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
“When the breakfast was over, up gets Father Flannagan--out with his
book, and on with his stole, to marry them. The bride and bridegroom
went up to the end of the room, attended by their friends, and the rest
of the company stood on each side of it, for you see they were too
high bred, and knew their manners too well, to stand in a crowd like
spalpeens. For all that, there was many a sly look from the ladies to
their bachelors, and many a titter among them, grand as they were;
for, to tell the truth, the best of them likes to see fun in the way,
particularly of that sort. The priest himself was in as great a glee as
any of them, only he kept it under, and well he might, for sure enough
this marriage was nothing less than a rare windfall to him and the
parson that was to marry them after him--bekase you persave a Protestant
and Catholic must be married by both, otherwise it does not hould good
in law. The parson was as grave as a mustard-pot, and Father Flannagan
called the bride and bridegroom his childher, which was a big bounce for
him to say the likes of, more betoken that neither of them was a drop's
blood to him.
“However, he pulled out the book, and was just beginning to buckle them
when in comes Jack's ould acquaintance, the smoking cur, as grave as
ever. The priest had just got through two or three words of Latin, when
the dog gives him a pluck by the sleeve; Father Flannagan, of coorse,
turned round to see who it was that _nudged_ him: 'Behave yourself,'
says the dog to him, just as he peeped over his shoulder---'behave
yourself,' says he; and with that he sat him down on his hunkers beside
the priest, and pulling a cigar instead of a pipe out of his pocket, he
put it in his mouth, and began to smoke for the bare life of him. And,
by my own word, it's he that could smoke: at times he would shoot the
smoke in a slender stream like a knitting-needle, with a round curl at
the one end of it, ever so far out of the right side of his mouth; then
he would shoot it out of the left, and sometimes make it swirl out so
beautiful from the middle of his lips!--why, then, it's he that must
have been the well-bred puppy all out, as far as smoking went. Father
Flannagan and they all were thundherstruck.
“'In the name of St. Anthony, and of that holy nun, St. Teresa,' said
his Reverence to him, 'who and what are you, at all at all?'
“'Never mind that,' says the dog, taking the cigar for a minute between
his claws; 'but if you wish particularly to know, I'm a thirty-second
cousin of your own by the mother's side.'
“'I command you in the name of all the saints,' says Father Flarmagan,
believing him to be the devil, 'to disappear from among us, and never
become visible to any one in this house again.'
“'The sorra a budge, at the present time, will I budge,' says the dog to
him, 'until I see all sides rightified, and the rogues disappointed.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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