Baptize us while we are yetliving." When they touched the shore, the weight of all those centuriesfell upon them; they resumed their human bodies, but they appeared old andpale and wrinkled. Then St. Patrick baptized them, and they died; but,even as he did so, a change swiftly came over them; and they lay side byside, once more children, in their white night-clothes, as when theirfather Lir, long centuries ago, had kissed them at evening and seen theirblue eyes close in sleep and had touched with gentle hand their whiteforeheads and their golden hair. Their time of sorrow was ended and theirlast swan-song was sung; but the cruel stepmother seems yet to survive inher bat-like shape, and a single glance at her weird and malicious littleface will lead us to doubt whether she has yet fully atoned for her sin.IVUSHEEN IN THE ISLAND OF YOUTHThe old Celtic hero and poet Usheen or Oisin, whose supposed songs areknown in English as those of Ossian, lived to a great old age, survivingall others of the race of the Feni, to which he belonged; and he was askedin his last years what had given him such length of life. This is the talehe told:--After the fatal battle of Gavra, in which most of the Feni were killed,Usheen and his father, the king, and some of the survivors of the battlewere hunting the deer with their dogs, when they met a maiden riding on aslender white horse with hoofs of gold, and with a golden crescent betweenhis ears.
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