"Ah, sure there is nothing, mother. You are only fancying queer things. At college I have to meet hundreds of fellows. He's not a bad chap, and I like speaking to him. It is lonely here without such intercourse. He realizes keenly how people are always talking of him, how the smallest action of his is construed and constructed in a hundred different ways, until he's driven to do wild things out of very defiance to show what he thinks of the mean people of the valley and their opinion of him—"
"They're not much, I know—"
"But at heart, I think, he's somehow like myself, and I can't help liking him."
"All the same he shouldn't be going with a girl and, especially, a little chit of a schoolmistress like this one, for I can't stand her."
Why did she continue to hammer so upon the pulse of his thought?... With bowed head he began to drift out of the room. Why had she driven him to think now of Rebecca Kerr?... He was already in the sunlight.
To-day he would not go towards the lake, but up through the high green fields of Scarden. He was taking The Imitation of Christ with him, and, under the shade of some noble tree, it was his intention to turn his thoughts to God and away from the things of life.
It seemed grand to him, with a grandeur that had more than a touch of the color of Heaven, to be ascending cool slopes through the green, soft grass and to be looking down upon the valley at its daily labor. The potatoes and turnips still required attention. He saw men move patiently behind their horses over the broken fields of red earth beneath the fine, clear clay, and thought that here surely was the true vocation of him who would incline himself unto God.... But how untrue was this fancy when one came to consider the real personality of these tillers of the soil? There was not one of whom Mrs. Brennan could not tell an ugly story. Not one who did not consider it his duty to say uncharitable things of Ulick Shannon and Rebecca Kerr. Not one who would not have danced with gladness if a great misfortune had befallen John Brennan, and made a holiday in Garradrimna if anything terrible had happened to any one within the circle of their acquaintance.
John Brennan's attention was now attracted by a man who moved with an air of proprietorship among a field of sheep. He was a tall man in black, moving darkly among the white crowd of the sheep, counting them leisurely and allowing his mind to dwell upon the pageant of their perfect whiteness. He seemed to be reckoning their value as the pure yield of his pastures. Here was another aspect of the fields.... The man in black was coming towards him with long strides.