Phelim Otoole's Courtship and Other Stories: Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of; William Carleton, Volume ThreeCarleton, William
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Phelim Otoole's Courtship and Other Stories: Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of; William Carleton, Volume Three
Carleton, William
Ireland -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
Art, having received the half-crown and the letter, appeared delighted;
but, on hearing the name of the person to whom it was addressed, he
smelt a trick. He promised faithfully, however, to deliver it, and
betrayed no symptoms whatever of suspicion. After getting some distance
from the big house, he set his wits to work, and ran over in his mind
the names of those who had been most in the habit of annoying him. At
the head of this list stood Phelim O'Toole, and on Phelim's head did
he resolve to transfer the revenge which the Squire, he had no doubt,
intended to take on himself.
With considerable speed he made way to Larry O'Toole's, where such a
scene presented itself as made him for a moment forget the immediate
purport of his visit.
Opposite Phelim, dressed out in her best finery, stood the housekeeper,
zealously insisting' on either money or marriage. On one side of him
stood old Donovan and his daughter, whom he had forced to come, in the
character of a witness, to support his charges against the gay deceiver.
On the other were ranged Sally Flattery, in tears, and her uncle in
wrath, each ready to pounce upon Phelim.
Phelim stood the very emblem of patience and good-humor. When one of
them attacked him, he winked at the other two when either of the other
two came on, he Winked still at those who took breath. Sometimes he trod
on his father's toe, lest the old fellow might lose the joke, and not
unfrequently proposed their going to a public-house, and composing their
differences over a bottle, if any of them would pay the expenses.
“What do you mane to do?” said the housekeeper; “but it's asy known
I'm an unprojected woman, or I wouldn't be thrated as I am. If I had
relations livin' or near me, we'd pay you on the bones for bringin' me
to shame and scandal, as you have done.”
“Upon my sanies, Mrs. Doran, I feel for your situation, so I do,” said
Phelim. You've outlived all your friends, an' if it was in my power to
bring any o' them back to you I'd do it.”
“Oh, you desaver, is that the feelin' you have for me, when I thought
you'd be a guard an' a projection to me? You know I have the money, you
sconce, an' how comfortable it 'ud keep us, if you'd only see what's
good for you. You blarnied an' palavered me, you villain, till you
gained my infections an' thin you tuck the cholic as an excuse to lave
me in a state of dissolution an' disparagement. You promised to marry
me, an' you had no notion of it.”
“You're not the only one he has disgraced, Mrs. Doran,” said Donovan.
“A purty way he came down, himself an' his father, undher pretence of
coortin' my daughter. He should lay down his ten guineas, too, to show
us what he had to begin the world wid, the villain!--an' him had no
notion of it aither.”
“An' he should send this girl to make me go to the priest to have him
and her called, the reprobate,” said Nick Flattery; “an' him had no
notion of it aither.”
“Sure he sent us all there,” exclaimed Donovan.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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