The Mayor Of Loughlaurna

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Title:     The Mayor Of Loughlaurna
Author: Seumas O'Brien [More Titles by O'Brien]

"I wonder," said Padna to Micus, as they wended their way along a lonely road after Mass on a Sunday morning, "if you ever heard tell of the black dog of Dooniskey that was gifted with seven senses, second sight, and an easy disposition, who followed my grandfather from the Bridge of the Hundred Arches to the Half Way House in Cromwell's Glen on the night of the rising of '98. And how he caught a hold of the tail of his coat and dragged him from Owen Roe's Cross to Cuchulain's Boreen while the soldiers of England's king were scouring the highways looking for some one to hang to the nearest finger post. And 'twas little they cared about any man, for one man looked as good as another to them, as he swung from a branch of a tree on the roadside or on a gibbet on the mountain top. And 'twas the selfsame black dog that saved him from the fairies of Galway on a dark windy night, when all the fairies of the world assembled in the Gap of Dunlow and made speeches in favour of women holding their tongues until the Judgment Day."

"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."

"A gentleman," said Micus, "don't have to tell you he's one."

"Neither does a bla'guard, a thief, or a rogue, for that matter," said Padna. "Howsomever, 'twas on a summer's day, many years ago when I was young, and believed all the things I should doubt, and doubted all I should believe, that I met the Mayor of Loughlaurna. I was out fishing in a small boat that I had moored in the centre of the lough itself, and though I started at early morning, blast the bit did I catch all day except a cold in the head and chest, but as I was about to haul in my line at the tail end of the evening, something began to pull and tug, and I hauled and hauled and hauled until I thought I was dragging one of the Spanish Armada from the depths of the sea. But lo and behold! what did I find, when I came to the end of my pulling and tugging and dragging, but the finest-looking salmon your eyes ever rested on. And when I drew him over the gunwale, and took the hook from his mouth before breaking his neck on my knee, he gave one jump, cleared two thwarts, stood on his tail and commenced to abuse me, the same as if he was in politics all his lifetime."

"And what did he say?" said Micus.

"'Bad scran to your confounded impudence and presumption, not to say a word about your absence of courtesy and good breeding,' ses he. 'How dare you interfere with people who don't interfere with you?'

"'Oh,' ses I, 'sure 'tis by interference, inference, and ignorance that most of us become prosperous and presumptuous. And without presumption there would be no assumption, and without assumption there would be only chaos, and people would never get the things they are not entitled to.'

"'Well,' ses he, 'I often heard that a little learning is the saving grace of an ignoramus, but now I have no doubt whatever about it.'

"'Well,' ses I, 'if it takes a rogue to find a rogue, it takes one ignoramus to find wisdom in another.'

"'I think,' ses he, 'that you have a lot to learn, and as much more to unlearn, before you will be fit to advise those who may be senseless enough to heed you.'

"'You should know,' ses I, 'unless you are a schoolmaster, that what is wisdom to one man is tomfoolery to another. But who the blazes are you anyway, that I should be wasting my time talking like this?'

"'You might as well be talking to me as anyone else,' ses he, 'because most people spend their lives between talking and sleeping, and all their old talk makes no more impression on the world than their snoring. And when they die, they are immediately forgotten by every one except those to whom they owed money. But if 'tis the way you want to know who I am,' ses he, 'I will tell you before you will have time to make another mistake.'

"'You must hurry up then,' ses I.

"'The man who stands here before you,' ses he, 'is no less a person than His Lordship the Mayor of Loughlaurna.'

"'That's a giant of a title for a bit of a man like yourself,' ses I. 'But how came the likes of you to be Mayor of Loughlaurna?'

"'What way would any one become mayor of a city, unless by his ability to control others, or the ability of others to control him? Many a man got a good job because he knew how to hold his tongue,' ses he.

"'Bedad,' ses I, 'honesty must have gone on a holiday the day that gold was discovered, and never returned.'

"'Wisha, God help you for a poor fool to think that honesty ever existed. Honesty is like the gift of silence among women,--it only exists, so to speak, after death. But now to my history. I suppose you often heard tell of a song that the tinkers sing in public houses on Saturday nights. It goes like this:

"On Lough Neagh's bank, as the fisherman strays,
When the clear cool eve's declining,
He sees the round towers of other days
In the waters beneath him shining."'

"'Indeed, I did then many and many a time,' ses I. 'My mother used to sing it for me when I was in the cradle, and 'twill keep ringing in my ears till the day I die, as 'twill keep ringing in the ears of every son of Granuaile, whether he be drinking tea with the dusky maidens of the South Seas or philandering with the beauties of the United States.'

"'Are the American beauties as contrary as ever?' ses he.

"'Well,' ses I, 'they can afford to be more so than women who can't support their husbands. Man at last is emancipated and is now beginning to take his place side by side with woman. The age of freedom is at hand and chaos is within arm's reach,' ses I.

"'That little digression was interesting,' ses he. 'But to proceed about the song. My poor mother used to sing it for me too, and told me the story of how it came to be written. It appears that in the long, long ago, before people were as satisfied with their ignorance and bad manners as they are to-day, there was a well in the town of Neagh that grew to be a great lake in the middle of the night, and before morning came the highest steeple was covered, and every single inhabitant, man, woman, and child, was drowned. And only for that,' ses he, 'maybe 'tis the way yourself would be walking through the streets of the town this very day admiring the pretty girls, for 'tis the eye of a philanderer you have, not to mention your sleuthering tongue.'

"''Twas long ago that I gave up admiring the pretty girls,' ses I.

"'I don't believe a word of it,' ses he. 'A man is never too old to admire a pretty woman. And the old men, God forgive them, are worse than the young men. For the young ones does be shy and bashful, while the old ones are as brazen and courageous as the Devil himself, even though they might be on the brink of the grave itself.'

"'I have listened to enough of your old talk, and if you want me to believe that you are the Mayor of Loughlaurna, you must prove it. What are you but a fish? And how could a fish be Mayor of a city?'

"'I wasn't always a fish, and I suppose you have heard of Spain and the Rocky Mountains?' ses he.

"'I have, of course,' ses I.

"'And the children of Lir?' ses he.

"'Yes,' ses I.

"'Well, the night before King Lir's lovely daughter Fionnuala and her two brothers were turned into swans by the magic power of their stepmother, and condemned to wander on the waters of the world for three hundred years, I was sitting by my own fireside, reading about the adventures of Brian Boru, the Red Branch Knights, Queen Maeve, and Deirdre.'

"'Pardon me,' ses I, 'Brian Boru wasn't born when King Lir took unto himself a second wife.'

"'You shouldn't interrupt me for a trifle like that, though strictly speaking trifles are the cause of most interruptions. That's only a historical mistake, and history itself is full of mistakes. And the man who can't make a mistake must be a damn fool. However,' ses he, 'as I was sitting by the hearth reading away for myself, who should stroll into the drawing-room but a fairy princess with a wand in her hand? And as I didn't know who she was or where she came from, I up and ses: "Good night, ma'am," ses I, "as you wouldn't say it yourself."'

"'Good night kindly,' ses she.

"'Might I ask who are you at all?' ses I.

"'If I told you who I am, you would be as wise as myself,' ses she.

"'Do you know who you are talking to?' ses he.

"'Indeed, I do,' ses she. 'You are Michael Henry Patrick Joseph Billy Dan MacMorrough, the Mayor of Laurna.'

"'That's my full name and title,' ses he, 'but I takes more after my mother's people than my father's.'

"'That's a pity, because your mother was decent to the point of folly, while your father never did a bit for any one but himself,' ses she.

"'And what may your business be with me this blessed night?' ses he.

"'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 fishing 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 end]
Seumas O'Brien's short story: Mayor Of Loughlaurna

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