story-teller—michael hart
recorder—w. b. yeats
in the times when we used to travel by canal i was coming down from dublin. when we came to mullingar the canal ended, and i began to walk, and stiff and fatigued i was after the slowness. i had some friends with me, and now and then we walked, now and then we rode in a cart. so on till we saw some girls milking a cow, and stopped to joke with them. after a while we asked them for a drink of milk. 'we have nothing to[50] put it in here,' they said, 'but come to the house with us.' we went home with them and sat round the fire talking. after a while the others went, and left me, loath to stir from the good fire. i asked the girls for something to eat. there was a pot on the fire, and they took the meat out and put it on a plate and told me to eat only the meat that came from the head. when i had eaten, the girls went out and i did not see them again.
it grew darker and darker, and there i still sat, loath as ever to leave the good fire; and after a while two men came in, carrying between them a corpse. when i saw them i hid behind the door. says one to the other, 'who'll turn the spit?' says the other, 'michael hart, come out of that and turn the meat!' i came out in a tremble and began turning the spit. 'michael hart,' says the one who spoke first, 'if you let it burn we will have to put you on the spit[51] instead,' and on that they went out. i sat there trembling and turning the corpse until midnight. the men came again, and the one said it was burnt, and the other said it was done right, but having fallen out over it, they both said they would do me no harm that time; and sitting by the fire one of them cried out, 'michael hart, can you tell a story?' 'never a one,' said i. on that he caught me by the shoulders and put me out like a shot.
it was a wild, blowing night; never in all my born days did i see such a night—the darkest night that ever came out of the heavens. i did not know where i was for the life of me. so when one of the men came after me and touched me on the shoulder with a 'michael hart, can you tell a story now?'—'i can,' says i. in he brought me, and, putting me by the fire, says 'begin.' 'i have no story but the one,' says i, 'that i was sitting here, and that you two men brought[52] in a corpse and put it on the spit and set me turning it.' 'that will do,' says he; 'you may go in there and lie down on the bed.' and in i went, nothing loath, and in the morning where was i but in the middle of a green field.
