dark coach drive into the paved court before the door.  One of them went down to meet the doctor, but the coach swept past him, and drove down the avenue, which went straight between the fences and hedges to a gate.  Two of the young men ran after the coach, which they could hear rumbling before them, and suddenly came full tilt against the avenue gate.  The noise had stopped, and they were surprised at not finding the carriage.  The gate proved to be locked, and when they at last awoke the lodge-keeper, he showed them the keys under his pillow; the doctor arrived a little later, but could do nothing, and the sick man died a few hours afterwards.”

Two other good stories come from Co.  Clare.  One night in April 1821, two servants were sitting up to receive a son of the family, Cornelius O’Callaghan, who had travelled in vain for his health, and was returning home.  One of them, Halloran, said that the heavy rumble of a coach roused them.  The other servant, Burke, stood on the top of the long flight of steps with a lamp, and sent Halloran down to open the carriage door.  He reached out his hand to do so, saw a skeleton looking out, gave one yell, and fell in a heap.  When the badly-scared Burke picked himself up there was no sign or sound of any coach.  A little later the invalid arrived, so exhausted that he died suddenly in the early morning.

On the night of December 11, 1876, a servant of the MacNamaras was going his rounds at Ennistymon, a beautiful spot in a wooded glen, with a broad stream falling in a series of cascades.  In the dark he heard the rumbling of wheels on the back avenue, and, knowing from the hour and place that no mortal vehicle could be coming, concluded that it was the death coach, and ran on, opening the gates before it.  He had just time to open the third gate, and throw himself on his face beside it, when he heard a coach go clanking past.  On the following day Admiral Sir Burton Macnamara died in London.

Mr. Westropp informs us that at sight or sound of this coach all gates should be thrown open, and then it will not stop at the house to call for a member of the family, but will only foretell the death of some relative at a distance.  We hope our readers will carefully bear in mind this simple method of averting fate.

We may conclude this chapter with some account of strange and varied death-warnings, which are attached to certain families and foretell the coming of the King of Terrors.

In a Co.  Wicklow family a death is preceded by the appearance of a spectre; the doors of the sitting-room open and a lady dressed in white satin walks across the room and hall.  Before any member of a certain Queen’s Co. family died a looking-glass was broken; while in a branch of that family the portent was the opening and shutting of the avenue gate.  In another Queen’s Co. family approaching death was heralded by the cry of the cuckoo, no matter at what season of the year it might occur.  A Mrs. F——­