Large posters everywhere announced the holding of a concert in Garradrimna. As in many other aspects of life in the village, it was not given to John Brennan to see their full meaning. He had not even seen in Thomas James, who posted the bills, a symbolic figure, but only one whom disaster had overtaken through the pursuit of his passion. For many a year had Thomas James gone about in this way, foretelling some small event in the life of Garradrimna. Now it was a race-meeting or a circus, again an auction or a fair. All the while he had been slipping into his present condition, and herein lay the curious pathos of him. For he would never post like this the passing of his own life; he would never set up a poster of Eternity.  
It was curious to think of that, no poster at all of the exact moment amid the mass of Time when the Great White Angel would blow his blast upon the Shining Trumpet to awaken all Earth by its clear, wide ringing across the Seven Seas.
 
John Brennan spoke to his mother of the concert.
 
"The cheek of them I do declare, with their concert. People don't find it hard enough to get their money without giving it to them. Bits of shop-boys and shop-girls! But I suppose they want new clothes and costumes for the summer. I'll go bail you'll see them girls with new hats after this venture."
 
[Pg 105]
 
"The bills announce that it is for the Temperance Club funds."
 
"And them's the quare funds, you might say, and the quare club. Young fellows and young girls meeting in the one room to get up plays. No good can come of it."
 
"Of course we need not attend if we don't like."
 
"Ah, we must go all the same. If we didn't, 'tis what they would say mebbe that we hadn't the means, and so we must let them know that we have. It wouldn't be nice to see you away from it."
 
"I have no desire to go, mother, I assure you. A quiet evening more or less will not matter."
 
"But sure it'll be a bit of diversion and amusement."
 
"Yes, that is exactly what I was thinking, so I didn't see anything very wrong in going or in supporting those who organized it. But if you don't care to go, it does not matter."
 
"Ah, but wouldn't it be the quare thing to see your mother ignorant and not having a word to say about what was after passing to any one that would come in, and they knowing the whole thing? Now what you'll do for me, John, is this. You'll go into Phillips's this evening and get two of the most expensive tickets, one for yourself and one for me."
 
John Brennan had a momentary realization of the pitiful vanity behind this speech. He remained thinking while she went upstairs for the price of the tickets, for that must be her object, he fancied, in ascending into the upper story. He could hear her moving a trunk and opening it. The sounds came to him with perfect clearness in the still room and struck him with a sense of their little mournfulness, even though he was quite[Pg 106] unaware that his mother had secretly begun the destruction of a bright portion of her life's dream.
 
In the evening he went to the village for the tickets.
 
"It'll be a grand turn-out," said Jimmy Phillips, as he took in the money and blinked in anticipation with his one eye.
 
"I'm sure," said John, as he left the little shop where you might buy the daily newspaper and sweets and everything.
 
He strolled up the street towards the old castle of the De Lacys. The local paper, published at Mullaghowen, was never tired of setting down its fame. The uncouth historians of the village had almost exhausted their adjectives in relating the exploits of this marauding baron of the Normans who had here built him a fortress, from which his companies of conquering freebooters had sallied forth so long ago. Yet, as an extraordinary mistake on the part of those who concerned themselves so intimately with the life around them, they had altogether missed the human side of the crumbling ruin. Of what romances of knighthood it had once been the scene? Of what visions of delight when fair women had met cuirassed gallants? Of all that pride which must have reared itself aloft in this place which was now the resort, by night, of the most humble creatures of the wild? Not one of them had ever been able to fancy the thoughts which must have filled the mind of Hugh De Lacy as he drew near this noble monument of his glory after some successful expedition against the chieftains of the Pale.
 
Through the thin curtain of the twilight John Brennan saw two figures stealing from the labyrinthine ways[Pg 107] which led beneath the castle into what were known as "The Cells." These were dark, narrow places in which two together would be in close proximity, and it was out from them that this man and this woman were now stealing. He could not be certain of their identity, but they looked like two whom he knew.... And he had heard that Rebecca Kerr was going to sing at the concert, and also that Ulick Shannon was coaching the Garradrimna Dramatic Class in the play they were to produce, which was one he had seen at the Abbey Theater.... A curious thrill ran through him which was like a spasm of pain. Could it be this girl and this young man who had spoken with such disgusting intimacy of the female sex in the bar of the "North Leinster Arms" in Ballinamult ...? They went by a back way into the Club, where the rehearsals were now going forward.
 
John Brennan was sitting stiffly beside his mother in the front seats. Around and about him were people of renowned respectability, who had also paid two shillings each for their tickets. The seven publicans of Garradrimna were there, some with their wives, some with their wives and daughters, and some with their wives and daughters and sisters-in-law. The Clerk of the union continually adjusting and re-adjusting his lemon-colored gloves. The old bespectacled maid from the Post Office sitting near the gray, bullet-headed postmaster, whose apoplectic jowl was shining. They were keeping up a continual chatter and buzz and giggle b............