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, forhis 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 certainsmall 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 heagain 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 someother 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 andstrengthened, 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 threenights,' 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 shoutingand 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 havedamned 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 piledwilderness 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 hisbusiness 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:
"'Findings are keepings,' said he loudly, and he closed his mouth and stared very impertinently at the judge.
"'It is to be given up,' said the judge.
"'Let them come and take it from me,' said the seraph Cuchulain. And suddenly (for these things are at the will of spirits) around his head the lightnings span, and his hands were on the necks of thunders.
"For the second time in his life Rhadamanthus was disturbed, again he scratched his head:
"'It's a fix,' said he moodily. But in a moment he called to those whose duty it was:
"'Take him to this side,' he roared.
"And they advanced. But the seraph Cuchulain swung to meet them, and his golden hair blazed and shrieked; and the thunders rolled at his feet, and about him a bright network that hissed and stung—and those who advanced turned haltingly backwards and ran screaming.
"'It's a fix,' said Rhadamanthus; and for a little time he stared menacingly at the seraph Cuchulain.
"But only for a little time. Suddenly he put his hands on the rests of his throne and heaved upwards his terrific bulk. Never before had Rhadamanthus stood from his ordained chair. He strode mightily forward and in an instant had quelled that rebel. The thunders and lightnings were but moonbeams and dew on that stony carcass. He seized the seraph Cuchulain, lifted him to his breast as one lifts a sparrow, and tramped back with him:
"'Fetch me that other,' said he sternly, and he sat down.
"Those whose duty it was sped swiftly downwards to find Brien of the O'Brien nation; and while they were gone, all in vain the seraph Cuchulain crushed flamy barbs against that bosom of doom. Now, indeed, his golden locks were drooping and his plumes were broken and tossed; but his fierce eye still glared courageously against the nipple of Rhadamanthus.
"Soon they brought Brien. He was a sight of woe—howling, naked as a tree in winter, black as a tarred wall, carved and gashed, tattered in all but his throat, wherewith, until one's ears rebelled, he bawled his one demand.
"But the sudden light struck him to a wondering silence, and the sight of the judge holding the seraph Cuchulain like a limp flower to his breast held him gaping.
"'Bring him here,' said Rhadamanthus.
"And they brought him to the steps of the throne.
"'You have lost a medal!' said Rhadamanthus. 'This one has it.'
"Brien looked straitly at the seraph Cuchulain.
"Rhadamanthus stood again, whirled his arm in an enormous arc, jerked, and let go, and the seraph Cuchulain went swirling through space like a slung stone.
"'Go after him, Kerryman' said Rhadamanthus, stooping; and he seized Brien by the leg, whirled him wide and out and far; dizzy, dizzy as a swooping comet, and down, and down, and down.
"Rhadamanthus seated himself. He motioned with his hand.
"'Next,' said he coldly.
"Down went the seraph Cuchulain, swirling in wide tumbles, scarcely visible for quickness. Sometimes, with outstretched hands, he was a cross that dropped plumb. Anon, head urgently downwards, he dived steeply. Again, like a living hoop, head and heels together, he spun giddily. Blind, deaf, dumb, breathless, mindless; andbehind him Brien of the O'Brien nation came pelting and whizzing.
"What of that journey? Who could give it words? Of the suns that appeared and disappeared like winkling eyes. Comets that shone for an instant, went black and vanished. Moons that came, and stood, and were gone. And around all, including all, boundless space, boundless silence; the black unmoving void—the deep, unending quietude, through which they fell with Saturn and Orion, and mildly-smiling Venus, and the fair, stark-naked moon, and the decent earth wreathed in pearl and blue. From afar she appeared, the quiet one, all lonely in the void. As sudden as a fair face in a crowded street. Beautiful as the sound of falling waters. Beautiful as the sound of music in a silence. Like a white sail on a windy sea. Like a green tree in a solitary place. Chaste and wonderful she appeared. Flying afar. Flying aloft like a joyous bird when the morning breaks on the darkness and he shrills sweet tidings. Shesoared and sang. Gently she sang to timid pipes and flutes of tender straw and murmuring, distant strings. A song that grew and swelled, gathering to a multitudinous, deep-thundered harmony, until the overburdened ear failed before the appalling uproar of her ecstasy, and denounced her. No longer a star! No longer a bird! A plumed and horned fury! Gigantic, gigantic, leaping and shrieking tempestuously, spouting whirlwinds of lightning, tearing gluttonously along her path, avid, rampant, howling with rage and terror she leaped, dreadfully she leaped and flew....
"Enough! They hit the earth—they were not smashed, there was that virtue in them. They hit the ground just outside the village of Donnybrook where the back road runs to the hills; and scarcely had they bumped twice when Brien of the O'Brien nation had the seraph Cuchulain by the throat.
"'My threepenny-bit,' he roared, with one fist up.
"But the seraph Cuchulain only laughed:
"'That!' said he. 'Look at me, man. Your little medal dropped far beyond the rings of Saturn.'
"And Brien stood back looking at him—He was as naked as Brien was. He was as naked as a stone, or an eel, or a pot, or a new-born babe. He was very naked.
"So Brien of the O'Brien nation strode across the path and sat down by the side of a hedge:
"'The first man that passes this way,' said he, 'will give me his clothes, or I'll strangle him.'
"The seraph Cuchulain walked over to him:
"'I will take the clothes of the second man that passes,' said he, and he sat down."
"And then," said Mac Cann thoughtfully, "we came along, and they stole our clothes."
"That wasn't a bad tale," he continued to Caeltia. "You are as good a story-teller, mister, as the man himself," pointing to Billy the Music.
Billy replied modestly:
"It's because the stories were good ones that they were well told, for that's not my trade, and what wonder would it be if I made a botch of it? I'm a musician myself, as I told you, and there's my instrument, but I knew an old man in Connaught one time, and he was a great lad for the stories. He used to make his money at it, and if that man was to break off in the middle of a tale the people would stand up and kill him, they would so. He was a gifted man, for he would tell you a story about nothingat all, and you'd listen to him with your mouth open and you afraid that he would come to the end of it soon, and maybe it would be nothing more than the tale of how a white hen laid a brown egg. He would tell you a thing you knew all your life, and you would think it was a new thing. There was no old age in that man's mind, and that's the secret of story-telling."
Said Mary:
"I could listen to a story for a day and a night."
Her father nodded acquiescence:
"So could I, if it was a good story and well told, and I would be ready to listen to another one after that."
He turned to Art:
"You were saying yourself, sonny, that there was a story in your head, and if that's so, now is your chance to tell it; but I'm doubting you'll be able to do it as well as the two men here, for you are a youngster, and story-telling is an old man's trade."
"I'll do my best," said Art, "but I nevertold a story in my life, and it may not be a good one at the first attempt."
"That's all right," replied Mac Cann encouragingly. "We won't be hard on you."
"Sure enough," said Billy the Music, "and you've listened to the lot of us, so you will know the road."
"What are you going to talk about?" said Caeltia.
"I'm going to talk about Brien O'Brien, the same as the rest of you."
"Did you know him too?" cried Billy.
"I did."
"There isn't a person doesn't know that man," growled Patsy. "Maybe," and he grinned ferociously as he said it, "maybe we'll meet him on the road and he tramping, and perhaps he will tell us a story himself."
"That man could not tell a story," Finaun interrupted, "for he has no memory, and that is a thing a good story-teller ought to have."
"If we meet him," said Mac Cann grimly,"I'll do something to him and he'll remember it, and it's likely that he will be able to make a story out of it too."
"I only saw him once," said Art, "but when Rhadamanthus tossed him through the void I recognised his face, although so long a time had elapsed since I did see him. He is now less than he was, but he is, nevertheless, much more than I had expected he would be."
"What is he now?" said Billy the Music.
"He is a man."
"We are all that," said Patsy, "and it isn't any trouble to us."
"It was more trouble than you imagine," said Finaun.
"I had expected him to be no more than one of the higher animals, or even that he might have been dissipated completely from existence."
"What was he at the time you met him?"
"He was a magician, and he was one of the most powerful magicians that ever lived.He was a being of the fifth round, and he had discovered many secrets."
"I have known magicians," commented Finaun, "and I always found that they were fools."
"Brien O'Brien destroyed himself," Art continued, "he forfeited his evolution and added treble to his karmic burden because he had not got a sense of humour."
"No magician has a sense of humour," remarked Finaun, "he could not be a magician if he had—Humour is the health of the mind."
"That," Art broke in, "is one of the things he said to me. So you see he had discovered something. He was very near to being a wise man. He was certainly a courageous man, or, perhaps, foolhardy; but he was as serious as a fog, and he could not bring himself to believe it."
"Tell us the story," said Caeltia.
"Here it is," said Art.
"On a day long ago I laboured with the Army of the Voice. The first syllable of the great word had been uttered, and in far eastern space, beyond seven of the flaming wheels, I and the six sons drew the lives together and held them for the whirlwind which is the one. We were waiting for the second syllable to form the wind.
"As I stood by my place holding the north in quietness, I felt a strong vibration between my hands. Something was interfering with me. I could not let go, but I looked behind me, and there I saw a man standing, and he was weaving spells.
"It was a short, dark man with a little bristle of black whisker on his chin and a stiff bristle of black hair on his head. He was standing inside a double triangle having the points upwards, and there were magicalsigns at each point of the triangles. While I looked, he threw around him from side to side a flaming circle, and then he threw a flaming circle about him from front to back, and he span these so quickly that he was surrounded by a wall of fire.
"At him, on the instant, I charged a bolt, but it could not penetrate his circles; it hit them and fell harmless, for the circles had a greater speed than my thunderbolt.
"He stood so in the triangles, laughing at me and scratching his chin.
"I dared not loose my hands again lest the labour of a cycle should be dissipated in an instant, and it was no use shouting to the others, for they also were holding the lives in readiness for the whirlwind which would shape them to a globe, so the man had me at his mercy.
"He was working against my grip, and he had amazing power. He had somehow discovered part of the first syllable of the great word, and he was intoning this on me between giggles, but he could not destroy us,for together we were equal to the number of that syllable.
"When I looked at him again he laughed at me, and what he said astonished me greatly.
"'This,' said he, 'is very funny.'
"I made no reply to him, being intent only on holding my grip; but I was reassured, for, although he poured on me incessantly the great sound, its effect was neutralised, for I am a number, and in totality we were the numbers; nevertheless the substance did strain and heave so powerfully that I could do no more than hold it in place.
"The man spoke to me again. Said he:
"'Do you not think that this is very funny?'
"I made no answer for a time, and then I said:
"'Who are you?'
"'A name,' he replied, 'is a power; I won't give you my name although I wouldlike to, for this is a great deed and a funny one.'
"'What is your planet?' quoth I.
"'I won't tell you that,' he replied; 'you might read my signs and come after me later on.'
"I could not but admire the immense impertinence of his deed.
"'I know your sign,' said I, 'for you have already made it three times with your hand, and there is only one planet of these systems which has evolved the fifth race, so I know your planet. Your symbol is the Mule, and Uriel is your Regent; he will be coming after you soon, so you had better go away while you have time.'
"'If he comes,' said the man, 'I'll put him in a bottle, and I'll put you in a bottle too. I won't go for another while, the joke is too good, and this is only the commencement of it.'
"'You will be caught by the second syllable,' I warned him.
"'I'll put it in a bottle,' said he grinningat me. 'No,' he continued, 'I won't be caught, I've made my calculations, and it's not due yet a while.'
"Again he poured on me the great sound until I rocked to and fro like a bush in the wind; but he could not loose my grip, for I was a part of the word.
"'Why are you doing this?' I asked him.
"'I'll tell you that,' he replied.
"'I am two things, and I am great in each of these two things. I am a great magician, and I am a great humourist. Now, it is very easy to prove that one is a magician, for one has only to do things and then people are astonished; they are filled with fear and wonder; they fall down and worship and call one god and master. But it is not so easy to be a humourist, because in that case it is necessary to make people laugh. If a man is to be a magician it is necessary, if his art is to be appreciated, that the people around him be fools. If a person desires to be a humourist it is necessary that the people around him shallbe at least as wise as he is, otherwise his humour will not be comprehended. You see my predicament! and it is a cruel one, for I cannot forego either of these ambitions—they are my karma. Laughter is purely an intellectual quality, and in my planet I have no intellectual equals: my jokes can only be enjoyed by myself, and it is of the essence of humour that one share it, or it turns to ill-health and cynicism and mental sourness. My humour cannot be shared with the people of my planet, for they are all half a round beneath me—they can never see the joke, they only see consequences, and these blind them to the rich drollery of any affair, and render me discontented and angry. My humour is too great for them, for it is not terrestrial but cosmic; it can only be appreciated by the gods, therefore, I have come out here to seek my peers and to have at least one hearty laugh with them.'
"'One must laugh,' he continued, 'for laughter is the health of the mind, and I have not laughed for a crore of seasons.'
"Thereupon he took up the syllable and intoned its flooding sound so that the matter beneath my hands strained against me almost unbearably.
"I turned my head and stared at the little man as he laughed happily to himself and scraped his chin.
"'You are a fool,' said I to that man.
"The smile vanished from his face and a shade of dejection took its place.
"'Is it possible, Regent, that you have no sense of humour!' said he.
"'This,' I replied, 'is not humorous; it is only a practical joke; it is no more than incipient humour; there is no joke in it but only mischief, for to interfere with work is the humour of a babe or a monkey. You are a thoroughly serious person, and you will not make a joke in ten eternities; that also is in your karma.'
"At these words his eyes brooded on me darkly, and an expression of real malignancy came on his face: he stamped at me from the triangles and hissed with rage.
"'I'll show you something else,' said he, 'and if it doesn't make you laugh it will make everybody else who hears about it laugh for an age.'
"I saw that he was meditating a personal evil to me, but I was powerless, for I could not let go my grip on the substance.
"He lifted his hands against me then, but, at the moment, there came a sound, so low, so deep, it could scarcely be heard, and with equal strong intensity the sound pervaded all the spaces and brooded in every point and atom with its thrilling breath—we were about to shape to the whirlwind.
"The man's hands fell, and he stared at me.
"'Oh!' said he, and he said 'Oh' three times in a whisper.
"The sound was the beginning of the second syllable.
"'I thought I had time,' he gasped: 'my calculations were wrong.'
"'The joke is against you,' said I to the man.
"'What will I do?' he screamed.
"'Laugh,' I replied, 'laugh at the joke.'
"Already his flying circles had ceased to revolve, and their broad flame was no more than a blue flicker that disappeared even as I looked at them. He stood only in the triangles, and he was open to my vengeance. His staring, haggard eyes fell on the bolt in my hand.
"'There is no need for that,' said he, and he did speak with some small dignity, 'I am caught by the sound, and there is an end to me.'
"And that was true, so I did not loose my bolt.
"Already his triangles were crumbling. He sank on his haunches, clasped his hands about his legs and bowed his head on his knees. I could see that he knew all was lost, and that he was making a last desperate effort to guard his entity from dissolution, and he succeeded, for, one instant before the triangles had disappeared, he had vanished, but he could nothave entirely escaped the sound, that was impossible, and if he reached his planet it must have been as a life of the third round instead of the fifth to which he had attained. He had the entire of his evolution to perform over again and had, moreover, added weightily to his karmic disabilities.
"I saw him no more, nor did I hear of him again until the day when Brien O'Brien was thrown from the gates, and then I knew that he and O'Brien were the same being, and that he had really escaped and was a fourth round life of the lowest globe.
"Perhaps he will be heard of again, for he is an energetic and restless being to whom an environment is an enemy and to whom humour is an ambition and a mystery."
"That is the end of my story," said Art modestly.
Mac Cann regarded him indulgently from a cloud of smoke:
"It wasn't as good as the other ones," heremarked, "but that's not your fault, and you're young into the bargain."
"He is not as young as he looks," remarked Finaun.
"A good story has to be about ordinary things," continued Patsy, "but there isn't anybody could tell what your story was about."
Billy the Music here broke in:
"The person I would have liked to hear more of is Cuchulain, for he is my own guardian angel and it's him I'm interested in. The next time I meet him I'll ask him questions."
He glanced around the circle:
"Is there anybody would like to hear a tune on the concertina? I have it by my hand here, and the evening is before us."
"You can play it for us the next time we meet," said Patsy, "for we are all tired listening to the stories, and you are tired yourself."
He lifted to his feet then and yawnedheartily with his arms at full stretch and his fists clenched:
"We had better be moving," he continued, "for the evening is coming on and it's twenty miles to the fair."
They harnessed the ass.
"I'm going the opposite way to you," said Billy the Music.
"All right," said Patsy. "God be with you, mister."
"God be with yourselves," replied Billy the Music.
He tramped off then in his own direction, while Mac Cann and his companions took their road with the ass.
BOOK IV
MARY MAC CANN
The search for work and food led them back, but by different paths, through Kerry, up into Connemara, and thence by stony regions to Donegal again and the rugged hills.
Their days were uneventful but they were peaceful: their nights were pleasant, and seldom did they lack for even one meal in the day. When they did so lack they passed the unwelcome hour in the silence of those to whom such an hiatus was not singular. Under Mac Cann's captaincy the tiny band moved from meal to meal as another army would invest and sack and depart from the cities on its route.
Sometimes at night a ballad-singer would stray on their road, an angry man from whom no person had purchased songs for two days, and in return for victual this onewould entertain them with his lays and recite the curses he had composed against those who did not pay the musician.
Sometimes they came on gatherings of tinkers and pedlars, tramps, and trick-men, and in the midst of these they would journey towards a fair. Uproarious nights then! Wild throats yelling at the stars and much loud trampling on the roads as the women fought and screeched, and the men howled criticism and encouragement, and came by mere criticism themselves to the battle. Paltry onslaughts these, more of word than of weapon to the fray that left some blooded noses and swollen lips as the one hour memorial of their deeds.
And again the peaceful nights, the calm stars, the quiet moon strewing her path in silver; space for the eye, the ear, and the soul; the whispering of lovely trees; the unending rustle of the grass, and the wind that came and went away and came, chanting its long rhythms or hushing its chill lullaby by the fields and the hills.
On a day when they had finished eating Finaun beckoned Caeltia and Art aside and they spoke closely together. Turning to Mac Cann and his daughter Finaun said:
"We have finished what we came to do, my friends."
Patsy nodded frowningly at him.
"What was it you came to do?"
"I came to give help to the powers," said Finaun mildly.
"I didn't see you doing much," replied Patsy.
"And," Finaun continued smilingly, "the time has come for us to go away."
"You're in a hurry, I suppose?"
"We are not in a great hurry, but the time has come for us to go back."
"Very well!" said Patsy. "We aren't so far from where we started. If we take one of the turns on the right here and bear away to the west by Cnuc-Mahon and Tober-Fola and Rath-Cormac we'll come to the place where your things are buried,and then I suppose—we can get there in three days, if that will do you?"
"That will do," said Finaun.
During the remainder of the day he and his companions walked together talking among themselves while Mac Cann and his daughter went with the ass.
Patsy also was preoccupied all that day and she had her own thoughts; they scarcely spoke at all and the ass was bored.
At night they camped under a broken arch, the vestige of they knew not what crumbled building, and, seated around the brazier, they sunk to silence, each staring at the red glow and thinking according to their need, and it was then that Art, lifting his eyes from the brazier, looked for the first time at Mary and saw that she was beautiful.
She had been looking at him—that was now her one occupation. She existed only in these surreptitious examinations. She dwelt on him broodingly as a miser burns on his gold or a mother hovers hungrily upon her infant, but he had never given her anyheed. Now he was looking at her, and across the brazier their eyes communed deeply.
There was birth already between them—sex was born, and something else was shaping feebly to existence. Love, that protection and cherishing, that total of life, the shy prince scarcely to be known among the teeming populations of the world, raised languidly from enchanted sleep a feeble hand.
What fire did their eyes utter! The quiet night became soundingly vocal. Winged words were around her again as in that twilight when her heart loosed its first trials of song. Though the night was about her black and calm there was dawn and sunlight in her heart, and she bathed herself deeply in the flame.
And he! There is no knowing but this, that his eyes poured soft fire, enveloping, exhaustless. He surrounded her as with a sea. There she slid and fell and disappeared, to find herself again, renewed, reborn, thrilling to the embrace of those waters,wondrously alive and yet so languid that she could not move. There she rocked like a boat on the broad waves and, saving the limitless sea, there was nothing in sight. Almost he even had disappeared from her view but not from her sensation: he was an influence wide as the world, deep and steep and tremendous as all space.
They were alone. The quiet men seated beside them thinned and faded and disappeared: the night whisked from knowledge as a mounting plume of smoke that eddies and is gone: the trees and the hills tripped softly backwards and drooped away. Now they were in a world of their own, microscopic, but intense: a sphere bounded by less than the stretching of their arms: a circle of such violent movement that it was stationary as a spinning-top, and her mind whirled to it, and was still from very activity. She could not think, she could not try to think, that was her stillness, but she could feel and that was her movement; she was no longer a woman but a responsiveness:she was an universal contact thrilling at every pore and point: she was surrendered and lost and captured and no longer pertained to herself.
So much can the eye do when the gathered body peers meaningly through its lens. They existed in each other: in and through each other: the three feet of distance was no longer there: it had disappeared, and they were one being swinging on league-long wings through vast spaces.
When they dropped to sleep it was merely a slipping backwards, a motion that they did not feel: they were asleep before they dropped asleep: they were asleep long before that, drugged and senseless with the strong potion of the body, stronger than aught in the world but the sharp essence of the mind that awakens all things and never permits them to be lulled again.
When morning dawned and the camp awakened there was some little confusion, for Mac Cann was not in the place where hehad slept and they could not imagine where he had gone to.
Mary discussed his disappearance in all kinds of terms, Caeltia alone, with a downcast air, refusing to speak of it. They waited during hours for him, but he did not return, and at noon they decided to wait no longer but to go on their journey leaving him to catch on them if he was behind or hoping to gain on him if he was in advance, for their route was marked.
The angels did seem a trifle lost in his absence, and they looked with some dubiety at Mary when she took charge of their journey and of the daily provision of their food.
Food had to be gotten, and she had to discover it not alone for herself but for these other mouths. It was the first time she had been alone and, although her brows and lips were steady, her heart beat terror through her body.
For she had to do two things which she had never done and had never surmisedreally had to be done. She had to think, and she had to follow her thought by doing the thing she thought of. Which of these two were the more terrible she did not know, but there was no difficulty as to which she must do first, the simple orderliness of logic clamoured that she must think before she could do anything, and, so, her brain set to the painful weaving of webs too flimsy at first for any usage; but on this day she discovered where her head lay and how to use it without any assistance. She had memory to work with also, the recollection of her father's activities, and memory is knowledge; a well-packed head and energy—that is the baggage for life, it is the baggage for eternity.
She moved to the head of the ass and pulled his ear to advance. Caeltia and Finaun trod beside and they went forward. Behind came Art sniffing with the hungriest of nostrils on the sunny air, for it was five hours since they had eaten and more than three hours' abstinence was painful to him.
She did get food. She nourished her three children sumptuously, but she made them help her to get it.
She looked at Finaun's high nose, his sweeping beard, his air as of a good child well matured, and she sent it to the market:
"One must eat," said she.
When they came to a house by the roadside she ordered Finaun to the door to ask for bread; he got it too and had eaten but the slowest mouthful when she seized it from him and stocked it for the common good.
She charged Caeltia through the open door of a cottage, and his expedition was famous for eight hours afterwards.
She performed feats herself in a fowl-house and a cattle-pen, but she did not issue any commands to Art except at the falling-to, when he obeyed adequately.
She recalled the deeds of her father in many predicaments, and for the first time she really understood his ceaseless skill and activity. She found too that she could recollect his tactics, beside which her own were but childish blunderings, and, with that memory she mended her hand, and life became the orderly progression which everybody expects it to be.
That night by the glow of the brazier she rested a mind that had never been weary before, and she craved for the presence of her father that she might gain from him the praise which her present companions did not know was due to her.
"Two days more," said her heart, communicating to her bitterly as they proceeded on the morrow morning, but she banished the thought and set to her plots and plans. She banished it, but it clung with her, vague and weighty as a nightmare, and when she looked backwards on the road Art's eyes were looking into hers with a quietness thatalmost drove her mad. She could not understand him.
They had never spoken to each other; not once had they spoken directly since that night when he stepped into the glow of the brazier. At first she had fled from him in a fear which was all shyness and wildness, and so an overlooking habit had been formed between them which he had never sought to break, and which she did not know how to put an end to.
"Two days!" said her heart again, pealing it to her through her webs, and again she exiled her heart, and could feel its wailing when she could hear it no longer.
They stopped for the mid-day meal; bread and potatoes and a morsel of cheese; the fare was plentiful, and from a stream near by good water washed it down.
The reins of the donkey were thrown across the limb of a tree, and he had liberty to browse in a circle. He also had his drink from the running stream, and was glad of it.
As they sat three people marched the road behind them; they saw these people, and studied their advance.
A talkative, a disorderly advance it was. An advance that halted every few paces for parley, and moved on again like a battle.
Two men and a woman were in that party, and it did seem that they were fighting every inch of their way. Certainly, they were laughing also, for a harsh peal came creaking up the road, and came again. Once the laugh broke abruptly on its gruff note as though a hand had pounded into its middle. Then the party parleyed again and moved again.
What they said could not be distinguished, but the rumour of their conversation might have been heard across the world. They bawled and screamed, and always through the tumult came the gruff hoot of laughter.
Said Caeltia:
"Do you know these people?"
"The woman is Eileen Ni Cooley," repliedMary, "for I know her walk, but I don't know the shape of the men."
Caeltia laughed quietly to himself.
"The taller of these men," said he, "is the Seraph Cuchulain, the other man is that Brien O'Brien we were telling you of."
Mary's face flamed, but she made no remark.
In a few minutes these people drew near.
Eileen Ni Cooley was dishevelled. Her shawl hung only from one shoulder and there were holes in it, her dress was tattered, and a long wisp of red hair streamed behind her like a flame. Her face was red also, and her eyes were anxious as they roved from one to the other.
She came directly to the girl and sat beside her; young Cuchulain set himself down beside Art, but Brien O'Brien stood a few paces distant with his fists thrust in his pockets and he chewing strongly on tobacco. Every now and then he growled a harsh creak of a laugh and then covered it ostentatiously with his hand.
"God be with you, Mary Ni Cahan," said Eileen Ni Cooley, and she twisted up her flying hair and arranged her shawl.
"What's wrong with you?" said Mary.
"Where's your father?" said Eileen.
"I don't know where he is. When we lifted from sleep a morning ago he wasn't in his place, and we haven't seen him since that time."
"What am I going to do at all?" said Eileen in a low voice. "These men have me tormented the way I don't know how to manage."
"What could my father do?" said Mary sternly, "and you playing tricks on him since the day you were born."
"That's between myself and him," replied Eileen, "and it doesn't matter at all. I wanted your father to beat O'Brien for me, for he won't leave me alone day or night, and I can't get away from him."
Mary leaned to her whispering:
"My father couldn't beat that man, for I saw the two of them fighting on the DonnybrookRoad, and he had no chance against him."
"He could beat him, indeed," said Eileen indignantly, "and I'd give him good help myself."
"If my father owes you anything," said Mary, "I'm ready to pay it for him, so let us both rise against the man, and maybe the pair of us would make him fly."
Eileen stared at her.
"I hit him once," continued Mary, "and I would like well to hit him again; my people here would keep his friend from joining against us."
The blue eyes of Eileen Ni Cooley shone with contentment; she slipped the shawl from her shoulders and let it drop to the ground.
"We'll do that, Mary," said she, "and let us do it now."
So the women lifted to their feet and they walked towards Brien O'Brien, and suddenly they leaped on him like a pair of panthers, and they leaped so suddenly that he wentdown against the road with a great bump. But he did not stay down.
He rose after one dumbfounded moment, and he played with the pair of them the way a conjurer would play with two balls, so that the breath went out of their bodies, and they had to sit down or suffocate.
"That's the kind of man he is," panted Eileen.
"Very well!" said Mary fiercely, "we'll try him again in a minute."
The camp was in confusion, and from that confusion Art leaped towards Brien O'Brien, but the Seraph Cuchulain leaped and outleaped Art, and set himself bristling by the elbow of his friend; then Caeltia, with his face shining happily, tip-toed forward and ranged with Art against these two, but Finaun went quicker than they all; he leaped between the couples, and there was not a man of the four dared move against his hand.
In a second that storm blew itself out, and they returned to their seats smiling foolishly.
"Let the women be quiet," said Brien O'Brien harshly.
He also seated himself, with his back touching against the donkey's legs.
The ass had finished eating and drinking, and was now searching the horizon with the intent eye of one who does not see anything, but only looks on the world without in order to focus steadily the world within.
Brien O'Brien stared with a new interest at Finaun, and revolved his quid. Said he to Cuchulain:
"Would the old lad be able to treat us the way Rhadamanthus did, do you think?"
"He could do that," laughed Cuchulain, "and he could do it easily."
O'Brien moved the quid to the other side of his jaw.
"If he slung us out of this place we wouldn't know where we might land," said he.
"That is so," replied Cuchulain, thrusting a sleek curl between his teeth. "I don't know these regions, and I don't know wherewe might land, or if we would ever land. Only for that I would go against him," and he waggled his finger comically at Finaun.
Art commenced to snigger and Finaun laughed heartily, but Caeltia eyed Cuchulain so menacingly that the seraph kept a quiet regard on him for the rest of the day.
Peace was restored, and while they were revolving peace and wondering how to express it Patsy Mac Cann came on them from a side path that ran narrowly between small hills.
When Mac Cann saw the visitors he halted for an instant and then came forward very slowly, with his head on one side and his thumb rasping steadily on his chin.
He was staring at Brien O'Brien, and as he stared he bristled like a dog.
"It's the man himself," said he, "the man that stole my clothes."
O'Brien peeped upwards at him but did not move.
"Sit down and hold your prate," said he, "or I'll steal your life."
Mac Cann would have thrown himself on his enemy, but at that moment he caught sight of Eileen Ni Cooley and her face drove the other out of his head.
He stared.
"It's yourself!" said he.
"It is me, sure enough, Padraig."
"You'll be going away in a minute, I suppose," said he grimly.
He sat on the grass and there was peace once more. He was sitting beside O'Brien, and the ass was still thinking deeply with his hocks touching against their shoulder-blades.
When he seated himself they were all silent, for, in face of everything, Mac Cann took the lead, and they waited for him to speak.
O'Brien was looking at him sideways with a grin on his hard jaw. He creaked out a little laugh and then covered it up with his hand as one who was abashed, but Mac Cann paid no attention to him.
His attention was on Eileen Ni Cooley.
"You're a great woman," said he, "and you're full of fun surely."
"I'm everything you like to call me," replied Eileen.
"Which of the men are you with this time, or are you travelling with the pair of them?"
"I don't want either of them, Padraig, but I can't get away from them anyhow. They won't let me go my own road, and they're marching at my elbows for two days and two nights, cursing and kicking and making a noise every step of the way."
"They're doing that!" said Patsy.
"They are doing that, Padraig. It's O'Brien is the worst, for the other fellow is only helping him and doesn't care for me at all. Catching me they do be, and holding me...."
"Aye!" said Patsy.
"I can't get away from O'Brien," said she, "and I thought that if I could find yourself——"
"You were looking for me?"
"I was looking for you this time, Padraig."
"Aye!" said Patsy, and he turned a black eye on Brien O'Brien, and his eye looked like a little, hard ball of stone.
"You'll be left alone from this day out," said Patsy.
"Mind yourself!" growled Brien O'Brien. "Mind yourself, my hardy man, or you'll waken up among the spooks."
Patsy held him with that solid eye.
"Spooks!" said he, and suddenly he rolled on top of Brien O'Brien, his left hand grabbing at the throat, his right fist jabbing viciously with packed knuckles.
Down went Brien O'Brien's head and up went his heels; then he gave a mighty wriggle and started to come up, his hands threshing like the wings of a mill. As he came up they rolled, and now Mac Cann was below; but Brien O'Brien's head had disturbed the donkey, and, without emerging from cogitation, the ass let his two heels fly at the enemy of thought behind him; Patsy saw for an instant the white flash of those little hoofs across his face, but Brien of the O'Brien Nation took them full on his forehead and his brows crackled in like the shell of an egg; he relaxed, he sagged, he drooped and huddled limply to Patsy's bosom, and for threeseconds Mac Cann lay quietly beneath him, captured by astonishment.
The donkey had again related the infinity without to the eternity within, and his little hoofs were as peaceful as his mild eye.
Mac Cann tugged himself from beneath that weighty carcass and came to his feet.
Mary and Eileen were both sitting rigid, with arms at full stretch and their fingers tipping straitly on the ground, while their round eyes were wide in an unwinking stare.
Caeltia was on his feet and was crouching at an equally crouching Cuchulain. Patsy saw the curl jerking as the lips of the seraph laughed.
Art was frozen on one knee in the mid-act of rising, and Finaun was combing his beard while he looked fixedly at Eileen Ni Cooley.
Twenty seconds only had elapsed since Mac Cann rolled sideways on Brien O'Brien.
The seraph Cuchulain was staring underCaeltia's arm. He blew the golden curl from his lips and sounded a laugh that was like the ringing of silver bells.
"What will Rhadamanthus say this time?" quoth he, and with that he turned and tripped happily down the road and away.
Mac Cann regarded the corpse.
"We had better bury the man," said he gloomily.
He took a short spade from the cart, and with it he made a hole in the roadside.
They laid Brien O'Brien in that hole.
"Wait for a minute," said Mac Cann. "It's not decent to send him off that way."
He pushed a hand into his pocket and pulled it out again with money in it.
"He should have something with himself and he taking the long journey."
He lifted O'Brien's clenched fist, forced it open, and put a silver threepenny-piece into it; then he tightened the palehand again and folded it with the other on his breast.
They wrapped a newspaper about his face, and they threw the clay over Brien of the O'Brien Nation and stamped it down well with their feet, and as they left him the twilight stole over the land, and a broad star looked peacefully down through the grey distances.