Phelim Otoole's Courtship and Other Stories. William Carleton

Phelim, darlin, how can you palaver me that way? I hope your dacent father's well, Phelim, an' your honest mother.”

      “Divil a fear o' them. Now, I'd hould nine to one that the purtiest o' them hasn't a sweeter mout' than you have. By dad, you have a pair o' lips, God bless them that—well, well—”

      Phelim here ogled her with looks particularly wistful.

      “Phelim, you're losin' the little sense you had.”

      “Faix, an' it's you that's taken them out o' me, then. A purty woman always makes a fool o' me. Divil a word o' lie in it. Faix, Mrs. Doran, ma'am, you have a chin o' your own! Well, well! Oh, be Gorra, I wish I hadn't come out this mornin' any how!”

      “Arrah, why, Phelim? In throth, it's you that's the quare Phelim!”

      “Why, ma'am—Oh bedad it's a folly to talk. I can't go widout tastin' them. Sich a pair o' timptations as your lips, barrin' your eyes, I didn't see this many a day.”

      “Tastin' what, you mad crathur?”

      “Why, I'll show you what I'd like to be afther tastin'. Oh! bedad, I'll have no refusin'; a purty woman always makes a foo——”

      “Keep away, Phelim; keep off; bad end to you; what do you mane? Don't you see Fool Art lyin' in the corner there undher the sacks? I don't think he's asleep.”

      “Fool Art! why, the misfortunate idiot, what about him? Sure he hasn't sinse to know the right hand from the left. Bedad, ma'am the truth is, that a purty woman always makes a——”

      “Throth an' you won't,” said she struggling.

      “Throth an' I will, thin, taste the same lips, or we'll see whose strongest!”

      A good-humored struggle took place between the housekeeper and Phelim, who found her, in point of personal strength, very near a match for him. She laughed heartily, but Phelim attempted to salute her with a face of mock gravity as nearly resembling that of a serious man as he could assume. In the meantime, chairs were overturned, and wooden dishes trundled about; a crash was heard here, and another there. Phelim drove her to the hob, and from the hob they both bounced into the fire, the embers and ashes of which were kicked up into a cloud about them.

      “Phelim, spare your strinth,” said the funny housekeeper, “it won't do. Be asy now, or I'll get angry. The priest, too, will hear the noise, and so will Fool Art.”

      “To the divil wid Fool Art an' the priest, too,” said Phelim, “who cares abuckey about the priest when a purty woman like you is consarn—

      “What's this?” said the priest, stepping down from the parlor—“What's the matter? Oh, ho, upon my word, Mrs. Doran! Very good, indeed! Under my own roof, too! An' pray, ma'am, who is the gallant? Turn round young man. Yes, I see! Why, better and better! Bouncing Phelim O'Toole, that never spoke truth! I think, Mr. O'Toole, that when you come a courting, you ought to consider it worth your while to appear somewhat more smooth in your habiliments. I simply venture to give that as my opinion.”

      “Why sure enough,” replied Phelim, without a moment's hesitation; “your Reverence has found us out.”

      “Found you out! Why, is that the tone you speak in?”

      “Faith, sir, thruth's best. I wanted her to tell it to you long ago, but she wouldn't. Howsomever, it's still time enough.—Hem! The thruth, sir, is, that Mrs. Doran an' I is goin' to get the words said as soon as we can; so, sir, wid the help o' Goodness, I came to see if your Reverence 'ud call us next Sunday wid a blessin'.”

      Mrs. Doran had, for at least a dozen round years before this, been in a state-of hopelessness upon the subject of matrimony; nothing in the shape of a proposal having in the course of that period come in her way. Now we have Addison's authority for affirming, that an old woman who permits the thoughts of love to get into her head, becomes a very odd kind of animal. Mrs. Doran, to do her justice, had not thought of it for nearly three lustres, for this reason, that she had so far overcome her vanity as to deem it possible that a proposal could be ever made to her. It is difficult, however, to know what a day may bring forth. Here was an offer, dropping like a ripe plum into her mouth. She turned the matter over in her mind with a quickness equal to that of Phelim himself. One leading thought struck her forcibly: if she refused to close with this offer, she would never get another.

      “Is it come to this, Mrs. Doran?” inquired the priest.

      “Oh, bedad, sir, she knows it is,” replied Phelim, giving her a wink with the safe eye.

      Now, Mrs. Doran began to have her suspicions. The wink she considered as decidedly ominous. Phelim, she concluded with all the sagacity of a woman thinking upon that subject, had winked at her to assent only for the purpose of getting themselves out of the scrape for the present. She feared that Phelim would be apt to break off the match, and take some opportunity, before Sunday should arrive, of preventing the priest from calling them. Her decision, however, was soon made. She resolved, if possible to pin down Phelim to his own proposal.

      “Is this true, Mrs. Doran?” inquired the priest, a second time.

      Mrs. Doran could not, with any regard to the delicacy of her sex, give an assent without proper emotion. She accordingly applied her apron to her eyes, and shed a few natural tears in reply to the affecting query of the pastor.

      Phelim, in the meantime, began to feel mystified. Whether Mrs. Doran's tears were a proof that she was disposed to take the matter seriously, or whether they were tears of shame and vexation for having been caught in the character of a romping old hoyden, he could not then exactly decide. He had, however, awful misgivings upon the subject.

      “Then,” said the priest, “it is to be understood that I'm to call you both on Sunday.”

      “There's no use in keepin' it back from you,” replied Mrs. Doran. “I know it's foolish of me; but we have all our failins, and to be fond of Phelim there, is mine. Your Reverence is to call us next Sunday, as Phelim tould you. I am sure I can't tell you how he deluded me at all, the desaver o' the world!”

      Phelim's face during this acknowledgment was, like Goldsmith's Haunch of Venison, “a subject for painters to study.” His eyes projected like a hare's until nothing could be seen but the balls. Even the drooping lid raised itself up, as if it were never to droop again.

      “Well,” said the priest, “I shall certainly not use a single argument to prevent you. Your choice, I must say, does you credit, particularly when it is remembered that you have come at least to years of discretion. Indeed, many persons might affirm that you have gone beyond them; but I say nothing. In the meantime your wishes must be complied with. I will certainly call Phelim O'Toole and Bridget Doran on Sunday next; and one thing I know, that we shall have a very merry congregation.”

      Phelim's eyes turned upon the priest and the old woman alternately, with an air of bewilderment which, had the priest been a man of much observation, might have attracted his attention.

      “Oh murdher alive, Mrs. Doran,” said Phelim, “how am I to do for clo'es? Faith, I'd like to appear dacent in the thing, anyhow.”

      “True,” said the priest. “Have you made no provision for smoothing the externals of your admirer? Is he to appear in this trim?”

      “Bedad, sir,” said Phelim, “we never thought o' that. All the world knows, your Reverence, that I might carry my purse in my eye, an' never feel a mote in it. But the thruth is, sir, she was so lively on the subject—in a kind of a pleasant, coaxin' hurry of her own—an' indeed I was so myself, too. Augh, Mrs. Doran! Be gorra, sir, she put her comedher an me entirely, so she did. Well, be my sowl, I'll be the flower of a husband to her anyhow. I hope your Reverence 'll come to the christ'nin'? But about the clo'es;—bad luck saize the tack I have to put to my back, but what you see an me, if we wor to be married to-morrow.”

      “Well, Phelim, aroon,” said Mrs. Doran, “his Reverence here has my little pences o' money in his hands, an' the best way is for you to get the price of a suit from him. You must