L I B HAHY OF THE UNIVERSITY Of ILLINOIS Cl9+r v.i U-rvv? , iJu^j JfO TRAITS AND STORIES. DUBLIN : Printed by P. D. Hardy, Cecilia Street. u 9 - Z b U^v TRAITS AND STORIES OF THE IRISH PEASANTRY. WITH ETCHINGS BY W. H. BROOKE, ESQ. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I DUBLIN: WILLIAM CURRY, JUN. AND COMPANY. 9, UPPER SACKVILLE STREET. 1830. \ XS2.3 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. Preface. Ned M'Keown — Introductory 1 The Three Tasks, or the Little House under the Hill ; a Legend 43 Shane Fadh's Wedding 93 Larry M'Farland's Wake 157 The Battle op the Factions 217 CONTENTS OF VOL. II. The Funeral and Party Fight 1 r ". The Hedge School, and the Abduction of i\ Mat Kavanagh 109 The Station 211 PREFACE. In presenting the following d Traits and Stories" to the public., the Author can with confidence as- sure them, that what he offers is., both in manu- facture and material, genuine Irish ; yes, genuine Irish as to character — drawn by one born amidst the scenes he describes — reared as one of the peo- ple whose characters and situations he sketches — and who can cut and dress a shillaly as well as any man in his Majesty's dominions ; ay, and use it, too ; so let the critics take care of themselves. Conversant with the pastimes, festivals, feasts, and feuds, he details — he may well say, of what he has Vlll PREFACE. described — " quorum pars magna fui" Moreover, the Author assumes, that in the ground he has taken, he stands in a great measure without a competitor ; particularly as to certain sketches, peculiar, in the habits and manners delineated in them, to the Northern Irish. These last — the Ulster Creachts — as they were formerly called — are as characteristically distinct from the Southern or Western Milesians, as the people of Yorkshire are from the natives of Somerset : yet they are still as Irish, and as strongly imbued with the character of their country. The English reader, perhaps, may be sceptical as to the deep hatred which prevails among Roman Catholics in the north of Ireland, against those who differ from them in party and religious principles ; but when he reflects that they were driven before the face of the Scotch invader, and divested by the Settlement of Ulster of their pleasant vales, forced to quench the fires on their fathers' hearths, and retire to the mountain ranges of Tyrone, Donegal, and Deny, perhaps he will grant after all, that the feeling is PREFACE. IX natural to a people treated as they have been. Upon this race, surrounded by Scotch and Eng- lish settlers, and hid amongst the mists of their highland retreats, education, until recently, had made little progress ; — superstition, and prejudice, and ancient animosity, held their strongest sway, and the Priests, the poor pastors of a poorer peo- ple, were devoid of the wealth, the self-respect, and the learning, which prevailed amongst their better endowed brethren of the South. The Author, in the different scenes and charac- ters he describes, has endeavoured to give his por- traits as true to nature as possible; and requests his Readers to give him credit, when he asserts that, ■without party object or engagement, he disclaims subserviency to any political purpose whatsoever. His desire is neither to distort his countrymen into demons, nor to enshrine them as suffering innocents and saints — but to exhibit them as they really are ; warm-hearted, hot-headed, affec- tionate creatures — the very fittest materials in the world for the poet or romance writer — capable of X PREFACE. great culpability, and of great and energetic good- ness — sudden in their passions as the red and ra- pid gush of their mountain-streams — variable in their temper as the climate that sends them the mutability of sun and shower— at times, rugged and gloomy as the moorland sides of their moun- tains — oftener sweet, soft, and gay, as the sun-lit meadows of their pleasant vales. The Author, though sometimes forced to touch upon their vices, expose their errors, and laugh at their superstitions ; loves also (and it has formed, as he may say, the pleasure of his pen) to call up their happier qualities, and exhibit them as can- did, affectionate, and faithful. Nor has he ever foregone the hope— his heart's desire and his anx- ious wish — that his own dear, native mountain people may, through the influence of education, by the leadings of purer knowledge, and by the fosterings of a paternal government, become the pride, the strength, and support of the British empire, instead of, as now, forming its weakness and its reproach. PREFACE. XI The reader may finally believe that these vo- lumes contain probably a greater number of facts than any other book ever published on Irish life. The Author's acquaintance with the people was so intimate and extensive ; and the state of Ireland so unsettled, that he had only to take incidents which occurred under his eye, and by ficticious names and localities, exhibit through their me- dium, the very prejudices and manners which produced the incidents themselves. In the language and expressions of the northern peasantry he has studiously avoided local idiom, and that intolerable Scoto-Hibernic jargon which pierces the ear so unmercifully — but he has pre- served every thing Irish, and generalized the phraseology, so that the book, wherever it may go, will exhibit a truly Hibernian spirit. In the beginning of the first volume there will be remarked a greater portion of the Doric than perhaps will be relished ; the Author, however, by the advice of a judicious friend, has changed this ere more than a few pages were printed, and Xll PREFACE. made his characters — without being less idiomatic — speak less broadly. It depends on the patronage which the public may bestow on these volumes, whether other at- tempts, made under circumstances less discourag- ing, and for which there are ample materials, cal- culated to exhibit Irish life in a manner perhaps more practically useful, shall be proceeded with. Dublin, 1st March , 1830. TRAITS AND STORIES OP THE IRISH PEASANTRY. NED M'KEOWN. Who within the parish, whether gentle or simple, man or woman, boy or girl, did not know Ned M'Keown and his wife Nancy, joint proprietors of the tobacco-shop and public-house at the cross-roads of Kilrudden? Honest, blustering, good-humoured Ned was the indefatigable merchant of the village ; ever engaged in some ten or twenty-pound specula- tion, the capital of which he was sure to extort, perhaps for the twelfth time, from the savings of Nancy's frugality, by the equivocal test of a month or six weeks' consecutive sobriety ; and which said speculation he never failed to wind up by the total loss of the capital for Nancy, and the capital loss of a broken head for himself. Ned had eternally some bargain on his hands : at one time you might find him a yarn merchant, planted upon the upper step of VOL. I. B 2 NED M f KEOWN. Mr. Birnie's hall-door, where the yam-market was held, surrounded by a crowd of eager countrywomen, anxious to give Ned the preference — first, because he was a well-wisher ; secondly, because he hadn't his heart in the penny ; and thirdly, because he gave sixpence a spangle more than any other man in the market. There might Ned be found, with his twenty pounds of hard silver jingling in the bottom of a green bag, as a decoy to the customers, laughing loud as he piled the yarn in an ostentatious heap, which, in the pride of his commercial sagacity, he had purchased at a dead loss. Again you might see him at a horse-fair, cantering about on the back of some sleek, but broken-winded jade, with spavined legs, imposed on him as " a great bargain entirely," by the superior cunning of some rustic sharper ;— or standing over a hogshead of damaged flaxseed, in the purchase of which he shrewdly suspected him- self of having overreached the seller, by allowing him for it a greater price than the prime seed of the market would have cost him. In short, Ned was never out of a speculation, and whatever he under- took was sure to prove a complete failure. But he had one mode of consolation, which consisted in sitting down with the fag-end of Nancy's capital in his pocket, and drinking night and day with this neighbour and that, whilst a shilling remained ; and when he found himself at the end of his tether, he was sure to fasten a quarrel on some friend or ac- quaintance, and to get his head broken for his pains. None of all this blustering, however, happened with- NED M'KEOWN. 3 in the range of Nancy's jurisdiction. Ned, indeed, might drink and sing, and swagger and fight — and he contrived to do so ; but notwithstanding all his apparent courage, there was one eye which made him quail, and before which he never put on the Hector ; — there was one, in whose presence the loud- ness of his song would fall away into a very awk- ward and unmusical quaver, and his laughing face assume the visage of a man who is disposed to any thing but mirth. The fact was this : Whenever Ned found that his speculation was gone a shaughran, as he termed it, he fixed himself in some favourite public-house, from whence he seldom stirred while his money lasted, except when dislodged by Nancy, who usually, upon learning where he had taken cover, paid him an unceremonious visit, to which Ned's indefensible delinquency gave the colour of le- gitimate authority. Upon these occasions, Nancy, accompanied by two sturdy servant-men, would sally forth to the next market-town, for the purpose of bringing home " graceless Ned," as she called him. And then you might see Ned between the two servants, a few paces in advance of Nancy, having very much the appearance of a man performing a pilgrimage to the gallows, or of a deserter guarded back to his barrack, in order to become a target for the musquets of his comrades. Ned's compulsory return always became a matter of some notoriety; for Nancy's excursion in quest of the " graceless" was not made without frequent denunciations of b2 4 NED M'KEOWN. wrath against him, and many melancholy apologies to the neighbours for entering upon the task of per- sonally securing him. By this means her enterprize was sure to get wind, and a mob of all the idle young men and barefooted urchins of the village, with Bob M'Cann, " a three-quarther clift" or mischievous fel- low, half knave, half fool, was to be found a little below the village, upon an elevation of the road, that commanded a level stretch of half a mile or so, in anxious expectation of the procession. No sooner had this arrived at the point of observation, than the little squadron would fall rearward of the principal group, for the purpose of extracting from Nancy a full and particular account of the capture. " Indeed, childher, id's no wondher for ye to en- quire ! Where did I get 'im, Dick ? — musha, an' where wud I get 'im bud in the ould place, a-hagur ; wid the ould set : don't yees know that a dacent place or dacent company wudn't sarve Ned ? — no- body bud Shane Martin, an' Jimmy Tague, an' the other blackguards." " An' what will ye do wid 'm, Nancy ?" " Och ! thin, Dick, avourneen, id's myself that's jist tired thinkin' iv that ; at any rate, consumin' to the loose foot he'll get this blessed month to come, Dick, agra !" " Troth, Nancy," another mischievous monkey would exclaim, " if ye hadn't great patience entirely, ye cudn't put up wid such thratement, at all at all." " Why thin, God knows, id's thrue for ye, Barney. D'ye hear that, ' graceless' — the very childher makin' NED M'KEOWN. 5 a laughin'- stock an' a may-game iv ye? — bud wait till we get undher the roof, any how." "Ned/' a third would say, "isn't id a burnin' shame for ye to brake the poor crathur's heart, this a-way ? Throth, bud ye ought to hould down yer head, sure enough — a dacent woman ! that ony for her ye wudn't have a house over ye, so ye wudn't." backy?" NED M'KEOWN. 9 " No, but I hope we won't be long so." " Well, any how, we war in look to buy in them three last rowls." "Eh? in look! death-alive, how, Ned?" " Sure there was three ships iv id lost last week, on their way from the kingdom of Swuzzerland, in the Aste Indians, where id grows : we can rise id thruppence a-pound now." " No, Ned ! you're not in arnest ?" " Faith, bud ye may say I am ; an' as soon as Tom Loan comes home from Dublin, he'll tell iz all about id ; an' for that matther, maybe, id may rise sixpence a-pound : faith, we'll gain a lob by id, I'm thinkin'." " May I never stir ! bud that's look : well, Ned, ye may thank me fo* that, any way, or not a rowl we'd have in the four corners iv the house — an' ye wanted to pursuade me agin buyin' thim ; bud I knew betther — for the tobacky's always sure to get a bit iv a hitch at this time a year." " Bedad, you can do id, Nancy ; I'll say that for ye — that's an' give ye yer own way." " Eh ! can't I, Ned ? — an' what was betther, I bate down Pether M'Entee three-ha'pence a-pound afther I bought them." " Ha! ha! ha! by my sannies, Nancy, as to market- makin', they may all throw their caps at ye ; ye thief o' the world, ye can do them nately." " Ha ! ha ! ha ! Stop, Ned, don't dhrink that wa- ther — id's not from the rock well ; bud I'll jist mix a b3 10 NED M'KEOWN. sup iv this last stuff we got from the mountains, till ye taste id : I think id's not worse nor the last — for Hugh Traynor's an ould hand at makin' id." This was all Ned wanted ; his point was now car- ried : but with respect to the rising of the tobacco, the less that is said about that the better for his ve- racity. Ned's house stood exactly in an angle formed by the cross-roads of Kilrudden. It was a long, white- washed building, well thatched, and furnished with the usual appurtenances of yard and offices. The barn was a continuation of the dwelling-house, and might be distinguished from it by a darker shade of colour, being only rough-cast. It was situated on a small eminence, but with respect to the general lo- cality of the country, in a delightful vale, which runs up, for twelve or fourteen miles, between two ranges of dark, well-defined mountains, that give to the in- terjacent country the form of a low, inverted arch. This valley, which altogether, allowing for the occa- sional breaks and intersections of hill-ranges, extends in length upwards of thirty miles, is the celebrated valley of the "Black Pig," so well known in the po- litico-traditional history of Ireland, and the legends connected with the famous Lamh Dearg. That part of it where Ned M'Keown resided was peculiarly beautiful and romantic. From the eminence on which the house stood, a sweep of the most fertile meadow- land stretched away to the foot of a series of inter- mingled hills and vales, that bounded this extensive NED M'KEOWN. 11 carpet towards the north. Through these meadows ran a deep river, called the Mullin-biu'n, which wound its way through them with such tortuosity, that it was proverbial in the neighbourhood to say, of any man remarkable for dishonesty, " he's as crooked as the Mullin-burn," — an epithet which was sometimes, though unjustly, applied to Ned himself. This deep but narrow river had its origin in the glens and ravines of a mountain which bounded the vale in a south-eastern direction ; and after sudden and heavy rains, it tumbled down with such violence and impetuosity over the crags and rock-ranges in its way, and accumulated so amazingly, that on reach- ing these meadows, it inundated their surface, car- rying away sheep, cows, and cocks of hay, upon its yellow flood. It also boiled, and eddied, and roared with a hoarse sugh, that was heard at a considerable distance. On the north-west side ran a ridge of high hills, with the cloud-capped peak of Knockmany rising in lofty eminence above them : these, as they extended towards the south, became gradually deeper in their hue, until at length they assumed the shade and form of heath-clad mountains, dark and towering. The prospect on either range is highly pleasing, and capa- ble of vieing with any I have ever seen, in softness variety, and that serene lustre which reposes only on the surface of a country rich in fertility and beauty, and improved by the hand of industry and taste. Opposite Knockmany, at a distance of about four 12 NED M'KEOWN. miles, on the south-eastern side, rose the huge and dark outline of Cullimore, standing out in gigantic relief against the clear blue of a summer sky, and flinging down his frowning and haughty shadow, al- most to the firm-set base of his lofty rival ; or, in winter, wrapped in a mantle of clouds, and crowned with unsullied snow, resting in undisturbed tranquil- lity while storms and desolation rioted around it. To the northward, immediately behind Cullimore, lies Althadhawan, a deep, craggy, precipitous glen, running up to the very base of Cullimore, and stud- ded with oak, hazel, rowan-tree, and holly. This glen extends itself for two or three miles, until it melts into the softness of grove and meadow, in the rich landscape below. Then, again, behind Knock- many, is Lumford's Glen, with its overhanging rocks, whose yawning depth and silver waterfall, of one hundred and fifty feet, are at once finely and fear- fully contrasted with the elevated peak of Knock- many, rising into the clouds just above it. From either side of these mountains may be seen six or eight country towns — the beautiful grouping of hill and plain, lake, river, grove, and dell — the grey reverend cathedral, the whitewashed cottage, and the comfortable farm-house. To these may be added the wild upland and the cultivated demesne, the green sheepwalk and the dark moor, the splendid mansion, and the ruined castle of former days. De- lightful rdthembrance ! Many a day, both of sun- shine and storm, have I, in the strength and pride of NED M'KEOWN. 13 happy youth, bounded, fleet as the mountain roe, over these blue hills ! Many an evening, as the yel- low beams of the setting sun shot slantingly, like rafters of gold, across the depth of this blessed and peaceful valley, have I followed the strange and ma- gic impulse of a wild and wayward fancy, and sought the quiet dell, or viewed the setting sun, as he scat- tered his glorious and shining beams through the glowing foliage of the trees, in the vista where I stood ; or wandered along the river, whose banks were fringed with the hanging willow, whilst I lis- tened to the thrush singing among the hazels that crowned the sloping green above me, or watched the plashing otter, as he ventured from the dark angles and intricacies of the upland glen, to seek his prey in the meadow-stream during the favourable dusk of twilight. Many a time have I heard the sim- ple song of Roger M'Cann, coming from the top of brown Dunroe, mellowed by the stillness of the hour to something far sweeter to the heart than all that the laboured pomp of musical art and science can effect — or the song of Katty Roy, the beauty of the village, coming across the purple-flowered moor, " Sweet as the shepherd's pipe upon the mountains. "■ Many a time, too, have I been gratified, in the same poetical hour, by the sweet sound of honest Ned M'Keown's ungreased cart-wheels, clacking, when nature seemed to have fallen asleep, after the day-stir and animation of rural business had ceased — for Xed 14 NED M'KEOWN. was sometimes a carman — on his return from Dublin with a load of his own groceries, without as much money in his pocket as would purchase wherewith to silence the sounds which the friction produced — regaling his own ears the while, as well as the music of the cart would permit his melody to be heard, with his favourite tune of Cannie Soogah. Having thus given the reader a slight sketch of Ned and Nancy, and of the beautiful Tempe in which this Irish Arcadian had his residence, I will next proceed to introduce him to the village circle, which, during the long winter nights, might be found in front of Ned's kitchen fire of blazing turf, the light of which was given back in ruddy reflection from the bright pewter plates, that were ranged upon the white and well-scowered dresser in just and gradual order, from the small egg-plate to the large and ca- pacious dish, whereon, at Christmas and Easter, the substantial round of corned beef used to rear itself so proudly over the more ignoble joints at the lower end of the table. Seated in this clear-obscure of do- mestic light, which, after all, gives the heart a finer and more touching notion of enjoyment than the glit- ter of the theatre or the blaze of the saloon, might be found — First, Andy Morrow, the juryman of the quarter-sessions, sage and important, in the consci- ousness of legal knowledge, and somewhat dictato- rial withal in its application to such knotty points as arose out of the subjects of their nocturnal debates. Secondly, Bob Gott, who filled the foreign and mili- NED M f KEOWX. 15 tary department, and entertained them with the his- tory of the ghost which appeared to him on the night after the battle of Bunker 5 s-hill. To him succeeded Tom M'Roarkin, the little asthmatic anecdotarian of half the county, remarkable for chuckling at his own stories. Then came old Bill M'Kinny, poacher and horse-jockey ; little, squeaking, thin-faced Alick M'Kinley, a facetious farmer of substance ; and Shane Fadh, who handed down traditions and fairy-tales. Enthroned on one hob was Pat Frayne, the school- master with the short arm, who read and explained the newspaper for " Ould Square Colwell," and was looked upon as premier to the aforesaid cabinet; — Ned himself filled the opposite seat of honour. One night, a little before the Christmas holidays, in the year 182-, the personages just described were seated around Ned's fire, some with their chirping pints of ale or porter, and others with their quantum of Hugh Traynor, or mountain-dew, and all with good-humour and a strong tendency to happiness vi- sible in their faces. The night was dark, close, and misty — so dark, indeed, that, as Nancy said, " you could hardly see your finger before you." Ned him- self sat on the hob, with a pint of porter beside him, and a pipe in his mouth, just in his glory for the night. Opposite to him was Pat Frayne, with an old Newspaper on his knee, which he had just pe- rused for the edification of his audience ; beside him was Nancy, busily employed in knitting a pair of sheep's-grey stockings, for Ned : the remaining per- 16 NED Sl'KEOWN. sonages formed a semicircular ring about the hearth. Behind, on the kitchen-table, sat Paddy Smith, the servant-man, with three or four of the gorsoons of the village about him, engaged in a little under-plot of their own. On the other side, and a little removed from the light, sat Ned's two nieces/Biddy and Bessy Connolly, the former with Atty Johnston's mouth within whisper-reach of her ear, and the latter seat- ed close to her professed admirer, Billy Fulton, her uncle's shopman. This group was' completely ab- stracted from the entertainment which was going forward in the circle round the fire. " I wondher," said Andy Morrow, " what makes Joe M f Crea throw down that fine ould castle iv his, in Aughentain ?" " I'm tould," said M'Roarkin, " that he expects money ; for they say ther's a lot iv id berred some- where about that same buildin'." " Jist as much as ther's in my wig," replied Shane Fadh, " an' ther's ne'er a pocket to id yit. Why, bless yer sowl, how cud ther be money in id, whin the last man iv the Grameses that ow'd it — I mane iv the ould stock, afore id wint into Lord Mountjoy's hands — sowld id out, ran through the money, an' died beggin' afther. Did none iv ye ever hear iv ' Ould John Grame, 1 That swally'd the castle iv Aughentain !' " " That was long afore my time," said the poacher ; " bud I know that the rabbit-burrow between that an' Jack Appleton's garden will soon be run out." NED M'KEOWN. 17 " Your time !" responded Shane Fadh, with con- tempt; " ay, an' yer father's afore ye: my father don't remimber more nor seein' his funeral, an' a merry wan id was ; for my granfather, an' some iv them that had a respect for the family an' his forbares, if they hadn't id for himself, made up as much money among them as berrid 'im dacently, any how — ay, an' gave him a rousin' wake into the bargain, with lashins iv whiskey, stout beer, an' ale ; for in them times — God be wid 'em — every farmer brewed his own ale an' beer ; — more betoken, that wan pint iv id was worth a keg iv this wash iv yours, Ned." " Wasn't id he that used to appear ?" enquired M'Roarkin. " Sure enough he did, Tom." " Lord save iz," said Nancy, " what cud throuble 'im, I dunna?" "Why," continued Shane Fadh, "some sed wan thing, an' some another ; bud the upshot iv id was this : when the last iv the Grameses sowld the estate, castle an' all, id seems he didn't resave all the pur- chase money ; so, afther he had spint what he got, he applied to the purchaser for the remaindher — him that the Mountjoy family bought id from; bud id seems he didn't draw up writins, or sell id accordin' to law, so that the thief o' the world baffled 'im from day to day, an' wudn't give 'im a penny — bekase he knew, the blaggard, that the Square was then as poor as a church mouse, an' hadn't even money to thry id, at the law wid 'im ; bud the Square was aU 18 NED M f KEOWN. ways a simple asy-goin' man. One day he went to this fellow, ridin' on an ould garran, with a shoe loose — the only baste he had in the world — an* ax'd 'im, for God's sake, to give 'im some iv what he owed 'im, if id was ever so little ; ' for,' says he, ' I have not as much money betune me an' death as 'ill get a set iv shoes for my horse.' ' Well,' says the negur, ' if yer not able to keep yer horse shod, I wud jist recommind ye to sell 'im, an' thin his shoes won't cost ye any thing,' says he. The poor ould Square went away wid tears in his eyes, for he loved the poor brute, bekase they war the two last branches iv the ould stock." > " Why," inquired M'Kinly, in his small squeaking voice, " was the horse related to the family ?" " I didn't say he was related to the fam Get out, ye scamp !" returned the old man, perceiving by the laugh that now went round, the sly tendency of the question — " no, nor to your family ether, for he had nothin' iv the ass in 'im — eh ? will ye put that in yer pocket, my little skinadhre — ha ! ha ! ha !" The laugh was now turned against M'Kinley. Shane Fadh proceeded : " The ould Square, as I was tellin' yees, cried to find 'imself an' the poor baste so dissolit ; bud when he had gone a bit from the fellow, he comes back to the bagabone — f Now/ says he, ' mind my words — if ye happen to live afther me, ye need niver expict a night's pace ; for I here make a serous an' solemn vow, that as long as my property's in yer porsession, or in any iv yer seed, NED M'KEOWN. 19 breed, or gineration's, I'll never give over hantin' ye, till ye'll rue to the back-bone yer dishonesty an' chathery to me an' this poor baste, that hasn't a shoe to ids foot.' ' Well,' says the negur, ' I'll take chance iv that, any way.' " " I'm tould, Shane," observed the poacher, " that the Square was a fine man in his time, that wudn't put up wid such thratement from any man." " Ay, bud he was ould now," Shane replied, ft an' too wakely to fight. — A fine man, Bill ! — he was the finest man, 'ceptin' ould Square Storey, that ever was in this counthry. I hard my granfather often say, that he was six foot four, an' made in proportion — a hansome black-a-vic'd man, with great dark whiskers ; bud he spint money like sklates. An' so he died miserable — bud he had a merry birrel, as I sed." " Bud," enquired Nancy, * did he ever appear to the rogue that chated 'im ?" " Every night in the year, Nancy ; an' what was more, the horse along wid 'im ; for he used to come ridin' at midnight upon the same garran ; an' id was no matther what place or company the other 'ud be in, the ould Square wud come regularly, an' crave 'im for what he owed 'im." et So id appears that horses have so wis," observed M'Roarkin, philosophically, giving at the same time a cynical chuckle at his own conceit. " Whether they have so wis or bodies," replied the narrator, " what I'm tellin' ye is thruth; every night 20 NED M'KEOWN. in the year the ould chap wud come for what was in- due 'im, an' the noise iv the loose shoe upon the horse wud be hard rattlin', an' seen knockin' the fire out iv the stones, as they went along, by the neigh- bours an' by the thief that chated 'im, even before the Square wud appear at all at all." "Oh, wurrah!" exclaimed Nancy, shuddering, "I wudn't take any thing, an' be out now on the Drum- furrar road, an' me by myself." "I think, if ye war," said M'Kinley, "the light weights an' short measures wud be comin' acrass yer conscience." " No, in throth, Alick, wudn't they ; bud maybe if you war, the promise ye broke to Sally Mitchell might throuble ye a bit : at any rate, I've a prayer, an' if I only repated id wanst, I mightn't be afeard iv all the divils in hell." " Troth, bud id's worth havin', Nancy ; where did ye get id ?" asked M'Kinley. " Hould yer wicked tongue, ye thief iv a heretic," said Nancy, laughing, " when will ye lam any thing that's good? I got id from wan that wudn't have id if id wasn't good — Darby M'Murt, the pilgrim, since ye must know." "Whisht!" said Frayne, "upon my word, bud I bleeve th' ould Square's comin' to pay iz a visit; diz any iv ye hear a horse throttin' wid a shoe loose ?" " I sartinly hear id," observed Andy Morrow. "An' I," said Ned himself. There was now a general pause, and in the silence NED M'KEOWN. 21 a horse, proceeding from the moors in the direction of the house, was distinctly heard — and nothing- could be less problematical than that one of his shoes was loose. " Boys, take care iv yourselves," said Shane Fadh, "if the Square comes, he won't be a pleasant cus- tomer — he was a terrible fellow in his day : I'll hould goold to silver that he'll have the smell iv brimstone about 'im." " Nancy, where' s yer prayer nowV said M'Kinley, with a grin ; e 1 1 think ye had betther out wid id — an' thry if id keeps this ould brimstone Square on the wrong side iv the house." " Behave yerself, Alick, id's a shame for ye to be sich a harden" d crathur; upon my sannies, I bleeve yer afeard iv nether God nor the divil — the Lord pur- tect an' guard iz from the dhirty baste." " Ye mane particklarly them that uses short mea- sures an' light weights," rejoined M f Kinley. There was now another pause ; for the horseman was within a few perches of the cross-roads. At this moment an unusual gust of wind, accompanied by torrents of rain, burst against the house with a vio- lence that made its ribs creak ; and the stranger's horse, the shoe still clanking, was distinctly heard to turn in from the road to Ned's door, where it stop- ped — and the next moment, a loud knocking inti- mated the horseman's intention to enter. The com- pany now looked at each other, as if uncertain what to do. Nancy herself grew pale, and, in the agita- 22 NED M f KEOWN. tion of the moment, forgot to think of her protect- ing prayer. Biddy and Bessy Connolly started from the settle on which they had been sitting with their sweethearts, and sprung beside their uncle, on the hob. The stranger was still knocking with great vio- lence, yet there was no disposition among the com- pany to admit him, notwithstanding the severity of the night — blowing as it now did a perfect hurricane. At length a sheet of lightning flashed through the house, followed by an amazingly loud clap of thun- der, while, with a sudden crash, the door gave way, and in stalked a personage whose stature was at least six feet four, with dark eyes and complexion, and coal-black whiskers of an enormous size, the very image of the Squire they had been describing. He was dressed in a long brown surtout, which made him appear even taller than he actually was — had a pair of heavy boots upon him, and carried a tremen- dous whip, large enough to fell an ox. He was in a rage on entering ; and the heavy, dark, close-knit brows, from beneath which a pair of eyes, equally black, shot actual fire, and the Turk-like whiskers, which curled themselves up as it were in sympathy with his fury, joined to his towering height, gave him altogether, when we consider the frame of mind in which he found his company, an appalling and al- most supernatural appearance. "Confound you, for a knot of lazy scoundrels," exclaimed the stranger, " why do you sit here so calmly, while any being craves admittance on such a NED m'keown. 23 night as this ? Here, you lubber in the corner, with the pipe in your mouth, come and put up this horse of mine until the night settles." "May the blessed Mother purtect iz !" exclaimed Nancy, in a whisper to Andy Morrow, " if I bleeve he's a right thing ! — would id be the ould Square ? Did ye ever set yer eyes upon sich a ■ " Will ye bestir yourself, you boor, and not keep my horse and saddle out under such a torrent?" he cried, " otherwise I must only bring him into the house, and then ye may say for once that you had the devil under your roof." "Paddy Smith, ye lazy spalpeen," said Nancy, winking at Ned to have nothing to do with the horse, "why don't ye fly an' put up the gentleman's horse? An' you, Atty, a vourneen, jist go out wid 'im, an' hould the candle while he's doin' id ; be quick now, an' I'll give ye glasses a-piece when ye come in." " Let them put him up quickly ; but I say, you Caliban," addressing Smith, "don't be rash about him, except you can bear fire and brimstone ; — get him, at all events, a good feed of oats. — Poor Satan!" he continued, patting the horse's head, which was now within the door, " you have had a hard night of it, my poor Satan, as well as myself. That's my dark spirit — my brave chuck, that fears neither man nor devil." This language was by no means calculated to allay the suspicions of those who were present, particu- larly of Nancy and her two nieces. Ned sat in asto- 24 NED M f KEOWN. nishment, with the pipe in his hand, which he had, in the surprise of the moment, taken from his mouth, his eyes fixed upon the stranger, and his mouth open. The latter noticed him, and stretching over the heads of the circle, tapped him on the shoulder : " I have a few words to say to you, Sir," he said. u To me, yer honour !" exclaimed Ned — without stirring, however. "Yes," replied the other, "but you seem to be fastened to your seat — come this way." "By all manes, Sir," said Ned, starting up, and going over to the dresser, against which the stranger stood. When the latter had got him there, he very coolly walked up, and planted himself on Ned's comfortable seat at the hob, at the same time observing — " You hadn't the manners to ask me to sit down; but I always make it a point of conscience to take care of myself, Mister." There was not a man about the fire who did not stand up, as if struck with a sudden recollection, and offer him a seat : " No," said he, " thank ye, my good fellows, I am very well as it is : I suppose, Mistress, you are the landlady," addressing Nancy; "if you be, I'll thank you to bring me a gill of your best whiskey — your best, mind. Let it be as strong as an evil spirit let loose, and as hot as fire ; — for it can't be a jot too ardent such a night as this, for a being that rides the devil." NED m'keown. 25 Nancy started up instinctively, exclaiming, " In- deed, plase yer honour's reverence, I am the land- lady, as ye say, Sir, sure enough ; bud, the Lord save an' guard iz, won't a gallon iv raw whiskey be too much for wan man to dhrink ?" " A gallon ! I only said a gill, my good hostess ; bring me a gill ; — but I forget — I believe you have no such measure in this country; bring me a pint, then." Nancy now went into the bar, whither she gave Ned a wink to follow her, who was glad of an oppor- tunity of escaping from the presence of the visitor. When there, the former ejaculated, " May the holy Mother keep an' guard iz, Ned, bud I'm afeard that's no Christhen crathur, at all at all ! Arrah, Ned, aroon, wud he be that ould Square Grame, that Shane Fadh, maybe, anger' d, by spakin' iv 'im ?" * Troth," said Ned, " myself doesn't know what he is ; he bates any mortal I ever seen." ** Well, hould, agra ! I have id ; we'll see whether he'll dhrink this or not, any how." " Why, what's that yer doin' ?" asked Ned. " Jist," replied Nancy, " mixin' the smallest taste in the world iv holy wather wid the whiskey, an' if he dhrinks id, ye know he can be nothin' that's bad." Nancy, however, did not perceive that the tre- pidation of her hand was such as to incapacitate her from making nice distinctions in the admixture. She now went to the stranger with the spirits, who vol. i. c 26 NED M f KEOWN. no sooner took a mouthful of it, than he immediately stopped it on its passage, and fixing his eyes ear- nestly on Nancy, squirted it into the fire — and the next moment the whiskey was in a blaze that seemed likely to set the chimney in flames. " Why, my honest hostess," he exclaimed, " do you give this to me for whiskey ? Confound me, but two- thirds of it is water — and I have no notion to pay for water when I want spirits ; have the goodness to ex- change this, and get me some better stuff, if you have it." He again put the jug to his mouth, and having taken a little, swallowed it : — " Why, I tell you, wo- man, you must have made some mistake — one-half of it is water." Now Nancy, from the moment he refused to swal- low the liquor, had been lock-jawed; the fact was, she thought that the devil himself, or old Squire Graham, had actually got under her roof; and she stood behind Ned, who was nearly as terrified as herself, with her hands raised, her tongue clinging to the roof of her mouth, and the perspiration falling from her pale face in large drops. But as soon as she saw him swallow a portion of that liquid which she deemed beyond the deglutition of ghost or devil, she instantly revived — her tongue was restored to its office, her courage, as well as her good humour, re- turned, and she went up to him with great confi- dence, saying, " Why, then, yer reverence's honour, bud maybe NED M f KEOWN. 27 I did make a bit iv a mistake, Sir/' taking up the jug, and tasting its contents ; " Why, bad scran to me bud I did, beggin' yer honour's pardon : how-an- diver, I'll soon rightify that, yer honour." So saying, she went and brought him a pint of the stoutest the house afforded. The stranger drank a glass of it, and then ordered hot water and sugar, adding, " My honest friends here about the fire will have no objection to help me with this ; but, on se- cond consideration, you had better get us another quart, that, as the night is cold, we may have a joram at this pleasant fire, that will do our hearts good ; and this pretty girl here," addressing Biddy, who really deserved the epithet, " will sit beside me, and give us a song." It was surprising what an effect the punch, even in prospective, had upon the visual organs of the company — second sight was rather its precursor than its attendant; for with sudden and intuitive pene- tration they now discovered various good qualities in his ghostship, that had hitherto been beyond their ken — and those very personal properties which before struck them dumb with terror, now called forth their applause. "What a fine man he is!" one would whisper, loud enough, however, to be heard by the object of his panegyric. " He is, indeed, an' a raal jintleman," another would respond, in the same key. te Hut ! he's none iv yer proud, stingy, upsthart c2 28 NED m'keown. bodaghs, — none iv yer beggarly half-sirs," a third would remark ; " he's the dacent thing entirely — ye see he hasn't his heart in a thrille." " An' so sign's on 'im," a fourth would add, u he wasn't bred to misery, as ye may know by his fine behavour." When the punch was made, and the kitchen table placed endwise towards the fire, the stranger, finding himself very comfortable, enquired if he could be ac- commodated with a bed and supper ; to which Nancy replied in the affirmative. - e Then, in that case," said he, " I will be your guest for this night." Shane Fadh now took courage to repeat the story of old Squire Graham and his horse with the loose shoe, informing the stranger, at the same time, of the singular likeness which he bore to the subject of the story, both in face and size, and dwelling upon the remarkable coincidence in the time and manner of his approach. " Tut, man," said the stranger, " a far more ex- traordinary adventure happened to one of my father's tenants, which, if none of you have any objection, I will relate." There was a buzz of approbation at this j and they all thanked his honour, expressing the strongest de- sire to hear his story. He was just proceeding to gratify them, when another rap came to the door, and, before any of the inmates had time to open it, Father Neddy Deleery and his Curate made their NED m'keown. 29 appearance, being on their way home from a confer- ence held in the town of M , eighteen miles from the scene of our present story. It may be right here to inform the reader, that about two hundred yards from Ned's house, stood a place of Roman Catholic worship, called ' The Forth,' from the resemblance it bore to the forts or raths so common in Ireland. It was a small green, per- fectly circular, and about twenty yards in diameter. Around it grew a row of old overspreading haw- thorns, whose branches formed a canopy that almost shaded it from sun and storm. Its area was encom- passed by tiers of seats, one raised above another, and covered with the flowery grass. On these the congregation used to sit — the young men probably swearing in a ribbonman, or ogling their sweethearts on the opposite side ; the old ones in little groups discussing the politics of the day, as retailed by Mick M'Cafrry, the politician ; while, up near the altar, hemmed in by a ring of old men and women, you might perceive a voteen repeating some new prayer or choice piece of devotion — or some other, in a similar circle, devouring with sanctimonious avi- dity Doctor Gallaher's Irish Sermons, Pastorini's His- tory of the Christian Church, or Columbkill's Pro- phecy — and perhaps a strolling pilgrim, the centre of a third collection, singing the Dies tree, in Latin, or the Hermit of Killarney, in English. At the extremity of this little circle, was a plain altar of wood, covered with a little thatched shed, 30 NED M f KEOWX. under which the Priest celebrated mass ; but before the performance of this ceremony, a large crowd used to assemble opposite Ned's shop-door, at the cross- roads. This consisted of such as wanted to buy to- bacco, candles, soap, potash, and such other groce- ries as the peasantry require. After mass, the public- house was filled to the door-posts, with those who wished to get a sample of Nancy's Iska-behagh and many a time has little Father Neddy himself, of a frosty day, after having performed mass with a cele- rity that was the admiration of his auditory, come in to Nancy, nearly frost-bitten, to get a toothful of mountain-dew to drive the cold out of his stomach. The fact is, that Father Neddy Deleery made himself quite at home at Ned's, without any reference to Nancy's saving habits ; the consequence was, that her welcome to him was extremely sincere — "from the teeth out." Father Ned saw perfectly through her assumed heartiness of manner, but acted as if the contrary was the case; Nancy understood him also — and, with an intention of making up by com- plaisance for her nearness in other respects, was a perfect honeycomb. This state of cross-purposes, however, could not last long — neither did it. Father Ned never paid, and Nancy never gave credit ; so, at length, they came to an open rupture : she threat- ened to process him for what he owed her, and he, in return, threatened to remove the congregation from e The Forth' to Ballymagowan-bridge, where he intended to set up his nephew, Bill Buckley, in NED M'KEOWN. 31 the f public line,' to the ruin of Nancy's flourishing establishment. " Father Ned," said Nancy, " I'm a hard-workin', honest woman, an' I don't see why my substance is to be wasted by yer reverence, when ye won't pay for id." " And do you forget," Father Ned would reply, " that it's me that brings you your custom ? Don't you know that if I bring my flock to Ballymagowan, ye'll soon sing to another tune ? — so lay that to your heart." " Troth, I know that whatever I get I'm obliged to pay for id ; an' I think every man should do the same, Father Ned. You must get a hank iv yarn from me, an' a bushel or two iv oats from Ned, an' yer riglar dues along wid all; bud, avourneen, Id's yerself that wudn't raise yer hand over i%, if we war in the last gasp, for all that, widout gettin' the silver." " Salvation to me, but ye'd skin a flint." "Well, if I wud, I pay my debts." '"> You do ?" " Yes, troth, do I." " Why, then, that's more than you'll be able to do long, plase the fates." " If all my customers war like yer reverence, it is." " I'll tell ye what it is, Nancy, I often threatened to take the congregation from ' The Forth/ an' I'll do id — If I don't, may I never sup sorrow." Big with such a threat, Father Neddy retired. The apprehensions of Nancy on this point, however, were .'■2 NED M f KEOWX. more serious than she was willing to acknowledge. This dispute took place a few days before the night in question. Father Neddy was a little man, with a red face, slender legs, and flat feet ; he was usually cased in a pair of ribbed minister's grey small-clothes, with leggings of the same material. His coat, which was much too short, rather resembled a jerkin, and gave him altogether an appearance very much at variance with an idea of personal gravity or reverence. Over this dress he wore, in winter, a dark great coat, with high collar, that buttoned across his face, showing only the point of his red nose ; so that, when riding or walking, his hat rested more upon the collar of his coat than upon his head. The Curate was a tail raw- boned young man, with high jutting cheek-bones, low forehead, and close knees : to his shoulders, which were very high, hung a pair of long bony arms, whose motions seemed rather the effect of ma- chinery than volition. His hair, which was a bad black, was cropped close, and trimmed across his eyebrows ; the small-clothes he wore were of the same web which had produced Father Neddy's, and his body-coat was a dark blue, with black buttons. Each wore a pair of grey woollen mittens. " There, Pether," said Father Ned, as he entered, " hook my bridle along with your own, as your hand's in. — God save all here ! Paddy Smith, ma bouchal, put these horses in the stable, till we dry ourselves a bit — Father Pether an' I." NED M'KEOWN. 33 ** Musha, bud yer both welcome/ 1 said Nancy, wishing to wipe out the effects of the last tift with Father Neddy, by the assistance of the stranger's punch : et will ye bounce, ye spalpeens, an' let them to the fire. Father Neddy, yer dhreepin' wid the rain ; an' Father Pether, avourneen, yer wet to the skin, too." " Troth, an' he is, Nancy, an' a little bit farther, if you knew but all — four tumblers, Ned — deuce a spudh less. Mr. Morrow, how do you do, Sir? — An' — eh ? — Who's this we've got in the comer ? A gentleman, boys, if cloth can make one ! Mr. Mor- row, introduce me." " Indeed, Father Ned, I haven't the pleasure iv knowin' the gentleman, myself." " Well, no matter — come up, Pether. Sir, I have the honour of introducing you to my curate and co- adjuthor, the Reverend Pether M'Clatchaghan, an' to myself, his excellent friend, but spiritual superior, the Reverend Ned — hem ! — the Reverend Edward Deleery, Roman Catholic Rector of this highly re- spectable and extensive parish ; and I have further the pleasure," he continued, taking up Andy Mor- row's punch, " of drinking your very good health, Sir." " And I have the honour," returned the stranger, rising up, and driving his head among the flitches of bacon that hung in the chimney, " of introducing you and the Rev. Mr. M f — M f — M<— " " Clatchaghan, Sir," subjoined Father Ned. c3 34 NED M'KEOWN. " Peter Mlllclatchaghan, to Mr. Longinus Po- lisyllabus Alexander." " My sowl, Sir, but it's a good and appropriate name, sure enough," said Father Ned, surveying his enormous length ; " salvation to me, but ye're an Alexandrine from head to foot — non solum Longimix, sed Alexandrinus." iC You're wrong, Sir, in the Latin," said Father Peter. " Prove it, Pether — prove it." " It should be non tantum, Sir." "By what rule, Pether ?" " Why, Sir, there's a phrase in Corderius's Collo- quies that I could condemn you from, if I had the book." " Pether, you think ye're a scholar, an', to do you justice, you're 'cute enough sometimes ; but, Pether, you didn't travel for it, as I did — nor were ye obliged to leap out of the windy of a nunnery in Paris, at the time of the French Revolution, for yer larnin', as I was : not you, man, you ate the King's mutton com- fortably at home in Maynooth, instead of travelling for it, like your betters." " I'll appale to this gentleman," said Father Peter, turning to the stranger : " are you a classical scholar, Sir — that is, do you undherstand Latin ?" " What kind ?" demanded the stranger. " If you have read Corderius's Colloquies, it will do," said Father Peter. (f No, Sir," replied the other, " but I have read his NED m'keown. 35 commentator, Bardolphus, who wrote a treatise upon the Ogalvus of the ancients." " Well, Sir, if you did, its probable that you may be able to understand our dispute, so " " Pether, I'm afeard you've gotten into the wrong box; for, I say, he's no chicken that read Bardolphu* , I can tell ye that; I had my own trouble with him: but, at any rate, will you take your punch, man, and don't bother us with your Latin." " I beg- your pardon, Father Ned, I insist that I'm right ; and I'll convince you that you are wrong, if God spares me to see Corderius to-morrow." " Very well, then, Pether, if you're to decide it to- morrow, let us have no more of it to-night." During this conversation between the two Rev. worthies, the group around the fire were utterly as- tonished at the erudition which was displayed in thi.s learned dispute. " Well, to be sure, larnin's a great thing, entirely," said M'Roarkin, aside to Shane Fadh. " Ah, Tom, there's nothing like id; well, any way, id's wondherful what they know." " Indeed, it is, Shane — an' in so short a time, too ; sure id's not more nor five or six years since Father Pether there used to be diggin' praties on the wan ridge wid myself — by the same token, an excellent spadesman he was — an' now he knows more nor all the Protestant Parsons in the Diocy." " Why, how could they know any thing, when they don't belong to the thrue church?" said Shane. 36 NED m'keown. " Thrue for ye, Shane," replied M'Roarkin % * I disremimbered that clincher." This discourse ran parallel with the dispute be- tween the two Priests — but in so low a tone as not to reach the ears of the classical champions, who would have ill brooked this eulogium upon Father Peter's potatoe-digging talent. " Don't bother us, Pether, with your arguing, to- night," said Father Neddy, " it's enough for you to be seven days, in the week at your disputations. Sir, I drink to our better acquaintance." " With all my heart, Sir," replied the stranger. " Father Ned," said Nancy, " the gentleman was goin' to tell iz a strange story, Sir ; an' maybe yer Reverence wud wish to hear id, Docthor." " To be sure, Nancy, we'll be very happy to hear any story the gentleman may plase to tell us : but, Nancy, achora, before he begins, what if ye'd just fry a slice or two of that glorious flitch, hanging over his head, in the corner ? — that, and about six eggs, Nancy, and you'll have the Priest's blessing, gratis." " Why, Father Ned, id's too fresh, entirely — sure id's not a week hangin' yet." " Divil a matter, Nancy deelish, we'll take with all that ; just try your hand at a slice of it. I rode eighteen miles, and took four tumblers since I dined, and I feel a craving, Nancy, a whacJcuum in my sto- mach, that's rather troublesome." " To be sure, Father Ned, ye must get a slice, vid all the veins iv my heart ; bud I thought, may- NED ll'KEOWN. 37 be, ye wudn't like id so fresh : bud what on earth will we do for eggs, for there's not an egg undher the roof wid me." "Biddy, a hagur," said Father Ned, "just slip out to Malshey Johnston, and tell her to send me six eggs for a rasher, by the same token that I heard two or three hens cacklin' in the byre, as I was going to Conference, this morning." "Well, Docthor," said Pat Frayne, when Biddy had been gone some time, on which embassy she de- layed longer than the Priest's judgment, influenced by the cravings of his stomach, calculated to be ne- cessary, — " Well, Docthor, I often pity you, for fastin' so long ; I'm sure, I dunna how ye can stand id, at all at all." " Troth, an' you may well wonder, Pat ; but we have that to support us, that you, or any one like you, know nothing about — inward support, Pat, in- ward support." " Only for that, Father Ned," said Shane Fadh, " I suppose you cud never get through wid id." " Very right, Shane, very right — only for it, we ne- ver could do. — What the dickens is keeping this girl, with the eggs? — why, she might be at Mr. Morrow's, here, since. By the way, Mr. Morrow, you must come over to our church ; you're a good neighbour, and a worthy fellow, and it's a thousand pities you should be damned." "Why, Docthor," said Andy, " do ye really bleeve I'll be damned?" 38 NED M f KEOWN. " Ah, Mr. Morrow, don't ask me that question — out o' the pale, you know — out o' the pale." " Then you think, Sir, there's no chance for me, at all," said Andy, smiling. " Not the laste, Andy, you must go this way," said Father Ned, striking the floor with the but end of his whip — " to the lower ragions ; and, upon my knowledge, to tell you the thruth, I'm sorry for it ; for you're a worthy fellow." i( Ah, Docthor," said Ned, " id's a great thing en- tirely to be born in the thrue Church ; wan's always sure, then." " Ay, ay, you may say that, Ned," returned the Priest, " come or go what will, a man's always safe at the long run, except he dies without his clargy. — Shane, hand me the jug, if you plase. — Where did you get this stuff, Nancy ? — truly, it's excellent." " Ye forget, Father Ned, that that's a sacret. Bud here's Biddy, with the eggs j an' now ye'll have yer rasher in no time." During this conversation, Father Peter, turning to x\lick M'Kinley, said, (t Alick, isn't your eldest son at the Latin ?" " He is, Sir," said Alick. " How long is he at it, Alick ?" " About six months, Sir." " And do you know what books he's reading?" " Not a wan o' myself knows," said Alick, " bud I know he has a great batch o' them." " You couldn't tell me if he has got a Cordery ?" NED jrKEOWN. 39 " He has, Sir," said Alick, " a jacket and trow- sers iv id." " Of what ?" said the curate, looking at him with surprise. " Of corduroy," said the other. " O, I mane a book," said Father Peter. u Consumin' to the know I know what's the name iv wan o' them," replied Alick. " I wish to heavens I had one, till I'd confute that man !" said Father Peter, looking with a most mor- tified visage into the fire. When the two clergymen had discussed the rashers and eggs — an employment which seemed much more in keeping with their taste and capacity, than a disquisition upon Latin construction — and while the happy group were making themselves intimately ac- quainted with a fresh jug of punch, as it circulated round the table ; " Now, Sir," said Father Ned to the stranger, " we'll hear your story, with the greatest satisfac- tion ; but I think you might charge your tumbler before you set to it." When the stranger had complied with this last hint, " Well, gentlemen," said he, " as I am rather fatigued, will you excuse me for the position I am about to occupy, which is simply to stretch myself along the hob here, with my head upon this straw hassock ; and if you have no objection to that, I will relate the story." To this, of course, a general assent was given. When he was stretched completely at his ease — 40 NED M f KEOWN. " Well, upon my veracity/' observed Father Pe- ter, " the gentleman's supernaturally long." "Yes, Pether," replied Father Neddy, "but ob- serve his position ; PolisyUaba cuncta supina, as Prosody says. — Arrah, salvation to me, but you're dull, man, afther all ! — but we're interrupting the gen- tleman. Sir, go on, if you plase, with your story." " Give me a few minutes," said he, " until I re- collect the particulars." He accordingly continued quiescent for two or three minutes more, apparently arranging the materials of his intended narration, and then commenced to gra- tify the eager expectations of his auditory by emitting those nasal enunciations which are the usual accompaniments of sleep ! " Why, bad luck to the morsel iv 'im bud's asleep," said Ned, " Lord pardon me for swearin' in yer Reverence's presence." " That's certainly the language of a sleeping man," replied Father Neddy, " but there might have been a little more respect than all that snoring comes to, particularly in the presence of the Lord's anointed ; — your health, boys !" The stranger had now wound up his nasal organ to a high pitch, after which he commenced again with somewhat of a lower and finer note. " He's beginning a new paragraph," observed Fa- ther Peter, with a smile at the joke. " Not at all," said Father Neddy, " he's turning the tune ; don't ye perceive that he's snoring God save the king, in the key of bass relievo." NED M'KEOWN. 41 " I'm no judge of music, as you are," said the Curate, " bud I think it's liker the 'Dead march of Paul' than c God save the King ;' but if you be right, the gentleman certainly snores in a truly loyal strain." "That," said little M'Roarkin, "is liker the swine's melody, or the Bedfordshire hornpipe — he — he — he !" " The poor gentleman's tired," observed Nancy, " afther a hard day's thravellin'." " I dare say he is ;" said Father Ned, " at all events take care of him, Nancy, and get the best supper you can for him — he appears to be a truly respectable and well bred man." " I think," said M'Kinley, with a cynical grin, " you might know that by his high-flown manner of sleeping — he snores very politely, and like a gentle- man, all out." " Well done, Alick," said the Priest, laughing; "go home, boys, it's near bed-time ; Paddy, ma bouchal, are the horses ready ?" " They'll be at the door in a jiffey, yer Reverence," said Paddy, going out. In the course of a few minutes he returned, ex- claiming, " Why, then, is id thinkin' to venthur out sich a night as id's comin' on, yer Reverences wud be ? an' id plashin' as if id came out o' methers ! Sure the life wud be dhrownded out iv both iv ye, an' ye might cotch a faver into the bargain." " Sit down, gintlemen," said Ned ; " sit down, Fa- ther Ned, you an' Father Pether — we'll have another tumbler ; an', as id's my turn to tell a story, I'll give 42 NED m'reown. yes somethin' to amuse yes — the best I can, an', ye know, who can do more ?" " Very right, Ned ; but let us see" — replied Father Ned, putting his head out at the door, to ascertain what the night did; "Come, Pether, it's good to be on the safe side of any house in such a storm ; we must only content ourselves till it gets fair. Now, Ned go on with your story, an' let it be as pleasant as possible." " Never fear, yer Reverence," replied Ned — " here goes." THE THREE TASKS, OB THE LITTLE HOUSE UNDER THE HILL. " Every person in the parish knows the purty knoll that rises above the Routing Burn,, some few miles from the renowned town of Knockimdowny, which, as all the world must allow, wants only houses and inhabitants to be as big a place as the great town of Dublin itself. At the foot of this little hill, just undher the shelther of a dacent pebble of a rock, something about the bulk of half a dozen churches, one would be apt to see — if they knew how to look sharp, otherwise they mightn't be able to make it out from the grey rock above it, except by the smoke that ris from the chimbley — Nancy Magennis's little cabin, snug and cosey, with its corrag, or ould man of branches, standing on the windy side of the door, to keep away the blast. Upon my word, it was a dacent little residence in its own way, and so was Nancy herself, for that matther ; for, though a poor widdy, she was very punctivell in paying for Jack's 44 THE THREE TASKS. schooling, as I often heard ould Terry MThaudeen say, who tould me the story. Jack indeed, grew up a fine slip; and, for hurling, foot-ball playing, and lepping, hadn't his likes in the five quarthers of the parish. It's he that knew how to handle a spade and a raping-hook, and what was betther nor all that, he was kind and tindher to his poor ould mother, and would let her want for nothing. Before he'd go to his day's work in the morning, he'd be sure to bring home from the clear spring-well that ran out of the other side of the rock, a pitcher of water to serve her for the day ; nor would he forget to bring in a good creel of turf from the snug little peat-stack that stood, thatched with rushes, before the door, and leave it in the cor- ner, beside the lire ; so that she had nothing to do but put over her hand, without rising off of her sate, and put down a sod when she wanted it. Nancy, on her part, kept Jack very clane and comfortable ; his linen, though coorse, was always a good colour, his working clothes tidily mended at all times ; and when he'd have occasion to put on his good coat to work in, for the first time, Nancy would sew on the fore- part of each sleeve a stout patch of ould cloth, to keep them from being worn by the spade ; so that when she'd rip these off them every Saturday night, they would look as new and fresh, as if he hadn't been working in them, at all, at' all. Then, when Jack came home in the winter nights, it woidd do your heart good to see Nancy sitting at her wheel, singing ' Stachan Maragah/ or ( Peggy Na Laveen,' beside a THE THREE TASKS. 45 purty clear fire, with a small pot of Murphy a boiling on it for their supper, or in a wooden dish, comforta- bly covered with a clane praskeen, on the well-swept hearthstone ; whilst the quiet, dancing blaze might be seen blinking in the nice earthen plates and dishes, that stood over against the side-wall of the house. Just before the fire, you might see Jack's stool waiting for him to come home ; and, on the opposite side, the brown cat washing her face with her paws, or sitting beside the dog that lay asleep, quite happy and continted, purring her song, and now and then looking over at Nancy, with her eyes half shut, as much as to say, ( Catch a happier pair nor we are, Nancy, if ye can/ Sitting quietly on the roost above the door, were Dicky the cock, and half a dozen of hens, that kept this honest pair in eggs and egg-milk for the best part of the year — besides enabling Nancy to sell two or three clutches of March-birds every sason, to help to buy wool for Jack's big-coat, and her own grey-beard gown and striped red and blue petticoat. ear, over his left shoulder, and in an instant there was a deep, dark gulph, filled with black, pitchy-looking water, between them. The lady now desired Jack to pull up the filley a bit, till they would see what would become of the dark fellow; but just as they turned round, he set spurs to his horse, and, in a fit of desperation, plunged himself, horse and all, into the gulph, and was never seen or heard of more. The rest that were with him went home, and began to quarrel about his wealth, and kept murdering and killing one another, until a single vagabond of them wasn't left alive to enjoy it. "When Jack saw what happened, and that the blood-thirsty ould neger got what he desarved so richly, he was as happy as a prince, and ten times happier than most of them, and she was every bit as delighted. ' We have nothing more to fear,' said the darling that put them all down so cleverly, seeing she was but a woman ; but, bedad, it's she that was the right sort of a woman — 'all our dangers are now over, at least, all yours are ; regarding myself,' says she, c there is a trial before me yet, and that trial, Jack, depends upon your faithfulness and constancy.' e On me, is it ? — Och, then, murder ! isn't it a poGr case entirely, that I have no way of showing you that you may depind your life upon me, only by tell- ing you so?' e I do depend upon you,' says she; — ' and now, as you love me, do not, when the trial comes, forget her that saved you out of so many troubles, and made you such a great and wealthy e2 7*3 THE THREE TASKS. man.' The foregoing part of this Jack could well understand, but the last part of it, making collusion to the wealth, was a little dark, he thought, bekase he hadn't fingered any of it at the time: still, he knew she was truth to the back bone, and wouldn't desave him. They hadn't travelled much farther, when Jack snaps his fingers, with a ' whoo ! by the powers, there it is, my darling — there it is, at long last !' { There is what, Jack ?' said she, surprised, •as well she might, at his mirth and happiness — f There is what ?' says she. ' Cheer up,' says Jack, ( there it is, my darling — the Shannon ! — as soon as we get to the other side of it, we'll be in ould Ireland once more.' There was now no end to Jack's good humour, when he crassed the Shannon ; and she was not a bit displased to see him so happy. They had now no enemies to fear, were in a civilized country, and among green fields and well-bred people. In this way they travelled at their ase, till they came within a few miles of the town of Knockimdowny, near which Jack's mother lived. ' Now, Jack,' says she, ' I tould you that I would make you rich. You know the rock beside your mother's cabin ; in the east side of that rock there is a loose stone, covered over with grey moss, just two feet below the cleft out of which the hanging rowan tree grows — pull that stone out, and you will find more goold than would make a duke. Neither speak to any person, nor let any liv- ing thing touch your lips till you come back to me, or you'll forget that you ever saw me, and I'll be left THE THREE TASKS. 77 poor and friendless in a strange country/ ' Why, then, manim asthee fiu,'* says Jack, ( hut the best way to guard against that, is to touch your own sweet lips at the present time,' says he, giving her a smack that you'd hear, of a calm evening, acrass a couple of fields. Jack set off to touch the money, with such speed, that when he fell he scarcely waited to rise again ; he was soon at the rock, any how, and without either doubt or disparagement, there was a cleft full of ra-al goolden guineas, as fresh as daisies. The first thing he did, after he had filled his pockets with them, was to look if his mother's cabin was to the fore; and there surely it was, as snug as ever, with the same dacent column of smoke rowling from the chimbley. ' Well,' thought Jack, ( I'll just stale over to the door-cheek, and peep in to get one sight of my poor mother ; then I'll throw her in a handful of these guineas, and take to my scrapers.' Accordingly, he stole up at a half-bend to the door, and was just going to take a peep in, when out comes the little dog, Trig, and begins to leap and fawn upon him, as if it would eat him. The mother, too, came running out to see what was the matter, when the dog made another spring up about Jack's neck, and gave his lips the lightest lick in the world with its tongue, the crathur was so glad to see him : the next minute, Jack forgot the lady, as clane as if he had never seen her ; but, if he forgot her, catch him at forgetting * My foul's -within you. 78 THE THREE TTSKS. the money — not he, avick! — that stuck to him Iik£ pitch. When the mother saw who it was, she flew to him, and, clasping her arms about his neck, hugged him till she wasn't worth three half-pence. After Jack sot awhile, he made trial to let her know what had happened him, but he disremembered it all, ex- cept having the money in the rock, so he up and tould her that, and a glad woman she was to hear of his good fortune. Still he kept the place where the goold was to himself, having been often forbid by his mother ever to trust a woman with a secret when he could avoid it. Every body knows what changes the money makes, and Jack was no exception to this ould saying. In a few years he had built himself a fine castle, with three hundred and sixty-four windys in it, and he would have added another, to make one for every day in the year, only that that would be equal to the number in the King's palace, and the Lord of the Black Rod would be sent to take his head off, it being high thrason for a subject to have as many windys in his house as the King. However, Jack, at any rate, had enough of them ; and he that couldn't be happy with three hundred and sixty-four, wouldn't deserve to have three hundred and sixty- five. Along with all this, he got coaches and car- riages, and didn't get proud like many another beg- garly upstart, but took especial good care of his mother, whom he dressed in silks and satins, and gave her nice nourishing food, that was fit for an ould woman in her condition. He also got great THE THREE TASKS. 79 tachers, men of deep laming, from Dublin, acquainted with all subjects ; and, as his own abilities were very bright, he soon became a very great scholar, entirely, and was able, in the long run, to outdo all his tu- therers. In this way he lived for some years — was now a man of great laming himself — could spake the seven langidges, and, it would delight your ears to hear how high-flown and Englified he could talk. All the world wondered where he got his wealth ; but, as he was kind and charitable to every one that stood in need of assistance, the people said, that wherever he got it, it couldn't be in better hands. At last he begun to look about him for a wife, and the only one in that part of the country that would be at all fit for him, was the Honourable Miss Bandbox, the daughter of a nobleman in the neighbourhood. She, indeed, flogged all the world for beauty; but it was said that she was proud and fond of wealth, though, God he knows, she had enough of that, any how. Jack, however, saw none of this ; for she was cunning enough to smile, and simper, and look plea- sant, whenever he'd come to her father's. Well, begad, from one thing, and one word, to another, Jack thought it was best to make up to her at wanst, and try if she'd accept of him for a husband ; accord- ingly he put the word to her, like a man, and she, making as if she was blushing, put her fan before her face, and made no answer. Jack, however, wasn't to be daunted ; for he knew two things worth knowing, When a man goes to look for a wife : the first is — 80 THE THREE TASKS. that f faint heart never won fair lady/ and the second — that ' silence gives consint ;' he, therefore, spoke up to her in fine English, for it's he that knew how to spake now, and, after a little more fanning and blush- ing, by jingo, she consulted. Jack then broke the matter to her father, who was as fond of money as the daughter, and only wanted to grab at him for the wealth. When the match was a-making, says jould Bandbox to Jack, ' Mr. Magennis,' says he, (for nobody called him Jack now but his mother) — ' these two things you must comply with, if you marry my daughter, Miss Gripsy : You must send away your mother from about you, and pull down the cabin in which you and she used to live ; Gripsy says that they would jog her memory consarning your low birth and former poverty ; she's nervous and high-spirited, Mr. Magennis, and declares upon her honour that she couldn't bear the thoughts of having the dilicacy of her feeling offinded by these things.' e Good morning to you both,' says Jack, like an honest fellow as he was, ' if she doesn't marry me except on these con- ditions, give her my compliments, and tell her our coortship is at an end/ But it wasn't long till they soon came out with another story, for before a week passed, they were very glad to get him on his own conditions. Jack was now as happy as the day was long — all things appointed for the wedding, and no- thing a wanting to make every thing to his heart's content but the wife, and her he was to have in less than no time. For a day or two before the wedding, THE THREE TASKS. til tliere never was seen such grand preparations : bul- locks, and hogs, and sheep were roasted whole — kegs of whiskey, both Roscrea and Innishowen, barrels of ale and beer, were there in dozens. All descriptions of niceties, and wild-fowl, and fish from the say ; and the dearest wine that could be bought with money, was got for the gentry and grand folks. Fiddlers, and pipers, and harpers, in short all kinds of music and musicianers played in shoals. Lords and ladies and squares of high degree — and, to crown the thing, there was open house for all comers. " At length the wedding-day arrived; there was nothing but roasting and boiling ; servants dressed in rich liveries ran about with joy and delight in their countenances, and white gloves and w T edding favours on their hats and hands. To make a long story short, they were all seated in Jack's castle at the wedding breakfast, ready for the priest to marry them when they'd be done ; for in them times people were never married until they had laid in a good foundation to carry them through the ceremony. Well, they were all seated round the table, the men dressed in the best of broad-cloth, and the ladies rustling in their silks and satins — their heads, necks, and arms hung round with jewels both rich and rare : but of all that were there that day, there wasn't the likes of the bride and bridegroom. As for him, nobody could think, at all at all, that he w r as ever any thing else than a born jintleman ; and what was more to his credit, he had his kind onld mother sitting beside the bride, to t e3 82 THE THREE TASKS. her that an honest person, though poorly born, is company for a king. As soon as the breakfast was served up, they all set to, and maybe the vaariaus kinds of eatables did not pay for it ; and amongst all this cutting and thrusting, no doubt but it was remark- ed, that the bride herself was behind hand wid none of them — that she took her dalin-trick without flinching, and made nothing less than a right fog meal of it ; and small blame to her for that same, you persave. " When the breakfast was over, up gets Father Flanagan — out with his book, and on with his stole, to marry them. The bride and bridegroom went up to the end of the room, attended by their friends; and the rest of the company stood on each side of it, for you see they were too high bred, and knew their man- ners too well, to stand in a crowd like spalpeens. For all that, there was many a sly look from the ladies to their bachelors, and many a titter among them, grand as they were ; for to tell the truth, the best of them, begad, likes to see fun in the way, particularly of that sort. The priest himself was in as great a glee as any of them, only he kept it under, and well he might, for sure enough this marriage was nothing less than a ra-al windfall to him, and the parson that was to marry them after him — bekase you persave a Protest- ant and Catholic must be married by both, otherwise it doesn't hould good in law. The parson was as grave as a mustard-pot, and Father Flanagan called the bride and bridegroom his childher, which was a big bounce for him to say the likes of, more betoken that THE THREE TASKS. 83 neither of them was a drop's blood to hirn. However, he pulled out the book, and was just beginning to buckle them, when in comes Jack's ould acquaintance, the smoking cur, as grave as ever. The priest had just got through two or three words of Latin, when the dog gives him a pluck by the sleeve ; Father Flanagan of course turned round to see who it was that nudged him: ' behave yourself,' says the dog to him, just as he peeped over his shoulder — 'behave yourself/ says he ; and with that he sot him down on his hunkers beside the priest, and pulling a cigar in- stead of a pipe out of his pocket, he put it in his mouth, and began to smoke for the bare life of him. And, by my own word, it's he that could smoke ; at times he would shoot the smoke in a slender stream, like a knitting-needle, with a round curl at the one end of it, ever so far out of the right side of his mouth — then he would shoot it out of the left; and sometimes make it swirl out so beautiful from the middle of his lips ! — why then, it's he that must have been the well bred puppy all out, as far as smoking went. Father Flanagan and they all were tundher- struck. ' In the name of St. Anthony, and of that holy nun St. Teresa,' said his Reverence to him, ' who or what are you, at all at all?' ' Never mind that/ says the dog, taking the cigar for a minute between his claws, ' but if you wish particularly to know, I'm a thirty second cousin of your own, by the mother's side.' i I command you, in the name of all the saints/ says Father Flanagan, ' to disappear from among as t 84 THE THREE TASKS. and never become visible to any one in this house again.' ' The divil a budge, at the present time, will I budge/ says the dog to him, ' until I see all sides rightified, and the rogues disappointed.' Now one would be apt to think the appearance of a spakiny dog might be after frightening the ladies ; but doesn't all the world know that spaking puppies are their greatest favourites. Instead of that, you see, there was half a dozen of fierce-looking whiskered fellows, and three or four half-pay officers, that were nearer making off than the ladies. But, besides the cigar, the dog had upon this occasion a pair of green spectacles* acrass his face, and through these, while he was spaking to Father Flanagan, he ogled all the ladies, one after another, and when his eye would light upon any that pleased him, he would kiss his paw to her, and wag his tail with the greatest politeness. e John,' says Father Flanagan to one of the servants, ( bring me salt and water till I consecrate them to banish the divil, for he has appeared to us all during broad day light, in the shape of a dog.' ' You had better be- have yourself, I say again,' said the' dog, c or if you make me speak, by my honour as ajintleman, I'll ex- pose you ; I say, you won't marry these two neither this nor any other day, and I'll give you my rasons presently ; but I repute it, Father Flanagan, if you compel me to speak, I'll make you look two ways at once.' ' I defy you, Satan,' says the priest, ' and if you don't take yourself away before the holy wather's made, I'll send you off in a flame of fire.' f Yes, I'm THE THREE TASKS. 85 trimbling,' says the dog" ; e plenty of spirits you laid in your day,, but it was in a place that's nearer us than the Red Sea, you did it : listen to me though, for I don't wish to expose you, as I said;' so he gets on his hind legs — puts his nose to the priest's ear, and whis- pers something to him that none of the rest could hear — all before the priest had time to know where he was. At any rate, whatever he said seemed to make his Reverence look double, though faiks, that wasn't hard to do, for he was as big as two common men. When the dog was done speaking, and had put his cigar in his mouth, the priest seemed tundher- struck, crossed himself, and was, no doubt of it, in great perplexity. ' I say, it's false,' says Father Flan- agan, striving to pluck up courage ; ' but you know you're a liar, and the father of liars.' 'Astrueas gospel, this bout, I tell you,' says the dog, f and if it was all known how would you feel ?' ' "Wait till I make the holy water,' says the priest, ' and if I don't cork you in a thumb bottle for this, I'm not here.' 1 You're better at uncorking,' says the dog — ' better at relating spirits than confining them.' Just at this minnit, the whole company sees a gentleman gallop- ing for the bare life of him, up to the hall door, and he dressed like an officer. In three jiffeys, he was down off his horse, and in among the company. The dog, as soon as he made his appearance, laid his claw as usual on his nose, and gave the bridegroom a wink, as much as to say ' watch what'll happen.' Now it was very odd that Jack during all this time remem- 86 THE THREE TASKS. bered the dog- very well, but could never once think of the darling that did so much for him. As soon, however, as the officer made his appearance, the bride seem'd as if she would sink outright, and when he walked up to her, to axe what was the meaning of what he saw, why, down she drops at once — fainted clane. The gentleman then went up to Jack, and says, ' Sir, was this lady about to be married to you?' ' Sartinly/ says Jack, c we were going to be yoked in the blessed and holy tackle of mathrimony ;' or some high flown words of that kind. f Well, Sir,' says the other back to him, e I can only say that she is most solemnly sworn never to marry another man but me; that oath she tuck when I was joining my regiment before it went abroad, and if the ceremony of your marriage be performed, you will sleep with a perjured bride.' Begad he did, plump before all their faces. Jack, of coorse, was struck all of a hape at this, but as he'd the bride in his arms, giving her a little sup of whiskey to bring her to, you persave, he couldn't make him an answer. However, she soon came to herself, and on opening her eyes, ■ Oh hide, hide me/ says she, e for I can't bear to look on him !' * He says you are his sworn bride, my darling,' says Jack ; ' I am — I am,' says she, covering her eyes and crying away at the rate of a wedding ; ' I cannot de- ny it, and by tare-an-ounty,' says she, e I am un- worthy to be either his wife or yours, for except I marry you both, I dunna how to settle this affair be- tween you; — oh, murther sheery ! but I'm the mis- THE THREE TASKS. 87 fortunate crathur, entirely.' f Well/ says Jack to the officer, s nobody can do more than be sorry for a wrong turn ; small blame to her for taking a fancy to your humble servant, Mr. Officer," — and he stood as tall as possible to show off a bit : ' you see the fair lady is sorrowful for her folly, so as it's not yet too late, and as you came in the nick of time, in the name of Providence take my place, and let the marriage go on.' ' No,' says she ' never ; I'm not worthy of him, at all at all ; tundher-an-ouns, but I'm the unlucky thief!' While this was going forward, the officer looked closely at Jack, and seeing him such a fine handsome fellow, and having heard before of his riches, he began to think that, all things considhered she wasn't so much to be blempt. Then, when he saw how sorry she was for having forgot him, he steps forrid ; e Well,' says he, c I'm still willing to marry you, particularly as you feel conthrition for what you were going to do ;' so with this they all gather about her, and as the officer was a fine fellow himself, pre- vailed upon her to let the marriage be performed, and they were accordingly spliced as fast as his Rever- ence could make them. ( Now, Jack,' says the dog, r I want to spake with you for a minnit ; it's a word for your own ear :" so up he stands on his two hind legs, and purtinded to be whispering something to him ; but what do you think ? — he gives him the slightest touch on the lips with his paw, and that in- stant Jack remimbered the lady and every thing that happened betune them. c Och ! tunther-an-ages/ says 88 THE THREE TASK?. Jack, ' where is the darling at all at all ?' Jack spoke finer than this, to be sure, but as I can't give his tall English, the sorrow one of me will bother myself striving to do it. ' Behave yourself/ says the dog, ' just say nothing, only follow me.' Accordingly, Jack went out with the dog, and in a few minnits comes in again, leading on the one side the love- liest lady that ever eye beheld along with him, and a beautiful, illegant jintleman on the other. ' Xow, Father Flanagan,' says Jack, ' you thought, a while ago you'd have no marriage ; but, instead of that, you will have a brace of them ;' up and telling the com- pany, at the same time, all that happened him, and how the beautiful crathur that he brought in with him had done so much for him. When the jintlemen heard this, as they were all Irishmen, you may be sure there was nothing but huzzaing and throwing up of hats from them, and waving of handkerchers from the ladies. Well, my dear, the wedding dinner was ate in great style: the nobleman proved himself no disgrace to his cloth at the trencher : and so, to make a long story short, such faisting and banqueteering was never seen since or before. At last night came ; and among ourselves, not a doubt of it, but Jack thought himself a happy man : and maybe, if all was known, the bride was much of the same opinion ; be that as it may, night came — the bride, all blushing, beauti- ful, and modest as your own sweetheart, was getting tired after the dancing; Jack, too, though much stouter, wished for a thrifle of repose, and many THE THREE TASKS. 89 thought that it was near time to throw the stocking, as is proper, of coorse, on every occasion of the kind. Well, he was just on his way up stairs, and had reached the first landing, when he hears a voice at his ear, shouting, c Jack — Jack — Jack Magennis !' Jack could have spitted any body for coming to disturb him at such a criticality — c Jack Magennis,' says the voice. Jack looked about to see who it was that called him, and there he found himself lying on the green rath, a little above his mother's cabin, of a fine calm sum- mer's evening in the month of June. His mother was stooping over him with her mouth at his ear, striving to waken him, by shouting and shaking him out of his sleep. ' Tundher-an-age, mother,' says Jack, ' what did you waken me for ?' e Jack, a-vourneen/ says the mother, e sure and you war lying grunting, and groaning, and snifthering there, for all the world as if you had the cholic, and I only nudged you for fraid you war in pain.' ' I wouldn't for a thousand guinneys,' says Jack, ' that ever you wakened me, at all at all : but whisht mother, go into the house, and I'll be afther ye in less than no time.' The mother went in, and the first thing Jack did was to try the rock ; and, sure enough, there he found as much money as made him the richest man that ever was in that country. And what was to his credit, when he did grow rich, he wouldn't let his cabin be thrown down, but built a fine house on a spot near it, when he could always have it under his eye. In the coorse of time, a harper, hearing the story, composed a tune 90 THE THREE TASKS. upon it, which every body knows is called the ■ Little House under the Hill* to this day, beginning ' Hi for it, ho for it, hi for it still ; Och, and whoo ! your sowl— hi for the little house under the hill '.' " Your healths— Father Ned— Father Pether— all kinds of happiness to us ; and there's my story." "- Well," said Father Peter, " I think that dog was nothing more nor less than a downright cur, that deserved the lash nine times a day, if it was only for his want of respect to his clergy ; if he had given me such insolence, I solemnly declare I would have bate the devil out of him with a hazel cudgel, if I failed to exorcise him with a prayer." Father Ned looked at the simple and credulous Curate, with an expression of humour and astonish- ment. " Credisne, Pethre ?" he enquired. " Quare non credebebam ?" said the Curate, in his own convenient Latin. " Quare ! — quare, tu ipse ?" replied Father Ned, bringing him to the test, in somewhat similar phrase- ology. u Quare !" re-echoed Father Peter, looking him solemnly in the face — " Credo quia impossibile est. Quid sentis de Breviariis nostris ? JVonne sunt — hem! — JVonne sunt — full — id est — plena — majoribus miraculis — et quare non credebebam hoe ?" " Crederem, Pethre J" said Father Ned, correcting him. " Crederem — let me see — ay — imo — I grant — Con- THE THREE TASKS. 91 cedo—subknocko," said he, striking under the table, an apology which Father Ned never failed to exact from the good-natured Curate, whenever he happened to foil him in their disputes. " Well/' continued Father Peter — " bene — nonne sunt Breviaria nostra -plena ma- joribus miraculis ? et quare non crederem hoc ? sed non credo, howsomever, quia non est in Breviariis nostris id — est — secundo consitheratiom" " Optimum est argumentum quod unquam urgisti" replied Father Ned ; " et ego nunc concedo ; ' put mam qui meruit fer at,' ut Virgilius ait." " Subknockundrum est tibi nunc," said Father Pe- ter, triumphing in his turn, and equally rigorous in exacting from Father Ned the same acknowledgment of defeat. " Paddy," said Father Ned to the servant, " will you let us know what the night's doing ?" Paddy looked out. " Why, your Rev'rence, it's a fine night, all out, and cleared up it is bravely." At this moment the stranger aroused. i( Sir," said Father Ned, " you missed an amusing story, in con- sequence of your somnolency." " Though I missed the story," replied the stranger, " I was happy enough to hear the learned and edify- ing comment which followed it." Father Ned seemed embarrassed ; the Curate, on the contrary, exclaimed with triumph — w but wasn't 7 right, Sir?" " Perfectly ;" said the stranger. " Your conclu- V'2 THE THREE TASKS. si on, considering 1 the line of argument you adopted, and the premises you laid down, was undeniable." " Good night, boys," said Father Ned — " good night, Mr. Longinus Polisyllabus Alexander." " Good night, boys," said Father Peter, imitating Father Ned, whom he looked upon as a perfect model of courtesy — " good night, boys —good night, Mr. Longinus Polisyllabus Alexander !" " Good night," replied the stranger — " good night, Doctor Ned — hem ! — Doctor Edward Deleery ; and Good night, Doctor Peter M'Clatchaghan — Good night." When the Clergymen were gone, the circle about the fire, excepting the members of Ned's family and the stranger, dispersed to their respective homes ; and thus ended the amusement of that night, AN IRISH WEDDING. On the following evening, the neighbours assem- bled about Ned's hearth, in the same manner as on the night preceding. After some preliminary chat — " Well, Shane," said Andy Morrow, addressing Shane Fadh, " will you give us an account of your wedding ? — I'm tould it was the greatest let-out that ever was in the coun- try, before or since." " And ye may say that, Mr. Morrow," said Shane, " I was at many a wedding myself, but never at the likes of my own, barring Tim Lanigan's, that married Father Corrigan's niece." " I believe," said Andy, " that, too, was a dash- ing one ; however, it's your own we want. Come, Nancy, fill these again, and let us be comfortable, at all events, and give Shane a double measure, for talk- ing's druthy work. — I'll pay for this round." When the liquor was got in, Shane, after taking a draught, laid down his pint, pulled out his steel tobacco box, and, after twisting off a chew between 94 AN IRISH WEDDING. his teeth, closed the box, and commenced the story of his wedding. " When I was a Brine-Oge," said Shane, u I was as wild as an unbroken cowlt — no divilment was too hard for me ; and so sign's on it, for there wasn't a piece of mischief done in the parish, but was laid at my door — and the dear knows I had enough of my own to answer for, let alone to be set down for that of other people ; but, any way, there was many a thing done in my name, when I knew neither act nor part about it. One of them I'll mintion : Dick Cuil- lenan, father to Paddy, that lives at the crass-roads, beyant Gunpowdher Lodge, was over head and ears in love with Jemmy Finigan's eldest daughter, Mary, then, sure enough, as purty a girl as you'd meet in a fair — indeed, I think I'm looking at her, with her fair flaxen ringlets hanging over her shoulders, as she used to pass our house, going to mass of a Sunday. God rest her sowl, she's now in glory — that was be- fore she was my wife. Many a happy day we passed together ; and I could take it to my death, that an ill word, let alone to raise our hands to one another, never passed between us — only one day, that a word or two happened about the dinner, in the middle of lent, being a little too late, so that the horses were kept nigh hand half an hour out of the plough ; and I wouldn't have valued that so much, only that it was Beal-cam Dogherty that joined me in the plowing that year — and I was vexed not to take all I could out of him, for he was a raal Turk himself. I disremimber AN IRISH WEDDING. 9.5 now what passed between us as to words— but I know I had a duck-egg in my hand, and when she spoke, I raised my arm, and nailed — poor Larry Tracy, our servant boy, between the two eyes with it, al- though the crathur was ating his dinner quietly fore- nent me, not saying a word. Well, as I tould you, Dick was ever after her, although her father and mother would rather see her under boord than joined to any of that connection ; and as for herself, she couldn't bear the sight of him, he was sich an upset- ting, conceited, little puppy, that thought himself too good for every girl. At any rate, he tried often and often, in fair and market, to get striking up with her — and both coming from and going to mass 'twas the same way, for ever after and about her, till the state he was in spread over the parish like wild-fire. Still, all he could do was of no use ; except to bid him the time of day, she never entered into discoorse with him, at all at all : but there was no putting the likes of him off. So he got a quart of spirits in his pocket, one night, and without saying a word to mortal, off he sets full speed to her father's, in order to brake the thing to the family. Mary might be about seventeen at this time, and her mother looked amost as young and fresh as if she hadn't been married at all. When Dick came in, you may be sure they were all surprised at the sight of him; but they were civil people — and the mother wiped a chair, and put it over near the fire, for him to sit down upon, waiting to hear what he'd say, or what he wanted, although they could give 96 AN IRISH WEDDING. a purty good guess as to that — but they only wished to put him off with as little offince as possible. When Dick sot a while, talking about what the price of hay and oats would be in the following summer, and other subjects that he thought would show his knowledge of farming and cattle, he pulls out his bottle, encouraged to it by their civil way of spaking to him — and telling the ould couple, that as he came over to sit a while, he had brought a drop in his pocket to sweeten the discoorse, axing Susy Finigan, the mother, for a glass to send it round with — at the same time drawing over his chair close to Mary, who was knitting her stocking up beside her little brother Michael, and chatting to him, for fraid that Cuillenan might think she paid him any attention. When Dick got along side of her, he begun, of coorse, to pull out her needles and spoil her knitting, as is customary before the young people come to close spaking. Mary, how- somever, had no welcome for him ; so says she, ' you ought to know, Dick Cuillenan, who you spake to, before you make the freedom you do.' ( But you don't know,' says Dick, 'that I'm a great hand at spoiling the girls' knitting — it's a fashion I've got,' says he. ' It's a fashion, then/ says Mary, ' that'll be apt to get you a broken mouth sometime.'* c Then,' savs Dick, ' whoever does that must marry me.' ' And * It is no unusual thing in Ireland, for a country girl lo repute a fellow whom she thinks beneath her, if not by a fiat, at least by a flattening xeiusal ; nor is it seldom, that the "argumentum fistycuf- fium" is resorted to on such occasions. I have more than once seen AN IRISH WEDDING. 97 them that gets you, will have a prize to brag of/ says she ; e stop yourself, Cuillenan — single your freedom, and double your distance, if you plase ; I'll cut my coat ofFno such cloth/ ' Well, Mary/ says he, e may- be, if you don't, as good will; bud ye won't be so cruel as all that comes to — the worst side of you is out, I think.' He was now beginning to make greater freedom ; but Mary rises from her seat, and whisks away with herself, her cheek as red as a rose with vexation at the fellow's imperance. c Very well/ says Dick, ' off ye go ; bud there's as good fish in the say as ever was catched. — I'm sorry to see, Susy/ says he to her mother, ' that Mary's no friend of mine, and I'd be mighty glad to find it otherwise ; for, to tell the truth, I'd wish to become connected with the family. But hadn't you better get us a glass, till we drink one bottle on the head of it, any way/ * Why then, Dick Cuillenan,' says the mother, e I don't wish you any thing else than good loock and happiness ; but, as to Mary, she's not for you herself, nor would it be a good match betune the families, at all at all. Mary is to have her granfather's sixty guinneys ; and the two moulleens that her uncle Jack left her four years ago has brought her a good stock for any farm. But if she married you, Dick, where's the farm to bring her to ? — surely, it's not upon them seven acres of stone and bent, upon the long Esker, a disagreeable lover receive, from the fair hand which he sought, so masterly a blow, that a bleeding nose rewarded his ambition, and silenced for a time his importunity. VOL. I. F 98 AN IRISH WEDDING. that I'd let my daughter to live. So, Dick, put up your bottle, and in the name of God, go home, boy, and mind your business ; but, above all, when you want a wife, go to them that you may have a right to expect, and not to a girl like Mary Finigan that could lay down guinneys where you could hardly find shil- lings/ c Very well, Susy,' says Dick, nettled enough, as he well might, ' I say to you, just as I do to your daughter, if you be proud, there's no force.' " "But what has this to do with you, Shane?" asked Andy Morrow; "sure we wanted to hear an account of your wedding, and instead of that, it's Dick Cuille- nan's history your giving us." " That's just it," said Shane ; " sure, only for this same Dick, I'd never get Mary Finigan for a wife. Dick took Susy's advice, bekase, after all, the un- dacent drop was in him, or he'd never have brought the bottle out of the house, at all; but, faith, he ris up, put the whiskey in his pocket, and went home with a face on him as black as my hat with venom. Well, things passed on very well till the Christmas following, when one night, after the Fini- gans had all gone to bed, there comes a crowd of fel- lows to the door, thumping at it with great violence, and swearing that if the people within wouldn't open it immediately it would be smashed into smitthereens. The family, of coorse, were all alarmed ; but some how or other, Susy herself got suspicious, that it might be something about Mary — so up she gets, and sends the daughter to her own bed, and lies down AN IRISH WEDDING. 99 herself in the daughter's. In the mane time, Fini- gan got up, and after lighting a candle, opened the door at once. ' Come, Sir,' says a strange voice, 1 put out the candle, except you wish us to make a candlestick of the thatch/ says he — c or to give you a prod of a bagnet under the ribs/ says he. It was a folly for one man to go to bell-the-cat with a whole crowd; so he blew the candle out, and next minnit they rushed in, and went as straight as a rule to Ma- ry's bed. The mother all the time lay close, and ne- ver said a word. At any rate, what could be expected, only that, do what she could, at the long run she must go. So, accordingly, after a very hard battle on her side, being a powerful woman, she was obligated to thravel — but not till she had left many of them marks to remember her by ; among the rest, Dick himself got his nose split on his face, with the stroke of a churn-staff. Still, there was very little spoke, for they didn't wish to betray themselves on any side. The only thing that Finigan could hear, was my name repated several times, as if the whole thing was going on under my directions ; for Dick thought, that if there was any one in the parish likely to be set down for it, it was me. " When Susy found they were for putting her be- hind one of them, on a horse, she rebelled again, and it tuck near a dozen of boys to hoise her up ; but one vagabone of them, that had a rusty broad-sword in his hand, gave her a skelp with it, that subdued her at once, and off they went. Now, above all the f2 100 AN IRISH WEDDING. nights in the year, who should be dead but my own full cousin, Denis Fadh — God be good to him! — and I, and Jack and Dan, his brothers, while bringing home whiskey for the wake and berrin, met them on the road. At first we thought them distant relations coming to the wake, but when I saw only one woman among the set, and she mounted on a horse, I began to suspect that all wasn't right. I accordingly turned back a bit, and walked near enough without their seeing me to hear the discoorse, and discover the whole business. In less than no time I was back at the wake-house, so I up and tould them what I saw, and off we set, about forty of us, with good cudgels, scythe-sneds, and hooks, fully bent to bring her back from them, come or go what would. And troth, sure enough, we did it ; and I was the man myself that rode afore the mother on the same garron that carried her off. From this out, when and wherever I got an opportunity, I whispered the soft nonsense, Nancy, into poor Mary's ear, until I put my comedher on her, and she couldn't live at all without me. But I was something for a woman to look at then, any how, standing six feet two in my stocking soles, which, you know, made them call me Shane Fadh. At that time I had a dacent farm of fourteen acres in Crocknagoo- ran — the same that my son, Ned, has at the present time ; and though, as to wealth, by no manner of manes fit to compare with the Finigans, yet, upon the whole, she might have made a worse match. The father, however, wasn't for me ; but the mother AN IRISH WEDDING. 101 was : so after drinking a bottle or two with the mother, Sarah Traynor, her cousin, and Mary, along with Jack Donnellan on my part, in their own barn, unknownst to the father, we agreed to make a run- away match of it; appointing my uncle Brian Slevin's, as the house we'd go to. The next Sunday was the day appointed ; so I had my uncle's family prepared, and sent two gallons of whiskey, to be there before us, knowing that neither the Finigans nor my own friends liked stinginess. " Well, well, after all, the world is a strange thing — if myself hardly knows what to make of it. It's I that did doat night and day upon that girl ; and indeed there was them that could have seen me in Jimmeky, for her sake, for she was the beauty of the county, not to say the parish, of a girl in her station. For my part I could neither ate nor sleep, for thinking that she was so soon to be my own married wife, and to live under my own roof. And when I'd think of it, how my heart would bounce to my throath, with downright joy and delight. The mother had made us promise not to meet till Sunday, for fraid of the fa- ther becoming suspicious ; but, if I was to be shot for it, I couldn't hinder myself from going every night to the great flowering whitethorn that was behind their garden ; and although she knew I hadn't pro- mised to come, yet there she still was ; something, she said, tould her I would come. " The next Sunday we met at Althadhawan wood, and I'll never forget what I felt when I was going to 102 AN IRISH WEDDING. the green at St. Patrick's Chair, where the boys and girls meet on Sunday : but there she was — the bright eyes dancing with joy in her head, to see me. We spent the evening in the wood, till it was dusk — I bating them all leaping, dancing, and throwing the stone ; for, by my song, I thought I had the action of ten men in me; she'd look on, smiling like an angel, when I'd lave them all miles behind me. As it grew dusk, they all went home, except herself and me, and a few more, who, maybe, had something of the same kind on hands. ' Well, Mary,' says I, ' a-cushla-ma- chree, it's dark enough for us to go ; and, in the name of God, let us be off? The crathur looked into my face, and got pale — for she was very young then: ( Shane,' says she, and she thrimbled like an aspin lafe, ' I'm going to trust myself with you for ever— whether for happiness or sorrow, God he only knows. I can bear poverty and distress, sickness and want with you, but I can't bear to think that you should ever forget to love me as you do now ; or that your heart should ever cool to me : but I'm sure/ says she, ' you'll never forget this night, and the solemn pro- mises you made me, before God and the blessed skies above us/ We were sitting at the time under the shade of a rowan tree, and I had only one answer to make — I pulled her to my breast, where she laid her head and cried like a child, with her cheek against mine. My own eyes wern't dry, although I felt no sorrow, but — but — I never forgot that night — and — I never will." AN IRISH WEDDING. 103 He now paused a few minutes, being too much affected to proceed. " Poor Shane," said Nancy, in a whisper to Andy- Morrow, u night and day he's thinking about that woman ; she's now dead going on a year, and you would think by him, although he bears up very well in company, that she died only yesterday — but indeed it's he that was always the kind-hearted, affectionate man ; and a better husband never broke bread." ft "Well," said Shane, resuming the story, and clear- ing his voice, " it's a great consolation to me, now that she's gone, to think that I never broke the pro- mise I made her that night ; for, as I tould you, except in regard of the duck-egg, a bitther word never passed betune us. I was in a passion then, for a wonder, and bent on showing her that I was a dangerous man to provoke ; so, just to give her a spice of what I could do, I made Larry feel it — and may God forgive me for raising my hand even then to her. When it was clear dark we set off, and after crossing the country for two miles, came to my uncle's, where a great many of my friends were ex- pecting us. As soon as we came to the door I struck it two or three times, for that was the sign, and my aunt came out, and taking Mary in her arms, kissed her, and, with a thousand welcomes, brought us both in. " You all know that the best of aiting and dhrink- ing is provided when a runaway-couple is expected ; and indeed there was galore of both there. My uncle 104 AN IRISH WEDDING. and all that were within welcomed us again; and many a good song and hearty jug of punch went round that night. The next morning my uncle went to her fa- ther's, and broke the business to him at once : indeed it wasn't very hard to do, for I believe it reached him afore he saw my uncle at all ; so she was brought home that day, and, on the Thursday night after, I, my father, uncle, and several other friends, went there, and made the match. She had sixty guinneys that her granfather left her, thirteen head of cattle, two feather, and two chaff beds, with sheeting, quilts, and blankets; three pieces of bleached linen, and a flock of geese of her own rearing — upon the whole, among ourselves, it wasn't aisy to get such a fortune. Well, the match was made, and the wedding-day appointed; but there was one thing still to be managed, and that was how to get over the standing at mass on Sunday, to make satisfaction for the scandal we gave the church by running away with another — but that's all stuff, for who cares a pin about standing, when three halves of the parish are married in the same way. The only thing that vex'd me was, that it would keep back the wedding day. Well, her father and my uncle went to the priest, and spoke to him, trying, of coorse, to get us off of it, but he knew we were fat geese, and was in for giving us a plucking. — Hut, tut ! — he wouldn't hear of it, at all at all ; for although he would ride fifty miles to sarve either of us, he couldn't brake the new orders that he'd got only a few days before that from the Bishop. No; we must AN IRISH WEDDING. 105 stand — for it would be setting a bad example to the parish: and if he would let us pass, how could he punish the rest of his flock, when they'd be guilty of the same thing. ' Well, well, your Rev'rence,' says my uncle, winking at her father, ' if that's the case it can't be help'd, any how — they must only stand, as many a dacent father and mother's child has done before them, and will again, plase God — your Rev'- rence is right in doing your duty/ ' True for you Brian,' says his Rev'rence, ' and yet, God knows, there's no man in the parish would be sorrier to see such a dacent, comely, young couple put upon a level with all the scrubs of the parish ; and I know, Jemmy Finigan, it would go hard with your young bashful daughter to get through with it, having the eyes of the whole congregation staring on her.' ' Why then, your Rev'rence, as to that,' says my uncle, who was just as stiff as the other was stout, e the bashfulest of them will do more nor that to get a husband.' ' But you tell me,' says the Priest, ' that the wedding day is fix'd upon ; how will you manage there V ' Why, put it off for three Sundays longer, to be sure,' says my uncle. ' But you forget this, Brian/ says the Priest, e that good luck or prosperity never attended the putting off of a wedding.' Now here you see is where the Priest had them ; for they knew that as well as his Rev'rence himself — so they were in a puzzle again. ' It's a disagreeable business,' says the Priest, 'but the truth is, I could get them off with the Bishop, only for one thing — I owe him five guin- f3 106 AN IRISH WEDDING. neys of Altar-money, and I'm so far back in dues, that I'm not able to pay him. If I could enclose this to him in a letter, I would get them off at once, although it would be bringing myself into trouble with the parish afterwards ; but, at all events,' says he, ' I wouldn't make every one of you both — so, to show you that I wish to sarve you, I'll sell the best cow in my byre, and pay him myself, rather than their wedding-day should be put off, poor things, or themselves brought to any bad luck, the Lord keep them from it.' While he was spaking, he stamped his foot two or three times on the floor, and the housekeeper came in. — ' Katty/ says he, ' bring us in a bottle of whiskey ; at all events, I can't let you away,' says he, ' without tasting something, and drinking luck to the young folks.' ' In troth,' says Jemmy Finigan, ' and beg- ging your Rev'rence's pardon, the divil a cow you'll sell this bout, any how, on account of me or my childhre, bekase I'll lay down on the nail what'll clear you and the Bishop ; and, in the name of God, as the day is fixed and all, let the crathurs not be disappointed.' ' Faith, Jemmy,' says my uncle, ' if you go to that, you'll pay but your share, for I insist upon laying down one half, at laste.' At any rate they came down with the cash, and after drinking a bottle betune them, went home in choice spirits entirely at their good luck in so aisily getting us off. When they had left the house a bit, the priest sent after them — ' Jemmy,' says he to Finigan, ' J forgot a circum- stanct, and that is, to tell you that I will go and marry AN IRISH WEDDING. 107 them at your own house, and bring Father James, my curate, with me/ ' Oh, for God's sake,' said both, ' don't mention that, your Reverence, except you wish to break their hearts, out and out ! — why, that would be a thousand times worse nor making them stand to do penance: doesn't your Rev'rence know, that if they hadn't the pleasure of running for the bottle, the whole wedding wouldn't be worth three half-pence ?' ' In- deed, I forgot that, Jemmy.' ' But sure,' says my un- cle, ' your Rev'rence and Father James must be at it, whether or not — for that we intended from the first/ ' Faith and I'll run for the bottle too/ says the Priest, ' and make some of them look sharp, never fear/ Well, by my song, so far all was right ; and maybe it's we that wern't glad — maning Mary and myself — that there was nothing more in the way to put off the wedding-day. So, as the bridegroom's share of the expense always is to provide the whiskey, I'm sure, for the honour and glory of taking the blooming young crathur from the great lot of bachelors that were all breaking their hearts about her, I couldn't do less nor finish the thing daeently ; knowing, besides, the high doings that the Finigans would have of it — for they were always looked upon as a family that never had their heart in a trifle, when it would come to the push. So, you see, I and my brother Mickey, my cousin Tom, and Dom'nick Nulty, went up into the moun- tains to Tim Cassidy's still-house, where we spent a glorious day, and bought fifteen gallons of stuff, that one drop of it would bring the tear, if possible, to a 108 AN IRISH WEDDING. young widdy's eye., that had berrid a bad husband. Indeed^ this was at my father's bidding, who wasn't a bit behind hand with any of them in cutting a splash. * Shane/ says he to me, { you know the Finigan's of ould, that they won't be contint with what would do another, and that, except they go beyant the thing entirely, they won't be satisfied, any how. They'll have the whole country side at the wedding, and we must let them see that we have a spirit and a faction of our own,' says he, c that we needn't be ashamed of. They've got all kinds of ateables in cartloads, and as we're to get the drinkables, we must see and give as good as they'll bring. I myself, and your mother will go round and invite all we can think of, and let you and Micky go up the hills to Tim Cassidy, and get fifteen gallons of whiskey, for I don't think less will do us.' f( This we accordingly complied with, and surely better stuff never went down the red lane than the same whiskey ; for the people knew nothing about watering it then, at all at all. The next thing I did was to get a fine shop cloth coat, a pair of top-boots, and buck-skin breeches fit for a Squire ; along with a new Caroline hat that would throw off the wet like a duck. Mr. O'Beirne, the schoolmaster from Find- ramore bridge, lent me his watch for the occasion, after my spending near two days learning from him to know upon it what o'clock it was. At last, somehow, I masthered that point so well, that in a quarther of an hour at least, I could give a dacent guess at the AN IRISH WEDDING. 109 time upon it. Well, at last the day came. The wed- ding morning, or the bride's part of it, as they say was beautiful. It was then the month of July. The evening before my father and my brother went over to Jemmy Finigan's, to make the regulations for the wedding. We — that is, my party, were to be at the bride's house about ten o'clock, and we were then to proceed, all on horseback, to the priest's, to be mar- ried. We were then, after drinking something at Tom Harris's public house, to come back as far as the Dumbhill, where we were to start and run for the bottle. That morning we were all up at the skriek of day. From six o'clock, my own faction, friends and neighbours, began to come, all mounted ; and about eight o'clock there was a whole regiment of them, some on horses, some on mules, others on rahe- ries and asses; and by my word, I believe little Dick Snudaghan the tailor's apprentice, that had a hand in making my wedding clothes, was mounted upon a buck goat, with a bridle of selvages tied to his horns. Any thing at all, to keep their feet from the ground, for nobody would be allowed to go with the wedding that hadn't some animal between them and the earth. To make a long story short, so large a bridegroom's party was never seen in that country before, save and except Tim Lannigan's, that I mentioned just now. It would make you split your face laughing to see the figure they cut ; some of them had saddles and bri- dles — others had saddles and halthers : some had back-suggawns of straw, with hay stirrups to them ; 110 AN IRISH WEDDING. but good bridles ; others of them had sacks fixed up as like saddles as they could make them, girthed with hay ropes five or six times round the horse's body. When one or two of the horses wouldn't carry dou- ble, except the hind rider sat strideways, the women had to be put foremost, and the men behind them. Some had dacent pillions enough, but the most of them had none at all, and the women w r ere obliged to sit where the crupper ought to be — and a hard card they had to play to keep their seats, even when the horses walked easy, so what must it be when they came to a gallop, but that same was nothing at all to a trot. From the time they began to come that morning, you may be sartain that the glass was no cripple, any how — although, for fear of accidents, we took care not to go too deep. At eight o'clock we sat down to a rousing breakfast, for we thought it best to eat a trifle at home, lest they might think that what we were to get at the bride's breakfast might be thought any novelty. As for my part, I was in such a state, that 1 couldn't let a morsel cross my throat, nor did I know what end of me was uppermost. After break- fast they all got their cattle, and I my hat and whip, and was ready to mount, when my uncle whispered to me that I must kneel down and ax my father and mother's blessing, and forgiveness for all my disobe- dience and offinces towarst them — and also to requist the blessing of my brothers and sisters. Well, in a short time I was down ; and, my goodness, such a hullabaloo of crying as was there in a minnit's time, AN IRISH WEDDING. Ill ' Oh Shane Fadh — Shane Fadh, a cushla machree,' says my poor mother in Irish, ' you're going to break up the ring about your father's hearth and mine, going to lave us, avourneen, for ever, and we to hear your light foot and sweet voice, mornin', noon, and night, no more. Oh P says she, e it's you that was the good son all out — and the good brother too : kind and cheerful was your beautiful voice, and full of love and affection was your heart ! Shane, avourneen deelish, if ever I was harsh to you, forgive your poor mother that will never see you more on her flure as one of her own family/ Even my father, that wasn't much given to crying, couldn't speak ; but went over to a corner and cried till the neighbours stopped him. As for my brothers and sisters, they were all in an uproar — and I myself, begad, cried like a Trojan, merely bekase I see them at it. My father and mo- ther both kissed me, and gave me their blessing ; and my brothers and sisters did the same ; Avhile you would think all their hearts would break. f Come, come/ says my uncle, f I'll have none of this : what a hubbub you make, and your son going to be well married — going to be joined to a girl that your betters would be proud to get into connection with. You should have more sense, Rose Campbell — you ought to thank God that he had the luck to come across such a girl for a wife ; that its not going to his grave instead of into the arms of a purty girl — and what is better, a good girl. So quit your blubbering, Rose ; and you, Jack/ says he to my father, f that ought to 112 AN IRISH WEDDING. have more sense, stop this instant. Clear off every- one of you, out of this, and let the young boy go to his horse. Clear out, I say, or by the powers I'll look at them three stags of huzzies ; by the hand of my body they're blubbering bekase it's not their own story this blessed day. Move— bounce ! and you Rose oge, if you're not behind Dudley Fulton in less than no time, by the hole of my coat, I'll marry a wife myself, and then where will the twenty guinneys be that I'm to lave you?' " Any how, its easy knowing that there wasn't sorrow at the bottom of their grief; for they were all now laughing at my uncle's jokes, even while their eyes were red with the tears — my mother herself couldn't but be in good humour, and join her smile with the rest. " My uncle now drove us all out before him ; not, however, till my mother had sprinkled a drop of holy water on each of us, and given me and my brother and sisters a small taste of blessed candle to prevent us from sudden death and accidents. My father and she didn't come with us then, but they went over to the bride's, while we were all gone to the priest's house. Well, now we set off in great style and spirits; I well mounted on a good horse of my own, and my brother on one that he had borrowed from Peter Dan- nellon, fully bent on winning the bottle. I would have borrowed him myself, but I thought it dacenter to ride my own horse manfully, even though he never won a side of mutton or a saddle, like Dannellon's. AN IRISH WEDDING. 113 But the man that was most likely to come in for the bottle was little Billy Cormick, the tailor, who rode a blood-racer that young John Little had wickedly lent him for the special purpose ; he was a tall bay animal, with long- small legs, a close tail, and didn't know how to trot. May be we didn't cut a dash — and might have taken a town before us. We set out about nine o'clock, and went acrass the country : but I'll not stop to miution what happened some of them, even before we got to the bride's house. It's enough to say here, that sometimes one in crassing a style or ditch would drop into the shough; sometimes another would find himself head formost on the ground ; a woman would be capsized here in crossing a ridgy field, bringing her fore-rider to the ground along with her : another would be hanging like a broken arch, ready to come down, till some one would ride up and fix her on her seat. But as all this happened in going over the fields, we expected that when we'd get out on the king's high-way there would be less danger, as we would have no ditches or drams to cross. "When we came in sight of the house, there was a general shout of welcome from the bride's party, who were on the watch for us : we couldn't do less nor give them back the cheer in full chorus ; but we had better have let that alone, for some of the young horses took the sthadh, others of them capered about ; the asses — the devil choke them — that were along with us should begin to bray, as if it was the king's birth-day — and a mule of Jack Irwin's took it into his head to 114 AN IRISH WEDDING. stand stock still. This brought another dozen of them to the ground ; so that, between one thing or another, we were near half an hour before we got on the march again. When the blood horse that the tailor rode, saw the crowd and heard the shouting, he cocked his ears, and set off with himself full speed: but before he had gone far, he was without a rider, and went galloping up to the bride's house, the bri- dle hanging about his feet. But Billy, having taken a glass or two, wasn't to be cowed ; so he came up in great blood, and swore he would ride him to America, sooner than let the bottle be won from the bridegroom's party. When we arrived, there was nothing but shaking hands and kissing, and all kinds of slewsthering — men kissing men — women kissing women — and after that men and women. Another breakfast was ready for us ; and here we all sat down. Myself and my next relations in the bride's house, and the others in the barn and garden ; for one house wouldn't hold the half of us. Eating, however, was all only talk : but we took some of the poteen agin, and in a short time afterwards set off along the paved road to the priest's house, to be tied as fast as he could make us, and that was fast enough. Before we went out to mount our horses though, there was just such a hullaballoo with the bride and her friends as there was with myself: but my uncle soon put a stop to it, and in five minnits had them breaking their hearts laughing. Bless my heart what doings ! what roast- ing and boiling ! — and what tribes of beggars, and AX IRISH WEDDING. 115 shulers, and vagabonds of all sorts and sizes, were sunning themselves about the doors — wishing us a thousand times long life and happiness. There was a fiddler and a piper : the piper was to stop in my father-in-law's while we were going to be married, and the fiddler was to come with ourselves, in ordher you know, to have a dance at the priest's house, and to play for us coming and going ; for there's nothing like a taste of music when one's on for sport. As we were setting off, ould Mary M'Quade from Kilna- hushogue, who was sent for bekase she understood charms, and had the name of being lucky, came and threw her right shoe after us. But before that she took myself aside, and said, ' Shane Fadh,' says she, ( you're a young man well to look upon ; may God bless you and keep you so : and there's not a doubt but there's them here that wishes you ill — that would rather be in your shoes this blessed day, with yer young colleen lawn, that'ill be yer wife before the sun sets, plaze the Almighty. — There's ould Fanny Bar- ton, the wrinkled thief of a hag, that the Finigan's axed here for the sake of her dacent son-in-law, who ran away with her daughter Betty, that was the great beauty some years ago : her breath's not good, Shane — and many a strange thing's sed of her. Well, may be, I know more about that nor I'm going to mintion, any how : more betoken that it's not for nothing the white hare haunts the shrubbery behind her house.' * But what harm could she do me, Sonsy Mary?' says I_f or she was called Sonsy—' we have often sarved 116 AN IRISH WEDDING. her one way or other/ e Ax me no questions about her, Shane/ says she, ( don't I know what she did to Ned Donnelly, that was to be pitied, if ever a man w r as to be pitied; for as good as seven months after his marriage, until I relieved him, 'twas gone to a thread he was, and didn't they pay me dacently for my throuble.' c Well, and what am I to do, Mary ?' says I, know- ing very well that what she sed was thrue enough, although I didn't wish her to see that I was afeard. f Why,' says she ' you must first exchange money with me, and then, if you do as I bid you, you may lave the rest to myself.' I then took out, begad, a dacent lot of silver — say a crown or so — for my blood was up, and the money was flush — and gave it to her; for which I got a cronagh-bawn halfpenny in exchange. e Now,' says she, ' Shane, you must keep this in your company, and for your life and sowl, don't part with it for nine days after your marriage ; but there's more to be done,' says she — ( hould out your right knee ;' so with this she unbuttoned three buttons of my buck- skins, and made me loose the knot of my garter on my right leg. ' Now,' says she e if you keep them loose till after the priest says the words, and wont let the money I gave you go out of yer company for nine days, along with something else I'll do that you're to know nothing about, there's no fear of all their pishthroges' " We were now all in motion once more — the bride riding behind my man, and the bride's-maid behind myself — a fine bouncing girl she was, but not I AX IRISH WEDDING. 11/ to be mintioned in the one year with my own darling — in troth, it wouldn't be aisy getting- such a couple as we were the same day, though it's myself that says it. Mary, dressed in a black castor hat, like a man's, a white muslin coat, with a scarlet silk handkercher about her neck, with a silver buckle and a blue ribbon, for luck, round her waist ; her fine hair wasn't turned up, at all at all, but hung down in beautiful curls on her shoulders ; her eyes, you would think, were all light; her lips as plump and as ripe as cherries — and may be it's myse]£ that wasn't to that time of day without tasting them, any how ; and her teeth, so even, and as white as a burned bone. The day bate all for beauty ; I don't know whether it was from the lightness of my own spirits it came, but, I think, that such a day I never saw from that to this : indeed, I thought every thing was dancing and smil- ing about me, and sartinly every one said, that such a couple hadn't been married, nor such a wedding- seen in the parish for many a long year before. All the time, as we went along, we had the music ; but then at first we were mightily puzzled what to do with the fiddler. For to put him as a hind rider would prevent him from playing, bekase how could he keep the fiddle before him and another so close to him ? To put him foremost was as bad, for he couldn't play and hould the bridle together; so at last my uncle proposed that he should get behind himself, turn his face to the horse's tail, and saw away like a Trojan. 118 AN IRISH WEDDING. "It might be about four miles or so to the priest's house, and, as the day was fine, we got on gloriously. One thing, however, became troublesome : you see there was a cursed set of ups and downs on the road, and as the riding coutrements were so bad with a great many of the weddineers, those that had no sad- dles, going down steep places, would work onward bit by bit, in spite of all they could do, till they'd be fairly on the horse's neck, and the women behind them would be on the animal's shoulders : and it required nice managing to balance themselves, for they might as well sit on the edge of a dale boord. Many of them got tosses this way, though it all passed in good humour. But no two among the whole set were more puzzled this a-way, than my uncle and the fiddler — I think I see my uncle this minnit with his knees sticking into the horse's shoulders, and his two hands upon his neck, keeping himself back, with a cruht upon him, and the fiddler with his heels away towards the horse's tail, and he stretched back against my uncle, for all the world like two bricks laid against one another, and one of them falling. 'Twas the same thing going up a hill; whoever was behind, would be hanging over the horse's tail, with the arm about the fore-rider's neck or body, and the other houlding the baste by the mane, to keep them both from sliding off backwards ; many a come-down there was among them — but, as I said, it was all in good humour ; and, accordingly, as regularly as they fell, they were sure to get a cheer. When we got to the AN IRISH WEDDING. 119 Priest's house, there was a hearty welcome for us all. The bride and I, with our next kindred and friends, went into the parlour ; along- with these, there was a set of young fellows, who had been bachelors of the bride's, that got in, with an intention of getting the first kiss, and, in coorse, of bateing myself out of it. I got a whisper of this ; so, by my song, I was de- tarmined to cut them all out in that, as well as I did in getting herself; but, you know, I couldn't be angry, even if they had got the fore- way of me in it, bekase it's an ould custom. While the priest was going over the business, I kept my eye about me, and, sure enough, there were seven or eight fel- lows all waiting to snap at her. When the ceremony drew near a close, I got up on one leg, so that I could bounce to my feet like lightning, and when it was finished, I gets her in my arm, before you could say Jack Robison, and swinging her behind the priest, gave her the husband's first kiss. The next minnit there was a rush after her ; but, as I had got the first, it was but fair that they should come in ac- cording as they could, I thought, bekase, you know, it was all in the coorse of practice ; but, hould — there were two words to be said to that, for what does Father Dollard do, but shoves them off, and a fine stout shoulder he had — shoves them off, like childhre, and getting his arms about Mary, gives her half a dozen smacks at laste — oh, consuming to the one less — that mine was only a cracker to them. The rest, then, all kissed her one after another, according 120 AN IRISH WEDDING. • as they could come in to get one. We, then, went straight to his Reverence's barn, which had been cleared out, the day before, for us, by his own direc- tions, where we danced for an hour or two, and his Reverence and his Curate along with us. By my word, they danced like Trojans ; and Father Dollard would dance with nobody but Mary or her maid — and surely small blame to him for that, for they were the prettiest girls at the wedding. " When this was over we mounted again, the fiddler taking his ould situation behind my uncle. You know it is usual, after getting the knot tied, to go to a public house or shebeen, to get some refresh- ment after the journey ; so, accordingly, we went to little lame Larry Spooney's — grandfather to him that was transported the other day for staling Bob Beaty's sheep; he was called Spooney himself, from his sheep- stealing, ever since Paddy Keenan made the song upon him, ending with e his house never wants a good ram-horn spoon;' so that, let people say what they will, these things run in the blood — well, we went to his shebeen house, but the tithe of us couldn't get into it ; so, we sot on the green before the door, and, by my song, we took dacently with him, anyhow; and, only for my uncle, it's odds but we would have all been fuddled. It was now that I began to notish a kind of coolness betune my party and the bride's, and for some time I didn't know what to make of it. I wasn't long so, however ; for my uncle, who still had his eye about him, comes over to me, and says, AN IRISH WEDDING. 121 f Shane, I doubt there will be bad work amongst these 'people, particularly betune the Dorans and the Flanagans — the truth is, that the ould business of the law-shoot will break out, and except they're kept from drink, take my word for it, there will be blood spilled. The running for the bottle will be a good excuse/ says he, ' so I think we had better move home before they go too far in the drink.' Well, any way, there was truth in this ; so, accordingly, the reckoning was ped, and, as this was the thrate of the weddineers to the bride and the bridegroom, every one of the men clubbed his share, but neither I nor the girls, any thing. Ha — ha — ha ! Well, I never — ha — ha — ha ! — I never laughed so much in one day, as I did in that, and I can't help laughing at it yet. Well, well ! when we all got on the top of our horses, and sich other iligant cattle as we had — the crowning of a king was nothing to it. We were now purty well I thank you, as to liquor; and, as the knot was tied, and all safe, there was no end to our good spirits ; so, when we took the road, the men were in high blood, particularly Billy Cormick, the tailor, who had a pair of long cavalry spurs upon him, that he was scarcely able to walk in — and he not more nor four feet high. The women, too, were in blood, having faces upon them, with the hate of the day and the liquor, as full as trumpeters. " There was now a great jealousy among them that were bint for winning the bottle; and when one horseman would crass another, striving to have the vol. i. o 122 AN IRISH WEDDING. whip hand of him when they'd set off, why, you see, his horse would get a cut of the whip itself for his pains. My uncle and I, however, did all we could to pacify them; and their own bad horsemanship, and the screeching of the women, prevented any strokes at that time. Some of them were ripping up ould sores against one another as they went along ; others, par- ticularly the youngsters, with their sweethearts behind them, coorting away for the life of them ; and some might be heard miles off, singing and laughing : and you may be sure the fiddler behind my uncle wasn't idle, no more nor another. In this way we dashed on gloriously, till we came in sight of the Dumb-hill, where we were to start for the bottle. And now you might see the men fixing themselves on their saddles, sacks, and suggawns; and the women tying kerchiefs and shawls about their caps and bonnets, to keep them from flying off, and then gripping their foreriders hard and fast by the bosoms. When we got to the Dumb- hill, there were five or six fellows that didn't come with us to the priest's, but met us with cudgels in their hands, to prevent any of them from starting before the others, and to show fair play. " Well, when they were all in a lump, — horses, mules, ragherys, and asses — some, as I said, with sad- dles, some with none ; and all just as I tould you before ; — the word was given, and off they scoured, myself along with the rest ; and divil be off me, if ever I saw such a sight but itself before or since. Off they skelped through thick and thin, in a cloud of - AN IRISH WEDDING. 123 dust like a mist about us : but it was a mercy that the life wasn't tramped out of some of us ; for before we had gone fifty perches, the one third of them were sprawling a-top of one another on the road. As for the women, they went down right and left — sometimes bringing the horsemen with them ; and many of the boys getting black eyes and bloody noses on the stones. Some of them, being half blind with the motion and the whiskey, turned off the wrong way, and gallop- ped on, thinking they had completely distanced the crowd ; and it wasn't until they cooled a bit that they found out their mistake. But the best sport of all was, when they came to the lazy corner, just at Jack Gallagher's flush, where the water came out a good way acrass the road; being in such a flight, they either forgot or didn't know how to turn the angle properly, and plash went above thirty of them, com- ing down right on the top of one another, souse into the pool. By this time there was about a dozen of the best horses a good distance before the rest, cutting one another up for the bottle : among these were the Dorans and the Flanagans ; but they, you see, wisely enough, dropped their women at the beginning, and only rode single. I myself didn't mind the bottle, but kept close to Mary, for fraid that among sich a divil's pack of half-mad fellows, any thing might happen her. At any rate, I was next the first batch : but where do you think the tailor was all this time ? Why away off like lightening, miles before them — flying like a swallow : and how he kept his sate so long has puz- g2 124 AN IRISH WEDDING. zled me from that day to this ; but, any how, truth's best — there he was topping the hill ever so far before them. Though, after all, the unlucky crathur nearly missed the bottle ; for when he turned to the bride's house, instead of pulling up as he ought to do — why, to shew his horsemanship to the crowd that was out looking at them, he should begin to cut up the horse right and left, until he made him take the garden ditch in full flight, landing him among the cabbages. About four yards or five from the spot where the horse lodg- ed himself, was a well, and a purty deep one too, by my word; but not a sowl present could tell what became of the tailor, until Owen Smith chanced to look into the well, and saw his long spurs just above the water ; so he was pulled up in a purty pickle, not worth the washing : but what did he care ? although he had a small body, the divil a one of him but had a sowl big enough for Golias or Sampson the Great. As eoon as he got his eyes clear, right or wrong, he insisted on getting the bottle ; but he was late, poor fellow, for before he got out of the garden, two of them came up — Paddy Doran and Pether Flanagan, cutting one another to pieces, and not the length of your nail betune them. Well, well, that was a ter- rible day, sure enough. In the twinkling of an eye they were both off the horses, the blood streaming from their bare heads, struggling to take the bottle from my father, who didn't know which of them to give it to. He knew if he'd hand it to one, the other would take ofrince, and then he was in a great puz- AN IRISH WEDDING. 125 zle, striving to rason with them ; but long Paddy Doran caught it while he was speaking to Flanagan, and the next minnit Flanagan measured him with a heavy loaded whip, and left him stretched upon the stones. And now the work began ; for by this time the friends of both parties came up and joined them. Such knocking down, such roaring among the men, and screeching and clapping of hands and wiping of heads among the women, when a brother, or a son, or a husband would get his gruel ! Indeed, out of a fair, I never saw any thing to come up to it. But during all this work, the busiest man among the whole set was the tailor, and what was worst of all for the poor crathur, he should single himself out against both parties, bakase you see he thought they were cutting him out of his right to the bottle. "They had now broke up the garden gate for weapons, all except one of the posts, and fought into the garden ; when nothing should sarve Billy, but to take up the large heavy post, as if he could destroy the whole faction on each side. Accordingly he came up to big Matthew Flanagan, and was raising it just as if he'd fell him, when Matt, catching him by the nape of the neck, and the waistband of the breeches, went over very quietly, and dropped him a second time, heels up, into the well ; where he might have been yet, only for my mother-in-law, who dragged him out with a great dale to do ; for the well was too narrow to give him room to turn. As for myself and all my friends, as it happened to be my own wedding 126 AN IRISH WEDDING. and at our own place, we couldn't tafce part with either of them ; but we endeavoured all in our power to red them, and a tough task we had of it, until we saw a pair of whips going- hard and fast among them, belonging to Father Corrigan and Father James, his curate. Well, it's wondherful how soon a priest can clear up a quarrel ! In five minnits there wasn't a hand up — but instead of that they were ready to run into mouse-holes. ' What, you murderers,' says his Reverence, ' are you bint to have each other's blood upon your heads ; ye vile infidels, ye cursed unchris- tian Hottentots ? are ye going to get yourselves hang- ed like sheep-stalers ? down with your sticks I com- mand you: do you know — will ye give yourselves time to see who's spaking to you — you blood-thirsty set of Africans? I command you, in the name of the Catholic Church and the Blessed Virgin Mary to stop this instant, if you don't wish me,' says, he e to turn you into stocks and stones where you stand, and make world's wonders of you as long as you live. Doran, if you raise your hand more, I'll strike it dead on your body, and to your mouth you'll never carry it while you have breath in your carcass,' says he. — ' Clear off, you Flanagans, you butchers you — or by St. Dominick I'll turn the heads round upon your bodies, in the twinkling of an eye, so that you'll not be able to look a quiet Christian in the face again. Pretty respect you have for the dacent couple in whose house you have kicked up such a hubbub. I» this the way people are to be deprived of their din- AN IRISH WEDDING. 127 ners on your accounts, you vile animallians !' ' Why then, plase your Reverence, by the — hem — I say Fa- ther Corrigan, it wasn't my fault, but that villain Flanagan's, for he knows I fairly won the bottle — and would have distanced him, only that when I was far before him, the vagabone, he gallopped acrass me on the way, thinking to thrip up the horse.' ' You lying scoundrel,' says the priest, ' how dare you tell me a falsity,' says he ' to my face ? how could he gallop acrass you if you were far before him ? Not a word more, or I'll leave you without a mouth to your face. And Flanagan, you were as much to blame as he, and must be chastised for your raggamuffinly con- duct/ says he, ' and so must you both, and all your party, particularly you and he, as the ringleaders. For right well I know it's the grudge about the law- suit you had, and not the bottle, that occasioned it : but, by St. Peter, to Loughderg both of you must tramp for this.' ' Ay, and by St. Pether, they both desarve it as well as a thief does the gallows,' said a little blustering voice belonging to the tailor, who came forward in a terrible passion, looking for all the world like a drownded rat. 'Ho, by St. Pether, they do, the vagabones ; for it was myself that won the bottle, your Reverence ; and by this and by that/ says he, ' the bottle I'll have, or some of their crowns will crack for it : blood or whiskey I'll have, your Reverence, and I hope that you'll assist me?' 'Why Billy, are you here ?' says Father Corrigan, smiling down upon the figure the little fellow cut, with his 128 AN IRISH WEDDING. long spurs and his big whip — ' what in the world tempted you to get on horseback, Billy?' ' By the powers I was miles before them/ says Billy, ' and after this day, your Reverence, let no man say that I couldn't ride a steeple-chase across Crocknagooran.' 'Why, Billy, how did you stick on, at all at all?' says his Reverence. f How do I know how I stuck on,' says Billy — ' nor whether I stuck on at all or not ; all I know is, that I was on horseback laving the Dumb- hill, and that I found them pulling me by the heels out of the well in the corner of the garden, and that, your Reverence, when the first of them was only top- ping the hill there below, as Lanty Magowran tells me, who was looking on.' ' Well, Billy,' says Father Corrigan, c you must get the bottle ; and as for you* Dorans and Flanagans, I'll make examples of you for this day's work — that you may reckon on. You are a disgrace to the parish, and, what's more, a dis- grace to your priest. How can luck or grace attind the marriage of any young couple that there's such work at ? Before you leave this you must all shake hands, and promise never to quarrel with each other while grass grows or water runs ; and if you don't, by the blessed St. Domnick, I'll exkxmnicate ye both, and all belonging to you into the bargain ; so that ye'll be the pitiful examples and shows to all that'ill look upon you/* e Well, well, your Reverence,' says my father-in-law, ' let all bye-gones be bye-gones ; and, plase God, they will, before they go, be better friends than ever they were. Go now and clane your- AN IRISH WEDDING. 129 selves, take the blood from about your faces, for the dinner's ready an hour agone ; but if you all respect the place you're in, you'll show it, in regard of the young crathurs that's going, in the name of God, to face the world together, and of coorse wishes that this day at laste should pass in pace and quietness : little did I think there was any friend or neighbour here that would make so little of the place or people, as was done for nothing at all, this blessed day.' ' God he sees,' says my mother-in-law, ( that there's them here this day we didn't desarve this from — to rise such a norration, as if the house was a shebeen or a public house ! It's myself didn't think either me or my poor colleen here, not to mention the dacent people she's joined to, would be made so little of as to have our place turned into a play-acthur — for a play-acthur couldn't be worse.' f Well,' says my un- cle, e there's no help for spilt milk, I tell you, nor for spilt blood either: tare an-ountry, sure we're all Irish- men, relations, and Catholics through other, and we oughtn't to be this way. Come away to dinner, — by the powers, we'll duck the first man that says a loud word for the remainder of the day. Come, Father Corrigan and carve the goose, or the geese, for us, for, by my sanies, I bleeve there's a baker's dozen of them ; but we've plinty of Latin for them, and your Reverence and Father James here understands that langidge, any how — larned enough there, I think, jintlemen.' ' That's right, Brian/ shouts the tailor — ' that's right ; there must be no fighting : by the g3 130 AN IRISH WEDDING. powers, the first man attempts it, I'll brain him — fell him to the earth like an ox, if all belonging to him was in my way.' This threat from the tailor went farther, I think, in putting them all into good humour nor even what the priest sed. They then washed and claned themselves, and accordingly went to their dinners. — Billy himself marching with his terrible whip in his hand, and his long cavalry spurs sticking near ten inches behind him, draggled to the tail like a bantling cock after a shower. But, maybe, there was more draggled tails and bloody noses nor poor Billy's, or even nor was occasioned by the fight ; for after Father Corrigan had come, several of them dodged up, some with broken shins and heads, and wet clothes, that they'd got on the way by the mis- chances of the race, particularly at the flush. But I don't know how it was ; somehow the people in them days didn't value these things a straw. They were far hardier then nor they are now, and never went to law, at all at all. Why, I've often known skulls to be broken, and the people to die afterwards, and there would be nothing more about it ; except to brake another skull or two for it; but neither crowner'.s quist, nor judge, nor jury, was ever troubled at all about it. And so, sign's on it, people were then in- nocent, and not up to law and counsellors as they are now. If a person happened to be killed in a fight at a fair or market, why he bad only to appear after his death to one of his friends, and get a number of masses sed for his sowl, and all was right ; but now AN IRISH WEDDING. 131 the times are clane altered, and there's nothing but hanging and transporting for such things ; although that won't bring the people to life again." " I suppose/' said Andy Morrow, " you had a famous dinner, Shane." " "lis you that may say that, Mr. Morrow," re- plied Shane ; " but the house, you see, wasn't able to hould one half of us ; so there was a dozen or two tables borrowed from the neighbours, and laid one after another in two rows, on the green, beside the river that ran along the garden hedge, sidy for sidy. At one end Father Corrigan sot, with Mary and my- self, and Father James at the other. There were three five-gallon kegs of whiskey, and I ordered my brother to take charge of them, and there he sat be- side them, and filled the bottles as they were wanted, bekase, if he had left that job to strangers, many a spalpeen there would make away with lots of it. Mavrone, such a sight as the dinner was ! I didn't lay my eye on the fellow of it since, sure enough, and I'm now an ould man, though I was then a young one. Such lashins of corned beef, and rounds of beef, and legs of mutton, and bacon — turkeys, and geese, and barn-door fowls, young and fat ! Father Corri- gan gave up the carving in less than no time, for it would take him half a day to sarve them all, and he wanted to provide for number one. After helping himself, he set my uncle to it, and maybe he didn't slash away right and left. There was half-a-dozen gorsoons carrying about the beer in cans, with froth 132 AN IRISH WEDDING. upon it like barm — but that was beer in arnest T Nancy — I'll say no more. When the dinner was over, by tare-an-ounty, you would think there was as much left as would sarve a regiment; and sure enough, a right hungry ragged regiment was there to take care of it, though, to tell the truth, there was as much taken into Finigan's, as would be sure to give us all a rousing supper. Why, there was such a troop of beggars — men, women, and childher, sit- ting over on the sunny side of the ditch, as would make short work of the whole dinner, had they got it. Along with Father Corrigan and me, was my father and mother, and Mary's paarents ; my uncle, cousins, and nearest relations, on both sides. Oh, it's Father Corrigan, God rest his sowl, he's now in glory, and so was he then, also — how he did crack and laugh ! ' Well, Matthew Finigan,' says he, ' I can't say but I'm happy, that your Colleen bawn here has lit upon a husband that's no discredit to the family — and it is herself didn't drive her pigs to a bad market,' says he. c Why, in troth, Father, avourneen,' says my mother-in-law, ' they'd be hard to plase that couldn't be satisfied with them she got; not saying but she had her pick and choice of many a good offer, and might have got richer matches ; but, Shane Fadh M'Cawell, although you're sitting there, beside my daughter, I'm prouder to see you on my own flure, the husband of my child, nor if she'd got a man with four times your substance,' ( Never heed the girls for knowing where to choose/ AN IRISH WEDDING. 133 says his Rev'rence, slily enough ; ' but, upon my word, only she gave us all the slip, to tell the truth, I'd another husband than Shane in my eye for her, and that was my own nevvy, Father James's bro- ther, there.' ' And I'd be proud of the connexion,' says my father-in-law ; ' but, you see, these girls won't look much to what you or I'll say, in choos- ing a husband for themselves. How-and-iver, not making little of your newy, Father Michael, I say he's not to be compared with that same bouchal sitting beside Mary, there.' ' No, nor by the powdhers-o'- war, never will,' says Billy Cormick the tailor, who had come over and slipped in on the other side, be- tune Father Corrigan and the bride — c by the pow- dhers-o'-war, he'll never be fit to be compared with me, I tell you, till yesterday comes back again.' ' Why, Billy,' says the Priest, e you're every place.' * But where I ought to be !' says Billy ; ' and that's hard and fast tackled to Mary Bane, the bride, here, instead of that steeple of a fellow she has got,' said the little cock. ' Billy, I thought you were married,' said Father Corrigan. ' Not I, your Rev'rence,' says Billy ; c but I'll soon do something, Father Michael.' ' He's not exactly married, Sir,' says my uncle, ' but, there's a colleen present (looking at the bride's maid) that will soon have his name upon her.' ' Very good, Billy,' says the priest, ' I hope you will give us a rousing wedding — equal, at least, to Shane Fadh's. ' Why, then, your Rev'rence, except I get sich a dar- ling as Molly Bane, here — and by this and by that, it's 134 AN IRISH WEDDING. you that is the darling, Molly, asthore — what come over me, at all at all, that I didn't think of you,' says the little man, drawing closer to her, and poor Mary smiling good-naturedly at his spirit. ' Well, and what if you did get such a darling as Molly Bane, then?' says his Rev'rence. ' Why, except I get the likes of her for a wife — I don't like marriage, any way,' said Billy, winking against the priest — e I'll lade such a life as your Rev'rence ; and, by the powdhers, it's a thousand pities that I wasn't made into a priest, in- stead of a tailor. For, you see, if I had,' says he, giving a verse of an ould song — ' For, you see, if I had, It's I'd be the lad, That would show atl my people such larnin' And when they'd go wrong, Why, instead of a song, I'd give them a lump of a sarmin ' 1 Billy,' says my father-in-law, ' why don't you make a hearty dinner, man alive ? go back to your sate and finish your male — you're aiting nothing to signify.' ' Me !' says Billy — why, I'd scorn to ate a hearty din- ner ; and, I'd have you to know, Matt Finigan, that it wasn't for the sake of your dinner I came here, but in regard to your family, and bekase I wished him well that's sitting beside your daughter : and it ill becomes your father's son to cast up your dinner in my face, or any one of my family ; but a blessed minnit longer I'll not stay among you — Give me your hand, Shane Fadh, and you, Mary — may goodness grant you pace and happiness every night and day you AN IRISH WEDDING. 135 both rise out of your beds. I made that coat your husband has on his back beside you — and a betther lit was never made ; but I didn't think it would come to my turn to have my dinner cast up this-a-way, as if I was aiting it for charity.' e Hut, Billy/ says I, c sure it was all out of kindness ; he didn't mane to offind you/ ' It's no matter/ says Billy, beginning to cry, c he did offind me ; and it's low days with me to bear an affront from him, or the likes of him ; but, by the powdhers-o'-war/ says he, getting into a great rage, ' I won't bear it — only as you're an ould man yourself, I'll not rise my hand to you; but, let any man now that has the heart to take up your quar- rel, come out and stand before me on the sod here.' Well, by this time, you'd tie all that war present with three straws, to see Billy stripping himself, and his two wrists not thicker than drumsticks. "While the tailor was raging, for he was pretty well up with what he had taken, another person made his appear- ance at the far end of the boreen that led to the green where we sot. He was mounted upon the top of a sack that was on the top of a sober looking baste enough, God knows ; he jogging along at his ase, his legs dangling down from the sack on each side, and the long skirts of his coat hanging down behind him. Billy was now getting pacified, bekase they gave way to him a little; so the fun went round, and they sang, roared, danced, and coorted, right and left. " When the stranger came as far as the skirt of the green, he turned the horse over quite nathural 136 AN IRISH WEDDING. to the wedding ; and, sure enough, when he jogged up, it was Friar Rooney himself, with a sack of oats, for he had been questin. Well, sure the ould people couldn't do less nor all go over to put the failtah on him. c Why, then,' says my father-and-mother-in- law, c tis yourself, Friar Rooney, that's as welcome as the flowers of May ; and see who's here before you — Father Corrigan and Father Dollard.' ' Thank you, thank you, Molshy — thank you, Matthew — troth, I know that 'tis I that am welcome.' f Ay, and you're welcome again, Father Rooney,' said my father, going over and shaking hands with him, e and I'm proud to see you here. Sit down, your Rev'rence — here's every thing that's good, and plinty of it, and if you don't make much of yourself, never say an ill fellow dealt with you.' The friar stood while my father was speaking, with a pleasant, contented face upon him, only a little roguish and droll : f Hah ! Shane Fadh,' says he, smiling drily at me, ' you did them all, I see. You have her there, the flower of the parish, blooming beside you; but I knew as much six months ago, ever since I saw you bid her good night at the hawthorn. Who looked back so often, Mary, eh ? Ay, laugh and blush — do — throth, 'twas I that caught you, but you didn't see me, though. Well, a colleen, and if you did, too, you needn't be ashamed of your bargain, any how. You see — but I'll tell it, by and bye. In the mane time,' says he, sitting down, and attacking a fine piece of corn-beef and greens, ' I'll take care of a certain acquaintance AN IRISH WEDDING. 137 of mine/ says he.-*-' How are you, reverend jintle- men of the Secularity ? You'll permit a poor friar to sit and ate his dinner in your presence, I humbly hope.' e Frank,' says Father Corrigan, ' lay your hand upon your conscience, or upon your stomach, which is the same thing, and tell us honestly, how many dinners did you eat on your travels among my parishioners this day ?' ( As I'm a sinner, Michael, this is the only thing to be called a dinner I eat this day; — Shane Fadh — Mary, both your healths; and God grant you all kinds of luck and happiness, both here and hereafter. All your healths in general ; jin- tlemen seculars V e Thank you, Frank,' said Father Corrigan ; c how did you speed to-day ?' ' How can any man speed, that comes after you ?' says the friar ; ' I'm after travelling the half of the parish for that bag of oats that you see standing against the ditch.' ' In other words, Frank,' says the priest, c you took Althadhawan in your way, and in about half-a-dozen houses filled your sack, and then turned your horse's head towards the good cheer, by way of accident only.' ' And was it by way of accident, Mr. Secular, that I got you and that iloquent young gentleman, there, your curate, here before me ? Do you feel that, man of the world ? Father James, your health, though — you're a good young man as far as saying nothing goes ; but it's better to sit still than rise up and fall, so I commend you for your discration,' says he; e but I am afeard your master, there, won't make you much fitter for the kingdom of heaven, any how.' 138 AN IRISH WEDDING. ' I believe, Father Corrigan,' says my uncle, who loved to see the priest and the friar at it, ' that you've met with your match — I think Father Rooney's able for you/ ( Oh, sure,' says Father Corrigan, c he was joker to the college of the Sorebones in Paris ; he got as much education as enabled him to say mass in Latin, and to beg oats in English, for his jokes.' ' Throth, and,' says the friar, ' if you were to get your laming on the same terms, you'd be guilty of very little knowledge; why, Michael, I never knew you to attempt a joke but once, and I was near shedding tears, there was something so very sorrowful in it.' This brought the laugh against the priest. ' Your health, Molshy,' says he, winking at my mother-in- law, and then giving my uncle, who sat beside him, a nudge ; ' I believe, Brian, I'm giving it to him.' ' 'Tis yourself that is,' says my uncle ; ' go on, and give him a wipe or two more.' c Wait till he answers the last,' says the friar. ' He's always joking,' says Father James, e when he thinks he'll make any thing by it.' f Ay !' says the friar, ' then God help you both if you were left to your jokes for your feeding; for a poorer pair of gentlemen wouldn't be found in Chris- tendom.' ' And I believe,' says Father Corrigan,' ' if you depinded for your feeding upon your divinity, instead of your jokes, you'd be as poor as a man in the last stage of a consumption.' This threw the laugh against the friar, who smiled, himself; but he was a dry man that never laughed much. ' Sure/ says the friar^ who was seldom at a loss, \ I have AN IRISH WEDDING. 139 yourself and your nephew for examples, that it's pos- sible to live and be well fed without divinity.' c At any rate/ says my uncle, putting in his tongue, ( I think you're both very well able to make divinity a joke betune you,' says he. ' "Well done, Brian,' says the friar, ' and so they are, for I believe it is the only subject they can joke upon ; and I beg your pardon, Michael, for not excepting it before ; on that subject I allow you to be humoursome.' * If that be the case, then,' says Father Corrigan, ' I must give up your company, Frank, in order to avoid the force of a bad example ; for you're so much in the habit of joking upon every thing else, that you're not able to except even divinity.' ( You may aisily give me up,' says the friar, ' but how will you be able to forget Father Corrigan ? I'm afeard you'll find his acquaint- ance as great a detriment to yourself, as it is to others, in that respect.' ' What makes you say,' says Father James, who was more in arnest than the rest, ' that my uncle won't make me fit for the king- dom of heaven?' ' I had a pair of rasons for it, Jemmy,' says the friar ; ' one is, that he doesn't un- derstand the subject himself; and another is, that you havn't capacity for it, even if he did. You've a want of nathural parts.' ' I beg your pardon, Frank, says Father James, ' I deny your premises, and I'll now argue in Latin with you, if you wish, upon any subject you please.' 'Come, then,' says the friar, 1 Kid-eat-ivy mare-eat-hay.' 'Kid — what?' says the other. ' Kid-eat-ivy mare-eat-hay,' answers the friar. 140 AN IRISH WEDDING. ' I don't know what you're at/ says Father James, ' but I'll argue in Latin with you as long as you wish.' 'Tut, man,' says Father Rooney, 'Latin's for school-boys ; but, come, now, I'll take you in another language — I'll try you in Greek — In-mud-eel-is in- clay-none-is, in-fir-tar-is, in-oak -none-is.' The Curate looked at him, amazed, not knowing what answer to make. At last, says he, ' I don't profess to know Greek, because I never lamed it — but stick to the Latin, and I'm not afeard of you.' ' Well, then,' says the friar, ' I'll give you a trial at that — Afflat te canis ter. f ' A flat tay cannisther !' says Father James — ' why that's English !' ' English !' says the friar, ' Oh, good bye to you, Mr. Secular ; if that's your knowledge of Latin, you're an honour to your tach- ers and to your cloth.' Father Corrigan now laughed heartily at the puzzling the friar gave Father James. 'James,' says he, 'never heed him; he's only pes- thering you with bog-latin : but, at any rate, to do him justice, he's not a bad scholar, I can tell you that. Your health, Frank, you droll crathur, your health. I have only one fault to find with you, and that is, that you fast and mortify yourself too much. Your fasting has reduced you from being formerly a friar of very genteel dimensions, to a cut of corpu- lency that smacks strongly of penance — fifteen stone, at least.' 'Why,' says the friar, looking down, quite plazed, entirely, at the cut of his own belly, which, among ourselves, was no thrifle, and, giving a growl of a laugh, the most he ever gave — ' If what you pray AN IRISH WEDDING. 141 here, benefits you in the next life, as much as what I fast, does me in this, it will be well for the world, in general, Michael.' c How can you say, Frank,' says Father James, e with such a carkage as that, that you're a poor friar ? Upon my credit, when you die, I think the angels will have a job of it in wafting you upwards.' ( Jemmy, man, was it you that said it! — why, my light's beginning to shine upon you, or you never could have got out so much,' says Father Rooney, putting his hand over his brows, and looking up toardst him j ' but, if you ever read scripthur, which, I suppose, you're not overburdened with, you would know that it says, " blessed are the poor in spirit," but not blessed are the poor in flesh — now, mine is spiritual poverty.' ' Very true, Frank,' says Father Corrigan, ' I believe there's a great dearth and poverty of spirituality about you, sure enough. But, of all kinds of poverty, commend me to a friar's. Voluntary poverty's something ; but it's the divil en- tirely, for a man to be poor against his will. You, friars, boast of this voluntary poverty ; but, if there's a fat bit in any part of the parish, we, that are the lawful clargy, can't eat it, but you're sure to drop in just on the nick of time.' ' I'm sure, if we do,' says the friar, ' it's nothing out of your pocket, Michael. I declare, I believe you begrudge us the air we breathe. But, don't you know very well that our ordhers are apostolic, and that, of coorse, we have a more primitive appearance than you have.' ' Xo such thing,' says the other ; ' You, and the parsons, and 142 AN IRISH WEDDING. the fat bishops, are too far from the right place — the only difference betune you is, that you are fat and lazy, by permission, whereas the others are fat and lazy by authority. You are fat and lazy on your ould horses, jogging about from house to house, and stuffing yourselves either at the table of other peo- ple's parishioners, or in your own convents in Dublin and elsewhere. They are rich, bloated gluttons, going about in their coaches, and wallying in wealth. Now, we are the golden mean, Frank, that live upon a little, and work hard for it. But, plaze God, the day will come when we will step into their places, and be as we used to be.' ( Why, you cormorant,' says the friar, laughing outright, for the dhrop was beginning to get up into his head — ' how can ymi condemn them, when you only want to get into their places, or have the face to tax any one with living upon the people? What are your stations, but regu- lations, whereby you are supported and fed on the very best of aiting and dhrinking? You talk about the parsons, but I'll engage to show, that the most of you parish priests, have a greater yearly income than they have ; but they know how to live and ap- pear dacently upon their money, while you make away with it in the very hoith of vulgarity, or send it among a tribe of hungry uncles, aunts, and cousins, not forgetting the nieces, Michael.' Father Corrigan here began and spoke something in Latin to the friar, after which they both dropped the argument. " ( You see/ says the friar, in a whisper to my AN IRISH WEDDING. 143 uncle, c how I sobered them in the laming, and they are good scholars for all that, but not near so deep read as myself Michael/ says he, e now that I think on it — sure I'm to be at Denis O'Flaherty's Month's mind on Thursday next.' ' Indeed I would not doubt you,' says Father Corrigan ; you wouldn't be apt to miss it.' ' Why, the widdy Flaherty asked me yesterday, and I think that's proof enough that I'm not going unsent for, I was round in that direc- tion collecting oats. I'm tould he died worth a good dale of money — you know, Michael?' says he. With this, Father Corrigan spoke to him again, in Latin, and they dropped it. " By this time the company was hard and fast at the punch, the songs, and the dancing. The dinner had been cleared off, except what was before the friar, and the beggars and shulers were clawing and scould- ing one another about the divide. The dacentest of us went into the house for a while, taking the fiddler with us, and the rest staid on the green to dance, where they were soon joined by lots of the counthry- people ; so that, in a short time, there was a large number entirely. After sitting for some time within, Mary and I began, you may be Sure, to get unasy, sitting palavering among a parcel of ould sober folk ; so, at last, out we slipped, and the few other dacent young people that were with us, to join the dance, and shake our toe along with the rest of them. When wa made our appearance, the flure was instantly cleared for us, and then she and I danced the Hu- 144 AN IRISH WEDDING. mours of Glin. Well, it's no matter, it's all past now, and she lies low ; but I may say that it wasn't very often danced in better style since, I'd wager. Many a shake-hands did I get from the neighbours' sons, wishing me joy — and I'm sure I couldn't do less than thrate them to a glass, you know; and 'twas the same way with Mary — many a neighbour's daughter, that she didn't do more nor know by eye-sight, may- be, would come up and wish her happiness in the same manner, and she would say to me, ' Shane, avourneen, that's such a man's daughter — they're dacent, friendly people, and we can't do less nor give her a glass.' I, of coorse, would go down and bring them over, after a little pulling — making, you see, as if they wouldn't come — to where my brother was handing out the native. In this way we passed the time till the evening came on, except that Mary and the bride's maid were sent for to take a dance with the priests, who were within at the punch in all their glory — Friar Rooney along with them, as jolly as a prince. I and my man, on seeing this, were for staying with the company; but my mother, who 'twas came for them, says, c Never mind the boys, Shane ; come in with the girls, I say. You're just wanted at the present time, both of you ; follow me for an hour or so, till their Rev'rences, within, have a bit of a dance with the girls in the back room — we don't want to gather a crowd about them/ Well, we went in, sure enough, for a while; but, I don't know how it was, I didn't at all feel comfortable AN IRISH WEDDING. 345 with the priests ; for you see I'd rather sport my day with the boys and girls upon the green : so I gives Jack the hard word, and in we went, when, behold you, there was Father Corrigan planted upon the side of a settle ; Mary alone, with him, both waiting till they'd have a fling of a dance together, whilst the Curate was capering on the flure before the bride's maid, who was a purty dark haired girl, to the tune of ' Kiss my Lady ;' and the friar planted betune my mother and mother-in-law, one of his legs stretched out on a chair, he singing some funny song or other, that brought the tears to their eyes with laughing. While Father James was dancing with the bride's maid, I gave Mary the wink to come away from Father Corrigan, wishing, as I tould you, to get out amongst the youngsters once more ; and Mary herself, to tell the truth, although he was the priest, was very willing to do so. I went over to her and says, ( Mary, asthore, there's a friend without that wishes to spake to you.' ' Well,' says Father Corri- gan, ' tell that friend that she's better employed, and that they must wait, whoever they are. I'm giving your wife, Shane,' says he, ' a little good advice that she won't be the worse for, and she can't go now.' Mary, in the mean time, had got up, and was coming away, when his Rev'rence wanted her to stay till they'd finish their dance. ' Father Corrigan,' says she, ' let me go now, Sir, if you plaze, for they would think it bad threatment of me not to go out to them.' ' Troth, and you'll do no such thing, a-cushla,' says VOL. I. H 146 AN IRISH WEDDING. he ; ' let them come in if they want you. Shane/ says his Rev'rence, winking at me, and spaking in a whisper, stay here, you and the girls, till we take a hate at the dancing — don't you know that the ould women here, and we, will have to talk over some things about the fortune ; you'll maybe get more than you expect. Here, Molshy,' says he to my mother- in-law, c don't let the youngsters out of this.' f Musha Shane, a-hagur,' says the ould woman, ' why will yees go and lave the place ? sure you needn't be dashed before them ; they'll dance themselves.' Accordingly we sted in the room ; but just on the word, Mary gives one spring away, laving his Rev'rence by himself on the settle. ' Come away,' says she, ' lave them there, and let us go to where I can have a dance with your- self, Shane.' Well, I always loved Mary, but, at that minnit, if it would save her, I think I could spill my heart's blood for her. f Mary,' says I, full to the throath, ' Mary,acushla agus asthore machree, I could lose my life for you.' She looked in my face, and the tears came into her eyes — ' Shane, a chora,' says she, s amn't I your happy girl at last ?' She was leaning over against my breast. e Well, come now,' says she, ( to the green;' so Ave went; and it's the girl, when she did go among them, that threw them all into the dark for beauty and figure — as fair as a lilly itself did she look — so tall and ilegant, that you wouldn't think she was a farmer's daughter at all ; so we left the priests dancing away, for we could do no good before them. AN IRISH WEDDING. 14J " When we had danced an hour or so, them that the family had the greatest regard for, were brought in, unknownst to the rest, to drink tay. Mary planted herself beside me, and would sit no where else ; but the Friar got beside the bride's maid, and I surely obsarved that many a time she'd look over, likely to split, at Mary, and it's Mary herself that gave her many's a wink, to come to the other side ; but, you know, out of manners, she was obligated to sit quiet- ly, though, among ourselves, it's she that was like a hen on a hot griddle, beside the ould chap. It was now that the bride's-cake was got. Ould Sonsy Mary marched over, and putting the bride on her feet, got up on a chair and broke it over her head, giving round a fadge of it to every young person in the house, and they again to their acquaintances : but, lo and behold you, who should insist on getting a whang of it, but the friar, which he rolled up in paper, and put in his pocket. 'I'll have good fun,' says he, ' dividing this to-morrow among the colleens when I'm collecting my oats — the divil a one of me but'ill make them give me the worth of it of something, if it was only a fat hen or a square of bacon/ After tay the ould folk got full of talk; the youngsters danced round them ; the friar sung like a thrush, and tould many a droll story. The tailor had got drunk a little too early, and had to be put to bed, but he was now as fresh as ever, and able to dance a hornpipe, which he did on a door. The Dorans and the Flanagans had got quite thick after drubbing one another — Ned H2 148 AN IRISH WEDDING. Doran began his coortship with Ally Flanagan on that day, and they were married soon after, so that the two factions joined, and never had another battle un- til the day of her berril, when they were at it as fresh as ever. Several of those that were at the wedding were lying drunk about the ditches, or roaring, and swaggering, and singing about the place. The night falling, those that were dancing on the green remov- ed to the barn. Father Corrigan and Father James weren't ill off; but as for the friar, although he was as pleasant as a lark, there was hardly any such thing as making him tipsy. Father Corrigan wanted him to dance — ' What !' says he, ' would you have me to bring on an earthquake, Michael ? — but who ever heard of a follower of St. Dominick, bound by his vow to voluntary poverty and mortifications young couple, your health — will any body tell me who mixed this, for they've knowledge worth a folio of the fathers ? poverty and mortifications, going to shake his heel ? By the bones of St. Dominick, I'd desarve to be suspinded, if I did. Will no one tell me who mixed this, for they had a jewel of a hand at it ? Och— Let parsons prache and pray — Let priests too pray and prache, Sir ; What's the rason they Don't practise what they tache, Sir ? Forrall, orrall, loll, Foirall, orrall, laddy — Sho de slainthah ma colleenee agns ma bouchalee. — Hoigh, oigh, oigh — healths all— jintlemen seculars ! AN IRISH WEDDING. 149 Michael, will ever we get' these parsons down, do you think ? When will we have back our abbeys and our church-lands, and our own brave ould cate- dhrals ? Eh, Michael, when will the locusts go down into the pit where they manafacthur the brimstone ?' ( Never fear that, Frank/ said the priest, humouring the friar; 'we may have to wait awhile, but sooner or later it will be accomplished, and you and I, not meaning ourselves, but our progenitors, will have the ball at our own foot once more.' ' Molshy/ says the friar to my mother-in-law, c send that bocaun to bed — poor fellow, he's almost off — rouse yourself, Father James! — It's aisy to see that he's but young at it yet — that's right — he's sound asleep — -just toss him into bed, and, in an hour or so, he'll be as fresh as a daisy. — Let parsons prache and pray — Forrail, orrall loll.' c< ' For dear's sake, Father Rooney,' says my uncle, running in, in a great hurry, ' keep yourself quiet a little ; here's the Squire and Master Francis coming over to fulfil their promise ; he would have come up airlier, he says, but that he was away all day at the 'sizes.' ' Very well,' says the friar, e let him come — who's afeard — mind yourself, Michael.' In a minute or two they came in, and we all rose up, of coorse, to welcome them. The Squire shuck hands with the ould people, and afterwards with Mary and myself, wishing us all happiness. He then shuck hands with the two clergymen, and introduced Master Francis 150 AN IRISH WEDDING. to them; and the friar made the young chap sit beside him. He then took a sate himself, and looked on while they were dancing, with a smile of good hu- mour on his face, while they, all the time, would give new touches, and show off all their steps before him. He was lan'lord to both my father and father- in-law ; and it's he that was the good man, and the gentleman, every inch of him. They may all talk as they will, but commend me, Mr. Morrow, to one of the ould Squires of former times, for a landlord. The priests, with all their laming, were nothing to him for good breeding — he appeared so free, and so much at his aze, and even so respectful, that I don't think there was one in the house but would put their two hands under his feet to do him a sarvice. When he sat awhile, my mother-in-law came over with a glass of nice punch that she had mixed, at laste equal to what the friar praised so well, and making a low curtshy, begged pardon for using such freedom with his honour, but hoped that he would just taste a little to the happiness of the young couple. He then drank our healths and shuck hands with us both a second time, saying — although I can't, at all at all, give it in any thing like his own words — f I am glad,' says he, to Mary's parents, 'that your daughter has made such a good choice ;' — bedad, he did — the Lord be merciful to his sow — God forgive me for what I was going to say, and he a Protestant — but if ever one went to heaven, he did — f such a prudent choice; and I congr — con — grathulate you,' says he to my father, AN IRISH WEDDING. 151 e on your connexion with so industrious and respect- able a family. You are now beginning the world for yourselves/ says he to Mary and me., c and I cannot propose a better example to you both, than that of your respective paarents. From this forrid/ says he, ' I'm to considher you my tenants ; and I wish to take this opportunity of informing you both, that should you act up to the opinion I entertain of you, by an attentive coorse of industry and good management, you will find in me an encouraging and indulgent lan'lord. I know, Shane, you have been a little wild or so, but that's past, I trust. You have now serious duties to perform, which you cannot neglect — but you will not neglect them ; and, be assured, I say again, that I shall feel pleasure in rendhering you every assistance in my power in the cultivation and im- provement of your farm.' ' Go over, both of you,' says my father, ' and thank his honour, and promise to do every thing he says.' Accordingly, we did so ; I made my scrape as well as I could, and Mary blushed to the eyes, and made her curtshy. ( Ah !' says the friar, c see what it is to have a good lan'lord and a Christian gentleman to dale with. This is the feeling which should always be betune a lan'lord and his tenants. If I know your character, 'Squire Whitethorn, I believe you're not the man that would put a Protestant tenant over the head of a Catholic one, which shows, Sir, your own good sense ; for what is a difference of religion, when people do what they ought to do ? Nothing but the name. I trust, 152 AN IRISH WEDDING. Sir, we shall meet in a better place than this — both Protestant and Catholic/ ' I am happy, Sir/ says the 'Squire, ' to hear such principles from a man who I thought was bound by his creed to hould different opinions.' ' Ah, Sir !' says the friar, ' you little know who you're talking to, if you think so. I happened to be collecting a little oats, with the permission of my friend, Doctor Corrigan, here, for I'm but a poor friar, Sir, and dropped in by mere accident ; but, you know the hospitality of our country, Squire ; and that's enough — go, they would not allow me, and I was mintioning to this young gentleman, how we collect the oats, and he insists on my calling — a gene- rous, noble child ! I hope, Sir, you have got proper instructors for him ?' ' Yes/ said the Squire ; ' I'm taking care of that point.' ' What do you think, Sir, but he insists on my calling over to-morrow, that he may give me his share of oats, as I tould him that I was a friar, and that he was a little parishioner of mine ; but I added, that that wasn't right of him, without his papa's consint.' e Well, Sir/ says the Squire, ' as he has promised, I will support him ; so if you'll ride over to-morrow, you shall have a sack of oats — at all events, I shall send you a sack in the coorse of the day.' ' I humbly thank you, Sir,' says Father Rooney ; ' and I thank my noble little parish- ioner for his generosity to the poor ould friar — God mark you to grace, my dear ; and, wherever you go, take the ould man's blessing along with you.' They, AN IRISH WEDDING. 153 then,, bid us good night, and we all rose and sa\r them to the door. " ' Well, Frank/ says Father Corrigan, when he was gone, ' that's one of your locusts — what do you say now ?' ' God knows/ says the Friar e it's a pity, but it can't be helped ; what is decreed is decreed.' ' Father, avourneen/ says my mother, * isn't it the millha murdhers that such a man and such a child should go to hell ? Inthroth it makes my blood curl to think of it.' ' I'll tell you what/ says my uncle ; ' by him that made hell, if that man dies in the good feeling and religious principles that he's in, one atom of hell's fire will never touch his sowl ; I wouldn't bleeve all the priests and friars that ever put a stole about their necks. Would you make God worse than a sinner like ourselves ? No, while I live, I'll never give in to such a thing.' l Brian/ says Father Cor- rigan, 'is that the way with you: and do you come to your duty in that state. But I'll take care that till you change your opinions, a sacrament shall never cross your mouth.' ' Wiry/ says the friar, ' he's as great a heretic as the man he's speaking about. Brian take care of yourself/ says he; 'you don't know that you're hanging over the flames of hell by a hair, this minnit : take heed of yourself, or you'll go the same gate that he will.' ' Very well, says my uncle, ' I'll jist be contint with that same, so let us hear no more talk about it, but strike up the dance.' ' For God's sake, let him alone,' says my father to the clargy ; 'for if you begin to spake cross to him, he'll get 154 AN IRISH WEDDING. worse/ c Come over Barney/ says Father Rooney, ' and take share of my tumbler — and let us have no more bother from you upon such subjects : what have you to do, only be guided by your parish priest there — mind what he says, and there's no fear of you.' ' Your health, Father Rooney,' says my uncle, taking the glass, and emptying it at one draught, and then laying it down before him. s I didn't want you to do that, any how,' says the friar, looking at him with a face that there wasn't much good humour in. Father Corrigan now appeared to be getting sleepy. While this was going on, I looked about me, but couldn't see Mary. The tailor was just beginning to get a little hearty once more. Supper was talked of, but there was no one that could ate any thing ; even the friar was against it. The clargy now got their horses, the friar laving his oats behind him ; for we promised to send them home, and something more along with them the next day. Father James was roused up, but could hardly stir with a heddick. Father] Corri- gan was correct enough, but when the friar got up, he ran a little to the one side, upsetting Sonsy Mary, that sot a little beyond him. He then called over my mother-in-law to the dresser, and after some col- login, she slipped two fat fowl, that had never been touched, into one of his coat pockets, that was big enough to hould a leg of mutton. My father then called me over, and said, ' Shane,' says he, ' hadn't you better slip Father Rooney a bottle or two of that whiskey ; there's plenty of it there that wasn't AN IRISH WEDDING. 155 touched, and you won't be a bit the poorer of it, may be, this day twelve months/ I accordingly dhropped two bottles of it into the other pocket. l Now/ says he, ' before I go, kneel down both of you till I give you my blessing.' We accordingly knelt down, and he gave us his blessing in Latin — my father standing at his shoulder to keep him steady. Father James got a drink of water, but the friar tould him to thry a hair of the same dog that bit him; and after giving us his blessing, also, along with a third we got from his uncle, they set off. The friar had to go a differ- ent way, but two young fellows went with him, one on each side, keeping him on his horse. After they went, Mary threw the stocking — all the unmarried folks coming in the dark, to see who it would hit. Bless my sowl, but she was the droll Mary — for what did she do, only put a big brogue of her fathers into it, that was near two pounds weight ; and who should it hit on the bare sconce, but Billy Cormick, the tailor — who thought he was fairly shot, for it le- velled the crathur at once : though that wasn't hard to do, any how. This was the last ceremony : and Billy was well continted to get the knock, for you all know, whoever the stocking strikes upon, is to be marrid first. After this, my mother and mother-in- law set them to the dancing — and 'twas themselves that kept it up till long after day-light the next morning — but first they called me into the next room where Mary was : and — and — so ends my wedding ; by the same token that I'm as dry as a stick." 156 AN IRISH WEDDING. " Come, Nancy/' says Andy Morrow, " replenish again for us all, with a double measure for Shane Fadh — because he well desarves it." " Why, Shane," observed Alick, u you must have a terrible fine mimory of your own, or you couldn't tell it all so exact." " There's not a man in the four provinces has sich a mimory," replied Shane. " I never hard that story yet, but I could rcpate it in fifty years afterwards. I could walk up any town in the kingdom, and let me look at the signs, and I would give them to you agin jist exactly as they stood." Thus ended the account of Shane Fadh's wedding; and, after finishing the porter, they all returned home, with the understanding, that they were to meet the next night in the same place. LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE. The succeeding evening found them all assembled about Ned's fire-side, in the usual manner; where M'Roarkin, after a wheezy fit of coughing, and a draught of Nancy's porter, commenced to give them an account of — Larry MTarlavd's "Wake. ** Larry M'Farland, when a young man, was considhered the best labourer within a great ways of him ; and no servant man in the parish got within five shillings a quarter of his wages. Often and often, when his time would be near out, he'd have offers from the rich farmers and jintlemen about him, of higher terms ; so that he was seldom with one masther more nor a year at the very most. He could handle a flail with e'er a man that ever stepped in black leather; and at spade-work, there wasn't his equal. Indeed, he had a brain for every thing : he could thatch better nor many that arned their bread by it ; could make a slide car, straddle, or any other rough carpenter work, that it would surprise you to think of it ; could work a kish or side creels beauti- 158 LARRY M f FARLAND's WAKE. fully ; mow as much as any two men — and go down a ridge of corn almost as fast as you could walk : was a great hand at ditching or draining meadows and bogs ; but, above all things, he was famous for building hay-ricks and corn-stacks: and when Squire Farmer used to enter for the prize at the yearly ploughing match, he was sure to borrow the loan of Larry from whatever master he happened to be work- ing with. And well he might; for the only year, out of four, that he hadn't Larry, he lost the prize : and every one knew that if Larry had been at the tail of his plough, they would have had a tighter job of it in beating him. Larry was a light airy young man, that knew his own value ; and was proud enough, God knows, of what he could do. He was, indeed, too much up to sport and divarsion, and scarcely knew his own mind for a week. It was against him that he never stayed long in one place ; for when he got a house of his own afterwards, he had no one that cared any thing in particular about him. When- ever any man would hire him, he'd take care to have Easter and Whiss'n Mondays to himself, and one or two of the Christmas Maragah-mores. He was also a great dancer, fond of the drop — and used to dress above his station ; going about with a shop-cloth coat, cassimoor small-clothes, and a Caroline hat : so that you would little think he was a poor sarvant man, labouring for his wages. One way or other, the money never sted long with him; but he had light spirits, depended entirely on his good hands, and cared LARRY M f FARLAXD'S WAKE. 159 very little about the world, provided he could take his own fling out of it. In this way he went on from year to year, changing from one master to another ; every man that would employ him, thinking he might get him to stop with him for a constancy. But it was all useless; he'd be off after half a year, or sometimes a year at the most, for he was fond of roving ; and that man would never give himself any trouble about him afterwards; though, may be, if he had continted himself with him, and been sober and careful, that many would be willing to assist and befriend him, when he might stand in need of assistance. It's an ould proverb, that ' birds of a feather flock together,' and Larry was a good proof of this. There was in the same neighbourhood a young woman named Sally Lowry, who was just the other end of himself, for a pair of good hands, a love of dress and of dances. She was well-looking, too, and knew it ; light and showy, but a tight, clane sarvant, any way. Larry and she, in short, began to coort, and were pulling a coard together for as good as five or six years. Sally, like Larry, always made a bargain when hiring to have the holly-days to herself; and on these occasions she and Larry would meet and sport their figure ; going off with themselves, as soon as mass would be over, into Ballymavourneen, where he would collect a pack of fellows about him, and she a set of her own friends ; and there they'd sit down and drink for the length of a day, laving themselves without a penny of whatever little arning the dress left behind it; for 160 ' LARRY M f FARLAND's WAKE. Larry was never right except when he was giving a thrate to some one or other. After corrousin' away till evening, they'd then set off to a dance; and when they'd stay there till it would be late, he should see her home, of coorse — never parting till they'd settle upon meeting another day. At last, they got fairly tired of this, and resolved to take one another for better or worse. Indeed they would have done this long ago, only that they could never get as much to- gether as would pay the priest. Howandiver, Larry spoke to his brother, who was a sober, industrious boy, that had laid bye his scollops for the windy day, and tould him that Sally Lowry and himself were going to yoke to for life. Tom was a well-hearted, friendly lad, and thinking that Sally, who bore a good name for being such a clane sarvant, would make a good wife, he lent Larry two guinneys, which, along with two more that Sally's aunt, who had no childhre of her own, gave her, enabled them to over their diffi- culties, and get married. Shortly after this, his bro- ther Tom followed his example ; but as he had saved together a something, he made up to Val Slevin's daughter, that had a fortune of twenty guinneys, a cow and a heifer, with two good chaff beds and bed- ding. " Soon after Tom's marriage, he comes to Larry one day, and says, ( Larry, you and I are now going to face the world; we're both young, healthy, and willing to work — so are our wives ; and it's bad if we can't make out bread for ourselves, I think.' LARRY m'fARLAND's WAKE. 161 Thrue for you,' Tom, says Larry, ' and what's to hinder us ? I only wish we had a farm, and you'd see we'd take good bread out of it : for my part there's not another he in the county I'd turn my back on for managing - a farm, if I had one.' ' Well,' says the other, ' that's what I wanted to overhaul as we're together ; Squire Dickson's Stewart was telling me yesterday, as I was coming up from my father-in- law's, that his master has a farm of fourteen acres to set at the present time; the one the Nultys held, that went last spring to America — 'twould be a dacent lit- tle take between us.' c I know every inch of it,' says Larry, ' and good strong land it is, but it was never well wrought ; the Nultys weren't fit for it at all at all ; for one of them didn't know how to folly a plough. I'd engage to make that land turn out as good crops as ere a farm within ten miles of it.' f I know that, Larry,' says Tom, e and Squire Dickson knows that no man could handle it to more ad- vantage. Now if you join me in it, whatever means I have will be as much yours as mine; there's two snug houses under the one roof, with out-houses and all, in good repair — and if Sally and Biddy will pull manfully along with us, I don't see, with the help of Almighty God, why we shouldn't get on dacently, and soon be well and comfortable to live.' c Comfortable '.' says Larry; ' no, but wealthy itself, Tom : and let us at it at wanst ; Squire Dickson knows what I can do as well as any man in Europe ; and I'll engage won't be hard upon us for the first year or two ; our 162 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE. best plan is to go to-morrow, for fraid some other might get the foreway of us/ " The Squire knew very well that two better boys weren't to be met with than the same M'Farlands, in the way of knowing how to manage land ; and al- though he'd his doubts as to Larry's light and care- less waySj yet he had good depindance out of the brother, and thought, on the whole, that they might do very well together. Accordingly, he set them the farm at a reasonable rint, and in a short time they were both living on it, with their two wives. They divided the fourteen acres into aqual parts ; and for fraid there would be any grumbling betune them about better or worse, Tom proposed that they should draw lots, which was agreed to by Larry ; but, in- deed, there was very little difference betune the two halves ; for Tom took care by the way he divided them, that none of them should have any reason to complain. From the time they wint to live upon their farms, Tom was up early and down late, improving it — ped attintion to nothing else ; axed every man's opinion as to what crop would be best for such a spot, and to tell the truth he found very few, if any, able to instruct him so well as his own brother Larry. He was no such labourer, however, at all at all, as Larry — lint what he was short in, he made up by perseva- rince and care. In the coorse of two or three years you would hardly bleeve how he got on, and his wife Biddy was every bit equal to him. She spun the yarn for the linen that made their own shirts and sheeting, LARKY M c FARLAND's WAKE. 163 bought an odd pound of wool now and then, when she could get it chape, and put it past till she had a stone or so ; she would then sit down and spin it — get it wove, milled, and dressed ; and before one would know any thing of it, she'd have the makins of a dacent comfortable coat for Tom, and a bit of heather-coloured drugged for her own gown, along with a piece of stripped red and blue for a petticoat — all at very little cost. It wasn't so with Larry. In the beginning, to be sure, while the fit was on him he did very well ; only that he would go of an odd time to a dance ; or of a market or fair day, when he'd see the people pass by, dressed in their best clothes, he'd take the notion, and set off with him- self, telling Sally that he'd just go in for a couple of hours to see how the markets ere doing. It's al- ways an unpleasant thing for a body to go to a fair or market without any thing in their pocket ; accord- ingly if money was in the house, he'd take some of it with him, for fraid that any friend or acquaint- ance might thrate him, and then it would be a poor mane-spirited thing to take another man's thrate, without giving one for it. He'd seldom have any notion, though, of breaking in upon, or spinding the money, he only brought it to keep in his pocket, jist to prevent him from being shamed, should he meet a friend. In the mane time, Sally, in his absence, would find herself lonely, and as she hadn't, may be, seen her aunt for some time before, she'd lock the door, and go over to spind a while with her ; or take 164 LARRY M'FARLAND's WAKE. a trip as far as her ould mistress's place, to see the family. Many a thing people will have to say to one another about the pleasant times they had together, or several other subjects best known to themselves, of coorse. Larry would come home in her absence, and finding the door locked, would slip down to Squire Dickson's, to chat with the steward or gardener, or with the sarvants in the kitchen. " You all remimber Tom Hance, that kept the public-house at Tullyvernon crass-roads, a little above the Squire's — at laste, most of you do — and ould Wilty Rutledge, the piper, that spint his time betune Tom's and the big house — God be good to Wilty ! — it's himself was the droll man, entirely ; he died of aiting boiled banes, for a wager that the Squire laid on him agin ould Captain Flint, and dhrinking porter after them, till he was swelled like a ton — but the Squire berrid him at his own expense. Well, Larry's haunt, on finding Sally out when he came home, was either the Squire's kitchen or Tom Hance's ; and, as he was the broth of a boy at danc- ing, the sarvants, when he'd go down, would send for Wilty to Hance's, if he didn't happen to be with themselves at the time, and strike up a dance in the kitchen ; and, along with all, may be Larry would have a sup in his head. When Sally would come home, in her turn, she'd not find Larry before her ; but Larry's custom was to go into Tom's wife, and say, ' Biddy, tell Sally, when she comes home, that I'm gone down a while to the big house, (or to Tom LARRY M'FARLAND's WAKE. 165 Hance's, as it might be) but I'll not be long.' Sally, after waiting a while, would put on her cloak, and slip down to see what was keeping him. Of coorse, when finding the mirth going on, and carrying a light heel at the dancing herself, she'd throw off the cloak, and take a hand at it along with the rest. Larry and she would then go their ways home, find the fire out, light a sod of turf in Tom's, and, feeling their own place very could and naked, after the blaz- ing comfortable fire they had left behind them, go to bed, both in very middling spirits, entirely. Larrv, at other times, would quit his work early in the even- ing to go down toardst the Squire's, bekase he had only to begin work earlier the next day to make it up. He'd meet the Squire himself, maybe ; and, after putting his hand to his hat, and getting a c how do you do, Larry,' from his honour, enter into discoorse with him about his honour's plan of stacking his corn. Now, Larry was famous at this — ' Who's to build your stacks this sason, your honour?' ( Tim Dillon, Larry.' ( Is it he, your honour ? — he knows as much about building a stack of corn as Master George, here. He'll only botch them, Sir, if you let him go about them.' ' Yes; but what can I do, Larry? — he's the only man I have that I could trust them to.' ' Then 'tis your honour needn't say that, any how ; for, ra- ther than see them spoiled, I'd come down myself and put them up for you.' ' Oh, I couldn't expect that, Larry.' ' Why, then, I'll do it, your honour ; and you may expect me down in the morning at six 1G6 LARRY M f FARLAND's WAKE. o'clock^ plase God.' Larry would keep his word, though his own corn was drop ripe ; but having once undertaken the job, he couldn't give it up, till he'd finish it off dacently. In the mane time, his own crop would go to destruction ; sometimes a windy day would come, and not leave him every tenth grain ; he'd then get some one to cut it down for him — he had to go to the big house to build the Master's corn ; he was then all bustle — a grate man entirely ; — there was non such — would be up with the first light, ordering, and commanding, and directing the Squire's labourers, as if he was the king of the castle. Maybe, 'tis after he'd come home from the big house, that he'd collect a few of the neighbours, and get a couple of cars and horses from the Squire, you see, to bring home his own oats to the hagyard with moon light, after the dews would begin to fall — and in a week afterwards, every stack would be heated, and all in a reek of froth and smoke. It's not aisy to do any thing in a hurry, and especially 'tis not aisy to build a corn stack after night, when a man cannot see how it goes on ; so 'twas no wonder if Larry's stacks were supporting one another the next day — one laning north and another south. But along with this, Larry and Sally were great people for going to the dances that Hance used to have at the crass- roads, bekase he wished to put money into his own pockets ; and, if a neighbour died, they were sure to be the first at the wake-house — for Sally was a great hand at washing down a corpse — and they would be LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE. 16/ the last home from the berril ; for, you know, they couldn't but be axed in to the drinking after the friends would leave the church-yard, to take a sup to raise their spirits and drown sorrow, for grief is always drouthy. When the races would come, they would be sure not to miss them ; and if you'd go into a tint, it's odds but you'd find them among a knot of acquaintances, drinking and dancing, as if the world was no trouble to them. They were, indeed, the best nathured couple in Europe ; they would lend you a spade or a hook in potatoe time or harvest, out of pure kindness, though their own corn that was drop- ripe should be uncut, or their potatoes, that were a tramping every day with their own cows or those of the neighbours, should be undug — all for fraid of being thought unneighbourly. In this way they went on for some years, not altogether so bad, but that they were able just to keep the house over their heads. They had a small family of three children on their hands, and every likelihood of having enough of them. Whenever they got a young one christened, they'd be sure to have a whole lot of the neighbours at it — and surely some of the young ladies, or Master George, or John, or Frederick, from the big house, should stand gossip, and have the child called after them. Then they should have tay enough to sarve them, and loaf-bread, and punch ; and, though Larry should sell a sack of seed oats, or seed potatoes, for to get it, no doubt but there should be a bottle of wine to thrate the young ladies or jintlemen. When 168 LARRY M f FARLAND's WAKE. their children grew up, little care was taken of them, bekase their paarents minded other people's business more nor their own. They were always in the great- est poverty and distress, bekase Larry would be kill- ing time about the Squire's, or doing some handy job for a neighbour who could get no other man to do it. They now fell behind entirely in the rint, and Larry got many hints from the Squire, that if he didn't pay more attention to his business, he must look after his arrears, or as much of it as he could make up from the cattle and the crop. Larry pro- mised well, as far as words went, and, no doubt, hoped to be able to perform ; but he hadn't steadiness to go through with a thing. Truth's best ; — you see both himself and his wife neglected their business in the beginning, so that every thing went at sixes and sevens. They then found themselves uncomfort- able at their own hearth, and had no heart to labour, so that what would make a careful person work their fingers to the stumps to get out of poverty, only pre- vented them from working at all, or druv them to work for those that had more comfort, and could give them a better male's mate. Their timpers soon be- gan to get sour j Larry thought, bekase Sally wasn't as careful as she ought to be, that if he had taken any other young woman to his wife, he wouldn't be as he was; she thought the very same thing of Larry. i If he was like another,' she would say to his bro- ther, ' that would be up airly and late at his own business, I would have spirits to work, by rason it LARRY M f FARLAND's WAKE. 169 would cheer my heart to see our little farm looking as warm and comfortable as another's; but, fareer gairh, that's not the case, nor likely to be so, for he spinds his time from one place to another, working for them that laughs at him for his pains ; but he'd rather go to his neck in wather than lay down a hand for himself, except when he can't help it.' Larry, again, had his complaint — ' Sally's a lazy trollop,' he would say to his brother's wife, ( that never does one hand's turn that she can help, but sits over the fire from morning till night, making birds' nests in the ashes with her yellow heels, or going about from one neighbour's house to another, gostering and palavering about what doesn't consarn her, instead of minding the house. How can I have heart to work, when I come in, expecting to find my dinner boiled, but, instead of that, get her sitting on her hunkers on the hearth-stone, blowing at two or three green sticks with her apron, the pot hanging on the crook, without even the white horses on it* She never puts a stitch in my clothes, nor in the children's clothes, nor in her own, but lets them go to rags at once — the devil's luck to her ! I wish I had never met with her, or that I had married a sober girl that wasn't fond of dress and dancing. If she was a good sarvant it was only bekase she liked to have a good name ; for, when she got a house and * The white horses are laTge bubbles produced by the evaporation of the beat when the potatoes are beginning to boil, so that when the first symptoms of boiling commence, it is a usual phrase to say — the white horses are on the pot; sometimes the white friars. VOL. I. I 170 LARRY M f FARLAND's WAKE. place of her own, see how she turned out.' From less to more, they went on squabbling and fighting, until at last you might see Sally one time with a black eye or a cut head, or another time going off with her- self, crying, up to Tom Hance's or some other neigh- bour's house, to sit down and give a history of the ruction that he and she had on the head of some thrifle or another that wasn't worth naming. Their childher were shows, running about without a single stitch upon them, except ould coats that some of the sarvants from the big-house would throw them. In these they'd go sailing about, with the long skirts trailing on the ground behind them ; and, sometimes, Larry himself would be mane enough to take the coat from the gorsoon, and ware it himself. As for giving them any schooling, it was what they never thought of; but even if they were inclined to it, there was no school in the neighbourhood to send them to. It's a true saying, that as the ould cock crows, the young one larns ; and this was true here, for the childher fought one another like so many divils, and swore like Trojans — for Larry, along with every thing else, when he was a Brine-oge, thought it was a manly thing to be a great swearer; and the childher, when they got able to swear, warn't worse nor their father. At first, when any of the little souls would thry at an oath, Larry would break his heart laughing at them ; and so, from one thing to another, they got quite hardened in it, without being any way checked in wickedness. Things at last drew on to a bad state, LATtRY MTARLAND'S WAKE. 171 entirely. Larry and Sally were now as ragged as Dives and Lazarus, and their childher the same. It was no strange sight, in summer, to see the young ones marching about the street as bare as my hand, with scarce a blessed stitch upon them that ever was seen, they dirt and ashes to the eyes, waddling after their uncle Tom's geese and ducks through the green dub of rotten water that lay before their own door, just beside the dunghill ; or the bigger ones running after the Squire's cars, when bringing home the corn or the hay, waiting to get a ride, as the labourers would go back with the empty cars. " Larry and Sally would never be let into the Squire's kitchen now, to ate, or drink, or spend an evening with the sarvants ; he might go out and in to his male's mate along with the rest of the labour- ers, but there was no welcome for him. Sally would go down with her jug to get some buttermilk, and would have to stand among a set of beggars and cot- ters, she as ragged and as poor as any of them, for she wouldn't be let into the kitchen till her turn came, no more nor another ; for the sarvants would turn up their noses with the greatest disdain possible at them both. It was hard to tell whether the inside or the outside of their house was worse : — within, it would almost turn your stomach to look at it — the flure was all dirt, for how could it be any other way, when, at the end of every male, the schrahag would be empied down on it, and the pigs that were whining and grunting about the door, would brake 12 172 LARRY M f FARLAND's WAKE. in to the hape of praty skins that Sally would there throw down for them. You might reel Larry's shirt, or make a surveyor's chain of it ; for, bad cess to me, but I believe it would reach from this to the rath. The blanket was in tatters ; and, like the shirt, would go round the house : their straw beds were stocked with the black militia— the childher's heads were gar- risoned with Scotch greys, and their heels and heads ornamented with all description of kibes. There war only two stools in all the house, and a hassock of straw for the young child, and one of the stools wanted a leg, so that it was dangerous for a stranger to sit down upon it, except he knew of this failing. The flure was worn into large holes, that were mostly filled with slop, where the childher used to dabble about, and amuse themselves by sailing egg-shells upon them, with bits of boiled praties in them, by way of a little faste. The dresser was as black as dirt could make it, and had on it only two or three wooden dishes clasped with tin, and noggins without hoops, a beetle, and some crockery. There was an ould chest to hould their meal, but it wanted the hinges ; and the childher, when they'd get the mother out, would mix a sup of male and wather in a nog- gin, and stuff themselves with it, raw and all, for they were almost starved. Then, as the byre had never been kept in repair, the roof fell in, and the cow and pig had to stand in one end of the dwelling house ; and, except Larry did it, whatever dirt the same cow, and pig, and the childher to the back of LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE. 173 that, were the occasion of, might stand there till Sa- turday night, when, for dacency's sake, Sally herself would take a shovel, and out with it upon the heap that was beside the dub before the door. Then, if a wet day would come, there wasn't a spot you could stand in for down-rain ; and, wet or dry, Sally, Larry, and the childher were spotted like trouts with the soot-drops, made by the damp of the roof and the smoke. The house on the outside was all in ridges of black dirt, where the thatch had rotted, or covered over with chicken weed or blind oats ; but in the middle of all this misery, they'd a horse-shoe nailed over the door head, for good luck. You know, that in telling this story, I needn't mintion every thing as it just happened, laying down year after year, or day and date ; so you may suppose, as I go on, that all this went forward in the coorse of time. They didn't get bad of a sudden, but by degrees, neglecting one thing after another, until they found themselves in the state I'm relating to you — then struggling and struggling, but never taking the right way to mend. But, where's the use in saying much more about it ? — things couldn't stand, they were terribly in arrears ; but the landlord was a good kind of man, and, for the sake of the poor childher, didn't wish to turn them on the wide world, without house or shelter, bit or sup. Larry, too, had been, and still was, so ready to do difficult and nice jobs for him, and would resave no payment, that he couldn't think of taking his only cow from him, or prevent him from 174 LARRY M f FARLAND'S WAKE. raising a bit of oats or a plat of potatoes, every year, out of the farm. The farm itself was all run to waste by this time, and had a miserable look about it — sometimes you might see a piece of a field that had been ploughed, all overgrown with grass, because it had never been sowed or set with any thing. The slaps were all broken down, or had only a piece of an ould beam or a thorn bush lying across, to keep the cattle out of them. His bit of corn was all eat away and cropped, here and there, by the cows, and his potatoes rooted up by the pigs. The garden, indeed, had a few cabbages and a ridge of airly potatoes, but these were so choked with burdocks and nettles, that you could hardly see them. I tould you before that they led the divil's life, and that was nothing but God's truth ; and, according as they got into greater poverty, it was worse. A day couldn't pass without a fight ; if they'd be at their breakfast, maybe he'd make a potatoe hop off of her skull, and she'd give him the contents of her noggin of buttermilk about the eyes ; then he'd flake her, and the childher would be in an uproar, crying out, ' Oh, daddy, daddy, don't kill my mammy !' When this would be over, he'd go off with himself to do something for the Squire, and would sing and laugh so pleasant, that you'd think he was the best tempered man alive ; and so he was, until neglecting his business, and minding dances, and fairs, and drink, destroyed him. " It's the maxim of the world, that when a man is down, down with him ; but, when a man goes down LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE. 175 through his own fault, he finds very little mercy from any one. Larry might go to fifty fairs before he'd meet one now to thrate him : instead of that, when he'd make up to them, they'd turn away, or give him the could shouldher. But that wouldn't satisfy him ; for if he went to buy a slip of a pig, or a pair of brogues, and met an ould acquaintance that had got well to do in the world, he should bring him in, and give him a dram, merely to let the other see that he was still able to do it ; then, when they'd sit down, one dram would bring on another from Larry, till the price of the pig or of the brogues would be spint, and he'd go home again as he came, sure to have another battle with Sally. e( In this way things went on, when, one day that Larry was preparing to sell some oats, a son of Ni- cholas Roe Sheridan's of the Broad-bog came into him. ' Good morrow, Larry,' says he : ( Good mor- row, kindly, Art,' says Larry — ' how are you, ma bouchal ?' ' Why, I've no reason to complain, thank God and you,' says the other; 'how is yourself?' ' Well, thank you, Art, how is the family ?' ' Faix, all stout, except my father, that has got a touch of the tooth-ach. When did you hear from the Slevins?' * Sally was down on Thursday last, and they're all well, your sowl.' ' Where's Sally now?' ' She's just gone down to the big house for a dhrop of buttermilk ; our cow won't calve these three weeks to come, and she gets a sup of kitchen for the childher till then : won't you take a sate, Art; but you had better have a 176 LARRY M f FARLAND's WAKE. care of yourself, for that stool wants a leg/ ' I didn't care she was within, for I brought a sup of my own stuff in my pocket,' said Art. ' Here, Hurrish, (he was called Horatio afther one of the Squire's sons) fly down to the Squire's, and see what's keeping your mother; the devil's no match for her at staying out with herself, wanst she's from under this roof.' 'Let Dick go,' says the little fellow, * he's betther able to go nor I am, he has got a coat on him.' * Go your- self, when I bid you,' says the father. ' Let him go/ says Hurrish, ' you have no right to bid me to go, when he has a coat upon him : you promised to ax one for me from Masther Francis, and you didn't do it; so the devil a toe I'll budge to-day,' says he, get- ting betune the father and the door. ' Well, wait/ says Larry, l faith, only the strange man's to the fore, and I don't like to raise a hubbub, I'd pay you for making me such an answer. Dick, agra, will you run down, like a good bouchal, to the big house, and tell your mother to come home, that there's a strange man here wants her/ ''Twas Hurrish you bid/ says Dick — ' and make him : that's the way he always trates you, does nothing that you bid him/ ' But yen know, Dick,' says the father, 'that he hasn't a stitch to his back, and the crathur doesn't like to go out in the could and he so naked/ f Well you bid him go/ says Dick, * and let him, the devil a yard I'll go — the shin-burnt spalpeen, that's the way with him; whatever he's bid do, he throws it on me, bekase, in- deed, he has no coat; but he'll folly Master Thomas LARRY jH'FARLAND'3 WAKE. 177 or Master Francis through sleet and snow up the mountains, when he's fowling or tracing; he doesn't care about a coat then.' ' Hurrish, you must go down for your mother when I bid you' — says the weak man. ' I'll not/ says the little fellow, f send Dick.' Larry said no more, but, laying down the child he'd in his hands upon the flure, makes at him ; but the lad had the door of him, and was off beyant his reach like a shot. He then turned into the house, and meeting Dick, felled him with a blow of his fist at the dresser. ' Tundher-an-ages, Larry,' says Art, ' what has come over you at all at all ? to knock down the gorsoon with such a blow ! couldn't you take a rod or a switch to him — Dher maunhum, man, but I bleeve you've killed him outright,' says he, lifting the boy, and striving to bring him to life. Just at this minnit Sally came in. ( Arrah, sweet bad-luck to you, you lazy vagabond you,' says Larry, ' what kept you away till this hour ?' ' The devil send you news, you baste you/ says Sally, ' what kept me — could I make the people churn sooner than they wished or were ready ?' ' Ho, by my sowl, I'll flake you as soon as the dacent young man laves the house/ says Larry to her, aside. ' You'll flake me, is it ?' says Sally, speaking out loud — ' in throth that's no new thing for you to do, any how.' ' Spake asy you had betther.' ' No, in throth, won't I spake asy ; I've spoke asy too long, Larry, but the devil a taste of me will bare what I've suffered from you any longer, you mane- spirited blackguard you ; for he is nothing else that i 3 178 LARRY m'FARLAND's WAKE. would rise his hand to a woman, especially to one in my condition/ and she put her gown-tail to her eyes. When she came m, Art turned his back to her, for fraid she'd see the state the gorsoon was in — but now she noticed it •' Oh, murdher, murdher/ says she, clapping her hands, and running over to him, ' what has happened my child : oh ! murdher, murdher, this is your work, murdherer !' says she to Larry. [ Oh, you villain, are you bent on murdhering all of us are you bent on destroying us out o' the face ! Oh, wurrah sthrew — wurrah sthrew, what'll become of us ! Dick, agra/ says she, crying, ' Dick, a cushla ma chree, don't you hear me spaking to you — don't you hear your poor broken-hearted mother spaking to you. Oh ! wurrah ! wurrah ! amn't I the heart- brokenest crathur that's alive this day, to see the likes of such doings : but I knew it would come to this. My sowl to glory, but my child's murthered by that man standing there ; by his own father ! — his own father ! Which of us will you murdher next, you villain ? which of us will you murdher next ?' ' For God's sake, Sally,' says Art, ( don't exaggerate him more nor he is j the boy is only stunned — see, he's coming to : Dick, ma bouchal, rouse yourself — that's a man : hut, he's well enough — that's it, alannah : here, take a slug out of this bottle, and it'ill set all right — or, stop, have you a glass within, Sally ?' ' Och, musha, not a glass is under the roof with me/ says Sally ; ' the last we had was broke the night Barney was christened, and we hadn't one since — but LARRY M c FARLAND's WAKE. 1 ~{) I'll get you an egg-shelf ' It'ill do as well as the best/ says Art. And to make a long story short, they sot down, and drank the bottle of whiskey among them. Larry and Sally made it up, and were as great friends as ever ; and Dick was made drunk for the bating he got from his father. What Art wanted was to buy some oats that Larry had to sell, to run in a private still, up in the mountains, of coorse, where every still is kept. Sure enough, Larry sould him the oats, and was to bring them up to the still-house the next night after dark. According to appointment, Art came a short time after night- fall, with two or three other young boys along with him. The corn was put into the sacks, and the sacks on the horse-; ; but before that was done, they had a dhrop, for Art's pocket and the bottle were ould acquaintances. They all then sot down in Larry's, or, at laste, as many as there were seats for, and fell to it. Larry, however, seemed to be in better humour this night, and more affectionate with Sally and the childher : he'd often look at them, and appear to feel as If Some- thing was over him, but no one obsarved that, till af- terwards. Sally herself, seemed kinder to him, and even went over and sat beside him on the stool, and putting her arm about his neck, kissed him in a jok- ing way, wishing to make up, too, for what Art the night before — poor thing — but still as if it wasn't all a joke, for at times she looked sorrowful. Larrv too, got his arm about her, and looked often and often on her and the childher, in a way that he wasn't 180 LAItBY M'FARLAND's WAKE. to do, until the tears fairly came into his eyes. Sally, avourneen/ says he, looking at her, ' I saw, you when you had another look from what you have this night; when it wasn't asy to fellow you in the parish or out of it :' and when he said this he could hardly spake. ' Whisht, Larry, acushla/ says she, 1 dont he spaking that-a-way — sure we may do very well yet, plase God : I know Larry there was a great dale of it — maybe, indeed, it was all — my fault; for I wasn't to you in the way of care and kindness, what I ought to be.' ' Well, well, aroon/ says Larry, ' say no more ; you might have been all that, only it was my fault : but where's Dick that I struck so terribly last night ? Dick, come over to me, agra — come over Dick, and sit down here beside me. Arrah, here Art, ma bouchal, will you fill this egg-shell for him — poor gorsoon : God knows, Dick, you get far from fair play, acushla — far from the ating and drinking that other people's childher get, that hasn't as good a skin to put it in as you, alannah. Kiss me, Dick, acushla — and God knows your face is pale, and that's not with good feeding, any how : Dick, agra, I'm sorry for what I done to you last night ; forgive your fa- ther, Dick, for I think that my heart's breaking, acushla, and that you won't have me long with you.' Poor Dick, who was naturally a warm-hearted, af- fectionate gorsoon, kissed his father, and cried bit- terly. Sally herself, seeing Larry so sorry for what he done, sobbed as if she would drop on the spot : but the rest began, and, betwixt scoulding and cheer- LARRY M f FAR LAND'S WAKE. 181 ing him up, all was well as ever. After getting their sacks on their horses, they set off at last ; before they went, however, Larry seemed as if there was some- thing entirely very strange the matter with him, for as he was going out, he kissed all the childher, one afther another ; and even went over to the young baby that was asleep in the little cradle of boords, that he himself had made for it, and kissed it two or three times, asily, for fraid of wakening it. He then met Sally at the door, and catching her hand when none of the rest saw him, squeezed it, and gave her a kiss, saying ' Sally, darling !' says he ; ' What ails you, Larry, asthore Y says Sally. ' I don't know, says he, s nothing, I bleeve — but, Sally, a cushla, I have thrated you badly all along/ c Larry,' she an- swered, ' don't be talking that a- way, bekase you make me sorrowful and unasy, don't, acushla ; God above me knows I forgive you it all. Don't stay long,' says she, i and I'll borry a dish of meal from Biddy, till we get home our own meldhre, and I'll have a dish of stirabout ready to make for you when you come home. They then went away, though Larry, to tell the truth, wouldn't have gone with them at all, only that the sacks were borried from his brother, and he had to bring them home in regard of Tom wanting them the very next day. " The night was as dark as pitch, so dark, faiks, that they had to get long pieces of bog fir, which they lit, and held in their hands, like the lights that Ned there says the lamp-lighters have in Dublin to light 182 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE. the lamps with. At last, with a good dale of trouble, they got to the still-house ; and, as they'd all taken a drop before, you may be sure they were better in- clined to take another sup now. They accordingly sat down about the fine rousing fire that was under the still, and had a right good jorum of strong whiskey, that never seen a drop of water. They all were in very good spirits, not thinking of to-morrow, and caring at the time very little about the world as it went. When the night was far advanced, they thought of moving home ; however, by that time they weren't able to stand : but it's one curse of being drunk, that a man doesn't know what he's about for the time, except some few like that poaching ould fellow/flBilly M'Kinny, that's as cunning when he's drunk as when he's sober ; otherwise they would not have ventured out in the clouds of the night, when it was so dark and severe, and they in such a state. At last they staggered away together, for their road lay for a good distance in the same direction. The others got on, and reached home as well as they could; but although Sally borried the dish of meal from her sister-in-law, to have a warm pot of stirabout for Larry, and sat up till the night was more nor half gone, waiting for him, yet no Larry made his appear- ance. The childher too, all sat up, hoping he'd come home, before they'd fall asleep and miss the supper ; at last the crathurs after running about, began to get sleepy, and one head would fall this-a-way and ano- ther that-a-way; so Sally thought it hard to let them LARRY M f FARLAND's WAKE. 183 go without getting their share, and accordingly she put down the pot on a bright fire, and made a good lot of stout stirabout for them, covering up Larry's share in a red earthen dish before the fire. This roused them a little, and they sat about the hearth with their mother, keeping her company till their fa- ther would come back. The night, for some time before this, got very stormy entirely. The wind rw 3 and the rain fell, as if it came out of methers. The house was very could, and the door was bad ; for the wind came in very strong under the foot of it, where the ducks and hens, and the pig, when it was little, used to squeeze themselves in, when the family was absent, or afther they went to bed. The wind now came whistling under it ; and the ould hat and rags that stopped up the windies, were blown out half a dozen times, with such force, that the ashes were carried away amost from the hearth. Sally got very low spirited on hearing the storm whistling and moan- ing so sorrowfully through the house — for she was afeard that Larry might be out on the dark moors under it ; and how any living soul could bear it, she didn't know. The talk of the childher, too, made her worse ; for they were debating among themselves, the crathurs, about what he had better do under the tempest — whether he ought to take the sheltry side of a hillock, or get into a long heath bush, or under the ledge of a rock or tree, if he could meet such a thing. In the mean time, terrible blasts of wind would come over and through the house, making the 184 LARRY M f FARLAND's WAKE. ribs crack, that you would think the roof would be taken away at wanst. The fire now was getting- low, and Sally had no more turf in the house ; so that the childher crouched closer and closer about it — their poor hungry-looking pale faces, made paler with fear that the house might come down upon them, or be stripped, and their father from home — and with worse fear that something might happen him under such a tempest of wind and rain as it blew. Indeed it was a pitiful sight to see the ragged crathurs drawing in a ring nearer and nearer the dying fire ; and their poor, naked, half-starved mother, sitting with her youngest infant lying between her knees and her breast ; for the bed was too could to put it into it, without being kept warm by the heat of them that it used to sleep with." " Musha, God help her and them," says Ned, u I wish they were here beside me on this comfortable hob, this minnit ; I'd fight Nancy for a bellyful for them, any way — a body can't but pity them, afther all !" " You'd fight Nancy !" said Nancy herself — " may- be Nancy would be as willing to do something for the crathurs as yourself — I like every body that's able to pay for what they get ! but we ought to have some bowels in us for all that." " Well," continued the narrator, " there they sat, with could and fear in their pale faces, shivering over the remains of the fire, for it was now nearly out, and thinking, as the dreary blast would drive in LARRY M'FARLAND's WAKE. 185 through the creeking ould door and the half-stopped windies, of what their father would do under such a terrible night. Poor Sally, sad and sorrowful, was thinking of all their ould quarrels, and taking the blame all to herself for not being more attentive to her business, and more kind to Larry ,* and when she thought of the way she thrated him, and the ill- tongue she used to give him, the tears began to drop from her eyes, and she rocked herself from side to side, sobbing as if her heart would brake. When the childher saw her wiping her eyes with the corner of the little handkerchief that she had about her neck, they began to cry along with her. At last she thought, as it was now so late, that it would be folly to sit up any longer; she hoped, too, that he might have thought of going into some neighbour's house on his way, to take shelter, and with these thoughts,- she raked the greeshough over the fire, and after putting the childher in their little straw nest, and spreading their own rags over them, she and the young one went to bed, although she couldn't sleep at all at all, for thinking of Larry. There she lay, trembling under the light cover of the bed-clothes, listening to the dreadful night that was in it, so lonely, that the very noise of the cow, in the other corner, chewing her cud, in the silence of a short calm, was a great relief to her. It was a long time before she could get a wink of sleep, for there was some uncommon weight upon her that she couldn't account for by any chance ; but after she had been 186 LARRY M f FARLAND's WAKE. lying- for about half an hour, she heard something that almost fairly knocked her up. It was the voice of a woman, crying and wailing in the greatest dis- tress, as if all belonging to her were under boord* When Sally heard it first, she thought it was nothing but the whistling of the wind ; but it soon came again, more sorrowful than before, and as the storm rose, it rose upon the blast along with it, so strange and mournfully, that she never before heard the like of it. ' The Lord be about us,' says she to herself, c what can that be at all ! — or who is it ! for it's not Nelly/ maning her sister-in-law. Again she listened, and there it was, sobbing and sighing in the greatest grief, and she thought she heard it clapping its hands, as one would do when keenin' a dead body. In a few minutes it stopped ; but, bye and bye, the storm rose again, and again she heard it louder than ever, only that this time it seemed to name whomever it was lamenting. Sally now got up and put her ear to the door, to see if she could hear what it said. At this time the wind got calmer, and the voice also got lower j but although it was still sorrowful, she never heard any living Christian's voice so sweet, and what was very odd, it fell in fits, exactly as the storm sunk, and rose as it blew louder. When she put her ear to • This phrase alludes to the manner in which the dead bodies in several parts of Ireland are laid ont, viz. — under a long deal board, over which is spread a clean sheet, so that no part of the corpse is visible. It is much more becoming than the other manner, in which the countenance of the dead is exposed to view. LARRY M f FARLAND's WAKE. 187 the chink of the door, she heard the words repeated, no doubt of it, only couldn't be quite sure, as they warn't very plain ; but as far as she could make any thing of them, she thought that it said — f Oh, Larry M'Farland !— Larry M'Farland !— Larry M'Farland !' Sally's hair stood on end when she heard this; but, on listening again, she thought it was her own name instead of Larry's that it repated. Still she wasn't sure, for the words warn't plain, and all she could think, was, that they resembled her own name or Larry's, more nor any other words she knew. At last, as the wind fell again, it melted away, weeping most sorrowfully, but so sweetly, that the likes of it was never heard. Sally, then, went to bed, and the poor woman was so harrished with one thing or ano- ther, that, at last, she fell asleep." " 'Twas the Banshee/' says Shane Fadh. " Indeed it was nothing else than that same," re- plied M'Roarkin. " I wonder Sally didn't think of that," said Nancy — " sure she might know that no living crathur would be out lamenting under such a night as that was." " She did think of that," said Tom ; " but as no Banshee ever followed her own family, she didn't suppose that it could be such a thing ; but she forgot that it might follow Larry's. I, myself, heard his brother Tom say, afterwards, that a Banshee used always to be heard before any of them died." " Did his brother hear it ?" Ned enquired. " He did," said Tom ; " and his wife along with 188 LARRY M f FARLAND's WAKE. him, and knew, at once, that some death would hap- pen in the family — but it wasn't long- till he suspected who it came for ; for, as he was going* to bed that night, on looking toardst his own hearth, he thought he saw his brother standing at the fire, with a very sorrowful face upon him. 'Why, Larry,' says he, ' how did you get in, after me barring the door ? — or, did you turn back from helping them with the corn ? You, surely, hadn't time to go half the ways since.' Larry, however, made him no answer ; and, on look- ing for him again, there was no Larry there for him. ' Nelly,' says he to his wife, f did you see any sight of Larry since he went to the still-house ?' e Arrah, no, indeed, Tom,' says she ; c what's coming over you to spake to the man that's near Drumfurrar by this time ?' ' God keep him from harm !' said Tom ; — ' poor fellow, I wish nothing ill may happen him this night! I'm afeard, Nelly, that I saw his fetch; and if I did, he hasn't long to live ; for when one's fetch is seen at this time of night, the lase of life, let them be sick or in health, is always short.' c Hut, Tom aroon !' says Nelly, ' it was the shadow of the jamb or yourself you saw in the light of the candle, or the shadow of the bed post.' The next morning, they were all up, hoping that he would drop in to them. Sally got a creel of turf, notwithstanding her condition, and put down a good fire to warm him ; but the morning passed, and no sign of him. She now got very unasy, and mintioned to his brother what she felt, and Tom went up to the still-house to LARRY 3I f FARLAND's WAKE. 189 know if he was there, or to try if he could get any tidings of him. But, by the laws, when he heard that he had left that for home the night before, and he in a state of liquor, putting this, and what he had heard and seen in his own house together, Tom knew that something must have happened him. He went home again, and on his way, had his eye about him, thinking that it would be no miracle, if he'd meet him lying head-foremost in a ditch ; however, he did not, but went on expecting to find him at home be- fore him. " In the mane time, the neighbours had been all raised to search for him ; and it was the second day after that, that Sally was standing, looking out of her own door toardst the mountains, expecting that every man with a blue coat upon him might be Larry, when she saw a crowd of people coming down the hills. Her heart leaped to her mouth, and she sent Dick, the eldest of the sons, to meet them, and run back with word to her if he was among them. Dick went away ; but he hadn't gone far when he met his uncle Tom, coming on before the rest. c Uncle,' says Dick, c did you get my father, for I must fly back With word to my mother, like lightning ?' * Come here, Dick/ says Tom ; c God help you, my poor bouchal ! — Come here, and walk along side of me, for you can't go back to your mother, till / see her first — God help you, my poor bouchal, it's you that's to be pitied, this blessed and sorrowful day ;' and the poor fellow could by no means keep in the tears. But 190 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE. he was saved the trouble of breaking the dismal tidings to poor Sally ; for as she stood watching the crowd, she saw a door carried upon their shoulders, with something like a man stretched upon it. She turned in, feeling as if a bullet had gone through her head, and sat down with her back to the door, for fraid she might see the thruth, for she couldn't be quite sure, they were at such a distance. At last she ventured to take another look out, for she couldn't bear what she felt within her, and just as she rose and came to the door, the first thing she saw coming down the hill, a little above the house, was the body of her husband stretched on a door — dead. At that minnit, her bro- ther-in-law, Tom, just entered, in time to prevent her and the child she had in her arms from falling on the flure. She had seen enough, God help her ! — for she took labour that instant, and, in about two hours afterwards, was stretched a corpse beside her hus- band, with their heart-broken and desolate orphans in an uproar of outher misery about them. That was the end of Larry M'Farland and Sally Lowry ; two that might have done well in the world, had they taken care of themselves, avoided fairs and markets — except when they had business there — not giving themselves idle fashions, by drinking, or going to dances, and wrought as well for themselves as they did for others." " But how did he lose his life, at all at all ?" en- quired Nancy. " "Why, they found his hat in a bog hole upon the LARRY M f FARLAND's WAKE. 191 water, and on searching the hole itself, poor Larry- was fished up from the bottom of it." " Well, that's a murdhering sorrowful story," said Shane Fadh : u but you won't be after passing that on us for the Wake, any how." " Well, you must learn patience, Shane," said the narrator, " for you know patience is a vartue." " I'll warrant you that Tom and his wife made a better hand of them'selves," said Alick M f Kinley, " than Larry and Sally did." " Ah ! I wouldn't fear, Alick," said Tom, " but you would come at the truth — 'tis you that may say they did ; there wasn't two in the parish more com- fortable than the same two, at the very time that Larry and Sally came by their deaths. It would do you good to look at their haggards — the corn stacks were so nately roped and trimmed, and the walls so well made up, that a bird could scarcely get into it. Their barn and byre too, and dwelling-house, were all comfortably thatched, and the windies all glazed, with not a broken pane in them. Altogether they had come on wondherfully ; sould a good dale of male and praties every year ; so that in a short time they were able to lay by a little money to help to fortune off their little girls, that w T ere growing up fine colleens, all out." " And you may add, I suppose," said Andy Mor- row, " that they lost no time going to fairs or dances, or other foolish devarsions. I'll engage they never were at a dance in the Squire's kitchen ; that they 192 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE. never went about, losing their time by working for others, when their own business was going at sixes and sevens, for want of hands ; nor spent their money drinking and thrating a parcel of friends that only laughed at them for their pains ; and wouldn't, may be, put one foot past the other to sarve them ; nor never fought and abused one another for what they both were guilty of." " Well," said Tom, " you have saved me some trouble, Mr. Morrow ; for you just said, to a hair, what they were. But I mustn't forget to mintion one thing that I saw the morning of the berril. We were, about a dozen of neighbours, talking in the street, just before the door ; both the haggards were forninst us — Tom's snug and nate — but Charley Law- dor had to go over from where we stood to drive the pig out of poor Larry's. There was one of the stacks with the side out of it, just as he had drawn away the sheaves from time to time ; for the stack leaned to one side, and he pulled sheaves out of the other side to keep it straight. Now, Mr. Morrow, wasn't he an unfortunate man ? for whoever would go down to Squire Dickson's haggard, would see the same Larry's handiwork so beautiful and illegant, though his own was in such brutheen. Even his barn went to wrack : and he was obliged to thrash his oats out in the open air when there would be a frost, and he used to lose one third of it ; and if there came a thaw, 'twould almost brake the crathur." u God knows," says Nancy, looking over at Ned, LARKY 31'FARLAND's WAKE. 193 " and Larry's not alone in neglecting his business ; that is, if sartin people were allowed to take their own way; but the truth of it is, that he met with a bad woman.* If he had a careful, sober, industrious wife of his own, that would take care of the house and place — (Biddy, will you hand me over that other clew out of the windy-stool there, till I finish this stocking for Ned) the story would have another ending, any how." C( In throth," said Tom, " that's no more than thruth, Nancy — but he had not, and every thing went to the bad with him entirely. "It's a thousand pities he hadn't yourself, Nancy," said Alick, grinning; "if he had, I haven't the laste doubt at all, but he'd die worth money." " Go on, Alick — go on, avick ; I will give you lave to have your joke, any way; for it's you that's the patthern to any man that would wish to thrive in the world." " If Ned dies, Nancy, I don't know a woman I'd prefer ; I'm now a v-iddy t these five years ; and I feel, some how, particularly since I began to spend my evenings here, that I'm disremembering very much the ould proverb — ' A burnt child dreads the fire.' " " Thank you, Alick ; you think I swally that : but as for Ned, the never a fear of him ; except that an • Wife, t The peasantry of a great portion of Ireland use the word as ap- plicable to both sexes. VOL. I. K 194 larry m Garland's wake. increasing stomach is a sign of something ; or what's the best chance of all, Alick, for you and me, that he should meet Larry's fate in some of his drunken fits." " Now, Nancy," says Ned, " there's no use in talk- ing that- a- w ay : it's only last Thursday, Mr. Morrow, that, in presence of her own brother, Jem Connolly, the breeches-maker, and Billy M'Kinny, there, that I put my two five fingers across, and swore solemnly by them five crosses, that, except my mind changed, I'd never drink more nor one half-pint of spirits, and three pints of porter in a day." " Oh, hould your tongue, Ned — hould your tongue, and don't make me spake," said Nancy : " God help you ! many a time you've put the same fingers across ; but I'll say no more now — wait till we see how you'll keep it." " Healths a-piece, your sowls," said Ned. ? Well, Tom," said Andy Morrow, " about the wake ?" " Och, och! that was the merry wake, Mr. Mor- row. From that day to this I remarked, that, living or dead, them that won't respect themselves, or take care of their families, won't be respected : and sure enough, I saw full proof of that same at poor Larry's wake. Many a time afterwards I pitied the childher, for if they'd seen better, they wouldn't turn out as they did — all but the two youngest, that their uncle took to himself, and reared afterwards; but they had no one to look afther them, and how could LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE. 195 it be expected from what they seen, that good could come of them ? Squire Dickson gave Tom the other seven acres, although he could have got a higher rint from others ; but he was an industrious man that de- sarved encouragement, and he got it." " I suppose Tom was at the expense of Larry's berrin, as well as of his marriage?" said Alick. " In throth and he was," said Tom, " although he didn't desarve it from him when he was alive ; seeing he neglected many a good advice that Tom and his dacent woman of a wife gave him : for all that, blood is thicker than wather — and it's he that waked and berrid him dacently ; by the same token that there was both mil and plinty of the best over him ; and every thing, as far as Tom was consarned, dacent and creditable about the place." " He did it for his own sake, of coorse," said Nancy, " bekase one wouldn't wish, if they had it at all, to see any one belonging to them worse off than another at their wake or berrin." " Thrue for you, Nancy," said Al'Roarkin, " and indeed, Tom was well spoken of by the neighbours for his kindness to his brother after his death; and luck and grace attended him for it, and the world flowed upon him before it came to his own turn." " Well, when a body dies even a natural death, it's wondherful how soon it goes about ; but when they come to an untimely one, it spreads like fire on a dry mountain." " Was there no inquest ?" asked Andy Morrow. k2 196 LARRY M f FARLAND's WAKE. " The divil an inquist, not making you an ill an- swer, Sir ; the people weren't so exact in them days : but any how the man was dead, and what good could an inquist do him ? The only thing that grieved them was, that they both died without the priest ; and well it might, for it's an awful thing entirely to die without having the clargy's hand over a body. I tould you that the news of his death spread over all the counthry in less than no time. Accordingly, in the coorse of the day, their relations began to come to the place ; but, any way, messengers had been sent especially for them. " The Squire very kindly lent sheets for them both to be laid out in, and mould-candle-sticks to hould the lights ; and, God he knows, 'twas a grievous sight to see the father and mother both stretched beside one another in their poor place, and their little orphans about them ; the gorsoons — them that had sense to know their loss — breaking their hearts, the crathurs, and so hoarse, that they weren't able either to cry or spake. But, indeed, it was worse to see the two young things going over, and wanting to get acrass to waken their daddy and mammy, poor desolit childher ! When the corpses were washed and dressed, they looked uncommonly well, consitherin. Larry, indeed, didn't bear death so well as Sally ; but you couldn't meet a purtier corpse than she was in a day's travel- ling. I say, when they were washed and dressed, their friends and neighbours knelt down round them, and offered up a Pather and Ave a-piece, for the good LARRY M f FARLAND's WAKE. 197 of their sowls : when this was done, they all raised the keening, stooping - over them at a half bend, clap- ping their hands, and praising them, as far as they could say any thing good of them ; and, indeed, the crathurs, they were never any one's enemy but their own, so that nobody could say ill word of either of them. Bad luck to it for potteen-work every day it rises; only for it, that couple's poor orphans wouldn't be left without father or mother, as they were ; nor poor Hurrish go the grey gate he did, if he had his father living, may be : but having nobody to bridle him in, he took to horse-riding for the Squire, and then to staling them for himself. He was hanged afterwards, along with Peter Dorraghy Crolly, that shot Ned Wilson's uncle of the Black Hills. " After the first keening, the friends and neighbours took their sates about the corpse. In a short time, whiskey, pipes, snuff, and tobacco came, and every one about the place got a glass and a fresh pipe. Poor Tom, when he held his glass in his hand, look- ing at his dead brother, he filled up to the eyes, and couldn't for some time get out a word; at last, when he was able to spake — c Poor Larry,' says he, ' you're lying there low before me, and many a happy day we spent with one another. When we were childher,' said he, turning to the rest, ' we were never asunder ; he was oulder nor me by two years, and can I ever forget the leathering he gave Dick Rafferty long ago, for hitting me with the rotten egg — although Dick was a great dale bigger than either of us. God 198 LARRY M'FARLAND's WAKE. knows, although you didn't thrive in life, either of you, as you might and could have done, there wasn't a more neighbourly or friendly couple in the parish they lived in ; and now, God help them, look at them both, and their poor orphans over them. Larry, acushla, your health, and Sally yours ; and may God Almighty have marcy on both your so wis.' After this, the neighbours began to flock in more generally. "When any relation of the corpses would come, as soon, you see, as they'd get inside the door, whether man or woman, they'd raise the shout of a keening, and all the people about the dead would begin along with them, stooping over them and clapping then- hands as before. " Well, I said, it's it that was the merry wake, and that was only the thruth, nabours. As soon as night came, all the young boys and girls from the country side about them, flocked to it in scores. In a short time the house was crowded ; and may be there wasn't laughing and story-telling, and singing, and smoking, and drinking, and crying — all going on, helter skelter, together. When they'd be all in full chorus this-a-way, may be, some new friend or rela- tion, that wasn't there before, would come in, and raise the keening : of coorse the youngsters would then keep quiet; and if the person coming in was from the one neighbourhood with any of them that were so merry, as soon as he'd raise the keening, the merry folks would rise up, begin to pelt their hands together, and cry along with him till their eyes would LARRY M f FARLAND 5 S WAKE. 199 be as red as a ferret's. That once over, they'd be down again at the songs and divarsion and divilment — just as if nothing of the kind had taken place : the other would then shake hands with the friends of the corpses, get a glass or two, and a pipe, and in a few minnits be as merry as the best of them." %c Well," said Andy Morrow, " I should like to know if the Scotch and English are such heerum- skeerum kind of people as we Irishmen are." " Musha, in throth I'm sure they're not," says Nancy, " fcr I bleeve that Irishmen are like nobody in the wide world but themselves ; quare crathurs, that'll laugh or cry, or fight with any one, just for nothing else, good or bad, but company." " Indeed, and you all know that what I'm saying's thruth, except Mr. Morrow, there, that I'm telling it to, bekase he's not in the habit of going to wakes ; although, to do him justice, he's very friendly in going to a neighbour's funeral; and, indeed, kind father for you, Mr. Morrow, for it's he that was a raal good hand at going to such places himself. " Well, as I was telling you, there was great sport going on. In one corner, you might see a knot of ould men sitting together, talking over ould times — ghost stories, fairy tales, or the great rebellion of 41, and the strange story of Lamh Dearg, or the bloody hand — that, may be, I'll tell you all some other night, plase God ; — there they'd sit smoking, — their faces quite plazed with the pleasure of the pipe, — amusing themselves and a crowd of people, that would be lis- 200 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE. tening to them with open mouths. Or, it's odds, but there would be some droll young fellow among them, taking a rise out of them ; and, positively, he'd often find them able enough for him, particularly ould Ned Mangm, that wanted at the time only four years of a hundred. The Lord be good to him, and rest his sowl in glory, it's he that was the pleasant ould man, and could tell a story with any one that ever got up. " In another corner there was a different set, bent on some piece of divilment of their own. The boys would be sure to get beside their sweethearts, any how j and if there was a purty girl, as you may set it down there was, it's there the skroodging, and the pushing, and the shoving, and, sometimes, the knocking down itself, would be, about seeing who'd get her. There's ould Katty Duffy, that's now as crooked as the hind leg of a dog, and it's herself was then as straight as a rush, and as blooming as a rose — Lord bless us, what an alteration time makes upon the strongest and fairest of us ! — it's she that was the purty girl that night, and it's myself that gave Frank M'Shane, that's still living to acknowledge it, the broad of his back upon the flure, when he thought to pull her off of my knee. The very gorsoons and gir- shahs were coorting away among themselves, and learning one another to smoke in the dark corners. But all this, Mr. Morrow, took place in the corpse- house, before ten or eleven o'clock at night; after that time the house got too throng entirely, and couldn't hould the half of them ; so, by jing, off we LARRY M f FARLAND's WAKE. 201 set, mailing - all the youngsters of us, both boys and girls, out to Tom's barn, that was red up for us, there to commence the plays. When we were gone, the ould people had more room, and they moved about on the sates we had left them. In the mane time, lashings of tobacco and snuff, cut in plate-fulls, and piles of fresh new pipes, were laid on the table for any man that wished to use them. When we got to the barn, it's then we took our pumps off in arnest — by the hokey, such sport you never saw. The first play we began was Hot-loof; and maybe there wasn't skelping then. It was the two parishes of Errigle- Keeran and Errigle-Truagh agin one another. There was the Slip from Althadhawan, for Errigle-Truagh, agin Pat M f Ardle, that had married Lanty Gorman's daughter of Cargagh, for Errigle-Keeran. The way they play it, Mr. Morrow, is this : — two young men out of each parish, go out upon the flure — one of them stands up, then bends himself, Sir, at a half bend, placing his left hand behind on the back part of his ham, keeping it there to receive what it's to get. Well, there he stands, and the other coming behind him, places his left foot out before him, dou- bles up the cuff of his coat, to give his hand and wrist freedom ; he then rises his right arm, coming down with the heel of his hand upon the other fel- low's palm, under him, with full force. By jing, it's the divil's own divarsion ; for you might as well get a stroke of a sledge as a blow from some of them able, hard-working fellows, with hands upon them like lime k 3 202 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE. stone. When the fellow that's down gets it hot and heavy, the man that struck him stands bent in his place, and some friend of the other comes down upon him, and pays him for what the other fellow got. In this way they take it, turn about, one out of each parish, till it's over; for, I believe, if they were to pelt one another since, that they'd never give up. Bless my soul, but it was terrible to hear the strokes that the Slip and Pat M'Ardle did give that night The Slip was a young fellow upwards of six feet, with great able bones and little flesh, but terrible thick shinnins ;* his wrist was as hard and strong as a bar of iron. M'Ardle was a low, broad man, with a rucket head and bull neck, and a pair of shoulders that you could hardly get your arms about, Mr- Morrow, long as they are ; it's he, indeed, that was the firm, well-built chap, entirely. At any rate, a man might as well get a kick from a horse, as a stroke from either of them. Little Jemmy Tague, I remimber, struck a cousin of the Slip's a very smart blow, that made him dance about the room, and blow his fingers for ten minutes after it. Jemmy, himself, was a tight, smart fellow. When the Slip saw what his cousin had got, he rises up, and stands over Jemmy so cooly, and with such good humour, that every one in the house trembled for poor Jemmy, bekase, you see, whenever the Slip was bent on mis- chief, he used always to grin. Jemmy, however, • Sinews. LARRY m'FARLAND's WAKE. 203 kept himself bent firm; and, to do him justice, didn't flinch from under the stroke, as many of them did — no, he was like a rock. Well, the Slip, as I said, stood over him, fixing himself for the stroke, and coming down with such a pelt on poor Jemmy's hand, that the first thing we saw, was the blood across the Slip's own legs and feet, that had bursted out of poor Jem- my's finger-ends. The Slip then stooped to receive the next blow himself, and you may be sure there was above two dozen up to be at him. No matther ; one man they all gave way to, and that was Pat M f Ardle. e Hould away/ says Pat — c clear off, boys, all of you — this stroke's mine by right, any how ; — and/ says he, swearing a terrible oath, ' if you don't sup sorrow for that stroke/ says he to the Slip, f why Pat M'Ardle's not behind you here.' He, then, up with his arm, and came down — why, you would think that the stroke he gave the Slip had druv his hand right into his body : but, any way, it's he that took full satisfaction for what his cousin got; for, if the Slip's fingers had been cut off at the tops, the blood couldn't spring out from under his nails more nor it did. After this the Slip couldn't strike another blow, bekase his hand was disabled out and out. f< The next play they went to was the Sitting brogue. This is played by a ring of them, sitting down upon the bare ground, keeping their knees up. A shoe-maker's leather apron is then got, or a good stout brogue, and sent round under their knees. In the mean time, one stands in the middle ; and after the 204 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE. brogue is sent round, he is to catch it as soon as he can. While he is there, of coorse, his back must be to some one, and accordingly those that are behind him, thump him right and left with the brogue, while he, all the time, is striving to catch it. Whoever he catches this brogue with must stand up in his place, while he sits down where the other had been, and then the play goes on as before. There's another play called the Standing-brogue — where one man gets a brogue of the same kind, and another stands up facing him, with his two hands locked together, forming an arch turned upside down. The man that houlds the brogue then strikes him with it betune the hands ; and even the smartest fellow receives several pelts, before he is able to close his hands and catch it; but when he does, he becomes brogue- man, and one of the opposite party stands for him, until he catches it. The same thing is gone through, from one to another, on each side, until it is over. The next is Kissing, and is played in this manner: — A chair or stool is placed in the middle of the flure, and the man who manages the play sits down upon it, and calls his sweet-heart, or the prettiest girl in the house. She, accordingly, comes forward, and must kiss him. He then rises up, and she sits down. ' Come now/ he says, e fair maid — call them you like best to kiss you !' She then calls them she likes best, and when the young man she calls comes over and kisses her, he then takes her place, and calls another girl — and so on, smacking away for a couple of hours. LARRY M'FARLAND's WAKE. 205 Well, it's no wonder that Ireland's full of people; for I believe they do nothing- but coort from the time they're the hoith of my leg. I dunna is it true, as I hear Captain Sloethorn's steward say, that the Eng- lish-women are so fond of Irishmen?" M To be sure, it is," said Shane Fadh ; " don't I remember, myself, when Mr. Fowler went to England — and he as fine-looking a young man, at the time, as ever got into a saddle — he was riding up the street of London, one day, and his servant after him — and by the same token he was a thousand pound worse than nothing; but no matter for that, you see luck was before him — what do you think, but a rich- dressed livery servant came out, and stopping the Squire's man, axed whose servant he was ? ' Whjj then,' says Ned Magavran, who was his body-ser- vant at the time, 'bad luck to you, you spalpeen, what a question do you ax, and you have eyes in your head !' says he — ' hard feeding to you!' says he, ' you bagabone, don't you see I'm my master's ?' The Englishman laughed — ' I know that, Paddy/ says he — for they call us all Paddies in England, as if we had only the one name among us, the thieves — ' but I wish to know his name,' says the Englishman. ' You do !' says Ned ; c and by the powers,' says he, ( but you must first tell me which side of the head you'd wish to hear it on.' 'Oh, as for that,' says the Englishman, not up to him, you see, ' I don't care much, Paddy, only let me hear it, and where he lives.' ' Just keep your ground, then,' says 206 LARRY M f FARLAND's WAKE. Ned, ' till I light off this blood horse of mine' — he was an ould garron that was fattened up, not worth forty shillings — ' this blood horse of mine,' says Ned, ' and I'll tell you/ So down he gets, and lays the Englishman sprawling in the channel — c Take that, you bagabone you,' says he, ' and it'ill tache you to call people by their right names, agin ; I was chris- tened as well as you, you blackguard!' All this time the lady was looking out of the windy, breaking her heart laughing at Ned and the servant; but, behould, she knew a thing or two, it seems; for, instead of sending a man, at all at all, what does she do, but send her own maid, a very purty girl, who comes up to Ned, putting the same question to him. ' What's his name, avourneen?' says Ned, melting, to be sure, at the sight of her — e Why, then, darling, who could refuse you any thing ? — but, you jewel, by the hoky, you must bribe me, or I'm dumb/ says he. 'How could I bribe you ?' says she, with a sly smile, for Ned, himself, was a well-looking young fellow at the time. e I'll show- you that,' says Ned, ' if you tell me where you live ; but, for fraid you'd forget it — with them two lips of your own, my darling/ ' There in that great house,' says the maid: ' my mistress is one of the beautifullest and richest young ladies in London, and she wishes to know where your master could be heard of/ ( Is that the house ?' says Ned, pointing to it. ' Exactly,' says she ; — - that's it/ ' Well, a-cushla/ says he, ' you've a purty and an innocent-looking face ; but I'm tould there's many a LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE. 207 trap in London well baited. Just only run over, while I'm looking at you, and let me see that purty face of yours smiling at me out of the windy that that young lady is peeping at us from.' This she had to do. ' My master/ thought Ned, while she was away, - will aisily find out what kind of a house it is, any how.' In a short time he saw her in the windy, and Ned then gave her a sign to come down to him. 'My master,' says he, ' never was afeard to show his face, or tell his name to any one — he's a Squire Fowler/ says he, — ' a Sarjunt-major in a great militia regi- ment — he shot five men in his time, and there's not a gentleman in the county he lives in, that dare say Boo to his blanket. And now, what's your own name/ says Ned, f you flattering little blackguard you ?' c My name's Betty Cunningham/ says she. c And, next — what's your mistress's, my darling?' says Ned. ' There it is,' says she, handing him a card. ' Very well/ says Ned, the thief, looking at it with a great air, making as if he could read — ' this will just do, a colleen bawn.' ' Do you read in your country, with the wrong side of the print up ?' savs she. ' Up or down,' says Ned, ' it's all one to us, in Ireland.' The upshot of it was, that her mistress turned out to be a great hairess, and a great beauty, and she and Fowler got married in less than a month. So, you see, it's true enough, that the Englishwomen are fond of Irishmen," says Shane ; " but Tom, with submission for stopping you — go on with your wake." " The next play, then, is Marrying " 208 LARRY M'FARLAND's WAKE. " Hooh r says Andy Morrow — " why all their plays are about kissing and marrying, and the like of that." " Surely, and they are, Sir/' says Tom. " It's all the nathur of the baste," says Alick. u The next is marrying — A bouchal puts an ould dark coat on him, and if he can borry a wig from any of the ould men in the wake-house, why, well and good, he's the liker his work — this is the priest: he takes and drives all the young men out of the house, and shuts the door upon them, so that they can't get in till he lets them. He then ranges the girls all beside one another, and going to the first, makes her name him she wishes to be her husband ; this she does, of coorse, and the priest lugs him in, shutting the door upon the rest. He then pronounces a funny marriage sarvice of his own between them, and the husband smacks her first, and then the priest. Well, these two are married, and he places his wife upon his knee, for fraid of taking up too much room, you persave ; there they coort away again, and why shouldn't they ? The priest then goes to the next, and makes her name her husband; this is complied with, and he is brought in after the same manner, but no one else till they're called : he is then married, and kisses his wife, and the priest after him: and so they're all married. But if you'd see them that don't chance to be called at all, the figure they cut — slipping into some dark corner, to avoid the mobbing they get from the priest and the others. When they're all united, they must each LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE. 209 sing a song — man and wife, according as they sit ; or if they can't sing, or get some one to do it for them, they're divorced. But the priest, himself, usually lilts for any one that's not able to give a varse. You see, Mr. Morrow, there's always in the neighbourhood, some droll fellow that takes all these things upon him, and if he happened to be absent, the wake would be quite dull." " Well," said Andy Morrow, " have you any more of their sports, Tom ?" " Ay, have I — one of the best and pleasantest you heard yet." " I hope there's no coorting in it," says Nancy ; " God knows we're tired of their kissing and marry- ing." " Were you always so ?" says Ned, across the fire to her. " Behave yourself, Ned," says she ; " don't you spake. I'm sure your name was heard far and near, as the greatest Brine-oge that ever was known in the parish, for such things." " No, but don't you make me spake," replies Ned. " Here, Biddy," said Nancy, " bring that uncle of yours another pint — that's what he wants most at the present time, I'm thinking." Biddy, accordingly, complied with this. " Don't make me spake/' continued Ned. a Come, Ned," she replied, " you've a fresh pint now ; so drink it, and give no more gosther," 210 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE. " Shuid-urth !" says Ned, putting the pint to his head, and winking slyly at the rest. " Ay, wink ! — in troth I'll be up to you for that, Ned," says Nancy ; by no means satisfied that Ned should enter into particulars. "Well, Tom," said she, diverting the conversation, " go on, and give us the remainder of your Wake." " Well," says Tom, " the next play is in the mili- tary line. You see, Mr. Morrow, the man that leads the sports, places them all on their sates — gets from some of the girls, a white handkerchief, which he ties round his hat, as you would tie a piece of mourning ; he then walks round them two or three times, singing Will you list, and come with me, fair maid ? Will you list, and come with me, fair maid ? Will you list, and couie with me, fair maid ? And folly the lad with the white cockade ? When he sings this, he takes off his hat, and puts it on the head of the girl he likes best, who rises up and puts her arm round him, and then they both go about in the same way, singing the same words. She then puts the hat on some young man, who gets up and goes round with them, singing as before. He next puts it on the girl he loves best, who, after singing and going round in the same manner, puts it on ano- ther, and he on his sweetheart, and so on. This is called the White Cockade. When it's all over, that is, when every young man has pitched upon the girl that he wishes to be his sweetheart, they sit down, and sing songs, and coort, as they did at the marrying. LARRY M f FARLAND's WAKE. 211 After this comes the Weds or Forfeits, or what they call putting round the button. Every one gives in a forfeit — the boys, a pocket handkerchief or pen-knife, and the girls, a neck handkerchief or something that way. The forfeit is held over them, and each of them stoops in turn. They are, then, compelled to com- mand the person that owns that forfeit to sing a song —to kiss such and such a girl — or to cany some ould man, with his legs about their neck, three times round the house, and this last is always great fun. Or, maybe, a young upsetting fellow will be sent to kiss some toothless, slavering, ould woman, just to punish him; or, if a young woman is any way saucy, she'll have to kiss some ould, withered fellow, his tongue hanging, with age, half way down his chin, and the tobacco water trickling from each corner of his mouth. By jingo, many a time, when the friends of the corpse would be breaking their very hearts with grief and affliction, I have seen them obliged to laugh out, in spite of themselves, at the drollery of the priest with his ould black coat and wig upon him ; and when the laughing fit would be over, to see them rocking themselves again — so sad. The best man for managing such sports in this neighbour- hood, for many a year, was Roger M f Cann, that lives up as you go to the mountains. You wouldn't begrudge to go ten miles, the couldest winter night that ever blew, to see and hear Roger. "There is another play, that they call the Priest of the Parish, which is remarkably pleasant. One of the 212 LARRY M'FARLAND's WAKE. boys gets a wig upon himself, as before — goes out on the flure, places the boys in a row, calls one his man Jack, and says to each — ' What will you be ?' One answers, l I'll be black cap ;' another — ' red cap ;' and so on. He then says, ' The priest of the parish has lost his considhering cap — some say this, and some say that, but I say my man Jack !' Man Jack, then, to put it off himself, says — f Is it me, Sir ?' < Yes, you, Sir !' « You lie, Sir !' < Who, then, Sir?' 'Blackcap!' If black cap, then, doesn't say — c Is it me, Sir ?' before the priest has time to call him, he must put his hand on his ham, and get a pelt of the brogue. A body must be supple with the tongue in it. " After this comes one they call Horns, or the Painter. A droll fellow gets a lump of soot or lamp- black, and, after fixing a ring of the boys and girls about him, he lays his two fore-fingers on his knees, and says, ' Horns, horns, cow horns !' and then raises his fingers by a jerk up above his head ; the boys and girls in the ring then do the same thing, for the mailing of the play is this : — the man with the blac- ening always raises his fingers every time he names an animal, but if he names any that has no horns, and that the others jerk up their fingers, then they must get a stroke over the face with the soot. ' Horns, horns, goat horns !' — then he ups with his fingers like lightning ; they must all do the same, bekase a goat has horns. ( Horns, horns, horse horns !' — he ups with them again, but the boys and LARRY M f FARLAND's WAKE. 213 girls ought not, bekase a horse has not horns ; how- ever, any one that raises them then, gets a slake. So that it all comes to this : — Any one, you see, that lifts his fingers when an animal is named that has no horns — or any one that does not raise them when a baste is mintioned that has horns, will get a mark. It's a purty game, and requires a keen eye and a quick hand ; and, maybe, there's not fun in straking the soot over the purty, warm, rosy cheeks of the colleens, while their eyes are dancing with delight in their heads, and their sweet breath comes over so pleasant about one's face, the darlings — Och, och ! "There's another game they call The Silly Ould Man, that's played this way : — A ring of the boys and girls is made on the flure — boy and girl about — houlding one another by the hands ; well and good — a young fellow gets into the middle of the ring, as ' the silly ould man.' There he stands looking at all the girls to chuse a wife, and, in the mane time, the youngsters of the ring sing out — Heie's a silly ould man that lies all alone, That lies all alone, That lies all alone ; Here's a silly ould man that lies all alone, He wants a wife, and he can get none. " When the boys and girls sing this, the silly ould man must choose a wife from some of the colleens belonging to the ring. Having made the choice of her, she goes into the ring along with him, and they all sing out — 214 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE. Now, young couple, you're married together, You're married together, You're married together, You must obey your fatheT and mother, And love one another like sister and brother, I pray, young couple, you'll kiss together. And you may be sure this part of the marriage is not missed, any way." "I doubt/' said Andy Morrow, "that good can't come of so much kissing, marrying, and coorting." The narrator twisted his mouth knowingly, and gave a significant groan. ' ' Be dhe husth ! hould your tongue, Misther Mor- row," said he ; " Biddy, avourneen," he continued, addressing Biddy and Bessy, " and Bessy, a-lannah, just take a friend's advice, and never mind going to wakes ; to be sure there's plinty of fun and divarsion at sich places, but healths apiece," putting the pint to his lips — " and that's all I say about it." " Right enough, Tom," observed Shane Fadh, — " sure most of the matches are planned at them, and, I may say, most of the runaways too — poor, young, foolish crathurs, going off and getting themselves married ; then bringing small, helpless families upon their hands, without money or means to begin the world with, and afterwards likely to eat one another out of the face, for their folly ; however, there's no putting ould heads upon young shoulders, and I doubt, except the wakes are stopped altogether, that it'ill be the ould case still." " I never remember being at a country wake," said LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE. 215 Andy Morrow. u How is every thing laid out in the house ?" " Sure, it's to you I'm telling the whole thing, Mr. Morrow: these thieves about me here know all about it, as well as I do — the house, eh ? Why, you see, the two crathurs were both stretched beside one an- other, washed and laid out. There were long deal boords, with their ends upon two stools, laid over the bodies ; the boords were covered with a white sheet got at the big house ; so the corpses weren't to be seen. On these, again, were placed large mould candles, plates of cut tobacco, and pipes, and snuff, and so on. Sometimes corpses are waked in a bed, with their faces visible ; when that is the case, white sheets and crosses are pinned up about the bed, except in the front ; but, when they're under boord, a set of ould women sit smoking, and rocking themselves from side to side, quite sorrowful — these are keeners — friends or relations ; and when every one connected with the dead comes in, they raise the keene, like a song of sorrow, wailing and clapping their hands. The furniture is mostly removed, and sates made round the walls, where the neighbours sit smoking, chat- ting, and gosthering. The best of aiting and dhrink- ing that they can afford is provided ; and, indeed, there is generally open house — for it's unknown how people injure themselves by their kindness and waste at christenings, weddings, and wakes. " In regard to poor Larry's wake, we had all this and more at it; for, as I obsarved after awhile agone, 216 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE. the man had made himself no friends when he was living, and the neighbours gave a loose to all kinds of divilment when he was dead ; for, although there's no man would be guilty of any disrespect where the dead are, yet, when a person has led a good life, and conducted themselves dacently and honestly, the young people of the neighbourhood show their re- spect, by going through their little plays and divar- sions quieter and with less noise, lest they may give any offence ; but, as I said, whenever the person didn't live as they ought to do, there's no stop to their noise and rollokin. " When it drew near morning, every one of us took his sweetheart, and, after convoying her home, went to our own houses, to get a little sleep — So that was the end of poor Larry M'Farland, and his wife, Sally Lowry." "Success, Tom," said Bill M'Kinney ; "take a pull of the malt now, afther the story, your sowl ! But what was the funeral like ?" "Why, then, a poor berrin it was," said Tom; " a miserable sight, God knows — -just a few of the nabours ; for those that used to take his thrates, and while he had a shilling in his pocket, blarney him up, not one of the skulking thieves showed their faces at it — a good warning to foolish men, that throw their money down throaths that haven't hearts anundher them. But, boys, I desarve another thrate, I think, afther my story !" THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. BY A HEDGE SCHOOLMASTER. "My grandfather, Connor O'Callaghan, — though a tall, erect man, with white flowing hair, like snow, that falls profusely about his broad shoulders, — is now in his eighty-third year : an amazing age, con- sidering his former habits. His countenance is still marked with honesty and traces of hard fighting ; and his cheeks ruddy and cudgel worn : his eyes — though not as black as they used to be — have lost very little of that nate fire which characterizes the eyes of the O'Callaghans, and for which I myself have been — but my modesty won't allow me to allude to that ; let it be sufficient for the present to say, that there never was remembered so handsome a man in his native parish, and that I am as like him as one Cork-red phatie to another : indeed, it has been often said, that it would be hard to meet an O'Callaghan without a black eye in his head. He has lost his fore VOL. i. l 218 THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. teeth, however, a point in which, unfortunately, I, though his grandson, have a strong resemblance to him. The truth is, they were knocked out of him in rows, before he had reached his thirty-fifth year ; a circumstance which the kind reader will be pleased to receive in extenuation for the same defect in myself. That, however, is but a trifle, which never gave either of us much trouble. It pleased Provi- dence to bring us through many hair-breadth escapes with our craniums uncracked ; and when we consider that he, on taking a retrogadation of his past life, can indulge in the pleasing recollection of having broken two skulls in his fighting days, and myself one, I think we have both reason to be thankful. He was a powerful bulliah batthagh in his day; and never met a man able to fight him, except big Mucklemur- ray, who stood before him the greater part of an hour and a half, in the fair of Knockimdowney, on the day that the first great fight took place — twenty years after the hard frost — between the O'Callaghans and the O'Hallaghans. The two men fought single hands — for both factions were willing to let them try the engagement out, that they might see what side could boast of having the best man. They began where you enter the north side of Knockimdowney, and fought successfully up to the other end, then back again to the spot where they commenced, and afterwards up to the middle of the town, right opposite to the mar- ket-place, where my grand-father, by the same-a- token, lost a grinder ; but he soon took satisfaction THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. 219 for that, by giving Mucklemurray a tip above the eye with the end of an oak stick, dacently loaded with lead ; which made the poor man feel very quare entirely, for the few days that he survived it, u Faith, if an Irishman happened to be born in Scotland, he would find it mighty inconvanient — after losing two or three grinders in a row — to manage the hard oaten bread that they use there ; for which rason, God be good to his sowl that first invinted the phaties, any how, because a man can masticate them without a tooth, at all at all. I'll engage, if lamed books were consulted, it would be found out that he was an Irishman. I wonder that neither Pastorini nor Columbkill mentions any thing about him in their prophecies consarning the church : for my own part, I'm strongly inclinated to believe that it must have been Saint Patrick himself; and I think that his driving all kinds of venomous reptiles out of the kingdom is, according to the Socrastic method of argument, an undeniable proof of it. The subject, to a dead certainty, is not touched upon in the Brehone Code, nor by any of the three Psalters, which is ex- tremely odd, seeing that the earth never produced a root equal to it in the multiplying force of prolifica- tion. It is, indeed, the root of prosperity to a fight- ing people : and many a time -my grandfather boasts to this day, that the first bit of bread he ever ett was a phatie. " In mentioning my grandfather's fight with Mucklemurray, i" happened to name them black- l2 220 THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. guards, the O'Hallaghans : hard fortune to the same set, for they have no more discration in their quarrels than so many Egyptian mummies, African buffoons, or any other uncivilized animals ! It was one of them, he that's married to my own fourth cousin, Biddy O'Callaghan, that knocked two of my grinders out ; for which piece of civility I have not yet had the satisfaction of breaking a splinter in his carcase ; but wait a little, there's a good time coming, plaze God. With respect to the O'Hallaghans, they and our family have been next neighbours since before the flood — and that's as good as two hundred years ; for I believe it's 198, any how, since my great grandfa- ther's grand uncle's old mare was swept out of the c Island,' in the dead of the night, about half an hour after the whole country had been ris out of their beds by the thunder and lightning. Many a field of oats, and many a life, both of beast and Christian, was lost in it, especially of those that lived on the Iwlmes about the edge of the river : and it was true for them that said it came before something ; for the next year was one of the hottest summers ever remembered in Ireland. These O'Hallaghans couldn't be at peace with a saint. Before they and our faction began to quarrel, it's said that the O'Connells or Connells and they had been at it — and a blackguard set the same O'Connell's were, at all times — in fair and market, dance, wake, and berrin, setting the country on fire. Whenever they met, it was heads cracked and bones broken ; till by degrees the O'Connells fell away, one THE BATTLE OP THE FACTIONS. 221 after another, from fighting, accidents, and hanging ; so that at last there was hardly the name of one of them in the neighbourhood. The O'Hallaghans, after this, had the country under themselves — were the cocks of the walk entirely ; — who but they ? A man daren't look crooked at them, or he was certain of getting his head in his fist. And when they'd get drunk in a fair, it was nothing but e Whoo ! for the O'Hallaghans !' and leaping yards high off" the pave- ment, brandishing their cudgels over their heads, — striking their heels against their hams, tossing up their hats ; and when all would fail, they'd strip off their coats, and trail them up and down the street, shouting, ' Who dare touch the coat of an O'Hallag- han ? — Where's the blackguard Connells now ?' — and so on, till flesh and blood couldn't stand it. In the course of time, the whole country was turned against them ; for no crowd could get together in which they didn't kick up a row, nor a bit of stray fighting couldn't be, but they'd pick it up first, — and if a man would venture to give them a contrary answer, he was sure to get the crame of a good welting for his pains. The very landlord was timorous of them ; for when they'd get behind in their rint, hard fortune to the bailiff, or proctor, or Stewart, he could find, that would have any thing to say to them. And the more wise they; for, may be, a month would hardly pass, till all belonging to them in the world would be in a heap of ashes : and who could say who did it ? for they were as cunning as foxes. If one of them want- 222 THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. ed a wife, it was nothing but find out the purtiest and the richest farmer's daughter in the neighbour- hood, and next march into her father's house, at the dead hour of night, tie and gag every mortal in it, and off with her to some friend's place in another part of the country. Then what could be done ? If the girl's parents didn't like to give in, their daughter was sure to be ruined; and, at all events, no other man would think of marrying her, and the only plan was, to make the best of a bad bargain : and God he knows, it was making a bad bargain for a girl to have any matrimonial concatenation with the same O'Hal- laghans ; for they always had the bad drop in them, from first to last, from big to little — the blackguards ! But wait, it's not over with them yet. " The bone of contintion that got between them and our faction was this circumstance : their lands and ours were divided by a river that ran down from the high mountains of Sliew Boglish, and after a coorse of eight or ten miles, disembougued itself — first into George Duffy's mill-dam, and afterwards into that superb stream, the Blackwater, that might be well and appropriately appeilated the Irish Niger. This river, which, though small at times, occasionally inflated itself to such gigantic altitude, that it swept away cows, corn, and cottages, or whatever else hap- pened to be in its way — was the march-ditch, or merin between our farms. Perhaps it is worth while remarking, as a solution for natural philosophers, that these inundations were much more frequent in winter THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. 223 than in summer — though, when they did occur in summer, they were truly terrific. God be with the days, when I and half a dozen gorsoons used to go out of a warm Sunday in summer — the bed of the river nothing but a line of white meandering stones - , so hot that you could hardly stand upon them, with a small obscure thread of water creeping invisibly among them, hiding itself, as it were, from the scorching sun — except here and there that you might find a small pool where the streams had accumulated. Our plan was to bring a pocketful of roche lime with us, and put it into the pool, when all the fish used to rise on the instant to the surface, gasping, with open mouths, for fresh air, and we'd only to lift them out of the water : a nate plan, which, perhaps, might be adopted successfully on a more extensive scale by the Irish fisheries. Indeed, I almost regret that I did not remain in that station of life ; for I was much hap- pier then than ever I was since I began to study and practice laming. But this is vagating from the sub- ject. " Well, then, I have said that them O'Hallaghans lived beside us, and that this stream divided our lands. About half a quarter, i. e., to accommodate myself to the vulgar phraseology — or, to speak more scientifically, one eighth of a mile from our house, was as purty a hazel glen as you'd wish to see, near half a mile long — its developments and proportions were truly classical. In the bottom of this glen was a >mall green island, about twelve yards, diametrically. 224 THE BATTLE OP THE FACTIONS. of Irish admeasurement, that is to say, be the same more or less — at all events, it lay in the way of the river, which, however, ran towards the O'Hallaghan side, and, consequently, the island was our property. Now, you'll observe, that this river had been, for ages, the merin between the two farms, for they both belonged to separate landlords, and so long as it kept the O'Hallaghan side of the little peninsula in question, there could be no dispute about it, for all was clear. One wet winter, however, it seemed to change its mind upon the subject ; for, assuredly, it wrought and wore away a passage for itself on our side of the island, and by that means took part, as it were, with the O'Hallaghans, leaving the territory which had been our property for centhries, in their possession. This was a vexatious change to us, and, indeed, eventually produced very feudal consequences* No sooner had the stream changed sides, than the O'Hallaghans claimed the island as theirs, according to their tenement ; and we, having had it for such length of time in our possession, could not break ourselves of the habitude of occupying it. They in- carcerated our cattle, and we incarcerated theirs. They summoned us to their landlord, who was a magistrate ; and we summoned them to ours, who was another. Their verdicts were north and south. Their landlord gave it in favour of them, and ours in favour of us. The one said he had law on his side ; the other, that he had proscription and possession, length of time and usage. The two Squires then THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. 225 fought a challenge upon the head of it, and what was more singular, upon the disputed spot itself; the one standing on their side — the other on ours ; for it was just twelves paces every way. Their friend was a small, light man, with legs like drumsticks ; the other was a large, able-bodied gentleman, with a red face and hooked nose. They exchanged two shots, one only of which — the second — took effect. It pastured upon their landlord's spindle leg, on which, he held it out, exclaiming, that while he lived he'd never fight another challenge with his antagonist, ' because/ said he, c the man who could hit that, could hit any- thing.' We then were advised, by an attorney, to go to law with them ; and they were advised by another attorney to go to law with us : accordingly, we did so, and in the course of eight or nine years it might have been decided ; but just as the legal term ap- proximated, in which the decision was to be an- nounced, the river divided itself with mathematical exactitude, on each side of the island. This altered the state and law of the question in tot um ; but, in the mean time, both we and the O'Hallaghans were nearly fractured by the expenses. Now during the lawsuit, we usually houghed and mutilated each other's cattle, according as they trespassed the pre- mises. This brought on the usual concomitants of various battles, fought and won by both sides, and occasioned the law-suit to be dropped ; for we found it a mighty inconvenient matter to fight it out both ways — by the same a-token, that I think it a great l3 226 THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. proof of stultity to go to law at all at all, as long as a person is able to take it into his own management. For the only incongruity in the matter is this : — that, in the one case, a set of lawyers have the law in their hands, and, in the other, that you have it in your own — that's the only difference, and 'tis easy know- ing where the advantage lies. We, however, paid the most of the expenses, and would have ped them all with the greatest integrity, were it not that our attorney, when about to issue an execution against our property, happened to be shot, one evening, as he returned home from a dinner which was given by him that was attorney for the O'Hallaghans. Many a boast the O'Hallaghans made, before the quarrel- ling between us and them commenced, that they'd sweep the streets with the fighting O'Callaghans, which was an epithet that was occasionally applied to our family. We differed, however, materially from them ; for we were honourable, never starting- out in dozens on a single man or two, and beating him into insignificance. A couple, or maybe, when irritated, three, were the most we ever set at a single enemy ; and, if we left him lying in a state of imper- ception, it was the most we ever did, except in a re- gular confliction, when a man is justified in saving his own skull, by breaking one of an opposite faction. For the truth of the business is, that he who breaks the first skull, or the first bone, is safest ; and, sure- Iv, when a man is driven to such an alternative, the choice is unhesitating. O'Hallaghan's attorney, how- THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. 227 ever, had better luck : they were, it is true, rather in the retrograde with him, and, of coorse, it was only candid in him to look for his own. One morn- ing, he found that two of his horses had been exe- cuted by some incendiary unknown, in the course of the night ; and, on going to look at them, he found a taste of a notice posted on the inside of the stable door, giving him intelligence, that if he did not find a horpus corpus whereby to transfer his body out of the country, he'd experience a fate parallel to that of his brother lawyer. And, undoubtedly, if honest people never perpetrated worse than banishing such varmin, along with proctors, and drivers of all kinds, out of a civilized country, they would not be so very culpable or atrocious. After this, the lawyer went to reside in Dublin ; and the only bodily injury he received, was the death of a land-agent and a bai- liff, who lost their lives faithfully in driving for rent. They died, however, successfully ; the bailiff having been provided for, nearly a year before the agent was sent to give an account of his stewardship —as the authorised version has it. The occasion on which the first rencounter between us and the O'Hallagh- ans took place, was a peaceable one. Several of our respective friends undertook to produce a friendly and oblivious potation between us — it was at a ber- rin belonging to a corpse who was related to us both; and certainly, in the beginning, we were all as thick as whigged milk. But there is no use now in dwelling too long upon that circumstance ; let it THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. be sufficient to assert, that the accommodation was effectuated by fists and cudgels, on both sides — the first man that struck a blow being one of the friends that wished to bring about the tranquillity. From that out, the play commenced, and God he knows when it may end ; for no dacent faction could give in to another faction, without losing their character, and being kicked, and cuffed, and murdered every week in the year. " It is the great battle, however, which I am after going to describe ; that in which we and the O'Hal- laghans had contrived, one way or other, to have the parish divided — one half for them, and the other for us ; and, upon my credibility, it is no exaggeration to declare, that the whole parish, though ten miles by six, assembled itself in the town of Knoekimdow- ny, upon this interesting occasion. God he knows, that Ireland ought to be a land of matheraathitians ; for I'm sure her population is well trained, at all events, in the two sciences of multiplication and di- vision. Before I adventure, however, upon the nar- ration, I must wax pathetic a little, and then proceed with the main body of the story. " Poor Rose O'Hallaghan ! — or, as she was desig- nated — Rose Galh, or Fair Rose, and sometimes simply, Rose Hallaghan, because the detention of the big O would produce an afflatus in the pronoun- ciation, that would be mighty inconvanient to such as did not understand oratory, — besides, that the Irish are rather fond of sending the liquids in a gut- THE BATTLE OP THE FACTIONS. 229 theral direction — Poor Rose ! that faction fight was a black day to her, the sweet innocent ! when it was well known that there wasn't a man, woman, or child, on either side, that wouldn't lay their hands under her feet. However, in order to insense the reader better into her character, I will commence a small subnarration, which will afterwards emerge into the parent stream of the story. " The chapel of Knockimdowney is a slated house, without any ornament, except a set of wooden cuts, painted red and blue, that are placed seriatem around the square of the building in the internal side. Four- teen of these suspind at equal distances on the walls, each set on a painted frame ; these constitute a certain species of country devotion. It is usual on Sundays for such of the congregations as are most inclined to devotion, to genuflect at the first of these pictures, and commence a certain number of prayers to it ; after the repitition of which, they travel on their knees along the bare earth to the second, where they repate another prayer peculiar to that, and so on, till they finish the grand tower of the interior. Such, however, as are not especially dictated to this kind of locomotive devotion, collect together in various knots, through the chapel, and amuse themselves by auditing or narrating anectotes, discussing policy, or detraction ; and in case it be summer, and the day of a fine texture, they scatter themselves into little crowds on the chapel green, or lie at their length upon the grass in listless groups, giving way to chat 230 THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. and laughter. In this mode, laired on the sunny side of the ditches and hedges, or collected in rings round that respectable character, the academician of the vil- lage, or some other well-known shanahas, or story- teller, they amuse themselves till the priest's arrival. Perhaps, too, some walking geographer of a pilgrim may happen to be present ; and if there be, he is sure to draw a crowd about him, in spite of all the efforts of the learned academician to the reverse. It is no unusual thing to see such a vagrant, in all the vanity of conscious sanctimony, standing in the middle of the attentive peasants, like the knave and fellows of a cart-wheel — if I may be permitted the loan of an apt similitude — repeating some piece of unfathomable and labyrinthine devotion, or perhaps warbling, from Sten- thorian lungs, some melodia sacra, in an untranslate- able tongue; or, it may be, exhibiting the myste- rious power of an amber bade, fastened as a decade to his padareens, lifting a chaff or light bit of straw by the force of its attraction. This is an exploit which causes many an eye to turn from the bades to his own bearded face, with a hope, as it were, of being able to catch a glimpse of the lurking sanctimony, by which the knave does them up in the miraculous. The amusements of the females are also nearly such as I have drafted out. Nosegays of the darlings might be seen sated on green banks, or sauntering about with a sly intention of coming in compact with their sweethearts, or, like bachelor's buttons in smil- ing rows, criticising the young men as they pass. THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. 231 Others of them might be seen screened behind a hedge, with their backs to the spectators, taking the papers off their curls before a small bit of looking- glass placed against the ditch ; or perhaps putting on their shoes and stockings — which phrase can be used only by authority of the figure, heusteron proteron — in as much as if they put on the shoes first, you persave, it would be a scientific job to get on the stockings after ; but it's an idiomatical phrase, and therefore justifiable. However, it's a general custom in the country, which I dare to say has not yet spread into large cities, for the young women to walk bare-footed to the chapel, or within a short distance of it, that they may exhibit their bleached thread stockings and well greased slippers to the best advantage, not pre- termitting a well-turned ancle and neat leg, which, I may fearlessly assert, my fair country-women can show against any other nation living or dead. "One sunny Sabbath, the congregation of Knockim- downey were thus assimilated, amusing themselves in the manner I have just outlined : a series of country- girls sat on a little green mount, called the Rabbit Bank, from the circumstance of its having formerly been an open borough, though of late years it has been closed. It was near twelve o'clock, the hour at which Father Luke O'Shaughran was generally seen topping the rise of the hill at Larry Mulligan's public- house, jogging on his bay hack at something between a walk and a trot — that is to say, his horse moved his fore and hind legs on the off-side at one motion, and 232 THE BATTLE OP THE FACTIONS. the fore and hind legs of the near-side in another, going at a kind of dog's trot, like the pace of an idiot with sore feet in a shower — a pace, indeed, to which the animal had been set for the last sixteen years, but beyond which, no force, or entreaty, or science, or power, either divine or human, of his Re- verence could drive him. As yet, however, he had not become apparent; and the girls already men- tioned were discussing the pretensions which several of their acquaintances had to dress or beauty : — 1 Peggy/ said Katty Carroll to her companion, Peggy Donohoe, ' were you out last Sunday ?' ' No, in troth, Katty, I was disappointed in getting my shoes from Paddy Malone, though I left him the measure of my foot three weeks agone, and gave him a thousand vvarnin's to make them duck-nebs; but instead of that/ said she, holding out a very purty foot, s he has made them as sharp in the toe as a pick-axe, and a lull mile too short for me : but why do ye ax was I out, Katty ?' ' Oh, nothing/ responded Katty, ' only that you missed a sight, any way.' ' What was it, Katty, a-hagur?' asked her companion with mighty great curiosity. ( Why, nothing less, indeed, nor Rose Cuillenan, decked out in a white muslin gown, and a black sprush bonnet, tied under her chin wid a silk ribbon, no less ; but what killed us, out and out, was — you wouldn't guess ?' ' Arrah, how could I guess, woman alive ? A silk handkerchy, maybe ; for I wouldn't doubt the same Rose, but she would be set- ting herself up for the likes of sich a thing.' ' It's THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. 233 herself that had, as red as scarlet about her neck; but that's not it.' l Arrah, Katty, tell it to us at once ; out with it, a-hagur — sure it's no trason, any how.' f Why, thin, nothing" less nor a crass-bar red and white pocket-handkerchy, to wipe her purty com- plexion wid.' To this Peggy replied by a loud laugh, in which it was difficult to say whether there was more sathir than astonishment. ' A pocket-hand- kerchy !' she exclaimed ; f musha, are we alive after that, at all at all ! Why, that bates Molly M'Cullagh and her red mantle entirely ; I'm sure, but it's well come up for the likes of her, a poor imperint crathur, that sprung from nothing, to give herself sich airs 1' ' Molly M'Cullagh, indeed,' said Katty ; ' why, they oughtn't to be mintioned in the one day, woman; Molly's come of a decent ould stock, and kind mother for her to keep herself in genteel ordher at all times : she seen nothing else, and can afford it, not all as one as the other flipe, that would go to the world's end for a bit of dress.' ( Sure she thinks she's a beauty, too, if you plase/ said Peggy, tossing her head with an air of disdain ; c but tell us, Katty, how did the muslin sit upon her at all, the upsettin' crathur V ' Why, for all the world like a shift on a May-powl, or a stocking on a body's nose : O my ! nothing killed us outright but the pocket-handkerchy !' ' But,' said the other, e what could we expect from a proud piece like her, that brings a Manwill* to mass every Sun- • Manual, a Catholic prayer-book. 234 THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. day, purtending she can read in it, and Jem Finigan seen the wrong side of the book toards her, the Sun- day of the Purcession.' " At this hit they both formed another risible junc- tion, quite as sarcastic as the former — in the midst of which the innocent object of their censure, dressed in all her obnoxious finery, came up and joined them. She was scarcely sated — I blush to the very point of my pen during the manuscription — when the confa- bulation assumed a character directly antipodial to that which marked the precedent dialogue. ' My gracious, Rose, but that's a purty thing you have got in your gown ! where did you buy it ?' i Och, thin, not a one of myself likes it over much. I'm sorry I didn't buy a gingam ; I could have got a beautiful patthern, all out, for two shillings less ; but they don't wash so well as this. I bought it m Paddy Gartland's, Peggy.' ( Troth, it's nothing else but a great beauty; I didn't see any thing on you this long time becomes you so well, and I've remarked that you always look best in white/ ' Who made it, Rose/ enquired Katty, f for it sits illegant?' ( Indeed,' replied Rose; ' for the differ of the price, I thought it betther to bring it to Peggy Boyle, and be sartin of not havin' it spoiled. Nelly Keenan made the last, and although there was a full breadth more in it nor this, bad cess to the one of her but spoiled it on me ; it was ever so much too short in the body, and too tight in the sleeves, and then I had no stride at all at all.' ' The sprush bon- net is just the fit for the gown,' observed Katty ; THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. 235 ' the black and the white's jist the cut — how many yards had you, Rose ?' c Jist ten and a half; but the half yard was for the tucks.' e Ay, faix ! and brave full tucks she left in it; ten would do me, Rose?' c Ten ! no, nor ten and a half ; you're a size bigger nor me at the laste, Peggy ; but you'd be asy fitted, you're so well made.' e Rose, darling,' said Peggy, ' that's a great beauty, and shows off your complexion all to pieces ; you have no notion how well you look in it and the sprush.' " In a few minutes after this, her namesake, Rose Galh O'Hallaghan, came towards the chapel, in so- ciety with her father, mother, and her two sisters. The eldest, Mary, was about twenty-one ; Rose, who was the second, about nineteen, or scarcely that; and the junior of the three about twice seven. ' There's the O'Hallaghans,' said Rose. ' Ay,' replied Katty ; 1 you may talk of beauty now ; did you ever lay your two eyes on the likes of Rose for downright — musha, if myself knows what to call it ; but, any how, she's the lovely crathur to look at.' " Kind reader, without any disrespectful insinua- tions against any portion of the fair sex, you may judge w r hat Rose Hallaghan must have been, when even these three were necessiated to praise her in her absence. " ' I'll warrant,' observed Katty, ' we'll soon be after seeing John O'Callaghan/ (he was my own cousin,) ' strolling afther them, at his ase.' e Why > ' asked Rose ' what makes you say that ?' c Bekase/ 236 THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. replied the other, ( I have a rason for it.' ' Sure John O'Callaghan wouldn't be thinking of her,' observed Rose, 'and their families would see another shot; their factions would never have a crass marriage, any how.' e Well,' said Peggy, i it's the thousand pities that the same two couldn't go together ; for fair and handsome as Rose is, you'll not deny but John comes up to her ; but faix, sure enough it's they that's the proud people on both sides, and dangerous to make or meddle wid, not saying that ever there was the likes of the same two for dacency and peaceableness among either of the factions.' ( Didn't I tell yees ?' cried Katty ; c look at him now, staling afther her, and it'ill be the same thing going home agin ; and if Rose is not much belied, it's not a bit displasing to her, they say.' * Betune ourselves,' observed Peggy, ' it would be no wondher the darling young crathur would fall in love with him ; for you might thravel the country afore ye'd meet with his fellow, for face and figure.' ( There's Father Ned,' remarked Katty ; ' we had betther get into the chapel before the scroodgen comes on, or your bonnet and gown, Rose, won't be the betther for it.' " They now proceeded to the chapel, and those who had been amusing themselves after the same mode, followed the same exemplar. In a short time the hedges and ditches adjoining the chapel were quite in solitude, with the exception of a few persons from the extreme parts of the parish, who might be seen running with all possible velocity c to overtake THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. 237 mass/ as the phrase on that point expresses itself. The chapel of Knockimdowney was situated at the foot of a range of lofty mountains ; a by-road went past the very door, which had under subjection a beautiful extent of cultivated country, diversincated by hill and dale, or rather by hill and hollow ; for as far as my own geographical knowledge went, I have uniformly found them inseparable. It was also orna- mented with the waving verdure of rich corn-fields and meadows ; not pretermitting phatie fields in full blossom — a part of rural landscape, which, to my utter astonishment, has escaped the pen of poet, and the brush of painter ; although I will risque my re- putation as a man of pure and categorical taste, if a finer ingredient in the composition of a landscape could be found, than a field of Cork-red phaties, or Moroky blacks, allowing a man to judge by the plea- sure they confer upon the eye, and therefore to the heart. About a mile up from the chapel, towards the south, a mountain stream, — not the one already intimated — over which there was no bridge, crossed the road. But in lieu of a bridge, there was a long double plank laid over it from bank to bank ; and as the river was broad, and not sufficiently incarcerated within its channel, the neighbours were necessiated to throw these planks across the narrowest part they could find in the contiguity of the road. This part was consequently the deepest, and, in floods, the most dangerous ; for the banks were elevated as far as they went, and quite tortuositous. 238 THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. " Shortly after the priest had entered the chapel, it was observed that the hemisphere became, of a sudden, unusually obscure, though the preceding part of the day had not only been uncloudously bright, but hot in a most especial manner. The obscurity, however, encreased rapidly, accompanied by that gloomy stillness which always takes precedence of a storm, and tills the mind with vague and interminable terror. But this ominous silence was not long un- fractured ; for soon after the first appearance of the gloom, a flash of lightening quivered through the chapel, followed by an extravagantly loud clap of thunder, which shook the very glass in the windows, and fill'd the congregation to the brim with terror. Their dismay, however, would have been infinitely greater, only for the presence of his Reverence, and the confidence which might be traced to the solemn occasion on which they were assimilated. From this moment the storm became progressive in dreadful magnitude ; and the thunder, in concomitance with the most vivid flashes of lightening, pealed through the sky, with an awful grandeur and magnificence, that were exalted, and even rendered more sublime, by the still solemnity of religious worship. Every heart now prayed fervently — every spirit shrunk into a deep sense of its own guilt and helplessness — and every conscience was terror-stricken, as the voice of an angry God thundered out of his temple of storms through the heavens; for truly, as the author- ized version has it, ' darkness was under his feet, and THE BATTLE OP THE FACTIONS. 239 his pavillion round about was dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies, because he was wroth/ The rain now condescended even in down-torrents, and thunder succeeded thunder with deep and terrific peals, whilst the roar of the gigantic echoes that deepened and reverbrated among the glens and hollows, laughing ' in their mountain mirth/ hard fortune to me, but they made the flesh creep on my bones ! This lasted for an hour, when the thunder slackened ; but the rain still continued. As soon as mass was over, and the storm had elapsed, except an odd peal which might be heard rolling at a distance behind the hills, the people began gradually to recover their spirits, and enter into confabulation; but to venture out was still impracticable. For about another hour it rained incessantly ; after which it ceased, — the hemisphere became lighter — and the sun shone out once more upon the countenance of nature with his former brightness. The congregation now decanted itself out of the chapel — the spirits of the people dancing with that remarkable buoyancy or juvenility, which is felt after a thunder storm, when the air is calm, soople, and balmy — and all nature garmented with glittering verdure and light. The congregation next began to commingle on their way home, and to make the usual observations upon the extraordinary storm which had just passed, and the probable effect it would produce on the fruit and agriculture of the neighbourhood. "When the three young women whom we have 240 THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. already introduced to our respectable readers, had evacuated the chapel, they determined to substantiate a certitude, as far as their observation could reach, as to the truth of what Katty Carroll had hinted at, in reference to John O'Callaghan's attachment to Rose Galh O'Hallaghan, and her taciturn approval of it. For this purpose they kept their eye upon John, who certainly seemed in no especial hurry home ; but lingered upon the chapel-green, in a very careless method. Rose Galh, however, soon made her ap- pearance, and after going up the chapel-road a short space, John slyly walked at some distance behind, without seeming to pay her any particular notice ; whilst a person up to the secret might obsarve Rose's bright eye sometimes peeping back, to see if he was after her. In this manner they proceeded, until they came to the river, which, to their great alarm, was almost fluctuating over its highest banks. A crowd was now assembled, consulting as to the safest method of crossing the plank, under which the red boiling current ran, with less violence, it is true, but much deeper, than in any other part of the stream. The final decision was, that the very young and the old, and such as were feeble, should proceed by a circuit of some miles to a bridge that crossed it, and that the young men should place themselves on their knees along the plank, their hands locked in each other, thus forming a support on one side, upon which such as had courage to venture across might lean, in case of accident or megrim. Indeed, any THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. 241 body that had courage might have crossed the plank without this precaution, had it been dry; but, in consequence of the rain, and the frequent attrition of feet, it was quite slippery; and, besides, the flood rolled terrifically two or three yards below it, which might be apt to beget a megrim that would not be felt if there was no flood. When this expedient had been hit upon, several young men volunteered them- selves to put it in practice ; and in a short time a considerable number of both sexuals crossed over, without the occurrence of any unpleasant accident. Paddy O'Hallaghan and his family had been stationed for some time on the bank, watching the success of the plan ; and, as it appeared not to be attended with any particular danger, they also determined to make the attempt. About a perch below the plank stood John O'Callaghan, watching the progress of those who were crossing it ; but taking no part in what was going forward. The river under the plank, and for some perches above and below it, might be about ten feet deep ; but to those who could swim it was less perilous, should any accident befal them, than those parts where the current was more rapid, but shallower. The water here boiled, and bubbled, and whirled about ; but it was slow, and its yellow sur- face unbroken by rocks or fords. u The first of the O'Hallaghans that ventured over it, was the youngest, who was captured by the hand, and encouraged by many cheerful expressions from the young men who were clinging to the planks. She VOL. I. m 242 THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. got safe over, and when she came to the end, one who was stationed on the far bank gave her a joyous pull, that translated her several yards upon terra firma 'Well, Nancy/ he observed, 'you're safe, any how ; and if I don't dance at yer wedding for this, I'll never say ye're dacent/ To this Mary gave a jocular promise ; and he resumed his station, that he might be ready to render a similar assistance to her next sister. Rose Galh then went to the edge of the plank several times, but her courage as often refused to be forthcoming. During her hesitation, John O'Callaghan stooped down, and privately untied his shoes, then unbuttoned his waistcoat, and very gently, being unwilling to excite notice, slipped the knot of his cravat. At long last, by the encouragement of those who were on the plank, Rose attempted the passage, and had advanced as far as the middle of it, when a fit of dizziness and alarm seized her with such violence, that she lost all consciousness — a circumstance of which those who handed her along were ignorant. The consequence, as might be ex- pected, was dreadful ; for, as one of the young men was receiving her hand, that he might pass her to the next, she lost her momentum, and was instantaneously precipitated into the boiling current. The wild and fearful cry of horror that succeeded this cannot be laid on paper. The eldest sister fell into strong con- vulsions, and several of the other females fainted on the spot. The mother did not faint ; but, like Lot's wife, she seemed to have been translated into stone : THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. 243 her hands became clenched convulsively, her teeth locked, her nostrils dilated, and her eyes shot half way out of her head. There she stood, looking upon her daughter struggling in the flood, with a fixed gaze of wild and impotent phrenzy, that, for fearful- ness, beat the thunderstorm all to nothing. The father rushed to the edge of the river, oblivious of his incapability to swim, determined to save her or lose his own life, which latter would have been a dead certainty, had he adventured ; but he was prevented by the crowd, who pointed out to him the madness of such a project. c For God's sake, Paddy, don't attimpt it,' they exclaimed, f except you wish to lose your own life, widout being able to save her's ; no man could swim in that flood, and it upwards of ten feet deep.' Their arguments, however, were lost upon him ; for, in fact, he was insensible to every thing but his child's preservation. He, therefore, only answered their remonstrations by attempting to make another plunge into the river. ' Let me alone, will yees/ said he ; l let me alone. I'll either save my child, Rose, or die along with her ! How could I live afther her? Merciful God, any of them but her ! Oh ! Rose, darling/ he exclaimed ; ' the favourite of my heart, will no one save you ? Oh, God ! Oh, God! is there no mercy?' All this passed in less than a minute. " Just as these words were uttered, a plunge was heard a few yards above the bridge, and a man ap- peared in the flood, making his way, with rapid m 2 244 THE BATTLE OP THE FACTIONS. strokes, to the drowning girl. Another cry now arose from the spectators. ' It's John O'Callaghan/ they shouted — f it's John O'Callaghan, and they'll be both lost !' c No/ exclaimed others ; * if it's in the power of man to save her, he will !' e O, blessed Fa- ther, she's lost !' now burst from all present ; for, after having struggled and been kept floating for some time by her garments, she at length sunk, ap- parently exhausted and senseless, and the thief of a flood flowed over her, as if she had not been under its surface. When O'Callaghan saw that she went down, he raised himself up in the water, and cast his eye towards that part of the bank opposite which she disappeared, evidently, as it proved, that he might have a mark to guide him in fixing on the proper spot where to plunge after her. When he came to the place, he raised himself again in the stream, and, calculating that she must by this time have been borne some distance from the spot where she sank, he gave a stroke or two down the river, and disap- peared after her. This was followed by another cry of horror and despair ; for, somehow, the idea of de- solation which marks, at all times, a deep, over- swollen torrent, heightened by the bleak mountain scenery around them, and the dark, angry voracity of the river where they had sunk, might have im- pressed the spectators with utter hopelessness as to the fate of those now engulphed in its vortex. This however, I leave to those who are deeper read in philosophy than I am. An awful silence succeeded THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. 245 the last shrill exclamation, broken only by the hoarse rushing of the waters, whose wild, continuous roar, booming hollowly and dismally in the ear, might be heard at a great distance over all the country. But a new sensation soon invaded the multitude ; for, after the lapse of about a minute, John O'Callaghan emerged from the flood, bearing, in his sinister hand, the inanimate body of his own Rose Galh — for it's he that loved her tenderly. A peal of joy con- gratulated them from a thousand voices ; hundreds of directions were given to him how to act to the best advantage. Two young men in especial, who were both dying about the lovely creature that he held, were quite anxious to give him advice : ( bring her to the other side, John, ma bouchal ; it's the safest/ said Larry Carty. ' Will you let him alone, Carty,' said Simon Tracy, who was the other ; c you'll only put him in a perplexity ?' But Carty should order in spite of every thing. He kept bawling out, how- ever, so loud, that John raised his eye to see what he meant, and was near losing hold of Rose. This was too much for Tracy, who ups with the fist, and downs him — so they both at it ; for no one there could take themselves off those that were in danger, to interfere between them. But, at all events, no earthly thing can happen among Irishmen without a fight. The father, during this, stood breathless, his hands clasped, and his eyes turned to heaven, pray- ing in anguish for the delivery of his darling. The mother's look was still wild and fixed, her eyes 246 THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. glazed, and her muscles hard and stiff; evidently she was insensible to all that was going forward ; while large drops of paralytic agony hung upon her cold brow. Neither of the sisters had yet recovered, nor could those who supported them turn their eyes from the more imminent danger, to pay them any par- ticular attention. Many, also, of the other females, whose feelings were too much wound up when the accident occurred, now fainted, when they saw she was likely to be rescued ; but most of them were weeping with delight and gratitude. " When John brought her to the surface, he paus- ed a moment to recover breath and collectedness ; he then caught her by the left ann, near the shoulder, and cut, in a slanting direction, down the stream, to a watering-place, where a slope had been formed in the bank. But he was already too far down to be able to work across the current to this point — for it was here much stronger and more rapid than under the plank. Instead, therefore, of reaching the slope, he found himself, in spite of every effort to the con- trary, about a perch below it ; and except he could gain this point, against the strong rush of the ilood, there was very little hope of being able to save either her or himself — for he was now much exhausted. Hitherto, therefore, all was still doubtful, whilst his strength was fast failing him. In this trying and almost hopeless situation, with an admirable pre- sence of mind, he adopted the only expedient which could possibly enable him to reach the bank. On THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. 247 finding himself receding down, instead of advancing up the current, he approached the bank, which was here very deep and perpendicular ; he then sunk his fingers into the firm blue clay with which it was stratified, and by this means advanced, bit by bit, up the stream, having no other force by which he could propel himself against it. After this mode did he breast the current with all his strength — which must have been prodigious, or he never could have borne it out — until he reached the slope, and got from the influence of the tide, into the dead water. On arriving here, his hand was caught by one of the young men present, who stood up to the neck in the water, waiting his approach. A second man stood behind him, holding his other hand, and a link was thus formed, that reached out to the firm bank. A good pull now brought them both to the edge of the liquid: on finding bottom, John took his Colleen Galh in his own arms, carried her out, and, pressing his lips to hers, laid her in the bosom of her father ; then, after taking another kiss of the young drowned flower, burst into tears, and fell powerless beside her. The truth is, the spirit that kept him firm, was now wanted ; and his legs and arms became nerveless by the exertion. Hitherto her father took no notice of John, for how could he ? seeing that he was entirely wrapped up in his daughter ; and the question was, though rescued from the flood, if life was in her. — The sisters were by this time recovered, and weeping over her, along with the father, and, indeed, with all 248 THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. present ; but the mother could not be made to com- prehend what they were about, at all at all. The country people used every means with which they were intimate, to recover Rose ; she was brought in- stantly to a farmer's house beside the spot, put into a warm bed, covered over with hot salt, wrapped in half-scorched blankets, and made subject to every other mode of treatment that could possibly revoke the functions of life. John had now got a dacent draught of whiskey, which revived him. He stood over her, when he could be admitted, watching for the symptomatics of her revival ; all, however, was vain. He now determined to try another course : by-and-by he stooped, put his mouth to her mouth, and, drawing in his breath, respired with all his force from the bottom of his very heart into hers ; this he did several times rapidly — Faith, a tender and agree- able operation, any how. But mark the consequence : in less than a minute her white bosom heaved — her breath returned — her pulse began to play : she opened her eyes, and felt his tears of love raining warmly on her pale cheek ! " For years before this, no two of these opposite factions had spoken ; nor up to this minute had John and they, even upon this occasion, exchanged a mo- nosyllable. The father now looked at him — the tears stood afresh in his eyes ; he came forward — stretched out his hand — it was received; and the next moment he fell into John's arms, and cried like an infant. " When Rose recovered, she seemed as if striving THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. 249 to recordate what had happened ; and, after two or three minutes, inquired from her sister, in a weak but sweet voice, e Who saved me ?' ' 'Twas John O'Cal- laghan, Rose darling - / replied the sister, c that ven- tured his own life into the boiling flood, to save yours — and did save it, jewel.' Rose's eye gleamed at John ; — and I only wish, as I am a bachelor not fur- ther than my forty-seventh, that I may ever have the happiness to get a glance from two blue eyes, such as 6he gave him that moment ; a faint smile played about her mouth, and a slight blush lit up her fair cheek, like the evening sunbeams on the virgin snow, as the poets have said, for the five hundredth time, to my own personal knowledge. She then extended hei hand, which John, you may be sure, was no way backward in receiving, and the tears of love and gra- titude ran silently down her cheeks. It is not neces- sary to detail the circumstances of this day farther ; let it be sufficient to say, that a reconciliation took place between those two branches of the O'Hallagh- an andO'Callaghan families, in consequence of John's heroism and Rose's soft persuasion, and that there was, also, every perspective of the two factions being penultimately amalgamated. For nearly a century they had been pell mell at it, whenever and where- ever they could meet. Their forefathers, who had been engaged in the law-suit about the island which I have mentioned, were dead and petrified in their graves ; and the little peninsula in the glen was gradi- tionally worn away by the river, till nothing remained M 3 250 THE BATTLE OP THE FACTIONS. but a desert, upon a small scale, of sand and gravel. Even the ruddy, able-bodied Squire, with the longi- tudinal nose, projecting out of his face like a broken arch, and the small, fiery magistrate, both of whom had fought the duel, for the purpose of setting forth a good example, and bringing the dispute to a peace- able conclusion, were also dead. The very memory of the original contention had been lost, (except that it was preserved along with the cranium of my grand- father,) or fastened itself on some more modern pro- vocation, which it kept in view until another fresh motive would start up, and so on. I know not, how- ever, whether it was fair to expect them to give up at once the agreable recreation of fighting. It's not easy to abolish old customs, particularly diversions ; and every one knows that this is the national amuse- ment of the finest peasantry on the face of the earth. There were, it is true, many, among both factions, who saw the matter in this reasonable light, and who wished rather, if it were to cease, that it should die away by degrees, from the big battle of the whole parish, equally divided between the factions, to the subordinate row between certain members of them — from that to the faint broil of certain families, and so on, to the single-handed play between individuals. At all events, one-half of them were for peace, and two-thirds of the remainder equally divided between peace and war. " For three months after the accident which befel Rose Galh O'Hallaghan, both factions had been to- THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. 251 lerantly quiet ; that is to say, they had had no general engagement. Some slight skrimmages cer- tainly did take place on market nights, when the drop was in, and the spirits up ; but in these neither John nor Rose's immediate families took any part. The fact was, that John and Rose were on the evening of matrimony ; the match had been made, and the day appointed, and every other necessary stipulation ratified. Now, John was as fine a young man as you would meet in a day's travelling ; and as for Rose, her name went far and near for beauty ; and with justice, for the sun never shone on a fairer, meeker, or modester virgin, than Rose Galh O'Hallagan. It might be, indeed, that there were those on both sides who thought that, if the marriage was obstructed, their own sons and daughters would have a better chance. Rose had many admirers ; they might have envied John his happiness : many fathers, on the other side, might have wished their sons to succeed with Rose. Whether I am sinister in this conjecture is more than I can say. I grant, indeed, that a great portion of it is speculation on my part. The wedding day, however, was arranged; but, unfortunately, the fair-day of Knockimdowney occurred, in the rotation of natural time, precisely one week before it. I know not from what motive it proceeded, but the factions on both sides were never known to make a more light- hearted preparation for battle! cudgels of all sorts and sizes, (and some of them, to my own knowledge, great beauties,) were provided. I believe, I may as 2,32 THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. well take this opportunity of saying, that a real Irish cudgel must be root-growing, either oak, black-thorn, or crab-tree — although crab-tree, by the way, is apt to fly. They should not be too long — three feet and a few inches is an accommodating length. They must be naturally top-heavy, and have, around the end that is to make acquaintance with the cranium, three or four natural lumps, calculated to divide the flesh in the natest manner, and leave, if possible, the smallest taste in life of pit in the skull. But if a good root- growing kippeen be light at the fighting- end, or possess not the proper number of knobs, a hole, a few inches deep, is to be bored in that end, which must be filled with melted lead. This gives it a widow- and-orphan-making quality, a child-bereaving touch, altogether very desirable. If, however, the top splits in the boring, which, in awkward hands, is not un- common, the defect may be remediated by putting on an iron ferrule, and driving two or three strong nails into it, simply to preserve it from flying off; not that an Irishman is ever at a loss for weapons when in a fight ; for as long as a scythe, flail, spade, pitchfork, or stone, is at hand, he feels quite con- tented with the lot of war. No man, as they say of great statesmen, is more fertile in expedients during a row ; which, by the way, I take to be a good qua- lity, at all events. " I remember the fair-day of Knockimdowny well : It has kept me from griddle-bread and tough nu- triment ever since. Hard fortune to Jack Roe THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. 253 O'Hallaghan ! No man had better teeth than I had, till I met with him that day. He fought stoutly on his own side; but he was ped then for the same basting to me., though not by my hands : if to get his jaw dacently divided into three halves could be called a fair liquidation of an old debt — it was equal to twenty shillings in the pound, any how. " There had not been a larger fair in the town of Knockimdowuey for years. The day was dark and sunless, but sultry. On looking through the crowd, I could see no man without a cudgel ; yet, what was strange, there was no certainty of any sport. Several desultory skrimmages had locality; but they were al- together sequestrated from the great factions of the O's. Except that it was pleasant, and stirred one's blood to look at them, or occasioned the cudgels to be grasped more firmly, there was no personal in- terest felt by any of us in them ; they therefore began and ended, here and there, through the fair, like mere flashes in the pan, dying in their own smoke. The blood of every prolific nation is naturally hot; but when that hot blood is inflamed by ardent spirits, it is not to be supposed that men should be cool ; and God he knows, there is not on the level surface of this habitable globe a nation that has been so thoroughly inflamed by ardent spirits than Ireland. Up till four o'clock that day, the factions were quiet. Several relations on both sides had been invited to drink by John and Rose's families, for the purpose of estab- lishing a good feeling between them. But this was, 254 THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. after all, hardly to be expected; for they hated one another with an ardency much too good-humoured and buoyant: and, between ourselves, to bring Paddy over a bottle is a very equivocal mode of giving him an anti-cudgelling disposition. After the hour of four, several of the factions were getting very friendly, which I knew at the time to be a bad sign. Many of them nodded to each other, which I knew to be a worse one ; and some of them shook hands with the greatest cordiality, which I no sooner saw, than I unslipped the knot of my cravat, and held myself in preparation for the sport. u I have often had occasion to remark — and few men, let me tell you, had finer opportunities of doing so — the differential symptomatics between a Party Fight, that is, a battle between Orangemen and Rib- bonmen, and one between two Roman Catholic Fac- tions. There is something infinitely more anxious, silent, and deadly, in the compressed vengeance, and the hope of slaughter, which characterize a party- fight, than is to be seen in a battle between factions. The truth is, the enmity is not so deep and well- grounded in the latter as in the former. The feeling is not political nor religious between the factions ; whereas, in the other, it is both, which is a mighty great advantage ; for, when this is adjuncted to an intense personal hatred, and a sense of wrong, pro- bably arising from a too intimate recollection of the leaded black-thorn, or the awkward death of some relative, it is apt to produce very purty fighting, THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. 255 and much respectable retribution. In a party-fight, a prophetic sense of danger hangs, as it were, over the crowd — the very air is loaded with apprehension ; and the vengeance-burst is preceded by a close thick darkness, almost sulphury, that is more terrifical than the conflict itself, though clearly less dangerous and fatal. The scowl of the opposing parties, the blanched cheeks, the knit brows, and the grinding teeth, not pretermitting the deadly gleams that shoot from their kindled eyes, are ornaments which a plain battle between factions cannot boast ; but which, notwithstanding, are very suitable to the fierce and gloomy silence of that premeditated vengeance, which burns with such intensity in the heart, and scorches up the vitals into such a thirst for blood. Not but that they come by different means to the same con- clusion ; because it is the feeling, and not altogether the manner of operation, that is different. " Now a faction fight doesn't resemble this, at all at alL Paddy's at home here ; all song, dance, good humour, and affection. His cheek is flushed with delight, which, indeed, may derive assistance from the consciousness of having no bayonets or loaded carabines to contend with : but, any how, he's at home — his eye is lit with real glee — he tosses his hat in the air, in the height of mirth — and leaps, like a mountebank two yards from the ground. Then, with what a gracious dexterity he brandishes his cudgel ! what a joyous spirit is heard in his shout at the face of a friend from another faction ! His very c whoo V 2jG the battle of the factions. is contagious, and would make a man, that had set- tled on running - away, return and join the sport with an appetite truly Irish. He is, in fact, while under the influence of this heavenly afflatus, in love with every one, man, woman, and child. If he meet his sweetheart, he will give her a kiss and a hug, and that with double kindness, because he is on his way to leather her father or her brother. It is the acumen of his enjoyment — and wo be to him who will adven- ture to go between him and his amusements. To be sure, skulls and bones are broken, and lives lost; but they are lost in pleasant fighting — they are the con- sequences of the sport, the beauty of which consists in breaking as many heads and necks as you can ; and certainly when a man enters into the spirit of any exercise, there is nothing like elevating himself to the point of excellence. Then a man ought never to be disheartened. If you lose this game, or get your head good-humouredly beaten to pieces, why you may win another, or your friends may settle off two or three skulls as a set off to yours ; — but that is nothing. " When the evening became more advanced, may be, considering the poor look up there was for any thing like dacent sport — maybe, in the early part of the day, it wasn't the delightful sight to see the boys on each side of the two great factions, beginning to get frolicksome. Maybe the songs and the shouting when they began, hadn't melody and music in them, any how ! People may talk about harmony; but THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. 257 what harmony is equal to that in which five or six hundred men sing and shout, and leap and caper at each other, as a prelude to neighbourly fighting, where they beat time upon the drums of each others ears and heads with oak drum-sticks ? That's an Irish- man's music ; and hard fortune to the gar ran that wouldn't have friendship and kindness in him to join and play a stave along with them ! e "VThoo ! your sowl ! Hurroo ! Success to our side ! Hi for the O'Callaghan's ! Where's the blackguard to ,' I beg pardon, dacent reader, I forgot for a moment, or rather I got new life in me ; for I am nothing at all at all for the last five months — a kind of non-en- tity I may say, ever since that vagaboned Burgess occasioned me to pay a visit to my distant relations, till my friends get that last matter of the collar-bone settled. " It's truly surprising, the impulse which faction fighting gives trade and business in Ireland ; whereas party fighting depreciates both. As soon as it is per- ceived that a party fight is to be expected, all buying and selling are suspended for the day; and those who are not up, and even many who are, take themselves and their property home as quickly as may be con- venient. But in a faction fight, as soon as there is any perspective of a row, depend upon it, there is quick work at all kinds of negociation ; and truly there is nothing like brevity and decision in buying and selling ; for which reason faction fighting, at all 258 THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. events, if only for the sake of national prosperity, should be encouraged and kept up. " Towards five o'clock, if a man was placed on an exalted station, so that he could look at the crowd, and wasn't able to fight, he coidd have seen much that a man might envy him for. Here a hat went up, or maybe a dozen of them ; then followed a gen- eral huzza. On the other side, two dozen caubeens sought the sky, like so many scaldy crows attempting their own element for the first time, only they were not so black. Then another shout, which was joined by that of their friends on the opposite side ; so that you would hardly know which side bellowed loudest, the blending of both was so truly symphonious. Now there was a shout for the face of an O'Callaghan : this was prosecuted on the very heels by another for the face of an O'Hallaghan. Immediately a man of the O'Hallaghan side doffed his tattered frieze, and catching it by the very extremity of the sleeve, drew it with a tact, known only by an initiation of half a dozen street days, up the pavement after him. On the instant, a blade from the O'Callaghan side peeled with equal alacrity, and stretching his home-made at full length after him, proceeded triumphantly up the street, to meet the other. f Thundher-an-ages, what's this for, at all at all ! I wish I hadn't begun to manuscript an account of it, any how : tis like a hungry man dreaming of a good belly-full at a feast, and afterwards wakening and finding his back and THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. 259 belly on the point of union. Reader, is that a black- thorn you carry — tut, where is my imagination bound for ?' to meet the other, I say. c "Where's the rascally O'Callaghan that will place his toe or his shillely on this frieze ?' ' Is there no blackguard O' Hallaghan jist to look crucked at the coat of an O'Callaghan, or say black's the white of his eye r' ' Throth and there is, Ned, avourneen, that same on the sod here/ e Is that Barney ?' l The same, Ned, ma bouchal — and how is your mother's son, Ned :' * In good health, at the present time, thank God and you; how is yourself, JBarny?' ' Can't complain as times goes j only take this, any how, to mend your health, ma bouchal.' (Whack). ' Success, Barney, and here's at your sarvice, avick, not making little of what I got — any way' — (crack). About five o'clock on a May evening, in the fair of Knockimdowney, was the ice thus broken, with all possible civility, by Ned and Barney. The next moment a general rush took place towards the scene of action, and, ere you could bless yourself, Barney and Ned were both down, and weltering in their own and each other's blood. I scarcely know, indeed, though with a mighty respectable quota of experimentality myself, how to describe what followed. For the first twenty minutes the general harmony of this fine row might be set to music, acccording to a scale something like this : — Whick whack — crick crack — whick whack — crick crack whick whack crick crack whick whack — crick crack — whick whack — crick crack — 260 THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. whick whack crick crack — whick whack — crick crack ||: crack crick — whack whick — whack whick — crack crick — whack crack — whick crick — whick crick — whack crack || — with my whack — with my whick}]: with my whick — with my whack || with my whick whack — with my crick crack || with my whack whick — with my crack crick || chorus, with my whick with my whack — with my crack, crack, crack || with my whack with my whick — with my crick, crick, crick || with my whick with my crick || with my whack with my crack || with my whick, whick, whick || with my crack, crack, crack || with my whick whack — crick crack — whack, whack, whack, &c. &c. &c. f Here yer sowl — (crack) there yer sowl — (whack.) Whoo for the O'Hallaghans !' — (crack, crack, crack.) 1 Hurroo for the O'Callaghans ! — (whack, whack, whack.) The O'Callaghans for ever!' — (whack.) ' The O'Hallaghans for ever !' — (crack.) f Murther ! murther ! — (crick, crack) — foul ! foul ! — (whick, whack.) Blood and turf ! — (whack, whick) — tunther- an-ouns' — (crack, crick, crack.) ( Hurroo ! my darlins ! handle your kippeens — (crack, crack) the O'Hal- laghans are going ! (whack, whack.) " You are to suppose them here to have been at it for about half an hour. " Whack, crack — e Oh — oh — oh ! have mercy upon me, boys — (crack — a shriek of murther ! murther ! — crack, crack, whack) my life — my life (crack, crack — whack, whack) oh ! for the sake of the livin' Father ! — for the sake of my wife and THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. 261 childher, Ned Hallaghan, spare my life.' f So we will, but take this, any how' — (whack, crack, whack, crack.) * Oh ! for the love of God, don't kill ' (whack, crack, whack.) e Oh ! (crack, crack, whack dies). ' Huzza ! huzza ! huzza !' from the O'Hallaghans. f Bravo boys! there's one of them done for : whoo ! my darlins — hurroo ! the O'Hallag- hans for ever !' " The scene now changes to the O'Callaghan side. s Jack, — Oh, Jack, avourneen — hell to their sowls for murdherers — Paddy's killed ! — his skull's smashed ! — Revinge, boys, Paddy O'Callaghan's killed! On with you, O'Callaghans — on w r ith you — on with you, Paddy O'Callaghan's murdhered — take to the stones — that's it — keep it up — down with him ! Success ! — he's the bloody villain that didn't show him marcy — that's it ! Tundher-an-ouns, is it lavin' him that way you are after — let me at him.' * Here's a stone, Tom !' c No, no, this has the dhrops in it — it'ill do him, never fear !' ' Let him alone, Barney, he got enough.' ' By the powdhers, it's myself that won't ; didn't he kill Paddy ? — (crack, crack) — take that, you murdhering thief!' — (whack, w r hack). 'Oh! — (whack, crack) — my head — I'm killed — I'm' — (crack — kicks the bucket). ( Now, your sowl, that does you, any way — (crack, whack) — hurroo ! — huzza ! — huzza ! Man for man, boys — an O'Hallaghan's done for — whoo ! for our side — tol-deroll, lol-deroll, tow, row, row — huzza! — huzza! — tol-deroll, lol-deroll, tow, row, row — huzza ! for the O'Callaghans.' From 262 THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. this moment the battle became delightful; it was now pelt and welt on both sides, but many of the kippeens were broken — many of the boys had their fighting arms disabled by a dislocation, orbit of frac- ture, and those weren't equal to more than doing a little upon such as were down. " In the midst of the din, such a dialogue as this might be heard : — c Larry, you're after being done for, for this day.' ("Whack, crack.) 'Only an eye gone — is that Micky ?' (whick, whack, crick, crack.) ' That's it, my darlins !' ' You may say that, Larry — 'tis my mother's son that's in it — (crack, crack, a general huzza) : (Micky and Larry) huzza ! huzza ! huzza for the O'Hallaghans ! — What have you got, Larry ? — (crack, crack). l Only the bone of my arm, God be praised for it, very purtily snapt across ! — (whack, whack). c Is that all ? Well, some people have luck !' — (crack, crack, crack). c Why, I've no reason to complain, thank God — (whack, crack) — purty play that, any way — Paddy O'Callaghan's set- tled — did you hear it ? — (whack, whack — another shout) — That's it, boys — handle the shillelys ! — Success O'Hallaghans — down with the bloody O'Cal- laghans !' c I did hear it ; so is Jem O'Hallaghan — (crack, whack, whack, crack) — you're not able to get up, I see — tare-an-ounty, isn't it a pleasure to hear that play ? — What ails you ?' c Oh, Larry, I'm in great pain, and getting very weak, entirely.' — (faints). ' Faix, and he's settled too, I'm thinking.' ' Oh, murdher, my arm !' (One of the O'Callaghans ? B U - tr J 2. ^ THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. 263 attacks him — crack, crack) — c Take that, you baga- bone Y — (whack, whack.) ' Murdher, murdher, is it striking a down man you're after? — foul, foul, and my arm broke !' (Crack, crack) — ( Take that, with what you got before, and it'ill ase you, maybe.' (A party of the O'Hallaghans attack the man who is bating him.) e Murdher, murdher !' — (crack, whack, whack, crack, crack, whack.) ' Lay on him, your sowls to pirdition — lay on him, hot and heavy — give it to him ! He sthruck me, and me down with my broken arm !' c Foul, ye bagabones ! — (from the O'Callaghan) — foul ! — five against one — give me fair play! — (crack, crack, crack) — Oh! — (whack) — Oh, oh, oh!' — (falls senseless, covered with blood.) ' Ha, hell's cure to you, you bloody thief; you didn't spare me, with my arm broken.' (Another general shout.) ' Bad end to it, isn't it a poor case entirely, that I can't even throw up my caubeen, let alone join in the divarsion !' ** Both parties now rallied, and ranged themselves along the street, exhibiting a firm, compact phalanx, wedged close against each other, almost foot to foot. The mass was thick and dense, and the tug of con- flict stiff, wild, and savage. Much natural skill and dexterity were displayed in their mutual efforts to preserve their respective ranks unbroken, and as the sallies and charges were made by both sides, the temporary rush, the indentation of the opposing mul- titudinous body, and the rebound into its original position, gave an undulating appearance to the com- 264 THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. pact mass — reeking, dragging, groaning, and huzza- ing — as it was, that resembled the serpentine motion of a rushing water-spout in the cloud. " The women now began to take part with their brothers and sweethearts. Those who had no bache- lors among the opposite factions, fought along with their brothers ; others did not scruple even to assist in giving their enamoured swains the father of a good beating. Many, however, were more faithful to love than to natural affection, and these sallied out, like heroines, under the banners of their sweet-hearts, fighting with amazing prowess against friends and relations : nor was it at all extraordinary to see two sisters engaged on opposite sides — perhaps, tearing each other, as, with dishevelled hair, they scream- ed with a fury that was truly exemplary. Indeed, it is no untruth to assert, that the women do much va- luable execution. Their manner of fighting is this — as soon as the fair one decides upon assuming a part in the row, she instantly takes off her apron, or her stocking, stoops down, and lifting the first four-poun- der she can get, puts it in the corner of her apron, or the foot of the stocking, if it has a foot, and march- ing into the scene of action, lays about her, right and left. Upon my credibility, they are extremely useful and handy, and can give mighty nate knock- downs — inasmuch as no guard that a man is ac- quainted with can ward off their blows. Nay, what is more ; it often happens, when a son-in-law is in a faction against his father-in-law and his wife's peo- THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. 265 pie generally, if he and his wife's brother meet, that the wife will clink him with the pet in her apron, downing her own husband with great skill; and, very often 'tis the brother that is humiliated. " Up to the death of these two men, John O'Cal- laghan and Rose's father, together with a large party of their friends on both sides, were drinking in a pub- lic-house, determined to take no portion in the fight, at all at ail. Poor Rose, when she heard the shout- ing and the terrible strokes, got as pale as death, and sat close to John, whose hand she captured in hers, beseeching him, and looking up in his face with the most imploring sincerity as she spoke, not to go out among them ; the tears falling all the time from her fine eyes, the mellow flashes of which, when John's pleasantry in soothing her would seduce a smile, went into his very heart. But when, on looking out of the window where they sat, two of the opposite factions heard that a man on each side was killed ; and when, on ascertaining the names of the individuals, and of those who murdered them, it turned out that one of the murdered men was brother to a person in the room, and his murderer, uncle to one of those in the window, it was not in the power of man or woman to keep them asunder, particularly as they were all ra- ther advanced in liquor. In an instant the friends of the murdered man made a rush to the window, be- fore any pacifiers had time to get between them, and catching the nephew of him who had committed the murder, hurled him out head-foremost upon the VOL. I. N 266 THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. stone pavement, where his skull was dashed to pieces, and his brains scattered about the flags. A general attack instantly took place in the room, between the two factions ; but it was too low and crowded to permit of proper fighting, so they rushed out to the street, shouting and yelling, as they do when the battle comes to the real point of doing business. As soon as it was seen that the heads of the O'Callagh- ans and O'Hallaghans were at work as well as the rest, the fight was recommenced with re-trebled spi- rit ; but, when the mutilated body of the man who had been flung from the window, was observed lying in a pool of his own proper brains and blood, such a cry arose among his friends, as would cake the vital fluid in the veins of any one not a party in the quar- rel. Now was the work — the moment of interest — men and women groaning, staggering, and lying in- sensible; others shouting, leaping, and huzzaing — some singing, and not a few able-bodied spalpeens blurting, like overgrown children, on seeing their own blood ; many raging and roaring about like bulls — all this formed such a group as a faction fight, and nothing else, could represent. " The battle now blazed out afresh ; all kinds of instruments were pressed into the service. Some got flails, some spades, some shovels, and one man got his hands upon a scythe, with which, unquestiona- bly, he would have taken more lives than one ; but, very fortunately, as he sallied out to join the crowd, he was visited in the back part of the head by a THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. 267 brick-bat, which had a mighty convincing way with it of giving him a peaceable disposition, for he in- stantly lay down, and did not seem at all anxious as to the result of the battle. The O'Hallaghans were now compelled to give way, owing principally to the introvention of John O'Callaghan, who, although he was as good as sworn to take no portion in the con- test, was compelled to fight merely to protect him- self. But, blood and turf! when he did begin, he was dreadful. As soon as his party saw him en- gaged, they took fresh courage, and in a short time made the O'Hallaghans retreat up to the church- yard. I never saw anything equal to John ; he ab- solutely sent them down in dozens : and, when a man would give him any inconvenience with the stick, he would down him with the fist, for right and left were all alike to him. Poor Rose's brother and he met, both roused like two lions ; but when John saw who it was, he held back his hand. l No, Tom,' says he, c I'll not strike you, for Rose's sake. I'm not fighting through ill will to you or your famih ; so take another direction, for I can't strike you.' The blood, however, was unfortunately up in Tom. 1 We'll decide it now,' said he; c I'm as good a man as you, O'Callaghan ; and let me whisper this in your ear — you'll never warm the one bed with Rose, while God's in heaven — it's past that now — there can be nothing but blood between us !' At this juncture, two of the O'Callaghans ran with their shillelaghs up, to beat down Tom on the spot. ' Stop, boys!' said 268 THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. John, ' you musn't touch him ; he had no hand in raising the quarrel. Go, boys, if you respect me ; leave him to myself.' The boys withdrew to another part of the fight ; and the next instant Tom struck the very man that interfered to save him, across the temple, and cut him severely. John put his hand up, and staggered. ( I'm sorry for this,' he observed ; 1 but it's now self-defence with me ;' and, at the same moment, with one blow, he left Tom O'Hallaghan stretched insensible on the street. " On the O'Hallaghans being driven to the church- yard, they were at a mighty great inconvenience for weapons. Most of them had lost their sticks, it being a usage in fights of this kind, to twist the cudgels from the grasp of the beaten men, to prevent them from rallying. They soon, however, furnished them- selves with the best they could find — videlicet — the skull, leg, thigh, and arm bones, which they found lying about the grave-yard. This was a new species of weapon, for which the majority of the O'Callagh- an's were scarcely prepared. Out they sallied in a body — some with these, others with stones ; and, making fierce assault upon their enemies, absolutely druv them back, not so much by the damage they were doing, as by the alarm and terror excited by these unexpected species of missiles. At this mo- ment, notwithstanding the fatality which had taken place, nothing could be more truly comical and face- tious than the appearance of the field of battle. Skulls were flying in every direction — so thick, in- THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. 26'9 deed, that it might with truth be asseverated, that many who were petrified in the dust, had their skulls broken in this great battle between the factions. God help poor Ireland ! when its inhabitants are so pugnacious, that even the grave is no security against getting their crowns cracked, and their bones broken. AVell, any how, skulls and bones flew in every direc- tion ; stones and brick-bats were also put in motion ; spades, shovels, loadedwhips, pot-sticks, churn-staffs, flails, and all kinds of available weapons were in hot employment. But, perhaps, there was nothing more truly felicitous or original in its way, than the mode of warfare adopted by little Xeal Malone, who was tailor for the O'Callaghan side ; for every tradesman is obliged to fight on behalf of his own faction. Big Frank Farrell, the miller, being on the O'Hallaghan side, had been sent for, and came up from his mill behind the town, quite fresh. He was never what could be called a good man, though it was said that he could lift ten hundred weight. He puffed forward with a great cudgel, determined to commit slaughter out of the face, and the first man he met was the weeshy fraction of a tailor, as nimble as a hare. He immediately attacked him, and would probably have taken his measure for life, had not the tailor's activity protected him. Farrell was in a rage; and Neal, taking advantage of his blind fury, slipt round him, and, with a short run, sprung upon the miller's back, and planted a foot upon the threshold of each coat pocket, holding by the mealy collar of > 3 270 THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. his waistcoat. In this position he belaboured the miller's face and eyes with his little hard fist, to such purpose, that he had him in the course of a few mi- nutes nearly as blind as a miller' s-horse. The miller roared for assistance, but the pell-mell was going on too warmly for his cries to be available. In fact, he resembled an elephant with a monkey on his back. f How do you like that, Farrell ?' Neal would say — giving him a cuff ; f and that, and that — but that is best of all. Take it again, gudgeon — (two cuffs more) — here's grist for you — (half a dozen additional) hard fortune to you ! (Crack, crack). What ! going to lie down ! by all that's terrible, if you do, I'll an- nigulate you. Here's a dhuragh, (another half dozen) — long measure, you savage — the baker's dozen, you baste ; there's five-an'-twenty to the score, Sampson, and one or two in/ (Crack whack). ( Oh ! murther sheery !' shouted the miller — c murther- an- age, I'm kilt foul play ! foul play !' ' You lie, big Nebu- chodonosor, it's not — this is all fair play, you big baste -fair play, Sampson : by the same a-token, here's to jog your memory that it's the fair day of Knockimdowney ; Irish fair play, you whale — but I'll whale you' — (crack, crack, whack). f Oh — oh !' shouted the miller. e Oh — oh ! is it ? oh, if I had my scissars here, till I'd clip your ears off, wouldn't 1 be the happy man, any how ? you swab, you' — (whack whack, crack). ' Murther — murther — murther !' — shouted the miller — ' is there no help !' ' Help, is it ? you may say that— (crack crack) ; there's a trifle THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. 271 •—a small taste in the milling style, you know ; and here goes to dislodge a grinder: did ye ever hear of the tailor on horseback, Sampson ? eh ? — (whack, whack) : did you ever expect to see a tailor o' horse- back of yourself, you baste — (crack). I tell you, if you offer to lie down, I'll annigulate you.' Never, indeed, was a miller, before or since, so well dusted ; and I dare say Neal would have rode him long enough, but for an O'Hallaghan, who had gone into one of the houses to procure a weapon. This man was nearly as original in his choice of one, as the tailor in the position which he selected for beating the miller. On entering the kitchen, however, he found that he had been anticipated ; there was nei- ther tongs, poker, nor churn-staff; nor, in fact, any- thing wherewith he could assault his enemies ; all had been carried off by others. There was, however, a goose in the action of being roasted on a spit at the fire : this was enough ; honest O'Hallaghan saw nothing but the spit, which he accordingly seized, goose and all, making the best of his way, so armed, to the scene of battle. He just came out of an entry as the miller was once more roaring for assistance, and, to a dead certainty, would have spitted the tailor as a cock sparrow against the miller's carcase, had not his activity once more saved him. Unluckily, the unfortunate miller got the thrust behind, which was intended for Neal, and roared like a bull. He was beginning to shout c foul play,' again, when on turning round, he perceived that the thrust was not intended 272 THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. for him, but for the tailor. ' Give me that spit/ said he ; ' by all the mills that ever were turned, I'll spit that tailor this blessed minnit beside the goose, and we'll roast them both together.' The other refused to part with the spit; but the miller, seizing the goose, flung it with all his force after the tailor ; he stooped, however, and avoided the blow. ( No man has a better right to the goose than the tailor,' said Neal, as he took it up, and, disappearing, neither he nor the goose were seen for the remainder of the day. " The battle was now somewhat abated. Skulls, and bones, and bricks, and stones, were, however, still flying ; so that it might be truly said, the bones of contention were numerous. The street presented a woeful spectacle : men were lying with their bones broken — others, though not so seriously injured, lap- pered in their blood — some were crawling up, and instantly knocked down again by their enemies — some were leaning against the walls, or groping their way silently along them, endeavouring to escape ob- servation, lest they might be smashed down and alto- gether murdered. Wives were sitting with the bloody heads of their husbands in their laps, tearing their hair, weeping, and cursing, in all the gall of wrath, those who left them in such a state. Daughters per- formed the same offices to their fathers, and sisters to their brothers ; not pretermitting those who did not neglect their broken-pated bachelors, to whom they paid equal attention. Yet was the scene not without abundance of mirth. Many a hat was thrown up by THE BATTLE OF THE PACTIONS. 2J3 the O'Callaghan side, who certainly gained the day. Many a song was raised by those who tottered about with trickling sconces, half drunk with whiskey, and half stupid with beating. Many a ' whoo,' and 'hurroo/ and ' huzza/ was sent forth by the tri- umphanters ; but truth to tell, they were miserably feeble and faint, compared to what they had been in the beginning of the amusement— sufficiently evinc- ing that, although they might boast of the name of victory, they had got a bellyful of beating ; — still there was hard fighting. " I mentioned, some time ago, that a man had adopted a scythe. I wish from my heart there had been no such bloody instrument there that day ; but truth must be told. John O'Callaghan was now en- gaged against a set of the other O's, who had rallied for the third time, and attacked him and his party. Another brother of Rose Galh's was in this engage- ment, and him did John O'Callaghan not only knock down, but cut desperately across the temple. A man, stripped, and covered with blood and dust, at that moment made his appearance, his hand bearing the blade of the aforesaid scythe. His approach was at once furious and rapid — and I may as well add, fatal ; for before John O'Callaghan had time to be forewarned of his danger, he was cut down, the artery of his neck laid open, and he died without a groan. It was truly dreadful, even to the oldest fighter pre- sent, to see the strong rush of red blood that curvated 274 THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. out of his neck, until it gurgled — gurgled — gurgled, and lappered, and bubbled out — ending in small red spouts, blackening and blackening, as they became fainter and more faint. At this criticality, every eye was turned from the corpse to the murderer ; but he had been instantly struck down, and a female with a large stone in her apron, stood over him, with her arms stretched out, her face horribly distorted with agony, and her eyes turned backwards, as it were, into her head. In a few seconds she fell into strong convulsions, and was immediately taken away. Alas ! alas ! it was Rose Galh ; and when we looked at her brother, — for he was her brother ! flesh of her flesh, and blood of her blood, — his under-jaw hung loose, and his limbs were supple; he too was a corpse. The fact was, in consequence of his being stripped, and covered by so much blood and dust, she knew him not; and, impelled by her feelings to avenge herself on the murderer of her lover, to whom she doubly owed her life, she struck him a deadly blow, without knowing him to be her brother. Poor girl ! She is still living ; but, from that moment to this, has never opened her lips to mortal. She is, indeed, a fair ruin, but silent, melancholy, and beautiful as the moon in the summer heaven. Poor Rose Galh! you, and many a mother, and father, and wife, and orphan, have had reason to maledict the bloody Battles of the Factions. " With regard to my grandfather, he says that he didn't see purtier fighting within his own memory, THE BATTLE OF THE FACTIONS. 2/.) not since the fight between himself and Big Muckle- murray took place in the same town. But, to do him justice, he condemns the scythe and every other weapon, except the cudgels ; because, he says, that if they continue to be resorted to, nate fighting will be altogether forgotten in the country." END OF VOL. I. If -f ■- - : , ^ ,y fo^:ys« v, ^ ^ v 'y* ^!<»/f^; i"?**^