“The bridegroom whispered something to her mother about her being nervous, but it would soon go off: I could have killed him! He then handed round the ring for us to look at; aye, while SHE was weeping and trembling at the priest’s feet. When he held it to me, I struck it down. Aunt, I could not help it! What a look he gave! It rolled along the floor; but his attention was drawn to Mary’s words.
“ ‘Father,’ she sobbed, to the priest, ‘save me—save me from my own people; save me, a young, helpless girl; save me from marrying him I hate. Oh, do not let them put the sin of a false oath upon my young head—I cannot love him. Father, you know I owned to you in holy confession, but ten days past, that I loved another—that I love him still. I will never, never speak to him, or write to him, or ask to set eyes on him again; I will quit the world, and go into a holy house if you think me fit for it—but oh, save me, save me from perjuring my soul—save me,’ she repeated wildly, ‘or I shall go mad!’ To see the holy priest raise her up; to see him place her in his own chair; to see him put his hands upon her head, and hear his words of comfort! ‘Trust in me, my dear child; I will never join a willing to an unwilling hand; be calm, my child; and you,’ he said, turning to the bridegroom, ‘and you, have you the feelings of a man, to stand by and see this, and wish to keep her to her promise?’
“ ‘I never promised him—I never promised him,’ sobbed Mary—‘the most I ever said, and that was in anger and agony—was—that I would do my parents’ bidding. Father! Mother!—you cannot be so cruel at the last.’
“Mr. Considine edged up to his reverence—‘Talk to her, holy father,’ he muttered, ‘talk to her: he’s so rich—rings, and watches and goolden guineas two to one, holy father, think of that? two to one! her mother married me for my goold, and we’ve been happy—two to one, holy father!’
“ ‘Begone!’ said the priest sternly, in such grand English, ‘and do not dare to stain this holy sacrament by the money-loving spirit that crushes your soul to destruction. If this dear child persists in her refusal, I myself forbid the marriage.’
“Oh, aunt dear, the lep I gave, and found myself at his holy feet as if he was the Pope of Rome! and surely no pope could have looked more like a guardian angel than he did at that minute.
“ ‘I must speak with you in private,’ said the bridegroom to his intended father-in-law as meek as a lamb, ‘just one word;’ and he laid his hand so gently on the old man’s arm: ‘this can be arranged.’ They went out of the room together, Mrs. Considine exclaiming, while clapping her hands so vulgarly! ‘Och-e-yah! the poor, dear young man! Ah, then! Och Mary, my gra girl, how could you have the heart to refuse such a match? and he, after promising you a car—a cab, I mean, of your own. Och Mary, darlin’, be friends with him, Mary Machree! Och yah! poor broken-hearted crayther that I am!’
“She kept on that way for some time, until a fall, which shook the house, and the dull, hoarse scream of murder startled us into silence. The priest and myself rushed to the door; but the two groomsmen came between us, exclaiming, ‘It was in the court.’ I saw the whole thing then, like a flash of lightning, bright and clear. Again the cry. We cleared the way somehow; the window of their bed-room was open, and the poor old man, blinded by the blood which gushed from a wound in his head, was groveling on the floor.
“We lifted him up: his fingers kept on grappling the air, while his cries of ‘Murder!’ and ‘Help!’ were broken by such words as ‘My money! my bag! my hard-earned money! catch him! two to one indeed! Oh let me after him!’
“It was an awful sight—the roars of the old man for his money, the shrieks of Mrs. Considine, the still more terrible calmness of Mary, who, while binding up her father’s head, said ‘This is my doing.’