No More Learning

' And then he was silent and nobody liked to
question him, and they began to play. There were six men at the boards
playing, and the others were looking on behind. They played two or
three games for nothing, and then the old man took a four-penny bit,
worn very thin and smooth, out from his pocket, and he called to the
rest to put something on the game. Then they all put down something
on the boards, and little as it was it looked much, from the way it
was shoved from one to another, first one man winning it and then his
neighbour. And sometimes the luck would go against a man and he would
have nothing left, and then one or another would lend him something,
and he would pay it again out of his winnings, for neither good nor bad
luck stopped long with anyone.

And once Hanrahan said as a man would say in a dream, 'It is time for
me to be going the road'; but just then a good card came to him, and
he played it out, and all the money began to come to him. And once he
thought of Mary Lavelle, and he sighed; and that time his luck went
from him, and he forgot her again.

But at last the luck went to the old man and it stayed with him, and
all they had flowed into him, and he began to laugh little laughs to
himself, and to sing over and over to himself, 'Spades and Diamonds,
Courage and Pleasure,' and so on, as if it was a verse of a song.

And after a while anyone looking at the men, and seeing the way their
bodies were rocking to and fro, and the way they kept their eyes on the
old man's hands, would think they had drink taken, or that the whole
store they had in the world was put on the cards; but that was not so,
for the quart bottle had not been disturbed since the game began, and
was nearly full yet, and all that was on the game was a few sixpenny
bits and shillings, and maybe a handful of coppers.

'You are good men to win and good men to lose,' said the old man, 'you
have play in your hearts. ' He began then to shuffle the cards and to
mix them, very quick and fast, till at last they could not see them to
be cards at all, but you would think him to be making rings of fire in
the air, as little lads would make them with whirling a lighted stick;
and after that it seemed to them that all the room was dark, and they
could see nothing but his hands and the cards.

And all in a minute a hare made a leap out from between his hands, and
whether it was one of the cards that took that shape, or whether it was
made out of nothing in the palms of his hands, nobody knew, but there
it was running on the floor of the barn, as quick as any hare that ever
lived.

Some looked at the hare, but more kept their eyes on the old man, and
while they were looking at him a hound made a leap out between his
hands, the same way as the hare did, and after that another hound and
another, till there was a whole pack of them following the hare round
and round the barn.

The players were all standing up now, with their backs to the boards,
shrinking from the hounds, and nearly deafened with the noise of their
yelping, but as quick as the hounds were they could not overtake the
hare, but it went round, till at the last it seemed as if a blast of
wind burst open the barn door, and the hare doubled and made a leap
over the boards where the men had been playing, and went out of the
door and away through the night, and the hounds over the boards and
through the door after it.

Then the old man called out, 'Follow the hounds, follow the hounds, and
it is a great hunt you will see to-night,' and he went out after them.
But used as the men were to go hunting after hares, and ready as they
were for any sport, they were in dread to go out into the night, and it
was only Hanrahan that rose up and that said, 'I will follow, I will
follow on. '

'You had best stop here, Hanrahan,' the young man that was nearest him
said, 'for you might be going into some great danger. ' But Hanrahan
said, 'I will see fair play, I will see fair play,' and he went
stumbling out of the door like a man in a dream, and the door shut
after him as he went.

He thought he saw the old man in front of him, but it was only his own
shadow that the full moon cast on the road before him, but he could
hear the hounds crying after the hare over the wide green fields of
Granagh, and he followed them very fast for there was nothing to stop
him; and after a while he came to smaller fields that had little walls
of loose stones around them, and he threw the stones down as he crossed
them, and did not wait to put them up again; and he passed by the place
where the river goes under ground at Ballylee, and he could hear the
hounds going before him up towards the head of the river. Soon he found
it harder to run, for it was uphill he was going, and clouds came over
the moon, and it was hard for him to see his way, and once he left
the path to take a short cut, but his foot slipped into a boghole and
he had to come back to it. And how long he was going he did not know,
or what way he went, but at last he was up on the bare mountain, with
nothing but the rough heather about him, and he could neither hear the
hounds nor any other thing. But their cry began to come to him again,
at first far off and then very near, and when it came quite close to
him, it went up all of a sudden into the air, and there was the sound
of hunting over his head; then it went away northward till he could
hear nothing more at all. 'That's not fair,' he said, 'that's not
fair. ' And he could walk no longer, but sat down on the heather where
he was, in the heart of Slieve Echtge, for all the strength had gone
from him, with the dint of the long journey he had made.

And after a while he took notice that there was a door close to him,
and a light coming from it, and he wondered that being so close to
him he had not seen it before. And he rose up, and tired as he was he
went in at the door, and although it was night time outside, it was
daylight he found within. And presently he met with an old man that had
been gathering summer thyme and yellow flag-flowers, and it seemed
as if all the sweet smells of the summer were with them. And the old
man said: 'It is a long time you have been coming to us, Hanrahan the
learned man and the great songmaker. '

And with that he brought him into a very big shining house, and every
grand thing Hanrahan had ever heard of, and every colour he had ever
seen, were in it. There was a high place at the end of the house, and
on it there was sitting in a high chair a woman, the most beautiful the
world ever saw, having a long pale face and flowers about it, but she
had the tired look of one that had been long waiting. And there was
sitting on the step below her chair four grey old women, and the one of
them was holding a great cauldron in her lap; and another a great stone
on her knees, and heavy as it was it seemed light to her; and another
of them had a very long spear that was made of pointed wood; and the
last of them had a sword that was without a scabbard.