As they were passing on the mountain's base, taking the soft path on the turf, as more pleasant than the dusty highway, a little lower down, Remmy suddenly stopped.
"There's music somewhere about here," said he, listening.
"May-be it's only a singing in your head," observed Pat Minahan. I've known such things, 'specially if one had been taking a drop extra overnight."
"Hush!" said Remmy, "I hear it again as distinctly as ever I heard the sound of my own pipes. There 'tis again: how it sinks and swells on the evening breeze!"
Minahan paused and listened. "Sure enough, then, there is music in the air. Oh, Remmy Carroll, 'tis you and the lucky boy, for this must be fairy music, and 'tis said that whoever hears it first, as you did, is surely born to good luck."
"Never mind the luck," said Remmy, with a laugh. "There's the fairy ring above there, and I'll be bound that's the place it comes from. There's fox-glove, you see, that makes night-caps for them; and there's heath-bells that they have for drinking-cups; and there's sorrell that they have for tables, when the mushrooms aren't in; and there's the green grass within the ring, as smooth as your hand, and as soft as velvet, for 'tis worn down by their little feet when they dance in the clear light of the full moon. I am sure the music came from that fairy-ring."
"May-be it does," replied Minahan, "and may-be it doesn't. If you please, I'd rather move on, than stand here like a pillar of salt, for 'tis getting dark, and fairies aren't exactly the sort of people I'd like to meet in a lonely place. 'Twas somewhere about here, if I remember right, that Phil Connor, the piper, had a trial of skill with the fairies, as to who'd play best, and they turned him into stone, pipes and all. It happened, Remmy, before your father came to these parts, – but, surely you heard of it before now?"
"Not I," said Remmy; "and if I did, I wouldn't heed it."
"Oh, then," said his companion, with an ominous shake of the head at Remmy's incredulity, "it's all as true as that you're alive and kicking at this blessed moment. I heard my mother tell it when I was a boy, and she had the whole of it from her aunt's cousin's son, who learned the ins and outs of the story from a faymale friend of his, who had it on the very best authority. Phil Connor was a piper, and a mighty fine player entirely. As he was coming home from a wedding at Rathcormac, one fine moonshiny night, who should come right forenenst him, on this very same mountain, but a whole bundle of the fairies, singing, and skipping, and discoursing like any other Christians. So, they up and axed him, in the civilest way they could, if he'd favor them with a planxty on his pipes. Now, letting alone that Phil was as brave as a lion, and would not mind facing even an angry woman, let alone a batch of hop-o'-my-thumb fairies, he never had the heart to say no when he was civilly axed to do anything.
"So Phil said he'd oblige them, with all the veins of his heart. With that, he struck up that fine, ancient ould tune, 'The Fox-hunter's Jig.' And, to be sure and sartain, Phil was the lad that could play: – no offence to you, Remmy, who are to the fore. The moment the fairies heard it, they all began to caper, and danced here and there, backward and forward, to and fro, just like the motes you see dancing in the sunbeams, between you and the light. At last, Phil stopped, all of a sudden, and they gathered round him, the craturs, and asked him why he did not go on? And he told them that 'twas dying with the drought he was, and that he must have something to wet his whistle: – which same is only fair, particularly as far as pipers is concerned.
"'To be sure,' said a knowledgeable ould fairy, that seemed king of them all, 'it's but reasonable the boy is; get a cup to comfort him, the dacent gossoon.' So they handed Phil one of the fairy's fingers full of something that had a mighty pleasant smell, and they filled a hare-bell cup of the same for the king. 'Take it, me man,' said the ould fairy, 'there isn't a headache in a hogshead of it. I warrant that a guager's rod has never come near it. 'Twas made in Araglyn, out of mountain barley, – none of your taxed Parliament stuff, but real Queen's 'lixir.' Well, with that he drank to Phil, and Phil raised the little dawny measure to his lips, and, though it was not the size of a thimble, he drank at laste a pint of spirits from it, and when he took it away from his lips, that I mightn't, if 'twasn't as full as 'twas at first. Faith, it gave Phil the boldness of a lion, that it did, and made him so that he'd do anything. And what was it the omadhaun did, but challenge the whole box and dice of the fairies to beat him at playing the pipes. Some of them, which had tender hearts, advised him not to try. But the more they tried to persuade him, the more he would not be persuaded. So, as a wilful man must have his way, the fairies' piper came forward, and took up the challenge. Phil and he played against each other until the cock crew, when the lot all vanished into a cave, and whipped Phil away with them. And, because they were downright mad, at last, that Phil should play so much better than their own musicianer, they changed poor Phil, out of spite, into a stone statute, which remains in the cave to this very day. And that's what happened to Phil Connor and the fairies."
"You've made a pretty story of it," said Remmy; "it's only a pity it isn't true."
"True!" responded Minahan, with tone and action of indignation. "What have you to say again it? It's as true as Romilus and Ramus, or the Irish Rogues and Rapparees, or the History of Reynard, the Fox, and Reynardine, his son, or any other of the curious little books that people do be reading – that is, them that can read, for diversion's sake, when they've got nothing else to do. I suppose you'll be saying next, that fairies themselves ain't true? That I mightn't, Remmy, but 'twouldn't much surprise me in the laste, to hear you say, as Paddy Sheehy, the schoolmaster, says, that the earth is round, like an orange, and that people do be walking on the other side of it, with their heads downwards, and their feet opposite to our feet!"
"And if I did say so?" inquired Remmy, who – thanks to his schooling from the redoubtable Tim Daly – happened to know more of the Antipodes than his companion.
"Faith, Remmy, if you did say so, I know one that would misbelieve you, and that's my own self. For it stands to reason, all the world to a Chany orange, that if people was walking on the other side of the world, with their feet upwards and their heads down, they'd be sure to fall off before one could say 'Jack Robinson.'"
To such admirable reasoning as this, Remmy Carroll saw it would be quite useless to reply, so he allowed Minahan to rejoice in the advantage, usually claimed by a female disputant, of having "the last word."
They proceeded to the farmer's, Minahan, as they went along, volunteering a variety of particulars relative to the Petrified Piper – indulging, indeed, in such minuteness of detail, that it might have been taken for granted that he had, personally, seen and heard the matters he described.
It is to be feared that Remmy Carroll was but a so-so listener. He had no great faith in fairies, and his mind was just then preoccupied with thoughts of his own darling Mary Mahony. At last, Minahan's conversation ended, for they had reached the farmer's house, where Remmy and his pipes received the very warmest of welcomes.
You need not fear that I have any intention of inflicting a description of the marriage upon you. It is enough to say that the evening was one of thorough enjoyment – Irish enjoyment, which is akin to a sort of mirthful madness. Perhaps Remmy was the only person who did not thoroughly enter into the estro of the hour, for though successful love may intoxicate the mind, it subdues even the highest spirits, and embarrasses while it delights. There is the joy at the success – the greater if it has been unexpected – but this is a joy more concentrated than impulsive. Its seat is deep within the heart, and there it luxuriates, but it does not breathe its secret to the world, – it keeps its treasure all to itself, at first, a thing to be thought of and exulted over privily. Love, when successful, has a compelling power which subdues all other feelings.