No More Learning

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.

Hanrahan stood looking at them for a long time, but none of them spoke
any word to him or looked at him at all. And he had it in his mind to
ask who that woman in the chair was, that was like a queen, and what
she was waiting for; but ready as he was with his tongue and afraid of
no person, he was in dread now to speak to so beautiful a woman, and in
so grand a place. And then he thought to ask what were the four things
the four grey old women were holding like great treasures, but he could
not think of the right words to bring out.

Then the first of the old women rose up, holding the cauldron between
her two hands, and she said 'Pleasure,' and Hanrahan said no word. Then
the second old woman rose up with the stone in her hands, and she said
'Power'; and the third old woman rose up with the spear in her hand,
and she said 'Courage'; and the last of the old women rose up having
the sword in her hands, and she said 'Knowledge. ' And everyone, after
she had spoken, waited as if for Hanrahan to question her, but he said
nothing at all. And then the four old women went out of the door,
bringing their four treasures with them, and as they went out one of
them said, 'He has no wish for us'; and another said, 'He is weak, he
is weak'; and another said, 'He is afraid'; and the last said, 'His
wits are gone from him. ' And then they all said 'Echtge, daughter of
the Silver Hand, must stay in her sleep. It is a pity, it is a great
pity. '

And then the woman that was like a queen gave a very sad sigh, and
it seemed to Hanrahan as if the sigh had the sound in it of hidden
streams; and if the place he was in had been ten times grander and more
shining than it was, he could not have hindered sleep from coming on
him; and he staggered like a drunken man and lay down there and then.

When Hanrahan awoke, the sun was shining on his face, but there was
white frost on the grass around him, and there was ice on the edge of
the stream he was lying by, and that goes running on through Daire-caol
and Druim-da-rod. He knew by the shape of the hills and by the shining
of Lough Greine in the distance that he was upon one of the hills of
Slieve Echtge, but he was not sure how he came there; for all that had
happened in the barn had gone from him, and all of his journey but the
soreness of his feet and the stiffness in his bones.

* * * * *

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.