THE MATRIMONIAL ADVENTURES OF DICK MACNAMARA
It was the summer after the great election—and that was in the year ninety-one—and a fine evening it was. At that time, care was far from my Heart, and I was taking a dance in the barn with Mary Regan, my lady’s maid, when out comes Sir Thomas’s own man to say that I was wanted in the parlour. “Run, bad luck to ye,” says he, “and I’ll finish the jig for ye! Arrah, make haste, man! Some etarnal villin has slipt a paper under the gate, and the ould master’s fit to be tied. I never saw him so mad since he was chased home from Galway.” Away I goes; and when I got into the parlour, there I found Sir Thomas, God rest his soul! Father Pat Butler, the parish priest—and the driver, Izzy Blake.
Sir Thomas was sittin’ in the big armed chair he always sate in. He wasn’t to say much the worse for liker; but it was asy to persave that he had been lookin’ at somebody that was drinkin’. The priest, och! what a head he had! was cool as a cowcumber, and only Izzy’s nose was a deeper purple than when he sate down, you wouldn’t know he had a drop in. It was quite plain the party were in trouble; for, to smother grief, the ould master had slipped a second glass of poteeine into his tumbler just as I came in.
“Asy, Sir Thomas!—Drink asy!” said the priest. “The whisky’s killin’ ye by inches!”
“Arrah, balderdash! Pat Butler, won’t ye let me take the colour of death off the water, man, and me threatened with the gout? It’s the law that’s fairly murderin’ me. Bad luck attend all consarned with the same! At the blast of the mail horn my heart bates like a bird; for within the last two years I have got as many lattitats by post, as would paper the drawin’-room. Shemus Rhua,” says he, turning to me,—“did ye see a black-lookin’ thief about the place, when ye were hunting the young setters on the moor?”
“Arrah, Sir Thomas, if I did, don’t ye think I would have been after askin’ him what he was doin’ there?”
“Sibby Byrn saw him thrust these d____d papers under the gate, and then cut over the bog as if the divil was at his heels. Well—small blame to him for runnin’—for, by all that’s beautiful, if I had gripped him, he would have gone back to the villain that employs him, lighter by both lugs. Sit down, Shemus. Izzy Blake, fill the boy a glass.” And then he began, poor ould gentleman, askin’ me about the dogs; but before I could answer him, he gave a sigh. “Arrah,” says he, “what need I be talkin’ about dogs, when, after November next, the divil a four-footed baste will be left upon Killcrogher, good nor bad!”
“Something must be done immediately,” said the priest. “If they foreclose the mortgage, and get a recaver on the estate, we’re done for.”
“If we could only raise five thousand to pay that cursed claim, we might stave off the other things till some good luck would turn up,” said the driver.
Sir Thomas sighed. Troth, an enemy would have pitied him!
“Arrah, Izzy Blake—that day will never come! Don’t talk of good luck, that’s over with me,” says he. “O Lord! to be baten by Peter Daly—and his grandmother before him, keepin’ a huxtery in Loughrea—and then to be hunted home afterwards, like a tithe-proctor! It’s enough to drive a man to drink, or make a quaker kick his own mother.”
You see, Mark, (observed the captain, in explanation,) the ould master had stood for the county. Well, from the time he came into possession of the estate, of course, Sir Thomas was like his father, a Sunday man and as he couldn’t meet the sheriff openly at the election, what the divil does he do, but he sits out in a boat, where he could hear how things were goin’ on, and give orders to the tenants. The Lord sees, the cratures did all they could for a good master as he was. Didn’t they kidnap the electors, tare down the booths, burn Peter Daly’s talley-room teetotally,—and throw a jaunting car, with six voters, clane over the bridge—horse, driver, and all! And what more; could they do? The money bate us in the long-run; and it was well Sir Thomas wasn’t taken into the bargain—for the bailiffs chased him to the very gates. No wonder then, poor ould gentleman, that the very name of the election put him always into a rage.
* In olden time, Irish gentlemen found it occasionally
convenient to rest from their labours for six days, and only
exhibit their persons on the seventh.
“Never mind,” said the priest, striving to say something pleasant, and comfort the ould master; “it’s a long lane that wants a turn—and luck will come at last. There’s yer two sisters, Sir Thomas—the best catholics in Connemara, and ready to travel any moment that they’re wanted—if the Lord would only mercifully take them to himself. Indeed, they’re too good for this wicked world—and they would be far snugger in the next.”
“Divil a chance there,” says Sir Thomas; “they’re the very counterpart of their mother—the Lord be good to her! an she lived to ninety-seven.”
“Are ye in the lottery the year?” asked the priest. “Arrah, what matter whether I am or not!” said Sir Thomas. “Hav’n’t I been in it since I was a boy, and niver won any thing beyond a blackguard twenty or two? Upon my conscience, I verily believe, if I had been bound to a hatter, people would be born without heads!”
Well, the divil a one could point out the likelihood of luck; and the poor ould gentleman seemed mighty disconsolate.
“Arrah,” says I, “hould up, Sir Thomas—who knows but we’ll get to the sunny side of the hedge yet? There’s Master Dick—and if he would only marry an heiress—”
“Be dad,” says the ould gentleman, “Father Pat, there’s sense in that.” The priest shook his head.
“And why shouldn’t he?” says Sir Thomas.
“Because,” returned the priest, “he’s never out of one scrape till he’s into another. And then he’s so captious; if he was in heaven—where the Lord send him in proper time, if possible!—why, he would pick a quarrel with St. Peter.”
“It’s all a flow of spirit,” says the ould man.
“It’s a flow of spirits that causes it generally,” says the priest; “but it’s all your own fault, Sir Thomas, and I often tould ye so. Instead of lettin’ him stick to his larnin’, ye would have him brought up yer own way, ridin’ three times a week to the Clonsallagh hounds, and shooting at chalked men on the barn door through the remainder.”
“Arrah, be quiet,” says the ould gentleman. “Though he’s my son—at laste I have his mother’s word for it—is there a nater horseman within the Shannon? Put Dick Macnamara on the pig-skin with any thing daeent anunder him, and I’ll back him over a sportin’ country for all I’m worth in the world.”
“Ay,” said the priest, in a side-whisper; “and if ye lost, the divil a much the winner would be the better.”
“He’s six feet in his stockings—sound as a bell—he’ll throw any man of his inches in the province, and dance the pater-o-pee * afterwards.”
“Arrah,” says the priest, “if there’s no way of payin’ the mortgage but by dancin’ the pater-o-pee, out we bundle at November.”
* A dance peculiar to Connemara.
“And why shouldn’t he marry an heiress?” says the ould man.
“First,” says Father Butler, “because he has no luck; and second, because he has no larnin’. Wasn’t I returnin’ from a sick-call only yesterday, and as God’s goodness would have it, didn’t I meet my Lady French’s messenger with a note?—‘Who’s that from?’ says I. ‘Mr. Dick Macnamara,’ says he. Well, I had a misdoubtin’ about it, and so I opens the note—and—Mona-sin-dhiaoul!—Lord forgive me for sayin’ so!—if he hadn’t spelt ‘compliments’ with a K!”
“And if he spelt it with two K’s,” says the ould gentleman, “will that hinder him marryin’ a woman if she wants a husband? I tell ye what, there’s more sense in what Shemus Rhua says than any of ye seems to know. Wasn’t the family as badly off when my grandfather—God rest his soul!—ran away with Miss Kelly?”
“And where will you get a Miss Kelly now-a-days? It’s not out of every bush you’ll kick a lady, lame of a leg, and twenty thousand down upon the nail!”
“What was she the worse for that?” says Sir Thomas. “Don’t ye mind what my grandfather said to Lord Castletown the week after. ‘Didn’t I,’ says my grandfather, ‘manage the matter well, my lord?’ ‘Ye did in troth, Ulic—and ye made a grate hit of it, if ye’r amiable lady was only right upon the pins.’ ‘Well, my lord,’ says he—‘what the divil matter if she is a wee bit lame? Does your lordship suppose, that men marry wives to run races with them?’”
Well, there’s no use makin’ a long story about it. At Killcrogher things couldn’t be worse than they were; and, when we had finished a second bottle of poteeine, we all agreed that the divil a chance, good, bad, or indifferent, was left, but for Dick Macnamara to marry a wife with a fortune—and with or without a spavin—-just as the Lord would direct it.
This was all mighty well, but where was the lady to be found? Of heiresses, there was no scarcity in Galway, if their own story was but true; but then their fortunes were so well secured, that nather principal nor interest could be got at.
“England’s the place,” says the ould master. “Dick would get twenty thousand for the askin’.”
“And how is he to go there?” says the priest. “He must travel like a gentleman, or they wouldn’t touch him with a tent pole—and where’s the money for that?”
“Let Izzy drive the tenants.”
“Arrah, Sir Thomas! it’s asy talkin’—the divil a pound I could drive out of them to save yer life. Mona-sin-dhiaoul! ye might as well expect blood from a turnip, or to borrow knee-buckles off a Hielanman.”
Well, we were fairly nonplushed for a time, but we got matters right afterwards. The ould ladies, the master’s sisters, had a trifle by them, if any body could manage to get at it. Well, the priest put it to them, for the glory of God; and Sir Thomas, for the honour of the family. They came down at last, and, between them, for a hundred. Sir Thomas lent us his own pistols, and Izzy Blake passed his word in Galway for the clothes. By St. Patrick! we were in such bad credit there, that over the whole town we wouldn’t have got as much as would have made a surtout for a Lochryman. * On the strength of Izzy, however, we taught book-keeping to a tailor. His name, I mind, was Jerry Riley—and I fancy we’re in his ledger to this day.
I’ll never forget the mornin’ we started. “We set out at six o’clock, as we had to ride to Moylough to catch the Tuam mail. Every soul in Killerogher was astir, and waitin’ at door or windy to see us off—some givin’ their blessin’, and others their good advice.
“Mind yer eye, Dick!” said the ould gentleman from the parlour.
“Don’t take any thing but what’s ready,” cried the priest from the hall door.
“Remember you’re of the Coolavins by the mother’s side,” called my lady from her bed-room; “so look to blood as well as suet, Dick.”
“The money—the money,” cried the priest.
“Dick, dear, ye’re on book-oath to me!” whispered Mary Regan, as we passed her.
“Don’t be quarrelling about trifles,” said the priest.
“Nor let any body tramp upon your corn, for all that,’ cried Sir Thomas.
“The money—the money, Dick—and that’s the last words of ye’r clargy,” roared the priest.
“Don’t miss mass, if you can,” screamed the ould ladies from the lobby. “Ara-gud-neeish!” ** and father Butler signed his blessing after us as we rode away.
“Stop! stop!” roared the ould master. “Another word, and God keep ye, Dick! Always fight with ye’r back to the sun. Drink slow—don’t mix ye’r licker, nor sit with ye’r baek to the fire—and the divil won’t put ye under the table!”
These were the last words we heard—the gatekeeper’s wife flung an ould shoe after us for luck—and away we went to make our fortune.
When we reached Moylough, the coach was standin’ before the door of the hotel, for the passengers had gone in to breakfast; and by the time we had taken the dust out of our throats with a throw at the counter, the company had come out again. Two or three of them roofed it like myself; and one lady, with blue feathers and a yalla pelisse, stepped inside. She was a clipper! and there was enough of her into the bargain. As Master Diek travelled like a raal gentleman, of coorse, he hopped in too.
Well, when we stopped to change horses, Dick and the lady were thick as inkle-wavers. “Shemus,” says he, “bring out a glass of sherry, and a drop of water in the bottom of a tumbler, with a sketch of sperits through it.” They drank genteely to each other, and away we rowled again. Indeed, at every stop the same order was repated.
* A diminutive sprite who inhabits lakes, and seems a
species of the Scotch Kelpie.
** Anglicè—Money paid upon the nail.
The lady was comin’ from the saa, and that made her dry, I suppose; and from the time he was a boy, Dick Macnamara had an unquenchable thirst upon him.
We reached Athlone in the evening, and stopped at the Red Lion. Dick handed out the lady with the yalla pelisse; and ye would have thought they would have shaken each other’s hands off. Well, a maid-sarvant took her bandbox—Dick give her the arm—away they flourished together—and I stayed at the inn door to see the luggage safe off the coach.
Before long the young master returned.
“Shemus,” says he, shuttin’ the door behind him, “isn’t Miss Callaghan a spanker?”
“‘Pon my soul, she’s a cliver girl, with line action,” says I.
“Bad luck to ye!” said he, “ye talk of her as ye would of a horse. But, Shemus, I thought as we were all alone, I would try if I could put my comether over her by the way of practice. Och! if she was only an heiress! When I kissed her at partin’ in the hall, she tould me she could follow me over the world.”
Well, after we had supped, Master Dick sends for me to come up stairs; and as it was too soon to go to bed, down we sate over a hot tumbler to settle what was to be done when we got to London. Ye see, we knew that in England there were heiresses galore *—but the thing was, how the divil were we to find them?
* Anglicê—In plenty.
Well, after we had been talkin’ half an hour, in comes the waiter. “Is there one Mister Macnamara here?” says he.
“That’s me,” Dick answers.
“Mister Callaghan’s after askin’ for ye,” says he.
“Parade him,” says Dick.
So in steps an ould gentleman, clane shaved enough, but about the clothes, he had rather a shuck appearance. He bows, and Dick bows—and down sits the ould gentleman, an’ draws over a tumbler.
“Ye had a pleasant journey of it, Mister Macnamara,” says he, commencin’ the conversation. “My daughter says that ye’re the best of company. In troth, she spakes large of ye.”
With that they drinks one another’s health—an’ from one thing they comes on to another. I had pulled my chair away to the corner, ye see, but Dick winked to me as much as to say, “Shemus, stay where ye are.”
“An’ so ye’re goin’ to better yourself with a wife?” says the ould fellow.
“There’s no denyin’ it,” says Dick.
“Well, ‘pon my conscience, it’s the best thing ivir a young man did, for it keeps him out of harm’s way. An’ are ye for soon changin’ ye’r state?”
“Divil a use tellin’ lies among friends,” says Dick. “The sooner the better.”
“Feath—an’ it has come rather sudden upon Sophy,” says Mister Callaghan. “But, God’s will be done! Her brother will be home in an hour. I wish there was only time to send for her mother to Roscrea.”
“What’s wanted with her mother?” says Dick.
“Nothin’ partikler,” says Mr. Callaghan, “only the ould lady would like to see her little girl married.”
“An’ when is she to be married?” inquired Dick. “Why, as there seems to be a hurry,” replies the ould fellow, “it may as well be done ‘out of the face.’”
“An’ if it wouldn’t be an impertinent question,” says Dick, “arrah! who’s to be the happy man?”
“An’ are ye jokin’?” says ould Callaghan. “Arrah, who should it be, but yourself?”
“Myself?” says Dick. “Shemus,” says he—“the divil an appearance of liker’s on the ould man, what does he mane at all?”
“Of coorse,” says I, “that ye’re goin’ to marry his daughter.
“Exactly,” cried ould Callaghan.
“If she’s not married till she marries me, she’ll be single for a month of Sundays,” says Dick.
Up jumps the ould fellow in a rage—and up jumps Dick Macnamara—and then such fendin’ and provin’, and such racketting through the room—till out rushed Mister Callaghan, swarin’ he would be revenged before he slept.
“When he slammed to the door, I turns round to Dick, to ask what it was all about?
“Arrah, the divil have them that knows,” says he; “I just coorted a little bit with the girl as we were alone in the coach, by the way of bringin’ my han’ in before we got to England.”
“Be my soul,” says I, “ye’ve made a nate kettle of fish of it!—Arrah, Dick, avourneeine—ar’n’t ye in the centre of a hobble—coorting’s one thing, and marryin’s another—Wouldn’t the priest be proud of ye to go back with Miss Callaghan under ye’re arm?—and with about as much money as would pay turnpike for a walking stick.” Feaks, things looked but quare the more we considered them; so we thought we would order a chaise, push on to Moate, and lave Sophy Callaghan to her own amiable family, as she was too valuable for us. But, as matters turned up, we wer’n’t allowed to set off as asy as we intended. Before the chaise could come round, we heard feet upon the stairs, and the door opens, and in comes five as loose lookin’ lads as ye would meet in a day’s walk. They were all fresh, as if they had been hard at the drinkin’,—and they were bent on mischief,—for the second fellow had a twist in the eye, and a pistol-case under his arm.
“Mister Macnamara,” says the first, “my name’s Callaghan. There’s no use for any rigmarole, as the light’s goin’ fast, so I just stepped in to ask you consarnin’ your intentions towards my sister Sophy.”
“The divil an intention have I, good or bad, about ye’r sister Sophy,” replied Dick, as stiff as a churchwarden.
“Then ye can be at no loss to guess the consequence?”
“Feaks, an’ I am,” says Dick; “as I’m no conjuror.”
“If ye don’t marry her within an hour,” says he, “I’ll be after sayin’ something disagreeable.”
“I’ll not keep ye in suspense half the time,” replied Dick.
“Then ye’ll marry her?” says he.
“You were nivir more astray,” replied Dick, “since ye were born.”
“Then I’ll trouble ye for satisfaction,” says he.
“With all my heart,” says Dick.
“What time in the mornin’,” said the other, “would fit ye’r convanience?”
“We’re rather in a hurry,” says Dick, pointin’ to the post-chay that had come round, and on which the hostler was tyin’ the traps, “to-night would be a great accommodation, if it was the same to you.”
“Ye ca’n’t do better,” says one of the others, “than step up to the ball-room. There’s good light still, and the room’s long enough.”
Be gogstay! Dick Macnamara closed with the offer like a man. I was sent for the pistols, and the gentlemen called for a bottle of sherry. You see, in case of accident, it would come well before a jury that they drank each other’s healths, and fought in perfect friendship, for that would benefit the survivor.
They slipped into the ball-room, and every body thought the thing was settled, they were so quiet and civil with each other as they went up stairs. The pistols were charged—“An’ now,” says Callaghan, “for the last time, I ask ye, will ye have my sister Sophy?”
“Arrah, don’t lose the light in talkin’—ye have my answer already,” says Dick Macnamara.
Well, they were placed in the corners of the room, and a man with a red nose asked, “if they were ready?” Both said, “Yes!”
“Fire!” says he. Slap off went both pistols like the clapping of a hand, and down dropped Mr. Callaghan with a ball clane into his calf.—Well, every body ran to lift him, when, suddenly, the cry of murder was raised from the other end of the room, and out dashed a man in a shirt and scarlet night-cap, and a fat woman close at his heels, just as they had tumbled out of bed.
[Original]
“Oh, Holy Moses!” says he. “Save our lives! Murder! Murder!”
“What’s wrong with ye, honest man?” says I.
“Give us time for repentince!” says she, droppin’ on her knees. “We’re dalers in soft goods, and obliged to tell lies in the way of bisnis.”
“For shame,” says I, “for a dacent young woman to come before company in that way!—Arrah, put the petticoat on ye at least.” Troth, it was no wonder the cratures were scared.—Ye see, there was a closet off the ball-room, divided with a wooden partition; and as the house was full, and the travellers tired, they stuck them into it for the night. Divil a one of us, in the hurry, thought of lookin’ in; and when the man woke with the noise, and sate up to listen what the matter was, the fellow with the red nose cried “Fire!” and Callaghan’s ball pops through the partition, and whips the tassel off the daler’s night-cap.
Well, for fear of any fresh shindy, I got the luggage tied upon the shay, Dick shook hands with Callaghan, and sent his compliments to his sister Sophy,—and away we drove to Moate; and the next evening got safe to Dublin.
Of all the jobs ever a man undertook, the sorest was to look after Dick Macnamara. Ye might as well herd a basketful of black-beetles, as keep him in sight: and the two days we stopped in Dublin, though I watched him like a bailiff, he got into two fights—rid of thirty pounds—and snug into the watchouse afterwards. ‘Pon my soul, my heart was fairly broke with him. When we landed at Holyhead, and were fairly out of Irelan’, says I to myself, “Maybe we may come some speed now;” but Mona-sin-dhiaoul!—our troubles were only beginnin’.
Troth, at one time, I thought we would never have reached London at all: and as it was, we were three weeks upon the road. We never stopped for the night, but Dick discovered some divil to detain us. One while he would be in love with the mistress, and at another, dyin’ about the maid—and all of them he swore upon the book to marry on his return. We came to England to look for one woman—an’ if he had but kept his word, we would have gone back with one and twenty; but as matters turned out, the divil a wife we brought home at all at all.
While he would be philandrin’ at the inns, I was makin’ inquiries for a lady that would fit us; and though I heard tell of three as we came along, the divil an eye, let alone a finger, Dick Maenamara iver could get on ather of them—for we had always the worst of luck. The first we tried was the daughter of a squire, and as we were crossin’ the fence to get into the pleasure-ground, that I heard she generally walked in, we were spied by a keeper on the watch, and taken for poachers he had chased before, and, only that his gun missed fire, we would have been murdered on the spot. We made an offer at a widdo’, but Dick managed to slip into a steel trap, and nearly lost his leg. Another trial was at a ward of Chaneery, and we were hardly in the domain, till we were handed over by her guardian to the beadles. They swore we were rogues and vagabonds, and clapt us into the stocks for the evening, and give us a free lodgin’ the same night in a place they called the cage. At last we managed to get up to London, Dick with one skirt only to his coat, as he had lost the other in a skrimmage with a constable; and a rap more than three guineas and a half, we hadn’t between us to bless ourselves on! Nobody could tell how the rest of the ould ladies’ hundred went, but Dick Maenamara and the divil.
Well, the first thing we did was to look after our luggage, which we found; and the next to inquire if there was a letter from Connemara at the post-office, and sure enough there was, and every soul in Killcrogher seemed to have had a hand in it. Sir Thomas said that he was as well pleased that Callaghan wasn’t kilt; but the shot grieved him, it was so low; and he begged Dick in future, to take his man as near about the waistband of the breeches as he could. He said that the attorneys, bad luck to them! were tormentin’ him as usual; and as he never opened a letter now, except he knew what it was about, he tould Dick when he wrote home, to put a cross upon the corner. Lady Mae, as we used to call her for shortness, wished to know when she was to expect her daughter-in-law. Mary Regan was afeard she couldn’t stay much longer in her place—and the priest stuck to the ould tune of the Ara-gud-neeish. He tould Dick to be as quick as he could; and if there was like to be any delay, to send over a part of the fortune, as they were greatly shuck for money. Wer’n’t we in a nate pickle—not worth five pound in the world, and the people at home expecting thousands by return of post!
Well, we had takin a lodgin’ near the Seven Dials; it was chape, that was one reason; and one likes to get as near Christians as they can, and that was another. I walked out, not well knowin’ what to do; and before I crossed the second street, who should I drop upon, promiscuisly, but Biddy Hagan, with a basket on her arm. She had bin dairy-maid at Killcrogher, and ran off with a corplar that was recruitin’ there ten years ago.
“Arrah, Biddy,” says I, “is this you?”
“And who else should it be?” says she; “maybe ye would oblige us with your own name, young man?”
“Di ye remember Shemus McGreal?” says I.
“Is it Shemus, the whipper, at Killcrogher?” says she.
“The very same; and here he is.”
With that she blessed herself—“Holy Moses!” says she, “but ye’re grown! Arrah, step in, an’ for ould times we’ll have a flash of lightnin’.”
In we turns into the sign of St. Patrick, and calls for half-a-pint. I tould her all the news, and all about what had brought us from the ould country over here.
“Ah, Shemus,” says Biddy, “myself would travel ten mile to sarve a dog that was iver at Killcrogher—and ye have made no speed? Och, hone, an’ more’s the pity!”
So I ups and tells her the rason we were fairly batin’—all because we couldn’t find out an heiress, good nor bad.
“Oh, saver of the bog!” says she, “if ye’es only had the luck to have fallen into company with Miss Figgins!”
“And who’s Miss Figgins?” says I.
“She’s the only child of ould Figgins of Puddin’ Lane, the richest grocer in the city, an’ that’s a big word.”
“Arrah, Brideeine, avourneeine!—is there any way we could come across her?”
“Arrah, the divil a one of me can tell,” says she. “It’s me that carries home the markittin’, and the kitchen maid’s a Cork woman, born in Cloonakitty—and we’re as thick as mustard. Be the Lord!” says she, “but I’ll bring ye together in the twinklin’ of a bed-post, if ye’ll just sit where ye are. Have an eye to the basket, for the house isn’t ovir onist, if there ar’nt liars in the world;”—an’ away cut Biddy Hagan.
She wasn’t more than ten minutes, till back she comes with Oney Donovan. We called another half-pint, and drank to better acquaintance. “Oney,” says she, “astore! tell us all about ould Figgins’ daughter, if you please, for this gentleman’s master has come ovir for a wife. The Lord speed him to get the same!”
“Och, then I’m sorry to say,” says Oney, “they’ll be no dalin’ in our house, for Miss Sophiar’s to be married a Friday mornin’.”
“Oh, murder!” says I.
“A murder it is,” says she; “thirty thousan’ goin’ to a divil ye wouldn’t kick out of a petatay garden, because he’s rich as a Jew, and rides in a sheriff’s carrige.”
Wasn’t this too bad? The very woman that would have fitted us to a T!
Well, we were all sorely cast down at it; so we called another pint—and we couldn’t do less, as we were in trouble.
“Be gogstay!” says I, “couldn’t we run away with her? This is but Munday; and if the time’s short, we must only be the handier.”
Well, blood’s thicker than water! and Brideeine, Oney, and myself settled all before we parted. Ach of them was to be settled at Killcrogher for life—and, after a throw at the counter, we parted till next mornin’.
I lost half the evenin’ in makin’ out Dick Macnamara. He was the unluckiest member iver any body was consarned with. The time was short—every moment worth goold—and when he should have been in the way (I’ll not bid bad luck to him, as he’s dead), where the divil should I hoak him out, after tatterin’ over half the town, but in a back attic in a blind alley, where he was drinking taa wid a stay-maker?
Well, short as the time was, we got all ready for the marriage; and the devil a one of Miss Figgins’s dramed the trouble we were takin’ to get her settled. She was what they call a Methodist, and went regularly to chapel, and she thought she was to receive the blessin’ of the clargy on Friday morning at some church—and we thought it better to marry her on the Wednesday night before it, and save both ceremony and expense; and, only for himself, the stupid fool! Miss Figgins would have been Dick Macnamara’s wife, as sure as the hearth money.
We had no trouble in life to get plenty of help in St. Giles’—and Oney Donovan laid Dick Macnamara in a loft that looked into the grocer’s breakfast-parlour, from which he could see Miss Figgins, and make himself acquaint with her fatures and her clothes. All was fixed for watchin’ her from the chapel—and at the corner of a quiet street, through which she had to go to her own house, a chay, with a trusty driver, was to be ready to whip her off. Dick Macnamara was to be quietly sittin’ inside. When she was passin’, the boys were to lift her in, and away we were to drive like lightnin’ to a lonely house five mile out of town, where a couple-beggar was ready to tie the knot. Sorra nater planned thing could be—but the divil a plan was iver formed in this world, that Dick Macnamara wouldn’t make ducks and drakes of.
Well, now that every thing was fixed, we thought it would be better to write home, to keep all quiet in Killcrogher; and Dick took up the pen, though he would as soon have swallowed poison. In the letter, we tould Sir Thomas how we were gettin’ on since we came to London, and showed him that we were in a fair way, ather “to make a spoon or spoil a horn,” as they say in Connaught; and we begged him to keep his heart up, and the gates closed, till he heard from us again. We requested Father Pat to stick to the ould gentleman, and not let him think upon the law but as little as he could. Dick sent his love to Mary Regan, and I my humble duty to the ladies. Sorra word we mentioned, good or bad, of our puttin’ in an evenin’ in the stocks. We also tould them a big lie, the Lord pardon us! and that was, that we heard mass reglar, although the devil a ather of us had listened to a single we, since we blessed ourselves the Sunday before we left home, in the chapel of Killcrogher. No wonder, in troth, that such a pair of hathens should have the worst of luck, for sure we desarved it.
Wednesday came, and all was ready for the venture. The women stuck to us like brieks; and Oney brought the news, that for sartin Miss Figgins would attend the chapel that evening, for there was a grate pracher to hould forth. At proper time, the postehay was in the street, and Dick skrulged up in the corner of it. Three fine strappin’ boys from St. Giles’s (all first-cousins of Biddy Donovan’s) and myself, took our sate in the front windy of a porter-house, and Oney kept watch at the corner, to give us the word when her mistress would appear. Be gogstay! we had only called the seeond pint before Oney cuts by the windy, with the news that the flock were comin’ out, and the woman we wanted would be with us in less than a pig’s whisper; an’ away she pelted home, to be safe in the house,—an’ then ye know, of coorse, she would never be suspeeted.
Up jumps the boys: “Here’s luck!” says I, turning down a cropper, in which they joined me. We then claps on our caubeens, and slips out of the door,—an’ sure enough, at the bottom of the street we sees two ladies comin’ forid.
“Which is the woman?” says I to Dick, who was peepin’ from the wee windy in the baek of the shay. “Her in the blue bonnet,” says he.
Egad, I was rather surprised at the appearance of the woman that Dick Macnamara pointed out to us. To do her justice, she was good-lookin’ enough—but, faith, she was no chicken—and nather in dress nor action what ye would expect from a reglar heiress, and, as Oney said, the biggest grocer in the city. I remembered that they said she was a Methodist—and, thinks I, maybe that’s the rason she goes so plain.
Well, I gives the word to Biddy Donovan’s cousins, in a whisper, and in Irish. Divil a handier boys iver assisted in a job of the kind,—they lifts her off the pavement in a twinklin’; and, before ye could say Jack Robinson, she was fairly sated beside Dick Macnamara, with a handkerchief stuck into her mouth, to keep down the squallin’!
Hoogh! off we starts—and I threw my eye over my shoulder as I was sittin’ by the driver—Miss Figgins was kickin’ like the divil—-but as Dick had a fast hould of her, we didn’t mind that.
“Whoop!” says Tony Braddigin—that was the postboy’s name—“Isn’t it eligint, Shemus, jewel?” says he. In troth, there never was anything better managed; for we heard afterwards that not a mortal saw anything that passed, but an ould Charley,—an’ as the Carneys ran past him—they were, ye know, Biddy Donovan’s cousins, by the mother’s side—one of them gave him the fist; an’, for a fortnight afterwards, he couldn’t tell light from darkness.
“Well, by this time we were clear of the town, and it was nearly twilight. I turned round now that we were safe, to see how matters were gettin’ on within, and if Dick was makin’ love to her. Well, I put the question to him in Irish, and he answered in the same:
“De ye think,” says he, “I’m not workin’ for the best—but wheniver, to make lier asy, I tell her we’ll marry out of the face, by Jakers! she kicks the harder.”
“Sorra soul’s within bearin’,” says I—“so take the handkerchief out of her mouth and give her air—for maybe she’s chokin’—and that’s what makes her kick.”
He did what I bid him—and, Lord! what a tongue she had when she got the use of it!—and not a word for ather of us but thief and villain. I disremember how she swore; but if she had been born in Connaught, the oaths couldn’t have come asier.
“Ye etarnal robbers!” says she, “what do ye want? I have no money about me, and I suppose I’m to be murdered!”
“We want nothing in the world,” says Dick, “but to make ye an honest woman manin’, of course, to marry her lawfully.
“Make me an honest woman!—why, ye common thieves, what do ye mane?”
Dick made a kind of a confused story of it, but she didn’t wait to the end. “Oh, murder! murder!” she called out—“Marry me! and get me transported?”
“Transported?” says Dick.
“To be sure I would,” says she; “marryin’ you, and my own lawful husband alive! Arrah, Sam Singlestich, dear!—little did I think, when I made taa for ye this evenin’, that I would be bundled off by these villains!”
“And who’s Mister Singlestich?” says I.
“Who? ye thief of the world! but my lawful husband! Oh, bad luck attend ye, night and day!—ye have the gallows in ye’re face,” says she, lookin’ full at me, “and it’s one comfort, if I live to escape, I’ll hear the Judge tellin’ ye’r fortune at the Ould Baily. Troth, and I’ll go to see ye hanged, too, even if it cost me five shillins for an opposite windy.”
“Arrah,” says the postilion, turnin’ sharp round at the word ‘Ould Baily,’ and ‘being hanged,’—“what’s all this about?”
“Honest woman,” says I (for Dick seemed stupified) “who the divil are ye?—Ar’n’t ye Miss Figgins?”
“Miss?—yer mother!” says she;—“I’m the wife of a dacent tradesman, and the lawful mother of five children an’ I’ll show them again any within a mile of Huggin Lane.”
“Oh,” says the postboy, jumpin’ out of the saddle—“by the powers of pewter! we’re all dead men!” and, at one spring, he clears the fence, and cuts over hedge and ditch like a madman.
“And,” says I to myself, “maybe I’m goin’ to sit here and be hanged?”—and down I hops too. Dick Macnamara seemed to be of the same opinion, for he was on the road already. We takes the country out of the face, as if we were matched for a hundred—lavin’ the tailor’s wife and the two post-horses—the one to look after the other.
Every body that iver rode to a fox-hound, knows that it’s the pace that kills; and, for two miles, Dick and I crossed the country neck and neck, takin’ every thing in stroke as the Lord sent it. No wonder, when we came to a cross-road, that both were dead baten, and that Dick called out, for the love of God, to stop for a minute or two that we might get second wind for a fresh start. Down we sate upon the ditch; and when I got breath enough, I began to abuse Dick Macnamara like a pickpocket.
“Arrah,” says I, “what sins have I committed, that I’m to be ruinated through you? If iver the divil had a fast hould of a sinner, it’s yourself, Dick! Was there iver a man so asily put in the ready way to make a fortune? Wasn’t the lady med out—the rough work done—and sorra thing for you to do, but sit like a gintleman quietly in the chaise, pay year lady some tender attention, and keep her mouth stuffed with a pocket-handkerchif. And how beautiful ye put your fut in it! Oh, Holy Joseph!—to run away with a tradesman’s-wife, and the mother of five childer into the bargain!”
He began mutterin’ something about a mistake, and talked about blue bonnets and yalla ones.
“What are we to do?” says I, interruptin’ him. “Arrah, have done wid yer balderdash an’ yer bonnets;—havn’t ye made a pretty gommoque * of yerself? Where are we to head to? and how are we to chate the gallows? Blessed Bridget!—to be hanged in the flower of my youth, for runnin’ away with the mother of a family!”
* Anglice—an idiot.
Before I had done spakin’, we hears a carriage cornin’ up at splittin’ speed. We ducked into the ditch to let it pass—and at one look I knew it to be the very chay we had brought with us on our unfortunit expedition. The horses had run off; and as they passed us at a gallop, we heard the tailor’s wife shoutin’ a thousand murders.
“Arrah! what’s to be done at all at all,” says I, as the carriage cantered on. “I haven’t the ghost of a rap about me. What money have you, Dick?”
“Five or six shillins,” says he, “to pay the turnpikes, and a light guinea for the marriage money.”
“Ah, then, ye won’t require it, Dick, avourneeine,” says I. “Any little job in future ye want from the clargy, they’ll trate ye to it for nothin’. It’s a comfort when a man comes to the gallows, that he’s provided with a priest.”
But what need I bother ye with all the misfortune that kem over us? Half the time we lay out in barns, or under hay-stacks; for if we ventured into the parlour of a publie-house, the divil a thing ye would hear talked of but the attempt upon the tailor’s wife—with a reward of fifty pound for the intended murderers, and a description of their persons.
At last we were fairly worn out with hunger and fatigue, without a shoe to our feet, or a scurrick in our pockets, and nothing was left for us but to list. Accordingly, we joined the first party that we met, and the sergeant gave us plinty of entertainment, and two pound a man. We were to be attested the next mornin’; but as he didn’t like our looks, he put us in the room where the corplar slept, and took care to lock the door carefully behind him. I guessed as much, and, feaks, I determined the divil another yard we would keep company, if I could help it; and maybe I didn’t succeed? When we were locked in, I produces a bottle of rum, and the corplar—who was a drunken divil—and I finished it by moonlight, hand to fist. I lifts him into bed blind drunk; and when the house was quiet, I wakens Dick Mac-namara, and we opened the windy fair and asy, and lowered ourselves by the blankets to the ground. We travelled night an’ day—exchanged our clothes for stable-jackets—and at last, we had the luck to be taken into the yard of an inn, and there get employment as helpers—and when at Killcrogher they thought we were travellin’ homeward in our own coach, it’s most likely we were grazing the wheels of his chay for some travellin’ bagman.
Well, Dick was wispin’ a horse—and the only two things in this world he could do dacently was to warm one after a fox, and wisp him dry afterwards—when in comes one of a recruitin’ party to ask some question about his officer. When he went away I says to Dick in Irish:—
“The divil welcome the last visitor. Wheniver I see a bunch of ribbons in a sodger’s cap, I always get a start, and think that it’s one of the lads we listed with, that’s comin’ to look after his own.”
“Feaks! an’ I’m not overly asy in their company ather,” says Dick back to me—and him and I continues talkin’ and laughin’ at how stupid the corplar looked in the mornin’, when he found an open windy and an empty bed.
“And so,” says a voice at our elbow, “ye gave his majesty leg-bail, boys!”
We gave a start, and looked round, and who was standin’ close to us but a-little dark-visaged gentleman, with a twist in the eyes that didn’t improve him much—and by the whole look of him, the very last man you would meet in a day’s walk, that ye would borrow money to spend in company with.
You maybe sure that Dick and I were scared enough. “Egad,” thought I, “we are ketched at last, and this dark divil will split upon us—and then the first march will be to the black-hole for desarchin’; and the second, to the gallows, for the murder of a tailor’s wife, only that we didn’t kill her. Well, I struv to put it off as a joke, but the wee black fellow was too deep for it and he spoke the best of Irish too.
“Badershin!” says he, with a wink of one of his quare eyes, “Tig-gum tigue Tiggeeine! * It won’t do, boys, I’m not in the recruitin’ line, so ye needn’t be afeerd of me. But, as ye have been on the tramp, in the coorse of yer rambles did ye happen to hear anything about Sir Richard Macnamara?”
Be the powers of pewter! the question made its start.
* These terms being rendered into common English, mean—
“Be quiet—you can’t humbug me.”
“No, Sir,” says I; “but if you had inquired after ould Sir Thomas, I could have given ye a better answer.”
“What Sir Thomas?” says he.
“Why, what other, but Sir Thomas of Killcrogher?”
“Divil a such a man lives there,” says he.
“Nabochish!” says I; “maybe I wasn’t bred and born under him?”
“That may be true,” says he; “it’s Sir Riehard I want to see. I wouldn’t give a traneeine to be in company with Sir Thomas.”
“Ah! then,” says I, “what wouldn’t I give to be cheek-be-jowl with the ould gentleman.”
“Divil have the liars!” says the wee fellow in return; “for if ye had y’er wish, ye would have a ton weight of lime and mortar on the top of ye.”
“Christ stan’ between us and evil!” says I, crossin’ myself. “You don’t mane that he’s dead?”
“Faith an’ if he’s not,” says the wee black fellow, “they have takin’ a great liberty with him, for they buried him in Killeroglier on Tuesday week—and I have been tatterin’ over half England in search of his son. Be the Lord!” says he, “ye might as well grip hould of a Banshee. * For all the tidings I could get of him was, that a ruffin, called Shemus Rhua, ran off with a tailor’s wife; and he, the villin, persuaded the good-natured young gentleman to follow him.”
* The Banshee is a spirit attached to old Irish families,
who foretells deaths and other calamities by melancholy
wailings before they occur. He is never seen.
Well, who should the little man be but a lawyer sent in pursuit of Dick; and, without delay, we set off for home; and, when we got there, said as little about England as we could. It was supposed that Sir Richard might have cleared Killeroglier if he had taken the right way; but he set up a pack of fox-hounds, and married a dashin’ lady because that she could ride to them to fortune. A few years settled the busnis—and what Sir Thomas had begun Sir Riehard cliverly complated. The dogs were sent adrift, the horses canted by the sheriff, my lady boulted with a light dragoon, and, to finish all, one wet mornin’, poor Dick was brought home upon a door, dead as a herrin’. There’s not one stone standin’ on the other at Killerogher; and of one of the ouldest and the best estates within the province, there’s not a sod of it now in possession of a man of the name of Maenamara.