“I put sugar in it,” said she shyly, “and currants, and I have a spoon in my pocket.”
“It tastes well,” said the Philosopher, and he cleaned the basin so speedily that his wife wept because of his hunger.
By this time the pipe had come round to him again and it was welcomed.
“Now we can talk,” said he, and he blew a great cloud of smoke into the darkness and sighed happily.
“We were thinking,” said the Thin Woman, “that you won’t be able to come back to our house for a while yet: the policemen will be peeping about Coille Doraca for a long time, to be sure; for isn’t it true that if there is a good thing coming to a person, nobody takes much trouble to find him, but if there is a bad thing or a punishment in store for a man, then the whole world will be searched until he be found?”
“It is a true statement,” said the Philosopher.
“So what we arranged was this—that you should go to live with these little men in their house under the yew tree of the Gort. There is not a policeman in the world would find you there; or if you went by night to the Brugh of the Boyne, Angus Óg himself would give you a refuge.”
One of the Leprecauns here interposed.
“Noble Sir,” said he, “there isn’t much room in our house but there’s no stint of welcome in it. You would have a good time with us travelling on moonlit nights and seeing strange things, for we often go to visit the Shee of the Hills and they come to see us; there is always something to talk about, and we have dances in the caves and on the tops of the hills. Don’t be imagining now that we have a poor life for there is fun and plenty with us and the Brugh of Angus Mac an Óg is hard to be got at.”
“I would like to dance, indeed,” returned the Philosopher, “for I do believe that dancing is the first and last duty of man. If we cannot be gay what can we be? Life is not any use at all unless we find a laugh here and there—but this time, decent men of the Gort, I cannot go with you, for it is laid on me to give myself up to the police.”