XXXIV

Mary awakened early.

The morning was grey and the sky flat and solid, with here and there thin furrows marking its gathered fields.

She raised her head, and looked towards her father’s place, but he was not there, and the sacks were crumpled on the ground.

Finaun’s great length was lying along the ground, and he was straight as a rod. Caeltia was curved a little, and one hand was flung above his head. Art was rolled up like a ball; his hands were gripped about his knees, and he had kicked the sacks off his body. Eileen Ni Cooley had her two arms under her face; she was lying on her breast, and her hair streamed sidewards from her head along the dull grass.

As Mary lay back, for it was still too early to rise, a thought came to her and she rose to her feet again. She thought that perhaps her father had come softly in the night and moved the ass and cart away with him, and that thought lifted her breast in panic.

She ran down the road and saw the cart with its shafts poked in the air, and further away the donkey was lying on his side.

She came back on tiptoe smiling happily to herself, and, with infinite precaution, she restored the sacks to Art’s body and composed herself again to sleep. She did not raise the camp, for she wished to give her father all possible time so that he might return unnoticed.

And while she slept the sky unpacked its locked courses; the great galleons of cloud went sailing to the west, and thus, fleet by fleet, relieved those crowded harbours. The black cloud-masses went rolling on the sky⁠—They grew together, touched and swung apart and slipped away with heavy haste, as when down narrow waters an armada weighs, filling listlessly her noisy sails, while the slender spars are hauled to the breeze; the watchmen stand at the posts, and the fenders are still hung from the pitching sides; almost the vessels touch; the shipmen shout as they bear heavily on their oaken poles; and then they swing again, the great prows bear away, the waters boil between, and the loud farewells sing faintly to the waves.

And now the sky was a bright sea sown with islands; they shrank and crumbled and drifted away, islands no more, but a multitude of plumes and flakes and smoky wreaths hastily scudding, for the sun had lifted his tranquil eye on the heavens; he stared afar down the grey spaces, and before his gaze the mists went huddling and hiding in lovely haste; the dark spaces became white, the dark blue spaces became light blue, and earth and sky sparkled and shone in his radiant beam.


The camp awakened before Mary did, and again the enquiry went as to the whereabouts of her father:

“He will be here shortly,” said Mary. “He must have gone along the road to see if there was anything he could find for us to eat,” and she delayed the preparation of their breakfast to the last possible moment. She spilled a pot of boiling water to that end, and she overturned the brazier when the water boiled again.

They were about sitting to their food when Mac Cann came in sight, and she held the meal until his arrival with his hat far to the back of his head, the happiest of smiles on his face, and a newspaper bundle in his hand.

Mary gave him a look of quick meaning:

“Were you able to find anything for the breakfast?” said she, and then she was astonished.

“I was indeed,” he replied, and he handed her the bulky newspaper package.

She used that occasion to whisper to him:

“Well?”

“That’s all right,” said he, nodding at the bundle, but really in answer to her query.

She opened the parcel.

There were slices of bacon in it and slices of beef; there were ten sausages in it and the biggest half of a loaf⁠—these, with a small flat bottle full of rum and two pairs of stockings, made up the parcel.

“Put the sausages in a pan,” said Patsy, “and share them round and we’ll eat them.”

Mary did put them on the pan, and when they were cooked she shared them round, and they were fairly eaten.

After breakfast the pipes were lit, but they rose almost immediately to continue the journey.

“This evening,” said Finaun, “we will be saying goodbye.”

“Aye,” said Mac Cann, “I’m sorry you’re going, for we had a good time together.”

The ass took his instructions, and they went down the road. Their places were now as they had always been⁠—Finaun and Eileen Ni Cooley and Mary Mac Cann went with the ass, and there was no lack of conversation in that assembly, for sometimes they talked to one another and sometimes they talked to the ass, but the donkey listened no matter who was being talked to, and not a person objected to him.

Patsy and Caeltia marched sturdily at the tailboard, and they were close in talk.

Behind them Art was ranging aimlessly, and lilting snatches of song. He did not know the entire of any song but he knew verses of many, and he was able to relate the tunes of these so harmoniously, with such gradual slipping of theme into theme, that twenty minutes of his varied lilting could appear like one consecutive piece of music.

“That lad has a great ear,” said Patsy. “He could make his fortune at the music.”

“He is a musician,” Caeltia replied. “That is his business when we are in our own place, and, as you can see, it is his pleasure also.”

Patsy was in high spirits. Now that he had successfully undone that which he had done a real weight had lifted from him. But the thing was still so near that he could not get easily from it. His head was full of the adventures of the last few days, and although he could not speak of them he could touch them, sound them, lift the lid of his mystery and snap it to again, chuckling meanwhile to himself that those who were concerned did not know what he was talking about, and yet he was talking to himself, or to one cognisant, in hardy, adequate symbol. A puerile game for a person whose youth had been left behind for twenty years, but one which is often played nevertheless and by the most solemn minds.

It was with an impish carelessness that he addressed Caeltia:

“It won’t be long before we are there,” said he.

“That is so,” was the reply.

“You’ll be feeling fine, I’m thinking, when you get your own clothes on again.”

“I have not missed them very much.”

“I hope your wings and your grand gear will be all right.”

“Why should you doubt it?” returned the seraph.

“What,” said Patsy, “if they were robbed on you! You’d be rightly in the cart, mister, if that happened.”

Caeltia puffed quietly at his pipe.

“They were robbed,” said he.

“Eh!” cried Mac Cann sharply.

The seraph turned to him, his eyes brimming with laughter.

“Aye, indeed,” said he.

Mac Cann was silent for a few seconds, but he did not dare to be silent any longer.

“You’re full of fun,” said he sourly. “What are you talking about at all?”

“Finaun and I knew all about it,” said Caeltia, “and we were wondering what would be done by the person.”

“What did he do?” said Patsy angrily.

Caeltia returned the pipe to his mouth.

“He put them back,” said he.

“Only for that,” he continued, “we might have had to recover them ourselves.”

“Would you have been able to get them back?” said Mac Cann humbly.

“We would have got them back; there is nothing in the world could stand against us two; there is nothing in the world could stand against one of us.”

Patsy jerked a thumb to where Art was lilting the open bars of “The Wind That Shakes the Barley”:

“Wouldn’t the boy help?” said he. “How old is the lad?”

“I don’t know,” smiled Caeltia. “He remembers more than one Day of a Great Breath, but he has no power for he has never had being, and so did not win to knowledge; he could give help, for he is very strong.”

“Could you have licked Cuchulain that day?” said Patsy timidly.

“I am older than he,” replied Caeltia, “that is to say I am wiser than he.”

“But he was up there with yourself and could learn the tricks.”

“There is no secrecy in this world or in the others, and there are no tricks: there is Knowledge, but no person can learn more than his head is ready to welcome. That is why robbery is infantile and of no importance.”

“It fills the stomach,” replied Patsy cunningly.

“The stomach has to be filled,” said Caeltia. “Its filling is a necessity superior to any proprietarial right or disciplinary ethic, and its problem is difficult only for children; it is filled by the air and the wind, the rain and the clay, and the tiny lives that move in the clay. There is but one property worth stealing; it is never missed by its owners, although every person who has that property offers it to all men from his gentle hands.”

“You’re trying to talk like Finaun,” said Patsy gloomily.

They walked then in silence for ten minutes. Every vestige of impishness had fled from Mac Cann; he was a miserable man; his vanity was hurt and he was frightened, and this extraordinary combination of moods plunged him to a depression so profound that he could not climb therefrom without assistance.

Said Caeltia to him after a little:

“There is a thing I would like to see done, my friend.”

Mac Cann’s reply came sagging as he hauled his limp ideas from those pits.

“What’s that, your honour?”

“I would like to see the money thrown into this ditch as we go by.”

Patsy’s depression vanished as at the glare of a torch and the trumpet of danger. He nosed the air and sniffed like a horse.

“Begor!” said he. “You’re full of⁠—There’s no sense in that,” said he sharply.

“That is what I would like to see, but everybody must act exactly as they are able to act.”

“I tell you there isn’t any sense in it; give me a reasonable thing to do in the name of God and I’ll do it.”

“That is the only thing I want done.”

“What’s the use of making a fool of me?”

“Am I demanding anything?”

When they had walked a few paces:

“What is it, after all!” said Patsy proudly.

He thrust his hands into his pockets and exhibited them full of gold and silver.

“Just a pitch of my hand and it’s gone!” said he.

“That is all,” said Caeltia. “It’s easily done.”

“So it is,” growled Patsy, and he swung his arm.

But he dropped the hand again.

“Wait a minute,” and he called Eileen Ni Cooley to his side.

“Walk with ourselves, Eileen, and don’t be a stranger. There’s something I want to show you.”

He opened his hand before her and it was flooding and flashing in gold.

She stared with the awe of one who looks on miracles.

“There’s a great deal of money there,” she gasped.

“There’s fifteen golden pounds and some shillings in it,” said Patsy, “and here’s all I care for them.”

He flung his hand then and sped the money at the full force of his shoulder.

“That’s all I care for the stuff,” said he, and he gripped her arm to prevent her bounding to its recovery.

“Come on, woman dear, and leave the ha’pence alone.”

Said Caeltia:

“There is something I must throw away also, for I am getting too fond of it.”

“What’s that?” said Mac Cann curiously.

“It’s this pipe,” the seraph replied, and he balanced it by the mouthpiece.

“Don’t throw away the good pipe,” cried Eileen Ni Cooley. “Am I walking beside a pair of wild men this day?”

Patsy interrupted also.

“Hold on for a minute. Give me the pipe and you can take this one.” He took Caeltia’s silver-mounted briar and he passed to the seraph his own blackened clay.

“You can throw that one away,” said he, and he popped Caeltia’s pipe into his own mouth.

“It will do that way,” said Caeltia sadly.

He held the pipe by the stem, and with a sharp movement snapped it in halves; the head fell to the ground and a small tight wad of burning tobacco jumped from it at the shock.

“There it is,” said Caeltia.

He jerked the piece of broken stem from his hand, and after sighing deeply they marched on.

Eileen Ni Cooley was angry.

“Padraig,” said she, “what made you throw all the golden money away, and the silver money?”

Patsy regarded her with the calm eye of a king.

“Stick your arm through mine, Eileen,” said he, “and let us be comfortable as we go along, for the pair of us haven’t had a talk for a long time, and Caeltia here wants to talk to you as well as me.”

“That is so,” said Caeltia.

Eileen did put her arm in his, and as they stepped briskly forward she stared at him with eyes that were round with admiration and astonishment.

“Aren’t you the queer man, Padraig!” said she.

“I suppose,” said Patsy, “that you’ll be slipping away from us some time tonight?”

“Not if you want me to stay, Padraig.”

They opened a new conversation on that.