Page:Shiana - Peadar Ua Laoghaire.djvu/237

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SHIANA
223

was the sweeter for the melody. Then a third sound arose, trembling and swaying, and having blended with it an exquisite air of its own. That third sound startled everyone. They could have sworn it was a human voice!

Then there gushed forth as it were a torrent of music, the sweetest and clearest, the smoothest and most pleasing that anyone present had ever heard. It mingled with the low, sweet murmuring, and with the human voice, and with the sort of wind that seemed to accompany them, and the whole harmony swept round the house in a whirl. The voice and the sound became stronger, and the mingling and the whirling more rapid, until the people thought that a whirlwind was actually spinning through the house. It was here, and it was there. It would spring in one direction, and then in another. They thought it seemed to lie down and rush along the floor. Then, as the music would seem to make a spring, the whirlwind would fly up among the beams of the roof and sweep round overhead, so that the people imagined they could hear the wings of birds in it. Then they fancied they heard, through the music, a sob as of weeping. Presently it would turn into loud laughter. Then they would hear, distinctly sounding, through the music, what seemed to be the voice of a child. Soon another child's voice was answering that one, the two voices answering each other and keeping time with the music. Then a third voice arose, like the voice of a young woman, and none of the listeners had ever heard a human voice so musical, so beautiful, so sweet. After a moment another woman's voice replied to that one, and if the first voice was musical, even more musical