Even to this John could frame no reply. But the ear of Mr. Shannon did not desire it, for his eye had seen all that he wished to know. He beheld John Brennan shivering as within the cold and dismal shadows of fatality.... They spoke little more until they shook hands again, and parted amid the dappled grass.
To Myles Shannon the interview had been an extraordinary success.... Yet, quite suddenly, he found himself beginning to think of the position of Rebecca Kerr.
CHAPTER XIX
Outside the poor round of diversions afforded by the valley and her meetings with Ulick Shannon, the days passed uneventfully for Rebecca Kerr. It was a dreary kind of life, wherein she was concerned to avoid as far as possible the fits of depression which sprang out of the quality of her lodgings at Sergeant McGoldrick's.
She snatched a hasty breakfast early in the mornings, scarcely ever making anything like a meal. When she did it was always followed by a feeling of nausea as she went on The Road of the Dead towards the valley school. When she returned after her day's hard work her dinner would be half cold and unappetizing by the red ashy fire. Mrs. McGoldrick would be in the sitting-room, where she made clothes for the children, the sergeant himself probably digging in the garden before the door, his tunic open, his face sweating, and the dirty clay upon his big boots.... He was always certain to shout out some idiotic salutation as she passed in. Then Mrs. McGoldrick would be sure to follow her into the kitchen, a baby upon her left arm and a piece of soiled sewing in her right hand. She was always concerned greatly about the number at school on any particular day, and how Mrs. Wyse was and Miss McKeon, and how the average was keeping up, and if it did not keep up to a certain number would Mrs. Wyse's salary be reduced, and what was the average required for Miss McKeon to get her salary from the Board, and so on.
Sometimes Rebecca would be so sick at heart of school affairs and of this mean, prying woman that no word would come from her, and Mrs. McGoldrick would drift huffily away, her face a perfect study in disappointment. And against those there were times when Rebecca, with a touch of good humor, would tell the most fantastical stories of inspectors and rules and averages and increments and pensions, Mrs. McGoldrick breathless between her "Well, wells!" of amazement.... Then Rebecca would have a rare laugh to herself as she pictured her landlady repeating everything to the sergeant, who would make mental comparisons the while of the curious correspondence existing between those pillars of law and learning, the Royal Irish Constabulary, and the National Teachers of Ireland.
Next day, perhaps, Mrs. McGoldrick would enlarge upon the excellent and suitable match a policeman and a teacher make, and how it is such a general thing throughout the country. She always concluded a discourse of this nature by saying a thing she evidently wished Rebecca to remember:
"Let me tell you this, now—a policeman is the very best match that any girl can make!"