“Arrah, why, woman; what do they want but their skinful to eat and dhrink, and I'm sure we're able to allow them that, any way?”
“Arrah, bad manners to me, but you're enough to vex a saint—'their skinful to eat and dhrink!'—you common crathur you, to speak that way of the clargy, as if it was ourselves or the laborers you war spaking of.”
“Ay, and aren't we every bit as good as they are, if you go to that?—haven't we sowls to be saved as well as themselves?”
“'As good as they are!'—as good as the clargy!! Manum a yea agus a wurrah!*—listen to what he says! Phaddhy, take care of yourself, you've got rich, now; but for all that, take care of yourself. You had betther not bring the priest's ill-will, or his bad heart upon us. You know they never thruv that had it; and maybe it's a short time your riches might stay wid you, or maybe it's a short time you might stay wid them: at any rate, God forgive you, and I hope he will, for making use of sich unsanctified words to your lawful clargy.”
* My soul to God and the Virgin.
“Well, but what do you intind to do?—or, what do you think of getting for them?” inquired Phaddy.
“Indeed, it's very little matther what I get for them, or what I'll do either—sorrow one of myself cares almost: for a man in his senses, that ought to know better, to make use of such low language about the blessed and holy crathurs, that hasn't a stain of sin about them, no more than the child unborn!”
“So you think.”
“So I think! aye, and it would be betther for you that you thought so, too; but ye don't know what's before ye yet, Phaddhy—and now take warnin' in time, and mend your life.”
“Why what do you see wrong in my life? Am I a drunkard? am I lazy? did ever I neglect my business? was I ever bad to you or to the childher? didn't I always give yez yer fill to ate, and kept yez as well clad as yer neighbors that was richer? Don't I go to my knees, too, every night and morning?”
“That's true enough, but what signifies it all? When did ye cross a priest's foot to go to your duty? Not for the last five years, Phaddhy—not since poor Torly (God be good to him) died of the mazles, and that'll be five years, a fortnight before Christmas.”
“And what are you the betther of all yer confessions? Did they ever mend yer temper, avourneen? no, indeed, Katty, but you're ten times worse tempered coming back from the priest than before you go to him.”
“Oh! Phaddhy! Phaddhy! God look down upon you this day, or any man that's in yer hardened state—I see there's no use in spaking to you, for you'll still be the ould cut.”
“Ay, will I; so you may as well give up talking about it Arrah, woman!” said. Phaddhy, raising his voice, “who does it ever make betther—show me a man now in all the neighborhood, that's a pin-point the holier of it? Isn't there Jemmy Shields, that goes to his duty wanst a month, malivogues his wife and family this minute, and then claps them to a Rosary the next; but the ould boy's a thrifle to him of a fast day, afther coming from the priest. Betune ourselves, Katty, you're not much behind him.”
Katty made no reply to him, but turned up her eyes, and crossed herself, at the wickedness of her unmanageable husband. “Well, Briney,” said she, turning abruptly to the son, “don't take patthern by that man, if you expect to do any good; let him be a warning to you to mind yer duty, and respect yer clargy—and prepare yerself, now that I think of it, to go to Father Philemy or Father Con on Thursday: but don't be said or led by that man, for I'm sure I dunna how he intends to face the Man above when he laves this world—and to keep from his duty, and to spake of his clargy as he does!”
There are few men without their weak sides. Phaddhy, although the priests were never very much his favorites, was determined to give what he himself called a let-out on this occasion, simply to show his ill-natured neighbors that, notwithstanding their unfriendly remarks, he knew “what it was to be dacent,” as well as his betters; and Katty seconded him in his resolution, from her profound veneration for the clargy. Every preparation was accordingly entered into, and every plan adopted that could possibly be twisted into a capability of contributing to the entertainment of Fathers Philemy and Con.
One of those large, round, stercoraceous nosegays that, like many other wholesome plants, make up by odor what is wanting in floral beauty, and which lay rather too contagious as Phaddhy expressed it, to the door of his house, was transplanted by about half a dozen laborers, and as many barrows, in the course of a day or two, to a bed some yards distant from the spot of its first growth; because, without any reference whatever to the nasal sense, it was considered that it might be rather an eye-sore to their Reverences, on approaching the door. Several concave inequalities, which constant attrition had worn in the earthen floor of the kitchen, were filled up with blue clay, brought on a cart from the bank of a neighboring river, for the purpose. The dresser, chairs, tables, I pots, and pans, all underwent a rigor of discipline, as if some remarkable event was about to occur; nothing less, it must be supposed than a complete, domestic revolution, and a new state of things. Phaddhy himself cut two or three large furze bushes, and, sticking them on the end of a pitchfork, attempted to sweep down the chimney. For this purpose he mounted on the back of a chair, that he might be able to reach the top with more ease; but, in order that his footing might be firm, he made one of the servant-men sit upon the chair, to keep it steady during the operation. Unfortunately, however, it so happened that this man was needed to assist in removing a meal-chest to another part of the house; this was under Katty's superintendence, who, seeing the fellow sit rather more at his ease than she thought the hurry and importance of the occasion permitted, called him, with a little of her usual sharpness and energy, to assist in removing the chest. For some reason or other, which it is not necessary to mention here, the fellow bounced from his seat, in obedience to the shrill tones of Katty, and the next moment Phaddhy (who was in a state of abstraction in the chimney, and totally unconscious of what was going forward below) made a descent decidedly contrary to the nature of that which most aspirants would be inclined to relish. A severe stun, however, was the most serious injury he received on his own part, and several round oaths, with a good drubbing, fell to the servant; but unluckily he left the furze bush behind him in the highest and narrowest part of the chimney; and were it not that an active fellow succeeded in dragging it up from the outside of the roof, the chimney ran considerable risk, as Katy said, of being choked.
But along with the lustration which every fixture within the house was obliged to undergo, it was necessary that all the youngsters should get new clothes; and for this purpose, Jemmy Lynch, the tailor, with his two journeymen and three apprentices, were sent for in all haste, that he might fit Phaddhy and each of his six sons, in suits, from a piece of home-made frieze, which Katty did not intend to break up till “towards Christmas.”
A station is no common event, and accordingly the web was cut up, and the tailor left a wedding-suit, half-made, belonging to Edy Dolan, a thin old bachelor, who took it into his head to try his hand at becoming a husband ere he'd die. As soon as Jemmy and his train arrived, a door was taken off the hinges, and laid on the floor, for himself to sit upon, and a new drugget quilt was spread beside it, for his journeymen and apprentices. With nimble fingers they plied the needle and thread, and when night came, a turf was got, into which was stuck a piece of rod, pointed at one end and split at the other; the “the white candle,” slipped into a shaving of the fringe that was placed in the cleft end of the stick, was then lit, whilst many a pleasant story, told by Jemmy, who had been once in Dublin for six weeks, delighted the circle of lookers-on that sat around them.
At length the day previous to the important one arrived. Hitherto, all hands had contributed to make every thing in and about the house look “dacent”—scouring, washing, sweeping, pairing, and repairing, had been all disposed of. The boys got their hair cut to the quick with the tailor's scissors; and such of the girls as were not full grown, not only that which grew on the upper part of the head taken off, by a cut somewhat resembling the clerical tonsure, so that they looked extremely wild and