which nothing but the situation in which I then found myself could give them.  The force of association, too, was powerful; for, as I advanced nearer home, the names of hills, and lakes, and mountains, that I had utterly forgotten, as I thought, were distinctly revived in my memory, and a crowd of youthful thoughts and feelings, that I imagined my intercourse with the world and the finger of time had blotted out of my being, began to crowd afresh on my fancy.  The name of, a townland would instantly return with its appearance; and I could now remember the history of families and individuals that had long been effaced from my recollection.

But what is even more singular is, that the superstitious terrors of my boyhood began to come over me as formerly, whenever a spot noted for supernatural appearances met my eye.  It was in vain that I exerted myself to expel them, by throwing the barrier of philosophic reasoning in their way; they still clung to me, in spite of every effort to the contrary.  But the fact is, that I was, for the moment, the slave of a morbid and feverish sentiment, that left me completely at the mercy of the dark and fleeting images that passed over my fancy.  I now came to a turn where the road began to slope down into the depths of a valley that ran across it.  When I looked forward into the bottom of it, all was darkness impenetrable, for the moon-beams were thrown off by the height of the mountains that rose on each side of it.  I felt an indefinite sensation of fear, because at that moment I recollected that it had been, in my younger days, notorious as the scene of an apparition, where the spirit of a murdered pedlar had never been known to permit a solitary traveler to pass without appearing to him, and walking cheek-by-jowl along with him to the next house on the way, at which spot he usually vanished.  The influence of my feelings, or, I should rather say, the physical excitement of my nerves, was by no means slight, as these old traditions recurred to me; although, at the same time, my moral courage was perfectly unimpaired, so that, notwithstanding this involuntary apprehension, I felt a degree of novelty and curiosity in descending the valley:  “If it appear,” said I, “I shall at least satisfy myself as to the truth of apparitions.”  My dress consisted of a long, dark surtout, the collar of which, as the night was keen, I had turned up about my ears, and the corners of it met round my face.  In addition to this I had a black silk handkerchief tied across my mouth to keep out the night air, so that, as my dark fur traveling cap came down over my face, there was very little of my countenance visible.  I now had advanced half way into the valley, and all about me was dark and still:  the moonlight was not nearer than the top of the hill which I was descending; and I often turned round to look upon it, so silvery and beautiful it appeared in the distance.  Sometimes I stopped for a few moments, admiring’ its effect,