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There's raison in every thing, but wanst a woman takes a strong fancy to the cut of your face, you're done for, until you get rid of her. Throth I suffered as much persecution that way as would make a good batch o' marthyrs. However, what can one do?" "It's a hard case, Toal," said Art; "an' I b'lieve you're as badly off, if not worse, now than ever."
Divil a one livin' knows me betther than Toal Finigan, sure enough, boys." "Arra, Art, do you remember the day you crossed the weir, below Tom Booth's," pursued Toal, "when the river was up, and the wather jist intherin' your mouth?" "That was the day Peggy Booth fainted, when she thought I was gone; begad, an' I was near it." "The very day."
For a considerable time before his arrival, there were assembled in Barney Scaddhan's tap, Tom Whiskey, Jerry Shannon, Jack Mooney, Toal Finnigan, and the decoy duck, young Barney Scaddhan himself, who merely became a teetotaller that he might be able to lure his brethren in to spend their money in drinking cordial.
'Tis true the feeling on her part was involuntary, but on that very account it was the more distressing; her principal apprehension of danger to him was occasioned by his intimacy with Toal Finnigan, who, in spite of all her warnings and admonitions, contrived, by the sweetness of his tongue, to hold his ground with him, and maintain his good opinion.
Of what occurred subsequently in the public house, it is not necessary to give any account, especially as we must follow Art home simply premising, before we do so, that the fact of "Art Maguire having broken the pledge," had been known that very night to almost all Ballykeerin thanks to the industry of Toal Finnigan, and his other friends.
This, of course, having become generally known, was taken advantage of, and many a merry country girl amused both herself and others at his expenses while he imagined her to be perfectly serious. "Then how did you escape at all," said Frank "you that the girls are so fond of?" "You may well ax," said Toal; "but at any rate, it's the divil entirely to have them too fond of you.
I tell you that a single man here won't pay a penny o' reckonin', while I'm to the good; and, to make short work of it, by the contints o' the book, I'll strike the first of ye that'll attempt it. Now!" "Faix, an' I for one," said Toal, "won't come undher your fist; it's little whiskey ever I'd drink if I did."
Art heard the soliloquy of Whiskey, and looked about him with an air of peculiar meaning. His pride his shallow, weak, contemptible pride, was up, while the honest pride that is never separated from firmness and integrity, was cast aside and forgotten. Scaddhan came in, and placing the two tumblers before Toal, that worthy immediately emptied first one of them, and then the other.
"No matther," said Art; "it's a thing I won't do." "I'll tell you what, Jerry," said Toal, "I'll hould you another pound now, that I do a thing to-night that Art won't do; an' that, like your own wager, every one in the room can do." "Done," said the other, taking out the pound note, and placing it in Mooney's hand Toal following his example.
"Come, Toal," said Jerry; "here I'll hould you a pound note" and lie pulled out one as he spoke "that I'll propose a thing he won't do." "Aha thank you for nothing, my customer I won't take that bait," replied the other; "but listen is it a thing that he can do?" "It is," replied Jerry; "and what's more, every man in the room can do it, as well as Art, if he wishes." "He can?" "He can."
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