International Short Stories: English

by Unknown

"I've played at many a weddin'," said Hooligan, "but I'm thinkin' there will be more fun at this berrin' than any ten weddin's."

"Indeed you may say that, Hoppy, aghra," said Noonan.

"Why thin, Hoppy jewel," said Lanigan, "what did the skirt o' your coat do to you that you left it behind you, and wouldn't let it see the fun?"

"'Deed then I'll tell you, Larry, my boy. I was goin' last night by the by-road that runs up at the back o' the owld house, nigh hand the Widdy Casey's, and I heerd that people was livin' in it since I thravelled the road last, and so I opened the owld iron gate that was as stiff in the hinge as a miser's fist, and the road ladin' up to the house lookin' as lonely as a churchyard, and the grass growin' out through it, and says I to myself, I'm thinkin' it's few darkens your doors, says I; God be with the time the owld squire was here, that staid at home and didn't go abroad out of his own counthry, lettin' the fine stately owld place go to rack and ruin; and faix I was turnin' back, and I wish I did, whin I seen a man comin' down the road, and so I waited till he kem up to me, and I axed if any one was up at the house; Yis, says he; and with that I heerd terrible barkin' intirely, and a great big lump of a dog turned the corner of the house and stud growlin' at me; I'm afeard there's dogs in it, says I to the man; Yis, says he, but they're quite (quiet); so, with that I wint my way, and he wint his way; but my jew'l, the minit I got into the yard, nine great vagabones of dogs fell an me, and I thought they'd ate me alive; and so they would I blieve, only I had a cowld bones o' mate and some praties that Mrs. Magrane, God bless her, made me put in my pocket when I was goin' the road as I was lavin' her house that mornin' afther the christenin' that was in it, and sure enough lashings and lavings was there; O that's the woman has a heart as big as a king's, and her husband too, in throth; he's a dacent man and keeps mighty fine dhrink in his house. Well, as I was sayin', the cowld mate and praties was in my pocket, and by gor the thievin' morodin' villains o' dogs made a dart at the pocket and dragged it clan aff; and thin, my dear, with fightin' among themselves, sthrivin' to come at the mate, the skirt o' my coat was in smidhereens in one minit—divil a lie in it—not a tatther iv it was left together; and it's only a wondher I came off with my life."

"Faith I think so," said Lanigan; "and wasn't it mighty providintial they didn't come at the fiddle; sure what would the counthry do then?"

"Sure enough you may say that," said Houligan; "and then my bread would be gone as well as my mate. But think o' the unnatharal vagabone that towld me the dogs was quite; sure he came back while I was there, and I ups and I towld him what a shame it was to tell me the dogs was quite. So they are quite, says he; sure there's nine o' them, and only seven o' them bites. Thank you, says I."

There was something irresistibly comic in the quiet manner that Houligan said, "Thank you, says I;" and the account of his canine adventure altogether excited much mirth amongst his auditors. As they pursued their journey many a joke was passed and repartee returned, and the laugh rang loudly and often from the merry little group as they trudged along. In the course of the next mile's march their numbers were increased by some half dozen, that, one by one, suddenly appeared, by leaping over the hedge on the road, or crossing a stile from some neighbouring path. All these new comers pursued the same route, and each gave the same answer when asked where he was going. It was universally this—

"Why, then, where would I be goin' but to the berrin'?"

At a neighbouring confluence of roads straggling parties of from four to five were seen in advance, and approaching in the rear, and the highway soon began to wear the appearance it is wont to do on the occasion of a patron, a fair, or a market day. Larry Lanigan was in evident enjoyment at this increase of numbers; and as the crowd thickened his exultation increased, and he often repeated his ejaculation, aiready noticed in Larry's opening soliloquy, "Why, then, an' isn't it a grate day intirely for Ireland!!!"

And now, horsemen were more frequently appearing, and their numbers soon amounted to almost a cavalcade; and sometimes a car, that is to say, the car, common to the country for agricultural purposes, might be seen, bearing a cargo of women; videlicet, "the good woman" herself, and her rosy-cheeked daughters, and maybe a cousin or two, with an aide de camp aunt to assist in looking after the young ladies. The roughness of the motion of this primitive vehicle was rendered as accommodating as possible to the gentler sex, by a plentiful shake down of clean straw on the car, over which a feather bed was laid, and the best quilt in the house over that, to make all smart, possibly a piece of hexagon patchwork of "the misthriss" herself, in which the tawdriest calico patterns served to display the taste of the rural sempstress, and stimulated the rising generation to feats of needlework. The car was always provided with a driver, who took such care upon himself "for a rayson he had:" he was almost universally what is called in Ireland "a clane boy," that is to say, a well made, good-looking young fellow, whose eyes were not put into his head for nothing; and these same eyes might be seen wandering backwards occasionally from his immediate charge, the dumb baste, to "take a squint" at some, or maybe one, of his passengers. This explains "the rayson he had" for becoming driver. Sometimes he sat on the crupper of the horse, resting his feet on the shafts of the car, and bending down his head to say something tindher to the colleen that sat next him, totally negligent of his duty as guide. Sometimes when the girl he wanted to be sweet on was seated at the back of the car, this relieved the horse from the additional burthen of his driver, and the clane boy would leave the horse's head and fall in the rear to deludher the craythur, depending on the occasional "hup" or "wo" for the guidance of the baste, when a too near proximity to the dyke by the road side warned him of the necessity of his interference. Sometimes he was called to his duty by the open remonstrance of either the mother or the aunt, or maybe a mischievous cousin, as thus: "Why then, Dinny, what are you about at all at all? God betune me and harm, if you warn't within an inch o' puttin' us all in the gripe o' the ditch;—arrah, lave off your gostherin there, and mind the horse, will you; a purty thing it 'ud be if my bones was bruk; what are you doin, there at all at the back o' the car, when it's at the baste's head you ought to be?"