whenever a person from the valley went abroad now to fair or market the question was always asked:
"is it a fact that ulick shannon was expelled from the university in dublin and is at home? and is it a fact that john brennan is at home from the college he was at too, the grand college in england whose story his mother spread far and wide?"
"that's quite so, ma'am. it's a double fact!"
"well, well!"
"and is it a fact that they do be always together, going by back ways into the seven publichouses of garradrimna?"
"oh, indeed, that's true, ma'am, and now you have the whole of it. sure it was in the same seven publichouses that the pair of them laid the foundations of their ruination last summer. sure, do ye know what i'm going to tell you? they couldn't be kept out of them, and that's as sure as you're there!"
now it was true that if ulick had gone at all towards garradrimna it was through very excess of spirits, and it was for the very same reason that he had enticed john brennan to go with him.... that time they were full of hope and their minds were held by their thoughts of rebecca. but now, somehow, she seemed to have slipped[pg 199] out of the lives of both of them. and because both had chosen. the feeling had entered into ulick's heart. but in the case of john brennan it was not so certain. what had brought him out upon the first morning of his homecoming to take a look at her? it would seem that, through the sudden quickening of his mind towards study just before the break-up of the college, he should have forgotten her.... his life now seemed to hang in the balance shudderingly; a breath might direct it anyway.
he felt that he should have liked to make some suggestions of his own concerning his future, but there was always that tired look of love in his mother's eyes to frustrate his intention.... often he would go into the sewing-room of a morning and she would say so sadly as she bent over her machine—"i'm contriving, john; i'm contriving!" he had come to the years of manhood and yet he must needs leave every initiative in her hands since she would have it so.... thus was he driven from the house at many a time of the day.
he went to morning mass as usual, but the day was long and dreary after that, for the weather was wet and the coldness of winter still lay heavy over the fields. the evenings were the dreariest as he sat over his books in his room and listened to the hum of his mother's machine. later this would give place to the tumultuous business of his father's home-coming from garradrimna. sometimes things were broken, and the noise would destroy his power of application. thus it was that, for the most part, he avoided the house in the evenings. at the fall of dark he would go slipping along the wet road on his way to garradrimna. where the way from scarden joined the way from tullahanogue he generally met[pg 200] ulick shannon, comfortably top-coated, bound for the same place.
it seemed as if the surrounding power of the talk their presence in the valley had created was driving them towards those scenes in which that talk had pictured them. through the dusk people would smirk at them as they were seen going the road.... they would slip into mcdermott's by the same back way that ned brennan had often gone to brannagan's. many a time did they pass the place in the woods where john had beheld the adventure of his father and the porter last summer.... in the bottling room of mcdermott's they would fancy they were unseen, but shamesy golliher or padna padna or thomas james would be always cropping up most unaccountably to tell the tale when they went out into the bar again after what would appear the most accidental glance into the bottling-room.... john would take port wine and ulick whatever drink he preferred. but even the entertainment of themselves after this fashion did not evoke the subtle spell of last summer. there was no laughter, no stories, even of a questionable kind, when josie guinan came to answer their call. every evening she would ask the question:
"well, how is rebecca, ulick?"
this gross familiarity irritated him greatly, for his decent breeding made him desire that she should keep her distance. besides he did not want any one to remind him of rebecca just now. he never answered this question, nor the other by which it was always followed:
"you don't see her very often now, do ye? but of course the woods bees wet these times."
the mere mention of rebecca's name in this filthy[pg 201] place annoyed john brennan, who thought of her continuously as some one far beyond all aspects of garradrimna.
yet they would be forever coming here to invite this persecution. ulick would ever and again retreat into long silences that were painful for his companion. but john found some solace come to him through the port wine. so much was this the case that he began to have a certain hankering after spending the evening in this way. when the night had fallen thick and dark over garradrimna they would come out of mcdermott's and spend long hours walking up and down the valley road. ulick would occasionally give vent to outbursts of talk upon impersonal subjects—the war and politics, the tragic trend of modern literature. john always listened with interest. he never wished to return early to the house, for he dreaded the afflicted drone of his mother reading the holy books to his father by the kitchen fire.
during those brief spells, when the weather brightened for a day or two, he often took walks down by the school and towards the lake.... always he felt, through power of an oppressive realization, that the eyes of master donnellan were upon him as he slipped past the school.... so he began to go by a lane which did not take him before the disappointed eyes of the old man.
going this way one day he came upon a battered school-reader of an advanced standard, looking so pathetic in its final desertion by its owner, for there is nothing so lonely as the things a schoolboy leaves behind him.... he began to remember the days when he, too, had gone to the valley school and there instituted the great promise which, so far, had not come to fulfilment. he was [pg 202]turning over the leaves when he came on a selection from carlyle's french revolution—"thy foot to light on softness, thy eye on splendor." he pondered it as he stood by the water's edge and until it connected itself with his thought of rebecca. thy foot to light on softness, thy eye on splendor.
it would be nearing three o'clock now, he thought, and rebecca must soon be going from school. he might see her passing along between the muddy puddles on the road of the dead.
he had fallen down before her again.
