Messer Marco Polo | Page 5

kept silence as old Malach spoke, sportsmen, artists, men and women of the world; a hush came on them and their eyes showed they were not before the crackling fire in the long rooms but amazed in the Antrim glens.
Yes, old Malachi said, things were changed over there, and a greater change was liable. . .People whispered that in the Valley of the Black Pig the Boar without Bristles had been seen at the close of the day, and in Templemore there was a bleeding image, and these were ominous portents. . .Some folks believed and some didn't. . . And the great Irish hunter that had won the Grand National, the greatest horse in the world. . .But our Man of War, Malachi?. . Oh, sure, all he could do was run, and a hare or a greyhound could beat him at that; but Shawn Spadah, a great jumper him, as well as a runner; in fine, a horse. . .And did I know that Red Simon McEwer of Cushundall had gone around Portrush in eighteen consecutive fours? . . .A Rathlin Islander had tried the swim across to Scotland, but didn't make it, and there was great arguing as to whether it was because of the currents or of lack of strength. . .There were rumblings in the Giants' Causeway. . .very strange. . .A woman in Oran had the second sight, the most powerful gift of second sight in generations. . .There was a new piper in Islay, and it was said he was a second McCrimmon. . .And a new poet had arisen in Uist, and all over the Highlands they were reciting his songs and his "Lament for the Bruce". . .Was I still as keen for, did I still remember the poems, and the great stories?. . .
"'Behold, the night is of great length,'" I quoted, "'Unbearable. Tell us, therefore, of those wondrous deeds.'"
"If you've remembered your Gaidhlig as you've remembered your Greek!"
"It's a long time since you've had a story of me, twelve long years, and it's a long time before you'll have another, and I going away tomorrow. Old Sergeant Death has his warrant out for me this many a day, and it's only the wisdom of an old dog fox that eludes him; but he'll lay me by the heels one of these days. . .then there'll be an end to the grand stories. . .So after this, if you're wanting a story, you must be writing it yourself. . .
"But before I die, I'll leave you the story of Marco Polo. There's been a power of books written about Marco Polo. The scholars have pushed up their spectacles and brushed the cobwebs from their ears, and they've said, 'There's all there is about Marco Polo.'
"But the scholars are a queer and blind people, Brian Oge. I've heard tell there's a doctor in Spain can weigh the earth. But he can't plow a furrow that is needful, for planting corn. The scholars can tell how many are the feathers in a bird's wing, but it takes me to inform the doctors why the call comes to them, and they fly over oceans without compass or sextant or sight of land.
"Did you ever see a scholar standing in front of a slip of a girl? In all his learning he can find nothing to say to her. And every penny poet in the country knows.
"Let you be listening now, Brian Oge, and let also the scholars be listening. But whether the scholars do or not, I'm not caring. A pope once listened to me with great respect, and a marshal of France and poets without number. But the scholars do be turning up their noses. And, mind you, I've got as much scholarship as the next man, as you'll see from my story.
"Barring myself, is there no one in this house that takes snuff? No! Ah, well, times do be changing."
CHAPTER I
Now it's nearing night on the first day of spring, and you could see how loath day was to be going for even the short time until the rising of the sun again. And though there was a chill on the canals, yet there was great color to the sunset, the red of it on the water ebbing into orange, and then to purple, and losing itself in the olive pools near the mooring-ties. And a little wind came up from the Greek islands, and now surged and fluttered, the way you'd think a harper might be playing. You'd hear no sound, but the melody was there. It was the rhythm of spring, that the old people recognize.
But the young people would know it was spring, too, by token of the gaiety that was in the air. For nothing brings joy