No More Learning

They decreed also that any who told the truth
to the child should be flung from a cliff into the sea.

The years passed, and the child grew from childhood into boyhood and
from boyhood into manhood, and from being curious about all things
he became busy with strange and subtle thoughts which came to him in
dreams, and with distinctions between things long held the same and
with the resemblance of things long held different. Multitudes came
from other lands to see him and to ask his counsel, but there were
guards set at the frontiers, who compelled all that came to wear the
feathers of the grey hawk in their hair. While they listened to him
his words seemed to make all darkness light and filled their hearts
like music; but, alas, when they returned to their own lands his words
seemed far off, and what they could remember too strange and subtle
to help them to live out their hasty days. A number indeed did live
differently afterwards, but their new life was less excellent than the
old: some among them had long served a good cause, but when they heard
him praise it and their labour, they returned to their own lands to
find what they had loved less lovable and their arm lighter in the
battle, for he had taught them how little a hair divides the false and
true; others, again, who had served no cause, but wrought in peace the
welfare of their own households, when he had expounded the meaning of
their purpose, found their bones softer and their will less ready for
toil, for he had shown them greater purposes; and numbers of the young,
when they had heard him upon all these things, remembered certain words
that became like a fire in their hearts, and made all kindly joys and
traffic between man and man as nothing, and went different ways, but
all into vague regret.

When any asked him concerning the common things of life; disputes about
the mear of a territory, or about the straying of cattle, or about the
penalty of blood; he would turn to those nearest him for advice; but
this was held to be from courtesy, for none knew that these matters
were hidden from him by thoughts and dreams that filled his mind like
the marching and counter-marching of armies. Far less could any know
that his heart wandered lost amid throngs of overcoming thoughts and
dreams, shuddering at its own consuming solitude.

Among those who came to look at him and to listen to him was the
daughter of a little king who lived a great way off; and when he
saw her he loved, for she was beautiful, with a strange and pale
beauty unlike the women of his land; but Dana, the great mother, had
decreed her a heart that was but as the heart of others, and when she
considered the mystery of the hawk feathers she was troubled with a
great horror. He called her to him when the assembly was over and
told her of her beauty, and praised her simply and frankly as though
she were a fable of the bards; and he asked her humbly to give him
her love, for he was only subtle in his dreams. Overwhelmed with his
greatness, she half consented, and yet half refused, for she longed to
marry some warrior who could carry her over a mountain in his arms. Day
by day the king gave her gifts; cups with ears of gold and findrinny
wrought by the craftsmen of distant lands; cloth from over sea, which,
though woven with curious figures, seemed to her less beautiful than
the bright cloth of her own country; and still she was ever between a
smile and a frown; between yielding and withholding. He laid down his
wisdom at her feet, and told how the heroes when they die return to
the world and begin their labour anew; how the kind and mirthful Men
of Dea drove out the huge and gloomy and misshapen People from Under
the Sea; and a multitude of things that even the Sidhe have forgotten,
either because they happened so long ago or because they have not time
to think of them; and still she half refused, and still he hoped,
because he could not believe that a beauty so much like wisdom could
hide a common heart.

There was a tall young man in the dun who had yellow hair, and was
skilled in wrestling and in the training of horses; and one day when
the king walked in the orchard, which was between the foss and the
forest, he heard his voice among the salley bushes which hid the waters
of the foss. 'My blossom,' it said, 'I hate them for making you weave
these dingy feathers into your beautiful hair, and all that the bird
of prey upon the throne may sleep easy o' nights'; and then the low,
musical voice he loved answered: 'My hair is not beautiful like yours;
and now that I have plucked the feathers out of your hair I will put
my hands through it, thus, and thus, and thus; for it casts no shadow
of terror and darkness upon my heart. ' Then the king remembered many
things that he had forgotten without understanding them, doubtful
words of his poets and his men of law, doubts that he had reasoned
away, his own continual solitude; and he called to the lovers in a
trembling voice. They came from among the salley bushes and threw
themselves at his feet and prayed for pardon, and he stooped down and
plucked the feathers out of the hair of the woman and then turned away
towards the dun without a word. He strode into the hall of assembly,
and having gathered his poets and his men of law about him, stood upon
the dais and spoke in a loud, clear voice: 'Men of law, why did you
make me sin against the laws of Eri? Men of verse, why did you make
me sin against the secrecy of wisdom, for law was made by man for the
welfare of man, but wisdom the gods have made, and no man shall live by
its light, for it and the hail and the rain and the thunder follow a
way that is deadly to mortal things? Men of law and men of verse, live
according to your kind, and call Eocha of the Hasty Mind to reign over
you, for I set out to find my kindred. ' He then came down among them,
and drew out of the hair of first one and then another the feathers
of the grey hawk, and, having scattered them over the rushes upon the
floor, passed out, and none dared to follow him, for his eyes gleamed
like the eyes of the birds of prey; and no man saw him again or heard
his voice. Some believed that he found his eternal abode among the
demons, and some that he dwelt henceforth with the dark and dreadful
goddesses, who sit all night about the pools in the forest watching the
constellations rising and setting in those desolate mirrors.


THE HEART OF THE SPRING

A VERY old man, whose face was almost as fleshless as the foot of a
bird, sat meditating upon the rocky shore of the flat and hazel-covered
isle which fills the widest part of the Lough Gill. A russet-faced boy
of seventeen years sat by his side, watching the swallows dipping for
flies in the still water. The old man was dressed in threadbare blue
velvet, and the boy wore a frieze coat and a blue cap, and had about
his neck a rosary of blue beads. Behind the two, and half hidden by
trees, was a little monastery. It had been burned down a long while
before by sacrilegious men of the Queen's party, but had been roofed
anew with rushes by the boy, that the old man might find shelter in his
last days. He had not set his spade, however, into the garden about it,
and the lilies and the roses of the monks had spread out until their
confused luxuriancy met and mingled with the narrowing circle of the
fern. Beyond the lilies and the roses the ferns were so deep that a
child walking among them would be hidden from sight, even though he
stood upon his toes; and beyond the fern rose many hazels and small oak
trees.

'Master,' said the boy, 'this long fasting, and the labour of beckoning
after nightfall with your rod of quicken wood to the beings who dwell
in the waters and among the hazels and oak-trees, is too much for
your strength. Rest from all this labour for a little, for your hand
seemed more heavy upon my shoulder and your feet less steady under
you to-day than I have known them. Men say that you are older than
the eagles, and yet you will not seek the rest that belongs to age. '
He spoke in an eager, impulsive way, as though his heart were in the
words and thoughts of the moment; and the old man answered slowly and
deliberately, as though his heart were in distant days and distant
deeds.

'I will tell you why I have not been able to rest,' he said. 'It is
right that you should know, for you have served me faithfully these
five years and more, and even with affection, taking away thereby a
little of the doom of loneliness which always falls upon the wise. Now,
too, that the end of my labour and the triumph of my hopes is at hand,
it is the more needful for you to have this knowledge. '

'Master, do not think that I would question you. It is for me to keep
the fire alight, and the thatch close against the rain, and strong,
lest the wind blow it among the trees; and it is for me to take the
heavy books from the shelves, and to lift from its corner the great
painted roll with the names of the Sidhe, and to possess the while an
incurious and reverent heart, for right well I know that God has made
out of His abundance a separate wisdom for everything which lives, and
to do these things is my wisdom. '

'You are afraid,' said the old man, and his eyes shone with a momentary
anger.

'Sometimes at night,' said the boy, 'when you are reading, with the
rod of quicken wood in your hand, I look out of the door and see, now
a great grey man driving swine among the hazels, and now many little
people in red caps who come out of the lake driving little white cows
before them. I do not fear these little people so much as the grey man;
for, when they come near the house, they milk the cows, and they drink
the frothing milk, and begin to dance; and I know there is good in the
heart that loves dancing; but I fear them for all that. And I fear the
tall white-armed ladies who come out of the air, and move slowly hither
and thither, crowning themselves with the roses or with the lilies,
and shaking about their living hair, which moves, for so I have heard
them tell each other, with the motion of their thoughts, now spreading
out and now gathering close to their heads. They have mild, beautiful
faces, but, Aengus, son of Forbis, I fear all these beings, I fear the
people of the Sidhe, and I fear the art which draws them about us. '

'Why,' said the old man, 'do you fear the ancient gods who made the
spears of your father's fathers to be stout in battle, and the little
people who came at night from the depth of the lakes and sang among
the crickets upon their hearths? And in our evil day they still watch
over the loveliness of the earth. But I must tell you why I have fasted
and laboured when others would sink into the sleep of age, for without
your help once more I shall have fasted and laboured to no good end.
When you have done for me this last thing, you may go and build your
cottage and till your fields, and take some girl to wife, and forget
the ancient gods. I have saved all the gold and silver pieces that were
given to me by earls and knights and squires for keeping them from
the evil eye and from the love-weaving enchantments of witches, and
by earls' and knights' and squires' ladies for keeping the people of
the Sidhe from making the udders of their cattle fall dry, and taking
the butter from their churns. I have saved it all for the day when my
work should be at an end, and now that the end is at hand you shall not
lack for gold and silver pieces enough to make strong the roof-tree of
your cottage and to keep cellar and larder full. I have sought through
all my life to find the secret of life. I was not happy in my youth,
for I knew that it would pass; and I was not happy in my manhood, for
I knew that age was coming; and so I gave myself, in youth and manhood
and age, to the search for the Great Secret. I longed for a life
whose abundance would fill centuries, I scorned the life of fourscore
winters. I would be--nay, I _will_ be! --like the Ancient Gods of the
land. I read in my youth, in a Hebrew manuscript I found in a Spanish
monastery, that there is a moment after the Sun has entered the Ram
and before he has passed the Lion, which trembles with the Song of the
Immortal Powers, and that whosoever finds this moment and listens to
the Song shall become like the Immortal Powers themselves; I came back
to Ireland and asked the fairy men, and the cow-doctors, if they knew
when this moment was; but though all had heard of it, there was none
could find the moment upon the hour-glass. So I gave myself to magic,
and spent my life in fasting and in labour that I might bring the Gods
and the Fairies to my side; and now at last one of the Fairies has told
me that the moment is at hand. One, who wore a red cap and whose lips
were white with the froth of the new milk, whispered it into my ear.
To-morrow, a little before the close of the first hour after dawn, I
shall find the moment, and then I will go away to a southern land and
build myself a palace of white marble amid orange trees, and gather the
brave and the beautiful about me, and enter into the eternal kingdom
of my youth. But, that I may hear the whole Song, I was told by the
little fellow with the froth of the new milk on his lips, that you must
bring great masses of green boughs and pile them about the door and the
window of my room; and you must put fresh green rushes upon the floor,
and cover the table and the rushes with the roses and the lilies of the
monks. You must do this to-night, and in the morning at the end of the
first hour after dawn, you must come and find me. '

'Will you be quite young then? ' said the boy.

'I will be as young then as you are, but now I am still old and tired,
and you must help me to my chair and to my books. '

When the boy had left Aengus son of Forbis in his room, and had lighted
the lamp which, by some contrivance of the wizard's, gave forth a sweet
odour as of strange flowers, he went into the wood and began cutting
green boughs from the hazels, and great bundles of rushes from the
western border of the isle, where the small rocks gave place to gently
sloping sand and clay. It was nightfall before he had cut enough for
his purpose, and well-nigh midnight before he had carried the last
bundle to its place, and gone back for the roses and the lilies. It was
one of those warm, beautiful nights when everything seems carved of
precious stones. Sleuth Wood away to the south looked as though cut out
of green beryl, and the waters that mirrored them shone like pale opal.
The roses he was gathering were like glowing rubies, and the lilies had
the dull lustre of pearl. Everything had taken upon itself the look of
something imperishable, except a glow-worm, whose faint flame burnt
on steadily among the shadows, moving slowly hither and thither, the
only thing that seemed alive, the only thing that seemed perishable as
mortal hope. The boy gathered a great armful of roses and lilies, and
thrusting the glow-worm among their pearl and ruby, carried them into
the room, where the old man sat in a half-slumber. He laid armful after
armful upon the floor and above the table, and then, gently closing
the door, threw himself upon his bed of rushes, to dream of a peaceful
manhood with his chosen wife at his side, and the laughter of children
in his ears. At dawn he rose, and went down to the edge of the lake,
taking the hour-glass with him. He put some bread and a flask of wine
in the boat, that his master might not lack food at the outset of his
journey, and then sat down to wait until the hour from dawn had gone
by. Gradually the birds began to sing, and when the last grains of
sand were falling, everything suddenly seemed to overflow with their
music. It was the most beautiful and living moment of the year; one
could listen to the spring's heart beating in it. He got up and went to
find his master. The green boughs filled the door, and he had to make
a way through them. When he entered the room the sunlight was falling
in flickering circles on floor and walls and table, and everything
was full of soft green shadows. But the old man sat clasping a mass of
roses and lilies in his arms, and with his head sunk upon his breast.
On the table, at his left hand, was a leathern wallet full of gold
and silver pieces, as for a journey, and at his right hand was a long
staff. The boy touched him and he did not move. He lifted the hands but
they were quite cold, and they fell heavily.

'It were better for him,' said the lad, 'to have told his beads and
said his prayers like another, and not to have spent his days in
seeking amongst the Immortal Powers what he could have found in his own
deeds and days had he willed. Ah, yes, it were better to have said his
prayers and kissed his beads! ' He looked at the threadbare blue velvet,
and he saw it was covered with the pollen of the flowers, and while he
was looking at it a thrush, who had alighted among the boughs that were
piled against the window, began to sing.


THE CURSE OF THE FIRES AND OF THE SHADOWS

ONE summer night, when there was peace, a score of Puritan troopers
under the pious Sir Frederick Hamilton, broke through the door of the
Abbey of the White Friars which stood over the Gara Lough at Sligo. As
the door fell with a crash they saw a little knot of friars gathered
about the altar, their white habits glimmering in the steady light of
the holy candles. All the monks were kneeling except the abbot, who
stood upon the altar steps with a great brazen crucifix in his hand.
'Shoot them! ' cried Sir Frederick Hamilton, but none stirred, for
all were new converts, and feared the crucifix and the holy candles.
The white lights from the altar threw the shadows of the troopers up
on to roof and wall. As the troopers moved about, the shadows began
a fantastic dance among the corbels and the memorial tablets. For a
little while all was silent, and then five troopers who were the
body-guard of Sir Frederick Hamilton lifted their muskets, and shot
down five of the friars. The noise and the smoke drove away the mystery
of the pale altar lights, and the other troopers took courage and
began to strike. In a moment the friars lay about the altar steps,
their white habits stained with blood. 'Set fire to the house! ' cried
Sir Frederick Hamilton, and at his word one went out, and came in
again carrying a heap of dry straw, and piled it against the western
wall, and, having done this, fell back, for the fear of the crucifix
and of the holy candles was still in his heart. Seeing this, the five
troopers who were Sir Frederick Hamilton's body-guard darted forward,
and taking each a holy candle set the straw in a blaze. The red tongues
of fire rushed up and flickered from corbel to corbel and from tablet
to tablet, and crept along the floor, setting in a blaze the seats and
benches. The dance of the shadows passed away, and the dance of the
fires began. The troopers fell back towards the door in the southern
wall, and watched those yellow dancers springing hither and thither.

For a time the altar stood safe and apart in the midst of its white
light; the eyes of the troopers turned upon it. The abbot whom they
had thought dead had risen to his feet and now stood before it with
the crucifix lifted in both hands high above his head. Suddenly he
cried with a loud voice, 'Woe unto all who smite those who dwell within
the Light of the Lord, for they shall wander among the ungovernable
shadows, and follow the ungovernable fires! ' And having so cried he
fell on his face dead, and the brazen crucifix rolled down the steps
of the altar. The smoke had now grown very thick, so that it drove the
troopers out into the open air. Before them were burning houses. Behind
them shone the painted windows of the Abbey filled with saints and
martyrs, awakened, as from a sacred trance, into an angry and animated
life. The eyes of the troopers were dazzled, and for a while could
see nothing but the flaming faces of saints and martyrs. Presently,
however, they saw a man covered with dust who came running towards
them. 'Two messengers,' he cried, 'have been sent by the defeated Irish
to raise against you the whole country about Manor Hamilton, and if you
do not stop them you will be overpowered in the woods before you reach
home again! They ride north-east between Ben Bulben and Cashel-na-Gael. '

Sir Frederick Hamilton called to him the five troopers who had first
fired upon the monks and said, 'Mount quickly, and ride through the
woods towards the mountain, and get before these men, and kill them. '

In a moment the troopers were gone, and before many moments they had
splashed across the river at what is now called Buckley's Ford, and
plunged into the woods. They followed a beaten track that wound along
the northern bank of the river. The boughs of the birch and quicken
trees mingled above, and hid the cloudy moonlight, leaving the pathway
in almost complete darkness. They rode at a rapid trot, now chatting
together, now watching some stray weasel or rabbit scuttling away
in the darkness. Gradually, as the gloom and silence of the woods
oppressed them, they drew closer together, and began to talk rapidly;
they were old comrades and knew each other's lives. One was married,
and told how glad his wife would be to see him return safe from this
harebrained expedition against the White Friars, and to hear how
fortune had made amends for rashness. The oldest of the five, whose
wife was dead, spoke of a flagon of wine which awaited him upon an
upper shelf; while a third, who was the youngest, had a sweetheart
watching for his return, and he rode a little way before the others,
not talking at all. Suddenly the young man stopped, and they saw that
his horse was trembling. 'I saw something,' he said, 'and yet I do not
know but it may have been one of the shadows. It looked like a great
worm with a silver crown upon his head. ' One of the five put his hand
up to his forehead as if about to cross himself, but remembering that
he had changed his religion he put it down, and said: 'I am certain
it was but a shadow, for there are a great many about us, and of very
strange kinds. ' Then they rode on in silence. It had been raining in
the earlier part of the day, and the drops fell from the branches,
wetting their hair and their shoulders. In a little they began to talk
again. They had been in many battles against many a rebel together,
and now told each other over again the story of their wounds, and
so awakened in their hearts the strongest of all fellowships, the
fellowship of the sword, and half forgot the terrible solitude of the
woods.

Suddenly the first two horses neighed, and then stood still, and would
go no further. Before them was a glint of water, and they knew by the
rushing sound that it was a river. They dismounted, and after much
tugging and coaxing brought the horses to the river-side. In the midst
of the water stood a tall old woman with grey hair flowing over a grey
dress. She stood up to her knees in the water, and stooped from time to
time as though washing. Presently they could see that she was washing
something that half floated. The moon cast a flickering light upon it,
and they saw that it was the dead body of a man, and, while they were
looking at it, an eddy of the river turned the face towards them, and
each of the five troopers recognized at the same moment his own face.
While they stood dumb and motionless with horror, the woman began to
speak, saying slowly and loudly: 'Did you see my son? He has a crown of
silver on his head, and there are rubies in the crown. ' Then the oldest
of the troopers, he who had been most often wounded, drew his sword and
cried: 'I have fought for the truth of my God, and need not fear the
shadows of Satan,' and with that rushed into the water. In a moment he
returned. The woman had vanished, and though he had thrust his sword
into air and water he had found nothing.

The five troopers remounted, and set their horses at the ford, but all
to no purpose. They tried again and again, and went plunging hither
and thither, the horses foaming and rearing. 'Let us,' said the old
trooper, 'ride back a little into the wood, and strike the river
higher up. ' They rode in under the boughs, the ground-ivy crackling
under the hoofs, and the branches striking against their steel caps.
After about twenty minutes' riding they came out again upon the river,
and after another ten minutes found a place where it was possible to
cross without sinking below the stirrups. The wood upon the other
side was very thin, and broke the moonlight into long streams. The
wind had arisen, and had begun to drive the clouds rapidly across the
face of the moon, so that thin streams of light seemed to be dancing
a grotesque dance among the scattered bushes and small fir-trees. The
tops of the trees began also to moan, and the sound of it was like the
voice of the dead in the wind; and the troopers remembered the belief
that tells how the dead in purgatory are spitted upon the points of the
trees and upon the points of the rocks. They turned a little to the
south, in the hope that they might strike the beaten path again, but
they could find no trace of it.

Meanwhile, the moaning grew louder and louder, and the dance of the
white moon-fires more and more rapid. Gradually they began to be
aware of a sound of distant music. It was the sound of a bagpipe,
and they rode towards it with great joy. It came from the bottom of
a deep, cup-like hollow. In the midst of the hollow was an old man
with a red cap and withered face. He sat beside a fire of sticks, and
had a burning torch thrust into the earth at his feet, and played an
old bagpipe furiously. His red hair dripped over his face like the
iron rust upon a rock. 'Did you see my wife? ' he cried, looking up a
moment; 'she was washing! she was washing! ' 'I am afraid of him,' said
the young trooper, 'I fear he is one of the Sidhe. ' 'No,' said the old
trooper, 'he is a man, for I can see the sun-freckles upon his face.
We will compel him to be our guide'; and at that he drew his sword,
and the others did the same. They stood in a ring round the piper, and
pointed their swords at him, and the old trooper then told him that
they must kill two rebels, who had taken the road between Ben Bulben
and the great mountain spur that is called Cashel-na-Gael, and that he
must get up before one of them and be their guide, for they had lost
their way. The piper turned, and pointed to a neighbouring tree, and
they saw an old white horse ready bitted, bridled, and saddled. He
slung the pipe across his back, and, taking the torch in his hand, got
upon the horse, and started off before them, as hard as he could go.

The wood grew thinner and thinner, and the ground began to slope up
toward the mountain. The moon had already set, and the little white
flames of the stars had come out everywhere. The ground sloped more
and more until at last they rode far above the woods upon the wide
top of the mountain. The woods lay spread out mile after mile below,
and away to the south shot up the red glare of the burning town. But
before and above them were the little white flames. The guide drew rein
suddenly, and pointing upwards with the hand that did not hold the
torch, shrieked out, 'Look; look at the holy candles! ' and then plunged
forward at a gallop, waving the torch hither and thither. 'Do you hear
the hoofs of the messengers? ' cried the guide. 'Quick, quick! or they
will be gone out of your hands! ' and he laughed as with delight of the
chase. The troopers thought they could hear far off, and as if below
them, rattle of hoofs; but now the ground began to slope more and more,
and the speed grew more headlong moment by moment. They tried to pull
up, but in vain, for the horses seemed to have gone mad. The guide
had thrown the reins on to the neck of the old white horse, and was
waving his arms and singing a wild Gaelic song. Suddenly they saw the
thin gleam of a river, at an immense distance below, and knew that they
were upon the brink of the abyss that is now called Lug-na-Gael, or in
English the Stranger's Leap. The six horses sprang forward, and five
screams went up into the air, a moment later five men and horses fell
with a dull crash upon the green slopes at the foot of the rocks.


THE OLD MEN OF THE TWILIGHT

AT the place, close to the Dead Man's Point, at the Rosses, where
the disused pilot-house looks out to sea through two round windows
like eyes, a mud cottage stood in the last century. It also was a
watchhouse, for a certain old Michael Bruen, who had been a smuggler
in his day, and was still the father and grandfather of smugglers,
lived there, and when, after nightfall, a tall schooner crept over the
bay from Roughley, it was his business to hang a horn lanthorn in the
southern window, that the news might travel to Dorren's Island, and
from thence, by another horn lanthorn, to the village of the Rosses.
But for this glimmering of messages, he had little communion with
mankind, for he was very old, and had no thought for anything but for
the making of his soul, at the foot of the Spanish crucifix of carved
oak that hung by his chimney, or bent double over the rosary of stone
beads brought to him in a cargo of silks and laces out of France. One
night he had watched hour after hour, because a gentle and favourable
wind was blowing, and _La Mere de Misericorde_ was much overdue; and
he was about to lie down upon his heap of straw, seeing that the dawn
was whitening the east, and that the schooner would not dare to round
Roughley and come to an anchor after daybreak; when he saw a long line
of herons flying slowly from Dorren's Island and towards the pools
which lie, half choked with reeds, behind what is called the Second
Rosses. He had never before seen herons flying over the sea, for they
are shore-keeping birds, and partly because this had startled him out
of his drowsiness, and more because the long delay of the schooner
kept his cupboard empty, he took down his rusty shot-gun, of which the
barrel was tied on with a piece of string, and followed them towards
the pools.

When he came close enough to hear the sighing of the rushes in the
outermost pool, the morning was grey over the world, so that the tall
rushes, the still waters, the vague clouds, the thin mist lying among
the sand-heaps, seemed carved out of an enormous pearl. In a little he
came upon the herons, of whom there were a great number, standing with
lifted legs in the shallow water; and crouching down behind a bank of
rushes, looked to the priming of his gun, and bent for a moment over
his rosary to murmur: 'Patron Patrick, let me shoot a heron; made into
a pie it will support me for nearly four days, for I no longer eat as
in my youth. If you keep me from missing I will say a rosary to you
every night until the pie is eaten. ' Then he lay down, and, resting his
gun upon a large stone, turned towards a heron which stood upon a bank
of smooth grass over a little stream that flowed into the pool; for he
feared to take the rheumatism by wading, as he would have to do if he
shot one of those which stood in the water. But when he looked along
the barrel the heron was gone, and, to his wonder and terror, a man of
infinitely great age and infirmity stood in its place. He lowered the
gun, and the heron stood there with bent head and motionless feathers,
as though it had slept from the beginning of the world. He raised the
gun, and no sooner did he look along the iron than that enemy of all
enchantment brought the old man again before him, only to vanish when
he lowered the gun for the second time. He laid the gun down, and
crossed himself three times, and said a _Paternoster_ and an _Ave
Maria_, and muttered half aloud: 'Some enemy of God and of my patron
is standing upon the smooth place and fishing in the blessed water,'
and then aimed very carefully and slowly. He fired, and when the smoke
had gone saw an old man, huddled upon the grass and a long line of
herons flying with clamour towards the sea. He went round a bend of the
pool, and coming to the little stream looked down on a figure wrapped
in faded clothes of black and green of an ancient pattern and spotted
with blood. He shook his head at the sight of so great a wickedness.
Suddenly the clothes moved and an arm was stretched upwards towards
the rosary which hung about his neck, and long wasted fingers almost
touched the cross. He started back, crying: 'Wizard, I will let no
wicked thing touch my blessed beads'; and the sense of a great danger
just escaped made him tremble.

'If you listen to me,' replied a voice so faint that it was like a
sigh, 'you will know that I am not a wizard, and you will let me kiss
the cross before I die.
'

'I will listen to you,' he answered, 'but I will not let you touch my
blessed beads,' and sitting on the grass a little way from the dying
man, he reloaded his gun and laid it across his knees and composed
himself to listen.

'I know not how many generations ago we, who are now herons, were the
men of learning of the King Leaghaire; we neither hunted, nor went to
battle, nor listened to the Druids preaching, and even love, if it
came to us at all, was but a passing fire. The Druids and the poets
told us, many and many a time, of a new Druid Patrick; and most among
them were fierce against him, while a few thought his doctrine merely
the doctrine of the gods set out in new symbols, and were for giving
him welcome; but we yawned in the midst of their tale. At last they
came crying that he was coming to the king's house, and fell to their
dispute, but we would listen to neither party, for we were busy with
a dispute about the merits of the Great and of the Little Metre; nor
were we disturbed when they passed our door with sticks of enchantment
under their arms, travelling towards the forest to contend against his
coming, nor when they returned after nightfall with torn robes and
despairing cries; for the click of our knives writing our thoughts in
Ogham filled us with peace and our dispute filled us with joy; nor
even when in the morning crowds passed us to hear the strange Druid
preaching the commandments of his god. The crowds passed, and one, who
had laid down his knife to yawn and stretch himself, heard a voice
speaking far off, and knew that the Druid Patrick was preaching within
the king's house; but our hearts were deaf, and we carved and disputed
and read, and laughed a thin laughter together. In a little we heard
many feet coming towards the house, and presently two tall figures
stood in the door, the one in white, the other in a crimson robe; like
a great lily and a heavy poppy; and we knew the Druid Patrick and our
King Leaghaire. We laid down the slender knives and bowed before the
king, but when the black and green robes had ceased to rustle, it was
not the loud rough voice of King Leaghaire that spoke to us, but a
strange voice in which there was a rapture as of one speaking from
behind a battlement of Druid flame: "I preached the commandments of the
Maker of the world," it said; "within the king's house and from the
centre of the earth to the windows of Heaven there was a great silence,
so that the eagle floated with unmoving wings in the white air, and
the fish with unmoving fins in the dim water, while the linnets and
the wrens and the sparrows stilled their ever-trembling tongues in
the heavy boughs, and the clouds were like white marble, and the
rivers became their motionless mirrors, and the shrimps in the far-off
sea-pools were still, enduring eternity in patience, although it was
hard. " And as he named these things, it was like a king numbering his
people. "But your slender knives went click, click! upon the oaken
staves, and, all else being silent, the sound shook the angels with
anger. O, little roots, nipped by the winter, who do not awake although
the summer pass above you with innumerable feet. O, men who have no
part in love, who have no part in song, who have no part in wisdom,
but dwell with the shadows of memory where the feet of angels cannot
touch you as they pass over your heads, where the hair of demons cannot
sweep about you as they pass under your feet, I lay upon you a curse,
and change you to an example for ever and ever; you shall become grey
herons and stand pondering in grey pools and flit over the world in
that hour when it is most full of sighs, having forgotten the flame of
the stars and not yet found the flame of the sun; and you shall preach
to the other herons until they also are like you, and are an example
for ever and ever; and your deaths shall come to you by chance and
unforeseen, that no fire of certainty may visit your hearts. "'

The voice of the old man of learning became still, but the voteen
bent over his gun with his eyes upon the ground, trying in vain to
understand something of this tale; and he had so bent, it may be for a
long time, had not a tug at his rosary made him start out of his dream.
The old man of learning had crawled along the grass, and was now trying
to draw the cross down low enough for his lips to reach it.

'You must not touch my blessed beads,' cried the voteen, and struck
the long withered fingers with the barrel of his gun. He need not have
trembled, for the old man fell back upon the grass with a sigh and was
still. He bent down and began to consider the black and green clothes,
for his fear had begun to pass away when he came to understand that
he had something the man of learning wanted and pleaded for, and now
that the blessed beads were safe, his fear had nearly all gone; and
surely, he thought, if that big cloak, and that little tight-fitting
cloak under it, were warm and without holes, Saint Patrick would take
the enchantment out of them and leave them fit for human use. But the
black and green clothes fell away wherever his fingers touched them,
and while this was a new wonder, a slight wind blew over the pool and
crumbled the old man of learning and all his ancient gear into a little
heap of dust, and then made the little heap less and less until there
was nothing but the smooth green grass.


WHERE THERE IS NOTHING, THERE IS GOD.

THE little wicker houses at Tullagh, where the Brothers were accustomed
to pray, or bend over many handicrafts, when twilight had driven them
from the fields, were empty, for the hardness of the winter had brought
the brotherhood together in the little wooden house under the shadow
of the wooden chapel; and Abbot Malathgeneus, Brother Dove, Brother
Bald Fox, Brother Peter, Brother Patrick, Brother Bittern, Brother
Fair-brows, and many too young to have won names in the great battle,
sat about the fire with ruddy faces, one mending lines to lay in the
river for eels, one fashioning a snare for birds, one mending the
broken handle of a spade, one writing in a large book, and one shaping
a jewelled box to hold the book; and among the rushes at their feet lay
the scholars, who would one day be Brothers, and whose school-house
it was, and for the succour of whose tender years the great fire was
supposed to leap and flicker. One of these, a child of eight or nine
years, called Olioll, lay upon his back looking up through the hole
in the roof, through which the smoke went, and watching the stars
appearing and disappearing in the smoke with mild eyes, like the eyes
of a beast of the field. He turned presently to the Brother who wrote
in the big book, and whose duty was to teach the children, and said,
'Brother Dove, to what are the stars fastened? ' The Brother, rejoicing
to see so much curiosity in the stupidest of his scholars, laid down
the pen and said, 'There are nine crystalline spheres, and on the first
the Moon is fastened, on the second the planet Mercury, on the third
the planet Venus, on the fourth the Sun, on the fifth the planet Mars,
on the sixth the planet Jupiter, on the seventh the planet Saturn;
these are the wandering stars; and on the eighth are fastened the fixed
stars; but the ninth sphere is a sphere of the substance on which the
breath of God moved in the beginning. '

'What is beyond that? ' said the child.

'There is nothing beyond that; there is God. '

And then the child's eyes strayed to the jewelled box, where one great
ruby was gleaming in the light of the fire, and he said, 'Why has
Brother Peter put a great ruby on the side of the box? '

'The ruby is a symbol of the love of God. '

'Why is the ruby a symbol of the love of God? '

'Because it is red, like fire, and fire burns up everything, and where
there is nothing, there is God. '

The child sank into silence, but presently sat up and said, 'There is
somebody outside. '

'No,' replied the Brother. 'It is only the wolves; I have heard them
moving about in the snow for some time. They are growing very wild, now
that the winter drives them from the mountains. They broke into a fold
last night and carried off many sheep, and if we are not careful they
will devour everything. '

'No, it is the footstep of a man, for it is heavy; but I can hear the
footsteps of the wolves also. '

He had no sooner done speaking than somebody rapped three times, but
with no great loudness.

'I will go and open, for he must be very cold. '

'Do not open, for it may be a man-wolf, and he may devour us all. '

But the boy had already drawn back the heavy wooden bolt, and all the
faces, most of them a little pale, turned towards the slowly-opening
door.

'He has beads and a cross, he cannot be a man-wolf,' said the child,
as a man with the snow heavy on his long, ragged beard, and on the
matted hair, that fell over his shoulders and nearly to his waist, and
dropping from the tattered cloak that but half-covered his withered
brown body, came in and looked from face to face with mild, ecstatic
eyes. Standing some way from the fire, and with eyes that had rested at
last upon the Abbot Malathgeneus, he cried out, 'O blessed abbot, let
me come to the fire and warm myself and dry the snow from my beard and
my hair and my cloak; that I may not die of the cold of the mountains
and anger the Lord with a wilful martyrdom. '

'Come to the fire,' said the abbot, 'and warm yourself, and eat the
food the boy Olioll will bring you. It is sad indeed that any for whom
Christ has died should be as poor as you. '

The man sat over the fire, and Olioll took away his now dripping cloak
and laid meat and bread and wine before him; but he would eat only of
the bread, and he put away the wine, asking for water. When his beard
and hair had begun to dry a little and his limbs had ceased to shiver
with the cold, he spoke again.

'O blessed abbot, have pity on the poor, have pity on a beggar who has
trodden the bare world this many a year, and give me some labour to do,
the hardest there is, for I am the poorest of God's poor. '

Then the Brothers discussed together what work they could put him to,
and at first to little purpose, for there was no labour that had not
found its labourer in that busy community; but at last one remembered
that Brother Bald Fox, whose business it was to turn the great quern in
the quern-house, for he was too stupid for anything else, was getting
old for so heavy a labour; and so the beggar was put to the quern from
the morrow.

The cold passed away, and the spring grew to summer, and the quern
was never idle, nor was it turned with grudging labour, for when any
passed the beggar was heard singing as he drove the handle round. The
last gloom, too, had passed from that happy community, for Olioll, who
had always been stupid and unteachable, grew clever, and this was the
more miraculous because it had come of a sudden. One day he had been
even duller than usual, and was beaten and told to know his lesson
better on the morrow or be sent into a lower class among little boys
who would make a joke of him. He had gone out in tears, and when he
came the next day, although his stupidity, born of a mind that would
listen to every wandering sound and brood upon every wandering light,
had so long been the byword of the school, he knew his lesson so well
that he passed to the head of the class, and from that day was the best
of scholars. At first Brother Dove thought this was an answer to his
own prayers to the Virgin, and took it for a great proof of the love
she bore him; but when many far more fervid prayers had failed to add a
single wheatsheaf to the harvest, he began to think that the child was
trafficking with bards, or druids, or witches, and resolved to follow
and watch. He had told his thought to the abbot, who bid him come to
him the moment he hit the truth; and the next day, which was a Sunday,
he stood in the path when the abbot and the Brothers were coming from
vespers, with their white habits upon them, and took the abbot by the
habit and said, 'The beggar is of the greatest of saints and of the
workers of miracle. I followed Olioll but now, and by his slow steps
and his bent head I saw that the weariness of his stupidity was over
him, and when he came to the little wood by the quern-house I knew by
the path broken in the under-wood and by the foot-marks in the muddy
places that he had gone that way many times. I hid behind a bush where
the path doubled upon itself at a sloping place, and understood by the
tears in his eyes that his stupidity was too old and his wisdom too new
to save him from terror of the rod. When he was in the quern-house I
went to the window and looked in, and the birds came down and perched
upon my head and my shoulders, for they are not timid in that holy
place; and a wolf passed by, his right side shaking my habit, his left
the leaves of a bush. Olioll opened his book and turned to the page
I had told him to learn, and began to cry, and the beggar sat beside
him and comforted him until he fell asleep. When his sleep was of the
deepest the beggar knelt down and prayed aloud, and said, "O Thou Who
dwellest beyond the stars, show forth Thy power as at the beginning,
and let knowledge sent from Thee awaken in his mind, wherein is nothing
from the world, that the nine orders of angels may glorify Thy name";
and then a light broke out of the air and wrapped Aodh, and I smelt the
breath of roses. I stirred a little in my wonder, and the beggar turned
and saw me, and, bending low, said, "O Brother Dove, if I have done
wrong, forgive me, and I will do penance. It was my pity moved me";
but I was afraid and I ran away, and did not stop running until I came
here. '

Then all the Brothers began talking together, one saying it was such
and such a saint, and one that it was not he but another; and one that
it was none of these, for they were still in their brotherhoods, but
that it was such and such a one; and the talk was as near to quarreling
as might be in that gentle community, for each would claim so great
a saint for his native province. At last the abbot said, 'He is none
that you have named, for at Easter I had greeting from all, and each
was in his brotherhood; but he is Aengus the Lover of God, and the
first of those who have gone to live in the wild places and among
the wild beasts. Ten years ago he felt the burden of many labours
in a brotherhood under the Hill of Patrick and went into the forest
that he might labour only with song to the Lord; but the fame of his
holiness brought many thousands to his cell, so that a little pride
clung to a soul from which all else had been driven. Nine years ago he
dressed himself in rags, and from that day none has seen him, unless,
indeed, it be true that he has been seen living among the wolves on the
mountains and eating the grass of the fields. Let us go to him and
bow down before him; for at last, after long seeking, he has found the
nothing that is God; and bid him lead us in the pathway he has trodden.
They passed in their white habits along the beaten path in the wood,
the acolytes swinging their censers before them, and the abbot, with
his crozier studded with precious stones, in the midst of the incense;
and came before the quern-house and knelt down and began to pray,
awaiting the moment when the child would wake, and the Saint cease
from his watch and come to look at the sun going down into the unknown
darkness, as his way was.


OF COSTELLO THE PROUD, OF OONA THE DAUGHTER OF DERMOTT
AND OF THE BITTER TONGUE.

COSTELLO had come up from the fields and lay upon the ground before
the door of his square tower, resting his head upon his hands and
looking at the sunset, and considering the chances of the weather.
Though the customs of Elizabeth and James, now going out of fashion
in England, had begun to prevail among the gentry, he still wore the
great cloak of the native Irish; and the sensitive outlines of his face
and the greatness of his indolent body had a commingling of pride and
strength which belonged to a simpler age. His eyes wandered from the
sunset to where the long white road lost itself over the south-western
horizon and to a horseman who toiled slowly up the hill. A few more
minutes and the horseman was near enough for his little and shapeless
body, his long Irish cloak, and the dilapidated bagpipes hanging from
his shoulders, and the rough-haired garron under him, to be seen
distinctly in the grey dusk. So soon as he had come within earshot, he
began crying: 'Is it sleeping you are, Tumaus Costello, when better men
break their hearts on the great white roads? Get up out of that, proud
Tumaus, for I have news! Get up out of that, you great omadhaun! Shake
yourself out of the earth, you great weed of a man! '

Costello had risen to his feet, and as the piper came up to him seized
him by the neck of his jacket, and lifting him out of his saddle threw
him on to the ground.

'Let me alone, let me alone,' said the other, but Costello still shook
him.

'I have news from Dermott's daughter, Winny. ' The great fingers were
loosened, and the piper rose gasping.

'Why did you not tell me,' said Costello, 'that you came from her? You
might have railed your fill. '

'I have come from her, but I will not speak unless I am paid for my
shaking. '

Costello fumbled at the bag in which he carried his money, and it was
some time before it would open, for the hand that had overcome many men
shook with fear and hope. 'Here is all the money in my bag,' he said,
dropping a stream of French and Spanish money into the hand of the
piper, who bit the coins before he would answer.

'That is right, that is a fair price, but I will not speak till I have
good protection, for if the Dermotts lay their hands upon me in any
boreen after sundown, or in Cool-a-vin by day, I will be left to rot
among the nettles of a ditch, or hung on the great sycamore, where they
hung the horse-thieves last Beltaine four years. ' And while he spoke he
tied the reins of his garron to a bar of rusty iron that was mortared
into the wall.

'I will make you my piper and my body-servant,' said Costello, 'and no
man dare lay hands upon the man, or the goat, or the horse, or the dog
that is Tumaus Costello's. '

'And I will only tell my message,' said the other, flinging the saddle
on the ground, 'in the corner of the chimney with a noggin in my hand,
and a jug of the Brew of the Little Pot beside me, for though I am
ragged and empty, my forebears were well clothed and full until their
house was burnt and their cattle harried seven centuries ago by the
Dillons, whom I shall yet see on the hob of hell, and they screeching';
and while he spoke the little eyes gleamed and the thin hands clenched.

Costello led him into the great rush-strewn hall, where were none of
the comforts which had begun to grow common among the gentry, but a
feudal gauntness and bareness, and pointed to the bench in the great
chimney; and when he had sat down, filled up a horn noggin and set it
on the bench beside him, and set a great black jack of leather beside
the noggin, and lit a torch that slanted out from a ring in the wall,
his hands trembling the while; and then turned towards him and said:
'Will Dermott's daughter come to me, Duallach, son of Daly? '

'Dermott's daughter will not come to you, for her father has set women
to watch her, but she bid me tell you that this day sennight will be
the eve of St. John and the night of her betrothal to Namara of the
Lake, and she would have you there that, when they bid her drink to him
she loves best, as the way is, she may drink to you, Tumaus Costello,
and let all know where her heart is, and how little of gladness is in
her marriage; and I myself bid you go with good men about you, for I
saw the horse-thieves with my own eyes, and they dancing the "Blue
Pigeon" in the air. ' And then he held the now empty noggin towards
Costello, his hand closing round it like the claw of a bird, and cried:
'Fill my noggin again, for I would the day had come when all the water
in the world is to shrink into a periwinkle-shell, that I might drink
nothing but Poteen. '

Finding that Costello made no reply, but sat in a dream, he burst out:
'Fill my noggin, I tell you, for no Costello is so great in the world
that he should not wait upon a Daly, even though the Daly travel the
road with his pipes and the Costello have a bare hill, an empty house,
a horse, a herd of goats, and a handful of cows. '

'Praise the Dalys if you will,' said Costello as he filled the noggin,
'for you have brought me a kind word from my love. '

For the next few days Duallach went hither and thither trying to raise
a bodyguard, and every man he met had some story of Costello, how he
killed the wrestler when but a boy by so straining at the belt that
went about them both that he broke the big wrestler's back; how when
somewhat older he dragged fierce horses through a ford in the Unchion
for a wager; how when he came to manhood he broke the steel horseshoe
in Mayo; how he drove many men before him through Rushy Meadow at
Drum-an-air because of a malevolent song they had about his poverty;
and of many another deed of his strength and pride; but he could find
none who would trust themselves with any so passionate and poor in a
quarrel with careful and wealthy persons like Dermott of the Sheep and
Namara of the Lake.

Then Costello went out himself, and after listening to many excuses
and in many places, brought in a big half-witted fellow, who followed
him like a dog, a farm-labourer who worshipped him for his strength,
a fat farmer whose forefathers had served his family, and a couple of
lads who looked after his goats and cows; and marshalled them before
the fire in the empty hall. They had brought with them their stout
cudgels, and Costello gave them an old pistol apiece, and kept them
all night drinking Spanish ale and shooting at a white turnip which
he pinned against the wall with a skewer. Duallach of the Pipes sat
on the bench in the chimney playing 'The Green Bunch of Rushes,' 'The
Unchion Stream,' and 'The Princes of Breffeny' on his old pipes, and
railing now at the appearance of the shooters, now at their clumsy
shooting, and now at Costello because he had no better servants. The
labourer, the half-witted fellow, the farmer and the lads were all well
accustomed to Duallach's railing, for it was as inseparable from wake
or wedding as the squealing of his pipes, but they wondered at the
forbearance of Costello, who seldom came either to wake or wedding, and
if he had would scarce have been patient with a scolding piper.

On the next evening they set out for Cool-a-vin, Costello riding a
tolerable horse and carrying a sword, the others upon rough-haired
garrons, and with their stout cudgels under their arms. As they rode
over the bogs and in the boreens among the hills they could see
fire answering fire from hill to hill, from horizon to horizon, and
everywhere groups who danced in the red light on the turf, celebrating
the bridal of life and fire. When they came to Dermott's house they
saw before the door an unusually large group of the very poor, dancing
about a fire, in the midst of which was a blazing cartwheel, that
circular dance which is so ancient that the gods, long dwindled to
be but fairies, dance no other in their secret places. From the door
and through the long loop-holes on either side came the pale light of
candles and the sound of many feet dancing a dance of Elizabeth and
James.

They tied their horses to bushes, for the number so tied already showed
that the stables were full, and shoved their way through a crowd of
peasants who stood about the door, and went into the great hall where
the dance was. The labourer, the half-witted fellow, the farmer and the
two lads mixed with a group of servants who were looking on from an
alcove, and Duallach sat with the pipers on their bench, but Costello
made his way through the dancers to where Dermott of the Sheep stood
with Namara of the Lake pouring Poteen out of a porcelain jug into horn
noggins with silver rims.

'Tumaus Costello,' said the old man, 'you have done a good deed
to forget what has been, and to fling away enmity and come to the
betrothal of my daughter to Namara of the Lake. '

'I come,' answered Costello, 'because when in the time of Costello De
Angalo my forebears overcame your forebears and afterwards made peace,
a compact was made that a Costello might go with his body-servants and
his piper to every feast given by a Dermott for ever, and a Dermott
with his body-servants and his piper to every feast given by a Costello
for ever. '

'If you come with evil thoughts and armed men,' said the son of Dermott
flushing, 'no matter how strong your hands to wrestle and to swing the
sword, it shall go badly with you, for some of my wife's clan have
come out of Mayo, and my three brothers and their servants have come
down from the Ox Mountains'; and while he spoke he kept his hand inside
his coat as though upon the handle of a weapon.

'No,' answered Costello, 'I but come to dance a farewell dance with
your daughter. '

Dermott drew his hand out of his coat and went over to a tall pale girl
who was now standing but a little way off with her mild eyes fixed upon
the ground.

'Costello has come to dance a farewell dance, for he knows that you
will never see one another again. '

The girl lifted her eyes and gazed at Costello, and in her gaze was
that trust of the humble in the proud, the gentle in the violent,
which has been the tragedy of woman from the beginning. Costello led
her among the dancers, and they were soon drawn into the rhythm of the
Pavane, that stately dance which, with the Saraband, the Gallead, and
the Morrice dances, had driven out, among all but the most Irish of
the gentry, the quicker rhythms of the verse-interwoven, pantomimic
dances of earlier days; and while they danced there came over them the
unutterable melancholy, the weariness with the world, the poignant and
bitter pity for one another, the vague anger against common hopes and
fears, which is the exultation of love. And when a dance ended and the
pipers laid down their pipes and lifted their horn noggins, they stood
a little from the others waiting pensively and silently for the dance
to begin again and the fire in their hearts to leap up and to wrap them
anew; and so they danced and danced Pavane and Saraband and Gallead and
Morrice through the night long, and many stood still to watch them,
and the peasants came about the door and peered in, as though they
understood that they would gather their children's children about them
long hence, and tell how they had seen Costello dance with Dermott's
daughter Oona, and become by the telling themselves a portion of
ancient romance; but through all the dancing and piping Namara of the
Lake went hither and thither talking loudly and making foolish jokes
that all might seem well with him, and old Dermott of the Sheep grew
redder and redder, and looked oftener and oftener at the doorway to see
if the candles there grew yellow in the dawn.

At last he saw that the moment to end had come, and, in a pause after a
dance, cried out from where the horn noggins stood that his daughter
would now drink the cup of betrothal; then Oona came over to where he
was, and the guests stood round in a half-circle, Costello close to
the wall to the right, and the piper, the labourer, the farmer, the
half-witted man and the two farm lads close behind him. The old man
took out of a niche in the wall the silver cup from which her mother
and her mother's mother had drunk the toasts of their betrothals, and
poured Poteen out of a porcelain jug and handed the cup to his daughter
with the customary words, 'Drink to him whom you love the best. '

She held the cup to her lips for a moment, and then said in a clear
soft voice: 'I drink to my true love, Tumaus Costello. '

And then the cup rolled over and over on the ground, ringing like
a bell, for the old man had struck her in the face and the cup had
fallen, and there was a deep silence.

There were many of Namara's people among the servants now come out of
the alcove, and one of them, a story-teller and poet, a last remnant of
the bardic order, who had a chair and a platter in Namara's kitchen,
drew a French knife out of his girdle and made as though he would
strike at Costello, but in a moment a blow had hurled him to the
ground, his shoulder sending the cup rolling and ringing again. The
click of steel had followed quickly, had not there come a muttering and
shouting from the peasants about the door and from those crowding up
behind them; and all knew that these were no children of Queen's Irish
or friendly Namaras and Dermotts, but of the wild Irish about Lough
Gara and Lough Cara, who rowed their skin coracles, and had masses
of hair over their eyes, and left the right arms of their children
unchristened that they might give the stouter blows, and swore only by
St. Atty and sun and moon, and worshipped beauty and strength more than
St. Atty or sun and moon.

Costello's hand had rested upon the handle of his sword and his
knuckles had grown white, but now he drew it away, and, followed by
those who were with him, strode towards the door, the dancers giving
way before him, the most angrily and slowly, and with glances at the
muttering and shouting peasants, but some gladly and quickly, because
the glory of his fame was over him. He passed through the fierce
and friendly peasant faces, and came where his good horse and the
rough-haired garrons were tied to bushes; and mounted and bade his
ungainly bodyguard mount also and ride into the narrow boreen. When
they had gone a little way, Duallach, who rode last, turned towards
the house where a little group of Dermotts and Namaras stood next to a
more numerous group of countrymen, and cried: 'Dermott, you deserve to
be as you are this hour, a lantern without a candle, a purse without a
penny, a sheep without wool, for your hand was ever niggardly to piper
and fiddler and story-teller and to poor travelling people. ' He had
not done before the three old Dermotts from the Ox Mountains had run
towards their horses, and old Dermott himself had caught the bridle of
a garron of the Namaras and was calling to the others to follow him;
and many blows and many deaths had been had not the countrymen caught
up still glowing sticks from the ashes of the fires and hurled them
among the horses with loud cries, making all plunge and rear, and some
break from those who held them, the whites of their eyes gleaming in
the dawn.

For the next few weeks Costello had no lack of news of Oona, for now
a woman selling eggs or fowls, and now a man or a woman on pilgrimage
to the Well of the Rocks, would tell him how his love had fallen ill
the day after St. John's Eve, and how she was a little better or a
little worse, as it might be; and though he looked to his horses and
his cows and goats as usual, the common and uncomely, the dust upon the
roads, the songs of men returning from fairs and wakes, men playing
cards in the corners of fields on Sundays and Saints' Days, the rumours
of battles and changes in the great world, the deliberate purposes of
those about him, troubled him with an inexplicable trouble; and the
country people still remember how when night had fallen he would bid
Duallach of the Pipes tell, to the chirping of the crickets, 'The Son
of Apple,' 'The Beauty of the World,' 'The King of Ireland's Son,' or
some other of those traditional tales which were as much a piper's
business as 'The Green Bunch of Rushes,' 'The Unchion Stream,' or 'The
Chiefs of Breffeny'; and while the boundless and phantasmal world of
the legends was a-building, would abandon himself to the dreams of his
sorrow.

Duallach would often pause to tell how some clan of the wild Irish had
descended from an incomparable King of the Blue Belt, or Warrior of the
Ozier Wattle, or to tell with many curses how all the strangers and
most of the Queen's Irish were the seed of the misshapen and horned
People from Under the Sea or of the servile and creeping Ferbolg;
but Costello cared only for the love sorrows, and no matter whither
the stories wandered, whether to the Isle of the Red Lough, where the
blessed are, or to the malign country of the Hag of the East, Oona
alone endured their shadowy hardships; for it was she and no king's
daughter of old who was hidden in the steel tower under the water
with the folds of the Worm of Nine Eyes round and about her prison;
and it was she who won by seven years of service the right to deliver
from hell all she could carry, and carried away multitudes clinging
with worn fingers to the hem of her dress; and it was she who endured
dumbness for a year because of the little thorn of enchantment the
fairies had thrust into her tongue; and it was a lock of her hair,
coiled in a little carved box, which gave so great a light that men
threshed by it from sundown to sunrise, and awoke so great a wonder
that kings spent years in wandering or fell before unknown armies in
seeking to discover her hiding-place; for there was no beauty in the
world but hers, no tragedy in the world but hers: and when at last
the voice of the piper, grown gentle with the wisdom of old romance,
was silent, and his rheumatic steps had toiled upstairs and to bed,
and Costello had dipped his fingers into the little delf font of
holy water and begun to pray to Mary of the Seven Sorrows, the blue
eyes and star-covered dress of the painting in the chapel faded from
his imagination, and the brown eyes and homespun dress of Dermott's
daughter Winny came in their stead; for there was no tenderness in
the world but hers. He was of those ascetics of passion who keep
their hearts pure for love or for hatred as other men for God, for
Mary and for the Saints, and who, when the hour of their visitation
arrives, come to the Divine Essence by the bitter tumult, the Garden
of Gethsemane, and the desolate Rood ordained for immortal passions in
mortal hearts.

One day a serving-man rode up to Costello, who was helping his two lads
to reap a meadow, and gave him a letter, and rode away without a word;
and the letter contained these words in English: 'Tumaus Costello,
my daughter is very ill. The wise woman from Knock-na-Sidhe has seen
her, and says she will die unless you come to her. I therefore bid you
come to her, whose peace you stole by treachery. --DERMOTT, THE SON OF
DERMOTT. '

Costello threw down his scythe, and sent one of the lads for Duallach,
who had become woven into his mind with Oona, and himself saddled his
great horse and Duallach's garron.

When they came to Dermott's house it was late afternoon, and Lough
Gara lay down below them, blue, mirror-like, and deserted; and though
they had seen, when at a distance, dark figures moving about the door,
the house appeared not less deserted than the Lough. The door stood
half open, and Costello knocked upon it again and again, so that a
number of lake gulls flew up out of the grass and circled screaming
over his head, but there was no answer.

'There is no one here,' said Duallach, 'for Dermott of the Sheep is
too proud to welcome Costello the Proud,' and he threw the door open,
and they saw a ragged, dirty, very old woman, who sat upon the floor
leaning against the wall. Costello knew that it was Bridget Delaney,
a deaf and dumb beggar; and she, when she saw him, stood up and made
a sign to him to follow, and led him and his companion up a stair and
down a long corridor to a closed door. She pushed the door open and
went a little way off and sat down as before; Duallach sat upon the
ground also, but close to the door, and Costello went and gazed upon
Winny sleeping upon a bed. He sat upon a chair beside her and waited,
and a long time passed and still she slept on, and then Duallach
motioned to him through the door to wake her, but he hushed his
very breath, that she might sleep on, for his heart was full of that
ungovernable pity which makes the fading heart of the lover a shadow
of the divine heart. Presently he turned to Duallach and said: 'It is
not right that I stay here where there are none of her kindred, for
the common people are always ready to blame the beautiful. ' And then
they went down and stood at the door of the house and waited, but the
evening wore on and no one came.

'It was a foolish man that called you Proud Costello,' Duallach cried
at last; 'had he seen you waiting and waiting where they left none but
a beggar to welcome you, it is Humble Costello he would have called
you. '

Then Costello mounted and Duallach mounted, but when they had ridden a
little way Costello tightened the reins and made his horse stand still.
Many minutes passed, and then Duallach cried: 'It is no wonder that
you fear to offend Dermott of the Sheep, for he has many brothers and
friends, and though he is old, he is a strong man and ready with his
hands, and he is of the Queen's Irish, and the enemies of the Gael are
upon his side. '

And Costello answered flushing and looking towards the house: 'I swear
by the Mother of God that I will never return there again if they do
not send after me before I pass the ford in the Brown River,' and he
rode on, but so very slowly that the sun went down and the bats began
to fly over the bogs. When he came to the river he lingered awhile upon
the bank among the flowers of the flag, but presently rode out into the
middle and stopped his horse in a foaming shallow. Duallach, however,
crossed over and waited on a further bank above a deeper place. After a
good while Duallach cried out again, and this time very bitterly: 'It
was a fool who begot you and a fool who bore you, and they are fools of
all fools who say you come of an old and noble stock, for you come of
whey-faced beggars who travelled from door to door, bowing to gentles
and to serving-men. '

With bent head, Costello rode through the river and stood beside him,
and would have spoken had not hoofs clattered on the further bank and a
horseman splashed towards them. It was a serving-man of Dermott's, and
he said, speaking breathlessly like one who had ridden hard: 'Tumaus
Costello, I come to bid you again to Dermott's house. When you had
gone, his daughter Winny awoke and called your name, for you had been
in her dreams. Bridget Delaney the Dummy saw her lips move and the
trouble upon her, and came where we were hiding in the wood above the
house and took Dermott of the Sheep by the coat and brought him to his
daughter. He saw the trouble upon her, and bid me ride his own horse to
bring you the quicker. '

Then Costello turned towards the piper Duallach Daly, and taking him
about the waist lifted him out of the saddle and hurled him against a
grey rock that rose up out of the river, so that he fell lifeless into
the deep place, and the waters swept over the tongue which God had made
bitter, that there might be a story in men's ears in after time. Then
plunging his spurs into the horse, he rode away furiously toward the
north-west, along the edge of the river, and did not pause until he
came to another and smoother ford, and saw the rising moon mirrored in
the water. He paused for a moment irresolute, and then rode into the
ford and on over the Ox Mountains, and down towards the sea; his eyes
almost continually resting upon the moon which glimmered in the dimness
like a great white rose hung on the lattice of some boundless and
phantasmal world. But now his horse, long dark with sweat and breathing
hard, for he kept spurring it to an extreme speed, fell heavily,
hurling him into the grass at the road-side. He tried to make it stand
up, and failing in this, went on alone towards the moonlight; and came
to the sea and saw a schooner lying there at anchor. Now that he could
go no further because of the sea, he found that he was very tired and
the night very cold, and went into a shebeen close to the shore and
threw himself down upon a bench. The room was full of Spanish and Irish
sailors who had just smuggled a cargo of wine and ale, and were waiting
a favourable wind to set out again. A Spaniard offered him a drink in
bad Gaelic. He drank it greedily and began talking wildly and rapidly.

For some three weeks the wind blew inshore or with too great violence,
and the sailors stayed drinking and talking and playing cards, and
Costello stayed with them, sleeping upon a bench in the shebeen, and
drinking and talking and playing more than any. He soon lost what
little money he had, and then his horse, which some one had brought
from the mountain boreen, to a Spaniard, who sold it to a farmer from
the mountains, and then his long cloak and his spurs and his boots of
soft leather. At last a gentle wind blew towards Spain, and the crew
rowed out to their schooner, singing Gaelic and Spanish songs, and
lifted the anchor, and in a little while the white sails had dropped
under the horizon. Then Costello turned homeward, his life gaping
before him, and walked all day, coming in the early evening to the road
that went from near Lough Gara to the southern edge of Lough Cay. Here
he overtook a great crowd of peasants and farmers, who were walking
very slowly after two priests and a group of well-dressed persons,
certain of whom were carrying a coffin. He stopped an old man and
asked whose burying it was and whose people they were, and the old man
answered: 'It is the burying of Oona, Dermott's daughter, and we are
the Namaras and the Dermotts and their following, and you are Tumaus
Costello who murdered her. '

Costello went on towards the head of the procession, passing men who
looked at him with fierce eyes, and only vaguely understanding what
he had heard, for now that he had lost the understanding that belongs
to good health, it seemed impossible that a gentleness and a beauty
which had been so long the world's heart could pass away. Presently he
stopped and asked again whose burying it was, and a man answered: 'We
are carrying Dermott's daughter Winny whom you murdered, to be buried
in the island of the Holy Trinity,' and the man stooped and picked up
a stone and cast it at Costello, striking him on the cheek and making
the blood flow out over his face. Costello went on scarcely feeling the
blow, and coming to those about the coffin, shouldered his way into the
midst of them, and laying his hand upon the coffin, asked in a loud
voice: 'Who is in this coffin? '

The three old Dermotts from the Ox Mountains caught up stones and bid
those about them do the same; and he was driven from the road, covered
with wounds, and but for the priests would surely have been killed.

When the procession had passed on, Costello began to follow again, and
saw from a distance the coffin laid upon a large boat, and those about
it get into other boats, and the boats move slowly over the water to
Insula Trinitatis; and after a time he saw the boats return and their
passengers mingle with the crowd upon the bank, and all disperse by
many roads and boreens. It seemed to him that Winny was somewhere on
the island smiling gently as of old, and when all had gone he swam
in the way the boats had been rowed and found the new-made grave
beside the ruined Abbey of the Holy Trinity, and threw himself upon
it, calling to Oona to come to him. Above him the square ivy leaves
trembled, and all about him white moths moved over white flowers, and
sweet odours drifted through the dim air.

He lay there all that night and through the day after, from time to
time calling her to come to him, but when the third night came he had
forgotten, worn out with hunger and sorrow, that her body lay in the
earth beneath; but only knew she was somewhere near and would not come
to him.

Just before dawn, the hour when the peasants hear his ghostly voice
crying out, his pride awoke and he called loudly: 'Winny, daughter of
Dermott of the Sheep, if you do not come to me I will go and never
return to the island of the Holy Trinity,' and before his voice had
died away a cold and whirling wind had swept over the island and he saw
many figures rushing past, women of the Sidhe with crowns of silver and
dim floating drapery; and then Oona, but no longer smiling gently, for
she passed him swiftly and angrily, and as she passed struck him upon
the face crying: 'Then go and never return. '

He would have followed, and was calling out her name, when the whole
glimmering company rose up into the air, and, rushing together in the
shape of a great silvery rose, faded into the ashen dawn.

Costello got up from the grave, understanding nothing but that he had
made his beloved angry and that she wished him to go, and wading out
into the lake, began to swim. He swam on and on, but his limbs were too
weary to keep him afloat, and her anger was heavy about him, and when
he had gone a little way he sank without a struggle, like a man passing
into sleep and dreams.

The next day a poor fisherman found him among the reeds upon the lake
shore, lying upon the white lake sand with his arms flung out as
though he lay upon a rood, and carried him to his own house. And the
very poor lamented over him and sang the keen, and when the time had
come, laid him in the Abbey on Insula Trinitatis with only the ruined
altar between him and Dermott's daughter, and planted above them two
ash-trees that in after days wove their branches together and mingled
their trembling leaves.




ROSA ALCHEMICA


O blessed and happy he, who knowing the mysteries
of the gods, sanctifies his life, and purifies his
soul, celebrating orgies in the mountains with holy
purifications. --_Euripides. _




ROSA ALCHEMICA


I

IT is now more than ten years since I met, for the last time, Michael
Robartes, and for the first time and the last time his friends
and fellow students; and witnessed his and their tragic end, and
endured those strange experiences, which have changed me so that my
writings have grown less popular and less intelligible, and driven
me almost to the verge of taking the habit of St. Dominic. I had
just published _Rosa Alchemica_, a little work on the Alchemists,
somewhat in the manner of Sir Thomas Browne, and had received many
letters from believers in the arcane sciences, upbraiding what they
called my timidity, for they could not believe so evident sympathy
but the sympathy of the artist, which is half pity, for everything
which has moved men's hearts in any age. I had discovered, early in
my researches, that their doctrine was no merely chemical phantasy,
but a philosophy they applied to the world, to the elements and to
man himself; and that they sought to fashion gold out of common metals
merely as part of an universal transmutation of all things into some
divine and imperishable substance; and this enabled me to make my
little book a fanciful reverie over the transmutation of life into art,
and a cry of measureless desire for a world made wholly of essences.

I was sitting dreaming of what I had written, in my house in one of
the old parts of Dublin; a house my ancestors had made almost famous
through their part in the politics of the city and their friendships
with the famous men of their generations; and was feeling an unwonted
happiness at having at last accomplished a long-cherished design, and
made my rooms an expression of this favourite doctrine. The portraits,
of more historical than artistic interest, had gone; and tapestry, full
of the blue and bronze of peacocks, fell over the doors, and shut out
all history and activity untouched with beauty and peace; and now when
I looked at my Crevelli and pondered on the rose in the hand of the
Virgin, wherein the form was so delicate and precise that it seemed
more like a thought than a flower, or at the grey dawn and rapturous
faces of my Francesca, I knew all a Christian's ecstasy without his
slavery to rule and custom; when I pondered over the antique bronze
gods and goddesses, which I had mortgaged my house to buy, I had all a
pagan's delight in various beauty and without his terror at sleepless
destiny and his labour with many sacrifices; and I had only to go to
my bookshelf, where every book was bound in leather, stamped with
intricate ornament, and of a carefully chosen colour: Shakespeare
in the orange of the glory of the world, Dante in the dull red of
his anger, Milton in the blue grey of his formal calm; and I could
experience what I would of human passions without their bitterness and
without satiety. I had gathered about me all gods because I believed
in none, and experienced every pleasure because I gave myself to none,
but held myself apart, individual, indissoluble, a mirror of polished
steel: I looked in the triumph of this imagination at the birds of
Hera, glowing in the firelight as though they were wrought of jewels;
and to my mind, for which symbolism was a necessity, they seemed the
doorkeepers of my world, shutting out all that was not of as affluent
a beauty as their own; and for a moment I thought as I had thought
in so many other moments, that it was possible to rob life of every
bitterness except the bitterness of death; and then a thought which had
followed this thought, time after time, filled me with a passionate
sorrow. All those forms: that Madonna with her brooding purity, those
rapturous faces singing in the morning light, those bronze divinities
with their passionless dignity, those wild shapes rushing from despair
to despair, belonged to a divine world wherein I had no part; and every
experience, however profound, every perception, however exquisite,
would bring me the bitter dream of a limitless energy I could never
know, and even in my most perfect moment I would be two selves, the
one watching with heavy eyes the other's moment of content. I had
heaped about me the gold born in the crucibles of others; but the
supreme dream of the alchemist, the transmutation of the weary heart
into a weariless spirit, was as far from me as, I doubted not, it had
been from him also. I turned to my last purchase, a set of alchemical
apparatus which, the dealer in the Rue le Peletier had assured me,
once belonged to Raymond Lully, and as I joined the _alembic_ to the
_athanor_ and laid the _lavacrum maris_ at their side, I understood the
alchemical doctrine, that all beings, divided from the great deep where
spirits wander, one and yet a multitude, are weary; and sympathized,
in the pride of my connoisseurship, with the consuming thirst for
destruction which made the alchemist veil under his symbols of lions
and dragons, of eagles and ravens, of dew and of nitre, a search for an
essence which would dissolve all mortal things. I repeated to myself
the ninth key of Basilius Valentinus, in which he compares the fire
of the last day to the fire of the alchemist, and the world to the
alchemist's furnace, and would have us know that all must be dissolved
before the divine substance, material gold or immaterial ecstasy,
awake. I had dissolved indeed the mortal world and lived amid immortal
essences, but had obtained no miraculous ecstasy. As I thought of these
things, I drew aside the curtains and looked out into the darkness, and
it seemed to my troubled fancy that all those little points of light
filling the sky were the furnaces of innumerable divine alchemists, who
labour continually, turning lead into gold, weariness into ecstasy,
bodies into souls, the darkness into God; and at their perfect labour
my mortality grew heavy, and I cried out, as so many dreamers and men
of letters in our age have cried, for the birth of that elaborate
spiritual beauty which could alone uplift souls weighted with so many
dreams.


II

My reverie was broken by a loud knocking at the door, and I wondered
the more at this because I had no visitors, and had bid my servants
do all things silently, lest they broke the dream of my inner life.