LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 403, 27 September 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE BANSHEE OF THE MACSHANES. (From the Dublin University Magazine.') Among the many changes which have of late years taken place in Ireland, we may note the gradual dying out of many of the old superstitions. This may he a sign of progress; but I think there is in it also cause for regret. There was much poetry and beauty in the belief that upon May morning O’Donoghue of Ross would he seen upon his white horse, and that his presence gave good luck to the mortal by whom he was encountered. Some of the Kerry folk may still watch for his appearing ; and we trust that either really or in imagination—which is quite as good, under the circumstances—he may be seen by them. As the O’Donoghue was supposed to bring good fortune, so the Banshee was supposed to be the herald of evil; but rarely now is her weird and mournful wail heard in the silence of night, giving warning of trouble or death. However, at the time that the incidents I am about to relate took place, the belief in the ill-omened cry was remarkably strong; and a few years ago there were some old people living who would swear to the truth of the legend, that every false step taken by the heroine of the talc was preceded by the warning cry of the unearthly ‘ follower’ of her name and kindred.

The delicious twilight which ushers in the short night of summer was beginning to shadow the still waters of a well-known lake in a northern county of Ireland, when a very young girl, whose figure was completely shrouded in a large cloak, emerged cautiously from the door of a house which stood in the midst of small but prettily planted pleasuregrounds, not many miles from the flourishing town of A . The house and grounds belonged to a Mr Mac Shane, a gentleman well knowm and much respected in the neighbourhood and county. He was the descendant of an old Celtic family, not so wealthy in his time as it had been a few centuries back; but, from generation to generation, the MacShanes had contrived to live upon their own estate in solid comfort, and had never lost caste by going into trade, although it must be confessed that, in the north of Ireland, a man may be in business and yet be looked upon as a gentleman. However, happily for themselves, the MacShanes had never been an extravagant race ; the grandfather and father of the present owner of the property had even put by some money; and so it came to pass that his only child, a daughter Mary, was looked upon as an heiress, and her friends foretold that she would make a grand match ; for, in addition to her fortune, she had a very pretty face and a sweet winning manner. She was a girl without much self-reliance or force of character, one upon whom the influence of the moment was ever more powerful than than which rested upon memory only; a gentle, yielding creature, capable of ardent affection, but prone to give way before opposition, which would rouse a firmer character into obstinacy. When she was but just eighteen she had drifted, half unconsciously, into a serious love- affair with a man w'hom she could never hope to marry with the consent of her father; but, although he was not her equal in birth and fortune, Hugh Forde was a high-spirited and honourable young fellow, and he very soon resolved, having at first yielded unwilling assent to timid Mary’s prayer to keep their engagement secret, to leave her and his country, and to try if, by industry and perseverance, he could not win a name and fortune, which even the proud MacShanes would not despise. He had, in a manly and straightforward manner, but with infinite tenderness, made his resolve known to Mary; but all her entreaties could not turn him from his purpose, and the soft summer night that she so cautiously leaves her father’s house she was on her way to bid Hugh a long farewell. Their favourite trysting-place was a pretty secluded glen, about a quarter of a mile from her home. A public path led through it from the little village of C was sometimes used as a short cut by the country people on their way from chapel to

the houses which were scattered along the high road to the country town of A , but in general the place was unfrbquented; and even if, as sometimes happened, the lovers were seen walking together in the summer evenings, no one was mischievous enough to betray ‘ Miss Mary’ to her father. But the clandestine courtship of the pretty heiress was hateful to Hugh Forde, for he was proud as he was poor, and he knew that he would have loved her as dearly had she been as poor as the poorest peasant girl on her father’s property ; so, although he felt as if his heart would break when she threw herself into his arms that last night, he was as firm as a rock in his resolve, and not even her tears and sobs could move him.

‘Do not cry so bitterly, my own Molly. Molly asthore,’ he whispered fondly, and it was with a hard struggle that he kept his own voice from breaking, ‘ you must look forward, as I do, to happier days, when we shall meet not secretly, as we do now, but openly as lovers, before all the world. I could not take you from your father’s house without his consent; but the world is before me to win name and wealth in, and with God’s help I shall win both for my darling Molly’s sake. I look upon myself as your husband in the sight of Heaven, I swear it by the bright stars which are looking down upon us now. Will you swear, kneeling here by my side, to keep faithful to me, waiting with a true heart for my return, and not so much as listening to words of love from another—the woman I love must be faithful in thought as well as in word uud deed ?’ Mary knelt beside him, and, in a voice i broken by sobs and agitation, pledged herself as he desired. ‘ Give me this as a token, darling, he whispered, touching an antique ring upon her finger, * and if either of us should be untrue to the vows spoken to-night, it shall be returned to you. ’ The twilight faded, and the soft radiance of the stars grew more bright, yet still the lovers lingered ; but at last Hugh resolutely led the steps of the weeping girl towards her home. It was his habit to leave her when she was safely within the boundary of her father’s grounds, and even on this, the last night, he would not risk an encounter with the old man, so at the usual place he stopped, and, clasping Mary to his heart, he kissed her again and again. ‘You will be true to me,’ he said passionately. ‘Until death,’ was her fervent reply; and as she spoke there was, apparently above them, floating along on the gentle breeze of the summer night, a low, soft cry ! ‘ Hush !’ said Mary, and she shivered as if struck with a sudden chill, ‘ what was that ?’

‘ Only some bird, darling, an owl, probably. Yes, there it is again in the distance. How white you are, my precious one. Will you not give me one bright look to cheer me on my way ?’ ‘ I cannot, I cannot; my heart is breaking,’ she moaned. One more embrace and he was gone, and, as Mary stood watching until he was out of sight, she heard again the same low, soft cry. It was not until she was alone the same night that poor Mary could venture to give free expression to her grief; her somewhat shallow and pleasure-loving nature rebelled against the trial she was called upon to endure, and doubts of her lover’s sincerity too soon obtruded themselves. *lf he loved me as I love him,’ she said, ‘surely he would not, could not have left me; did he not know that I would have gone with him to the end of the world, and have borne any hardship for his sake.’ Forde did know it well enough ; he knew that in spite of opposition she would have clung to him as long as he was at hand to urge her to do so, but she was incapable of appreciating the virtue of the sacrifice which he made in leaving behind him all he most valued upon earth ; there was no taint of selfishness in him to mar the purity of his love, he would not make it possible for her to feel in the future one pang of self-reproach for having deserted the father and mother who idolized and trusted her; neither would he for his own gratification subject her to the privations which, as the wife of a soldier of fortune, she would have to endure.

During the three or four days which followed the parting with her lover, Mary watched eagerly for some message from him which would tell her that he could not bring himself to leave her; but he made no sign, and when a week had gone by she could no longer have any doubt upon the subject, for, at a dinner party to which she went with her father and mother, she heard casually mentioned by one of the guests, that ‘ young Forde had gone to America to seek his fortune. ’

The observation was not addressed directly to her, but it was made by the gentleman (a Mr Randal Percival) who had taken her in to dinner, and he had spoken with a purpose wholly unguessed by her. She felt herself turning hot and cold as she listened to the apparently careless words, and she believed that, if she looked up, her secret would certainly be discovered. After a pause, she ventured to ask her neighbour ‘ if America was a place in which fortunes were made quickly ?” lam writing of some years ago, before the days of railways and emigration, and when America and Australia were not so well known as they are now.

“Quickly made?” was the reply. “My dear Miss MacSliane, much more frequently they are not made at alland the speaker laughed a hard little laugh. He knew far more than he cared to admit just then about those meetings in the glen, and it gave him pleasure to insinuate that the self-banished lover would come back as poor as he had left. “ Men,” Percival went on speaking in a dictatorial manner, “very often make fortune the excuse for escaping from the consequences of some act of folly, from a foolish love affair, or some entanglement of that kind. You know, Miss Mary, that you young ladies spend far more time in making nets than you do in making cages. No doubt, Master Forde has made America the excuse for escaping from his net. Well, even so, I wish him every success.” To l)e continued.