Yet upon his ears were falling the even, convincing tones of Ulick Shannon, still speaking cynically.
"Behold," he was saying, "that it is to this place the younger generation throng on the Sabbath. Around you, upon the ruined and bare walls, you will observe not pious words, but the coupled names of those who have come here to sin."
"And look at this!" he exclaimed, picking from a niche in the wall a long shin bone of one of the ancient monks, which possessed the reputed power of cures and miracles. For a moment he examined it with a professional eye, then handed it to John Brennan. There were two names scribbled upon it in pencil, and beneath them a lewd expression. Ulick had only laid hands upon it by the merest accident, but it immediately gave body to all the airy ideas he had been putting forth. There was something so greatly irreverent in the appearance of this accidental piece of evidence that no argument could be put forward against it. It was terrible and conclusive.
The evening was far advanced when John Brennan returned home. His mother and father were seated in the kitchen. His father was drunk, and she was reading him a holy story, with an immeasurable feeling of despondence in her tones. John became aware of this as he entered the house.
CHAPTER XI
Rebecca Kerr had been ill for a few days and did not attend school until the Monday following her arrival in the valley. There she made the acquaintance of Mrs. Wyse, the principal of Tullahanogue Girls' School, and Monica McKeon, the assistant of Tullahanogue Boys' School. Mrs. Wyse was a woman who divided her energies between the education of other women's children and the production of children of her own. Year by year, and with her growing family, had her life narrowed down to the painful confines of its present condition. She had the reputation of being a hard mistress to the children and a harsh superior to her assistants. From the very first she seemed anxious to show her authority over Rebecca Kerr.
In the forenoon of this day she was standing by her blackboard at the east end of the school, imparting some history to her most advanced class. Rebecca was at the opposite end teaching elementary arithmetic to the younger children when something in the would-be impressive seriousness of her principal's tone caused her to smile openly.
Mrs. Wyse saw the smile, and it lit her anger. She called loudly: