“While I think of it,” says the fairy man, a vexed frown wrinkling over his forehead, “there’s three young bachelors in your own parish that have a foolish habit of callin’ their colleens angels whin they’s not the laste likeness—not the laste. If I were you, I’d preach ag’in it,” says he.
“Oh, I dunno about that!” says Father Cassidy, fitting a live coal on his pipe. “The crachures must say thim things. If a young bachelor only talks sensible to a sensible colleen he has a good chanst to stay a bachelor. An thin ag’in, a gossoon who’ll talk to his sweetheart about the size of the petatie crop’ll maybe bate her whin they’re both married. But this has nothing to do with your historical obserwaytions. Go on, King,” he says.
“Well, I hate foolishness, wherever it is,” says the fairy. “Howsumever, as I was saying, up there in heaven they called us the Little People,” he says; “millions of us flocked together, and I was the King of them all. We were happy with one another as birds of the same nest, till the ruction came on betwixt the black and the white angels.
“How it all started I never rightly knew, nor wouldn’t ask for fear of getting implicayted. I bade all the Little People keep to themselves thin, because we had plenty of friends in both parties, and wanted throuble with nayther of them.
“I knew ould Nick well; a civiler, pleasanter spoken sowl you couldn’t wish to meet—a little too sweet in his ways, maybe. He gave a thousand favors and civilities to my subjects, and now that he’s down, the devil a word I’ll say agin him.”
“I’m agin him,” says Father Cassidy, looking very stern; “I’m agin him an’ all his pumps an’ worruks. I’ll go bail that in the ind he hurt yez more than he helped yez.”
“Only one thing I blame him for,” says the king; “he sajooced from the Little People my comrade and best friend, one Thaddeus Flynn be name. And the way that it was, was this. Thaddeus was a warmhearted little man, but monsthrous high-spirited as well as quick-tempered. I can shut me eyes now, and in me mind see him thripping along, his head bent, his pipe in his mouth, his hands behind his back. He never wore a waistcoat, but kept always his green body-coat buttoned. A tall caubeen was set on the back of his head, with a sprig of green shamrock in the band. There was a thin rim of black whiskers undher his chin.”
Father Cassidy, liftin’ both hands in wondher, said: “If I hadn’t baptized him, and buried his good father before him, I’d swear ’twas Michael Pether McGilligan of this parish you were dayscribin’,” says he.
“The McGilligans ain’t dacint enough, nor rayfined enough, nor proud enough to be fairies,” says the king, wavin’ his pipe scornful. “But to raysume and to continue,” he says.
“Thaddeus and I used to frayquint a place they called the battlements or parypets—which was a great goold wall about the edge of heaven, and which had wide steps down on the outside face, where one could sit, pleasant avenings, and hang his feet over, or where one’d stand before going to take a fly in the fresh air for himself.
“Well, agra, the night before the great battle, Thady and I were sitting on the lowest step, looking down into league upon league of nothing, and talking about the world, which was suxty thousand miles below, and hell, which was tunty thousand miles below that ag’in, when who should come blusthering over us, his black wings hiding the sky, and a long streak of lightning for a spear in his fist, but Ould Nick.
“ ‘Brian Connors, how long are you going to be downthrodden and thrajooced and looked down upon—you and your subjects?’ says he.
“ ‘Faix, thin, who’s doing that to us?’ asks Thady, standing up and growing excited.
“ ‘Why,’ says Ould Nick, ‘were you made little pygmies to be the laugh and the scorn and the mock of the whole world?’ he says, very mad; ‘why weren’t you made into angels, like the rest of us?’ he says.
“ ‘Musha,’ cries Thady, ‘I never thought of that.’
“ ‘Are you a man or a mouse; will you fight for your rights?’ says Sattin. ‘If so, come with me and be one of us. For we’ll bate them black and blue tomorrow,’ he says. Thady needed no second axing.
“ ‘I’ll go with ye, Sattin, me dacent man,’ cried he. ‘Wirra! Wirra! To think of how downthrodden we are!’ And with one spring Thady was on Ould Nick’s chowlders, and the two flew away like a hummingbird riding on the back of an aygle.
“ ‘Take care of yerself, Brian,’ says Thady, ‘and come over to see the fight; I’m to be in it. And I extind you the inwitation,’ he says.
“In the morning the battle opened; one line of black angels stretched clear across heaven, and faced another line of white angels, with a walley between.
“Everyone had a spaking trumpet in his hand, like you see in the pictures, and they called aich other hard names across the walley. As the white angels couldn’t swear or use bad langwidge, Ould Nick’s army had at first in that way a great adwantage. But when it came to hurling hills and shying tunderbolts at aich other, the black angels were bate from the first.
“Poor little Thaddeus Flynn stood amongst his own, in the dust and the crash and the roar, brave as a lion. He couldn’t hurl mountains, nor was he much at flinging lightning bolts, but at calling hard names he was aquil to the best.
“I saw him take off his coat, trow it on the ground, and shake his pipe at a thraymendous angel. ‘You owdacious villain,’ he cried. ‘I dare you to come halfway over!’ he says.”
“My, oh my, whin the armies met together in the rale handy grips, it must have
