The Crock of Gold (2 page)

His wife, the Grey Woman of Dun Gortin, applauded this resolution and added as an amendment that it was high time he did something, that the life he had been leading was an arid and unprofitable
one, that he had stolen her fourteen hundred maledictions for which he had no use and presented her with a child for which she had none, and that, all things concerned, the sooner he did die and
stop talking the sooner everybody concerned would be made happy.

The other Philosopher replied mildly as he lit his pipe:

"Brother, the greatest of all virtues is curiosity, and the end of all desire is wisdom; tell us, therefore, by what steps you have arrived at this commendable resolution."

To this the Philosopher replied:

"I have attained to all the wisdom which I am fitted to bear. In the space of one week no new truth has come to me. All that I have read lately I knew before; all that I have thought has been
but a recapitulation of old and wearisome ideas. There is no longer an horizon before my eyes. Space has narrowed to the petty dimensions of my thumb. Time is the tick of a clock. Good and evil are
two peas in the one pod. My wife's face is the same forever. I want to play with the children, and yet I do not want to. Your conversation with me, brother, is like the droning of a bee in a dark
cell. The pine trees take root and grow and die.—It's all bosh. Good-bye."

His friend replied:

"Brother, these are weighty reflections and I do clearly perceive that the time has come for you to stop. I might observe, not in order to combat your views, but merely to continue an
interesting conversation, that there are still some knowledges which you have not assimilated—you do not yet know how to play the tambourine, nor how to be nice to your wife, nor how to get
up first in the morning and cook the breakfast. Have you learned how to smoke strong tobacco as I do? or can you dance in the moonlight with a woman of the Shee? To understand the theory which
underlies all things is not sufficient. Theory is but the preparation for practice. It has occurred to me, brother, that wisdom may not be the end of everything. Goodness and kindliness are,
perhaps, beyond wisdom. Is it not possible that the ultimate end is gaiety and music and a dance of joy? Wisdom is the oldest of all things. Wisdom is all head and no heart. Behold, brother, you
are being crushed under the weight of your head. You are dying of old age while you are yet a child."

"Brother," replied the other Philosopher, "your voice is like the droning of a bee in a dark cell. If in my latter days I am reduced to playing on the tambourine, and running after a hag in the
moonlight, and cooking your breakfast in the grey morning, then it is indeed time that I should die. Good-bye, brother."

So saying the Philosopher arose and removed all the furniture to the sides of the room so that there was a clear space left in the centre. He then took off his boots and his coat, and standing
on his toes he commenced to gyrate with extraordinary rapidity. In a few moments his movements became steady and swift, and a sound came from him like the humming of a swift saw; this sound grew
deeper and deeper, and at last continuous, so that the room was filled with a thrilling noise. In a quarter of an hour the movement began to noticeably slacken. In another three minutes it was
quite slow. In two more minutes he grew visible again as a body, and then he wobbled to and fro, and at last dropped in a heap on the floor. He was quite dead, and on his face was an expression of
serene beatitude.

"God be with you, brother," said the remaining Philosopher, and he lit his pipe, focussed his vision on the extreme tip of his nose, and began to meditate profoundly on the aphorism whether the
good is the all or the all is the good. In another moment he would have become oblivious of the room, the company, and the corpse, but the Grey Woman of Dun Gortin shattered his meditation by a
demand for advice as to what should next be done. The Philosopher, with an effort, detached his eyes from his nose and his mind from his maxim.

"Chaos," said he, "is the first condition. Order is the first law. Continuity is the first reflection. Quietude is the first happiness. Our brother is dead—bury him," so saying, he
returned his eyes to his nose, and his mind to his maxim, and lapsed to a profound reflection wherein nothing sat perched on insubstantiality, and the Spirit of Artifice goggled at the puzzle.

The Grey Woman of Dun Gortin took a pinch of snuff from her box and raised the keen over her husband:

"If I had anything better you should have it," said she politely to the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath.

"Thank you," said the Thin Woman, "it was very nice. Shall I begin now? My husband is meditating and we may be able to annoy him."

"Don't trouble yourself," replied the other, "I am past enjoyment and am, moreover, a respectable woman."

"That is no more than the truth, indeed."

"I have always done the right thing at the right time."

"I'd be the last body in the world to deny that," was the warm response.

"Very well, then," said the Grey Woman, and she commenced to take off her boots. She stood in the centre of the room and balanced herself on her toe.

"You are a decent, respectable lady," said the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath, and then the Grey Woman began to gyrate rapidly and more rapidly until she was a very fervour of motion, and in
three-quarters of an hour (for she was very tough) she began to slacken, grew visible, wobbled, and fell beside her dead husband, and on her face was a beatitude almost surpassing his.

The Thin Woman of Inis Magrath smacked the children and put them to bed, next she buried the two bodies under the hearthstone, and then, with some trouble, detached her husband from his
meditations. When he became capable of ordinary occurrences she detailed all that had happened, and said that he alone was to blame for the sad bereavement. He replied—

"The toxin generates the anti-toxin. The end lies concealed in the beginning. All bodies grow around a skeleton. Life is a petticoat about death. I will not go to bed."

CHAPTER III

On the day following this melancholy occurrence Meehawl MacMurrachu, a small farmer in the neighbourhood, came through the pine trees with tangled brows. At the door of the little house he said,
"God be with all here," and marched in.

The Philosopher removed his pipe from his lips—

"God be with yourself," said he, and he replaced his pipe.

Meehawl MacMurrachu crooked his thumb at space—

"Where is the other one?" said he.

"Ah!" said the Philosopher.

"He might be outside, maybe?"

"He might, indeed," said the Philosopher gravely.

"Well, it doesn't matter," said the visitor, "for you have enough knowledge by yourself to stock a shop. The reason I came here today was to ask your honoured advice about my wife's
washing-board. She only has it a couple of years and the last time she used it was when she washed out my Sunday shirt and her black skirt with the red things on it—you know the one?"

"I do not," said the Philosopher.

"Well, anyhow, the washboard is gone, and my wife says it was either taken by the fairies or by Bessie Hannigan—you know Bessie Hannigan? She has whiskers like a goat and a lame
leg!"—

"I do not," said the Philosopher.

"No matter," said Meehawl MacMurrachu. "She didn't take it, because my wife got her out yesterday and kept her talking for two hours while I went through everything in her bit of a
house—the washboard wasn't there."

"It wouldn't be," said the Philosopher.

"Maybe your honour could tell a body where it is then?"

"Maybe I could," said the Philosopher, "are you listening?"

"I am," said Meehawl MacMurrachu.

The Philosopher drew his chair closer to the visitor until their knees were jammed together. He laid both his hands on Meehawl MacMurrachu's knees—

"Washing is an extraordinary custom," said he. "We are washed both on coming into the world and on going out of it, and we take no pleasure from the first washing nor any profit from the
last."

"True for you, sir," said Meehawl MacMurrachu.

"Many people consider that scourings supplementary to these are only due to habit. Now, habit is continuity of action, it is a most detestable thing and is very difficult to get away from. A
proverb will run where a writ will not, and the follies of our forefathers are of greater importance to us than is the well-being of our posterity."

"I wouldn't say a word against that, sir," said Meehawl MacMurrachu.

"Cats are a philosophic and thoughtful race, but they do not admit the efficacy of either water or soap, and yet it is usually conceded that they are cleanly folk. There are exceptions to every
rule, and I once knew a cat who lusted after water and bathed daily, he was an unnatural brute and died ultimately of the head staggers. Children are nearly as wise as cats. It is true that they
will utilise water in a variety of ways, for instance, the destruction of a table cloth or a pinafore, and I have observed them greasing a ladder with soap, showing in the process a great knowledge
of the properties of this material."

"Why shouldn't they, to be sure?" said Meehawl MacMurrachu. "Have you got a match, sir?"

"I have not," said the Philosopher. "Sparrows, again, are a highly acute and reasonable folk. They use water to quench thirst, but when they are dirty they take a dust bath and are at once
cleansed. Of course, birds are often seen in the water, but they go there to catch fish and not to wash. I have often fancied that fish are a dirty, sly, and unintelligent people—this is due
to their staying so much in the water, and it has been observed that on being removed from this element they at once expire through sheer ecstasy at escaping from their prolonged washing."

"I have seen them doing it myself," said Meehawl. "Did you ever hear, sir, about the fish that Paudeen MacLoughlin caught in the policeman's hat?"

"I did not," said the Philosopher. "The first person who washed was possibly a person seeking a cheap notoriety. Any fool can wash himself, but every wise man knows that it is an unnecessary
labour, for nature will quickly reduce him to a natural and healthy dirtiness again. We should seek, therefore, not how to make ourselves clean, but how to attain a more unique and splendid
dirtiness, and perhaps the accumulated layers of matter might, by ordinary geologic compulsion, become incorporated with the human cuticle and so render clothing unnecessary—"

"About that washboard," said Meehawl, "I was just going to say—"

"It doesn't matter," said the Philosopher. "In its proper place I admit the necessity for water. As a thing to sail a ship on it can scarcely be surpassed (not, you will understand, that I
entirely approve of ships, they tend to create and perpetuate international curiosity and the smaller vermin of different latitudes). As an element wherewith to put out a fire, or brew tea, or make
a slide in winter it is useful, but in a tin basin it has a repulsive and meagre aspect.—Now as to your wife's washboard—"

"Good luck to your honour," said Meehawl.

"Your wife says that either the fairies or a woman with a goat's leg has it."

"It's her whiskers," said Meehawl.

"They are lame," said the Philosopher sternly.

"Have it your own way, sir, I'm not certain now how the creature is afflicted."

"You say that this unhealthy woman has not got your wife's washboard. It remains, therefore, that the fairies have it."

"It looks that way," said Meehawl.

"There are six clans of fairies living in this neighbourhood; but the process of elimination which has shaped the world to a globe, the ant to its environment, and man to the captaincy of the
vertebrates, will not fail in this instance either."

"Did you ever see anything like the way wasps have increased this season?" said Meehawl; "faith, you can't sit down anywhere but your breeches—"

"I did not," said the Philosopher. "Did you leave out a pan of milk on last Tuesday?"

"I did then."

"Do you take off your hat when you meet a dust twirl?"

"I wouldn't neglect that," said Meehawl.

"Did you cut down a thorn bush recently?"

"I'd sooner cut my eye out," said Meehawl, "and go about as wall-eyed as Lorcan O'Nualain's ass: I would that. Did you ever see his ass, sir? It—"

"I did not," said the Philosopher. "Did you kill a robin red-breast?"

"Never," said Meehawl. "By the pipers," he added, "that old skinny cat of mine caught a bird on the roof yesterday."

"Hah!" cried the Philosopher, moving, if it were possible, even closer to his client, "now we have it. It is the Leprecauns of Gort na Cloca Mora took your washboard. Go to the Gort at once.
There is a hole under a tree in the south-east of the field. Try what you will find in that hole."