Banns

“ The little bannock with the hole,
O it will be the charm.
I knead it, I knead it, 'twixt my palms,
And all the bairns I tell—
O it's Finlay's little bannock
For going to the well.
THE BANSHEE. Knee-deep she waded in the pool—
The Banshee robed in green—
She sang yon song the whole night long,
And washed the linen clean;
The linen that would wrap the dead
She beetled on a stone,
She stood with dripping hands, blood-red,
Low singing all alone—
His linen robes are pure and white, For Fergus More must die to-night! ”

“ Bannister stretched out an arm to detain the man; but Trust sprang aside and, with another oath, dived into the thickets.
CHAPTER XXVI--A NIGHT OF TERROR I was about to follow in pursuit of Trust, and had even taken a few steps towards the undergrowth upon the right bank of the brook, when Bannister called me back.
"What's the use?" said he. "Let dogs delight. We have our own friends to think of."
"Our own friends?" said I.
"Have you forgotten Rushby? We have left him alone too long as it is. His life is more to us than the fate of either Trust or Baverstock ”

“ I had lived happily for months as Nature meant me to, and the sum total of my wealth had been my blow-pipe and the knife that Atupo, the priest, had given me. I now understood--far better than I had done at the time--all John Bannister had told me of his dread of cities and of people. I, too, would like to live my life far from the abodes of men, with the little shy things as my friends, in the chamber of the Wild. For the very sight of the Treasure of Kings had frightened me. ”

“ We were all hard at work upon our hands and knees, when we were surprised by the sound of a rifle-shot, fired at no great distance in the Wood, in a northerly direction.
Bannister got slowly to his feet, and stood listening; and then, although he turned in my direction, it was as if he spoke quietly to himself.
"One shot," said he. "And one shot only."
That was all he said.
"Trust was never armed," said I.
"That signifies nothing," answered Bannister. "Amos is loaded down by gold. If he carried a rifle, Trust may have wrenched it from his hands." ”

“ As a rule, however, the Banshee is not seen, it is only heard, and it announces its advent in a variety of ways; sometimes by groaning, sometimes by wailing, and sometimes by uttering the most blood-curdling of screams, which I can only liken to the screams a woman might make if she were being done to death in a very cruel and violent manner. Occasionally I have heard of Banshees clapping their hands, and tapping and scratching at walls and window-panes, and, not infrequently, I have heard of them signalling their arrival by terrific crashes and thumps. ”

“ Or else with barkings wherein indignation and pleasure mix and mingle, he pursues some bird, which, either bewitched by fear or out of sheer mischief, flutters along always a few inches in front of his open jaws. But no sooner do I sit down upon a bench than he comes and takes up a position on my foot. It is one of the immutable laws of his life that he will run about only when I myself am in motion, and that as soon as I sit down he too should become inactive. The necessity for this is not quite obvious, but to Bashan it is as the laws of the Medes and Persians. ”

“ Many people have fallen in the error of imagining all banshees are moulded after one pattern. Nothing could be more fallacious. The banshee of the O’Rourkes, for [28] example, does not resemble that of the O’Donnells; there are many forms of the banshee, each clan having a distinct one—or more than one—of its own. Some of the banshees are fair to look at, and some old, and foul, and terrifying; but their mission is invariably the same, i.e., to announce a death or some great family catastrophe.
“The banshee is never joyous; it is always either sad or malevolent. ”

“ Indeed, it was only the thought that Amos Baverstock or one of the others would get up to go, and then discover me, that made me shift from where I had been hiding; and no sooner was I out of earshot than I set off running as if pursued by fifty fiends. I never ran so fast before or since. Over the sand-hills, stumbling amidst the shingle, breaking my way through gorse and hedgerow, I came at last to John Bannister's cabin, lying in a hollow by the sea.
"Mr. Bannister!" I cried. "Mr. Bannister! Something dreadful is about to happen!" ”

“ The meadow which now lies in the angle formed by the junction of the Bain and Waring at Horncastle is still called “The Holms,” which is Danish for “islands.”
[2c] The name Bain, slightly varied, is not uncommon. There is the Bannon, or Ban-avon (“avon” also meaning “river”) , in Pembrokeshire; the Ban in Co. Wexford, Bana in Co. Down, Banney (i.e. Ban-ea, “ea” also meaning water) in Yorkshire, Bain in Herefordshire; Banavie (avon) is a place on the brightly running river Lochy in Argyleshire; and, as meaning “white,” a fair-haired boy or girl is called in Gaelic “Bhana.” ”

“ With this speech Bannon ranged alongside Lanyard and looked him over, keenly malicious enjoyment gleaming in his evil old eyes.
"You are an honest-looking chap," he observed with a mocking smile but in a tone of the most inoffensive admiration—"honest and—ah—what shall I say?—what's the word we're all using now-a-days?—efficient! Honest and efficient-looking, capable of better things, or I'm no judge! Forgive an old man's candour, my friend—and take good care of our British cousin here. He doesn't know his way around Paris very well. ”

“ The sheriff did, and jumping in he murmured as they drove down the road: "She is all that. She's easy to look at all right. She's handsome, and yet not—not what I should call womanly. Look out at the turn. There's a hole as you get into the main road."
"Yes, I know about it," said O'Bannon. ”

“ But at this the wee bannock began dodging about, and it dodged so craftily that the goodwife overset the churn in trying to grip it, and before she set it straight again the wee bannock was off, trundling away down the hill till it came to a mill-house where the miller was sifting meal. So in it ran and sate down by the trough.
"Ho, ho!" says the miller. "It's a sign o' plenty when the likes of you run about the country-side with none to look after you. But come in by. I like bannock and cheese for supper, so I'll give ye a night's quarters." ”

“ Bannon. These are free men that are devoting their honest labor to you. You may think you're a slave driver, but you aren't. You may flourish your revolver in the faces of slaves, but free American citizens will resent it——"
"Mr. Grady, the man I drew a gun on was a carpenter. His own union is looking after him. He had thrown a hammer down into a bin where some of your laborers were at work, so I acted in their defence."
Grady stood up. "I come here to give you warning to-day, Mr. Bannon. There is a watchful eye on you. The next time I come it will not be to warn, but to act. ”

“ ADVENTURE I ALL the time, under that motivating anger and determination not to go back, ran the two threads of thought—one quickly sifting the practicalities of a situation for a bare headed young girl in the streets of a city at two o’clock in the morning, the other analyzing, jeering at the melodrama of her position.
“It’s a warm night,” she thought, “I’ll probably get nothing but a terrific cold in my head if I do sit in Lincoln Park all night. That young devil! She planned all that. She deliberately didn’t tell Ted they were not coming straight home. There’s no way of proving it. ”

“ He was the Count de Bitche, colonel of petardiers under Duke Charles—the same infamous Count who had abducted and strangled the beautiful Countess of Lutzelstein, so I have no reason to deplore very much, that my lunge through his Lordship's ribs proved so successful.
The standard I had taken bore the three wings of Lorraine, and was borne by the Prince of Vaudemont's horse.
'Arthur Blane,' said the old Marechal de Logis, 'I thank you for that timely succour and good service. I am getting old now; a man, like a drum-head, cannot last for ever—both wear out in time ”

“ Her voice fell; she was trembling with the recrudescent suffering of that year-long servitude. And for a little Lanyard felt too profoundly moved to trust himself to speak; he stood aghast, staring down at this woman, so intrinsically and gently feminine, so strangely strong and courageous; and vaguely envisaging what anguish must have been hers in enforced association with a creature of Bannon's ruthless stamp, he was rent with compassion and swore to himself he'd stand by her and see her through and free and happy if he died for it—or ended in the Santé! ”

“ Oho! we have been spending a jovial month in Paris, overhearing and overseeing all King Louis' pretty little preparations for a war upon the Rhine, and we shall be delighted to see you in Lorraine, and all other brave gallants of the Guard. Ma foi! but we will perfume your new moustaches for you! To-morrow, or so, will be the grand ceremony of taking the terrible banner of the oriflamme from St. Denis; but we shall see that too. And now, my dear M. Blane, away to Paris as fast as you may! You are acting rashly, as others have done before you ”

“ The Bannocks are all out fighting. They are killing everything and everybody, Indians and whites, and I and two more of my people went with these men out to South Mountain to fight them, and we came on to Buffalo Horn’s camp and had a fight with them, and the scouts ran away and left him to the mercy of Bannocks. I saw that I could not get away when they were all mustered on me, so I jumped off my horse and placed my horse between me and them, and laid my gun over the saddle, and fired at Buffalo Horn as he came galloping up, ahead of his men. ”

“ With one wing raked wide open and with its head drawn aside to the very limit of its neck, the pheasant lay in the grass and screamed, screamed without a single pause—a passer-by might have thought that some old woman was being murdered in the bushes. I hurried up, bent upon preventing something horrible. But I was soon convinced that there was nothing to fear. Bashan’s all-too conspicuous confusion, the half-curious, half-disgusted mien with which, head aslant, he looked down upon his prisoner, assured me of that. ”

“ Who am I? Am I really I?” At the very moment in which the corpse of the duck fell upon the water, Bashan made a leap forward, towards the edge of the escarpment, as though he wished to go down into the river-bed and plunge himself into the water. But then he thought of the current, clamped the brakes upon this sudden impulse, grew ashamed, and once more confined his efforts to staring. ”

“ No country besides Ireland possesses a Banshee, though some countries possess a family or national ghost somewhat resembling it. In Germany, for example, popular tradition is full of rumours of white ladies who haunt castles, woods, rivers, and mountains, where they may be seen combing their yellow hair, or playing on harps or spinning. ”

“ I hold myself a grade better than such cattle; I've intelligence, at least. ... I can take care of myself!"
If he might read her countenance, it expressed more than anything else distress and disappointment.
"Why do you boast like this—to me?"
"Less through self-satisfaction than in contempt for a pack of murderous mongrels—impatience that I have to consider such creatures as Popinot, Wertheimer, De Morbihan and—all their crew."
"And Bannon," she corrected calmly—"you meant to say!" ”

“ For that stretch of coast is desolate still; but in those days it was a kind of No Man's Land, with no sign of life but the gulls and the sand-snipe, the smoke from John Bannister's camp-fire, and the hooded crows.
Well, the truth was, he who feared neither beast of prey nor painted cannibal was afraid of civilised men. He went once a week to the little inland village a few miles distant to purchase groceries and stores. There--as I found out afterwards--they thought him a madman, though he was always courteous in his manner and paid without question for what he bought. ”

“ They glide and plump into the water which buoys and turns them about in security, or they go flying over his head with bills and necks outstretched, whilst Bashan, running along the bank, measures the power of his legs with that of their pinions.
He is ravished and grateful if they will but fly, if they will only deign to give him an opportunity for a bit of glorious coursing up and down the river. They are no doubt aware of these wishes of his, and are even capable of utilising them for their own benefit. ”

“ If you are, seize your weapons. Go upon the walls and know how to defend the place where your children live and your fathers are buried. But if you are cowards, then take to flight. The women will stay behind with me and show the furious foe that when it is a matter of fighting for hearth and home nobody is too weak.'"
Banfy called out to his squire in a hoarse voice to bring him his shield, lance and helmet, and motioned to the panting messenger to go on with his story. ”

“ She went on slowly, without looking up—gaze steadfast to her interlaced fingers: "Now for my own sake I want you to know what otherwise, perhaps, I shouldn't have told you—not yet, at all events. I'm no more Bannon's daughter than you're his son. Our names sound alike—people frequently make the same mistake. My name is Shannon—Lucy Shannon. Mr. Bannon called me Lucia because he knew I didn't like it, to tease me ”