No More Learning

As
the door fell with a crash they saw a little knot of friars gathered
about the altar, their white habits glimmering in the steady light of
the holy candles. All the monks were kneeling except the abbot, who
stood upon the altar steps with a great brazen crucifix in his hand.
'Shoot them! ' cried Sir Frederick Hamilton, but none stirred, for
all were new converts, and feared the crucifix and the holy candles.
The white lights from the altar threw the shadows of the troopers up
on to roof and wall. As the troopers moved about, the shadows began
a fantastic dance among the corbels and the memorial tablets. For a
little while all was silent, and then five troopers who were the
body-guard of Sir Frederick Hamilton lifted their muskets, and shot
down five of the friars. The noise and the smoke drove away the mystery
of the pale altar lights, and the other troopers took courage and
began to strike. In a moment the friars lay about the altar steps,
their white habits stained with blood. 'Set fire to the house! ' cried
Sir Frederick Hamilton, and at his word one went out, and came in
again carrying a heap of dry straw, and piled it against the western
wall, and, having done this, fell back, for the fear of the crucifix
and of the holy candles was still in his heart. Seeing this, the five
troopers who were Sir Frederick Hamilton's body-guard darted forward,
and taking each a holy candle set the straw in a blaze. The red tongues
of fire rushed up and flickered from corbel to corbel and from tablet
to tablet, and crept along the floor, setting in a blaze the seats and
benches. The dance of the shadows passed away, and the dance of the
fires began. The troopers fell back towards the door in the southern
wall, and watched those yellow dancers springing hither and thither.
For a time the altar stood safe and apart in the midst of its white
light; the eyes of the troopers turned upon it. The abbot whom they
had thought dead had risen to his feet and now stood before it with
the crucifix lifted in both hands high above his head. Suddenly he
cried with a loud voice, 'Woe unto all who smite those who dwell within
the Light of the Lord, for they shall wander among the ungovernable
shadows, and follow the ungovernable fires! ' And having so cried he
fell on his face dead, and the brazen crucifix rolled down the steps
of the altar. The smoke had now grown very thick, so that it drove the
troopers out into the open air. Before them were burning houses. Behind
them shone the painted windows of the Abbey filled with saints and
martyrs, awakened, as from a sacred trance, into an angry and animated
life. The eyes of the troopers were dazzled, and for a while could
see nothing but the flaming faces of saints and martyrs. Presently,
however, they saw a man covered with dust who came running towards
them. 'Two messengers,' he cried, 'have been sent by the defeated Irish
to raise against you the whole country about Manor Hamilton, and if you
do not stop them you will be overpowered in the woods before you reach
home again! They ride north-east between Ben Bulben and Cashel-na-Gael. '

Sir Frederick Hamilton called to him the five troopers who had first
fired upon the monks and said, 'Mount quickly, and ride through the
woods towards the mountain, and get before these men, and kill them. '

In a moment the troopers were gone, and before many moments they had
splashed across the river at what is now called Buckley's Ford, and
plunged into the woods. They followed a beaten track that wound along
the northern bank of the river. The boughs of the birch and quicken
trees mingled above, and hid the cloudy moonlight, leaving the pathway
in almost complete darkness. They rode at a rapid trot, now chatting
together, now watching some stray weasel or rabbit scuttling away
in the darkness.