LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 227, 2 March 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE DEATH CRY. From Bel//raria. I was in the act of asking that question, so important to myself, ' Are there are letters for the Rev Hugh D'Alton?' at what I may call the ' Poste Restante' of the Charingcross Hotel, and at the same time preparing myself to wait patiently while pigeon-hole D was being looked through, when I heard behind me a voice I knew. That richest and most musical tone in the world—English cultivation upon an Irish accent; not an Irish brogue: when will our English friends learn the difference between the two?—was unmistakable; I should have known who the speaker was even if he had not descended upon me, of course clapped me on the back, and called out, ' Hugh, old fellow, what brings you here?' •Hunger,' I said, 'and a desire for my letters.' A packet was presented to me as I spoke. ' "Why do you let bores write to you when you're out for a lark? I would'nt do it. Breakfast, did you say? All right, breakfast with me; I have such a jolly party here, and we're all going over to Ireland, to Randlestown, my boy, to-morrow morning. When do you go?' 'To-night.' ' Wait for us, you may as well, and it will be twice the fun; and remember you spend Christmas at the Manor; but, of course, my mother and Norah have you booked already. Come along, never mind your letters now. I must introduce you to my friends.' I gave up my plans to his, and the second morning after our chance meeting found us all together at a rather early breakfast in a private room of the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin. My friend Henry, or, to call him by his more familiar name, Harry O'Neill, was the life of the party, and to good spirits Nature had enabled him to add the attractions of a handsome face and person. His unconquerable love of fun, and the quiet good breeding with which, becoming grave in a moment, he met and answered all complaints and smoothed all difficulties, quite won over two elderly dowagers, who were strongly inclined to resent having been obliged to get up in time for a nine o'clock breakfast after their long journey on the previous day. These ladies had never been in Ireland before, and they fully expected to meet ' Rory of the Hills' upon the staircase about to make a raid upon the luggage, and to see a 'Head Centre,' with a pistol at full cock, looking in at every window. Henry O'Neill, Esq., of Randlestown Manor, was a gentleman of good family and tolerably good fortune in the county Antrim, a descendant of the O'Neill's of the Red Hand, and in appearance no unworthy scion of that princely house. He had been educated at Harrow, and by his own desire he went to Oxford, where, I believe, he was not distinguished for anything but muscular —I suppose it is wrong to say unchristianity. And yet I do not think he was more pagan in his ideas and conduct than were the majority of his contemporaries. His father died before he was of age, and left him to the guardianship of his mother, the Lady Mary O'Neill; and he was now, at four-and-twenty, engaged to his cousin, North Fitzgerald, the daughter of his father's only sister. Norah was an orphan, and, for an Irish girl, an heiress —heiresses in the Emerald Isle are not so plentiful as blackberries. From the time Norah came to Randlestown Lady Mary set her heart upon the match, and she watched with pleasure the little girl's growing affection for her handsome cousin. I cannot say that when he asked Norah to be his wife Harry did not make himself as happy as he made his mother; but circumstances, which I may perhaps be able to explain more fully by and by, convinced me that he was not in love with the beautiful and gentle girl who had given to him her whole heart. The engagement had now lasted some years, for Harry did not wish to marry until he was twentyfive, and when I met him so unexpectedly in London he still wanted a few months of that age. He had been abroad for some time, and he was then going back to Ireland with his gay party, to spend his last Christmas as a bachelor at Randlestown Manor.

I need not particularly [describe all the members of the party ; it consisted of some young men and women ; and the two timid dowagers before mentioned. One of these ladies was a widow without incumbrance, an old friend of Lady Mary's, Mrs Lestrange by name; the other, and to her I noticed young O'Neill was specially attentive, was a Mrs Lomax, and she was incumbered by a handsome girl, her daughter Adelaide. I had never before seen so handsome a woman. I did not like her, even from the first moment of our introduction ; but her claims to beauty could not be denied by her greatest enemy. She was dark skinned and dark haired, and she had dark brown eyes with long black lashes; eyes which were often luminous and languishing, sometimes mournfully pathetic, but never tender. I have heard women declare that she had no heart ; but they were wrong. That useful organ was not wanting ; but' although it might be stirred by a wild storm of passion, lovegentle, tender, self-sacrificing love—l could not give it credit for either feeling or inspiring. O'Neill told me that he had met Mrs Lomax and her daughter at Baden. Mrs Lomax remembered having known the young man's mother ; Lady Mary was reminded of her old acquaintance by letter ; the intimacy prospered, and resulted in a cordial invitation to mother and daughter to spent Christmas in Ireland. Forming my opinion upon all subjects connected with this and other matters from my own observation only, I judged that, if left to herself, Mrs Lomax would have declined the invitation. I could see that she had a horror of Ireland, and that although she liked O'Neill, she had no desire to have him for a son-in-law. But if the mother's wishes were clear to me, so also were the daughter's. Miss Lomax had strong opinions upon most subjects, but especially strong were her opinions upon all subjects which concerned herself; and I have no doubt whatever that she insisted upon the acceptance of the invitation; neither have I any doubt that she had determined upon the captivation and subjugation of Harry O'Neill; and I saw that the more he tried to resist her countless fascinations—and, to do him justice, he sometimes did try passive resistance—the more obstinately did she set herself to conquer him; and day by day she had the triumph of gaining ground.

0, how could he be unfaithful, to that sweet promised wife of his, who watched him wilfully as every hour after the arrival of the party at Eandlestown he became more a'id more visible entangled in the snares of the dark-eyed Adelaide ? Men have certainly strangely elastic hearts and fancies, and no one capable of judgment on such matters could have mistaken O'Neill's state of mind the morning we all breakfasted together in Dublin. He placed himself beside the beautiful English girl: he lost no opportunity of whispering to her those words which express so little but which mean so much ; and if she turned from him but for a moment, he would gaze on her with what some one has so forcibly, if also coarsely, called ' hungry lover's eyes ;' and I am quite sure that he would at that moment—unromantic and prosaic 9 a.m. as it was—have given a good ten years of his life if he could by any means, foul or fair, have got rid of all those stupid people, myself included, his dear friends and guests, and then and there have tried to win that woman for his own. But a 3 the gates of our earthly paradise rarely open at our desire, he had nothing for it but to eat a good breakfast, and to exert himself to be agreeable by talking of everything under the sun, except that of which his heart and head were full. He began by proposing the delay of a day in our journey. ' What do you say, Mrs Lomax, and you, ladies all, shall we stay in Dublin until tomorrow, and devote to-day to the lions? We have nothing to frighten you on the shores of Lough Neagh but the Banshee, and she howls and appears on state occasions only.' ' And they are'—said Miss Lomax. ' When some of us, the O'Neills, you know, are going to die; or even if some misfortune is going to happen, she gives a squeak or two, just to let us know she's there. I never heard her myself; but my mother and my cousin Norah swear they did.' ' And did anything happen ?' ' I broke my arm at Harrow, that's all. Should you be afraid of her, Miss Lomax ?' he added, lowering his voice, as men have a trick of doing when they are, or when they fancy themselves, in love. * Of all things it is the dream of my life to hear the Bansnee.' I wondered, had she ever heard of the Banshee until that moment ? • I must not wish to be gratified, however,' she added—and now hers was the lowered voice—'for my gratification might mean harm to you.' 'Coffee, sir,' said a waiter at Harry's elbow ; and by the time he had helped himself, Miss Lomax, having finished her breakfast, was leaving the room with her mother. My pretty, gentle little Norah ! I may call her mine now that the time of which I write has receded into the dim and distant background of our lives which we call the past. But mine she never was, unless loving her with all my heart made her so; in reality she was nothing to me, and I was less than nothing to her. A friend, perhaps; which is less than nothing to a man who would be all in all. Probably I came next in her estimation to her favourite horse and her pet dog, the giant Newfoundland that attended her in her walks. We arrived in due time at the Manor, and I was beyond measure anxious that Norah should look well—her 'very best,' as the saying is—when she was introduced to her brilliant rival—for a rival I already called Miss Lomax; but never had I seen her look to such little advantage : her usually pretty colour had faded into that gray leaden hue which invariably denotes fright or nervous agitation of some kind. She was of a singularly nervous and excitable temperament, and her manner was awkward and constrained. I noticed that when Miss Lomax was introduced by O'Neill to 'My cousin, Miss Fitzgerald,' her arched eyebrows went up, and the faintest possible expression of contempt passed over her beautiful face. Did she think the pale timid-looking girl too insignificant to be a rival? I took for granted that she was aware of the engagement between O'Neill and his cousin ; but if so, &he never made even a jesting allusion to it. There was one thing I am sure she did not know, and that was, that if Harry went in any way against his mother's wishes in the matter of his marriage, she had power to leave Randlestown away from him. The property was nominally, but not actually, his while his mother lived. Knowing these facts, I was doubly anxious for Norah's future ; Harry would probably fulfil his engagement, and make her miserable. Meanwhile the days passed on. Christmas was spent with unusual gaiety ; Norah gradually recovered her looks and spirits, and in her presence Harry was not demonstrative in his attentions to Miss Lomax. One afternoon I joined the walking party, for the reason that Norah had declined skating: so about half a dozen of us started together, two and two. O'Neill, with another half dozen, including Miss Lomax, went on the ice. I noticed that Harry did not ask Norah to go with them; and when she asked him—with a look I could not have resisted—'Shall I walk or skate to-day, Harry?' he answered, 'Do just as you like.' So she turned away with a little sigh, and did not do as she liked, for she did not stay with him. The short January day was over, and we were returning home at a brisk pace by the light of the cold frosty-looking stars. The darkness and the clear bracing air had an invigorating and enlivening effect upon us, for we talked and laughed as we had not done when we could see each other's faces clearly; even Norah seemed in good spirits, and I was very happy, for she walked with her hand upon my arm. But suddenly, as we were passing through a dark part of the long avenue, our gay voices and laughter were checked by the unexpected sound of a long, low, and melancholy cry; it rose upon a wild wailing note almost to a shriek, and then died out again. To he continued.