“Very friendly,” retorted Phaddhy, who, after all, appeared to have suspected the priest—“very friendly, indeed, when it's to put a good joint before himself, and a bottle of wine in his jacket. No, no, Katty! it's not altogether for the sake of Father Philemy, but I wouldn't have the neighbors say that I was near and undacent; and above all tilings, I wouldn't be worse nor the Slevins—for the same set would keep it up agin us long enough.”
Our readers will admire the tact with which Father Philemy worked upon the rival feeling between the factions; but, independently of this, there is a generous hospitality in an Irish peasant which would urge him to any stratagem, were it even the disposal of his only cow, sooner than incur the imputation of a narrow, or, as he himself terms it, “undacent” or “nagerly” spirit.
In the course of a short time, Phaddhy dispatched two messengers, one for the wine, and another for the mutton; and, that they might not have cause for any unnecessary delay, he gave them the two reverend gentlemen's horses, ordering them to spare neither whip nor spur until they returned. This was an agreeable command to the messengers, who, as soon as they found themselves mounted, made a bet of a “trate,” to be paid on arriving in the town to which they were sent, to him who should first reach a little stream that crossed the road at the entrance of it, called the “Pound burn.” But I must not forget to state, that they not only were mounted on the priest's horses, but took their great-coats, as the day had changed, and threatened to rain. Accordingly, on getting out upon the main road, they set off, whip and spur, at full speed, jostling one another, and cutting each other's horses as if they had been intoxicated; and the fact is, that, owing to the liberal distribution of the bottle that morning, they were not far from it.
“Bliss us!” exclaimed the country people, as they passed, “what on airth can be the matther with Father Philemy and Father Con, that they're abusing wan another at sich a rate!”
“Oh!” exclaimed another, “it's apt to be a sick call, and they're thrying, maybe, to be there before the body grows cowld.”
“Ay, it may be,” a third conjectured, “it's to old Magennis, that's on the point of death, and going to lave all his money behind him.”
But their astonishment was not a whit lessened, when, in about an hour afterwards, they perceived them both return; the person who represented Father Con having an overgrown leg of mutton slung behind his back like an Irish harp, reckless of its friction against his Reverence's coat, which it had completely saturated with grease; and the duplicate of Father Philemy with a sack over his shoulder, in the bottom of which was half a dozen of Mr. M'Laughlin's best port.
Phaddhy, in the meantime, being determined to mortify his rival Parrah More by a superior display of hospitality, waited upon that parsonage, and exacted a promise from him to come down and partake of the dinner—a promise which the other was not slack in fulfilling. Phaddhy's heart was now on the point of taking its rest, when it occurred to him that there yet remained one circumstance in which he might utterly eclipse his rival, and that was to ask Captain Wilson, his landlord, to meet their Reverences at dinner. He accordingly went over to him, for he only lived a few fields distant, having first communicated the thing privately to Katty, and requested that, as their Reverences that day held a station in his house, and would dine there, he would have the kindness to dine along with them. To this the Captain, who was intimate with both the clergymen, gave a ready compliance, and Phaddhy returned home in high spirits.