footsteps brought them again to a halt, and in a moment the
sergeant came striding back. He was angry.
“Are you going to stay there the whole night, or what are you going
to do at all?” said he.
“Let you be quiet now,” said another; “we were only settling with
the man here the way he wouldn’t try to give us the slip in a dark
place.”
“Is it thinking of giving us the slip he is?” said the sergeant.
“Take your baton in your hand, Shawn, and if he turns his head to
one side of him hit him on that side.”
“I’ll do that,” said Shawn, and he pulled out his truncheon.
The Philosopher had been dazed by the suddenness of these
occurrences, and the enforced rapidity of his movements prevented
him from either thinking or speaking, but during this brief
stoppage his scattered wits began to return to their allegiance.
First, bewilderment at his enforcement had seized him, and the four
men, who were continually running round him and speaking all at
once, and each pulling him in a different direction, gave him the
impression that he was surrounded by a great rabble of people, but
he could not discover what they wanted. After a time he found that
there were only four men, and gathered from their remarks that he
was being arrested for murder—this precipitated him into another
and a deeper gulf of bewilderment. He was unable to conceive why
they should arrest him for murder when he had not committed any;
and, following this, he became indignant.
“I will not go another step,” said he, “unless you tell me where
you are bringing me and what I am accused of.”
“Tell me,” said the sergeant, “what did you kill them with? for
it’s a miracle how they came to their ends without as much as a
mark on their skins or a broken tooth itself.”
“Who are you talking about?” the Philosopher demanded.
“It’s mighty innocent you are,” he replied. “Who would I be talking
about but the man and woman that used to be living with you beyond
in the little house? Is it poison you gave them now, or what was
it? Take a hold of your note-book, Shawn.”
“Can’t you have sense, man?” said Shawn. “How would I be writing in
the middle of a dark place and me without as much as a pencil, let
alone a book?”
“Well, we’ll take it down at the station, and himself can tell us
all about it as we go along. Move on now, for this is no place to
be conversing in.”
They paced on again, and in another moment they were swallowed up
by the darkness. When they had proceeded for a little distance
there came a peculiar sound in front like the breathing of some
enormous animal, and also a kind of shuffling noise, and so they
again halted.
“There’s a queer kind of a thing in front of us,” said one of the
men in a low voice.
“If I had a match itself,” said another.
The sergeant had also halted.
“Draw well into the side of the road,” said he, “and poke your
batons in front of you. Keep a tight hold of that man, Shawn.”
“I’ll do that,” said Shawn.
Just then one of them found a few matches in his pocket, and he
struck a light; there was no wind, so that it blazed easily enough,
and they all peered in front. A big black cart-horse was lying in
the middle of the road having a gentle sleep, and when the light
shone it scrambled to its feet and went thundering away in a panic.
“Isn’t that enough to put the heart crossways in you?” said one of
the men, with a great sigh.
“Ay,” said another; “if you stepped on that beast in the darkness
you wouldn’t know what to be thinking.”
“I don’t quite remember the way about here,” said the sergeant
after a while, “but I think we should take the first turn to the
right. I wonder have we passed the turn yet; these criss-cross
kinds of roads are the devil, and it dark as well. Do any of you
men know the way?”
“I don’t,” said one voice; “I’m a Cavan man myself.”
“Roscommon,” said another, “is my country, and I wish I was there
now, so I do.”
“Well, if we walk straight on we’re bound to get somewhere, so step
it out. Have you got a good hold of that man, Shawn?”
“I have so,” said Shawn.
The Philosopher’s voice came pealing through the darkness.
“There is no need to pinch me, sir,” said he.
“I’m not pinching you at all,” said the man.
“You are so,” returned the Philosopher. “You have a big lump of
skin doubled up in the sleeve of my coat, and unless you instantly
release it I will sit down in the road.”
“Is that any better?” said the man, relaxing his hold a little.
“You have only let out half of it,” replied the Philosopher.
“That’s better now,” he continued, and they resumed their journey.
After a few minutes of silence the Philosopher began to speak.
“I do not see any necessity in nature for policemen,” said he,
“nor do I understand how the custom first originated. Dogs and
cats do not employ these extraordinary mercenaries, and yet their
polity is progressive and orderly. Crows are a gregarious race with
settled habitations and an organized commonwealth. They usually
congregate in a ruined tower or on the top of a church, and their
civilization is based on mutual aid and tolerance for each other’s
idiosyncrasies. Their exceeding mobility and hardiness renders them
dangerous to attack, and thus they are free to devote themselves to
the development of their domestic laws and customs. If policemen
were necessary to a civilization crows would certainly have
evolved them, but I triumphantly insist that they have not got any
policemen in their republic—”
“I don’t understand a word you are saying,” said the sergeant.
“It doesn’t matter,” said the Philosopher. “Ants and bees also live
in specialized communities and have an extreme complexity both of
function and occupation. Their experience in governmental matters
is enormous, and yet they have never discovered that a police force
is at all essential to their well-being—”
“Do you know,” said the sergeant, “that whatever you say now will
be used in evidence against you later on?”
“I do not,” said the Philosopher. “It may be said that these races
are free from crime, that such vices as they have are organized
and communal instead of individual and anarchistic, and that,
consequently, there is no necessity for policecraft, but I cannot
believe that these large aggregations of people could have attained
their present high culture without an interval of both national and
individual dishonesty—”
“Tell me now, as you are talking,” said the sergeant, “did you buy
the poison at a chemist’s shop, or did you smother the pair of them
with a pillow?”
“I did not,” said the Philosopher. “If crime is a condition
precedent to the evolution of policemen, then I will submit that
jackdaws are a very thievish clan—they are somewhat larger than a
blackbird, and will steal wool off a sheep’s back to line their
nests with; they have, furthermore, been known to abstract one
shilling in copper and secrete this booty so ingeniously that it
has never since been recovered—”
“I had a jackdaw myself,” said one of the men. “I got it from a
woman that came to the door with a basket for fourpence. My mother
stood on its back one day, and she getting out of bed. I split its
tongue with a threepenny bit the way it would talk, but devil the
word it ever said for me. It used to hop around letting on it had a
lame leg, and then it would steal your socks.”
“Shut up!” roared the sergeant.
“If,” said the Philosopher, “these people steal both from sheep and
from men, if their peculations range from wool to money, I do not
see how they can avoid stealing from each other, and consequently,
if anywhere, it is amongst jackdaws one should look for the growth
of a police force, but there is no such force in existence. The
real reason is that they are a witty and thoughtful race who look
temperately on what is known as crime and evil—one eats, one
steals; it is all in the order of things, and therefore not to be
quarrelled with. There is no other view possible to a philosophical
people—”
“What the devil is he talking about?” said the sergeant.
“Monkeys are gregarious and thievish and semi-human. They inhabit
the equatorial latitudes and eat nuts—”
“Do you know what he is saying, Shawn?”
“I do not,” said Shawn.
“—they ought to have evolved professional thief-takers, but it is
common knowledge that they have not done so. Fishes, squirrels,
rats, beavers, and bison have also abstained from this singular
growth—therefore, when I insist that I see no necessity for
policemen and object to their presence, I base that objection on
logic and facts, and not on any immediate petty prejudice.”
“Shawn,” said the sergeant, “have you got a good grip on that man?”
“I have,” said Shawn.
“Well, if he talks any more hit him with your baton.”
“I will so,” said Shawn.
“There’s a speck of light down yonder, and, maybe, it’s a candle in
a window—we’ll ask the way at that place.”
In about three minutes they came to a small house which was
overhung by trees. If the light had not been visible they would
undoubtedly have passed it in the darkness. As they approached the
door the sound of a female voice came to them scoldingly.
“There’s somebody up anyhow,” said the sergeant, and he tapped at
the door.
The scolding voice ceased instantly. After a few seconds he tapped
again; then a voice was heard from just behind the door.
“Tomas,” said the voice, “go and bring up the two dogs with you
before I take the door off the chain.”
The door was then opened a few inches and a face peered out “What
would you be wanting at this hour of the night?” said the woman.
“Not much, ma’am,” said the sergeant; “only a little direction
about the road, for we are not sure whether we’ve gone too far or
not far enough.”
The woman noticed their uniforms.
“Is it policemen ye are? There’s no harm in your coming in, I
suppose, and if a drink of milk is any good to ye I have plenty of
it.”
“Milk’s better than nothing,” said the sergeant with a sigh.
“I’ve a little sup of spirits,” said she, “but it wouldn’t be
enough to go around.”
“Ah, well,” said he, looking sternly at his comrades, “everybody
has to take their chance in this world,” and he stepped into the
house followed by his men.
The women gave him a little sup of whisky from a bottle, and to
each of the other men she gave a cup of milk.
“It’ll wash the dust out of our gullets, anyhow,” said one of them.
There were two chairs, a bed, and a table in the room. The
Philosopher and his attendants sat on the bed. The sergeant sat
on the table, the fourth man took a chair, and the woman dropped
wearily into the remaining chair from which she looked with pity at
the prisoner.
“What are you taking the poor man away for?” she asked.
“He’s a bad one, ma’am,” said the sergeant. “He killed a man and
a woman that were staying with him and he buried their corpses
underneath the hearthstone of his house. He’s a real malefactor,
mind you.”
“Is it hanging him you’ll be, God help us?”
“You never know, and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if it came to
that. But you were in trouble yourself, ma’am, for we heard your
voice lamenting about something as we came along the road.”
“I was, indeed,” she replied, “for the person that has a son in her
house has a trouble in her heart.”
“Do you tell me now—What did he do on you?” and the sergeant bent a
look of grave reprobation on a young lad who was standing against
the wall between two dogs.
“He’s a good boy enough in some ways,” said she, “but he’s too fond
of beasts. He’ll go and lie in the kennel along with them two dogs
for hours at a time, petting them and making a lot of them, but if
I try to give him a kiss, or to hug him for a couple of minutes
when I do be tired after the work, he’ll wriggle like an eel till
I let him out—it would make a body hate him, so it would. Sure,
there’s no nature in him, sir, and I’m his mother.”
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, you young whelp,” said the
sergeant very severely.
“And then there’s the horse,” she continued. “Maybe you met it down
the road a while ago?”
“We did, ma’am,” said the sergeant.
“Well, when he came in Tomas went to tie him up, for he’s a caution
at getting out and wandering about the road, the way you’d break
your neck over him if you weren’t minding. After a while I told the
boy to come in, but he didn’t come, so I went out myself, and there
was himself and the horse with their arms round each other’s necks
looking as if they were moonstruck.”
“Faith, he’s the queer lad!” said the sergeant. “What do you be
making love to the horse for, Tomas?”
“It was all I could do to make him come in,” she continued, “and
then I said to him, ‘Sit down alongside of me here, Tomas, and
keep me company for a little while’—for I do be lonely in the
night time—but he wouldn’t stay quiet at all. One minute he’d
say, ‘Mother, there’s a moth flying round the candle and it’ll be
burnt,’ and then, ‘There was a fly going into the spider’s web in
the corner,’ and he’d have to save it, and after that, ‘There’s a
daddy-long-legs hurting himself on the window-pane,’ and he’d have
to let it out; but when I try to kiss him he pushes me away. My
heart is tormented, so it is, for what have I in the world but him?”
“Is his father dead, ma’am?” said the sergeant kindly.
“I’ll tell the truth,” said she. “I don’t know whether he is or
not, for a long time ago, when we used to live in the city of
Bla’ Cliah, he lost his work one time and he never came back to
me again. He was ashamed to come home I’m thinking, the poor man,
because he had no money; as if I would have minded whether he had
any money or not—sure, he was very fond of me, sir, and we could
have pulled along somehow. After that I came back to my father’s
place here; the rest of the children died on me, and then my father
died, and I’m doing the best I can by myself. It’s only that I’m a
little bit troubled with the boy now and again.”
“It’s a hard case, ma’am,” said the sergeant, “but maybe the boy is
only a bit wild not having his father over him, and maybe it’s just
that he’s used to yourself, for there isn’t a child at all that
doesn’t love his mother. Let you behave yourself now, Tomas; attend
to your mother, and leave the beasts and the insects alone, like a
decent boy, for there’s no insect in the world will ever like you
as well as she does. Could you tell me, ma’am, if we have passed
the first turn on this road, or is it in front of us still, for we
are lost altogether in the darkness?”
“It’s in front of you still,” she replied, “about ten minutes down
the road; you can’t miss it, for you’ll see the sky where there is
a gap in the trees, and that gap is the turn you want.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” said the sergeant; “we’d better be moving on,
for there’s a long tramp in front of us before we get to sleep this
night.”
He stood up and the men rose to follow him when, suddenly, the boy
spoke in a whisper.
“Mother,” said he, “they are going to hang the man,” and he burst
into tears.
“Oh, hush, hush,” said the woman, “sure, the men can’t help it.”
She dropped quickly on her knees and opened her arms, “Come over to
your mother, my darling.”
The boy ran to her.
“They are going to hang him,” he cried in a high, thin voice, and
he plucked at her arm violently.
“Now, then, my young boy-o,” said the sergeant, “none of that
violence.”
The boy turned suddenly and flew at him with astonishing ferocity.
He hurled himself against the sergeant’s legs and bit, and kicked,
and struck at him. So furiously sudden was his attack that the
man went staggering back against the wall, then he plucked at the
boy and whirled him across the room. In an instant the two dogs
leaped at him snarling with rage—one of these he kicked into a
corner, from which it rebounded again bristling and red-eyed; the
other dog was caught by the woman, and after a few frantic seconds
she gripped the first dog also. To a horrible chorus of howls and
snapping teeth the men hustled outside and slammed the door.
“Shawn,” the sergeant bawled, “have you got a good grip of that
man?”
“I have so,” said Shawn.
“If he gets away I’ll kick the belly out of you; mind that now!
Come along with you and no more of your slouching.”
They marched down the road in a tingling silence.
“Dogs,” said the Philosopher, “are a most intelligent race of
people—”
“People, my granny!” said the sergeant.
“From the earliest ages their intelligence has been observed and
recorded, so that ancient literatures are bulky with references to
their sagacity and fidelity—”
“Will you shut your old jaw?” said the sergeant.
“I will not,” said the Philosopher. “Elephants also are credited
with an extreme intelligence and devotion to their masters, and
they will build a wall or nurse a baby with equal skill and
happiness. Horses have received high recommendations in this
respect, but crocodiles, hens, beetles, armadillos, and fish do not
evince any remarkable partiality for man—”
“I wish,” said the sergeant bitterly, “that all them beasts were
stuffed down your throttle the way you’d have to hold your prate.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said the Philosopher. “I do not know why these
animals should attach themselves to men with gentleness and love
and yet be able to preserve intact their initial bloodthirstiness,
so that while they will allow their masters to misuse them in
any way they will yet fight most willingly with each other, and
are never really happy saving in the conduct of some private and
nonsensical battle of their own. I do not believe that it is fear
which tames these creatures into mildness, but that the most savage
animal has a capacity for love which has not been sufficiently
noted, and which, if more intelligent attention had been directed
upon it, would have raised them to the status of intellectual
animals as against intelligent ones, and, perhaps, have opened
to us a correspondence which could not have been other than
beneficial.”
“Keep your eyes out for that gap in the trees, Shawn,” said the
sergeant.
“I’m doing that,” said Shawn.
The Philosopher continued:
“Why can I not exchange ideas with a cow? I am amazed at the
incompleteness of my growth when I and a fellow-creature stand
dumbly before each other without one glimmer of comprehension,
locked and barred from all friendship and intercourse—”
“Shawn,” cried the sergeant.
“Don’t interrupt,” said the Philosopher; “you are always
talking.—The lower animals, as they are foolishly called, have
abilities at which we can only wonder. The mind of an ant is one
to which I would readily go to school. Birds have atmospheric and
levitational information which millions of years will not render
accessible to us; who that has seen a spider weaving his labyrinth,
or a bee voyaging safely in the trackless air, can refuse to credit
that a vivid, trained intelligence animates these small enigmas?
and the commonest earthworm is the heir to a culture before which I
bow with the profoundest veneration—”
“Shawn,” said the sergeant, “say something for goodness’ sake to
take the sound of that man’s clack out of my ear.”
“I wouldn’t know what to be talking about,” said Shawn, “for I
never was much of a hand at conversation, and, barring my prayers,
I got no education—I think myself that he was making a remark about
a dog. Did you ever own a dog, sergeant?”
“You are doing very well, Shawn,” said the sergeant, “keep it up
now.”
“I knew a man had a dog would count up to a hundred for you. He won
lots of money in bets about it, and he’d have made a fortune, only
that I noticed one day he used to be winking at the dog, and when
he’d stop winking the dog would stop counting. We made him turn his
back after that, and got the dog to count sixpence, but he barked
for more than five shillings, he did so, and he would have counted
up to a pound, maybe, only that his master turned round and hit
him a kick. Every person that ever paid him a bet said they wanted
their money back, but the man went away to America in the night,
and I expect he’s doing well there for he took the dog with him. It
was a wire-haired terrier bitch, and it was the devil for having
pups.”
“It is astonishing,” said the Philosopher, “on what slender
compulsion people will go to America—”
“Keep it up, Shawn,” said the sergeant, “you are doing me a favour.”
“I will so,” said Shawn. “I had a cat one time and it used to have
kittens every two months.”
The Philosopher’s voice arose:
“If there was any periodicity about these migrations one could
understand them. Birds, for example, migrate from their homes in
the late autumn and seek abroad the sustenance and warmth which
the winter would withhold if they remained in their native lands.
The salmon also, a dignified fish with a pink skin, emigrates from
the Atlantic Ocean, and betakes himself inland to the streams and
lakes, where he recuperates for a season, and is often surprised by
net, angle, or spear—”
“Cut in now, Shawn,” said the sergeant anxiously.
Shawn began to gabble with amazing speed and in a mighty voice:
“Cats sometimes eat their kittens, and sometimes they don’t. A cat
that eats its kittens is a heartless brute. I knew a cat used to
eat its kittens—it had four legs and a long tail, and it used to
get the head-staggers every time it had eaten its kittens. I killed
it myself one day with a hammer for I couldn’t stand the smell it
made, so I couldn’t—”
“Shawn,” said the sergeant, “can’t you talk about something else
besides cats and dogs?”
“Sure, I don’t know what to talk about,” said Shawn. “I’m sweating
this minute trying to please you, so I arm. If you’ll tell me what
to talk about I’ll do my endeavours.”
“You’re a fool,” said the sergeant sorrowfully; “you’ll never make
a constable. I’m thinking that I would sooner listen to the man
himself than to you. Have you got a good hold of him now?”
“I have so,” said Shawn.
“Well, step out and maybe we’ll reach the barracks this night,
unless this is a road that there isn’t any end to at all. What was
that? Did you hear a noise?”
“I didn’t hear a thing,” said Shawn.
“I thought,” said another man, “that I heard something moving in
the hedge at the side of the road.”
“That’s what I heard,” said the sergeant. “Maybe it was a weasel.
I wish to the devil that we were out of this place where you can’t
see as much as your own nose. Now did you hear it, Shawn?”
“I did so,” said Shawn; “there’s some one in the hedge, for a
weasel would make a different kind of a noise if it made any at
all.”
“Keep together, men,” said the sergeant, “and march on; if there’s
anybody about they’ve no business with us.”
He had scarcely spoken when there came a sudden pattering of feet,
and immediately the four men were surrounded and were being struck
at on every side with sticks and hands and feet.
“Draw your batons,” the sergeant roared; “keep a good grip of that
man, Shawn.”
“I will so,” said Shawn.
“Stand round him, you other men, and hit anything that comes near
you.”
There was no sound of voices from the assailants, only a rapid
scuffle of feet, the whistle of sticks as they swung through the
air or slapped smartly against a body or clashed upon each other,
and the quick breathing of many people; but from the four policemen
there came noise and to spare as they struck wildly on every side,
cursing the darkness and their opposers with fierce enthusiasm.
“Let out,” cried Shawn suddenly. “Let out or I’ll smash your nut
for you. There’s some one pulling at the prisoner, and I’ve dropped
my baton.”
The truncheons of the policemen had been so ferociously exercised
that their antagonists departed as swiftly and as mysteriously as
they came. It was just two minutes of frantic, aimless conflict,
and then the silent night was round them again, without any sound
but the slow creaking of branches, the swish of leaves as they
swung and poised, and the quiet croon of the wind along the road.
“Come on, men,” said the sergeant, “we’d better be getting out of
this place as quick as we can. Are any of ye hurted?”
“I’ve got one of the enemy,” said Shawn, panting.
“You’ve got what?” said the sergeant.
“I’ve got one of them, and he is wriggling like an eel on a pan.”
“Hold him tight,” said the sergeant excitedly.
“I will so,” said Shawn. “It’s a little one by the feel of it. If
one of ye would hold the prisoner, I’d get a better grip on this
one. Aren’t they dangerous villains now?”
Another man took hold of the Philosopher’s arm, and Shawn got both
hands on his captive.
“Keep quiet, I’m telling you,” said he, “or I’ll throttle you, I
will so. Faith, it seems like a little boy by the feel of it!”
“A little boy!” said the sergeant.
“Yes, he doesn’t reach up to my waist.”
“It must be the young brat from the cottage that set the dogs on
us, the one that loves beasts. Now then, boy, what do you mean by
this kind of thing? You’ll find yourself in gaol for this, my young
buck-o. Who was with you, eh? Tell me that now?” and the sergeant
bent forward.
“Hold up your head, sonny, and talk to the sergeant,” said Shawn.
“Oh!” he roared, and suddenly he made a little rush forward. “I’ve
got him,” he gasped; “he nearly got away. It isn’t a boy at all,
sergeant; there’s whiskers on it!”
“What do you say?” said the sergeant.
“I put my hand under its chin and there’s whiskers on it. I nearly
let him out with the surprise, I did so.”
“Try again,” said the sergeant in a low voice; “you are making a
mistake.”
“I don’t like touching them,” said Shawn. “It’s a soft whisker like
a billy-goat’s. Maybe you’d try yourself, sergeant, for I tell you
I’m frightened of it.”
“Hold him over here,” said the sergeant, “and keep a good grip of
him.”
“I’ll do that,” said Shawn, and he hauled some reluctant object
towards his superior.
The sergeant put out his hand and touched a head.
“It’s only a boy’s size to be sure,” said he, then he slid his hand
down the face and withdrew it quickly.
“There are whiskers on it,” said he soberly. “What the devil can
it be? I never met whiskers so near the ground before. Maybe they
are false ones, and it’s just the boy yonder trying to disguise
himself.” He put out his hand again with an effort, felt his way to
the chin, and tugged.
Instantly there came a yell, so loud, so sudden, that every man of
them jumped in a panic.
“They are real whiskers,” said the sergeant with a sigh. “I wish I
knew what it is. His voice is big enough for two men, and that’s a
fact. Have you got another match on you?”
“I have two more in my waistcoat pocket,” said one of the men.
“Give me one of them,” said the sergeant; “I’ll strike it myself.”
He groped about until he found the hand with the match.
“Be sure and hold him tight, Shawn, the way we can have a good look
at him, for this is like to be a queer miracle of a thing.”
“I’m holding him by the two arms,” said Shawn, “he can’t stir
anything but his head, and I’ve got my chest on that.”
The sergeant struck the match, shading it for a moment with his
hand, then he turned it on their new prisoner.
They saw a little man dressed in tight green clothes; he had a
broad pale face with staring eyes, and there was a thin fringe of
grey whisker under his chin—then the match went out.
“It’s a Leprecaun,” said the sergeant.
The men were silent for a full couple of minutes—at last Shawn
spoke.
“Do you tell me so?” said he in a musing voice; “that’s a queer
miracle altogether.”
“I do,” said the sergeant. “Doesn’t it stand to reason that it
can’t be anything else? You saw it yourself.”
Shawn plumped down on his knees before his captive.
[Illustration: “Tell me where the money is?” he hissed]
“Tell me where the money is?” he hissed. “Tell me where the money
is or I’ll twist your neck off.”
The other men also gathered eagerly around, shouting threats and
commands at the Leprecaun.
“Hold your whist,” said Shawn fiercely to them. “He can’t answer
the lot of you, can he?” and he turned again to the Leprecaun and
shook him until his teeth chattered.
“If you don’t tell me where the money is at once I’ll kill you, I
will so.”
“I haven’t got any money at all, sir,” said the Leprecaun.
“None of your lies,” roared Shawn. “Tell the truth now or it’ll be
worse for you.”
“I haven’t got any money,” said the Leprecaun, “for Meehawl
MacMurrachu of the Hill stole our crock a while back, and he buried
it under a thorn bush. I can bring you to the place if you don’t
believe me.”
“Very good,” said Shawn. “Come on with me now, and I’ll clout you
if you as much as wriggle; do you mind me?”
“What would I wriggle for?” said the Leprecaun: “sure I like being
with you.”
Hereupon the sergeant roared at the top of his voice.
“Attention,” said he, and the men leaped to position like automata.
“What is it you are going to do with your prisoner, Shawn?” said he
sarcastically. “Don’t you think we’ve had enough tramping of these
roads for one night, now? Bring up that Leprecaun to the barracks
or it’ll be the worse for you—do you hear me talking to you?”
“But the gold, sergeant,” said Shawn sulkily.
“If there’s any gold it’ll be treasure trove, and belong to the
Crown. What kind of a constable are you at all, Shawn? Mind what
you are about now, my man, and no back answers. Step along there.
Bring that murderer up at once, whichever of you has him.”
There came a gasp from the darkness.
“Oh, Oh, Oh!” said a voice of horror.
“What’s wrong with you?” said the sergeant: “are you hurted?”
“The prisoner!” he gasped, “he, he’s got away!”
“Got away?” and the sergeant’s voice was a blare of fury.
“While we were looking at the Leprecaun,” said the voice of woe, “I
must have forgotten about the other one—I, I haven’t got him—”
“You gawm!” gritted the sergeant.
“Is it my prisoner that’s gone?” said Shawn in a deep voice. He
leaped forward with a curse and smote his negligent comrade so
terrible a blow in the face, that the man went flying backwards,
and the thud of his head on the road could have been heard anywhere.
“Get up,” said Shawn, “get up till I give you another one.”
“That will do,” said the sergeant, “we’ll go home. We’re the
laughing-stock of the world. I’ll pay you out for this some time,
every damn man of ye. Bring that Leprecaun along with you, and
quick march.”
“Oh!” said Shawn in a strangled tone.
“What is it now?” said the sergeant testily.
“Nothing,” replied Shawn.
“What did you say ‘Oh!’ for then, you block-head?”
“It’s the Leprecaun, sergeant,” said Shawn in a whisper—“he’s
got away—when I was hitting the man there I forgot all about the
Leprecaun: he must have run into the hedge. Oh, sergeant, dear,
don’t say anything to me now—!”
“Quick march,” said the sergeant, and the four men moved on through
the darkness in a silence, which was only skin deep.
CHAPTER XV
By reason of the many years which he had spent in the gloomy pine
wood, the Philosopher could see a little in the darkness, and when
he found there was no longer any hold on his coat he continued his
journey quietly, marching along with his head sunken on his breast
in a deep abstraction. He was meditating on the word “Me,” and
endeavouring to pursue it through all its changes and adventures.
The fact of “me-ness” was one which startled him. He was amazed at
his own being. He knew that the hand which he held up and pinched
with another hand was not him and the endeavour to find out what
was him was one which had frequently exercised his leisure. He had
not gone far when there came a tug at his sleeve and looking down
he found one of the Leprecauns of the Gort trotting by his side.
“Noble Sir,” said the Leprecaun, “you are terrible hard to get into
conversation with. I have been talking to you for the last long
time and you won’t listen.”
“I am listening now,” replied the Philosopher.
“You are, indeed,” said the Leprecaun heartily. “My brothers are on
the other side of the road over there beyond the hedge, and they
want to talk to you: will you come with me, Noble Sir?”
“Why wouldn’t I go with you?” said the Philosopher, and he turned
aside with the Leprecaun.
They pushed softly through a gap in the hedge and into a field
beyond.
“Come this way, sir,” said his guide, and the Philosopher followed
him across the field. In a few minutes they came to a thick bush
among the leaves of which the other Leprecauns were hiding. They
thronged out to meet the Philosopher’s approach and welcomed him
with every appearance of joy. With them was the Thin Woman of Inis
Magrath, who embraced her husband tenderly and gave thanks for his
escape.
“The night is young yet,” remarked one of the Leprecauns. “Let us
sit down here and talk about what should be done.”
“I am tired enough,” said the Philosopher, “for I have been
travelling all yesterday, and all this day and the whole of this
night I have been going also, so I would be glad to sit down
anywhere.”
They sat down under the bush and the Philosopher lit his pipe. In
the open space where they were there was just light enough to see
the smoke coming from his pipe, but scarcely more. One recognized
a figure as a deeper shadow than the surrounding darkness; but as
the ground was dry and the air just touched with a pleasant chill,
there was no discomfort. After the Philosopher had drawn a few
mouthfuls of smoke he passed his pipe on to the next person, and in
this way his pipe made the circuit of the party.
“When I put the children to bed,” said the Thin Woman, “I came down
the road in your wake with a basin of stirabout, for you had no
time to take your food, God help you! and I was thinking you must
have been hungry.”
“That is so,” said the Philosopher in a very anxious voice: “but I
don’t blame you, my dear, for letting the basin fall on the road—”
“While I was going along,” she continued, “I met these good people
and when I told them what happened they came with me to see if
anything could be done. The time they ran out of the hedge to
fight the policemen I wanted to go with them, but I was afraid the
stirabout would be spilt.”
The Philosopher licked his lips.
“I am listening to you, my love,” said he.
“So I had to stay where I was with the stirabout under my shawl—”
“Did you slip then, dear wife?”
“I did not, indeed,” she replied: “I have the stirabout with me
this minute. It’s rather cold, I’m thinking, but it is better than
nothing at all,” and she placed the bowl in his hands.
“I put sugar in it,” said she shyly, “and currants, and I have a
spoon in my pocket.”
“It tastes well,” said the Philosopher, and he cleaned the basin so
speedily that his wife wept because of his hunger.
By this time the pipe had come round to him again and it was
welcomed.
“Now we can talk,” said he, and he blew a great cloud of smoke into
the darkness and sighed happily.
“We were thinking,” said the Thin Woman, “that you won’t be able
to come back to our house for a while yet: the policemen will
be peeping about Coille Doraca for a long time, to be sure; for
isn’t it true that if there is a good thing coming to a person,
nobody takes much trouble to find him, but if there is a bad thing
or a punishment in store for a man, then the whole world will be
searched until he be found?”
“It is a true statement,” said the Philosopher.
“So what we arranged was this—that you should go to live with these
little men in their house under the yew tree of the Gort. There is
not a policeman in the world would find you there; or if you went
by night to the Brugh of the Boyne, Angus Óg himself would give you
a refuge.”
One of the Leprecauns here interposed.
“Noble Sir,” said he, “there isn’t much room in our house but
there’s no stint of welcome in it. You would have a good time with
us travelling on moonlit nights and seeing strange things, for we
often go to visit the Shee of the Hills and they come to see us;
there is always something to talk about, and we have dances in the
caves and on the tops of the hills. Don’t be imagining now that we
have a poor life for there is fun and plenty with us and the Brugh
of Angus Mac an Óg is hard to be got at.”
“I would like to dance, indeed,” returned the Philosopher, “for I
do believe that dancing is the first and last duty of man. If we
cannot be gay what can we be? Life is not any use at all unless we
find a laugh here and there—but this time, decent men of the Gort,
I cannot go with you, for it is laid on me to give myself up to the
police.”
“You would not do that,” exclaimed the Thin Woman pitifully: “You
wouldn’t think of doing that now!”
“An innocent man,” said he, “cannot be oppressed, for he is
fortified by his mind and his heart cheers him. It is only on
a guilty person that the rigour of punishment can fall, for he
punishes himself. This is what I think, that a man should always
obey the law with his body and always disobey it with his mind. I
have been arrested, the men of the law had me in their hands, and I
will have to go back to them so that they may do whatever they have
to do.”
The Philosopher resumed his pipe, and although the others reasoned
with him for a long time they could not by any means remove him
from his purpose. So, when the pale glimmer of dawn had stolen over
the sky, they arose and went downwards to the cross-roads and so to
the Police Station.
Outside the village the Leprecauns bade him farewell and the Thin
Woman also took her leave of him, saying she would visit Angus Óg
and implore his assistance on behalf of her husband, and then the
Leprecauns and the Thin Woman returned again the way they came, and
the Philosopher walked on to the barracks.
CHAPTER XVI
When he knocked at the barracks door it was opened by a man with
tousled, red hair, who looked as though he had just awakened from
sleep.
“What do you want at this hour of the night?” said he.
“I want to give myself up,” said the Philosopher. The policeman
looked at him “A man as old as you are,” said he, “oughtn’t to be
a fool. Go home now, I advise you, and don’t say a word to any one
whether you did it or not. Tell me this now, was it found out, or
are you only making a clean breast of it?”
“Sure I must give myself up,” said the Philosopher.
“If you must, you must, and that’s an end of it. Wipe your feet on
the rail there and come in—I’ll take your deposition.”
“I have no deposition for you,” said the Philosopher, “for I didn’t
do a thing at all.”
The policeman stared at him again.
“If that’s so,” said he, “you needn’t come in at all, and you
needn’t have wakened me out of my sleep either. Maybe, tho’, you
are the man that fought the badger on the Naas Road—Eh?”
“I am not,” replied the Philosopher: “but I was arrested for
killing my brother and his wife, although I never touched them.”
“Is that who you are?” said the policeman; and then, briskly,
“You’re as welcome as the cuckoo, you are so. Come in and make
yourself comfortable till the men awaken, and they are the lads
that’ll be glad to see you. I couldn’t make head or tail of what
they said when they came in last night, and no one else either, for
they did nothing but fight each other and curse the banshees and
cluricauns of Leinster. Sit down there on the settle by the fire
and, maybe, you’ll be able to get a sleep; you look as if you were
tired, and the mud of every county in Ireland is on your boots.”
The Philosopher thanked him and stretched out on the settle. In a
short time, for he was very weary, he fell asleep.
Many hours later he was awakened by the sound of voices, and found
on rising, that the men who had captured him on the previous
evening were standing by the bed. The sergeant’s face beamed with
joy. He was dressed only in his trousers and shirt. His hair was
sticking up in some places and sticking out in others which gave
a certain wild look to him, and his feet were bare. He took the
Philosopher’s two hands in his own and swore if ever there was
anything he could do to comfort him he would do that and more.
Shawn, in a similar state of unclothedness, greeted the Philosopher
and proclaimed himself his friend and follower for ever. Shawn
further announced that he did not believe the Philosopher had
killed the two people, that if he had killed them they must have
richly deserved it, and that if he was hung he would plant flowers
on his grave; for a decenter, quieter, and wiser man he had never
met and never would meet in the world.
These professions of esteem comforted the Philosopher, and he
replied to them in terms which made the red-haired policeman gape
in astonishment and approval.
He was given a breakfast of bread and cocoa which he ate with his
guardians, and then, as they had to take up their outdoor duties,
he was conducted to the backyard and informed he could walk about
there and that he might smoke until he was black in the face. The
policemen severally presented him with a pipe, a tin of tobacco,
two boxes of matches and a dictionary, and then they withdrew,
leaving him to his own devices.
The garden was about twelve feet square, having high, smooth walls
on every side, and into it there came neither sun nor wind. In
one corner a clump of rusty-looking sweet-pea was climbing up
the wall—every leaf of this plant was riddled with holes, and
there were no flowers on it. Another corner was occupied by dwarf
nasturtiums, and on this plant, in despite of every discouragement,
two flowers were blooming, but its leaves also were tattered and
dejected. A mass of ivy clung to the third corner, its leaves were
big and glossy at the top, but near the ground there was only grey,
naked stalks laced together by cobwebs. The fourth wall was clothed
in a loose Virginia creeper every leaf of which looked like an
insect that could crawl if it wanted to. The centre of this small
plot had used every possible artifice to cover itself with grass,
and in some places it had wonderfully succeeded, but the pieces of
broken bottles, shattered jampots, and sections of crockery were so
numerous that no attempt at growth could be other than tentative
and unpassioned.
Here, for a long time, the Philosopher marched up and down. At one
moment he examined the sweet-pea and mourned with it on a wretched
existence. Again he congratulated the nasturtium on its two
bright children; but he thought of the gardens wherein they might
have bloomed and the remembrance of that spacious, sunny freedom
saddened him.
“Indeed, poor creatures!” said he, “ye also are in gaol.”
The blank, soundless yard troubled him so much that at last he
called to the red-haired policeman and begged to be put into a
cell in preference; and to the common cell he was, accordingly,
conducted.
This place was a small cellar built beneath the level of the
ground. An iron grating at the top of the wall admitted one
blanched wink of light, but the place was bathed in obscurity. A
wooden ladder led down to the cell from a hole in the ceiling, and
this hole also gave a spark of brightness and some little air to
the room. The walls were of stone covered with plaster, but the
plaster had fallen away in many places leaving the rough stones
visible at every turn of the eye.
There were two men in the cell, and these the Philosopher saluted;
but they did not reply, nor did they speak to each other. There was
a low, wooden form fixed to the wall, running quite round the room,
and on this, far apart from each other, the two men were seated,
with their elbows resting on their knees, their heads propped upon
their hands, and each of them with an unwavering gaze fixed on the
floor between his feet.
The Philosopher walked for a time up and down the little cell, but
soon he also sat down on the low form, propped his head on his
hands and lapsed to a melancholy dream.
So the day passed. Twice a policeman came down the ladder bearing
three portions of food, bread and cocoa; and by imperceptible
gradations the light faded away from the grating and the darkness
came. After a great interval the policeman again approached
carrying three mattresses and three rough blankets, and these he
bundled through the hole. Each of the men took a mattress and a
blanket and spread them on the floor, and the Philosopher took his
share also.
By this time they could not see each other and all their operations
were conducted by the sense of touch alone. They laid themselves
down on the beds and a terrible, dark silence brooded over the room.
But the Philosopher could not sleep, he kept his eyes shut, for
the darkness under his eyelids was not so dense as that which
surrounded him; indeed, he could at will illuminate his own
darkness and order around him the sunny roads or the sparkling
sky. While his eyes were closed he had the mastery of all pictures
of light and colour and warmth, but an irresistible fascination
compelled him every few minutes to reopen them, and in the sad
space around he could not create any happiness. The darkness
weighed very sadly upon him so that in a short time it did creep
under his eyelids and drowned his happy pictures until a blackness
possessed him both within and without “Can one’s mind go to prison
as well as one’s body?” said he.
He strove desperately to regain his intellectual freedom, but he
could not. He could conjure up no visions but those of fear. The
creatures of the dark invaded him, fantastic terrors were thronging
on every side: they came from the darkness into his eyes and beyond
into himself, so that his mind as well as his fancy was captured,
and he knew he was, indeed, in gaol.
It was with a great start that he heard a voice speaking from the
silence—a harsh, yet cultivated voice, but he could not imagine
which of his companions was speaking. He had a vision of that man
tormented by the mental imprisonment of the darkness, trying to get
away from his ghosts and slimy enemies, goaded into speech in his
own despite lest he should be submerged and finally possessed by
the abysmal demons. For a while the voice spoke of the strangeness
of life and the cruelty of men to each other—disconnected
sentences, odd words of selfpity and self-encouragement, and then
the matter became more connected and a story grew in the dark cell
“I knew a man,” said the voice, “and he was a clerk. He had thirty
shillings a week, and for five years he had never missed a day
going to his work. He was a careful man, but a person with a wife
and four children cannot save much out of thirty shillings a week.
The rent of a house is high, a wife and children must be fed, and
they have to get boots and clothes, so that at the end of each week
that man’s thirty shillings used to be all gone. But they managed
to get along somehow—the man and his wife and the four children
were fed and clothed and educated, and the man often wondered how
so much could be done with so little money; but the reason was
that his wife was a careful woman . . . and then the man got sick.
A poor person cannot afford to get sick, and a married man cannot
leave his work. If he is sick he has to be sick; but he must go
to his work all the same, for if he stayed away who would pay the
wages and feed his family? and when he went back to work he might
find that there was nothing for him to do. This man fell sick, but
he made no change in his way of life: he got up at the same time
and went to the office as usual, and he got through the day somehow
without attracting his employer’s attention. He didn’t know what
was wrong with him: he only knew that he was sick. Sometimes he had
sharp, swift pains in his head, and again there would be long hours
of languor when he could scarcely bear to change his position or
lift a pen. He would commence a letter with the words ‘Dear Sir,’
forming the letter ‘D’ with painful, accurate slowness, elaborating
and thickening the up and down strokes, and being troubled when he
had to leave that letter for the next one; he built the next letter
by hair strokes and would start on the third with hatred. The end
of a word seemed to that man like the conclusion of an event—it was
a surprising, isolated, individual thing, having no reference to
anything else in the world, and on starting a new word he seemed
bound, in order to preserve its individuality, to write it in a
different handwriting. He would sit with his shoulders hunched up
and his pen resting on the paper, staring at a letter until he
was nearly mesmerized, and then come to himself with a sense of
fear, which started him working like a madman, so that he might
not be behind with his business. The day seemed to be so long. It
rolled on rusty hinges that could scarcely move. Each hour was like
a great circle swollen with heavy air, and it droned and buzzed
into an eternity. It seemed to the man that his hand in particular
wanted to rest. It was luxury not to work with it. It was good to
lay it down on a sheet of paper with the pen sloping against his
finger, and then watch his hand going to sleep—it seemed to the
man that it was his hand and not himself wanted to sleep, but it
always awakened when the pen slipped. There was an instinct in him
somewhere not to let the pen slip, and every time the pen moved
his hand awakened, and began to work languidly. When he went home
at night he lay down at once and stared for hours at a fly on the
wall or a crack on the ceiling. When his wife spoke to him he heard
her speaking as from a great distance, and he answered her dully as
though he was replying through a cloud. He only wanted to be let
alone, to be allowed to stare at the fly on the wall, or the crack
on the ceiling.
“One morning he found that he couldn’t get up, or rather, that
he didn’t want to get up. When his wife called him he made no
reply, and she seemed to call him every ten seconds—the words,
‘get up, get up,’ were crackling all round him; they were bursting
like bombs on the right hand and on the left of him: they were
scattering from above and all around him, bursting upwards from the
floor, swirling, swaying, and jostling each other. Then the sounds
ceased, and one voice only said to him ‘You are late!’ He saw these
words like a blur hanging in the air, just beyond his eyelids, and
he stared at the blur until he fell asleep.”
The voice in the cell ceased speaking for a few minutes, and then
it went on again.
“For three weeks the man did not leave his bed—he lived faintly
in a kind of trance, wherein great forms moved about slowly and
immense words were drumming gently for ever. When he began to
take notice again everything in the house was different. Most of
the furniture, paid for so hardly, was gone. He missed a thing
everywhere—chairs, a mirror, a table: wherever he looked he missed
something; and downstairs was worse—there, everything was gone. His
wife had sold all her furniture to pay for doctors, for medicine,
for food and rent. And she was changed too: good things had gone
from her face; she was gaunt, sharp-featured, miserable—but she was
comforted to think he was going back to work soon.
“There was a flurry in his head when he went to his office. He
didn’t know what his employer would say for stopping away. He
might blame him for being sick—he wondered would his employer pay
him for the weeks he was absent. When he stood at the door he was
frightened. Suddenly the thought of his master’s eye grew terrible
to him: it was a steady, cold, glassy eye; but he opened the door
and went in. His master was there with another man and he tried to
say ‘Good morning, sir,’ in a natural and calm voice; but he knew
that the strange man had been engaged instead of himself, and this
knowledge posted itself between his tongue and his thought. He
heard himself stammering, he felt that his whole bearing had become
drooping and abject. His master was talking swiftly and the other
man was looking at him in an embarrassed, stealthy, and pleading
manner: his eyes seemed to be apologising for having supplanted
him—so he mumbled ‘Good day, sir,’ and stumbled out.
“When he got outside he could not think where to go. After a while
he went in the direction of the little park in the centre of the
city. It was quite near and he sat down on an iron bench facing
a pond. There were children walking up and down by the water
giving pieces of bread to the swans. Now and again a labouring
man or a messenger went by quickly; now and again a middleaged,
slovenly-dressed man drooped past aimlessly: sometimes a tattered,
self-intent woman with a badgered face flopped by him. When he
looked at these dull people the thought came to him that they
were not walking there at all; they were trailing through hell,
and their desperate eyes saw none but devils around them. He saw
himself joining these battered strollers . . . and he could not
think what he would tell his wife when he went home. He rehearsed
to himself the terms of his dismissal a hundred times. How his
master looked, what he had said: and then the fine, ironical things
he had said to his master. He sat in the park all day, and when
evening fell he went home at his accustomed hour.
“His wife asked him questions as to how he had got on, and wanted
to know was there any chance of being paid for the weeks of
absence; the man answered her volubly, ate his supper and went to
bed: but he did not tell his wife that he had been dismissed and
that there would be no money at the end of the week. He tried to
tell her, but when he met her eye he found that he could not say
the words—he was afraid of the look that might come into her face
when she heard it—she, standing terrified in those dismantled
rooms...!
“In the morning he ate his breakfast and went out again—to work,
his wife thought. She bid him ask the master about the three weeks’
wages, or to try and get an advance on the present week’s wages,
for they were hardly put to it to buy food. He said he would do his
best, but he went straight to the park and sat looking at the pond,
looking at the passers-by and dreaming. In the middle of the day he
started up in a panic and went about the city asking for work in
offices, shops, warehouses, everywhere, but he could not get any.
He trailed back heavy-footed again to the park and sat down.
“He told his wife more lies about his work that night and what his
master had said when he asked for an advance. He couldn’t bear the
children to touch him. After a little time he sneaked away to his
bed.
“A week went that way. He didn’t look for work any more. He sat in
the park, dreaming, with his head bowed into his hands. The next
day would be the day he should have been paid his wages. The next
day! What would his wife say when he told her he had no money? She
would stare at him and flush and say—’Didn’t you go out every day
to work?’—How would he tell her then so that she could understand
quickly and spare him words?
“Morning came and the man ate his breakfast silently. There was no
butter on the bread, and his wife seemed to be apologising to him
for not having any. She said, ‘We’ll be able to start fair from
to-morrow,’ and when he snapped at her angrily she thought it was
because he had to eat dry bread.
“He went to the park and sat there for hours. Now and again he got
up and walked into a neighbouring street, but always, after half an
hour or so, he came back. Six o’clock in the evening was his hour
for going home. When six o’clock came he did not move, he still sat
opposite the pond with his head bowed down into his arms. Seven
o’clock passed. At nine o’clock a bell was rung and every one had
to leave. He went also. He stood outside the gates looking on this
side and on that. Which way would he go? All roads were alike to
him, so he turned at last and walked somewhere. He did not go home
that night. He never went home again. He never was heard of again
anywhere in the wide world.”
The voice ceased speaking and silence swung down again upon the
little cell. The Philosopher had been listening intently to this
story, and after a few minutes he spoke “When you go up this road
there is a turn to the left and all the path along is bordered with
trees—there are birds in the trees, Glory be to God! There is only
one house on that road, and the woman in it gave us milk to drink.
She has but one son, a good boy, and she said the other children
were dead; she was speaking of a husband who went away and left
her—‘Why should he have been afraid to come home?’ said she—‘sure,
I loved him.’”
After a little interval the voice spoke again “I don’t know what
became of the man I was speaking of. I am a thief, and I’m well
known to the police everywhere. I don’t think that man would get a
welcome at the house up here, for why should he?”
Another, a different, querulous kind of voice came from the
silence “If I knew a place where there was a welcome I’d go there
as quickly as I could, but I don’t know a place and I never will,
for what good would a man of my age be to any person? I am a thief
also. The first thing I stole was a hen out of a little yard. I
roasted it in a ditch and ate it, and then I stole another one and
ate it, and after that I stole everything I could lay my hands on.
I suppose I will steal as long as I live, and I’ll die in a ditch
at the heel of the hunt. There was a time, not long ago, and if
any one had told me then that I would rob, even for hunger, I’d
have been insulted: but what does it matter now? And the reason I
am a thief is because I got old without noticing it. Other people
noticed it, but I did not. I suppose age comes on one so gradually
that it is seldom observed. If there are wrinkles on one’s face we
do not remember when they were not there: we put down all kind of
little infirmities to sedentary living, and you will see plenty of
young people bald. If a man has no occasion to tell any one his
age, and if he never thinks of it himself, he won’t see ten years’
difference between his youth and his age, for we live in slow,
quiet times, and nothing ever happens to mark the years as they go
by, one after the other, and all the same.
“I lodged in a house for a great many years, and a little girl grew
up there, the daughter of my landlady. She used to slide down the
bannisters very well, and she used to play the piano very badly.
These two things worried me many a time. She used to bring me my
meals in the morning and the evening, and often enough she’d stop
to talk with me while I was eating. She was a very chatty girl and
I was a talkative person myself. When she was about eighteen years
of age I got so used to her that if her mother came with the food
I would be worried for the rest of the day. Her face was as bright
as a sunbeam, and her lazy, careless ways, big, free movements,
and girlish chatter were pleasant to a man whose loneliness was
only beginning to be apparent to him through her company. I’ve
thought of it often since, and I suppose that’s how it began. She
used to listen to all my opinions and she’d agree with them because
she had none of her own yet. She was a good girl, but lazy in her
mind and body; childish, in fact. Her talk was as involved as her
actions: she always seemed to be sliding down mental bannisters;
she thought in kinks and spoke in spasms, hopped mentally from one
subject to another without the slightest difficulty, and could use
a lot of language in saying nothing at all. I could see all that
at the time, but I suppose I was too pleased with my own sharp
business brains, and sick enough, although I did not know it, of my
sharp-brained, business companions—dear Lord! I remember them well.
It’s easy enough to have brains as they call it, but it is not so
easy to have a little gaiety or carelessness or childishness or
whatever it was she had. It is good, too, to feel superior to some
one, even a girl.
“One day this thought came to me—‘It is time that I settled down.’
I don’t know where the idea came from; one hears it often enough
and it always seems to apply to some one else, but I don’t know
what brought it to roost with me. I was foolish, too: I bought ties
and differently shaped collars, and took to creasing my trousers
by folding them under the bed and lying on them all night—It never
struck me that I was more than three times her age. I brought home
sweets for her and she was delighted. She said she adored sweets,
and she used to insist on my eating some of them with her; she
liked to compare notes as to how they tasted while eating them.
I used to get a toothache from them, but I bore with it although
at that time I hated toothache almost as much as I hated sweets.
Then I asked her to come out with me for a walk. She was willing
enough and it was a novel experience for me. Indeed, it was rather
exciting. We went out together often after that, and sometimes we’d
meet people I knew, young men from my office or from other offices.
I used to be shy when some of these people winked at me as they
saluted. It was pleasant, too, telling the girl who they were,
their business and their salaries: for there was little I didn’t
know. I used to tell her of my own position in the office and what
the chief said to me through the day. Sometimes we talked of the
things that had appeared in the evening papers. A murder perhaps,
some phase of a divorce case, the speech a political person had
made, or the price of stock. She was interested in anything so long
as it was talk. And her own share in the conversation was good
to hear. Every lady that passed us had a hat that stirred her to
the top of rapture or the other pinnacle of disgust. She told me
what ladies were frights and what were ducks. Under her scampering
tongue I began to learn something of humanity, even though she saw
most people as delightfully funny clowns or superb, majestical
princes, but I noticed that she never said a bad word of a man,
although many of the men she looked after were ordinary enough.
Until I went walking with her I never knew what a shop window was.
A jeweller’s window especially: there were curious things in it.
She told me how a tiara should be worn, and a pendant, and she
explained the kind of studs I should wear myself; they were made of
gold and had red stones in them; she showed me the ropes of pearl
or diamonds that she thought would look pretty on herself: and one
day she said that she liked me very much. I was pleased and excited
that day, but I was a business man and I said very little in reply.
I never liked a pig in a poke.
“She used to go out two nights in the week, Monday and Thursday,
dressed in her best clothes. I didn’t know where she went, and I
didn’t ask—I thought she visited an acquaintance, a girl friend or
some such. The time went by and I made up my mind to ask her to
marry me. I had watched her long enough and she was always kind
and bright. I liked the way she smiled, and I liked her obedient,
mannerly bearing. There was something else I liked, which I did
not recognise then, something surrounding all her movements, a
graciousness, a spaciousness: I did not analyse it; but I know now
that it was her youth. I remember that when we were out together
she walked slowly, but in the house she would leap up and down the
stairs—she moved furiously, but I didn’t.
“One evening she dressed to go out as usual, and she called at my
door to know had I everything I wanted. I said I had something to
tell her when she came home, something important. She promised to
come in early to hear it, and I laughed at her and she laughed back
and went sliding down the bannisters. I don’t think I have had any
reason to laugh since that night. A letter came for me after she
had gone, and I knew by the shape and the handwriting that it was
from the office. It puzzled me to think why I should be written to.
I didn’t like opening it somehow.... It was my dismissal on account
of advancing age, and it hoped for my future welfare politely
enough. It was signed by the Senior. I didn’t grip it at first, and
then I thought it was a hoax. For a long time I sat in my room with
an empty mind. I was watching my mind: there were immense distances
in it that drowsed and buzzed; large, soft movements seemed to be
made in my mind, and although I was looking at the letter in my
hand I was really trying to focus those great, swinging spaces
in my brain, and my ears were listening for a movement of some
kind. I can see back to that time plainly. I went walking up and
down the room. There was a dull, subterranean anger in me. I
remember muttering once or twice, ‘Shameful!’ and again I said,
‘Ridiculous!’ At the idea of age I looked at my face in the glass,
but I was looking at my mind, and it seemed to go grey, there was a
heaviness there also. I seemed to be peering from beneath a weight
at something strange. I had a feeling that I had let go a grip
which I had held tightly for a long time, and I had a feeling that
the letting go was a grave disaster . . . that strange face in the
glass! how wrinkled it was! there were only a few hairs on the head
and they were grey ones. There was a constant twitching of the lips
and the eyes were deep-set, little and dull. I left the glass and
sat down by the window, looking out. I saw nothing in the street: I
just looked into a blackness. My mind was as blank as the night and
as soundless. There was a swirl outside the window, rain tossed by
the wind; without noticing, I saw it, and my brain swung with the
rain until it heaved in circles, and then a feeling of faintness
awakened me to myself. I did not allow my mind to think, but now
and again a word swooped from immense distances through my brain,
swinging like a comet across a sky and jarring terribly when it
struck: ‘Sacked’ was one word, ‘Old’ was another word.
“I don’t know how long I sat watching the flight of these dreadful
words and listening to their clanking impact, but a movement in
the street aroused me. Two people, the girl and a young, slender
man, were coming slowly up to the house. The rain was falling
heavily, but they did not seem to mind it. There was a big puddle
of water close to the kerb, and the girl, stepping daintily as a
cat, went round this, but the young man stood for a moment beyond
it. He raised both arms, clenched his fists, swung them, and jumped
over the puddle. Then he and the girl stood looking at the water,
apparently measuring the jump. I could see them plainly by a street
lamp. They were bidding each other good-bye. The girl put her hand
to his neck and settled the collar of his coat, and while her hand
rested on him the young man suddenly and violently flung his arms
about her and hugged her; then they kissed and moved apart. The
man walked to the rain puddle and stood there with his face turned
back laughing at her, and then he jumped straight into the middle
of the puddle and began to dance up and down in it, the muddy
water splashing up to his knees. She ran over to him crying ‘Stop,
silly!’ When she came into the house, I bolted my door and I gave
no answer to her knock.
“In a few months the money I had saved was spent. I couldn’t get
any work, I was too old; they put it that they wanted a younger
man. I couldn’t pay my rent. I went out into the world again,
like a baby, an old baby in a new world. I stole food, food, food
anywhere and everywhere. At first I was always caught. Often I was
sent to gaol; sometimes I was let go; sometimes I was kicked; but I
learned to live like a wolf at last. I am not often caught now when
I steal food. But there is something happening every day, whether
it is going to gaol or planning how to steal a hen or a loaf of
bread. I find that it is a good life, much better than the one I
lived for nearly sixty years, and I have time to think over every
sort of thing....”
When the morning came the Philosopher was taken on a car to the big
City in order that he might be put on his trial and hanged. It was
the custom.
BOOK VI. THE THIN WOMAN’S JOURNEY AND THE HAPPY MARCH
CHAPTER XVII
The ability of the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath for anger was
unbounded. She was not one of those limited creatures who are swept
clean by a gust of wrath and left placid and smiling after its
passing. She could store her anger in those caverns of eternity
which open into every soul, and which are filled with rage and
violence until the time comes when they may be stored with wisdom
and love; for, in the genesis of life, love is at the beginning
and the end of things. First, like a laughing child, love came to
labour minutely in the rocks and sands of the heart, opening the
first of those roads which lead inwards for ever, and then, the
labour of his day being done, love fled away and was forgotten.
Following came the fierce winds of hate to work like giants and
gnomes among the prodigious debris, quarrying the rocks and
levelling the roads which soar inwards; but when that work is
completed love will come radiantly again to live for ever in the
human heart, which is Eternity.
Before the Thin Woman could undertake the redemption of her husband
by wrath, it was necessary that she should be purified by the
performance of that sacrifice which is called the Forgiveness of
Enemies, and this she did by embracing the Leprecauns of the Gort
and in the presence of the sun and the wind remitting their crime
against her husband. Thus she became free to devote her malice
against the State of Punishment, while forgiving the individuals
who had but acted in obedience to the pressure of their infernal
environment, which pressure is Sin.
This done she set about baking the three cakes against her journey
to Angus Óg.
While she was baking the cakes, the children, Seumas and Brigid
Beg, slipped away into the wood to speak to each other and to
wonder over this extraordinary occurrence.
At first their movements were very careful, for they could not be
quite sure that the policemen had really gone away, or whether they
were hiding in dark places waiting to pounce on them and carry
them away to captivity. The word “murder” was almost unknown to
them, and its strangeness was rendered still more strange by reason
of the nearness of their father to the term. It was a terrible
word and its terror was magnified by their father’s unthinkable
implication. What had he done? Almost all his actions and habits
were so familiar to them as to be commonplace, and yet, there was a
dark something to which he was a party and which dashed before them
as terrible and ungraspable as a lightning-flash. They understood
that it had something to do with that other father and mother whose
bodies had been snatched from beneath the hearthstone, but they
knew the Philosopher had done nothing in that instance, and, so,
they saw murder as a terrible, occult affair which was quite beyond
their mental horizons.
No one jumped out on them from behind the trees, so in a little
time their confidence returned and they walked less carefully.
When they reached the edge of the pine wood the brilliant sunshine
invited them to go farther, and after a little hesitation they did
so. The good spaces and the sweet air dissipated their melancholy
thoughts, and very soon they were racing each other to this
point and to that. Their wayward flights had carried them in the
direction of Meehawl MacMurrachu’s cottage, and here, breathlessly,
they threw themselves under a small tree to rest. It was a thorn
bush, and as they sat beneath it the cessation of movement gave
them opportunity to again consider the terrible position of their
father. With children thought cannot be separated from action for
very long. They think as much with their hands as with their heads.
They have to do the thing they speak of in order to visualise the
idea, and, consequently, Seumas Beg was soon reconstructing the
earlier visit of the policemen to their house in grand pantomime.
The ground beneath the thorn bush became the hearthstone of their
cottage; he and Brigid became four policemen, and in a moment he
was digging furiously with a broad piece of wood to find the two
hidden bodies. He had digged for only a few minutes when the piece
of wood struck against something hard. A very little time sufficed
to throw the soil off this, and their delight was great when they
unearthed a beautiful little earthen crock filled to the brim with
shining, yellow dust. When they lifted this they were astonished
at its great weight. They played for a long time with it, letting
the heavy, yellow shower slip through their fingers and watching
it glisten in the sunshine. After they tired of this they decided
to bring the crock home, but by the time they reached the Gort
na Cloca Mora they were so tired that they could not carry it
any farther, and they decided to leave it with their friends the
Leprecauns. Seumas Beg gave the taps on the tree trunk which they
had learned, and in a moment the Leprecaun whom they knew came up.
[Illustration: He . . . wept in so loud a voice that his comrades
swarmed up to see what had happened to him]
“We have brought this, sir,” said Seumas. But he got no further,
for the instant the Leprecaun saw the crock he threw his arms
around it and wept in so loud a voice that his comrades swarmed
up to see what had happened to him, and they added their laughter
and tears to his, to which chorus the children subjoined their
sympathetic clamour, so that a noise of great complexity rang
through all the Gort.
But the Leprecauns’ surrender to this happy passion was short.
Hard on their gladness came remembrance and consternation; and
then repentance, that dismal virtue, wailed in their ears and
their hearts. How could they thank the children whose father and
protector they had delivered to the unilluminated justice of
humanity? that justice which demands not atonement but punishment;
which is learned in the Book of Enmity but not in the Book of
Friendship; which calls hatred Nature, and Love a conspiracy; whose
law is an iron chain and whose mercy is debility and chagrin; the
blind fiend who would impose his own blindness; that unfruitful
loin which curses fertility; that stony heart which would petrify
the generations of man; before whom life withers away appalled and
death would shudder again to its tomb. Repentance! they wiped the
inadequate ooze from their eyes and danced joyfully for spite. They
could do no more, so they fed the children lovingly and carried
them home.
The Thin Woman had baked three cakes. One of these she gave to each
of the children and one she kept herself, whereupon they set out
upon their journey to Angus Óg.
It was well after midday when they started. The fresh gaiety of the
morning was gone, and a tyrannous sun, whose majesty was almost
insupportable, lorded it over the world. There was but little shade
for the travellers, and, after a time, they became hot and weary
and thirsty—that is, the children did, but the Thin Woman, by
reason of her thinness, was proof against every elemental rigour,
except hunger, from which no creature is free.
She strode in the centre of the road, a very volcano of silence,
thinking twenty different thoughts at the one moment, so that
the urgency of her desire for utterance kept her terribly quiet;
but against this crust of quietude there was accumulating a mass
of speech which must at the last explode or petrify. From this
congestion of thought there arose the first deep rumblings,
precursors of uproar, and another moment would have heard the
thunder of her varied malediction, but that Brigid Beg began to
cry: for, indeed, the poor child was both tired and parched to
distraction, and Seumas had no barrier against a similar surrender,
but two minutes’ worth of boyish pride. This discovery withdrew the
Thin Woman from her fiery contemplations, and in comforting the
children she forgot her own hardships.
It became necessary to find water quickly: no difficult thing,
for the Thin Woman, being a Natural, was like all other creatures
able to sense the whereabouts of water, and so she at once led the
children in a slightly different direction. In a few minutes they
reached a well by the road-side, and here the children drank deeply
and were comforted. There was a wide, leafy tree growing hard by
the well, and in the shade of this tree they sat down and ate their
cakes.
While they rested the Thin Woman advised the children on many
important matters. She never addressed her discourse to both of
them at once, but spoke first to Seumas on one subject and then
to Brigid on another subject; for, as she said, the things which
a boy must learn are not those which are necessary to a girl. It
is particularly important that a man should understand how to
circumvent women, for this and the capture of food forms the basis
of masculine wisdom, and on this subject she spoke to Seumas. It
is, however, equally urgent that a woman should be skilled to
keep a man in his proper place, and to this thesis Brigid gave an
undivided attention.
She taught that a man must hate all women before he is able to
love a woman, but that he is at liberty, or rather he is under
express command, to love all men because they are of his kind.
Women also should love all other women as themselves, and they
should hate all men but one man only, and him they should seek to
turn into a woman, because women, by the order of their beings,
must be either tyrants or slaves, and it is better they should
be tyrants than slaves. She explained that between men and women
there exists a state of unremitting warfare, and that the endeavour
of each sex is to bring the other to subjection; but that women
are possessed by a demon called Pity which severely handicaps
their battle and perpetually gives victory to the male, who is
thus constantly rescued on the very ridges of defeat. She said
to Seumas that his fatal day would dawn when he loved a woman,
because he would sacrifice his destiny to her caprice, and she
begged him for love of her to beware of all that twisty sex. To
Brigid she revealed that a woman’s terrible day is upon her when
she knows that a man loves her, for a man in love submits only to
a woman, a partial, individual and temporary submission, but a
woman who is loved surrenders more fully to the very god of love
himself, and so she becomes a slave, and is not alone deprived of
her personal liberty, but is even infected in her mental processes
by this crafty obsession. The fates work for man, and therefore,
she averred, woman must be victorious, for those who dare to war
against the gods are already assured of victory: this being the law
of life, that only the weak shall conquer. The limit of strength
is petrifaction and immobility, but there is no limit to weakness,
and cunning or fluidity is its counsellor. For these reasons, and
in order that life might not cease, women should seek to turn their
husbands into women; then they would be tyrants and their husbands
would be slaves, and life would be renewed for a further period.
As the Thin Woman proceeded with this lesson it became at last so
extremely complicated that she was brought to a stand by the knots,
so she decided to resume their journey and disentangle her argument
when the weather became cooler.
They were repacking the cakes in their wallets when they observed a
stout, comely female coming towards the well. This woman, when she
drew near, saluted the Thin Woman, and her the Thin Woman saluted
again, whereupon the stranger sat down.
“It’s hot weather, surely,” said she, “and I’m thinking it’s as
much as a body’s life is worth to be travelling this day and the
sun the way it is. Did you come far, now, ma’am, or is it that you
are used to going the roads and don’t mind it?”
“Not far,” said the Thin Woman.
“Far or near,” said the stranger, “a perch is as much as I’d like
to travel this time of the year. That’s a fine pair of children you
have with you now, ma’am.”
“They are,” said the Thin Woman.
“I’ve ten of them myself,” the other continued, “and I often
wondered where they came from. It’s queer to think of one woman
making ten new creatures and she not getting a penny for it, nor
any thanks itself.”
“It is,” said the Thin Woman.
“Do you ever talk more than two words at the one time, ma’am?” said
the stranger.
“I do,” said the Thin Woman.
“I’d give a penny to hear you,” replied the other angrily, “for a
more bad-natured, cross-grained, cantankerous person than yourself
I never met among womankind. It’s what I said to a man only
yesterday, that thin ones are bad ones, and there isn’t any one
could be thinner than you are yourself.”
“The reason you say that,” said the Thin Woman calmly, “is because
you are fat and you have to tell lies to yourself to hide your
misfortune, and let on that you like it. There is no one in the
world could like to be fat, and there I leave you, ma’am. You can
poke your finger in your own eye, but you may keep it out of mine
if you please, and, so, good-bye to you; and if I wasn’t a quiet
woman I’d pull you by the hair of the head up a hill and down a
hill for two hours, and now there’s an end of it. I’ve given you
more than two words; let you take care or I’ll give you two more
that will put blisters on your body for ever. Come along with me
now, children, and if ever you see a woman like that woman you’ll
know that she eats until she can’t stand, and drinks until she
can’t sit, and sleeps until she is stupid; and if that sort of
person ever talks to you remember that two words are all that’s due
to her, and let them be short ones, for a woman like that would be
a traitor and a thief, only that she’s too lazy to be anything but
a sot, God help her I and, so, good-bye.”
Thereupon the Thin Woman and the children arose, and having saluted
the stranger they went down the wide path; but the other woman
stayed where she was sitting, and she did not say a word even to
herself.
As she strode along the Thin Woman lapsed again to her anger, and
became so distant in her aspect that the children could get no
companionship from her; so, after a while, they ceased to consider
her at all and addressed themselves to their play. They danced
before and behind and around her. They ran and doubled, shouted
and laughed and sang. Sometimes they pretended they were husband
and wife, and then they plodded quietly side by side, making wise,
occasional remarks on the weather, or the condition of their
health, or the state of the fields of rye. Sometimes one was a
horse and the other was a driver, and then they stamped along the
road with loud, fierce snortings and louder and fiercer commands.
At another moment one was a cow being driven with great difficulty
to market by a driver whose temper had given way hours before; or
they both became goats and with their heads jammed together they
pushed and squealed viciously; and these changes lapsed into one
another so easily that at no moment were they unoccupied. But
as the day wore on to evening the immense surrounding quietude
began to weigh heavily upon them. Saving for their own shrill
voices there was no sound, and this unending, wide silence at last
commanded them to a corresponding quietness. Little by little they
ceased their play. The scamper became a trot, each run was more and
more curtailed in its length, the race back became swifter than the
run forth, and, shortly, they were pacing soberly enough one on
either side of the Thin Woman sending back and forth a few quiet
sentences. Soon even these sentences trailed away into the vast
surrounding stillness. Then Brigid Beg clutched the Thin Woman’s
right hand, and not long after Seumas gently clasped her left hand,
and these mute appeals for protection and comfort again released
her from the valleys of fury through which she had been so fiercely
careering.
As they went gently along they saw a cow lying in a field, and,
seeing this animal, the Thin Woman stopped thoughtfully.
“Everything,” said she, “belongs to the wayfarer,” and she crossed
into the field and milked the cow into a vessel which she had.
“I wonder,” said Seumas, “who owns that cow.”
“Maybe,” said Brigid Beg, “nobody owns her at all.”
“The cow owns herself,” said the Thin Woman, “for nobody can own a
thing that is alive. I am sure she gives her milk to us with great
goodwill, for we are modest, temperate people without greed or
pretension.”
On being released the cow lay down again in the grass and resumed
its interrupted cud. As the evening had grown chill the Thin Woman
and the children huddled close to the warm animal. They drew pieces
of cake from their wallets, and ate these and drank happily from
the vessel of milk. Now and then the cow looked benignantly over
its shoulder bidding them a welcome to its hospitable flanks. It
had a mild, motherly eye, and it was very fond of children. The
youngsters continually deserted their meal in order to put their
arms about the cow’s neck to thank and praise her for her goodness,
and to draw each other’s attention to various excellences in its
appearance.
“Cow,” said Brigid Beg in an ecstasy, “I love you.”
“So do I,” said Seumas. “Do you notice the kind of eyes it has?”
“Why does a cow have horns?” said Brigid.
So they asked the cow that question, but it only smiled and said
nothing.
“If a cow talked to you,” said Brigid, “what would it say?”
“Let us be cows,” replied Seumas, “and then, maybe, we will find
out.”
So they became cows and ate a few blades of grass, but they found
that when they were cows they did not want to say anything but
“moo,” and they decided that cows did not want to say anything more
than that either, and they became interested in the reflection
that, perhaps, nothing else was worth saying.
A long, thin, yellow-coloured fly was going in that direction on a
journey, and he stopped to rest himself on the cow’s nose.
“You are welcome,” said the cow.
“It’s a great night for travelling,” said the fly, “but one gets
tired alone. Have you seen any of my people about?”
“No,” replied the cow, “no one but beetles to-night, and they
seldom stop for a talk. You’ve rather a good kind of life, I
suppose, flying about and enjoying yourself.”
“We all have our troubles,” said the fly in a melancholy voice, and
he commenced to clean his right wing with his leg.
“Does any one ever lie against your back the way these people are
lying against mine, or do they steal your milk?”
“There are too many spiders about,” said the fly.
“No corner is safe from them; they squat in the grass and pounce on
you. I’ve got a twist, my eye trying to watch them. They are ugly,
voracious people without manners or neighbourliness, terrible,
terrible creatures.”
“I have seen them,” said the cow, “but they never done me any harm.
Move up a little bit please, I want to lick my nose: it’s queer
how itchy my nose gets”—the fly moved up a bit. “If,” the cow
continued, “you had stayed there, and if my tongue had hit you, I
don’t suppose you would ever have recovered.”
“Your tongue couldn’t have hit me,” said the by. “I move very
quickly you know.”
Hereupon the cow slily whacked her tongue across her nose. She did
not see the fly move, but it was hovering safely half an inch over
her nose.
“You see,” said the fly.
“I do,” replied the cow, and she bellowed so sudden and furious a
snort of laughter that the fly was blown far away by that gust and
never came back again.
This amused the cow exceedingly, and she chuckled and sniggered
to herself for a long time. The children had listened with great
interest to the conversation, and they also laughed delightedly,
and the Thin Woman admitted that the fly had got the worse of
it; but, after a while, she said that the part of the cow’s back
against which she was resting was bonier than anything she had ever
leaned upon before, and that while thinness was a virtue no one had
any right to be thin in lumps, and that on this count the cow was
not to be commended. On hearing this the cow arose, and without
another look at them it walked away into the dusky field. The Thin
Woman told the children afterwards that she was sorry she had said
anything, but she was unable to bring her self to apologise to the
cow, and so they were forced to resume their journey in order to
keep themselves warm.
There was a sickle moon in the sky, a tender sword whose radiance
stayed in its own high places and did not at all illumine the heavy
world below; the glimmer of infrequent stars could also be seen
with spacious, dark solitudes between them; but on the earth the
darkness gathered in fold on fold of misty veiling, through which
the trees uttered an earnest whisper, and the grasses lifted their
little voices, and the wind crooned its thrilling, stern lament.
As the travellers walked on, their eyes, flinching from the
darkness, rested joyfully on the gracious moon, but that joy lasted
only for a little time. The Thin Woman spoke to them curiously
about the moon, and, indeed, she might speak with assurance on that
subject, for her ancestors had sported in the cold beam through
countless dim generations.
“It is not known,” said she, “that the fairies seldom dance for
joy, but for sadness that they have been expelled from the sweet
dawn, and therefore their midnight revels are only ceremonies
to remind them of their happy state in the morning of the world
before thoughtful curiosity and self-righteous moralities drove
them from the kind face of the sun to the dark exile of midnight.
It is strange that we may not be angry while looking on the moon.
Indeed, no mere appetite or passion of any kind dare become
imperative in the presence of the Shining One; and this, in a more
limited degree, is true also of every form of beauty; for there
is something in an absolute beauty to chide away the desires of
materiality and yet to dissolve the spirit in ecstasies of fear and
sadness. Beauty has no liking for Thought, but will send terror
and sorrow on those who look upon her with intelligent eyes. We
may neither be angry nor gay in the presence of the moon, nor may
we dare to think in her bailiwick, or the Jealous One will surely
afflict us. I think that she is not benevolent but malign, and
that her mildness is a cloak for many shy infamies. I think that
beauty tends to become frightful as it becomes perfect, and that,
if we could see it comprehendingly, the extreme of beauty is a
desolating hideousness, and that the name of ultimate, absolute
beauty is Madness. Therefore men should seek loveliness rather
than beauty, and so they would always have a friend to go beside
them, to understand and to comfort them, for that is the business
of loveliness: but the business of beauty—there is no person
at all knows what that is. Beauty is the extreme which has not
yet swung to and become merged in its opposite. The poets have
sung of this beauty and the philosophers have prophesied of it,
thinking that the beauty which passes all understanding is also
the peace which passeth understanding; but I think that whatever
passes understanding, which is imagination, is terrible, standing
aloof from humanity and from kindness, and that this is the sin
against the Holy Ghost, the great Artist. An isolated perfection
is a symbol of terror and pride, and it is followed only by the
head of man, but the heart winces from it aghast, cleaving to
that loveliness which is modesty and righteousness. Every extreme
is bad, in order that it may swing to and fertilize its equally
horrible opposite.”
Thus, speaking more to herself than to the children, the Thin Woman
beguiled the way. The moon had brightened as she spoke, and on
either side of the path, wherever there was a tree or a rise in the
ground, a black shadow was crouching tensely watchful, seeming as
if it might spring into terrible life at a bound. Of these shadows
the children became so fearful that the Thin Woman forsook the path
and adventured on the open hillside, so that in a short time the
road was left behind and around them stretched the quiet slopes in
the full shining of the moon.
When they had walked for a long time the children became sleepy;
they were unused to being awake in the night, and as there was no
place where they could rest, and as it was evident that they could
not walk much further, the Thin Woman grew anxious. Already Brigid
had made a tiny, whimpering sound, and Seumas had followed this
with a sigh, the slightest prolongation of which might have trailed
into a sob, and when children are overtaken by tears they do not
understand how to escape from them until they are simply bored by
much weeping.
[Illustration: When they topped a slight incline they saw a light
shining some distance away]
When they topped a slight incline they saw a light shining some
distance away, and toward this the Thin Woman hurried. As they drew
near she saw it was a small fire, and around this some figures were
seated. In a few minutes she came into the circle of the firelight,
and here she halted suddenly. She would have turned and fled, but
fear loosened her knees so that they would not obey her will;
also the people by the fire had observed her, and a great voice
commanded that she should draw near.
The fire was made of branches of heather, and beside it three
figures sat. The Thin Woman, hiding her perturbation as well as
she could, came nigh and sat down by the fire. After a low word of
greeting she gave some of her cake to the children, drew them close
to her, wrapped her shawl about their heads and bade them sleep.
Then, shrinkingly, she looked at her hosts.
They were quite naked, and each of them gazed on her with intent
earnestness. The first was so beautiful that the eye failed upon
him, flinching aside as from a great brightness. He was of mighty
stature, and yet so nobly proportioned, so exquisitely slender and
graceful, that no idea of gravity or bulk went with his height.
His face was kingly and youthful and of a terrifying serenity. The
second man was of equal height, but broad to wonderment. So broad
was he that his great height seemed diminished. The tense arm on
which he leaned was knotted and ridged with muscle, and his hand
gripped deeply into the ground. His face seemed as though it had
been hammered from hard rock, a massive, blunt face as rigid as
his arm. The third man can scarcely be described. He was neither
short nor tall. He was muscled as heavily as the second man. As he
sat he looked like a colossal toad squatting with his arms about
his knees, and upon these his chin rested. He had no shape nor
swiftness, and his head was flattened down and was scarcely wider
than his neck. He had a protruding dog-like mouth that twitched
occasionally, and from his little eyes there glinted a horrible
intelligence. Before this man the soul of the Thin Woman grovelled.
She felt herself crawling to him. The last terrible abasement of
which humanity is capable came upon her: a fascination which would
have drawn her to him in screaming adoration. Hardly could she look
away from him, but her arms were about the children, and love,
mightiest of the powers, stirred fiercely in her heart.
The first man spoke to her.
“Woman,” said he, “for what purpose do you go abroad on this night
and on this hill?”
“I travel, sir,” said the Thin Woman, “searching for the Brugh of
Angus the son of the Dagda Mór.”
“We are all children of the Great Father,” said he. “Do you know
who we are?”
“I do not know that,” said she.
“We are the Three Absolutes, the Three Redeemers, the three
Alembics—the Most Beautiful Man, the Strongest Man and the Ugliest
Man. In the midst of every strife we go unhurt. We count the slain
and the victors and pass on laughing, and to us in the eternal
order come all the peoples of the world to be regenerated for ever.
Why have you called to us?”
“I did not call to you, indeed,” said the Thin Woman; “but why do
you sit in the path so that travellers to the House of the Dagda
are halted on their journey?”
“There are no paths closed to us,” he replied; “even the gods seek
us, for they grow weary in their splendid desolation—saving Him who
liveth in all things and in us; Him we serve and before His awful
front we abase ourselves. You, O Woman, who are walking in the
valleys of anger, have called to us in your heart, therefore we are
waiting for you on the side of the hill. Choose now one of us to be
your mate, and do not fear to choose, for our kingdoms are equal
and our powers are equal.”
“Why would I choose one of you,” replied the Thin Woman, “when I am
well married already to the best man in the world?”
“Beyond us there is no best man,” said he, “for we are the best in
beauty, and the best in strength, and the best in ugliness; there
is no excellence which is not contained in us three. If you are
married what does that matter to us who are free from the pettiness
of jealousy and fear, being at one with ourselves and with every
manifestation of nature.”
“If,” she replied, “you are the Absolute and are above all
pettiness, can you not be superior to me also and let me pass
quietly on my road to the Dagda!”
“We are what all humanity desire,” quoth he, “and we desire all
humanity. There is nothing, small or great, disdained by our
immortal appetites. It is not lawful, even for the Absolute, to
outgrow Desire, which is the breath of God quick in his creatures
and not to be bounded or surmounted by any perfection.”
During this conversation the other great figures had leaned forward
listening intently but saying nothing. The Thin Woman could feel
the children like little, terrified birds pressing closely and very
quietly to her sides.
“Sir,” said she, “tell me what is Beauty and what is Strength and
what is Ugliness? for, although I can see these things, I do not
know what they are.”
“I will tell you that,” he replied—“Beauty is Thought and Strength
is Love and Ugliness is Generation. The home of Beauty is the head
of man. The home of Strength is the heart of man, and in the loins
Ugliness keeps his dreadful state. If you come with me you shall
know all delight. You shall live unharmed in the flame of the
spirit, and nothing that is gross shall bind your limbs or hinder
your thought. You shall move as a queen amongst all raging passions
without torment or despair. Never shall you be driven or ashamed,
but always you will choose your own paths and walk with me in
freedom and contentment and beauty.”
“All things,” said the Thin Woman, “must act according to the order
of their being, and so I say to Thought, if you hold me against my
will presently I will bind you against your will, for the holder
of an unwilling mate becomes the guardian and the slave of his
captive.”
“That is true,” said he, “and against a thing that is true I cannot
contend; therefore, you are free from me, but from my brethren you
are not free.”
The Thin Woman turned to the second man.
“You are Strength?” said she.
“I am Strength and Love,” he boomed, “and with me there is safety
and peace; my days have honour and my nights quietness. There is
no evil thing walks near my lands, nor is any sound heard but the
lowing of my cattle, the songs of my birds and the laughter of my
happy children. Come then to me who gives protection and happiness
and peace, and does not fail or grow weary at any time.”
“I will not go with you,” said the Thin Woman, “for I am a mother
and my strength cannot be increased; I am a mother and my love
cannot be added to. What have I further to desire from thee, thou
great man?”
“You are free of me,” said the second man, “but from my brother you
are not free.”
Then to the third man the Thin Woman addressed herself in terror,
for to that hideous one something cringed within her in an ecstasy
of loathing. That repulsion which at its strongest becomes
attraction gripped her. A shiver, a plunge, and she had gone, but
the hands of the children withheld her while in woe she abased
herself before him.
He spoke, and his voice came clogged and painful as though it urged
from the matted pores of the earth itself.
“There is none left to whom you may go but me only. Do not be
afraid, but come to me and I will give you these wild delights
which have been long forgotten. All things which are crude and
riotous, all that is gross and without limit is mine. You shall
not think and suffer any longer; but you shall feel so surely that
the heat of the sun will be happiness: the taste of food, the wind
that blows upon you, the ripe ease of your body—these things will
amaze you who have forgotten them. My great arms about you will
make you furious and young again; you shall leap on the hillside
like a young goat and sing for joy as the birds sing. Leave this
crabbed humanity that is barred and chained away from joy and come
with me, to whose ancient quietude at the last both Strength and
Beauty will come like children tired in the evening, returning to
the freedom of the brutes and the birds, with bodies sufficient for
their pleasure and with no care for Thought or foolish curiosity.”
But the Thin Woman drew back from his hand, saying “It is not
lawful to turn again when the journey is commenced, but to go
forward to whatever is appointed; nor may we return to your meadows
and trees and sunny places who have once departed from them. The
torments of the mind may not be renounced for any easement of
the body until the smoke that blinds us is blown away, and the
tormenting flame has fitted us for that immortal ecstasy which is
the bosom of God. Nor is it lawful that ye great ones should beset
the path of travellers, seeking to lure them away with cunning
promises. It is only at the cross-roads ye may sit where the
traveller will hesitate and be in doubt, but on the highway ye have
no power.”
“You are free of me,” said the third man, “until you are ready
to come to me again, for I only of all things am steadfast
and patient, and to me all return in their seasons. There are
brightnesses in my secret places in the woods, and lamps in my
gardens beneath the hills, tended by the angels of God, and behind
my face there is another face not hated by the Bright Ones.”
So the three Absolutes arose and strode mightily away; and as they
went their thunderous speech to each other boomed against the
clouds and the earth like a gusty wind, and, even when they had
disappeared, that great rumble could be heard dying gently away in
the moonlit distances.
The Thin Woman and the children went slowly forward on the rugged,
sloping way. Far beyond, near the distant summit of the hill there
was a light gleaming.
“Yonder,” said the Thin Woman, “is the Brugh of Angus Mac an Óg,
the son of the Dagda Mór,” and toward this light she assisted the
weary children.
In a little she was in the presence of the god and by him refreshed
and comforted. She told him all that had happened to her husband
and implored his assistance. This was readily accorded, for the
chief business of the gods is to give protection and assistance
to such of their people as require it; but (and this is their
limitation) they cannot give any help until it is demanded, the
freewill of mankind being the most jealously guarded and holy
principle in life; therefore, the interference of the loving gods
comes only on an equally loving summons.
CHAPTER XVIII
Caitilin Ni Murrachu sat alone in the Brugh of Angus much as she
had sat on the hillside and in the cave of Pan, and again she was
thinking. She was happy now. There was nothing more she could
desire, for all that the earth contained or the mind could describe
was hers. Her thoughts were no longer those shy, subterranean
gropings which elude the hand and the understanding. Each thought
was a thing or a person, visible in its own radiant personal life,
and to be seen or felt, welcomed or repulsed, as was its due. But
she had discovered that happiness is not laughter or satisfaction,
and that no person can be happy for themselves alone. So she had
come to understand the terrible sadness of the gods, and why Angus
wept in secret; for often in the night she had heard him weeping,
and she knew that his tears were for those others who were unhappy,
and that he could not be comforted while there was a woeful person
or an evil deed hiding in the world. Her own happiness also had
become infected with this alien misery, until she knew that nothing
was alien to her, and that in truth all persons and all things were
her brothers and sisters and that they were living and dying in
distress; and at the last she knew that there was not any man but
mankind, nor any human being but only humanity. Never again could
the gratification of a desire give her pleasure for her sense of
oneness was destroyed—she was not an individual only; she was also
part of a mighty organism ordained, through whatever stress, to
achieve its oneness, and this great being was threefold, comprising
in its mighty units God and Man and Nature—the immortal trinity.
The duty of life is the sacrifice of self: it is to renounce the
little ego that the mighty ego may be freed; and, knowing this,
she found at last that she knew Happiness, that divine discontent
which cannot rest nor be at ease until its bourne is attained and
the knowledge of a man is added to the gaiety of a child. Angus
had told her that beyond this there lay the great ecstasy which
is Love and God and the beginning and the end of all things; for
everything must come from the Liberty into the Bondage, that it may
return again to the Liberty comprehending all things and fitted for
that fiery enjoyment. This cannot be until there are no more fools
living, for until the last fool has grown wise wisdom will totter
and freedom will still be invisible. Growth is not by years but by
multitudes, and until there is a common eye no one person can see
God, for the eye of all nature will scarcely be great enough to
look upon that majesty. We shall greet Happiness by multitudes, but
we can only greet Him by starry systems and a universal love.
She was so thinking when Angus Óg came to her from the fields. The
god was very radiant, smiling like the young morn when the buds
awake, and to his lips song came instead of speech.
“My beloved,” said he, “we will go on a journey to-day.”
“My delight is where you go,” said Caitilin.
“We will go down to the world of men—from our quiet dwelling among
the hills to the noisy city and the multitude of people. This will
be our first journey, but on a time not distant we will go to them
again, and we will not return from that journey, for we will live
among our people and be at peace.”
“May the day come soon,” said she.
“When thy son is a man he will go before us on that journey,” said
Angus, and Caitilin shivered with a great delight, knowing that a
son would be born to her.
[Illustration: Caitilin danced in uncontrollable gaiety]
Then Angus Óg put upon his bride glorious raiment, and they went
out to the sunlight. It was the early morning, the sun had just
risen and the dew was sparkling on the heather and the grass. There
was a keen stir in the air that stung the blood to joy, so that
Caitilin danced in uncontrollable gaiety, and Angus, with a merry
voice, chanted to the sky and danced also. About his shining head
the birds were flying; for every kiss he gave to Caitilin became a
bird, the messengers of love and wisdom, and they also burst into
triumphant melody, so that the quiet place rang with their glee.
Constantly from the circling birds one would go flying with great
speed to all quarters of space. These were his messengers flying to
every fort and dún, every rath and glen and valley of Eiré to raise
the Sluaige Shee (the Fairy Host). They were birds of love that
flew, for this was a hosting of happiness, and, therefore the Shee
would not bring weapons with them.
It was towards Kilmasheogue their happy steps were directed, and
soon they came to the mountain.
After the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath had left the god she visited
all the fairy forts of Kilmasheogue, and directed the Shee who
lived there to be in waiting at the dawn on the summit of the
mountain; consequently, when Angus and Caitilin came up the hill,
they found the six clans coming to receive them, and with these
were the people of the younger Shee, members of the Tuatha da
Danaan, tall and beautiful men and women who had descended to the
quiet underworld when the pressure of the sons of Milith forced
them with their kind enchantments and invincible valour to the
country of the gods.
Of those who came were Aine Ni Eogáil of Cnoc Aine and Ivil of
Craglea, the queens of North and South Munster, and Una the queen
of Ormond; these, with their hosts, sang upon the summit of the
hill welcoming the god. There came the five guardians of Ulster,
the fomentors of combat:—Brier Mac Belgan of Dromona Breg, Redg
Rotbill from the slopes of Magh-Itar, Tinnel the son of Boclacthna
of Slieve Edlicon, Grici of Cruachán-Aigle, a goodly name, and
Gulban Glas Mac Grici, whose dún is in the Ben of Gulban. These
five, matchless in combat, marched up the hill with their tribes,
shouting as they went. From north and south they came, and from
east and west, bright and happy beings, a multitude, without fear,
without distraction, so that soon the hill was gay with their
voices and their noble raiment.
Among them came the people of the Lupra, the ancient Leprecauns
of the world, leaping like goats among the knees of the heroes.
They were headed by their king Udán Mac Audain and Beg Mac Beg his
tanist, and, following behind, was Glomhar O’Glomrach of the sea,
the strongest man of their people, dressed in the skin of a weasel;
and there were also the chief men of that clan, well known of old,
Conan Mac Rihid, Gaerku Mac Gairid, Mether Mac Mintan and Esirt
Mac Beg, the son of Bueyen, born in a victory. This king was that
same Udán the chief of the Lupra who had been placed under bonds
to taste the porridge in the great cauldron of Emania, into which
pot he fell, and was taken captive with his wife, and held for five
weary years, until he surrendered that which he most valued in the
world, even his boots: the people of the hills laugh still at the
story, and the Leprecauns may still be mortified by it.
There came Bove Derg, the Fiery, seldom seen, and his harper the
son of Trogain, whose music heals the sick and makes the sad heart
merry; Rochy Mac Elathan, Dagda Mór, the Father of Stars, and his
daughter from the Cave of Cruachán; Credh Mac Aedh of Raghery and
Cas Corach son of the great Ollav; Mananaan Mac Lir came from his
wide waters shouting louder than the wind, with his daughters
Cliona and Aoife and Etain Fair-Hair; and Coll and Cecht and Mac
Greina, the Plough, the Hazel, and the Sun came with their wives,
whose names are not forgotten, even Banba and Fodla and Eiré, names
of glory. Lugh of the Long-Hand, filled with mysterious wisdom,
was not absent, whose father was sadly avenged on the sons of
Turann—these with their hosts.
And one came also to whom the hosts shouted with mighty love, even
the Serene One, Dana, the Mother of the gods, steadfast for ever.
Her breath is on the morning, her smile is summer. From her hand
the birds of the air take their food. The mild ox is her friend,
and the wolf trots by her friendly side; at her voice the daisy
peeps from her cave and the nettle couches his lance. The rose
arrays herself in innocence, scattering abroad her sweetness with
the dew, and the oak tree laughs to her in the air. Thou beautiful!
the lambs follow thy footsteps, they crop thy bounty in the meadows
and are not thwarted: the weary men cling to thy bosom everlasting.
Through thee all actions and the deeds of men, through thee all
voices come to us, even the Divine Promise and the breath of the
Almighty from afar laden with goodness.
With wonder, with delight, the daughter of Murrachu watched the
hosting of the Shee. Sometimes her eyes were dazzled as a jewelled
forehead blazed in the sun, or a shoulder-torque of broad gold
flamed like a torch. On fair hair and dark the sun gleamed: white
arms tossed and glanced a moment and sank and reappeared. The eyes
of those who did not hesitate nor compute looked into her eyes,
not appraising, not questioning, but mild and unafraid. The voices
of free people spoke in her ears and the laughter of happy hearts,
unthoughtful of sin or shame, released from the hard bondage of
selfhood. For these people, though many, were one. Each spoke to
the other as to himself, without reservation or subterfuge. They
moved freely each in his personal whim, and they moved also with
the unity of one being: for when they shouted to the Mother of the
gods they shouted with one voice, and they bowed to her as one man
bows. Through the many minds there went also one mind, correcting,
commanding, so that in a moment the interchangeable and fluid
became locked, and organic with a simultaneous understanding, a
collective action-which was freedom.
While she looked the dancing ceased, and they turned their faces
with one accord down the mountain. Those in the front leaped
forward, and behind them the others went leaping in orderly
progression.
Then Angus Óg ran to where she stood, his bride of Beauty “Come, my
beloved,” said he, and hand in hand they raced among the others,
laughing as they ran.
Here there was no green thing growing; a carpet of brown turf
spread to the edge of sight on the sloping plain and away to
where another mountain soared in the air. They came to this and
descended. In the distance, groves of trees could be seen, and,
very far away, the roofs and towers and spires of the Town of the
Ford of Hurdles, and the little roads that wandered everywhere; but
on this height there was only prickly furze growing softly in the
sunlight; the bee droned his loud song, the birds flew and sang
occasionally, and the little streams grew heavy with their falling
waters. A little further and the bushes were green and beautiful,
waving their gentle leaves in the quietude, and beyond again,
wrapped in sunshine and peace, the trees looked on the world from
their calm heights, having no complaint to make of anything.
In a little they reached the grass land and the dance began. Hand
sought for hand, feet moved companionably as though they loved each
other; quietly intimate they tripped without faltering, and, then,
the loud song arose—they sang to the lovers of gaiety and peace,
long defrauded “Come to us, ye who do not know where ye are—ye who
live among strangers in the house of dismay and self-righteousness.
Poor, awkward ones! How bewildered and bedevilled ye go! Amazed ye
look and do not comprehend, for your eyes are set upon a star and
your feet move in the blessed kingdoms of the Shee Innocents! in
what prisons are ye flung? To what lowliness are ye bowed? How are
ye ground between the laws and the customs? The dark people of the
Fomor have ye in thrall; and upon your minds they have fastened a
band of lead, your hearts are hung with iron, and about your loins
a cincture of brass impressed, woeful! Believe it, that the sun
does shine, the flowers grow, and the birds sing pleasantly in the
trees. The free winds are everywhere, the water tumbles on the
hills, the eagle calls aloud through the solitude, and his mate
comes speedily. The bees are gathering honey in the sunlight, the
midges dance together, and the great bull bellows across the river.
The crow says a word to his brethren, and the wren snuggles her
young in the hedge.... Come to us, ye lovers of life and happiness.
Hold out thy hand—a brother shall seize it from afar. Leave the
plough and the cart for a little time: put aside the needle and the
awl—Is leather thy brother, O man?... Come away! come away! from
the loom and the desk, from the shop where the carcasses are hung,
from the place where raiment is sold and the place where it is sewn
in darkness: O bad treachery! Is it for joy you sit in the broker’s
den, thou pale man? Has the attorney enchanted thee?... Come away!
for the dance has begun lightly, the wind is sounding over the
hill, the sun laughs down into the valley, and the sea leaps upon
the shingle, panting for joy, dancing, dancing, dancing for joy....”
They swept through the goat tracks and the little boreens and the
curving roads. Down to the city they went dancing and singing;
among the streets and the shops telling their sunny tale; not
heeding the malignant eyes and the cold brows as the sons of Balor
looked sidewards. And they took the Philosopher from his prison,
even the Intellect of Man they took from the hands of the doctors
and lawyers, from the sly priests, from the professors whose mouths
are gorged with sawdust, and the merchants who sell blades of
grass—the awful people of the Fomor . . . and then they returned
again, dancing and singing, to the country of the gods....