I lost half the evenin’ in makin’ out Dick Macnamara. He was the unluckiest member iver any body was consarned with. The time was short—every moment worth goold—and when he should have been in the way (I’ll not bid bad luck to him, as he’s dead), where the divil should I hoak him out, after tatterin’ over half the town, but in a back attic in a blind alley, where he was drinking taa wid a stay-maker?
Well, short as the time was, we got all ready for the marriage; and the devil a one of Miss Figgins’s dramed the trouble we were takin’ to get her settled. She was what they call a Methodist, and went regularly to chapel, and she thought she was to receive the blessin’ of the clargy on Friday morning at some church—and we thought it better to marry her on the Wednesday night before it, and save both ceremony and expense; and, only for himself, the stupid fool! Miss Figgins would have been Dick Macnamara’s wife, as sure as the hearth money.
We had no trouble in life to get plenty of help in St. Giles’—and Oney Donovan laid Dick Macnamara in a loft that looked into the grocer’s breakfast-parlour, from which he could see Miss Figgins, and make himself acquaint with her fatures and her clothes. All was fixed for watchin’ her from the chapel—and at the corner of a quiet street, through which she had to go to her own house, a chay, with a trusty driver, was to be ready to whip her off. Dick Macnamara was to be quietly sittin’ inside. When she was passin’, the boys were to lift her in, and away we were to drive like lightnin’ to a lonely house five mile out of town, where a couple-beggar was ready to tie the knot. Sorra nater planned thing could be—but the divil a plan was iver formed in this world, that Dick Macnamara wouldn’t make ducks and drakes of.
Well, now that every thing was fixed, we thought it would be better to write home, to keep all quiet in Killcrogher; and Dick took up the pen, though he would as soon have swallowed poison. In the letter, we tould Sir Thomas how we were gettin’ on since we came to London, and showed him that we were in a fair way, ather “to make a spoon or spoil a horn,” as they say in Connaught; and we begged him to keep his heart up, and the gates closed, till he heard from us again. We requested Father Pat to stick to the ould gentleman, and not let him think upon the law but as little as he could. Dick sent his love to Mary Regan, and I my humble duty to the ladies. Sorra word we mentioned, good or bad, of our puttin’ in an evenin’ in the stocks. We also tould them a big lie, the Lord pardon us! and that was, that we heard mass reglar, although the devil a ather of us had listened to a single we, since we blessed ourselves the Sunday before we left home, in the chapel of Killcrogher. No wonder, in troth, that such a pair of hathens should have the worst of luck, for sure we desarved it.
Wednesday came, and all was ready for the venture. The women stuck to us like brieks; and Oney brought the news, that for sartin Miss Figgins would attend the chapel that evening, for there was a grate pracher to hould forth. At proper time, the postehay was in the street, and Dick skrulged up in the corner of it. Three fine strappin’ boys from St. Giles’s (all first-cousins of Biddy Donovan’s) and myself, took our sate in the front windy of a porter-house, and Oney kept watch at the corner, to give us the word when her mistress would appear. Be gogstay! we had only called the seeond pint before Oney cuts by the windy, with the news that the flock were comin’ out, and the woman we wanted would be with us in less than a pig’s whisper; an’ away she pelted home, to be safe in the house,—an’ then ye know, of coorse, she would never be suspeeted.
Up jumps the boys: “Here’s luck!” says I, turning down a cropper, in which they joined me. We then claps on our caubeens, and slips out of the door,—an’ sure enough, at the bottom of the street we sees two ladies comin’ forid.
“Which is the woman?” says I to Dick, who was peepin’ from the wee windy in the baek of the shay. “Her in the blue bonnet,” says he.
Egad, I was rather surprised at the appearance of the woman that Dick Macnamara pointed out to us. To do her justice, she was good-lookin’ enough—but, faith, she was no chicken—and nather in dress nor action what ye would expect from a reglar heiress, and, as Oney said, the biggest grocer in the city. I remembered that they said she was a Methodist—and, thinks I, maybe that’s the rason she goes so plain.
Well, I gives the word to Biddy Donovan’s cousins, in a whisper, and in Irish. Divil a handier boys iver assisted in a job of the kind,—they lifts her off the pavement in a twinklin’; and, before ye could say Jack Robinson, she was fairly sated beside Dick Macnamara, with a handkerchief stuck into her mouth, to keep down the squallin’!
Hoogh! off we starts—and I threw my eye over my shoulder as I was sittin’ by the driver—Miss Figgins was kickin’ like the divil—-but as Dick had a fast hould of her, we didn’t mind that.