Meantime the day advanced, the festivities went on, and the glass began to circulate freely. The absence of the principal actor of the scene was so far forgotten that at length the music struck up, and dancing commenced with all the animation which that exercise inspires. Things were going on in this way when, towards night, and during one of the pauses of the dance, a loud rap was heard at the door, and a gleam of hope was seen to lighten every face, when there entered, not the bridegroom and his party, but a wandering lunatic named Annie Fae, well known and not a little feared in all that countryside. Her garments were little else than a collection of fantastic and parti-coloured rags, bound close around her waist with a girdle of straw, and her head had no other covering than the dark tangled locks that hung, snake-like, over her wild and weather-beaten face, from which peered forth her small, deep, sunk eyes, gleaming with the light of insanity. Before the surprise and dismay excited by her sudden and unwelcome appearance had subsided, she addressed the company in the following wild and incoherent manner,— “Hech, sirs, but here’s a merry meeting indeed. Plenty o’ gude meat and drink here, and nae expense spared! Aweel, it’s no a’ lost neither; this blithe bridal will mak’ a braw burial, and the same feast will do for baith. But I’ll no detain you langer, but jog on upon my journey; only I wad juist hint that, for decency sake, ye suld stop that fine fiddling and dancing.” Having thus spoken, she made a low curtsy, and hurried out of the house, leaving the company in that state of painful excitement which, in such circumstances, even the ravings of a poor deranged wanderer could not fail to produce. In this state we too may leave them for the present, and proceed with the party who had set off on the preceding day in search of the bridegroom and his friends. The latter were traced to Rackwick; but there no intelligence could be gained, except that some days previous a boat, having on board several sportsmen, had been seen putting off from the shore, and sailing away in the direction of Sule Skerry. The weather continuing fine, the searching party hired a large boat, and proceeded to that remote and solitary rock, upon which, as they neared it, they could discover nothing, except swarms of seals, which immediately began to flounder towards the water’s edge. A large flock of sea-fowl arose from the centre of the rock with a deafening scream; and upon approaching the spot, they beheld, with dumb amazement and horror, the dead bodies of the party of whom they had come in search, but so mangled and disfigured by the sea-fowl that they could barely be recognized. It appeared that these unfortunates upon landing had forgotten their guns in the boat, which had slipped from her fastenings, and left them upon the rock, where they had at last perished of cold and hunger.