Page:Shiana - Peadar Ua Laoghaire.djvu/245

Rh He saluted them, and they saluted him, but none of them asked him what made him play that music. They were half afraid of him.

"He came home, and it was not long until he fell sick. No one expected that he would ever rise from that sickness. People said it was those for whom he had played the music that were taking him with them in order that they themselves should have a piper as good as the piper whom those at the other side of the river had, or perhaps better. But whatever was the reason, they failed to carry him off that time. He recovered in spite of them, and he has the music. And there you have the story just as I myself heard it, of how Eerie John got the fairy music. He only plays it very seldom, and that is very little wonder. If they come around him always as they came around him last night, it must be that they take great delight in the music he plays, and if they have that delight in the music, they will carry the musician off home with them sooner or later. It is not right for him to be playing that music at all. He has been often advised not to play it. I have given him that advice myself, but it was no use for me to give it. He would not say 'I will,' or 'I won't.' You could not make out what he intended to do. It is no harm to call him 'Eerie John.' I don't think he has a bit of fear of them."

"Perhaps, Patrick," said Michael, "that he knows himself that he need have no fear of them. Perhaps he has good friends among them, and that he is not in danger."

"Perhaps so," said Patrick, "But I would rather give myself up to God than that I should have anything at all to do with them or they with me.