'There's Andy Kerrigan, the crathur, in the yard,' said Anne the
cook. 'He lukes just starved wid the could, an' it an Aist wind that
ud cut ye in two, an' him just afther buryin' his wife the day.'
'Well, take him into the kitchen and give him some dinner,' said I,
seeing what was expected of me.
'Did ye ever hear him tell how he come to jine an' marry her?' she
asked, lingering at the door.
'No.'
'Thin ax him to tell yous. It's worth hearin'. For he's a cure all
out, so he is,' and she departed.
Andy Kerrigan was a half-witted creature, a kind of handy man about
town. He hung about the steps of the hotel, and did odd jobs,
cleaned cars, and drove them occasionally when he got any one to
trust him with a horse. Before her death his wife had taken in
washing, and they rubbed along together in a hand-to-mouth style,
which is not uncommon in Ireland, by the help of a little charity and
an occasional relapse upon the 'Poor-house' when times were hard.
When I entered the kitchen a quarter of an hour later, I found Andy
just finishing his dinner. He had a large bag of Indian meal beside
him, and was sitting on a three-legged stool inside the wide open
chimney-place in front of the turf fire upon the hearth; the hard
black turves standing perpendicularly in serried rows sent forth a
grateful heat.
'A power ov thanks to ye, sirr,' he said, 'for as good a male as iver
I ate, an' may ye niver come to want yersilf. Your wans was always
kind to the poor: many's the dinner I've had in this same kitchen,
an' many's the day's whitewashin' I done till it,' he added, looking
significantly at the smoke-blackened walls. For your Irish peasant
never misses the opportunity of a stroke of business.
'Here's some tobacco for you,' I said hastily, to turn the subject,
handing him a plug of Irish twist.
'Thank ye kindly,' said Andy, and at once bit a corner of it off and
shoved it in his cheek.
'Don't you smoke?' I inquired.
'I do, I smokes an' I chaws. But chawin''s best. It's both smoke
an' mate; a taste o' tabacca stays the stummick more nor anythin'
else ye cud mintion. Many's the long day's wurrk I done on a plug o'
that same twist.'
'And where did you get the bag of meal, Andy?'
'Ah, that, is it? Troth the Crowner gave it to me. Ye see it was
this road. Me an' Mary Anne, that's my wife, was a wee bit
happy-'like 't is a fortnight come Sathurday, an' we come to wurrds,
an' I just putt her out av the dure an' left her there, an' it sames
she caught a could an' niver rightly got the betther ov it. For she
died o' Monday. An' the Crowner's jury they sat on her, an' tould me
I was a crool husband; but I niver mint no harrum, it was just a bit
ov fun. But the Crowner he sint me the bag o' male afther the
funeral the day. They-do be say in' that in his house the gray
mare's the betther harse, but I know nahthin' about that. On'y he
sent me the bag o' male, so he did.'
'Yes, I heard you had lost your wife. That's sad news. You'll miss
her greatly, I'm afraid,' I said, seeing that my scruples were
wasted, and I needn't trouble to avoid the subject. The poor like to
dilate upon their woes.
'Troth will I,' replied Andy with a heavy sigh, 'I don't know what
I'll do widout her. She cud boil spuds wid any wumman I iver seen,
cud she. An' there's more nor me that will miss her, now I'm tellin'
ye; the town will be hard put to it for their washin', I'm thinkin'.
Oh deary me, I'll niver git anuther wumman to come up to her, I'll
niver git another Mary Anne.'
'I'm afraid not,' I assented, looking at the bent and wizened figure
of the old man; then I continued, 'But I hear there's a story about
your marriage. What is it?'
'Ah, there's none ava,' he protested, evidently pleased; 'it's
nahthin' whatever, but I'll tell it ye. It was in the days when I
was young an' soople. Ah, the days whin we was young, the days whin
we was young, there's nahthin' to aqual thim. I'd just got me
discharge from the militia at Lifford, an' I came prancin' into town
fit for anythin' from murther to chuck-farthin'; there was nahthin' I
cudn't do. I had a whole pun note in me fist, an' a consate of
mesilf that I wudn't ha called the Quane me ant.
'Well, I come clattherin' down the Back Street goin' to buy the town
wid me pun note, whin who did I see but Mary Anne Murphy drivin' the
cows out ov Mrs. Flanigan's byre. She had no shawl to her head, an'
her feet was as bare as the day she was born, an' I won't be sayin','
he added, with a reminiscent twinkle in his eye, 'that she was overly
an' above clane. But the red hair of her--Ah, man, it blazed like
the whins on all the hills on Bonfire Night!
'An' the notion just tuk me, an' I says to her, says I, "Good morra
to ye, Mary Anne Murphy, will ye marry me?"
'"Do ye mane it?" she said.
'"To be sure I do," says I. "Why for no?"
'"Sartin sure I will," she says, says she.
'So she sput in her han' an' hel' it out to me, an' aff we wint
togither to find the praste, an' left the cows to stravague aff to
the field their own swate way.
'Father O'Flatherty he was havin' his breakfast whin we come in, an'
I says to him, "Good-morra to you, Father, we're come to be marrit."
'"Marrit," he says; he was takin' a drink ov tay at the time, an' he
splutthers it ahl over the flure. "Git out wid yer practical jokin'
makin' me choke over me tay. Git out ov my house before I take me
horsewhip to ye both."
'"Ah be aisy now, Father," says I, "it's not jokin' we are. We're in
sober arnest."
'"Is it argy wid me, yer own parish praste, ye wud, ye onnathral
varmint. I tell ye, I'll not marry ye, an' that's flat."
'"Thin be the powers," says I, "marrit or not marrit, I'll live wid
Mary Anne, an' she'll live wid me, an' you'll be the cause of
immorality an' scandal in the parish. Ye wull, won't you, Mary
Anne?" says I.
'"I wull," says she, grinnin' ahl roun' her head.
'"Ye two divils," says the praste girnin' at us, "for that's just
what ye are. Ye'll be sorry for this day, I promise you. I'll marry
you, an' I cudn't wish worse to neither of you, for I don't know
which is the warst. Ye're both as mad as leppin' sterks, but it's
betther maybe to mix the blood nor spoil two dacint stocks. The Lord
sind ye won't have no childher," says he, the ould haythin, an' we
niver did to this day.
'So thin he calls the sexton, an' the foor of us proceeds to the
chapel roun' the corner, an' us two was marrit.
'"Thank ye kindly, your Riverence," says I, "an' what may I be owin'
ye for the job?"
'"Twenty-five shillin'," says he.
'"An' how many shillin' is there in a pun?"
'"Twenty," says he.
'"Mother av Moses," says I, "but mathrimony's the egsthravagint
business all out. Here's me pun note, it's ahl I have in the wurrld,
an' I'm thinkin' I'll have to be owin' ye the other five shillin'!"
'"Ah, I'll forgive it ye this time," says he. "But don't come here
axin' to be marrit no more. I've had enough of ye."
'"Ahl right, yer Riverence," says I, an' out me an' Mary Anne goes.
'"An' what will we do now?" says she.
'"I niver thought o' that," says I, "but I s'pose we'd betther go on
home to me mother, and see what she'll say to us."
'"D'ye think she'll take us in?"
'"Well, I know she'd be right glad to see me home from the sojerin':
she's powerful fond av me, she thinks the sun rises an' sets on me
elbow, but I'm not so sartain about yous. But we can only thry; she
can't kill us anyway."
'"Where is it?"
'"Five mile out along the mountain road."
'"Luck's till us," says she, an' off we starts. But the further we
wint, the more onaisy in me mind I became, till whin we came into the
lane that led to the house, I says to Mary Anne--
'"Mary Anne, darlin'," I says, "I think it ull be betther for you to
wait outside av the dure, while I break the news gintly. Av me
mother's by her lone, it ull be ahl right; but av me sisther's there,
too, it's the divil ahl out."
'As luck wud have it, the first sight I claps eyes on whin I come in
at the dure is me sisther, Casey, sittin' in the chimney corner, the
oul' catamaran, an' I knew there'd be wigs an' the green before ahl
was done.
'"Arrah, Andy, me jewel, an' is it yersilf?" says me mother runnin'
an throwin' her arms round me neck; "but it's a brave lad ye've
grown, an' it's right welcome ye are home from the sojerin'. Troth
it's a sight for sore eyes just to see ye."
'"Yis," says I, "I'm home, an' I'm not alone. I'm marrit. Come in
out of that an' show yersilf, Mary Anne."
'Mary Anne came in, an' me mother an' me sisther just lets wan
shriek, an' I shouts,--
'"Run, Mary Anne, run for yer life."
'They turned and grabbed the two three-legged stools they was settin'
on, an' me an' Mary Anne cleared the flure wid wan lep, an' was out
an' away down the back lane as hard as we cud tear, an' them two
weemin gallopin' afther us an' screaming like hell's delight. But me
an' Mary Anne was young an' soople, an' we ran like hares till we
came to the edge of the bog. And thin I says,--
'"Houl' an," I says, "let me go first," an' I tuk the path across the
bog that lay betwixt two big bog-holes.
'Well, me sisther, bein' the younger, comes first to the edge of the
bog, an' she was that blind wid fury she cudn't see where she was
goin', an' whin she come to the first bog-hole souse she goes intil
the middle of it neck over crop, an' I caught a sight of her legs
goin' up in the air wid the tail ov me eye, an' down I sits, an'
thought I'd ha shplit.
'Well, whin we was sore wid laffin, we wint on back to the town, an'
the last we saw of the pair of thim Casey was lyin' wid her arms on
the bank of the bog-hole an' me mother haulin' at her ahl she was fit
to dhrag her out.
'But whin we came to the town it was dhrawin' near han' night, an'
there was the greatest goin's on iver ye seen. We was met at the
head of the town by a crowd of the boys that was out lukin' for us;
for the praste had tould on us, and they'd been sarchin' iverywhere
for the bride an' bridegroom, they said.
'So they took an' cheered us, an' carried us roun' the town. An'
they had the town band behind us, wid wan big dhrum an' six little
wans, an' fourteen flutes, an' they banged and tootled till they
cudn't bang nor tootle no more, an' the street boys yelled, and the
dogs yelped, an' there was a noise thro' the town ye cudn't hear
yersilf spake for the best part of an hour. Glory be! it was a
weddin' fit for a king,' and the old man spat reflectively into the
fire, as he looked back upon that crowning moment of his life.
'An' whin it was ahl over, "Mary Anne, honey," says I, "I'm hung-ry;
I haven't had nahthin' to eat the day since me brackfast, an' that
graspin' oul' praste has copped ahl me money, have ye iver a pinny?"
'"Divil a thraneen," says she, "but just wan ha'penny."
'"A power o' use that is to stay two hung-ry stummicks upon," says I,
"but I tell ye what. We'll do things in style the night if we niver
did before nor since. We'll have an illumination to light the way to
our bridal couch."
'So we bought two farthin' candles, and wint to slape in the hay in
Mrs. Flanigan's byre.'
'On the principle,' said I, 'of _qui dort, dine_.'
But that remark was lost upon Andy.