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0
THE CROCK OF GOLD
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA • MADRAS
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO
DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO
THK PHILOSOPHERS WERE ABLE TO HEAR EACH
OTHER THINKING ALL DAY LONG . . . p. 5
THE
CROCK OF GOLD
BY
JAMES STEPHENS
AUTHOR OF
‘THE CHARWOMAN^ DAUGHTER,’ ‘THE HILL OF VISION’
WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
AND DECORATIVE HEADINGS AND TAILPIECES
BY
THOMAS MACKENZIE
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON
1926
COPYRIGHT
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
BY R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, EDINBURGH
CONTENTS
BOOK I
PAGE
The Coming of Pan ....... i
BOOK II
The Philosopher’s Journey . . . . . • 7 1
BOOK III
The Two Gods.105
BOOK IV
The Philosopher’s Return . . . . . 117
BOOK V
The Policemen.143
BOOK VI
The Thin Woman’s Journey and the Happy March 195
v
ILLUSTRATIONS
IN COLOUR
The Philosophers were able to hear each other thinking all
day long (page 5) .... Frontispiece
FACE PAGE
“ Will you never be done talking? ” shouted the Thin Woman
passionately . . . . . .26
He stood waist-deep in greenery fronting her squarely . 42
“ Do you remember,” said Seumas, “ the way he hopped and
waggled his leg the last time he was here? ” . 58
He saw Caitilin Ni Murrachu walking a little way in front
with a small vessel in her hand . . . .74
At that moment the Philosopher’s cake lost all its savour . 97
A swift shadow darkened the passage . . . .109
A young woman came along the road and stood gazing earnestly
at this house . . . . . .129
“ Tell me where the money is? ” he hissed . . .166
He . . . wept in so loud a voice that his comrades swarmed
up to see what had happened to him . . . 200
When they topped a slight incline they saw a light shining
some distance away . . . . .212
Caitilin danced in uncontrollable gaiety . . .222
vii
BOOK I
THE COMING OF PAN
i
B
CHAPTER I
In the centre of the pine wood called Coilla Doraca
there lived not long ago two Philosophers. They
were wiser than anything else in the world except
the Salmon who lies in the pool of Glyn Cagny into
which the nuts of knowledge fall from the hazel bush
on its bank. He, of course, is the most profound
of living creatures, but the two Philosophers are next
to him in wisdom. Their faces looked as though
they were made of parchment, there was ink under
their nails, and every difficulty that was submitted
to them, even by women, they were able to instantly
resolve. The Grey Woman of Dun Gortin and the
Thin Woman of Inis Magrath asked them the three
questions which nobody had ever been able to
answer, and they were able to answer them. That
was how they obtained the enmity of these two
women which is more valuable than the friendship
of angels. The Grey Woman and the Thin Woman
3
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
were so incensed at being answered that they married
the two Philosophers in order to be able to pinch
them in bed, but the skins of the Philosophers were
so thick that they did not know they were being
pinched. They repaid the fury of the women with
such tender affection that these vicious creatures
almost expired of chagrin, and once, in a very ecstasy
of exasperation, after having been kissed by their
husbands, they uttered the fourteen hundred male¬
dictions which comprised their wisdom, and these
were learned by the Philosophers who thus became
even wiser than before.
In due process of time two children were born
of these marriages. They were born on the same
day and in the same hour, and they were only different
in this, that one of them was a boy and the other
one was a girl. Nobody was able to tell how this
had happened, and, for the first time in their lives,
the Philosophers were forced to admire an event
which they had been unable to prognosticate; but
having proved by many different methods that the
children were really children, that what must be
must be, that a fact cannot be controverted, and that
what has happened once may happen twice, they
described the occurrence as extraordinary but not
unnatural, and submitted peacefully to a Providence
even wiser than they were.
The Philosopher who had the boy was very
pleased because, he said, there were too many women
in the world, and the Philosopher who had the girl
was very pleased also because, he said, you cannot
have too much of a good thing: the Grey Woman
and the Thin Woman, however, were not in the
4
i THE COMING OF PAN
least softened by maternity—they said that they had
not bargained for it, that the children were gotten
under false pretences, that they were respectable
married women, and that, as a protest against their
wrongs, they would not cook any more food for the
Philosophers. This was pleasant news for their
husbands, who disliked the women’s cooking very
much, but they did not say so, for the women would
certainly have insisted on their rights to cook had
they imagined their husbands disliked the results:
therefore, the Philosophers besought their wives every
day to cook one of their lovely dinners again, and
this the women always refused to do.
They all lived together in a small house in the
very centre of a dark pine wood. Into this place
the sun never shone because the shade was too deep,
and no wind ever came there either, because the
boughs were too thick, so that it was the most solitary
and quiet place in the world, and the Philosophers
were able to hear each other thinking all day long,
or making speeches to each other, and these were the
pleasantest sounds they knew of. To them there were
only two kinds of sounds anywhere—these were con¬
versation and noise: they liked the first very much
indeed, but they spoke of the second with stern
disapproval, and, even when it was made by a bird,
a breeze, or a shower of rain, they grew angry and
demanded that it should be abolished. Their wives
seldom spoke at all and yet they were never silent:
they communicated with each other by a kind of
physical telegraphy which they had learned among
the Shee—they cracked their finger-joints quickly
or slowly and so were able to communicate with each
5
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
other over immense distances, for by dint of long
practice they could make great explosive sounds
which were nearly like thunder, and gentler sounds
like the tapping of grey ashes on a hearthstone. The
Thin Woman hated her own child, but she loved the
Grey Woman’s baby, and the Grey Woman loved
the Thin Woman’s infant but could not abide her
own. A compromise may put an end to the most
perplexing of situations, and, consequently, the two
women swapped children, and at once became the
most tender and amiable mothers imaginable, and
the families were able to live together in a more
perfect amity than could be found anywhere else.
The children grew in grace and comeliness. At
first the little boy was short and fat and the little
girl was long and thin, then the little girl became
round and chubby while the little boy grew lanky
and wiry. This was because the little girl used to
sit very quiet and be good and the little boy used not.
They lived for many years in the deep seclusion
of the pine wood wherein a perpetual twilight reigned,
and here they were wont to play their childish games,
flitting among the shadowy trees like little quick
shadows. At times their mothers, the Grey Woman
and the Thin Woman, played with them, but this
was seldom, and sometimes their fathers, the two
Philosophers, came out and looked at them through
spectacles which were very round and very glassy,
and had immense circles of horn all round the edges.
They had, however, other playmates with whom they
could romp all day long. There were hundreds of
rabbits running about in the brushwood; they were
full of fun and were very fond of playing with the
6
i THE COMING OF PAN
children. There were squirrels who joined cheer¬
fully in their games, and some goats, having one day
strayed in from the big world, were made so welcome
that they always came again whenever they got the
chance. There were birds also, crows and blackbirds
and willy-wagtails, who were well acquainted with
the youngsters, and visited them as frequently as their
busy lives permitted.
At a short distance from their home there was a
clearing in the wood about ten feet square; through
this clearing, as through a funnel, the sun for a few
hours in the summer time blazed down. It was the
boy who first discovered the strange radiant shaft in
the wood. One day he had been sent out to collect
pine cones for the fire. As these were gathered daily
the supply immediately near the house was scanty,
therefore he had, while searching for more, wandered
further from his home than usual. The first sight
of the extraordinary blaze astonished him. He had
never seen anything like it before, and the steady,
unwinking glare aroused his fear and curiosity equally.
Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery
will; indeed, it has led many people into dangers
which mere physical courage would shudder away
from, for hunger and love and curiosity are the great
impelling forces of life. When the little boy found
that the light did not move he drew closer to it, and
at last, emboldened by curiosity, he stepped right
into it and found that it was not a thing at all. The
instant that he stepped into the light he found it was
hot, and this so frightened him that he jumped out
of it again and ran behind a tree. Then he jumped
into it for a moment and out of it again, and for
7
BK. I
THE CROCK OF GOLD
nearly half an hour he played a splendid game of
tip and tig with the sunlight. At last he grew quite
bold and stood in it and found that it did not burn
him at all, but he did not like to remain in it, fearing
that he might be cooked. When he went home with
the pine cones he said nothing to the Grey Woman
of Dun Gordn or to the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath
or to the two Philosophers, but he told the little girl
all about it when they went to bed, and every day
afterwards they used to go and play with the sunlight,
and the rabbits and the squirrels would follow them
there and join in their games with twice the interest
they had shown before.
8
CHAPTER II
To the lonely house in the pine wood people some¬
times came for advice on subjects too recondite for
even those extremes of elucidation, the parish priest
and the tavern. These people were always well
received, and their perplexities were attended to
instantly, for the Philosophers liked being wise and
they were not ashamed to put their learning to the
proof, nor were they, as so many wise people are,
fearful lest they should become poor or less respected
by giving away their knowledge. These were
favourite maxims with them:
You must be fit to give before you can be fit to
receive.
Knowledge becomes lumber in a week, therefore,
get rid of it.
The box must be emptied before it can be refilled.
Refilling is progress.
A sword, a spade, and a thought should never
be allowed to rust.
9
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
The Grey Woman and the Thin Woman, how¬
ever, held opinions quite contrary to these, and their
maxims also were different:
A secret is a weapon and a friend.
Man is God’s secret, Power is man’s secret, Sex
is woman’s secret.
By having much you are fitted to have more.
There is always room in the box.
The art of packing is the last lecture of wisdom.
The scalp of your enemy is progress.
Holding these opposed views it seemed likely that
visitors seeking for advice from the Philosophers
might be astonished and captured by their wives;
but the women were true to their own doctrines and
refused to part with information to any persons saving
only those of high rank, such as policemen, gombeen
men, and district and county councillors; but even
to these they charged high prices for their information,
and a bonus on any gains which accrued through the
following of their advices. It is unnecessary to state
that their following was small when compared with
those who sought the assistance of their husbands,
for scarcely a week passed but some person came
through the pine wood with his brows in a tangle
of perplexity.
In these people the children were deeply interested.
They used to go apart afterwards and talk about them,
and would try to remember what they looked like,
how they talked, and their manner of walking or
taking snuff. After a time they became interested
in the problems which these people submitted to their
parents and the replies or instructions wherewith the
latter relieved them. Long training had made the
io
I
THE COMING OF PAN
children able to sit perfectly quiet, so that when the
talk came to the interesting part they were entirely
forgotten, and ideas which might otherwise have been
spared their youth became the commonplaces of their
conversation.
When the children were ten years of age one
of the Philosophers died. He called the household
together and announced that the time had come when
he must bid them all good-bye, and that his intention
was to die as quickly as might be. It was, he con¬
tinued, an unfortunate thing that his health was at
the moment more robust than it had been for a long
time, but that, of course, was no obstacle to his
resolution, for death did not depend upon ill-health
but upon a multitude of other factors with the details
whereof he would not trouble them.
His wife, the Grey Woman of Dun Gortin,
applauded this resolution and added as an amendment
that it was high time he did something, that the life
he had been leading was an arid and unprofitable one,
that he had stolen her fourteen hundred maledictions
for which he had no use and presented her with a
child for which she had none, and that, all things
concerned, the sooner he did die and stop talking the
sooner everybody concerned would be made happy.
The other Philosopher replied mildly as he lit
his pipe:
“ Brother, the greatest of all virtues is curiosity,
and the end of all desire is wisdom; tell us, therefore,
by what steps you have arrived at this commendable
resolution.”
To this the Philosopher replied:
“ I have attained to all the wisdom which I am
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
fitted to bear. In the space of one week no new
truth has come to me. All that I have read lately I
knew before; all that I have thought has been but
a recapitulation of old and wearisome ideas. There
is no longer an horizon before my eyes. Space has
narrowed to the petty dimensions of my thumb.
Time is the tick of a clock. Good and evil are two
peas in the one pod. My wife’s face is the same for
ever. I want to play with the children, and yet I
do not want to. Your conversation with me, brother,
is like the droning of a bee in a dark cell. The pine
trees take root and grow and die.—It’s all bosh.
Good-bye.”
His friend replied:
“ Brother, these are weighty reflections, and I do
clearly perceive that the time has come for you to
stop. I might observe, not in order to combat your
views, but merely to continue an interesting con¬
versation, that there are still some knowledges which
you have not assimilated—you do not yet know how
to play the tambourine, nor how to be nice to your
wife, nor how to get up first in the morning and
cook the breakfast. Have you learned how to smoke
strong tobacco as I do? or can you dance in the
moonlight with a woman of the Shee? To under¬
stand the theory which underlies all things is not
sufficient. Theory is but the preparation for practice.
It has occurred to me, brother, that wisdom may not
be the end of everything. Goodness and kindliness
are, perhaps, beyond wisdom. Is it not possible that
the ultimate end is gaiety and music and a dance of
joy? Wisdom is the oldest of all things. Wisdom is
all head and no heart. Behold, brother, you are
12
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THE COMING OF PAN
being crushed under the weight of your head. You
are dying of old age while you are yet a child.”
“ Brother,” replied the other Philosopher, “ your
voice is like the droning of a bee in a dark cell. If
in my latter days I am reduced to playing on the
tambourine and running after a hag in the moonlight,
and cooking your breakfast in the grey morning,
then it is indeed time that I should die. Good-bye,
brother.”
So saying, the Philosopher arose and removed all
the furniture to the sides of the room so that there
was a clear space left in the centre. He then took
off his boots and his coat, and standing on his toes
he commenced to gyrate with extraordinary rapidity.
In a few moments his movements became steady and
swift, and a sound came from him like the humming
of a swift saw; this sound grew deeper and deeper,
and at last continuous, so that the room was filled
with a thrilling noise. In a quarter of an hour the
movement began to noticeably slacken. In another
three minutes it was quite slow. In two more
minutes he grew visible again as a body, and then he
wobbled to and fro, and at last dropped in a heap
on the floor. He was quite dead, and on his face
was an expression of serene beatitude.
“ God be with you, brother,” said the remaining
Philosopher, and he lit his pipe, focused his vision
on the extreme tip of his nose, and began to meditate
profoundly on the aphorism whether the good is the
all or the all is the good. In another moment he
would have become oblivious of the room, the
company, and the corpse, but the Grey Woman of
Dun Gortin shattered his meditation by a demand
13
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
for advice as to what should next be done. The
Philosopher, with an effort, detached his eyes from
his nose and his mind from his maxim.
“ Chaos,” said he, “ is the first condition. Order
is the first law. Continuity is the first reflection.
Quietude is the first happiness. Our brother is dead
—bury him.” So saying, he returned his eyes to
his nose, and his mind to his maxim, and lapsed to a
profound reflection wherein nothing sat perched on
insubstantiality, and the Spirit of Artifice goggled at
the puzzle.
The Grey Woman of Dun Gortin took a pinch
of snuff from her box and raised the keen over her
husband:
“ You were my husband and you are dead.
It is wisdom that has killed you.
If you had listened to my wisdom instead of to
your own you would still be a trouble to me
and I would still be happy.
Women are stronger than men—they do not
die of wisdom.
They are better than men because they do not
seek wisdom.
They are wiser than men because they know
less and understand more.
Wise men are thieves—they steal wisdom from
the neighbours.
I had fourteen hundred maledictions, my little
store, and by a trick you stole them and left
me empty.
You stole my wisdom and it has broken your
neck.
I lost my knowledge and I am yet alive raising
14
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THE COMING OF PAN
the keen over your body, but it was too
heavy for you, my little knowledge.
You will never go out into the pine wood in the
morning, or wander abroad on a night of
stars. You will not sit in the chimney-corner
on the hard nights, or go to bed, or rise again,
or do anything at all from this day out.
Who will gather pine cones now when the fire
is going down, or call my name in the empty
house, or be angry when the kettle is not
boiling?
Now I am desolate indeed. I have no know¬
ledge, I have no husband, I have no more
to say.”
“ If I had anything better you should have it,”
said she politely to the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath.
“ Thank you,” said the Thin Woman, “ it was
very nice. Shall I begin now? My husband is
meditating and we may be able to annoy him.”
“ Don’t trouble yourself,” replied the other, “ I
am past enjoyment and am, moreover, a respectable
woman.”
“ That is no more than the truth, indeed.”
“ I have always done the right thing at the right
time.”
“ I’d be the last body in the world to deny that,”
was the warm response.
“ Very well, then,” said the Grey Woman, and
she commenced to take off her boots. She stood
in the centre of the room and balanced herself on
her toe.
“ You are a decent, respectable lady,” said the
Thin Woman of Inis Magrath, and then the Grey
15
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK. I
Woman began to gyrate rapidly and more rapidly
until she was a very fervour of motion, and in three-
quarters of an hour (for she was very tough) she
began to slacken, grew visible, wobbled, and fell
beside her dead husband, and on her face was a
beatitude almost surpassing his.
The Thin Woman of Inis Magrath smacked the
children and put them to bed, next she buried the
two bodies under the hearthstone, and then, with
some trouble, detached her husband from his medita¬
tions. When he became capable of ordinary occur¬
rences she detailed all that had happened, and said
that he alone was to blame for the sad bereavement.
He replied:
“ The toxin generates the anti-toxin. The end
lies concealed in the beginning. All bodies grow
around a skeleton. Life is a petticoat about death.
I will not go to bed.”
16
CHAPTER III
On the day following this melancholy occurrence
Meehawl MacMurrachu, a small farmer in the neigh¬
bourhood, came through the pine trees with tangled
brows. At the door of the little house he said,
“ God be with all here,” and marched in.
The Philosopher removed his pipe from his lips—
“ God be with yourself,” said he, and he replaced
his pipe.
Meehawl MacMurrachu crooked his thumb at
space—
“ Where is the other one? ” said he.
“ Ah! ” said the Philosopher.
“ He might be outside, maybe? ”
“ He might, indeed,” said the Philosopher gravely.
“ Well, it doesn’t matter,” said the visitor, “ for
you have enough knowledge by yourself to stock a
shop. The reason I came here to-day was to ask
your honoured advice about my wife’s washing-
board. She only has it a couple of years, and the
17 c
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
last time she used it was when she washed out my
Sunday shirt and her black skirt with the red things
on it—you know the one? ”
“ I do not,” said the Philosopher.
“ Well, anyhow, the washboard is gone, and my
wife says it was either taken by the fairies or by
Bessie Hannigan—you know Bessie Hannigan? She
has whiskers like a goat and a lame leg! ”—
“ I do not,” said the Philosopher.
“ No matter,” said Meehawl MacMurrachu.
“ She didn’t take it, because my wife got her out
yesterday and kept her talking for two hours while
I went through every thing in her bit of a house—
the washboard wasn’t there.”
“ It wouldn’t be,” said the Philosopher.
“ Maybe your honour could tell a body where
it is then? ”
“ Maybe I could,” said the Philosopher; “ are
you listening? ”
“ I am,” said Meehawl MacMurrachu.
The Philosopher drew his chair closer to the visitor
until their knees were jammed together. He laid
both his hands on Meehawl MacMurrachu’s knees—
“ Washing is an extraordinary custom,” said he.
“We are washed both on coming into the world
and on going out of it, and we take no pleasure from
the first washing nor any profit from the last.”
“ True for you, sir,” said Meehawl MacMurrachu.
“ Many people consider that scourings supple¬
mentary to these are only due to habit. Now, habit
is continuity of action, it is a most detestable thing
and is very difficult to get away from. A proverb
will run where a writ will not, and the follies of our
18
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THE COMING OF PAN
forefathers are of greater importance to us than is
the well-being of our posterity.”
“ I wouldn’t say a word against that, sir,” said
Meehawl MacMurrachu.
“ Cats are a philosophic and thoughtful race, but
they do not admit the efficacy of either water or soap,
and yet it is usually conceded that they are cleanly
folk. There are exceptions to every rule, and I once
knew a cat who lusted after water and bathed daily:
he was an unnatural brute and died ultimately of
the head staggers. Children are nearly as wise as
cats. It is true that they will utilize water in a
variety of ways, for instance, the destruction of a
tablecloth or a pinafore, and I have observed them
greasing a ladder with soap, showing in the process
a great knowledge of the properties of this material.”
“ Why shouldn’t they, to be sure? ” said Meehawl
MacMurrachu. “ Have you got a match, sir? ”
“ I have not,” said the Philosopher. “ Sparrows,
again, are a highly acute and reasonable folk. They
use water to quench thirst, but when they are dirty
they take a dust bath and are at once cleansed. Of
course, birds are often seen in the water, but they go
there to catch fish and not to wash. I have often
fancied that fish are a dirty, sly, and unintelligent
people—this is due to their staying so much in the
water, and it has been observed that on being removed
from this element they at once expire through sheer
ecstasy at escaping from their prolonged washing.”
“ I have seen them doing it myself,” said Meehawl.
“ Did you ever hear, sir, about the fish that Paudeen
MacLoughlin caught in the policeman’s hat.”
“ I did not,” said the Philosopher. “ The first
19
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BK.
person who washed was possibly a person seeking a
cheap notoriety. Any fool can wash himself, but
every wise man knows that it is an unnecessary
labour, for nature will quickly reduce him to a
natural and healthy dirtiness again. We should seek,
therefore, not how to make ourselves clean, but
how to attain a more unique and splendid dirtiness,
and perhaps the accumulated layers of matter might,
by ordinary geologic compulsion, become incorpor¬
ated with the human cuticle and so render clothing
unnecessary-”
“ About that washboard,” said Meehawl, “ I was
just going to say-”
“ It doesn’t matter,” said the Philosopher. “ In
its proper place I admit the necessity for water. As
a thing to sail a ship on it can scarcely be surpassed
(not, you will understand, that I entirely approve of
ships, they tend to create and perpetuate international
curiosity and the smaller vermin of different latitudes).
As an element wherewith to put out a fire, or brew
tea, or make a slide in winter it is useful, but in a tin
basin it has a repulsive and meagre aspect.—Now as
to your wife’s washboard-”
“ Good luck to your honour,” said Meehawl.
“ Your wife says that either the fairies or a woman
with a goat’s leg has it.”
“ It’s her whiskers,” said Meehawl.
“ They are lame,” said the Philosopher sternly.
“ Have it your own way, sir, I’m not certain now
how the creature is afflicted.”
“ You say that this unhealthy woman has not got
your wife’s washboard. It remains, therefore, that
the fairies have it.”
20
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THE COMING OF PAN
“ It looks that way,” said Meehawl.
“ There are six clans of fairies living in this
neighbourhood; but the process of elimination which
has shaped the world to a globe, the ant to its environ¬
ment, and man to the captaincy of the vertebrates,
will not fail in this instance either.”
“ Did you ever see anything like the way wasps
have increased this season,” said Meehawl; “ faith,
you can’t sit down anywhere but your breeches-”
“ I did not,” said the Philosopher. “ Did you
leave out a pan of milk on last Tuesday? ”
“ I did then.”
“ Do you take off your hat when you meet a
dust twirl? ”
“ I wouldn’t neglect that,” said Meehawl.
“ Did you cut down a thorn bush recently? ”
“ I’d sooner cut my eye out,” said Meehawl,
“ and go about as wall-eyed as Lorcan O’Nualain’s
ass: I would that. Did you ever see his ass, sir?
It-”
“ I did not,” said the Philosopher. “ Did you
kill a robin redbreast? ”
“ Never,” said Meehawl. “ By the pipers,” he
added, “ that old skinny cat of mine caught a bird
on the roof yesterday.”
“ Hah! ” cried the Philosopher, moving, if it
were possible, even closer to his client, “ now we
have it. It is the Leprecauns of Gort na Cloca Mora
took your washboard. Go to the Gort at once.
There is a hole under a tree in the south-east of the
field. Try what you will find in that hole.”
“ I’ll do that,” said Meehawl. “ Did you
ever-
21
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK. I
“ I did not,” said the Philosopher.
So Meehawl MacMurrachu went away and did
as he had been bidden, and underneath the tree of
Gort na Cloca Mora he found a little crock of gold.
“ There’s a power of washboards in that,” said he.
By reason of this incident the fame of the Philo¬
sopher became even greater than it had been before,
and also by reason of it many singular events were to
happen with which you shall duly become acquainted.
22
CHAPTER IV
It so happened that the Leprecauns of Gort na Cloca
Mora were not thankful to the Philosopher for having
sent Meehawl MacMurrachu to their field. In steal¬
ing Meehawl’s property they were quite within their
rights because their bird had undoubtedly been slain
by his cat. Not alone, therefore, was their righteous
vengeance nullified, but the crock of gold which had
taken their community many thousands of years to
amass was stolen. A Leprecaun without a pot of
gold is like a rose without perfume, a bird without a
wing, or an inside without an outside. They con¬
sidered that the Philosopher had treated them badly,
that his action was mischievous and unneighbourly,
and that until they were adequately compensated for
their loss both of treasure and dignity, no conditions
other than those of enmity could exist between their
people and the little house in the pine wood. Further¬
more, for them the situation was cruelly complicated.
They were unable to organise a direct, personal
23
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
hostility against their new enemy, because the Thin
Woman of Inis Magrath would certainly protect her
husband. She belonged to the Shee of Croghan
Conghaile, who had relatives in every fairy fort in
Ireland, and were also strongly represented in the
forts and duns of their immediate neighbours. They
could, of course, have called an extraordinary meeting
of the Sheogs, Leprecauns, and Cluricauns, and pre¬
sented their case with a claim for damages against
the Shee of Croghan Conghaile, but that Clann would
assuredly repudiate any liability on the ground
that no member of their fraternity was responsible
for the outrage, as it was the Philosopher, and
not the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath, who had
done the deed. Notwithstanding this they were
unwilling to let the matter rest, and the fact that
justice was out of reach only added fury to their
anger.
One of their number was sent to interview the
Thin Woman of Inis Magrath, and the others con¬
centrated nightly about the dwelling of Meehawl
MacMurrachu in an endeavour to recapture the
treasure which they were quite satisfied was hopeless.
They found that Meehawl, who understood the
customs of the Earth Folk very well, had buried the
crock of gold beneath a thorn bush, thereby placing
it under the protection of every fairy in the world—
the Leprecauns themselves included ; and until it was
removed from this place by human hands they were
bound to respect its hiding-place, and even guarantee
its safety with their blood.
They afflicted Meehawl with an extraordinary
attack of rheumatism and his wife with an equally
24
I
THE COMING OF PAN
virulent sciatica, but they got no lasting pleasure from
their groans.
The Leprecaun, who had been detailed to visit
the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath, duly arrived at
the cottage in the pine wood and made his complaint.
The little man wept as he told the story, and the two
children wept out of sympathy for him. The Thin
Woman said she was desperately grieved by the whole
unpleasant transaction, and that all her sympathies
were with Gort na Cloca Mora, but that she must
disassociate herself from any responsibility in the
matter as it was her husband who was the culpable
person, and that she had no control over his mental
processes, which, she concluded, was one of the seven
curious things in the world.
As her husband was away in a distant part of the
wood nothing further could be done at that time,
so the Leprecaun returned again to his fellows
without any good news, but he promised to come
back early on the following day.
When the Philosopher came home late that night
the Thin Woman was waiting up for him.
“ Woman,” said the Philosopher, “ you ought to
be in bed.”
“ Ought I indeed? ” said the Thin Woman.
“ I’d have you know that I’ll go to bed when I like
and get up when I like without asking your or any
one else’s permission.”
“ That is not true,” said the Philosopher. “ You
get sleepy whether you like it or not, and you awaken
again without your permission being asked. Like
many other customs such as singing, dancing, music,
and acting, sleep has crept into popular favour as
2 5
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
part of a religious ceremonial. Nowhere can one go
to sleep more easily than in a church.”
“ Do you know,” said the Thin Woman, “ that a
Leprecaun came here to-day? ”
“ I do not,” said the Philosopher, “ and notwith¬
standing the innumerable centuries which have elapsed
since that first sleeper (probably with extreme diffi¬
culty) sank into his religious trance, we can to-day
sleep through a religious ceremony with an ease which
would have been a source of wealth and fame to that
prehistoric worshipper and his acolytes.”
“ Are you going to listen to what I am telling you
about the Leprecaun? ” said the Thin Woman.
“ I am not,” said the Philosopher. “ It has been
suggested that we go to sleep at night because it is
then too dark to do anything else; but owls, who are
a venerably sagacious folk, do not sleep in the night¬
time. Bats, also, are a very clear-minded race; they
sleep in the broadest day, and they do it in a charming
manner. They clutch the branch of a tree with their
toes and hang head downwards—a position which I
consider singularly happy, for the rush of blood to
the head consequent on this inverted position should
engender a drowsiness and a certain imbecility of
mind which must either sleep or explode.”
“ Will you never be done talking? ” shouted the
Thin Woman passionately.
“ I will not,” said the Philosopher. “ In certain
ways sleep is useful. It is an excellent way of listen¬
ing to an opera or seeing pictures on a bioscope. As
a medium for day-dreams I know of nothing that
can equal it. As an accomplishment it is graceful,
but as a means of spending a night it is intolerably
26
WILL YOU NEVER BE DONE TALKING ? " SHOUTED
THE THIN WOMAN PASSIONATELY
I
THE COMING OF PAN
ridiculous. If you were going to say anything, my
love, please say it now, but you should always re¬
member to think before you speak. A woman should
be seen seldom but never heard. Quietness is the
beginning of virtue. To be silent is to be beautiful.
Stars do not make a noise. Children should always
be in bed. These are serious truths, which cannot
be controverted; therefore, silence is fitting as regards
them.”
“ Your stirabout is on the hob,” said the Thin
Woman. “ You can get it for yourself. I would
not move the breadth of my nail if you were dying
of hunger. I hope there’s lumps in it. A Leprecaun
from Gort na Cloca Mora was here to-day. They’ll
give it to you for robbing their pot of gold. You old
thief, you! you lob-eared, crock-kneed fat-eye! ”
The Thin Woman whizzed suddenly from where
she stood and leaped into bed. From beneath the
blanket she turned a vivid, furious eye on her husband.
She was trying to give him rheumatism and toothache
and lockjaw all at once. If she had been satisfied to
concentrate her attention on one only of these torments
she might have succeeded in afflicting her husband
according to her wish, but she was not able to do that.
“ Finality is death. Perfection is finality. No¬
thing is perfect. There are lumps in it,” said the
Philosopher.
27
CHAPTER V
When the Leprecaun came through the pine wood
on the following day he met the two children at a
little distance from the house. He raised his open
right hand above his head (this is both the fairy and
the Gaelic form of salutation), and would have passed
on but that a thought brought him to a halt. Sitting
down before the two children he stared at them for
a long time, and they stared back at him. At last
he said to the boy:
“ What is your name, a vie vig O? ”
“ Seumas Beg, sir,” the boy replied.
“ It’s a little name,” said the Leprecaun.
“ It’s what my mother calls me, sir,” returned
the boy.
“ What does your father call you? ” was the next
question.
“ Seumas Eoghan Maelduin O’Carbhail Mac an
Droid.”
“ It’s a big name,” said the Leprecaun, and he
28
BK. I
THE COMING OF PAN
turned to the little girl. “What is your name, a
cailin vig O? ”
“ Brigid Beg, sir.”
“ And what does your father call you? ”
“ He never calls me at all, sir.”
“ Well, Seumaseen and Breedeen, you are good
little children, and I like you very much. Health
be with you until I come to see you again.
And then the Leprecaun went back the way he
had come. As he went he made little jumps and
cracked his fingers, and sometimes he rubbed one leg
against the other.
“ That’s a nice Leprecaun,” said Seumas.
“ I like him too,” said Brigid.
“ Listen,” said Seumas, “ let me be the Leprecaun,
and you be the two children, and I will ask you our
names.”
So they did that.
The next day the Leprecaun came again. He
sat down beside the children and, as before, he was
silent for a little time. „
“ Are you not going to ask us our names, sir? ”
said Seumas.
His sister smoothed out her dress shyly. “ My
name, sir, is Brigid Beg,” said she.
“ Did you ever play Jackstones? ” said the
Leprecaun.
“ No, sir,” replied Seumas.
“ I’ll teach you how to play Jackstones,” said the
Leprecaun, and he picked up some pine cones and
taught the children that game.
“ Did you ever play Ball in the Decker? ”
“ No, sir,” said Seumas.
29
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
“ Did you ever play ‘ I can make a nail with my
ree-ro-raddy-O, I can make a nail with my ree-ro-
ray ’ ? ”
“ No, sir,” replied Seumas.
“ It’s a nice game,” said the Leprecaun, “ and so
is Cap-on-the-back, and Twenty-four yards on the
billy-goat’s tail, and Towns, and Relievo, and Leap¬
frog. I’ll teach you all these games,” said the
Leprecaun, “ and I’ll teach you how to play Knifey,
and Hole-and-taw, and Horneys and Robbers.
“ Leap-frog is the best one to start with, so I’ll
teach it to you at once. Let you bend down like
this, Breedeen, and you bend down like that a good
distance away, Seumas. Now I jump over Breedeen’s
back, and then I run and jump over Seumaseen’s back
like this, and then I run ahead again and I bend
down. Now, Breedeen, you jump over your brother,
and then you jump over me, and run a good bit on
and bend down again. Now, Seumas, it’s your turn;
you jump over me and then over your sister, and then
you run on and bend down again and I jump.”
“ This is a fine game, sir,” said Seumas.
“ It is, a vie vig,—keep in your head,” said the
Leprecaun. “ That’s a good jump, you couldn’t
beat that jump, Seumas.”
“ I can jump better than Brigid already,” replied
Seumas, “ and I’ll jump as well as you do when I get
more practice—keep in your head, sir.”
Almost without noticing it they had passed
through the edge of the wood, and were playing
into a rough field which was cumbered with big,
grey rocks. It was the very last field in sight, and
behind it the rough, heather-packed mountain sloped
30
i THE COMING OF PAN
distantly away to the sky-line. There was a raggedy
blackberry hedge all round the field, and there were
long, tough, haggard-looking plants growing in clumps
here and there. Near a corner of this field there
was a broad, low tree, and as they played they came
near and nearer to it. The Leprecaun gave a
back very close to the tree. Seumas ran and
jumped and slid down a hole at the side of the tree.
Then Brigid ran and jumped and slid down the same
hole.
“ Dear me! ” said Brigid, and she flashed out of
sight.
The Leprecaun cracked his fingers and rubbed
one leg against the other, and then he also dived into
the hole and disappeared from view.
When the time at which the children usually went
home had passed, the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath
became a little anxious. She had never known them
to be late for dinner before. There was one of the
children whom she hated; it was her own child, but
as she had forgotten which of them was hers, and as
she loved one of them, she was compelled to love
both for fear of making a mistake, and chastising the
child for whom her heart secretly yearned. There¬
fore, she was equally concerned about both of them.
Dinner time passed and supper time arrived, but
the children did not. Again and again the Thin
Woman went out through the dark pine trees and
called until she was so hoarse that she could not even
hear herself when she roared. The evening wore on
to the night, and while she waited for the Philosopher
to come in she reviewed the situation. Her husband
had not come in, the children had not come in, the
3i
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
Leprecaun had not returned as arranged. . . .
A light flashed upon her. The Leprecaun had
kidnapped her children! She announced a venge¬
ance against the Leprecauns, which would stagger
humanity. While in the extreme centre of her
ecstasy the Philosopher came through the trees and
entered the house.
The Thin Woman flew to him—
“ Husband,” said she, “ the Leprecauns of Gort
na Cloca Mora have kidnapped our children.”
The Philosopher gazed at her for a moment.
“ Kidnapping,” said he, “ has been for many
centuries a favourite occupation of fairies, gypsies,
and the brigands of the East. The usual procedure
is to attach a person and hold it to ransom. If the
ransom is not paid an ear or a finger may be cut from
the captive and despatched to those interested, with
the statement that an arm or a leg will follow in
a week unless suitable arrangements are entered
into.”
“ Do you understand,” said the Thin Woman
passionately, “ that it is your own children who have
been kidnapped? ”
“ I do not,” said the Philosopher. “ This course,
however, is rarely followed by the fairy people:
they do not ordinarily steal for ransom, but for
love of thieving, or from some other obscure and
possibly functional causes, and the victim is retained
in their forts or duns until by the effluxion of time
they forget their origin and become peaceable citizens
of the fairy state. Kidnapping is not by any
means confined to either humanity or the fairy
people.”
32
I
THE COMING OF PAN
“ Monster,” said the Thin Woman in a deep
voice, “ will you listen to me? ”
“ I will not,” said the Philosopher. “ Many of
the insectivora also practise this custom. Ants, for
example, are a respectable race living in well-ordered
communities. They have attained to a most complex
and artificial civilisation, and will frequently adventure
far afield on colonising or other expeditions from
whence they return with a rich booty of aphides
and other stock, who thenceforward become the
servants and domestic creatures of the republic.
As they neither kill nor eat their captives, this
practice will be termed kidnapping. The same
may be said of bees, a hardy and industrious
race living in hexagonal cells which are very
difficult to make. Sometimes, on lacking a queen
of their own, they have been observed to abduct
one from a less powerful neighbour, and use her
for their own purposes without shame, mercy, or
remorse.”
“ Will you not understand? ” screamed the Thin
Woman.
“ I will not,” said the Philosopher. “ Semi-
tropical apes have been rumoured to kidnap children,
and are reported to use them very tenderly indeed,
sharing their coconuts, yams, plantains, and other
equatorial provender with the largest generosity, and
conveying their delicate captives from tree to tree
(often at great distances from each other and from
the ground) with the most guarded solicitude and
benevolence.”
“ I am going to bed,” said the Thin Woman;
“ your stirabout is on the hob.”
33
D
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK. I
“ Are there lumps in it, my dear? ” said the
Philosopher.
“ I hope there are,” replied the Thin Woman,
and she leaped into bed.
That night the Philosopher was afflicted with the
most extraordinary attack of rheumatism he had ever
known, nor did he get any ease until the grey morning
wearied his lady into a reluctant slumber.
34
CHAPTER VI
The Thin Woman of Inis Magrath slept very late
that morning, but when she did awaken her im¬
patience was so urgent that she could scarcely delay
to eat her breakfast. Immediately after she had
eaten she put on her bonnet and shawl and went
through the pine wood in the direction of Gort na
Cloca Mora. In a short time she reached the rocky
field, and, walking over to the tree in the south-east
corner, she picked up a small stone and hammered
loudly against the trunk of the tree. She hammered
in a peculiar fashion, giving two knocks and then
three knocks, and then one knock. A voice came up
from the hole.
“ Who is that, please? ” said the voice.
“ Ban na Droid of Inis Magrath, and well you
know it,” was her reply.
“ I am coming up. Noble Woman,” said the voice,
and in another moment the Leprecaun leaped out
of the hole.
35
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
“ Where are Seumas and Brigid Beg? ” said the
Thin Woman sternly.
“ How would I know where they are,” replied
the Leprecaun. “ Wouldn’t they be at home now? ”
“ If they were at home I wouldn’t have come
here looking for them,” was her reply. “ It is my
belief that you have them.”
“ Search me,” said the Leprecaun, opening his
waistcoat.
“ They are down there in your little house,” said
the Thin Woman angrily, “ and the sooner you let
them up the better it will be for yourself and your
five brothers.”
“ Noble Woman,” said the Leprecaun, “ you
can go down yourself into our little house and look.
I can’t say fairer than that.”
“ I wouldn’t fit down there,” said she. “ I’m
too big.”
“ You know the way for making yourself little,”
replied the Leprecaun.
“ But I mightn’t be able to make myself big
again,” said the Thin Woman, “ and then you and
your dirty brothers would have it all your own way.
If you don’t let the children up,” she continued,
“ I’ll raise the Shee of Croghan Conghaile against
you. You know what happened to the Cluricauns
of Oilean na Glas when they stole the Queen’s baby—
It will be a worse thing than that for you. If the
children are not back in my house before moonrise
this night, I’ll go round to my people. Just tell that
to your five ugly brothers. Health with you,” she
added, and strode away.
“ Health with yourself, Noble Woman,” said the
36
I
THE COMING OF PAN
Leprecaun, and he stood on one leg until she was out
of sight and then he slid down into the hole again.
When the Thin Woman was going back through
the pine wood she saw Meehawl MacMurrachu travel¬
ling in the same direction and his brows were in a
tangle of perplexity.
“ God be with you, Meehawl MacMurrachu,”
said she.
“ God and Mary be with you, ma’am,” he
replied, “ I am in great trouble this day.”
“ Why wouldn’t you be? ” said the Thin Woman.
“ I came up to have a talk with your husband
about a particular thing.”
“ If it’s talk you want you have come to a good
house, Meehawl.”
“ He’s a powerful man right enough,” said
Meehawl.
After a few minutes the Thin Woman spoke
again.
“ I can get the reek of his pipe from here. Let
you go right in to him now and I’ll stay outside for
a while, for the sound of your two voices would give
me a pain in my head.”
“ Whatever will please you will please me, ma’am,”
said her companion, and he went into the little house.
Meehawl MacMurrachu had good reason to be
perplexed. He was the father of one child only, and
she was the most beautiful girl in the whole world.
The pity of it was that no one at all knew she was
beautiful, and she did not even know it herself. At
times when she bathed in the eddy of a mountain
stream and saw her reflection looking up from the
placid water she thought that she looked very nice,
37
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
and then a great sadness would come upon her, for
what is the use of looking nice if there is nobody to
see one’s beauty? Beauty, also, is usefulness. The
arts as well as the crafts, the graces equally with the
utilities must stand up in the market-place and be
judged by the gombeen men.
The only house near to her father’s was that
occupied by Bessie Hannigan. The other few houses
were scattered widely with long, quiet miles of hill
and bog between them, so that she had hardly seen
more than a couple of men beside her father since she
was born. She helped her father and mother in all
the small businesses of their house, and every day
also she drove their three cows and two goats to
pasture on the mountain slopes. Here through the
sunny days the years had passed in a slow, warm
thoughtlessness wherein, without thinking, many
thoughts had entered into her mind and many
pictures hung for a moment like birds in the thin
air. At first, and for a long time, she had been
happy enough; there were many things in which a
child might be interested: the spacious heavens which
never wore the same beauty on any day; the in¬
numerable little creatures living among the grasses
or in the heather; the steep swing of a bird down
from the mountain to the infinite plains below; the
little flowers which were so contented each in its
peaceful place; the bees gathering food for their
houses, and the stout beetles who are always losing
their way in the dusk. These things, and many
others, interested her. The three cows after they had
grazed for a long time would come and lie by her
side and look at her as they chewed their cud, and
38
I
THE COMING OF PAN
the goats would prance from the bracken to push
their heads against her breast because they loved her.
Indeed, everything in her quiet world loved this
girl: but very slowly there was growing in her
consciousness an unrest, a disquietude to which she
had hitherto been a stranger. Sometimes an infinite
weariness oppressed her to the earth. A thought was
born in her mind and it had no name. It was grow¬
ing and could not be expressed. She had no words
wherewith to meet it, to exorcise or greet this stranger
who, more and more insistently and pleadingly,
tapped upon her doors and begged to be spoken to,
admitted and caressed and nourished. A thought is
a real thing and words are only its raiment, but a
thought is as shy as a virgin; unless it is fittingly
apparelled we may not look on its shadowy naked¬
ness: it will fly from us and only return again in
the darkness crying in a thin, childish voice which
we may not comprehend until, with aching minds,
listening and divining, we at last fashion for it those
symbols which are its protection and its banner. So
she could not understand the touch that came to her
from afar and yet how intimately, the whisper so
aloof and yet so thrillingly personal. The standard
of either language or experience was not hers; she
could listen but not think, she could feel but not
know, her eyes looked forward and did not see, her
hands groped in the sunlight and felt nothing. It
was like the edge of a little wind which stirred her
tresses but could not lift them, or the first white peep
of the dawn which is neither light nor darkness. But
she listened, not with her ears but with her blood.
The fingers of her soul stretched out to clasp a
39
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
stranger’s hand, and her disquietude was quickened
through with an eagerness which was neither physical
nor mental, for neither her body nor her mind was
definitely interested. Some dim region between these
grew alarmed and watched and waited and did not
sleep or grow weary at all.
One morning she lay among the long, warm
grasses. She watched a bird who soared and sang
for a little time, and then it sped swiftly away down
the steep air and out of sight in the blue distance.
Even when it was gone the song seemed to ring in
her ears. It seemed to linger with her as a faint,
sweet echo, coming fitfully, with little pauses as though
a wind disturbed it, and careless, distant eddies.
After a few moments she knew it was not a bird.
No bird’s song had that consecutive melody, for their
themes are as careless as their wings. She sat up and
looked about her, but there was nothing in sight:
the mountains sloped gently above her and away to
the clear sky; around her the scattered clumps of
heather were drowsing in the sunlight; far below
she could see her father’s house, a little grey patch
near some trees—and then the music stopped and
left her wondering.
She could not find her goats anywhere although
for a long time she searched. They came to her at
last of their own accord from behind a fold in the
hills, and they were more wildly excited than she
had ever seen them before. Even the cows forsook
their solemnity and broke into awkward gambols
around her. As she walked home that evening a
strange elation taught her feet to dance. Hither and
thither she flitted in front of the beasts and behind
40
I
THE COMING OF PAN
them. Her feet tripped to a wayward measure.
There was a tune in her ears and she danced to it,
throwing her arms out and above her head and
swaying and bending as she went. The full freedom
of her body was hers now: the lightness and poise
and certainty of her limbs delighted her, and the
strength that did not tire delighted her also. The
evening was full of peace and quietude, the mellow,
dusky sunlight made a path for her feet, and every¬
where through the wide fields birds were flashing and
singing, and she sang with them a song that had no
words and wanted none.
The following day she heard the music again,
faint and thin, wonderfully sweet and as wild as the
song of a bird, but it was a melody which no bird
would adhere to. A theme was repeated again and
again. In the middle of trills, grace-notes, runs and
catches it recurred with a strange, almost holy,
solemnity,—a hushing, slender melody full of austerity
and aloofness. There was something in it to set her
heart beating. She yearned to it with her ears and
her lips. Was it joy, menace, carelessness? She did
not know, but this she did know, that however terrible
it was personal to her. It was her unborn thought
strangely audible and felt rather than understood.
On that day she did not see anybody either. She
drove her charges home in the evening listlessly and
the beasts also were very quiet.
When the music came again she made no effort
to discover where it came from. She only listened,
and when the tune was ended she saw a figure rise
from the fold of a little hill. The sunlight was
gleaming from his arms and shoulders but the rest
4i
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
of his body was hidden by the bracken, and he did
not look at her as he went away playing softly on a
double pipe.
The next day he did look at her. He stood
waist-deep in greenery fronting her squarely. She
had never seen so strange a face before. Her eyes
almost died on him as she gazed and he returned her
look for a long minute with an intent, expressionless
regard. His hair was a cluster of brown curls, his
nose was little and straight, and his wide mouth
drooped sadly at the corners. His eyes were wide
and most mournful, and his forehead was very broad
and white. His sad eyes and mouth almost made
her weep.
When he turned away he smiled at her, and it
was as though the sun had shone suddenly in a dark
place, banishing all sadness and gloom. Then he
went mincingly away. As he went he lifted the
slender double reed to his lips and blew a few careless
notes.
The next day he fronted her as before, looking
down to her eyes from a short distance. He played
for only a few moments, and fitfully, and then he
came to her. When he left the bracken the girl
suddenly clapped her hands against her eyes affrighted.
There was something different, terrible about him.
The upper part of his body was beautiful, but the
lower part. . . . She dared not look at him again.
She would have risen and fled away but she feared
he might pursue her, and the thought of such a chase
and the inevitable capture froze her blood. The
thought of anything behind us is always terrible. The
sound of pursuing feet is worse than the murder from
42
HE STOOD WAIST-DEEP IN GREENERY FRONTING
HER SQUARELY
i THE COMING OF PAN
which we fly—So she sat still and waited but nothing
happened. At last, desperately, she dropped her
hands. He was sitting on the ground a few paces
from her. He was not looking at her but far away
sidewards across the spreading hill. His legs were
crossed; they were shaggy and hoofed like the legs
of a goat: but she would not look at these because of
his wonderful, sad, grotesque face. Gaiety is good
to look upon and an innocent face is delightful to
our souls, but no woman can resist sadness or weakness,
and ugliness she dare not resist. Her nature leaps
to be the comforter. It is her reason. It exalts her
to an ecstasy wherein nothing but the sacrifice of
herself has any proportion. Men are not fathers by
instinct but by chance, but women are mothers
beyond thought, beyond instinct which is the father
of thought. Motherliness, pity, self-sacrifice—these
are the charges of her primal cell, and not even the
discovery that men are comedians, liars, and egotists
will wean her from this. As she looked at the pathos
of his face she repudiated the hideousness of his body.
The beast which is in all men is glossed by women;
it is his childishness, the destructive energy inseparable
from youth and high spirits, and it is always forgiven
by women, often forgotten, sometimes, and not rarely,
cherished and fostered.
After a few moments of this silence he placed the
reed to his lips and played a plaintive little air, and
then he spoke to her in a strange voice, coming like
a wind from distant places.
“ What is your name, Shepherd Girl? ” said he.
“ Caitilin, Ingin Ni Murrachu,” she whispered.
“ Daughter of Murrachu,” said he, “ I have come
43
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
from a far place where there are high hills. The men
and maidens who follow their flocks in that place
know me and love me for I am the Master of the
Shepherds. They sing and dance and are glad when
I come to them in the sunlight; but in this country
no people have done any reverence to me. The
shepherds fly away when they hear my pipes in the
pastures; the maidens scream in fear w'hen I dance
to them in the meadows. I am very lonely in this
strange country. You also, although you danced to
the music of my pipes, have covered your face against
me and made no reverence.”
“ I will do whatever you say if it is right,” said
she.
“ You must not do anything because it is right,
but because it is your wish. Right is a word and
Wrong is a word, but the sun shines in the morning
and the dew falls in the dusk without thinking of
these words which have no meaning. The bee flies
to the flower and the seed goes abroad and is happy.
Is that right, Shepherd Girl?—it is wrong also. I
come to you because the bee goes to the flower—it
is wrong! If I did not come to you to whom would
I go? There is no right and no wrong but only the
will of the gods.”
“ I am afraid of you,” said the girl.
“ You fear me because my legs are shaggy like
the legs of a goat. Look at them well, O Maiden,
and know that they are indeed the legs of a beast
and then you will not be afraid any more. Do you
not love beasts? Surely you should love them for
they yearn to you humbly or fiercely, craving your
hand upon their heads as I do. If I were not fashioned
44
i THE COMING OF PAN
thus I would not come to you because I would not
need you. Man is a god and a brute. He aspires
to the stars with his head but his feet are contented in
the grasses of the field, and when he forsakes the
brute upon which he stands then there will be no
more men and no more women and the immortal
gods will blow this world away like smoke.”
“ I don’t know what you want me to do,” said
the girl.
“ I want you to want me. I want you to forget
right and wrong; to be as happy as the beasts, as
careless as the flowers and the birds. To live to the
depths of your nature as well as to the heights. Truly
there are stars in the heights and they will be a
garland for your forehead. But the depths are equal
to the heights. Wondrous deep are the depths, very
fertile is the lowest deep. There are stars there also,
brighter than the stars on high. The name of the
heights is Wisdom and the name of the depths is
Love. How shall they come together and be fruitful
if you do not plunge deeply and fearlessly? Wisdom
is the spirit and the wings of the spirit, Love is the
shaggy beast that goes down. Gallantly he dives,
below thought, beyond Wisdom, to rise again as high
above these as he had first descended. Wisdom is
righteous and clean, but Love is unclean and holy.
I sing of the beast and the descent: the great unclean
purging itself in fire: the thought that is not born
in the measure or the ice or the head, but in the feet
and the hot blood and the pulse of fury. The Crown
of Life is not lodged in the sun: the wise gods have
buried it deeply where the thoughtful will not find
it, nor the good: but the Gay Ones, the Adventurous
45
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK. I
Ones, the Careless Plungers, they will bring it to
the wise and astonish them. All things are seen in
the light—How shall we value that which is easy to
see? But the precious things which are hidden, they
will be more precious for our search: they will be
beautiful with our sorrow: they will be noble because
of our desire for them. Come away with me.
Shepherd Girl, through the fields, and we will be
careless and happy, and we will leave thought to find
us when it can, for that is the duty of thought, and
it is more anxious to discover us than we are to be
found.”
So Caitilin Ni Murrachu arose and went with
him through the fields, and she did not go with him
because of love, nor because his words had been
understood by her, but only because he was naked
and unashamed.
46
CHAPTER VII
It was on account of his daughter that Meehawl
MacMurrachu had come to visit the Philosopher.
He did not know what had become of her, and the
facts he had to lay before his adviser were very few.
He left the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath taking
snuff under a pine tree and went into the house.
“ God be with all here,” said he as he entered.
“ God be with yourself, Meehawl MacMurrachu,”
said the Philosopher.
“ I am in great trouble this day, sir,” said Meehawl,
“ and if you would give me an advice I’d be greatly
beholden to you.”
“ I can give you that,” replied the Philosopher.
“ None better than your honour and no trouble
to you either. It was a powerful advice you gave
me about the washboard, and if I didn’t come here
to thank you before this it was not because I didn’t
want to come, but that I couldn’t move hand or foot
by dint of the cruel rheumatism put upon me by the
47
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
Leprecauns of Gort na Cloca Mora, bad cess to them
for ever: twisted I was the way you’d get a squint
in your eye if you only looked at me, and the pain I
suffered would astonish you.”
“ It would not,” said the Philosopher.
“ No matter,” said Meehawl. “ What I came
about was my young daughter Caitilin. Sight or
light of her I haven’t had for three days. My wife
said first, that it was the fairies had taken her, and
then she said it was a travelling man that had a
musical instrument she went away with, and after
that she said, that maybe the girl was lying dead in the
butt of a ditch with her eyes wide open, and she staring
broadly at the moon in the night time and the sun in
the day until the crows would be finding her out.”
The Philosopher drew his chair closer to
Meehawl.
“ Daughters,” said he, “ have been a cause of
anxiety to their parents ever since they were in¬
stituted. The flightiness of the female temperament
is very evident in those who have not arrived at the
years which teach how to hide faults and frailties,
and, therefore, indiscretions bristle from a young girl
the way branches do from a bush.”
“ The person who would deny that-” said
Meehawl.
“ Female children, however, have the particular
sanction of nature. They are produced in astonish¬
ing excess over males, and may, accordingly, be
admitted as dominant to the male; but the well-
proven law that the minority shall always control the
majority will relieve our minds from a fear which
might otherwise become intolerable.”
48
I
THE COMING OF PAN
“ It’s true enough,” said Meehawl. “ Have you
noticed, sir, that in a litter of pups-”
“ I have not,” said the Philosopher. “ Certain
trades and professions, it is curious to note, tend to
be perpetuated in the female line. The sovereign
profession among bees and ants is always female, and
publicans also descend on the distaff side. You will
have noticed that every publican has three daughters
of extraordinary charms. Lacking these signs we
would do well to look askance at such a man’s liquor,
divining that in his brew there will be an undue
percentage of water, for if his primogeniture is in¬
fected how shall his honesty escape? ”
“ It would take a wise head to answer that,” said
Meehawl.
“ It would not,” said the Philosopher. “ Through¬
out nature the female tends to polygamy.”
“ If,” said Meehawl, “ that unfortunate daughter
of mine is lying dead in a ditch-”
“ It doesn’t matter,” said the Philosopher. “ Many
races have endeavoured to place some limits to this
increase in females. Certain Oriental peoples have
conferred the titles of divinity on crocodiles, serpents,
and tigers of the jungle, and have fed these with their
surplusage of daughters. In China, likewise, such
sacrifices are defended as honourable and economic
practices. But, broadly speaking, if daughters have
to be curtailed I prefer your method of losing them
rather than the religio-hysterical compromises of the
Orient.”
“ I give you my word, sir,” said Meehawl, “ that
I don’t know what you are talking about at all.”
“ That,” said the Philosopher, “ may be accounted
49 e
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
for in three ways—firstly, there is a lack of cerebral
continuity: that is, faulty attention; secondly,, it
might be due to a local peculiarity in the conformation
of the skull, or, perhaps, a superficial instead of a
deep indenting of the cerebral coil; and thirdly ”
“ Did you ever hear,” said Meehawl, “ of the
man that had the scalp of his head blown off by a
gun, and they soldered the bottom of a tin dish to
the top of his skull the way you could hear his brains
ticking inside of it for all the world like a Waterbury
watch? ” .
“ I did not,” said the Philosopher. Thirdly,
it may-”
“ It’s my daughter, Caitilin, sir,” said Meehawl
humbly. “ Maybe she is lying in the butt of a ditch
and the crows picking her eyes out.”
“ What did she die of? ” said the Philosopher.
“ My wife only put it that maybe she was dead,
and that maybe she was taken by the fairies, and that
maybe she went away with the travelling man that
had the musical instrument. She said it was^a
concertina, but I think myself it was a flute he had.
“ Who was this traveller? ”
“ I never saw him,” said Meehawl, “ but one day
I went a few perches up the hill and I heard him
playing—thin, squeaky music it was like you d be
blowing out of a tin whistle. I looked about for him
everywhere, but not a bit of him could I see.
“ Eh? ” said the Philosopher.
“ I looked about-” said Meehawl.
“ I know,” said the Philosopher. “ Did you
happen to look at your goats? ”
“ I couldn’t well help doing that,” said Meehawl.
5°
I
THE COMING OF PAN
“ What were they doing? ” said the Philosopher
eagerly.
“ They were pucking each other across the field,
and standing on their hind legs and cutting such
capers that I laughed till I had a pain in my stomach
at the gait of them.”
“ This is very interesting,” said the Philosopher.
“ Do you tell me so? ” said Meehawl.
“ I do,” said the Philosopher, “ and for this reason
—most of the races of the world have at one time or
another-”
“ It’s my little daughter, Caitilin, sir,” said
Meehawl.
“ I’m attending to her,” the Philosopher replied.
“ I thank you kindly,” returned Meehawl.
The Philosopher continued—
“ Most of the races of the world have at one time
or another been visited by this deity, whose title is
the ‘ Great God Pan,’ but there is no record of his
ever having journeyed to Ireland, and, certainly
within historic times, he has not set foot on these
shores. He lived for a great number of years in
Egypt, Persia, and Greece, and although his empire
is supposed to be world-wide, this universal sway has
always been, and always will be, contested; but
nevertheless, however sharply his empire may be
curtailed, he will never be without a kingdom wherein
his exercise of sovereign rights will be gladly and
passionately acclaimed.”
“ Is he one of the old gods, sir? ” said Meehawl.
“ He is,” replied the Philosopher, “ and his
coming intends no good to this country. Have you
any idea why he should have captured your daughter? ”
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
“ Not an idea in the world.”
“ Is your daughter beautiful? ”
“ I couldn’t tell you, because I never thought of
looking at her that way. But she is a good milker,
and as strong as a man. She can lift a bag of meal
under her arm easier than I can; but she s a timid
creature for all that.”
“ Whatever the reason is I am certain that he has
the girl, and I am inclined to think that he was
directed to her by the Leprecauns of the Gort. You
know they are at feud with you ever since their bird
was killed? ”
“ I am not likely to forget it, and they racking
me day and night with torments.”
“ You may be sure,” said the Philosopher, “ that
if he’s anywhere at all it’s at Gort na Cloca Mora he
is, for, being a stranger, he wouldn’t know where to
go unless he was directed, and they know every hole
and corner of this countryside since ancient times.
I’d go up myself and have a talk with him, but it
wouldn’t be a bit of good, and it wouldn’t be any
use your going either. He has power over all grown
people so that they either go and get drunk or else
they fall in love with every person they meet, and
commit assaults and things I wouldn t like to be
telling you about. The only folk who can go near
him at all are little children, because he has no power
over them until they grow to the sensual age, and then
he exercises lordship over them as over everyone else.
I’ll send my two children with a message to him to
say that he isn’t doing the decent thing, and that if
he doesn’t let the girl alone and go back to his own
country we’ll send for Angus (5g.”
5 2
i THE COMING OF PAN
“ He’d make short work of him, I’m thinking.”
“ He might surely; but he may take the girl for
himself all the same.”
“ Well, I’d sooner he had her than the other one,
for he’s one of ourselves anyhow, and the devil you
know is better than the devil you don’t know.”
“ Angus Og is a god,” said the Philosopher
severely.
“ I know that, sir,” replied Meehawl; “ it’s only
a way of talking I have. But how will your honour
get at Angus? for I heard say that he hadn’t been
seen for a hundred years, except one night only when
he talked to a man for half an hour on Kilmasheogue.”
“ I’ll find him, sure enough,” replied the
Philosopher.
“ I’ll warrant you will,” replied Meehawl heartily
as he stood up. “ Long life and good health to your
honour,” said he as he turned away.
The Philosopher lit his pipe.
“ We live as long as we are let,” said he, “ and
we get the health we deserve. Your salutation em¬
bodies a reflection on death which is not philosophic.
We must acquiesce in all logical progressions. The
merging of opposites is completion. Life runs to
death as to its goal, and we should go towards that
next stage of experience either carelessly as to what
must be, or with a good, honest curiosity as to what
may be.”
“ There’s not much fun in being dead, sir,” said
Meehawl.
“ How do you know? ” said the Philosopher.
“ I know well enough,” replied Meehawl.
53
CHAPTER VIII
When the children leaped into the hole at the foot
of the tree they found themselves sliding down a dark,
narrow slant which dropped them softly enough into
a little room. This room was hollowed out immedi¬
ately under the tree, and great care had been taken
not to disturb any of the roots which ran here and
there through the chamber in the strangest criss-cross,
twisted fashion. To get across such a place one had
to walk round, and jump over, and duck under
perpetually. Some of the roots had formed them¬
selves very conveniently into low seats and narrow,
uneven tables, and at the bottom all the roots ran into
the floor and away again in the direction required
by their business. After the clear air outside this
place was very dark to the children s eyes, so that
they could not see anything for a few minutes, but
after a little time their eyes became accustomed to
the semi-obscurity and they were able to see quite
well. The first things they became aware of were
54
BK. I
THE COMING OF PAN
six small men who were seated on low roots. They
were all dressed in tight green clothes and little
leathern aprons, and they wore tall green hats which
wobbled when they moved. They were all busily
engaged making shoes. One was drawing out wax
ends on his knee, another was softening pieces of
leather in a bucket of water, another was polishing
the instep of a shoe with a piece of curved bone,
another was paring down a heel with a short broad-
bladed knife, and another was hammering wooden
pegs into a sole. He had all the pegs in his mouth,
which gave him a wide-faced, jolly expression, and
according as a peg was wanted he blew it into his
hand and hit it twice with his hammer, and then
he blew another peg, and he always blew the peg
with the right end uppermost, and never had to
hit it more than twice. He was a person well worth
watching.
The children had slid down so unexpectedly that
they almost forgot their good manners, but as soon
as Seumas Beg discovered that he was really in a
room he removed his cap and stood up.
“ God be with all here,” said he.
The Leprecaun who had brought them lifted
Brigid from the floor to which amazement still con¬
strained her.
“ Sit down on that little root, child of my heart,”
said he, “ and you can knit stockings for us.”
“ Yes, sir,” said Brigid meekly.
The Leprecaun took four knitting needles and a
ball of green wool from the top of a high, horizontal
root. He had to climb over one, go round three
and climb up two roots to get at it, and he did this
55
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
so easily that it did not seem a bit of trouble. He
gave the needles and wool to Brigid Beg.
“ Do you know how to turn the heel, Brigid
Beg? ” said he.
“ No, sir,” said Brigid.
“ Well, I’ll show you how when you come to it.”
The other six Leprecauns had ceased work and
were looking at the children. Seumas turned to
them.
“ God bless the work,” said he politely.
One of the Leprecauns, who had a grey, puckered
face and a thin fringe of grey whisker very far under
his chin, then spoke.
“ Come over here, Seumas Beg,” said he, “ and
I’ll measure you for a pair of shoes. Put your foot
up on that root.”
The boy did so, and the Leprecaun took the
measure of his foot with a wooden rule.
“ Now, Brigid Beg, show me your foot,” and he
measured her also. “ They’ll be ready for you in
the morning.”
“ Do you never do anything else but make shoes,
sir? ” said Seumas.
“ We do not,” replied the Leprecaun, “ except
when we want new clothes, and then we have to make
them, but we grudge every minute spent making any¬
thing else except shoes, because that is the proper
work for a Leprecaun. In the night time we go
about the country into people’s houses and we clip
little pieces off their money, and so, bit by bit, we
get a crock of gold together, because, do you see, a
Leprecaun has to have a crock of gold so that if he’s
captured by men folk he may be able to ransom
56
1
THE COMING OF PAN
himself. But that seldom happens, because it’s a
great disgrace altogether to be captured by a man,
and we’ve practised so long dodging among the roots
here that we can easily get away from them. Of
course, now and again we are caught; but men are
fools, and we always escape without having to pay
the ransom at all. We wear green clothes because
it’s the colour of the grass and the leaves, and when
we sit down under a bush or lie in the grass they just
walk by without noticing us.”
“ Will you let me see your crock of gold? ” said
Seumas.
The Leprecaun looked at him fixedly for a
moment.
“ Do you like griddle bread and milk? ” said he.
“ I like it well,” Seumas answered.
“ Then you had better have some,” and the
Leprecaun took a piece of griddle bread from the
shelf and filled two saucers with milk.
While the children were eating the Leprecauns
asked them many questions—
“ What time do you get up in the morning? ”
“ Seven o’clock,” replied Seumas.
“ And what do you have for breakfast? ”
“ Stirabout and milk,” he replied.
“ It’s good food,” said the Leprecaun. “ What
do you have for dinner? ”
“ Potatoes and milk,” said Seumas.
“ It’s not bad at all,” said the Leprecaun. “ And
what do you have for supper? ”
Brigid answered this time because her brother’s
mouth was full.
“ Bread and milk, sir,” said she.
57
BK.
THE CROCK OF GOLD
“ There’s nothing better,” said the Leprecaun.
“ And then we go to bed,” continued Brigid.
“ Why wouldn’t you? ” said the Leprecaun.
It was at this point the Thin Woman of Inis
Magrath knocked on the tree trunk and demanded
that the children should be returned to her.
When she had gone away the Leprecauns held a
consultation, whereat it was decided that they could
not afford to anger the Thin Woman and the Shee
of Croghan Conghaile, so they shook hands with the
children and bade them good-bye. The Leprecaun
who had enticed them away from home brought
them back again, and on parting he begged the
children to visit Gort na Cloca Mora whenever they
felt inclined.
“ There’s always a bit of griddle bread or potato
cake, and a noggin of milk for a friend,” said he.
“ You are very kind, sir,” replied Seumas, and
his sister said the same words.
As the Leprecaun walked away they stood watch¬
ing him.
“ Do you remember,” said Seumas, “ the way he
hopped and waggled his leg the last time he was
here? ”
“ I do so,” replied Brigid.
“ Well, he isn’t hopping or doing anything at all
this time,” said Seumas.
“ He’s not in good humour to-night,” said Brigid,
“ but I like him.”
“ So do I,” said Seumas.
When they went into the house the Thin Woman
of Inis Magrath was very glad to see them, and she
baked a cake with currants in it, and also gave them
58
1
DO YOU REMEMBER,” SUD SEUMAS, “ THE WAY HE HOPPED
AND WAGGLED HIS LEG THE LAST TIME HE WAS HERE?”
i THE COMING OF PAN
both stirabout and potatoes; but the Philosopher did
not notice that they had been away at all. He said
at last that “ talking was bad wit, that women were
always making a fuss, that children should be fed,
but not fattened, and that beds were meant to be
slept in.” The Thin Woman replied “ that he was
a grisly old man without bowels, that she did not
know what she had married him for, that he was three
times her age, and that no one would believe what
she had to put up with.”
59
CHAPTER IX
Pursuant to his arrangement with Meehawl Mac-
Murrachu, the Philosopher sent the children in search
of Pan. He gave them the fullest instructions as
to how they should address the Sylvan Deity, and
then, having received the admonishments of the Thin
Woman of Inis Magrath, the children departed in
the early morning.
When they reached the clearing in the pine wood,
through which the sun was blazing, they sat down
for a little while to rest in the heat. Birds were
continually darting down this leafy shaft, and diving
away into the dark wood. These birds always had
something in their beaks. One would have a worm,
or a snail, or a grasshopper, or a little piece of wool
torn off a sheep, or a scrap of cloth, or a piece of hay;
and when they had put these things in a certain place
they flew up the sun-shaft again and looked for some¬
thing else to bring home. On seeing the children
each of the birds waggled his wings, and made a
60
BK. I
THE COMING OF PAN
particular sound. They said “ caw ” and “ chip
and “twit” and “tut” and “what” and “pit”;
and one, whom the youngsters liked very much,
always said “ tit-tit-tit-tit-tit.” The children were
fond of him because he was so all-of-a-sudden. They
never knew where he was going to fly next, and they
did not believe he knew himself. He would fly back¬
wards and forwards, and up and down, and sideways
and bawways—all, so to speak, in the one breath.
He did this because he was curious to see what was
happening everywhere, and, as something is always
happening everywhere, he was never able to fly in a
straight line for more than the littlest distance. He
was a cowardly bird too, and continually fancied that
some person was going to throw a stone at him from
behind a bush, or a wall, or a tree, and these imaginary
dangers tended to make his journeyings still more
wayward and erratic. He never flew where he
wanted to go himself, but only where God directed
him, and so he did not fare at all badly.
The children knew each of the birds by their
sounds, and always said these words to them when
they came near. For a little time they had difficulty
in saying the right word to the right bird, and some¬
times said “ chip ” when the salutation should have
been “ tut.” The birds always resented this, and
would scold them angrily, but after a little practice
they never made any mistakes at all. There was one
bird, a big, black fellow, who loved to be talked to.
He used to sit on the ground beside the children,
and say “ caw ” as long as they would repeat it after
him. He often wasted a whole morning in talk, but
none of the other birds remained for more than a
61
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
few minutes at a time. They were always busy in
the morning, but in the evening they had more
leisure, and would stay and chat as long as the children
wanted them. The awkward thing was that in the
evening all the birds wanted to talk at the same
moment, so that the youngsters never knew which
of them to answer. Seumas Beg got out of that
difficulty for a while by learning to whistle their
notes, but, even so, they spoke with such rapidity
that he could not by any means keep pace with them.
Brigid could only whistle one note; it was a little
flat “ whoo ” sound, which the birds all laughed at,
and after a few trials she refused to whistle any more.
While they were sitting two rabbits came to play
about in the brush. They ran round and round in
a circle, and all their movements were very quick
and twisty. Sometimes they jumped over each other
six or seven times in succession, and every now and
then they sat upright on their hind legs, and washed
their faces with their paws. At other times they
picked up a blade of grass, which they ate with
great deliberation, pretending all the time that it
was a complicated banquet of cabbage leaves and
lettuce.
While the children were playing with the rabbits
an ancient, stalwart he-goat came prancing through
the bracken. He was an old acquaintance of theirs,
and he enjoyed lying beside them to have his fore¬
head scratched with a piece of sharp stick. His fore¬
head was hard as rock, and the hair grew there as
sparse as grass does on a wall, or rather the way moss
grows on a wall—it was a mat instead of a crop.
His horns were long and very sharp, and brilliantly
i THE COMING OF PAN
polished. On this day the he-goat had two chains
around his neck—one was made of buttercups and
the other was made of daisies, and the children
wondered to each other who it was could have woven
these so carefully. They asked the he-goat this
question, but he only looked at them and did not
say a word. The children liked examining this goat’s
eyes; they were very big, and of the queerest light-
grey colour. They had a strange, steadfast look, and
had also at times a look of queer, deep intelligence,
and at other times they had a fatherly and benevolent
expression, and at other times again, especially when
he looked sidewards, they had a mischievous, light—
and-airy, daring, mocking, inviting and terrifying
look; but he always looked brave and unconcerned.
When the he-goat’s forehead had been scratched as
much as he desired he arose from between the children
and went pacing away lightly through the wood.
The children ran after him and each caught hold of
one of his horns, and he ambled and reared between
them while they danced along on his either side
singing snatches of bird songs, and scraps of old tunes
which the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath had learned
among the people of the Shee.
In a little time they came to Gort na Cloca Mora,
but here the he-goat did not stop. They went past
the big tree of the Leprecauns, through a broken
part of the hedge and into another rough field. The
sun was shining gloriously. There was scarcely a
wind at all to stir the harsh grasses. Far and near
was silence and warmth, an immense, cheerful peace.
Across the sky a few light clouds sailed gently on a
blue so vast that the eye failed before that horizon.
6 3
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
A few bees sounded their deep chant, and now and
again a wasp rasped hastily on his journey. Than
these there was no sound of any kind. So peaceful,
innocent and safe did everything appear that it might
have been the childhood of the world as it was of
the morning.
The children, still clinging to the friendly goat,
came near the edge of the field, which here sloped
more steeply to the mountain top. Great boulders,
slightly covered with lichen and moss, were strewn
about, and around them the bracken and gorse were
growing, and in every crevice of these rocks there
were plants w'hose little, tight-fisted roots gripped a
desperate, adventurous habitation in a soil scarcely
more than half an inch deep. At some time these
rocks had been smitten so fiercely that the solid
granite surfaces had shattered into fragments. At
one place a sheer wall of stone, ragged and battered,
looked harshly out from the thin vegetation. To
this rocky wall the he-goat danced. At one place
there was a hole in the wall covered by a thick brush.
The goat pushed his way behind this growth and
disappeared. Then the children, curious to see where
he had gone, pushed through also. Behind the bush
they found a high, narrow opening, and when they
had rubbed their legs, which smarted from the stings
of nettles, thistles and gorse prickles, they went into
the hole which they thought was a place the goat
had for sleeping in on cold, wet nights. After a few
paces they found the passage was quite comfortably
big, and then they saw a light, and in another moment
they were blinking at the god Pan and Caitilin Ni
Murrachu.
6 4
I
THE COMING OF PAN
Caitilin knew them at once and came forward
with a welcome.
“ O, Seumas Beg,” she cried reproachfully, “ how
dirty you have let your feet get. Why don’t you
walk in the grassy places? And you, Brigid, have a
right to be ashamed of yourself to have your hands
the way they are. Come over here at once.”
Every child knows that every grown female person
in the world has authority to wash children and to
give them food; that is what grown people were
made for, consequently Seumas and Brigid Beg sub¬
mitted to the scouring for which Caitilin made
instant preparation. When they were cleaned she
pointed to a couple of flat stones against the wall
of the cave and bade them sit down and be good,
and this the children did, fixing their eyes on Pan
with the cheerful gravity and curiosity which good-
natured youngsters always give to a stranger.
Pan, who had been lying on a couch of dried
grass, sat up and bent an equally cheerful regard on
the children.
Shepherd Girl,” said he, “ who are those
children? ”
“ They are the children of the Philosophers of
Coilla Doraca; the Grey Woman of Dun Gortin and
the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath are their mothers,
and they are decent, poor children, God bless them.”
“ What have they come here for? ”
“ You will have to ask themselves that.”
Pan looked at them smilingly.
“ What have you come here for, little children? ”
said he.
The children questioned one another with their
65 F
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
eyes to see which of them would reply, and then
Seumas Beg answered:
“ My father sent me to see you, sir, and to say
that you were not doing a good thing in keeping
Caitilin Ni Murrachu away from her own place.”
Brigid Beg turned to Caitilin—
“ Your father came to see our father, and he said
that he didn’t know what had become of you at all,
and that maybe you were lying flat in a ditch with
the black crows picking at your flesh.”
“ And what,” said Pan, “ did your father say to
that? ”
“ He told us to come and ask her to go home.”
“ Do you love your father, little child? ” said
Pan.
Brigid Beg thought for a moment. “ I don’t
know, sir,” she replied.
“ He doesn’t mind us at all,” broke in Seumas
Beg, “ and so we don’t know whether we love him
or not.”
“ I like Caitilin,” said Brigid, “ and I like you.”
“ So do I,” said Seumas.
“ I like you also, little children,” said Pan.
“ Come over here and sit beside me, and we will
talk.”
So the two children went over to Pan and sat
down one on each side of him, and he put his arms
about them.
“ Daughter of Murrachu,” said he, “ is there no
food in the house for guests? ”
“ There is a cake of bread, a little goat’s milk and
some cheese,” she replied, and she set about getting
these things.
66
I
THE COMING OF PAN
“ I never ate cheese,” said Seumas. “ Is it
good? ”
“ Surely it is,” replied Pan. “ The cheese that
is made from goat’s milk is rather strong, and it is
good to be eaten by people who live in the open air,
but not by those who live in houses, for such people
do not have any appetite. They are poor creatures
whom I do not like.”
“ I like eating,” said Seumas.
“ So do I,” said Pan. “ All good people like
eating. Every person who is hungry is a good person,
and every person who is not hungry is a bad person.
It is better to be hungry than rich.”
Caitilin having supplied the children with food,
seated herself in front of them. “ I don’t think that
is right,” said she. “ I have always been hungry,
and it was never good.”
“ If you had always been full you would like it
even less,” he replied, “ because when you are hungry
you are alive, and when you are not hungry you are
only half alive.”
“ One has to be poor to be hungry,” replied
Caitilin. “ My father is poor and gets no good of it
but to work from morning to night and never to
stop doing that.”
“ It is bad for a wise person to be poor,” said
Pan, “ and it is bad for a fool to be rich. A rich
fool will think of nothing else at first but to find a
dark house wherein to hide away, and there he will
satisfy his hunger, and he will continue to do that
until his hunger is dead and he is no better than dead;
but a wise person who is rich will carefully preserve
his appetite. All people who have been rich for a
67
BK.
THE CROCK OF GOLD
long time, or who are rich from birth, live a great
deal outside of their houses, and so they are always
hungry and healthy.”
“ Poor people have no time to be wise,” said
Caitilin.
“ They have time to be hungry,” said Pan. “ I
ask no more of them.”
“ My father is very wise,” said Seumas Beg.
“ How do you know that, little boy? ” said Pan.
“ Because he is always talking,” replied Seumas.
“ Do you always listen, my dear? ”
“ No, sir,” said Seumas; “ I go to sleep when he
talks.”
“ That is very clever of you,” said Pan.
“ I go to sleep too,” said Brigid.
“ It is clever of you also, my darling. Do you
go to sleep when your mother talks? ”
“ Oh, no,” she answered. “ If we went to sleep
then our mother would pinch us and say that we
were a bad breed.”
“ I think your mother is wise,” said Pan. “ What
do you like best in the world, Seumas Beg? ”
The boy thought for a moment and replied:
“ I don’t know, sir.”
Pan also thought for a little time.
“ I don’t know what I like best either,” said he.
“ What do you like best in the world. Shepherd
Girl? ”
Caitilin’s eyes were fixed on his.
“ I don’t know yet,” she answered slowly.
“ May the gods keep you safe from that know¬
ledge,” said Pan gravely.
“ Why would you say that? ” she replied. “ One
68
I
THE COMING OF PAN
must find out all things, and when we find out a
thing we know if it is good or bad.”
“ That is the beginning of knowledge,” said Pan,
“ but it is not the beginning of wisdom.”
“ What is the beginning of wisdom? ”
“ It is carelessness,” replied Pan.
“ And what is the end of wisdom? ” said she.
“ I do not know,” he answered, after a little
pause.
“ Is it greater carelessness? ” she enquired.
“ I do not know, I do not know,” said he sharply.
“ I am tired of talking,” and, so saying, he turned his
face away from them and lay down on the couch.
Caitilin in great concern hurried the children to
the door of the cave and kissed them good-bye.
“ Pan is sick,” said the boy gravely.
“ I hope he will be well soon again,” the girl
murmured.
“ Yes, yes,” said Caitilin, and she ran back quickly
to her lord.
69
BOOK II
THE PHILOSOPHER’S JOURNEY
7i
CHAPTER X
When the children reached home they told the
Philosopher the result of their visit. He questioned
them minutely as to the appearance of Pan, how he
had received them, and what he had said in defence
of his iniquities ; but when he found that Pan had
not returned any answer to his message he became
very angry. He tried to persuade his wife to under¬
take another embassy setting forth his abhorrence and
defiance of the god, but the Thin Woman replied
sourly that she was a respectable married woman, that
having been already bereaved of her wisdom she had
no desire to be further curtailed of her virtue, that a
husband would go any length to asperse his wife’s
reputation, and that although she was married to a
fool her self-respect had survived even that calamity.
The Philosopher pointed out that her age, her appear-
73
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
ance, and her tongue were sufficient guarantees of
immunity against the machinations of either Pan or
slander, and that he had no personal feelings in the
matter beyond a scientific and benevolent interest in
the troubles of Meehawl MacMurrachu; but this was
discounted by his wife as the malignant and subtle
tactics customary to all husbands.
Matters appeared to be thus at a deadlock so far
as they were immediately concerned, and the Philo¬
sopher decided that he would lay the case before
protection and assistance
on behalf of the Clann MacMurrachu. He therefore
directed the Thin Woman to bake him two cakes of
bread, and set about preparations for a journey.
The Thin Woman baked the cakes, and put them
in a bag, and early on the following morning the
Philosopher swung this bag over his shoulder, and
went forth on his quest.
When he came to the edge of the pine wood he
halted for a few moments, not being quite certain of
his bearings, and then went forward again in the
direction of Gort na Cloca Mora. It came into his
mind as he crossed the Gort that he ought to call on
the Leprecauns and have a talk with them, but a
remembrance of Meehawl MacMurrachu and the
troubles under which he laboured (all directly to be
traced to the Leprecauns) hardened his heart against
his neighbours, so that he passed by the yew tree
without any stay. In a short time he came to the
rough, heather-clumped field wherein the children
had found Pan, and as he was proceeding up the hill
he saw Caitilin Ni Murrachu walking a little way in
front with a small vessel in her hand. The she-goat
74
HE SAW CAITILIN NI MURRACHU WALKING A LITTLE WAY
IN FRONT WITH A SMALL VESSEL IN HER HAND
ii THE PHILOSOPHER’S JOURNEY
which she had just milked was bending again to the
herbage, and as Caitilin trod lightly in front of him
the Philosopher closed his eyes in virtuous anger and
opened them again in a not unnatural curiosity, for
the girl had no clothes on. He watched her going
behind the brush and disappearing in the cleft of the
rock, and his anger, both with her and Pan, mastering
him he forsook the path of prudence which soared
to the mountain top, and followed that leading to the
cave. The sound of his feet brought Caitilin out
hastily, but he pushed her by with a harsh word.
“ Hussy,” said he, and he went into the cave where
Pan was.
As he went in he already repented of his harshness
and said—
“ The human body is an aggregation of flesh and
sinew, around a central bony structure. The use of
clothing is primarily to protect this organism from
rain and cold, and it may not be regarded as the
banner of morality without danger to this funda¬
mental premise. If a person does not desire to be
so protected who will quarrel with an honourable
liberty? Decency is not clothing but Mind. Morality
is behaviour. Virtue is thought—
“ I have often fancied,” he continued to Pan,
whom he was now confronting, “ that the effect of
clothing on mind must be very considerable, and
that it must have a modifying rather than an expand¬
ing effect, or, even, an intensifying as against an
exuberant effect. With clothing the whole environ¬
ment is immediately affected. The air, which is our
proper medium, is only filtered to our bodies in
an abated and niggardly fashion which can scarcely
IS
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
be as beneficial as the generous and unintermitted
elemental play. The question naturally arises whether
clothing is as unknown to nature as we have fancied?
Viewed as a protective measure against atmospheric
rigour we find that many creatures grow, by their
own central impulse, some kind of exterior panoply
which may be regarded as their proper clothing.
Bears, cats, dogs, mice, sheep and beavers are wrapped
in fur, hair, fell, fleece or pelt, so these creatures
cannot by any means be regarded as being naked.
Crabs, cockroaches, snails and cockles have ordered
around them a crusty habiliment, wherein their
original nakedness is only to be discovered by force,
and other creatures have similarly provided themselves
with some species of covering. Clothing, therefore,
is not an art, but an instinct, and the fact that man
is born naked and does not grow his clothing upon
himself from within but collects it from various
distant and haphazard sources is not any reason to
call this necessity an instinct for decency. These,
you will admit, are weighty reflections and worthy
of consideration before we proceed to the wide and
thorny subject of moral and immoral action. Now,
what is virtue? ”—
Pan, who had listened with great courtesy to
these remarks, here broke in on the Philosopher.
“ Virtue,” said he, “ is the performance of pleasant
actions.”
The Philosopher held the statement for a moment
on his forefinger.
“ And what, then, is vice? ” said he.
“ It is vicious,” said Pan, “ to neglect the per¬
formance of pleasant actions.”
76
ii THE PHILOSOPHER’S JOURNEY
“ If this be so,” the other commented, “ philo¬
sophy has up to the present been on the wrong
track.”
“ That is so,” said Pan. “ Philosophy is an
immoral practice because it suggests a standard of
practice impossible of being followed, and which, if
it could be followed, would lead to the great sin of
sterility.”
“ The idea of virtue,” said the Philosopher, with
some indignation, “ has animated the noblest intellects
of the world.”
“It has not animated them,” replied Pan; “it
has hypnotised them so that they have conceived
virtue as repression and self-sacrifice as an honourable
thing instead of the suicide which it is.”
“ Indeed,” said the Philosopher; “ this is very
interesting, and if it is true the whole conduct of life
will have to be very much simplified.”
“ Life is already very simple,” said Pan; “ it is
to be born and to die, and in the interval to eat
and drink, to dance and sing, to marry and beget
children.”
“ But it is simply materialism,” cried the
Philosopher.
“ Why do you say ‘ but ’? ” replied Pan.
“ It is sheer, unredeemed animalism,” continued
his visitor.
“ It is any name you please to call it,” replied
Pan.
“ You have proved nothing,” the Philosopher
shouted.
“ What can be sensed requires no proof.”
“ You leave out the new thing,” said the Philo-
77
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK. II
sopher. “ You leave out brains. I believe in mind
above matter. Thought above emotion. Spirit
above flesh.”
“ Of course you do,” said Pan, and he reached for
his oaten pipe.
The Philosopher ran to the opening of the passage
and thrust Caitilin aside. “ Hussy,” said he fiercely
to her, and he darted out.
As he went up the rugged path he could hear the
pipes of Pan, calling and sobbing and making high
merriment on the air.
78
CHAPTER XI
“ She does not deserve to be rescued,” said the
Philosopher, “ but I will rescue her. Indeed,” he
thought a moment later, “ she does not want to be
rescued, and, therefore , I will rescue her.”
As he went down the road her shapely figure
floated before his eyes as beautiful and simple as an
old statue. He wagged his head angrily at the
apparition, but it would not go away. He tried to
concentrate his mind on a deep, philosophical maxim,
but her disturbing image came between him and his
thought, blotting out the latter so completely that
a moment after he had stated his aphorism he could
not remember what it had been. Such a condition
of mind was so unusual that it bewildered him.
“ Is a mind, then, so unstable,” said he, “ that a
mere figure, an animated geometrical arrangement
can shake it from its foundations? ”
The idea horrified him: he saw civilization build¬
ing its temples over a volcano. . . .
79
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BK.
“ A puff,” said he, “ and it is gone. Beneath
all is chaos and red anarchy, over all a devouring and
insistent appetite. Our eyes tell us what to think
about, and our wisdom is no more than a catalogue
of sensual stimuli.”
He would have been in a state of deep dejection
were it not that through his perturbation there
bubbled a stream of such amazing well-being as he
had not felt since childhood. Years had toppled
from his shoulders. He left one pound of solid
matter behind at every stride. His very skin grew
flexuous, and he found a pleasure in taking long
steps such as he could not have accounted for by
thought. Indeed, thought was the one thing he felt
unequal to, and it was not precisely that he could
not think but that he did not want to. All the
importance and authority of his mind seemed to have
faded away, and the activity which had once belonged
to that organ was now transferred to his eyes. He
saw, amazedly, the sunshine bathing the hills and the
valleys. A bird in the hedge held him—beak, head,
eyes, legs, and the wings that tapered widely at angles
to the wind. For the first time in his life he really
saw a bird, and one minute after it had flown away
he could have reproduced its strident note. With
every step along the curving road the landscape was
changing. He saw and noted it almost in an ecstasy.
A sharp hill jutted out into the road, it dissolved into
a sloping meadow, rolled down into a valley and
then climbed easily and peacefully into a hill again.
On this side a clump of trees nodded together in the
friendliest fashion. Yonder a solitary tree, well-
grown and clean, was contented with its own bright
80
ii THE PHILOSOPHER’S JOURNEY
company. A bush crouched tightly on the ground
as though, at a word, it would scamper from its place
and chase rabbits across the sward with shouts and
laughter. Great spaces of sunshine were every¬
where, and everywhere there were deep wells of
shadow; and the one did not seem more beautiful
than the other. That sunshine! Oh, the glory of
it, the goodness and bravery of it, how broadly and
grandly it shone, without stint, without care; he saw
its measureless generosity and gloried in it as though
himself had been the flinger of that largesse. And
was he not? Did the sunlight not stream from his
head and life from his finger-tips? Surely the well¬
being that was in him did bubble out to an activity
beyond the universe. Thought! Oh! the petty
thing! but motion! emotion! these were the realities.
To feel, to do, to stride forward in elation chanting
a pa?an of triumphant life!
After a time he felt hungry, and thrusting his
hand into his wallet he broke off a piece of one of
his cakes and looked about for a place where he
might happily eat it. By the side of the road there
was a well; just a little corner filled with water.
Over it was a rough stone coping, and around,
hugging it on three sides almost from sight, were
thick, quiet bushes. He would not have noticed the
well at all but for a thin stream, the breadth of two
hands, which tiptoed away from it through a field.
By this well he sat down and scooped the water in
his hand and it tasted good.
He was eating his cake when a sound touched
his ear from some distance, and shortly a woman
came down the path carrying a vessel in her hand
BK.
THE CROCK OF GOLD
to draw water. She was a big, comely woman, and
she walked as one who had no misfortunes and no
misgivings. When she saw the Philosopher sitting
by the well she halted a moment in surprise and then
came forward with a good-humoured smile.
“ Good morrow to you, sir,” said she.
“ Good morrow to you too, ma’am,” replied the
Philosopher. “ Sit down beside me here and eat
some of my cake.”
“ Why wouldn’t I, indeed,” said the woman, and
she did sit beside him.
The Philosopher cracked a large piece off his
cake and gave it to her and she ate some.
“ There’s a taste on that cake,” said she. “ Who
made it? ”
“ My wife did,” he replied.
“ Well, now! ” said she, looking at him. “ Do
you know, you don’t look a bit like a married man.”
“ No? ” said the Philosopher.
“ Not a bit. A married man looks comfortable
and settled: he looks finished, if you understand me,
and a bachelor looks unsettled and funny, and he
always wants to be running round seeing things. I’d
know a married man from a bachelor any day.”
“ How would you know that? ” said the Philo¬
sopher.
“ Easily,” said she, with a nod. “ It’s the way
they look at a woman. A married man looks at you
quietly as if he knew all about you. There isn’t any
strangeness about him with a woman at all; but a
bachelor man looks at you very sharp and looks away
and then looks back again, the way you’d know he
was thinking about you and didn’t know what you
ii THE PHILOSOPHER’S JOURNEY
were thinking about him; and so they are always
strange, and that’s why women like them.”
“V\hiy!” said the Philosopher, astonished, “do
women like bachelors better than married men? ”
“ Of course they do,” she replied heartily. “ They
wouldn’t look at the side of the road a married man
was on if there was a bachelor man on the other side.”
“ This,” said the Philosopher earnestly, “ is very
interesting.”
“ And the queer thing is,” she continued, “ that
when I came up the road and saw you I said to
myself * it’s a bachelor man.’ How long have you
been married, now? ”
“ I don’t know,” said the Philosopher. “ Maybe
it’s ten years.”
“ And how many children would you have,
mister? ”
“ Two,” he replied, and then corrected himself,
“ No, I have only one.”
“ Is the other one dead? ”
“ I never had more than one.”
“ Ten years married and only one child,” said
she. “ Why, man dear, you’re not a married man.
What were you doing at all, at all! I wouldn’t like
to be telling you the children I have living and dead.
But what I say is that married or not you’re a bachelor
man. I knew it the minute I looked at you. What
sort of a woman is herself? ”
“ She’s a thin sort of woman,” said the Philosopher,
biting into his cake.
“ Is she now? ”
“ And,” the Philosopher continued, “ the reason
I talked to you is because you are a fat woman.”
83
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
“ I am not fat,” was her angry response.
“ You are fat,” insisted the Philosopher, “ and
that’s the reason I like you.”
“ Oh, if you mean it that way . . .” she chuckled.
“ I think,” he continued, looking at her admir¬
ingly, “ that women ought to be fat.”
“Tell you the truth,” said she eagerly, “ I think
that myself. I never met a thin woman but she was
a sour one, and I never met a fat man but he was a
fool. Fat women and thin men; it’s nature,” said she.
“ It is,” said he, and he leaned forward and kissed
her eye.
“ Oh, you villain! ” said the woman, putting out
her hands against him.
The Philosopher drew back abashed.
“ Forgive me,” he began, “ if I have alarmed
your virtue-”
“ It’s the married man’s word,” said she, rising
hastily: “ now I know you; but there’s a lot of the
bachelor in you all the same, God help you! I’m
going home.” And, so saying, she dipped her vessel
in the well and turned away.
“ Maybe,” said the Philosopher, “ I ought to
wait until your husband comes home and ask his
forgiveness for the wrong I’ve done him.”
The woman turned round on him and each of
her eyes was as big as a plate.
“ What do you say? ” said she. “ Follow me if
you dare and I’ll set the dog on you; I will so,” and
she strode viciously homewards.
After a moment’s hesitation the Philosopher took
his own path across the hill.
The day was now well advanced, and as he
84
ii THE PHILOSOPHER’S JOURNEY
trudged forward the happy quietude of his surround¬
ings stole into his heart again and so toned down his
recollection of the fat woman that in a little time she
was no more than a pleasant and curious memory.
His mind was exercised superficially, not in thinking,
but in wondering how it was he had come to kiss a
strange woman. He said to himself that such conduct
was not right; but this statement was no more than
the automatic working of a mind long exercised in
the distinctions of right and wrong, for, almost in
the same breath, he assured himself that what he had
done did not matter in the least. His opinions were
undergoing a curious change. Right and wrong
were meeting and blending together so closely that
it became difficult to dissever them, and the obloquy
attaching to the one seemed out of proportion
altogether to its importance, while the other by no
means justified the eulogy wherewith it was con¬
nected. Was there any immediate, or even distant,
effect on life caused by evil which was not instantly
swung into equipoise by goodness? But these slender
reflections troubled him only for a little time. He
had little desire for any introspective quarryings. To
feel so well was sufficient in itself. Why should
thought be so apparent to us, so insistent? We do
not know we have digestive or circulatory organs
until these go out of order, and then the knowledge
torments us. Should not the labours of a healthy
brain be equally subterranean and equally competent?
Why have we to think aloud and travel laboriously
from syllogism to ergo, chary of our conclusions and
distrustful of our premises? Thought, as we know
it, is a disease and no more. The healthy mentality
85
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
should register its convictions and not its labours.
Our ears should not hear the clamour of its doubts
nor be forced to listen to the pro and con wherewith
we are eternally badgered and perplexed.
The road was winding like a ribbon in and out
of the mountains. On either side there were hedges
and bushes,—little, stiff trees which held their foliage
in their hands and dared the winds snatch a leaf from
that grip. The hills were swelling and sinking, fold¬
ing and soaring on every view. Now the silence was
startled by the falling tinkle of a stream. Far away
a cow lowed, a long, deep monotone, or a goat’s call
trembled from nowhere to nowhere. But mostly
there was a silence which buzzed with a multitude of
small winged life. Going up the hills the Philosopher
bent forward to the gradient, stamping vigorously
as he trod, almost snorting like a bull in the pride of
successful energy. Coming down the slope he braced
back and let his legs loose to do as they pleased.
Didn’t they know their business?—Good luck to
them, and away!
As he walked along he saw an old woman hobbling
in front of him. She was leaning on a stick and her
hand was red and swollen with rheumatism. She
hobbled by reason of the fact that there were stones
in her shapeless boots. She was draped in the sorriest
miscellaneous rags that could be imagined, and these
were knotted together so intricately that her clothing,
having once been attached to her body, could never
again be detached from it. As she walked she was
mumbling and grumbling to herself, so that her
mouth moved round and round in an indiarubber
fashion.
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II
THE PHILOSOPHER’S JOURNEY
The Philosopher soon caught up on her.
“ Good morrow, ma’am,” said he.
But she did not hear him: she seemed to be
listening to the pain which the stones in her boots
gave her.
“ Good morrow, ma’am,” said the Philosopher
again.
This time she heard him and replied, turning her
old, bleared eyes slowly in his direction—
“ Good morrow to yourself, sir,” said she, and
the Philosopher thought her old face was a very
kindly one.
“ What is it that is wrong with you, ma’am? ”
said he.
“ It’s my boots, sir,” she replied. “ Full of
stones they are, the way I can hardly walk at all, God
help me! ”
“ Why don’t you shake them out? ”
“ Ah, sure, I couldn’t be bothered, sir, for there
are so many holes in the boots that more would get
in before I could take two steps, and an old woman
can’t be always fidgeting, God help her! ”
There was a little house on one side of the road,
and when the old woman saw this place she brightened
up a little.
“ Do you know who lives in that house? ” said
the Philosopher.
“ I do not,” she replied, “ but it’s a real nice
house with clean windows and a shiny knocker on
the door, and smoke in the chimney—I wonder would
herself give me a cup of tea now if I asked her—A
poor old woman walking the roads on a stick! and
maybe a bit of meat, or an egg perhaps. . . .”
87
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
“ You could ask,” suggested the Philosopher
gently.
“ Maybe I will, too,” said she, and she sat down
by the road just outside the house and the Philosopher
also sat down.
A little puppy dog came from behind the house
and approached them cautiously. Its intentions were
friendly but it had already found that amicable
advances are sometimes indifferently received, for,
as it drew near, it wagged its dubious tail and rolled
humbly on the ground. But very soon the dog
discovered that here there was no evil, for it trotted
over to the old woman, and without any more pre¬
paration jumped into her lap.
The old woman grinned at the dog—
“ Ah, you thing you! ” said she, and she gave it
her finger to bite. The delighted puppy chewed her
bony finger, and then instituted a mimic warfare
against a piece of rag that fluttered from her breast,
barking and growling in joyous excitement, While
the old woman fondled and hugged it.
The door of the house opposite opened quickly,
and a woman with a frost-bitten face came out.
“ Leave that dog down,” said she.
The old woman grinned humbly at her.
“ Sure, ma’am, I wouldn’t hurt the little dog,
the thing! ”
“ Put down that dog,” said the woman, “ and go
about your business—the likes of you ought to be
arrested.”
A man in shirt sleeves appeared behind her, and
at him the old woman grinned even more humbly.
“ Let me sit here for a while and play with the
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ii THE PHILOSOPHER’S JOURNEY
little dog, sir,” said she; “ sure the roads do be
lonesome— ”
The man stalked close and grabbed the dog by
the scruff of the neck. It hung between his finger
and thumb with its tail tucked between its legs and
its eyes screwed round on one side in amazement.
“ Be off with you out of that, you old strap! ”
said the man in a terrible voice.
So the old woman rose painfully to her feet again,
and as she went hobbling along the dusty road she
began to cry.
The Philosopher also arose; he was very indignant
but did not know what to do. A singular lassitude
also prevented him from interfering. As they paced
along his companion began mumbling, more to her¬
self than to him—
“ Ah, God be with me,” said she, “ an old woman
on a stick, that hasn’t a place in the wide world to go
to or a neighbour itself. ... I wish I could get a
cup of tea, so I do. I wish to God I could get a
cup of tea. . . . Me sitting down in my own little
house, with the white tablecloth on the table, and the
butter in the dish, and the strong, red tea in the tea¬
cup; and me pouring cream into it, and, maybe,
telling the children not to be wasting the sugar, the
things! and himself saying he’d got to mow the big
field to-day, or that the red cow was going to calve,
the poor thing! and that if the boys went to school,
who was going to weed the turnips—and me sitting
drinking my strong cup of tea, and telling him where
that old trapesing hen was laying. . . . Ah, God be
with me! an old creature hobbling along the roads
on a stick. I wish I was a young girl again, so I do,
89
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
and himself coming courting me, and him saying
that I was a real nice little girl surely, and that nothing
would make him happy or easy at all but me to be
loving him.—Ah, the kind man that he was, to be
sure, the kind, decent man. . . . And Sorca Reilly
to be trying to get him from me, and Kate Finnegan
with her bold eyes looking after him in the Chapel;
and him to be saying that along with me they were
only a pair of old nanny goats. . . . And then me
to be getting married and going home to my own
little house with my man—ah, God be with me! and
him kissing me, and laughing, and frightening me
with his goings-on. Ah, the kind man, with his soft
eyes, and his nice voice, and his jokes and laughing,
and him thinking the world and all of me—ay,
indeed. . . . And the neighbours to be coming in
and sitting round the fire in the night time, putting
the world through each other, and talking about
France and Russia and them other queer places, and
him holding up the discourse like a learned man, and
them all listening to him and nodding their heads at
each other, and wondering at his education and all:
or, maybe, the neighbours to be singing, or him
making me sing the Coulin, and him to be proud of
me . . . and then him to be killed on me with a
cold on his chest. . . . Ah, then, God be with me,
a lone, old creature on a stick, and the sun shining
into her eyes and she thirsty—I wish I had a cup of
tea, so I do. I wish to God I had a cup of tea and
a bit of meat ... or, maybe, an egg. A nice fresh
egg laid by the speckeldy hen that used to be giving
me all the trouble, the thing! . . . Sixteen hens I
had, and they were the ones for laying, surely. . . .
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ii THE PHILOSOPHER’S JOURNEY
It’s the queer world, so it is, the queer world—and
the things that do happen for no reason at all. . . .
Ah, God be with me! I wish there weren’t stones in
my boots, so I do, and I wish to God I had a cup of
tea and a fresh egg. Ah, glory be, my old legs are
getting tireder every day, so they are. Wisha, one
time—when himself was in it—I could go about the
house all day long, cleaning the place, and feeding
the pigs, and the hens and all, and then dance half
the night, so I could: and himself proud of me. . . .”
The old woman turned up a little rambling road
and went on still talking to herself, and the Philosopher
watched her go up that road for a long time. He
was very glad she had gone away, and as he tramped
forward he banished her sad image so that in a little
time he was happy again. The sun was still shining,
the birds were flying on every side, and the wide hill¬
side above him smiled gaily.
A small, narrow road cut at right angles into his
path, and as he approached this he heard the bustle
and movement of a host, the trample of feet, the
rolling and creaking of wheels, and the long un¬
wearied drone of voices. In a few minutes he came
abreast of this small road, and saw an ass and cart
piled with pots and pans, and walking beside this
there were two men and a woman. The men and
the woman were talking together loudly, even fiercely,
and the ass was drawing his cart along the road
without requiring assistance or direction. While there
was a road he walked on it: when he might come to
a cross road he would turn to the right: when a man
said “ whoh ” he would stop: when he said “ hike ”
he would go backwards, and when he said “ yep ”
9i
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
he would go on again. That was life, and if one
questioned it, one was hit with a stick, or a boot, or
a lump of rock: if one continued walking nothing
happened, and that was happiness.
The Philosopher saluted this cavalcade.
“ God be with you,” said he.
“ God and Mary be with you,” said the first man.
“ God, and Mary, and Patrick be with you,” said
the second man.
“ God, and Mary, and Patrick, and Brigid be
with you,” said the woman.
The ass, however, did not say a thing. As the
word “ whoh ” had not entered into the conversation
he knew it was none of his business, and so he turned
to the right on the new path and continued his
journey.
“ Where are you going to, stranger,” said the
first man.
“ I am going to visit Angus Og,” replied the
Philosopher.
The man gave him a quick look.
“ Well,” said he, “ that’s the queerest story I ever
heard. Listen here,” he called to the others, “ this
man is looking for Angus Og.”
The other man and woman came closer.
“ What would you be wanting with Angus Og,
Mister Honey? ” said the woman.
“ Oh,” replied the Philosopher, “ it’s a particular
thing, a family matter.”
There was silence for a few minutes, and they all
stepped onwards behind the ass and cart.
“ How do you know where to look for himself? ”
said the first man again: “ maybe you got the place
92
ii THE PHILOSOPHER’S JOURNEY
where he lives written down in an old book or on a
carved stone? ”
“ Or did you find the staff of Amergin or of
Ossian in a bog and it written from the top to the
bottom with signs? ” said the second man.
“ No,” said the Philosopher, “ it isn’t that way
you’d go visiting a god. What you do is, you go
out from your house and walk straight away in any
direction with your shadow behind you so long as
it is towards a mountain, for the gods will not stay
in a valley or a level plain, but only in high places;
and then, if the god wants you to see him, you will
go to his rath as direct as if you knew where it was,
for he will be leading you with an airy thread reaching
from his own place to wherever you are, and if he
doesn’t want to see you, you will never find out where
he is, not if you were to walk for a year or twenty
years.”
“ How do you know he wants to see you? ” said
the second man.
“ Why wouldn’t he want? ” said the Philosopher.
“ Maybe, Mister Honey,” said the woman,
“ you are a holy sort of a man that a god would like
well.”
“ Why would I be that? ” said the Philosopher.
“ The gods like a man whether he’s holy or not if
he’s only decent.”
“ Ah, well, there’s plenty of that sort,” said the
first man. “ What do you happen to have in your
bag, stranger? ”
“ Nothing,” replied the Philosopher, “ but a
cake and a half that was baked for my journey.”
“ Give me a bit of your cake. Mister Honey,”
93
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
said the woman. “ I like to have a taste of every¬
body’s cake.”
“ I will, and welcome,” said the Philosopher.
“ You may as well give us all a bit while you are
about it,” said the second man. “ That woman hasn’t
got all the hunger of the world.”
“ Why not,” said the Philosopher, and he divided
the cake.
“ There’s a sup of water up yonder,” said the
first man, “ and it will do to moisten the cake—
Whoh, you devil,” he roared at the ass, and the ass
stood stock still on the minute.
There was a thin fringe of grass along the road
near a wall, and towards this the ass began to edge
very gently.
“ Hike, you beast, you,” shouted the man, and
the ass at once hiked, but he did it in a way that
brought him close to the grass. The first man took
a tin can out of the cart and climbed over the little
wall for water. Before he went he gave the ass three
kicks on the nose, but the ass did not say a word,
he only hiked still more which brought him directly
on to the grass, and when the man climbed over the
wall the ass commenced to crop the grass. There
was a spider sitting on a hot stone in the grass. He
had a small body and wide legs, and he wasn’t doing
anything.
“ Does anybody ever kick you in the nose? ” said
the ass to him.
“ Ay does there,” said the spider; “ you and your
like that are always walking on me, or lying down
on me, or running over me with the wheels of a
cart.”
94
ii THE PHILOSOPHER’S JOURNEY
“ Well, why don’t you stay on the wall? ” said
the ass.
“ Sure, my wife is there,” replied the spider.
“ What’s the harm in that? ” said the ass.
“ She’d eat me,” said the spider, “ and, anyhow,
the competition on the wall is dreadful, and the flies
are getting wiser and timider every season. Have
you got a wife yourself, now? ”
“ I have not,” said the ass; “ I wish I had.”
“ You like your wife for the first while,” said the
spider, “ and after that you hate her.”
“ If I had the first while I’d chance the second
while,” replied the ass.
“ It’s bachelor’s talk,” said the spider; “ all the
same, we can’t keep away from them,” and so saying
he began to move all his legs at once in the direction
of the wall. “ You can only die once,” said he.
“ If your wife was an ass she wouldn’t eat you,”
said the ass.
“ She’d be doing something else then,” replied
the spider, and he climbed up the wall.
The first man came back with the can of water
and they sat down on the grass and ate the cake and
drank the water. All the time the woman kept her
eyes fixed on the Philosopher.
“ Mister Honey,” said she, “ I think you met us
just at the right moment.”
The other two men sat upright and looked at
each other and then with equal intentness they looked
at the woman.
“ Why do you say that? ” said the Philosopher.
“ We were having a great argument along the
road, and if we were to be talking from now to
95
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
the day of doom that argument would never be
finished.”
“ It must have been a great argument. Was it
about predestination or where consciousness comes
from? ”
“ It was not; it was which of these two men was
to marry me.”
“ That’s not a great argument,” said the Philo¬
sopher.
“ Isn’t it,” said the woman. “ For seven days
and six nights we didn’t talk about anything else,
and that’s a great argument or I’d like to know
what is.”
“ But where is the trouble, ma’am? ” said the
Philosopher.
“ It’s this,” she replied, “ that I can’t make up
my mind which of the men I’ll take, for I like one
as well as the other and better, and I’d as soon have
one as the other and rather.”
“ It’s a hard case,” said the Philosopher.
“ It is,” said the woman, “ and I’m sick and sorry
with the trouble of it.”
“ And why did you say that I had come up in a
good minute? ”
“ Because, Mister Honey, when a woman has
two men to choose from she doesn’t know what to
do, for two men always become like brothers so that
you wouldn’t know which of them was which: there
isn’t any more difference between two men than there
is between a couple of hares. But when there’s three
men to choose from, there’s no trouble at all; and
so I say that it’s yourself I’ll marry this night and
no one else—and let you two men be sitting quiet in
96
AT THAT MOMENT THE PHILOSOPHER S CAKE LOST
ALL ITS SAVOUR
II
THE PHILOSOPHER’S JOURNEY
your places, for I’m telling you what I’ll do and that’s
the end of it.”
“ Til give you my word,” said the first man,
that I m just as glad as you are to have it over and
done with.”
“ Moidered I was,” said the second man, “with
the whole argument, and the this and that of it, and
you not able to say a word but—maybe I will and
maybe I won’t, and this is true and that is true, and
why not to me and why not to him—I’ll get a sleep
this night.”
The Philosopher was perplexed.
“ You cannot marry me, ma’am,” said he,
“ because I’m married already.”
The woman turned round on him angrily.
“ Don’t be making any argument with .me now,”
said she, “ for I won’t stand it.”
The first man looked fiercely at the Philosopher,
and then motioned to his companion.
“ Give that man a clout in the jaw,” said he.
The second man was preparing to do this when
the woman intervened angrily.
“ Keep your hands to yourself,” said she, “ or
it 11 be the worse for you. I’m well able to take care
of my own husband,” and she drew nearer and sat
between the Philosopher and the men.
At that moment the Philosopher’s cake lost all
its savour, and he packed the remnant into his wallet.
They all sat silently looking at their feet and thinking
each one according to his nature. The Philosopher’s
mind, which for the past day had been in eclipse,
stirred faintly to meet these new circumstances, but
without much result. There was a flutter at his heart
97
H
BK.
THE CROCK OF GOLD
which was terrifying, but not unpleasant. Quickening
through his apprehension was an expectancy which
stirred his pulses into speed. So rapidly did his blood
flow, so quickly were an hundred impressions visualized
and recorded, so violent was the surface movement of
his brain that he did not realize he was unable to
think and that he was only seeing and feeling.
The first man stood up.
“ The night will be coming on soon,” said he,
“ and we had better be walking on if we want to get
a good place to sleep. Yep, you devil,” he roared
at the ass, and the ass began to move almost before
he lifted his head from the grass. The two men
walked one on either side of the cart, and the woman
and the Philosopher walked behind at the tail-board.
“ If you were feeling tired, or anything like that,
Mister Honey,” said the woman, “ you could climb
up into the little cart, and nobody would say a word
to you, for I can see that you are not used to
travelling.”
“ I am not indeed, ma’am,” he replied; “ this is
the first time I ever came on a journey, and if it
wasn’t for Angus 6g I wouldn’t put a foot out of
my own place for ever.”
“ Put Angus 6g out of your head, my dear,”
she replied, for what would the likes of you and
me be saying to a god. He might put a curse on
us would sink us into the ground or burn us up like
a grip of straw. Be contented now, I’m saying, for
if there is a woman in the world who knows all things
I am that woman myself, and if you tell your trouble
to me I’ll tell you the thing to do just as good as
Angus himself, and better perhaps.”
ii THE PHILOSOPHER’S JOURNEY
“ That is very interesting,” said the Philosopher.
“ What kind of things do you know best? ”
“ If you were to ask one of them two men walking
beside the ass they’d tell you plenty of things they
saw me do when they could do nothing themselves.
When there wasn’t a road to take anywhere I showed
them a road, and when there wasn’t a bit of food in
the world I gave them food, and when they were bet
to the last I put shillings in their hands, and that’s
the reason they wanted to marry me.”
“ Do you call that kind of thing wisdom? ” said
the Philosopher. 1
“ Why wouldn’t I? ” said she. “ Isn’t it wisdom
to go through the world without fear and not to be
hungry in a hungry hour? ”
“ I suppose it is,” he replied, “ but I never
thought of it that way myself.”
“ And what would you call wisdom? ”
“ I couldn’t rightly say now,” he replied, “ but
I think it was not to mind about the world, and not
to care whether you were hungry or not, and not to
live in the world at all but only in your own head,
for the world is a tyrannous place. You have to
raise yourself above things instead of letting things
raise themselves above you. We must not be slaves
to each other, and we must not be slaves to our
necessities either. That is the problem of existence.
There is no dignity in life at all if hunger can shout
‘ stop ’ at every turn of the road and the day’s journey
is measured by the distance between one sleep and
the next sleep. Life is all slavery, and Nature is
driving us with the whips of appetite and weariness;
but when a slave rebels he ceases to be a slave, and
99
BK.
THE CROCK OF GOLD
when we axe too hungry to live we can die and have
our laugh. I believe that Nature is just as alive as
we are, and that she is as much frightened of us as
we are of her, and, mind you this, mankind has
declared war against Nature and we will win. She
does not understand yet that her geologic periods
won’t do any longer, and that while she is pottering
along the line of least resistance we are going to
travel fast and far until we find her, and then, being
a female, she is bound to give in when she is
challenged.”
“ It’s good talk,” said the woman, “ but it’s
foolishness. Women never give in unless they get
what they want, and where’s the harm to them then?
You have to live in the world, my dear, whether you
like it or not, and, believe me now, that there isn’t
any wisdom but to keep clear of the hunger, for if
that gets near enough it will make a hare of you.
Sure, listen to reason now like a good man. What is
Nature at all but a word that learned men have made
to talk about. There’s clay, and gods and men, and
they are good friends enough.”
The sun had long since gone down, and the grey
evening was bowing over the land, hiding the moun¬
tain peaks, and putting a shadow round the scattered
bushes and the wide clumps of heather.
“ I know a place up here where we can stop for
the night,” said she, “and there’s a little shebeen
round the bend of the road where we can get any¬
thing we want.”
At the word “ whoh ” the ass stopped and one
of the men took the harness off him. When he was
unyoked the man gave him two kicks: Be off with
ioo
ii THE PHILOSOPHER’S JOURNEY
you, you devil, and see if you can get anything to
eat,” he roared. The ass trotted a few paces off and
searched about until he found some grass. He ate
this, and when he had eaten as much as he wanted
he returned and lay down under a wall. He lay for
a long time looking in the one direction, and at last
he put his head down and went to sleep. While he
was sleeping he kept one ear up and the other ear
down for about twenty minutes, and then he put
the first ear down and the other one up, and he kept
on doing this all the night. If he had anything to
lose you wouldn’t mind him setting up sentries, but
he hadn’t a thing in the world except his skin and his
bones, and no one would be bothered stealing them.
One of the men took a long bottle out of the cart
and walked up the road with it. The other man
lifted out a tin bucket which was punched all over
with jagged holes. Then he took out some sods of
turf and lumps of wood and he put these in the
bucket, and in a few minutes he had a very nice fire
lit. A pot of water was put on to boil, and the
woman cut up a great lump of bacon which she put
into the pot. She had eight eggs in a place in the
cart, and a flat loaf of bread, and some cold boiled
potatoes, and she spread her apron on the ground
and arranged these things on it.
The other man came down the road again with
his big bottle filled with porter, and he put this in a
safe place. Then they emptied everything out of
the cart, and hoisted it over the little wall. They
turned the cart on one side and pulled it near to the
fire, and they all sat inside the cart and ate their
supper. When supper was done they lit their pipes,
IOI
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
and the woman lit a pipe also. The bottle of porter
was brought forward, and they took drinks in turn
out of the bottle, and smoked their pipes, and talked.
There was no moon that night, and no stars, so
that just beyond the fire there was a thick darkness
which one would not like to look at, it was so cold
and empty. While talking they all kept their eyes
fixed on the red fire, or watched the smoke from
their pipes drifting and curling away against the
blackness, and disappearing as suddenly as lightning.
“ I wonder,” said the first man, “ what it was
gave you the idea of marrying this man instead of
myself or my comrade, for we are young, hardy men,
and he is getting old, God help him! ”
“Aye, indeed,” said the second man; “he’s as
grey as a badger, and there’s no flesh on his bones.”
“ You have a right to ask that,” said she, “ and
I’ll tell you why I didn’t marry either of you. You
are only a pair of tinkers going from one place to
another, and not knowing anything at all of fine
things; but himself was walking along the road
looking for strange, high adventures, and it’s a man
like that a woman would be wishing to marry if he
was twice as old as he is. When did either of you go
out in the daylight looking for a god and you not
caring what might happen to you or where you went? ”
“ What I’m thinking,” said the second man, “ is
that if you leave the gods alone they’ll leave you
alone. It’s no trouble to them to do whatever is
right themselves, and what call would men like us
have to go mixing or meddling with their high
affairs? ”
“ I thought all along that you were a timid man,”
102
ii THE PHILOSOPHER’S JOURNEY
said she, “ and now I know it.” She turned again
to the Philosopher—“Take off your boots, Mister
Honey, the way you’ll rest easy, and I’ll be making
down a soft bed for you in the cart.”
In order to take off his boots the Philosopher had
to stand up, for in the cart they were too cramped
for freedom. He moved backwards a space from the
fire and took off his boots. He could see the woman
stretching sacks and clothes inside the cart, and the
two men smoking quietly and handing the big bottle
from one to the other. Then in his stockinged feet
he stepped a little farther from the fire, and, after
another look, he turned and walked quietly away
into the blackness. In a few minutes he heard a
shout from behind him, and then a number of shouts,
and then these died away into a plaintive murmur
of voices, and next he was alone in the greatest dark¬
ness he had ever known.
He put on his boots and walked onwards. He
had no idea where the road lay, and every moment
he stumbled into a patch of heather or prickly furze.
The ground was very uneven with unexpected
mounds and deep hollows: here and there were water-
soaked, soggy places, and into these cold ruins he
sank ankle deep. There was no longer an earth or
a sky, but only a black void and a thin wind and a
fierce silence which seemed to listen to him as he
went. Out of that silence a thundering laugh might
boom at an instant and stop again while he stood
appalled in the blind vacancy.
The hill began to grow more steep and rocks were
lying everywhere in his path. He could not see an
inch in front, and so he went with his hands out-
103
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK. II
stretched like a blind man who stumbles painfully
along. After a time he was nearly worn out with
cold and weariness, but he dared not sit down any¬
where; the darkness was so intense that it frightened
him, and the overwhelming, crafty silence frightened
him also.
At last, and at a great distance, he saw a flickering,
waving light, and he went towards this through drifts
of heather, and over piled rocks and sodden bogland.
When he came to the light he saw it was a torch of
thick branches, the flame whereof blew hither and
thither on the wind. The torch was fastened against
a great cliff of granite by an iron band. At one side
there was a dark opening in the rock, so he said: “ I
will go in there and sleep until the morning comes,”
and he went in. At a very short distance the cleft
turned again to the right, and here there was another
torch fixed. When he turned this corner he stood
for an instant in speechless astonishment, and then
he covered his face and bowed down upon the ground.
104
BOOK III
THE TWO GODS
io 5
CHAPTER XII
Caitilin Ni Murrachu was sitting alone in the little
cave behind Gort na Cloca Mora. Her companion
had gone out as was his custom to walk in the sunny
morning and to sound his pipe in desolate, green
spaces whence, perhaps, the wanderer of his desire
might hear the guiding sweetness. As she sat she
was thinking. The last few days had awakened her
body, and had also awakened her mind, for with the
one awakening comes the other. The despondency
which had touched her previously when tending her
father’s cattle came to her again, but recognizably
now. She knew the thing which the wind had
whispered in the sloping field and for which she had
no name—it was Happiness. Faintly she shadowed
it forth, but yet she could not see it. It was only a
pearl-pale wraith, almost formless, too tenuous to be
touched by her hands, and too aloof to be spoken to.
Pan had told her that he was the giver of happiness,
but he had given her only unrest and fever and a
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THE CROCK OF CxOLD bk.
longing which could not be satisfied. Again there
was a want, and she could not formulate, or even
realize it with any closeness. Her new-born Thought
had promised everything, even as Pan, and it had
given—she could not say that it had given her nothing
or anything. Its limits were too quickly divinable.
She had found the Tree of Knowledge, but about on
every side a great wall soared blackly enclosing her
in from the Tree of Life—a wall which her thought
was unable to surmount even while instinct urged
that it must topple before her advance; but instinct
may not advance when thought has schooled it in the
science of unbelief; and this wall will not be conquered
until Thought and Instinct are wed, and the first son
of that bridal will be called The Scaler of the Wall.
So, after the quiet weariness of ignorance, the
unquiet weariness of thought had fallen upon her.
That travail of mind which, through countless genera¬
tions, has throed to the birth of an ecstasy, the prophecy
which humanity has sworn must be fulfilled, seeing
through whatever mists and doubtings the vision of
a gaiety wherein the innocence of the morning will
not any longer be strange to our maturity.
While she was so thinking Pan returned, a little
disheartened that he had found no person to listen to
his pipings. He had been seated but a little time
when suddenly, from without, a chorus of birds burst
into joyous singing. Limpid and liquid cadenzas,
mellow flutings, and the sweet treble of infancy met
and danced and piped in the airy soundings. A
round, soft tenderness of song rose and fell, broadened
and soared, and then the high flight was snatched,
eddied a moment, and was borne away to a more
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A SWIFT SHADOW DARKENED THE PASSAGE
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THE TWO GODS
slender and wonderful loftiness, until, from afar, that
thrilling song turned on the very apex of sweetness,
dipped steeply and flashed its joyous return to the
exultations of its mates below, rolling an ecstasy of
song which for one moment gladdened the whole
world and the sad people who moved thereon; then
the singing ceased as suddenly as it began, a swift
shadow darkened the passage, and Angus Og came
into the cave.
Caitilin sprang from her seat affrighted, and Pan
also made a half movement towards rising, but
instantly sank back again to his negligent, easy
posture.
The god was slender and as swift as a wind. His
hair swung about his face like golden blossoms. His
eyes were mild and dancing and his lips smiled with
quiet sweetness. About his head there flew per¬
petually a ring of singing birds, and when he spoke
his voice came sweetly from a centre of sweetness.
“ Health to you, daughter of Murrachu,” said he,
and he sat down.
“ I do not know you, sir,” the terrified girl
whispered.
“ I cannot be known until I make myself known,”
he replied. “ I am called Infinite Joy, O daughter
of Murrachu, and I am called Love.”
The girl gazed doubtfully from one to the other.
Pan looked up from his pipes.
“ I also am called Love,” said he gently, “ and I
am called Joy.”
Angus Og looked for the first time at Pan.
“ Singer of the Vine,” said he, “ I know your
names—they are Desire and Fever and Lust and
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BK.
Death. Why have you come from your own place
to spy upon my pastures and my quiet fields? ”
Pan replied mildly.
“ The mortal gods move by the Immortal Will,
and, therefore, I am here.”
“ And I am here,” said Angus.
“ Give me a sign,” said Pan, “ that I must go.”
Angus Og lifted his hand and from without there
came again the triumphant music of the birds.
“ It is a sign,” said he, “ the voice of Dana speaking
in the air,” and, saying so, he made obeisance to the
great mother.
Pan lifted his hand, and from afar there came
the lowing of the cattle and the thin voices of the
goats.
“ It is a sign,” said he, “ the voice of Demeter
speaking from the earth,” and he also bowed deeply
to the mother of the world.
Again Angus Og lifted his hand, and in it there
appeared a spear, bright and very terrible.
But Pan only said, “ Can a spear divine the
Eternal Will? ” and Angus Og put his weapon aside,
and he said:
“ The girl will choose between us, for the Divine
Mood shines in the heart of man.”
Then Caitilin Ni Murrachu came forward and
sat between the gods, but Pan stretched out his hand
and drew her to him, so that she sat resting against
his shoulder and his arm was about her body.
“ We will speak the truth to this girl,” said Angus
Og.
“ Can the gods speak otherwise? ” said Pan, and
he laughed with delight.
i xo
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THE TWO GODS
“ It is the difference between us,” replied Angus
Og. “ She will judge.”
“ Shepherd Girl,” said Pan, pressing her with his
arm, “ you will judge between us. Do you know
what is the greatest thing in the world—because it is
of that you will have to judge.”
“ I have heard,” the girl replied, “ two things
called the greatest things. You,” she continued to
Pan, “ said it was Hunger, and long ago my father
said that Commonsense was the greatest thing in the
world.”
“ I have not told you,” said Angus Og, “ what I
consider is the greatest thing in the world.”
“ It is your right to speak,” said Pan.
“ The greatest thing in the world,” said Angus
Og, “ is the Divine Imagination.”
“ Now,” said Pan, “ we know all the greatest
things and we can talk of them.”
“ The daughter of Murrachu,” continued Angus
6g, “ has told us what you think and what her father
thinks, but she has not told us what she thinks herself.
Tell us, Caitilin Ni Murrachu, what you think is the
greatest thing in the world.”
So Caitilin Ni Murrachu thought for a few
moments and then replied timidly.
“ I think that Happiness is the greatest thing in
the world,” said she.
Hearing this they sat in silence for a little time,
and then Angus Og spoke again—
“ The Divine Imagination may only be known
through the thoughts of His creatures. A man has
said Commonsense and a woman has said Happiness
are the greatest things in the world. These things
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BK.
are male and female, for Commonsense is Thought
and Happiness is Emotion, and until they embrace
in Love the will of Immensity cannot be fruitful.
For, behold, there has been no marriage of humanity
since time began. Men have but coupled with their
own shadows. The desire that sprang from their
heads they pursued, and no man has yet known the
love of a woman. And women have mated with the
shadows of their own hearts, thinking fondly that the
arms of men were about them. I saw my'son dancing
with an Idea, and I said to him, ‘ With what do you
dance, my son? ’ and he replied, ‘ I make merry with
the wife of my affection,’ and truly she was shaped
as a woman is shaped, but it was an Idea he danced
with and not a woman. And presently he went away
to his labours, and then his Idea arose and her
humanity came upon her so that she was clothed
with beauty and terror, and she went apart and danced
with the servant of my son, and there was great joy
of that dancing—for a person in the wrong place is
an Idea and not a person. Man is Thought and
woman is Intuition, and they have never mated.
There is a gulf between them and it is called Fear,
and what they fear is, that their strengths shall be
taken from them and they may no longer be tyrants.
The Eternal has made love blind, for it is not by
science, but by intuition alone, that he may come to
his beloved: but desire, which is science, has many
eyes and sees so vastly that he passes his love in the
press, saying there is no love, and he propagates
miserably on his own delusions. The finger-tips are
guided by God, but the devil looks through the eyes
of all creatures so that they may wander in the errors
1 12
Ill
THE TWO GODS
of reason and justify themselves of their wanderings.
The desire of a man shall be Beauty, but he has
fashioned a slave in his mind and called it Virtue.
The desire of a woman shall be Wisdom, but she has
formed a beast in her blood and called it Courage:
but the real virtue is courage, and the real courage is
liberty, and the real liberty is wisdom, and Wisdom
is the son of Thought and Intuition; and his names
also are Innocence and Adoration and Happiness.”
When Angus (3g had said these words he ceased,
and for a time there was silence in the little cave.
Caitilin had covered her face with her hands and
would not look at him, but Pan drew the girl closer
to his side and peered sideways, laughing at Angus.
“ Has the time yet come for the girl to judge
between us? ” said he.
“ Daughter of Murrachu,” said Angus (3g, “ will
you come away with me from this place? ”
Caitilin then looked at the god in great distress.
“ I do not know what to do,” said she. “ Why
do you both want me? I have given myself to Pan,
and his arms are about me.”
“ I want you,” said Angus Og, “ because the
world has forgotten me. In all my nation there is
no remembrance of me. I, wandering on the hills
of my country, am lonely indeed. I am the desolate
god forbidden to utter my happy laughter. I hide
the silver of my speech and the gold of my merriment.
I live in the holes of the rocks and the dark caves of
the sea. I weep in the morning because I may not
laugh, and in the evening I go abroad and am not
happy. Where I have kissed a bird has flown; where
I have trod a flower has sprung. But Thought has
ii 3 1
BK.
THE CROCK OF GOLD
snared my birds in his nets and sold them in the
market-places. Who will deliver me from Thought,
from the base holiness of Intellect, the maker of
chains and traps? Who will save me from the holy
impurity of Emotion, whose daughters are Envy and
Jealousy and Hatred, who plucks my flowers to
ornament her lusts and my little leaves to shrivel on
the breasts of infamy? Lo, I am sealed in the caves
of nonentity until the head and the heart shall come
together in fruitfulness, until Thought has wept for
Love, and Emotion has purified herself to meet her
lover. Tir-na-n6g is the heart of a man and the
head of a woman. Widely they are separated. Self-
centred they stand, and between them the seas of
space are flooding desolately. No voice can shout
across those shores. No eye can bridge them, nor
any desire bring them together until the blind god
shall find them on the wavering stream—not as an
arrow searches straightly from a bow, but gently,
imperceptibly as a feather on the wind reaches the
ground on a hundred starts; not with the compass
and the chart, but by the breath of the Almighty
which blows from all quarters without care and
without ceasing. Night and day it urges from the
outside to the inside. It gathers ever to the centre.
From the far without to the deep within, trembling
from the body to the soul until the head of a woman
and the heart of a man are filled with the Divine
Imagination. Hymen, Hymenasa! I sing to the ears
that are stopped, the eyes that are sealed, and the
minds that do not labour. Sweetly I sing on the hill¬
side. The blind shall look within and not without;
the deaf shall hearken to the murmur of their own
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THE TWO GODS
veins, and be enchanted with the wisdom of sweet¬
ness; the thoughtless shall think without effort as the
lightning flashes, that the hand of Innocence may
reach to the stars, that the feet of Adoration may
dance to the Father of Joy, and the laugh of Happiness
be answered by the Voice of Benediction.”
Thus Angus Og sang in the cave, and ere he had
ceased Caitilin Ni Murrachu withdrew herself from
the arms of her desires. But so strong was the hold
of Pan upon her that when she was free her body
bore the marks of his grip, and many days passed
away before these marks faded.
Then Pan arose in silence, taking his double reed
in his hand, and the girl wept, beseeching him to stay
to be her brother and the brother of her beloved, but
Pan smiled and said:
“ Your beloved is my father and my son. He is
yesterday and to-morrow. He is the nether and the
upper millstone, and I am crushed between until I
kneel again before the throne from whence I came,”
and, saying so, he embraced Angus Og most tenderly
and went his way to the quiet fields, and across the
slopes of the mountains, and beyond the blue distances
of space.
And in a little time Caitilin Ni Murrachu went
with her companion across the brow of the hill, and
she did not go with him because she had understood
his words, nor because he was naked and unashamed,
but only because his need of her was very great, and,
therefore, she loved him, and stayed his feet in the
way, and was concerned lest he should stumble.
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BOOK IV
THE PHILOSOPHER’S RETURN
117
CHAPTER XIII
Which is, the Earth or the creatures that move upon
it, the more important? This is a question prompted
solely by intellectual arrogance, for in life there is
no greater and no less. The thing that is has justified
its own importance by mere existence, for that is the
great and equal achievement. If life were arranged
for us from without such a question of supremacy
would assume importance, but life is always from
within, and is modified or extended by our own
appetites, aspirations, and central activities. From
without we get pollen and the refreshment of space
and quietude—it is sufficient. We might ask, is the
Earth anything more than an extension of our human
consciousness, or are we, moving creatures, only pro¬
jections of the Earth’s antennas? But these matters
have no value save as a field wherein Thought, like
a wise lamb, may frolic merrily. And all would be
very well if Thought would but continue to frolic,
instead of setting up first as locum tenens for Intuition
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THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
and sticking to the job, and afterwards as the counsel
and critic of Omnipotence. Everything has two
names, and everything is twofold. The name of
male Thought as it faces the world is Philosophy,
but the name it bears in Tir-na-n6g is Delusion.
Female Thought is called Socialism on earth, but in
Eternity it is known as Illusion; and this is so because
there has been no matrimony of minds, but only an
hermaphroditic propagation of automatic ideas, which
in their due rotation assume dominance and reign
severely. To the world this system of thought,
because it is consecutive, is known as Logic, but
Eternity has written it down in the Book of Errors
as Mechanism: for life may not be consecutive, but
explosive and variable, else it is a shackled and
timorous slave.
One of the great troubles of life is that Reason
has taken charge of the administration of Justice, and
by mere identification it has achieved the crown and
sceptre of its master. But the imperceptible usurpa¬
tion was recorded, and discriminating minds under¬
stand the chasm which still divides the pretender
Law from the exiled King. In a like manner, and
with feigned humility, the Cold Demon advanced to
serve Religion, and by guile and violence usurped her
throne; but the pure in heart still fly from the spectre
Theology to dance in ecstasy before the starry and
eternal goddess. Statecraft, also, that tender Shepherd
of the Flocks, has been despoiled of his crook and bell,
and wanders in unknown desolation while, beneath
the banner of Politics, Reason sits howling over an
intellectual chaos.
Justice is the maintaining of equilibrium. The
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THE PHILOSOPHER’S RETURN
blood of Cain must cry, not from the lips of the
Avenger, but from the aggrieved Earth herself who
demands that atonement shall be made for a disturb¬
ance of her consciousness. All justice is, therefore,
readjustment. A thwarted consciousness has every
right to clamour for assistance, but not for punish¬
ment. This latter can only be sought by timorous
and egotistic Intellect, which sees the Earth from
which it has emerged and into which it must return
again in its own despite, and so, being self-centred
and envious and a renegade from life, Reason is more
cruelly unjust, and more timorous than any other
manifestation of the divinely erratic energy—erratic,
because, as has been said, “ the crooked roads are the
roads of genius.” Nature grants to all her creatures
an unrestricted liberty, quickened by competitive
appetite, to succeed or to fail; save only to Reason,
her Demon of Order, which can do neither, and whose
wings she has clipped for some reason with which I
am not yet acquainted. It may be that an un¬
restricted mentality would endanger her own intuitive
perceptions by shackling all her other organs of per¬
ception, or annoy her by vexatious efforts at creative
rivalry.
It will, therefore, be understood that when the
Leprecauns of Gort na Cloca Mora acted in the
manner about to be recorded, they were not prompted
by any lewd passion for revenge, but were merely
striving to reconstruct a rhythm which was their very
existence, and which must have been of direct import¬
ance to the Earth. Revenge is the vilest passion
known to life. It has made Law possible, and by
doing so it gave to Intellect the first grip at that
12 I
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
universal dominion which is its ambition. A Lepre-
caun is of more value to the Earth than is a Prime
Minister or a stockbroker, because a Leprecaun dances
and makes merry, while a Prime Minister knows
nothing of these natural virtues—consequently, an
injury done to a Leprecaun afflicts the Earth with
misery, and justice is, for these reasons, an imperative
and momentous necessity.
A community of Leprecauns without a crock of
gold is a blighted and merriless community, and
they are certainly justified in seeking sympathy and
assistance for the recovery of so essential a treasure.
But the steps whereby the Leprecauns of Gort na
Cloca Mora sought to regain their property must for
ever brand their memory with a certain odium. It
should be remembered in their favour that they were
cunningly and cruelly encompassed. Not only was
their gold stolen, but it was buried in such a position
as placed it under the protection of their own com¬
munal honour, and the household of their enemy was
secured against their active and righteous malice,
because the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath belonged
to the most powerful Shee of Ireland. It is in cir¬
cumstances such as these that dangerous alliances are
made, and, for the first time in history, the elemental
beings invoked bourgeois assistance.
They were loath to do it, and justice must record
the fact. They were angry when they did it, and
anger is both mental and intuitive blindness. It is
not the beneficent blindness which prevents one from
seeing without, but it is that desperate darkness which
cloaks the within, and hides the heart and the brain
from each other’s husbandly and wifely recognition.
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IV THE PHILOSOPHER’S RETURN
But even those mitigating circumstances cannot justify
the course they adopted, and the wider idea must be
sought for, that out of evil good must ultimately come,
or else evil is vitiated beyond even the redemption of
usage. When they were able to realize of what they
had been guilty, they were very sorry indeed, and
endeavoured to publish their repentance in many
ways ; but, lacking atonement, repentance is only a
post-mortem virtue which is good for nothing but
burial.
When the Leprecauns of Gort na Cloca Mora
found they were unable to regain their crock of gold
by any means they laid an anonymous information
at the nearest Police Station showing that two dead
bodies would be found under the hearthstone in the
hut of Coille Doraca, and the inference to be drawn
from their crafty missive was that these bodies had
been murdered by the Philosopher for reasons very
discreditable to him.
The Philosopher had been scarcely more than
three hours on his journey to Angus Og when four
policemen approached the little house from as many
different directions, and without any trouble they
effected an entrance. The Thin Woman of Inis
Magrath and the two children heard from afar their
badly muffled advance, and on discovering the char¬
acter of their visitors they concealed themselves among
the thickly clustering trees. Shortly after the men
had entered the hut loud and sustained noises began
to issue therefrom, and in about twenty minutes the
invaders emerged again bearing the bodies of the
Grey Woman of Dun Gortin and her husband. They
wrenched the door off its hinges, and, placing the
123
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
bodies on the door, proceeded at a rapid pace through
the trees and disappeared in a short time. When they
had departed the Thin Woman and the children
returned to their home and over the yawning hearth
the Thin Woman pronounced a long and fervid male¬
diction wherein policemen were exhibited naked
before the blushes of Eternity. . . .
With your good-will let us now return to the
Philosopher.
Following his interview with Angus (5g the
Philosopher received the blessing of the god and
returned on his homeward journey. When he left
the cave he had no knowledge where he was nor
whether he should turn to the right hand or to the
left. This alone was his guiding idea, that as he had
come up the mountain on his first journey his home¬
going must, by mere opposition, be down the moun¬
tain, and, accordingly, he set his face downhill and
trod lustily forward. He had stamped up the hill
with vigour, he strode down it in ecstasy. He tossed
his voice on every wind that went by. From the
wells of forgetfulness he regained the shining words
and gay melodies which his childhood had delighted
in, and these he sang loudly and unceasingly as he
marched. The sun had not yet risen but, far away,
a quiet brightness was creeping over the sky. The
daylight, however, was near the full, one slender veil
only remaining of the shadows, and a calm, unmoving
quietude brooded from the grey sky to the whispering
earth. The birds had begun to bestir themselves but
not to sing. Now and again a solitary wing feathered
the chill air; but for the most part the birds huddled
closer in the swinging nests, or under the bracken,
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IV
THE PHILOSOPHER’S RETURN
or in the tufty grass. Here a faint twitter was heard
and ceased. A little farther a drowsy voice called
“ cheep-cheep ” and turned again to the warmth of
its wing. The very grasshoppers were silent. The
creatures who range in the night time had returned
to their cells and were setting their households in
order, and those who belonged to the day hugged
their comfort for but one minute longer. Then the
first level beam stepped like a mild angel to the
mountain top. The slender radiance brightened and
grew strong. The grey veil faded away. The birds
leaped from their nests. The grasshoppers awakened
and were busy at a stroke. Voice called to voice
without ceasing, and, momently, a song thrilled for
a few wide seconds. But for the most part it was
chatter-chatter they went as they soared and plunged
and swept, each bird eager for its breakfast.
The Philosopher thrust his hand into his wallet
and found there the last broken remnants of his cake,
and the instant his hand touched the food he was
seized by a hunger so furious that he sat down where
he stopped and prepared to eat.
The place where he sat was a raised bank under
a hedge, and this place directly fronted a clumsy
wooden gate leading into a great field. When the
Philosopher had seated himself he raised his eyes and
saw through the gate a small company approaching.
There were four men and three women, and each of
them carried a metal pail. The Philosopher with a
sigh returned the cake to his wallet, saying:
“ All men are brothers, and it may be that these
people are as hungry as I am.”
In a short time the strangers came near. The
l2 5
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
foremost of them was a huge man who was bearded
to the eyelids and who moved like a strong wind.
He opened the gate by removing a piece of wood
wherewith it was jammed, and he and his companions
passed through, whereupon he closed the gate and
secured it. To this man, as being the eldest, the
Philosopher approached.
“ I am about to breakfast,” said he, “ and if you
are hungry perhaps you would like to eat with me.”
“ Why not,” said the man, “ for the person who
would refuse a kind invitation is a dog. These are
my three sons and three of my daughters, and we are
all thankful to you.”
Saying this he sat down on the bank, and his
companions, placing their pails behind them, did
likewise. The Philosopher divided his cake into
eight pieces and gave one to each person.
“ I am sorry it is so little,” said he.
“ A gift,” said the bearded man, “ is never little,”
and he courteously ate his piece in three bites although
he could have easily eaten it in one, and his children
also made much of their pieces.
“ That was a good, satisfying cake,” said he when
he had finished; “ it was well baked and well shared,
but,” he continued, “ I am in a difficulty and maybe
you could advise me what to do, sir? ”
“ What might be your trouble? ” said the
Philosopher.
“It is this,” said the man. “ Every morning
when we go out to milk the cows the mother of my
clann gives to each of us a parcel of food so that we
need not be any hungrier than we like; but now we
have had a good breakfast with you, what shall we
126
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THE PHILOSOPHER’S RETURN
do with the food that we brought with us? The
woman of the house would not be pleased if we
carried it back to her, and if we threw food away it
would be a sin. If it was not disrespectful to your
breakfast the boys and girls here might be able to
get rid of it by eating it, for, as you know, young
people can always eat a bit more, no matter how
much they have already eaten.”
“It would surely be better to eat it than to waste
it,” said the Philosopher wistfully.
The young people produced large parcels of food
from their pockets and opened them, and the bearded
man said, “ I have a little one myself also, and it
would not be wasted if you were kind enough to help
me to eat it,” and he pulled out his parcel, which was
twice as big as any of the others.
He opened the parcel and handed the larger part
of its contents to the Philosopher; he then plunged
a tin vessel into one of the milk pails and set this also
by the Philosopher, and, instantly, they all began to
eat with furious appetite.
When the meal was finished the Philosopher filled
his tobacco pipe and the bearded man and his three
sons did likewise.
“ Sir,” said the bearded man, “ I would be glad
to know why you are travelling abroad so early in
the morning, for, at this hour, no one stirs but the
sun and the birds and the folk who, like ourselves,
follow the cattle? ”
“ I will tell you that gladly,” said the Philosopher,
“ if you will tell me your name.”
“ My name,” said the bearded man, “ is Mac
Cdl.”
127
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
“ Last night,” said the Philosopher, “ when I
came from the house of Angus (5g in the Caves of
the Sleepers of Erinn I was bidden say to a man
named Mac Cul—that the horses had trampled in
their sleep and the sleepers had turned on their
sides.”
“ Sir,” said the bearded man, “ your words thrill
in my heart like music, but my head does not under¬
stand them.”
“ I have learned,” said the Philosopher, “ that
the head does not hear anything until the heart has
listened, and that what the heart knows to-day the
head will understand to-morrow.”
“ All the birds of the world are singing in my
soul,” said the bearded man, “ and I bless you because
you have filled me with hope and pride.”
So the Philosopher shook him by the hand, and
he shook the hands of his sons and daughters, who
bowed before him at the mild command of their
father, and when he had gone a little way he looked
around again and he saw that group of people standing
where he had left them, and the bearded man was
embracing his children on the highroad.
A bend in the path soon shut them from view,
and then the Philosopher, fortified by food and the
freshness of the morning, strode onwards singing for
very joy. It was still early, but now the birds had
eaten their breakfasts and were devoting themselves
to each other. They rested side by side on the
branches of the trees and on the hedges, they danced
in the air in happy brotherhoods and they sang to
one another amiable and pleasant ditties.
When the Philosopher had walked for a long
128
A YOUNG WOMAN CAME ALONG THE ROAD AND STOOD
GAZING EARNESTLY AT THIS HOUSE
IV THE PHILOSOPHER’S RETURN
time he fell a little weary and sat down to refresh
himself in the shadow of a great tree. Hard by there
was a house of rugged stone. Long years ago it had
been a castle, and, even now, though patched by time
and misfortune its front was warlike and frowning.
While he sat a young woman came along the road
and stood gazing earnestly at this house. Her hair
was as black as night and as smooth as still water, but
her face came so stormily forward that her quiet
attitude had yet no quietness in it. To her, after a
few moments, the Philosopher spoke.
“ Girl,” said he, “ why do you look so earnestly
at the house? ”
The girl turned her pale face and stared at him.
“ I did not notice you sitting under the tree,”
said she, and she came slowly forward.
“ Sit down by me,” said the Philosopher, “ and
we will talk. If you are in any trouble tell it to me,
and perhaps you will talk the heaviest part away.”
“ I will sit beside you willingly,” said the girl,
and she did so.
“ It is good to talk trouble over,” he continued.
“ Do you know that talk is a real thing? There is
more power in speech than many people conceive.
Thoughts come from God, they are born through
the marriage of the head and the lungs. The head
moulds the thought into the form of words, then it
is borne and sounded on the air which has been
already in the secret kingdoms of the body, which
goes in bearing life and comes out freighted with
wisdom. For this reason a lie is very terrible, because
it is turning mighty and incomprehensible things to
base uses, and is burdening the life-giving element
129 K.
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
with a foul return for its goodness; but those who
speak the truth and whose words are the symbols of
wisdom and beauty, these purify the whole world and
daunt contagion. The only trouble the body can
know is disease. All other miseries come from the
brain, and, as these belong to thought, they can be
driven out by their master as unruly and unpleasant
vagabonds; for a mental trouble should be spoken
to, confronted, reprimanded and so dismissed. The
brain cannot afford to harbour any but pleasant and
eager citizens who will do their part in making
laughter and holiness for the world, for that is the
duty of thought.”
While the Philosopher spoke the girl had been
regarding him steadfastly.
“ Sir,” said she, “ we tell our hearts to a young
man and our heads to an old man, and when the heart
is a fool the head is bound to be a liar. I can tell
you the things I know, but how will I tell you the
things I feel when I myself do not understand them?
If I say these words to you ‘ I love a man * I do not
say anything at all, and you do not hear one of the
words which my heart is repeating over and over to
itself in the silence of my body. Young people are
fools in their heads and old people are fools in their
hearts, and they can only look at each other and pass
by in wonder.”
“ You are wrong,” said the Philosopher. “ An
old person can take your hand like this and say,
* May every good thing come to you, my daughter.’
For all trouble there is sympathy, and for love there
is memory, and these are the head and the heart
talking to each other in quiet friendship. What the
13°
IV THE PHILOSOPHER’S RETURN
heart knows to-day the head will understand to¬
morrow, and as the head must be the scholar of the
heart it is necessary that our hearts be purified and
free from every false thing, else we are tainted beyond
personal redemption.”
“ Sir,” said the girl, “ I know of two great follies
—they are love and speech, for when these are given
they can never be taken back again, and the person
to whom these are given is not any richer, but the
giver is made poor and abashed. I gave my love to
a man who did not want it. I told him of my love,
and he lifted his eyelids at me; that is my trouble.”
For a moment the Philosopher sat in stricken
silence looking on the ground. He had a strange
disinclination to look at the girl although he felt her
eyes fixed steadily on him. But in a little while he
did look at her and spoke again.
“ To carry gifts to an ungrateful person cannot
be justified and need not be mourned for. If your
love is noble why do you treat it meanly? If it is
lewd the man was right to reject it.”
“ We love as the wind blows,” she replied.
“ There is a thing,” said the Philosopher, “ and
it is both the biggest and the littlest thing in the
world.”
“ What is that? ” said the girl.
“ It is pride,” he answered. “ It lives in an
empty house. The head which has never been
visited by the heart is the house pride lives in. You
are in error, my dear, and not in love. Drive out
the knave pride, put a flower in your hair and walk
freely again.”
The girl laughed, and suddenly her pale face
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THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
became rosy as the dawn and as radiant and lovely
as a cloud. She shed warmth and beauty about her
as she leaned forward.
“ You are wrong,” she whispered, “ because he
does love me; but he does not know it yet. He is
young and full of fury, and has no time to look at
women, but he looked at me. My heart knows it
and my head knows it, but I am impatient and yearn
for him to look at me again. His heart will remember
me to-morrow, and he will come searching for me
with prayers and tears, with shouts and threats. I
will be very hard to find to-morrow when he holds
out his arms to the air and the sky, and is astonished
and frightened to find me nowhere. I will hide
from him to-morrow, and frown at him when he
speaks, and turn aside when he follows me: until
the day after to-morrow when he will frighten me
with his anger, and hold me with his furious hands,
and make me look at him.”
Saying this the girl arose and prepared to go
away.
“ He is in that house,” said she, “ and I would
not let him see me here for anything in the world.”
“ You have wasted all my time,” said the Philo¬
sopher, smiling.
“ What else is time for? ” said the girl, and she
kissed the Philosopher and ran swiftly down the road.
She had been gone but a few moments when a
man came out of the grey house and walked quickly
across the grass. When he reached the hedge separat¬
ing the field from the road he tossed his two arms in
the air, swung them down, and jumped over the hedge
into the roadway. He was a short, dark youth, and
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IV THE PHILOSOPHER’S RETURN
so swift and sudden were his movements that he
seemed to look on every side at the one moment
although he bore furiously to his own direction.
The Philosopher addressed him mildly.
“ That was a good jump,” said he.
The young man spun around from where he
stood, and was by the Philosopher’s side in an instant.
“ It would be a good jump for other men,” said
he, “ but it is only a little jump for me. You are
very dusty, sir; you must have travelled a long
distance to-day.”
“ A long distance,” replied the Philosopher.
“ Sit down here, my friend, and keep me company
for a little time.”
“ I do not like sitting down,” said the young man,
“ but I always consent to a request, and I always
accept friendship.” And, so saying, he threw him¬
self down on the grass.
“ Do you work in that big house? ” said the
Philosopher.
“ I do,” he replied. “ I train the hounds for a
fat, jovial man, full of laughter and insolence.”
“ I think you do not like your master.”
“ Believe, sir, that I do not like any master; but
this man I hate. I have been a week in his service,
and he has not once looked on me as on a friend.
This very day, in the kennel, he passed me as though
I were a tree or a stone. I almost leaped to catch
him by the throat and say: ‘ Dog, do you not salute
your fellow-man? ’ But I looked after him and let
him go, for it would be an unpleasant thing to strangle
a fat person.”
“ If you are displeased with your master should
133
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
you not look for another occupation? ” said the
Philosopher.
“ I was thinking of that, and I was thinking
whether I ought to kill him or marry his daughter.
She would have passed me by as her father did, but
I would not let a woman do that to me: no man
would.”
“ What did you do to her? ” said the Philosopher.
The young man chuckled—
“ I did not look at her the first time, and when
she came near me the second time I looked another
way, and on the third day she spoke to me, and while
she stood I looked over her shoulder distantly. She
said she hoped I would be happy in my new home,
and she made her voice sound pleasant while she said
it; but I thanked her and turned away carelessly.”
“ Is the girl beautiful? ” said the Philosopher.
“ I do not know,” he replied; “ I have not looked
at her yet, although now I see her everywhere. I
think she is a woman who would annoy me if I
married her.”
“ If you haven’t seen her, how can you think
that? ”
“ She has tame feet,” said the youth. “ I looked
at them and they got frightened. Where have you
travelled from, sir? ”
“ I will tell you that,” said the Philosopher, “ if
you will tell me your name.”
“ It is easily told,” he answered; “ my name is
MacCulain.”
“ When I came last night,” said the Philosopher,
“ from the place of Angus 6g in the cave of the
Sleepers of Erinn I was bidden say to a man named
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IV THE PHILOSOPHER’S RETURN
MacCulain that The Grey of Macha had neighed in
his sleep and the sword of Laeg clashed on the floor as
he turned in his slumber.”
The young man leaped from the grass.
“ Sir,” said he in a strained voice, “ I do not
understand your words, but they make my heart to
dance and sing within me like a bird.”
“ If you listen to your heart,” said the Philosopher,
“ you will learn every good thing, for the heart is
the fountain of wisdom tossing its thoughts up to
the brain which gives them form,”—and, so saying,
he saluted the youth and went again on his way by
the curving road.
Now the day had advanced, noon was long past,
and the strong sunlight blazed ceaselessly on the
world. His path was still on the high mountains,
running on for a short distance and twisting per¬
petually to the right hand and to the left. One might
scarcely call it a path, it grew so narrow. Sometimes,
indeed, it almost ceased to be a path, for the grass
had stolen forward inch by inch to cover up the tracks
of man. There were no hedges but rough, tumbled
ground only, which was patched by trailing bushes,
and stretched away in mounds and hummocks beyond
the far horizon. There was a deep silence every¬
where, not painful, for where the sun shines there is
no sorrow: the only sound to be heard was the swish
of long grasses against his feet as he trod, and the
buzz of an occasional bee that came and was gone
in an instant.
The Philosopher was very hungry, and he looked
about on all sides to see if there was anything he
might eat.
l 35
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
“ If I were a goat or a cow,” said he, “ I could
eat this grass and be nourished. If I were a donkey
I could crop the hard thistles which are growing on
every hand, or if I were a bird I could feed on the
caterpillars and creeping things which stir innumer¬
ably everywhere. But a man may not eat even in
the midst of plenty, because he has departed from
nature, and lives by crafty and twisted thought.”
Speaking in this manner he chanced to lift his
eyes from the ground and saw, far away, a solitary
figure which melted into the folding earth and re¬
appeared again in a different place. So peculiar and
erratic were the movements of this figure that the
Philosopher had great difficulty in following it, and,
indeed, would have been unable to follow, but that
the other chanced in his direction. When they came
nearer he saw it was a young boy, who was dancing
hither and thither in any and every direction. A
bushy mound hid him for an instant, and the next
they were standing face to face staring at each other.
After a moment’s silence the boy, who was about
twelve years of age, and as beautiful as the morning,
saluted the Philosopher.
“ Have you lost your way, sir? ” said he.
“ All paths,” the Philosopher replied, “ are on
the earth, and so one can never be lost—but I have
lost my dinner.”
The boy commenced to laugh.
“ What are you laughing at, my son? ” said the
Philosopher.
“ Because,” he replied, “ I am bringing you your
dinner. I wondered what sent me out in this direc¬
tion, for I generally go more to the east.”
136
IV THE PHILOSOPHER’S RETURN
“ Have you got my dinner? ” said the Philosopher
anxiously.
“ I have,” said the boy: “ I ate my own dinner
at home, and I put your dinner in my pocket. I
thought,” he explained, “ that I might be hungry
if I went far away.”
“ The gods directed you,” said the Philosopher.
“ They often do,” said the boy, and he pulled
a small parcel from his pocket.
The Philosopher instantly sat down, and the boy
handed him the parcel. He opened this and found
bread and cheese.
“ It’s a good dinner,” said he, and commenced
to eat. “ Would you not like a piece also, my son? ”
“ I would like a little piece,” said the boy, and
he sat down before the Philosopher, and they ate
together happily.
When they had finished the Philosopher praised
the gods, and then said, more to himself than to the boy:
“ If I had a little drink of water I would want
nothing else.”
“ There is a stream four paces from here,” said
his companion. “ I will get some water in my cap,”
and he leaped away.
In a few moments he came back holding his cap
tenderly, and the Philosopher took this and drank
the water.
“ I want nothing more in the world,” said he,
“ except to talk with you. The sun is shining, the
wind is pleasant, and the grass is soft. Sit down
beside me again for a little time.”
So the boy sat down, and the Philosopher lit his
pipe.
137
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
“ Do you live far from here? ” said he.
“ Not far,” said the boy. “ You could see my
mother’s house from this place if you were as tall as
a tree, and even from the ground you can see a shape
of smoke yonder that floats over our cottage.”
The Philosopher looked but could see nothing.
“ My eyes are not as good as yours are,” said he,
“ because I am getting old.”
“ What does it feel like to be old? ” said the boy.
“ It feels stiff like,” said the Philosopher.
“ Is that all? ” said the boy.
“ I don’t know,” the Philosopher replied after a
few moments’ silence. “ Can you tell me what it
looks like to be young? ”
“ Why not? ” said the boy, and then a slight look
of perplexity crossed his face, and he continued, “ I
don’t think I can.”
“ Young people,” said the Philosopher, “ do not
know what age is, and old people forget what youth
was. When you begin to grow old always think
deeply of your youth, for an old man without
memories is a wasted life, and nothing is worth
remembering but our childhood. I will tell you
some of the differences between being old and young,
and then you can ask me questions, and so we will
get at both sides of the matter. First, an old man
gets tired quicker than a boy.”
The boy thought for a moment, and then replied:
“ That is not a great difference, for a boy does
get very tired.”
The Philosopher continued:
“ An old man does not want to eat as often as a
IV
THE PHILOSOPHER’S RETURN
“ That is not a great difference either,” the boy
replied, “ for they both do eat. Tell me the big
difference.”
“ I do not know it, my son; but I have always
thought there was a big difference. Perhaps it is
that an old man has memories of things which a boy
cannot even guess at.”
“ But they both have memories,” said the boy,
laughing, “ and so it is not a big difference.”
“ That is true,” said the Philosopher. “ Maybe
there is not so much difference after all. Tell me
things you do, and we will see if I can do them also.”
“ But I don’t know what I do,” he replied.
“ You must know the things you do,” said the
Philosopher, “ but you may not understand how to
put them in order. The great trouble about any
kind of examination is to know where to begin, but
there are always two places in everything with which
we can commence—they are the beginning and the
end. From either of these points a view may be had
which comprehends the entire period. So we will
begin with the things you did this morning.”
“ I am satisfied with that,” said the boy.
The Philosopher then continued:
“ When you awakened this morning and went
out of the house what was the first thing you did? ”
The boy thought—
“ I went out, then I picked up a stone and threw
it into the field as far as I could.”
“ What then? ” said the Philosopher.
“ Then I ran after the stone to see could I catch
up on it before it hit the ground.”
“ Yes,” said the Philosopher.
139
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
“ I ran so fast that I tumbled over myself into the
grass.”
“ What did you do after that? ”
“ I lay where I fell and plucked handfuls of the
grass with both hands and threw them on my back.”
“ Did you get up then? ”
“ No, I pressed my face into the grass and shouted
a lot of times with my mouth against the ground, and
then I sat up and did not move for a long time.”
“ Were you thinking? ” said the Philosopher.
“ No, I was not thinking or doing anything.”
“ Why did you do all these things? ” said the
Philosopher.
“ For no reason at all,” said the boy.
“ That,” said the Philosopher triumphantly, “ is
the difference between age and youth. Boys do
things for no reason, and old people do not. I wonder
do we get old because we do things by reason instead
of instinct? ”
“ I don’t know,” said the boy, “ everything gets
old. Have you travelled very far to-day, sir? ”
“ I will tell you that if you will tell me your
name.”
“ My name,” said the boy, “ is MacCushin.”
“ When I came last night,” said the Philosopher,
“ from the place of Angus Og in the Cave of the
Sleepers I was bidden say to one named MacCushin
that a son would be born to Angus (5g and his wife,
Caitilin, and that the Sleepers of Erinn had turned
in their slumbers.”
The boy regarded him steadfastly.
“ I know,” said he, “ why Angus (5g sent me
that message. He wants me to make a poem to the
140
IV THE PHILOSOPHER’S RETURN
people of Erinn, so that when the Sleepers arise they
will meet with friends.”
“ The Sleepers have arisen,” said the Philosopher.
“ They are about us on every side. They are walking
now, but they have forgotten their names and the
meanings of their names. You are to tell them their
names and their lineage, for I am an old man, and my
work is done.”
“ I will make a poem some day,” said the boy,
“ and every man will shout when he hears it.”
“ God be with you, my son,” said the Philosopher,
and he embraced the boy and went forward on his
journey.
About half an hour’s easy travelling brought him
to a point from which he could see far down below to
the pine trees of Coille Doraca. The shadowy evening
had crept over the world ere he reached the wood,
and when he entered the little house the darkness had
already descended.
The Thin Woman of Inis Magrath met him as
he entered, and was about to speak harshly of his
long absence, but the Philosopher kissed her with
such unaccustomed tenderness, and spoke so mildly
to her, that, first, astonishment enchained her tongue,
and then delight set it free in a direction to which it
had long been a stranger.
“ Wife,” said the Philosopher, “ I cannot say how
joyful I am to see your good face again.
The Thin Woman was unable at first to reply to
this salutation, but, with incredible speed, she put
on a pot of stirabout, began to bake a cake, and tried
to roast potatoes. After a little while she wept loudly,
and proclaimed that the world did not contain the
141
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK. IV
equal of her husband for comeliness and goodness,
and that she was herself a sinful person unworthy of
the kindness of the gods or of such a mate.
But while the Philosopher was embracing Seumas
and Brigid Beg, the door was suddenly burst open
with a great noise, four policemen entered the little
room, and after one dumbfoundered minute they
retreated again bearing the Philosopher with them
to answer a charge of murder.
142
BOOK V
THE POLICEMEN
H3
CHAPTER XIV
Some distance down the road the policemen halted.
The night had fallen before they effected their
capture, and now, in the gathering darkness, they
were not at ease. In the first place, they knew that
the occupation upon which they were employed was
not a creditable one to a man whatever it might be
to a policeman. The seizure of a criminal may be
justified by certain arguments as to the health of
society and the preservation of property, but no
person wishes under any circumstances to hale a wise
man to prison. They were further distressed by the
knowledge that they were in the very centre of a
populous fairy country, and that on every side the
elemental hosts might be ranging, ready to fall upon
them with the terrors of war or the still more awful
scourge of their humour. The path leading to their
station was a long one, winding through great alleys
of trees, which in some places overhung the road so
thickly that even the full moon could not search out
H5 l
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
that deep blackness. In the daylight these men
would have arrested an Archangel and, if necessary,
bludgeoned him, but in the night-time a thousand
fears afflicted and a multitude of sounds shocked them
from every quarter.
Two men were holding the Philosopher, one on
either side; the other two walked one before and
one behind him. In this order they were pro¬
ceeding when just in front through the dim light
they saw the road swallowed up by one of these
groves already spoken of. When they came nigh
they halted irresolutely: the man who was in front
(a silent and perturbed sergeant) turned fiercely to
the others-
“ Come on, can’t you? ” said he; “ what the devil
are you waiting for? ” and he strode forward into the
black gape.
“ Keep a good hold of that man,” said the one
behind.
“ Don’t be talking out of you,” replied he on the
right. “ Haven’t we got a good grip of him, and
isn’t he an old man into the bargain? ”
“ Well, keep a good tight grip of him, anyhow,
for if he gave you the slip in there he’d vanish like a
weasel in a bush. Them old fellows do be slippery
customers. Look here, mister,” said he to the
Philosopher, “ if you try to run away from us I’ll
give you a clout on the head with my baton; do you
mind me now! ”
They had taken only a few paces forward when
the sound of hasty footsteps brought them again to
a halt, and in a moment the sergeant came striding
back. He was angry.
146
V
THE POLICEMEN
“ Are you going to stay there the whole night,
or what are you going to do at all? ” said he.
Let you be quiet now,” said another; “ we were
only settling with the man here the way he wouldn’t
try to give us the slip in a dark place.”
“ Is it thinking of giving us the slip he is? ” said
the sergeant. “ Take your baton in your hand,
Shawn, and if he turns his head to one side of him
hit him on that side.”
“ I’ll do that,” said Shawn, and he pulled out his
truncheon.
The Philosopher had been dazed by the sudden¬
ness of these occurrences, and the enforced rapidity
of his movements prevented him from either thinking
or speaking, but during this brief stoppage his
scattered wits began to return to their allegiance.
First, bewilderment at his enforcement had seized
him, and the four men, who were continually running
round him and speaking all at once, and each pulling
him in a different direction, gave him the impression
that he was surrounded by a great rabble of people,
but he could not discover what they wanted. After
a time he found that there were only four men,
and gathered from their remarks that he was being
arrested for murder—this precipitated him into another
and a deeper gulf of bewilderment. He was unable
to conceive why they should arrest him for murder
when he had not committed any; and, following
this, he became indignant.
I will not go another step,” said he, “ unless you
tell me where you are bringing me and what I am
accused of.”
“ Tell me,” said the sergeant, “ what did you kill
147
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
them with? for it’s a miracle how they came to their
ends without as much as a mark on their skins or a
broken tooth itself.”
“ Who are you talking about? ” the Philosopher
demanded.
“ It’s mighty innocent you are,” he replied.
“ Who would I be talking about but the man and
woman that used to be living with you beyond in the
litde house? Is it poison you gave them now, or
what was it? Take a hold of your note-book, Shawn.”
“ Can’t you have sense, man? ” said Shawn.
“ How would I be writing in the middle of a dark
place and me without as much as a pencil, let alone
a book?”
“ Well, we’ll take it down at the station, and him¬
self can tell us all about it as we go along. Move on
now, for this is no place to be conversing in.”
They paced on again, and in another moment
they were swallowed up by the darkness. When
they had proceeded for a little distance there came a
peculiar sound in front like the breathing of some
enormous animal, and also a kind of shuffling noise,
and so they again halted.
“ There’s a queef kind of a thing in front of us,”
said one of the men in a low voice.
“ If I had a match itself,” said another.
The sergeant had also halted.
“ Draw well into the side of the road,” said he,
“ and poke your batons in front of you. Keep a
tight hold of that man, Shawn.”
“ I’ll do that,” said Shawn.
Just then one of them found a few matches in his
pocket, and he struck a light; there was no wind, so
148
V THE POLICEMEN
that it blazed easily enough, and they all peered in
front.
A big black cart-horse was lying in the middle of
the road having a gentle sleep, and when the light
shone it scrambled to its feet and went thundering
away in a panic.
“ Isn’t that enough to put the heart crossways in
you? ” said one of the men, with a great sigh.
“ Ay,” said another; “ if you stepped on that
beast in the darkness you wouldn’t know what to be
thinking.”
“ I don’t quite remember the way about here,”
said the sergeant after a while, “ but I think we should
take the first turn to the right. I wonder have we
passed the turn yet; these criss-cros€ kinds of roads
are the devil, and it dark as well. Do any of you
men know the way? ”
“ I don’t,” said one voice; “ I’m a Cavan man
myself.”
“ Roscommon,” said another, “ is my country,
and I wish I was there now, so I do.”
“ Well, if we walk straight on we’re bound to get
somewhere, so step it out. Have you got a good
hold of that man, Shawn? ”
“ I have so,” said Shawn.
The Philosopher’s voice came pealing through
the darkness.
“ There is no need to pinch me, sir,” said he.
“ I’m not pinching you at all,” said the man.
“ You are so,” returned the Philosopher. “ You
have a big lump of skin doubled up in the sleeve of
my coat, and unless you instantly release it I will sit
down in the road.”
149
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
“ Is that any better? ” said the man, relaxing his
hold a little.
“ You have only let out half of it,” replied the
Philosopher. “ That’s better now,” he continued,
and they resumed their journey.
After a few minutes of silence the Philosopher
began to speak.
“ I do not see any necessity in nature for police¬
men,” said he, “ nor do I understand how the custom
first originated. Dogs and cats do not employ these
extraordinary mercenaries, and yet their polity is
progressive and orderly. Crows are a gregarious race
with settled habitations and an organized common¬
wealth. They usually congregate in a ruined tower
or on the top of a church, and their civilization is
based on mutual aid and tolerance for each other’s
idiosyncrasies. Their exceeding mobility and hardi¬
ness renders them dangerous to attack, and thus they
are free to devote themselves to the development of
their domestic laws and customs. If policemen were
necessary to a civilization crows would certainly have
evolved them, but I triumphantly insist that they
have not got any policemen in their republic-”
“ I don’t understand a word you are saying,”
said the sergeant.
“ It doesn’t matter,” said the Philosopher. “ Ants
and bees also live in specialized communities and
have an extreme complexity both of function and
occupation. Their experience in governmental
matters is enormous, and yet they have never dis¬
covered that a police force is at all essential to their
well-being-”
“ Do you know,” said the sergeant, “ that what-
150
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ever you say now will be used in evidence against you
later on? ”
“ I do not,” said the Philosopher. “ It may be
said that these races are free from crime, that such
vices as they have are organized and communal
instead of individual and anarchistic, and that, con¬
sequently, there is no necessity for policecraft, but
I cannot believe that these large aggregations of
people could have attained their present high culture
without an interval of both national and individual
dishonesty-”
“ Tell me now, as you are talking,” said the
sergeant, ii did you buy the poison at a chemist s
shop, or did you smother the pair of them with a
pillow? ”
“ I did not,” said the Philosopher. “ If crime is
a condition precedent to the evolution of policemen,
then I will submit that jackdaws are a very thievish
clan—they are somewhat larger than a blackbird, and
will steal wool off a sheep’s back to line their nests
with; they have, furthermore, been known to abstract
one shilling in copper and secrete this booty so in¬
geniously that it has never since been recovered-”
“ I had a jackdaw myself,” said one of the men.
“ I got it from a woman that came to the door with
a basket for fourpence. My mother stood on its
back one day, and she getting out of bed. I split its
tongue with a threepenny-bit the way it would talk,
but devil the word it ever said for me. It used to hop
around letting on it had a lame leg, and then it would
steal your socks.”
“ Shut up! ” roared the sergeant.
“ If,” said the Philosopher, “ these people steal
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THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
both from sheep and from men, if their peculations
range from wool to money, I do not see how they
can avoid stealing from each other, and consequently,
if anywhere, it is amongst jackdaws one should look
for the growth of a police force, but there is no such
force in existence. The real reason is that they are
a witty and thoughtful race who look temperately on
what is known as crime and evil—one eats, one steals;
it is all in the order of things, and therefore not to be
quarrelled with. There is no other view possible to
a philosophical people-”
“ What the devil is he talking about? ” said the
sergeant.
“ Monkeys are gregarious and thievish and semi¬
human. They inhabit the equatorial latitudes and
eat nuts-”
“ Do you know what he is saying, Shawn? ”
“ I do not,” said Shawn.
they ought to have evolved professional
thief-takers, but it is common knowledge that they
have not done so. Fishes, squirrels, rats, beavers,
and bison have also abstained from this singular
growth—therefore, when I insist that I see no necessity
for policemen and object to their presence, I base that
objection on logic and facts, and not on any immediate
petty prejudice.”
“ Shawn,” said the sergeant, “ have you got a
good grip on that man? ”
“ I have,” said Shawn.
“ Well, if he talks any more hit him with vour
baton.”
“ I will so,” said Shawn.
“ There’s a speck of light down yonder, and,
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V THE POLICEMEN
maybe, it’s a candle in a window—we’ll ask the way
at that place.”
In about three minutes they came to a small
house which was overhung by trees. If the light
had not been visible they would undoubtedly have
passed it in the darkness. As they approached the
door the sound of a female voice came to them
scoldingly.
“ There’s somebody up anyhow,” said the sergeant,
and he tapped at the door.
The scolding voice ceased instantly. After a few
seconds he tapped again; then a voice was heard from
just behind the door.
“ Tomds,” said the voice, “ go and bring up the
two dogs with you before I take the door off the
chain.”
The door was then opened a few inches and a face
peered out-
“ What would you be wanting at this hour of the
night? ” said the woman.
“ Not much, ma’am,” said the sergeant; “ only
a little direction about the road, for w r e are not sure
whether we’ve gone too far or not far enough.”
The woman noticed their uniforms.
“ Is it policemen ye are? There’s no harm in
your coming in, I suppose, and if a drink of milk is
any good to ye I have plenty of it.”
“ Milk’s better than nothing,” said the sergeant
with a sigh.
“ I’ve a little sup of spirits,” said she, “ but it
wouldn’t be enough to go round.”
“ Ah, well,” said he, looking sternly at his
comrades, “ everybody has to take their chance in
'S3
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
this world,” and he stepped into the house followed
by his men.
The woman gave him a little sup of whisky from
a bottle, and to each of the other men she gave a cup
of milk.
“ It’ll wash the dust out of our gullets, anyhow,”
said one of them.
There were two chairs, a bed, and a table in the
room. The Philosopher and his attendants sat on
the bed. The sergeant sat on the table, the fourth
man took a chair, and the woman dropped wearily
into the remaining chair from which she looked with
pity at the prisoner.
“ What are you taking the poor man away for? ”
she asked.
“ He’s a bad one, ma’am,” said the sergeant.
“ He killed a man and a woman that were staying
with him and he buried their corpses underneath the
hearthstone of his house. He’s a real malefactor,
mind you.”
“ Is it hanging him you’ll be, God help us? ”
“ You never know, and I wouldn’t be a bit
surprised if it came to that. But you were in trouble
yourself, ma’am, for we heard your voice lamenting
about something as we came along the road.”
“ I was, indeed,” she replied, “ for the person
that has a son in her house has a trouble in her heart.”
“ Do you tell me now—What did he do on you? ”
and the sergeant bent a look of grave reprobation on
a young lad who was standing against the wall between
two dogs.
“ He’s a good boy enough in some ways,” said
she, “ but he’s too fond of beasts. He’ll go and lie
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V
THE POLICEMEN
in the kennel along with them two dogs for hours at
a time, petting them and making a lot of them, but
if I try to give him a kiss, or to hug him for a couple
of minutes when I do be tired after the work, he’ll
wriggle like an eel till I let him out—it would make
a body hate him, so it would. Sure, there’s no
nature in him, sir, and I’m his mother.”
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, you
young whelp,” said the sergeant very severely.
“ And then there’s the horse,” she continued.
“ Maybe you met it down the road a while ago? ”
“ We did, ma’am,” said the sergeant.
“ Well, when he came in Tomas went to tie him
up, for he’s a caution at getting out and wandering
about the road, the way you’d break your neck over
him if you weren’t minding. After a while I told
the boy to come in, but he didn’t come, so I went out
myself, and there was himself and the horse with
their arms round each other’s necks looking as if they
were moonstruck.”
“ Faith, he’s the queer lad! ” said the sergeant.
“ What do you be making love to the horse for,
Tomds? ”
“ It was all I could do to make him come in,”
she continued, “ and then I said to him, ‘ Sit down
alongside of me here, Tom&s, and keep me company
for a little while ’—for I do be lonely in the night¬
time—but he wouldn’t stay quiet at all. One minute
he’d say, ‘ Mother, there’s a moth flying round the
candle and it’ll be burnt,’ and then, * There was a fly
going into the spider’s web in the corner,’ and he’d
have to save it, and after that, ‘ There’s a daddy-long¬
legs hurting himself on the window-pane,’ and he’d
155
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
have to let it out; but when I try to kiss him he
pushes me away. My heart is tormented, so it is,
for what have I in the world but him? ”
“ Is his father dead, ma’am? ” said the sergeant
kindly.
“ I’ll tell the truth,” said she. “ I don’t know
whether he is or not, for a long time ago, when we
used to live in the city of Bla’ Cliah, he lost his work
one time and he never came back to me again. He
was ashamed to come home I’m thinking, the poor
man, because he had no money; as if I would have
minded whether he had any money or not—sure, he
was very fond of me, sir, and we could have pulled
along somehow. After that I came back to my
father’s place here; the rest of the children died on
me, and then my father died, and I’m doing the best
I can by myself. It’s only that I’m a little bit
troubled with the boy now and again.”
“ It’s a hard case, ma’am,” said the sergeant,
“ but maybe the boy is only a bit wild not having his
father over him, and maybe it’s just that he’s used to
yourself, for there isn’t a child at all that doesn’t love
his mother. Let you behave yourself now, Tomas;
attend to your mother, and leave the beasts and the
insects alone, like a decent boy, for there’s no insect
in the world will ever like you as well as she does.
Could you tell me, ma’am, if we have passed the first
turn on this road, or is it in front of us still, for we
are lost altogether in the darkness? ”
“ It’s in front of you still,” she replied, “ about
ten minutes down the road; you can’t miss it, for
you’ll see the sky where there is a gap in the trees,
and that gap is the turn you want.”
1 5 6
V
THE POLICEMEN
“ Thank you, ma’am,” said the sergeant; “ we’d
better be moving on, for there’s a long tramp in front
of us before we get to sleep this night.”
He stood up and the men rose to follow him
when, suddenly, the 7 boy spoke in a whisper.
“ Mother,” said he, “ they are going to hang the
man,” and he burst into tears.
“ Oh, hush, hush,” said the woman, “ sure, the
men can’t help it.” She dropped quickly on her
knees and opened her arms, “ Come over to your
mother, my darling.”
The boy ran to her.
“ They are going to hang him,” he cried in a
high, thin voice, and he plucked at her arm violently.
“ Now, then, my young boy-o,” said the sergeant,
“ none of that violence.”
The boy turned suddenly and flew at him with
astonishing ferocity. He hurled himself against the
sergeant’s legs and bit, and kicked, and struck at him.
So furiously sudden was his attack that the man went
staggering back against the wall, then he plucked at
the boy and whirled him across the room. In an
instant the two dogs leaped at him snarling with rage
—one of these he kicked into a corner, from which
it rebounded again bristling and red-eyed; the other
dog was caught by the woman, and after a few
frantic seconds she gripped the first dog also. To a
horrible chorus of howls and snapping teeth the men
hustled outside and slammed the door.
“ Shawn,” the sergeant bawled, “ have you got
a good grip of that man? ”
“ I have so,” said Shawn.
“ If he gets away I’ll kick the belly out of you;
l Sl
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
mind that now! Come along with you and no more
of your slouching.”
They marched down the road in a tingling
silence.
“ Dogs,” said the Philosopher, “ are a most in¬
telligent race of people-”
“ People, my granny! ” said the sergeant.
“ From the earliest ages their intelligence has
been observed and recorded, so that ancient litera¬
tures are bulky with references to their sagacity and
fidelity-”
“ Will you shut your old jaw? ” said the sergeant.
“ I will not,” said the Philosopher. “ Elephants
also are credited with an extreme intelligence and
devotion to their masters, and they will build a wall
or nurse a baby with equal skill and happiness.
Horses have received high recommendations in this
respect, but crocodiles, hens, beetles, armadillos, and
fish do not evince any remarkable partiality for
man-”
“ I wish,” said the sergeant bitterly, “ that all
them beasts were stuffed down your throttle the way
you’d have to hold your prate.”
“ It doesn’t matter,” said the Philosopher. “ I
do not know why these animals should attach them¬
selves to men with gentleness and love and yet be
able to preserve intact their initial bloodthirstiness, so
that while they will allow their masters to misuse
them in any way they will yet fight most willingly
with each other, and are never really happy saving
in the conduct of some private and nonsensical battle
of their own. I do not believe that it is fear which
tames these creatures into mildness, but that the most
158
V
THE POLICEMEN
savage animal has a capacity for love which has not
been sufficiently noted, and which, if more intelligent
attention had been directed upon it, would have
raised them to the status of intellectual animals as
against intelligent ones, and, perhaps, have opened
to us a correspondence which could not have been
other than beneficial.”
“ Keep your eyes out for that gap in the trees,
Shawn,” said the sergeant.
“ I’m doing that,” said Shawn.
The Philosopher continued:
“ Why can I not exchange ideas with a cow? I
am amazed at the incompleteness of my growth when
I and a fellow-creature stand dumbly before each
other without one glimmer of comprehension, locked
and barred from all friendship and intercourse-”
“ Shawn,” cried the sergeant.
“ Don’t interrupt,” said the Philosopher; “ you
are always talking.—The lower animals, as they are
foolishly called, have abilities at which we can only
wonder. The mind of an ant is one to which I
would readily go to school. Birds have atmospheric
and levitational information which millions of years
will not render accessible to us; who that has seen a
spider weaving his labyrinth, or a bee voyaging safely
in the trackless air, can refuse to credit that a vivid,
trained intelligence animates these small enigmas?
and the commonest earthworm is the heir to a
culture before which I bow with the profoundest
veneration-”
“ Shawn,” said the sergeant, “ say something for
goodness’ sake to take the sound of that man’s clack
out of my ear.”
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THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
“ I wouldn’t know what to be talking about,”
said Shawn, “ for I never was much of a hand at
conversation, and, barring my prayers, I got no
education—I think myself that he was making a
remark about a dog. Did you ever own a dog,
sergeant? ”
“ You are doing very well, Shawn,” said the
sergeant, “ keep it up now.”
“ I knew a man had a dog would count up to a
hundred for you. He won lots of money in bets
about it, and he’d have made a fortune, only that I
noticed one day he used to be winking at the dog,
and when he’d stop winking the dog would stop
counting. We made him turn his back after that,
and got the dog to count sixpence, but he barked for
more than five shillings, he did so, and he would have
counted up to a pound, maybe, only that his master
turned round and hit him a kick. Every person that
ever paid him a bet said they wanted their money
back, but the man went away to America in the night,
and I expect he’s doing well there for he took the dog
with him. It was a wire-haired terrier bitch, and
it was the devil for having pups.”
“ It is astonishing,” said the Philosopher, “ on
what slender compulsion people will go to
America-”
“ Keep it up, Shawn,” said the sergeant, “ you
are doing me a favour.”
“ I will so,” said Shawn. “ I had a cat one time
and it used to have kittens every two months.”
The Philosopher’s voice arose :
“ If there was any periodicity about these migra¬
tions one could understand them. Birds, for example,
160
V
THE POLICEMEN
migrate from their homes in the late autumn and seek
abroad the sustenance and warmth which the winter
would withhold if they remained in their native lands.
The salmon also, a dignified fish with a pink skin,
emigrates from the Atlantic Ocean, and betakes him¬
self inland to the streams and lakes, where he re¬
cuperates for a season, and is often surprised by net,
angle, or spear-”
“ Cut in now, Shawn,” said the sergeant anxiously.
Shawn began to gabble with amazing speed and
in a mighty voice:
“ Cats sometimes eat their kittens, and sometimes
they don’t. A cat that eats its kittens is a heartless
brute. I knew a cat used to eat its kittens—it had
four legs and a long tail, and it used to get the head-
staggers every time it had eaten its kittens. I killed
it myself one day with a hammer for I couldn’t stand
the smell it made, so I couldn’t-”
“ Shawn,” said the sergeant, “ can’t you talk
about something else besides cats and dogs? ”
“ Sure, I don’t know what to talk about,” said
Shawn. “ I’m sweating this minute trying to please
you, so I am. If you’ll tell me what to talk about
I’ll do my endeavours.”
You re a fool,” said the sergeant sorrowfully;
“ you’ll never make a constable. I’m thinking that
I would sooner listen to the man himself than to you.
Have you got a good hold of him now? ”
“ I have so,” said Shawn.
“ Well, step out and maybe we’ll reach the
barracks this night, unless this is a road that there
isn’t any end to at all. What was that? Did you
hear a noise? ”
161
M
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
“ I didn’t hear a thing,” said Shawn.
“ I thought,” said another man, “ that I heard
something moving in the hedge at the side of the
road.”
“ That’s what I heard,” said the sergeant. “ May¬
be it was a weasel. I wish to the devil that we were
out of this place where you can’t see as much as your
own nose. Now did you hear it, Shawn?
“ I did so,” said Shawn; “ there’s some one in
the hedge, for a weasel would make a different kind
of a noise if it made any at all.”
“ Keep together, men,” said the sergeant, “ and
march on; if there’s anybody about they’ve no busi¬
ness with us.”
He had scarcely spoken when there came a
sudden pattering of feet, and immediately the four
men were surrounded and were being struck at on
every side with sticks and hands and feet.
“ Draw your batons,” the sergeant roared; “ keep
a good grip of that man, Shawn.”
“ I will so,” said Shawn.
“ Stand round him, you other men, and hit any¬
thing that comes near you.”
There was no sound of voices from the assailants,
only a rapid scuffle of feet, the whistle of sticks as
they swung through the air or slapped smartly against
a body or clashed upon each other, and the quick
breathing of many people; but from the four police¬
men there came noise and to spare as they struck
wildly on every side, cursing the darkness and their
opposers with fierce enthusiasm.
“ Let out,” cried Shawn suddenly. “ Let out
or I’ll smash your nut for you. There’s some one
162
V THE POLICEMEN
pulling at the prisoner, and I’ve dropped my
baton.”
The truncheons of the policemen had been so
ferociously exercised that their antagonists departed
as swiftly and as mysteriously as they came. It was
just two minutes of frantic, aimless conflict, and then
the silent night was round them again, without any
sound but the slow creaking of branches, the swish
of leaves as they swung and poised, and the quiet
croon of the wind along the road.
“ Come on, men,” said the sergeant, “ we’d better
be getting out of this place as quick as we can. Are
any of ye hurted? ”
“ I’ve got one of the enemy,” said Shawn, panting.
“ You’ve got what? ” said the sergeant.
“ I’ve got one of them, and he is wriggling like
an eel on a pan.”
“ Hold him tight,” said the sergeant excitedly.
“ I will so,” said Shawn. “ It’s a little one by
the feel of it. If one of ye would hold the prisoner,
I’d get a better grip on this one. Aren’t they
dangerous villains now? ”
Another man took hold of the Philosopher’s arm,
and Shawn got both hands on his captive.
“ Keep quiet, I’m telling you,” said he, “ or I’ll
throttle you, I will so. Faith, it seems like a little
boy by the feel of it! ”
“ A little boy! ” said the sergeant.
“ Yes, he doesn’t reach up to my waist.”
“ It must be the young brat from the cottage that
set the dogs on us, the one that loves beasts. Now
then, boy, what do you mean by this kind of thing?
You’ll find yourself in gaol for this, my young buck-o.
163
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
Who was with you, eh? Tell me that now? ” and
the sergeant bent forward.
“ Hold up your head, sonny, and talk to the
sergeant,” said Shawn. “ Oh! ” he roared, and
suddenly he made a little rush forward. “ I’ve got
him,” he gasped; “ he nearly got away. It isn’t a
boy at all, sergeant; there’s whiskers on it! ”
“ What do you say? ” said the sergeant.
“ J put my hand under its chin and there s
whiskers on it. I nearly let him out with the sur¬
prise, I did so.”
“Try again,” said the sergeant in a low voice;
“ you are making a mistake.’ t
“ I don’t like touching them,” said Shawn. “ It’s
a soft whisker like a billy-goat’s. Maybe you’d try
yourself, sergeant, for I tell you I’m frightened of it.”
“ Hold him over here,” said the sergeant, “ and
keep a good grip of him.”
“ J’ll do that,” said Shawn, and he hauled some
reluctant object towards his superior.
The sergeant put out his hand and touched a
head.
“ It’s only a boy’s size to be sure,” said he, then
he slid his hand down the face and withdrew it
quickly.
“There are whiskers on it,” said he soberly.
“ What the devil can it be? I never met whiskers
so near the ground before. Maybe they are false
ones, and it’s just the boy yonder trying to disguise
himself.” He put out his hand again with an effort,
felt his way to the chin, and tugged.
Instantly there came a yell, so loud, so sudden, that
every man of them jumped in a panic.
164
V
THE POLICEMEN
“ They are real whiskers,” said the sergeant with
a sigh. “ I wish I knew what it is. His voice is big
enough for two men, and that’s a fact. Have you
got another match on you? ”
“ I have two more in my waistcoat pocket,” said
one of the men.
“ Give me one of them,” said the sergeant; “ I’ll
strike it myself.”
He groped about until he found the hand with
the match.
“ Be sure and hold him tight, Shawn, the way
we can have a good look at him, for this is like to be
a queer miracle of a thing.”
“ I’m holding him by the two arms,” said Shawn,
“ he can’t stir anything but his head, and I’ve got
my chest on that.”
The sergeant struck the match, shading it for a
moment with his hand, then he turned it on their
new prisoner.
They saw a little man dressed in tight green
clothes; he had a broad pale face with staring eyes,
and there was a thin fringe of grey whisker under his
chin—then the match went out.
“ It’s a Leprecaun,” said the sergeant.
The men were silent for a full couple of minutes
—at last Shawn spoke.
“ Do you tell me so? ” said he in a musing voice;
“ that’s a queer miracle altogether.”
“ I do,” said the sergeant. “ Doesn’t it stand to
reason that it can’t be anything else? You saw it
yourself.”
Shawn plumped down on his knees before his
captive.
165
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
“Tell me where the money is? ” he hissed.
“ Tell me where the money is or I’ll twist your
neck off.”
The other men also gathered eagerly around,
shouting threats and commands at the Leprecaun.
“ Hold your whist,” said Shawn fiercely to them.
“ He can’t answer the lot of you, can he? ” and he
turned again to the Leprecaun and shook him until
his teeth chattered.
“ If you don’t tell me where the money is at once
I’ll kill you, I will so.”
“ I haven’t got any money at all, sir,” said the
Leprecaun.
“ None of your lies,” roared Shawn. “ Tell the
truth now or it’ll be worse for you.”
“ I haven’t got any money,” said the Leprecaun,
“ for Meehawl MacMurrachu of the Hill stole our
crock a while back, and he buried it under a thorn
bush. I can bring you to the place if you don’t
believe me.”
“ Very good,” said Shawn. “ Come on with me
now, and I’ll clout you if you as much as wriggle;
do you mind me? ”
“ What would I wriggle for? ” said the Leprecaun:
“ sure I like being with you.”
Hereupon the sergeant roared at the top of his
voice.
“ Attention,” said he, and the men leaped to
position like automata.
“ What is it you are going to do with your
prisoner, Shawn? ” said he sarcastically. “ Don’t you
think we’ve had enough tramping of these roads for
one night, now? Bring up that Leprecaun to the
166
“tell me where the money is?” he hissed
V
THE POLICEMEN
barracks or it’ll be the worse for you—do you hear
me talking to you? ”
“ But the gold, sergeant,” said Shawn sulkily.
“ If there’s any gold it’ll be treasure trove, and
belong to the Crown. What kind of a constable are
you at all, Shawn? Mind what you are about now,
my man, and no back answers. Step along there.
Bring that murderer up at once, whichever of you
has him.”
There came a gasp from the darkness.
“ Oh, Oh, Oh! ” said a voice of horror.
“ What’s wrong with you? ” said the sergeant:
“ are you hurted? ”
“The prisoner!” he gasped, “he, he’s got away! ”
“ Got away? ” and the sergeant’s voice was a blare
of fury.
“ While we were looking at the Leprecaun,” said
the voice of woe, “ I must have forgotten about the
other one—I, I haven’t got him— ”
“ You gawm! ” gritted the sergeant.
“ Is it my prisoner that’s gone? ” said Shawn in
a deep voice. He leaped forward with a curse and
smote his negligent comrade so terrible a blow in the
face, that the man went flying backwards, and the
thud of his head on the road could have been heard
anywhere.
“ Get up,” said Shawn, “ get up till I give you
another one.”
“ That will do,” said the sergeant, “ we’ll go
home. We’re the laughing-stock of the world. I’ll
pay you out for this some time, every damn man of
ye. Bring that Leprecaun along with you, and quick
march.”
167
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK. V
“ Oh! ” said Shawn in a strangled tone.
“ What is it now? ” said the sergeant testily.
“ Nothing,” replied Shawn.
“ What did you say ‘ Oh! * for then, you block¬
head? ”
“ It’s the Leprecaun, sergeant,” said Shawn in a
whisper—“ he’s got away—when I was hitting the
man there I forgot all about the Leprecaun: he must
have run into the hedge. Oh, sergeant, dear, don’t
say anything to me now—! ”
“ Quick march,” said the sergeant, and the four
men moved on through the darkness in a silence,
which was only skin deep.
168
CHAPTER XV
By reason of the many years which he had spent in
the gloomy pine wood, the Philosopher could see a
little in the darkness, and when he found there was
no longer any hold on his coat he continued his
journey quietly, marching along with his head sunken
on his breast in a deep abstraction. He was meditat¬
ing on the word “ Me,” and endeavouring to pursue
it through all its changes and adventures. The fact
of “ me-ness ” was one which startled him. He was
amazed at his own being. He knew that the hand
which he held up and pinched with another hand
was not him and the endeavour to find out what
was him was one which had frequently exercised
his leisure. He had not gone far when there
came a tug at his sleeve and looking down he
found one of the Leprecauns of the Gort trotting
by his side.
“ Noble Sir,” said the Leprecaun, “ you are
terrible hard to get into conversation with. I have
169
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
been talking to you for the last long time and you
won’t listen.”
“ I am listening now,” replied the Philosopher.
“ You are, indeed,” said the Leprecaun heartily.
“ My brothers are on the other side of the road over
there beyond the hedge, and they want to talk to
you: will you come with me, Noble Sir? ”
“ Why wouldn’t I go with you? ” said the Philo¬
sopher, and he turned aside with the Leprecaun.
They pushed softly through a gap in the hedge
and into a field beyond.
“ Come this way, sir,” said his guide, and the
Philosopher followed him across the field. In a few
minutes they came to a thick bush among the leaves
of which the other Leprecauns were hiding. They
thronged out to meet the Philosopher’s approach
and welcomed him with every appearance of joy.
With them was the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath,
who embraced her husband tenderly and gave thanks
for his escape.
“ The night is young yet,” remarked one of the
Leprecauns. “ Let us sit down here and talk about
what should be done.”
“ I am tired enough,” said the Philosopher, “ for
I have been travelling all yesterday, and all this day
and the whole of this night I have been going also,
so I would be glad to sit down anywhere.”
They sat down under the bush and the Philosopher
lit his pipe. In the open space where they were
there was just light enough to see the smoke coming
from his pipe, but scarcely more. One recognized a
figure as a deeper shadow than the surrounding dark¬
ness; but as the ground was dry and the air just
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THE POLICEMEN
touched with a pleasant chill, there was no discomfort.
After the Philosopher had drawn a few mouthfuls
of smoke he passed his pipe on to the next person,
and in this way his pipe made the circuit of the
party.
“ When I put the children to bed,” said the Thin
Woman, “ I came down the road in your wake with
a basin of stirabout, for you had no time to take your
food, God help you! and I was thinking you must
have been hungry.”
“ That is so,” said the Philosopher in a very
anxious voice: “ but I don’t blame you, my dear,
for letting the basin fall on the road-”
“ While I was going along,” she continued, “ I
met these good people and when I told them what
happened they came with me to see if anything could
be done. The time they ran out of the hedge to
fight the policemen I wanted to go with them, but I
was afraid the stirabout would be spilt.”
The Philosopher licked his lips.
“ I am listening to you, my love,” said he.
“ So I had to stay where I was with the stirabout
under my shawl-”
“ Did you slip then, dear wife? ”
“ I did not, indeed,” she replied: “ I have the
stirabout with me this minute. It’s rather cold, I’m
thinking, but it is better than nothing at all,” and
she placed the bowl in his hands.
“ I put sugar in it,” said she shyly, “ and currants,
and I have a spoon in my pocket.”
“It tastes well,” said the Philosopher, and he
cleaned the basin so speedily that his wife wept
because of his hunger.
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THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
By this time the pipe had come round to him
again and it was welcomed.
“ Now we can talk,” said he, and he blew a great
cloud of smoke into the darkness and sighed happily.
“ We were thinking,” said the Thin Woman,
“ that you won’t be able to come back to our house
for a while yet: the policemen will be peeping about
Coille Doraca for a long time, to be sure; for isn’t it
true that if there is a good thing coming to a person,
nobody takes much trouble to find him, but if there
is a bad thing or a punishment in store for a man,
then the whole world will be searched until he be
found? ”
“ It is a true statement,” said the Philosopher.
“ So what we arranged was this—that you should
go to live with these little men in their house under
the yew tree of the Gort. There is not a policeman
in the world would find you there; or if you went
by night to the Brugh of the Boyne, Angus Og
himself would give you a refuge.”
One of the Leprecauns here interposed.
“ Noble Sir,” said he, “ there isn’t much room
in our house but there’s no stint of welcome in it.
You would have a good time with us travelling on
moonlit nights and seeing strange things, for we often
go to visit the Shee of the Hills and they come to
see us; there is always something to talk about, and
we have dances in the caves and on the tops of the
hills. Don’t be imagining now that we have a poor
life for there is fun and plenty with us and the Brugh
of Angus Mac an (5g is hard to be got at.”
“ I would like to dance, indeed,” returned the
Philosopher, “ for I do believe that dancing is the
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first and last duty of mjm. If we cannot be gay
what can we be? Life is not any use at all unless we
find a laugh here and there—but this time, decent
men of the Gort, I cannot go with you, for it is laid
on me to give myself up to the police.”
“ You would not do that,” exclaimed the Thin
Woman pitifully: “You wouldn’t think of doing
that now! ”
“ An innocent man,” said he, “ cannot be
oppressed, for he is fortified by his mind and his
heart cheers him. It is only on a guilty person that
the rigour of punishment can fall, for he punishes
himself. This is what I think, that a man should
always obey the law with his body and always disobey
it with his mind. I have been arrested, the men of
the law had me in their hands, and I will have to go
back to them so that they may do whatever they have
to do.”
The Philosopher resumed his pipe, and although
the others reasoned with him for a long time they
could not by any means remove him from his purpose.
So, when the pale glimmer of dawn had stolen over
the sky, they arose and went downwards to the cross
roads and so to the Police Station.
Outside the village the Leprecauns bade him
farewell and the Thin Woman also took her leave of
him, saying she would visit Angus (5g and implore
his assistance on behalf of her husband, and then the
Leprecauns and the Thin Woman returned again the
way they came, and the Philosopher walked on to
the barracks.
173
CHAPTER XVI
When he knocked at the barracks door it was opened
by a man with touzled, red hair, who looked as
though he had just awakened from sleep.
“ What do you want at this hour of the night? ”
said he.
“ I want to give myself up,” said the Philosopher.
The policeman looked at him—
“ A man as old as you are,” said he, “ oughtn’t
to be a fool. Go home now, I advise you, and don’t
say a word to anyone whether you did it or not.
Tell me this now, was it found out, or are you only
making a clean breast of it? ”
“ Sure I must give myself up,” said the Philo¬
sopher.
“ If you must, you must, and that’s an end of it.
Wipe your feet on the rail there and come in—I’ll
take your deposition.”
“ I have no deposition for you,” said the Philo¬
sopher, “ for I didn’t do a thing at all.”
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The policeman stared at him again.
“ If that’s so,” said he, “ you needn’t come in at
all, and you needn’t have wakened me out of my
sleep either. Maybe, tho’, you are the man that
fought the badger on the Naas Road—Eh? ”
“ I am not,” replied the Philosopher: “ but I
was arrested for killing my brother and his wife,
although I never touched them.”
“ Is that who you are? ” said the policeman; and
then, briskly, “ You’re as welcome as the cuckoo,
you are so. Come in and make yourself comfortable
till the men awaken, and they are the lads that’ll be
glad to see you. I couldn’t make head or tail of
what they said when they came in last night, and no
one else could either, for they did nothing but fight
each other and curse the banshees and cluricauns of
Leinster. Sit down there on the settle by the fire
and, maybe, you’ll be able to get a sleep; you look
as if you were tired, and the mud of every county in
Ireland is on your boots.”
The Philosopher thanked him and stretched out
on the settle. In a short time, for he was very weary,
he fell asleep.
Many hours later he was awakened by the sound
of voices, and found on rising, that the men who
had captured him on the previous evening were
standing by the bed. The sergeant’s face beamed
with joy. He was dressed only in his trousers and
shirt. His hair was sticking up in some places and
sticking out in others which gave a certain wild look
to him, and his feet were bare. He took the Philo¬
sopher’s two hands in his own and swore if ever there
was anything he could do to comfort him he would
l 7S
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
do that and more. Shawn, in a similar state of un-
clothedness, greeted the Philosopher and proclaimed
himself his friend and follower for ever. Shawn
further announced that he did not believe the Philo¬
sopher had killed the two people, that if he had
killed them they must have richly deserved it, and
that if he was hung he would plant flowers on his
grave; for a decenter, quieter, and wiser man he had
never met and never would meet in the world.
These professions of esteem comforted the Philo¬
sopher, and he replied to them in terms which made
the red-haired policeman gape in astonishment and
approval.
He was given a breakfast of bread and cocoa
which he ate with his guardians, and then, as they
had to take up their outdoor duties, he was conducted
to the back-yard and informed he could walk about
there and that he might smoke until he was black in
the face. The policemen severally presented him
with a pipe, a tin of tobacco, two boxes of matches
and a dictionary, and then they withdrew, leaving
him to his own devices.
The garden was about twelve feet square, having
high, smooth walls on every side, and into it there
came neither sun nor wind. In one corner a clump
of rusty-looking sweet-pea was climbing up the wall
—every leaf of this plant was riddled with holes, and
there were no flowers on it. Another corner was
occupied by dwarf nasturtiums, and on this plant, in
despite of every discouragement, two flowers were
blooming, but its leaves also were tattered and
dejected. A mass of ivy clung to the third corner,
its leaves were big and glossy at the top, but near the
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THE POLICEMEN
ground there were only grey, naked stalks laced
together by cobwebs. The fourth wall was clothed
in a loose Virginia creeper every leaf of which looked
like an insect that could crawl if it wanted to. The
centre of this small plot had used every possible
artifice to cover itself with grass, and in some places
it had wonderfully succeeded, but the pieces of
broken bottles, shattered jampots, and sections of
crockery were so numerous that no attempt at growth
could be other than tentative and unpassioned.
Here, for a long time, the Philosopher marched
up and down. At one moment he examined the
sweet-pea and mourned with it on a wretched existence.
Again he congratulated the nasturtium on its two
bright children; but he thought of the gardens
wherein they might have bloomed and the remem¬
brance of that spacious, sunny freedom saddened him.
“ Indeed, poor creatures! ” said he, “ ye also are
in gaol.”
The blank, soundless yard troubled him so much
that at last he called to the red-haired policeman and
begged to be put into a cell in preference; and to
the common cell he was, accordingly, conducted.
This place was a small cellar built beneath the
level of the ground. An iron grating at the top of
the wall admitted one blanched wink of light, but
the place was bathed in obscurity. A wooden ladder
led down to the cell from a hole in the ceiling, and
this hole also gave a spark of brightness and some
little air to the room. The walls were of stone covered
with plaster, but the plaster had fallen away in many
places leaving the rough stones visible at every turn
of the eye.
177
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THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
There were two men in the cell, and these the
Philosopher saluted; but they did not reply, nor did
they speak to each other. There was a low, wooden
form fixed to the wall, running quite round the room,
and on this, far apart from each other, the two men
were seated, with their elbows resting on their knees,
their heads propped upon their hands, and each of
them with an unwavering gaze fixed on the floor
between his feet.
The Philosopher walked for a time up and down
the little cell, but soon he also sat down on the low
form, propped his head on his hands and lapsed to a
melancholy dream.
So the day passed. Twice a policeman came
down the ladder bearing three portions of food,
bread and cocoa; and by imperceptible gradations
the light faded away from the grating and the dark¬
ness came. After a great interval the policeman again
approached carrying three mattresses and three rough
blankets, and these he bundled through the hole.
Each of the men took a mattress and a blanket and
spread them on the floor, and the Philosopher took
his share also.
By this time they could not see each other and
all their operations were conducted by the sense of
touch alone. They laid themselves down on the
beds and a terrible, dark silence brooded over the
room.
But the Philosopher could not sleep, he kept his
eyes shut, for the darkness under his eyelids was not
so dense as that which surrounded him; indeed, he
could at will illuminate his own darkness and order
around him the sunny roads or the sparkling sky.
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While his eyes were closed he had the mastery of all
pictures of light and colour and warmth, but an
irresistible fascination compelled him every few
minutes to reopen them, and in the sad space around
he could not create any happiness. The darkness
weighed very sadly upon him so that in a short time
it did creep under his eyelids and drowned his happy
pictures until a blackness possessed him both within
and without—
“ Can one’s mind go to prison as well as one’s
body? ” said he.
He strove desperately to regain his intellectual
freedom, but he could not. He could conjure up
no visions but those of fear. The creatures of the
dark invaded him, fantastic terrors were thronging
on every side: they came from the darkness into his
eyes and beyond into himself, so that his mind as well
as his fancy was captured, and he knew he was,
indeed, in gaol.
It was with a great start that he heard a voice
speaking from the silence—a harsh, yet cultivated
voice, but he could not imagine which of his com¬
panions was speaking. He had a vision of that man
tormented by the mental imprisonment of the dark¬
ness, trying to get away from his ghosts and slimy
enemies, goaded into speech in his own despite lest
he should be submerged and finally possessed by
the abysmal demons. For a while the voice spoke
of the strangeness of life and the cruelty of men to
each other—disconnected sentences, odd words of
self-pity and self-encouragement, and then the matter
became more connected and a story grew in the dark
cell—
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THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
“ I knew a man,” said the voice, “ and he was a
clerk. He had thirty shillings a week, and for five
years he had never missed a day going to his work.
He was a careful man, but a person with a wife and
four children cannot save much out of thirty shillings
a week. The rent of a house is high, a wife and
children must be fed, and they have to get boots and
clothes, so that at the end of each week that man’s
thirty shillings used to be all gone. But they managed
to get along somehow—the man and his wife and the
four children were fed and clothed and educated, and
the man often wondered how so much could be done
with so little money; but the reason was that his
wife was a careful woman . . . and then the man got
sick. A poor person cannot afford to get sick, and a
married man cannot leave his work. If he is sick
he has to be sick; but he must go to his work all the
same, for if he stayed away who would pay the wages
and feed his family? and when he went back to/ work
he might find that there was nothing for him to do.
This man fell sick, but he made no change in his
way of life: he got up at the same time and went to
the office as usual, and he got through the day some¬
how without attracting his employer’s attention. He
didn’t know what was wrong with him: he only
knew that he was sick. Sometimes he had sharp,
swift pains in his head, and again there would be long
hours of languor when he could scarcely bear to
change his position or lift a pen. He would com¬
mence a letter with the words ‘ Dear Sir,’ forming the
letter * D ’ with painful, accurate slowness, elaborating
and thickening the up and down strokes, and being
troubled when he had to leave that letter for the next
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V
THE POLICEMEN
one; he built the next letter by hair strokes and would
start on the third with hatred. The end of a word
seemed to that man like the conclusion of an event—
it was a surprising, isolated, individual thing, having
no reference to anything else in the world, and on
starting a new word he seemed bound, in order to
preserve its individuality, to write it in a different
handwriting. He would sit with his shoulders
hunched up and his pen resting on the paper, staring
at a letter until he was nearly mesmerized, and then
come to himself with a sense of fear, which started
him working like a madman, so that he might not
be behind with his business. The day seemed to be
so long. It rolled on rusty hinges that could scarcely
move. Each hour was like a great circle swollen with
heavy air, and it droned and buzzed into an eternity.
It seemed to the man that his hand in particular
wanted to rest. It was luxury not to work with it.
It was good to'lay it down on a sheet of paper with
the pen sloping against his finger, and then watch his
hand going to sleep—it seemed to the man that it
was his hand and not himself wanted to sleep, but it
always awakened when the pen slipped. There was
an instinct in him somewhere not to let the pen slip,
and every time the pen moved his hand awakened,
and began to work languidly. When he went home
at night he lay down at once and stared for hours at
a fly on the wall or a crack on the ceiling. When his
wife spoke to him he heard her speaking as from a
great distance, and he answered her dully as though
he was replying through a cloud. He only wanted
to be let alone, to be allowed to stare at the fly on the
wall, or the crack on the ceiling.
181
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
“ One morning he found that he couldn’t get up,
or rather, that he didn’t want to get up. When his
wife called him he made no reply, and she seemed to
call him every ten seconds—the words, ‘ get up, get
up,’ were crackling all round him; they were bursting
like bombs on the right hand and on the left of him:
they were scattering from above and all around him,
bursting upwards from the floor, swirling, swaying,
and jostling each other. Then the sounds ceased, and
one voice only said to him, * You are late! ’ He saw
these words like a blur hanging in the air, just beyond
his eyelids, and he stared at the blur until he fell
asleep.”
The voice in the cell ceased speaking for a few
minutes, and then it went on again.
“ For three weeks the man did not leave his bed
—he lived faintly in a kind of trance, wherein great
forms moved about slowly and immense words were
drumming gently for ever. When he began to take
notice again everything in the house was different.
Most of the furniture, paid for so hardly, was gone.
He missed a thing everywhere—chairs, a mirror, a
table: wherever he looked he missed something; and
downstairs was worse—there, everything was gone.
His wife had sold all her furniture to pay for doctors,
for medicine, for food and rent. And she was changed
too: good things had gone from her face; she was
gaunt, sharp-featured, miserable—but she was com¬
forted to think he was going back to work soon.
“ There was a flurry in his head when he went
to his office. He didn’t know what his employer
would say for stopping away. He might blame him
for being sick—he wondered would his employer pay
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THE POLICEMEN
him for the weeks he was absent. When he stood at
the door he was frightened. Suddenly the thought
of his master’s eye grew terrible to him: it was a
steady, cold, glassy eye; but he opened the door and
went in. His master was there with another man
and he tried to say ‘ Good morning, sir,’ in a natural
and calm voice; but he knew that the strange man
had been engaged instead of himself, and this know¬
ledge posted itself between his tongue and his thought.
He heard himself stammering, he felt that his whole
bearing had become drooping and abject. His master
was talking swiftly and the other man was looking at
him in an embarrassed, stealthy, and pleading manner:
his eyes seemed to be apologising for having sup¬
planted him—so he mumbled * Good day, sir,’ and
stumbled out.
“ When he got outside he could not think where
to go. After a while he went in the direction of the
little park in the centre of the city. It was quite
near and he sat down on an iron bench facing a pond.
There were children walking up and down by the
water giving pieces of bread to the swans. Now and
again a labouring man or a messenger went by
quickly; now and again a middle-aged, slovenly-
dressed man drooped past aimlessly: sometimes a
tattered, self-intent woman with a badgered face
flopped by him. When he looked at these dull people
the thought came to him that they were not walking
there at all; they were trailing through hell, and their
desperate eyes saw none but devils around them. He
saw himself joining these battered strollers . . . and
he could not think what he would tell his wife when
he went home. He rehearsed to himself the terms
183
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
of his dismissal a hundred times. How his master
looked, what he had said: and then the fine, ironical
things he had said to his master. He sat in the park
all day, and when evening fell he went home at his
accustomed hour.
“ His wife asked him questions as to how he had
got on, and wanted to know was there any chance of
being paid for the weeks of absence; the man answered
her volubly, ate his supper and went to bed: but he
did not tell his wife that he had been dismissed and
that there would be no money at the end of the week.
He tried to tell her, but when he met her eye he
found that he could not say the words—he was afraid
of the look that might come into her face when she
heard it—she, standing terrified in those dismantled
rooms . . . !
“ In the morning he ate his breakfast and went
out again—to work, his wife thought. She bid him
ask the master about the three weeks’ wages, or to
try and get an advance on the present week’s wages,
for they were hardly put to it to buy food. He
said he would do his best, but he went straight to the
park and sat looking at the pond, looking at the
passers by and dreaming. In the middle of the day
he started up in a panic and went about the city
asking for work in offices, shops, warehouses, every¬
where, but he could not get any. He trailed back
heavy-footed again to the park and sat down.
“ He told his wife more lies about his work that
night and what his master had said when he asked for
an advance. He couldn’t bear the children to touch
him. After a little time he sneaked away to his bed.
“ A week went that way. He didn’t look for
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THE POLICEMEN
work any more. He sat in the park, dreaming, with
his head bowed into his hands. The next day would
be the day he should have been paid his wages. The
next day! What would his wife say when he told
her he had no money? She would stare at him and
flush and say—‘ Didn’t you go out every day to
work? ’—How would he tell her then so that she
could understand quickly and spare him words?
“ Morning came and the man ate his breakfast
silently. There was no butter on the bread, and his
wife seemed to be apologising to him for not having
any. She said, ‘ We’ll be able to start fair from
to-morrow,’ and when he snapped at her angrily she
thought it was because he had to eat dry bread.
“ He went to the park and sat there for hours.
Now and again he got up and walked into a neigh¬
bouring street, but always, after half an hour or so,
he came back. Six o’clock in the evening was his
hour for going home. When six o’clock came he
did not move, he still sat opposite the pond with his
head bowed down into his arms. Seven o’clock
passed. At nine o’clock a bell was rung and every
one had to leave. He went also. He stood outside
the gates looking on this side and on that. Which
way would he go? All roads were alike to him, so
he turned at last and walked somewhere. He did
not go home that night. He never went home again.
He never was heard of again anywhere in the wide
world.”
The voice ceased speaking and silence swung
down again upon the little cell. The Philosopher
had been listening intently to this story, and after a
few minutes he spoke—
185
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
“ When you go up this road there is a turn to the
left and all the path along is bordered with trees—
there are birds in the trees, Glory be to God! There
is only one house on that road, and the woman in it
gave us milk to drink. She has but one son, a good
boy, and she said the other children were dead; she
was speaking of a husband who went away and left
her—‘ Why should he have been afraid to come
home? ’ said she—* sure, I loved him.’ ”
After a little interval the voice spoke again—
“ I don’t know what became of the man I was
speaking of. I am a thief, and I’m well known to
the police everywhere. I don’t think that man would
get a welcome at the house up here, for why should
he? ”
Another, a different, querulous kind of voice came
from the silence—
“If I knew a place where there was a welcome
I’d go there as quickly as I could, but I don’t know
a place and I never will, for what good would a man
of my age be to any person? I am a thief also. The
first thing I stole was a hen out of a little yard. I
roasted it in a ditch and ate it, and then I stole another
one and ate it, and after that I stole everything I
could lay my hands on. I suppose I will steal as
long as I live, and I’ll die in a ditch at the heel of the
hunt. There was a time, not long ago, and if any
one had told me then that I would rob, even for
hunger. I’d have been insulted; but what does it
matter now? And the reason I am a thief is because
I got old without noticing it. Other people noticed
it, but I did not. I suppose age comes on one so
gradually that it is seldom observed. If there are
186
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THE POLICEMEN
wrinkles on one’s face we do not remember when they
were not there: we put down all kind of litde in¬
firmities to sedentary living, and you will see plenty
of young people bald. If a man has no occasion to
tell any one his age, and if he never thinks of it himself,
he won’t see ten years’ difference between his youth
and his age, for we live in slow, quiet times, and
nothing ever happens to mark the years as they go
by, one after the other, and all the same.
“ I lodged in a house for a great many years,
and a little girl grew up there, the daughter of my
landlady. She used to slide down the bannisters very
well, and she used to play the piano very badly.
These two things worried me many a time. She used
to bring me my meals in the morning and the evening,
and often enough she’d stop to talk with me while
I was eating. She was a very chatty girl and I was
a talkative person myself. When she was about
eighteen years of age I got so used to her that if her
mother came with the food I would be worried for
the rest of the day. Her face was as bright as a sun¬
beam, and her lazy, careless ways, big, free movements,
and girlish chatter were pleasant to a man whose
loneliness was only beginning to be apparent to him
through her company. I’ve thought of it often since,
and I suppose that’s how it began. She used to
listen to all my opinions and she’d agree with them
because she had none of her own yet. She was a
good girl, but lazy in her mind and body; childish,
in fact. Her talk was as involved as her actions: she
always seemed to be sliding down mental bannisters;
she thought in kinks and spoke in spasms, hopped
mentally from one subject to another without the
187
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
slightest difficulty, and could use a lot of language
in saying nothing at all. I could see all that at the
time, but I suppose I was too pleased with my own
sharp business brains, and sick enough, although I
did not know it, of my sharp-brained, business
companions—dear Lord! I remember them well.
It’s easy enough to have brains as they call it, but it
is not so easy to have a little gaiety or carelessness or
childishness or whatever it was she had. It is good,
too, to feel superior to someone, even a girl.
“ One day this thought came to me—* It is time
that I settled down.’ I don’t know where that idea
came from; one hears it often enough and it always
seems to apply to someone else, but I don’t know
what brought it to roost with me. I was foolish, too:
I bought ties and differently shaped collars, and took
to creasing my trousers by folding them under the
bed and lying on them all night—It never struck
me that I was more than three times her age. I
brought home sweets for her and she was delighted.
She said she adored sweets, and she used to insist on
my eating some of them with her; she liked to
compare notes as to how they tasted while eating
them. I used to get a toothache from them, but I
bore with it although at that time I hated toothache
almost as much as I hated sweets. Then I asked her
to come out with me for a walk. She was willing
enough and it was a novel experience for me. Indeed,
it was rather exciting. We went out together often
after that, and sometimes we’d meet people I knew,
young men from my office or from other offices. I
used to be shy when some of these people winked at
me as they saluted. It was pleasant, too, telling the
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THE POLICEMEN
girl who they were, their business and their salaries:
for there was little I didn’t know. I used to tell her
of my own position in the office and what the chief
said to me through the day. Sometimes we talked
of the things that had appeared in the evening papers.
A murder perhaps, some phase of a divorce case, the
speech a political person had made, or the price of
stock. She was interested in anything so long as it
was talk. And her own share in the conversation
was good to hear. Every lady that passed us had a
hat that stirred her to the top of rapture or the other
pinnacle of disgust. She told me what ladies were
frights and what were ducks. Under her scampering
tongue I began to learn something of humanity, even
though she saw most people as delightfully funny
clowns or superb, majestical princes, but I noticed
that she never said a bad word of a man, although
many of the men she looked after were ordinary
enough. Until I went walking with her I never
knew what a shop window was. A jeweller’s window
especially: there were curious things in it. She told
me how a tiara should be worn, and a pendant, and
she explained the kind of studs I should wear myself;
they were made of gold and had red stones in them;
she showed me the ropes of pearl or diamonds that
she thought would look pretty on herself: and one
day she said that she liked me very much. I was
pleased and excited that day, but I was a business
man and I said very little in reply. I never liked a
pig in a poke.
“ She used to go out two nights in the week,
Monday and Thursday, dressed in her best clothes.
I didn’t know where she went, and I didn’t ask—I
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THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
thought she visited an acquaintance, a girl friend or
some such. The time went by and I made up my
mind to ask her to marry me. I had watched her
long enough and she was always kind and bright. I
liked the way she smiled, and I liked her obedient,
mannerly bearing. There was something else I
liked, which I did not recognise then, something
surrounding all her movements, a graciousness, a
spaciousness: I did not analyse it; but I know now
that it was her youth. I remember that when we
were out together she walked slowly, but in the house
she would leap up and down the stairs—she moved
furiously, but I didn’t.
“ One evening she dressed to go out as usual, and
she called at my door to know had I everything I
wanted. I said I had something to tell her when
she came home, something important. She promised
to come in early to hear it, and I laughed at her and
she laughed back and went sliding down the bannisters.
I don’t think I have had any reason to laugh since
that night. A letter came for me after she had gone,
and I knew by the shape and the handwriting that
it was from the office. It puzzled me to think why
I should be written to. I didn’t like opening it
somehow. ... It was my dismissal on account of
advancing age, and it hoped for my future welfare
politely enough. It was signed by the Senior. I
didn’t grip it at first, and then I thought it was a
hoax. For a long time I sat in my room with an
empty mind. I was watching my mind: there were
immense distances in it that drowsed and buzzed;
large, soft movements seemed to be made in my mind,
and although I was looking at the letter in my hand
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I was really trying to focus those great, swinging
spaces in my brain, and my ears were listening for a
movement of some kind. I can see back to that time
plainly. I went walking up and down the room.
There was a dull, subterranean anger in me. I
remember muttering once or twice, * Shameful! ’ and
again I said, * Ridiculous! ’ At the idea of age I
looked at my face in the glass, but I was looking at
my mind, and it seemed to go grey, there was a
heaviness there also. I seemed to be peering from
beneath a weight at something strange. I had a
feeling that I had let go a grip which I had held
tightly for a long time, and I had a feeling that the
letting go was a grave disaster . . . that strange face
in the glass! how wrinkled it was! there were only a
few hairs on the head and they were grey ones. There
was a constant twitching of the lips and the eyes were
deep-set, little and dull. I left the glass and sat
down by the window, looking out. I saw nothing
in the street: I just looked into a blackness. My
mind was as blank as the night and as soundless.
There was a swirl outside the window, rain tossed by
the wind; without noticing, I saw it, and my brain
swung with the rain until it heaved in circles, and
then a feeling of faintness awakened me to myself.
I did not allow my mind to think, but now and again
a word swooped from immense distances through my
brain, swinging like a comet across a sky and jarring
terribly when it struck: * Sacked ’ was one word,
‘ Old ’ was another word.
“ I don’t know how long I sat watching the flight
of these dreadful words and listening to their clanking
impact, but a movement in the street aroused me.
1 9 1
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
Two people, the girl and a young, slender man, were
coming slowly up to the house. The rain was falling
heavily, but they did not seem to mind it. There
was a big puddle of water close to the kerb, and the
girl, stepping daintily as a cat, went round this, but
the young man stood for a moment beyond it. He
raised both arms, clenched his fists, swung them, and
jumped over the puddle. Then he and the girl stood
looking at the water, apparently measuring the jump.
I could see them plainly by a street lamp. They
were bidding each other good-bye. The girl put
her hand to his neck and settled the collar of his coat,
and while her hand rested on him the young man
suddenly and violently flung his arms about her and
hugged her; then they kissed and moved apart.
The man walked to the rain puddle and stood there
with his face turned back laughing at her, and then
he jumped straight into the middle of the puddle and
began to dance up and down in it, the muddy water
splashing up to his knees. She ran over to him
crying ‘ Stop, silly! ’ When she came into the house,
I bolted my door and I gave no answer to her knock.
“ In a few months the money I had saved was
spent. I couldn’t get any work, I was too old; they
put it that they wanted a younger man. I couldn’t
pay my rent. I went out into the world again, like
a baby, an old baby in a new world. I stole food,
food, food anywhere and everywhere. At first I was
always caught. Often I was sent to gaol; sometimes
I was let go; sometimes I was kicked; but I learned
to live like a wolf at last. I am not often caught now
when I steal food. But there is something happening
every day, whether it is going to gaol or planning
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how to steal a hen or a loaf of bread. I find that it
is a good life, much better than the one I lived for
nearly sixty years, and I have time to think over
every sort of thing. . . .”
When the morning came the Philosopher was
taken on a car to the big City in order that he might
be put on his trial and hanged. It was the custom.
193
o
BOOK VI
THE THIN WOMAN’S JOURNEY
AND THE HAPPY MARCH
05
CHAPTER XVII
The ability of the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath for
anger was unbounded. She was not one of those
limited creatures who are swept clean by a gust of
wrath and left placid and smiling after its passing.
She could store her anger in those caverns of eternity
which open into every soul, and which are filled with
rage and violence until the time comes when they
may be stored with wisdom and love; for, in the
genesis of life, love is at the beginning and the end
of things. First, like a laughing child, love came to
labour minutely in the rocks and sands of the heart,
opening the first of those roads which lead inwards
for ever, and then, the labour of his day being done,
love fled away and was forgotten. Following came
the fierce winds of hate to work like giants and gnomes
among the prodigious debris, quarrying the rocks and
levelling the roads which soar inwards; but when that
work is completed love will come radiantly again to
live for ever in the human heart, which is Eternity.
197
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
Before the Thin Woman could undertake the
redemption of her husband by wrath, it was necessary
that she should be purified by the performance of
that sacrifice which is called the Forgiveness of
Enemies, and this she did by embracing the Lepre-
cauns of the Gort and in the presence of the sun and
the wind remitting their crime against her husband.
Thus she became free to devote her malice against
the State of Punishment, while forgiving the indi¬
viduals who had but acted in obedience to the pressure
of their infernal environment, which pressure is Sin.
This done she set about baking three cakes against
her journey to Angus ()g.
While she was baking the cakes, the children,
Seumas and Brigid Beg, slipped away into the wood
to speak to each other and to wonder over this extra¬
ordinary occurrence.
At first their movements were very careful, for
they could not be quite sure that the policemen had
really gone away, or whether they were hiding in
dark places waiting to pounce on them and carry
them away to captivity. The word “ murder ” was
almost unknown to them, and its strangeness was
rendered still more strange by reason of the nearness
of their father to the term. It was a terrible word
and its terror was magnified by their father’s un¬
thinkable implication. What had he done? Almost
all his actions and habits were so familiar to them as
to be commonplace, and yet, there was a dark some¬
thing to which he was a party and which dashed
before them as terrible and ungraspable as a lightning-
flash. They understood that it had something to do
with that other father and mother whose bodies had
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VI THE THIN WOMAN’S JOURNEY
been snatched from beneath the hearthstone, but
they knew the Philosopher had done nothing in that
instance, and, so, they saw murder as a terrible, occult
affair which was quite beyond their mental horizons.
No one jumped out on them from behind the
trees, so in a little time their confidence returned and
they walked less carefully. When they reached the
edge of the pine wood the brilliant sunshine invited
them to go farther, and after a little hesitation they
did so. The good spaces and the sweet air dissipated
their melancholy thoughts, and very soon they were
racing each other to this point and to that. Their
wayward flights had carried them in the direction of
Meehawl MacMurrachu’s cottage, and here, breath¬
lessly, they threw themselves under a small tree to
rest. It was a thorn bush, and as they sat beneath
it the cessation of movement gave them opportunity
to again consider the terrible position of their father.
With children thought cannot be separated from
action for very long. They think as much with their
hands as with their heads. They have to do the thing
they speak of in order to visualise the idea, and,
consequently, Seumas Beg was soon reconstructing
the earlier visit of the policemen to their house in
grand pantomime. The ground beneath the thorn
bush became the hearthstone of their cottage; he and
Brigid became four policemen, and in a moment he
was digging furiously with a broad piece of wood to
find the two hidden bodies. He had digged for only
a few minutes when the piece of wood struck against
something hard. A very little time sufficed to throw
the soil off this, and their delight was great when they
unearthed a beautiful little earthen crock filled to the
199
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
brim with shining, yellow dust. When they lifted
this they were astonished at its great weight. They
played for a long time with it, letting the heavy,
yellow shower slip through their fingers and watching
it glisten in the sunshine. After they tired of this
they decided to bring the crock home, but by the
time they reached the Gort na Cloca Mora they were
so tired that they could not carry it any farther, and
they decided to leave it with their friends the Lepre-
cauns. Seumas Beg gave the taps on the tree trunk
which they had learned, and in a moment the Lepre-
caun whom they knew came up.
“ We have brought this, sir,” said Seumas. But
he got no further, for the instant the Leprecaun saw
the crock he threw his arms around it and wept in
so loud a voice that his comrades swarmed up to see
what had happened to him, and they added their
laughter and tears to his, to which chorus the children
subjoined their sympathetic clamour, so that a noise
of great complexity rung through all the Gort.
But the Leprecauns* surrender to this happy
passion was short. Hard on their gladness came
remembrance and consternation; and then repent¬
ance, that dismal virtue, wailed in their ears and their
hearts. How could they thank the children whose
father and protector they had delivered to the un¬
illuminated justice of humanity? that justice which
demands not atonement but punishment; which is
learned in the Book of Enmity but not in the Book
of Friendship; which calls hatred Nature, and Love
a conspiracy; whose law is an iron chain and whose
mercy is debility and chagrin; the blind fiend who
would impose his own blindness; that unfruitful loin
200
HE ... . WEPT IN SO LOUD A VOICE THAT HIS COMRADES SWARMED
UP TO SEE WHAT HAD HAPPENED TO HIM
VI THE THIN WOMAN’S JOURNEY
which curses fertility; that stony heart which would
petrify the generations of man; before whom life
withers away appalled and death would shudder again
to its tomb. Repentance! they wiped the inadequate
ooze from their eyes and danced joyfully for spite.
They could do no more, so they fed the children
lovingly and carried them home.
The Thin Woman had baked three cakes. One
of these she gave to each of the children and one
she kept herself, whereupon they set out upon their
journey to Angus (3g.
It was well after midday when they started. The
fresh gaiety of the morning was gone, and a tyrannous
sun, whose majesty was almost insupportable, lorded
it over the world. There was but little shade for
the travellers, and, after a time, they became hot and
weary and thirsty—that is, the children did, but the
Thin Woman, by reason of her thinness, was proof
against every elemental rigour, except hunger, from
which no creature is free.
She strode in the centre of the road, a very volcano
of silence, thinking twenty different thoughts at the
one moment, so that the urgency of her desire for
utterance kept her terribly quiet; but against this
crust of quietude there was accumulating a mass of
speech which must at the last explode or petrify.
From this congestion of thought there arose the first
deep rumblings, precursors of uproar, and another
moment would have heard the thunder of her varied
malediction, but that Brigid Beg began to cry : for,
indeed, the poor child was both tired and parched
to distraction, and Seumas had no barrier against a
similar surrender, but two minutes’ worth of boyish
201
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
pride. This discovery withdrew the Thin Woman
from her fiery contemplations, and in comforting the
children she forgot her own hardships.
It became necessary to find water quickly: no
difficult thing, for the Thin Woman, being a Natural,
was like all other creatures able to sense the where¬
abouts of water, and so she at once led the children
in a slightly different direction. In a few minutes
they reached a well by the road-side, and here the
children drank deeply and were comforted. There
was a wide, leafy tree growing hard by the well, and
in the shade of this tree they sat down and ate their
cakes.
While they rested the Thin Woman advised the
children on many important matters. She never
addressed her discourse to both of them at once, but
spoke first to Seumas on one subject and then to
Brigid on another subject; for, as she said, the things
which a boy must learn are not those which are
necessary to a girl. It is particularly important that
a man should understand how to circumvent women,
for this and the capture of food forms the basis of
masculine wisdom, and on this subject she spoke to
Seumas. It is, however, equally urgent that a woman
should be skilled to keep a man in his proper place,
and to this thesis Brigid gave an undivided attention.
She taught that a man must hate all women before
he is able to love a woman, but that he is at liberty,
or rather he is under express command, to love all
men because they are of his kind. Women also should
love all other women as themselves, and they should
hate all men but one man only, and him they should
seek to turn into a woman, because women, by the
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VI THE THIN WOMAN’S JOURNEY
order of their beings, must be either tyrants or slaves,
and it is better they should be tyrants than slaves.
She explained that between men and women there
exists a state of unremitting warfare, and that the
endeavour of each sex is to bring the other to sub¬
jection; but that women are possessed by a demon
called Pity which severely handicaps their battle and
perpetually gives victory to the male, who is thus
constantly rescued on the very ridges of defeat. She
said to Seumas that his fatal day would dawn when
he loved a woman, because he would sacrifice his
destiny to her caprice, and she begged him for love
of her to beware of all that twisty sex. To Brigid
she revealed that a woman’s terrible day is upon her
when she knows that a man loves her, for a man in
love submits only to a woman, a partial, individual
and temporary submission, but a woman who is loved
surrenders more fully to the very god of love himself,
and so she becomes a slave, and is not alone deprived
of her personal liberty, but is even infected in her
mental processes by this crafty obsession. The fates
work for man, and therefore, she averred, woman
must be victorious, for those who dare to war against
the gods are already assured of victory: this being
the law of life, that only the weak shall conquer.
The limit of strength is petrifaction and immobility,
but there is no limit to weakness, and cunning or
fluidity is its counsellor. For these reasons, and in
order that life might not cease, women should seek
to turn their husbands into women; then they would
be tyrants and their husbands would be slaves, and
life would be renewed for a further period.
As the Thin Woman proceeded with this lesson
203
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
it became at last so extremely complicated that she
was brought to a stand by the knots, so she decided
to resume their journey and disentangle her argument
when the weather became cooler.
They were repacking the cakes in their wallets
when they observed a stout, comely female coming
towards the well. This woman, when she drew near,
saluted the Thin Woman, and her the Thin Woman
saluted again, whereupon the stranger sat down.
“ It’s hot weather, surely,” said she, “ and I’m
thinking it’s as much as a body’s life is worth to be
travelling this day and the sun the way it is. Did
you come far, now, ma’am, or is it that you are used
to going the roads and don’t mind it? ”
“ Not far,” said the Thin Woman.
“ Far or near,” said the stranger, “ a perch is
as much as I’d like to travel this time of the year.
That’s a fine pair of children you have with you
now, ma’am.”
“ They are,” said the Thin Woman.
“ I’ve ten of them myself,” the other continued,
“ and I often wondered where they came from. It’s
queer to think of one woman making ten new creatures
and she not getting a penny for it, nor any thanks
itself.”
“ It is,” said the Thin Woman.
“ Do you ever talk more than two words at the
one time, ma’am? ” said the stranger.
“ I do,” said the Thin Woman.
“ I’d give a penny to hear you,” replied the other
angrily, “ for a more bad-natured, cross-grained,
cantankerous person than yourself I never met among
womankind. It’s what I said to a man only yesterday,
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VI THE THIN WOMAN’S JOURNEY
that thin ones are bad ones, and there isn’t any one
could be thinner than you are yourself.”
“ The reason you say that,” said the Thin Woman
calmly, “ is because you are fat and you have to tell
lies to yourself to hide your misfortune, and let on
that you like it. There is no one in the world could
like to be fat, and there I leave you, ma’am. You
can poke your finger in your own eye, but you may
keep it out of mine if you please, and, so, good-bye
to you; and if I wasn’t a quiet woman I’d pull you
by the hair of the head up a hill and down a hill for
two hours, and now there’s an end of it. I’ve given
you more than two words; let you take care or I’ll
give you two more that will put blisters on your
body for ever. Come along with me now, children,
and if ever you see a woman like that woman you’ll
know that she eats until she can’t stand, and drinks
until she can’t sit, and sleeps until she is stupid; and
if that sort of person ever talks to you remember that
two words are all that’s due to her, and let them be
short ones, for a woman like that would be a traitor
and a thief, only that she’s too lazy to be anything
but a sot, God help her! and, so, good-bye.”
Thereupon the Thin Woman and the children
arose, and having saluted the stranger they went down
the wide path; but the other woman stayed where
she was sitting, and she did not say a word even to
herself.
As she strode along the Thin Woman lapsed again
to her anger, and became so distant in her aspect that
the children could get no companionship from her;
so, after a while, they ceased to consider her at all
and addressed themselves to their play. They danced
205
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
before and behind and around her. They ran and
doubled, shouted and laughed and sang. Sometimes
they pretended they were husband and wife, and then
they plodded quietly side by side, making wise,
occasional remarks on the weather, or the condition
of their health, or the state of the fields of rye. Some¬
times one was a horse and the other was a driver, and
then they stamped along the road with loud, fierce
snortings and louder and fiercer commands. At
another moment one was a cow being driven with
great difficulty to market by a driver whose temper
had given way hours before; or they both became
goats and with their heads jammed together they
pushed and squealed viciously; and these changes
lapsed into one another so easily that at no moment
were they unoccupied. But as the day wore on to
evening the immense surrounding quietude began to
weigh heavily upon them. Saving for their own shrill
voices there was no sound, and this unending, wide
silence at last commanded them to a corresponding
quietness. Litde by little they ceased their play.
The scamper became a trot, each run was more and
more curtailed in its length, the race back became
swifter than the run forth, and, shortly, they were
pacing soberly enough one on either side of the Thin
Woman sending back and forth a few quiet sentences.
Soon even these sentences trailed away into the vast
surrounding stillness. Then Brigid Beg clutched the
Thin Woman’s right hand, and not long after Seumas
gently clasped her left hand, and these mute appeals
for protection and comfort again released her from
the valleys of fury through which she had been so
fiercely careering.
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VI THE THIN WOMAN’S JOURNEY
As they went gently along they saw a cow lying
in a field, and, seeing this animal, the Thin Woman
stopped thoughtfully.
“ Everything,” said she, “ belongs to the way¬
farer,” and she crossed into the field and milked the
cow into a vessel which she had.
“ I wonder,” said Seumas, “ who owns that cow.”
“ Maybe,” said Brigid Beg, “ nobody owns her
at all.”
“ The cow owns herself,” said the Thin Woman,
“ for nobody can own a thing that is alive. I am
sure she gives her milk to us with great goodwill, for
we are modest, temperate people without greed or
pretension.”
On being released the cow lay down again in the
grass and resumed its interrupted cud. As the
evening had grown chill the Thin Woman and the
children huddled close to the warm animal. They
drew pieces of cake from their wallets, and ate these
and drank happily from the vessel of milk. Now
and then the cow looked benignantly over its shoulder
bidding them a welcome to its hospitable flanks. It
had a mild, motherly eye, and it was very fond of
children. The youngsters continually deserted their
meal in order to put their arms about the cow’s neck
to thank and praise her for her goodness, and to draw
each other’s attention to various excellences in its
appearance.
“ Cow,” said Brigid Beg in an ecstasy, “ I love
you.”
“ So do I,” said Seumas. “ Do you notice the
kind of eyes it has? ”
“ Why does a cow have horns? ” said Brigid.
207
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
So they asked the cow that question, but it only
smiled and said nothing.
“ If a cow talked to you,” said Brigid, “ what
would it say? ”
“ Let us be cows,” replied Seumas, “ and then,
maybe, we will find out.”
So they became cows and ate a few blades of grass,
but they found that when they were cows they did
not want to say anything but “ moo,” and they
decided that cows did not want to say anything more
than that either, and they became interested in the
reflection that, perhaps, nothing else was worth saying.
A long, thin, yellow-coloured fly was going in
that direction on a journey, and he stopped to rest
himself on the cow’s nose.
“ You are welcome,” said the cow.
“ It’s a great night for travelling,” said the fly,
“ but one gets tired alone. Have you seen any of
my people about? ”
“ No,” replied the cow, “ no one but beetles
to-night, and they seldom stop for a talk. You’ve
rather a good kind of life, I suppose, flying about
and enjoying yourself.”
“ We all have our troubles,” said the fly in a
melancholy voice, and he commenced to clean his
right wing with his leg.
“ Does any one ever lie against your back the
way these people are lying against mine, or do they
steal your milk? ”
“ There are too many spiders about,” said the
fly. “ No comer is safe from them; they squat in
the grass and pounce on you. I’ve got a twist in
my eye trying to watch them. They are ugly,
208
VI THE THIN WOMAN’S JOURNEY
voracious people without manners or neighbourliness,
terrible, terrible creatures.”
“ I have seen them,” said the cow, “ but they
never done me any harm. Move up a little bit please,
I want to lick my nose: it’s queer how itchy my
nose gets ”—the fly moved up a bit. “ If,” the cow
continued, “ you had stayed there, and if my tongue
had hit you, I don’t suppose you would ever have
recovered.”
“ Your tongue couldn’t have hit me,” said the
fly. “ I move very quickly you know.”
Hereupon the cow slily whacked her tongue across
her nose. She did not see the fly move, but it was
hovering safely half an inch over her nose.
“ You see,” said the fly.
“ I do,” replied the cow, and she bellowed so
sudden and furious a snort of laughter that the fly
was blown far away by that gust and never came back
again.
This amused the cow exceedingly, and she
chuckled and sniggered to herself for a long time.
The children had listened with great interest to the
conversation, and they also laughed delightedly, and
the Thin Woman admitted that the fly had got the
worst of it; but, after a while, she said that the part
of the cow’s back against which she was resting was
bonier than anything she had ever leaned upon before,
and that while thinness was a virtue no one had any
right to be thin in lumps, and that on this count the
cow was not to be commended. On hearing this the
cow arose, and without another look at them it walked
away into the dusky field. The Thin Woman told
the children afterwards that she was sorry she had
209 p
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
said anything, but she was unable to bring herself to
apologise to the cow, and so they were forced to resume
their journey in order to keep themselves warm.
There was a sickle moon in the sky, a tender
sword whose radiance stayed in its own high places
and did not at all illumine the heavy world below;
the glimmer of infrequent stars could also be seen
with spacious, dark solitudes between them; but on
the earth the darkness gathered in fold on fold of
misty veiling, through which the trees uttered an
earnest whisper, and the grasses lifted their little
voices, and the wind crooned its thrilling, stern lament.
As the travellers walked on, their eyes, flinching
from the darkness, rested joyfully on the gracious
moon, but that joy lasted only for a little time. The
Thin Woman spoke to them curiously about the
moon, and, indeed, she might speak with assurance
on that subject, for her ancestors had sported in the
cold beam through countless dim generations.
“It is not known,” said she, “that the fairies
seldom dance for joy, but for sadness that they have
been expelled from the sweet dawn, and therefore
their midnight revels are only ceremonies to remind
them of their happy state in the morning of the
world before thoughtful curiosity and self-righteous
moralities drove them from the kind face of the sun
to the dark exile of midnight. It is strange that we
may not be angry while looking on the moon. Indeed,
no mere appetite or passion of any kind dare become
imperative in the presence of the Shining One; and
this, in a more limited degree, is true also of every
form of beauty; for there is something in an absolute
beauty to chide away the desires of materiality and
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VI THE THIN WOMAN’S JOURNEY
yet to dissolve the spirit in ecstasies of fear and sadness.
Beauty has no liking for Thought, but will send
terror and sorrow on those who look upon her with
intelligent eyes. We may neither be angry nor gay
in the presence of the moon, nor may we dare to
think in her bailiwick, or the Jealous One will surely
afflict us. I think that she is not benevolent but
malign, and that her mildness is a cloak for many
shy infamies. I think that beauty tends to become
frightful as it becomes perfect, and that, if we could
see it comprehendingly, the extreme of beauty is a
desolating hideousness, and that the name of ultimate,
absolute beauty is Madness. Therefore men should
seek loveliness rather than beauty, and so they would
always have a friend to go beside them, to understand
and to comfort them, for that is the business of
loveliness: but the business of beauty—there is no
person at all knows what that is. Beauty is the
extreme which has not yet swung to and become
merged in its opposite. The poets have sung of this
beauty and the philosophers have prophesied of it,
thinking that the beauty which passes all understand¬
ing is also the peace which passeth understanding;
but I think that whatever passes understanding,
which is imagination, is terrible, standing aloof from
humanity and from kindness, and that this is the sin
against the Holy Ghost, the great Artist. An isolated
perfection is a symbol of terror and pride, and it is
followed only by the head of man, but the heart
winces from it aghast, cleaving to that loveliness which
is modesty and righteousness. Every extreme is bad,
in order that it may swing to and fertilize its equally
horrible opposite.”
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
Thus, speaking more to herself than to the
children, the Thin Woman beguiled the way. The
moon had brightened as she spoke, and on either
side of the path, wherever there was a tree or a rise
in the ground, a black shadow was crouching tensely
watchful, seeming as if it might spring into terrible
life at a bound. Of these shadows the children
became so fearful that the Thin Woman forsook the
path and adventured on the open hillside, so that in
a short time the road was left behind and around
them stretched the quiet slopes in the full shining of
the moon.
When they had walked for a long time the children
became sleepy; they were unused to being awake
in the night, and as there was no place where they
could rest, and as it was evident that they could not
walk much further, the Thin Woman grew anxious.
Already Brigid had made a tiny, whimpering sound,
and Seumas had followed this with a sigh, the slightest
prolongation of which might have trailed into a sob,
and when children are overtaken by tears they do
not understand how to escape from them until they
are simply bored by much weeping.
When they topped a slight incline they saw a
light shining some distance away, and toward this
the Thin Woman hurried. As they drew near she
saw it was a small fire, and around this some figures
were seated. In a few minutes she came into the
circle of the firelight, and here she halted suddenly.
She would have turned and fled, but fear loosened her
knees so that they would not obey her will; also, the
people by the fire had observed her, and a great voice
commanded that she should draw near.
212
WHEN THEY TOPPED A SLIGHT INCLINE THEY SAW A
LIGHT SHINING SOME DISTANCE AWAY
VI THE THIN WOMAN’S JOURNEY
The fire was made of branches of heather, and
beside it three figures sat. The Thin Woman, hiding
her perturbation as well as she could, came nigh and
sat down by the fire. After a low word of greeting
she gave some of her cake to the children, drew them
close to her, wrapped her shawl about their heads
and bade them sleep. Then, shrinkingly, she looked
at her hosts.
They were quite naked, and each of them gazed
on her with intent earnestness. The first was so
beautiful that the eye failed upon him, flinching aside
as from a great brightness. He was of mighty stature,
and yet so nobly proportioned, so exquisitely slender
and graceful, that no idea of gravity or bulk went
with his height. His face was kingly and youthful
and of a terrifying serenity. The second man was
of equal height, but broad to wonderment. So broad
was he that his great height seemed diminished. The
tense arm on which he leaned was knotted and ridged
with muscle, and his hand gripped deeply into the
ground. His face seemed as though it had been
hammered from hard rock, a massive, blunt face as
rigid as his arm. The third man can scarcely be
described. He was neither short nor tall. He was
muscled as heavily as the second man. As he sat he
looked like a colossal toad squatting with his arms
about his knees, and upon these his chin rested. He
had no shape nor swiftness, and his head was flattened
down and was scarcely wider than his neck. He had
a protruding dog-like mouth that twitched occasion¬
ally, and from his little eyes there glinted a horrible
intelligence. Before this man the soul of the Thin
Woman grovelled. She felt herself crawling to him.
213
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
The last terrible abasement of which humanity is
capable came upon her: a fascination which would
have drawn her to him in screaming adoration.
Hardly could she look away from him, but her arms
were about the children, and love, mightiest of the
powers, stirred fiercely in her heart.
The first man spoke to her.
“ Woman,” said he, “ for what purpose do you
go abroad on this night and on this hill? ”
“ I travel, sir,” said the Thin Woman, “ searching
for the Brugh of Angus the son of the Dagda Mor.”
“ We are all children of the Great Father,” said
he. “ Do you know who we are? ”
“ I do not know that,” said she.
“ We are the Three Absolutes, the Three Re¬
deemers, the three Alembics — the Most Beautiful
Man, the Strongest Man and the Ugliest Man. In
the midst of every strife we go unhurt. We count
the slain and the victors and pass on laughing, and
to us in the eternal order come all the peoples of the
world to be regenerated for ever. Why have you
called to us? ”
“ I did not call to you, indeed,” said the Thin
Woman; “ but why do you sit in the path so that
travellers to the House of the Dagda are halted on
their journey? ”
“There are no paths closed to us,” he replied;
“ even the gods seek us, for they grow weary in their
splendid desolation—saving Him who liveth in all
things and in us; Him we serve and before His awful
front we abase ourselves. You, O Woman, who are
walking in the valleys of anger, have called to us in
your heart, therefore we are waiting for you on the
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VI THE THIN WOMAN’S JOURNEY
side of the hill. Choose now one of us to be your
mate, and do not fear to choose, for our kingdoms are
equal and our powers are equal.”
“ Why would I choose one of you,” replied the
Thin Woman, “ when I am well married already to
the best man in the world? ”
“ Beyond us there is no best man,” said he, “ for
we are the best in beauty, and the best in strength,
and the best in ugliness; there is no excellence which
is not contained in us three. If you are married what
does that matter to us who are free from the pettiness
of jealousy and fear, being at one with ourselves and
with every manifestation of nature.”
“ If,” she replied, “ you are the Absolute and are
above all pettiness, can you not be superior to me
also and let me pass quietly on my road to the Dagda! ”
“ We are what all humanity desire,” quoth he,
“ and we desire all humanity. There is nothing,
small or great, disdained by our immortal appetites.
It is not lawful, even for the Absolute, to outgrow
Desire, which is the breath of God quick in his
creatures and not to be bounded or surmounted by
any perfection.”
During this conversation the other great figures
had leaned forward listening intently but saying
nothing. The Thin Woman could feel the children
like little, terrified birds pressing closely and very
quietly to her sides.
“ Sir,” said she, “ tell me what is Beauty and what
is Strength and what is Ugliness? for, although I can
see these things, I do not know what they are.”
“ I will tell you that,” he replied—“ Beauty is
Thought and Strength is Love and Ugliness is
21 5
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
Generation. The home of Beauty is the head of
man. The home of Strength is the heart of man,
and in the loins Ugliness keeps his dreadful state. If
you come with me you shall know all delight. You
shall live unharmed in the flame of the spirit, and
nothing that is gross shall bind your limbs or hinder
your thought. You shall move as a queen amongst
all raging passions without torment or despair. Never
shall you be driven or ashamed, but always you will
choose your own paths and walk with me in freedom
and contentment and beauty.”
“ All things,” said the Thin Woman, “ must act
according to the order of their being, and so I say
to Thought, if you hold me against my will presently
I will bind you against your will, for the holder of
an unwilling mate becomes the guardian and the
slave of his captive.”
“ That is true,” said he, “ and against a thing
that is true I cannot contend; therefore, you are free
from me, but from my brethren you are not free.”
The Thin Woman turned to the second man.
“ You are Strength? ” said she.
“ I am Strength and Love,” he boomed, “ and
with me there is safety and peace; my days have
honour and my nights quietness. There is no evil
thing walks near my lands, nor is any sound heard
but the lowing of my cattle, the songs of my birds
and the laughter of my happy children. Come then
to me who gives protection and happiness and peace,
and does not fail or grow weary at any time.”
“ I will not go with you,” said the Thin Woman,
“ for I am a mother and my strength cannot be
increased; I am a mother and my love cannot be
216
VI THE THIN WOMAN’S JOURNEY
added to. What have I further to desire from thee,
thou great man? ”
“ You are free of me,” said the second man, “ but
from my brother you are not free.”
Then to the third man the Thin Woman addressed
herself in terror, for to that hideous one something
cringed within her in an ecstasy of loathing. That
repulsion which at its strongest becomes attraction
gripped her. A shiver, a plunge, and she had gone,
but the hands of the children withheld her while in
woe she abased herself before him.
He spoke, and his voice came clogged and painful
as though it urged from the matted pores of the
earth itself.
“ There is none left to whom you may go but
me only. Do not be afraid, but come to me and I
will give you these wild delights which have been
long forgotten. All things which are crude and
riotous, all that is gross and without limit is mine.
You shall not think and suffer any longer; but you
shall feel so surely that the heat of the sun will be
happiness: the taste of food, the wind that blows
upon you, the ripe ease of your body—these things
will amaze you who have forgotten them. My great
arms about you will make you furious and young
again; you shall leap on the hillside like a young goat
and sing for joy as the birds sing. Leave this crabbed
humanity that is barred and chained away from joy
and come with me, to whose ancient quietude at the last
both Strength and Beauty will come like children tired
in the evening, returning to the freedom of the brutes
and the birds, with bodies sufficient for their pleasure
and with no care for Thought or foolish curiosity.”
217
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
But the Thin Woman drew back from his hand,
saying—
“ It is not lawful to turn again when the journey
is commenced, but to go forward to whatever is
appointed; nor may we return to your meadows and
trees and sunny places who have once departed from
them. The torments of the mind may not be re¬
nounced for any easement of the body until the smoke
that blinds us is blown away, and the tormenting flame
has fitted us for that immortal ecstasy which is the
bosom of God. Nor is it lawful that ye great ones
should beset the path of travellers, seeking to lure them
away with cunning promises. It is only at the cross
roads ye may sit where the traveller will hesitate and be
in doubt, but on the highway ye have no power.”
“ You are free of me,” said the third man, “ until
you are ready to come to me again, for I only of all
things am steadfast and patient, and to me all return
in their seasons. There are brightnesses in my secret
places in the woods, and lamps in my gardens beneath
the hills, tended by the angels of God, and behind
my face there is another face not hated by the Bright
Ones.”
So the three Absolutes arose and strode mightily
away; and as they went their thunderous speech to
each other boomed against the clouds and the earth
like a gusty wind, and, even when they had dis¬
appeared, that great rumble could be heard dying
gently away in the moonlit distances.
The Thin Woman and the children went slowly
forward on the rugged, sloping way. Far beyond,
near the distant summit of the hill there was a light
gleaming.
218
VI THE THIN WOMAN’S JOURNEY
“ Yonder,” said die Thin Woman, “ is the Brugh
of Angus Mac an Og, the son of the Dagda M6r,”
and toward this light she assisted the weary children.
In a little she was in the presence of the god and
by him refreshed and comforted. She told him all
that had happened to her husband and implored his
assistance. This was readily accorded, for the chief
business of the gods is to give protection and assistance
to such of their people as require it; but (and this is
their limitation) they cannot give any help until it
is demanded, the free-will of mankind being the most
jealously guarded and holy principle in life; therefore,
the interference of the loving gods comes only on an
equally loving summons.
219
CHAPTER XVIII
The Happy March
Caitilin Ni Murrachu sat alone in the Brugh of
Angus much as she had sat on the hillside and in the
cave of Pan, and again she was thinking. She was
happy now. There was nothing more she could
desire, for all that the earth contained or the mind
could describe was hers. Her thoughts were no
longer those shy, subterranean gropings which elude
the hand and the understanding. Each thought was
a thing or a person, visible in its own radiant personal
life, and to be seen or felt, welcomed or repulsed, as
was its due. But she had discovered that happiness
is not laughter or satisfaction, and that no person can
be happy for themselves alone. So she had come to
understand the terrible sadness of the gods, and why
Angus wept in secret; for often in the night she had
heard him weeping, and she knew that his tears were
for those others who were unhappy, and that he could
220
bk. vi THE HAPPY MARCH
not be comforted while there was a woeful person or
an evil deed hiding in the world. Her own happiness
also had become infected with this alien misery, until
she knew that nothing was alien to her, and that in
truth all persons and all things were her brothers and
sisters and that they were living and dying in dis¬
tress; and at the last she knew that there was not any
man but mankind, nor any human being but only
humanity. Never again could the gratification of a
desire give her pleasure, for her sense of oneness was
destroyed—she was not an individual only; she was
also part of a mighty organism ordained, through
whatever stress, to achieve its oneness, and this great
being was threefold, comprising in its mighty units
God and Man and Nature—the immortal trinity.
The duty of life is the sacrifice of self: it is to renounce
the little ego that the mighty ego may be freed; and,
knowing this, she found at last that she knew Happi¬
ness, that divine discontent which cannot rest nor
be at ease until its bourne is attained and the know¬
ledge of a man is added to the gaiety of a child.
Angus had told her that beyond this there lay the
great ecstasy which is Love and God and the beginning
and the end of all things; for every thing must come
from the Liberty into the Bondage, that it may return
again to the Liberty comprehending all things and
fitted for that fiery enjoyment. This cannot be until
there are no more fools living, for until the last fool
has grown wise wisdom will totter and freedom will
still be invisible. Growth is not by years but by
multitudes, and until there is a common eye no one
person can see God, for the eye of all nature will
scarcely be great enough to look upon that majesty.
221
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
We shall greet Happiness by multitudes, but we can
only greet Him by starry systems and a universal
love.
She was so thinking when Angus (3g came to her
from the fields. The god was very radiant, smiling
like the young morn when the buds awake, and to
his lips song came instead of speech.
“ My beloved,” said he, “ we will go on a journey
to-day.”
“ My delight is where you go,” said Caitilin.
“ We will go down to the world of men—from
our quiet dwelling among the hills to the noisy city
and the multitude of people. This will be our first
journey, but on a time not distant we will go to them
again, and we will not return from that journey, for
we will live among our people and be at peace.”
“ May the day come soon,” said she.
“ When thy son is a man he will go before us on
that journey,” said Angus, and Caitilin shivered with
a great delight, knowing that a son would be born
to her.
Then Angus (5g put upon his bride glorious
raiment, and they went out to the sunlight. It was
the early morning, the sun had just risen and the
dew was sparkling on the heather and the grass.
There was a keen stir in the air that stung the blood
to joy, so that Caitilin danced in uncontrollable
gaiety, and Angus, with a merry voice, chanted to
the sky and danced also. About his shining head
the birds were flying; for every kiss he gave to
Caitilin became a bird, the messengers of love and
wisdom, and they also burst into triumphant melody,
so that the quiet place rang with their glee. Con-
222
CAITILIN DANCKD IN UNCONTROLLABLE GAIETY
VI
THE HAPPY MARCH
stantly from the circling birds one would go flying
with great speed to all quarters of space. These were
his messengers flying to every fort and dun, every
rath and glen and valley of Eire to raise the Sluaige
Shee (the Fairy Host). They were birds of love that
flew, for this was a hosting of happiness, and, there¬
fore, the Shee would not bring weapons with them.
It was towards Kilmasheogue their happy steps
were directed, and soon they came to the mountain.
After the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath had left
the god she visited all the fairy forts of Kilmasheogue,
and directed the Shee who lived there to be in waiting
at the dawn on the summit of the mountain; con¬
sequently, when Angus and Caitilin came up the hill,
they found the six clanns coming to receive them,
and with these were the people of the younger Shee,
members of the Tuatha da Danaan, tall and beautiful
men and women who had descended to the quiet
underworld when the pressure of the sons of Milith
forced them with their kind enchantments and
invincible valour to the country of the gods.
Of those who came were Aine Ni Eogail of Cnoc
Aine and Ivil of Craglea, the queens of North and
South Munster, and Una the queen of Ormond; these,
with their hosts, sang upon the summit of the hill
welcoming the god. There came the five guardians
of Ulster, the fomentors of combat: — Brier Mac
Belgan of Dromona-Breg, Redg Rotbill from the
slopes of Magh-Itar, Tinnel the son of Boclacthna of
Slieve Edlicon, Grid of Cruachan-Aigle, a goodly
name, and Gulban Glas Mac Grid, whose dun is in
the Ben of Gulban. These five, matchless in combat,
marched up the hill with their tribes, shouting as
223
THE CROCK OF GOLD
BK.
they went. From north and south they came, and
from east and west, bright and happy beings, a
multitude, without fear, without distraction, so that
soon the hill was gay with their voices and their
noble raiment.
Among them came the people of the Lupra, the
ancient Leprecauns of the world, leaping like goats
among the knees of the heroes. They were headed
by their king Udan Mac Audain and Beg Mac Beg
his tanist, and, following behind, was Glomhar
O’Glomrach of the sea, the strongest man of their
people, dressed in the skin of a weasel; and there
were also the chief men of that clann, well known of
old, Conan Mac Rihid, Gaerku Mac Gairid, Mether
Mac Mintan and Esirt Mac Beg, the son of Bueyen,
born in a victory. This king was that same Udan
the chief of the Lupra who had been placed under
bonds to taste the porridge in the great cauldron of
Emania, into which pot he fell, and was taken captive
with his wife, and held for five weary years, until he
surrendered that which he most valued in the world,
even his boots: the people of the hills laugh still at
the story, and the Leprecauns may still be mortified
by it.
There came Bove Derg, the Fiery, seldom seen,
and his harper the son of Trogain, whose music heals
the sick and makes the sad heart merry; Eochy Mac
Elathan, the Dagda M6r, the Father of Stars, and his
daughter from the Cave of Cruachan; Credh Mac
Aedh of Raghery and Cas Corach son of the great
Ollav; Mananaan Mac Lir came from his wide
waters shouting louder than the wind, with his
daughters Cliona and Aoife and Etain Fair-Hair;
224
VI
THE HAPPY MARCH
and Coll and Cecht and Mac Greina, the Plough,
the Hazel, and the Sun came with their wives, whose
names are not forgotten, even Banba and Fodla and
Eire, names of glory. Lugh of the Long-Hand,
filled with mysterious wisdom, was not absent, whose
father was sadly avenged on the sons of Turann—
these with their hosts.
And one came also to whom the hosts shouted
with mighty love, even the Serene One, Dana, the
Mother of the gods, steadfast for ever. Her breath
is on the morning, her smile is summer. From her
hand the birds of the air take their food. The mild
ox is her friend, and the wolf trots by her friendly
side; at her voice the daisy peeps from her cave and
the nettle couches his lance. The rose arrays herself
in innocence, scattering abroad her sweetness with
the dew, and the oak tree laughs to her in the air.
Thou beautiful! the lambs follow thy footsteps, they
crop thy bounty in the meadows and are not thwarted:
the weary men cling to thy bosom everlasting.
Through thee all actions and the deeds of men,
through thee all voices come to us, even the Divine
Promise and the breath of the Almighty from afar
laden with goodness.
With wonder, with delight, the daughter of
Murrachu watched the hosting of the Shee. Some¬
times her eyes were dazzled as a jewelled forehead
blazed in the sun, or a shoulder-torque of broad gold
flamed like a torch. On fair hair and dark the sun
gleamed: white arms tossed and glanced a moment
and sank and reappeared. The eyes of those who
did not hesitate nor compute looked into her eyes,
not appraising, not questioning, but mild and un-
225
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk.
afraid. The voices of free people spoke in her ears
and the laughter of happy hearts, unthoughtful of
sin or shame, released from the hard bondage of self¬
hood. For these people, though many, were one.
Each spoke to the other as to himself, without reserva¬
tion or subterfuge. They moved freely each in his
personal whim, and they moved also with the unity
of one being: for when they shouted to the Mother
of the gods they shouted with one voice, and they
bowed to her as one man bows. Through the many
minds there went also one mind, correcting, com¬
manding, so that in a moment the interchangeable
and fluid became locked, and organic with a simul¬
taneous understanding, a collective action—which
was freedom.
While she looked the dancing ceased, and they
turned their faces with one accord down the mountain.
Those in the front leaped forward, and behind them
the others went leaping in orderly progression.
Then Angus Og ran to where she stood, his bride
of beauty—
“ Come, my beloved,” said he, and hand in hand
they raced among the others, laughing as they ran.
Here there was no green thing growing; a carpet
of brown turf spread to the edge of sight on the
sloping plain and away to where another mountain
soared in the air. They came to this and descended.
In the distance, groves of trees could be seen, and,
very far away, the roofs and towers and spires of the
Town of the Ford of Hurdles, and the little roads that
wandered everywhere; but on this height there was
only prickly furze growing softly in the sunlight;
the bee droned his loud song, the birds flew and sang
226
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THE HAPPY MARCH
occasionally, and the little streams grew heavy with
their falling waters. A little further and the bushes
were green and beautiful, waving their gentle leaves
in the quietude, and beyond again, wrapped in sun¬
shine and peace, the trees looked on the world from
their calm heights, having no complaint to make of
anything.
In a little they reached the grass land and the
dance began. Hand sought for hand, feet moved
companionably as though they loved each other;
quietly intimate they tripped without faltering, and,
then, the loud song arose—they sang to the lovers
of gaiety and peace, long defrauded—
“ Come to us, ye who do not know where ye are
— ye who live among strangers in the houses of
dismay and self-righteousness. Poor, awkward ones!
How bewildered and bedevilled ye go! Amazed ye
look and do not comprehend, for your eyes are set
upon a star and your feet move in the blessed kingdoms
of the Shee. Innocents! in what prisons are ye flung?
To what lowliness are ye bowed? How are ye ground
between the laws and the customs? The dark people
of the Fomor have ye in thrall; and upon your minds
they have fastened a band of lead, your hearts are
hung with iron, and about your loins a cincture of
brass impressed, woeful! Believe it, that the sun
does shine, the flowers grow, and the birds sing
pleasantly in the trees. The free winds are every¬
where, the water tumbles on the hills, the eagle calls
aloud through the solitude, and his mate comes
speedily. The bees are gathering honey in the sun¬
light, the midges dance together, and the great bull
bellows across the river. The crow says a word to
227
THE CROCK OF GOLD bk. vi
his brethren, and the wren snuggles her young in
the hedge. . . . Come to us, ye lovers of life and
happiness. Hold out thy hand—a brother shall seize
it from afar. Leave the plough and the cart for a
little time: put aside the needle and the awl — Is
leather thy brother, O man? . . . Come away! come
away! from the loom and the desk, from the shop
where the carcasses are hung, from the place where
raiment is sold and the place where it is sewn in
darkness: O bad treachery! Is it for joy you sit in
the broker’s den, thou pale man? Has the attorney
enchanted thee? . . . Come away! for the dance has
begun lightly, the wind is sounding over the hill,
the sun laughs down into the valley, and the sea leaps
upon the shingle, panting for joy, dancing, dancing,
dancing for joy. . . .”
They swept through the goat tracks and the little
boreens and the curving roads. Down to the city
they went dancing and singing; among the streets
and the shops telling their sunny tale; not heeding
the malignant eyes and the cold brows as the sons of
Balor looked sidewards. And they took the Philo¬
sopher from his prison, even the Intellect of Man
they took from the hands of the doctors and lawyers,
from the sly priests, from the professors whose mouths
are gorged with sawdust, and the merchants who sell
blades of grass—the awful people of the Fomor . . .
and then they returned again, dancing and singing,
to the country of the gods. . . .
THE END
Printed in Great Britain by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh.
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