It was thus and thus that Rebecca Kerr ran through her mind a few immediate sketchy realizations of this village in Ireland. She had lived in others, and this one could not be so very different.... There now was the butcher's stall, kept filthily, where she might buy her bit of beef or mutton occasionally. She caught a glimpse of the victualler standing with his dirty wife amid the strong-smelling meat. The name above the door was that of the publichouse immediately beside it. A little further on, upon the same side, was the newsagent's and stationer's, where they sold sweets and everything. It was here she might buy her notepaper to write to her own people in Donegal, or else to some of her college friends with whom she still kept up a correspondence. And here also she might treat herself, on rare occasions, to a box of cheap chocolates, or to some of the injurious, colored sweets which always gave her the toothache, presenting the most of them, perhaps, to some child to whom she had taken a fancy.
By little bits like these, which formed a series of flashes, she saw some aspects of the life she might lead here. Each separate flash left something of an impression before it went out of her mind.
The jingling car swung on past the various groups upon the street, each group twisting its head as one man to observe the spectacle of her passing. "That's the new schoolmistress!" "There she is, begad!" "I heard Paddy McCann saying she was coming this evening!" She was now in line with the famous house of Tommy Williams, the gombeen-man. She knew from the look of it that it was here she must buy her few groceries, for this was the principal house in Garradrimna and, even so far as she, the octopus of Gombeenism was sure to extend itself. To be sure, the gombeen-man would be the father of a family, for it is the clear duty of such pillars of the community to rear up a long string of patriots. If those children happened to be of school-going age, it was certain they would not be sent to even the most convenient school unless the teachers dealt in the shop. This is how gombeenism is made to exercise control over National Education. Anyhow Rebecca Kerr was very certain that she must enter the various-smelling shop to discuss the children with the gombeen-man's wife.
It was indeed a dreary kind of life that she would be compelled to lead in this place, and, as she passed the pretty chapel, which seemed to stand up in the sight of Heaven as excuse for the affront that was Garradrimna, she had a strange notion how she must go there sometimes to find respite from the relentless crush of it all. On bitter evenings, when her mind should ring with the mean tumults of the life around her, it was there only she might go and, slipping in through the dim vestibule where there were many mortuary cards to remind her of all the dead, she would walk quickly to the last pew and, bending her throbbing head, pour out her soul in prayer with the aid of her little mother-of-pearl rosary.... They had gone a short distance past the chapel and along the white road towards the valley.
"This is the place," said Paddy McCann.
She got down from the car wearily, and McCann carried her battered trunk into the house of Sergeant McGoldrick which had been assigned as her lodging by Father O'Keeffe. He emerged with a leer of expectation upon his countenance, and she gave him a shilling from her little possessions. At the door she was compelled to introduce herself.
"So you are the new teacher. Well, begad! The missus is up in the village. Come in. Begad!"
He stood there, a big, ungainly man, at his own door as he gave the invitation, a squalling baby in his arms, and in went Rebecca Kerr, into the sitting-room where Mrs. McGoldrick made clothes for the children. The sergeant proceeded to do his best to be entertaining. She knew the tribe. He remained smoking his great black pipe and punctuated the squalls of the baby by spitting huge volumes of saliva which hit the fender with dull thuds.
"It's a grand evening in the country," said Sergeant McGoldrick.