we met the Bishop of Londonderry and the Earl of Roscommon, who was
Lord Chancellor of that Kingdom at that time. These two persons with
my husband being together writing letters to the King, to give an
account of the kingdom, when they were going down stairs from my Lord
Roscommon's chamber, striving to hold the candle at the stairs' head,
because the privacy of their despatch admitted not a servant to be
near, my Lord Roscommon fell down the stairs, and his head fell upon
the corner of a stone and broke his skull in three pieces, of which he
died five days after, leaving the broad seal of Ireland in your
father's hands, until such time as he could acquaint his Majesty with
this sad account, and receive orders how to dispose of the seals. This
caused our longer stay, but your father and I being invited to my Lord
Inchiquin's, there to stay till we heard out of Holland from the King,
which was a month before the messenger returned, we had very kind
entertainment, and vast plenty of fish and fowl. By this time my Lord
Lieutenant the now Duke of Ormond's army was quite dispersed, and
himself gone for Holland, and every person concerned in that interest
shifting for their lives; and Cromwell went through as bloodily as
victoriously, many worthy persons being murdered in cold blood, and
their families quite ruined.

From hence we went to the Lady Honor O'Brien's, a lady that went for a
maid, but few believed it: she was the youngest daughter of the Earl
of Thomond. There we stayed three nights. The first of which I was
surprised by being laid in a chamber, when, about one o'clock I heard
a voice that wakened me. I drew the curtain, and in the casement of
the window, I saw, by the light of the moon, a woman leaning into the
window, through the casement, in white, with red hair and pale and
ghastly complexion: she spoke loud, and in a tone I had never heard,
thrice, 'A horse'; and then, with a sigh more like the wind than