The Ned M'Keown Stories Part 15

"'Hah! Shane Fadh,' says he, smiling dryly at me, 'you did them all, I see. You have her there, the flower of the parish, blooming beside you; but I knew as much six months ago, ever since I saw you bid her good-night at the hawthorn. Who looked back so often, Mary, eh? Ay, laugh and blush--do--throth, 'twas I that caught you, but you didn't see me, though. Well, a colleen, and if you did, too, you needn't be ashamed of your bargain, any how. You see, the way I came to persave yez that evening was this--but I'll tell it, by and by. In the mane time,' says he, sitting down and attacking a fine piece of corn-beef and greens, 'I'll take care of a certain acquaintance of mine,' says he. 'How are you, reverend gintlemen of the Secularily? You'll permit a poor friar to sit and ate his dinner, in your presence, I humbly hope.'

"'Frank,' says Father Corrigan, 'lay your hand upon your conscience, or upon your stomach, which is the same thing, and tell us honestly, how many dinners you eat on your travels among my paris.h.i.+oners 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 G.o.d grant you all kinds of luck and happiness, both here and hereafter! All your healths in gineral! gintlemen seculars!'

"'Thank you, Frank,' said Father Corrigan; how did you speed to-day?'

"'How can any man speed, that comes after you?' says the Friar; 'I'm after travelling the half of the parish for that poor bag of oats that you see standing against the ditch.'

"'In other words, Frank,' says the Priest, 'you took Allhadhawan in your way, and in about half a dozen houses filled your sack, and then turned your horse's head towards the good cheer, by way of accident only.'

"'And was it by way of accident, Mr. Secular, that I got you and that illoquent young gintleman, your curate, here before me? Do you feel that, man of the world? Father James, your health, though--you're a good young man as far as saying nothing goes; but it's better to sit still than to rise up and fall, so I commend you for your discretion,' says he; 'but I'm afeared your master there won't make you much fitter for the kingdom of heaven any how.'

"'I believe, Father Corrigan,' says my uncle, who loved to see the priest and the friar at it, 'that you've met with your match--I think Father Rooney's able for you.'

"'Oh, sure,' says Father Corrigan, he was joker to the college of the Sorebones (* Sorbonne) in Paris; he got as much education as enabled him to say ma.s.s in Latin, and to beg oats in English, for his jokes.'

"'Troth, and,' says the friar, 'if you were to get your larning on the same terms, you'd be guilty of very little knowledge; why, Michael, I never knew you to attempt a joke but once, and I was near shedding tears, there was something so very sorrowful in it.'

"This brought the laugh against the priest--'Your health, Molshy,'

says he, winking at my mother-in-law, and then giving my uncle, who sat beside him, a nudge; 'I believe, Brian, I'm giving it to him.' ''Tis yourself that is,' says my uncle; 'give him a wipe or two more.' 'Wait till he answers the last,' says the friar.

"'He's always joking,' says Father James, 'when he thinks he'll make any thing by it.'

"'Ah!' says the friar, 'then G.o.d 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 drew the laugh against the friar, who smiled himself; but he was a dry man that never laughed much.

"'Sure,' says the friar, who was seldom 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 humorsome.'

"'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 accept even divinity itself.'

"'You may aisily give me up,' says the friar, 'but how will you be able to forget Father Corrigan? I'm afeard you'll 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 airnest 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; another is, that you haven't capacity for it, even if he did. You've a want of natural parts--a _whackuuum_ 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 mare eat hay.'

"'Kid--what?' says the other.

"'Kid eat ivy mare eat hay,' 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 school-boys; 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-fir-tar-is in-oak-no ne-is_.'

"The curate looked at him, amazed, not knowing what answer to make.

At last says he, 'I don't profess to know Greek, bekase I never larned 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 fel flat in guttur.'

"'A flat tay-canisther--Forty ducks fell flat in the gutthers!' says Father James,--'why that's Englis.h.!.+'

"'Englis.h.!.+' says the friar, 'oh, good-bye to you, Mr. Secular; 'if that's your knowledge of Latin, you're an honor 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, Prank, 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, Uch, 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 for me _in this_, it will be well for the world in general Michael.'

"'How can you say, Frank,' says Father 'with such a carkage as that, you're a poor friar? Upon my credit, when you die, I think the angels will have a job of it in wafting you upwards."

"'Jemmy, man, was it _you_ that said it?--why, my light's beginning to s.h.i.+ne 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 spirituality 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 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 very 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 paris.h.i.+oners, 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.'

"'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!'

"'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 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.'

"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 wonderfully, 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, with the piper, staid 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 appearance, the flure was instantly cleared for us, and then she and I danced the _Humors 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 acra.s.s her face, when I'd press her, unknownst to the bystanders, against my beating heart. A _suilish machree_, (* Light of my heart.) she is now gone from me--lies low, and it all appears like a drame to me; but--hem--G.o.d's will be done!--sure she's happy--och, och!!

"Many a shake hands did I get from the neighbors' sons, wis.h.i.+ng me joy; and I'm sure I couldn't do less than thrate them to a gla.s.s, you know; and 'twas the same way with Mary: many a neighbors' 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 a dacent friendly people, and we can't do less nor give her a gla.s.s.' I, of coorse, would go down and bring them over, after a little pulling--making, you see, as if they wouldn't come--to where my brother was handing out the native.

"In this way we pa.s.sed 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 company; 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 gother a crowd about them.' Well, we went in, sure enough, for awhile; 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 figure with the boys and girls upon the green: so I gives Jack _the hard word_* and in we went, when, behold you, there was Father Corrigan planted upon the side of a settle, Mary along with him, waiting till they'd have the 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 my mother-in-law, one of his legs stretched out on a chair, he singing some funny song or other, that brought the tears to their eyes with laughing.

* A pa.s.s-word, sign, or brief intimation, touching something of which a man is ignorant, that he may act accordingly.