“The words was scarcely out of his mouth when he bounced up, pipes an’ all, and dashed into the middle of the party. ‘Hurroo! your sowls, let us make a night of it! The Ballyboulteen boys for ever! Go it, your reverence!—turn your partner—heel and toe, ministher. Good! Well done, again! Whish! Hurroo! Here’s for Ballyboulteen, an’ the sky over it!’
“Bad luck to sich a set ever was seen together in this world, or will again, I suppose. The worst, however, wasn’t come yet, for jist as they were in the very heat’ an’ fury of the dance, what do you think comes hoppin’ in among them but another pudden, as nimble an’ merry as the first! That was enough; they had all heard of it—the ministhers among the rest—an’ most of them had seen the other pudden, an’ knew that there must be a fairy in it, sure enough. Well, as I said, in it comes, to the thick o’ them; but the very appearance of it was enough. Off the three clergymen danced, and off the whole weddiners danced, afther them, everyone makin’ the best of their way home, but not a sowl of them able to break out of the step, if they were to be hanged for it. Troth, it wouldn’t lave a laff in you to see the parson dancin’ down the road on his way home, and the ministher and Methodist praycher cuttin’ the buckle as they went along in the opposite direction. To make short work of it, they all danced home at last wid scarce a puff of wind in them; and the bride an’ bridegroom danced away to bed.”
Frank Webber’s Wager.
From “Charles O’Malley.”
By Charles Lever (1806-1872).
I was sitting at breakfast with Webber, when Power came in hastily.
“Ha, the very man!” said he. “I say, O’Malley, here’s an invitation for you from Sir George to dine on Friday. He desired me to say a thousand civil things about his not having made you out, regrets that he was not at home when you called yesterday, and all that.”