The bride she got up and she made a low bow, She twittered—she felt so—she couldn’t tell how— She blushed, and she stammered, and a few words let fall, But she spoke it so low that she bothered them all. Then the mother cried out: “Are you dead, child? For shame! Now hold up your head, child; Tho’ sixty, I wish I were wed, child, I would rattle all Ballyporeen.” Well, they sat down to ate—Father Murphy said grace; Smokin’ hot were the dishes, an’ eager each face; Knives and forks they did rattle, spoons and platters did play; They elbowed and jostled an’ walloped away. Rumps, shins and fat sirloins did quake, sir; Whole mountains of beef down were mown, sir; We demolished all, to the bare bone, sir, At the wedding of Ballyporeen. The whisky went around an’ the songsters did roar; Tim sang, “Paddy O’Kelly”—Nell sung, “Moll Asthore;” When a motion went around that their songs they forsake And each man took his sweetheart, their trotters to shake. With the pipers in couples advancin’— Pumps, brogans, an’ bare feet fell a prancin’, Such pipin’, an’ figurin’, an’ dancin’, Was ne’er seen at Ballyporeen. Here’s to Patrick, the bridegroom, and Onagh, the bride; That the Harp of Old Erin be hung by their side; An’ to all the people, whether old, gray, or green, Drunk or sober, that jigged it at Ballyporeen. Until Dan Cupid does lend you his wherry To trip o’er the conjugal ferry, I hope you all may be as merry As we were at Ballyporeen. Just as McKenna had concluded this effort, a great screaming and rushing of the ladies was heard in another part of the house, accompanied by heavier voices of men, mingling curiously with the music of the fiddle and the barking of the dogs. The three friends, with almost every person in the vicinity, quickly started for the field of disorder, which seemed not far from the residence. ————●———— CHAPTER XVIII. A ROW, A REMOVAL, AND A RAFFLE.