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 married. We were then, after
drinking something at Tom Hance'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 shriek of day. From six o'clock my own
faction, friends and neighbors, 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 raheries** 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 salvages tied to his horns. Anything 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.
* The morning or early part of the day, on which an Irish
couple are married, up until noon, is called the bride's
part, which, if the fortunes of the pair are to be happy, is
expected to be fair--rain or storm being considered
indicative of future calamity.
** A small, shaggy pony, so called from being found in great
numbers on the Island of that name.
“To make a long story short, so large a bridegroom's party was never
seen in that country before, save and except Tim Lannigans, 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 bridles--others had
saddles and halthers; some had back-suggawns of straw, with hay Stirrups
to them, but good bridles; others sacks filled up as like saddles as
they could make them, girthed with hay-ropes five or six times tied
round the horse's body. When one or two of the horses wouldn't carry
double, except the hind rider sat stride-ways, the women had to be put
foremost, and the men behind them. Some had dacent pillions enough, but
most of them had none at all, and the women were obliged to sit where
the pillion ought to be--and a hard card they had to play to keep their
seats even when the horses walked asy, 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 I
couldn't let a morsel cross my throat, nor did I know what end of me was
uppermost. After breakfast 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 disobedience and offinces towards 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 there was in a minute's
time! 'Oh, Shane Fadh--Shane Fadh, acushla 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, morning, noon, and night, no more! Oh!' says
she, 'it's you that was the good son all out; and the good brother, too:
kind and cheerful was your voice, and full of love and affection was
your heart! Shane, avourneen dheelish, 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 neighbors stopped him. As for
my brothers and sisters, they were all in an uproar; and I myself cried
like a Trojan, merely bekase I see them at it. My father and mother both
kissed me, and gave me their blessing; and my brothers and sisters did
the same, while you'd think all their hearts would break. 'Come, come,'
says my uncle, '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 acrass such a colleen for a wife; and that it's not going to his
grave, instead of into the arms of a purty girl--and what's better, a
good girl. So quit your blubbering, Rose; and you, Jack,' says he to my
father, 'that ought to 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 Pulton in less than no time, by the hole of my coat,
I'll marry a wife myself, and then where will the twenty guineas be that
I'm to lave you?'
“God rest his soul, and yet there was a tear in his eye all the
while--even in spite of his joking!
“Any how, it's 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 a good humor, 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
brothers and sisters a small taste of blessed candle, to prevent us from
sudden death and accidents.* My father and she didn't come with as then,
but they went over to the bride's while we were all gone to the priest's
house. At last 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 Dannellon), 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.
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 switch tail, and didn't know how to trot. Maybe
we didn't cut a dash--and might have taken a town before us. Out we set
about nine o'clock, and went acrass the country: but I'll not stop to
mintion 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 stile
or ditch would drop into the shough;** sometimes another would find
himself head foremost on the ground; a woman would be capsized here in
crassing 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 the seat. But as all this
happened in going over the fields, we expected that when we'd get out
on the king's highway there would be less danger, as we would have no
ditches or drains to crass. 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 chorus; but we
had better have let that alone, for some of the young horses took the
stadh,*** others of them capered about; the asses--the sorra choke
them--that were along with us should begin to bray, as if it was the
king's birthday--and a mule of Jack Urwin's took it into his head to
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 got far he was without a rider,
and went galloping up to the bride's house, the bridle hangin' about his
feet. Billy, however, 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.
* In many parishes of Ireland a number of small wax candles
are blessed by the priest upon Ash-Wednesday, and these are
constantly worn about the person until that day twelve
months, for the purposes mentioned above.
** Dyke or drain.
*** Became restive.
“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 all through other. 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: of
coorse we took some of the poteen again, 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 hullabaloo with the bride
and her friends as there was with myself: but my uncle soon put a stop
to it, and in five minutes had them breaking their hearts laughing.
“Bless my heart, what doings! what roasting and boiling!--and what
tribes of beggars and 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 piper: the piper was to stop
in my father-in-law's while we were going to be married, to keep the
neighbors that were met there shaking their toes while we were at the
priest's; and the fiddler was to come with ourselves, in order 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 Kilnahushogue,
who was sent for bekase she understood charms, and had the name of being
lucky, took myself aside: '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 your young _colleen bawn_, (* Fair
Girl) that will be your wife before the sun sets, plase the heavens.
There's ould Fanny Barton, the wrinkled thief of a hag, that the
Finigans axed here for the sake of her decent 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 said of her. Well,
maybe, I know more about that nor I'm not 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--for she was called
Sonsy--'we have often sarved her one way or other.'
“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 was to be
pitied, for as good as seven months after his marriage, until I relieved
him; was gone to a thread he was, and didn't they pay me decently for my
throuble!'
“'Well, and what am I to do, Mary?' says I, knowing very well that what
she sed was thrue enough, although I didn't wish her to see that I was
afeard.
“'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 daicent 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* half-penny in exchange.
* So-called from Cronebane, in the county of Wicklow, where
there is a copper mine.
“'Now,' says she, 'Shane, you must keep this in your company, and for
your life and sowl, don't part wid 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 buckskins, and made me
loose the knot of my garther on the right leg. 'Now,' says she, 'if you
keep them loose till after the priest says the words, and won't let
the money I gave you go out of your 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 pisthroges.'* She then pulled off her right shoe, and
threw it after us for luck.
* Charms of an evil nature. These are ceremonies used by
such women, and believed to be of efficacy by the people. It
is an undoubted fact that the woman here named--and truly
named--was called in by honest Ned Donnelly, who, I believe,
is alive, and could confirm the truth of it. I remember her
well, as I do the occasion on which she was called in by Ned
or his friends. I also remember that a neighbor of ours, a
tailor named Cormick M'Elroy--father, by the way, to little
Billy Cormick, who figures so conspicuously at the wedding--
called her in to cure, by the force of charms, some cows he
had that were sick.
“We were now all in motion once more--the bride riding behind my man,
and the bridesmaid behind myself--a fine bouncing girl she was, but
not to be mintioned in the one year with my own darlin'--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 maybe it's myself
that wasn't to that time o' 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 spirit
it came, but, I think, that such a day I never saw from that to this;
indeed, I thought everything was dancing and smiling 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. To put him as a hind
rider it 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.
“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 weddiners, those that had no saddles, 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 board. Many of them got
tosses this way, though it all passed in good humor. But no two among
the whole set were more puzzled by this than my uncle and the fiddler--I
think I see my uncle this minute with his knees sticking into the
horse's shoulders, and his two hands upon his neck, keeping himself
back, with a _cruiht_* 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 humor; and, accordingly, as
regularly as they fell, they were sure to get a cheer.
* The hump, which constitutes a round-shouldered man. If the
reader has ever seen Hogarth's Illustrations of Hudibras,
and remembers the redoubtable hero as he sits on horseback,
he will be at no loss in comprehending what a cruiht means.
_Cruiht_ is the Irish for harp, and the simile is taken from
the projection between the shoulders of the harper which was
caused by carrying that instrument.
“When we got to the priest's house, there was a hearty welcome for us
all. The bride and I, with our next kindred and friends, went into the
parlor; 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 bating myself out of it. I got a whisper
of this; so by my song, I was determined 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 foreway 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 fellows 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 got her in my arm, before you could say Jack Robinson, and
swinging her behind the priest, gave her the husband's first kiss. The
next minute there was a rush after her; but, as I had got the first,
it was but fair that they should come in according 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 childre, and getting his arms about Mary, gives her half
a dozen smacks at least--oh, consuming to the one less--that mine was
only a cracker** to. The rest, then, all kissed her, one after another,
according as they could come in to get one. We then went straight to his
Reverence's barn, which had been cleared out for us the day before, by
his own directions, where we danced for an hour or two, his Reverence
and his Curate along with us.
* There is always a struggle for this at an Irish wedding,
where every man is at liberty--even the priest himself--to
anticipate the bridegroom if he can.
** Cracker is the small, hard cord which is tied to a rustic
whip, in order to make it crack. When a man is considered to
be inferior to another in anything, the people say, “he
wouldn't make a cracker to his whip.”
“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 refreshment
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, for his
sheep-stealing, ever since Paddy Keenan made the song upon him, ending
with '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 (* drank) dacently
with him, any how; and, only for my uncle, it's odds but we would have
been all fuddled.
“It was now that I began to notish a kind of coolness between 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, 'Shane, I doubt there will be bad
work amongst these people, particularly betwixt the Dorans and the
Flannagans--the truth is, that the old business of the law-shoot will
break out, 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 weddiners to the bride and
bridegroom, every one of the men clubbed his share, but neither I
nor the girls anything. Ha--ha--ha! Am I alive at all? I
never--ha--ha--ha--!--I never laughed so much in one day as I did in
that, today 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 thim that were bint for winning
the bottle; and when one horseman would cross another, striving to have
the 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, particularly 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 themselves on their saddles, sacks
and suggans; and the women tying kerchiefs and shawls about their caps
and bonnets, to keep them from flying off, and then gripping their
fore-riders 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, raheries, and
asses--some, as I said, with saddles, some with none; and all jist 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 another sight but
itself before or since. Off they skelped through thick and thin, in a
cloud of dust like a mist about us; but it was a mercy that the life
wasn't trampled 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 of
the whiskey, turned off the wrong way, and galloped on, thinking they
had completely distanced the crowd; and it wasn't until they cooled a
bit that they found out their mistake.
[Illustration: PAGE 693-- How he kept his sate so long has puzzled me]