John went from the kitchen to a restless night. Soon after daybreak he got up and looked out of the window. The crows had been flying across it darkly since the beginning of the light. He gazed down now towards the stretch of trees about the lake. They were dark figures in the somber picture. He had not seen them since autumn, and even then some of the brightness of summer had lingered with them. Now they looked as if they had been weeping. He could see the lake between the clumps of fir-trees. The water was all dark like the scene in which it was framed. It now beat itself into a futile imitation of billows, into a kind of make-believe before the wild things around that it was an angry sea, holding deep in its caverns the relics of great dooms. But the trees seemed to rock in enjoyment and to join forces with the wild things in tormenting the lake.
John looked at the clock. It was early hours, and there would be no need to go out for a long time. He went back to bed and remained there without sleep, gazing up at the ceiling.... He fell to thinking of what he would have to face in the valley now.... His mother had hinted at the wide scope of it last night when she said that she would rather anything in God's world had happened than this thing, this sudden[Pg 178] home-coming.... She was thinking only of her own pride. It was an offense against her pride, he felt, and that was all. It stood to lessen the exalted position which the purpose of his existence gave her before the other women of the valley. But he had begun to feel the importance of his own person in the scheme of circumstance by which he was surrounded. It had begun to appear to him that he mattered somehow; that in some undreamt-of way he might leave his mark upon the valley before he died.
He would go to Mass in Garradrimna this morning. He very well knew how this attendance at morning Mass was a comfort to his mother. He was about to do this thing to please her now. Yet, how was the matter going to affect himself? He would be stared at by the very walls and trees as he went the wet road into Garradrimna; and no matter what position he might take up in the chapel there would be very certain to be a few who would come kneeling together into a little group and, in hushed tones within the presence of their God upon the altar, say:
"Now, isn't that John Brennan I see before me, or can I believe my eyes? Aye, it must be him. Expelled, I suppose. Begad that's great. Expelled! Begad!" If he happened to take the slightest side-glance around, he would catch glimpses of eyes sunk low beneath brows which published expressions midway between pity and contempt, between delight and curiosity.... In some wonderful way the first evidence of his long hoped for downfall would spread throughout the small congregation. Those in front would let their heads or prayerbooks fall beside or behind them, so that they might have[Pg 179] an excuse for turning around to view the young man who, in his unfortunate presence here, stood for this glad piece of intelligence. The acolytes serving Father O'Keeffe, and having occasional glimpses of the congregation, would see the black-coated figure set there in contradistinction to Charlie Clarke and the accustomed voteens with the bobbing bonnets. In their wise looks up at him they would seem to communicate the news to the priest.
And although only a very few seconds had elapsed, Father O'Keeffe would have thrown off his vestments and be going bounding towards the Presbytery for his breakfast as John emerged from the chapel. It would be an ostentatious meeting. Although he had neither act nor part in it, nor did he favor it in any way, Father O'Keeffe always desired people to think that it was he who was "doing for Mrs. Brennan's boy beyond in England." ... There would be the usual flow of questions, a deep pursing of the lips, and the sudden creation of a wise, concerned, ecclesiastical look at every answer. Then there was certain to come the final brutal question: "And what are you going to do with yourself meanwhile, is it any harm to ask?" As he continued to stare up vacantly at the ceiling, John could not frame a possible answer to that question. And yet he knew it would be the foremost of Father O'Keeffe's questions.
There would be the hurried crowding into every doorway and into all the squinting windows as he went past. Outwardly there would be smiles of welcome for him, but in the seven publichouses of Garradrimna the exultation would be so great as to make men who had been[Pg 180] ancient enemies stand drinks to one another in the moment of gladness which had come upon them with the return of John Brennan.
"'Tis expelled he is like Ulick Shannon. That's as sure as you're there!"
"To be sure he's expelled. And wouldn't any one know he was going to be expelled the same as the other fellow, the way they were conducting themselves last summer, running after gerrls and drinking like hell?"
"And did ye ever hear such nonsense? The idea of him going on for to be a priest!" Then there would be a shaking of wise heads and a coming of wise looks into their faces.
He could see what would happen when he met the fathers of Garradrimna, when he met Padna Padna or Shamesy Golliher. There would be the short, dry laugh from Padna Padna, and a pathetic scrambling of the dimming intelligence to recognize him.
"And is that you, John? Back again! Well, boys-a-day! And isn't it grand that Ulick Shannon is at home these times too? Isn't it a pity about Ulick, for he's a decent fellow? Every bit as decent as his father, Henry Shannon, was, and he was a damned decent fellow. Ah, 'tis a great pity of him to be exshpelled. Aye, 'tis a great pity of any one that does be exshpelled."
The meeting with Shamesy Golliher formed as a clearer picture before his mind.
"Arrah me sound man, John, sure I thought you'd be saying the Mass before this time. There's nothing strange in the valley at all. Only 'tis harder than ever to get the rabbits, the weeshy devils! Only for Ulick[Pg 181] Shannon I don't know what I'd do for a drink sometimes. But, damn it, he's the decentest fellow.... You're only a few minutes late, sure 'tis only this blessed minute that Miss Kerr's gone on to the school.... And you could have been chatting with her so grandly all the way!"
That John Brennan should be thinking after this fashion, creating all those little scenes before the eye of his mind and imagining their accompanying conversations, was indicative of the way the valley and the village had forced their reality upon him last summer. But this pictured combination of incidents was intensified by a certain morbid way of dwelling upon things his long spells of meditation by the lake had brought him. Yet he knew that even all his clear vision of the mean ways of life around him would not act as an incentive to combat them but, most extraordinary to imagine, as a sort of lure towards the persecution of their scenes and incidents.
"It must be coming near time to rise for Mass," he said aloud to himself, as he felt that he had been quite a long time giving himself up to speculations in which there was no joy.
There was a tap upon the door. It was his mother calling him, as had been her custom during all the days of his holiday times. The door opened and she came into the room. Her manner seemed to have changed somewhat from the night before. The curious look of tenderness she had always displayed while gazing upon him seemed to have struggled back into her eyes. She came and sat by the bedside and, for a few moments, both were silent.
[Pg 182]
"'Tis very cold this morning, mother," was the only thing John could think of saying.
A slight confusion seemed to have come upon her since her entrance to the room. Without any warning by a word, she suddenly threw her arms about him as he lay there on the bed and covered his face with kisses. He was amazed, but her kisses seemed to hurt him.... It must have been years and years since she had kissed him like this, and now he was a man.... When she released him so that he could look up at her he saw that she was crying.
"I'm sorry about last night, John," she said. "I'm sorry, darling; but surely I could not bring myself to do it. Even for a few hours I wanted to keep them from knowing. I even wanted to keep your father from knowing. So I did not tell him until I heard your poor, wet foot come sopping up to the door. He did not curse much then, for he seems to have begun to feel a little respect for you. But the curses of him all through the night were enough to lift the roof off the house. Oh, he's the terrible man, for all me praying and all me............