The Crock of Gold (20 page)

"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 who 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?"

"If," she replied, "you are the Absolute and are above all pettiness, can you not be superior to me also and let me pass quietly on my road to the Dagda!"

"We are what all humanity desire," quoth he, "and we desire all humanity. There is nothing, small or great, disdained by our immortal appetites. It is not lawful, even for the Absolute, to
outgrow Desire, which is the breath of God quick in his creatures and not to be bounded or surmounted by any perfection."

During this conversation the other great figures had leaned forward listening intently but saying nothing. The Thin Woman could feel the children like little, terrified birds pressing closely
and very quietly to her sides.

"Sir," said she, "tell me, what is Beauty and what is Strength and what is Ugliness? for, although I can see these things, I do not know what they are."

"I will tell you that," he replied—"Beauty is Thought and Strength is Love and Ugliness is Generation. The home of Beauty is the head of man. The home of Strength is the heart of man, and
in the loins Ugliness keeps his dreadful state. If you come with me you shall know all delight. You shall live unharmed in the flame of the spirit, and nothing that is gross shall bind your limbs
or hinder your thought. You shall move as a queen amongst all raging passions without torment or despair. Never shall you be driven or ashamed, but always you will choose your own paths and walk
with me in freedom and contentment and beauty."

"All things," said the Thin Woman, "must act according to the order of their being, and so I say to Thought, if you hold me against my will presently I will bind you against your will, for the
holder of an unwilling mate becomes the guardian and the slave of his captive."

"That is true," said he, "and against a thing that is true I cannot contend; therefore, you are free from me, but from my brethren you are not free."

The Thin Woman turned to the second man.

"You are Strength?" said she.

"I am Strength and Love," he boomed, "and with me there are safety and peace; my days have honour and my nights quietness. There is no evil thing walks near my lands, nor is any sound heard but
the lowing of my cattle, the songs of my birds and the laughter of my happy children. Come then to me who gives protection and happiness and peace, and does not fail or grow weary at any time."

"I will not go with you," said the Thin Woman, "for I am a mother and my strength cannot be increased; I am a mother and my love cannot be added to. What have I further to desire from thee, thou
great man?"

"You are free of me," said the second man, "but from my brother you are not free."

Then to the third man the Thin Woman addressed herself in terror, for to that hideous one something cringed within her in an ecstasy of loathing. That repulsion which at its strongest becomes
attraction gripped her. A shiver, a plunge, and she had gone, but the hands of the children withheld her while in woe she abased herself before him.

He spoke, and his voice came clogged and painful as though it urged from the matted pores of the earth itself.

"There is none left to whom you may go but me only. Do not be afraid, but come to me and I will give you these wild delights which have been long forgotten. All things which are crude and
riotous, all that is gross and without limit is mine. You shall not think and suffer any longer; but you shall feel so surely that the heat of the sun will be happiness: the taste of food, the wind
that blows upon you, the ripe ease of your body—these things will amaze you who have forgotten them. My great arms about you shall make you furious and young again; you will leap on the
hillside like a young goat and sing for joy as the birds sing. Leave this crabbed humanity that is barred and chained away from joy and come with me, to whose ancient quietude at the last both
Strength and Beauty will come like children tired in the evening, returning to the freedom of the brutes and the birds, with bodies sufficient for their pleasure and with no care for Thought or
foolish curiosity."

But the Thin Woman drew back from his hand, saying—

"It is not lawful to turn again when the journey is commenced, but to go forward to whatever is appointed; nor may we return to your meadows and trees and sunny places who have once departed
from them. The torments of the mind may not be renounced for any easement of the body until the smoke that blinds us is blown away, and the tormenting flame has fitted us for that immortal ecstasy
which is the bosom of God. Nor is it lawful that ye great ones should beset the path of travellers, seeking to lure them away with cunning promises. It is only at the cross roads ye may sit where
the traveller will hesitate and be in doubt, but on the highway ye have no power."

"You are free of me," said the third man, "until you are ready to come to me again, for I only of all things am steadfast and patient, and to me all return in their seasons. There are
brightnesses in my secret places in the woods, and lamps in my gardens beneath the hills, tended by the angels of God, and behind my face there is another face not hated by the Bright Ones."

So the Three Absolutes arose and strode mightily away; and as they went their thunderous speech to each other boomed against the clouds and the earth like a gusty wind, and, even when they had
disappeared, that great rumble could be heard dying gently away in the moonlit distances.

The Thin Woman and the children went slowly forward on the rugged, sloping way. Far beyond, near the distant summit of the hill there was a light gleaming.

"Yonder," said the Thin Woman, "is the Brugh of Angus Mac an Óg, the son of the Dagda Mór," and toward this light she assisted the weary children.

In a little she was in the presence of the god and by him refreshed and comforted. She told him all that had happened to her husband and implored his assistance. This was readily accorded, for
the chief business of the gods is to give protection and assistance to such of their people as require it; but (and this is their limitation) they cannot give any help until it is demanded, the
freewill of mankind being the most jealously guarded and holy principle in life; therefore, the interference of the loving gods comes only on an equally loving summons.

CHAPTER XVIII

T
HE
H
APPY
M
ARCH

Caitilin Ni Murrachu sat alone in the Brugh of Angus much as she had sat on the hillside and in the cave of Pan, and again she was thinking. She was happy now. There was nothing more she could
desire, for all that the earth contained or the mind could describe was hers. Her thoughts were no longer those shy, subterranean gropings which elude the hand and the understanding. Each thought
was a thing or a person, visible in its own radiant personal life, and to be seen or felt, welcomed or repulsed as was its due. But she had discovered that happiness is not laughter or
satisfaction, and that no person can be happy for himself alone. So she had come to understand the terrible sadness of the gods, and why Angus wept in secret; for often in the night she had heard
him weeping, and she knew that his tears were for those others who were unhappy, and that he could not be comforted while there was a woful person or an evil deed hiding in the world. Her own
happiness also had become infected with this alien misery, until she knew that nothing was alien to her, and that in truth all persons and all things were her brothers and sisters and that they
were living and dying in distress; and at the last she knew that there was not any man but mankind, nor any human being but only humanity. Never again could the gratification of a desire give her
pleasure, for her sense of oneness was destroyed—she was not an individual only; she was also part of a mighty organism ordained, through whatever stress, to achieve its oneness, and this
great being was threefold, comprising in its mighty units God and Man and Nature—the immortal trinity. The duty of life is the sacrifice of self: it is to renounce the little ego that the
mighty ego may be freed; and, knowing this, she found at last that she knew Happiness, that divine discontent which cannot rest nor be at ease until its bourne is attained and the knowledge of a
man is added to the gaiety of a child. Angus had told her that beyond this there lay the great ecstasy which is Love and God and the beginning and the end of all things: for everything must come
from the Liberty into the Bondage that it may return again to the Liberty comprehending all things and fitted for that fiery enjoyment. This cannot be until there are no more fools living, for
until the last fool has grown wise wisdom will totter and freedom will still be invisible. Growth is not by years but by multitudes, and until there is a common eye no one person can see God, for
the eye of all nature will scarcely be great enough to look upon that majesty. We shall greet Happiness by multitudes, but we can only greet Him by starry systems and a universal love.