g...."

When the morning came the Philosopher was taken on a car to the big
City in order that he might be put on his trial and hanged. It was the
custom.

BOOK VI. THE THIN WOMAN'S JOURNEY AND THE HAPPY MARCH

CHAPTER XVII

THE ability of the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath for anger was unbounded.
She was not one of those limited creatures who are swept clean by a gust
of wrath and left placid and smiling after its passing. She could store
her anger in those caverns of eternity which open into every soul, and
which are filled with rage and violence until the time comes when they
may be stored with wisdom and love; for, in the genesis of life, love
is at the beginning and the end of things. First, like a laughing
child, love came to labour minutely in the rocks and sands of the heart,
opening the first of those roads which lead inwards for ever, and then,
the labour of his day being done, love fled away and was forgotten.
Following came the fierce winds of hate to work like giants and gnomes
among the prodigious debris, quarrying the rocks and levelling the
roads which soar inwards; but when that work is completed love will come
radiantly again to live for ever in the human heart, which is Eternity.

Before the Thin Woman could undertake the redemption of her husband by
wrath, it was necessary that she should be purified by the performance
of that sacrifice which is called the Forgiveness of Enemies, and this
she did by embracing the Leprecauns of the Gort and in the presence of
the sun and the wind remitting their crime against her husband. Thus she
became free to devote her malice against the State of Punishment, while
forgiving the individuals who had but acted in obedience to the pressure
of their infernal environment, which pressure is Sin.

This done she set about baking the three cakes against her journey to
Angus Og.

While she was baking the cakes, the children, Seumas and Brigid Beg,
slipped away into the wood to speak to each other and to wonder over
this extraordinary occurrence.

At first their movements were very careful, for they could not be quite
sure that the policemen had really gone away, or whether they were
hiding in dark places waiting to pounce on them and carry them away
to captivity. The word "murder" was almost unknown to them, and its
strangeness was rendered still more strange by reason of the nearness
of their father to the term. It was a terrible word and its terror was
mag