The Crock of Gold (7 page)

"My father sent me to see you, sir, and to say that you were not doing a good thing in keeping Caitilin Ni Murrachu away from her own place."

Brigid Beg turned to Caitilin—

"Your father came to see our father, and he said that he didn't know what had become of you at all, and that maybe you were lying flat in a ditch with the black crows picking at your flesh."

"And what," said Pan, "did your father say to that?"

"He told us to come and ask her to go home."

"Do you love your father, little child?" said Pan.

Brigid Beg thought for a moment. "I don't know, sir," she replied.

"He doesn't mind us at all, "broke in Seumas Beg, "and so we don't know whether we love him or not."

"I like Caitilin," said Brigid, "and I like you."

"So do I," said Seumas.

"I like you also, little children," said Pan. "Come over here and sit beside me, and we will talk."

So the two children went over to Pan and sat down one on each side of him, and he put his arms about them.

"Daughter of Murrachu," said he, "is there no food in the house for guests?"

"There is a cake of bread, a little goat's milk and some cheese," she replied, and she set about getting these things.

"I never ate cheese," said Seumas. "Is it good?"

"Surely it is," replied Pan. "The cheese that is made from goat's milk is rather strong, and it is good to be eaten by people who live in the open air, but not by those who live in houses, for
such people do not have any appetite. They are poor creatures whom I do not like."

"I like eating," said Seumas.

"So do I," said Pan. "All good people like eating. Every person who is hungry is a good person, and every person who is not hungry is a bad person. It is better to be hungry than rich."

Caitilin having supplied the children with food, seated herself in front of them. "I don't think that is right," said she, "I have always been hungry, and it was never good."

"If you had always been full you would like it even less," he replied, "because when you are hungry you are alive, and when you are not hungry you are only half alive."

"One has to be poor to be hungry," replied Caitilin. "My father is poor and gets no good of it but to work from morning to night and never to stop doing that."

"It is bad for a wise person to be poor," said Pan, "and it is bad for a fool to be rich. A rich fool will think of nothing else at first but to find a dark house wherein to hide away, and there
he will satisfy his hunger, and he will continue to do that until his hunger is dead and he is no better than dead; but a wise person who is rich will carefully preserve his appetite. All people
who have been rich for a long time, or who are rich from birth, live a great deal outside of their houses, and so they are always hungry and healthy."

"Poor people have no time to be wise," said Caitilin.

"They have time to be hungry," said Pan. "I ask no more of them."

"My father is very wise," said Seumas Beg.

"How do you know that, little boy?" said Pan.

"Because he is always talking," replied Seumas.

"Do you always listen, my dear?"

"No, sir," said Seumas; "I go to sleep when he talks."

"That is very clever of you," said Pan.

"I go to sleep, too," said Brigid.

"It is clever of you also, my darling. Do you go to sleep when your mother talks?"

"Oh, no," she answered. "If we went to sleep then our mother would pinch us and say that we were a bad breed."

"I think your mother is wise," said Pan. "What do you like best in the world, Seumas Beg?"

The boy thought for a moment and replied—

"I don't know, sir."

Pan also thought for a little time.

"I don't know what I like best either," said he—"What do you like best in the world, Shepherd Girl?"

Caitilin's eyes were fixed on his.

"I don't know yet," she answered slowly.

"May the gods keep you safe from that knowledge," said Pan gravely.

"Why would you say that?" she replied. "One must find out all things, and when we find out a thing we know if it is good or bad."

"That is the beginning of knowledge," said Pan, "but it is not the beginning of wisdom."

"What is the beginning of wisdom?"

"It is carelessness," replied Pan.

"And what is the end of wisdom?" said she.

"I do not know," he answered, after a little pause.

"Is it greater carelessness?" she enquired.

"I do not know, I do not know," said he sharply. "I am tired of talking," and so saying he turned his face away from them and lay down on the couch.

Caitilin in great concern hurried the children to the door of the cave and kissed them good-bye.

"Pan is sick," said the boy gravely.

"I hope he will be well soon again," the girl murmured.

"Yes, yes," said Caitilin, and she ran back quickly to her lord.

BOOK II

THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOURNEY

BOOK II

CHAPTER X

When the children reached home they told the Philosopher the result of their visit. He questioned them minutely as to the appearance of Pan, how he had received them, and what he had said in
defence of his iniquities; but when he found that Pan had not returned any answer to his message he became very angry. He tried to persuade his wife to undertake another embassy setting forth his
abhorrence and defiance of the god, but the Thin Woman replied sourly that she was a respectable married woman, that having been already bereaved of her wisdom she had no desire to be further
curtailed of her virtue, that a husband would go any length to asperse his wife's reputation, and that although she was married to a fool her self-respect had survived even that calamity. The
Philosopher pointed out that her age, her appearance, and her tongue were sufficient guarantees of immunity against the machinations of either Pan or slander, and that he had no personal feelings
in the matter beyond a scientific and benevolent interest in the troubles of Meehawl MacMurrachu; but this was discounted by his wife as the malignant and subtle tactics customary to all
husbands.

Matters appeared to be thus at a deadlock so far as they were immediately concerned, and the Philosopher decided that he would lay the case before Angus Óg and implore his protection and
assistance on behalf of the Clan MacMurrachu. He, therefore, directed the Thin Woman to bake him two cakes of bread, and set about preparations for a journey.

The Thin Woman baked the cakes, and put them in a bag, and early on the following morning the Philosopher swung this bag over his shoulder, and went forth on his quest.

When he came to the edge of the pine wood, he halted for a few moments, not being quite certain of his bearings, and then went forward again in the direction of Gort na Cloca Mora. It came into
his mind as he crossed the Gort that he ought to call on the Leprecauns and have a talk with them, but a remembrance of Meehawl MacMurrachu and the troubles under which he laboured (all directly to
be traced to the Leprecauns) hardened his heart against his neighbours, so that he passed by the yew tree without any stay. In a short time he came to the rough, heather-clumped field, wherein the
children had found Pan, and as he was proceeding up the hill, he saw Caitilin Ni Murrachu walking a little way in front with a small vessel in her hand. The she-goat which she had just milked was
bending again to the herbage, and as Caitilin trod lightly in front of him the Philosopher closed his eyes in virtuous anger and opened them again in a not unnatural curiosity, for the girl had no
clothes on. He watched her going behind the brush and disappearing in the cleft of the rock, and his anger, both with her and Pan, mastering him he forsook the path of prudence which soared to the
mountain top, and followed that leading to the cave. The sound of his feet brought Caitilin out hastily, but he pushed her by with a harsh word. "Hussy," said he, and he went into the cave where
Pan was.

As he went in he already repented of his harshness and said—

"The human body is an aggregation of flesh and sinew, around a central bony structure. The use of clothing is primarily to protect this organism from rain and cold, and it may not be regarded as
the banner of morality without danger to this fundamental premise. If a person does not desire to be so protected who will quarrel with an honourable liberty? Decency is not clothing but Mind.
Morality is behaviour. Virtue is thought—

"I have often fancied," he continued to Pan, whom he was now confronting, "that the effect of clothing on mind must be very considerable, and that it must have a modifying rather than an
expanding effect, or, even, an intensifying as against an exuberant effect. With clothing the whole environment is immediately affected. The air, which is our proper medium, is only filtered to our
bodies in an abated and niggardly fashion which can scarcely be as beneficial as the generous and unintermitted elemental play. The question naturally arises whether clothing is as unknown to
nature as we have fancied? Viewed as a protective measure against atmospheric rigour we find that many creatures grow, by their own central impulse, some kind of exterior panoply which may be
regarded as their proper clothing. Bears, cats, dogs, mice, sheep and beavers are wrapped in fur, hair, fell, fleece or pelt, so these creatures cannot by any means be regarded as being naked.
Crabs, cockroaches, snails and cockles have ordered around them a crusty habiliment, wherein their original nakedness is only to be discovered by force, and other creatures have similarly provided
themselves with some species of covering. Clothing, therefore, is not an art, but an instinct, and the fact that man is born naked and does not grow his clothing upon himself from within but
collects it from various distant and haphazard sources is not any reason to call this necessity an instinct for decency. These, you will admit, are weighty reflections and worthy of consideration
before we proceed to the wide and thorny subject of moral and immoral action. Now, what is virtue?"—

Pan, who had listened with great courtesy to these remarks, here broke in on the Philosopher.

"Virtue," said he, "is the performance of pleasant actions."

The Philosopher held the statement for a moment on his forefinger.

"And what, then, is vice?" said he.

"It is vicious," said Pan, "to neglect the performance of pleasant actions."

"If this be so," the other commented, "philosophy has up to the present been on the wrong track."

"That is so," said Pan. "Philosophy is an immoral practice because it suggests a standard of practice impossible of being followed, and which, if it could be followed, would lead to the great
sin of sterility."

"The idea of virtue," said the Philosopher, with some indignation, "has animated the noblest intellects of the world."

"It has not animated them," replied Pan, "it has hypnotised them so that they have conceived virtue as repression and self-sacrifice as an honourable thing instead of the suicide which it
is."

"Indeed," said the Philosopher, "this is very interesting, and if it is true the whole conduct of life will have to be very much simplified."

"Life is already very simple," said Pan, "it is to be born and to die, and in the interval to eat and drink, to dance and sing, to marry and beget children."

"But it is simply materialism," cried the Philosopher.

"Why do you say 'but'?" replied Pan.

"It is sheer, unredeemed animalism," continued his visitor.

"It is any name you please to call it," replied Pan.

"You have proved nothing," the Philosopher shouted.

"What can be sensed requires no proof."

"You leave out the new thing," said the Philosopher. "You leave out brains. I believe in mind above matter. Thought above emotion. Spirit above flesh."

"Of course you do," said Pan, and he reached for his oaten pipe.

The Philosopher ran to the opening of the passage and thrust Caitilin aside. "Hussy," said he fiercely to her, and he darted out.

As he went up the rugged path, he could hear the pipes of Pan, calling and sobbing and making high merriment on the air.

CHAPTER XI

"She does not deserve to be rescued," said the Philosopher, "but I will rescue her. Indeed," he thought a moment later, "she does not want to be rescued, and,
therefore,
I will rescue
her."

As he went down the road her shapely figure floated before his eyes as beautiful and simple as an old statue. He wagged his head angrily at the apparition, but it would not go away. He tried to
concentrate his mind on a deep, philosophical maxim, but her disturbing image came between him and his thought, blotting out the latter so completely that a moment after he had stated his aphorism
he could not remember what it had been. Such a condition of mind was so unusual that it bewildered him.

"Is a mind, then, so unstable," said he, "that a mere figure, an animated geometrical arrangement can shake it from its foundations?"

The idea horrified him: he saw civilisation building its temples over a volcano. . . .

"A puff," said he, "and it is gone. Beneath all is chaos and red anarchy, over all a devouring and insistent appetite. Our eyes tell us what to think about, and our wisdom is no more than a
catalogue of sensual stimuli."

He would have been in a state of deep dejection were it not that through his perturbation there bubbled a stream of such amazing well-being as he had not felt since childhood. Years had toppled
from his shoulders. He left one pound of solid matter behind at every stride. His very skin grew flexuous, and he found a pleasure in taking long steps such as he could not have accounted for by
thought. Indeed, thought was the one thing he felt unequal to, and it was not precisely that he could not think but that he did not want to. All the importance and authority of his mind seemed to
have faded away, and the activity which had once belonged to that organ was now transferred to his eyes. He saw, amazedly, the sunshine bathing the hills and the valleys. A bird in the hedge held
him—beak, head, eyes, legs, and the wings that tapered widely at angles to the wind. For the first time in his life he really saw a bird, and one minute after it had flown away he could have
reproduced its strident note. With every step along the curving road the landscape was changing. He saw and noted it almost in an ecstasy. A sharp hill jutted out into the road, it dissolved into a
sloping meadow, rolled down into a valley and then climbed easily and peacefully into a hill again. On this side a clump of trees nodded together in the friendliest fashion. Yonder a solitary tree,
well-grown and clean, was contented with its own bright company. A bush crouched tightly on the ground as though, at a word, it would scamper from its place and chase rabbits across the sward with
shouts and laughter. Great spaces of sunshine were everywhere, and everywhere there were deep wells of shadow; and the one did not seem more beautiful than the other. That sunshine! Oh, the glory
of it, the goodness and bravery of it, how broadly and grandly it shone, without stint, without care; he saw its measureless generosity and gloried in it as though himself had been the flinger of
that largesse. And was he not? Did the sunlight not stream from his head and life from his finger tips? Surely the well-being that was in him did bubble out to an activity beyond the universe.
Thought! Oh! the petty thing! but motion! emotion! these were the realities. To feel, to do, to stride forward in elation chanting a pæan of triumphant life!