Caitilin Ni Murrachu arose and went with him through the fields, and
she did not go with him because of love, nor because his words had been
understood by her, but only because he was naked and unashamed.

CHAPTER VII

IT was on account of his daughter that Meehawl MacMurrachu had come to
visit the Philosopher. He did not know what had become of her, and the
facts he had to lay before his adviser were very few.

He left the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath taking snuff under a pine tree
and went into the house.

"God be with all here," said he as he entered.

"God be with yourself, Meehawl MacMurrachu," said the Philosopher.

"I am in great trouble this day, sir," said Meehawl, "and if you would
give me an advice I'd be greatly beholden to you."

"I can give you that," replied the Philosopher.

"None better than your honour and no trouble to you either. It was a
powerful advice you gave me about the washboard, and if I didn't come
here to thank you before this it was not because I didn't want to come,
but that I couldn't move hand or foot by dint of the cruel rheumatism
put upon me by the Leprecauns of Gort na Cloca Mora, bad cess to them
for ever: twisted I was the way you'd get a squint in your eye if you
only looked at me, and the pain I suffered would astonish you."

"It would not," said the Philosopher.

"No matter," said Meehawl. "What I came about was my young daughter
Caitilin. Sight or light of her I haven't had for three days. My wife
said first, that it was the fairies had taken her, and then she said it
was a travelling man that had a musical instrument she went away with,
and after that she said, that maybe the girl was lying dead in the butt
of a ditch with her eyes wide open, and she staring broadly at the
moon in the night time and the sun in the day until the crows would be
finding her out."

The Philosopher drew his chair closer to Meehawl.

"Daughters," said he, "have been a cause of anxiety to their parents
ever since they were instituted. The flightiness of the female
temperament is very evident in those who have not arrived at the
years which teach how to hide faults and frailties, and, therefore,
indiscretions bristle from a young girl the way branches do from a
bush."

"The person who would deny that--" said Meehawl.

"Female children, however, have the particular sanction of nature. They
are produced in astonishing excess over males, and may, accordingly,
be admitted as dominan