Stories of Red Hanrahan | Page 3

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, of and although it was night