“‘Good morning to you both,’ says Jack, like an honest fellow as he was, ’if she doesn’t marry me except on these conditions, give her my compliments, and tell her our courtship is at an end.’

“But it wasn’t long till they soon came out with another story, for before a week passed they were very glad to get him on his own conditions.  Jack was now as happy as the day was long—­all things appointed for the wedding, and nothing a wanting to make everything to his heart’s content but the wife, and her he was to have in less than no time.  For a day or two before the wedding, there never was seen such grand preparations:  bullocks, and hogs, and sheep were roasted whole—­kegs of whiskey, both Roscrea and Innishowen, barrels of ale and beer were there in dozens.  All descriptions of niceties and wild-fowl, and fish from the say; and the dearest wine that could be bought with money, was got for the gentry and grand folks.  Fiddlers, and pipers, and harpers, in short all kinds of music and musicianers, played in shoals.  Lords and ladies, and squares of high degree were present—­and, to crown the thing, there was open house to all comers.

“At length the wedding-day arrived; there was nothing but roasting and boiling; servants dressed in rich liveries ran about with joy and delight in their countenances, and white gloves and wedding favors on their hats and hands.  To make a long story short, they were all seated in Jack’s castle at the wedding breakfast, ready for the priest to marry them when they’d be done; for in them times people were never married until they had laid in a good foundation to carry them through the ceremony.  Well, they were all seated round the table, the men dressed in the best of broadcloth, and the ladies rustling in their silks and satins—­their heads, necks, and arms hung round with jewels both rich and rare; but of all that were there that day, there wasn’t the likes of the bride and bridegroom.  As for him, nobody could think, at all at all, that he was ever any thing else than a born gintleman; and what was more to his credit, he had his kind ould mother sitting beside the bride, to tache her that an honest person, though poorly born, is company for the king.  As soon as the breakfast was served up, they all set to, and maybe the various kinds of eatables did not pay for it; and among all this cutting and thrusting, no doubt but it was remarked, that the bride herself was behindhand wid none of them—­that she took her dalin-trick without flinching, and made nothing less than a right fog meal of it; and small blame to her for that same, you persave.