CHAPTER XII

It may be surprising to learn that the names of the angels were Irish

names, but more than eight hundred years ago a famous Saint informed the

world that the language spoken in heaven was Gaelic, and, presumably, he

had information on the point. He was not an Irishman, and he had no

reason to exalt Fodhla above the other nations of the earth, and,

therefore, his statement may be accepted on its merits, the more

particularly as no other saint has denied it, and every Irish person is

prepared to credit it.

It was also believed in ancient times, and the belief was world-wide,

that the entrance to heaven, hell, and purgatory yawned in the Isle of

the Saints, and this belief also, although it has never been proved, has

never been disproved, and it does assist the theory that Irish is the

celestial language. Furthermore, Gaelic is the most beautiful and

expressive fashion of speech in the whole world, and, thus, an artistic

and utilitarian reinforcement can be hurried to the support of that

theory should it ever be in danger from philologists with foreign axes

to grind.

The names of the angels were Finaun and Caeltia and Art.

Finaun was the eldest angel; Caeltia was that one who had a small

coal-black beard on his chin, and Art was the youngest of the three, and

he was as beautiful as the dawn, than which there is nothing more

beautiful.

Finaun was an Archangel when he was in his own place; Caeltia was a

Seraph, and Art was a Cherub. An Archangel is a Councillor and a

Guardian; a Seraph is one who accumulates knowledge; a Cherub is one who

accumulates love. In heaven these were their denominations.

Finaun was wise, childish, and kind, and between him and the little ass

which drew their cart there was a singular and very pleasant

resemblance.

Caeltia was dark and determined, and if he had cropped his beard with a

scissors, the way Patsy Mac Cann did, he would have resembled Patsy Mac

Cann as closely as one man can resemble another.

Art was dark also, and young and swift and beautiful. Looking carelessly

at him one would have said that, barring the colour, he was the brother

of Mary Mac Cann, and that the two of them were born at a birth, and a

good birth.

Mary extended to Finaun part of the affection which she already had for

the ass, and while they were marching the roads these three always went

together; the archangel would be on one side of the donkey and Mary

would be on the other side, and (one may say so) the three of them never

ceased talking for an instant.

The ass, it will be admitted, did not speak, but he listened with such

evident intention that no one could say he was out of the conversation;

his right-hand ear hearkened agilely to Mary; his left-hand ear sprang

to attention when Finaun spoke, and when, by a chance, they happened to

be silent at the one moment then both his ears drooped forward towards

his nose, and so he was silent also. A hand from either side continually

touched his muzzle caressingly, and at moments entirely unexpected he

would bray affectionately at them in a voice that would have tormented

the ears of any but a true friend.

Patsy Mac Cann and the seraph Caeltia used to march exactly at the tail

of the cart, and they, also, talked a lot.

At first Patsy talked the most, for he had much information to impart,

and the seraph listened with intent humility, but, after a while,

Caeltia, having captured knowledge, would dispute and argue with great

vivacity. They spoke of many things, but a person who listened closely

and recorded these things would have found that they talked oftener

about strong drinks than about anything else. Mac Cann used to speak

longingly about strange waters which he had heard were brewed in foreign

lands, potent brewings which had been described to him by emphatic

sailormen with tarry thumbs; but at this stage Caeltia only spoke about

porter and whisky, and was well contented to talk of these.

The cherub Art was used to promenade alone behind them all, but

sometimes he would go in front and listen to the conversation with the

ass; sometimes he would join the two behind and force them to consider

matters in which they were not interested, and sometimes again he would

range the fields on either side, or he would climb a tree, or he would

go alone by himself shouting a loud song that he had learned at the fair

which they had last journeyed to, or he would prance silently along the

road as though his body was full of jumps and he did not know what to do

with them, or he would trudge forlornly in a boredom so profound that

one expected him to drop dead of it in his tracks.

So life fell into a sort of routine.

When they were camped for the night Caeltia and Art would always sit on

one side of the brazier with Patsy Mac Cann sitting between them; on the

other side of the brazier the archangel and Mary would sit; Finaun

always sat very close to her when they had finished eating and were all

talking together; he used to take her long plait of hair into his lap,

and for a long time he would unplait and plait again the end of that

lovely rope.

Mary liked him to do this, and nobody else minded it.

BOOK II

EILEEN NI COOLEY

CHAPTER XIII

Early in the morning the sun had been shining gloriously, and there was

a thump of a wind blowing across the road that kept everything gay; the

trees were in full leaf and every bough went jigging to its neighbour,

but on the sky the clouds raced so fast that they were continually

catching each other up and getting so mixed that they could not

disentangle themselves again, and from their excessive gaiety black

misery spread and the sun took a gloomy cast.

Mac Cann screwed an eye upwards like a bird and rubbed at his chin.

"There will be rain soon," said he, "and the country wants it."

"It will be heavy rain," said his daughter.

"It will so," he replied; "let us be getting along now the way we'll be

somewhere before the rain comes, for I never did like getting wetted by

rain, and nobody ever did except the people of the County Cork, and they

are so used to it that they never know whether it's raining or whether

it isn't."

So they encouraged the ass to go quicker and he did that.

As they hastened along the road they saw in front of them two people

marching close together, and in a little time they drew close to these

people.

"I know the look of that man's back," said Patsy, "but I can't tell you

where I saw it. I've a good memory for faces, though, and I'll tell you

all about him in a minute."

"Do you know the woman that is with him?" said Caeltia.

"You can't tell a woman by her back," replied Patsy, "and nobody could,

for they all have the same back when they have a shawl on."

Mary turned her head to them:

"Every woman's back is different," said she, "whether there's a shawl on

it or not, and I know from the way that woman is wearing her shawl that

she is Eileen Ni Cooley and no one else."

"If that is so," said her father hastily, "let us be going slower the

way we won't catch up on her. Mary, a grah, whisper a word in the ass's

ear so that he won't be going so quick, for he is full of fun this day."

"I'll do that," said Mary, and she said "whoa" into the ear of the

little ass, and he stopped inside the quarter of a pace.

"Do you not like that woman?" Caeltia enquired.

"She's a bad woman," replied Patsy.

"What sort of a bad woman is she?"

"She's the sort that commits adultery with every kind of man," said he

harshly.

Caeltia turned over that accusation for a moment.

"Did she ever commit adultery with yourself?" said he.

"She did not," said Patsy, "and that's why I don't like her."

Caeltia considered that statement also, and found it reasonable:

"I think," said he, "that the reason you don't like that woman is

because you like her too much."

"It's so," said Patsy, "but there is no reason for her taking on with

every kind of man and not taking on with me at all."

He was silent for a moment.

"I tell you," said he furiously, "that I made love to that woman from

the dawn to the dark, and then she walked off with a man that came down

a little road."

"That was her right," said Caeltia mildly.

"Maybe it was, but for the weight of a straw I would have killed the

pair of them that night in the dark place."

"Why didn't you?"

"She had me weakened. My knees gave under me when she walked away and

there wasn't even a curse in my mouth."

Again he was silent, and again he broke into angry speech!

"I don't want to see her at all, for she torments me, so let the pair of

them walk their road until they come to a ditch that is full of thorns

and is fit for them to die in."

"I think," said Caeltia, "that the reason you don't want to see her is

because you want to see her too much."

"It's so," growled Mac Cann, "and it's so too that you are a prying kind

of a man and that your mouth is never at rest, so we'll go on now to the

woman yonder, and let you talk to her with your tongue and your nimble

questions."

Thereupon he rushed forward and kicked the ass so suddenly in the belly

that it leaped straight off the ground and began to run before its legs

touched earth again.

When they had taken a few dozen steps Mac Cann began to roar furiously:

"What way are you, Eileen Ni Cooley? What sort of a man is it that's

walking beside yourself?"

And he continued roaring questions such as that until they drew on the

people.

The folk stopped at his shouts.

The woman was big and thin and she had red hair. Her face was freckled

all over so that one could only see her delicate complexion in little

spots, and at the first glance the resemblance between herself and

Finaun was extraordinary. In the sweep of the brow, the set of the

cheek-bones, a regard of the eyes, that resemblance was seen, and then

the look vanished in a poise of the head and came again in another one.

At the moment her blue eyes seemed the angriest that ever were in a

woman's head. She stood leaning on a thick ash-plant and watched the

advancing company, but she did not utter a word to them.

The man by her side was tall also and as thin as a pole; he was

ramshackle and slovenly; there was not much pith in his body, for he was

weak at the knees and his big feet splayed outwards at a curious angle;

but his face was extraordinary intelligent, and when he was younger must

have been beautiful. Drink and ill-health had dragged and carved his

flesh, and nothing of comeliness remained to him but his eyes, which

were timid and tender as those of a fawn, and his hands which had never

done anything but fumble with women. He also leaned quietly on a cudgel

and watched Patsy Mac Cann.

And it was to him that Patsy came. He did not look once at the woman,

though all the time he never ceased shouting salutations and questions

at her by her name.

He walked directly to the man, eyeing him intently.

"And how is yourself?" he roared with horrible heartiness. "It's a while

since I saw you, and it was the pitch night that time."

"I'm all right," said the man.

"So you are," said Patsy, "and why wouldn't you be? Weren't you born in

the wide lap of good luck, and didn't you stay there? Ah, it's the way

that the men that come down little, narrow paths do have fortune, and

the ones that tramp the wide roads do have nothing but their broken

feet. Good luck to you, my soul, and long may you wave--Eh!"

"I didn't say a word," said the man.

"And there's a stick in your hand that would crack the skull of a

mountain, let alone a man."

"It's a good stick," said the man.

"Would you be calling it the brother or the husband of the one that the

woman has in her happy hands."

"I would be calling it a stick only," replied the man.

"That's the name for it surely," said Patsy, "for a stick hasn't got a

soul any more than a woman has, and isn't that a great mercy and a great

comfort, for heaven would be full of women and wood, and there would be

no room for the men and the drink."

The red-haired woman strode to Patsy and, putting her hand against his

breast, she gave him a great push:

"If you're talking," said she, "or if you're fighting, turn to myself,

for the man doesn't know you."

Patsy did turn to her with a great laugh:

"It's the one pleasure of my life to have your hands on me," he gibed.

"Give me another puck now, and a hard one, the way I'll feel you well."

The woman lifted her ash-plant threateningly and crouched towards him,

but the look on his face was such that she let her hand fall again.

"You're full of fun," said Patsy, "and you always were, but we're going

to be the great friends from now on, yourself and myself and the man

with the stick; we'll be going by short cuts everywhere in the world,

and having a gay time."

"We're not going with you, Padraig," said the woman, "and whatever road

you are taking this day the man and myself will be going another road."

"Whoo!" said Patsy, "there are roads everywhere, so you're all right,

and there are men on every one of the roads."

CHAPTER XIV

While this conversation had been taking place the others stood in a

grave semicircle, and listened intently to their words.

Caeltia, regarding the sky, intervened:

"The rain will be here in a minute, so we had better walk on and look

for shelter."

Mac Cann detached his heavy regard from Eileen Ni Cooley, and swept the

sky and the horizon.

"That is so," said he. "Let us go ahead now, for we've had our talk, and

we are all satisfied."

"There is a broken-down house stuck up a bohereen," he continued. "It's

only a few perches up this road, for I remember passing the place the

last time I was this way; that place will give us shelter while the rain

spills."

He turned his stubborn face to the woman:

"You can come with us if you like, and you can stay where you are if you

like, or you can go to the devil," and, saying so, he tramped after his

daughter.

The woman had just caught sight of Art the cherub, and was regarding him

with her steady eyes.

"Whoo!" said she, "I'm not the one to be frightened and I never was, so

let us all go along and talk about our sins in the wet weather."

They started anew on the road, Patsy's company in advance, and behind

marched the woman and the man and Art the cherub.

The sun had disappeared; wild clouds were piling themselves in rugged

hills along the sky, and the world was growing dull and chill. Against

the grey atmosphere Art's face was in profile, an outline sharp and calm

and beautiful.

Eileen Ni Cooley was regarding him curiously as they walked together,

and the strange man, with a wry smile on his lips, was regarding her

with a like curiosity.

She pointed towards Patsy Mac Cann, who was tramping vigorously a dozen

yards ahead.

"Young boy," said she, "where did you pick up with the man yonder, for

the pair of you don't look matched?"

Art had his hands in his pockets; he turned and looked at her

tranquilly.

"Where did you pick up with that man," he nodded towards her companion,

"and where did the man pick up with you, for you don't look matched

either?"

"We're not," said the woman quickly; "we're not matched a bit. That man

and myself do be quarrelling all day and all night, and threatening to

walk away from each other every minute of the time."

The man stared at her.

"Is that how it is with us?" said he.

"It is," said she to Art, "that's the way it is with us, honey. The man

and myself have no love for each other now, and we never had."

The man halted suddenly; he changed the cudgel to his left hand and

thrust out his right hand to her.

"Put your own hand there," said he, "and shake it well, and then be

going along your road."

"What are you talking about?" said she.

He replied, frowning sternly from his wild eyes:

"I wouldn't hold the grace of God if I saw it slipping from me, so put

your hand into my hand and go along your road."

Eileen Ni Cooley put her hand into his with some awkwardness and turned

away her head.

"There it is for you," said she.

Then the man turned about and flapped quickly along the path they had

already travelled; his cudgel beat the ground with a sharp noise, and he

did not once look back.

Before he had taken an hundred paces the rain came, a fine, noiseless

drizzle.

"It will be heavy in a minute," said the woman, "let us run after the

cart."

With a quick movement she tucked her shawl about her head and shoulders

and started to run, and Art went after her in alternate long hops of

each foot.

They had reached a narrow path running diagonally from the main road.

"Up this way," shouted Patsy, and the company trooped after him, leaving

the ass and cart to the storm.

Two minutes' distance up the road stood a small, dismantled house. There

was a black gape where the window had been, and there were holes in the

walls. In these holes grass and weeds were waving, as they were along

the window-ledge. The roof was covered with a rusty thatch and there

were red poppies growing on that.

Patsy climbed through the low window-space, and the others climbed in

after him.

CHAPTER XV

Inside the house was an earthen floor, four walls, and plenty of air.

There were breezes blowing in the empty house, for from whatever

direction a wind might come it found entrance there. There were stones

lying everywhere on the floor; some of them had dropped from the walls,

but most had been jerked through the window by passing children. There

were spider's webs in that house; the roof was covered with them, and

the walls were covered with them too. It was a dusty house, and when it

would be wet enough it would be a muddy house, and it was musty with

disuse and desolation.

But the company did not care anything about dust or stones or spiders.

They kicked the stones aside and sat on the floor in the most sheltered

part of the place where there had once been a fireplace, and if a spider

walked on any of them it was permitted.

Patsy produced a clay pipe and lit it, and Caeltia took a silver-mounted

briar from his pocket and he lit that and smoked it.

Outside the rain suddenly began to fall with a low noise and the room

grew dark. Within there was a brooding quietness, for none of the people

spoke; they were all waiting for each other to speak.

Indeed, they had all been agitated when they came in, for the wrung face

of Patsy and the savage eyes of Eileen Ni Cooley had whipped their

blood. Tragedy had sounded her warning note on the air, and they were

each waiting to see had they a part in the play.

But the sudden change of atmosphere wrought like a foreign chemical in

their blood, the sound of the falling rain dulled their spirits, the

must of that sleeping house went to their brains like an opiate, and the

silence of the place folded them about, compelling them to a similar

quietude.

We are imitative beings; we respond to the tone and colour of our

environment almost against ourselves, and still have our links with the

chameleon and the moth; the sunset sheds its radiant peace upon us and

we are content; the silent mountain-top lays a finger on our lips and we

talk in whispers; the clouds lend us of their gaiety and we rejoice. So

for a few moments they sat wrestling with the dull ghosts of that broken

house, the mournful phantasms that were not dead long enough to be

happy, for death is sorrowful at first and for a long time, but

afterwards the dead are contented and learn to shape themselves anew.

Patsy, drawing on his pipe, looked around the people.

"Eh!" he exclaimed with heavy joviality, "where has the man got to, the

man with the big stick? If he's shy let him come in, and if he's angry

let him come in too."

Eileen Ni Cooley was sitting close beside Art. She had let her shawl

droop from her head, and her hair was showing through the dusk like a

torch.

"The man has gone away, Padraig," said she; "he got tired of the

company, and he's gone travelling towards his own friends."

Patsy regarded her with shining eyes. The must of the house was no

longer in his nostrils; the silence lifted from him at a bound.

"You are telling me a fine story, Eileen," said he, "tell me this too,

did the man go away of his own will, or did you send him away?"

"It was a bit of both, Padraig."

"The time to get good news," said Patsy, "is when it's raining, and that

is good news, and it's raining now."

"News need not be good or bad, but only news," she replied, "and we will

leave it at that."

Caeltia spoke to her:

"Do you have a good life going by yourself about the country and making

acquaintances where you please?"

"I have the life I like," she answered, "and whether it's good or bad

doesn't matter."

"Tell me the reason you never let himself make love to you when he wants

to make it?"

"He is a domineering man," said she, "and I am a proud woman, and we

would never give in to each other. When one of us would want to do a

thing the other one wouldn't do it, and there would be no living between

us. If I said black he would say white, and if he said yes I would say

no, and that's how we are."

"He has a great love for you."

"He has a great hate for me. He loves me the way a dog loves bones, and

in a little while he'd kill me in a lonely place with his hands to see

what I would look like and I dying."

She turned her face to Mac Cann:

"That's the kind of man you are to me, Padraig, although you're

different to other people."

"I am not that sort of man, but it's yourself is like that. I tell you

that if I took a woman with me I'd be staunch to her the way I was with

the mother of the girl there, and if you were to come with me you

wouldn't have any complaint from now on."

"I know every thing I'm talking about," she replied sternly, "and I

won't go with you, but I'll go with the young man here beside me."

With the words she put her hand on Art's arm and kept it there.

Mary Mac Cann straightened up where she was sitting and became deeply

interested.

Art turned and burst into a laugh as he looked critically at Eileen.

"I will not go with you," said he. "I don't care for you a bit."

She gave a hard smile and removed her hand from his arm.

"It's all the worse for me," said she, "and it's small harm to you,

young boy."

"That's a new answer for yourself," said Patsy, grinning savagely.

"It is, and it's a new day for me, and a poor day, for it's the first

day of my old age."

"You'll die in a ditch," cried Patsy, "you'll die in a ditch like an old

mare with a broken leg."

"I will," she snarled, "when the time comes, but you'll never have the

killing of me, Padraig."

Finaun was sitting beside Mary with her hand in his, but she snatched

her hand away and flared so fiercely upon Eileen that the woman looked

up.

"Don't be angry with me, Mary," said she; "I never did you any harm yet

and I'll never be able to do it now, for there are years between us, and

they're going to break my back."

Finaun was speaking, more, it seemed, to himself than to the company. He

combed his white beard with his hand as he spoke, and they all looked at

him.

"He is talking in his sleep," said Eileen pensively, "and he an old man,

and a nice old man."

"My father," said Caeltia, in an apologetic voice; "there is no need to

tell about that."

"There is every need, my beloved," replied Finaun with his slow smile.

"I would rather you did not," murmured Caeltia, lifting his hand a

little.

"I ask your permission, my son," said Finaun gently.

Caeltia spread out his open palms and dropped them again.

"Whatever you wish to do is good, my father," and, with a slight blush,

he slid the pipe into his pocket.

Finaun turned to Eileen Ni Cooley:

"I will tell you a story," said he.

"Sure," said Eileen, "I'd love to hear you, and I could listen to a

story for a day and a night."

Mac Cann pulled solemnly at his pipe and regarded Finaun who was looking

at him peacefully from a corner.

"You're full of fun," said he to the archangel.

CHAPTER XVI

Said Finaun:

"While generation succeeds generation a man has to fight the same fight.

At the end he wins, and he never has to fight that battle again, and

then he is ready for Paradise.

"Every man from the beginning has one enemy from whom he can never

escape, and the story of his lives is the story of his battles with that

enemy whom he must draw into his own being before he can himself attain

to real being, for an enemy can never be crushed, but every enemy can be

won.

"Long before the foundations of this world were laid, when the voice was

heard and the army of the voice went through the darkness, two people

came into being with the universe that was their shell. They lived

through myriad existences knowing star after star grow hot and cold in

the broad sky, and they hated each other through the changing of the

stars and the ebbing and flooding of their lives.

"At a time this one of them would be a woman and that other would be a

man, and again in due period the one that had been a woman would be a

man and the other would be a woman, that their battle might be joined in

the intimacy which can only come through difference and the distance

that is attraction.

"No one can say which of these did most harm to the other; no one can

say which was the most ruthless, the most merciless, for they were born,

as all enemies are, equal in being and in power.

"Through their lives they had many names and they lived in many lands,

but their names in eternity were Finaun Mac Dea and Caeltia Mac Dea, and

when the time comes, their name will be Mac Dea and nothing else: then

they will become one in each other, and one in Infinite Greatness, and

one in the unending life of Eternity which is God: but still, in world

under world, in star under flaming star, they pursue each other with a

hate which is slowly changing into love.

"It was not on earth, nor in any planet, that the beginning of love came

to these two, it was in the hell that they had fashioned for themselves

in terror and lust and cruelty. For, as they sat among their demons, a

seed germinated in the soul of one, the seed of knowledge which is the

parent of love and the parent of every terrible and beautiful thing in

the worlds and the heavens.

"While that one looked on his companion, writhing like himself in

torment, he grew conscious, and although he looked at the other with

fury it was with a new fury, for with it came contempt, and they were no

longer equal in power or in hate.

"Now, for the first time, that one in whom knowledge had been born

desired to escape from his companion; he wished to get away so that he

might never behold that enemy again; suddenly the other appeared to him

hideous as a toad that couches in slime and spits his poison at random,

but he could not escape, and he could never escape.

"As that one increased in knowledge so he increased in cruelty and

power, so his lust became terrible, for now there was fear in his

contempt because he could never escape. Many a time they fled from one

another, but always, and however they fled, it was towards each other

their steps were directed. At the feast, in the camp, and in the

wilderness they found themselves and undertook anew the quarrel which

was their blood and their being.

"And that other in whom knowledge had not awakened--He raged like a

beast; he thought in blood and fever; his brains were his teeth and the

nails of his hands. Cunning came creepingly to his aid against

knowledge; he lay in wait for his enemy in gloomy places; he spread

snares for him in the darkness and baited traps. He feigned humility to

get closer to his vengeance, but he could not combat knowledge.

"Time and again he became the slave of that other, and as slave and

master their battle was savagely joined, until at last knowledge stirred

also in that mind and he grew conscious.

"Then the age-long enmity drew to its change. For him there was no

contempt possible, the other was older than he and wiser, for to be wise

is to be old; there was no vantage for contempt, but envy sharpened his

sword, it salted his anger, and they fought anew and unceasingly.

"But now their hands were not seeking each other's throats with such

frank urgency; they fought subterraneously, with smiles and polite words

and decent observances, but they did not cease for an instant to strive

and never did they forsake an advantage or lift up the one that had

fallen.

"Again the change: and now they battled not in the name of hate but

under the holy superscription of love; again and again, life after life,

they harried and ruined each other; their desire for one another was a

madness, and in that desire they warred more bitterly than before. They

blasted each other's lives, they dashed their honour to the mud, they

slew one another. Than this none of their battles had been so terrible.

Here there was no let, no respite even for an instant. They knew each

other with that superficial knowledge which seems so clear although it

shows no more than the scum floating upon existence; they knew the

scumminess of each other and exhausted to the dregs their abundant evil

until of evil they could learn no further, and their lives, alternating

in a fierce energy and a miserable weariness, came towards but could not

come to stagnation.

"The horizon vanished from them; there were irons on the feet of the

winds; the sun peered from a hood through a mask, and life was one room

wherein dull voices droned dully, wherein something was for ever uttered

and nothing was said, where hands were for ever lifted and nothing was

done, where the mind smouldered and flared to lightning and no thought

came from the spark.

"They had reached an end, and it was a precipice down which they must

spin giddily to the murk, or else shape wings for themselves and soar

from that completion, for completion is a consciousness, and once again

they were powerfully aware of themselves. They were vice-conscious, and

virtue did not abide in their minds than as a dream which was an

illusion and a lie.

"Then, and this too was long ago! how long! When the moon was young;

when she gathered rosy clouds about her evening and sang at noon from

bush and mountain-ledge; when she folded her breasts in dewy darkness

and awakened with cries of joy to the sun; then she tended her flowers

in the vale; she drove her kine to deep pasture: she sang to her

multitudes of increase and happiness while her feet went in the furrow

with the plough and her hand guided the sickle and the sheaf. Great love

didst thou give when thou wast a mother, O Beautiful! who art now white

as silver and hath ice upon thine ancient head.

"Again they lived and were wed.

"Which of them was which in that sad pilgrimage it is not now possible

to know. Memory faints at the long tale of it, and they were so

intermingled, so alike through all their difference that they were

becoming one in the great memory. Again they took up the time-long

burden, and again desire drew them wildly to the embrace which was much

repugnance and very little love. So, behold these two, a man and a

woman, walking through the pleasant light, taking each other's hands in

a kindness that had no roots, speaking words of affection that their

souls groaned the lie to.

"The woman was fair--she was fair as one star that shines on the void

and is not abashed before immensity; she was beautiful as a green tree

by a pool that bows peacefully to the sun; she was lovely as a field of

mild corn waving to the wind in one slow movement. Together they plumbed

their desire and found wickedness glooming at the bottom, and they were

conscious of themselves and of all evil.

"There was a demon in the pit that they had digged, and always, when

they founded anew their hell, he tormented them; he was the accumulation

of their evil; age after age they re-created him until he showed

gigantic and terrible as a storm, and as they lusted after each other so

he lusted after them.

"On a time that Misery shaped itself as a man and came privily to the

woman while she walked under heavy apple boughs in a garden. Their feet

went to and fro closely together in the grass and their voices communed

together, until one day the woman cried bitterly that there were no

wings, and with the Spectre she leaped forthright to the chasm and went

down shrieking a laughter that was woe. There she found herself and her

demon and was the concubine of that one; and there, in the gulf and

chasm of evil, she conjured virtue to her tortured soul and stole energy

from the demon.

"She sat among the rocks of her place.

"Old Misery beside her laughed his laugh, and while she looked at him

her eyes went backwards in her head, and when she looked again she saw

differently, for in that space knowledge had put forth a bud and a

blossom and she looked through knowledge. She saw herself and the demon

and the man, and she prayed to the demon. As she prayed she gathered

small blue flowers that peered sparsely among the crags, and she made a

chaplet of these. She wove them with tears and sighs, and when the

chaplet was made she put it to the demon's hand, praying him to bear it

to the man.

"He did that for her because he loved to laugh at their trouble, and he

divined laughter for his iron chaps.

"So the demon came terribly to the man as he walked under the swaying

and lifting of green boughs in the long grass of an orchard, and he put

the chaplet in the man's hand, saying:

"'My concubine, your beloved, sends a greeting to you with her love and

this garland of blue flowers which she has woven with her two hands in

hell.'

"The man, looking on these flowers, felt his heart move within him like

water.

"'Bring her to me,' said he to the demon.

"'I will not do so,' replied the Misery.

"And, suddenly, the man leaped on the Spectre. He locked his arms about

that cold neck, and clung furiously with his knees.

"'Then I will go to her with you,' said he.

"And together they went headlong down the pit, and as they fell they

battled frightfully in the dark pitch."

CHAPTER XVII

Mac Cann was asleep, but when Finaun's voice ceased he awakened and

stretched himself with a loud yawn.

"I didn't hear a word of that story," said he.

"I heard it," said Eileen Ni Cooley; "it was a good story."

"What was it about?"

"I don't know," she replied.

"Do you know what it was about, Mary?"

"I do not, for I was thinking about other things at the time."

Finaun took her hand.

"There was no need for any of you to know what that story was about,

excepting you only," and he looked very kindly at Eileen Ni Cooley.

"I listened to it," said she; "and it was a good story. I know what it

was about, but I would not know how to tell what it was about."

"It must have been the queer yarn," said Patsy regretfully; "I wish I

hadn't gone to sleep."

"I was awake for you," said Caeltia.

"What's the use of that?" said Patsy testily.

It was still raining.

The day was far advanced and evening was spinning her dull webs athwart

the sky. Already in the broken house the light had diminished to a brown

gloom, and their faces looked watchful and pale to each other as they

crouched on the earthen floor. Silence was again seizing on them, and

each person's eyes were focussing on some object or point on the wall or

the floor as their thoughts began to hold them.

Mac Cann roused himself.

"We are here for the night; that rain won't stop as long as there's a

drop left in its can."

Mary bestirred herself also.

"I'll slip down to the cart and bring back whatever food is in it. I

left every thing covered and I don't think they'll be too wet."

"Do that," said her father.

"There's a big bottle rolled up in a sack," he continued; "it's in a

bucket at the front of the cart by the right shaft, and there's a little

sup of whisky in the big bottle."

"I'll bring that too."

"You're a good girl," said he.

"What will I do with the ass this night?" said Mary.

"Hit him a kick," said her father.

CHAPTER XVIII

The ass stood quietly where he had been left.

Rain was pouring from him as though he were the father of rivers and

supplied the world with running water. It dashed off his flanks; it

leaped down his tail; it foamed over his forehead to his nose, and hit

the ground from there with a thump.

"I'm very wet," said the ass to himself, "and I wish I wasn't."

His eyes were fixed on a brown stone that had a knob on its back. Every

drop of rain that hit the stone jumped twice and then spattered to the

ground. After a moment he spoke to himself again:

"I don't care whether it stops raining or not, for I can't be any wetter

than I am, however it goes."

Having said this, he dismissed the weather and settled himself to think.

He hung his head slightly and fixed his eyes afar off, and he stared

distantly like that without seeing anything while he gathered and

revolved his thoughts.

The first thing he thought about was carrots.

He thought of their shape, their colour, and the way they looked in a

bucket. Some would have the thick end stuck up, and some would have the

other end stuck up, and there were always bits of clay sticking to one

end or the other. Some would be lying on their sides as though they had

slipped quietly to sleep, and some would be standing in a slanting way

as though they were leaning their backs against a wall and couldn't make

up their minds what to do next. But, however they looked in the bucket,

they all tasted alike, and they all tasted well. They are a

companionable food; they make a pleasant, crunching noise when they are

bitten, and so, when one is eating carrots, one can listen to the sound

of one's eating and make a story from it.

Thistles make a swishing noise when they are bitten; they have their

taste.

Grass does not make any noise at all; it slips dumbly to the sepulchre,

and makes no sign.

Bread makes no sound when it is eaten by an ass; it has an interesting

taste, and it clings about one's teeth for a long time.

Apples have a good smell and a joyful crunch, but the taste of sugar

lasts longer in the mouth, and can be remembered for longer than

anything else; it has a short, sharp crunch that is like a curse, and

instantly it blesses you with the taste of it.

Hay can be eaten in great mouthfuls. It has a chip and a crack at the

first bite, and then it says no more. It sticks out of one's mouth like

whiskers, and you can watch it with your eye while it moves to and fro

according as your mouth moves. It is a friendly food, and very good for

the hungry.

Oats are not a food; they are a great blessing; they are a debauch; they

make you proud, so that you want to kick the front out of a cart, and

climb a tree, and bite a cow, and chase chickens.

* * * * *

Mary came running and unyoked him from the cart. She embraced him on the

streaming nose. "You poor thing, you!" said she, and she took a large

paper bag from the cart and held it to his muzzle. There was soft sugar

in the bag, and half a pound of it clove to his tongue at the first

lick.

As she went back to the house with the bundle of food the ass regarded

her.

"You are a good girl," said the ass.

He shook himself and dissipated his thoughts; then he trotted briskly

here and there on the path to see if there was anything worth looking

for.

CHAPTER XIX

They shared the food: there was little of it, and some of it was wet;

but they each had a piece of bread, a knuckle of cheese, and three cold

potatoes.

Mary said there was something wrong with her, and she passed two of her

cold potatoes to the cherub Art, who ate them easily.

"I wish you had given them to me," said her father.

"I'll give you one of mine," said Eileen Ni Cooley, and she thrust one

across to him.

Mac Cann pushed it entire into his mouth, and ate it as one who eats in

a trance: he stared at Eileen.

"Why did you give me your potato?" said he.

Eileen blushed until not a single freckle in her face was visible.

"I don't know," she answered.

"You don't seem to know anything at all this day," he complained.

"You're full of fun," said he.

He lit his pipe, and, after pulling for a while at it, he handed it to

the woman.

"Take a draw at that pipe," he commanded, "and let us be decent with

each other."

Eileen Ni Cooley did take a draw at the pipe, but she handed it back

soon.

"I never was much at the smoking," said she.

Caeltia had his pipe going at full blast. He was leaning against the

wall with his eyes half closed, and was thinking deeply between puffs.

Finaun had a good grip on Mary's hair, which he was methodically

plaiting and unloosening again. He was sunken in reverie.

Mary was peeping from beneath her lids at Art, and was at the same time

watching everybody else to see that she was not observed.

Art was whistling to himself in a low tone, and he was looking fixedly

at a spider.

The spider was hauling on a loose rope of his tent, and he was very

leisurely. One would have thought that he was smoking also.

"What did you have for dinner?" said Art to the spider.

"Nothing, sir, but a little, thin, wisp of a young fly," said the

spider.

He was a thick-set, heavy kind of spider, and he seemed to be

middle-aged, and resigned to it.

"That is all I had myself," said Art. "Are the times bad with you now,

or are they middling?"

"Not so bad, glory be to God! The flies do wander in through the holes,

and when they come from the light outside to the darkness in here, sir,

we catch them on the wall, and we crunch their bones."

"Do they like that?"

"They do not, sir, but we do. The lad with the stout, hairy legs, down

there beside your elbow, caught a blue-bottle yesterday; there was

eating on that fellow, I tell you, and he's not all eaten yet, but that

spider is always lucky, barring the day he caught the wasp."

"That was a thing he didn't like?" queried Art.

"Don't mention it to him, sir, he doesn't care to talk about it."

"What way are you going to fasten up your rope?" said Art.

"I'll put a spit on the end of it, and then I'll thump it with my head

to make it stick."

"Well, good luck to yourself."

"Good luck to your honour."

* * * * *

Said Patsy to Caeltia, pointing to Finaun:

"What does he be thinking about when he gets into them fits?"

"He does be talking to the hierarchy," replied Caeltia.

"And who are themselves?"

"They are the people in charge of this world."

"Is it the kings and the queens and the Holy Pope?"

"No, they are different kinds of people."

Patsy yawned.

"What does he be talking to them about?"

"Every kind of thing," replied Caeltia, and yawned also. "They are

asking him for advice now."

"What is he saying?"

"He is talking about love," said Caeltia.

"He is always talking about that," said Patsy.

"And," said Caeltia, "he is talking about knowledge."

"It's another word of his."

"And he is saying that love and knowledge are the same thing."

"I wouldn't put it past him," said Patsy.

* * * * *

For he was in a bad temper. Either the close confinement, or the dull

weather, or the presence of Eileen Ni Cooley, or all of these, had made

him savage.

He arose and began striding through the narrow room, kicking stones from

one side of the place to the other and glooming fiercely at everybody.

Twice he halted before Eileen Ni Cooley, staring at her, and twice,

without a word said, he resumed his marching.

Suddenly he leaned his back against the wall facing her, and shouted:

"Well, Eileen a grah, the man went away from you, the man with the big

stick and the lengthy feet. Ah! that's a man you'd be crying out for and

you all by yourself in the night."

"He was a good man," said Eileen; "there was no harm in that man,

Padraig."

"Maybe he used to be putting his two arms around you now and then beside

a hedge and giving you long kisses on the mouth?"

"He used to be doing that."

"Aye did he, indeed, and he wasn't the first man to do that, Eileen."

"Maybe you're right, Padraig."

"Nor the twenty-first."

"You've got me here in the house, Padraig, and the people around us are

your own friends."

Caeltia also had arisen to his feet and was staring morosely at Eileen.

Suddenly he leaped to her, wrenched the shawl from her head with a wide

gesture, and gripped her throat between his hands; as her head touched

the ground she gasped, and then, and just as suddenly, he released her.

He stood up, looking wildly at Patsy, who stared back at him grinning

like a madman, then he stumbled across to Finaun and took his hands

between his own.

"You must not hurt me, my dear," said Finaun, smiling gravely at him.

Mary had leaped to Art, whose arm she took, and they backed to the end

of the room.

Eileen stood up; she arranged her dress and wrapped the shawl about her

head again; she gazed fearlessly at Mac Cann.

"The house is full of your friends, Padraig, and there's nobody here

with me at all; there's no man could want better than that for himself."

Patsy's voice was hoarse.

"You're looking for fight?"

"I'm looking for whatever is coming," she replied steadily.

"I'm coming, then," he roared, and he strode to her. He lifted his hands

above his head, and brought them down so heavily on her shoulders that

she staggered.

"Here I am," said he, staring into her face.

She closed her eyes.

"I knew it wasn't love you wanted, Padraig; it was murder you wanted,

and you have your wish."

She was swaying under his weight as she spoke; her knees were giving

beneath her.

"Eileen," said Patsy, in a small voice, "I'm going to tumble; I can't

hold myself up, Eileen; my knees are giving way under me, and I've only

got my arms round your neck."

She opened her eyes and saw him sagging against her, with his eyes half

closed and his face gone white.

"Sure, Padraig!" said she.

She flung her arms about his body and lifted him, but the weight was too

much, and he went down.

She crouched by him on the floor, hugging his head against her breast.

"Sure, listen to me, Padraig; I never did like any one in the world but

yourself; there wasn't a man of them all was more to me than a blast of

wind; you were the one I liked always. Listen to me now, Padraig. Don't

I be wanting you day and night, and saying prayers to you in the

darkness and crying out in the dawn; my heart is sore for you, so it is:

there's a twist in us, O my dear. Don't you be minding the men; whatever

they did it was nothing, it was nothing more than beasts playing in a

field and not caring anything. We are beside one another for a minute

now. When I would put my hand on my breast in the middle of a laugh it

was you I was touching, and I do never stop thinking of you in any place

under the sky."

They were kissing each other like lost souls; they babbled and clung to

each other; they thrust one another's head back to stare at it, and

pursued the head with their violent lips.

* * * * *

It was a time before they all got to sleep that night, but they did

sleep at the end of it.

They stretched in the darkness with their eyes closed, and the night

folded them around, separating each one from his fellow, and putting on

each the enchantment of silence and blindness. They were no longer

together although they were lying but a few inches apart; there was only

the darkness that had no inches to it; the darkness that has no

beginning and no end; that appears and disappears, calling hush as it

comes and goes, and holding peace and terror in either invisible hand;

there was no silver moon in the sky and no sparkle of white stars; there

was only darkness and silence and the steady hushing of the rain.

* * * * *

When he awoke in the morning Mac Cann rolled urgently on his elbow and

stared to where Eileen Ni Cooley had stretched herself for sleep--but

she was not there, she was not anywhere.

He shouted, and the company sprang to their feet.

"She got out through the window," he roared.

"The devil damn the soul of her," said he.

BOOK III

BRIEN O'BRIEN

CHAPTER XX

They continued their travels.

It would be more correct to say they continued their search for food,

for that in reality was the objective of each day's journeying.

Moving thus, day by day, taking practically any road that presented

itself, they had wandered easily through rugged, beautiful Donegal down

into Connaught. They had camped on the slopes of rough mountains, slept

peacefully in deep valleys that wound round and round like a corkscrew,

traversed for weeks in Connemara by the clamorous sea where they lived

sumptuously on fish, and then they struck to the inland plains again,

and away by curving paths to the County Kerry.

At times Mac Cann got work to do--to mend a kettle that had a little

hole in it, to stick a handle on a pot, to stiffen the last days of a

bucket that was already long past its labour, and he did these jobs

sitting in the sunlight on dusty roads, and if he did not do them Mary

did them for him while he observed her critically and explained both to

her and to his company the mystery of the tinker's craft.

"There's a great deal," he would say, "in the twist of the hand."

And again, but this usually to Art when that cherub tried his skill on a

rusty pot:

"You'll never make a good tinker unless you've got a hand on you. Keep

your feet in your boots and get to work with your fingers."

And sometimes he would nod contentedly at Mary and say:

"There's a girl with real hands on her that aren't feet."

Hands represented to him whatever of praiseworthy might be spoken of by

a man, but feet were in his opinion rightly covered, and ought not to be

discovered except in minatory conversation. One ran on them! Well, it

was a dog's trade, or a donkey's; but hands! he expanded to that

subject, and could loose thereon a gale of praise that would blow all

other conversation across the border.

They set their camp among roaring fairs where every kind of wild man and

woman yelled salutation at Patsy and his daughter, and howled

remembrance of ten and twenty-year old follies, and plunged into drink

with the savage alacrity of those to whom despair is a fairer brother

than hope, and with some of these people the next day's journey would be

shared, rioting and screaming on the lonely roads, and these people also

the angels observed and were friendly with.

One morning they were pacing on their journey. The eyes of the little

troop were actively scanning the fields on either hand. They were all

hungry, for they had eaten nothing since the previous midday. But these

fields were barren of food. Great stretches of grass stretched away to

either horizon, and there was nothing here that could be eaten except by

the donkey.

As they went they saw a man sitting on a raised bank. His arms were

folded; he had a straw in his mouth; there was a broad grin on his red

face; a battered hat was thrust far back on his head, and from beneath

this a brush of stiff hair poked in any direction like an ill-tied

bundle of black wire.

Mac Cann stared at that red joviality.

"There's a man," said he to Caeltia, "that hasn't got a care in the

world."

"It must be very bad for him," commented Caeltia.

"Holloa, mister," cried Patsy heartily, "how's everything?"

"Everything's fine," beamed the man, "how's yourself?"

"We're holding up, glory be to God!"

"That's the way."

He waved his hand against the horizon.

"There's weather for you," and he spoke with the proud humility of one

who had made that weather, but would not boast. His eye was steady on

Mac Cann.

"I've got a hunger on me that's worth feeding, mister."

"We've all got that," replied Patsy, "and there's nothing in the cart

barring its timbers. I'm keeping an eye out, tho', and maybe we'll trip

over a side of bacon in the middle of the road or a neat little patch of

potatoes in the next field and it full of the flowery boyoes."

"There's a field a mile up this road," said the man, "and everything you

could talk about is in that field."

"Do you tell me!" said Patsy briskly.

"I do: every kind of thing is in that field, and there's rabbits at the

foot of the hill beyond it."

"I used to have a good shot with a stone," said Patsy.

"Mary," he continued, "when we come to the field let yourself and Art

gather up the potatoes while Caeltia and myself take stones in our hands

to kill the rabbits."

"I'm coming along with you," said the man, "and I'll get my share."

"You can do that," said Patsy.

The man scrambled down the bank. There was something between his knees

of which he was very careful.

"What sort of a thing is that?" said Mary.

"It's a concertina and I do play tunes on it before the houses, and

that's how I make my money."

"The musiciner will give us a tune after we get a feed," said Patsy.

"Sure enough," said the man.

Art stretched out his hand.

"Let me have a look at the musical instrument," said he.

The man handed it to him and fell into pace beside Patsy and Caeltia.

Mary and Finaun were going as usual one on either side of the ass, and

the three of them returned to their interrupted conversation. Every

dozen paces Finaun would lean to the border of the road and pluck a

fistful of prime grass or a thistle or a clutch of chickweed, and he

would put these to the ass's mouth.

Patsy was eyeing the man.

"What's your name, mister?" said he.

"I was known as Old Carolan, but now the people call me Billy the

Music."

"How is it that I never met you before?"

"I'm from Connemara."

"I know every cow-track and bohereen in Connemara, and I know every road

in Donegal and Kerry, and I know everybody that's on them roads, but I

don't know you, mister."

The man laughed at him.

"I'm not long on the roads, so how could you know me? What are you

called yourself?"

"I'm called Padraig Mac Cann."

"I know you well, for you stole a hen and a pair of boots off me ten

months ago when I lived in a house."

"Do you tell me?" said Mac Cann.

"I do; and I never grudged them to you, for that was the day that

everything happened to me."

Mac Cann was searching his head to find from whom he had stolen a hen

and a pair of boots at the one time.

"Well, glory be to God!" he cried. "Isn't it the queer world! Are you

old Carolan, the miserly man of Temple Cahill?"

The man laughed and nodded.

"I used to be him, but now I'm Billy the Music, and there's my

instrument under the boy's oxter."

Patsy stared at him.

"And where's the house and the cattle, and the hundred acres of grass

land and glebe, and the wife that people said you used to starve the

stomach out of?"

"Faith, I don't know where they are, and I don't care either," and he

shook with the laughter as he said it.

"And your sister that killed herself climbing out of a high window on a

windy night to search for food among the neighbours?"

"She's dead still," said the man, and he doubled up with glee.

"I declare," said Patsy, "that it's the end of the world."

The man broke on his eloquence with a pointed finger.

"There's the field I was telling you about and it's weighty to the ribs

with potatoes and turnips."

Patsy turned to his daughter.

"Gather in the potatoes; don't take them all from the one place, but

take them from here and there the way they won't be missed, and then go

along the road with the cart for twenty minutes and be cooking them.

Myself and Caeltia will catch up on you in a little time and we'll bring

good meat with us."

Caeltia and he moved to the right where a gentle hill rose against the

sky. The hill was thickly wooded, massive clumps of trees were dotted

every little distance, and through these one could see quiet, green

spaces drowsing in the sun.

When they came to the fringing trees Patsy directed his companion to go

among them some little distance and then to charge here and there,

slashing against the trees and the ground with a stick.

Caeltia did that, and at the end of a quarter of an hour Patsy had three

rabbits stretched under his hand.

"That's good enough," he called; "we'll go on now after the people."

They stowed the rabbits under their coats and took the road.

They soon caught on their companions. The cart was drawn to the side of

the road, at a little distance the ass was browsing, and Mary had a fire

going in the brazier and the potatoes ready for the pot.

Patsy tossed the rabbits to her.

"There you are, my girl," said he, and, with Caeltia, he sank down on

the grassy margin of the road and drew out his pipe.

The strange man was sitting beside Art, to whom he was explaining the

mechanism of a concertina.

"While we are waiting," said Patsy to him, "you can tell us all the

news; tell us what happened to the land and what you're doing on the

road; and there is a bit of twist to put in your pipe so that you'll

talk well."

Mary broke in:

"Wait a minute now, for I want to hear that story; let yourself help me

over with the brazier and we can all sit together."

There was a handle to the bucket and through this they put a long stick

and lifted all bodily to the butt of the hedge.

"Now we can sit together," said Mary, "and I can be cooking the food and

listening to the story at the same time."

"I'd sooner give you a tune on the concertina," said Billy the Music.

"You can do that afterwards," replied Patsy.

CHAPTER XXI

"I'll tell you the story," said Billy the Music, "and here it is:

"A year ago I had a farm in the valley. The sun shone into it, and the

wind didn't blow into it for it was well sheltered, and the crops that I

used to take off that land would astonish you.

"I had twenty head of cattle eating the grass, and they used to get fat

quick and they used to give good milk into the bargain. I had cocks and

hens for the eggs and the market, and there was a good many folk would

have been glad to get my farm.

"There were ten men always working on the place, but at harvest-time

there would be a lot more, and I used to make them work too. Myself and

my son and my wife's brother (a lout, that fellow!) used to run after

the men, but it was hard to keep up with them, for they were great

schemers. They tried to do as little work as ever they were able, and

they tried to get as much money out of me as they could manage. But I

was up to them lads, and it's mighty little they got out of me without

giving twice as much for it.

"Bit by bit I weeded out the men until at last I only had the ones I

wanted, the tried and trusty men. They were a poor lot, and they didn't

dare to look back at me when I looked at them; but they were able to

work, and that is all I wanted them to do, and I saw that they did it.

"As I'm sitting beside you on this bank to-day I'm wondering why I took

all the trouble I did take, and what, in the name of this and that, I

expected to get out of it all. I usen't go to bed until twelve o'clock

at night, and I would be up in the dawn before the birds. Five o'clock

in the morning never saw me stretching in the warm bed, and every day I

would root the men out of their sleep; often enough I had to throw them

out of bed, for there wasn't a man of them but would have slept rings

round the clock if he got the chance.

"Of course I knew that they didn't want to work for me, and that, bating

the hunger, they'd have seen me far enough before they'd lift a hand for

my good; but I had them by the hasp, for as long as men have to eat, any

man with the food can make them do whatever he wants them to do;

wouldn't they stand on their heads for twelve hours a day if you gave

them wages? Aye would they, and eighteen hours if you held them to it.

"I had the idea too that they were trying to rob me, and maybe they

were. It doesn't seem to matter now whether they robbed me or not, for I

give you my word that the man who wants to rob me to-day is welcome to

all he can get and more if I had it."

"Faith, you're the kind man!" said Patsy.

"Let that be," said Billy the Music.

"The secret of the thing was that I loved money, hard money, gold and

silver pieces, and pieces of copper. I liked it better than the people

who were round me. I liked it better than the cattle and the crops. I

liked it better than I liked myself, and isn't that the queer thing? I

put up with the silliest ways for it, and I lived upside down and inside

out for it. I tell you I would have done anything just to get money, and

when I paid the men for their labour I grudged them every penny that

they took from me.

"It did seem to me that in taking my metal they were surely and openly

robbing me and laughing at me as they did it. I saw no reason why they

shouldn't have worked for me for nothing, and if they had I would have

grudged them the food they ate and the time they lost in sleeping, and

that's another queer thing, mind you!"

"If one of them men," said Patsy solemnly, "had the spunk of a wandering

goat or a mangy dog he'd have taken a graipe to yourself, mister, and

he'd have picked your soul out of your body and slung it on a

dung-heap."

"Don't be thinking," replied the other, "that men are courageous and

fiery animals, for they're not, and every person that pays wages to men

knows well that they're as timid as sheep and twice as timid. Let me

tell you too that all the trouble wasn't on their side; I had a share of

it and a big share."

Mac Cann interrupted solemnly--

"That's what the fox told the goose when the goose said that the teeth

hurted him. 'Look at the trouble I had to catch you,' said the fox."

"We won't mind that," said Billy the Music.

"I was hard put to it to make the money. I was able to knock a good

profit out of the land and the beasts and the men that worked for me;

and then, when I came to turn the profit into solid pieces, I found that

there was a world outside of my world, and it was truly bent on robbing

me, and, what's more, it had thought hard for generations about the best

way of doing it. It had made its scheme so carefully that I was as

helpless among them people as the labourers were with me. Oh! they got

me, and they squeezed me, and they marched off smiling with the heaviest

part of my gain, and they told me to be a bit more polite or they'd

break me into bits, and I was polite too. Ah! there's a big world

outside the little world, and maybe there's a bigger world outside that,

and grindstones in it for all the people that are squeezers in their own

place.

"The price I thought fair for the crop was never the price I got from

the jobbers. If I sold a cow or a horse I never got as much as half of

what I reckoned on. There were rings and cliques in the markets

everywhere, and they knew how to manage me. It was they who got more

than half the money I made, and they had me gripped so that I couldn't

get away. It was for these people I used to be out of bed at twelve

o'clock at night and up again before the fowl were done snoring, and it

was for them I tore the bowels out of my land, and hazed and bedevilled

every man and woman and dog that came in sight of me, and when I thought

of these market-men with their red jowls and their 'take it or leave it'

I used to get so full of rage that I could hardly breathe.

"I had to take it because I couldn't afford to leave it, and then I'd go

home again trying to cut it finer, trying to skin an extra chance profit

off the land and workers, and I do wonder now that the men didn't try to

kill me or didn't commit suicide. Aye, I wonder that I didn't commit

suicide myself by dint of the rage and greed and weariness that was my

share of life day and night.

"I got the money anyhow, and, sure enough, the people must have thought

I was the devil's self; but it was little I cared what they thought, for

the pieces were beginning to mount up in the box, and one fine day the

box got so full that not another penny-piece could have been squeezed

sideways into it, so I had to make a new box, and it wasn't so long

until I made a third box and a fourth one, and I could see the time

coming when I would be able to stand in with the market-men, and get a

good grip on whatever might be going."

"How much did you rob in all?" said Patsy.

"I had all of two thousand pounds."

"That's a lot of money, I'm thinking."

"It is so, and it took a lot of getting, and there was twenty damns went

into the box with every one of the yellow pieces."

"A damn isn't worth a shilling," said Patsy. "You can have them from me

at two for a ha'penny, and there's lots of people would give them to

yourself for nothing, you rotten old robber of the world! And if I had

the lump of twist back that I gave you a couple of minutes ago I'd put

it in my pocket, so I would, and I'd sit on it."

"Don't forget that you're talking about old things," said Billy the

Music.

"If I was one of your men," shouted Patsy, "you wouldn't have treated me

that way."

Billy the Music smiled happily at him.

"Wouldn't I?" said he, with his head on one side.

"You would not," said Patsy, "for I'd have broken your skull with a

spade."

"If you had been one of my men," the other replied mildly, "you'd have

been as tame as a little kitten; you'd have crawled round me with your

hat in your hand and your eyes turned up like a dying duck's, and you'd

have said, 'Yes, sir,' and 'No, sir,' like the other men that I welted

the stuffing out of with my two fists, and broke the spirits of with

labour and hunger. Don't be talking now, for you're an ignorant man in

these things, although you did manage to steal a clocking hen off me the

day I was busy."

"And a pair of good boots," said Patsy triumphantly.

"Do you want to hear the rest of the story?"

"I do so," said Patsy; "and I take back what I said about the tobacco;

here's another bit of it for your pipe."

"Thank you kindly," replied Billy.

He shook the ashes from his pipe, filled it, and continued his tale.

"On the head of all these things a wonderful thing happened to me."

"That's the way to start," said Patsy approvingly. "You're a good

story-teller, mister."

"It isn't so much that," replied Billy, "but it's a good story and a

wonderful story."

"The potatoes are nearly done, Mary, a grah?"

"They'll be done in a short while."

"Hold your story for a few minutes until we eat the potatoes and a few

collops of the rabbits, for I tell you that I'm drooping with the

hunger."

"I didn't eat anything myself," replied Billy, "since the middle of

yesterday, and the food there has a smell to it that's making me mad."

"It's not quite done yet," said Mary.

"It's done enough," replied her father. "Aren't you particular this day!

Pull them over here and share them round, and don't be having the men

dying on your hands."

Mary did so, and for five minutes there was no sound except that of

moving jaws, and by that time there was no more food in sight.

"Ah!" said Patsy with a great sigh.

"Aye, indeed!" said Billy the Music with another sigh.

"Put on more of the potatoes now," Patsy commanded his daughter, "and be

cooking them against the time this story will be finished."

"I wish I had twice as much as I had," said Art.

"You got twice as much as me," cried Patsy angrily, "for I saw the girl

giving it to you."

"I'm not complaining," replied Art; "I'm only stating a fact."

"That's all right," said Patsy.

The pipes were lit, and all eyes turned to Billy the Music. Patsy leaned

back on his elbow, and blew his cloud.

"Now we'll have the rest of the story," said he.

CHAPTER XXII

"This," continued Billy the Music, "is the wonderful thing that happened

to me.

"Bit by bit I got fonder of the money. The more I got of it the more I

wanted. I used to go away by myself to look at it and handle it and

count it. I didn't store it all in the house; I only kept enough there

to make the people think it was all there, and as every one was watching

that and watching each other (for they all wanted to steal it) it was

safe enough.

"They didn't know it was mostly copper was in that box, but copper it

was, and some silver that I couldn't fit into the other boxes.

"There was a place at the end of the big barn, just underneath the dog's

kennel--maybe you remember my dog, Patsy?"

"A big black-and-white snarly devil of a bull-terrier?" said Patsy,

thoughtfully.

"That's him."

"I remember him well," said Patsy. "I fed him once."

"You poisoned him," said Billy the Music quickly.

"That's a hard word to say," replied Patsy, scraping at his chin.

Billy the Music looked very fixedly at him, and he also scraped

meditatively at his bristles.

"It doesn't matter now," said he. "That was the dog. I made a place

under his kennel. It was well made. If you had pulled the kennel aside

you'd have seen nothing but the floor. Down there I kept the three boxes

of gold, and while I'd be looking at them the dog would be lurching

around wondering why he wasn't allowed to eat people--I was a bit timid

with that dog myself--and it was one day while I was handling the money

that the thing happened.

"There came a thump on the barn door. The dog made a noise away down in

the heel of his throat and loped across; he stuck his nose against the

crack at the bottom and began to sniff and scratch.

"'Strangers there,' said I. I put the money away quietly, lifted the

kennel back to its place, and went over to open the door.

"There were two men standing outside, and the dog sprang for one of them

as if he had been shot out of a gun.

"But that man was quick. He took the beast on the jump, caught him by

the chaps, and slung him with a heave of his arm. I don't know where he

slung him to; I never saw the dog alive after that, and I did think it

was that jerk killed him."

"Begor!" said Patsy.

"It must have been within half an hour or so that you gave him the

poisoned meat, Patsy."

"It was a lengthy mutton bone," murmured Mac Cann.

"Whatever it was!" said Billy the Music.

"The men walked in, they shut the barn door behind them and locked it,

for the key was inside whenever I was.

"Well! I always had the use of my hands and my feet and my teeth, but I

had no chance there, so in a few minutes I sat down on the kennel to get

my breath back and to mop up the blood that was teeming out of my nose.

The two men, I will say, were very quiet with it all--they waited for

me.

"One of them was a middle-sized block of a man, and he looked as if his

head had been rolled in tar--"

"Eh!" said Patsy loudly.

"The other one was a big, young man with a girl's face; he had blue eyes

and curls of gold, and he was wearing a woman's skirt--the raggedest

old----"

"Begor!" cried Patsy, and he leaped furiously to his feet.

"What's wrong with you?" said Billy the Music.

Patsy beat his fists together.

"I've been looking for that pair of playboys for a full year," he

barked.

"Do you know them?" said Billy the Music, with equal excitement.

"I don't know them, but I met them, and the girl yonder met them too,

the thieves!"

"They are a pair of dirty dogs," said Mary coldly.

"And when I do meet them," said Patsy savagely, "I'll kill the pair of

them: I will so.

Billy the Music laughed.

"I wouldn't try killing them lads; I did try it once, but they wouldn't

let me. Tell us what they did to yourself, and then I'll go on with my

story, for I'm real curious about those two."

Mac Cann put his pipe into his pocket.

CHAPTER XXIII

Said Patsy:

"There isn't very much to tell, but this is how it happened.

"About two weeks before your dog died myself and the girl were tramping

up towards Dublin. We hadn't got the ass with us that time, for it was

in pawn to a woman that peddled fish in the south-west of Connemara. She

was keeping the ass and cart for us while we were away, and she was

going to give us something for their loan at the heel of the season. She

was an old rip, that one, for she sold the ass on us to one man and she

sold the cart to another man, and we had the trouble of the world

getting the pair of them together again--but that's no matter.

"One morning, fresh and early, we were beating along a road that comes

down from the mountains and runs away into Donnybrook. I had just picked

up a little goose that I found walking along with its nose up, and I

thought maybe we could sell the creature to some person in the city who

wanted a goose.

"We turned a bend in the road (it's a twisty district), and there I saw

two men sitting on the grass on each side of the path. The two men were

sitting with the full width of the road between them, and they were

clean, stark, stone naked.

"They hadn't got as much as a shirt; they hadn't a hat; they hadn't got

anything at all on them barring their skins.

"'Whoo!' said I to myself, and I caught a grip of the girl. 'We'll be

taking another road,' said I, and round we sailed with the goose and

all.

"But the two men came after us, and what with the goose and the girl,

they caught up on us too.

"One of them was a bullet-headed thief and he did look as if he had been

rolled in tar, and I hope he was. The other was a dandy lad that never

got his hair cut since he was a mother's boy.

"'Be off with the pair of you,' said I, 'ye indecent devils. What do ye

want with honest folk and you in your pelt?'

"The bullet-headed one was bouncing round me like a rubber ball.

"'Take off your clothes, mister,' said he.

"'What!' said I.

"'Take off your clothes quick,' said he, 'or I'll kill you.'

"So, with that I jumped into the middle of the road, and I up with the

goose, and I hit that chap such a welt on the head that the goose

bursted. Then the lad was into me and we went round the road like

thunder and lightning till the other fellow joined in, and then Mary

welted into the lot of us with a stick that she had, but they didn't

mind her any more than a fly. Before you could whistle, mister, they had

me stripped to the buff, and before you could whistle again they had the

girl stripped, and the pair of them were going down the road as hard as

ever they could pelt with our clothes under their oxters."

"Begor!" said Billy the Music.

"I tell you so," grinned Patsy.

"There was herself and myself standing in the middle of the road with

nothing to cover our nakedness but a bursted goose."

"That was the queer sight," said Billy the Music looking thoughtfully at

Mary.

"You keep your eyes to yourself, mister," said Mary hotly.

"What did you do then?" said Billy.

"We sat down on the side of the road for a long time until we heard

footsteps and then we hid ourselves.

"I peeped over the hedge and there was a man coming along the path. He

was a nice-looking man with a black bag in his hand and he was walking

fast. When he came exactly opposite me I jumped the hedge and I took the

clothes off him--"

Billy the Music slapped his palm on his knee.

"You did so!"

"I did so," said Patsy.

"He was grumbling all the time, but as soon as I let him loose he

started to run, and that was the last I saw of him.

"After a bit a woman came along the road, and Mary took the clothes off

her. She was a quiet, poor soul, and she didn't say a word to either of

us. We left her the goose and the man's black bag for payment, and then

the pair of us started off, and we didn't stop running till we came to

the County Kerry.

"These are the clothes I'm telling you about," said Patsy; "I have them

on me this minute."

"It's a great story," said Billy the Music.

"I can tell you something further about these people," said Caeltia

smiling.

"Can you so?" cried Patsy.

"I can, but the man here hasn't finished what he was telling us."

"I was forgetting him," said Mac Cann. "Put another pinch in your pipe,

mister, and tell us what happened to you after that."

CHAPTER XXIV

Billy the Music did put another pinch of tobacco into his pipe, and

after drawing on it meditatively for a few minutes he snuffed it out

with his thumb and put it into his pocket. Naturally he put it in upside

down, so that the tobacco might drop from the pipe, for he was no longer

a saving man.

"They were surely the two men that I'm telling you about," said he, "and

there they were standing up in front of me while I was sneezing the

blood out of my nose.

"'What do you want?' said I to themselves, and all the time I was

peeping here and there to see if there wasn't a bit of a stick or a

crowbar maybe lying handy.

"It was the boyo in the skirt that answered me:

"'I wanted to have a look at yourself,' said he.

"'Take your eye-full and go away, for God's sake,' said I.

"'You dirty thief!' said he to me.

"'What's that for?' said I.

"'What do you mean by getting me thrown out of heaven?' said he.

"...! Well, mister honey, that was a question to worry any man, and it

worried me. I couldn't think what to say to him. 'Begor!' said I, and I

sneezed out some more of my blood.

"But the lad was stamping mad.

"'If I could blot you from the light of life without doing any hurt to

myself, I'd smash you this mortal minute,' said he.

"'For the love of heaven,' said I, 'tell me what I did to yourself, for

I never did see you before this day, and I wish I didn't see you now.'

"The bullet-headed man was standing by all the time, and he chewing

tobacco.

"'Have it out with him, Cuchulain,' said he. 'Kill him,' said he, 'and

send him out among the spooks.'

"But the other man calmed down a bit, and he came over to me wagging the

girl's skirts.

"'Listen!' said he, 'I'm the Seraph Cuchulain.'

"'Very good,' said I.

"'I'm your Guardian Angel,' said he.

"'Very good,' said I.

"'I'm your Higher Self,' said he, 'and every rotten business you do down

here does be vibrating against me up there. You never did anything in

your life that wasn't rotten. You're a miser and a thief, and you got me

thrown out of heaven because of the way you loved money. You seduced me

when I wasn't looking. You made a thief of me in a place where it's no

fun to be a robber, and here I am wandering the dirty world on the head

of your unrighteous ways. Repent, you beast,' said he, and he landed me

a clout on the side of the head that rolled me from one end of the barn

to the other.

"'Give him another one,' said the bullet-headed man, and he chewing

strongly on his plug.

"'What have you got to do with it?' said I to him. 'You're not my

Guardian Angel, God help me!'

"'How dare you,' said the bullet-headed man. 'How dare you set this

honest party stealing the last threepenny bit of a poor man?' and with

that he made a clout at me.

"'What threepenny bit are you talking about?' said I.

"'My own threepenny bit,' said he. 'The only one I had. The one I

dropped outside the gates of hell.'

"Well, that beat me! 'I don't care what you say any longer,' said I,

'you can talk till you're blue and I won't care what you say,' and down

I sat on the kennel and shed my blood.

"'You must repent of your own free will,' said Cuchulain, marching to

the door.

"'And you'd better hurry up, too,' said the other fellow, 'or I'll

hammer the head off you.'

"The queer thing is that I believed every word the man said. I didn't

know what he was talking about, but I did know that he was talking about

something that was real although it was beyond me. And there was the way

he said it too, for he spoke like a bishop, with fine, shouting words

that I can't remember now, and the months gone past. I took him at his

word anyhow, and on the minute I began to feel a different creature,

for, mind you, a man can no more go against his Guardian Angel than he

can climb a tree backwards.

"As they were going out of the barn Cuchulain turned to me:

"'I'll help you to repent,' said he, 'for I want to get back again, and

this is the way I'll help you. I'll give you money, and I'll give you

piles of it.'

"The two of them went off then, and I didn't venture out of the barn for

half-an-hour.

* * * * *

"I went into the barn next day, and what do you think I saw?"

"The floor was covered with gold pieces," said Patsy.

Billy nodded:

"That's what I saw. I gathered them up and hid them under the kennel.

There wasn't room for the lot of them, so I rolled the rest in a bit of

a sack and covered them up with cabbages.

"The next day I went in and the floor was covered with gold pieces, and

I swept them up and hid them under the cabbages too. The day after that

and the next day and the day after that again it was the same story. I

didn't know where to put the money. I had to leave it lying on the

floor, and I hadn't as much as a dog to guard it from the robbers."

"You had not," said Patsy, "and that's the truth."

"I locked the barn; then I called up all the men; I paid them their

wages, for what did I want with them any longer and I rolling in gold? I

told them to get out of my sight, and I saw every man of them off the

land. Then I told my wife's brother that I didn't want him in my house

any longer, and I saw him off the land. Then I argued my son out of the

house, and I told my wife that she could go with him if she wanted to,

and then I went back to the barn.

"But, as I told you a minute ago, I was a changed man. The gold was

mounting up on me, and I didn't know what to do with it. I could have

rolled in it if I wanted to, and I did roll in it, but there was no fun

in that.

"This was the trouble with me--I couldn't count it; it had gone beyond

me; there were piles of it; there were stacks of it; it was four feet

deep all over the floor, and I could no more move it than I could move a

house.

"I never wanted that much money, for no man could want it: I only wanted

what I could manage with my hands; and the fear of robbers was on me to

that pitch that I could neither sit nor stand nor sleep.

"Every time I opened the door the place was fuller than it was the last

time, and, at last, I got to hate the barn. I just couldn't stand the

look of the place, and the light squinting at me from thousands and

thousands of gold corners.

"It beat me at last. One day I marched into the house, and I picked up

the concertina that my son bought (I was able to play it well myself)

and said I to the wife:

"'I'm off.'

"'Where are you off?'

"'I'm going into the world.'

"'What will become of the farm?'

"'You can have it yourself,' said I, and with that I stepped clean out

of the house and away to the road. I didn't stop walking for two days,

and I never went back from that day to this.

"I do play on the concertina before the houses, and the people give me

coppers. I travel from place to place every day, and I'm as happy as a

bird on a bough, for I've no worries and I worry no one."

"What did become of the money?" said Patsy.

"I'm thinking now that it might have been fairy gold, and, if it was,

nobody could touch it."

"So," said Mac Cann, "that's the sort of boys they were?"

"That's the sort."

"And one of them was your own Guardian Angel!"

"He said that."

"And what was the other one?"

"I don't know, but I do think that he was a spook."

Patsy turned to Finaun:

"Tell me, mister, is that a true story now, or was the lad making it

up?"

"It is true," replied Finaun.

Patsy considered for a moment.

"I wonder," said he musingly, "who is my own Guardian Angel?"

Caeltia hastily put the pipe into his pocket.

"I am," said he.

"Oh, bedad!"

Mac Cann placed his hands on his knees and laughed heartily.

"You are! and I making you drunk every second night in the little pubs!"

"You never made me drunk."

"I did not, for you've got a hard head surely, but there's a pair of us

in it, mister."

He was silent again, then:

"I wonder who is the Guardian Angel of Eileen Ni Cooley? for he has his

work cut out for him, I'm thinking."

"I am her Guardian Angel," said Finaun.

"Are you telling me that?"

Mac Cann stared at Finaun, and he lapsed again to reverie.

"Ah, well!" said he to Billy the Music, "it was a fine story you told

us, mister, and queer deeds you were mixed up in; but I'd like to meet

the men that took our clothes, I would so."

"I can tell you something more about them," Caeltia remarked.

"So you said a while back. What is it you can tell us?"

"I can tell you the beginning of all that tale."

"I'd like to hear it," said Billy the Music.

"There is just a piece I will have to make up from what I heard since we

came here, but the rest I can answer for because I was there at the

time."

"I remember it too," said Art to Caeltia, "and when you have told your

story I'll tell another one."

"Serve out the potatoes, Mary," said Mac Cann, "and then you can go on

with the story. Do you think is that ass all right, alannah?"

"He's eating the grass still, but I think he may be wanting a drink."

"He had a good drink yesterday," said her father, and he shifted to a

more comfortable position.

CHAPTER XXV

Said Caeltia:

"When Brien O'Brien died people said that it did not matter very much

because he would have died young in any case. He would have been hanged,

or his head would have been split in two halves with a hatchet, or he

would have tumbled down the cliff when he was drunk and been smashed

into jelly. Something like that was due to him, and everybody likes to

see a man get what he deserves to get.

"But, as ethical writs cease to run when a man is dead, the neighbours

did not stay away from his wake. They came, and they said many

mitigating things across the body with the bandaged jaws and the sly

grin, and they reminded each other of this and that queer thing which he

had done, for his memory was crusted over with stories of wild,

laughable things, and other things which were wild but not laughable.

"Meanwhile he was dead, and one was at liberty to be a trifle sorry for

him. Further, he belonged to the O'Brien nation--a stock to whom

reverence was due. A stock not easily forgotten. The historic memory

could reconstruct forgotten glories of station and battle, of terrible

villainy and terrible saintliness, the pitiful, valorous, slow descent

to the degradation which was not yet wholly victorious. A great stock!

The O'Neills remembered it. The O'Tools and the Mac Sweeneys had stories

by the hundred of love and hate. The Burkes and the Geraldines and the

new strangers had memories also.

"His family was left in the poorest way, but they were used to that, for

he had kept them as poor as he left them, or found them, for that

matter. They had shaken hands with Charity so often that they no longer

disliked the sallow-faced lady, and so certain small gifts made by the

neighbours were accepted, not very thankfully, but very readily. These

gifts were almost always in kind. A few eggs. A bag of potatoes. A

handful of meal. A couple of twists of tea--such like.

"One of the visitors, however, moved by an extraordinary dejection,

slipped a silver threepenny-piece into the hand of Brien's little

daughter, Sheila, aged four years, and later on she did not like to ask

for it back again.

"Little Sheila had been well trained by her father. She knew exactly

what should be done with money, and so, when nobody was looking, she

tip-toed to the coffin and slipped the threepenny-piece into Brien's

hand. That hand had never refused money when it was alive, it did not

reject it either when it was dead.

"They buried him the next day.

"He was called up for judgment the day after, and made his appearance

with a miscellaneous crowd of wretches, and there he again received what

was due to him. He was removed, protesting and struggling, to the place

decreed:

"'Down,' said Rhadamanthus, pointing with his great hand, and down he

went.

"In the struggle he dropped the threepenny-piece, but he was so bustled

and heated that he did not observe his loss. He went down, far down, out

of sight, out of remembrance, to a howling black gulf with others of his

unseen kind.

"A young seraph, named Cuchulain, chancing to pass that way shortly

afterwards, saw the threepenny-piece peeping brightly from the rocks,

and he picked it up.

"He looked at it in astonishment. He turned it over and over, this way

and that way. Examined it at the stretch of his arm, and peered minutely

at it from two inches distance.

"'I have never in my life seen anything so beautifully wrought,' said

he, and, having stowed it in his pouch along with some other trinkets,

he strolled homewards again through the massy gates.

"It was not long until Brien discovered his loss, and suddenly, through

the black region, his voice went mounting and brawling.

"'I have been robbed,' he yelled. 'I have been robbed in heaven!'

"Having begun to yell he did not stop. Sometimes he was simply angry and

made a noise. Sometimes he became sarcastic and would send his query

swirling upwards.

"'Who stole the threepenny-bit?' he roared. He addressed the surrounding

black space:

"'Who stole the last threepenny-bit of a poor man?'

"Again and again his voice pealed upwards. The pains of his habitation

lost all their sting for him. His mind had nourishment, and the heat

within him vanquished the fumes without. He had a grievance, a righteous

cause, he was buoyed and strengthened, nothing could silence him. They

tried ingenious devices, all kinds of complicated things, but he paid no

heed, and the tormentors were in despair.

"'I hate these sinners from the kingdom of Kerry,' said the Chief

Tormentor, and he sat moodily down on his own circular saw; and that

worried him also, for he was clad only in a loin-cloth.

"'I hate the entire Clann of the Gael,' said he; 'why cannot they send

them somewhere else?' and then he started practising again on Brien.

"It was no use. Brien's query still blared upwards like the sound of the

great trump itself. It wakened and rung the rocky caverns, screamed

through fissure and funnel, and was battered and slung from pinnacle to

crag and up again. Worse! his companions in doom became interested and

took up the cry, until at last the uproar became so appalling that the

Master himself could not stand it.

"'I have not had a wink of sleep for three nights,' said that harassed

one, and he sent a special embassy to the powers.

"Rhadamanthus was astonished when they arrived. His elbow was leaning on

his vast knee, and his heavy head rested on a hand that was acres long,

acres wide.

"'What is all this about?' said he.

"'The Master cannot go to sleep,' said the spokesman of the embassy, and

he grinned as he said it, for it sounded queer even to himself.

"'It is not necessary that he should sleep,' said Rhadamanthus. 'I have

never slept since time began, and I will never sleep until time is over.

But the complaint is curious. What has troubled your master?'

"'Hell is turned upside down and inside out,' said the fiend. 'The

tormentors are weeping like little children. The principalities are

squatting on their hunkers doing nothing. The orders are running here

and there fighting each other. The styles are leaning against walls

shrugging their shoulders, and the damned are shouting and laughing and

have become callous to torment.'

"'It is not my business,' said the judge.

"'The sinners demand justice,' said the spokesman.

"'They've got it,' said Rhadamanthus, 'let them stew in it.'

"'They refuse to stew,' replied the spokesman, wringing his hands.

"Rhadamanthus sat up.

"'It is an axiom in law,' said he, 'that however complicated an event

may be, there can never be more than one person at the extreme bottom of

it. Who is the person?'

"'It is one Brien of the O'Brien nation, late of the kingdom of Kerry. A

bad one! He got the maximum punishment a week ago.'

"For the first time in his life Rhadamanthus was disturbed. He scratched

his head, and it was the first time he had ever done that either.

"'You say he got the maximum,' said Rhadamanthus, 'then it's a fix! I

have damned him for ever, and better or worse than that cannot be done.

It is none of my business,' said he angrily, and he had the deputation

removed by force.

"But that did not ease the trouble. The contagion spread until ten

million billions of voices were chanting in unison, and uncountable

multitudes were listening between their pangs.

"'Who stole the threepenny-bit? Who stole the threepenny-bit?'

"That was still their cry. Heaven rang with it as well as hell. Space

was filled with that rhythmic tumult. Chaos and empty Nox had a new

discord added to their elemental throes. Another memorial was drafted

below, showing that unless the missing coin was restored to its owner

hell would have to close its doors. There was a veiled menace in the

memorial also, for Clause 6 hinted that if hell was allowed to go by the

board heaven might find itself in some jeopardy thereafter.

"The document was despatched and considered. In consequence a

proclamation was sent through all the wards of Paradise, calling on

whatever person, archangel, seraph, cherub, or acolyte, had found a

threepenny-piece since mid-day of the tenth August then instant, that

the same person, archangel, seraph, cherub, or acolyte, should deliver

the said threepenny-piece to Rhadamanthus at his Court, and should

receive in return a free pardon and a receipt.

"The coin was not delivered.

* * * * *

"The young seraph, Cuchulain, walked about like a person who was strange

to himself. He was not tormented: he was angry. He frowned, he cogitated

and fumed. He drew one golden curl through his fingers until it was lank

and drooping; save the end only, that was still a ripple of gold. He put

the end in his mouth and strode moodily chewing it. And every day his

feet turned in the same direction--down the long entrance boulevard,

through the mighty gates, along the strip of carved slabs, to that piled

wilderness where Rhadamanthus sat monumentally.

"Here delicately he went, sometimes with a hand outstretched to help his

foothold, standing for a space to think ere he jumped to a farther rock,

balancing himself for a moment ere he leaped again. So he would come to

stand and stare gloomily upon the judge.

"He would salute gravely, as was meet, and say, 'God bless the work';

but Rhadamanthus never replied, save by a nod, for he was very busy.

"Yet the judge did observe him, and would sometimes heave ponderous lids

to where he stood, and so, for a few seconds, they regarded each other

in an interval of that unceasing business.

"Sometimes for a minute or two the young seraph Cuchulain would look

from the judge to the judged as they crouched back or strained forward,

the good and the bad all in the same tremble of fear, all unknowing

which way their doom might lead. They did not look at each other. They

looked at the judge high on his ebon throne, and they could not look

away from him. There were those who knew, guessed clearly their doom;

abashed and flaccid they sat, quaking. There were some who were

uncertain--rabbit-eyed these, not less quaking than the others, biting

at their knuckles as they peeped upwards. There were those hopeful, yet

searching fearfully backwards in the wilderness of memory, chasing and

weighing their sins; and these last, even when their bliss was sealed

and their steps set on an easy path, went faltering, not daring to look

around again, their ears strained to catch a--'Halt, miscreant! this

other is your way!'

"So, day by day, he went to stand near the judge; and one day

Rhadamanthus, looking on him more intently, lifted his great hand and

pointed:

"'Go you among those to be judged,' said he.

"For Rhadamanthus knew. It was his business to look deep into the heart

and the mind, to fish for secrets in the pools of being,

"And the young seraph Cuchulain, still rolling his golden curl between

his lips, went obediently forward and set down his nodding plumes

between two who whimpered and stared and quaked.

"When his turn came, Rhadamanthus eyed him intently for a long time:

"'Well!' said Rhadamanthus.

"The young seraph Cuchulain blew the curl of gold from his lips: