The Valley of Squinting Windows

by Brinsley MacNamara

He was walking, but the action was almost unnoticed by him. He was moving aimlessly within the dark, encircling shadow of his doom.... Yet he saw that he was not far distant from Garradrimna.... The last time he had been there at the period of the day he had been in company with Ulick Shannon. It was what had sprung out of those comings together that was now responsible for this red ending.... He remembered also how the port wine had lifted him out of himself and helped him to see Rebecca Kerr.... The windows were squinting through the gloom as he went the road.

There was stronger drink in Garradrimna and pubs. of greater intensity than McDermott's. There was "The World's End," for instance, that tavern so fantastically named by the Hon. Reginald Moore in memory of an inn of the same name that had struck his fancy in England.... The title now seemed particularly appropriate.

It was towards this place his feet were moving. In another spell of thought which surprised him by the precaution it exhibited, he remembered that his father would not be there; for, although it had been Ned Brennan's famous haunt aforetime, he had been long ago forbidden its doors. It was in this, one of the seven places of degradation in Garradrimna, he was now due to appear.

He went very timidly up to the back-door, which opened upon a little, secluded passage. He ordered a glass of whiskey from the greasy barmaid who came to attend him.... He felt for the money so carefully wrapped in tissue-paper in his waistcoat pocket. It was a bright gold sovereign that his mother had given him on the first day of his course at Ballinamult College to keep against any time he might be called upon to show off the fact that he was a gentleman. As he unfolded it now, from the careful covering in which she had wrapped it, it seemed to put on a tragic significance.... He was fearfully anxious to be in the condition that had brought him his vision on the night he had slept by the lake.

He drank the whiskey at one gulp, and it seemed a long time until the barmaid returned with the change. Sovereigns were marvels of rare appearance at "The World's End." He thanked her and called for another, paying her as she went. She was remarkably mannerly, for, in the narrow gloom of the place, she took him to be some rich stranger. She had seen the color of his money and liked it well.

The whiskey seemed to possess magical powers. It rapidly restored him to a mood wherein the distress that was his might soon appear a small thing. Yet he grew restless with the urgency that was upon him and glanced around in search of a distraction for his galloping brain.... He bent down and peered through the little aperture which opened upon the public bar of "The World's End." In there he saw a man in a heated atmosphere and enveloped by dense clouds of tobacco-smoke. They were those who had come in the roads to forget their sweat and labor in the black joy of porter. Theirs was a part of the tragedy of the fields, but it was a meaner tragedy. Yet were they suddenly akin to him.... Through the lugubrious expression on their dark faces a sudden light was shining. It was the light as if of some ecstasy. A desire fell upon him to enter into their dream, whatever it might be.... In the wild whirl that the whiskey had whipped up in his brain there now came a sudden lull. It was a lull after a great crescendo, as in Beethoven's music.... He was hearing, with extraordinary clearness, what they were saying. They were speaking of the case of Ulick Shannon and Rebecca Kerr. These names were linked inseparably and were going hand in hand down all the byeways of their talk.... They were sure and certain that he had gone away. There was not a sign of him in Garradrimna this evening. That put the cap on his guilt surely. Wasn't she the grand whipster, and she supposed to be showing a good example and teaching religion to the childer? A nice one to have in the parish indeed! It was easy knowing from the beginning what she was and the fellow she struck up with—Henry Shannon's son. Wasn't that enough for you? Henry Shannon, who was the best blackguard of his time!... Just inside, and very near to John, a knot of men were discussing the more striking aspects of the powerful scandal.... They were recounting, with minute detail, the story of Nan Byrne.... Wasn't it the strangest thing now how she had managed more or less to live it down? But people would remember it all again in the light of this thing. What Ulick Shannon had done now would make people think of what his father had done, and then they must needs remember her.... And to think that no one ever knew rightly what had become of the child. Some there were who would tell you that her sister, Bridget Mulvey, and her mother, Abigail Byrne, buried it in the garden, and there were those who would tell you that it was living somewhere at the present time.... Her son John was not a bad sort, but wasn't it the greatest crime for her to put him on to be a priest after what had happened to her, and surely no good could come of it?... And why wouldn't Ned Brennan know of it, and wasn't it that and nothing else that had made him the ruined wreck of a man he was? Sure he'd never done a day's good since the night Larry Cully had lashed out the whole story for his benefit. And wasn't it quite possible that some one would be bad enough to tell John himself some time, or the ecclesiastical authorities? What about the mee-aw that had happened to him in the grand college in England that so much had been heard of? 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." This was a hard thing for any man at all to have said in his lifetime, and yet how full of grim, sad truth did it now appear?... The kind forgetfulness of his choking bitterness that he had so passionately longed for would not come to him.... The dregs of his heart were beginning to turn again towards thoughts of magnanimity as they had already done in the first, clear spell of thought after his deed. He had then gone to gather sticks for the old woman, a kind thing, as Jesus might have done in Nazareth.... The change of the sovereign was in his hand and his impulse was strong upon him. He could not resist. It seemed as if a strong magnet was pulling a light piece of steel.... He had walked into the public bar of "The World's End." Around him was a sea of faces, laughing, sneering, drinking, sweating, swearing, spitting. He was calling for a drink for himself and a round for the shop.... Now the sea of faces was becoming as one face. And there was a look upon it which seemed made up of incredulity and contempt.... This was replaced by a different look when the pints were in their hands.... They were saying: "Good health, Mr. Brennan!" with a sneer in their tones and a smile of flattery upon those lips which had just now been vomiting out the slime of their minds.

There was another and yet another round. As long as he could remain on his feet he remained standing drinks to them. There was a longing upon him to be doing this thing. And beyond it was the guiding desire to be rid of every penny of the sovereign his mother had given him to help him appear as a gentleman if he met company.... Now it seemed to soil him, coming as it did from her. Curious that feeling after all she had done for him, and she his mother. But it would not leave him.

The drink he had bought was fast trickling down the many throats that were burning to receive it. The rumor of his prodigality was spreading abroad through Garradrimna, and men had gone into the highways and the byeways to call their friends to the banquet. Two tramps on their way to the Workhouse had heard of it and were already deep in their pints. Upon John's right hand, arrived as if by magic, stood Shamesy Golliher, and upon his left the famous figure of Padna Padna, who was looking up into his face with admiration and brightness striving hard to replace the stare of vacancy in the dimming eyes. As he drank feverishly, fearful of losing any, Shamesy Golliher continuously ejaculated: "Me sweet fellow, John! Me sweet fellow!" And Padna Padna kept speaking to himself of the grand thing it was that there was one decent fellow left in the world, even if he was only Nan Byrne's son. Around John Brennan was a hum of flattery essentially in the same vein.... And it seemed to him that, in his own mind, he had soared far beyond them.... Outwardly he was drunk, but inwardly he knew himself to be very near that rapture which would bring thoughts of Rebecca as he staggered home alone along the dark road.

The companions of his Bacchic night had begun to drift away from him. Ten o'clock was on the point of striking, and he was in such a condition that he might be upon their hands at any moment. They did not want Walter Clinton, the proprietor of "The World's End," to be giving any of them the job of taking him home. The hour struck and the remnant went charging through the doorways like sheep through a gap. Shamesy Golliher limped out, leading Padna Padna by the hand, as if the ancient man had suddenly become metamorphosed into his second childishness.... "The bloody-looking idiot!" they were all sniggering to one another. "Wasn't it a hell of a pity that Ned Brennan, his father, and he always bowseying for drink in McDermott's and Brannagan's, wasn't in 'The World's End' to-night?"