The Crock of Gold (5 page)

"I will do whatever you say if it is right," said she.

"You must not do anything because it is right, but because it is your wish. Right is a word and Wrong is a word, but the sun shines in the morning and the dew falls in the dusk without thinking
of these words which have no meaning. The bee flies to the flower and the seed goes abroad and is happy. Is that right, Shepherd Girl?—it is wrong also, I come to you because the bee goes to
the flower—it is wrong! If I did not come to you to whom would I go? There is no right and no wrong, but only the will of the gods."

"I am afraid of you," said the girl.

"You fear me because my legs are shaggy like the legs of a goat. Look at them well, O Maiden, and know that they are indeed the legs of a beast and then you will not be afraid any more. Do you
not love beasts? Surely you should love them for they yearn to you humbly or fiercely, craving your hand upon their heads as I do. If I were not fashioned thus I would not come to you because I
would not need you. Man is a god and a brute. He aspires to the stars with his head, but his feet are contented in the grasses of the field, and when he forsakes the brute upon which he stands then
there will be no more men and no more women and the immortal gods will blow this world away like smoke."

"I don't know what you want me to do," said the girl.

"I want you to want me. I want you to forget right and wrong; to be as happy as the beasts, as careless as the flowers and the birds. To live to the depths of your nature as well as to the
heights. Truly there are stars in the heights and they will be a garland for your forehead. But the depths are equal to the heights. Wondrous deep are the depths, very fertile is the lowest deep.
There are stars there also, brighter than the stars on high. The name of the heights is Wisdom and the name of the depths is Love. How shall they come together and be fruitful if you do not plunge
deeply and fearlessly? Wisdom is the spirit and the wings of the spirit, Love is the shaggy beast that goes down. Gallantly he dives, below thought, beyond Wisdom, to rise again as high above these
as he had first descended. Wisdom is righteous and clean, but Love is unclean and holy. I sing of the beast and the descent: the great unclean purging itself in fire: the thought that is not born
in the measure or the ice or the head, but in the feet and the hot blood and the pulse of fury. The Crown of Life is not lodged in the sun: the wise gods have buried it deeply where the thoughtful
will not find it, nor the good: but the Gay Ones, the Adventurous Ones, the Careless Plungers, they will bring it to the wise and astonish them. All things are seen in the light—How shall we
value that which is easy to see? But the precious things which are hidden, they will be more precious for our search: they will be beautiful with our sorrow: they will be noble because of our
desire for them. Come away with me, Shepherd Girl, through the fields and we will be careless and happy, and we will leave thought to find us when it can, for that is the duty of thought and it is
more anxious to discover us than we are to be found."

So Caitilin Ni Murrachu arose and went with him through the fields, and she did not go with him because of love, nor because his words had been understood by her, but only because he was naked
and unashamed.

CHAPTER VII

It was on account of his daughter that Meehawl MacMurrachu had come to visit the Philosopher. He did not know what had become of her, and the facts he had to lay before his adviser were very
few.

He left the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath taking snuff under a pine tree and went into the house.

"God be with all here," said he as he entered.

"God be with yourself, Meehawl MacMurrachu," said the Philosopher.

"I am in great trouble this day, sir," said Meehawl, "and if you would give me an advice I'd be greatly beholden to you."

"I can give you that," replied the Philosopher.

"None better than your honour and no trouble to you either. It was a powerful advice you gave me about the washboard, and if I didn't come here to thank you before this it was not because I
didn't want to come, but that I couldn't move hand or foot by dint of the cruel rheumatism put upon me by the Leprecauns of Gort na Cloca Mora, bad cess to them forever: twisted I was the way you'd
get a squint in your eye if you only looked at me, and the pain I suffered would astonish you."

"It would not," said the Philosopher.

"No matter," said Meehawl. "What I came about was my young daughter Caitilin. Sight or light of her I haven't had for three days. My wife said first that it was the fairies had taken her, and
then she said it was a travelling man that had a musical instrument she went away with, and after that she said that maybe the girl was lying dead in the butt of a ditch with her eyes wide open,
and she staring broadly at the moon in the night time and the sun in the day until the crows would be finding her out."

The Philosopher drew his chair closer to Meehawl.

"Daughters," said he, "have been a cause of anxiety to their parents ever since they were instituted. The flightiness of the female temperament is very evident in those who have not arrived at
the years which teach how to hide faults and frailties, and, therefore, indiscretions bristle from a young girl the way branches do from a bush."

"The person who would deny that—" said Meehawl.

"Female children, however, have the particular sanction of nature. They are produced in astonishing excess over males, and may, accordingly, be admitted as dominant to the male; but the
well-proven law that the minority shall always control the majority will relieve our minds from a fear which might otherwise become intolerable."

"It's true enough," said Meehawl. "Have you noticed, sir, that in a litter of pups—"

"I have not," said the Philosopher. "Certain trades and professions, it is curious to note, tend to be perpetuated in the female line. The sovereign profession among bees and ants is always
female, and publicans also descend on the distaff side. You will have noticed that every publican has three daughters of extraordinary charms. Lacking these signs we would do well to look askance
at such a man's liquor, divining that in his brew there will be an undue percentage of water, for if his primogeniture is infected how shall his honesty escape?"

"It would take a wise head to answer that," said Meehawl.

"It would not," said the Philosopher. "Throughout nature the female tends to polygamy."

"If," said Meehawl, "that unfortunate daughter of mine is lying dead in a ditch—"

"It doesn't matter," said the Philosopher. "Many races have endeavoured to place some limits to this increase in females. Certain Oriental peoples have conferred the titles of divinity on
crocodiles, serpents, and tigers of the jungle, and have fed these with their surplusage of daughters. In China, likewise, such sacrifices are defended as honourable and economic practices. But,
broadly speaking, if daughters have to be curtailed I prefer your method of losing them rather than the religio-hysterical compromises of the Orient."

"I give you my word, sir," said Meehawl, "that I don't know what you are talking about at all."

"That," said the Philosopher, "may be accounted for in three ways—firstly, there is a lack of cerebral continuity; that is, faulty attention: secondly, it might be due to a local
peculiarity in the conformation of the skull, or, perhaps, a superficial instead of a deep indenting of the cerebral coil; and thirdly—"

"Did you ever hear," said Meehawl, "of the man that had the scalp of his head blown off by a gun, and they soldered the bottom of a tin dish to the top of his skull the way you could hear his
brains ticking inside of it for all the world like a Waterbury watch?"

"I did not," said the Philosopher. "Thirdly, it may—"

"It's my daughter, Caitilin, sir," said Meehawl humbly. "Maybe she is lying in the butt of a ditch and the crows picking her eyes out."

"What did she die of?" said the Philosopher.

"My wife only put it that maybe she was dead, and that maybe she was taken by the fairies, and that maybe she went away with the travelling man that had the musical instrument. She said it was a
concertina, but I think myself it was a flute he had."

"Who was this traveller?"

"I never saw him," said Meehawl, "but one day I went a few perches up the hill and I heard him playing—thin, squeaky music it was like you'd be blowing out of a tin whistle. I looked about
for him everywhere, but not a bit of him could I see."

"Eh?" said the Philosopher.

"I looked about—" said Meehawl.

"I know," said the Philosopher. "Did you happen to look at your goats?"

"I couldn't well help doing that," said Meehawl.

"What were they doing?" said the Philosopher eagerly.

"They were pucking each other across the field, and standing on their hind legs and cutting such capers that I laughed till I had a pain in my stomach at the gait of them."

"This is very interesting," said the Philosopher.

"Do you tell me so?" said Meehawl.

"I do," said the Philosopher, "and for this reason—most of the races of the world have at one time or another—"

"It's my little daughter, Caitilin, sir," said Meehawl.

"I'm attending to her," the Philosopher replied.

"I thank you kindly," returned Meehawl.

The Philosopher continued—

"Most of the races of the world have at one time or another been visited by this deity, whose title is the 'Great God Pan,' but there is no record of his ever having journeyed to Ireland, and,
certainly within historic times, he has not set foot on these shores. He lived for a great number of years in Egypt, Persia, and Greece, and although his empire is supposed to be world-wide, this
universal sway has always been, and always will be, contested; but nevertheless, however sharply his empire may be curtailed, he will never be without a kingdom wherein his exercise of sovereign
rights will be gladly and passionately acclaimed."

"Is he one of the old gods, sir?" said Meehawl.

"He is," replied the Philosopher, "and his coming intends no good to this country. Have you any idea why he should have captured your daughter?"

"Not an idea in the world."

"Is your daughter beautiful?"

"I couldn't tell you, because I never thought of looking at her that way. But she is a good milker, and as strong as a man. She can lift a bag of meal under her arm easier than I can; but she's
a timid creature for all that."

"Whatever the reason is I am certain that he has the girl, and I am inclined to think that he was directed to her by the Leprecauns of the Gort. You know they are at feud with you ever since
their bird was killed?"

"I am not likely to forget it, and they racking me day and night with torments."

"You may be sure," said the Philosopher, "that if he's anywhere at all it's at Gort na Cloca Mora he is, for, being a stranger, he wouldn't know where to go unless he was directed, and they know
every hole and corner of this countryside since ancient times. I'd go up myself and have a talk with him, but it wouldn't be a bit of good, and it wouldn't be any use your going either. He has
power over all grown people so that they either go and get drunk or else they fall in love with every person they meet, and commit assaults and things I wouldn't like to be telling you about. The
only folk who can go near him at all are little children, because he has no power over them until they grow to the sensual age, and then he exercises lordship over them as over every one else. I'll
send my two children with a message to him to say that he isn't doing the decent thing, and that if he doesn't let the girl alone and go back to his own country we'll send for Angus Óg."

"He'd make short work of him, I'm thinking."

"He might surely; but he may take the girl for himself all the same."

"Well, I'd sooner he had her than the other one, for he's one of ourselves anyhow, and the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know."

"Angus Óg is a god," said the Philosopher severely.

"I know that, sir," replied Meehawl; "it's only a way of talking I have. But how will your honour get at Angus? for I heard say that he hadn't been seen for a hundred years, except one night
only when he talked to a man for half an hour on Kilmasheogue."

"I'll find him, sure enough," replied the Philosopher.

"I'll warrant you will," replied Meehawl heartily as he stood up. "Long life and good health to your honour," said he as he turned away.

The Philosopher lit his pipe.

"We live as long as we are let," said he, "and we get the health we deserve. Your salutation embodies a reflection on death which is not philosophic. We must acquiesce in all logical
progressions. The merging of opposites is completion. Life runs to death as to its goal, and we should go towards that next stage of experience either carelessly as to what must be, or with a good,
honest curiosity as to what may be."

"There's not much fun in being dead, sir," said Meehawl.

"How do you know?" said the Philosopher.

"I know well enough," replied Meehawl.

CHAPTER VIII

When the children leaped into the hole at the foot of the tree they found themselves sliding down a dark, narrow slant which dropped them softly enough into a little room. This room was hollowed
out immediately under the tree, and great care had been taken not to disturb any of the roots which ran here and there through the chamber in the strangest criss-cross, twisted fashion. To get
across such a place one had to walk round, and jump over, and duck under perpetually. Some of the roots had formed themselves very conveniently into low seats and narrow, uneven tables, and at the
bottom all the roots ran into the floor and away again in the direction required by their business. After the clear air outside this place was very dark to the children's eyes, so that they could
not see anything for a few minutes, but after a little time their eyes became accustomed to the semi-obscurity and they were able to see quite well. The first things they became aware of were six
small men who were seated on low roots. They were all dressed in tight, green clothes and little leathern aprons, and they wore tall green hats which wobbled when they moved. They were all busily
engaged making shoes. One was drawing out wax ends on his knee, another was softening pieces of leather in a bucket of water, another was polishing the instep of a shoe with a piece of curved bone,
another was paring down a heel with a short, broad-bladed knife, and another was hammering wooden pegs into a sole. He had all the pegs in his mouth, which gave him a wide-faced, jolly expression,
and according as a peg was wanted he blew it into his hand and hit it twice with his hammer, and then he blew another peg, and he always blew the peg with the right end uppermost, and never had to
hit it more than twice. He was a person well worth watching.