No More Learning

'

'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.

The fiddler was tuning his fiddle for another dance, and the man of
the house said to the young men, they would all know what dancing was
like when they saw Hanrahan dance, for the like of it had never been
seen since he was there before. Hanrahan said he would not dance, he
had better use for his feet now, travelling as he was through the
five provinces of Ireland. Just as he said that, there came in at
the half-door Oona, the daughter of the house, having a few bits of
bog deal from Connemara in her arms for the fire. She threw them on
the hearth and the flame rose up, and showed her to be very comely
and smiling, and two or three of the young men rose up and asked for
a dance. But Hanrahan crossed the floor and brushed the others away,
and said it was with him she must dance, after the long road he had
travelled before he came to her. And it is likely he said some soft
word in her ear, for she said nothing against it, and stood out with
him, and there were little blushes in her cheeks. Then other couples
stood up, but when the dance was going to begin, Hanrahan chanced to
look down, and he took notice of his boots that were worn and broken,
and the ragged grey socks showing through them; and he said angrily it
was a bad floor, and the music no great things, and he sat down in the
dark place beside the hearth. But if he did, the girl sat down there
with him.

The dancing went on, and when that dance was over another was called
for, and no one took much notice of Oona and Red Hanrahan for a while,
in the corner where they were. But the mother grew to be uneasy, and
she called to Oona to come and help her to set the table in the inner
room. But Oona that had never refused her before, said she would come
soon, but not yet, for she was listening to whatever he was saying
in her ear. The mother grew yet more uneasy then, and she would come
nearer them, and let on to be stirring the fire or sweeping the hearth,
and she would listen for a minute to hear what the poet was saying
to her child.