Rebecca Kerr had been ill for a few days and did not attend school
until the Monday following her arrival in the valley. There she made
the acquaintance of Mrs. Wyse, the principal of Tullahanogue Girls'
School, and Monica McKeon, the assistant of Tullahanogue Boys' School.
Mrs. Wyse was a woman who divided her energies between the education of
other women's children and the production of children of her own. Year
by year, and with her growing family, had her life narrowed down to
the painful confines of its present condition. She had the reputation
of being a hard mistress to the children and a harsh superior to
her assistants. From the very first she seemed anxious to show her
authority over Rebecca Kerr.
In the forenoon of this day she was standing by her blackboard at the
east end of the school, imparting some history to her most advanced
class. Rebecca was at the opposite end teaching elementary arithmetic
to the younger children when something in the would-be impressive
seriousness of her principal's tone caused her to smile openly.
Mrs. Wyse saw the smile, and it lit her anger. She called loudly:
"Miss Kerr, are you quite sure that that exercise in simple addition is
correct?"
"Yes, perfectly certain, Mrs. Wyse."
The chalk had slipped upon the greasy blackboard, making a certain 5
to appear as a 6 from the distance at which she stood, and it was into
this accidental trap that Mrs. Wyse had fallen. Previous assistants
had studied her ways and had given up the mistake of contradicting her
even when she was obviously in the wrong. But this was such a straight
issue, and Rebecca Kerr had had no opportunity of knowing her. She
came down in a flaming temper from the rostrum. Rebecca awaited her
near approach with a smiling and assured complacency which must have
been maddening. But Mrs. Wyse was not one to admit a mistake. Quick as
lightning she struck upon the complaint that the exercise was beyond
the course of instruction scheduled for this particular standard....
And here were the foundations of an enmity laid between these two
women. They would not be friends in any fine way through the length of
all the long days they might teach together.
Thus for Rebecca the first day in the valley school dragged out its
slow length and was dreary and dreadful until noon. Then Monica McKeon
came in from the Boys' School and they took their luncheon together....
They went on chattering away until the door of the schoolroom was
suddenly darkened by the shadows of two men. The three women arose
in confusion as Master Donnellan called them to the door. There was
a young man standing outside who presented a strong contrast to
the venerable figure of the master. The latter, in his roundabout,
pedagogic way, went on to tell how the stranger had strayed into the
school playground and made himself known. He wished to show him the
whole of the building, and introduced him as "Mr. Ulick Shannon, Mr.
Myles Shannon's nephew, you know."
The three female teachers took an immediate mental note of the young
man. They saw him as neat and well-dressed, with a half-thoughtful,
half-reckless expression upon his fine face, with its deep-set,
romantic eyes. The few words he spoke during the general introduction
appeared to Rebecca to be in such a gentle voice. There were some
moments of awkward silence. Then, between the five of them, they
managed to say a few conventional things. All the while those great,
deep eyes seemed to be set upon Rebecca, and she was experiencing the
disquieting feeling that she had met him at some previous time in some
other place in this wide world. The eyes of Monica McKeon were upon
both of them in a way that seemed an attempt to search their minds for
their thoughts of the moment.
Immediately he was gone Mrs. Wyse and Miss McKeon fell to talking of
him:
"He's the hateful-looking thing; I'd hate him like poison," said Monica.
"Indeed what could he be and the kind of a father he had? Sure I
remember him well, a quare character," said Mrs. Wyse.
"I wonder what could have brought him around here to-day of all days
since he came to Scarden?"
This with her eyes set firmly upon Rebecca.
Mrs. Wyse was not slow to pick up the insinuation.
"Oh, looking after fresh girls always, the same as his father."
"He's not bad-looking."
"No; but wouldn't you know well he has himself destroyed with the kind
of life he lives up in Dublin? They say he's gone to the bad and that
he'll never pass his exams."
Every word of the conversation seemed to be spoken with the direct
intention of attacking certain feelings which had already begun to rise
in the breast of Rebecca Kerr.... Her mind was being held fast by the
well-remembered spell of his eyes.
The afternoon passed swiftly for Mrs. Wyse. She was so engrossed by
thought of this small thing that had happened that she gave wrong dates
in another history lesson, false notes in the music lesson, and more
than one incorrect answer to simple sums in the arithmetic lesson.
Rebecca was glad when three o'clock and her freedom at last came. Out
in the sunlight she would be able to indulge in certain realizations
which were impossible of enjoyment here in this crowded schoolroom. The
day was still enthroned beneath the azure dome. This was the period
of its languorous yawn when it seemed to dream for a space and gather
strength before it came down from its high place and went into the
long, winding ways of evening.
There were men engaged in raising sand from a pit by the roadside as
she passed along. A pause in the ringing of their shovels made her
conscious that they had stopped in their labor to gaze after her as she
went.... Her neck was warm and blushing beneath the shadow of her hair.
Her confusion extended to every portion of her body when she came upon
Ulick Shannon around a bend of the road, book in hand, sauntering along.
He saluted as she overtook him, and spoke of the pleasant
afternoon.... She hoped he was enjoying his holidays here in the
valley. He seemed to be spending the time very quietly. Reading?
Poetry? Just fancy! _The Daffodil Fields_, by John Masefield. What a
pretty name! Was he devoted to poetry, and was this particular poem a
good one?
"It is a great tale of love and passion that happened in one of the
quiet places of the world," he told her with a kind of enthusiasm
coming into his words for the first time.
"One of the quiet places?" she murmured, evidently at a loss for
something else to say.
"Yes, a quiet place which must have been like this place and yet, at
the same time, most wonderfully different, for no poet at all could
imagine any tale of love and passion springing from the life about us
here. The people of the valley seem to have died before they were born.
I will lend you this poem, if you'd care to have it."
"Oh, thank you, Mr. Shannon!" she said.
They had wandered down a lane which led from the high road towards the
peaceful fields beyond the little lake. This lane, he told her, was
called "The Road of the Dead," and would afford her a short cut to her
lodging at Sergeant McGoldrick's.
For lack of anything else to say, she remarked upon the strangeness of
this name--The Road of the Dead. He said it seemed a title particularly
suitable. He went on to elaborate the idea he had just expressed:
"Around and about here they are all dead--dead. No passion of any kind
comes to light their existence. Their life is a thing done meanly,
shudderingly within the shadow of the grave. That is how I have been
seeing it for the past few weeks. They hate the occurrence of new
people in their midst. They hate me already, and now they will hate
you. The sight of us walking together like this must surely cause them
to hate us still more."
She was wondering that his words should hold a sense of consideration
for her, seeing that they had been acquainted only such a short while.
"This way leads from a graveyard to a graveyard, and they have a
silly superstition that dead couples are sometimes seen walking
here. Particularly dismal also do I consider this picture of their
imagination. The idea of any one thinking us a dead couple!"
As he said this her blushing cheek showed certainly that life was
strong in her.... Upon the wings of his words grand thoughts had gone
flying through her mind. All day she had been looking forward with
dread to the yellow, sickly, sunlit time after school. And now to think
that the miracle of this romantic young man had happened.... Both grew
silent. Rebecca's eyes were filling with visions and wandering over a
field of young green corn. They were dancing upon the waves of sunlight
which shimmered over all the clean, feathery surface of the field. The
eyes of Ulick were straying from the landscape and dwelling upon her
deeply, upon the curves of her throat and bosom, and upon the gentle
billows of her hair. Over all his face was clouding that mysterious,
murky expression which had come as he gazed upon the little barmaid of
the "North Leinster Arms" a few days previously.