SHELAGH

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1049, 13 August 1930, Page 16

SHELAGH

In the marshlands about Lake Corrib was settled the tribe O’Foyle. Kimball O’Foyle was its chief—king of a tiny realm. To the east lay Lake Corrib, in the west rose the Connemarra Mountains. Northward and southward stretched the bogs, uninhabited, save for dancing Will-o’-the-wisps. In the whole of the O’Foyle tribe there was none so loved as Shelagh, daughter of Chief O’Foyle. A dainty, fragile girl she was, with skin like the pearly dawn, with eyes blue as the sky on a midsummer’s eve, and hair as dusky as the peat that fringed the outskirts of the settlement. Shelagh, so lovely, so delicate that she seemed only partly of this world, was betrothed to Con the Coshelon, of a tribe across the lake, but she hated the thought of marriage. She lived in an imaginary world of h£r own, and the idea of sharing it with another was fateful to her. So one morning the O’Foyles awoke to find that Shelagh had fled—vanished, disappeared. and nothing to show where she had gone. The bogs were the first things that came to the minds of the searchers. But the bogs never give up what they hold, and neither mark nor motion was found in the sodden country where they searched.

Seven centuries had passed when a twentieth-century Sheila propped herself against a willow tree, and lost herself in the mysteries of a crossword puzzle. The long green lawn of the old colonial house sloped down to a tiny stream, edged with willows. Sheila’s dark, close-cropped head was bent over the paper, while Irish-blue eyes scanned the list of “clues." “A lake in the West of Ireland," ran one. A lake? Sheila could not think of it. By and by it spelt itself out, “C-o-r----r-i-b. Corrib? I never heard of it,” murmured Sheila. Then . . . the willows about her vanished, and she found herself crouching by some rocks. Behind her towered a great, high mass, and in front of her stretched low, marshy grounds. And in the grey morning light a figure appeared, hatfrunning and half-stumbling over the ground. It was a girl, Sheila perceived, as she drew nearer. Sheila tried to move toward her, but could not; she was held by an invisible force. The girl’s breath came in short gasps, and she stood so near that Sheila could have touched her. She leaned, panting, against the rock by which Sheila crouched and looked back across the wastes she had just traversed. Dawn was breaking. The mists were lifting and breaking over the marshes, and far on the distant horizon Sheila could discern figures, moving. The girl had also seen them, for she whispered: “They have found me gone. 'Tis of the bogs that they will think first. Ah, Connemarras, my hills, you have called me, and I have come.” The girl climbed up the mountainside, and Sheila felt compelled to follow her. Higher and higher they went. Then the girl turned and made her way across the range. The mists were still lifting, and Sheila saw that they were following a tiny and almost obliterated track. On they went until the path dipped suddenly, and Sheila found herself entering a glade of such unusual freshness and beauty that it seemed impossible that it was in the heart of the rugged Connemarras. The grass was as green as only Irish grass can be, a silver stream wound in and out and tinkled in a miniature cascade over the rocks in its lower reaches. The trees were tall, and through their lacy foliage could be seen patches of a pink and gold sky. The shamrock spread itself all around, and wild briars shed their petals with every breeze. The two girls had stopped, and in the clearer light Sheila saw the exquisite beauty of her companion. Funny, too, it was, that Sheila imagined she saw a likeness between herself and the girl. “There is a likeness," thought Sheila. “I don’t know where it is, but it’s there.” Suddenly she thought she heard voices, very softly whispering, then louder. She could see no one, though the glade was full of sound. The girl had stepped forward with outstretched arms, and was crying to them in a strange tongue. “Shelagh! Shelagh!" rang the glade. Sheila started. She saw misty figures moving, then a veil came down, and Sheila only knew that she could hear the sound of voices and airy, elfin laughter. . . .

And in a garden hundreds of years and thousands of miles away, Sheila O’Foyle awoke with a start to find the day almost spent, and a halffinished puzzle on her lap. —Gold-Tipped Feather (Kathleen Neely).