“All the time, as we went along, we had the music; but then at first we were mightily puzzled what to do with the fiddler.  To put him as a hind rider it would prevent him from playing, bekase how could he keep the fiddle before him and another so close to him?  To put him foremost was as bad, for he couldn’t play and hould the bridle together; so at last my uncle proposed that he should get behind himself, turn his face to the horse’s tail, and saw away like a Trojan.

“It might be about four miles or so to the priest’s house, and, as the day was fine, we’ got on gloriously.  One thing, however, became troublesome; you see there was a cursed set of ups and downs on the road, and as the riding coutrements were so bad with a great many of the weddiners, those that had no saddles, going down steep places, would work onward bit by bit, in spite of all they could do, till they’d be fairly on the horse’s neck, and the women behind them would be on the animal’s shoulders; and it required nice managing to balance themselves, for they might as well sit on the edge of a dale board.  Many of them got tosses this way, though it all passed in good humor.  But no two among the whole set were more puzzled by this than my uncle and the fiddler—­I think I see my uncle this minute with his knees sticking into the horse’s shoulders, and his two hands upon his neck, keeping himself back, with a cruiht* upon him, and the fiddler with his heels away, towards the horse’s tail, and he stretched back against my uncle, for all the world like two bricks laid against one another, and one of them falling.  ’Twas the same thing going up a hill; whoever was behind, would be hanging over the horse’s tail, with the arm about the fore-rider’s neck or body, and the other houlding the baste by the mane, to keep them both from sliding off backwards.  Many a come-down there was among them—­but, as I said, it was all in good humor; and, accordingly, as regularly as they fell, they were sure to get a cheer.

* The hump, which constitutes a round-shouldered man.  If the reader has ever seen Hogarth’s Illustrations of Hudibras, and remembers the redoubtable hero as he sits on horseback, he will be at no loss in comprehending what a cruiht means. Cruiht is the Irish for harp, and the simile is taken from the projection between the shoulders of the harper which was caused by carrying that instrument.

“When we got to the priest’s house, there was a hearty welcome for us all.  The bride and I, with our next kindred and friends, went into the parlor; along with these, there was a set of young fellows, who had been bachelors of the bride’s, that got in with an intention of getting the first kiss* and, in coorse, of bating myself out of it.  I got a whisper of this; so by my song, I was determined to cut them all out in that, as well as I did in getting herself; but you know, I couldn’t be angry, even if they had got the foreway of me in it, bekase