The Elliott O’Donnell Supernatural Megapack

by Elliott O'Donnell

  Mrs Barry had scarcely uttered these words when a shriek, that thrilled the hearers to the very core of their hearts, burst from the hedge to their right.

  It resembled the cry of a female—if it resembled anything earthly at all—struck by a sudden and mortal blow, and giving out life in one long, deep pang of agony.

  “Heaven defend us!” exclaimed Mrs Barry. “Go you over the hedge, Leary, and save that woman, if she is not yet dead.”

  “Woman!” said Leary, beating the horse violently, while his voice trembled. “That’s no woman; the sooner we get on, ma’am, the better,” and he urged the horse forward.

  There was now a heavy spell of darkness as the moon was once again hidden by the clouds, but, though they could see nothing, they heard screams of despair and anguish, accompanied by a loud clapping of the hands, just as if some person on the other side of the hedge was running along in a line with their horse’s head, and keeping pace with them.

  When they came to within ten yards of the spot where the avenue branched off to Mr Bourke’s on the left, and the road to Spring House led away to the right, the moon suddenly reappeared, and they saw, with startling distinctness, the figure of a tall, thin woman, with uncovered head, and long hair floating round her shoulders, attired in a kind of cloak or sheet, standing at the corner of the hedge, just where the road along which they were driving met that which led to Spring House. She had her face turned towards them, and, whilst pointing with her left hand in the direction of Spring House, with her right was beckoning them to hurry. As they advanced she became more and more agitated, until finally, leaping into the road in front of them, and still pointing with outstretched arm in the direction of Spring House, she took up her stand at the entrance to the Avenue, as if to bar their way, and glared defiantly at them.

  “Go on, Leary, in God’s name!” exclaimed Mrs Barry.

  “’Tis the Banshee,” said Leary, “and I could not, for what my life is worth, go anywhere this blessed night but to Spring House. But I’m afraid there’s something bad going forward, or she would not send us there.”

  He pressed on towards Spring House, and almost directly afterwards clouds covered the moon, and the Banshee disappeared; the sound of her clapping, though continuing for some time, gradually becoming fainter and fainter, until it finally ceased altogether.

  On their arrival at Spring House they learnt that a dreadful tragedy had just taken place.

  A lady, Miss Jane Osborn, who was Charles MacCarthy’s ward, was to have been married to one James Ryan, and on the day preceding the marriage, as Ryan and Charles MacCarthy were walking together in the grounds of the latter’s house, a strange young woman, hiding in the shrubbery, shot Charles in mistake for Ryan, who, it seems, had seduced and deserted her. The wound, which at first appeared trivial, suddenly developed serious symptoms, and before the sun had gone down on the third anniversary of his memorable experience with the Unknown, Charles MacCarthy was again ushered into the presence of his Maker, there to render of himself a second and a final account.

  CHAPTER XII

  THE BANSHEE IN SCOTLAND

  There is, I believe, one version of a famous Scottish haunting in which there figures a Banshee of the more or less orthodox order. I heard it many years ago, and it was told me in good faith, but I cannot, of course, vouch for its authenticity. Since, however, it introduces the Banshee, and, therefore, may be of interest to the readers of this book, I publish it now for the first time, embodied in the following narrative:

  “Well, Ronan, you will be glad to hear that I consent to your marrying Ione, provided you can assure me there is nothing wrong with your family history. No hereditary tendencies to drink, disease, or madness. You know I am a great believer in heredity. Your prospects seem good—all the inquiries I have made as to your character have proved satisfactory, and I shall put no obstacles in your way if you can satisfy me on this point. Can you?”

  The speaker was Captain Horatio Wynne Pettigrew, R.N., late in command of His Majesty’s Frigate Prometheus, and now living on retired pay in the small but aristocratic suburb of Birkenhead; the young man he addressed—Ronan Malachy, chief clerk and prospective junior partner in the big business firm of Lowndes, Half & Company, Dublin; and the subject of their conversation—Ione, youngest daughter of the said captain, generally and, perhaps, justly designated the bonniest damsel in all the land between the Dee and the far distant Tweed.

  The look of intense suspense and anxiety which had almost contorted Ronan’s face while he was waiting for the Captain’s reply, now gave way to an expression of the most marked relief.

  “I think I have often told you, sir,” he replied, “that I have no recollection of my parents, as they both died when I was a baby; but I have never heard either of them spoken of in any other terms than those of the greatest affection and respect. I have always understood my father was lost at sea on a journey either to or from New York, and that my mother, who had a weak heart, died from the effects of the shock. My grandparents on both sides lived together happily, I believe, and died from natural causes at quite a respectable old age. If there had been any hereditary tendencies of an unpleasant nature such as those you name, or any particular family disease, I feel sure I should have heard of it from one or other of my relatives, but I can assure you I have not.”

  “Very well then,” Captain Pettigrew remarked genially, “if your uncle, who is, I understand, your guardian, and whom I know well by reputation, will do me the courtesy to corroborate what you say, I will at once sanction your engagement. But now I must ask you to excuse me, as I have promised to have supper with General Maitland to-night, and before I go have several matters to attend to.”

  He held out his hand as he spoke, and Ronan, who had been secretly hoping that he would be asked to spend the evening, was reluctantly compelled to withdraw. Outside in the hall, Ione, of course, was waiting, almost beside herself with anxiety, to hear the result of the interview, but Ronan had only time to whisper that it was quite all right, and that her father had been far more amenable than either of them had supposed, before the door of the room he had just left opened, and the Captain appeared.

  There was no help for it then, he was obliged to say good-bye, and, having done so, he hurried out into the night.

  At the time of which I am writing there were neither motors nor trains, so that Ronan, who, owing to an accident to his horse, had to walk, did not reach home, a distance of some four or five miles, till the evening was well advanced.

  On his arrival, burning with impatience to settle the momentous question, he at once broached the subject of his interview with Captain Pettigrew to his uncle, remarking that his fate now rested with him.

  “With me!” Mr Malachy exclaimed, placing his paper on an empty chair beside him, and staring at Ronan with a look of sudden bewilderment in his big, short-sighted but extremely benevolent eyes. “Why, you know, my boy, that you have my hearty approval. From all you tell me, Miss Ione must be a very charming young lady; she has aristocratic connections, and will not, I take it, be altogether penniless. Yes, certainly, you have my approval. You have known that all along.”

  “I have, uncle,” Ronan retorted, “and no one is more grateful to you than I. But Captain Pettigrew has very strong ideas about heredity. He believes the tendency to drink, insanity, and sexual lust haunts families, and that, even if it lies dormant for one generation, it is almost bound to manifest itself in another. I told him I was quite sure I was all right in this respect, but he says he wants your corroboration, and that if you will affirm it by letter, he will at once give his consent to my engagement to Ione. I know letter-writing is a confounded nuisance to you, uncle, but do please assure Captain Pettigrew at once that we have no family predisposition of the kind he fears.”

  Mr Malachy leaned back in his chair and gazed into the long gilt mirror over the mantel-shelf. �
�Drink and gambling,” he said.

  “And suicide,” Ronan added. “You can at any rate swear to the absence of that in our family——” but, happening to glance at the mirror as he spoke, he caught in it a reflection of his uncle’s face, that at once made him turn round.

  “Uncle!” he cried. “Tell me! What is it? Why do you look like that?”

  Mr Malachy was silent.

  “You’re hiding something,” Ronan exclaimed sharply. “Tell me what it is. Tell me, I say, and for God’s sake put an end to my suspense.”

  “You are right, Ronan,” his uncle responded slowly. “I am hiding something, something I ought perhaps to have told you long ago. It’s about your father.”

  “My father!”

  “Yes, your father. I have always told you he was lost at sea. Well, so he was, but in circumstances that were undoubtedly mysterious. He was last seen alive on the wharf at Annan, where he was apparently waiting for a boat to take him to the opposite coast. Someone said they saw him suddenly leap in the water, and some days later a body, declared to be his, was picked up in the Solway Firth.”

  “Then it was suicide,” Ronan gasped. “My God, how awful! Was anyone with him at the time?”

  “I don’t think I need tell you any more.”

  “Yes, tell me everything,” Ronan answered bitterly. “Nothing makes any difference now. Let me hear all, I insist.”

  In a voice that shook to such an extent that Ronan looked at him in horror, Mr Malachy continued: “Ronan,” he said, “remember that I tell you against my will, and that you are forcing me to speak. They did say at the time that there was a woman with your father—a woman who had travelled with him all the way from Lockerbie—that they quarrelled, that he—he——”

  “Yes—go on! For God’s sake go on.”

  “Pushed her in the water—in a rage, mind you, in a rage, I say; and then, apparently appalled at what he had done, jumped in, too.”

  “Were they both drowned then?”

  “Yes.”

  “And no one tried to save them?”

  “No one was near enough. The tide was running strong at the time, and they were both carried out to sea. The woman’s body was never found; and your father’s, when it was recovered several days afterwards, was so disfigured that it could only be identified by the clothes.”

  “And they were sure it was my father?”

  “I am afraid there is little doubt on that score. Your Aunt Bridget, who, being the last of the family to see him alive, was called upon to identify the body, always declared there was a mistake; she identified the clothes, but mentioned that the body was that of a person whom she had never seen before.”

  “Then there is a slight hope!”

  “I hardly think so, but—but go and see her—it is your only hope, and I will defer writing to Captain Pettigrew until your return.”

  * * * *

  Early next morning Ronan was well on his way to Lockerbie.

  In his present state of mind, every inch was a mile, every second an eternity. If his aunt could only furnish him with some absolute proof that it was not his father who had pushed the woman into the water and afterwards jumped in himself, then he might yet marry the object of his devotion, but, if she could not, he swore with a bitter oath that the water that had claimed his parent, should also claim him; and in the very same spot where the unlucky man who had proved his ruin had perished, he would perish too. It was Ione or obliteration. His whole being concentrated on such thoughts as these, he pressed forward, taking neither rest nor refreshments, till he reached Silloth, where he was compelled to wait several hours, until a fisherman could be prevailed upon to take him across the Solway Firth to Annan.

  So far luck had favoured him. The weather had kept fine, and, despite the dangerous condition of the roads, which were notoriously full of footpads, and in the most sorry need of repair, he had covered the distance without mishap.

  After leaving Annan, however, disaster at once overtook him. The coach had only proceeded some seven or eight miles along the road to Lockerbie, when a serious accident, through the loss of a wheel, was but narrowly escaped, and, as there seemed little chance of getting the necessary repairs executed that night, the driver suggested that his fares should walk back to Annan and put up at the “Red Star and Garter,” till he was able to call for them in the morning.

  To this all agreed excepting Ronan, who, scorning the proposal to turn back, declared that he would continue his journey to Lockerbie on foot.

  “It’s a wild, uncanny bit of country you’ll have to go through, mon,” the driver remonstrated, “and I’m nae sure but what you may come across some of them smuggler laddies from away across the borders of Kirkcudbright. They are fair sore just noo at the way in which the Custom House officials are treating them, and are downright suspicious of everyone they meet. You’ll be weel guided to return to the coast with us.”

  To this well-intentioned advice Ronan did not even condescend a reply, but, bidding his fellow-passengers good night, he buttoned his overcoat tightly round his chest, and stepped resolutely forward into the darkness.

  The driver had not exaggerated. It was a wild, uncouth bit of country. The road itself was a mere track, all ruts and furrows, with nothing to denote its boundaries saving ditches, or black tarns that gleamed fitfully whenever the moonbeams, emerging from behind black masses of clouds, fell on them. Beyond the road, on one side, was a wide stretch of barren moorland, terminating at the foot of a long line of rather low and singularly funereal-looking hills; and, on the other, a black, thickly wooded chasm, at the bottom of which thundered a river. In every fitful outburst of lunar splendour each detail in the landscape stood out with almost microscopic clearness, but otherwise all lay heavily shrouded in an almost impenetrable mantle of gloom, from which there seemed to emanate strange, indefinable shadows, that, as far as Ronan could see, had no material counterparts.

  Naturally stout of heart and afraid of nothing, Ronan was, at the same time, a Celt, and possessed, in no small degree, all the Celtic awe and respect for anything associated with the supernatural. Hence, though he pushed steadily on and kept picturing to himself the face and form of his lady love, to win whom he was fully prepared to go to any extremity, he could not prevent himself from occasionally glancing with misgiving at some more than usually perplexing shadow, or, from time to time, prevent his heart from beating louder at the rustle of a gorse-bush, or the dismal hooting of an owl. In some mysterious fashion the night seemed to have suddenly changed everything, and to have vested every object and every trifling—or what in the daytime would have been trifling—sound with a significance that was truly enigmatical and startling.

  The air, however, with its blending of scents from the pines, and gorse, and heather, with ozone from the not far distant Solway Firth, was so delicious that Ronan kept throwing back his head to inhale great draughts of it; and it was whilst he thus stood a second, with his nostrils and forehead upturned, that he first became aware of an impending storm. At first a few big splashes, and the low moaning of the wind as it swept towards and past him from the far distant hill-tops; then more splashes, and then a downpour.

  Ronan, who was now walking abreast a low white wall, beyond which he could see one of those shelters that in Scotland are erected everywhere for the protection of both cattle and sheep from the terrible blizzards that nearly every winter devastate the country, perceiving the futility and danger of trying to face the storm, made for the wall and, climbing it, dropped over on the other side. As bad luck would have it, however, he alighted on a boulder and, unable to retain his foothold, slipped off it, striking his head a severe blow on the ground. For some seconds he lay unconscious, then, his senses gradually returning, he picked himself up and made for the shelter.

  Stumbling blindly forward towards the entrance of the buil
ding, he collided with a figure that suddenly seemed to rise from the ground, and for a moment his heart stood still, but his fears were quickly dissipated by the unmistakable sound of a human voice.

  “Who is that?” someone inquired in tremulous tones. “Oh, sir, are you one of the revellers?”

  “One of the revellers?” Ronan replied. “It’s an ill night for any revelling. What do you mean?”

  “I mean, are you one of the young men going to the fancy dress dance at the Spelkin Towers,” the voice responded. “But your accent tells me you are not; you don’t belong to these parts. You are Irish.”

  “That is truly said,” Ronan answered. “My home is in Dublin, and it’s the first time I have set foot on Dumfries soil, and I’ll stake every penny in my purse it will be the last. I’m bound for Lockerbie, but I’m thinking it will be the early hours of the morning before I get there.”

  “For Lockerbie,” the voice replied. “Why that’s a distance of about twenty miles. It’s a straight road, however, and you pass the Spelkin Towers on the way. It stands in a clump of trees about a hundred yards back from the road, on this side of it, about three miles from here. If there were a moon you would easily recognise the place by the big white gate leading directly to it.”

  “So I might, but why waste my time and your breath. The Spelkins, or whatever you call it, has naught to do with me. I’m bound for Lockerbie, I tell you, and as the rain seems to be abating I intend moving on again.”

  “Sir,” the woman pleaded, “I pray you stay a few moments and listen to what I have to say. A gentleman is going to the revels to-night for whom I have a letter of the utmost importance. His name is Dunloe—Mr Robert Dunloe of Annan. He is due at the Towers at eight o’clock, and should surely be passing here almost at this very moment. But, sir, I durst not wait for him any longer, as I have an aged mother at home who has been taken suddenly and violently ill. For mercy’s sake I beg of you to wait and give him the letter in my stead.”