CHAPTER IX

Pursuant to his arrangement with Meehawl MacMurrachu, 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 something

else to bring home. On seeing the children each of the birds

waggled his wings, and made a 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-tittit-tit-tit.” The

children were fond of him because he was so all-of-asudden. They

never knew where he was going to fly next, and they did not believe

he knew himself. He would fly backwards 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

sometimes 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 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 forehead scratched with a piece of sharp stick. His

forehead 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 polished. On this day the he-goat had two chains

around his neck—one was made of butter-cups 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-gray 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. 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 whose 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.

Caitilin knew them at once and came forward with 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 submitted 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 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 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.

“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 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 knowledge,” said Pan gravely.

“Why would you say that?” she replied. “One 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.

BOOK II. THE PHILOSOPHER’S JOURNEY

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 undertake 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 appearance, 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 Philosopher decided that he

would lay the case before Angus Óg and implore his 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.

[Illustration: He saw Caitilin Ni Murrachu walking a little way in

front with a small vessel in her hand]

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 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 fundamental 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 expanding effect, or, even, an

intensifying as against an exuberant effect. With clothing the

whole environment 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 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 performance of pleasant

actions.”

“If this be so,” the other commented, “philosophy 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 Philosopher. “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.

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 civilisation building its temples

over a volcano....

“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 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 everywhere, 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

paean 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 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 Philosopher.

“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 were thinking about him; and so they are always

strange, and that’s why women like them.”

“Why!” 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,” cried 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.”

“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 admiringly, “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 trudged forward the happy

quietude of his surroundings 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 connected. 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 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, folding 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 india-rubber fashion.

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....”

“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

preparation 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 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 herself 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, 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.... 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 hillside 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

unwearied 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” 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 Óg,” 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 Óg.”

The other man and woman came closer.

“What would you be wanting with Angus Óg, 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 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,” said the woman. “I like

to have a taste of everybody’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.”

“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 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 Philosopher.

“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 your

places, for I’m telling you what I’ll do and that’s the end of it.”

“I’ll 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’ll 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.

[Illustration: At that moment the Philosopher’s cake lost all its

savour]

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 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 Óg I wouldn’t

put a foot out of my own place for ever.”

“Put Angus Óg 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.”

“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.

“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 when we are 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

pattering 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 mountain 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 anything 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 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, 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,” 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

darkness 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-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 anywhere; 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.

BOOK III. THE TWO GODS

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 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 generations, 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.

[Illustration: A swift shadow darkened the passage]

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 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 Óg came into the

cave.

Caitilin sprang from her seat Frighted, 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

perpetually 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 Óg 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 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 Óg 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 Óg 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

Óg 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 Óg.

“Can the gods speak otherwise?” said Pan, and he laughed with

delight.

“It is the difference between us,” replied Angus Óg. “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 Óg, “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 Óg, “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 Óg, “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

Óg 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 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 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 Óg 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 Óg, “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 Óg, “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 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-nÓg 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, Hymenæa! 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 hillside. The blind shall look within and not

without; the deaf shall hearken to the murmur of their own veins,

and be enchanted with the wisdom of sweetness; 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 Óg 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 Óg 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.

BOOK IV. THE PHILOSOPHER’S RETURN

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 projections of the Earth’s antennæ? 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 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-nÓg 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

usurpation was recorded, and discriminating minds understand

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 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 disturbance

of her consciousness. All justice is, therefore, readjustment. A

thwarted consciousness has every right to clamour for assistance,

but not for punishment. 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 unrestricted mentality would endanger her own intuitive

perceptions by shackling all her other organs of perception, 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 importance 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 universal

dominion which is its ambition. A Leprecaun 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 communal 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 circumstances 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 husbandry and wifely recognition. 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 Óg 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 character 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 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 malediction wherein

policemen were exhibited naked before the blushes of Eternity....

With your goodwill let us now return to the Philosopher.

Following his interview with Angus Óg 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

mountain, 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, 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 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.

“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 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 Cúl.”

“Last night,” said the Philosopher, “when I came from the house of

Angus Óg in the Caves of the Sleepers of Erinn I was bidden say to

a man named Mac Cúl—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 understand 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.

[Illustration: A young woman came along the road and stood gazing

earnestly at this house]

When the Philosopher had walked for a long time he felt 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 come 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 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 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 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 Philosopher, 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 separating 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 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 himself 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 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 Óg in the cave of the Sleepers of Erinn I was bidden say to a

man named 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

perpetually 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 everywhere, 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. “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 innumerably 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 reappeared 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 direction, for I generally go more to the

east.”

“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.

“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 boy.”

“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.

“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 Óg in the Caste of the Sleepers I was bidden say to one

named MacCushin that a son would be born to Angus Óg 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 Óg sent me that message. He wants me

to make a poem to the 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

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.

BOOK V. THE POLICEMEN

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 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

proceeding 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!”