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Valley of the Squinting Windows

[Pg 132] <h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2> John now saw Ulick Shannon coming towards him across the Hill of Annus. It was strange that he should be appearing now whose presence had just been created by the Rabelaisian recital of Shamesy Golliher. As he came along boldly his eyes roamed cheerfully over the blue expanse of water and seemed to catch something there which moved him to joyous whistling. John Brennan felt a certain amount of reserve spring up between them as they shook hands.... For a moment that seemed to lengthen out interminably the two young men were silent. The lake was without a ripple in the intense calm of the summer day.... Suddenly it reflected the movement of them walking away, arm in arm, towards the village. It was high noontide when they reached Garradrimna. The Angelus was ringing. Men had turned them from their various occupations to bend down for a space in prayer. The drunkards had put away the pints from their mouths in reverence. The seven sleek publicans were coming to their doors with their hats in their hands, beating their breasts in a frenzy of zeal and genuflecting. Yet, upon the appearance of the students, a different excitement leaped up to animate them. They began to hurry their prayers, the words becoming jumbled pell mell in their mouths as they cleared a[Pg 133] way for their tongues to say to one another the thing they wanted to say of the two young men. By their God, there was John Brennan and Ulick Shannon coming into Garradrimna in the middle of the day. To drink, they at once supposed. Their tongues had been finding fine exercise upon Ulick Shannon for a considerable time, but it was certainly a comfort to have the same to say of John Brennan. A clerical student coming up the street with a Dublin scamp. That was a grand how-d'ye-do! But sure they supposed, by their God again, that it was only what she deserved (they were referring to Mrs. Brennan). Her mention at once brought recollection of her story, and it came to be discussed there in the heat of the day until the lonely woman, who was still crying probably as she sat working by her machine in the little house in the valley, became as a corpse while the vultures of Garradrimna circled round it flapping great wings in glee. The students strode on, reciting the Angelus beneath their breaths with a devotion that did not presently give place to any worldly anxiety. They were doing many things now, as if they formed a new personality in which the will and the inclination of each were merged. They turned into McDermott's, and it seemed their collective intention from the direction they took upon entering the shop to take refuge in the retirement of the particular portion known as Connellan's office. It was the place where Mick Connellan, the local auctioneer, transacted business on Fridays. On all other days it was considered the more select and secluded portion of this publichouse. But when they entered it was [Pg 134]occupied. Padna Padna, the ancient drunkard, was sitting by the empty grate poking the few drawn corks in it as if they were coals. He was speaking to himself in mournful jeremiads, and after the fashion of one upon whom a great sorrow has fallen down. "Now what the hell does he want with his mission, and it too good we are? A mission, indeed, for to make us pay him money every night, and the cosht of everything, drink and everything. He, he, he! To pay the price of a drink every night to hear the missioners denounce drink. Now that's the quarest thing ever any one heard. To go pay the price of a drink for hearing a man that doesn't even know the taste of it say that drink is not good for the human soul. Begad Father O'Keeffe is the funny man!" After this fashion did Padna Padna run on in soliloquy. He had seen many a mission come to bring, in the words of the good missioners, "a superabundance of grace to the parish," and seen it go without bringing any appreciable addition of grace to him or any change in his way of life. It seemed a pity that his tradition had set Padna Padna down as a Christian, and would not allow him to live his life upon Pagan lines and in peace. The struggle which continually held occupation of his mind was one between Christian principles and Pagan inclinations. He now began whispering to himself—"The Book of God! The Book of God! A fellow's name bees written in the Book of God!" ... So absorbed was he in his immense meditation that he had hardly noticed the entry of the students. But as he became aware of their presence he stumbled to his feet and gripping John Brennan by the arm whispered[Pg 135] tensely: "Isn't that a fact, young fellow, that one's name bees down there always, and what one does, and that it's never blotted out?" "It is thus we are told," said John, speaking dogmatically and as if he were repeating a line out of the Bible. Padna Padna, as he heard these words and recognized the voice of their speaker, put on what was really his most gruesome expression. He stripped his shrunken gums in a ghastly little smile, and a queer "Tee-Hee!" issued from his furrowed throat.... Momentarily his concern for Eternity was forgotten in a more immediate urgency of this world. He gripped John still more tightly and in a higher whisper said: "Are ye able to stand?" It was a strange anti-climax and at once betrayed his sudden descent in the character of his meditation, from thinking of what the Angel had written of him to his immortal longing for what had determined the character of that record regarding immortality. "Yes, I'll stand," said Ulick, breaking in upon John Brennan's reply to Padna Padna and pushing the bell. Mr. McDermott himself, half drunk and smelling of bad whiskey, came in and soon the drinks were before them. New life seemed to come pushing into the ancient man as he took his "half one." He looked up in blind thankfulness into their faces, his eyes running water and his mouth dribbling like that of a young child.... His inclinations were again becoming rapidly Pagan.... From smiling dumbly he began to screech with laughter, and moved from the room slowly tapping his way with his short stick.... He was going forth to[Pg 136] fresh adventures. Spurred on by this slight addition of drink he would be encouraged to enter the other six publichouses of Garradrimna, and no man could tell upon what luck he might happen to fall. So fortunate might his half-dozen expeditions prove that he would probably return to the house of the good woman who was his guardian, led by Shamesy Golliher, or some other one he would strike up with in the last dark pub, as if he were a toddling infant babbling foolish nonsense about all the gay delights which had been his of old. The mad drives from distant villages upon his outside car, his passengers in the same condition as himself—a state of the wildest abandon, and dwelling exultingly in that moment wherein they might make fitting models for a picture by Jack B. Yeats. Ulick and John were now alone. The day outside was hot and still upon the dusty street, but this office of Connellan's was a cool place like some old cellar full of forgotten summers half asleep in wine.... They were entering still deeper into the mood of one another.... Ulick had closed the door when Padna Padna had passed through, tapping blindly as he moved towards the far places of the village. He would seem to have gone for no other purpose than to publish broadcast the presence of Ulick Shannon and John Brennan together in McDermott's, and they drinking. For now the door of Connellan's office was being opened and closed every few minutes. People were calling upon the pretense of looking for other people, and going away leaving the door open wide behind them so that some others might come also and see for themselves the wonderful thing that was happening.... Padna Padna was having such a time[Pg 137] as compared favorably with the high times of old. A "half-one" of malt from every man he brought to see the sight was by no means a small reward. And so he was coming and going past the door like a sentry on guard of some great treasure which increased in value from moment to moment. He was blowing upon his fingers and tapping his lips and giggling and screeching with merriment down in his shivering frame. And most wonderful of all, the two young men who were creating all this excitement were quite unconscious of it.... They were talking a great deal, but each, as it were, from behind the barricade of his personality, for each was now beginning for the first time to notice a peculiar thing. They were discovering that their personalities were complementary. John lacked the gift, which was Ulick's, of stating things brilliantly out of life and experience and the views of those modern authors whom he admired. On the other hand, he seemed to possess a deeper sense of the relative realities of certain things, a faculty which sprang out of his ecclesiastical training and which held no meaning for Ulick, who spoke mockingly of such things. Ulick skimmed lightly over the surface of life in discussing it; John was inclined to plow deeply. Suddenly a desire fell upon John to hear Ulick discuss again those matters he had talked of at the "North Leinster Arms" in Ballinamult. It was very curious that this should be the nature of his thoughts now, this inclination towards things which from him should always have remained far distant and unknown.... But it may have been that some subtle impulse had stirred in him, and that he now wished to see whether the [Pg 138]outlook of Ulick had changed in any way through his rumored friendship with Rebecca Kerr. Would it be a cleaner thing and purified through power of that girl? He fondly fancied that no thought at all could be soiled within the splendid precinct of her presence. Josie Guinan, the new barmaid of McDermott's, came in to attend them with other and other drinks. Her bosom was attractive and ample, although her hair was still down upon her back in rich brown plaits.... She dallied languorously within the presence of the two young men.... Ulick began to tell some of the stories he had told to Mary Essie, and she stood even as brazenly enjoying them with her back to the door closed behind her. Then the two came together and whispered something, and a vulgar giggle sprang up between them. And to think that this was the man to whom Rebecca Kerr might be giving the love of her heart.... If John had seen as much of life as the other he would have known that Ulick was the very kind of man who, at all times, has most strongly appealed to women. Yet it was in this moment and in this place that he fell in love with Rebecca.... He became possessed of an infinite willingness to serve and protect her, and it was upon the strength of his desire that he arose. Through all this secret, noble passage, Ulick remained laughing as at some great joke. He, too, was coming into possession of a new joy, for he was beginning to glimpse the conflagration of another's soul. Out of sheer devilment, and in conspiracy with Josie Guinan, he had caused John Brennan's drink, the small, mild measure of port wine, to be dosed with flaming whiskey. Even the wine in the frequency of its repetition had already[Pg 139] been getting the better of him. They had been hours sitting here, and outside the day was fading. John began to stutter now in the impotence of degradation which was upon him. His thoughts were all burning into one blazing thought. The small room seemed suddenly to cramp and confine his spirit as if it were a prison cell.... And Ulick was still smiling that queer smile of his with his thick red lips and sunken eyes. He sprang towards the door and, turning the handle, rushed out into the air.... Soon he was fleeing as if from some Unknown Force, staggering between the rows of the elms which stretched all along the road into the valley. It had rained a shower and the strong, young leaves held each its burden of pearly drops. A light wind now stirred them and like an aspergillus they flung a blessing down upon him as he passed. And ever did he mutter her name to himself as he stumbled on: "Rebecca Kerr, Rebecca Kerr, I love you, Rebecca, I love you surely! Oh, my dear Rebecca!" She was moving before him, with her hair all shining through the twilight. "Oh, dear Rebecca! I love you! Oh, my dear!" He turned The Road of the Dead and down by the lake, where he lay in the quiet spot from which Ulick Shannon had taken him away to Garradrimna. There he remained until far on in the evening, when his mother, concerned for his welfare, came to look for him. She found him sleeping by the lake. She had no notion of how he had passed the evening. Her imagination was, after all, only a very small thing and worked rigorously within the romantic confines of the holy stories which were her continual reading.[Pg 140] When she had awakened him she asked a characteristic question: "And I suppose, John, you're after seeing visions and things have appeared to you?" "Yes, mother, I have seen a vision, I think," he said, as he opened his eyes and blinked stupidly at the lake. He was still midway between two conditions, but he was not noticeable to her, who could not have imagined the like. These were the only words he spoke to her before he went to bed. Back in McDermott's a great crowd thronged the public bar. Every man seemed to be in high glee and a hum of jubilation hung low between them. A momentous thing had happened, and it was of this great event they were talking. John Brennan had left the house and he was reeling. Men from the valley foregathered in one group and, as each new-comer arrived, the news was re-broken. It was about the best thing that had ever happened. The sudden enrichment of any of their number could not have been half so welcome in its importance. Padna Padna and Shamesy Golliher were standing in one corner taking sup for sup. "Damn it, but it was one of the greatest days ever I seen in Garradrimna since the ould times. It was a pity you missed of it," said Padna Padna. "If you were to see him!" "Sure I'm after seeing him, don't I tell ye, lying a corpse be the lake." "A corpse be the lake. He, he, he! Boys-a-day! Boys-a-day!" <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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