Julia came on at once. And when she saw how things were shaping, of course she had a good deal to say at first. But then she bethought her that she might do worse than settle herself. She was getting on in years. And the cousins that she had been with in Dublin used to be talking about old maids, and that bachelors must be very scarce in Ardenoo! It was more than ever Mickey expected that she would give in so easily as she did, without making any great objection to Peetcheen, who, of course, was no great things for one of the Heffernans to take up with. But she gave in to take him. Heffernan and Peetcheen sprung the thing on her suddenly, and she was taken unawares, as you’ll see it done with a baulking horse. You can trick him into taking a jump that he has refused many a time before, if you bring him up to it without his knowing what you want.
Mickey had the wit to make the best of Peetcheen, by advancing him the price of a new suit of clothes, and tan boots and even gloves, to be married in. He wasn’t able to get them on, the gloves, I mean. But they had a very neat appearance. Maybe they gave Julia more satisfaction than anything else that her fortune was spent on. For of course it was out of her money that Mickey paid for the fine clothes for Peetcheen.
The wedding passed off all right, and Mickey behaved very well, and threw in a jennet and cart, along with the money and the two heifers. And he allowed Julia to load up the cart with any mortal thing she chose to lay claim to in the place; even to the churn and the griddle. He did that, the way she would have no excuse for coming back and maybe making unpleasantness when he’d have his own woman at the Furry Farm.
It was a satisfaction to him to know that there would be a good few miles between him and the sister, once she was Mrs. Peetcheen. And when he saw them safely started, Peetcheen driving the heifers, and Julia sitting upon a stool in the cart, with all the things round her, “Glory be! I never thought to get shut of her so simple!” said Heffernan. “But God help poor Peetcheen, I pray!”
Peetcheen would have been surprised, if he had heard that word said. It was only too contented he was, and he stepping out very proudly. The new clothes would hardly hold him and his satisfaction, when he thought of how well he was doing for himself.
“What will the neighbours say to me now?” he was thinking, “going off the way I did, too thankful to any one that would give me a day’s work! And look at me now! with the two beasts, and the wife and all! Sure, it’s little I ever thought to see the day I’d have such things!”
And then he made up his mind that he would try not to be too uppish with the old friends, when they would be passing him the time of day. He determined to answer them very nice and civil, when they would ask him, “How’s yourself, Peetcheen, and how’s the rest of you?”
Then he began to think of the old mother, and that he would like to make her comfortable. A new shawl, he thought; and how well she could sit in the big arm-chair that was the full up of the cart that Julia was driving, very nearly.
He turned to look at it, because he was in front of the cart with the cattle, and the jennet was slow, with all the big load that was on her. Still, Peetcheen thought the whole thing was just behind him. But behold ye! sight nor light of cart, or jennet, or Julia even he couldn’t see! It was as if the ground had opened and swallowed them down!
He did not know what in the wide world to think. There he stood, looking up the road and down the road ... as if Julia could be coming any way except after him! for how could she have got on ahead without his knowing? But that was Peetcheen all over.