The Ned M'Keown Stories Part 12

* A young man full of fun and frolic. The word literally signifies Young Brian. Such phrases originate thus:--A young man remarkable for one or more qualities of a particular nature becomes so famous for them that his name, in the course of time, is applied to others, as conveying the same character.

** Crooked mouth.

***In Ireland, small farmers who cannot afford to keep more than one horse are in the habit of "joining," as it is termed--that is, of putting their horses together so as to form a yoke, when they plough each other's farms, working alternately, sometimes, by the week, half-week, or day; that is, I plough this day, or this week, and you the next day, or week, until our crops are got down. In this case, each is anxious to take as much out of the horses as he can, especially where the farms are unequal. For instance, where one farm is larger than another the difference must be paid by the owner of the larger one in horse-labor, man-labor, or money; but that he may have as little to pay as possible, he ploughs as much for himself, by the day, as he can, and often strives to get the other to do as little per day, on the other side, in order to diminish what will remain due to his partner. There is, consequently, a ludicrous undercurrent of petty jealousy running between them, which explains the pa.s.sage in question.

"I disremember now what pa.s.sed 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 Larry Tracy, our servant boy, between the two eyes with it, although the crathur was ating his dinner quietly fornent me, not saying a word.

"Well, as I tould you, d.i.c.k 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 ma.s.s, 'twas the same way, for ever after and about her, till the state he was in spread over the parish like wild fire. 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 no putting the likes of him 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.

* In that part of the country where the scene of Shane Fadh's Wedding is laid, the bodies of those who die are not stretched out on a bed, and the face exposed; on the contrary, they are placed generally on the ground, or in a bed, but with a board resting upon two stools or chairs over them. This is covered with a clean sheet, generally borrowed from some wealthier neighbor; so that the person of the deceased is altogether concealed. Over the sheet upon the board, are placed plates of cut tobacco, pipes, snuff, &c.

This is what is meant by being "undher boord."

"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 d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k sot a while, talking about what the price of hay and oats would be in the following summer, and other subjects that he thought would show his knowledge of farming and cattle, he pulls out his bottle, encouraged to by their civil way of talking--and telling the ould couple, that as he came over on his kailyee,* he had brought a drop in his pocket to sweeten the discoorse, axing Susy Finigan, the mother, for a gla.s.s 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.

* Kailyee--a friendly evening visit.

When d.i.c.k got alongside 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, d.i.c.k Cuillenan, who you spake to, before you make the freedom you do'

"'But you don't know, says d.i.c.k, 'that I'm 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, sometime'.*

* 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 fistycuffum" resorted to on such occasions.

I have more than once seen a disagreeable lover receive, from that fair hand which he sought, so masterly a blow, that a bleeding nose rewarded his ambition, and silenced for a time his importunity.

"'Then,' says d.i.c.k, 'whoever does that must marry me.'

"'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 off 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. 'Very well,' says d.i.c.k, '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 gla.s.s, till we drink one bottle on the head of it, anyway.'

"'Why, then, d.i.c.k 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 _moulleens_* that her uncle Jack left her four years ago has brought her a good stock for any farm. Now if she married you, d.i.c.k, where's the farm to bring her to?--surely it's not upon them seven acres of stone and bent, upon the long Esker,** that I'd let my daughter go to live.

So, d.i.c.k, put up your bottle, and in the name of G.o.d, 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.'

* Cows without horns.

** Esker; a high ridge of land, generally barren and unproductive, when upon a small scale. It is also a ridgy height that runs for many miles through a country.

"'Very well, Susy,' says d.i.c.k, 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 wedding, but instead of that, it's d.i.c.k Cuillenan's history you're giving us."

"That's just it," said Shane; "sure, only for this same d.i.c.k, I'd never got Mary Finigan for a wife. d.i.c.k 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 whiskey in his pocket, and went home with a face on him as black as my hat with venom.

Well, things pa.s.sed 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 mane time, 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 us 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 according, 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, d.i.c.k himself got his nose split on his face, with the stroke of a churn-staff, 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 repeated several times, as if the whole thing was going on under my direction; for d.i.c.k thought, that if there was any one in the parish likely to be set down for it, it was me.

"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--G.o.d be good to him!--and I, and Jack, and Dan, his brothers, while bringing; home whiskey 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 flails, 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 afore 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_*

on her, and she couldn't live at all without me. But I was something for a woman to look at then, any how, 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, unknown to the father, we agreed to make, a runaway match of it, and appointed my uncle Brian Slevin's as the house we'd go to. The next Sunday was the day appointed; so I had my uncle's family prepared, and sent two gallons of whiskey, to be there before us, knowing that neither the Finigans nor my own friends liked stinginess.

* Comedher--come hither--alluding to the burden of an old love-charm which is still used by the young of both s.e.xes on May-morning. It is a literal translation of the Irish word "gutsho."

** Fadh is tall, or long

"Well, well, after all, the world is a strange thing--it's myself hardly knows what to make of it. It's I that did doat 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 country, 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 meet 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--I 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 G.o.d, 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, avourueen,--and her sweet voice broke into purty murmurs as she spoke; 'whether for happiness or sorrow G.o.d he only knows. I can bear poverty and distress, sickness and want will' you, but I can't bear to think that you should ever forget to love me as you do now, or 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 G.o.d 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 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 to the duck-egg, a bitther word never pa.s.sed between us. I was in a pa.s.sion then, for a wonder, and bent upon 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 G.o.d 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 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 afore 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.

* One-half, at least, of the marriages in a great portion of Ireland are effected in this manner. They are termed "runaway matches," and are attended with no disgrace. When the parents of the girl come to understand that she has "gone off," they bring her home in a day or two; the friends of the parties then meet, and the arrangements for the marriage are made as described in the tale.

"Well, the match was made, and the wedding day appointed; but there was one thing still to be managed, and that was how to get over _standing_ at ma.s.s 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 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 break the new orders that he had got only a few days before that from the bishop. No; we must _stand_*--for it would be setting a bad example to the parish; and if he would let us pa.s.s, how could he punish the rest of his flock, when they'd be guilty of the same thing?

* Matches made in this manner are discountenanced by the Roman Catholic clergy, as being liable to abuse; and, for this reason, the parties, by way of punishment, are sometimes, but not always, made to stand up at ma.s.s for one or three Sundays; but, as Shane expresses it, the punishment is so common that it completely loses its effect. To "stand," in the sense meant here, is this: the priest, when the whole congregation are on their knees, calls the young man and woman by name, who stand up and remain under the gaze of the congregation, whilst he rebukes them for the scandal they gave to the church, after which they kneel down. In general it is looked upon more in fun than punishment. Sometimes, however, the wealthier cla.s.s compromise this matter with the priest, as described above.

"'Well, well, your Reverence,' says my uncle, winking at her father, 'if that's the case, it can't be helped, any how--they must only stand, as many a dacent father and mother's child has done before them, and will again, plase G.o.d--your Reverence is right in doing your duty.'

"'True for you, Brian,' says his Reverence, 'and yet, G.o.d knows, there's no man in the parish would be sorrier to see such a dacent, comely young couple put upon a level with 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 bashfulest 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.