Kings and Commoners
“Well,” said Padna, as he rested his elbows on the parapet of Blackrock Castle, and watched the river Lee winding its way towards the ocean, “when I look upon a scene so charming as this, with its matchless beauty, I feel that I am not myself at all, but some mediæval king or other, surveying my dominions, and waiting for the sound of the hunter’s horn to wake me from my revery. If at the present moment, an army of chivalrous archers, with white plumes in their green hats and bows and arrows slung on their shoulders and Robin Hood himself at their head, were to march from out the woods at Glountawn, I wouldn’t utter the least note of surprise or exclamation. No, Micus, not a single word would I say, even though they might lay a herd of slaughtered deer at my feet, and pin a falcon’s wing on my breast; so much do I feel a part of the good old days when there was no duty on tobacco and whiskey.”
“Sometimes,” said Micus, “I too feel that I own the whole countryside, and in a sense I do. Because I can get as much pleasure from looking at it, and admiring all its dazzling splendour, as if I had the trouble of keeping it in order and paying rates and taxes. And after all, what does any of us want but the world to look at, enough to eat and drink, and a little diversion when we feel like it?”
“A man with imagination and insight,” said Padna, “need never want for entertainment, because he can always appreciate and enjoy the folly of others, without having to pay for it. But be that as it may, ’tis more satisfying still to have a love of nature and all that’s beautiful, and a healthy distaste for all that’s coarse and ugly.”
“The world is made up of all kinds of people, who want to enjoy themselves in some way or other,” said Micus, “and the spirit of destruction is the Devil’s contribution to human happiness. Why, man alive, you could drown the whole German Army, and the Kaiser and all his henchmen, in the depths of beautiful Lough Mahon that stretches before us, and the French wouldn’t feel the least sorry. And you could drown the whole French Army and General Joffre, and the Germans wouldn’t feel sorry. And you could drown Sir Blunderbluff Carson, and John Redmond wouldn’t feel sorry, and you could drown the Russian, French, English and German armies, and the socialists wouldn’t be sorry, and you could drown all the socialists and the Salvation Army, and the Devil wouldn’t be sorry.”
“All the same,” said Padna, “’twould be a pity to wound the dignity of the Kaiser by drowning him in a comparatively small and shallow place like Lough Mahon when he could be drowned just as comfortably and easily in the middle of the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean,—or the Dardanelles, for that matter. And as for all the trouble ‘twould give the Russians, you could tie him by the heels to a clothesline in your back yard, the way they tied the tails of the Kilkenny cats, and dip his head in a bucket of goat’s milk mixed with gunpowder, and let him drown that way.”
“There’s good and bad in the worst of us,” said Micus, “and I am sure the Allies would be sorry to have him drowned at all, when he could be given, for his own private use and benefit, a superabundance of everlasting peace tokens, such as they give the poor devils in the trenches.”
“Free samples of poisonous gas, you mean, I presume,” said Padna.
“Yes,” said Micus. “However, ’tisn’t for the likes of us to be discussing the ways of mighty monarchs when we are only poor men ourselves.”