There was a note of mournful resignation in her tones as she moved away in the ass-trap with her children, like an old hen in the midst of her brood.... There was a peculiar smirk of satisfaction about the lips of Mrs. Brannagan as she returned to the shop, bent upon sending the letter on its way once more.
"Much good it'll do her now, the dirty little fool!" she said in the happiness of some dumb feeling of vengeance against one who was merely a woman like herself. But she was a woman who had never had a child.
Thomas James was considerably drunk. He had spent the remainder of the shilling upon porter, and Mr. Brannagan had stood him another pint.
"Be sure and deliver it safely now, for maybe it's important!" said Mrs. Brannagan, as she returned the letter.
"It's a great letter anyhow. It's after getting me nine pints. That's long over half-a-crown's worth of drink," he said, laughing foolishly as he wandered out to do his errand.
It was a hard journey across the rising meadows to the house of Myles Shannon, where dwelt his nephew Ulick. Thomas James fell many times and wallowed in the tall, green grass, and he fell as he went leaping high hedges, and cut his hands and tore his red face with briars until it was streaked with blood. He was, therefore, an altogether deplorable figure when he at last presented himself at the house of Myles Shannon. Mr. Shannon came to the door to meet him, and in his fuddled condition he laughed to himself as he fished the letter out of his pocket. It was covered red with blood where he had felt it with his torn hand from time to time to see whether or not he still retained possession of it.
"From Mr. Brannagan, I suppose," said Mr. Shannon, thinking it had been written hurriedly by the victualler just fresh from the slaughterhouse and that it was a request for prime beef or mutton from the rich fields of Scarden. He opened it, for his nephew's name on the envelope could not be seen through the blood-stains. He did not notice that it began "My dearest Ulick" until he read down to the sentences that gave him pause.... Thomas James was coughing insinuatingly beside him, so he took half-a-crown from his pocket and handed it to the bedraggled messenger. It was a tremendous reward, and the man of porter did not fully perceive it until he had slipped out into the sunlight.
"Be the Holy Farmer!" he stuttered, "another half-crown's worth of drink, and I after drinking long more than that already. That was the best letter I ever got to carry in me life. A few more like it and I'd either get me death of drink or be a millionaire like John D. Rockefeller or Andrew Carnegie!"
Inside the parlor Myles Shannon was reading Rebecca Kerr's letter with blanched face.... Here was a terrible thing; here had come to him this great trouble for the second time. Something the like of this had happened twenty-five or six years ago, when his brother had been in the same case with Nan Byrne. Curious how it should be repeating itself now! He pondered it for a few moments in its hereditary aspect. But there was more in it than that. There was the trace of his own hand determining it. He had encouraged his nephew with this girl. He had directed him into many reckless ways just that he might bring sorrow to the heart of Nan Byrne in the destruction of her son. It was a wicked thing for him to have done. His own nephew—just to satisfy his desire for revenge. And at the bottom of things he loved his nephew even as he had loved his brother Henry. But he would try to save him the results, the pains and penalties of his infatuation, even as he had tried to save his brother Henry the results of his. But the girl and her fate.... He would not be able to forget that until his dying day.... For it was he who had done this thing entirely, done it in cold blood too because he had heard that John Brennan had soft eyes for Rebecca Kerr and that, to encourage his nephew and produce a certain rivalry, might be the very best means of ruining the fair promise of Nan Byrne's son.
Only last night he had heard from Ulick that John Brennan had entered the college at Ballinamult and that his prospects never looked so good as at present.... To think of that now was to see how just it was that his scheme should have so resulted, for it had been constructed upon a very terrible plan. He had done it to avenge his defeated love for one girl, and lo! it had brought another to her ruin.