Where the Atlantic meets the land

by H. Caldwell Lipsett

ANDY KERRIGAN'S HONEYMOON

'There's Andy Kerrigan, the crathur, in the yard,' said Anne the cook. 'He lukes just starved wid the could, an' it an Aist wind that ud cut ye in two, an' him just afther buryin' his wife the day.'

'Well, take him into the kitchen and give him some dinner,' said I, seeing what was expected of me.

'Did ye ever hear him tell how he come to jine an' marry her?' she asked, lingering at the door.

'No.'

'Thin ax him to tell yous. It's worth hearin'. For he's a cure all out, so he is,' and she departed.

Andy Kerrigan was a half-witted creature, a kind of handy man about town. He hung about the steps of the hotel, and did odd jobs, cleaned cars, and drove them occasionally when he got any one to trust him with a horse. Before her death his wife had taken in washing, and they rubbed along together in a hand-to-mouth style, which is not uncommon in Ireland, by the help of a little charity and an occasional relapse upon the 'Poor-house' when times were hard.

When I entered the kitchen a quarter of an hour later, I found Andy just finishing his dinner. He had a large bag of Indian meal beside him, and was sitting on a three-legged stool inside the wide open chimney-place in front of the turf fire upon the hearth; the hard black turves standing perpendicularly in serried rows sent forth a grateful heat.

'A power ov thanks to ye, sirr,' he said, 'for as good a male as iver I ate, an' may ye niver come to want yersilf. Your wans was always kind to the poor: many's the dinner I've had in this same kitchen, an' many's the day's whitewashin' I done till it,' he added, looking significantly at the smoke-blackened walls. For your Irish peasant never misses the opportunity of a stroke of business.

'Here's some tobacco for you,' I said hastily, to turn the subject, handing him a plug of Irish twist.

'Thank ye kindly,' said Andy, and at once bit a corner of it off and shoved it in his cheek.

'Don't you smoke?' I inquired.

'I do, I smokes an' I chaws. But chawin''s best. It's both smoke an' mate; a taste o' tabacca stays the stummick more nor anythin' else ye cud mintion. Many's the long day's wurrk I done on a plug o' that same twist.'

'And where did you get the bag of meal, Andy?'

'Ah, that, is it? Troth the Crowner gave it to me. Ye see it was this road. Me an' Mary Anne, that's my wife, was a wee bit happy-'like 't is a fortnight come Sathurday, an' we come to wurrds, an' I just putt her out av the dure an' left her there, an' it sames she caught a could an' niver rightly got the betther ov it. For she died o' Monday. An' the Crowner's jury they sat on her, an' tould me I was a crool husband; but I niver mint no harrum, it was just a bit ov fun. But the Crowner he sint me the bag o' male afther the funeral the day. They-do be say in' that in his house the gray mare's the betther harse, but I know nahthin' about that. On'y he sent me the bag o' male, so he did.'

'Yes, I heard you had lost your wife. That's sad news. You'll miss her greatly, I'm afraid,' I said, seeing that my scruples were wasted, and I needn't trouble to avoid the subject. The poor like to dilate upon their woes.

'Troth will I,' replied Andy with a heavy sigh, 'I don't know what I'll do widout her. She cud boil spuds wid any wumman I iver seen, cud she. An' there's more nor me that will miss her, now I'm tellin' ye; the town will be hard put to it for their washin', I'm thinkin'. Oh deary me, I'll niver git anuther wumman to come up to her, I'll niver git another Mary Anne.'

'I'm afraid not,' I assented, looking at the bent and wizened figure of the old man; then I continued, 'But I hear there's a story about your marriage. What is it?'

'Ah, there's none ava,' he protested, evidently pleased; 'it's nahthin' whatever, but I'll tell it ye. It was in the days when I was young an' soople. Ah, the days whin we was young, the days whin we was young, there's nahthin' to aqual thim. I'd just got me discharge from the militia at Lifford, an' I came prancin' into town fit for anythin' from murther to chuck-farthin'; there was nahthin' I cudn't do. I had a whole pun note in me fist, an' a consate of mesilf that I wudn't ha called the Quane me ant.

'Well, I come clattherin' down the Back Street goin' to buy the town wid me pun note, whin who did I see but Mary Anne Murphy drivin' the cows out ov Mrs. Flanigan's byre. She had no shawl to her head, an' her feet was as bare as the day she was born, an' I won't be sayin',' he added, with a reminiscent twinkle in his eye, 'that she was overly an' above clane. But the red hair of her—Ah, man, it blazed like the whins on all the hills on Bonfire Night!

'An' the notion just tuk me, an' I says to her, says I, "Good morra to ye, Mary Anne Murphy, will ye marry me?"

'"Do ye mane it?" she said.

'"To be sure I do," says I. "Why for no?"

'"Sartin sure I will," she says, says she.

'So she sput in her han' an' hel' it out to me, an' aff we wint togither to find the praste, an' left the cows to stravague aff to the field their own swate way.

'Father O'Flatherty he was havin' his breakfast whin we come in, an' I says to him, "Good-morra to you, Father, we're come to be marrit."

'"Marrit," he says; he was takin' a drink ov tay at the time, an' he splutthers it ahl over the flure. "Git out wid yer practical jokin' makin' me choke over me tay. Git out ov my house before I take me horsewhip to ye both."

'"Ah be aisy now, Father," says I, "it's not jokin' we are. We're in sober arnest."

'"Is it argy wid me, yer own parish praste, ye wud, ye onnathral varmint. I tell ye, I'll not marry ye, an' that's flat."

'"Thin be the powers," says I, "marrit or not marrit, I'll live wid Mary Anne, an' she'll live wid me, an' you'll be the cause of immorality an' scandal in the parish. Ye wull, won't you, Mary Anne?" says I.

'"I wull," says she, grinnin' ahl roun' her head.

'"Ye two divils," says the praste girnin' at us, "for that's just what ye are. Ye'll be sorry for this day, I promise you. I'll marry you, an' I cudn't wish worse to neither of you, for I don't know which is the warst. Ye're both as mad as leppin' sterks, but it's betther maybe to mix the blood nor spoil two dacint stocks. The Lord sind ye won't have no childher," says he, the ould haythin, an' we niver did to this day.

'So thin he calls the sexton, an' the foor of us proceeds to the chapel roun' the corner, an' us two was marrit.

'"Thank ye kindly, your Riverence," says I, "an' what may I be owin' ye for the job?"

'"Twenty-five shillin'," says he.

'"An' how many shillin' is there in a pun?"

'"Twenty," says he.

'"Mother av Moses," says I, "but mathrimony's the egsthravagint business all out. Here's me pun note, it's ahl I have in the wurrld, an' I'm thinkin' I'll have to be owin' ye the other five shillin'!"

'"Ah, I'll forgive it ye this time," says he. "But don't come here axin' to be marrit no more. I've had enough of ye."

'"Ahl right, yer Riverence," says I, an' out me an' Mary Anne goes.

'"An' what will we do now?" says she.

'"I niver thought o' that," says I, "but I s'pose we'd betther go on home to me mother, and see what she'll say to us."

'"D'ye think she'll take us in?"

'"Well, I know she'd be right glad to see me home from the sojerin': she's powerful fond av me, she thinks the sun rises an' sets on me elbow, but I'm not so sartain about yous. But we can only thry; she can't kill us anyway."

'"Where is it?"

'"Five mile out along the mountain road."

'"Luck's till us," says she, an' off we starts. But the further we wint, the more onaisy in me mind I became, till whin we came into the lane that led to the house, I says to Mary Anne—

'"Mary Anne, darlin'," I says, "I think it ull be betther for you to wait outside av the dure, while I break the news gintly. Av me mother's by her lone, it ull be ahl right; but av me sisther's there, too, it's the divil ahl out."

'As luck wud have it, the first sight I claps eyes on whin I come in at the dure is me sisther, Casey, sittin' in the chimney corner, the oul' catamaran, an' I knew there'd be wigs an' the green before ahl was done.

'"Arrah, Andy, me jewel, an' is it yersilf?" says me mother runnin' an throwin' her arms round me neck; "but it's a brave lad ye've grown, an' it's right welcome ye are home from the sojerin'. Troth it's a sight for sore eyes just to see ye."

'"Yis," says I, "I'm home, an' I'm not alone. I'm marrit. Come in out of that an' show yersilf, Mary Anne."

'Mary Anne came in, an' me mother an' me sisther just lets wan shriek, an' I shouts,—

'"Run, Mary Anne, run for yer life."

'They turned and grabbed the two three-legged stools they was settin' on, an' me an' Mary Anne cleared the flure wid wan lep, an' was out an' away down the back lane as hard as we cud tear, an' them two weemin gallopin' afther us an' screaming like hell's delight. But me an' Mary Anne was young an' soople, an' we ran like hares till we came to the edge of the bog. And thin I says,—

'"Houl' an," I says, "let me go first," an' I tuk the path across the bog that lay betwixt two big bog-holes.

'Well, me sisther, bein' the younger, comes first to the edge of the bog, an' she was that blind wid fury she cudn't see where she was goin', an' whin she come to the first bog-hole souse she goes intil the middle of it neck over crop, an' I caught a sight of her legs goin' up in the air wid the tail ov me eye, an' down I sits, an' thought I'd ha shplit.

'Well, whin we was sore wid laffin, we wint on back to the town, an' the last we saw of the pair of thim Casey was lyin' wid her arms on the bank of the bog-hole an' me mother haulin' at her ahl she was fit to dhrag her out.

'But whin we came to the town it was dhrawin' near han' night, an' there was the greatest goin's on iver ye seen. We was met at the head of the town by a crowd of the boys that was out lukin' for us; for the praste had tould on us, and they'd been sarchin' iverywhere for the bride an' bridegroom, they said.

'So they took an' cheered us, an' carried us roun' the town. An' they had the town band behind us, wid wan big dhrum an' six little wans, an' fourteen flutes, an' they banged and tootled till they cudn't bang nor tootle no more, an' the street boys yelled, and the dogs yelped, an' there was a noise thro' the town ye cudn't hear yersilf spake for the best part of an hour. Glory be! it was a weddin' fit for a king,' and the old man spat reflectively into the fire, as he looked back upon that crowning moment of his life.

'An' whin it was ahl over, "Mary Anne, honey," says I, "I'm hung-ry; I haven't had nahthin' to eat the day since me brackfast, an' that graspin' oul' praste has copped ahl me money, have ye iver a pinny?"

'"Divil a thraneen," says she, "but just wan ha'penny."

'"A power o' use that is to stay two hung-ry stummicks upon," says I, "but I tell ye what. We'll do things in style the night if we niver did before nor since. We'll have an illumination to light the way to our bridal couch."

'So we bought two farthin' candles, and wint to slape in the hay in Mrs. Flanigan's byre.'

'On the principle,' said I, 'of qui dort, dine.'

But that remark was lost upon Andy.