The Whale and the Grasshopper Part 20

"Wisha, bad luck to your ignorance this blessed day, not to know that he was the best musician in the seven parishes, and the likes of his playing on the fiddle was never known since the Devil played a jig for Henry the Eighth the night he died. What do you think the fairies would want my grandfather for, but to play the 'Coulin,'

'Eileen Aroon,' 'The Last Rose of Summer,' 'The Dirge of Ossian,'

'The Lamentation of Deirdre' and 'My Dark Rosaleen' for them in the caves of the ocean when the drowsy eye of night quivers and closes, and they tired of dancing to the music of the waves on the cobbled beaches of the north, south, east, and western coast?" said Padna.

"'Tis a great thing indeed to be able to play the fiddle, sing a song, dance a jig, make a short speech, tell a good story, or do anything at all that gives pleasure to another, but the greatest of all achievements is to be able to please yourself without offending some one else. But be that as it may, let me hear no more about your grandfather, because there is nothing disagrees with me more than to have to listen to some one retailing the exploits of people I haven't the remotest interest in," said Micus.

"Well, then, you might like to hear about the black cat I met the night before I got married," said Padna.

"What's coming over you at all? If we were to be noticing the doings of black cats, black dogs, the rats that leave a s.h.i.+p, the queer dreams that follow a heavy supper, the calm that precedes and follows a storm, and all the other signs and tokens that may mean everything or nothing, we would become so bewildered that d.a.m.n the bit of work would we do from one end of the year to the other, and by trying to become too wise we would become too foolish for sensible people to pay any attention to us," said Micus.

"Some men don't realize how foolish they are by being too sensible, until they see their grandchildren squandering their hard-earned savings," said Padna.

"That's the kind of experience that makes pessimists, and the few people worth working for are, as a rule, able to work for themselves. And though there is a limit to all things, except the extravagance of women and the patience of husbands, yet on the other hand only for women there would be no trouble, and without trouble of some kind life wouldn't be worth living," said Micus.

"There's trouble everywhere, both on the dry land, the stormy ocean, in the cot and in the castle, and the devil a one will you ever find who doesn't like to have a quarrel now and again. But as the Mayor of Loughlaurna said to me one day: 'Life is too short for some, too long for others, and a great bother to us all,'" said Padna.

"Who the devil was the Mayor of Loughlaurna, and where did you meet him?" said Micus.

"The Mayor of Loughlaurna," said Padna, "if I am to take his own word for it, was a gentleman."

"A gentleman," said Micus, "don't have to tell you he's one."

"Neither does a bla'guard, a thief, or a rogue, for that matter,"

said Padna. "Howsomever, 'twas on a summer's day, many years ago when I was young, and believed all the things I should doubt, and doubted all I should believe, that I met the Mayor of Loughlaurna. I was out fis.h.i.+ng in a small boat that I had moored in the centre of the lough itself, and though I started at early morning, blast the bit did I catch all day except a cold in the head and chest, but as I was about to haul in my line at the tail end of the evening, something began to pull and tug, and I hauled and hauled and hauled until I thought I was dragging one of the Spanish Armada from the depths of the sea. But lo and behold! what did I find, when I came to the end of my pulling and tugging and dragging, but the finest-looking salmon your eyes ever rested on. And when I drew him over the gunwale, and took the hook from his mouth before breaking his neck on my knee, he gave one jump, cleared two thwarts, stood on his tail and commenced to abuse me, the same as if he was in politics all his lifetime."

"And what did he say?" said Micus.

"'Bad scran to your confounded impudence and presumption, not to say a word about your absence of courtesy and good breeding,' ses he. 'How dare you interfere with people who don't interfere with you?'

"'Oh,' ses I, 'sure 'tis by interference, inference, and ignorance that most of us become prosperous and presumptuous. And without presumption there would be no a.s.sumption, and without a.s.sumption there would be only chaos, and people would never get the things they are not ent.i.tled to.'

"'Well,' ses he, 'I often heard that a little learning is the saving grace of an ignoramus, but now I have no doubt whatever about it.'

"'Well,' ses I, 'if it takes a rogue to find a rogue, it takes one ignoramus to find wisdom in another.'

"'I think,' ses he, 'that you have a lot to learn, and as much more to unlearn, before you will be fit to advise those who may be senseless enough to heed you.'

"'You should know,' ses I, 'unless you are a schoolmaster, that what is wisdom to one man is tomfoolery to another. But who the blazes are you anyway, that I should be wasting my time talking like this?'

"'You might as well be talking to me as anyone else,' ses he, 'because most people spend their lives between talking and sleeping, and all their old talk makes no more impression on the world than their snoring. And when they die, they are immediately forgotten by every one except those to whom they owed money. But if 'tis the way you want to know who I am,' ses he, 'I will tell you before you will have time to make another mistake.'

"'You must hurry up then,' ses I.

"'The man who stands here before you,' ses he, 'is no less a person than His Lords.h.i.+p the Mayor of Loughlaurna.'

"'That's a giant of a t.i.tle for a bit of a man like yourself,' ses I. 'But how came the likes of you to be Mayor of Loughlaurna?'

"'What way would any one become mayor of a city, unless by his ability to control others, or the ability of others to control him? Many a man got a good job because he knew how to hold his tongue,' ses he.

"'Bedad,' ses I, 'honesty must have gone on a holiday the day that gold was discovered, and never returned.'

"'Wisha, G.o.d help you for a poor fool to think that honesty ever existed. Honesty is like the gift of silence among women,--it only exists, so to speak, after death. But now to my history. I suppose you often heard tell of a song that the tinkers sing in public houses on Sat.u.r.day nights. It goes like this:

"On Lough Neagh's bank, as the fisherman strays, When the clear cool eve's declining, He sees the round towers of other days In the waters beneath him s.h.i.+ning."'

"'Indeed, I did then many and many a time,' ses I. 'My mother used to sing it for me when I was in the cradle, and 'twill keep ringing in my ears till the day I die, as 'twill keep ringing in the ears of every son of Granuaile, whether he be drinking tea with the dusky maidens of the South Seas or philandering with the beauties of the United States.'

"'Are the American beauties as contrary as ever?' ses he.

"'Well,' ses I, 'they can afford to be more so than women who can't support their husbands. Man at last is emanc.i.p.ated and is now beginning to take his place side by side with woman. The age of freedom is at hand and chaos is within arm's reach,' ses I.

"'That little digression was interesting,' ses he. 'But to proceed about the song. My poor mother used to sing it for me too, and told me the story of how it came to be written. It appears that in the long, long ago, before people were as satisfied with their ignorance and bad manners as they are to-day, there was a well in the town of Neagh that grew to be a great lake in the middle of the night, and before morning came the highest steeple was covered, and every single inhabitant, man, woman, and child, was drowned. And only for that,' ses he, 'maybe 'tis the way yourself would be walking through the streets of the town this very day admiring the pretty girls, for 'tis the eye of a philanderer you have, not to mention your sleuthering tongue.'

"''Twas long ago that I gave up admiring the pretty girls,' ses I.

"'I don't believe a word of it,' ses he. 'A man is never too old to admire a pretty woman. And the old men, G.o.d forgive them, are worse than the young men. For the young ones does be shy and bashful, while the old ones are as brazen and courageous as the Devil himself, even though they might be on the brink of the grave itself.'

"'I have listened to enough of your old talk, and if you want me to believe that you are the Mayor of Loughlaurna, you must prove it. What are you but a fish? And how could a fish be Mayor of a city?'

"'I wasn't always a fish, and I suppose you have heard of Spain and the Rocky Mountains?' ses he.

"'I have, of course,' ses I.

"'And the children of Lir?' ses he.

"'Yes,' ses I.

"'Well, the night before King Lir's lovely daughter Fionnuala and her two brothers were turned into swans by the magic power of their stepmother, and condemned to wander on the waters of the world for three hundred years, I was sitting by my own fireside, reading about the adventures of Brian Boru, the Red Branch Knights, Queen Maeve, and Deirdre.'

"'Pardon me,' ses I, 'Brian Boru wasn't born when King Lir took unto himself a second wife.'

"'You shouldn't interrupt me for a trifle like that, though strictly speaking trifles are the cause of most interruptions. That's only a historical mistake, and history itself is full of mistakes. And the man who can't make a mistake must be a d.a.m.n fool. However,' ses he, 'as I was sitting by the hearth reading away for myself, who should stroll into the drawing-room but a fairy princess with a wand in her hand? And as I didn't know who she was or where she came from, I up and ses: "Good night, ma'am," ses I, "as you wouldn't say it yourself."'

"'Good night kindly,' ses she.

"'Might I ask who are you at all?' ses I.

"'If I told you who I am, you would be as wise as myself,' ses she.

"'Do you know who you are talking to?' ses he.

"'Indeed, I do,' ses she. 'You are Michael Henry Patrick Joseph Billy Dan MacMorrough, the Mayor of Laurna.'

"'That's my full name and t.i.tle,' ses he, 'but I takes more after my mother's people than my father's.'

"'That's a pity, because your mother was decent to the point of folly, while your father never did a bit for any one but himself,' ses she.

"'And what may your business be with me this blessed night?' ses he.