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 sudden
home-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 have an 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 been ancient
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
Ulick Shannon 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 I going 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's happened 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 them at 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 polished
to 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 and a 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?