On mentioning the matter to one of his brother officers in the morning, the latter, no little interested and surprised, at once said: “You have undoubtedly heard the Banshee. Poor D——, who fell at Corunna, often used to tell me about it, and, you may depend upon it, there are some Irishmen in camp now, and it was their funeral dirge that you listened to.”
What he said proved to be quite correct, for, on inquiring, Lieutenant O’Higgins discovered three of the soldiers who had been sleeping around him that evening had Irish names, and were, unquestionably, of ancient Irish origin; and all of them perished on the bloody field of Talavera, twenty-four hours later.
A story relating to an O’Farrell, who was with the Spanish in the same war, was also told me by Miss O’Higgins; but whether this O’Farrell was the famous general of that name or not I do not know. The story ran as follows:[11]
It was the day prior to the fall of Badajoz, and O’Farrell, who was in Badajoz at the time, a prisoner of the French, was invited to partake of supper with some Spanish-Irish friends of his of the name of McMahon. The French, it may be observed, were, as a rule, rather more lenient to their Irish prisoners than to their English, and O’Farrell was allowed to ramble about Badajoz in perfect freedom, a mere pledge being extracted from him that he wouldn’t stroll outside the boundaries of the town without special permission. On the night in question O’Farrell left his quarters in high spirits. He liked the McMahons, especially the youngest daughter Katherine, with whom he was very much in love. He deemed his case hopeless, however, as Mr McMahon, who was poor, had often said none of his daughters should marry, unless it were someone who was wealthy enough to ensure them being well provided for, should they be left a widow; and as O’Farrell had nothing but his pay, which was meagre enough in all conscience, he saw no prospect of his ever being able to propose to the object of his affections. Had he been strong-minded enough, he told himself, he would have at once said good-bye to Katherine, and never have allowed himself to see or even think of her again; but, poor weakling that he was, he could not bear the idea of taking a final peep into her eyes—the eyes that he had idealised into his heaven and everything that made life worth living for—and so he kept accepting invitations to their house and throwing himself across her path, whenever the slightest opportunity presented itself.
And now he found himself once more speeding to meet her, telling himself repeatedly that it should be the last time, but at the same time making up his mind that it should be nothing of the sort. He arrived at the house far too early, of course—he always did—and was shown into a room to wait there till the family had finished their evening toilets. Large glass doors opened out of the room on to a veranda, and O’Farrell, stepping out on to the latter, leaned over the iron railings, and gazed into the semi-courtyard, semi-garden below, in the centre of which was a fountain surmounted by the marble statue of a very beautiful maiden, that his instinct told him was an exact image of his beloved Katherine. He was gazing at it, revelling in the delightful anticipation of meeting the flesh and blood counterpart of it in a very short time, when sounds of music, of someone playing a very, very sad and plaintive air on the harp, came to him through the open doorway. Much surprised, for none of the family as far as he knew were harpists, nor had he, indeed, ever seen a harp in the house, he turned round; but, to add to his astonishment, no one was there. The room was apparently just as empty as when he had been ushered into it, and yet the music unquestionably emanated from it. Considerably mystified, for every now and then there was a peculiar far-offness in the sounds which he could liken to nothing he had ever heard before, he remained on the veranda, prevented by a strange feeling of awe, and something very akin to dread, from venturing into the room.
He was thus occupied, half standing and half leaning against the framework of the glass door, when the harping abruptly ceased, and he heard moanings and sobbings as of a woman suffering from paroxysms of the most intense and violent grief. Combatting with a great fear that now began to seize him, he summed up the resolution to peep once more into the room, but though his eyes took in the whole range of the room, he could perceive no spot where anyone could possibly be in hiding, and nothing that would in any way account for the sounds. There was nothing in front of him but walls, furniture, and—space. Not a living creature. What then caused those sounds? He was asking himself this question, when the door opened, and Mr McMahon, followed by Katherine and all of the other girls, came into the apartment; and, with their entry, the strange sounds at once ceased.
“Why, what’s the matter, Mr O’Farrell,” the girls said, laughingly. “You are as white as a sheet and trembling all over. You haven’t seen a ghost, have you?”
“I haven’t seen anything,” O’Farrell retorted, a trifle nettled at their gaiety, “but I’ve heard some rather extraordinary sounds.”
“Extraordinary sounds,” Katherine laughed. “What on earth do you mean?”
“Just what I say,” O’Farrell remarked. “When I was on the veranda just now I distinctly heard the sound of a harp in this room, and shortly afterwards I heard a woman weeping.”