“I never heard tell of the black dog of Dooniskey, or your old grandfather, or the fairies who wanted to steal him either, but what the fairies wanted him for is more than I can understand,” said Micus.
“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 ship, 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 damn 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.”