No More Learning

He strode into the hall of assembly,
and having gathered his poets and his men of law about him, stood upon
the dais and spoke in a loud, clear voice: 'Men of law, why did you
make me sin against the laws of Eri? Men of verse, why did you make
me sin against the secrecy of wisdom, for law was made by man for the
welfare of man, but wisdom the gods have made, and no man shall live by
its light, for it and the hail and the rain and the thunder follow a
way that is deadly to mortal things? Men of law and men of verse, live
according to your kind, and call Eocha of the Hasty Mind to reign over
you, for I set out to find my kindred. ' He then came down among them,
and drew out of the hair of first one and then another the feathers
of the grey hawk, and, having scattered them over the rushes upon the
floor, passed out, and none dared to follow him, for his eyes gleamed
like the eyes of the birds of prey; and no man saw him again or heard
his voice. Some believed that he found his eternal abode among the
demons, and some that he dwelt henceforth with the dark and dreadful
goddesses, who sit all night about the pools in the forest watching the
constellations rising and setting in those desolate mirrors.


THE HEART OF THE SPRING

A VERY old man, whose face was almost as fleshless as the foot of a
bird, sat meditating upon the rocky shore of the flat and hazel-covered
isle which fills the widest part of the Lough Gill. A russet-faced boy
of seventeen years sat by his side, watching the swallows dipping for
flies in the still water. The old man was dressed in threadbare blue
velvet, and the boy wore a frieze coat and a blue cap, and had about
his neck a rosary of blue beads. Behind the two, and half hidden by
trees, was a little monastery. It had been burned down a long while
before by sacrilegious men of the Queen's party, but had been roofed
anew with rushes by the boy, that the old man might find shelter in his
last days. He had not set his spade, however, into the garden about it,
and the lilies and the roses of the monks had spread out until their
confused luxuriancy met and mingled with the narrowing circle of the
fern. Beyond the lilies and the roses the ferns were so deep that a
child walking among them would be hidden from sight, even though he
stood upon his toes; and beyond the fern rose many hazels and small oak
trees.

'Master,' said the boy, 'this long fasting, and the labour of beckoning
after nightfall with your rod of quicken wood to the beings who dwell
in the waters and among the hazels and oak-trees, is too much for
your strength. Rest from all this labour for a little, for your hand
seemed more heavy upon my shoulder and your feet less steady under
you to-day than I have known them. Men say that you are older than
the eagles, and yet you will not seek the rest that belongs to age.
'
He spoke in an eager, impulsive way, as though his heart were in the
words and thoughts of the moment; and the old man answered slowly and
deliberately, as though his heart were in distant days and distant
deeds.

'I will tell you why I have not been able to rest,' he said. 'It is
right that you should know, for you have served me faithfully these
five years and more, and even with affection, taking away thereby a
little of the doom of loneliness which always falls upon the wise. Now,
too, that the end of my labour and the triumph of my hopes is at hand,
it is the more needful for you to have this knowledge. '

'Master, do not think that I would question you. It is for me to keep
the fire alight, and the thatch close against the rain, and strong,
lest the wind blow it among the trees; and it is for me to take the
heavy books from the shelves, and to lift from its corner the great
painted roll with the names of the Sidhe, and to possess the while an
incurious and reverent heart, for right well I know that God has made
out of His abundance a separate wisdom for everything which lives, and
to do these things is my wisdom. '

'You are afraid,' said the old man, and his eyes shone with a momentary
anger.

'Sometimes at night,' said the boy, 'when you are reading, with the
rod of quicken wood in your hand, I look out of the door and see, now
a great grey man driving swine among the hazels, and now many little
people in red caps who come out of the lake driving little white cows
before them. I do not fear these little people so much as the grey man;
for, when they come near the house, they milk the cows, and they drink
the frothing milk, and begin to dance; and I know there is good in the
heart that loves dancing; but I fear them for all that. And I fear the
tall white-armed ladies who come out of the air, and move slowly hither
and thither, crowning themselves with the roses or with the lilies,
and shaking about their living hair, which moves, for so I have heard
them tell each other, with the motion of their thoughts, now spreading
out and now gathering close to their heads. They have mild, beautiful
faces, but, Aengus, son of Forbis, I fear all these beings, I fear the
people of the Sidhe, and I fear the art which draws them about us. '

'Why,' said the old man, 'do you fear the ancient gods who made the
spears of your father's fathers to be stout in battle, and the little
people who came at night from the depth of the lakes and sang among
the crickets upon their hearths? And in our evil day they still watch
over the loveliness of the earth. But I must tell you why I have fasted
and laboured when others would sink into the sleep of age, for without
your help once more I shall have fasted and laboured to no good end.
When you have done for me this last thing, you may go and build your
cottage and till your fields, and take some girl to wife, and forget
the ancient gods. I have saved all the gold and silver pieces that were
given to me by earls and knights and squires for keeping them from
the evil eye and from the love-weaving enchantments of witches, and
by earls' and knights' and squires' ladies for keeping the people of
the Sidhe from making the udders of their cattle fall dry, and taking
the butter from their churns.