“This we accordingly complied with, as I said, and surely better stuff never went down the red lane (* Humorous periphrasis for throat) than the same whiskey; for the people knew nothing about watering it then, at all at all.  The next thing I did was to get a fine shop cloth coat, a pair of top-boots, and buckskin breeches fit for a squire; along with a new Caroline hat that would throw off the wet like a duck.  Mat Kavanagh, the schoolmaster from Findramore bridge, lent me his watch for the occasion, after my spending near two days learning from him to know what o’clock it was.  At last, somehow, I masthered that point so well that, in a quarter of an hour at least, I could give a dacent guess at the time upon it.

“Well, at last the day came.  The wedding morning, or the bride’s part of it,* as they say, was beautiful.  It was then the month of July.  The evening before my father"* and my brother went over to Jemmy Finigan’s, to make the regulations for the wedding.  We, that is my party, were to be at the bride’s house about ten o’clock, and we were then to proceed, all on horseback, to the priest’s, to be married.  We were then, after drinking something at Tom Hance’s public-house, to come back as far as the Dumbhill, where we were to start and run for the bottle.  That morning we were all up at the shriek of day.  From six o’clock my own faction, friends and neighbors, began to come, all mounted; and about eight o’clock there was a whole regiment of them, some on horses, some on mules, others on raheries** and asses; and, by my word, I believe little Dick Snudaghan, the tailor’s apprentice, that had a hand in making my wedding-clothes, was mounted upon a buck goat, with a bridle of salvages tied to his horns.  Anything at all to keep their feet from the ground; for nobody would be allowed to go with the wedding that hadn’t some animal between them and the earth.

* The morning or early part of the day, on which an Irish couple are married, up until noon, is called the bride’s part, which, if the fortunes of the pair are to be happy, is expected to be fair—­rain or storm being considered indicative of future calamity.

     ** A small, shaggy pony, so called from being found in great
     numbers on the Island of that name.

“To make a long story short, so large a bridegroom’s party was never seen in that country before, save and except Tim Lannigans, that I mentioned just now.  It would make you split your face laughing to see the figure they cut; some of them had saddles and bridles—­others had saddles and halthers; some had back-suggawns of straw, with hay Stirrups to them, but good bridles; others sacks filled up as like saddles as they could make them, girthed with hay-ropes five or six times tied round the horse’s body.  When one or two of the horses wouldn’t carry double, except the hind rider sat stride-ways, the women had to be put foremost, and the men behind them.  Some had dacent pillions enough, but most of them had none at all, and the women were obliged to sit where the pillion ought to be—­and a hard card they had to play to keep their seats even when the horses walked asy, so what must it be when they came to a gallop! but that same was nothing at all to a trot.