No More Learning

Some of them asked him to drink a glass before he went, and a young
man caught hold of his coat, and said he must not leave them without
singing the song he had made in praise of Venus and of Mary Lavelle. He
drank a glass of whiskey, but he said he would not stop but would set
out on his journey.

'There's time enough, Red Hanrahan,' said the man of the house. 'It
will be time enough for you to give up sport when you are after your
marriage, and it might be a long time before we will see you again. '

'I will not stop,' said Hanrahan; 'my mind would be on the roads all
the time, bringing me to the woman that sent for me, and she lonesome
and watching till I come. '

Some of the others came about him, pressing him that had been such a
pleasant comrade, so full of songs and every kind of trick and fun, not
to leave them till the night would be over, but he refused them all,
and shook them off, and went to the door. But as he put his foot over
the threshold, the strange old man stood up and put his hand that was
thin and withered like a bird's claw on Hanrahan's hand, and said: 'It
is not Hanrahan, the learned man and the great songmaker, that should
go out from a gathering like this, on a Samhain night. And stop here,
now,' he said, 'and play a hand with me; and here is an old pack of
cards has done its work many a night before this, and old as it is,
there has been much of the riches of the world lost and won over it. '

One of the young men said, 'It isn't much of the riches of the world
has stopped with yourself, old man,' and he looked at the old man's
bare feet, and they all laughed. But Hanrahan did not laugh, but he sat
down very quietly, without a word. Then one of them said, 'So you will
stop with us after all, Hanrahan'; and the old man said: 'He will stop
indeed, did you not hear me asking him? '

They all looked at the old man then as if wondering where he came
from. 'It is far I am come,' he said, 'through France I have come,
and through Spain, and by Lough Greine of the hidden mouth, and none
has refused me anything. ' And then he was silent and nobody liked to
question him, and they began to play. There were six men at the boards
playing, and the others were looking on behind.
They played two or
three games for nothing, and then the old man took a four-penny bit,
worn very thin and smooth, out from his pocket, and he called to the
rest to put something on the game. Then they all put down something
on the boards, and little as it was it looked much, from the way it
was shoved from one to another, first one man winning it and then his
neighbour. And sometimes the luck would go against a man and he would
have nothing left, and then one or another would lend him something,
and he would pay it again out of his winnings, for neither good nor bad
luck stopped long with anyone.

And once Hanrahan said as a man would say in a dream, 'It is time for
me to be going the road'; but just then a good card came to him, and
he played it out, and all the money began to come to him. And once he
thought of Mary Lavelle, and he sighed; and that time his luck went
from him, and he forgot her again.

But at last the luck went to the old man and it stayed with him, and
all they had flowed into him, and he began to laugh little laughs to
himself, and to sing over and over to himself, 'Spades and Diamonds,
Courage and Pleasure,' and so on, as if it was a verse of a song.

And after a while anyone looking at the men, and seeing the way their
bodies were rocking to and fro, and the way they kept their eyes on the
old man's hands, would think they had drink taken, or that the whole
store they had in the world was put on the cards; but that was not so,
for the quart bottle had not been disturbed since the game began, and
was nearly full yet, and all that was on the game was a few sixpenny
bits and shillings, and maybe a handful of coppers.

'You are good men to win and good men to lose,' said the old man, 'you
have play in your hearts. ' He began then to shuffle the cards and to
mix them, very quick and fast, till at last they could not see them to
be cards at all, but you would think him to be making rings of fire in
the air, as little lads would make them with whirling a lighted stick;
and after that it seemed to them that all the room was dark, and they
could see nothing but his hands and the cards.

And all in a minute a hare made a leap out from between his hands, and
whether it was one of the cards that took that shape, or whether it was
made out of nothing in the palms of his hands, nobody knew, but there
it was running on the floor of the barn, as quick as any hare that ever
lived.

Some looked at the hare, but more kept their eyes on the old man, and
while they were looking at him a hound made a leap out between his
hands, the same way as the hare did, and after that another hound and
another, till there was a whole pack of them following the hare round
and round the barn.

The players were all standing up now, with their backs to the boards,
shrinking from the hounds, and nearly deafened with the noise of their
yelping, but as quick as the hounds were they could not overtake the
hare, but it went round, till at the last it seemed as if a blast of
wind burst open the barn door, and the hare doubled and made a leap
over the boards where the men had been playing, and went out of the
door and away through the night, and the hounds over the boards and
through the door after it.

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.