No More Learning

* * * * *

It was a year after that, there were men of the village of Cappaghtagle
sitting by the fire in a house on the roadside, and Red Hanrahan that
was now very thin and worn and his hair very long and wild, came to the
half-door and asked leave to come in and rest himself; and they bid him
welcome because it was Samhain night. He sat down with them, and they
gave him a glass of whiskey out of a quart bottle; and they saw the
little inkpot hanging about his neck, and knew he was a scholar, and
asked for stories about the Greeks.

He took the Virgil out of the big pocket of his coat, but the cover was
very black and swollen with the wet, and the page when he opened it was
very yellow, but that was no great matter, for he looked at it like a
man that had never learned to read. Some young man that was there began
to laugh at him then, and to ask why did he carry so heavy a book with
him when he was not able to read it.

It vexed Hanrahan to hear that, and he put the Virgil back in his
pocket and asked if they had a pack of cards among them, for cards were
better than books. When they brought out the cards he took them and
began to shuffle them, and while he was shuffling them something seemed
to come into his mind, and he put his hand to his face like one that is
trying to remember, and he said: 'Was I ever here before, or where was
I on a night like this? ' and then of a sudden he stood up and let the
cards fall to the floor, and he said, 'Who was it brought me a message
from Mary Lavelle? '

'We never saw you before now, and we never heard of Mary Lavelle,'
said the man of the house. 'And who is she,' he said, 'and what is it
you are talking about? '

'It was this night a year ago, I was in a barn, and there were men
playing cards, and there was money on the table, they were pushing
it from one to another here and there--and I got a message, and I was
going out of the door to look for my sweetheart that wanted me, Mary
Lavelle. ' And then Hanrahan called out very loud: 'Where have I been
since then? Where was I for the whole year? '

'It is hard to say where you might have been in that time,' said the
oldest of the men, 'or what part of the world you may have travelled;
and it is like enough you have the dust of many roads on your feet; for
there are many go wandering and forgetting like that,' he said, 'when
once they have been given the touch. '

'That is true,' said another of the men. 'I knew a woman went wandering
like that through the length of seven years; she came back after, and
she told her friends she had often been glad enough to eat the food
that was put in the pig's trough.
And it is best for you to go to the
priest now,' he said, 'and let him take off you whatever may have been
put upon you. '

'It is to my sweetheart I will go, to Mary Lavelle,' said Hanrahan; 'it
is too long I have delayed, how do I know what might have happened her
in the length of a year? '

He was going out of the door then, but they all told him it was best
for him to stop the night, and to get strength for the journey; and
indeed he wanted that, for he was very weak, and when they gave him
food he eat it like a man that had never seen food before, and one of
them said, 'He is eating as if he had trodden on the hungry grass. ' It
was in the white light of the morning he set out, and the time seemed
long to him till he could get to Mary Lavelle's house. But when he came
to it, he found the door broken, and the thatch dropping from the roof,
and no living person to be seen. And when he asked the neighbours what
had happened her, all they could say was that she had been put out
of the house, and had married some labouring man, and they had gone
looking for work to London or Liverpool or some big place. And whether
she found a worse place or a better he never knew, but anyway he never
met with her or with news of her again.




THE TWISTING OF THE ROPE


HANRAHAN was walking the roads one time near Kinvara at the fall of
day, and he heard the sound of a fiddle from a house a little way
off the roadside. He turned up the path to it, for he never had the
habit of passing by any place where there was music or dancing or good
company, without going in. The man of the house was standing at the
door, and when Hanrahan came near he knew him and he said: 'A welcome
before you, Hanrahan, you have been lost to us this long time. ' But
the woman of the house came to the door and she said to her husband:
'I would be as well pleased for Hanrahan not to come in to-night, for
he has no good name now among the priests, or with women that mind
themselves, and I wouldn't wonder from his walk if he has a drop of
drink taken. ' But the man said, 'I will never turn away Hanrahan of the
poets from my door,' and with that he bade him enter.

There were a good many neighbours gathered in the house, and some of
them remembered Hanrahan; but some of the little lads that were in the
corners had only heard of him, and they stood up to have a view of him,
and one of them said: 'Is not that Hanrahan that had the school, and
that was brought away by Them? ' But his mother put her hand over his
mouth and bade him be quiet, and not be saying things like that. 'For
Hanrahan is apt to grow wicked,' she said, 'if he hears talk of that
story, or if anyone goes questioning him. ' One or another called out
then, asking him for a song, but the man of the house said it was no
time to ask him for a song, before he had rested himself; and he gave
him whiskey in a glass, and Hanrahan thanked him and wished him good
health and drank it off.