As the Thin Woman proceeded with this lesson it became at last so extremely complicated that she was brought to a stand by the knots, so she decided to resume their journey and disentangle her argument when the weather became cooler.
They were repacking the cakes in their wallets when they observed a stout, comely female coming towards the well. This woman, when she drew near, saluted the Thin Woman, and her the Thin Woman saluted again, whereupon the stranger sat down.
"It's hot weather, surely," said she, "and I'm thinking it's as much as a body's life is worth to be travelling this day and the sun the way it is. Did you come far, now, ma'am, or is it that you are used to going the roads and don't mind it?"
"No far," said the Thin Woman.
"Far or near," said the stranger, "a perch is as much as I'd like to travel this time of the year. That's a fine pair of children you have with you now, ma'am."
"They are," said the Thin Woman.
"I've ten of them myself," the other continued, "and I often wondered where they came from. It's queer to think of one woman making ten new creatures and she not getting a penny for it, nor any thanks itself."
"It is," said the Thin Woman.
"Do you ever talk more than two words at the one time, ma'am?" said the stranger.
"I do," said the Thin Woman.
"I'd give a penny to hear you," replied the other angrily, "for a more bad-natured, cross-grained, cantankerous person than yourself I never met among womankind. It's what I said to a man only yesterday, that thin ones are bad ones, and there isn't any one could be thinner than you are yourself."
"The reason you say that," said the Thin Woman calmly, "is because you are fat and you have to tell lies to yourself to hide your misfortune, and let on that you like it. There is no one in the world could like to be fat, and there I leave you, ma'am. You can poke your finger in your own eye, but you may keep it out of mine if you please, and, so, good-bye to you: and if I wasn't a quiet woman I'd pull you by the hair of the head up a hill and down a hill for two hours, and now there's an end of it. I've given you more than two words; let you take care or I'll give you two more that will put blisters on your body forever. Come along with me now, children, and if ever you see a woman like that woman you'll know that she eats until she can't stand, and drinks until she can't sit, and sleeps until she is stupid, and if that sort of person ever talks to you remember that two words are all that's due to her, and let them be short ones, for a woman like that would be a traitor and a thief only that she's too lazy to be anything but a sot, God help her! and, so, good-bye."
Thereupon the Thin Woman and the children arose, and having saluted the stranger they went down the wide path; but the other woman stayed where she was sitting, and she did not say a word even to herself.
As she strode along the Thin Woman lapsed again to her anger, and became so distant in her aspect that the children could get no companionship from her, so, after a while, they ceased to consider her at all and addressed themselves to their play. They danced before and behind and around her. They ran and doubled, shouted and laughed and sang. Sometimes they pretended they were husband and wife, and then they plodded quietly side by side, making wise, occasional remarks on the weather, or the condition of their health, or the state of the fields of rye. Sometimes one was a horse and the other was a driver, and then they stamped along the road with loud, fierce snortings and louder and fiercer commands. At another moment one was a cow being driven with great difficulty to market by a driver whose temper had given way hours before; or they both became goats and with their heads jammed together they pushed and squealed viciously; and these changes lapsed into one another so easily that at no moment were they unoccupied. But as the day wore on to evening the immense surrounding quietude began to weigh heavily upon them. Saving for their own shrill voices there was no sound, and this unending, wide silence at last commanded them to a corresponding quietness. Little by little they ceased their play. The scamper became a trot, each run was more and more curtailed in its length, the race back became swifter than the run forth, and, shortly, they were pacing soberly enough one on either side of the Thin Woman sending back and forth a few quiet sentences. Soon even these sentences trailed away into the vast surrounding stillness. Then Brigid Beg clutched the Thin Woman's right hand, and not long after Seumas gently clasped her left hand, and these mute appeals for protection and comfort again released her from the valleys of fury through which she had been so fiercely careering.
As they went gently along they saw a cow lying in a field, and, seeing this animal, the Thin Woman stopped thoughtfully.
"Everything," said she, "belongs to the wayfarer," and she crossed into the field and milked the cow into a vessel which she had.
"I wonder," said Seumas, "who owns that cow."
"Maybe," said Brigid Beg, "nobody owns her at all."
"The cow owns herself," said the Thin Woman, "for nobody can own a thing that is alive. I am sure she gives her milk to us with great goodwill, for we are modest, temperate people without greed or pretension."
On being released the cow lay down again in the grass and resumed its interrupted cud. As the evening had grown chill the Thin Woman and the children huddled close to the warm animal. They drew pieces of cake from their wallets, and ate these and drank happily from the vessel of milk. Now and then the cow looked benignantly over its shoulder bidding them a welcome to its hospitable flanks. It had a mild, motherly eye, and it was very fond of children. The youngsters continually deserted their meal in order to put their arms about the cow's neck to thank and praise her for her goodness, and to draw each other's attention to various excellences in its appearance.
"Cow," said Brigid Beg in an ecstasy, "I love you."
"So do I," said Seumas. "Do you notice the kind of eyes it has?"
"Why does a cow have horns?" said Brigid.
So they asked the cow that question, but it only smiled and said nothing.
"If a cow talked to you," said Brigid, "what would it say?"
"Let us be cows," replied Seumas, "and then, maybe, we will find out."
So they became cows and ate a few blades of grass, but they found that when they were cows they did not want to say anything but "moo," and they decided that cows did not want to say anything more than that either, and they became interested in the reflection that, perhaps, nothing else was worth saying.
A long, thin, yellow-coloured fly was going in that direction on a journey, and he stopped to rest himself on the cow's nose.
"You are welcome," said the cow.
"It's a great night for travelling," said the fly, "but one gets tired alone. Have you seen any of my people about?"
"No," replied the cow, "no one but beetles tonight, and they seldom stop for a talk. You've rather a good kind of life, I suppose, flying about and enjoying yourself."
"We all have our troubles," said the fly in a melancholy voice, and he commenced to clean his right wing with his leg.
"Does any one ever lie against your back the way these people are lying against mine, or do they steal your milk?"
"There are too many spiders about," said the fly. "No corner is safe from them; they squat in the grass and pounce on you. I've got a twist in my eye trying to watch them. They are ugly, voracious people without manners or neighbourliness; terrible, terrible creatures."
"I have seen them," said the cow, "but they never did me any harm. Move up a little bit, please, I want to lick my nose: it's queer how itchy my nose gets"—the fly moved up a bit. "If," the cow continued, "you had stayed there, and if my tongue had hit you I don't suppose you would ever have recovered."
"Your tongue couldn't have hit me," said the fly. "I move very quickly, you know."
Hereupon the cow slyly whacked her tongue across her nose. She did not see the fly move, but it was hovering safely half an inch over her nose.
"You see," said the fly.
"I do," replied the cow, and she bellowed so sudden and furious a sno
rt of laughter that the fly was blown far away by that gust and never came back again.
This amused the cow exceedingly, and she chuckled and sniggered to herself for a long time. The children had listened with great interest to the conversation, and they also laughed delightedly, and the Thin Woman admitted that the fly had got the worst of it; but, after a while, she said that the part of the cow's back against which she was resting was bonier than anything she had ever leaned upon before, and that while thinness was a virtue no one had any right to be thin in lumps, and that on this count the cow was not to be commended. On hearing this the cow arose, and without another look at them, it walked away into the dusky field. The Thin Woman told the children afterwards that she was sorry she had said anything, but she was unable to bring herself to apologise to the cow, and so they were forced to resume their journey in order to keep themselves warm.
There was a sickle moon in the sky, a tender sword whose radiance stayed in its own high places and did not at all illumine the heavy world below: the glimmer of infrequent stars could also be seen with spacious, dark solitudes between them, but on the earth the darkness gathered in fold on fold of misty veiling, through which the trees uttered an earnest whisper, and the grasses lifted their little voices, and the wind crooned its thrilling, stern lament.
As the travellers walked on, their eyes, flinching from the darkness, rested joyfully on the gracious moon, but that joy lasted only for a little time. The Thin Woman spoke to them curiously about the moon, and, indeed, she might speak with assurance on that subject, for her ancestors had sported in the cold beam through countless dim generations.
"It is not known," said she, "that the fairies seldom dance for joy, but for sadness that they have been expelled from the sweet dawn, and therefore their midnight revels are only ceremonies to remind them of their happy state in the morning of the world before thoughtful curiosity and self-righteous moralities drove them from the kind face of the sun to the dark exile of midnight. It is strange that we may not be angry while looking on the moon. Indeed, no mere appetite or passion of any kind dare become imperative in the presence of the Shining One; and this, in a more limited degree, is true also of every form of beauty: for there is something in an absolute beauty to chide away the desires of materiality and yet to dissolve the spirit in ecstasies of fear and sadness. Beauty has no liking for Thought, but will send terror and sorrow on those who look upon her with intelligent eyes. We may neither be angry nor gay in the presence of the moon, nor may we dare to think in her bailiwick, or the Jealous One will surely afflict us. I think that she is not benevolent but malign, and that her mildness is a cloak for many shy infamies. I think that beauty tends to become frightful as it becomes perfect, and that, if we could see it comprehendingly, the extreme of beauty is a desolating hideousness, and that the name of ultimate, absolute beauty is Madness. Therefore men should seek loveliness rather than beauty, and so they would always have a friend to go beside them, to understand and to comfort them, for that is the business of loveliness: but the business of beauty—there is no person at all knows what that is. Beauty is the extreme which has not yet swung to and become merged in its opposite. The poets have sung of this beauty and the philosophers have prophesied of it, thinking that the beauty which passes all understanding is also the peace which passeth understanding; but I think that whatever passes understanding, which is imagination, is terrible, standing aloof from humanity and from kindness, and that this is the sin against the Holy Ghost, the great Artist. An isolated perfection is a symbol of terror and pride, and it is followed only by the head of man, but the heart winces from it aghast, cleaving to that loveliness which is modesty and righteousness. Every extreme is bad in order that it may swing to and fertilise its equally horrible opposite."
Thus, speaking more to herself than to the children, the Thin Woman beguiled the way. The moon had brightened as she spoke, and on either side of the path, wherever there was a tree or a rise in the ground, a black shadow was crouching tensely watchful, seeming as if it might spring into terrible life at a bound. Of these shadows the children became so fearful that the Thin Woman forsook the path and adventured on the open hillside, so that in a short time the road was left behind and around them stretched the quiet slopes in the full shining of the moon.
When they had walked for a long time the children became sleepy; they were unused to being awake in the night, and as there was no place where they could rest, and as it was evident that they could not walk much further, the Thin Woman grew anxious. Already Brigid had made a tiny, whimpering sound and Seumas had followed this with a sigh, the slightest prolongation of which might have trailed into a sob, and when children are overtaken by tears they do not understand how to escape from them until they are simply bored by much weeping.
When they topped a slight incline they saw a light shining some distance away, and toward this the Thin Woman hurried. As they drew near she saw it was a small fire, and around this some figures were seated. In a few minutes she came into the circle of the firelight, and here she halted suddenly. She would have turned and fled, but fear loosened her knees so that they would not obey her will: also, the people by the fire had observed her, and a great voice commanded that she should draw near.
The fire was made of branches of heather, and beside it three figures sat. The Thin Woman, hiding her perturbation as well as she could, came nigh and sat down by the fire. After a low word of greeting she gave some of her cake to the children, drew them close to her, wrapped her shawl about their heads and bade them sleep. Then, shrinkingly, she looked at her hosts.
They were quite naked, and each of them gazed on her with intent earnestness. The first was so beautiful that the eye failed upon him, flinching aside as from a great brightness. He was of mighty stature, and yet so nobly proportioned, so exquisitely slender and graceful that no idea of gravity or bulk went with his height. His face was kingly and youthful and of a terrifying serenity. The second man was of equal height, but broad to wonderment. So broad was he that his great height seemed diminished. The tense arm on which he leaned was knotted and ridged with muscle, and his hand gripped deeply into the ground. His face seemed as though it had been hammered from hard rock, a massive, blunt face as rigid as his arm. The third man can scarcely be described. He was neither short nor tall. He was muscled as heavily as the second man. As he sat he looked like a colossal toad squatting with his arms about his knees and upon these his chin rested. He had no shape nor swiftness, and his head was flattened down and was scarcely wider than his neck. He had a protruding, doglike mouth that twitched occasionally, and from his little eyes there glinted a horrible intelligence. Before this man the soul of the Thin Woman grovelled. She felt herself crawling to him. The last terrible abasement of which humanity is capable came upon her; a fascination which would have drawn her to him in screaming adoration. Hardly could she look away from him, but her arms were about the children, and love, mightiest of the powers, stirred fiercely in her heart.
The first man spoke to her.
"Woman," said he, "for what purpose do you go abroad on this night and on this hill?"
"I travel, sir," said the Thin Woman, "searching for the Brugh of Angus, the son of the Dagda Mór."
"We are all children of the Great Father," said he. "Do you know who we are?"
"I do not know that," said she.
"We are the Three Absolutes, the Three Redeemers, the Three Alembics—the Most Beautiful Man, the Strongest Man and the Ugliest Man. In the midst of every strife we go unhurt. We count the slain and the victors and pass on laughing, and to us in the eternal order come all the peoples of the world to be regenerated forever. Why have you called to us?"
"I did not call to you, indeed," said the Thin Woman, "but why do you sit in the path so that travellers to the House of the Dagda are halted on their journey?"
"There are no paths closed to us," he replied, "even the gods seek us, for they grow weary in their splendid desolation: saving Him wh
o liveth in all things and in us; Him we serve and before His awful front we abase ourselves. You, O Woman, who are walking in the valleys of anger, have called to us in your heart, therefore, we are waiting for you on the side of the hill. Choose now one of us to be your mate, and do not fear to choose, for our kingdoms are equal and our powers are equal."
"Why would I choose one of you," replied the Thin Woman, "when I am well married already to the best man in the world?"
"Beyond us there is no best man," said he, "for we are the best in beauty, and the best in strength, and the best in ugliness, there is no excellence which is not contained in us three. If you are married what does that matter to us who are free from the pettiness of jealousy and fear, being at one with ourselves and with every manifestation of nature?"
The Crock of Gold Page 15