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.
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