The matchmaker was there in those days to put the skids under them.
That's one thing we had in common with the royalty of Europe, matchmaking.
Of course, I will admit that the dowries were not as big.
Why, then, there was a match made for myself one time,
and it is so long ago now that I won't be hurting anyone's feelings
by telling you the comical way things turned out.
At that time, any man that had a notion of giving the place to his heir,
be it son or daughter, had made that fact known down at the chapel gate
or elsewhere coming up to Shroff.
And Sylvie in the Scullop was among those that gave vent to such a rumour
in the year I'm alluding to.
Sylvie's way of living was small, grass of a couple of cows,
but as he was a thatcher by trade,
he was not depending on it.
And clever enough, he was all out to get a tradesman for a son-in-law.
And I, being a stone mason at the time,
an account was ran to our house,
and my father and mother said that nothing could be lost
by entering into negotiations.
So word was sent back that we'd meet Sylvie in Kynar's pub the coming Saturday.
It came Saturday, and it was my first glimpse
of Sylvie.
Oh, a crass little wasp of a fellow!
Any man that'd fight with his own toenails,
but a great one to drink, you may say,
for when my father put the pint in front of him,
with the first slug he drove it below the tops of the church windows,
wiped the froth off of his moustache, and said,
Now then, so we got down to business.
No man, says Sylvie, will come inside my door down of seventy pounds,
and there'll be no twenty pounds down,
and the rest of the first christening a lump sum or nothing.
Oh, says my father, it isn't a demain you have.
Aren't you getting a man with a trade?
And he's getting a good girl, says Sylvie.
We didn't see her yet, says my father.
Take fifty. I said seventy. Take fifty-five.
Look, says Sylvie, put another ten pounds on top of that,
and don't anyone hear us haggling here like farmers.
It was done.
My father called for another round of Guinness.
Sylvie must have got into the wrong trousers coming out in the morning.
Never venture near the pocket at all.
But there you are.
Isn't it the likes of him that'll get on?
What night, says he, viewing me for the first time,
what night will you be coming over to see Babe, Ned?
Babe was the daughter.
Whatever night you're having the gander, says I.
The gander was a prenuptial carrion to give the parties an opportunity of becoming acquainted.
The gander, he said, will be Thursday, so let ye come early and walk the land.
We all sailed over Thursday, walked the land, inspected the stock.
It was as he count them, three cows in a ginnet.
And he had a little litter of bonnows there, small pigs.
God help them, they were so thin and hungry.
He had to put nuts in their tails to keep them from going out through the cracks in the door.
Then we went in to see Babe.
Well, as nice a young woman as you could wish to see.
But she was very shy, distant in herself.
She hadn't a word for the priest only.
Yes, and no, and inclined to call me sir.
We all sat down to roast goose, and there was dancing after.
And when Babe and myself took the floor,
what did the fiddler strike upon me?
I thought of pure devilment, only the mason's apron.
And we had the sport of cork.
And Babe said that she thought she liked me.
And, of course, I couldn't say anything with the crowd around.
We were all in town again the coming Saturday, doing the bindings.
That was the civil marriage.
Oh, such signing!
It was like the Treaty of Versailles.
The double deed came in at the time, and the two of our names were put in the land.
And that was encased, you see.
That the old people might take to the room, Sylvie and his missus.
And the usual proviso at that time was that the old people would get their full needs of combustibles,
turf, milk, butter and eggs, seat in the car to mass Sunday,
or any other big excursion like going to town to turn the bit of money.
And the wedding was arranged for the coming Tuesday, Shrove Tuesday.
I went to bed early Monday night.
Our house was all on the ground.
In a holler.
And it was just as well, for, you know, the wind was rising and it was cold enough to snow.
As one blackguard shouted after me, it looked like as if it might be a white wedding.
I found the night awful long.
The cock crew, and it never dawned.
The old people got up and they made tea.
They found the night awful long.
I got up.
We all went to bed again.
Well, between the ups and the downs,
I woke up in the finish.
I think it was the cock walk me.
To see a little chink of light come in at the top of the room window.
I hopped out of the bed and I ran down and I opened the front door.
And what was it but a wall of snow up to the eaves of the house.
The clock was stopped and I didn't know where I was.
So I dolled up in a jiffy and I tunneled my way out through the snow.
And I made every near way for the chapel.
There was no one there.
But knowing women, I made allowances.
I waited on.
You are getting very devout, says the parish clerk coming up behind me.
Where were you yesterday?
Preparing for today, says I.
Well, he said, isn't today Ash Wednesday?
Don't you see the women coming into mass?
And that did explain it.
For I knew that there was something very unnatural.
Having to get up five times the one night for a man of my age.
I was in bed since Monday.
And of course, when he explained it to the injunctions,
it was a major party that I was snowed under for two nights in a day.
Sylvie wouldn't hear of it.
Clear, Cecile, I'll make a strainer of you with the double barrel.
And Babe wouldn't look at the same side of the road as me from that out.
You see, she'd be idle for another year.
But it didn't set me back much.
Before Lent was up, I went building gate piers to a place called The Lots,
where I met the little woman that's living with me since.
And if Babe was nice, Katie took the cake.
I married her for love, and in that way started the fashion in this locality.