A triumphal arch, tastefully adorned with appropriate armorial escutcheons, emblems, and trophies, and crowned with wreaths and festoons of living shrubs and flowers, adorned the pass which led to the castellated gateway. Bouquets and coronals of flowers were flung along the way, while grateful shouts made the welkin ring as the ducal train passed along. Groups of lovely damsels united their welcome song, and soon joined hands with the manly peasants in the national Irish dance of the _Rinceadh-Fada_.[1] Once more the ducal standard floated on "the Raven Tower," the cannon on the terrace thundered forth a princely _salvo_, which boomed upon the buoyant waves of the deep Atlantic, and was re-echoed by the castle walls, while the loud continued shouts of a grateful and happy tenantry bore burden to the burst of joy. It would be difficult to express the exultation and gladness that pervaded all ranks, and which the old domestics in particular displayed in no common way; Mrs. Judith Brangwain, the venerable old nurse of Lady Adelaide, seemed nearly crazed with joy at the long wished, but unhoped return of her dear Mavourneen, her best beloved young lady:--"Oh," she exclaimed, "at last have I survived, with these mine aged eyes, to witness this happy, happy day! Oh, never, never, did I expect so great a blessing; I am stricken in years, and nearly blind, yet the Lord be praised for these and all his mercies!" [Footnote 1: This dance has been already described in note to chapter xv. vol. I. It only is necessary here to observe, that the popular dance at present prevalent in Ireland is called the _long dance_; it is similar to that of the Danes in Holstein, and other parts of Denmark, which they term _de lange danz_, or "the long dance." This dance still continues up to the present period to be performed in the country parts of Ireland, upon the occurrence of a young heir arriving at the bright and sunny epoch of twenty-one; and likewise upon the event of his marriage, or upon any other happy and unexpected occasion of rejoicing.] Next the old crone sung with joy and delight, held up her garments in jig attitude, and capered about as if actually bitten by a tarantula; then seized and led out, _per_ force, old Sandy Rakeweel, the Scotch gardener, with whom she danced an Irish reel, and that too with so much _qui vive_, as to demonstrate that the joys of her dancing days had not passed over. This frolic was performed on the green sward, and honest old Sandy, when the reel was completed, which, sooth to say, he had undertaken _nolens volens_, vehemently exclaimed, "'Fore Saint Aundrewe, Mrs. Judith, wi' a' her whigmaleeries was ower pauky, to hap, step, an' loup wi' me; the gude woman is a' fou' and sae daft she ha' geck'd a' her wits into a creel, aiblins she hae been bit by a bogle. Ise naer be so jundied in a jig again; yet I'm not meikle fashed--nae, nae!"