“‘The uncertainty of everything is the only certainty we have,’ ses I. ‘And very few of us say anything worth thinking about, and what most of us think is not worth talking about. However, I’d like to know whether the moon was in the east or the west when you discovered the lady that captured your heart.’
“‘’Twas in this very lake the moon was when I saw my love for the first time, and though some fifty years or more have passed since then, she is as beautiful, lithe, lissome, and gay as ever, and she as elegant as Helen of Troy herself,’ ses he.
“‘I’ve been looking at the moon all my lifetime,’ ses I, ‘in pools of water, lakes, rivers, and the sky itself, and the devil a one I ever saw in it at all.’
“‘That’s not a bit surprising,’ ses he. ‘Some walk from the cradle to the grave without noticing the beauty of the universe, and what’s more, they are never impressed with what’s extraordinary, or surprised at the obvious. And when they see the things they have heard so much about, they do be surprised at what they think is the stupidity of the intelligent people, because they have no sense of the beautiful themselves.’
“‘God knows,’ ses I, ‘there are women enough on the face of the earth without going to look for them in the moon, nevertheless, I’d like to see the lady that’s as purty as Helen of Troy, and she more beautiful than all the queens of the world.’
“‘Well,’ ses he, ‘if you want to see the lady of the moon, you must take a hop, step, and a jump forward, and a hop, step, and a jump, backward, then turn on your heel three times, bore a hole in the crown of your hat with the buckhorn handle of your blackthorn, put your face in the hat itself, look through the hole the way you’d look at the stars through a telescope, and you’ll see the lady I fell head and heels in love with when I was a lad of three sixes.’
“‘Bedad,’ ses I, ‘that would be a queer thing for me to do. Sure while I’d have my face in the hat, you might run behind me and give me one kick and pitch me headlong into the lake, and I’d be sinking in its icy waters for ever like Matty Morrissey the fiddler, and the holy Bishop of Clonmorna.’
“‘God forgive you for having such an evil mind,’ ses he. ‘I that never did hurt nor harm to any one in all my born days, but myself.’
“‘Well,’ ses I, ‘a man always makes a fool of himself about women, and he might as well make a fool of himself one way as another, and as I won’t be making a precedent by doing something idiotic to please another, I’ll bore a hole in my hat, though I’d rather bore one in yours, and try if I can’t see the lady.’ And as true as I’m telling you, I looked through the hole and saw the lady of the moon for the first time, and then I up and ses to the stranger:
“‘What kind of a man are you to remain a bachelor all those long years, and to be coming here night after night, when the moon shows in the sky, wasting your affection on a lady you never opened your lips to?’ ses I.