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Celtic Twilight
by
William Butler Yeats
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A Night of the Sheep
AWAY to the north of Ben Bulben and Cope's mountain lives
"a strong farmer," a knight of the sheep they would have called him in
the Gaelic days. Proud of his descent from one of the most fighting clans of the
Middle Ages, he is a man of force alike in his words and in his deeds. There is
but one man that swears like him, and this man lives far away upon the mountain.
"Father in Heaven, what have I done to deserve this?" he says when he
has lost his pipe; and no man but he who lives on the mountain can rival his
language on a fair day over a bargain. He is passionate and abrupt in his
movements, and when angry tosses his white beard about with his left hand.
One day I was dining with him when the servant-maid announced
a certain Mr. O'Donnell. A sudden silence fell upon the old man and upon his two
daughters. At last the eldest daughter said somewhat severely to her father,
"Go and ask him to come in and dine." The old man went out, and then
came in looking greatly relieved, and said, "He says he will not dine with
us." "Go out," said the daughter, "and ask him into the back
parlour, and give him some whiskey." Her father, who had just finished his
dinner, obeyed sullenly, and I heard the door of the back parlour--a little room
where the daughters sat and sewed during the evening--shut to behind the men.
The daughter then turned to me and said, "Mr. O'Donnell is the
tax-gatherer, and last year he raised our taxes, and my father was very angry,
and when he came, brought him into the dairy, and sent the dairy-woman away on a
message, and then swore at him a great deal. 'I will teach you, sir,' O'Donnell
replied, 'that the law can protect its officers'; but my father reminded him
that he had no witness. At last my father got tired, and sorry too, and said he
would show him a short way home. When they were half-way to the main road they
came on a man of my father's who was ploughing, and this somehow brought back
remembrance of the wrong. He sent the man away on a message, and began to swear
at the tax-gatherer again. When I heard of it I was disgusted that he should
have made such a fuss over a miserable creature like O'Donnell; and when I heard
a few weeks ago that O'Donnell's only son had died and left him heart-broken, I
resolved to make my father be kind to him next time he came."
She then went out to see a neighbour, and I sauntered towards
the back parlour. When I came to the door I heard angry voices inside. The two
men were evidently getting on to the tax again, for I could hear them bandying
figures to and fro. I opened the door; at sight of my face the farmer was
reminded of his peaceful intentions, and asked me if I knew where the whiskey
was. I had seen him put it into the cupboard, and was able therefore to find it
and get it out, looking at the thin, grief-struck face of the tax-gatherer. He
was rather older than my friend, and very much more feeble and worn, and of a
very different type. He was not like him, a robust, successful man, but rather
one of those whose feet find no resting-place upon the earth. I recognized one
of the children of reverie, and said, "You are doubtless of the stock of
the old O'Donnells. I know well the hole in the river where their treasure lies
buried under the guard of a serpent with many heads." "Yes, sur,"
he replied, "I am the last of a line of princes."
We then fell to talking of many commonplace things, and my
friend did not once toss up his beard, but was very friendly. At last the gaunt
old tax-gatherer got up to go, and my friend said, "I hope we will have a
glass together next year." "No, no," was the answer, "I
shall be dead next year." "I too have lost sons," said the other
in quite a gentle voice. "But your sons were not like my son." And
then the two men parted, with an angry flush and bitter hearts, and had I not
cast between them some common words or other, might not have parted, but have
fallen rather into an angry discussion of the value of their dead sons. If I had
not pity for all the children of reverie I should have let them fight it out,
and would now have many a wonderful oath to record.
The knight of the sheep would have had the victory, for no
soul that wears this garment of blood and clay can surpass him. He was but once
beaten; and this is his tale of how it was. He and some farm hands were playing
at cards in a small cabin that stood against the end of a big barn. A wicked
woman had once lived in this cabin. Suddenly one of the players threw down an
ace and began to swear without any cause. His swearing was so dreadful that the
others stood up, and my friend said, "All is not right here; there is a
spirit in him." They ran to the door that led into the barn to get away as
quickly as possible. The wooden bolt would not move, so the knight of the sheep
took a saw which stood against the wall near at hand, and sawed through the
bolt, and at once the door flew open with a bang, as though some one had been
holding it, and they fled through.
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