this strange form, as she, in mocking
gesture, casts a look of withering scorn on the scene around her, and
startles the jovial vassals with the reproachful words "No heir! No
heir!" The laughter is hushed, the pipes no longer sound, for the
witch with uplifted hand beckons that she had a message to tell--a
message from Death--she might truly say, "What means these bowls of
wine--these festive songs?"

For the blast of Death is on the heath,
And the grave yawns wide for the child of Moy.

She then recounts the tale of treachery and cruelty committed by a
chief of the House of Moy in the days of old, for which "his name
shall perish for ever off the earth--a son may be born--but that son
shall verily die." The witch brings tears into many an eye as she
tells how this curse was uttered by one Margaret, a prominent figure
in this sad feud, for it was when deceived in the most base manner,
and when betrayed by a man who had violated his promise he had
solemnly pledged, that she is moved to pronounce the fatal words of
doom:

She pray'd that childless and forlorn,
The chief of Moy might pine away,
That the sleepless night, and the careful morn
Might wither his limbs in slow decay.

But never the son of a chief of Moy
Might live to protect his father's age,
Or close in peace his dying eye,
Or gather his gloomy heritage.

Such was the "Curse of Moy," uttered, it must be remembered, too, by a
fair young girl, against the Chief of Moy for a blood-thirsty
crime--the act of a traitor--in that, not content with slaying her
father, and murdering her lover, he satiates his brutal passion by
letting her eyes rest on their corpses.

"And here," they said, "is thy father dead,
And thy lover's corpse is cold at his side."

Her tale ended, the witch departs, but now ceased the revels of the
shuddering clan, for "despair had seized on every breast," and "in
every vein chill terror ran." On the morrow, all is changed, no joyous
sounds are heard, but silence reigns supreme--the silence of death.
The curse has triumphed, the last hope of the house of Moy is gone,
and--

Scarce shone the morn on the