UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
 
 S UBRARY "^ 
 
 BMVERSI1Y OP 
 
 CAUP01WA
 
 3 1822 01613 6608 
 
 Central University Library 
 
 University of California, San Diego 
 Note: This item is subject to recall after two weeks. 
 
 Date Due 
 
 MAY OQ 1303 
 
 
 DFO 2 i 1998 
 
 
 "5rar2 1 Mtn 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 0139(1/91) UCSDLib.
 
 TRAITS AND STORIES OF 
 
 THE IRISH PEASANTRY 
 
 IN FOUR VOLUMES 
 
 VOL. I
 
 TRAITS AND STORIES OF 
 
 THE IRISH PEASANTRY 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM 'CARLETON 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 D. J. O'DONOGHUE 
 
 LONDON 
 J. M. DENT AND CO. 
 
 NEW YORK : MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 MDCCCXCVI
 
 i 
 
 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. 
 At the Ballantyne Press
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION . . vii 
 
 PREFACE TO THE FIRST SERIES . . . xxiv 
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION xxvii 
 
 NED M'KEOWN 1 
 
 THE THREE TASKS , 30 
 
 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING 67 
 
 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE .... 112 
 
 THE STATION 154 
 
 AN ESSAY ON IRISH SWEARING 203
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PORTRAIT OF CARLETON ..... Frontispiece 
 
 (From a Photograph hitherto unreprodueed.) 
 
 PAGE 
 
 HEADING TO NED M'KEOWN 1 
 
 (By Phiz.) 
 
 JACK MAGENNIS PLAYING CARDS WITH THE "DARK" 
 GENTLEMAN 34 
 
 (By Phiz.) 
 
 JACK MAGENNIS AND THE BEAUTIFUL LADY . . 48 
 
 (By Phiz.) 
 
 THE RACE FOR THE BOTTLE 88 
 
 (B>/ Phiz.) 
 
 DROPPING BILLY CORMICK INTO THE WELL . . 90 
 
 (By Phiz.)
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 WILLIAM CARLETON is universally recognised as the 
 greatest delineator of the manners and customs of 
 the Irish peasantry. His " Traits and Stories " is not merely 
 a work of remarkable literary merit. It has great historical 
 value, and is a monument of national importance. It is in- 
 contestably the best of all his writings. It is unequal, it is 
 often carelessly and roughly finished, and there are some badly- 
 written passages ; but still, taken as a whole, there is nothing 
 in Irish literature within reasonable distance of it for com- 
 pleteness, variety, character- drawing, humour, pathos, and 
 dramatic power. When Carleton gave these stories some 
 necessary revision, about ten years after their first appearance, 
 he did not do it thoroughly. There are still some excres- 
 cences, some useless digressions and preachings, and not a few 
 violent outbursts which might with advantage be modified ; 
 but, such as they are, the " Traits and Stories " form an im- 
 mortal picture of national life. The historical importance of 
 the work lies in the fact that the Ireland of Carleton's early 
 years no longer exists. The Ireland mirrored for all time 
 in his pages is not the Ireland of our days. One may 
 occasionally meet even yet an odd character, a quaint 
 type, who seems to belong to such a vanished world as 
 Carleton has pictured ; but such types are now few and 
 far between. In pre-famine and pre-Emancipation days 
 they were common in every parish and every village 
 they kept up the distinctiveness of the race. But that 
 time is long past. The mass of the people have lost most 
 of the peculiarities, the characteristic qualities which are 
 so well developed in the figures who move and live in the 
 stories of Carleton. Not merely the lapse of time, but the
 
 viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 famine and the subsequent clearances are responsible for the 
 radical change which has come over the people. In essen- 
 tials, no doubt, Carleton's Ireland is the same as ours, but 
 the typical peasant, the " genuine article," seems to have dis- 
 appeared, or is fast disappearing, with his faction and party 
 fights, his wakes and "patterns," his pipers and his native 
 Gaelic. As an eulogist of Carleton has expressed it, the best 
 of the older Ireland has vanished " in the swamps and savan- 
 nahs of the Irish exile's distant home." It might be added 
 that the courts and alleys of London and other great English 
 cities have seen some of its last fading traces, and it has been 
 but a memory or a tradition with the past and present genera- 
 tion of Irishmen. Carleton has preserved its image intact, 
 and in his stories one may live again with the Ireland of the 
 past. In no other writer do you get the Irish atmosphere so 
 clearly, so unmistakably. There have been and are many 
 admirable Irish novelists, but their transcripts of Irish peasant 
 life seem the faintest outlines in comparison with the stern 
 reality the forcible truth of Carleton's descriptions. Their 
 peasants are half English and their landscapes almost wholly 
 so. Carleton is Irish through and through intensely Irish, 
 exclusively Irish. 
 
 He is not, however, a mere local chronicler, interesting (in 
 the long-run) only to the limited audience of a single parish, 
 or county, or province. He is a national historian the his- 
 torian of the people's lives from infancy to old age, concern- 
 ing himself little with the events of the " world," as generally 
 understood, but occupied with his task of depicting Irish life 
 and Irish human nature. Average human nature abounds in 
 his books. Every one sees that his personages are genuine 
 creatures of flesh and blood, and not simply puppets or fanciful 
 shadows. The contemporaries who saw the publication of 
 the " Traits and Stories " were startled at the truth of the 
 work, no less than at its graphic power, pathos, and humour ; 
 and they did not, perhaps, exaggerate its value when they 
 compared its author in certain aspects to Shakespeare and 
 Cervantes. Carleton's humour is quite as notable as any in 
 modern literature, and is more nearly akin to that of Moliere 
 than to any one else's. The Irish novelist's methods of develop- 
 ing character are somewhat similar to those employed by the
 
 INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 French dramatist, and there is considerable resemblance be- 
 tween the pedants and the comic servants of both. The 
 wheedlers, too, the " deludherers " of the " Traits and Stories," 
 are not without their congeners in Moliere's plays. The 
 appearance of his work revealed a new world of life and of 
 fantasy to the astonished public of 1 830-33. Even France and 
 Germany were interested ; and in England Carleton was un- 
 reservedly praised, and his stories recommended to the perusal 
 of those who wished to know the Irish people. In America 
 Carleton's popularity has always been very great. 
 
 He has been called the "prose Burns," and the de- 
 scription is fairly exact. He had the same knowledge of 
 his countrymen, the same intense love of nature (wit- 
 ness " Tubber Derg " and many other examples), the same 
 sympathy for humanity, and almost the same deep poeti- 
 cal feeling. The literary comparison need not be pursued 
 further ; but he resembled Burns in being, like him, a peasant, 
 and his life presents other points of similarity to that of the 
 Ayrshire poet. Carleton also reminds one not a little of 
 Goldsmith. Some of his glimpses of rustic gatherings and 
 smiling homesteads are quite in the Goldsmith manner. But 
 he did not choose to let his mind dwell for long upon the 
 brighter and joyous side of Irish life ; his personal sorrows 
 were poignant throughout the greater part of his career, and 
 his writings are strongly coloured by them. No other Irish 
 writer is quite his equal in the description of appalling 
 calamity. There are terrible scenes in these "Traits and 
 Stories," which are probably the least gloomy of his writings, 
 as they are almost his earliest. But they are insignificant 
 and tame compared to the famine scenes of " The Black 
 Prophet," which are Dantean in intensity and accumulated 
 horror. His dramatic power is always notable and here 
 especially. 
 
 In supreme moments Carleton exhibits strong imagination, 
 but, in general, it must be confessed that it is to his memory 
 we owe most of his best work. He described what he had 
 actually seen rarely inventing his incidents. When eventu- 
 ally the stores of his memory were exhausted, when the 
 stock of quaint types and moving experiences had run out, 
 his books became almost unreadable. The strength of his 
 
 VOL. i. c
 
 x INTRODUCTION 
 
 memory explains the value of his earlier work. In the 
 faculty of reproducing the scenes of his youth, the habits and 
 speech of the people (every turn of whose phraseology he 
 renders with unfailing accuracy), he was without a competitor. 
 His was not the somewhat too common mimetic gift no 
 dialect is more difficult to reproduce with exactness than that 
 which is used with such humour and expressiveness by the Irish 
 peasant all English writers and many Irish ones fail in their 
 efforts to catch the genuine Irish idiom, the former lamentably, 
 the latter almost as unmistakably. Carleton is supreme in this 
 respect. No novelist ever had precisely his opportunities for 
 acquiring the idiom, and it was indelibly stamped upon his 
 memory. He was always a peasant, and, until he was thirty 
 years of age, may be said to have lived exclusively with the 
 peasant world which he has made his own peculiar sphere. 
 His command of the Irish phraseology is the more remarkable 
 in that he only knew the North and North-East of Ireland ; 
 yet his peasant dialect holds good for the whole island. 
 This gift of his is a highly valuable one, as Irish readers 
 alone can testify. The accent of old Ireland is more truly 
 and faithfully preserved in the " Traits and Stories " than if it 
 were treasured up in the most perfect of phonographs, and it is 
 in his pages that it can be studied to most advantage by the 
 writers who despair of ever recording it correctly. So far as 
 that part of the necessary equipment of an Irish novelist goes, 
 Carleton was perfect, and in dialect never makes a false step. 
 But he made many mistakes in other matters. The strong 
 prejudice against him which is undoubtedly entertained by 
 many Irishmen is not without its justification there is no 
 denying the fact that he sometimes abused his opportunities ; 
 and his occasional offences against truth and fairness cannot 
 be condoned, for his knowledge of the Irish people was too 
 complete to admit of the excuse that he unwittingly sinned. 
 He burlesqued some of the most cherished convictions of his 
 countrymen for a temporary gain. His very earliest stories 
 were written for a very active group of Protestant evangelisers, 
 who paid him well, and these stories are of so proselytising a 
 tendency that nobody would dream of reprinting them or of 
 describing them as literature. At a later period he turned 
 and rent his Protestant patrons, and wrote exclusively for a
 
 INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 Catholic publisher, and in like manner, after a period of 
 preaching to the Irish tenants on their enormities, he took 
 the landlords and agents in hand and ruthlessly exposed 
 their nefarious practices. His poverty explains a good deal 
 of his tergiversation, but it hardly excuses it. Outbursts of 
 occasional misrepresentation cannot, however, obliterate his 
 great services to Ireland, and in the main there is no picture 
 of Irish life so true as that presented in his " Traits and 
 Stories." His pathos is no less irresistible than his humour. 
 He is easily first among Irish writers in both qualities. Only 
 one of his competitors, in the present writer's opinion, has 
 come near to equalling Carleton's power over the emotions. 
 That writer is Charles Kickham, in his affecting and beautiful 
 stories of " Sally Cavanagh, or the Untenanted Graves," and 
 " Knocknagow, or the Homes of Tipperary." But there is 
 this difference (all important from the Irish point of view) 
 between Kickham and Carleton the former never, in any 
 of his stories, by direct word or insinuation, maligned his 
 countrymen in the smallest degree, and is consequently dear 
 to the Irish heart ; while Carleton, who often, in his literary 
 career, wounded the susceptibilities of the people, is only 
 partially read and admired by them. Even in those stories 
 where he has glorified their virtues most, he has vexed them 
 sorely by his fierce insistence upon their errors. He 
 regarded himself as a writer with a mission to reform 
 them. For every Irish virtue he has managed to dis- 
 cover a corresponding vice his detractors would say a 
 couple of vices. Yet it is Carleton's thoroughness and ruth- 
 lessness which make his descriptions of the national life so 
 valuable. Future ages will not condemn severely the pen 
 which, while it has given us a gallery of murderous ruffians 
 like Andy Meehan, Darby Hourigan, Mogue Moylan, Bartle 
 Flanagan, and Paddy Devaun, has also bequeathed to us 
 such sublime types of Irish goodness, generosity, and gentle- 
 ness as Owen McCarthy, Jemmy M'Evoy, Mr. and Mrs. Denis 
 O'Shaughnessy, and Elish Connell. To the same brain which 
 conceived the M'Clutchys, the M'Slimes, the Donnell Dhus, 
 and the Hogans, we owe Fardorougha and his heroic wife, 
 Mave Sullivan, Sarah M'Gowan, Mrs. M'Mahon, and, to name 
 but one other, the patriarch in " The Emigrants of Ahadarra."
 
 xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 Add to these the innumerable comic figures, the pedants, the 
 pugnacious tailors, the impostors like Darby More, and you 
 have an unmatchable gallery of national characters. 
 
 Considerations of space prevent me from going closely or 
 minutely into Carleton's life history. All that can be con- 
 veniently done is to narrate the really important events of 
 his career as briefly as may be. He has himself supplied us 
 with an interesting account of his earlier years, which requires 
 only to be supplemented by one or two points, which are not 
 without their importance. His autobiographical preface is 
 light-hearted enough, as though he had never known sorrow ; 
 yet when he wrote it he had been visited, if not chastened, 
 by many afflictions. His life was less happy than many which 
 are frequently considered mournful in the extreme. It was 
 a bitter and ceaseless struggle from the moment he left home 
 till his death. His writings in many places are tragically 
 suggestive of ruined hopes and pitiful necessities. 
 
 He was born on 20th February 1794, in the parish of 
 Clogher, Co. Tyrone, and was the youngest of fourteen 
 children. His parents were good and pious people, of pure 
 Celtic origin. The Carletons were originally Carolans and 
 O'Carolans, and the English language was foreign to Carleton's 
 immediate relatives. Changes of name were quite common 
 in the last century. It is only a couple of centuries since 
 Acts of Parliament passed making it compulsory upon the 
 natives to adopt English names. Carleton was well aware of 
 his original name, and often spoke of it to his friends, and 
 Dr. John O'Donovan, greatest of Irish Gaelic scholars, intro- 
 duces his case, as an illustration of change, into his learned 
 papers on " The Origin and Meaning of Irish Family Names." 
 Carleton was, luckily, born just after the time when it was 
 impossible for Catholic youth to get .education except in a 
 surreptitious manner, when, indeed, as an Irish poet has 
 pointedly expressed it 
 
 " Crouched beneath the sheltering hedge, or stretched 
 
 on mountain fern, 
 The master and his pupils met, feloniously to learn ! " 
 
 But his own educational difficulties were not slight, apart 
 from the poverty of his parents. Having been intended by
 
 INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 his father for the priesthood, he was considered to be on 
 a different plane from his brothers, and any suggestion that 
 he should occupy himself with manual labour was voted an 
 unworthy and disgraceful one, and with this view Carleton 
 himself was in emphatic agreement. After his father died 
 he lived in complete idleness for several years, staying for a 
 month or two with each of his relatives, his family being too 
 poor to support him. It was essential, as he had "the 
 larnin'," that he should be well dressed ; but his relatives even- 
 tually grew weary of keeping him supplied with money while 
 he spent all his time in sports and pastimes. He became an 
 intrepid athlete, a famous dancer, and something of a fighter, 
 and was known for miles round for agility and strength. 
 He was tall and well formed, and, according to tradition and 
 to the lengthy narrative of his life which he wrote during 
 the months immediately preceding his death, was an im- 
 mense favourite with the fair sex. He was also an excellent 
 story-teller, and retailed far and near the stories which he 
 had picked up at different firesides. The stories, however, 
 which were most popular were those he had learned in his 
 reading of the classics, and, as he states, the Irish legends 
 were considered less interesting, because they " did not show 
 the larnin'." 
 
 After he left his native hills, he wandered about the 
 country endeavouring to obtain a tutorship. He was often 
 in direst poverty, and such tutorships as he procured were 
 miserable situations. He attempted to run a hedge-school 
 on his own account, but after a short and most wretched 
 experience of the trials of a hedge-schoolmaster, was forced 
 to give it up. On one occasion his prospects were so blank 
 that he thought of enlisting, and with that view wrote a letter 
 in Latin to the colonel of a regiment, near whose quarters 
 he happened to pass, requesting to be accepted as a recruit. 
 The good-natured officer dissuaded him from his intention, and 
 gave him some sorely-needed monetary help. The goal of 
 his wanderings was Dublin, where he imagined his troubles 
 would be ended. Yet he was many months in Dublin seeking 
 in vain for employment, and dependent upon the charity of 
 such good Samaritans as he might happen to meet. In despair 
 he once presented himself at a bird-stuffing establishment
 
 xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 where a bird-stuffer was required, and announced himself as 
 a competent hand at the trade ; but when asked what he 
 stuffed birds with, his innocent reply was "potatoes and 
 meal." He did not secure, it is unnecessary to remark, the 
 coveted appointment. 
 
 Through the friendly offices of a clergyman who discerned 
 his ability, he managed to get a small post as teacher at a 
 school kept by a man named Fox, with whose niece, a young 
 lady named Jane Anderson, Carleton fell in love, and soon 
 married. She proved a devoted and altogether admirable 
 wife during their long married life. After a year or two 
 spent as a clerk in the offices of the Irish Sunday School 
 Society, Carleton began to realise that he possessed literary 
 talent, and ceased to consider a clerkship worth 60 a year 
 (which at first had seemed boundless wealth to him) as the 
 legitimate summit of his ambition. Certain small character 
 sketches which he had amused himself by writing, were loudly 
 praised by his friends, and he was not long in discovering the 
 opening his peculiar abilities looked for. He was introduced 
 just at this time (1827) to the Rev. Caesar Otway, author of 
 some useful topographical books, who was then editing a 
 religious magazine called the Christian Examiner. Otway 
 was a shrewd observer, and recognised at once Carleton's 
 vigorous intellect and his possible usefulness as a contributor. 
 He urged him to write his experiences of peasant life, and 
 offered to accept anything from his pen which treated of the 
 " superstitions " of the people. Being at the time unem- 
 ployed, having been dismissed from the Sunday School Society 
 for daring to use it as a stepping-stone to entrance into 
 Dublin University, Carleton readily accepted Otway's over- 
 tures, and sent as a first contribution an account of a visit he 
 had paid to the famous penitential retreat of Lough Derg. 
 "The Lough Derg Pilgrim" appeared in Otway's magazine 
 for 1828, and was much admired by its readers. It was 
 followed by a much inferior sketch named " Father Butler," 
 and the two pieces were republished in a small volume 
 in 1829. 
 
 Meanwhile Carleton went on, contributing to almost every 
 number of the magazine. Everything he sent to it, however, 
 was of a strictly Protestant tendency, and he reserved his
 
 INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 best work for the first series of the "Traits and Stories," 
 which came out in two volumes in 1830. 
 
 Only those stories in this series which treat of the purely 
 devotional side of the people in a sarcastic or severe spirit 
 appeared in The Christian Examiner. The rest had never 
 been published in any serial form when the two volumes 
 above mentioned were issued. The work met with instant 
 and almost universal delight and approbation. Their author 
 was hailed as the discoverer of a new world, and indeed the 
 life presented to English readers in Carleton's pages was 
 entirely new and strange. 
 
 After 1831 Carleton ceased to write for the Christian 
 Examiner. His last contribution was " Denis O'Shaugh- 
 nessy going to Maynooth/' which the editor compressed and 
 mutilated. Carleton was now in a position which justified 
 him in seeking to obtain a more remunerative market for his 
 writings than Otway's periodical could give him, and, as it 
 was bitterly and venomously opposed to all and any conces- 
 sions to the Catholics, it is well that Carleton sought a broader 
 atmosphere, and declined to continue providing what proved 
 to be mere ammunition for the narrowest sect of Irish Protes- 
 tants. It is a most curious coincidence that, though the 
 Christian Examiner lived for nearly forty years afterwards, it 
 died almost precisely at the same date as Carleton. Its final 
 number contains a lengthy obituary notice of its most famous 
 contributor. 
 
 To the National Magazine, started in 1830, under the editor- 
 ship of Charles Lever, then an unknown young student at 
 Trinity College, Carleton contributed some excellent and racy 
 stories, which are not so well known as they should be. The 
 magazine was, unfortunately, a short - lived one. It was 
 owned by the same class of sectarians who controlled the 
 Christian Examiner, and Lever so shocked them by his temerity 
 in eulogising the poems of Shelley that he was incontinently 
 removed from the editorship, and a pious and dull bookseller 
 and author, named Philip Dixon Hardy, installed in his place, 
 who speedily compassed the extinction of the magazine. 
 Enthusiastic as was the applause won by the first series of 
 "Traits and Stories," the second series (published in 1833) 
 was even more flatteringly received. The three volumes,
 
 xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 including as they did " The Poor Scholar," " Denis 
 O'Shaughnessy," "The Geography of an Irish Oath/' and 
 " Tubber Derg," were admitted to be the most notable 
 accession ever made to Irish literature. Even in the first 
 series Carleton had shown his mastery of his subject, but 
 neither there nor anywhere else was he able to give such 
 analysis of Irish human nature, or to exhibit such penetrating 
 pathos, such ineffable tenderness, such sunny humour and 
 keen-witted observation. " The author is a jewel," enthusias- 
 tically exclaimed Christopher North in Blackrvood's Magazine, 
 and all the other critics concurred. Is it wonderful that 
 Carleton, with all his impulsiveness and buoyancy, instantly 
 leaped to the conclusion that fame and fortune were within 
 his easy reach ? Fame he secured with perfect readiness ; but 
 fortune, alas ! he never obtained. Unfortunately for him, 
 authors were badly remunerated in Ireland, and as he had a 
 large and increasing family growing up around him he quickly 
 got into debt. He had the mortification all his life of seeing 
 his books running through numerous editions while he himself 
 reaped no benefit from their popularity. He was entirely 
 without business capacity, and was constitutionally incapable 
 of making a good bargain for himself. His present necessities 
 were always such that the most insignificant sum paid down 
 was worth far more to him than the most pleasing prospect 
 of handsome remuneration in the near future. 
 
 When the Dublin University Magazine, the best literary 
 periodical Ireland has ever had, was launched in 1833, 
 Carleton was one of the band of brilliant writers who were 
 enlisted as contributors, and in this instance, at any rate, he 
 had no reason to complain of the terms paid. But he could 
 not monopolise the space at the disposal of the editor, and 
 remuneration for one contribution a month, the most he 
 could expect to obtain, was insufficient for his needs. When, 
 however, as often happened, his contributions were few and 
 far between, his financial position may be guessed. It was 
 the only decent magazine in the country, and he had no 
 knowledge of English periodicals. He was only able to pro- 
 cure reasonable payment for his stories by arranging for their 
 serial publication first. Consequently for several years he 
 depended upon his work for the University Magazine, and the
 
 INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 debts which hung round his neck like millstones during the 
 whole of his life were thus incurred. It must be confessed, 
 nevertheless, that Carleton was blamable for much of his 
 poverty. He was notoriously lacking in energy and method, 
 and was soon fdisheartened. He needed little excuse to 
 throw down his pen, never writing for love of the employ- 
 ment, but as a painful necessity. There are considerable 
 intervals between the dates of some of his books. For the 
 first few years of his literary career he confined himself to 
 short stories and sketches of character, and some of his 
 friends rather too hastily assumed that a properly-constructed 
 novel was beyond his powers. Carleton had sufficient confi- 
 dence in himself to strongly dissent from such an assumption, 
 and in answer to a direct challenge he wrote " Fardorougha 
 the Miser, or the Convicts of Lisnamona," which ran 
 through the University Magazine as a serial in 1837-38, and 
 was published as a book in 1 839- This graphic and masterly 
 story took his critics by surprise, and they at once admitted 
 that Carleton was thoroughly justified in his attempt at novel- 
 writing. " Fardorougha " is now properly ranked among the 
 best of Irish novels. It is a most impressive and powerful 
 study of the struggle between avarice and parental affection, 
 the leading figure being a finely-conceived and wonderfully 
 well-drawn portrait of an old Irish farmer, whose wife, Honor 
 O'Donovan, is a noble creation, equalling the best of Carleton's 
 female characters which is high praise, for no Irish novelist 
 is his equal in that respect. 
 
 Owing to a quarrel with Lever, who became editor of the 
 University Magazine, Carleton ceased to write for it for some 
 years. Indeed, he did not contribute a line while Lever 
 retained the editorship. With the exception of some admir- 
 able sketches which appeared in 1840-41 in the Irish Penny 
 Journal, he published very little between 1839 an d 1845 worth 
 mentioning. But he was not idle. The foundation in 1842 
 of the famous Nation newspaper by the Young Irelanders, 
 with whose leaders Carleton was on terms of intimacy, en- 
 couraged him to write for the people as well as of them, and 
 he was induced to write a story exhibiting in drastic fashion 
 the more tyrannous methods employed by land agents and 
 Orangemen. This story was intended for publication in the
 
 xviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 Natioti first, but, acting on the advice of the editors, it was 
 issued as a book at once, with illustrations by " Phiz." 
 Its title is somewhat too demonstrative, and " Valentine 
 M'Clutchy, the Irish Land Agent, and the Pious Aspirations 
 of Solomon M'Slime, Religious Attorney," does not suggest 
 the impartial spirit. It must be confessed that Carleton's 
 object is defeated by his partisanship. The oppressors of the 
 people are too uniformly villainous their cruelty and hypocrisy 
 are inhuman. If, however, the novel contains some of his worst 
 work, it also contains some of his best. There is admirable 
 humour in some of the chapters ; and as for the pathos, his 
 description of an eviction scene is one of the most moving 
 things he ever wrote. "Valentine M'Clutchy" appeared in 
 1845, and was hailed by the national press as not merely a 
 great novel, but as an excellent propagandist work. A 
 library of small monthly volumes was projected by the Young 
 Irelanders, to be called "The Library of Ireland," and 
 Carleton was invited to help. He speedily produced " Rody 
 the Rover, or the Ribbonman," a story with a purpose, that 
 purpose being the denunciation of the secret societies and 
 conspiracies too much favoured by the people. He after- 
 wards claimed that this little and unimportant book caused 
 the disbandment of six hundred Ribbon lodges. The year 
 which saw the publication of the two last-mentioned books 
 was the busiest of Carleton's life. His sketches in the Irish 
 Penny Journal, already referred to, were collected and pub- 
 lished with others in a volume, for which " Phiz " furnished 
 several characteristic illustrations. These " Tales and Stories 
 of the Irish Peasantry " became deservedly popular, and are 
 almost as valuable in their way as the "Traits and Stories." 
 
 The death, in September 1 845, of Thomas Davis, the best 
 beloved of all the Young Irelanders, led to a request from 
 the editors of " The Library of Ireland " for a volunteer who 
 would provide the November volume of the series, which 
 Davis had been preparing when death struck him down. 
 Carleton, who could write at fever-heat under favourable con- 
 ditions, at once stepped into the breach, and in nine days 
 wrote the story of " Paddy Go Easy and his wife Nancy," 
 a work intended to have an educational effect. It is a study 
 of an abnormally lazy man who is eventually reformed and
 
 INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 regenerated by an active and methodical wife. There is 
 considerable humour in it ; but the Irish people resented the 
 undoubted implication that they were all Paddy Go Easys, 
 and the book, useful and interesting as it is, has never been 
 a favourite with the Irish reader. 
 
 In spite of this burst of literary activity, Carleton's debts 
 did not diminish ; and though he followed "hot-foot" with 
 "Art Maguire, or the Broken Pledge/' a powerful story 
 designed to help Father Mathew's temperance crusade, 
 " The Black Prophet," a thrilling story of famine, and " The 
 Emigrants of Ahadarra," one of his most admirable stories, 
 his necessities soon became a matter of public comment. He 
 had previously, on the death of John Banim, endeavoured 
 to secure the reversion of the Civil List pension held by that 
 writer, but Sir Robert Peel, though he characteristically and 
 generously aided Carleton out of his own purse, declined to 
 recommend him for a pension. In 184-7 a movement was 
 started in Dublin to bring Carleton's case under the notice 
 of Lord John Russell, then Prime Minister. It was warmly 
 supported on all hands, by people of all grades, and of every 
 shade of political and religious opinion. Almost every notable 
 person in Ireland signed the memorial which was presented 
 to the Premier, and the appeal was strongly backed by Lord 
 Clarendon, the Viceroy. Lord John Russell acceded to it, 
 and in 1848 Carleton was granted a pension of 200 a year. 
 From that moment, strangely enough, his decadence as a 
 writer may be followed step by step. " The Tithe Proctor," 
 published in 1848, is unworthy of the author of "Traits 
 and Stories," and those novels which followed it were even 
 less worthy. The fount of his genius seems to have be- 
 come suddenly exhausted, and though there are occasional 
 glimpses of his earlier self in these later books, they serve 
 only to remind one of his former greatness. They may be 
 dismissed in a few words. " The Squanders of Castle 
 Squander " was first published in the Illustrated London 
 News, and appeared in book form in 1852 ; " Red Hall, or the 
 Baronet's Daughter " (afterwards republished as " The Black 
 Baronet"), was also published in London in 1852, and was 
 the cause of Carleton's one visit to that city. " Willy Reilly 
 and his dear Colleen Bawn," issued in 1855, is the most
 
 xx INTRODUCTION 
 
 popular of all Carleton's novels. It has passed through nearly 
 fifty editions, but, notwithstanding, is inferior in workmanship 
 and vraisemblance to most of his books. In I860 appeared 
 " The Evil Eye, or the Black Spectre," which, though speedily 
 translated into French, is absolutely the weakest of all his 
 writings. " Redmond Count O'Hanlon, the Irish Rapparee," 
 " The Double Prophecy, or Trials of the Heart," and " The 
 Red-Haired Man's Wife." exhaust the list of his novels ; but 
 there are various short stories belonging to this later period, 
 which need not be particularised, as they are of comparatively 
 little importance. Being in possession of a settled income of 
 200 a year, it was characteristic of Carleton that he took 
 no trouble with these stories, but apparently allowed his pen 
 to wander over the paper without method or plan. His 
 fame has suffered heavily by this carelessness ; for, as the 
 better books became inaccessible to the people, in spite of 
 many editions, these worthless stories were read by them 
 simply because they were procurable at a cheap price, 
 and are more or less free from the gibes at the clergy in 
 which Carleton revelled in his younger days. It must not 
 be supposed that the pension placed him beyond the reach of 
 poverty. He was always in extreme difficulties, and his literary 
 earnings after 1848 may be estimated at about 50 a year 
 on the average. With this 250 a year Carleton was obliged 
 to keep a large family, who not only could not assist him 
 in any way, but, owing to his intense affection for his own 
 flesh and blood, added their own burdens to his. He could 
 not bear to see any of his children leave him to seek their 
 own fortunes, and, by mistaken kindness, succeeded in pre- 
 venting them from ever helping him or themselves. His 
 love of his family, a notable characteristic of Irish people, is 
 almost incredible. When two of his daughters married, they 
 left him only for a few years. Becoming widows, they re- 
 turned to the paternal home with their children, where then- 
 father welcomed them with emotion and delight. His eldest 
 son, a thriftless fellow, also married, and his wife and children 
 were for a time quartered upon the tender-hearted old man. 
 His letters to his children are brimming with affection and 
 solicitude. It is extremely difficult to find a harsh word for 
 his amiable weakness towards his family ; but Carleton was
 
 INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 never tired of lamenting and resenting what he called the 
 indifference of the Irish public to his necessities. Several 
 times he endeavoured to obtain an increase of pension, but 
 in vain ; there was little sympathy for a writer who was 
 already receiving what was comparatively a large pension. 
 
 In his latter days Carleton became infirm, and his once- 
 powerful frame was bent by privation and illness. He spent 
 the last few months of his life in writing his autobiography, 
 which he was not able to complete. When he died, on 
 30th Jan. 1869, the newspapers, which had very sympatheti- 
 cally received the news of his last illness, devoted a good 
 deal of their space to the consideration of his many services 
 to Ireland, and his funeral was followed by some of the 
 leading citizens of Dublin. His widow, to whom a portion 
 of his pension was continued, survived him for more than 
 twelve years, and several of his children are still living in 
 England and Australia. 
 
 Carleton has often been called "the Walter Scott of Ire- 
 land," and the title is not inappropriate in certain respects. 
 His head was strikingly like Scott's, and the remarkable 
 resemblance was instantly observed by such of his earlier con- 
 temporaries who had seen the great Scotchman. Carleton 
 himself was very proud of the likeness, and felt highly 
 flattered when it was pointed out. 
 
 Carleton gets completely " out of his depth " when he 
 endeavours to describe genteel life. One or two of his 
 stories, such as " The Black Baronet," are most unconvincing 
 and unreadable on this account. When he confines himself 
 to peasant life and character he is, when he likes, unerring 
 and sure ; but he deliberately goes out of his way on occasions 
 to please the particular section with which, for the time 
 being, he may have identified himself. Therein lies his 
 gravest defect and the cause of that prejudice which, as 
 previously mentioned, exists in the minds of many Irishmen 
 against him. The fact of his poverty is the only explana- 
 tion which can be offered as an excuse for this defect. 
 He wrote for this party or that because he was in need of 
 money ; and as it is the misfortune of Irishmen that they must 
 connect themselves more or less actively with one party 
 or another, Carleton, who was nothing if not vehement,
 
 xxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 and upon whichever side he wrote, wrote aggressively, strongly 
 supported whatever party or sect he had elected to serve. 
 He was never a Nationalist in the modern and restricted 
 sense he always considered himself a Conservative, politi- 
 cally ; but he was Irish first and last. Carleton regretted 
 in later years many of the remarks into which he had been 
 led by his partisanship, and, as far as was possible at the time, 
 excised the more flagrant passages. But he readily recog- 
 nised that further pruning was called for, especially in his 
 later works. He is fond of introducing " asides," which are 
 read nowadays with irritation by all parties, as they tend 
 not only to distract the attention and to interrupt the 
 narrative, but fail to convince, as the opinions he expresses 
 in one book are diametrically opposed to those stated in 
 another. The "Traits and Stories," even as revised by 
 Carleton in 1843, are not irreproachable. His life-long 
 complaint that the Irish people did not appreciate him, has 
 no foundation in fact : they bought his books and read them, 
 and cannot be blamed for the bad bargains he made with 
 his publishers. It is not wonderful if his rightful public 
 did not know how to " take " him his frequent veerings 
 necessarily confusing the popular mind. 
 
 Though less than justice is meted out to the clergy in his 
 "Traits and Stories," it must be admitted that, in general, 
 he champions the cause of his countrymen in that work. 
 His vigorous personality is in all he wrote, and his writings 
 are good or bad according as they are influenced by his 
 amiable or unamiable periods. In " Valentine M'Clutchy," 
 for example, there is gross party spirit, and all his fierceness 
 is directed against landlordism ; while " The Tithe Proctor " 
 is disfigured beyond redemption by its virulence against the 
 popular movement for the abolition of tithes. 
 
 Theophile Gautier says of Goya, the Spanish artist, that he 
 seems to have come expressly at the right moment to collect 
 the last vestiges of the ancient manners and customs of his 
 people, which were on the point of disappearing for ever. 
 The same may be said of Carleton, who has limned in im- 
 perishable colours the Ireland of his youth, whose last 
 glimpses he has caught in the main and faithfully recorded. 
 It is impossible to over-estimate the utility and educational
 
 INTRODUCTION xxiii 
 
 value of the "Traits and Stories." We may adopt the words 
 of one of his earliest and best critics, " No man who does not 
 know the things he tells, knows Ireland no man who knows 
 it ever doubted the perfection of the ' Traits and Stories.' " 
 
 D. J. O'DONOGHUE. 
 
 P.S. As Carleton's Irish Gaelic phrases are generally 
 hopelessly corrupt, it has been thought best to give them as 
 they stand in the glossary, with the true spelling in brackets, 
 and the English translation after them. He attempted 
 vainly to give the phonetic spelling of the Gaelic words, 
 and his attempt has led to much confusion among Irish 
 readers without assisting English ones. I have to acknow- 
 ledge, with much gratitude, the kindness of Mr. David Comyn, 
 of Dublin, a well-known student of Gaelic (and first editor of 
 The Gaelic Journal), who prepared the glossary, and has helped 
 me in other ways. 
 
 A few words about the known portraits of Carleton seem 
 necessary. Unquestionably the best of them is that prefixed 
 to the present volume. It proves that the well-known half- 
 length portrait by Slattery, which is in the National Gallery, 
 Dublin, is an excellent likeness. It is Carleton " to the very 
 life," as those who knew him will readily recognise, and 
 has never been reproduced before. There is a later portrait 
 of him taken in extreme old age, which is much less char- 
 acteristic. The sketch by Charles Grey, which is given as 
 frontispiece to another volume of this edition, has been several 
 times used, but it is an admirable portrait of Carleton in his 
 prime. The absurdly unlike portrait by William Roe, which 
 has been reproduced as a frontispiece to one of the cheap 
 editions of the " Traits and Stories," hardly calls for mention 
 in this list. It has not even a remote resemblance to the 
 novelist.
 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 TO THE FIRST SERIES 
 
 IN presenting the following " Traits and Stories " to the 
 public, the Author can with confidence assure them 
 that what he offers is, both in manufacture and material, 
 genuine Irish ; yes, genuine Irish as to character, drawn 
 by one born amidst the scenes he describes reared as 
 one of the people 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 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 pre- 
 vails 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 their fires on their 
 fathers' hearths, and retire to the mountain ranges of Tyrone, 
 Donegal, and Derry, perhaps he will grant, after all, that the 
 
 xxiv
 
 PREFACE TO THE FIRST SERIES xxv 
 
 feeling is natural to a people treated as they have been. 
 Among this race, surrounded by Scotch and English settlers, 
 and hid amongst the mists of their highland retreats, educa- 
 tion, 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 people, 
 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 characters he 
 describes, has endeavoured to give his portraits as true to 
 nature as possible ; and requests his readers to give him 
 credit when he asserts that, without party object or engage- 
 ment, 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, affectionate creatures the very fittest materials 
 in the world for either the poet or agitator capable of 
 great culpability, and of great and energetic goodness 
 sudden in their passions as the red and rapid 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 
 mountains often 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, to exhibit them as 
 candid, affectionate, and faithful. Nor has he ever foregone 
 the hope his heart's desire and his anxious wish that his 
 own dear native mountain people may, through the influence 
 of education, by the leadings of purer knowledge, and by the 
 festerings of a paternal Government, become the pride, the 
 strength, and support of the British Empire, instead of, as 
 now, forming its reproach. 
 
 The reader may finally believe that these volumes contain 
 probably a greater number of facts than any other book ever 
 published on Irish life. The Author's acquaintance with the 
 
 VOL. i. d
 
 xxvi PREFACE TO THE FIRST SERIES 
 
 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 fictitious names and localities, exhibit 
 through their medium the very prejudices and manners which 
 produced the incidents themselves. 
 
 In the language and expressions of the northern peasantry 
 he has studiously avoided that intolerable Scoto-Hibernic 
 jargon which pierces the ear so unmercifully ; but he has 
 preserved everything Irish, and generalised the phraseology, 
 so that the book, wherever it may go, will exhibit a truly 
 Hibernian spirit. 
 
 It depends on the patronage which the public may bestow 
 on these volumes whether other attempts, made under cir- 
 cumstances less discouraging, and for which there are ample 
 materials, calculated to exhibit Irish life in a manner, perhaps, 
 more practically useful, shall be proceeded with. 
 
 DUBLIN, ist March, 1830.
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 IT will naturally be expected, upon a new issue of works 
 which may be said to treat exclusively of a people who 
 form such an important and interesting portion of the empire 
 as the Irish peasantry do, that the Author should endeavour 
 to prepare the minds of his readers especially those of the 
 English and Scotch for understanding more clearly their 
 general character, habits of thought, and modes of feeling as 
 they exist and are depicted in the subsequent volume. This 
 is a task which the Author undertakes more for the sake 
 of his country than himself; and he rejoices that the de- 
 mand for the present edition puts it in his power to aid in 
 removing many absurd prejudices which have existed for 
 time immemorial against his countrymen. 
 
 It is well known that the character of an Irishman has 
 been hitherto uniformly associated with the idea of some- 
 thing unusually ridiculous, and that scarcely anything in the 
 shape of language was supposed to proceed from his lips but 
 an absurd congeries of brogue and blunder. The habit of 
 looking upon him in a ludicrous light has been so strongly 
 impressed upon the English mind, that no opportunity has 
 ever been omitted of throwing him into an attitude of gross 
 and overcharged caricature, from which you might as correctly 
 estimate his intellectual strength and moral porportions as 
 you would the size of a man from his evening shadow. From 
 the immortal bard of Avon down to the writers of the present 
 day, neither play nor farce has ever been presented to 
 Englishmen, in which, when an Irishman is introduced, he is 
 not drawn as a broad, grotesque blunderer, every sentence he 
 speaks involving a bull, and every act the result of headlong 
 folly, or cool but unstudied effrontery. I do not remember an
 
 xxviii AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 instance in which he acts upon the stage any other^part than 
 that of the buffoon of the piece, uttering language which, 
 wherever it may have been found, was at all events never 
 heard in Ireland, unless upon the boards of a theatre. As 
 for the Captain O'Cutters, O'Blunders, and Dennis Bulgrud- 
 deries of the English stage, they never had existence except in 
 the imagination of those who were as ignorant of the Irish 
 people as they were of their language and feelings. Even 
 Sheridan himself was forced to pander to this erroneous 
 estimate and distorted conception of our character ; for, after 
 all, Sir Lucius O'Trigger was his Irishman, but not Ireland's 
 Irishman. I know that several of my readers may remind 
 me of Sir Boyle Roche, whose bulls have become not only 
 notorious, but proverbial. It is well known now, however, 
 and was when he made them, that they were studied bulls, 
 resorted to principally for the purpose of putting the Govern- 
 ment and Opposition sides of the Irish House of Commons 
 into good-humour with each other, which they never failed 
 to do thereby, on more occasions than one, probably, 
 preventing the effusion of blood and the loss of life among 
 men who frequently decided even their political differences 
 by the sword or pistol. 
 
 That the Irish either were or are a people remarkable for 
 making bulls or blunders, is an imputation utterly unfounded, 
 and in every sense untrue. The source of this error on the 
 part of our neighbours is, however, readily traced. The 
 language of our people has been for centuries, and is up to 
 the present day, in a transition state. The English tongue 
 is gradually superseding the Irish. In my own native place, 
 for instance, there is not by any means so much Irish spoken 
 now as there was about twenty or five-and-twenty years ago. 
 This fact, then, will easily account for the ridicule which is, 
 and I fear ever will be, unjustly heaped upon those who are 
 found to use a language which they do not properly under- 
 stand. In the early periods of communication between the 
 countries, when they stood in a hostile relation to each other, 
 and even long afterwards, it was not surprising that "the 
 wild Irishman " who expressed himself with difficulty, and 
 often impressed the idiom of his own language upon one with 
 which he was not familiar, should incur, in the opinion of
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION xxix 
 
 those who were strongly prejudiced against him, the character 
 of making the bulls and blunders attributed to him. Such 
 was the fact, and such the origin of this national slander 
 upon his intellect a slander which, like every other, origi- 
 nates from the prejudice of those who were unacquainted 
 with the quickness and clearness of thought that in general 
 characterises the language of our people. At this moment 
 there is no man acquainted with the inhabitants of the two 
 countries who does not know that where the English is 
 vernacular in Ireland it is spoken with far more purity and 
 grammatical precision than is to be heard beyond the Channel. 
 Those, then, who are in the habit of defending what are 
 termed our bulls, or of apologising for them, do us injustice; 
 and Miss Edgeworth herself, when writing an essay upon the 
 subject, wrote an essay upon that which does not and never 
 did exist. These observations, then, easily account for the 
 view of us which has always been taken in the dramatic 
 portion of English literature. There the Irishman was drawn 
 in every instance as the object of ridicule, and consequently 
 of contempt ; for it is incontrovertibly true, that the man 
 whom you laugh at you will soon despise. 
 
 In every point of view this was wrong, but principally in a 
 political one. At that time England and Englishmen knew 
 very little of Ireland, and consequently the principal oppor- 
 tunities afforded them of appreciating our character were 
 found on the stage. Of course, it was very natural that the 
 erroneous estimate of us which they formed there should 
 influence them everywhere else. We cannot sympathise 
 with and laugh at the same object at the same time ; and 
 if the Irishman found himself undeservedly the object of 
 coarse and unjust ridicule, it was not very unnatural that he 
 should requite it with a prejudice against the principles and 
 feelings of Englishmen, quite as strong as that which was 
 entertained against himself. Had this ridicule been confined 
 to the stage, or directed at us in the presence of those who 
 had other and better opportunities of knowing us, it would 
 have been comparatively harmless. But this was not the 
 case. It passed from the stage into the recesses of private 
 life, wrought itself into the feelings until it became a pre- 
 judice, and the Irishman was consequently looked upon and
 
 xxx AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 treated as a being made up of absurdity and cunning a com- 
 pound of knave and fool, fit only to be punished for his 
 knavery or laughed at for his folly. So far, therefore, that 
 portion of English literature which attempted to describe the 
 language and habits of Irishmen was unconsciously creating 
 an unfriendly feeling between the two countries a feeling 
 which, I am happy to say, is fast disappearing, and which only 
 requires that we should have a full and fair acquaintance 
 with each other in order to be removed for ever. 
 
 At present, indeed, their mutual positions, civil, commercial, 
 and political, are very different from what they were half a 
 century ago, or even at a more recent period. The progress 
 of science, and the astonishing improvements in steam and 
 machineiy, have so completely removed the obstructions 
 which impeded their intercourse that the two nations can now 
 scarcely be considered as divided. As a natural consequence, 
 their knowledge of each other has improved, and, as will 
 always happen with generous people, they begin to see that 
 the one was neither knave nor fool, nor the other a churl or 
 a boor. Thus has mutual respect arisen from mutual inter- 
 course, and those who hitherto approached each other with 
 distrust are beginning to perceive that in spite of political or 
 religious prejudices, no matter how stimulated, the truthful 
 experience of life will in the event create nothing but good- 
 will and confidence between the countries. 
 
 Other causes, however, led to this causes which in every 
 state of society exercise a quick and powerful influence over 
 the minds of men : I allude to literature. 
 
 When the Irishman was made to stand forth as the butt 
 of ridicule to his neighbours, the first that undertook his 
 vindication was Maria Edgeworth. During her day the 
 works of no writer made a more forcible impression upon the 
 circles of fashionable life in England, if we except the touch- 
 ing and inimitable "Melodies" of my countryman Thomas 
 Moore. After a lapse of some years, these two were followed 
 by many othei's who stood forth as lofty and powerful ex- 
 ponents of the national heart and intellect. Who can forget 
 the melancholy but indignant reclamations of John Banim, 
 the dark and touching power of Gerald Griffin, or the un- 
 rivalled wit and irresistible drollery of Samuel Lover ? Nor
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION xxxi 
 
 can I omit remarking, that, amidst the array of great talents 
 to which I allude, the genius of our female writers bore off, 
 by the free award of public opinion, some of the brightest 
 wreaths of Irish literature. It would be difficult indeed, 
 in any country, to name three women who have done more 
 in setting right the character of Ireland and her people, 
 whilst exhibiting at the same time the manifestations of 
 high genius, than Miss Edgeworth, Lady Morgan, and Mrs. 
 Hall. About the female creations of the last-named lady 
 especially, there is a touching charm, blending the graceful 
 and the pensive, which reminds us of a very general but 
 peculiar style of Irish beauty, where the lineaments of the 
 face combine at once both the melancholy and the mirthful 
 in such a manner that their harmony constitutes the un- 
 changeable but ever-varying tenderness of the expression. 
 
 That national works like these, at once so healthful and 
 so true, produced by those who knew the country, and 
 exhibiting Irishmen not as the blundering buffoons of the 
 English stage, but as men capable of thinking clearly and 
 feeling deeply that such works, I say, should enable a 
 generous people, as the English undoubtedly are, to divest 
 themselves of the prejudices which they had so long enter- 
 tained against us, is both natural and gratifying. Those 
 who achieved this great object, or aided in achieving it, 
 have unquestionably rendered services of a most important 
 nature to both the countries, as well as to literature in 
 general. 
 
 Yet, whilst the highly-gifted individuals whom I have named 
 succeeded in making their countrymen respected, there was 
 one circumstance which, notwithstanding every exhibition 
 of their genius and love of country, still remained as a re- 
 proach against our character as a nation. For nearly a 
 century we were completely at the mercy of our British 
 neighbours, who probably amused themselves at our expense 
 with the greater licence, and a more assured sense of im- 
 punity, inasmuch as they knew that we were utterly destitute 
 of a national literature. Unfortunately, the fact could not 
 be disputed. For the last half century, to come down as 
 far as we can, Ireland, to use a plain metaphor, instead of 
 producing her native intellect for home consumption, was
 
 xxxii AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 forced to subsist upon the scanty supplies which could be 
 produced from the sister kingdom. This was a reproach 
 which added great strength to the general prejudice 
 against us. 
 
 A nation may produce one man or ten men of eminence, 
 but if they cannot succeed in impressing their mind upon 
 the spirit and intellect of their own country, so as to 
 create in her a taste for literature or science, no matter how 
 highly they may be appreciated by strangers, they have not 
 reached the exalted purposes of genius. To make this more 
 plain, I shall extend the metaphor a little farther. During 
 some of the years of Irish famine, such were the unhappy 
 circumstances of the country, that she was exporting pro- 
 visions of every description in the most prodigal abundance, 
 which the generosity of England was sending back again for 
 our support. So was it with literature. Our men and 
 women of genius uniformly carried their talents to the 
 English market, whilst we laboured at home under all the 
 dark privations of a literary famine. 
 
 In truth, until within the last ten or twelve years, an Irish 
 author never thought of publishing in his own country, and 
 the consequence was that our literary men followed the 
 example of our great landlords : they became absentees, and 
 drained the country of its intellectual wealth precisely as the 
 others exhausted it of its rents. 
 
 Thus did Ireland stand in the singular anomaly of adding 
 some of her most distinguished names to the literature of 
 Great Britain, whilst she herself remained incapable of pre- 
 senting anything to the world beyond a school-book or a 
 pamphlet ; and even of the latter it is well known that if 
 the subject of it were considered important, and its author 
 a man of any talent or station in society, it was certain to be 
 published in London. 
 
 Precisely in this state was the country when the two first 
 volumes of the " Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry " 
 were given to the public by the house of Messrs. Curry & Co., 
 of Sackville Street. Before they appeared, their author, 
 in consequence of their originating from an Irish press, enter- 
 tained no expectation that they would be read, or excite any 
 interest whatever, in either England or Scotland. He was
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION xxxiii 
 
 not, however, without a strong confidence that, notwithstand- 
 ing the wild and uncleared state of his own country at the 
 time, so far as native literature was concerned, his two little 
 pioneers would work their way with at least moderate success. 
 He felt conscious that everything depicted in them was true, 
 and that by those who were acquainted with the manners, 
 and language, and feelings of the people, they would sooner 
 or later be recognised as faithful delineations of Irish life. 
 In this confidence the event justified him ; for not only were 
 his volumes stamped with an immediate popularity at home, 
 where they could be best appreciated, but awarded a very 
 gratifying position in the literature of the day by the 
 unanimous and not less generous verdict of the English and 
 Scotch critics. 
 
 Thus it was that the publication of two unpretending 
 volumes, written by a peasant's son, established an important 
 and gratifying fact that our native country, if without a 
 literature at the time, was at least capable of appreciating 
 and willing to foster the humble exertions of such as en- 
 deavoured to create one. Nor was this all ; for, so far as 
 resident authors were concerned, it was now clearly estab- 
 lished that an Irish writer could be successful at home without 
 the necessity of appearing under the name and sanction of 
 the great London or Edinburgh booksellers. 
 
 The rapid sale and success of the first series encouraged 
 the author to bring out a second, which he did, but with a 
 different bookseller. The spirit of publishing was now 
 beginning to extend, and the talent of the country to put 
 itself in motion. The popularity of the second effort sur- 
 passed that of the first, and the author had the gratification 
 of knowing that the generosity of public feeling and opinion 
 accorded him a still higher position than before, as did the 
 critics of the day, without a dissentient voice. Still, as in 
 the case of his first effort, he saw with honest pride that his 
 own country and his countrymen placed the highest value 
 upon his works, because they best understood them. 
 
 About this time the literary taste of the metropolis began 
 to feel the first symptoms of life. As yet, however, they were 
 very faint. Two or three periodicals were attempted, and 
 though of very considerable merit, and conducted by~able
 
 xxxiv AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 men, none of them, I believe, reached a year's growth. The 
 Dublin Literary Gazette, the National Magazine, the Dublin 
 Monthly Magazine, and the Dublin University Review, all 
 perished in their infancy not, however, because they were 
 unworthy of success, but because Ireland was not then what 
 she is now fast becoming, a reading, and consequently a 
 thinking, country. To every one of these the author con- 
 tributed, and he has the satisfaction of being able to say that 
 there has been no publication projected purely for the 
 advancement of literature in his own country to which he 
 has not given the aid of his pen, such as it was, and this 
 whether he received remuneration or not. Indeed, the con- 
 sciousness that the success of his works had been the humble 
 means of inciting others to similar exertion in their own 
 country, and of thus giving the first impulse to our literature, 
 is one which has on his part created an enthusiastic interest 
 iii it which will only die with him. 
 
 Notwithstanding the failure of the periodicals just men- 
 tioned, it was clear that the intellect of the country was 
 beginning to feel its strength, and put forth its power. A 
 national spirit that rose above the narrow distinctions of creed 
 and party began to form itself, and in the first impulses of its 
 early enthusiasm a periodical was established, which it is only 
 necessary to name the Dublin University Magazine a work 
 unsurpassed by any magazine of the day ; and which, more- 
 over, without ever departing from its principles, has been as 
 a bond of union for literary men of even' class, who have from 
 time to time enriched its pages by their contributions. It 
 has been and is a neutral spot in a country where party 
 feeling runs so high, on which the Roman Catholic Priest and 
 the Protestant Parson, the VVhig, the Tory, and the Radical, 
 divested of their respective prejudices, can meet in an ami- 
 cable spirit. I mention these things with great satisfaction, 
 for it is surely a gratification to know that literature, in a 
 country which has been so much distracted as Ireland, is pro- 
 gressing in a spirit of noble candour and generosity, which is 
 ere long likely to produce a most salutary effect among the 
 educated classes of all parties, and consequently among those 
 whom they influence. The number, ability, and importance 
 of the works which have issued from the Dublin press within
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION xxxv 
 
 the last eight or ten years, if they could be enumerated here, 
 would exhibit the rapid progress of the national mind, and 
 satisfy the reader that Ireland in a few years will be able to 
 sustain a native literature as lofty and generous and beneficial 
 to herself as any other country in the world can boast of. 
 
 This hasty sketch of its progress I felt myself called upon 
 to give, in order that our neighbours may know what we 
 have done, and learn to respect us accordingly ; and, if the 
 truth must be told, from a principle of honest pride, arising 
 from the position which our country holds and is likely to 
 hold as an intellectual nation. 
 
 Having disposed of this topic, I come now to one of not 
 less importance as being connected with the other the con- 
 dition and character of the peasantry of Ireland. 
 
 It may be necessary, however, before entering upon this 
 topic, to give my readers some satisfactory assurance that the 
 subject is one which I ought well to understand, not only 
 from my humble position in early life, and my uninterrupted 
 intercourse with the people as one of themselves until I had 
 reached the age of twenty-two years, but from the fact of 
 having bestowed upon it my undivided and most earnest 
 attention ever since I left the dark mountains and green vales 
 of my native Tyrone, and began to examine human life and 
 manners as a citizen of the world. As it is admitted also, 
 that there exists no people whose character is so anomalous 
 as that of the Irish, and consequently so difficult to be under- 
 stood, especially by strangers, it becomes a still more appro- 
 priate duty on my part to give to the public, proofs sufficiently 
 valid, that I come to a subject of such difficulty with unusual 
 advantages on my side, and that consequently my exhibi- 
 tions of Irish peasant life, in its most comprehensive sense, 
 may be relied on as truthful and authentic. For this purpose 
 it will be necessary that I should give a brief sketch of my 
 own youth, early station in society, and general education, as 
 the son of an honest humble peasant. 
 
 My father, indeed, was a very humble man, but, in con- 
 sequence of his unaffected piety and stainless integrity of 
 principle, he was held in high esteem by all who knew him, 
 no matter what their rank in life might be. When the state 
 of education in Ireland during his youth and that of my
 
 xxxvi AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 mother is considered, it will not be a matter of surprise that 
 what they did receive was very limited. It would be difficult, 
 however, if not impossible, to find two persons in their lowly 
 station so highly and singularly gifted. My father possessed 
 a memory not merely great or surprising, but absolutely 
 astonishing. He could repeat nearly the whole of the Old 
 and New Testament by heart, and was, besides, a living index 
 to almost every chapter and verse you might wish to find in 
 it. In all other respects, too, his memory was equally amaz- 
 ing. My native place is a spot rife with old legends, tales, 
 traditions, customs, and superstitions ; so that in my early 
 youth, even beyond the walls of my own humble roof, they 
 met me in every direction. It was at home, however, and 
 from my father's lips in particular, that they were perpetually 
 sounding in my ears. In fact, his memory was a perfect store- 
 house, and a rich one, of all that the social antiquary, the 
 man of letters, the poet, or the musician would consider 
 valuable. As a teller of old tales, legends, and historical 
 anecdotes he was unrivalled, and his stock of them was in- 
 exhaustible. He spoke the Irish and English languages with 
 nearly equal fluency. With all kinds of charms, old ranns, or 
 poems, old prophecies, religious superstitions, tales of pilgrims, 
 miracles, and pilgrimages, anecdotes of blessed priests and 
 friars, revelations from ghosts and fairies, was he thoroughly 
 acquainted. And so strongly were all these impressed upon 
 my mind, by frequent repetition on his part, and the in- 
 describable delight they gave me on mine, that I have hardly 
 ever since heard, during a tolerably-enlarged intercourse with 
 Irish society, both educated and uneducated with the anti- 
 quary, the scholar, or the humble senachie any single tradi- 
 tion, usage, or legend that, as far as I can at present recollect, 
 was perfectly new to me, or unheard before in some similar 
 or cognate dress. This is certainly saying much ; but I be- 
 lieve I may assert with confidence, that I could produce, in 
 attestation of its truth, the names of Petrie, Sir W. Betham, 
 Ferguson, and O'Donovan, the most distinguished antiquaries, 
 both of social usages and otherwise, that ever Ireland pro- 
 duced. What rendered this besides of such peculiar advantage 
 to me in after life, as a literary man, was, that I heard them 
 as often in the Irish language as in the English, if not
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION xxxvii 
 
 oftener a circumstance which enabled me in my writings to 
 transfer the genius, the idiomatic peculiarity and conversa- 
 tional spirit of the one language into the other, precisely as 
 the people themselves do in their dialogue whenever the 
 heart or imagination happens to be moved by the darker or 
 better passions. 
 
 Having thus stated faithfully, without adding or diminish- 
 ing, a portion, and a portion only, of what I owe to one 
 parent, I cannot overlook the debt of gratitude which is due 
 to the memory of the other. 
 
 My mother, whose name was Kelly Mary Kelly possessed 
 the sweetest and most exquisite of human voices. In her 
 early life, I have often been told by those who had heard her 
 sing, that any previous intimation of her presence at a wake, 
 dance, or other festive occasion, was sure to attract crowds of 
 persons, many from a distance of several miles, in order to 
 hear from her lips the touching old airs of their country. No 
 sooner was it known that she would attend any such meeting, 
 than the fact spread through the neighbourhood like wild-fire, 
 and the people nocked from all parts to hear her, just as the 
 fashionable world do now when the name of some eminent 
 songstress is announced in the papers ; with this difference, 
 that upon such occasions the voice of the one falls only upon 
 the ear, whilst that of the other sinks deeply into the heart. 
 She was not so well acquainted with the English tongue as 
 my father, although she spoke it with sufficient ease for all 
 the purposes of life ; and for this reason, among others, she 
 generally gave the old Irish versions of the songs in question, 
 rather than the English ones. This, however, as I said, was 
 not her sole motive. In the first place, she had several old 
 songs which at that time I believe, too, I may add at this 
 had never been translated ; and I very much fear that some 
 valuable ones, both as to words and airs, have perished with 
 her. Her family were all imbued with a poetical spirit, and 
 some of her immediate ancestors composed in the Irish tongue 
 several fine old songs, in the same manner as Carolan did ; 
 that is, some in praise of a patron or a friend, and others to 
 celebrate rustic beauties, that have long since been sleeping 
 in the dust. For this reason she had many old compositions 
 that were almost peculiar to our family, which I am afraid
 
 xxxviii AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 could not now be procured at all, and are consequently lost. 
 I think her uncle, and I believe her grandfather, were the 
 authors of several Irish poems and songs, because I know that 
 some of them she sang, and others she only recited. 
 
 Independently of this, she had a prejudice against singing 
 the Irish airs to English words ; an old custom of the country 
 was thereby invaded, and an association disturbed which habit 
 had rendered dear to her. I remember on one occasion, when 
 she was asked to sing the English version of that touching 
 melody " The Red-Haired Man's Wife," she replied, " I will 
 sing it for you ; but the English words and the air are like a 
 quarrelling man and wife : the Irish melts into the tune, but the 
 English doesn't "an expression scarcely less remarkable for 
 its beauty than its truth. She spake the words in Irish. 
 
 This gift of singing with such sweetness and power the old 
 sacred songs and airs of Ireland was not the only one for 
 which she was remarkable. Perhaps there never lived a 
 human being capable of giving the Irish cry, or keen, with 
 such exquisite effect, or of pouring into its wild notes a spirit 
 of such irresistible pathos and sorrow. I have often been 
 present when she has "raised the keen" over the corpse of 
 some relative or neighbour, and my readers may judge of 
 the melancholy charm which accompanied this expression of 
 her sympathy, when I assure them that the general clamour 
 of violent grief was gradually diminished from admiration 
 until it became ultimately hushed, and no voice was heard 
 but her own wailing in sorrowful but solitary beauty. This 
 pause, it is true, was never long, for however great the admira- 
 tion might be which she excited, the hearts of those who 
 heard her soon melted, and even strangers were often forced 
 to confess her influence by the tears which she caused them 
 to shed for those whose deaths could, otherwise, in no other 
 way have affected them. I am the youngest, I believe, of 
 fourteen children, and of course could never have heard her 
 until age and the struggles of life had robbed her voice of 
 its sweetness. I heard enough, however, from her blessed 
 lips to set my heai't to an almost painful perception of that 
 spirit which steeps these fine old songs in a tenderness which no 
 other music possesses. Many a time, of a winter night, when 
 seated at her spinning-wheel, singing the " Trougha " or " Shuil
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION xxxix 
 
 agra," or some other old "song of sorrow/' have I then, little 
 more than a child, gone over to her, and, with a broken voice 
 and eyes charged with tears, whispered, " Mother dear, don't 
 sing that song, it makes me sorrowful ; " she then usually 
 stopped, and sung some one which I liked better because it 
 affected me less. At this day I am in possession of Irish airs 
 which none of our best antiquaries in Irish music have heard, 
 except through me, and of which neither they nor I myself 
 know the names. 
 
 Such, gentle reader, were my humble parents, under whose 
 untaught but natural genius, setting all other advantages 
 aside, it is not to be wondered at that my heart should have 
 been so completely moulded into that spirit and those feel- 
 ings which characterise my country and her children. 
 
 These, however, were my domestic advantages ; but I now 
 come to others, which arose from my position in life as the 
 son of a man who was one of the people. My father, at the 
 farthest point to which my memory goes back, lived in a 
 townland called Prillisk, in the parish of Clogher, and county 
 of Tyrone ; and I only remember living there in a cottage. 
 From that the family removed to a place called Tonagh, or, 
 more familiarly, Towney, about an English mile from Prillisk. 
 It was here I first went to school to a Connaught-man named 
 Pat Frayne, who, however, remained there only for a very 
 short period in the neighbourhood. Such was the neglected 
 state of education at that time, that for a year or two after- 
 wards there was no school sufficiently near to which I could 
 be sent. At length it was ascertained that a master, another 
 Connaught-man by the way, named O'Beirne, had opened a 
 school a hedge-school of course at Findramore. To this 
 I was sent, along with my brother John, the youngest of the 
 family next to myself. I continued with him for about a 
 year and a half, when who should return to our neighbour- 
 hood but Pat Frayne, the redoubtable prototype of Mat 
 Kavanagh in "The Hedge School." O'Beirne, it is true, 
 was an excellent specimen of the hedge-schoolmaster, but 
 nothing at all to be compared to Frayne. About the period 
 I write of, there was no other description of school to which 
 any one could be sent, and the consequence was, that rich 
 and poor (I speak of the peasantry), Protestant and Catholic,
 
 xl AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 Presbyterian and ^Methodist, boys and girls, were all congre- 
 gated under the same roof, to the amount of from a hundred 
 to a hundred and fifty or two hundred. In this school I 
 remained for about a year or two, when our family removed 
 to a place called Nurchasy, the property of the Rev. Dr. 
 Story, of Corick. Of us, however, he neither could nor did 
 know anything, for we were under-tenants, our immediate 
 landlord being no less a person than Hugh Traynor, then so 
 famous for the distillation, sub rosa, of exquisite mountain dew, 
 and to whom the reader will find allusions made in that 
 capacity more than once in the following volume. Nurchasy 
 was within about half a mile of Findramore, to which school, 
 under O'Beirne, I was again sent. Here I continued, until 
 a classical teacher came to a place called Tulnavert, now the 
 property of John Birney, Esq., of Lisburn, to whom I had the 
 pleasure of dedicating the two first volumes of my " Traits 
 and Stories." This tyrannical blockhead, whose name I 
 do not choose to mention, instead of being allowed to teach 
 classics, ought to have been put into a strait-waistcoat or the 
 stocks, and either whipped once in every twenty-four hours, 
 or kept in a madhouse until the day of his death. He had 
 been a student in Maynooth, where he became deranged, arid 
 was, of course, sent home to his friends, with whom he re- 
 covered sufficiently to become cruel and hypocritical, to an 
 extent which I have never yet seen equalled. Whenever the 
 son of a rich man committed an offence, he would grind his 
 teeth and growl like a tiger, but in no single instance had he 
 the moral courage or sense of justice to correct him. On the 
 contrary, he uniformly " nursed his wrath to keep it warm," 
 until the son of a poor man transgressed, and on his unfor- 
 tunate body he was sure to wreak signal vengeance for the 
 stupidity or misconduct of the wealthy blockhead. This was 
 his system, and my readers may form some opinion of the low 
 ebb at which knowledge and moral feeling were at the time, 
 when I assure them that not one of the humbler boys durst 
 make a complaint against the scoundrel at home, unless under 
 the certainty of being well flogged for their pains. A hedge- 
 schoolmaster was then held in such respect and veneration 
 that, no matter how cruel or profligate he might be, his person 
 and character, unless in some extraordinary case of cruelty,
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION xli 
 
 resulting in death or mutilation, were looked upon as free 
 from all moral or legal responsibility. This certainly was not 
 the fault of the people, but of those laws which, by making 
 education a crime, generated ignorance, and then punished 
 it for violating them. 
 
 For the present it is enough to say that a most interesting 
 child, a niece of my own, lost her life by the severity of Pat 
 Frayne, the Connaught-man. In a fit of passion he caught 
 the poor girl by the ear, which he nearly plucked out of her 
 head. The violence of the act broke some of the internal 
 muscles or tendons ; suppuration and subsequently inflamma- 
 tion, first of the adjoining parts and afterwards of the brain, 
 took place, and the fine intelligent little creature was laid in 
 a premature grave, because the ignorance of the people justi- 
 fied a pedantic hedge-schoolmaster in the exercise of irre- 
 sponsible cruelty. Frayne was never prosecuted, neither was 
 the classical despot, who, by the way, sits for the picture of 
 the fellow in whose school, and at whose hands, the Poor 
 Scholar receives the tyrannical and heartless treatment men- 
 tioned in that tale. Many a time the cruelty exercised 
 towards that unhappy boy, whose name was Quin, has wrung 
 my heart and brought the involuntary tears to my eyes 
 tears which I was forced to conceal, being very well assured 
 from experience, that any sympathy of mine, if noticed, 
 would be certain to procure me or any other friend of his an 
 ample participation in his punishment. He was, in truth, the 
 scape-goat of the school, and it makes my blood boil, even 
 whilst I write, to think how the poor friendless lad, far re- 
 moved from either father or mother, was kicked, and cuffed, 
 and beaten on the naked head, with a kind of stick between 
 a horse-rod and a cudgel, until his poor face got pale, and he 
 was forced to totter over to a seat in order to prevent himself 
 from fainting or falling in consequence of severe pain. 
 
 At length, however, the inhuman villain began to find, 
 when it was too late, that his ferocity, in spite of the terror 
 which it occasioned, was soon likely to empty his school. 
 He now became as fawning and slavish as he had before been 
 insolent and savage ; but the wealthy farmers of the neigh- 
 bourhood, having now full cognisance of his conduct, made 
 common cause with the poorer men whose children were as 
 
 VOL. i. e
 
 xlii AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 shamefully treated, and the result was, that in about six weeks 
 they forced him to leave that part of the country for want 
 of scholars, having been literally groaned out of it by the 
 curses and indignation of all who knew him. 
 
 Here, then, was I once more at a loss for a school, and, I 
 must add, in no disposition at all to renew my acquaintance 
 with literature. Our family had again removed from Nur- 
 chasy, to a place up nearer the mountains, called Springtown, 
 on the northern side of the parish. I was now about four- 
 teen, and began to feel a keen relish for all the sports and 
 amusements of the country, into which I entered with a 
 spirit of youth and enthusiasm rarely equalled. For about 
 two years I attended no school ; but it was during this period 
 that I received, notwithstanding, the best part of my educa- 
 tion. Our farm in Springtown was about sixteen or eighteen 
 acres, and I occasionally assisted the family in working at it, 
 but never regularly, for I was not called upon to do so, nor 
 would I have been permitted even had I wished it. It was 
 about six months after our removal to Springtown that an 
 incident in my early life occurred which gave rise to one of 
 the most popular tales perhaps, with the exception of " The 
 Miser," that I have written that is "The Poor Scholar." 
 There being now no classical school within eighteen or 
 twenty miles of Springtown, it was suggested to our family, 
 by a nephew of the parish priest, then a young man of six or 
 eight and twenty, that, under the circumstances, it would be 
 a prudent step on their part to prepare an outfit, and send 
 me up to Munster as a poor scholar, to complete my educa- 
 tion. Pat Frayne, who, by the way, had been a poor scholar 
 himself, had advised the same thing before, and, as the name 
 does not involve disgrace, I felt no reluctance in going, espe- 
 cially as the priest's nephew, who proposed it, had made up 
 his mind on accompanying me for a similar purpose. Indeed, 
 the poor scholars who go to Munster are indebted for nothing 
 but their bed and board, which they receive kindly and 
 hospitably from the parents of the scholars. The masters 
 are generally paid their full terms by these pitiable beings ; 
 but this rule, like all others, of course, has its exceptions. 
 At all events, my outfit was got ready, and on a beautiful 
 morning in the month of May I separated from my family to
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION xliii 
 
 go in quest of education. There was no collection, however, 
 in my case, as mentioned in the tale, as my own family 
 supplied the funds supposed to be necessary. I have been 
 present, however, at more than one collection made for 
 similar purposes, and heard a good-natured sermon not very 
 much differing from that given in the story. 
 
 The priest's nephew, on the day we were to start, sud- 
 denly changed his mind, and I consequently had to under- 
 take the journey alone, which I did with a heavy heart. The 
 farther I got from home, the more my spirits sank, or, in the 
 beautiful image of Goldsmith, 
 
 "I dragged at each remove a lengthening chain." 
 
 I travelled as far as the town of Granard, and during the 
 journey, it is scarcely necessary to say, that the almost 
 parental tenderness and hospitality which I received on my 
 way could not be adequately described. The reader will 
 find an attempt at it in the story. The parting from home 
 and my adventures on the road are real. 
 
 Having reached Granard, my courage began to fail, and my 
 family at home, now that I had departed from them, began 
 also to feel something like remorse for having permitted one 
 so young and inexperienced as I then was to go abroad 
 alone upon the world. My mother's sorrow especially was 
 deep, and her cry was, " Oh, why did I let my boy go ? 
 maybe I will never see him again ! " 
 
 At this time, as the reader may be aware from my parental 
 education, there was not a being alive more thoroughly im- 
 bued with superstition ; and, whether for good or ill, at all 
 events that superstition returned me to my family. On 
 reaching Granard I felt, of course, fatigued, and soon went 
 to bed, where I slept soundly. It was not, however, a dream- 
 less sleep : I thought I was going along a strange path to 
 some particular place, and that a mad bull met me on the 
 road, and pursued me with such speed and fury that I awoke 
 in a state of singular terror. That was sufficient ; my mind 
 had been already wavering, and the dream determined me. 
 The next morning after breakfast I bent my steps homewards, 
 and, as it happened, my return took a weighty load of bitter
 
 xliv AUTHORS INTRODUCTION 
 
 grief from the heart of my mother and family. The house 
 I stopped at in Granard was a kind of small inn, kept by 
 a man whose name was Peter Grehan. Such were the in- 
 cidents which gave rise to the tale of "The Poor Scholar." 
 
 I was now growing up fast, and began to feel a boyish 
 ambition of associating with those who were older and bigger 
 than myself. Although miserably deficient in education 
 for I had been well beaten, but never taught yet I was 
 looked upon as a prodigy of knowledge ; and I can assure 
 the reader that I took very good care not to dispel that 
 agreeable delusion. Indeed, at this time, I was as great a 
 young literary coxcomb as ever lived, my vanity being high 
 and inflated exactly in proportion to my ignorance, which 
 was also of the purest water. This vanity, however, resulted 
 as much from my position and circumstances as from any 
 strong disposition to be vain on my part. It was generated 
 by the ignorance of the people, and their extreme veneration 
 for anything in the shape of superior knowledge. In fact 
 they insisted that I knew even,' earthly subject, because I 
 had been a couple of years at Latin, and was designed for 
 a priest. It was useless to undeceive men who would not 
 be convinced, so I accordingly gave them, as they say, " the 
 length of their tether ; " nay, to such purpose did I ply them 
 with proofs of it that my conversation soon became as fine 
 a specimen of pedantic bombast as ever was uttered. Not a 
 word under six feet could come out of my lips, even of 
 English ; but as the best English, after all, is but common- 
 place, I peppered them with vile Latin, and an occasional 
 verse in Greek, from St. John's Gospel, which I translated 
 for them into a wrong meaning, with an heir of lofty superi- 
 ority that made them turn up their eyes with wonder. I 
 was then, however, but one of a class which still exists, and 
 will continue to do so until a better informed generation 
 shall prevent those who compose it from swaggering about 
 in all the pompous pride of young impostors, who boast of 
 knowing " the seven languages." The reader will find an 
 illustration of this in the sketch of " Denis O'Shaughnessy 
 going to Maynooth." 
 
 In the meantime, I was unconsciously but rapidly prepar- 
 ing myself for a position in Irish literature which I little
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION xlv 
 
 dreamt I should ever occupy. I now mingled in the sports 
 and pastimes of the people, until indulgence in them became 
 the predominant passion of my youth. Throwing the stone, 
 wrestling, leaping, football, and every other description of 
 athletic exercise filled up the measure of my early happiness. 
 I attended every wake, dance, fair, and merry-making in the 
 neighbourhood, and became so celebrated for dancing horn- 
 pipes, jigs, and reels, that I was soon without a rival in the 
 parish. 
 
 This kind of life, though very delightful to a boy of my 
 years, was not, however, quite satisfactory, as it afforded me 
 no ultimate prospect, and the death of my father had occa- 
 sioned the circumstances of the family to decline. I heard, 
 about this time, that a distant relative of mine, a highly 
 respectable priest, had opened a classical school near Glass- 
 lough, in the county of Monaghan. To him I accordingly 
 went, mentioned our affinity, and had my claims allowed. I 
 attended his school with intermission for about two years, at 
 the expiration of which period I once more returned to our 
 family, who were then very much reduced. 
 
 I was now about nineteen, strong, active, and could leap 
 two-and-twenty feet on a dead level ; but, though thoroughly 
 acquainted with Irish life among my own class, I was as igno- 
 rant of the world as a child. Ever since my boyhood, in 
 consequence of the legends which I had heard from my 
 father, about the far-famed Lough Derg, or St. Patrick's Pur- 
 gatory, I felt my imagination fired with a romantic curiosity 
 to perform a station at that celebrated place. I accordingly 
 did so, and the description of that most penal performance, 
 some years afterwards, not only constituted my debut in 
 literature, but was also the means of preventing me from 
 being a pleasant, strong-bodied parish priest at this day ; 
 indeed, it was the cause of changing the whole destiny of 
 my subsequent life. 
 
 "The Lough Derg Pilgrim " is given in the present edition, 
 and may be relied on, not so much as an ordinary narrative, 
 as a perfect transcript of what takes place during the stations 
 which are held there in the summer months. 
 
 Having returned from this, I knew not exactly how to 
 dispose of myself. On one thing I was determined never
 
 xlvi AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 to enter the Church ; but this resolution I kept faithfully 
 to myself. I had nothing for it now but to forget my 
 sacerdotal prospects, which, as I have said, had already been 
 renounced, or to sink down, as many others like me had 
 done, into a mere tiller of the earth, a character in Ireland 
 far more unpopular than that which the Scotch call " a 
 sticket minister ! " 
 
 It was about this period that chance first threw the in- 
 imitable " Adventures " of the renowned Gil Bias across my 
 path. During my whole life I had been an insatiable reader 
 of such sixpenny romances and history-books as the hedge- 
 schools afforded. Many a time have I given up my meals 
 rather than lose one minute from the interest excited by the 
 story I was perusing. Having read Gil Bias, however, I felt 
 an irrepressible passion for adventure which nothing could 
 divert ; in fact, I was as much the creature of the impulse it 
 excited, as the ship is of the helmsman, or the steam-engine 
 of the principle that guides it. 
 
 Stimulated by this romantic love of adventure, I left my 
 native place, and directed my steps to the parish of Killanny, 
 in the county of Louth, the Catholic clergyman of which 
 was a nephew of our own parish priest, brother to him who 
 proposed going to Munster with me, and an old schoolfellow 
 of my own, though probably twenty years my senior. This 
 man's residence was within a quarter or half a mile's distance 
 of the celebrated Wild-goose Lodge, in which, some six 
 months before, a whole family, consisting of, I believe, eight 
 persons, men, women, and children, had been, from motives 
 of personal vengeance, consumed to ashes. I stopped with 
 him for a fortnight, and succeeded in procuring a tuition in 
 the house of a wealthy farmer named Piers Murphy, near 
 Corcreagh. This, however, was a tame life, and a hard one, 
 so I resolved once more to give up a miserable salary and my 
 board, for the fortunate chances which an ardent tempera- 
 ment and a strong imagination perpetually suggested to me 
 as likely to be evolved out of the vicissitudes of life. Urged 
 on, therefore, by a spirit of romance, I resolved to precipitate 
 myself on the Irish Metropolis, which I accordingly entered 
 with two shillings and ninepence in my pocket ; an utter 
 stranger, of course friendless, ignorant of the world, without
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION xlvii 
 
 aim or object, but not without a certain strong feeling of 
 vague and shapeless ambition, for, the truth was, I had not 
 yet begun to think, and consequently looked upon life less 
 as a reality than a vision. 
 
 Thus have I, as a faithful, but I fear a dull, guide conducted 
 my reader from the lowly cottage in Prillisk, where I first 
 drew my breath, along those tangled walks and green lanes 
 which are familiar to the foot of the peasant alone, until I 
 enter upon the highways of the world, and strike into one of 
 its greatest and most crowded thoroughfares the Metropolis. 
 Whether this brief sketch of my early and humble life, my 
 education, my sports, my hopes and struggles, be calculated 
 to excite any particular interest, I know not ; I can only 
 assure my reader that the details, so far as they go, are 
 scrupulously correct and authentic, and that they never 
 would have been obtruded upon him, were it not from an 
 anxiety to satisfy him that, in undertaking to describe the 
 Irish peasantry as they are, I approached the difficult task 
 with advantages of knowing them, which perhaps few other 
 Irish writers ever possessed ; and this is the only merit which I 
 claim. 
 
 A few words now upon the moral and physical condition 
 of the people may not be unsuitable before I close, especially 
 for the sake of those who may wish to acquire a knowledge 
 of their general character, previous to their perusal of the 
 following volume. This task, it is true, is not one of such 
 difficulty now as it was some years ago. Much light has been 
 thrown on the Irish character, not only by the great names I 
 have already enumerated, but by some equally high which I 
 have omitted. On this subject it would be impossible to 
 overlook the names of Lever, Maxwell, or Otway, or to forget 
 the mellow hearth-light and chimney-corner tone, the happy 
 dialogue and legendary truth, which characterise the exquisite 
 fairy legends of Crofton Croker. Much of the difficulty of the 
 task, I say, has been removed by these writers ; but there 
 remains enough still behind to justify me in giving a short 
 dissertation upon the habits and feelings of my countrymen. 
 
 Of those whose physical state has been and is so deplo- 
 rably wretched, it may not be supposed that the tone of 
 morals can be either high or pure ; and yet, if we consider
 
 xlviii AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 the circumstances in which he has been for such a lengthened 
 period placed, it is undeniable that the Irishman is a remark- 
 ably moral man. Let us suppose, for instance, that in England 
 and Scotland the great body of the people had for a couple 
 or three centuries never received an adequate or proper edu- 
 cation : in that case, let us ask, what the moral aspect of 
 society in either country would be to-day ? But this is not 
 merely the thing to be considered. The Irishman was not 
 only not educated, but actually punished for attempting to 
 acquire knowledge, in the first place ; and, in the second, 
 punished also for the ignorance created by its absence. In 
 other words, the penal laws rendered education criminal, and 
 then caused the unhappy people to suffer for the crimes which 
 proper knowledge would have prevented them from commit- 
 ting. It was just like depriving a man of his sight, and 
 afterwards causing him to be punished for stumbling. It is 
 beyond all question that from the time of the wars of 
 Elizabeth and the introduction of the Reformation, until 
 very recently, there was no fixed system of wholesome edu- 
 cation in the country. The people, possessed of strong 
 political and religious prejudices, were left in a state of 
 physical destitution and moral ignorance, such as were cal- 
 culated to produce ten times the amount of crime which was 
 committed. Is it any wonder, then, that in such a condition 
 social errors and dangerous theories should be generated, and 
 that neglect, and poverty, and ignorance combined should 
 give to the country a character for turbulence and outrage ? 
 The same causes will produce the same effects in any country, 
 and were it not that the standard of personal and domestic 
 comfort was so low in Ireland, there is no doubt that the 
 historian would have a much darker catalogue of crime to 
 record than he has. The Irishman, in fact, was mute and 
 patient under circumstances which would have driven the 
 better fed and more comfortable Englishman into open out- 
 rage and contempt of all authority. God forbid that I for 
 a moment should become the apologist of crime, much less 
 the crimes of my countrymen ! but it is beyond all question 
 that the principles upon which the country was governed have 
 been such as to leave down to the present day many of their 
 evil consequences behind them. The penal code, to be sure,
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION xlix 
 
 is now abolished, but so are not many of its political effects 
 among the people. Its consequences have not yet departed 
 from the country ; nor has the hereditary hatred of the laws, 
 which unconsciously descended from father to son, ceased to 
 regulate their conduct and opinions. Thousands of them are 
 ignorant that ever such a thing as a penal code existed ; yet 
 the feeling against law survives, although the source from 
 which it has been transmitted may be forgotten. This will 
 easily account for much of the political violence and crime 
 which moments of great excitement produce among us ; nor 
 need we feel surprised that this state of things should be 
 continued, to the manifest injury of the people themselves, 
 by the baneful effects of agitation. 
 
 The period, therefore, for putting the character of our 
 country fairly upon its trial has not yet arrived ; although we 
 are willing to take the Irishman as we find him ; nor would 
 we shrink even at the present moment from comparing him 
 with any of his neighbours. His political sins and their 
 consequences were left him as an heirloom, and result from 
 a state of things which he himself did not occasion. Setting 
 these aside, where is the man to be found in any country 
 who has carried with him through all his privations and 
 penalties so many of the best virtues of our nature ? In 
 other countries the man who commits a great crime is always 
 a great criminal, and the whole heart is hardened and de- 
 based ; but it is not so in Ireland. The agrarian and political 
 outrage is often perpetrated by men who possess the best 
 virtues of humanity, and whose hearts as individuals actually 
 abhor the crime. The moral standard here is no doubt 
 dreadfully erroneous, and until a correct and Christian one, 
 emanating from a better system of education, shall be sub- 
 stituted for it, it will, with a people who so think and feel, 
 be impossible utterly to prevent the occurrence of these great 
 evils. We must wait for thirty or forty years, that is, until 
 the rising or perhaps the subsequent generation shall be 
 educated out of these wild and destructive prejudices, before 
 we can fully estimate the degree of excellence to which our 
 national character may arrive. In my own youth, and I am 
 now only forty -eight years, I do not remember a single 
 school under the immediate superintendence of either priest
 
 1 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 or parson, and that in a parish the extent of which is, I dare 
 say, ten miles by eight. The instruction of the children was 
 altogether a matter in which no clergy of any creed took an 
 interest This was left altogether to hedge-schoolmasters, a 
 class of men who, with few exceptions, bestowed such an edu- 
 cation upon the people as is sufficient almost, in the absence 
 of all other causes, to account for much of the agrarian 
 violence and erroneous principles which regulate their move- 
 ments and feelings on that and similar subjects. For further 
 information on this matter, the reader is referred to the 
 " Hedge School." 
 
 With respect to these darker shades of the Irish character, 
 I feel that, consistently with that love of truth and impartiality 
 which has guided, and I trust ever shall guide, my pen, I 
 could not pass them over without further notice. I know 
 that it is a very questionable defence to say that some, if not 
 principally all, of their crimes originate in agrarian or political 
 vengeance. Indeed, I believe that, so far from this circum- 
 stance being looked upon as a defence, it ought to be con- 
 sidered as an aggravation of the guilt ; inasmuch as it is, 
 beyond all doubt, at least a far more manly thing to inflict an 
 injury upon an enemy face to face, and under the influence 
 of immediate resentment, than to crouch like a cowardly 
 assassin behind a hedge and coolly murder him without one 
 moment's preparation, or any means whatsoever of defence. 
 This is a description of crime which no man with one generous 
 drop of blood in his veins can think of without shame and 
 indignation. Unhappily, however, for the security of human 
 life, every crime of the kind results more from the dark 
 tyranny of these secret confederacies by which the lower 
 classes are organised, than from any natural appetite for 
 shedding blood. Individually, the Irish loathe murder as 
 much as any people in the world ; but in the circumstances 
 before us it often happens that the Irishman is not a free 
 agent^very far from it : on the contrary, he is frequently 
 made the instrument of a system to which he must become 
 either an obedient slave or a victim. 
 
 Even here, however, although nothing can or ought to be 
 said to palliate the cowardly and unmanly crime of assassina- 
 tion, yet something can certainly be advanced to account for
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION li 
 
 the state of feeling by which from time to time, and by 
 frequent occurrence, it came to be so habitual among the 
 people that by familiarity it became stripped of its criminality 
 and horror. 
 
 Now it is idle, and it would be dishonest, to deny the fact, 
 that the lower Irish, until a comparatively recent period, were 
 treated with apathy and gross neglect by the only class to 
 whom they could or ought to look up for sympathy or pro- 
 tection. The conferring of the elective franchise upon the 
 forty-shilling freeholders, or, in other words, upon paupers, 
 added to the absence of proper education, or" the means of 
 acquiring it, generated, by the fraudulent subdivision of small 
 holdings, by bribery, perjury, and corruption, a state of moral 
 feeling among the poorer classes which could not but be 
 productive of much crime. And yet, notwithstanding this 
 shameful prostitution of their morals and comfort for the 
 purposes of political ambition or personal aggrandisement, 
 they were in general a peaceable and enduring people ; and 
 it was only when some act of unjustifiable severity, or oppres- 
 sion in the person of a middleman, agent, or hard-hearted 
 landlord, drove them houseless upon the world, that they fell 
 back upon the darker crimes of which I am speaking. But 
 what, I ask, could be expected from such a state of things ? 
 And who generated it ? It is not, indeed, to be wondered 
 at that a set of men, who so completely neglected their duties 
 as the old landlords of Ireland did, should have the very 
 weapons turned against themselves which their own moral 
 profligacy first put into the hands of those whom they 
 corrupted. Up to this day the peasantry are charged with 
 indifference to the obligation of an oath, and, in those who 
 still have anything to do in elections, I fear with too much 
 truth. But then let us inquire who first trained and familiar- 
 ised them to it ? Why, the old landlords of Ireland ; and 
 now their descendants, and such of themselves as survive, 
 may behold, in the crimes which disgrace the country, the 
 disastrous effects of a bad system created by their forefathers 
 or themselves. 
 
 In the meantime, I have no doubt that by the removal of 
 the causes which produced this deplorable state of things 
 their disastrous effects will also soon disappear. That the
 
 Hi AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 present landlords of Ireland are, with the ordinary number 
 of exceptions, a very different class of men from those 
 who have gone before them, is a fact which will ultimately 
 tell for the peace and prosperity of the country. Let 
 the ignorance of the people, or rather the positive bad 
 knowledge with which, as to a sense of civil duties, their 
 minds are filled, be removed, and replaced with principles 
 of a higher and more Christian tendency. Let the Irish 
 landlords consider the interests of their tenantry as their 
 own, and there is little doubt that with the aids of science, 
 agricultural improvement, and the advantages of superior 
 machinery, the Irish will become a prosperous, contented, 
 and great people. 
 
 It is not just to the general character of our people, however, 
 to speak of these crimes as national, for, in fact, they are not 
 so. If Tipperary and some of the adjoining parts of Munster 
 were blotted out of the moral map of the country, we would 
 stand as a nation in a far higher position than that which we 
 occupy in the opinion of our neighbours. This is a distinction 
 which in justice to us ought to be made, for it is surely unfair 
 to charge the whole kingdom with the crimes which dis- 
 grace only a single county of it, together with a few adjacent 
 districts allowing, of course, for some melancholy exceptions 
 in other parts. 
 
 Having now discussed, with I think sufficient candour and 
 impartiality, that portion of our national character which 
 appears worst and weakest in the eyes of our neighbours, 
 and attempted to show that pre-existing circumstances origi- 
 nating from an unwise policy had much to do in calling into 
 existence and shaping its evil impulses, I come now to a more 
 agreeable task the consideration of our social and domestic 
 virtues. And here it is where the Irishman immeasurably 
 outstrips all competitors. His hospitality is not only a habit 
 but a principle ; and indeed of such a quick and generous 
 temperament is he, that in ninety cases out of a hundred the 
 feeling precedes the reflection, which in others prompts the 
 virtue. To be a stranger and friendless, or suffering hunger 
 and thirst, is at any time a sufficient passport to his heart and 
 purse ; but it is not merely the thing or virtue, but also his 
 manner of doing it, that constitutes the charm which runs
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION liii 
 
 through his conduct. There is a natural politeness and 
 sincerity in his manner which no man can mistake ; and it is 
 a fact, the truth of which I have felt a thousand times, that 
 he will make you feel the acceptance of the favour or kindness 
 he bestows to be a compliment to himself rather than to you. 
 The delicate ingenuity with which he diminishes the nature 
 or amount of his own kindness, proves that he is no common 
 man either in heart or intellect ; and when all fails he will 
 lie like Lucifer himself, and absolutely seduce you into an 
 acceptance of his hospitality or assistance. I speak now 
 exclusively of the peasantry. Certainly in domestic life there 
 is no man so exquisitely affectionate and humanised as the 
 Irishman. The national imagination is active and the national 
 heart warm, and it follows very naturally that he should be, 
 and is, tender and strong in all his domestic relations. Unlike 
 the people of other nations, his grief is loud but lasting, vehe- 
 ment but deep ; and whilst its shadow has been chequered 
 by the laughter and mirth of a cheerful disposition, still in 
 the moments of seclusion, at his bedside prayer, or over the 
 grave of those he loved, it will put itself forth after half a life 
 with a vivid power of recollection which is sometimes almost 
 beyond belief. 
 
 The Irish, however, are naturally a refined people ; but by 
 this I mean the refinement which appreciates and cherishes 
 whatever there is in nature, as manifested through the in- 
 fluence of the softer arts of music and poetry. The effect 
 of music upon the Irish heart I ought to know well, and no 
 man need tell me that a barbarous or cruel people ever pos- 
 sessed national music that was beautiful and pathetic. The 
 music of any nation is the manifestation of its general feeling, 
 and not that which creates it; although there is no doubt 
 but the one when formed perpetuates and reproduces the 
 other. It is no wonder, then, that the domestic feelings of 
 the Irish should be so singularly affectionate and strong, 
 when we consider that they have been, in spite of every 
 obstruction, kept under the softening influence of music and 
 poetry. This music and poetry, too, essentially their own 
 and whether streaming of a summer evening along their 
 pastoral fields, echoing through their still glens, or poured 
 forth at the winter hearth, still, by its soft and melancholy
 
 liv AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 spirit, stirring up a thousand tender associations that must 
 necessarily touch and improve the heart. And it is for this 
 reason that that heart becomes so remarkably eloquent, if not 
 poetical, when moved by sorrow. Many a time I have seen a 
 keener commence her wail over the corpse of a near relative, 
 and by degrees she has risen from the simple wail or cry to 
 a high but mournful recitative, extemporised, under the 
 excitement of the moment, into sentiments that were highly 
 figurative and impressive. In this she was aided very much 
 by the genius of the language, which possesses the finest and 
 most copious vocabulary in the world for the expression of 
 either sorrow or love. 
 
 It has been said that the Irish, notwithstanding a deep 
 susceptibility of sorrow, are a light-hearted people ; and this 
 is strictly true. What, however, is the one fact but a natural 
 consequence of the other ? No man, for instance, ever pos- 
 sessed a high order of humour whose temperament was 
 not naturally melancholy, and no country in the world more 
 clearly establishes that point than Ireland. Here the 
 melancholy and mirth are not simply in a proximate state, 
 but frequently flash together, and again separate so quickly, 
 that the alternation or blending, as the case may be, whilst 
 it is felt by the spectators, yet stands beyond all known rules 
 of philosophy to solve it. Any one at all acquainted with 
 Ireland knows that in no country is mirth lighter, or sorrow 
 deeper, or the smile and the tear seen more frequently on 
 the face at the same moment. Their mirth, however, is 
 not levity, nor their sorrow gloom ; and for this reason 
 none of those dreary and desponding reactions take place 
 which, as in France especially, so frequently terminate in 
 suicide. , 
 
 The recreations of the Irish were very varied and some of 
 them of a highly intellectual cast. These latter, however, 
 have altogether disappeared from the country, or at all 
 events are fast disappearing. The old Harper is now hardly 
 seen ; the Senachie, where he exists, is but a dim and faded 
 representative of that very old Chronicler in his palmy days ; 
 and the Prophecy-man unfortunately has survived the failure 
 of his best and most cherished predictions. The poor old 
 Prophet's stock-in-trade is nearly exhausted, and little now
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION Iv 
 
 remains but the slaughter which is to take place at the mill 
 of Louth when the mill is to be turned three times with 
 human blood, and the miller to have six fingers and two 
 thumbs on each hand, as a collateral prognostication of that 
 bloody event. 
 
 The amusement derived from these persons was undoubt- 
 edly of a very imaginative character, and gives sufficient 
 proof that, had the national intellect been duly cultivated, 
 it is difficult to say in what position as a literary country 
 Ireland might have stood at this day. At present the 
 national recreations, though still sufficiently varied and 
 numerous, are neither so strongly marked nor diversified as 
 formerly. Fun, or the love of it, to be sure, is an essential 
 principle in the Irish character ; and nothing that can 
 happen, no matter how solemn or how sorrowful it may be, 
 is allowed to proceed without it. In Ireland the house of 
 death is sure to be the merriest one in the neighbourhood ; 
 but here the mirth is kindly and considerately introduced, 
 from motives of sympathy in other words, for the allevia- 
 tion of the mourners' sorrow. The same thing may be said 
 of its association with religion. Whoever has witnessed a 
 station in Ireland made at some blessed lake or holy well 
 will understand this. At such places it is quite usual to 
 see young men and women devoutly circumambulating the 
 well or lake on their bare knees with all the marks of 
 penitence and contrition strongly impressed upon their faces ; 
 whilst again, after an hour or two, the same individuals may 
 be found in a tent dancing with ecstatic vehemence to the 
 music of the bagpipe or fiddle. 
 
 All these things, however, will be found, I trust I may 
 say faithfully, depicted in the following volume together 
 with many other important features of our general character ; 
 which I would dwell on here, were it not that they are 
 detailed very fully in other parts of my works, and I do not 
 wish to deprive them of the force of novelty when they 
 occur, nor to appear heavy by repetition. 
 
 In conclusion, I have endeavoured, with what success has 
 been already determined by the voice of my own country, 
 to give a panorama of Irish life among the people com- 
 prising at one view all the strong points of their general
 
 Ivi AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 character their loves, sorrows, superstitions, piety, amuse- 
 ments, crimes, and virtues ; and in doing this, I can say 
 with solemn truth that I painted them honestly, and 
 without reference to the existence of any particular creed 
 or party. 
 
 W. CARLETON. 
 
 DUBLIN, 1842.

 
 NED M'KEOWN 
 
 NED M'KEOWN'S house stood exactly in an angle 
 formed by the cross-roads of Kilrudden. It was a 
 long, whitewashed building, well thatched, and furnished 
 with the usual appurtenances of yard and offices. Like most 
 Irish houses of the better sort, it had two doors, one open- 
 ing into a garden that sloped down from the rear in 
 a southern direction. 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 situ- 
 ated on a small eminence, but, with respect to the general 
 locality 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 interjacent country 
 the form of a low inverted arch. This valley, which altogether, 
 allowing for the occasional breaks and intersections of hill- 
 ranges, extends upwards of thirty miles in length, is the 
 celebrated valley of the " Black Pig," so well known in the 
 politico-traditional history of Ireland, and the legends con- 
 nected with the famous Beal Dearg. 1 That part of it where 
 
 1 Baldearg (i.e., Red Mark), otherwise Hugh O'Donnell, was a famous 
 character in the War of 1689-91. He was a Donegal man who had 
 served in the Spanish army with distinction. According to an ancient 
 prophecy, his reappearance would mean the deliverance of Ireland, and 
 this the people fully expected. After the battle of Aughrim he went 
 over to the Williamite side, for which he obtained ^500, a year. He 
 returned to Spain, where he became a major-general, and died about 
 1703. See Macaulay's Hist., ch. xvi. ED. 
 
 VOL. I. A
 
 2 NED M'KEOWN 
 
 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 intermingled hills and vales which bounded this exten- 
 sive carpet towards the north. Through these meadows ran 
 a smooth river, called the " Mullin-burn," which wound its 
 way through them with such tortuosity that it was proverbial 
 in the neighbourhood to say of any man remarkable for dis- 
 honesty, " He's as crooked as the Mullin-burn" an epithet 
 which was sometimes, although 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 reaching the meadows it inundated 
 their surface, carrying 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 shape and form of heath-clad mountains, dark 
 and towering. The prospect on either range is highly pleas- 
 ing, and capable of being compared with any I have ever seen 
 in softness, variety, and that serene lustre which reposes only 
 on the surface of a country rich in the beauty of fertility, 
 and improved by the hand of industry and taste. Opposite 
 Knockmany, at a distance of about four 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 almost to the firm-set base of his lofty rival ; or, in 
 winter, wrapped in a mantle of clouds, and crowned with un- 
 sullied snow, reposing in undisturbed tranquillity, whilst the 
 loud voice of the storm howled around him. 
 
 To the northward, immediately behind Cullimore, lies 
 Althadhawan, a deep, craggy, precipitous glen, running up
 
 NED M'KEOWN 3 
 
 to its very base, and studded with oak, hazel, rowan-tree, and 
 holly. This picturesque glen extends two or three miles, 
 until it melts into the softness of grove and meadow in the 
 rich landscape below. Then, again, on the opposite side 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 fearfully contrasted with the elevated 
 peak of Knockmany, rising into the clouds 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 farmhouse. To 
 these may be added the wild upland and the cultivated de- 
 mesne, the green sheep-walk, the dark moor, the splendid 
 mansion, and the ruined castle of former days. Delightful 
 remembrance ! Many a day, both of sunshine and storm, 
 have I, in the strength and pride of happy youth, bounded, 
 fleet as the mountain roe, over those blue hills ! Many an 
 evening, as the yellow beams of the setting sun shot slant- 
 ingly, like rafters of gold, across the depth of this blessed and 
 peaceful valley, have I followed, in solitude, the impulses of 
 a wild and wayward fancy, and sought the quiet dell, or 
 viewed the setting sun as he scattered 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 listened 
 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 
 simple 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, streaming 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
 
 4 NED M'KEOWN 
 
 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 for 
 Ned 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 oil 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 " The 
 Cannie Soogah." l 
 
 Honest, blustering, good-humoured Ned was the indefati- 
 gable merchant of the village ; ever engaged in some ten or 
 twenty pound speculation, 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 see him a yarn-merchant, planted in the next 
 market-town, upon the upper step of Mr. Birnie's 2 hall- 
 door, where the yarn-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 his 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 
 
 1 " The Jolly Pedlar." 
 
 2 A magistrate in Co. Tyrone, who had befriended Carleton. ED.
 
 NED M'KEOWN 5 
 
 suspected himself of having overreached the seller, by allow- 
 ing him a greater price for it than the prime seed of the 
 market would have cost him. In short, Ned was never out 
 of a speculation, and whatever he undertook was sure to 
 prove a complete failure. But he had one mode of consola- 
 tion, which consisted in sitting down with the fag-ends 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 acquaintance, and 
 to get his head broken for his pains. 
 
 None of all this blustering, however, happened within 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 loudness of his 
 song would fall away into a very awkward and unmusical 
 quaver, and under whose glance his laughing face often 
 changed to the visage of a man who is disposed to anything 
 but mirth. 
 
 The fact was this : Whenever Ned found that his specula- 
 tion was gone a shaughran, 1 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 legitimate authority. Upon 
 these occasions, Nancy, accompanied by two sturdy servant- 
 men, would sally forth to the next mai'ket-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 barracks, in 
 order to become a target for the muskets of his comrades. 
 Ned's compulsory return always became a matter of some 
 notoriety ; for Nancy's excursion in quest of the " graceless " 
 
 1 Gone astray.
 
 6 NED M'KEOWN 
 
 was not made without frequent denunciations of wrath against 
 him, and many melancholy apologies to the neighbours for 
 entering upon the task of personally securing him. By this 
 means her enterprise 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-quarter clift," x or mischievous 
 fellow, 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 rereward of 
 the principal group, for the purpose of extracting from Nancy 
 a full and particular account of the capture. 
 
 "Indeed, childher, it's no wonder for yees to inquire! 
 Where did I get him, Dick ? musha, and where would I get 
 him but in the ould place, ahagiir with the ould set : don't 
 yees know that a dacent place or dacent company wouldn't 
 sarve Ned ? nobody but Shane Martin, and Jimmy Tague, 
 and the other blackguards." 
 
 " And what will you do with him, Nancy ? " 
 
 " Och ! thin, Dick, avourneen, it's myself that's jist tired 
 thinking of that ; at any rate, consuming to the loose foot 
 he'll get this blessed month to come, Dick, agra ! " 
 
 "Throth, Nancy," another mischievous monkey would ex- 
 claim, "if you hadn't great patience entirely you couldn't 
 put up with such thratement, at all, at all." 
 
 " Why, thin, God knows, it's true for you, Barney. D'ye 
 hear that, 'graceless'? the very childher making a laughing- 
 stock and a ' may game ' of you ! but wait till we get under 
 the roof, any how." 
 
 " Ned," a third would say, " isn't it a burning shame for 
 you to break the poor crathur's heart this a-way ? Throth, 
 but you ought to hould down your head, sure enough a 
 dacent woman ! that only for her you wouldn't have a house 
 over you, so you wouldn't." 
 
 " And throth, the same house is going, Tim," Nancy 
 would exclaim, " and when it goes, let him see thin who'll do 
 
 1 This is equal to the proverb, "He wants a square," that is, though 
 knavish, not thoroughly rational.
 
 NED M'KEOWN 7 
 
 for him : let him try if his blackguards will stand to him 
 whin he won't have poor foolish Nancy at his back." 
 
 During these conversations, Ned would walk on between 
 his two guards, with a dogged-looking and condemned face, 
 Nancy behind him, with his own cudgel, ready to administer 
 an occasional bang whenever he attempted to slacken his 
 pace, or throw over his shoulder a growl of dissent or 
 justification. 
 
 On getting near home, the neighbours would occasionally 
 pop out their heads, with a smile of good-humoured satire on 
 their faces, which Nancy was very capable of translating. 
 
 " Ay," she would say, addressing them, " I've caught him 
 here he is to the fore. Indeed, you may well laugh, Katty 
 llafferty ; not a one of myself blames you for it. Ah, ye 
 mane crathur," aside to Ned, " if you had the blood of a hen 
 in you, you wouldn't have the neighbours braking their 
 hearts laughing at you in sich a way ; and above all the 
 people in the world, them Raffertys, that got the decree 
 against us at the last sessions, although I offered to pay 
 within fifteen shillings of the differ the grubs ! " 
 
 Having seen her hopeful charge safely deposited on the 
 hob, Nancy would throw her cloak into this comer, and her 
 bonnet into that, with the air of a woman absorbed by the 
 consideration of some vexatious trial ; she would then sit 
 down, and, lighting her dudeen, exclaim 
 
 " Wurrah, mirrah ! but it's me that's the heart-scalded 
 crathur with that man's four quarters ! The Lord may help 
 me, and grant me patience with him, any way ! to have my 
 little, honest, hard-earned penny spint among a pack of vaga- 
 bonds, that don't care if him and me wor both down the 
 river, so they could get their skinful of drink out of him. 
 No matther, agra ! things can't long be this a- way but 
 what does Ned care ? give him drink and fighting, and his 
 blackguards about him, and that's his glory. There now's 
 the landlord coming down upon us for the rint, and unless 
 he takes the cows out of the byre, or the bed from anundher 
 us, what in the wide earth is there for him ? " 
 
 The current of this lecture was never interrupted by a 
 single observation from Ned, who usually employed himself 
 in silently playing with " Bunty," a little black cur without
 
 8 NED M'KEOWN 
 
 a tail, and a great favourite with Nancy ; or, if he noticed 
 anything out of its place in the house, he would arrange 
 it with great apparent care. In the meantime Nancy's wrath 
 generally evaporated with the smoke of the pipe a circum- 
 stance which Ned well knew ; for after she had sucked it 
 until it emitted a shrill bubbling sound, like that from a reed, 
 her brows, which wore at other times an habitual frown, 
 would gradually relax into a more benevolent expression 
 the parenthetical curves on each side of her mouth, formed 
 by the irascible pursing of her lips, would become less marked 
 the dog or cat, or whatever else came in her way, instead 
 of being kicked aside, or pursued in an underfit of di<jressional 
 peevishness, would be put out of her path with gentler force ; 
 so that it was, in such circumstances, a matter of little 
 difficulty to perceive that conciliation would soon be the order 
 of the day. Ned's conduct on these critical occasions was 
 very prudent and commendable ; he still gave Nancy her own 
 way, never "jawed back to her," but took shelter, as it were, 
 under his own patience, until the storm had passed, and the 
 sun of her good-humour began to shine again. Nancy herself, 
 now softened by the fumes of her own pigtail, usually made 
 the first overtures to a compromise, but without departing 
 from the practice and principles of higher negotiators always 
 in an indirect manner; as, "Judy, avourneen," speaking 
 to the servant, " maybe that crathur," pointing to Ned, 
 " ate nothing to-day ; you had better, agra, get him the 
 cowld bacon that's in the cupboard, and warm for him, upon 
 the greeshaugh, 1 them yallow-legs 2 that's in the colindher, 
 though God He knows it's ill my common 3 but no matter, 
 ahagur, there's enough said, I'm thinking give them to 
 him." 
 
 On Ned seating himself to his bacon and potatoes, Nancy 
 would light another pipe, and plant herself on the opposite 
 hob, putting some interrogatory to him in the way of busi- 
 ness always concerning a third person, and still in a tone of 
 dry ironical indifference as 
 
 " Did you see Jimmy Conolly on your travels ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 1 Hot embers. 2 A kind of potato. 3 It ill becomes me.
 
 NED M'KEOWN 9 
 
 " Humph ! Can you tell us if Andy Morrow sould his 
 coult ? " 
 
 " He did." 
 
 " Maybe you have gumption enough to know what he got 
 for him ? " 
 
 "Fifteen guineas." 
 
 " In throth, and it's more nor a poor body would get ; but, 
 any way, Andy Morrow desarves to get a good price ; he's a 
 man that takes care of his own business, and minds nothing 
 else. I wish that filly of ours was dockt ; you ought to spake 
 to Jim M'Quade about her : it's time to make her up you 
 know we'll want to sell her for the rint." 
 
 This was an assertion, by the way, which Ned knew to 
 have everything but truth in it. 
 
 " Never heed the filly," Ned would reply ; " I'll get Charley 
 Lawdher to dock her but it's not her I'm thinking of: did 
 you hear the news about the tobacky ? " 
 
 " No, but I hope we won't be long so." 
 
 " Well, any how, we wor in luck to buy in them three last 
 rowls." 
 
 " Eh ? in luck ! death alive, how, Ned ? " 
 
 " Sure there was three ships of it lost last week, on their 
 way from the kingdom of Swuzzerland in the Aist Indians, 
 where it grows : we can raise it thruppence a pound now." 
 
 " No, Ned ! you're not in arnest ? " 
 
 " Nancy, you may say I am ; and as soon as Tom Loan 
 comes home from Dublin he'll tell us all about it ; and for 
 that matther, maybe, may rise it sixpence a pound : any 
 how, we'll gain a lob l by it, I'm thinking." 
 
 " May I never stir ! but that's luck. Well, Ned, you may 
 thank me for that, any way, or not a rowl we'd have in the 
 four corners of the house and you wanted to persuade me 
 against buying thim ; but I knew betther for the tobacky 's 
 always sure to get a bit of a hitch at this time o' the 
 year." 
 
 "Bedad, you can do it, Nancy, I'll say that for you 
 that's and give you your own way." 
 
 " Eh ! can't I, Ned ? and what was betther, I bate down 
 
 1 A great deal a lump.
 
 10 NED M'KEOWN 
 
 Pether M'Entee three-ha'pence a pound afther I bought 
 them." 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! ha ! by my sannies, Nancy, as to market- 
 making, they may all throw their cups at you, you thief o' 
 the world ; you can do them nately." 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! ha ! Stop, Ned, don't drink that water it's 
 not from the rock well ; I'll jist mix a sup of this last stuff 
 we got from the mountains, till you taste it. I think it's 
 not worse nor the last for Hugh Traynor's an ould hand 
 at making it." 
 
 This was all Ned wanted ; his point was now carried : 
 but with respect to the rising of the tobacco, the less said 
 about that the better for his veracity. 
 
 Having thus given the reader a slight sketch of Ned and 
 Nancy, and of the beautiful valley in which this worthy 
 speculator had his residence, I shall 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, 
 whose light was given back in ruddy reflection from the 
 bright pewter plates that were ranged upon the white and 
 well-scoured dresser in just and gradual order, from the 
 small egg-plate to the large and capacious 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 domestic light, which, after 
 all, gives the heart a finer and more touching notion of 
 enjoyment than the glitter of the theatre or the blaze of 
 the saloon, might be found first, Andy Morrow, the jury- 
 man of the quarter-sessions, sage and important in the 
 consciousness of legal knowledge, and somewhat dictatorial 
 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 military departments, and 
 related the wonderful history of the ghost which appeared 
 to him on the night after the battle of Bunker's Hill. To 
 him succeeded Tom M'Roarkin, the little asthmatic anec- 
 dotarian of half the country, remarkable for chuckling at 
 his own stories. Then came old Bill M'Kinny, poacher and 
 horse-jockey; little, squeaking, thin-faced Alick M'Kinley,
 
 NED M'KEOWN 11 
 
 a facetious farmer of substance ; and Shane Fadh, who 
 handed down traditions and fairy-tales. Enthroned on one 
 hob sat Pat Frayne, the schoolmaster, 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 18 , 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 ten- 
 dency 'to happiness visible 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 himself 
 was full of fun, 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 perused 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 personages 
 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 seated close 
 to her professed admirer, Billy Fulton, her uncle's shopman. 
 This group was completely abstracted from the entertainment 
 which was going forward in the circle round the fire. 
 
 " I wondher," said Andy Morrow, " what makes Joe M'Crea 
 throw down that fine ould castle of his, in Aughentain ? " 
 
 " I'm tould," said M'Roarkin, " that he expects money ; 
 for they say there's a lot of it buried somewhere about the 
 same building." 
 
 " Jist as much as there's in my wig," replied Shane Fadh, 
 " and there's ne'er a pocket to it yet. Why, bless your sowl, 
 how could there be money in it, whin the last man of the 
 Grameses that own'd it I mane of the ould stock, afore it 
 went into Lord Mountjoy's hands sould it out, ran through
 
 12 NED M'KEOWN 
 
 the money, and died begging afther. Did none of you ever 
 hear of 
 
 ' Ould John Grame, 
 That swally'd the castle of Aughentain ' ? " 
 
 " That was long afore my time/' said the poacher ; " but I 
 know that the rabbit burrow between that and Jack Apple- 
 ton's garden will soon be run out." 
 
 " Your time ! " responded Shane Fadh, with contempt ; 
 "ay, and your father's afore you : my father doesn't remimber 
 more nor seeing his funeral, and a merry one it was ; for my 
 grandfather, and some of them that had a respect for the 
 family and his forbarers, if they hadn't it for himself, made 
 up as much money among them as berried him dacently, any 
 how ay, and gave him a rousin' wake into the bargain, with 
 lashins of whisky, stout beer, and ale ; for in them times 
 God be with them every farmer brewed his own ale and 
 beer ; more betoken, that one pint of it was worth a keg of 
 this wash of yours, Ned." 
 
 " Wasn't it he that used to appear ? " inquired M'Roarkin. 
 
 "Sure enough he did, Tom." 
 
 "Lord save us," said Nancy, "what could trouble him, I 
 dunna ? " 
 
 " Why," continued Shane Fadh, " some said one thing, and 
 some another ; but the upshot of it was this : when the last 
 of the Grameses sould the estate, castle and all, it seems he 
 didn't resave all the purchase-money ; so, afther he had spint 
 what he got, he applied to the purchaser for the remainder 
 him that the Mountjoy family bought it from ; but it seems 
 he didn't draw up writings, or sell it according to law, so 
 that the thief o' the world baffled him from day to day, and 
 wouldn't give him a penny bekase he knew, the blaggard, 
 that the Square was then as poor as a church mouse, and 
 hadn't money enough to thry it at law with him ; but the 
 Square was always a simple, asy-going man. One day he 
 went to this fellow, riding on an ould garran, with a shoe 
 loose the only baste he had in the world and axed him, 
 for God's sake, to give him some of what he owed him, if it 
 was ever so little ; ' for,' says he, ' I have not as much money 
 betune me and death as will get a set of shoes for my horse.' "
 
 NED M'KEOWN 13 
 
 "'Well/ says the nager, 'if you're not able to keep your 
 horse shod, I would jist recommend you to sell him, and thin 
 his shoes won't cost you anything,' says he. 
 
 " The old Square went away with tears in his eyes, for he 
 loved the poor brute, bekase they wor the two last branches 
 of the ould stock." 
 
 " Why," inquired M'Kinley, in his small, squeaking voice, 
 " was the horse related to the family ? " 
 
 " I didn't say he was related to the fam Get out, you 
 
 shingaun ! " returned the old man, perceiving, by the laugh 
 that now went round, the sly tendency of the question. " No, 
 not to your family either, for he had nothing of the ass in 
 him eh ? will ye put that in your pocket, my little skinadhre l 
 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 himself an' the poor baste so dissolute, 
 but when he had gone a bit from the fellow he comes back 
 to the vagabone. ' Now,' says he, ' mind my words if you 
 happen to live afther me, you need never expect a night's 
 pace ; for I here make a serous an' solemn vow, that as long 
 as my property's in your possession, or in any of your seed, 
 breed, or ginerations, I'll never give over hauntin' you an' 
 them, till you'll rue to the backbone your dishonesty an' 
 chathery to me an' this poor baste that hasn't a shoe to its 
 foot.' 
 
 " ' Well/ says the nager, ' I'll take chance of that, any 
 way.' " 
 
 " I'm tould, Shane," observed the poacher, " that the 
 Square was a fine man in his time, that wouldn't put up with 
 such thratement from anybody." 
 
 " Ay, but he was ould now," Shane replied, " and 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 grandfather often say that he was six feet four, 
 and made in proportion a handsome, black-a-vis'd 2 man, 
 with great dark whiskers. Well ! he spint money like sklates, 
 and so he died miserable but had a merry birrel, as I said." 
 
 1 A thin, fleshless, stunted person. 2 Black-visaged.
 
 14 NED M'KEOWN 
 
 " But," inquired Nancy, " did he ever appear to the rogue 
 that chated him ? " 
 
 " Every night in the year, Nancy, exceptin' Sundays ; and 
 what was more, the horse along with him for he used to 
 come ridin' at midnight upon the same garran ; and it was 
 no matther what place or company the other 'ud be in, the 
 ould Square would come regularly, and crave him for what 
 he owed him." 
 
 "So it appears that horses have sowls," observed M'Roarkin 
 philosophically, giving, at the same time, a cynical chuckle 
 at the sarcasm of his own conceit. 
 
 " Whether they have sowls or bodies," replied the nar- 
 rator, " what I'm tellin' you is the thruth : every night in 
 the year the ould chap would come for what was indue him ; 
 and, as the two went along, the noise of the loose shoe upon 
 the horse would be hard rattlin', and seen knockin' the fire 
 out of the stones, by the neighbours and the thief that 
 chated him, even before the Square would appear, at all, at 
 all." 
 
 " Oh, rvurrah ! " exclaimed Nancy, shuddering with terror, 
 " I wouldn't take anything, and be out now on the Drum- 
 furrar road, and nobody with me but myself." 
 
 "I think if you wor," said M'Kinley, "the light weights 
 and short measures would be coining acrass your conscience." 
 
 " No, in throth, Alick, wouldn't they ; but maybe, if you 
 wor, the promise you broke to Sally Mitchell might trouble 
 you a bit. At any rate, I've a prayer, and if I only repated 
 it wanst, I mightn't be afeard of all the divils in hell." 
 
 " Throth, but it's worth havin', Nancy : where did you get 
 it ? " asked M'Kinley. 
 
 " Hould your wicked tongue, you thief of a heretic," said 
 Nancy, laughing ; " when will you larn anything that's good ? 
 I got it from one that wouldn't have it if it wasn't good 
 Darby M'Murt, the pilgrim, since you must know." 
 
 " Whisht ! " said Frayne. " Upon my word, I believe the 
 ould Square's comin' to pay us a visit ; does any of yees hear 
 a horse trottin' with a shoe loose ? " 
 
 " I sartinly hear it," observed Andy Morrow. 
 
 "And I," said Ned himself. 
 
 There was now a general pause, and in the silence a horse,
 
 NED M'KEOWN 15 
 
 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 of yourselves," said Shane Fadh ; " if the 
 Square comes, he won't be a pleasant customer he was a 
 terrible fellow in his day ; I'll hould goold to silver that he'll 
 have the smell of brimstone about him." 
 
 " Nancy, where' s your prayer now ? " said M'Kinley, with 
 a grin. " I think you had betther out with it, and thry if it 
 keeps this ould brimstone Square on the wrong side of the 
 house." 
 
 " Behave yourself, Alick ; it's a shame for you to be sich a 
 hardened crathur. Upon my sannies, I blieve you're afeard of 
 neither God nor the divil the Lord purtect and guard us 
 from the dirty baste ! " 
 
 " You mane particklarly them that uses short measures and 
 light weights," rejoined M'Kinley. 
 
 There was another pause, for the horseman was within a 
 few perches of the ci*oss-roads. At this moment an unusual 
 gust of wind, accompanied by torrents of rain, burst against 
 the house with a violence 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 stopped, and 
 the next moment a loud knocking intimated the horseman's 
 intention to enter. The company now looked at each other, 
 as if uncertain what to do. Nancy herself grew pale, and, in 
 the agitation 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 violence, yet there was no disposition 
 among the company to admit him, notwithstanding the severity 
 of the night blowing, as it really did, a perfect hurricane. 
 At length a sheet of lightning flashed through the house, 
 followed by an amazing loud clap of thunder ; while, with a 
 sudden push from without, 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 black surtout, which made him
 
 16 NED M'KEOWN 
 
 appear even taller than he actually was, had a pair of heavy 
 boots upon him, and carried a tremendous 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 the company, 
 an appalling and almost 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 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 us ! " exclaimed Nancy, 
 in a whisper to Andy Morrow, " if I blieve he's a right thing ! 
 would it be the ould Square ? Did you ever set your eyes 
 upon sich a " 
 
 " Will you 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 you may say 
 for once that you've had the devil under your roof." 
 
 " Paddy Smith, you lazy spalpeen," said Nancy, winking at 
 Ned to have nothing to do with the horse, " why don't you 
 fly and put up the gintleman's horse ? And you, Atty, arour- 
 neen, jist go out with him, and hould the candle while he's 
 doin' it ; be quick now, and I'll give you glasses apiece when 
 you come in." 
 
 " Let them put him up quickly ; but I say, you Caliban," 
 added the stranger, 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 sus- 
 picions of those who were present, particularly of Nancy and 
 her two nieces. Ned sat in astonishment, with the pipe in 
 his hand, which he had, in the surprise of the moment, taken
 
 NED M'KEOWN 17 
 
 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 with his 
 whip. 
 
 " I have a few words to say to you, sir," he said. 
 
 "To me, your honour!" exclaimed Ned, without stirring, 
 however. 
 
 " Yes," replied the other ; " but you seem to be fastened to 
 your seat : come this way.' c 
 
 " By all manner of 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 secured Ned's comfortable seat on 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, 
 landlord." 
 
 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 you, 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 whisky 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." 
 
 Nancy started up instinctively, exclaiming, " Indeed, plase 
 your honour's reverence, I am the landlady, as you say, sir, 
 sure enough ; but, the Lord save and guard us ! won't a gallon 
 of raw whisky be too much for one man to drink ? " 
 
 " A gallon ! I only said a gill, my good hostess ; bring me 
 a gill ; but I forgot 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, and truly she was glad of an opportunity of 
 escaping from the presence of the visitor. When there, she 
 ejaculated : 
 
 " May the holy Mother keep and guard us, Ned, but I'm 
 afeard that's no Christian crathur, at all, at all ! Arrah, Ned, 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 18 NED M'KEOWN 
 
 aroon, would he be that ould Square Grame, that Shane Fadh 
 maybe angered by spakin' of him ? " 
 
 " Troth," said Ned, " myself doesn't know what he is ; he 
 bates any mortal I ever seen." 
 
 " Well, hould, agra ! I have it : we'll see whether he'll 
 drink this or not, any how." 
 
 " Why, what's that you're doin' ? " asked Ned. 
 
 "Jist," replied Nancy, "mixin* the smallest taste in the 
 world of holy wather with the whisky, and if he drinks that, 
 you know he can be nothing that's bad." 
 
 Nancy, however, did not perceive that the trepidation of 
 her hand was such as to incapacitate her from making nice 
 distinctions in the admixture. She now brought the spirits 
 to the stranger, who no sooner took a mouthful of it than he 
 immediately stopped it on its passage, and, fixing his eyes 
 earnestly on Nancy, squirted it into the fire, and the next 
 moment the whisky 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 whisky ? 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 exchange 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, woman, you must have 
 made some mistake ; one-half of it is water." 
 
 Now, Nancy, from the moment he refused to swallow the 
 liquor, had been lock-jawed ; the fact was, she thought that 
 the devil himself, or old Squire Graham, had 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 deglu- 
 tition of ghost or devil, she instantly revived her tongue 
 resumed its accustomed office her courage, as well as her 
 good-humour, returned, and she went up to him with great 
 confidence, saying : 
 
 " Why, then, your revei'ence's honour, maybe I did make a 
 bit of a mistake, sir," taking up the jug, and tasting its con-
 
 NED M'KEOWN 19 
 
 tents. " Hut ! bad scran to me, but I did, beggin' your 
 honour's pardon ; how-an-diver, I'll soon rightify that, your 
 reverence." 
 
 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 second considera- 
 tion, you had better get us another quart, that, as the night 
 is cold, we may have a jorum 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 per- 
 spective, had upon the visual organs of the company ; second 
 sight was rather its precursor than its attendant; for, with 
 intuitive penetration, 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 already 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, and a rale gintleman," another would 
 respond, in the same key. 
 
 "Hut! he's none of your proud, stingy, upsthart bodaghs 
 none of your beggarly half-sirs," a third would remark ; "he's 
 the dacent thing entirely you see he hasn't his heart in 
 a thrifle." 
 
 " And so sign's on him," a fourth would add ; " he wasn't 
 bred to shabbiness, as you may know by his fine behaviour 
 and his big whiskers." 
 
 When the punch was made, and the kitchen-table placed 
 endwise towards the fire, the stranger, finding himself very 
 comfortable, inquired if he could be accommodated with a 
 bed and supper, to which Nancy replied in the affirmative. 
 
 "Then, in that case," said he, "I will be your guest for 
 the night." 
 
 Shane Fadh now took courage to repeat the story of old 
 Squire Graham and his horse with the loose shoe, informing
 
 20 NED M'KEOWN 
 
 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 extraordinary 
 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 ; and they all 
 thanked his honour, expressing the strongest desire 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 appearance, having been on their way home from 
 
 a conference 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, perfectly circular, and about twenty yards in 
 diameter. Around it grew a row of old overspreading 
 hawthorns, whose branches formed a canopy that almost 
 shaded it from sun and storm. Its area was encompassed 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'Caffry, the politician ; while up near the altar, hemmed 
 in by a ring of old men and women, you might perceive a 
 voteen, 1 repeating some new prayer or choice piece of de- 
 votion ; or some other, in a similar circle, perusing, in a loud 
 voice, Doctor Gallagher's Irish Sermons, Pastorini's " History 
 of the Christian Church," or Columbkill's Prophecy; and, 
 perhaps, a strolling pilgrim, the centre of a third collection, 
 singing the Dies irce in Latin, or the " Hermit of Killarney " 
 in English. 
 
 At the extremity of this little circle was a plain altar of 
 
 1 Devotee.
 
 NED M'KEOWN 21 
 
 wood, covered with a little thatched shed, under which the 
 priest celebrated mass ; but before the performance of this 
 ceremony a large multitude usually assembled opposite Ned's 
 shop-door, at the cross-roads. This crowd consisted of such 
 as wanted to buy tobacco, candles, soap, potash, and such 
 other groceries as the peasantry remote from market-towns 
 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 ; l and many a time has little Father Neddy himself, 
 of a frosty day, after having performed mass with a celerity 
 highly agreeable to 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 complaisance for 
 her niggardliness 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 threatened to process him for what he owed her, and he, 
 in return, threatened to remove the congregation from " The 
 Forth " to Ballymagowan-bridge, where he intended to set 
 up his nephew, Bill Buckley, in the "public line," to the 
 ruin of Nancy's flourishing establishment. 
 
 " Father Ned," said Nancy, " I'm a hard-working, honest 
 woman, and I don't see why my substance is to be wasted by 
 your reverence, when you won't pay for it." 
 
 " And do you forget," Father Ned would reply, " that it's 
 me that brings you your custom ? Don't you know that if 
 I remove my flock to Ballymagowan you'll soon sing to 
 another time ? So lay that to your heart." 
 
 " Troth, I know that whatever I get I'm obliged to pay 
 for it ; and I think every man should do the same, Father 
 
 1 Usquebayh literally, " water of life,"
 
 22 NED M'KEOWN 
 
 Ned. You must get a hank of yarn from me, and a bushel 
 or two of oats from Ned, and your riglar dues along with all ; 
 but, avourneen, it's yourself that wouldn't raise your hand over 
 us if we wor in the last gasp, for all that, without getting 
 the silver." 
 
 " Salvation to me, but you'd skin a flint ! " 
 
 " Well, if I would, I pay my debts first." 
 
 " 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 wor like your reverence, it is." 
 
 " I'll tell you what it is, Nancy, I often threatened to take 
 the congregation from ' The Forth,' and I'll do it if I don't, 
 may I never sup sorrow ! " 
 
 Big with such a threat, Father Neddy retired. The appre- 
 hensions of Nancy on this point, however, were 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 re- 
 sembled 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 walk- 
 ing, his hat rested more upon the collar of his coat than upon 
 his head. 
 
 The curate was a tall, 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 machinery 
 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
 
 NED M'KEOWN 23 
 
 my bridle along with your own, as your hand is in. God 
 save all here ! Paddy Smith, ma bouchal, put these horses 
 in the stable, till we dry ourselves a bit Father Pether 
 and I." 
 
 " Musha, but you're both welcome," said Nancy, wishing 
 to wipe out the effects of the last tiff with Father Neddy, by 
 the assistance of the stranger's punch. "Will ye bounce, ye 
 spalpeens, and let them to the fire. Father Neddy, you're 
 dhreepin' with the rain ; and Father Pether, avoumeen, you're 
 wet to the skin, too." 
 
 "Troth, and he is, Nancy, and a little bit farther, if you 
 knew but all four tumblers, Ned deuce a spudh less. Mr. 
 Morrow, how do you do, sir ? And eh ? who's this we've 
 got in the corner ? A gintleman, boys, if cloth can make one ! 
 Mr. Morrow, introduce me." 
 
 "Indeed, Father Ned, I haven't the pleasure of knowin' 
 the gintleman myself." 
 
 " Well, no matter come up, Pether. Sir, I have the 
 honour of introducing you to my curate and coadjuthor, the 
 Reverend Pether M'Clatchaghan, and to myself, his excellent 
 friend, but spiritual superior, the Reverend Ned hem ! the 
 Reverend Edward Deleery, Roman Catholic rector of this 
 highly respectable and extensive parish ; and I have further 
 the pleasure," he continued, taking up Andy Morrow'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. M f M f 
 
 " Clatchaghan, sir," subjoined Father Ned. 
 
 " Peter M'lllclatchaghan, to Mr. Longinus Polysyllabus 
 Alexandrinus." 
 
 " My word, sir, but it's a good and appropriate name, sure 
 enough," said Father Ned, surveying his enormous length : 
 " success to me, but you're an Alexandrine from head to foot 
 -non solum Longinus, sed Alexandrinus." 
 
 " 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 ? "
 
 24 NED M'KEOWN 
 
 " Why, sir, there's a phrase in Corderius's ' Colloquies ' that 
 I could condimn you from, if I had the book." 
 
 " Pether, you think you're a scholar, and, to do you justice, 
 you're 'cute enough sometimes ; but, Pether, you didn't travel 
 for it, as I did nor were you obliged to leap out of a college 
 windy in Paris, at the time of the French Revolution, for your 
 laming, as I was : not you, man ; you ate the king's mutton 
 comfortably at home in Maynooth, instead of travelling for it, 
 like your betters." 
 
 " I'll appale to this gintleman," said Father Peter, turning 
 to the stranger. "Are you a classical scholar, sir that is, 
 do you understand Latin ? " 
 
 " What kind ? " demanded the stranger drily. 
 
 " If you have read Corderius's ' Colloquies,' it will do," said 
 Father Peter. 
 
 " No, sir," replied the other ; " but I have read his com- 
 mentator, Bardolphus, who wrote a treatise upon the Ogalnis 
 of the ancients." 
 
 " Well, sir, if you did, it's 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 Bai'dolphus, I can tell you 
 that ; I had my own trouble with him. But, at any rate, will 
 you take your punch, man alive, 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're 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 reverend worthies, 
 the group around the fire were utterly astonished at the 
 erudition displayed in this 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 it well, any way, it's 
 wondherful what they know ! " 
 
 " Indeed, it is, Shane and in so short a time, too ! Sure, 
 it's not more nor five or six years since Father Pether there 
 used to be digging praties on the one ridge with myself by
 
 NED M'KEOWN 25 
 
 the same token, an excellent spadesman he was and now he 
 knows more nor all the Protestant parsons in the Diocy." 
 
 " Why, how could they know anything, when they don't 
 belong to the thrue Church ? " said Shane. 
 
 " Thrue for you, Shane," replied M'Roarkin ; " I disremim- 
 bered that clincher." 
 
 This discourse ran parallel with the dispute between the 
 two priests, but in so low a tone as not to reach the ear of 
 the classical champions, who would have ill brooked this 
 eulogium upon Father Peter's agricultural 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 disputation. Sir, I drink to our better 
 acquaintance." 
 
 " With all my heart, sir," replied the stranger. 
 
 "Father Ned," said Nancy, "the gintleman was going to 
 tell us a sthrange story, sir, and maybe your reverence would 
 wish to hear it, Docthor." 
 
 " Certainly, Nancy, we'll be very happy to hear any story 
 the gintleman may plase to tell us ; but, Nancy, achora, before 
 he begins, what if you'd just fry a slice or two of that glorious 
 flitch, hanging over his head, in the comer ? that, and about 
 six eggs, Nancy, and you'll have the priest's blessing, gratis." 
 
 "Why, Father Ned, it's too fresh, entirely sure it's not a 
 week hanging yet." 
 
 " Sorra matter, Nancy dheelish, 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 whackuum in my stomach, that's rather troublesome." 
 
 " To be sure, Father Ned, you must get a slice, with all the 
 veins of my heart ; but I thought maybe you wouldn't like it 
 so fresh. But what on earth will we do for eggs, for there's 
 not an egg undher the roof with me." 
 
 "Biddy, ahagur," said Father Ned, "just slip out to 
 Molshey Johnston, and tell her to send me six eggs for a 
 rasher, by the same token that I heard two or three hens 
 cackling 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 delayed longer than
 
 26 NED M'KEOWN 
 
 the priest's judgment, influenced by the cravings of his 
 stomach, calculated to be necessary " Well, Docthor, I often 
 pity you for fasting so long ; I'm sure, I dunna how you can 
 stand it at all, at all." 
 
 " Troth, and 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 inward support." 
 
 " Only for that, Father Ned," said Shane Fadh, " I suppose 
 you could never get through with it." 
 
 "Very right, Shane very right : only for it, we never 
 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 you really believe I'll 
 be damned ? " 
 
 " Ah, Mr. Morrow, don't ask me that question out of the 
 pale, you know out of 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 butt end of his whip, " to the 
 lower regions ; and, upon my knowledge, to tell you the 
 truth, I'm sorry for it, for you're a worthy fellow." 
 
 "Ah, Docthor," said Ned, "it's a great thing entirely to 
 be born in the true Church one'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 please. Where did you get this stuff, Nancy ? faith, 
 it's excellent." 
 
 "You forget, Father Ned, that that's a sacret. But here's 
 Biddy with the eggs, and now you'll have your rasher in no 
 time." 
 
 During this conversation, Father Peter, turning to Alick 
 M'Kinley, said, "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."
 
 NED M'KEOWN 27 
 
 " And do you know what book he's reading ? " 
 
 "Not a one of myself knows," said Alick, "but I know he 
 has a great batch of them." 
 
 " You couldn't tell me if he has got a ' Cordery ' ? " 
 
 " He has, sir," said Alick, "a jacket and trousers of it." 
 
 "Of what ?" said the curate, looking at him with surprise. 
 
 " Of corduroy," said the other. 
 
 " Oh, I mean a book ! " said Father Peter. 
 
 " Consumin' to the know I know what's the name of one 
 of them," replied Alick. 
 
 " I wish to heavens I had one, till I'd confute that man ! " 
 said Father Peter, looking with a most mortified visage into 
 the fire. 
 
 When the two clergymen had discussed the rashers and 
 eggs, and while the happy group were making themselves 
 intimately acquainted with a fresh jug of punch, as it cir- 
 culated round the table : 
 
 " Now, sir," said Father Ned to the stranger, " we'll hear 
 your story with the greatest satisfaction possible ; 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 
 
 "Well, upon my veracity," observed Father Peter, "the 
 gentleman's supernaturally long." 
 
 "Yes, Pether," replied Father Neddy, "but observe his 
 position Polysyllaba cuncta supina, as Prosody says. Arrah, 
 salvation to me, but you're dull, man, afther all ! but we're 
 interrupting the gentleman. Sir, go on, if you plase, with 
 your story." 
 
 " Give me a few minutes," said he, " until I recollect the 
 particulars." 
 
 He accordingly continued quiescent for two or three 
 minutes more, apparently arranging the materials of his 
 intended narration, and then commenced to gratify the eager
 
 28 NED M'KEOWN 
 
 expectations of his auditory by emitting those nasal enun- 
 ciations which are the usual accompaniments of sleep ! 
 
 " Why, bad luck to the morsel of 'im but's asleep," said 
 Ned; "Lord pardon me for swearin' in your 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. 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 tone. 
 
 " He's beginning a new paragraph," observed Father Peter, 
 with a smile at the joke. 
 
 " Not at all," said Father Neddy, " he's turning the tune ; 
 don't you perceive he's snoring, ' God save the King,' in the 
 key of bass relievo ? " 
 
 " I'm no judge of instrumental music, as you are," said the 
 curate, " but I think it's liker the ' Dead March of Saul ' 
 than ' God save the King ; ' however, 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 gintleman's tired," observed Nancy, "after a 
 hard day's thra veiling." 
 
 " I daresay he is," said Father Ned, in the sincere hospi- 
 tality of his country ; " at all events take care of him, Nancy 
 he's a stranger, 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 comical grin, " you might 
 know that by his high-flown manner of sleeping he snores 
 very politely, and like a gintleman, all out." 
 
 "Well done, Alick," said the priest, laughing. "Go home, 
 boys, it's near bedtime. Paddy, ma bouchtil, are the horses 
 ready ? " 
 
 "They'll be at the door in a jiffey, your reverence," said 
 Paddy, going out. 
 
 In the course of a few minutes he returned, exclaiming, 
 " Why, thin, is it thinkin' to venthur out sich a night as 
 it's comin' on, yer reverences would be ? and it plashin' as if 
 it came out of methers ! Sure, the life would be dhrownded
 
 NED M'KEOWN 29 
 
 out of both of ye, and yees might cotch a faver into the 
 bargain." 
 
 " Sit down, gintlemen," said Ned ; " sit down, Father Ned, 
 you and Father Pether we'll have another tumbler ; and, as 
 it's my turn to tell a story, I'll give yees something to amuse 
 yees the best I can, and, you all know, who can do more ? " 
 
 " Very right, Ned ; but let us see," replied Father Ned, 
 putting his head out of 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, and let it be as 
 pleasant as possible." 
 
 "Never fear, your reverence," replied Ned; "here goes 
 and healths apiece to begin with."
 
 THE THREE TASKS 
 
 OR, 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 under the shelter 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 cosy 
 with its cor rag, 1 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 middy, she was very punctwell in paying for Jack's 
 schooling, as I often heard ould Terry M'Phaudeen say, who 
 tould me the story. Jack, indeed, grew up a fine slip ; and, 
 for hurling, football playing, and lepping, hadn't his likes in 
 the five quarters 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- 
 
 1 The Corrag is a roll of branches tied together with green, and used 
 for the purposes mentioned in the story. It is six feet high, and much 
 thicker than a sack, and is changed to either side of the door, accord- 
 ing to the direction from which the wind blows. 
 
 30
 
 THE THREE TASKS 31 
 
 stack that stood, thatched with rushes, before the door, and 
 leave it in the corner, beside the fire ; so that she had nothing 
 to do but put over her hand, without rising off 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 work- 
 ing 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 forepart 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 
 would do your heart good to see Nancy sitting at her wheel, 
 singing, ' Stachan Varagah,' or ' Peggy Na Laveen,' beside a 
 purty clear fire, with a small pot of Murphys boiling on it for 
 their supper, or laid up in a wooden dish, comfortably 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 other 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 you can.' 
 
 " Sitting quietly on the roost above the door were Dickey 
 the cock, and half a dozen 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 season, to help to buy wool for Jack's big coat and her 
 own grey-beard gown and striped red and blue petticoat. 
 
 " To make a long story short, no two could be more com- 
 fortable, considering everything. But, indeed, Jack was 
 always obsarved to have a dacent, ginteel turn with him : for 
 he'd scorn to see a bad gown on his mother, or a broken 
 Sunday coat on himself ; and instead of drinking his little 
 earning in a sheebeen house, and then eating his praties dry,
 
 32 THE THREE TASKS 
 
 he'd take care to have something to kitchen l them ; so that 
 he was not only snug and dacent of a Sunday, regarding 
 wearables, but so well fed and rosy that the point of a rush 
 would take a drop of blood out of his cheek. 2 Then he was 
 the comeliest and best-looking young man in the parish, could 
 tell lots of droll stories, and sing scores of merry songs, that 
 would make you split your sides with downright laughing ; 
 and when a wake or a dance would happen to be in the 
 neighbourhood, maybe there wouldn't be many a sly look out 
 from the purty girls for pleasant Jack Magennis. 
 
 " In this way lived Jack and his mother, as happy and 
 continted as two lords; except now and thin that Jack 
 would feel a little consarn for not being able to lay past any- 
 thing for the sore foot, 3 or that might enable him to think of 
 marrying ; for he was beginning to look about him for a wife 
 and why not, to be sure ? But he was prudent, for all that, 
 and didn't wish to bring a wife and small family into poverty 
 and hardship without means to support them, as too many do. 
 
 " It was one fine frosty, moonlight night the sky was 
 without a cloud, and the stars all blinking that it would 
 delight anybody's heart to look at them, when Jack was 
 crassing a bog that lay a few fields beyant his own cabin. 
 He was just crooning the ' Humours of Glin,' in to himself, 
 and thinking that it was a very hard case that he couldn't 
 save anything at all, at all, to help him to the wife when, 
 on coining down a bank in the middle of the bog, he saw a 
 dark -looking man leaning against a clamp of turf, and a black 
 dog, with a pipe of tobacky in his mouth, sitting at his ase 
 beside him, and he smoking as sober as a judge. Jack, how- 
 ever, had a stout heart, bekase his conscience was clear, and, 
 bariing being a little daunted, he wasn't very much afeard. 
 ' Who is this coming down toardst us ? ' said the black- 
 favoured man, as he saw Jack approaching them. ' It's Jack 
 Magennis,' says the dog, making answer, and taking the pipe 
 out of his mouth with his right paw, and after puffing away 
 
 1 Condiment or flavour. 
 
 'This proverb, which is always used as above, but without being 
 confined in its application to only one sex, is a general one in Ireland. 
 In delicacy and beauty I think it inimitable. 
 
 Accidents future calamity of any kind, or old age.
 
 THE THREE TASKS 33 
 
 the smoke, and rubbing the end of it against his left leg, 
 exactly as a Christian (this day's "Friday, the Lord stand be- 
 tune us and harm) would do against his sleeve, giving it at 
 the same time to his comrade ' It's Jack Magennis,' says 
 the dog, ' honest Widow Magennis's dacent son.' ' The very 
 man,' says the other, back to him, 'that I'd wish to sarve, 
 out of a thousand. Arrah, Jack Magennis, how is every 
 tether-length of you ? ' says the ould fellow, putting the 
 furrawn l on him- ' and how is every bone in your body, 
 Jack, my darling ? I'll hould a thousand guineas,' says he, 
 pointing to a great big bag that lay beside him, ' and that's 
 only the tenth part of what's in this bag, Jack, that you're 
 just going to be in luck to-night, above all nights in the 
 year ! ' 
 
 "'And may worse never happen you, Jack, ma bouchal,' 
 says the dog, putting in his tongue, then wagging 'his tail, 
 and houlding out his paw to shake hands with Jack. 
 
 " ' Gintlemen/ says Jack, never minding to give the dog 
 his hand, bekase he heard it wasn't safe to touch the likes of 
 him ' Gintlemen/ says he, ' ye're sitting far from the fire 
 this frosty night.' 
 
 "'Why, that's true, Jack,' answers the ould fellow; 'but 
 if we're sitting far from the fire, we're sitting very near the 
 makins of it, man alive.' So, with this, he pulls the bag of 
 goold over to him, that Jack might know by the jingle of 
 the shiners what was in it. 
 
 " ' Jack,' says dark-face, ' there's some born with a silver 
 ladle in their mouth, and others with a wooden spoon ; and 
 if you'll just sit down on the one end 'of this clamp with me, 
 and take a hand at the " five-and-ten," ' pulling out, as he 
 spoke, a deck of cards, 'you may be a made man for the 
 remainder of your life.' 
 
 " ' Sir,' says Jack, ' with submission, both yourself and this 
 cur I mane,' says he, not wishing to give the dog offence 
 'both yourself and this dacent gintleman with the tail and 
 claws upon him, have the advantage of me, in respect of 
 knowing my name ; for, if I don't mistake/ says he, putting 
 
 1 That frank, cordial manner of address which brings strangers 
 suddenly to intimacy. 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 34 THE THREE TASKS 
 
 his hand to his caubeen, ' I never had the pleasure of seeing 
 either of ye before.' 
 
 " ' Never mind that/ says the dog, taking back the pipe 
 from the other, and clapping it in his mouth ; ' we're both 
 your well-wishers, anyhow, and it's now your own fault if 
 you're not a rich man.' 
 
 " Jack, by this time, was beginning to think that they 
 might be afther wishing to throw luck in his way ; for he 
 had often heard of men being made up entirely by the fairies 
 till there was no end to their wealth. 
 
 " 'Jack,' says the black man, ' you had better be sed by us 
 for this bout upon the honour of a gintleman we wish you 
 well. However, if you don't choose to take the ball at 
 the right hop, another may, and you're welcome to toil all 
 your life, and die a beggar afther.' 
 
 " ' Upon my reputation, what he says is true, Jack,' says 
 the dog, in his turn ; ' the lucky minute of your life is come ; 
 let it pass without doing what them that wishes your mother's 
 son well desire you, and you'll die in a ditch.' 
 
 " ' And what am I to do,' says Jack, ' that's to make me 
 so rich all of a sudden ? ' 
 
 "'Why, only to sit down and take a game of cards with 
 myself,' says black-brow, ' that's all, and I'm sure it's not 
 much.' 
 
 " ' And what is it to be for ? ' Jack inquires, ' for I have no 
 money tare-nation to the rap itself s in my company.' 
 
 " ' Well, you have yourself,' says the dog, putting up his 
 fore-claw along his nose, and winking at Jack, 'you have 
 yourself, man don't be faint-hearted he'll bet the contents 
 of this bag ; ' and with that the ould thief gave it another 
 great big shake, to make the guineas jingle again. ' It's ten 
 thousand guineas in hard gould ; if he wins, you're to sarve 
 him for a year and a day ; and if he loses, you're to have 
 the bag.' 
 
 " ' And the money that's in it,' says Jack, wishing, you see, 
 to make a sure bargain, anyhow. 
 
 " ' Ev'ry penny,' answered the ould chap, ' if you win it ; 
 and there's fifty to one in your favour.' 
 
 " By this time the dog had got into a great fit of laughing 
 at Jack's sharpness about the money. ' The money that's in
 
 THE THREE TASKS 35 
 
 it, Jack/ says he, and he took the pipe out of his mouth, and 
 laughed till he brought on a hard fit of coughing ; ' oh, by this 
 and by that,' says he, ' but that bates Bannagher ! and you're 
 to get it ev'i*y penny, you thief of the world, if you win it ; ' 
 but for all that he seemed to be laughing at something that 
 Jack wasn't up to. 
 
 "At any rate, surely, they palavered Jack betune them, 
 until he sot down and consinted. ' Well/ says he, scratching 
 his head, 'why, worse nor lose I can't, so hei*e goes for one 
 trial at the shiners, anyhow ! ' 
 
 " ' Now/ says the obscure gintleman, just whin the first card 
 was in his hand, ready to be laid down, 'you're to sarve me 
 for a year and a day if I win ; and if I lose, you shall have all 
 the money in the bag.' 
 
 " ' Exactly/ says Jack, and just as he said the word he saw 
 the dog putting the pipe in his pocket, arid turning his head 
 away for fraid Jack would see him breaking his sides laughing. 
 At last, when he got his face sobered, he looks at Jack, and 
 says, ' Surely, Jack, if you win, you must get all the money in 
 the bag; and, upon my reputation, you may build castles in 
 the air with it, you'll be so rich.' 
 
 " This plucked up Jack's courage a little, and to work they 
 went ; but how could it end otherwise than Jack to lose 
 betune two such knowing schemers as they soon turned out 
 to be ? For what do you think, but as Jack was beginning 
 the game, the dog tips him a wink, laying his fore-claw along 
 his nose, as before, as much as to say, ' Watch me, and you'll 
 win ' turning round, at the same time, and showing Jack a 
 nate little looking-glass that was set in his oxther, in which 
 Jack saw, dark as it was, the spots of all the other fellow's 
 cards, as he thought, so that' he was cock sure of bating him. 
 But they were a pair of downright knaves, anyhow ; for Jack, 
 by playing to the cards that he saw in the looking-glass, 
 instead of to them the other held in, his hand, lost the game 
 and the money. In short, he saw that he was blarnied and 
 chated by them both ; and when the game was up he plainly 
 tould them as much. 
 
 " ' What, you scoundrel ! ' says the black fellow, starting up 
 and catching him by the collar, ' dare you go for to impache 
 my honour ? '
 
 36 THE THREE TASKS 
 
 " ' Leather him if he says a word/ says the dog, running 
 over on his hind legs, and laying his shut paw upon Jack's 
 nose. ' Say another word, you rascal/ says he, ' and I'll down 
 you ; ' with this the ould fellow gives him another shake. 
 
 "'I don't blame you so much/ says Jack to him, f it was 
 the looking-glass that desaved me ; that cur's nothing but 
 a blackleg.' 
 
 " ' What looking-glass, you knave you ? ' says dark-face, 
 giving him a fresh haul. 
 
 ' Why, the one I saw under the dog's oxther/ replied Jack. 
 
 " ( Under my oxther ! you swindling rascal/ replied the 
 dog, giving him a pull by the other side of the collar ; ' did 
 ever any honest pair of gintlemen hear the like ? but he 
 only wants to break through the agreement ; so let us turn 
 him at once into an ass, and then he'll break no more bargains, 
 nor strive to take in honest men and win their money. Me 
 a blackleg ! ' So saying, the dark fellow drew his two hands 
 over Jack's jaws, and in a twinkling there was a pair of ass's 
 ears growing up out of his head. When Jack found this, he 
 knew that he wasn't in good hands ; so he thought it best to 
 get himself as well out of the scrape as possible. 
 
 " ' Gintlemen, be aisy/ says he, ' and let us understand one 
 another. I'm very willing to sarve you for a year and a day, 
 but I've one request to ax, and it's this : I've a helpless ould 
 mother at home, and if I go with you now she'll break her 
 heart with grief first, and starve afterwards. Now, if your 
 honour will give me a year to work hard, and lay in provision 
 to support her while I'm away, I'll serve you with all the 
 veins of my heart for a bargain's a bargain.' 
 
 "With this the dog gave his companion a pluck by the 
 skirt, and, after some chat together, that Jack didn't hear, 
 they came back and said they would comply with his wishes 
 that far ; ' so, on to-morrow twelvemonth, Jack/ says the dark 
 fellow, ' the dog here will come to your mother's, and if you 
 follow him he'll bring you safe to my castle.' 
 
 " ' Very well, your honour/ says Jack ; ' but as dogs resemble 
 
 one another so much, how will I know him whin he comes ? ' 
 
 " ' Why/ answers the other, ' he'll have a green ribbon about 
 
 his neck, and a pair of Wellington boots on his hind legs.' 
 
 " ' That's enough, sir/ says Jack, ' I can't mistake him in
 
 THE THREE TASKS 37 
 
 that dress, so I'll be ready; but gintlemen, if it would be 
 plasing to you both, I'd every bit as soon not go home with 
 these/ and he handled the brave pair of ears he had got, as 
 he spoke. ' The truth is, gintlemen, I'm deluding enough 
 without them; and as I'm so modest, you persave, why, if 
 you'd take them away you'd oblige me ! ' 
 
 " To this they had no objection, and during that year Jack 
 wrought night and day, that he might be able to lave as 
 much provision with his poor mother as would support her 
 in his absence ; and when the morning came that he was to 
 bid her farewell he went down on his two knees and got 
 her blessing. He then left her with tears in his eyes, and 
 pi'omised to come back the very minute his time would be 
 up. ' Mother/ says he, ' be kind to your little family here, 
 and feed them well, as they are all you'll have to keep you 
 company till you see me again.' 
 
 " His mother then stuffed his pockets with bread, till they 
 stuck out behind him, and gave him a crooked sixpence for 
 luck; after which he got his staff, and was just ready to 
 tramp, when, sure enough, he spies his ould friend the dog, 
 with the green ribbon about his neck, and the Wellington 
 boots upon his hind legs. He didn't go in, but waited on 
 the outside till Jack came out. They then set off, but no 
 one knows how far they travelled, till they reached the dark 
 gintleman's castle, who appeared very glad to see Jack, and 
 gave him a hearty welcome. 
 
 " The next day, in consequence of his long journey, he was 
 ax'd to do nothing; but in the coorse of the evening the 
 dark chap brought him into a long, frightful room, where 
 there were three hundred and sixty-five hooks sticking out 
 of the wall, and on every hook but one a man's head. When 
 Jack saw this agreeable sight, his dinner began to quake 
 within him ; but he felt himself still worse when his master 
 pointed to the empty hook, saying, ' Now, Jack, your business 
 to-morrow is to clane out a stable that wasn't claned for the 
 last seven years, and if you don't have it finished before dusk 
 do you see that hook ? ' 
 
 " ' Ye yes/ replied Jack, hardly able to spake. ' Well, 
 if you don't have it finished before dusk your head will be 
 hanging on that hook as soon as the sun sets.'
 
 38 THE THREE TASKS 
 
 " ' Very well, your honour/ replied Jack, scarcely knowing 
 what he said, or he wouldn't have said ' very well ' to such 
 a bloody-minded intention, anyhow ' Very well,' says he, 
 ' I'll do my best, and all the world knows that the best can 
 do no more.' 
 
 " Whilst this discourse was passing betune them, Jack hap- 
 pened to look at the upper end of the room, and there he saw 
 one of the beautifullest faces that ever was seen on a woman, 
 looking at him through a little panel that was in the wall. 
 She had a white, snowy forehead such eyes, and cheeks, and 
 teeth, that there's no coming up to them ; and the clusters 
 of dark hair that hung about her beautiful temples ! by the 
 laws, I'm afeard of falling in love with her myself, so I'll say 
 no more about her, only that she would charm the heart of 
 a wheel-barrow. At any rate, in spite of all the oukl fellow 
 could say heads, and hooks, and all, Jack couldn't help 
 throwing an eye now and then to the panel ; and to tell the 
 truth, if he had been born to riches and honour, it would be 
 hard to fellow him for a good face and a good figure. 
 
 " ' Now, Jack,' said his master, ' go and get your supper, and 
 I hope you'll be able to perform your task if not, off goes 
 your head.' 
 
 ft t Very well, your honour,' says Jack, again scratching it in 
 the hoith of perplexity, ' I must only do what I can.' 
 
 " The next morning Jack was up with the sun, if not 
 before him, and hard at his task ; but before breakfast-time 
 he lost all heart, and little wonder he should, poor fellow, 
 bekase, for every one shovelful he'd throw out, there would 
 come three more in : so that instead of making his task less, 
 according as he got on, it became greater. He was now in 
 the greatest dilemmy, and didn't know how to manage, so 
 he was driven at last to such an amplush, that he had no 
 other shift for employment, only to sing ' Paudeen O'Rafferty ' 
 out of mere vexation, and dance the hornpipe trebling step 
 to it, cracking his fingers, half mad, through the stable. Just 
 in the middle of this tantrum, who comes to the dour to call 
 him to his breakfast but the beautiful crathur he saw the 
 evening before peeping at him through the panel. At this 
 minute Jack had so hated himself by the dancing that his 
 handsome face was in a fine glow entirely.
 
 THE THREE TASKS 39 
 
 " ' I think/ said she to Jack, with one of her own sweet 
 smiles, ' that this is an odd way of performing your task. 1 
 
 " ' Och, thin, 'tis you that may say that/ replies Jack ; 
 ' but it's myself that's willing to have my head hung up any 
 day, just for one sight of you, you darling.' 
 
 " e Where did you come from ? ' asked the lady, with 
 another smile that bate the first all to nothing. 
 
 " ' Where did I come from, is it ? ' answered Jack ; ' why, 
 death-alive ! did you never hear of ould Ireland, my jewel ? 
 hem I mane, plase your ladyship's honour.' 
 
 " ' No/ she answered ; ' where is that country ? ' 
 
 " ' Och, by the honour of an Irishman/ says Jack, ' that 
 takes the shine ! not heard of Erin the Imerald Isle the 
 Jim of the ocean, where all the men are brave and honour- 
 able, and all the women hem I mane the ladies chaste 
 and beautiful ? ' 
 
 " ' No,' said she ; ' not a word : but if I stay longer I may 
 get you into blame come into your breakfast, and I'm sorry 
 to find that you have done so little at your task. Your 
 master's a man that always acts up to what he threatens ; 
 and, if you have not this stable cleared out before dusk, your 
 head will be taken off your shoulders this night.' 
 
 " ' Why, thin/ says Jack, ' my beautiful darl plase your 
 honour's ladyship if he hangs it up, will you do me the 
 favour, acushla machree, to turn my head toardst that same 
 panel where I saw a sartin fair face that I won't mintion ; 
 and if you do, let me alone for watching a sartin purty face 
 I'm acquainted with.' 
 
 " ' What means cushla machree ? ' inquired the lady, as she 
 turned to go away. 
 
 " ' It manes that you're the pulse of my heart, avourneen, 
 plase your ladyship's reverence/ says Jack. 
 
 " ' Well/ said the lovely crathur, ' any time you speak to 
 me in future, I would rather you would omit terms of honour, 
 and just call me after the manner of your own country ; 
 instead, for instance, of calling me your ladyship, I would be 
 better pleased if you called me cushla something ' 
 
 " ' Cushla machree, ma vourneen the pulse of my heart my 
 darling/ said Jack, consthering it (the thief) for her, for 
 fraid she wouldn't know it well enough,
 
 40 THE THREE TASKS 
 
 "'Yes,' she replied, ' cushla machree ; well, as I can pro- 
 nounce it, acushla machree, will you come into your breakfast ? ' 
 said the darling, giving Jack a smile that would be enough, 
 any day, to do up the heart of an Irishman. Jack accord- 
 ingly went after her, thinking of nothing except herself; 
 but on going in he could see no sign of her, so he sat down 
 to his breakfast, though a single ounce, barring a couple of 
 pounds of beef, the poor fellow couldn't ate at that bout for 
 thinking of her. 
 
 " Well, he went again to his work, and thought he'd have 
 better luck ; but it was still the ould game three shovel- 
 fuls would come in for ev'ry one he'd throw out ; and now 
 he began, in earnest, to feel something about his heart that 
 he didn't like, bekase he couldn't, for the life of him, help 
 thinking of the three hundred and sixty-four heads and the 
 empty hook. At last he gave up the work entirely, and took 
 it into his head to make himself scarce from about the ould 
 fellow's castle altogether ; and without more to do he set off, 
 never saying as much as ' good-bye ' to his master ; but he 
 hadn't got as far as the lower end of the yard when his ould 
 friend, the dog, steps out of a kennel, and meets him full 
 butt in the teeth. 
 
 " ' So, Jack,' says he, ' you're going to give us leg bail, I 
 see ; but walk back with yourself, you spalpeen, this minute, 
 and join your work, or if you don't,' says he, ' it will be worse 
 for your health. I'm not so much your enemy now as I was, 
 bekase you have a friend in coort that you know nothing 
 about ; so just do whatever you are bid, and keep never 
 minding.' 
 
 "Jack went back with a heavy heart, as you may be sure, 
 knowing that whenever the black cur began to blarney him 
 there was no good to come in his way. He accordingly went 
 into the stable, but consuming to the hand's turn he did, 
 knowing it would be only useless ; for, instead of clearing it 
 out, he'd be only filling it. 
 
 " It was now near dinner-time, and Jack was very sad and 
 sorrowful as how could he be otherwise, poor fellow, with 
 such a bloody-minded ould chap to dale with ? when up 
 comes the darling of the world again to call him to his 
 dinner.
 
 THE THREE TASKS 41 
 
 " ' Well, Jack/ says she, with her white arms so beautiful, 
 and her dark clusters tossed about by the motion of the 
 walk, ' how are you coming on at your task ? ' 
 
 " ' How am I coming on, is it ? Och, thin/ says Jack, 
 giving a good-humoured smile through the frown that was on 
 his face, ' plase your lady acushla machree it's all over with 
 me ; for I've still the same story to tell, and off goes my head, 
 as sure as it's on my shoulders, this blessed night.' 
 
 " ' That would be a pity, Jack/ says she, ' for there are worse 
 heads on worse shoulders ; but will you give me the shovel ? ' 
 
 " ' Will I give you the shovel, is it ? Och, thin, wouldn't I be 
 a right big baste to do the likes of that, anyhow ? ' says Jack. 
 ' What ! avotirneen dheelish ! to stand up with myself, and let 
 this hard shovel into them beautiful, soft, white hands of 
 your own ! Faix, my jewel, if you knew but all, my mother's 
 son's not the man to do such a disgraceful turn as to let 
 a lady like you take the shovel out of his hand, and he 
 standing with his mouth under his nose looking at you not 
 myself, avourneen ! we have no such ungenteel manners as 
 that in our country.' 
 
 " ' Take my advice, Jack,' says she, pleased in her heart at 
 what Jack said, for all she didn't purtend it ' give me the 
 shovel, and, depend upon it, I'll do more in a short time to 
 clear the stable than you would for years.' 
 
 " ' Why, thin, avourneen, it goes to my heart to refuse you ; 
 but, for all that, may I never see yesterday if a taste of it will 
 go into your purty white fingers/ says the thief, praising her 
 to her face all the time ; ' my head may go off any day, and 
 welcome, but death before dishonour. Say no more, darling ; 
 but tell your father I'll be in to my dinner immediately.' 
 
 " Notwithstanding all this, by jingo the lady would not be 
 put off. Like a ra-al woman, she'd have her way. So, on 
 telling Jack that she didn't intend to work with the shovel 
 at all, at all, but only to take it for a minute in her hand, at 
 long last he gave it to her. She then struck it three times on 
 the threshel of the door, and, giving it back into his hand, 
 tould him to try what he could do. Well, sure enough, now 
 there was a change ; for instead of three shovelfuls coming 
 in, as before, when he threw one out, there went nine more 
 along with it. Jack, in coorse, couldn't do less than thank
 
 42 
 
 the lovely erathur for her assistance ; but when he raised his 
 head to speak to her she was gone. I needn't say, howsom- 
 ever, that he went in to his dinner with a light heart and a 
 murdhering appetite; and when the ould fellow axed him 
 how he was coming on, Jack tould him that he was doing 
 gloriously. ' Remember the empty hook, Jack/ said he. 
 'Never fear, your honour,' answered Jack; 'if I don't finish 
 my task, you may bob my head off any time.' 
 
 " Jack now went out, and was a short time getting through 
 his job, for before the sun set it was finished ; and he came 
 into the kitchen, ate his supper, and, sitting down before the 
 fire, sung ' Love among the Roses ' and the ' Black Joke,' to 
 vex the ould fellow. 
 
 " This was one task over, and his head was safe for that 
 bout ; but that night, before he went to bed, his master called 
 him upstairs, brought him into the bloody room, and gave 
 him his orders for the next day. 'Jack,' says he, 'I have a 
 wild filly that has never been caught, and you must go to my 
 demesne to-morrow and catch her, or if you don't look 
 there,' says the big blackguard, ' on that hook it hangs before 
 to-morrow if you haven't her before sunset in the stable that 
 you claned yesterday.' ' Very well, your honour,' says Jack 
 carelessly ; ' I'll do everything in my power, and if I fail I 
 can't help it.' 
 
 " The next morning Jack was out with a bridle in his hand, 
 going to catch the filly. As soon as he got into the demesne, 
 sure enough, there she was in the middle of a green field, 
 grazing quite at her ase. When Jack saw this he went over 
 towards her, houlding out his hat, as if it was full of oats ; 
 but he kept the hand that had the bridle in it behind his 
 back, for fraid she'd see it and make off. Well, my dear, on 
 he went till he was almost within grip of her, cock sure that 
 he had nothing more to do than slip the bridle over her neck 
 and secure her ; but he made a bit of a mistake in his reckon- 
 ing, for though she smelt and smoked about him, just as if 
 she didn't care a feed of oats whether he caught her or not, 
 yet when he boulted over to hould her fast, she was off like 
 a shot, with her tail cocked, to the far end of the demesne, 
 and Jack had to set off hot foot after her. All, however, was 
 to no purpose ; he couldn't come next or near her for the rest
 
 THE THREE TASKS 43 
 
 of the day, and there she kept coorsing about him, from one 
 field to another, till he hadn't a blast of breath in his body. 
 
 " In this state was Jack when the beautiful crathur came 
 out to call him home to his breakfast, walking, with the pretty 
 small feet and light steps of her own, upon the green fields, 
 so bright and beautiful, scarcely bending the grass and flowers 
 as she went along, the darling. 
 
 " ' Jack/ says she, ' I fear you have as difficult a task to- 
 day as you had yesterday.' 
 
 " ' Why, and it's you that may say that with your own 
 purty mouth,' says Jack, says he ; for out of breath and all 
 as he was, he couldn't help giving her a bit of blarney, the 
 rogue. 
 
 " ' Well, Jack/ says she, ' take my advice, and don't tire 
 yourself any longer by attempting to catch her ; truth's best 
 I tell you, you could never do it. Come home to your 
 breakfast, and when you return again, just amuse yourself as 
 well as you can until dinner time.' 
 
 " ' Och, och ! ' says Jack, striving to look, the sly thief, as 
 if she had promised to help him ' I only wish I was a king, 
 and, by the powers, I know who would be my queen, anyhow ; 
 for it's your own sweet lady savourneen dheelish. I say, amn't 
 I bound to you for a year and a day longer, for promising to 
 give me a lift, as well as for what you done yesterday ? ' 
 
 " ' Take care, Jack,' says she, smiling, however, at his in- 
 genuity in striving to trap her into a promise ; ' I don't think 
 I made any promise of assistance.' 
 
 " ' You didn't ? ' says Jack, wiping his face with the skirt 
 of his coat; 'cause why? you see pocket-handkerchiefs 
 weren't invented in them times. 'Why, thin, may I never 
 live to see yesterday, if there's not as much rale beauty in 
 that smile that's divarting itself about them sweet breathing 
 lips of yours and in them two eyes of light that's breaking 
 both their hearts laughing at me this minute, as would en- 
 courage any poor fellow to expect a good turn from you 
 that is, whin you could do it without hurting or harming 
 yourself; for it's he would be the right rascal that could take 
 it if it would injure a silken hair of your head.' 
 
 " ' Well/ said the lady, with another roguish smile, ' I shall 
 call you home to your dinner, at all events.'
 
 44 THE THREE TASKS 
 
 " When Jack went back from his breakfast he didn't slave 
 himself after the filly any more, but walked about to view the 
 demesne, and the avenues, and the green walks, and nice 
 temples, and fish-ponds and rookeries, and everything, in 
 short, that was worth seeing. Towards dinner-time, however, 
 he began to have an eye to the way the sweet crathur was to 
 come, and sure enough it's she that wasn't one minute late. 
 
 " ' Well, Jack/ says she, ' I'll keep you no longer in doubt,' 
 for the tender-hearted crathur saw that Jack, although he 
 didn't wish to let an to her, was fretting every now and then 
 about the odd hook and the bloody room 'So, Jack,' says 
 she, 'although I didn't promise, yet I'll perform;' and with 
 that she pulled a small ivory whistle out of her pocket, and 
 gave three blasts on it that brought the wild filly up to her 
 very hand, as quick as the wind. She then took the bridle, 
 and threw it over the baste's neck, giving her up, at the 
 same time, to Jack. ' You needn't fear now, Jack,' says she ; 
 'you will find her as quiet as a lamb, and as tame as you 
 wish : as a proof of it, just walk before her, and you will see 
 she will follow you to any part of the field.' 
 
 " Jack, you may be sure, paid her as many and as sweet 
 compliments as he could, and never heed one from his country 
 for being able to say something toothsome to the ladies. At 
 any rate, if he laid it on thick the day before, he gave her 
 two or three additional coats this time, and the innocent soul 
 went away smiling, as usual. 
 
 " When Jack brought the filly home, the dark fellow, his 
 master, if dark before, was a perfect tundher-cloud this night : 
 bedad, he was nothing less than near bursting with vexation, 
 bekase the thieving ould sinner intended to have Jack's head 
 upon the hook ; but he fell short in his reckoning now as well 
 as before. Jack sung ' Love among the Roses ' and the 
 ' Black Joke/ to help him into better timper. 
 
 " ' Jack/ says he, striving to make himself speak pleasant 
 to him, 'you've got two difficult tasks over you; but you 
 know the third time's the charm take care of the next.' 
 
 " ' No matter about that,' says Jack, speaking up to him 
 stiff and stout, bekase, as the dog tould him, he knew he had 
 a friend in coort ; ' let's hear what it is, anyhow.' 
 
 " ' To-morrow, then,' says the other, 'you're to rob a crane's
 
 THE THREE TASKS 45 
 
 nest on the top of a beech tree which grows in the middle 
 of a little island in the lake that you saw, yesterday, in my 
 demesne ; you're to have neither boat, nor oar, nor any kind 
 of conveyance, but just as you stand ; and if you fail to bring 
 me the eggs, or if you break one of them look here ! ' says 
 he, again pointing to the odd hook, for all this discourse took 
 place in the bloody room. 
 
 "'Good again/ says Jack; ' if I fail, I know my doom.' 
 
 " ' No, you don't, you spalpeen,' says the other, getting 
 vexed with him entirely; 'for I'll roast you till you're half 
 dead, and ate my dinner off you after ; and, what is more 
 than that, you blackguard, you must sing the " Black Joke " 
 all the time for my amusement.' 
 
 " ' Div'l fly away with you,' thought Jack, ' but you're fond 
 of music, you vagabond.' 
 
 " The next morning Jack was going round and round the 
 lake, tiying about the edge of it if he could find any place 
 shallow enough to wade in ; but he might as well go to wade 
 the say, and, what was worse of all, if he attempted to swim, 
 it would be like a tailor's goose straight to the bottom ; so 
 he kept himself safe on dry land, still expecting a visit from 
 the 'lovely crathur,' but, bedad, his good luck failed him for 
 wanst ; for, instead of seeing her coming over to him, so mild 
 and sweet, who does he obsarve steering, at a dog's trot, but 
 his ould friend the smoking cur. ' Confusion to that cur,' says 
 Jack to himself; ' I know now there's some bad fortune before 
 me, or he wouldn't be coming acrass me.' 
 
 " ' Come home to your breakfast, Jack/ says the dog, walk- 
 ing up to him ; 'it's breakfast-time.' 
 
 " ' Ay/ says Jack, scratching his head ; ' it's no great matter 
 whether I do or not, for I bleeve my head's hardly worth a 
 flat-dutch cabbage at the present speaking.' 
 
 " ' Why, man, it was never worth so much/ says the baste, 
 pulling out his pipe and putting it in his mouth, when it lit 
 at once. 
 
 " ' Take care of yourself/ says Jack, quite desperate for 
 he thought he was near the end of his tether ' take care of 
 yourself, you dirty cur, or maybe I might take a gintleman's 
 toe from the nape of your neck.' 
 
 " ' You had better keep a straight tongue in your head,'
 
 46 THE THREE TASKS 
 
 says four legs, 'while it's on your shoulders, or I'll break 
 every bone in your skin. Jack, you're a fool,' says he, check- 
 ing himself, and speaking kindly to him ' you're a fool ; 
 didn't I tell you the other day to do what you were bid, and 
 keep never minding ? ' 
 
 " ' Well/ thought Jack to himself, ' there's no use in making 
 him any more my enemy than he is particularly as I'm in 
 such a hobble.' 
 
 " ' You lie,' says the dog, as if Jack had spoken out to him, 
 wherein he only thought the words to himself ' You lie,' says 
 he ; ' I'm not, nor never was, your enemy, if you knew but all.' 
 
 " ' I beg your honour's pardon,' answers Jack, ' for being so 
 smart with your honour ; but, bedad, if you were in my case 
 if you expected your master to roast you alive eat his 
 dinner off your body make you sing the " Black Joke " by 
 way of music for him ; and, to crown all, knew that your head 
 was to be stuck upon a hook after maybe you would be a 
 little short in your temper as well as your neighbours.' 
 
 " ' Take heart, Jack,' says the other, laying his fore-claw as 
 knowingly as ever along his nose, and winking slyly at Jack ; 
 ' didn't 1 tell you that you have a friend in coort ? The day's 
 not past yet ; so cheer up ; who knows but there is luck 
 before you still ? ' 
 
 " ' Why, thin,' says Jack, getting a little cheerful, and 
 wishing to crack a joke with him, ' but your honour's very 
 fond of the pipe ! ' 
 
 " ' Oh ! don't you know, Jack,' says he, ' that that's the 
 fashion at present among my tribe : sure, all my brother 
 puppies smoke now, and a man might as well be out of the 
 world as out of the fashion, you know.' 
 
 " When they drew near home they got quite thick entirely. 
 ' Now,' says Jack, in a good-humoured way, ' if you can give 
 me a lift in robbing this crane's nest, do ; at any rate, I'm 
 sure your honour won't be my enemy. I know you have too 
 much good nature in your face to be one that wouldn't help 
 a lame dog over a stile that is,' says he, taking himself 
 up for fear of offending the other, ' I'm sure you'd be always 
 inclined to help the weak side.' 
 
 " ' Thank you for the compliment/ says the dog ; ' but 
 didn't I tell you that you have a friend in coort?'
 
 THE THREE TASKS 47 
 
 "When Jack went back to the lake, he could only sit and 
 look sorrowfully at the tree, or walk about the edge of it, 
 without being able to do anything else. He spent the whole 
 day this-a-way till dinner-time, when what would you have 
 of it but he sees the ' darling ' coming out to him, as fair and 
 as blooming as an angel. His heart, you may be sure, got up 
 to his mouth, for he knew she would be apt to take him out 
 of his difficulties. When she came up 
 
 " ' Now, Jack,' says she, ' there is not a minute to be lost, 
 for I'm watched ; and if it's discovered that I gave you any 
 assistance we will be both destroyed.' 
 
 " ' Oh, murther, shcery ! ' says Jack, ' fly back, avourneen 
 machree ; for, rather than anything should happen you, I'd lose 
 fifty lives.' 
 
 " ' No,' says she ; ' I think I'll be able to get you over this, 
 as well as the rest ; so have a good heart and be faithful/ 
 
 " ( That's it,' replied Jack ' that's it, acushla my own cor- 
 recthur to a shaving ; I've a heart worth its weight in bank- 
 notes, and a more faithful boy isn't alive this day nor I am to 
 yees all, ye darlings of the world.' 
 
 " She then pulled a small white wand out of her pocket, 
 struck the lake, and there was the prettiest green ridge across 
 it to the foot of the tree that ever eye beheld. ' Now,' says 
 she, turning her back to Jack, and stooping down to do 
 something that he couldn't see, ' take these, put them against 
 the tree, and you will have steps to carry you to the top ; 
 but be sure, for your life and mine, not to forget any of them ; 
 if you do, my life will be taken to-morrow morning, for your 
 master puts on my slippers with his own hands.' 
 
 " Jack was now going to swear that he would give up the 
 whole thing, and surrender his head at once ; but when he 
 looked at her feet and saw no appeai'ance of blood, he went 
 over without more to do, and robbed the nest, taking down 
 the eggs one by one, that he mightn't break them. There 
 was no end to his joy as he secured the last egg. He instantly 
 took down the toes, one after another, save and except the 
 little one of the left foot, which, in his joy and hurry, he 
 forgot entirely. He then returned by the green ridge to the 
 shore, and according as he went along it melted away into 
 the water behind him.
 
 48 THE THREE TASKS 
 
 " ' Jack/ says the charmer, ' I hope you forgot none of 
 ray toes.' 
 
 " ' Is it me ? ' says Jack, quite sure that he had them all. 
 ' Arrah, catch any one from my country makin' a blunder of 
 that kind.' 
 
 " ' Well/ says she, ' let us see.' So, taking the toes, she 
 placed them on again, just as if they had never been off. 
 But, lo and behold ! on coming to the last of the left foot, it 
 wasn't forthcoming. ' O Jack, Jack ! ' says she, ' you have 
 destroyed me ; to-morrow morning your master will notice 
 the want of this toe, and that instant I'll be put to death.' 
 
 " ' Lave that to me/ says Jack ; ' by the powers, you won't 
 lose a drop of your darling blood for it. Have you got a 
 penknife about you ? and I'll soon show you how you won't.' 
 
 " ' What do you want with the knife ? ' she inquired. 
 
 " ' What do I want with it ? why, to give you the best 
 toe on both my feet, for the one I lost on you. Do you 
 think I'd suffer you to want a toe, and I have ten thumping 
 ones at your sarvice ! I'm not the man, you beauty, you, 
 for such a shabby trick as that comes to.' 
 
 " ' But you forget/ says the lady, who was a little cooler 
 than Jack, ' that none of yours would fit me.' 
 
 " * And must you die to-morrow, acmhla ? ' asked Jack, in 
 desperation. 
 
 " ' As sure as the sun rises/ answered the lady ; ' for your 
 master would know at once that it was by my toes the nest 
 was robbed.' 
 
 " ' By the powers/ observed Jack, ' he's one of the greatest 
 ould vag I mane, isn't he a terrible man, out and out, for 
 a father ? ' 
 
 " ' Father ! ' says the darling ' he's not my father, Jack ; 
 he only wishes to marry me, and if I'm not able to outdo him 
 before three days more, it's decreed that he must have me.' 
 
 " When Jack heard this, surely the Irishman must come out ; 
 there he stood, and began to wipe his eyes with the skirt of 
 his coat, making as if he was crying, the thief of the world. 
 
 " ' What's the matter with you ? ' she asked. 
 
 " ' Ah ! ' says Jack, ' you darling, I couldn't find in my 
 heart to desave you : for I have no way at home to keep a 
 lady like you, in proper style, at all, at all ; I would only
 
 THE THREE TASKS 49 
 
 bring you into poverty ; and since you wish to know what 
 ails me, I'm vexed that I'm not rich for your sake, and next, 
 that that thieving ould villain's to have you ; and, by the 
 powers, I'm crying for both these misfortunes together.' 
 
 " The lady couldn't help being touched and plaised with 
 Jack's tinderness and ginerosity ; so, says she, ' Don't be cast 
 down, Jack; come or go what will, I won't marry him I'd 
 die first. Do you go home, as usual ; but take care and 
 don't sleep at all this night. Saddle the wild filly meet me 
 under the whitethorn bush at the end of the lawn, and we'll 
 both leave him for ever. If you're willing to marry me, don't 
 let poverty distress you, for I have more money than we'll 
 know what to do with.' 
 
 " Jack's voice now began to tremble in earnest, with down- 
 right love and tinderness, as good right it had ; so he promised 
 to do everything just as she bid him, and then went home 
 with a dacent appetite enough to his supper. 
 
 " You may be sure the ould fellow looked darker and 
 grimmer than ever at Jack ; but what could he do ? Jack 
 had done his duty ; so he sat before the fire, and sung 
 ' Love among the Roses ' and the ' Black Joke,' with a stouter 
 and lighter heart than ever, while the black chap could have 
 seen him skivered. 
 
 "When midnight came, Jack, who kept a hawk's eye to 
 the night, was at the hawthorn with the wild filly, saddled 
 and all more betoken, she wasn't a bit wild then, but as 
 tame as a dog. Off they set, like Erin-go-bragh, Jack and 
 the lady, and never pulled bridle till it was one o'clock next 
 day, when they stopped at an inn and had some refreshment. 
 They then took the road again, full speed ; however, they 
 hadn't gone far, when they heard a great noise behind them, 
 and the tramp of horses galloping like mad. ' Jack,' says 
 the darling, on hearing the hubbub, 'look behind you, and 
 see what's this.' 
 
 " ' Och ! by the elevens,' says Jack, ' we're done at last ; 
 it's the dark fellow, and half the country, after us.' 
 
 " ' Put your hand,' says she, ' in the filly's right ear, and tell 
 me what you find in it.' 
 
 " ' Nothing at all, at all,' says Jack, ' but a tvheeshy bit of 
 a dry stick.' 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 50 THE THREE TASKS 
 
 " ' Throw it over your left shoulder/ says she, ' and see what 
 will happen.' 
 
 " Jack did so at once, and there was a great grove of thick 
 trees growing so close to one another that a dandy could 
 scarcely get his arm betwixt them. 
 
 " ' Now/ said she, ' we are safe for another day.' 
 
 "'Well/ said Jack, as he pushed on the filly, 'you're the 
 jewel of the world, sure enough ; and maybe it's you that 
 won't live happy when we get to the Jim of the Ocean.' 
 
 "As soon as the dark-face saw what happened, he was 
 obliged to scour the country for hatchets and hand-saws, and 
 all kinds of sharp instruments, to hew himself and his men 
 a passage through the grove. As the saying goes, many 
 hands make light work, and, sure enough, it wasn't long till 
 they had cleared a way for themselves, thick as it was, and 
 set off with double speed after Jack and the lady. 
 
 "The next day, about one o'clock, he and she were after 
 taking another small refreshment of roast-beef and portlier, 
 and pushing on, as before, when they heard the same tramp- 
 ing behind them, only it was ten times louder. 
 
 " ' Here they are again/ says Jack ; ' and I'm afeard they'll 
 come up with us at last.' 
 
 " ' If they do/ says she, ' they'll put us to death on the 
 spot ; but we must try somehow to stop them another day, 
 if we can : search the filly's right ear again, and let me know 
 what you find in it.' 
 
 "Jack pulled out a little three-cornered pebble, telling 
 her that it was all he got. 
 
 " ' Well/ says she, ' throw it over your left shoulder like the 
 stick.' 
 
 " No sooner said than done ; and there was a great chain 
 of high, sharp rocks in the Avay of divil-face and all his clan. 
 ' Now/ says she, 'we have gained another day.' 
 
 " ' Tundher-and-turf ! ' says Jack, ' what's this for, at all, at 
 all ?- but wait till I get you in the Imerald Isle, for this, and if 
 you don't enjoy happy days anyhow, why, I'm not sitting before 
 you on this horse, by the same token that it's not a horse at all, 
 but a filly though: if you don't get the hoith of good aiting and 
 drinking lashings of the best wine and whisky that the land 
 can afford, my name's not Jack. We'll build a castle, and
 
 THE THREE TASKS 51 
 
 you'll have upstairs and downstairs a coach and six to ride 
 in lots of servants to attend on you, and full and plinty of 
 everything ; not to mintion hem ! not to mintion that 
 you'll have a husband that the fairest lady in the land might 
 be proud of/ says he, stretching himself up in the saddle, 
 and giving the filly a jag of the spurs, to show off a bit ; al- 
 though the coaxing rogue knew that the money which was 
 to do all this was her own. At any rate, they spent the re- 
 mainder of this day pleasantly enough, still moving on, 
 though, as fast as they could. Jack, every now and then, 
 would throw an eye behind, as if to watch their pursuers, 
 wherein, if the truth was known, it was to get a peep at the 
 beautiful glowing face and warm lips that were breathing all 
 kinds of Jraagrancies about him. I'll warrant he didn't envy 
 the King upon his throne when he felt the honeysuckle of 
 her breath, like the smell of Father Ned's orchard there of a 
 May morning. 
 
 " When Fardorougha l found the great chain of rocks 
 before him, you may set it down that he was likely to blow 
 up with vexation ; but, for all that, the first thing he blew up 
 was the rocks ; and that he might lose little or no time in 
 doing it, he collected all the gunpowder and crowbars, spades 
 and pickaxes, that could be found for miles about him, and 
 set to it, working as if it was with inch of candle. For half 
 a day there was nothing but boring and splitting, and driving 
 of iron wedges, and blowing up pieces of rocks as big as little 
 houses, until, by hard labour, they made a passage for them- 
 selves sufficient to carry them over. They then set off again, 
 full speed ; and great advantage they had over the poor filly 
 that Jack and the lady rode on, for their horses were well 
 rested, and hadn't to carry double, like Jack's. The next 
 day they spied Jack and his beautiful companion just about 
 a quarter of a mile before them. 
 
 " ' Now,' says dark-brow, ' I'll make any man's fortune for 
 ever that will bring me them two, either living or dead, but, 
 if possible, alive ; so, spur on, for whoever secures them is a 
 made man but, above all things, make no noise.' 
 
 " It was now divil take the hindmost among the bloody 
 pack every spur was red with blood, and every horse 
 
 1 The dark man.
 
 52 THE THREE TASKS 
 
 smoking. Jack and the lady were jogging on acrass a green 
 field, not suspecting that the rest were so near them, and 
 talking over the pleasant days they would spind together in 
 Ireland, when they hears the hue-and-cry once more at their 
 very heels. 
 
 " ' Quick as lightning, Jack,' says she, ' or we're lost the 
 right ear and the left shoulder, like thought they're not 
 three lengths of the filly from us ! ' 
 
 "But Jack knew his business; for just as a long, grim- 
 looking villain, with a great rusty rapier in his hand, A\;IS 
 within a single leap of them, and quite sure of either killing 
 or making prisoners of them both, Jack flings a little drop 
 of green water, that he got in the filly's ear, over his left 
 shoulder, and in an instant there was a deep, dark gulf, filled 
 with black, pitchy-looking water, between them. The lady 
 now desired Jack to pull up the filly a bit, till they would see 
 what would become of the dark fellow; but, just as they 
 turned round, the ould nager set spurs to his horse, and, in 
 a fit of desperation, plunged himself, horse and all, into the 
 gulf, and was never seen or heard of more. The rest that 
 wei*e 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 bloodthirsty 
 ould villain got what he desarved so richly, he was as happy 
 as a prince, and ten times happier than most of them as the 
 world goes, 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 was the right sort of a woman : ' all our dangers are 
 now over at least, all yours are ; regarding myself/ says 
 she, 'there is a trial before me yet, and that trial, Jack, 
 depends upon your faithfulness and constancy.' 
 
 "'On me, is it? Och, then, murder! isn't it a poor case 
 entirely, that I have no way of showing you that you may 
 depend your life upon me, only by telling you so ? ' 
 
 " ' 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 man.'
 
 THE THREE TASKS 53 
 
 " 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 
 that time ; still, he knew she was truth to the backbone, 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 ' 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 no end to Jack's good-humour when he crossed 
 the Shannon ; and she was not a bit displased to see him so 
 happy. They had now no enemies to fear, were in a civilised 
 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 end 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 living thing touch your lips 
 till you come back to me, or you'll forget that you ever saw 
 me, and I'll be left poor and friendless in a strange country.' 
 
 ' Why, thin, manim asthee hit,' says Jack, ' but 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, 
 anyhow, and, without either doubt or disparagement, there 
 was a cleft 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 daceiit column 
 of smoke rowling from the chimbley.
 
 54 THE THREE TASKS 
 
 " ' Well/ thought he, ' 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 slightest 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 
 the money not he, avick ! that stuck to him like 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 a while, he made a 
 trial to let her know what had happened him, but he disre- 
 membered it all, except 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 her ever to trust 
 a woman with a sacret when he could avoid it. 
 
 " Now, everybody 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 windies 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 windies 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 desarve to have three hundred and 
 sixty-five. Along with all this, he bought coaches and 
 carriages, and didn't get proud, like many other beggarly 
 upstarts, 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 teachers, men of deep laming, from Dublin,
 
 THE THREE TASKS 55 
 
 acquainted with all subjects ; and, as his own abilities were 
 bright, he soon became a very great scholar entirely, and was 
 able, in the long-run, to outdo all his tutherers. 
 
 " In this way he lived for some years was now a man of 
 great larning himself could spake the seven langwidges, and 
 it would delight your ears to hear how high-flown and Engli- 
 fied 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, wher- 
 ever he got it, it couldn't be in better hands. At last he 
 began 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 pleasant, 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 ; 
 accordingly, 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 that ' 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 speak now, and, after a little more fanning 
 and blushing, by jingo, she consinted. 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 ould 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.
 
 56 THE THREE TASKS 
 
 Magennis, and declares upon her honour that she couldn't 
 bear the thoughts of having the delicacy of her feeling 
 offinded by these things.' 
 
 " ' Good-morning to you both/ says Jack, like an honest 
 fellow as he was. ' If she doesn't marry me except on these 
 conditions, give her my compliments, and tell her our court- 
 ship 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 
 nothing a-wanting to make everything 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 there never was seen 
 such grand preparations : bullocks, and hogs, and sheep were 
 roasted whole kegs of whisky, both Roscrea and Innishowen, 
 barrels of ale and beer, were there in dozens. All descrip- 
 tions 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 were 
 present 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 wedding 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 was ever anything else than 
 a born gintleman ; and, what was more to his credit, he had his
 
 THE THREE TASKS 57 
 
 kind ould mother sitting beside the bride, to tache her that 
 an honest person, though poorly born, is company for the 
 King. As soon as the breakfast was served up, they all set 
 to, and maybe the vaarious kinds of eatables did not pay for 
 it ; and amongst all this cutting and thrusting, no doubt but 
 it was remarked that the bride herself was behindhand 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 manners 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 likes to 
 see fun in the way, particularly of that sort. The priest him- 
 self 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 rale windfall to him, and the parson that 
 was to marry them after him bekase, you persave, a Protestant 
 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 neither of them was a drop's blood 
 to him. 
 
 "However, he pulled out the book, and was just be 
 ginning to buckle them, when in comes Jack's ould acquaint- 
 ance, 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 coorse, 
 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, instead of a pipe, out of his pocket, he put it in his 
 mouth, and began to smoke for the bare life of him. And,
 
 58 THE THREE TASKS 
 
 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 tundherstruck. 
 
 " ' 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 command you, in the name of all the saints/ says 
 Father Flanagan, 'to disappear from among us, and never 
 become visible to any one in this house again.' 
 
 "'The sorra 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 
 spaking dog might be after fright'ning 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 neai'er 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. 
 
 " ' 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 daylight, in 
 the shape of a dog.' 
 
 " ' You had better behave yourself, I say again,' says the 
 dog, ' or if you make me speak, by my honour as a gintleman, 
 I'll expose you. I say, you won't marry the same two, neither
 
 THE THREE TASKS 59 
 
 this nor any other day, and I'll give you my rasons presently ; 
 but I repate it, Father Flanagan, if you compel me to speak, 
 I'll make you look nine 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.' 
 
 " ' Yes, I'm trimbling/ says the dog : ' 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, put his nose to the priest's ear, and whispers 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, faix, 
 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 tundherstruck, crossed himself, 
 and was, no doubt of it, in great perplexity. 
 
 " ' I say it's false,' says Father Flanagan, plucking up 
 courage ; ' but you know you're a liar, and the father of 
 liars.' 
 
 " ' As thrue as gospel, this bout, I tell you/ says the dog. 
 
 " ' Wait till I make my holy wather/ says the priest, ' and 
 if I don't cork you in a thumb bottle for this, I'm not here.' 
 
 "'You're better at uncorking,' says the dog 'better at 
 relasing spirits than confining them.' 
 
 " Just at this minute the whole company sees a gintleman 
 galloping 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, 
 remembered 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 seemed as if 
 she would sink outright ; and when he walked up to her, to 
 ax what was the meaning of what he saw, why, down she 
 drops at once fainted clane. The gintleman then went up
 
 60 THE THREE TASKS 
 
 to Jack, and says, 'Sir, was this lady about to be married 
 to you ? ' 
 
 " ' Sartinly,' says Jack ; ' we were going to be yoked in the 
 blessed and holy tackle of mathrimony/ or some high-flown 
 words of that kind. 
 
 " ' Well, sir,' says the other back to him, ' 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 regi- 
 ment before it Avent 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 had the 
 bride in his arms, giving her a little sup of whisky to bring 
 her to, you persave, he couldn't make him an answer. How- 
 ever, she soon came to herself, and, on opening her eyes, 
 ' Oh ! hide me, hide me ! ' says she, ' for I can't bear to look 
 011 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. e I can't deny it ; and, by 
 tare-an-ounty ! ' says she, 'I'm unworthy to be either his wife 
 or yours ; for, except I marry you both, I dunna how to settle 
 this affair between you at all oh, murther sheery ! but I'm 
 the misfortunate crathur entirely.' 
 
 " ' Well,' says Jack to the officer, ' 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 himself off. ' 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 an.' 
 
 " ' No,' says she, ' never ; I'm not worthy of him, at all, at 
 all ! Tundher-an-age, 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.
 
 THE THREE TASKS 61 
 
 " ' Well,' says he, ' I'm still willing to many you, particularly 
 as you feel conthrition 
 
 " He should have said contrition, confession, and satisfac- 
 tion/' observed Father Peter. 
 
 " Pether, will you keep your theology to yourself," replied 
 Father Ned, "and let us come to the plot without interruption." 
 
 "Plot!" exclaimed Father Peter. "I'm sure it's no rebellion, 
 that there should be a plot in it, any way ! " 
 
 " Tace" said Father Ned " tace, and that's Latin for a 
 candle." 
 
 " I deny that," said the curate ; " tace is the imperative 
 mood from taceo, to keep silent. Taceo, taces, tacui, tacere, 
 tacendi, iacendo, tac 
 
 " Ned, go on with your story, and never mind that deep 
 laming of his he's almost cracked with it," said the superior : 
 " go on, and never mind him." 
 
 " ' Well/ says he, ' I'm still willing to marry you, particu- 
 larly as you feel conthrition for what you were going to do.' 
 So, with this, they all gother about her, and, as the officer 
 was a fine fellow himself, prevailed upon her to let the marriage 
 be performed, and they were accordingly spliced as fast as his 
 reverence could make them. 
 
 " ' Now, Jack/ says the dog, ' I want to spake with you for 
 a minute it's a word for your own ear.' So he stands up on 
 his two hind legs, and purtinded to be whisp'ring something 
 to him ; but what do you think ? he gives him the slightest 
 touch on the lips with his paw, and that instant Jack remim- 
 bered the lady and everything that happened betune them. 
 
 " ' Tell me this instant/ says Jack, seizing him by the 
 throath, ' where's the darling, at all, at all ? ' 
 
 "Jack spoke finer nor this, to be sure; but, as I can't give 
 his tall English, the sorra one of me will bother myself striv- 
 ing 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 
 minutes comes in again, leading along with him, on the one 
 side, the loveliest lady that ever eye beheld, and the dog, 
 that was her brother, now metamurphied into a beautiful, 
 illegant gintleman, on the other.
 
 62 THE THREE TASKS 
 
 " ' Father Flanagan/ says Jack, ' you thought a while ago 
 you'd have no marriage, but instead of that you'll have a 
 brace of them ; ' up and telling the company, 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. 
 
 " Whin the gintlemen heard this, as they were all Irish- 
 men, you may be sure there was nothing but huzzaing and 
 throwing up of hats from them, and waving of hankerchers 
 from the ladies. Well, my dear, the wedding dinner was ate 
 in great style ; the nobleman promised no disgrace to his 
 rank 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, beautiful, and 
 modest as your own sweetheart, was getting tired after the 
 dancing ; Jack, too, though much stouter, wished for a triHe 
 of repose, and many thought 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 upstairs, and had reached 
 the first landing, when he hears a voice at his ear shouting, 
 ' Jack, Jack Jack Magennis ! ' Jack could have spitted 
 anybody for coming to disturb him at such a criticality. 
 ' 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 summer'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. 
 
 " ' Oh ! by this and by that, mother,' says Jack, ' what did 
 you waken me for ? ' 
 
 " ' Jack, avourneen,' says the mother, ' sure and you war lying 
 grunting, and groaning, and snifthering there, for all the 
 world as if you had the colic ; and I only nudged you for fraid 
 you war in pain.' 
 
 " ' I wouldn't for a thousand guineas,' says Jack, ' that ever 
 you wakened me, at all, at all ; but whisht, mother, go into 
 the house, and I'll be afther you in less than no time.' 
 
 "The mother went in, and the first thing Jack did was
 
 THE THREE TASKS 63 
 
 to try the rock, and, sure enough, there he found as much 
 money as made him the richest man that ever was in the 
 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 
 castle on a spot near it, where he could always have it under 
 his eye, to prevent him from getting proud. In the coorse 
 of time, a harper, hearing the story, composed a tune upon 
 it which everybody knows is called the ' Little House under 
 the Hill ' to this day, beginning with 
 
 ' Hi for it, ho for it, hi for it still ; 
 Och, and whoo ! your sowl hi for the little house under the hill ! ' 
 
 " So you see that was the way the great Magennises first 
 came by their wealth, and all because Jack was industrious, 
 and an obadient, dutiful, tindher son to his helpless ould 
 mother ; and well he desarved what he got, ershi misha. 1 
 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 or less than a downright cur, that deserved the lash 
 nine times a day, if it was only for his want of respect to 
 the 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 astonishment. 
 
 " Paddy," said he 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 awoke. " Sir," said Father 
 Ned, " you missed an amusing story in consequence of your 
 somnolency." 
 
 " Though I missed the story," replied the stranger, " I 
 was happy enough to hear your friend's critique upon the 
 dog." 
 
 Father Ned seemed embarrassed. The curate, on the con- 
 trary, exclaimed with triumph, "But wasn't I right, sir?" 
 
 1 Say I.
 
 64 THE THREE TASKS 
 
 " Perfectly," said the stranger ; " the moral you applied 
 was excellent." 
 
 " Good-night, boys," said Father Ned " good-night, Mr. 
 Longinus Polysyllabus Alexandrinus ! " 
 
 "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 Polysyllabus 
 Alexandrinus ! " 
 
 " Good-night," replied the stranger ; " good-night, Doctor 
 Ned hem! Doctor Edward Deleery; and good -night, 
 Dr. 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 evening. 
 
 After they had separated, Ned, whose curiosity respecting 
 the stranger was by no means satisfied, began to sift him in 
 his own peculiar manner as they both sat at the fire. 
 
 " Well, sir," said Ned, " barring the long playacther that 
 tumbles upon the big stage in the street of our market- 
 town here below, I haven't seen so long a man this many a 
 day; and, barring your big whiskers, the sorra one of your 
 honour's unlike him. A fine portly vagabone he is, indeed 
 a big man; and a bigger rogue, they say, for he j>ays 
 nobody." 
 
 " Have you got such a company in your neighbourhood : " 
 inquired the stranger, with indifference. 
 
 "We have, sir," said Ned; "but, plase goodness, they'll 
 soon be lashed like hounds from the place the town boys 
 are preparing to give them a chivey some fine morning out of 
 the country." 
 
 " Indeed ! he hem ! that will be very spirited of the 
 town boys," said the stranger dryly. 
 
 " That's a smart-looking horse your honour rides," observed 
 Ned ; " did he cam- you far to-day, with submission ? " 
 
 " Not far," replied his companion " only fourteen miles. 
 But, I suppose, the fact is, you wish to know who and what 
 I am, where I came from, and whither I am going. Well, 
 you shall know this. In the first place, I am agent to Lord 
 Non- Resident's estate, if you ever heard of that nobleman,
 
 THE THREE TASKS 65 
 
 and I am on my way from Castle Ruin, the seat of his lord- 
 ship's encumbrances, to Dublin. My name you have already 
 heard. Are you now satisfied ? " 
 
 " Parfitly, your honour/' replied Ned, " and I'm much 
 obliged to you, sir." 
 
 "I trust you are an honest man," said the stranger; "be- 
 cause, for this night, I am about to place great confidence in 
 you." 
 
 " Well, sir," said his landlord, " if I turn out dishonest to 
 you, it's more nor I did in my whole life to anybody else, 
 barring to Nancy." 
 
 " Here, then," said the stranger, drawing out a large 
 packet, enclosed in a roll of black leather, " here is the half- 
 year's rent of the estate, together with my own property; 
 keep it secure till morning, when I shall demand it, and, of 
 course, it will be safe ? " 
 
 " As if it was five fadom under ground," replied Ned. " I 
 Avill put it along with our own trifle of silver ; and after that, 
 let Nancy alone for keeping it safe so long as it's there ! " 
 saying which, Ned secured the packet, and showed the 
 stranger his bed. 
 
 About five o'clock the next morning their guest was up, 
 and ordered a snack in all haste. " Being a military man," 
 said he, "and accustomed to timely hours, I shall ride down 
 to the town, and put a letter into the post-office in time for 
 the Dublin mail, after which you may expect me to breakfast. 
 But, in the meantime, I am not to go with empty pockets," 
 he added, when mounting his horse at the door. " Bring me 
 silver, landlord, and be quick." 
 
 " How much, plase your honour ? " 
 
 " Twenty or thirty shillings ; but, harkee, produce my 
 packet, that I may be certain my property is safe." 
 
 " Here it is, your honour, safe and sound," replied Ned ; 
 " and Nancy, sir, has sent you all the silver she has, which 
 was one pound five ; but I'd take it as a favour if your honour 
 would be contint with twenty shillings, and lave me the 
 other five ; for you see the case is this, sir, plase your honour, 
 she" and Ned, with a shrewd humorous nod, pointed with 
 his thumb over his shoulder as he spoke "she wears the 
 what you know, sir." 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 66 THE THREE TASKS 
 
 " Ay, I thought so," replied the stranger ; " but a man of 
 your size, to be hen-pecked, must be a great knave, otherwise 
 your wife would allow you more liberty. Go in, man ; you 
 deserve no compassion in such an age of freedom as this. I 
 shan't give you a farthing till after nay return, and only then 
 if it be agreeable to your wife." 
 
 " Murdher ! " said Ned, astonished. " I beg your honour's 
 pardon ; murdher alive, sir, where's your whiskers ? " 
 
 The stranger put his hand hastily to his face, and smiled. 
 " Where are my whiskers ? Why, shaved off, to be sure," he 
 replied ; and setting spurs to his horse, was soon out of sight 
 and hearing. 
 
 It was nearly a month after that when Ned and Nancy, 
 in presence of Father Deleery, opened the packet, and di<- 
 covered, not the half year's rent of Lord Non-Resident's 
 estate, but a large sheaf of play-bills packed up together 
 their guest having been the identical person to whom N\-d 
 affirmed he bore so strong a resemblance.
 
 SHANE FADH'S 1 WEDDING 
 
 ON the following evening the neighbours were soon 
 assembled about Ned's hearth, in the same manner as 
 on the night preceding. 
 
 And we may observe, by the way, that although there was 
 a due admixture of opposite creeds and conflicting principles, 
 yet even then, and the time is not so far back, such was their 
 cordiality of heart and simplicity of manners, when contrasted 
 with the bitter and rancorous spirit of the present day, that 
 the very remembrance of the 'harmony in which they lived is 
 at once pleasing and melancholy. 
 
 After some preliminary chat " Well, Shane," said Andy 
 Morrow, addressing Shane Fadh, " will you give us an account 
 of your wedding ? I'm told it was the greatest let-out that 
 ever was in this country, before or since." 
 
 " And you 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 dashing one; 
 however, it's your own we want. Come, Nancy, fill these 
 measures again, and let us be comfortable, at all events, and 
 give Shane a double one, for talking'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 his teeth, closed the box, and 
 commenced the story of his wedding. 
 
 " When I was a Brine-Oge," 2 said Shane, " I was as wild as 
 an unbroken cowlt no divilment was too hard for me ; and 
 so signs 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 
 
 1 Shane Fadh means Long John. 
 
 2 A young man full of fun and frolic. 
 
 67
 
 68 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 
 
 that of other people ; but, anyway, 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 Cuillenan, 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 before 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 rise 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 Bealcam l Doherty that 
 joined me in ploughing that year, and I was vexed not to 
 take all I could out of him, for he was a raal Turk himself. 
 
 " I disremimber 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 Lariy Tracy, our servant 
 boy, between the two eyes with it, although the crathur was 
 ating his dinner quietly forenent 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 upsetting, 
 conceited 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 
 wildfire. 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 110 putting the likes of him 
 
 1 Bealcam or Cam Beal (crooked mouth) is the modern name of 
 Campbell, corrupted. The first Campbell got the name on account of 
 his wry or crooked mouth, just as the first Cameron was called by that 
 name by reason of his crooked nose.
 
 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 69 
 
 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 almost 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 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, arid 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 talking, and 
 telling the ould couple that as he came over on his Jcailyee 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 stocken up beside her little brother 
 Michael, and chatting to the gorsoon, for fraid that Cuillenan 
 might think she paid him any attention. When Dick got along- 
 side of her, he began, of coorse, to pull out her needles and 
 spoil her knitting, as is customary before the young people 
 come to close spaking. Mary, howsomever, 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 am 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 some time.' x 
 
 " ' Then/ says Dick, ' whoever does that must marry me.' 
 
 1 It is no unusual thing in Ireland for a country girl to repulse a 
 fellow whom she thinks beneath her, if not by a flat at least by a 
 flattening refusal ; nor is it seldom that the " argumentum fistycuffium " 
 is resorted to on such occasions. I have more than once seen a dis- 
 agreeable 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.
 
 70 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 
 
 " ' And them that gets you will have a prize to brag of/ 
 says she. ' Stop yourself, Cuillenan ; single your freedom and 
 double your distance, if you plase ; I'll cut my coat of no 
 such cloth.' 
 
 " ' Well, Mary,' says he, ' maybe, if you don't, as good 
 will ; but you 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. 
 1 Very well,' says Dick, ' off you go ; but 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. In the mane- 
 time, 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, ' I don't 
 wish you anything else than good luck and happiness ; but, 
 as to Mary, she's not for you herself, nor would it be a good 
 match between the families at all. Mary is to have her 
 grandfather's sixty guineas, and the two ?noitlleens l that her 
 uncle Jack left her four years ago has brought her a good 
 stock for any farm. Now, 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,' 2 that I'd let 
 my daughter go 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 guineas where you could hardly 
 find shillings.' 
 
 (( f Very well, Susy,' says Dick, nettled enough, as he well 
 might; 'I say to you, just as I say 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 
 
 1 Cows without horns. 
 
 2 Esker is a high ridge of land.
 
 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 71 
 
 wedding, but, instead of that, it's Dick Cuillenan's history 
 you're 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 undacent drop was in 
 him, or he'd never have brought the bottle out of the house 
 at all ; but, faith, he riz up, put the whisky in his pocket, 
 and went home with a face on him as black as my hat with 
 venom. Well, things passed on till the Christmas following, 
 when one night, after the Finigans had all gone to bed, there 
 comes a crowd of fellows 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 
 smithereens. The family, of coorse, were all alarmed ; but 
 somehow 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 herself in the 
 daughter's. 
 
 " In the manetime, Finigan got up, and, after lighting a 
 candle, opened the door at once. ' Come, Finigan,' says a 
 strange voice, ' put out the candle, except you wish to make 
 a candlestick of the thatch,' says he ' 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 minute 
 they rushed -in, and went as straight as a rule to Mary's bed. 
 The mother all the time lay close, and never 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 obliged to travel but not till she had left many of them 
 marks to remimber her by ; among the rest, Dick himself 
 got his nose split on his face with the stroke of a churnstaiF, 
 so that he carried half a nose on each cheek till the day of 
 his death. 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 direction ; for Dick 
 thought, that if there was any one in the parish likely to be 
 set down for it, it was me.
 
 72 SHANE FADFTS WEDDING 
 
 " When Susy found they were for putting her behind one 
 of them on a horse, she rebelled again, and it took near a 
 dozen of boys to hoist her up ; but one vagabone of them, 
 that had a rusty broad-sword in his hand, gave her a skelp 
 with the flat side of it that subdued her at once, and off they 
 went. Now, above all 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 whisky 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 after the mother on the 
 same horse 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 l on her, and she couldn't live at all 
 without me. But I was something for a woman to look at 
 then, anyhow, 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 Crocknagooran 
 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 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, uiiknownst 
 to the father, we agreed to make a runaway match of it 
 appointed my uncle, Brian Slevin's, as the house we'd go to. 
 
 1 Comedher come hither alluding to the burden of an old love 
 charm which is still used by the young of both sexes on May morning. 
 It is a literal translation of the Irish word gutsho.
 
 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 73 
 
 The next Sunday was the day appointed ; so I had my uncle's 
 family prepared, and sent two gallons of whisky, 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 my- 
 self hardly knows what to make of it. It's I that did dote 
 night and day upon that girl ; and indeed there was them 
 that could have seen me in Jimmaiky for her sake, for she 
 was the beauty of the county, not to say of the parish, for 
 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 roof. And when I'd think of it, 
 how my heart would bounce to my throat with downright joy 
 and delight. The mother had made us promise not to meet 
 till Sunday, for fraid of the father 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 promised 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 the green at 
 St. Patrick's Chair, where the boys and girls met 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 1 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 looking on, and smiling like an angel, when 
 I'd lave them 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, ' acushla machree, 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 
 aspen lafe, ' I'm going to trust myself with you for ever 
 for ever, Shane, avounieen ' and her sweet voice broke into 
 purty murmurs as she spoke ; ' whether for happiness or sorrow, 
 God He only knows. I can bear poverty and distress, sick- 
 ness and want, with you, but I can't bear to think that you
 
 74 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 
 
 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 promises 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 weren't dry, 
 although I felt no sorrow, but but I never forgot that 
 night and I never will." 
 
 He now paused a few minutes, being too much affected to 
 proceed. 
 
 " Poor Shane," said Nancy in a whisper to Andy Morrow, 
 " 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 before company, that she died only 
 yestherday but indeed it's he that was always the kind- 
 hearted, affectionate man ; and a better husband never broke 
 bread." 
 
 " Well," said Shane, resuming the story, and clearing his 
 voice, " it's a great consolation to me, now that she's gone, to 
 think that I never broke the promise I made her that night ; 
 for, as I tould you, except in regard of the duck-egg, a bitther 
 word never passed between 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. But sure he would be a brute 
 that would beat such a woman except by proxy. When it 
 was clear dark we set off, and, after crossing the country for 
 two miles, reached my uncle's, where a great many of my 
 friends were expecting 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 dhrinking is 
 provided when a runaway couple is expected ; and indeed 
 there was galore of both there. My uncle and all that were 
 within welcomed us again ; and many a good song and hearty 
 jug of punch was sent round that night. The next morning
 
 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 75 
 
 my uncle went to her father's, and broke the business to 
 him at once ; indeed, it wasn't very hard to do, for I believe 
 it reached him before 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 guineas that her grandfather 
 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 ap- 
 pointed ; 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 one 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 vexed me 
 was that it would keep back the wedding-day. However, 
 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, not he ; for although he would ride 
 fifty miles to sarve either of us, he couldn't brake the new 
 orders that he had got only a few days before that from the 
 bishop. No, we must stand, 1 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 reverence,' says my uncle, winking at 
 her father, 'if that's the case it can't be helped anyhow 
 they must only stand, as many a dacent father and mother's 
 child has done before them, and will again, plase God your 
 reverence is right in doing your duty.' 
 
 " ' True for you, Brian/ says his reverence ; ' 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 
 
 1 To "stand" is to be publicly rebuked by the priest at mass, the 
 delinquents standing up. ED,
 
 76 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 
 
 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 reverence, as to that,' says my uncle, 
 who was just as stiff as the other was stout, ' the bashfullest 
 of them will do more nor that to get a husband.' 
 
 " ' But you tell me,' says the priest, ' that the wedding-day 
 is fixed upon ; how will you manage there ? ' 
 
 " ' Why, put it off for three Sundays longer, to be sure,' 
 says the uncle. 
 
 " ' But you forget this, Brian,' says the priest, ' that good 
 luck or prosperity never attends the putting off of a wedding.' 
 
 " Now here you see is where the priest had them for they 
 knew that as well as his reverence 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 guineas 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 proVe 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 Ix>rd keep them 
 from it ! ' 
 
 " While he was speaking, he stamped his foot two or three 
 times on the flure, and the housekeeper came in. ' Katty,' 
 says he, ' bring us in a bottle of whisky. 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 begging your 
 reverence's pardon, the sorra cow you'll sell this bout, any- 
 how, on account of me or my childher, bekase I'll lay down 
 on the nail what'll clear you and the bishop ; and in the 
 name of goodness, as the day is fixed and all, let the crathurs 
 not be disappointed.' 
 
 " ' Jemmy/ says my uncle, ' if you go to that, you'll pay
 
 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING 77 
 
 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 between 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, ' I forgot a circumstance, and 
 that is to tell you that I will go and marry them at your 
 own house, and bring Father James, my curate, with me.' 
 ' Oh, wurrah ! no,' said both ; ' don't mention that, your reve- 
 rence, 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 reverence know 
 that if they hadn't the pleasure of running for the bottle 
 the whole wedding wouldn't be worth three-halfpence ? ' 
 ' Indeed, I forgot that, Jemmy.' ' But sure,' says my uncle, 
 'your reverence and Father James must be at it, whether 
 or not ; for that we intended from the first.' ' Tell them 
 I'll run for the bottle, too/ says the priest, laughing, 'and 
 will make some of them look sharp never fear.' Well, by 
 my song, so far all was right ; and maybe it's we that weren'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 
 whisky, 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 dacently 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 mountains 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 young widdy's eye that had berried a bad 
 husband. Indeed, this was at my father's bidding, who 
 wasn't a bit behindhand with any of them in cutting a dash. 
 ' Shane,' says he to me, ' you know the Finigans of ould, 
 that they won't be contint Avith what would do another, and
 
 78 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 
 
 that except they go beyant the thing entirely they won't 
 be satisfied. 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, ' 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 
 Mickey go up the hills to Tim Cassidy, and get fifteen gallons 
 of whisky, for I don't think less will do us.' 
 
 " This we accordingly complied with, as I said, and surely 
 better stuff never went down the red lane x than the same 
 whisky ; 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 buckskin breeches fit for 
 a squire, along with a new Caroline hat that would throw off 
 the wet like a duck. Mat Kavanagh, the schoolmaster from 
 Findramore bridge, lent me his watch for the occasion, after 
 my spending near two days learning from him to know what 
 o'clock it was. At last, somehow, I masthered that point so 
 well that in a quarter of an hour, at least, I could give a 
 dacent guess at the time upon it. 
 
 "Well, at last the day came. The wedding 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 regula- 
 tions 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 pro- 
 ceed, 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 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 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, 
 
 1 Humorous periphrasis for throat. 2 Streak.
 
 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 79 
 
 was mounted upon a buck goat, with a bridle of selvages 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. 
 
 " 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 bridles ; others had saddles and 
 halthers ; some had back.-suggaivns of straw, with hay stirrups 
 to them, but good bridles ; others had 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 
 strideways, 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 obligated 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 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, anyhow 
 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 w T e 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 hullaballoo of crying as was there 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
 
 80 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 
 
 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 
 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 w r asn'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 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 ; 
 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 hussies ; 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 
 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 ! 
 
 "Anyhow, 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 good-humour, 
 and join her smile with the rest.
 
 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING 81 
 
 " 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. 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 Danellon, 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 
 
 Danellon'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 to 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 Irwin'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 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 82 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 
 
 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, how- 
 ever, 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 bride- 
 groom'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 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 hullaballoo 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 neighbours 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 Kilnashogue, 
 who was sent for bekase she understood charms, and had 
 the name of being lucky, tuck myself aside. ' Shane Fadh,' . 
 says she, ' you're a young man well to look upon ; may God
 
 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 83 
 
 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 
 bamn, that 'ill 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 going to mintion, 
 anyhow ; 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 ; 'twas 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 decent 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 crona-banm halfpenny 
 in exchange. 
 
 " ' 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 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
 
 84 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 
 
 their pishthr agues.' 1 She then pulled off her right shoe, and 
 threw it after us for luck. 
 
 " 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 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 
 of day without tasting them, anyhow ; and her teeth, so even, 
 and as white as a burnt 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 sartainly 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 him- 
 self, 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 coutre- 
 ments were so bad with a great many of the wedcliners, 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 
 
 1 Charms of an evil nature.
 
 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 85 
 
 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 by this than my 
 uncle and the fiddler 1 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 cruht 1 
 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 : who- 
 ever 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, ac- 
 cordingly, as regularly as they fell they were sure to get 
 a cheer. 
 
 " 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 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 determined to cut them all out 
 in that, so 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 old 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 waitin'g 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 
 
 1 A hump or rather a stoop. A small harp is called a cruit in Irish, 
 on account of its bend ; the large straight harp being called a clair 
 scch. ED.
 
 86 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 
 
 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 children, and getting his arms 
 about Mary, gives her half a dozen smacks at least oh, con- 
 suming to the one less ! that mine was only a cracker to 
 them. 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, and his reverence and his curate along 
 with us. 
 
 " 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 l decently with him, anyhow ; 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 eyes 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 Flanagans the truth is that the old business of the 
 lawshoot will break out, and, except they're kept from drink, 
 take my word for it, there will be blood spilled. The run- 
 
 1 Drank.
 
 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING 87 
 
 ning 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, 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 cavaldry 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 
 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 
 Dumbhill, where we were to start for the bottle. And now 
 you might see the men fixing themselves on their saddles, 
 sacks, and auggawns ; 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 Dumbhill, there were
 
 88 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 
 
 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 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 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 atop 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 whisky, 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. 
 
 " But the best sport of all was when they came to the Lazy 
 Corner, just at Jack Gallagher's flush, 1 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, anyhow, 
 
 1 Flnsh 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 " flush."
 
 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 89 
 
 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 too, 
 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. 
 
 " As soon as he got his eyes clear, right or wrong, he 
 insisted 011 getting the bottle ; but he was late, poor fellow, 
 for before he got out of the garden two of them cums up 
 Paddy Doraii 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 to one, the other would take offince, and 
 then he was in a great puzzle, striving to razon 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 worse of all for the poor 
 crathur, he should single himself out against both parties, 
 bekase you see he thought they were cutting him out of his 
 right to the bottle.
 
 90 
 
 "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 endeavoured all in our power 
 to red l 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 
 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 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 unchristian Antherntarians ? 2 are you going to get 
 yourselves hanged like sheep-stalers ? Down with your sticks 
 I command you. Do you know will ye give yourselves time 
 to see whose spaking to you you bloodthirsty set of Episco- 
 palians ? 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. 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 decent couple in 
 whose house you have kicked up such a hubbub ! Is this the 
 
 1 Separate. s Anti-Trinitarians.
 
 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING 91 
 
 way people are to be deprived of their dinners on your 
 accounts, you fungaleering thieves ! ' 
 
 " ' Why then, plase your reverence, 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 dis- 
 tanced him, only that when I was far before him, the vaga- 
 bone, he galloped 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, which will be 
 a double share of provision and bacon saved anyway. And 
 Flanagan, you were as much to blame as he, and must be 
 chastised for your raggamuffinly conduct,' says he ; ' and so 
 must you both, and all your party, particularly you and he, 
 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 Lough Derg 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 belong- 
 ing 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 whisky 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 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 horse-
 
 92 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 
 
 back before leaving the Dumbhill, 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 ex- 
 amples 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. Dominick, 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.' 
 
 " ' Well, well, your reverence,' says my father-in-law, ( let 
 all bygones be bygones ; and, please God, they will before 
 they go be better friends than ever they were. Go now and 
 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 neighbour 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 norra- 
 tion, 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.' 
 
 " ' 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 dinner by the
 
 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 93 
 
 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 bakei''s dozen of them ; but we've plenty of Latin 
 for them, and your reverence and Father James here under- 
 stands that langidge, anyhow 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 that 
 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 put- 
 ting them into good-humour 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 break 
 another skull or two for it ; but neither crowner's quest, nor 
 judge, nor jury was ever troubled at all about it. And so 
 signs 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 ? "
 
 94 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 
 
 "'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 neigh- 
 bours, 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 my- 
 self, and Father James at the other. There were three five- 
 gallon kegs of whisky, 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 ! 1 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 favourites. 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 arnest, 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 ;
 
 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 95 
 
 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 baivn 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 choosing a husband for themselves. How- 
 arid-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 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 com- 
 pared with me, I tell you, till yesterday comes back again.' 
 
 "'Why, Billy,' says the priest, 'you're in 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.
 
 96 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING 
 
 " ' 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 threatened this 
 long time, but I'll do it at last.' 
 
 " ' He's not exactly mai'ried, sir,' says my uncle ; ' 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 such a darling 
 as Molly Bane here and, by this and by that, it's you that 
 is the darling, Molly a-sthore what come over me, at all, at 
 all, that I didn't think of you,' says the little man, drawiiu>- 
 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 there ? ' says his reverence. 
 
 " ( Why, except I get the likes of her for a wife upon 
 second thoughts, I don't like marriage, anyway/ said Billy, 
 winking against the priest ' I'll 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 larnin' ; 
 
 And when they'd go 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
 
 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 97 
 
 your hand, Shane Fadh, and you, Mary may goodness grant 
 you peace 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 mean to offind you/ 
 
 " ' It's no matter/ says Billy, beginning to cry, ' 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 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. 
 
 " 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 him- 
 self, with a sack of oats, for he had been questin. 1 Well, sure, 
 the ould people couldn't do less nor all go over to put the 
 fniltah 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 
 Corrig;in and Father Dollard.' 
 
 1 Questin When an Irish priest or friar collects corn or money from 
 the people in a gratuitous manner the act is called " questin." 
 VOL. I. G
 
 98 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING 
 
 " ' 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 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, anyhow. You see, the way I came 
 to persave yees that evening was this but I'll tell it by-and- 
 by. In the manetime,' says he, sitting down, and attacking 
 a fine piece of cornbeef and greens, ' I'll take care of a certain 
 acquaintance of mine,' says he. ' How are you, reverend 
 gintlemen of the Secularity. 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 happi- 
 ness, 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 
 Althadhawan in your way, and in about half a dozen houses
 
 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 99 
 
 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 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 rise up 
 and fall, so I commend you for your discration,' says he ; ' but 
 I'm afeard your master there won't make you much fitter for 
 the kingdom of heaven, anyhow.' 
 
 " ' 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 1 in Paris; he got as much educa- 
 tion 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 
 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 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 anything by it.' 
 
 " ' 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 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.' 
 
 " This threw the laugh against the friar, who smiled him- 
 self; but he was a dry man that never laughed much. 
 
 1 The Sorbonne is, of course, meant. ED.
 
 100 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 
 
 " ' Sure/ says the friar, who was never at a loss, ' I have 
 yourself and your nephew for examples that it's possible to 
 live and be well fed without divinity.' 
 
 " ' 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 
 bad example ; for you're so much in the habit of joking on 
 everything 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 
 will find his acquaintance 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 kingdom of heaven ? ' 
 
 " ' I had a pair of rasons for it, Jemmy,' says the friar : 
 'one is, that he doesn't understand the subject himself; and 
 another is, that you haven't capacity for it, even if he did. 
 You've a want of nathural parts a whackuum here/ pointing 
 to his forehead. 
 
 "'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 ' Kid-eat-ivy marc-eat-hay.' 
 
 " ' Kid what ? ' says the other. 
 
 " ' Kid-eat-ivy mare-eat-tuiy,' answers the friar. 
 
 " ' 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 schoolboys ; 
 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-ftr-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
 
 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING 101 
 
 Greek, bekase 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 Forte dux f el flat in guther.' 
 
 "'A flat-tay-cannisther Forty ducks fell flat in the 
 gutther ! ' 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 tachers 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 pesthering 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 corpulency that smacks strongly of penance fifteen 
 stone at least.' 
 
 " ' Why,' says the friar, looking down, quite plased entirely, 
 at the cut of his own waist, which, among ourselves, was no 
 trifle, and giving a growl of a laugh the most he ever gave, 
 ' if what you pray 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.' 
 
 " ' How can you say, Frank,' says Father James, ' 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 waft- 
 ing 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 hands over his brows 
 and looking up toardst him. ' 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 spii'ituality 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
 
 102 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 
 
 entirely 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 in the nick of time, with your 
 voluntary poverty.' 
 
 " ' 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 veiy well that our 
 ordhers are apostolic, and that, of coorse, we have a more 
 primitive appearance than you have.' 
 
 " ' No such thing,' says the other ; ' you, and the parsons, 
 and the fat bishops are too far from the right place the 
 only difference between you is that you are fat and lazy by 
 toleration, 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 people'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, plase 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, a little nettled, for 
 the dhrop was beginning to get up into his head ' sure, if 
 we're fat by toleration, we're only tolerably fat, my worthy 
 secular; but how can you condemn them, when you only 
 want to get into their places, or have the face to tax any one 
 with living upon the people ? ' 
 
 " ' You see,' says the friar, in a whisper to my uncle, ' how 
 I sobered them in the larning, and they are good scholars for 
 all that, but not near so deep read as myself. Michael,' says 
 he, ' now that I think on it sure, I'm to be at Denis 
 O'Flaherty's " Month's Mind " l 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.' 
 
 1 In Ireland a mass said for a person the month after his or her 
 decease is called a "Month's Miud." ED.
 
 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING 103 
 
 " 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, who held out wonder- 
 fully, and the beggars and shulers were clawing and scoulding 
 one another about the divide. The dacentest of us went 
 into the house for a while, taking the fiddler with us, and 
 the rest stayed 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 folks ; 
 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 we made our appear- 
 ance the flure was instantly cleared for us, and then she and 
 I danced the ' Humours 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. Lord bless us what a drame the world 
 is ! The darling of my heart you war, avourneen machree. I 
 think I see her with the modest smile upon her face straight, 
 and fair, and beautiful, and hem and when the dance was 
 over, how she stood leaning upon me, and my heart within 
 melting to her, and the look she'd give into my eyes and my 
 heart, too, as much as to say, this is the happy day with me ; 
 and the blush still would fly acrass her face, when I'd press 
 her, uiiknownst to the bystanders, aginst my beating heart. 
 A suilish machree, she is now gone from me and lies low, and 
 it all appears like a drame to me ; but hem God's will be 
 done ! sure she's happy ! och, och ! 
 
 " 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 eyesight, maybe, 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
 
 104 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 
 
 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 bridesmaid were sent for to 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 com- 
 pany; but my mother, who 'twas that came for them, says, 
 ' 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 two, till their reverences 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 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, 1 and in we went, when, behold you, 
 there was Father Corrigan planted upon the side of a settle, 
 Mary along with him, both waiting till they'd have a fling of 
 a dance together; whilst the curate was capering on the flure 
 before the bridesmaid, who was a purty dark-haired girl, to 
 the tune of ' Kiss my lady ; ' and the friar planted between my 
 mother and mother-in-law, one of his legs stretched out 011 a 
 chair, he singing some funny song or other that brought the 
 tears to their eyes with laughing. 
 
 " Whilst Father James was dancing with the bridesmaid, 
 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 Corrigan, ' 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 meantime, had got up, and was coming away, 
 
 1 A pass-word, sign, or brief intimation, touching something of which 
 a man is ignorant, that he may act accordingly.
 
 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 105 
 
 when his reverence wanted her to stay till they'd finish their 
 dance. ' Father Corrigan/ says she, ' let me go now, sir, if 
 you plase, for they would think it bad threatment of me not 
 to go out to them.' 
 
 " ' Troth, and you'll do no such thing, acushla,' says he, 
 spaking so sweet to her; 'let them come in if they want you. 
 Shane,' says his reverence, winking at me, and spaking in a 
 whisper, ' stay hei'e, you and the girls, till we take a hate at 
 the dancing don't you know that the ould women here and 
 me will have to talk over some things about the fortune ; 
 you'll maybe get more nor you expect. Here, Molshy,' says 
 he to my mother-in-law, 'don't let the youngsters out 
 of this.' 
 
 " ' Muaha, Shane, ahagur,' 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 stayed in the room ; but just on the word, 
 Maiy gives one spring away, laving his reverence by himself 
 on the settle. ' Come away,' says she, ' lave them there, 
 and let us go to where I can have a dance with yourself, 
 Shane.' 
 
 " Well, I always loved Mary, but at that minute, if it 
 would save her, I think I could spill my heart's blood for her. 
 ' Mary,' says I, full to the throat, ' Mary, acushla agus asthore 
 machree, I could lose my life for you.' 
 
 " She looked in my face, and the tears came into her eyes. 
 ' Shan e, achora,' says she, ' amn't I your happy girl, at last ? ' 
 She was leaning over against my breast ; and what answer do 
 you think I made ? I pressed her to my heart : I did more 
 I took off my hat, and, looking up to God, I thanked Him with 
 tears in my eyes for giving me such a treasure. ' Well, come 
 now,' says she, ' to the green ; so we went and it's she that 
 was the girl, when she did go among them, that threw them 
 all into the dark for beauty and figure : as fair as a lily 
 itself did she look so tall and illegant 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. 
 
 " 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
 
 106 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 
 
 would sit nowhere else ; but the friar got beside the brides- 
 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 obliged to sit quietly 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 the cake over her head, giving 
 round a fadge l 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 a piece of paper, and put it in his pocket. 
 ' I'll have good fun,' says he, ' dividing this to-morrow among 
 the colleens when I'm collecting my oats the sorra 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 told 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 Doran began his coortship with Alley Flanagan on that 
 day, and they were married soon after, so that the two factions 
 joined, and never had another battle until the day of her 
 berrial, 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 removed 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 earth- 
 quake, Michael ? but who ever heard of a follower of St. 
 Domnick, bound by his vow to voluntary poverty and morti- 
 fications young couple, your health will anybody tell me 
 
 1 A liberal portion a wedge.
 
 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 107 
 
 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. Domnick, I'd desarve to be suspinded if 
 I did. Will no one tell me who mixed this, I say, for they 
 had a jewel of a hand at it ? Och 
 
 "Let parsons prache and pray 
 
 Let priests, too, pray and pracbe, sir ; 
 What's the rason they 
 Don't practise what they tache, sir ? 
 Forral, orrall, loll 
 Forral, orrall, laddy." 
 
 Sho da slainlhah ma collcnee agus ma bouchalee. Hoigh, oigh, 
 oigh healths all, gintlemen seculars ! Molshy,' says the friar 
 to my mother-in-law, 'send that bocaun to bed poor fellow, 
 he's almost off rouse yourself, .lames ! 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 
 Forral, orrall, loll " ! 
 
 " ' 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, ' 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 then with the two clergymen, and intro- 
 duced Master Frank to them ; and the friar made the young 
 chap sit beside him. The masther then took a sate him- 
 self, and looked on, while they were dancing, with a smile 
 of good-humour on his face while they, all the time, would 
 give new touches and trebles, to show off all their steps before 
 him. He was landlord both to my father and father-in-law ; 
 and it's he that was the good man, and the gintleman, every 
 inch of him. They may all talk as they will, but commend
 
 108 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING 
 
 me, Mr. Morrow, to one of the old 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 ase, 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 a while, 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 anything like his own words ' I am 
 glad/ says he to Mary's parents, 'that your daughter has 
 made such a good choice ' throth, he did the Lord be 
 merciful to his sowl God forgive me for what I was going 
 to say, and he a Protestant; but if ever one of yees went to 
 heaven, Mr. Morrow, he did ' such a prudent choice ; and I 
 congr con grathulate you/ says he to my father, ' on your 
 connection with so industrious and respectable a family. You 
 are now beginning the world for yourselves/ says he to Mary 
 and me, ' and I cannot propose a better example to you both 
 than that of your respective parents. 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 landlord. I know, Shane/ says 
 he to me, smiling, a little knowingly enough too, ' that 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 cultiwation and improvement of your 
 farm.' ' Go over, both of you/ says my father, Sand thank 
 his honour, and promise to do everything he says.' Accord- 
 ingly, we did so ; I made my scrape as well as I could, and 
 Mary blushed to the eyes and dropped her curtshy. 
 
 " ' Ah ! ' says the friar, ' see what it is to have a good
 
 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 109 
 
 landlord and a Christian gintleman to dale with. 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. I trust, 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 
 taste of 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 gintleman, 
 your son, how we collected the oats, and he insisted on my 
 calling a generous, 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 told 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.' 
 
 "'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 parishioner for his ginerosity 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 then bid us good-night, and we all rose and saw 
 them to the door. 
 
 " 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 anything ; even the friar was against it. 
 The clergy now got their horses ; the friar laving his oats
 
 110 SHANE FADITS WEDDING 
 
 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. 1 
 Father Corrigan 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 collogin 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 whisky; there's plenty of it there that wasn't 
 touched, and you won't be a bit the poorer of it, maybe, this 
 day twelve months.' I accordingly dhropped two bottles of 
 it into the other pocket, for his reverence wanted a balance, 
 anyhow. 
 
 " ' Now,' says he, ' before I go, kneel down both of you, 
 till I give you my benediction.' 
 
 "We accordingly knelt down, and he gave us his bless- 
 ing in Latin my father standing at his shoulder to keep him 
 steady. 
 
 " After they went, Mary threw the stocking all the un- 
 married 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 father's 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 levelled the crathur at once ; though that 
 wasn't hard to do, anyhow. 
 
 " 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 married first. After this my mother and 
 mother-in-law set them to the dancing and 'twas themselves 
 that kept it up till long after daylight 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." 
 
 "Come, Nancy," says Andy Morrow, "replenish again for 
 
 1 Headache.
 
 SHANE FADH'S WEDDING 111 
 
 us all, with a double measure for Shane Fadh, because he 
 well desarves it." 
 
 " Why, Shane," observed Alick, " you must have a terrible 
 fine memory of your own, or you couldn't tell it all so 
 exact." 
 
 " There's not a man in the four provinces has sich a 
 memory," replied Shane. " I never hard a story yet, but 
 I could repate 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 an 
 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 fireside 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 
 M'FARLAND'S WAKE. 
 
 We have observed before that M'Roarkin was desperately 
 asthmatic, a circumstance which he felt to be rather an un- 
 pleasant impediment to the indulgence either of his mirth or 
 sorrow. Every chuckle at his own jokes ended in a disastrous 
 fit of coughing ; and, when he became pathetic, his sorrow 
 was most ungraciously dissipated by the same cause : two 
 facts which were highly relished by his audience. 
 
 " 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 gintlemen 
 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 everything : he could thatch better nor many that 
 aimed their bread by it ; could make a slide car, straddle, or 
 any other rough carpenter's work, that it would surprise you 
 to think of it ; could work a kish or side creels beautifully ; 
 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 ditch- 
 ing 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 working with. And 
 well he might ; for the year out of four that he hadn't Larry 
 
 112
 
 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE 113 
 
 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 
 never 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. Whenever 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. 1 
 He was also a great dancer, fond of the dhrop and used to 
 dress above his station ; going about with a shop-cloth coat, 
 cassimere 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 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 some- 
 times a year at the most, for he was fond of roving ; and that 
 man would never give himself any trouble about him after- 
 wards ; though, maybe, if he had continted himself with him, 
 .and been sober and careful, he 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 and clane sarvant anyway. 
 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- 
 
 1 Big markets. 
 VOL. I. H
 
 114 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE 
 
 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 the day, laving themselves without a penny of 
 whatever little aiming the dress left behind it, for Larry was 
 never right except when he was giving a thrate to some one 
 or other. 
 
 " After corrousing 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 
 together as would pay the priest. How-and-ever, Larry 
 spoke to his brother, who was a sober, industrious boy, that 
 had laid by his scollops for the windy day, 1 and tould him that 
 Sally Lowry and himself were going to yoke 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 guineas, which, along with two 
 more that Sally's aunt, who had no children of her own, gave 
 her, enabled them to ' over ' their difficulties and get married. 
 
 " Shortly after this, his brother Tom followed his example ; 
 but, as he had saved something, he made up to Val Slevin's 
 daughter, that had a fortune of twenty guineas, a cow and 
 a heifer, with two good chaff beds and bedding. 
 
 " 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.' 
 
 " ' 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 
 
 1 In Irish the proverb is, "Ha nahn la na guiha la na scuilipagh; " 
 that is, the windy or stormy day is not that on which the scollops 
 should be cut. Scollops are osier twigs sharpened at both ends, and 
 inserted in the thatch, to bind it at the eve and rigging.
 
 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE 115 
 
 good bread out of it : for my part, there's not another he in 
 the country I'd turn my back upon 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 steward 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 little take between us.' 
 
 " ' 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 ; 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 e'er a farm within ten miles of it.' 
 
 " ' I know that, Larry/ says Tom, ' and Squire Dickson 
 knows that no man could handle it to more advantage. 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 outhouses 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 decently, and soon 
 be well and comfortable to live.' 
 
 " ' 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 best plan is 
 to go to-morrow, for fraid some other might get the fore- 
 way 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 although he had his 
 doubts as to Larry's light and careless ways, 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 between them about better or worse, Tom 
 proposed that they should draw lots, which was agreed to by 
 Larry ; but, indeed, there was very little difference in the
 
 116 LARRY M'FARLAND^S WAKE 
 
 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 paid attention 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, as Larry ; but what he 
 was short in he made up by perseverance and care. 
 
 " In the coorse of two or three years you would hardly 
 bleeve how he got on, and his wife was every bit equal to 
 him. She spun the yarn for the linen that made their own 
 shirts and sheeting, 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 and dressed ; and before one would know anything 
 about it she'd have the making of a dacent comfortable coat 
 for Tom, and a bit of heather-coloured drugget for her own 
 gown, along with a piece of striped red and blue for a petti- 
 coat 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 himself, telling 
 Sally that he'd just go in for a couple of hours to see how the 
 markets were going on. 
 
 " It's always an unpleasant thing for a body to go to a fair 
 or market without anything in their pocket ; accordingly, if 
 money was in the house, he'd take some of it with him, for 
 fraid that any friend or acquaintance 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 his pocket, jist to prevent 
 him from being shamed, should he meet a friend. 
 
 " In the manetime, Sally, in his absence, would find herself 
 lonely, and, as she hadn't, maybe, seen her aunt for some time 
 before, she'd lock the door, and go over to spind a while with 
 her, or to take a trip as far as her ould mistress's place to
 
 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE 117 
 
 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 gardiner, or with the sarvants in the kitchen. 
 
 "You all remimber Tom Hance, that kept the public- 
 house at Tullyvernon cross-roads, a little above the Squire's 
 at laste, most of you do and ould Wilty Rutledge, the 
 piper, that spint his time between 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 dancing, 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, maybe 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 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 sport going 
 on, and carrying a light heel at the dance 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 cowld and naked after the blazing comfortable fire they 
 had left behind them, go to bed, both in very middling spirits 
 entirely. 
 
 "Larry at other times would quit his work early in the 
 evening, to go down towards 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
 
 118 LARRY M'FARLANKS WAKE 
 
 to his hat, and getting a ' 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 build- 
 ing a stack of corn as Masther 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 it's your honour needn't say that, anyhow ; for, 
 rather 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 o'clock, plase God.' 
 
 " Larry would keep his word, though his own corn was 
 drop-ripe ; and having once undertaken the job, he couldn't 
 give it up till he'd finish it off dacently. In the manetime 
 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 great man entirely there was none such would be 
 uj) with the first light, ordering and commanding, and direct- 
 ing the Squire's labourers, as if he was the king of the castle. 
 Maybe, 'tis after he'd come 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 moonlight, 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 asy to 
 do anything in a hurry, and especially it's not asy 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;
 
 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE 119 
 
 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 the last home from the berril ; 
 for, you know, they couldn't but be axed in to the dhrinking 
 after the friends would lave the churchyard, to take a sup 
 to raise their spirits and drown sorrow, for grief is always 
 drouthy. 
 
 " When the races, too, 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, dhrinking 
 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 potato 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. They then 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 to get it, no 
 doubt but there should be a bottle of wine to thrate the young 
 ladies or gintlemen. 
 
 " When their children grew up, little care was taken of 
 them, bekase their parents minded other people's business 
 more nor their own. They were always in the greatest 
 poverty and distress ; for Larry would be killing 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 promised well, as far
 
 120 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE 
 
 as words went, and, no doubt, hoped to be able to perform ; 
 but he hadn't steadiness to go through with a thing. Thruth's 
 best 'you see, both himself and his wife neglected their 
 business in the beginning, so that everything went at sixes and 
 sevens. They then found themselves uncomfortable 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 prevented 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 tempers, now, soon began to get sour. Larry thought, 
 bekase Sally wasn't as careful as she ought to be, that if he 
 had taken any other young woman to be his wife he wouldn't 
 be as he was ; she thought the very same thing of Larry. 
 ' If he was like another,' she would say -to his brother, ' that 
 would be up airly and late at his own business, I would have 
 spirits to work, by rason it would cheer my heart to see our 
 little farm looking as warm and comfortable as another's; 
 but, farcer 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 yallow heels, 
 or going about from one neighbour's house to another, gosther- 
 ing 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 upon 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" 1 on it. 
 She never puts a stitch in my clothes, nor in the childher's 
 
 1 The white horses are large bubbles produced by the extrication of 
 air, which rises in white bubbles to the surface 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, some- 
 times the " white friars."
 
 LARRY M'FARLAND^S WAKE 121 
 
 clothes, nor in her own, but lets them go to rags at once the 
 divil's luck to her ! I wish I had never met with her, or that I 
 had married a sober gii'l, that wasn't fond of dress and danc- 
 ing. If she was a good sarvant, it was only bekase she liked 
 to have a good name ; for, when she got a house and 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 herself, crying, up 
 to Tom Hance's or some other neighbour's house, to sit down 
 and give ajhistory 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 wear it himself. As 
 for giving them any schooling, 'twas 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 thrue saying, that as the ould cock crows, the 
 young one lams ; and this was thrue here, for the childher 
 fought one another like so many divils, and swore like Trojans 
 Larry, along with everything 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 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 labourers, when bring-
 
 122 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE 
 
 ing home the corn or the hay, wanting to get a ride as they 
 went back with the empty cars. 
 
 "Larry and Sally would never be let into the Squire's 
 kitchen now, to eat or drink, or spend an evening with the 
 sarvants; he might go out and in to his meal's mate along 
 with the rest of the labourers, but there was no grah for 
 him. Sally would go down with her jug to get some butter- 
 milk, and have to stand among a set of beggars and cotters, 
 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 is 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 
 scrahag 1 would be emptied down on it, and the pigs that 
 were whining and grunting about the door would break 
 into 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 bleeve it 
 would reach from this to the rath. The blanket was in 
 tatthers, and, like the shirt, would go round the house; 
 their straw beds were stocked with the ' black militia ; ' the 
 childher's heads were garrisoned with ' Scotch greys,' and 
 their heels and heads ornamented with all description of 
 kives. There wor 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 them- 
 selves by sailing eggshells 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 hold their male, but it wanted the hinges ; and the 
 
 1 A flat wicker basket, off which the potatoes are eaten.
 
 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE 125 
 
 childher, when they'd get the mother out, would mix a sup 
 of male and wather in a noggin, 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 
 that, were the occasion of, might stand there till Saturday 
 night, when, for dacency's sake, Sally herself would take 
 a shovel, and out with it upon the hape that was beside the 
 dub before the door. If a wet day came, 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-dhrops, 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 had a horseshoe nailed over the door-head for 
 good luck. 
 
 "You know that, in telling this story, I needn't miiition 
 everything just as it 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 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
 
 124 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE 
 
 anything. The slaps were all broken down, or had only a 
 piece of an ould beam, a thorn-bush, or crazy car lying 
 acrass, 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 early 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 potato hop off 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 through his 
 own fault he finds very little mercy from any one. Larry 
 might go to fifty fairs before he'd meet any one now to thrate 
 him ; instead of that, when he'd make up to them, they'd 
 turn away, or give him the cowld shoulder. 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 the brogues would be spint, and he'd go home again as I it- 
 came, sure to have another battle with Sally. 
 
 " In this way things went on, when, one day that Larry 
 was preparing to sell some oats, a son of Nicholas Roe 
 Sheridan's of the Broad-bog came into him. ' Good-morning, 
 Larry,' says he. ' Good-morrow kindly, Art,' says Larry ; 
 ' how are you, ma bouchnl ? '
 
 125 
 
 " ' Why, I've no rason 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 toothach. 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 fora pitcher 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 care 
 for 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 
 Square's sons), fly down to the Square's, and see what's 
 keeping your mother ; the divil's no match for her at staying 
 out with herself, wanst she's from under the 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 yourself, 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 
 divil a toe I'll budge to-day,' says he, getting betune the 
 father and the door. 
 
 " ' Well, wait,' says Larry, ' faix, 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 buuchal, 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 f and make him. 
 That's the way he always th rates you, and does nothing that 
 you bid him.' 
 
 " ' But you 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 cowld and he so naked.' 
 
 "'Well, you bid him go,' says Dick, 'and let him; the 
 sorra a yard I'll go the skin-burnt spalpeen,, that's always
 
 126 LARRY MTARLAND'S WAKE 
 
 the way with him ; whatever he's bid to do, he throws it on 
 me, bekase, indeed, he has 110 coat ; but he'll folly Masther 
 Thomas or Masther Francis through sleet and snow up the 
 mountains when they're 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, turning again to the other boy. 
 
 "'I'll not/ says the little fellow; 'send Dick.' 
 
 " Larry said no more, but laying down the child he had in 
 his hands upon the flure, makes at him ; the lad, however, 
 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 Avith such a blow ? Couldn't you take 
 a rod or a switch to him ? Dhe r manim, 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. 
 
 " e Arrah, sweet bad-luck to you, you lazy vagabond you.' 
 says Larry, ' what kept you away till this hour ? ' 
 
 "'The divil send you news, you nager you,' says Sally: 
 ' what kept me could I make the people churn sooner than 
 they wished or were ready ? ' 
 
 "'Ho, by my song, I'll flake you as soon as the dacent 
 young man leaves the house,' says Larry to her, aside. 
 
 " ' You'll flake me, is it ? ' says Sally, speaking out loud 
 ' in troth, that's no new thing for you to do, anyhow. ' 
 
 '"Spake asy, you had betther.' 'No, in troth, won't I 
 spake asy ; I've spoken asy too long, Larry, but the divil a 
 taste of me will bear Avhat I've suffered from you any longer, 
 you mane-spirited blackguard you ; for he is nothing else 
 that 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 in, 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, tenrrah
 
 LARRY M'FARLAND^S WAKE 127 
 
 sthrew ! tvurrah sthrew ! what'll become of us ! Dick, agra,' 
 says she, crying, ' Dick, acushla ma chree, don't you hear me 
 spaking to you ? don't you hear your poor broken-hearted 
 mother spaking to you ? Oh, wurrah ! murrah ! 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 murther next, you villain ? ' 
 
 " ' For heaven's sake, Sally/ says Art, ' don't exaggerate 
 him more nor he is ; the boy is only stunned see, he's coming 
 to. Dick, ma bouchal, rouse yourself that's a man but he's 
 well enough that's it, alanna there, take a slug out of this 
 bottle, and it'll set all right or, stop, have you a glass within, 
 Sally ? ' ' Och, musha, not a glass is under the roof wid me,' 
 says Sally ; ' the last we had was broke the night Barney was 
 christened, and we hadn't one since but I'll get you an egg- 
 shell.' l ' It'll do as well as the best,' says Art. And to make 
 a long story short, they sat down, and drank the bottle of 
 whisky 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 nightfall, with two or three young boys along 
 with him. The corn was sacked and put on the horses ; but 
 before that was done they had a dhrop, for Art's pocket and 
 the bottle were old acquaintances. They all then sat 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 something 
 
 1 The ready wit of the Irish is astonishing. It often happens that 
 they have whisky when neither glasses nor cups are at hand in 
 which case they are never at a loss. I have seen them use not only 
 eggshells, but pistol-barrels, tobacco-boxes, and scooped potatoes, in 
 extreme cases.
 
 128 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE 
 
 was over him ; but no one observed that till afterwards. 
 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 joking way, wishing to make up, too, 
 for what Art saw the night before poor thing but still as 
 if it wasn't all a joke, for at times she looked sorrowful. 
 Larry, too, got his arm about her, and looked often and often 
 on her and the childher, in a way that he wasn't used 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 follow you in the parish or out of it ; ' 
 and when he said this he could hardly spake. 
 
 "'Whisht, Larry, acushla,' says she, 'don't be spaking that- 
 away 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 eggshell for him ? 
 Poor gorsoon ! God knows, Dick, you get far from fair play, 
 acuxhla 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, 
 alanna ! Kiss me, Dick, acushla and God knows your face 
 is pale, and that's not with good feeding, anyhow : Dick, 
 agra, I'm sorry for what I done to you last night ; forgive 
 your father, Dick, for I think that my heart's breaking, 
 acufihla, and that you won't have me long with you.' 
 
 " Poor Dick, who was naturally a warm-hearted, affectionate 
 gorsoon, kissed his father, and cried bitterly. Sally herself, 
 seeing Larry so sorry for what he had done, sobbed as if she 
 would drop on the spot ; but the rest began, and, betwixt 
 scowlding and cheering him up, all was as well as ever. Still 
 Larry seemed as if there was something entirely very strange 
 the matter with him ; for, as he was going out, he kissed all 
 the childher, one after another ; and even went over to the 
 young baby that was asleep in the little cradle of boords,
 
 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE 129 
 
 that he himself had made for it, and kissed it two or three 
 times, aisily, 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, asihore ? ' says Sally. 
 
 " ' I don't know,' says he, ' nothing, I bleeve but, Sally, 
 acushla, I have trated you badly all along ; I forgot, avourneen, 
 how I loved you once, and now it breaks my heart that I have 
 used you so ill.' 'Larry,' she answered, '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, ' and I'll borry a lock of meal from Biddy, 
 till we get home our own meldhre, 1 and I'll have a dish of 
 stirabout ready to make for you when you come home. 
 Sure, Larry, who'd forgive you if I, your own wife, wouldn't ? 
 But it's I that wants it from you, Larry, and in the presence 
 of God and ourselves I now beg your pardon, and ax your 
 forgiveness for all the sin I done to you.' She dropped on 
 her knees, and cried bitterly ; but he raised her up, himself 
 a-choking at the time, and, as the poor crathur got to her 
 feet, she laid herself on his breast, and sobbed out, for she 
 couldn't help it. 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 the lamps with. 
 
 " At last, with a good dale of trouble, they got to the still- 
 house ; and, as they had all taken a drop before, you may 
 be sure they were better inclined 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 
 whisky that never seen a drop of water. They all were in 
 
 1 Any quantity of meal ground on one occasion, a kiln cast, or as 
 much as the kiln will dry at once. 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 130 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE 
 
 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, Billy M'Kinney, 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 male from her sister-in-law, to have 
 a warm pot of stirabout for Larry, and sat up till the night 
 was more than half gone, waiting for him, yet no Larry made 
 his appearance. 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 another that-a-way ; 
 so Sally thought it hard to let them go without getting their 
 share, and accordingly she put down the pot on a bright fire, 
 and made a good lot of 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 with their little chat, 
 till their father would come back. 
 
 "The night, for some time before this, got very stormy 
 entirely. The wind ris, and the rain fell as if it came out of 
 methers. 1 The house was very cowld, 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 almost from the hearth. Sally got 
 very low-spirited on hearing the storm whistling so sorrow- 
 
 1 An old Irish drinking-vessel.
 
 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE 131 
 
 fully 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 manetime, terrible blasts would come over and 
 through the house, making the ribs crack so, that you would 
 think the roof would be taken away at wanst. The fire was 
 now 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 some- 
 thing 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 cowld 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, " I wish they 
 were here beside me on this comfortable hob, this minnit ; 
 I'd fight Nancy to get a fogmeal for them, anyway a body 
 can't but pity them, afther all ! " 
 
 " You'd fight Nancy ! " said Nancy herself " maybe Nancy 
 would be as willing to do something for the crathurs as you 
 would. I like everybody that's able to pay for what they 
 get ; but we ought to have some bowels in us for all that. 
 You'd fight Nancy, indeed ! " 
 
 "Well," continued the narrator, "there they sat, with 
 cowld and fear in their pale faces, shivering over the remains 
 of the fire, for it was now nearly out, and thinking, as the 
 deadly blast would drive through the creeking ould door and 
 the half-stuffed 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
 
 132 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE 
 
 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 roll from her eyes, and she rocked herself from 
 side to side, sobbing as if her heart would break. 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 w r ith these thoughts 
 she raked the greeshaugh 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 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 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 
 distress, as if all belonging to her were under-boord. 1 
 
 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, ' 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 thq greatest grief, and 
 she thought 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 
 
 1 This phrase alludes to the manner in which the dead bodies in 
 several parts of Ireland are laid out, 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'FARLAND'S WAKE 133 
 
 what it said. At this time the wind got calmer, and the 
 voice also got lower ; 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 the chink of the door she heard 
 the words repeated, no doubt of it, only she couldn't be quite 
 sure, as they weren't very plain ; but, as far as she could make 
 any sense out of them, she thought that it said, ' 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 weren'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 harished with 
 one thing or another that at last she fell asleep." 
 
 " 'Twas the Banshee," says Shane Fadh. 
 
 " Indeed, it was nothing else than that same," replied 
 M'Roarkin. 
 
 " I wonder Sally didn't think of that," said Nancy " sure, 
 she might know that no living crathur would be out lament- 
 ing under such a night as that was." 
 
 "She did think of that," said Tom; "but, as no Banshee 
 ever followed her own l 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 inquired. 
 
 "He did," said Tom, "and his wife along with him, 
 and knew at once that some death would happen 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 stand- 
 
 1 The Banshee in Ireland is, or rather was, said to follow only par- 
 ticular families principally the old Milesians. It took the form of a 
 woman weeping and wringing her hands, and betokened death to one 
 of the family.
 
 134 LARRY M'FARLANITS WAKE 
 
 ing at the fire, with a very sorrowful face upon him. ' \Vhy, 
 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 way since.' 
 Larry, however, made him no answer ; and, on looking for 
 him again, there was no Larry there for him. ' Nelly,' *ny^ 
 he to his wife, 'did you see any sight of Larry since he went 
 to the still-house ? ' ' Arrah, no indeed, Tom,' says she ; 
 ' what's coming over you to spake to the man that's near 
 Drumfarrar 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 l ; and if I 
 did, he hasn't long to live ; for, when one's fetch is seen at 
 this time of night, their lase of life, let them be sick or in 
 health, is always short.' ' 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 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 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 before him. 
 
 " In the manetime the neighbours had been all raised to 
 search for him ; and, indeed, the hills were alive with people. 
 It was the second day after, that Sally was standing, looking 
 out at her own door toardst the mountains, expecting that every 
 
 1 This in the North of Ireland is called wraith, as in Scotland. 
 Carleton adopted the other term as more national. The "fetch" 
 assumes the likeness of the person who is to die, but does not appear 
 to that person, but to his or her friends. ED.
 
 LARRY M'FARLAND^S WAKE 135 
 
 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. 
 
 " ' Uncle,' says Dick, ' did you get my father, for I must 
 fly back with word to my mother, like lightning ? ' 
 
 " ' Come here, Dick,' says Tom ; e God help you, my poor 
 bouchal ! Come here, and walk alongside of me, for you 
 can't go back to your mother till I 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 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 minute her 
 brother-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 husband, with her heart-broken and desolate 
 orphans in an uproar of outher misery about them. That 
 was the end of Larry M 'Far land 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 them- 
 selves as they did for others." 
 
 " But how did he lose his life, at all, at all ? " inquired 
 Nancy. 
 
 " Why, they found his hat in a bog hole upon the water,
 
 136 LARRY M'FARLAND ? S WAKE 
 
 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; "but you won't be after passing that on us for the 
 wake, anyhow." 
 
 "Well, you must learn patience, Shane," said the narrator, 
 " for you know patience is a virtue." 
 
 " I'll warrant you that Tom and his wife made a better 
 hand of themselves," said Alick M'Kinley, " than Larry and 
 Sally did." 
 
 " Ah ! I wouldn't fear, Alick," said Tom, " but you would 
 come at the thruth 'tis you that may say they did ; there 
 wasn't two in the parish more comfortable 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 hagyard 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 were growing up fine colleens, all out." 
 
 "And you may add, I suppose," said Andy Morrow, "that 
 they lost no time going to fairs or dances, or other foolish 
 divarsions. I'll engage they never were at a dance in the 
 Squire's kitchen ; that they never went about losing their 
 time 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, maybe, 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. \Ve were about a dozen of neighbours, talking 
 in the street, just before the door ; both the hagyards were 
 forninst us Tom's snug and nate but Charley Lawder had 
 to go over from where he stood to drive the pig out of poor
 
 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE 137 
 
 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 hagyard would see the same Larry's handi- 
 work so beautiful and elegant, though his own was in such 
 brutheen. 1 Even his barn went to wrack ; and he was obliged 
 to thrash his oats 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 break the crathur." 
 
 "God knows," says Nancy, looking over at Ned signifi- 
 cantly, " 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. 2 If he had a care- 
 ful, 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, anyhow." 
 
 "In throth," said Tom, "that's no more than thruth, 
 Nancy but he had not, and everything 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, anyway ; 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 widdy 3 these five years; and I feel, somehow, par- 
 ticularly since I began to spend my evenings here, that I'm 
 disremembering very much the old proverb ' A burnt child 
 dreads the fire.' " 
 
 " Thank you, Alick ; you think I swally that. But as for 
 
 1 Brutheen is potato champed with butter. Anything in a loose, 
 broken, and irregular state is said to be in brutheen that is, disorder 
 and confusion. 
 
 2 Wife. 
 
 3 The peasantry of a great portion of Ireland use the word widow as 
 applicable to both sexes.
 
 138 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE 
 
 Ned, the never a fear of him; except that an 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 talking that- 
 a-way ; it's only last Thursday, Mr. Morrow, that, in presence 
 of her own brother, Jem Connolly, the breeches-maker, and 
 Billy M'Kinny, there, I put my two five fingers acrass, 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 porther 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 acrass, and many a time 
 your mind has changed ; but I'll say no more now wait till 
 we see how you'll keep it." 
 
 " Healths apiece, your sowls," said Ned, winking at the 
 company. 
 
 " Well, Tom," said Andy Morrow, "about the wake ? " 
 
 " Och, och ! that was the merry wake, Mr. Morrow. 
 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 had 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 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 desarved 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, 1 seeing he neglected 
 many a good advice that Tom and his dacent woman of a 
 
 1 The genuine blunders of the Irish not those studied for them by 
 men ignorant of their modes of expression and habits of life are always 
 significant, clear, and full of strong sense and moral truth.
 
 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE 139 
 
 wife often 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 full and plenty of 
 the best over him, and everything, as far as Tom was con- 
 sarned, 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 M'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 won- 
 dherful 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. 
 
 "The sorra inquist, not making you an ill answer, sir 
 the people weren't so exact in them days ; but, anyhow, 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 hands 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, anyway, messengers had been sent especially for them. 
 
 " The Squire very kindly lent sheets for them both to be 
 laid out in, and mould-candlesticks 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 enough to know their loss breaking their 
 hearts, the crathurs, and so hoarse that they weren't able 
 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
 
 140 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE 
 
 death so well as Sally ; but you couldn't meet a purtier 
 corpse than she was in a day's travelling. I say, when they 
 were washed and dressed, their friends and neighbours knelt 
 down round them, and offered up a Father and Ave apiece 
 for the good of their sowls; when this was done, they all 
 raised the keen, stooping over them at a half bend, clapping 
 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 an ill word of either of them. Bad luck to it for poteen- 
 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, maybe ; 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 Doraghy Crolly, that shot Ned Wilson's uncle 
 of the Black Hills. 
 
 " After the first keening, the friends and neighbours took 
 their seats about the corpses. In a short time whisky, pipes, 
 snuff, and tobacco came, and every one about the place got 
 a glass and a fresh pipe. Tom, when he held his glass in 
 his hand, looking at his dead brother, filled up to the eyes, 
 and couldn't for some time get out a word ; at last, when 
 he was able to spake, ' Poor Larry,' says he, ' you're lying 
 there low before me, and many a happy day we spint 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 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 sowls.' 
 
 "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
 
 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE 141 
 
 or woman, they'd raise the shout of a keen, and all the people 
 about the dead would begin along with them, stooping over 
 them and clapping their hands as before. 
 
 "Well, I said it's it that was the merry wake, and that 
 was only the thruth, neighbours. As soon as night came, 
 all the young boys and girls from the country-side about 
 them nocked to it in scores. In a short time the house was 
 crowded ; and maybe 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, maybe some new friend or relation, that wasn't there 
 before, would come in, and raise the keen. 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 shout, the merry 
 folks would rise up, begin to pelt their hands together, and 
 cry along with him till their eyes would 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 minutes be as merry as the best of them." 
 
 "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 ; " for 
 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 truth, 
 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, 1 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, 
 
 1 That is, in this point you are of the same kind as your father.
 
 142 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE 
 
 or the great rebellion of '4 1, 1 and the strange story of 
 Dearg, or the ' bloody hand/ that, maybe, I'll tell you all some 
 other night, plase God ; there they'd sit smoking their 
 faces quite plased with the pleasure of the pipe amusing 
 themselves and a crowd of people that would be listening to 
 them with open mouth. 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 Mangin, 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, anyhow; 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 alive to acknowledge it, the broad of his 
 back upon the flure when he thought to pull her off my knee. 
 The very gorsoons and girshas were coorting away among them- 
 selves, 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 set, maning all the youngsters of us, both boys 
 and girls, out to Tom's barn, that was red 2 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 manetime, lashings of tobacco and snuff, 
 cut in platefuls, and piles of fresh new pipes, were laid on 
 the table for any man that wished to use them. 
 
 1 1641, when, according to some historians, a massacre of Protestants 
 took place. The ' Red Hand ' (Lamh Dearg) is the emblem of Ulster. 
 
 2 Cleared up set in order.
 
 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE 143 
 
 " When we got to the barn, it's then we took our pumps 
 off 1 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 against one another. There was the Slip 
 from Althadhawan, for Errigle-Truagh, against Pat M'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, doubles 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 fellow'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 one of them able, hard-working fellows, with 
 hands upon them like limestone. 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, 2 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 shinning ; 3 his wrist was as hard and strong as a 
 bar of iron. M'Ardle was a low, broad man, with a rucket 4 
 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 Tegue, I remimber, struck a cousin of the 
 
 1 Threw aside all restraint. 2 From that hour to this. 
 
 Sinews. 4 Curled.
 
 144 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE 
 
 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 coolly, and 
 with such good humour, that every one in the house trembled 
 for poor Jemmy, bekase, you see, whenever the Slip was bent 
 on mischief he used always to grin. Jemmy, however, 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 burst out of poor 
 Jemmy'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'Ardle. 
 
 " ' Hould away,' says Pat ' clear off, boys, all of you 
 this stroke's mine by right, anyhow ; and,' says he, swearing 
 a terrible oath, ' if you don't sup sorrow for that stroke,' says 
 he to the Slip, ' 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, anyway, 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. 
 
 " 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 shoemaker's leather 
 apron is then got, or a good stout brogue, and sent round 
 under their knees. In the manetime, one stands in the 
 middle ; and after the brogue is sent round he is to catch 
 it as soon as he can. While he stands 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
 
 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE 145 
 
 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 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 ' Frimsey Framsey,' 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 sweetheart, 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, ' fair maid 
 Frimsey Framsey, who's your fancy ? ' She then calls him 
 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. 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 Englishwomen are so fond of Irishmen ? " 
 
 " 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 streets of London one day, and his ser- 
 vant 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. 
 
 " ' Why, thin,' says Ned Magavran, who was his body-servant 
 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 vagabone, don't you see I'm 
 my master's ? ' 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 146 LARRY MTARLAND^S WAKE 
 
 " 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 ; ' and by the powers,' says he, ' but 
 you must first tell me which side of the head you'd wish to 
 hear it an.' 
 
 '" 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 Ned, ' till I light off 
 this blood horse of mine ' he was an ould garran 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. 
 
 "'Take that, you vagabone,' says he, 'and it'll larn you to 
 call people by then- right names agin ; I was christened as well 
 as you, you spalpeen ! ' 
 
 "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 sends her 
 own maid, a very purty girl, who comes up to Ned, putting 
 the same question to him. 
 
 " ' What's his name, avounieen ? ' says Ned, melting, to be 
 sure, at the sight of her. ' Why, then, darling, who could 
 refuse you anything? But, you jewel, by the hokey, 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. 
 
 " ' 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, acushla,' says he, 'you've a purty and an innocent-
 
 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE 147 
 
 looking face ; but I'm tould there's many a 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, anyhow, if that be it.' 
 
 " 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 regiment he shot five 
 men in his time, and there's not a gentleman in the country 
 he lives in that dare say Boo to his blanket. And now, 
 what's your own name,' says Ned, ' you flattering little black- 
 guard, you ? ' 
 
 " ' My name's Betty Cunningham,' says she. 
 
 " ' 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 
 bourn,' 
 
 " ' Do you read in your country with the wrong side of the 
 print up ? ' says she. 
 
 " ( Up or down,' says Ned, ' it's all one to us in Ireland ; 
 but, anyhow, I'm left-handed, you deluder ! ' 
 
 " The upshot of it was that her mistress turned out to be 
 a great hairess arid 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 ' " 
 
 " Hooh ! " 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. 
 
 " The next is marrying. A bouc/inl 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
 
 148 LARRY M'FARLANTTS WAKE 
 
 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 \rife, and the priest kisses 
 her 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 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 verse. 
 You see, Mr. Morrow, there's always in the neighbourhood 
 some droll fellow that takes all these things upon him, and if 
 he happens 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 marrying." 
 
 " Were you always so ? " says Ned, across the fire to her. 
 
 "Behave yourself, Ned," says she; "don't you make me 
 spake ; sure, you were set down 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.
 
 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE 149 
 
 " Don't make me spake," continued Ned. 
 
 " Come, Ned," she replied, " you've a fresh pint now ; so 
 drink it, and give no more gosther." 
 
 " Shud-orth ! " 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 conversa- 
 tion, "go on, and give us the remainder of your wake." 
 
 " Well," says Tom, " the next play is in the milintary 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 come 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 
 arms 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 
 another, 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. 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 a 
 penknife, 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 command the 
 person that owns that forfeit to sing a song to kiss such and 
 such a girl or to carry some ould man, with his legs about 
 their neck, three times round the house, and this last is
 
 150 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE 
 
 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 trinck- 
 ling 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 obligated to laugh out, in spite of them- 
 selves, 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 with the sorrow so 
 sad. The best man for managing such sports in this neigh- 
 bourhood, for many a year, was Roger M ( Cann, that lives up 
 as you go to the mountains. You wouldn't begrudge to go 
 ten miles, the cowldest winter night that ever blew, to see 
 and hear Roger. 
 
 " There's another play, that they call the ' Priest of the 
 Parish,' which is remarkably pleasant. One of the 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, ' 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, ' Is it me, sir ? ' ' Yes, you, sir ! ' ( You 
 lie, sir ! ' ' Who then, sir ? ' ' Black Cap ! ' If Black Cap, 
 then, doesn't say, f 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 calls ' Horns,' or the ' Painter.' 
 A droll fellow gets a lump of soot or lampblack, and, after 
 fixing a ring of the boys and girls about him, he lays his two 
 forefingers 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 
 meaning of the play is this : the man with the black' ning 
 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
 
 LARRY M'FARLAND^S WAKE 151 
 
 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 girls ought not, bekase 
 a horse has not horns ; however, any one who raises them 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 straiking 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 
 their 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 choose a wife, and, in the manetime, 
 the youngsters of the ring sing out 
 
 ' Here's a silly ould man that lies 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 choice of her, she goes into the ring 
 along with him, and they all sing out 
 
 ' Now, young couple, you're married together, 
 
 You're married together, 
 
 You're married together, 
 You must obey your father 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, 
 anyway."
 
 152 LARRY M'FARLAND 1 S WAKE 
 
 " 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 httsth, hould your tongue, Misther Morrow," said 
 he. " Biddy, avourneen," he continued, addressing Biddy and 
 Bessy, "and Bessy, alanna, just take a friend's advice, and 
 never mind going to wakes ; to be sure, there's plinty of fun 
 and divarsion at such 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, help- 
 less families upon their hands, without money or manes 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'll be the ould case still." 
 
 " I never remember being at a counthry wake," said Andy 
 Morrow. " How is everything laid out in the house ? " 
 
 " Sure it's to you I'm telling the whole story, Mr. Morrow : 
 these thieves about me here know all about it as well as I 
 do the house, eh ? Why, you see, the two corpses were 
 stretched beside one another, washed and laid out. There 
 were long deal boords, with their ends upon two stools, laid 
 over the bodies ; the boords w r ere 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, 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 undher boord, a set 
 of ould women sit smoking and rocking themselves from side 
 to side, quite sorrowful these are ' keeners ' friends or re- 
 lations ; and, when every one connected with the dead comes 
 in, they raise the keen, 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, chatting, and
 
 LARRY M'FARLAND'S WAKE 153 
 
 gosthering. The best of aiting and dhrinking that they can 
 afford is provided ; and, indeed, there is generally open house, 
 for it's unknown how people injure themselves by their kind- 
 ness and waste at christ'nings, weddings, and wakes. 
 
 " In regard to poor Larry's wake we had all this, and 
 more at it ; for, as I obsarved a while agone, the man had 
 made himself no friends when he was living, and the neigh- 
 bours gave a loose to all kinds of divilment when he was 
 dead. 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 respect 
 by going through their little plays and divarsions quieter and 
 with less noise, lest they may give any offince ; 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'Kinny ; " take a pull of the 
 malt now, afther the story, your soul ! 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 neighbours ; for those 
 that used to take his thrate, 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 ! "
 
 X 
 
 THE STATION 
 
 OUR readers are to suppose the Reverend Philemy 
 M'Guirk, parish priest of Tir-neer, to be standing 
 upon the altar of the chapel, facing the congregation, after 
 having gone through the canon of the mass, and having 
 nothing more of the service to perform than the usual prayers 
 with which he closes the ceremony. 
 
 " Take notice that the stations for the following week will 
 be held as follows : 
 
 " On Monday, in Jack Gallagher's, of Corraghuamoddagh. 
 Are you there, Jack ? " 
 
 " To the fore, yer reverence." 
 
 "Why, then, Jack, there's something ominous something 
 auspicious to happen, or we wouldn't have you here ; for it's 
 very seldom that you make part or parcel of the present 
 congregation ; seldom are you here, Jack, it must be con- 
 fessed. However, you know the old classical proverb, or if 
 you don't, I do, which will just answer as well Non semper 
 ridit Apollo it's not every day Manus kills a bullock; so, 
 as you are here, be prepared for us on Monday." 
 
 " Never fear, yer reverence, never fear ; I think you ought 
 to know that the grazin' at Corraghnamoddagh's not bad." 
 
 " To do you justice, Jack, the mutton was always good with 
 you ; only, if you would get it better killed it would be an 
 improvement." 
 
 "Very well, yer reverence, I'll do it." 
 
 " On Tuesday, in Peter Murtagh's, of the Crooked Commons. 
 Are you there, Peter ? " 
 
 " Here, yer reverence." 
 
 " Indeed, Peter, I might know you are here ; and I wish 
 that a great many of my flock would take example by you : 
 if they did, I wouldn't be so far behind in getting in my dues. 
 Well, Peter, I suppose you know that this is Michaelmas ? " 
 
 " So fat, yer reverence, that they're not able to wag ; but,
 
 THE STATION 155 
 
 anyway, Katty has them marked for you two fine young 
 crathurs, only last year's fowl ; and the ducks isn't a taste 
 behind them she's crammin' them this month past." 
 
 " I believe you, Peter, and I would take your word for 
 more than the condition of the geese remember me to 
 Katty, Peter." 
 
 " On Wednesday, in Parrah More Slevin s, of Mullagkfadh. 
 Are you there, Parrah More ? " No answer. " Parrah More 
 Slevin ? " Silence. " Parrah More Slevin, of Mullaghfadh ? " 
 No reply. " Dan Fagan ? " 
 
 " Present, sir." 
 
 " Do you know what keeps that reprobate from mass ? " 
 
 " I bleeve he's takin' advantage, sir, of the frast, to get in 
 his praties to-day, in respect of the bad footin', sir, for the 
 horses in the bog when there's not a frast. Anyhow, betune 
 that and a bit of a sore head that he got, yer reverence, on 
 Thursday last in takin' part wid the O'Scallaghans agin the 
 Brady s, I believe he had to stay away to-day." 
 
 " On the Sabbath day, too, without my leave ! Well, tell 
 him from me that I'll make an example of him to the whole 
 parish if he doesn't attend mass better. Will the Bradys and 
 the O'Scallaghans never be done with their quarrelling ? I 
 protest, if they don't live like Christians, I'll read them out 
 from the altar. Will you tell Parrah More that I'll hold a 
 station in his house on next Wednesday ? " 
 
 " I will, sir ; I will, yer reverence." 
 
 " On Thursday, in Phaddhy Sheemus Phaddhy's, of the Es/cer. 
 Are you there, Phaddhy ? " 
 
 " Wid the help of God, I'm here, sir." 
 
 " Well, Phaddhy, how is yer son Briney, that's at the Latin ? 
 I hope he's coming on well at it ? " 
 
 " Why, sir, he's not more nor a year and a half at it yet, 
 and he's got more books amost nor he can carry he'll break 
 me buying books for him." 
 
 "Well, that's a good sign, Phaddhy; but why don't you 
 bring him to me till I examine him ? " 
 
 " Why, never a one of me can get him to go, sir ; he's so 
 much afeard of your reverence." 
 
 " Well, Phaddhy, we were once modest and bashful our- 
 selves, and I'm glad to hear that he's afraid of his clargy ;
 
 156 THE STATION 
 
 but let him be prepared for me on Thursday, and maybe I'll 
 let him know something he never heard before ; I'll give him 
 a Maynooth touch." 
 
 " Do you hear that, Briney," said the father, aside, to the 
 son, who knelt at his knee " ye must give up yer hurling and 
 idling now, you see. Thank yer reverence, thank you, docthor. " 
 
 " On Friday, in Bamy 0' Darby's, alias Barny Butter's. Are 
 you there, Barny ? " 
 
 "All that's left of me is here, sir." 
 
 " Well, Barny, how is the butter trade this season ? " 
 
 " It's a little on the rise now, sir ; in a month or so I'm 
 expecting it will be brisk enough ; Boney, 1 sir, is doing that 
 much for us, anyway." 
 
 "Ay, and, Barny, he'll do more than that for us God 
 prosper him at all events I only hope the time's coming, 
 Barny, when every one will be able to eat his own butter, and 
 his own beef too." 
 
 " God send it, sir." 
 
 " Well, Barny, I didn't hear from your brother Ned these 
 two or three months ; what has become of him ? " 
 
 "Ah, yer reverence, Pentland done him up." 
 
 " What ! the gauger ? " 
 
 " He did, the thief; but maybe he'll sup sorrow for it afore 
 he's much oulder." 
 
 " And who do you think informed, Barny ? " 
 
 " Oh, I only wish we knew that, sir." 
 
 " I wish I knew it ; and if I thought any miscreant here 
 would become an informer I'd make an example of him. 
 Well, Barny, on Friday next ; but I suppose Ned has a drop 
 still eh, Barny ? " 
 
 "Why, sir, we'll be apt to have something stronger nor 
 wather, anyhow." 
 
 "iVery well, Barny ; your family was always a dacent and 
 spirited family, I'll say that for them. But tell me, Barny, 
 did you begin to dam the river yet ? 2 I think the trouts and 
 eels are running by this time." 
 
 1 Bonaparte, in whom the peasantry saw a possible deliverer from 
 English rule. ED. 
 
 2 It is usual among the peasantry to form, about Michaelmas, small 
 artificial cascades, called dams, under which they place long, deep
 
 THE STATION 157 
 
 "The creels are made, yer reverence, though we did not 
 set them yet ; but 011 Tuesday night, sir, wid the help o' God, 
 we'll be ready." 
 
 " You can corn the trouts, Barny, and the eels too ; but, 
 should you catch nothing, go to Pat Hartigan, Captain 
 Sloethorn's gamekeeper, and if you tell him it's for me, he'll 
 drag you a batch out of the fish-pond." 
 
 " Ah ! then, your reverence, it's 'imself that 'ill do that 
 wid a heart an' a half." 
 
 Such was the conversation which took place between the 
 Reverend Philemy M'Guirk and those of his parishioners in 
 whose houses he had appointed to hold a series of stations 
 for the week ensuing the Sunday laid in this our account of 
 that hitherto undescribed portion of the Romish discipline. 
 
 Now, the reader is to understand that a station in this 
 sense differs from a station made to any peculiar spot re- 
 markable for local sanctity. There, a station means the per- 
 formance of a pilgrimage to a certain place, under peculiar 
 circumstances, and the going through a stated number of 
 prayers and other penitential ceremonies, for the purpose of 
 wiping out sin in this life, or of relieving the soul of some 
 relation from the pains of purgatory in the other ; here, it 
 simply means the coming of the parish priest and his curate 
 to some house in the town-land, on a day publicly announced 
 from the altar for that purpose on the preceding Sabbath. 
 
 This is done to give those who live within the district in 
 which the station is held an opportunity of coming to their 
 duty, as frequenting the ordinance of confession is emphati- 
 cally called. Those who attend confession in this manner 
 once a year are considered merely to have done their duty ; 
 it is expected, however, that they should approach the tri- 
 bunal, as it is termed, at least twice during that period that 
 is, at the two great feasts of Christmas and Easter. The 
 observance or omission of this rite among Roman Catholics 
 establishes, in a great degree, the nature of individual 
 
 wicker creels, shaped like inverted cones, for the purpose of securing 
 the fish that are now on their return to the large rivers, after having de- 
 posited their spawn in the higher and remoter streams. It is surprising 
 what a number of fish, particularly of eels, are caught in this manner 
 sometimes from one barrel to three in the course of a single night !
 
 158 THE STATION 
 
 character. The man who frequents his duty will seldom be 
 pronounced a bad man, let his conduct and his principles be 
 what they may in other respects ; and he who neglects it is 
 looked upon by those who attend it as in a state little short 
 of reprobation, no matter how correct or religious he may be, 
 either in public or private life. 
 
 When the "giving out" of the stations was over, and a 
 few more jests were broken by his reverence, to which the 
 congregation paid the tribute of a general and uproarious 
 laugh, he turned round on his heel, and with the greatest 
 sang froid resumed the performance of the mass, whilst his 
 " flock " began to finger their beads with faces as grave as 
 if nothing of the kind had occurred. When mass was 
 finished, and the holy water sprinkled upon the people, out 
 of a tub carried by the mass-server through the chapel for 
 that purpose, the priest gave them a fine Latin benediction, 
 and they dispersed. 
 
 Now, of the four individuals in whose houses the stations 
 were appointed to be held, we will select Phaddhy Sheemus 
 Phaddhy for our purpose ; and this we do because it was the 
 first time in which a station was ever kept in his house, and 
 consequently Phaddhy and his wife had to undergo the 
 initiatory ceremony of entertaining Father Philemy and his 
 curate, the Reverend Con M'Coul, at dinner. 
 
 Phaddhy Sheemus Phaddhy had been, until a short time 
 before the period in question, a very poor man ; but a little 
 previous to that event a brother of his, who had no children, 
 died very rich that is, for a fanner and left him his pro- 
 perty, or, at least, the greater part of it. While Phaddhy 
 was poor it was surprising what little notice he excited from 
 his reverence ; in fact, I have heard him acknowledge that 
 during all the days of his poverty he never got a nod of 
 recognition or kindness from Father Philemy, although he 
 sometimes did, he said, from Father Con, his curate, who 
 honoured him on two occasions so far as to challenge him to 
 a bout at throwing the shoulder-stone, and once to a leaping 
 match, at both of which exercises Father Con, but for the 
 superior power of Phaddhy, had been unrivalled. 
 
 " It was an unlucky day to him," said Phaddhy, " that he 
 went to challenge me, at all, at all ; for I was the only man
 
 THE STATION 159 
 
 that ever bate him, and he wasn't able to hould up his head 
 in the parish for many a day afther." 
 
 As soon, however, as Phaddhy became a man of substance, 
 one would almost think that there had been a secret relation- 
 ship between his good fortune and Father Philemy's memory ; 
 for on their first meeting after Phaddhy 's getting the property 
 the latter shook him most cordially by the hand a proof 
 that, had not his recollection been as much improved as 
 Phaddhy's circumstances, he could by no means have remem- 
 bered him ; but this is a failing in the memory of many, as 
 well as in that of Father Philemy. Phaddhy, however, was 
 no Dormell, 1 to use his own expression, and saw as far into 
 a deal board as another man. 
 
 " And so, Phaddhy," said the priest, " how are all your 
 family ? six you have, I think ? " 
 
 " Four, yer rev'rence, only four," said Phaddhy, winking 
 at Tim Dillon, his neighbour, who happened to be present 
 "three boys an' one girl." 
 
 " Bless my soul, and so it is, indeed, Phaddhy, and I ought 
 to know it ; and how is your wife Sarah ? I mean, I hope 
 Mrs. Sheemus Phaddhy is well by-the-bye, is that old com- 
 plaint of hers gone yet? a pain in the stomach, I think it 
 was, that used to trouble her I hope in God, Phaddhy, she's 
 getting over it, poor thing ! Indeed, I remember telling her 
 last Easter, when she came to her duty, to eat oaten bread 
 and butter with water-grass every morning, fasting ; it cured 
 myself of the same complaint." 
 
 " Why, thin, I'm very much obliged to your rev'rence for 
 purscribin' for her," replied Phaddhy; "for, sure enough, she 
 has neither pain nor ache at the present time, for the best 
 rason in the world, docthor, that she'll be dead jist seven 
 years, if God spares yer rev'rence an' myself till to-morrow 
 fortnight, about five o'clock in the mornin'." 
 
 This was more than Father Philemy could stand with a 
 good conscience, so, after getting himself out of the dilemma 
 as well as he could, he shook Phaddhy again very cordially 
 by the hand, saying, " Well, good-bye, Phaddhy, and God be 
 good to poor Sarah's soul I now remember her funeral, sure 
 
 1 No fool.
 
 160 THE STATION 
 
 enough, and a clacent one it was, for indeed she was a woman 
 that had eveiybody's good word and, between you and me, 
 she made a happy death, that's as far as we can judge here ; 
 for, after all, there may be danger, Phaddhy, there may be 
 danger, you understand however, it's your own business, and 
 your duty too, to think of that ; but I believe you're not the 
 man that would be apt to forget her." 
 
 " Phaddhy, ye thief o' the world," said Tim Dillon, when 
 Father Philemy was gone, " there's no comin' up to ye ; how 
 could you make sich a fool of his rev'rence as to tell 'im that 
 Katty was dead, an' that you had only four childher, an' you 
 has eleven o' them, an' the wife in good health ? " 
 
 "Why, jist, Tim," replied Phaddhy, with his usual shrewd- 
 ness, "to tache his rev'rence himself to practise truth a 
 little ; if he didn't know that I got the stockin' of guineas 
 and the Lisnaskey farm by my brother Barney's death, div 
 ye think that he'd notish me at all, at all ? not himself, 
 avick ; an' maybe he won't be afther comin' round to me for 
 a sack of my best oats, instead of the bushel I used to give 
 him, and houldin' a couple of stations wid me every year." 
 
 " But won't he go mad when he hears you tould him no- 
 thing but lies ? " 
 
 " Not now, Tim," answered Phaddhy " not now ; thank 
 God, I'm not a poor man, an' he'll keep his temper. I'll 
 warrant you the horsewhip won't be up now, although afore 
 this I wouldn't say but it might though, the poorest day I 
 ever was, it's myself that wouldn't let a priest or friar lay a 
 horsewhip to my back, an' that you know, Tim." 
 
 Phaddhy's sagacity, however, was correct ; for, a short time 
 after this conversation, Father Philemy, when collecting his oats, 
 gave him a call, laughed heartily at the sham account of Katty's 
 death, examined young Briney in his Latin, who was called after 
 his uncle ; pronounced him very cute, and likely to become a 
 great scholar ; promised his interest with the bishop to get him 
 into Mayiiooth, and left the family, after having shaken hands 
 with, and stroked down the heads of, all the children. 
 
 When Phaddhy, on the Sunday in question, heard the 
 public notice given of the station about to be held in his 
 house, notwithstanding his correct knowledge of Father 
 Philemy's character, on which he looked with a competent
 
 THE STATION 161 
 
 portion of contempt, he felt a warmth of pride about his 
 heart that arose from the honour of having a station, and of 
 entertaining the clergy in their official capacity, under his 
 own roof and at his own expense, that gave him, he thought, 
 a personal consequence which even the " stockin' of guineas " 
 and the Lisnaskey farm were unable of themselves to confer 
 upon him. He did enjoy, 'tis true, a very fair proportion of 
 happiness on succeeding to his brother's property ; but this 
 would be a triumph over the envious and ill-natured remarks 
 which several of his neighbours and distant relations had 
 taken the liberty of indulging in against him on the occasion 
 of his good fortune. He left the chapel, therefore, in good 
 spirits ; whilst Briney, on the contrary, hung a lip of more 
 melancholy pendency than usual in dread apprehension of 
 the examination that he expected to be inflicted on him by 
 his reverence at the station. 
 
 Before I introduce the conversation which took place be- 
 tween Phaddhy and Briney as they went home on the subject 
 of this literary ordeal, I must observe that there is a custom, 
 hereditary in some Irish families, of calling fathers by their 
 Christian names instead of by the usual appellation of " father." 
 This usage was observed, not only by Phaddhy and his son, but 
 by all the Phaddhys of that family generally. Their surname 
 was Doran, but, in consequence of the great numbers in that 
 part of the country who bore the same name, it was neces- 
 sary, as of old, to distinguish the several branches of it by the 
 Christian names of their fathers and grandfathers, and some- 
 times this distinction went as far back as the great grand- 
 father. For instance, Phaddhy Sheemus Phaddhy meant 
 Phaddhy, the son of Sheemus, the son of Phaddhy ; and his 
 son, Briney, was called Briney Phaddhy Sheemus Phaddhy, 
 or anglice, Bernard, the son of Patrick, the son of James, the son 
 of Patrick. But the custom of children calling fathers, in a 
 viva voce manner, by their Christian names, was independent 
 of the other more general usage of the patronymic. 
 
 "Well, Briney," said Phaddhy, as the father and son 
 returned home, cheek by jowl, from the chapel, " I suppose 
 Father Philemy will go very deep in the Latin wid ye on 
 Thursday ; do ye think ye'll be able to answer him ? " 
 
 "Why, Phaddhy," replied Briney, "how could I be able 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 162 THE STATION 
 
 to answer a clargy ? doesn't he know all the languages, 
 and I'm only in the Fibulas JEsiopii yet." 
 
 " Is that Latin or Greek, Briney ? " 
 
 " It's Latin, Phaddhy." 
 
 " And what's the translation of that ? " 
 
 " It signifies the Fables of .ZEsiopius." 
 
 " Bliss my sowl ! and, Briney, did ye consther that out of 
 yer own head ? " 
 
 " Hogh ! that's little of it. If ye war to hear me consther 
 Gallus Gallinaceus, a dunghill cock ! " 
 
 "And, Briney, are ye in Greek at all yet ? " 
 
 " No, Phaddhy, I'll not be in Greek till I'm in Virgil and 
 Horace, and thin I'll be near finished." 
 
 " And how long will it be till that, Briney ? " 
 
 "Why, Phaddhy, ye know I'm only a year and a half at 
 the Latin, and in two years more I'll be in the Greek." 
 
 " Do ye think will ye ever be as larned as Father Philemy, 
 Briney ? " 
 
 " Don't ye know whin I'm a clargy I will ; but I'm only a 
 lignum sacerdotis yet, Phaddhy." 
 
 "What's ligdum saucerdoatis, Briney?" 
 
 "A block of a priest, Phaddhy." 
 
 "Now, Briney, I suppose Father Philemy knows every- 
 thing?" 
 
 " Ay, to be sure he does ; all the languages that's spoken 
 through the world, Phaddhy." 
 
 " And must all the priests know them, Briney ? how many 
 are they ? " 
 
 " Seven sartinly, every priest must know them, or how 
 could they lay the divil if he'd spake to them in a tongue 
 they couldn't understand, Phaddhy ? " 
 
 " Ah, I declare, Briney, I see it now ; ony for that, poor 
 Father Philip the heavens be his bed ! wouldn't be able to 
 lay ould Warnock, that haunted Squire Sloethorn's stables." 
 
 "Is that when the two horses was stole, Phaddhy?" 
 
 "The very time, Briney; but, God be thanked, Father 
 Philip settled him to the day of judgment." 
 
 " And where did he put him, Phaddhy ? " 
 
 " Why, he wanted to be put anundher the hearth-stone ; 
 but Father Philip made him walk away with himself into a
 
 THE STATION 163 
 
 thumb-bottle, and tied a stone to it, and then sent him to 
 where he got a cooling, the thief, at the bottom of the lough 
 behind the house." 
 
 " Well, I'll tell you what I'm thinking I'll be apt to do, 
 Phaddhy, when I'm a clargy." 
 
 " And what is that, Briney ? " 
 
 " Why, I'll but, Phaddhy, don't be talking of this, be- 
 kase, if it should come to be known, I might get my brains 
 knocked out by some of the heretics." 
 
 " Never fear, Briney ; there's no danger of that. But 
 what is it ? " 
 
 "Why, I'll translate all the Protestants into asses, and then 
 we'll get our hands red of them altogether." 
 
 "Well, that flogs for 'cuteness, and it's a wondher the 
 clargy l doesn't do it, and them has the power ; for 'twould 
 give us pace entirely. But, Briney, will you spake in Latin 
 to Father Philemy on Thursday ? " 
 
 "To tell you the thruth, Phaddhy, I would rather he 
 wouldn't examine me this bout, at all, at all." 
 
 "Ay, but you know we couldn't go agin him, Briney, 
 bekase he promised to get you into the college. Will you 
 spake some Latin now till I hear you ? " 
 
 " Hem ! Verbum personaley cohairit cum nomnatibo numbera 
 at paraona at nuqumam sera yeast at bonis moras voia." 
 
 " Bless my heart ! and, Briney, where's that taken from ? " 
 
 "From Syntax, Phaddhy." 
 
 "And who was Shintax do you know, Briney?" 
 
 " He was a Roman, Phaddhy, bekase there's a Latin prayer 
 in the beginning of the book." 
 
 " Ay, was he ? a priest, I'll warrant him. Well, Briney, 
 do you mind yer Latin, and get on wid your larnin', and 
 when you grow up you'll have a pair of boots, and a horse of 
 your own (and a good broadcloth black coat, too) to ride on, 
 every bit as good as Father Philemy's, and maybe betther 
 nor Father Con's." 
 
 From this point, which usually wound up these colloquies 
 between the father and son, the conversation usually diverged 
 
 1 I have no hesitation in asserting that the bulk of the Irish peasantry 
 really believe that the priests have this power.
 
 164 THE STATION 
 
 into the more spacious fields of science ; so that, by the time 
 they reached home, Briney had probably given the father a 
 learned dissertation upon the elevation of the clouds above 
 the earth, and told him within how many thousand miles 
 they approached it at their nearest point of approximation. 
 
 " Katty," said Phaddhy, when he got home, " we're to 
 have a station here on Thursday next ; 'twas given out from 
 the altar to-day by Father Philemy." 
 
 " Oh, wurrah, ivurrah ! " exclaimed Katty, overwhelmed at 
 the consciousness of her own incapacity to get up a dinner in 
 sufficient style for such guests. " Phaddhy, ahagitr, what on 
 the livin' earth will we do, at all, at all ? Why, we'll never 
 be able to manage it." 
 
 " Arrah, why, Katty, woman what do they want but their 
 skinful to eat and dhrink, and I'm sure we're able to allow 
 them that, anyway ! " 
 
 " Arrah, bad manners to me, but you're enough to vex a 
 saint 'their skinful to eat and dhrink ! ' you common crathur, 
 you, to spake that-a-way of the clargy, as if it was ourselves 
 or the labourers you war spaking of." 
 
 '' Ay, and aren't we every bit as good as they are, if you 
 go to that ? haven't we sowls to be saved as well as them- 
 selves ? " 
 
 " ' As good as they are ! ' As good as the clargy ! ! Manim 
 a yea, agiis a n>urrah ! l listen to what he says ! Phaddhy, 
 take care of yourself. You've got rich now ; but, for all that, 
 take care of yourself. You had better not bring the priest's 
 ill-will or his bad heart upon us. You know they never thruv 
 that had it ; and maybe it's a short time your riches might 
 stay \vid you, or maybe it's a short time you might stay wid 
 them. At any rate, God forgive you, and I hope He will, for 
 makin' use of sich unsanctified words to your lawful clargy." 
 
 " Well, but what do you intind to do ? or what do you 
 think of getting for them ? " inquired Phaddhy. 
 
 " Indeed, it's very little matther what I get for them, or 
 what I'll do either sorrow one of myself cares almost for a 
 man in his senses, that ought to know better, to make use of 
 such low language about the blessed and holy crathurs, that 
 
 1 My soul to God and the Virgin !
 
 THE STATION 165 
 
 hasn't a stain of sin about them no more than the child 
 unborn ! " 
 
 " So you think ? " 
 
 " So I think ! ay, and it would be betther for you that 
 you thought so too ; but ye don't know what's before ye yet, 
 Phaddhy; and now, take warnin' in time, and mend your 
 life." 
 
 " Why, what do you see wrong in my life ? Am I a 
 drunkard ? am I lazy ? did ever I neglect my business ? was 
 I ever bad to you or to the childher? didn't I always give 
 yees yer fill to ate, and kept yees as well clad as yer neigh- 
 bours that was richer? don't I go on my knees, too, every 
 night and morning ? " 
 
 " That's true enough ; but what signifies it all ? When 
 did ye cross a priest's foot to go to your duty ? Not for the 
 last five years, Phaddhy not since poor Torly (God be good 
 to him !) died of the mazles, and that'll be five years a fort- 
 night before Christmas." 
 
 " And what are you the betther of all yer confessions ? did 
 they ever mend yer temper, avourneen ? No, indeed, Katty, 
 but you're ten times worse tempered coming back from the 
 priest than before ye go to him." 
 
 " O Phaddhy ! Phaddhy ! God look down upon you this 
 day, or any man that's in yer hardened state. I see there's 
 no use in spaking to you, for you'll still be the ould cut." 
 
 " Ay, will I ; so you may as well give up talking about 
 it. Arrah, woman ! " said Phaddhy, raising his voice, " who 
 does it ever make betther show me a man now, in all the 
 neighbourhood, that's a pin-point the holier of it ? Isn't 
 there Jemmy Shields, that goes to his duty wanst a month, 
 malivogues his [wife and family this minute, and then claps 
 them to a Rosary the next; but the ould boy's a thrifle to 
 him of a fast day, afther coming from the priest. Betune 
 ourselves, Katty, you're not much behind him." 
 
 Katty made no reply to this, but turned up her eyes 
 and crossed herself at the wickedness of her unmanageable 
 husband. 
 
 "Well, Briney," said she, turning abruptly to the son, 
 " don't take patthern by that man, if you expect to do any 
 good ; let him be a warning to you to mind yer duty, and
 
 166 THE STATION 
 
 respect yer clargy and prepare yerself, now that I think of 
 it, to go to Father Philemy or Father Con on Thursday. But 
 don't be said or led by that man, for I'm sure I dunno how 
 he intinds to face the Man above when he laves this world 
 and to keep from his duty, and to spake of his clargy as 
 he does ! " 
 
 There are few men without their weak sides. Phaddhy, 
 although the priests were never very much his favourites, 
 was determined to give what he himself called a let-out on 
 this -occasion, simply to show his ill-natured neighbours that, 
 notwithstanding their unfriendly remarks, he knew " what it 
 was to be dacent " as well as his betters ; and Katty seconded 
 him in his resolution, from her profound venei-ation for the 
 clargy. 
 
 Every preparation was accordingly entered into, and every 
 plan adopted, that could possibly be twisted into a capability 
 of contributing to the entertainment of Fathers Philemy 
 and Con. 
 
 One of those large round stercoraceous nosegays that, like 
 many other wholesome plants, make up by odour what is 
 wanting in floral beauty, and which lay rather too contagious, 
 as Phaddhy expressed it, to the door of his house, was 
 transplanted by about half a dozen labourers and as many 
 barrows, in the course of a day or two, to a bed some yards 
 distant from the spot of its first growth ; because, without 
 any reference whatsoever to the nasal sense, it was considered 
 that it might be rather an eye-sore to their reverences on 
 approaching the door. Several concave inequalities which 
 constant attrition had worn in the earthen floor of the kitchen 
 were filled up with blue clay, brought on a car from the bank 
 of a neighbouring river for the purpose. The dresser, chairs, 
 tables, pots, and pans all underwent a rigour of discipline, as 
 if some remarkable event was about to occur; nothing less, 
 it must be supposed, than a complete domestic revolution 
 and a new state of things. Phaddhy himself cut two or three 
 large furze bushes, and sticking them on the end of a pitch- 
 fork, attempted to sweep down the chimney. For this pur- 
 pose he mounted on the back of a chair, that he might be 
 able to reach the top with more ease ; but, in order that his 
 footing might be firm, he made one of the servant-men sit
 
 THE STATION 167 
 
 upon the chair to keep it steady during the operation. Un- 
 fortunately, however, it so happened that this man was needed 
 to assist in removing a meal-chest to another part of the 
 house ; this was under Katty's superintendence, who, seeing 
 the fellow sit rather more at his ease than she thought the 
 hurry and importance of the occasion permitted, called him, 
 with a little of her usual sharpness and energy, to assist in 
 removing the chest. For some reason or other, which it is 
 not necessary to mention here, the fellow bounced from his 
 seat in obedience to the shrill tones of Katty, and the next 
 moment Phaddhy (who was in a state of abstraction in the 
 chimney, and totally unconscious of what was going forward 
 below) made a descent decidedly contrary to the nature of 
 that which most aspirants would be inclined to relish. A 
 severe stun, however, was the most serious injury he received 
 on his own part, and several round oaths, with a good drub- 
 bing, fell to the servant ; but unluckily he left the furze bush 
 behind him in the highest and narrowest part of the chimney ; 
 and were it not that an active fellow succeeded in dragging 
 it up from the outside of the roof, the chimney ran consider- 
 able risk, as Katty said, of being choked. 
 
 But along with the lustration which every fixture within 
 the house was obliged to undergo, it was necessary that all 
 the youngsters should get new clothes ; and for this purpose 
 Jemmy Lynch, the tailor, with his two journeymen and three 
 apprentices, were sent for in all haste, that he might fit 
 Phaddhy and each of his six sons in suits, from a piece of 
 home-made frieze, which Katty did not intend to break up 
 till " toardst Christmas." 
 
 A station is no common event, and accordingly the web 
 was cut up, and the tailor left a wedding-suit half made, 
 belonging to Edy Dolan, a thin old bachelor, who took it into 
 his head to try his hand at becoming a husband ere he'd die. 
 As soon as Jemmy and his train arrived, a door was taken off 
 the hinges, and laid on the floor, for himself to sit upon, and 
 a new drugget quilt was spread beside it for his journeymen 
 and apprentices. With nimble fingers they plied the needle 
 and thread, and when night came a turf was got, into which 
 was stuck a piece of rod, pointed at one end and split at the 
 other; the "white candle," slipped into a shaving of the
 
 168 THE STATION 
 
 fringe that was placed in the cleft end of the stick, was then 
 lit, whilst many a pleasant story, told by Jemmy, who had 
 been once in Dublin for six weeks, delighted the circle of 
 lookers-on that sat around them. 
 
 At length the day previous to the important one arrived. 
 Hitherto all hands had contributed to make everything in 
 and about the house look " dacent ; " scouring, washing, 
 sweeping, pairing, and repairing had been all disposed of. 
 The boys got their hair cut to the quick with the tailor's 
 scissors ; and such of the girls as were not full grown got 
 only that which grew on the upper part of the head taken off 
 by a cut somewhat resembling the clerical tonsure, so that 
 they looked extremely wild and unsettled with their straight 
 locks projecting over their ears. Everything, therefore, of 
 the less important arrangements had been gone through ; but 
 the weighty and momentous concern was as yet unsettled. 
 
 This was the feast ! and, alas ! never was the want of ex- 
 perience more strongly felt than here. Katty was a bad 
 cook, even to a proverb, and bore so indifferent a character 
 in the country for cleanliness that very few would undertake 
 to eat her butter ; indeed, she was called Katty Sallagh 1 on 
 this account. However, this prejudice, whether ill or well 
 founded, was wearing fast away since Phaddhy had succeeded 
 to the stocking of guineas and the Lisnaskey farm. It might 
 be, indeed, that her former poverty helped her neighbours to 
 see this blemish more clearly ; but the world is so seldom in 
 the habit of judging people's qualities or failings through this 
 medium that the supposition is rather doubtful, Be this as 
 it may, the arrangements for the breakfast and dinner must 
 be made. There was plenty of bacon, and abundance of 
 cabbages eggs ad infinitum oaten and wheaten bread in 
 piles turkeys, geese, pullets, as fat as aldermen cream as 
 rich as Croesus and three gallons of poteen, one sparkle of 
 which, as Father Philemy said in the course of the evening, 
 would lay the hairs on St. Francis himself in his most self- 
 negative mood if he saw it. So far so good ; everything ex- 
 cellent and abundant in its way. Still the higher and more 
 refined items the delicite epularum must be added. White 
 
 1 Dirty Katty.
 
 THE STATION 169 
 
 bread, and tea, and sugar were yet to be got ; and lump-sugar 
 for the punch ; and a teapot and cups and saucers to be bor- 
 rowed and what else ? Let me see. Yes ; there was boxty 
 bread to be made, to take, if they liked, with their tea ; and 
 for this purpose a number of raw-peeled potatoes were ground 
 upon the rough side of a tin colander, and afterwards put into 
 a sheet (for table-cloths they had none), which was twisted 
 in contrary directions by two of the stoutest men about the 
 house, until it was shrunk up into a round hard lump in the 
 middle and made quite dry ; it was then taken and (being 
 mixed with a little flour and some of Katty's questionable 
 butter) formed into flat cakes, and baked upon the griddle. 
 
 Well, suppose all things disposed for to-morrow's feast 
 suppose Phaddhy himself to have butchered the fowl, because 
 Katty, who was not able to bear the sight of blood, had not 
 the heart to kill " the crathurs ; " and imagine to yourself 
 one of the servant-men taking his red-hot tongs out of the 
 fire, and squeezing a large lump of hog's lard, placed in a 
 grisset, or "kam," on the hearth, to grease all their brogues ; 
 then see in your mind's eye those two fine, fresh-looking girls 
 slyly taking their old rusty fork out of the fire, and going to 
 a bit of three-cornered looking-glass pasted into a board, or 
 perhaps to a pail of water, there to curl up their rich-flowing 
 locks, that had hitherto never known a curl but such as nature 
 gave them. 
 
 On one side of the hob sit two striplings, "thryin' wan 
 another in their catechise," that they may be able to answer, 
 with some credit, to-morrow. On the other hob sits Briney, 
 hard at his Syntax, with the Fibulae JEsiopii, as he called it, 
 placed open at a particular passage on the seat under him, 
 with a hope that, when Father Philemy will examine him, 
 the book may open at his favourite fable of the Gallus 
 Gallinaceus, "a dunghill cock." Phaddhy himself is obliged 
 to fast this day, there being one day of his penance yet un- 
 performed since the last time he was at his duty, which was, 
 as aforesaid, about five years ; and Katty, now that everything 
 is cleaned up and ready, kneels down in a corner to go over 
 her beads, rocking herself in a placid silence that is only 
 broken by an occasional malediction against the servants, or the 
 cat when it attempts the abduction of one of the dead fowl.
 
 170 THE STATION 
 
 The next morning the family were up before the sun, who 
 rubbed bis eyes, and swore that he must have overslept him- 
 self on seeing such a merry column of smoke dancing over 
 Phaddhy's chimney. A large wooden dish was placed upon 
 the threshold of the kitchen door filled with water, in which, 
 with a trencher of oatmeal for soap, they successively scrubbed 
 their faces and hands to some purpose. 1 In a short time 
 afterwards Phaddhy and the sons were cased, stiff and awk- 
 ward, in their new suits, with the tops of their fingers just 
 peeping over the sleeve cuffs. The horses in the stable were 
 turned out to the fields, being obliged to make room for their 
 betters that were soon expected under the reverend bodies of 
 Father Philemy and his curate ; whilst about half a bushel of 
 oats was left in the manger to regale them on their arrival. 
 Little Richard Maguire was sent down to the five-acres with 
 the pigs, on purpose to keep them from about the house, they 
 not being supposed fit company at a set dinner. A roaring 
 turf fire, which blazed two yards up the chimney, had been 
 put down ; on this was placed a large pot filled with water for 
 the tea, because they had no kettle. 
 
 By this time the morning was tolerably advanced, and the 
 neighbours were beginning to arrive in twos and threes to 
 wipe out old scores. Katty had sent several of the gorsoons 
 " to see if they could see any sight of the clargy," but hitherto 
 their reverences were invisible. At length, after several 
 fruitless embassies of this description, Father Con was seen 
 jogging along on his easy-going hack, engaged in the perusal 
 of his Office previous to his commencing the duties of the day. 
 As soon as his approach was announced, a chair was immedi- 
 ately placed for him in a room off the kitchen the parlour, 
 such as it was, having been reserved for Father Philemy him- 
 self as the place of greater honour. This was an arrangement, 
 however, which went against the grain of Phaddhy, who, had 
 he got his will, would have established Father Con in the 
 most comfortable apartment of the house ; but that old vaga- 
 bond, human nature, is the same under all circumstances or, 
 as Katty would have (in her own phraseology) expressed it, 
 " still the ould cut " for even there the influence of rank and 
 
 1 Oatmeal was commonly used where soap could not be obtained.
 
 THE STATION 171 
 
 elevation was sufficient to throw merit into the shade ; and 
 the parlour seat was allotted to Father Philemy, merely for 
 being parish priest, although it was well known that he could 
 not " tare off" mass in half the time that Father Con could ; 
 could not throw a sledge or shoulder-stone within a perch 
 of him, nor scarcely clear a street channel, whilst the latter 
 could j ump one-and-twenty feet at a running leap. But these 
 are rubs which men of merit must occasionally bear, and, when 
 exposed to them, they must only rest satisfied in the con- 
 sciousness of their own deserts. 
 
 From the moment that Father Con became visible the con- 
 versation of those who were collected in Phaddhy's dropped 
 gradually, as he approached the house, into a silence which 
 was only broken by an occasional short observation, made 
 by one or two of those who were in habits of the greatest 
 familiarity with the priest ; but, when they heard the noise 
 of his horse's feet near the door, the silence became general 
 and uninterrupted. 
 
 When Father Con arrived, Phaddhy and Katty were in- 
 stantly at the door to welcome him. 
 
 " Musha, cead milliah failtha ghud to our house, Father 
 Con, avourneen ! " said Katty, dropping him a low curtsy, and 
 spreading her new brown quilted petticoat as far out on each 
 side of her as it would go. " MusJia, and it's you that's 
 welcome from my heart out." 
 
 " I thank you," said honest Con, who, as he knew not her 
 name, did not pretend to know it. 
 
 "Well, Father Con," said Phaddhy, "this is the first time 
 you have ever come to us this-a-way ; but, plase God, it won't 
 be the last, I hope." 
 
 "I hope not, Phaddhy," said Father Con, who, notwith- 
 standing his simplicity of character, loved a good dinner in 
 the very core of his heart " I hope not, indeed, Phaddhy." 
 
 He then threw his eye about the premises, to see what 
 point he might set his temper to during the remainder of 
 the day ; for it is right to inform our readers that a priest's 
 temper at a station generally rises or falls according to the 
 prospect of his cheer. 
 
 Here, however, a little vista, or pantry, jutting out from 
 the kitchen, and left ostentatiously open, presented him with
 
 172 THE STATION 
 
 a view which made his very nose curl with kindness. What 
 it contained we do not pretend to say, not having seen it 
 ourselves ; we judge, therefore, only by its effects upon his 
 physiognomy. 
 
 " Why, Phaddhy," he says, "this is a very fine house you've 
 got over you," throwing his eye again towards a wooden 
 buttress which supported one of the rafters that was broken. 
 
 "Why, then, your riverence, it would not be a bad one," 
 Phaddhy replied, " if it had a new roof and new side-walls ; 
 and I intend to get both next summer, if God spares me till 
 then." 
 
 " Then, upon my word, if it had new side-walls, a new roof, 
 and new gavels too," replied Father Con, "it would certainly 
 look a great deal the better for it ; and do you intend to get 
 them next summer, Phaddhy ? " 
 
 " If God spares me, sir." 
 
 " Are all these fine gorsoons yours, Phaddhy ? " 
 
 "Why, so Katty says, your reverence," replied Phaddhy, 
 with a good-humoured laugh. 
 
 " Haven't you got one of them for the Church, Phaddhy ? " 
 
 " Yes, your reverence ; there's one of them that I hope will 
 live to have the " robes " upon him. Come over, Briney, and 
 speak to Father Con. He's not very far in his Latin yet, sir ; 
 but his master tells me that he hasn't the likes of him in his 
 school for brightness. Briney, will you come over, I say ; come 
 over, sirrah, and spake to the gintleman, and him wants to 
 shake hands wid you come up, man, what are you afeard 
 of? sure, Father Con's not going to examine you now." 
 
 " No, no, Briney," said Father Con, " I'm not about to 
 examine you at present." 
 
 " He's a little dashed, yer reverence, bekase he thought 
 you war going to put him through some of his Latin/' said 
 the father, bringing him up like a culprit to Father Con, who 
 shook hands with him, and, after a few questions as to the 
 books he read, and his progress, dismissed him. 
 
 "But, Father Con, wid submission," said Katty, "where's 
 Father Philemy from us ? sure, we expected him along wid 
 you, and he wouldn't go to disappoint us." 
 
 " Oh, you needn't fear that, Katty," replied Father Con 
 "he'll be here presently before breakfast, I'll engage for
 
 THE STATION 173 
 
 him, at any rate ; but he had a touch of a headache this 
 morning, and wasn't able to rise so early as I was." 
 
 During this conversation a little crowd collected about the 
 door of the room in which he was to hear the confessions, 
 each struggling and fighting to get the first turn ; but here, 
 as in the more important concerns of this world, the weakest 
 went to the wall. He now went into the room, and taking 
 Katty herself first, the door was closed upon them, and he 
 gave her absolution ; and thus he continued to confess and 
 absolve them, one by one, until breakfast. 
 
 Whenever a station occurs in Ireland, a crowd of mendi- 
 cants and other strolling impostors seldom fail to attend it ; 
 on this occasion, at least, they did not. The day, though 
 frosty, was fine ; and the door was surrounded by a train of 
 this description, including both sexes, some sitting on stones, 
 some on stools, with their blankets rolled up under them ; 
 and others, more ostensibly devout, on their knees, hard at 
 prayer, which, lest their piety might escape notice, our readers 
 may be assured they did not offer up in silence. On one side 
 you might observe a sturdy fellow, with a pair of tattered 
 urchins secured to his back by a sheet or blanket pinned 
 across his breast with a long iron skewer, their heads just 
 visible at his shoulders, munching a thick piece of wheaten 
 bread, and the father on his knees, with a huge wooden cross 
 in his hand, repeating his padereens, and occasionally throwing 
 a jolly eye towards the door, or, through the window opposite 
 which he knelt, into the kitchen, as often as any peculiar stir 
 or commotion led him to suppose that breakfast, the loadstar 
 of his devotion, was about to be produced. 
 
 Scattered about the door were knots of these, men and 
 women, occasionally chatting together, and, when the subject 
 of their conversation happened to be exhausted, resuming their 
 beads until some new topic would occur, and so on alternately. 
 
 The interior of the kitchen, where the neighbours were 
 assembled, presented an appearance somewhat more decorous. 
 Andy Lawlor, the mass-server, in whom the priest had the 
 greatest confidence, stood in a corner, examining in their 
 catechism those who intended to confess ; and if they were 
 able to stand the test, he gave them a bit of twisted brown 
 paper as a ticket, and they were received at the tribunal.
 
 174 THE STATION 
 
 It was curious to remark the ludicrous expression of tem- 
 porary sanctity which was apparent on the countenances of 
 many young men and maidens who were remarkable in the 
 neighbourhood for attending dances and wakes, but who on 
 the present occasion were sobered down to a gravity which 
 sat very awkwardly upon them, particularly in the eyes of 
 those who knew the lightness and drollery of their characters. 
 This, however, was observable only before confession ; for, as 
 soon as " the priest's blessed hand had been over them," their 
 gloom and anxiety passed away, and the thoughtless buoyancy 
 of their natural disposition resumed its influence over their 
 minds. A good-humoured nod or a sly wink from a young 
 man to his female acquaintance would now be indulged in ; 
 or perhaps a small joke would escape, which seldom failed 
 to produce a subdued laugh from such as had confessed, or an 
 impatient rebuke from those who had not. 
 
 "Tim !" one would exclaim, "aren't ye ashamed or afeard 
 to get an that-a-way, and his reverence undher the wan roof 
 wid ye ? " 
 
 "Tim, you had better dhrop your joking," a second would 
 observe, " and not be putting us through other, 1 wherein we 
 have our offinces to remimber ; you have got your job over, and 
 now you have nothing to trouble you." 
 
 " Indeed, it's fine behaviour," a third would say, " and you 
 afther coming from the priest's knee, and, what is more, 
 didn't resave 2 yet ; but wait till Father Con appears, and I'll 
 warrant you'll be as grave as another, for all you're so stout 
 now." 
 
 The conversation would then pass to the merits of Father 
 Philemy and Father Con as confessors. 
 
 " Well," one would observe, " for my part I'd rather go to 
 Father Philemy fifty times over than wanst to Father Con, 
 bekase he never axes questions ; but whatever you like to 
 tell him he hears it, and forgives you at wanst." 
 
 "And so sign's an it," observed another, "he could con- 
 fess more in a day than Father Con could in a week." 
 
 " But, for all that," observed Andy Lawlor, " it's still best 
 to go to the man that puts the questions, you persave, and 
 
 1 Into confusion. 2 That is, receive the sacrament.
 
 THE STATION 175 
 
 that won't let the turning of a straw escape him. Whin 
 myself goes to Father Philemy, somehow or other, I totally 
 disremember more nor wan half of what I intinded to tell 
 him ; but Father Con misses nothing, for he axes it." 
 
 When the last observation was finished, Father Con, find- 
 ing that the usual hour for breakfast had arrived, came into 
 the kitchen to prepare for the celebration of mass. For 
 this purpose a table was cleared, and just in the nick of 
 time arrived old Moll Brian, the vestment woman, or itiner- 
 ant sacristan, whose usual occupation was to cany the priests' 
 robes and other apparatus from station to station. In a 
 short time Father Con was surpliced and robed ; Andy 
 Lawlor, whose face was charged with commensurate im- 
 portance during the ceremony, served mass, and answered 
 the priest stoutly in Latin, although he had not the advantage 
 of understanding that sacerdotal language. Those who had 
 confessed now communicated ; after which each of them took 
 a draught of water out of a small jug which was handed 
 round from one to another. The ceremony then closed, and 
 those who had partaken of the sacrament, with the excep- 
 tion of such as were detained for breakfast, after filling their 
 bottles with holy water, went home with a light heart. A 
 little before the mass had been finished Father Philemy 
 arrived ; but, as Phaddhy and Katty were then preparing 
 to receive, they could not at that moment give him a formal 
 reception. As soon, however, as communion was over, the 
 cead milliah failtah was repeated with the usual warmth by 
 both, and by all their immediate friends. 
 
 Breakfast was now laid in Katty 's best style, and with an 
 originality of arrangement that scorned all precedent. Two 
 tables were placed, one after another, in the kitchen ; for 
 the other rooms were not sufficiently large to accommodate 
 the company. Father Philemy filled the seat of honour at 
 the head of the table, with his back to an immense fire. 
 On his right hand sat Father Con ; on his left, Phaddhy 
 himself, " to keep the clargy in company ; " and, in due 
 succession after them, their friends and neighbours, each 
 taking precedence according to the most scrupulous notions 
 of respectability. Beside Father Con sat Pether Malone, a 
 "young collegian," who had been sent home from Maynooth
 
 176 THE STATION 
 
 to try his native air for the recovery of his health, which 
 was declining. He arrived only a few minutes after Father 
 Philemy, and was a welcome reinforcement to Phaddhy in the 
 arduous task of sustaining the conversation with suitable credit. 
 
 With respect to the breakfast I can only say that it was 
 superabundant that the tea was as black as bog water 
 that there were hen, turkey, and geese eggs plates of toast 
 soaked, crust and crumb, in butter, and, lest there might be 
 a deficiency, one of the daughters sat on a stool at the fire, 
 with her open hand, by way of a fire-screen, across her red, 
 half-scorched brows, toasting another plateful ; and, to crown 
 all, on each corner of the table was a bottle of whisky. At 
 the lower board sat the youngsters, under the surveillance of 
 Katty's sister, who presided in that quarter. When they 
 were commencing breakfast, " Father Philemy," said Katty, 
 " won't yer rev'rence bless the mate, 1 if ye plase ? " 
 
 " If I don't do it myself," said Father Philemy, who was 
 just after sweeping the top off a turkey egg, "I'll get them 
 that will. Come," said he to the collegian, "give us grace, 
 Peter ; you'll never learn younger." 
 
 This, however, was an unexpected blow to Peter, who 
 knew that an English grace would be incompatible with his 
 " college breeding," yet was unprovided with any in Latin. 
 The eyes of the company were now fixed upon him, and he 
 blushed like scarlet on finding himself in a predicament so 
 awkward and embarrassing. " A liquid, Pet re, aliquid ; ' de 
 profundis ' si habes nihil aliitd," said Father Philemy, feeling 
 for his embarrassment, and giving him a hint. This was not 
 lost, for Peter began, and gave them the De profundis, a Latin 
 psalm which Roman Catholics repeat for the relief of the 
 souls in purgatory. They forgot, however, that there was a 
 person in the company who considered himself as having an 
 equal claim to the repetition of at least the one-half of it ; 
 and accordingly, when Peter got up and repeated the first 
 verse, Andy Lawlor got also on his legs and repeated the 
 response. 2 This staggered Peter a little, who hesitated, as 
 uncertain how to act. 
 
 1 Used in the sense of food generally. 
 
 2 This prayer is generally repeated by two persons.
 
 THE STATION 177 
 
 " Perge, Petre, Perge," said Father Philemy, looking rather 
 wistfully at his egg "Perge, stultus est et asinus quoque." 
 Peter and Andy proceeded until it was finished, when they 
 resumed their seats. 
 
 The conversation during breakfast was as sprightly, as full 
 of fun and humour, as such breakfasts usually are. The 
 priest, Phaddhy, and the young collegian had a topic of cheir 
 own, whilst the rest were engaged in a kind of by-play until 
 the meal was finished. 
 
 " Father Philemy," said Phaddhy, in his capacity of host, 
 "before we begin we'll all take a dhrop of what's in the 
 bottle, if it's not displasing to yer reverence ; and, sure, I 
 know 'tis the same doesn't come wrong at a station, 
 anyhow." 
 
 Hitherto Father Philemy had not had time to bestow any 
 attention on the state of Katty's larder, as he was in the habit 
 of doing, with a view to ascertain the several items contained 
 therein for dinner. But as soon as the breakfast things were 
 removed, and the coast clear, he took a peep into the pantry, 
 and, after throwing his eye over its contents, sat down at the 
 fire, making Phaddhy take a seat beside him, for the especial 
 purpose of sounding him as to the practicability of effecting a 
 certain design which was then snugly latent in his reverence's 
 fancy. The fact was, that on taking the survey of the 
 premises aforesaid, he discovered that, although there was 
 abundance of fowl, and fish, and bacon, and hung-beef, yet, 
 by some unaccountable and disastrous omission, there was 
 neither fresh mutton nor fresh beef. The priest, it must be 
 confessed, was a man of considerable fortitude, but this was 
 a blow for which he was scarcely prepared particularly as a 
 boiled leg of mutton was one of his fifteen favourite joints at 
 dinner. He accordingly took two or three pinches of snuff 
 in rapid succession, and a seat at the fire, as I have said, 
 placing Phaddhy, unconscious of his design, immediately 
 beside him. 
 
 Now, the reader knows that Phaddhy was a man possessing 
 a considerable portion of dry, sarcastic humour, along with 
 that natural quickness of penetration and shrewdness for 
 which most of the Irish peasantry are, in a very peculiar 
 degree, remarkable ; add to this that Father Philemy, in 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 178 THE STATION 
 
 consequence of his contemptuous bearing to him before he 
 came in for his brother's property, stood not very high in his 
 estimation. The priest knew this, and consequently felt that 
 the point in question would require to be managed, on his 
 part, with suitable address. 
 
 " Phaddhy," says liis reverence, " sit down here till we chat 
 a little, before I commence the duties of the day. I'm happy 
 to see that you have such a fine thriving family ; how many 
 sons and daughters have you ? " 
 
 "Six sons, yer reverence," replied Phaddhy, "and five 
 daughters indeed, sir, they're as well to be seen as their 
 neighbours, considhering all things. Poor crathurs, they get 
 fair play 1 now, thank God, compared to what they used to 
 get God rest their poor uncle's sowl for that. Only for him, 
 your reverence, there would be very few inquiring this or any 
 other day about them." 
 
 "Did he die as rich as they said, Phaddhy?" inquired his 
 reverence. 
 
 " Hut, sir," replied Phaddhy, determined to take what he 
 afterwards called a " rise " out of the priest, " they knew little 
 about it as rich as they said, sir ! no, but three times as rich 
 itself; but, anyhow, he was the man that could make the 
 money." 
 
 " I'm very happy to hear it, Phaddhy, on your account and 
 that of your children. God be good to him requiescat animus 
 ejus in pace, per omnia secula seculortim, Amen ! he liked a 
 drop in his time, Phaddhy, as well as ourselves, eh ? " 
 
 " Amen, amen the heavens be his bed ! he did, poor man ! 
 but he had it at first cost, your reverence, for he run it all 
 himself in the mountains he could afford to take it." 
 
 " Yes, Phaddhy, the heavens be his bed, I pray ; no 
 Christmas or Easter ever passed but he was sure to send me 
 the little keg of stuff that never saw water ; but, Phaddhy, 
 there's one thing that concerns me about him, in regard of 
 his love of drink I'm afraid it's a trouble to him where he 
 is at present ; and I was sorry to find that, although he died 
 full of money, he didn't think it worth his while to leave 
 even the price of a mass to be said for the benefit of his own 
 soul." 
 
 1 By this is meant good food and clothing.
 
 THE STATION 179 
 
 "Why, sure, you know, Father Philemy, that he wasn't 
 what they call a dhrinking man : once a quarther, or so, he 
 sartinly did take a jorum ; and, except at these times, he 
 was very sober. But God look upon us both, yer reverence 
 or upon myself, anyway ; for I haven't yer excuse for 
 dhrinking, seeing I'm no clargy ; but if he's to suffer for 
 his doings that-a-way, I'm afeard we'll have a troublesome 
 reck'ning of it." 
 
 "Hem, a-hem ! Phaddhy," replied the priest, "he has 
 raised you arid your children from poverty, at all events, and 
 you ought to consider that. If there is anything in your 
 power to contribute to the relief of his soul, you have a 
 strong duty upon you to do it ; and a number of masses, 
 offered up devoutly, would " 
 
 " Why, he did, sir, raise both myself aad my childher from 
 poverty," said Phaddhy, not willing to let that point go 
 farther " that I'll always own to ; and I hope in God that 
 whatever little trouble might be upon him for the dhrop of 
 dhrink, will be wiped off by this kindness to us." 
 
 " He hadn't even a month's mind ! '' 1 
 
 " And it's not but I spoke to him about both, yer reverence." 
 
 " And what did he say, Phaddhy ? " 
 
 " ' Phaddhy,' said he, ' I have been giving Father M'Guirk, 
 one way or another, between whisky, oats, and dues, a great 
 deal of money every year ; and now, afther I'm dead,' says 
 he, ' isn't it an ungrateful thing of him not to offer up one 
 mass for my sowl, except I leave him payment for it.' " 
 
 " Did he say that, Phaddhy ? " 
 
 " I'm giving you his very words, yer reverence." 
 
 " Phaddhy, I deny it ; it's a big lie he could not make 
 use of such words, arid he going to face death. I say you 
 could not listen to them ; the hair would stand on your head 
 if he did but God forgive him ! that's the worst I wish 
 him. Didn't the hair stand on your head, Phaddhy, to hear 
 him ? " 
 
 " Why, then, to tell yer reverence God's truth, I can't say 
 it did." * 
 
 " You can't say it did ! and if I was in your coat, I would 
 
 1 See note to a previous story. ED.
 
 180 THE STATION 
 
 be ashamed to say it did not. I was always troubled about 
 the way the fellow died, but I hadn't the slightest notion 
 that he went off such a reprobate. I fought his battle and 
 yours hard enough yesterday ; but I knew less about him 
 then than I do now." 
 
 "And what, wid submission, did you fight our battles 
 about, yer reverence ? " inquired Phaddhy. 
 
 "Yesterday evening, in Parrah More Slevin's, they had 
 him a miser, and yourself they set down as very little 
 better." 
 
 "Then I don't think I desarved that from Parrah More, 
 anyhow, Father Philemy ; I think I can show myself as 
 dacent as Parrah More or any of his faction." 
 
 " It was not Parrah More himself or his family that said 
 anything about you, Phaddhy," said the priest, "but others 
 that were present. You must know that we were all to be 
 starved here to-day." 
 
 " Oh ! oh ! " exclaimed Phaddhy, who was hit most palpably 
 upon the weakest side the very sorest spot about him, " they 
 think, bekase this is the first station that ever was held in my 
 house, that you won't be thrated as you ought ; but they'll 
 be disappointed ; and I hope, for so far, that yer reverence 
 and yer friends had no rason to complain." 
 
 " Not in the least, Phaddhy, considering that it was a first 
 station ; and if the dinner goes off as well as the breakfast, 
 they'll be biting their nails : but I should not wish myself 
 that they would have it in their power to sneer or throw 
 any slur over you about it. Go along, Dolan," exclaimed his 
 reverence to a countryman who came in from the street, where 
 those stood who were for confession, to see if he had gone to 
 his room ; " go along, you vagrant, don't you see I'm not gone 
 to the tribunal yet ? But it's no matter about that, Phaddhy ; 
 it's of other things you ought to think when were you at 
 your duty ? 
 
 " This morning, sir," replied the other " but I'd have 
 them to understand that had the presumption to use my 
 name in any such manner that I know when and where to 
 be dacent with any mother's son of Parrah More's faction ; 
 and that I'll be afther whispering to them some of these 
 mornings, plase goodness."
 
 THE STATION 181 
 
 " Well, well, Phaddhy, don't put yourself in a passion about 
 it, particularly so soon after having been at confession it's 
 not right. I told them myself that we'd have a leg of mutton 
 and a bottle of wine at all events, for that was what they 
 had ; but that's not worth talking about when were you 
 with the priest before, Phaddhy ? " 
 
 " If I wasn't able, it would be another thing ; but, as long 
 as I'm able, I'll let them know that I have the spirit," said 
 Phaddhy, smarting under the imputation of niggardliness. 
 " When was I at confession before, Father Philemy ? Why, 
 then, dear forgive me, not these five years and I'd surely 
 be the first of the family that would show a mane spirit or a 
 want of hospitality." 
 
 " A leg of mutton is a good dish, and a bottle of wine is 
 fit for the first man in the land ! " observed his reverence 
 " five years ! why, is it possible you stayed away so 
 long, Phaddhy ? how could you expect to prosper with five 
 years' burden of sin upon your conscience what would it 
 cost you ? " 
 
 "Indeed, my self's no judge, your rev'rence, as to that; 
 but, cost what it will, I'll get both." 
 
 " I say, Phaddhy, what trouble would it cost you to come 
 to your duty twice a year at the very least ; and indeed 
 I would advise you to become a monthly communicant. 
 Parrah More was speaking of it as to himself, and you ought 
 to go " 
 
 " And I will go and bring Parrah More here to his dinner 
 this very day, if it was only to let him see with his own 
 eyes " 
 
 " You ought to go once a month, if it was only to set an 
 example to your children, and to show the neighbours how a 
 man of substance and respectability, and the head of a family, 
 ought to carry himself." 
 
 " Where is the best wine got, yer rev'rence ? " 
 
 " Alick M'Loughlin, my nephew, I believe, keeps the best 
 wine and spirits in Ballyslantha. You ought also, Phaddhy, 
 to get a scapular, and become a scapularian ; I wish your 
 brother had thought of that, and he wouldn't have died in so 
 hardened a state, nor neglected to make a provision for the 
 benefit of his soul, as he did,"
 
 182 THE STATION 
 
 " Lave the rest to me, yer rev'rence, I'll get it Mr. 
 M'Loughlin will give me the right sort, if he has it betune 
 him and death." 
 
 " M'Loughlin ! what are you talking about ? " 
 
 " Why, what is your rev'rence talking about ? " 
 
 "The scapular," said the priest. 
 
 " But I mane the wine and the mutton," says Phnddhy. 
 
 "And is that the way you treat me, you reprobate, you ? " 
 replied his reverence, in a passion ; " is that the kind of 
 attention you're paying me, and I advising you, all this time, 
 for the good of your soul ? Phaddhy, I tell you, you're 
 enough to vex me to the core five years ! only once at con- 
 fession in five years ! What do I care about your mutton and 
 your wine ! you may get dozens of them if you wish ; or 
 maybe it would be more like a Christian to never mind them, 
 and let the neighbours laugh away ; it would teach you 
 humility, you hardened creature, and God knows you want 
 it. For my part, I'm speaking to you about other things ; but 
 that's the way with the most of you mention any spiritual 
 subject that concerns your soul, and you turn a deaf ear to it. 
 Here, Dolan, come in to your duty. In the meantime you 
 may as well tell Katty not to boil the mutton too much it's 
 on your knees you ought to be at your rosary or the seven 
 penitential psalms." 
 
 "Thrue for you, sir," said Phaddhy; "but as to going 
 wanst a month, I'm afeard, yer rev'rence, if it would shorten 
 my timper as it does Katty's, that we'd be bad company for 
 one another ; she comes home from confession newly set, like 
 a razor, every bit as sharp, and I'm sure that I'm within the 
 truth when I say there's no bearing her." 
 
 " That's because you have no relish for anything spiritual 
 yourself, you nager, you," replied his reverence, "or you 
 wouldn't see her temper in that light. But, now that I think 
 of it, where did you get that stuff we had at breakfast ? " 
 
 " Ay, that's the sacret ; but I knew yer rev'rence would 
 like it. Did Parrah More equal it ? No, nor one of his fac- 
 tion couldn't lay his finger on such a dhrop." 
 
 " I wish you could get me a few gallons of it," said the 
 priest " But let us dhrop that I say, Phaddhy, you're too 
 worldly and careless about your duty."
 
 THE STATION 183 
 
 " Well, Father Philemy, there's a good time coming ; I'll 
 mend yet." 
 
 " You want it, Phaddhy." 
 
 " Would three gallons do, sir ? " 
 
 " I would rather you would give me five, Phaddhy ; but go 
 to your rosary." 
 
 " It's the penitential psalm, first, sir," said Phaddhy, " and 
 the rosary at night. I'll try, anyhow ; and if I can make off 
 five for you, I will." 
 
 " Thank you, Phaddhy ; but I would recommend you to say 
 the rosary before night." 
 
 " I believe your reverence is right," replied Phaddhy, look- 
 ing somewhat slyly in the priest's face ; " I think it's best to 
 make sure of it now, in regard that in the evening your rever- 
 ence do you persave ? " 
 
 "Yes," said his reverence, "you're in a better frame of 
 mind at present, Phaddhy, being fresh from confession." So 
 saying, his reverence, for whom Phaddhy, with all his shrewd- 
 ness in general, was not a match, went into his room, that he 
 might send home about four dozen of honest, good-humoured, 
 thoughtless, jovial, swearing, drinking, fighting, and mur- 
 dering Hibernians, free from every possible stain of sin and 
 wickedness ! 
 
 " Are you all ready now ? " said the priest to a crowd of 
 country people who were standing about the kitchen door, 
 pressing to get the " first turn " at the tribunal, which, on 
 this occasion, consisted of a good oak chair with his reverence 
 upon it. 
 
 " Why do you crush forward in that manner, you ill-bred 
 spalpeens ? Can't you stand back and behave yourselves like 
 common Christians ? back with you, or if you make me get 
 my whip, I'll soon clear you from about the dacent man's 
 door. Hagarty, why do you crush them two girls there, 
 you great Turk, you ? Look at the vagabonds ! Where's my 
 whip ? " said he, running in, and coming out in a fury, when 
 he commenced cutting about him, until they dispersed in 
 all directions. He then returned into the house ; and, after 
 calling in about two dozen, began to catechise them as fol- 
 lows, still holding the whip in his hand, whilst many of those 
 individuals, who, at a party quarrel in fair or market, or in the
 
 184 THE STATION 
 
 more inhuman crimes of murder or nightly depredations, were 
 as callous and hardened specimens of humanity as ever set 
 the laws of civilised society at defiance, stood trembling before 
 him like slaves, absolutely pale and breathless with fear. 
 
 " Come, Kelly," said he to one of them, " are you fully 
 prepared for the two blessed sacraments of Penance and the 
 Eucharist, that you are about to receive ? Can you read, 
 sir ? " 
 
 " Can I read, is id ? my brother Barney can, yer rever- 
 ence," replied Kelly, sensible, amid all the disadvantages 
 around him, of the degradation of his ignorance. 
 
 "What's that to me, sir," said the priest, "what your 
 brother Barney can do? can you not read yourself? And 
 maybe," he continued parenthetically, " your brother Barney's 
 not much the holier for his knowledge." 
 
 " I cannot, yer reverence," said Kelly, in a tone of regret. 
 
 "I hope you have your Christian Doctrine, at all events," 
 said the priest. " Go on with the Confiteor." 
 
 Kelly went on " Confeetur Dimniportenti batchy Man/ sem- 
 plar virginy, batchy Mickleloe Archy Angela batchy Johnny 
 Bartisty, sanctris postlis Petrum hit Pauhnn, omnium xanctria, 
 et tabby, pasture quay a pixavit minus cogleiy ashy hony verbum 
 el offer him smaxy quilta smaxy quilt a smaxy maxin in quilt a." 
 
 " Very well, Kelly right enough, all except the pronounc- 
 ing, which wouldn't pass muster in Maynooth, however. How 
 many kinds of commandments are there ? " 
 
 "Two, sir." 
 
 " What are they ? " 
 
 " God's and the Church's." 
 
 " Repeat God's share of them." 
 
 He then repeated the first commandment according to his 
 catechism. 
 
 " Very good, Kelly, very good. Now, you must know that 
 
 1 I subjoin the original for the information of my readers : " Con- 
 fiteor Deo Omnipotent!, beatse Marias, semper Virgini, beato Michselo 
 Archangelo, beato Johanni Baptists?, sanctis Apostolis Petro et Paulo, 
 omnibus sanctis, et tibi, Pater, quia, peccavi nimis cogitatione, verbo, 
 et opera, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa." Let not my 
 readers suppose that the above version in the mouth of a totally illiter- 
 ate peasant is overcharged, for I have the advantage of remembering 
 how I myself used to hear it pronounced in my early days.
 
 THE STATION 185 
 
 the heretics split that into two, for no other reason in the 
 world only to knock our blessed images on the head ; but 
 we needn't expect them to have much conscience. Well, 
 now repeat the commandments of the Church." 
 
 " First Sundays and holidays, Mass thou shalt sartinly hear ; 
 
 Second All holidays sanctificate throughout all the whole year. 
 
 Third Lent, Ember-days, and Virgils, thou shalt be sartin to fast ; 
 
 Fourth Fridays and Saturdays flesh thou shalt not, good, bad, or 
 indifferent, taste. 
 
 Fifth In Lent and Advent, nuptial fastes gallantly forbear ; 
 
 Sixth Confess your sins, at laste once dacently and soberly every 
 year. 
 
 Seventh Receive your God at confission about great Easter-day ; 
 
 Eighth -And to his Church and his own frolicsome clargy neglect 
 not tides to pay." 
 
 "Well," said his reverence, "now, the great point is, do 
 you understand them ? " 
 
 " Wid the help of God I hope so, yer rev'rence ; and I 
 have also the three thriptological vartues." 
 
 " Theological, sirrah ! " 
 
 " Theojollyological vartues ; the four sins that cry to heaven 
 for vingeance ; the five carnal vartues prudence, justice, 
 timptation, and solitude ; l the six holy Christian gifts ; the 
 seven deadly sins ; the eight grey attitudes " 
 
 " Grey attitudes ! Oh, the Boeotian ! " exclaimed his rever- 
 ence ; " listen to the way in which he's playing havoc among 
 them. Stop, sir ! " for Kelly was going on at full speed 
 " stop, sir ! I till you it's not grey attitudes, but bay attitudes. 
 Doesn't every one know the eight beatitudes ? " 
 
 " The eight bay attitudes ; the nine ways of being guilty of 
 another's sins ; the ten commandments ; the twelve fruits of 
 a Christian ; the fourteen stations of the cross ; the fifteen 
 mystheries of the passion " 
 
 " Kelly," said his reverence, interrupting him, and herald- 
 ing the joke, for so it was intended, with a hearty chuckle, 
 "you're getting fast out of your teens, ma bouchal!" and this 
 was, of course, honoured with a merry peal, extorted as much 
 by an effort at softening the rigour of examination as by the 
 traditionary duty which entails upon the Irish laity the neces- 
 
 1 Temperance and fortitude.
 
 186 THE STATION 
 
 sity of laughing at a priest's jokes without any reference at 
 all to their quality. Nor was his reverence's own voice the 
 first to subside into that gravity which became the solemnity 
 of the occasion ; for even whilst he continued the interro- 
 gatories his eye was laughing at the conceit with which it 
 was evident the inner man was not competent to grapple. 
 " Well, Kelly, I can't say but you've answered very well as 
 far as the repeating of them goes ; but do you perfectly under- 
 stand all the commandments of the Church ? " 
 
 " I do, sir," replied Kelly, whose confidence kept pace with 
 his reverence's good-humour. 
 
 " Well, what is meant by the fifth ? " 
 
 " The fifth, sir," said the other, rather confounded " I 
 must begin agin, sir, and go on till I come to it." 
 
 " Well," said the priest, " never mind that ; but tell us 
 what the eighth means ? " 
 
 Kelly stared at him a second time, but was not able to 
 advance. " First Sundays and holidays, Mass thou shalt 
 hear ; " but, before he had proceeded to the second, a person 
 who stood at his elbow began to whisper to him the proper 
 reply, and, in the act of doing so, received a lash of the whip 
 across the ear for his pains. 
 
 " You blackguard, you ! " exclaimed Father Philemy, " take 
 that. How dare you attempt to prompt any person that I'm 
 examining ? " 
 
 Those who stood round Kelly now fell back to a safe dis- 
 tance, and all was silence, terror, and trepidation once more. 
 
 " Come, Kelly, go on the eighth ? " 
 
 Kelly was still silent. 
 
 "Why, you ninny, you, didn't you repeat it just now. 
 ' Eighth And to his Church neglect not tithes to pay.' 
 Now that I have put the words in your mouth, what does 
 it mean ? " 
 
 Kelly, having thus got the cue, replied in the words of the 
 catechism, " To pay tides to the lawful pasterns of the 
 Church, sir." 
 
 " Pasterns ! oh, you ass, you pasterns ! You poor, base, 
 contemptible, crawling reptile ; as if we trampled you under 
 our hooves oh, you scruff of the earth ! Stop, I say it's 
 pastors."
 
 THE STATION 187 
 
 " Pasthors of the Church." 
 
 " And tell me, do you fulfil that commandment ? ' 
 
 " I do, sir." 
 
 " It's a lie, sir," replied the priest, brandishing the whip 
 over his head, whilst Kelly instinctively threw up his guard 
 to protect himself from the blow. "It's a lie, sir," repeated 
 his reverence ; "you don't fulfil it. What is the Church ? " 
 
 "The Church is the congregation of the faithful that 
 purfiss the true faith, and are obadient to the pope." 
 
 " And who do you pay your tithes to ? " 
 
 " To the parson, sir." 
 
 "And, you poor varmint, you, is he obadient to the 
 pope ? " 
 
 Kelly only smiled at the want of comprehension which 
 prevented him from seeing the thing according to the view 
 which his reverence took of it. 
 
 "Well, now," continued Father Philemy, "who are the 
 lawful pastors of God's Church ?" 
 
 " You are, sir, and all our own priests." 
 
 " And who ought you to pay your tithes to ? " 
 
 " To you, sir, in coorse ; sure, I always knew that, yer 
 rev'rence." 
 
 " And what's the reason, then, you don't pay them to me 
 instead of the parson ? " 
 
 This was a puzzler to Kelly, who only knew his own side 
 of the question. " You have me there, sir," he replied, with 
 a grin. 
 
 "Because," said his reverence, "the Protestants, for the 
 present, have the law of the land on their side, and power 
 over you to compel the payment of tithes to themselves ; 
 but we have right, justice, and the law of God on ours ; and 
 if everything was in its proper place, it is not to the pai'sons, 
 but to us, that you would pay them." 
 
 " Well, well, sir," replied Kelly, who now experienced a 
 community of feeling upon the subject with his reverence 
 that instantly threw him into a familiarity of manner which 
 he thought the point between them justified " who knows, 
 sir ? " said he, with a knowing smile, " there's a good time 
 coming, yer rev'rence." 
 
 " Ay," said Father Philemy, " wait till we get once into
 
 188 THE STATION 
 
 the Big House, 1 and if we don't turn the scales if the 
 Established Church doesn't go down, why, there's no truth 
 in Scripture. Now, Kelly, all's right but the money have 
 you brought your dues ? " 
 
 " Here it is, sir," said Kelly, handing him his dues for the 
 last year. It is to be observed here that, according as the 
 penitents went to be examined, or to kneel down to confess, 
 a certain sum was exacted from each, which varied accord- 
 ing to the arrears that might have been due to the priest. 
 Indeed, it is not unusual for the host and hostess on these 
 occasions to be refused a participation in the sacrament 
 until they pay this money, notwithstanding the considerable 
 expense they are put to in entertaining not only the clergy, 
 but a certain number of their own friends and relations. 
 
 "Well, stand aside, I'll hear you first ; and now come up 
 here, you young gentleman, that laughed so heartily a while 
 ago at my joke ha, ha, ha ! come up here, child." 
 
 A lad now approached him whose face, on a first view, 
 had something simple and thoughtless in it, but in which, 
 on a closer inspection, might be traced a lurking, sarcastic 
 humour, of which his reverence never dreamt. 
 
 " You're for confession, of course," said the priest. 
 
 " Of coorse," said the lad, echoing him, and laying a stress 
 upon the word, which did not much elevate the meaning of 
 the blind compliance in general with the rite in question. 
 
 " Oh ! " exclaimed the priest, recognising him when he 
 approached "you are Dan Fegan's son, and designed for 
 the Church yourself ; you are a good Latinist, for I remember 
 examining you in Erasmus about two years ago Qtiomodo se 
 habet corpus tuutn Charum lignum sacerdotis ? " 
 
 "Valde, Domine," replied the lad, " Quomodo se habet anima 
 lua, chanim exemplar sacerdotage, et fulcrum robustissimnm 
 Ecclesice sacrosanctoe" 
 
 "Very good, Harry," replied his reverence, laughing 
 " stand aside ; I'll hear you after Kelly." 
 
 He then called up a man with a long, melancholy face, which 
 he noticed before to have been proof against his joke, and, 
 
 1 Parliament. Catholics were ineligible for Parliament before the 
 passing of the Catholic Emancipation Bill, 1829. ED.
 
 THE STATION 189 
 
 after making two or three additional fruitless experiments 
 upon his gravity, he commenced a cross-fire of peevish in- 
 terrogatories, which would have excluded him from the 
 " tribunal " on that occasion, were it not that the man was 
 remarkably well prepared, and answered the priest's questions 
 very pertinently. 
 
 This over, he repaired to his room, where the work of 
 absolution commenced ; and, as there was a considerable 
 number to be rendered sinless before the hour of dinner, he 
 contrived to unsin them with an alacrity that was really 
 surprising. 
 
 Immediately after the conversation already detailed be- 
 tween his reverence and Phaddhy, the latter sought Katty, 
 that he might communicate to her the unlucky oversight 
 which they had committed in neglecting to provide fresh 
 meat and wine. "We'll be disgraced for ever," said 
 Phaddhy "without either a bit of mutton or a bottle of 
 wine for the gintlemen, and that Parrah More Slevin had 
 both." 
 
 "And I hope," replied Katty, "that you're not so mane 
 as to let any of that faction outdo you in dacency the 
 nagerly set ! It was enough for them to bate us in the 
 law-shoot about the horse, and not to have the laugh agin 
 at us about this." 
 
 " Well, that same law-shoot is not over with them yet," 
 said Phaddhy ; " wait till the spring fair comes, and if I 
 don't have a faction gathered that'll sweep them out of the 
 town, why, my name's not Phaddhy ! But where is Mat, 
 till we sind him off?" 
 
 " Arrah, Phaddhy," said Katty, " wasn't it friendly of 
 Father Philemy to give us the hard word about the wine 
 and mutton ? " 
 
 " Very friendly," retorted Phaddy, who, after all, appeared 
 to have suspected the priest "very friendly indeed, when 
 it's to put a good joint before himself, and a bottle of wine 
 in his jacket. No, no, Katty ! it's not altogether for the 
 sake of Father Philemy, but I wouldn't have the neighbours 
 say that I was near and undacent ; and, above all things, I 
 wouldn't be worse nor the Sleviiis, for the same set would 
 keep it up agin us long enough."
 
 190 THE STATION 
 
 Our readers will admire the tact with which Father 
 Philemy worked upon the rival feeling between the factions ; 
 but, independently of this, there is a generous hospitality 
 in an Irish peasant which would urge him to any stratagem, 
 were it even the disposal of his only cow, sooner than incur 
 the imputation of a narrow, or, as he himself terms it, " an 
 undacent " or " iiagerly " 1 spirit. 
 
 In the course of a short time Phaddhy despatched two 
 messengers, one for the wine, and another for the mutton ; 
 and, that they might not have cause for any unnecessary delay, 
 he gave them the two reverend gentlemen's horses, ordering 
 them to spare neither whip nor spur until they returned. 
 This was an agreeable command to the messengers, who, as 
 soon as they found themselves mounted, made a bet of a 
 "trate," to be paid on arriving in the town to which they 
 were sent, to him who should first reach a little stream that 
 crossed the road at the entrance of it, called the "pound 
 burn." But I must not forget to state that they not only 
 were mounted on the priests' horses, but took their great- 
 coats, as the day had changed and threatened to rain. 
 Accordingly, on getting out upon the main road, they set 
 off, whip and spur, at full speed, jostling one another and 
 cutting each other's horse as if they had been intoxicated ; 
 and the fact is that, owing to the liberal distribution of the 
 bottle that morning, they were not far from it. 
 
 " Bliss us ! " exclaimed the country people, as they passed, 
 " what on airth can be the matther with Father Philemy and 
 Father Con, that they're abusing wan another at sich a rate ! " 
 
 "Oh !" exclaimed another, "it's apt to be a sick call, and 
 they're thrying to be there before the body grows cowld." '< 
 
 "Ay, or maybe," a third conjectured, "it's to ould 
 Magennis, that's on the point of death, and going to lave 
 all his money behind him, and they're striving to see who'll 
 get there first." 
 
 But their astonishment was not a whit lessened when, in 
 about an hour afterwards, they perceived them both return : 
 the person who represented Father Con having an overgrown 
 
 1 Niggardly. 
 
 2 Until the body grows cold there is considered to be a possibility 
 of life in it.
 
 THE STATION 191 
 
 leg of mutton slung behind his back like an Irish harp, 
 reckless of its friction against his reverence's coat, which it 
 had completely saturated with grease ; and the duplicate of 
 Father Philemy with a sack over his shoulder, in the bottom 
 of which was half a dozen of Mr. M'Loughlin's best port. 
 
 Phaddhy, in the meantime, being determined to mortify 
 his rival, Parrah More, by a superior display of hospitality, 
 waited upon that personage, and exacted a promise from 
 him to come down and partake of the dinner a promise 
 which the other was not slack in fulfilling. Phaddhy's 
 heart was now on the point of taking its rest, when it 
 occurred to him that there yet remained one circumstance 
 in which he might utterly eclipse his rival, and that was to 
 ask Captain Wilson, his landlord, to meet their reverences 
 at dinner. He accordingly went over to him, for he only 
 lived a few miles distant, having first communicated the 
 thing privately to Katty, and requested that, as their 
 reverences that day held a station in his house, and would 
 dine there, he would have the kindness to dine along with 
 them. To this the captain, who was intimate with both the 
 clergymen, gave a ready compliance, and Phaddhy returned 
 home in high spirits. 
 
 In the meantime the two priests were busy in the work 
 of absolution. The hour of three had arrived, and they had 
 many to shrive ; but in the course of a short time a reverend 
 auxiliary made his appearance, accompanied by one of Father 
 Philemy's nephews, who was then about to enter Maynooth. 
 This clerical gentleman had been appointed to a parish, but, 
 owing to some circumstances which were known only in the 
 distant part of the diocese where he had resided, he was 
 deprived of it, and had, at the period I am writing of, no 
 appointment in the Church, though he was in full orders. 
 If 1 mistake not, he incurred his bishop's displeasure by being 
 too warm an advocate for domestic nomination, 1 a piece of 
 discipline the re-establishment of which was then attempted 
 by the junior clergymen of the diocese wherein the scene 
 of this station is laid. Be this as it may, he came in time 
 
 1 This refers to a question much discussed in Ireland at the time 
 Carleton was writing these sketches the right of nominating bishops 
 without interference from England. ED.
 
 192 THE STATION 
 
 to assist the gentlemen in absolving those penitents (as we 
 must call them so) who still remained unconfessed. 
 
 During all this time Katty was in the plenitude of her 
 authority, and her sense of importance manifested itself in a 
 manner that was by no means softened by having been that 
 morning at her duty. Her tones were not so shrill nor so 
 loud as they would have been had not their reverences been 
 within hearing ; but what was wanting in loudness was dis- 
 played in a firm and decided energy, that vented itself 
 frequently in the course of the day upon the backs and heads 
 of her sons, daughters, and servants, as they crossed her path 
 in the impatience and bustle of her employment. It was 
 truly ludicrous to see her, on encountering one of them in 
 these fretful moments, give him a drive head-foremost against 
 the wall, exclaiming, as she shook her fist at him, " Ho, you 
 may bless your stars that they're under the roof, or it wouldn't 
 go so asy wid you ; for if goodness hasn't said it, you'll make 
 me lose my sowl this blessed and holy day. But this is still 
 the case the very time I go to my duty, the devil (be- 
 tween us and harm) is sure to throw fifty temptations acrass 
 me, and, to help him, you must come in my way but wait 
 till to-morrow, and if I don't pay you for this, I'm not 
 here." 
 
 About four o'clock the penitents were at length all de- 
 spatched ; and those who were to be detained for dinner, 
 many of whom had not eaten anything until then, in conse- 
 quence of the necessity of receiving the Eucharist fasting, 
 were taken aside to taste some of Phaddhy's poteen. At 
 length the hour of dinner arrived, and along with it the re- 
 doubtable Parrah More Slevin, Captain Wilson, and another 
 nephew of Father Philemy's, who had come to know what 
 detained his brother who had conducted the auxiliary priest 
 to Phaddhy's. It is surprising on these occasions to think 
 how many uncles, and nephews, and cousins, to the forty- 
 second degree, find it needful to follow their reverences on 
 messages of various kinds ; and it is equally surprising to 
 observe with what exactness they drop in during the hour of 
 dinner. Of course, any blood-relation or friend of the priest's 
 must be received with cordiality ; and consequently they do 
 not return without solid proofs of the good-natured hospitality
 
 THE STATION 193 
 
 of poor Paddy, who feels no greater pleasure than in showing 
 his "dacency" to any belonging to his reverence. 
 
 I daresay it would be difficult to find a more motley and 
 diversified company than sat down to the ungarnished fare 
 which Katty laid before them. There were first, Fathers 
 Philemy, Con, and the auxiliary from the far part of the 
 diocese ; next followed Captain Wilson, Peter Malone, and 
 Father Philemy's two nephews ; after these came Phaddhy 
 himself, Parrah More Slevin, with about two dozen more of 
 the most remarkable and uncouth personages that could sit 
 down to table. There were besides about a dozen of females, 
 most of whom by this time, owing to Katty's private kindness, 
 and a slight thirst occasioned by the long fast, were in a most 
 independent and placid state of feeling. Father Philemy, ex 
 qfficio, filled the chair. He was a small man, with cherub 
 cheeks as red as roses, black twinkling eyes, and double chin ; 
 was of the fat-headed genus, and if phrenologists be correct, 
 must have given indications of early piety, for he was bald 
 before his time, and had the organ of veneration standing 
 visible on his crown ; his hair, from having once been black, 
 had become an iron-grey, and hung down behind his ears, 
 resting on the collar of his coat, according to the old school, 
 to which, I must remark, he belonged, having been educated 
 on the Continent. His coat had large double breasts, the 
 lapels of which hung down loosely on each side, being the 
 prototype of his waistcoat, whose double breasts fell down- 
 wards in the same manner ; his black small-clothes had silver 
 buckles at the knees, and the gaiters, which did not reach up 
 so far, discovered a pair of white lamb's-wool stockings, some- 
 what retreating from their original colour. 
 
 Father Con was a tall, muscular, able-bodied young man, 
 with an immensely broad pair of shoulders, of which he was 
 vain ; his black hair was cropped close, except a thin portion 
 of it, which was trimmed quite evenly across his eyebrows ; 
 he was rather bow-limbed, and when walking looked upwards, 
 holding out his elbows from his body, and letting the lower 
 parts of his arms fall down, so that he went as if he carried a 
 keg under each. His coat, though not well made, was of the 
 best glossy broadcloth, and his long clerical boots went up 
 about his knees like a dragoon's. There was an awkward stiff-
 
 194 THE STATION 
 
 ness about him, in very good keeping with a dark, melancholy 
 cast of countenance, in which, however, a man might discover 
 an air of simplicity not to be found in the visage of his supe- 
 rior, Father Philemy. 
 
 The latter gentleman filled the chair, as I said, and carved 
 the goose ; on his right sat Captain Wilson ; on his left, the 
 auxiliary next to them Father Con, the nephews, Peter 
 Malone, et cetera. To enumerate the items of the dinner is 
 unnecessary, as our readers have a pretty accurate notion of 
 them from what we have already said. We can only observe 
 that when Phaddhy saw it laid, and all the wheels of the 
 system fairly set a-going, he looked at Parrah More with an 
 air of triumph which he could not conceal. 
 
 The talk in the beginning was altogether confined to the 
 clergymen and Mr. Wilson, including a few diffident contribu- 
 tions from Peter Malone and the two nephews. 
 
 "Mr. M'Guirk," observed Captain Wilson, after the con- 
 versation had taken several turns, " I'm sure that in the 
 course of your professional duties, sir, you must have had 
 occasion to make many observations upon human nature, from 
 the circumstance of seeing it in every condition and state of 
 feeling possible from the baptism of the infant until the 
 aged man receives the last rites of your Church and the sweet 
 consolations of religion from your hand." 
 
 "Not a doubt of it, Phaddhy," said Father Philemy to 
 Phaddhy, whom he had been addressing at the time " not a 
 doubt of it and I'll do everything in my power to get him 
 in l too, and I am told he is bright." 
 
 "Uncle," said one of the nephews, "this gentleman is 
 speaking to you." 
 
 " And why not ? " continued his reverence, who was so 
 closely engaged with Phaddhy that he did not hear even the 
 nephew's appeal " a bishop and why not ? Has he not as 
 good a chance of being a bishop as any of them ? though, 
 God knows, it is not always merit that gets a bishopric in any 
 Church, or I myself might. But let that pass," said he, fixing 
 his eyes on the bottle. 
 
 "Father Philemy," said Father Con, "Captain Wilson was 
 addressing himself to you in the most especial manner." 
 1 Into Maynooth College.
 
 THE STATION 195 
 
 " O Captain ! I beg ten thousand pardons. I was engaged 
 talking with Phaddhy here about his son, who is a young 
 shaving of our cloth, sir ; he is intended for the Mission. 
 Phaddhy, I will either examine him myself, or make Father 
 Con examine him, by-and-by. Well, Captain ? " 
 
 The Captain now repeated what he had said. 
 
 " Very true, Captain, and we do see it in as many shapes as 
 ever Con, what do you call him ? put on him." 
 
 " Proteus," subjoined Con, who was famous at the classics. 
 
 Father Philemy nodded for the assistance, and continued : 
 " But as for human nature, Captain, give it to me at a good 
 roasting christening ; or, what is better again, at a jovial 
 wedding between two of my own parishioners say this pretty 
 fair-haired daughter of Phaddhy Sheemus Phaddhy's here, 
 and long Ned Slevin, Parrah More's son there. Eh, Phaddhy, 
 will it be a match ? What do you say, Parrah More ? Upon 
 my veracity, I must bring that about'." 
 
 "Why then, yer reverence," replied Phaddhy, who was 
 now a little softened, and forgot his enmity against Parrah 
 More for the present, " unlikelier things might happen." 
 
 " It won't be my fault," said Parrah More, " if my son Ned 
 has no objection." 
 
 "He object!" replied Father Philemy, "if I take it in 
 hand, let me see who'll dare to object. Doesn't the scripture 
 say it ? and, sure, we can't go against the scripture." 
 
 " By-the-bye," said Captain Wilson, who was a dry humoui-- 
 ist, "I am happy to be able to infer from what you say, 
 Father Philemy, that you are not, as the clergymen of your 
 Church are supposed to be, inimical to the Bible." 
 
 "Me an enemy to the Bible ! No such thing, sir ; but, 
 Captain, begging your pardon, we'll have nothing more about 
 the Bible. You see we are met here, as friends and good 
 fellows, to enjoy ourselves after the severity of our spiritual 
 duties, and we must relax a little. We can't always carry 
 long faces like Methodist parsons. Come, Parrah More, let 
 the Bible take a nap, and give us a song." 
 
 His reverence was now seconded in his motion by the most 
 of all present, and Parrah More accordingly gave them a song. 
 After a few songs more the conversation went on as before. 
 "Now, Parrah More," said Phaddhy, "you must try my
 
 196 THE STATION 
 
 wine. I hope it's as good as what you gave his reverence 
 yesterday." 
 
 The words, however, had scarcely passed his lips when 
 Father Philemy burst out into a fit of laughter, clapping and 
 rubbing his hands in a manner the most astonishing. "O 
 Phaddhy, Phaddhy ! " shouted his reverence, laughing heartily, 
 " I done you for once I done you, my man, 'cute as you 
 thought yourself. Why, you nager, you, did you think to put 
 us off with punch, and you have a stocking of hard guineas 
 hid in a hole in the wall ? " 
 
 " What does yer rev'rence mane ? " said Phaddhy, " for 
 myself can make no undherstanding out of it at all, at all." 
 
 To this his reverence only replied by another laugh. 
 
 " I gave his reverence no wine," said Parrah More, in reply 
 to Phaddhy's question. 
 
 " What ! " said Phaddhy, " none yesterday at the station 
 held with you ? " 
 
 " Not a bit of me ever thought of it." 
 
 11 Nor no mutton ? " 
 
 " Why, then, devil a morsel of mutton, Phaddhy ; but we 
 had a rib of beef." 
 
 Phaddhy now looked over to his reverence rather sheep- 
 ishly, with the smile of a man on his face who felt himself 
 foiled. "Well, yer reverence has done me, sure enough," 
 he replied, rubbing his head. " I give it up to you, Father 
 Philemy ; but, anyhow, I'm glad I got it, and you're all wel- 
 come from the core of my heart. I'm only sorry I haven't as 
 much more now to thrate you all like gintlemen ; but there's 
 some yet, and as much punch as will make all our heads come 
 round." 
 
 Our readers must assist us with their own imaginations, and 
 suppose the conversation to have passed very pleasantly, and 
 the night, as well as the guests, to be somewhat far gone. The 
 principal part of the conversation was borne by the three 
 clergymen, Captain Wilson, and Phaddhy ; that of the two 
 nephews and Peter Malone ran in an undercurrent of its own ; 
 and in the preceding part of the night those who occupied 
 the bottom of the table spoke to each other rather in whispers, 
 being too much restrained by that rustic bashfulness which 
 ties up the tongues of those who feel that their consequence
 
 THE STATION 197 
 
 is overlooked among their superiors. According as the punch 
 circulated, however, their diffidence began to wear off, and 
 occasionally an odd laugh or so might be heard to break the 
 monotony of their silence. The youngsters, too, though at 
 first almost in a state of terror, soon commenced plucking each 
 other, and a titter or a suppressed burst of laughter would 
 break forth from one of the more waggish, who was put to 
 a severe task in afterwards composing his countenance into 
 sufficient gravity to escape detection, and a competent por- 
 tion of chastisement the next day for not being able to 
 " behave himself with betther manners." 
 
 During these juvenile breaches of decorum, Katty would 
 raise her arm in a threatening attitude, shake her head at 
 them, and look up at the clergy, intimating more by her 
 earnestness of gesticulation than met the ear. Several songs 
 again went round, of which, truth to tell, Father Philemy's 
 were by far the best ; for he possessed a rich comic expression 
 of eye, which, added to suitable ludicrousness of gesture and 
 a good voice, rendered him highly amusing to the company. 
 Father Con declined singing, as being decidedly serious, 
 though he was often solicited. 
 
 " He !" said Father Philemy "he's no more voice than a 
 wool pack ; but Con's a cunning fellow. What do you think, 
 Captain Wilson, but he pretends to be too pious to sing, and 
 gets credit for piety not because he is devout, but because 
 he has a bad voice. Now, Con, you can't deny it, for there's 
 not a man in the three kingdoms knows it better than my- 
 self you sit there with a face upon you that might go before 
 the Lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet, when you ought 
 to be as jovial as another." 
 
 " Well, Father Philemy," said Phaddhy, " as he won't sing, 
 maybe, wid submission, he'd examine Briney in his Latin, till 
 his mother and I hear how he's doing at it." 
 
 " Ay, he's fond of dabbling at Latin, so he may try him 
 I'm sure I have no objection So, Captain, as I was telling 
 you " 
 
 " Silence there below ! " said Phaddhy to those at the lower 
 end of the table, who were now talkative enough ; " will 
 yees whisht there till Father Con hears Briney a lesson in his 
 Latin. Where are you, Briney? come here, ma bouc/ial."
 
 198 THE STATION 
 
 But Briney had absconded when he saw that the tug of 
 war was about to commence. In a few minutes, however, 
 the father returned, pushing the boy before him, who, in his 
 reluctance to encounter the ordeal of examination, clung to 
 every chair, table, and person in his way, hoping that his 
 restiveness might induce them to postpone the examination 
 till another occasion. The father, however, was inexorable, 
 and by main force dragged him from all his holds and placed 
 him beside Father Con. 
 
 " What's come over you, at all, at all, you insignified shing- 
 aivn, you, to affront the gintleman in this way, and he kind 
 enough to go for to give you an examination ? Come now, 
 you had betther not vex me, I tell you, but hould up your 
 head and spake out loud, that we can all hear you. Sow, 
 Father Con, achora, you'll not be too hard upon him in the 
 beginning, till he gets into it, for he's aisy dashed." 
 
 " Here, Briney," said Father Philemy, handing him his 
 tumbler, " take a pull of this, and if you have any courage at 
 all in you it will raise it ; take a good pull." 
 
 Briney hesitated. 
 
 "Why but you take the glass out of his reverence's hand, 
 sarrah," said the father " what ! is it without dhrinking his 
 reverence's health first ! " 
 
 Briney gave a most melancholy nod at his reverence as he 
 put the tumbler to his mouth, which he nearly emptied, not- 
 withstanding his shyness. 
 
 " For my part," said his reverence, looking at the almost 
 empty tumbler, " I am pretty sure that that same chap will 
 be able to take care of himself through life. And so, Cap- 
 tain " said he, resuming the conversation with Captain 
 Wilson, for his notice of Briney was only parenthetical. 
 
 Father Con now took the book, which was /Esop's Fables, 
 and, in accordance with Briney's intention, it opened exactly 
 at the favourite fable of Callus Gallinaceus. He was not 
 aware, however, that Briney had kept that place open 
 during the preceding part of the week, in order to effect 
 this point. Father Philemy, however, was now beginning 
 to relate another anecdote to the Captain, and the thread 
 of his narrative twined rather ludicrously with that of the 
 examination.
 
 THE STATION 199 
 
 Briney, after a few hems, at length proceeded " Gallus 
 Gallinaceus, a dunghill cock 
 
 " So, Captain, I was just after coming out of Widow Moylan's 
 it was in the Lammas fair and a large one, by-the-bye, 
 it was so, sir, who should come up" to me but Branagan. 
 ' Well, Branagan,' said I, ' how does the world go now with 
 you ?' " 
 
 " Gallus Gallinaceus, a dunghill cock- 
 
 - Says he. ' And how is that ? ' says I- 
 
 Gallus Gallinaceus- 
 
 Says he. ' Hut tut, Branagan,' says I ' you're 
 drunk.' 'That's the thing, sir,' says Branagan, 'and I want 
 to explain it all to your reverence.' * Well,' said I, ' go 
 on'- 
 
 " Gallus Gallinaceus, a dunghill cock " 
 
 " Says he. Let your Gallus Gallinaceus go to roost 
 
 for this night, Con," said Father Philemy, who did not relish 
 the interruption of his story. " I say, Phaddhy, send the 
 boy to bed, and bring him down in your hand to my house 
 on Saturday morning, and we will both examine him ; but 
 this is no time for it, and me engaged in conversation with 
 Captain Wilson. So, Captain ' Well, sir,' says Branagan, 
 and he staggering, ' I took an oath against liquor, and I 
 want your reverence to break it,' says he. ' What do you 
 mean ? ' I inquired. ' Why, please your reverence,' said he, 
 ' I took an oath against liquor, as I told you, not to drink 
 more nor a pint of whisky in one day, and I want your 
 reverence to break it for me, and make it only half a pint ; 
 for I find that a pint is too much for me ; by the same token, 
 that when I get that far, your reverence, I disremember the 
 oath entirely.' " 
 
 The influence of the bottle now began to be felt, and the 
 conversation absolutely blew a gale, wherein hearty laughter, 
 good strong singing, loud argument, and general good-humour 
 blended into one uproarious peal of hilarity, accompanied by 
 some smart flashes of wit and humour which would not dis- 
 grace a prouder banquet. Phaddhy, in particular, melted 
 into a spirit of the most unbounded benevolence a spirit 
 that would (if by any possible means he could effect it) 
 embrace the whole human race ; that is to say, he would
 
 200 THE STATION 
 
 raise them man. woman, and child to the same elevated 
 state of happiness which he enjoyed himself. That, indeed, 
 was happiness in perfection, as pure and unadulterated as 
 the poteen which created it. How could he be otherwise 
 than happy ? he had succeeded to a good property and a 
 stocking of hard guineas, without the hard labour of acquir- 
 ing them ; he had the " clargy " under his roof at last, 
 partaking of a hospitality which he felt himself well able to 
 afford them ; he had settled with his reverence for five years' 
 arrears of sin, all of which had been wiped out of his con- 
 science by the blessed absolving hand of the priest ; he was 
 training up Briney for the Mission ; and, though last not 
 least, he was far gone in his seventh tumbler ! 
 
 "Come, jinteels," said he, "spare nothing here there's 
 lashings of everything ; thrate yourselves dacent, and don't 
 be saying to-morrow or next day that ever my father's son 
 was nagerly. Death alive, Father Con, what are you doin' ? 
 Why, then, bad manners to me if that'll sarve, anyhow." 
 
 " Phaddhy," replied Father Con, " I assure you I have 
 done my duty." 
 
 "Very well, Father Con, granting all that, it's no sin to 
 repate a good turn, you know. Not a word I'll hear, yer 
 reverence one tumbler along with myself, if it was only for 
 ould times." He then filled Father Con's tumbler, with his 
 own hand, in a truly liberal spirit. " Arrah, Father Con, 
 do you remember the day we had the leapm'-match, and 
 the bout at the shoulder-stone ? " 
 
 "Indeed, I'll not forget it, Phaddhy." 
 
 " And it's yourself that may say that ; but I bleeve I 
 rubbed the consate off of your reverence only, that's betune 
 ourselves, you persave." 
 
 " You did win the palm, Phaddhy, I'll not deny it ; but you 
 are the only man that ever bet l me at either of the athletics." 
 
 "And I'll say this for yer reverence, that you are one 
 of the best and most able-bodied gintlemen I ever engaged 
 with. Ah ! Father Con, I'm past all that now but no 
 matter, here's yer reverence's health, and a shake hands 
 Father Philemy, yer health, docthor yer strange reverence's 
 health Captain Wilson, not forgetting you, sir Mr. Pether, 
 
 1 Beat.
 
 THE STATION 201 
 
 yours ; and I hope to see you soon with the robes upon you, 
 and to be able to prache us a good sarmon. Parrah More, 
 wus dha lauv * give me yer hand you steeple, you ; and 
 I haven't the smallest taste of objection to what Father 
 Philemy hinted at ye'll obsarve. Katty, you thief o' the 
 world, where are you ? Your health, avourneen come here, 
 and give us your fist, Katty bad manners to me if I could 
 forget you afther all the best crathur, your reverence, 
 uiidher the sun, except when yer reverence puts yer comedher 
 on her at confession, and then she's a little sharp or so, not 
 a doubt of it ; but no matther, Katty, ahagur, you do it all 
 for the best. And Father Philemy, maybe it's myself didn't 
 put the thrick upon you in the Maragah More, about Katty's 
 death ha, ha, ha ! Jack M'Cramer, yer health all yer 
 healths, and ye're welcome here, if you war seven times as 
 many. Briney, where are you, ma bouchal ? Come up and 
 shake hands wid yer father, as well as another come up, 
 acushla, and kiss me. Ah, Briney, my poor fellow, ye'll 
 never be the cut of a man yer father was ; but no matther, 
 avourneen, ye'll be a betther man, I hope ; and God knows 
 you may asy be that, for, Father Philemy, I'm not what I 
 ought to be, yer reverence ; however, I may mend, and will, 
 maybe, before a month of Sundays goes over me. But, for 
 all that, Briney, I hope to see the day when you'll be sitting, 
 an ordained priest, at my own table ; if I once saw that, I 
 could die contented so mind yer laming, acushla, and his 
 reverence here will back you, and make intherest to get 
 you into the college. Musha, God pity them crathurs 2 at 
 the door aren't they gone yet ? Listen to them coughin', 
 for fraid we'd forget them ; and throth and they won't be 
 forgot this bout, anyhow. Katty, avourneen, give them, every 
 one, big and little, young and ould, their skinful don't 
 lave a wrinkle in them ; and see, take one of them bottles 
 the crathurs, they're starved sitting there all night in the 
 cowld and give them a couple of glasses apiece it's good, 
 yer reverence, to have the poor body's blessing at all times 
 and now, as I was saying, Here's all yer healths ! and from 
 the very veins of my heart yer welcome here." 
 
 1 The translation follows it. 2 The beggars.
 
 202 THE STATION 
 
 Our readers may perceive that Phaddhy 
 
 " Was not only blest, but glorious, 
 O'er a' the ills o' life victorious ; " 
 
 for, like the generality of our peasantry, the native drew to 
 the surface of his character those warm, hospitable, and 
 benevolent virtues which a purer system of morals and 
 education would most certainly keep in full action, without 
 running the risk, as in the present instance, of mixing bad 
 habits with frank, manly, and generous qualities. 
 
 "I'll not go, Con I tell you I'll not go till I sing another 
 song. Phaddhy, you're a prince but where's the use of 
 lighting more candles now, man, than you had in the 
 beginning of the night ? Is Captain Wilson gone ? Then 
 peace be with him ; it's a pity he wasn't on the right side, 
 for he's not the worst of them. Phaddhy, where are you ? " 
 
 "Why, yer reverence," replied Katty, "he's got a little 
 unwell, and jist laid down his head a bit." 
 
 "Katty," said Father Con, "you had better get a couple 
 of the men to accompany Father Philemy home ; for, though 
 the night's clear, he doesn't see his way very well in the 
 dark poor man, his eyesight's failing him fast." 
 
 "Then the more's the pity, Father Con. Here, Denis, 
 let yourself and Mat go home wid Father Philemy." 
 
 " Good-night, Katty," said Father Con " good-night ; and 
 may our blessing sanctify you all ! " 
 
 "Good-night, Father Con, ahagitr," replied Katty; "and 
 for goodness' sake see that they take care of Father Philemy, 
 for it's himself that's the blessed and holy crathur, and the 
 pleasant gintleman, out and out." 
 
 " Good-night, Katty," again repeated Father Con, as the 
 cavalcade proceeded in a body "good-night." And so 
 ended the station.
 
 AN ESSAY ON IRISH SWEARING 
 
 NO pen can do justice to the extravagance and frolic 
 inseparable from the character of the Irish people ; 
 nor has any system of philosophy been discovered that can 
 with moral fitness be applied to them. Phrenology fails to 
 explain it, for, according to the most capital surveys hitherto 
 made and reported on, it appears that, inasmuch as the moral 
 and intellectual organs of Irishmen predominate over the 
 physical and sensual, the people ought therefore to be ranked 
 at the very tip-top of morality. We would warn the phreno- 
 logists, however, not to be too sanguine in drawing inferences 
 from an examination of Paddy's head. Heaven only knows 
 the scenes in which it is engaged, and the protuberances 
 created by a long life of hard fighting. Many an organ and 
 development is brought out on it by the cudgel, that never 
 would have appeared had Nature been left to herself. 
 
 Drinking, fighting, and swearing are the three great char- 
 acteristics of every people. Paddy's love of fighting and of 
 whisky has been long proverbial ; and of his tact in swearing 
 much has also been said. But there is one department of 
 oath-making in which he stands unrivalled and unapproach- 
 able : I mean the alibi. There is where he shines, where his 
 oath, instead of being a mere matter of fact or opinion, rises 
 up into the dignity of epic narrative, containing within itself 
 all the complexity of machinery, harmony of parts, and fer- 
 tility of invention by which your true epic should be charac- 
 terised. 
 
 The Englishman, whom we will call the historian in swear- 
 ing, will depose to the truth of this or that fact, but there the 
 line is drawn : he swears his oath so far as he knows, and 
 stands still " I'm sure, for my part, I don't know ; I've said 
 all I knows about it," and beyond this his besotted intellect 
 goeth not. 
 
 The Scotchman, on the other hand, who is the ineta- 
 
 203
 
 204 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 physician in swearing, sometimes borders on equivocation. 
 He decidedly goes further than the Englishman, not because 
 he has less honesty, but more prudence. He will assent to, 
 or deny, a proposition ; for the Englishman's " I don't know," 
 and the Scotchman's " I dinna ken," are two very distinct 
 assertions when properly understood. The former stands out 
 a monument of dulness, an insuperable barrier against inquiry, 
 ingenuity, and fancy ; but the latter frequently stretches itself 
 so as to embrace hypothetically a particular opinion. 
 
 But Paddy ! put him forward to prove an alibi for his four- 
 teenth or fifteenth cousin, and you will be gratified by the pomp, 
 pride, and circumstance of true swearing. Every oath with him 
 is an epic pure poetry, abounding with humour, pathos, and 
 the highest order of invention and talent. He is not at ease, 
 it is true, under facts ; there is something too commonplace 
 in dealing with them, which his genius scorns. But his nights 
 his nights are beautiful ; and his episodes admirable and 
 happy. In fact, he is an improvisatore at oath-taking, with this 
 difference, that his extempore oaths possess all the ease and 
 correctness of labour and design. 
 
 He is not, however, altogether averse to facts ; but, like 
 your true poet, he veils, changes, and modifies them with 
 such skill that they possess all the merit and graces of fiction. 
 If he happen to make an assertion incompatible with the plan 
 of the piece, his genius acquires fresh energy, enables him to 
 widen the design, and to create new machinery, with such 
 happiness of adaptation that what appeared out of proportion 
 or character is made in his hands to contribute to the general 
 strength and beauty of the oath. 
 
 'Tis true there is nothing perfect under the sun ; but if 
 there were, it would certainly be Paddy at an alibi. Some 
 flaws no doubt occur, some slight inaccuracies may be noticed 
 by a critical eye, an occasional anachronism stands out, and a 
 mistake or so in geography ; but let it be recollected that 
 Paddy's alibi is but a human production, let us not judge him 
 by harsher rules than those which we apply to Homer, Virgil, 
 or Shakespeare. 
 
 Aliqiuindo bonus dormitat Homer us is allowed on all hands. 
 Virgil made Dido and ./Eneas contemporary, though they were 
 not so ; and Shakespeare, by the creative power of his genius,
 
 IRISH SWEARING 205 
 
 changed an inland town into a sea-port. Come, come, have 
 bowels. Let epic swearing be treated with the same courtesy 
 shown to epic poetry, that is if both are the production of a 
 rare genius. I maintain that when Paddy commits a blemish 
 he is too harshly admonished for it. When he soars out of 
 sight here, as occasionally happens, does he not frequently 
 alight somewhere about Sydney Bay, much against his own 
 inclination ? And if he puts forth a hasty production, is he 
 not compelled for the space of seven or fourteen years to 
 revise his oath ? But, indeed, few works of fiction are pro- 
 perly encouraged in Ireland. 
 
 It would be unpardonable in us, however, to overlook the 
 beneficial effects of Paddy's peculiar genius in swearing alibis. 
 Some persons, who display their own egregious ignorance of 
 morality, may be disposed to think that it tends to lessen the 
 obligation of an oath by inducing a habit among the people 
 of swearing to what is not true. We look upon such persons 
 as very dangerous to Ireland and to the repeal of the Union, 
 and we request them not to push their principles too far in 
 the disturbed parts of the country. Could society hold to- 
 gether a single day if nothing but truth were spoken ? Would 
 not law and lawyers soon become obsolete if nothing but truth 
 were sworn ? What would become of Parliament if truth 
 alone were uttered there ? Its annual proceedings might be 
 despatched in a month. Fiction is the basis of society, the 
 bond of commercial prosperity, the channel of communication 
 between nation and nation, and not unfrequently the inter- 
 preter between a man and his own conscience. 
 
 For these and many other reasons which we could adduce, 
 we say with Paddy, " Long life to fiction ! " When associated 
 with swearing it shines in its brightest colours. What, for 
 instance, is calculated to produce the best and purest of the 
 moral virtues so beautifully as the swearing an alibi ? Here 
 are fortitude and a love of freedom resisting oppression ; for 
 it is well known that all law is oppression in Ireland. 
 
 There is compassion for the peculiar state of the poor boy 
 who perhaps only burnt a family in their beds ; benevolence 
 to prompt the generous effort in his behalf; disinterestedness 
 to run the risk of becoming an involuntary absentee ; fortitude 
 in encountering a host of brazen-faced lawyers ; patience under
 
 206 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 the unsparing gripe of a cross-examiner ; perseverance in con- 
 ducting the oath to its close against a host of difficulties ; and 
 friendship, which bottoms and crowns them all. 
 
 Paddy's merits, however, touching the alibi, rest not here. 
 Fiction on these occasions only teaches him how to perform a 
 duty. It may be that he is under the obligation of a previous 
 oath not to give evidence against certain of his friends and 
 associates. Now, could anything in the whole circle of religion 
 or ethics be conceived that renders the epic style of swearing 
 so incumbent upon Paddy ? There is a kind of moral fitness 
 in all things ; for where the necessity of invention exists, it is 
 consolatory to reflect that the ability to invent is bestowed 
 along with it. 
 
 Next to the alibi come Paddy's powers in sustaining a cross- 
 examination. Many persons think that this is his forte ; but 
 we cannot yield to such an opinion, nor compromise his origi- 
 nality of conception in the scope and plan of an alibi. It is 
 marked by a minuteness of touch and a peculiarity of expres- 
 sion which give it every appearance of real life. The circum- 
 stances are so well imagined, the groups so naturally disposed, 
 the colouring so finished, and the background in such fine 
 perspective, that the whole picture presents you with such 
 keeping and vraisemblance as could be accomplished only by 
 the genius of a master. 
 
 In point of interest, however, we must admit that his ability 
 in a cross-examination ranks next to his skill in planning an 
 alibi. There is in the former a versatility of talent that keeps 
 him always ready ; a happiness of retort, generally disastrous 
 to the wit of the most established cross-examiner; an apparent 
 simplicity which is quite as impenetrable as the lawyer's assur- 
 ance ; a vis comica which puts the court in tears ; and an 
 originality of SOITOW that often convulses it with laughter. 
 His resources, when he is pressed, are inexhaustible ; and the 
 address with which he contrives to gain time, that he may 
 suit his reply to the object of his evidence, is beyond all praise. 
 And yet his appearance when he mounts the table is anything 
 but prepossessing ; a sheepish look, and a loose-jointed frame 
 of body, wrapped in a frieze greatcoat, do not promise much. 
 Nay, there is often a rueful, blank expression in his visage 
 which might lead a stranger to anticipate nothing but
 
 IRISH SWEARING 207 
 
 blunders and dulness. This, however, is hypocrisy of the 
 first water. Just observe the tact with which he places his 
 caubeen upon the table, his kippeen across it, and the experi- 
 enced air with which he pulls up the waistband of his breeches, 
 absolutely girding his loins for battle. 'Tis true his blue eye 
 has at present nothing remarkable in it except a drop or two 
 of the native ; but that is not remarkable. 
 
 When the direct examination has been concluded, nothing 
 can be finer than the simplicity with which he turns round 
 to the lawyer who is to cross-examine him. Yet, as if con- 
 scious that firmness and caution are his main guards, he again 
 pulls up his waistband with a more vigorous hitch, looks 
 shyly into the very eyes of his opponent, and awaits the 
 first blow. 
 
 The question at length comes ; and Paddy, after having 
 raised the collar of his big coat on his shoulder, and twisted 
 up the shoulder along with it, directly puts the query back 
 to the lawyer, without altering a syllable of it, for the purpose 
 of ascertaining more accurately whether that is the precise 
 question that has been put to him ; for Paddy is conscientious. 
 Then is the science displayed on both sides. The one a 
 veteran, trained in all the technicalities of legal puzzles, 
 irony, blarney, sarcasm, impudence, stock jokes, quirks, rig- 
 marolery, brow-beating, ridicule, and subtlety ; the other a 
 poor peasant, relying only upon the justice of a good cause 
 and the gifts of nature, without either experience or learn- 
 ing, and with nothing but his native modesty to meet the 
 forensic effrontery of his antagonist. 
 
 Our readers will perceive that the odds are a thousand to 
 one against Paddy ; yet, when he replies to a hackneyed 
 genius at cross-examination, how does it happen that he 
 uniformly elicits those roars of laughter which rise in the 
 court, and convulse it from the judge to the crier ? In this 
 laugh, which is usually at the expense of the cross-examiner, 
 Paddy himself always joins, so that the counsel has the 
 double satisfaction of being made not only the jest of the 
 judge and his brother lawyers, but of the ragged witness 
 whom he attempted to make ridiculous. 
 
 It is not impossible that this merry mode of dispensing 
 justice may somewhat encourage Paddy in that independence
 
 208 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 of mind which relishes not the idea of being altogether 
 bound by oaths that are too often administered with a 
 jocular spirit. To many of the uninitiated Irish an oath is 
 a solemn, to some an awful thing. Of this wholesome rever- 
 ence for its sanction, two or three testimonies given in a 
 court of justice usually cure them. The indifferent, business- 
 like manner in which the oaths are put, the sing-song tone 
 of voice, the rapid utterance of the woi'ds, give to this solemn 
 act an appearance of excellent burlesque, which ultimately 
 renders the whole proceedings remarkable for the absence 
 of truth and reality ; but, at the same time, gives them un- 
 questionable merit as a dramatic representation, abounding 
 with fiction, well related, and ably acted. 
 
 Thumb-kissing is another feature in Paddy's adroitness too 
 important to be passed over in silence. Here his tact shines 
 out again. It would be impossible for him in many cases to 
 meet the perplexities of a cross-examination so cleverly as he 
 does, if he did not believe that he had, by kissing his thumb 
 instead of the book, actually taken no oath, and consequently 
 given to himself a wider range of action. We must admit, 
 however, that this very circumstance involves him in diffi- 
 culties which are sometimes peculiarly embarrassing. Taking 
 everything into consideration, the prospect of freedom for his 
 sixth cousin, the consciousness of having kissed his thumb, 
 or the consoling reflection that he swore only on a " Law " 
 Bible, it must be granted that the opportunities presented 
 by a cross-examination are well calculated to display his wit, 
 humour, and fertility of invention. He is accordingly great 
 in it ; but still we maintain that his execution of an alibi is 
 his ablest performance, comprising, as it does, both the con- 
 ception and construction of the work. 
 
 Both the oaths and imprecations of the Irish display, like 
 those who use them, indications of great cruelty and great 
 humour. Many of the former exhibit that ingenuity which 
 comes out when Paddy is on his cross-examination in a court 
 of justice. Every people, it is true, have resorted to the habit 
 of mutilating or changing in their oaths the letters which 
 form the Creator's name ; but we question if any have sur- 
 passed the Irish in the cleverness with which they accomplish 
 it. Mock oaths are habitual to Irishmen in ordinary con-
 
 IRISH SWEARING 209 
 
 versation; but the use of any or all of them is not con- 
 sidered to constitute an oath; on the contrary, they are in 
 the mouths of many who would not, except upon a very 
 solemn occasion indeed, swear by the name of the Deity in 
 its proper form. 
 
 The ingenuity of their mock oaths is sufficient to occasion 
 much perplexity to any one disposed to consider it in con- 
 nection with the character and moral feelings of the people. 
 Whether to note it as a reluctance on their part to incur the 
 guilt of an oath, or as a proof of habitual tact in evading it 
 by artifice, is manifestly a difficulty hard to be overcome. 
 We are decidedly inclined to the former ; for although there 
 is much laxity of principle among Irishmen, naturally to be 
 expected from men whose moral state has been neglected by 
 the legislature, and deteriorated by political and religious 
 asperity, acting upon quick passions and badly-regulated 
 minds yet we know that they possess, after all, a strong 
 but vague, undirected sense of devotional feeling and rever- 
 ence, which are associated with great crimes and dark shades 
 of character. This explains one chief cause of the sympathy 
 which is felt in Ireland for criminals from whom the law 
 exacts the fatal penalty of death ; and it also accounts, inde- 
 pendently of the existence of any illegal association, for the 
 terrible retribution inflicted upon those who come forward to 
 prosecute them. It is not in Ireland with criminals as in 
 other countries, where the character of a murderer or incen- 
 diary is notoriously bad, as resulting from a life of gradual 
 profligacy and villainy. Far from it. In Ireland you will 
 find those crimes perpetrated by men who are good fathers, 
 good husbands, good sons, and good neighbours by men 
 who would share their last morsel or their last shilling with 
 a fellow-creature in distress who would generously lose their 
 lives for a man who had obliged them, provided he had not 
 incurred their enmity and who would protect a defenceless 
 stranger as far as lay in their power. 
 
 There are some mock oaths among Irishmen which must 
 have had their origin amongst those whose habits of thought 
 were much more elevated than could be supposed to char- 
 acterise the lower orders. " By the powers of death " is 
 never now used as we have written it ; but the ludicrous 
 
 VOL. i. o
 
 210 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 travesty of it, " By the powdhers o' delf," is quite common. 
 Of this and other mock oaths it may be right to observe that 
 those who swear by them are in general ignorant of their 
 proper origin. There are some, however, of this description 
 whose original form is well known. One of these Paddy- 
 displays considerable ingenuity in using. "By the cross" 
 can scarcely be classed under the mock oaths; but the 
 manner in which it is pressed into asseverations is amusing. 
 When Paddy is affirming a truth he swears "by the crass" 
 simply, and this with him is an oath of considerable obliga- 
 tion. He generally, in order to render it more impressive, 
 accompanies it with suitable action, that is, he places the 
 forefinger of each hand across, that he may assail you through 
 two senses instead of one. On the contrary, when he intends 
 to hoax you by asserting what is not true, he ingeniously 
 multiplies the oath, and swears "by the five crasses," that is, 
 by his own five fingers, placing at the same time his four 
 fingers and his thumbs across each other in a most impressive 
 and vehement manner. Don't believe him then the knave 
 is lying as fast as possible, and with no remorse. " By the 
 crass o' Christ " is an oath of much solemnity, and seldom 
 used in a falsehood. Paddy also often places two bits of 
 straw across, and sometimes two sticks, upon which he swears 
 with an appearance of great heat and sincerity sed caveto. 
 
 Irishmen generally consider iron as a sacred metal. In the 
 interior of the country the thieves (but few in number) are 
 frequently averse to stealing it. Why it possesses this hold 
 upon their affections it is difficult to say, but it is certain that 
 they rank it among their sacred things ; consider that to find 
 it is lucky, and nail it over their doors when found in the con- 
 venient shape of a horseshoe. It is also used as a medium of 
 asserting truth. We believe, however, that the sanction it 
 imposes is not very strong. "By this blessed iron!" "By 
 this blessed an' holy iron ! " are oaths of an inferior grade ; 
 but if the circumstance on which they are founded be a 
 matter of indifference, they seldom depart from truth in 
 using them. 
 
 Paddy, when engaged in a fight, is never at a loss for a 
 weapon, and we may also affirm that he is never at a loss for 
 an oath. When relating a narrative, or some other circum-
 
 IRISH SWEARING 
 
 stance of his own invention, if contradicted, he will corrobo- 
 rate it, in order to sustain his credit or produce the proper 
 impression, by an abrupt oath upon the first object he can 
 seize. " Arrah, nonsense ! by this pipe in my hand, it's as 
 thrue as " and then, before he completes the illustration, he 
 goes on with a fine specimen of equivocation " By the stool 
 I'm sittin' an, it is ; an' what more would you have from me, 
 barrin' I take my book oath of it ? " Thus does he, under 
 the mask of an insinuation, induce you to believe that he has 
 actually sworn it, whereas the oath is always left undefined 
 and incomplete. 
 
 Sometimes he is exceedingly comprehensive in his adjura- 
 tions, and swears upon a magnificent scale ; as, for instance, 
 " By the contints of all the books that ever wor opened an' 
 shut, it's as thrue as the sun to the dial." This certainly 
 leaves "the five crasses" immeasurably behind. However, 
 be cautious, and not too confident in taking so sweeping and 
 learned an oath upon trust, notwithstanding its imposing 
 effect. We grant, indeed, that an oath which comprehends 
 within its scope all the learned libraries of Europe, including 
 even the Alexandrian of old, is not only an erudite one, but 
 establishes in a high degree the taste of the swearer, and dis- 
 plays on his part an uncommon grasp of intellect. Still we 
 recommend you, whenever you hear an alleged fact substan- 
 tiated by it, to set your ear as sharply as possible ; for, after 
 all, it is more than probable that every book by which he has 
 sworn might be contained in a nutshell. The secret may be 
 briefly explained. Paddy is in the habit of substituting the 
 word never for ever. " By all the books that never were 
 opened or shut," the reader perceives, is only a flourish of 
 trumpets a mere delusion of the enemy. 
 
 In fact, Paddy has oaths rising gradually from the lying 
 ludicrous to the superstitious solemn, each of which finely 
 illustrates the nature of the subject to which it is applied. 
 When he swears " by the contints o' Moll Kelly's Primer," or 
 " by the piper that played afore Moses," you are perhaps as 
 strongly inclined to believe him as when he draws upon a 
 more serious oath that is, you almost regret the thing is 
 not the gospel that Paddy asserts it to be. In the former 
 sense, the humorous narrative which calls forth the laughable
 
 212 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 burlseque of "by the piper o' Moses," is usually the richest 
 lie in the whole range of fiction. 
 
 Paddy is, in his ejaculatory as well as in all his other mock 
 oaths, a kind of smuggler in morality, imposing as often as he 
 can upon his own conscience, and upon those who exercise 
 spiritual authority over him. Perhaps more of his oaths are 
 blood-stained than would be found among the inhabitants of 
 all Christendom put together. 
 
 Paddy's oaths in his amours are generally rich specimens of 
 humorous knavery and cunning. It occasionally happens 
 but for the honour of our virtuous countrywomen, we say but 
 rarely that by the honey of his flattering and delusive tongue 
 he succeeds in placing some unsuspecting girl's reputation in 
 rather a hazardous predicament. When the priest comes to 
 investigate the affair, and to cause him to make compensation 
 to the innocent creature who suffered by his blandishments, it 
 is almost uniformly ascertained that, in order to satisfy her 
 scruples as to the honesty of his promises, he had sworn mar- 
 riage to her on a book of ballads ! ! ! In other cases blank 
 books have been used for the same purpose. 
 
 If, however, you wish to pin Paddy up in a corner, get him 
 a relic, a Catholic prayer-book, or a Douay Bible to swear 
 upon. Here is where the fox notwithstanding all his turn- 
 ings and windings upon heretic Bibles, books of ballads, or 
 mock oaths is caught at last. The strongest principle in 
 him is superstition. It may be found as the prime mover in 
 his best and worst actions. An atrocious man who is super- 
 stitious, will perform many good and charitable actions, with 
 a hope that their merit in the sight of God may cancel the 
 guilt of his crimes. On the other hand, a good man who is 
 superstitiously the slave of his religious opinions, will lend 
 himself to those illegal combinations whose object is, by 
 keeping ready a system of organised opposition to an heretical 
 government, to fulfil, if a political crisis should render it prac- 
 ticable, the absurd prophecies of Pastorini l and Columbkill. 2 
 
 1 Pastorini was an Italian writer whose history of the Christian 
 Church "past and future," as indicated in prophecy, was translated 
 about 1810, and became immensely popular in Ireland. ED. 
 
 2 Some forgeries concocted, we are told, by order of the English 
 Government, as one of the means of subduing the people. For a couple 
 of centuries the people implicitly believed in them. ED.
 
 IRISH SWEARING 213 
 
 Although the prophecies of the former would appear to be 
 out of date to a rational reader, yet Paddy, who can see farther 
 into prophecy than any rational reader, honestly believes that 
 Pastorini has left, for those who are superstitiously given, suf- 
 ficient range of expectation in several parts of his work. 
 
 We might enumerate many other oaths in frequent use 
 among the peasantry ; but, as our object is not to detail them 
 at full length, we trust that those already specified may be 
 considered sufficient to enable our readers to get a fuller 
 insight into their character and their moral influence upon 
 the people. 
 
 The next thing which occurs to us in connection with the 
 present subject is cursing ; and here again Paddy holds the 
 first place. His imprecations are often full, bitter, and intense. 
 Indeed, there is more poetry and epigrammatic point in them 
 than in those of any other country in the world. 
 
 We find it a difficult thing to enumerate the Irish curses 
 so as to do justice to a subject so varied and so liable to be 
 shifted and improved by the fertile genius of those who send 
 them abroad. Indeed, to reduce them into order and method 
 would be a task of considerable difficulty. Every occasion 
 and every fit of passion frequently produce a new curse, per- 
 haps equal in bitterness to any that has gone before it. 
 
 Many of the Irish imprecations are difficult to be under- 
 stood, having their origin in some historical event, or in 
 poetical metaphors that require a considerable process of 
 reasoning to explain them. Of this twofold class is that 
 general one " The curse of Cromwell on you ! " which means, 
 " May you suffer all that a tyrant like Cromwell would inflict ! " 
 and " The curse o' the crows upon you ! " which is probably 
 an allusion to the Danish invasion, a raven being the symbol 
 of Denmark ; or it may be tantamount to " May you rot on 
 the hills, that the crows may feed upon your carcass ! " Per- 
 haps it may thus be understood to imprecate death upon you 
 or some member of your house alluding to the superstition 
 of rooks hovering over the habitations of the sick, when the 
 malady with which they are afflicted is known to be fatal. 
 Indeed, the latter must certainly be the meaning of it, as 
 is evident from the proverb of " Die, an' give the crow a 
 puddin'."
 
 214 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 "Hell's cure to you!" "Thedivil'slucktoyou!" "Highhang- 
 ing to you ! " " Hard feeding to you !" "A short coorse to you ! " 
 are all pretty intense, and generally used under provocation 
 and passion. In these cases the curses just mentioned are 
 directed immediately to the offensive object, and there cer- 
 tainly is no want of the mains animus to give them energy. It 
 would be easy to multiply the imprecations belonging to this 
 class among the peasantry, but the task is rather unpleasant. 
 There are a few, however, which in consequence of their 
 ingenuity we cannot pass over ; they are, in sooth, studies for 
 the swearer. "May you never die till you see your own 
 funeral ! " is a very beautiful specimen of the periphrasis : it 
 simply means, may you be hanged ; for he who is hanged is 
 humorously said to be favoured with a view of that sombre 
 spectacle, by which they mean the crowd that attends an 
 execution. To the same purpose is " May you die wid a 
 caper in your heel ! " " May you die in your pumps ! " " May 
 your last dance be a hornpipe on the air ! " These are all 
 emblematic of hanging, and are uttered sometimes in jest, 
 and occasionally in earnest. " May the grass grow before 
 your door ! " is highly imaginative and poetical. Nothing, 
 indeed, can present the mind with a stronger or more 
 picturesque emblem of desolation and ruin. Its malignity is 
 terrible. 
 
 There are also mock imprecations as well as mock oaths. 
 Of this character are " The divil go with you and sixpence, 
 an' thin you'll want neither money nor company ! " This 
 humorous and considerate curse is generally confined to the 
 female sex. When Paddy happens to be in a romping mood, 
 and teases his sweetheart too much, she usually utters it with 
 a countenance combating with smiles and frowns, whilst she 
 stands in the act of pinning up her dishevelled hair, her 
 cheeks, particularly the one next Paddy, deepened into a 
 becoming blush. 
 
 " Bad scran to you ! " is another form seldom used in anger ; 
 it is the same as " Hard feeding to you ! " " Bad win' to you ! " 
 is " 111 health to you ! " it is nearly the same as " Consumin' 
 (consumption) to you ! " Two other imprecations come under 
 this head, which we will class together because they are 
 counterparts of each other, with this difference, that one of
 
 IRISH SWEARING 215 
 
 them is the most subtilely and intensely withering in its 
 purport that can well be conceived. The one is that common 
 curse, "Bad 'cess to you !" that is, bad success to you; we 
 may identify it with " Hard fortune to you ! " The other is 
 a keen one indeed "Sweet bad luck to you ! " Now, whether 
 we consider the epithet sweet as bitterly ironical, or deem it 
 as a wish that prosperity may harden the heart to the accom- 
 plishment of future damnation, as in the case of Dives, we 
 must in either sense grant that it is an oath of powerful 
 hatred and venom. Occasionally the curse of " Bad luck to 
 you ! " produces an admirable retort, which is pretty common. 
 When one man applies it to another, he is answered with 
 " Good luck to you, thin ; but may neither of them ever 
 happen ! " 
 
 " Six eggs to you, an' half a dozen o' them rotten ! " like 
 " The divil go with you an' sixpence ! " is another of those 
 pleasantries which mostly occur in the good-humoured badi- 
 nage between the sexes. It implies disappointment. 
 
 There is a species of imprecation prevalent among Irish- 
 men which we may term neutral. It is ended by the word 
 bit, and merely results from a habit of swearing where there 
 is no malignity of purpose. An Irishman, when corroborating 
 an assertion, however true or false, will often say, " Bad luck 
 to the bit but it is !" "Divil fire the bit but it's thruth !" 
 " Damn the bit but it is ! " and so on. In this form the mind 
 is not moved, nor the passions excited ; it is therefore pro- 
 bably the most insipid of all their imprecations. 
 
 Some of the most dreadful maledictions are to be heard 
 among the confirmed mendicants of Ireland. The wit, the 
 gall, and the poetry of these are uncommon. " May you 
 melt off the earth like snow off the ditch!" is one of a 
 high order and intense malignity ; but it is not exclusively 
 confined to mendicants, although they form that class among 
 which it is most prevalent. Nearly related to this is " May 
 you melt like butther before a summer sun ! " These are, 
 indeed, essentially poetical : they present the mind with 
 appropriate imagery, and exhibit a comparison perfectly just 
 and striking, The former we think unrivalled. 
 
 Some of the Irish imprecations would appear to have come 
 down to us from the Ordeals. Of this class, probably, are
 
 216 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 the following: "May this be poison to me!" "May I be 
 roasted on red-hot iron ! " Others of them, from their 
 boldness of metaphor, seem to be of Oriental descent. One 
 expression, indeed, is strikingly so. When a deep offence 
 is offered to an Irishman, under such peculiar circumstances 
 that he cannot immediately retaliate, he usually replies to 
 his enemy, "You'll sup sorrow for this!" "You'll curse 
 the day it happened ! " " I'll make you rub your heels 
 together ! " All these figurative denunciations are used for 
 the purpose of intimating the pain and agony he -will compel 
 his enemy to suffer. 
 
 We cannot omit a form of imprecation for good, which 
 is also habitual among the peasantry of Ireland. It is 
 certainly harmless, and argues benevolence of heart. We 
 mean such expressions as the following : " Salvation to 
 me ! " " May I never do harm ! " " May 1 never do an ill 
 turn ! " " May I never sin ! " These are generally used 
 by men who are blameless and peaceable in their lives 
 simple and well disposed in their intercourse with the 
 world. 
 
 Next in order are the curses of pilgrims, mendicants, and 
 idiots. Of those also Paddy entertains a wholesome dread 
 a circumstance which the pilgrim and mendicant turn with 
 great judgment to their own account. Many a legend and 
 anecdote do such chroniclers relate when the family with 
 whom they rest for the night are all seated around the 
 winter hearth. These are often illustrative of the baneful 
 effects of the poor man's curse. Of course, they produce a 
 proper impression ; and accordingly Paddy avoids offending 
 such persons in any way that might bring him under their 
 displeasure. 
 
 A certain class of curses much dreaded in Ireland are 
 those of the widow and the orphan. There is, however, 
 something touching and beautiful in this fear of injuring 
 the sorrowful and unprotected. It is, we are happy to say, 
 a becoming and prominent feature in Paddy's character ; 
 for, to do him justice in his virtues as well as in his vices, 
 we repeat that he cannot be surpassed in his humanity to 
 the lonely widow and her helpless orphans. He will collect 
 a number of his friends, and proceed with them in a body
 
 IRISH SWEARING 217 
 
 to plant her bit of potato ground, to reap her oats, to draw 
 home her turf, or secure her hay. Nay, he will beguile her 
 of her sorrows with a natural sympathy and delicacy that 
 do him honour ; his heart is open to her complaints, and his 
 hand ever extended to assist her. 
 
 There is a strange opinion to be found in Ireland upon 
 the subject of curses. The peasantry think that a curse, 
 no matter how uttered, will fall on something, but that it 
 depends upon the person against whom it is directed whether 
 or not it will descend on him. A curse, we have heard them 
 say, will rest for seven years in the air, ready to alight upon 
 the head of the person who provoked the malediction. It 
 hovers over him, like a kite over its prey, watching the 
 moment when he may be abandoned by his guardian angel ; 
 if this occurs, it shoots with the rapidity of a meteor on his 
 head, and clings to him in the shape of illness, temptation, 
 or some other calamity. 
 
 They think, however, that the blessing of one person may 
 cancel the curse of another ; but this opinion does not affect 
 the theory we have just mentioned. When a man experi- 
 ences an unpleasant accident they will say, " He has had 
 some poor body's curse ; " and, on the contrary, when he 
 narrowly escapes it they say, " He has had some poor body's 
 blessing." 
 
 There is no country in which the phrases of goodwill and 
 affection are so strong as in Ireland. The Irish language 
 actually flows with the milk and honey of love and friendship. 
 Sweet and palatable is it to the other sex, and sweetly can 
 Paddy, with his deluding ways, administer it to them from 
 the top of his mellifluous tongue, as a dove feeds her young, 
 or as a kind mother her babe, shaping with her own pretty 
 mouth every morsel of the delicate viands before it goes 
 into that of the infant. In this manner does Paddy, seated 
 behind a ditch, of a bright Sunday, when he ought to be at 
 mass, feed up some innocent girl, not with "false music," 
 but with sweet words, for nothing more musical or melting 
 than his brogue ever dissolved a female heart. Indeed, it 
 is of the danger to be apprehended from the melody of his 
 voice that the admirable and appropriate proverb speaks ; 
 for, when he addresses his sweetheart under circumstances
 
 218 AN ESSAY ON 
 
 that justify suspicion., it is generally said, " Paddy's feedin' 
 her up wid false music." 
 
 What language has a phrase equal in beauty and tender- 
 ness to cushla machree the pulse 'of my heart ? Can it be 
 paralleled in the whole range of all that are, ever were, or 
 ever will be spoken, for music, sweetness, and a knowledge 
 of anatomy ? If Paddy is unrivalled at swearing, he fairly 
 throws the world behind him at the blarney. In professing 
 friendship and making love, give him but a taste of the 
 native, and he is a walking honeycomb, that every woman 
 who sees him wishes to have a lick at ; and heaven knows 
 that frequently, at all times, and in all places, does he get 
 himself licked on their account. 
 
 Another expression of peculiar force is vick machree or, son 
 of my heart. This is not only elegant, but affectionate beyond 
 almost any other phrase except the foregoing. It is, in a 
 sense, somewhat different from that in which the philosophical 
 poet has used it, a beautiful comment upon the sentiment of 
 " the child's the father of the man," uttered by Wordsworth. 
 
 W T e have seen many a youth, on more occasions than one, 
 standing in profound affliction over the dead body of his aged 
 father, exclaiming, " Ahir, vick machree vick machree rvuil thu 
 marra wo urn ? Wuil thu marra rvo'um ?" " Father, son of my 
 heart, son of my heart, art thou dead from me art thou dead 
 from me ? " an expression, we think, under any circum- 
 stances, not to be surpassed in the intensity of domestic 
 affliction which it expresses ; but, under those alluded to, we 
 consider it altogether elevated in exquisite and poetic beauty 
 above the most powerful symbols of Oriental imagery. 
 
 A third phrase peculiar to love and affection is Manim asthee 
 hu or, " My soul's within you." Every person acquainted 
 with languages knows how much an idiom suffers by a literal 
 translation. How beautiful, then, how tender and powerful, 
 must those short expressions be, uttered, too, with a fervour 
 of manner peculiar to a deeply-feeling people, when, even 
 after a literal translation, they carry so much of their tender- 
 ness and energy into a language whose genius is cold when 
 compared to the glowing beauty of the Irish. 
 
 Mavourneen dheelish, too, is only a short phrase, but coming 
 warm and mellowed from Paddy's lips into the ear of his
 
 IRISH SWEARING 219 
 
 colleen dhas, it is a perfect spell a sweet murmur to which 
 the lenis susurrus of the Hybla bees is, with all their honey, 
 jarring discord. How tame is " My sweet darling/' its literal 
 translation, compared to its soft and lulling intonations. There 
 is a dissolving, entrancing, beguiling, deluding, nattering, in- 
 sinuating, coaxing, winning, inveigling, roguish, palavering, 
 come-over-ing, comedhering, consenting, blarneying, killing, 
 willing, charm in it, worth all the philtres that ever the gross 
 knavery of a withered alchymist imposed upon the credulity 
 of those who inhabit the other nations of the earth for we 
 don't read that these shrivelled philtre-mongers ever pros- 
 pered in Ireland. 
 
 No, no let Paddy alone. If he hates intensely, effectually, 
 and inquestingly, he loves intensely, comprehensively, and 
 gallantly. To love with power is a proof of a large soul ; 
 and to hate well is, according to the great moralist, a thing 
 in itself to be loved. Ireland is, therefore, through all its 
 sects, parties, and religions, an amicable nation. Their affec- 
 tions are indeed so vivid that they scruple not to kill each 
 other with kindness ; and we very much fear that the march 
 of love and murder will not only keep pace with, but outstrip, 
 the march of intellect. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & Co. 
 /t and London
 
 from which it was borrowed