“When we had danced an hour or so, them that the family had the greatest regard for were brought in unknown to the rest, to drink tay.  Mary planted herself beside me, and would sit nowhere else; but the friar got beside the bridesmaid, and I surely observed that many a time she’d look over, likely to split, at Mary, and it’s Mary herself that gave her many’s a wink, to come to the other side; but, you know, out of manners, she was obliged to sit quietly, though among ourselves it’s she that was like a hen on a hot griddle, beside the ould chap.  It was now that the bride-cake was got.  Ould Sonsy Mary marched over, and putting the bride on her feet, got up on a chair and broke it over her head, giving round a fadge* of it to every young person in the house, and they again to their acquaintances:  but, lo and behold you, who should insist on getting a whang of it but the friar, which he rolled up in a piece of paper, and put it in his pocket.  ‘I’ll have good fun,’ says he, ’dividing this to-morrow among the colleens when I’m collecting my oats—­the sorra one of me but I’ll make them give me the worth of it of something, if it was only a fat hen or a square of bacon.’

     * A liberal portion torn off a thick cake.

“After tay the ould folk got full of talk; the youngsters danced round them; the friar sung like a thrush, and told many a droll story.  The tailor had got drunk a little too early, and had to be put to bed, but he was now as fresh as ever, and able to dance a hornpipe, which he did on a door.  The Dorans and the Flanagans had got quite thick after drubbing one another—­Ned Doran began his courtship with Alley Flanagan on that day, and they were married soon after, so that the two factions joined, and never had another battle until the day of her berrial, when they were at it as fresh as ever.  Several of those that were at the wedding were lying drunk about the ditches, or roaring, and swaggering, and singing about the place.  The night falling, those that were dancing on the green removed to the barn.  Father Corrigan and Father James weren’t ill off; but as for the friar, although he was as pleasant as a lark, there was hardly any such thing as making him tipsy.  Father Corrigan wanted him to dance—­’What!’ says he, ’would you have me to bring on an earthquake, Michael?—­but who ever heard of a follower of St. Domnick, bound by his vow to voluntary poverty and mortification——­young couple, your health—­will anybody tell mo who mixed this, for they’ve knowledge worth a folio of the fathers——­poverty and mortification, going to shake his heel?  By the bones of St. Domnick, I’d desarve to be suspinded if I did.  Will no one tell me who mixed this, I say, for they had a jewel of a hand at it?—­Och—­

     ’Let parsons prache and pray—­
     Let priests to pray and prache, sir;
     What’s the rason they
     Don’t practise what they tache, sir? 
     Forral, orral, loll,
     Forral, orral, laddy—­