No More Learning

'

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. Doran said, 'I think I know what
is wrong. _That_ man will be her brother, and _that_ man will be her
lover, and the brother is sending her to America to get her away from
the lover. How she is crying! but I think I could console her myself. '
Presently the lover and brother went away, and Doran began to walk up
and down before her, saying, 'Mild weather, Miss,' or the like. She
answered him in a little while, and the three began to talk together.
The emigrant ship did not arrive for some days; and the three drove
about on outside cars very innocently and happily, seeing everything
that was to be seen. When at last the ship came, and Doran had to break
it to her that he was not going to America, she cried more after him
than after the first lover. Doran whispered to Byrne as he went aboard
ship, 'Now, Byrne, I don't grudge her to you, but don't marry young. '

When the story got to this, the farmer's daughter joined in mockingly
with, 'I suppose you said that for Byrne's good, father. ' But the
old man insisted that he _had_ said it for Byrne's good; and went
on to tell how, when he got a letter telling of Byrne's engagement
to the girl, he wrote him the same advice.