THE TWISTING OF THE ROPE

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    Hanrahan was walking the roads oime near Kinvara at the fall of day, and he heard the sound of a fiddle from a house a little way off the roadside. He turned up the path to it, for he never had the habit of passing by any place where there was music or dang ood pany, without going in. The man of the house was standing at the door, and when Hanrahan came near he knew him and he said: A wele before you, Hanrahan, you have been lost to us this long time. But the woman of the house came to the door and she said to her husband: I would be as well pleased for Hanrahan not to e in to?night, for he has no good name now among the priests, or with women that mind themselves, and I wouldnt wonder from his walk if he has a drop of drink taken. But the man said, I will urn away Hanrahan of the poets from my door, and with that he bade him enter.

    There were a good many neighbathered in the house, and some of them remembered Hanrahan; but some of the little lads that were in the ers had only heard of him, and they stood up to have a view of him, and one of them said: Is not that Hanrahan that had the school, and that was brought away by Them? But his mother put her hand over his mouth and bade him be quiet, and not be saying things like that. For Hanraha<big></big>n is apt to grow wicked, she said, if he hears talk of that story, or if anyone goes questioning him. One or another called out then, asking him for a song, but the man of the house said it was no time to ask him for a song, before he had rested himself; and he gave him whiskey in a glass, and Hanrahan thanked him and wished him good health and drank it off.

    The fiddler was tuning his fiddle for another dance, and the man of the house said to the youhey would all know what dang was like when they saw Hanrahan dance, for the like of it had never been seen since he was there before. Hanrahan said he would not dance, he had better use for his feet now, travelling as he was through the five provinces of Ireland. Just as he said that, there came in at the half?door Oona, the daughter of the house, having a few bits of bog deal from ara in her arms for the fire. She threw them on the hearth and the flame rose up, and showed her to be very ely and smiling, and two or three of the young men rose up and asked for a dance. But Hanrahan crossed the floor and brushed the others away, and said it was with him she must dance, after the long road he had travelled before he came to her. And it is likely he said some soft word in her ear, for she said nothing against it, and stood out with him, and there were little blushes in her cheeks. Then other couples stood up, but when the dance was going to begin, Hanrahan ced to look down, aook notice of his boots that were worn and broken, and the ragged grey socks showing through them; and he said angrily it was a bad floor, and the musio great things, a down in the dark place beside the hearth. But if he did, the girl sat down there with him.

    The dang went on, and when that dance was over another was called for, and no oook muotice of  Oona and Red Hanrahan for a while, in the er where they were. But the mrew to be uneasy, and she called to Oona to e and help her to set the table in the inner room. But Oona that had never refused her before, said she would e soon, but not yet, for she was listening to whatever he was saying in her ear. The mrew yet more uneasy then, and she would e hem, a on to be stirring the fire or sweeping the hearth, and she would listen for a mio hear what the poet was saying to her child. And oime she heard him telling about white?handed<var></var> Deirdre, and how she brought the sons of Usnach to their death; and how the blush in her cheeks was not so red as the blood of kings sons that was shed for her, and her sorrows had never go of mind; and he said it was maybe the memory of her that made the cry of the plover on the bog as sorrowful in the ear of the poets as the keening of young men for a rade. And there would never have been that memory of her, he said, if it was not for the poets that had put her beauty in their songs. And the ime she did not well uand what he was saying, but as far as she could hear, it had the sound of poetry though it was not rhymed, and this is what she heard him say: The sun and the moohe man and the girl, they are my life and your life, they are travelling and ever travelling through the skies as if uhe one hood. It was God made them for one another. He made your life and my life before the beginning of the world, he made them that they might gh the world, up and down, like the two best dahat go on with the dance 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 womahen to where her husband laying cards, but he would take no notice of her, and then she went to a woman of the neighbours and said: Is there no way we  get them from one another?

    and without waiting for an answer she said to some youhat were talking together: What good are you when you ake the best girl in the house e out and dah you? And go now the whole of you, she said, and see  y her away from the poets talk. But Oona would not listen to any of them, but only moved her hand as if to send them away. Then they called to Hanrahan and said he had best dah the girl himself, or let her dah one of them. When Hanrahan heard what they were saying he said: That is so, I will dah her; there is no man in the house must dah her but myself.

    He stood up with her then, and led her out by the hand, and some of the young men were vexed, and some began mog at his ragged coat and his broken boots. But he took no notice, and Oona took no notice, but they looked at one another as if all the world beloo themselves alone. But another couple that had been sitting together like lovers stood out on the floor at the same time, holding one anothers hands and moving their feet to keep time with the music. But Hanrahan turned his ba them as if angry, and in place of dang he began to sing, and as he sang he held her hand, and his voice grew louder, and the mog of the youopped, and the fiddle stopped, and there was nothing heard but his voice that had in it the sound of the wind. And what he sang was a song he had heard or had made oime in his wanderings on Slieve Echtge, and the words of it as they  be put into English were like this: O Deaths old bony finger Will never find us there In the high hollow townland Where loves 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 dang in a crowd.

    And while he was singing it Oona moved o him, and the colour had gone from her cheek, and her eyes were not blue now, but grey with the tears that were in them, and ahat saw her would have thought she was ready to follow him there and then from the west to the east of the world.

    But one of the young men called out: Where is that try he is singing about? Mind yourself, Oona, it is a long way off, you might be a long time on the road before you would reach to it. And another said: It is not to the try of the Young you will be going if you go with him, but to Mayo of the bogs. Oona looked at him then as if she would question him, but he raised her hand in his hand, and called out between singing and shouti<q></q>ng: It is very near us that try is, it is on every side; it may be on the bare hill behind it is, or it may be in the heart of the wood. And he said out very loud and clear: In the heart of the wood; oh, death will  never find us in the heart of the wood. And will you e with me there, Oona? he said.

    But while he was saying this the two old women had goside the door, and Oonas mother was g, and she said: He has put an entment on Oona.  we not get the men to put him out of the house?

    That is a thing you ot do, said the other woman, for he is a poet of the Gael, and you know well if you would put a poet of the Gael out of the house, he would put a curse on you that would wither the  in the fields and dry up the milk of the cows, if it had to hang in the air seven years.

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

    It would have been no harm at all to have kept him outside, but there would great harm e upon you if you put him out by force. But listen to the plan I have to get him out of the house by his own doing, without ating him from it at all.

    It was not long after that the two women came in again, each of them having 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 true lover that need be afraid of night or m or sun or stars or shadows of evening, or ahly thing. Hanrahan, said the mother then, striking him on the shoulder, will you give me a hand here for a minute? Do that, Hanrahan, said the woman of the neighbours, and help us to make this hay into a rope, for you are ready with your hands, and a blast of wind has loosehe that the haystack.

    I will do that for you, said he, aook the little sti his hands, and the man giving out the hay, awisting it, but he was hurrying to have doh it, and to be free again. The wome on talking and giving out the hay, and encing him, and saying what a good twister of a rope he was, better than their own neighbours or than ahey had ever seen. And Hanrahan saw that Oona was watg him, and he began to twist very quid with his head high, and to boast of the readiness of his hands, and the learning he had in his head, and the strength in his arms. And as he was boasting, he went backward, twisting the rope always till he came to the door that en behind him, and without thinking he passed the threshold and was out on the road. And no sooner was he there thaher made a sudden rush, and threw out the rope after him, and she shut the door and the half?door and put a bolt upon them.

    She was well pleased when she had dohat, and laughed out loud, and the neighbours laughed and praised her. But they heard him beating at the door, and saying words of cursing outside it, and the mother had but time to stop Oona that had her hand upon the bolt to open 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 and brought her into the thick of the dance. And when it was over and the fiddle 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 was her shelter nor drink nirls ear for him that night, the anger and the ce went out of him, and he went on to where the waves were beating orand.

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

    But after he had been singing awhile, mist and shadows seemed to gather about him, sometimes ing out of the sea, and sometimes moving upon it. It seemed to him that one of the shadows was the queen?woman he had seen in her sleep at Slieve Echtge; not in her sleep now, but mog, and calling out to them that were  behind her: He was weak, he was weak, he had no ce. And he felt the strands of the rope in his ha, a on twisting it, but it seemed to him as he twisted, that it had all the sorrows of the world in it.

    And then it seemed to him as if the rope had ged in his dream into a great water?worm that came out of the sea, and that twisted itself about him, and held him closer and closer, and grew from big to bigger till the whole of the earth and skies were wound up in it, and the stars themselves were but the shining of the ridges of its skin. And the free of it, a on, shaking and unsteady, along the edge of the strand, and the grey shapes were flying 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 the Sidhe, for he will find no fort in the love of the women of the earth to the end of life and time, and the cold of the grave is in his heart for ever. It is death he has chose him die, let him die, let him die.

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