For the admiration and surprise of John Brennan, Ulick Shannon had been displaying his skill with the wheel. Soon the white, tidy houses beyond the valley were whizzing past and they were running down the easy road which led into the village of Ballinamult. They had moved in a continuous cloud of dust from Tullahanogue.
Ulick said he was choked with dust as he brought the car to a standstill outside the "North Leinster Arms." He marched deliberately into the public bar, and John Brennan followed after with less sure footsteps, for it was his first appearance in a place of this kind. There was a little, plump girl standing up on a chair rearranging the bottles of whiskey and dusting the shelves.
Ulick would seem to have already visited this tavern, for he addressed the girl rather familiarly as "Mary Essie." She looked at the young man impudently as she wheeled around to exhibit herself to the best advantage. Ulick leaned his elbows upon the low counter and gazed towards her with his deep, dark eyes. Some quite unaccountable thing caused John Brennan to blush, but he noticed that the girl was not blushing. She was more brazenly forcing her body into exhibition.
Ulick called for a drink, whatever his friend Brennan would have, and a bottle of Bass for himself. It appeared a little wrong to John that he should be about to partake of a drink in a pub., for the "North Leinster Arms" was nothing more than a sufficiently bad public-house. He had a sudden recollection of having once been given cakes and sweets in an evil-smelling tap-room one day he had gone with his mother long ago to Mullaghowen. He thought of the kind of wine he had been given that day and immediately the name was forced to his lips by the thought—"Port wine!"
When the barmaid turned around to fill their drinks the young men had a view of the curves of her body. John Brennan was surprised to find himself dwelling upon them in the intense way of his friend.
Before they left Ulick had many drinks of various kinds, and it was interesting to observe how he expanded with their influence. He began to tell "smutty" stories to Mary Essie. She listened with attention. No blush came into her face, and her glad neck looked brazen.... John Brennan felt himself swallowing great gulps of disgust.... His training had led him to associate the female form with the angelic form coming down from Heaven. Yet here was something utterly different.... A vulgar girl, with fat, round hands and big breasts, her lips red as a recent wound in soft flesh, and looking lonely.
He was glad when they regained the sunlight, yet the day was of such a character as creates oppression by the very height of its splendor. Ulick was in such a mood for talk that they had almost forgotten the luncheon-basket at the back of the car.
Beyond Ballinamult they stopped again where the ruins of a moldering Abbey lay quietly surrounded by a circle of furze-covered hills.... Ulick expanded still further with the meal, yet his discourse still ran along the old trail. He was favoring his friend with a sketch of his life, and it seemed to be made up largely of the women he had known in Dublin. Quite suddenly he said what seemed to John a very terrible thing:
"I have learned a lot from them, and let me tell you this—it has been my experience that you could not trust your own mother or the girl of your heart. They seem to lack control, even the control of religion. They do not realize religion at all. They are creatures of impulse."
Here was a sentiment that questioned the very fact of existence.... It seemed dreadful to connect the triumph of love and devotion that was his mother with this consequent suggestion of the failure of existence.... Together they went across the grassy distance towards the crumbling ruin wherein the good monks of old had lived and prayed. And surely, he thought, the great spirit of holiness which had led men hither to spend their lives in penance and good works could not have departed finally from this quiet place, nor from the green fields beyond the rim of furze-covered hills.