John Dwyer's house was a scene of activity that day, for not only was the priest to breakfast there—always an affair of honour—but a grand dinner was also preparing on a large scale; for a wedding-feast was to be held in the house, in honour of Matty Dwyer's nuptials, which were to be celebrated that day with a neighbouring young farmer, rather well to do in the world. The match had been on and off for some time, for John Dwyer was what is commonly called a “close-fisted fellow,” and his would-be son-in-law could not bring him to what he considered proper terms, and though Matty liked young Casey, and he was fond of her, they both agreed not to let old Jack Dwyer have the best of the bargain in portioning off his daughter, who, having a spice of her father in her, was just as fond of number one as old Jack himself. And here it is worthy of remark, that, though the Irish are so prone in general to early and improvident marriages, no people are closer in their nuptial barter, when they are in a condition to make marriage a profitable contract. Repeated meetings between the elders of families take place, and acute arguments ensue, properly to equalise the worldly goods to be given on both sides. Pots and pans are balanced against pails and churns, cows against horses, a slip of bog against a gravel-pit, or a patch of meadow against a bit of a quarry; a little lime-kiln sometimes burns stronger than the flame of Cupid—the doves of Venus herself are but crows in comparison with a good flock of geese—and a love-sick sigh less touching than the healthy grunt of a good pig; indeed, the last-named gentleman is a most useful agent in this traffic, for when matters are nearly poised, the balance is often adjusted by a grunter or two thrown into either scale. While matters are thus in a state of debate, quarrels sometimes occur between the lovers the gentleman's caution sometimes takes alarm, and more frequently the lady's pride is aroused at the too obvious preference given to worldly gain over heavenly beauty; Cupid shies at Mammon, and Hymen is upset and left in the mire.

I remember hearing of an instance of this nature, when the lady gave her ci-devant lover an ingenious reproof, after they had been separated some time, when a marriage-bargain was broken off, because the lover could not obtain from the girl's father a certain brown filly as part of her dowry. The damsel, after the lapse of some weeks, met her swain at a neighbouring fair, and the flame of love still smouldering in his heart was re-illumined by the sight of his charmer, who, on the contrary, had become quite disgusted with him for his too obvious preference of profit to true affection. He addressed her softly in a tent, and asked her to dance, but was most astonished at her returning him a look of vacant wonder, which tacitly implied, “Who are you?” as plain as looks could speak.

“Arrah, Mary,” exclaimed the youth.

“Sir!!!”—answered Mary, with what heroines call “ineffable disdain.”

“Why one would think you didn't know me!”

“If I ever had the honour of your acquaintance, sir,” answered Mary, “I forget you entirely.”

“Forget me, Mary?—arrah be aisy—is it forget the man that was courtin' and in love with you?”

“You're under a mistake, young man,” said Mary, with a curl of her rosy lip, which displayed the pearly teeth to whose beauty her woman's nature rejoiced that the recreant lover was not yet insensible—“You're under a mistake, young man,” and her heightened colour made her eye flash more brightly as she spoke—“you're quite under a mistake—no one was ever in love with me;” and she laid signal emphasis on the word. “There was a dirty mane blackguard, indeed, once in love with my father's brown filly, but I forget him intirely.”

Mary tossed her head proudly as she spoke, and her filly-fancying admirer, reeling under the reproof she inflicted, sneaked from the tent, while Mary stood up and danced with a more open-hearted lover, whose earnest eye could see more charms in one lovely woman than all the horses of Arabia.

But no such result as this was likely to take place in Matty Dwyer's case; she and her lover agreed with one another on the settlement to be made, and old Jack was not to be allowed an inch over what was considered an even bargain. At length all matters were agreed upon, the wedding-day fixed, and the guests invited; yet still both parties were not satisfied, but young Casey thought he should be put into absolute possession of a certain little farm and cottage, and have the lease looked over to see all was right (for Jack Dwyer was considered rather slippery), while old Jack thought it time enough to give him possession and the lease and his daughter altogether.

However, matters had gone so far that, as the reader has seen, the wedding-feast was prepared, the guests invited, and Father Phil on the spot to help James and Matty (in the facetious parlance of Paddy) to “tie with their tongues what they could not undo with their teeth.”

When the priest had done breakfast, the arrival of Andy was announced to him, and Andy was admitted to a private audience with Father Phil, the particulars of which must not be disclosed; for in short, Andy made a regular confession before the Father, and, we know, confessions must be held sacred; but we may say that Andy confided the whole post-office affair to the pastor—told him how Larry Hogan had contrived to worm that affair out of him, and by his devilish artifice had, as Andy feared, contrived to implicate Squire Egan in the transaction, and, by threatening a disclosure, got the worthy Squire into his villanous power. Andy, under the solemn queries of the priest, positively denied having said one word to Hogan to criminate the Squire, and that Hogan could only infer the Squire's guilt; upon which Father Phil, having perfectly satisfied himself, told Andy to make his mind easy, for that he would secure the Squire from any harm, and he moreover praised Andy for the fidelity he displayed to the interests of his old master, and declared he was so pleased with him, that he would desire Jack Dwyer to ask him to dinner. “And that will be no blind nut, let me tell you,” said Father Phil—“a wedding dinner, you lucky dog—'lashings [Footnote: Overflowing abundance, and plenty left after.] and lavings,' and no end of dancing afther!”

Andy was accordingly bidden to the bridal feast, to which the guests began already to gather thick and fast. They strolled about the field before the house, basked in groups in the sunshine, or lay in the shade under the hedges, where hints of future marriages were given to many a pretty girl, and to nudges and pinches were returned small screams suggestive of additional assault—and inviting denials of “Indeed I won't,” and that crowning provocative to riotous conduct, “Behave yourself.”

In the meantime, the barn was laid out with long planks, supported on barrels or big stones, which planks, when covered with clean cloths, made a goodly board, that soon began to be covered with ample wooden dishes of corned beef, roasted geese, boiled chickens and bacon, and intermediate stacks of cabbage and huge bowls of potatoes, all sending up their wreaths of smoke to the rafters of the barn, soon to become hotter from the crowd of guests, who, when the word was given, rushed to the onslaught with right good will.

The dinner was later than the hour named, and the delay arose from the absence of one who, of all others, ought to have been present, namely, the bridegroom. But James Casey was missing, and Jack Dwyer had been closeted from time to time with several long-headed greybeards, canvassing the occurrence, and wondering at the default on the bridegroom's part. The person who might have been supposed to bear this default the worst supported it better than any one. Matty was all life and spirits, and helped in making the feast ready, as if nothing wrong had happened; and she backed Father Phil's argument to sit down to dinner at once;—“that if James Casey was not there, that was no reason dinner should be spoiled, he'd be there soon enough; besides, if he didn't arrive in time, it was better he should have good meat cold, than everybody have hot meat spoiled: the ducks would be done to cindhers, the beef boiled to rags, and the chickens be all in jommethry.”

So down they sat to dinner: its heat, its mirth, its clatter, and its good cheer we will not attempt to describe; suffice it to say, the viands were good, the guests hungry, and the drink unexceptionable; and Father Phil, no bad judge of such matters, declared he never pronounced grace over a better spread. But still, in the midst of the good cheer, neighbours (the women particularly) would suggest to each other the “wondher” where the bridegroom could be; and even within ear-shot of the bride elect, the low-voiced whisper ran, of “Where in the world is James Casey?”

Still the bride kept up her smiles, and cheerfully returned the healths that were drunk to her; but old Jack was not unmoved; a cloud hung on his brow, which grew darker and darker as the hour advanced, and the bridegroom yet tarried. The board was cleared of the eatables, and the copious jugs of punch going their round; but the usual toast of the united healths of the happy pair could not be given, for one of them was absent. Father Phil hardly knew what to do; for even his overflowing cheerfulness began to forsake him, and a certain air of embarrassment began to pervade the whole assembly, till Jack Dwyer could bear it no longer, and, standing up, he thus addressed the company:—

“Friends and neighbours, you see the disgrace that's put on me and my child.”

A murmur of “No, no!” ran round the board.

“I say, yis.”

“He'll come yet, sir,” said a voice.

“No, he won't,” said Jack, “I see he won't—I know he won't. He wanted to have everything all his own way, and he thinks to disgrace me in doing what he likes, but he shan't”; and he struck the table fiercely as he spoke; for Jack, when once his blood was up, was a man of desperate determination. “He's a greedy chap, the same James Casey, and he loves his bargain betther than he loves you, Matty, so don't look glum about what I'm saying: I say he's greedy: he's just the fellow that, if you gave him the roof off your house, would ax you for the rails before your door; and he goes back of his bargain now, bekase I would not let him have it all his own way, and puts the disgrace on me, thinkin' I'll give in to him, through that same; but I won't. And I tell you what it is, friends and neighbours; here's the lease of the three-cornered field below there,” and he held up a parchment as he spoke, “and a snug cottage on it, and it's all ready for the girl to walk into with the man that will have her; and if there's a man among you here that's willing, let him say the word now, and I'll give her to him!”

The girl could not resist an exclamation of surprise, which her father hushed by a word and look so peremptory, that she saw remonstrance was in vain, and a silence of some moments ensued; for it was rather startling, this immediate offer of a girl who had been so strangely slighted, and the men were not quite prepared to make advances, until they knew something more of the why and wherefore of her sweetheart's desertion.

“Are yiz all dumb?” exclaimed Jack, in surprise. “Faix, it's not every day a snug little field and cottage and a good-looking girl falls in a man's way. I say again, I'll give her and the lase to the man that will say the word.”

Still no one spoke, and Andy began to think they were using Jack Dwyer and his daughter very ill, but what business had he to think of offering himself, “a poor devil like him”? But, the silence still continuing, Andy took heart of grace; and as the profit and pleasure of a snug match and a handsome wife flushed upon him, he got up and said, “Would I do, sir?”

Every one was taken by surprise, even old Jack himself; and Matty could not suppress a faint exclamation, which every one but Andy understood to mean “she didn't like it at all,” but which Andy interpreted quite the other way, and he grinned his loutish admiration of Matty, who turned away her head from him in sheer distaste, which action Andy took for mere coyness.

Jack was in a dilemma, for Andy was just the last man he would have chosen as a husband for his daughter; but what could he do? he was taken at his word, and even at the worst he was determined that some one should marry the girl out of hand, and show Casey the “disgrace should not be put on him”; but, anxious to have another chance, he stammered something about the fairness of “letting the girl choose,” and that “some one else might wish to spake”; but the end of all was, that no one rose to rival Andy, and Father Phil bore witness to the satisfaction he had that day in finding so much uprightness and fidelity in “the boy”; that he had raised his character much in his estimation by his conduct that day; and if he was a little giddy betimes, there was nothing like a wife to steady him; and if he was rather poor, sure Jack Dwyer could mend that.

“Then come up here,” says Jack; and Andy left his place at the very end of the board and marched up to the head, amidst clapping of hands and thumping of the table, and laughing and shouting.

“Silence!” cried Father Phil, “this is no laughing matther, but a serious engagement—and, John Dwyer, I tell you—and you Andy Rooney, that girl must not be married against her own free-will; but if she has no objection, well and good.”

“My will is her pleasure, I know,” said Jack, resolutely.

To the surprise of every one, Matty said, “Oh, I'll take the boy with all my heart!”

Handy Andy threw his arms round her neck and gave her a most vigorous salute which came smacking off, and thereupon arose a hilarious shout which made the old rafters of the barn ring again.

“There's the lase for you,” said Jack, handing the parchment to Andy, who was now installed in the place of honour beside the bride elect at the head of the table, and the punch circulated rapidly in filling to the double toast of health, happiness, and prosperity to the “happy pair”; and after some few more circuits of the enlivening liquor had been performed, the women retired to the dwelling-house, whose sanded parlour was put in immediate readiness for the celebration of the nuptial knot between Matty and the adventurous Andy.

In half an hour the ceremony was performed, and the rites and blessings of the Church dispensed between two people, who, an hour before, had never looked on each other with thoughts of matrimony.

Under such circumstances it was wonderful with what lightness of spirit Matty went through the honours consequent on a peasant bridal in Ireland: these, it is needless to detail; our limits would not permit; but suffice it to say, that a rattling country-dance was led off by Andy and Matty in the barn, intermediate jigs were indulged in by the “picked dancers” of the parish, while the country dancers were resting and making love (if making love can be called rest) in the corners, and that the pipers and punch-makers had quite enough to do until the night was far spent, and it was considered time for the bride and bridegroom to be escorted by a chosen party of friends to the little cottage which was to be their future home. The pipers stood at the threshold of Jack Dwyer, and his daughter departed from under the “roof-tree” to the tune of “Joy be with you”; and then the lilters, heading the body-guard of the bride, plied drone and chanter right merrily until she had entered her new home, thanked her old friends (who did all the established civilities, and cracked all the usual jokes attendant on the occasion); and Andy bolted the door of the snug cottage of which he had so suddenly become master, and placed a seat for the bride beside the fire, requesting “Miss Dwyer” to sit down—for Andy could not bring himself to call her “Matty” yet—and found himself in an awkward position in being “lord and master” of a girl he considered so far above him a few hours before; Matty sat quiet, and looked at the fire.

“It's very quare, isn't it?” says Andy with a grin, looking at her tenderly, and twiddling his thumbs.

“What's quare?” inquired Matty, very drily.

“The estate,” responded Andy.

“What estate?” asked Matty.

“Your estate and my estate,” said Andy.

“Sure you don't call the three-cornered field my father gave us an estate, you fool?” answered Matty.

“Oh no,” said Andy. “I mane the blessed and holy estate of matrimony the priest put us in possession of;” and Andy drew a stool near the heiress, on the strength of the hit he thought he had made.

“Sit at the other side of the fire,” said Matty, very coldly.

“Yes, miss,” responded Andy, very respectfully; and in shoving his seat backwards the legs of the stool caught in the earthen floor, and Andy tumbled heels over head.

Matty laughed while Andy was picking himself up with increased confusion at this mishap; for even amidst rustics there is nothing more humiliating than a lover placing himself in a ridiculous position at the moment he is doing his best to make himself agreeable.

“It is well your coat's not new,” said Matty, with a contemptuous look at Handy's weather-beaten vestment.

“I hope I'll soon have a betther,” said Andy, a little piqued, with all his reverence for the heiress, at this allusion to his poverty. “But sure it wasn't the coat you married, but the man that's in it; and sure I'll take off my clothes as soon as you please, Matty, my dear—Miss Dwyer, I mane—I beg your pardon.”

“You had better wait till you get better,” answered Matty, very drily. “You know the old saying, 'Don't throw out your dirty wather until you get in fresh.'”

“Ah, darlin', don't be cruel to me!” said Andy, in a supplicating tone. “I know I'm not desarvin' of you, but sure I did not make so bowld as to make up to you until I seen that nobody else would have you.”

“Nobody else have me!” exclaimed Matty, as her eyes flashed with anger.

“I beg your pardon, miss,” said poor Andy, who in the extremity of his own humility had committed such an offence against Matty's pride. “I only meant that—”

“Say no more about it,” said Matty, who recovered her equanimity. “Didn't my father give you the lase of the field and house?”

“Yis, miss.”

“You had better let me keep it then; 'twill be safer with me than you.”

“Sartainly,” said Andy, who drew the lease from his pocket and handed it to her, and—as he was near to her—he attempted a little familiarity, which Matty repelled very unequivocally.

“Arrah! is it jokes you are crackin'?” said Andy, with a grin, advancing to renew his fondling.

“I tell you what it is,” said Matty, jumping up, “I'll crack your head if you don't behave yourself!” and she seized the stool on which she had been sitting, and brandished it in a very amazonian fashion.

“Oh, wirra! wirra!” said Andy, in amaze—“aren't you my wife?”

“Your wife!” retorted Matty, with a very devil in her eye—“Your wife, indeed, you great omadhaun; why, then, had you the brass to think I'd put up with you?”

“Arrah, then, why did you marry me?” said Andy, in a pitiful argumentative whine.

“Why did I marry you?” retorted Matty—“Didn't I know betther than refuse you, when my father said the word when the divil was busy with him? Why did I marry you?—it's a pity I didn't refuse, and be murthered that night, maybe, as soon as the people's backs was turned. Oh, it's little you know of owld Jack Dwyer, or you wouldn't ask me that; but, though I'm afraid of him, I'm not afraid of you—so stand off I tell you.”

“Oh, Blessed Virgin!” cried Andy; “and what will be the end of it?”

There was a tapping at the door as he spoke.

“You'll soon see what will be the end of it,” said Matty, as she walked across the cabin and opened to the knock.

James Casey entered and clasped Matty in his arms; and half a dozen athletic fellows and one old and debauched-looking man followed, and the door was immediately closed after their entry.

Andy stood in amazement while Casey and Matty caressed each other; and the old man said in a voice tremulous with intoxication, “A very pretty filly, by jingo!”

“I lost no time the minute I got your message, Matty,” said Casey, “and here's the Father ready to join us.”

“Ay, ay,” cackled the old reprobate—“hammer and tongs!—strike while the iron's hot!—I'm the boy for a short job”; and he pulled a greasy book from his pocket as he spoke.

This was a degraded clergyman, known in Ireland under the title of “Couple-Beggar,” who is ready to perform irregular marriages on such urgent occasions as the present; and Matty had contrived to inform James Casey of the desperate turn affairs had taken at home, and recommended him to adopt the present plan, and so defeat the violent measure of her father by one still more so.

A scene of uproar now ensued, for Andy did not take matters quietly, but made a pretty considerable row, which was speedily quelled, however, by Casey's bodyguard, who tied Andy neck and heels, and in that helpless state he witnessed the marriage ceremony performed by the “couple-beggar,” between Casey and the girl he had looked upon as his own five minutes before.

In vain did he raise his voice against the proceeding; the “couple-beggar” smothered his objections in ribald jests.

“You can't take her from me, I tell you,” cried Andy.

“No; but we can take you from her,” said the “couple-beggar”; and, at the words, Casey's friends dragged Andy from the cottage, bidding a rollicking adieu to their triumphant companion, who bolted the door after them and became possessor of the wife and property poor Andy thought he had secured.

To guard against an immediate alarm being given, Andy was warned on pain of death to be silent as his captors bore him along, and he took them to be too much men of their word to doubt they would keep their promise. They bore him through a lonely by-lane for some time, and on arriving at the stump of an old tree, bound him securely to it, and left him to pass his wedding-night in the tight embraces of hemp.