as if from the excitement of the concert, john brennan felt weary next morning. he had been awake since early hours listening to the singing of the birds in all the trees near the house. the jolly sounds came to him as a great comfort. consequently it was with an acute sensation of annoyance that there crowded in upon his sense of hearing little distracting noises. now it was the heavy rumble of a cart, again the screech of a bicycle ridden by farrell mcguinness on his way to garradrimna for the letters of his rounds; and, continually, the hard rasp of nailed boots upon the gravel of the road.
his mother was moving about in the sewing-room beneath. he could hear the noise made by her scissors as, from time to time, she laid it down and picked it up again, while, mingled with these actions, occasionally came up to him the little, unmusical song of the machine. his father was still snoring.
last night rebecca kerr had shone in his eyes.... but how exactly had she appeared before the eyes of garradrimna and the valley? after what manner would she survive the strong blast of talk? the outlook of his mother would be representative of the feeling which had been created. yet he felt that it would be repugnant to him to speak with his mother of rebecca kerr. there would be that faded woman, [pg 113]looking at him with a kind of loving anxiety which seemed always to have the effect of crushing him back relentlessly towards the realities of the valley and his own reality. after his thoughts of last night and this morning he hated to face his mother.
when at last he went down into the room where she sat sewing he had such an unusual look in his eyes as seemed to require the solace of an incident to fill it. if he had expected to find a corresponding look upon his mother's face he was disappointed. it seemed to wear still the quizzical expression of last night, and a slight curl at the corners of her mouth told that her mind was being sped by some humorous or satirical impulse.
"whatever was the matter with you last night, john?" she asked.
she did not give him time to frame an answer, but went on:
"and i dying down dead to talk to you about the concert, i could not get you to speak one word to me and we coming home."
he noticed that she was in good heart, and, although it was customary with him to be pleased to see his mother in a mood of gladness, he could not enter into laughter and gossip with her now.
but she could not be silent. this small expedition into the outer world of passing events was now causing her mind to leap, with surprising agility, from topic to topic.... yet what was striking john more than her talk, and with a more arresting realization, was, that although the hour of his mass-going was imminent, she was not reminding him or urging him to remembrance[pg 114] of the good custom.... at last he was driven by some scruple to remind her of the time, and it was her answer that finally amazed him:
"ah, sure you mightn't go to-day, john. you're tired and all to that, i know, and i want to tell you.... he! he! he! now wasn't it the funniest thing to see the schoolmistress of ballinamult and the schoolmistress of tullahanogue and they up upon the one stage with harry holton's dramatics making sport for a lot of grinning idiots? like a couple of circus girls they were, the brazen things! indeed miss kerr is the bold-looking hussy, with not a bit of shame in her at all. but sure we may say she fell among her equals, for there wasn't much class connected with it anyhow."
"i think ulick shannon was knocking about the stage."
the words strayed, without much sense of meaning or direction, out of the current of his musing, but they produced a swift and certain effect upon mrs. brennan. her eyes seemed to cloud suddenly behind her glasses.
"aye ... i wonder who was the girl he went off with through the wood as we came out. never fear it was the new schoolmistress."
she said this with a curious, dead quietness in her tones, and when she had spoken she seemed instantly sorry that the words had slipped from her lips.... it seemed a queer thing to say to her son and he going on to be a priest.
john thought it very strange that she too should have observed this incident, which he had imagined must have been hidden from all eyes save his own. he now wondered how many more must have seen it as he tried[pg 115] to recall the sensations with which it had filled him.... but beyond this remarkable endeavor of his mind his mother was again speaking:
"if you went now, you'd be in time for half-past eight mass."
he did not fail to notice the immediate change which had taken place in her, and wondered momentarily what could have been its sudden cause. he was beginning to notice of late that she had grown more and more subject to such unaccountable fits.
in his desire to obey her he was still strong, but, this morning, as he walked along to garradrimna he was possessed by a certain feeling of annoyance which seemed to strain the bond that stretched between them.
in the chapel he knelt beside charlie clarke, like the voteens around them, with a lifeless acquiescence in the ceremony. he was here not because his heart was here, but merely because his mother had wished it. when his lips moved, in mechanical mimicry of the priest, he felt that the way of the hypocrite must be hard and lonely.
when he came out, upon the road he was confused to find himself face to face with rebecca kerr. it seemed a trick of coincidence that he should meet her now, for it had never happened on any other morning. then he suddenly remembered how his mother had kept him late from "eight o'clock" by her talk of the concert, and it was now miss kerr's school-going time.... she smiled and spoke to him.
she looked handsome as she moved there along the road from the house of sergeant mcgoldrick to the girls' school of tullahanogue. she was in harmony with the beauty of the morning. there had been a dull[pg 116] pain upon his mind since he had last seen her, but already it was gone.
although the concert might appear as the immediate subject to which their minds would turn, this was not so. they began to talk of places and things away from garradrimna.
she spun for his amusement many little yarns of the nuns who conducted the college where she had been trained. he told her stories of the priests who taught in the english college where he was being educated for the priesthood. they enlarged upon the peculiarities of monastic establishments.
"and you're going to be a priest?" she said, looking up into his face suddenly with dancing eyes.
such a question had never before been put to him in exactly this way.
"i am.... at least, i think so.... oh, yes!" he faltered.
she laughed in a ringing, musical way that seemed to hold just the faintest trace of mockery in its tones, but it seemed, next instant, to be only by way of preface to another conventual tale which she proceeded to tell.
through the period of this story they did not notice that they were being stared at by those they were meeting upon the road.... as she chatted and laughed, his eyes would be straying, in spite of him, to that soft place upon her neck from which her hair sprang upward.
it was with painful abruptness that she said: "good morning, mr. brennan!" and went into the old, barrack-like school.
