The Banshee Part 12

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 a.s.sure 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 s.e.xual l.u.s.t 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 a.s.sure 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 G.o.d'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 circ.u.mstances 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d'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-pa.s.sengers good night, he b.u.t.toned 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 ma.s.ses 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 a.s.sociated 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 fas.h.i.+on 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 building, 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."