Irish Wonders: The Ghosts, Giants, Pooka, Demons, Leprechawns, Banshees, Fairies, Witches, Widows, Old Maids, and other Marvels of the Emerald IsleMcAnally, D. R. (David Russell)
General
Irish Wonders: The Ghosts, Giants, Pooka, Demons, Leprechawns, Banshees, Fairies, Witches, Widows, Old Maids, and other Marvels of the Emerald Isle
"’None o’ yer deludherin’ talk to me, Sorr,’ says Kathleen to him. ’I know
ye, an’ it’s no good I know av ye,’ says she to him. ’Twas the good girl
she was an’ as firm as a landlord in a bad year when she thought there was
anny avil intinded.
"So he wint away that time an’ come agin an’ agin when he was huntin’ an’
always had some impidince to say at her. She towld her parrents av it, an’
though they didn’t like it at all, they wasn’t afeared fur the girl, an’
he’d spind more in wan dhrinkin’ than they’d take in in a week, so they
were not sorry to see him come, but ivery time he come he wint away more
detarmined to have the girl, an’ whin he found he cudn’t get her be fair
manes he shwore he’d do it be foul. So wanst, whin she’d been cowlder to
him than common an’ wouldn’t have a prisint he brought her, he says to
her, ’Begob, I’ll bring ye to terms. If ye won’t accept me prisints, I’ll
make ye bend yer will widout prisints,’ an’ he wint away. She got
frighted, an’ whin she saw Tim Maccarty, she towld him av Lord Robert an’
phat he said. Well, it made Tim mighty mad. ’Tatther an’ agers,’ says he,
’be the powers, I’ll break every bone in his body if he lays a finger on
yer showldher; but, fur all that, whin Tim got to thinkin’, he got skairt
av Kathleen.
"’Sure,’ says he to himself, ’ain’t wimmin like glass jugs, that’ll break
wid the laste touch? I’ll marry her immejitly an’ take out av Clare into
Kerry,’ says he, ’an’ let him dare to come afther her there,’ says he, for
he knewn that if Lord Robert came into the Kerry mountains, the boys ’ud
crack his shkull wid the same compuncshusness that they’d have to an egg
shell. So he left aff the job an’ convaynienced himself to go to Kathleen
that night an’ tell her his belafe.
"’Amn’t I afeared fur ye, me darlin’,’ says he, ’and wouldn’t I dhrownd me
in the say if anny harm ’ud come to ye, so I think we’d betther be married
at wanst.’
"So Kathleen consinted an’ made a bundle av her Sunday gown, an’ they
shtarted fur the saint’s cave, that bein’ the nearest place they cud be
marr’d at, an’ bein’ marr’d be him was like bein’ marr’d be a priest.
"So they wint alang the road to where the foot-path laves it be the
oak-tree, then up the path an’ through the boreen to where Misther
Dawson’s black mare broke her leg jumpin’ the hedge, an’ whin they rached
that shpot they heard a noise on the road behint thim an’ stud be the
hedge, peepin’ through to have a look at it an’ see phat it was. An’ there
was Lord Robert an’ a dozen av his bad min, wid their waypons an’ the
armor on thim shinin’ in the moonlight. It was ridin’ to O’Connor’s they
were, an’ whin Tim an’ Kathleen set their eyes on thim, they seen they’d
made a narrer eshcape.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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