STORIES OF RED HANRAHAN

BY

W. B. YEATS

CONTENTS. 

STORIES OF RED HANRAHAN:

 RED HANRAHAN THE TWISTING OF THE ROPE HANRAHAN AND CATHLEEN THE DAUGHTER OF HOOLIHAN RED HANRAHAN'S CURSE HANRAHAN'S VISION THE DEATH OF HANRAHAN

I owe thanks to Lady Gregory, who helped me to rewrite The Stories ofRed Hanrahan in the beautiful country speech of Kiltartan, and nearerto the tradition of the people among whom he, or some likeness ofhim, drifted and is remembered. 

RED HANRAHAN. 

Hanrahan, the hedge schoolmaster, a tall, strong, red-haired youngman, came into the barn where some of the men of the village weresitting on Samhain Eve. It had been a dwelling-house, and when theman that owned it had built a better one, he had put the two roomstogether, 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 stuckin bottles, and there was a black quart bottle upon some boards thathad been put across two barrels to make a table. Most of the men weresitting beside the fire, and one of them was singing a long wanderingsong, about a Munster man and a Connaught man that were quarrellingabout 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 thathad a shirt and trousers of unbleached flannel, and that was sittingby himself near the door, was looking at him, and moving an old packof cards about in his hands and muttering. 'Don't mind him, ' said theman of the house; 'he is only some stranger came in awhile ago, andwe bade him welcome, it being Samhain night, but I think he is not inhis right wits. Listen to him now and you will hear what he issaying. '

They listened then, and they could hear the old man muttering tohimself as he turned the cards, 'Spades and Diamonds, Courage andPower; Clubs and Hearts, Knowledge and Pleasure. '

'That is the kind of talk he has been going on with for the lasthour, ' said the man of the house, and Hanrahan turned his eyes fromthe 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 withhis three first cousins from Kilchriest, " the messenger said, "andthere are some of the neighbours with them. "'

'It is my cousin over there is wanting to see you, ' said the man ofthe house, and he called over a young frieze-coated man, who waslistening to the song, and said, 'This is Red Hanrahan you have themessage for. '

'It is a kind message, indeed, ' said the young man, 'for it comesfrom 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 aneighbour of hers that had some dealings with me was saying that shebade him send you word, if he met any one from this side in themarket, that her mother has died from her, and if you have a mind yetto 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 thehouse before the month is out, it is likely the little bit of landwill be given to another. '

When Hanrahan heard that, he rose up from the bench he had sat downon. 'I will make no delay indeed, ' he said, 'there is a full moon, and if I get as far as Gilchreist to-night, I will reach to herbefore the setting of the sun to-morrow. '

When the others heard that, they began to laugh at him for being insuch haste to go to his sweetheart, and one asked him if he wouldleave his school in the old lime-kiln, where he was giving thechildren such good learning. But he said the children would be gladenough in the morning to find the place empty, and no one to keepthem at their task; and as for his school he could set it up again inany place, having as he had his little inkpot hanging from his neckby a chain, and his big Virgil and his primer in the skirt of hiscoat. 

Some of them asked him to drink a glass before he went, and a youngman caught hold of his coat, and said he must not leave them withoutsinging 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 wouldset out on his journey. 

'There's time enough, Red Hanrahan, ' said the man of the house. 'Itwill be time enough for you to give up sport when you are after yourmarriage, 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 allthe time, bringing me to the woman that sent for me, and she lonesomeand watching till I come. '

Some of the others came about him, pressing him that had been such apleasant 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 themall, and shook them off, and went to the door. But as he put his footover the threshold, the strange old man stood up and put his handthat was thin and withered like a bird's claw on Hanrahan's hand, andsaid: '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 isan old pack of cards has done its work many a night before this, andold as it is, there has been much of the riches of the world lost andwon over it. '

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

They all looked at the old man then as if wondering where he camefrom. '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 nonehas refused me anything. ' And then he was silent and nobody liked toquestion him, and they began to play. There were six men at theboards playing, and the others were looking on behind. They playedtwo or three games for nothing, and then the old man took a fourpennybit, worn very thin and smooth, out from his pocket, and he called tothe rest to put something on the game. Then they all put downsomething on the boards, and little as it was it looked much, fromthe way it was shoved from one to another, first one man winning itand then his neighbour. And some-times the luck would go against aman and he would have nothing left, and then one or another wouldlend 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 forme to be going the road'; but just then a good card came to him, andhe played it out, and all the money began to come to him. And once hethought of Mary Lavelle, and he sighed; and that time his luck wentfrom him, and he forgot her again. 

But at last the luck went to the old man and it stayed with him, andall they had flowed into him, and he began to laugh little laughs tohimself, and to sing over and over to himself, 'Spades and Diamonds, Courage and Power, ' 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 theirbodies were rocking to and fro, and the way they kept their eyes onthe old man's hands, would think they had drink taken, or that thewhole store they had in the world was put on the cards; but that wasnot so, for the quart bottle had not been disturbed since the gamebegan, and was nearly full yet, and all that was on the game was afew 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 cardsand to mix them, very quick and fast, till at last they could not seethem to be cards at all, but you would think him to be making ringsof fire in the air, as little lads would make them with whirling alighted stick; and after that it seemed to them that all the room wasdark, 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 whetherit 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 anyhare that ever lived. 

Some looked at the hare, but more kept their eyes on the old man, andwhile they were looking at him a hound made a leap out between hishands, the same way as the hare did, and after that another hound andanother, till there was a whole pack of them following the hare roundand 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 oftheir yelping, but as quick as the hounds were they could notovertake the hare, but it went round, till at the last it seemed asif a blast of wind burst open the barn door, and the hare doubled andmade a leap over the boards where the men had been playing, and wentout of the door and away through the night, and the hounds over theboards 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 afterthem. But used as the men were to go hunting after hares, and readyas they were for any sport, they were in dread to go out into thenight, and it was only Hanrahan that rose up and that said, 'I willfollow, I will follow on. '

'You had best stop here, Hanrahan, ' the young man that was nearesthim said, 'for you might be going into some great danger. ' ButHanrahan said, 'I will see fair play, I will see fair play, ' and hewent stumbling out of the door like a man in a dream, and the doorshut after him as he went. 

He thought he saw the old man in front of him, but it was only hisown shadow that the full moon cast on the road before him, but hecould hear the hounds crying after the hare over the wide greenfields of Granagh, and he followed them very fast for there wasnothing to stop him; and after a while he came to smaller fields thathad little walls of loose stones around them, and he threw the stonesdown as he crossed them, and did not wait to put them up again; andhe 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 ofthe river. Soon he found it harder to run, for it was uphill he wasgoing, and clouds came over the moon, and it was hard for him to seehis way, and once he left the path to take a short cut, but his footslipped into a boghole and he had to come back to it. And how long hewas going he did not know, or what way he went, but at last he was upon the bare mountain, with nothing but the rough heather about him, and he could neither hear the hounds nor any other thing. But theircry 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 intothe air, and there was the sound of hunting over his head; then itwent away northward till he could hear nothing more at all. 'That'snot 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 SlieveEchtge, for all the strength had gone from him, with the dint of thelong 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 tohim he had not seen it before. And he rose up, and tired as he was hewent in at the door, of and although it was night time outside, itwas daylight he found within. And presently he met with an old manthat had been gathering summer thyme and yellow flag-flowers, and itseemed as if all the sweet smells of the summer were with them. Andthe 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 everygrand thing Hanrahan had ever heard of, and every colour he had everseen, were in it. There was a high place at the end of the house, andon it there was sitting in a high chair a woman, the most beautifulthe world ever saw, having a long pale face and flowers about it, butshe had the tired look of one that had been long waiting. And therewas sitting on the step below her chair four grey old women, and theone of them was holding a great cauldron in her lap; and another agreat 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 pointedwood; and the last of them had a sword that was without a scabbard. Red Hanrahan stood looking at them for a long Hanrahan-time, but noneof them spoke any word to him or looked at him at all. And he had itin his mind to ask who that woman in the chair was, that was like aqueen, and what she was waiting for; but ready as he was with histongue and afraid of no person, he was in dread now to speak to sobeautiful a woman, and in so grand a place. And then he thought toask what were the four things the four grey old women were holdinglike great treasures, but he could not think of the right words tobring out. 

Then the first of the old women rose up, holding the cauldron betweenher two hands, and she said 'Pleasure, ' and Hanrahan said no word. Then the second old woman rose up with the stone in her hands, andshe said 'Power'; and the third old woman rose up with the spear inher hand, and she said 'Courage'; and the last of the old women roseup having the sword in her hands, and she said 'Knowledge. ' Andeveryone, after she had spoken, waited as if for Hanrahan to questionher, but he said nothing at all. And then the four old women went outof the door, bringing their tour treasures with them, and as theywent 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 thelast 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 apity, it is a great pity. '

And then the woman that was like a queen gave a very sad sigh, and itseemed to Hanrahan as if the sigh had the sound in it of hiddenstreams; and if the place he was in had been ten times grander andmore shining than it was, he could not have hindered sleep fromcoming on him; and he staggered like a drunken man and lay down thereand then. 

When Hanrahan awoke, the sun was shining on his face, but there waswhite frost on the grass around him, and there was ice on the edge ofthe 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 theshining of Lough Greine in the distance that he was upon one of thehills of Slieve Echtge, but he was not sure how he came there; forall that had happened in the barn had gone from him, and all of hisjourney but the soreness of his feet and the stiffness in his bones. 

It was a year after that, there were men of the village ofCappaghtagle sitting by the fire in a house on the roadside, and RedHanrahan that was now very thin and worn and his hair very long andwild, came to the half-door and asked leave to come in and resthimself; and they bid him welcome because it was Samhain night. Hesat down with them, and they gave him a glass of whiskey out of aquart 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 coverwas very black and swollen with the wet, and the page when he openedit was very yellow, but that was no great matter, for he looked at itlike a man that had never learned to read. Some young man that wasthere began to laugh at him then, and to ask why did he carry soheavy 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 hispocket and asked if they had a pack of cards among them, for cardswere better than books. When they brought out the cards he took themand began to shuffle them, and while he was shuffling them somethingseemed to come into his mind, and he put his hand to his face likeone 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 stoodup and let the cards fall to the floor, and he said, 'Who was itbrought 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 ityou are talking about?'

'It was this night a year ago, I was in a barn, and there were menplaying cards, and there was money on the table, they were pushing itfrom one to another here and there--and I got a message, and I wasgoing out of the door to look for my sweetheart that wanted me, MaryLavelle. ' And then Hanrahan called out very loud: 'Where have I beensince then? Where was I for the whole year?'

'It is hard to say where you might have been in that time, ' said theoldest 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 wentwandering like that through the length of seven years; she came backafter, and she told her friends she had often been glad enough to eatthe food that was put in the pig's trough. And it is best for you togo to the priest now, ' he said, 'and let him take off you whatevermay 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 havehappened her in the length of a year?'

He was going out of the door then, but they all told him it was bestfor him to stop the night, and to get strength for the journey; andindeed he wanted that, for he was very weak, and when they gave himfood he eat it like a man that had never seen food before, and one ofthem 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 timeseemed long to him till he could get to Mary Lavelle's house. Butwhen he came to it, he found the door broken, and the thatch droppingfrom the roof, and no living person to be seen. And when he asked theneighbours what had happened her, all they could say was that she hadbeen put out of the house, and had married some labouring man, andthey had gone looking for work to London or Liverpool or some bigplace. 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. 

THE TWISTING OF THE ROPE. 

Hanrahan was walking the roads one time near Kinvara at the fall ofday, and he heard the sound of a fiddle from a house a little way offthe roadside. He turned up the path to it, for he never had the habitof passing by any place where there was music or dancing or goodcompany, without going in. The man of the house was standing at thedoor, and when Hanrahan came near he knew him and he said: 'A welcomebefore you, Hanrahan, you have been lost to us this long time. ' Butthe woman of the house came to the door and she said to her husband:'I would be as well pleased for Hanrahan not to come in to-night, forhe has no good name now among the priests, or with women that mindthemselves, and I wouldn't wonder from his walk if he has a drop ofdrink taken. ' But the man said, 'I will never turn away Hanrahan ofthe poets from my door, ' and with that he bade him enter. 

There were a good many neighbours gathered in the house, and some ofthem remembered Hanrahan; but some of the little lads that were inthe corners had only heard of him, and they stood up to have a viewof him, and one of them said: 'Is not that Hanrahan that had theschool, and that was brought away by Them?' But his mother put herhand over his mouth and bade him be quiet, and not be saying thingslike that. 'For Hanrahan is apt to grow wicked, ' she said, 'if hehears talk of that story, or if anyone goes questioning him. ' One oranother called out then, asking him for a song, but the man of thehouse said it was no time to ask him for a song, before he had restedhimself; and he gave him whiskey in a glass, and Hanrahan thanked himand wished him good health and drank it off. 

The fiddler was tuning his fiddle for another dance, and the man ofthe house said to the young men, they would all know what dancing waslike when they saw Hanrahan dance, for the like of it had never beenseen since he was there before. Hanrahan said he would not dance, hehad better use for his feet now, travelling as he was through thefive provinces of Ireland. Just as he said that, there came in at thehalf-door Oona, the daughter of the house, having a few bits of bogdeal from Connemara in her arms for the fire. She threw them on thehearth and the flame rose up, and showed her to be very comely andsmiling, and two or three of the young men rose up and asked for adance. But Hanrahan crossed the floor and brushed the others away, and said it was with him she must dance, after the long road he hadtravelled before he came to her. And it is likely he said some softword in her ear, for she said nothing against it, and stood out withhim, and there were little blushes in her cheeks. Then other couplesstood up, but when the dance was going to begin, Hanrahan chanced tolook down, and he took notice of his boots that were worn and broken, and the ragged grey socks showing through them; and he said angrilyit was a bad floor, and the music no great things, and he sat down inthe dark place beside the hearth. But if he did, the girl sat downthere with him. 

The dancing went on, and when that dance was over another was calledfor, and no one took much notice of Oona and Red Hanrahan for awhile, in the corner where they were. But the mother grew to beuneasy, and she called to Oona to come and help her to set the tablein the inner room. But Oona that had never refused her before, saidshe would come soon, but not yet, for she was listening to whateverhe was saying in her ear. The mother grew yet more uneasy then, andshe would come nearer them, and let on to be stirring the fire orsweeping the hearth, and she would listen for a minute to hear whatthe poet was saying to her child. And one time she heard him tellingabout white-handed Deirdre, and how she brought the sons of Usnach totheir death; and how the blush in her cheeks was not so red as theblood of kings' sons that was shed for her, and her sorrows had nevergone out of mind; and he said it was maybe the memory of her thatmade the cry of the plover on the bog as sorrowful in the ear of thepoets as the keening of young men for a comrade. And there wouldnever have been that memory of her, he said, if it was not for thepoets that had put her beauty in their songs. And the next time shedid not well understand what he was saying, but as far as she couldhear, it had the sound of poetry though it was not rhymed, and thisis what she heard him say: 'The sun and the moon are the man and thegirl, they are my life and your life, they are travelling and evertravelling through the skies as if under the one hood. It was Godmade them for one another. He made your life and my life before thebeginning of the world, he made them that they might go through theworld, up and down, like the two best dancers that go on with thedance up and down the long floor of the barn, fresh and laughing, when all the rest are tired out and leaning against the wall. '

The old woman went then to where her husband was playing cards, buthe would take no notice of her, and then she went to a woman of theneighbours and said: 'Is there no way we can get them from oneanother?' and without waiting for an answer she said to some youngmen that were talking together: 'What good are you when you cannotmake the best girl in the house come out and dance with you? And gonow the whole of you, ' she said, 'and see can you bring her away fromthe poet's talk. ' But Oona would not listen to any of them, but onlymoved her hand as if to send them away. Then they called to Hanrahanand said he had best dance with the girl himself, or let her dancewith one of them. When Hanrahan heard what they were saying he said:'That is so, I will dance with her; there is no man in the house mustdance with her but myself. '

He stood up with her then, and led her out by the hand, and some ofthe young men were vexed, and some began mocking at his ragged coatand his broken boots. But he took no notice, and Oona took no notice, but they looked at one another as if all the world belonged tothemselves alone. But another couple that had been sitting togetherlike lovers stood out on the floor at the same time, holding oneanother's hands and moving their feet to keep time with the music. But Hanrahan turned his back on them as if angry, and in place ofdancing he began to sing, and as he sang he held her hand, and hisvoice grew louder, and the mocking of the young men stopped, and thefiddle stopped, and there was nothing heard but his voice that had init the sound of the wind. And what he sang was a song he had heard orhad made one time in his wanderings on Slieve Echtge, and the wordsof it as they can be put into English were like this:

 O Death's old bony finger Will never find us there In the high hollow townland Where love's to give and to spare; Where boughs have fruit and blossom At all times of the year; Where rivers are running over With red beer and brown beer. An old man plays the bagpipes In a gold and silver wood; Queens, their eyes blue like the ice, Are dancing in a crowd. 

And while he was singing it Oona moved nearer to him, and the colourhad gone from her cheek, and her eyes were not blue now, but greywith the tears that were in them, and anyone that saw her would havethought she was ready to follow him there and then from the west tothe east of the world. 

But one of the young men called out: 'Where is that country he issinging about? Mind yourself, Oona, it is a long way off, you mightbe a long time on the road before you would reach to it. ' And anothersaid: 'It is not to the Country of the Young you will be going if yougo with him, but to Mayo of the bogs. ' Oona looked at him then as ifshe would question him, but he raised her hand in his hand, andcalled out between singing and shouting: 'It is very near us thatcountry is, it is on every side; it may be on the bare hill behind itis, or it may be in the heart of the wood. ' And he said out very loudand clear: 'In the heart of the wood; oh, death will never find us inthe heart of the wood. And will you come with me there, Oona?' hesaid. 

But while he was saying this the two old women had gone outside thedoor, and Oona's mother was crying, and she said: 'He has put anenchantment on Oona. Can we not get the men to put him out of thehouse?'

'That is a thing you cannot do, said the other woman, ' for he is apoet of the Gael, and you know well if you would put a poet of theGael out of the house, he would put a curse on you that would witherthe corn in the fields and dry up the milk of the cows, if it had tohang in the air seven years. '

'God help us, ' said the mother, 'and why did I ever let him into thehouse at all, and the wild name he has!'

'It would have been no harm at all to have kept him outside, butthere would great harm come upon you if you put him out by force. Butlisten to the plan I have to get him out of the house by his owndoing, without anyone putting him from it at all. '

It was not long after that the two women came in again, each of themhaving a bundle of hay in her apron. Hanrahan was not singing now, but he was talking to Oona very fast and soft, and he was saying:'The house is narrow but the world is wide, and there is no truelover that need be afraid of night or morning or sun or stars orshadows of evening, or any earthly thing. ' 'Hanrahan, ' said themother then, striking him on the shoulder, 'will you give me a handhere for a minute?' 'Do that, Hanrahan, ' said the woman of theneighbours, 'and help us to make this hay into a rope, for you areready with your hands, and a blast of wind has loosened the thatch onthe haystack. '

'I will do that for you, ' said he, and he took the little stick inhis hands, and the mother began giving out the hay, and he twistingit, but he was hurrying to have done with it, and to be free again. The women went on talking and giving out the hay, and encouraginghim, and saying what a good twister of a rope he was, better thantheir own neighbours or than anyone they had ever seen. And Hanrahansaw that Oona was watching him, and he began to twist very quick andwith his head high, and to boast of the readiness of his hands, andthe learning he had in his head, and the strength in his arms. And ashe was boasting, he went backward, twisting the rope always till hecame to the door that was open behind him, and without thinking hepassed the threshold and was out on the road. And no sooner was hethere than the mother made a sudden rush, and threw out the ropeafter him, and she shut the door and the half-door and put a boltupon them. 

She was well pleased when she had done that, and laughed out loud, and the neighbours laughed and praised her. But they heard himbeating at the door, and saying words of cursing outside it, and themother had but time to stop Oona that had her hand upon the bolt toopen it. She made a sign to the fiddler then, and he began a reel, and one of the young men asked no leave but caught hold of Oona andbrought her into the thick of the dance. And when it was over and thefiddle had stopped, there was no sound at all of anything outside, but the road was as quiet as before. 

As to Hanrahan, when he knew he was shut out and that there wasneither shelter nor drink nor a girl's ear for him that night, theanger and the courage went out of him, and he went on to where thewaves were beating on the strand. 

He sat down on a big stone, and he began swinging his right arm andsinging slowly to himself, the way he did always to hearten himselfwhen every other thing failed him. And whether it was that time oranother time he made the song that is called to this day 'TheTwisting of the Rope, ' and that begins, 'What was the dead cat thatput me in this place, ' is not known. 

But after he had been singing awhile, mist and shadows seemed togather about him, sometimes coming out of the sea, and sometimesmoving upon it. It seemed to him that one of the shadows was thequeen-woman he had seen in her sleep at Slieve Echtge; not in hersleep now, but mocking, and calling out to them that were behind her:'He was weak, he was weak, he had no courage. ' And he felt thestrands of the rope in his hand yet, and went on twisting it, but itseemed to him as he twisted, that it had all the sorrows of the worldin it. And then it seemed to him as if the rope had changed in hisdream into a great water-worm that came out of the sea, and thattwisted itself about him, and held him closer and closer, and grewfrom big to bigger till the whole of the earth and skies were woundup in it, and the stars themselves were but the shining of the ridgesof its skin. And then he got free of it, and went on, shaking andunsteady, along the edge of the strand, and the grey shapes wereflying here and there around him. And this is what they were saying, 'It is a pity for him that refuses the call of the daughters of theSidhe, for he will find no comfort in the love of the women of theearth to the end of life and time, and the cold of the grave is inhis heart for ever. It is death he has chosen; let him die, let himdie, let him die. '

HANRAHAN AND CATHLEEN THE DAUGHTER OF HOOLIHAN. 

It was travelling northward Hanrahan was one time, giving a hand to afarmer now and again in the hurried time of the year, and telling hisstories and making his share of songs at wakes and at weddings. 

He chanced one day to overtake on the road to Collooney one MargaretRooney, a woman he used to know in Munster when he was a young man. She had no good name at that time, and it was the priest routed herout of the place at last. He knew her by her walk and by the colourof her eyes, and by a way she had of putting back the hair off herface with her left hand. She had been wandering about, she said, selling herrings and the like, and now she was going back to Sligo, to the place in the Burrough where she was living with another woman, Mary Gillis, who had much the same story as herself. She would bewell pleased, she said, if he would come and stop in the house withthem, and be singing his songs to the bacachs and blind men andfiddlers of the Burrough. She remembered him well, she said, and hada wish for him; and as to Mary Gillis, she had some of his songs offby heart, so he need not be afraid of not getting good treatment, andall the bacachs and poor men that heard him would give him a share oftheir own earnings for his stories and his songs while he was withthem, and would carry his name into all the parishes of Ireland. 

He was glad enough to go with her, and to find a woman to belistening to the story of his troubles and to be comforting him. Itwas at the moment of the fall of day when every man may pass ashandsome and every woman as comely. She put her arm about him when hetold her of the misfortune of the Twisting of the Rope, and in thehalf light she looked as well as another. 

They kept in talk all the way to the Burrough, and as for MaryGillis, when she saw him and heard who he was, she went near cryingto think of having a man with so great a name in the house. 

Hanrahan was well pleased to settle down with them for a while, forhe was tired with wandering; and since the day he found the littlecabin fallen in, and Mary Lavelle gone from it, and the thatchscattered, he had never asked to have any place of his own; and hehad never stopped long enough in any place to see the green leavescome where he had seen the old leaves wither, or to see the wheatharvested where he had seen it sown. It was a good change to him tohave shelter from the wet, and a fire in the evening time, and hisshare of food put on the table without the asking. 

He made a good many of his songs while he was living there, so wellcared for and so quiet, The most of them were love songs, but somewere songs of repentance, and some were songs about Ireland and hergriefs, under one name or another. 

Every evening the bacachs and beggars and blind men and fiddlerswould gather into the house and listen to his songs and his poems, and his stories about the old time of the Fianna, and they kept themin their memories that were never spoiled with books; and so theybrought his name to every wake and wedding and pattern in the wholeof Connaught. He was never so well off or made so much of as he wasat that time. 

One evening of December he was singing a little song that he said hehad heard from the green plover of the mountain, about the fair-hairedboys that had left Limerick, and that were wandering and goingastray in all parts of the world. There were a good many people inthe room that night, and two or three little lads that had crept in, and sat on the floor near the fire, and were too busy with theroasting of a potato in the ashes or some such thing to take muchnotice of him; but they remembered long afterwards when his name hadgone up, the sound of his voice, and what way he had moved his hand, and the look of him as he sat on the edge of the bed, with his shadowfalling on the whitewashed wall behind him, and as he moved going upas high as the thatch. And they knew then that they had looked upon aking of the poets of the Gael, and a maker of the dreams of men. 

Of a sudden his singing stopped, and his eyes grew misty as if he waslooking at some far thing. 

Mary Gillis was pouring whiskey into a mug that stood on a tablebeside him, and she left off pouring and said, 'Is it of leaving usyou are thinking?'

Margaret Rooney heard what she said, and did not know why she saidit, and she took the words too much in earnest and came over to him, and there was dread in her heart that she was going to lose sowonderful a poet and so good a comrade, and a man that was thought somuch of, and that brought so many to her house. 

'You would not go away from us, my heart?' she said, catching him bythe hand. 

'It is not of that I am thinking, ' he said, 'but of Ireland and theweight of grief that is on her. ' And he leaned his head against hishand, and began to sing these words, and the sound of his voice waslike the wind in a lonely place. 

 The old brown thorn trees break in two high over Cummen Strand Under a bitter black wind that blows from the left hand; Our courage breaks like an old tree in a black wind and dies, But we have hidden in our hearts the flame out of the eyes Of Cathleen the daughter of Hoolihan. 

 The winds was bundled up the clouds high over Knocknarea And thrown the thunder on the stones for all that Maeve can say; Angers that are like noisy clouds have set our hearts abeat, But we have all bent low and low and kissed the quiet feet Of Cathleen the daughter of Hoolihan. 

 The yellow pool has overflowed high upon Clooth-na-Bare, For the wet winds are blowing out of the clinging air; Like heavy flooded waters our bodies and our blood, But purer than a tall candle before the Holy Rood Is Cathleen the daughter of Hoolihan. 

While he was singing, his voice began to break, and tears camerolling down his cheeks, and Margaret Rooney put down her face intoher hands and began to cry along with him. Then a blind beggar by thefire shook his rags with a sob, and after that there was no one ofthem all but cried tears down. 

RED HANRAHAN'S CURSE. 

One fine May morning a long time after Hanrahan had left MargaretRooney's house, he was walking the road near Collooney, and the soundof the birds singing in the bushes that were white with blossom sethim singing as he went. It was to his own little place he was going, that was no more than a cabin, but that pleased him well. For he wastired of so many years of wandering from shelter to shelter at alltimes of the year, and although he was seldom refused a welcome and ashare of what was in the house, it seemed to him sometimes that hismind was getting stiff like his joints, and it was not so easy to himas it used to be to make fun and sport through the night, and to setall the boys laughing with his pleasant talk, and to coax the womenwith his songs. And a while ago, he had turned into a cabin that somepoor man had left to go harvesting and had never come to again. Andwhen he had mended the thatch and made a bed in the corner with a fewsacks and bushes, and had swept out the floor, he was well content tohave a little place for himself, where he could go in and out as heliked, and put his head in his hands through the length of an eveningif the fret was on him, and loneliness after the old times. One byone the neighbours began to send their children in to get somelearning from him, and with what they brought, a few eggs or an oatencake or a couple of sods of turf, he made out a way of living. And ifhe went for a wild day and night now and again to the Burrough, noone would say a word, knowing him to be a poet, with wandering in hisheart. 

It was from the Burrough he was coming that May morning, light-hearted enough, and singing some new song that had come to him. Butit was not long till a hare ran across his path, and made away intothe fields, through the loose stones of the wall. And he knew it wasno good sign a hare to have crossed his path, and he remembered thehare that had led him away to Slieve Echtge the time Mary Lavelle waswaiting for him, and how he had never known content for any length oftime since then. 'And it is likely enough they are putting some badthing before me now, ' he said. 

And after he said that he heard the sound of crying in the fieldbeside him, and he looked over the wall. And there he saw a younggirl sitting under a bush of white hawthorn, and crying as if herheart would break. Her face was hidden in her hands, but her softhair and her white neck and the young look of her, put him in mind ofBridget Purcell and Margaret Gillane and Maeve Connelan and OonaCurry and Celia Driscoll, and the rest of the girls he had made songsfor and had coaxed the heart from with his flattering tongue. 

She looked up, and he saw her to be a girl of the neighbours, afarmer's daughter. 'What is on you, Nora?' he said. 'Nothing youcould take from me, Red Hanrahan. ' 'If there is any sorrow on you itis I myself should be well able to serve you, ' he said then, 'for itis I know the history of the Greeks, and I know well what sorrow isand parting, and the hardship of the world. And if I am not able tosave you from trouble, ' he said, 'there is many a one I have savedfrom it with the power that is in my songs, as it was in the songs ofthe poets that were before me from the beginning of the world. And itis with the rest of the poets I myself will be sitting and talking insome far place beyond the world, to the end of life and time, ' hesaid. The girl stopped her crying, and she said, 'Owen Hanrahan, Ioften heard you have had sorrow and persecution, and that you knowall the troubles of the world since the time you refused your love tothe queen-woman in Slieve Echtge; and that she never left you inquiet since. But when it is people of this earth that have harmedyou, it is yourself knows well the way to put harm on them again. Andwill you do now what I ask you, Owen Hanrahan?' she said. 'I will dothat indeed, ' said he. 

'It is my father and my mother and my brothers, ' she said, 'that aremarrying me to old Paddy Doe, because he has a farm of a hundredacres under the mountain. And it is what you can do, Hanrahan, ' shesaid, 'put him into a rhyme the same way you put old Peter Kilmartinin one the time you were young, that sorrow may be over him rising upand lying down, that will put him thinking of Collooney churchyardand not of marriage. And let you make no delay about it, for it isfor to-morrow they have the marriage settled, and I would sooner seethe sun rise on the day of my death than on that day. '

'I will put him into a song that will bring shame and sorrow overhim; but tell me how many years has he, for I would put them in thesong?'

'O, he has years upon years. He is as old as you yourself, RedHanrahan. ' 'As old as myself, ' said Hanrahan, and his voice was as ifbroken; 'as old as myself; there are twenty years and more betweenus! It is a bad day indeed for Owen Hanrahan when a young girl withthe blossom of May in her cheeks thinks him to be an old man. And mygrief!' he said, 'you have put a thorn in my heart. '

He turned from her then and went down the road till he came to astone, and he sat down on it, for it seemed as if all the weight ofthe years had come on him in the minute. And he remembered it was notmany days ago that a woman in some house had said: 'It is not RedHanrahan you are now but yellow Hanrahan, for your hair is turned tothe colour of a wisp of tow. ' And another woman he had asked for adrink had not given him new milk but sour; and sometimes the girlswould be whispering and laughing with young ignorant men while hehimself was in the middle of giving out his poems or his talk. And hethought of the stiffness of his joints when he first rose of amorning, and the pain of his knees after making a journey, and itseemed to him as if he was come to be a very old man, with cold inthe shoulders and speckled shins and his wind breaking and he himselfwithering away. And with those thoughts there came on him a greatanger against old age and all it brought with it. And just then helooked up and saw a great spotted eagle sailing slowly towardsBallygawley, and he cried out: 'You, too, eagle of Ballygawley, areold, and your wings are full of gaps, and I will put you and yourancient comrades, the Pike of Dargan Lake and the Yew of the SteepPlace of the Strangers into my rhyme, that there may be a curse onyou for ever. '

There was a bush beside him to the left, flowering like the rest, anda little gust of wind blew the white blossoms over his coat. 'Mayblossoms, ' he said, gathering them up in the hollow of his hand, 'younever know age because you die away in your beauty, and I will putyou into my rhyme and give you my blessing. '

He rose up then and plucked a little branch from the bush, andcarried it in his hand. But it is old and broken he looked going homethat day with the stoop in his shoulders and the darkness in hisface. 

When he got to his cabin there was no one there, and he went and laydown on the bed for a while as he was used to do when he wanted tomake a poem or a praise or a curse. And it was not long he was inmaking it this time, for the power of the curse-making bards was uponhim. And when he had made it he searched his mind how he could sendit out over the whole countryside. 

Some of the scholars began coming in then, to see if there would beany school that day, and Hanrahan rose up and sat on the bench by thehearth, and they all stood around him. 

They thought he would bring out the Virgil or the Mass book or theprimer, but instead of that he held up the little branch of hawthornhe had in his hand yet. 'Children, ' he said, 'this is a new lesson Ihave for you to-day. 

'You yourselves and the beautiful people of the world are like thisblossom, and old age is the wind that comes and blows the blossomaway. And I have made a curse upon old age and upon the old men, andlisten now while I give it out to you. ' And this is what he said--

 The poet, Owen Hanrahan, under a bush of may Calls down a curse on his own head because it withers grey; Then on the speckled eagle cock of Ballygawley Hill, Because it is the oldest thing that knows of cark and ill; And on the yew that has been green from the times out of mind By the Steep Place of the Strangers and the Gap of the Wind; And on the great grey pike that broods in Castle Dargan Lake Having in his long body a many a hook and ache; Then curses he old Paddy Bruen of the Well of Bride Because no hair is on his head and drowsiness inside. Then Paddy's neighbour, Peter Hart, and Michael Gill, his friend, Because their wandering histories are never at an end. And then old Shemus Cullinan, shepherd of the Green Lands Because he holds two crutches between his crooked hands; Then calls a curse from the dark North upon old Paddy Doe, Who plans to lay his withering head upon a breast of snow, Who plans to wreck a singing voice and break a merry heart, He bids a curse hang over him till breath and body part; But he calls down a blessing on the blossom of the may, Because it comes in beauty, and in beauty blows away. 

He said it over to the children verse by verse till all of them couldsay a part of it, and some that were the quickest could say the wholeof it. 

'That will do for to-day, ' he said then. 'And what you have to do nowis to go out and sing that song for a while, to the tune of the GreenBunch of Rushes, to everyone you meet, and to the old menthemselves. '

'I will do that, ' said one of the little lads; 'I know old Paddy Doewell. Last Saint John's Eve we dropped a mouse down his chimney, butthis is better than a mouse. '

'I will go into the town of Sligo and sing it in the street, ' saidanother of the boys. 'Do that, ' said Hanrahan, 'and go into theBurrough and tell it to Margaret Rooney and Mary Gillis, and bid themsing to it, and to make the beggars and the bacachs sing it whereverthey go. ' The children ran out then, full of pride and of mischief, calling out the song as they ran, and Hanrahan knew there was nodanger it would not be heard. 

He was sitting outside the door the next morning, looking at hisscholars as they came by in twos and threes. They were nearly allcome, and he was considering the place of the sun in the heavens toknow whether it was time to begin, when he heard a sound that waslike the buzzing of a swarm of bees in the air, or the rushing of ahidden river in time of flood. Then he saw a crowd coming up to thecabin from the road, and he took notice that all the crowd was madeup of old men, and that the leaders of it were Paddy Bruen, MichaelGill and Paddy Doe, and there was not one in the crowd but had in hishand an ash stick or a blackthorn. As soon as they caught sight ofhim, the sticks began to wave hither and thither like branches in astorm, and the old feet to run. 

He waited no longer, but made off up the hill behind the cabin tillhe was out of their sight. 

After a while he came back round the hill, where he was hidden by thefurze growing along a ditch. And when he came in sight of his cabinhe saw that all the old men had gathered around it, and one of themwas just at that time thrusting a rake with a wisp of lighted strawon it into the thatch. 

'My grief, ' he said, 'I have set Old Age and Time and Weariness andSickness against me, and I must go wandering again. And, O BlessedQueen of Heaven, ' he said, 'protect me from the Eagle of Ballygawley, the Yew Tree of the Steep Place of the Strangers, the Pike of CastleDargan Lake, and from the lighted wisps of their kindred, the OldMen!'

HANRAHAN'S VISION. 

It was in the month of June Hanrahan was on the road near Sligo, buthe did not go into the town, but turned towards Beinn Bulben; forthere were thoughts of the old times coming upon him, and he had nomind to meet with common men. And as he walked he was singing tohimself a song that had come to him one time in his dreams:

 O Death's old bony finger Will never find us there In the high hollow townland Where love's to give and to spare; Where boughs have fruit and blossom At all times of the year; Where rivers are running over With red beer and brown beer. An old man plays the bagpipes In a gold and silver wood; Queens, their eyes blue like the ice, Are dancing in a crowd. 

 The little fox he murmured, 'O what of the world's bane?' The sun was laughing sweetly, The moon plucked at my rein; But the little red fox murmured, 'O do not pluck at his rein, He is riding to the townland That is the world's bane. '

 When their hearts are so high That they would come to blows, They unhook their heavy swords From golden and silver boughs: But all that are killed in battle Awaken to life again: It is lucky that their story Is not known among men. For O, the strong farmers That would let the spade lie, Their hearts would be like a cup That somebody had drunk dry. 

 Michael will unhook his trumpet From a bough overhead, And blow a little noise When the supper has been spread. Gabriel will come from the water With a fish tail, and talk Of wonders that have happened On wet roads where men walk, And lift up an old horn Of hammered silver, and drink Till he has fallen asleep Upon the starry brink. 

Hanrahan had begun to climb the mountain then, and he gave oversinging, for it was a long climb for him, and every now and again hehad to sit down and to rest for a while. And one time he was restinghe took notice of a wild briar bush, with blossoms on it, that wasgrowing beside a rath, and it brought to mind the wild roses he usedto bring to Mary Lavelle, and to no woman after her. And he tore offa little branch of the bush, that had buds on it and open blossoms, and he went on with his song:

 The little fox he murmured, 'O what of the world's bane?' The sun was laughing sweetly, The moon plucked at my rein; But the little red fox murmured, 'O do not pluck at his rein, He is riding to the townland That is the world's bane. '

And he went on climbing the hill, and left the rath, and there cameto his mind some of the old poems that told of lovers, good and bad, and of some that were awakened from the sleep of the grave itself bythe strength of one another's love, and brought away to a life insome shadowy place, where they are waiting for the judgment andbanished from the face of God. 

And at last, at the fall of day, he came to the Steep Gap of theStrangers, and there he laid himself down along a ridge of rock, andlooked into the valley, that was full of grey mist spreading frommountain to mountain. 

And it seemed to him as he looked that the mist changed to shapes ofshadowy men and women, and his heart began to beat with the fear andthe joy of the sight. And his hands, that were always restless, beganto pluck off the leaves of the roses on the little branch, and hewatched them as they went floating down into the valley in a littlefluttering troop. 

Suddenly he heard a faint music, a music that had more laughter in itand more crying than all the music of this world. And his heart rosewhen he heard that, and he began to laugh out loud, for he knew thatmusic was made by some who had a beauty and a greatness beyond thepeople of this world. And it seemed to him that the little soft roseleaves as they went fluttering down into the valley began to changetheir shape till they looked like a troop of men and women far off inthe mist, with the colour of the roses on them. And then that colourchanged to many colours, and what he saw was a long line of tallbeautiful young men, and of queen-women, that were not going from himbut coming towards him and past him, and their faces were full oftenderness for all their proud looks, and were very pale and worn, asif they were seeking and ever seeking for high sorrowful things. Andshadowy arms were stretched out of the mist as if to take hold ofthem, but could not touch them, for the quiet that was about themcould not be broken. And before them and beyond them, but at adistance as if in reverence, there were other shapes, sinking andrising and coming and going, and Hanrahan knew them by their whirlingflight to be the Sidhe, the ancient defeated gods; and the shadowyarms did not rise to take hold of them, for they were of those thatcan neither sin nor obey. And they all lessened then in the distance, and they seemed to be going towards the white door that is in theside of the mountain. 

The mist spread out before him now like a deserted sea washing themountains with long grey waves, but while he was looking at it, itbegan to fill again with a flowing broken witless life that was apart of itself, and arms and pale heads covered with tossing hairappeared in the greyness. It rose higher and higher till it was levelwith the edge of the steep rock, and then the shapes grew to besolid, and a new procession half lost in mist passed very slowly withuneven steps, and in the midst of each shadow there was somethingshining in the starlight. They came nearer and nearer, and Hanrahansaw that they also were lovers, and that they had heart-shapedmirrors instead of hearts, and they were looking and ever looking ontheir own faces in one another's mirrors. They passed on, sinkingdownward as they passed, and other shapes rose in their place, andthese did not keep side by side, but followed after one another, holding out wild beckoning arms, and he saw that those who werefollowed were women, and as to their heads they were beyond allbeauty, but as to their bodies they were but shadows without life, and their long hair was moving and trembling about them, as if itlived with some terrible life of its own. And then the mist rose of asudden and hid them, and then a light gust of wind blew them awaytowards the north-east, and covered Hanrahan at the same time with awhite wing of cloud. 

He stood up trembling and was going to turn away from the valley, when he saw two dark and half-hidden forms standing as if in the airjust beyond the rock, and one of them that had the sorrowful eyes ofa beggar said to him in a woman's voice, 'Speak to me, for no one inthis world or any other world has spoken to me for seven hundredyears. '

'Tell me who are those that have passed by, ' said Hanrahan. 

'Those that passed first, ' the woman said, 'are the lovers that hadthe greatest name in the old times, Blanad and Deirdre and Grania andtheir dear comrades, and a great many that are not so well known butare as well loved. And because it was not only the blossom of youththey were looking for in one another, but the beauty that is aslasting as the night and the stars, the night and the stars hold themfor ever from the warring and the perishing, in spite of the wars andthe bitterness their love brought into the world. And those that camenext, ' she said, 'and that still breathe the sweet air and have themirrors in their hearts, are not put in songs by the poets, becausethey sought only to triumph one over the other, and so to prove theirstrength and beauty, and out of this they made a kind of love. And asto the women with shadow-bodies, they desired neither to triumph norto love but only to be loved, and there is no blood in their heartsor in their bodies until it flows through them from a kiss, and theirlife is but for a moment. All these are unhappy, but I am theunhappiest of all, for I am Dervadilla, and this is Dermot, and itwas our sin brought the Norman into Ireland. And the curses of allthe generations are upon us, and none are punished as we arepunished. It was but the blossom of the man and of the woman we lovedin one another, the dying beauty of the dust and not the everlastingbeauty. When we died there was no lasting unbreakable quiet about us, and the bitterness of the battles we brought into Ireland turned toour own punishment. We go wandering together for ever, but Dermotthat was my lover sees me always as a body that has been a long timein the ground, and I know that is the way he sees me. Ask me more, ask me more, for all the years have left their wisdom in my heart, and no one has listened to me for seven hundred years. '

A great terror had fallen upon Hanrahan, and lifting his arms abovehis head he screamed out loud three times, and the cattle in thevalley lifted their heads and lowed, and the birds in the wood at theedge of the mountain awaked out of their sleep and fluttered throughthe trembling leaves. But a little below the edge of the rock, thetroop of rose leaves still fluttered in the air, for the gateway ofEternity had opened and shut again in one beat of the heart. 

THE DEATH OF HANRAHAN. 

Hanrahan, that was never long in one place, was back again among thevillages that are at the foot of Slieve Echtge, Illeton and Scalp andBallylee, stopping sometimes in one house and sometimes in another, and finding a welcome in every place for the sake of the old timesand of his poetry and his learning. There was some silver and somecopper money in the little leather bag under his coat, but it wasseldom he needed to take anything from it, for it was little he used, and there was not one of the people that would have taken paymentfrom him. His hand had grown heavy on the blackthorn he leaned on, and his cheeks were hollow and worn, but so far as food went, potatoes and milk and a bit of oaten cake, he had what he wanted ofit; and it is not on the edge of so wild and boggy a place as Echtgea mug of spirits would be wanting, with the taste of the turf smokeon it. He would wander about the big wood at Kinadife, or he wouldsit through many hours of the day among the rushes about LakeBelshragh, listening to the streams from the hills, or watching theshadows in the brown bog pools; sitting so quiet as not to startlethe deer that came down from the heather to the grass and the tilledfields at the fall of night. As the days went by it seemed as if hewas beginning to belong to some world out of sight and misty, thathas for its mearing the colours that are beyond all other colours andthe silences that are beyond all silences of this world. Andsometimes he would hear coming and going in the wood music that whenit stopped went from his memory like a dream; and once in thestillness of midday he heard a sound like the clashing of manyswords, that went on for long time without any break. And at the fallof night and at moonrise the lake would grow to be like a gateway ofsilver and shining stones, and there would come from its silence thefaint sound of keening and of frightened laughter broken by the wind, and many pale beckoning hands. 

He was sitting looking into the water one evening in harvest time, thinking of all the secrets that were shut into the lakes and themountains, when he heard a cry coming from the south, very faint atfirst, but getting louder and clearer as the shadow of the rushesgrew longer, till he could hear the words, 'I am beautiful, I ambeautiful; the birds in the air, the moths under the leaves, theflies over the water look at me, for they never saw any one sobeautiful as myself. I am young; I am young: look upon me, mountains;look upon me, perishing woods, for my body will shine like the whitewaters when you have been hurried away. You and the whole race ofmen, and the race of the beasts and the race of the fish and thewinged race are dropping like a candle that is nearly burned out, butI laugh out because I am in my youth. ' The voice would break off fromtime to time, as if tired, and then it would begin again, calling outalways the same words, 'I am beautiful, I am beautiful. ' Presentlythe bushes at the edge of the little lake trembled for a moment, anda very old woman forced her way among them, and passed by Hanrahan, walking with very slow steps. Her face was of the colour of earth, and more wrinkled than the face of any old hag that was ever seen, and her grey hair was hanging in wisps, and the rags she was wearingdid not hide her dark skin that was roughened by all weathers. Shepassed by him with her eyes wide open, and her head high, and herarms hanging straight beside her, and she went into the shadow of thehills towards the west. 

A sort of dread came over Hanrahan when he saw her, for he knew herto be one Winny Byrne, that went begging from place to place cryingalways the same cry, and he had often heard that she had once suchwisdom that all the women of the neighbours used to go looking foradvice from her, and that she had a voice so beautiful that men andwomen would come from every part to hear her sing at a wake or awedding; and that the Others, the great Sidhe, had stolen her witsone Samhain night many years ago, when she had fallen asleep on theedge of a rath, and had seen in her dreams the servants of Echtge ofthe hills. 

And as she vanished away up the hillside, it seemed as if her cry, 'Iam beautiful, I am beautiful, ' was coming from among the stars in theheavens. 

There was a cold wind creeping among the rushes, and Hanrahan beganto shiver, and he rose up to go to some house where there would be afire on the hearth. But instead of turning down the hill as he wasused, he went on up the hill, along the little track that was maybe aroad and maybe the dry bed of a stream. It was the same way Winny hadgone, and it led to the little cabin where she stopped when shestopped in any place at all. He walked very slowly up the hill as ifhe had a great load on his back, and at last he saw a light a littleto the left, and he thought it likely it was from Winny's house itwas shining, and he turned from the path to go to it. But clouds hadcome over the sky, and he could not well see his way, and after hehad gone a few steps his foot slipped and he fell into a bog drain, and though he dragged himself out of it, holding on to the roots ofthe heather, the fall had given him a great shake, and he felt betterfit to lie down than to go travelling. But he had always greatcourage, and he made his way on, step by step, till at last he cameto Winny's cabin, that had no window, but the light was shining fromthe door. He thought to go into it and to rest for a while, but whenhe came to the door he did not see Winny inside it, but what he sawwas four old grey-haired women playing cards, but Winny herself wasnot among them. Hanrahan sat down on a heap of turf beside the door, for he was tired out and out, and had no wish for talking or forcard-playing, and his bones and his joints aching the way they were. He could hear the four women talking as they played, and calling outtheir hands. And it seemed to him that they were saying, like thestrange man in the barn long ago: 'Spades and Diamonds, Courage andPower. Clubs and Hearts, Knowledge and Pleasure. ' And he went onsaying those words over and over to himself; and whether or not hewas in his dreams, the pain that was in his shoulder never left him. And after a while the four women in the cabin began to quarrel, andeach one to say the other had not played fair, and their voices grewfrom loud to louder, and their screams and their curses, till at lastthe whole air was filled with the noise of them around and above thehouse, and Hanrahan, hearing it between sleep and waking, said: 'Thatis the sound of the fighting between the friends and the ill-wishersof a man that is near his death. And I wonder, ' he said, 'who is theman in this lonely place that is near his death. '

It seemed as if he had been asleep a long time, and he opened hiseyes, and the face he saw over him was the old wrinkled face of Winnyof the Cross Road. She was looking hard at him, as if to make sure hewas not dead, and she wiped away the blood that had grown dry on hisface with a wet cloth, and after a while she partly helped him andpartly lifted him into the cabin, and laid him down on what servedher for a bed. She gave him a couple of potatoes from a pot on thefire, and, what served him better, a mug of spring water. He slept alittle now and again, and sometimes he heard her singing to herselfas she moved about the house, and so the night wore away. When thesky began to brighten with the dawn he felt for the bag; where hislittle store of money was, and held it out to her, and she took out abit of copper and a bit of silver money, but she let it drop again asif it was nothing to her, maybe because it was not money she was usedto beg for, but food and rags; or maybe because the rising of thedawn was filling her with pride and a new belief in her own greatbeauty. She went out and cut a few armfuls of heather, and brought itin and heaped it over Hanrahan, saying something about the cold ofthe morning, and while she did that he took notice of the wrinkles inher face, and the greyness of her hair, and the broken teeth thatwere black and full of gaps. And when he was well covered with theheather she went out of the door and away down the side of themountain, and he could hear her cry, 'I am beautiful, I ambeautiful, ' getting less and less as she went, till at last it diedaway altogether. 

Hanrahan lay there through the length of the day, in his pains andhis weakness, and when the shadows of the evening were falling heheard her voice again coming up the hillside, and she came in andboiled the potatoes and shared them with him the same way as before. And one day after another passed like that, and the weight of hisflesh was heavy about him. But little by little as he grew weaker heknew there were some greater than himself in the room with him, andthat the house began to be filled with them; and it seemed to himthey had all power in their hands, and that they might with one touchof the hand break down the wall the hardness of pain had built abouthim, and take him into their own world. And sometimes he could hearvoices, very faint and joyful, crying from the rafters or out of theflame on the hearth, and other times the whole house was filled withmusic that went through it like a wind. And after a while hisweakness left no place for pain, and there grew up about him a greatsilence like the silence in the heart of a lake, and there camethrough it like the flame of a rushlight the faint joyful voices everand always. 

One morning he heard music somewhere outside the door, and as the daypassed it grew louder and louder until it drowned the faint joyfulvoices, and even Winny's cry upon the hillside at the fall ofevening. About midnight and in a moment, the walls seemed to meltaway and to leave his bed floating on a pale misty light that shoneon every side as far as the eye could see; and after the firstblinding of his eyes he saw that it was full of great shadowy figuresrushing here and there. 

At the same time the music came very clearly to him, and he knew thatit was but the continual clashing of swords. 

'I am after my death, ' he said, 'and in the very heart of the musicof Heaven. O Cheruhim and Seraphim, receive my soul!'

At his cry the light where it was nearest to him filled with sparksof yet brighter light, and he saw that these were the points ofswords turned towards his heart; and then a sudden flame, bright andburning like God's love or God's hate, swept over the light and wentout and he was in darkness. At first he could see nothing, for allwas as dark as if there was black bog earth about him, but all of asudden the fire blazed up as if a wisp of straw had been thrown uponit. And as he looked at it, the light was shining on the big pot thatwas hanging from a hook, and on the flat stone where Winny used tobake a cake now and again, and on the long rusty knife she used to becutting the roots of the heather with, and on the long blackthornstick he had brought into the house himself. And when he saw thosefour things, some memory came into Hanrahan's mind, and strength cameback to him, and he rose sitting up in the bed, and he said very loudand clear: 'The Cauldron, the Stone, the Sword, the Spear. What arethey? Who do they belong to? And I have asked the question thistime, ' he said. 

And then he fell back again, weak, and the breath going from him. 

Winny Byrne, that had been tending the fire, came over then, havingher eyes fixed on the bed; and the faint laughing voices began cryingout again, and a pale light, grey like a wave, came creeping over theroom, and he did not know from what secret world it came. He sawWinny's withered face and her withered arms that were grey likecrumbled earth, and weak as he was he shrank back farther towards thewall. And then there came out of the mud-stiffened rags arms as whiteand as shadowy as the foam on a river, and they were put about hisbody, and a voice that he could hear well but that seemed to comefrom a long way off said to him in a whisper: 'You will go lookingfor me no more upon the breasts of women. '

'Who are you?' he said then. 

'I am one of the lasting people, of the lasting unwearied Voices, that make my dwelling in the broken and the dying, and those thathave lost their wits; and I came looking for you, and you are mineuntil the whole world is burned out like a candle that is spent. Andlook up now, ' she said, 'for the wisps that are for our wedding arelighted. '

He saw then that the house was crowded with pale shadowy hands, andthat every hand was holding what was sometimes like a wisp lightedfor a marriage, and sometimes like a tall white candle for the dead. 

When the sun rose on the morning of the morrow Winny of the CrossRoads rose up from where she was sitting beside the body, and beganher begging from townland to townland, singing the same song as shewalked, 'I am beautiful, I am beautiful. The birds in the air, themoths under the leaves, the flies over the water look at me. Look atme, perishing woods, for my body will be shining like the lake waterafter you have been hurried away. You and the old race of men, andthe race of the beasts, and the race of the fish, and the wingedrace, are wearing away like a candle that has been burned out. But Ilaugh out loud, because I am in my youth. '

She did not come back that night or any night to the cabin, and itwas not till the end of two days that the turf cutters going to thebog found the body of Red Owen Hanrahan, and gathered men to wake himand women to keen him, and gave him a burying worthy of so great apoet.