Brinsley MacNamara

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I got no one to help me, I can tell you that. Only every one to raise their hands against me. And in spite of all that I carried me plan to what success the rector spoke of in his last letter. And even though this shadow has fallen across it, me son and meself between us are not going to let it be the end. For I want to see you a priest, John. I want to see you a priest before I die. God knows I want to see that before I die. Nan Byrne's son a priest before she dies! ”

“ He knew little of these things, for he knew little of the ways of life, but instinctively he felt that Rebecca would now cling to Ulick and that Ulick would be a great scoundrel if he spurned her from him. And what, he asked himself, would he, John Brennan, do in that case?
No answer would spring directly to his thoughts, but some ancient, primeval feeling was stirring in his heart—the answer that men have held to be the only answer from the beginning of the world. ”

“ In his desire to obey her he was still strong, but, this morning, as he walked along to Garradrimna he was possessed by a certain feeling of annoyance which seemed to strain the bond that stretched between them.
In the chapel he knelt beside Charlie Clarke, like the voteens around them, with a lifeless acquiescence in the ceremony. He was here not because his heart was here, but merely because his mother had wished it. When his lips moved, in mechanical mimicry of the priest, he felt that the way of the hypocrite must be hard and lonely. ”

“ The windows would squint at him as he went past through power of the leering faces behind; men working in the fields would run to the hedges and gaze after him as he went far down the road.
In the evenings black prophets would foregather and say: "Now isn't he the fine-looking young fellow indeed, with the grand black clothes upon him; but he'll never be a priest, and that's as sure as you're there, for his mother is Nan Byrne, and she was a bad woman, God help us all! 'Tis a pity of him, when you come to think of it, for it isn't his fault, happening as it did before he was born." ”

“ But it seemed to shake enraged at this impotence in its poor foundation over the deserted warren, from which Shamesy Golliher had long since driven the little rabbits towards that dark Chicago of slaughter which was represented to them by Garradrimna.
The same color of desolation was upon the reeds which separated him from the water. The water itself had, beneath its pretense of brightness upon the surface, the appearance of ooze, as if it had come washing over the slime of dead things. ”

“ When he came out upon the valley road he was no longer the admirable young man he had been less than a year since. He was a broken thing, and he was stained by another's blood. He was marked eternally by what he had done, and there was upon him a degradation unspeakable. He was an offense against existence and against the gathering, blessed gloom of the quiet evening.... He had murdered one who had been his friend, and it was a thing he might never be able to forget. The body, with all the lovely life so recently gone from it, he had weighted and sunk beneath the surface of the lake.... ”

“ Then had followed quickly those lovely days in Dublin, she stopping with him as "Mrs. Henry Shannon" at a grand hotel. He had given her a wedding-ring, but while it remained upon her finger it was ever the little accusing symbol, filling her with an intense conviction of her sin.
This great adventure had marked the beginning of her acquaintance with the world beyond the valley, and, even now, through the gloom of her mood, she could remember it with a certain amount of gladness coming back to her mind. ”

“ It did not please John to see that she was exulting over what had happened to Ulick while hinting at the same time that there was no fear of a like calamity happening to her son. To him it appeared as not at all such an event as one might exult about. It rather evoked pity and condolence in the thought that it might happen to any man. It might happen to himself. Here surely was a fearful thing—the sudden dread of his return to the valley, a disgrace for life, and his mother a ruined woman in the downfall of her son.... ”

“ Yet this was a quality peculiar to the gentle hush of the grassy places. It seemed to arise from the removal of an intelligent feeling of humanity from the conduct of life and the replacement of it by a spitefulness that killed and blinded. It was the explanation of many of the tragedies of the valley. Like a malignant wind, it warped the human growth within the valley's confines. It was what had happened to Mrs. Brennan and, because of the action he was taking in regard to her, what was now about to happen to Myles Shannon. ”

“ In the mean living of their own lives they represent futile expeditions in quest of joy. Yet what brings the greatest joy it is possible for them to experience? Why, the fact that another's hope of happiness has been finally desolated. If any great disaster should suddenly come upon one or other of the three of us, upon you or me or Rebecca Kerr, they would see more glory in the fulfilment of their spite than in the harvest promise of their fields. ”

“ She saw many a head suddenly fill many a squinting window, and men and women they met on the road turn round with a sneer to gaze back at her sitting up there beside Charlie Clarke, the saintly chauffeur who went to Mass every day.
Her ears were burning, and into her mind, in powerful battalions, were coming all the thoughts that had just been born in the minds of the others. The powder she had applied to her cheeks was now like a burning sweat upon her skin. The cameo-brooch felt like a great weight where it lay upon her bosom heavily. ”

“ And there was sure to be something else happening before he was through the college at Ballinamult. A priest, how are ye?
The whiskey had gone to his head, but, as he listened, John Brennan felt himself grow more sober than he had ever before been.... So this was the supplement to the story he had heard a while ago. And now that he knew the whole story he began to tremble. Continually flashing across his mind were the words of the man who was dead and silent at the bottom of the lake—"You could never know a woman, you could never trust her; you could not even trust your own mother." ”

“ It told of how she was spending her holidays at a seaside village in Donegal. "It is even far quieter than Garradrimna and the valley. I go down to the sea in the mornings, but it is only to think and dream. The sea is just like one big lake, more lonely by far than the lake in the valley. This is surely the loneliest place you could imagine, but there is a certain sense of peace about it that is quite lovely. It is some distance from my home, and it is nice to be amongst people who have no immense concern for your eternal welfare. ”

“ Master Donnellan was a very slave of the ferrule. He had spent his brains in vain attempts to impart some knowledge to successive generations of dunces of the fields. It had been his ambition to be the means of producing some great man whose achievements in the world might be his monument of pride. But no pupil of his in the valley school had ever arisen as a great man. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ Brennan could not restrain her vanity of her son.
"And to think of all that being before you now and still you keep up your mean refusals of the little thing I ask," said the old woman with the pertinacious unreasonableness of age.
"I haven't got the money, Marse, God knows I haven't."
"God knows nothing, Nan Byrne, only your shocking villainy. And 'tis the great sin for you surely. And if God knows this, it is for some one else to know your sin. It is for your son John to know the kind of a mother that he loves and honors." ”

“ Outside the garden gate of Sergeant McGoldrick Charlie Clarke was waiting for her with his motor-car. Her trunk had been put in at the back. This was an unholy job for a saintly chauffeur, but it was Father O'Keeffe's command and his will must be done. When the news of it had been communicated to him he had said a memorable thing:
"Well, now, the quare jobs a religious man has sometimes to do; but maybe these little punishments are by way of satisfaction for some forgotten and far-distant sin!" ”

“ On the journey from Dublin he had occupied a carriage with Myles Shannon, who was the surviving brother of Henry Shannon and the magnate of the valley. The time had passed pleasantly enough, for Mr. Shannon was a well-read, interesting man. He had spoken in an illuminating way of the Great War. He viewed it in the light of a scourge and a just reckoning of calamity that the nations must pay for bad deeds they had done. "It is strange," said he, "that even a nation, just like an individual, must pay its just toll for its sins. It cannot escape, for the punishment is written down with the sin. ”

“ God bless you, me little Johneen, me little son; sure 'tis yourself has the decent, kind heart to be taking pity upon the old. Arrah now! You're alone and lonely this evening, I notice, for your friend is gone from you. It bees lonely when one loses one's comrade. Ah, 'tis many a year and more since I lost me comrade through the valley of life. Since Marks Prendergast, the good husband of me heart and the father of me children, was lost on me. Sure he was murdered on me one St. Patrick's Day fair in Garradrimna. ”

“ But this was their favorite spot, where the avenue led far into the quiet woods. A scurrying-away of rabbits through the undergrowth would announce their approach to one another.
Many were the happy talks they had here, of books and of decent life beyond the boorishness of Garradrimna. She had given him The Poems of Tennyson in exchange for The Daffodil Fields. Tastefully illuminated in red ink on the fly-leaf he had found her "favorite lines" from Tennyson, whom she considered "exquisite":
"Glitter like a storm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid." ”

“ 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! ”

“ He wanted some one to fill the loneliness of the big house on Scarden Hill, and so he set his heart upon Helena Cooper.
He returned to the valley a different man. Quite suddenly he began to have a greater interest in his appearance, and it was noticed that he grew sentimental and became easy in his dealings. It began to be whispered around that, even so late in life, almost at the close of the middle period which surely marks the end of a man's prime, Myles Shannon had fallen in love and was about to be married. ”