- According to old Mr. Barry's will, if his son Jim fails to marry, the vast Barry estate will revert to the O'Maras. When one night Jim, an irresponsible drunk, falls down the stairs and is given until morning to live, Mrs. Barry, in order to protect the property from the O'Maras, pleads with Molly Shawn to marry her son. Molly, although in love with Barney Malone, agrees out of a sense of indebtedness to the Barry family, and the two are married. Much to everyone's surprise, Jim recovers and Molly pines for her sweetheart Barney until it is discovered that the priest who performed the ceremony was really a criminal who, to escape the law, had disguised himself in priests' robes. Overjoyed, Molly is disentangled and now free to marry Barney, the man she loves.
- Molly Shawn lives with her old grandmother and her father, the big smithy. We see little Molly bustling around the thatch-roofed cottage preparing a toothsome apple turnover for big Barney Malone, her sweetheart. While this work was going on in the cottage two carriages of nearby gentry, one the Barry's, the other the O'Mara's drove up to the door of the blacksmith's shop. There was a bitter feud between the two families, who were distant cousins. This was heightened by the fact that the vast Barry lands would fall to the O'Maras if Jim did not marry. At Jim Barry's present furious pace, this seems unlikely. That night at a party at the Barry house Jim, in a drunken stupor, falls down the steep cellar stairs, seriously injuring himself so that the doctor declares he will not live the night out. The mother fears, as much as his death, the fact that the lands will go to the hated O'Maras, and suggests his marrying someone, anyone, to save the house. Little Molly Shawn is Jim's choice, and she is summoned. A midnight wedding takes place. Molly had done the thing only at the urgent request of her father, who thought it a fine chance to repay the debt of gratitude to the Barrys, who had granted the rights of his little house to him. A second doctor, summoned from the city, orders Jim removed to a city hospital, whence he promises Jim will emerge in a week as good as new. Molly is bewildered and frightened. On Jim's return she finds it increasingly hard to forget Barney and refuses to recognize Jim as her husband. Jim has not lost any of his bad habits, and one night at the tavern engages in a fight with young O'Mara and it is only thanks to Barney, who happens to be near and who thinks he is saving him for Molly, that he gets away with his life. One day Molly, who is still at the Barry home, is overpowered by the longing to see all her people again, slips away and creeps back to the tree in front of her father's smithy. There she finds no one but Barney. While they are talking, Jim appears. He tells Barney and Molly, what he has just discovered, that he and Molly have never been really married. The priest who performed the ceremony and who said he was from a neighboring parish, was in reality a criminal who, in order to escape justice, had arrayed himself in the first clothes he had happened to find, which had been those of a priest. He had not dared refuse to perform the ceremony for fear of discovery. Barney and Molly are overwhelmed at their new-found happiness and it is Jim himself who orders the fiddler and hustles around making preparations for a big celebration of their betrothal.
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