LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 404, 28 September 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE BANSHEE OF THE MACSHANES. Continued. Mary hated the speaker, but his words were remembered, and often recurred to in secret. But it was not Percival's object to create ■ aversion toward himself in Mary's easily 1 biassed mind, for her beauty had made as much impression upon him as he was capable of receiving from anything so frivolous and fleeting as feminine charms ; he was at that time eight-and-thirty, good-looking, and in manner gentlemanlike and agreeable, although, as I have said, inclined to be aggressive and dictatorial ; he was very rich, and he had settled in the neighbourhood of A for no other reason, as it seemed, than because the house and property which he bought from its former needy owner pleased his fancy. No one knew how his money had been made, but every one soon knew that, having made it, he understood the art of keeping it, and before many months had gone by he had won for himself the unenviable reputation of being the " hardest man " in tbe country. Hard and determined he was too, never giving up any object which he had resolved to attain, and his mind was set upon marriage with Mary Mac Shane; from the first hour of his acquaintance with her he admired her beauty, and he liked the idea of her wealth, but, being rich himself, no one could accuse him of preferring the heiress to the woman. But Mary gave him no encouragement, and about six months after Forde's departure she refused to be his wife ; he took his rebuff philosophically, consoling himself with the thought that he had been premature, and continued his attentions to

the girl, who had not sufficient strength of mind to dismiss him in a manner which would have made perseverance impossible. He had the approval of her father and 1 mother, and her unwillingness to listen to him, even while she allowed him to address her, made him the more dogged in his determination to win her in the end. He had read her character thoroughly at a very early stage in their acquaintance, and he felt convinced that, if Forde would be good enough to keep out of the way and to remain silent, Mary's faith in him would gradually die out. But the process proved much longer than he anticipated, and six years had passed before she showed any signs of yielding to his persistent suit; she had, by degrees, wound herself up to the conviction that Hugh was dead, or, if living, . faithless to his plighted word; for, although there was no familiar intercourse between his family and hers, she persuaded herself that he could have found some means of sending a letter or message, if he were still alive and wished her to be true to him. "It is cruel of him," she would say, "to leave me here, wearing my heart out thinking of him, and spending the best years of my life waiting for the happiness which I might find elsewhere." But, even as she argued thus with herself, her heart would revolt against the happiness offered to her in the love of Randal Percival; she felt for him absolute aversion; she knew instinctively that he was hard and selfish; that he had no respect for women, and that her life with him would be miserable; but in spite of all. this she lost ground day by day, her father and mother urged her strongly to accept him, and he himself worked upon her by declaring that she had kept him hanging about her for so many years, that she had now no right to dismiss him finally. He had that gift of fluent speech which is said to be an attribute of Irishmen, and he contrived to make the weak, selfish passion which he felt for her appear of that deep, all-engrossing nature, which is so captivating to the minds of some women, and which leads them on to fall in love —not with the man himself, but with the idea of his love for them. Percival was beyond measure triumphant, when Mary at length said the longed-for " yes ;" what mattered even the six years of patient waiting, or the fact that he was twenty years older than his promised bride, or that the country people, with whom he was not popular, called him " on Id Randal;" he had secured the prettiest and richest girl in the barony for his wife, and, by way of making it impossible for her to throw him over, he had the fact of the engagement speedily made public throughout the country, and congratulations began to pour in upon Mary. She received them with a heavy heart; a presentiment of evil hung over her, and she would gladly have broken off the marriage, and lived on, faithfully waiting for the return of Forde, or, if he were dead, have remained for ever single for his sake. But it was too late ; Percival was not the man to let his prize slip through his fingers, and Mary found herself pledged to become his wife at the end of an engagement of six months ; it would then be June, and six years since she and Hugh had parted. Old Mac Shane and his wife were enchanted at what they considered Mary's good fortune ; they were pleased to give her to a man who would not squander her inheritance, and, in the fervour of their satisfaction, they determined to celebrate the coming event by a grand entertainment to the tenantry, to be followed by a ball, to which —to quote the local newspapers—all the nobility and gentry for miles round were invited. These festivities were to take place just two days before the wedding, in order that Percival and his bride elect might take part in them, and, with a curious malignity of fate, the day chosen chanced to be the day six years upon which Hugh Forde and Mary Mac Shane had met for the last time.

As she put on her white dress, and fastened the white roses in her hair, Marythought, with a pang at her heart, of the handsome young lover to whom she had pledged herself to remain for ever faithful. During the last few days she had been longing intensely to see him, and yet mingling with her longing was the hope that he might never come back to learn that she had been false in deed if not in heart. She could see from the window the little gate at which he had always left her when their stolen meetings were over, and, strange to say, there was a man standing at it at that moment, watching, as it seemed, the country people, who were still loitering about in groups upon the lawn to see the guests as they arrived for the ball, and to watch the dancers through the open windows. It was then about nine o'clock, and the man's figure looked blurred and indistinct from the blaze of the setting sun, which was full upon him ; Mary wished that he would move, it vexed her to see any one standing as Hugh had so often stood, with one hand resting upon the upper bar of the gate ; but he was still there, when it was time for her to put aside her sad thoughts and to join her mother in the reception of their guests. The rooms were brilliant with light, t'io windows were unshuttered, and < u ;side the women and children from the viluige wore eager observers of the movements of the " quality" within. Two old crones, sharers in, if not inventors of, all the gossip in the neighbourhood, got together when the ball began, and made their comments upon what they saw with an amount of freedom which ought to have arisen only from intimate acquaintance with facts and motives. The facts they may have known, but the motives must have been supplied by themselves. (To be ccntinved.*)