"Glitter like a storm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid."
"Glitter like a storm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid."
"Glitter like a storm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid."
"Glitter like a storm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid."
"Cursed be the gold that gilds the straightened forehead of the fool."
"Cursed be the gold that gilds the straightened forehead of the fool."
"Cursed be the gold that gilds the straightened forehead of the fool."
"Cursed be the gold that gilds the straightened forehead of the fool."
"Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships,And our spirits rushed together at the touching of the lips."
"Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships,And our spirits rushed together at the touching of the lips."
"Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships,And our spirits rushed together at the touching of the lips."
"Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships,
And our spirits rushed together at the touching of the lips."
These had made him smile, and then he did not read any more of Tennyson.... He was fond of telling her about the younger Irish poets and of quoting passages from their poems. Now it would be a line or so from Colum or Stephens, again a verse from Seumas O'Sullivan or Joseph Campbell. Continually he spoke withenthusiasm of the man they called Æ.... She found it difficult to believe that such men could be living in Ireland at the present time.
"And would you see them about Dublin?"
"Yes, you'd see them often."
"Realpoets?"
"Real poets surely. But of course they have earthly interests as well. One is a farmer—"
"A farmer!!!"
This she found it hardest of all to believe, for the word "farmer" made her see so clearly the sullen men with the dirty beards who came in the white roads every evening to drink in Garradrimna. There was no poetry in them.
Often they would remain talking after this fashion until night had filled up all the open spaces of the woods. They would feel so far away from life amid the perfect stillness.... Their peace was rudely shattered one night by a sudden breaking away from them through the withered branches.... Instantly Ulick knew that this was some loafer sent to spy on them from Garradrimna, and Rebecca clung to him for protection.
Occasionally through the summer a lonely wailing had been heard in the woods of Garradrimna at the fall of night. Men drinking in the pubs would turn to one another and say:
"The Lord save us! Is that theBansheeI hear crying for one of the Moores? She cries like that always when one of them dies, they being a noble family. Maybe the Honorable Reginald is after getting his death at last in some whore-house in London."
"Arrah not at all, man, sure that's only Anthony Shaughness and he going crying through the woods for drink, the poor fellow!"
But the sound had ceased to disturb them for Anthony Shaughness had found an occupation at last. This evening he came running down from the woods into McDermott's bar, the loose soles of his boots slapping against the cobbles of the yard. Josie Guinan went up to him excitedly when he entered.
"Well?" This in a whisper as their heads came close together over the counter.
"Gimme a drink? I'm choked with the running, so I am!"
"Tell me did you see them first, or not a sup you'll get. Don't be so smart now, Anthony Shaughness!"
"Oh, I saw them all right. Gimme the drink?"
She filled the drink, making it overflow the glass in her hurry.
"Well?"
"Bedad I saw them all right. Heard every word they were saying, so I did, and everything! It was the devil's father to find them, so it was, they were that well hid in the woods.... Gimme another sup, Josie?"
"Now, Anthony?"
"Ah, but you don't know all I have to tell ye!"
Again she overflowed the glass in her mounting excitement.
"Well?"
The summer was beginning to wane, August having sped to its end. The schools had given vacation, and Rebecca Kerr had gone away from the valley to Donegal. Ulick Shannon had returned to Dublin. This was the uneventful season in the valley. Mrs. Brennan, finding little to talk about, had grown quiet in herself. Ned had taken his departure to Ballinamult, where he was engaged in putting some lead upon the roof of the police-barracks. He was drinking to his heart's content, she knew, and would come home to her without a penny saved against his long spell of idleness or the coming rigors of the winter. But she was thankful for the present that he had removed himself from the presence of his son. It was not good for such a son to be compelled to look upon such a father. She had prayed for this blessing and lo! it had come. And it extended further. Ulick Shannon too was gone from the valley, and so she was no longer annoyed by seeing him in company with her son. Their friendship had progressed through the months of July and August, and she was aware that they had been seen together many times in Garradrimna. She did not know the full truth but, as on the first occasion, the lake could tell. Rebecca Kerr was gone, and so there was no need to speak of this strange girl for whom some wild feeling had enkindled a flame of hatred within her. Thus wasshe left in loneliness and peace to dwell upon the wonder of her son. He seemed more real to her during these quiet days, nearer perhaps, than he had ever been since she had first begun to dream her great dream.
Of late he had taken to his room upstairs, where he did a little study daily. "So that it won't be altogether too strange when I go back again to college," he told her on more than one occasion when she besought him not to be blinding his eyes while there was yet leisure to rest them. There were times during the long quiet day in the house when her flood of love for him would so well up within her that she would call him down for no other reason than that she might have the great pleasure of allowing her eyes to rest upon him for a short space only. She would speak no word at all, so fearful would she be of disturbing the holy peace which fell between them. In the last week of his present stay in the valley this happened so often that it became a little wearying to John, who had begun to experience a certain feeling of independence in his own mind. It pained him greatly now that his mother should love him so.... And there were many times when he longed to be back in his English college, with his books and friends, near opportunities to escape from the influences which had conspired to change him.
One morning, after his mother had gazed upon him in this way, he came out of the house and leaned over the little wicket gate to take a look at the day. It was approaching Farrell McGuinness's time to be along with the post, and John expected him to have a letter from the rector of the College giving some directions as to the date of return. Yet he was not altogether so anxiousto return as he had been towards the ends of former vacations.... At last Farrell McGuinness appeared around the turn of the road. His blue uniform was dusty, and he carried his hard little cap in his hand. He dismounted from his red bicycle and took two letters out of his bag. He smirked obviously as he performed this action. John glanced in excitement at the letters. One was addressed in the handwriting of his friend Ulick Shannon and the other in the handwriting of a girl. It was this last one that had caused Farrell McGuinness to smirk so loudly.
"'Tis you that has the times, begad!" he said to John as he mounted his red bicycle and went on up the road, fanning his hot brow with his hard cap.
Mrs. Brennan came to the door to hear tidings of the letters from her son, but John was already hurrying down through the withering garden, tearing open both letters simultaneously.
"Who are they from?" she called out.
"From Ulick Shannon."
"And th'other one?"
"From a chap in the college," he shouted across his shoulder, lying boldly to her for the first time in his life. But if only she could see the confusion upon his face?
She went back into the sewing-room, a feeling of annoyance showing in the deep lines about her eyes. It seemed strange that he had not rushed immediately into the house to tell her what was in the letters, strange beyond all how he had not seen his way to make that much of her.
Down the garden John was reading Rebecca Kerr'sletter first, for it was from her that the letter from "one of the chaps in the college" had come.
It told of how she was spending her holidays at a seaside village in Donegal. "It is even far quieter than Garradrimna and the valley. I go down to the sea in the mornings, but it is only to think and dream. The sea is just like one big lake, more lonely by far than the lake in the valley. This is surely the loneliest place you could imagine, but there is a certain sense of peace about it that is quite lovely. It is some distance from my home, and it is nice to be amongst people who have no immense concern for your eternal welfare. I like this, and so I have avoided making acquaintances here. But next week I am expecting a very dear friend to join me, and so, I dare say, my holidays will have a happy ending after all. I suppose you will have gone from the valley when I go back in October. And it will be the dreary place then...." She signed herself, "Yours very sincerely, Rebecca Kerr."
His eyes were dancing as he turned to read Ulick Shannon's letter.... In the opening passages it treated only in a conventional way of college affairs, but suddenly he was upon certain lines which to his mind seemed so blackly emphasized:
"Now I was just beginning to settle back into the routine of things when who should come along but Miss Kerr? She was looking fine. She stayed a few days here in Dublin, and I spent most of them with her. I gave her the time of her life, the poor little thing! Theaters every night, and all the rest of it. She was just lost for a bit of enjoyment. Grinding away, you know, in those cursed National Schools from year's end toyear's end. Do you know what it is, John? I am getting fonder and fonder of that girl. She is the best little soul in all the world.
"She is spending her holidays up in some God-forsaken village in Donegal. Away from her people and by herself, you know. She has a girl friend going to see her next week. You will not be able to believe it probably—but I am the girl friend."
He read them and re-read them, these two letters which bore so intimately upon one another and which, through the coincidence of their arrival together, held convincing evidence of the dramatic moment that had arrived in the adventure of those two lives.
He became filled by an aching feeling that made him shiver and grow weak as if with some unknown expectation.... Yet why was he so disturbed in his mind as to this happening; what had he to do with it? He was one whose life must be directed away from such things. But the vision of Rebecca Kerr would be filling his eyes forever. And why had she written to him? Why had she so graphically pictured her condition of loneliness wherein he might enter and speak to her? His acquaintance with her was very slight, and yet he desired to know her beyond all the knowledge and beauty of the world.... And to think that it was Ulick Shannon who was now going where he longed to go.
A heavy constraint came between him and his mother during the remaining days. He spoke little and moved about in meditation like one fearful of things about to happen. But she fondly fancied as always that he was immersed in contemplation of the future she had planned for him. She never saw him setting forth into theautumn fields, a book in his hand, that she did not fancy the look of austere aloofness upon his face to be the expression of a priest reading his office. But thoughts of this kind were far from his mind in the fields or by the little wicket gate across which he often leaned, his eyes fixed upon the white, hard road which seemed to lead nowhere.
The day of his release at last came. Now that Ned was away from her, working in Ballinamult, she had managed to scrape together the price of another motor drive to Kilaconnaghan, but it was in the misfortune of things that Charlie Clarke's car should have been engaged for the very day of John's departure by the Houlihans of Clonabroney. It worried her greatly that she could not have this piece of grandeur upon this second occasion. Her intense devotion to religious literature had made her superstitious to a distressing degree. It appeared to her as an omen across the path of John and her own magnification. But John did not seem to mind.
It was notable that through his advance into contemplation he had triumphed over the power of the valley to a certain extent. So long as his mind had been altogether absorbed in thought of the priesthood he had moved about furtively, a fugitive, as it were, before the hateful looks of the people of the valley and the constant stare of the squinting windows. Now he had come into a little tranquillity and his heart was not without some happiness in the enjoyment of his larger vision.... And yet he was far from being completely at peace.
As he sat driving with his mother in the ass-trap to Kilaconnaghan, on his way back to the grand college inEngland, his doubts were assailing him although he was so quiet, to all seeming, sitting there. Those who passed them upon the road never guessed that this pale-faced young man in black was at war with his soul.... Few words passed between him and his mother, for the constraint of the past week had not yet been lifted. She was beginning to feel so lonely, and she was vexed with herself that the period of his stay in the valley had not been all she had dreamt of making it. It had been disappointing to a depressing extent, and now especially in its concluding stage. This sad excursion in the little ass-trap, without any of the pomp and circumstance which John so highly deserved, was a poor, mean ending.
He was running over in his mind the different causes which had given this vacation its unusual character. First there came remembrance of his journey down from Dublin with Mr. Myles Shannon, who had then suggested the friendship with his nephew Ulick. Springing out of this thought was a very vivid impression of Garradrimna, that ugly place which he had discovered in its true colors for the first time; its vile set of drunkards and the few secret lapses it had occasioned him. Then there was his father, that fallen and besotted man whom the valley had ruined past all hope. As a more intimate recollection his own doubts of the religious life by the lakeside arose clear before him. And the lake itself seemed very near, for it had been the silent witness of all his moods and conditions, the dead thing that had gathered to itself a full record of his sojourn in the valley. But, above all, there was Rebecca Kerr, whom he had contrived to meet so often as she went from school. It was she who now brought light to all the darkenedplaces of his memory. Her letter to him the other day was the one real thing he had been given to take away from the valley. How he longed to read it again! But his mother's eyes were upon him.... At last he began to have a little thought of the part she had played.
Already they had reached the railway station of Kilaconnaghan. They went together through the little waiting-room, which held sad memories for Mrs. Brennan, and out upon the platform, where a couple of porters leaned against their barrows chewing tobacco. Two or three passengers were sitting around beside their luggage waiting to take the train for Dublin. A few bank clerks from the town were standing in a little group which possessed an imaginary distinction, laughing in a genteel way at a puerile joke from some of the London weekly journals. They were wearing sporting clothes and had fresh fags in their mouths. It was an essential portion of their occupation, this perpetual delight in watching the outgoing afternoon train.
"Aren't they the grand-looking young swells?" said Mrs. Brennan; "I suppose them have the great jobs now?"
"Great!" replied John, quite unconscious of what he said.
He spoke no other word till he took his place in the train. She kissed him through the open window and hung affectionately to his hand.... Then there fluttered in upon them the moment of parting.... Smiling wistfully and waving her hand, she watched the train until it had rounded a curve. She lingered for a moment by the advertisement for Jameson's Whiskey in the waiting-room to wipe her eyes. She began to rememberhow she had behaved here in this very place on the day of John's home-coming, and of how he had left her standing while he talked to Myles Shannon.... He seemed to have slipped away from her now, and her present thought made her feel that the shadow of the Shannon family, stretching far across her life, had attended his going as it had attended his coming.
She went out to the little waiting ass and, mounting into the trap, drove out of Kilaconnaghan into the dark forest of her fears.
Through the earlier part of this term at college there was no peace in the mind of John Brennan, and his unsettled state arose, for the most part, from simple remembrance of things that had happened in the valley. Now it was because he could see again, some afternoon in the summer, Rebecca Kerr coming towards him down the road in a brown and white striped dress, that he thought was pretty, and swinging a sun-bonnet by its long cotton strings from her soft, small hand. Or again, some hour he had spent listening to Ulick Shannon as he talked about the things of life which are marked only by the beauty of passion and death. Always, too, with the aid of two letters he still treasured, his imagination would leap towards the creation of a picture—Rebecca and Ulick together in far-off Donegal.
He did not go home at Christmas because it was so expensive to return to Ireland, and in the lonely stretches of the vacation, when all his college friends were away from him, he felt that they must surely be meeting again, meeting and kissing in some quiet, dusky place—Rebecca as he had seen her always and Ulick as he had known him.
Even if he had wished to leave Ulick and Rebecca out of his mind, it would have been impossible, so persistently did his mother refer to both in her letters. There was never a letter which did not contain some allusionto "them two" or "that one" or "that fellow." In February, when the days began to stretch out again, he thought only of the valley coming nearer, with its long period of delight.... Within the fascination of his musing he grew forgetful of his lofty future. Yet there were odd moments when he remembered that he had moved into the valley a very different man at the beginning of last June. The valley had changed him, and might continue to change him when he went there again.
Nothing came to stay the even rise of his yearning save his mother's letters, which were the same recitals at all times of stories about the same people. At no time did he expect to find anything new in them, and so it was all the stronger blow when from one letter leaped out the news that Ulick Shannon had failed to pass his final medical exam., and was now living at home in Scarden House with his uncle Myles. That he had been "expelled from the University and disgraced" was the way she put it. It did not please John to see that she was exulting over what had happened to Ulick while hinting at the same time that there was no fear of a like calamity happening to her son. To him it appeared as not at all such an event as one might exult about. It rather evoked pity and condolence in the thought that it might happen to any man. It might happen to himself. Here surely was a fearful thing—the sudden dread of his return to the valley, a disgrace for life, and his mother a ruined woman in the downfall of her son.... This last letter of hers had brought him to review all the brave thoughts that had come to him by the lakeside, wild thoughts of living his own life, not in the way appointed for him by any other person, but freely, afterthe bent of his own will. Yet when he came to think of it quietly there was not much he could do in the world with his present education. It seemed to have fitted him only for one kind of life. And his thoughts of the summer might have been only passing distractions which must disappear with the full development of his mind. To think of those ideas ever coming suddenly to reality would be a blow too powerful to his mother. It would kill her. For, with other knowledge, the summer holidays had brought him to see how much she looked forward to his becoming a priest.
Quite unconsciously, without the least effort of his will, he found himself returning to his old, keen interest in his studies. He found himself coming back to his lost peace of mind. He felt somehow that his enjoyment of this grand contentment was the very best way he could flash back his mother's love. Besides it was the best earnest he had of the enjoyment of his coming holidays.
Then the disaster came. The imminence of it had been troubling the rector for a long time. His college was in a state of disintegration, for the Great War had cast its shadow over the quiet walls.
It was a charity college. This was a secret that had been well kept from the people of the valley by Mrs. Brennan. "A grand college in England" was the utmost information she would ever vouchsafe to any inquirer. She had formed a friendly alliance with the old, bespectacled postmistress and made all her things free of charge for keeping close the knowledge of John's exact whereabouts in England. Yet there was never a letter from mother to son or from son to mother thatthe old maid did not consider it her bounden duty to open and read.
The college had been supported by good people who could find nothing else to do with their money. But, in war-time, charity was diverted into other channels, and its income had consequently dwindled almost to vanishing point. Coupled with this, many of the students had left aside their books and gone into the Army. One morning the rector appeared in the lecture-hall to announce to the remnant that the college was about to be closed for "some time." He meant indefinitely, but the poor man could not put it in that way.
John heard the news with mingled feelings. In a dumb way he had longed for this after his return from the valley, but now he saw in it, not the arrival of a desired event, but a postponement of the great intention that had begun to absorb him again. He was achieving his desire in a way that made it a punishment.... To-morrow he would be going home.... But of course his mother knew everything by this time and was already preparing a welcome for him.
The March evening was gray and cold when he came into the deserted station of Kilaconnaghan. It had been raining ceaselessly since Christmas, and around and away from him stretched the sodden country. He got a porter to take his trunk out to the van and stand it on end upon the platform. Then he went into the waiting-room to meet his mother. But she was not there. Nor was the little donkey and trap outside the station house. Perhaps she was coming to meet him with Charlie Clarke in the grand and holy motor car. If he went on he might meet them coming through Kilaconnaghan. Hegot the porter to take his box from its place on the platform and put it into the waiting-room. All down through the town there was no sign of them, and when he got out upon the road to Garradrimna and the valley there was no sign of them either. The night had fallen thick and heavy, and John, as he went on through the rain, looked forward to the comforting radiance of Charlie Clarke's headlights suddenly to flash around every corner. But the car did not come and he began to grow weary of tramping through the wet night. All along the way he was meeting people who shouldered up to him and strove to peer into his face as he slipped past. He did not come on to the valley road by way of Garradrimna, but instead by The Road of the Dead, down which he went slopping through great pools at every few yards.
He was very weary when he came at last to the door of his mother's house. Before knocking he had listened for a while to the low hum of her reading to his father. Then he heard her moving to open the door, and immediately she was silhouetted in the lamp-light.
"Is that you, John? We knew you were coming home. We got the rector's letter."
He noticed a queer coldness in her tone.
"I'd rather to God that anything in the world had happened than this. What'll they say now? They'll say you were expelled. As sure as God, they'll say you were expelled!"
He threw himself into the first chair he saw.
"Did any one meet you down the road? Did many meet you from this to Kilaconnaghan?"
He did not answer. This was a curious welcome he was receiving. Yet he noticed that tears were beginning to creep into her eyes, which were also red as if from much recent weeping.
"Oh, God knows, and God knows again, John, I'd rather have died than it should have come to this. And why was it that after all me contriving and after all me praying and good works this bitter cross should have fallen? I don't know. I can't think for what I am being punished and why misfortune should come to you. And what'll they say at all at all? Oh you may depend upon it that it's the worst thing they'll say. But you mustn't tell them that the college is finished. For I suppose it's finished now the way everything is going to be finished before the war. But you mustn't say that. You must say that it is on special holidays you are, after having passed a Special examination. And you must behave as if you were on holidays!"
Such a dreadful anxiety was upon her that she appeared no longer as his mother, the infinitely tender woman he had known. She now seemed to possess none of the pure contentment her loving tenderness should have brought her. She was altogether concerned as to what the people would say and not as to the effect of the happening upon her son's career. He had begun to think of this for himself, but it was not of it that she was now thinking.... She was thinking of herself, of her pride, and that was why she had not come to meet him. And now his clothes were wet and he was tired, for he had walked from Kilaconnaghan in the rain.
Ned Brennan, stirring out of his drunken doze, muttered thickly: "Ah, God blast yourselves and your college, can't you let a fellow have a sleep be the fire after his hard day!"
John went from the kitchen to a restless night. Soon after daybreak he got up and looked out of the window. The crows had been flying across it darkly since the beginning of the light. He gazed down now towards the stretch of trees about the lake. They were dark figures in the somber picture. He had not seen them since autumn, and even then some of the brightness of summer had lingered with them. Now they looked as if they had been weeping. He could see the lake between the clumps of fir-trees. The water was all dark like the scene in which it was framed. It now beat itself into a futile imitation of billows, into a kind of make-believe before the wild things around that it was an angry sea, holding deep in its caverns the relics of great dooms. But the trees seemed to rock in enjoyment and to join forces with the wild things in tormenting the lake.
John looked at the clock. It was early hours, and there would be no need to go out for a long time. He went back to bed and remained there without sleep, gazing up at the ceiling.... He fell to thinking of what he would have to face in the valley now.... His mother had hinted at the wide scope of it last night when she said that she would rather anything in God's world had happened than this thing, this suddenhome-coming.... She was thinking only of her own pride. It was an offense against her pride, he felt, and that was all. It stood to lessen the exalted position which the purpose of his existence gave her before the other women of the valley. But he had begun to feel the importance of his own person in the scheme of circumstance by which he was surrounded. It had begun to appear to him that he mattered somehow; that in some undreamt-of way he might leave his mark upon the valley before he died.
He would go to Mass in Garradrimna this morning. He very well knew how this attendance at morning Mass was a comfort to his mother. He was about to do this thing to please her now. Yet, how was the matter going to affect himself? He would be stared at by the very walls and trees as he went the wet road into Garradrimna; and no matter what position he might take up in the chapel there would be very certain to be a few who would come kneeling together into a little group and, in hushed tones within the presence of their God upon the altar, say:
"Now, isn't that John Brennan I see before me, or can I believe my eyes? Aye, it must be him. Expelled, I suppose. Begad that's great. Expelled! Begad!" If he happened to take the slightest side-glance around, he would catch glimpses of eyes sunk low beneath brows which published expressions midway between pity and contempt, between delight and curiosity.... In some wonderful way the first evidence of his long hoped for downfall would spread throughout the small congregation. Those in front would let their heads or prayerbooks fall beside or behind them, so that they might havean excuse for turning around to view the young man who, in his unfortunate presence here, stood for this glad piece of intelligence. The acolytes serving Father O'Keeffe, and having occasional glimpses of the congregation, would see the black-coated figure set there in contradistinction to Charlie Clarke and the accustomed voteens with the bobbing bonnets. In their wise looks up at him they would seem to communicate the news to the priest.
And although only a very few seconds had elapsed, Father O'Keeffe would have thrown off his vestments and be going bounding towards the Presbytery for his breakfast as John emerged from the chapel. It would be an ostentatious meeting. Although he had neither act nor part in it, nor did he favor it in any way, Father O'Keeffe always desired people to think that it was he who was "doing for Mrs. Brennan's boy beyond in England." ... There would be the usual flow of questions, a deep pursing of the lips, and the sudden creation of a wise, concerned, ecclesiastical look at every answer. Then there was certain to come the final brutal question: "And what are you going to do with yourself meanwhile, is it any harm to ask?" As he continued to stare up vacantly at the ceiling, John could not frame a possible answer to that question. And yet he knew it would be the foremost of Father O'Keeffe's questions.
There would be the hurried crowding into every doorway and into all the squinting windows as he went past. Outwardly there would be smiles of welcome for him, but in the seven publichouses of Garradrimna the exultation would be so great as to make men who had beenancient enemies stand drinks to one another in the moment of gladness which had come upon them with the return of John Brennan.
"'Tis expelled he is like Ulick Shannon. That's as sure as you're there!"
"To be sure he's expelled. And wouldn't any one know he was going to be expelled the same as the other fellow, the way they were conducting themselves last summer, running after gerrls and drinking like hell?"
"And did ye ever hear such nonsense? The idea of him going on for to be a priest!" Then there would be a shaking of wise heads and a coming of wise looks into their faces.
He could see what would happen when he met the fathers of Garradrimna, when he met Padna Padna or Shamesy Golliher. There would be the short, dry laugh from Padna Padna, and a pathetic scrambling of the dimming intelligence to recognize him.
"And is that you, John? Back again! Well, boys-a-day! And isn't it grand that Ulick Shannon is at home these times too? Isn't it a pity about Ulick, for he's a decent fellow? Every bit as decent as his father, Henry Shannon, was, and he was a damned decent fellow. Ah, 'tis a great pity of him to be exshpelled. Aye,'tis a great pity of any one that does be exshpelled."
The meeting with Shamesy Golliher formed as a clearer picture before his mind.
"Arrah me sound man, John, sure I thought you'd be saying the Mass before this time. There's nothing strange in the valley at all. Only 'tis harder than ever to get the rabbits, the weeshy devils! Only for UlickShannon I don't know what I'd do for a drink sometimes. But, damn it, he's the decentest fellow.... You're only a few minutes late, sure 'tis only this blessed minute that Miss Kerr's gone on to the school.... And you could have been chatting with her so grandly all the way!"
That John Brennan should be thinking after this fashion, creating all those little scenes before the eye of his mind and imagining their accompanying conversations, was indicative of the way the valley and the village had forced their reality upon him last summer. But this pictured combination of incidents was intensified by a certain morbid way of dwelling upon things his long spells of meditation by the lake had brought him. Yet he knew that even all his clear vision of the mean ways of life around him would not act as an incentive to combat them but, most extraordinary to imagine, as a sort of lure towards the persecution of their scenes and incidents.
"It must be coming near time to rise for Mass," he said aloud to himself, as he felt that he had been quite a long time giving himself up to speculations in which there was no joy.
There was a tap upon the door. It was his mother calling him, as had been her custom during all the days of his holiday times. The door opened and she came into the room. Her manner seemed to have changed somewhat from the night before. The curious look of tenderness she had always displayed while gazing upon him seemed to have struggled back into her eyes. She came and sat by the bedside and, for a few moments, both were silent.
"'Tis very cold this morning, mother," was the only thing John could think of saying.
A slight confusion seemed to have come upon her since her entrance to the room. Without any warning by a word, she suddenly threw her arms about him as he lay there on the bed and covered his face with kisses. He was amazed, but her kisses seemed to hurt him.... It must have been years and years since she had kissed him like this, and now he was a man.... When she released him so that he could look up at her he saw that she was crying.
"I'm sorry about last night, John," she said. "I'm sorry, darling; but surely I could not bring myself to do it. Even for a few hours I wanted to keep them from knowing. I even wanted to keep your father from knowing. So I did not tell him until I heard your poor, wet foot come sopping up to the door. He did not curse much then, for he seems to have begun to feel a little respect for you. But the curses of him all through the night were enough to lift the roof off the house. Oh, he's the terrible man, for all me praying and all me reading to him of good, holy books; and 'tis no wonder for all kinds of misfortune to fall, though God between us and all harm, what am I saying at all?... It was the hard, long walk down the wet, dark road from Kilaconnaghan last night, and it pained me every inch of the way. If it hurt your feet and your limbs,avic, remember that your suffering was nothing to the pain that plowed through your mother's heart all the while you were coming along to this house.... But God only knows I couldn't. I couldn't let them see me setting off into the twilight upon the little ass, and Igoing for me son. I even went so far as to catch the little ass and yoke him, and put on the grand clothes I was decked out in when I met you last June with the motor. But somehow I hadn't the heart for the journey this time, and you coming home before you were due. I couldn't let them see me! I couldn't let them see me, so I couldn't!"
"But it is not my fault, mother. I have not brought it about directly by any action of mine. It comes from the changed state of everything on account of the Great War. You may say it came naturally."
"Ah, sure I know that, dear, I know it well, and don't be troubling yourself. In the letter of the rector before the very last one didn't he mention the change of resigned application that had at last come to you, and that you had grown less susceptible—I think that is the grand word he used—aye, less susceptible to distractions and more quiet in your mind? And I knew as well as anything that it was coming to pass so beautifully, that all the long prayers I had said for you upon me two bare, bended knees were after being heard at last, and a great joy was just beginning to come surging into me heart when the terrible blow of the last letter fell down upon me. But sure I used to be having the queerest dreams, and I felt that nothing good was going to happen when Ulick Shannon came down here expelled from the University in Dublin. You used to be a great deal in his company last summer, and mebbe there was some curse put upon the both of you together. May God forgive me, but I hate that young fellow like poison. I don't know rightly why it is, but it vexes me to see him idling around the way he is after what'shappened to him. Bragging about being expelled he bees every day in McDermott's of Garradrimna. And his uncle Myles is every bit as bad, going to keep him at home until the end of next summer. 'To give him time to think of things,' he says. 'I'm going to find a use for him,' he says to any one that asks him, 'never you fear!' Well, begad, 'tis a grand thing not to know what to do with your money like the Shannons of Scarden Hill.... But sure I'm talking and talking. 'Tis what I came in to tell you now of the plan I have been making up all night. If we let them see that we're lying down under this misfortune we're bet surely. We must put a brave face upon it. You must make a big show-off that you're after getting special holidays for some great, successful examination you've passed ahead of any one else in the college. I'll let on I'm delighted, and be mad to tell it to every customer that comes into the sewing-room. But you must help me; you must go about saying hard things of Ulick Shannon that's after being expelled, for that's the very best way you can do it. He'll mebbe seek your company like last year, but you must let him see for certain that you consider yourself a deal above him. But you mustn't be so quiet and go moping so much about the lake as you used to. You must go about everywhere, talking of yourself and what you're going to be. Now you must do all this for my sake—won't you, John?"
His tremulous "yes" was very unenthusiastic and seemed to hold no great promise of fulfilment. These were hard things his mother was asking him to do, and he would require some time to think them over.... But even now he wondered was it in him to do themat all. The attitude towards Ulick Shannon which she now proposed would be a curious thing, for they had been the best of friends.
"And while you're doing this thing for me, John, I'll be going on with me plans for your future. It was me, and me only, that set up this beautiful plan of the priesthood as the future I wanted for you. I got no one to help me, I can tell you that. Only every one to raise their hands against me. And in spite of all that I carried me plan to what success the rector spoke of in his last letter. And even though this shadow has fallen across it, me son and meself between us are not going to let it be the end. For I want to see you a priest, John. I want to see you a priest before I die. God knows I want to see that before I die. Nan Byrne's son a priest before she dies!"
Her speech mounted to such a pitch of excitement that towards the end it trailed away into a long, frenzied scream. It awoke Ned Brennan where he dozed fitfully in the next room, and he roared out:
"Ah, what the hell are yous gosthering and croaking about in there at this hour of the morning, the two of yous? It'd be serving you a lot better to be down getting me breakfast, Nan Byrne!"
She came away very quietly from the bedside of her son and left the room. John remained for some time thinking over the things she had been saying. Then he rose wearily and went downstairs. It was only now he noticed that his mother had dried his clothes. It must have taken her a good portion of the night to do this. His boots, which had been so wet and muddy after his walk from Kilaconnaghan, were now polishedto resplendence and standing clean and dry beside the fire. The full realization of these small actions brought a fine feeling of tenderness into his mind.... He quickly prepared himself to leave the house. She observed him with concern as she went about cooking the breakfast for her man.
"You're not going to Mass this morning, are ye, John?"
"Oh, no!" he replied with a nervous quickness. "Our chat delayed me. It is now past nine."
"Ah, dear, sure I never thought while I was talking. The last time I kept you it was the morning after the concert, and even then you were in time for 'half-past eight'.... But sure, anyhow, you're too tired this morning."
"I'm going for a little walk before breakfast."
The words broke in queerly upon the thought she had just expressed, but his reason was nothing more than to avoid his father, who would be presently snapping savagely at his breakfast in the kitchen.
The wet road was cheerless and the bare trees and fields were cold and lonely. Everything was in contrast to the mood in which he had known it last summer. It seemed as if he would never know it in that mood again. Now that he had returned it was a poor thing and very small beside the pictures his dream had made.... He was wandering down The Road of the Dead and there was a girl coming towards him. He knew it was Rebecca Kerr, and this meeting did not appear in the least accidental.
She was dressed, as he had not previously seen her, in a heavy brown coat, a thick scarf about her throat anda pretty velvet cap which hid most of her hair. Her small feet were well shod in strong boots, and she came radiantly down the wet road. A look of surprise sprang into her eyes when she saw him, and she seemed uncertain of herself as they stopped to speak.
"Back again?" she said, not without some inquisitive surprise in her tones.
"Yes, another holiday," he said quickly.
"Nothing wrong?" she queried.
"Well, well, no; but the college has closed down for the period of the war."
"That is a pity."
He laughed a queer, excited little laugh, in which there did not seem to be any mirth or meaning. Then he picked himself up quickly.
"You won't tell anybody?"
"What about?"
"This that I have told you, about the college."
"Oh, dear no!" she replied very quickly, as if amazed and annoyed that he should have asked her to respect this little piece of information as a confidence. And she had not reckoned on meeting him at all. Besides she had not spoken so many words to him since the morning after the concert.
She lifted her head high and went on walking between the muddy puddles on the way to the valley school.
John felt somewhat crushed by her abruptness, especially after what he had told her. And where was the fine resolve with which his mother had hoped to infuse him of acting a brave part for her sake before the people of the valley?
Myles Shannon and his nephew Ulick sat at breakfast in the dining-room of the big house among the trees. TheIrish Timesof the previous day's date was crackling in the elder man's hand.
"Did you ever think of joining the Army, Ulick? It is most extraordinary, the number of ne'er-do-wells who manage to get commissions just now. Why I think there should be no bother at all if you tried. With your knowledge I fancy you could get into the R.A.M.C. It is evidently infernally easy. I suppose your conduct at the University would have nothing to do with your chances of acceptance or rejection?"
"Oh, not at all."
"I thought not."
"But I fancied, uncle, that when I came down here from Dublin I had done with intending myself to kill people. That is, with joining any combination for purposes of slaughter."
Myles Shannon lifted his eyes from the paper and smiled. Evidently he did not appreciate the full, grim point of the joke, but he rather fancied there was something subtle about it, and it was in that quiet and venerable tradition of humorous things his training had led him to enjoy. This was one of the reasons why, even though a Catholic and a moderate Nationalist, he hadremained a devoted reader of theIrish Times. He was conservative even in his humor.
"But in Army medical work, however, there is always the compensating chance of the gentleman with the license to kill getting killed himself," continued Ulick.
His lips closed now, for he had at last come to the end of his joke. The conversation lapsed, and Mr. Shannon went on with his reading. Ulick had been to Garradrimna on the previous evening, and he was acutely conscious of many defects in his own condition and in the condition of the world about him this morning. His thoughts were now extending with all the power of which they were capable to his uncle, that silent, intent man, whose bald head stretched expansively before him.
Myles Shannon was a singularly fine man, and in thinking of him as such his mind began to fill with imaginations of the man his father must have been. He had never known his father nor, for the matter of that, could he boast of any deep acquaintance with his uncle, yet what an excellent, restrained type of man he was to be sure! Another in the same position as his guardian would have flogged himself into a fury over the mess he had made of his studies. But it had not been so with his uncle. He had behaved with a calm forbearance. He had supplied him with time and money, and had gone even so far as to look kindly upon the affair with Rebecca Kerr. He had been here since the beginning of the year, and all his uncle had so far said to him by way of asserting his authority was spoken very quietly:
"Now, I'll give you a fair time to think over things. I'll give you till the end of the summer holidays, till after young Brennan comes and goes." These had been his uncle's exact words, and he had not attempted to question them or to qualify them at the time. But just now they were running through his brain with the most curious throbbing insistence. "Till after young Brennan comes and goes." He knew that his uncle had taken an unusual fancy to John Brennan and evidently wished that his summer holidays should be spent enjoyably. But it was a long time until summer, and he was not a person one might conscientiously commend to the friendship of a clerical student. He very often went to Garradrimna.
Ulick had already formed some impressions of his fellow man. He held it as his opinion that at the root of an action, which may appear extraordinary because of its goodness, is always an amount of selfishness. Yet, somehow, as he carefully considered his uncle in the meditative spaces of the breakfast he could not fit him in with this idea.
As he went on with his thought he felt that it was the very excess of his uncle's qualities which had had such a curious effect upon his relations with Rebecca Kerr. It was the very easiness of the path he had afforded to love-making which now made it so difficult. If they had been forbidden and if they had been persecuted, their early affection must have endured more strongly. The opposition of the valley and the village still continued, but Ulick considered their bearing upon him now as he had always considered it—with contempt.
There had been a good deal of wild affectiontransported into their snatched meetings during the past summer in Donegal. After Christmas, too, he had gone there to see her, and then had happened the climax of their love-making in a quiet cottage within sound of the sea.... Both had moved away from that glowing moment forever changed. Neither could tell of the greatness of the shadow that had fallen between them.
He remembered all her tears on the first evening he had met her after coming back to the valley. There had been nothing in her letters, only the faintest suggestion of some strained feeling. Then had come this unhappy meeting.... She had tortured herself into the belief that it was she who was responsible for his failure.
"With all the time you have wasted coming to see me I have destroyed you. When you should have been at your studies I was taking you up to Donegal."
As he listened to these words between her sobs, there rushed in upon him full realization of all her goodness and the contrast of two pictures her words had called to his mind.... There was he by her side, her head upon his shoulder in that lonely cottage in Donegal, their young lives lighting the cold, bare place around them.... And then the other picture of himself bent low over his dirty, thumb-greased books in that abominable street up and down which a cart was always lumbering. All the torture of this driving him to Doyle's pub at the corner, and afterwards along some squalid street of ill-fame with a few more drunken medical students.
He was glad to be with her again. They met very often during his first month at his uncle's house, in dark spots along the valley road and The Road of the Dead. Then he began to notice a curious reserve springing upbetween them. She was becoming mysterious while at the same time remaining acutely present in his life.
One morning she had asked him if he intended to remain long in the valley, and he had not known how to reply to her. Another time she had asked him if he was going to retire altogether from the study of medicine, and with what did he intend to occupy himself now? And, upon a certain occasion, she had almost asked him was it the intention of his uncle to leave him the grand farm and the lovely house among the trees?
These were vexatious questions and so different from any part of the talk they used to have here in the valley last summer or at the cottage in Donegal. Her feeling of surrender in his presence had been replaced by a sense of possession which seemed the death of all that kindling of her heart. Then it had happened that, despite the encouragement of his uncle, a shadow had fallen upon his love-affair with Rebecca Kerr.... He was growing tired of his idle existence in the valley. Very slowly he was beginning to see life from a new angle. He was disgusted with himself and with the mess he had made of things in Dublin. He could not say whether it was her talk with him that had shamed him into thinking about it, but he felt again like making something of himself away from this mean place. Once or twice he wondered whether it was because he wanted to get away from her. Somehow his uncle and himself were the only people who seemed directly concerned in the matter. His uncle was a very decent man, and he felt that he could not presume on his hospitality any longer.
Mr. Shannon took off his spectacles and laid by theIrish Times. There was an intimate bond between the man and his paper. He always considered it as hitting off his own opinions to a nicety upon any subject under the sun. This always after he had read the leaders which dealt with these subjects. It afforded a contribution to his thought and ideas out of which he spoke with a surer word.
Old Susan Hennessy came into the room with some letters that Farrell McGuinness was after leaving. She hobbled in, a hunched, decrepit woman, now in the concluding stages of her long life as housekeeper to the Shannons, and put the letters into her master's hand.... Then she lingered, quite unnecessarily, about the breakfast-table. Her toothless gums were stripping as words began to struggle into her mouth.... Mr. Shannon took notice of her. This was her usual behavior when she had anything of uncommon interest to say.
"Well, what is it now?" said Mr. Shannon, not without some weariness in his tones, for he expected only to hear some poor piece of local gossip.
"It's how Farrell McGuinness is after telling me, sir, that John Brennan is home."
"Is that a fact?"
"And Farrell says that by the looks on the outside of a certain letter that came to Mrs. Brennan th'other day it is what he is after being expelled."
"Expelled. Well, well!"
There was a mixture of interest and anxiety in Mr. Shannon's tones.
"A good many of those small English colleges are getting broken up and the students drifting into the Army, I suppose that's the reason; but of course they'll say he'sbeen expelled," Ulick ventured as old Susan slipped from the room and down to the loneliness of the kitchen, where she might brood to her heart's content over this glad piece of information, for she was one who well knew the story of John Brennan's mother and "poor Misther Henery Shannon."
"Is that so?" The interest of Mr. Shannon was rapidly mounting towards excitement.
"A case like that is rather hard," said Ulick.
"Yes, it will be rather hard on Mrs. Brennan, I fancy, she being so stuck-up with pride in him."
He could just barely hide his feelings of exultation.
"And John Brennan is not a bad fellow."
"I daresay he's not."
There was now a curious note of impatience in the elder man's tones as if he wished, for some reason or other, to have done speaking of the matter.
"It will probably mean the end of his intention for the Church."
"That is more than likely. These sudden changes have the effect of throwing a shadow over many a young fellow's vocation."
His eyes twinkled, but he fingered his mustache nervously as he said this.
"Funny to think of the two of us getting thrown down together, we being such friends!"
The doubtful humor in the coincidence had appealed to the queer kink that was in the mind of Ulick, and it was because of it he now spoke. It was the merest wantonness that he should have said this thing, and yet it seemed instantly to have struck some hidden chord of deeper thought in his uncle's mind. When MylesShannon spoke again it was abruptly, and his words seemed to spring out of a sudden impulse:
"You'd better think over that matter of the Army I have just mentioned."
It was the first time his uncle Myles had spoken to him in this way, and now that the rod of correction had fallen even thus lightly he did not like it at all. He felt that his face was already flushing.... And into his mind was burning again the thought of how he had made such a mess of things.... He moved towards the door, and there was his uncle's voice again raised as if in the reproof of authority:
"And where might you be going to-day?"
"Down the valley to see my friend John Brennan, who'll be surely lonely on the first day at home," he said, rather hurriedly, as he went out in the hallway to get his overcoat.
When Myles Shannon was left alone he immediately drifted into deeper thought there in the empty room with his back to the fire. With one hand he clasped his long coat-tails, and with the other nervously twirled his long mustache. He was thinking rapidly, and his thoughts were so strong within him that he was speaking them aloud.
"I might not have gone so far. Don't you see how I might have waited in patience and allowed the hand of Fate to adjust things? See how grandly they are coming around.... And now maybe I have gone too far. Maybe I have helped to spoil Ulick's life into the bargain. And then there's the third party, this girl, Rebecca Kerr?"
He looked straight out before him now, and away overthe remains of the breakfast.... He crossed to the window and gazed for a while over the wet fields. He moved into the cold, empty parlor and gazed from its window also over the fields.... Then he turned and for a space remained looking steadfastly at the bureau which held so much ofHer. Quite suddenly he crossed over and unlocked it.... Yes, there, with the other dead things, were the photograph of Helena Cooper and the letters she had written, and the letter John Brennan's mother had written about him. He raised his eyes from the few, poor relics and they gathered into their depths the loneliness of the parlor.... Here was the picture of this girl, who was young and lovely, while around him, surging emptily forever, was the loneliness of his house. It was Nan Byrne who had driven him to this, and it was Nan Byrne who had ruined his brother Henry.... And yet he was weakly questioning his just feelings of revenge against this woman, but for whom he might now be a happy man. He might have laughter in this house and the sound of children at play. But now he had none of these things, and he was lonely.... He looked into the over-mantel, and there he was, an empty figure, full of a strong family pride that really stood for nothing, a polite survival from the mild romance of the early nineties of the last century, a useless thing amid his flocks and herds. A man who had none of the contentment which comes from the company of a woman or her children, a mean creature, who, during visits to the cattle-market, occasionally wasted his manhood in dingy adventure about low streets in Dublin. One who remained apart from the national thought of his own country readingqueer articles in theIrish Timesabout "resolute" government of Ireland.
His head lay low upon his chest because he was a man mightily oppressed by a great feeling of abasement.
"In the desolation of her heart through the destruction of her son," he muttered to himself, not without a certain weariness, as he moved away from the mirror.
Whenever a person from the valley went abroad now to fair or market the question was always asked:
"Is it a fact that Ulick Shannon was expelled from the University in Dublin and is at home? And is it a fact that John Brennan is at home from the college he was at too, the grand college in England whose story his mother spread far and wide?"
"That's quite so, ma'am. It's a double fact!"
"Well, well!"
"And is it a fact that they do be always together, going by back ways into the seven publichouses of Garradrimna?"
"Oh, indeed, that's true, ma'am, and now you have the whole of it. Sure it was in the same seven publichouses that the pair of them laid the foundations of their ruination last summer. Sure, do ye know what I'm going to tell you? They couldn't be kept out of them, and that's as sure as you're there!"
Now it was true that if Ulick had gone at all towards Garradrimna it was through very excess of spirits, and it was for the very same reason that he had enticed John Brennan to go with him.... That time they were full of hope and their minds were held by their thoughts of Rebecca. But now, somehow, she seemed to have slippedout of the lives of both of them. And because both had chosen. The feeling had entered into Ulick's heart. But in the case of John Brennan it was not so certain. What had brought him out upon the first morning of his homecoming to take a look at her? It would seem that, through the sudden quickening of his mind towards study just before the break-up of the college, he should have forgotten her.... His life now seemed to hang in the balance shudderingly; a breath might direct it anyway.
He felt that he should have liked to make some suggestions of his own concerning his future, but there was always that tired look of love in his mother's eyes to frustrate his intention.... Often he would go into the sewing-room of a morning and she would say so sadly as she bent over her machine—"I'm contriving, John; I'm contriving!" He had come to the years of manhood and yet he must needs leave every initiative in her hands since she would have it so.... Thus was he driven from the house at many a time of the day.
He went to morning Mass as usual, but the day was long and dreary after that, for the weather was wet and the coldness of winter still lay heavy over the fields. The evenings were the dreariest as he sat over his books in his room and listened to the hum of his mother's machine. Later this would give place to the tumultuous business of his father's home-coming from Garradrimna. Sometimes things were broken, and the noise would destroy his power of application. Thus it was that, for the most part, he avoided the house in the evenings. At the fall of dark he would go slipping along the wet road on his way to Garradrimna. Where the way from Scarden joined the way from Tullahanogue he generally metUlick Shannon, comfortably top-coated, bound for the same place.
It seemed as if the surrounding power of the talk their presence in the valley had created was driving them towards those scenes in which that talk had pictured them. Through the dusk people would smirk at them as they were seen going the road.... They would slip into McDermott's by the same back way that Ned Brennan had often gone to Brannagan's. Many a time did they pass the place in the woods where John had beheld the adventure of his father and the porter last summer.... In the bottling room of McDermott's they would fancy they were unseen, but Shamesy Golliher or Padna Padna or Thomas James would be always cropping up most unaccountably to tell the tale when they went out into the bar again after what would appear the most accidental glance into the bottling-room.... John would take port wine and Ulick whatever drink he preferred. But even the entertainment of themselves after this fashion did not evoke the subtle spell of last summer. There was no laughter, no stories, even of a questionable kind, when Josie Guinan came to answer their call. Every evening she would ask the question:
"Well, how is Rebecca, Ulick?"
This gross familiarity irritated him greatly, for his decent breeding made him desire that she should keep her distance. Besides he did not want any one to remind him of Rebecca just now. He never answered this question, nor the other by which it was always followed:
"You don't see her very often now, do ye? But of course the woods bees wet these times."
The mere mention of Rebecca's name in this filthyplace annoyed John Brennan, who thought of her continuously as some one far beyond all aspects of Garradrimna.
Yet they would be forever coming here to invite this persecution. Ulick would ever and again retreat into long silences that were painful for his companion. But John found some solace come to him through the port wine. So much was this the case that he began to have a certain hankering after spending the evening in this way. When the night had fallen thick and dark over Garradrimna they would come out of McDermott's and spend long hours walking up and down the valley road. Ulick would occasionally give vent to outbursts of talk upon impersonal subjects—the war and politics, the tragic trend of modern literature. John always listened with interest. He never wished to return early to the house, for he dreaded the afflicted drone of his mother reading the holy books to his father by the kitchen fire.
During those brief spells, when the weather brightened for a day or two, he often took walks down by the school and towards the lake.... Always he felt, through power of an oppressive realization, that the eyes of Master Donnellan were upon him as he slipped past the school.... So he began to go by a lane which did not take him before the disappointed eyes of the old man.
Going this way one day he came upon a battered school-reader of an advanced standard, looking so pathetic in its final desertion by its owner, for there is nothing so lonely as the things a schoolboy leaves behind him.... He began to remember the days when he, too, had gone to the valley school and there instituted the great promise which, so far, had not come to fulfilment. He wasturning over the leaves when he came on a selection from Carlyle'sFrench Revolution—"Thy foot to light on softness, thy eye on splendor." He pondered it as he stood by the water's edge and until it connected itself with his thought of Rebecca.Thy foot to light on softness, thy eye on splendor.
It would be nearing three o'clock now, he thought, and Rebecca must soon be going from school. He might see her passing along between the muddy puddles on The Road of the Dead.
He had fallen down before her again.