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
“But it wasn't long till they soon came out with another story,
for before a week passed they were very glad to get him on his own
conditions. Jack was now as happy as the day was long--all things
appointed for the wedding, and nothing a wanting to make everything to
his heart's content but the wife, and her he was to have in less than
no time. For a day or two before the wedding, there never was seen
such grand preparations: bullocks, and hogs, and sheep were roasted
whole--kegs of whiskey, both Roscrea and Innishowen, barrels of ale and
beer were there in dozens. All descriptions of niceties and wild-fowl,
and fish from the _say_; and the dearest wine that could be bought with
money, was got for the gentry and grand folks. Fiddlers, and pipers, and
harpers, in short all kinds of music and musicianers, played in shoals.
Lords and ladies, and squares of high degree were present--and, to crown
the thing, there was open house to all comers.
“At length the wedding-day arrived; there was nothing but roasting
and boiling; servants dressed in rich liveries ran about with joy and
delight in their countenances, and white gloves and wedding favors on
their hats and hands. To make a long story short, they were all seated
in Jack's castle at the wedding breakfast, ready for the priest to marry
them when they'd be done; for in them times people were never married
until they had laid in a good foundation to carry them through the
ceremony. Well, they were all seated round the table, the men dressed
in the best of broadcloth, and the ladies rustling in their silks and
satins--their heads, necks, and arms hung round with jewels both rich
and rare; but of all that were there that day, there wasn't the likes of
the bride and bridegroom. As for him, nobody could think, at all at all,
that he was ever any thing else than a born gintleman; and what was more
to his credit, he had his kind ould mother sitting beside the bride, to
tache her that an honest person, though poorly born, is company for the
king. As soon as the breakfast was served up, they all set to, and maybe
the various kinds of eatables did not pay for it; and among all this
cutting and thrusting, no doubt but it was remarked, that the bride
herself was behindhand wid none of them--that she took her _dalin-trick_
without flinching, and made nothing less than a right fog meal of it;
and small blame to her for that same, you persave.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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