In the high, gusty evening Tommy Williams, the gombeen-man, was standing proudly at his own door surveying the street of Garradrimna. It was his custom to appear thus at the close of the day in contemplation of his great possessions. He owned four houses in the village, four proud buildings which advertised his worth before the beggars of the parish—out of whom he had made the price of them. But he was distrustful of his customers to an enormous degree, and his purpose in standing thus at his own door was not altogether one of aimless speculation upon his own spacious importance in Garradrimna. He was watching to see that some people going down the valley road upon ass-carts did not attempt to take away any of the miscellaneous merchandise exhibited outside the door. As he stood against the background of his shop, from which he might be said to have derived his personality, one could view the man in his true proportions beneath his hard, high hat. His short beard was beginning to show tinges of gray, and the deepening look of preoccupation behind his glasses gave him the appearance of becoming daily more and more like John Dillon.
Father O'Keeffe came by and said: "Good-evening, Tommy!" This was a tribute to his respectability and worth. He was the great man of the village, the head and front of everything. Events revolved around him.He would have you know that he was somebody, so he was. A politician after the fashion in the Ireland of his time, he organized and spoke at public meetings. He always wanted to be saying things in support of "The Cause." "The Cause" was to him a kind of poetic ideal. His patriotic imagination had intensified its glory. But it was not the future of Ireland he yearned to see made glorious. He looked forward only to the triumph of "The Cause."
Upon the death of his father, also a patriot, the little mean huckstery at the tail end of the village street had descended to him; and although he had risen to the dignity and proprietorship of four houses, this establishment had never changed, for, among the many ancient superstitions which crowded his mind, the hoary one of the existence of luck where there is muck occupied a place of prominence. And like his father he was a rebel—in his mind. The more notable political mountebanks of his time were all men who had fought as upon a field of battle. Words served them as weapons, and words were the weapons that he loved; he might have died if he were not fighting, and to him talk meant battle. He used to collect all the supplemental pictures of those patriots fromThe Weekly Freemanand paste them in a scrapbook for edification of his eldest son, whom he desired to be some day a unit of their combination. An old-fashioned print of Dan O'Connell hung side by side with a dauby caricature of Robert Emmet in the old porter-smelling parlor off the bar. The names of the two men were linked inseparably with one of his famous phrases—"The undying spirit of Irish Nationality."
Occasionally, when he had a drunken and enthusiasticcrowd in that part of his many-sided establishment which was a public bar, he would read out in a fine loud voice how "The Cause" was progressing, and, having learned by heart a speech of John Dillon's, he would lash it out to them as a composition of his own. Whereupon the doubly excited audience would shake his hand as one man and shout: "More power there, mister; 'tis yourself is the true Irishman, me sweet fellow!" He could be very funny too when occasion demanded, and tell stories of Father Healy of Bray at pleasant little dinners which took place in the upper story of his house after every political meeting held in Garradrimna. He never missed the opportunity and the consequent honor of singing "On an old Irish Hill in the Morning" at every one of those dinners. He was always warmly applauded by Father O'Keeffe, who invariably occupied the chair. He was treasurer of the fund, out of which he was paid for supplying all this entertainment.
His wife was the daughter of a farmer of the "red-hat" class. He had been compelled to marry her.... If this had happened to a poor man the talk would have followed him to the grave. But they were afraid to talk censoriously of the patriot who had enveloped all of them. He practically owned them.... The priest could not deliver an attack upon the one who headed his lists of Offerings and Easter Dues and the numerous collections which brought in the decent total of Father O'Keeffe's income.
To Rebecca Kerr had been given the position of governess to the Williams household. She had not sought it, but, on the removal of the two boys, Michael Joseph and Paddy, from the care of Master Donnellan to thismore genteel way of imparting knowledge and giving correction, which savored somewhat of the splendor of the Moores of Garradrimna and the Houlihans of Clonabroney, had merely accepted it as part of the system of the place. She had fully anticipated such possibilities upon the very evening of her arrival.... Besides old Master Donnellan had thanked her from his heart for the release she had been the means of affording him, and she liked the master for a quiet, kind old man who did not prate or meddle. So far she had made little improvement in either of the boys. But Mrs. Williams was evidently delighted for "our governess, Miss Kerr," was the one person she ever spoke a good word of to Father O'Keeffe.
This evening Rebecca was in the parlor, seated just beneath the pictures of Dan O'Connell and Robert Emmet, wrestling hard with the boys. All at once her pupils commanded her to be silent. "Whist!" they said in unison. She was momentarily amazed into eavesdropping at their behest....
"Oh, not at all, Mrs. Brennan, sure and I couldn't think of the like at all at all!"
"Well, Mr. Williams, as a well-known benefactor of the college at Ballinamult and a good, religious man to boot, I thought that mebbe you could give John a recommendation. It would be grand to see him there and he working himself up to the summit of his ambition. There would be a great reward to your soul for doing the like of that, Mr. Williams, as sure as you're there."
"And now, woman-a-dear, what about my own sons, Michael Joseph and Paddy?"
"Oh, indeed, there's no fear of them, Mr. Williams!"
"But I could not think of jeopardizing them while I'd be doing for the families or the sons of the stranger."
"But sure, sir, I'll pay you at any rate of interest you like if only you could see your way to give me this help. Enough to buy a bicycle that'll take him over to Ballinamult every day and your grand recommendation to the priests that'll be worth gold. I'll pay you every penny I can, and sure the poor boy will repay you everything when he comes into the position that's due to him."
"Well, I don't know. I don't think the missus—"
At this very moment Mrs. Williams came into the parlor where Rebecca sat with them, and beamed upon her sons.
"Oh, my poor boys, sure it is killed you are with the terrible strain of the study. Sure it is what you'd better go out into the fields now with the pony; but mind, be careful! You poor little fellows!"
Michael Joseph and Paddy at once snatched up their caps and rushed for the door. So much for the extent of their training and Rebecca's control of them, for this was a daily happening. But another part of her hour of torture at the gombeen-man's house had yet to come. Of late Mrs. Williams had made of her a kind ofconfidantein the small concerns of her household. She was the sort of woman who must needs be always talking to some one of her affairs. Now she enlarged upon the immediate story of how Mrs. Brennan had been begging and craving of Tommy to do something for her son John, who had been sent home from the place he was in England. "The cheek of her, mind you, that Mrs. Brennan!" emphasized Mrs. Williams.
If it had been any other schoolmistress or girl of anykind at all that Mrs. Williams had ever known, they would have acquiesced in this statement of denunciation and said: "That's a sure fact for you, ma'am!" or "Just so!" But this had never been Rebecca's way. She merely said: "John Brennan is a very nice young fellow!"
Although Mrs. Williams was surprised, she merely said: "Is that so? Sure I know very little about him only to see him pass the door. They say he's taken the fashion of tippling a bit, and it's to McDermott's he does go, d'ye mind, with Ulick Shannon, and not to this house. But, of course, it's my bold Ulick that's spending. Easy for him, begad, and it not his own."
Rebecca saw the dirty meanness that stirred in this speech.
"That's what they say and it is surely a great pity to see him wasting his time about the roads of the valley. I think it would be a grand piece of charity on the part of any one who would be the means of taking him away from this place. If only he could be afforded some little help. 'Tis surely not his fault that the college in England broke down, and although his mother is, I believe, contriving the best for his future, sure it is hard for her. She is only a poor woman, and the people of the valley seem queerly set against her. I don't know why. They seem to hate the very sight of her."
"You may say that indeed, and it is the good reasons they have—"
Mrs. Williams suddenly checked herself, for there flashed across her mind a chapter of her own story. She had been one of the lucky ones.... Besides, by slow steps, Rebecca was coming to have some power over her.
"Of course it would be no loss to Tommy if he did give this help. He'd be bound to get the interest of his money, even if he were to sell her out of house and home. He knows his business, and he's not against it himself, I may tell you; for he sees a return in many a way. It was myself that was keeping him from it on account of the boy's mother. But, of course, if you think it would be a nice, good thing to do—"
"It would be a good thing, and a very good thing, and one of the best actions you could put for luck before your own sons."
"Oh, indeed, there's no fear of them! Is it Michael Joseph or Paddy?"
"Of course not, indeed, nor did I mean anything of the kind. I only said it to soften you, Mrs. Williams."
"Well, I may tell you it's all right, Miss Kerr. Mrs. Brennan is out there in the shop, and she's craving from me man.... It'll be all right, Miss Kerr, and that's a fact.... I'll make it all right, never you fear!"
In this way was John Brennan again led back into the paths of the Church. Curious that it should have been given Rebecca to effect the change in his condition—Rebecca, whose beauty, snatching at his spirit always, had drawn his mind into other ways of contemplation. In less than a week, through the powerful ecclesiastical influence of Tommy Williams, the gombeen-man, he was riding daily to the college at Ballinamult. By teaching outside the hours allotted for his own study he was earning part of his fees, and, as a further example of his worth to the community, Tommy Williams was paying the other portion, although as a purely financial speculation.... In a year it was expected he would win oneof the Diocesan Scholarships and go up to Maynooth. Mrs. Brennan knew more joy than had ever before possessed her. Her son was to be ordained in Ireland after all, and maybe given a curacy in his own diocese. Who knew but he might yet follow in the footsteps of Father O'Keeffe and become Parish Priest of Garradrimna while she was still alive here in this little house in the valley!
The meetings of Ulick and Rebecca had become less and less frequent. Sometimes she would not see him for days at a stretch, and such periods would appear as desert spaces. She would be driven by them into the life of the valley, where no echo of comfort ever came to her. Even the little children created an irritation with their bright faces continually reminding her of all the prayers they had said for her intentions.... It was curious that she never asked them to say a prayer for her intentions now. And their looks would seem to be beseeching her forever. And yet she could not—she could not ask them now.... Each distinct phase of the day seemed to hold for her its own peculiar tortures. These seemed to have reached their climax and very moment of ecstasy on the days succeeding upon one another when Monica McKeon came in at the recreation hour to take her luncheon in company with Mrs. Wyse.
Monica would be certain to say with the most unfailing regularity and, in fact, with exactly the same intonation upon all occasions: "I wonder when that Ulick Shannon is going away?" To which Mrs. Wyse would reply in a tone which would seem to have comprehended all knowledge: "Ah, sure, he'll never go far!" Presently Monica would begin to let fall from her slyly her usual string of phrases: "Wouldn't you be inclined to say, now, that Ulick Shannon is good-looking?" Talking ofsome other one, she would describe him as being "Just like Ulick Shannon, don't you know!" And if they happened to be discussing the passage of some small event it would invariably circle around the breathless point of interest—"And who do you think was there only Ulick Shannon?" Then from where she sat supping her tea out of a saucerless cup Mrs. Wyse would give out her full opinion of Ulick Shannon.
"He's the quare sort, just like his father. I don't think I've ever seen a son to take after his father so closely. Andhewas what you might call a quare character in his day. It was said that a girl as well as lost her good name if she was seen talking twice in succession to Henry Shannon, he was that bad. Like father, like son is surely the case between Henry and Ulick Shannon!"
This seemed at all times the strangest talk for Rebecca to be hearing.... It often caused her to shiver even though spring was well on its way. And they would never let it out of their minds; they would never let it rest. They were always talking at her about Ulick Shannon, for they seemed to know.
But no one knew save herself. It was a grand secret. Not even Ulick knew. She hugged the dear possession of her knowledge to herself. There was the strangest excitement upon her to escape from school in the evenings so that she might enjoy her secret in loneliness.
Even this joy had been dissipated by her certainty of meeting John Brennan somewhere upon the road in the near vicinity of the school.... Now, as she thought of it upon an evening a few days after she had spoken to Mrs. Williams in his favor, she fancied that his lonelyadmiration for her must have been growing in strength since his return.... There had always been a sense of sudden relief in his presence after the torture of the two women, a feeling of high emancipation like the rushing in of some clean wind.... Only a few words had ever passed between them on those occasions, but now they were to her throbbing brain of blessed and sweet memory. And there had always been the same look upon his face, making her try to puzzle out in what possible way he could look upon her. Could it be in the way she had looked upon him, with a full kindliness working into the most marvelous ways of sympathy? Yet she missed him ever so much, now that he was to be no longer seen upon the road.
It was strange enough, too, as she thought of it, that although the reason of Mrs. Williams in taking a fancy to her was no more than the selfish one of showing her dislike for Master Donnellan, it should have borne good fruit after this fashion. Yet a certain loneliness, a certain feeling of empty sadness was to be her reward because she had done a good thing.... No one at all now to take her mind away as she wandered from torture to torture in the afternoons.... On one of the first evenings of the changed condition of things Mrs. McGoldrick, noticing in her keen mind that Rebecca was a minute or so earlier than usual, said, after the manner of one proud of being able to say it:
"Is it a fact, Miss Kerr, that John Brennan bees going as a kind of a charity teacher or something to the college at Ballinamult?"
"Well, if it's a fact, it is a fact," said Rebecca in a tired, dull voice and without showing any interestwhatsoever. But even this attitude did not baulk the sergeant's wife, for she hurried on:
"Ah, God help his innocent wit, but sure he'll never be a priest, he'll never be a priest! 'Tis a pity of his mother, but sure she could hardly expect it to be so, for she wasn't a good woman, they tell me, and she ought to know, you know, that she could hardly expect it to be so!"
Rebecca saw at once that her landlady was in one of her fits of garrulousness, so she concluded in consequence that there would not be much pleasure in her dinner to-day. She passed it untasted and went upstairs wearily. There was a certain grim comfort in thinking that she had left Mrs. McGoldrick with her harangue unfinished and a great longing upon her to be talking.... She flung herself upon the bed in the still untidied room. She was weary with some great, immeasurable weariness this blessed evening.... Her corset hurt her, and she sat up again to take it off. She caught sight of herself reflected in the mirror opposite.... How worn she looked! Her brows, with their even curves, did not take from the desolation that had fallen upon her forehead, where it was grown harder as beneath the blows of some tyrannic thought. And it seemed as if the same thought had plowed all the lines which were beginning to appear there now.... It must be that she had long since entered into a mood of mourning for the things she had lost in the valley.
She fell to remembering the first evening she had come to it, and of how she had begun to play with her beauty on that very first evening. It had appeared then as the only toy in her possession in this place of drearyimmensity. And now it seemed to have run through many and sudden vicissitudes. She had allowed Ulick Shannon to play with it too.... But his language had been so sweet when he had praised her in the silent woods.... And in the lonely cottage in Donegal, where he had gone to see her after Christmas, there had been abiding joy, while outside the night swept wild and dark upon the cold, gray sea.... Here there came sudden qualms as to whether she had helped to ruin him by taking him away from preparation for his final exam. But there was such an urge of dear remembrance upon her that her mind sprang quickly back again to all the thoughts they had had between them then.... Back into her mind too were thronging the exact words he had used upon that night they had spent together in the cottage.
And by the side of all this, was it not queer that he came so seldom to see her now although he lived distant from her by only a few fields? Even when he came their partings were so abrupt, after a little period of strained conversation, when he always went with a slight excuse in his mouth to Garradrimna. Yet all the time she longed for his presence by her side with an even greater longing than that she had experienced in Donegal.... It was also painfully notable how he gave shifty answers to her every question. And had she not a good right to be asking him questions now?... And surely he must guess by this time.
She threw her head back upon the pillow once more, and once more she was weeping. She thought, through the mist of her tears, of how she had so bitterly wept upon the first evening of her coming to this room. Buton that evening also she had prayed, and she could not pray now. Nor could she sleep. She remained there upon the bed, inert in every sense save for her empty stare up at the discolored ceiling. It was broken only by the queer smile she would take to herself ever and again.... At last she began to count upon her fingers. She was simply counting the number of times she had seen Ulick since his return to his uncle's house.
"Oh, dear, dear, and what have I done to him?" she muttered incessantly, biting her lips occasionally between her words as if in a very ecstasy of desire for the pain he was causing her.... There came moments, winged and clean like shining angels, to bring her comfort, when she wildly fancied it was the very loveliest thing to endure great pain for his sake.
But the powers of her mind for any wild gladness were being gradually annihilated by dark thoughts coming down to defeat her thoughts of beauty. She turned from contemplation of the ceiling and began to glance around the room in search of some distraction. In one corner she saw an old novelette thrown aside in its gaudy covers. The reading of rubbish was Mrs. McGoldrick's recreation when she was not sewing or nursing the baby.
She had called the girls after heroines of passionate love-stories, just as her husband, the sergeant, had seen that the boys were called after famous men in the world of the police. Thus the girls bore names like Euphemia McGoldrick and Clementina McGoldrick, while the boys bore names like John Ross McGoldrick and Neville Chamberlain McGoldrick. The girls, although they were ugly and ill-mannered, had already been invested with the golden lure of Romance, and the boys were alreadypolicemen although they were still far distant from the age when they could put on a belt or a baton.
Rebecca began to snatch at paragraphs here and there through the story, which was entitledThe Desecration of the Hearth. There was one passage which seemed to hold an unaccountable fascination as her eyes lingered over it:
"Then suddenly, and without a minute's warning, Lord Archibald Molyneux dashed the poor, ruined girl from him, and soon she was struggling for life in the swirling stream."'Ah-a-ha!' he said once more, hissing out his every word between his thin, cruel lips. 'That will may be put an end to your scandalous allegations against a scion of the noble house of Molyneux.'"'Mercy! Pity! Oh, God! The Child!' she wailed piteously as she felt herself being caught in the maelstrom of the current."But Lord Archibald Molyneux merely twirled his dark, handsome mustache with his white hands, after the fashion that was peculiar to him, and waited until his unfortunate victim had disappeared completely beneath the surface of the water."
"Then suddenly, and without a minute's warning, Lord Archibald Molyneux dashed the poor, ruined girl from him, and soon she was struggling for life in the swirling stream.
"'Ah-a-ha!' he said once more, hissing out his every word between his thin, cruel lips. 'That will may be put an end to your scandalous allegations against a scion of the noble house of Molyneux.'
"'Mercy! Pity! Oh, God! The Child!' she wailed piteously as she felt herself being caught in the maelstrom of the current.
"But Lord Archibald Molyneux merely twirled his dark, handsome mustache with his white hands, after the fashion that was peculiar to him, and waited until his unfortunate victim had disappeared completely beneath the surface of the water."
Rebecca's eyes had closed over the passage, and she was dozing now, but only fitfully.... To occupy small instants would come the most terrifying dreams in long waves of horror which would seem to take great spaces of time for their final passage from her mind. Then there would flow in a brief space of respite, but only as a prelude to the dread recurrence of her dreams again.And all jumbled together, bits of wild reality which were and were not parts of her experience would cause her to start up ever and anon.
There fell a knock upon the door, and a little girl came in with some tea-things on a tray. She called: "Miss Kerr, your tea!" and when Rebecca woke up with a terrible start it appeared as if she had not slumbered at all.
"Oh, is that yourself, Euphemia? I declare to goodness the dusk is falling outside. I must have been sleeping."
"Yes, miss!"
"You are late in coming this evening?"
"Well, wait till I tell you, miss. I went into the village for some things for my mother, and what d'ye think but when I was coming home I thought I saw a strange man just outside the ditch opposite the door, and I was afraid for to pass, so I was."
"A strange man! Is that a fact?"
"Well, sure then I thought, miss, it might be Ulick Shannon, but I may tell you I got the surprise of my life when I found it was only John Brennan, and he standing there alone by himself looking up at your window."
Long before she had got through it, with many lisps and lapses, Rebecca was wearied by the triteness of the little one's statement, so well copied was it from the model of her mother's gossipy communication of the simplest fact.
But what could John Brennan be doing there so near her again? This was the thought that held Rebecca as she went on with an attempt to take her tea.
John Brennan came down the valley. The trees by the roadside were being shaken heavily by soft winds. Yet, for all the kindness of May that lingered about it, there seemed to be some shadow hanging over the evening. No look of peace or pity had struggled into the squinting windows.... Would the valley ever again put on the smile it had worn last summer? That time it had been so dearly magnified. At leaving it there had been such a crush of feeling in his breast.
He seemed to see it more clearly now. There was something that hurt him in the thought of how he was preparing for a genteel kind of life while his father remained a common sponger around the seven publichouses of Garradrimna, asking people to stand him drinks for the love of God like Anthony Shaughness. He could not forget that the valley had wrought this destruction upon Ned Brennan, and that Ned Brennan was his father.
This thought arose out of a definite cause. At the college in Ballinamult he had made the acquaintance of Father George Considine, who had already begun to exercise an influence over him. This priest was a simple, holy man, who had devoted his life usefully, remaining far away from the ways of pride. Although gombeen-men like Tommy Williams had some influence with those who controlled the college, they had no influence over him. He was in curious contrast to the systemwhich tied him to this place. It was impossible to think that his ordination had represented a triumph to any one at all, yet he had been far ahead of his contemporaries and while yet a young man had been made principal of this college in Ballinamult. His name had gone out into the world. The satisfaction that had been denied to Master Donnellan was his. He had had a hand in the education of men whose names were now notable in many a walk of life. And yet, to see him moving about the grounds of the college in his faded coat with the frayed sleeves and shiny collar, no man would think that his name, the name of "poor Father Considine," was spoken with respect in distant places.
But Mrs. Brennan did not approve of him. On the evening of John's first day in Ballinamult, after she had made every other possible inquiry she said:
"And did you meet Father Considine?"
"I did indeed, mother; a nice man!"
"Ah, a quare ould oddity! Wouldn't you think now that he'd have a little pride in himself and dress a bit better, and he such a very learned man?"
"Maybe that's just the reason why he's not proud. The saints were not proud, mother; then why should he be?"
She always gave a deaf ear to any word of this kind from John, for her ideal was Father O'Keeffe, with his patent leather top-boots, silver-mounted whip and silk hat, riding to hounds with the Cromwellian descendants of the district.... Here was where Father Considine stood out in sharp contrast, for he was in spiritual descent from those priests who had died with the people in the Penal Days. It was men like him who had carrieddown the grandeur of Faith and Idealism from generation to generation. One felt that life was a small thing to him beyond the chance it gave to make it beautiful. He had written a little book of poems in honor of Mary, the Mother of God, and to feel that it had brought some comfort to many a troubled one and to know that he had been the means of shaping young men's lives towards useful ends was all that this world meant to him.
John Brennan knew very well that if he became a priest it was in the steps of Father Considine he would follow rather than in those of Father O'Keeffe. This he felt must mean the frustration of half his mother's grand desire, but, inevitable, it must be so, for it was the way his meditative mind would lead him. Thus was he troubled again.
Father Considine had spoken to him of Father O'Keeffe:
"A touch of the farmer about that man don't you think? But maybe a worthy man for all that!"
Then he had looked long into the young man's eyes and said:
"Be humble, my son, be humble, so that great things may be done unto you!"
John had pondered these words as he cycled home that evening past the rich fields. He began to think how his friend Ulick would have put all his thoughts so clearly. How he would have spoken of the rank green grass now rising high over County Meath as a growth that had sprung from the graves of men's rotted souls; of all the hate and pride that had come out of their hunger for the luscious land; of how Faith and Love and Beauty had gone forever from this golden vale to the wild placesof his country, where there was a letting-in of wind and sun and sea.... It was easy to connect Father O'Keeffe's pride with the land. Remembrance of the man's appearance was sufficient. It was not so easy in the case of his mother. But, of course, John had no knowledge of how she had set her heart upon Henry Shannon's lovely farm in the days gone by.
Hitherto his thoughts of his future condition had been bound up with consideration of his mother, but now there had come this realization of his father. It was not without its sadness to think that his father had been a stranger to him always and that he should now behold him stumbling down to old age amid the degradation of Garradrimna. He felt curiously desirous of doing something for him. But the heavy constraint between them still existed as always. He was unequal to the task of plucking up courage to speak to him. This evening, too, as he tried, after his accustomed fashion, in a vacant moment to catch a glimpse of his own future, he acutely felt the impossibility of seeing himself as a monument of pride.... Always there would arise before his mind a broken column in the middle of the valley.
And he was lonely. He had not seen Ulick Shannon or Rebecca since he had begun to cycle daily to Ballinamult. Often, in some of the vacant stretches of thought which came to him as he hurried along, he pictured the two of them meeting during some of those long, sweet evenings and being kind to one another. Despite sudden flashes of a different regard that would come sweeping his thoughts of all kinds, he loved these two andwas glad that they were fond of one another. It now seemed surprising that he had ever thought so deeply of Rebecca Kerr, and wished to meet her upon the road and look longingly into her eyes. All this while going on to be a priest seemed far from him now that he had begun to be influenced by Father Considine.
He had to pass the house of Sergeant McGoldrick by the way he was going, and it seemed an action altogether outside him that he had gone into an adjacent field and gazed for quite a long time up at her window.... He was all confusion when he noticed the child of the McGoldricks observing him.... He drifted away, his cheeks hot and a little sense of shame dimming his eyes.... He took to the road again and at once saw Ulick Shannon coming towards him. The old, insinuating smile which had so often been used upon his weak points, was spread over the face of his friend.
"And at last you have succeeded in coming to see her thus far?"
The words seemed to fall out of Ulick's oblique smile.
"She?" he said in surprise.
"Oh, I thought it was that you had intentions of becoming my rival!"
John laughed now, for this was the old Ulick come back again. He went on laughing as if at a good joke, and the two students went together down the road.
"Don't let me delay you!" John said abruptly.
"Oh, you're not preventing me in any way at all."
"But Rebecca?"
"Even the austerities of Ballinamult have not made you forget Rebecca?"
"Hardly—I shouldn't like to think that I had been the cause of keeping you from her even for a short while."
There came between them now one of those long spells of silence which seemed essential parts of their friendship.
"You're in a queer mood this evening?" John said at last.
"I suppose I am, and that there's no use in trying to hide it.... D'ye know what it is, Brennan? We two seem to have changed a great deal since last summer.Isimply can't look at things in the same light-hearted way. I suppose I went too far, and that I must be paying for it now. But there are just a few things I have done for which I am sorry—I'm sorry about this affair with Rebecca Kerr."
John was listening with quiet attention to the remarks which Ulick was letting fall from him disjointedly.
"I'm sorry, sorry, sorry that I should ever have come here to meet her, for somehow it has brought me to this state of mind and not to any happiness at all. I'm doubtful, too, if it has brought any happiness to her."
"That's strange," said John, "and I thought you two were very happy in your friendship."
"Happiness!" jerked out the other in a full, strong sneer. "That's a funny word now, and a funny thing. Do you think that we deserve happiness any more than those we see working around us in the valley? Not at all! Rather less do we deserve. Just think of them giving their blood and sweat so crudely in mortal combat with the fields! And what does it avail them in the end? What do they get out of it but the satisfactionof a few unkind thoughts and a few low lies? In the mean living of their own lives they represent futile expeditions in quest of joy. Yet what brings the greatest joy it is possible for them to experience? Why, the fact that another's hope of happiness has been finally desolated. If any great disaster should suddenly come upon one or other of the three of us, upon you or me or Rebecca Kerr, they would see more glory in the fulfilment of their spite than in the harvest promise of their fields. And yet I here assert that these deserve to be happy. They labor in the hard way it was ordained that man should labor at Adam's fall, and they attend to their religion. They pray for happiness, and this is the happiness that comes to them. Some must be defeated and driven down from the hills of their dreams so that the other ones, the deserving and the pious, may be given material for their reward of joy. That, Brennan, is the only happiness that ever descends upon the people of the valley. It may be said that they get their reward in this life."
Ulick was in one of those moods of eloquence which always came to him after a visit to Garradrimna, and when a very torrent of words might be expected to pour forth from him. John Brennan merely lifted his eyebrows in mild surprise and said nothing as the other went on:
"Happiness indeed. What have I ever done to deserve happiness? I have not worked like a horse, I have not prayed?"
"I was not thinking of any broad generalizations of happiness. I was only thinking of happiness in your relation to Rebecca Kerr."
Ulick now gave a sudden turn to the conversation:
"Where were you wandering to the night?" he inquired of John Brennan.
"Oh, nowhere in particular—just down the road."
"Well, it seems strange that you should have come this way, past the house of Sergeant McGoldrick."
It appeared as if Ulick had glimpsed the tender spot upon which John Brennan's thoughts were working and struck it with the sharp point of his words. John did not reply, but it could be seen that his cheeks were blushing even in the gloom that had come towards them down the road.
"I hope you will be very kind to her, John, when I am gone from here. She's very nice, and this is the drear, lonely place for her to be. I expect to be going away pretty soon."
It seemed extraordinary that this thing should be happening now.... He began to remember how he had longed for Rebecca last summer, and how his poor yearning had been reduced to nothing by the favor with which she looked upon his friend. And later how he had turned away out of the full goodness of his own heart and returned again through power of a fateful accident to his early purpose. And now how the good influence of Father Considine had just come into his life to lead him finally into the way for which he had been intended by his mother from the beginning.
He did not yet fully realize that this quiet and casual meeting which had been effected because Ulick Shannon had accidentally come around this way from Garradrimna represented the little moment which stood for the turning-point of his life. But it had certainlymoved into being along definite lines of dramatic significance.
Presently Ulick mounted a stile which gave upon a path leading up through the fields of his uncle Myles and to the lonely house among the trees. Then it was true that he was not seeing Rebecca to-night.... A great gladness seemed to have rushed in upon John Brennan because he had become aware of this thing. And further, Ulick Shannon was going away from the valley and Rebecca remaining here to be lonely. But he, who had once so dearly longed for her company, would be coming and going from the valley daily, and summer was upon them again.... Ulick must have bade him a "Good-night!" that he had not heard, for already he could see him disappearing into the sea of white mist which would seem to have rolled into the valley from the eternity of the silent places.... He was left here now upon this lonely, quiet shore while his mind had turned into a tumbling sea.
When at last he roused himself and went into the kitchen he saw that his mother had already settled herself to the task of reading a religious paper to his father.... The elder man was sitting there so woebegone by the few wet sods that were the fire. He was not very drunk this evening, and the usual wild glint in his eyes was replaced by the look of one who is having thoughts of final dissolution.... John experienced a little shudder with the thought that he did not possess any desire to speak to his father now.
But his mother had broken in with a question:
"Was that Ulick Shannon was with you outside just now?"
"Yes, mother, it was."
"He went home very early, didn't he?"
"I suppose it is rather early for him to go home."
"I think 'tis very seldom he bees with Rebecca Kerr now, whatever's the reason,whatever's the reason."
It was her repetition and emphasis of the final words which brought about the outburst.
Ned Brennan suddenly flamed up and snarled out:
"Look ye here, Nan Byrne, that's no kind of talk to be giving out to your grand, fine, educated young fellow of a son, and he be going on to be a priest. That's the quare, suggestive kind of talk. But sure 'tis very like you, Nan Byrne. 'Tis very like you!"
Mrs. Brennan had just been on the point of beginning to read the religious paper, and, with the thought of all her reading surging in upon her in one crushing moment, she felt the cutting rebuff most keenly and showed her confusion. She made no reply as John went up to the room where his books were.... Long after, as he tried to recall forgotten, peaceful thoughts, he could hear his father speaking out of the heat of anger in the kitchen below.
After she had failed to take her tea Rebecca walked the valley road many times, passing and repassing their usual meeting place. But no sign of Ulick did she find. She peered longingly into the sea of white fog, but he did not come.... What in the world was happening to him at all? Never before had he missed this night of the week.... She did not care to return so early, for she feared that Mrs. McGoldrick might come with that awful look of scrutiny she detested. Just to pass the time she wandered down The Road of the Dead towards the lake. To-night it seemed so lonely set there amid the sea of white.
It was strange to think that this place could ever have had a fair look about it or given pleasure to any person at all. Yet it was here that John Brennan had loved to walk and dream. She wondered how it was with him now. She began to think of the liking he had shown for her. Maybe he fancied she did not know why he happened to meet her so often upon the road. But well did she know—well. And to think that he had come to look up at her window this evening.
Yet even now she was fearful of acknowledging these things to herself. It appeared as a double sacrilege. It was an attack upon her love for Ulick and it questioned the noble intention of Mrs. Brennan in devoting her son to God. But all chance that it might ever cometo anything was now over. The ending had been effected by herself in the parlor of Tommy Williams, the gombeen-man, and Mrs. Brennan might never be able to guess the hand she had had in it. It was a thing upon which she might well pride herself if there grew in her the roots of pride. But she was not of that sort. And now she was in no frame of delight at all for the thought of him had united her unto the thought of Ulick, and Ulick had not come to her this evening.... She felt herself growing cold in the enveloping mist. The fir trees were like tall ghosts in the surrounding gloom.... But immediately the lake had lost its aspect of terror when she remembered what she had done might have averted the possibility of having John Brennan ever again to wander lonely.... And yes, in spite of any comforting thought, the place would continue to fill her with a nameless dread. She was shivering and expectant.
Suddenly a big pike made a splash among the reeds and Rebecca gave a loud, wild cry. It rang all down the lonely aisle of the fir-trees and united its sound with that of a lone bird crying on the other side of the lake. Then it died upon the banks of mist up against the silent hills.
For a few moments its source seemed to flutter and bubble within her breast, and then it ended in a long, sobbing question to herself—Why had she cried out at all? She might have known it was only a fish or some such harmless thing. And any one within reasonable distance could have heard the cry and thought it was the signal of some terrible thing that had happened here by the lakeside. It was not so far distant from tworoads, and who knew but some one had heard? Yet she could hardly fancy herself behaving in this way if she had not possessed an idea that it was a lonely place and seldom that any one went by in the night-time.
But she hurried away from the feeling of terror she had caused to fill the place and back towards the house of Sergeant McGoldrick. As quickly as possible she got to bed. Here seemed a little comfort. She remembered how this had been her place of refuge as a child, how she felt safe from all ghosts and goblins once her head was hidden beneath the clothes. And the instinct had survived into womanhood.
Again a series of those fitful, half sleeping and waking conditions began to pass over her. Side by side with the most dreadful feelings of impending doom came thronging memories of glad phases of life through which she had passed.... And to think that this life of hers was now narrowing towards this end. Were the valley and its people to behold her final disaster? Was it to be that way with her?
She had intended to tell Ulick if he had come to her this evening, but he had not come, and what was she to do now? In the slough of her torment she could not think of the right thing.... Maybe if she wrote an angry letter upbraiding him.... But how could she write an angry letter to him? Yet she must let him know, and immediately—when the dawn had broken into the room she would write. For there was no use in thinking of sleeping. She could not sleep. Yes, when the dawn had broken into the room she would write surely. But not an angry letter.... Veryslowly she began to notice the corners of the room appearing in the new light before her wide open eyes. And to feel that this was the place she had so fiercely hated from the first moment of setting foot in it, and that it was now about to see her write the acknowledgment of her shame.... The dawn was a great while in breaking.... If he did not—well then, what could her future life hope to be? She began to grow strangely dizzy as she fell to thinking of it. Dizzy and fearful as she drew near in mind to that very great abyss.
The leaping-up of the day did not fill her with any of its gradual delight.... She rose with a weariness numbing her limbs. The putting-on of her few clothes was an immense task.... She went to the table upon which she had written all those letters to her school-companions which described that "there was nothing like a girlfriend." She pulled towards her, with a small, trembling hand, the box ofAncient Irish Vellum, upon which her special letters were always written. Her mind had focussed itself to such small compass that this letter seemed more important than any that had ever before been written in this world.
But for a long time she could not begin. She did not know by what term of endearment to address him now.... They had been so particularly intimate.... And then it was so hard to describe her condition to him in poor words of writing with pen and ink upon paper. If only he had come to her last night it might have been a task of far less difficulty. A few sobs, a gathering of her little troubled body unto him, and a beseeching look up into his face.... But it was so hard to put any single feeling into any separate sentence.
After hours, during which the sun had been mounting high and bright, she had the letter finished at last and was reading it over. Some sentences like the following leaped out before her eyes here within this sickly-looking room—Whatever was the matter with him that he could not come to her? Surely he was not so blind, and he with his medical knowledge. He must know what was the matter with her, and that this was scarcely the time to be leaving her alone. His uncle, Myles Shannon, was a very rich man, and did he not remember how often he had told her how his uncle looked with favor upon her? Here she included the very words in which Ulick had many a time described his uncle's opinion of her—"I like that little schoolmistress, Rebecca Kerr!" "It was all so grand, Ulick, our love and meetings; but here comes the paying of the penalty, and surely you will not leave poor little me to pay it in full. You have enjoyed me, have you not, Ulick?" She was more immediately personal now, and this was exactly how the sentences continued: "You know very well what this will mean to me. I'll have to go away from here, and where, I ask you, can I go? Not back to my father's house surely, nor to my aunt's little cottage in Donegal.... I have no money. The poor salary I earn here is barely able to buy me a little food and clothing and keep a roof over my head. Did I not often tell you that when you were away from me there were times when I could hardly afford the price of stamps? If it should happen that this thing become public while I am yet here I could never get another day's teaching, for Father O'Keeffe would warn every manager in Ireland against engaging me. But surely, darling, youwill not allow things to go so far.... You will please come down to see me at 5.30 this evening. You will find me at the old place upon The Road of the Dead. Don't you remember that it was there we had our first talk, Ulick?"
Great as the torture of writing it had been, the torture of reading it was still greater. Some of the lines seemed to lash out and strike her and to fill her eyes with tears, and there were some that seemed so hard upon him that she struck them out, not wishing, as ever, to hurt her dearest Ulick at all. At one moment she felt a curious desire to tear it into pieces and let her fate come to her as it had been ordained from the beginning.... But there was little Euphemia McGoldrick knocking at the door to be allowed to enter with the breakfast. Who would ever imagine that it was so late?
She had written a great deal. Why it filled pages and pages. She hurriedly thrust it into a large envelope that she had bought for the purpose of sending a card of greeting to John Brennan at Christmas, thinking better of it only at the last moment. It was useful now, for the many sheets were bulky.
"The breakfast, miss!" announced Euphemia as she left the room.
This was the third meal in twenty-four hours that Rebecca could make no attempt to take, but, to avert suspicion, she wrapped up the sliced and buttered bread in a few leaves from the novelette from which she had read those desperate passages on the previous evening. The tea she threw out into the garden. It fell in a shining shower down over the bright green vegetables.... She put on her dust-coat and, stuffing the letter to Ulickinto one pocket and her uneaten breakfast by way of a luncheon she would not eat into the other, hurried out of doors and up the road, for this morning she had important business in the village before going on to the school.
Mrs. McGoldrick was set near the foot of the stairs holding Euphemia and Clementina by the hand, all three in action there to behold the exit of Rebecca. This was a morning custom and something in the nature of a rite. It was the last clout of torture always inflicted by Mrs. McGoldrick.
Rebecca went on into Garradrimna. The village street was deserted save by Thomas James, who held solitary occupation. He was posting the bills for a circus at the market square. She was excited as she went over to speak to him and did not notice the eyes of the bespectacled postmistress that were trained upon her from the office window with the relentlessness of howitzers. She asked Thomas James would he take a letter from her to Mr. Ulick Shannon.
"Oh yes, miss; O Lord, yes!"
She slipped the letter into his hand when she thought that no one was looking. She had adopted this mode of caution in preference to sending it through the Post Office. She was evidently anxious that it should be delivered quickly and unread by any other person.
"O Lord, yes, miss; just as soon as I have an auction bill posted after this. You know, miss, that Mickeen Connellan, the auctioneer, is one of my best patrons. He doesn't pay as well as the circus people, but he pays oftener."
That was in the nature of a very broad hint, butRebecca had anticipated it and had the shilling already prepared and ready to slip into his other hand.
"Thanks, miss!"
With remarkable alacrity Thomas James had "downed tools" and disappeared into Brannagan's. Rebecca could hear the swish of his pint as she went by the door after having remained a few moments looking at the lurid circus-bills. Inside, Mrs. Brannagan, the publican and victualler's wife, took notice that he possessed the air of a man bent upon business.
"Ah, it's how I'm going to do a little message for the assistant schoolmistress," he said, taking his matutinal pinch of salt, for this was his first pint and one could never tell what might happen.
"Is that so?"
"Aye, indeed; a letter to young Shannon."
"Well now? And why for wouldn't it do to send it by the post?"
"Ah, mebbe that way wouldn't be grand enough for her. Mebbe it is what it would be too chape—a penny, you know, for the stamp, and this costs a shilling for the porter. Give us another volume of this, Mrs. Brannagan, if you please? Ha-ha-ha!" He laughed loudly, but without any mirth, at his own joke and the peculiar blend of subtlety by which he had marked it.
Mrs. Brannagan was all anxiety and excitement about the letter.
"Well now, just imagine!" she said to herself about forty times as she filled the second pint for Thomas James. Then she rose up from her bent posture at the half barrel and, placing the drink before him on the bar, said:
"I wonder what would be in that letter. Let me see?"
"Oh, 'tis only a letter in a big envelope. Aren't you the inquisitive woman now, Mrs. Brannagan?"
"What'll you have, Thomas?"
"Ah, another pint, Mrs. Brannagan, thanks!"
His second drink had been despatched with his own celebrated speed.
Mrs. Brannagan was a notably hard woman, and he could not let the opportunity of having her stand him a drink go by. She was the hardest woman in Garradrimna. Her childlessness had made her so. She was beginning to grow stale and withered, and anything in the nature of love and marriage, with their possible results, was to her a constant source of affliction and annoyance.
Her heart was now bounding within her breast in curiosity.
"Drink that quick, Thomas, and have another before the boss comes down." But there was no need to command him. It had already disappeared.... The fourth pint had found its way to his lips. He was beginning to grow mellow now and to lose his cross-sickness of the morning.
"Will ye let me see the letter?"
"Certainly, Mrs. Brannagan. O Lord, yes!"
He handed it across the counter.
"Such a quare letter? Oh, I hear the boss coming in across the yard." ... She had taken the empty glass from before Thomas James, and again was it filled.... Her husband stood before her. And this was the moment she had worked up to so well.
"I'll hand it back to you when he goes out," she whispered.
"All right, ma'am!"
Thomas James and Mr. Brannagan fell into a chat while she went towards the kitchen. She took the letter from her flat bosom, where she had hastily thrust it and looked at it from every possible angle. It seemed to possess a compelling attraction. But she could not open it here. She would run across to her friend the postmistress, who had every appliance for an operation of the kind. Besides she was the person who had first right to open it.... Soon the bespectacled maid and the barren woman were deep in examination of Rebecca Kerr's letter to Ulick Shannon. Into their minds was beginning to leap a terrible joy as they read the lines it had cost Rebecca immense torture to write.
"This is great, this is great!" said the ancient postmistress, clicking her tongue continually in satisfaction. "The cheek of her, mind you, not to send it by the public post like another. But I knew well there was something quare when I saw her calloguing with Thomas James at the market square."
"Wasn't she the sly, hateful, little thing. Why you'd never have thought it of her?"
"A grand person indeed to have in charge of little, innocent girls!"
"Indeed I shouldn't like to have a child if I thought it was to a purty thing like that she'd be sent to school!"
"Nor me," said the old lady, from whom the promise of motherhood had departed for many a long year.
They shook in righteous anger and strong detestation of the sin of Rebecca Kerr, and together they heldcouncil as to what might be the best thing to do? They closed the letter, and Mrs. Brannagan again stuck it into her bosom.... What should they do? The children must be saved from contamination anyhow.... An approach to solution of the difficulty immediately presented itself, for there was Mrs. Wyse herself just passing down the street with her ass-load of children. Mrs. Brannagan rushed out of the office and called:
"Mrs. Wyse, I want to see you in private for just a minute!"
The schoolmistress bent over the back of the trap, and they whispered for several minutes. At last, out of her shocked condition, Mrs. Wyse was driven to exclaim:
"Well now, isn't that the limit?"
It seemed an affront to her authority that another should have first discovered it, so she was anxious to immediately recover her lost position of superiority.
"Sure I was having my suspicions of her since ever she come back from the Christmas holidays, and even Monica McKeon too, although she's a single girl and not supposed to know. It's a terrible case, Mrs. Brannagan."
"Terrible, Mrs. Wyse. One of the terriblest ever happened in the valley.... And before the children and all."
"God bless and save us! But we must only leave it in Father O'Keeffe's hands. He'll know what is best to do, never fear. I'll send for him as soon as I get to the school."
There was a note of mournful resignation in her tones as she moved away in the ass-trap with her children, like an old hen in the midst of her brood.... There was a peculiar smirk of satisfaction about the lips ofMrs. Brannagan as she returned to the shop, bent upon sending the letter on its way once more.
"Much good it'll do her now, the dirty little fool!" she said in the happiness of some dumb feeling of vengeance against one who was merely a woman like herself. But she was a woman who had never had a child.
Thomas James was considerably drunk. He had spent the remainder of the shilling upon porter, and Mr. Brannagan had stood him another pint.
"Be sure and deliver it safely now,for maybe it's important!" said Mrs. Brannagan, as she returned the letter.
"It's a great letter anyhow. It's after getting me nine pints. That's long over half-a-crown's worth of drink," he said, laughing foolishly as he wandered out to do his errand.
It was a hard journey across the rising meadows to the house of Myles Shannon, where dwelt his nephew Ulick. Thomas James fell many times and wallowed in the tall, green grass, and he fell as he went leaping high hedges, and cut his hands and tore his red face with briars until it was streaked with blood. He was, therefore, an altogether deplorable figure when he at last presented himself at the house of Myles Shannon. Mr. Shannon came to the door to meet him, and in his fuddled condition he laughed to himself as he fished the letter out of his pocket. It was covered red with blood where he had felt it with his torn hand from time to time to see whether or not he still retained possession of it.
"From Mr. Brannagan, I suppose," said Mr. Shannon, thinking it had been written hurriedly by the victualler just fresh from the slaughterhouse and that it was arequest for prime beef or mutton from the rich fields of Scarden. He opened it, for his nephew's name on the envelope could not be seen through the blood-stains. He did not notice that it began "My dearest Ulick" until he read down to the sentences that gave him pause.... Thomas James was coughing insinuatingly beside him, so he took half-a-crown from his pocket and handed it to the bedraggled messenger. It was a tremendous reward, and the man of porter did not fully perceive it until he had slipped out into the sunlight.
"Be the Holy Farmer!" he stuttered, "another half-crown's worth of drink, and I after drinking long more than that already. That was the best letter I ever got to carry in me life. A few more like it and I'd either get me death of drink or be a millionaire like John D. Rockefeller or Andrew Carnegie!"
Inside the parlor Myles Shannon was reading Rebecca Kerr's letter with blanched face.... Here was a terrible thing; here had come to him this great trouble for the second time. Something the like of this had happened twenty-five or six years ago, when his brother had been in the same case with Nan Byrne. Curious how it should be repeating itself now! He pondered it for a few moments in its hereditary aspect. But there was more in it than that. There was the trace of his own hand determining it. He had encouraged his nephew with this girl. He had directed him into many reckless ways just that he might bring sorrow to the heart of Nan Byrne in the destruction of her son. It was a wicked thing for him to have done. His own nephew—just to satisfy his desire for revenge. And at the bottom of things he loved his nephew even as he had lovedhis brother Henry. But he would try to save him the results, the pains and penalties of his infatuation, even as he had tried to save his brother Henry the results of his. But the girl and her fate.... He would not be able to forget that until his dying day.... For it was he who had done this thing entirely, done it in cold blood too because he had heard that John Brennan had soft eyes for Rebecca Kerr and that, to encourage his nephew and produce a certain rivalry, might be the very best means of ruining the fair promise of Nan Byrne's son.
Only last night he had heard from Ulick that John Brennan had entered the college at Ballinamult and that his prospects never looked so good as at present.... To think of that now was to see how just it was that his scheme should have so resulted, for it had been constructed upon a very terrible plan. He had done it to avenge his defeated love for one girl, and lo! it had brought another to her ruin.
"Your uncle is a wealthy man." This sentence from the letter burned before him, and he thought for a moment that here appeared the full solution of the difficulty. But no. Of what use was that when the dread thing was about to happen to her?... But for all that he would send her money to-day or to-morrow, in some quiet way, and tell her the truth and beseech her to go away before the final disgrace of discovery fell upon her. His nephew must not know. He was too young to marry now, least of all, a compulsory marriage after this fashion to a schoolmistress. It was an ascent in the social standing of the girl surely, for his brother Henry haddisgraced himself with a mere dressmaker. But any connection beyond the regrettable and painful mistake of the whole thing was out of the question because, for long years, the Shannons had been almost gentlemen in the valley.
Ulick came into the room now.
"Anything strange, uncle?"
"Oh, nothing at all, only a letter from Mr. Brannagan about—about the sheep. I suppose you're not going anywhere to-day. Please don't, for I want you to give me a hand with the lambs after the shearing. And to-night I'll want you to help me with some letters and accounts that I've let slip for ever so long. I want you particularly."
"All right, uncle!"
How tractable and obliging his nephew had become ...! Last summer he would not do a thing like this for any amount of coaxing. He would have business in the valley at all times. But there was a far Power that adjusted matters beyond the plans of men. Ulick had drifted out of the room and Mr. Shannon again took the letter from his pocket. The sight of the blood upon it still further helped the color of his thoughts towards terror.... He crossed hurriedly to the bureau and slipped it beneath the elastic band which held his letters from Helena Cooper, and Mrs. Brennan's letter to her, and Mrs. Brennan's letter to his dead brother Henry.... It seemed to belong there by right of the sad quality which is the distinction of all shattered dreams.... And, just imagine, he had considered his a wonderful scheme of revenge! But now it seemed apoor and a mean thing. He could hardly think of it as a part of the once proud, easy-going Myles Shannon, but rather the bitter and ugly result of some devilish prompting that had come to him here in the lone stretches of his life in this quiet house among the trees.