"But sure it'll be a bit of diversion and amusement."
"Yes, that is exactly what I was thinking, so I didn't see anything very wrong in going or in supporting those who organized it. But if you don't care to go, it does not matter."
"Ah, but wouldn't it be the quare thing to see your mother ignorant and not having a word to say about what was after passing to any one that would come in, and they knowing the whole thing? Now what you'll do for me, John, is this. You'll go into Phillips's this evening and get two of the most expensive tickets, one for yourself and one for me."
John Brennan had a momentary realization of the pitiful vanity behind this speech. He remained thinking while she went upstairs for the price of the tickets, for that must be her object, he fancied, in ascending into the upper story. He could hear her moving a trunk and opening it. The sounds came to him with perfect clearness in the still room and struck him with a sense of their little mournfulness, even though he was quite unaware that his mother had secretly begun the destruction of a bright portion of her life's dream.
In the evening he went to the village for the tickets.
"It'll be a grand turn-out," said Jimmy Phillips, as he took in the money and blinked in anticipation with his one eye.
"I'm sure," said John, as he left the little shop where you might buy the daily newspaper and sweets and everything.
He strolled up the street towards the old castle of the De Lacys. The local paper, published at Mullaghowen, was never tired of setting down its fame. The uncouth historians of the village had almost exhausted their adjectives in relating the exploits of this marauding baron of the Normans who had here built him a fortress, from which his companies of conquering freebooters had sallied forth so long ago. Yet, as an extraordinary mistake on the part of those who concerned themselves so intimately with the life around them, they had altogether missed the human side of the crumbling ruin. Of what romances of knighthood it had once been the scene? Of what visions of delight when fair women had met cuirassed gallants? Of all that pride which must have reared itself aloft in this place which was now the resort, by night, of the most humble creatures of the wild? Not one of them had ever been able to fancy the thoughts which must have filled the mind of Hugh De Lacy as he drew near this noble monument of his glory after some successful expedition against the chieftains of the Pale.
Through the thin curtain of the twilight John Brennan saw two figures stealing from the labyrinthine ways which led beneath the castle into what were known as "The Cells." These were dark, narrow places in which two together would be in close proximity, and it was out from them that this man and this woman were now stealing. He could not be certain of their identity, but they looked like two whom he knew.... And he had heard that Rebecca Kerr was going to sing at the concert, and also that Ulick Shannon was coaching the Garradrimna Dramatic Class in the play they were to produce, which was one he had seen at the Abbey Theater.... A curious thrill ran through him which was like a spasm of pain. Could it be this girl and this young man who had spoken with such disgusting intimacy of the female sex in the bar of the "North Leinster Arms" in Ballinamult ...? They went by a back way into the Club, where the rehearsals were now going forward.
John Brennan was sitting stiffly beside his mother in the front seats. Around and about him were people of renowned respectability, who had also paid two shillings each for their tickets. The seven publicans of Garradrimna were there, some with their wives, some with their wives and daughters, and some with their wives and daughters and sisters-in-law. The Clerk of the Union continually adjusting and re-adjusting his lemon-colored gloves. The old bespectacled maid from the Post Office sitting near the gray, bullet-headed postmaster, whose apoplectic jowl was shining. They were keeping up a continual chatter and buzz and giggle before the rise of the curtain. The jaws of the ancient postmistress never ceased to work, and those hot words of criticism and scorn which did not sizzle outwardly from her lips dropped inwardly to feed the fire of her mind, which was a volcano in perpetual eruption.