_ BOOK I. THE COMING OF PAN
CHAPTER IX
PURSUANT to his arrangement with Meehawl MacMurrachu, the Philosopher
sent the children in search of Pan. He gave them the fullest
instructions as to how they should address the Sylvan Deity, and then,
having received the admonishments of the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath, the
children departed in the early morning.
When they reached the clearing in the pine wood, through which the sun
was blazing, they sat down for a little while to rest in the heat. Birds
were continually darting down this leafy shaft, and diving away into the
dark wood. These birds always had something in their beaks. One would
have a worm, or a snail, or a grasshopper, or a little piece of wool
torn off a sheep, or a scrap of cloth, or a piece of hay; and when they
had put these things in a certain place they flew up the sun-shaft again
and looked for something else to bring home. On seeing the children each
of the birds waggled his wings, and made a particular sound. They said
"caw" and "chip" and "twit" and "tut" and "what" and "pit"; and one,
whom the youngsters liked very much, always said "tit-tittit-tit-tit."
The children were fond of him because he was so all-of-asudden. They
never knew where he was going to fly next, and they did not believe he
knew himself. He would fly backwards and forwards, and up and down, and
sideways and bawways--all, so to speak, in the one breath. He did this
because he was curious to see what was happening everywhere, and, as
something is always happening everywhere, he was never able to fly in
a straight line for more than the littlest distance. He was a cowardly
bird too, and continually fancied that some person was going to throw
a stone at him from behind a bush, or a wall, or a tree, and these
imaginary dangers tended to make his journeyings still more wayward and
erratic. He never flew where he wanted to go himself, but only where God
directed him, and so he did not fare at all badly.
The children knew each of the birds by their sounds, and always said
these words to them when they came near. For a little time they had
difficulty in saying the right word to the right bird, and sometimes
said "chip" when the salutation should have been "tut." The birds always
resented this, and would scold them angrily, but after a little practice
they never made any mistakes at all. There was one bird, a big, black
fellow, who loved to be talked to. He used to sit on the ground beside
the children, and say "caw" as long as they would repeat it after him.
He often wasted a whole morning in talk, but none of the other birds
remained for more than a few minutes at a time. They were always busy
in the morning, but in the evening they had more leisure, and would stay
and chat as long as the children wanted them. The awkward thing was that
in the evening all the birds wanted to talk at the same moment, so that
the youngsters never knew which of them to answer. Seumas Beg got out
of that difficulty for a while by learning to whistle their notes, but,
even so, they spoke with such rapidity that he could not by any means
keep pace with them. Brigid could only whistle one note; it was a little
flat "whoo" sound, which the birds all laughed at, and after a few
trials she refused to whistle any more.
While they were sitting two rabbits came to play about in the brush.
They ran round and round in a circle, and all their movements were very
quick and twisty. Sometimes they jumped over each other six or seven
times in succession, and every now and then they sat upright on their
hind legs, and washed their faces with their paws. At other times they
picked up a blade of grass, which they ate with great deliberation,
pretending all the time that it was a complicated banquet of cabbage
leaves and lettuce.
While the children were playing with the rabbits an ancient, stalwart
he-goat came prancing through the bracken. He was an old acquaintance of
theirs, and he enjoyed lying beside them to have his forehead scratched
with a piece of sharp stick. His forehead was hard as rock, and the hair
grew there as sparse as grass does on a wall, or rather the way moss
grows on a wall--it was a mat instead of a crop. His horns were long and
very sharp, and brilliantly polished. On this day the he-goat had two
chains around his neck--one was made of butter-cups and the other was
made of daisies, and the children wondered to each other who it was
could have woven these so carefully. They asked the he-goat this
question, but he only looked at them and did not say a word. The
children liked examining this goat's eyes; they were very big, and of
the queerest light-gray colour. They had a strange steadfast look, and
had also at times a look of queer, deep intelligence, and at other times
they had a fatherly and benevolent expression, and at other times
again, especially when he looked sidewards, they had a mischievous,
light-and-airy, daring, mocking, inviting and terrifying look; but he
always looked brave and unconcerned. When the he-goat's forehead had
been scratched as much as he desired he arose from between the children
and went pacing away lightly through the wood. The children ran after
him and each caught hold of one of his horns, and he ambled and reared
between them while they danced along on his either side singing snatches
of bird songs, and scraps of old tunes which the Thin Woman of Inis
Magrath had learned among the people of the Shee.
In a little time they came to Gort na Cloca Mora, but here the he-goat
did not stop. They went past the big tree of the Leprecauns, through
a broken part of the hedge and into another rough field. The sun was
shining gloriously. There was scarcely a wind at all to stir the harsh
grasses. Far and near was silence and warmth, an immense, cheerful
peace. Across the sky a few light clouds sailed gently on a blue so vast
that the eye failed before that horizon. A few bees sounded their deep
chant, and now and again a wasp rasped hastily on his journey. Than
these there was no sound of any kind. So peaceful, innocent and safe did
everything appear that it might have been the childhood of the world as
it was of the morning.
The children, still clinging to the friendly goat, came near the edge
of the field, which here sloped more steeply to the mountain top. Great
boulders, slightly covered with lichen and moss, were strewn about, and
around them the bracken and gorse were growing, and in every crevice of
these rocks there were plants whose little, tight-fisted roots gripped
a desperate, adventurous habitation in a soil scarcely more than half
an inch deep. At some time these rocks had been smitten so fiercely that
the solid granite surfaces had shattered into fragments. At one place
a sheer wall of stone, ragged and battered, looked harshly out from the
thin vegetation. To this rocky wall the he-goat danced. At one place
there was a hole in the wall covered by a thick brush. The goat pushed
his way behind this growth and disappeared. Then the children, curious
to see where he had gone, pushed through also. Behind the bush they
found a high, narrow opening, and when they had rubbed their legs, which
smarted from the stings of nettles, thistles and gorse prickles, they
went into the hole which they thought was a place the goat had for
sleeping in on cold, wet nights. After a few paces they found the
passage was quite comfortably big, and then they saw a light, and
in another moment they were blinking at the god Pan and Caitilin Ni
Murrachu.
Caitilin knew them at once and came forward with welcome.
"O, Seumas Beg," she cried reproachfully, "how dirty you have let your
feet get. Why don't you walk in the grassy places? And you, Brigid, have
a right to be ashamed of yourself to have your hands the way they are.
Come over here at once."
Every child knows that every grown female person in the world has
authority to wash children and to give them food; that is what grown
people were made for, consequently Seumas and Brigid Beg submitted to
the scouring for which Caitilin made instant preparation. When they were
cleaned she pointed to a couple of flat stones against the wall of the
cave and bade them sit down and be good, and this the children did,
fixing their eyes on Pan with the cheerful gravity and curiosity which
good-natured youngsters always give to a stranger.
Pan, who had been lying on a couch of dried grass, sat up and bent an
equally cheerful regard on the children.
"Shepherd Girl," said he, "who are those children?"
"They are the children of the Philosophers of Coilla Doraca; the
Grey Woman of Dun Gortin and the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath are their
mothers, and they are decent, poor children, God bless them."
"What have they come here for?"
"You will have to ask themselves that."
Pan looked at them smilingly.
"What have you come here for, little children?" said he.
The children questioned one another with their eyes to see which of them
would reply, and then Seumas Beg answered:
"My father sent me to see you, sir, and to say that you were not doing a
good thing in keeping Caitilin Ni Murrachu away from her own place."
Brigid Beg turned to Caitilin-"Your father came to see our father, and
he said that he didn't know what had become of you at all, and that
maybe you were lying flat in a ditch with the black crows picking at
your flesh."
"And what," said Pan, "did your father say to that?"
"He told us to come and ask her to go home."
"Do you love your father, little child?" said Pan.
Brigid Beg thought for a moment. "I don't know, sir," she replied.
"He doesn't mind us at all," broke in Seumas Beg, "and so we don't know
whether we love him or not."
"I like Caitilin," said Brigid, "and I like you."
"So do I," said Seumas.
"I like you also, little children," said Pan. "Come over here and sit
beside me, and we will talk."
So the two children went over to Pan and sat down one each side of him,
and he put his arms about them. "Daughter of Murrachu," said he, "is
there no food in the house for guests?"
"There is a cake of bread, a little goat's milk and some cheese," she
replied, and she set about getting these things.
"I never ate cheese," said Seumas. "Is it good?"
"Surely it is," replied Pan. "The cheese that is made from goat's milk
is rather strong, and it is good to be eaten by people who live in the
open air, but not by those who live in houses, for such people do not
have any appetite. They are poor creatures whom I do not like."
"I like eating," said Seumas.
"So do I," said Pan. "All good people like eating. Every person who is
hungry is a good person, and every person who is not hungry is a bad
person. It is better to be hungry than rich."
Caitilin having supplied the children with food, seated herself in front
of them. "I don't think that is right," said she. "I have always been
hungry, and it was never good."
"If you had always been full you would like it even less," he replied,
"because when you are hungry you are alive, and when you are not hungry
you are only half alive."
"One has to be poor to be hungry," replied Caitilin. "My father is poor
and gets no good of it but to work from morning to night and never to
stop doing that."
"It is bad for a wise person to be poor," said Pan, "and it is bad for a
fool to be rich. A rich fool will think of nothing else at first but to
find a dark house wherein to hide away, and there he will satisfy his
hunger, and he will continue to do that until his hunger is dead and
he is no better than dead but a wise person who is rich will carefully
preserve his appetite. All people who have been rich for a long time, or
who are rich from birth, live a great deal outside of their houses, and
so they are always hungry and healthy."
"Poor people have no time to be wise," said Caitilin.
"They have time to be hungry," said Pan. "I ask no more of them."
"My father is very wise," said Seumas Beg.
"How do you know that, little boy?" said Pan.
"Because he is always talking," replied Seumas. "Do you always listen,
my dear?"
"No, sir," said Seumas; "I go to sleep when he talks."
"That is very clever of you," said Pan.
"I go to sleep too," said Brigid.
"It is clever of you also, my darling. Do you go to sleep when your
mother talks?"
"Oh, no," she answered. "If we went to sleep then our mother would pinch
us and say that we were a bad breed."
"I think your mother is wise," said Pan. "What do you like best in the
world, Seumas Beg?"
The boy thought for a moment and replied: "I don't know, sir."
Pan also thought for a little time.
"I don't know what I like best either," said he. "What do you like best
in the world, Shepherd Girl?"
Caitilin's eyes were fixed on his.
"I don't know yet," she answered slowly.
"May the gods keep you safe from that knowledge," said Pan gravely.
"Why would you say that?" she replied. "One must find out all things,
and when we find out a thing we know if it is good or bad."
"That is the beginning of knowledge," said Pan, "but it is not the
beginning of wisdom."
"What is the beginning of wisdom?"
"It is carelessness," replied Pan.
"And what is the end of wisdom?" said she.
"I do not know," he answered, after a little pause.
"Is it greater carelessness?" she enquired.
"I do not know, I do not know," said he sharply. "I am tired of
talking," and, so saying, he turned his face away from them and lay down
on the couch.
Caitilin in great concern hurried the children to the door of the cave
and kissed them good-bye.
"Pan is sick," said the boy gravely.
"I hope he will be well soon again," the girl murmured.
"Yes, yes," said Caitilin, and she ran back quickly to her lord. _