stick he had brought into the house himself. And when he saw those
four things, some memory came into Hanrahan's mind, and strength came
back to him, and he rose sitting up in the bed, and he said very loud
and clear: 'The Cauldron, the Stone, the Sword, the Spear. What are
they? Who do they belong to? And I have asked the question this
time,' he said.

And then he fell back again, weak, and the breath going from him.

Winny Byrne, that had been tending the fire, came over then, having
her eyes fixed on the bed; and the faint laughing voices began crying
out again, and a pale light, grey like a wave, came creeping over the
room, and he did not know from what secret world it came. He saw
Winny's withered face and her withered arms that were grey like
crumbled earth, and weak as he was he shrank back farther towards the
wall. And then there came out of the mud-stiffened rags arms as white
and as shadowy as the foam on a river, and they were put about his
body, and a voice that he could hear well but that seemed to come
from a long way off said to him in a whisper: 'You will go looking
for me no more upon the breasts of women.'

'Who are you?' he said then.

'I am one of the lasting people, of the lasting unwearied Voices,
that make my dwelling in the broken and the dying, and those that
have lost their wits; and I came looking for you, and you are mine
until the whole world is burned out like a candle that is spent. And
look up now,' she said, 'for the wisps that are for our wedding are
lighted.'