Ellen whistled. "Ask another," she said. "There"s nowhere she could have gone excepting into the quarry, and my only hope is that she is lying at the bottom of it with a broken neck, for I certainly never wish to see her again. But come, let"s be moving on, I"m chilly."
They started off, but had only proceeded a few yards, when, apparently from the direction of the quarry, came a peal of laughter, so mocking and malignant and altogether evil, that all three involuntarily quickened their steps, and, at the same time, refrained from speaking, until they had reached the house, which they hastily entered, securely closing the door behind them. They then went straight to Mr O"D. and asked him who the old woman was whom they had just seen.
"What was she like?" he queried. "I haven"t authorised anyone but Mary to go into the garden."
"It certainly wasn"t Mary," Ellen responded quickly. "It was some hideous old crone who was digging away like anything. On our approach she left off and gave us the most diabolical look I have ever seen. Then she went away and seemed to vanish in the hedge by the quarry. We afterwards heard her give the most appalling and intensely evil laugh that you can imagine.
Whoever is she?"
"I can"t think," Mr O"D. replied, looking somewhat unusually pale. "It is no one whom I know. Very possibly she was a tramp or gipsy. We must take care to keep all the doors locked. Whatever you do, don"t mention a word about her to your mother or to Mary--they are both nervous and very easily frightened."
All three promised, and the matter was then allowed to drop, but my relative, who returned home before it got quite dark, subsequently learned that that night, some time after the O"D. household had all retired to rest, peal after peal of the same infernal mocking laughter was heard, just under the windows, first of all in the front of the house, and then in the rear; and that, on the morrow, came the news that the business concern in which most of Mr O"D."s money was invested had gone smash and the family were practically penniless.
The house now was in imminent danger of being sold, and many people thought that it was merely to avert this catastrophe and to enable her parents to keep a roof over their heads that Ellen accepted the attentions of a very vulgar parvenu (an Englishman) in Limerick, and eventually married him. Where there is no love, however, there is never any happiness, and where there is not even "liking," there is very often hate; and in Ellen"s case hate there was without any doubt. Barely able, even from the first, to tolerate her husband (his favourite trick was to make love to her in public and almost in the same breath bully her--also in public), she eventually grew to loathe him, and at last, unable to endure his hated presence any longer, she eloped with an officer who was stationed in the neighbourhood. The night before Ellen took this step, my relative and Wilfred (the latter was escorting his fiancee home after a pleasant evening spent in her company) again heard the malevolent laughter, which (although they could see no one) pursued them for some distance along the moonlit lanes and across the common leading to the spot where my relative lived. After this the laughter was not heard again for two years, but at the end of that period my relative had another experience of the phenomena.
She was again spending the evening with the O"D."s, and, on this occasion, she was discussing with Mr and Mrs O"D. the advent of Wilfred, who was expected to arrive home from the West Indies any time within the next few days. My relative was not unnaturally interested, as it had been arranged that she and Wilfred should marry, as soon as possible after his arrival in Ireland. They were all three--Mr and Mrs O"D. and my relative--engaged in animated conversation (the old people had unexpectedly come into a little money, and that, too, had considerably contributed to their cheerfulness), when Mrs O"D., fancying she heard someone calling to her from the garden, got up and went to the window.
"Harry," she exclaimed, still looking out and apparently unable to remove her gaze, "do come. There"s the most awful old woman in the garden, staring hard at me. Quick, both of you. She"s perfectly horrible; she frightens me."
My relative and Mr O"D. at once sprang up and hastened to her side, and, there, they saw, gazing up at them, the pallor of its cheeks intensified by a stray moonbeam which seemed to be concentrated solely on it, a face which my relative recognised immediately as that of the woman she had seen, two years ago, digging in the garden. The old hag seemed to remember my relative, too, for, as their glances met, a gleam of recognition crept into her light eyes, and, a moment later, gave way to an expression of such diabolical hate that my relative involuntarily caught hold of Mr O"D.
for protection. Evidently noting this action the creature leered horribly, and then, drawing a kind of shawl or hood tightly over its head, moved away with a kind of gliding motion, vanishing round an angle of the wall.
Mr O"D. at once went out into the garden, but, after a few minutes, returned, declaring that, although he had searched in every direction, not a trace of their sinister-looking visitor could he see anywhere. He had hardly, however, finished speaking, when, apparently from close to the house, came several peals of the most h.e.l.lish laughter, that terminated in one loud, prolonged wail, unmistakably ominous and menacing.
"Oh, Harry," Mrs O"D. exclaimed, on the verge of fainting, "what can be the meaning of it? That was surely no living woman."
"No," Mr O"D. replied slowly, "it was the Banshee. As you know, the O"D.
Banshee, for some reason or another, possesses an inveterate hatred of my family, and we must prepare again for some evil tidings. But," he went on, steadying his voice with an effort, "with G.o.d"s grace we must face it, for whatever happens it is His Divine will."
A few days later my relative, as may be imagined, was immeasurably shocked to hear that Mr O"D. had been sent word that Wilfred was dead. He had, it appeared, been stricken down with fever, supposed to have been caught from one of his fellow-pa.s.sengers, and had died on the very day that he should have landed, on the very day, in fact (as it was afterwards ascertained from a comparison of dates), upon which his parents and fiancee, together, had heard and seen the Banshee.
Soon after this unhappy event my relative left the neighbourhood and went to live with some friends near Dublin, and though, from time to time, she corresponded with the O"D."s, she never again heard anything of their Banshee.
This same relative of mine, whom I will now call Miss S---- (she never married), was acquainted with two old maiden ladies named O"Rorke who, many years ago, lived in a semi-detached house close to Lower Merrion Street. Miss S---- did not know to what branch of the O"Rorkes they belonged, for they were very reticent with regard to their family history, but she believed they originally came from the south-west and were distantly connected with some of her own people.
With regard to their house, there certainly was something peculiar, since in it was one room that was invariably kept locked, and in connection with this room it was said there existed a mystery of the most frightful and harrowing description.
My relative often had it on the tip of her tongue to refer to the room, just to see what effect it would have on the two old ladies, but she could never quite sum up the courage to do so. One afternoon, however, when she was calling on them, the subject was brought to their notice in a very startling manner.
The elder of the two sisters, Miss Georgina, who was presiding at the tea table, had just handed Miss S---- a cup of tea and was about to pour out another for herself, when into the room, with her cap all awry and her eyes bulging, rushed one of the servants.
"Good gracious!" Miss Georgina exclaimed, "whatever"s the matter, Bridget?"
"Matter!" Bridget retorted, in a brogue which I will not attempt to imitate. "Why, someone"s got into that room you always keep locked and is making the devil of a noise, enough to raise all the Saints in Heaven.
Norah" (Norah was the cook) "and I both heard it--a groaning, and a chuckling, and a scratching, as if the cratur was tearing up the boards and breaking all the furniture, and all the while keening and laughing.
For the love of Heaven, ladies, come and hear it for yourselves. Such goings on! Ochone! Ochone!"
Both ladies, Miss S---- said, turned deadly pale, and Miss Harriet, the younger sister, was on the brink of tears.
"Where is cook?" Miss Georgina, who was by far the stronger minded of the two, suddenly said, addressing Bridget. "If she is upstairs, tell her to come down at once. Miss Harriet and I will go and see what the noise is that you complain about upstairs. There really is no need to make all this disturbance"--here she a.s.sumed an air of the utmost severity--"it"s sure to be either mice or rats."
"Mice or rats!" Bridget echoed. "I"m sorry for the mice and rats as make all those noises. "Tis some evil spirit, sure, and Norah is of the same mind," and with those parting words she slammed the door behind her.
The sisters, then, begging to be excused for a few minutes, left the room, and returned shortly afterwards looking terribly white and distressed.
"I am sure you must think all this very odd," Miss Georgina observed with as great a degree of unconcern as she could a.s.sume, "and I feel we owe you an explanation, but I must beg you will not repeat a word of what we tell you to anyone else."
Miss S---- promised she would not, and then composed herself to listen.
"We have in our family," Miss O"Rorke began, "a most unpleasant attachment; in other words, a most unpleasant Banshee. Being Irish, you will not laugh, of course, as many English people do, at what I say. You know as well as I do, perhaps, that many of the really ancient Irish families possess Banshees."
Miss S---- nodded. "We have one ourselves," she remarked, "but pray go on.
I am intensely interested."
"Well, unlike most of the Banshees," Miss Georgina continued, "ours is appallingly ugly and malevolent; so frightful, indeed, that to see it, even, is sometimes fatal. One of our great-great-uncles, for instance, to whom it once appeared, is reported to have died from shock; a similar fate overtaking another of our ancestors, who also saw it. Fortunately, it seems to have a strong attraction in the shape of an old gold ring which has been in the possession of the family from time immemorial. Both ancestors I have referred to are alleged to have been wearing this ring at the time the Banshee appeared to them, and it is said to strictly confine its manifestations to the immediate vicinity of that article. That is why our parents always kept the ring strictly isolated, in a locked room, the key of which was never, for a moment, allowed to be out of their possession. And we have strenuously followed their example. That is the explanation of the mystery you have doubtless heard about, for I believe--thanks to the servants--it has become the gossip of half Dublin."
"And the noise Bridget referred to," Miss S---- ventured to remark, somewhat timidly, "was that the Banshee?"
Miss Georgina nodded.
"I fear it was," she observed solemnly, "and that we shall shortly hear of a relative"s death or grave catastrophe to some member of the family; probably, a cousin of ours in County Galway, who has been ill for some weeks, is dying."
She was partly right, although the latter surmise was not correct. Within a few days of the Banshee"s visit a member of the family died, but it was not the sick cousin, it was Miss Georgina"s own sister, Harriet!
CHAPTER IV
THE BANSHEE ABROAD
As I have remarked in a previous chapter, the Banshee to-day is heard more often abroad than in Ireland. It follows the fortunes of the true old Milesian Irishman--the real O and Mc, none of your adulterated O"Walters or O"Ca.s.sons--everywhere, even to the Poles.
Lady Wilde, in her "Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms and Superst.i.tions of Ireland," quotes the case of a Banshee haunting that was experienced by a branch of the Clan O"Grady that had settled in Canada.
The spot chosen by this family for their residence was singularly wild and isolated, and one night at two o"clock, when they were all in bed, they were aroused by a loud cry, coming, apparently, from just outside the house. Nothing intelligible was uttered, only a sound indicative of the greatest bitterness and sorrow, such as one might imagine a woman would give vent to, but only when in an agony of mind, almost beyond human understanding.
The effect produced by it was one of sublime terror, and all seemed to feel instinctively that the source from which it emanated was apart from this world and belonged wholly and solely to the Unknown. Nevertheless, from what Lady Wilde says, we are led to infer that an exhaustive search of the premises was made, resulting, as was expected, in complete failure to find any physical agency that could in any way account for the cry.
The following day the head of the household and his eldest son went boating on a lake near the house, and, although it was their intention to do so, did not return to dinner. Various members of the family were sent to look for them, but no trace of them was to be seen anywhere, and no solution to the mystery as to what had happened to them was forthcoming, till two o"clock that night, when, exactly twenty-four hours after the cry had been heard, some of the searchers returned, bearing with them the wet, bedraggled, and lifeless bodies of both father and son. Then, once again, the weird and ominous sound that had so startled them on the previous night was heard, and the sorrow-stricken family--that is to say, those who were left of it--agreeing now that the Banshee had indeed visited them, remembered that their beloved father, whom they had just lost, had often spoken of the Banshee, as having haunted their branch of the clan for countless generations.
Another case of Banshee haunting, that I have in mind, relates to a branch of the southern O"Neills that settled in Italy a good many years ago. It was told me in Paris by a Mrs Dempsey, who a.s.sured me she had been an eye-witness of the phenomena, and I now record it in print for the first time.
Mrs Dempsey, when staying once at an hotel in the north of Italy, noticed among the guests an elderly man, whose very marked features and intensely sad expression quickly attracted her attention. She observed that he kept entirely aloof from his fellow-guests, and that, every evening after dinner, he retired from the drawing-room, as soon as coffee had been handed round, and went outside and stood on the veranda overlooking the sh.o.r.e of the Adriatic.
She made inquiries as to his name and history, and was told that he was Count Fernando Asioli, a wealthy Florentine citizen, who, having but recently lost his wife, to whom he was devoted, naturally did not wish to join in the general conversation. Upon hearing this Mrs Dempsey was more than ever interested. It was not so very long since she, too, had lost her partner--a husband to whom she was much attached--and, consequently, it was in sympathetic mood that, seeing the Count go out, as usual, one evening, on to the veranda, she resolved to follow him, to try, if possible, to get into conversation with him.
With this end in view she was about to cross the threshold of the veranda, when, to her astonishment, she perceived the Count was not there alone.