Billy Malowney's Taste of Love and Glory

"Billy Malowney's Taste of Love and Glory" is a novella by Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu that explores themes of ambition, passion, and the quest for personal fulfillment. The narrative revolves around Billy Malowney, a young man who grapples with his dreams of success and the challenges posed by love and societal expectations. Set against the backdrop of 19th-century Ireland, the story delves into the tensions between personal desires and external pressures, ultimately illuminating the complexities of the human experience. Le Fanu's vivid storytelling and rich character development make this work a compelling exploration of love and ambition.

• Fiction

								
Let the reader fancy a soft summer evening, the fresh dews falling on
bush and flower. The sun has just gone down, and the thrilling vespers
of thrushes and blackbirds ring with a wild joy through the saddened
air; the west is piled with fantastic clouds, and clothed in tints of
crimson and amber, melting away into a wan green, and so eastward into
the deepest blue, through which soon the stars will begin to peep.

Let him fancy himself seated upon the low mossy wall of an ancient
churchyard, where hundreds of grey stones rise above the sward,
under the fantastic branches of two or three half-withered ash-trees,
spreading their arms in everlasting love and sorrow over the dead.

The narrow road upon which I and my companion await the tax-cart that
is to carry me and my basket, with its rich fruitage of speckled trout,
away, lies at his feet, and far below spreads an undulating plain,
rising westward again into soft hills, and traversed (every here and
there visibly) by a winding stream which, even through the mists of
evening, catches and returns the funereal glories of the skies.

As the eye traces its wayward wanderings, it loses them for a moment
in the heaving verdure of white-thorns and ash, from among which floats
from some dozen rude chimneys, mostly unseen, the transparent blue film
of turf smoke. There we know, although we cannot see it, the steep old
bridge of Carrickadrum spans the river; and stretching away far to the
right the valley of Lisnamoe: its steeps and hollows, its straggling
hedges, its fair-green, its tall scattered trees, and old grey tower,
are disappearing fast among the discoloured tints and haze of evening.

Those landmarks, as we sit listlessly expecting the arrival of our
modest conveyance, suggest to our companion--a bare-legged Celtic
brother of the gentle craft, somewhat at the wrong side of forty, with
a turf-coloured caubeen, patched frieze, a clear brown complexion,
dark-grey eyes, and a right pleasant dash of roguery in his
features--the tale, which, if the reader pleases, he is welcome to hear
along with me just as it falls from the lips of our humble comrade.

His words I can give, but your own fancy must supply the advantages
of an intelligent, expressive countenance, and, what is perhaps harder
still, the harmony of his glorious brogue, that, like the melodies of
our own dear country, will leave a burden of mirth or of sorrow with
nearly equal propriety, tickling the diaphragm as easily as it plays
with the heart-strings, and is in itself a national music that, I trust,
may never, never--scouted and despised though it be--never cease, like
the lost tones of our harp, to be heard in the fields of my country, in
welcome or endearment, in fun or in sorrow, stirring the hearts of Irish
men and Irish women.

My friend of the caubeen and naked shanks, then, commenced, and
continued his relation, as nearly as possible, in the following words:

Av coorse ye often heerd talk of Billy Malowney, that lived by the
bridge of Carrickadrum. 'Leum-a-rinka' was the name they put on him,
he was sich a beautiful dancer. An' faix, it's he was the rale sportin'
boy, every way--killing the hares, and gaffing the salmons, an' fightin'
the men, an' funnin' the women, and coortin' the girls; an' be the
same token, there was not a colleen inside iv his jurisdiction but was
breakin' her heart wid the fair love iv him.

Well, this was all pleasant enough, to be sure, while it lasted; but
inhuman beings is born to misfortune, an' Bill's divarshin was not to
last always. A young boy can't be continially coortin' and kissin' the
girls (an' more's the pity) without exposin' himself to the most eminent
parril; an' so signs all' what should happen Billy Malowney himself, but
to fall in love at last wid little Molly Donovan, in Coolnamoe.

I never could ondherstand why in the world it was Bill fell in love wid
HER, above all the girls in the country. She was not within four stone
weight iv being as fat as Peg Brallaghan; and as for redness in the
face, she could not hould a candle to Judy Flaherty. (Poor Judy! she
was my sweetheart, the darlin', an' coorted me constant, ever antil she
married a boy of the Butlers; an' it's twenty years now since she was
buried under the ould white-thorn in Garbally. But that's no matther!)

Well, at any rate, Molly Donovan tuck his fancy, an' that's everything!
She had smooth brown hair--as smooth as silk-an' a pair iv soft coaxin'
eyes--an' the whitest little teeth you ever seen; an', bedad, she was
every taste as much in love wid himself as he was.

Well, now, he was raly stupid wid love: there was not a bit of fun
left in him. He was good for nothin' an airth bud sittin' under bushes,
smokin' tobacky, and sighin' till you'd wonder how in the world he got
wind for it all.

An', bedad, he was an illigant scholar, moreover; an', so signs, it's
many's the song he made about her; an' if you'd be walkin' in the
evening, a mile away from Carrickadrum, begorra you'd hear him singing
out like a bull, all across the country, in her praises.

Well, ye may be sure, ould Tim Donovan and the wife was not a bit too
well plased to see Bill Malowney coortin' their daughter Molly; for,
do ye mind, she was the only child they had, and her fortune was
thirty-five pounds, two cows, and five illigant pigs, three iron pots
and a skillet, an' a trifle iv poultry in hand; and no one knew how much
besides, whenever the Lord id be plased to call the ould people out of
the way into glory!

So, it was not likely ould Tim Donovan id be fallin' in love wid poor
Bill Malowney as aisy as the girls did; for, barrin' his beauty, an' his
gun, an' his dhudheen, an' his janius, the divil a taste of property iv
any sort or description he had in the wide world!

Well, as bad as that was, Billy would not give in that her father and
mother had the smallest taste iv a right to intherfare, good or bad.

'An' you're welcome to rayfuse me,' says he, 'whin I ax your lave,'
says he; 'an' I'll ax your lave,' says he, 'whenever I want to coort
yourselves,' says he; 'but it's your daughter I'm coortin' at the
present,' says he, 'an that's all I'll say,' says he; 'for I'd as soon
take a doase of salts as be discoursin' ye,' says he.

So it was a rale blazin' battle betune himself and the ould people;
an', begorra, there was no soart iv blaguardin' that did not pass betune
them; an' they put a solemn injection on Molly again seein' him or
meetin' him for the future.

But it was all iv no use. You might as well be pursuadin' the birds agin
flying, or sthrivin' to coax the stars out iv the sky into your hat, as
be talking common sinse to them that's fairly bothered and burstin'
wid love. There's nothin' like it. The toothache an' cholic together id
compose you betther for an argyment than itself. It leaves you fit for
nothin' bud nansinse.

It's stronger than whisky, for one good drop iv it will make you drunk
for one year, and sick, begorra, for a dozen.

It's stronger than the say, for it'll carry you round the world an'

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