Stories of Red Hanrahan | Page 2

he must not leave them without
singing the song he had made in praise of Venus and of Mary Lavelle.
He drank a glass of whiskey, but he said he would not stop but would
set out on his journey.
'There's time enough, Red Hanrahan,' said the man of the house. 'It will
be time enough for you to give up sport when you are after your
marriage, and it might be a long time before we will see you again.'
'I will not stop,' said Hanrahan; 'my mind would be on the roads all the
time, bringing me to the woman that sent for me, and she lonesome and

watching till I come.'
Some of the others came about him, pressing him that had been such a
pleasant comrade, so full of songs and every kind of trick and fun, not
to leave them till the night would be over, but he refused them all, and
shook them off, and went to the door. But as he put his foot over the
threshold, the strange old man stood up and put his hand that was thin
and withered like a bird's claw on Hanrahan's hand, and said: 'It is not
Hanrahan, the learned man and the great songmaker, that should go out
from a gathering like this, on a Samhain night. And stop here, now,' he
said, 'and play a hand with me; and here is an old pack of cards has
done its work many a night before this, and old as it is, there has been
much of the riches of the world lost and won over it.'
One of the young men said, 'It isn't much of the riches of the world has
stopped with yourself, old man,' and he looked at the old man's bare
feet, and they all laughed. But Hanrahan did not laugh, but he sat down
very quietly, without a word. Then one of them said, 'So you will stop
with us after all, Hanrahan'; and the old man said: 'He will stop indeed,
did you not hear me asking him?'
They all looked at the old man then as if wondering where he came
from. 'It is far I am come,' he said, 'through France I have come, and
through Spain, and by Lough Greine of the hidden mouth, and none has
refused me anything.' And then he was silent and nobody liked to
question him, and they began to play. There were six men at the boards
playing, and the others were looking on behind. They played two or
three games for nothing, and then the old man took a fourpenny bit,
worn very thin and smooth, out from his pocket, and he called to the
rest to put something on the game. Then they all put down something
on the boards, and little as it was it looked much, from the way it was
shoved from one to another, first one man winning it and then his
neighbour. And some-times the luck would go against a man and he
would have nothing left, and then one or another would lend him
something, and he would pay it again out of his winnings, for neither
good nor bad luck stopped long with anyone.
And once Hanrahan said as a man would say in a dream, 'It is time for

me to be going the road'; but just then a good card came to him, and he
played it out, and all the money began to come to him. And once he
thought of Mary Lavelle, and he sighed; and that time his luck went
from him, and he forgot her again.
But at last the luck went to the old man and it stayed with him, and all
they had flowed into him, and he began to laugh little laughs to himself,
and to sing over and over to himself, 'Spades and Diamonds, Courage
and 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 their
bodies were rocking to and fro, and the way they kept their eyes on the
old man's hands, would think they had drink taken, or that the whole
store they had in the world was put on the cards; but that was not so,
for the quart bottle had not been disturbed since the game began, and
was nearly full yet, and all that was on the game was a few sixpenny
bits and shillings, and maybe a handful of coppers.
'You are good men to win and good men to lose,' said the old man, 'you
have play in your hearts.' He began then to shuffle the cards and to mix
them, very quick and fast, till at last