And at her feet fell dead.

And this pathetic ballad concludes by telling us how

Poor Margaret, too, grows cold with death,
And round her hovering flies
The phantom bird for her last breath,
To bear it to the skies.

Equally strange is the omen with which the ancient baronet's family of
Clifton, of Clifton Hall, in Nottinghamshire, is forewarned when death
is about to visit one of its members. It appears that in this case the
omen takes the shape of a sturgeon, which is seen forcing itself up
the river Trent, on whose bank the mansion of the Clifton family is
situated. And, it may be remembered, how in the park of Chartley, near
Lichfield, there has long been preserved the breed of the indigenous
Staffordshire cow, of white sand colour, with black ears, muzzle, and
tips at the hoofs. In the year of the battle of Burton Bridge a black
calf was born; and the downfall of the great house of Ferrers
happening at the same period, gave rise to the tradition, which to
this day has been current in the neighbourhood, that the birth of a
parti-coloured calf from the wild breed in Chartley Park is a sure
omen of death within the same year to a member of the family.

By a noticeable coincidence, a calf of this description has been born
whenever a death has happened in the family of late years. The decease
of the Earl and his Countess, of his son Lord Tamworth, of his
daughter Mrs. William Joliffe, as well as the deaths of the son and
heir of the eighth Earl and his daughter Lady Frances Shirley, were
each preceded by the ominous birth of a calf. In the spring of the
year 1835, an animal perfectly black, was calved by one of this
mysterious tribe in the park of Chartley, and it was soon followed by
the death of the Countess.[41] The park of Chartley, where this weird
announcement of one of the family's death has oftentimes caused so
much alarm, is a wild romantic spot, and was in days of old attached
to the Royal Forest of Needwood and the Honour of Tutbury--of the
whole of which the ancient family of Ferrers were the puissant lords.
Their immense possessions, now forming part of the Duchy of Lancaster,
were forfeited by the attainder of Earl Ferrers after his defeat at
Burton Bridge, where he led the rebellious Barons against Henry III.
The Chartley estate, being settled in dower, was alone reserved, and
has been handed down to its present possessor. Of Chartley Castle
itself--which appears to have been in