there was a curious hush about the lake next evening, although the little cottage of hughie murtagh was swept by winds which stirred mournfully through all the bright abundance of early summer. even the orange-blossoms of the furze seemed to put on an aspect of surrender. there was no challenge in their color now; they looked almost white against a somber sunset. john brennan moped about among the fir-trees. he came to a stand-still by one that had begun to decay and which was even more mournful in its failure to contribute another plumed head to the general effect of mourning. but it seemed to shake enraged at this impotence in its poor foundation over the deserted warren, from which shamesy golliher had long since driven the little rabbits towards that dark chicago of slaughter which was represented to them by garradrimna.
the same color of desolation was upon the reeds which separated him from the water. the water itself had, beneath its pretense of brightness upon the surface, the appearance of ooze, as if it had come washing over the slime of dead things.
it was here that john brennan had come to wait for ulick shannon, and, as he waited, his mood became that of his surroundings.... he fell to running over what had happened to him. alternately, in the swirl of his consciousness, it appeared as the power of the valley and[pg 272] as the hand of god. yet, whatever it might be in truth, this much was certain. it had reduced his life to ruins. it was a fearful thing, and he shuddered a little while he endeavored to produce a clear picture of it for the chastisement as well as the morbid excitement of his imagination.
but there came instead a far different picture, which seemed to have the effect of lifting for a moment the surrounding gloom. he saw rebecca kerr again as upon many an afternoon they had met. for one brave moment he strove to recover the fine feeling that had filled him at those times. but it would not come. something had happened, something terrible which soiled and spoiled her forever.
for love of her he had dreamed even unto the desire of defeating his mother's love. and yet there was no triumph in his heart now, nothing save defeat and a great weariness. neither his mother nor rebecca kerr were any longer definite hopes upon which his mind might dwell.... his thoughts were running altogether upon ulick shannon. it was for ulick he waited now in this lonely, wind-swept place, like any villain he had ever seen depicted upon the cover of a penny dreadful in phillips's window when he was a boy. he now saw himself fixed in his own imagination after this fashion. ulick shannon would soon come. there was no doubt of this, for a definite appointment had been made during the day. he had remained at home from the college in ballinamult to bring it about. soon they would be endeavoring to enter what must be the final and tragic bye-way of their story. and it must be all so dreadfully interesting, this ending he had planned.... now the[pg 273] water came flowing towards him more rapidly as if to hurry the tragedy. it came more thickly and muddily and with long, billowy strides as if it yearned to gather some other body still holding life to its wild breast. its waters kept flowing as if from some wide wound that ached and would not be satisfied; that bled and called aloud for blood forever.
now also the evening shadows were beginning to creep down the hills and with them a deeper hush was coming upon the wild longing of all things. yet it was no hush of peace, but rather the concentration of some horrible purpose upon one place.
"i am going away on friday," ulick had written in one of the two notes that had been exchanged between them by the messenger during the day, "and i would like to see you for what must, unfortunately, be the last time. i am slipping away unknown to my uncle or to any one, and it is hardly probable that i will be seen in these parts again."
at length he beheld the approach of ulick down the long hill of annus.... his spirit thrilled within him and flamed again into a white flame of love for the girl who was gone.... and coming hither was the man who had done this thing.... the thickest shadows of the evening would soon be gathered closely about the scene they were to witness.... the very reeds were rustling now in dread.
the lake was deep here at the edge of the water.... and in the rabbit-warren beneath his feet were the heavy pieces of lead piping he had transported in the night. he had taken them from his father's stock of plumber's materials, that moldy, unused stock which had so long[pg 274] lain in the back yard and which, in a distant way, possessed an intimate connection with this heaped-up story.... in a little instant of peculiar consciousness he wondered whether it would be pliable enough.... there were pieces for the legs and pieces for the arms which would enfold those members as in a weighty coffin.... and hidden nearer to his hand was the strangely-shaped, uncouth weapon his father had used many a time with such lack of improvement upon the school slates and with which one might kill a man.... the body would rest well down there beneath the muddy waters.... there would be no possibility of suspicion falling upon him, for the story of rebecca kerr's disgrace and ulick shannon's connection with it had already got about the valley.... he had been listening to his mother telling it to people all day.... ulick's disappearance, in a way self-effacing and unnamed, was hourly expected. this opportunity appeared the one kind trick of fate which had been so unkind to the passionate yearnings of john brennan.
but ulick shannon was by his side, and they were talking again as friends of different things in the light way of old.... their talk moved not at all within the shadows of things about to happen presently.... but the shadows were closing in, and very soon they must fall and lie heavily upon all things here by the lake.
"isn't it rather wonderful, brennan, that i should be going hence through the power of a woman? it is very strange how they always manage to have their revenge, how they beat us in the long run no matter how we may plume ourselves on a triumph that we merely fancy. although we may degrade and rob them of their treasure,[pg 275] ours is the final punishment. do you remember how i told you on that day we were at the 'north leinster arms,' in ballinamult, there was no trusting any woman? not even your own mother! now this rebecca kerr, she—"
the sentence was never finished. john brennan had not spoken, but his hand had moved twice—to lift the uncouth weapon from the foot of the tree and again to strike the blow.... the mold of unhappy clay from which the words of ulick had just come was stilled forever. the great cry which struggled to break from the lips resulted only in a long-drawn sigh that was like a queer swoon. the mournful screech of a wild bird flying low over the lake drowned the little gust of sound.... then the last lone silence fell between the two young men who had once been most dear companions.
no qualms of any kind came to the breast of john brennan. he had hardened his heart between the leaping flames of love and hate, and there was upon him now the feeling of one who has done a fine thing. he was in the moment of his triumph, yet he was beginning to be amazed by his sudden power and the result of his decision.... that he, john brennan, should have had it in him to murder his friend.... but no, it was his enemy he had murdered, the man who had desecrated the beauty of the world.... and there was a rare grandeur in what he had done. it was a thing of beauty snatched from the red hands of death.
yet as he went about his preparations for submerging the body he felt something akin to disgust for this the mean business of the murder.... here was where the beauty that had been his deed snapped finally from [pg 276]existence in his consciousness and disappeared from him.
henceforth gray thought after gray thought came tumbling into his mind. ulick had not been a bad fellow. he had tried to be kind to him—all the motor-drives and the walks and talks they had had. even the bits of days and nights spent together in garradrimna.... and how was ulick to know of his affection for rebecca kerr? there had never been the faintest statement of the fact between them; his whole manner and conversation and the end for which he was intended forbade any suspicion of the kind. in fact to have had such a doubt would have been a sin in the eyes of many a catholic.... the legs and arms were well weighted now.... this might not have happened if his mother had been attended in the right spirit of filial obedience.... but with the arrogance of youth, which he now realized for the first time, he had placed himself above her opinion and done what he had desired at the moment. and why had he done so?... she would seem to have had foreboding of all this in the way she had looked upon him so tenderly with her tired eyes many a time since his memorable home-coming last summer. she had always been so fearfully anxious.... here must have been the melancholy end she had seen at the back of all dreaming.... he could feel that sad look clearly, all dimmed by dark presentiments.
the body was a great weight. he strove to lift it in his arms in such a way that his clothes might not be soiled by the blood.... his face was very near the pale, dead face with the red blood now clotting amongst the hair.... he was almost overpowered by his burden as he dragged it to the water's edge.... it was a very fearful[pg 277] thing to look at just as the water closed over it with a low, gurgling sound, as if of mourning, like the cry of the bird in the moment the murder had been done.
as he staggered back from the sighing reeds he noticed that the ground was blood-drenched beneath the tree.... but he was doing the thing most thoroughly. in a frenzy of precautionary industry he began to hack away the earth with the slating implement very much as shamesy golliher might hack it in search of a rabbit.
later he seemed to put on the very appearance of shamesy himself as, with bent body, he slouched away across the ridge of the world. he too had just effected a piece of slaughter and garradrimna seemed to call him.
