before him; not, however, till my mother
had sprinkled a drop of holy water on each of us, and given me and my
brothers and sisters a small taste of blessed candle, to prevent us from
sudden death and accidents.* My father and she didn't come with as then,
but they went over to the bride's while we were all gone to the priest's
house. At last we set off in great style and spirits--I well mounted on
a good horse of my own, and my brother (On one that he had borrowed from
Peter Dannellon), fully bent on winning the bottle. I would have borrowed
him myself, but I thought it dacenter to ride my own horse manfully,
even though he never won a side of mutton or a saddle, like Dannellon's.
But the man that was most likely to come in for the bottle was little
Billy Cormick, the tailor, who rode a blood-racer that young-John Little
had wickedly lent him for the special purpose; he was a tall bay animal,
with long small legs, a switch tail, and didn't know how to trot. Maybe
we didn't cut a dash--and might have taken a town before us. Out we set
about nine o'clock, and went acrass the country: but I'll not stop to
mintion what happened some of them, even before we got to the bride's
house. It's enough to say here, that sometimes one in crassing a stile
or ditch would drop into the shough;** sometimes another would find
himself head foremost on the ground; a woman would be capsized here in
crassing a ridgy field, bringing her fore-rider to the ground along with
her; another would be hanging like a broken arch, ready to come down,
till some one would ride up and fix her on the seat. But as all this
happened in going over the fields, we expected that when we'd get out
on the king's highway there would be less danger, as we would have no
ditches or drains to crass. When we came in sight of the house, there
was a general shout of welcome from the bride's party, who were on the
watch for us: we couldn't do less nor give them back the chorus; but we
had better have let that alone, for some of the young horses took the
stadh,*** others of them capered about; the asses--the sorra choke
them--that were along with us should begin to bray, as if it was the
king's birthday--and a mule of Jack Urwin's took it into his head to
stand stock still. This brought another dozen of them to the ground; so
that, between one thing or another, we were near half an hour before we
got on the march again. When the blood-horse that the tailor rode saw
the crowd