Stories of Red Hanrahan | Page 8

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 corn 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 come 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 anyone putting 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 morning or sun or stars or shadows of
evening, or any earthly 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 loosened the thatch on the haystack.'
'I will do that for you,' said he, and he took the little stick in his hands,

and the mother began giving out the hay, and he twisting it, 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 encouraging him, and saying what a
good twister of a rope he was, better than their own neighbours or than
anyone they had ever seen. And Hanrahan saw that Oona was watching
him, and he began to twist very quick and 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 was open behind
him, and without thinking he passed the threshold and was out on the
road. And no sooner was he there than the mother 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 done that, 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
neither shelter nor drink nor a girl's ear for him that night, the anger and
the courage went out of him, and he went on to where the waves were
beating on the strand.
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
another time 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 coming 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 mocking, and calling out to them that were behind her:
'He was weak, he was weak, he had no courage.' And he felt the strands
of the rope in his hand yet, and went on twisting it, but it seemed to him
as he twisted, that it had all the sorrows