The Whale and the Grasshopper Part 21

"'I just want to amuse myself at your expense,' ses she.

"'And why at all?' ses he.

"'Well, just because you are the most respected man in the land, and have only a good word for every one, and because you have always done the right thing and lived an exemplary life. In this world most things go by contrary. The good must suffer so that the bad may have a chance of enjoying themselves. And as the good are always worrying about the bad, and as the bad never bother their heads about the good, and as everything is topsy turvy, 'tis only right and consistent that you should be duly punished for your virtues, and made to know what sorrow means in its widest sense,' ses she.

"'What are you going to do to me?' ses he.

"'I'm going to turn you into a fish,' ses she.

"'What kind of a fish? A sprat or a mackerel maybe?' ses he.

"'Nothing so common,' ses she.

"'What, then?' ses he.

"'A salmon,' ses she.

"'Thank heavens,' ses he. 'That same is a consolation.'

"'Things are never so bad that a woman can't make them worse. And things might be much better.'

"'Howsomever,' ses he, 'I think that 'tis a piece of gross injustice to change me from a respectable man into a fish, moreover when I am head and ears in love with King Lir's lovely daughter Fionnuala.'

"'Lir's lovely daughter was turned into a swan last night,' ses she. 'But 'tis better to have loved and lost inself than to be kept awake at night by squalling children who won't thank you when they grow up for all you had to endure on their account. And who would want to provide for a large wife and a large family unless he might have plenty money,' ses she.

"'Is it the truth you are telling about the children of Lir?' ses he.

"''Twill soon be a recorded fact in history,' ses she.

"And as the words fell from her lips, tears fell from his eyes, and he wept and wept until the water reached his chin, and then with one wave of the magic wand he was turned into a salmon, but he still continued to weep and weep until the waters rose above the highest steeple in the town of Laurna, and there he lived swimming about in his own tears, until I caught him when fis.h.i.+ng for bream on a summer's evening some five and twenty years ago," said Padna.

"And what did you say to him when he told you that yarn?" said Micus.

"I said that I thought he should have been more upset about his own fate than that of Lir's lovely daughter.

"'That may be,' ses he, 'but there's no pleasure to be got from worrying about yourself. We only really enjoy ourselves when we fret and worry about those we love. The pleasures of melancholy are best enjoyed by those who have loved and lost and been desired by no one else. And besides,' ses he, 'the man who has suffered is always more interesting and entertaining than the man who has not. But at best that is only cold comfort.'

"'True for you,' ses I. 'Yet you should have received your liberty years and years ago, because the children of Lir were released from their captivity at the dawn of Christianity. The ringing of the first church bell was the signal for their release, but when they returned home after their wanderings, all their old friends and neighbours were dead and gone. Why you should be made suffer so much, or any of us, the best and the worst, is more than I can comprehend.'

"'The devil a one of me can understand it, either. None of us know what's before us, because none of us know what may have been behind us, so to speak. But if I did live before, 'tisn't likely that I was an angel,' ses he.

"'I suppose,' ses I, 'that none of us can differentiate thoroughly between good and evil. What one man thinks is right another will think is wrong, and while none of us understand the other, we can't expect things to be any better than they are. If we all thought alike, there would be no difference of opinion. And if we all agreed about religion and politics, we might have the greatest contempt for each other. And unless a man is either better or worse than ourselves, we don't pay any attention to him at all.'

"'True,' ses he.

"'We could keep bladdering away like this till the leaves fall from the trees, but you have not told me yet when the fairy princess said you would be released,' ses I.

"'When a woman can be found who don't want to get her photo taken, or see herself in a mirror, or want to read her husband's letters, or search his pockets, and when the Germans will get to Paris,' ses he.

"'You had better go back to the Lough,' ses I.

"'I will,' ses he, 'because I am getting thirsty as well as homesick.'

"And with that he shook hands with me, bid me good-by, and jumped into the waters, and that was the last I saw of the Mayor of Loughlaurna."

"There's no place like home," said Micus.

"No," said Padna.

THE LAND OF PEACE AND PLENTY

"Ah, G.o.d help us, but 'tis a bad night for poor sailors," said Padna Dan, as he pulled his chair close to the glowing hearth where f.a.ggots blazed and a kettle sang. "The strand will be strewn with wreckage to-morrow, and there will be more widows and lonely mothers in the world than ever there was before, and all because the winds have no mercy, and the sea has no mercy, and there's no mercy anywhere but in the heart of G.o.d. There's a peal of thunder now, and if the clouds burst and the rain comes, there won't be a sheaf of corn left standing in Castlebawn to-morrow."

"There will, please G.o.d," said Micus, as he stirred the fire.

"'Tis like you to have the good word," said Padna, "but I'm sick and tired of this country altogether. When we have a fine summer we have a bad autumn, and when we have a good spring we have a wet summer, and when we have a hard winter we have nothing at all. I can't understand these things. 'Pon my word, I can't."

"No, nor any one else, either," said Micus. "How is it that decent fathers and mothers rear worthless children, and worthless children rear decent fathers and mothers? Or how is it that gra.s.s grows in the fields, and the lark sings in the sky, and the trees lose their leaves in winter? Or how is it that the world isn't under water long ago after all the rain we've had since Cromwell went to h.e.l.l? Or how is it that people will spend half their lifetime educating themselves, and then go to war and kill people they had no quarrel with at all?"

"Didn't I tell you I can't understand these things?" said Padna, rather piqued. "Sure if I could, I'd be a philosopher, and if I was a philosopher, I wouldn't have to worry about anything."

"And why?" said Micus.

"Because philosophers are people with easy minds and usually they have all they want."

"And what's a pessimist?" said Micus.

"A pessimist is a philosopher before he gets a good job," answered Padna.

"And what am I then?"

"What are you? You're a philosopher, of course."

"Bedad, I suppose I am," said Micus. "It takes all kinds of people to make a world, anyway."

"It does," said Padna. "Philosophers, pessimists, suffragettes, and policemen."

"The world is a strange place."

"Indeed it is, and a beautiful place, when you haven't to work for a living."