The Ned M'Keown Stories: Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of; William Carleton, Volume ThreeCarleton, William
General
The Ned M'Keown Stories: Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of; William Carleton, Volume Three
Carleton, William
Ireland -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
“Up to the death of these two men, John O'Callaghan and Rose's father,
together with a large party of their friends on both sides, were
drinking in a public-house, determined to take no portion in the fight,
at all at all. Poor Rose, when she heard the shouting and terrible
strokes, got as pale as death, and sat close to John, whose hand she
captured hers, beseeching him, and looking up in his face with the most
imploring sincerity as she spoke, not to go out among them; the tears
falling all the time from her fine eyes, the mellow flashes of which,
when John's pleasantry in soothing her would seduce a smile, went into
his very heart. But when, on looking out of the window where they sat,
two of the opposing factions heard that a man on each side was killed;
and when on ascertaining the names of the individuals, and of those who
murdered them, it turned out that one of the murdered men was brother
to a person in the room, and his murderer uncle to one of those in the
window, it was not in the power of man or woman to keep them asunder,
particularly as they were all rather advanced in liquor. In an instant
the friends of the murdered man made a rush at the window, before any
pacifiers had time to get between them, and catching the nephew of him
who had committed the murder, hurled him head-foremost upon the stone
pavement, where his skull was dashed to pieces, and his brains scattered
about the flags!
“A general attack instantly took place in the room, between the two
factions; but the apartment was too low and crowded to permit of proper
fighting, so they rushed out to the street, shouting and. yelling, as
they do when the battle comes to the real point of doing business. As
soon as it was seen that the heads of the O'Callaghan's and O'Hallaghans
were at work as well as the rest, the fight was recommenced with
retrebled spirit; but when the mutilated body of the man who had been
flung from the window, was observed lying in the pool of his own proper
brains and blood, such a cry arose among his friends, as would cake
(* harden) the vital fluid in the veins of any one not a party in
the quarrel. Now was the work--the moment of interest--men and women
groaning, staggering, and lying insensible; others shouting, leaping,
and huzzaing; some singing, and not a few able-bodied spalpeens
blurting, like over-grown children, on seeing their own blood; many
raging and roaring about like bulls;--all this formed such a group as a
faction fight, and nothing else, could represent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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