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 mountain's head
When the lady wept o'er her dying boy.

But tyranny, or oppression, has always been supposed to bring its own
punishment, as in the case of Barcroft Hall, Lancashire, where the
"Idiot's Curse" is commonly said to have caused the downfall of the
family. The tradition current in the neighbourhood states that one of
the heirs to Barcroft was of weak intellect, and that he was fastened
by a younger brother with a chain in one of the cellars, and there in
a most cruel manner gradually starved to death. It appears that this
unnatural conduct on the part of the younger brother was prompted by a
desire to get possession of the property; and it is added that, long
before the heir to Barcroft was released from his sufferings, he
caused a report to be circulated that he was dead, and by this piece
of deception made himself master of the Barcroft estate. It was in one
of his lucid intervals that the poor injured brother pronounced a
curse upon the family of the Barcrofts, to the effect that their name
should perish for ever, and that the property should pass into other