“We might as well! Sure won’t we have to stay, anyway, till they’re back with the car! Mickey would be hard-set to go any distance with that leg of his!”
The boy was young, and had no intention of losing his chance of whatever sport there might be, no matter who got Kitty.
Heffernan as usual said nothing. He was looking very down in the mouth. But who could wonder at that, after the way things had gone against him?
Before any more was said, back rolled the car, and Mickey and the spokesman had to make the best they could of seeing it, with Dan and Kitty sitting upon it! It was fortunate that the new curate that had just married them came with them, for of course every one would be anxious to have no unpleasantness before him. But, besides, there was a girl with them, Margaret Molally by name, that they had expected to the wedding, but had been delayed; so that when the car overtook her, as she was hurrying along to Dempsey’s, she was glad enough to take the lift they offered her. And Dan got her up beside him, he driving, while Kitty and the curate sat together; and so Dan had an opportunity of explaining the thing to Marg Molally.
Between her and the young priest, everything went off quite smoothly. He suspected nothing, and so it was all the easier to keep up appearances before him. As for Marg, she just went about from one to another, now attending to the old bedridden mother, and now helping with the cooking, or passing a pleasant remark to some of the strangers that were there. Heffernan himself showed up well. No one could have acted better than he did that day. He showed no spleen, but when they all had their dinners taken, and a glass or two was given round, to set the thing going, Mickey was the first to take the floor with the bride, game leg and all; while Dark Moll played up her best with “Haste to the Wedding!” and “The Joys of Matrimony.”
CHAPTER VI
A SETTLED GIRL
It’s often remarked, that one wedding brings on another; as if, you’d really think, the men were like sheep, and if one ventures, the rest of the flock will follow the same way, even if it’s over a cliff or down the face of a quarry-hole. And that is how the neighbours accounted to themselves for what occurred at the Furry Farm, not long after the affair at Dempsey’s that is after being related. You’d think poor Mickey had had enough bad luck to daunt a younger man than he was. Two fine young girls he had been after, and still, there he was, without a woman at home to look after the place for him. But in spite of all, he appeared to feel an interest in anything of the sort that would be going on, as if he thought by that means to get some insight into how the thing should be managed. Still he couldn’t but feel that he had had enough of looking for young, foolish persons, and that it would be fitter for him to be thinking of one more his own standing in life. He may have thought this out for himself, or it may have been pure Chance that brought him and Marg Molally together; if there is such a thing as Chance! Anyway Dark Moll had a hand in it too, as usual with such affairs about Ardenoo. It certainly was Moll’s doing that Marg was at the wedding at Dempsey’s, and that began the whole business, though Mickey never cast a thought on Marg that day scarcely, nor she on him, except to be kind to him; and that she was to every one there; she couldn’t be different.
As for Moll, the design she had in persuading Marg to go to the wedding had nothing at all to do with Mickey or the Furry Farm.
At that time, there was not a more lonesome creature in all Ardenoo than Margaret Molally! She had not long before buried her father; and that left her without one but herself, in the little place they had, a bit up the boreen that borders Dempsey’s farm. So she was sitting inside by the fire, one fine morning, because she had no heart to do anything else, when she heard some one coming along towards the house; and by the knock-knock of a stick upon the path she guessed it to be Dark Moll. And so it was.
“God save all here!” said Moll, groping her way forward, till she felt the half-door, and could lean in over it. Blind and all as she was, it was seldom Moll missed her mark.