The Ned M'Keown Stories Part 10

"When the match was a making, says ould Bandbox to Jack, 'Mr. Magennis,'

says he, (for n.o.body called him Jack now but his mother)--'these two things you must comply with, if you marry my daughter, Miss Gripsy:--you must send away your mother from about you, and pull down the cabin in which you and she used to live; Gripsy says that they would jog her memory consarning your low birth and former poverty; she's nervous and high-spirited, Mr. Magennis, and declares upon her honor 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 courts.h.i.+p is at an end.'

"But it wasn't long till they soon came out with another story, for before a week pa.s.sed 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 whiskey, both Roscrea and Innishowen, barrels of ale and beer were there in dozens. All descriptions of niceties and wild-fowl, and fish from the _say_; and the dearest wine that could be bought with money, was got for the gentry and grand folks. Fiddlers, and pipers, and harpers, in short all kinds of music and musicianers, played in shoals.

Lords and ladies, and squares of high degree were present--and, to crown the thing, there was open house to 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 favors 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 broadcloth, 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, n.o.body could think, at all at all, that he was ever any thing else than a born gintleman; and what was more to his credit, he had his 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 various kinds of eatables did not pay for it; and among 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 Flannagan--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 t.i.tter 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 himself was in as great a glee as any of them, only he kept it under, and well he might, for sure enough this marriage was nothing less than a rare 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 does not hould good in law. The parson was as grave as a mustard-pot, and Father Flannagan 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 beginning to buckle them when in comes Jack's ould acquaintance, the smoking cur, as grave as ever. The priest had just got through two or three words of Latin, when the dog gives him a pluck by the sleeve; Father Flannagan, 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 sat 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, 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 Flannagan and they all were thundherstruck.

"'In the name of St. Anthony, and of that holy nun, St. Teresa,' said his Reverence to him, 'who and 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 Flarmagan, believing him to be the devil, '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 favorites? Instead of that, you see, there was half a dozen fierce-looking whiskered fellows, and three or four half-pay officers, that were nearer making off than the ladies.

But, besides the cigar, the dog had his beautiful eye-gla.s.s, and through it, while he was spaking to Father Flannigan, 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 Flannagan, 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.'

* Salt and water consecrated by a particular form is Holy Water.

"'You had better behave yourself, I say again,' says the dog, 'or if you make me speak, by my honor as a gintleman I'll expose you: I say you won't marry the same two, neither this nor any other day, and I'll give you my raisons presently; but I repate it, Father Flannagan, 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 watcher's made, I'll send you off in a flame of fire.'

"'Oh! yes, I'm trimbling,' says the dog: 'plenty of spirits you laid in your day, but it was in a place that's nearer to us than the Red Sea, you did it: listen to me though, for I don't wish to expose you, as I said;' so he gets on his hind legs, puts his nose to the priest's ear, and whispers something 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 thundherstruck, crossed himself, and was, no doubt of it, in great perplexity.

"'I say it's false,' says Father Flannagan, plucking up his 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.'

* According to the superst.i.tious belief of the Irish, a priest, when banis.h.i.+ng a spirit, puts it into a thumb- bottle, which he either buries deep in the earth, or in some lake.

"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 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 solemniously sworn never to marry another man but me at a time; that oath she tuck when I was joining my regiment before it went abroad; and if the ceremony of your marriage be performed, you will sleep with a perjured bride.'

"Begad, he did plump before all their faces. Jack, of coorse, was struck all of aghape at this; but as he had the bride in his arms, giving her a little sup of whiskey to bring her to, you persave, he couldn't make him an answer. However, she soon came to herself, and, on opening her eyes, 'Oh, hide me, hide me,' says she, 'for I can't bear to look on him!'

"'He says you are his sworn bride, my darling,' says Jack.

"'I am--I am,' says she, covering her eyes, and crying away at the rate of a wedding: 'I 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, 'n.o.body 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; thundher-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_.

"'Well,' says he, 'I'm still willing to marry you, particularly as you feel conthrition--'"

"He should have said contrition, confession, and satisfaction," observed Father Peter.

"Pettier, 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 _tacco_, to keep silent. Tacco, taces, tacui, tacere, tacendi, tacendo tac--"

"Ned, go on with your story, and never mind that deep larning 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, particularly 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 up he stands 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 remimbered the lady and everything that happened betune them.

"'Tell me, this instant,' says Jack, seizing him by the throat, 'where's the darling, at all, at all, or by this and by that you'll hang on the next tree!'

"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 striving to do it.

"'Behave yourself,' says the dog, 'just say nothing, only follow me.'

"Accordingly, Jack went out with the dog, and in a few 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, metamurphied into a beautiful, illegant gintleman, on the other.

"'Father Flannagan,' says Jack, 'you thought a little 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 had happened to him, and how the beautiful crathur that he had brought in with him had done so much for him.

"Whin the gintlemen heard this, as they Were all Irishmen, you may be sure there was nothing but huzzaing and throwing up of hats from them, and waving of hankerchers from the ladies. Well, my dear, the wedding dinner was ate in great style; the n.o.bleman proved himself no disgrace to his rank at the trencher; and so, to make a long story short, such faisting and banquetteering was never since or before. At last, night came; among ourselves, not a doubt of it, but Jack thought himself a happy man; and maybe, if all was known, the bride was much in the same opinion: be that as it may, night came--the bride, all blus.h.i.+ng, beautiful, and modest as your own sweetheart, was getting tired after the dancing; Jack, too, though much stouter, wished for a trifle 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 up stairs, 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?'