Amid the constellations.
And Venus follows in his thrack,
Till Mars grows jealous raally,
But, faith, he fears the Irish knack
Of handling the—shillaly.
Charles Graham Halpine (1829–1868).
PADDY FRET, THE PRIEST’S BOY.
“Sorra a one of me’ll get married,” remarked Paddy Fret, as he was furbishing up the priest’s stirrups one beautiful Saturday morning, in the little kitchen at the rear of the chapel-house. “Sure, if I don’t, you will; and there’ll be a great palin’ of bells at the weddin’. We’ll all turn out to see you—the whole of the foolish vargins rowled into wan.”
Mrs. Galvin, who was at the moment occupied in turning the white side of a slab of toast to the fire, turned round to her tormentor, no small degree of acerbity wrinkling up her face.
“Mind your work, and keep a civil tongue in your impty head,” she exclaimed petulantly. “There was many a fine lump of a boy would marry me in my time, if I only took the throuble to wink a comether[24] at him. There was min in them times, not sprahauns[25] like you.”