“But it wasn't long till they soon came out with another story, for before a week passed they were very glad to get him on his own conditions. Jack was now as happy as the day was long—all things appointed for the wedding, and nothing a wanting to make everything to his heart's content but the wife, and her he was to have in less than no time. For a day or two before the wedding, there never was seen such grand preparations: bullocks, and hogs, and sheep were roasted whole—kegs of whiskey, both Roscrea and Innishowen, barrels of ale and beer were there in dozens. All descriptions of niceties and wild-fowl, and fish from the say; and the dearest wine that could be bought with money, was got for the gentry and grand folks. Fiddlers, and pipers, and harpers, in short all kinds of music and musicianers, played in shoals. Lords and ladies, and squares of high degree were present—and, to crown the thing, there was open house to all comers.
“At length the wedding-day arrived; there was nothing but roasting and boiling; servants dressed in rich liveries ran about with joy and delight in their countenances, and white gloves and wedding favors on their hats and hands. To make a long story short, they were all seated in Jack's castle at the wedding breakfast, ready for the priest to marry them when they'd be done; for in them times people were never married until they had laid in a good foundation to carry them through the ceremony. Well, they were all seated round the table, the men dressed in the best of broadcloth, and the ladies rustling in their silks and satins—their heads, necks, and arms hung round with jewels both rich and rare; but of all that were there that day, there wasn't the likes of the bride and bridegroom. As for him, nobody could think, at all at all, that he was ever any thing else than a born gintleman; and what was more to his credit, he had his kind ould mother sitting beside the bride, to tache her that an honest person, though poorly born, is company for the king. As soon as the breakfast was served up, they all set to, and maybe the various kinds of eatables did not pay for it; and among all this cutting and thrusting, no doubt but it was remarked, that the bride herself was behindhand wid none of them—that she took her dalin-trick without flinching, and made nothing less than a right fog meal of it; and small blame to her for that same, you persave.
“When the breakfast was over, up gets Father Flannagan—out with his book, and on with his stole, to marry them. The bride and bridegroom went up to the end of the room, attended by their friends, and the rest of the company stood on each side of it, for you see they were too high bred, and knew their manners too well, to stand in a crowd like spalpeens. For all that, there was many a sly look from the ladies to their bachelors, and many a titter among them, grand as they were; for, to tell the truth, the best of them likes to see fun in the way, particularly of that sort. The priest himself was in as great a glee as any of them, only he kept it under, and well he might, for sure enough this marriage was nothing less than a rare windfall to him and the parson that was to marry them after him—bekase you persave a Protestant and Catholic must be married by both, otherwise it does not hould good in law. The parson was as grave as a mustard-pot, and Father Flannagan called the bride and bridegroom his childher, which was a big bounce for him to say the likes of, more betoken that neither of them was a drop's blood to him.
“However, he pulled out the book, and was just beginning to buckle them when in comes Jack's ould acquaintance, the smoking cur, as grave as ever. The priest had just got through two or three words of Latin, when the dog gives him a pluck by the sleeve; Father Flannagan, of coorse, turned round to see who it was that nudged him: 'Behave yourself,' says the dog to him, just as he peeped over his shoulder—-'behave yourself,' says he; and with that he sat him down on his hunkers beside the priest, and pulling a cigar instead of a pipe out of his pocket, he put it in his mouth, and began to smoke for the bare life of him. And, by my own word, it's he that could smoke: at times he would shoot the smoke in a slender stream like a knitting-needle, with a round curl at the one end of it, ever so far out of the right side of his mouth; then he would shoot it out of the left, and sometimes make it swirl out so beautiful from the middle of his lips!—why, then, it's he that must have been the well-bred puppy all out, as far as smoking went. Father Flannagan and they all were thundherstruck.
“'In the name of St. Anthony, and of that holy nun, St. Teresa,' said his Reverence to him, 'who and what are you, at all at all?'
“'Never mind that,' says the dog, taking the cigar for a minute between his claws; 'but if you wish particularly to know, I'm a thirty-second cousin of your own by the mother's side.'
“'I command you in the name of all the saints,' says Father Flarmagan, believing him to be the devil, 'to disappear from among us, and never become visible to any one in this house again.'
“'The sorra a budge, at the present time, will I budge,' says the dog to him, 'until I see all sides rightified, and the rogues disappointed.'
“Now one would be apt to think the appearance of a spaking dog might be after fright'ning the ladies; but doesn't all the world know that spaking puppies are their greatest favorites? Instead of that, you see, there was half a dozen fierce-looking whiskered fellows, and three or four half-pay officers, that were nearer making off than the ladies. But, besides the cigar, the dog had his beautiful eye-glass, and through it, while he was spaking to Father Flannigan, he ogled all the ladies, one after another, and when his eye would light upon any that pleased him, he would kiss his paw to her and wag his tail with the greatest politeness.
“'John,' says Father Flannagan, to one of the servants, 'bring me salt and water, till I consecrate them* to banish the divil, for he has appeared to us all during broad daylight in the shape of a dog.'