No More Learning

When
I heard of it I was disgusted that he should have made such a fuss
over a miserable creature like O'Donnell; and when I heard a few weeks
ago that O'Donnell's only son had died and left him heart-broken, I
resolved to make my father be kind to him next time he came. '

She then went out to see a neighbour, and I sauntered towards the back
parlour. When I came to the door I heard angry voices inside. The two
men were evidently getting on to the tax again, for I could hear them
bandying figures to and fro. I opened the door; at sight of my face
the farmer was reminded of his peaceful intentions, and asked me if I
knew where the whiskey was. I had seen him put it into the cupboard,
and was able therefore to find it and get it out, looking at the thin,
grief-struck face of the tax-gatherer. He was rather older than my
friend, and very much more feeble and worn, and of a very different
type. He was not like him, a robust, successful man, but rather one of
those whose feet find no resting-place upon the earth. I recognized one
of the children of reverie, and said, 'You are doubtless of the stock
of the old O'Donnells. I know well the hole in the river where their
treasure lies buried under the guard of a serpent with many heads. '
'Yes, sur,' he replied, 'I am the last of a line princes. '

We then fell to talking of many commonplace things, and my friend did
not once toss up his beard, but was very friendly. At last the gaunt
old tax-gatherer got up to go, and my friend said, 'I hope we will
have a glass together next year. ' 'No, no,' was the answer, 'I shall
be dead next year,' 'I too have lost sons,' said the other, in quite a
gentle voice. 'But your sons were not like my son.
' And then the two
men parted, with an angry flush and bitter hearts, and had I not cast
between them some common words or other, might not have parted, but
have fallen rather into an angry discussion of the value of their dead
sons. If I had not pity for all the children of reverie I should have
let them fight it out, and would now have many a wonderful oath to
record.

The knight of the sheep would have had the victory, for no soul that
wears this garment of blood and clay can surpass him. He was but once
beaten; and this is his tale of how it was. He and some farm hands were
playing at cards in a small cabin that stood against the end of a big
barn. A wicked woman had once lived in this cabin. Suddenly one of the
players threw down an ace and began to swear without any cause. His
swearing was so dreadful that the others stood up, and my friend said,
'All is not right here; there is a spirit in him. ' They ran to the door
that led into the barn to get away as quickly as possible. The wooden
bolt would not move, so the knight of the sheep took a saw which stood
against the wall near at hand, and sawed through the bolt, and at once
the door flew open with a bang, as though some one had been holding it,
and they fled through.




AN ENDURING HEART


ONE day a friend of mine was making a sketch of my Knight of the Sheep.
The old man's daughter was sitting by, and, when the conversation
drifted to love and love-making, she said, 'Oh, father, tell him
about your love affair. ' The old man took his pipe out of his mouth,
and said, 'Nobody ever marries the woman he loves,' and then, with
a chuckle, 'there were fifteen of them I liked better than the
woman I married,' and he repeated many women's names. He went on to
tell how when he was a lad he had worked for his grandfather, his
mother's father, and was called (my friend has forgotten why) by his
grandfather's name, which we will say was Doran. He had a great friend,
whom I shall call John Byrne; and one day he and his friend went to
Queenstown to await an emigrant ship, that was to take John Byrne
to America. When they were walking along the quay, they saw a girl
sitting on a seat, crying miserably, and two men standing up in front
of her quarrelling with one another.