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, coming
down right on the top of one another, souse in the pool. By this time
there was about a dozen of the best horsemen a good distance before the
rest, cutting one another up for the bottle: among these were the Dorans
and 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, anything 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 lightning, miles before them--flying like a swallow: and
how he kept his sate so long has puzzled me from that day to this; but,
any how, truth's best--there he was topping the hill ever so far before
them. 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 show 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 lodged
himself was a well, and a purty deep one, by my word; but not a sowl
present could tell what become 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 sorra one of him but had a
sowl big enough for Golias or Sampson the Great.
* Flush is a pool of water that spreads nearly across a
road. It is usually fed by a small mountain stream, and in
consequence of rising and falling rapidly, it is called
“Flash.”
“As soon 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 comes up--Paddy Doran and Peter
Flanagan--cutting one another to pieces, and not the length of your nail
between them. Well, well, that was a terrible 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 offince, and then he was in a great puzzle,
striving to raison with them; but long Paddy Doran caught it while he
was spaking to Flanagan, and the next instant 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 anything 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 creature, he should single himself out against
both parties, bekase you see he thought they were cutting him out of his
right to the bottle.
“They had now broken 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 rising 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 deal 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,
and at our own place, we couldn't take part with either of them; but we
endeavored all in our power to red (* Pacify or separate) 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, its wonderful how soon a priest can clear up a quarrel! In
five minutes there wasn't a hand up--instead of that they were ready to
run into mice-holes:--
“'What, you murderers,' says his Reverence, 'are you bint to have each
other's blood upon your heads; ye vile infidels, ye cursed unchristian
Anthemtarians?* are ye going to get yourself hanged like sheep-stalers?
down with your sticks, I command you: do you know--will you give
yourselves time to see who's spaking to you--you bloodthirsty set of
Episcopalians? 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, '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 rise 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. Domnick 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 decent couple at whose house you have kicked up such
a hubbub. Is this the way people are to be deprived of their dinners on
your accounts, you fungaleering thieves!'
* Antitrinitarians; the peasantry are often extremely fond
of hard and long words, which they call tall English.
“'Why then, plase your Riverence, by the--hem--I say Father 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 galloped across 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, which will be a double share of provision and bacon saved
any way. And, Flanagan, you were as much to blame as he, and must be
chastised for your raggamuffianly conduct,' says he, 'and so must you
both, and all your party, particularly you and be, as the ringleaders.
Right well I know it's the grudge upon the lawsuit 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 drowned 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 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 steeplechase
across Crocknagooran.'
“'Why, Billy, how did you stick on at all, at all?' says his Reverence.
“'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 leaving 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
was only topping the hill there below, as Lanty Magowran tells me who
was looking on.'
“'Well, Billy,' says Father Corrigan, '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 disgrace 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 exkimnicate* ye both, and all belonging to you into
the bargain; so that ye'll be the pitiful examples and shows to all that
look upon you.'
* Excommunicate. It is generally pronounced as above by the people.
“'Well, well, your Reverence,' says my father-in-law, 'let all by-gones be
by-gones; and please God, they will, before they go, be better friends
than ever they were. Go now an' clane yourselves, 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 neighbor here that
would make so little of the place or people, as was done for nothing at
all, in the face of the country.'
“'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 coolleen 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.'
“'Well,' says my uncle, 'there's no help for spilt milk, I tell you,
nor for spilt blood either; tare-an-ounty, sure we're all Irishmen,
relations, and Catholics through other, and we oughtn't to be this way.
Come away to the 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 sannies, I bleeve
there's a baker's dozen of them; but we've plenty of Latin for them,
and your Reverence and Father James here understands that langidge, any
how--larned enough there, I think, gintlemen.'
“'That's right, Brian,' shouts the tailor--'that's right; there must
be no fighting: by the 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 into
good humor nor even what the priest said. They then washed and claned
themselves, and accordingly went to their dinners.--Billy himself
marched 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 mischances 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 quest, nor judge, nor jury, was ever troubled at all about it.
And so sign's on it, people were then innocent, 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 had only to appear after his death to
one of his friends, and get a number of masses offered up for his sowl,
and all was right; but now 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?”
“'Tis you that may say that, Mr. Morrow,” replied 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 neighbors and laid one after another in two
rows, on the green, beside the river that ran along the garden-hedge,
side by side. At one end Father Corrigan sat, with Mary and myself, 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 beside
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. Why there was a pudding boiled in the end of a
sack; and troth it was a thumper, only for the straws--for you see, when
they were making it, they had to draw long straws acrass in order to
keep, it from falling asunder--a fine plan it is, too. Jack M'Kenna, the
carpenther, carved it with a hand-saw, and if he didn't curse the same
straws, I'm not here. 'Draw them out, Jack,' said Father Corrigan--'draw
them out.--It's asy known, Jack, you never ate a polite dinner, you poor
awkward spalpeen, or you'd have pulled out the straws the first thing
you did, man alive.'
“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. They
may talk as they will, but commend me to a piece of good ould bacon,
ate with crock butther, and phaties, and cabbage. Sure enough, they
leathered away at everything, but this and the pudding were the
favorites. Father Corrigan 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 upon it like barm--but that
was beer in airnest, Nancy--I'll say no more.”
“When the dinner was over, 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, sitting 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 parents; 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 he was then, also--how he
did crow 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. '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,' says his Reverence,
slyly enough: 'but, upon my word, only she gave us all the slip, to tell
the truth, I had another husband than Shane in my eye for her, and that
was my own nevvy, Father James's brother here.'
“'And I'd be proud of the connection,' says my father-in-law, 'but you
see, these girls won't look much to what you or I'll say, in choosin' a
husband for themselves. How-and-iver, not making little of your nevvy,
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 M'Cormick the
tailor, who had come over and slipped in on the other side betune Father
Corrigan and the bride--'by the powdhers-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, '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,' says the
little cock.
“'Billy, I thought you were married,' said Father Corrigan.
“'Not I, your Reverence,' says Billy;' but I'll soon do something,
Father Michael--I have been threatening this longtime, but I'll do it at
last'
“'He's not exactly married, Sir, says my uncle 'but there's a colleen
present' (looking at the bridesmaid) '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 Reverence, except I get sich a darling as Molly
Bane, here--and by this and that, it's 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 close to her, and poor Mary smiling
good-naturedly at his spirit.
“'Well, and what if you did get such a darling as Molly Bane, there?'
says his Reverence.
“'Why, except I get the likes of her for a wife--upon second thoughts,
I don't like marriage, any way,' said Billy, winking against the
priest--'I lade such a life as your Reverence; and by the powdhers, it's
a thousand pities that I wasn't made into a priest, instead of a tailor.
For, you see, if I had' says he, giving a verse of an old song--
'For you see, if I had,
It's I'd be the lad
That would show all my people such larning;
And when they'd do wrong,
Why, instead of a song,
I'd give them a lump of a sarmin.'
“'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
dinner; 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 minute 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 both rise out of your beds. I made
that coat your husband has on his back beside you--and a, betther fit
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.'
“'Hut, Billy,' says I, 'sure it was all out of kindness; he didn't mane
to offind you.'
“'It's no matter,' says Billy, beginning to cry, 'he did offend 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 old man yourself, I'll not rise
my hand to you; but, let any man now that has the heart to take up your
quarrel, come out and stand before me on the sod here.'
“Well, by this time, you'd tie all that were 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 appearance 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 upon 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.
* A small pathway or bridle road leading to a farm-house.
“When the stranger came as far as the skirt of the green, he turned
the horse over quite nathural 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. 'Why, then,' says my father and
mother-in-law, ''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.'
* Questin--When an Irish priest or friar collects corn or
money from the people in a gratuitous manner, the act is
called “questin.”
** Welcome.
“'Thank you, thank you, Molshy--thank you, Matthew--troth, I know that
'tis I am welcome.'
“'Ay, and you're welcome again, Father Rooney,' said my father, going
down and shaking hands with him, 'and I'm proud to see you here. Sit
down, your Reverence--here's everything 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.
“'Hah! Shane Fadh,' says he, smiling dryly 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, the way I came to persave yez that
evening was this--but I'll tell it, by and by. 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 of mine,' says he. 'How are
you, reverend gintlemen of the Secularily? You'll permit a poor friar to
sit and ate his dinner, in your presence, I humbly hope.'
“'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 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 gineral! gintlemen seculars!'
“'Thank you, Frank,' said Father Corrigan; 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 poor bag of oats that
you see standing against the ditch.'
“'In other words, Frank,' says the Priest, 'you took Allhadhawan 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
illoquent young gintleman, 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 to rise up and fall, so I commend you for your discretion,' says
he; 'but I'm afeared your master there won't make you much fitter for
the kingdom of heaven any how.'
“'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, he was joker to the college of the
Sorebones (* Sorbonne) in Paris; he got as much education as enabled him
to say mass in Latin, and to beg oats in English, for his jokes.'
“'Troth, and,' says the friar, 'if you were to get your larning 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; 'give him a wipe or two more.' 'Wait
till he answers the last,' says the friar.
“'He's always joking,' says Father James, 'when he thinks he'll make any
thing by it.'
“'Ah!' 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 Christendom.'
“'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.'