There was a curious hush about the lake next evening, although the
little cottage of Hughie Murtagh was swept by winds which stirred
mournfully through all the bright abundance of early summer. Even the
orange-blossoms of the furze seemed to put on an aspect of surrender.
There was no challenge in their color now; they looked almost white
against a somber sunset. John Brennan moped about among the fir-trees.
He came to a stand-still by one that had begun to decay and which was
even more mournful in its failure to contribute another plumed head to
the general effect of mourning. But it seemed to shake enraged at this
impotence in its poor foundation over the deserted warren, from which
Shamesy Golliher had long since driven the little rabbits towards that
dark Chicago of slaughter which was represented to them by Garradrimna.
The same color of desolation was upon the reeds which separated
him from the water. The water itself had, beneath its pretense of
brightness upon the surface, the appearance of ooze, as if it had come
washing over the slime of dead things.
It was here that John Brennan had come to wait for Ulick Shannon, and,
as he waited, his mood became that of his surroundings.... He fell to
running over what had happened to him. Alternately, in the swirl of his
consciousness, it appeared as the power of the valley and as the Hand
of God. Yet, whatever it might be in truth, this much was certain. It
had reduced his life to ruins. It was a fearful thing, and he shuddered
a little while he endeavored to produce a clear picture of it for the
chastisement as well as the morbid excitement of his imagination.
But there came instead a far different picture, which seemed to have
the effect of lifting for a moment the surrounding gloom. He saw
Rebecca Kerr again as upon many an afternoon they had met. For one
brave moment he strove to recover the fine feeling that had filled
him at those times. But it would not come. Something had happened,
something terrible which soiled and spoiled her forever.
For love of her he had dreamed even unto the desire of defeating his
mother's love. And yet there was no triumph in his heart now, nothing
save defeat and a great weariness. Neither his mother nor Rebecca Kerr
were any longer definite hopes upon which his mind might dwell....
His thoughts were running altogether upon Ulick Shannon. It was for
Ulick he waited now in this lonely, wind-swept place, like any villain
he had ever seen depicted upon the cover of a penny dreadful in
Phillips's window when he was a boy. He now saw himself fixed in his
own imagination after this fashion. Ulick Shannon would soon come.
There was no doubt of this, for a definite appointment had been made
during the day. He had remained at home from the college in Ballinamult
to bring it about. Soon they would be endeavoring to enter what must
be the final and tragic bye-way of their story. And it must be all so
dreadfully interesting, this ending he had planned.... Now the water
came flowing towards him more rapidly as if to hurry the tragedy. It
came more thickly and muddily and with long, billowy strides as if
it yearned to gather some other body still holding life to its wild
breast. Its waters kept flowing as if from some wide wound that ached
and would not be satisfied; that bled and called aloud for blood
forever.
Now also the evening shadows were beginning to creep down the hills and
with them a deeper hush was coming upon the wild longing of all things.
Yet it was no hush of peace, but rather the concentration of some
horrible purpose upon one place.
"I am going away on Friday," Ulick had written in one of the two notes
that had been exchanged between them by the messenger during the day,
"and I would like to see you for what must, unfortunately, be the last
time. I am slipping away unknown to my uncle or to any one, and it is
hardly probable that I will be seen in these parts again."
At length he beheld the approach of Ulick down the long Hill of
Annus.... His spirit thrilled within him and flamed again into a white
flame of love for the girl who was gone.... And coming hither was the
man who had done this thing.... The thickest shadows of the evening
would soon be gathered closely about the scene they were to witness....
The very reeds were rustling now in dread.
The lake was deep here at the edge of the water.... And in the
rabbit-warren beneath his feet were the heavy pieces of lead piping
he had transported in the night. He had taken them from his father's
stock of plumber's materials, that moldy, unused stock which had so
long lain in the back yard and which, in a distant way, possessed an
intimate connection with this heaped-up story.... In a little instant
of peculiar consciousness he wondered whether it would be pliable
enough.... There were pieces for the legs and pieces for the arms which
would enfold those members as in a weighty coffin.... And hidden nearer
to his hand was the strangely-shaped, uncouth weapon his father had
used many a time with such lack of improvement upon the school slates
and with which one might kill a man.... The body would rest well down
there beneath the muddy waters.... There would be no possibility of
suspicion falling upon him, for the story of Rebecca Kerr's disgrace
and Ulick Shannon's connection with it had already got about the
valley.... He had been listening to his mother telling it to people all
day.... Ulick's disappearance, in a way self-effacing and unnamed, was
hourly expected. This opportunity appeared the one kind trick of Fate
which had been so unkind to the passionate yearnings of John Brennan.
But Ulick Shannon was by his side, and they were talking again
as friends of different things in the light way of old.... Their
talk moved not at all within the shadows of things about to happen
presently.... But the shadows were closing in, and very soon they must
fall and lie heavily upon all things here by the lake.
"Isn't it rather wonderful, Brennan, that I should be going hence
through the power of a woman? It is very strange how they always manage
to have their revenge, how they beat us in the long run no matter how
we may plume ourselves on a triumph that we merely fancy. Although
we may degrade and rob them of their treasure, ours is the final
punishment. Do you remember how I told you on that day we were at the
'North Leinster Arms,' in Ballinamult, there was no trusting any woman?
Not even your own mother! Now this Rebecca Kerr, she--"
The sentence was never finished. John Brennan had not spoken, but his
hand had moved twice--to lift the uncouth weapon from the foot of
the tree and again to strike the blow.... The mold of unhappy clay
from which the words of Ulick had just come was stilled forever. The
great cry which struggled to break from the lips resulted only in a
long-drawn sigh that was like a queer swoon. The mournful screech of a
wild bird flying low over the lake drowned the little gust of sound....
Then the last lone silence fell between the two young men who had once
been most dear companions.
No qualms of any kind came to the breast of John Brennan. He had
hardened his heart between the leaping flames of Love and Hate, and
there was upon him now the feeling of one who has done a fine thing.
He was in the moment of his triumph, yet he was beginning to be amazed
by his sudden power and the result of his decision.... That he, John
Brennan, should have had it in him to murder his friend.... But no, it
was his enemy he had murdered, the man who had desecrated the beauty of
the world.... And there was a rare grandeur in what he had done. It was
a thing of beauty snatched from the red hands of Death.
Yet as he went about his preparations for submerging the body he felt
something akin to disgust for this the mean business of the murder....
Here was where the beauty that had been his deed snapped finally from
existence in his consciousness and disappeared from him.
Henceforth gray thought after gray thought came tumbling into his
mind. Ulick had not been a bad fellow. He had tried to be kind to
him--all the motor-drives and the walks and talks they had had. Even
the bits of days and nights spent together in Garradrimna.... And how
was Ulick to know of his affection for Rebecca Kerr? There had never
been the faintest statement of the fact between them; his whole manner
and conversation and the end for which he was intended forbade any
suspicion of the kind. In fact to have had such a doubt would have
been a sin in the eyes of many a Catholic.... The legs and arms were
well weighted now.... This might not have happened if his mother had
been attended in the right spirit of filial obedience.... But with
the arrogance of youth, which he now realized for the first time, he
had placed himself above her opinion and done what he had desired at
the moment. And why had he done so?... She would seem to have had
foreboding of all this in the way she had looked upon him so tenderly
with her tired eyes many a time since his memorable home-coming last
summer. She had always been so fearfully anxious.... Here must have
been the melancholy end she had seen at the back of all dreaming.... He
could feel that sad look clearly, all dimmed by dark presentiments.
The body was a great weight. He strove to lift it in his arms in such a
way that his clothes might not be soiled by the blood.... His face was
very near the pale, dead face with the red blood now clotting amongst
the hair.... He was almost overpowered by his burden as he dragged it
to the water's edge.... It was a very fearful thing to look at just as
the water closed over it with a low, gurgling sound, as if of mourning,
like the cry of the bird in the moment the murder had been done.
As he staggered back from the sighing reeds he noticed that the ground
was blood-drenched beneath the tree.... But he was doing the thing most
thoroughly. In a frenzy of precautionary industry he began to hack away
the earth with the slating implement very much as Shamesy Golliher
might hack it in search of a rabbit.
Later he seemed to put on the very appearance of Shamesy himself as,
with bent body, he slouched away across the ridge of the world. He too
had just effected a piece of slaughter and Garradrimna seemed to call
him.