“It’s all a flow of spirit,” says the ould man.
“It’s a flow of spirits that causes it generally,” says the priest; “but it’s all your own fault, Sir Thomas, and I often tould ye so. Instead of lettin’ him stick to his larnin’, ye would have him brought up yer own way, ridin’ three times a week to the Clonsallagh hounds, and shooting at chalked men on the barn door through the remainder.”
“Arrah, be quiet,” says the ould gentleman. “Though he’s my son—at laste I have his mother’s word for it—is there a nater horseman within the Shannon? Put Dick Macnamara on the pig-skin with any thing daeent anunder him, and I’ll back him over a sportin’ country for all I’m worth in the world.”
“Ay,” said the priest, in a side-whisper; “and if ye lost, the divil a much the winner would be the better.”
“He’s six feet in his stockings—sound as a bell—he’ll throw any man of his inches in the province, and dance the pater-o-pee * afterwards.”
“Arrah,” says the priest, “if there’s no way of payin’ the mortgage but by dancin’ the pater-o-pee, out we bundle at November.”
* A dance peculiar to Connemara.
“And why shouldn’t he marry an heiress?” says the ould man.
“First,” says Father Butler, “because he has no luck; and second, because he has no larnin’. Wasn’t I returnin’ from a sick-call only yesterday, and as God’s goodness would have it, didn’t I meet my Lady French’s messenger with a note?—‘Who’s that from?’ says I. ‘Mr. Dick Macnamara,’ says he. Well, I had a misdoubtin’ about it, and so I opens the note—and—Mona-sin-dhiaoul!—Lord forgive me for sayin’ so!—if he hadn’t spelt ‘compliments’ with a K!”
“And if he spelt it with two K’s,” says the ould gentleman, “will that hinder him marryin’ a woman if she wants a husband? I tell ye what, there’s more sense in what Shemus Rhua says than any of ye seems to know. Wasn’t the family as badly off when my grandfather—God rest his soul!—ran away with Miss Kelly?”