A good story is told of an Irish gentleman—­still known in London society—­who inherited the family estates and the family banshee.  The estates he lost—­no uncommon circumstance in the history of Irish gentlemen,—­but the banshee, who expected no favours, stuck to him in his adversity, and crossed the channel with him, making herself known only on occasions of death-beds and sharp family misfortunes.  This gentleman had an ear, and, seated one night at the opera, the keen—­heard once or twice before on memorable occasions—­thrilled through the din of the orchestra and the passion of the singers.  He hurried home, of course, found his immediate family well, but on the morrow a telegram arrived with the announcement of a brother’s death.  Surely of all superstitions that is the most imposing which makes the other world interested in the events which befall our mortal lot.  For the mere pomp and pride of it, your ghost is worth a dozen retainers, and it is entirely inexpensive.  The peculiarity and supernatural worth of this story lies in the idea of the old wail piercing through the sweet entanglement of stringed instruments and extinguishing Grisi.  Modern circumstances and luxury crack, as it were, and reveal for a moment misty and aboriginal time big with portent.  There is a ridiculous Scotch story in which one gruesome touch lives.  A clergyman’s female servant was seated in the kitchen one Saturday night reading the Scriptures, when she was somewhat startled by hearing at the door the tap and voice of her sweetheart.  Not expecting him, and the hour being somewhat late, she opened it in astonishment, and was still more astonished to hear him on entering abuse Scripture-reading.  He behaved altogether in an unprecedented manner, and in many ways terrified the poor girl.  Ultimately he knelt before her, and laid his head on her lap.  You can fancy her consternation when glancing down she discovered that, instead of hair, the head was covered with the moss of the moorland.  By a sacred name she adjured him to tell who he was, and in a moment the figure was gone.  It was the Fiend, of course—­diminished sadly since Milton saw him bridge chaos—­fallen from worlds to kitchen-wenches.  But just think how in the story, in half-pity, in half-terror, the popular feeling of homelessness, of being outcast, of being unsheltered as waste and desert places, has incarnated itself in that strange covering of the head.  It is a true supernatural touch.  One other story I have heard in the misty Hebrides:  A Skye gentleman was riding along an empty moorland road.  All at once, as if it had sprung from the ground, the empty road was crowded by a funeral procession.  Instinctively he drew his horse to a side to let it pass, which it did without sound of voice, without tread of foot.  Then he knew it was an apparition.  Staring on it, he knew every person who either bore the corpse or walked behind as mourners.  There were the neighbouring proprietors at whose houses he dined,