No More Learning

When he came to the river he lingered awhile upon
the bank among the flowers of the flag, but presently rode out into the
middle and stopped his horse in a foaming shallow. Duallach, however,
crossed over and waited on a further bank above a deeper place. After a
good while Duallach cried out again, and this time very bitterly: 'It
was a fool who begot you and a fool who bore you, and they are fools of
all fools who say you come of an old and noble stock, for you come of
whey-faced beggars who travelled from door to door, bowing to gentles
and to serving-men. '

With bent head, Costello rode through the river and stood beside him,
and would have spoken had not hoofs clattered on the further bank and a
horseman splashed towards them. It was a serving-man of Dermott's, and
he said, speaking breathlessly like one who had ridden hard: 'Tumaus
Costello, I come to bid you again to Dermott's house. When you had
gone, his daughter Winny awoke and called your name, for you had been
in her dreams. Bridget Delaney the Dummy saw her lips move and the
trouble upon her, and came where we were hiding in the wood above the
house and took Dermott of the Sheep by the coat and brought him to his
daughter. He saw the trouble upon her, and bid me ride his own horse to
bring you the quicker. '

Then Costello turned towards the piper Duallach Daly, and taking him
about the waist lifted him out of the saddle and hurled him against a
grey rock that rose up out of the river, so that he fell lifeless into
the deep place, and the waters swept over the tongue which God had made
bitter, that there might be a story in men's ears in after time. Then
plunging his spurs into the horse, he rode away furiously toward the
north-west, along the edge of the river, and did not pause until he
came to another and smoother ford, and saw the rising moon mirrored in
the water. He paused for a moment irresolute, and then rode into the
ford and on over the Ox Mountains, and down towards the sea; his eyes
almost continually resting upon the moon which glimmered in the dimness
like a great white rose hung on the lattice of some boundless and
phantasmal world. But now his horse, long dark with sweat and breathing
hard, for he kept spurring it to an extreme speed, fell heavily,
hurling him into the grass at the road-side. He tried to make it stand
up, and failing in this, went on alone towards the moonlight; and came
to the sea and saw a schooner lying there at anchor. Now that he could
go no further because of the sea, he found that he was very tired and
the night very cold, and went into a shebeen close to the shore and
threw himself down upon a bench. The room was full of Spanish and Irish
sailors who had just smuggled a cargo of wine and ale, and were waiting
a favourable wind to set out again.
A Spaniard offered him a drink in
bad Gaelic. He drank it greedily and began talking wildly and rapidly.

For some three weeks the wind blew inshore or with too great violence,
and the sailors stayed drinking and talking and playing cards, and
Costello stayed with them, sleeping upon a bench in the shebeen, and
drinking and talking and playing more than any. He soon lost what
little money he had, and then his horse, which some one had brought
from the mountain boreen, to a Spaniard, who sold it to a farmer from
the mountains, and then his long cloak and his spurs and his boots of
soft leather. At last a gentle wind blew towards Spain, and the crew
rowed out to their schooner, singing Gaelic and Spanish songs, and
lifted the anchor, and in a little while the white sails had dropped
under the horizon. Then Costello turned homeward, his life gaping
before him, and walked all day, coming in the early evening to the road
that went from near Lough Gara to the southern edge of Lough Cay. Here
he overtook a great crowd of peasants and farmers, who were walking
very slowly after two priests and a group of well-dressed persons,
certain of whom were carrying a coffin. He stopped an old man and
asked whose burying it was and whose people they were, and the old man
answered: 'It is the burying of Oona, Dermott's daughter, and we are
the Namaras and the Dermotts and their following, and you are Tumaus
Costello who murdered her. '

Costello went on towards the head of the procession, passing men who
looked at him with fierce eyes, and only vaguely understanding what
he had heard, for now that he had lost the understanding that belongs
to good health, it seemed impossible that a gentleness and a beauty
which had been so long the world's heart could pass away. Presently he
stopped and asked again whose burying it was, and a man answered: 'We
are carrying Dermott's daughter Winny whom you murdered, to be buried
in the island of the Holy Trinity,' and the man stooped and picked up
a stone and cast it at Costello, striking him on the cheek and making
the blood flow out over his face. Costello went on scarcely feeling the
blow, and coming to those about the coffin, shouldered his way into the
midst of them, and laying his hand upon the coffin, asked in a loud
voice: 'Who is in this coffin? '

The three old Dermotts from the Ox Mountains caught up stones and bid
those about them do the same; and he was driven from the road, covered
with wounds, and but for the priests would surely have been killed.

When the procession had passed on, Costello began to follow again, and
saw from a distance the coffin laid upon a large boat, and those about
it get into other boats, and the boats move slowly over the water to
Insula Trinitatis; and after a time he saw the boats return and their
passengers mingle with the crowd upon the bank, and all disperse by
many roads and boreens. It seemed to him that Winny was somewhere on
the island smiling gently as of old, and when all had gone he swam
in the way the boats had been rowed and found the new-made grave
beside the ruined Abbey of the Holy Trinity, and threw himself upon
it, calling to Oona to come to him. Above him the square ivy leaves
trembled, and all about him white moths moved over white flowers, and
sweet odours drifted through the dim air.

He lay there all that night and through the day after, from time to
time calling her to come to him, but when the third night came he had
forgotten, worn out with hunger and sorrow, that her body lay in the
earth beneath; but only knew she was somewhere near and would not come
to him.