“Ah! the wind! the wind!” said he, querulously; “that's the way it always is,—as if God Almighty had no other way of talking to our hearts than the cry of the night-wind.”
“Well, Captain Forester, what success? Have you confronted the spectre?” said Lady Eleanor, as he re-entered the apartment.
“Except having fallen into a holly-bush, where I rivalled the complaining accents of the old witch, I have no adventure to recount; all is perfectly still and tranquil without.”
“You have got your cheek scratched for following the siren,” said Lady Eleanor, laughing; “pray put another log on the fire, it is fearfully chilly here.”
Old Tate withdrew slowly and unwillingly; he saw that his intelligence had failed to produce a proper sense of terror on their minds; and his own load of anxiety was heavier, from want of participation.
The conversation, by that strange instinct which influences the least as well as the most credulous people, now turned on the superstitions of the peasantry, and many a legend and story were remembered by Lady Eleanor and her daughter, in which these popular beliefs formed a chief feature.
“It is unfair and unwise,” said Lady Eleanor, at the conclusion of one of these stories, “to undervalue such influences; the sailor, who passes his life in dangers, watches the elements with an eye and an air that training have rendered almost preternaturally observant, and he sees the sign of storm where others would but mark the glow of a red sunset; so among a primitive people communing much with their own hearts in solitary, unfrequented places, imagination becomes developed in undue proportion, and the mind seeks relief in creative efforts from the wearying sense of loneliness; but even these are less idle fancies than conclusions come to from long and deep thought. Some strange process of analogy would seem the parent of superstitions which we know to be common to all lands.”
“Which means, that you half believe in a Banshee!” said Forester, smiling.
“Not so; but that I cannot consent to despise the frame of mind which suggests these beliefs, although I have no faith in the apparitions. Poor Tate, there, had never dreamed of hearing the Banshee cry if some painful thought of impending misfortune had not suggested her presence; his fears may not be unfounded, although the form they take be preternatural.”
“I protest against all such plausibilities,” said Helen. “I 'm for the Banshee, as the Republicans say in France, 'one and indivisible.' I 'll not accept of natural explanations. Mr. Bagenal Daly says, we may well believe in spirits, when we put faith in the mere ghost of a Parliament.”