Last night and this morning, what Shamesy Golliher had told him of last night and said of the walk with Rebecca this morning—all this was now recurring clearly to his mind, although Shamesy had long since disappeared across the sweep of the hill on his way to Garradrimna.
Mrs. Brennan had so recently reminded her son of his coming exaltation that the suggestion was now compelling him beyond the battle of his thought to picture himself as a priest ordained. Yet an immense gulf of difference still separated him from the condition of Father O'Keeffe, for instance. His thought had been further helped to move this way by the sudden appearance of Father O'Keeffe riding along The Road of the Dead.
John did not see the man as he really was. Yet it was the full reality of him that was exercising a subconscious influence upon his mind and helping, with other things, to turn his heart away from the priesthood.
Father O'Keeffe came directly from that class so important in Ireland—the division of the farmer class which has come to be known as "The Grabbers." The word "grabber" had not been invented to describe a new class, but rather to denote the remarkable characterof a class already in existence. That was their innermost nature, these farmers, to be close-fisted and to guard with an almost savage tenacity those possessions to which they had already attained. It was notable also that they were not too careful or particular as to the means they employed to come into possession. This was the full answer to the question why so many of them put a son on for the Church. It was a double reason, to afford a means of acquiring still further and to be as an atonement in the sight of Heaven for the means they had used in acquiring thus far. This at once appeared amazingly true if one applied it to the case of Father O'Keeffe, who could on occasion put on such a look of remoteness from this world, that it was difficult to set about analyzing him by any earthly standard. Yet, among all thepedigreesshe had read for him, as a notable example in Mrs. Brennan's crowd of examples, had continually appeared and re-appeared this family of O'Keeffe. His mother had always endeavored to fix firmly in his mind the wonder of their uprise. It was through the gates of the Church that the O'Keeffes had gone to their enjoyment. No doubt they had denied themselves to educate this Louis O'Keeffe who had become P.P. of Garradrimna, but their return had been more than satisfying. There was now no relation of his to the most distant degree of blood who did not possess great comfort and security in the land.
At bottom Father O'Keeffe was still a man of the clay and loved the rich grass and the fine cattle it produced. He had cattle in every quarter of the parish. Men bought them and saw to their fattening and sold them for him, even going so far as adding the moneyto his account in the bank. He had most discreetly used a seeming unworldliness to screen his advance upon the ramparts of Mammon. Citing the examples of Scripture, he consorted with notable, though suddenly converted, sinners, and, when some critic from among the common people was moved to speak his mind as one of the converted sinners performed a particularly unscrupulous stroke of business, he was immediately silenced by the unassailable spectacle of his parish priest walking hand in hand with the man whose actions he was daring to question. The combination was of mutual benefit; the gombeen man, the auctioneer and the publican were enabled to proceed with their swindle of the poor by maintaining his boon companionship.
Thus, while publicly preaching the admonishing text of the camel and the rich man and the needle's eye, Father O'Keeffe was privately engaged in putting himself in such a condition that the task of negotiating the needle's eye might be as difficult to him as the camel. He went daily for a walk, reading his office, and returned anxiously scanning stock exchange quotations and letters from cattle salesmen in Dublin. But in spite of this he was a sportsman, and thought nothing of risking a ten-pound note upon a horse or a night's card-play.
When he first came to the parish his inclinations were quickly determined. In the whirl of other interests cards had fallen into disuse in Garradrimna. They had come to be considered old-fashioned, but now suddenly they became "all the rage." Old card-tables were rediscovered and renewed, and it was said that Tommy Williams was compelled to order several gross ofplaying cars—for, what the "elite" of the parish did, the "commonality" must needs follow and do. Thus was a public advantage of doubtful benefit created; for laboring men were known to lose their week's wages to the distress of their wives and children.... At the "gorgeous card-plays" never an eyelid was lifted when Father O'Keeffe "renayged."
These took place in the houses of shopkeepers and strong farmers, and were cultivated to a point of excessive brilliance. Ancient antagonists of the tongue met upon this new field, and strategic attempts were made to snatch Father O'Keeffe as a prize of battle. Thus was an extravagant sense of his value at once created and, as in all such cases, the worst qualities of the man came to be developed. His natural snobbishness, for one thing, which led him to associate a great deal with the gilded youth of Garradrimna—officials of the Union and people of that kind who had got their positions through every effort of bribery and corruption. At athletic sports or coursing matches you would see him among a group of them, while they smoked stinking "Egyptian" cigarettes up into his face.
Yet it must not be thought that Father O'Keeffe neglected the ladies. In evenings in the village he might be seen standing outside the worn drapery counters back-biting between grins and giggles with the women of the shops. This curious way of spending the time had once led an irreverent American to describe him as "the flirtatious shop-boy of Garradrimna."
His interest in the female sex often led him upon expeditions beyond the village. Many a time he might be seen riding his old, fat, white horse, so strangely named,"King Billy," down some rutted boreen on the way to a farmer's house where there were big daughters with weighty fortunes. Those were match-making expeditions when he had come to tell them of his brother Robert O'Keeffe and his broad acres.... While "King Billy" was comforting himself with a plentiful feed of oats, he would be sitting in the musty parlor with the girl and her mother, taking wine and smoking cigars, which were kept in every house since it had come to be known that Father O'Keeffe was fond of them. He generally smoked a good few at a sitting, and those he did not consume he carried away in his pocket for future use in his den at the Presbytery.
"Isn't Father O'Keeffe, God bless him, the walking terror for cigars?" was all the comment ever made upon this extraordinary habit.
Robert O'Keeffe, in the intentions of his brother, was a much-married man, for there was not a house in the parish holding a marriageable girl into which Father O'Keeffe had not gone to get him a match. He had enlarged upon the excellence of his brother, upon his manners and ways and the breadth of his fields.
"He's the grand, fine man, is Robert," he would say, by way of giving a final touch to the picture.
Upon those whose social standing was not a thing of any great certitude this had always a marked effect towards their own advantage and that of Father O'Keeffe. It gave them a certain pride in their own worth to have a priest calling attentively at the house and offering his brother in marriage. It would be a gorgeous thing to be married to a priest's brother, and have your brother-in-law with power in his hands to help you out of manya difficulty. He never inquired after the cattle their fathers were grazing free of charge for him until he would be leaving the house.
John Brennan followed the black figure upon the white horse down all The Road of the Dead until Father O'Keeffe had disappeared among the trees which surrounded the Schools of Tullahanogue, where he was making a call.
John now saw Ulick Shannon coming towards him across the Hill of Annus. It was strange that he should be appearing now whose presence had just been created by the Rabelaisian recital of Shamesy Golliher. As he came along boldly his eyes roamed cheerfully over the blue expanse of water and seemed to catch something there which moved him to joyous whistling. John Brennan felt a certain amount of reserve spring up between them as they shook hands.... For a moment that seemed to lengthen out interminably the two young men were silent. The lake was without a ripple in the intense calm of the summer day.... Suddenly it reflected the movement of them walking away, arm in arm, towards the village.
It was high noontide when they reached Garradrimna. The Angelus was ringing. Men had turned them from their various occupations to bend down for a space in prayer. The drunkards had put away the pints from their mouths in reverence. The seven sleek publicans were coming to their doors with their hats in their hands, beating their breasts in a frenzy of zeal and genuflecting. Yet, upon the appearance of the students, a different excitement leaped up to animate them. They began to hurry their prayers, the words becoming jumbled pell mell in their mouths as they cleared away for their tongues to say to one another the thing they wanted to say of the two young men.
By their God, there was John Brennan and Ulick Shannon coming into Garradrimna in the middle of the day. To drink, they at once supposed. Their tongues had been finding fine exercise upon Ulick Shannon for a considerable time, but it was certainly a comfort to have the same to say of John Brennan. A clerical student coming up the street with a Dublin scamp. That was a grand how-d'ye-do! But sure they supposed, by their God again, that it was only what she deserved (they were referring to Mrs. Brennan).
Her mention at once brought recollection of her story, and it came to be discussed there in the heat of the day until the lonely woman, who was still crying probably as she sat working by her machine in the little house in the valley, became as a corpse while the vultures of Garradrimna circled round it flapping great wings in glee.
The students strode on, reciting the Angelus beneath their breaths with a devotion that did not presently give place to any worldly anxiety. They were doing many things now, as if they formed a new personality in which the will and the inclination of each were merged. They turned into McDermott's, and it seemed their collective intention from the direction they took upon entering the shop to take refuge in the retirement of the particular portion known as Connellan's office. It was the place where Mick Connellan, the local auctioneer, transacted business on Fridays. On all other days it was considered the more select and secluded portion of this publichouse. But when they entered it wasoccupied. Padna Padna, the ancient drunkard, was sitting by the empty grate poking the few drawn corks in it as if they were coals. He was speaking to himself in mournful jeremiads, and after the fashion of one upon whom a great sorrow has fallen down.
"Now what the hell does he want with his mission, and it too good we are? A mission, indeed, for to make us pay him money every night, and the cosht of everything, drink and everything. He, he, he! To pay the price of a drink every night to hear the missioners denounce drink. Now that's the quarest thing ever any one heard. To go pay the price of a drink for hearing a man that doesn't even know the taste of it say that drink is not good for the human soul. Begad Father O'Keeffe is the funny man!"
After this fashion did Padna Padna run on in soliloquy. He had seen many a mission come to bring, in the words of the good missioners, "a superabundance of grace to the parish," and seen it go without bringing any appreciable addition of grace to him or any change in his way of life. It seemed a pity that his tradition had set Padna Padna down as a Christian, and would not allow him to live his life upon Pagan lines and in peace. The struggle which continually held occupation of his mind was one between Christian principles and Pagan inclinations. He now began whispering to himself—"The Book of God! The Book of God! A fellow's name bees written in the Book of God!" ... So absorbed was he in his immense meditation that he had hardly noticed the entry of the students. But as he became aware of their presence he stumbled to his feet and gripping John Brennan by the arm whisperedtensely: "Isn't that a fact, young fellow, that one's name bees down there always, and what one does, and that it's never blotted out?"
"It is thus we are told," said John, speaking dogmatically and as if he were repeating a line out of the Bible.
Padna Padna, as he heard these words and recognized the voice of their speaker, put on what was really his most gruesome expression. He stripped his shrunken gums in a ghastly little smile, and a queer "Tee-Hee!" issued from his furrowed throat.... Momentarily his concern for Eternity was forgotten in a more immediate urgency of this world. He gripped John still more tightly and in a higher whisper said: "Are ye able to stand?"
It was a strange anti-climax and at once betrayed his sudden descent in the character of his meditation, from thinking of what the Angel had written of him to his immortal longing for what had determined the character of that record regarding immortality.
"Yes, I'll stand," said Ulick, breaking in upon John Brennan's reply to Padna Padna and pushing the bell.
Mr. McDermott himself, half drunk and smelling of bad whiskey, came in and soon the drinks were before them. New life seemed to come pushing into the ancient man as he took his "half one." He looked up in blind thankfulness into their faces, his eyes running water and his mouth dribbling like that of a young child.... His inclinations were again becoming rapidly Pagan.... From smiling dumbly he began to screech with laughter, and moved from the room slowly tapping his way with his short stick.... He was going forth tofresh adventures. Spurred on by this slight addition of drink he would be encouraged to enter the other six publichouses of Garradrimna, and no man could tell upon what luck he might happen to fall. So fortunate might his half-dozen expeditions prove that he would probably return to the house of the good woman who was his guardian, led by Shamesy Golliher, or some other one he would strike up with in the last dark pub, as if he were a toddling infant babbling foolish nonsense about all the gay delights which had been his of old. The mad drives from distant villages upon his outside car, his passengers in the same condition as himself—a state of the wildest abandon, and dwelling exultingly in that moment wherein they might make fitting models for a picture by Jack B. Yeats.
Ulick and John were now alone. The day outside was hot and still upon the dusty street, but this office of Connellan's was a cool place like some old cellar full of forgotten summers half asleep in wine.... They were entering still deeper into the mood of one another.... Ulick had closed the door when Padna Padna had passed through, tapping blindly as he moved towards the far places of the village. He would seem to have gone for no other purpose than to publish broadcast the presence of Ulick Shannon and John Brennan together in McDermott's, and they drinking. For now the door of Connellan's office was being opened and closed every few minutes. People were calling upon the pretense of looking for other people, and going away leaving the door open wide behind them so that some others might come also and see for themselves the wonderful thing that was happening.... Padna Padna was having such a timeas compared favorably with the high times of old. A "half-one" of malt from every man he brought to see the sight was by no means a small reward. And so he was coming and going past the door like a sentry on guard of some great treasure which increased in value from moment to moment. He was blowing upon his fingers and tapping his lips and giggling and screeching with merriment down in his shivering frame.
And most wonderful of all, the two young men who were creating all this excitement were quite unconscious of it.... They were talking a great deal, but each, as it were, from behind the barricade of his personality, for each was now beginning for the first time to notice a peculiar thing. They were discovering that their personalities were complementary. John lacked the gift, which was Ulick's, of stating things brilliantly out of life and experience and the views of those modern authors whom he admired. On the other hand, he seemed to possess a deeper sense of the relative realities of certain things, a faculty which sprang out of his ecclesiastical training and which held no meaning for Ulick, who spoke mockingly of such things. Ulick skimmed lightly over the surface of life in discussing it; John was inclined to plow deeply.
Suddenly a desire fell upon John to hear Ulick discuss again those matters he had talked of at the "North Leinster Arms" in Ballinamult. It was very curious that this should be the nature of his thoughts now, this inclination towards things which from him should always have remained far distant and unknown.... But it may have been that some subtle impulse had stirred in him, and that he now wished to see whether theoutlook of Ulick had changed in any way through his rumored friendship with Rebecca Kerr. Would it be a cleaner thing and purified through power of that girl? He fondly fancied that no thought at all could be soiled within the splendid precinct of her presence.
Josie Guinan, the new barmaid of McDermott's, came in to attend them with other and other drinks. Her bosom was attractive and ample, although her hair was still down upon her back in rich brown plaits.... She dallied languorously within the presence of the two young men.... Ulick began to tell some of the stories he had told to Mary Essie, and she stood even as brazenly enjoying them with her back to the door closed behind her. Then the two came together and whispered something, and a vulgar giggle sprang up between them.
And to think that this was the man to whom Rebecca Kerr might be giving the love of her heart.... If John had seen as much of life as the other he would have known that Ulick was the very kind of man who, at all times, has most strongly appealed to women. Yet it was in this moment and in this place that he fell in love with Rebecca.... He became possessed of an infinite willingness to serve and protect her, and it was upon the strength of his desire that he arose.
Through all this secret, noble passage, Ulick remained laughing as at some great joke. He, too, was coming into possession of a new joy, for he was beginning to glimpse the conflagration of another's soul. Out of sheer devilment, and in conspiracy with Josie Guinan, he had caused John Brennan's drink, the small, mild measure of port wine, to be dosed with flaming whiskey. Even the wine in the frequency of its repetition had alreadybeen getting the better of him. They had been hours sitting here, and outside the day was fading.
John began to stutter now in the impotence of degradation which was upon him. His thoughts were all burning into one blazing thought. The small room seemed suddenly to cramp and confine his spirit as if it were a prison cell.... And Ulick was still smiling that queer smile of his with his thick red lips and sunken eyes.
He sprang towards the door and, turning the handle, rushed out into the air.... Soon he was fleeing as if from some Unknown Force, staggering between the rows of the elms which stretched all along the road into the valley. It had rained a shower and the strong, young leaves held each its burden of pearly drops. A light wind now stirred them and like an aspergillus they flung a blessing down upon him as he passed. And ever did he mutter her name to himself as he stumbled on:
"Rebecca Kerr, Rebecca Kerr, I love you, Rebecca, I love you surely! Oh, my dear Rebecca!"
She was moving before him, with her hair all shining through the twilight.
"Oh, dear Rebecca! I love you! Oh, my dear!"
He turned The Road of the Dead and down by the lake, where he lay in the quiet spot from which Ulick Shannon had taken him away to Garradrimna. There he remained until far on in the evening, when his mother, concerned for his welfare, came to look for him. She found him sleeping by the lake.
She had no notion of how he had passed the evening. Her imagination was, after all, only a very small thing and worked rigorously within the romantic confines of the holy stories which were her continual reading.When she had awakened him she asked a characteristic question:
"And I suppose, John, you're after seeing visions and things have appeared to you?"
"Yes, mother, I have seen a vision, I think," he said, as he opened his eyes and blinked stupidly at the lake. He was still midway between two conditions, but he was not noticeable to her, who could not have imagined the like.
These were the only words he spoke to her before he went to bed.
Back in McDermott's a great crowd thronged the public bar. Every man seemed to be in high glee and a hum of jubilation hung low between them. A momentous thing had happened, and it was of this great event they were talking.John Brennan had left the house and he was reeling.Men from the valley foregathered in one group and, as each new-comer arrived, the news was re-broken. It was about the best thing that had ever happened. The sudden enrichment of any of their number could not have been half so welcome in its importance.
Padna Padna and Shamesy Golliher were standing in one corner taking sup for sup.
"Damn it, but it was one of the greatest days ever I seen in Garradrimna since the ould times. It was a pity you missed of it," said Padna Padna. "If you were to see him!"
"Sure I'm after seeing him, don't I tell ye, lying a corpse be the lake."
"A corpse be the lake. He, he, he! Boys-a-day! Boys-a-day!"
Mrs. Brennan, although she pondered it deeply, had made no advance towards full realization of her son's condition by the lakeside. Yet John felt strangely diffident about appearing before her next morning. It seemed to him that another attack had been made upon the bond between them. But when at last he came into the sewing-room she was smiling, although there was a sinking feeling around his heart as he looked upon her. Yet this would pass, he hoped, when they began to talk.
The children were going the road to school, and it was the nature of Mrs. Brennan that she must needs be making comment upon what was passing before her eyes.
"God help the poor, little girls," she cried, "sure 'tis the grand example they're being set by that new one, Miss Kerr, with her quare dresses and her light ways. They say she was out half the night after the concert with Ulick Shannon, and that Mrs. McGoldrick and the Sergeant are in terror of their lives for fear of robbers or the likes, seeing that they have to leave the door on the latch for her to come in at any time she pleases from her night-walking. And the lad she bees with that's after knocking about Dublin and couldn't be good anyway. But sure, be the same token, there's a touch of Dublin about her too. How well she wouldn't give methe making of her new dress? But I suppose I'm old-fashioned in my cut. Old-fashioned, how are ye; and I buyingWeldon's Ladies' Journalevery week? But of course she had to go to Dublin to be in the tip of the fashion and see what they wear in Grafton Street in the lamplight. She had to get an outfit of immodest fol-the-dols to be a disgrace in the chapel every Sunday, and give room to the missioners when they come to say things that may have an injurious effect upon poor dressmakers like myself who strive to earn a living as decently as we can."
This harangue was almost unnoticed by John Brennan. It was a failing of his mother to be always speaking thus in terms of her trade. He knew that if Miss Kerr had come here with her new dress, fine words and encomiums would now be spoken of her in this room. But it was his mother who was speaking—and he was thinking of the girl who had filled his vision.
And his mother was still talking:
"That Ulick Shannon, I hate him. I wish you wouldn't let yourself be seen along with him. It is not good for you,avic machree. Of course I know the kind of talk you do be having, son. About books and classes and the tricks and pranks of you at college. Ah, dear, I know; but I'd rather to God it was any other one in the whole world. I'm fearing in me heart that there's a black, black side to him. It's well known that he bees always drinking in Garradrimna, and now see how he's after striking up with the schoolmistress one. Maybe 'tis what he'd try to change you sometime, for as sure as you're there I'm afraid and afraid. And to think after all I have prayed for you through all theyears, upon me two bare knees in the lonely nights, if an affliction should come."
"What affliction, mother? What is it?"
He came nearer, and gazing deep into her face saw that there were tears in her eyes. Her eyes were shining like deep wells.
"Ah, this, son. If it should ever come that you did not think well to do me wish, after all I have done—"
She checked herself of a sudden, and it was some moments before John replied. He, too, was thinking of Ulick Shannon. There was a side to his friend that he did not like. Yesterday he had not liked him. There were moments when he had hated him. But that mood and the reason for it seemed to have passed from him during the night. It was a far thing now, and Ulick Shannon was as he had been to John, who could not think ill of him. Yet it was curious that his mother should be hinting at things which, if he allowed his mind to dwell upon them at all, must bring back his feelings of yesterday.... But he felt that he must speak well of his friend.
"Ah, sure there is nothing, mother. You are only fancying queer things. At college I have to meet hundreds of fellows. He's not a bad chap, and I like speaking to him. It is lonely here without such intercourse. He realizes keenly how people are always talking of him, how the smallest action of his is construed and constructed in a hundred different ways, until he's driven to do wild things out of very defiance to show what he thinks of the mean people of the valley and their opinion of him—"
"They're not much, I know—"
"But at heart, I think, he's somehow like myself, and I can't help liking him."
"All the same he shouldn't be going with a girl and, especially, a little chit of a schoolmistress like this one, for I can't stand her."
Why did she continue to hammer so upon the pulse of his thought?... With bowed head he began to drift out of the room. Why had she driven him to think now of Rebecca Kerr?... He was already in the sunlight.
To-day he would not go towards the lake, but up through the high green fields of Scarden. He was takingThe Imitation of Christwith him, and, under the shade of some noble tree, it was his intention to turn his thoughts to God and away from the things of life.
It seemed grand to him, with a grandeur that had more than a touch of the color of Heaven, to be ascending cool slopes through the green, soft grass and to be looking down upon the valley at its daily labor. The potatoes and turnips still required attention. He saw men move patiently behind their horses over the broken fields of red earth beneath the fine, clear clay, and thought that here surely was the true vocation of him who would incline himself unto God.... But how untrue was this fancy when one came to consider the real personality of these tillers of the soil? There was not one of whom Mrs. Brennan could not tell an ugly story. Not one who did not consider it his duty to say uncharitable things of Ulick Shannon and Rebecca Kerr. Not one who would not have danced with gladness if a great misfortune had befallen John Brennan, and made a holiday in Garradrimna if anything terrible had happened to any one within the circle of their acquaintance.
John Brennan's attention was now attracted by a man who moved with an air of proprietorship among a field of sheep. He was a tall man in black, moving darkly among the white crowd of the sheep, counting them leisurely and allowing his mind to dwell upon the pageant of their perfect whiteness. He seemed to be reckoning their value as the pure yield of his pastures. Here was another aspect of the fields.... The man in black was coming towards him with long strides.
It took John some moments to realize that he had strayed into the farm of the Shannons and that this was Myles Shannon who was coming over to meet him.... He was a fine, clean man seen here amid the rich surroundings of his own fields. But he had advanced far into bachelorhood, and the russet was beginning to go out of his cheeks. It seemed a pity of the world that he had not married, for just there, hidden behind the billowy trees, was the fine house to which he might have brought home a wife and reared up a family to love and honor him in his days. But his romance had been shattered by a piece of villainy which had leaped out from the darkness of the valley. And now he was living here alone. But he was serenely independent, exhibiting a fine contempt, as well he might, for the mean strugglers around him. He took his pleasures here by himself in this quiet house among the trees. Had he been asked to name them, he could have told you in three words—books and drink. Not that they entered into his life to any great extent, for he was a wise man even in his indulgence.... But who was there to see him or know since he did not choose to publish himself in Garradrimna? And there was many a time when he workedhimself into a great frenzy while brooding over the story of his dead brother Henry, and his own story, and Nan Byrne.... Even now he was thinking darkly of Nan Byrne as he came forward to meet her son across his own field.
"Good-day, Mr. Brennan!" he said affably. He had no personal grudge against this young man, but his scheme of revenge inevitably included him, for it was through John Brennan, her son, that Nan Byrne now hoped to aspire, and it was him she hoped to embody as a monument of her triumph over destructive circumstances before the people of the valley.
John went forward and shook the hand of Mr. Shannon with deference.
A fine cut of a man, surely, this Myles Shannon, standing here where he might be clearly viewed. He appeared as a survival from the latter part of the Victorian era. He was still mutton-chopped and mustachioed after the fashion of those days. He wore a long-tailed black coat like a morning-coat. His waistcoat was of the same material. Across the expanse of it extended a wide gold chain, from which dangled a bunch of heavy seals. These shook and jingled with his every movement. His trousers were of a dark gray material, with stripes, which seemed to add to the height and erectness of his figure. His tall, stiff collar corrected the thoughtful droop of his head, and about it was tastefully fixed a wide black tie of shiny silk which reached down underneath his low-cut waistcoat. His person was surmounted by an uncomfortable-looking bowler hat with a very hard, curly brim.
When he smiled, as just now, his teeth showed in even,fine rows and exhibited some of the cruelty of one who has allowed his mind to dwell darkly upon a passionate purpose. But the ring of his laugh was hearty enough and had the immediate effect of dispelling suspicions of any sinister purpose.
He said he was glad to see how his casual suggestion, made upon the day they had journeyed down from Dublin together, had borne fruit, that Mr. Brennan and his nephew, Ulick, had so quickly become friends.
John thanked him, and began to speak in terms of praise about Ulick Shannon.
Mr. Shannon again bared his even, white teeth in a smile as he listened.... A strong friendship, with its consequent community of inclinations, had already been established. And he knew his nephew.
"He's a clever chap, I'll admit, but he's so damned erratic. He seems bent upon crushing the experience of a lifetime into a few years. Why I'm a man, at the ripened, mellow period of life, and it's a fact that he could teach me things about Dublin and all that."
John Brennan was uncertain in what way he should confirm this, but at last he managed to stammer out:
"Ulick is very clever!"
"He's very fond of Garradrimna, and I think he's very fond of the girls."
"It's so dull around here compared with Dublin."
John appeared a fool by the side of this man of the world, who was searching him with a look as he spoke again:
"It's all right for a young fellow to gain his experience as early as he can, but he's a bit too fond of his pleasure. He's going a bit too far."
John put on a strained look of advocacy, but he spoke no word.
"He's not a doctor yet, and even then his living would not be assured; and do ye know what he had the cheek to come telling me the other night—
"'I've got infernally fond of that little girl,' he says.
"'What girl?' I asked in amazement.
"'Why, that schoolmistress—Rebecca Kerr. I'm "gone" about her. I'm in love with her. She's not at all like any of the others.'"
Myles Shannon, with his keen eyes, saw the sudden light of surprise that leaped into the eyes of John Brennan. The passion of his hatred and the joy of his cruelty were stirred, and he went on to develop the plot of the story he had invented.
"And what for," said I to him, "are you thinking of any girl in that way. I, as your guardian, am able to tell you that you are not in a position to marry. Surely you're not going to ruin this girl, or allow her to ruin you. Besides she is only a strolling schoolmistress from some unknown part of Donegal, and you are one of the Shannon family. 'But I'm "gone" about her,' was what Ulick said. How was I to argue against such a silly statement?"
The color was mounting ever higher on John Brennan's cheeks.
But the relentless man went on playing with him.
"Of course I have not seen her, but, by all accounts, she's a pretty girl and possesses the usual share of allurements. Is not that so?"
"She's very nice."
"And, do you know what? It has come to me uphere, although I may seem to be a hermit among the fields who takes no interest in the world, that you have been seen walking down the valley road together. D'ye remember yesterday morning, eh?"
John was blushing still, and a kind of sickly smile made his fine face look queer. All kinds of expressions were trying to form themselves upon his tongue, yet not one of them could he manage to articulate.
"Not that I blame a young fellow, even one intended for the Church, if he should have a few inclinations that way. But I can see that you are the good friend of my nephew, and indeed it would be a pity if anything came to spoil that friendship, least of all a bit of a girl.... And both of you being the promising young men you are.... It would be terrible if anything like that should come to pass."
Even to this John could frame no reply. But the ear of Mr. Shannon did not desire it, for his eye had seen all that he wished to know. He beheld John Brennan shivering as within the cold and dismal shadows of fatality.... They spoke little more until they shook hands again, and parted amid the dappled grass.
To Myles Shannon the interview had been an extraordinary success.... Yet, quite suddenly, he found himself beginning to think of the position of Rebecca Kerr.
Outside the poor round of diversions afforded by the valley and her meetings with Ulick Shannon, the days passed uneventfully for Rebecca Kerr. It was a dreary kind of life, wherein she was concerned to avoid as far as possible the fits of depression which sprang out of the quality of her lodgings at Sergeant McGoldrick's.
She snatched a hasty breakfast early in the mornings, scarcely ever making anything like a meal. When she did it was always followed by a feeling of nausea as she went on The Road of the Dead towards the valley school. When she returned after her day's hard work her dinner would be half cold and unappetizing by the red ashy fire. Mrs. McGoldrick would be in the sitting-room, where she made clothes for the children, the sergeant himself probably digging in the garden before the door, his tunic open, his face sweating, and the dirty clay upon his big boots.... He was always certain to shout out some idiotic salutation as she passed in. Then Mrs. McGoldrick would be sure to follow her into the kitchen, a baby upon her left arm and a piece of soiled sewing in her right hand. She was always concerned greatly about the number at school on any particular day, and how Mrs. Wyse was and Miss McKeon, and how the average was keeping up, and if it did not keep up to a certain number would Mrs. Wyse's salary be reduced, and whatwas the average required for Miss McKeon to get her salary from the Board, and so on.
Sometimes Rebecca would be so sick at heart of school affairs and of this mean, prying woman that no word would come from her, and Mrs. McGoldrick would drift huffily away, her face a perfect study in disappointment. And against those there were times when Rebecca, with a touch of good humor, would tell the most fantastical stories of inspectors and rules and averages and increments and pensions, Mrs. McGoldrick breathless between her "Well, wells!" of amazement.... Then Rebecca would have a rare laugh to herself as she pictured her landlady repeating everything to the sergeant, who would make mental comparisons the while of the curious correspondence existing between those pillars of law and learning, the Royal Irish Constabulary, and the National Teachers of Ireland.
Next day, perhaps, Mrs. McGoldrick would enlarge upon the excellent and suitable match a policeman and a teacher make, and how it is such a general thing throughout the country. She always concluded a discourse of this nature by saying a thing she evidently wished Rebecca to remember:
"Let me tell you this, now—a policeman is the very best match that any girl can make!"
And big louts of young constables would be jumping off high bicycles and calling in the evenings.... This was at the instigation of Mrs. McGoldrick, but they made no impression whatsoever upon Rebecca, even when they arrived in mufti.
In school the ugly, discolored walls which had been so badly distempered by Ned Brennan; the monotony ofthe maps and desks; the constant sameness of the children's faces. All this was infinitely wearying, but a more subtle and powerful torment arose beyond the hum of the children learning by heart. Rebecca always became aware of it through a burning feeling at the back of her neck. Glancing around she would see that, although presumably intent upon their lessons, many eyes were upon her, peering furtively from behind their books, observing her, forming opinions of her, and concocting stories to tell their parents when they went home. For this was considered an essential part of their training—the proper satisfaction of their elders' curiosity. It was one of the reasons why the bigger girls were sent to school. They escaped the drudgery of house and farm because they were able to return with fresh stories from the school every evening. Thus were their faculties for lying and invention brought into play. They feared Mrs. Wyse, and so these faculties came to be trained in full strength upon Rebecca. As she moved about the school-room, she was made the constant object of their scrutiny. They would stare at her with their mean, impudent eyes above the top edges of their books. Then they would withdraw them behind the opened pages and sneer and concoct. And it was thus the forenoon would pass until the half-hour allowed for recreation, when she would be thrown back upon the company of Mrs. Wyse and Monica McKeon. No great pleasure was in store for her here, for their conversation was always sure to turn upon the small affairs of the valley.
There was something so ingenuous about the relations of Rebecca and Ulick Shannon that neither of the two women had the courage to comment upon the matteropenly. But the method they substituted was a greater torture. In the course of half an hour they would suggest a thousand hateful things.
"I heard Ulick Shannon was drunk last night, and having arguments with people in Garradrimna," Miss McKeon would say.
Mrs. Wyse would snatch up the words hastily. "Is that so? Oh, he's going to the bad. He'll never pass his exams, never!"
"Isn't it funny how his uncle does not keep better control of him. Why he lets him do what he likes?"
"Control, is it? It doesn't look much like control indeed to see him encouraging his dead brother's son to keep the company he favors. Indeed and indeed it gives me a kind of a turn when I see him going about with Nan Byrne's son, young John Brennan, who's going on to be a priest. Well, I may tell you that it is 'going on' he is, for his mother as sure as you're there'll never see him saying his first Mass. Now I suppose the poor rector of the college in England where he is hasn't a notion of his antecedents. The cheek of it indeed! But what else could you expect from the likes of Nan Byrne? Indeed I have a good mind to let the ecclesiastical authorities know all, and if nothing turns up from the Hand of God to right the matter, sure I'll have to do it myself. Bedad then I will!"
"Musha, the same John Brennan doesn't look up to much, and they say Ulick Shannon can wind him around his little finger. He'll maybe make aladof him before the end of the summer holidays."
"I can't understand Myles Shannon letting them go about together so openly unless he's enjoying the wholething as a sneer. But it would be more to his credit indeed to have found other material for his fun than a blood relation. I'm surprised at him indeed, and he knowing what he knows about Nan Byrne and his brother Henry."
With slight variations of this theme falling on her ears endlessly Rebecca was compelled to endure the torture of this half hour every day. No matter what took place in the valley Monica would manage, somehow, to drag the name of Ulick into it. If it merely happened to be a copy of theIrish Independentthey were looking at, and if they came upon some extraordinary piece of news, Monica would say:
"Just like a thing that Ulick Shannon would do, isn't it?"
And if they came across a photo in the magazine section, Monica would say again:
"Now wouldn't you imagine that gentleman has a look of Ulick Shannon?"
Rebecca had become so accustomed to all this that, overleaping its purpose, it ceased to have any considerable effect upon her. She had begun to care too much for Ulick to show her affection in even the glimpse of an aspect to the two who were trying to discover her for the satisfaction of their spite. It was thus that she remained a puzzle to her colleagues, and Monica in particular was at her wit's end to know what to think. At the end of the half hour she was always in a deeper condition of defeat than before it began, and went out to the Boys' School with only one idea warming her mind, that, some day, she might have the great laugh at Rebecca Kerr. She knew that it is not possible for awoman to hide her feelings forever, even though she thought this one cute surely, cute beyond all the suggestion of her innocent exterior.
Towards the end of each day Rebecca was thrown altogether with the little ones who, despite all the entreaties of their parents, had not yet come very far away from Heaven. She found great pleasure in their company and in their innocent stories. For example:
"Miss Kerr, I was in the wood last night. With the big bear and the little bear in the wood. I went into the wood, and there was the big bear walking round and round the wood after the little bear, and the big bear was walking round and round the wood."
"I was in America last night, and I saw all the motor cars ever were, and people riding on horses, and the highest, whitest buildings ever were, and people going to Mass—big crowds of people going to Mass."
"My mammy brought me into the chapel last night, and I saw God. I was talking to God and He was asking me about you. I said: 'Miss Kerr is nice, so she is.' I said this to God, but God did not answer me. I asked God again did He know Miss Kerr who teaches in the valley school, and He said He did, and I said again: 'Miss Kerr is nice, so she is.' But He went away and did not answer me."
Rebecca would enter into their innocence and so experience the happiest hours of the day.
She would be recalled from her rapt condition by the harsh voice of Mrs. Wyse shouting an order to one of the little girls in her class, this being a hint that she herself was not attending to her business.
But soon the last blessed period of the day wouldcome, the half hour devoted to religious instruction. She found a pleasure in this task, for she loved to hear the little children at their prayers. Sometimes she would ask them to say for her the little prayer she had taught them:
"O God, I offer up this prayer for the poor intentions of Thy servant Rebecca Kerr, that they may be fulfilled unto the glory of Thy Holy Will. And that being imperfect, she may approach to Thy Perfection through the Grace and Mercy of Jesus Christ, Our Lord."
She would feel a certain happiness for a short space after this, at least while the boisterous business of taking leave of the school was going forward. But once upon the road she would be meeting people who always stared at her strangely, and passing houses with squinting windows.... Then would come a heavy sense of depression, which might be momentarily dispelled by the appearance of John Brennan either coming or going upon the road. For a while she had considered this happening coincidental, but of late it had been borne in upon her that it was very curious he should appear daily at the same time.... The silly boy, and he with his grand purpose before him.... She would smile upon him very pleasantly, and fall into chat sometimes, but only for a few minutes. She looked upon herself as being ever so much wiser. And she thought it queer that he should find an attraction for his eyes in her form as it moved before him down the road. She always fancied that she felt low and mean within herself while his eyes were upon her.... But he would be forevercoming out of his mother's cottage to meet her thus upon the road.
After dinner in the house of Sergeant McGoldrick she would betake herself to her little room. It would be untidy after the hurry in which she had left it, and now she would set about putting it to rights. This would occupy her half an hour or more. Then there would be a few letters to be written, to her people away in Donegal and to some of the companions of her training college days. She kept up a more or less regular correspondence with about half-a-dozen of these girls. Her letters were all after the frivolous style of their schooldays. To all of them she imparted the confidence that she had met "a very nice fellow" here in Garradrimna, but that the place was so lonely, and how there was "nothing like a girl friend."
"Ah, Anna," she would write, or "Lily" or "Lena," "There's surely nothing after all like a girl friend."
After tea she would put on one of her tidiest hats, and taking the letters with her go towards the Post Office of Garradrimna. This was a torture, for always the eyes of the old, bespectacled maid were upon her, looking into her mind, as she stood waiting for her stamps outside the ink-stained counter. And, further, she always felt that the doors and windows of the village were forever filled with eyes as she went by them. Her neck and face would burn until she took the road that led out past the old castle of the De Lacys. There was a footpath which took one to the west gate of the demesne of the Moores. The Honorable Reginald Moore was the modern lord of Garradrimna. It was this way she wouldgo, meeting all kinds of stragglers from the other end of the parish. People she did not know and who did not know her, queer, dark men coming into Garradrimna through the high evening in quest of porter.
"Fine evening, miss!" they would say.
Once on the avenue her little walk became a golden journey for Ulick always met her when she came this way. It was their custom to meet here or on The Road of the Dead. But this was their favorite spot, where the avenue led far into the quiet woods. A scurrying-away of rabbits through the undergrowth would announce their approach to one another.
Many were the happy talks they had here, of books and of decent life beyond the boorishness of Garradrimna. She had given himThe Poems of Tennysonin exchange forThe Daffodil Fields. Tastefully illuminated in red ink on the fly-leaf he had found her "favorite lines" from Tennyson, whom she considered "exquisite":