Long before she had got through it, with many lisps and lapses, Rebecca was wearied by the triteness of the little one's statement, so well copied was it from the model of her mother's gossipy communication of the simplest fact.
But what could John Brennan be doing there so near her again? This was the thought that held Rebecca as she went on with an attempt to take her tea.
CHAPTER XXVII
John Brennan came down the valley. The trees by the roadside were being shaken heavily by soft winds. Yet, for all the kindness of May that lingered about it, there seemed to be some shadow hanging over the evening. No look of peace or pity had struggled into the squinting windows.... Would the valley ever again put on the smile it had worn last summer? That time it had been so dearly magnified. At leaving it there had been such a crush of feeling in his breast.
He seemed to see it more clearly now. There was something that hurt him in the thought of how he was preparing for a genteel kind of life while his father remained a common sponger around the seven publichouses of Garradrimna, asking people to stand him drinks for the love of God like Anthony Shaughness. He could not forget that the valley had wrought this destruction upon Ned Brennan, and that Ned Brennan was his father.
This thought arose out of a definite cause. At the college in Ballinamult he had made the acquaintance of Father George Considine, who had already begun to exercise an influence over him. This priest was a simple, holy man, who had devoted his life usefully, remaining far away from the ways of pride. Although gombeen-men like Tommy Williams had some influence with those who controlled the college, they had no influence over him. He was in curious contrast to the system which tied him to this place. It was impossible to think that his ordination had represented a triumph to any one at all, yet he had been far ahead of his contemporaries and while yet a young man had been made principal of this college in Ballinamult. His name had gone out into the world. The satisfaction that had been denied to Master Donnellan was his. He had had a hand in the education of men whose names were now notable in many a walk of life. And yet, to see him moving about the grounds of the college in his faded coat with the frayed sleeves and shiny collar, no man would think that his name, the name of "poor Father Considine," was spoken with respect in distant places.
But Mrs. Brennan did not approve of him. On the evening of John's first day in Ballinamult, after she had made every other possible inquiry she said:
"And did you meet Father Considine?"