in rural ireland the "bona-fide," or rather mala-fide, traveler constitutes a certain blasphemous aspect in the celebration of the sabbath. there are different types of "bona-fide," whose characteristics may be said to vary in direct proportion to their love and enthusiasm for porter. the worship of porter, when it has attained the proportions of a perfect passion, is best described as "the pursuit of porter in a can." it is the cause of many drunken skirmishes with the law, and it is interesting to observe such mistaken heroes in the execution of their plans.
at a given signal a sudden descent is made upon a pub. a series of whistles from sentries in various parts of the village has announced the arrival of the propitious moment. a big tin'can is the only visible evidence of their dark intention. one almost forgets its betraying presence in the whirling moment of the brave deed. then the deed is done. by some extraordinary process the can that was empty is found to be filled. it is the miracle of the porter.... when the sergeant and his colleagues come on the scene some hours later, an empty can with slight traces of froth upon the sides, "like beaded bubbles winking at the brim," constitutes the remaining flimsy evidence of the great thing that has happened.
the mind of john brennan was more or less foreign[pg 37] to this aspect of life amongst the fields. he would be the very last to realize that such were essential happenings in the life of his native village of garradrimna. on his first sunday at home he went walking, after second mass, through the green woods which were the western boundary of the village. his thoughts were dwelling upon father o'keeffe's material interpretation of the gospel story. at last they eddied into rest as he moved there along the bright path between the tall trees, so quiet as with adoration.
when he came by that portion of the demesne wall, which lay at the back of brannagan's public-house, he heard a scurrying of rabbits among the undergrowth. in the sudden hush which followed he heard a familiar voice raised in a tense whisper.
"hurry, quick! quick! there's some one in black coming up the path. it must be sergeant mcgoldrick. the can! the can!"
his cheeks were suddenly flushed by a feeling of shame, for it was his father who had spoken. he stood behind a wide beech tree in mere confusion and not that he desired to see what was going forward.
his father, ned brennan, bent down like an acrobat across the demesne wall and took the can from some one beneath. then he ran down through the undergrowth, the brown froth of the porter dashing out upon his trousers, his quick eyes darting hither and thither like those of a frightened animal. but he did not catch sight of john, who saw him raise the can to his lips.
it was a new experience for john brennan to see his father thus spending the sabbath in this dark place in[pg 38] the woods, while out in the young summer day spilled and surged all the wonder of the world.... a sort of pity claimed possession of him as he took a different way among the cathedral trees.... his father was the queer man, queer surely, and moving lonely in his life. he was not the intimate of his son nor of the woman who was his son's mother. he had never seemed greatly concerned to do things towards the respect and honor of that woman. and yet john brennan could not forget that he was his father.
just now another incident came to divert his mood. he encountered an ancient dryad flitting through the woods. this was padna padna, a famous character in garradrimna. for all his name was that of the great apostle of his country, his affinities were pagan. although he was eighty, he got drunk every day and never went to mass. in his early days he had been the proprietor of a little place and the owner of a hackney car. when the posting business fell into decline, he had had to sell the little place and the horse and car, and the purchase money had been left for his support with a distant relative in the village. he was a striking figure as he moved abroad in the disguise of a cleric not altogether devoted to the service of god. he always dressed in solemn black, and his coat was longer than that of a civilian. his great hat gave him a downcast look, as of one who has peered into the mysteries. his face was wasted and small, and this, with his partially blinded eyes behind the sixpenny spectacles, gave him a certain asceticism of look. yet it was the way he carried himself rather than his general aspect which created this impression of him. he was very small,[pg 39] and shrinking daily. his eyes were always dwelling upon his little boots in meditation. were you unaware of his real, character, you might foolishly imagine that he was thinking of high, immortal things, but he was in reality thinking of drink.
this was his daily program. he got up early and, on most mornings, crossed the street to bartle donohoe, the village barber, for a shave. bartle would be waiting for him, his dark eye hanging critically as he tested the razor edge against the skin of his thumb. the little blade would be glinting in the sunlight.... sometimes bartle would become possessed of the thought that the morning might come when, after an unusually hard carouse on the previous night, he would not be responsible for all his razor might do, that it might suddenly leap out of his shivering hand and make a shocking end of padna padna and all his tyranny.... but his reputation as the drunkard with the steadiest hand in garradrimna had to be maintained. if he did not shave padna padna the fact would be published in every house.
"bartle donohoe was too shaky to shave me this morning; too shaky, i say. ah, he's going wrong, going wrong! and will ye tell me this now? how is it that if ye buy a clock, a little ordinary clock for a couple of shillings, and give it an odd wind, it'll go right; but a man, a great, clever man'll go wrong no matter what way ye strive for to manage him?"
if bartle shaved him, padna padna would take his barber over to tommy williams's to give him a drink, which was the only payment he ever expected. after this, his first one, padna padna would say, "not going[pg 40] to drink any more to-day," to which bartle donohoe would reply sententiously: "d'ye tell me so? well, well! is that a fact?"
then, directly, he would proceed to take a little walk before his breakfast, calling at every house of entertainment and referring distantly to the fact that bartle donohoe had a shake in his hand this morning. "a shame for him, and he an only son and all!"
and thus did he spend the days of his latter end, pacing the sidewalks of garradrimna, entering blindly into pubs and discussing the habits of every one save himself.
he was great in the field of reminiscence.
"be the holy farmer!" he would say, "but there's no drinking nowadays tost what used to be longo. there's no decent fellows, and that's a fact. ah, they were the decent fellows longo. you couldn't go driving them a place but they'd all come home mad. and sure i often didn't know where i'd be driving them, i'd be that bloody drunk. aye, decent fellows! sure they're all dead now through the power and the passion of drink."
so this was the one whom john brennan now encountered amid the green beauty of the woodland places. to him padna padna was one of the immortals. succeeding holiday after succeeding holiday had he met the ancient man, fading surely but never wholly declining or disappearing. the impulse which had prompted him to speak to marse prendergast a few days previously now made him say: "how are you, old man?" to padna padna.
the venerable drunkard, by way of immediate reply, tapped upon his lips with his fingers and then blew upon[pg 41] his fingers and whistled in cogitation. it was with his ears that he saw, and he possessed an amazing faculty for distinguishing between the different voices of different people.
"john brennan!" he at length exclaimed, in his high, thin voice. "is that john brennan?"
"it is, the very one."
"and how are ye, john?"
"very well, indeed, padna. how are you?"
"poorly only. ah, john, this is the hard day on me always, the sunday. i declare to me god i detest sunday. here am i marching through the woods since seven and i having no drink whatever. that cursed sergeant mcgoldrick! may he have a tongue upon him some day the color of an ould brick and he in the seventh cavern of hell! did ye see ned?"
the sudden and tense question was not immediately intelligible to john brennan. there were so many of the name about garradrimna. padna padna pranced impatiently as he waited for an answer.
"ah, is it letting on you are that you don't know who i mean, and you with your grand ecclesiastical learning and all to that. 'tis your own father, ned brennan, that i mean. i was in a 'join' with him to get a can out of brannigan's. mebbe you didn't see him anywhere down through the wood, for i have an idea that he's going to swindle me. did ye see him, i'm asking you?"
even still john did not reply, for something seemed to have caught him by the throat and was robbing him of the power of speech. the valley, with its vast malevolence of which his mother had so recently warned him,[pg 42] was now driving him to say something which was not true.
"no, padna, i did not see him!" he at last managed to jerk out.
"mebbe he didn't manage to get me drink for me yet, and mebbe he did get it and is after drinking it somewhere in the shadows of the trees where he couldn't be seen. but what am i saying at all? sure if he was drinking it there before me, where you're standing, i couldn't see him, me eyes is that bad. isn't it the poor and the hard case to be blinded to such an extent?"
john brennan felt no pity, so horrible was the expression that now struggled into those dimming eyes. he thought of a puzzling fact of his parentage. why was it that his mother had never been able to save his father from the ways of degradation into which he had fallen, the low companions, the destruction of the valley; from all of which to even the smallest extent she was now so anxious to save her son?
padna padna was still blowing upon his fingers and regretting:
"now isn't it the poor and the hard case that there's no decent fellows left in the world at all. to think that i can meet never a one now, me that spent so much of me life driving decent fellows, driving, driving. john, do ye know what it is now? you're after putting me in mind of henry shannon. he was the decentest fellow! many's the time i drove him down to your grandmother's place when he wouldn't have a foot under him to leave garradrimna. that was when your mother was a young girl, john. hee, hee, hee!"
[pg 43]
john could not divine the reasons for the old man's glee, nor did he perceive that the mind of padna padna, even in the darkening stages of its end, was being lit by a horrible sneer at him and the very fact of his existence. instead he grew to feel rather a stir of compassion for this old man, with his shattered conception of happiness such as it was, burning his mind with memories while he rode down so queerly to the grave.
as he moved away through the long, peaceful aisles of the trees, his soul was filled with gray questioning because of what he had just seen of his father and because of the distant connection of his mother with the incident. why was it at all that his mother had never been able to save his father?
as he emerged from the last circle of the woods there seemed to be a shadow falling low over the fields. he went with no eagerness towards the house of his mother. this was sunday, and it was her custom to spend a large portion of the sabbath in speaking of her neighbors. but she would never say anything about his father, even though ned brennan would not be in the house.
