The Crock of Gold (10 page)

One of the men took a long bottle out of the cart and walked up the road with it. The other man lifted out a tin bucket which was punched all over with jagged holes. Then he took out some sods
of turf and lumps of wood and he put these in the bucket, and in a few minutes he had a very nice fire lit. A pot of water was put on to boil, and the woman cut up a great lump of bacon which she
put into the pot. She had eight eggs in a place in the cart, and a flat loaf of bread, and some cold, boiled potatoes, and she spread her apron on the ground and arranged these things on it.

The other man came down the road again with his big bottle filled with porter, and he put this in a safe place. Then they emptied everything out of the cart, and hoisted it over the little wall.
They turned the cart on one side and pulled it near to the fire, and they all sat inside the cart and ate their supper. When supper was done they lit their pipes, and the woman lit a pipe also. The
bottle of porter was brought forward, and they took drinks in turn out of the bottle, and smoked their pipes, and talked.

There was no moon that night, and no stars, so that just beyond the fire there was a thick darkness which one would not like to look at, it was so cold and empty. While talking they all kept
their eyes fixed on the red fire, or watched the smoke from their pipes drifting and curling away against the blackness, and disappearing as suddenly as lightning.

"I wonder," said the first man, "what it was gave you the idea of marrying this man instead of myself or my comrade, for we are young, hardy men, and he is getting old, God help him!"

"Aye, indeed," said the second man, "he's as grey as a badger, and there's no flesh on his bones."

"You have a right to ask that," said she, "and I'll tell you why I didn't marry either of you. You are only a pair of tinkers going from one place to another, and not knowing anything at all of
fine things; but himself was walking along the road looking for strange, high adventures, and it's a man like that a woman would be wishing to marry if he was twice as old as he is. When did either
of you go out in the daylight looking for a god and you not caring what might happen to you or where you went?"

"What I'm thinking," said the second man, "is that if you leave the gods alone they'll leave you alone. It's no trouble to them to do whatever is right themselves, and what call would men like
us have to go mixing or meddling with their high affairs?"

"I thought all along that you were a timid man," said she, "and now I know it. She turned again to the Philosopher, "Take off your boots, Mister Honey, the way you'll rest easy, and I'll be
making down a soft bed for you in the cart."

In order to take off his boots the Philosopher had to stand up, for in the cart they were too cramped for freedom. He moved backwards a space from the fire and took off his boots. He could see
the woman stretching sacks and clothes inside the cart, and the two men smoking quietly and handing the big bottle from one to the other. Then in his stockinged feet he stepped a little farther
from the fire, and, after another look, he turned and walked quietly away into the blackness. In a few minutes he heard a shout from behind him, and then a number of shouts, and then these died
away into a plaintive murmur of voices, and next he was alone in the greatest darkness he had ever known.

He put on his boots and walked onwards. He had no idea where the road lay, and every moment he stumbled into a patch of heather or prickly furze. The ground was very uneven with unexpected
mounds and deep hollows: here and there were water-soaked, soggy places, and into these cold ruins he sank ankle deep. There was no longer an earth or a sky, but only a black void and a thin wind
and a fierce silence which seemed to listen to him as he went. Out of that silence a thundering laugh might boom at an instant and stop again while he stood appalled in the blind vacancy.

The hill began to grow more steep and rocks were lying everywhere in his path. He could not see an inch in front, and so he went with his hands outstretched like a blind man who stumbles
painfully along. After a time he was nearly worn out with cold and weariness, but he dared not sit down anywhere; the darkness was so intense that it frightened him, and the overwhelming, crafty
silence frightened him also.

At last, and at a great distance, he saw a flickering, waving light, and he went towards this through drifts of heather, and over piled rocks and sodden bogland. When he came to the light he saw
it was a torch of thick branches, the flame whereof blew hither and thither on the wind. The torch was fastened against a great cliff of granite by an iron band. At one side there was a dark
opening in the rock, so he said: "I will go in there and sleep until the morning comes," and he went in. At a very short distance the cleft turned again to the right, and here there was another
torch fixed. When he turned this corner he stood for an instant in speechless astonishment, and then he covered his face and bowed down upon the ground.

BOOK III

THE TWO GODS

BOOK III

CHAPTER XII

Caitilin Ni Murrachu was sitting alone in the little cave behind Gort na Cloca Mora. Her companion had gone out as was his custom to walk in the sunny morning and to sound his pipe in desolate,
green spaces whence, perhaps, the wanderer of his desire might hear the guiding sweetness. As she sat she was thinking. The last few days had awakened her body, and had also awakened her mind, for
with the one awakening comes the other. The despondency which had touched her previously when tending her father's cattle came to her again, but recognisably now. She knew the thing which the wind
had whispered in the sloping field and for which she had no name—it was Happiness. Faintly she shadowed it forth, but yet she could not see it. It was only a pearl-pale wraith, almost
formless, too tenuous to be touched by her hands, and too aloof to be spoken to. Pan had told her that he was the giver of happiness, but he had given her only unrest and fever and a longing which
could not be satisfied. Again there was a want, and she could not formulate, or even realise it with any closeness. Her newborn Thought had promised everything, even as Pan, and it had
given—she could not say that it had given her nothing or anything. Its limits were too quickly divinable. She had found the Tree of Knowledge, but about on every side a great wall soared
blackly enclosing her in from the Tree of Life—a wall which her thought was unable to surmount even while instinct urged that it must topple before her advance, but instinct may not advance
when thought has schooled it in the science of unbelief; and this wall will not be conquered until Thought and Instinct are wed, and the first son of that bridal will be called The Scaler of the
Wall.

So, after the quiet weariness of ignorance, the unquiet weariness of thought had fallen upon her. That travail of mind which, through countless generations, has throed to the birth of an
ecstasy, the prophecy which humanity has sworn must be fulfilled, seeing through whatever mists and doubtings the vision of a gaiety wherein the innocence of the morning will not any longer be
strange to our maturity.

While she was so thinking Pan returned, a little disheartened that he had found no person to listen to his pipings. He had been seated but a little time when suddenly, from without, a chorus of
birds burst into joyous singing. Limpid and liquid cadenzas, mellow flutings, and the sweet treble of infancy met and danced and piped in the airy soundings. A round, soft tenderness of song rose
and fell, broadened and soared, and then the high flight was snatched, eddied a moment, and was borne away to a more slender and wonderful loftiness, until, from afar, that thrilling song turned on
the very apex of sweetness, dipped steeply and flashed its joyous return to the exultations of its mates below, rolling an ecstasy of song which for one moment gladdened the whole world and the sad
people who moved thereon; then the singing ceased as suddenly as it began, a swift shadow darkened the passage, and Angus Óg came into the cave.

Caitilin sprang from her seat affrighted, and Pan also made a half movement towards rising, but instantly sank back again to his negligent, easy posture.

The god was slender and as swift as a wind. His hair swung about his face like golden blossoms. His eyes were mild and dancing and his lips smiled with quiet sweetness. About his head there flew
perpetually a ring of singing birds, and when he spoke his voice came sweetly from a centre of sweetness.

"Health to you, daughter of Murrachu," said he, and he sat down.

"I do not know you, sir," the terrified girl whispered.

"I cannot be known until I make myself known," he replied. "I am called Infinite Joy, O daughter of Murrachu, and I am called Love."

The girl gazed doubtfully from one to the other.

Pan looked up from his pipes.

"I also am called Love," said he gently, "and I am called Joy."

Angus Óg looked for the first time at Pan.

"Singer of the Vine," said he, "I know your names—they are Desire and Fever and Lust and Death. Why have you come from your own place to spy upon my pastures and my quiet fields?"

Pan replied mildly.

"The mortal gods move by the Immortal Will, and, therefore, I am here."

"And I am here," said Angus.

"Give me a sign," said Pan, "that I must go."

Angus Óg lifted his hand and from without there came again the triumphant music of the birds.

"It is a sign," said he, "the voice of Dana speaking in the air," and, saying so, he made obeisance to the great mother.

Pan lifted his hand, and from afar there came the lowing of the cattle and the thin voices of the goats.

"It is a sign," said he, "the voice of Demeter speaking from the earth," and he also bowed deeply to the mother of the world.

Again Angus Óg lifted his hand, and in it there appeared a spear, bright and very terrible.

But Pan only said, "Can a spear divine the Eternal Will?" and Angus Óg put his weapon aside, and he said—

"The girl will choose between us, for the Divine Mood shines in the heart of man."

Then Caitilin Ni Murrachu came forward and sat between the gods, but Pan stretched out his hand and drew her to him, so that she sat resting against his shoulder and his arm was about her
body.

"We will peak the truth to this girl," said Angus Óg.

"Can the gods speak otherwise?" said Pan, and he laughed with delight.

"It is the difference between us," replied Angus Óg. "She will judge."

"Shepherd Girl," said Pan, pressing her with his arm, "you will judge between us. Do you know what is the greatest thing in the world—because it is of that you will have to judge."

"I have heard," the girl replied, "two things called the greatest things. You," she continued to Pan, "said it was Hunger, and long ago my father said that Commonsense was the greatest thing in
the world."

"I have not told you," said Angus Óg, "what I consider is the greatest thing in the world."

"It is your right to speak," said Pan.

"The greatest thing in the world," said Angus Óg, "is the Divine Imagination."

"Now," said Pan, "we know all the greatest things and we can talk of them."

"The daughter of Murrachu," continued Angus Óg, "has told us what you think and what her father thinks, but she has not told us what she thinks herself. Tell us, Caitilin Ni Murrachu,
what you think is the greatest thing in the world."

So Caitilin Ni Murrachu thought for a few moments and then replied timidly.

"I think that Happiness is the greatest thing in the world," said she.

Hearing this they sat in silence for a little time, and then Angus Óg spoke again—

"The Divine Imagination may only be known through the thoughts of His creatures. A man has said Commonsense and a woman has said Happiness are the greatest things in the world. These things are
male and female, for Commonsense is Thought and Happiness is Emotion, and until they embrace in Love the will of Immensity cannot be fruitful. For, behold, there has been no marriage of humanity
since time began. Men have but coupled with their own shadows. The desire that sprang from their heads they pursued, and no man has yet known the love of a woman. And women have mated with the
shadows of their own hearts, thinking fondly that the arms of men were about them. I saw my son dancing with an Idea, and I said to him, 'With what do you dance, my son?' and he replied, 'I make
merry with the wife of my affection,' and truly she was shaped as a woman is shaped, but it was an Idea he danced with and not a woman. And presently he went away to his labours, and then his Idea
arose and her humanity came upon her so that she was clothed with beauty and terror, and she went apart and danced with the servant of my son, and there was great joy of that dancing—for a
person in the wrong place is an Idea and not a person. Man is Thought and woman is Intuition, and they have never mated. There is a gulf between them and it is called Fear, and what they fear is,
that their strengths shall be taken from them and they may no longer be tyrants. The Eternal has made love blind, for it is not by science, but by intuition alone, that he may come to his beloved:
but desire, which is science, has many eyes and sees so vastly that he passes his love in the press, saying there is no love, and he propagates miserably on his own delusions. The finger tips are
guided by God, but the devil looks through the eyes of all creatures so that they may wander in the errors of reason and justify themselves of their wanderings. The desire of a man shall be Beauty,
but he has fashioned a slave in his mind and called it Virtue. The desire of a woman shall be Wisdom, but she has formed a beast in her blood and called it Courage: but the real virtue is courage,
and the real courage is liberty, and the real liberty is wisdom, and Wisdom is the son of Thought and Intuition; and his names also are Innocence and Adoration and Happiness."

When Angus Óg had said these words he ceased, and for a time there was silence in the little cave. Caitilin had covered her face with her hands and would not look at him, but Pan drew the
girl closer to his side and peered sideways, laughing at Angus.