Book + 

III + 

Brien O’Brien + 

XX + 

They continued their travels. + 

It would be more correct to say they continued their search for food, for that in reality was the objective of each day’s journeying. + 

Moving thus, day by day, taking practically any road that presented itself, they had wandered easily through rugged, beautiful Donegal down into Connaught. They had camped on the slopes of rough mountains, slept peacefully in deep valleys that wound round and round like a corkscrew, traversed for weeks in Connemara by the clamorous sea where they lived sumptuously on fish, and then they struck to the inland plains again, and away by curving paths to the County Kerry. + 

At times Mac Cann got work to do⁠—to mend a kettle that had a little hole in it, to stick a handle on a pot, to stiffen the last days of a bucket that was already long past its labour, and he did these jobs sitting in the sunlight on dusty roads, and if he did not do them Mary did them for him while he observed her critically and explained both to her and to his company the mystery of the tinker’s craft. + 

“There’s a great deal,” he would say, “in the twist of the hand.” + 

And again, but this usually to Art when that cherub tried his skill on a rusty pot: + 

“You’ll never make a good tinker unless you’ve got a hand on you. Keep your feet in your boots and get to work with your fingers.” + 

And sometimes he would nod contentedly at Mary and say: + 

“There’s a girl with real hands on her that aren’t feet.” + 

Hands represented to him whatever of praiseworthy might be spoken of by a man, but feet were in his opinion rightly covered, and ought not to be discovered except in minatory conversation. One ran on them! Well, it was a dog’s trade, or a donkey’s; but hands! he expanded to that subject, and could loose thereon a gale of praise that would blow all other conversation across the border. + 

They set their camp among roaring fairs where every kind of wild man and woman yelled salutation at Patsy and his daughter, and howled remembrance of ten and twenty-year old follies, and plunged into drink with the savage alacrity of those to whom despair is a fairer brother than hope, and with some of these people the next day’s journey would be shared, rioting and screaming on the lonely roads, and these people also the angels observed and were friendly with. + 

One morning they were pacing on their journey. The eyes of the little troop were actively scanning the fields on either hand. They were all hungry, for they had eaten nothing since the previous midday. But these fields were barren of food. Great stretches of grass stretched away to either horizon, and there was nothing here that could be eaten except by the donkey. + 

As they went they saw a man sitting on a raised bank. His arms were folded; he had a straw in his mouth; there was a broad grin on his red face; a battered hat was thrust far back on his head, and from beneath this a brush of stiff hair poked in any direction like an ill-tied bundle of black wire. + 

Mac Cann stared at that red joviality. + 

“There’s a man,” said he to Caeltia, “that hasn’t got a care in the world.” + 

“It must be very bad for him,” commented Caeltia. + 

“Holloa, mister,” cried Patsy heartily, “how’s everything?” + 

“Everything’s fine,” beamed the man, “how’s yourself?” + 

“We’re holding up, glory be to God!” + 

“That’s the way.” + 

He waved his hand against the horizon. + 

“There’s weather for you,” and he spoke with the proud humility of one who had made that weather, but would not boast. His eye was steady on Mac Cann. + 

“I’ve got a hunger on me that’s worth feeding, mister.” + 

“We’ve all got that,” replied Patsy, “and there’s nothing in the cart barring its timbers. I’m keeping an eye out, though, and maybe we’ll trip over a side of bacon in the middle of the road or a neat little patch of potatoes in the next field and it full of the flowery boyoes.” + 

“There’s a field a mile up this road,” said the man, “and everything you could talk about is in that field.” + 

“Do you tell me!” said Patsy briskly. + 

“I do: every kind of thing is in that field, and there’s rabbits at the foot of the hill beyond it.” + 

“I used to have a good shot with a stone,” said Patsy. + 

“Mary,” he continued, “when we come to the field let yourself and Art gather up the potatoes while Caeltia and myself take stones in our hands to kill the rabbits.” + 

“I’m coming along with you,” said the man, “and I’ll get my share.” + 

“You can do that,” said Patsy. + 

The man scrambled down the bank. There was something between his knees of which he was very careful. + 

“What sort of a thing is that?” said Mary. + 

“It’s a concertina and I do play tunes on it before the houses, and that’s how I make my money.” + 

“The musicianer will give us a tune after we get a feed,” said Patsy. + 

“Sure enough,” said the man. + 

Art stretched out his hand. + 

“Let me have a look at the musical instrument,” said he. + 

The man handed it to him and fell into pace beside Patsy and Caeltia. Mary and Finaun were going as usual one on either side of the ass, and the three of them returned to their interrupted conversation. Every dozen paces Finaun would lean to the border of the road and pluck a fistful of prime grass or a thistle or a clutch of chickweed, and he would put these to the ass’s mouth. + 

Patsy was eyeing the man. + 

“What’s your name, mister?” said he. + 

“I was known as Old Carolan, but now the people call me Billy the Music.” + 

“How is it that I never met you before?” + 

“I’m from Connemara.” + 

“I know every cow track and bohereen in Connemara, and I know every road in Donegal and Kerry, and I know everybody that’s on them roads, but I don’t know you, mister.” + 

The man laughed at him. + 

“I’m not long on the roads, so how could you know me? What are you called yourself?” + 

“I’m called Padraig Mac Cann.” + 

“I know you well, for you stole a hen and a pair of boots off me ten months ago when I lived in a house.” + 

“Do you tell me?” said Mac Cann. + 

“I do; and I never grudged them to you, for that was the day that everything happened to me.” + 

Mac Cann was searching his head to find from whom he had stolen a hen and a pair of boots at the one time. + 

“Well, glory be to God!” he cried. “Isn’t it the queer world! Are you old Carolan, the miserly man of Temple Cahill?” + 

The man laughed and nodded. + 

“I used to be him, but now I’m Billy the Music, and there’s my instrument under the boy’s oxter.” + 

Patsy stared at him. + 

“And where’s the house and the cattle, and the hundred acres of grass land and glebe, and the wife that people said you used to starve the stomach out of?” + 

“Faith, I don’t know where they are, and I don’t care either,” and he shook with the laughter as he said it. + 

“And your sister that killed herself climbing out of a high window on a windy night to search for food among the neighbours?” + 

“She’s dead still,” said the man, and he doubled up with glee. + 

“I declare,” said Patsy, “that it’s the end of the world.” + 

The man broke on his eloquence with a pointed finger. + 

“There’s the field I was telling you about and it’s weighty to the ribs with potatoes and turnips.” + 

Patsy turned to his daughter. + 

“Gather in the potatoes; don’t take them all from the one place, but take them from here and there the way they won’t be missed, and then go along the road with the cart for twenty minutes and be cooking them. Myself and Caeltia will catch up on you in a little time and we’ll bring good meat with us.” + 

Caeltia and he moved to the right where a gentle hill rose against the sky. The hill was thickly wooded, massive clumps of trees were dotted every little distance, and through these one could see quiet, green spaces drowsing in the sun. + 

When they came to the fringing trees Patsy directed his companion to go among them some little distance and then to charge here and there, slashing against the trees and the ground with a stick. + 

Caeltia did that, and at the end of a quarter of an hour Patsy had three rabbits stretched under his hand. + 

“That’s good enough,” he called; “we’ll go on now after the people.” + 

They stowed the rabbits under their coats and took the road. + 

They soon caught on their companions. The cart was drawn to the side of the road, at a little distance the ass was browsing, and Mary had a fire going in the brazier and the potatoes ready for the pot. + 

Patsy tossed the rabbits to her. + 

“There you are, my girl,” said he, and, with Caeltia, he sank down on the grassy margin of the road and drew out his pipe. + 

The strange man was sitting beside Art, to whom he was explaining the mechanism of a concertina. + 

“While we are waiting,” said Patsy to him, “you can tell us all the news; tell us what happened to the land and what you’re doing on the road; and there is a bit of twist to put in your pipe so that you’ll talk well.” + 

Mary broke in: + 

“Wait a minute now, for I want to hear that story; let yourself help me over with the brazier and we can all sit together.” + 

There was a handle to the bucket and through this they put a long stick and lifted all bodily to the butt of the hedge. + 

“Now we can sit together,” said Mary, “and I can be cooking the food and listening to the story at the same time.” + 

“I’d sooner give you a tune on the concertina,” said Billy the Music. + 

“You can do that afterwards,” replied Patsy. + 

XXI + 

“I’ll tell you the story,” said Billy the Music, “and here it is: + 

“A year ago I had a farm in the valley. The sun shone into it, and the wind didn’t blow into it for it was well sheltered, and the crops that I used to take off that land would astonish you. + 

“I had twenty head of cattle eating the grass, and they used to get fat quick and they used to give good milk into the bargain. I had cocks and hens for the eggs and the market, and there was a good many folk would have been glad to get my farm. + 

“There were ten men always working on the place, but at harvesttime there would be a lot more, and I used to make them work too. Myself and my son and my wife’s brother (a lout, that fellow!) used to run after the men, but it was hard to keep up with them, for they were great schemers. They tried to do as little work as ever they were able, and they tried to get as much money out of me as they could manage. But I was up to them lads, and it’s mighty little they got out of me without giving twice as much for it. + 

“Bit by bit I weeded out the men until at last I only had the ones I wanted, the tried and trusty men. They were a poor lot, and they didn’t dare to look back at me when I looked at them; but they were able to work, and that is all I wanted them to do, and I saw that they did it. + 

“As I’m sitting beside you on this bank today I’m wondering why I took all the trouble I did take, and what, in the name of this and that, I expected to get out of it all. I usen’t go to bed until twelve o’clock at night, and I would be up in the dawn before the birds. Five o’clock in the morning never saw me stretching in the warm bed, and every day I would root the men out of their sleep; often enough I had to throw them out of bed, for there wasn’t a man of them but would have slept rings round the clock if he got the chance. + 

“Of course I knew that they didn’t want to work for me, and that, bating the hunger, they’d have seen me far enough before they’d lift a hand for my good; but I had them by the hasp, for as long as men have to eat, any man with the food can make them do whatever he wants them to do; wouldn’t they stand on their heads for twelve hours a day if you gave them wages? Aye would they, and eighteen hours if you held them to it. + 

“I had the idea too that they were trying to rob me, and maybe they were. It doesn’t seem to matter now whether they robbed me or not, for I give you my word that the man who wants to rob me today is welcome to all he can get and more if I had it.” + 

“Faith, you’re the kind man!” said Patsy. + 

“Let that be,” said Billy the Music. + 

“The secret of the thing was that I loved money, hard money, gold and silver pieces, and pieces of copper. I liked it better than the people who were round me. I liked it better than the cattle and the crops. I liked it better than I liked myself, and isn’t that the queer thing? I put up with the silliest ways for it, and I lived upside down and inside out for it. I tell you I would have done anything just to get money, and when I paid the men for their labour I grudged them every penny that they took from me. + 

“It did seem to me that in taking my metal they were surely and openly robbing me and laughing at me as they did it. I saw no reason why they shouldn’t have worked for me for nothing, and if they had I would have grudged them the food they ate and the time they lost in sleeping, and that’s another queer thing, mind you!” + 

“If one of them men,” said Patsy solemnly, “had the spunk of a wandering goat or a mangy dog he’d have taken a graipe to yourself, mister, and he’d have picked your soul out of your body and slung it on a dung heap.” + 

“Don’t be thinking,” replied the other, “that men are courageous and fiery animals, for they’re not, and every person that pays wages to men knows well that they’re as timid as sheep and twice as timid. Let me tell you too that all the trouble wasn’t on their side; I had a share of it and a big share.” + 

Mac Cann interrupted solemnly⁠— + 

“That’s what the fox told the goose when the goose said that the teeth hurted him. ‘Look at the trouble I had to catch you,’ said the fox.” + 

“We won’t mind that,” said Billy the Music. + 

“I was hard put to it to make the money. I was able to knock a good profit out of the land and the beasts and the men that worked for me; and then, when I came to turn the profit into solid pieces, I found that there was a world outside of my world, and it was truly bent on robbing me, and, what’s more, it had thought hard for generations about the best way of doing it. It had made its scheme so carefully that I was as helpless among them people as the labourers were with me. Oh! they got me, and they squeezed me, and they marched off smiling with the heaviest part of my gain, and they told me to be a bit more polite or they’d break me into bits, and I was polite too. Ah! there’s a big world outside the little world, and maybe there’s a bigger world outside that, and grindstones in it for all the people that are squeezers in their own place. + 

“The price I thought fair for the crop was never the price I got from the jobbers. If I sold a cow or a horse I never got as much as half of what I reckoned on. There were rings and cliques in the markets everywhere, and they knew how to manage me. It was they who got more than half the money I made, and they had me gripped so that I couldn’t get away. It was for these people I used to be out of bed at twelve o’clock at night and up again before the fowl were done snoring, and it was for them I tore the bowels out of my land, and hazed and bedevilled every man and woman and dog that came in sight of me, and when I thought of these marketmen with their red jowls and their ‘take it or leave it’ I used to get so full of rage that I could hardly breathe. + 

“I had to take it because I couldn’t afford to leave it, and then I’d go home again trying to cut it finer, trying to skin an extra chance profit off the land and workers, and I do wonder now that the men didn’t try to kill me or didn’t commit suicide. Aye, I wonder that I didn’t commit suicide myself by dint of the rage and greed and weariness that was my share of life day and night. + 

“I got the money anyhow, and, sure enough, the people must have thought I was the devil’s self; but it was little I cared what they thought, for the pieces were beginning to mount up in the box, and one fine day the box got so full that not another penny piece could have been squeezed sideways into it, so I had to make a new box, and it wasn’t so long until I made a third box and a fourth one, and I could see the time coming when I would be able to stand in with the marketmen, and get a good grip on whatever might be going.” + 

“How much did you rob in all?” said Patsy. + 

“I had all of two thousand pounds.” + 

“That’s a lot of money, I’m thinking.” + 

“It is so, and it took a lot of getting, and there was twenty damns went into the box with every one of the yellow pieces.” + 

“A damn isn’t worth a shilling,” said Patsy. “You can have them from me at two for a ha’penny, and there’s lots of people would give them to yourself for nothing, you rotten old robber of the world! And if I had the lump of twist back that I gave you a couple of minutes ago I’d put it in my pocket, so I would, and I’d sit on it.” + 

“Don’t forget that you’re talking about old things,” said Billy the Music. + 

“If I was one of your men,” shouted Patsy, “you wouldn’t have treated me that way.” + 

Billy the Music smiled happily at him. + 

“Wouldn’t I?” said he, with his head on one side. + 

“You would not,” said Patsy, “for I’d have broken your skull with a spade.” + 

“If you had been one of my men,” the other replied mildly, “you’d have been as tame as a little kitten; you’d have crawled round me with your hat in your hand and your eyes turned up like a dying duck’s, and you’d have said, ‘Yes, sir,’ and ‘No, sir,’ like the other men that I welted the stuffing out of with my two fists, and broke the spirits of with labour and hunger. Don’t be talking now, for you’re an ignorant man in these things, although you did manage to steal a clocking hen off me the day I was busy.” + 

“And a pair of good boots,” said Patsy triumphantly. + 

“Do you want to hear the rest of the story?” + 

“I do so,” said Patsy; “and I take back what I said about the tobacco; here’s another bit of it for your pipe.” + 

“Thank you kindly,” replied Billy. + 

He shook the ashes from his pipe, filled it, and continued his tale. + 

“On the head of all these things a wonderful thing happened to me.” + 

“That’s the way to start,” said Patsy approvingly. “You’re a good storyteller, mister.” + 

“It isn’t so much that,” replied Billy, “but it’s a good story and a wonderful story.” + 

“The potatoes are nearly done, Mary, a grah?” + 

“They’ll be done in a short while.” + 

“Hold your story for a few minutes until we eat the potatoes and a few collops of the rabbits, for I tell you that I’m drooping with the hunger.” + 

“I didn’t eat anything myself,” replied Billy, “since the middle of yesterday, and the food there has a smell to it that’s making me mad.” + 

“It’s not quite done yet,” said Mary. + 

“It’s done enough,” replied her father. “Aren’t you particular this day! Pull them over here and share them round, and don’t be having the men dying on your hands.” + 

Mary did so, and for five minutes there was no sound except that of moving jaws, and by that time there was no more food in sight. + 

“Ah!” said Patsy with a great sigh. + 

“Aye, indeed!” said Billy the Music with another sigh. + 

“Put on more of the potatoes now,” Patsy commanded his daughter, “and be cooking them against the time this story will be finished.” + 

“I wish I had twice as much as I had,” said Art. + 

“You got twice as much as me,” cried Patsy angrily, “for I saw the girl giving it to you.” + 

“I’m not complaining,” replied Art; “I’m only stating a fact.” + 

“That’s all right,” said Patsy. + 

The pipes were lit, and all eyes turned to Billy the Music. Patsy leaned back on his elbow, and blew his cloud. + 

“Now we’ll have the rest of the story,” said he. + 

XXII + 

“This,” continued Billy the Music, “is the wonderful thing that happened to me. + 

“Bit by bit I got fonder of the money. The more I got of it the more I wanted. I used to go away by myself to look at it and handle it and count it. I didn’t store it all in the house; I only kept enough there to make the people think it was all there, and as everyone was watching that and watching each other (for they all wanted to steal it) it was safe enough. + 

“They didn’t know it was mostly copper was in that box, but copper it was, and some silver that I couldn’t fit into the other boxes. + 

“There was a place at the end of the big barn, just underneath the dog’s kennel⁠—maybe you remember my dog, Patsy?” + 

“A big black-and-white snarly devil of a bull-terrier?” said Patsy, thoughtfully. + 

“That’s him.” + 

“I remember him well,” said Patsy. “I fed him once.” + 

“You poisoned him,” said Billy the Music quickly. + 

“That’s a hard word to say,” replied Patsy, scraping at his chin. + 

Billy the Music looked very fixedly at him, and he also scraped meditatively at his bristles. + 

“It doesn’t matter now,” said he. “That was the dog. I made a place under his kennel. It was well made. If you had pulled the kennel aside you’d have seen nothing but the floor. Down there I kept the three boxes of gold, and while I’d be looking at them the dog would be lurching around wondering why he wasn’t allowed to eat people⁠—I was a bit timid with that dog myself⁠—and it was one day while I was handling the money that the thing happened. + 

“There came a thump on the barn door. The dog made a noise away down in the heel of his throat and loped across; he stuck his nose against the crack at the bottom and began to sniff and scratch. + 

“ ‘Strangers there,’ said I. I put the money away quietly, lifted the kennel back to its place, and went over to open the door. + 

“There were two men standing outside, and the dog sprang for one of them as if he had been shot out of a gun. + 

“But that man was quick. He took the beast on the jump, caught him by the chaps, and slung him with a heave of his arm. I don’t know where he slung him to; I never saw the dog alive after that, and I did think it was that jerk killed him.” + 

“Begor!” said Patsy. + 

“It must have been within half an hour or so that you gave him the poisoned meat, Patsy.” + 

“It was a lengthy mutton bone,” murmured Mac Cann. + 

“Whatever it was!” said Billy the Music. + 

“The men walked in, they shut the barn door behind them and locked it, for the key was inside whenever I was. + 

“Well! I always had the use of my hands and my feet and my teeth, but I had no chance there, so in a few minutes I sat down on the kennel to get my breath back and to mop up the blood that was teeming out of my nose. The two men, I will say, were very quiet with it all⁠—they waited for me. + 

“One of them was a middle-sized block of a man, and he looked as if his head had been rolled in tar⁠—” + 

“Eh!” said Patsy loudly. + 

“The other one was a big, young man with a girl’s face; he had blue eyes and curls of gold, and he was wearing a woman’s skirt⁠—the raggedest old⁠—” + 

“Begor!” cried Patsy, and he leaped furiously to his feet. + 

“What’s wrong with you?” said Billy the Music. + 

Patsy beat his fists together. + 

“I’ve been looking for that pair of playboys for a full year,” he barked. + 

“Do you know them?” said Billy the Music, with equal excitement. + 

“I don’t know them, but I met them, and the girl yonder met them too, the thieves!” + 

“They are a pair of dirty dogs,” said Mary coldly. + 

“And when I do meet them,” said Patsy savagely, “I’ll kill the pair of them: I will so.” + 

Billy the Music laughed. + 

“I wouldn’t try killing them lads; I did try it once, but they wouldn’t let me. Tell us what they did to yourself, and then I’ll go on with my story, for I’m real curious about those two.” + 

Mac Cann put his pipe into his pocket. + 

XXIII + 

Said Patsy: + 

“There isn’t very much to tell, but this is how it happened. + 

“About two weeks before your dog died myself and the girl were tramping up towards Dublin. We hadn’t got the ass with us that time, for it was in pawn to a woman that peddled fish in the southwest of Connemara. She was keeping the ass and cart for us while we were away, and she was going to give us something for their loan at the heel of the season. She was an old rip, that one, for she sold the ass on us to one man and she sold the cart to another man, and we had the trouble of the world getting the pair of them together again⁠—but that’s no matter. + 

“One morning, fresh and early, we were beating along a road that comes down from the mountains and runs away into Donnybrook. I had just picked up a little goose that I found walking along with its nose up, and I thought maybe we could sell the creature to some person in the city who wanted a goose. + 

“We turned a bend in the road (it’s a twisty district), and there I saw two men sitting on the grass on each side of the path. The two men were sitting with the full width of the road between them, and they were clean, stark, stone naked. + 

“They hadn’t got as much as a shirt; they hadn’t a hat; they hadn’t got anything at all on them barring their skins. + 

“ ‘Whoo!’ said I to myself, and I caught a grip of the girl. ‘We’ll be taking another road,’ said I, and round we sailed with the goose and all. + 

“But the two men came after us, and what with the goose and the girl, they caught up on us too. + 

“One of them was a bullet-headed thief and he did look as if he had been rolled in tar, and I hope he was. The other was a dandy lad that never got his hair cut since he was a mother’s boy. + 

“ ‘Be off with the pair of you,’ said I, ‘ye indecent devils. What do ye want with honest folk and you in your pelt?’ + 

“The bullet-headed one was bouncing round me like a rubber ball. + 

“ ‘Take off your clothes, mister,’ said he. + 

“ ‘What!’ said I. + 

“ ‘Take off your clothes quick,’ said he, ‘or I’ll kill you.’ + 

“So, with that I jumped into the middle of the road, and I up with the goose, and I hit that chap such a welt on the head that the goose bursted. Then the lad was into me and we went round the road like thunder and lightning till the other fellow joined in, and then Mary welted into the lot of us with a stick that she had, but they didn’t mind her any more than a fly. Before you could whistle, mister, they had me stripped to the buff, and before you could whistle again they had the girl stripped, and the pair of them were going down the road as hard as ever they could pelt with our clothes under their oxters.” + 

“Begor!” said Billy the Music. + 

“I tell you so,” grinned Patsy. + 

“There was herself and myself standing in the middle of the road with nothing to cover our nakedness but a bursted goose.” + 

“That was the queer sight,” said Billy the Music looking thoughtfully at Mary. + 

“You keep your eyes to yourself, mister,” said Mary hotly. + 

“What did you do then?” said Billy. + 

“We sat down on the side of the road for a long time until we heard footsteps and then we hid ourselves. + 

“I peeped over the hedge and there was a man coming along the path. He was a nice-looking man with a black bag in his hand and he was walking fast. When he came exactly opposite me I jumped the hedge and I took the clothes off him⁠—” + 

Billy the Music slapped his palm on his knee. + 

“You did so!” + 

“I did so,” said Patsy. + 

“He was grumbling all the time, but as soon as I let him loose he started to run, and that was the last I saw of him. + 

“After a bit a woman came along the road, and Mary took the clothes off her. She was a quiet, poor soul, and she didn’t say a word to either of us. We left her the goose and the man’s black bag for payment, and then the pair of us started off, and we didn’t stop running till we came to the County Kerry. + 

“These are the clothes I’m telling you about,” said Patsy; “I have them on me this minute.” + 

“It’s a great story,” said Billy the Music. + 

“I can tell you something further about these people,” said Caeltia smiling. + 

“Can you so?” cried Patsy. + 

“I can, but the man here hasn’t finished what he was telling us.” + 

“I was forgetting him,” said Mac Cann. “Put another pinch in your pipe, mister, and tell us what happened to you after that.” + 

XXIV + 

Billy the Music did put another pinch of tobacco into his pipe, and after drawing on it meditatively for a few minutes he snuffed it out with his thumb and put it into his pocket. Naturally he put it in upside down, so that the tobacco might drop from the pipe, for he was no longer a saving man. + 

“They were surely the two men that I’m telling you about,” said he, “and there they were standing up in front of me while I was sneezing the blood out of my nose. + 

“ ‘What do you want?’ said I to themselves, and all the time I was peeping here and there to see if there wasn’t a bit of a stick or a crowbar maybe lying handy. + 

“It was the boyo in the skirt that answered me: + 

“ ‘I wanted to have a look at yourself,’ said he. + 

“ ‘Take your eyeful and go away, for God’s sake,’ said I. + 

“ ‘You dirty thief!’ said he to me. + 

“ ‘What’s that for?’ said I. + 

“ ‘What do you mean by getting me thrown out of heaven?’ said he. + 

“… ! Well, mister honey, that was a question to worry any man, and it worried me. I couldn’t think what to say to him. ‘Begor!’ said I, and I sneezed out some more of my blood. + 

“But the lad was stamping mad. + 

“ ‘If I could blot you from the light of life without doing any hurt to myself, I’d smash you this mortal minute,’ said he. + 

“ ‘For the love of heaven,’ said I, ‘tell me what I did to yourself, for I never did see you before this day, and I wish I didn’t see you now.’ + 

“The bullet-headed man was standing by all the time, and he chewing tobacco. + 

“ ‘Have it out with him, Cuchulain,’ said he. ‘Kill him,’ said he, ‘and send him out among the spooks.’ + 

“But the other man calmed down a bit, and he came over to me wagging the girl’s skirts. + 

“ ‘Listen!’ said he, ‘I’m the seraph Cuchulain.’ + 

“ ‘Very good,’ said I. + 

“ ‘I’m your Guardian Angel,’ said he. + 

“ ‘Very good,’ said I. + 

“ ‘I’m your Higher Self,’ said he, ‘and every rotten business you do down here does be vibrating against me up there. You never did anything in your life that wasn’t rotten. You’re a miser and a thief, and you got me thrown out of heaven because of the way you loved money. You seduced me when I wasn’t looking. You made a thief of me in a place where it’s no fun to be a robber, and here I am wandering the dirty world on the head of your unrighteous ways. Repent, you beast,’ said he, and he landed me a clout on the side of the head that rolled me from one end of the barn to the other. + 

“ ‘Give him another one,’ said the bullet-headed man, and he chewing strongly on his plug. + 

“ ‘What have you got to do with it?’ said I to him. ‘You’re not my Guardian Angel, God help me!’ + 

“ ‘How dare you,’ said the bullet-headed man. ‘How dare you set this honest party stealing the last threepenny bit of a poor man?’ and with that he made a clout at me. + 

“ ‘What threepenny bit are you talking about?’ said I. + 

“ ‘My own threepenny bit,’ said he. ‘The only one I had. The one I dropped outside the gates of hell.’ + 

“Well, that beat me! ‘I don’t care what you say any longer,’ said I, ‘you can talk till you’re blue and I won’t care what you say,’ and down I sat on the kennel and shed my blood. + 

“ ‘You must repent of your own free will,’ said Cuchulain, marching to the door. + 

“ ‘And you’d better hurry up, too,’ said the other fellow, ‘or I’ll hammer the head off you.’ + 

“The queer thing is that I believed every word the man said. I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I did know that he was talking about something that was real although it was beyond me. And there was the way he said it too, for he spoke like a bishop, with fine, shouting words that I can’t remember now, and the months gone past. I took him at his word anyhow, and on the minute I began to feel a different creature, for, mind you, a man can no more go against his Guardian Angel than he can climb a tree backwards. + 

“As they were going out of the barn Cuchulain turned to me: + 

“ ‘I’ll help you to repent,’ said he, ‘for I want to get back again, and this is the way I’ll help you. I’ll give you money, and I’ll give you piles of it.’ + 

“The two of them went off then, and I didn’t venture out of the barn for half-an-hour. + 

“I went into the barn next day, and what do you think I saw?” + 

“The floor was covered with gold pieces,” said Patsy. + 

Billy nodded: + 

“That’s what I saw. I gathered them up and hid them under the kennel. There wasn’t room for the lot of them, so I rolled the rest in a bit of a sack and covered them up with cabbages. + 

“The next day I went in and the floor was covered with gold pieces, and I swept them up and hid them under the cabbages too. The day after that and the next day and the day after that again it was the same story. I didn’t know where to put the money. I had to leave it lying on the floor, and I hadn’t as much as a dog to guard it from the robbers.” + 

“You had not,” said Patsy, “and that’s the truth.” + 

“I locked the barn; then I called up all the men; I paid them their wages, for what did I want with them any longer and I rolling in gold? I told them to get out of my sight, and I saw every man of them off the land. Then I told my wife’s brother that I didn’t want him in my house any longer, and I saw him off the land. Then I argued my son out of the house, and I told my wife that she could go with him if she wanted to, and then I went back to the barn. + 

“But, as I told you a minute ago, I was a changed man. The gold was mounting up on me, and I didn’t know what to do with it. I could have rolled in it if I wanted to, and I did roll in it, but there was no fun in that. + 

“This was the trouble with me⁠—I couldn’t count it; it had gone beyond me; there were piles of it; there were stacks of it; it was four feet deep all over the floor, and I could no more move it than I could move a house. + 

“I never wanted that much money, for no man could want it: I only wanted what I could manage with my hands; and the fear of robbers was on me to that pitch that I could neither sit nor stand nor sleep. + 

“Every time I opened the door the place was fuller than it was the last time, and, at last, I got to hate the barn. I just couldn’t stand the look of the place, and the light squinting at me from thousands and thousands of gold corners. + 

“It beat me at last. One day I marched into the house, and I picked up the concertina that my son bought (I was able to play it well myself) and said I to the wife: + 

“ ‘I’m off.’ + 

“ ‘Where are you off?’ + 

“ ‘I’m going into the world.’ + 

“ ‘What will become of the farm?’ + 

“ ‘You can have it yourself,’ said I, and with that I stepped clean out of the house and away to the road. I didn’t stop walking for two days, and I never went back from that day to this. + 

“I do play on the concertina before the houses, and the people give me coppers. I travel from place to place every day, and I’m as happy as a bird on a bough, for I’ve no worries and I worry no one.” + 

“What did become of the money?” said Patsy. + 

“I’m thinking now that it might have been fairy gold, and, if it was, nobody could touch it.” + 

“So,” said Mac Cann, “that’s the sort of boys they were?” + 

“That’s the sort.” + 

“And one of them was your own Guardian Angel!” + 

“He said that.” + 

“And what was the other one?” + 

“I don’t know, but I do think that he was a spook.” + 

Patsy turned to Finaun: + 

“Tell me, mister, is that a true story now, or was the lad making it up?” + 

“It is true,” replied Finaun. + 

Patsy considered for a moment. + 

“I wonder,” said he musingly, “who is my own Guardian Angel?” + 

Caeltia hastily put the pipe into his pocket. + 

“I am,” said he. + 

“Oh, bedad!” + 

Mac Cann placed his hands on his knees and laughed heartily. + 

“You are! and I making you drunk every second night in the little pubs!” + 

“You never made me drunk.” + 

“I did not, for you’ve got a hard head surely, but there’s a pair of us in it, mister.” + 

He was silent again, then: + 

“I wonder who is the Guardian Angel of Eileen Ni Cooley? for he has his work cut out for him, I’m thinking.” + 

“I am her Guardian Angel,” said Finaun. + 

“Are you telling me that?” + 

Mac Cann stared at Finaun, and he lapsed again to reverie. + 

“Ah, well!” said he to Billy the Music, “it was a fine story you told us, mister, and queer deeds you were mixed up in; but I’d like to meet the men that took our clothes, I would so.” + 

“I can tell you something more about them,” Caeltia remarked. + 

“So you said a while back. What is it you can tell us?” + 

“I can tell you the beginning of all that tale.” + 

“I’d like to hear it,” said Billy the Music. + 

“There is just a piece I will have to make up from what I heard since we came here, but the rest I can answer for because I was there at the time.” + 

“I remember it too,” said Art to Caeltia, “and when you have told your story I’ll tell another one.” + 

“Serve out the potatoes, Mary,” said Mac Cann, “and then you can go on with the story. Do you think is that ass all right, alannah?” + 

“He’s eating the grass still, but I think he may be wanting a drink.” + 

“He had a good drink yesterday,” said her father, and he shifted to a more comfortable position. + 

XXV + 

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, for his 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 certain small 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—suchlike. + 

“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 tiptoed 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 he again 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 some other 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 and strengthened, 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 loincloth. + 

“ ‘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 three nights,’ 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 shouting and 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 have damned him forever, 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 midday 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 piled wilderness 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 his business 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; and behind 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. She soared 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 newborn 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.” + 

XXVI + 

“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 storyteller, 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 nothing at 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 storytelling.” + 

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 storytelling is an old man’s trade.” + 

“I’ll do my best,” said Art, “but I never told 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 storyteller 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. + 

XXVII + 

“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 magical signs 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 would like 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 grinning at 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 shall be 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 not have 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,” he remarked, “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 yawned heartily 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. + 