“She’s gone,” Mrs Dempsey cried, “but I’m positive I saw her—a lady in green standing beside you.” Then, for the first time, she felt afraid, and trembled.
The Count, who had been observing her very closely, now advanced a step or two towards her, and in a very different tone said:
“Will you please describe the lady? Was she old or young, dark or fair?”
“Young and fair, very fair,” Mrs Dempsey exclaimed. “But please come inside, for I’ve received something of a shock, and can, perhaps, talk to you better in the gaslight, with people near at hand whom I know are human beings.”
He did as she requested, and became more and more interested as she proceeded with her description, interrupting her every now and again with questions. Was she sure the girl had blue eyes, he asked, and how could she tell what colour the eyes were by the light of the moon only; Mrs Dempsey’s reply to which being that the girl’s whole body seemed to be illuminated from within, in such a manner that every detail could be seen, almost, if not quite, as clearly as if she had been standing in the full glare of an electric light. At the conclusion of her narrative Mrs Dempsey was further questioned by the Count.
“Had she,” he inquired, “ever been told that he was partly Irish, because,” he added, on receiving a negative reply, “I am, and my real name is O’Neill, my great-great-grandfather having assumed the name of Asioli in order to come into some property when the family, which came from the south of Ireland, settled in Italy, many, many years ago. But what will, I am sure, be of considerable interest to you is the fact that this branch of the O’Neills, the branch to which I belong, is haunted by a Banshee, and that that Banshee has, I believe—since the description of it given me by various members of my family tallies with the description you have given me of the girl you saw standing by me—appeared to you. I would add that it never reveals itself, excepting when an O’Neill is about to die, and as I am quite the last of my line, I cannot conceive any reason for its having thus appeared three nights in succession, unless, of course, it is to predict my own end.”
Mrs Dempsey was not long left in doubt. On the morrow the Count was summoned to Venice on urgent business, and on his way to the railway depôt he suddenly dropped down dead, the excitement and exertion having, so it was supposed, proved too much for his heart, which was known to be weak.
Said to be descended from the younger of the two sons of King Milesius, it certainly is not surprising that the O’Neills[7] should possess a Banshee—indeed, it would be surprising if they did not—but I have found it somewhat difficult to trace. However, according to Lady Wilde in her “Irish Wonders,” p. 112, there is a room at Shane Castle which is strictly set aside for it.
The Banshee, Lady Wilde says, is very often seen in this apartment, sometimes appearing shrouded in a dark, mist-like mantle; and at other times as a very lovely young girl with long, red-gold hair, clad in a scarlet cloak and green kirtle, adorned with gold. Lady Wilde goes on to tell us no harm ever comes of the Banshee’s visit, unless she is seen in the act of crying, when her wails may be taken as a certain sign that some member of the family will shortly die. Mr McAnnaly corroborates this by stating that on one occasion one of the O’Neills of Shane Castle heard the Banshee crying, just as he was about to set out on a journey, and perished soon afterwards, which is somewhat unusual, because in the majority of cases I have come across the Banshee does not manifest itself at all to the person whose death it predicts. A very old, probably the oldest, branch of the O’Neills now resides in Portugal, but up to the present I have not succeeded in obtaining any evidence to warrant the assumption that the Banshee haunting has been experienced in that country.
Indeed, the Banshee seems to be just as erratic and wayward as any daughter of Eve, for there is no consistency whatever in her movements. The very families one thinks she would haunt, she often studiously avoids, and not infrequently she concentrates her attention on those who are utterly obscure, albeit, always of bona fide Irish extraction.