LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 229, 4 March 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE DEATH CRY.

{Conclttded.)

'My poor little darling!' he answered with unusual tenderness ; he seemed really touched, and he did not repulse her as she clung to him and sobbed upon his breast. Without seeing me he passed through the portiere, where the woman was awaiting him whose presence was blighting the happiness of his young wife. That evening I dined at the Manor ; but Norah did not appear ; she was tired, Lady Mary said. Miss Lomax was in excellent spirits, and marvellously civil to me (she generally treated me with the coolest indifference) ; challenged me to a game of beirique, won with a triumphant score of over 1000 in two deals and then threw up the cards. When, half an hour later, 1 said good night to every one she was not in the room.

It was a lovely night, calm and warm, with a bright moon. 1 stood on tlio steps of the terrace for a few seconds before starting on my homeward walk, to admire the shimmering light upon Lough N eah and the soft radiance Avhich brightened the old walls of S —'s castle, the ancient home of the O'Neills—the Manor was on the opposite side of the lake from the castle—and I had fallen into a fit of musing, when I was startled by what seemed to me a faint and subdued imitation of the wild cry which had terrified Norah some months before. I listened; it was repeated still more faintly, and it seemed to come from the angle of the house at my right hand. I went quickly round, and, to my intense surprise, almost ran against Miss Loniax. She was sitting on the low step of a glass door Avhioh led from the dining room, and hid I not seen her face 1 might have been for taking Uer a gaosfc, iov

she was wrapped from head to feet in a large white shawl.

'Good gracious, Mr D'Alton, how you frightened me!' she said almost crossly, and she did look very pale in the moonlight. ' Do you always go literally mooning about in this way, instead of going home like a sensible man?'

' And may I ask what you are doing here alone?' I replied. ' I was on my way home, when I heard a strange sort of cry; it was very faint. Did you hear anything? ' 'I never hear cries,' she answered pettishly. ' The Banshee again, I suppose. Well, let her cry; she will not frighten airy one.'

'Except Mrs O'Neill.' ' Would she be frightened by it, really, seriously? ' And it struck me that she asked the question very eagerly. ' Probably,' I answered, remembering what Norah had said to her husband.

'Ah, indeed! What a pity she is so—nervous! Good night Mr D'Alton. I hope you will not meet this wonderful Banshee; but I believe she is like a bold child—heard, but never seen.'

'ln any case I shall not meet her.' I said; ' for I leave her behind me at the Manor '

' What do you mean?' she said, putting a cold hand into mine, and there was a deepred flush upon her dark face. What did I mean? I meant nothing; but I remembered that sudden flush, and the question some hours later. The following evening I did not dme at the Manor, but I called in the forenoon to inquire for Norah. She was better, and in much better spirits; Harry was expected back to dinner. The evening passed, and another beautiful soft moonlit night came on. I went out for a quiet stroll before I went to bed, and, tempted by the beauty of the scene, I lingered upon the shore of the lake until close upon midnight. I could see the lights in the windows of the Manor—l almost fancied once or twice that soft music came floating to my ears across the water, and I pictured the scene to myself: Miss Lomax at the piano, and Harry leaning over her in rapture; I took for granted that he had come back. But a sound in which there was no music did come presently; it was that awful unearthly wail supposed to portend suffering or death to an O'Neill. Never before or since have I heard a cry like that, and with all its unearthly cadence there was in it, to my ear, the sound of a human voice. Again, as I listened, it rose and fell, and I saw distinctly a white figure flit for a moment into the moonlight which streamed full upon the grassy slope before the front of the Manor ; it turned away from the house and disappeared into a wood which stretched for a considerable distance along the margin of the lake. Without hesitating a moment I started to enter the wood on the village side. ' Banshee or woman you shall not escape me!' I said. Once during my rapid walk the wild cry rose again. I entered the wood; the darkness under the trees, of course, shut out every object, and would, I hoped, so shut out my approach that the white figure Avould be taken unawares. I stopped now and then in my rapid walk to listen, but I heard no step, no sound of any kind, except, as I have said, the wild cry once; but just as I reached the opening leading to the pleasure-ground before the Manor house a flutter of white caught my eye. ' Stop!' I shouted loudly; ' I know you!' At my challenge the flying figure increased its speed. I gave chase; but what could mortal feet accomplish against a spirit? With such a senseless belief I tried to console myself as the white form rapidly gained ground. But what seemed defeat was, in reality, victory for me. At the moment when the pursuit become hopless, I saw something nutter to the ground as if from the head of the shrouded figure ; it was unheeded. I reached the spot where it had fallen and snatched it eagerly up. Judge of my horror and amazement when, upon examination in the moonlight, it proved to be a handkerchief with the name of ' Adelaide' embroidered in one corner.

Perplexed and made miserable with suspicion to which I dared not give a name, I returned home. Outside the door of my lodgings I found a knot of people assembled; tbey appeared excited, and they Mere all talking eagerly. ' Here he is,' I heard a. familiar voice say; and Bryan, O'NeuTs butler, came forward. He looked as white as fear could make him. ' 0, sir, he gasped, where were you '( Haven't you heard the cry, sir ? iSure it never came like that without bringing trouble —the poor young mistress, sir !' ' Glory be to God this night!' was echoed round among the women as they devoutly crossed themselves.

' What of the young mistress ?' I cried! and I knew but too well that bad news was at hand.

' Come up to the house, for God's sake, sir ! Sure didn't you hear the cry ? And she's taken bad before her time, and my lady sent me off to your honour to see if we could get off a telegram to the master ;he did't come home yet; but isn't it late for this night ?' ' Hours too late, but I shall go up to the house, Bryan,' I said, feeling stunned into quiet by the night's work, and by the thought of what might be still before me. When we reached the Manor, late as it was, the hall-door stood open, and it seemed to me that there was an unusual hush over the whole place. I saw figures in the draw-ing-room as I passed by the half-closed door on my way to the stairs. I reached the landing, and went quickly towards Norak's room. I knocked softly ; the beating of my anxious heart was far louder than the sound my fingers made. The door was opened by Lady Mary herself, and I saw that she was alone; her face was pale and awestruck.

' Have you brought him ?' she whispcmH ' But I suppose there was no time.' J shook my bead. 'lt does not matter now,' she went on, ' he is too late.'

She led me to the foot of the bed, and there upon the pillow, with the sweet eyes closed for ever, 1 saw the dead face of Norah O'Neill.

To Lady Mary I said no word ; it would avail nothing now to arouse her suspicions, but I knew that her son's wife Avas the victim of what was, perhaps, a practical joke. God forgive ine if I wrong the woman who had done the deed, by the thought* that she had had an evil purpose in her too good mimicry of the Banshee's wail.

Like a man in a dream I Avent down-stairs again, and passed into the still lighted drawing-room; it was, to all appearance,

empty, and sitting down, I leaned my head upon the table to shut out the light, and to try and realise what had happened. But my nerves and senses were cruelly awake, and I caught the sound of a step in the room, as though some one was trying to cross it unheard. I looked up and saw Miss Lomax. Yes, there she was, in her rich evening dress, with jewels sparkling upon her neck and arms, and her beauty scarcely lessened by the slight shade of pallor upon her cheeks. ' I beg your pardon, I thought you were asleep,' she muttered. 'I am sorry if I have disturbed you ; you look tired.' ' Tired ! You are too kind,' I said ; ' but I do not think there will be sleep for any one in this house to-nigLt, except for her who will never wake again. Unless,' I added, rousing myself to look steadily into her dark eyes, 'it is to insure to yourself a good night's rest, that you, Miss Lomax, walk in the woods at midnight ; you lost this in your last ramble;' and I laid the handkerchief before her.

A strange expression passed across her face; it seemed to me made up of fear derision, and triumph. ' How much docs he know ? Shall I defy him ?' it seemed to say. Then her eyelids and her lips quivered, and then I know that she was both guilty and afraid. ' You will not betray me!' she said ; and before I could stop her she was kneeling at my feet. 'I meant no harm; I swear to you—'

' Hush!' I said bitterly. ' You best know what your motive was, and no oaths will bring her back to life; her happiness you have long since destroyed. Surely there were men enough in the world to gratify your vanity and your passion'—l grew outspoken in the bitterness of my despair—- ' without taking her husband from her! But you need not fear, I shall not betray you. To do so would not undo what you have done, and I can but hope—and my hope is not for your sake, but for the sake of the man she loved—that no curse will fall upon you, or on him through you; that the real death-cry of the Banshee will never give you cause to remember your imitation of tonight. '

How is it that, in the midst of our greatest misery, the ridicule that attaches itself to the most earnest and even solemn situations can so forcibly strike us ? Heart-broken as I was, I could have laughed aloud at my melodramatic position. There I was in the dead of the night, with a beautiful woman kneeling, as it were, at my feet for mercy, while I declaimed above her head with the full fervour of a Kemble or a Kean.

But this feeling passed as I left her still kneeling with her face covered, and went myself from the house in which the sunshine of my lonely life had died out for ever.

Six months later, to his shame let it be recorded, O'Neill married Adelaide Lomax. I am compelled to think, but I have no proof upon which to ground my assertion, that he felt himself bound in honour to make her his wife as soon as possible. Immediately after the marriage Lady Mary left the Manor, to which she never returned ; and I have reason to believe that she never saw the second Mrs O'Neill.

I am not one of those who believe that special punishments invariably follow special sins, but in this instance punishment slow but sure followed Adelaide Lomax, and she still lives to bear the penalty of her crime. When her only child, a son, was about six years old, he was accidentally drowned almost before his mother's eyes in Lough Neagh, and there are many witnesses ready to prove that the night before his death the Banshee's cry Avas heard for h • .1 echoing round the walls of the castle.

The lovely boy had heen the so l . link between O'Neill and his once passionatelyloved wife. Even before the child's death people said that his father and mother were not happy ; and certainly there was no sign of happiness in Harry's dejected morose demeanour. ' Could it be,' I often thought, ' that too late the memory of the woman who had loved hhn so devotedly came between him and the woman whom he had loved so blindly 7' from the depression succeeding the death of her son, Mrs O'Neill rallied after a time, but as her grief subsided her temper became almost ungovernable: and it was whispered in the servants' hall, and from thence the rumour reached the village gossips, that in a wild fit of passion, wliich almost amounted to delirium, she made some defiant admission to her husband respecting the death of his lirst wife, which drew from him the epithet ' murderess.' There may be no truth in that rumour, but from the night upon which the terrible scene was supposed to have taken place between the miserable pair they never met again. Harry went to America, to India, Australia, all over the world, and Mrs O'Neill lived on alone at the Manor, to which no visitors ever came and which she never left.

She was not actually mad—that is, she required no keeper; but sometimes, and especially in the shortening autumn days, she was very far from being in her right mind ; and in the soft October nights, when the moon is full and bright, I in my quiet lodgings, and those who still walk about the peaceful village streets, hear a wild wailing cry come echoing with mournful distinctness across the lake, and then we know that the 'mad fit is on,' and that a miserable and, I believe, remorseful woman is wandering alone, alone for evermore, and sending that too perfect imitation of the Banshee's deathcry over the dark still waters of Lough Neagh.