The Crock of Gold (8 page)

After a time he felt hungry, and thrusting his hand into his wallet he broke off a piece of one of his cakes and looked about for a place where he might happily eat it. By the side of the road
there was a well; just a little corner filled with water. Over it was a rough stone coping, and around, hugging it on three sides almost from sight, were thick, quiet bushes. He would not have
noticed the well at all but for a thin stream, the breadth of two hands, which tiptoed away from it through a field. By this well he sat down and scooped the water in his hand and it tasted
good.

He was eating his cake when a sound touched his ear from some distance, and shortly a woman came down the path carrying a vessel in her hand to draw water. She was a big, comely woman, and she
walked as one who had no misfortunes and no misgivings. When she saw the Philosopher sitting by the well she halted a moment in surprise and then came forward with a good-humoured smile.

"Good morrow to you, sir," said she.

"Good morrow to you too, ma'am," replied the Philosopher. "Sit down beside me here and eat some of my cake."

"Why wouldn't I, indeed?" said the woman, and she did sit beside him.

The Philosopher cracked a large piece off his cake and gave it to her and she ate some.

"There's a taste on that cake," said she. "Who made it?"

"My wife did," he replied.

"Well, now!" said she, looking at him. "Do you know, you don't look a bit like a married man."

"No?" said the Philosopher.

"Not a bit. A married man looks comfortable and settled: he looks finished, if you understand me, and a bachelor looks unsettled and funny, and he always wants to be running round seeing things.
I'd know a married man from a bachelor any day."

"How would you know that?" said the Philosopher.

"Easily," said she, with a nod. "It's the way they look at a woman. A married man looks at you quietly as if he knew all about you. There isn't any strangeness about him with a woman at all; but
a bachelor man looks at you very sharp and looks away and then looks back again, the way you'd know he was thinking about you and didn't know what you were thinking about him; and so they are
always strange, and that's why women like them."

"Why!" said the Philosopher, astonished, "do women like bachelors better than married men?"

"Of course they do," she replied heartily. "They wouldn't look at the side of the road a married man was on if there was a bachelor man on the other side."

"This," said the Philosopher earnestly, "is very interesting."

"And the queer thing is," she continued, "that when I came up the road and saw you I said to myself 'it's a bachelor man.' How long have you been married, now?"

"I don't know," said the Philosopher. "Maybe it's ten years."

"And how many children would you have, mister?"

"Two," he replied, and then corrected himself, "no, I have only one."

"Is the other one dead?"

"I never had more than one."

"Ten years married and only one child," said she. "Why, man dear, you're not a married man. What were you doing at all, at all! I wouldn't like to be telling you the children I have living and
dead. But what I say is that married or not you're a bachelor man. I knew it the minute I looked at you. What sort of a woman is herself?"

"She's a thin sort of woman," said the Philosopher, biting into his cake.

"Is she now?"

"And," the Philosopher continued, "the reason I talked to you is because you are a fat woman."

"I am not fat," was her angry response.

"You are fat," insisted the Philosopher, "and that's the reason I like you."

"Oh, if you mean it that way . . ." she chuckled.

"I think," he continued, looking at her admiringly, "that women ought to be fat."

"Tell you the truth," said she eagerly, "I think that myself. I never met a thin woman but she was a sour one, and I never met a fat man but he was a fool. Fat women and thin men; it's nature,"
said she.

"It is," said he, and he leaned forward and kissed her eye.

"Oh, you villain!" said the woman, putting out her hands against him.

The Philosopher drew back abashed.

"Forgive me," he began, "if I have alarmed your virtue—"

"It's the married man's word," said she, rising hastily: "now I know you; but there's a lot of the bachelor in you all the same, God help you! I'm going home." And, so saying, she dipped her
vessel in the well and turned away.

"Maybe," said the Philosopher, "I ought to wait until your husband comes home and ask his forgiveness for the wrong I've done him."

The woman turned round on him and each of her eyes was as big as a plate.

"What do you say?" said she. "Follow me if you dare and I'll set the dog on you; I will so," and she strode viciously homewards.

After a moment's hesitation the Philosopher took his own path across the hill.

The day was now well advanced, and as he trudged forward the happy quietude of his surroundings stole into his heart again and so toned down his recollection of the fat woman that in a little
time she was no more than a pleasant and curious memory. His mind was exercised superficially, not in thinking, but in wondering how it was he had come to kiss a strange woman. He said to himself
that such conduct was not right: but this statement was no more than the automatic working of a mind long exercised in the distinctions of right and wrong, for, almost in the same breath, he
assured himself that what he had done did not matter in the least. His opinions were undergoing a curious change. Right and wrong were meeting and blending together so closely that it became
difficult to dissever them, and the obloquy attaching to the one seemed out of proportion altogether to its importance, while the other by no means justified the eulogy wherewith it was connected.
Was there any immediate, or even distant, effect on life caused by evil which was not instantly swung into equipoise by goodness? But these slender reflections troubled him only for a little time.
He had little desire for any introspective quarryings. To feel so well was sufficient in itself. Why should thought be so apparent to us, so insistent? We do not know we have digestive or
circulatory organs until these go out of order, and then the knowledge torments us. Should not the labours of a healthy brain be equally subterranean and equally competent? Why have we to think
aloud and travel laboriously from syllogism to ergo, chary of our conclusions and distrustful of our premises? Thought, as we know it, is a disease and no more. The healthy mentality should
register its convictions and not its labours. Our ears should not hear the clamour of its doubts nor be forced to listen to the pro and con wherewith we are eternally badgered and perplexed.

The road was winding like a ribbon in and out of the mountains. On either side there were hedges and bushes. Little, stiff trees which held their foliage in their hands and dared the winds
snatch a leaf from that grip. The hills were swelling and sinking, folding and soaring on every view. Now the silence was startled by the falling tinkle of a stream. Far away a cow lowed, a long,
deep monotone, or a goat's call trembled from nowhere to nowhere. But mostly there was a silence which buzzed with a multitude of small, winged life. Going up the hills the Philosopher bent forward
to the gradient, stamping vigorously as he trod, almost snorting like a bull in the pride of successful energy. Coming down the slope he braced back and let his legs loose to do as they pleased.
Didn't they know their business?—Good luck to them, and away!

As he walked along he saw an old woman hobbling in front of him. She was leaning on a stick and her hand was red and swollen with rheumatism. She hobbled by reason of the fact that there were
stones in her shapeless boots. She was draped in the sorriest, miscellaneous rags that could be imagined, and these were knotted together so intricately that her clothing, having once been attached
to her body, could never again be detached from it. As she walked she was mumbling and grumbling to herself, so that her mouth moved round and round in an india-rubber fashion.

The Philosopher soon caught up on her.

"Good morrow, ma'am," said he.

But she did not hear him: she seemed to be listening to the pain which the stones in her boots gave her.

"Good morrow, ma'am," said the Philosopher again.

This time she heard him and replied, turning her old, bleared eyes slowly in his direction—

"Good morrow to yourself, sir," said she, and the Philosopher thought her old face was a very kindly one.

"What is it that is wrong with you, ma'am?" said he.

"It's my boots, sir," she replied. "Full of stones they are, the way I can hardly walk at all, God help me!"

"Why don't you shake them out?"

"Ah, sure, I couldn't be bothered, sir, for there are so many holes in the boots that more would get in before I could take two steps, and an old woman can't be always fidgeting, God help
her!"

There was a little house on one side of the road, and when the old woman saw this place she brightened up a little.

"Do you know who lives in that house?" said the Philosopher.

"I do not," she replied, "but it's a real nice house with clean windows and a shiny knocker on the door, and smoke in the chimney—I wonder would herself give me a cup of tea now if I asked
her—A poor old woman walking the roads on a stick! and maybe a bit of meat, or an egg perhaps . . ."

"You could ask," suggested the Philosopher gently.

"Maybe I will, too," said she, and she sat down by the road just outside the house and the Philosopher also sat down.

A little puppy dog came from behind the house and approached them cautiously. Its intentions were friendly, but it had already found that amicable advances are sometimes indifferently received,
for, as it drew near, it wagged its dubious tail and rolled humbly on the ground. But very soon the dog discovered that here there was no evil, for it trotted over to the old woman, and without any
more preparation jumped into her lap.

The old woman grinned at the dog—

"Ah, you thing you!" said she, and she gave it her finger to bite. The delighted puppy chewed her bony finger, and then instituted a mimic warfare against a piece of rag that fluttered from her
breast, barking and growling in joyous excitement, while the old woman fondled and hugged it.

The door of the house opposite opened quickly, and a woman with a frost-bitten face came out.

"Leave that dog down," said she.

The old woman grinned humbly at her.

"Sure, ma'am, I wouldn't hurt the little dog, the thing!"

"Put down that dog," said the woman, "and go about your business—the likes of you ought to be arrested."

A man in shirt sleeves appeared behind her, and at him the old woman grinned even more humbly.

"Let me sit here for a while and play with the little dog, sir," said she, "sure the roads do be lonesome—"

The man stalked close and grabbed the dog by the scruff of the neck. It hung between his finger and thumb with its tail tucked between its legs, and its eyes screwed round on one side in
amazement.

"Be off with you out of that, you old strap!" said the man in a terrible voice.

So the old woman rose painfully to her feet again, and as she went hobbling along the dusty road she began to cry.

The Philosopher also arose, he was very indignant, but did not know what to do. A singular lassitude also prevented him from interfering. As they paced along his companion began mumbling, more
to herself than to him—

"Ah, God be with me," said she, "an old woman on a stick, that hasn't a place in the wide world to go to or a neighbour itself. . . . I wish I could get a cup of tea, so I do, I wish to God I
could get a cup of tea. . . . Me sitting down in my own little house, with the white tablecloth on the table, and the butter in the dish, and the strong, red tea in the teacup; and me pouring cream
into it, and, maybe, telling the children not to be wasting the sugar, the things! and himself saying he'd got to mow the big field today, or that the red cow was going to calve, the poor thing!
and that if the boys went to school, who was going to weed the turnips—and me sitting drinking my strong cup of tea, and telling him where that old trapesing hen was laying. . . . Ah, God be
with me! an old creature hobbling along the roads on a stick. I wish I was a young girl again, so I do, and himself coming courting me, and him saying that I was a real nice little girl surely, and
that nothing would make him happy or easy at all but me to be loving him—Ah, the kind man that he was, to be sure, the kind, decent man. . . . And Sorca Reilly to be trying to get him from
me, and Kate Finnegan with her bold eyes looking after him in the Chapel; and him to be saying that along with me they were only a pair of old nanny goats. . . . And then me to be getting married
and going home to my own little house with my man—ah, God be with me! and him kissing me, and laughing, and frightening me with his goings on. Ah, the kind man, with his soft eyes, and his
nice voice, and his jokes and laughing, and him thinking the world and all of me—ay, indeed. . . . And the neighbours to be coming in and sitting round the fire in the night time, putting the
world through each other, and talking about France and Russia and them other queer places, and him holding up the discourse like a learned man, and them all listening to him and nodding their heads
at each other, and wondering at his education and all: or, maybe, the neighbours to be singing, or him making me sing the Coulin, and him to be proud of me . . . and then him to be killed on me
with a cold on his chest. . . . Ah, then, God be with me, a lone, old creature on a stick, and the sun shining into her eyes and she thirsty—I wish I had a cup of tea, so I do. I wish to God
I had a cup of tea and a bit of meat . . . or, maybe, an egg. A nice fresh egg laid by the speckeldy hen that used to be giving me all the trouble, the thing! . . . Sixteen hens I had, and they
were the ones for laying, surely. . . . It's the queer world, so it is, the queer world—and the things that do happen for no reason at all. . . . Ah, God be with me! I wish there weren't
stones in my boots, so I do, and I wish to God I had a cup of tea and a fresh egg. Ah, glory be, my old legs are getting tireder every day, so they are. Wisha, one time—when himself was in
it—I could go about the house all day long, cleaning the place, and feeding the pigs, and the hens and all, and then dance half the night, so I could: and himself proud of me. . . ."