Bits of Blarney

by R. Shelton Mackenzie

"'Twas Remmy and myself, your Reverence, that was meandering home together, when, as bad luck would have it, nothing would do me, being pretty-well-I-thank-you at that same time, but I must make a commencement of discourse with Remmy about the fairy people: for, your worship, I'd been telling him before, as we went to the wedding of Phil Connor, who was transmographied into a stone statute. Well and good, just as Remmy came right forenent the fairy-ring, says he, 'Faith, I would not object myself to have a lilt with them!' No sooner had he said the words, your honor, than up came the sweet music that we heard the night before, and with that a thousand lights suddenly glanced up from the fairy-ring, just as if 'twas an illumination for some great victory. Then, the music playing all the while, myself and Remmy set our good-looking ears to listen, and, quick as I'd swallow this glass of whiskey—here's a good health to your Reverence!—a thousand dawny creatures started up and began dancing jigs, as if there was quicksilver in their heels. There they went, hither and thither, to and fro, far and near, coursing about in all manner of ways, and making the earth tremble beneath 'em, with the dint of their quickness. At last, your Reverence, one of them came out of the ring, making a leg and a bow as genteel as ould Lynch, the dancing-master, and said, 'Mister Carroll,' says he, 'if you'd please to be agreeable, 'tis we'd like to foot it to your pipes (and you should have seen the soothering wink the villain gave as he said the words), 'for,' says he, ''tis ourselves have often heard tell of your beautiful playing.' Then the weeny little mite of a fairy fixed his little eyes upon Remmy, and, that I mightn't, if they did not shine in his head like two coals of red fire, or a cat's eye under a blanket!

"'I'm no player for the likes of ye,' says Remmy, modest-like. But they'd take no excuse, and they all gathered around him, and what with sootherin' words, and bright looks, and little pushes, they complately put their comehether upon him, and coaxed him to play for them, and then, the cajoling creatures! they fixed a big stone for a sate, and he struck up Garryowen, sharp and quick, like shot through a holly-bush. Then they all set to at the dancing, like the blessed Saint Vitus and his cousins, and surely it was a beautiful sight to look at. The dawny creatures worn't much bigger than your middle finger, and all nately dressed in green clothes; with silk stockings and pumps, and three-cocked hats upon their heads, and powdered wigs, and silk sashes across their breasts, and swords by their sides about the size of a broken needle. 'Faith, 'twas beautiful they footed it away, and remarkable they looked.

"Well, your honor, he was playing away like mad, and they were all capering about, male and faymale, young and old, just like the French who eat so many frogs that they do ever and always be dancing, when one of the faymale fairies come up to Remmy's elbow, and said, in a voice that was sweeter than any music, 'May-be, Mister Carroll, you'd be dry?' Then Remmy looked at her a moment, till the faymale fairy hung down her head, quite modest. 'Well,' says Remmy, 'you are a nice little creature, and no words about it!' She looked up at him, and her cheeks got as red as a field-poppy, with delight at Remmy's praising her;—for faymales, your Reverence, is faymales all the world over, and a little blarney goes a great way with them, and makes them go on as smoothly as a hall-door upon well-oiled hinges. Then, she asked him again if he did not feel dry, and Remmy said he'd been to a wedding, and wasn't dry in particular, but he'd just like to drink a good husband to her, and soon, and many of them. So, she laughed, and blushed again, and handed him a little morsel of a glass full of something that, I'll be bound for it, was stronger, any how, than holy water. She kissed the little glass as he took it, and he drank away, and when he was handing her back the glass, his eyes danced in his head again, there was so much fire in them. So, thinking that some of the same cordial would be good for my own complaint, I calls out to Remmy to leave a drop for me. But, whoop! no sooner had I said the words, than, all of a sudden, the whole tote of them vanished away, Remmy throwing me his pipes, by way of keepsake, as he dashed down through the earth with the rest of them. I dare say he did not want to be bothered with the pipes, knowing that in the place he was going to be could use those that Phil Connor had taken down before. And that's all that I know of it."

Here Minahan, overpowered with grief and the fatigue of speaking, perpetrated a deep sigh and a deeper draught, which exhausted the remnant of the whiskey.

"But, Minahan," said Father Barry, "you certainly don't mean to pass off this wild story for fact."

"But I do, your Reverence," said Minahan, rather testily. "Sure none but myself was to the fore, and it only stands to reason that as one piper wasn't enough for the fairies, they seduced Remmy Carroll away, bad cess to 'em for that same. And, indeed, your worship, I dreamed that I saw him last night, made up into a stone statute, like poor Phil Connor; and sure there's great truth in dreams, entirely."

Father Barry, of course, did not believe one word of this extraordinary story, but his parishioners did, and therefore he eschewed the heresy of publicly doubting it. He contented himself with shaking his head, somewhat after the grave fashion of a Chinese Mandarin in a grocer's window, whenever this subject was alluded to, and this Burleigh indication, as well as his silence, obtained for him an immense reputation for wisdom.

There was one of his congregation who shared, to the full, the good priest's disbelief of Minahan's "tough yarn" about the fairies. This was Mary Mahony, who was convinced, whatever had befallen Remmy,—and her fears anticipated even the worst,—that he had not fallen into the hands of the fairies. Indeed, she was bold enough to doubt whether there were such beings as fairies. These doubts, however, she kept to herself. Poor thing! silently but sadly did she miss her lover. She said not one word to any one of what had passed between them on the memorable day of his disappearance. But that her cheek grew pale, and that melancholy gently brooded in the deep quiet of her eyes, and that her voice, always low, was now sad and soft as the mournful murmur of the widowed cushat-dove, even vigilant observation could notice little difference in her. Not a day passed without her father lamenting Remmy's absence, and when he spoke approvingly of our vanished hero, tears would slowly gather in her eyes, and her heart would swell with a sorrow all the deeper for suppression. It was great consolation for her to find, now that he was gone, how all lips praised the good qualities of Remmy Carroll. It is pleasant to feel that one's love is not unworthily bestowed.

Meantime, the deportation of Remmy, by the fairies, became duly accredited in Fermoy and its vicinity. If he had solely and wholly vanished, it might have been attributed to what Horatio calls "a truant disposition;" but his pipes were left behind him, circumstantial evidence of Minahan's narrative. Mightily was this corroborated, a few months after, when Gerald Barry, the priest's nephew, being out one day, coursing on Corran Thierna, discovered a sort of cave, the entrance to which had been concealed by the huge rock which lay close to the magic circle of the fairies! His terrier had run into it, after a refractory rabbit, who would not wait to be caught, and, from the length of his stay, it was conjectured that the cave must be of immense extent. True it is, that no one harbored the audacious thought of examining it; for what mortal could be so reckless as to venture into the stronghold of the "good people,"—but the very fact of there being such a cavity under the rock, dignified with the brevet-rank of a cavern, satisfied the Fermoy folks that Remmy Carroll was within it, changed into a Petrified Piper!

Some weeks later, Gerald Barry's dog again ran into the cave, and remained there until the young man, unwilling to lose a capital terrier, dug him out with his own hands; for neither love nor money could tempt any one else to do such a fool-hardy exploit. He declared that the mysterious cave was no cave, but only an old rabbit-burrow! All the old women, in and out of petticoats, unanimously announced that it was clear ("as mud in a wineglass," no doubt), that the cave had been there, but that the fairies had changed the whole aspect of the place, to prevent the discovery of their petrified victims; for, argued they, if they could make men into marble statues, they certainly must possess the minor power of making a cave look as insignificant as a rabbit-burrow. Logic, such as this, was sufficient to settle the mooted point, and then it became a moral and physical certainty, in the Fermoy world, that Phil Connor and Remmy Carroll were petrified inmates of the mountain cavern!