CHAPTER IV.

HOW THE PIPER BECAME A PETRIFACTION.

Alike delighted and surprised at thus finding Mary Mahony a sharer in the emotions which so wildly filled his own heart, Remmy Carroll returned to Fermoy, in that particular mood which is best denoted by the topsy-turvy description--"he did not know whether he stood upon his head or his heels." He rested until evening at a friend's, and was not unwilling to have some hours of quiet thought before he again committed himself to commerce with the busy world. About dusk, he started with his friend for a farmer's, on the Rathcormac side of Corran Thierna, where there was to be a wedding that night, at which Remmy and his pipes would be almost as indispensable as the priest and the bridegroom.

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. The causes which commonly move a man, have little power when this master-passion fills the breast.

In compliance with the custom at all wedding-feasts in Ireland, the company freely partook of the national nectar (by mortals called whiskey-punch), which was as plenty as tea at an ancient maiden's evening entertainment, where sally-lun and scandal are discussed together, and a verdict is given, at one and the same time, upon character and Souchong. Remmy, of course, imbibed a fair allowance of that resistless and potent mixture, the boast of which is, that "there is not a headache in a hogshead of it." Blame him not. The apostle of Temperance had not then commenced his charitable crusade. How could mortal man refuse the draught, brewed as it specially had been for him by the blushing bride herself, who, taking a dainty sup out of the horn which did duty for a tumbler, had the tempting gallantry to leave a kiss behind--even as "rare Ben Jonson" recommends. What marvel, if, when so many around him were rapidly passing the Rubicon of the cup, Remmy should have taken his allowance like "a man and a brother"--no, like a man and a piper,--particularly, when it is remembered that Love, as well as Grief, is proverbially thirsty. Still, Remmy Carroll had not exceeded the limits of sobriety. He had drank, but not to excess--for his failing was not in that wise. And even if he had partaken too freely of the charmed cup, it is doubtful whether, with strong passion and excited feeling making a secret under-current in his mind on that evening, any quantity of liquor could have sensibly affected him. There are occasions when the emotions of the heart are so powerful as to render it almost impossible for a man, even if he desired it, thus to steep his senses in forgetfulness.

Remmy, therefore, was not "the worse for liquor"--although he certainly had not refrained from it. Minahan, on the other hand, who was quite a seasoned vessel, most buoyant in the ocean of free-drinking, and to whom a skinful of strong liquor was quite a god-send, had speedily and easily contrived to get into that pleasant state commonly called "half-seas-over,"--that is, he was not actually tipsy, but merry and agreeable; and as he insisted on returning to Fermoy, though he was offered a bed in the barn, the trouble of escorting him devolved on Remmy.

They left the house together, lovingly linked arm-in-arm, for Minahan then had a tendency to zig-zag movements. The next day, Minahan was found lying fast asleep, with a huge stone for his pillow, near the footpath, at the base of Corran Thierna. It was noticed by one of those who discovered him, that his feet were within the fairy-ring which Remmy had observed on the preceding evening. But of Remmy himself there was no trace. If the earth had swallowed him up, he could not have vanished more completely. His pipes were found on the ground, near Minahan, and this was all that remained of one who, so often and well, had waked their soul of song.

The whole district became alarmed; for, independent of regret and wonder, on account of Remmy's personal popularity, a serious thing in a country district is the loss of its only Piper. At length, Father Tom Barry, the parish priest of Fermoy, thought it only his duty to pay a domiciliary visit to Minahan, to come at the real facts of the case, and solve what was felt to be "a most mysterious mystery."

Minahan was found in bed. Grief for the sudden loss of his friend had preyed so heavily upon his sensitive mind, that, ever since that fatal night, he had been drowning sorrow--in whiskey. It was now the third day since Remmy Carroll's disappearance; and when Father Tom entered the house, he found Minahan sleeping off the combined effects of affliction and _potheen_. He was awakened as soon as could be, and his first exclamation was, "Oh, them fairies! them thieves of fairies!" It was some time before he could comprehend the cause of Father Tom's visit, but even when he did, his words still were, "Oh, them fairies! them thieves of fairies! they beat Bannagher, and Bannagher beats the world!"

A growl from the priest, which, from lay lips, might have been mistaken for an execration, awoke Minahan to his senses--not that he was ever troubled with a superfluity of them. He testily declared his inability to tell his story, except upon conditions. "My memory," said he, "is just like an eel-skin, your Reverence. It don't stretch or become properly limber until 'tis wetted." On this hint, Father Tom sent for a supply of Tommy Walker;[5] and after summarily dispatching a noggin of it, Minahan thus spoke:--

"'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!

[5] At that time, the two great whiskey-distillers in Cork were Thomas Walker and Thomas Wise,--respectively carrying on their business in the South and North suburbs of the city. Both are alluded to in Maginn's celebrated song, "Cork is the Aiden for you, love, and me." The verse runs thus:--

"Take the road to Glanmire, the road to Blackrock, or The sweet Boreemannah, to charm your eyes; If you doubt what is _Wise_, take a dram of Tom Walker, And if you're a _Walker_, top off Tommy Wise."

"'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-burrrow. 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!

When, some eighteen months after this, it was Gerald Barry's ill-fortune to break his collar-bone by a fall from his horse, in a steeple-chase, there arose a general conviction, in the minds of all the Fermoy believers in fairy-lore, that _this_ was a punishment inflicted upon him by "the good people," for his impertinent intrusion into their peculiar haunts.