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Updated: May 2, 2025
In came James Casey and half a dozen strong young fellows. Behind them crept a reprobate, degraded priest who got his living and his name of "Couple-Beggar" by performing irregular marriages. The end of it was that Matty was married over again to Casey, whom she had sent for while the dancing was going on.
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.
I married her this very morning, and to my sorrow, before Parson Hodge, the Couple-Beggar, at the Fleet." "That may be, Brother," answers the Sea Captain, with drunken gravity; "but she's my wife, for all that. You married her this morning, you say. I married her five years ago, at Horsleydown, and in the Parish church.
"It's a robbery on me," said Father Phil. "Could you identify the men?" said the Squire. "Do you know the 'couple-beggar'?" said the priest. "Did James Casey lay his hands on you?" said the Squire; "for he's a good man to have a warrant against."
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.
Come, my old couple-beggar, there's a noose before you." He had scarcely uttered the words when twenty men, armed with strong pikes, jumped out on the road before them, and about the same number, with similar weapons, behind them. In fact, they were completely hemmed in; and, as the road was narrow and the ditches high, they were not at all in a capacity to make resistance.
"His wife taken from him " "But a 'couple-beggar' " "The laws violated " "But my dues, Squire think o' that! what would become o' them, if 'couple-beggars' is allowed to show their audacious faces in the parish. "I'll beg God's pardon and your Reverence's pardon," she said, "but I won't beg the congregation's pardon." "You won't?" says the priest. "I won't," says she.
More unfortunately still, Andy was, with all his faults, a rather good-looking young fellow, and Red Bridget took a fancy to him, and the "Couple-Beggar" was waiting for a job. Smugglers' whisky is very strong, and Bridget artfully plied him with it. Andy was still rather dazed when he reached home next morning. "I've married again," he said to his mother.
Great was the surprise of the Father to see the fellow he had married the night before, and whom he supposed to be in the enjoyment of his honeymoon, tied up to a tree and looking more dead than alive; and his indignation knew no bounds when he heard that a "couple-beggar" had dared to celebrate the marriage ceremony, which fact came out in the course of the explanation Andy made of the desperate misadventure which had befallen him; but all other grievances gave way in the eyes of Father Phil to the "couple-beggar."
By this time Andy was free, and having received the Squire's directions to follow him to Merryvale, Father Phil and the worthy Squire were once more in their saddles and proceeded quietly to the same place, the Squire silently considering the audacity of the coup-de-main which robbed Andy of his wife, and his reverence puffing out his rosy cheeks and muttering sundry angry sentences, the only intelligible words of which were "couple-beggar."
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