HANRAHAN, the hedge schoolmaster, a tall, strong, red-haired young man,
came into the barn where some of the men of the village were sitting
on Samhain Eve. It had been a dwelling-house, and when the man that
owned it had built a better one, he had put the two rooms together, and
kept it for a place to store one thing or another. There was a fire on
the old hearth, and there were dip candles stuck in bottles, and there
was a black quart bottle upon some boards that had been put across two
barrels to make a table. Most of the men were sitting beside the fire,
and one of them was singing a long wandering song, about a Munster man
and a Connaught man that were quarrelling about their two provinces.
Hanrahan went to the man of the house and said, ‘I got your message’;
but when he had said that, he stopped, for an old mountainy man that
had a shirt and trousers of unbleached flannel, and that was sitting
by himself near the door, was looking at him, and moving an old pack of
cards about in his hands and muttering. ‘Don’t mind him,’ said the man
of the house; ‘he is only some stranger came in awhile ago, and we bade
him welcome, it being Samhain night, but I think he is not in his right
wits. Listen to him now and you will hear what he is saying.’
They listened then, and they could hear the old man muttering to
himself as he turned the cards, ‘Spades and Diamonds, Courage and
Power; Clubs and Hearts, Knowledge and Pleasure.’
‘That is the kind of talk he has been going on with for the last hour,’
said the man of the house, and Hanrahan turned his eyes from the old
man as if he did not like to be looking at him.
‘I got your message,’ Hanrahan said then; ‘“he is in the barn with his
three first cousins from Kilchriest,” the messenger said, “and there
are some of the neighbours with them.”’
‘It is my cousin over there is wanting to see you,’ said the man of the
house, and he called over a young frieze-coated man, who was listening
to the song, and said, ‘This is Red Hanrahan you have the message for.’
‘It is a kind message, indeed,’ said the young man, ‘for it comes from
your sweetheart, Mary Lavelle.’
‘How would you get a message from her, and what do you know of her?’
‘I don’t know her, indeed, but I was in Loughrea yesterday, and a
neighbour of hers that had some dealings with me was saying that she
bade him send you word, if he met any one from this side in the market,
that her mother has died from her, and if you have a mind yet to join
with herself, she is willing to keep her word to you.’
‘I will go to her indeed,’ said Hanrahan.
‘And she bade you make no delay, for if she has not a man in the house
before the month is out, it is likely the little bit of land will be
given to another.’
When Hanrahan heard that, he rose up from the bench he had sat down
on. ‘I will make no delay indeed,’ he said, ‘there is a full moon, and
if I get as far as Kilchriest to-night, I will reach to her before the
setting of the sun to-morrow.’
When the others heard that, they began to laugh at him for being in
such haste to go to his sweetheart, and one asked him if he would leave
his school in the old lime-kiln, where he was giving the children such
good learning. But he said the children would be glad enough in the
morning to find the place empty, and no one to keep them at their task;
and as for his school he could set it up again in any place, having as
he had his little inkpot hanging from his neck by a chain, and his big
Virgil and his primer in the skirt of his coat.
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.
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.
He took the Virgil out of the big pocket of his coat, but the cover was
very black and swollen with the wet, and the page when he opened it was
very yellow, but that was no great matter, for he looked at it like a
man that had never learned to read. Some young man that was there began
to laugh at him then, and to ask why did he carry so heavy a book with
him when he was not able to read it.
It vexed Hanrahan to hear that, and he put the Virgil back in his
pocket and asked if they had a pack of cards among them, for cards were
better than books. When they brought out the cards he took them and
began to shuffle them, and while he was shuffling them something seemed
to come into his mind, and he put his hand to his face like one that is
trying to remember, and he said: ‘Was I ever here before, or where was
I on a night like this?’ and then of a sudden he stood up and let the
cards fall to the floor, and he said, ‘Who was it brought me a message
from Mary Lavelle?’
‘We never saw you before now, and we never heard of Mary Lavelle,’
said the man of the house. ‘And who is she,’ he said, ‘and what is it
you are talking about?’
‘It was this night a year ago, I was in a barn, and there were men
playing cards, and there was money on the table, they were pushing
it from one to another here and there—and I got a message, and I was
going out of the door to look for my sweetheart that wanted me, Mary
Lavelle.’ And then Hanrahan called out very loud: ‘Where have I been
since then? Where was I for the whole year?’
‘It is hard to say where you might have been in that time,’ said the
oldest of the men, ‘or what part of the world you may have travelled;
and it is like enough you have the dust of many roads on your feet; for
there are many go wandering and forgetting like that,’ he said, ‘when
once they have been given the touch.’
‘That is true,’ said another of the men. ‘I knew a woman went wandering
like that through the length of seven years; she came back after, and
she told her friends she had often been glad enough to eat the food
that was put in the pig’s trough. And it is best for you to go to the
priest now,’ he said, ‘and let him take off you whatever may have been
put upon you.’
‘It is to my sweetheart I will go, to Mary Lavelle,’ said Hanrahan; ‘it
is too long I have delayed, how do I know what might have happened her
in the length of a year?’
He was going out of the door then, but they all told him it was best
for him to stop the night, and to get strength for the journey; and
indeed he wanted that, for he was very weak, and when they gave him
food he eat it like a man that had never seen food before, and one of
them said, ‘He is eating as if he had trodden on the hungry grass.’ It
was in the white light of the morning he set out, and the time seemed
long to him till he could get to Mary Lavelle’s house. But when he came
to it, he found the door broken, and the thatch dropping from the roof,
and no living person to be seen. And when he asked the neighbours what
had happened her, all they could say was that she had been put out
of the house, and had married some labouring man, and they had gone
looking for work to London or Liverpool or some big place. And whether
she found a worse place or a better he never knew, but anyway he never
met with her or with news of her again.