II

Now, it came to pass that on a certain day Festus Clasby was passing

through the outskirts of the nearest country town on his homeward

journey, his cart laden with provisions. At the same moment the spare

figure of a tinker whose name was Mac-an-Ward, the Son of the Bard,

veered around the corner of a street with a new tin can under his arm.

It was the Can with the Diamond Notch.

Mac-an-Ward approached Festus Clasby, who pulled up his cart.

"Well, my good man?" queried Festus Clasby, a phrase usually addressed

across his counter, his hands outspread, to longstanding customers.

"The last of a rare lot," said Mac-an-Ward, deftly poising the tin can

on the top of his fingers, so that it stood level with Festus Clasby's

great face. Festus Clasby took this as a business proposition, and the

soul of the trader revolved within him. Why not buy the tin can from

this tinker and sell it at a profit across his counter, even as he

would sell the flitches of bacon that were wrapped in sacking upon his

cart? He was in mellow mood, and laid down the reins in the cart beside

him.

"And so she is the last?" he said, eyeing the tin can.

"She is the Can with the Diamond Notch."

"Odds and ends go cheap," said Festus Clasby.

"She is the last, but the flower of the flock."

"Remnants must go as bargains or else remain as remnants."

"My wallet!" protested Mac-an-Ward, "you wound me. Don't speak as if I

picked it off a scrap heap."

"I will not, but I will say that, being a tail end and an odd one, it

must go at a sacrifice."

The Son of the Bard tapped the side of the can gently with his

knuckles.

"Listen to him, the hard man from the country! He has no regard for my

feelings. I had the soldering iron in my hand in face of it before the

larks stirred this morning. I had my back to the East, but through the

bottom of that can there I saw the sun rise in its glory. The brightness

of it is as the harvest moon."

"I don't want it for its brightness."

"Dear heart, listen to the man who would not have brightness. He would

pluck the light from the moon, quench the heat in the heart of the sun.

He would draw a screen across the aurora borealis and paint out the

rainbow with lamp black. He might do such things, but he cannot deny the

brightness of this can. Look upon it! When the world is coming to an end

it will shine up at the sky and it will say: 'Ah, where are all the

great stars now that made a boast of their brightness?' And there will

be no star left to answer. They will all be dead things in the heaven,

buried in the forgotten graves of the skies."

"Don't mind the skies. Let me see if there may not be a leakage in it."

Festus Clasby held up the can between his handsome face and the bright

sky.

"Leakages!" exclaimed Mac-an-Ward. "A leakage in a can that I soldered

as if with my own heart's blood. Holy Kilcock, what a mind has this man

from the country! He sees no value in its brightness; now he will tell

me that there is no virtue in its music."

"I like music," said Festus Clasby. "No fiddler has ever stood at my

door but had the good word to say of me. Not one of them could ever say

that he went thirsty from my counter."

Said the Son of the Bard: "Fiddlers, what are fiddlers? What sound have

they like the music of the sweet milk going into that can from the

yellow teats of the red cow? Morning and evening there will be a hymn

played upon it in the haggard. Was not the finest song ever made called

_Cailin deas crúidhte na mbo_? Music! Do you think that the water in the

holy well will not improve in its sparkle to have such a can as this

dipped into it? It will be welcome everywhere for its clearness and its

cleanness. Heavenly Father, look at the manner in which I rounded the

edge of that can with the clippers! Cut clean and clever, soldered at

the dawn of day, the dew falling upon the hands that moulded it, the

parings scattered about my feet like jewels. And now you would bargain

over it. I will not sell it to you at all. I will put it in a holy

shrine."

Festus Clasby turned the can over in his hands, a little bewildered. "It

looks an ordinary can enough," he said.

"It is the Can with the Diamond Notch," declared Mac-an-Ward.

"Would it be worth a shilling now?"

"He puts a price upon it! It is blasphemy. The man has no religion; he

will lose his soul. The devils will have him by the heels. They will

tear his red soul through the roof. Give me the can; don't hold it in

those hands any longer. They are coarse; the hair is standing about the

purple knuckles like stubbles in an ill-cut meadow. That can was made

for the hands of a delicate woman or for the angels that carry water to

the Court of Heaven. I saw it in a vision the night before I made it; it

was on the head of a maiden with golden hair. Her feet were bare and

like shells. She walked across a field where daisies rose out of young

grass; she had the can resting on her head like one coming from the

milking. So I rose up then and said, 'Now, I will make a can fit for

this maiden's head.' And I made it out of the rising sun and the

falling dew. And now you ask me if it is worth a shilling."

"For all your talk, it is only made of tin, and not such good tin."

"Not good tin! I held it in my hand in the piece before ever the

clippers was laid upon it. I bent it and it curved, supple as a young

snake. I shook it, and the ripples ran down the length of it like silver

waves in a little lake. The strength of the ages was in its voice. It

has gathered its power in the womb of the earth. It was smelted from the

precious metal taken from the mines of the Peninsula of Malacca, and it

will have its gleam when the sparkle of the diamond is spent."

"I'll give you a shilling for it, and hold your tongue."

"No! I will not have it on my conscience. God is my judge, I will break

it up first. I will cut it into pieces. From one of them will yet be

made a breastplate, and in time to come it will be nailed to your own

coffin, with your name and your age and the date of your death painted

upon it. And when the paint is faded upon it it will shine over the

dust of the bone of your breast. It will be dug up and preserved when

all graveyards are abolished. They will say, 'We will keep this

breastplate, for who knows but that it bore the name of the man who

refused to buy the Can with the Diamond Notch.'"

"How much will you take for it?"

"Now you are respectful. Let me put a price upon it, for it was I who

fashioned it into this shape. It will hold three gallons and a half from

now until the time that swallows wear shoes. But for all that I will

part with it, because I am poor and hungry and have a delicate wife. It

breaks my heart to say it, but pay into my hands two shillings and it is

yours. Pay quickly or I may repent. It galls me to part with it; in your

charity pay quickly and begone."

"I will not. I will give you one-and-six."

"Assassin! You stab me. What a mind you have! Look at the greed of your

eyes; they would devour the grass of the fields from this place up to

the Devil's Bit. You would lock up the air and sell it in gasping

breaths. You are disgusting. But give me the one-and-six and to Connacht

with you! I am damning my soul standing beside you and your cart,

smelling its contents. How can a man talk with the smell of fat bacon

going between him and the wind? One-and-six and the dew that fell at the

making hardly dry upon my hands yet. Farewell, a long farewell, my

Shining One; we may never meet again."

The shawl of Mac-an-Ward's wife had been blowing around the near-by

corner while this discussion had been in progress. It flapped against

the wall in the wind like a loose sail in the rigging. The head of the

woman herself came gradually into view, one eye spying around the

masonry, half-closing as it measured the comfortable proportions of

Festus Clasby seated upon his cart. As the one-and-six was counted out

penny by penny into the palm of the brown hand of the Son of the Bard,

the figure of his wife floated out on the open road, tossing and tacking

and undecided in its direction to the eye of those who understood not

the language of gestures and motions. By a series of giddy evolutions

she arrived at the cart as the last of the coppers was counted out.

"I have parted with my inheritance," said Mac-an-Ward. "I have sold my

soul and the angels have folded their wings, weeping."

"In other words, I have bought a tin can," said Festus Clasby, and his

frame and the entire cart shook with his chuckling.

The tinker's wife chuckled with him in harmony. Then she reached out her

hand with a gesture that claimed a sympathetic examination of the

purchase. Festus Clasby hesitated, looking into the eyes of the woman.

Was she to be trusted? Her eyes were clear, grey, and open, almost

babyish in their rounded innocence. Festus Clasby handed her the tin

can, and she examined it slowly.

"Who sold you the Can with the Diamond Notch?" she asked.

"The man standing by your side."

"He has wronged you. The can is not his."

"He says he made it."

"Liar! He never curved it in the piece."

"I don't much care whether he did or not. It is mine now, anyhow."

"It is my brother's can. No other hand made it. Look! Do you see this

notch on the piece of sheet iron where the handle is fastened to the

sides?"

"I do."

"Is it not shaped like a diamond?"

"It is."

"By that mark I identify it. My brother cuts that diamond-shaped notch

in all the work he puts out from his hands. It is his private mark. The

shopkeepers have knowledge of it. There is a value on the cans with that

notch shaped like a diamond. This man here makes cans when he is not

drunk, but the notch to them is square. The shopkeepers have knowledge

of them, too, for they do not last. The handles fall out of them. He has

never given his time to the art, and so does not know how to rivet

them."

"She vilifies me," said Mac-an-Ward, _sotto voce_.

"Then I am glad he has not sold me one of his own," said Festus Clasby.

"I have a fancy for the lasting article."

"You may be able to buy it yet," said the woman. "My brother is lying

sick of the fever, and I have his right to sell the Cans with the

Diamond Notch on the handles where they are riveted."

"But I have bought it already."

"This man," said the damsel, in a tone which discounted the husband,

"had no right to sell it. If it is not his property, but the property of

my brother, won't you say that he nor no other man has a right to sell

it?"

Festus Clasby felt puzzled. He was unaccustomed to dealing with people

who raised questions of title. His black brows knit.

"How can a man who doesn't own a thing sell a thing?" she persisted. "Is

it a habit of yours to sell that which you do not own?"

"It is not," Festus Clasby said, feeling that an assault had been

wantonly made on his integrity as a trader. "No one could ever say that

of me. Honest value was ever my motto."

"And the motto of my brother who is sick with the fever. I will go to

him and say, 'I met the most respectable-looking man in all Europe, who

put a value on your can because of the diamond notch.' I will pay into

his hands the one-and-six which is its price."

Festus Clasby had, when taken out of his own peculiar province, a heavy

mind, and the type of mind that will range along side-issues and get

lost in them if they are raised often enough and long enough. The

diamond notch on the handle, the brother who was sick of the fever, the

alleged non-title of Mac-an-Ward, the interposition of the woman, the

cans with the handles which fall out, and the cans with the handles

which do not fall out, the equity of selling that which does not belong

to you--all these things chased each other across Festus Clasby's mind.

The Son of the Bard stood silent by the cart, looking away down the road

with a pensive look on his long, narrow face.

"Pay me the one-and-six to put into the hands of my brother," the woman

said.

Festus Clasby's mind was brought back at once to his pocket. "No," he

said, "but this man can give you my money to pay into the hand of your

brother."

"This man," she said airily, "has no interest for me. Whatever took

place between the two of you in regard to my brother's can I will have

nothing to say to."

"Then if you won't," said Festus Clasby, "I will have nothing to do with

you. If he had no right to the can you can put the police on to him;

that's what police are for."

"And upon you," the woman added. "The police are also for that."

"Upon me?" Festus Clasby exclaimed, his chest swelling. "My name has

never crossed the mind of a policeman, except, maybe, for what he might

owe me at the end of the month for pigs' heads. I never stood in the

shadow of the law. And to this man standing by your side I have nothing

to say."

"You have. You bought from him that which did not belong to him. You

received, and the receiver is as bad as the rogue. So the law has it.

The shadow of the law is great."

Festus Clasby came down from his cart, his face troubled. "I am not

used to this," he said.

"You are a handsome man, a man thought well of. You have great

provisions upon your cart. This man has nothing but the unwashed shirt

which hangs on his slack back. It will not become you to march

handcuffed with his like, going between two policemen to the bridewell."

"What are you saying of me, woman?"

"It will be no token of business to see your cart and the provisions it

contains driven into the yard of the barracks. All the people of this

town will see it, for they have many eyes. The people of trade will be

coming to their doors, speaking of it. 'A man's property was molested,'

they will say. 'What property?' will be asked. 'The Can with the Diamond

Notch,' they will answer; 'the man of substance conspired with the thief

to make away with it.' These are the words that will be spoken in the

streets."

Festus Clasby set great store on his name, the name he had got painted

for the eye of the country over his door.

"I will be known to the police as one extensive in my dealings," he

said. "They will not couple me with this man who is known as one living

outside of the law."

"It is not for the Peelers to put the honest man on one side and the

thief on the other. That will be for the court. You will stand with him

upon my charge. The Peelers will say to you, 'We know you to be a man of

great worth, and the law will uphold you.' But the law is slow, and a

man's good name goes fast.'"

Festus Clasby fingered his money in his pocket, and the touch of it made

him struggle. "The can may be this man's for all I know. You have no

brother, and I believe you to be a fraud."

"That, too, will be for the law to decide. If I have a brother, the law

will produce him when his fever is ended. If I have no brother the law

will so declare it. If my brother makes a Can with the Diamond Notch,

the law will hear of its value. If my brother does not make a Can with

the Diamond Notch you will know me as one deficient in truth. There is

no point under the stars that the law cannot be got to declare upon. But

as is right, the law is slow, and will wait for a man to come out of

his fever. Before it can decide, another man's good name, like a little

cloud riding across the sky, is gone from the memory of the people and

will not come riding back upon the crest of any wind."

"It will be a great price to be paying for a tin can," said Festus

Clasby. He was turning around with his fingers the coins in his pocket.

The woman put the can on her arm, then covered it up with her shawl,

like a hen taking a chick under the protection of her wing.

"I have given you many words," she said, "because you are a man sizeable

and good to the eye of a foolish woman. If I had not a sick brother I

might be induced to let slip his right in the Can with the Diamond Notch

for the pleasure I have found in the look of your face. When I saw you

on the cart I said, 'There is the build of a man which is to my fancy.'

When I heard your voice I said, 'That is good music to the ear of a

woman.' When I saw your eye I said, 'There is danger to the heart of a

woman.' When I saw your beard I said, 'There is a great growth from the

strength of a man.' When you spoke to me and gave me your laugh I said,

'Ah, what a place that would be for a woman to be seated, driving the

roads of the country on a cart laden with provisions beside one so much

to the female liking.' But my sick brother waits, and now I go to do

that which may make away with the goodness of your name. I must seek

those who will throw the shadow of the law over many."

She moved away, sighing a quick sigh, as one might who was setting out

on a disagreeable mission. Festus Clasby called to her and she came

back, her eyes pained as they sought his face. Festus Clasby paid the

money, a bright shilling and two threepenny bits, into her hand,

wondering vaguely, but virtuously, as he did so, what hardy little dark

mountainy man he would later charge up the can to at the double price.

"Now," said the wife of Mac-an-Ward, putting the money away, "you have

paid me for my brother's can and you would be within your right in

getting back your one-and-six from this bad man." She hitched her shawl

contemptuously in the direction of Mac-an-Ward.

Festus Clasby looked at the Son of the Bard with his velvety soft eyes.

"Come, sir," said he, his tone a little nervous. "My money!"

Mac-an-Ward hitched his trousers at the hips like a sailor, spat through

his teeth, end eyed Festus Clasby through a slit in his half-closed

eyes. There was a little patter of the feet on the road on the part of

Mac-an-Ward, and Festus Clasby knew enough of the world and its ways to

gather that these were scientific movements invented to throw a man in a

struggle. He did not like the look of the Son of the Bard.

"I will go home and leave him to God," he said. "Hand me the can and I

will be shortening my road."

At this moment three small boys, ragged, eager, their faces hard and

weather-beaten, bounded up to the cart. They were breathless as they

stood about the woman.

"Mother!" they cried in chorus. "The man in the big shop! He is looking

for a can."

"What can?" cried the woman.

The three young voices rose like a great cry: "The Can with the Diamond

Notch."

The woman caught her face in her hands as if some terrible thing had

been said. She stared at the youngsters intently.

"He wants one more to make up an order," they chanted. "He says he will

pay--"

The woman shrank from them with a cry. "How much?" she asked.

"Half-a-crown!"

The wife of Mac-an-Ward threw out her arms in a wild gesture of despair.

"My God!" she cried. "I sold it. I wronged my sick brother."

"Where did you sell it, mother?"

"Here, to this handsome dark man."

"How much did he pay?"

"Eighteen-pence."

The three youngsters raised their hard faces to the sky and raised a

long howl, like beagles who had lost their quarry.

Suddenly the woman's face brightened. She looked eagerly at Festus

Clasby, then laid the hand of friendship, of appeal, on his arm.

"I have it!" she cried, joyfully.

"Have what?" asked Festus Clasby.

"A way out of the trouble," she said. "A means of saving my brother from

wrong. A way of bringing him his own for the Can with the Diamond

Notch."

"What way might that be?" asked Festus Clasby, his manner growing

sceptical.

"I will go to the shopman with it and get the half-crown. Having got the

half-crown I will hurry back here--or you can come with me--and I will

pay you back your one-and-six. In that way I will make another shilling

and do you no wrong. Is that agreed?"

"It is not agreed," said Festus Clasby. "Give me out the tin can. I am

done with you now."

"It's robbery!" cried the woman, her eyes full of a blazing sudden

anger.

"What is robbery?" asked Festus Clasby.

"Doing me out of a shilling. Wronging my sick brother out of his

earnings. A man worth hundreds, maybe thousands, to stand between a poor

woman and a shilling. I am deceived in you."

"Out with the can," said Festus Clasby.

"Let the woman earn her shilling," said Mac-an-Ward. His voice came from

behind Festus Clasby.

"Our mother must get her shilling," cried the three youngsters.

Festus Clasby turned about to Mac-an-Ward, and as he did so he noticed

that two men had come and set their backs against a wall hard by; they

leaned limply, casually, against it, but they were, he noticed, of the

same tribe as the Mac-an-Wards.

"It was always lucky, the Can with the Diamond Notch," said the woman.

"This offer of the man in the big shop is a sign of it. I will not allow

you to break my brother's luck and he lying in his fever."

"By heaven!" cried Festus Clasby. "I will have you all arrested. I will

have the law of you now."

He wheeled about the horse and cart, setting his face for the police

barrack, which could be seen shining in the distance in the plumage of

a magpie. The two men who stood by came over, and from the other side

another man and three old women. With Mac-an-Ward, Mrs. Mac-an-Ward, and

the three young Mac-an-Wards, they grouped themselves around Festus

Clasby, and he was vaguely conscious that they were grouped with some

military art. A low murmur of a dispute arose among them, rising

steadily. He could only hear snatches of their words: 'Give it back to

him,' 'He won't get it,' 'How can he be travelling without the Can with

the Diamond Notch?' 'Is it the Can with the Diamond Notch?' 'No,' 'Maybe

it is, maybe it is not,' 'Who knows that?' 'I say yes,' 'Hold your

tongue,' 'Be off, you slut,' 'Rattle away.'

People from the town were attracted to the place. Festus Clasby, the

dispute stirring something in his own blood, shook his fist in the long

narrow face of Mac-an-Ward. As he did so he got a tip on the heels and a

pressure upon the chest sent him staggering a few steps back. One of the

old women held him up in her arms and another old woman stood before

him, striking her breast. Festus Clasby saw the wisps of hair hanging

about the bony face and froth at the corners of her mouth. Vaguely he

saw the working of the bones of her wasted neck, and below it a long

V-shaped gleam of the yellow tanned breast, which she thumped with her

fist. Afterwards the memory of this ugly old trollop remained with him.

The youngsters were shooting in and out through the group, sending up

unearthly shrieks. Two of the men peeled off their coats and were

sparring at each other wickedly, shouting all the time, while

Mac-an-Ward was making a tumultuous peace. The commotion and the strife,

or the illusion of strife, increased. "Oh," an onlooker cried, "the

tinkers are murdering each other!"

The patient horse at last raised its head with a toss and a snort over

the rabble, and then wheeled about to break away. With the instinct of

his kind, Festus Clasby rushed to the animal's head and held him. As he

did so the striped petticoats and the tossing shawls of the women

flashed about the shafts and the body of the cart. The men raised a

hoarse roar.

A neighbour of Festus Clasby, driving up the street at this moment, was

amazed to see the great man of lands and shops in the midst of the

wrangling tinkers. He pulled up, marvelling, then went to him.

"What is this, Festus?" he asked.

"They have robbed me," cried Festus Clasby.

"Robbed you?"

"Ay, of money and of property."

"Good God! How much money?"

"I don't rightly know--I forget--some shillings, maybe."

"Oh! And of property?"

"No matter. It is only one article, but property."

"Come home, Festus; in the name of God get out of this," advised the

good neighbour.

But Festus Clasby was strangely moved. He was behaving like a man who

had drink taken. Something had happened wounding to his soul. "I will

not go," he cried. "I must have back my money."

The tinkers had now ceased disputing among themselves. They were grouped

about the two men as if they were only spectators of an interesting

dispute.

"Back I must have my money!" cried Festus Clasby, his great hand going

up in a mighty threat. The tinkers clicked their tongues on the roofs of

their mouths in a sound of amazement, as much as to say, "What a

terrible thing! What a wonderful and a mighty man!"

"I advise you to come," persuaded his neighbour.

"Never! God is my judge, never!" cried Festus Clasby.

Again the tinkers clicked their tongues, looked at each other in wonder.

"You will be thankful you brought your life out of this," said the

neighbour. "Let it not be said of you on the countryside that you were

seen wrangling with the tinkers in this town."

"Shame! Shame! Shame!" broke out like a shocked murmur among the

attentive tinkers.

Festus Clasby faced his audience in all his splendid proportions. Never

was he seen so moved. Never had such a great passion seized him. The

soft tones of his eyes were no longer soft. They shone in fiery wroth.

"I will at least have that which I bought twice over!" he cried. "I will

have my tin can!"

Immediately the group of tinkers broke up in the greatest disorder.

Hoarse cries broke out among them. They behaved like people upon whom

some fearful doom had been suddenly pronounced. The old women threw

themselves about, racked with pain and terror. They beat their hands

together, threw wild arms in despairing gestures to the sky, raising a

harrowing lamentation. The men growled in sullen gutturals. The

youngsters knelt on the road, giving out the wild beagle-like howl.

Voices cried above the uproar: "Where is it? Where is the Can with the

Diamond Notch? Get him the Can with the Diamond Notch! He must have the

can with the Diamond Notch! How can he travel without the Can with the

Diamond Notch? He'll die without the Can with the Diamond Notch!"

Festus Clasby was endeavouring to deliver his soul of impassioned

protests when his neighbour, assisted by a bystander or two, forcibly

hoisted him up on his cart and he was driven away amid a great howling

from the tinkers.

[Illustration: _Festus Clasby_]

It was twilight when he reached his place among the hills, and the good

white letters under the thatch showed clear to his eyes. Pulling himself

together he drove with an air about the gable and into the wide open

yard at the back, fowls clearing out of his way, a sheep-dog coming to

welcome him, a calf mewing mournfully over the half-door of a stable.

Festus Clasby was soothed by this homely, this worshipful, environment,

and got off the cart with a sigh. Inside the kitchen he could hear the

faithful women trotting about preparing the great master's meal. He made

ready to carry the provisions into the shop. When he unwrapped the

sacking from the bacon, something like a sudden stab went through his

breast. Perspiration came out on his forehead. Several large long slices

had been cut off in jagged slashes from the flitches. They lay like

wounded things on the body of the cart. He pulled down the other

purchases feverishly, horror in his face. How many loaves had been torn

off his batch of bread? Where were all the packets of tea and sugar, the

currants and raisins, the flour, the tobacco, the cream-of-tartar, the

caraway seeds, the nutmeg, the lemon peel, the hair oil, the--

Festus Clasby wiped the perspiration from his forehead. He stumbled out

of the yard, sat up on a ditch, and looked across the silent, peaceful,

innocent country. How good it was! How lovely were the beasts grazing,

fattening, in the fields! His soft velvety eyes were suddenly flooded

with a bitter emotion and he wept.

The loaves of bread were under the shawl of the woman who had supported

Festus Clasby when he stumbled; the bacon was under another bright

shawl; the tobacco and flour fell to the lot of her whose yellow breast

showed the play of much sun and many winds; the tea and sugar and the

nutmeg and caraway seeds were under the wing of the wife of the Son of

the Bard in the Can with the Diamond Notch.