"Good-by, Mr. Brennan!" said Myles Shannon to the student. "I wish you an enjoyable holiday-time. Maybe you could call over some evening to see my nephew Ulick, my brother Henry's son. He's here on holidays this year for the first time, and he finds the valley uncommonly dull after the delights of Dublin. He's a gay young spark, I can tell you, but students of physic are generally more inclined to be lively than students of divinity."
This he said with a flicker of his harsh smile as they shook hands, and John Brennan thanked him for his kind invitation. Catching sight of Mrs. Brennan, Mr. Shannon said, "Good-day!" coolly and moved out of the station.
To Mrs. Brennan this short conversation on the platform had seemed protracted to a dreadful length. As she beheld it from a little distance a kind of desolation had leaped up to destroy the lovely day. It compelled her to feel a kind of hurt that her son should have chosen to expend the few first seconds of his home-coming in talking, of all people, to one of the Shannon family. But he was a young gentleman and must, of course, show off his courtesy and nice manners. And he did not know.... But Myles Shannon knew.... His cool "Good-day!" to her as he moved out of the station appeared to her delicate sensitiveness of the moment as an exhibition of his knowledge. Immediately she felt that she must warn John against the Shannons.
He came towards her at last, a thin young man in black, wearing cheap spectacles. He looked tenderly upon the woman who had borne him. She embraced him and entered into a state of rapt admiration. Within the wonder of his presence she was as one translated, her sad thoughts began to fall from her one by one. On the platform of this dusty wayside station in Ireland she became a part of the glory of motherhood as she stood there looking with pride upon her son.
The motor had surprised him. He would have been better pleased if this expense had been avoided, for he was not without knowledge and appreciation of the condition of his parents' affairs. Besides the little donkey and trap had always appeared so welcome in their simplicity, and it was by means of them that all his former home-comings had been effected. Those easy voyages had afforded opportunity for contemplation upon the splendor of the fields, but now the fields seemed to slip past as if annoyed by their faithlessness. Yet he knew that his mother had done this thing to please him, and how could he find it in his heart to be displeased with her?
She was speaking kind words to him, which were being rudely destroyed, in their tender intonation, by the noise of the engine. She was setting forth the reasons why she had taken the car. It was the right thing now around Garradrimna.—The Houlihans of Clonabroney.—Again the changing of the gears cut short her explanation.
"That man who was down with you in the train, Mr. Shannon, what was he saying to you?"
"Indeed he was kindly inviting me over to see his nephew. I never knew he had a nephew, but it seems he has lived up in Dublin. He said that his brother, Henry Shannon, was the father of this young man."
The feelings which her son's words brought rushing into her mind seemed to cloud out all the brightness which, for her, had again returned to the day. Yes, this young man, this Ulick Shannon, was the son of Henry Shannon and Henry Shannon was the one who had brought the great darkness into her life.... It would be queer, she thought, beyond all the queerness of the world, to see the son of that man and her son walking together through the valley. The things that must be said of them, the terrible sneer by which they would be surrounded—Henry Shannon's son and the son of Nan Byrne.... She grew so silent beneath the sorrow of her vision that, even in the less noisy spaces of the humming car, the amount of time during which she did not speak seemed a great while.