It is on his passage through the village of Garradrimna that we may most truly observe John Brennan, in sharp contrast with his dingy environment, as he goes to hear morning Mass at the instigation of his mother, whose pathetic fancy fails to picture him in any other connection. It is a beautiful morning, and the sun is already high. There is a clean freshness upon all things. The tall trees which form a redeeming background for the uneven line of the ugly houses on the western side of the street are flinging their rich raiment wildly upon the light breeze where it floats like the decorative garments of a ballet dancer. The light winds are whipping the lightness of the morning.  
The men of drink are already stirring about in anticipation. Hubert Manning is striking upon the door of Flynn's, the grocery establishment, which, in the heavy blindness of his thirst, he takes to be one of the seven publichouses of Garradrimna. He is running about like some purged sinner, losing patience at last hard by the Gate of Heaven. In the course of her inclusive chronicles his mother had told John Brennan the life history of Hubert Manning. For sixty odd years he had bent his body in hard battle with the clay, until the doubtful benefit of a legacy had come to change the current of his life. The fortune, with its sudden diversion towards idleness and enjoyment, had caused[Pg 76] all the latent villainy of the man, which the soil had subdued, to burst forth with violence. He was now a drunken old cur whom Sergeant McGoldrick caused to spend a fortune in fines.
 
"Just imagine the people who do be left the money!" said Mrs. Brennan, as she told the story.
 
John Brennan passes on. He meets the bill-poster, Thomas James. His dark, red face displays an immense anxiety. He is going for his first pint with a pinch of salt held most carefully in his hand. His present condition is a fact to be deplored, for he was famous in his time and held the record in Garradrimna for fast drinking of a pint. He could drink twenty pints in a day. Hence his decline and the pinch of salt now held so carefully in his hand. This is to keep down the first pint, and if the operation be safely effected it is quite possible that the other nineteen will give him no trouble.
 
Coming in the valley road are Shamesy Golliher and Martin Connell. In the distance they appear as small, shrinking figures, moving in abasement beneath the Gothic arches of the elms. They represent the advance guard of those who leave the sunlit fields on a summer morning to come into the dark, cavernous pubs of Garradrimna.
 
On the side of the street, distant from that upon which John Brennan is walking, moves the famous figure of Padna Padna, slipping along like some spirit of discontent and immortal longing, doomed forever to wander. He mistakes the student for one of the priests and salutes him by tipping his great hat lightly with his little fore-finger.
 
[Pg 77]
 
And here comes yet another, this one with speed and determination in his stride, for it is Anthony Shaughness, who has spent three-fourths of his life running away from Death.
 
"Will you save a life; will you save a life?" he whispers wildly, clutching John by the arm. "I have a penny, but sure a penny is no good, sir; and I want tuppence-ha'penny to add to it for the price of a pint; but sure you won't mind when it's to save my life! I know you'll give it to me for the love of God!"
 
This is a very well-known request in the mouth of Anthony Shaughness, and John Brennan has attended it so very often during the past few years as to deserve a medal for life-saving. Yet he now takes the coppers from his small store of pocket-money and gives them to the dipsomaniac, who moves rapidly in the direction of "The World's End."
 
There is presently an exciting interlude. They are just opening up at Brannagan's as he goes past. The sleepy-looking barmaid has come to the newly-opened door, and makes an ungraceful gesture in gathering up her ugly dishevelled hair. A lout of a lad with a dirty cigarette in his mouth appears suddenly. They begin to grin at one another in foolish rapture, for it is a lovers' meeting. Through the doorway at which they stand the smell of stale porter is already assaulting the freshness of the morning. They enter the bar surreptitiously and John Brennan can hear the swish of a pint in the glass in which it is being filled. The usual morning gift, he thinks, with which this maiden favors this gallant lover of a new Romance.... There comes to him suddenly the idea that his name has been [Pg 78]mentioned in this dark place just now.... He goes on walking quickly towards the chapel.
 
The plan which Myles Shannon had originated was not lacking in subtlety. He foresaw a certain clash of character, between his nephew and the son of Nan Byrne, which must become most interesting as he watched it out of his malevolence. He could never, never, forget what she had done.... And always, beyond the desolation which appeared from concentration of his revengeful intentions, he beheld the ruins of her son.
 
He often thought it puzzling how she should never have imagined that some one like him might be tempted to do at some time what he was now about to do. It seemed remarkable beyond all else that her mind should possess such an opaque oneness of purpose, such an extraordinary "thickness," to use the term of the valley.
 
Yet this was a quality peculiar to the gentle hush of the grassy places. It seemed to arise from the removal of an intell............