“I'll not be away more than an hour.”
“Then, since you will go, Art, listen to me; you'll be apt to meet Toal Finnigan there; now, as you love me and your childre, an' as you wish to avoid evil and misfortune, don't do any one thing that he proposes to you: I've often tould you that he's your bitterest enemy.”
“I know you did; but sure, wanst a woman takes a pick (pique) aginst a man she'll never forgive him. In about an hour mind.” He then went out.
The fact is, that some few of those who began to feel irksome under the Obligation—by which I mean the knaves and hypocrites, for it is not to be supposed that among such an incredible multitude as joined the movement there were none of this description—some few, I say, were in the habit of resorting to Barney Scaddhan's for the social purpose of taking a glass of the true Teetotal cordial together. This drinking of cordial was most earnestly promoted by the class of low and dishonest publicans whom we have already described, and no wonder that it was so; in the first place, it's sale is more profitable than that of whiskey itself, and, in the second place, these fellows know by experience that it is the worst enemy that teetolism has, very few having ever strongly addicted themselves to cordial, who do not ultimately break the pledge, and resume the use of intoxicating liquor. This fact was well known at the time, for Father Costelloe, who did every thing that man could do to extend and confirm the principle of temperance, had put his parishioners on their guard against the use of this deleterious trash. Consequently, very few of the Ballykeerin men, either in town or parish, would taste it; when they stood in need of anything to quench their thirst, or nourish them, they confined themselves to water, milk, or coffee. Scarcely any one, therefore, with the exception of the knaves and hypocrites, tampered with themselves by drinking it.
The crew whom Art went to meet on the night in question consisted of about half a dozen, who, when they had been in the habit of drinking whiskey, were hardened and unprincipled men—profligates in every sense—fellows that, like Toal Finnigan, now adhered to teetotalism from sordid motives only, or, in other words, because they thought they could improve their business by it. It is true, they were suspected and avoided by the honest teetotallers, who wondered very much that Art Maguire, after the treatment he had formerly received at their hands, should be mean enough, they said, ever “to be hail fellow well met” with them again. But Art, alas! in spite of all his dignity of old blood, and his rodomontade about the Fermanagh Maguires, was utterly deficient in that decent pride which makes a man respect himself, and prevents him from committing a mean action.
For a considerable time before his arrival, there were assembled in Barney Scaddhan's tap, Tom Whiskey, Jerry Shannon, Jack Mooney, Toal Finnigan, and the decoy duck, young Barney Scaddhan himself, who merely became a teetotaller that he might be able to lure his brethren in to spend their money in drinking cordial.
“I wondher Art's not here before now,” observed Tom Whiskey; “blood alive, didn't he get on well afther joinin' the 'totallers?”
“Faix, it's a miracle,” replied Jerry Shannon, “there's not a more 'spbnsible man in Ballykeerin, he has quite a Protestant look;—ha, ha, ha!”
“Divil a sich a pest ever this house had as the same Art when he was a blackguard,” said young Scaddhan; “there was no keepin' him out of it, but constantly spungin' upon the dacent people that wor dhrmkin' in it.”
“Many a good pound and penny he left you for all that, Barney, my lad,” said Mooney; “and purty tratement you gave him when his money was gone.”