Mary did put them on the pan, and when they were cooked she shared them round, and they were fairly eaten.
After breakfast the pipes were lit, but they rose almost immediately to continue the journey.
“This evening,” said Finaun, “we will be saying goodbye.”
“Aye,” said Mac Cann, “I’m sorry you’re going, for we had a good time together.”
The ass took his instructions, and they went down the road. Their places were now as they had always been—Finaun and Eileen Ni Cooley and Mary Mac Cann went with the ass, and there was no lack of conversation in that assembly, for sometimes they talked to one another and sometimes they talked to the ass, but the donkey listened no matter who was being talked to, and not a person objected to him.
Patsy and Caeltia marched sturdily at the tailboard, and they were close in talk.
Behind them Art was ranging aimlessly, and lilting snatches of song. He did not know the entire of any song but he knew verses of many, and he was able to relate the tunes of these so harmoniously, with such gradual slipping of theme into theme, that twenty minutes of his varied lilting could appear like one consecutive piece of music.
“That lad has a great ear,” said Patsy. “He could make his fortune at the music.”
“He is a musician,” Caeltia replied. “That is his business when we are in our own place, and, as you can see, it is his pleasure also.”
Patsy was in high spirits. Now that he had successfully undone that which he had done a real weight had lifted from him. But the thing was still so near that he could not get easily from it. His head was full of the adventures of the last few days, and although he could not speak of them he could touch them, sound them, lift the lid of his mystery and snap it to again, chuckling meanwhile to himself that those who were concerned did not know what he was talking about, and yet he was talking to himself, or to one cognisant, in hardy, adequate symbol. A puerile game for a person whose youth had been left behind for twenty years, but one which is often played nevertheless and by the most solemn minds.
It was with an impish carelessness that he addressed Caeltia:
“It won’t be long before we are there,” said he.
“That is so,” was the reply.
“You’ll be feeling fine, I’m thinking, when you get your own clothes on again.”
“I have not missed them very much.”
“I hope your wings and your grand gear will be all right.”
“Why should you doubt it?” returned the seraph.
“What,” said Patsy, “if they were robbed on you! You’d be rightly in the cart, mister, if that happened.”
Caeltia puffed quietly at his pipe.
“They were robbed,” said he.
“Eh!” cried Mac Cann sharply.
The seraph turned to him, his eyes brimming with laughter.
“Aye, indeed,” said he.
Mac Cann was silent for a few seconds, but he did not dare to be silent any longer.
“You’re full of fun,” said he sourly. “What are you talking about at all?”
“Finaun and I knew all about it,” said Caeltia, “and we were wondering what would be done by the person.”
“What did he do?” said Patsy angrily.
Caeltia returned the pipe to his mouth.
“He put them back,” said he.
“Only for that,” he continued, “we might have had to recover them ourselves.”
“Would you have been able to get them back?” said Mac Cann humbly.
“We would have got them back; there is nothing in the world could stand against us two; there is nothing in the world could stand against one of us.”
Patsy jerked a thumb to where Art was lilting the open bars of “The Wind That Shakes the Barley”:
“Wouldn’t the boy help?” said he. “How old is the lad?”
“I don’t know,” smiled Caeltia. “He remembers more than one Day of a Great Breath, but he has no power for he has never had being, and so did not win to knowledge; he could give help, for he is very strong.”
“Could you have licked Cuchulain that day?” said Patsy timidly.
“I am older than he,” replied Caeltia, “that is to say I am wiser than he.”
“But he was up there with yourself and could learn the tricks.”
“There is no secrecy in this world or in the others, and there are no tricks: there is Knowledge, but no person can learn more than his head is ready to welcome. That is why robbery is infantile and of no importance.”
“It fills the stomach,” replied Patsy cunningly.
“The stomach has to be filled,” said Caeltia. “Its filling is a necessity superior to any proprietarial right or disciplinary ethic, and its problem is difficult only for children; it is filled by the air and the wind, the rain and the clay, and the tiny lives that move in the clay. There is but one property worth stealing; it is never missed by its owners, although every person who has that property offers it to all men from his gentle hands.”
“You’re trying to talk like Finaun,” said Patsy gloomily.
They walked then in silence for ten minutes. Every vestige of impishness had fled from Mac Cann; he was a miserable man; his vanity was hurt and he was frightened, and this extraordinary combination of moods plunged him to a depression so profound that he could not climb therefrom without assistance.
Said Caeltia to him after a little:
“There is a thing I would like to see done, my friend.”
Mac Cann’s reply came sagging as he hauled his limp ideas from those pits.
“What’s that, your honour?”
“I would like to see the money thrown into this ditch as we go by.”
Patsy’s depression vanished as at the glare of a torch and the trumpet of danger. He nosed the air and sniffed like a horse.
“Begor!” said he. “You’re full of—There’s no sense in that,” said he sharply.
“That is what I would like to see, but everybody must act exactly as they are able to act.”
“I tell you there isn’t any sense
