The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Demi-godsThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The Demi-godsAuthor: James StephensRelease date: August 11, 2014 [eBook #46558]Most recently updated: October 24, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by spend, Ernest Schaal, and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from images generously made available by TheInternet Archive)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEMI-GODS ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The Demi-godsAuthor: James StephensRelease date: August 11, 2014 [eBook #46558]Most recently updated: October 24, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by spend, Ernest Schaal, and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from images generously made available by TheInternet Archive)
Title: The Demi-gods
Author: James Stephens
Author: James Stephens
Release date: August 11, 2014 [eBook #46558]Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by spend, Ernest Schaal, and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from images generously made available by TheInternet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEMI-GODS ***
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS
ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO.,Limited
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA,Ltd.
TORONTO
THE DEMI-GODS BY JAMES STEPHENS AUTHOR OF THE HILL OF VISION, THE CROCK OF GOLD, HERE ARE LADIES, ETC. New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1921 All rights reserved
Copyright, 1914,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
———
Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1914.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
To
THOMAS BODKIN
BOOK I
PAGE
Patsy Mac Cann1
BOOK II
Eileen Ni Cooley85
BOOK III
Brien O'Brien141
BOOK IV
Mary Mac Cann225
BOOK I
PATSY MAC CANN
"Will you leave that donkey alone," said Patsy Mac Cann to his daughter. "I never heard the like of it," he continued testily. "I tell you the way you do be going on with the ass is enough to make a Christian man swear, so it is."
"You let me be," she replied. "If I was doing hurt or harm to you I wouldn't mind, and if I am fond of the ass itself what does it matter to anybody?"
"It's this way, that I don't like to see a woman kissing an ass on the snout, it's not natural nor proper."
"A lot you know about natural and proper. Let you leave me alone now; and, besides that, doesn't the ass like it?"
"That's not a reason; sure it doesn't matter in the world what an ass likes or dislikes,and, anyhow, an ass doesn't like anything except carrots and turnips."
"This one does," said she stoutly.
"And a body might be kissing an ass until the black day of doom and he wouldn't mind it."
"This one minds."
"Kissing an old ass!"
"One has to be kissing something."
"Let you kiss me then and get done with it," said he.
She regarded him in amazement.
"What would I kiss you for? Sure you're my father, and aren't you as old as the hills?"
"Well, well, you're full of fun, and that's what I say. Take the winkers off that donkey's face, and let him get a bit to eat; there's grass enough, God knows, and it's good grass."
Mary busied herself with the winkers and the bit while her father continued:
"What I wish is this, that Christian people were able to eat grass like thebeasts, and then there wouldn't be any more trouble in the world. Are you listening to me, Mary, or are you listening to the donkey?"
"It's you I'm listening to."
"I say this, that if every person had enough to eat there'd be no more trouble in the world and we could fight our fill. What have you got in the basket?"
"I've the loaf that I bought in the shop at Knockbeg, and the half loaf that you took out of the woman's window—it's fresher than the other one."
"I was guided," said her father. "We'll eat that one first the way no person can claim it. What else have you got?"
"I've the white turnip that I found in a field."
"There's great nourishment in turnips; the cattle do get fat on them in winter."
"And I've the two handfuls of potatoes that you gathered at the bend of the road."
"Roast themselves in the embers, forthat's the only road to cook a potato. What way are we going to eat to-night?"
"We'll eat the turnip first, and then we'll eat the bread, and after that we'll eat the potatoes."
"And fine they'll taste. I'll cut the turnip for you with the sailorman's jackknife."
The day had drawn to its close. The stars had not yet come, nor the moon. Far to the west a red cloud poised on the horizon like a great whale and, moment by moment, it paled and faded until it was no more than a pink flush. On high, clouds of pearl and snow piled and fell and sailed away on easy voyages. It was the twilight—a twilight of such quietude that one could hear the soft voice of the world as it whispered through leaf and twig. There was no breeze to swing the branches of the trees or to creep among the rank grasses and set them dancing, and yet everywhere there was unceasing movement and asound that never ceased. About them, for mile upon mile, there was no habitation of man; there was no movement anywhere except when a bird dipped and soared in a hasty flight homewards, or when a beetle went slugging by like a tired bullet.
Mary had unharnessed the ass and bade him, with an affectionate kiss, to eat his full. The donkey stood for a moment with his ears and tail hanging down, then he lifted both his ears and his tail, slung up his ragged head, bared his solid teeth, and brayed furiously for two minutes. That accomplished he trotted briskly a few paces, bent to the grass, and began to eat so eagerly that one would think eating was more of a novelty to him than it could be to an ass of his years.
"The sound of that beast's voice does get on my nerves," said Patsy.
"He has a powerful voice, sure enough, God bless him! Sit down there by the hedge and light the fire while I'm getting the things ready; the night will be on usin a few minutes and it will be a cold night."
While she moved busily from the cart to the hedge her father employed himself lighting a fire of turf in a wrinkled bucket. When this was under way he pulled out a pipe, black as a coal, and off which half the shank was broken, and this he put into his mouth. At the moment he seemed to be sunken in thought, his eyes to the grass and his feet planted, and it was in a musing voice that he spoke:
"Do you know what I'd do, Mary, if I had a bottle of porter beside me in this field?"
"I do well," she replied; "you'd drink it."
"I would so, but before I'd drink it I'd put the end of this pipe into it, for it's newly cracked, and it sticks to my lips in a way that would anger a man wanting a smoke, and if I could stick it into the porter it would be cured. I don't suppose, now, that you have a sup of porter in the cart!"
"I have not."
"Because if you had a small sup I'd be able to get a smoke this night, as well as a drink."
"You're full of fun," said she sourly.
"I saw a bottle in your hand a while back," he continued musingly, "and it looked like a weighty bottle."
"It's full to the neck with spring water."
"Ah!" said her father, and he regarded that distant horizon whereon the pink cloud was now scarcely visible as a pinkness and was no longer the shape of a great whale.
After a moment he continued in a careless voice:
"You might hand me the bottle of spring water, alanna, till I wet my lips with it. It's a great thing for the thirst, I'm told, and it's healthy beside that."
"I'm keeping that sup of water to make the tea when we'd be wanting it."
"Well, I'll only take a drop out of it, and I won't lose the cork."
"You can get it yourself, then," said Mary, "for I've plenty to do and you haven't."
Her father, rolling his tough chin with his fingers, went to the cart. He found the bottle, lifted the cork, smelt it, tasted:
"It is spring water indeed," said he, and he thumped the cork back again with some irritation and replaced the bottle in the cart.
"I thought you wanted a drink," said his daughter mildly.
"So I do," he replied, "but I can't stand the little creatures that do be wriggling about in spring water. I wouldn't like to be swallowing them unknown. Ah! them things don't be in barrels that you buy in a shop, and that's a fact."
She was preparing the potatoes when a remark from her father caused her to pause.
"What is it?" said she.
"It's a bird. I saw it for a second against a white piece of a cloud, and I give you my word that it's as big as ahaystack. There it is again," he continued excitedly, "there's three of them."
For a few minutes they followed the flight of these amazing birds, but the twilight had almost entirely departed and darkness was brooding over the land. They did not see them any more.
And yet it was but a short distance from where they camped that the angels first put foot to earth.
It is useless to question what turmoil of wind or vagary of wing brought them to this desert hill instead of to a place more worthy of their grandeur, for, indeed, they were gorgeously apparelled in silken robes of scarlet and gold and purple; upon their heads were crowns high in form and of curious, intricate workmanship, and their wings, stretching ten feet on either side, were of many and shining colours.
Enough that here they did land, and in this silence and darkness they stood for a few moments looking about them.
Then one spoke:
"Art," said he, "we were too busycoming down to look about us carefully; spring up again a little way, and see if there is any house in sight."
At the word one of the three stepped forward a pace, and leaped twenty feet into the air; his great wings swung out as he leaped, they beat twice, and he went circling the hill in steady, noiseless flight.
He returned in a minute:
"There are no houses here, but a little way below I saw a fire and two people sitting beside it."
"We will talk to them," said the other. "Show the way, Art."
"Up then," said Art.
"No," said the Angel who had not yet spoken. "I am tired of flying. We will walk to this place you speak of."
"Very well," replied Art, "let us walk."
And they went forward.
Around the little bucket of fire where Mac Cann and his daughter were sittingthere was an intense darkness. At the distance of six feet they could still see, but delicately, indistinctly, and beyond that the night hung like a velvet curtain. They did not mind the night, they did not fear it, they did not look at it: it was around them, full of strangeness, full of mystery and terror, but they looked only at the glowing brazier, and in the red cheer of that they were content.
They had eaten the bread and the turnip, and were waiting for the potatoes to be cooked, and as they waited an odd phrase, an exclamation, a sigh would pass from one to the other; and then, suddenly, the dark curtain of night moved noiselessly, and the three angels stepped nobly in the firelight.
For an instant neither Mac Cann nor his daughter made a movement; they did not make a sound. Here was terror, and astonishment the sister of terror: they gaped: their whole being was in their eyes as they stared. From MacCann's throat came a noise; it had no grammatical significance, but it was weighted with all the sense that is in a dog's growl or a wolf's cry. Then the youngest of the strangers came forward:
"May we sit by your fire for a little time?" said he. "The night is cold, and in this darkness one does not know where to go."
At the sound of words Patsy seized hold of his sliding civilization.
"To be sure," he stammered. "Why wouldn't your honour sit down? There isn't a seat, but you're welcome to the grass and the light of the fire."
"Mary," he continued, looking hastily around—
But Mary was not there. The same instant those tall forms strode from the darkness in front Mary had slipped, swift and noiseless as the shadow of a cat, into the darkness behind her.
"Mary," said her father again, "these are decent people, I'm thinking. Let youcome from wherever you are, for I'm sure they wouldn't hurt yourself or myself."
As swiftly as she had disappeared she reappeared.
"I was looking if the ass was all right," said she sullenly.
She sat again by the brazier, and began to turn the potatoes with a stick. She did not appear to be taking any heed of the strangers, but it is likely that she was able to see them without looking, because, as is well known, women and birds are able to see without turning their heads, and that is indeed a necessary provision, for they are both surrounded by enemies.
The remarkable thing about astonishment is that it can only last for an instant. No person can be surprised for more than that time. You will come to terms with a ghost within two minutes of its appearance, and it had scarcely taken that time for Mac Cann and his daughter to become one with the visitors.
If the surprisor and the surprisee are mutually astonished, then, indeed, there is a tangle out of which anything may emerge, for two explanations are necessary at the one moment, and two explanations can no more hold the same position in time than two bodies can occupy the same lodgment in space.
It needed alone that the angels should proclaim their quality for the situation to arrange itself naturally.
Man is a scientific creature; he labelshis ignorance and shelves it: mystery affrights him, it bores him, but when he has given a name to any appearance then mystery flies away, and reality alone remains for his cogitation. Later, perhaps, reality will enrage and mystify him more profoundly than any unexpectedness can do.
The Mac Canns, so far as they professed a religion, were Catholics. Deeper than that they were Irish folk. From their cradles, if ever they had cradles other than a mother's breast and shoulder, they had supped on wonder. They believed as easily as an animal does, for most creatures are forced to credit everything long before they are able to prove anything. We have arranged to label these faculties of imagination and prophecy among the lesser creatures Instinct, and with the label we have thrown overboard more of mystery than we could afford to live with. Later these may confront us again in our proper souls, and the wonderand terror so long overdue will compel our tardy obeisance.
At the end of amazement, as of all else, we go to sleep, and, within an hour of their meeting, the angels and the Mac Canns were stretched in one common unconsciousness.
The angels were asleep, their attitudes proclaimed it. Patsy was asleep, his nose, with the unpleasant emphasis of a cracked trumpet, pealed wheezy confirmation of his slumber. His daughter was asleep, for there by the brazier she lay, motionless as the ground itself.
Perhaps she was not asleep. Perhaps she was lying with her face to the skies, staring through the darkness at the pale, scarce stars, dreaming dreams and seeing visions, while, all around, down the invisible road and across the vanished fields and the hills, night trailed her dusky robes and crushed abroad her poppy.
Whether she had slept or not she was the first to arise in the morning.
A pale twilight was creeping over the earth, and through it one could see chilly trees and shivering grass; the heavy clouds huddled together as though they were seeking warmth on those grisly heights; the birds had not yet left their nests; it was an hour of utter silence and uncomeliness; an hour for blind and despairing creatures to move forward spitefully, cursing themselves and the powers; an hour when imagination has no function, and hope would fly again to the darkness rather than remain in that livid wilderness, for this was not yet the thin child of the dawn, crowned with young buds and active as a wintry leaf; it was the abortion of the dawn, formless, heavy, and detestable.
Moving cautiously in that shade, Mary herself seemed no more than a shadow; she diminished thin and formless as a wraith, while she trod carefully to and fro from the cart to the hedge.
She sat down, unloosed her hair and commenced to brush it.
In this colourless light her hair had no colour, but was of astonishing length and thickness; it flowed about her like a cloak, and as she sat it rolled and crept on the grass. She did not often tend her hair thus. Sometimes she plaited it for the sake of convenience, so that windy days would not whip it into her eyes or lash her cheeks; sometimes, through sheer laziness, she did not even plait it, she rolled it into a great ball and drew a wide, masculine cap over its brightness; and now, before the day had broken, sitting in a ghastly lightness, which was neither light nor darkness, she was attending to her hair.
And this hair perplexed her, for she did not know what to do with it; she did not know whether it was to be seen or not seen; whether to braid it in two great ropes, or roll it carelessly or carefully above her head, or let it hang loosely about her shoulders held only at the nape with a piece of ribbon or stuff. An hesitationsuch as this was new to her; she had never had occasion for such forethought; it was strange and inquieting; more disturbing, indeed, than the visit at black of night of those tall strangers whose eyes and voices were so quiet, and whose appointments flashed in the firelight while they spoke to her father of the things in which travellers are interested.
She looked at them where they lay, but they were scarcely more than visible—a tangle of flowing cloths and great limbs fading away in the rank grasses and the obscurity, and to her mind the real wonder was not that they had come, but that they were still there, and that they were sleeping deeply and peacefully as she had slept so often, with her head pillowed on her arm and her limbs folded calmly between the earth and the sky.
Her hair was not braided; it was tied at the neck with a piece of whitish cloth torn from some part of her clothing, and upon her shoulders it billowed and rolled in magnificent living abundance.
Very gently she moved to where her father lay on his back with his mouth open and his black chin jutting at the sky. He was breathing through his mouth, so he was not snoring any longer. She lifted the three or four sacks which covered him, and rocked his shoulders cautiously until he awakened.
Her father awakened exactly as she did, exactly as every open-air animal does; his eyes flew wide, instantly and entirely wakeful, and he looked at her with full comprehension of their adventure. He raised softly on an elbow and glanced to where the strangers were; then nodded to his daughter and rose noiselessly to his feet.She beckoned him and they stepped a few paces away so that they might talk in security.
Mary was about to speak but her father prevented her:
"Listen," he whispered, "the best thing we can do is to load the things into the cart, without making any noise, mind you! then we'll yoke the little ass as easy as anything, and then I'll get into the cart and I'll drive off as hard as ever I can pelt, and you can run beside the ass with a stick in your hand and you welting the devil out of him to make him go quick. I'm no good myself at the running, and that's why I'll get into the cart, but you can run like a hare, and that's why you'll wallop the beast."
"Mind now," he continued fiercely, "we don't know who them fellows are at all, and what would the priest say if he heard we were stravaiging the country with three big, buck angels, and they full of tricks maybe; so go you now and be lifting in the things and I'll give you good help myself."
"I'll do nothing of the kind," whispered Mary angrily, "and it wasn't for that I woke you up."
"Won't you, indeed?" said her father fiercely.
"What would they be thinking of us at all if they were to rouse and see us sneaking off in that way? I'm telling you now that I won't do it, and that you won't do it either, and if you make a move to the cart I'll give a shout that will waken the men."
"The devil's in you, you strap!" replied her father, grinding his teeth at her. "What call have we to be mixing ourselves up with holy angels that'll be killing us maybe in an hour or half an hour; and maybe they're not angels at all but men that do be travelling the land in a circus and they full of fun and devilment?"
"It's angels they are," replied his daughter urgently, "and if they're not angels itself they are rich men, for there's big rings of gold on their fingers, and every ring has a diamond in it, and they've golden chainsacross their shoulders, I'm telling you, and the stuff in their clothes is fit for the children of a king. It's rich and very rich they are."
Mac Cann rasped his chin with his thumb.
"Do you think they are rich folk?"
"I do, indeed."
"Then," said her father in an abstracted tone, "we won't say anything more about it."
After a moment he spoke again:
"What were you thinking about yourself?"
"I was thinking," she replied, "that when they waken up in a little while there won't be anything at all for them to eat and they strangers."
"Hum!" said her father.
"There's two cold potatoes in the basket," she continued, "and a small piece of bread, and there isn't anything more than that; so let you be looking around for something to eat the way we won't be put to shame before the men."
"It's easy talking!" said he; "where amI to look? Do you want me to pick red herrings out of the grass and sides of bacon off the little bushes?"
"We passed a house last night a mile down the road," said Mary; "go you there and get whatever you're able to get, and if you can't get anything buy it off the people in the house. I've three shillings in my pocket that I was saving for a particular thing, but I'll give them to you because I wouldn't like to be shamed before the strange men."
Her father took the money:
"I wish I knew that you had it yesterday," he growled, "I wouldn't have gone to sleep with a throat on me like a mid-summer ditch and it full of dust and pismires."
Mary pushed him down the road.
"Be back as quick as you are able, and buy every kind of thing that you can get for the three shillings."
She watched him stamping heavily down the road, and then she returned again to their encampment.
The visitors had not awakened.
Now the air was growing clearer; the first livid pallor of the dawn had changed to a wholesome twilight, and light was rolling like clear smoke over the land. The air looked cold, and it began to look sharp instead of muddy; now the trees and bushes stood apart; they seemed lonely and unguarded in that chill dawning; they seemed like living things which were cold and a little frightened in an immensity to which they were foreign and from which they had much to dread.
Of all unnatural things, if that word can be used in any context, there is none more unnatural than silence, there is none so terrifying; for silence means more than itself, it means also immobility; it is the symbol and signature of death, and from itno one knows what may come at an instant; for silence is not quietness, it is the enemy of quietness; against it your watch must climb the tower and stare in vain; against it your picket must be set, and he will thrust a lance to the sound of his own pulses; he will challenge the beating of his own heart, and hear his own harness threatening him at a distance.
To walk in a forest when there is no wind to stir the branches and set the leaves tapping upon the boughs, this is terrifying; a lonely sea stretching beyond sight and upon which there is no ripple holds the same despair, and a grassy plain from whence there is no movement visible has too its desolating horror.
But these things did not haunt the girl. She did not heed the silence for she did not listen to it; she did not heed the immensity for she did not see it. In space and silence she had been cradled; they were her foster-parents, and if ever she looked or listened it was to see and hear something quite otherthan these. Now she did listen and look. She listened to the breathing of the sleepers, and soon, for she was a female, she looked to see what they were like.
She leaned softly over one. He was a noble old man with a sweeping, white beard and a great brow; the expression of his quiet features was that of a wise infant; her heart went out to him and she smiled at him in his sleep.
She trod to the next and bent again. He was younger, but not young; he looked about forty years of age; his features were regular and very determined; his face looked strong, comely as though it had been chiselled from a gracious stone; there was a short coal-black beard on his chin.
She turned to the third sleeper, and halted blushing. She remembered his face, caught on the previous night in one lightning peep while she slid away from their approach. It was from him she had fled in the night, and for him that her hair was now draping her shoulders in unaccustomed beauty.
She did not dare go near him; she was afraid that if she bent over him he would flash open his eyes and look at her, and, as yet, she could not support such a look. She knew that if she were stretched in sleep and he approached to lean across her, she would awaken at the touch of his eyes, and she would be ashamed and frightened.
She did not look at him.
She went again to her place and set to building a fire in the brazier, and, while she sat, a voice began to sing in the dawn; not loud, but very gently, very sweetly. It was so early for a bird to sing, and she did not recognise that tune although the sound of it was thrilling through all her body. Softly, more softly, O Prophetic Voice! I do not know your speech; I do not know what happiness you are promising; is it of the leaves you tell and of a nest that rocks high on a leafy spray; there your mate swings cooing to herself. She swings and coos; she is folded in peace, and the small, white clouds go sailing by and they do not fall.
So through unimagined ways went that song, lifting its theme in terms that she did not comprehend; but it was not a bird that sang to her, it was her own heart making its obscure music and lilting its secret, wild lyrics in the dawn.
It was the donkey awakened them.
For some time he had been rolling along the ground in ecstasy; now his agitated legs were pointing at the sky while he scratched his back against little stones and clumps of tough clay; now he was lying flat rubbing his jowl against these same clumps. He stood up suddenly, shook himself, swung up his tail and his chin, bared his teeth, fixed his eye on eternity, and roared "hee-haw" in a voice of such sudden mightiness, that not alone did the sleepers bound from their slumbers, but the very sun itself leaped across the horizon and stared at him with its wild eye.
Mary ran and beat the ass on the nose with her fist, but whatever Mary did to the ass was understood by him as a caress, and he willingly suffered it—"hee-haw,"said he again triumphantly, and he planted his big head on her shoulder and stared sadly into space.
He was thinking, and thought always makes an ass look sad, but what he was thinking about not even Mary knew; his eye was hazy with cogitation, and he looked as wise and as kindly as the eldest of the three angels; indeed, although he had never been groomed, he looked handsome also, for he had the shape of a good donkey; his muzzle and his paws were white, the rest of his body was black and his eyes were brown. That was the appearance of the donkey.
The angels arose and, much as the ass did they shook themselves; there was no further toilet than that practicable; they ran their hands through their abundant hair, and the two who had beards combed these also with their fingers—then they looked around them.
Now the birds were sweeping and climbing on the shining air; they were calling and shrieking and singing; fifty of them, andall of the same kind, came dashing madly together, and they all sang the one song, so loud, so exultant, the heaven and earth seemed to ring and ring again of their glee.
They passed, and three antic wings came tumbling and flirting together; these had no song or their happiness went far beyond all orderly sound; they squealed as they chased each other; they squealed as they dropped twenty sheer feet towards the ground, and squealed again as they recovered on a swoop, and as they climbed an hundred feet in three swift zig-zags, they still squealed without intermission, and then the three went flickering away to the west, each trying to bite the tail off the others.
There came a crow whose happiness was so intense that he was not able to move; he stood on the hedge for a long time, and all that time he was trying hard to compose himself to a gravity befitting the father of many families, but every few seconds he lost all control and bawled with fervour.He examined himself all over; he peeped under his feathers to see was his complexion good; he parted the plumage of his tail modishly; he polished his feet with his bill, and then polished his bill on his left thigh, and then he polished his left thigh with the back of his neck. "I'm a hell of a crow," said he, "and everybody admits it." He flew with admirable carelessness over the ass, and cleverly stole two claws and one beak full of hair; but in mid-air he laughed incautiously so that the hair fell out of his beak, and in grabbing at that portion he dropped the bits in his claws, and he got so excited in trying to rescue these before they reached the ground that his voice covered all the other sounds of creation.
The sun was shining; the trees waved their branches in delight; there was no longer murk or coldness in the air; it sparkled from every point like a vast jewel, and the brisk clouds arraying themselves in fleeces of white and blue raced happily aloft.
That was what the angels saw when theylooked abroad; a few paces distant the cart was lying with its shafts up in the air, and a tumble of miscellaneous rubbish was hanging half in and half out of it; a little farther the ass, in a concentrated manner, was chopping grass as quickly as ever he could, and, naturally enough, eating it; for after thinking deeply we eat, and it is true wisdom to do so.
The eldest of the angels observed the donkey. He stroked his beard.
"One eats that kind of vegetable," said he.
The others observed also.
"And," that angel continued, "the time has come for us to eat."
The second eldest angel rolled his coal-black chin in his hand and his gesture and attitude were precisely those of Patsy Mac Cann.
"I am certainly hungry," said he.
He picked a fistful of grass and thrust some of it into his mouth, but after a moment of difficulty he removed it again.
"It is soft enough to eat," said he musingly, "but I do not care greatly for its taste."
The youngest angel made a suggestion.
"Let us talk to the girl," said he.
And they all moved over to Mary.
"Daughter," said the eldest of the three, "we are hungry," and he beamed on her so contentedly that all fear and diffidence fled from her on the instant.
She replied:
"My father has gone down the road looking for food; he will be coming back in a minute or two, and he'll be bringing every kind of thing that's nourishing."
"While we are waiting for him," said the angel, "let us sit down and you can tell us all about food."
"It is a thing we ought to learn at once," said the second angel.
So they sat in a half-circle opposite the girl, and requested her to give them a lecture on food.
She thought it natural they should requireinformation about earthly matters, but she found, as all unpractised speakers do, that she did not know at what point to begin on her subject. Still, something had to be said, for two of them were stroking their beards, and one was hugging his knees, and all three were gazing at her.
"Everything," said she, "that a body can eat is good to eat, but some things do taste nicer than others; potatoes and cabbage are very good to eat, and so is bacon; my father likes bacon when it's very salt, but I don't like it that way myself; bread is a good thing to eat, and so is cheese."
"What do you call this vegetable that the animal is eating?" said the angel pointing to the ass.
"That isn't a vegetable at all, sir, that's only grass; every kind of animal eats it, but Christians don't."
"Is it not good to eat?"
"Sure, I don't know. Dogs eat it when they are sick, so it ought to be wholesome, but I never heard tell of any person that ategrass except they were dying of the hunger and couldn't help themselves, poor creatures! And there was a Jew once who was a king, and they do say that he used to go out with the cattle and eat the grass like themselves, and nobody says that he didn't get fat.
"But here's my father coming across the fields (which is a queer way for him to come, because he went away by the road), and I'm thinking that he has a basket under his arm and there will be food in it."
It was true enough. Mac Cann was coming to them from a point at right angles to where he was expected.
Now and again he turned to look over his shoulder, and as he was taking advantage of dips in the ground, bushes, and such-like to shield his advance his daughter divined that something had occurred in addition to the purchase of food. She had often before observed her father moving with these precautionary tactics, and had many times herself shared and even directed a retreat which was full of interest.
When her father drew nigh he nodded meaningly at her, set down a basket and a bundle, and stood for a moment looking at these while he thumbed his chin.
"Faith!" said he, "the world is full of trouble, and that's a fact."
He turned to the strangers.
"And I'm telling you this, that if the world wasn't full of trouble there'd be no life at all for the poor. It's the only chance we get is when people are full of woe, God help them! and isn't that a queer thing?
"Mary," he turned, and his voice was full of careless pride, "try if there isn't some small thing or other in the basket, and let your honours sit down on the grass while the young girl is getting your breakfast."
So the angels and Patsy sat down peacefully on the grass, and Mary opened the basket.
There were two loaves of bread in it, a fine square of butter, a piece of cheese as big as a man's hand and four times as thick; there was a leg of mutton in the basket, and only a little bit had been taken off it, a big paper bag full of tea, a package of soft sugar, a bottle full of milk, a bottle half full of whisky, two tobacco pipes having silver bands on their middles, and a big bar ofplug tobacco. Those were the things in the basket.
Mary's eyes and her mouth opened when she saw them, and she blessed herself, but she made no sound; and when she turned her face towards the company there was no expression on it except that of hospitality.
She cut slices from each of these things and piled them on a large piece of paper in the centre of the men; then she sat herself down and they all prepared to eat.
The second angel turned courteously to Mac Cann.
"Will you kindly begin to eat," said he, "and by watching you we will know what to do."
"There can be nothing more uncomely," said the first angel, "than to see people acting in disaccord with custom; we will try to do exactly as you do, and although you may be troubled by our awkwardness you will not be shocked by a lapse from sacred tradition."
"Well!" said Patsy thoughtfully.
He stretched a hand towards the food.
"I'll stand in nobody's light, and teaching people is God's own work; this is the way I do it, your worships, and any one that likes can follow me up."
He seized two pieces of bread, placed a slice of cheese between them, and bit deeply into that trinity.
The strangers followed his actions with fidelity, and in a moment their mouths were as full as his was and as content.
Patsy paused between bites:
"When I've this one finished," said he, "I'll take two more bits of bread and I'll put a lump of meat between them, and I'll eat that."
"Ah!" said that one of the angels whose mouth chanced to be free.
Patsy's eye roved over the rest of the food.
"And after that," he continued, "we will take a bit of whatever is handy."
In a short time there was nothing left onthe newspaper but soft sugar, butter, tea, and tobacco. Patsy was abashed.
"I did think that there was more than that," said he.
"I've had enough myself," he continued, "but maybe your honours could eat more."
Two of the angels assured him that they were quite satisfied, but the youngest angel said nothing.
"I'm doubting that you had enough," said Patsy dubiously to him.
"I could eat more if I had it," returned that one with a smile.
Mary went to the cart and returned bearing two cold potatoes and a piece of bread, and she placed these before the young angel. He thanked her and ate these, and then he ate the package of soft sugar, and then he ate a little piece of the butter, but he didn't care for it. He pointed to the plug of tobacco:
"Does this be eaten?" he enquired.
"It does not," said Patsy. "If you ate a bit of that you'd get a pain inside of yourbelly that would last you for a month. There's some people do smoke it, and there's others do chew it; but I smoke it and chew it myself, and that's the best way. There's two pipes there on the paper, and I've a pipe in my own pocket, so whichever of you would like a smoke can do exactly as I do."
With a big jack-knife he shredded pieces from the plug, and rolled these between his palms, then he carefully stuffed his pipe, pulled at it to see was it drawing well, lit the tobacco, and heaved a sigh of contentment. He smiled around the circle.
"That's real good," said he.
The strangers examined the pipes and tobacco with curiosity, but they did not venture to smoke, and they watched Patsy's beatific face with kindly attention.
Now at this moment Mary was devoured with curiosity. She wanted to know how her father had become possessed of the basketful of provisions. She knew that three shillings would not have purchased a tithe of these goods, and, as she had now no fear of the strangers, she questioned her parent.
"Father," said she, "where did you get all the good food?"
The angels had eaten of his bounty, so Mac Cann considered that he had nothing to fear from their side. He regarded them while he pulled thoughtfully at his pipe.
"Do you know," said he, "that the hardest thing in the world is to get the food, and a body is never done looking for it. We are after eating all that we got this morning, so now we'll have to search for what we'lleat to-night, and in the morning we'll have to look again for more of it, and the day after that, and every day until we are dead we'll have to go on searching for the food."
"I would have thought," said the eldest angel, "that of all problems food would be the simplest in an organised society."
This halted Mac Cann for a moment.
"Maybe you're right, sir," said he kindly, and he dismissed the interruption.
"I heard a man once, he was a stranger to these parts, and he had a great deal of the talk, he said that the folk at the top do grab all the food in the world, and that then they make every person work for them, and that when you've done a certain amount of work they give you just enough money to buy just enough food to let you keep on working for them. That's what the man said: a big, angry man he was, with whiskers on him like the whirlwind, and he swore he wouldn't work for any one. I'm thinking myself that he didn't work either. We were great friends, that man and me, for I don't do anywork if I can help it; it's that I haven't got the knack for work, and, God help me! I've a big appetite. Besides that, the work I'd be able to do in a day mightn't give me enough to eat, and wouldn't I be cheated then?"
"Father," said Mary, "where did you get all the good food this morning?"
"I'll tell you that. I went down to the bend of the road where the house is, and I had the three shillings in my hand. When I came to the house the door was standing wide open. I hit it a thump of my fist, but nobody answered me. 'God be with all here,' said I, and in I marched. There was a woman lying on the floor in one room, and her head had been cracked with a stick; and in the next room there was a man lying on the floor, and his head had been cracked with a stick. It was in that room I saw the food packed nice and tight in the basket that you see before you. I looked around another little bit, and then I came away, for, as they say, a wise man never found a deadman, and I'm wise enough no matter what I look like."
"Were the people all dead?" said Mary, horrified.
"They were not—they only got a couple of clouts. I'm thinking they are all right by this, and they looking for the basket, but, please God, they won't find it. But what I'd like to know is this, who was it hit the people with a stick, and then walked away without the food and the drink and the tobacco, for that's a queer thing."
He turned to his daughter.
"Mary, a cree, let you burn up that basket in the brazier, for I don't like the look of it at all, and it empty."
So Mary burned the basket with great care while her father piled their goods on the cart and yoked up the ass.
Meanwhile the angels were talking together, and after a short time they approached Mac Cann.
"If it is not inconvenient," said their spokesman, "we would like to remain withyou for a time. We think that in your company we may learn more than we might otherwise do, for you seem to be a man of ability, and at present we are rather lost in this strange world."
"Sure," said Patsy heartily, "I haven't the least objection in the world, only, if you don't want to be getting into trouble, and if you'll take my advice, I'd say that ye ought to take off them kinds of clothes you're wearing and get into duds something like my own, and let you put your wings aside and your fine high crowns, the way folk won't be staring at you every foot of the road, for I'm telling you that it's a bad thing to have people looking after you when you go through a little village or a town, because you can never know who'll remember you afterwards, and you maybe not wanting to be remembered at all."
"If our attire," said the angel, "is such as would make us remarkable——"
"It is," said Patsy. "People would think you belonged to a circus, and thecrowds of the world would be after you in every place."
"Then," replied the angel, "we will do as you say."
"I have clothes enough in this bundle," said Patsy, with a vague air. "I found them up there in the house, and I was thinking of yourselves when I took them. Let you put them on, and we will tie up your own things in a sack and bury them here so that when you want them again you'll be able to get them, and then we can travel wherever we please and no person will say a word to us."
So the strangers retired a little way with the bundle, and there they shed their finery.
When they appeared again they were clad in stout, ordinary clothing. They did not look a bit different from Patsy Mac Cann except that they were all taller men than he, but between his dilapidation and theirs there was very little to choose.
Mac Cann dug a hole beside a tree and carefully buried their property, then with athoughtful air he bade Mary move ahead with the ass, while he and the angels stepped forward at the tailboard.
They walked then through the morning sunlight, and for a time they had little to say to each other.
In truth Patsy Mac Cann was a very able person.
For forty-two years he had existed on the edges of a society which did not recognise him in any way, and, as he might himself have put it, he had not done so very badly at all.
He lived as a bird lives, or a fish, or a wolf. Laws were for other people, but they were not for him; he crawled under or vaulted across these ethical barriers, and they troubled him no more than as he had to bend or climb a little to avoid them—he discerned laws as something to be avoided, and it was thus he saw most things.
Religion and morality, although he paid these an extraordinary reverence, were not for him either; he beheld them from afar, and, however they might seem beautiful orfoolish, he left them behind as readily as he did his debts, if so weighty a description may be given to his volatile engagements. He did not discharge these engagements; he elongated himself from them; between himself and a query he interposed distance, and at once that became foreign to him, for half a mile about himself was his frontier, and beyond that, wherever he was, the enemy lay.
He stood outside of every social relation, and within an organised humanity he might almost have been reckoned as a different species. He was very mobile, but all his freedom lay in one direction, and outside of that pasturage he could never go. For the average man there are two dimensions of space wherein he moves with a certain limited freedom; it is for him a horizontal and a perpendicular world; he goes up the social scale and down it, and in both these atmospheres there is a level wherein he can exercise himself to and fro, his journeyings being strictly limited by his business and hisfamily. Between the place where he works and the place where he lives lies all the freedom he can hope for; within that range he must seek such adventures as he craves, and the sole expansion to which he can attain is upwards towards another social life if he be ambitious, or downward to the underworlds if he is bored. For Mac Cann there was no upward and no downward movements, he had plumbed to the very rocks of life, but his horizontal movements were bounded only by the oceans around his country, and in this gigantic underworld he moved with almost absolute freedom, and a knowledge which might properly be termed scientific.
In despite of his apparent outlawry he was singularly secure; ambition waved no littlest lamp at him; the one ill which could overtake him was death, which catches on every man; no enmity could pursue him to any wall, for he was sunken a whole sphere beneath malice as beneath benevolence. Physical ill-treatment might come uponhim, but in that case it was his manhood and his muscle against another manhood and another muscle—the simplest best would win, but there was no glory for the conqueror nor any loot to be carried from the battle.
Casual warfares, such as these, had been frequent enough in his career, for he had fought stubbornly with every kind of man, and had afterwards medicined his wounds with the only unguents cheap enough for his usage—the healing balsams of time and patience. He had but one occupation, and it was an engrossing one—he hunted for food, and for it he hunted with the skill and pertinacity of a wolf or a vulture.
With what skill he did hunt! He would pick crumbs from the lank chaps of famine; he gathered nourishment from the empty air; he lifted it from wells and watercourses; he picked it off clothes lines and hedges; he stole so cleverly from the bees that they never felt his hand in their pocket; he would lift the eggs from beneath a bird, andshe would think that his finger was a chicken; he would clutch a hen from the roost, and the housewife would think he was the yard dog, and the yard dog would think he was its brother.
He had a culture too, and if it was not wide it was profound; he knew wind and weather as few astronomers know it; he knew the habit of the trees and the earth; how the seasons moved, not as seasons, but as days and hours; he had gathered all the sweets of summer, and the last rigour of winter was no secret to him; he had fought with the winter every year of his life as one fights with a mad beast, he had held off that grizzliest of muzzles and escaped scatheless.
He knew men and women, and he knew them from an angle at which they seldom caught themselves or each other; he knew them as prey to be bitten and escaped from quickly. At them, charged with a thousand preoccupations, he looked with an eye in which there was a single surmise, and hedivined them in a flash. In this quick vision he saw man, one expression, one attitude for all; never did he see a man or woman in their fullness, his microscopic vision caught only what it looked for, but he saw that with the instant clarity of the microscope. There were no complexities for him in humanity; there were those who gave and those who did not give; there were those who might be cajoled, and those who might be frightened. If there was goodness in a man he glimpsed it from afar as a hawk sees a mouse in the clover, and he swooped on that virtue and was away with booty. If there was evil in a man he passed it serenely as a sheep passes by a butcher, for evil did not affect him. Evil could never put a hand on him, and he was not evil himself.
If the denominations of virtue or vice must be affixed to his innocent existence, then these terms would have to be re-defined, for they had no meaning in his case; he stood outside these as he did outside ofthe social structure. But, indeed, he was not outside of the social structure at all; he was so far inside of it that he could never get out; he was at the very heart of it; he was held in it like a deer in an ornamental park, or a cork that bobs peacefully in a bucket, and in the immense, neglected pastures of civilisation he found his own quietude and his own wisdom.
All of the things he knew and all of the things that he had done were most competently understood by his daughter.