Robert Mackenzie - Bits of Blarney

Overcome by his emotion-aye, even to tears, which flowed down his comely cheeks-poor Remmy suddenly stopped. Mary Mahony, surprised at the unexpected but not quite unpleasing matter of his address, knew not, for a brief space, what answer to make. But she was a woman-a young and loving one-so she let her heart speak from its fulness.

"May-be," said she, with a blush, which made her look more beautiful than ever, – "may-be, tis a foolish thing, Remmy, to love without hoping;" and she looked at him with an expressive smile, which, unfortunately, he was unable to distinguish through the tears which were now chasing each other down his face, as round and nearly as large as rosary-beads.

"It's of no use," he said, not perceiving the nature of her words; "it's of no use trying to banish you from my mind. I've put a penance on myself for daring to think of you, and it's all of no use. The more I try not to think, the more I find my thoughts upon you. I try to forget you, and as I walk in the fields, by day, you come into my mind, and when I sleep at night you come into my dreams. Wherever I am, or whatever I do, you are beside me, with a kind, sweet smile. Every morning of my life, I make a promise to my heart that I will never again come here to look upon that smile, far too sweet and too kind for such as me, and yet my steps turn towards you before the day is done. But it's all of no use. I must quit the place altogether. I will go for a soldier, and if I am killed in battle, as I hope I may be, they will find your name, Mary, written on my heart."

To a maid who loved as well as Mary Mahony did, there was a touching pathos in the simple earnestness of this confession; – aye, and eloquence, too, for surely truth is the living spirit of eloquence. How long she might have been inclined to play the coquette I cannot resolve, but the idea of her lover's leaving her put all finesse to flight, and she said, in a low tone, which yet found an echo, and made a memory in his heart: "Remmy! dear Remmy, you must not leave me. If you go, my heart goes with you, for I like you, poor as you are, better than the richest lord in the land, with his own weight of gold and jewels on his back."

What more she might have said puzzles conjecture-for these welcome words were scarcely spoken, when all further speech was arrested by an ardent kiss from Remmy. Oh! the first, fond kiss of mutual love! what is there of earth with so much of the soft and gentle balm of heaven?

There they stood, by the ruins of that old castle, the world all forgot. There they whispered, each to each, that deep passion with which they had so long been heart-full. The maiden had gentle sighs and pleasant tears-but these last, Remmy gallantly kissed away. Very wrong, no doubt, for her to have permitted him to do so, and, in truth, she sometimes exhibited a shadow of resistance. There was, in sooth,

"And you won't think the worse of me, Remmy, for being so foolish as to confess how I love you?"

"Is it me, life of my heart? not unless you say that it was foolish to love me . Sure, they were the happiest words I ever heard."

"And you will love me always, even as now?"

"Ah, Mary, I see that you are joking now."

"And you won't go as a soldier?"

"Not I, darling; let those who have heavy hearts, and no hope, do that same."

Much more, was spoken, no doubt. Very tender confessions and confidences, in truth, which I care not to repeat, for such are of the bright holidays of youth and love, and scarcely bear to be reported as closely as an oration in the Senate, or a lawyer's harangue at Nisi Prius, in a case of Breach of Promise. Such tender confessions and confidences resemble those eastern flowers which have a sweet perfume on the soil to which they are native, but lose the fragrance if you remove them to another clime.

At last, with many a lingering "one word more," many a gentle pressure of the hands, and several very decided symptoms, belonging to the genus "kiss," in the sweet botany of love, Mary and Remmy parted. Happy, sweetly and sadly happy (for deep love is meditative, rather than joyful), Mary Mahony returned home. She hastened to that apartment peculiarly called her own, threw herself on the bed, and indulged in the luxury of tears, for it is not Sorrow alone that seeks relief in tears, – they fall for hope fulfilled as truly, though less often, as for hope deferred. Weep on, gentle girl, weep in joy, while you can. Close at hand is the hour in which, ere you have done more than taste it, the sparkling draught of happiness may be snatched from your lips.

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.